The third series of TfL's transport podcast, Mind the Gap, begins with a rather unusual gap — namely the 90-metre one between the Thames and the IFS Cloud Cable Car.
Having previously rootled into topics including 'architecture' and 'innovation' — chatting to the likes of photographer Luke Agbaimoni (aka Tube Mapper) and Wayne Hemingway, designer of the TfL staff uniforms — transport aficionado/chirpy presenter Tim Dunn returns, with the focus of this new four-part series on the 25th anniversary of Transport for London (TfL). Though the city's public transport has been unified since 1933, the introduction of TfL in 2000 switched accountability to the Mayor of London.
And what a quarter of a century it has been: 26 years ago there was no cable car, no Jubilee line extension, no Elizabeth line, no tram network, no cycle hire bikes, nowhere near as many electric buses... It was an altogether different London.
Mind the Gap is, in many ways, an extended, back-slapping advertisement for TfL. Case in point, the midriff of the first episode, which entails a friendly, if rather businesslike, pow-wow with TfL Commissioner Andy Lord. He runs through his job description, the importance of safety — and invites people to come and work for TfL as engineers. Not exactly riveting stuff, if you'll excuse the pun — certainly it doesn't hit the giddy highs (lows?) of Dunn's bewitching Secrets of the Underground series.
However, the presenter's kid-in-a-candy-shop enthusiasm is never short of infectious, and Dunn's interview with comedian Babatunde Aleshe — who used to be a TfL customer service adviser (which basically meant having to apologise to people a lot) — is a great example of how London's public transport is a part of every Londoner's life. Aleshe's old TfL stomping ground overlooked The O2, and he used to dream of performing here — indeed, it was a dream that eventually came true. And all those people complaining to him about their train being cancelled? Proved to be ideal training for dealing with hecklers.
The first episode of Series 3 of Mind the Gap, along with the full Series 1 and 2 episodes, are available to listen to for free now.
