London Tube Announcer: Sense of Humor London Underground Bosses: Not so Much

Really funny spoofs of London Underground announcements - but please, do Emma Clarke a favor, and wait a few days before following these links.

Emma Clarke's voice is familiar to people on the London Underground. She's a voiceover artist who, among other things, did those announcements like "mind the gap."

Then she recorded some spoofs of her own announcements, and put them on her website. They're funny, by the way.

A newspaper interviewed her, and decided that she didn't like a particular part of the Underground. When that hit the fan, she explained to another paper, "The Times" (UK), "I did not say that the Northern Line was dreadful. I did say it’s a challenging line. What I did say was dreadful was the thought of being in a Tube train listening to my own voice."

My guess is that the Tube bosses decided that she had besmirched the fair reputation of their tunnels. That would explain why they decided not to use her services any more.

Emma Clarke's website has been overwhelmed by the international attention her spoofs have gotten. She left this message:

"Hi - thanks for stopping by. Unfortunately, my site is currently overwhelmed by the sheer number of people wanting to download MP3s of my spoof Tube announcements. Please check back in a day or so."

"Thanks, Emma."

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Until Emma's website is back online, here are transcripts of some of those spoof announcements, taken without permission - and with no guarantee made or implied of their accuracy.

• "Would the passenger in the red shirt pretending to read a paper, but who is actually staring at that woman’s chest please stop. You’re not fooling anyone, you filthy pervert"
• "Passengers are asked not to drop litter on the train. Please use the tramps provided"
• "Would the passenger in the pinstripe suit and thousand-Pound glasses who obviously works in the media please take one step forward on to the track"
• "Passengers are reminded a smile is a friendship signal, not a sign of weakness"
• "Would passengers filling in their Sudoku, please accept that they are just crosswords for the unimaginative and are not more impressive because they contain numbers"
• "Residents of London are reminded that there are other places in Britain outside your stinking city and, if you remove your heads from your backsides for just a couple of minutes, you may realize the M25 is not the edge of the Earth"
  (some New Yorkers seem to have the same problem)
  Speaking of Americans:
• "We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly"