Tube reflections

Tube reflections, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

Outside Farringdon tube – peered through the window in the fence to see if anything interesting was happening on the Crossrail works and noticed the reflections behind.

10 seconds later and perfect timing – the ghostly figure and building plus tube train in the right space.

Still, nothing interesting happening.

A Transport of Delight

This weekend my parents came down to see our flat and have a bit of an explore of London. After our narrowboat trip earlier this year we felt the best way to start Sunday would be a trip on the Waterbus from Little Venice to Camden Lock.

Waterbuses pass at speed

The Waterbus provides a daily service about once per hour along this stretch of the Regents canal, with one intermediate stop at London Zoo! Compared to the canals we travelled on ‘up north’ the Regents seems very deep – at least 1½ traffic cones! From here we walked round to Camden stables market where we grabbed some cheap eats. It’s no Borough market but cheap enough not to hurt too much! The market has changed a lot since I last went – with the near completion of a new huge multi-story building.  It was as busy as ever though…

Camden Stables Market

From here we headed up to the tube at Chalk Farm and continued north as far as Golders Green where for Sunday only there were old buses running to the RAF museum at Hendon. But en route for Hendon the heavens opened really quite seriously – giving Britain’s finest in stereotypical bank holiday weather!

Britain's finest designs - together in the rain!

RAF Hendon museum of course added aeroplanes in to the mix and we enjoyed the first hall of aircraft which included a Eurofighter typhoon and a 3D sales pitch of the Eurofighter. I haven’t been to the cinema to see a 3D film and I don’t think I will unless they can figure it out without the stupid glasses. Just rubbish.  The film itself was OK, except for some reason they missed out the inevitable mindless killing of innocents in their demonstration of the laser guided bombs! I do wonder how long it will be before we just let machines fight it out for us.

Eurofighter at RAF Hendon

As it was getting to late afternoon (and the ancient buses would soon have to be retired to their garages) we had to leave the museum before having fully gone round it – so I think doing that properly will be on my to do list. If I can get round before Cameron cuts free museums anyway…!

From here we headed back on the old bus to Mill Hill East tube – the story of which is told in this excellent documentary, Unfinished London, before continuing east by regular public transport back our flat and ready for tea. It was nice to explore a new part of London for us – though I think we probably tried to fit too much in.  Must learn not to cram together ideas!

Of course there is a full set of photos on flickr.

(Note: post title shamelessly plagiarised, from Flanders and Swann!)

Tracyan I love you

Tracyan I love you, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

London, being a big city seems to attract lots of tagging and graffiti of all sorts. However one place I didn’t expect to see graffiti was on the rails of tube!

I’ve forgotten where I saw this. Probably the central line as that’s where I spend my time shuttling backwards and forwards each day between home and the office.

Have *I* Got News For You…

Last night I got the chance to queue for Have I Got News For You. It’s the kind of stuff London dreams are made of (well, a few of them) and a great reason for living in the city… Having queued and been disappointed before we headed off early arriving about 1h30 before doors! 1½ hours of cold didn’t matter too much when we got into the studio.

It was widely reported beforehand that one guest would be Bob Crow, leader of the RMT so perhaps it could be a great setup.

Alas, as another blog notes (http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2009/11/27/bob-crowe-on-have-i-got-news-for-you/) it was not to be. Pitted against Bob and Paul were Ian and Jimmy Carr.

Bob came on to a chorus of boo’s. There were the inevitable late and strike jokes. Bob hit back with some assumptions about Ian’s upbringing. There were awkward silences many “moving on” moments.

Nevertheless, if you get the chance to go – do it. Be prepared to queue for ages, it is worth it.

More Olde Worlde Tube

On Friday I stupidly trusted the bus. Going up to Marylebone from work would be easy I though – I have 45 minutes, the no2 runs from Victoria. Easy.

Epic fail.

By the time I had crawled all of 10 metres along Oxford St I was late. Very late.

But… this did force a change of plan. A new meeting place and a trip into Marble Arch tube which is currently closed a lot for refurbishment works. It seems they really do just put adverts over adverts:

Great to see that history is sort of preserved – even if it is hidden most of the time!

Blackfriars

On Friday I took a slight detour on the way home from work. The district line wasn’t too well so I ended up leaping off at Blackfriars with at least a 5 minute wait to fill out. From Monday the station is closed, so I thought why grab a few shots with the phone.

Leaving the platform itself, I found they’d already started work – by sanding down the posters! This meant some pretty historical (histerical?) posters were on display. I’ve dated the Leathal Weapon one to 1998 but some of the others looked much, much older…

If you need to get around Blackfriars during the closure – see  http://tinyurl.com/4z2k7z

Do not pass go

Yes, today was interesting! Ruth got up really early to go to the gym. About an hour later, she’d made it as far as Leytonstone – one stop down the line towards London. So sensibly, I decided I’d log on and find out about working from home…

A lunch time I took a break and walked up the village centre where I grabbed a few photos and ingredients for a nice warm cooked breakfast. Mmmm.

More photos available at http://alansrandomness.fotodock.co.uk/c1647257.html