On the afternoon of Sunday, January 12, the annual No Trousers Tube Ride occurred in central London, at the Piccadilly Circus Underground station. Hordes of passengers entered the station and boarded train cars with all the appropriate winter attire—hats, jackets, gloves—minus a pair of pants.
Londoners have been celebrating this freeing event since 2009, and you may be wondering the reason behind this tradition. The answer is simple: for fun.
“There’s so much bad, so much not fun going on,’’ Dave Selkirk, a 40-year-old personal trainer who participated in the pant-less festivities told AP News. “It’s nice to do something just for the sake of it.”
Those who participated in the event did so despite London’s biting cold this weekend. Temperatures were a high of 6° Celsius (around 40° Fahrenheit) and a low of -6° Celsius (around 20° Fahrenheit).
Going pant-less on public transit is not unique to the U.K. In fact, the tradition started across the pond in the U.S. several years before the idea was adopted by London’s commuting population.
It was all the way back in 2002 when comedian Charlie Todd conjured the idea of bearing all one’s winter garments sans pants on the New York subway system: a bold call for any local or tourist.
“It would be unusual in New York, although you can see anything on our subway system, but what would really be funny is if at the next stop, a couple of minutes later, when the doors open and additional persons got on, not wearing trousers as well,” Todd told the BBC about how he hatched the idea. “And they act like they don’t know each other, and they act like…it’s no big deal and they just forgot their trousers.’’
Since Todd’s launch over 20 years ago, the event has made its way around the world as it’s now celebrated in Shanghai, Berlin, Istanbul, Lisbon, Tokyo and Toronto, among others.
Peoplesmind
