Distraction and Chef's Toilet Line

Inspired by......?



Goodness knows what - possibly the picture I took in April of the ridiculous dot matrix display sign, Sellassie Lawson has created some great realistic "the next tube" indicators. So we have on the Bakerloo Line







Followed by the line that is the bane of my life







The amount of times I have seen Ealing Bdwy rather than Richmond when I got to Glamoursmith or Turnham Blue is beyond a joke.



Many thanks for sending those through Sellassie, you're a star. More may be on the way.

Wot no strikes?

To strike or not to strike



I've been fairly de-mob happy for the last few days as I'm going 'ooop north to a North Sea seaside down this Bank Holiday (some people holiday in La Scala, I holiday in Scarborough), so I totally missed reading about "strikes or lack or them or pay rises to avert strikes or the railway going out on strike to co-incide with tube strikes which are pre-empted by pay rises so at least some public transport may be running sometime over the next few weeks" in today's Metro.



Fortunately the guy opposite me had a copy coming home this evening so I got a vague gist of what was going on to be able to give you the insightful piece of reporting above.







Anyway, if you really want to know what's going on check out the FT.

Inspector Sands

Everyone in London must know who he is



Yesterday morning station staff were testing out fire alarms at Richmond station, so there were lots of loud announcements telling us to ignore anything that sounded like an alarm.



I didn't hear anything which sounded like a siren or bell or anything just a lot of interrupted messages for "Inspector Sands to report to blah blah, mumble".



Inspector Sands is used as a code for either a suspect fire or an alarm which has gone off somewhere which may or may not be a fire. So instead of someone saying - "We think there may be a fire" which might lead to platforms of passengers and staff in Dad's Army style legging it about saying "Don't panic Mr Mainwaring", it means that those in the know - silently think "Don't panic, don't panic" and look for the quickest exit.



Check out the infamous Mr Sands with Nik Fox's recording.

Lipstick, powder and spoon

Strangest make up accessory



I know some people get freaked out by seeing women putting on their make up on the Tube, I was freaked out myself today but only because the woman I saw was using a teaspoon.



First of all I thought she'd just dropped the spoon into her make up bag by mistake or was possibly going to take some cough mixture or hayfever medication or something. But no, she used the spoon as a bizarre eyelash curler. Normal eyelash curlers I find pretty freaky too and always imagine people pulling their eyelashes out with them, but curling your eyelashes over a teaspoon is definitely one of the wierdest things I've seen on the Underground and I've seen some pretty weird things. Way too stunned to get a picture - but trust me it was a literal eye opener.



Amazingly assorted range of footwear on the tube this morning too as the weather is being it's usual chaotic self and after two days of heat I've seen loads of exposed feet in Birkenstock stylie sandals (still as popular as last year) next to women wearing full length boots.

Yahoo's Top 100 Sites for Men

My site is missus friendly



My colleague at work has just told me that my main site www.goingunderground.net (cunnily called Tube Tales here) has just made it into Yahoo's Top 100 Sites for Men (that won't offend the missus).



Cool - it has a boy's rating of 4/5 (A five pint evening with a whisky chaser apparently - just below surfing the net with Vinnie Jones). So now it's officially hip with other bloke's media including FHM and Boyz, but will I ever make it into Cosmopolitan, Vogue or People's Friend?