London Underground Fashion Victims

Fashion Victims on the Tube

It's Friday, the first Friday of 2007 and the first fashion victims of the year. The
Tube's been great this week as there's only about half the people as normal on it but that does mean in commuting hours it's been harder to find the victims, but fortunately Mags and Patricia were able to help me out as they spotted some rather unusual looks this week. They seem to both have slight celebrity lookalikes - or perhaps dressalikes.

Xmas party at Glamoursmith

Patricia, who's a big fashion victim fan snapped this lady at Hammersmith I believe with one of the tiniest Xmas hats I've seen.


Very Matt Lucas with his micro hat George Dawes or the only gay in the village look.

Ugly Betty

The new US comedy series Ugly Betty starts tonight and you may have seen the trailers of the woman with the nasty teeth braces, thick black glasses and a style of her own who appears to enter the lion's den of the fashionista world.

Mags spotted someone who looks like she was auditioning for the role. Mags said: "Note the fuschia coat, red tights, silver shoes and blue beret. She was also wearing specs with black frames - so Ugly Betty it was untrue."


Panto Boots?

Sometimes I put victims on here, who I'm just jealous of as they have the figure to carry off something I couldn't. She's got the legs for these boots and shorts, but from this angle the whole look was pretty unflattering.


Still I don't suppose she put on the outfit thinking that some idiot woman behind her might take a shot of the back of her legs.

Turn Up with wallpaper

Same escalator and no excuse with this look though, as it wouldn't have looked better from any angle.

On her right leg you can see that at some stage she's worn these jeans not turned at all as there's the beginnings of some fraying. So she probably thought "Oh no can't have my jeans fraying I'll better turn them up. Mmm but how much? Oh I know, six inches should do it". Madness!

That's it for this now with the victims and many thanks to Mags and Patricia for grabbing the first two. The previous victims can be found here and the complete picture gallery can be seen on the following Flickr set.

Japanese Subway Behaviour

Only in Japan

Could you imagine if we had heads popping out of the ticket machines on the Tube whenever we needed help?


"It seems that in Japan, land of robots, coins are returned from railway ticket machines by a man who sticks his head out of a small slot to communicate." From Dethroner.

Also if the families of "one unders" or suicide victims had to pay the subway system for the delays caused!

"Trains don't usually stop too long after a suicide, there's rarely much damage to carriages and we rarely have to send anyone off to catch trains on different lines. In that regard, train suicides probably don't cost too much," says an employee of a commuter line. "But to make sure we can cover the costs incurred when a suicide leads to a derailment, we have to ask the bereaved families of suicide victims to compensate us. The costs are usually in the range of 100 million yen, but I've heard of a case where a family was billed 140 million yen after someone killed themselves by jumping in front of a train."

100 million yen is about 42,000 pounds which sounds more than a tad extortionate, even for a derailment. I know that Tube drivers quite rightly go through counselling when they experience a "one under" and I'm sure if they ever felt that they couldn't go back to work as a result, they wouldn't think of suing the family of the victim. Even if they could find some sharky lawyer to do this, surely no judge would award them 42,000 pounds.

I'm just amazed at how they got to this figure. Let's just hope that Sheriff Ken doesn't get wind of this, and thinks of it as a way of introducing some extra revenue.

Multi Tube station spotting

Where can you spot the most London Underground Stations from?

The things I get asked sometimes. I need some help with this. Apparently there is a place in London where you can see five (or possibly six) Tube stations from one spot. That's at ground level in case any of you smart alecs think you must be able to spot loads from a helicopter or the London Eye or Google Earth. I'd like to think that it's somewhere around Bank or even Charing Cross or Embankment - but I wouldn't have thought as many as five. Unless it's possibly from Hampstead Heath with a good set of binoculars.

That's one of the many things I like about the Tube though. With over 270 stations you would think there would be more than one station that didn't contain any letters of the word badger. Or more than one station with no letter from the word lobster. (We've known about mackerel & St John's Wood for some time now, but I love the fact that someone has sat down and worked these things out).

So come on, someone must know this, it's not even in Wikipedia. Hopefully it's not just an urban legend.

Northern Line Strike Threat

New Year, Old Tube

On the day when most people are going back to work, it's good to welcome in the New Year on the Tube with news that strike action is being threatened on the Northern Line (will anyone notice? I hear some of you ask). It appears that a driver who has worked for LU for 22 years passed through a red signal or there was a SPAD (Signal Passed at Danger - for those who know such things). Union Aslef district organiser Steve Grant said that the SPAD was the result of technical problems and that the driver shouldn't have been sacked. Consequently Aslef are going to ballot members over possible industrial action.

Describing the sacking as "draconian", Steve Grant said: "This man has 20 years of experience and there is no technical evidence to support the charge."

There's nothing on Aslef's site about this but if the strike goes ahead 660,000 people will need to find another way to travel.

Fare's Fare?

In other news Sheriff Ken is doing his annual defence of the annual rise in fares which took place this morning. "Get an Oystercard" is his standard mantra or if you want the spin (with a record number of times Oyster can mentioned in one paragraph):

"2007 is the year to get onto Oyster if you haven't already, and today is the best day to start. The headlines about big cash fare increases today show that the savings are now to be found on Oyster with many Oyster fares now half the cost of the cash alternative whilst the Oyster daily price cap for adults remains fifty pence below the One Day Travelcard price. A single journey on the Tube in zone one is frozen at £1.50 when using Oyster and peak bus fares with Oyster frozen at £1."

Getting through TfL's site to find a way of travelling without an Oystercard or travelcard, you'll eventually learn that if you don't have one you'll be paying four quid for a single fare in via Zone 1. (2007 fares are here). I wonder how many people who regularly travel into London don't have an Oyster or travelcard though? How long is Ken going to carry on widening the gap between the fares here?

Blog in Metro

Does this mean TfL's seal of approval?

Quite a good end to the year to find your blog featured in a paper that you spend every morning commute reading. Although the jury's out on what I feel about being called one of London's obsessives.


Click on the image above to read the feature in full, and many thanks to Alex James for the interview

Happy New Year and many thanks to all readers, commenters, contributors, lurkers and visitors old and new. And of course to TfL for giving me something to blog about for the past four years!