Guardian's audio app Streetstories features King's Cross Station

The area around King's Cross London Underground has always been rich in history. I remember the days when you never really hung around the Tube station at night as it was the haunt of ladies from the oldest trade in the world! Now with the brand spanking new concourse & station the area's much brighter & open, yet the old history still lurks around the corner. I was intrigued to hear about The Guardian's new audio app & guide - Streetstories - which helps you explore the area.


If you're in King's Cross, your smartphone knows exactly where you are, and plays audio relevant to your location. You can also listen if you're not near King's Cross.  The app, can be downloaded via 3G, features ten stories, althought there is also a much larger version of the app, Streetstories Extra, available on iPhone which has over 70 stories and about two hours of audio material, downloadable via Wi-Fi.  I'm going to try the Android version when I'm next around King's Cross (I've still haven't seen the new station yet!)


The video shows some of the areas & stories the app features. There's stories about 7/7 bombing, all of the architecture of around St Pancras station and hotels, and Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter extracts with his use of platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station to get to Hogwarts.


platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station by Tiki Chris
Francesca Panetta, The Guardian's Special Projects Editor, said: "Streetstories is a great way to experience an area in a new way, and we found out all kinds of things about the area during this project - Charles Dickens lived here for some of his childhood, Thomas Hardy worked as a trainee architect helping to clear bodies from St Pancras Old Church, and along York Way, where our building sits, you would have seen cattle being marched down the road from the Caledonian market, once the largest cattle market in Europe."

As with most audio guides you don't have to play in a particular order, so can wander round as the mood takes you.  Nina Lovelace, their Content Development Manager, said "We're keen to get feedback from users, as well as talk to any potential clients keen to develop similar apps for their locations, organisations or travel routes."

I'd personally love to see something like this for the East End as I'm now there for work and really have no idea of lots of the background & history around Bethnal Green and Whitechapel.  It might also be useful for visitors to the London Olympics if they decide to explore these areas on days off from the games.

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New Rubbish Tube Ads

The newspaper you're reading is rubbish, says TfL. Bit harsh to say that about Metro, but they may have a point with other papers. Actually it's the appearance of new London Underground ads in Tube carriages which are, yet another, attempt to get London's commuters to take their papers away with them.


When I initially heard that M & C Saatchi had designed the campaign and initally only saw this pretty dull ad below, I thought "Meh, Saatchi could do better". But now that I've seen the in-carriage ones above, I think it's a good job playing on both uses of the term rubbish - ie rubbish as in "pants" one of Vicki Pollard's favourite words and rubbish as in litter.  Also look out for press ads with a similar message saying "This advert is rubbish".




According to TfL in 2011, 97 newspapers, 76 drinks cans and bottles, 20 fast food items and 61 other objects were caught in train doors causing delays to services.

Also there were 327 "litter related incidents" which caused disruption on the network last year.

Gareth Powell, LU's Director of Strategy and Service Development, said: 'Customers don't always think of newspapers as rubbish when they are on a train or at a station. Leaving coffee cups, fast food packaging or newspapers on trains can lead to these items getting stuck in doors or falling on the track. By taking their litter with them or putting it in the bin passengers can help us run the Tube more smoothly and improve reliability.


'This new litter campaign is asking people to dispose of their rubbish in a bin so it can be recycled, minimising delays for the millions of people that use the Tube a day. This will also make the Tube cleaner and more pleasant for everybody.'


Numbers of bins on the London Underground have increased by 25% per cent and there's also 1,600 plus bins that are in, or within walking distance Tube stations.  Sadly the press release makes no mention how much it costs TfL (and us) to pay for staff to clear up all the free-sheets and papers - although some would argue that it's creating jobs!

Either way, let's hope TfL's new rubbish advertising isn't rubbish and has some effect.

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All a Blur - Guess Where Tube 18 - Win a Mind the Gap Keyring

Time for another Guess Where Tube. Even though many people correctly guessed the last Guess Where Tube (it was Great Portland Street), the winner never claimed the prize! So I'm going to carry it over again. You just need to guess from exactly where I took the photo from.


For visitors unfamiliar with the "Guess Where Tube" game it's where I ask you to guess from exactly where on the London Underground, certain pictures from the London Tube Flickr group were taken from.  This is shot through a train as it's coming into the the exact place you need to guess.

So as the previous most accurate guesser never claimed his prize and as I'm still working on a way to import all the old comments to Disqus, the prize has been carried over. Like the previous one this is another that I think is reasonably easy.


The prize is a  lovely rubbery Mind The Gap Key Ring. You have until UK time 11.59pm on Sunday 25th March 2012 to make guesses. Try not to look at the comments before you when making your guess.

Make your guesses in the comments below and either leave your blog or twitter name or email address or some really obvious way I can get in touch with you if you're the lucky winner. The last person had a Google Connect account and for some reason I couldn't contact him through that. So if you're unregistered in Disqus or don't give a Twitter or blog name or email address you won't be included in the contest. The person who is the most exact will win & if there's more than one person who guesses the same most correct place, I'll put names into a randomizer & select from there.  Good luck.

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5th episode BBC2's The Tube Documentary - Rush Hour, Fainting, Failures & Pigeon Control

The fifth episode of BBC2's documentary on London Underground staff promises a mixture of Tube delights tonight. Brian Pigeon should look away right now as the Tube's most unusual employee, a hawk called Toyah, will be put to work on pigeon patrol. The Tube, a six part series airing each Monday at 9pm, takes a behind the scenes look at the day-to-day running of the Underground.


London Underground Pigeon warning by andrewgrill
I've never really understood the fascination the London Underground have with maiming and scaring away pigeons. Perhaps tonight's episode will show why it is. They clearly spend a lot of time (and money) with "pigeon control".


Also on tonight's episode: "Station Supervisor Bob Weedon at Bank has to deal with five injuries and faintings in a row during one rush hour crush." Remember the series was filmed in the summer time and there are loads of notices on the Tube then about carrying water and what to do when you feel faint on the London Underground. One of the nicer signs is below by the lovely station assistant Kim, of Caledonian Road Tube, whose arty designs brighten up the Tube station's white boards.


Hot Weather sign at Caledonian Road Tube by Yaili
And you'll also see how "Chief operating officer Howard Collins must muck in when a power failure on the Jubilee Line threatens to disrupt the evening peak."


Jubilee Line - Power failure - people evacuated! by The Night Prowler
I'm not sure why the Jubilee Line seems to have more than its fair share of reported power failures. When I was looking for pictures to illustrate "power failure" the line popped up quite a number of times.  Hopefully Howard Collins will explain this tonight and I'm sure many Tube staff that read this blog will be interested to see what "mucking in" for the London Underground boss really means.

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London Olympics Usain Bolt VISA Ad - The Tube doesn't feature

Anyone who's read this blog for longer than just this post will know that I'm not a big fan of the London Olympics. I can just about recognise Usain Bolt and that's where my knowledge of the games starts & probably ends. However, on Sunday I saw this very Londony focussed ad for VISA contactless credit cards and quite liked it:


The gist is that two men (one of them Usain Bolt, the other turns out to be the guy who'll be setting off the starter gun) are trying to get from an airport in London to the Olympic stadium and they race through the capital touching in and out around the city using their contactless credit cards and using various methods of transport too.


What I love is  how the London Underground doesn't even get a look in. Usain Bolt can obviously run to the stadium faster than taking the Tube during the Olympics. Actually even me running might be faster than taking the Tube during the Olympics.  Even a paddle boat on the Thames at Richmond is seen as more viable than getting on the Tube!

NB Please PR agencies note I really am extremely unlikely to blog about your vaguely Olympics related Press Release on the back of this post. I also don't do paid blog posts & VISA haven't paid me to post this, I just happened to be watching I Robot on Sunday night and the ad was running in one of the breaks. However, if you have an anti Olympics post, it might be worth sending it my way!

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