The usual plan applies - drop baggage at Left Luggage at Paddington so as to be unencumbered for further exploration.  Only I'd planned without the Tour De France, Live Earth and  Wimbledon filling the capital with other weekend travellers, ensuing a massive queue. Mostly full of women dressed in bright yellow, right down to ribbons in their hair like Sandra Dee in Grease - another mass hen party thing, I suspect - is this a new social phenomenon, large roaming gangs of ladies-in-some-sort-of-costume out for weekend frolics? I am baffled...

Even more baffling is why is the Tour De France starting in London, or is it now Londres,  clue in the title, people, eh?  I envisage them all tearing round the Hanger Lane Gyratory before nipping off to Waterloo and the Eurostar...

Anyway, musing on this, am barged by ratty studenty type trying to queue jump, claiming he thought this might be Lost Property and is promptly disabused of both this erroneous idea and brought up sharp on The Manners of Queuing.   This is Britain goddamit it, and along with tennis and cricket, queuing is a national sport. Woe betide any spotty youth trying to worm his way to the front when there's a good half an hour of standing about to be done...so, about 40 minutes later than planned we toddle north up the Bakerloo Line.

First stop Warwick Avenue. There are severe delays on the Bakerloo so we are carefully timing our collecting to co-ordinate nipping upstairs and outside, take pictures, nose about, and get back down to the platform in time for the next train - this gives us 11 minutes.



I have no memory of ever being at Warwick Avenue but on emerging we are both hit by sudden deja-vu...this involves jumping about and going 'bloody hell' loudly. The one and only time of passing through this station before was to meet up with friends at an incredibly poncey gastropub somewhere in the vicinity.  Place was hateful.  All blocky wood furniture and leather seating; the kind of place that didn't serve chips, but 'handcut french fries' and came with homemade aoli rather than ketchup.  It probably had write-ups in Wallpaper, and was definitely a place to 'be seen' in, to be smug about sitting there...an uncomfortable night, and unsurprisingly, we've never been back. Blinking in the Sunday sunshine we are giggling to ourselves at the utter pretension of the horrible place, and of the dreadful self satisfied people it was created to milk, of which, given how busy it was, there are plenty out there willing to be duped into feeling more important than they actually are by the judicious use of clever PR.


So with a shudder we set about taking pictures of the charming little hut in the centre of the traffic island. You see these little huts dotted about around London and there purpose is to give London taxi-cabbies a place for a nice cup of tea, a bit of a sit down and a wee...this one, with a slate roof and verdis gris walls is particularly jolly. I am very curious about the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust, and why they think it worthy that cabbies have a place to put the kettle on.





I climb about on the railings...


Behind us is a very starkly Modernist church.  The spire thrusts itself towards the sky as though it could pierce the very firmament.

 
Our eleven minutes is nearly up, so we head back downstairs, where there are loads of lovely details.  We are taking photos of the tiling when a disembodied voice booms out 'customers are reminded that you must ask permission before taking photographs'.  I hate this!  For one, as the LUL website itself states we don't need any special permission for personal photos and secondly I hate the Voice of Authority From On High meant to shame me, as of course we get stared at by everyone else tootling through to the escalators.   As there's no member of staff  to debate with, I reply loudly to the ceiling that I certainly do not, and carry on...witness below the escalator itself with arched surround with flaky paint, and the delectable wooden information box on the platform level.


 

Maida Vale is a revelation.

When we arrive, I wonder idly after the Encounter With Disembodied Authority at Warwick Avenue whether we will get any grief for taking pictures here, whether Warwick Avenue have phoned ahead, but this is just silly paranoia.  Staff here seem more baffled by our interest than bothered.  It seems a slow Sunday morning for them, and chap in the ticket office is more interested in reading his paper than interfering with us in our pursuit of art.

This part of the Bakerloo Line is being renovated - indeed Regent's Park has only recently reopened after being closed for months - and I chat with the chap in one of the ticket booths about the renovations.  He seems exasperated at the whole thing - it can only go on at night so the idea that they'll be done in another two months strikes him as massively ambitious.  Meanwhile, we're goggling at the gorgeous mosaics - both on the walls and the floor of the ticket hall.  It's like taking up your living room carpet and discovering a Roman Villa underneath. Sad that it's so patchy, just an echo if its past splendor.



Looking down is one thing...but look up! Roundel-tastique!!!