Petition to Keep the Tube Open Longer

Yep you heard me correctly. More delays, more frustration, more drivers announcements but also easier and cheaper ways to get home on Friday and Saturday nights after you've been out on the razz. A friend sent me a link to this today and in the spirit of GoingUnderground it went up on the site like a shot.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, June 04, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/06/petition-to-keep-tube-open-longer-yep.html

Heckling buskers....it's not big or clever

Saw the most bizarre sight on the way home of a busker being heckled by a drunken bloke on the District Line. I'm not a great fan of buskers who make their way along the carriages of the train and if I have a walkman I put it on the minute they appear, otherwise stare into the pages of a book or paper as though it's the most interesting thing in the world and try to imagine they are not there.

So when the talentless (formerly pink haired) busker who does the District Line got on about to wail out REM's "Losing my Religion" for the thousandth time, I inwardly groaned. Although not quite as loud as the inner groan, when the man sitting in the seat nearest him said:

"You're not gonna sing are you?.....You're not gonna play that guitar?

Pointless rhetorical questions.

Egged on by his equally drunken mate, the drunk then proceeded to "sing" along with the busker in the lines of:

Busker: "I thought that I heard you laughing"

Drunk: "I thought you needed a wash"

Busker: "I think I thought I saw you try"

Drunk: "I think I'm gonna need a shower"

Fortunately, this only lasted two stops, which "I think I thought" was two stops too many.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, June 04, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/06/heckling-buskers.html

Firstly, welcome if you come to this blog from Neil Gaiman's blog which hundreds of you have - wow!

Secondly, big thanks to Neil for linking to the blog yesterday and to the driver's quotes on the main goingunderground.net site too. Never had so much traffic to the blog so I'll have to watch what I say from now on ;-)

Metro Newspaper moment

Reading in more detail about the Chancery Lane tube accident. It's quite disturbing yet fascinating to read about train crashes when you're on a train yourself. I was in two minds whether to report on this - with so many new people coming to the blog, I was tempted to go down the usual route of weird, unusual and funny things spotted on my daily commute from Kew Gardens to Piccadilly Circus. But then I thought WTF, it's important, people could have died and safety is normally taken for granted on the tube, that we should sit up and at least think about what happens when things go wrong.

Fortunately January's accident didn't lead to any loss of life, but it did lead to closure of the Central line for months and months. The parts of Metro's front page report which really disturbed me were as follows:

1) Why was full service only returned two days ago?

2) OK, I joke a lot about driver's announcements, but the poor driver of this train must have been really disturbed and hit the wrong button when calling the line controller and the words "mayday" and "fire" came over the normal public address system.

3) When people were escaping the staff did not have torches or megaphones and no one could see exits properly because of the thick dust.

4) There would have been no escape route at all if the derailed train had blocked the platform exit.

Anyway enough said - from a practical point of view expect to see nothing on the tube's official site about today's report from the London Assembly's transport committee, except for the "helpful" note that the claims refund telephone line is now closed. A few months ago I reported on my main site about an email doing the rounds encouraging everyone to try to make a claim as the London Underground were giving refunds to all people affected by the closure of the Central Line, even if you didn't use it every day.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, June 03, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/06/firstly-welcome-if-you-come-to-this.html

Official buskers all over the place now and the "if you can't have a shave in the toilet where can you have a shave" buskers were spotted on a mainline train being rather pissed off about the official ones. I guess they did the audition and weren't deemed good enough. It's amazing they've been around for at least fifteen years and still don't seem to have changed their material.



Quite liked the above sign from the tube, as it says please support the buskers "in the usual way", what's that the tube officially acknowledging a formerly illegal practice or supporting an illegal practice as "usual". I'm confused!!!????

OH JOY - Just stumbled across the author Neil Gaiman's blog. Neil wrote the truly bizarre and imaginative book and TV series Neverwhere about a strange underground world which features characters named after tube stations. In London Below, feudal law rules, and all sorts of creatures exist. It is a fantasy world with mythic beasts and people wearing Victorian clothes, and speaking in the appropriate Victorian tongue - rather like the history of the tube itself.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Saturday, May 31, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/official-buskers-all-over-place-now.html

Yesterday...........

Saw my first official London Underground busker at Piccadilly Circus. It was quite weird really as I could hear some really loud music and I thought, wow - whoever that busker is, has managed to smuggle some top speakers onto the corridors. Wonder if it's an official one? And lo and behold it was. In fact two tube staff had just finished taking some official pictures of him and where clearing away their tripod when I walked past.

The busker himself was playing guitar and was quite good. He was on a little semi circular picture of a wooden floor trying to give the impression that he was on stage and Carling's logo's were stamped across the "floor". So it would appear that the bottom of the escalator on leaving Piccadilly Circus from the Piccadilly Line is an official busking position.

I'm waiting to see the first "wars" between official and unofficial ones......watch this space.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, May 28, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/yesterday.html

End of the line for Mail Tube

I've been in Salisbury and Brighton this Bank Holiday weekend and while in Brighton one of my friends told me that the Royal Mail tube that carried letters across London in the middle of the night is to be closed down. I only heard about this "tube train" a few weeks ago for the first time so I can't say I actually mourn its loss too much.



However the BBC website which reports the news is pondering for a new commercial use for the 75 year old service. Looking at the picture of it above, nothing immediately springs to mind apart from giving a tube system to mice. As it only seems large enough to carry midget sized people. It would also keep the mice in Anthea Turner's books happy.

PS .....Totally not tube related but too funny not to mention in passing. United Kingdom nil points Eurovision Song Contest 2003 Results - I can't stop laughing.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Sunday, May 25, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/end-of-line-for-mail-tube-ive-been-in.html

Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours (again)

Ended up sitting next to my next door neighbour but two on the tube coming home (not the one with the wig mentioned earlier) but she lives next door to him. Had a nice chat where I told her about the saga of my broken leg and she in in turn as we left and walked home together tolf be about her frustrating journey home today which took almost two hours (Old Street to Kew Gardens - normally about an hour twenty minutes I'd say). Can't remember the exact details but the bottom line was that while she was waiting she was getting angrier and angrier and so had time to complete the Customer Charter (where supposedly you can get money back if your tube is more than 15 minutes late) and marched with me to the post box to send it off.

I wish more people did this - you just get so apathetic that you forget. To my shame I don't think I've ever sent one off in my life even though I have lost count of the amount of times I've waited longer than fifteen minutes for a Kew Gardens tube at Hammersmith.

Perhaps I will do it, next time, specially as someone let me know of a more automated way of getting a refund.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, May 21, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/neighbours-everybody-needs-good.html

Saw the ad at Piccadilly Circus which is publicising legalised busking on the tube.



Apparently there are going to be some auditions and it's being used as an excuse for the London Underground to find some more money from somewhere cos they don't make enough from our tube fares

(STOP PRESS.....London Underground tube fares are the most expensive in the world - �1.60 for a single journey of one stop in central London cf with an average of �1 everywhere else in the world.....I digress)

Anyway the auditons or the busking will be sponsored by Carling. Good one. Basically if you drink enough Carling lager you will develop a mad urge to sing "Streets of London" or "Wonderwall" to complete strangers whilst strumming away on an out of tune guitar.

Also found today that the band Turin Brakes performed a little gig today at Canary Wharf to launch this noble initiative.

For more on music and buskers on the tube check out Going Underground.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, May 19, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/saw-ad-at-piccadilly-circus-which-is.html

Found a strange little site that had linked to my tuberules page today which compares London with Hong Kong in bullet point form.

It's starts with the Underground:

MTR: Wonderful & modern. Very efficient.

Underground: Complicated network with rats. Can stop between stations for 15 minutes without air-conditioning.

For more comparisons of London with Hong Kong

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Saturday, May 17, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/found-strange-little-site-that-had.html

If only I had a Quicksnap

One of those days where I really wanted a camera on me so I could take a picture of a pigeon on the tube and people's faces watching it. I've seen so many pigeons travelling on the tube it's not surprising to me - apart from when they fly into your face when you're trying to get on a train and they're zooming off.

It was obviously the first time the people opposite me at Earls Court on the District Line had seen one though. They killed themselves laughing and then were worried about what would happen if the doors closed before it got off. The answer is nothing. Pigeons quite happily travel for several stops before they get off a tube. The couple opposite then went into a long convoluted story about the pigeon flying off in the underground part of the Underground and going mad. Then being shooed onto a train going in the opposite direction so it could go back to it's "house".

For more on Commuter Pigeons check out Going Underground.



You can just about see the little blighters here

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, May 15, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/if-only-i-had-quicksnap-one-of-those.html

Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours.

This is a report of yesterday's journey but it's still having me chuckling so will report today.

I live in Kew which is on the green and leafy end of the District Line and yesterday morning a few yards from the tube station I noticed two police cars, a large van and a small crowd of people. It didn't take me long to figure out it was the Kew residents in their active campaign to stop a mobile phone mast from being erected.

I went to wait for my train and watched the shananigans from a distance. These mainly involved a bunch of middle classed people in fleeces and with golfing umbrella's gesticulating and refusing to move until the "un planned" and "un approved" O2 mast people had gone on their evil way. After ten minutes about 30 or so people were there. Some had sensibly bought along chairs from their house and ironically a few were using mobile phones to mobilise more troops.

Amongst the group was the guy who lives in an enormous house across the road from me. The house is so big that our road is actually named after it. Anyway I learnt today that the residents succeeded in stopping the mast and the matter is now between the council and O2.

Reluctantly I had to jump on the train when it eventually pulled up only to be sitting in the same carriage as my next door but several neighbour who has the worst wig in the world. It always cracks me up when I see him as he must think that it not noticeable as a wig, and I can't believe that no one's ever told him to just wear a hat instead. Or perhaps it is a hat that's shaped like a wig.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, May 13, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/neighbours-everybody-needs-good_13.html

the website is as ugly as a rotten banana...still the best website about the tube

I almost choked on my toothpaste today while I came across a site that had referred to GoingUnderground and this blog:

"Going Underground. I've blogged that before, and although the website is as ugly as a rotten banana, Going Underground is still the best website about the Tube."

Anyway the blogmaster of The Cartoonist goes on to say:

"Going Underground again. And here is Annie Mole's Going Underground Weblog. Annie is the webmaster of the 'Going Underground' website and is now probably mad at me because I questioned the aesthetics of the main site. The blog looks great, though!

Mad, moi???? Oi matey, "content is king" allright - yep I'm crap at web design, yep the site takes ages to load, but hey if someone wants to redesign the whole site for free I'd be happy to let anyone have a go. Seriously, no offence taken. Glad people find what they want from the site even if they have to search a bit and get used to the navigation (don't say what navigation?)

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Sunday, May 11, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/website-is-as-ugly-as-rotten-banana.html

Apparently I'm "the spiritual thought leader of the London Underground system"

I must apologize to Jag Minhas who sent me a link to his story about it taking him 9 hours to get home on the day before I broke my leg. It was the night (30th Jan 2003) that London got 4 centremetres of snow and ground to a standstill. People were stuck on motorways for hours and many people at my office the following day had tales of how it took them hours to get home too. I broke my leg in two places the following day and the world took a bit of a back seat when I wallowed in the fact that I would be in plaster and using crutches for the next six weeks.

So to recitify the balance all power to Jag Minhas who has complained to everyone you could possibly think of to try to find out why it took him 9 hours to get home. He's written to London Transport, Mayor Ken Livingstone, and even the Met Weather office and he's published all the replies on his site

Jag said: "I have emailed just about everybody who I think are representative of the collective responsibility of transport systems of London. I even emailed Annie Mole - the spiritual thought leader of the London Underground system - but apart from a couple of politically spun responses from Mayor Ken�s office - I have had little back from anybody. Alas - it seems nobody is interested."

Since then Jag has had a number of responses, so people are interested in a way, but possibly not prepared to do anything about it.

Well Jag I hope this entry has helped a few others to see your efforts now and it's great that your site has had many visitors from around the world. Give Grumbletext a try too - let's shame the system into some action.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, May 07, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/apparently-im-spiritual-thought-leader.html

OK, own up - who's marketing my site to all these lads mags.

Going Underground is now Bizarre's site of the Week - and they've highlighted the picture of me modelling a Mind the Gap T shirt.



Must say this is the first time my chest has ever appeared in something vaguely to do with porn. Perhaps I should give up the day job.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, May 06, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/ok-own-up-whos-marketing-my-site-to.html

My day is complete after seeing my site traffic hit the roof, I found that Going Underground had the honour of becoming one of FHM's top 100 websites



Words cannot express the pleasure of being in the "five minute fixes" section and being seen up there with Rate my Poo, Idiots on Parade, Tight Shorts, Porn Pranks and Foreign Filth

Puts on best Mr Burns voice and taps fingers together ......"Excellent".

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, May 02, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/05/my-day-is-complete-after-seeing-my.html

Had another little trip (heavy sarcasm) on the Docklands Light Railway today. It's hard to know whether the DLR is part of the London Underground or not really. I spose real trainspotters would say no, because it's hardly underground. But I'm in two minds about it, as it starts underground at Monument/Bank. The thing that I find freaky about the DLR is that there are no drivers. So you can get on the front of the train and see the view the driver would see - you're sitting right at the front of the train. It's like when you were little and sat on the top of a double decker bus and pretended to be driving. Well just think of a whole load of city geezers doing the same thing every day as they head out to Canary Wharf and Heron Quays and Cutty Sark and places that sound as though they should be in Treasure Island.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, April 29, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/04/had-another-little-trip-heavy-sarcasm.html

Sorry of the lack of posts over the last week - I have been carrying one crutch now, again to get the sympathy vote. I was fuming the other day as I was standing with two crutches for a whole two stops on a carriage on the District Line heading towards Richmond. So all you miserable gits who didn't give me a seat .....shame on you....I'll remember you when I next want to point out some idiotic tube behaviour on my main site. Also Metro newspaper have introduced a new section on Commuter saints and sinners where people write in to say who helped them and who pissed them off on their journey. Top idea.

Just signing off now with a pleasant little piece on this site on my blog:

"MIND THE BLOG , OR TRAINSPOTTING BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL LIKE SWINDON
Going Underground is the kind of blog that people in every city should have. It's all about the London Underground. The Tube. Ok, The Subway, but it's more than that. Using The subway as a metaphore has been done before, but not this well."

Nice one Jay!

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Saturday, April 26, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/04/sorry-of-lack-of-posts-over-last-week.html

I broke my leg by slipping on an icy slope outside a railway station so I can certainly sympathise with the following story of a woman who broke her hip in three places after slipping on pigeon droppings near an underground station. (see the Watford Observer) The thing I've found about claiming compensation for these sorts of things is that you haven't (excuse the pun) got much of a leg to stand on. I was told that the railway are not liable for clearing ice from pavements but the council are for clearing ice from roads (not too much difference to those like me who suffer and injury) You also need witnesses to help you with your claim - like the woman who slipped on pigeon droppings I was helped by a good samaritan, but I have no idea who she was.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, April 16, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/04/i-broke-my-leg-by-slipping-on-icy.html

I'm back - have one crutch - but back on the glory that is London's Underground. It will be quite a funny experience doing the tube as a "disabled" person - even if it's only temporary (to the unitiated I broke my leg at the end of January). But even though I will be carrying two crutches on the tube I only need one - two crutches act as a brilliant "seat getting" device. To be fair so far, everyone has been most kind to me and giving up seats (although I am trying to do non rush hour travel) and get on at 10am and try to leave the office as near to 4pm as I can.

Most noticeable things since I've been back is that the Cadbury's Chocolate vending machines seem to have been contaminated with massive promotions for Boost Guarana bars - which are quite frankly the most digusting chocolate bars I've ever had the misfortune to eat. Cadbury's chocolate is inferior at the best of times and the mix of glucose and Guarana adds to the general dirt like taste making it inedible.

C'mon Cadbury's it's virtually Easter - where's all the branding for the ridiculously sweet Cadbury's Creme Eggs?

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, April 15, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/04/im-back-have-one-crutch-but-back-on.html

Well big news is that the Central Line is more or less getting back to normal - which means apart from running from Marble Arch and Bethnal Green, 69 days after the service was closed - there's delays and late running. Great to see the tube running to normal timetable again. Apparently the London Underground are paying out �20 million pounds in compensation for the 9 week closure. To see how you can get your share visit Going Underground. It's money for old rope!

Although somehow I bet we'll end up paying for it next year. The MD of the tube Paul Godier reckons that the closure of the Central Line had cost London Underground a total of �40 million, including �12 million in lost revenue. Mmmm looking forward to buying my annual travelcard this year before it shoots up.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, April 03, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2003/04/well-big-news-is-that-central-line-is.html