While TFL farts about with Tube Chat badges angry commuters in the chatty northern city of Rochdale have been wearing them with some varying success.
John Shart, who commutes from Rochdale to Manchester on the number 17 said; “They’re a god send. I usually just stick my headphones in and look out of the window but there’s always some old bird nudging me to talk about the weather, which inevitably is always rain. Well Gladys got a shock today when she spied my badge.”
Annabelle Beswick’s badge had a polar effect on the 409 to Oldham however;
“There’s this nutter who gets on every morning. He smells like Bovril and screams obscenities. Usually I avoid eye contact and pray he walks past which most of the time he does. Today though I wished the ground would have swallowed me up when I heard him shout ‘badge!’ repeatedly before he sat next to me and started stroking my hair.”
If the controversial badges are a success they’re set to be handed out in libraries, shops, cafés and any other places where over friendly Northerners make small talk.
