- Home
-
Nelson's Column
-
Mind the Gap
Mind the Gap
27th November 2007
A vacancy opens up in Tube voiceovers
In the early nineteen-eighties, my Aunt Holly was station manager at King’s Cross. It was one of those days when it seems like travelling by tube is a weird Kafkaesque torture, devised by a chippy Northener as a punishment for everyone living in London. After ten hours of insanely hard work, in a station whose platforms were packed a dozen deep with furious commuters, all of them hurling abuse at any LT employee they saw, she got on the tannoy and announced:
“We really are sorry for all these delays. If it’s any consolation, this is as horrible for us as it is for you.”
I think I might have been rather pleased to hear this if I’d been a commuter that day. Holly’s bosses, however, were not. She received the mother of all bollockings, missed a promotion, and it hung over her, to some extent, for the rest of her career,
So I have a certain personal sympathy for ‘voice of the tube’ Emma Clarke, stitched up by the Mail on Sunday, and then sacked for including some spoof announcements on her website, . The MP3s on her site offer the sort of very mild humour that anyone who has ever blogged about London’s transport network ventures approximately 3 times every column: Americans talking loudly, pervy men staring at women’s chests, and so on. If London Underground hadn’t suffered such a substantial sense of humour failure, they would have been heard by practically nobody – unlike her most famous works (‘Please stand clear of the doors’, and her biggest hit to date, ‘mind the gap’) which have been heard more often, by more people, than anything by Elvis or Michael Jackson.
Hopefully the fifteen minutes of fame she’s had from this will help to get her some more work elsewhere, but above all, the wave of sympathy she’s had from commuters all over the Capital should give LT a chance to shake up those announcements anyway. Add some humour, or maybe bring in a few celebrities. It would be almost impossible to keep up that rush hour rage if Stephen Fry’s cuddly tones were informing you of ‘passenger action at Oval’, for example, or if the lovable Geordie voiceover from Big Brother was letting you know that it was ‘Signal failures causing delays to the Eustuurn soorvice”.
I think the best solution would be ‘King’s X Factor’, a nationwide talent search for people to deliver the perfect announcement, concluding with Rhydian going head to head with Chico in a grand ‘The next station is Theydon Bois’ finale. Emma Clarke and my Aunt Holly could be judges.
Track and Feline
Work on the Olympic site is continuing apace – good news if that 2012 deadline is to be met. But who’s thinking of the poor cats who may get stranded there? More than 5,500 people it seems. That’s how many have signed a petition to let animal welfare workers onto the site to assess the number of moggies who might be there risking any number of their nine lives dodging the bulldozers.
Double, double, toil and trouble
Patrick Stewart, starring in the title role, and Rupert Goold, directing, did the double for Macbeth at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards announced this week. The bloody Scottish play showed no signs of its reputation for bringing bad luck and it was smiles all round. Winning best actress was Anne-Marie Duff for her Joan Of Arc at the National Theatre. This officially makes Anne-Marie and husband James McAvoy one of Britain’s most talented and best loved luvvie couples – it’s all a far cry from the ‘Shameless’ days.
The Plinth and the Kapoor
Tracey Emin’s unmade bed could be the next ‘artwork’ to adorn the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Let’s just hope vigilant community officers don’t mistake it for that of a homeless man and encourage it to “move along now”. A shortlist of six artists has been drawn up which sees Emin pitted against ‘Angel of the North’ creator Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor – who put a giant gramophone horn in the Tate’s Turbine Hall; try doing that on a plinth.
2011
| 5th April | Royal Wedding fever strikes London |
| 23rd February | London's deep pockets |
| 17th February | Let the London Games begin |
| 29th January | Olympic no-brainer |
2010
| 23rd December | Snow causes London meltdown |
| 28th November | London's Big Bang for 2011 |
| 21st October | I predict a riot |
| 26th August | The Maddening Rain |
| 26th July | Holmes sweet Holmes |
| 23rd June | Sun shines on London |
| 23rd June | Loving London's Pub Theatres |
| 27th May | The Cameron-Clegg Civil Ceremony |
| 25th May | Budgy Smuggling |
| 27th April | No Fly Zone |
| 26th April | Mi casa es su casa - and Tesco's |
| 29th March | No Third Runway |
| 19th March | It's not a Library |
| 24th February | Bully Tactics at No. 10 |
| 22nd February | Whine connoisseur |
| 26th January | Carbuncle City |
| 20th January | A Laugh a Day... |
| 3rd January | Stalking in Richmond |
2009
| 29th December | Predictions for 2010 |
| 30th November | London 1 Paris 0 |
| 27th November | Mr Benn, The Wombles |
| 26th October | Posties Strike a Chord |
| 26th October | Frieze Still Pleases |
| 26th September | A River Runs Through It |
| 23rd September | Blogging is Best |
| 26th August | When Saturday comes |
| 22nd August | Bring on the Bikes |
| 27th July | Against the Clock |
| 20th July | View for a thrill |
| 18th June | Let Them Eat Cake |
| 16th June | Only Fools And Horses? |
| 26th May | Come Rain Or Shine |
| 18th May | Embarrassing Expenses |
| 27th April | New Designs on Old Fossils |
| 19th April | City Slickers |
| 26th March | Woody Set for Rematch |
| 10th March | Take a Bow, London |
| 18th February | New Photography Laws |
| 12th February | Glitz and the Pitts |
| 27th January | Setting the Standard |
| 21st January | Too Much for Posh Nosh? |
2008
| 23rd December | January is on the Horizon |
| 20th December | Merry Christmas |
| 26th November | All The World's A Stage |
| 20th November | Surviving the Crunch |
| 24th October | Boris v Jingjing |
| 17th October | Soaps in Pole Position |
| 23rd September | Chips too Chavvy for Chelsea |
| 16th September | The London Restaurant Awards |
| 26th August | No Smoking, No Ducks, No Barbecues |
| 20th August | The Olympics |
| 24th July | Sandwiched Out |
| 17th July | The Show Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady's on Page 3 |
| 26th June | Love All at Wimbledon |
| 16th June | Miller Puts the Heat on Tennant |
| 27th May | Booze Banned on Buses |
| 20th May | Same Again? |
| 23rd April | By George |
| 11th April | Back to the 80s |
| 28th March | How do You Solve A Problem Like Medea? |
| 20th March | Flight Fantastic |
| 20th February | Dark, Satanic Turnmills |
| 6th February | A Diamond in the Drink |
| 21st January | People Wanted for Plinth |
| 14th January | Boo! Hiss! |
2007
2006
2005
2004
| 30th December | Party Pooper |
| 23rd December | The Second Battle of Trafalgar |
| 16th December | Sadie's Year |
| 28th November | Ripper-Watch |
| 21st November | Kinky Boots |
| 14th November | Smoked out |
| 22nd October | Yuppie Meal |
| 15th October | Fines of Fury |
| 8th October | No Twist in the Turner |
| 17th September | Battleships, bloodsports and Batman |
| 10th September | Clique Week |
| 3rd September | Return of the Bard |
| 20th August | Politics Takes Centre Stage |
| 13th August | Crisis in Theatreland |
| 6th August | Journey's End |
| 23rd July | Healing Waters |
| 16th July | Mandela Statue in Doubt |
| 9th July | From Art to Ashes |
| 2nd July | One Hurdle Nearer to Gold |
|








