London Underground Song - The Video

You've heard the song, now see the flash movie



If like just about every other Londoner with internet access, you've heard the London Underground spoof song (blogged below 11th & 20th Jan) written to the tune of The Jam's classic Going Underground - well now there's a flash movie!



Tim Ireland from Bloggerheads (with the co-operation of writers Dr Suman Biswas and Dr Adam Kay - incidentally rumours of Adam's death seem to have been exaggerated!!) has put together a great little flash movie to accompany the song.



I particularly like the last image of the Oystercard alongside some KY Jelly - which illustrates - the brill last lines - "Take your Oystercard and shove it up your arsehole" .... Quality

Why haven't I come across this before?

London Underground RETRO photos



When I started Going Underground in 1999 the only sites about the Tube were the official tube site and a few hobbyist sites and lots and lots of sites with pictures of rolling stock (trains to the unintiated). I'd never been wild about seeing rows upon rows of pictures of trains, especially if there was no story behind them. Then came a few sites with pictures of stations but it's only today through the excellent Londonist that I came across Londonstation.com. A few years ago G Goldwater, started taking black and white pictures of Tube stations and then hand coloured them in Adobe Photoshop. (Incidentally, I really can't remember when the seats at Hammersmith station looked like this picture below, so it's great that someone is recording old stations before they change beyond recognition)







The results are really brill and give a great retro look to the stations. It may be because he's (apologies if G Goldwater is a woman) deliberately chosen older stations on the network before they get refurbished, but it's as though he's given them a lick of paint himself. I bet the Tube would love it, if they could tart up stations this way.







Anyway, G Goldwater received a grant from The London College of Printing for the work and has had exhibitions and been featured on radio and in print and is now asking people to send in anecdotes and Tube stories as it looks as though a book will be coming out. Well done. Check out all of the pictures at www.londonstation.com

What do station assistants do when they're bored?

Write poetry apparently



There's a lot of people who work on the Tube who look as though they're doing nothing. You might see guys and gals standing by the escalators making sure people don't get their feet chopped off or heels stuck. Or you'll give a cursory glance to those standing by the ticket barriers making sure the tickets go through or stopping fare dodgers or "double bunkers" or "slipstreamers" (I don't know what the real word for this is, but you know people who press up close behind you and try to get through the barrier on your fare). You might think "Jeesus what a dull job what must be going through their minds every day", well more than you might think.



Chris Gyrce, who works on the Misery Line (Northern Line) as a station assistant on escalator duty and "gateline" (official term for barrier duty - you learn something new every day) and carries a notebook with him - not for spotting odd or illegal behaviour or reporting defunct escalators, but to write poetry.



Chris said: "Prior to working at an open air station I used to be based at dusty, dirty, Camden Town. The poems that I'm submitting were written during moments of boredom while on gateline and escalator duty at Old Street/Camden Town (part of the Camden Town group)"



So with Chris's permission I've published one here:



AT THE GATELINE



Boredom and monotony are my

Well acquainted friends,

As I at the Gateline passenger tickets "mend".



Customers generally are honest and polite,

While I upon their tickets alight,

May I see your ticket, Madam/Sir,

As those gates "hum and whirr"



Father and daughter slipstream

Through the gates together,

Dad, can I see your ticket now or never.....

He hurls obsenities at me,

The worst of humankind maybe.....?



Some passengers gingerly place their tickets in the slot,

Fearful that the gate machine may "gobble" the lot,

Others are in such a hurry,

That their ticket "shivers" from the worry!!



Love in the ticket hall area,

Young couples, giggle, embrace and kiss,

A sight bored eyes do not miss.



I come across this brown-haired young lady,

With a query,

And I but weary,

Notice the multiple silver rings on her finger,

Can I see those rings I enquire?

A gradual smile belies her initial ire.



Perhaps we'll find the next Pam Ayres on the Tube.

VOTE FOR US, VOTE FOR US

We've made the Bloggie finals again



Many thanks to all of you who nominated us for the 2005 Bloggies. Well the results were out this morning and The London Underground Tube Diary is in the finals for not one, but two (count em) two categories - Best British or Irish Weblog and Best Topical Weblog (funnily enough the same categories the blog made it into for 2004). I'm really pleased and I'm sure Neil n Geoff will echo this, we have some really stiff competition in both categories (especially the British or Irish category as I'm much more familiar with the blogs there - D'OH Greenfairy, and D'OH Londonist).



So more international and new visitors will be coming this way - hope you enjoy what you see and us Londoners aren't really too bad, once you get to know us.



Anyway, it's up you the voting public now to cast your votes - you have until January 31st - use your vote and tell your mates and their mates. If we win we'll share the KitKat that's on offer as one of the prizes. Thank you once again.



UPDATE - Just received the following email from the organiser:



My apologies, but I'm sending out another mass e-mail since a lot of finalists have been asking about the status of the Bloggies site. This is my first year hosting the Weblog Awards on a different server, which is why I got caught with too little bandwidth. I arranged today with my host to get some extra for the next month, so the site's back online, plus the voting has been extended to February 3 to make up for the downtime. So now voting can really commence. :)



Hoorah!!!!

I'm such a creep

This got mention in last Friday's Evening Standard, but I've only just remembered to blog it.

The posters for the new 'Creep' film (as discussed below - 17th Jan) have been banned from London Ungerground stations in case they "Frighten customers".

I kid you not.

Er.. Hello! [Taps on glass] what is the what coming to when LU now want to censor a poster which to me isn't at all offensive.

But the posters for this film haven't been banned from NR stations (and hence I saw this one at Epsom on my way in this morning), but this also means that you will get them at places like Waterloo where there are NR trains and LU trains.

Does anyone else think it's a bit stupid, or does anyone agree with this?

Anyway, looks like I'd better go and see it now to see what all the fuss is about!

UPDATE FROM ANNIE - The ban has been lifted now following "Intervention" from the Evening Standard. BTW we're still arranging a mini blog meet to go and see the film - it looks like the 3rd February is the date - if anyone wants to come and see it with us please email me or leave a note in the comments. Nice review of the film here:

"The London Underground; the tube � our capital city�s 250 plus miles of mainly antiquated and filthy tracks and tunnels. We hate it. We hang from roof handles like monkeys, jam packed in ancient rolling stock full of enough sweat to drown an elephant. It�s hell. Well, at least we think it is....."