We are writing TWTTIN in the offices of Celador which are in Covent Garden if you ever want to try and break in and try and find and steal the "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" questions.
Covent Garden tube is one of those quaint old stations that has lifts instead of escalators. As the lift is ascending they have a tape playing near the end telling you to have your ticket ready for the barriers, presumably to stop stupid tourists blocking access once out of the lift as they fumble to find their ticket. (I propose a new law, Herring's law which states that any tourist will always choose to stop in the exact spot that will cause the maximum amount of inconvenience for other pedestrians/commuters). I always remember this being a female voice, but today the voice was male and rather familiar. It took me only a few seconds to pinpoint the distinctive accent and bizarre vowel sounds. It was the voice of TV and pasta sauce's Loyd Grossman.
I thought this was slightly strange.
Had times got so bad for Loyd that he was forced to make a few pennies recording announcements for London Underground? Or is he simply so greedy for money that he will take any job that is offered to him?
Is it worth London Underground paying Loyd Grossman to do an announcement that anyone could record? He doesn't even say that he is Loyd Grossman as if everyone is just going to know who he is immediately. Arrogant and in my case correct? But surely a lot of people coming to Covent Garden are probably foreign tourists who won't be impressed and the UK people in the lift simply stifled giggles as the penny dropped at the incongruity of it all. Loyd talked for a little while about which direction people should go to get to the market and then added that we should check out the London Transport Museum which he said was one of his favourite museums. As if Loyd Grossman's recommendation was going to make any of us think that maybe we should go along. All I wanted to know was which other museums in the world were amongst his favourites and which one was the best. It clearly wasn't the London Transport Museum or he would have called it "my favourite". I hated Loyd Grossman for tantalising us thus, but then not telling us which museum was the best on in his opinion so we could visit that one instead.
It struck me that maybe this wasn't a recording. Maybe Loyd so loved Covent Garden that he did a little live broadcast to everyone using the lifts here. Or perhaps he was just crouched in the corner of the lift with a megaphone.
It seemed such an odd choice that I did have to wonder.
