Friday 17 October 2008

Tube doors: They'll be the new Routemaster

The Germans are at it as well. Routemaster designing.

It's all part of the Routemaster competition that the Standard will go totally CR-AZY about next month when the winner is revealed. It'll be plastered on the billboards, splattered all over the paper, and Gilligan will have an orgasm. The champion will get loads of dosh, and maybe a big Blue Peter-style badge in the shape of a bus.

A colleague at work, who recently arrived from South Africa, commented the other day: "I didn't really follow the London Mayoral Elections, but I know there was a lot of talk about the Routemaster"

A thought suddenly entered my head. I might stand for London Mayor on another relatively insignificant point, and try to somehow blow it out of proportion to make it a key decider in the election, using safety as a good angle again.

This will be it:

I would complain about the time it takes for tube carriage doors to shut.

"It's too quick", I would say. "At least 2 people have had their fingers slightly hurt in the last year when they were running onto a tube carriage. And 6 people got their coats caught."

And then it would spiral out of control.

Paxman would be drilling me on the time it takes for the doors to shut:

"How long do they take to shut? Is it 1 second or 2 seconds? Answer the question!"

Andrew Neil would catch me out on my figures on a live debate:

"You said it would cost £1,900 to change the time it takes to shut the doors. Actually it'll cost £1.9 million pounds. That's 1000 times what you said."

The audience would all laugh. But then vote for me anyway. I mean what's money when you've got the principle of door-shutting times, eh?

Yeah, tube doors. I'll write that down. Number one pledge. Just above crime.

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