London Transport Museum - Rockin' Cocktails, Rockin' Stories

At the risk of sounding like an anorak, the London Transport Museum is seriously my favourite museum in London. Admittedly I don't go to many, but it's turning into a place that's not just a collection of things (mainly trains, Tubes & buses like it used to be, before the multi million pound refurbishment) but it's a collection of stories and people's lives. Which rocks!


Last night I was there for the premiere of Cab Driver - a BBC4 documentary about London's black cabs. I'm lucky enough to know Zimena Percival, the producer & director, as she somehow persuaded me to do all manner of stupid things for her Arena documentary on the London Underground a couple of years ago.


So knowing Zimena and her dogged determination for finding characters (like cabbie turned counsellor Len Fox) and getting them to tell their stories rather than doing a "love fest" on the transport itself, I had a feeling that Cab Driver was going to be good. The audience in the Cubic Theatre at London Transport Museum (brill moquette on the seats) weren't disappointed. It was funny, touching, sad, informative, thoughtful, uplifting, ridiculously sweary (it was a film about cabbies), musical and basically brill. You can see it for yourself on the 26th July 2008 on BBC4.

It's the middle part of her "Transport Trilogy" made with the support of the London Transport Museum. Tonight at 9pm on BBC4 you can see a repeat of her film on London's Routemaster or double decker bus as part of Bus Night. Next Saturday, it's Cabbie Night and then on the 2nd August it's a repeat of Tube Night, with me.

But back to the Museum, they're continuing with their trend of amazing design values by working with people like Ted Baker who's produced a whole lot of T-shirts & accessories for them.


There's a Ted Tini cocktail in his honour too and last night we had a few "Where 2 Guv" cocktails in discounted to £4.50 each for the Cabbie evening.


You can also buy umbrellas with "I don't go South of the River" on them.

For a museum that's about transport it's as much a museum about people and their lives and their stories. I chatted with Wendy Neville the museum's Communication Manager after the film. She was fascinated with us as bloggers (I went along with L J Rich & Anna Mondo - from Team Angel fast catching up with my Team Bank - in the recent L T Museum Flickr Scavenger Hunt) and wanted to learn more about why we did it. But for me it was great to hear about their plans for more events, more story telling (including some Carry On stars - can't wait), more travellers from the past in character, and another outing of the 1938 Art Deco Tube in August.


Of course if you like, you can still salivate over the old trains, Tube carriages, buses, horse & carts, old cabs etc etc. The iconic fonts, designs, posters, maps and signs are all there too - displayed really creatively as we found on our first Flickr Scavenger Hunt there. But I do love the human part of the museum, the cocktails, the chunky chips and the connecting with people from the past.

Converses on the London Underground

Converse shoes are taking over the Tube. I'm a Converse fan, mainly as a result of writing about them on this blog for the Tube Fashion Victims. So I've become a Fashion Victim myself and wear them a lot now. It's not just because the current Dr Who wears them, it's because they're ridiculously comfortable and for woman with big feet I can buy "men's" ones and not look like I'm wearing mens's shoes.


Yesterday I decided to carry out a little experiment and see how many people I could spot wearing Converses or at least footwear that looked like Converses on the London Underground.

There were a lot of them and I didn't go on a particularly unusual journey to spot them. The picture above has my foot on the left with my new-(ish) black and red Converses (see below) sitting next to woman wearing the traditional black and white All Stars.


I got off at Hammersmith and there were loads of them:


This rock guy above won the "Too Cool for School" Converse on the Tube award. Other Glamoursmith ones are below including a couple of pretenders:


Onto the Piccadilly Line and there were several more:






Plus a guy wearing Merrells (I've been corrected in the comments - thanks) Etnies - which aren't Converses I know and much more blokey (I think)


Coming home late there weren't so many or I was too tired to spot them. There was a guy in some Vans (again not Converses)


But my favourites were a group of girls with Converses and Onya bags. They rocked - cool and green at the same time.


Look out for Converses on your Tube journey today and let me know how many you see. Feel free to count yourself if you're wearing them.

Cab Driver Night at London Transport Museum - free tickets up for grabs

One of the clues for the recent London Transport Museum Flickr Scavenger Hunt was the following: A cabin with a difference near a sacred station. It was one that my team - Team Bank - got correct.

"Cabbies have those little green huts dotted around London where they have tea and Lori knew that there was one near Temple Tube Station. So we jumped on the Tube and found it."


Not surprisingly this was also where we grabbed our first challenge picture - a Typical London Cabbie.


"He wasn't exactly typical as he was smiling (sort of) and didn't put the clock on the minute we stopped to speak to him. But he was kind enough to let us take his picture - so thanks Mr Typical London Cabbie."

Anyway I found out that tonight is Cab Driver Night at the London Transport Museum. it doesn't mean that the place will be filled with taxi drivers, or that they'll take you to London Transport Museum for free. What it does mean is the premier of Zimena Percival's BBC Arena documentary film about the lives of five extraordinary cabbies.

Their: "experience spans 70 years on the unforgiving streets of the capital." and "Arena: Cab Driver goes well beyond the average ten minute journey to unearth the soul of the London cab driver."

If you're thinking that Zimena's name sounds familiar it's because she also produced and directed BBC Arena's Tube Night in April 2007.


Part of her film featured me looking like a idiot and "quirkily" re-counting Going Underground's Tube Rules and more seriously talking about my experiences of the 7th July 2005 terrorist attacks on our transport system.

Considering the things Zimena can get people to do for her films and the sorts of people she finds, I'm sure that Cab Driver will be fascinating. There will be a question and answer session with Zimena and star of the documentary, Len Fox, after the film. I'm going along tonight with L J Rich and we also have a a pair of spare tickets - so if you want them - please email me with your name, I'll leave them on the door for you. First come first served.

Otherwise it starts at 19.00 and finishes at 20.30. The tickets are only £7.50 (and include free entry to the Museum galleries from 17.00). Tickets should be pre-booked on 020 7565 7298 and full details are here.

Update - I reviewed the Cab Driver BBC4 documentary at the London Transport Museum here.

What's going to happen to Tube Buskers?

Last Friday I was on my way to the Social Media Café (Tuttle Club) and just coming up to the escalators at Leicester Square I heard the simply haunting sound of Abba's Money, Money, Money. You don't normally think of that song as "haunting" but it was being sung by the busker Hadar the winner of Capital FM & the londonpaper's search to find the King or Queen of the London Underground. Well King or Queen in busking terms.






I was amazed that she was still doing busking after winning the prize. Just found her video on YouTube of "Queen of the Underground" - see above. She's had some airplay on the radio with that song, after winning and there she was, with only a handful of coins in her guitar case. I gave her two quid and a thumbs up.

She has an absolutely fantastic voice and is equally on a par with Katie Melua, Norah Jones and any other mournful female singer songwriter who's had success of late. As I travelled up the escalator, the much slower than normal tempo of the Abba song remained with me.

As luck would have it - Lloyd Davis who started the Tuttle Club was still there when I arrived and he's a Tube busker too. I asked him why she hadn't got a record deal. He shrugged and said it was no surprise as he felt that the whole competition was more of a database exercise for the sponsors than anything else. It seems hard to get "discovered" by a record label if you're a busker, even if you win a major competition.

Unfortunately this seems like it'll be harder still as Lloyd reported yesterday that there was some uncertainly over the future of the official busking operation. London Underground are taking the management of licensed busking in-house after sponsorship dried up.

He wrote: "No new sponsor has been found to replace Capital/The London Paper - the sponsorship package of £1m+ has funded the administration of the scheme by Automatic Management who ran the audition/vetting process, employed Busking Site Managers (BSMs) to visit the various pitches regularly and ensure all is well, and managed the telephone and internet booking process.

The contract with Automatic seems to have been terminated with very short notice - while we all like to have a moan about how things have been run, they’re a good bunch of people and I hate to see the BSMs especially out of a job.

The internet booking system is to be discontinued and all bookings will now happen over the phone and rosters will effectively be fixed by 2pm the previous day as that's when they'll be faxed (yes faxed) to Station Supervisors."

This seems pretty antiquated and Lloyd thinks it will be a "recipe for double-booking disputes on the one hand and pitches needlessly going empty on the other".

But what if they never find a sponsor, does that mean that we'll lose official buskers altogether? Since they became official it had really cut down the number of unofficial buskers on carriages, who are generally pretty annoying as there's no escape from them.

I'm still amazed that a record company or another radio station hasn't jumped on a sponsorship package for the buskers. Some labels were toying with paying buskers to play specific songs a few years ago and although that wouldn't have to happen, surely they must get some benefit from the millions of people who pass by a busker each day.

Looking & Keeping Cool on the Tube

It's getting pretty hot again in London. But because there's also been a lot of rain, there's that real dilemma of what to wear. On the London Underground you'll see a number of people in shorts, mini skirts, T-shirts, flip flops and sandals and an equal number wearing tights, cardigans, fleeces and boots.

Here's two approaches to looking cool on the Tube that I spotted in the last couple of days on the Northern Line. One I think looks really cool and is practical. The other ... well ... err ... isn't.




If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know what I think about people who wear their sunglasses inside the Tube, specially when they're trying to read newspapers at the same time. And yes, I've heard all the comments about "well perhaps they've got eye problems" etc etc. Perhaps the guy above did. He got off at Old Street so could have been going to Moorfields Eye Hospital. However, they just don't look quite like prescription sun glasses to me. I'd put money on his final destination being more like Hoxton (home of trendy new media types) than Hospital.


Top marks to "fan girl" though and I love the way her fan colour co-ordinates perfectly with her tights. Very cool! Much more cool than the platform exit of Old Street Tube station which decided it was cold enough to not switch on the comedic giant fans. Sadly that decision was wrong.