Occasionally, it's worth taking a look at the walls of the Tube tunnels, if you know where to look.

[lethargic_man]

The other day, at snjstar's suggestion, I dug my nose out of my book on the way home, between Hampstead and Golders Green Tube stations, in order to have a look at the northbound platform of the never completed North End station.

Then the following week I was so deeply engrossed in my book that I not only missed my interchanged at Camden Town, but completely forgot I was on the wrong branch, and didn't realise what had happened until the train came out of the tunnel and announced "The next station is East Finchley." Ha ha, I thought; it's got the station wrong. Then I realised what had happened.

I've never overshot Camden Town by more than one stop beforehand, and that only a handful of times. This time I overshot by five! Still, it gave me another half an hour's good reading time retracing my steps and getting back to Golders Green. :o)

Crumbs, this post makes me sound like a Londoner!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I can't believe you are talking like a Londoner now. Also if you look near Colindale I think there is a blue police box, always reminds me of Doctor Who which I love.

I didn't know there was a North End station, must look out for that!

SW

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I've seen a few in London, but not of the Doctor Who shape. There's lots in Edinburgh; they're all over the place. Half have been painted crimson and repurposed as refreshments kiosks; some of the remainder (those that still belong to the Lothian and Borders police force) have been turned into electronic information points.

They're not the same shape as the Doctor Who one, though. As we saw in the episode <googles> "Logopolis", where Tegan (who first joins the Doctor then) mistakes the TARDIS for a real police box (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_box), TARDIS-style police boxes contain a special telephone for use by the police. The ones in Edinburgh, by contrast, are larger and rectangular, and were somewhere where, in the days before police cars, policemen could lock up recently-arrested criminals if they didn't have time to take them back to the police station, before heading on to somewhere else they were needed.

I've seen plenty of those in Edinburgh and London; I've never yet seen a TARDIS-style police box (unless you count the TARDIS itself, which is, of course, a wooden stage prop (I got to go inside it, and make a point of trying to find it (not always successfully) when showing people around Television Centre), not the real McCoy).

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

What was the book in question ?

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Moon Palace by Paul Auster, which the SW upthread recommended me years ago. I put off reading it because I wasn't all that whelmed by the first book of his I tried reading, In the Country of Last Things, but I'm getting on well (so far) with Moon Palace.

[(Anonymous)]

I have remembered the title of another book by Paul Auster - Oracle Night, this is a very good novel. It was actually Paul Auster day yesterday in Brooklyn, look at the Paul Auster website, by googling it.

SW

[snjstar.livejournal.com]

Glad you saw it, I'll have to look if I go to Colindale cannot remember when I have been past Hendon Central on the tube.

why Londoner?

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

It does not make you sound like a Londoner. You are just used to the same route as you use it so often. I know the Northern line very well but I also miss stations up to five when I am sleepy or read a book, taking the wrong branch. I am always seen as a foreigner. Even if I were living here for decades.