Bus 43: London Bridge - Friern Barnet Location: London north Length of journey: 9 miles, 70 minutes
Last year I rode the 42 to Dulwich. So this year, for my birthday, I thought I'd ride the 43 to Barnet. I wondered if, perhaps, its lengthy journey to the north London suburbs would provide a metaphor for life. And, you know what, maybe it does.
Life kicks off with a long wait: The 43 must have the scariest bus queue in London. Fifty metres of pavement adjacent to bus stop C have been marked out for a narrow doublebacked queue, with painted lanes arrowed up and down and back up again, as if this were some over-popular Disneyland attraction. Every weekday morning hundreds of Kentish commuters pour out of London Bridge station and wait here patiently, politely, for their cross-river transport to the City. But at the weekend getting aboard was rather easier. There were only four of us waiting, and we ignored the arrows on the ground altogether.
Life can get lonely: The City of London is an unnervingly quiet place on a Saturday afternoon. The financiers stay at home, the shops are firmly closed, and crews of workmen take the opportunity to lug giant cranes up medieval lanes to shift the skyline while nobody's looking. And so we sped through EC2 while absolutely nobody whatsoever boarded our bus, not until we passed Moorgate's rampant griffin and entered downtown Islington. And even then not one soul dared to climb the stairs to join me on the top deck. The girl with the guitar; the pair of mums with bag-filled pushchair; the lady jabbering in a foreign language consisting entirely of vowels; the screaming kid emitting "I'm being kidnapped" yelps - they all crammed in downstairs and left me sitting in peace above their heads. I expected my solitude to end in Upper Street, packed with trendy trinket shoppers, but almost everybody lined up at its chain of bus stops turned out to be waiting for other services to take them somewhere rather nicer instead.
Life begins at Highbury: Well, Highbury Corner at least. The long trek up the Holloway Road, past the off licences and chicken cottages, was where the 43's journey finally got busier. I listened in on the witterings of my fellow passengers. "If I wasn't going to the estate agent I'd definitely be going to your house to see the mannequins." I never did get to the bottom of that mystery. "I'm not five Daddy, I'm five and a half. How old are you, are you 43?" Honest, the flaxen-haired angel sat behind me really asked that, and Daddy really was. "Goodbye darling, hugs and kisses, and love to Jemima." Hmm, leafy Tufnell Park ahead.
Life is an uphill struggle: Virtually the whole of the 43's journey from the Thames to the suburbs was slowly, relentlessly, uphill. Onward we crawled, up the A1, through ringroad-scarred Archway, beneath Suicide Bridge, and ascending the organic slopes of Highgate. No burger'n'kebab joints were evident here - the residents appeared to dine out in cantinas and brunch daily on Eggs Benedict. The bus then queued behind a traffic jam of Ocado vans before turning right, past Peter Sellers' cottage and woodland daffodils, to the giddy heights of Muswell Hill. Here in this highbrow middle-class enclave, looking down across an ocean of lesser rooftops, our journey peaked. Very tasteful, very much like a Home Counties market town. Along the Broadway I spotted several proper independent shops, and the odd boutique, and even a pub discreetly tucked inside a huge Victorian church. Blue-rinsed ladies lined up to board the bus with their trolley of M&S comestibles to ride the few stops home.
Life gets you down: And finally back down into the valley, past the first bog standard suburban streets of the entire journey. On and on, across the streaming North Circular and out into unexplored ColneyHatch. The penultimate passenger alighted at the old Friern Barnet Town Hall, now converted into luxury apartmentettes. And only I stayed on until the occasionally-open library, where this bus terminates. At this lonely outpost the driver had only a man with a clipboard for company, and a tiny lockable portakabin for officially sanctioned bladder-emptying. It was a very different spot to go-ahead London Bridge, three score minutes and ten ago.
Life ends up in hospital: But blimey, what was that enormous building just up the road? I mean, like, truly enormous (in terms of length rather than height, that is). Look, a 500m-long residential block with central dome and various perpendicular wings, looking every inch a college or important administrative bastion. Except no, this grand Italianate building was once the largest mental hospital in London. Forget Bedlam, this was the pinnacle of Victorian lunatic provision, tucked away on the leafy outskirts of town where everybody could forget about it. ColneyHatchAsylum boasted the longest corridor in Britain, perfect for wheeling patients down, and up to 3500 inmates were crammed and strait-jacketed inside. As its infamy spread, so Londoners started using the words "Colney Hatch" as a term of abuse, and pretty soon the local station had to change its name to "New Southgate" to avoid any unwanted stigma. It's not a mental hospital any more, of course, it's been reborn as the rather exclusive Princess Park Manor development. There's only one vehicular entrance, guarded by fearsome security guards who check off every visitor against an approved list. The rest of the perimeter is securely fenced, no longer to lock the inmates inside but to keep undesirable elements out. Now jogging bankers exercise on the landscaped lawns, and a gated elite live out their days in rooms which were once anything but desirable. But I'm not convinced many of them ever commute aboard the 43 to the City - they'd have to be insane to sit on a bus for that long.
Silver discs(March 1983)
A one-off clickable look back at the top singles of 25 years ago
The Top 10 singles the day before I turned 18 (8th March 1983) 1) (↑1) Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart: Topping the charts in the week I turned adult was this classic histrionic epic from a raspy-throated Welsh singer. Bonnie's career had been up and down almost as much as her voice, but this Meatloaf-esque song sealed her fame. The video appeared to show her cavorting round a windswept boys' boarding school, but I could never quite be sure because I only ever saw the video once. Pre-YouTube, that is. Total Eclipse is still performed wherever a karaoke machine is installed, and was the first ever song by a Welsh artist to top the American singles chart. "Every now and then I get a little bit terrified but then I see the look in your eyes, every now and then I fall apart" 2) (↓1) Michael Jackson - Billie Jean: Before this single was released, MJ was just another talented jumped-up former child star with a frizzy grin. And then here he was singing about disputed parentage, and moonwalking round a pavement of flashing lights, and looking sleek and just a little bit feral, and the nation suddenly loved him. Bilie Jean elevated young Michael to invigorated superstardom, and a series of hit singles off the mega-selling Thriller album sealed his fate. Nutter, obviously, but a damned talented nutter. "Billie Jean is not my lover, she's just a girl who claims that I am the one, but the kid is not my son" 3) (↑2) Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (are made of this): Blimey, it was a good week wasn't it? Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, no longer Tourists, launched their Top 3 career with this instantly arresting song. Its driving beat was utterly unlike anything else around at the time, and Annie's visual image didn't hurt either - all flame-haired red crop and piercing stare. The Queen and King of musical self-reinvention remain the UK's most successful ever female/male duo. "Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree? I travel the world and the seven seas, everybody's looking for something" 4) (↑8) Forrest - Rock The Boat: Formerly a Billboard #1 by the Hues Corporation, this was a typical mid-80s synthy cover version performed by Dutch singer Forrest Thomas. Sinitta appeared in the video, which I think tells you all you need to know. "Ever since our voyage of love began, your touch has thrilled me like the rush of the wind" 5) (↓1) Toto - Africa: Sometimes American rock bands get it spot on. Twinkly keyboards and understated maracas lay beneath this singalong African anthem, still a staple of cosy MOR radio to this day. And yes, they really did get away with rhyming "company" with "Serengeti". "She's coming in 12:30 flight, the moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation" 6) (↓3) Kajagoogoo - Too Shy: How Eighties is this? A bunch of make-upped blokes with scary haircuts and a pretentious name, and a lead singer with an even scarier haircut living life as an anagram. I guess that's what living in Leighton Buzzard did to you. Too shy shy - still catchier than a barbed wire fence. "Something's wrong, you're not naive, you must must be strong" 7) (↑14) Bananarama - Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye) : Another top cover version, sung in one-part harmony, from the three girls nextdoor. You could easily imagine bumping into Siobhan, Keren and Sara on the pavement outside Top Shop, or waitressing at a Golden Egg restaurant, or appearing on Blockbusters with Bob Holness and a gonk. And hurrah for that. "He'll never love you the way that I love you, cos if he did, oh no, he wouldn't make you cry" 8) (→) Madness - Tomorrow's Just Another Day: Just another Madness record, from just past their peak, and just a little more downbeat than usual. "I need a moment to reflect on the friendships I have wrecked" 9) (→) Thompson Twins - Love On Your Side: At long last, after years of trying, the British public finally caught up with Tom, Joe and Alannah. With their former tribal rhythms replaced by a more commercial mainstream sound, two years of of well-deserved fame followed. I went to see them perform at the Oxford Apollo, at my very first gig, as an impressionable 18 year old. Hmm, they looked a lot smaller in public than on the telly, but maybe that's because I was jiggling away at the back of the balcony. And blimey, they could actually sing and play at the same time. Revelation. "I hear you laughing in some other room and it makes me feel locked out" 10) (↓4) Musical Youth - Never Gonna Give You Up: Cheery reggae beats from Birmingham's underage finest. Not really in the same league as Pass The Dutchie, but who could possibly argue with a band whose lead singer was called Dennis? "You take sugar and I have none, you take your coffee black and I have mine white"
20 other hits from 25 years ago: Communication (Spandau Ballet), Tunnel of Love (Funboy Three), She Means Nothing To Me (Phil Everly & Cliff Richard), Get The Balance Right (Depeche Mode), Change (Tears For Fears), Hey Little Girl (Icehouse), High Life (Modern Romance), Up Where We Belong (Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes), Genetic Engineering (OMD), Waves (Blancmange), Rip It Up (Orange Juice), Wham Rap (Wham), Shiny Shiny (Haysi Fantayzee), Sign Of The Times (Belle Stars), Drop The Pilot (Joan Armatrading), Oh Diane (Fleetwood Mac), Down Under (Men At Work), Christian (China Crisis), Fields of Fire (Big Country), Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (Indeep) ...which hit's your favourite?
He writes oblique intricate prose about London. He's an award-winning author with a shelf ofbooks to his name. He lives in Hackney, sort of Hoxton-ish. He's Iain Sinclair. And last night he was giving a talk, for free, at the Museum in Docklands. They do this sort of thing in arty venues across East London on the First Thursday of every month, you know. And Iain's talk was also a special event on the first day of the East Festival, which is casting its cultural shadow across the next five days in this part of the world. So I went along to feast on words.
Around 100 people turned up to hear Iain's take on East London. We were treated to an hour of chat, both from Mr S and from Sara Wajid of Untold London (a diversely-historical London website). She introduced him as a chronicler of the disappeared for whom "location is his muse". I liked that line. And I liked Iain. He spoke as he writes, in meandering anecdotes, not sticking to any linear narrative but most entertaining all the same.
Iain's had many jobs in his time, from a cellar worker at the family-run Truman Brewery to a behind the scenes dogsbody at the Raymond Revue Bar. His favourite job, however, involved several years spent mowing the grass in various Hawksmoorchurchyards. A good run around on the lawnmower, the chance to eye up the local community, and long lunch breaks sat reminiscing with old boys who remembered the way the East End used to be. Where once was a grand riverside landscape dotted with dominant steeples, now the invasive "Not London" towers of Docklands overshadow all.
Although Iain's well known as a psychogeographer, it's not a term he feels particularly comfortable with. Psychogeography is just another niche concept hijacked by the mainstream, made popular by repetition and dilution, so he told us. But he's definitely a fan of going places to discover things, as exhibited by his circumnavigation of the M25 for London Orbital. "A quest is the excuse for a journey". I liked that line too, because it's a concept I'm frequently guilty of myself.
Iain told us several stories, including that of bricked-off Rodinsky's Room at 19 Princelet Street, and how the displaced inhabitant ended his life in an asylum. Iain recalled interlinked tales from his latest anthology London: City of Disappearances (which he signed for grateful punters downstairs afterwards). And he read us an extract from his nearly-published book based around his home borough - Hackney: A Rose-Red Empire. The day the London Fields Lido reopened, so we heard, its swishing electronic doors were mobbed by canine invaders. No Sinclair story is ever ordinary.
By the end of the hour, and a brief Q&A session, we knew precisely what Iain thought of Olympic developments in the Lea Valley. A black hole erasing undocumented marginal lands, no less, now brutally hidden behind an unsettling blue wall. And we could probably have listened to him for another hour, had the Museum not been quite so keen to cajole us out of the theatre and down towards the exit. I avoided the book signing and headed back out to the artificial quaysides of business-blasted West India Dock. From the wine bars came the merry braying of bankers, gulping bubbly where labourers once ate their cheese and pickle sandwiches. He makes you look at things differently, does Iain. But I think I'm still more comfortable listening to him than reading him.
A message to the staff at the Museum in Docklands. If your evening talk is due to start at 7:30, don't announce the time as 7pm on your website. Lovely though it was to listen to the London Gay Men's Chorus singing three part harmony in the foyer while strolling around the labyrinth of nigh-empty galleries, I'd really rather have spent the extra half-hour at home.
There are two kinds of people in this world - those who take offence and those who don't.
Some people, it seems, can be offended by almost everything. "Why are you looking at me like that?" "You realise your last comment was inherently racist, don't you?" "How dare the Government spend my taxes on that!" These people go around finding fault in everything, and then assuming it was all deliberately aimed at them. "Why don't you look where you're going?" "I have never been so insulted..." "Turn that bloody music off!"
Sometimes taking offence is about justice. Offended people often feel personally wronged by the slightest incident, and then insist on expressing their opinions and delivering a damning verdict. "You know you're not allowed to put your feet on the seat, don't you?" "How dare you travel by plane, you're killing the planet." "It's barbaric, and it deserves the death penalty!" A lot of tabloid journalists (and tedious bloggers) function at this level, without ever putting forward a positive idea of their own. They devote their output to wagging an accusatory finger and pandering to petty prejudices. "Britney's night of shame!" "Sign our anti-paedo petition now!" "Hanging's too good for them!"
Sometimes taking offence is about self-righteousness. Offended people often imagine they lead nigh-perfect lives, and then abuse anybody else who doesn't measure up to their high standards. "Don't be so bloody patronising!" "I can't believe anyone disagrees with my views on Iraq." "Tell the chef I'm never eating here again!" A lot of politicians (and political commentators) function at this level, especially when in opposition. They spend their lives taking offence on ideological grounds and picking holes in others' activities, without ever stopping to reflect on their own inadequacies. "How can anybody believe that?" "But we've caught you doing something that's against parliamentary rules!" "Resign, resign!"
I'm not somebody who takes offence. If a passer-by steps on my toe in the street, I don't assume they did it deliberately. If a colleague takes the mickey out of me at work, I don't punch them in the mouth. If somebody ignores me at a party, I don't go off and sulk in the corner. If I'm speaking with incompetent call centre staff over the phone, I don't yell back at them. If somebody writes what I believe to be an ideologically unsound blogpost, I don't waste my time ranting at length in their comments box. If somebody drops a chocolate wrapper on my doorstep, I don't stab them to death. I believe in tolerance and giving people the benefit of the doubt. And my life is much happier as a result.
I'm not alone. There are a lot of us around, those who don't take offence, but alas there are still far too many who do. If only these offended folk could learn to view the world a little more objectively, and to interact with others more calmly and rationally. Where appropriate, of course. It's always right to stand up to bullying and crime and nuisance and verbal abuse where they exist, but there's no need to imagine the worst in everything and to get stressed and angry about it. Stop jumping to conclusions. Get yourself a sense of humour. Learn to disagree without seething. And smile. Life may be full of annoying insensitive people, but life's too short.
Thanks for voting yesterday in my readership survey - nearly 600 of you were kind enough to take part! Now I know how my readership has changed over the last fouryears, and also how very similar it is too. According to the 2008 survey results, the typical diamond geezer reader is a straight-but-coupled 30-something male blog-reader from the London area (just like the results suggested two years ago). If anyone out there reckons they could be Mr Average, please stake your claim in the comments box. And here are those results in a little more detail.
Male or female?
male (407)
72%
female (162)
28%
Hmmm, that's more than two male readers to every female, a proportion which has remained exactly the same over the last two years. Maybe cyberworld is still full of blokes, or maybe I'm still not posting enough kittens.
Age
<20 (21)
4%
20s (138)
24%
30s (188)
33%
40s (109)
19%
50s (83)
14%
60+ (38)
7%
Just over half of my readers are aged between 20 and 40, with rather more 30- than 20-somethings. Since 2004 the profile of my readership has aged slightly, with a definite increase in 50-somethings stopping by. But the yoof market still appear to be off elsewhere, babbling on Bebo or faffing around on Facebook (or just txting with da homies kno wotya mean innit like).
Where do you live? (pick one)
London (281)
49%
England (149)
26%
UK (26)
4%
Europe (31)
5%
World (91)
16%
I reckon that about half of the posts on this blog are about London, which may explain why about half of my readers are Londoners. That's a stonkingly high proportion, and one that's been rising steadily over the years (up from one-third in 2004). Don't worry, there's still a lot of non-London stuff on my blog too, which is probably why my nationwide and worldwide readers still stick around. But I bet that if I still lived in Ipswich, most of you wouldn't bother coming back.
A bit more about you
straight, single (185)
32%
straight, coupled (317)
56%
gay, single (37)
6%
gay, coupled (31)
5%
These are nigh exactly the same proportions as two years ago. Do these oh-so consistent results allow us to extrapolate, Kinsey-style, that just under 90% of the world's population is straight? And should I take heart from the fact that nearly 40% of you are still single?
Do you have your own blog?
yes (225)
39%
no (347)
61%
Hmmm, this vote's changed considerably over the years. Back in 2004 more than half of you were bloggers, and now that figure is less than 40%. Is this because fewer people are blogging, or is it because those people who used to blog have given up? Or is it merely because blogging is no longer a secret niche activity overlooked by the mainstream? Whatever, there are still 225 bloggers reading this blog - so my deepest apologies if I don't have time to read all of yours.
How often do you read diamond geezer?
daily (358)
62%
often (166)
29%
occasionally (46)
8%
first visit (8)
1%
I blame RSS. Nearly two-thirds of you now claim to come back every day, whereas it used to be only a half. That's comforting, because I do try very hard to post something every day for you to read. Meanwhile the proportion of readers visiting only occasionally has plummeted - it's all or nothing these days. And a special hello to the eight of you who were making your very first visit yesterday (assuming you ever come back again, that is).
When was your first visit to diamond geezer?
2002/03 (64)
11%
2004/05 (145)
25%
2006 (136)
24%
2007 (160)
28%
2008 (72)
12%
And finally, a tribute to the longevity of blog readers. About one in ten of you claim to have been reading since the early days, with more and more of you joining in as the years have passed. But I'm surprised to see that less than half of you were around the last time I ran this survey. There's a lot of monthly archives for you lot to catch up on, you know. Thanks to you all for sticking around, however long it's been. And I wonder how different things will look by the first week of 2010...
Readership survey(3) : Precisely four years ago I ran a readership survey to find out who was reading my blog. And then two years ago I repeated that survey to see what, if anything, had changed. And it had. And I suspect a lot's changed since then, so I thought I'd run the survey again. I wonder how different 2008 is to 2006 and 2004. Go on, tell me about yourself...
Plan your weekend: Advance warning that the London Transport Museum Depot is open this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, 11am - 5pm, £8). And it's only open for 12 hours a year so this is a mighty rare opportunity. The Depot in Acton holds several bits of old train, plus a collection of vintage buses and trams, as well as scores of smaller items of transport related ephemera. If you like this sort of thing, and can stand being surrounded by enthusiasts in a big shed all day, then it's well worth a visit. I went last year, and I think so. And Martin agrees, and Russell and Arthur, and Fimb, and another Martin. Go on, maybe this year. But a word of advice if you decide to go. There's always a big queue waiting outside to buy tickets, so it pays to buy yours in advance. Last year I bought my ticket at the London Transport Museum shop in Covent Garden just after 10, then caught the Piccadilly line to Acton and swanned in past the waiting queue when the doors opened at 11. Great for taking photos before the place fills up.
Britain's worstciviliandisaster of World War Two took place on 3rd March 1943. The disaster occurred on a night when no bombs fell. It took place in a tube station not yet served by tube trains. It killed 173 East Londoners, a third of them children. And all the carnage took place on this insignificant staircase. Who'd have thought?
65 years ago, with the eastern Central line still under construction, Bethnal Green station was opened to the public to be used as an air raid shelter. Every time the sirens sounded thousands of people would make their way down to the safety of the platforms below, grabbing a few precious spare feet to spread out their bedding and to wait for the all clear. That wet Wednesday evening was nothing special. The air-raid warning blared out at 8:17pm, heralding what locals believed to be Hitler's retaliation for a recent raid on Berlin. Local residents dutifully made their way through the blackout to the tube station, either directly from home or emptying out of pubs, buses and cinemas. If only they'd known that this was a false alarm then many might have stayed where they were, and lived.
The entrance to the station was down a 19-step staircase lit by a single 25-watt bulb. There were no handrails in those days, nor any painted markings to show the edge of each step. At the foot of the stairs was a square landing, then seven further steps down to the ticket hall and the top of the escalators. Within this tiny space the tragedy unfolded. At 8:27 a sudden blast on experimental anti-aircraft guns in Victoria Park caused the crowd to panic and rush forward. Down on the first landing a woman carrying a baby tripped and fell, and an elderly man then tripped over the pair of them. This was all it took for the crush to begin, as scores of other shelterers pushed, stumbled and fell into the darkness. Soon the stairwell was filled with a deep pile of helpless bodies, smothered and fighting desperately for breath. Meanwhile further arrivals attempted to enter the station from above, unaware that they were treading on a floor of asphyxiated flesh, and unable to prevent themselves from becoming part of it. Within the space of just two minutes, nearly 200 lives were lost.
The British Government hushed up the terrible incident, fearing it might damage civilian morale. The findings of the official inquiry were held back until the war was over, and it took several decades for a small plaque to be erected in the stairwell in the victims' honour. It's not much to show for such a major incident, especially since TfL have installed a rather tasteless "Emergency - Do not enter" illuminated sign beside it.
Now survivors and local residents have come together to campaign for a more fitting permanent memorial, using publicity surrounding the 65th anniversary to generate awareness of their cause. Their aim is to try to raise £600,000 so that a huge inverted staircase, etched with the names of the dead, can be suspended directly above the scene of the tragedy. This Stairway To Heaven, as they've called it, would be a startling sight alongside a busy road junction. No longer would this be a forgotten subterranean disaster, but a constant jarring reminder on the conscience of the community. Because sometimes, let's remember, stringent Health and Safety regulations are there for a reason. And sometimes you're only a few steps from heaven.
I SPY LONDON the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Part 21:RAF Museum
Location: Grahame Park Way, Colindale, London NW9 5LL [map] Open: 10am - 6pm Admission: free 5-word summary: those magnificent men's flying machines Website:http://www.rafmuseum.org/london Time to set aside: at least half a day
It's cub scout heaven. A handful of giant hangars in North London, hemmed in beside the M1, packed with instruments of aerial death. Look, an aeroplane, and look, another aeroplane, and look, several more aeroplanes. Just like it was back in the 1970s when I first visited with my cub scout pack, only now quite a bit bigger. So yesterday I went back for another look, this time woggle-free.
There's the main visitor entrance, over there near the car park beneath the swirly yellow sculpty thing. Don't worry, it's free to enter, so you can walk straight past the disinterested door staff without coughing up. Take the underwhelming back stairs up to the first floor and enter the terribly modern Milestones of Flight hangar. That's a Blériot, and that's a Gipsy Moth, and that's a Fokker, innit? There are rather more planes in here than you'd find stacked up over Heathrow at the start of the Easter holidays, and these are rather more famous too. Just don't step over the protective string for a closer look or one of the guides will bark at you. Along one wall is an extremely detailed Timeline of Flight listing aviation accomplishments every year from 1903 to 2002, which would take at least an hour to read properly. This is good stuff, this. But don't get any ideas about going upstairs to enjoy the state-of-the-art 3D cinema or Air Traffic Control exhibition - they'll probably be "out of bounds" due to lack of staff.
On through the canvas tunnel into the main body of the museum. Oh look, yet another hangar filled with planes, this time even more cavernous. And rather darker (plane spotters be warned, not a great place for taking photographs). This is Bomber Hall, home to Buccaneers and Lancasters and scores of other aircraft used for airborne massacre. It therefore seems more than a little inappropriate to spot a bloke eating his sandwiches beneath the delta wing of a Vulcan nuclear bomber, or a mum changing her son's nappy sprawled out beside the remains of a crashedHalifax.
Guess what's in the hangar nextdoor? Yes, lots more planes (and a few helicopters thrown in for good measure). There'll also be also an awful lot of cub-scout-aged boys, caught up in the excitement of aeronautical nirvana, dragging their weary parents around from Kittyhawk to Lockheed. If there's a technologically inspired pre-teen in your family, bring them along to Hendon and they're sure to have a whale of a time plane-spotting. There's even a special section of the museum - Aeronauts - packed with child-friendly interactive experiments. From the whoops of delight I heard coming from this area yesterday afternoon, obviously nobody realised they were swotting up on their Science curriculum.
And there's more, even more, in two further giant hangars outside. The Grahame-White building - Britain's first purpose-built aircraft factory - contains all the old biplanes from the Red Baron era. It's only open in the morning, so if you arrive early make sure you go there first. And across the car park is the Battle of Britain collection. Make sure you enter by the left-hand door, else you'll end up in the restaurant. And don't be tricked by the initial exhibits into thinking that this is going to be a really naff collection of stilted waxworks. Oh no, it's another collection of planes, this time all WW2-related. Spitfires and Hurricanes stand wing to tail with Messerschmitts and Heinkels, again in a rather gloomy lens-unfriendly environment. And every hour, on the hour, the lights are dimmed completely to permit the projection of the "Our Finest Hour" audiovisual presentation. I didn't wait, and the comatose attendant looked like she'd been unbothered by queues for many a month.
This is an old-school museum, plane and simple. Informative displays tell you all you need to know, without too much additional flashiness. It feels a little under-staffed, which may be why all the upper floors were roped off yesterday. But there's tons here, quite literally, in one of London's more under-appreciated visitor attractions. Mind out of the way - cub scout pack coming through! by tube: Colindaleby bus: 303
World class: Passing through Bow Road tube station last night I was intrigued to spot the arrival of a rare and special visitor in the ticket hall - the legendary TfL Opinionometer. This interactive installation takes the form of a small silver keypad on a message board, and TfL use it to collect multiple choice opinions. They stick up a question or two above the buttons, and passing passengers press the options that match what they think. Obviously I wandered over to give TfL a piece of my mind. And here's the question they wanted me to answer...
You what? Bow Road station, world-class? What planet are you on?
Bow Road station is a couple of 100-year old platforms up the less glamorous end of the District line. Metronet's incompetent refit gave the station plastic walls and a clashing non-heritage paint-job. There are freshly-installed seating areas located so far down the platform that trains don't actually stop there. The westbound train describer only gives 50 seconds warning of the arrival of the next train, and the eastbound train describer no longer works at all. Neither is visible from the entire length of the platform. The ticket office is open only sporadically, and the queue for the ticket machine occasionally snakes out of the door. Staff sometimes give a toss when some thug escapes fare-free through the luggage gate, but not always. Seventy-odd unnecessary CCTV cameras track every move around the station, and intrusive superfluous announcements blare out at too-regular intervals. The photo booth in the entrance hall has recently been ripped out, as have the chocolate and drinks machines on the platform. There's no champagne bar, as at St Pancras, nor a VIP lounge, as at Stratford International. There's no access for passengers in wheelchairs, no smiling member of staff to welcome you through the portal, nor even a booth that sells overpriced frothy coffee. Bow Road is no world-class station, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Which moron set up this survey? Why the hell are they asking random passers-by at Bow Road station to give a value judgement on a lunatic concept such as this? There's not even any attempt to give an objective explanation of what "world-class" means. It's just a worthless buzzphrase slipped into TfL's vision statement by some vacuous managerial gibbon. Every company has to have an inspirational vision statement these days, because Quality Review Monkeys say so, but they're usually so bland as to be meaningless. TfL's vision statement is little more than shallow aspirational fluff. Sure we'd all like a world-class transport network, but does anybody actually have any idea what being "world-class" entails?
I gave the Opinionometer a 4. Bow Road station has a few qualities of a world-class station (frequent trains, for example). But somewhere in TfL HQ some poor unfortunate statistician has added my 4 to their database and is probably using it to generate nonsensical conclusions. "67% of respondents had less positive opinions on Bow Road's transport infrastructure quality." "Stakeholder confidence in TfL's world class vision has not yet reached ceiling targets." "Baseline figures suggest deferred quality optimisation." "Aspirational shortfall is at critical levels." "Station staff should buck up their customer interface protocols or resign."
It saddens me that somebody somewhere in TfL thinks that this survey is a sensible use of time and effort, or even likely to give accurate results. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. And who needs every aspect of the TfL network to be world-class anyway? Maybe they could just concentrate on giving us a half-decent station instead.
Bus 43: London Bridge - Friern Barnet
Life kicks off with a long wait: The 43 must have the scariest bus queue in London. Fifty metres of pavement adjacent to bus stop C have been marked out for a narrow doublebacked queue, with painted lanes arrowed up and down and back up again, as if this were some over-popular Disneyland attraction. Every weekday morning hundreds of Kentish commuters pour out of London Bridge station and wait here patiently, politely, for their cross-river transport to the City. But at the weekend getting aboard was rather easier. There were only four of us waiting, and we ignored the arrows on the ground altogether.
Life is an uphill struggle: Virtually the whole of the 43's journey from the Thames to the suburbs was slowly, relentlessly, uphill. Onward we crawled, up the A1, through ringroad-scarred Archway, beneath Suicide Bridge, and ascending the organic slopes of Highgate. No burger'n'kebab joints were evident here - the residents appeared to dine out in cantinas and brunch daily on Eggs Benedict. The bus then queued behind a traffic jam of Ocado vans before turning right, past Peter Sellers' cottage and woodland daffodils, to the giddy heights of Muswell Hill. Here in this highbrow middle-class enclave, looking down across an ocean of lesser rooftops, our journey peaked. Very tasteful, very much like a Home Counties market town. Along the Broadway I spotted several proper independent shops, and the odd boutique, and even a pub discreetly tucked inside a huge Victorian church. Blue-rinsed ladies lined up to board the bus with their trolley of M&S comestibles to ride the few stops home.
Birthday musings
Silver discs (March 1983)
1) (↑1) Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart: Topping the charts in the week I turned adult was this classic histrionic epic from a raspy-throated Welsh singer. Bonnie's career had been up and down almost as much as her voice, but this Meatloaf-esque song sealed her fame. The video appeared to show her cavorting round a windswept boys' boarding school, but I could never quite be sure because I only ever saw the video once. Pre-YouTube, that is. Total Eclipse is still performed wherever a karaoke machine is installed, and was the first ever song by a Welsh artist to top the American singles chart.
Stairway to heaven
The entrance to the station was down a 19-step staircase lit by a single 25-watt bulb. There were no handrails in those days, nor any painted markings to show the edge of each step. At the foot of the stairs was a square landing, then seven further steps down to the ticket hall and the top of the escalators. Within this tiny space the tragedy unfolded. At 8:27 a sudden blast on experimental anti-aircraft guns in Victoria Park caused the crowd to panic and rush forward. Down on the first landing a woman carrying a baby tripped and fell, and an elderly man then tripped over the pair of them. This was all it took for the crush to begin, as scores of other shelterers pushed, stumbled and fell into the darkness. Soon the stairwell was filled with a deep pile of helpless bodies, smothered and fighting desperately for breath. Meanwhile further arrivals attempted to enter the station from above, unaware that they were treading on a floor of asphyxiated flesh, and unable to prevent themselves from becoming part of it. Within the space of just two minutes, nearly 200 lives were lost.
The British Government hushed up the terrible incident, fearing it might damage civilian morale. The findings of the official inquiry were held back until the war was over, and it took several decades for a small plaque to be erected in the stairwell in the victims' honour. It's not much to show for such a major incident, especially since TfL have installed a rather tasteless "Emergency - Do not enter" illuminated sign beside it.
I SPY LONDON
There's the main visitor entrance, over there near the car park beneath the swirly yellow sculpty thing. Don't worry, it's free to enter, so you can walk straight past the disinterested door staff without coughing up. Take the underwhelming back stairs up to the first floor and enter the terribly modern Milestones of Flight hangar. That's a Blériot, and that's a Gipsy Moth, and that's a Fokker, innit? There are rather more planes in here than you'd find stacked up over Heathrow at the start of the Easter holidays, and these are rather more famous too. Just don't step over the protective string for a closer look or one of the guides will bark at you. Along one wall is an extremely detailed Timeline of Flight listing aviation accomplishments every year from 1903 to 2002, which would take at least an hour to read properly. This is good stuff, this. But don't get any ideas about going upstairs to enjoy the state-of-the-art 3D cinema or Air Traffic Control exhibition - they'll probably be "out of bounds" due to lack of staff.
Guess what's in the hangar nextdoor? Yes, lots more planes (and a few helicopters thrown in for good measure). There'll also be also an awful lot of cub-scout-aged boys, caught up in the excitement of aeronautical nirvana, dragging their weary parents around from Kittyhawk to Lockheed. If there's a technologically inspired pre-teen in your family, bring them along to Hendon and they're sure to have a whale of a time plane-spotting. There's even a special section of the museum - Aeronauts - packed with child-friendly interactive experiments. From the whoops of delight I heard coming from this area yesterday afternoon, obviously nobody realised they were swotting up on their Science curriculum.
World class: Passing through Bow Road tube station last night I was intrigued to spot the arrival of a rare and special visitor in the ticket hall - the legendary TfL Opinionometer. This interactive installation takes the form of a small silver keypad on a message board, and TfL use it to collect multiple choice opinions. They stick up a question or two above the buttons, and passing passengers press the options that match what they think. Obviously I wandered over to give TfL a piece of my mind. And here's the question they wanted me to answer...
You what? Bow Road station, world-class? What planet are you on?
I SPY LONDON