This is Davina from Big Brother please do not swear

Swearing on the Tube gets you fined

You may have already seen this story in Metro or from The Register and it originated from Jo who writes for Londonist. She wrote

"My friend Phil and I were going through a metal detector on the way out of Highbury & Islington Tube on Friday evening around 8.30pm, on our way to a gig. Phil, who has a degree in physics, said to me in a low voice that the metal detector was a "piece of shit that wouldn't stop anyone". Obviously, someone was listening, as all of a sudden, half a dozen policemen jumped on him and hustled him over to the corner of the Tube station, where he was detained for about 20 minutes for the grave crime of swearing in public, and fined £80 for the privilege. For swearing! On the Tube! "

As Jo rightly says: "If it's such a crime, then I owe them about a million pounds, as swearing on and at the Tube is the only way to deal with the pain of having to travel on the dratted thing every day......

The police were f**king rude, too, and treated Phil like he was a hardened criminal - they were really aggressive, and clearly wanted him to lose his temper so they could charge him with something worse. They said repeatedly he was very close to being arrested. For the terrible crime of swearing and calling their machine a piece of shit - which, as a physics graduate, he actually knows about."

This is the second story I've heard of someone being pounced upon near the Tube by police, just for something they happened to be saying. I'm with Jo in agreeeing that yes the police ought to be out trying to find terrorists, but using the word "shit" when referring to a metal detector, hardly warrants six police and twenty minutes of their time.

I wonder what sort of recording equipment they have at Tube stations now? If you can get fined for saying shit in a low voice, like Jo, I feel that I - and thousands of others - would be fined a shed load of money for the amount of times we swear about the Tube. Jo beleives the fact that they were in Goth clothing may have been a contributory factor, but you never know.

So Big Brother is not only watching you but listening to you on the Tube too. Next time you feel the urge to swear when the Misery Line is up to its normal tricks, count to ten instead or perhaps come up an alternative swearword like err... Ian Blair instead (second thoughts that's hardly likely to go down too well with his law enforcers).