Sir John Soane’s Museum

Sir John Soane’s name doesn’t trip off the architectural tongue today but in his day he was Britain’s most influential and prolific architect – a classicist some of whose work is startlingly modern. For instance every major gallery built today is “top lit” to give an even quality of light on the paintings whilst protecting them from direct sunlight. Soane came up with this solution first for the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the architectural consensus is it has never been bettered. He designed the imposing edifice of the Bank of England in the City of London whose solidity was to speak to us of the solidity of the British currency at the height of Empire. Why he even inspired the Red Telephone box! So much of what he designed has been either demolished; altered or not built in the first place that is importance could be overlooked if it was not for London’s most amazing Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields which he bequeathed to the nation in 1837.




Dulwich Picture Gallery

This is not like any conventional museum for it is an amazing cabinet of curiosities for he filled his house with a most amazing and eccentric collection. Not only did he fill his house he also bought the houses on either side and even then he had to extend the lot and then again had so many items that he even designed folding displays to fit more paintings in. So this is a cabinet of curiosities on steroids for nowhere will you see such an amazing treasure trove on display, from the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Seti I to Hogarth’s “The Rake's Progress” to Greek Sculpture and more, much, much more.


Sir John Soane 1753 - 1837


Sir John Soane's Museum

Soane was born in 1753, the son of a bricklayer, and died after a long and distinguished career, in 1837. Soane designed this house to live in, but also as a setting for his antiquities and his works of art. After the death of his wife (1815), he lived here alone, constantly adding to and rearranging his collections. Having been deeply disappointed by the conduct of his two sons, one of whom survived him, he determined to establish the house as a museum to which ‘amateurs and students’ should have access. Now this unique place is to be enhanced further as the private apartments of the Sir John Soane are to be opened to the public for the first time since his death more than 170 years ago, after a £7million restoration which will take three years. Because of the genius of Sir John in getting Parliament to pass a special Act to protect his collection all this is there, as he intended, to see and enjoy FREE!


Library


Dining Room


Dome

Soane began his education in the architectural office of George Dance, one of the leading Neo-classical architects of the day. In 1771, he enrolled in the Royal Academy Schools where he won a gold medal for his design for a triumphal bridge (1776) and a scholarship to study in Italy (1778-81). In 1788, he was appointed Surveyor to the Bank of England. Many other public and private commissions followed, among them Dulwich Picture Gallery (1811-14). The security of this position allowed him to develop his highly idiosyncratic architectural vision. He gave his house and important works of art to the nation as the Soane Museum.


William Hogarth's "The Rake's Progress"


In 1833 Soane negotiated an Act of Parliament to settle and preserve the house and collection for the benefit of ‘amateurs and students’ in architecture, painting and sculpture. On his death in 1837 the Act came into force, vesting the Museum in a board of Trustees who were to continue to uphold Soane’s own aims and objectives. A crucial part of their brief was to maintain the fabric of the Museum, keeping it ‘as nearly as circumstances will admit in the state’ in which it was left at the time of Soane’s death in 1837 and to allow free access for students and the public to ‘consult, inspect and benefit’ from the collections.



The Bank of England


Sarcophagus of Pharaoh Seti I

Thanks to the recent restoration of No.14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Museum can now restore an entire 2nd floor of No.13; comprising an ensemble of exquisite and intriguing rooms. These include Soane’s private apartments: bedroom, bathroom, oratory, book passage and Mrs Soane's Morning Room and the Model Room above. Other spaces include the Tivoli and Shakespeare recesses.



The restoration, called Opening Up the Soane, will let visitors see private rooms including the bedroom and bathroom. Part of his original bed was recently discovered in museum stores and is to be rebuilt. The work will also include the re-creation of the Tivoli Recess, Britain's first public gallery of contemporary sculpture. This will permit, for the first time since Soane's death in 1837, the display of 80 architectural models he used for teaching students at the Royal Academy.



Other rooms, including the Catacomb where Soane housed his collection of Roman funerary urns, are also being returned to their original use, having been adapted for visitor lavatories at the end of the 19th century. Watercolours of the apartments, painted in 1825 by Soane's pupils, are being used to govern the restoration. In addition to designing the house, he also directed the design of its furnishings and decorations, showing the finished result to interested parties including his Royal Academy students.


Soane's Bedroom


Soane's Model Room where he used c. 80 models to teach students

The museum's director, Tim Knox, said: "The restoration will help to address the problems caused by 110,000 visitors a year in a house which was built as the private residence of a great gentleman architect in the Regency era."The museum will not close during the works, which start next month and are due to be completed by 2014.

Today the Museum is housed in three fairly modest-sized interconnected and expanded houses house not a palace, so it really shouldn't take long to stroll round. Except that almost every inch is crammed with mouldings, architectural features, sculpture and art from the 18th and 19th centuries and back through antiquity. Some of the lighting in 'the crypt' is so low that you sense the almost life-size statuary rather than see them as they stand guard close to a painted stone sarcophagus from ancient Egypt. Everywhere there are lanterns and squints to allow daylight down into galleries, mezzanines and tiny dark corners. And then there is the famous gallery room where the walls covered with paintings open up like barn doors to show painting on the inside, and then, magically, they open again to finally reveal a hidden day lit space and the odd Turner or Canaletto. Oh yes, and there are the complete original oil paintings of Hogarth's 'The Election' and 'The Rake's Progress' which that artist created to promote sales of his engravings. All astonishingly restored and exhibited by the staff in such a low-key manner. For this is no conventional museum and even after all these years and despite its priceless contents you still feel you are being invited into Sir John’s personal space to view his idiosyncratic and slightly out of control collection.



There is a postscript for this great Architect would no doubt be happy to know that his tomb inspired one of the 20th Century’s great design icons, the Red Telephone Box. St. Pancras Old Churchyard is today somewhat forlorn set in the lee of the railway tracks behind Kings Cross and St Pancras Stations. Indeed as an apprentice architect the writer Thomas Hardy was involved in the controversial clearing of part of the churchyard to build the railway tracks.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/st-pancras-reborn.html



Soane's mausoleum which provided the inspiration for the design by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott of the iconic red telephone boxes.



But this is historically one of London’s oldest churches named after the Roman Saint; St. Pancras and containing many graves of the good and great, the composer Johann Christian Bach and the sculptor John Flaxman. It is also the burial place of William Franklin, the last colonial Governor of New Jersey and illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin. There is a memorial tomb for philosophers and writers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, she being a famous reformer and mother of Mary Shelley. Here Sir John Soane designed a tomb for his wife and himself in the churchyard, which is now Grade I listed. This mausoleum provided the inspiration for the design by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott of the iconic red telephone boxes.




The website for the museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Holborn is;

http://www.soane.org/

For the wonderful enclaves which are the Inns of Court around Sir John Soane’s Museum see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/inns-of-court-london.html


For DC’s RLT (Reduced London Tour) which deftly avoids overpriced tourist traps see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/09/day-in-london.html

For more on the Red Phone Box and other British design icons see;">For more on the Red Phone Box and other British design icons see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-british-design-quest.html




For more on Architecture and Design see ARCHIBLOGS in the Blog sidebar>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

The EDL are not wanted in Aylesbury

England's Defenders?

Aylesbury last Saturday was its usual relaxed weekend self enjoying a sunny day enlivened by St. George’s day celebrations on a subdued scale. In Kingsbury Square the cafes and pubs had plenty of tables outside as people enjoyed the weather with their children and had a drink or snack whilst enjoying the Morris Dancing. There was also a Dragon roaming around attracting the kids and a little street train with a loco called “George” bringing the kids around the pedestrianised centre of the town. In the Market Square, overlooked by the statue of the local MP John Hampden whose refusal to pay the “ship tax” (Buckinghamshire is not on the coast!) to Charles I precipitated the English Civil War, the market traders jostled for custom from their colourful stalls as they have done for over four hundred years in this the County Town of Buckinghamshire. In the courtyard of the King’s Head, an ancient coaching inn owned by the National Trust, locals and visitors were enjoying the live music and the traditional ale from the Chiltern Brewery.


Market Square, Aylesbury

But what a difference a week will make in this town of 70,000 people. There is a sizable minority of Muslims in Aylesbury who are mostly from Pakistan controlled Kashmir where they have fled from conflict and work hard to provide a better future for themselves and their children. We have a Mosque and some of the best schools in the UK and by and large everybody rubs along quiet well. There is, as in any large town, a lumpen proletariat and there have been in the past some racist incidents whose reports generally include the words “skinheads” and “drink” but we pride ourselves on community relations and have had a Muslim Mayor.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/may/28/race.world

Aylesbury has a mixture of London commuters and busy local employment and is set in the attractive and rich farming area of the Vale of Aylesbury close by the Chiltern Escarpment and the area of Outstanding Natural Beauty known as the Chiltern Hills. It is a good and improving place with a good quality of life which is appreciated by the inhabitants who include sturdy yeomen of Buckinghamshire and many who have moved here from elsewhere including a large Italian and Irish community and more recently Polish. It is an inclusive place and we are particularly protective of disabled people who are very visible in the Town Centre on a normal Saturday as Stoke Mandeville Hospital with the National Spinal Injuries Centre is nearby. That was last Saturday. Next Saturday will be different, very different.


The borrowed iconography of the EDL including Constantine the Great's motto " In this sign I will conquer"

On Saturday 1st May our town is being high jacked by a self appointed Rent-a-Mob called the English Defence League or EDL. The effect is palpable. Aylesbury Bus Station will be closed, many small shops are closing at 12, they gave been advised by the Police to not have chairs and tables outside, keep shutters down and consider if they want to really open. The fear is well founded as the video taken by a neutral outsider at a recent EDL “Rally” in Stoke on Trent where 17 people were arrested shows. So next Saturday May the 1st these strangers are going to use our town to contrive conflict where none exists. So next Saturday in Aylesbury Town Centre there will be no buses, no old people, no children, no disabled people and no shoppers. There will also be no pubs open in the town. Here are the details from these Brave English Defenders own website;

“Initially, point 'A' was chosen as a muster area due to it having a small cluster of pubs that would serve as a meet point for our supporters to socialise in before the demonstration. However, the local licensing authority has visited these pubs and as an upshot of that, they have decided to close on the day. We would like to point out that at every single EDL demonstration; no pub has ever received any damage whatsoever. A business that could take three weeks worth of business in the space of a couple of hours deciding to close? I don't know what was said to them, but it sure must have been scary.”

Some Brave Army the EDL marching on its accelerated alcohol consumption?


Kingsbury Square, Aylesbury where all the pubs and cafes will close next Saturday

Some England, some defence? And who are the EDL? Well they have no discernible policy, have not been elected or stood in any democratic process and their web site consists of one long sneer against Muslim people quoting liberally from extremist and unrepresentative Muslim preachers to justify their obsessive fixation with “defending” the English against Islam?

The national leader of the English Defence League has warned that Saturday's demonstration in Aylesbury could be the first of many after a bitter row erupted with police and council bosses. Officers were hoping to keep EDL members on the outskirts of town before a rally in Market Square, to prevent skirmishes with counter demonstrators. But yesterday Tommy Robinson – not his real name – said EDL protestors are now planning to evade police and instead gather in Vale Park – where an anti-EDL demonstration is due to be held.


King's Head Aylesbury

He said: "If our demonstration doesn't go how we want it to go, we'll come back in six weeks. No other place has tried to block us like this one has." The EDL fell foul of police and council chiefs after trying to put up a stage and use loudspeakers – which they need a licence for. At a tense meeting on Monday, they were also told that they were not allowed to carry wooden framed banners. Coach loads of EDL members would have been met by police and escorted to Market Square, where they would have been contained inside solid barriers. Robinson said ominously: "We don't think they're doing well if they want it to go peacefully."

Here is a thoughtful article in the Guardian about this entirely bogus “protest” which is hijacking our town next Saturday by local resident and Labour Parliamentary Candidate in the forthcoming General Election, Kathryn White.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/09/english-defence-league-aylesbury

So in Aylesbury next Saturday let us keep our nerve with these unwanted and unwelcome visitors. As Communities Minister John Denham pointed out, “The tactic of trying to provoke a response in the hope of causing wider violence and mayhem is long established on the far-right and among extremist groups.” Let us remind ourselves of the EDL’s origins which highlights the ambiguous position that the BNP holds in regards to this new combination of football hooligan gangs and street racists. The BNP, and the NF before it, used to openly embrace football hooligans as useful muscle with a fierce nationalist pride. However, demonstrations and punch ups no longer fit with the image that the BNP tries to project, and so the EDL has filled a gap in far right politics that the BNP voluntarily vacated in its pursuit of votes.


The flower of England?

So does England need these “Defenders?” Well, England has defended itself fairly well in the past and I presume will do so very well in the future and the EDL membership will make no contribution either way. Like the ludicrous Nick Griffin, the convicted racist who leads the BNP, who surrounds himself in photo ops with make believe soldiers in battle fatigues the EDL will seek to use the last refuge of a scoundrel and these shower of aggressive, unemployed yobs will wrap themselves in false patriotism, a patriotism which probably doesn’t include not being dole scroungers? You have to wonder about the mentality of people whose idea of a good day out on a Bank Holiday weekend is to hold a market town and its diverse inhabitants to ransom. There is no point in me telling them not to come to Aylesbury for their tribal cow stomping because, lets face it, these yobs didn’t get where they are today by listening to others. There is also the practical point that if they were to get themselves tanked up, fight the other side in a macho male tribal display and then go home and watch their yobbery on TV after a footie match it would cost them a lot more than these members of the underachieving Master Race can afford.

Preserve us from such sham defenders; preserve us from such sham patriots.

Economic Crisis Update

Luckily the Chancellor Gordon Brown and the Deputy Chancellor Alistair Darling have kept on top of events since, led from the front and not looked like rabbits caught in headlights; There is no shubshitite fur eshperience ash Ghordon ofthen sheys!


A financial crisis unmatched since the Great Depression, say analysts

Guardian, London, March 18th 2008

A century after John Pierpont Morgan rescued the New York stockmarket from a 50% sell off in share prices, his blue-blooded Wall Street bank was yesterday once again at the heart of attempts to contain the deepening global financial crisis.

In an echo of the "bankers' panic" of 1907, JP Morgan responded to what is being billed as a meltdown of historic proportions by agreeing to buy its stricken rival, Bear Stearns.

The length and severity of the crisis that broke over global markets last summer has had analysts delving into their history books. George Soros, who was largely responsible for Black Wednesday, the last bout of serious financial turmoil to afflict the UK, believes there has been nothing to match the events of the past nine months since the Great Depression.

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Fed and the man blamed by many for setting off the boom-bust in the US housing market, agrees with the man who broke the Bank of England. Writing in the Financial Times yesterday, Greenspan said: "The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged as the most wrenching since the end of the second world war."

The first 25 years after the war were relatively trouble free. Britain had devalued the pound in 1949 and 1967, but the first real systemic threat to the financial system arrived in 1973 with the secondary banking crisis that affected the "fringe banks" that had provided money to speculators during the property boom. When the crash came, the Bank of England launched a "lifeboat" to prevent the crisis spreading.

Similar action by the Federal Reserve in 1998 contained the fallout from the collapse of Long Term Capital Management, a hedge fund that lost money in the aftermath of Russia's decision to default on its debts. By comparison with recent events, LTCM now seems to be a minor market wobble.

Students of the markets say the only recent parallel with the current turmoil is Japan in the 1990s, but other than that they have had to study the 1930s, when 9,000 banks failed, 1907 when JP Morgan told Wall Street enough was enough after a 50% drop in shares, and even to the series of economic and financial upheavals during the final quarter of the 19th century.

New York Fed Warns On Hedge Funds

New York Times - May 3, 2007

In what Reuters describes as its “sternest warning to date” on the state of the hedge-fund business, the New York Federal Reserve said Wednesday that the funds could represent the biggest risk for a financial crisis since 1998, when the implosion of Long-Term Capital Management threatened global markets.

“Recent high correlations among hedge fund returns could suggest concentrations of risk comparable to those preceding the hedge fund crisis of 1998,” according to a paper written by Tobias Adrian, capital markets economist at the central bank.

Regulation — or lack thereof — of the $1.4 trillion industry has become a battle ground for regulators and lawmakers. The meltdown of Long-Term Capital is often cited as a cautionary tale by those arguing for more oversight of the lightly-regulated investment pools. The crisis at Long-Term Capital took the market by surprise and resulted in The Fed forcing an unprecedented $3.6 billion bailout.

The Fed’s latest worry arose from what it described as a rising correlation between the actual returns of hedge funds, which could point to similar trading strategies that excessively concentrate risk on too few market positions.

Mind the Gap

For a London Underground commuter there is probably nothing more grating than young visitors on the Tube endlessly repeating “Mind the Gap” in a loud voice to their friends as if it was the funniest expression on the planet. Still in more considered moments it is a sign that this expression has now gained a life of its own and has been the subject (and title) of books, articles, campaigns and even a movie!

“Mind the Gap” is not just an announcement that you'll hear on London's Underground railway system when a train arrives at a station. Much more than just a warning about the “gap” between a carriage and the platform, it's a phrase that has entered popular culture and become synonymous with London. People who have visited England's capital city say “Mind the Gap” to each other - often accompanied by knowing glances and subtle nods - while the rest of the world wonders what they are on about.

“Mind the Gap” is part of the London mindset. The phrase originated on the Northern Line, where the gaps between the curved train platforms at Embankment Station and the train itself were particularly large.

The biggest gaps one needs to mind are at Bank Station on the Central line and at Waterloo Station on the Bakerloo line. Basically, early in the history of Tube-line building the companies had to build their railways beneath public roads, so sharp curves were required at some points. Allegedly, the slightly-off-putting gap at Bank is so large because the tunnel diggers of the time had to swerve a lot to miss the Bank of England's vaults.

Pity then the dolorous tale of one Emma Clarke who has enjoyed many years of anonymous fame as the voice heard by millions of Tube travellers each day, warning them to “Mind the Gap”. But now a gap has opened in the career of Emma Clarke after she criticised the Underground system and spoofed her own announcements on the internet.



TfL bosses have said that they will not provide the voiceover artist with any more work. A Transport for London spokesman said: “London Underground is sorry to have to announce that further contracts for Ms Clarke are experiencing severe delays.”

Ms Clarke, 36, from Altrincham, Cheshire, criticised the system in a newspaper interview after she produced spoof announcements on her website. She apparently said that while living in Highgate, North London, she used to take the Tube every day, but had refused to use it any longer because it was “dreadful”.

Ms Clarke, whose voice is now well known to the estimated billion passengers who use the Tube network each year, put her joke messages on the website she created this month after asking friends what they would most like to hear.

Ms Clarke said she was “very disappointed” and upset at the reaction of TfL, but still harboured hope that the row with the network could be resolved. “The first step is for us to have a conversation,” she said. “I hope they hear my point of view, and take on board that I wasn’t criticising London Underground or the Tube system.”

In a report in The Times, she said that the comments had been taken out of context. “I did not say that the Northern Line was dreadful. I did say it’s a challenging line. What I did say was dreadful was the thought of being in a Tube train listening to my own voice.” Emma, who is also an actress and playwright obviously moved to the country (Cheshire) from London for a lifestyle change and put up a rather good website to showcase her talents; http://www.emmaclarke.com/ It includes a whole page on the Tube with lots of links and background information which shows some affection and admiration for the Tube but even its most ardent admirers do, at times, get fed up when things go wrong but more especially with the sometimes selfish and inconsiderate behaviour of fellow passengers who forget notions of neighbourliness in Tube carriages.


Emma Clarke

These are reflected in some of Emma Clarke's Tube spoofs on her website;

In one spoof announcement she said: “Here we are crammed again into a sweaty Tube carriage . . . If you are female, smile at the bloke next to you and make his day. He’s probably not had sex for months.”

Peeping Toms were singled out in another message when she said: “Would the passenger . . . pretending to read a paper but who is actually staring at that woman’s chest please stop. You’re not fooling anyone, you filthy pervert.”

In another one spoof, Ms Clarke attacked the mindset of some Londoners. She said: “Residents of London are reminded that there are other places in Britain outside your stinking city and, if you remove your heads from your backsides for just a couple of minutes, you may realise the M25 is not the edge of the Earth.”

In another she said: “Passengers should note that the bearded rucksack contains the following items only: some sandwiches, a library card and picture of a bare ankle, and is no cause for concern.”

“Passengers are asked not to drop litter on the train. Please use the tramps provided”

“Passengers are reminded a smile is a friendship signal, not a sign of weakness”

“We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly”

“Would passengers filling in their Su Dokus please accept that they are just crosswords for the unimaginative and are not more impressive because they contain numbers.”

“Would the passenger in the pinstripe suit and £1,000 glasses who obviously works in the media please take one step forward on to the track”

The fame of “Mind the Gap” is widespread. “Mind the Gap” was the name chosen for a pictorial book put together by Simon James. As well as the excellent, often quirky pictures of the London Underground, this book also features a commentary on stations to be found at the end of Tube lines. In the book's foreword, Michael Palin,- campaigner for better public transport (and well known traveller) - writes:

“”Mind the Gap”, perhaps the most famous phrase associated with the London Underground, must surely have the creators of the system spinning in their graves. It's an acknowledgement that the thing doesn't quite work. That however fast and frequent the service, however comprehensive the network, the trains don't always fit the platforms. There's not much in it - but enough to warrant painted signs and recorded warnings.

It is very much a book about gaps, not just gaps between the train and the platform, but between the designer and user, staff and passenger. And between dreams and reality, “Mind the Gap” in capturing the elusive appeal of the stations at the ends of the lines, gives gentle but perceptive insights into the way we live now.”

There was a short-lived TV game show called Mind the Gap. Hosted by Paul Ross, the set mirrored a tube platform.

The set is a side-on Underground platform - very nicely executed, with the proper London Underground symbols and typography. The tunnel contains a massive screen which displays the Underground map, and seems to use a projector rather than a TV wall. Music is a jazz-style affair, with a kind of scratching sound effect of a man going 'M-M-M-Mind the Gap' over the top. Looks like it's destined straight for the Challenge TV channel on cable.1

One of the funniest urban legends about 'Mind the Gap' is as follows:

“Once you are on a train platform, beware! Approaching trains sometimes disturb the large Gappe bats that roost in the tunnels. The Gappes were smuggled into London in the early 19th Century by French saboteurs and have proved impossible to exterminate. The announcement 'Mind the Gappe!' is a signal that you should grab your hair and look towards the ceiling. Very few people have ever been killed by Gappes, though, and they are considered only a minor drawback to an otherwise excellent means of transportation.”



The female voice for the recorded announcement of 'Mind the Gap' is nicknamed 'Sonia' by tube drivers. Why? Because her voice 'gets so on yer nerves', they collectively reply. Apparently 'Sonia' is thought to be a bit too posh in some circles. In recent tests somebody mimicking the voice of Marilyn Monroe proved to be a favourite.

The “Mind the Gap” announcement has been sampled into music tracks by at least two dance bands. Lectrolux's Mind the Gap can be heard on an album called Sounds of the Hoover 2 (CD2). It is also on Pumpin by the musicians Novy Vs Eniac.

And like most minor celebrities “Mind the Gap” has had a bit part in the movies. A 1970s horror film sporting the somewhat off-putting name(s) The Death Line or Raw Meat featured ghoulish man-eating underground troglodytes. These beasts constantly repeated the phrase 'Mind the Doors' (OK, so it's not “Mind the Gap”, but it's close). The film 'stars' Donald Pleasance and Christopher Lee. Its fairly absurd plot revolves around a turn of the century cave-in on the London Underground. Pleasance plays a detective investigating a string of murders who is handicapped by a distinct lack of corpses. Presumably, they were eaten by the cannibal Tube dwellers from days of yore. “Beneath modern London buried alive in its plague-ridden tunnels lives a tribe of once humans” the poster for the film screams. “Neither men nor women, they are less than animals... they are the raw meat of the human race.”


Mind the Gap

Indeed, these are not sentiments Tube commuters would agree with! As for Emma Clarke herself the torrent of publicity can only have clients queuing at her door and she is obviously a “Star” so I hope TfL and she will have the “conversation” she has asked for. I leave the last word to a supportive email she received from the United States published on her website;

“I read with dismay about your ‘sacking’ by Transport for London. I have visited England a few times as a tourist since you began your tenure with TfL. My wife and I always use the Tube to get around London and did admire its service. I want to register a protest with TfL for its lack of a sense of humour! In this day and age we should recognise what is important, and what can add a bit of a smile to our days. Your “spoofs” were separate from the Tube and could not have confused or dismayed any passengers travelling. In the US, Southwest Airlines is known for its flight attendants joking commentary made before, during and after a flight. No one at Southwest has felt it necessary to reprimand or “sack” an employee who has injected some levity into their travel. It’s time for TfL to get a sense of humour, rehire you and maybe even use a few of your “spoofs” either in advertising or in the Tube. Please forward this e-mail to TfL.”