Wednesday 20th August  17:31 pm Good Afternoon

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Nelson's Column November Mind the Gap 27th November 2007 A vacancy opens up in Tube voiceovers In the early nineteen-eighties, my Aunt Holly was station manager at King’s Cross. It was one of those days when it seems like travelling by tube is a weird Kafkaesque torture, devised by a chippy Northener as a punishment for everyone living in London. After ten hours of insanely hard work, in a station whose platforms were packed a dozen deep with furious commuters, all of them hurling abuse at any LT employee they saw, she got on the tannoy and announced: “We really are sorry for all these delays. If it’s any consolation, this is as horrible for us as it is for you.” I think I might have been rather pleased to hear this if I’d been a commuter that day. Holly’s bosses, however, were not. She received the mother of all bollockings, missed a promotion, and it hung over her, to some extent, for the rest of her career, So I have a certain personal sympathy for ‘voice of the tube’ Emma Clarke, stitched up by the Mail on Sunday, and then sacked for including some spoof announcements on her website, . The MP3s on her site offer the sort of very mild humour that anyone who has ever blogged about London’s transport network ventures approximately 3 times every column: Americans talking loudly, pervy men staring at women’s chests, and so on. If London Underground hadn’t suffered such a substantial sense of humour failure, they would have been heard by practically nobody – unlike her most famous works (‘Please stand clear of the doors’, and her biggest hit to date, ‘mind the gap’) which have been heard more often, by more people, than anything by Elvis or Michael Jackson. Hopefully the fifteen minutes of fame she’s had from this will help to get her some more work elsewhere, but above all, the wave of sympathy she’s had from commuters all over the Capital should give LT a chance to shake up those announcements anyway. Add some humour, or maybe bring in a few celebrities. It would be almost impossible to keep up that rush hour rage if Stephen Fry’s cuddly tones were informing you of ‘passenger action at Oval’, for example, or if the lovable Geordie voiceover from Big Brother was letting you know that it was ‘Signal failures causing delays to the Eustuurn soorvice”. I think the best solution would be ‘King’s X Factor’, a nationwide talent search for people to deliver the perfect announcement, concluding with Rhydian going head to head with Chico in a grand ‘The next station is Theydon Bois’ finale. Emma Clarke and my Aunt Holly could be judges. Track and Feline Work on the Olympic site is continuing apace – good news if that 2012 deadline is to be met. But who’s thinking of the poor cats who may get stranded there? More than 5,500 people it seems. That’s how many have signed a petition to let animal welfare workers onto the site to assess the number of moggies who might be there risking any number of their nine lives dodging the bulldozers. Double, double, toil and trouble Patrick Stewart, starring in the title role, and Rupert Goold, directing, did the double for Macbeth at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards announced this week. The bloody Scottish play showed no signs of its reputation for bringing bad luck and it was smiles all round. Winning best actress was Anne-Marie Duff for her Joan Of Arc at the National Theatre. This officially makes Anne-Marie and husband James McAvoy one of Britain’s most talented and best loved luvvie couples – it’s all a far cry from the ‘Shameless’ days. The Plinth and the Kapoor Tracey Emin’s unmade bed could be the next ‘artwork’ to adorn the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Let’s just hope vigilant community officers don’t mistake it for that of a homeless man and encourage it to “move along now”. A shortlist of six artists has been drawn up which sees Emin pitted against ‘Angel of the North’ creator Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor – who put a giant gramophone horn in the Tate’s Turbine Hall; try doing that on a plinth. July 2008 24th July Sandwiched Out 17th July The Show Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady's on Page 3 June 2008 26th June Love All at Wimbledon 16th June Miller Puts the Heat on Tennant May 2008 27th May Booze Banned on Buses 20th May Same Again? April 2008 23rd April By George 11th April Back to the 80s March 2008 28th March How do You Solve A Problem Like Medea? 20th March Flight Fantastic February 2008 20th February Dark, Satanic Turnmills 6th February A Diamond in the Drink January 2008 21st January People Wanted for Plinth 14th January Boo! Hiss! December 2007 28th December Tate That - A Hirst for Art 20th December Christmas Shopping November 2007 27th November Mind the Gap 26th November London On A Tray October 2007 26th October Leaving the Station 14th October The Sky's the Limit September 2007 26th September The Play Within A Play 19th September Fashion, Frocks and Celeb Shocks 12th September Saying Tanks for the Mammaries August 2007 24th August Heathrow under Siege 17th August Gormless 10th August Losing Face July 2007 24th July Are We Reaching Boiling Point Yet This Summer? 13th July Red Ken versus Blonde Boris June 2007 22nd June Last Orders at the Fag Machine 11th June London the Musical May 2007 21st May What Lurks Beneath 10th May The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of April 2007 27th April London’s Walk on the Wild Side 20th April Stand Behind the Yellow Line 13th April Like Water for Chocolate March 2007 23rd March So, Another Magazine 16th March Avoiding iContact February 2007 23rd February Sex and Art... 16th February C-Charge Protest Fails to Bring Down Government 9th February Live Earth London January 2007 26th January A Vote for Shilpa is a Vote for Britain 18th January Carriage on up the West End December 2006 29th December Food for Thought 22nd December A Poisonous Marketing Campaign 15th December In for a Penny, In for Five Pounds November 2006 17th November Big Department Stores Leave Santa Out in the Cold 10th November Failing to Save the World October 2006 27th October Frozen Prawns and Melting Icecaps 20th October Predatory Pelicans and Happy Woodland Folk 13th October Hope at last for east end of Oxford Street September 2006 16th September Lite the Blue Paper and Stand Well Back 9th September Of Poles and Twiglets August 2006 25th August Free Fares For the Fat and the Fashionable 11th August London Friendly 4th August Archway To Organic Heaven July 2006 21st July London - Celebrity Frat House 7th July Out of the Galleries into the Streets June 2006 23rd June Mayors, Nightmares and Marias 16th June Downright Rude in Paris and London 9th June Enter the Inferno May 2006 26th May Curvaceous Border 12th May Vegging Out April 2006 21st April The Camden Crawl 17th April Down the Pan 13th April I Want to Break Free 9th April Big Brother seems to have been left in a bar somewhere 7th April Don't Box Me In March 2006 24th March Political Correctness Reaches New Heights February 2006 24th February A Stadium's Tale: Cup Final Goes West 17th February Modern Musicals are Rubbish 10th February The City-Side Alliance January 2006 20th January February Sales 20th January Moby Sick 13th January Glass Half Full 3rd January Three Cheers for the Tube Station Workers December 2005 22nd December January Bites 16th December A Remarkable Year November 2005 25th November And a Partridge in a JCB 11th November Driving Miss Sadie 4th November Spam, Spam, Spammity-Spam, Shakespeare, Zorro, Chico and Rasputin October 2005 28th October Trick or Treat? 21st October We Don't Mind a Little Delay... 14th October Final Resting Place for Young British Artists September 2005 16th September Just a small urn for me, please barman 9th September DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! 2nd September The Free Tenor August 2005 30th August Samba Rhythms Breaking Out All Over The Stadium 20th August Getting Behind the Iron Farce 10th August Mystery Play is No Sell Out July 2005 29th July Moving On From 7/7 22nd July Get loaded in the park 15th July Victoire!! June 2005 24th June New Balls, Please 17th June The End of an Unsightly Era 10th June The Hooded Law