The Tube Party as part of our Weekend Adventures
Posted: Tue, 03 Jun 2008, 21:18:00, GMT | 1991 views | Commented on: Friday, June 20, 2008 Share
Late breaking news - June 4, 2008! Part of my video from the Tube Party was featured on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show! Very cool!!
The past weekend has been pretty busy for us. We started the weekend with dinner Friday night with Rob and Steve at a local restaurant, and then went back to their house to hang out for a bit. On Saturday, we headed back to the Aldgate East area where we used to live (at the Wool House) and went to a BBQ at a friend's place. We stayed there until 8:30pm, when we headed over to Liverpool Street tube station to join in the Tube Party festivities. Despite all the news reports of the party being violent, full of yobs, mad out-of-control-youths, and hoodlums, we saw nothing other than friendly, happy people out for a fun time. I did feel slightly bad on one of the trains for an older couple that clearly had no idea what was going on (see the video). There were even some random acts of kindness witnessed - a girl on our carriage wasn't with the party, and the train stopped in between two stations for quite a while (supposedly due to congestion at the next station). She was becoming obviously claustrophobic and several people made sure that the crowd left her plenty of space, and eventually even convinced her to be escorted into the next carriage while we were stopped, where it was a lot less crowded. It's been amusing to watch the news reports and read the editorials and letters from Londoners. Most of them seem to say that the party proves the point of why banning alcohol on the tube is a good idea, and also revolve around the inaccurate point that by banning drinking ON the tube, drunks will no longer be on board. Of course, the real problem is abusing alcohol in the first place - and it's usually in a pub, not on board the train. So agreed that people won't be getting MORE drunk while on the tube, but I'm fairly sure we'll see just as many obnoxious drunk people as before.
Anyway, we snapped a few photos from the Tube Party that are worth sharing.
Richard Fortune writes: Aww, how cool. Looks like you all had a great time! Also in strong agreement with your comments on the ban itself. A kneejerk reaction to an even deeper issue - the endemic binge culture of the British isles( yup I'm throwing Ireland in there too!) Never the less its great to see you all out and about in the old stomping ground. Greetings from Beijing, regards, - Richard. (posted Friday, June 20, 2008)