Bozza’s Bollo

Boris who?

Well Mayor Boris Johnson got some sound bite headlines as he claimed he was planning to confront President Obama over millions of pounds owed by the US embassy in congestion charges, during his visit to London. But as is so typical with Bozza this turned out to be sound without substance or all “piss and wind” as they say in the parts of the country Bozza is unfamiliar with, like Liverpool.


Boris Hall

Several embassies refuse to pay the charge for driving in central London, claiming they are exempted from local taxes. The total bill stands at £51m. "Maybe when President Obama's hors d'oeuvre plate is whisked away he will find a bill for £5.5m," he said. The US embassy said it considered the charge to be a "direct tax".


Bozza signing a petition against Tube Ticket Office closures

Speaking to Vanessa Feltz the mayor said he may be "shepherded away" from Mr Obama but added: "If I get the chance to I will remind him that the US owes us £5.5m in congestion charge.”I think if they are going to have the representation here in London then they should pay the charge for driving and using our streets.


The Con Charge

So 'No representation without a congestion charge' is the slogan." Several embassies refuse to pay the £10-a-day charge and the £120 fine incurred through not doing so. The charge was £8.00 a day when Boris was elected in 2008 promising not to increase it. But Mr Johnson said: "It is not a tax, it is a charge for services and I think we should test this in the courts. That of course is NOT what Boris said when running for election as on this clip;



The American Embassy says;

"Our position on the direct tax established by Transport for London in 2003, more commonly known as the congestion charge, is based on the 1960 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which prohibits the direct taxation of diplomatic missions."

I once had a Law Lecturer who said the best guide to the Company’s Act was to read it so in the same spirit I actually read Article 23 of the Vienna Convention;

Article 23

1. The sending State and the head of the mission shall be exempt from all national, regional or municipal dues and taxes in respect of the premises of the mission, whether owned or leased, other than such as represent payment for specific services rendered.

2. The exemption from taxation referred to in this article shall not apply to such dues and taxes payable under the law of the receiving State by persons contracting with the sending State or the head of the mission.

Seems plain enough to me but unlike Bozza I’m not an Oxford educated Classics Scholar – maybe our fearless Mayor, that scourge of burglars, Greeks, piccaninnies, Scousers and embassies would understand it better if it was in Latin?


Boris who?

So file this one away along with all the other Bozza Bollo entries like I’m going to get a strike free deal on the Tube, I’ll introduce the Bicycle scheme at zero cost to Council Tax payers (£43 million and rising), I’ll get rid of Bendy Buses ditto and I won’t increase fares above inflation. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Bozza’s Bus for London

It has always been my ambition to become the name of a common place object like Benedict Arnold became “Eggs Benedict” or Earl Grey became a tea. So I must resent the current Mayor for London, Boris Johnson, (Note; Up for re-election in May 2012) for his effortless accomplishment in this area. He promised Londoner’s “at no cost” a bicycle hire scheme and so (at a cost of £35 M+) we get the “Boris Bikes.” He promised to get rid of “Bendy Buses” and now we have the “Bozza Bus” – well 5 of them due for delivery in 2012, just around the time I predict Boris will be leaving office. A full-scale model of London's new Routemaster bus has been unveiled.


Boris Johnson in front of the original Routemaster launching the design competition for a "New Bus for London - NB4L"

London mayor Boris Johnson said the buses, which will come into service 2012, were a combination of "nostalgia" and the "latest technology". The fuel-efficient bus will be quieter than its diesel-run predecessor and have a platform offering passengers the traditional hop-on hop-off service. Wrightbus is making the vehicle at Ballymena in Northern Ireland and the full size model has gone on show at Acton Transport Depot in west London where London’s Transport Museum keeps its “Big stuff”.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/londons-transport-museum.html

The vehicle was designed by Thomas Heatherwick of Foster Design, with its interior inspired by the old Routemaster. The new bus will return to the driver-and-conductor model - a key feature of the original version. The old Routemaster was withdrawn from regular service in 2005 and now runs just on two heritage routes in London.

Lord Foster said: “I am delighted that we have won joint first prize with the Aston Martin/Foster + Partners design. This project has really captured my imagination. London’s buses are so much a part of the essence of this city – functionally, symbolically and geographically. They help us draw a mental map – their destinations are London’s historic places, often green: Shepherds Bush, Islington Green, Hampstead Heath, Green Park. Our design seeks to combine contemporary innovation with timelessness. Like the original Routemaster – which was ahead of its time and consequently endured – a new bus for London should establish a whole new travel experience that espouses 21st century aspirations, while celebrating the memory and the experience of the original.”



Mr Johnson said: "Standing on the rear platform of this delectable bus brings back a sense of nostalgia but conversely also demonstrates the quintessence of the latest technology and design, making this bus fit for the 21st Century. It is wonderful to see those two-dimensional designs we unveiled in May have been forged into this amazing bus and I cannot wait to be launching the buses when they first enter public service in 2012." Mark Nodder, managing director of the manufacturer's parent company Wright Group, said seeing the design come to life was "a real thrill".

Jo deBank, of pressure group London TravelWatch, said while innovations in design were welcome, her organisation had concerns about passenger safety on the open platform at the rear of the vehicle. "We also question the cost of two-man operated buses at a time when Transport for London's budget is under real pressure, and we already have concerns about a reduction in services," she said. A prototype will be delivered by next year and the first five new buses will be seen on the roads by early 2012.

But here is a not untypical comment from the London Evening Standard;

"Bendy buses are atrocious. I don't travel on them but they look so dangerous and it's like cattle class with nowhere to stand."

That tells you great deal about the Bendy 'debate' – much of the debate has been informed by people who don't use the buses but now believe they can't sit down on them, can't stand up on them and that they might veer off the road and murder their children at the drop of a hat. As for the Routemaster debate let’s agree that the Routemaster (and the RT) were revolutionary 40 years ago with their narrow, compact design, light weight due to the use of aluminium (and a fibreglass bonnet) responsive engine and automatic gearbox. But they were a product of their time (and a massive centralised organisation which military style rebuilt them every 7 years) and the lack of access and running costs of having a conductor (who with Oyster would NOT take fares) cannot be justified today. More seriously what are the public safety implications of an open platform, who NOW designs a transport solution with a known fatal risk factor? It would be interesting to have a crystal ball and earwig how that one would play in a future court case?


London's iconic Routemaster Bus

The Old Routemaster wasn't just a bus; it was an iconic example of industrial engineering-cum-aesthetic tour de force which was every bit as important to Londoners and tourists alike as Big Ben, Carnaby Street in the swinging sixties and the dear old Queen Mum. Launching in 1954 and built by the Associated Equipment Company, it became a recognisable worldwide symbol of London, adorning postcards and becoming the must-have holiday snap for international visitors.



However for all Bozza the Buses excitement at his new Boy Toy there are some significant drawbacks. First there is the small matter of costs and revenue. Five buses are being built by Wrightbus at £7.8 million or £1.56 M a copy. OK this is for a prototype but there is no certainty it will go into to production so this Boris Toy could be a very expensive vanity project which will leave Londoner’s short-changed, have less capacity than the “Bendy Buses” (90 to 149) and be difficult for people of limited mobility, with shopping or children. To be anyway competitive the “New Routemaster” will need to be manufactured in its thousands which seems unlikely. And with two stairs and 3 entrances will this not seem a somewhat extravagant example of overdesign to solve a problem which isn’t really there? The previous Routemaster had mechanical simplicity on its side which is why it lasted over 40 years – will the same be said of the Bozza Bus?


The Bozza Bus

Why do we believe that there is something so unique about the streets of London that it requires a special bus which by its very nature would fly in the face of procurement efficiency? Is this not a solution which would have obsolescence built in, another in a long line of British World Beaters which never beat anything?


See also;

Bend it like Boris

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/10/bend-it-like-boris.html

A Bus for London

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/10/bus-for-london.html

Routemaster to Perdition

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/12/routemaster-to-perdition.html

London’s Wunderground

Though we take it for granted, and frequently curse it to high heaven, the London Underground is a wonder. The Tube network is the oldest and longest underground railway system serving a major city. Its history goes back to 1863, its conception even earlier.

For the full story see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

The Tube has driven engineering developments and creative design. It has featured in countless books, songs, films and poems. It has been the site of births and deaths, and bombs planted by everyone from pre-war anarchists to suffragettes, the IRA to the Islamist suicide bombers of 2005. Yet this venerable railway system keeps going, keeps growing and keeps enabling more than one billion Londoners a year to make their daily commute.

Here, partly extracted from David Long's The Little Book of London Underground, are some facts to fascinate about the Tube.

A Metropolitan tunnel visionary



In 1845 Charles Pearson, MP and Solicitor to the City of London, proposed alleviating congestion for London's 250,000 commuters by inventing an “arcade railway” underground in the shallow tunnels of what was once the bed of the Fleet River, from Farringdon to King's Cross. Pearson also proposed rehousing 50,000 City slum dwellers in seven new suburbs, and redeveloping the land they vacated to offset the cost of the new railway. Sadly, Pearson died a month before his vision became a reality in 1863.

Earl's Court goes up in the world



The first escalator on the Underground was installed at Earl's Court in 1911. A one-legged man, “Bumper” Harris, was employed to ride on it and demonstrate its safety. There was a certain synergy here as both the leg and the escalator threads were wooden! Afterwards Bumper Harris retired to Gloucester where he made cider. Unlike modern “comb” escalators, the original “shunt” mechanism ended with a diagonal so that the stairway finished sooner for the right foot than for the left. Anyone not wishing to walk on the escalator was therefore asked to stand to the right to allow others to pass, leading to Britain's unique flouting of escalator etiquette which dictates in most countries that escalators tend to match the rules of the road.

No dead ends on the Jubilee

In 1926, “suicide pits” were introduced beneath the tracks because of a rise in numbers of passengers throwing themselves in front of trains. Uniquely, the eastern extension of the Jubilee line — the only one of two lines on the London Underground to connect with all others (The other, since the closure of the East London Line, is the Central) — features glass screens to deter “jumpers”. They also ensure platform edge safety and stop litter being sucked into tunnels, the major cause of tunnel fires on the Underground. Still, approximately 50 passengers a year kill themselves on the Underground.

Where modern tunneling was invented


The Thames Tunnel designed by Marc Brunel father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel constructed in 1840

The East London Line has always been somewhat unique as the only Underground Line which doesn’t go through Central London, having two termini only 600 metres apart and having the oldest tunnel on the system, the Thames Tunnel designed by Marc Brunel, father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel dating from 1840 and which along with the Tower Hill subway was the first sub-aqueous tunnel in modern times. There is reference to a tunnel in Babylon, but no archaeological evidence. More importantly it was the tunnel where modern tunnelling methods were developed and though underground and largely unseen it is a listed building!


Brunel's Thames Tunnel before the East London Line closed for refurbishment

For more on the Thames Tunnel and the East London Line see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/12/east-london-line.html

Torture comes full Circle

The Circle line opened in 1884 and was described in The Times as “a form of mild torture which no person would undergo if he could conveniently help it” – Conservative papers are still pro Public Transport to this day! Conditions haven't improved much in the intervening century or so, with a House of Commons report published in 2004 claiming that commuters face “a daily trauma” and “intolerable conditions” on the Tube.



The Northern's highs and lows

The Northern line includes the deepest tunnel (at Hampstead) and the highest elevation (the Dollis Brook viaduct) on the line to Mill Hill East, the only part of the pre-war extension to Elstree actually built. Its ticket office at Bank was originally situated in the Crypt of St Mary Woolnoth. The first crash on the Tube occurred on the line in 1938 when two trains collided between Waterloo and Charing Cross, injuring 12 passengers.

Early birds catch the Piccadilly

The Tube runs 24 hours a day only at New Year and major events — such as the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics — because most lines have only two tracks, one in each direction. It closes at night for cleaning and maintenance. The earliest trains, such as from Osterley to Heathrow on the Piccadilly line, start from 4.45am, with the rest operating by 5.30am and continuing until about 1am.
Digging deep for the Victoria



The Victoria line was built to link King's Cross, Victoria and Euston and proposed names included Viking line, for Victoria to King's Cross, and Walvic (Walthamstow to Victoria). Tunnelling close to Buckingham Palace and major government departments, 2,500 miners excavated an estimated one million tons of earth, uncovering fossilised marine molluscs and human bones from an old plague pit along the way.



New arrival on the Bakerloo

In 1924, the first baby was allegedly born on the Underground, on a train at Elephant & Castle on the Bakerloo line. Twenty years later, US TV host Jerry Springer was born at East Finchley station, where his mother had taken shelter from an air raid. The Bakerloo line was the creation of two notorious wheeler-dealers, James Whitaker Wright and an American Charles Tyson Yerkes who ran the Underground from a suite at the Savoy Hotel where he had installed his mistress! Builders working on it suffered from the bends while tunnelling under the Thames. Yerkes owned one of the larger art collections in the United States and was reputed to buy ‘old masters’ as others would buy books. The combination of his mastery of financial manipulation and his love of the arts was instrumental in bringing together this unlikely partnership on a railway network.



London was ripe for the skills of Yerkes at the turn of the century with the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway virtually moribund in 1901 when its own financiers, the London & Globe, went into administration. Yerkes soon formed a holding company, the Underground Electric Railways of London Ltd, and the Bakerloo was soon joined by, what are now, the District and the then unbuilt Piccadilly Line and west end branch of the Northern Line (the Hampstead Tube).



Grand Central passengers



The inaugural journey of the first Central line train in 1900 had the Prince of Wales and Mark Twain on board. The tunnels beneath the City curve dramatically because they follow its medieval street plan to avoid paying building owners for “wayleave rights”. The Central line also introduced the first flat fare: tuppence, hence its nickname the “two penny tube”.

Distance no object for map genius


Harry Beck's original map

Harry Beck produced the first version of his famous diagrammatic Tube map while working as an engineering draughtsman at the London Underground Signals Office, and was paid 10 guineas (£10.50) for his efforts. He believed that once underground, passengers were less bothered about relative distances between stations — the blueprint for the original Tube maps — and more interested in how to get from one station to another and where to change. First submitted in 1931, his map was considered too radical but the public embraced it and it became official in 1933. Beck's design classic has been altered many times since; last month TFL was forced to return the River Thames to a new “decluttered” map after outrage over its removal.



See also;

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

Ah, look at all the familiar buskers

Busking has been licensed on the Tube since 2003, but before that Sting and Paul McCartney both allegedly plied their trade on the Underground, in disguise as did Cat Stevens before he was famous.

Every tile tells a story


Paolozzi's abstract mosaics at Tottenham Court Road

The tiles at Leicester Square depict film sprockets; Baker Street has Sherlock Holmes, Oval cricketers, while Eduardo Paolozzi's abstract mosaics at Tottenham Court Road celebrate nearby musical Denmark Street. The early Underground companies all faced the same problem - how to maximise the illumination of their gloomy gas-lit platforms. The only answer until then was masses of plain white reflective tiling. However, by the turn of the century, with electric lighting improving all the time, thoughts of something more than functional resulted in stations having unique polychrome tile decorations. The tiling of over 90 tube platforms, and associated passageways, staircases and surface-level booking halls, probably amounted to the largest single creation of decorative art on public display anywhere.

Perchance to Dream .....

One of the most satisfying moments on a crowded Tube Train is when suddenly you stop thinking of the Aussie controlled haversack banging into you every time its owner moves or the blast of sound from the zombie commuter with the ridiculous headphones unconscious of your presence. Between the strap hangers your eyes alight on a Poem on the Underground cab card and as you read you are transported to a different place where there are fields of daffodils, floating clouds and babbling brooks. You have discovered, been delighted and most possibly gone on your way happier because of one of the most successful Public Art programmes, London’s famous “Poems on the Underground.”



Poems on the Underground were launched in 1986. The programme was the brainchild of American writer Judith Chernaik, whose aim was to bring poetry to the wide ranging audience of passengers on the Underground. Judith Chernaik, together with poets Cicely Herbert and Gerard Benson, continue to select poems for inclusion in the programme which provides relief and interest to the commuters who make over 3.5 million journeys on the Underground each weekday.

For more on Poems on the Underground see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/06/poems-on-underground.html

Tragedy stubs out smoking

A discarded match was thought to be the cause of the King's Cross fire in November 1987 which killed 31 people. The blaze started in a shaft by a wooden escalator serving the deep-level Piccadilly line and spread to the ticket hall above. Although smoking had been banned on Tube trains three years earlier a similar ban was not enforced on platforms or within stations. The escalator running track was covered in grease and rubbish, causing flames to spread rapidly. Smoking was then banned throughout the Tube network.



Everyday warning for city folk



The recording of the phrase “Mind the gap” dates from 1968, and is voiced by Peter Lodge, who owned a recording company in Bayswater. He stepped in apparently when the actor hired to record the lines insisted on royalties. There have been several books, a gameshow, two theatre companies, several films and lots of songs called Mind the Gap. While Lodge's recording is still in use, some lines use recordings by Manchester voice artist Emma Clarke, while commuters on the Piccadilly line hear the voice of Tim Bentinck, who plays David Archer in The Archers.

For the full story see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/mind-gap.html

Famous logo still doing the rounds



In 1908 the Tube, while not yet a unified service, was officially rebranded as the underground and the “roundel” logo was adopted. The bar-and-circle was used as part of the name boards at stations and the distinctive red and blue design enabled them to be easily identified. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since.

For more on Charles Holden and his unique Underground design legacy see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html


Lonely outposts south of the river

Less than 10 per cent of Tube stations lie south of the Thames. There are two reasons; The London Clay south of the river made tunnelling more difficult and the Southern railway electrified using third rail to increase service times and frequency to stop the (then) private Tube companies encroaching on their territory. They also built the “Drain” now the Waterloo and City Line to connect their main terminus with the City of London. This line was only transferred to London Underground in 1993. They also co-owned the Baker Street to Waterloo Line (Bakerloo Line) to connect Waterloo Station to the West End of London and later another railway, the LMS from Euston, extended this line over its network to Queen’s Park and Watford Junction.



7/7: London's date with terror

On 7 July 2005 a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks during the morning rush hour killed 56 people and injured 700. Three bombs exploded within 50 seconds of each other at Edgware Road, Aldgate and King's Cross and a fourth exploded an hour later on a bus in Tavistock Square. The attacks by four suicide bombers on the London Transport system on 7th July 2005 were the largest mass murder in Britain in peacetime killing 52 passengers on The Tube and on the No. 30 bus at Tavistock Square and injuring 800 more, many seriously. Injured or not, and serious or not all who lived through the experience carry vivid and unsettling memories. There is a curious obscenity about suicide bombing, about the personal fascism which rationalises killing yourself and complete strangers you have first looked in the eye because you have convinced yourself it is for a greater good. There is a particular perversity, if you have religious faith, in destroying what you believe are God’s creations because you have appointed yourself as God’s representative and indeed have convinced yourself that shortly afterwards you will be personally thanked by Him.




See also:

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/07/london-77-bombings-memorial.html


Just squeaking into the records



An estimated half a million mice live in the Underground system. Unfortunately they are a protected species as they have fast tracked evolution to adapt to the environment – They have done in 50 years what Mr. Darwin said they would do in 500 years. Unfortunately (for their exterminators) they have also become famous giving rise to an animated feature (Tube Mice – 1988) and “Underneath the Underground” a series of books by Anthea Turner (remember her?) and her journalist sister, Wendy.

Camera, lights, action stations



Famous “ghost”(i.e. disused) stations include Aldwych, British Museum, Down Street, King William Street and Lord's and are used many times a month as sets for films or TV programmes, although none featuring vandalism, firearms, fare evasion, smoking, terrorism or nudity. Lots of stations have closed down, but are still sitting there in a strangely unnerving way (unnerving, anyway, for anyone who has seen Quatermass and the Pit).

They are: Aldwych (closed 1994), Blake Hall (1983), British Museum (1933), Brompton Road (1934), City Road (1922), Down Street (1932), Lords (1939), Marlborough Road (1939), Ongar and North Weald (1994)South Acton (1959), South Kentish Town (1924), St Mary's (1938), Uxbridge Road (1947), White City (1959) and York Road (1932).



Bet you Didn't Know This!

Croxley, the first station outside Zone 6 on the Metropolitan Line is the only station to contain the letter 'X'.

The original Jubilee Line extension went from Charing Cross through Aldwych to New Cross on the East London Line. Indeed, 100 metres of tunnel was built at Aldwych for this purpose - then the project was dumped. So the Picadilly isn't the only line to have abandoned tunnel at Aldwych after all.

St. Paul's on the Central Line used to be called 'Post Office'.

The District Line used to run alongside the Piccadilly to Hounslow Central before the Heathrow extension was built and the section diverted to the Central terminus at Ealing Broadway.

Some of the foregoing is taken from;

The Little Book of the London Underground, by David Long, £9.99

The rest is taken from a very dark place!

Tunnel vision

In ancient Rome when the mob was getting anxious the nervous Emperor in his great palace on the Palatine Hill would lay on “Bread and Circuses” to placate the mob and stave off riots which might threaten his throne. So free food would be given out to the poor and bloody gladiatorial gore-fests would be staged at the Coliseum to entertain the restless mob. By the end of the Empire there was no substance left just Bread and Circuses. So what are we to make of the latest initiative on the London Underground against a background where line closures are beginning to bite hard? Want to go by Tube to the O2 this weekend? Forget it the Jubilee Line is COMPLETELY closed. Want to go to Heathrow Airport on the Piccadilly Line? You guessed it, it’s not a flyer! Want to go round the Circle Line? Sorry it’s not the Full Circle this weekend! Want to go to Amersham, Chesham or Watford on the Metropolitan Line? Forget it it’s better by bus, but not a disabled friendly bus as who takes phase 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act (since October 2006) seriously?


Heathrow is cut off this weekend

Against this background of widespread disruption and loss of service the London Evening Standard reports that drivers on the Piccadilly line are to operate on a higher plane by adding doses of philosophy to their daily announcements. Instead of simply apologising for delays while the service is regularised, operators can draw on the wisdom of Greek philosophers and political thinkers and the bon mots of Shakespeare to add variety to the day. All have been compiled by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller in a passport-sized book which has been distributed to all the drivers and staff on the route. Well I wasted good money once going to see the Turner Prize so I wouldn’t take the fact that Jeremy Deller has won it as a positive reference!

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/joseph-beuys-and-me.html

They range from the uplifting (“Nothing is worth more than this day” from Johann von Goethe, the German writer) to the sobering (“Man is in a strict sense entirely animal” — French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal). The title of booklet is taken from Shakespeare's Coriolanus: “What is the City but the People?”

Mr Deller said: “I often wish announcements were more personal and reflected the realities and absurdities of living and working in a big city. I think the travelling public will enjoy some humour and unexpected insight during their journey.” London Underground hopes that by encouraging Tube staff to talk directly to customers with appropriate wit and wisdom, they will lift the moods of travellers.


Ja, Time is a variable on ze Tube

Transport for London is also handing over disused shop display cases at Piccadilly Circus for more art, including a bust of Jennifer Lopez, a floating starfish and a display of album covers.

How this entertainment on the Tube goes down with its Controller, that great classicist, The Emperor Boris is not known as he doesn’t appear to be a fan of public transport in practice? Boris Johnson's image as a bicycling, penny-pinching Mayor took a blow as it emerged that he had spent more than £4,500 of public money on taxis - with one bill alone topping £237. Indeed the difficulty of the approach of concentrating on Bread and Circuses and not substance was wonderfully illustrated last Monday week for an “Art on the Underground” special to celebrate 30 years of the Jubilee Line (the one which opened the year after the “Jubilee” and is closed this weekend) where free posters were being given out to customers as they experienced disrupted service on the err, eeerr, Jubilee Line!

Maybe the Emperor Boris needs to avert his gaze from his taxi receipts and stop the decline of his Empire?

Tunnel droppings – Here are some of the sayings which will either cheer you up or drive you insane on the Piccadilly Line. We apologise for this delay to your service, but to live is to dream...

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences: Robert G. Ingersoll.

Beauty will save the world: Fydor Dostoevsky.

Hell is other people: Jean-Paul Sartre.

To live is to dream: Friedrich Schiller.

Life is one long process of getting tired: Samuel Butler.

Without music, life would be a mistake: Friedrich Nietzsche.

The only man who can change his mind is a man who's got one: Seneca.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory: Friedrich Engels.

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them: Benjamin Jowett


Taxi!

And to show how ingrained The Tube is in the heart of the Nation the former paper of record, The Times, published the following today in its Leader column, no less!

Underground wisdom

Some suggestions for tags from philosophers on the London Tube announcements.

“All cha-a-ange at Earls Court for Southfields -

We are merely the stars' tennis balls, stuck and bandied which way please them: John Webster.”

“Mi-i-i-nd the gap - ...

Through me lies the way to the Ninth Circle Line: through me the way to eternal grief: Abandon all hope, you who enter the Underground: Dante.”

“Escalator work is taking place at Bank ...

Facilis descensus Averno: but to make your way out again to the upper air, that's the sweat: Virgil.”

“This train will not stop at Archway ...

Hell is other people: Jean-Paul Sartre.”

“This is the Mornington Crescent train ...



There is more to life than increasing its speed: Mahatma Gandhi.”

“Ickenham, Hillingdon, UXBRIDGE ...

To travel hopefully is better than to arrive: Robert Louis Stevenson.”

“Move right down the train ...

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made: Kant”

“Let the passengers off first ...

Travel teaches toleration: Disraeli.”

“The northern exit at Notting Hill is closed until May 2020 for essential renovation work ...

What people travel for is a mystery: Thomas Babington Macaulay.”

“This train is now relocating from a Wimbledon to an Ealing Broadway train ...

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are: Dr Johnson.”

Crackle. Bang. SCREECH. Such words of the sages will be wasted on the foetid Underground air unless they improve the deafening and inaudible Victorian communication equipment.

Tube Strike; The Reviews

Bob Crow of the RMT

Well the two day RMT Strike which brought misery and inconvenience to millions of Londoners and visitors to the capital is over and the “reviews” are in. Inconvenience it certainly brought to those who work in the capital but it brought misery to the elderly, the disabled and those who were travelling for hospital and medical appointments. And it brought hardship to temporary workers who lost money by being unable to work unlike the secure well remunerated jobs with final salary pensions of those who caused the disruption.

The RMT Tube Strike caused major disruption in London Town in the morning rush hour on the first day and the public view was the Capital being held to ransom by small group who are England’s equivalent of the Teamsters! The alternative travel arrangements in London were pants! - Bus lanes were blocked with deliveries; there were road works all over the place and empty tourist buses just parked with no customers blocking the red buses full to the gunwales. Londoner's need joined up Government and planning - not what we have seen during the strike - All soundbite and waffle with no reality on the ground. Worst of all was the World Cup qualifier at Wembley where Wembley Stadium Station was closed from midday to “avoid” overcrowding despite three train companies being scheduled to run trains to the station for the match.



On the Wednesday morning Chiltern railways lost the Aylesbury Line through Amersham because the LU signal box at Amersham wasn’t manned and despite assurances the same thing happened next morning when Harrow on the Hill signals were not manned. Getting to Marylebone from Princes Risborough on the first morning of the strike the Underground station was firmly closed. I made the mistake of getting the No. 453 bendy bus but congestion was woeful in London with road works and deliveries on Red Routes (legal up to 11 am and not suspended during the strikes) and the Bendy being torturous in heavy traffic. I abandoned the bus and walked the rest of the way across London in heavy rain.

But what a difference a day makes. This morning (Thursday) Marylebone Underground was open and trains were running freely on the Bakerloo, Jubilee and most Tube Lines. Clearly the strike had lost support, more were coming to work and the situation improved as the day went on. What also was striking were the Tube staff talking to and helping passengers who clearly appreciated those who kept the service running.


Tube trains stuck in the depot

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said he "deplored" the Tube strike, as services slowly returned to normal following the 48-hour walkout. The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) action ended at 1859 BST but Transport for London (TfL) said a full service would not resume until Friday morning.

Liberal Democrat Lord Bradshaw called the behaviour of RMT leader Bob Crow and strikers "utterly reprehensible". The walkout followed a breakdown in pay talks with London Underground (LU). Further talks between the LU and RMT - which wants a 5% pay rise and a promise of no compulsory redundancies - will be held next week to try to end the dispute.



During a Lords debate on public transport, Lord Adonis said: "I deplore the underground strike in London today and urge the RMT to engage constructively with Transport for London to ensure that there is no repetition." Lord Bradshaw said: "The behaviour of Mr Crow and the RMT is utterly reprehensible. There are mechanisms for dealing with disputes. People working on the Underground are well paid and they have long holidays. The strikers' behaviour has been pretty disgraceful."

He added: "Londoners are being held to ransom and many people who are in fear of losing their jobs are making extraordinary efforts to get to work because they think that if they are missed for a couple of days they can be missed for a good deal longer."



On Thursday Mr Crow accused London mayor Boris Johnson of "playing politics" with the Tube by deliberately intervening to scupper a last-minute deal. Mr Johnson said the allegation was "completely untrue". Union boss Bob Crow today gloated over the "success" of the Tube strike as he threatened more walkouts. The RMT leader said his members could launch fresh industrial action as early as two weeks' time - despite signs of the strike crumbling. Many picket lines were deserted today and London Underground managed to run trains on nine out of 11 lines.

But millions of commuters were caught up in gridlock as central London took the brunt of the disruption. Mr Crow turned up for a picket line at Queen's Park on the Bakerloo line, which was running a limited service. He boasted about the industrial action. "I'm really pleased. It was a solid success," he said. "The whole city ground to a halt and the disruption it caused was all over the papers."



Mayor Boris Johnson said the number of trains running showed the lack of support for the strike. He paid tribute to staff who had crossed picket lines to go to work as well as to the number of Londoners who had used crowded buses and trains to keep London operating. He said it showed the weakness in the RMT's case and criticised Mr Crow for "moving the goal posts". Mr Johnson said: "I do apologise for the trouble that has taken place and I think it is very sad, but I urge the RMT to come to their senses and to do the right thing and call off the strike.”

"The people in London have shown fantastic resolve by going to work in such fantastic numbers. This is a testament to the weakness and fragility of the strike. The RMT have greatly undermined themselves by this action."

The hefty six-footer Bob Crow has a reputation for picking his battles well and the RMT is one of the few unions with a growing membership. According to the latest TUC figures it has 75,906 members. But after the half-cock response to the latest 48-hour Tube walkout serious questions are being asked about his judgment.


The alternative travel arrangements

Aslef, the rival Tube union, said today: "It seems Bob Crow is now doing his best to annoy fellow trade unions." Officially Aslef describes the strike as "premature" but the private language is more colourful. A hint of RMT rebellion emerged in the voting figures. Of 10,000 eligible to vote, just 2,810 supported the strike call with 488 against. The rest took the easy way out and didn't bother -although they will, of course, accept any increased pay and working conditions improvements won by the union. Just before the strike started Mr Crow said: "We know that it will receive solid support from RMT members across the Tube network." No, it hasn't. It was a rare misjudgement by Mr Crow.



The last two Victoria line strikes, in support of sacked train driver Carl Campbell, have closed the line completely. It's a different picture now: Mr Crow quietly slipped in a third strike on the Victoria line today to run in conjunction with the main dispute. This strike was only announced to LU, as the union is legally required to do, and not to passengers. The Victoria line is an RMT stronghold but today trains ran along a major part of the route - Victoria to Seven Sisters - where Mr Crow was on early morning picket line duty.

Past network-wide strikes have seen a total shutdown. Compare that with today: during this morning's peak 120 trains ran out of a possible 522; by lunchtime the figure had increased to 140 out of a usual 420. London Underground stated: "We have had lots of drivers turning up." Did that include RMT members? "It must do by the number of people who have reported for duty," said LU. This encouraged even more staff to return to work today, the second half of the stoppage. Union observers ask whether Mr Crow has been bounced into a self-defeating dispute by his even more far-Left fellow officials. There seems to be no immediate threat to his leadership in the absence of a credible alternative. But his reputation as a union general that chooses his battle grounds wisely and normally delivers a victory has been badly damaged.