Masks on the Tube

Despite all of the swine flu fears, I'm quite surprised I haven't seen more people wearing masks on the London Underground. I imagine it's because most people know that wearing masks don't really protect you against the disease. I was close enough to one guy on Friday to take the picture below and I wondered how many of you had seen people with masks on the Tube?


Dave Hill from the Guardian read a blog post from an American tourist who was totally convinced that the "Stay Cool in the Heat" posters were all about Swine Flu.


She said about the bullet points, they "had nothing to do with the heat anyway. The bullets fed the hype and fear about swine flu (which the media there is freakin’ out about). It's important in advertising, as it is with slides, to make sure you’re communicating one clear message. The call-to-action to 'keep cool' might as well have said to wear surgical masks too."

It's amazing how things get mis-interpreted, although perhaps the guy wearing the mask read the "Stay Cool" posters that way as well.

Animals on the Underground

This is more like a zoo on the London Underground as the fab Animals on the Underground site as put all of the animals seen on Tube map into one image.


They're still inviting people to find other animals by staring at the map in a strange "Magic Eye" type of way until you can spot a cat or a cockerel, stag or snail, whale or wallaby. Nice way to while away the time when you're waiting for a train.

Must dig out my animals on the underground vest as we might be in for a warmer weekend.


Thanks to LDN for reminding me the animals still exist and are still being found!

£695m upgrade to Victoria Tube station

One of the London Underground busiest & most congested stations is going to have a major upgrade. The Secretary of State for Transport recently approved a major upgrade for Victoria station following a three month public inquiry. When complete, the upgrade will increase the size of the station by about 50 percent with a new ticket hall (see artist's impression below), lifts and additional escalators to ease congestion, and step-free access from street level to all platforms and for interchange.


This will be music to your ears if you're one of the 80 million people who use it every year and like me have spent time standing outside the barriers waiting for the congestion to ease.


Subject to Transport for London's Board approving the £695 million funding for the project this Autumn, construction will start in 2010, but it will take about seven years to complete.

For more on this see TfL's press release.

Tube Line Song Mugs

We know how the London Underground has inspired lots of songs over the years. Well EMI Music Publishing have got together with TfL to produce some mugs and T-shirts featuring lyrics from songs about London & the Tube lines they feature on.


The range features lyrics written by EMI Music Publishing's songwriters including Suggs, Pete Doherty (from both Babyshambles & Libertines era), Eddy Grant, Ronnie Laine and Sir John Johns (aka Andy Partridge).

Interestingly, the video for The Libertines' 2002 single 'Time For Heroes' shows both Doherty and then-bandmate Carl Barat jumping over the ticket barriers - seemingly without having bought tickets - at an overseas underground station. But let's pass that by!


Each lyric features on the mugs & shirts in two individual designs – one based on the classic London Underground font & and map and one inspired by the song, its genre and era (see the mugs on the right or on this link).


"London and music are inextricably linked, and a huge number of songwriters across all genres and time periods have been inspired by our capital city. We're thrilled to become the first music company to work with Transport for London, and to link the music of our writers with music fans in this new and interesting way." said EMI's VP of Sales Melanie Johnson.

The mugs & T shirts can be bought online at TfL's shop.

It would be great if other music publishers got involved if only to have some Duffy inspired Warwick Avenue mugs, as they'd make a great gift for the cheery guy at Warwick Avenue station.

Let us know of other Tube or London lyrics you think would make a good mug and maybe one day you'll see them!

Answer to DFS Tube Ad

You've probably seen a new ad campaign for furniture shop DFS on the London Underground with some punnage based on Tube stations to promote its sale:


I spotted an interesting response by Charliedotgilbert on Flickr.


Glad he got that off his chest!