'Life In The Fast Lane'

Day 1 (Part 2)

 

Acton Town - Aldgate - Aldgate East - All Saints

 

From Acton Town the District Line goes all the way to Aldgate East (and beyond). Astute readers will perhaps have noticed that Aldgate East is of course the fifth station on my list, not the fourth, which is Aldgate. But as it's only a short stroll from the one to the other I hope my readers will forgive me if I pretend not to see it when I get off the train, and only metaphorically open my eyes again when I arrive at Aldgate.

 

While I am waiting for the next District Line train, however, I count no less than four Piccadilly Line trains entering and leaving the station on the platform just a few feet away. The route to Aldgate using the Piccadilly Line would necessarily be a more convoluted one, requiring at least one change, but I can't help feeling it would nevertheless be substantially quicker. But then, I remind myself, perhaps that's why I'm doing this - to get me to slow down, and look around.

 

My travelling companions on the District Line, when it eventually arrives, are a mixed bunch. There's a scholarly looking gentleman in a tweed coat, flat cap and rather incongruous scarlet suede trousers, reading a history of the English Civil War (him, not the trousers); a twenty-something male of Eastern-European appearance; and a middle-aged couple. The wife of the couple is blind, and is assisted to her seat by her husband who then spends the rest of the journey complaining about his sore throat. This annoys me for reasons I cannot adequately explain.

 

Palin or Bryson would by now of course have struck up a conversation with one (or probably all) of these, and be regaling you with the amusing anecdotes they entertained him with. I, however, am still to escape the clutches of the "unwritten rule" of the Underground - namely, "Thou shalt not say a word, or indeed make eye-contact with any other person, and shall instead seek out for the forty-eighth time that poster about hair-loss, in the vain hope that there may be a syllable of it you haven't yet read, so that you can divert your mind from the mind-shattering isolation of it all".

 

Either that or you're actually reading Michael Palin or Bill Bryson, in which case you're deaf and blind to the world about you anyway.

 

As we enter Victoria station, the driver utters the immortal words "Please mind the gap between the train and the platform". "Mind the gap". Ah, now that's the Underground in a nutshell.... So rapt am I by the familiar words, that I almost miss the next announcement and the news that this train will in fact be terminating at Tower Hill, one stop before Aldgate East, so that unless I wait for another train (which given my experience at Acton Town could be a long wait) I must walk to my destination from Tower Hill.

 

This does at least mean that the alphabetical order will be preserved, and like many Underground stations, the two are so close that it may in fact be as quick (if not quicker - a fact which surprises many people, including most Londoners) to walk anyway.

 

It also means that by taking the five minute stroll from Tower Hill to Aldgate, I happen upon a street called "Crutched Friars". I have no idea who these friars were, nor why their crutches merited such celebration. And why "friars" plural? Was it such a dangerous time for monks? Were their legs in constant peril? Did a freak accident cripple an entire monastery? And, having been struck down, why did they (presumably) all hobble along to this particular spot on their crutches?

 

Such are my ponderings as I approach Aldgate. The station itself, which sits in the shadow of number 30, St Mary Axe - or "The Gherkin", as it is more commonly known - is an uninspiring place, and I didn't think I’d linger long.

 

Aldgate - It has a newsagent's next to it

However, just up the road, and a surprising deviation from the skyline behind it, is an odd wooden structure that catches my eye…

Paleys Upon Pilers - visit it soon before
they remember they were going to take it down

It’s called “Paleys Upon Pilers”, (or Palace Upon Pillars – thanks, Mr Google, you’re a star) and marks the site of the original Aldgate – the easternmost gate through the old London Wall. It’s also a memorial to Aldgate’s most famous former resident, Geoffrey Chaucer (hence the Middle English spelling).

 

 

 

 

 

 

I believe it was originally supposed to be a temporary installation, to celebrate the 2012 Olympics, but someone seems to have forgotten to take it down again.

 

I’m quite glad – it’s interesting and quirky and makes a change from the gleaming glass and steel buildings that dominate this area.

 

 

'Watch This Space' - it's more interesting
than anything else around here.

***

 

I head along Whitechapel towards Aldgate East, a matter of a few minutes’ walk, which of course means that the scenery doesn’t change all that much. I do notice this little side street with an amusing bit of 'street art' at the end. The artist has even gone to the trouble of making sure the perspective works from the top of the side street (notice how the arrow continues onto the ground below the wall?). What, if anything, the arrow is pointing to, I don't know, and for once Mr Google has been singularly unhelpful. By pure chance the woman in the red coat walked past me as I took the photo - but I'm naturally going to take credit for spotting the juxtapositional possibilities! (I'm sorry - I can't believe I just wrote that.)

 

I reach Aldgate East station a minute later.

 

Cyril M. Harris, in his book "What's In A Name", tells me that "The station was moved a short distance east in 1938."

 

Erm, sorry, what?

 

How do you "move" a station? And why? And what's "a short distance"? Are we talking a foot or two? Just for the hell of it? Was it blocking someone's view? Maybe that's what the Watch This Space artist was trying to tell us - watch this space or someone might move a station into it! In any case, if they hadn't moved the station further east, I would have reached it even quicker, so they've deliberately and unnecessarily prolonged my journey. Gits.

 

Anyway, finding nothing else of interest, I take a peremptory photo of the station and head down into it to continue my journey.

Aldgate East - the new position suits it don't you think?

 

***

 

Having caught the District Line to Bow Road, and then walked 300 yards to Bow Church DLR station (what a neat alphabetical coupling that would have been, had I been travelling in the opposite direction – one to remember for the future!) I catch the train to my final destination of the day – All Saints.

 

As far as I'm aware, this area has nothing at all to do with the popular beat combo of the same name.

 

However, the lyrics of their first hit "Never Ever" seem fairly apt right now.

 

Never ever have I ever felt so low,

When you gonna take me out of this black hole

 

All Saints - Never ever gonna come here again.

Ok, so I admit to being not a little travel weary by this point, having been nearly 4½ hours on the move, so perhaps I’m not in the most receptive frame of mind. But with the sky-scraping dominance of One Canada Square as a backdrop, All Saints rather suffers in comparison.

 

(In case you were unaware, 'One Canada Square' is the name of the building many people including myself have always called ‘Canary Wharf’. That is in fact the name of the area, not the building)

 

Another collection of betting shops, kebab houses and fried chicken emporia is about all I can find on the main street. There is a church, from which the station takes its name, and I try to muster some artistic enthusiasm for it in framing my Station Photo, but my heart isn’t really in it and I don’t hang around for long.

 

I make my way back into the station and head for Canary Wharf, where I change to the Jubilee Line. This involves a walk through the lower floor of One Canada Square, and from the somewhat squalid high street of All Saints, I’m suddenly immersed in a building positively dripping with opulence.

 

I feel equally out of place here, and rush through it as quickly as possible.

 

The Jubilee Line takes me to Bond Street (catch you later my ‘B’ friend) and from there I gratefully collapse onto a Central Line train back to Ealing Broadway and home.

 

It’s been a long and tiring day out, and a very silly and pointless exercise – yet somehow I feel it’s an important and necessary one too. For me at least, if for no-one else.

'A - You're Adorable'

Day 1 (Part 1) 

Abbey Road – Acton Central - Acton Town

It's a fifteen minute walk from my house in Ealing to the tube station at Ealing Broadway, which allowed me plenty of time to muse on the absolute silliness of what I was setting off to do this morning.

I tried to convince myself that I was giving myself an aim in life, if only for a few weeks. Not a very good aim, it must be said, and one that ultimately will have very little effect on my well-being or that of others, but an aim nonetheless. When you are an out of work actor with nothing to do all day but wait for the "phone calls that never come", then anything that gets you out of the house has to be a good thing. It's a bit of exercise if nothing else.

I'm also humming the lyrics of the Beatles song that gave me my nom de blog:

He's a real nowhere man, sitting in his Nowhere Land,

Making all his nowhere plans, for nobody.

(Well, if this isn't a "nowhere plan", nothing is)

Doesn't have a point of view, Knows not where he's going to,

(not strictly true, as I know at least 368 places I'm hoping to go to, but still...)

Isn't he a bit like you and me?

(Hmm - am I like anyone else at this moment? Well, yes and no - I'm getting on a tube like thousands of others every day, but on the other hand I'm going to actually stop and look around at all the places on the tube map, not just whizz through them. Which brings us neatly to...)

Nowhere Man please listen, You don't know what you're missing,

Nowhere Man, the world is at your command!

(Well, let's not get above ourselves.... But the bit about not knowing what you're missing has a certain resonance don't you think?)

Anyway, that's all by the by... The point is, I'm off. I feel like Michael Palin or Bill Bryson, setting off on one of their epic journeys of discovery. In fact I’m more like Dave Gorman, setting off to do something rather silly. But hey, he’s not done too badly out of it!

I catch the 10.29am Central Line train and head off eastwards. I’ll need to change at Stratford and get the DLR down a couple of stops to my first destination – Abbey Road (no not that one).

Our driver seems very relaxed, as he wishes “a veeeery good morning to everyone…” and along the way, I resist the temptation to read a book, check my phone, or pick up the Metro, (which seem to be the usual preoccupations) and instead, look out of the window. I know - what was I thinking?!

But actually, of course, a large part of the so called "Underground" network is above the ground. It may not be a spectacular vista - it is in fact mainly the backs of terraced houses - but today for some reason I find it worth looking at. I try not to think too hard about all the stations we pass through, and which I’ll hopefully be visiting at some point in the near future. Instead, I ponder, albeit briefly, a choice I’m going to have to make later on.

Abbey Road (no not that one) is, as I’ve said, on the DLR which is very much east London. Acton, on the other hand, is very much west. It could easily take me the whole morning to do the round trip. After that, I can either call it a day and head home to Ealing, which is also west, or – I can head back across town to Aldgate and Aldgate East. And if I’m doing that, I might as well add another DLR station – All Saints – to the trip. Hmm…

Well, we’ll think about that later.

***

Our laid-back driver sadly leaves us at White City, to be replaced by a driver who is taking no prisoners. (“Mind the doors please, MIND the DOORS - PLEASE!”)

White City is also the point on the western stretch of the Central Line where the Underground trains actually go under the ground for the first time. The view from the windows naturally becomes rather less interesting at this point, so I turn my attention to the other passengers. At this time of day, midweek, there aren’t that many of them, but I notice that a surprisingly large proportion of them are using iPads (five in the carriage I’m in). Perhaps I need to update my earlier thought about reading books or newspapers. Indeed, it seems even the mobile phone has been superseded as the time-killer of choice.

Forty-five minutes later we emerge blinking into the daylight once again, at Stratford tube station. A short walk to the DLR platform, and barely a minute’s wait until the DLR train arrives to take me on to Abbey Road.

***

The first thing passengers see as they alight from the train at Abbey Road (no not that one) is a sign telling tourists that if they’re looking for the other Abbey Road (yes that one) then they’ve come to the wrong place, and the zebra crossing made famous by the Fab Four is on the other side of London. Helpfully, they do then give instructions to get the wayward travellers back on the right track (so to speak).

If, like me, this particular Abbey Road is the one you’re looking for, then heading out of the side entrance to the station leads you almost immediately to a small park-cum-community garden called Abbey Gardens. 

Abbey Gardens Entrance - complete with 'Honesty Stall' 

'What Will The Harvest Be?'

The idea is that, unlike a normal allotment (or rather, set of allotments) where each gardener has his or her own plot of land to do with as they will, here anyone and everyone can join in and lend a hand growing the fruit, veg and flowers. There’s also an “Honesty Stall” where presumably, spare fruit and veg is left, and passers-by leave a donation in return for a couple of spuds and a carrot.

The back wall has a huge sign that reads “What will the harvest be?” which today seems rather profound… so, while everyone sensible is at work, I sit on a bench for a few minutes and enjoy the peace…

Unfortunately, that’s about all that Abbey Road has to offer. It seems a very industrial area – as indeed is much of the area surrounding the DLR network. So, pleasant as it is, after fifteen minutes and a brief pause to take the first Station Photograph for the project scrapbook, I head back to the station.

Abbey Road - No, not that one...

As I do so, I wonder if anyone here has ever contemplated or indeed realised the fact that this is the first (alphabetically speaking) station on the Underground map. It is Numero Uno! The one small step from which giant leaps must surely follow! Shouldn't there be a plaque somewhere? A ribbon that one cuts with ceremonial scissors as one passes through?

Looking at the other people waiting on the platform, they don’t appear to care very much.

Oh well… I head back across the city towards my next destination.

***

On the Central Line train heading back west, I notice that the woman next to me is writing an essay on her laptop about something called “Capgras Syndrome”. Apparently it’s a condition in which a person believes a friend, spouse, parent or other close relative has been replaced by an identical-looking imposter. That must be a delusion almost impossible to disprove, surely?

(You see? This may be an utterly pointless exercise, but it’s an educational utterly pointless exercise.)

***

Getting off the Central Line at East Acton (oh how far away the letter ‘E’ seems right now – I’ve barely scratched the surface of ‘A’ and I’ve been to the other side of London and back!) it’s a twenty minute walk to Acton Central. Along the way, on Churchfield Road, you pass an elegant looking building bearing the legend “Erected by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths”.

One of the problems with living in London, and only catching the tube from your usual A to your usual B, is that by doing so, you will never see the vast majority of interesting things in the other 99% of the city.

Asking my good friend Mr Google, later on, I find that the building is in fact a collection of alms houses built in 1811. John Perryn, an eminent goldsmith of the time, had left the land to the Goldsmiths’ Company in his will.

This unexpected discovery, noticed for the first time simply because I am taking the time to look around, is (like the gardens at Abbey Road) the justification for this otherwise absurd project. I’ve driven along this road hundreds of times before, yet never noticed these alms houses until today. I’m looking forward to more and more of these little surprises in the future!

A few minutes later and I’m outside Acton Central station.

Acton Central - I didn't go in

It’s the first of the London Overground stations on my list. Like the DLR, the Overground network is often considered a poor relation of the main Underground system. Many people would probably struggle to name an Overground station at all – well, they don’t really count do they? Whereas the Marble Arches, Piccadilly Circuses, Baker Streets, and so on are all very familiar to us, and welcomed as old friends…

It does feel a little like cheating to have both reached the station, and be leaving it, on foot.

I haven’t actually seen the inside of the station at all. However, I remind myself that the point of this journey (if it has one) is to explore bits of London I wouldn’t normally stop and look at, and it is most definitely not a trainspotting type geek-fest! So, having taken the necessary photo of the station signage (even using a word like “signage” gives me a mild shiver of geekery), and feeling a little less guilty – I set off once again and walk to Acton Town.

The twenty minute walk takes me through housing estates and rows of terraced houses, interrupted by the occasional kebab shop or halal butcher, and when I reach the street level entrance to the station, it doesn’t offer much more in the way of enticement.

Of course, I don't expect my underground stations to be full of beauty and wonder, but there is something depressing about the brick and concrete blocks which form the entrances to many stations on the Underground.

Acton Town - it's a bit 'block-y'

I quite like the symmetry of the windows, but that’s about it…

For the weary traveller, the only compensation for such functional greyness must surely be the thought that beyond the grey is a small but satisfying section of the vibrant metropolis just waiting for you to sample its riches. Unfortunately Acton Town hasn't quite got the hang of this. The station is on Gunnersbury Lane, and the local area boasts (or should that be "mentions in an embarrassed undertone"?) various shops including a mini-supermarket, a funeral parlour, a bookmaker's, and a greasy spoon café.

But here again, I’m in for a surprise. It’s lunchtime, and if I’m going to do any more travelling today, I’ll need sustenance. Tucked in among the less salubrious establishments is a newish looking fish and chip restaurant (and I think I do mean restaurant – this is upmarket stuff) called Whitestone & Partners.

I order haddock and chips, and take a table to write up my notes from the morning’s travel. (Get me! Palin better watch his back!)

The little old lady at the table next to me has just finished and, on her way out, declares to the owners that her meal was “the best fish and chips I’ve ever eaten”. This may be over-stating things just a little perhaps – but not, I consider, after tasting my own food a few minutes later, by all that much. This is the sort of fish and chips you journey out of your way to get hold of, and I suspect I’ll be doing just that from now on.

What pleases me more than the delicious food though, is finding the place here at all. How often do we all head like sheep to the ubiquitous "Subway" or "Pret" or "Starbucks", when just around the corner, if we only took the time and trouble to look, we might come across a gem like this. Proof again that we should all pay a little more attention to our surroundings.

***

The excellent fish and chips fortify me enough to make the decision to carry on the journey into the afternoon. This means heading back into town, setting off on the District Line (my third line of the day!) and trying to ignore the utterly uninspiring nature of Acton Town station itself.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain – I mean, no matter how much I may kid myself that I'm on some kind of epic journey; this isn’t the Orient Express we're talking about here. For most people the Underground is simply a means of getting from A to B. It is functional. It is boring. And Acton Town is at an even greater disadvantage than many other stations, which can at least lay claim to a museum or theatre or (if all else fails) a shopping centre, to tempt passengers out of their tubular steel cocoon.

Acton Town's main function is as a junction between the two western branches of the Piccadilly Line, and the Ealing Broadway branch of the District Line. It is, in effect, somewhere you go in order to go somewhere else.

Travellers from the centre of London going to Ealing Broadway will (if they have any sense) come this far on the much faster Piccadilly Line, before slumming it for the last section on the more sedate District Line.

Acton Town is just a brief stop-off point, nothing more.

Not, then, a place that lends itself to Epic Journeys. Ah well - onwards and downwards...

***

Before descending the flight of steps to the platform, however, I realise I need to pay a visit to the public toilet to the right of the ticket hall.

I’m searching for a 20p coin to unlock the door of the gents when it opens in front of me and a youngish bloke emerges and holds the door open, saying, with a cheeky grin:

“You got lucky mate!”

He heads off, and I sneak through the illicitly unlocked door to spend a penny, thoroughly enjoying the knowledge that I am, in fact, 20p up on the deal. I do, however, also allow myself to muse on the fact that “getting lucky” in a public convenience was not an activity I would have imagined myself indulging in before today. If nothing else, this trip is broadening my horizons…

Much relieved (no, not in that way) I settle down on the District Line to Aldgate East.

Phew! What a long post! And I'm only half way through Day 1! Never fear - the story continues in the tomorrow's instalment - Day 1 (Part 2)...

'Going Underground'

It began, as these things often do, with an idea…

It's actually something that occurred to me years ago as a fun thing to do, but I never got round to it. But here it is....

Try and get round the entire London Underground system in a single day. Obviously you wouldn’t have time to actually stop and get out at any of the stations – you’d just kind of wave at them as you sat on the train waiting to pull out again. But it's do-able. In fact, it's become the subject of several Guinness World Record attempts. So much so that it does rather seem futile to do it myself. Obviously there would be the kudos of breaking the record, but I suspect you'd need to be a bit of an athlete between platforms and stations for that. Then there's the option of just doing it for the hell of it, just to say I have - which is tempting.

Or, and here's where it might get interesting, instead of doing it in a day and simply passing through all these stations, how about actually visiting them all? What if you actually got out and had a look "up top" at each station? How long would that take? If you include all of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and London Overground stations (and I think you have to really, if you’re going to do it properly) there are, by my calculations, 368 stations on the London Underground map (as at December 2013). Now that's a project sized number if ever I heard one!

A further (and for someone like me, inevitable) development of the idea would be to visit each of these 368 stations on the London Underground system… in alphabetical order. Yeah, I know - sounds a lark, eh?

In fact it won’t be quite that many, as some stations (like Edgware Road) are listed twice, where they serve different underground lines, and since the idea is to have a look at the environs of each station, I’m going to count these separate listings as one. I’m not that daft!

Naturally you can't do them all in one day, so there's no attempt at speed records here. But it has a more "long-term" quality to it that appeals to me. I can take days, or even weeks, off between “jaunts”, visit as many or as few stations in a day as I feel like, and generally just see how things go. It would, of course, be interesting to see how long it will actually take me, but time is definitely not of the essence!

 

I've also got a couple of books that might offer some interesting insights into the history and idiosyncrasies of the London Underground. These are:

 

"What's In A Name?" by Cyril M. Harris - all about the origins of the station names.

"The Little Book Of The London Underground" by David Long - quirky facts and figures about the Tube Network

So, I'm going to soup up my Oyster Card, wrap up warm and head out tomorrow to station number one: Abbey Road (no, not that one – Messrs Lennon, McCartney, et al, crossed an entirely different Abbey Road over in St. John’s Wood).

Bon voyage...