The next stop is Piccadilly Circus ....... Toronto

Pubs named after Tube Stations

My friend Richard from clickairport.com was looking at my blog recently and prompted by the post where people had sent me pictures of the London Underground roundel in strange places, remembered that he had one from Toronto.



As you can see it's the neon sign of a pub/club called the Piccadilly Circus.

I checked out the pub on the net and it's an English theme pub or rather "From pub food and drinks in the evening to club DJ and dancing at night, Piccadilly Circus is equipped to be Toronto's #1 entertainment center. With a games room, DJ & dance floor, authentic double decker bus, surround televisions with satellite, insane and ingenious theme nights, and affordable and competitive prices Piccadilly Circus caters to all your partying needs." It rocks!

I particularly like the picture of some of the insane party goers with the Jordan/Pete Burns lookalike on the right:



It was also voted voted Best College Bar in 2004 by toronto.com. I also love the following promotion on the 16th February which is so good it's in block capitals:

"NEVER HEARD OF IN NORTH AMERICA BEFORE
YOU WONT BELIEVE WHAT YOUR EYES ARE ABOUT TO SEE
REVERSE COVER THATS RIGHT PICCADILLY CIRCUS & INSANE PROMOTIONS WANT TO HELP UNIVERSITY STUDENTS RELIEVE THE STRESS OF PAYING COVER ON YOUR FAVOURITE PUB NITE OUT
'WE WILL PAY YOU $5.00' WHEN ENTERING PICCADILLY CIRCUS VOTED THE NUMBER 1 COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY BAR NOW YOU KNOW WHY LIMIT ONE PER PERSON & ARRIVE EARLY TO AVOID BANKRUPTCY"

That's right, they pay YOU to go to the pub. I'm booking my flight to Toronto right now!

Cheers Richard, you never actually told me whether you ventured in to check out Piccadilly Circus's insanity.

On a separate point, I wonder how many other pubs around the world are named after Tube Stations or share the same name? Elephant and Castle seems to get about a bit, both in the UK and abroad. We also have brand new King George V on the City Airport extension of the DLR, where a pub name could have influenced the station name!

Tube Strike Latest - Walkouts announced for February and March

Two London Underground Tube Strikes on the Way

At 2.30pm today RMT leader Bob Crow announced the ballot results of a vote amongst 1,500 Tube drivers in the ongoing London Underground Strike saga.

So I'm sorry to report that there was a six to one majority vote in favour of the strikes. In a separate vote Aslef drivers also voted in favour of the strike, so we are set for two 24-hour walkouts on 21st February and 2nd March.

Both unions accuse London Underground of a "breakdown in industrial relations".

London Underground say they are "not imposing anything on Tube staff. The fact is that we launched a consultation with all our trade unions on new harassment, discipline and attendance procedures before Christmas. That consultation continues".

Unlike the strikes earlier this year and on New Year's Eve, these ones are likely to have an effect on commuters' travel as we're actually now talking about the people who operate the trains walking out. Check out the BBC for more on this.

So looks like I'll be walking from Waterloo again. Just hope it doesn't rain!

Surprisingly there is no triumphant trumpeting on the RMT's website about this yet! Perhaps Bob and his RMT union official mates are looking for a pub that they're still allowed to drink in to celebrate (Bob and his mates have been banned from their local)!

A moment's diversion.....Snickers Pie

Snicker, snicker, snicker

I never knew that a comment I made on Londonist would lead Londonist's resident chef Ken Yau getting a bit handy with a whisk, some eggs, puff pastry, cream cheese, sugar, butter and a handful of Snickers and making Anthony Worrall Thompson's Snickers Pie. In a nutshell, they had made a brill post about kids being educated on the unhealthy eating with the aid of fun competition designed to get kids educating each other (far better than Jamie Oliver's moralising bollox). I said that Anythony Worrall Thompson's kids should enter. AWT is the inventor the Snickers Pie - blasted as the most unhealthiest dessert with 1,250 calories per slice.

After the slamming, the BBC removed the recipe from their website, but the guys at Londonist found it on a Google cache and set about making the pie. You can see the results of the Snickers Pie here.

The case of the missing K on the Piccadilly Line

Quick get Miss Marple...... one of our K's is missing

Spotted by Neil when we were going into town on Saturday



Not only was the K on "Keep all your personal belongings with you" missing, but the in-carriage indicator also seemed to have forgotten where it was heading. "This train is for ........" ran in nicely to "eep all your personal belongings with you"

At least we didn't have an automated voice repeating it too. The Sonia (she gets on yer nerves) woman on the new District Line trains drives me mad.

Pencil Case Competition Winner

And the winner is......



Speaking of missing things......guessing what was wrong with the London Underground Map on the pencil case above, proved to be a very popular competition. Thirty five of you guessed mainly different things. So Neil had to select a winner from the names below:

PkerUno
Compsci
Carina
Mike Scott
J Sexton
alantan
Pedantic of Purley
Roblo
Pashmina
Robert John Kaper
Chris Boyle
Andrew B
Somewhat
Lee Sowden
Matt
Jamesthegill
Chz
JJC
The Dunce
Pete
Ewan
RobbieK
Alex
IanD
Jo Oakley
alto2
Ian
ed
Sam
jon.justice
N Nerode
Jon Allen
Jonny Lyon
Russ Williams
Martin

Using whatever means he did "after a complicated system of choosing paperclips", the winner is Robert John Kaper

Congratulations Robert. I'll be in touch for your address and the pencil case and London Transport Roundel pencil will be winging their way to you soon.