'the wrong sort of dust': our tube announcements are getting progressively more ridiculous

Now I've heard some ridiculous excuses in my time for tubes being delayed on the London Underground but reports of the Waterloo and City line this week being delayed and then closed due to 'the wrong sort of dust on the line' definitely shoots into my all time top 20.

I suspect that there is a bank of excuses used for when the tube fails to be on time, is too busy or breaks down en route because to keep saying 'signal problems' for each and every delayed journey does not go down with commuters who wonder when these signals are ever going to be fixed.  So, instead we get a number of excuses that get recycled such as 'overcrowding on the platform', 'overrunning engineering works', ' and of course the 'signalling problems' every now and again.

But every now and again we get an absolute classic, like the wrong sort of dust which, instead of irritating those delayed (which they should), sometimes causes them to smile at the sheer stupidity of it. And it is for this reason that I think those announcements on the London Underground are sometimes deliberately ridiculous to try and ease the tension of the thousands of commuters affected.

Here are some of my all time favourite announcements on the tube:

'There are delays because... well it's the Central Line init'

'Right to whoever is holding the doors open, everyone wants to go to work. I don't care, I'm at work'

'There are delays to your journey because we are experiencing communication problems' (so COMMUNICATE!)

and, in the same vein as the dust one:

'I'm sorry that you are experiencing delays on your journey, we are experiencing the wrong sort of rain'

If you have heard ridiculous excuses for a delay on the London Underground which made you smile, send them through to LauraKing14@hotmail.com or post them on this blog.