Two mobile phones = terrorist, bite back

Not long ago, I blogged about the current Police anti terrorism campaign where things like having two mobile phones or taking photographs on the Tube meant you could be seen as a potential terrorist. The public were told not to worry about wasting the police time, but just report suspicious behaviour anyway - it's no big deal to the police. If you suspect it, report it. End of story as far as they're concerned.

As you might imagine, there's been a bit of a backlash to this campaign. Many of you commented on the err... oddness of this. Many forums discussed it and now thanks to Boing Boing some great parodies or remixes of the ads have been found on Flickr.

Here's one of the originals:


And here's some mash-ups





Enjoy!

Grumpy on the Tube

I managed to take this picture without being accused of terrorism


Must really tricky getting graffiti on the wall there. And I wonder if he or she were referring to another person or just King's Cross station itself? And if so, how can a station be grumpy?

London Underground Strike on the Way

News just in - look's like a Tube Strike is on the way!

One of the main London Underground Unions - TSSA has voted in favour of industrial action.

They said "Strike ballot - a resounding YES!
TSSA members at London Underground have delivered a firm response to LUL's attempts to cut jobs and terms and conditions. Talks are continuing to attempt to achieve our objectives and members will be informed of the outcome of those talks.

Thank you to all our members who voted so convincingly to support their union colleagues. Remember - together we are stronger, if you have a colleague who isn’t a union member ask them to join TSSA."

81% of the members voted for strike action. It will be interesting to see if the other major union the RMT go the same way.

The issues behind this potential industrial action are here.

Watch this space and the news for more as it hits the web.

UPDATE - RMT have also planned industrial action Tube Strike dates announced for April 2008.

Nip / Tuck Ad now un-sexy enough for the Tube

You may remember that London Underground would not let the ad below for Nip / Tuck appear on the Tube as it was deemed too sexy. This led to quite a long discussion in the comments:


Now a less sexy (although to my eyes, hardly any different) ad is plastered all over the Tube.


There's a little less flesh from the girl on the right, and the girl on the left has longer stockings on and no suspender belt.

I would have paid good money to have sat in on the approval process for this. I like to think it would have gone along the following lines:

Guy from CBS Outdoor (who sell Transport for London - TfL's advertising) - So TfL as you know there's been a lot of coverage about this ad being banned. The creatives at FX's agency are proposing something new.

TfL Rep - Mmm are the girls wearing more appropriate clothing now? I hear that the Amish do a very nice line in sensible ladies wear.

CBS - Well they've not exactly gone that far.

TfL - So is there still a lot of bare flesh on display?

CBS - Well not exactly a LOT.

TfL - How much flesh? Can we see cleavage and bare midriffs?

CBS - Well some of the midriffs have gone.

TfL - What about the woman in the suspenders? We can't have her. Even though we run lots of ads for Dove with women in their bras and knickers, this is totally different.

CBS - I think we could get them to ditch the suspenders and make the stockings a bit longer.

TfL - So remind me how much were they planning to spend again?

CBS - It's a lot. It's part of a multi million pound campaign and they said they'll give it to the railway and buses if we don't want it.

TfL - Oh go on then, just make sure there's only one bare midriff.

CBS - Anything else?

TfL - Yes, make sure they get rid of that red line at the bottom, that makes it really provocative.

I wonder how far away from the truth that was?

Notes from Cooling the Tube Talk - 11th March 2008

A week or so ago I blogged about a talk that was taking place about how London Underground were going to try to cool the Tube. Unfortunately I was out last night and couldn't attend, so said that if anyone wanted to write a guest post, I'd be happy to put it up.


Well both Ian and Pete went above and beyond the call of duty and took excellent notes, which are a bit too long for blog posts, but they are available for download at the end of this post.

Pete did a summary of the evening so you can see just how many people are interested in this issue:

The event took place as part of the "Underground - London's Hidden Infrastructure" exhibition which is taking place at the Building Centre on Store St from 28 Feb to 19 April. During the day there are exhibitions...

The talk was given by Kevin Payne, who has a background as an engineer with British Rail but has worked in various areas for TfL since 1989, and was appointed Director of the 'Cooling the Tube' programme 12 months ago. The room had about 150 (!) people in it, mostly engineering folk and some architects [I had a glass of wine and chatted to some folk from Arup afterwards - "A blog? What's that?" they said ]

Kevin started by talking about the history of the problem, outlining current cooling methods and then looking at what might be done in future.

I've not had the opportunity to read both of their notes in full yet, but look fascinating and it's great that the plans for the future have been shared like this.

Cooling the Tube - Notes from Ianvisits.co.uk

Cooling the Tube - Notes from thelondoneer.blogspot.com

Once again my thanks go out to Ian & Pete for providing the above notes.