Annie Mole writes Going Underground and the London Underground Blog, two fascinating sites obsessed with everything London Underground. She’s listed as one of Time Out’s top 50 London blogs and has previously won an award for being ‘The World’s Hottest Urban Blogger’, so we were very excited to get the chance to interview her for this blog.

How long have you been fascinated with London Underground and what motivated you to start the blog?

The blog came out of a static site about the Tube, GoingUnderground.net which I started as a New Year’s Resolution in 1999. Blogging seemed the easiest way of updating the news section after discovering a number of blogs in 2002 and thinking it could work. There’s a lot of source material to write about with the Tube but I’m much more interested in the behaviour of people once they get on it, rather than the trains themselves. You’re thrown into a place that you want to spend as little time in as possible, with complete strangers from all backgrounds. How people cope with that for 10 or 40 minutes leads to some interesting situations.

I’d have to say my favourite station is Wood Green, because despite being in a rather grimy part of London, it has amazing friezes of woodland animals and always seems to be playing classical music. What is your favourite station?

I get asked this a lot but I don’t really have a favourite station. I love seeing my home station of Kew Gardens after a long day and Leytonstone Tube station has some amazing Hitchcock mosaics which are well worth seeing.

What are your favourite and least favourite tube lines and why?

The Northern Line was the bane of my life for while but I think it’s fast being overtaken by the new extended not so circular Circle Line. There always seems to be a long wait at Aldgate and Edgware Road since the changes.  Favourite line – again, like the favourite station I don’t really have one. The District Line is OK as it’s mostly overground

Are there any alleged ghosts on the London Underground?

There have been a number of supposed sightings over the years. I suppose you can’t really have a system that’s been around for almost 150 years without there being some sightings of ghosts. Aldwych (now closed), Bank, Covent Garden, Elephant & Castle, South Kensington, Farringdon & Highgate have all had sightings over the years. The now defunct British Museum station was also supposed to be haunted by an Egyptian Mummy and people were offered a reward of they would spend a night in the station. Most recently in 2008 there was a TV documentary film about ghosts on the Tube and you can see bits of it on YouTube.

I read on your blog that Pimlico is the only London Underground station to not include any of the letters in the word ‘badger’ in it’s name. Can you tell us some more utterly bizarre London Underground facts?

There are only two Tube stations that have all five vowels in them – Mansion House and South Ealing.

The peak hour for Tube suicides is 11am

The best places to spot mice on the Tube are Oxford Circus platforms and Waterloo station – the northbound platform of the Bakerloo Line

Green grapes cause more accidents on the Tube than banana skins

Do you have any good London Underground advice for people visiting the city?

It’s really a good idea not to travel at peak times. (6.30am – 9.30am and 4pm – 7pm) not only is the Tube much more crowded then it’s actually more expensive to use. You’ll find that rush hour commuters have tunnel vision and are less tolerant of tourists standing around in a confused fashion or with lots of luggage. So if you’re using the Tube while you’re on holiday, you’ll enjoy it more in the daytime or later at night.

What other underground stations across the world have you seen that are comparable to the London Underground?

I’ve travelled on quite a few subway systems around the world – Mexico City, Paris, Toronto, Berlin, Lisbon & New York. New York’s was probably the most comparable to London’s Tube although it does have a 24 hour service which is great. Here’s a post about my first visit on it during the rush hour – yes, I know I didn’t follow my own advice, but I had to use it then!!!

Photos by Annie Mole and lensofdan used under a Creative Commons License

Escalator etiquette is one of those things that bugs you intensely for about two minutes a day as you battle your way up a moving staircase full of gum chewing dead eyed tourists, but then flits from your mind the minute you make it out into the fresh damp air of the outside world. I  personally find it hugely embarrassing that all my Australian relatives  resolutely stand on the wrong side every single time, looking slightly concerned and confused at my furious head jerks to the right without actually twigging their meaning, oblivious to the long line of huffing businessmen squashed behind them.

Now I see why.

This great article in the Times explains that whilst modern (and Australian) escalators finish straight on, making it incidental which foot you use to step off, in days of yore a.k.a the 1920’s, when the first escalators were introduced on the Underground, the ’shunt’ design meant they finished on a diagonal, with the right side making first contact with the stair end, therefore making it logical to stand on the right so you don’t have to lunge across the stairway and trip up when disembarking.

That said, I still think it makes more sense to stand on the right, as most people are right-handed so will have a better grip on the handrail, although I think these guys would have something to say about it.

Photo by avlxyz used under a Creative Commons License

London commuters are in for a pleasant surprise come Monday- nestling amongst the many blah Underground adverts for travel insurance, low cost calling rates and airbrushed photos of Hollywood stars enhanced by the oh-so-wittily positioned old chewing-gum stuck over their nostrils by bored commuters, will be these eye-catching beauties.

Elle Magazine has commissioned twenty-five posters to commemorate London Fashion Week’s twenty-fifth anniversary, each created by a legend of British Fashion. (Henry Holland and Christopher Bailey’s creations are featured above)

You can see all the posters on the Elle website and on a tube station wall near you soon – assuming they don’t all get ripped off and taken home as trophies by zealous Fashionistas!

Vintage fabrics of the London Underground

Via PSFK and Wallpaper comes news of London Underground’s scheme to crowdsource the design of the seat fabric in London tube trains.

Here’s the brief:

The colours should respond well to natural and artificial light (there’s even a pantone reference wheel allocating percentage allowances), the pattern must wear and tear well and the fabric must be comfortable and durable. This might sound fairly restrictive but entrants are also encouraged to challenge convention where possible, being mindful not to create a repeat pattern that’s too small to ‘dazzle’ the 3.5 million commuters who will see it each day.

You’ve got to submit your ideas by September 14th, and you can find out more here.

A user generated design would be a brilliant ‘next chapter’ in LU’s  history of design innovation, which includes Edward Johnston’s sans serif font, Harry Beck’s map and Paul Nash’s fabric.

If you’re a true fan you can even buy retro furniture cubes from the London Underground shop – strangely, they are known as ‘Harlem Cubes’ (anyone know why?)

We’re feeling blue because our intrepid reporter lost their favourite pair of killer heels on the Underground this weekend, (don’t ask) so we thought it was high time to draw together some amusing articles about the random stuff that gets left on the London Underground and the NY Metro every year.

For example, the mind boggles at exactly how one could forget their breast implants while  minding the gap, and both offices have had to deal with urns full of human ashes, albeit ‘misplaced’ under very different circumstances.

A great Time Out article on the London Lost Property Office

A more sober NYT piece on the New York Metro’s Office

A Guardian photo gallery of items found on the London Underground

Photo courtesy of Barry Lewis via the Guardian