Going underground...
Oct. 12th, 2003 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaNow then, you people who use the Underground. Especially regularly.
Some time ago, I commented to a London-dweller that I thought the mosaic effect in the long tunnel in Green Park was really clever. They looked blank. In Green Park station, there is a long tunnel you can walk down to get from the Piccadilly Line to the Jubilee line (or vice versa). At the Piccadilly end, its walls are white with occasional squares of Piccadilly blue. As you walk along, there are occasional Jubilee grey squares, which get more and more common, and eventually overrun the blue, as you reach the opposite end.
I've sporadically mentioned this to people who do this walk. So far, no one has ever noticed. Be honest: have you ever walked along there ? Did you notice ?
And I have another question: has anyone noticed that there are sometimes pictures on the walls of underground stations ? Many of these are obvious, like the silhouettes of Victoria and Sherlock Holmes at Victoria and Baker Street respectively. However, recent forays down the Victoria line have caused me to notice occasional rebus-like pictograms. There is, for example, a tiled image of a labyrinth at Warren Streen, and a pile of bricks at Brixton. Are there any more of these ? If not, why not, dammit ? And could we suggest any ?
Some time ago, I commented to a London-dweller that I thought the mosaic effect in the long tunnel in Green Park was really clever. They looked blank. In Green Park station, there is a long tunnel you can walk down to get from the Piccadilly Line to the Jubilee line (or vice versa). At the Piccadilly end, its walls are white with occasional squares of Piccadilly blue. As you walk along, there are occasional Jubilee grey squares, which get more and more common, and eventually overrun the blue, as you reach the opposite end.
I've sporadically mentioned this to people who do this walk. So far, no one has ever noticed. Be honest: have you ever walked along there ? Did you notice ?
And I have another question: has anyone noticed that there are sometimes pictures on the walls of underground stations ? Many of these are obvious, like the silhouettes of Victoria and Sherlock Holmes at Victoria and Baker Street respectively. However, recent forays down the Victoria line have caused me to notice occasional rebus-like pictograms. There is, for example, a tiled image of a labyrinth at Warren Streen, and a pile of bricks at Brixton. Are there any more of these ? If not, why not, dammit ? And could we suggest any ?
no subject
Date: 2003-10-13 12:51 pm (UTC)Train spotting is rather sad - obviously. But London Underground nerdiness is entirely acceptable. IMHO, anyway. If the history of the tube interests you, the London Transport Museum at Covent Garden does (or, at least, did) have a load about it, particularly the wartime stuff. I have an almost unnatural fascination in the stations which have now shut or moved a few hundred yards. The recently-closed Post Office mini-tunnels warrant further research, too.
Another thing they were doing during the time I was living in London was installing those "Next train in x minutes" displays. They slowly introduced them a line at a time. On one occasion on Angel station they were working on them and one of those intersting locked doors on the platform was open - to reveal an old (genuine) IBM PC with a tiny 5" amber screen which was controlling them. As you know, the second line of the displays occasionally changes to scroll a no-smoking reminder across it; the blokey setting it all up was obviously bored, because he was making it display all manner or vaguely humorous quips.
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Richard