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Joan Rivers dead: Transport For London win tribute battle with this plastic surgery joke

The London Overground would turn out to be bigger comedians than Lena Dunham and Ricky Gervais put together

Jenn Selby
Friday 05 September 2014 16:34 BST
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As is only traditional, tributes to the late comedienne Joan Rivers have flooded in thick and fast by everyone from Kelly Osbourne to the Wu-Tang Clan.

But it isn’t Lena Dunham’s quip about plastic surgery, nor Ricky Gervais’ touching words about the entertainer that has become the most shared homage.

Step up Transport For London, who delighted commuters at Hackney Wick Overground with the above message – originally tweeted by @byronhamburgers.

Rivers passed away on Thursday 4 September after being on life support for five days.

She suffered a cardiac and respiratory arrest during a routine operation on her vocal chords last week, and was placed in intensive care in a medically induced coma.

Not, however, before she’d laid out some fairly spectacular plans for her "huge showbiz funeral" for her daughter Melissa Rivers to follow.

"When I die (and, yes, Melissa, that day will come; and, yes, Melissa, everything's in your name), I want my funeral to be a huge showbiz affair with lights, cameras, action," she wrote in a chapter called "Death Be Not Proud" in her 2012 book I Hate Everyone… Starting With Me.

"I want Craft services, I want paparazzi and I want publicists making a scene! I want it to be Hollywood all the way. I don't want some rabbi rambling on; I want Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents.

"I don't want a eulogy; I want Bobby Vinton to pick up my head and sing "Mr. Lonely." I want to look gorgeous, better dead than I do alive. I want to be buried in a Valentino gown and I want Harry Winston to make me a toe tag.

"And I want a wind machine so that even in the casket my hair is blowing just like Beyonce's."

Her actual funeral is set to take place on Sunday 7 September at the Temple Emanu-El in New York.

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