Give us a Brake

Services are suspended completely on the Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines and partially suspended on the District line as drivers are refusing to drive trains due to concerns about the emergency braking.

Trains stopped running on the District Line between High Street Kensington and Edgware Road from 1740 BST on Wednesday.

And services were suspended on the Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines at 1910 BST and 1940 BST respectively.

A TfL spokeswoman said: "Local trade union safety representatives have raised concerns about the design of the traction brake controller on the C stock trains used on these lines.

"As always, we are addressing the safety concerns of the trade unions.

"However, these trains have been in safe operation for over 25 years, and there is no reason for the service to the public to be disrupted whilst we seek to address the issues raised."

There's been no comment as yet from Aslef and the RMT. However keep an eye on Tube's site and good luck if you're using any of those lines this morning.

Shakespeare Tube Map.....Tu Be or not Tu Be?

Just when you thought it was all quiet on the official Tube Map mashing front, along comes the Royal Shakespeare Company with their Bardic Tube Map.


Thanks to Heather who sent me a link to The Guardian's Blog who initially reported this. The RSC commissioned designer Kit Glover to produce a new range of RSC products. Kit had a dinner party discussion with his friend who believes that many of Shakespeare's characters are interlinked and show similar character traits. Kit thought about he could depict this graphically and the London Underground map seemed to be the best way of mapping their relationships. The Guardian have a larger version of the map on their site.

We've seen this a number of times before (Simon Patterson's Great Bear) and more recently The Guardian's Music Tube map and even a Web 2.0 map based on Tokyo's Subway Map.

The lines in Shakespeare's map include: strong and difficult women (turquoise), lovers (red), mothers (pink), fathers and daughters (green), villains (light blue), heroes (dark blue), warriors (black) and fools (orange). The RSC point out "Interesting intersections include Henry V who meets on the warrior and hero line, and Lady Macbeth on the strong and difficult women and warrior line".

My Shakespeare's currently at Sally Webster out of Coronation Street's level - but I like Ophelia being on the stop for the riverbus. I'm surprised to see that Lear's daughters Goneril & Regan, aren't nearer towards him on the map. The Guardian offer some missed opportunities with geographical mapping - "That notorious bear from The Winter's Tale must surely pursue passengers from Paddington and Macduff undoubtedly gets off at Caledonian Road, while the Falstaff of the final scene of The Merry Wives would more naturally alight at Royal Oak". However it's all easier said than done.

I'm not sure that Shakespeare had over 270 characters in his plays, then connecting them by relationship to each other and adding some puns with station names would have been beyond the Bard himself (well it probably wouldn't).

Forsooth, if thou desires to acquire for thyself a bag, mug, poster, set of postcards and my heart quickens.... a tea towel, with Shakespeare's map gracing them, do not tarry, venture with haste to the RSC's webeth site.