There’s been a surprising amount of press over the news that woman who recorded the announcements you hear on the London Underground has been fired for posting spoof messages on her website. The voice-over artist, 36-year-old Emma Clarke, has all of a sudden gained worldwide notoriety, with her website brought down by the sheer amount of traffic from people wanting to download the hilarious spoofs.
You can still find some recordings here. Here are some excerpts:
- “We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly.”
- “Would the passenger in the red shirt pretending to read the paper but who is actually staring at that woman’s chest please stop. You are not fooling anyone, you filthy pervert.”
- “Would passengers filling in answers on their Sudokus please accept that they are just crosswords for the unimaginative and are not in any way more impressive just because they contain numbers.
As if to reaffirm her funny take on London stereotypes, the transport administration was too staid to keep her on. Well, ok their statement was surprisingly amusing: “London Underground is sorry to have to announce that further contracts for Miss Clarke are experiencing severe delays,” a spokesman said.