GONE... IN A FLASH!

Oliver Keens misses mob rule when randoms would gather in public to sing, dance or stand still, a great British tradition of silliness that is up there with gurning and gravy wrestling

- Oliver Keens

It’s 16 years this week since alcohol was banned on the London Underground. This is an impressively pointless ban, that absolutely nobody obeys, but that’s not why the date is etched on my mind. Nor is it because of the great statesman who implemented it. It’s because it inadvertently killed off one of the last great ways to be absurd in British life: the flash mob.

It began when Boris Johnson – mostly known until then as a buffoonish Tory MP and much-chortled-at host of Have I Got News For You – unexpectedly won the election to become London’s mayor. Among his pledges was a slightly trivial ban on people drinking on the Tube. It angered the unions but, more fatefully, it angered cheeky students on Facebook, who soon organised groups such as “Last Round on the Underground”.

“We need to make this big,” stated one group. “Spread the word and we’ll flash mob the Tube,” read another. Media picked up on plans for a cocktail party on the Circle Line and the whole thing went out of control. Around 2,000 people turned up. Some brought sound systems. Many brought inflatables. Chants of “Boris is a wanker” echoed on platforms. People drank and drank and sometimes fought while being packed into carriages. By the end there was more sick flowing than the series ending of The Inbetweeners. While most people still saw it as light-hearted fun, the headlines the next morning talked of it like a riot. It was the final nail in the coffin for the flash mob.