The Morden Extension, conceived with a visual conformity to the platforms: 

In order, heading south from Clapham South down to Morden:

The seven stations between Clapham South and Morden were opened as a block as the Morden Extension in 1926 and were all designed by Charles Holden.   There's a deliberately modern feel to the architecture, and a uniformity to the look of the platforms with green, white and black tiling that we shall see repeated station to station on our journey this afternoon.


Despite my maudlin misgivings that no-one really, really wanted to go to a Sewing Machine Museum on a Saturday in  February, after all no-one actually wanted to go to a real, proper art gallery with me, not long after 2pm on Saturday not only had I met gmul , (me taking the conversation from nought to Doctor Who in under 30 seconds) but there were a total of eight of us gathered in the ticket hall at Tooting Bec, with a ninth on his way (poggs would arrive just as soon as his iPod had charged...now, there's an excuse - 'I'm going to be late because I'm so damn 21st Century I can't move without a plethora of personal electronic support', rock and roll dude...). 

I now feel overwhelmed by a desperate need to try to be Clever and Entertaining for all these lovely people who've bothered to make the trek down the Northern line.   No doubt this comes over as Loud and Annoying...After the usual shuffling of feet and indecisiveness we head off hopefully in the right direction.  First thing is to get a picture, though.  I try to get Random Member of the Public to take a picture of our merry band, but nearest chap refuses on the grounds that he doesn't speak English.  What English do you need to press the button?...Christ I do it enough for Japanese tourists who just point and smile.  Welcome to Britain, mate...so here's most of us squinting into the afternoon sun outside the fine Portland stone, with, I think, plinthy being David Bailey (do correct me if wrong).

Awake at six in the morning I lie in the pre-dawn gloaming listening to the irregular drip and splash of rain through guttering and downpipes.  A sky pearl grey and bleak, a damp-in-the-bones sort of day, of wet streets and people scurrying for shelter and pedestrians dodging the malice of taxicabs driving too fast through puddles.  Restless, I borrow a brown astrakhan coat against the weather and set out into the drizzle to run errands far too early before a date for lunch at Angel with girlfriends at midday...

...going to Angel demands wings...


   
Angel is only on one line, the Northern.  It is an oddity in that one of the platforms looks three times wider than the other.  Look, you could play cricket in all that space:


Very peculiar to disembark and have acres of room.  Angel also has the longest escalator, a fact exploited not so long ago when a chap skied down it.  There's video footage of it on YouTube...  Oddly, when I was actually on it, it didn't feel any deeper than normal, but then we were talking about shoes and pillow fights.
      

Travelling through last weekend all the poster boards had been stripped back, unintentionally making a Pollock-Braque mash-up of torn colours.  Accidental bricolage. Shabby, but then that suits the creaking system, and much nicer than being advertised at.

Due to getting sucked back into the work mentality, we're late getting up to Camden to met spangle_kittenwho's come to join us on the adventure for the afternoon. Poor Camden is not looking its best, hidden under scaffolding.




L is already outside, looking beautiful in taffeta.  There's the usual tide of people piling past us, so we decide on heading up as far as the tube is running today, Golders Green, and working our way back towards Chalk Farm.  A one-way system operates on the weekend through Camden Town - up on the escalators, trip tripping down via the 94 stairs in trailing skirts. 

...the last time I went through Waterloo for this project it was in a rush and I was busy being fascinated with playing on the Waterloo & City Line.  It amuses me as it's a whole Underground line with just two stops on it; Waterloo to Bank, Bank to Waterloo, back and forth, back and forth...  

My last job before leaving London was as a Duty Manager at the IMAX Cinema at Waterloo.  Today I wanted to briefly savour the nostalgia of being in Waterloo itself again, so hoped off the Northern Line with the idea of  walking to 'work' through the tunnels to my old site.  Was slightly side-tracked on the way by the sight of the Eurostar platforms shut up and abandoned now that services run to St Pancras... I remember the Eurostar extension opening, and it only seems ten minutes ago, now it's been left to the pigeons.


Bye bye Waterloo Eurostar...



I love cinemas, and as far as groovy sites go, the IMAX is one fantastic place to run, even if it doesn't feel like a local cinema but an 'event destination'.  I miss it; I loved to watch people's faces as they first walked into the auditorium and saw just how big that screen was, and when 3D screenings were on, especially school shows, I'd stand at the back and watch as hundreds of people found they just couldn't resist reaching out and trying to touch the fish or snowflakes that seem to float just in front your face...

It's not in the nicest part of London though...

It was custom-built in the round, on springs to deal with the traffic vibrations, to house the biggest screen in Britain in 1999 and won awards for urban regeneration as it reclaimed land on what was once the infamous Cardboard City under the Bullring roundabout.   There might not be quite the number of homeless now as there were in the 90s, but there's still a resilient handful that have pitches in the tunnels connecting the South Bank to Waterloo Station; an image of poverty and failure that conflicts with the cultural centre/leisure destination that the South Bank wants to promote.  While the church opposite the IMAX ran a soup kitchen, in contrast there were regular police sweeps that just shifted people over the border with the next London borough to keep the place tidy for the rest of us.  Even stencilling the specially commissioned Sue Hubbard poem on the tunnels walls is not going to make the place look any less down-at-heel, but it has become one of my favourite pieces of public art.  I read it every day, and it remained fresh and meaningful.


However, cliched as it is for me to write of the juxtaposition of walking past those living on the streets as one heads to see Beauty & the Beast on a screen 20 metres high,  I loved going to work in a strange circular building plonked in the middle of a roundabout in grim, grey Waterloo.   Trying to get pictures of me with the IMAX behind me however leads to a run in with a Community Police Officer, who despite dozens of other people taking the usual tourist pictures of themselves gurning to the camera, and trainspotters pictures of the absence of the Eurostar, decides it's us who he's going to have a pop at. Why does it have to be me? I am not amused by hobby bobby bustling up to tell us nonsense, and I don't handle it well.  Thankfully B is the voice of reason and calms down my ravings of 'police state' and re-educates policeyman on the rules before I manage to get myself arrested.  And I still don't have the picture I want of my site behind me because the camera is playing up. 

However, once inside the IMAX just the familiar smell of popcorn in the morning gave me a little thrill and a stupid grin on my face.  The manager on duty was one of my old team mates, and as ever on a Saturday, he was dealing with the last minute fallout of staff not showing up...he turned a desperate eye on my sudden appearance in the building and said, 'you don't fancy working today do you?' ...so with very little need for prompting, I soon found myself shucking off my coat and hat and pitching in to tear tickets and give out the 3D glasses to customers slightly surprised to find one of the 'staff' in a rubber corset.  One chap turned to his companion and said triumphantly, 'see, I told you she works here' .  I stayed long enough to deal with the immediate crisis before having to dash to meet spangle_kitten in Camden, but it was tremendous fun to be back there, and of course I couldn't resist the chance of a blag to see Beowulf in 3D later on it the evening, even if J was mean  and didn't give me any freebies...

And you know what: I loved it...instantly I had the seating plan pop up in my mind's eye and the radio calls signs, for three minutes I was nearly 'Victor One' as J and I seated 500 people for Polar Express...

...it's very much later in the evening that we come back for the second time, coming in on the Jubilee Line instead.

The market at Borough is actually closer to London Bridge Station than Borough tube, but it's as good an excuse to collect the station as any.

Years ago, while at Uni I lived over in New Cross, close to where I was studying at Goldsmiths College. Trains from New Cross mainline station go straight into London Bridge, so whenever paying for my studying by temping, chances were I'd end up travelling through the station. Like Waterloo, twice a day London Bridge sees a vast migration of humanity washing through the station...a tide of grey suits focused only on getting from station to underground as quickly as possible. Heads down, taking no prisoners, they sweep through the hallway and down the escalators.



During one summer, I commuted daily from New Cross to Queensway...Northern Line out of London Bridge to Bank, up the spiral staircase to pick up the Central to Queensway. It gets hot and sticky, and there are too many people, all in a hurry. But at least I knew it was only for a limited number of weeks before the more off-peak casual temping of term time.

I get fractious though at the heat, the crowding and the stone faces. Finally, after being forced on another a cattle truck of a train, crammed in with people of dubious personal hygiene, all whey-faced and souless in grey serge, once the train finally gets into London Bridge and we all spill out, I lose my temper. I'm wearing a burnt orange crushed velvet trouser suit; very 30's cardigan style jacket and beach pyjama pants, and stand out as the only smear of colour in the world. I climb onto the back of the bent metal platform bench and holler at the top of my voice:

"You're all zombies!"

There may even have been manical laughing. There was certainly the shaking of my tiny fist at an uncaring world.

No-one pays the slightest attention; the grey tide of suits continues to pour past, hands reaching out only to push travelcards through the ticket barrier. No-one stops, no-one actually looks up; the station staff are unmoved.

I climb down and head towards the barriers myself and go to work.

Later, as the summer comes to an end, I am stuck on a train heading home. The train is packed as ever, in fact I'm squatting in the baggage carriage as it's the only available space. The train has been stationary outside New Cross Gate for over ten minutes. Everyone is too hot, fed up and tense. An annoucement comes over the PA to say 'signal problem sorted and we'll be on the move in a moment'. I jump to my feet with an involuntary hurrah; I am dreaming of buying an ice lolly from the shop outside. People rustle newspapers in disapproval at my enthusiam. It's uncool to be happy in London. A face appears over one paper, and chap exclaims"

"Ahh! You're the zombie girl".

And then he blushes and goes back to hiding behind his paper. I wave at him from the platform as he peeps at me as the train pulls away. He looks startled.

London Bridge Underground looks nothing like it did when I was last travelling through it daily. Nowadays you get to the tube through the mainline station concourse down through the beautiful fluted ceilings of the old brick-lined vaults, past groovy little posh shops selling French pasteries, deli food and expensive exotic flowers. What most people don't know is this chi-chi retail experience used to be the morgue for the nearby London hospital. They keep that bit quiet...




London Bridge becomes station number 50. I still haven't been to the London Dungeons.

Unsure of the route of the march we stood in the station entrance, staring at the local map, trying to decide which way to go, until we realised we just had to follow the yelling and whistling, which arrived conveniently just outside at that moment. A female black cab driver beeped her horn enthusiatically, and rude gestures from people on buses were rebuffed with such vigour the man in question quailed. I hope he soiled himself. I am Diva, hear the PVC squeak.

Sadly, in our enthusiasm to get on with the demonstrating, we forgot to collect the station on camera, so on Monday on the final leg of our jaunt G and I went back up the Northern Line hoping to walk from Goodge Street to the British Museum for a spot of culture.


( the gaggle of British Museum back room boys standing outside having a fag did not bode well )

We start this leg of the tour from North Greenwich. I am amazed to see the Millenium Dome is right outside the station, flanked by soaring aerofoils and concrete flags, for no explainable reason other than they look cool against the blue winter sky. They fascinate me; they should be generating electricity. It is as surprising to see the Dome really is right there as it is to see how close Stonehenge is to the road. However, there's a fight going on aesthetically between the vaguely fascist 'tomorrow belongs to us' exhuberant brutalist architecture and the mundane world of bus stations and carparks, vast tarmaced vista stretching to the horizon, the British way of not being quite finished yet, all chipboard hoardings and hazard tape. All very 1984 as staged by the Beeb with Peter Cushing in the lead. As much as I love the Edwardian sections of the tube, I can't help but love the clean lines and open spaces on the Jubilee; the proud grandeur they were striving for in being overtly modernist in design - to be as 'of the time' as much as the early tube stations were of theirs, the acres of reflective, toughened glass, brushed steel and superstructure on view. Nothing softened by anything organic or green. However, it's gleaming and shiny now, and pleasantly deserted at two in the afternoon. Will it retain the sharpness and futurist beauty after twenty years of foot-traffic and budgeted maintenance? The noise of the now pentrates the open station...(oh yes, I have a degree from Goldsmith's and I'm not afraid to use it)


blue glass mosiac tiling on the support beams...

Still, the expanses of glass and chrome, are shiny shiny surfaces to play with. Having someone with you to take pics, rather than accosting a random stranger who might nick yer camera, and in front of whom you'd feel stupid clambering about on street furniture pulling silly poses, means we can muck about. No staff are about to tell us off either.


Needless to say, pvc has little friction and is very grabby; I get stuck on the post...bet that doesn't happen to Catwoman. We are giggling like fools as G extricates me. Blimey - my arse is so shiny I can actually see people reflected in it. Sadly angle wrong to reflect the station name...


Up in the ticket hall, we spot the perfect location for General Bamford to survey her domain...

Sitting in a supermarket trolley...hot and sweaty following the Bauhaus gig. Pubs full of goths and street hawkers selling t-shirts and posters. Staff at the tube station alternating between baffled and blase