Annie Mole’s Going Underground Blog reports that a consortium of finance, engineering, marketing and health & safety companies have been brought together byAjit Chambers fromThe Old London Underground Company to put old tube stations in central London into new use as tourism, storage space and entertainment venues (venues will become more than just bars, restaurants & clubs).

Stations under consideration are Down Street, Aldwych, South Kentish Town, Brompton Road and York Road.

Read the full article at london-underground.blogspot.com/2011/03/old-tube-stations-could-be-re-opened.html.

Picture by Ewan Munro.

It highlights one of the things I miss about working/travelling/living in London – the diversity of people. From amazing clothes to knelling face down on the seats, you’ve got to love the people of London.

I always say it’s impossible to really stand out in London, as this photo shows with the people sitting around the guy kneeling over not giving a shit.

Keep up the good work mrpeopleonthetube.

EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

I wonder what he’d make of the view now.

It reminded me of a simliar game, with the same concept but on a much larger scale. At travelpod they have a flash game where you must place a flag on the map of the world to mark the location of cities and famous places with points are awarded for speed and accuracy. There are 12 levels of difficulty with cities becoming more and more obscure as you progress. Give it your best flag at www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq. Unfortunately I didn’t make the 30,000 threshold to get past level 6, I’m sure you can do better!

London (harder, better, faster, stronger) from David Hubert on Vimeo.

This morning something strange happened.

On a crowded Northern Line train a seat was left empty. the three men standing over it were all too polite to even acknowledge the seat which was left vacant at Angel and it was still empty when I left at Old Street.

How peculiar.

There’s been quite a few sites and features which have caught my eye over the last few days, so here’s a little summary of what’s stood out for me:

Shiny Shiny’s website of the week combines two of my geeky interests – maps and photography. They’ve uncovered the Map of Strange which collates the unusual findings people make while browsing the aerial photos of Google Earth or Google Maps (or you online satellite imagery site of choice). Anything from a hotel shaped like a crocodile to a boat graveyard to dozens of crop circles.

Swissmiss, another blog which is worth reading bring together some other interests – social web and food. She’s found Open Source Food which is a free collection of recipies with photos. Reminds me of a pitch on Dragons Den a few weeks ago from the creators of iFoods.tv – a youtube of recipies, nice idea.

Finally something I do like and something I put up with. Going Underground caught site of this emergency notice by Stuart Clary on my very own Victoria Line. I like a good Margarita, I’ll be keeping an eye out for it.

Large projectors were set up at Euston which would project silent videos onto the wall across from where people stand waiting for the tube. The silent video is very powerful, whatever is showing you can’t help but let your eyes get drawn to it and before you realise you’re staring at the moving pictures, lost in a trance (Ben Elton once did an excellent sketch on this but I can’t find any trace of it on the web.).

Both Diamond Geezer and The Londonist have written more about this but the point that sticks with me is the lack of choice you have about viewing these adverts, particularly on the tube, everywhere you look there is an advert. At a station like Euston where the platform is 5 people deep at rush hour you have no option but to look straight ahead as you’re crushed from every other side and let the the slogans, straplines associations and brand from the adverts stare you in the face.

But if a lack of adverts meant a substantial increase in fares, then the companies win and we will have to watch what they have to say.

Who knows.

It would certainly make a good caption competition.

It turns out the London Transport Museum has a very impressive library of books on everything tube and train related, and it doesn’t stop there, they have a decent sized display devoted to DVDs. What particularly caught my eye was the series of “Driver eye view” films for each of the tube lines, with a running commentary of dark tunnel followed by dark tunnel of tube track. Now that is a niche market, and they’re got it fully covered. Don’t tell Gorden Brown though or he’ll ban them for being a terrorist threat.

On my way to Covent Garden I also noticed a very nice looking whisky shop which I had a quick look in on. Whisky was stacked floor to ceiling and it reminded me of a cachaca shop in Paraty ‘d been to. In a complete coincidence the London Daily Photo site features the same whisky shop in today’s photo. Which is nice.