Put a sock in it

Older readers may recall my account of the lengthy rebuilding of my home station, Ruislip Manor. I commented on the huge number of CCTV cameras (roughly two per passenger on quiet days) and the plethora of loudspeakers that festoon every lamp post. It has taken the staff a little while to learn about this new technology but now they have clearly mastered the art of using a microphone and some mornings you can barely hear yourself think for announcements.

Amongst the gems offered to us this morning were:

London Transport does not like people smoking
You should stand behind the yellow lines at all times for your safety
We are being watched on cameras for our own security.
Passengers wishing to travel on the Piccadilly line should take the first train to Rayners Lane (with the masterful timing of true genius, they make this announcement at 8:30, exactly when a Piccadilly train arrives, and on time)

and of course, that old standby "A good service is operating on all lines". Yes, they trotted this one out today. I knew when I came out on the platform that a good service was not operating because there were at least twice as many people waiting for the Metropolitan line as usual. And so it proved. We were heavily overcrowded until Harrow (when most people left to take a "fast" train). Sadly (for them), it was held up at Wembley Park and those of us who stuck to the stopping train were rewarded by the view of their faces as we trundled past.

Anyway the point is not to have a jolly good laugh at the expense of my fellow passengers but to suggest that being bombarded with loudspeaker announcements that largely state the bleedin' obvious, but which do not not actually bother to tell us when the next train is due, is a poor way to start the day. Why do they do it? Can't they just watch us on their high-tech surveillance and keep the mouth shut?

The lure of travel

Just back from a very nice holiday, cruising from Venice to Istanbul. And how, you will wish to know, do commuters in these far-flung places manage compare to us?

Well actually I have only the haziest idea. In Venice you get around by boat or by foot, so no stupid delays caused by "signal failure" or the tube's current favourite "person under a train", but presumably they get various water-related problems. Throughout the small towns dotted down the Adriatic coast, and in the Greek islands, you can walk, cycle or take a donkey. Cue "extensive delays due to certain animal products on the path". And in Istanbul the ferocious traffic jams and the permanently full (despite being amazingly frequent) trams, coupled with the non-stop ferries across the Bosphorus, suggest something that even we Londoners might flinch away from.

Cruising has got to be the most pleasant way to travel. Someone else is doing the driving. The accommodation is comfortable, the food splendid and the views keep changing. There are no unexpected delays, in fact the only delays we had were on the flights both outbound and returning.

Anyway, back to the world of real commuting. I picked up a copy of a "newspaper" called London Lite this evening. Apparently we are all trembling with excitement at the prospect of a rugby match tomorrow. Not me mate. Getting home without being held up for 10 minutes at Harrow because of a defective train down the line, that's the real turn-on.

Deconstructing Tube Ads - 2: Nokia

There's a poster in the tube showing a phone, or something. And a slogan at the bottom that reads "Be more Nokia".

I have a Nokia phone, as it happens. I am happy with it. I require nothing else from the company. I have not the slightest intention of being "more Nokia". Assuming that what they really mean is "Buy more Nokia", then this ad will reduce the probability of my so doing.

We are people (even those of who have to commute using the tube). We are not brands. We do not aspire to be brands.

Tube English 2

When trains are running late, and platforms are crowded (as they were today thanks to the stupid walk-out by drivers on the Circle and District lines), station announcers like to tell us to "Use all available doors". If I was an elementary particle or photon, capable of simultaneously passing through multiple locations (or in some versions of quantum mechanics, theoretically capable of being anywhere in the universe until the collapse of the probability wave function brought about by interaction with another particle or photon), then yes I could indeed aspire to using all available doors. But I am composed of billions upon billions of elementary particles, the probability that I occupy just one position in space-time is overwhelmingly huge and consequently I can use only one door at a time. And so can everyone else. So being told to do something impossible does make the announcers appear to inhabit some parallel universe of their own.

The mind of an Adman

Regular readers will know my dislike of advertising. It is unavoidable when travelling on the Underground, in the form of posters at the stations and placards on the inside of the trains. And any insight into the mindset of those who create this stuff is helpful, in making it easier to resist the endless lies.

So here is an extract from an interview in The Guardian a few days ago with Chamath Palilhapitiya, the VP of product marketing and operations of Facebook.

“We honestly believe if we make advertising more compelling and more socially relevant, we can have significantly less but it being more valuable…the thing is not to have as many ads as possible but to make them as essential and necessary as possible. And then it is not viewed as advertising but as content” (source: tinyurl.com/36ddn4).

Whoops, what a giveaway. Leaving aside the wonderful idea that there are things that the VP dishonestly believes, he has laid bare the essence of what admen believe – that their products are essential, that we actually need them, that they are as, if not more, relevant than the actual content of the website (TV programme, newspaper…) that we have chosen to read or watch or listen to.

So let me, as VP for plain speaking of Ramblings, make clear – adverts are not essential. They are basically lies. They distort reality. They purport to provide information, but by only giving us information that the admen wishes us to have, and by suppressing anything that the admen consider may be detrimental to their products, in reality they bamboozle and confuse us. And the idea that adverts will come to be considered on the same level of content is really frightening. It means that Facebook users will be unable to distinguish genuine friends and contacts from people trying to sell them something. There will be no distinction between people doing things because of a mutual interest, and people who care only about the money they can make out of you. Ultimately no distinction between truth and lies.

Do I protest too much? Remember the decades in which tobacco manufacturers assured us that smoking was good for us? And those in which we were told about how alcoholic drinks were good for us? The cosmetics firms that cruelly use animals for testing? The cosmetics firms that today sell water and vegetable oils mixed into “creams” to “reduce the signs of ageing”? The airlines who claim to fly to certain cities when in reality they fly to airports many miles from those cities? The ads that claim “Everyone’s talking about…” a brand new product that nobody has ever heard of before? And so on, endlessly, on and on.

No, I protest too little.