Just woken up with a minor hangover (thanks to the MOO party) to hear the news that the Oyster card system has failed again & all the gates are open on the Tube, meaning free travel. Buses aren't affected this time. Now considering we were told the chances of this happening were slim and it's now happened twice in two weeks, shows that something's err ... wrong.
Here's a reminder of what happened on the 12th July when the Oyster card system failed. That was on a Saturday when fewer people travel, but still it was reported that anything from 40,000 to 100,000 passengers had their cards corrupted and travelling on the London Underground the following Monday was a bit rubbish for those commuters.
Pay as you go cards are borked today, so don't touch the readers with them, even if you see the gates open on the Tube.
So if you have an Oyster card listen out for more news and keep an eye on TfL's website - although at the time of writing 7.30am there's nowt, nada, nothing on the Transport for London site to show any problems. Perhaps they were all at the MOO party and are suffering a bit this morning too.
When sending this photo to me, Dave said "Where's the SWAT team then, eh? It's not the drinking that pisses me off, it's the lack of enforcement of an unenforceable law.
Bah."
Looks like the police may have been too busy chatting to their new Stormtrooper mates to notice.
At the risk of giving Right Guard even more publicity but to stop people from emailing me saying "Have you seen this?". Right Guard antiperspirant, clearly on too many drugs from their Lovebox Love Van sponsorship are supposedly trialling armpit advertising or pitvertising. Where else to do this, but on the London Underground?
"The innovative new concept uses digital TV screens built into the armpits of shirts. It was developed by deodorant manufacturer Right Guard as the ideal way to market its products.
A hired team of 'Pitvertisers' was sent out into the streets of London to test the new medium.
Passers-by were reportedly amazed by the new marketing tactic - some were clearly impressed; but others thought it the pits".
As soon as I heard about this I thought it was an April Fool. But you're sposed to believe Ananova aren't you? By the time the third person had told me about it and muttered about photoshop, I thought, they don't really need photoshop for this and could easily get a couple of people from the office to stage the shot on the Tube.
But good for them, they've managed to convince a number of other sites that the technology exists including Engadget, WatchingTVOnline, Crunchgear, ubergizmo and gizmodo. I'm sure many others are also reporting that it's a real trial.
Thanks to Jon Justice, Webponce & Wayne Z for being the first three to alert me to this.
If someone from Right Guard would like to invite me to see this "trial" in action and to see the product brief, rationale & business case for it I'd be more than happy to eat my words.
In the meantime you might find the people from ImprovEverywhere or Spacehijackers having a go at convincing people that any ads in people's armpits would be good for the Tube or subway.
We spend enough time looking at people's armpits in the rush hour perhaps the guys from Right Guard aren't so mad after all. Or perhaps they'd be better off sponsoring some of the straphangers (above) which are now part of the London Transport Museum's exhibits.
Monday morning and recovering from Lovebox yesterday. If you want to see how this photo taken at Mile End London Underground Station turned to the most amazing summer festival I've been to, the photos from Lovebox 2008 will tell their own story
I'm going to Lovebox today which is the first of my summer music festivals this year. I like my creature comforts too much & won't do any festivals involving camping. Spending some days in big parks listening to music without all the wellington boot & trench foot & communal showers & cleaning your teeth in a field stuff is fine by me.
The only thing I have to "worry" about is wondering whether the London Overground will be running OK so I can go to Highbury & Islington and then get a bus (unfortunately not like the loved up one on the postcard below) to Victoria Park, or whether I have to take the London Underground to Mile End & walk. Even though TfL's site shows no problems with the London Overground today, I've not seen one go past my house - so currently can't trust it.
In the spirit of Love, I was given a bundle of Onya bags by the lovely guys and gals at Onya, for no real reason other than changing a link I had to their Australian site to the UK site, when I blogged about Kew Gardens going Plastic Bag free. So they gave me the bags as a thank you - which is remarkably sweet of them.
So I'm sharing the bounty & giving them away. If you want to do your little bit to "Love the Planet", use fewer plastic bags and have a tiny but super strong bag instead there's three ways you can get one.
1. Have a look at yesterday's entry about the London Transport Museum. There's an error in one of the photos - if you're the first person to spot the error I'm thinking of, you get an Onya backpack.
2. Goldfrapp are playing at today's Lovebox, hopefully they'll be performing Happiness, which is my new favourite track of theirs. (Update to say they "performed" Happiness at Lovebox was an understatement - it was mind blowingly mad - photos from Lovebox here) Who's the best dancer at the end of the video & why? Person I think has the best reason gets an Onya original bag.
3. That leaves two bags. I'll get Onya involved in this one. Just tell us why you want an Onya bag. The two answers that me & Onya like the most will get an Onya original bag each.
Leave your answers in the comments below and you've got till 11.59pm UK time on Sunday 27th July for your answers. Please leave an email address or a blog address or some way for me to get in touch with you too.
If you want to return the love - a vote for Team Bank would also be much appreciated - cos we're losing Ahh, no worries we came 2nd in the end! Thanks for voting!
