Boris's Buzzkill: A Farewell to Drinking on the Tube

By Julie PH Last edited 190 months ago
Boris's Buzzkill: A Farewell to Drinking on the Tube
Booze_ban.jpg

Have you heard? Boris is banning booze on all London transport come the first of June! Do you care? Many of your fellow Londoners do! And they’re planning parties to prove it.

Grassroots campaigns both to bid adieu to booze cruising on the Tube and to openly flout the new ban are sprouting up all over – where else? – Facebook. Garnering the most attention is James Darling’s Last Orders on the Underground. The group, neither protesting nor advocating the ban, according to its Facebook page, would just like a fancy dress party, please – on the Circle Line, leaving Liverpool Street Station at 9pm on 31 May. They “aim to drink responsibl[y]” and to “be nice to people the whole time.” If the latter holds true, it just might be the most pleasant Tube ride you’ve ever taken.

Like a bit of embellishment with your fancy dress? The Boozing as Boris group will also be donning BoJo-style wigs on their party ride and, helpfully, can provide tips on finding your own perfect blond mop. Meanwhile, if you treat your drink outings as endurance tests, Let’s Get Hammered on the Tube Day kicks off at King’s Cross at 1pm on 31 May. If they’re getting hammered on the Hammersmith line, we award them points for creativity but otherwise worry that such an early start time is a guarantor of the bad behaviour Boris’s ban is supposed to address.

Finally, if you just can’t wait until next weekend, you can Bring the Drink to Boris this Saturday, 24 May, on Bus 159 from Brixton to Whitehall or Bus 48 from Liverpool Street to Hackney. The group lists “sexuality” as its common interest – will members be flouting other banned public behaviours, we wonder?

Or you can stay home and drink with the comfort of knowing there’s an accessible loo nearby.

Image courtesy of Annie Mole’s Flickrstream under the Creative Commons Attribution license

Last Updated 19 May 2008