If you were out and about on the Underground this weekend you might have caught sight of one of these guys on TfL's latest 'don't be a selfish bastard' campaign. Together for London employs a gang of unthreateningly rounded cartoon figures, The Londoners, each promising to be a better traveller:
There's even a short split-screen film by Mike Figgis to be shown in cinemas that follows a bus journey carrying an obnoxiously loud businessman and some annoying kids with an MP3 phone on loudspeaker. Amazing things happen when considerate passengers intercede and make the idiots see the error of their ways (the pregnant lady gets a seat, the old lady's faith in young people is restored, the business man embraces his partner... spew).
Yeah, it's all a bit touchy feely and unconvincing. As Annie Mole points out, the "Love is..." series did it better, earlier (although they're clearly not representative enough for the PC noughties and you really can't go naked on the tube anymore). We're fairly sure the kids we're too scared to tell off on the bus won't take a blind bit of notice of these cute numpties, whatever their cartoon haircuts but, ten out of ten for trying, TfL.
