Let it be said here and now, I hate Cadbury's chocolate. Call me unpatriotic if you like, but it's vile and this is a great shame
for me, as Cadbury's seem to have a monopoly on those machines that you will find on more or less every platform of the London Underground.
Please, please if anyone from Mars or Rowntree's is reading this, can't you make a concerted effort and try to steal this contract off Cadbury's.
The only time I eat Cadbury's chocolate is on the tube and it's only if I'm absolutely starving and nothing else is available. I have often
thought of trying to set traps for the pigeons that populate the Underground, but buying a Cadbury's Whole Nut bar seems to ever so slightly
have the edge on the pigeon option.
When you tackle one of these chocolate machines take care as they are not always brilliant at dispensing chocolate. However I twice got a bargain from these machines, once put in the money and not only got the chocolate
I wanted but my money back as well. On another occasion a friend and I were sitting near the
machine when a man was refilling it, for some reason we must have been looking starving or
remarkably attractive and he gave us a bar of chocolate each and a packet of chewing gum!!!
Here's a few comments from people who have signed my guest book:
"Sorry I have to say this - everyone has a right to his own nuisance - but last week
ALL the chocolate machines I tried were in perfectly working order - so I'm fed up now with
chocolate bars... "
Gerard, The Netherlands
"Had a good chuckle at your site, it brought back many memories some good, some
bad, some downright horrific, especially during the IRA bombing campaign (known as a london
fire brigade emergency at the following station, don't want to scare the tourists do we?) also the
Kings cross disaster, a route I took every day apart from that day that is.
"Trying to buy a
chocolate bar and getting arrested for manhandling the machine (machines designed to take your
money and give nothing in return) 100.00 pound (fine) for a chocolate bar, not bad eh ! Anyway I
thoroughly enjoyed your site, keep up the good work and "mind the gap" "
Kenneth Mairs from Canada (although formally from Scotland)
"I love to check the coin returns on the chocolate machines in the Underground
stations. Usually get enough to buy a bar. "
Tom Hagen, Denver, USA
Here's a note from R of Ruislip
"I thought I would tell you of my experiences of trying to extract nourishment from the chocolate machines at Harrow on the Hill station, after reading the Food section of your Website.
"The staff who refill these machines must be incredibly dense (almost as much so as me for using them). 9 times out of 10, Fruit 'n' Nut is Transposed with Dairy Milk, and since I like the latter but not the former, the pigeons around the Harrow area have learned to queue behind me at the machine to receive their quotient.
"However, there is a happy ending. Having been steadily more annoyed with one particular machine, it then proceeded to give me nothing one day than a chocolate bar, this particular nothing costing 40p. Not being able to take any more, I hit the machine in the coin area repeatedly, causing it to deposit £2 compensation..."
Name Withheld of Ruislip
I've now stolen a section from "Lew's Tube" website, as I he hasn't got a direct line to this section of his site.
"When on the platform, there are some simple unwritten rules to which you must abide by if you want to succeed:
1) Don't use the Chocolate Machines. It has recently been discovered that you have as much chance of getting a chocolate bar OR getting your money back as you do winning the lottery. And NONE of this money goes to charity."
Some chocolate machines work and some don't, you need to take a Forrest Gump attitude about them, "life is like a chocolate machine".
MORE THAN CHOCOLATE
As if banging machines to get out chocolate wasn't enough we're now going to find ourselves tormented with the prospect of bashing a machine to get a book out of it!!!
"The sons of two of Britain's most aristocratic families, the Guinnesses and the Waughs, are launching a system for dispensing short stories on the London Underground. Alexander Waugh, the grandson of the novelist Evelyn Waugh, and Ned Iveagh, the Guinness heir, will introduce their prototype dispensers to selected stations on the Tube this month before expanding the enterprise across the British rail system. The stories, published by Travelman, are printed on one sheet of paper and fold up like a map."
"The first machines were installed last month on South Kensington station in West London, each book costing £1. The scheme, backed by Lord Iveagh's Trust, will be formally launched on 15 January. The first vending machine, a sweet dispenser, was introduced to the Underground in 1886.
'Fortunately vending technology and design has moved on!' said a spokeswoman for Lord Iveagh. "
Here's hoping!!!!
For the full story check out The Observer newspaper.
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Should smelly food be banned on the tube?
