Matt Brown from the Londonist website has released this today – a fun Medieval Tube map, from a time ‘Utterly untroubled by signal failures; and a time when you might be imprisoned for swiping an Oyster‘
Medieval Tube Map
Monthly Archives: December 2014
Way Out
With the Northern Line escalators currently out of action at King’s Cross and passengers being diverted the long way round, there are lots of posters up on the platforms to say ‘This way..’ and take you to where you want to go.
Except that here, the arrow pointing to the right is odd, because visible to the left is the staircase that takes you up to the Piccadilly Line. If you follow the sign, it will take you at least five minutes to get to the Piccadilly platforms, however, if you take the stairs that you can see in the background of this photo, it will take you 30 seconds!
Not this way
New December 2014 Tube Map
December 2014 Tube Map
So have you got your hands on the new Tube map yet? Art on the Underground commissioned French artist Daniel Buren to create the artwork for the twenty-first edition of the Tube map cover series, called ‘From a Single One to Millions‘.
It’s a blend of many roundels all mixed together, and we were surprised when we thought about it that the roundel symbol hasn’t actually appeared in any of the previous AotU series of map covers.
Map-design-wise itself, Embankment is now open again on the Northern and Bakerloo lines, the Central Line is NOT stopping at Tottenham Court Road (as it won’t be from January 3rd 2015), and the Covent Garden dagger gives a warning as to the fact that it’s going to be exit only again for most of 2015 as they replace the other pair of lifts.
The new station building and ticket office at Tottenham Court Road for the Northern Line opens on January 12th, and they’ve built lifts at the new station too – so how long before a ‘step free’ wheelchair blob appears for TCR on the map?
Diamond Geezer has some further thoughts here,
TfL Recall
Spoiler Alert: This post is about the 2012 version of the film Total Recall, and may contain spoilers if you’ve not already seen it and wish to do so in the future!
We’re always looking for the Tube in films and TV programmes (remember Sherlock from earlier this year?) and this weekend we were watching the 2012 remake of the classic 1990 film “Total Recall”, when we spotted something rather familiar and we’re going to remember it for you, wholesale.
Set at the end of the 21st century in a “United Federation of Britain”, there is a lot of implied London imagery and even shots of The Elizabeth Tower and The BT Tower to fully sell this to you. However, at one point well into the film, our ‘hero’, Douglas Quaid (played in the remake by Colin Farrell), ends up in a very American looking subway station.
Get ready for a surprise! Open your mind and look really hard at the signage above the platform and you can see the yellow on black London Underground “Way out” signs and direction signage with a Victoria Line coloured strip at the top! Now you’d be forgiven for missing this the first time, as it’s only briefly on screen but in the next shot your Tube alarms should be sounding very loudly!
Yes, it doesn’t take two weeks to spot that is a “London Underground” “Tell us what you think” poster on the ticket booth! Quaid boards (the door opened, he got in) the subway car – which we’ll come to in a moment – and to cement the London Underground for you again the poster appears in the carriage.
As the “futuristic” subway car (with added lighting – New Tube for London anyone?) arrives at its destination, there’s an LU roundel on the wall…
…and if you missed it earlier, one on the train. We hope they enjoyed the ride!
So apart from the actual train itself (fair enough, the film was made in Canada), someone seems to have gone to a good effort to dress the set as the London Underground as was probably in their brief!
Spotted any other Tube related imagery on film or television? Let us know… See you at the party!