WOBBLY EMBRYO!!

WET MASH!!!

I was talking to some peeps last night, some of who hadn’t come across the famous (as I thought) London Anagram Tube map. It was a mini net sensation back in early 2006, before – believe it or not – it had to be taken down following threats from Transport for London’s lawyers. As if a humorous map of the tube is going to harm their public image!?

Whole sad story here (harms TFL’s image much more than some silly map)

Anyway, as we know, it’s impossible to get anything much taken down off the net by bully-boy tactics, and I found a version of the map after about 30 seconds googling web searching. Plus a load of other humorous and interesting variations on Harry Beck’s iconic and beautiful London Tube map.

Hopefully this post won’t call down dismal locust-like hordes of cold-hearted legal types.

Click here for Tube map fun!

A Beautiful example of Art-Deco Design, the surrounding shopping arcade and one-way flatter the lovely Island station in the middle!

During the few months I’ve been living in London, there have been at least two potentially catastrophic tube strikes called off. So when I see the BBC reporting that the RMT are planning yet another one, I can’t help but feel like I’m justified in suffering from strike-threat fatigue.

I don’t even get what the fuss is about, to be honest. Given that “TfL said it had assured the RMT that no staff would lose jobs or pensions, nor would any be transferred”, the fact that “the RMT wants a guarantee that Metronet workers will be allowed to join the TfL pension scheme and receive the same travel facilities as other TfL employees” seems like a pretty poor reason to try and bring an entire city to a standstill.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive fan of unionisation and what it’s given this country, and others.

Actually, here’s a fantastic example from South Africa from this very week. Despite the fact that Zimbabwe has bought some arms from China – and that South Africa’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee has approved the transit of the weapons through the country – the members of the SATAWU union are refusing to unload the arms from the cargo ships because they disagree with their government’s lack of action on the issue.

Now that’s what I call solidarity. I suspect that if the RMT picked an issue that actually had a lot of public support to strike on, it’d be less likely to have to back down…