Election Day for London Mayor
The other day, arriving at Oval underground station, I noticed that the usual information board in the ticket hall was now given over to Thought of (not 'for') the Day...
Was this, I wondered, a last minute attempt by the current Mayor, Ken Livingston, to raise the spirits of London travelers as they head down the escalators towards their overcrowded tube journey to work...?
I seriously wanted to add a small addendum to that Thought of the Day...
Late and delayed
are much the same...
are much the same...
10 comments:
I would have added ' In the phrase 'we are sorry for any inconveniece caused', the inclusion of the word 'any' is guaranteed to maximise the frustration and anger.
The news that there is an election for the office of mayor of London has even filtered as far up country as the great city of the north, Nottingham.For some reason it is headline news in our daily papers.It is nice that they have chosen to allocate so many pages to it and I can't wait to see the blanket coverage for our own mayoral scraps.
Its also nice to see the underground looking after your mental well-being.I think some Gregorian chants would go down well being played quietly in the background.They could slip in subliminal messages to reassure you that you were happy with the service and the trains were running on time :-)
LISAH - Excellent suggestion! I'll take my magic marker with me net time I travel...
BOLL - I think the London Mayoral race is being given such nation-wide coverage is because it is seen (probably wrongly) as a indication of how people might vote in a General Election.
Check out your local records for 1398 -- or whatever the equivalent date is in the Julian Calendar -- and you'll probably find the Nottingham Town Crier was Oyez, Oyez-ing about the election of one Dick Whittington to a similar post... ;-)
BOLL - Meant to say... Your suggestion of Gregorian chants is certainly worth passing on - especially since, believe it or not, they are, indeed, now playing classical music in the ticket hall! On Monday it was Tchaikovsky --- I think, the Pathétique...
Howdy, Brian, and the rest of y'all!
Now that I've branded the state of Texas on this post, with my salutation, I must say, I have missed the intriguing banter here, greatly- I've been absent far too long! We have our own problems across the pond when it comes to Election issues, but London's mayor is more outspoken than I've seen or heard NYC' Bloomberg and Giuliani, combined. I am a delegate to the Texas Democratic State Convention for Barack Obama, and I am still quite ignorant to a great deal of the complexities within our electoral college process. I used to laugh at what I saw as an overly complicated political system in the UK, ironic that it now seems almost simple, compared to our primary with its caucuses and lengthy rules and procedures. Brian, someone you are familiar with, Sean Astin, was here,in San Antonio, on Hillary's behalf at the recent County convention, nice guy, considering his mother is Patty Duke and his Dad is Gomez Addams--and that he supports "the other 'guy'"-ahem- Hillary Clinton.
Nice to see you back, Bill! Stick around...
Oh, yes, and good luck with your election. One comfort - whatever the outcome - is that whichever candidate ends up as the Democrat's chosen one, it could be the prelude to a situation that would be a first for American democracy...
This looks more like a bored employee with delusions of grandure than some mayoral electoral tactic.
Talking of ammending tube announcements I answered one of the new 118 118 'you can ask us anything' tube ads the other day. Now future travellers will know that the meaning of life is actually 42.
I'm afraid I couldn't fit the explanation of what a 'Googly' is in the space provided.
I am answered Mr B ! I thought it was just because the newspapers were written and produced in London by people who have never been north of Watford. Part of me hopes Boris Johnson gets to be mayor so that London has a taste of the gift it has so frequently bestowed on the rest of the country - mad politicians !
I've been amused by some time at the thought-manipulation that goes on with the announcements that they make.
They used to not tell you anything, and well all moaned about that. Now they still don't tell you much, but what they do tell you they tell you again and again until you switch off and start absorbing it into your subconscious. That's when the sneaky ploy starts to work, for it is then that you start believing the service is good when there are no problems.
"There is a good service operating on all London Underground lines."
Good by what standard? If they were being honest, then with all the trains running to schedule, the announcement would be "There is a barely adequate service ..."
So, Boris Johnson made it... Well, well, he's got plenty to sort out. Not sure, as Mayor, he has any jurisdiction over the railways, but TLF (Transport for London) is certainly in one hell of a mess: here we are on a Bank Holiday weekend with three - or is it four? - major London train terminals shut for engineering works...
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