'Subway' and 'underpass' in British English

Something else Christmassy, this time spotted in Forest Hill, London:



This interested me because of the use of 'subway' to refer to what I would call an 'underpass' (namely a tunnel that enables pedestrians to cross under a road).

Googling reveals that the two terms are often used interchangeably in British English. For example, I found an article in the Barking & Dagenham Post which begins:

A 71-year-old man was beaten to the ground by a group of thugs as he walked past a notorious subway.

The pensioner was attacked near the underpass linking the Mark's Gate Estate to East Road, Chadwell Heath.

The OED Online indicates that 'underpass' originated in the US – where, of course, 'subway' is used to mean "underground railway" (again, OED Online).

I wonder whether 'underpass' is ousting 'subway' here in Britain.

So a couple of questions, mainly for our British readership: would you use 'subway', 'underpass' or both? If both, is there any difference in how you would use them?

No jokes about sandwich shops, please.

(Oh, and I appreciate that 'subway' is a shorter word than 'underpass', and therefore easier to fit on a sign.)

Gold, frankincense and myrrh Christmas menus

Something appropriate for Christmas Day:

One of the bars near to my place of work has been offering 'three tailored Christmas menus', named 'gold', 'frankincense' and 'myrrh' (or rather 'myrhh', but let's not be picky).


Some browsing on the internet reveals the following:

• Gold is toxic if consumed in high quantities. And prohibitively expensive, of course, so not many people get the opportunity to test that.

• Myrrh, which often cost more than its weight in gold in ancient times, has a bitter taste and is traditionally associated with funerals and cremations.

• Frankincense... is actually edible, although chewy and sticky. Mmmm.
  

So it looks as if the frankincense menu wins the day.

(This is just for fun, and I wouldn't be surprised if any or all of these facts were incorrect.)


blurtit.com: Can you eat gold?
herbaleducator.com: Gold, Frankincense, & Myrrh


Oh, and one last thing: Merry Christmas!

Christmas in the office

It's a strange experience being in the office just a few days before Christmas, as we use the same workflow but have only a skeleton staff. That means everyone has to wear more than one hat, as the metaphor goes.

For example: a writer writes a story for our website, then sends it to me for subbing. I sub the story in one program, then send it to... myself, for classification in another program. I classify the story, then send it to... myself, for final approval before it goes live. And then, should it need pulling or updating, that's done by... me.

With no content editor, no web editor and no digital assistant (great job title, huh?) to contend with, everything runs that much more smoothly – but then, I have fewer people to share the blame with when it all (inevitably) goes wrong. Still, after today I'm not back in until New Year's Eve.