Blogging is great because anyone can do it (look at me), but it takes a little extra something to become renowned for it and to keep at it for a number of years. One of our very favourite bloggers is Annie Mole, whose Going Underground blog is a daily must-read and the very last word on what goes on beneath the streets of London. We’re very happy that she agreed to be interviewed and share a little insight into her site and what keeps it fresh:

Why the underground?

Initially I just wanted to see if I could build a website and wanted it to be something that people would be able to rant about. As I spend a lot of time on the Tube as do almost 4 million others each day, I thought that could lead to some interesting stories. I definitely wanted to avoid constantly saying “you’ll never guess how long it took me to get into work today”. In 1999, when I built Goingunderground.net (of which the blog’s a spin off from) most of the the other Tube sites were pictures of rolling stock. At that time no one was doing anything about ordinary commutes or some of the funny stuff that happens. So I thought I’d give it a try. I certainly didn’t expect to be writing about the Tube eight years later.

Now that you’re considered an expert and news source for anything tubular is it still as much fun?

Yes and no. Travelling on the Tube in itself in my opinion is never fun. Although “people watching” in general can be fun and when strangers are in forced close contact with each other it leads to behaviour that you just don’t get elsewhere. So finding some hoodie sitting next to a City barrister has interesting potential for blogging.

What’s not so much fun is when people do consider me an “expert” on fare increases, the Tube map, lines I rarely travel on, station architecture and things where I don’t have more of an opinion than ordinary commuters. I get loads of requests from students asking for help with their dissertations and stuff and that’s pretty tiresome, particularly when they’re not very specific in their questions or if they don’t even say thanks when I do help them.

What about your readership, do you get a lot of attention from outside London and the UK?

Yes, the original site had more interest from the US than the UK initially. Now the blog gets most visitors from the UK but the US isn’t that far behind and a lot of regular visitors & commenters are from the States. I did a radio interview with a DJ in Australia once which was fun and see the blog mentioned in all sorts of countries now.

So we can avoid asking it, what’s the most annoying question people ask you?

What’s your favourite Tube station?

What’s your favo… only kidding. But what’s the best thing about our tube system that its critics overlook?

I think the Customer Charter agreement where you can claim back your single fare if your train is delayed by more than 15 minutes is great and I wish more people claimed on it. I know a case came to light last year where a civil servant was exploiting the system and making thousands of false claims, but putting that aside it’s a good system. I probably forget to make a claim for every single time I could claim, but on average I get about 40 quid a year back. I know other people who get about 90 quid.

Is it hard to turn off? When you’re on holiday are you drawn underground?

I try not to use the Tube at the weekends as it’s nice to have a break. However, when I travel outside of the UK I make a point of deliberately using a country’s subway system to draw comparisons. I’ve used the Metro in Paris a lot and also travelled on subways in Lisbon, Toronto and Mexico City. I’ve never been to New York but when I do, one of the first things will be to travel on the subway.

As a blogger of note is the London online community a fun one? What could we do better?

I think we should do more guest posts. Themanwhofellasleep had a good idea about a year ago of taking over other blogs for a day. If someone offers to write a guest post for me I usually welcome them with open arms as it gives readers a different voice and also gives me a breather.

More themed meet-ups would be good too rather than just general meet-ups in a pub. I’ve arranged the odd film trip and been to some Flickr scavenger hunts and pub quizzes with other bloggers and readers. It would be nice to see more of this.

Do you read on or iPod your journey? What are you reading/listening to today?

I do read Metro and the Londonpaper (I find it hard to read London Lite because it’s even more celebrity & gossip obsessed that the other two). I’ve been in the middle of a novel by Melanie Rae Thorn called Sweet Hearts for ages - can’t seem to finish it at the moment. My mp3 has a mixture of relaxing ambient chill-out stuff like Gotan Project, Damien Rice, Zero Seven, Portishead, Nitin Sawhney and Massive Attack.

Aside from your own which sites should we keep on our radar?

Brian Pigeon’s blog is brill. I think pigeons get a hard time in London and it’s great to see a pigeon with a blog. He has regular “Freak of the week” pigeons and tells stories about going out on the town with is pigeon mates Mart & the boys. One of his best posts was a pigeon eye’s view of the Tube with a little cam-corder strapped to his head on his journey.

Pandemian (formerly greenfairy.com) one the blogs I first read before I blogged myself. Jack’s a really funny writer and has me nodding my head in agreement with a lot of the things she writes.

Jamfaced - Food porn pure and simple

Radio 5’s Pods & Blogs - I’ve discovered some great blogs through this site and the podcasts on it and Chris Vallance has a daily slot on Radio 5 in the small hours of the morning where he interviews bloggers and does the impossible “round-up” of the blogosphere.

Meg Pickard’s blog - Meg’s was the first UK blog I ever came across about six years ago. I spent about two hours, transfixed by her blog, amazed that someone was prepared to put their life online like this. She still blogs now, is still interesting, funny, thought provoking, ranty and I feel like she’s a friend even though I’ve never actually met her in the flesh - I’m sure I’d be all gushy if I did.