Just in time for Hallowe'en, a retail vampire has arisen. It's set up shop in the wastes of White City, sinking its teeth into the local economy and sucking dry the surrounding neighbourhood. Many's the innocent punter already lured deep into its clutches, their purchasing habits transformed, their conscience drawn over to the dark side. And the name of this merchandising monster is Westfield. London's lifeblood may never be the same again.
Oh my word, it's big. You get some sense of scale from outside, as if some vast aircraft hangar has been erected amongst the backstreets of Shepherd's Bush. But only from inside is it possible to take on board how huge the Westfield development really is. Just when you think there can't possibly be even more shops tucked away up some passageway, more appear. It's as if some ferocious tornado has whisked away the full length of Oxford Street and New Bond Street, lifting them three miles to the west and coiling each up beneath a vastundulatingglassroof. Lakeside and Bluewater may give you some idea of what to expect, but in truth London's seen nothing quite like this before. So long as anyone in town still has any money to spend, Westfield threatens retail domination.
I headed over to W12 just before sunset on opening day. The initial mad rush was over and the crowd control monkeys weren't having to be quite so heavy-handed in their funnelling. My southern approach was up a deep concrete canyon, with not-yet-open restaurants to one side and a long deep Waitrose on the other [photo]. Towering above was one of the four "anchor" department stores, this one a House of Fraser (Wood Lane approachees get Next first instead). Quite a trudge already, and still not yet inside the mall proper. Up that escalator, maybe, or through the main doors up ahead. Getting inside was easy, but leaving might prove rather harder.
Sheesh, big big big, busy busy busy. I'd stumbled on the main central atrium, a vast space where the glass roof appeared to be supported by an artificial frosty forest [photo]. Most of the mall's cafes and restaurants are based around here, and sometimes it was hard to avoid walking through their outer seating fringes. No fried burger takeaways here. The management want you to sit down to eat, partly because it adds an air of cultured refinement but mostly because you'll spend more. A pink-lit stage provided the entertainment focus, with a small crowd already gathered to await the quarter to six fashion show. I moved on quickly.
Turning right, I discovered the first of the 250-or-so stores to have opened their doors within Westfield's virgin portals. Most boasted smart glass frontage, two storeys high, revealing brightly-lit cavernous but thin interiors. These were no ordinary high street shops, these were a little more aspirational. Or, if I turned right again into TheVillage, a lot more aspirational. I can't ever imagine wanting to slip inside De Beers or Louis Vuitton or Versace, and I'm such a shopping pleb I'd never even heard of Daniel Hersheson or Fratelli Rossetti or Zadig & Voltaire. But I'm sure the well-heeled of nearby Holland Park will be super-chuffed to find such top-brand luxury on their doorstep, and they won't be the only upmarket purchasers to be drawn into Westfield's unashamedly luxurious web. The rest of us, we can just gawp at the pink chandeliers hanging from the ceiling like a shoal of alien jellyfish. [photo]
Enough gawping, and on with my tour of the upper mall. No, I'm not interested in shopping in there, or in that, or with them. I'm really not target audience for Westfield at all, am I? I'm the wrong gender for a start, and my fascination for showy accessories never really ignited. Instead I took a chance on the flagship Marks & Spencer, bypassing the lingerie and blouses to explore the store's food-based options. A small cafe out front allowed weary shoppers to sit fenced inside a curved corral and nibble M&S comestibles [photo]. Descending to the basement I entered an enormous supermarket, shelves fully stocked, but not yet rammed with discerning shoppers. Three fast-checkout till staff competed for my single purchase, then returned to gossip to pass the time. I exited across the cavernous underground car park, not yet busy enough to be a danger to short-cutting pedestrians. Saturday might be different, I suspect.
Back up in the main mall there were still three quarters of Westfield's shops to discover. On and on I trudged, down and round and up, negotiating the busy first day crowds [photo]. Half-term families were out in force, as were the local baseball-capped youth (who were especially interested in one particular window display boasting three pouting bikini-clad models). There were plenty of happy shoppers with carrier bags, although outnumbered by first day sightseers without carrier bags. At HMV a queue of excited Saturdays fans spilled out far along the concourse (Westfield will be big on 'event' shopping, I think). Thank goodness for Foyles, otherwise I might have wandered around forever without even the slightest flicker of interest in buying anything. Again the staff seemed under-busy, so heaven knows how tedious their lives will become once the initial rush wears off. Tuesday mornings in February, they're going to be the acid test of this building's long-term potential.
It took a while to notice, but Westfield has been arranged very carefully to separate out different classes of customer. The Shepherd's Bush corner with its jellyfish Village is for aspiring Mayfair types. The upper mall with its photogenic glass ceiling is for the middle classes with money to spend [photo]. And the lower mall, particularly in the Wood Lane corner, is for ordinary folk more used to High Street chains and bog standard outlets. You won't find a Disney Store or a Barratts upstairs, and you won't find a Habitat or a Crabtree & Evelyn down. Westfield is several different malls merged into one, because that way there's bound to be somewhere you'll feel at home.
After my circuit I headed back outside into the chilly damp October evening. How skilfully Westfield had made me forget about the world outside, a bit like a Las Vegas casino but without the garish tack. As I walked back along Restaurant Canyon there were still hordes of first-time visitors streaming the other way, keen to experience their Westfield debut. But I wanted to see the effect on Shepherd's Bush's original shopping mall, the desperately ordinary West 12 centre. Business was not brisk [photo]. Admittedly the place has been fading gently for years, but the paint shop, newsagents and pool hall weren't proving anywhere near as magnetic as their northern counterparts. Were it not for Morrisons at the rear, still by far the most affordable supermarket hereabouts, the place might have gone down the plughole already. And when Westfield's cinema opens next year, the Vue in West 12 may not be quite so successful at putting bums on seats.
I hope the shops and market stalls and cafes and restaurants around Shepherd's Bush Green survive the arrival of an over-sized cuckoo in their nest. They fully deserve to, because they're catering to an entirely different clientèle to Westfield's target footfall. Some of us need value more than pampering, and want personal service more than a personal shopper. And it would be a criminal waste if local livelihoods were extinguished solely to pay the shareholders of some global investment company. But will Westfield be a success? Undoubtedly, because hundreds of thousands of people are going to want to spend their time and money regularly in this cutting edge shopping cathedral. East London be warned - there's something disturbingly similar already being erected on the wasteland behind Stratford station, and it opens in March 2011. I think I can wait.
Olympics: First chance to see Pop down to the 2012 Olympic Park every month, as I do, and the pace of change can be dizzying. Especially this month. This is no longer merely the site of the Olympic Stadium, it is the Olympic Stadium. One corner, at least, has sprung from the flattened building site, and it's possible to imagine where you might be sitting in four years time. These steel rakers will support the stadium bowl, the permanent part of the structure which might one day be sold off to Leyton Orient or Harlequins or any sporting enterprise that still has disposable income come 2013. Hundreds of spectators will be perched here during the Games, waving flags and guzzling burgers and watching our athletes going out in the first heats. There's a lot more to be added before the seating goes all the way round, but it won't be long before the metal skeleton of the structure is entirely evident. Then a temporary ring of seating will be installed up top around the circumference, ideal for vertigo-resistant spectators, and the Lea Valley skyline will have been permanently altered. Quite impressive to go from fish processing factory to Olympic Grandstand in fifteen months flat, I think you'll agree. And one thing's for sure - this stadium won't be delivered late. First floor, going up.
Olympics: Last chance to see This photo shows a concrete footbridge over the River Lea at Hackney Wick, just south of the A12. It's not an elegant structure, more like a long grey prison cell suspended across the water. The glass in the stairwells is smashed, and there's spiked security fencing at each end to prevent unwelcome guests from gaining entrance. To be honest the bridge hasn't got much going for it these days, although I've always rather liked its stark abandoned ambience. It was built for Gainsborough School, a Victorian pile on the west bank, to allow pupils to cross to the grassy expanse of Arena Fields on the opposite side. But there's no point crossing here any more, not now that Arena Fields has been levelled, razed and despoiled to become part of a rather large Olympic Building site. Pity the residents of neighbouring Leabank Square, beset by dust and construction noise from dawn until dusk for the foreseeable future, and denied access to their favourite (deceased) recreation space. And there'll be even more noise today, sort of noon-ish, as Olympic Delivery Authority workers remove the obsolete bridge using a massive crane, and then deposit it on their site for demolition. That's one more chunk of this area's industrial heritage which'll soon exist only in photographs. Ultimately there'll be a new river crossing which will allow full public access from Hackney Wick's residential estates into the new Olympic Park, but that won't be for years yet. Until then residents can only keep their windows closed and remember what their green view used to look like.
Eleven hours after I get to work, they arrive. Normally I'm long gone by then, but sometimes our two worlds cross. Every evening they gather on the comfy seats in reception, awaiting the signal to proceed inside. Here they chatter to one another, in some mother tongue that isn't English, while the last stragglers of the working day file out of the building. Then it's on through the security gates to the storeroom at the foot of the stairs to retrieve their implements - a cloth, a mop, a pack of binliners, that sort of thing - and they're ready to go. They're the cleaners, and London wouldn't function without them.
The first I ever see, if I'm still around, is a protective blue tunic emerging from the lift. It's nice to have some company when you're working late, even if conversation isn't really on the cards. I watch from the corner of my eye as they empty the recycling bins, clearing away all those pointless sheets of paper we've spewed from the printer throughout the day. Unnecessary emails, unwanted reports, superfluous spreadsheets, jammed A3, all cleared from the premises so that we can waste another small forest tomorrow.
Every desk gets a few seconds of cursory attention. A quick rub down with a slightly damp cloth, the bin emptied, and move on. There's no attempt to dust behind the monitor or give the keyboard a scrub - these might get a once a year special seeing to if we're lucky. And definitely no attempt to move anything, be it a stack of papers or a pile of paperclips, because we'd all complain in the morning if they dared to rearrange our daytime world. They know their place, and we think we know ours.
Eventually the cleaning cavalry approaches my desk. It's a bit awkward because I'm trying desperately to get my day's work finished without interruption, and so are they. A weak smile passes between us, and also a quick "hello" (because it's the only common vocabulary we think we share). I really should say "thank you", but I never do because I fear it might sound somehow patronising. Sorry, you're not going to be able to rub my bits yet - maybe later once I've gone.
I wander over to the photocopier to pick up a copy of my evening's labours. I carefully avoid the trailing cable, the mop bucket and the large industrial hoover left obliquely across the gangway. Positioned directly outside the stairwell is one of those portable yellow plastic warning signs, the sort you're always bumping into in McDonald's. I note that the sign says "Warning - wet floor", which seems a little unnecessary because the office is fully carpeted. I'm sure the poor team are just following instructions.
Returning to my desk I plonk down my still-warm document... onto a fresh damp patch of dilute disinfectant. Never mind, I can always print it out again. My work now complete I start to shut my workstation down, then throw a last couple of screwed-up post-it notes into my waste paper bin. Job creation, I'm afraid.
Time for one last guilty smile towards the cleaners before I go. I suspect I've earned more today than they'll earn all week, or probably longer. I wonder how many mouths their minimum wage has to feed, or how few rooms they and their flatmates have to rattle around in back home. As I stand by the lift, waiting for it to whisk me away to my more fortunate existence, I look back towards my vacated desk. Look, the cleaner's already in there with the hoover, scraping around on the floor, ticking off another of the evening's tiny tasks. I wonder if I'll even think to notice in the morning.
"Martini, Mr Bond? Shaken not stirred, of course. Just how you like it."
James looked up at the bunny-eared waitress. "No thank you, Kittenlips, mine's a Coca-Cola Zero. I love its stylish and contemporary sugar-free taste. And make sure it's the sleek, limited edition bottle available only from Harrods, London, there's a darling."
Bond returned to cutting out the coupons from his copy of the Sun newspaper. Simultaneously he plugged in the earpiece to his free easy to use 512mb MP3 player. How small and lightweight it was - so handy for the gym. And there was no fuss with chargers, just pop in a AAA battery and he was ready to go. The velvety sound of soulstress Alicia Keys warbled in his ears, her themed duet with Jack White truly a match made in paradise.
A familiar smell wafted past Bond's nose. Ah, that sexy cocktail of velvety florals, cool freshness and warm woods. It had to be Moneypenny, wearing her special perfume designed exclusively for Avon. She always had been impossible to resist.
Bond checked his watch. Yes, it was still an Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m Co-Axial Chronometer, the one with the domed anti-reflective, scratch-resistant sapphire crystal casing. Half past three, the perfect time for adventure. He tilted the black bezelled dial to reveal the reflected silhouette of M standing in the doorway.
"007, I have a new mission for you. I'd like you to fly Virgin Atlantic to Austria, home of the world famous Bregenz lakeside stage. Puccini's music will double as your dramatic soundtrack on this floating platform, and there are several five star hotels close by. I recommend that you wear your Church's Ryder III brown boots, the rubber sole units for those who need that extra grip under foot."
Bond shut the lid on his Sonylaptop, revealing a familiar gun-barrel logo engraved on the silver-brushed casing. This lightweight 1.5kg package boasted an Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 CPU running at 2.5GHz, combined with 4GB DDR2 SDRAM and inbuilt Blu-ray drive. Ideal for the busy special agent or gentleman about town. His scheduled afternoon of video game entertainment (complete with mild language, alcohol reference and violence) would have to wait.
Q entered the room, brandishing an armful of impossibly must-have gadgetry. "Look what I bought down at Comet," he said. "This may look like the new Sony EricssonC902 mobile in limited edition Titanium Silver, but it's actually your new remote control device. I thought if I dressed it up as a shiny brick, exclusively available only to O2 customers, nobody else would think to steal it. See this button? It powers the hatchback on your new Ford Ka. Adventurous, individual and full of spirit, the all-new Ka is the perfect match for any feisty lady agent you might meet."
James stood up, taking care not to block sight of the Heineken Pilsener on the shelf behind him. He'd never drink the gassy weak gnat's piss himself, obviously, but mission sponsors required close proximal brand linkage for enhancement of the liquid's global product awareness. As he abseiled out through the window he made sure that the label on the seat of his Levi's 307 Sta-Prest trousers was clearly visible in shot. And then, with a pert swish of those tapered slacks, he was gone. Premium Bond, licence to sell.
London is a vast place, embracing within its borders hundreds of lesser locations. Some of these are well known (Westminster, Clapham, Romford, etc) whereas other place names are familiar only to locals and those with a bit of neighbourhood knowledge. Often it's small suburbs without a station which slip beneath the radar, or estate-sized areas within more well-known districts.
So for today's quiz I'm presenting you with a list of 24 place names. Twenty of these are proper London place names, and the other four I've made up. Can you spot the four non-existent non-London locations?
As a hint, there's one fake name in each column. Try to spot the fakes before you open the comments box, because that's where the answers are. You can confirm or disprove your hunches by clicking through to a gazetteer and/or map. And then let us know how you got on.
Credit Crunch report: The vast car parks are fairly full, but you'd easily find a space. Queues of traffic stretch back along winding feeder roads to the NorthCircular, but at least they're moving. Would-be shoppers dribble off the double deckers in the featureless bus station, but not in large numbers. Hold open the door to the mall and there's still plenty of room inside. It's nearly nearly-Christmas, but you wouldn't guess. It's Brent Cross, it's the UK's first large enclosed shopping centre, and it's about to face its third recession.
Even in these tough financial times, the mall experience remains an attractive family day out, but now with the emphasis on window shopping. There's a dress you can't afford, and there's a pair of shoes that mustn't go on your credit card. Those chocolates look gorgeous but unnecessary, and no way am I paying four quid for a bagel. Nobody buys Swarovski crystals at a time like this, although a spin round Claire's Accessories shouldn't break the bank. Don't worry about buying some trifling luxury for the kid, because Junior will be pleased enough with a free balloon from McDonalds. Maybe a long walk round the Fenwick department store will pass the time, and then the same round John Lewis. Look, they're doing a meal for two for a tenner in M&S, bargain, and there's even fruit crumble. Best give the Apple store a miss, I think.
At the heart of the mall, beneath the central glass dome, the "My Brent Cross" promotion is underway. Some spotty youth and her lank-haired beau are perched inside a video pod waiting to talk to camera, no doubt telling the world what they so love about this place. Maybe it's the feeling of camaraderie they get from meeting up with their mates outside the Karma Kitchen. Maybe it's the opportunity to nick a pair of leggings from Miss Selfridge. Maybe this is the only decent place in the area to get away from the parents and do some pointless slouching. Or maybe it's the free central heating. Whatever the reason, this mid 70s mall experiment still has its legions of devoted fans.
But maybe not for much longer. Never mind the credit crunch, there's a new enemy lying in wait five miles down the road. If Brent Cross was London's first mid-conurbation shopping centre, then Westfield is its first all-encompassing retail megaplex. It opens on Thursday, and its extensive hinterland threatens to suck what little recessional trade exists out of existing local shopping centres. Why go to a nasty concrete box outside Hendon when you could visit a shiny glass amphitheatre near Holland Park instead? Why head for a far-flung Zone 3 stationon the hard-to-reach side of an enormous roundabout when you could arrive at the mall doors via a brand new Zone 2 interchange. Why do H Samuel when you could do Tiffany? There are a lot of nervous retail managers across West London at the moment, all hoping that this weekend isn't the last time their shops ever see normal levels of trade. It's shops in W12 which have the most to fear, obviously, but I'm certain Brent has its fingers firmlyCrossed.
Having started 'Next Train' Indicator Week at one end of my daily commute, I'm ending it at the other. I'm a bit surprised, because I didn't think Holborn's NTIs were anything special. But once reader Marc had pointed out the crude display on a separate platform, this station's signage shortcomings became all too apparent. Holborn's a perfect and up-to-date example of how uncoordinated the planning of these things still is. Installation by cretins continues.
Next train: Holborn
First to the eastbound Central line platform. It's where reader Rachel waits each morning, and where I stand each evening before I head home. Picture the scene - a straight tubular platform with a low subway bridge across the centre. Six months ago there were two 'next train' indicators, both of the long-standing green&orange type, one attached to each side of the overbridge. This meant that destination information was clearly visible from the majority of the platform, but alas not from a blind spot beneath the bridge. Pretty good, but not perfect. Holborn station is currently undergoing refurbishment, and new 'next train' indicators are part of the package. Perhaps sensibly, the new displays have been installed before the old ones have been removed. They hang a few feet further away from the central bridge, so there's no blind spot underneath any more. Unfortunately there's now a blind spot almost everywhere else. From further away the new signs completely block out sight of the old and, although they've been installed for months, the new signs are not yet functional. Installed by cretins.
So I stand each evening and stare at the new signs, wondering what it says on the old ones sandwiched behind. The new signs merely tell me I'm waiting for "Eastbound trains: Central line", which I know already, and they tell me what the time is in hours minutes and seconds, which I know already. The next train is for Idunno, and it's arriving Anywhen. Why oh why, if the new signs aren't yet plugged into the signalling system, did some cretin decide to install them several months early. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I do despair.
So next to the northbound Piccadilly line platform. It's much the same story here - a new indicator installed before the old one has been removed. Thankfully this new NTI actually works, and it doesn't block the old one. Unfortunately it's been installed by cretins. The new 'next train' indicator has been attached to the ceiling immediately to the right of the platform entrance, which is (unsurprisingly) very close to a "Way Out" sign. This is especially bad news if you want to stand on the left half of the platform, ready to board at the rear of any arriving train. From here the "Way Out sign" obscures almost all of the dot matrix display, apart from the first four letters. If you're lucky, the first train will be heading to "Arno". If you're unlucky it'll be heading to "Cock".
Did the electrical contractors do this for a laugh? Or did nobody consider the unfortunate combination of truncated information and accidental filth? Surely TfL, if your trains go to Cockfosters, you should always think twice before you install anything. Evidently not. I'm still kicking myself for not waiting on the platform long enough. My photograph of this abysmal debacle only has one Cock in it, whereas if I'd hung around longer I could have hit the jackpot with two.
But this platform's not somewhere I wanted to wait for long. And that's because it's home to TfL's next generation of 'next train' indicators - NTIs that talk. If you can't see the the destination of the next train, either because some cretin has blocked it or because you're blind, then worry no more because it'll be announced out loud. Something like this...
"Piccadilly line. The next train to Cockfosters will arrive in 2 minutes. Next station Russell Square."
Surely this kind of announcement must be a good idea, making our stations aurally accessible to all? Well yes, except that the announcement doesn't stop there. About a minute later, as the next train is about to hurtle into the platform, TfL now insist on subjecting us to the following...
"Ladies and gentlemen, the next train will be a Piccadilly line service calling at all stations to Cockfosters. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand behind the yellow line as the train approaches. Use the full length of the platform and let customers off the train first."
Good grief, that's a bit excessive isn't it? As a regular commuter, all I want to know is where the next train is heading. Instead I'm subjected to 43 words of dressed-up waffle and patronising nannying. I know the next train will be a Piccadilly line service, because it's the only line to use this platform. I know the train will stop at all stations, because in this direction they all do. I don't need to hear "Ladies and Gentlemen" twice thank you, because I haven't switched gender inbetween. I know to stand behind the yellow line, even if the occasional exuberant passenger still forgets. I can't use the full length of the platform, because there's only of me and I'm not that wide. I don't need to use the full length of the platform because it's a Saturday afternoon and the station's not particularly busy. And I already know to let customers off the train first (although, OK, maybe TfL can't repeat this often enough because so many commuters appear to be inconsiderate self-obsessed me-first thrusters). But, before every single bloody train for the foreseeable future, is this really necessary? I don't want to listen to a perpetual sequence of on-message announcements, I just want to know where the next few trains are going and when they'll arrive. Otherwise, oh disembodied automated voice, please shut up.
I hope I haven't given the impression over the last week that all of London's 'next train' indicators are poor. Many are well designed, expertly positioned, unblocked by clutter and written in a font size large enough to read without squinting. The DLR ticks almost all boxes, for example. But there are still a lot of sub-standard, ill-thought-through, incompetent displays out there, providing an inadequate service for travellers and wasting public money. Installed by cretins. And each perfectly re-installable, should anybody at TfL actually care.
NTI scariness, category 7: Displays that talk • Tower Hill (District/Circle, eastbound): This one talks, but has an annoying habit of announcing a completely different destination to the one displayed on the board. As yet, bloody hopeless. • Euston (Northern): "The next train to Morden will arrive in two minutes. Next stop King's Cross St Pancras. Please stand back from the platform edge." • any more?
Installed by cretins: As tube week draws inexorably towards its climax, I'd like vent my spleen at the idiots who installed some of London's most useless 'next train' indicators. Just to be clear, this may not be the workers who wired them into the ceiling. It could be the electricians who installed the security camera directly in front of them. It could be the architects who thought that "behind a pillar" was the perfect spot for a list of upcoming destinations. Or it could be the designers who decided that "broad and shallow" was the perfect shape for a dot matrix display. Whoever it was, at so very many stations across the entire TfL network, my rant is the same. Installed by cretins. Here's a small selection of their inept handiwork...
Next train: Old Street Here we are on the northbound Northern line platform. You've entered the station, you've descended the escalator, you've walked down the stairs and now you're looking to your left to see which train's coming next. Good grief, which blithering idiot has installed a security camera immediately in front of the 'next train' indicator? And not just any security camera, but a limpet-like fixture attached to the curved ceiling by no less than two obstructive pipes. Morons. Except, hang on, that's one of the tube network's very newest 'next train' indicators - all matt black and sleek and shiny with pinpoint perfect lettering and (get this) more than three next trains. So my guess is that the chunky camera boom was here first and the damned expensive NTI arrived second. Installed by cretins.
Next train: Acton Town Here we are on the eastbound Piccadilly line platform. It's another one of those security camera & 'next train' indicator combinations. And you know what, it takes real skill to position a security camera in precisely the correct position to obscure the top line on a dot matrix display. The camera mounting is small and slim, and so is the word "Cockfosters", and yet engineers have still managed to synchronise both in precisely the same eye-line sector of west London airspace. Damned talented, that. Admittedly the view on the opposite side is crystal clear to all punters entering the station from the ticket hall. But from anywhere in the eastern half of the platform, an essential tiny strip of letters is blocked. Why oh why can't the cameras be a bit higher up, or the signs a bit lower down? Installed by cretins.
Next train: Acton Town Here we are on the eastbound District line platform, a few feet away from the disaster area described above. Yet again the destination of the next-arriving service is illegible. And yet again the blockage is caused by incompetently positioned surveillance equipment, although this time of a different kind. Blame the mini staff control room in the centre of the platform, with its windows facing forwards but not back. So how are diligent station staff to check the eastern half of the platform? Why, with a big square mirror attached to the wall, that's how. And this mirror perfectly obscures the left hand side of the 'next train' indicator, the useful chunk where the destination appears. Sorry, that destination's a secret, because what's more important is that station staff can check for abandoned luggage without leaving their bunker. Installed by cretins.
Next train: Bank Here we are on the eastbound Central line platform. This is the inner-curve banana-shaped platform where a disembodied voice announces "Mind The Gap" at extremely regular intervals. And here's a novelty. It's not TfL signage blocking this particular 'next train' indicator, it's an innovative advertising solution. Yes, you can blame CBS Outdoor and one of their newly installed overhead projectors for this wholly unnecessary obstruction. Last year you could easily have read how many minutes it was until the next train arrived. And now you can't, because there's a giant white box in the way, hanging pregnant from the ceiling. Is the Epping train arriving soon? Dunno, but you can always watch silent adverts for musical theatre and satellite television while you wait. I know which information I find more useful. Installed by greedy cretins.
Next train: Oxford Circus Here we are on the eastbound Central line platform. Look at that. A whopping great big Way Out sign plonked immediately (immediately!) in front of the 'next train' indicator. Who would do such a thing? Ah, well that's Health & Safety, that is. The most important sign on any underground platform is the 'Way Out' sign, because one day it might be essential (for a few minutes) during a nightmare evacuation. Unfortunately this means that for the rest of the time it's allowed to block everything else that day-to-day travellers might find useful, like where the next Central line train is going. But there's one thing here I really don't understand - why is the Way Out sign so bloody long? It's half blank, for heaven's sake, and it's the blank half which is blocking the really important information on the 'next train' indicator behind. This whopping great obstruction at one of the busiest stations on the network is totally unnecessary, and yet TfL's design guidelines require it. Installed by cretins.
Next train: Oxford Circus Here we are on the eastbound Central line platform. Hang on, that's where we were for the previous photo. But this is the other side of exactly the same 'next train' indicator. Double-sided incompetence, this. During the modernisation of Oxford Circus earlier this century, scores of loudspeakers were attached to walls across the station, and one of them ended up here. It's right up close to the NTI so there's no way of avoiding it, poking out diagonally across the destinations of the next trains to depart the station. Plain ridiculous. But that's nothing compared to the horizontal location of this particular display unit. Look, it's so wide that the only way of fitting it across the top of the platform has been to shove it into an alcove. Even when the next train is for 'Hainault via Newbury Park' there's still plenty of unnecessary blank width, but could somebody be arsed to design a slightly narrower 'next train' indicator? Could they hell. All modern dot matrix displays have to be wide, otherwise there'd be no room to write important messages about engineering works and unattended luggage. So Oxford Circus ends up with a too-wide box that doesn't fit, and isn't fit for purpose. And you know, that's why I liked the old lightboxes, because they were invariably narrow, and therefore capable of being positioned nearer to the tracks, and therefore visible. Today's one-size-doesn't-fit-all approach is evidently far too inflexible. Designed by experts, standardised by morons, installed by cretins.
NTI uselessness, category 5: Obstructed displays • Plaistow (westbound): Enter this platform down the stairs and you'll find that a narrow security camera arm casts its immediate shadow across the most crucial top-line segment of the 'next train' display. Only once you've walked one carriageworth up the platform does the view clear. Installed by cretins. • Finsbury Park (Victoria, southbound): Another security camera, again precisely eclipsing the destination of the first train, this time from the entire northern half of the platform. Installed by cretins. • Notting Hill Gate (Central, westbound): Yet another security camera debacle. Installed by cretins. • High Street Kensington (District & Circle, northbound): Blocked by Way Out sign from entire northern half of platform. Installed by cretins. • Bond Street (Jubilee, north and south): Blocked by Way Out signs. Installed by double cretins. • Stepney Green (District, eastbound): DTL says "The NTI is only visible there if you stand right by the stairs. Anywhere else and you have exit signs and CCTV blocking the view." • Mile End (Central, westbound): Ah, the bugbear of my daily commute. There are two 'next train' indicators on the westbound Central platform, one at the foot of each staircase. But stand inbetween the two, as I do every morning, and you can see neither. One NTI is singled-sided only, and the side facing the gap beneath the stairs is blank. And the other NTI is hidden perfectly behind a Way Out sign, so that's bloody useless too. Over the years I've learnt that I can just see the extreme right hand side of this dot matrix display if I walk right up to the yellow line at the platform edge and stick my head out into the danger zone. If the final letter is "s" then the next train is at least "2 mins" away, and if the "s" isn't there then the next train is a mere "1 min" away. As to where it's heading, there's no hope of knowing until it arrives. I stand each morning in an information-free dead zone, courtesy of TfL's incompetent engineers. Installers of the cretinous. • any more?
I did wonder if perhaps the Oxford Circus eastbound Central line 'next train' indicator was London's very worst example of contractor-led signage functionalty incompetence. But I have one more fecklessly located display up my sleeve, with which I'll round off this series tomorrow. Not just recklessly incapable but downright insulting, and the perfect indication of where TfL's NTIs are heading in the future. Installed by more cretinous cretins than usual.
Some tube stations are really complicated places to negotiate, not because there are several lines but because there are several possible destinations. These are multi-platform hubs, and it's essential to end up on the correct platform in order to board the correct train. Arriving passengers need clear signage which amalgamates all travel options, as for example provided by banks of purple-topped screens on the Metropolitan line at Baker Street. But other same-line interchanges can be a complete nightmare. And, by your common consent, the very worst of these is the District line's frenetic epicentre at Earl's Court.
There are only four District line platforms at Earl's Court, two (adjacent) westbound and two (adjacent) eastbound. You wouldn't think it would be difficult to stand on one island or the other and wait for the next train. But it is. And the problem is very simple. Each platform has its own 'next train' indicator which indicates the next train to arrive on that platform only. Whichever platform you choose to stand on, it's extremely hard to tell what's due to arrive next on the platform nextdoor. Wait, shuffle check, shuffle back check, wait some more, shuffle shuffle check, shuffle wait. It's a right pain, and during rush hours a sure-fire recipe for clogged congestion.
As on much of the rest of the District line, the signalling system at Earl's Court is archaic. No flash electronic 'next train' displays here, just a very old-school system involving illuminated arrows. But maybe not as old school as you remember. There used to be some genuine heritage lightboxes here - big compartmentalised displays with elegant white text on a bold blue background. Like this westbound, and like this eastbound. Proper museum fodder and very characterful, but not 100% useful. Alas at the end of last year they were replaced, and by something less gorgeous but equally dysfunctional. There are now lots of new signs spaced out along each platform, each with a nod at how things used to look, but each little more than a bland list in block capitals beside a box of cheap-looking arrows. Current signalling permits nothing more useful.
Eastbound, platforms 1 & 2: There are two distinct choices, although the destination board makes things look far more complicated. Do you want to head north via High Street Kensington or east via Victoria. Sorry, but your next train could be arriving on either platform. Shuffle, check, shuffle, check. A frequent bugbear occurs when both platforms are occupied by trains travelling in the same direction. What most passengers then need to know is not the final destination but which train will be leaving first. Because there's nothing worse that sitting expectantly in your carriage only to see the other train heading out of the station first. Not a clue. Oh hang on, maybe there is. One single illuminated sign hung high over the platform (above where the old indicators used to be), and most definitely not easily viewable from the full length of the station. Sheesh what a disjoint mess this station's signage is.
Westbound, platforms 3 & 4: There are four distinct choices, so which train's due next really matters. It's still not easy to tell from the indicators, though, as commenter slabman knows all too well... "Invisible from more than 2 metres away and placed at the head of the stairs from the Piccadilly, which opens into a bedsit sized space bounded by pillars and a lift. So, a crowd gathers there to watch the indicator and fight for position with the commuters coming up the stairs. Brilliant!" And commenter Steven adds... "On emerging from the Piccadilly Line and seeing a train about to leave, one has to fight through people to locate a board to identify which train it is." Even once you're on board, trains here can wait and wait and wait for no obvious reason. Changing trains at Earl's Court is no fun whatsoever.
But there is hope. At the moment the platforms at Earl's Court are covered with scaffolding, right down the middle of each - a series of blue portakabin-type hideaways propping up a forest of pipes and tall poles. It's as if the Ideal Construction Show has relocated from the nearby exhibition hall and set up shop in the heart of the station. And it's all this scaffolding which is blocking sight of one platform's signage from another. One day, maybe, if Metronet ever clear the whole lot away, viewing the whole picture might get a whole lot easier. But what's really needed here (and at similar stations on the network) is a single 'next train' indicator listing destination, time and platform for the next three-or-so arrivals. You know, like most National Rail stations have. In the meantime, if you want to know how many minutes away the next service to Olympia is and where it'll appear, don't hold your breath.
NTI uselessness, category 4: Displays giving passengers the runaround • Edgware Road (Circle/District/H&C): Personally, I despise Edgware Road even more than Earl's Court. It's a very similar set-up with two pairs of island platforms, but this time with the added complication of terminating trains. Westbound or eastbound? It's not always easy to tell. Trains pause here for long periods of time while waiting for a gap in the service, and again it's often nigh impossible to tell which is the next train out. One of the 'next train' indicators here glows blood red, not orange, which I always find very unnerving. And at the foot of the stairs, as commenter Ben points out, there's quite possibly the worst 'next train' solution anywhere on the network. The main dotmatrix display for all four platforms is upstairs on the concourse near the ticket hall (because eastbound trains can leave from any of three platforms). Downstairs, instead of having another repeater display on the platforms, they have... a CCTV screen fed from a camera pointing at the concourse display. The text is tiny and blurred, and often blocked by passengers walking in front or standing around with suitcases. It's cheap and it's nasty and it looks so desperately amateur. If Edgware Road ever becomes the lynchpin of a new non-circular Hammersmith and Circle line, I dread to think to imagine how appalling changing trains here might become. • Wembley Park: Your next southbound Metropolitan line train... is it platform 5 or (long scurry across bridge) platform 6? It's not always obvious. It may look like 5 (next train 1 min) but many's the time a slow train's sneaked ahead into 6, opened its doors to an empty platform, and pulled out before anyone could reach it. • Whitechapel: Your next westbound Hammersmith & City line train... is it a through service or is it departing from the 'eastbound' platform? There's a bridge and two flights of stairs between the two, and absolutely no clues for waiting passengers which it might be. • Plaistow: Your next westbound Hammersmith & City line train... is it a through service or is it departing from the bay platform? There's an incredibly long walk (up, over and along) between the two, and absolutely no clues for waiting passengers which it might be. • any more?
For my third category of well dodgy 'next train' indicators, I'd like to turn to those which present incorrect information. I'm not talking imaginary tube minutes either, I'm talking proper bona fide errors. Here's one such mini disaster area, on the southbound Victoria line at Highbury & Islington. Everything's working fine, except that the left hand side of the display has had the electronic version of a stroke, and the first three characters of every destination have vanished. OK, so that's not too much of a problem on the Victoria line, where virtually every train is going to XTON and only a handful to TORIA. But repairing these semi-broken signs never seems to be a TfL priority. And sometimes the incorrect information can be far more annoying...
NTI uselessness, category 3: Displays giving incorrect information • Seven Sisters (eastbound): Nico says "Often lies outright - sometimes advertises the first 'Stow train as being as much as 14 minutes (14 minutes gap, on the Victoria Line!) away as one comes rumbling in." [photo] [for TfL response, see comments box] • Queen's Park (Bakerloo southbound): I've never known a 'next train' indicator to lie as much as this one. The first train is almost always to Elephant & Castle, which is correct, but its arrival time can be purely fictional. If the time's 11:06, the next train might be given as arriving at 11:07. And then suddenly it'll be 11:08, and then 11:09, and then 11:10, and so the interminable waiting continues. And all because trains can emerge either from the sidings north of the station or from the tracks down from Willesden Junction, and the signalling system rarely seems to have a clue which. • any more? (there must be more)
If you want to see a motley collection of ancient next train indicators, head to Baron's Court. Two thin fingers of platform, each with Piccadilly line services on one side and District on the other, and possibly the easiest interchange on the entire tube network. It's been a very long time indeed since anybody at London Transport installed any new 'next train' indicators here. The two westbound platforms still have those old black lightboxes, one simple, one rather more complex (for everyone who needs to know whether the next train's stopping at Turnham Green or not). And none of these new-fangled digital clocks, oh no, but a proper analogue dial hanging inbetween marked out in Roman numerals. Boris would approve.
But Baron's Court's unsung jewel is the heritage 'next train' indicator on the eastbound Piccadilly line platform. This is how proper station information used to be. A chunky arrow at the top of the sign to indicate on which platform the next service is due. Then 13 glass segments, each with a different destination lurking behind, one of which lights up when a train's on its way. Lovely isn't it. You could almost imagine Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson meeting for a passionate embrace in swirling fog beneath the lightbox. By modern standards, however, this is rubbish. It makes no attempt to mention how many minutes away the next train is. It can't cope with unusual destinations caused by engineering works. And TfL can't scroll important security messages about unattended luggage across the bottom. Actually, I knew there was a reason why I liked it.
There are fewer and fewer of these very old 'next train' indicators on the underground network today. Every time a station gets upgraded (or, in heritage terms, vandalised), these old workhorses are being ripped out to be replaced by something more modern and more functional. And I can see why, because more information has got to be a good thing. But I shall still be sorry to see the last of the old guard go. I hope that this one survives a little longer.
NTI uselessness, category 2: Stations with ancient heritage displays • Upton Park (westbound): This is no ordinary lightbox, this is a burnt-into-the glass lightbox. It doesn't matter whether a train's coming or not, both line options are permanently visible. Look carefully and you may see that one line is more illuminated than the other - that's the service arriving next (sometime). One thing's for sure, however, there'll be no Metropolitan line train trundling down these tracks. There hasn't been for the last 18 years anyway. And any traveller who takes the sign's advice and decides to change for the Metropolitan line at Aldgate East will be sorely disappointed too. As commenter Venichka says, "while one is all for heritage features, accurate non-misleading information is more important." Few objects sum up TfL's cash-strapped-ness better than this particular sign. • along the District/Piccadilly line either side of Hammersmith (including Acton Town) • Uxbridge (they really don't make them like this any more) • Cannon Street • any more? (and no, not Earl's Court, not any more)
Time once again for diamond geezer to go totally tubular, with yetanotherweek devoted to the London Underground. Except this time the week starts on a Tuesday. And, just for a change, I'm devoting the entire series to one particularly annoying station fixture - 'next train' indicators. Because too often they're rubbish. And here's part 1 of why...
Next train: Bow Road
Forgive my indulgence if I kick off a week of ranting about 'next train' indicators by telling you about my local station. In particular, that's the new(-ish) electronic displays at Bow Road. This is the station I use every morning, where I stand expectant and bleary eyed awaiting a train to carry me westward. Sometimes I care about which train is coming next, because it makes a difference whether it's heading for Tower Hill or Kings Cross. Usually I don't care which train's arriving next, because every train on the District and Hammersmith & City lines goes to Mile End, which is where I want to change. But I always care about when it arrives. And there's the problem.
Until three years ago, the eastbound 'next train' indicator at Bow Road looked like this. Standard mid 20th century issue, just a lightbox with illuminable destinations, all black and simple. The indicator on the westbound platform was held together with sticky tape and was even simpler. No destinations here, just an alternating display to tell passengers whether the next train would be on the District line or the Metropolitan line (highly misleading because the Hammersmith and City usurped the Metropolitan out here way back in 1990). And also no overt indication either as to when the next train would arrive. When a westbound train was expected, the box would light up less than a minute before the train rattled into the platform. If the next train was more than a minute away there were no clues, nothing. A blank box could mean two minutes (wait on platform), could mean ten (exit station and walk to Mile End), could mean no trains at all (go home).
So Metronet ripped the old boxes out and installed new state-of the art 'next train' indicators' instead. Huge long dot matrix displays, weakly lit in orange, with updated more detailed scrollable information. Now the westbound indicator could tell us where our trains were going, be it Richmond, Ealing Broadway, Wimbledon or Hammersmith. And, erm, that was it. Still no indication of how far away the next train was, nor any mention of where trains two and three might be going. In short, this expensive upgrade provided virtually no value-added whatsoever. Indeed, given that the new indicators were five seconds slower than their predecessors in announcing the arrival of an approaching train, one could argue they were worse.
Meanwhile, up in the ticket hall, a new 'next train' indicator appeared. It was one of the first of a new breed appearing across the network, listing upcoming destinations to passengers fresh off the street. Alas, this provided no better information than on the platforms. Indeed, with any advance warning being less than a minute, this ticket hall sign usually signalled a train that was already rushing into the platform below. I know, from wearisome experience, that every time I enter the ticket hall to see a westbound train flashed up on the board, I have a less than 50-50 of getting downstairs in time to board it. Sorry TfL, that's not useful information, that's impractical optimism.
And the reason this really annoys me is that at Mile End, one minute down the line, the 'next train' indicators are fully functional. Westbound passengers know precisely where the next three District/H&C trains are heading, not just the next one. And they also know how many minutes away each of those trains is, up to a maximum of six. Hmmm. If Mile End passengers have maximum information, it really shouldn't be rocket science to provide the same half a mile away at Bow Road. It's not as if trains appear or vanish in the tunnel between the two - everything that arrives at Mile End must previously have passed through Bow Road. But no, one station gets the full monty while the station nextdoor merits no monty at all. I feel like a lesser class of traveller.
But there is a reason for TfL's apparent incompetence. It's the signalling that's rubbish, not the displays. Metronet installed the best most appropriate displays available back in 2005, but the District line's signalling system has yet to catch up. Bow Road's 'next train' indicator displays may look modern, but as yet they're incapable of displaying any better 'next train' information than their predecessors. Heritage cabling infrastructure provides only very limited last minute information, and nobody's yet thrown sufficient millions at the signalling problem to fund an upgrade. One day these next train indicators will be able to tell me how long it is until the next three trains arrive, but right now enabling that information is not a priority. I live in hope. But I'm not holding my breath.
NTI uselessness, category 1a: Stations with what look like modern displays, but which await a signalling upgrade • most of the District line east of Mile End (& especially east of Barking) • the Metropolitan line west of Rayners Lane: Shiny new displays on both platforms have nothing to report. At Ruislip Manor a carefully positioned leafy branch blocks physical sight of the next train until it's pretty much arrived. Thankfully the lines out here attempt to run to a predictable timetable. • the Piccadilly line between South Harrow and North Ealing: modern displays, zero information • Wood Green (southbound): Martin says "the indicator only tells you about the next train as it's pulling into the platform. Apparently this is due to the system's inability to cope with trains which might be emerging from the sidings just to the north of the station (although that doesn't happen very often). The other day it had got the idea that an Uxbridge train was imminent, so that was permanently displayed on the top line, while the train that was actually about to turn up was displayed as the second. Bravo!" • Turnham Green: Alex says "Big LED screen replacing little light up one with no extra info. Two minutes warning about the next train." • Ravenscourt Park: Phill says "Only shows the direction of the trains, and occasionally a no smoking flashes up. Even in the ticket hall they have a mini one and all it says is eastbound and westbound. Only been there a year." • Ealing Common (eastbound): Chloe says "Both platforms only tell you the destination of the approaching train when it's almost in the platform, but the eastbound also flags up "special" at various times in off-peak hours, to indicate that the District Line train pulling into the platform is actually heading for the sidings just past the station, and is just stopping while they alter the points. It's that 'ah, train!...oh, not my train' feeling. And yet someone always walks up to it and presses the button." • Turnpike Lane • any more?
NTI uselessness, category 1b: Stations which have no 'next train' indicator whatsoever (awaiting signalling upgrade) • the Hammersmith & City line between Hammersmith and Paddington (including the newest station on the Underground - Wood Lane). No point in having a 'next train' indicator if the current signalling can't support it. Please listen for announcements. • West Kensington • any more?
This is a photo of my Dad. Circa 1939-ish. Having fun with a pram.
Seven decades have now passed. And today this cherubic toddler celebrates his 70th birthday.
I am, of course, nothing like my Dad... I can't paint to save my life. I have no interest in expert gardening. None of my photos has ever won an award. I won't be allowed to retire in my 50s. I don't know a dovetail joint from a mortise. I've never been camping in Italy. I can't bake prize-winning rock cakes. I have been known to break the speed limit. There are no photographs of me in a woggle and short trousers. I have never been a leading national authority on scientific matters. I don't wake up every morning with someone to chat to. I am not a pillar of my local community. I don't have grandchildren. I hate cauliflower. And jazz.
Or maybe we're more similar than I realise... We share a sense of humour. Whenever I sneeze, I think I sound exactly like him. We're both annoyed by the shoddily imprecise and the carelessly misleading. He blogs (and no, I'm not telling you where). We both, independently, bought the same beige sweatshirt from Primark last year. Neither of us have ever voted for... you know, them. We both leave the room when Strictly Come Dancing comes on. Given the choice of a job we believe in or a job that earns more money, we'd both pick the former. I learned my positive outlook on life from him. We're both looking forward to a nice slice of cake this evening.
Before the afternoons darken and the leaves shrivel, there's still time for a glorious autumnal walk in the Surrey Hills. And where better than the peak of the county's chalk uplands, high on the North Downs, at BoxHill? It's not a much-loved visitor-packed viewpoint for nothing. I visited for the first time last Sunday, in surprisingly decent sunny weather, and found the entire experience wholly uplifting. Follow me.
To the car park of the Burford Bridge Hotel. It's unexpectedly simple to get here, via a range of different means of transport, and I'll tell you how at the end of this post. For the time being however, we're off for a hike. It's this hike here, which you can print out and take with with you when you visit. Look up from the A24 and you can see tiny figures ascending the grassy hillside, high above the trees, just a few hundred metres from where we're standing. That's where we're heading, through that gap between the hotel and a hedge, past the National Trust sign. Come on, there are steps, how tough a climb can it be?
Sheesh, that's tough. This is a mighty steep ascent - not exactly mountaineering conditions but still relentlessly upward. It's probably a good idea to stop for a breather before too long, before your heart explodes. Don't worry, you're already so high up that you can turn round and admire the view without looking like you're merely pausing to catch breath [photo]. And continue. The steps peter out after a while to be replaced by a sheer chalk path, and the rocky surface is unexpectedly slippery even in bone dry weather. You might be better off a few metres higher, walking on firmergrassland, striding higher and higher above the Mole Valley. Damned pretty, innit?
At last the contours thin and the path levels out, still climbing but now far more gradually. To the north, across a deep V-shaped ravine, a narrow zig-zag road can be seen clinging to the hillside. It's a mighty testing ascent for cyclists, and a lot of fun for bikers, and probably quite enjoyable in a car so long as you don't meet anything coming the other way. If we keep walking above the cliff edge we'll meet these vehicular travellers at the top soon enough. Onward and upward, then fork left into the woodland past a highly unlikely defensive fortification - Box HillFort. This low concrete and brick structure was built on the hilltop in 1899 as part of London's southern civil defence. It's seems a ludicrous position to defend because any enemy with any sense would march down the valley instead, but that's Surrey for you.
And then, suddenly, civilisation. We've hit a National Trust tourist hub, featuring gift shop, information point and "servery". That's upper-middle-class for café, of course, and it serves up tea and soup and sponge and stuff. Perfect for dismounted muddy mountain bikers and for spotless families recently disgorged from their 4×4 in the nearby car park. Several downland walks kick off from here, the most popular of which is also the shortest - across to the ice cream van and down a grassy slope to the viewpoint[photo]. A huge expanse of green farmland spreads out beneath you, from the nearby town of Dorking way out towards the South Downs in the hazy distance. Double 99 cornet, anyone?
Now for the descent. The path heads into the woods past John Logie Baird's experimental hideaway (before television there was noctivision), before dropping away down a flight of steps. There are a heck of a lot of steps, and you'll get an increasingly smug feeling as you pass wheezing, grimacing, panting visitors making their way oh so steadily upwards. Look, some have even brought toddlers, and pushchairs, and are lugging both impractically up the hillside. Roll on the day when these kids can finally walk unaided without screaming.
And at the bottom, to complete rural perfection, a set of hexagonalsteppingstones lead across the Mole. Wimps who fear slipping into the water can detour via a recent footbridge, but it's far more fun to tread carefully across the stones (minding any dogs scampering energetically between your legs). Pray you don't meet a coach party coming the other way, else you could be waiting on the riverbank for rather a long time. From here it's only a few yards to the main road in the valley, and then a short walk along the pavement returns us to the Burford Bridge roundabout. There are an awful lot of motorbikes on the dual carriageway, aren't there? I wonder why that should be...
How to gethere: • By car: On the A24 between Leatherhead and Dorking. • By bike: The very best thing about the Burford Bridge car park is Ryka's restaurant[photo]. It's a homespun burger takeaway with a few tables inside (and lots of picnic tables outside), and it's become the major focal point for hordes of southeastern motorbikers. On a sunny weekend afternoon there'll be hundreds of motorcycles parked in the upper car park, some with reverential crowds around them, others revving up for a buzz round the area. You may have to queue for your cheeseburger and chips, but they beat the organic flapjacks at the top of the hill hands down. If only all roadside caffs were as special as this. • By train: There's a regular service down from London to Box Hill & Westhumblestation, taking less than an hour. Very doable. • By bus: Believe it or not, you can get to Box Hill on your Oyster card using a London bus. The 465 runs hourly from Kingston on Sundays (every half hour on other days of the week) and drops you off right at the foot of the hill. • On foot: Go on, make a day of it. I walked to Box Hill from Leatherhead, following the Mole Gap Trail along the river, across the railway and along a high wooded ridge. Great walk, great views, and envious real estate.
As logos go, it's a classic. It's damned simple - just a bar on a circle. It's as iconic as the tube map, or maybe even more so. It's the London Transport roundel. And it's celebrating its centenary this year.
If you're travelling round the Underground today, only a handful of places remain where an original-style roundel can still be seen. One location is at the foot ofthe stairs on the Districtlineplatforms at Ealing Broadway, while another lurks deep beneath the surface at CaledonianRoad. And then there's Covent Garden, right up at the far end of the westbound platform beyond the safety barrier where no mere mortal is permitted to tread. It's a very raw piece of signage, just a blue rectangle across a red enamel disc, with the station name written in some ancient font. But it was a first attempt to introduce consistent visual clarity for passengers, and remains perfectly recognisable to this day. The disc became a loopy circle in 1917, and rapidly spread across the entire network of buses, railways and coaches. I could tell you more, but why bother when the London Transport Museum has put together a perfectly detailed online illustrated history of 100 years of the evolving roundel.
TfL's centenary extravaganza doesn't stop there, oh no. A trio of commemorative roundels have been commissioned - one outside St James's Park station, another at New Shepherd'sBush and a third at Wood Lane. And there's also a celebratory (and rather cheap) exhibition with the catchy title of 100 Years, 100 Artists, 100 Works of Art. The title reveals the concept. The folks at Art On The Underground asked a ton of artists to knock up a bit of art inspired by the roundel. Cost so far, zero. Then they hung all the artworks in a school hall in Shoreditch. Cost so far, probably not much. And (starting tomorrow) they're going to auction off a print of each work in an eBay-style auction. Ultimate profit, probably quite a lot. Value-for-money obsessed Boris is no doubt very proud that these days even heritage contributes to TfL's coffers.
The exhibition's only open for three weeks, so I popped down last night to take a look. Annoyingly the nearest stationdoesn't open for two years, so I faced a considerable trek to reach the backstreets around Arnold Circus. Erm, I think it's around here somewhere, that looks a bit like a Victorian school, where's the way in, and is this door actually open? Ah yes. A welcoming committee of three girls awaited, sat behind a desk piled low with unbought merchandise. And then onward into the high-windowed school hall, a room I had almost to myself. Cue the art.
Ooh, this was a rather diverse selection. The artists have interpreted their brief in a multitude of different ways, some graphic, some literal, some photographic, some abstract and some just wonderfully obtuse. Some looked like the heritage posters of old, while others were considerably more modern. Some made me go "wow, that's clever", and others made me think "pah, I bet they dashed this rubbish off in a few minutes". Proper art, then. But then you can't really go wrong with a roundel. Something circular-ish with something rectangular-ish across it, tarted up a bit, done.
I amused myself by wandering the walls trying to work out which artwork I'd bid for, if I actually did that sort of thing. My eye was taken by the more abstract designs, using the roundel as part of a repeating moquette or as a long distance reveal. Maybe the roundel as a flock of birds, or as a Mobius strip, or as a hole in a sliced loaf. Or maybe the atmospheric landscape in which a shimmering roundel reflected on a tree-shadowed pool. Sir Peter Blake had taken a very colourful geometric approach, which worked strikingly well. But my ultimate favourite was picture number 18 by Henry Coleman, the Venn diagram in which a sea of blue bars morphed effortlessly into a army of red circles. I like my art clever but simple. Which is, essentially, why the adaptable old roundel has survived the century.
Places to go after you've attended Outpatients and been fobbed off with a brusque junior doctor: number 1 The Royal London Hospital Museum (Open Monday to Friday, 10am-4.30pm)
You'd never find it by accident, tucked away in a crypt in a Whitechapel backstreet. Head through hospital reception, across a courtyard garden between wards and clinics, then look around for the swallowed-up church. Down that hidden ramp on the right, past the two off-duty nurses having a crafty fag, and through the big wooden door. It's a bijou museum-ette, detailing the 250 year-old history of East London's premier medical establishment. You might even get the place to yourself, just you and a few old scalpels.
The Royal London's been around a while, long enough to have seen medicine transformed. Operations are no longer carried out using laughing gas and dodgy amputation saws, with staff summoned by a ringing bell. Nurses no longer wear starched hats, or wield shiny pocket watches, or rush off to the trenches to save dying soldiers. And doctors no longer make teeth for George Washington, or minister to the Elephant Man, or mop up after Jack the Ripper. Ah yes, there's some proper history here alright.
Don't come expecting an extensive collection - you'll not be here more than 20 minutes (unless you sit down to watch one of the videos featuring Joseph Merrick or Casualty 1906). And don't come expecting to fork out lots of cash, not unless you're keen to buy something from the little shop (or to leave a donation for the museum's upkeep). But docome if you fancy somewhere little, and a little different, for a poke around inside a dedicated world of social service.
n.b. London has rather more of these medical museums than you might realise - see here for a full list.
I'm still looking for your help. Regarding "next train" indicators. Because too often they're rubbish.
You've already suggested lots of stations at which the next train indicators are unfit for purpose. Thanks for that. Although many are scattered all over the place, it's interesting that others exist in linear clusters. Some are merely awaiting signalling upgrades, whereas the most disturbing displays are blighted by cretinous positioning. Here are the bloody awful next train indicators you've mentioned so far.
District/H&C: Aldgate East, Whitechapel, Mile End, Bow Road, West Ham, Plaistow, Upton Park (westbound), East Ham, Barking (platform 3) Circle: Edgware Road, Paddington, High Street Kensington (northbound), Gloucester Road, South Kensington (eastbound), Cannon Street, Tower Hill (eastbound) Piccadilly: Northfields, Acton Town, Holborn (northbound), Wood Green (southbound) Metropolitan: Wembley Park, all stations west of Rayners Lane Jubilee: North Greenwich (westbound), Bond Street (northbound) Central: Oxford Circus (eastbound), Holborn (eastbound), Mile End Victoria: Finsbury Park (southbound) Northern: Golders Green (southbound) DLR: Canary Wharf
I shall be trundling around the railway network over the next week to investigate these supposed signage disaster areas. But if you know of any more, I'd be much obliged to hear about them. Together maybe we can name and shame TfL into displaying some competence.
Continuity Announcer: Good afternoon boys and girls everywhere. Next on the British Broadcasting Television Service we have a very special programme for you. The first edition of an exciting new children's magazine programme entitled BluePeter...
» Drumroll, followed by jaunty nautical hornpipe played by the Chalk Farm Salvation Army Brass Band
Christopher: Hellay children. Hellay Leila. That's a very nice doll's house you have there. I'm so looking forward to seeing inside. And I've been playing with trains. Would you like to see my layout? Valerie: Our Summer expedition to Ceylon was a great success. And I must say, it came as a big surprise to wake up in my beach hut and find Princess Anne in the bed next to me. John: So Biddy said, "John, you're going to be the first man to parachute handcuffed off the top of Nelson's Column". But she forgot to tell me that Shep would be coming too. Peter: It's that time of year again when we take Freda the tortoise out of her cardboard box, wipe her eyes with a tissue and hope to goodness she's still alive.
» Historical re-enactment in which Lesley dresses up as Florence Nightingale and walks around Hammersmith Park carrying a lamp
Simon: If you're slightly too cool to be watching me interview a school orchestra from Plymouth, you might prefer to switch over to ITV and watch Magpie instead. Tina: And the winner of the Under 5s category, and of the entire competition, is this oil painting by Marcus Parsons from Solihull. Well done Marcus, but we're not stupid and we'll be sending your special prize to Mrs Parsons instead. Sarah: Thank you for all the socks and teaspoons you've been sending in. As you can see, the totaliser is now flashing away at the 4000 mark, which is great news for the starving donkeys of Mozambique. Janet: Sorry Biddy, I appear to be pregnant. Obviously I'll resign immediately.
» Peter tries hard to be John Noakes by riding a motorbike blindfold through a flooded pipe, but the nation is not impressed
Percy: Oh my god no, look what the bastard vandals have done to my Italian Sunken Garden. They'll hang for this, I tell you (sob) Mark: You can see all of our favourite adventures from the last 12 months regurgitated in this year's Blue Peter Annual, which no doubt some well-meaning auntie will buy you for Christmas. Look, that's me on the front cover wearing a chunky-knit tartan tank top. Yvette: What ghostly goings on have haunted the dungeons of this old castle? Ohmigod! WhatWasThat! Something touched my leg... Hang on, sorry, I'm about two decades too early. Anthea: You'd never guess that this rather amateurish looking International Rescuesimulation started out as three squeezy bottles, a box of cheesy triangles and some rubber solution glue.
» Diane-Louise sticks another pin in the map to show the location of a Bring and Buy Sale in a front garden in Dumfries that has raised "an impressive £2.70"
John: After my special flight riding in Concorde's cockpit, I took two of the air hostesses back to my hotel room and showed them the true meaning of supersonic. Stuart: You can make this Advent crown out of two coathangers and some flameproof tinsel, but it might be quicker to re-use any of the umpteen crowns we've urged you to construct over the last few decades. Konnie: Your Blue Peter Badge will get you free entry to hundreds of tourist attractions across the country. I've scooped 100 from a box in the office and I'm selling them for a fortune on eBay. Richard: *cough* no, really, that white powder on my upper lip is just leftover glitter from this Christmas card I made earlier.
» Katy attempts to give a guide dog a wash in a tin bath in the studio, and gets very wet in the process. In universities all across the UK, students set their video recorders.
Matt: Oh damn, the Blue Peter Box for the Year 2000 has let in water and is full of soggy mush. Liz: We asked you what to call our brand new kitten, and your votes said "Kitty". But that's a bloody naff name so we've picked "Mittens" instead. It's OK, nobody'll ever catch us out. Gethin: That's all we have time for, but we'll be back in our next show with a song from McFly, a report on hang-gliding and something cheap to make for Mother's Day out of a matchbox and some sticky-backed plastic. Andy/Helen/Joel: Hey, we may be nobodies at the moment, but one day we'll be as famous as John, Val and Peter. In our dreams.
» Drum'n'bass representation of Barnacle Bill (also available to download as ringtone)
Continuity presenter: Yeah, right, that was great, that was Blue Peter, yeah, massive. And if you want to catch the next programme, it'll be hidden away on CBBC at 10am on a Wednesday, because us modern kids don't watch no TV no more, wicked.
Wood Lane » Station opened: Sunday 12th October 2008 [press release] » It's not the two previous Wood Lane stations: That's the oneontheCentralLine (1908-1947) and the one on the Metropolitan Line (1908-1914 & 1920-1959). Both opened for the Franco-British Exhibition at White City. Neither was on the same spot as the new station. [map][map] » New station mostly funded by:Westfield, the mega-shopping über-retail complex opening at the end of the month, perfectly timed for the nadir of global recession. » Change here for: Westfield (obviously); BBC Television Centre (directly across the road, except there's a barrier and a six-foot drop in the way); White City station (only 250m away, but sorry, we couldn't afford a direct interchange). » The front of the station looks like: a very long metal & glass letterbox [photo] » The ticket hall: doesn't have a ticket office, just a lot of machines. Now that everyone has Oyster, ticket offices are a thing of the past. » The ticket hall feels like: a giant funnel (very broad at the front, fairly narrow at the rear). » Cross to the westbound platform: by passing beneath an atmospheric low brick arch, part of the original railway viaduct [photo] » Passengers in a wheelchair: can pop up to the platform by lift. » The stairs are: light, wide and airy [photo] » The platforms: curve gently out of sight (please mind the gap between the train and the platform edge) [photo] » Seating is: vandal-proof and therefore not terribly comfortable [photo] » The next train indicators are: non-existent (as at all other stations along this stretch of line). » The station is:spacious, clean and efficient.
Shepherd's Bush Market » Station opened: Wednesday 1st April 1914, as Shepherd's Bush. » Station renamed:Sunday 12th October 2008, because all of a sudden there are rather too many other stations named Shepherd's Bush. » New station named after: a long string of characterful stalls beneath the railway viaduct, many of them Sikh-run, selling clothing and Afro-Caribbean food and all the usual market staples, and about as far away from the Westfield megabucks chainstore experience as it's possible to get [photo] » Change here for:Shepherd's BushMarket (obviously); Shepherds Bush Empire (queue here for Cyndi Lauper); proper shops. » The other station which could have been renamed Shepherd's Bush Market (because it's just as close, but at the southern end): Goldhawk Road. » The front of the station looks like: the featureless entrance to a tiled public convenience [photo] » The ticket hall: has a ticket office, some out-of-date maps and a handful of barriers [photo] » The ticket hall feels like: a rather squashed passageway. » The stairs are: enclosed, steep and narrow. » Passengers in a wheelchair: are completely stuffed. » The platforms: have a protective wooden canopy at one end, and nothing much at all at the far end. » Seating is: a series of recently-replaced metal benches. » The next train indicators are: non-existent (as at all other stations along this stretch of line). » The station is: compact, weatherbeaten and outclassed.
WALK HARROW Somewhere pretty: London Loop section 15 Hatch End to Stanmore (5 miles)
One thing Harrow has in spades is open space. A third of the borough is Green Belt, including most of a broad northern strip, and by London standards this is landscape heaven. I chose to follow one of the capital's major strategic walks across fields, through woodland and past an ornamental death pond. And it was all the better because almost nobody else had had the same idea.
To Hatch End station, clutching a pdf printout of London Loop section 15. I would have preferred the proper leaflet, except the folk at Walk London are incredibly protective of their 55 strategic walk leaflets and permit dispatch of only three per online request. I'd soon be extremely lost as a result of their excessive prudence. My reduced-size, mostly-grey, deskjet route map proved to be a hopeless indicator of direction, even within the first few minutes. It is this way, isn't it? Big field, ambiguous wording, too many potential exits, not enough signs. Help, I appear to be stuck on the wrong side of a prickly hedge. But eventually I worked out how to get back on track, and passed through a gate, and... [Sorry, at this point the London Loop crosses into Hertfordshire for about a mile, which isn't Harrow, so I'm not going to tell you about it. Especially the snooty golfers.]
Is this track really called Ass House Lane? Apparently so. And apparently it crosses a pre-historic earthwork called Grim's Dyke, although I'm still not convinced I actually saw it - the shallow earth trench I spotted could have been any other non-ancient feature. The woodland here forms the edge of Harrow Weald Common, and this end was once part of a landscaped garden belonging the famous comic librettist W. S. Gilbert. He lived in Grim's Dyke (the house, not the ditch) for 20 years, and was especially proud of his ornamental lake complete with boathouse and central island. Alas, this lake was to lead to his untimely death. One day in 1911 a young female house guest got into difficulties while swimming, and when Gilbert jumped in to assist he suffered a fatal heart attack. His widow had the lake drained, and it's now just an eerie vegetated hollow in the woods [photo]. Meanwhile Gilbert's gorgeous home, much praised by Betjeman in his Metroland documentary, has become a rather desirable hotel[photo].
Just to the south, along Old Redding, is a large car park with impressive panoramic views over northwest London. I'd never spotted this before, despite having visited the pub nextdoor, and I enjoyed the opportunity to watch the planes landing at Heathrow eight miles away. After dark, however, it wouldn't surprise me if this car park transforms into prime dogging territory - it had that look about it.
My walk returned into the deserted woods, striding along not-quite muddy paths beneath yellowing leaves. Roll on autumn, I say, if it looks like this. And then across a main road into Bentley Priory Open Space. A concrete path skirted the edge of something top secret and secure, which I later discovered was one of the country's most important airforce bases. RAFBentleyPriory was the headquarters of Fighter Command during the Second World War, and the entire Battle of Britain was directed by officers holed up in the manor house. It's an enormous site, barely visible beyond ubiquitous security fences, and currently undergoing a period of enormous change. The RAF station here closed with a flourish at the end of May 2008, and future plans include less exciting things like a museum and lots and lots of luxury apartments. The perfect gated community, I fear.
Next, on my poorly signposted walk, to Stanmore Common. The official route weaved between two tree-fringed ponds [photo], then passed a rugby pitch where 30 overweight blokes were grunting in the late afternoon sunlight. And then, at a nearby residential enclave named 'Little Common' (which oh so definitely wasn't common), I decided to break my journey. The London Loop continues from here to Aldenham reservoir and Elstree, but they're back in Hertfordshire and that was off limits. Instead I heading south down the hillside, through Stanmore Country Park and back to the edge of the tube network. These strategic walks are great for taking you the non-obvious route via the green bits, and my autumnal stroll had shown northern Harrow in a glorious light. by train/tube: Hatch End, Stanmore by bus: H12
Somewhere random: The Answer Lies At The End of The Line Some days it seems that any old reason will do. For modern art, I mean. Whether it's shoving bunkbeds in the Tate Modern to simulate Armageddon, or flooding the roof of the Hayward Gallery as a parodic intervention, it seems modern artists can get away with anything. In the case of Stanmore station, it's all about publishing a book of crosswords. Artist Serena Korda was inspired by the fact that secret wartime codebreakers deciphered Hitler's secrets in a military outpost on the corner of Brockley Hill, and has assembled a collection of interconnected cruciverbalist art. There are eight crosswords altogether, compiled around some very local themes (such as the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and the Stanmore Bowls Club). You're supposed to be able to pick up a booklet from Jubilee line stations, but they're so rare that downloading the pdf is likely to be a more profitable pursuit. Go on, you're not doing any real work this afternoon.
If you get stuck on the clues, that's where a trip to Stanmore station comes in [photo]. There are linocut posters at the northern end of the platform giving hints to certain solutions (yes, 12 across really is "QUAGGA") and praising celebrated crossword setter Roy Dean. There are further hints on the stairs (yes, "saw nothing" is an anagram of "WASHINGTON"), although you get funny looks from passing commuters if you pause too long to read them. Still not enough help? Never fear, because the solution for each of the eight puzzles has been painted onto the roof high above the ticket hall, each grid surrounded by ornate swirly artwork. The Answer Lies at the End of the Line. So if you haven't solved Serena's crosswords before the end of January, you'd best travel out here to Zone 5 to take a look. by tube: Stanmore by bus: 142, H12
Somewhere historic: Headstone Manor I wonder how many of Harrow's residents realise that their borough has a museum. It's not especially easy to find, hidden away in a little-known suburb in the middle of a recreation ground, and you wouldn't walk past it by mistake. But there's a reason why the museum's here, because it's housed in a suite of the borough's very oldest buildings. Headstone Manor dates back to the early 14th century and is the only scheduled ancient monument in Middlesex still to have a water-filled moat. Yes, really. Before Saturday I never realised it was here either.
That's Headstone Manor, the old-looking house with the sharp-sided chimneypots almost visible across the water [photo]. It's hard to reach at the moment, with both moat and bridge screened off behind a blue metal wall while lengthy renovation work is being completed. The museum has been running tours of the Manor every weekend during the summer should you want to get closer, but only if you're around at 3pm (and I wasn't). Instead I had to make do with a printed history posted up in the small barn nextdoor. The manor's main claim to fame is that Henry VIII owned it. Having read the smallprint, however, it turns out that he only owned it for six days before selling it on, making a profit of £7337 8s 8d. Not a great claim to fame, but it'll have to do.
The museum proper is housed in the Manor's 500 year-old Tithe Barn[photo]. To be honest, I found the timber framed building considerably more interesting than its contents. Up at one end of the long room was a rather flat exhibition about Tudor life in the borough, which could have been an exhibition about Tudor life anywhere in England (highlight - "Unfortunately there is no evidence to prove that any of the Tudor monarchs visited Harrow."). Further down the barn was a bit of a shop, and a few chairs, and not many exhibits. Plus a man in a kitchen serving up drinks to all the kids and parents frequenting the football pitches nextdoor, whose weekly league action probably keeps the museum's finances afloat.
The one remaining building on site was the Granary, shifted here from a farm elsewhere in the borough, and now housing some old farming equipment. You can just imagine school trips trooping in here during the week for a bit of hands on agricultural history and a chance to learn what great gran's kitchen used to look like. Upstairs were some less child-friendly exhibits remembering important local businesses, such as London's premier Kodak factory (which lingers on just down the road) and the Whitefriars Glass Factory (now departed). Nothing here (or anywhere on site) detained me for long, but I'm genuinely sorry to have missed the tour round the manor. by train: Headstone Lane by bus: H9, H10, H18, H19
Somewhere famous: Heath Robinson's house One of the most celebrated proponents of the art of mechanical whimsy was W.HeathRobinson. He started out as a book illustrator, before progressing into the design of ludicrous yet intricate contraptions for carrying out everyday or slightly surreal tasks. His talented penmanship lovingly conveyed machines for such unlikely tasks as brolly-testing, indoor mountain climbing and even "resuscitating stale railway scones". Robinson moved from Holloway to Pinner in 1908, and his detached house at number 75 Moss Lane[photo] now displays a blue plaque in his honour. Moss Lane is a delightful suburban avenue, very Metroland, very aspirational, although I saw no sign of any automated lawn sprinklers or steam powered grass-mowing devices in any of the gardens.
The William Heath Robinson Trust hold many of his humorous artworks, and plan to showcase them in a new museum at West House in Pinner Memorial Gardens [photo]. But the old mansion requires considerable restoration, at great cost, and completion remains some years off. For now West House remains only partly rebuilt behind graffitied barriers and, to my eyes, appears disconcertingly modern looking. The Pinner Association continues to campaign and fund raise for its completion, and will hopefully provide the town with its first steampunk tourist attraction. by tube: Pinner by bus: 183, H11, H12, H13
see also: • Mrs Beeton's House: Britain's first celebrity chef spent the first five years of her married life at number 2 Chandos Villas in Hatch End. Here she plagiarised recipes for publication in her publisher husband's magazine, and these articles were later compiled into the famous Book Of Household Management. Alas poor Isabella died young, from puerperal fever, at the tender age of only 28. Her house in the Uxbridge Road survived until 1940 when it was destroyed in an air raid, and the site is now home to Hatchets restaurant [photo]. Given that bangers and mash here will set diners back £12.50, I doubt they're still using Isabella's recipes. • Elton John's House: That's 55 Pinner Hill Road where a musical boy called Reg Dwight grew up. For some inexplicable reason a two-year-old photograph of this desperately ordinary semi is my second most viewed photograph on Flickr.
Yesterday my jamjar directed me to the leafy northwestern suburbs, to Harrow. This part of London was almost all fields until the railways came, before morphing rapidly into Betjeman's luxuriant Metroland. ModernHarrow is still full of big houses and wide-open Green Belt spaces. It's London trying to be Hertfordshire. It's the borough with the capital's lowest crime figures. It's far more racially diverse than you might expect. It's not rammed with places of interest, but it's still a very pleasant place to be. Let's start today in Harrow itself, a town in two very different parts.
Somewhere sporting: the playing fields of Harrow There are two Harrows - the elite on the hill and everybody else down below. The famous public school got here early, founded in 1572, and perches atop the summit as befits its perceived importance. The Metropolitan Railway got here relatively late, in 1880, and populated the surrounding fields with upwardly mobile state-school fodder. The contrast between the two areas is considerable.
For the boys at Harrow, on the hill, Saturday's just another school day. Bad luck lads. There are assemblies to attend, and lessons to endure, and of course lots of character building sports to play. The school's famous playing fields are located in broad sweeping meadows at the foot of Harrow hill. They're all decked out for rugby at the moment, although when I passed through first thing yesterday morning the posts stood alone amidst the clearing mist. Things would have been very different come 2.30pm when the Radley College 2nd XV were due to run out for a ruck, along with a myriad of lesser competitive matches on the surrounding pitches. Lots of mud, lots of cracking bones and lots of housemasters yelling critical encouragement at the tops of their voices from the touchline. Three cheers for the gallant losers, rah rah rah. And then for the home team, following every single match (or practice), an absolutely knackering walk up the long steep slope of Football Lane back to the boarding houses on the hilltop. They're clearly evil sadists, these Harrow games teachers.
The school itself is a large collection of motley buildings strung out around the High Street, many of them large, Gothicky and impressive. But this is no exclusive campus - there are shops and restaurants and bijou cottages scattered inbetween, and every now and then a double decker bus thunders right through the middle on its way to Watford. Some of the surrounding lanes are narrow, contoured and gorgeous, and the sort of desirable place to live that's seen more often in the Cotswolds than a mere 10 miles from Charing Cross. At the top of West Street there's a special musty shop where boys can buy cufflinks and hand-sewn name labels, and on the village green another selling sensible shoes, hockey sticks and cricket flannels. Most of the other shops and restaurants seem to be aimed more at pupils' parents, or possibly aspirational sixth formers attempting to spend a little of Daddy's City bonus. This exclusive enclave may jar a little with the world outside, but upper Harrow still has the edge over Eton as an endearing educational establishment.
As I passed through, the street suddenly filled with students exiting whatever mass communal gathering the school insists they attend every Saturday morning. They seemed to be pouring out of the Library, or maybe George Gilbert Scott's grand chapel, and heading back to their boarding houses before lessons began at 11. And it's true, the boys really do wear straw boaters as a matter of course and without a flicker of embarrassment. Attending school here must be really character-building. It looked as if box files and ring binders were also an official part of the Harrow school uniform, because every boy was clutching at least two or three. I decided to get out of the way, because it's not good form to be wandering amongst schoolboys with a camera, and ascended swiftly to St Mary'sChurch at the very top of the hill.
The church is half a millennium older than the school, and always seems to be surrounded by earnest gardeners with secateurs and wheelbarrows. It pays off, the churchyard's immaculate. Lord Byron used to come up here a lot as a schoolboy, inspired by the panoramic views to the west, and a memorial now marks the spot. I can only imagine that the trees have grown quite a lot since his day, because the view's not as clear as it once was. Nearby is the grave of London's first railway accident amputee (one shouldn't laugh, but his epitaph is ridiculously melodramatic). And the hill has one further unfortunate claim to fame - it's the site of Britain's first fatal motorist accident. I descended to the main town with great care. by bus: 258, H17
Somewhere retail: Harrow town centre The shopkeepers of Harrow are worried, and not just by impending economic slowdown. Their metropolitan centre ought to be the retail destination of choice for a million Londoners, with the nearest serious competition far away in Watford, Uxbridge or Brent Cross. But the new Westfield London megaplex, due to open in Shepherd's Bush in a couple of weeks, could prove one lure too many. Harrow's shops are nothing extra-special, just your typical large town department stores and high street chains. Be very afraid.
A metal arch stands over the southern entrance to the main shopping precinct, heralding such delights as a bookies, a pizzeria and an Iceland supermarket. Don't worry, the shops pick up in quality beyond Katie's statue. The Queen unveiled this bronze of a merrily skipping girl to celebrate the borough's golden jubilee, although heaven knows why. All the major chain stores may be present, but St Ann's Shopping Centre has been sucked dry of any ounce of character whatsoever. It's a soulless plastic mall alongside an artificial retail boulevard, and probably last had a buzz when Princess Diana opened the place in 1987. The St George's Shopping and Leisure Centre is a little showier and more decoratively 90s, but also smaller (so they could only rustle up Catherine Zeta Jones). Its first floor balcony seems to be the chosen place to hang out if you're a bored girl in a puffa jacket, however.
I bought nothing in any of these places, but instead took my wallet to the local Gayton Library. Harrow Borough Council are very precious about their five Heritage Trail leaflets and refuse to make them available on the internet, preferring instead to charge 50p for each and restrict their sale to the borough's libraries. I confused the girl at the front desk by asking for the full set. She had to ask where the leaflets were (er, they're in that locked glass cabinet in front of the desk), and then another librarian set off around the building to try to track down the key. Five minutes later she finally found it, and extricated the leaflets, and even took the second copy off the pile of Grimsdykes because the top one was very slightly over-folded. I was desperately impressed. If you live in the area, and especially if you have a family to keep occupied, these colourful and illuminating leaflets would provide a fascinating way to fill an afternoon. You'll be glad to hear that central Harrow is not included. by tube: Harrow-on-the-Hill by bus: anything from H9 to H19
Random borough (19): Time yet again for me to take another random trip to one of London's 33boroughs. As I write I have no idea which one of the 15 remaining borough names will be revealed when I unfold the slip of paper I'm about to pick from my legendary (and as-yet unseen) "special jamjar". I could pick any one of the other London boroughs - inner or outer, urban or suburban, small or large, fascinating or dull. I just know it won't be Merton, Islington, Enfield, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Kensington & Chelsea, Hackney, Hillingdon, the City, Bromley, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Hounslow, Brent, Redbridge or Ealing because they're the eighteen (dark grey) boroughs I've picked out already.
I'm now well into the second half of my haphazard capital odyssey. There's a fair chunk of East London still to visit, and a swirl of boroughs across west London, plus Croydon, but that's all. Which of these leftovers will be my destination for the day? Will I be treated to the cultural highlights of somewhere central and important, like Westminster or Camden? Or will I be dispatched somewhere rather more peripheral and off-radar, like Barnet or Bexley? Watch this space.
Once I've researched my randomly-chosen borough online then I'll head off and visit some of its most interesting places (assuming it has any). As usual I hope to visit somewhere famous, somewhere historic, somewhere pretty, somewhere retail, somewhere sporty and somewhere random. I might even take lots of photographs while I'm at it, if the borough's photogenic enough. Then after I've made my grand tour I'll come back tomorrow and tell you all about it. Let's see where I'm going this time...
I need your help. It's all about these things - "next train" indicators. Because too often they're rubbish.
They fail to tell you when the next train's arriving. They fail to tell you where the next train's going. They have illegible flickery electronic text. They count using non-mathematical elongated minutes. They're hidden behind "Way Out" signs so you can't read them. They're obstructed by unnecessary security cameras. They're visible from only a fraction of the platform. They're often new, but worse than the ancient indicator they've replaced. Many have clearly been installed by morons.
So it's time to take action. I'm planning to put together a series of posts about TfL's worst "next train" indicators. I'm going to kick off by nominating Bow Road, westbound platform (and in a couple of weeks I'll write a very long whingy post about it). I know of several other incompetent "next train" indicators, and you lot pointed out plenty more signage disasters via my comments last Saturday. But now I want more. If you know of any additional bloody hopeless London-based "next train" indicators, please let me know. I'd prefer some detail in an email, but sticking a brief mention in the comments box would be good enough and then I can go and research the offending station for myself. Together maybe we can name and shame TfL into displaying some competence.
Things to do on a sunny Oxford afternoon in Fresher's Week
1) Go for a stroll around Christ Churchmeadow There's a great view across the cows, and it won't cost you a penny.
2) Wander round the Botanic Garden If you're a student of botany, you need somewhere to look at plants. And this university's had a botanic garden for nearly 400 years, making it the oldest in the country. There's a more formal walled garden at the front, laid out in neat rectangles with every well-tended specimen duly labelled. A newer section at the rear features a special "autumn walk", brightly blooming even in the middle of October, as well as a herbaceous border, water garden and orchard. Beside the river are densely-stocked glasshouses, home to big cacti and photogenic water lilies and insect-eating plants. It's a real oasis in the city, and ten quid cheaper to get inside than Kew.
3) Enjoy a pie and pint at the Turf Tavern Whenever Inspector Morse needed to drink a pint of real ale in a photogenic pub, he'd often end up in the Turf. It's hidden away down a couple of narrow alleyways, with the fortunate outcome that tourists never stumble across it by mistake and ruin the atmosphere. The Turf is a ramshackle half-timbered pub, a bit of a squeeze on the inside but with several outdoor courtyards where drinking is an absolute pleasure on a sunny day, even in October. Beer connoisseurs will no doubt salivate at the thought of frothing pints of Spuddles County and Wilson's Heritage Brew, or whatever finest ales the landlord's got on tap this month. The menu's damned fine too, and I adored the homemade chicken and mushroom pie they served up yesterday lunchtime. Cheers.
4) Pop into the Pitt Rivers Except you can't at the moment because the museum is closed for refurbishment until the spring. Which is a shame, because the Pitt Rivers Museum is one of the most fabulous collections of eclectic ethnography to be found anywhere. It was founded in 1884 by General Pitt Rivers, one of those Victorian empire builders who went round the world thieving tribal bits and sticking them in display cases. Unforgivable, retrospectively, but absolutely bloody brilliant all the same. Where else would you find cabinets given over to "zithers" and "body painting" and "war quoits"? Or learn about Hawaiian tattooing, or gawp at a giant indoor totem pole? If it was in Central London, everyone would go. As it is, the Pitt Rivers is a rare treat for those in the know.
5) Poke round the Museum of Oxford Enter the limestone doorway round the back of the Town Hall and you might be expecting a glossy interactive experience recounting the delights of academia. But you'd be wrong. This two-floor museum's run by the council, so it's more about town than gown. The local history depicted here runs from a few old Roman pots to William Morris's car factory, with acres of text and photos to scan inbetween. The galleries are sort of interesting, but only because Oxford's a fascinating town, and I got the feeling that the displays haven't been tarted up much for a decade or two. Missable.
6) Take a tour of the Bodleian Library They've got one of every book in the country, they have, and if you're a member you can request anything from a medieval manuscript to Budgie the Helicopter. The tours are led by learned librarians, and you get to climb up to the proper old wood panelled bit inaugurated by Duke Humfrey where many of the most fragile volumes are kept. Which is stunning. But sssh, there are English students doing research and they'd rather not be gawped at.
7) Peruse the Ashmolean That classical-looking building off St Giles is part art gallery, part museum. But more art gallery. It's undergoing renovation at the moment, so trooping from one room to the next can be a bit of a trek. But the paintings are nice (sorry, I'm not an art critic, but you get the idea).
8) Hike up Carfax Tower I like climbing towers, and Oxford has two accessible to the public. This one is all that's left of St Martin's Church, at the main city crossroads, ascendable for a couple of quid via the usual winding staircase. You get a pretty good view of the dreaming spires from the roof, so long as you don't mind the odd department store cooling tank getting in the way. Fingers crossed you get the square beneath the weathervane to yourself, and don't have to squeeze past gangs of grinning tourists taking photos of themselves with pointy limestone spikes behind. The name Carfax, by the way, is derived from 'Quadrifurcus' which is Latin for crossroads. Oxford's a bit intellectual like that.
9) Go back to your old student digs Look, there's my old room on the multicultural Cowley Road, still above the estate agents, still tiny, and probably still extortionately rented. I wonder if this year's batch of student no-hopers are plagued by ants in the kitchen, and whether there are already piles of unwashed plates by the sink because nobody can agree whose name should be next on the cleaning rota. The Co-op supermarket nextdoor is new (it would have been damned useful 25 years ago for buying all those cans of beans and pasta we students existed on). And look, the pelican crossing which used to plague my sleeping hours has been removed, as has the buzzing overnight takeaway across the street (damn, too late). I'd never live here now, but the street still feels very much like home.
10) Go back to your old college Sorry. "Closed to visitors. Fresher's Fair in Hall, 2-3:30pm." And I think they'd have noticed that I was 25 years too late.
You're wearing a condom on your head. An oversized knitted condom, admittedly, but the shape of a prophylactic all the same. What do you look like? You probably think you're wearing a modern trendy cutting-edge fashionable beanie hat, you do. But I think you're wearing a knitted condom on your head. I think you look a right plonker.
I mean, what a sartorial disaster. Even a normal sized beanie hat usually looks misshapen and style-free. But yours is "super massive", probably picked up at Top Man for a tenner, and it droops embarrassingly backwards off your lank gel-soaked hair. It's tight and clingy round your ears, but loose and floppy further back. You look like Noddy, or a pot-smoking pixie, or some white boy attempting to appear hip and Afro. Let me assure you, you've failed.
You wouldn't wear a real condom on your head, would you? Not unless you were very drunk, or showing off in front of your mates, or just interested to see how far it might inflate. But it seems you're perfectly happy to wear this woolly lookalike. It would make a woefully inadequate contraceptive, all over-sized and leaky, and any woman would laugh you out of bed if you tried using it down below. But on your head, where it's patently unfillable, that's just madness.
And why? The weather's not even proper cold yet for heaven's sake, so you have no genuine need for any insulated cranial extension. Are you storing something under there, or did your bell fall off, or are you just following the fashion herd like a depressingly compliant sheep. I shall never understand why men wear hats. More to the point, I shall never understand men's fashion. But, quite clearly, neither do you. Because you're wearing a knitted condom on your head. And you look a complete teat.
An irregular event which you probably weren't thinking of attending on Saturday because you'd never heard about it but might find interesting especially if you're the sort of person who likes London local history (which, if you're reading this blog, you probably are):London Maze 2008 It doesn't happen very often. The City of London organises its local history fair every so often, sort of every two years-ish, ocasionally, to an unpublished timetable. The last one was in 2006, in March, which isn't even a sensible fraction of a decade ago. But it was an event well worth attending, and I'm glad I spotted it was on. The London Maze always takes place at the Guildhall, which is the seat of City government, but up at the historic end rather than in the nasty concrete office bit. It's like a village fair with stallholders laying out their wares in the community centre, except the hall is a medieval listed building and the wares are books and leaflets and historical documents. I can't guarantee what'll happen this year, but last time I got a free plastic bag and filled it with paraphenalia from such august bodies as the London Topographical Society, the East London History Society, Barking & Dagenham Heritage Services, the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, the Association of London Pumping Heritage Attractions and the Family & Community Historical Research Society. Those sort of stallholders - committed, passionate and most definitely local. Attendees at the last event also enjoyed free admission to the Guildhall Art Gallery, plus the opportunity to pop down to the basement and view theremains of London's Roman Amphitheatre. Hopefully Saturday's event will include all of that plus free walks, and talks, and... well, you already know whether or not you might be interested. And I think you might.
When the Olympic Park is completed, the "Park" bit will be little more than an afterthought. London's 2012 stadium will be surrounded by a plain of artificial astroturf, within an encircling moat of reed-free concrete waterways. Plastic trees will be used to provide instant greenery which looks good on the TV cameras, and a few transplanted rosebushes will be wheeled in so that Sue Barker's to-camera links have a decent floral backdrop. After the Games the Olympic Park will be sealed off for five years so that lots of new houses can be built, and then planners will drop in some riverside terracing and an adventure playground as an afterthought. The Greenway will be also closed off so that it can be transformed into a four-lane bicycle expressway, providing a floodlit cross-river route through the centre of a building site.
Don't worry, almost everything in the above paragraph is untrue. There are no plans to turn the Olympic Park into the Boris Johnson Austerity Housing Estate, but instead plenty of plans to create a world class environmental greenspace. I know this because the planners told me last night, at a consultation event in deepest Hackney. Don't worry, they purred, your 2012 parkland legacy is safe in our hands. And yes, the ODA's finely tuned plans for ecological delivery sound much more convincing once you've heard them direct from the mouths of the experts responsible.
For a start, London's Olympic parkland won't be a tacked-on feature once the Games are complete, it's being engineered into the project from the start. A surprisingly wide expanse of greenery will be at the heart of the central area linking all the stadia together, creating a place to gather while events are taking place inside. Planting starts early, with many shrubs and trees already growing elsewhere ready to be transplanted when required. There'll be six-or-so "frog ponds" to which various endangered species will be returned, and a variety of carefully engineered riverside environments ranging from wet woodland to reedy terraces. Biodiversity is the watchword. And this extensive central parkland should be open to the public very soon indeed after the Games are over, which is good news for all of us locals.
The Olympic Park will be divided into two main zones - north and south. All the pretty and natural-looking stuff will be in the broad parkland to the north, bordering the formerly inaccessible banks of the Lea. The plan is to use landfill from Olympic construction to create a series of interesting angular hills and valleys, with an emphasis on opening up views of the river wherever possible. It could look lovely, eventually, although it might take a few years to iron out the initial atmosphere of raw artificiality. If the post-Games park can attract visitors, this'll be the place to come for a woodland stroll, a game of football or a picnic. But it seems a pity to be spending millions of pounds to eradicate the entire Manor Garden Allotments and the rather adorable Channelsea River, only to replace them both with what might be swathes of under-used unnatural pseudo-landscape.
In the southern half of the park, the emphasis is rather different. The parkland will be more linear, restricted mostly to theriverside, and more somewhere to walk through than to relax. The aim is to create an "urban event" environment around the stadium, which I think is planner's code for "festivals, markets and cultural activities" (but I fear could mean "empty 99% of the time"). A particularly impressive feature should be the London 2012 Gardens - a long thin ornamental strollway planted out in themed sections with sustainable plantlife from around the globe. This'll be open during the Games themselves, and also as a reminder of 2012 for many decades to come. They're planning long term here, for the benefit of grandchildren yet to be born.
Then there's the Greenway, that Victorian masterpiece sewer with a rather smelly footpath on top. The stretch between Hackney Wick and West Ham is in for a major upgrade, and about time too. The plans are to lay two adjacent parallel paths with differing surfaces, one for bikes and one for pedestrians, leaving the remainder of the sewertop for grassy wildness. Additional access points are to be added, not least because 18% of arrivals at the 2012 Olympics are expected to walk in via this route. Two major discontinuities will be removed without the need for extra bridges - a new path will loop under the railway at Pudding Mill Lane, and there'll be a proper pedestrian crossing directly across Stratford High Street. But don't expect street lighting, because after-dark walking only encourages after-dark crime, apparently.
I always thought the Lower Lea Valley had a rundown character and derelict charm all of its own, and it's clear that this is now gone forever. But I'm encouraged that the replacement public realm is being designed by folk who know and care about what they're doing, and might just give the eventual Olympic Park a bit of soul.
One thing about London's art galleries - there are always more that you haven't visited. Or, in the case of the Pump House Gallery, haven't even heard of. Well I hadn't anyway, not until this weekend. I'd heard there was some impressively arty event going on outside the gallery, so I set off for Battersea on a very damp Sunday afternoon to try to find the place. What really, it's in the middle of Battersea Park, on the edge of the boating lake? That must be why I hadn't noticed it before. Cue the smoke.
Umbrella poised, I joined a crowd of South London arty types and intrigued passers-by in the courtyard outside the gallery. We were awaiting the scheduled performance of Landskip by Simon Patterson - a semi-choreographed pyrotechnic display (delayed somewhat while the artist demonstrated safety procedures to a group of dripping volunteers). The artwork involved setting off canisters of coloured smoke amongst the landscape, and was first performed atCompton Verney in 2000. Now Simon got to do something you'd normally get arrested for - setting off flares in a public park, for an hour, and flooding the place with smoke.
If you ever fancy recreating Landskip, the instructions seemed to go something like this. 1) Purchase approximately 50 coloured smoke grenades - preferably in purple, orange, yellow, red, green and blue. 2) Select parkland location (ideally near trees, footpaths and/or lakes). 3) Place each canister on cheap silver tray, of the type pound shops sell for sausage roll buffets. 4) On given signal, ignite canister to send plume of smoke billowing downwind. 5) Watch as the smoke swirls, and coils, and spreads, and flows, and dissipates. 6) Take photographs, because it's not every day you get to take photographs of coloured smoke in a park. 7) Attempt to sell your photographs for £120, because this is art. 8) Pick up spent cartridge using tongs and drop into bucket of water.
A crowd of 40 or so hardy spectators certainly enjoyed the spectacle, although not all of them stuck it out for the full hour. Occasionally the smoke billowed ominously towards us, rather like the special effects in a cheap horror film, and parents had to sweep up their beloved offspring from out of its foggy path. One woman had brought along a comedy greyhound, which insisted on bounding around through the mist and provided my very best photo of the afternoon (worth £120 of anyone's money I think). Simon's performance might have been lovelier in sunny weather, but somehow the grey overcast drizzle added a certain atmospheric gloom to the proceedings.
After the one-off event came an opportunity to look around Smoke - the main exhibition inside the Pump House Gallery. This may not look like a particularly big building, but there are four floors of galleries within and I bet they don't normally see quite so many visitors as crammed inside on Sunday afternoon. The exhibition has been curated by the folk at Implicasphere, who appear to have inhaled something creative, brainstormed the word "smoke" and then gone out and retrieved all the artefacts they scribbled down. A smoky tapestry, for example, or a 1950s smog cartoon, or a photograph of a spurting volcano. More obtuse items include a Smokey Mountain rabbit, some dolls-house-sized smoked salmon and a tobacco enema (honest). There are also several audio-visual displays, ranging from a smoking skinhead to a documentary about coal, plus a rather wonderful 15 minute video compilation of smoky-referenced snippets (ah, the Wicked Witch of the West, and lung cancer warnings, and Mary Poppins, and steam trains, and a Thunderbirds ignition). A right motley exhibition it is, with a genuine feeling of random ephemera.
You may be too late for Simon's outdoor wafting, but the gallery's Smoke can be viewed for free over the next two months. And I may find myself walking through the middle of Battersea Park a little more often in the future.
London's railway infrastructure usually takes an age to construct. The Jubilee line extension was first proposed in the 1970s but not completed until 1999. Crossrail's been on the drawing board for yonks but can't possibly be finished before 2017. And the "Thameslink 2000" project, initiated in 1991, was so woefully optimistically named that it probably ought to be rebranded "Thameslink 2015-ish". So it's a minor miracle to be reporting on a station successfully knocked down, rebuilt and reopened in nigh record time, all within the same calendar year. Welcome to Nu-Shepherd'sBush.
It was only back in February that the good people of W12 were barred from their local Central line station and forced to make alternative tube travel arrangements. A demolition team moved in to raze the original station building to the ground, and tear out the escalators, and rip all the tiles off the platform walls. Gutting, it was. Progress below ground could be viewed every time you passed through the station on a non-stopping train (what a mess, they'll never be finished in time), while above ground a shiny glass/metal box rapidly appeared at the pointy end of Shepherd's Bush Green. Eight months flat from start to finish. And the station reopened yesterday lunchtime.
When I boarded a Central line train at Bank just before noon yesterday, my destination station was still closed. But by the time we departed Notting Hill Gate our driver was able to announce that "Shepherd's Bush station is open", much to the unexpected delight of certain passengers on board. And so it was that a few of us stepped out onto a freshly-reopened station, untouched by public footstep since February, and ventured forth round the curving platform towards the way out. Blimey it looked different [photo]. Last time I was here there was diagonal tiling in a clashing combination of red and green - quite characterful but rather gloomy. And suddenly the tiling had become very white, almost clinical, topped off by columns of inoffensive navy blue. Worth a complaint to the heritage watchdog, maybe... except that white/blue is actually the original design, and red/green merely a mid 80s refurb aberration.
Onward up the platform, past a next train indicator as yet unable to detect the next train, and a trio of TfL operatives discussing CCTV blackspots. When they disappeared through an alcove [photo] to inspect the eastbound platform, I suddenly had the entire westbound to myself, and slowed down to enjoy the subterranean isolation. Things seemed a bit more familiar on the staircase and along the curvingmid-level passageway, although again rather whiter than before. And then smoothly upwards on the refurbished escalators, whose non-urgent upgrade had been completed without additional inconvenience to passengers while the station was closed. No adverts yet, neither here nor down below, which I made the most of but which won't last.
And then the greatest transformation. Where previously there'd been a traditional ticket hall with decoration and clutter, I emerged instead into a giant glass box. Wholly unnecessarily big, to be honest, unless station bosses have plans to position a symphony orchestra at the top of the escalators to serenade passengers, or maybe hang an aeroplane or two from the ceiling.
There were scores of TfL operatives in fluorescent jackets standing around beyond the line of ticket gates - temporarily (no doubt) to supervise the handover from construction to operation. Lots more open space too (sufficient to add a gospel choir and helicopter as required), and finally a choice of exits to the street [photo]. I watched as a rail replacement bus trundled past, rendered suddenly unnecessary by the station's reopening. And then I attempted to change trains.
There's another brand new station here, Shepherd's Bush on the Overground, just 100m away across a not-yet busy road. This branch line halt was originally scheduled to open in 2005, but lack of funding, political argument and contractor incompetence delayed the official opening to last Sunday. It's yet another giant glass box, presumably because giant glass boxes are easy and cheap, and because the kind of architectural excellence seen on the Jubilee line extension is now a thing of the past.
"Hello," I said to one of the two men in the bright cosy ticket office. "Sorry, we're closed," he replied. Brilliant. The station's only been open a week, but TfL shut it down all weekend for engineering work. Still, no great loss. This station boasts one of the most pathetic services of any TfL station - one train every 30 minutes Monday to Saturday, and "between one and two trains per hour on Sundays". Not somewhere you'd ever want to turn up on the off-chance without a timetable. Still, at least its platforms are wheelchair accessible, which is more than can be said for the newly refurbished Central line station opposite. Providing step-free access on a Victorian transit system is a logistical nightmare, and not even tens of millions of pounds can sort that in eight months flat.
And why has Shepherd's Bush station been rebuilt so very rapidly? One reason - shopping. Europe's largest in-town shopping centre opens nextdoor at the end of the month, and developers Westfield have contributed 85% of the finance to get these infrastructure improvements delivered. Without the imminent arrival of department stores, coffee shops and luxury retail brand outlets, the good people of Shepherd's Bush would have had to make do with the same old transport opportunities for several years to come. Hell, Westfield London is scheduled to be so financially magnetic that there's yet another brand new station - WoodLane - opening on its north flank next Sunday. It still looks a bit of a mess at the moment, and the shopping centre is similarly incomplete, but never underestimate the power of shopping to make things happen. Even at a time of recession, it's purchasing power that's driving W12's new golden age of transport connectivity.
It's exactly 25 years today since I went to university. 25 years since I left home for the first time. 25 years since I met a whole new circle of friends, most of whom were looking equally lost. 25 years since studying got harder, but more infrequent. 25 years since I discovered that food comes from the supermarket and not from the fridge, that eventually you run out of clothes that smell nice, and that beds don't make themselves if you leave them for long enough. All in all, 25 years since I became vaguely independent.
My university adventure started with a car journey to destiny, and a selection of my worldly belongings packed into the boot. On arrival my Dad struggled to explain to a traffic warden that he did have to park here thankyou, and that hundreds of other parents would be doing so imminently. My Mum coped with her eldest leaving home by unpacking everything and then going shopping for a tray "because it would be useful" (and it was). The halls of residence were full of suitcases (none of them wheelie), parents (proud but anxious) and children (very soon to be adults). Two classmates from my old school turned up to say hello, before heading off to their own new social lives (and I don't think I ever saw them again after that). And then I was on my own.
The first week at university was full of 'getting to know you' moments, both planned and unplanned. On meeting someone new, the conversation invariably followed the same threefold path ("My name is..." "I come from..." and "I'm studying...") after which you hoped you still had something left to talk about. At the Freshers Fair everyone was keen to get you to join things, we thought because they had our student welfare at heart, but in fact because their tinpot university clubs, teams and societies would have collapsed without a fresh injection of bodies and money. I avoided joining anything even vaguely sporty, except for the 'Poohsticks Society' which appeared to exist purely for socialising and drinking, and didn't knock on your door at 7am to demand that you come out on a training run. During that first week our student bar organised what is still the very best new wave 80s disco I've ever been to, helped of course by the fact that it was the 80s at the time.
Three liquids became important. Alcohol was freely available, or at least very cheaply available in the student bar, which saved us ever having to mingle with the real people who lived in the city outside. Coffee became the perfect excuse to sit around and talk into the early hours of the morning, and a means of staying awake to be able to do so. And milk was absolutely essential if you wanted people to come round to your room to drink coffee, so it was a constant battle to make sure that nobody had raided your supplies from the shared fridge.
I gradually made some good friends, not least because my parents had had the sense to pack me off with a kettle and a toaster. I was also one of the few people to own a portable TV so everyone came round to watch it, especially when one of my new friends appeared two days running on this brand new quiz show called Blockbusters. Another of my friends had brought a record deck, another his BBC Micro computer, and all of a sudden things didn't look too bad at all.
University was different in those days. They paid you to go, rather than you paying them. My first term's grant cheque was for £408, which may not sound much nowadays but it's a darned sight better than getting an instant £2765 overdraft. And there were no tuition fees either in those days, which was just as well given how little tuition I think I actually got. But I learnt a lot, even if most of it was more relevant to life than to my increasingly-baffling degree course.
I had been planning to pop back to my alma mater this weekend, just for an anniversary visit to see what had changed in the intervening quarter of a century. But a coincidental work visit back in June provided all the nostalgia I needed, and it turned out that I'd changed rather more than my place of study. So to any of you just starting out at university or college this Autumn, good luck, and I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I did. The rest of your life starts here - enjoy the independence.
The new 2008 tube map includes the following important additional text (in what I calculate to be font size 2):
Borough: Exit only during peak hours Blackfriars: Underground station closed March 2009 until late 2011 Covent Garden: Leicester Square 350m Shoreditch: Limited service Check publicity for information Tower Gateway: Closed until spring 2009
This is clearly insufficient. I therefore propose that we campaign to get the following essential information added to the tube map as soon as possible:
Bank/Monument: Not closed for interchange even though we're pretending it is until summer 2009 Bow Road: Heritage architecture destroyed by greedy Metronet shareholders Canary Wharf: If carrying the contents of your desk in a cardboard box please use the manual gate Clapham South: Last northbound train 0013 Chorleywood: No ticket barrier on westbound platform Crouch Hill: There's only one train every half hour and it'll be packed I really wouldn't bother Down Street: Closed from spring 1932 Ealing Broadway: Anagram of Railway Bondage Heathrow Terminal 5: It takes forever to get out this far High Street Kensington: Next train indicator on platform 2 obscured by "Way Out" sign Ladbroke Grove: Quite busy on August Bank Holiday Monday especially between the hours of 2000 and 2200 Lewisham: Paris Gare du Nord 490000m Mornington Crescent: Rules of famous parlour game printed on reverse of map Neasden: for Adrian's Newsagent Perivale: Turn right outside station for number 297 bus to Ealing Broadway Piccadilly Circus: Beware tourists standing on left on escalator Ruislip Gardens: Most trains don't come out this far so dress warmly when waiting on the platform Russell Square: Retiling work inadequately completed by incompetent contractors St John's Wood: Pub quiz entrants please note, station name shares no letters with the word mackerel Tulse Hill: Sorry, South London doesn't really feature on the tube map Walthamstow Central: Limited service on randomly selected weekends Warwick Avenue: Bet you can't stop humming that Duffy song Waterloo: It's a bloody long walk to/from the Jubilee line West Ham: Don't change here for West Ham Football Ground
It's got worse. The tube map, I mean. London's once great topographic design icon has been getting steadily uglier and more impractical over the last few years, and the latest version is grimmer still. Where will it end, I wonder?
You won't find the new tube map at your local station just yet. TfL will probably be waiting a week or so until the new batch of Shepherd's Bush stations open before unleashing their latest creation upon an unsuspecting public. By the end of the month I suspect there'll be no escaping it. But for the time being you'll only find central chunks of the new map at select updated locations, like the prototype S-stock tube carriage in Euston Gardens. That's where Mackenzie and his camera spotted it, and you might like to have his Flickr set open as I go through the following.
Let's start in W12 with the Underground network's latest stations [map close-up]. Look, there's Wood Lane, which is the first new tube station to be built on an existing line for umpteen years. And there's Shepherd's Bush Market, which used to be plain ordinary Shepherd's Bush until some big cheese decided to rename it after a few stallholders selling cut price tea towels and cleaning products. You'll notice that the former station is wheelchair accessible, and the latter really really isn't (unless you like bouncing uncontrollably down a steep flight of steps). Then there's the fresh duo of Shepherd's Bush stations, one just opened on the Overground after a long-delayed catalogue of woeful construction errors, the other on the Central line about to reopen in barely recognisable form. On the tube map, this entire area is now a barely discernible spectacle in orange and pink.
There are two particular uglinesses I'd like you to note. One is the appearance of diagonal distances to indicate how far it is to walk between pairs of stations. Squint carefully, the text is just about legible at this magnification. The two Shepherd's Bush stations are a mere 100m apart, but this information is apparently worthy of prioritisation on the map. Presumably there are Underground users for whom 100m at ground level across a flat road is an unsurmountable travel obstacle and who need to be warned about this sort of thing, but quite frankly there can't be many. The tube map doesn't warn these passengers that the interchange at Green Park is a lengthy subterranean assault course, or that Bank to Monument is a multi-level semi-shut mountain trek. But White City to Wood Lane, a nice level 250m along the pavement opposite BBC Television Centre, that's apparently also worthy of inclusion. There is no consistency on the tube map, not at all.
And ugliness two is the inconsistent use of interchange symbols. White City didn't used to be an interchange, but a fresh black circle announces that it is now. Change here for Wood Lane... except Wood Lane isn't shown as an interchange. A blue wheelchair blob trumps a black interchange circle, so it's impossible to tell whether a wheelchair blob is an interchange at all. Ditto at Nu-Shepherd's Bush. Could this interchange possibly be depicted in an uglier manner? A doubled-up station name squished into miniature diagonal measurement alongside a nigh-irrelevant British Rail symbol. Would it really have been so terrible to use just one station blob here, or at least to have positioned the two blobs more obviously closer together? This feeble attempt at incorporating distance merely makes the overall information less distinct.
OK, let's head east to Blackfriars [map close-up]. This station's being upgraded and closed for two years, and the new tube map duly mentions this in very tiny writing. But Blackfriars isn't closing until March 2009, so its removal doesn't affect anyone's travel plans for at least five months. Never mind - a premature information campaign is deemed more important than everyday clarity.
And then there's the former East London line [map close-up]. The map design team have finally admitted that the replacement bus service looked far too complex, and have straightened out the former dotted orange wiggle to create something slightly simpler. But not at Rotherhithe [map close-up]. Look how complicated this now-closed station has become. The 381 has become the first ordinary bus route to appear on the tube map, and it's caused this part of riverside London to be displayed in a desperately complicated manner. Canada Water has become an undue mess of step-free stations and step-free buses (except, ludicrously, the buses aren't shown as step-free because a blue blob can only refer to a station). And does Rotherhithe really merit this tangled web? Before it closed this was one of the least used stations on the entire tube network, and located so close to Canada Water that most people could walk there quicker than any bus could drive. But the tube map ignores this practicality in favour of the area's handful of mobility impaired tube travellers - a restricted geographical minority if ever there was one.
Stuff simplicity, it seems TfL now chooses to cater for whichever rail users they deem are deserving of inclusion and 'equality'. Their tube map is optimised for a chosen minority of wheel-bound passengers, rather than the majority of us seeking a broad overview of how to get from here to there. This increasingly complex diagram, crammed onto a tiny rectangular sheet of card measuring 21 centimetres by 14, is no longer visually accessible unless you have eagle-quality eyesight. And as for the 4% of Britons who suffer from colour blindness and can't tell their Central from their H&C, sorry, you're not TfL's disabled minority of choice either, so you're buggered. It's all so woefully ugly, and ill-thought-through, and over-complicated, and desperately inconsistent.
For an in-depth critique of recent tube maps you might like to pop over to Max Roberts' webpage on Information Pollution. Or head down to your local tube station and pick up your own copy of the March 2008 map, the one with a target on the cover and an IKEA ad on the back. Quick, before TfL replaces it and pulps the lot. It may be an impractical design but it's not quite as bad as this new one, or the next one, or the next one. Sorry, but there's no going back to the clean clear lines of the past, and the future can only be uglier still.
New design UK coins I've already received in my small change: 1p, 2p, 5p, 20p New design UK coins I've not yet received in my small change: 10p, 50p, £1
Shepherd's Bush stations opening around now-ish: » Shepherd's Bush (Overground) - Sunday 28 September » Shepherd's Bush (Central) - Sunday 5 October (probably) » Shepherd's Bush Market (Hammersmith & City) - Sunday 12 October (maybe, not sure) » WoodLane (Hammersmith & City) - Sunday 12 October
Cities hoping to be elected host city for the 2016 Olympics (one year from today): Chicago (2 to 1), Tokyo (4 to 1), Rio (4 to 1), Madrid (8 to 1)
People with whom I've exchanged emails in the last 48 hours: My new boss, the great grandson of a Labour leader, Kevan, a recently published author, Great Aunt Annie, some media lady at my local council, a hopeful new blogger, my parents, somebody pretending to live in Woking, a London Underground train supervisor, Vern in Marfa.
London Underground lines fully operational all this weekend: Bakerloo, Piccadilly London Underground lines not fully operational all this weekend: Central, Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, Jubilee, Metropolitan, Northern, Victoria, Waterloo & City
Three-letter UK placenames: Alt, Ash, Ayr, Bix, Bow, Box, Cwm, Dun, Elm, Ely, Esh, Eye, Foy, Ham, Hay, Hoe, Hoo, Hoy, Ide, Kea, Kew, Kyo, Lea, Lee, Lew, Lye, Moy, Old, Ord, Ore, Raw, Rhu, Rye, Uig, Usk, Urr, Van, Wem, Wix, Wye. (anyone else live in one of them?)
Years in which current bendy bus contracts end: 2009: 38, 507, 521 2010: 18, 149, 207 2011: 12, 25, 29, 73 2013: 436, 453 (That's according to this post over at BorisWatch, and comments here. There are more recent announcements suggesting that the 38 will become a very frequent double decker, and the 507 and 521 both costly single deckers - tons of detail here and in this pdf)
I do love a trip to the seaside. The opportunity to get away to the coast and enjoy sun, sea breeze and sand. There's something mighty refreshing about a vista that's half water, and that special feeling of being on the edge of an untameable natural powerhouse. Ah, those endless promenades of salt-splattered buildings, and rows of brightly painted beach huts, and piers and pebbles and donkey rides and candy floss and... Sorry, I may be getting a little carried away there. Because the seaside's not what it was.
When I was very little, one week of every summer would be spent at the seaside. The family would troop off to some guest house or self-service chalet somewhere, always within walking distance of the beach, and I'd spend my days happily patting sand into buckets or dripping ice cream onto a stripy towel. Maybe there'd be a stroll along the dune-tops, possibly a too-brief donkey ride, perhaps an afternoon at the crazy golf failing to hit balls through a drainpipe beneath a spinning windmill. Although it was often a bit damp and chilly, and the bacon and beans weren't quite such a treat by the sixth morning, and when you've seen one floral clock you've seen them all. Ah yes, golden days.
Last month I was walking along the promenade in Herne Bay chatting to an Australian, trying to explain to him that this now quiet resort had once been a bustling summertime hotspot. No really, this place used to be swarming with families, and the B&Bs were full, and that bandstand really had a band in it, and this ice cream van would've had a really long queue waiting for 99s. To be honest, it was quite hard to sound convincing. The Great British Seaside Experience sounded rather tame through Australian eyes. Shouldn't we be out surfing, or swimming, or doing something active and exhilarating in the water? Ah no, we Brits have always preferred dossing about at the water's edge, lying behind a wind break, eating battered cod out of newspaper or going for a pointless stroll to the end of the pier and back. We like our seaside passive.
We used to go to the seaside for a week, and now we go for the day. Bad news for all the promenade hotels and backstreet guest houses, nobody wants to stay overnight in you any more. And even when we do head coastward, we're more likely to spend our time in the local shopping centre than on the seafront. Restaurants have to grab what trade they can at lunchtime because by evening everyone's already buggered off home. Piles of stripy deckchairs remain neatly stacked, amusement arcades stand empty and the Punch and Judy show has long folded. Even the limpets and starfish in countless coastal rockpools now go unprodded. The heyday of the seaside holiday is long gone.
If you miss how it used to be, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich has just opened a free exhibition entitled Beside the Seaside, and it runs until next Easter. "The exhibition" (and I quote) "brings together photographs, posters and seaside memorabilia to capture the essence of both working life and early tourism along the British coast." It's a fairly small exhibition, not much more than a few photographs stuck on the wall to be honest, but it does provide a nostalgic recollection of UK seaside magic. If you've got a favourite resort, there's probably a black and white snapshot of some old fishermen, or Victorians on the pier, or an impossibly crowded beach. The accompanying text reveals that much of the 19th century growth in seaside holidays was due to the spread of the rail network - once the railway arrived, so did the masses. More evocative is a series of short newsreel snippets depicting beach and promenade life, including some bouncy Blackpool belles whose energetic outdoor pursuits probably attracted many a hot-blooded male to the northwest coast.
The exhibition's not worth travelling miles out of your way to see - you'll be through it in quarter of an hour tops. But, this being the modern multimedia age, there are many ways to enjoy it online. The 45 photographs featured in the exhibition are all readily viewable on the NMM's Flickr account, as well as pinpointed on a handy map of the UK. Meanwhile Anne from I Like has helped to assemble a more modern set of Flickr seaside photos, almost 1000 in total at time of writing, and the resulting slideshow is a colourful cavalcade of beach huts, lidos and lighthouses. Enough to see any coast-deprived landlubber through the long winter months. Ah yes, I must go back to the sea again...
What's on this week? Christmas Past Geffrye Museum, until 3 Jan
Festively-decorated rooms. Museum of Docklands Free admission 27 Dec - 3 Jan
All the usual, for nothing.
Oh my word, it's big. You get some sense of scale from outside, as if some vast aircraft hangar has been erected amongst the backstreets of Shepherd's Bush. But only from inside is it possible to take on board how huge the Westfield development really is. Just when you think there can't possibly be even more shops tucked away up some passageway, more appear. It's as if some ferocious tornado has whisked away the full length of Oxford Street and New Bond Street, lifting them three miles to the west and coiling each up beneath a vast undulating glass roof. Lakeside and Bluewater may give you some idea of what to expect, but in truth London's seen nothing quite like this before. So long as anyone in town still has any money to spend, Westfield threatens retail domination.
Sheesh, big big big, busy busy busy. I'd stumbled on the main central atrium, a vast space where the glass roof appeared to be supported by an artificial frosty forest [photo]. Most of the mall's cafes and restaurants are based around here, and sometimes it was hard to avoid walking through their outer seating fringes. No fried burger takeaways here. The management want you to sit down to eat, partly because it adds an air of cultured refinement but mostly because you'll spend more. A pink-lit stage provided the entertainment focus, with a small crowd already gathered to await the quarter to six fashion show. I moved on quickly.
Back up in the main mall there were still three quarters of Westfield's shops to discover. On and on I trudged, down and round and up, negotiating the busy first day crowds [photo]. Half-term families were out in force, as were the local baseball-capped youth (who were especially interested in one particular window display boasting three pouting bikini-clad models). There were plenty of happy shoppers with carrier bags, although outnumbered by first day sightseers without carrier bags. At HMV a queue of excited Saturdays fans spilled out far along the concourse (Westfield will be big on 'event' shopping, I think). Thank goodness for Foyles, otherwise I might have wandered around forever without even the slightest flicker of interest in buying anything. Again the staff seemed under-busy, so heaven knows how tedious their lives will become once the initial rush wears off. Tuesday mornings in February, they're going to be the acid test of this building's long-term potential.
After my circuit I headed back outside into the chilly damp October evening. How skilfully Westfield had made me forget about the world outside, a bit like a Las Vegas casino but without the garish tack. As I walked back along Restaurant Canyon there were still hordes of first-time visitors streaming the other way, keen to experience their Westfield debut. But I wanted to see the effect on Shepherd's Bush's original shopping mall, the desperately ordinary West 12 centre. Business was not brisk [photo]. Admittedly the place has been fading gently for years, but the paint shop, newsagents and pool hall weren't proving anywhere near as magnetic as their northern counterparts. Were it not for Morrisons at the rear, still by far the most affordable supermarket hereabouts, the place might have gone down the plughole already. And when Westfield's cinema opens next year, the Vue in West 12 may not be quite so successful at putting bums on seats.
Pop down to the 2012 Olympic Park every month, as I do, and the pace of change can be dizzying. Especially this month. This is no longer merely the site of the Olympic Stadium, it is the Olympic Stadium. One corner, at least, has sprung from the flattened building site, and it's possible to imagine where you might be sitting in four years time. These steel rakers will support the stadium bowl, the permanent part of the structure which might one day be sold off to Leyton Orient or Harlequins or any sporting enterprise that still has disposable income come 2013. Hundreds of spectators will be perched here during the Games, waving flags and guzzling burgers and watching our athletes going out in the first heats. There's a lot more to be added before the seating goes all the way round, but it won't be long before the metal skeleton of the structure is entirely evident. Then a temporary ring of seating will be installed up top around the circumference, ideal for vertigo-resistant spectators, and the Lea Valley skyline will have been permanently altered. Quite impressive to go from fish processing factory to Olympic Grandstand in fifteen months flat, I think you'll agree. And one thing's for sure - this stadium won't be delivered late. First floor, going up.
This photo shows a concrete footbridge over the River Lea at Hackney Wick, just south of the A12. It's not an elegant structure, more like a long grey prison cell suspended across the water. The glass in the stairwells is smashed, and there's spiked security fencing at each end to prevent unwelcome guests from gaining entrance. To be honest the bridge hasn't got much going for it these days, although I've always rather liked its stark abandoned ambience. It was built for Gainsborough School, a Victorian pile on the west bank, to allow pupils to cross to the grassy expanse of Arena Fields on the opposite side. But there's no point crossing here any more, not now that Arena Fields has been levelled, razed and despoiled to become part of a rather large Olympic Building site. Pity the residents of neighbouring Leabank Square, beset by dust and construction noise from dawn until dusk for the foreseeable future, and denied access to their favourite (deceased) recreation space. And there'll be even more noise today, sort of noon-ish, as Olympic Delivery Authority workers remove the obsolete bridge using a massive crane, and then deposit it on their site for demolition. That's one more chunk of this area's industrial heritage which'll soon exist only in photographs. Ultimately there'll be a new river crossing which will allow full public access from Hackney Wick's residential estates into the new Olympic Park, but that won't be for years yet. Until then residents can only keep their windows closed and remember what their green view used to look like.
London gazetteer quiz
Even in these tough financial times, the mall experience remains an attractive family day out, but now with the emphasis on window shopping. There's a dress you can't afford, and there's a pair of shoes that mustn't go on your credit card. Those chocolates look gorgeous but unnecessary, and no way am I paying four quid for a bagel. Nobody buys Swarovski crystals at a time like this, although a spin round Claire's Accessories shouldn't break the bank. Don't worry about buying some trifling luxury for the kid, because Junior will be pleased enough with a free balloon from McDonalds. Maybe a long walk round the Fenwick department store will pass the time, and then the same round John Lewis. Look, they're doing a meal for two for a tenner in M&S, bargain, and there's even fruit crumble. Best give the Apple store a miss, I think.
At the heart of the mall, beneath the central glass dome, the "My Brent Cross" promotion is underway. Some spotty youth and her lank-haired beau are perched inside a video pod waiting to talk to camera, no doubt telling the world what they so love about this place. Maybe it's the feeling of camaraderie they get from meeting up with their mates outside the Karma Kitchen. Maybe it's the opportunity to nick a pair of leggings from Miss Selfridge. Maybe this is the only decent place in the area to get away from the parents and do some pointless slouching. Or maybe it's the free central heating. Whatever the reason, this mid 70s mall experiment still has its legions of devoted fans.
First to the eastbound Central line platform. It's where reader Rachel waits each morning, and where I stand each evening before I head home. Picture the scene - a straight tubular platform with a low subway bridge across the centre. Six months ago there were two 'next train' indicators, both of the long-standing green&orange type, one attached to each side of the overbridge. This meant that destination information was clearly visible from the majority of the platform, but alas not from a blind spot beneath the bridge. Pretty good, but not perfect. Holborn station is currently undergoing refurbishment, and new 'next train' indicators are part of the package. Perhaps sensibly, the new displays have been installed before the old ones have been removed. They hang a few feet further away from the central bridge, so there's no blind spot underneath any more. Unfortunately there's now a blind spot almost everywhere else. From further away the new signs completely block out sight of the old and, although they've been installed for months, the new signs are not yet functional. Installed by cretins.
So next to the northbound Piccadilly line platform. It's much the same story here - a new indicator installed before the old one has been removed. Thankfully this new NTI actually works, and it doesn't block the old one. Unfortunately it's been installed by cretins. The new 'next train' indicator has been attached to the ceiling immediately to the right of the platform entrance, which is (unsurprisingly) very close to a "Way Out" sign. This is especially bad news if you want to stand on the left half of the platform, ready to board at the rear of any arriving train. From here the "Way Out sign" obscures almost all of the dot matrix display, apart from the first four letters. If you're lucky, the first train will be heading to "Arno". If you're unlucky it'll be heading to "Cock".
Here we are on the northbound Northern line platform. You've entered the station, you've descended the escalator, you've walked down the stairs and now you're looking to your left to see which train's coming next. Good grief, which blithering idiot has installed a security camera immediately in front of the 'next train' indicator? And not just any security camera, but a limpet-like fixture attached to the curved ceiling by no less than two obstructive pipes. Morons. Except, hang on, that's one of the tube network's very newest 'next train' indicators - all matt black and sleek and shiny with pinpoint perfect lettering and (get this) more than three next trains. So my guess is that the chunky camera boom was here first and the damned expensive NTI arrived second. Installed by cretins.
Here we are on the eastbound Piccadilly line platform. It's another one of those security camera & 'next train' indicator combinations. And you know what, it takes real skill to position a security camera in precisely the correct position to obscure the top line on a dot matrix display. The camera mounting is small and slim, and so is the word "Cockfosters", and yet engineers have still managed to synchronise both in precisely the same eye-line sector of west London airspace. Damned talented, that. Admittedly the view on the opposite side is crystal clear to all punters entering the station from the ticket hall. But from anywhere in the eastern half of the platform, an essential tiny strip of letters is blocked. Why oh why can't the cameras be a bit higher up, or the signs a bit lower down? Installed by cretins.
Here we are on the eastbound District line platform, a few feet away from the disaster area described above. Yet again the destination of the next-arriving service is illegible. And yet again the blockage is caused by incompetently positioned surveillance equipment, although this time of a different kind. Blame the mini staff control room in the centre of the platform, with its windows facing forwards but not back. So how are diligent station staff to check the eastern half of the platform? Why, with a big square mirror attached to the wall, that's how. And this mirror perfectly obscures the left hand side of the 'next train' indicator, the useful chunk where the destination appears. Sorry, that destination's a secret, because what's more important is that station staff can check for abandoned luggage without leaving their bunker. Installed by cretins.
Here we are on the eastbound Central line platform. This is the inner-curve banana-shaped platform where a disembodied voice announces "Mind The Gap" at extremely regular intervals. And here's a novelty. It's not TfL signage blocking this particular 'next train' indicator, it's an innovative advertising solution. Yes, you can blame CBS Outdoor and one of their newly installed overhead projectors for this wholly unnecessary obstruction. Last year you could easily have read how many minutes it was until the next train arrived. And now you can't, because there's a giant white box in the way, hanging pregnant from the ceiling. Is the Epping train arriving soon? Dunno, but you can always watch silent adverts for musical theatre and satellite television while you wait. I know which information I find more useful. Installed by greedy cretins.
Here we are on the eastbound Central line platform. Look at that. A whopping great big Way Out sign plonked immediately (immediately!) in front of the 'next train' indicator. Who would do such a thing? Ah, well that's Health & Safety, that is. The most important sign on any underground platform is the 'Way Out' sign, because one day it might be essential (for a few minutes) during a nightmare evacuation. Unfortunately this means that for the rest of the time it's allowed to block everything else that day-to-day travellers might find useful, like where the next Central line train is going. But there's one thing here I really don't understand - why is the Way Out sign so bloody long? It's half blank, for heaven's sake, and it's the blank half which is blocking the really important information on the 'next train' indicator behind. This whopping great obstruction at one of the busiest stations on the network is totally unnecessary, and yet TfL's design guidelines require it. Installed by cretins.
Here we are on the eastbound Central line platform. Hang on, that's where we were for the previous photo. But this is the other side of exactly the same 'next train' indicator. Double-sided incompetence, this. During the modernisation of Oxford Circus earlier this century, scores of loudspeakers were attached to walls across the station, and one of them ended up here. It's right up close to the NTI so there's no way of avoiding it, poking out diagonally across the destinations of the next trains to depart the station. Plain ridiculous. But that's nothing compared to the horizontal location of this particular display unit. Look, it's so wide that the only way of fitting it across the top of the platform has been to shove it into an alcove. Even when the next train is for 'Hainault via Newbury Park' there's still plenty of unnecessary blank width, but could somebody be arsed to design a slightly narrower 'next train' indicator? Could they hell. All modern dot matrix displays have to be wide, otherwise there'd be no room to write important messages about engineering works and unattended luggage. So Oxford Circus ends up with a too-wide box that doesn't fit, and isn't fit for purpose. And you know, that's why I liked the old lightboxes, because they were invariably narrow, and therefore capable of being positioned nearer to the tracks, and therefore visible. Today's one-size-doesn't-fit-all approach is evidently far too inflexible. Designed by experts, standardised by morons, installed by cretins.
• Plaistow (westbound): Enter this platform down the stairs and you'll find that a narrow security camera arm casts its immediate shadow across the most crucial top-line segment of the 'next train' display. Only once you've walked one carriageworth up the platform does the view clear. Installed by cretins.
As on much of the rest of the District line, the signalling system at Earl's Court is archaic. No flash electronic 'next train' displays here, just a very old-school system involving illuminated arrows. But maybe not as old school as you remember. There used to be some genuine heritage lightboxes here - big compartmentalised displays with elegant white text on a bold blue background. Like this westbound, and like this eastbound. Proper museum fodder and very characterful, but not 100% useful. Alas at the end of last year they were replaced, and by something less gorgeous but equally dysfunctional. There are now lots of new signs spaced out along each platform, each with a nod at how things used to look, but each little more than a bland list in block capitals beside a box of cheap-looking arrows. Current signalling permits nothing more useful.
Westbound, platforms 3 & 4: There are four distinct choices, so which train's due next really matters. It's still not easy to tell from the indicators, though, as commenter slabman knows all too well... "Invisible from more than 2 metres away and placed at the head of the stairs from the Piccadilly, which opens into a bedsit sized space bounded by pillars and a lift. So, a crowd gathers there to watch the indicator and fight for position with the commuters coming up the stairs. Brilliant!" And commenter Steven adds... "On emerging from the Piccadilly Line and seeing a train about to leave, one has to fight through people to locate a board to identify which train it is." Even once you're on board, trains here can wait and wait and wait for no obvious reason. Changing trains at Earl's Court is no fun whatsoever.
• Edgware Road (Circle/District/H&C): Personally, I despise Edgware Road even more than Earl's Court. It's a very similar set-up with two pairs of island platforms, but this time with the added complication of terminating trains. Westbound or eastbound? It's not always easy to tell. Trains pause here for long periods of time while waiting for a gap in the service, and again it's often nigh impossible to tell which is the next train out. One of the 'next train' indicators here glows blood red, not orange, which I always find very unnerving. And at the foot of the stairs, as commenter Ben points out, there's quite possibly the worst 'next train' solution anywhere on the network. The main dotmatrix display for all four platforms is upstairs on the concourse near the ticket hall (because eastbound trains can leave from any of three platforms). Downstairs, instead of having another repeater display on the platforms, they have... a CCTV screen fed from a camera pointing at the concourse display. The text is tiny and blurred, and often blocked by passengers walking in front or standing around with suitcases. It's cheap and it's nasty and it looks so desperately amateur. If Edgware Road ever becomes the lynchpin of a new non-circular Hammersmith and Circle line, I dread to think to imagine how appalling changing trains here might become.
For my third category of well dodgy 'next train' indicators, I'd like to turn to those which present incorrect information. I'm not talking imaginary tube minutes either, I'm talking proper bona fide errors. Here's one such mini disaster area, on the southbound Victoria line at Highbury & Islington. Everything's working fine, except that the left hand side of the display has had the electronic version of a stroke, and the first three characters of every destination have vanished. OK, so that's not too much of a problem on the Victoria line, where virtually every train is going to XTON and only a handful to TORIA. But repairing these semi-broken signs never seems to be a TfL priority. And sometimes the incorrect information can be far more annoying...
If you want to see a motley collection of ancient next train indicators, head to Baron's Court. Two thin fingers of platform, each with Piccadilly line services on one side and District on the other, and possibly the easiest interchange on the entire tube network. It's been a very long time indeed since anybody at London Transport installed any new 'next train' indicators here. The two westbound platforms still have those old black lightboxes, one simple, one rather more complex (for everyone who needs to know whether the next train's stopping at Turnham Green or not). And none of these new-fangled digital clocks, oh no, but a proper analogue dial hanging inbetween marked out in Roman numerals. Boris would approve.
But Baron's Court's unsung jewel is the heritage 'next train' indicator on the eastbound Piccadilly line platform. This is how proper station information used to be. A chunky arrow at the top of the sign to indicate on which platform the next service is due. Then 13 glass segments, each with a different destination lurking behind, one of which lights up when a train's on its way. Lovely isn't it. You could almost imagine Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson meeting for a passionate embrace in swirling fog beneath the lightbox. By modern standards, however, this is rubbish. It makes no attempt to mention how many minutes away the next train is. It can't cope with unusual destinations caused by engineering works. And TfL can't scroll important security messages about unattended luggage across the bottom. Actually, I knew there was a reason why I liked it.
• Upton Park (westbound): This is no ordinary lightbox, this is a burnt-into-the glass lightbox. It doesn't matter whether a train's coming or not, both line options are permanently visible. Look carefully and you may see that one line is more illuminated than the other - that's the service arriving next (sometime). One thing's for sure, however, there'll be no Metropolitan line train trundling down these tracks. There hasn't been for the last 18 years anyway. And any traveller who takes the sign's advice and decides to change for the Metropolitan line at Aldgate East will be sorely disappointed too. As commenter Venichka says, "while one is all for heritage features, accurate non-misleading information is more important." Few objects sum up TfL's cash-strapped-ness better than this particular sign.
Time once again for diamond geezer to go totally tubular, with yet another week devoted to the London Underground. Except this time the week starts on a Tuesday. And, just for a change, I'm devoting the entire series to one particularly annoying station fixture - 'next train' indicators. Because too often they're rubbish. And here's part 1 of why...
Forgive my indulgence if I kick off a week of ranting about 'next train' indicators by telling you about my local station. In particular, that's the new(-ish) electronic displays at Bow Road. This is the station I use every morning, where I stand expectant and bleary eyed awaiting a train to carry me westward. Sometimes I care about which train is coming next, because it makes a difference whether it's heading for Tower Hill or Kings Cross. Usually I don't care which train's arriving next, because every train on the District and Hammersmith & City lines goes to Mile End, which is where I want to change. But I always care about when it arrives. And there's the problem.
Until three years ago, the eastbound 'next train' indicator at Bow Road looked like this. Standard mid 20th century issue, just a lightbox with illuminable destinations, all black and simple. The indicator on the westbound platform was held together with sticky tape and was even simpler. No destinations here, just an alternating display to tell passengers whether the next train would be on the District line or the Metropolitan line (highly misleading because the Hammersmith and City usurped the Metropolitan out here way back in 1990). And also no overt indication either as to when the next train would arrive. When a westbound train was expected, the box would light up less than a minute before the train rattled into the platform. If the next train was more than a minute away there were no clues, nothing. A blank box could mean two minutes (wait on platform), could mean ten (exit station and walk to Mile End), could mean no trains at all (go home).
So Metronet ripped the old boxes out and installed new state-of the art 'next train' indicators' instead. Huge long dot matrix displays, weakly lit in orange, with updated more detailed scrollable information. Now the westbound indicator could tell us where our trains were going, be it Richmond, Ealing Broadway, Wimbledon or Hammersmith. And, erm, that was it. Still no indication of how far away the next train was, nor any mention of where trains two and three might be going. In short, this expensive upgrade provided virtually no value-added whatsoever. Indeed, given that the new indicators were five seconds slower than their predecessors in announcing the arrival of an approaching train, one could argue they were worse.
Meanwhile, up in the ticket hall, a new 'next train' indicator appeared. It was one of the first of a new breed appearing across the network, listing upcoming destinations to passengers fresh off the street. Alas, this provided no better information than on the platforms. Indeed, with any advance warning being less than a minute, this ticket hall sign usually signalled a train that was already rushing into the platform below. I know, from wearisome experience, that every time I enter the ticket hall to see a westbound train flashed up on the board, I have a less than 50-50 of getting downstairs in time to board it. Sorry TfL, that's not useful information, that's impractical optimism.
This is a photo of my Dad.
Before the afternoons darken and the leaves shrivel, there's still time for a glorious autumnal walk in the Surrey Hills. And where better than the peak of the county's chalk uplands, high on the North Downs, at Box Hill? It's not a much-loved visitor-packed viewpoint for nothing. I visited for the first time last Sunday, in surprisingly decent sunny weather, and found the entire experience wholly uplifting. Follow me.
Sheesh, that's tough. This is a mighty steep ascent - not exactly mountaineering conditions but still relentlessly upward. It's probably a good idea to stop for a breather before too long, before your heart explodes. Don't worry, you're already so high up that you can turn round and admire the view without looking like you're merely pausing to catch breath [photo]. And continue. The steps peter out after a while to be replaced by a sheer chalk path, and the rocky surface is unexpectedly slippery even in bone dry weather. You might be better off a few metres higher, walking on firmer grassland, striding higher and higher above the Mole Valley. Damned pretty, innit?
And then, suddenly, civilisation. We've hit a National Trust tourist hub, featuring gift shop, information point and "servery". That's upper-middle-class for café, of course, and it serves up tea and soup and sponge and stuff. Perfect for dismounted muddy mountain bikers and for spotless families recently disgorged from their 4×4 in the nearby car park. Several downland walks kick off from here, the most popular of which is also the shortest - across to the ice cream van and down a grassy slope to the viewpoint [photo]. A huge expanse of green farmland spreads out beneath you, from the nearby town of Dorking way out towards the South Downs in the hazy distance. Double 99 cornet, anyone?
And at the bottom, to complete rural perfection, a set of hexagonal stepping stones lead across the Mole. Wimps who fear slipping into the water can detour via a recent footbridge, but it's far more fun to tread carefully across the stones (minding any dogs scampering energetically between your legs). Pray you don't meet a coach party coming the other way, else you could be waiting on the riverbank for rather a long time. From here it's only a few yards to the main road in the valley, and then a short walk along the pavement returns us to the Burford Bridge roundabout. There are an awful lot of motorbikes on the dual carriageway, aren't there? I wonder why that should be...
• By bike: The very best thing about the Burford Bridge car park is Ryka's restaurant [photo]. It's a homespun burger takeaway with a few tables inside (and lots of picnic tables outside), and it's become the major focal point for hordes of southeastern motorbikers. On a sunny weekend afternoon there'll be hundreds of motorcycles parked in the upper car park, some with reverential crowds around them, others revving up for a buzz round the area. You may have to queue for your cheeseburger and chips, but they beat the organic flapjacks at the top of the hill hands down. If only all roadside caffs were as special as this.
100 years of the roundel
If you're travelling round the Underground today, only a handful of places remain where an original-style roundel can still be seen. One location is at the foot of the stairs on the District line platforms at Ealing Broadway, while another lurks deep beneath the surface at Caledonian Road. And then there's Covent Garden, right up at the far end of the westbound platform beyond the safety barrier where no mere mortal is permitted to tread. It's a very raw piece of signage, just a blue rectangle across a red enamel disc, with the station name written in some ancient font. But it was a first attempt to introduce consistent visual clarity for passengers, and remains perfectly recognisable to this day. The disc became a loopy circle in 1917, and rapidly spread across the entire network of buses, railways and coaches. I could tell you more, but why bother when the London Transport Museum has put together a perfectly detailed online illustrated history of 100 years of the evolving roundel.
The exhibition's only open for three weeks, so I popped down last night to take a look. Annoyingly the nearest station doesn't open for two years, so I faced a considerable trek to reach the backstreets around Arnold Circus. Erm, I think it's around here somewhere, that looks a bit like a Victorian school, where's the way in, and is this door actually open? Ah yes. A welcoming committee of three girls awaited, sat behind a desk piled low with unbought merchandise. And then onward into the high-windowed school hall, a room I had almost to myself. Cue the art.
I amused myself by wandering the walls trying to work out which artwork I'd bid for, if I actually did that sort of thing. My eye was taken by the more abstract designs, using the roundel as part of a repeating moquette or as a long distance reveal. Maybe the roundel as a flock of birds, or as a Mobius strip, or as a hole in a sliced loaf. Or maybe the atmospheric landscape in which a shimmering roundel reflected on a tree-shadowed pool. Sir Peter Blake had taken a very colourful geometric approach, which worked strikingly well. But my ultimate favourite was picture number 18 by Henry Coleman, the Venn diagram in which a sea of blue bars morphed effortlessly into a army of red circles. I like my art clever but simple. Which is, essentially, why the adaptable old roundel has survived the century.
You'd never find it by accident, tucked away in a crypt in a Whitechapel backstreet. Head through hospital reception, across a courtyard garden between wards and clinics, then look around for the swallowed-up church. Down that hidden ramp on the right, past the two off-duty nurses having a crafty fag, and through the big wooden door. It's a bijou museum-ette, detailing the 250 year-old history of East London's premier medical establishment. You might even get the place to yourself, just you and a few old scalpels.
In celebration of the much-loved children's programme's 50th birthday.
Percy: Oh my god no, look what the bastard vandals have done to my Italian Sunken Garden. They'll hang for this, I tell you (sob)
» Station opened: Sunday 12th October 2008 [press release]
» Station opened: Wednesday 1st April 1914, as Shepherd's Bush.
WALK HARROW
One thing Harrow has in spades is open space. A third of the borough is Green Belt, including most of a broad northern strip, and by London standards this is landscape heaven. I chose to follow one of the capital's major strategic walks across fields, through woodland and past an ornamental death pond. And it was all the better because almost nobody else had had the same idea.
Is this track really called Ass House Lane? Apparently so. And apparently it crosses a pre-historic earthwork called Grim's Dyke, although I'm still not convinced I actually saw it - the shallow earth trench I spotted could have been any other non-ancient feature. The woodland here forms the edge of Harrow Weald Common, and this end was once part of a landscaped garden belonging the famous comic librettist W. S. Gilbert. He lived in Grim's Dyke (the house, not the ditch) for 20 years, and was especially proud of his ornamental lake complete with boathouse and central island. Alas, this lake was to lead to his untimely death. One day in 1911 a young female house guest got into difficulties while swimming, and when Gilbert jumped in to assist he suffered a fatal heart attack. His widow had the lake drained, and it's now just an eerie vegetated hollow in the woods [photo]. Meanwhile Gilbert's gorgeous home, much praised by Betjeman in his Metroland documentary, has become a rather desirable hotel [photo].
My walk returned into the deserted woods, striding along not-quite muddy paths beneath yellowing leaves. Roll on autumn, I say, if it looks like this. And then across a main road into Bentley Priory Open Space. A concrete path skirted the edge of something top secret and secure, which I later discovered was one of the country's most important airforce bases. RAF Bentley Priory was the headquarters of Fighter Command during the Second World War, and the entire Battle of Britain was directed by officers holed up in the manor house. It's an enormous site, barely visible beyond ubiquitous security fences, and currently undergoing a period of enormous change. The RAF station here closed with a flourish at the end of May 2008, and future plans include less exciting things like a museum and lots and lots of luxury apartments. The perfect gated community, I fear.
Some days it seems that any old reason will do. For modern art, I mean. Whether it's shoving bunkbeds in the Tate Modern to simulate Armageddon, or flooding the roof of the Hayward Gallery as a parodic intervention, it seems modern artists can get away with anything. In the case of Stanmore station, it's all about publishing a book of crosswords. Artist Serena Korda was inspired by the fact that secret wartime codebreakers deciphered Hitler's secrets in a military outpost on the corner of Brockley Hill, and has assembled a collection of interconnected cruciverbalist art. There are eight crosswords altogether, compiled around some very local themes (such as the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and the Stanmore Bowls Club). You're supposed to be able to pick up a booklet from Jubilee line stations, but they're so rare that downloading the pdf is likely to be a more profitable pursuit. Go on, you're not doing any real work this afternoon.
I wonder how many of Harrow's residents realise that their borough has a museum. It's not especially easy to find, hidden away in a little-known suburb in the middle of a recreation ground, and you wouldn't walk past it by mistake. But there's a reason why the museum's here, because it's housed in a suite of the borough's very oldest buildings. Headstone Manor dates back to the early 14th century and is the only scheduled ancient monument in Middlesex still to have a water-filled moat. Yes, really. Before Saturday I never realised it was here either.
The museum proper is housed in the Manor's 500 year-old Tithe Barn [photo]. To be honest, I found the timber framed building considerably more interesting than its contents. Up at one end of the long room was a rather flat exhibition about Tudor life in the borough, which could have been an exhibition about Tudor life anywhere in England (highlight - "Unfortunately there is no evidence to prove that any of the Tudor monarchs visited Harrow."). Further down the barn was a bit of a shop, and a few chairs, and not many exhibits. Plus a man in a kitchen serving up drinks to all the kids and parents frequenting the football pitches nextdoor, whose weekly league action probably keeps the museum's finances afloat.
One of the most celebrated proponents of the art of mechanical whimsy was W. Heath Robinson. He started out as a book illustrator, before progressing into the design of ludicrous yet intricate contraptions for carrying out everyday or slightly surreal tasks. His talented penmanship lovingly conveyed machines for such unlikely tasks as brolly-testing, indoor mountain climbing and even "resuscitating stale railway scones". Robinson moved from Holloway to Pinner in 1908, and his detached house at number 75 Moss Lane [photo] now displays a blue plaque in his honour. Moss Lane is a delightful suburban avenue, very Metroland, very aspirational, although I saw no sign of any automated lawn sprinklers or steam powered grass-mowing devices in any of the gardens.
The William Heath Robinson Trust hold many of his humorous artworks, and plan to showcase them in a new museum at West House in Pinner Memorial Gardens [photo]. But the old mansion requires considerable restoration, at great cost, and completion remains some years off. For now West House remains only partly rebuilt behind graffitied barriers and, to my eyes, appears disconcertingly modern looking. The Pinner Association continues to campaign and fund raise for its completion, and will hopefully provide the town with its first steampunk tourist attraction.
For the boys at Harrow, on the hill, Saturday's just another school day. Bad luck lads. There are assemblies to attend, and lessons to endure, and of course lots of character building sports to play. The school's famous playing fields are located in broad sweeping meadows at the foot of Harrow hill. They're all decked out for rugby at the moment, although when I passed through first thing yesterday morning the posts stood alone amidst the clearing mist. Things would have been very different come 2.30pm when the Radley College 2nd XV were due to run out for a ruck, along with a myriad of lesser competitive matches on the surrounding pitches. Lots of mud, lots of cracking bones and lots of housemasters yelling critical encouragement at the tops of their voices from the touchline. Three cheers for the gallant losers, rah rah rah. And then for the home team, following every single match (or practice), an absolutely knackering walk up the long steep slope of Football Lane back to the boarding houses on the hilltop. They're clearly evil sadists, these Harrow games teachers.
As I passed through, the street suddenly filled with students exiting whatever mass communal gathering the school insists they attend every Saturday morning. They seemed to be pouring out of the Library, or maybe George Gilbert Scott's grand chapel, and heading back to their boarding houses before lessons began at 11. And it's true, the boys really do wear straw boaters as a matter of course and without a flicker of embarrassment. Attending school here must be really character-building. It looked as if box files and ring binders were also an official part of the Harrow school uniform, because every boy was clutching at least two or three. I decided to get out of the way, because it's not good form to be wandering amongst schoolboys with a camera, and ascended swiftly to St Mary's Church at the very top of the hill.
A metal arch stands over the southern entrance to the main shopping precinct, heralding such delights as a bookies, a pizzeria and an Iceland supermarket. Don't worry, the shops pick up in quality beyond Katie's statue. The Queen unveiled this bronze of a merrily skipping girl to celebrate the borough's golden jubilee, although heaven knows why. All the major chain stores may be present, but St Ann's Shopping Centre has been sucked dry of any ounce of character whatsoever. It's a soulless plastic mall alongside an artificial retail boulevard, and probably last had a buzz when Princess Diana opened the place in 1987. The St George's Shopping and Leisure Centre is a little showier and more decoratively 90s, but also smaller (so they could only rustle up Catherine Zeta Jones). Its first floor balcony seems to be the chosen place to hang out if you're a bored girl in a puffa jacket, however.
Random borough (19): Time yet again for me to take another random trip to one of London's 33 boroughs. As I write I have no idea which one of the 15 remaining borough names will be revealed when I unfold the slip of paper I'm about to pick from my legendary (and as-yet unseen) "special jamjar". I could pick any one of the other London boroughs - inner or outer, urban or suburban, small or large, fascinating or dull. I just know it won't be Merton, Islington, Enfield, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Kensington & Chelsea, Hackney, Hillingdon, the City, Bromley, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Hounslow, Brent, Redbridge or Ealing because they're the eighteen (dark grey) boroughs I've picked out already.
2) Wander round the Botanic Garden
4) Pop into the Pitt Rivers
6) Take a tour of the Bodleian Library
8) Hike up Carfax Tower
9) Go back to your old student digs
You're wearing a condom on your head. An oversized knitted condom, admittedly, but the shape of a prophylactic all the same. What do you look like? You probably think you're wearing a modern trendy cutting-edge fashionable beanie hat, you do. But I think you're wearing a knitted condom on your head. I think you look a right plonker.
Olympic update
When the Olympic Park is completed, the "Park" bit will be little more than an afterthought. London's 2012 stadium will be surrounded by a plain of artificial astroturf, within an encircling moat of reed-free concrete waterways. Plastic trees will be used to provide instant greenery which looks good on the TV cameras, and a few transplanted rosebushes will be wheeled in so that Sue Barker's to-camera links have a decent floral backdrop. After the Games the Olympic Park will be sealed off for five years so that lots of new houses can be built, and then planners will drop in some riverside terracing and an adventure playground as an afterthought. The Greenway will be also closed off so that it can be transformed into a four-lane bicycle expressway, providing a floodlit cross-river route through the centre of a building site.
In the southern half of the park, the emphasis is rather different. The parkland will be more linear, restricted mostly to the riverside, and more somewhere to walk through than to relax. The aim is to create an "urban event" environment around the stadium, which I think is planner's code for "festivals, markets and cultural activities" (but I fear could mean "empty 99% of the time"). A particularly impressive feature should be the London 2012 Gardens - a long thin ornamental strollway planted out in themed sections with sustainable plantlife from around the globe. This'll be open during the Games themselves, and also as a reminder of 2012 for many decades to come. They're planning long term here, for the benefit of grandchildren yet to be born.
If you ever fancy recreating Landskip, the instructions seemed to go something like this.
After the one-off event came an opportunity to look around Smoke - the main exhibition inside the Pump House Gallery. This may not look like a particularly big building, but there are four floors of galleries within and I bet they don't normally see quite so many visitors as crammed inside on Sunday afternoon. The exhibition has been curated by the folk at Implicasphere, who appear to have inhaled something creative, brainstormed the word "smoke" and then gone out and retrieved all the artefacts they scribbled down. A smoky tapestry, for example, or a 1950s smog cartoon, or a photograph of a spurting volcano. More obtuse items include a Smokey Mountain rabbit, some dolls-house-sized smoked salmon and a tobacco enema (honest). There are also several audio-visual displays, ranging from a smoking skinhead to a documentary about coal, plus a rather wonderful 15 minute video compilation of smoky-referenced snippets (ah, the Wicked Witch of the West, and lung cancer warnings, and Mary Poppins, and steam trains, and a Thunderbirds ignition). A right motley exhibition it is, with a genuine feeling of random ephemera.
London's railway infrastructure usually takes an age to construct. The Jubilee line extension was first proposed in the 1970s but not completed until 1999. Crossrail's been on the drawing board for yonks but can't possibly be finished before 2017. And the "Thameslink 2000" project, initiated in 1991, was so woefully optimistically named that it probably ought to be rebranded "Thameslink 2015-ish". So it's a minor miracle to be reporting on a station successfully knocked down, rebuilt and reopened in nigh record time, all within the same calendar year. Welcome to Nu-Shepherd's Bush.
When I boarded a Central line train at Bank just before noon yesterday, my destination station was still closed. But by the time we departed Notting Hill Gate our driver was able to announce that "Shepherd's Bush station is open", much to the unexpected delight of certain passengers on board. And so it was that a few of us stepped out onto a freshly-reopened station, untouched by public footstep since February, and ventured forth round the curving platform towards the way out. Blimey it looked different [photo]. Last time I was here there was diagonal tiling in a clashing combination of red and green - quite characterful but rather gloomy. And suddenly the tiling had become very white, almost clinical, topped off by columns of inoffensive navy blue. Worth a complaint to the heritage watchdog, maybe... except that white/blue is actually the original design, and red/green merely a mid 80s refurb aberration.
And then the greatest transformation. Where previously there'd been a traditional ticket hall with decoration and clutter, I emerged instead into a giant glass box. Wholly unnecessarily big, to be honest, unless station bosses have plans to position a symphony orchestra at the top of the escalators to serenade passengers, or maybe hang an aeroplane or two from the ceiling.
There's another brand new station here, Shepherd's Bush on the Overground, just 100m away across a not-yet busy road. This branch line halt was originally scheduled to open in 2005, but lack of funding, political argument and contractor incompetence delayed the official opening to last Sunday. It's yet another giant glass box, presumably because giant glass boxes are easy and cheap, and because the kind of architectural excellence seen on the Jubilee line extension is now a thing of the past.
Let's start in W12 with the Underground network's latest stations [map close-up]. Look, there's Wood Lane, which is the first new tube station to be built on an existing line for umpteen years. And there's Shepherd's Bush Market, which used to be plain ordinary Shepherd's Bush until some big cheese decided to rename it after a few stallholders selling cut price tea towels and cleaning products. You'll notice that the former station is wheelchair accessible, and the latter really really isn't (unless you like bouncing uncontrollably down a steep flight of steps). Then there's the fresh duo of Shepherd's Bush stations, one just opened on the Overground after a long-delayed catalogue of woeful construction errors, the other on the Central line about to reopen in barely recognisable form. On the tube map, this entire area is now a barely discernible spectacle in orange and pink.
I do love a trip to the seaside. The opportunity to get away to the coast and enjoy sun, sea breeze and sand. There's something mighty refreshing about a vista that's half water, and that special feeling of being on the edge of an untameable natural powerhouse. Ah, those endless promenades of salt-splattered buildings, and rows of brightly painted beach huts, and piers and pebbles and donkey rides and candy floss and... Sorry, I may be getting a little carried away there. Because the seaside's not what it was.
Last month I was walking along the promenade in Herne Bay chatting to an Australian, trying to explain to him that this now quiet resort had once been a bustling summertime hotspot. No really, this place used to be swarming with families, and the B&Bs were full, and that bandstand really had a band in it, and this ice cream van would've had a really long queue waiting for 99s. To be honest, it was quite hard to sound convincing. The Great British Seaside Experience sounded rather tame through Australian eyes. Shouldn't we be out surfing, or swimming, or doing something active and exhilarating in the water? Ah no, we Brits have always preferred dossing about at the water's edge, lying behind a wind break, eating battered cod out of newspaper or going for a pointless stroll to the end of the pier and back. We like our seaside passive.
If you miss how it used to be, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich has just opened a free exhibition entitled Beside the Seaside, and it runs until next Easter. "The exhibition" (and I quote) "brings together photographs, posters and seaside memorabilia to capture the essence of both working life and early tourism along the British coast." It's a fairly small exhibition, not much more than a few photographs stuck on the wall to be honest, but it does provide a nostalgic recollection of UK seaside magic. If you've got a favourite resort, there's probably a black and white snapshot of some old fishermen, or Victorians on the pier, or an impossibly crowded beach. The accompanying text reveals that much of the 19th century growth in seaside holidays was due to the spread of the rail network - once the railway arrived, so did the masses. More evocative is a series of short newsreel snippets depicting beach and promenade life, including some bouncy Blackpool belles whose energetic outdoor pursuits probably attracted many a hot-blooded male to the northwest coast.
