Todays Metro Momentos

Metro is brill today



Love on the Tube



I hardly know where to start with today's Metro. Firstly we have the follow up of their "star crossed lovers" The Tunnel of Love photo story (first seen on the 8th December), about people who see each other each day on the tube, finally plucking up the courage to speak and get together.



The particuarly weird thing about the photos though is that they're supposed to be on the tube on New Year's Eve, strangely the rest of the carriage is empty. No cans of lager, no people holding cans of lager, no people saying "Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh", no people saying "Cheer up luv it's New Year's Eve", no people bellowing "Happy New Year" when you're trying to sleep off an upcoming hangover. Most peculiar.



Five page Transport Special



In a particularly inspired move Metro also have a walking guide for hungover Londoners and how to get to many of London's "beauty spots" by tube. "Every step will ease the effects of that Fifth tequila"



I am loving the urban wilderness section where they look at stops on the end of tube lines.



Mill Hill East - "on arrival you'll think that's a generous allotment" Areas of local interest "The new Waitrose" Think "An urban Gibralter".



Walthamstow - "we were expecting concrete & crime. Instead we found a 17th century village idyll, marshes and the home of Marigold gloves." Areas of local interest "the railway came and they turned their talents to Marigolds and condom-making". Think - "An urban Ibiza. All you hear about is the debauched crime-ridden, ker-a-zey side. But venture out of the centre and you'll find history, beauty and serene wildlife." - Err right.



The urban safari section is also brilliant with places such as Richmond Park, Isleworth Ait and Gunnersbury Triangle all a mere hop, skip and jump from where I live. "Why go to a zoo when you can plunge deep into the bush? And that doesn't mean Shepherd's Bush. The nature reserves of London are ideal for an urban safari".



Forget nature reserves, what about the tube itself - with its commuter pigeons - go to the Hammersmith & City Line side of Hammersmith station and wait about five minutes and you'll see loads of the little bleeders hopping on and off the carriages.







Then there's the tube mice at Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus and Waterloo usually on the Bakerloo line, you'll see them scuttling around the tracks and suicide pits.

Tube Buskers continue into 2004

Official Busking "trial" will carry on



Delighted to hear that the busking santa 1 and 2, top busking chick, Dimitri, the Pop Idol buskers and various other official buskers will be continuing into 2004. Sadly this won't make a jot of difference to unofficial buskers like the Losing My Religion busker who will carry on playing in their "merry" way.



A spokesman for Carling, the drinks company behind making London Underground buskers official in May, said:



"At least one person is in what look to be the final stages of negotiations with a major record label after she was spotted on the Tube, and we're expecting other people to be successful too. " I wonder if it was top busking chick?



Also busking has meant some buskers can actually earn a fair bit of money (unlike Badly Drawn Boy). One busker at Green Park tube station earned 160 quid in four hours.



Update



Geoff Marshall kindly sent me this picture of a cone busker that he saw today at Oxford Circus







Geoff says "He was pissed and playing "We wish you merry christmas" by just blowing farty noises through the traffic cone. And I actually saw people giving him money!



Now don't try telling me that he's sponsored by Carling � :-) "



Cheers Geoff. I'm sure he wasn't!



See the Evening Standard for more on the official buskers.



See my main site for more on the London Underground buskers in general.

New Year's Eve - Tubes will run throughout the night

No sign of a strike and tubes will run all night



Well I think the New Year's Eve bit of the squash strike is also off as I can't see any mention of it in the news. And "for one night only" the tube will be running all night for New Year "revellers" and transport is free from 11.44pm and 4.30am. So no just missing the last train and no hideously slow night buses - just wish they could do it every weekend.

Signs of the New Year on the London Underground

You know you're approaching New Year on the tube.....

When there's loads of kids on the tube who've not gone back to school yet and tired looking parents

When stations are even more filled with people with oversized rucksacks and luggage on wheels

When there's a eye hurting display of red and blue Nicotinell "giving up smoking product" ads on the escalators

When the exit and entrance to Piccadilly Circus tube station has a little cage around it - to stop people falling down the stairs while "revelling" around Eros

When there's loads of out of towners (not just overseas tourists) standing on the left on escalators - CAN'T YOU READ? There are signs saying stand on the right EVERYWHERE.

Happy New Year's Eve Eve

Public Private Partnership of the London Underground is.....

PPP - One year on and what do you think?



Obviously a leading question.



"Travellers on the London Underground have endured a dramatic collapse in the network's reliability since its part privatisation a year ago, with private contractors being forced to pay heavy fines (�32.2 million in fact) for failing to deliver on their commitments.



"Internal London Underground documents seen by The Guardian reveal that the government's public private partnership (PPP) has had a disastrous start, with soaring breakdowns, track problems and points failures."



It gets worse:



"According to LU's internal figures, the number of train failures every month has jumped by 23% this year. Track problems have risen by 20% to 76 a month and points failures are up by 38% to 46 incidents a month."



Tube Lines, which runs the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, is the worst . Since the beginning of 2003, it has been fined �16.8m for missing targets. Terry "Tezzer" Morgan, the head honcho of Tube Lines, said: "I have to say we've been challenged by the condition of some of the assets we're working with. Things have historically been done on a 'make do and mend' basis."



And some excellent hefty spinning by John Weight the head of Metronet. He says reliability was within the bounds of what he expected but "probably at the lower end". "As far as we're concerned, it's been a year of good progress. We continue to learn and understand some of the shortcomings of the network."



More on PPP, if you can face it, in Google News.