Paging Inspector Sands

Inspector Sands is a code-word used by the London Transport Network (among others) to announce over the tannoy that there is an emergancy situation, but not to panic the travelers about it.

Daily commuters are reasonably used - esspecially in the last few months

• to regular announcements of “Inspector Sands to the Control Room, Please”, and will provoke knowing glances from other commuters on the tube. It’s a diplomatic fiction that we don’t know what it means, you only have to hear it moments before an evacuation on a couple of occasions before it becomes obvious.

Except I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think the code word has changed, and that someone somewhere is now asking them to put out x number of Inspector Sands per day, on the basis that commuters will think “ooh, more terrorist plots! Lets give our freedoms away!”

But then, I’m a cynic.