The tube is the thing that Londoners most love to hate. So come vent your frustrations with a nice bit of art, courtesy of London-wide project, Alight Here.
Did you know Angel tube station has the longest single escalator rise not only on the tube network but in the whole of Western Europe no less. I didn't. Until that is, I decided to sprint up it in a last minute dash to get to a friend's party on the right side of fashionably late. Error. In the corner of my eye, as my throbbing calves were about to collapse, panting like I'd just run a marathon, a poster depicting a maintenance man in an orange jacket swam into view, imparting this enlightening “Did you know...” snippet. Maybe it would have been better emblazoned on a banner below “Do not run up the escalator – acute risk of heart attack and uncontrollable perspiration guaranteed.”
What that experience taught me, other than to be more on time in future, is that there's a serious gap in tube trivia out there. Thankfully the young creatives at Alight Here agree and have launched a London-wide website dedicated to all that is good, bad and ugly on the underground. Alight Here (get it?) invites Londoners to capture all 270 tube stations in art and has already clocked up an amusing array of photographs and poems. From a hilariously concise depiction of High Barnet, to personal smirk-raising concessions (“I got mugged once at Elephant and Castle/ In diamante jeans – I looked like an arsehole”) to snapshots of stations at night-time, it's a pretty tube-tastic affair.
We at Spoonfed think it's a wonderful idea – after all, tube stations are our speciality seeing as collectively we (like most other Londoners) spend an infuriating amount of time pressed up in fellow commuters' armpits trying to cling on around the broadsheet reading space hoggers. In fact, it's got us all thinking about our favourite and least favourite stops. Between us we'd like to nominate Pimlico, purely for its name and yellow spotted tiles, Holloway Road again for the retro tiling on the northbound platform, Liverpool Street for its line-side refreshments on the Circle and District line platform, and Balham for sometimes giving out Stylist magazine a day early.
I might even venture to write a little something of my own about the perils of Tooting Bec for girls wearing skirts. Don't – it's impossible to keep it from flying off in the gale force gush of wind that billows through the entrance hall (trust me, I learnt the hard way). Or maybe I'll take some photographs instead.
The best contributions are going to make it into a nice, fancy coffee table book – reason enough, I'm sure you'll agree, to start getting all arty with your underground gripes and gushes. Trust us, it'll make that morning commute much more bearable.
For more information on how to participate visit the Alight Here Website.
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Return to Spoonfed's London Art homepage.
Image Courtesy: Tottenham Court Road by Will Cheyney & High Barnet by Alejandro Morrel.
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