Marvellous! Far better than the Paul Weller version :-)

Just DL'd it - WONDERFUL!

Well, that certainly does away with the stereotype of the *polite* Briton, doesn't it? :-)

Excellent!

Wow, somebody is bitter.

I liked their Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin a little better, although I'm a geek.

Top stuff! There's nothing like singing a funny song with plenty of swear words to chear you up!

If anyone can educate me as to how it would be possible to hack this song into the the London Underground PA system, then I would just LOVE to hear how - someone I feel it would lighten the damnable misery we all suffer each day at the hands of these overrenumerated, underworked illeducated fools.

Excellent. It's about time someone took a really good swing at the surly attitude that is exhibited in so many service industries in Britain.

Freaking hilarious song...and so accurate.

Shannon Love is right - it's great, but if you haven't checked out Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin yet then do so -- one of the funniest things I've heard in quite some time, probably since that Gary Lineker sketch on the 'Fast Show', and that was years ago now.

Excellent. I made a mental note to look on the net for this when I saw it in the 'Metro' yesterday; now Samizdata has saved me the trouble.

Good work!

Good song - stuck in a boiling coach - know the feeling.

Quick question: who owns London Underground: The city? I thought it had been privatised along with BR.

The infamous Transport For London (TFL) has owned London Underground since July 2003. TFL is in turn owned by "Mayor" Ken Livingstone, who has turned London Underground from a nonsensical farce into a complete fiasco. Workers on London Undergound enjoy colossal salaries for unskilled jobs, have working hours of between 32.5 hours and 35 hours per week, over 52 days paid annual vacation time and unlimited travel for themself and their whole family on the Undergound system.

As an example, in The Metro paper on Tuesday, an 18 year old can now, after just a few day's training, qualify for a salary in excess of £30,000 a year plus the benefits listed above and fter a few years in the job he can then progress to a salary of £44,000. Qualifications for this post? None - just union membership of the trade union that happens to provide John "Two Jags" Prescott with a free Central London apartment.

Hmm. London's transport has improved immensely since Ken took control of it (and this song was written in 2003, before the handover).

It will be nice when there's a widely-distributed London newspaper that isn't owned by the vile bastards at Daily Mail & General Trust...

john bwrites:

"Hmm. London's transport has improved immensely since Ken took control of it..."

You wouldn't (somehow) be exempt from paying Council Tax in London, would you?

All Livingstone has done is impose Stalinist control measures and soak the populace to pay for his bus fetish. The roads remain vile and the tubes are a dangerous joke. That's not improving transport - it's just buying more busses than Londoners can afford.

To say that LU has improved since Comrade Ken has taken over is a nonsense. We are just paying for it and get the same rubbish level of service. The song perfectly sums up the attitude of LC staff.

The rest of their stuff is pretty amusing too.

No, I'm very much paying Council Tax in London. The TfL levy is the pretty much only part of it I don't resent, since it's spent on stuff that's clearly and directly useful to me.

A salary in excess of 30 grand is hardly collossal by London standards. I don't begrudge London Underground staff the salaries they earn, nor would I describe a tube driver as "unskilled". The Underground network has suffered decades of neglect, which is why it is currently in meltdown, but at least Ken Livingstone recognises the scale of the problem and is taking steps to sort the mess out. You don't have to be a leftie pinko bedwetter to see that public transport has improved exponentially over the last couple of years.

An amusing enough ditty, but if the author doesn't like tourists, Burger King, the smell of sweat and the inconvenience of homeless people then he / she really should consider living in a place where these things aren't an issue. I suggest the moon.

I thought that Getty's description;

doesn't like tourists, Burger King, the smell of sweat and the inconvenience of homeless people then he / she really should consider living in a place where these things aren't an issue. I suggest the moon.

Just about sums up just what a nasty little cess-pit London has become... wonderful architecture - shame about the people.

I bet the Tourist Board was pleased to read that one!!

I beg to disagree, any artificial pay levels that these UNSKILLED workers enjoy is brought about purely through their union's clout and most certainly not through earned productivity - the way real workers earn their money. London Underground workers need no qualification to do their job, their training is rudimentary, to the limit of understanding basic firedrill, how to escort passengers from a station in the event of an emergency (something they only started after the horrendous events of the King's Cross disaster) and how to remove irate passengers' season tickets if they get stuck in one of the gateways. Communication and man-management are most certainly not skills taught to their staff.

As for train drivers having any skill, the journey of a train is controlled by signal staff, not by the driver. In automatic mode, once the train operator has closed the train doors and pressed the start button, the train run to the next station and is controlled by coded impulses transmitted through the track, the driver's minimal tasks are to stop the train in the event of an emergency on the track and to open the doors once the train has come to a complete halt, plus firedrill etc., as per above.

"Just about sums up just what a nasty little cess-pit London has become... wonderful architecture - shame about the people."

What do you mean about that? That because we have had enough of a tenth rate public transport system, while paying the world's highest fares for it, that we are not allowed to make any complaint? Or that we should put up with Bob Kiley's/Ken Livingstone's plans to make it pointless to own a car in London and instead use said failing public transport system?

john bwrites:

"Hmm. London's transport has improved immensely since Ken took control of it..."

Hmm, I want to work in HIS London then (the one in the parallel universe he so obviously inhabits...)! The one I'm forced to inhabit has no discernable difference to the Tube service, barring some station revamps that were probably on the cards anyway (given the monolithic planning applications committees that LUL probably have to go through).

On second thoughts, to be fair, they HAVE changed in one significant way - they've got dearer!

Oh, and as Steve and Shannon said, DO check out 'Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin' - it really is worth it!

In fact, as it's in a good cause, I think I'll buy the album.

JuliaM writes:

"Hmm, I want to work in HIS London then (the one in the parallel universe he so obviously inhabits...)! The one I'm forced to inhabit has no discernable difference to the Tube service..."

Yes, that's the London I spend far too much time in, too.

Still, never mind, it's long been apparent that devotees of the newt-lover inhabit a fantasy world.

Most disappointed. Could not hear lazy-lout track, despite headphones and sound card being fine (am now back to listening to Radio Maxxima, which works).

Where else can I hear this piece about London going down the Tube?

.

I loved the Fitness to Practice tracks and orderec a copy of the CD. It finally arrived yesterday and is worth getting, though I think that the tracks available on the site are actually most of the best ones. There are a few others worth listening to though.

hippie

I am a worker on the Underground. Every day I arrive in work with many good intentions about being polite and friendly to all customers and mostly I succeed. However there is a general public concensus that it is your right to be utterly disgustingly rude to us for no reason. Once I merely said hello to a customer and the reply came 'F**k off!'. We get spat at, hit at and threatened every single day and how many other people can say that about their jobs? So spare a thought for us please, after all we will be the ones who get you off trains stuck in a tunnel.

i have their CD

we sang London Underground in Music lesson in front of our teacher and he found it hilarious hehe