GREEN means GO.
You may go ahead if the way is clear. You may go ahead even if the way is not clear. Quick, before that lorry runs you over.
AMBER means KEEP GOING.
No need to stop. Hurry up and you'll get through before the lights change. Just keep your head down and charge on through. Wheeee!
RED means CARRY ON.
The red signal isn't for you, it's for car drivers. They have to stop at the stop line, but you're on a bike so you can carry on. You're only small and you're highly manoeuvrable, so carry on pedalling. What harm could it possibly do? And you don't want to lose any of that hard earned momentum you've built up, do you? I mean, why should pedestrians suddenly have the right of way. If you swerve carefully you'll probably miss them all anyway. Remember that as a cyclist you're completely above the law, no matter what swear words passers-by might hurl at you. Do whatever the hell you like, why don't you?
RED 10 seconds later means PUSH TO THE FRONT.
There may still be pedestrians crossing the road in front of you, but if you nip between them you can be poised ready at the front of the queue when the passing traffic clears. Come on, every second counts!
RED 20 seconds later means HEAD OFF EARLY.
There's nothing coming, is there, so why wait? What harm would it do to scoot off across the road junction right now? OK, so it's technically illegal, but since when has that ever stopped you? Go on, get a head start on everyone revving up behind you.
RED AND AMBER means YOU'RE A BIT LATE, ALL THE OTHER CYCLISTS SET OFF SEVERAL SECONDS AGO.
Hurry and you might just catch up with them.
A GREEN ARROW means TURN RIGHT, OR GO STRAIGHT ON, WHATEVER.
There's a bit of green up there. Even if it's not the direction you want to go, just go.
A RED FILTER means SNEAK RIGHT.
There must be a gap in the oncoming traffic soon. Maybe immediately after this next car in the couple of seconds before that bus arrives. Or just go anyway, because all those other vehicles have brakes and they know how to use them.
NO LIGHTS AT ALL means POWER CUT.
Never mind. It's not like you'd be paying a blind bit of attention to the lights even if they were working. Carry on regardless, just like normal, you thoughtless selfish roadhog.
There are loads of places to dine out in Greenwich. There's the noodle bar in the high street, and that big pub on the riverfront, and even the sausage van up on the hill beside the observatory. But forget those - the best restaurant in town is most definitely the pie and mash shop a few doors up from the Cutty Sark. Goddard's has been serving up top quality pie since 1890, and is still run by the great grandchildren of the first owner. It's a proper traditional pie shop, with gnarled glass windows, old marble tables and wooden pews for seating. If you've ever been, you'll know just how good it is. And you'll be as gutted as I was to discover (from a small handwritten notice in the window) that Goddard's is closing down in a fortnight's time "due to family circumstances". No more pie, no more mash, it's the end of an era. But time enough for one last slap up meal.
The trick to getting served at Goddard's at the weekend is to arrive just before noon. Arrive a minute later and there'll be a queue stretching back to the door, probably including a pushchair or two, and you'll be waiting rather longer. At least that'll give you time to decide what to have. A traditional plate of beef pie and mash will set you back just £2.20, or maybe take the vegetarian cheese and onion option instead. Your meal is served up by a bevy of ladle-wielding handmaidens hemmed in behind a high green-tiled counter. Each plate comes with two scoops of finest mashed potato, liberally doused either in dark brown gravy or the more traditional 'liquor'. This green gloop may look a bit strange, but it's really only parsley gravy made from butter and flour. And yes, Goddard's serve jellied eels too. The eels are cooked fresh from the Thames estuary (which is how they came to become a local East End delicacy) and the jelly is formed as the stewing juices cool. Maybe it's not surprising that most of Goddard's modern diners wimp out and plump for a pie instead.
Here's what I had yesterday. This is no ordinary 'takeaway' pie, it's the 'Special' Steak 'N' Kidney Pie for a premium £3. Break your way through the enveloping piecrust and there's an ocean of prime beef inside. No wasted space, no gristle, just chunks of top-quality meat piled high in a moist gravy. There's even more gravy over the two mounds of mashed potato, although thankfully on this occasion I managed not to drip any down the front of my jumper. I should have asked for a side order of mushy peas, just to make this a slightly more healthy meal, but I sort-of made up for this omission with my fruit-based dessert. That's an apple crumble there on the right, concealed beneath a deep layer of non-instant custard, and quite delicious it was too (if perhaps a little heavy on the stomach after all that earlier stodge). And finally a mug of steaming tea to wash the whole meal down - there's none of this namby-pamby frothy coffee at Goddard's. Dining out in Greenwich will be far less enjoyable after they've gone.
For a short few weeks this autumn there's been a unique opportunity to take a look inside one of London's most iconic buildings. Battersea Power Station has been opened up as a temporary art gallery, hosting a range of modern work from China, and it's attracting large crowds. But the real magnet is the building itself, its quartet of ivory chimneys rising into the sky like beacons from a bygone age. I've been, she's been, he's been, and you've got one more week to go yourself. Before the new owners transform it into something more 'contemporary'. Hurry now while history lasts.
The past:Battersea Power Station was built by a private consortium in the 1930s in an attempt to stave off creeping nationalisation. They commissioned Sir Giles Gilbert Scott to build a giant generating station by the Thames, far larger than any previously built in the capital [photo]. He began with a huge steel girder box, then clad it in brick and placed an Art Deco turbine hall in the interior [photo]. The futuristic control room had a marble floor and could only be used by operatives wearing felt-soled shoes. The new generating station saw Londoners safely through World War Two, somehow avoiding major bomb damage. The original building was extended by the addition of a second turbine hall in the 1950s [photo], increasing the number of chimneys from two to the now-familiar four. Battersea belched away for a couple of decades more until increasing inefficiency led to the closure of first one turbine hall and then the other. The site went dark on 31st October 1983, and the building has been decaying slowly ever since. Various plans for restoration have been put forward, but the planned theme park never materialised and the Tate Modern ended up inside Bankside instead. The two turbine halls were gutted anyway, just in case.
The present: What a great idea to host an exhibition of Chinese art inside Battersea Power station. Quite frankly any excuse would have done, just to get the doors open again and allow London inside. It was an opportunity I couldn't to miss. You get a decent view of the power station from across the river in Pimlico or from any passing train, but the view stood right up close is so much better [photo]. The chimneys tower above you, the brick walls rise up like sheer cliffs and the broken windows echo with windswept loneliness. Inside it's much the same [photo]. For the exhibition they've erected scaffolding to allow you to walk out into one end of the boiler house, now roofless and open to the sky [photo]. It's a bit like standing inside a ruined cathedral, except that the nave is much longer, the towers are much taller and the glass is stained only by pollution. To each side are the two turbine halls, the first more photogenic than the second. Public access has been restricted to just one end, and you have to try hard to imagine each vast chamber filled with turbines, electrical switchgear and bustling workmen.
A narrow utility staircase leads you up from Turbine Hall B, past various frowning security guards, to three storeys of dark concrete workspaces. For the purposes of the exhibition these have been filled with Chinese art, mostly video-based. Even though you've really come to view the building instead, your attention suddenly switches to these animated windows on an emerging modern culture based 5000 miles away. It's a bonus, to be honest, that the art is a worthwhile sideshow to the surrounding architecture. One memorable installation is a wall-length wire cage filled with slowly-rotting apples, which no doubt by next weekend will smell even more like a tramp's Diamond White breath. Back outside the building the Chinese theme continues, with free bicycles provided for visitors to get around the site [photo]. It's not so vast that bikes are actually needed, but it's a nice touch and it keeps the kids occupied. And everywhere, both inside and out, a crowd of Londoners are snapping away trying to capture the perfect evocative photograph. Just my luck to visit on a wholly grey and overcast day, so my photographs lack the perfect blue backdrop that othersmanaged on earlier visits. • Tickets must be pre-booked. Book online for next Thursday→Sunday here. • Arrive early, preferably before 12:30, because the weekend queues get very long very quickly.
The future? What next for Battersea Power Station? That question was answered, sadly, by a promotional video screened in a narrow chamber on the ground floor. Here the site's current owners, Parkview International, showcased their long-delayed plans. You can guess, can't you? The central building will become (buckets at the ready) "an epic space that can variously function as a market place, a concert venue, a product exhibition platform or a fashion and brand showcase." Essentially that's an umpteen-storey shopping mall. Outside, so the on-screen architect enthused, they're deliberately building modern "signature buildings" to provide a "yin-yang contrast" to the old power station [photo]. To the west a long thin "benchmark" hotel will block current views from Clapham and the railway viaduct, and to the east will arise a similarly obstructive "modular" conference centre. Parkview are also squeezing in some "weave-like" office blocks, a "flexible" 2000-seat auditorium and an "advanced concept" residential building, assuming Wandsworth Council let them get away with it. Oh, and they want to knock down the chimneys first, because they're unsafe. But they'll rebuild them, honest, and then stick a single restaurant table at the very top of one. Work may, possibly, begin next summer. Few watching the showreel seemed impressed by the promotional bravado.
The "Power Station" website is full of some of the most vacuous bluster I've ever read, and I truly hope that not all of this redevelopment comes to pass. I know it would be criminal to leave Battersea Power Station to waste away and crumble unseen, but does London really need yet another "destination venue" and "commercial focus"? Some of us think not. There were hundreds of culturally-aware Londoners swarming around the building yesterday, taking one last opportunity to enjoy its unique character and history. But I doubt that any of them will want to come back for a cappucino and some shoe shops.
"It's getting dark earlier isn't it?" "And it'll be even darker tomorrow when the clocks go back." "Still, at least it'll be a bit lighter in the mornings."
Here's a scarily-detailed response to the above conversation...
A brief classification of darkness* • Sunset: the time at which the centre of the sun slips beneath the horizon. • Civil twilight: the period during which the centre of the Sun is less than 6 degrees below the horizon. Outdoor objects can still be clearly distinguished, the horizon is clearly defined and the brightest stars are visible. It's not completely dark. • Nautical twilight: the period during which the centre of the sun is between 6 and 12 degrees below the horizon. Outlines of outdoor objects may be distinguishable, but detailed outdoor operations are not possible and the horizon is indistinct. It's nearly completely dark. • Astronomical twilight: the period during which the centre of the Sun is between 12 and 18 degrees below the horizon. Illumination of the sky is practically imperceptible. It's completely dark, unless you're an astronomer. • Darkness: the period during which the centre of the Sun is more than 18 degrees below the horizon. It's pitch black. (* under good atmospheric conditions in the absence of moonlight or other illumination)
How dark is it at 6pm? • Daylight: 17 March → 18 October • Sunset: 19 October (ie last week) • Civil twilight: 20 October → 28 October (would have been longer, but the clocks go back tomorrow) • Nautical twilight:(skipped when the clocks go back) • Astronomical twilight: 29 October → 24 November (suddenly very dark) • Pitch black: 25 November → 24 December • Astronomical twilight: 25 December → 28 January • Nautical twilight: 29 January → 20 February • Civil twilight: 21 February → 15 March • Sunset: 16 March (before the clocks go forward)
How dark is it at 5pm? • Daylight: 8 February → 28 October (and then the clocks go back) • Civil twilight: 29 October → 6 November • Nautical twilight: 7 November → 15 January (it never gets completely dark) • Civil twilight: 16 January → 6 February • Sunset: 7 February
How dark is it at 7am? • Daylight: 24 February → 20 October • Sunrise: 21 October (ie last week) • Civil twilight: 22 October → 28 October (and then the clocks go back) • Daylight: 29 October → 4 November (yes, it really is daylight again) • Sunrise: 5 November (but not for long) • Civil twilight: 6 November → 28 November • Nautical twilight: 29 November → 3 February (it never gets completely dark) • Civil twilight: 4 February → 22 February • Sunrise: 23 February
>> All figures are for London - even though it's never dark in sodium-glow London >> Further in-depth information about twilight can be found here, here, here and here >> You can find day-by-day twilight details for London here, and other world locations here
And so ends diamond geezer's fourth annual tube week. I continue to be amazed by how much interactive interest the London Underground inspires, even amongst people who rarely or never use it. And I'm also surprised, every year, that I don't run out of new tube-related stuff to write about. I mean, four years on and I still haven't written a tube week post about disusedstations. Maybe next year...
Tubewatch (20)tube fiction
• 253(Geoff Ryman): 252 passengers on board an about-to-crash Bakerloo line train each get one page to tell their life story. And the driver makes 253. [got it, it's good]
• Neverwhere(Neil Gaiman): An underworld fantasy about "London Below", which looks suspiciously like the Underground but populated by the weird, the fantastic and the macabre. [got it, it's great]
• The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans(Arthur Conan Doyle): Sherlock Holmes tracks the mysterious murder of a government clerk whose body is found on the rails near Aldgate station. [read it, it's OK]
• King Solomon's Carpet(Barbara Vine): A bunch of London misfits, linked in various ways by the tube, are drawn to an old schoolhouse overlooking West Hampstead station. [got it, it's Rendell-icious]
• Tunnel Vision(Keith Lowe): A geeky groom spends the day before his wedding attempting to visit every station on the tube network. [got it, it's good]
• Underground(Tobias Hill): Someone's pushing women in front of tube trains, so a lonesome tube worker ventures down old tunnels to try to solve the mystery. [never read it]
• Metroland(Julian Barnes): A suburban 60s coming-of-age story, rather more about sex and idealism than anything Betjeman might have written. [never read it]
• The Rats(James Herbert): Gory 70s horror with mutant rats rising up out of the sewers and Underground to feast on unsuspecting Londoners. [read it, it's predictable]
• A Metropolitan Murder(Lee Jackson): "The last train of the night pulls into the gas-lit platform of Baker Street underground station. A young woman is found strangled, her body abandoned in a second-class carriage." [never read it]
• Geoffrey the Tube Train and the Fat Comedian(Alexei Sayle): I suspect the title tells you all you need to know [flicked through it, never bought it]
• Underground Ernie Annual 2007(Joella Productions): The exciting adventures of every pre-schooler's favourite cheery tube worker and some talking trains. [I'll give it a miss, thanks]
• any more suggestions?
Tube quiz (20)Name that anagrammed station
Back in February the talk of the web was a map of the London Underground with every station name replaced by an anagram. It was so good that Transport for London's lawyers insisted it be removedfor infringement of copyright. Tourists might have mistaken it for the real thing, they argued, thereby diminishing TfL's brand image (or some such rubbish). The dabstars! But if you can't see the map any more, then I can base a quiz on it. Below are anagrams of the names of 30 different tube stations, as lifted from the anagram tube map. How many of the original names can you identify?
1) Pelmet 2) Pig Pen 3) Ink Blur 4) Sap Lust 5) Big Durex 6) Wet Mash 7) No Screws 8) Candle Oil 9) Emu Sprint 10) Otter Bends
Tube geek (20)Busiest lines
According to the latest TfL statistics, London's busiest tube line is the Northern line with just over 200 million passenger journeys each year. And the least busy? That's the Waterloo & City line with just under 10 million passenger journeys each year. Or so the headline figures say. I'd like to disagree. Share out each line's passengers equally, station by station, and the tiny Waterloo & City line (with just 2 stations) works out much busier than the Northern (with 50). OK, this may be a fairly meaningless statistic, but it does at least seem to give a fairly sensible rank ordering of busy-ness...
Annual journeys (millions)
Number of
stations
Passengers
per station
Victoria
161
16
10.1 million
W & City
10
2
4.8 million
Jubilee
128
27
4.7 million
Northern
207
50
4.1 million
Bakerloo
96
25
3.8 million
Central
184
49
3.7 million
Piccadilly
176
52
3.4 million
District
173
60
2.9 million
Circle
68
27
2.5 million
H & City
46
28
1.6 million
Metropolitan
54
34
1.6 million
East London
10
8
1.3 million
The Victoria line rightly comes out as the busiest, with barely a backwater station anywhere along its length, while the "you can always get a seat" East London ends up the quietest. And look, the list splits surprisingly neatly in two, with the deep-level tubes at the top and the cut-and-cover lines at the bottom. Which means that the busiest lines have the narrowest tunnels and the squashedest passengers, while the quietest lines have the broadest tunnels and the most spacious carriages. Typical, eh?
Tube geek (19)Single track tube lines
• District: Kensington (Olympia) southwards (600m) - the tip of the branch line from Earl's Court
• East London: South of 'Canal Junction' to either New Cross (600m) or New Cross Gate (300m) - where the foot of the East London line splits in two
• Metropolitan: Chalfont & Latimer to Chesham (6.3km) - the longest tube journey between two neighbouring stations [details]
• Northern: Finchley Central to Mill Hill East (1.1km) - over the Dollis Brook viaduct [photos]
• Northern: Kennington Loop (700m) - enables terminating southbound Charing Cross branch trains to loop round and enter the northbound Charing Cross branch platform
•• Northern <--> Piccadilly: King's Cross Loop and Euston Loop (1.1km) - the former is a connecting tunnel allowing a train in the northbound Piccadilly Line platform at King's Cross St. Pancras to enter the northbound City branch platform at Euston; the latter is a connecting tunnel at Euston between the old section of the northbound City branch and the southbound City branch [details][details]
• Piccadilly: Hatton Cross to Heathrow Terminals 1,2,3 via the Heathrow loop (5.5km) - the one-way airport run
• Piccadilly: Aldwych to Holborn (800m) - this shuttling branch line closed in 1994 [details]
Tubegeek quiz (19)Just one change
There's only one station on the underground network from which it's possible to reach every other station with no more than one change of trains. Name that station. (and, if you can, try to convince the rest of us why)
n.b. For example, it's not Covent Garden, because you can't get from there to Wapping without changing twice.
n.b. Assume it's the middle of the day, sort of noon-ish. Update: It appears that TfL introduced a Mill Hill shuttle service last week, so now there are no solutions to this problem. But we've had a lot of fun/frustration in the comments box coming up with almost-solutions.
Tubewatch (19)Move down along the platform
The average tube platform is more than 100 metres long. More than long enough for people to spread out along when waiting for the next train. But do people spread out when they reach a tube platform? Do they hell. Most of them enter the platform and then stop, because they can't be bothered to walk any further. There's all that space, but most people don't use it. Here's a diagram to show you what I mean. The long white rectangle represents the platform, and each red dot shows the stopping place of a typical passenger.
I've based my diagram on the eastbound Central line platform at Holborn, but it could be any station anywhere. Passengers enter down the stairwell and walk onto the platform, where the great majority come to a halt bunched up within a few metres of the entrance. Some move a little further along, but far fewer head down towards the sparsely-populated ends of the platform. And a significantly greater number of people head left rather than head right. They've been lulled into a subconscious trance by their journey down the stairwell, and so continue on in the same direction rather than doubling back. Most tube passengers act like sheep, huddling together in predictable patterns rather than thinking for themselves.
Families, tourists and those carrying heavy luggage are always the most likely to stop dead in front of the entrance. Reaching the platform has been a big enough adventure for them already, so why walk any further? But platform lethargy can strike anyone at any time, even hardened commuters. It takes positive action to walk further along the platform, especially right down to the end where you might be able to board the next train more easily. It baffles me why more people don't make more of an effort. I always walk along the platform myself, always, because I like a bit of space to myself. And if the rest of you want to stay huddled around the entrance then that's fine by me, because when the train arrives it means I'm more likely to get a seat. And you may not get on at all.
Tube quiz (18)Long and short
Name that tube station... a) The name has more than four syllables. (You found Heathrow Terminals 1 2 3; Highbury and Islington, Kensington Olympia; Caledonian Road, Chalfont and Latimer, Elephant and Castle, Heathrow Terminal 4, Piccadilly Circus, Totteridge and Whetstone... and nine other five-syllable names) b) The name has fewer than seven letters. (You found Bank, Oval; Angel, Upney; Balham, Debden, Epping, Euston, Kenton, Leyton, Morden, Pinner and Temple)
District Line: Minor delays are occurring due to an earlier faulty track at Ealing Common and late finish of engineering work at Upney
The tube doesn't always run smoothly. Sometimes trains break down, sometimes signals fail, and sometimes unhappy men hurl themselves headlong onto the tracks. And problems create delays. Transport for London have got much better at informing the travelling public about these delays, now with whiteboards at most station entrances and a webpage where you can keep track of every underground annoyance. And what a lot of delays there are.
Or are there? I thought I'd check just how delayed the Underground is. I've been keeping track of the state of the network at 7:30 every morning since the start of September, noting down every reported incident and the extent of the disruption. That's nearly two months of data across 12 different lines, snapshotted at the start of every morning rush-hour. And here's what I've discovered...
1) Number of disruptions
• Over 37 mornings, there were 57 separate disruptive incidents. That's an average of 1½ incidents every morning.
• Out of 37 mornings, only 7 had no disruptions anywhere on the network. That's roughly one hassle-free morning each week.
2) Severity of disruptions
• Only 12 of the disruptions (21%) involved the suspension of services. That equates to roughly one suspension every three days.
• Just 15 of the disruptions (26%) were described as "severe delays" (involving "significantly increased journey time").
• The other 30 disruptions (more than half of the total) were only "minor delays". A pain, but nothing terrible.
3) Causes of disruption
• 32 of the disruptions were caused by "signal failure". That's more than half of all delays caused by malfunctioning electrics and dodgy points.
• Just over 10% of disruptions were caused by faulty trains, and a similar number by the "late finishing of engineering work".
• Other disruptions included "faulty communications equipment", "faulty track", "fire alert", "obstruction on the track", "non-availability of staff", "police investigation" and "passenger taken ill on a train". None of these delays occurred more than twice over a two month period.
4) Lines disrupted
• District 12 times, Piccadilly 7, Metropolitan 7, Circle 6, Hammersmith & City 5, Bakerloo 5, Northern 5, Central 4, Victoria 3, Waterloo & City 2, Jubilee 1, East London 0
• The District line is by far the most disrupted - on average almost twice a week. Other lines average no more than one disruption a week, with the East London line recently achieving early morning perfection.
Conclusion: Tube disruption isn't as bad as I thought it was. Not at half past seven in the morning, anyway. And before you wonder quite how sad I must have been to collect all this information, don't worry, I got Transport for London to send it to me. I've subscribed to their Alerts service, which updates me regularly with all the disruptions along my daily commute. TfL send me a personalised travel alert in an email at 7:30 every morning (just before I leave for work) and then a text message summary on my mobile in the afternoon (just before I head home). The service is extremely useful, it's very flexible, it's free, and you can opt out at any time. If you're interested you can read the FAQ here, or just sign up here. Don't delay.
Tube geek (17)New stations by 2010
• Hammersmith & City: Wood Lane [details]
• Piccadilly: Heathrow Terminal 5 [details]
• East London: Dalston Junction, Haggerston, Hoxton, Shoreditch High Street [details]
• Metropolitan: Ascot Road, Watford West [details]
• DLR: Stratford International [details]; Stratford High Street, Abbey Road*, Star Lane [details]; Woolwich Arsenal [details]; Langdon Park [details]
[* Please note that this is not the famous Abbey Road of Beatles fame, which is 8 miles away. That'll confuse the tourists!]
Tube quiz (17)Topologically equivalent
It's a well-known fact that the tube map distorts reality. All the lines on the map have been stretched and tweaked to appear simpler than they really are. For today's quiz I've stretched and tweaked each of the 12 lines a little more, as if they'd been drawn on a rubber sheet. Then I've shrunk them down, keeping all of the original intersections intact. Five lines have no connections or branches at all, but the other seven are a little more complicated. How many can you identify? Here are the 12 lines you need to match up.
Have a guess which is which, then check your answers against those given in the comments box. How many did you get right?
Tubewatch (17)Where not to stand a) Outside the station entrance fiddling with your umbrella. b) In front of the ticket barrier trying to find your Oyster card at the bottom of your handbag. c) Stuck in the ticket barrier with your rucksack trapped in the gates. d) On the far side of the ticket barrier putting your Oyster card back in your handbag. e) To the left of the escalator. f) To the right of the escalator with a huge suitcase. g) Anywhere on the escalator with a pushchair. h) Dithering at the bottom of the escalator trying to work out whether to turn left or right. i) Halfway down the stairs to the platform with three screaming toddlers in tow. j) Right in front of the entrance to the platform because you can't be bothered to move along. k) One metre along the platform because you can't be bothered to move any further. l) In front of the yellow line (stand behind the yellow line). m) In the gap (mind the gap). n) Directly in front of the opening doors of a just-arrived train (stand back). o) Inbetween the doors of a just-about-to leave train (ouch!). p) Not quite far enough inside the train so that nobody else can get on board. q) On top of somebody else's foot with your elbow in their ribs. r) Pressed up against somebody else's armpit. s) Breathing last night's curry into somebody else's face. t) Immediately in front of the doors so that nobody else can get off. u) On the platform immediately in front of the "way out" passageway. v) To the right of the staircase (keep left, keep left!). w) At the ticket gate, trying in vain (several times) to get your Oyster card to work. x) Immediately behind someone at the ticket gate hoping to run through after them without paying. y) In the station doorway checking your mobile phone for new messages. z) Just outside the station trying to hand out leaflets and free newspapers.
Tubewatch (16)Accessibility
London's tube map is getting uglier. A plague of blue splodges is spreading steadily across the map, slowly destroying the elegance of Harry Beck's original design. To blame is Transport for London's crusade to make the underground network as accessible as possible. Every station accessible without using stairs or escalators must now be marked on the map by a small wheelchair symbol inside a dark blue circle. There aren't many accessible tube stations, still only about 50 out of 275, but the overall effect is still highly offputting. Most tube lines aren't blue, so big blue blobs just look wrong. The 100%-accessible Docklands Light Railway (another 37 blobs) has become a tentacled beast in the south east corner of the map and is now visually highly distracting. And the four lines which meet at Waterloo have recently been realigned on the map in a particularly ugly way, merely so that the distinction can be made between accessible and inaccessible interchanges. It's not looking good.
Don't get me wrong, tube station accessibility is a very good thing. It's not the Victorians' fault that they built all of central London's tube stations without due regard for 21st century accessibility legislation. It's just incredibly expensive to add lifts everywhere, especially underground, so it's not surprising that progress in opening up the network is slow. But do we really need a big blue spot to show where the special lifts are? Normal tube interchanges are still marked by empty black circles, which are far less obtrusive. And interchanges with National Rail stations are marked by a discreet red BR symbol, which is just as useful but not as blatant. Why can't we have something similar for accessibility?
Conspicuous as they are, the blue blobs don't tell the whole story. From the map a wheelchair user might assume that they could ride from Heathrow to Stratford by changing at Holborn. But no, the interchange at Holborn is a stepped and escalatored nightmare, to be avoided at all costs. Instead they should make the journey by changing at Barons Court and then Mile End, but that's not obvious from the map either. And not all the blue blob stations are truly accessible. Take Uxbridge, for example. You can wheel a wheelchair from the station entrance to the platforms, no problem, but you might find getting onto a train rather harder. It's more than 8 inches up from the platform if you want to board a Metropolitan line train, and about 6 inches down if you want to board a Piccadilly line train. The Uxbridge blob represents impossibility, not accessibility.
There is a tube map with all this additional information about changing lines and platform heights - it's called the Tube access guide and you can download it from here. It's complicated and it's inelegant, but it does the job. Why can't TfL give out copies of this map to travellers with wheelchairs, pushchairs and other mobility impairments, without inflicting their semi-useless blue blobs on the rest of us. The ordinary tube map is visually complicated enough as it is - there's no need to make it even less accessible.
Tube quiz (16)Name that station a) The name includes a colour. (You found Blackfriars, Blackhorse Road, Golders Green, Goldhawk Road, Redbridge, Shoreditch, Stanmore, Whitechapel and a lot of Greens) b) The name includes a number. (You found Epping, Harrow & Wealdstone, Heathrow Terminals 12 & 3, Heathrow Terminal 4, Leytonstone, Marylebone, Seven Sisters, Stonebridge Park, Tottenham Court Road, Tottenham Hale and Totteridge & Whetstone) c) The name includes a chess piece. (You found Barking, Barkingside, Blackhorse Road, Elephant & Castle, Kingsbury, Kings Cross St Pancras, Knightsbridge, Queensbury, Queens Park, Queensway, Snaresbrook and Stamford Brook)
Time once again for diamond geezer to go totally tubular with another week devoted to the London Underground. Prepare for five days of quizzes, facts, commentary and obscure statistics. Three years ago I looked at average speeds, the busiest stations, picking the right carriage and journeys where it was quicker to walk. Two years ago I investigated the closest stations, the easiest interchanges, shortest possible journeys and the growth of the network. And last year I wrote about overcrowding, carriages, ticket barrier codes and precisely where the underground is underground. Amongst other things. I wonder how much I'll manage to cram in this year. Mind the doors.
The Bloomsbury Festival is taking place this weekend. If you've never heard of it before that's because it's new, and because it wasn't terribly well advertised (unless you just happened to be wandering the backstreets behind Russell Square tube station). The festival purports to be a celebration of the arts, although in reality it's been sponsored by the local shopping centre. It's not a bad little shopping centre either, so long as you've come to admire the Modernist terraced architecture and not the revamped parade of trendy mainstream shops therein. Various stalls and arty activities were on offer in the local park yesterday, as well as blokes on stilts and a farmers market. Also as part of the festival a couple of local museums which usually charge a fiver were open for free, so I went along.
In amongst Bloomsbury's Georgian terraces stands the unassuming facade of 48 Doughty Street, once home to the great novelist Charles Dickens. He lived here with his new wife Catherine between 1837 and 1839 - only a brief spell but long enough to write The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. This is the only one of Dickens' many residences which still stands, and today it's home to the Charles Dickens Museum. The house is quite narrow but spreads upwards over four floors, from the dark basement scullery to the airy upper bedrooms. Plenty of memorabilia has been packed inside, including portraits, correspondence and the desk at which Charles wrote the final unfinished page of Edwin Drood. A small exhibition brings to life the author's deep-seated concern in ending social injustice, including an obsessive interest in the running of a home for "the redemption of prostitutes". And of course there are original editions of Dickens' much-loved novels, each originally published in 20 monthly parts and snapped up by an eager public. You can take a virtual tour of the museum here - you may find that this sufficiently satisfies your Old Curiosity that you need have no Great Expectations of visiting in person. [map]
Well hidden off Brunswick Square, the Foundling Museum is an unusual collection of 18th century treasures. The building was once part of the Foundling Hospital, established on this site 250 years ago to care for the welfare of London's abandoned children. Poverty in the capital was rife, and three quarters of children never lived to see their fifth birthday. Fortunate orphans ended up here in Bloomsbury Fields to train as apprentices or domestic servants. The story of the hospital and its founding philanthropist Thomas Coram is well told on the ground floor. On the first floor, and throughout, several impressive portraits adorn the walls. Many are by William Hogarth, one of the hospital's original benefactors, and through his efforts this became London's very first ever public art gallery. The top floor of the museum is given over to the life and work of George Frideric Handel, another generous patron of the hospital. He gave benefit performances in the chapel, kicking off with the newly-written Messiah, and bequeathed a manuscript of his masterwork to the hospital. In the upper room today you can see Handel's will and a small selection of memorabilia, and even sit in red leather armchairs to listen to the great man's music. Meanwhile outside in the original grounds are Coram's Fields, a very special children's playpark where no unaccompanied adults are admitted. You can read more about the history of the Foundling Hospital here, or bring a child and take a look for yourself. [map]
I've been watching, and enjoying, the TV series Lost for a couple of years now. Which is unusual, because it's exceptionally rare that any American drama takes my fancy. I really couldn't give a toss about Friends, or the West Wing, or ER, or any of the other transatlantic shows that people rave over. But Lost I like. So I've invested 48 hours of my life watching the first two series on Channel 4, and I was planning on spending another 48 enjoying the final two series. But no. The third and fourth series have been bought by Sky, and therefore won't be available on terrestrial television. I've lost Lost.
Imported TV series are always at risk of channel-switching, sold off to the highest bidder. Sky paid £20m for Lost, which is just over £400K per episode, so they must think it's worth the effort. But as soon as Lost moves to Sky its audience will tumble. About 2 million people were watching on Channel 4, whereas on Sky One they'll be lucky if half a million viewers tune in. Overnight the show will drop off the cultural radar, becoming the series nobody's talking about (rather like 24 a couple of years back). The real loser is the casual viewer, forced to make alternative viewing arrangements if they want to follow their favourite show to its new home. And I can't be bothered. Here's why.
Option 1: subscribe to Sky TV for two years But Sky TV is crap. Sure there are some gems tucked away in amongst the dross, but they're vastly outnumbered. I really don't want to pay for twelve channels of pet makeover shows, 20 channels of bare-chested bingo and fifty channels of back-to-back R&B videos, just so that I can watch an hour of Lost a week. Even Sky's cheapest package comes in at £15 a month, and that's for only one-third of the channels, no sport and no blockbuster movies. An ordinary TV licence works out almost £100 cheaper. Cost: £15 a month × 12 months × 2 years = £360
Option 2: buy the next two series of Lost on DVD But DVDs aren't the same as watching television. Sure you get to watch every episode without annoying commercial breaks, but you also lose all sense of occasion. I much prefer a steady drip of episodes, one a week, to a six hour splurge of box-set DVD-ing on a sofa-bound Sunday afternoon. And once I control when to watch, there's no chance of discussing the show with anyone else, because they won't be at the same point in the story as me. And have you seen the price of DVD box-sets? Ouch! Series 1and 2 of Lost retail at £59.99 each, unless you shop around, and quite frankly no single TV programme is worth that kind of outlay. An ordinary TV licence works out only £12 more expensive. Cost: £59.99 (series 3) + £59.99 (series 4) = £119.98
Option 3: watch Lost via BitTorrent Many UK Lost fans have already watched the first three episodes of the third series of Lost, even though these have so far only been screened in the US. There are pirate copies swanning round the internet, available for download weeks before Sky get round to showing them, and they're free. Hurrah. But the picture isn't as good as you get on a real TV screen, is it? And this sort of copyright-theft file-sharing is illegal too, as every upstanding citizen knows, so obviously I wouldn't even consider doing it. Cost: nothing but your conscience
Option 4: read episode-by-episode transcripts online Oh now that's useful. A full script of each and every episode, line by line, immediately after it airs in the US. You don't get the dark brooding atmosphere of the TV show, but you do get all the twists and turns of the plot. In fact, having just read through the opening transcripts ofseries three, I now know everything that happens in the first episodes I won't be able to see. So, no point in watching them now, problem solved. Sorry Sky, you'll be Lost without me. Cost: I think I just saved 47 hours of my life!
Definition: The number of days you can comfortably live without hoovering your house.
Example: If you hoover your house today and then, next Friday, you want to hoover it again, your Hoover Number is 7. Notation: HN=7
Hoover Number personality types: HN<1: Cleaning obsessed, you just can't rest unless your carpets are spotless. Should anyone ever drop even a breadcrumb on your floor, you'll have the hoover plugged in before it hits the ground. HN=1: Every day? Do you have a life? 1<HN<=2: Even that groove along the edge of your skirting board is immaculate. Round of applause. 2<HN<7: You like a clean carpet and unblemished surfaces. You probably wash up your dirty dishes (or fill the dishwasher) immediately after eating, and stick bleach down the toilet with every tenth flush. Aren't you good? HN=7: You've got a regular cleaning routine, you have. Or a lady who comes in and does. 7<HN<=14: How clean is your house? Clean enough - those nice ladies from Channel 4 won't be coming round to yours. 14<HN<=28: Don't tell your mum. But you might just get away with it. 28<HN<=50: Hope you've got a dark-ish carpet. 50<HN<=100: Have you tried looking under your furniture to see what colour your carpet used to be? 100<HN<=365: Really? Even that mucky patch just inside the front door, the bit by the sofa where you spill your TV dinners and the shag pile along the side of the bed? Ugh. HN>365: It's not just your carpet that's dirty is it? There's thick dust on every surface, your kitchen's caked in layers of fat, and the bathroom just doesn't bear thinking about. HN=infinity: I have at least one regular reader whose HN is infinity. Hello. That's why, the first (and last) time I came round to your place, I sat very gingerly on the emptyish part of the sofa, I accepted only a canned drink and, when I went to use the toilet, I decided to wait and go later when I got home. Must be an awful lot worse there by now too.
Hoover Number relationship compatibility test: My HN is a lot higher than my partner: They're obsessed, aren't they? I mean, the floor really doesn't need cleaning that often! My HN is a bit higher than my partner: They've probably done all the hoovering before you get round to wanting to do it yourself. Hurrah. My HN is very similar to that of my partner: Perfect harmony. You two probably share the chores without any fuss. My HN is a bit lower than my partner: They never pull their weight, do they? Can't they see those surfaces need cleaning, now? My HN is a lot lower than my partner: Useless bloody layabout. We'd be living in a tip if they had their way. I have to do everything! Both of our HNs are infinite: Ever wondered why you two never have any visitors?
How many visitors have you had this year? Not online, but in real life. Through your front door, over your threshold, and into your living space. Because I haven't had any. Not a single one. The only person who's walked through my front door since January is me. And I suspect that's not normal.
Actually that's not quite true. My landlord sent somebody round a couple of weeks ago to give my boiler its annual service, but I wasn't in at the time so that doesn't count. Other than him, nobody. I haven't had anyone in for a chat, or any mates round for a drink, or any friends over to watch telly, or even any neighbours at the door trying to borrow a cup of sugar. My flat has gone unvisited, unexplored and unscrutinised since the start of the year. I'm living in a social ghetto of my own creation, and it shows.
One of the things you do when you're expecting visitors is to tidy up a bit. Run the hoover down the hallway, declutter that tabletop, and make sure the bathroom is fresh and sparkling. It's important to make a good impression, otherwise visitors are going to be distracted and possibly disturbed by that layer of dust on the coffee table, that pile of washing up in the sink and that interesting stain on the carpet. Unforunately the converse of this is also true. When you're not expecting visitors you don't tidy up quite so often. There's no urgent need to tidy away that paperwork, or pick that towel off the floor, or give the skirting board a good rubdown. We should all be doing this sort of housework anyway, obviously, but having visitors gives the whole thing a far greater urgency.
So, by not having any visitors all year, I've tidied up less often. And that's OK. I can live with the odd smear on the bathroom mirror, and piles of magazines on the sofa, and used mugs left out on the draining board, and a carpet with randomly-scattered speckles. I don't want you to get the wrong idea here. If you came here visiting you'd not recoil in horror at my unhygienic living conditions. You might wonder why I hadn't made a bit more of an effort, especially if you're the type who has to have everything spick and span and 'just so' at home. But I don't care what you think, because you're not coming round, are you?
However, I need to be careful not to descend into a vicious circle of decline. If I stop tidying up, my flat will get messier and messier. If my flat gets too messy, I'll be too ashamed to invite any visitors round. And if I don't have any visitors round, I'll have no incentive to tidy up. Before I know it I'll be living in a flat full of piled-up boxes, rotting binbags and rampant vermin, just like Mr Trebus. Which would be bad.
So I've decided that I really ought to tidy up my flat, just a little, just in case anybody ever does come visiting. It must still be a vague possibility, surely. So this evening I'm planning a mini cleaning blitz of dusting, disinfecting and decluttering, on the off chance that this might make a slight difference. There's still some of this year left, and maybe a few gleaming surfaces will help me break my duck.
July 1991: Find nice flat. Consider buying nice flat. (This is back in the days when flats were sort of affordable) August 1991: Meet with mortgage adviser. Suggest taking out repayment mortgage. He says no, an endowment mortgage would be so much better. Agree, because he's the financial expert, isn't he? October 1991: Buy flat. Move in. Fork out first of 300 monthly mortgage payments. November 1991: Hmmm, massive debt hasn't decreased - I'm just paying off the interest. Still, that's endowment mortgages for you. I'm sure it'll all be fine come 2016.
June 1999: Move out of flat. Rent it out, because it's a good investment. June 2000: Life insurance company assures me that my plan is 'on track'. That's a relief, because lots of other people's policies aren't. July 2003: Life insurance company warns me there's a high risk that my policy won't pay out enough. Damn them. September 2003: Life insurance company says I might want to write in and complain. Can't be bothered. 2016 is a long way off.
July 2006: Life insurance company tells me that, if I want to complain, I have to do it by the end of September. August 2006: Still can't be bothered. September 2006: Still can't be bothered. 3 weeks ago: Oh go on then, I might as well. Use generic letter of complaint downloaded from Which website. Dead easy. 2½ weeks ago: Receive lengthy but straight-forward questionnaire to fill in, with a 2 week deadline. 1½ weeks ago: Still procrastinating. 1 week ago: Fill in questionnaire. It's mostly factual, and not too scary. Point out that I was single with no dependents when the evil money-grabbing mortgage adviser bastard sold me a life insurance policy (but in more polite language). 2 days ago: Receive letter from Sales Complaints Manager. He is unable to satisfy himself that the endowment policy was suitable for me. My complaint is upheld. Hurrah! Yesterday (first envelope): Receive letter from Endowment Redress Assistant. Am being offered financial settlement equivalent to 10% of value of mortgage, in line with Financial Ombudsman's calculations. Hurrah! Thank goodness I finally complained. Yesterday (second envelope): Latest statement shows that endowment is now on course for a 25% shortfall in 2016. Bugger. Today: Anybody want to buy some life insurance?
Somewhere famous: The Crystal Palace In the beginning this was plain old Sydenham Hill, and nobody paid it much attention. And then in 1851 the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park opened, and closed, and there was a giant iron and glass building in need of a new home. The CrystalPalace was relocated here on the ridge, high above southeast London, and a new park of entertainment and enlightenment opened up in the surrounding fields. It was a great success, attracting huge crowds by road and rail, although a gradual decline set in after a few decades. In 1936 the palace burnt to the ground in an unexpected and spectacular fire. Head to the top of Sydenham Hill today and you'll find just the artificial terraces where the Italian Gardens once stood [photo], and a few headless statues [photo], and some stone sphinxes [photo]. Be thankful that Bromley Council didn't have their way a few years ago, else there'd now be a 20-screen multiplex cinema and leisure centre on top of the hill in a building resembling an airport terminal. The only thing Londoners can see atop Sydenham Hill today is a giant 200m television mast, built on the site of John Logie Baird's TV studios. Here's hoping nothing uglier is ever slapped down beside it.
Somewhere pre-historic: Crystal Palace Dinosaur park[photo] "Please Mummy, can we go and see the dinosaurs?" "Yes certainly. They're over here in the corner of the park, down by the lake." "But Mummy, that's not a dinosaur, that's a big fibreglass mammal hanging onto a tree." "It's a Megatherium, darling, a giant sloth. And there's a family of Anoplotherium under those trees." "But Mummy, they're not dinosaurs either. Take me over the bridge past that waterfall." "Look dear, there are some artificial rock strata in that artificial cliff-face." "I'm not interested in fake geology, Mummy. I want to see the dinosaurs that Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins built." "Heretheyare! The Iguanodon is so big that Ben held a 20-strong dinner party inside it when the park opened." "That's just an old wives tale, Mummy. Why has it got a thumb sticking out of its head?" "It's not anatomically accurate, darling. These dinosaurs were designed 150 years ago before scientists knew any better." "And the Icthyosaur has seen better days, and that Megalosaurus has pigeons sitting all down its spine, and those Labyrinthodons are just plain dull." "OK son, I know it's not Jurassic Park, but at least it's free." "They're brilliant, Mummy! Can we come again next weekend?"
Somewhere sporty: Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium[photo] In the beginning there was just a park. But no park is complete without sport, and over the years this park has seen greater sport than most. • WG Grace used to wander over from his house on Crystal Palace Road to play cricket here. • A football ground was built in the park, and all 20 FA Cup Finals from 1895 to 1914 were played right here. More than 120000 spectators watched Aston Villa beat Sunderland in 1913. • The England rugby team's first match against the All Blacks was held at Crystal Palace in 1905. Not atypically, England lost fifteen nil. • Crystal Palace FC was formed here in 1905, and remained until 1914 when the army took over the park. • A race circuit for motorcycles opened around the park in 1927, and was also used for motor racing between 1953 and 1973. Parts of the circuit are still clearly visible today. • The Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium was opened in 1964. It's capable of hosting world class events, although it doesn't get to hold many these days. You can peer down at the tracks from the grassy bank to the south. The surrounding buildings include a 10 storey accommodation block, and are a bit ugly. The sports complex houses London's only 50m swimming pool, and the whole thing will soon be utterly superseded by the new Olympic Stadium in Stratford. by train: Crystal Palace (where else?)
I SPY LONDON(14) the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Somewhere historic: Down House Location: Luxted Road, Downe BR6 7JT [map] Open: 10am - 6pm (closed Mondays and Tuesdays and January) Admission: £6.90 5-word summary: where Charles Darwin created evolution Website:English Heritage Time to set aside: a couple of hours
One of the most important, or most dangerous, houses in the world is located in Downe - a small village on the southeast fringe of London. It was here, five years after his voyage round the world aboard the Beagle, that Charles Darwin set up home [photo]. And it was here that he stayed for 40 years until his death, carrying out experiments which would shape our future. I just wish he'd lived somewhere slightly more accessible.
Getting to Down House by car is easy - it's not far from Biggin Hill off the M25. Buses are rather more infrequent, however, and if you miss one then it's at least an hour until the next. Entrance to the house is via the car park, through the big front door into the hallway and then into the obligatory giftshop. I handed over a small rectangular portrait of Charles Darwin and received £3.10 in change, then entered the ground floor to see where the great man lived and worked. All the fixtures and fittings have been restored just as they would have looked in the late 19th century. An audio guide narrated by David Attenborough provides full background information, both of Darwin's scientific discoveries and of his everyday life here at Down House. You really get the atmosphere of a comfortable but happy Victorian family home in which something extraordinary was being thought through.
The highlight of the tour is the opportunity to stand inside Darwin's wallpapered study. Here he examined thousands of specimens he'd brought back from around the world, using that microscope on the table, and here he mulled over the importance of his many findings, sat in that chair beside the desk. There's the board on which he wrote up his notes, and that's the pen he used for answering his correspondence. Right here is where On The Origin of Species was written, the very spot where men suddenly turned into apes. In this very room evolution was intelligently designed. Even 150 years later Darwin's central argument, created here, still reverberates on.
Charles was a creature of habit and took a walk round his extensive grounds three times each day. He laid out a long tree-lined 'sandwalk' between two meadows to give himself time and space to think, surrounded by the nature he sought to understand. He used his garden as a laboratory, the perfect spot for cultivating earthworms or growing different strains of apple. In his wooden greenhouse he experimented with carnivorous plants and the cross pollination of orchids, experiments which have been recreated today. The grounds of Down House are still both immaculate and productive. I could have come home with a marrow fresh from the kitchen garden, but made do instead with a recently fallen sweet chestnut picked from the lawn. I think I'll plant it round the back of my flat... after all, given where it was born, it's surely fit enough to survive. by train (& bus): Bromley (then 146) or Orpington (then R8)
Somewhere random: Orpington I didn't mean to end up in Orpington, it's just that I missed one bus to Down House and it was a long wait for the next one. [And then when it arrived, blimey, it was just a tiny cross-country minibus]. Just in case you should ever find yourself stuck in this market town with time to kill, here are some random places you could visit. • Orpington used to be in Kent, and it still looks rather more Home Counties than metropolitan. So there are lots of quite ordinary shops. • Orpington Priory was founded in 1032. Many of the old buildings survive beside the library, and there are some nice gardens. • BromleyMuseum is situated in the old Priory. It's probably full of all sorts of thrilling local ephemera, but it has one of those big wooden doors which looks closed and uninviting even when the museum's open, so I gave it a miss. • There's a proper Roman villa next to the station, or at least the remains of one, except it's closed on Saturdays. • In Poverest Road there's an old Roman bathhouse dating back to AD270, but it's not open very often. • The War Memorial is one of the most prominent landmarks in the town, but it's in the middle of the main roundabout and quite dangerous to get to. • There are lots of 1850s coal posts in Orpington - you could go looking for them. • Oh please, hasn't that bus arrived yet? by train: Orpington by bus: anything starting with R
GREEN means GO.
AMBER means KEEP GOING.
RED means CARRY ON.
RED AND AMBER means YOU'RE A BIT LATE, ALL THE OTHER CYCLISTS SET OFF SEVERAL SECONDS AGO.
A GREEN ARROW means TURN RIGHT, OR GO STRAIGHT ON, WHATEVER.
A RED FILTER means SNEAK RIGHT.
NO LIGHTS AT ALL means POWER CUT.
There are loads of places to dine out in Greenwich. There's the noodle bar in the high street, and that big pub on the riverfront, and even the sausage van up on the hill beside the observatory. But forget those - the best restaurant in town is most definitely the pie and mash shop a few doors up from the Cutty Sark. Goddard's has been serving up top quality pie since 1890, and is still run by the great grandchildren of the first owner. It's a proper traditional pie shop, with gnarled glass windows, old marble tables and wooden pews for seating. If you've ever been, you'll know just how good it is. And you'll be as gutted as I was to discover (from a small handwritten notice in the window) that Goddard's is closing down in a fortnight's time "due to family circumstances". No more pie, no more mash, it's the end of an era. But time enough for one last slap up meal.
Here's what I had yesterday. This is no ordinary 'takeaway' pie, it's the 'Special' Steak 'N' Kidney Pie for a premium £3. Break your way through the enveloping piecrust and there's an ocean of prime beef inside. No wasted space, no gristle, just chunks of top-quality meat piled high in a moist gravy. There's even more gravy over the two mounds of mashed potato, although thankfully on this occasion I managed not to drip any down the front of my jumper. I should have asked for a side order of mushy peas, just to make this a slightly more healthy meal, but I sort-of made up for this omission with my fruit-based dessert. That's an apple crumble there on the right, concealed beneath a deep layer of non-instant custard, and quite delicious it was too (if perhaps a little heavy on the stomach after all that earlier stodge). And finally a mug of steaming tea to wash the whole meal down - there's none of this namby-pamby frothy coffee at Goddard's. Dining out in Greenwich will be far less enjoyable after they've gone.
The past: Battersea Power Station was built by a private consortium in the 1930s in an attempt to stave off creeping nationalisation. They commissioned Sir Giles Gilbert Scott to build a giant generating station by the Thames, far larger than any previously built in the capital [photo]. He began with a huge steel girder box, then clad it in brick and placed an Art Deco turbine hall in the interior [photo]. The futuristic control room had a marble floor and could only be used by operatives wearing felt-soled shoes. The new generating station saw Londoners safely through World War Two, somehow avoiding major bomb damage. The original building was extended by the addition of a second turbine hall in the 1950s [photo], increasing the number of chimneys from two to the now-familiar four. Battersea belched away for a couple of decades more until increasing inefficiency led to the closure of first one turbine hall and then the other. The site went dark on 31st October 1983, and the building has been decaying slowly ever since. Various plans for restoration have been put forward, but the planned theme park never materialised and the Tate Modern ended up inside Bankside instead. The two turbine halls were gutted anyway, just in case.
The present: What a great idea to host an exhibition of Chinese art inside Battersea Power station. Quite frankly any excuse would have done, just to get the doors open again and allow London inside. It was an opportunity I couldn't to miss. You get a decent view of the power station from across the river in Pimlico or from any passing train, but the view stood right up close is so much better [photo]. The chimneys tower above you, the brick walls rise up like sheer cliffs and the broken windows echo with windswept loneliness. Inside it's much the same [photo]. For the exhibition they've erected scaffolding to allow you to walk out into one end of the boiler house, now roofless and open to the sky [photo]. It's a bit like standing inside a ruined cathedral, except that the nave is much longer, the towers are much taller and the glass is stained only by pollution. To each side are the two turbine halls, the first more photogenic than the second. Public access has been restricted to just one end, and you have to try hard to imagine each vast chamber filled with turbines, electrical switchgear and bustling workmen.
The future? What next for Battersea Power Station? That question was answered, sadly, by a promotional video screened in a narrow chamber on the ground floor. Here the site's current owners, Parkview International, showcased their long-delayed plans. You can guess, can't you? The central building will become (buckets at the ready) "an epic space that can variously function as a market place, a concert venue, a product exhibition platform or a fashion and brand showcase." Essentially that's an umpteen-storey shopping mall. Outside, so the on-screen architect enthused, they're deliberately building modern "signature buildings" to provide a "yin-yang contrast" to the old power station [photo]. To the west a long thin "benchmark" hotel will block current views from Clapham and the railway viaduct, and to the east will arise a similarly obstructive "modular" conference centre. Parkview are also squeezing in some "weave-like" office blocks, a "flexible" 2000-seat auditorium and an "advanced concept" residential building, assuming Wandsworth Council let them get away with it. Oh, and they want to knock down the chimneys first, because they're unsafe. But they'll rebuild them, honest, and then stick a single restaurant table at the very top of one. Work may, possibly, begin next summer. Few watching the showreel seemed impressed by the promotional bravado.
And so ends diamond geezer's fourth annual tube week. I continue to be amazed by how much interactive interest the London Underground inspires, even amongst people who rarely or never use it. And I'm also surprised, every year, that I don't run out of new tube-related stuff to write about. I mean, four years on and I still haven't written a tube week post about disused stations. Maybe next year...
Tubewatch (20) tube fiction
Tube quiz (20) Name that anagrammed station
Tube geek (20) Busiest lines
In amongst Bloomsbury's Georgian terraces stands the unassuming facade of 48 Doughty Street, once home to the great novelist Charles Dickens. He lived here with his new wife Catherine between 1837 and 1839 - only a brief spell but long enough to write The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. This is the only one of Dickens' many residences which still stands, and today it's home to the Charles Dickens Museum. The house is quite narrow but spreads upwards over four floors, from the dark basement scullery to the airy upper bedrooms. Plenty of memorabilia has been packed inside, including portraits, correspondence and the desk at which Charles wrote the final unfinished page of Edwin Drood. A small exhibition brings to life the author's deep-seated concern in ending social injustice, including an obsessive interest in the running of a home for "the redemption of prostitutes". And of course there are original editions of Dickens' much-loved novels, each originally published in 20 monthly parts and snapped up by an eager public. You can take a virtual tour of the museum here - you may find that this sufficiently satisfies your Old Curiosity that you need have no Great Expectations of visiting in person. [map]
In the beginning this was plain old Sydenham Hill, and nobody paid it much attention. And then in 1851 the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park opened, and closed, and there was a giant iron and glass building in need of a new home. The Crystal Palace was relocated here on the ridge, high above southeast London, and a new park of entertainment and enlightenment opened up in the surrounding fields. It was a great success, attracting huge crowds by road and rail, although a gradual decline set in after a few decades. In 1936 the palace burnt to the ground in an unexpected and spectacular fire. Head to the top of Sydenham Hill today and you'll find just the artificial terraces where the Italian Gardens once stood [photo], and a few headless statues [photo], and some stone sphinxes [photo]. Be thankful that Bromley Council didn't have their way a few years ago, else there'd now be a 20-screen multiplex cinema and leisure centre on top of the hill in a building resembling an airport terminal. The only thing Londoners can see atop Sydenham Hill today is a giant 200m television mast, built on the site of John Logie Baird's TV studios. Here's hoping nothing uglier is ever slapped down beside it.
"Please Mummy, can we go and see the dinosaurs?"
In the beginning there was just a park. But no park is complete without sport, and over the years this park has seen greater sport than most.
I SPY LONDON (14)
One of the most important, or most dangerous, houses in the world is located in Downe - a small village on the southeast fringe of London. It was here, five years after his voyage round the world aboard the Beagle, that Charles Darwin set up home [photo]. And it was here that he stayed for 40 years until his death, carrying out experiments which would shape our future. I just wish he'd lived somewhere slightly more accessible.
Charles was a creature of habit and took a walk round his extensive grounds three times each day. He laid out a long tree-lined 'sandwalk' between two meadows to give himself time and space to think, surrounded by the nature he sought to understand. He used his garden as a laboratory, the perfect spot for cultivating earthworms or growing different strains of apple. In his wooden greenhouse he experimented with carnivorous plants and the cross pollination of orchids, experiments which have been recreated today. The grounds of Down House are still both immaculate and productive. I could have come home with a marrow fresh from the kitchen garden, but made do instead with a recently fallen sweet chestnut picked from the lawn. I think I'll plant it round the back of my flat... after all, given where it was born, it's surely fit enough to survive.
I didn't mean to end up in Orpington, it's just that I missed one bus to Down House and it was a long wait for the next one. [And then when it arrived, blimey, it was just a tiny cross-country minibus]. Just in case you should ever find yourself stuck in this market town with time to kill, here are some random places you could visit.
There are loads of places to dine out in 
Here's what I had yesterday. This is no ordinary 'takeaway' pie, it's the 'Special' Steak 'N' Kidney Pie for a premium £3. Break your way through the enveloping piecrust and there's an ocean of prime beef inside. No wasted space, no gristle, just chunks of top-quality meat piled high in a moist gravy. There's even more gravy over the two mounds of mashed potato, although thankfully on this occasion I managed not to drip any down the front of my jumper. I should have asked for a side order of mushy peas, just to make this a slightly more healthy meal, but I sort-of made up for this omission with my fruit-based dessert. That's an apple crumble there on the right, concealed beneath a deep layer of non-instant custard, and quite delicious it was too (if perhaps a little heavy on the stomach after all that earlier stodge). And finally a mug of steaming tea to wash the whole meal down - there's none of this namby-pamby frothy coffee at Goddard's. Dining out in Greenwich will be far less enjoyable after they've gone.
In amongst Bloomsbury's Georgian terraces stands the unassuming facade of 
I SPY LONDON (14)
Charles was a creature of habit and took a walk round his extensive grounds three times each day. He laid out a long tree-lined '
I didn't mean to end up in Orpington, it's just that I missed one bus to Down House and it was a long wait for the next one. [And then when it arrived, blimey, it was just 