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.

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.

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.

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.

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.