Oyster Talk

People sitting with a look of a misery, ready to snap if you stand in the wrong place or sit in the seat that you should have offered or spent too long staring at the map. We are generally not very supportive of each other on the underground.  Perhaps it's time for the 'Oyster Talk' scheme, which would put an end to these strange silences on the underground trains. The carriages could be themed.  There might be the 'I hate my job' carriage(s) where perhaps people can discuss and maybe even trade jobs with each other. There could be the 'I'm new to London and want to meet new friends' carriage, which could also be known as the 'speed dating carriage for losers.' (let's face it, if you actually planned to take a train journey just to meet new people, that would be weird, but quite useful in a way. ) There might be the 'shut up and get out of my way, I'm hungover' carriage, which could also be known as the quiet carriage.  You'd need separate carriages for husbands and wife's, perhaps even they'd be going in different directions depending on the extent of the relationship troubles.  The 'advice' carriage could be in the Middle. Everyone needs some advice and guidance now and again, imagine getting it from strangers in the middle of a train on a morning commute. It could become the ultimate support network for the general day to day things that we encounter.  A chance to talk and reflect on whatever it is that is on peoples minds.  Either it will make us a happier, well informed and advised bunch of commuters, or it would just spread doom and gloom. I suppose it depends if we are an overly optimistic or pessimistic nation. 

Obviously smelly people would be completely banned from the whole scheme. The oyster talk card might have a slogan 'shower before rush hour, or walk.' No, it's not catchy, but if it 'raises standards' then that's all good. 

The circle line would be completely dedicated to a different sort of person.  It will be for the likes of the person that comes up with these ridiculous adverts for BA (if I wanted a lemon, I'd probably just buy a lemon from the shop thanks),  call centre people, weather forecasters (except for Carol from BBC), tourists, people that get in the way and people that tweet more than 6 times a day.  You'd probably encourage people that blog to go there too although it would depend on the blog.  There would obviously need to be health considerations.  With that many annoying people confined into one tube line you'd probably need an exclusion zone for peak time. Actually, there is probably a good case for this being on one of the tube lines than runs deeper underground for sake of health and safety.  

Oyster Talk. Coming soon.  

 

TFL takes over the colours of the map, sending the rest of the world into darkness.

A woman just walked on at Kings Cross eating from a red bag of hulla hoops and what with the recent success for Cadbury gaining ownership of the colour purple that they use on their products, it made me wonder if soon someone will buy the colours red, green and blue to sell to brands such as Walkers. And just imagine if London underground starts claiming the rights to exclusive use of colours for their tube lines, the world once again will become black and white (assuming that nobody owns these already).  To think we are currently complain about paying for electricity and heating when the future will be paying for colour! Autumn will be an expensive month as tree's selfishly hijack a range of copyrighted colours.  

Maybe the future for tfl is brand named tube lines, the Piccadilly could become the Cadbury line, whilst the Hamersmith and city line becomes the lastminute.com line. If my crips plan goes ahead that would mean the ready salted line may soon be the new central, whilst cheese and onion will take over the district. "There are currently minor delays on the lastminute.com line due to a legal battle with walkers over the use of 'their' prawn cocktail colour pink. "

If they don't buy buy them up soon, tfl can expect to start fighting off many a legal battle as fools of the world snap up ownership of colours much like people apparently own acres of the moon. The sad thing is not only do we have morons in the world that try to do this, there are those that allow it to happen too.  Colour tax is inevitable, which is finally some good news for all those ugly 70's buildings, which would presumably be exempt from such a scheme.