BRITAIN:THEY TURNED up in a variety of costumes, from flapper girls to Mayor Boris Johnson lookalikes, determined to raise one last toast before the drinking ban on London's public transport systems came into force yesterday.
For some of the thousands of people who gathered at various points on the Circle line of the tube it was a chance to air anti-mayor sentiments, but for most it was just an excuse to have a party. Many said they had never drunk on the tube before.
Emerson Tan, a 32-year-old IT security consultant, turned up with the leftovers of a 3.5-litre bottle of vodka and a hip flask, part of a group who set off from Liverpool Street station at 7.45pm. "It's a goodbye to very old friends. I'm not so much anti-Boris - he's a bit of an old boozer and a member of the Bullingdon club. I'm going to probably get fairly tipsy but there'll be no Bullingdon club behaviour here." Scones were handed out and Tupperware containers with mint and lemon shared around.
Some groups were more organised than others, with timed pauses at King's Cross station and Farringdon for loo and cigarette breaks. Others were just happy to go with the flow, hopping off carriages and jumping on to following trains.
Many of those who had advertised events for the day on the website Facebook intended their parties to be genteel affairs - one gathering described itself as "a dapperly dressed, terribly civilised, gin-soaked drinks party on the Circle line, before BoJo bans us from drinking on public transport".
But not all went according to plan. Police made some 17 arrests, over drunk and disorderly behaviour and assault. Six tube stations were closed as trains were cancelled after being damaged.
The numbers attending the event peaked after 9pm, when several of the largest Facebook groups arranged to meet, and Liverpool Street station, the main hopping-on point of the evening, was closed shortly afterwards.
Alice Moss, a postgraduate philosophy student and organiser of one of the parties, said: "It was partly to poke fun at the ridiculous rule . . . I feel the law was put in place to solve a social problem - antisocial behaviour - which is sometimes linked to drinking, but not always . . . If you tell people they can't drink on the tube they'll just drink before they get on. An arbitrary, tokenistic gesture.
"For some it's just a party. . . but if you treat people like naughty children they'll act like naughty children. Boris has chosen something that he hasn't had to put in any infrastructure for." Chris Mear, a web developer, said: "We're absolutely not a protest. At heart I think that all these people with protests are all just looking for an excuse to have a piss-up.
"It's just in the great British tradition. The ban seems like the sort of thing we ought to get out and celebrate - although I've never actually had a drink on the tube before.
"We don't have any theme but we wanted it to be classier than just a can of beer . . . I've got a martini-making kit." But not everyone was in party mood. Laura Morgan, who kickstarted one of the Facebook events, said: "I'm not going. I only started [it] as a joke, I didn't realise some people were actually going to do it. I think they're idiots."
- (Guardian service)