I was impressed. It's not every underground station that can boast it's own customised, hand painted customer information whiteboard. And that wasn't the only cultural surprise here. But I'll get back to that, because outside, another local curio was waiting..

One stop up from Kings's Cross on the Piccadilly Line, Caledonian Road is a 'step free' station with lifts that descend directly to platform level. Once outside, turn right, and a few minutes up the road you'll find Pentonville Prison. Now, they must have a good sense of humour around here, because directly opposite the jail is a cafe called - The Breakout. I may have been tempted to go in and order a bacon sarnie with a file in, but sadly it was shut. Maybe they ran out of Porridge..
 
I reckon all prisons should have a greasy spoon outside, for all those freshly sprung and famished escapees. I can just hear hear Morgan Freeman now:  Andy crawled to freedom through five-hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can't even imagine, or maybe I just don't want to. Five-hundred yards... and then he had a full english with an extra sausage.
 
Back in the station ticket hall, I suddenly become aware of the music, elegant, stress-busting, classical music, filling the air. I remark to a staff member how unusual and pleasant it is and that anything that enhances the passengers journey has to be a good thing, right?He then bursts my bubble somewhat by informing me that management had sent them a compilation CD to play, to try and discourage the homeless and youths from congregating..''There's a few stations do it'' he says,'' Wood Green, Elephant & Castle..''
 
And no doubt they're also hoping to discourage any outlaws from the local nick from hanging around the station trying to beg the price of a cup of tea from the nearby cafe.

I walk past the delicately hand painted whiteboard and enter the lift, the gentle strains of Debussy or someone carressing in my ears and then fading as the doors slide shut..surreal.
 
On the journey home, my thoughts return to the shuttered Breakout Cafe. Maybe it wasn't shut at all. I might just have missed the sign with the arrow pointing across the road, that said 'Enter By Tunnel Only'...

And another famous Prison I bumped into recently : http://tubeblography.posterous.com/east-acton-w12

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This station, which reminds me a bit of a seaside pier, is where I used to go to get to Hillingdon Hospital. I went there for talking therapy related to CFS/M.E which i've had for some years. But I was eventually discharged as I was often too ill to attend and it didn't seem to be having any effect anyway. The nearer, more covenient hospitals, in Ealing and Hammersmith, both closed their CFS units long ago.
 
In today's The Lancet,(Feb 18th)  the results of a 4 million pound study into treatments for M.E, The PACE Trials, have concluded that CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) and GET (Graded Exercise Therapy) are beneficial to people with M.E. All the big M.E. patient support groups have, as one, reared up and condemned these results as inaccurate and contrary to their own studies. The PACE Trials have used only patients that can travel for therapy and have not included any children or the severely affected and bedbound, in this study. These therapies may be helpful for some sufferers but this study has completey ignored the plight of those most severely affected by M.E. and for whom pushing themselves to exercise is likely to make more ill. It also ignores all the other common synptoms of M.E. such as dizziness,m nausea and pain.
 
The proposed treatments are based on the principle that the patient has become de-conditioned to physical activity and believes theirself to be ill and needs help in getting their mindset corrected and their physical being acclimatized, once again, to physical exercise and activity.

That (bitter) laughter you can hear? Oh that's just the thousands of M.E. patients who regularly push themselves to do necessary physical activity like looking after their kids, doing household chores, trying to work, and who then pay the consequences by ending up wheelchair and bedbound as a result. That's not deconditioning. That's illness.
 
I was not surprised to see that the study was partially funded by the Department for Work and Pensions. How interesting. Maybe that's why sick children were excluded from the trials. They can't be assessed as fit for work.

The study seems to be an exercise in cherry picking participants from more moderately affected sufferers in order to achieve results that fitted their pre-set agenda. 

This trial stinks and buys directly into The Daily Mail reader's  'get out of bed and do something useful' kind of crap. You'd expect that of the Mail, but publications such as The Lancet and The Gaurdian, should be totally ashamed of  their part in printing up this garbage without a statement of response for balance. You'd have hoped they'd be informed and unbiased enough to know that a one off, deeply flawed study into such a complex illness isn't going to provide the definitive answer. So now, the world's press seems to have run with the story in an over-zealous, at last, we-can-now-publish-the-truth, kind of way..disgusting.

And if it's a psychological illness, why, last November, were M.E. patients banned from donating blood?
 
Don't ask m.e...
 

You don't hear many songs about M.E as a rule, but here's The Streets - Trying To Kill M.E.   
 

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If you ever go on a Dr Who Tour of London, which I haven't done, you might pass through Goodge St, as it was used in several episodes in 1968's Web of Fear, when the second Dr, played by Patrick Troughton finds the TARDIS trapped in space and surrounded by a web in the underground station. 

This is one of 8 London tube stations that have deep level shelters. Built to remedy the shortcomings of public shelters after the 1940-41 World War 11 Bliz, these deep level ones were equipped with bunk beds, air conditioning (of sorts), canteens, toilets and washing facilities. They were designed to house 8,000 shelterers. Then the Government in their worldly war wisdom, decided that the stations would be to expensive to run. So some, like this one, never got to be utilized used by the public at all. This one actually became General Eisenhower's Headquarters, from where he broadcast the announcement of the invasion of France.
 
Whilst the public huddled in much more cramped and basic shelters, no doubt..
 
Oh, and as far as I am aware, there is no truth to the rumour that Dr Who geeks are currently lobbying Transport For London and demanding the station's name be changed, in honour of the Doctor, to Ood St.. 
 
 
 
 
 

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See the full gallery on Posterous

I know it looks a bit stalkery but, rest assured, no one was freaked out or disturbed during the making of this photo.
 
But it was indeed, at this very station that my favourite stalking scene of all time, cinematically speaking, took place; That of the the businessman, in An American Werewolf in London. Through the deserted, twisty and turny, shiny tiled station corridors and onto the escalator. The breifcase went flying. And then..

A few months ago, I randomly met the director of that movie, John Landis, in, of all places, my local KFC. ( blog link below) and had the pleasure of telling him that American Werewolf is one of my most favourite films ever. For trivia buffs, did you know that during the brilliantly hairy tube chase sequence, a poster for the porno film, showing when David meets Jack and his zombie friends in the cinema, is displayed on the station wall?

Meanwhile, back in the real life, a recent violent attack by thugs on a passenger at an unmanned station, West Finchley, prompted another war of words between the RMT union leader Bob Crowe and London Mayor, Boris Johnson.Reminiscent of Thatcher and Scargill, these two are locked in a dispute over proposed job cuts. Boris recently made some unhelpfully shitty remarks, hinting at the possibility of a driverless tube system. Nice.
 
Worryingly, the Evening Standard recently revealed that leaked documents, obtained by the RMT union, showed that London Underground bosses planned to leave one in three stations unmanned for part of the day because of staff and cash cuts. Union members obviously believe that the proposed cuts will damage customer service and leave passengers feeling less safe at stations. Neither side seem in the mood for compromise  and so more 24 hour strikes seem to be on the cards for some time to come.
 
But is cost-cutting the real reason Boris is so keen to downsize the workforce? Or does he have an an ulterior motive? Sometimes I look at him and think..hmm..that hair, always so mussed up, like he's been awake all night. And then it all becomes clear. Maybe he has been. Because Boris hides a terrible secret. Each full moon, he transforms into some kind of hellish, blonde lycanthrope, stalking the underground system, preying on the weak and vulnerable. Like all good Con-Dems do. Yes, Beware the moon lads, it's: 

Cameron's Mayorwolf in London.

(Meeting John Landis - Kentucky Fried Coincidence - http://hurstm.posterous.com/kentucky-fried-coincidence )

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I've never been in prison. I've never visited anyone in prison. I hadn't until recently even been past a prison. Then I found Womwood Scrubs, which has to be one of the most prison-ish names for a prison ever. It's one that i'd heard fairly regularly growing up, it being often referenced in dramas and sit-coms. On the Sweeny and in Porridge, men might be  referred to as being 'banged up in the Scrubs for a ten stretch'.. It also cropped up on the news in the occasional I.R.A rooftop protest.
 
More recently, I believe that the baby faced and shambolic Pete Doherty set up temporary residence there..
 
I never realised that it was so close to East Acton Station, which is only a couple of stops from where I live. One night, whilst looking for an address, I got a bit lost and found myself outside the walls of the iconic  'penal dustbin' as a former governor once described it.  It's not the most salubrious area, it has to be said, and several dodgy looking characters in the vicinity did nothing to quell my growing sense of unease..
 
And then the other night, I was back at East Acton station. I thought of all the Category B's doing their time nearby and hoped that the hoodie at the top of the steps, wasn't one of them, freshly escaped and looking for a hostage to take on the run with him..

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Before you ask, and I know you were about to; vitreous enamel panels. That's what they are. Credit to Annabel Grey for designing them. I like them a lot.   
 
Course, if white, blue tinged marble is more your architectural bag then you want the actual 'marble arch' above ground  which is made of Italian Cararra marble, the same stuff as Michelangelo's David, apparently.
 
Call me a philistine but I've never paid that much attention to the arch itself. I am told that there are  three little rooms at the top that have in times past, been used for police surveillance. As far as I know, Michelangelo's David has no secret police headquarters about it's person. I think there's a little Dick joke somewhere there but i'm not going to try it.
 
One other thing about this station. There is a shunting neck to the west of it,apparently, thus allowing trains from Oxford Circus to terminate here. What's a shunting neck you ask? Okay, hang on, let me get this right, it's a short length of track laid parallel to the main line for the purpose of allowing a train to shunt back into a siding or rail yard without occupying the main running-line.
 
You're welcome.
 

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White City is one of the stations whose walls boast a selection of posters marking the 100th anniversary of London Underground's immediately recognizable 'Roundel' logo. The posters show copies of works commissioned by Art on the Underground, keen to promote the Roundel as a contemporary symbol of a world class transport system.

The image here, however, is not one of them. This is simply some accidental poster remnant chaos on the eastbound platform. I always enjoy coming across these humble examples of 'accidental art'  that crop up all over the network, the products of things like ancient posters, damaged paintwork, watermarks and rust.
 
I don't suppose anyone would dream of describing this image as being, say,  'a poignant comment on the transient nature of man's journey through life' or of being  'symbolic of the irrevocably damaged and torn relationships that constantly, unknowingly cross paths,daily'. 

But if the image had been constructed intentionally, would we have been surprised if a critic had described it as such? Probably not.

Art on The Underground describes it's mission as providing 'a world-class programme of contemporary art that enriches the Tube environment and our customers’ journey experience', To me, these fluky tableaus add just as much to the travelling aesthetic as do the undeniably accomplished, commissioned works on display.

So I like to think of these alternative, random station adornments as representing the other side of London life, the forgotten scrappage, the disenfranchised and the overlooked;
 
The Uncommissioned.

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The stop just before Wembley Central on the Bakerloo line, where I changed trains the other day,  Stonebridge Park is, it has to be said, not one of the most picturesque stations i've ever been to. Indeed, pretty and grim are the first words that come to mind.
 
But a friend said they thought that this picture reminded them of a Lite-Brite. Not something i've ever come across myself, but it's an old toy made by Hasbro that's described as 'A light box with small colored pegs that fit into a grid of holes and together create a lit piece of art'. Well, the image does look a little manufactured, I think, as if those holes have been filled in by hand.
 
I've since looked up a couple of old Lite-Brite ads on YouTube. All good retro fun, and if you're looking for last minute crimbo pressie ideas, well you can still get hold of them. Don't all rush at once...
 
Lite-Brite Ad (70's)

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Ah, Echinacea, I've been meaning to talk to you. I'm not happy with your work here.I'm afraid i'm going to have to let you go...
 
See, i've been taking said herb, in tablet form, for weeks and yet here I am with a stinking cold, the worst i've had for a long time. I'm sure if I went back to Holland & Barrett, they'd say, Oh, you need the more expensive, concentrated tincture. That'll be another £15.00 please. Yeah, right.
 
And I think I know exactly where and when where I caught this cold. Or do I?
 
My heart says that it lurgified me whilst standing for an age in the freezing cold, waiting for a 223 bus outside South Kenton Station the other night, where I took this pic, blowing into my hands, occasionally stepping into the road and craning my neck to see if the bus was coming, wondering whether I should walk but thinking that if I did, then the bus would be bound to go sailing past me seconds after. So I waited,  chilled and shivering and then later that night, my rotten cold came on, so it must have been then.
 
But my (congested) head says that you don't get colds from being cold or having wet hair or anything like that but only by being in contact with an infected person, probably about 48 hours before the symptoms appear, sooo..i'm plumping for Ryman's Stationer's in Kensington, a couple of days ago, when the cashier gave me my change. I reckon the germs were on the fiver..

That leaves me in the middle of a Cold Class War, quite relevant to London at the moment. There are some  who would no doubt look down their (runny) noses at the Common Kenton Cold, and then others who would shout, sneer and maybe hurl a petrol bomb at the police cordon protecting the altogether more upmarket Kensington Strain..So get Kettling lads, and i'm not talking hot drinks here..nudge nudge, wink wink, a nod's as good as a Tuition Fee to a blind Lib Dem leader who breaks his promises..know what I mean, squire....?
 
So, as I was saying, Echinacea, I am very disappointed in you, you were supposed to have been watching my back and you let me down. So i'm sorry but after this bottle is finished, i'm not taking you any more. And I don't know what you're grinning about, Vitamin C, you can fuck off as well.. I've had it with the pair of you, you cheeky, expensive supplemental wastes of space.. 

(Class Warrors are invited to replace Echinacea and Vitamic C with Charles and Camilla, in that last bit). 

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I was big into board games as a kid. Monopoly was a favourite and I particularly liked to try and buy up all the stations, of which Liverpool St was one.
 
The other day whilst looking around the shops, I came across a round Monopoly. No, doesn't look right, wouldn't want to play that. I always fancied an American board though, but never got around to acquiring one.
 
Come to think of it, I no longer have the British trad board either. I don't play very often but when I do it's on my boy's Simpsons version where you can buy such locations as Itchy & Scratchy Land, the Kwik-E-Mart, Burns Manor and Springfield Station. Yes, I feel a game coming on so shall have to try and prise him free from Call of Duty Black Ops and set the board up soon..
 
Point of Order: If I go to my sister's in Sheffield, they use the original board and they do that thing of putting all the money from fines onto Free Parking, then someone can win the dough when they land on it. That is NOT in the official rules and I don't like it. So there.

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Rush hour in the City of London and as you can see, there has been a disaster of monumental proportions.
 
Some Evil SuperVillain has only gone and peeled the roof off the station like a sardine tin and flung the oncoming packed Central Line train into the air. But luckily, the Earth's mightiest superheroes, the Marvel Avengers (on holdiday in the U.K), have arrived just in time to catch the train and, after flying through the air with it in their safe Superhero hands, have set it down farther up the track, a safe distance from the carnage.
 
So smooth was the operation and so tight-lipped are London commuters that they barely register even a hint of surprise or annoyance..

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A couple of minutes walk from Tower Hill station and you'll come to Tower Gateway which serves the DLR (Docklands Light Railway). Twenty miles of driverless, overground trains and if you can get a seat right at the front, there's big square windows, giving you a clear view of the track. A bit like being on a long, straight and fairly slow rollercoater. I like the front seat.
 
As you enter the station via an up escalator, look skywards at the domed roof and you'll see the view pictured here. A bit of an illusion, as the centre seems to swell a little as you focus on it. Well, it does to me anyway..

(Also, scrolling up and down seems to make for some more wibbly effects. Hee hee)

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What can I say? I love this pipe. Or vent or duct, what ever you want to call it.
 
To me, it looks like it belongs more in The Nostromo from Alien than in a Tube Station in Kensington & Chelsea.
 
So maybe, above ground, whilst people eat and shop in this high class, affluent area of West London, down below, something is growing and waiting. 
 
In the vent..

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What is it that makes us so uncomfortable about someone reading over our shoulders?
 
I mean, it's not as if they're staring us in the face, is it? They're aren't touching us. They're simply sharing some printed words in a magazine or newspaper that we're holding. On London transport, that publication is often a free one, picked up from the empty seat of departed passenger. So we don't own the words, we didn't write them, they aren't secret. But still we feel a bit edgy because a stranger's eyes are reading what we're reading. One for the psychologists.
 
And then, of course, there are some people to whom it matters not a jot who..or what is looking over their shoulder.
 
Meanwhile, in a Tube Station, far far away...
 

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I was trying to describe to my Canadian friend what Bonfire Night was like in this country when I was growing up.
 
Completely different to the protracted week long organised displays that you get now. Back then, whatever night of the week Nov 5th night fell on, that's when people had their fires and parties. And there were improvised pyres aplenty. As I recall, every other garden, yard or bit of spare land seemed to have a good blaze going. The air was all thick, acrid smoke and underfoot, wet leaves and spent fireworks. Excited children's cries were often punctuated by blaring sirens, reminding us of how dangerous it was back then, and why it all had to change..
 
The only fireworks I saw this year were vicariously, and came from a distant display somewhere near West Acton Station which is very local to me. When it gets dark, the ticket office here lights up, a bright burning orange that always reminds me of the bonfires we used to have as kids.
 
And I hardly heard a single siren this year. Hurrah.

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If you come out of the station on the Tooley Street entrance, there is always a top hatted gent with blood streaming from their eyes or a Jack The Ripper victim or something,  touting  for business by guiding you towards the London Dungeon straight opposite. That's what I had in mind for a picture when I was standing around outside.
 
But then I saw this chap. Nothing to do with said grisly tourist attraction. Not sure exactly what or whom this guy in his morph suit and bowler hat, was promoting. Maybe he's a Watchmen wannabe called The Commuter. Perhaps he just likes hanging around stations looking like a Batman Arch Enemy
 
Holy shit.

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Happy Halloween from Ealing Common Station!

Mind The Gap..

Frightened Fence's Halloween and How To Make A Pavement Goblin

http://hurstm.posterous.com/frightened-fencess-halloween

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I've been to this place many times so I don't know why I never noticed this canopy before. What colour would you call that?  Tortoiseshell, I suppose. I can think of only three explanations. 1.Some funky designer has been given a free reign to gussy things up. No. 2. It's tobacco stained from the pre-smoking ban era and Harrow residents were the most voracious puffers in London. No. So that would just leave 3, then, years of sun damage. Wow. Maybe next Summer will be the final straw and the whole thing will ignite..
 
And as for tortoiseshell, that always reminds me of some little round specs I was made to wear as a ten year old. Tortoiseshell frames. Brings back memories of 'Hey, four eyes..!' in the playground.. Harrowing times..

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Think West Ham and you will probably think football, but this isn't actually the nearest station to the ground. That's Upton Park.
 
Not that I know that much about football. Although I come from a town that has two teams, Sheffield's Wednesday and United, I only went to a few matches as a kid. I went to both grounds and was an avid football card collector, but it wasn't a burning passion for me. Not being a diehard fan could be a bit tricky at school where older lads would sometimes corner you and ask the dreaded question 'Wednesday or United'? If you said neither, that wasn't good enough. 'Choose' would be the bully boy response. Which seemed rather harsh, to dead-leg someone for guessing wrong rather than for their allegiance to a rival club.
 
Only a few of my football cards have survived but amongst them are a few Hammer's players. Let's see, I've got Clyde Best, Bobby Moore, Trevor Brooking, Billy Bonds and a very young Harry Redknapp who is described on the back as a 'fast and tricky old fashioned winger'. Right, who, wants to do swaps..?

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I know, strictly speaking, it counts as vandalism, but poster defacing is basically childishness rather than a crime. And sometimes it can be quite an amusing distraction whilst you wait for your delayed train. It usually takes the form of adding a moustache/beard/specs/penis or the blacking out of a tooth. Sticking some chewing gum in place as nasal discharge is also quite popular. A few expletives daubed here and there and bob's your uncle - Poster Babylon!
 
Often, the bigger the celebrity, the more rabid the scrawly damage becomes. So in this example, the victim, ex-Libertine turned solo artist Carl Barat, gets off fairly lightly. No added facial hair, no phallic sympbols and someone has even kindly removed the nasal chewing gum for him, leaving just the stain. Or maybe it fell off. And let's face it, he could have been called a lot worse than 'NOB'. Indeed, the question is begged, which definition of nob is actually being used here? Is it simply the variant (or more likely misspelling) of knob? Or are they calling him a 'person of high wealth and social status'?
 
And there's always the outside chance that it simply refers to his large, poster sized head. You don't hear nob used to mean the head, these days. Actually, the only time I have heard that definition used is in the nursery rhyme, Jack and Jill. You may recall that when Jack has had his little tumble, he is then sent to Old Dame Dob, who 'patched his nob with vinegar and brown paper'. Well,I presume it refers to poor Jack's head and not the other meaning..you know, the variant spelling of kn..surely not.. I mean, vinegar and brown paper..Nooooo..!

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