I wanted to share a few photos showing what the tube looks like right now, because it is WEIRD. There have been a few cries from Transport for London saying that they are hugely in debt and need money from the government to carry on. However, I don’t think this is just due to the lack of passengers, but also the lack of advertising, because there is very little.
Instead there are posters telling us to be kind or mind the gap. I think they’re just putting up whatever they can find.
Maybe this is what a post-capitalist world would look like. Instead of every step we take being filled with BUY THIS! maybe we could get rid of these posters all together and have murals, or large photos of the sky.
With this and the talk about changing statues, it feels like London is getting a whole makeover this Covid season. I get why people find it frightening, but I think it’s exciting, like moving to a new city.
This is a video that keeps playing, basically saying ‘Chill out! Have a walk and a think! Or go for a cycle!’
Note: sorry I’ve been kind of absent recently. I don’t have a good reason, I just don’t have anything to say 🙂
Well, it’s looking like the mystery of the black star has been solved. Although the answer itself may be a diversion, a trick to pacify us. Claims of Illuminati, black holes and aliens are still under consideration.
Weather: blazing!
Mood: chirpy
Word of the day: Hypogeal – underground
So the black star update:
The gorilla blogger, Matt Johnson (unusual name for a gorilla) did some searching around and came up with a theory to explain the star (for anyone who missed the beginning of this, there are stars on the ceiling of tube trains in London and NOBODY else appeared to have noticed them or knew what they were).
The website he linked to had this comment, which I didn’t read properly at the time.
And look out for the little star on the ceiling, that indicates the floor hatch for lifting Negative shoes.
Then after posting on a London underground forum, I got lead to another post, which led to some comments under an article about the underground, and this said basically the same as Matt’s research.
The blue stars are an indication of where the shoes are on the train, in case they need to be lifted. They were on all the old Victoria line trains and are on the baker loo as the trains are basically the same.
For anyone confused about negative shoes, this is the wiki description of shoes. Somebody had fun coming up with names for stuff.
Electric railways with third rails, or fourth rails, in tunnels carry collector shoes projecting laterally (sideways), or vertically, from their bogies. The contact shoe may slide on top of the third rail (top running), on the bottom (bottom running) or on the side (side running). The side running contact shoe is used against the guide bars on rubber-tired metros. A vertical contact shoe is used on ground-level power supply systems, stud contact systems and fourth rail systems.
I suspect it’s the vertical contact shoe that needs lifting and is marked by the star (which I still say is black.)
So I’m going to leave the mystery alone for now, but it won’t be forgotten. I suspect London is full of odd little mysteries, I’d like to connect some of them up. Any ideas how?
Sorry about the crappy photo, it isn’t easy to take a photo of a tube ceiling in rush hour.
Life used to be filled with unanswerable questions, but then Google came along and answered them all. Except THIS one.
Weather: blue skies filled with puzzlement
Mood: quizzical
Word of the day: sideral – sent from the stars; ominous or evil
Question of the day: why is there a black star on the ceiling of many carriages on the tube (London Underground)? They’ve been there a few decades at least. Not on every train, and it may be only the last carriage (which is where I tend to sit) but always on the ceiling, a black star sticking about an inch across. I tried Google, but no luck.
I asked at work and NOBODY has ever noticed it but me, they looked at me like I was delusional, until I showed them a photo.
So has anyone else noticed this too? Do any of you know why they are there?
inkbiotic 