TRANSPORT for London has taken legal action against a blogger who produced a version of its iconic Tube map, designed by Harry Beck, with the station names replaced with daft anagrams.

Now, I don’t know how amusing you find the notion of alighting from the Northern Line at Newt Arrester or staying on for Edge Grottoes.

“Completely without humour — complete waste of time,” growls TfL, which goes after about five such misuses of Beck’s map a week, admittedly not usually this stupid. “We see ourselves as having a duty to protect Harry Beck’s legacy.”

This being the internet, the map is now everywhere, along with similar exercises for Amsterdam, Chicago, Vienna et al. Day return to Absorbency & Neural Android, please. Sorry, I was being silly.

POLITICAL correctness from Eric Daniels, the Lloyds TSB chief executive. Asked an innocuous question about “headcount reduction”, he shot back: “Headcount is a derogatory phrase.” The bank prefers “staff members”. So that’s 6,000 loyal “staff members” gone from the bank over the past two years, then.

Death notice

THE world leader most likely to end the year dancing with the Grim Reaper is Jacques Chirac, according to Marvin Zonis, political risk consultant and professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Zonis makes such macabre forecasts each year and was speaking at the school’s event in London this week.

Others who might do well to check their life insurance include Fidel Castro and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Zonis says. He admits he is not always right, but says if he forecasts often enough, he usually gets there in the end — as with the Ayatollah Khomeini.

PETER DAVIS — no, not that one, another one — was the Inland Revenue man who headed Operation Gourmet, the plan to impose tax on tips received by waiters and the like.

The Revenue has just backed down on the project. Davis, who was known for his keenness to squeeze extra tax revenues from the hospitality industry, now works for a tax consultancy and has been touting for business advising restaurateurs on the implications of the Revenue’s decision. “Ah, sweet irony,” mutters one, who does not plan to push much work his way.

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