Leave our tube stickers alone!

I've had countless texts and emails this week asking if I've had anything to do with the mysterious stickers popping up all over the London Underground.

Some examples:

"No eye contact. Penalty £200."

"We apologise for any incontinence caused during these engineering works."

"Peak hours may necessitate you let other people sit on your lap."

At first glance, they may seem like the normal health and safety messages but if you read them properly, they are guaranteed to make you smile.

I have several thoughts about this.

Firstly, to the killjoys who claim this is 'graffiti' and that they are expensive to remove I say leave them. If we can have a giant bronze dog turd classed as art in the Turner Prize, then these certainly qualify as urban art.
Whoever is making these stickers is doing a pretty good job of getting them to blend in and look authentic. They hardly look like the normal 'woz ere' graffiti scrawlings across the windows and doors.

Secondly, we all know etiquette on the tube is poor. These can act as lighthearted etiquette reminders.

Thirdly, it's about time people had fun on their daily commute. Price rises, squashed carriages and constant disruptions to journeys give us enough to frown about. Let these stickers turn those frowns upside down.

So, to whoever is 'going underground' in guerilla stickerfare, keep doing it. It's making us smile, and on the Tube that's a rare thing.

If anyone has new examples - please send them in. I'll re-post the best ones.

Laura King is the author of The Little Book of Tube Etiquette, published by Gibson Publishing and available at Waterstones, WH Smith and most online retailers.
www.gibsonpublishing.co.uk

Footballers, Tubes and Twitter nonsense...

A tenuous Tube link but rolling with it…

So what started as a good idea for some positive PR - down to earth England football manager uses tube train with civilians shocker – became a PR disaster for Roy Hodgson this week when he stupidly discussed Rio Ferdinand’s future with other passengers, allegedly before talking to the man himself about it.

Five years ago he’d probably have got away with it. But in a world where every comment made is replayed to millions of people around the world in very real time, there were obviously going to be repercussions.

Not a great example to set to the hoardes of English footballers currently finding extra fame for their big mouths.

Not a week seems to pass when we don’t hear about a stupid remark made on Twitter for example, most of them by footballers.

Joey Barton, Ashley Cole and even Rio Ferdinand himself have amassed large followings and all have been in trouble recently for their less than thoughtful and in Barton’s case, just plain provocative, Twitter diatribes.

Rio Ferdinand spent more of the European Championships carrying a huge chip on his shoulder that he wasn’t selected (forgetting that his own manager Sir Alex had said he wasn’t fit enough to go just days earlier), than he did supporting his ‘beloved country’.  And of course, his hypocrisy knows no bounds – the ‘choc ice’ comment on Twitter was epic stupidity given the ongoing racism court case.

Last week Ashley Cole managed to lambaste the FA’s publicised findings on the John Terry case by tweeting ‘so I’m a liar am I @FA? Bunch of t**ts’ or something similar.

Honestly, if I was a football manager I’d ban my players from being on Twitter at all. They get paid enough to give up their right to the social networking site and most people are forbidden from personal opinions about the industry they work in. Can you imagine if I called my boss or the property industry body ‘a bunch of t**ts’ in such a public way? I doubt I’d ever get a job again.

Cole’s idiocy was followed by this weekend’s speciality from Barton calling for a mass cull on all stupid people…presumably including himself in this in a rare spot of self-reflection?

To be honest, any footballer that has earrings bigger than brains should welcome a ban on Twitter anyway. It seems hiding behind the tiny keyboards on their oversized gadgets gets them into trouble all too often and I, for one, would rather hear constructive and motivational tweets from athletes like our Olympians rather than whinging nonsense from over paid prima donnas with a chip on their shoulder.

Rant over and back to commuting stuff next blog…unless something else gets my goat in between!

Laura King is the author of The Little Book of Tube Etiquette, published by Gibson Publishing and available from Waterstones, WH Smiths and most online retailers.

www.gibsonpublishing.co.uk

Blast from the past

We all have that one person that you never ever want to lay eyes on again. Well the other morning I woke from a train slumber to find myself staring right into the eyes of that one person.

I literally felt sick.

Luckily this was at the end of my journey – so I did what any self-respecting, nonchalant and confident woman would do…pretend I hadn’t seen him, hide behind the people standing in the aisles and dashed off the train as quickly as possible so not to make any more contact, eye or otherwise.

This got me thinking about the way tubes and trains force people together and how actually I’d been pretty, lucky given the chances, of not running into him before in eight years. Furthermore, imagine how much worse it would have been if we were in rush hour stuck together in a confined carriage?

So I suppose I got off lightly.

London transport has this ability to bring together people – and this isn’t always bad of course.

Remember the couple of began their romance having met on the tube only for the man to propose, all singing and dancing, on the very same tube train years later?

Remember the community spirit showed during the Olympics, of tube carriages cheering the driver’s announcement of gold medals won?

Most of the time when you see someone you recognise on the tube, it’s really not that bad. These are mainly colleagues or random business acquaintances, either on the way to work who you really don’t want to engage in conversation, preferring the last precious moments before you there kept to yourself. Or on the way home, not knowing how long you’ve got to make polite conversation. But how bad is it really?

So while I’ll fret for another few weeks about running into this person again before I forget about it and relax, it’s much more likely that I’ll see someone I want to, or witness a nice moment or, at worse, be stuck talking to a colleague politely for 20 minutes. And that’s not so bad, is it?

Laura King is the author of The Little Book of Tube Etiquette, published by Gibson Publishing, available in paperback at Waterstones, WH Smith and most online retailers.

www.gibsonpublishing.co.uk

How to spot the impatient and move away quickly…

You know the summer’s truly over when the impatient stress heads come out to play in every walk of life. From the tube, to the office, on the streets, they’re everywhere… So, if you spot any of the below signs that my friends and I have spotted recently, move quickly away so you’re out of reach when they explode.

- Standing behind you so close that we’re touching in a queue of only two

- Pushing me out of the way to get a seat on the tube when there are four empty seats and just the two of us getting on

- Repeatedly punching the ‘close door’ button in a lift as I’m trying to get on

- Repeatedly punching the ‘close door’ button in a lift before I’ve finished getting out

- Aggressively pushing in front of me in a crowd of people to get exactly one place in front of me

- Train conversations getting louder and more frantic by the second regardless of how ‘confidential’ the details of the call are

- People snapping ‘I’m DOING it’ before you can even say ‘hi how are you’

- People walking down the streets of London absent-mindedly bumping into everyone as they type away on a blackberry without looking where they’re going

- and those on tube escalators shouting ‘come on’ at the queue of walkers ahead of them

I guess people have returned from the Olympics hiatus and summer holidays with the pressure of doing deals and billing quickly. However, being an arse probably won’t help. Chill out people…

Laura King is the author of The Little Book of Tube Etiquette, published by Gibson Publishing, available in paperback at Waterstones, WH Smith and most online retailers.

www.gibsonpublishing.co.uk

Wet weather etiquette

In this truly disgusting British weather I think there needs to be a whole separate set of etiquette...mostly involving umbrellas

So here goes, please feel welcome to fill in any gaps by emailing me at LauraKing14@hotmail.com

-         Do not use umbrellas as a weapon. It is totally unacceptable to poke them at people when boarding or getting off the tube

-         If you must use the huge golfing or corporate umbrellas (size matters?) then walk with them pointing down when not in use. They’re sharp and they hurt, particularly in pedestrian traffic

-         Do not let your wet umbrella drip on my head. Position your umbrella on the floor where the rain water does not affect fellow commuters’ persons or belongings

-         Do not overtake haphazardly on the streets with large umbrellas, banging your fellow walkers on the head or in the eyes

-    When approaching someone on the street with your oversized umbrella it is not polite to speed up aiming your umbrella at theirs in the hope that they will yield. It is polite to try and move your umbrella so you can both pass each other without incident

-         When waiting for a train it is unacceptable to push the person in the front of the queue out of the way to escape the rain (this applies whatever the weather but seems much more frequent in torrential rain)

-         Wear sensible shoes for goodness’ sakes! Stiletto high heels are especially slippery on the wet tubes or trains and they hurt when you stumble over on your fellow passengers

-         If you have a really wet coat and you want to sit down on the tube, remove coat before sitting. That way we wont sit in your damp patch and wonder whether it’s only water…and, given the tube is always hot despite the weather, it should make you more comfortable anyway

-         Newspapers are, guess what, made of paper. Which means in wet weather they disintegrate or go all slimy and no one wants these pressed up against their face or body on the cramped tube. This happened to me a couple of days ago and I ended up with black smudges all over my face. Not pleasant, and not a great look when going to a meeting

I’m sure I’ve missed a ton of rain etiquette but these are the things that have personally irked me over the last few days. Having said that, despite the torrential downpours over the last few days, I’m still trying to walk whenever it is humanly possible rather than use the underground…cue frizzy hair and splashed tights. I think it’s worth it to avoid the pain of the tube however.

Laura King is the author of The Little Book of Etiquette, available in paperback at £4.99 from Waterstones, WH Smith and most online retailers.

Olympics travel? A non-aggressive sport

So hands up if you thought the tube would be a nightmare during the Olympics?

Hands up if you were wrong?

*raises hand on both*

It appears Boris successfully scared the professionals out of London during the Games.  I took the first week off and came into town the second week.

Far from being busy, it was actually more pleasant using the tube during the Olympics than usual. I got a seat for most journeys. Granted I timed my travel so it didn’t clash with the main locations and major events but overall, it was actually a rather enjoyable experience.

I’d made my peace with the likelihood of nightmare commutes before the Games began, safe in the knowledge that London 2012 would be worth it and then some.

And wasn’t that true. What a spectacle we put on for the world! Proud to be British doesn’t even cover it. Proud of Boris? I suppose that’s true too. Tears, lost voices, a renewed sense of community in Britain. All of the above.

We heard tales of tube drivers announcing Gold medals over the speaker system and carriages erupting with pure joy, passengers using the wi-fi at stations to get updates and then sharing them with fellow tube goers; and, of course, the obvious respect given to all the Games Makers and other volunteers who were visible in their Olympics uniforms using the tube.

Prior to the Opening Ceremony I had also braced myself for a total lack of tube etiquette on all London transport. I couldn’t have been more wrong - aside from a colleague’s tale of a six year old throwing a tantrum because too many people were on her tube and the mother apologising to all on her behalf - but basically that’s it. Remarkable!

Tourists were on the whole polite and friendly, and the sense of occasion meant that even the usual stroppy Londoners, the few that were left in town, were engaging in actual conversations with strangers on the tube.

I hope this continues: delightful spacious journeys to work amidst friendly smiling carriages and a sense of pride at what our country is achieving.

Sadly, I think that we can just about keep the momentum going through the Paralympics.  The minute that ends, inevitably we’ll all end up grumpy, cramped and cynical again, and I’ll be back to more standard tube etiquette fail content.  One positive, I expect sales of my book to go up. I’d rather be happier on my commute though…

Laura King is the author of ‘The Little Book of Tube Etiquette’ available for £4.99 at Waterstones, WH Smith and most online retailers.

I'm back!

After a long self-imposed hiatus from this blog I’m back. With hopefully more stories about transport, and more specifically Tube travel & etiquette (or lack thereof).

After a particularly brilliant text message from a close friend, it made me realise I’d been neglecting my duty to spread good Tube etiquette across London.

Here is said text word for word:

‘We got on the Tube this morning and a girl was eating her breakfast cereal. From a china bowl with a metal spoon. I think it was porridge. We thought she was going to get out a kettle next.’

Quite simply a brilliant text message which paints the picture perfectly, I think you’ll agree.

I did wonder whether my friend was the only person who noticed this behaviour though and thought it was odd, having been conditioned for years by my tales of tube etiquette horror and weirdness.

Or, (as I hope) were there many people watching this creature curiously, thinking exactly the same thing?

In The Little Book of Tube Etiquette, I make it quite clear that eating on the tube is offensive and disgusting and who would want to do that anyway – hello germ breeding ground anyone?

Imagine sitting on the Tube and the person next to you pouring out their cereal and slurping it right down your ear on the way to work? Yuck.

What makes me more curious though is why this person behaves in this way. Does she think it is a normal thing to do? Is she so de-sensitised to her immediate environment of the Tube that nothing bothers her anymore?

Is the Tube such a frequented mode of transport by all of us that what we used to deem normal behaviour on public transport outdated?

Do people just treat the Tube as their second home and act in a way they would do in private because they will never see the strangers around them again?

Or are we all so properly rushed for time that eating breakfast porridge in addition to putting on make up and in one awfully disgusting case I was told about recently, cutting their toenails en route has become acceptable behaviour to some people?

Well, I for one will never adapt to this way of life. I would rather get up 20 minutes early to eat my porridge in my clean kitchen, cut my toenails (if I had to) in my bathroom and put on my make up in my bedroom mirror than do it in front of a carriage full of commuters.

And what’s more, I bloody hope that most of you agree because I certainly don’t want things to digress to the point where watching people do these things in close quarters in a frankly uncomfortable and unhygienic space on the way to work becomes ‘the norm’.

Laura King is the author of 'The Little Book of Tube Etiquette' available from Waterstones and most online retailers for £4.99 http://tinyurl.com/c2dlto9