In the latest example of inadvertently star-making sense of humour failure on the part of an organization, Emma Clarke, smooth-voiced announcer for the London Underground system, has been “de-accessioned” for recording spoof announcements and posting them on her personal website.

“London Underground is sorry to have to announce that further contracts for Miss Clarke are experiencing severe delays,” a TfL spokesman told the Evening Standard Monday.

Actually, giving the text a read-over, it appears that these so-called fakes are actually more useful and informative than the officially sanctioned announcements. See for yourself:

• 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.

etc, etc. Click over to her website in a day or so to listen to the recordings, once the publicity from the worldwide stories on Reuters, BBC, etc, etc, has calmed down and the site comes back up.