Tube Ad banned

Smelly Food Ad Pulled for insulting Italians



I know the headline above almost sounds like it came from The Day Today spoof news show, but it's true. In fact I imagine most Londoners would have probably heard about this by now. But the ad below telling people not to eat smelly food on the London Underground has been pulled.



I've love the excited start of the feature from The Scotsman:



"A CAMPAIGN to stop passengers from eating smelly food on the London Underground has backfired horribly and sparked a diplomatic incident between Italy and Britain."







A diplomatic incident.......oooooerrr. According to The Scotsman the ads only went up last week - which is bollox as they've been up for months - I blogged one in early June - but I spose it makes for a much more dramatic story to say that after a week the ad was pulled rather than months.



Anyway loads of Italians got really offended by the ad and wrote to their embassy in London. "Italy�s ambassador to London, Giancarlo Aragona, sent letters to Mr Livingstone as well as to London Underground�s marketing director, Richard Parry, and informed officials in Rome of the posters." ........



"Last night Guido Cerboni, of the Italian embassy in London, said: "I just can�t believe how naive London Underground was in allowing these posters to go on display.



"The man seen sitting on the tube is clearly Italian and he is surrounded by Italian salami and Parma ham, and you can quite clearly see the Italian flag and the name of an Italian firm.



"The poster implies that Italian food is smelly and that Italians eat smelly food. This was a colossal error and as soon as we heard about it we complained."



Mmmm, I can sort of sympathise but I don't think the guy in poster looks remotely Italian - he looks like Bernard Manning to me, but that's by the by.



Anyway Ken Livingstone got involved and the ads are now being taken down:



Sherrif Ken said "As a lover of Italian food, I can say that the items illustrated both smell and taste delicious. I have asked London Underground to take the ads down immediately."



A London Underground spokesperson said: "We apologise for any offence caused to any members of the Italian community and charcuterie manufacturers and retailers."



Most Tube ads are going to be offensive to someone, but I'm not Italian. But aren't they just supposed to be vaguely funny? Humour is going to have a dig at someone somewhere along the line. The whole thing has now given the papers a field day to come up with some very corny headlines - some of my favourites from the 77 currently in Google News (yep 77 stories about this - jeesus).



Mamma MIA...ITALIANS in A Stew over Tube Ad

Salami wars over tube poster

UK smelly food plea irks Italians

London Yanks Smelly Salami Poster

Italian envoy poo-poos anti-smell poster

Zone 1 Tube Challenge

And they're off



I promised Geoff and Neil that I would blog a challenge that will start today at around 12.20 at Vauxhall station. A group of guys (for some reason I seemed to be included on the initial list too, which caused all sorts of confusion to me and made me think I had early onset of Alzheimer's) are going to see how fast they can travel round every tube station in Zone 1. Geoff and Neil are pretty used to doing this as they regularly do all 270 odd stations on the whole system, so my money would be on them.



However they may be challenged by the newcomers - including Tom Reynolds from Random Reality. The current record for Zone 1 is 3 hours 15 minutes and 59 seconds to cover all 63 stations, and the "unofficial" record holder for that, Peter Smyth, is going along today.



Tom promises to blog updates of his progress using his mobile but as he says it's dependent on when he "comes up for air". I offered to post updates of Geoff and Neil's progress but they're keeping their cards close to their chest and don't want to give out too many secrets.



Anyway, the whole thing may well be on the BBC tonight as a cameraman will be following them all round for at least some of the day. Ewan (the organiser of today's event) has decided to wear a kilt for the occasion. Hope he remembers he has a "skirt" on and doesn't do the usual blokey thing of sitting with his legs apart on the tube.



Good luck to all of them, shame they couldn't have picked a cooler day to do it.



Update - I've just had a text message from Geoff to say that the winning time was 2 hours 55 minutes and 50 seconds. Geoff I think came 4th at 3 hours 4 minutes. Celebrations are currently taking place downstairs in the Horse & Groom if anyone wants to join in.

Do you think I'd make the Tate?

New York Subway Commuters exhibited at the Tate Modern



So it's not just people who visit my blog who interested in looking at subway commuter's bored expressions. From now until the 19th September at the Tate Modern there's a larger than life sized video display of women travelling on the New York Subway with voiceovers of their responses to a series of questions.







Julia Loktev's video is called Said in Passing and here comes the art bit: "A city's subway system is public space in perpetual motion. A constantly shifting no man's land inhabited by people on the move. Five video projections form one long image showing different women riding the New York subway. Their voices can be heard on headphones across from each projection. The women - some actors, some friends and acquaintances of the artist - present themselves in short announcements. Do we get to know who they are or who they would like to be?"



Interesting idea, perhaps I could convince another gallery to try a Tube version, or even charge people for coming into the Tube to see some "reality art".

Escalator Ads

Yahoo's tube campaign



I'm finding it increasingly difficult to get a picture of the Yahoo ads (or any escalator ad for the that matter) even though our escalators hardly travel at any speed they seem to be just fast enough to get very blurry shots. Perhaps I just ought to use my flash and pretend I'm a tourist who can't understand the "DO NOT USE FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY ON ANY PART OF THE LONDON UNDERGROUND" announcements. Or simply be a smartarse and say "It's not flash photography, it's just pretty basic, it's very flattering for you to say it's flash, blah, blah" and hope they see the funny side.



Anyway - here's blurred version of the Yahoo Ad which points down for Sardines, you'll also see ones pointing down for Claustrophics and ones pointing up for Daylight.







More will follow when I find a broken escalator without a trail of people behind me.

Tube Temperatures

My anti forecast



Perhaps I ought to moan about the weather more often, as from my last post moaning about the hideous July we've had so far, today is hot and sunny and like a proper July and it's forecast to be a good weekend too.



Coming home on the Piccadilly Line last night, I came down into the station at Piccadilly Circus and I think some maschochists on the Tube had deliberately turned on the heating.



At platform level it was cooler but plenty of people were fanning themselves with any old rubbish they could find in their bags. At Waterloo a month ago some company had the bright idea of handing out Japanese fans whereas on the Tube you have to make do with left over copies of Metro or tube maps.







At 9pm the line itself wasn't hot so it was a relief to get on the train. By the time I changed to the mainly overland District Line there was a great breeze running through the train. I should have checked Metcheck on the tube to see how hot it was last night to compare with today's scorchio temperatures.



Bring on the the new cooling system.