The woman who warns more than a billion London commuters a year to "mind the gap" has been sacked by Tube bosses after posting a series of spoof announcements on her website.

The spoofs by Emma Clarke, one of the country's most successful voiceover artists, included a reminder to "our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly" and an appeal to the passenger in the red shirt to stop "staring at that woman's chest".

But Transport for London decided that it was the end of the line after Ms Clarke, a 36-year-old mother of two who is trying to build a career in comedy, told a newspaper that she never used the Tube any more because it was "dreadful".

A TfL spokeswoman said: "Some of the spoof announcements are very funny, but Emma is a bit silly to go round slagging off her client's services. London Underground is sorry to have to announce that further contracts for Ms Clarke are experiencing severe delays."

But the voiceover specialist, who used to live in Highgate, North London, but now lives in Cheshire, told Times Online that she had been misunderstood - and nobody at Transport for London had been in touch.

"I know what they've said but as far as I'm concerned, I never slagged them off," she said. "What I said was how dreadful it was to always hear my voice on Tube trains. That was my point - not that the Tube was dreadful or that the transport provision was terrible.

"It's an uncomfortable experience when I phone a company and I hear myself answering or when the radio alarm kicks in and I'm talking on an advert."

She added: "The spoof announcements are on the fun section of my website. It's plain that they're just a bit of fun, the ones we'd all like to hear if we could."

Some of the announcements you will never hear for real:

“We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly.”

“Would the passenger in the red shirt pretending to read the paper but who is actually staring at that woman’s chest please stop. You are not fooling anyone, you filthy pervert.”

“Would passengers filling in answers on their Sudokus please accept that they are just crosswords for the unimaginative and are not in any way more impressive just because they contain numbers.”

“Here we are crammed again into a sweaty Tube carriage ... If you’re female smile at the bloke next to you and make his day. He’s probably not had sex for months.”

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