Allergy Sufferers on the London Underground

My sympathies go out to all hayfever sufferers this summer, as the pollen count in London is really high at the moment. If you follow my twitter feed you'll have seen that I've also been suffering from hayfever. It's got worse as I've got older and I certainly never had it as a child. I think generally people are getting more allergies these days, which is why I found the Tube ad below really striking:


However it led to a lot of questions. Why did they blank out the station name from the poster? It's clearly Baker Street on the Hammersmith & City Line. Baker Street on that line has one of the most recognisable platforms on the London Underground.


Did Baker Street Tube station say "you can't use our name"? Or did the agency think "Mmmm we need to make this look like 'every station' so let's blank out the name"? In which case why not use a more non descript station platform that's not so easy to recognise?

I also discovered some really weird allergies from the poster & wondered how did people find out they were allergic to certain things. Newspapers for example. Reading some newspapers certainly makes my skin crawl sometimes, but I'd hate to be allergic to them. You must never be able to go into certain shops if you're allergic to newspapers & have a permanent fear of those guys handing out the free sheets. So what happens when you're allergic to newspapers?

Thoughts on any of the above most welcome. Plus if you want to share your allergies with us - it might only be - the apparently rather basic now - hayfever. Or perhaps you have something more exotic like an allergic reaction to the smell of sweat, crisp packets or moquette upholstery which would make Tube travel pretty difficult for you.

UPDATE - the plot thickens there's another version of the allergy Tube ad with Baker Street.