Miss Mind The Gap Outtakes

Ever wondered what the in-carriage Tube announcements would sound like if the voice-over woman was having a bad day? Or decided to say what was really on her mind? Wonder no more as you enter the mind of Emma Clarke also nicknamed "Sonia" (her voice gets on yer nerves) the woman behind the pre-recorded announcements on almost all of the London Underground lines (she doesn't do the Jubilee Line, the Northern Line and Docklands Light Railway).

She says "You've got the microphone. It's a Monday morning. There are hundreds of bored commuters listening. The temptation is simply too much....."

The following are my favourites:

Emergency Warning

Passengers should note...

Would the gentleman...

With Residents of London.... really showing signs of a woman about to jack in the whole job.

There's lots more on Emma's site and many thanks to Nik Fox for alerting me to them in the first place.

UPDATE - Emma's now been sacked - as TfL didn't find the announcements funny - see this post for more.

Children in Need Tube Challenge

In a few hours around 20 people will be leaving Amersham when the Tube system opens to take part in Tube Challenge for Children in Need.

James, who's a regular reader of this blog said:

"We're going all out. The whole entire map. Yes, we intend to visit every single Tube station on the map, from zone 1 to zone D, from Acton Central to Willesden Green, all 274 open Tube stations in one single day.

It's going to be hard. We're starting at just after 5, when the first train departs from deepest darkest Middlesex towards Central London. We'll see the sun rise, and then set again, in the course of our challenge (assuming we're not underground that is). We'll probably finish around 20 hours after we started, having run the equivalent of 10km each, travelled many miles across London and used transport as diverse as Tubes, buses, trains, trams and light railways.

We want to raise as much money as possible, and get press coverage for the whole Tube challenge group as well.

Now, you may be asking yourselves "well, how can I help? I'm not running all that, I'm not that insane, but I want to contribute." Well, the obvious answer is to sponsor us at http://www.justgiving.com/cintubechallenge07 - it's what most people will be doing, and certainly the easiest way to do it. You can sponsor us on completion, or for the number of commuters we knock out of the way, or the number of trains we just miss the connection for."

To see how they get on, check out their blog which James will be updating by text along the way.