Name: Elizabeth Line.
Appearance: Long, modern.
Age: 40 or -3, depending on whether you mean Elizabeth Line or the Elizabeth Line.
Which Elizabeth Line? Exactly.
I’m confused. Look, one of them is the new Crossrail route that will go west-to-east through London when it opens in December 2018. The other is a 40-year-old magazine publisher in New York.
Right. I see the difference. It’s nice of Transport for London to name the new route after her. She’s pretty special, is she? I’m sure she is, but it’s actually Queen Elizabeth they had in mind.
Oh. How dreary. She already has the Jubilee Line. Before that it was the Victoria Line. I mean, I’m happy not to guillotine the royals, but do we have to be such creeps as well? “Given Her Majesty the Queen’s long association with UK transport, it is very fitting that this vital link across our capital will be named the Elizabeth Line in her honour,” says Patrick McLoughlin.
Who’s he? The sycophantic transport secretary.
He sure is. What does he mean the Queen has a “long association with UK transport”? She must use it less than almost any other living Briton! Unless you count her state-funded plane, those gold coaches, the royal yacht etc?
I flipping don’t. Anyway, it’s not all royals. There’s always the Northern, Central, Metropolitan, District …
Oh sure. They’re lots of fun. Even if you like the queen, isn’t the Elizabeth Line just a really boring choice? Not for Elizabeth Line it isn’t. She freaked out when she saw she was trending on Twitter. “There were a few moments of ‘What did I do last night’ panic,” she says, “but now I’m just having fun with it.”
I bet. They should do what they did with the Bakerloo. That’s the only good one. You mean take the beginning of where the line starts and the end of where it finishes and make a new word out of them?
Yes, even if it makes people think of floury toilets. Let’s see, so the new line starts in Berkshire and ends in Essex … Let’s try something else.
Do say: “We need an inspiring name, maybe something that symbolises London, something that brings people together…”
Don’t say: “Sod it. Who’s queen at the moment? We’ll name it after her.”
