London Underground anagram map
A parody map of the London Underground with the station and line names replaced with anagrams that was circulated on the web and featured in many blogs before Transport for London's lawyers requested that the map be removed. It was generally well-received by those who viewed it and inspired some people to create anagram versions of their hometown's metro system with similar legal repercussions. The fact that it was appreciated internationally by people outside of London who were unfamiliar with the map and could not recognise the proper station name behind the anagram is testament to the iconic imagery of Harry Beck's Tube map.
Origin of the anagram map
The map was created by Torchwood, a member of the Thingbox website, using a photoshopped London Underground map and the Wordsmith online anagram generator, and shown in a thread entitled "my anagrammatic London Underground map!" on 7 February, 2006. Having problems hosting the large image another member Jpc offered to host it instead on Unfortu.net. On the 9 February, 2006 one of the Thingbox site owners Jamie submitted it to BoingBoing where Jcp reported 31,000 hits within 6 days from the subsequent exposure.
Transport for London disliked the image claiming it was a copyright infringement and had Sallianne Cockerham of Healys Solicitors to ask for the map to be removed from the web. The owners of Unfortu.net complied and it was removed on the 22 February, 2006 with the censorship being reported on BoingBoing again.
Transport for London also censored other websites that hosted the image such as the Geofftech site. As a result Geoff Marshall, the site's owner, had an interview on Radio 5 with Chris Vallance about "map-mashing" (making parody maps) in which the London Underground anagram map was discussed. This was broadcast on 14 March, 2006.
Nonetheless, a web search for "London Underground anagram map" or "Tube anagram map" and its copycat maps shows to what extent it became a popular meme or internet phenomenon.
Although Torchwood assured Sallianne Cockerham that he would not make merchandise somebody opened an online store at Cafepress selling things like mugs and t-shirts with the anagram map printed on them. Transport for London's lawyers had the store rightfully closed after less than a day's trading.
(Incidentally Sallianne Cockerham is an anagram of Melancholia Cankers.)
Torchwood now has the map hosted at www.bbc0.com and its mirror site www.bbc0.co.uk. Except instead of the original GIF format it is now an HTML page with the station/line names (and now the River Thames) being unscrambled when the mouse is placed over the anagram.
Stations that couldn't be anagrammatized
Blackwall, Bow Church and Hornchurch stations couldn't be anagrammatized and instead their component words were reversed to produce Wall Black, Church Bow and Church Horn respectively. Burch Chow or Chow Burch (from the gynaecological Burch procedure) was rejected as an anagram for Bow Church because of a dislike for uncommon proper nouns. Whereas the potentially problematic Bank station was anagrammatized into nabk; the edible berry of the Zizyphys Lotus tree.
Copy of Sallianne Cockerham's email request
"Thank you for calling earlier.
You confirmed that your version of the map was purely for ‘art’ and that you did not intend to make any more copies or profit from this design in any way. You also acknowledged that you were aware the design was a breach of copyright and advised you had not used it, and will not use it on any merchandise or brochures or further copies etc.
On behalf of my client I am pleased this has been resolved promptly and I hope no further action is necessary. However I was just looking at other websites and searching generally and note that there is still a link to the map on London Underground Blog, comments where you show the ‘better resolution/smaller KB size in GIF format…..’.
Please ensure this version is also deleted and no further copies are made or circulated.
I should be grateful if you would let me know when this has been done.
Thank you for your assistance in this matter."
References
- BoingBoing's article on the anagram Tube map.
- BoingBoing's article on the anagram Tube map censorship.
- Unfortu.net's censored page.
- Times online's article about the map's censorship.
- Cafepress' closed Tubemap store.
- BoingBoing's article on the censorship of Geofftech's site.
- The Register's article on Geofftech's censorship.
- Radio 5 Live's 'map-masher' interview with Geoff Marshall (MP3 file).
- Robot Johnny's Toronto anagram subway map and censorship.