diamond geezer

 Thursday, August 31, 2006

Metro-land revisited


"Early Electric! Maybe even here
They met that evening at six-fifteen
Beneath the hearts of this electrolier
And caught the first non-stop to Willesden Green,
Then out and on, through rural Rayner's Lane
To autumn-scented Middlesex again."
John Betjeman (The Metropolitan Railway, 1954)

To commemorate the centenary of Sir John Betjeman's birth, I've been back to the locations that he visited in his classic 1973 documentary Metro-land.

Calling at...
BAKER STREETMOOR PARK
MARLBOROUGH ROADCROXLEY
NEASDENCHORLEYWOOD
WEMBLEY PARKAMERSHAM
HARROW-ON-THE-HILLQUAINTON ROAD
PINNERVERNEY JUNCTION

• Read the whole series on one page (in the right order) here.
• See where all my Metro-land photographs were taken here.

www.flickr.com : My Metro-land gallery
There are 90 photographs altogether - take a look

  Metro-land revisited
  Verney Junction


"The houses of Metro-land never got as far as Verney Junction.
Grass triumphs, and I must say I'm rather glad"
John Betjeman at Verney Junction ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

The farthest outpost of the Metropolitan Railway is at a most unlikely spot. The line ended not in a town, nor in a village, nor even in a hamlet, but in the middle of a field. There was no local population to support a station, nor any intention of building commuter homes across the landscape to create passenger traffic. But there was an existing railway passing through - the mainline connecting Oxford to Cambridge - so it sort of made commercial sense to link up to that. But only sort of. A couple of platforms were built where the two lines met, linked to the outside world down a dirt track, with the intention that everyone would both arrive and depart by train. The station was named Verney Junction after local landowner Lord Verney (Florence Nightingale's brother-in-law) who was chairman of the local railway company. And trains passed through, and passengers passed through, and life passed by.

In 1936 the Met's rural branch lines were finally amputated. It was no longer possible to catch a train from Verney Junction to Baker Street, but you could still travel from here to either Oxford or Cambridge. This was until Oxbridge travellers discovered that travelling into London and back out again was faster than chugging painfully slowly cross-country, and so the through route duly closed to passengers at the end of 1967. Verney Junction is now your actual genuine abandoned railway station, sitting invitingly on the map awaiting a bloke with a camera. I took up the challenge and attempted a visit (which isn't easy when there are no trains).

Verney Junction is now just the name of a tiny hamlet which grew up around the station (at a rate of about one building every decade, by the looks of it). Turn off the road at the Verney Arms pub and, a short distance down an unmade track, there's a sign for a railway crossing. An anachronistic red sign asks you to Stop Look Listen, and to notify the local British Rail Manager if your load is unusually long. But the crossing gates have disappeared, the rails across the lane are barely visible, and any danger is long past [photo]. To your right, the other side of some thickening undergrowth, you can walk along the ballast in the general direction of Cambridge [photo]. And immediately to your left the main attraction - two abandoned platforms blanketed beneath a low covering of green foliage [photo]. I guess midsummer isn't the best time to come here for a decent view.

Only a single track runs through Verney Junction today, supported by slowly rusting brackets and gently rotting sleepers. The rails at the far end of the station heading away towards Oxford look relatively navigable, so long as you're on foot [photo]. But between the platforms themselves somebody has planted a loco's-length forest of yellowish saplings [photo], either to block the upline or to beautify the view from the old station house nextdoor [photo]. Elsewhere nature is successfully reclaiming the deserted station unaided. You can barely walk on any of the original platforms now that bracken, bushes and brambles have colonised both surfaces [photo]. But try to find a space and climb up here, to stand where passengers once waited to board the next steaming train to the capital. Glance across to the opposite platform while you still can [photo]. And then take a look out across the empty fields [photo], past the cattle [photo], towards the grand future that never materialised. London could never claim this tranquil spot for its own, but this will be forever Metro-land.

• A full history of Verney Junction
• Old (and recent-ish) photographs of Verney Junction (before the trees came)
• See what the Verney Junction branch line looks like today
• Claydon House, home of Lord Verney (and Florence Nightingale) [photo]

 Wednesday, August 30, 2006

  Metro-land revisited
  The Buckinghamshire Railway Centre
  Quainton Road

The Metropolitan Railway had ideas well above its station. In the 1880s there were plans to boost traffic by linking London to places far outside the commuter hinterland - cities such as Oxford and Manchester. By buying up a failed railway company they reached out as far as the grassy plains of the Vale of Aylesbury, nearly halfway to Birmingham. And at Quainton Road, down an obscure uninhabited country lane, the company established its bridgehead. Here the tracks split, with one branch steaming north [photo] to Verney Junction, the other west [photo] to the hilltop village of Brill. But the railway artfully skirted even the smallest centres of population so there was very little passenger traffic, and the express trains to the Midlands never materialised. When London Transport took over the Metropolitan in 1933 they had no interest in running rural Buckinghamshire services and so retreated to Aylesbury, and later 20 miles further back to Amersham. When Betjeman came to Quainton Road in 1972 he found just a footbridge between deserted platforms, and a rarely-used goods line stretching off into nowhere.

• The Metropolitan Railway's official map of Metro-land (1924) [see how far from London it stretches]
• A detailed historical map showing the railways of England and Wales, modern and disused [see if you can find Quainton Road]
• The Brill Tramway [see in detail what this oddball line looks like today]

The view from the footbridge at Quainton Road is quite different today [photos]. Look down the line and you'll see a second (wheelchair accessible) metal footbridge, several well-preserved buildings and maybe even people waiting for trains. That's because the site has been taken over by the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre - one of those dark, sooty places where grown men come to play with steam engines. There's everything you'd expect - a picturesque station [photos], a museum in a Nissen hut, a tea room, and several sidings full of engines and carriages in various states of restoration. And on special days (like this last bank holiday) the centre runs an hourly diesel service down to Aylesbury, oh-so-briefly reconnecting Quainton Road to the main rail network. On Betjeman's birthday I took a rare opportunity to ride out and take a look.

Two steam locomotives were in operation, one still resplendent in Metropolitan livery [photo]. Visitors were treated to a quarter of a mile ride down the track for a view of some cows in a field, and back again, and back again, and back again [photo]. To make the trip in any way memorable you had to sit in the front carriage, right behind the smoking engine, else you could have been aboard any timewarped train on a return journey to nowhere. Two other scales of locomotive were available, courtesy of the Vale of Aylesbury Model Engineering Society. The medium sized trains were for sitting astride and then being chugged round a small twisty circuit (perfect for keeping keen kids of all ages occupied) [photo]. The smaller sized trains were radio controlled and went round and round in circles on a plywood platform until you got tired of watching. In the nearby picnic area members of the society jostled to buy spanners and oily metal bits from a small kiosk, while visitors treated themselves to individually cling-filmed slices of battenburg to eat alongside a polystyrene cup of steaming tea.

Outside the gift shop a fairground organ played repeatedly, as grating as a ringtone but impossible to switch off. Two volunteers in smart black uniforms guarded the entrance to the downline platform lest any miscreant try entering without having their ticket clipped. Some of the day's visitors spent their time rifling through railway ephemera, others were intent on capturing the perfect shot of a train or two puffing by, but most were content to wander from attraction to attraction in a nostalgic haze. As an extra incentive this weekend, the centre had laid on a Vintage Vehicle Show in the car park. Scores of gleaming motorbikes and a few scooters revved in through the gates and parked up beside a gaggle of US army jeeps. Motorists with Morgans and Morris Minors sat and unwrapped tinfoil sandwiches behind their open boot, then stood around and compared hub caps and radiators with fellow enthusiasts. The road and rail crowd mixed fleetingly, then returned to be with their own kind.

For a brief moment it was just about possible to imagine this old railway junction as the hub of a mighty Metropolitan empire, with the Manchester Express pulling in on one platform to exchange passengers with the Oxford Pullman on another [photo]. But one look out from the footbridge, across acres of empty pasture towards far distant villages, told a very different story [photo]. This station was never meant to be the Clapham Junction of the south Midlands. Quainton Road was always destined to be a museum piece - the pipedream of men playing with trains - and its current destiny suits the place just perfectly.

"In those wet fields the railway didn't pay.
The Metro stops at Amersham today."
John Betjeman at Quainton Road ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

• The Buckinghamhire Railway Centre [if you like this sort of thing, definitely worth a visit] [if not, chuffing hell]
• Inspector Sands also visited on Monday
• This Saturday a "Betjeman Special" steam train runs from Marylebone to Quainton Road [tickets £55, in aid of the Parkinson's Society]
• More fine photographs of Quainton Road

 Tuesday, August 29, 2006

  Metro-land revisited
  High And Over
  Amersham

"Steam took us onwards
through the ripening fields ripe for development
where the landscape yields clay for warm brick, timber for post and rail
through Amersham for Aylesbury and the Vale."
John Betjeman at Amersham ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

No other 'Underground' line reaches as far out into the Home Counties as the Metropolitan [photos]. The railway's ambition extended up the Chess Valley to Chesham and Amersham, more than 25 miles (but still less than an hour) from central London. But the landowners of ancient Amersham didn't want new-fangled rail scarring their stately views, and so forced the tracks to pass to the north of the old town. And that's why there are now two Amershams - one old beauty in the valley and one new suburb on the hill.

Old Amersham is a genuine throwback to the past - a well-preserved coaching town situated one day's ride out of London. The broad High Street is lined by a hotchpotch of antique buildings, many dating back to Tudor times. Cottages and coaching inns jostle with inglenooked townhouses and half-timbered terraces - precisely the olde worlde architecture that the remainder of Metro-land seeks to emulate. At one end is the turreted Market Hall [photo], once bustling every Tuesday with traders, but all that I found beneath its brick arches was a bored lady failing to sell leather handbags to a trickle of passers-by. If you've ever seen Four Weddings and a Funeral then you'll have seen the crooked exterior of the King's Arms Hotel [photo], and also the interior of The Crown. This really is picture postcard stuff - or would be were it not for the cars parked absolutely everywhere. So wide is this historic High Street that rows of vehicles are parked not just along each edge but also down the middle of the road. Every tourist who arrives by car corrupts the very scene that they have come to view [photo].

• the brilliantly-detailed amersham.org.uk website
• a potted history of the town; a pictorial tour; Amersham museum
• a walking tour of Old Amersham
• tons of detail about Amersham station and the Met line

High & OverBut Betjeman came not to see the old town, nor the model dormitory town on the hill, but the one jarring architectural note struck between the two. In 1929, on what was then a bare hillside above the River Misbourne, was built the startling white Y-shaped house which "scandalised Buckinghamshire". High and Over was Britain's first Modernist home, based on the architecture of Le Corbusier, with three wings radiating from a central hexagonal hall. The first owner was university professor Brian Ashmole, later director of the British Museum, who moved in despite vehement local opposition (1929 cost £3000). In 1962 the house was divided in two, partly to stave off the threat of demolition, but the place is considerably more desirable today. High and Over is now the sort of special property which the Times and Daily Telegraph run a double-page feature about every time it goes on the market (2003 guide price £675000; 2005 guide price £995000). Be jealous, be very very jealous.

High and Over is much harder to spot these days. Trees have grown up on all sides, so you now have to approach rather closer to get a half-decent view. Just up from Tesco, along Station Road, turn off up the hill into the cul-de-sac called Highover Park. Two more bright white houses guard the entrance, tall and sleek like neighbouring pavilions at a 1930s lido [photos]. These are the "Sun Houses" [photos], built in the shadow of High and Over and equally shocking in their day. A third Sun House nestles in woodland further up the close, resembling the top of a submerged ocean liner [photo]. Keep climbing, trying not to be disappointed by the surrounding development of some very ordinary 70s residential infill. And there to your right, down a high-hedged driveway, is a narrow glimpse of High & Over [photo]. From the pavement you can only see one 120 degree segment, with barely-windowed white walls leading up to a second floor roof terrace. Two pert conifers stand guard by the front door, behind a low dribbly fountain surrounded by a swoosh of gravel. And that brown and white lump to the right is the family hound, who by now will have woken up and intends to bark urgently until you withdraw. High time you were leaving. Over and out.

"Goodbye High hopes, and Over-confidence."
John Betjeman at High & Over ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

 Monday, August 28, 2006

A century of Betjeman (born 28th August 1906)
• The John Betjeman Society
• biography; life and works; timeline
• 46 of Betjeman's poems (including Slough; Executive; Myfanwy)
• the 19th Poet Laureate; a noted church-crawler
• wrote The Shell Country Guides (1934-1967)
• founded The Victorian Society "for the study and protection of Victorian and Edwardian architecture"
• buried at St Enodoc Church, Trebetherick, Cornwall
• All of my Metro-land posts on one page

  Metro-land revisited
  The Orchard
  Chorleywood

"Large uneventful fields of dairy farm,
slowly winds the Chess, brim full of trout,
an unregarded part of Herts awaits its fate.
And in the heights above, Chorley Wood Village - where in 89
the railway came, and woodsmoke mingled with the sulphur fumes
and people now could catch the early train to London,
and be home just after tea."
John Betjeman at Chorleywood ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

Betjeman described Chorleywood as "quintessential Metro-land", and it still is. Here, beside the border to beechy Bucks, London's wealthier commuters found themselves a new home in the Chiltern foothills. Lucky them. The place retains a leafy rural air to this day and, in a recent Government survey, beat 32481 other locations to be named the neighbourhood with the UK's highest quality of life. Chorleywood has proper shops with hanging baskets, and cricket on the common, and a picturesque river valley, and league-topping schools, and very little in the way of crime. The village is quartered by the M25 [photo] and the Metropolitan railway [photos] - a short drive round to Heathrow or just three-quarters of an hour down to the City. Easy to escape from, but even easier to bolt home to.

From the station I set off south in search of Sir John's first quarry, a house up Shire Lane named "The Orchard". Here the architect Charles Voysey built himself a ground-breaking home in cottage style - with steeply pitched roofs, bold chimneys, high eaves and the occasional porthole window. Betjeman found the place without any problem, but I had only a postcode to guide me. A steep climb beneath tree-capped skies led me into the heart of the Chorleywood estate, past grand detached homes each with a seven-digit "guide price". Two jodphured girls trotted past on horseback, while the heavily-laden local paperboy trudged repeatedly up and down consecutive driveways delivering his stash of Mails, FTs and Telegraphs. As in so much of Metro-land, many houses appeared to be named after the rural feature they had replaced - "Beechcroft", "Oakland", "Glenwood". But nowhere "The Orchard", which hid stubbornly from view behind some unidentified hedge. There's a limit to how long you can spend hanging around a Neighbourhood Watch area, camera in hand, before starting to feel uncomfortable. After the second twitch of a net curtain I abandoned my search and retreated back down the hill, closely followed by two speeding police cars. No wonder the crime rate round here is virtually nil.

"Oh happy outdoor life in Chorleywood
in Daddy's swim pool, while old Spot looks on
and Susan dreams of super summer hols
whilst chlorinated wavelets brush the banks."
John Betjeman at Chorleywood ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

On the other side of the railway lies Chorleywood Common [photos], 200 acres of former grazing land now shared by horseriders, golfers and great crested newts. I braved the roaming dogs and rambled from the station to the cricket ground, only mildly yapped-at along the way. Beyond the motorway I came, like Betjeman, to the exclusive Loudwater estate. The first houses here sold (slowly) for £1300 a time - now they cost a thousand times more and the residents have retreated behind iron gates to protect their investment. I followed signs for the Chess Valley Walk, which on paper looked like a charming stroll beside a rippling trout stream, but turned out instead to be a hemmed-in footpath down a canyon of wooden fences. Occasionally the sweeping back gardens of Loudwater were clearly visible, their pools and paid-for privacy invaded by a public right of way.

At last the houses faded away and the path opened out into the corn-gold Chess Valley. All was silent, bar the buzzing of a few indistinct insects and the cooing of a distant pigeon. I slowed as a curious rabbit hopped patiently along the path in front of me, but a startled green woodpecker seemed in more of a hurry to get away. After half a mile I reached the flat wooden footbridge [photo] where I'd often come as a child to paddle in the shallow waters and fish for tiddlers using a small net on a stick. Thistledown floated into the sky as as butterflies and dragonflies darted across the surface of the stream. Back in the 70s the riverbank used to be packed every weekend with picnicking families but on my visit, mid-afternoon on a sunny summer Sunday, it was nigh empty [photo]. Where have all the children gone? I guess today's Chorleywood kids prefer to be sat at home X-boxing instead, or else have been dragged off to some crowded Mediterranean beach to learn how to waterski. But I'm glad that this spot still survives intact and unspoilt, and that not all of Metro-land has been destroyed beneath a carpet of brick, lawn and concrete.

• Betjeman also visited Len Rawle, who owns (and still plays) the 'Empire' Leicester Square Wurlitzer in his Chorleywood home

 Sunday, August 27, 2006

  Metro-land revisited
  The Croxley Green Revels
  Croxley

And then Sir John came to my home village. You can imagine my surprise on watching Metro-land for the very first time to see my own insignificant commuter backwater celebrated on screen. Here were roads I walked down and events I attended and even people I knew, immortalised on film, watched by millions. But surely there was nothing in Croxley Green worthy of Betjeman's scrutiny? This was just another dormitory suburb [photo] on the Metropolitan railway [photos], overshadowed by neighbouring Watford and Rickmansworth. Why would anybody find my life interesting?

If I'd been making a documentary about Croxley Green I might have visited the big house on New Road where Madame Tussaud sculpted her waxworks, and in whose former studio I attended nursery school. Or I might have headed down to the canalside where the John Dickinson paper mill manufactured world-famous Croxley Script watermarked notepaper [photo]. Maybe even gone to the converted farm at the top of my road where barking Barbara Woodhouse trained dogs her way. But no, Sir John selected instead the village's annual carnival - the Croxley Green Revels - and delighted in its muted self-importance.

"Onward, onwards, north of the border, down Hertfordshire way.
The Croxley Green Revels - a tradition that stretches back to 1952.
For pageantry is deep in all our hearts
and this, for many a girl, is her greatest day"
John Betjeman at Croxley Green ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

One Saturday every summer, as in a thousand other villages across the country, the good people of Croxley Green came together in a festive celebration of community. Some decorated the backs of lorries with crepe paper and sat on the back dressed as cannibals, or hula dancers (or something else typically English) while others twirled batons and paraded along behind. The rest of us would watch and cheer as the procession passed by our doorsteps, before following the final float up to the mile-long village green [photo] where the main events of the day would unfold. At two o'clock precisely the mellifluous tones of an unseen Master of Ceremonies would echo around the central roped-off arena, announcing the almost thrilling programme for the afternoon. Maypole dancing, school recorder groups, maybe even a troupe of well-trained canines - all were highlights of an afternoon at the Croxley Revels in the 1970s, and probably still are today.

Betjeman's documentary concentrates on the climactic moment of the day's proceedings - the crowning of the Queen of the Revels. She and her entourage process into the arena dressed in their glossy ceremonial robes, which look suspiciously as though they've been sewn together from a set of frilly curtains. These costumes were recycled every year, the scariest being the floppy black felt hat and bright blue cloak worn by the unfortunate page boy. He looks on, inwardly mortified, as Queen Jenny addresses her loyal subjects by smirking through a speech of perfect scripted blandness.

I'm just pleased that Betjeman filmed Metro-land in 1972, back when I was an anonymous seven year-old obscured somewhere in the crowd. Had he visited a few years later he might have caught me taking a slightly more prominent role. I was never in the running for page boy, thankfully, but in 1976 I was press-ganged into taking part in the maypole dancing with several of my well-scrubbed classmates. We practised for weeks until we could skip and weave like professionals, then unleashed our honed artistic talents in front of an appreciative audience of parents and grandmothers. Thankfully no cine film or photographs of that performance remains, but I can share with you some old family snapshots of the 1975 Croxley Revels (I appear in only one of them):

• The 1975 Revels Queen on her horse-drawn cart (beautifully decorated, Mum)
• The Queen and her entourage tour the streets of Croxley Green
• All the fun of the "Knock Down The Cans" stall
• Watching a dodgy clown making balloon animals

And yet, watching Metro-land all these years later, it strikes me now that Sir John Betjeman never once appears anywhere in the two minutes of footage of my village Revels. He provides a voiceover, no more, and a BBC camera crew probably shot the rest. The Poet Laureate never stood on the corner of Malvern Way [photo] watching the bagpipers pass by, nor graced our village green with his cheery presence. He picked out Croxley merely to shine a spotlight on the fake heritage of Metro-land, gently mocking our pseudo-historical pageant played out in former fields with no tradition of their own. The bastard. But I'll let him off, just this once.

• The abandoned railway station at Croxley Green
• Plans to re-route the Metropolitan to Watford Junction via the Croxley Link

 Saturday, August 26, 2006

  Metro-land revisited
  Moor Park Mansion
  Moor Park

There is no posher part of Metro-land than Moor Park. You can't tell from the train, because many years ago the residents had the sense to plant a row of trees along the edge of the railway line which now screens their secret splendour from passers by. But alight at the seemingly insignificant country halt [photo], venture out through the wooden hut that doubles as a ticket hall [photo] and it's soon apparent that only special people live here. The small parade of shops at the foot of Main Avenue boasts rather finer shops than your average high street, and rather more parking spaces too. Nobody walks around the Moor Park estate unless they really have to.

I spent an hour as the only pedestrian in Moor Park. I wandered along broad leafy avenues, repeatedly astonished by the scale and style of the residences to either side. It's as though local residents are competing to out-wealth one another through exaggerated flamboyance. Who has the most extravagant porch? Who has the widest frontage? Whose water feature is the loudest? The urge to upgrade is unrestrained. Whilst the bankers are at their desks in the City, the shirtless working class arrive in their white vans to embellish the excellence even further - an extension here, a tennis court there... it's the modern master/servant relationship. And yet Moor Park homes are unexpectedly close-packed and neighbourly, with shallow front gardens that open straight out onto the street without the need for high-spiked fences [photo]. All the paranoia has been transferred instead to a series of giant infra-red security cameras which scan every gated entrance to the estate. I wonder how suspiciously the watching guards tracked my aimless wanderings.

As befits a luxury enclave, Moor Park boasts not one but three golf courses. The first, at Sandy Lodge, gave its name to the original station - a wooden halt established for the benefit of visiting golfers. But the most famous is the course in the grounds of Moor Park Mansion [photo], and it was here that Betjeman came to demonstrate his laughably poor golf swing. He was rather more interested in the interior of this Palladian stately home, behind the towering pillared facade, wherein Venetian artworks hang beneath sumptuous ceilings. The mansion now doubles up as both clubhouse and conference centre, so the atmosphere today is rather more corporate than classical [photo].

"What Georgian wit these classic gods have heard
who now must listen to the golfer's tale
of holes in one and how I missed that putt,
hooked at the 7th, sliced across the 10th but ended on the 17th all square.
Ye gods ye gods, how comical we are.
Would Jove have been appointed captain here?
See how exclusive thine estate, Moor Park.
John Betjeman at Moor Park Mansion ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

I found the single public footpath which crosses the grounds and strolled nonchalantly across the fairways, avoiding low-flying balls and silent electric buggies. Several middle-aged businessmen were enjoying a round on the high course, greasing the wheels of commerce as they struggled manfully to thwack their way over tumbling green hillocks. Every bunker was duly raked, every blade of grass flawlessly trimmed, and every water feature a pool of beauty [photo]. A hit squad of groundsmen buzzed around on mini-tractors to ensure that scenic perfection was maintained. And they too eyed me suspiciously, especially when I strayed from the path and loitered (in direct contravention of local by-laws) whilst attempting to take a decent photograph of the clubhouse. Moor Park's exclusivity comes at a high price... and if you can't pay, don't expect to be made welcome.

• Moor Park Golf Club (conspicuously aloof)
• Sandy Lodge Golf Club (almost endearing)
• Moor Park [from Quin Parker's Guide to Zone 6] (recommended)

 Friday, August 25, 2006

  Metro-land revisited
  Betjeman Close
  Pinner

"Early Electric! Sit you down and see,
'Mid this fine woodwork and a smell of dinner,
A stained-glass windmill and a pot of tea,
And sepia views of leafy lanes in Pinner.
John Betjeman (The Metropolitan Railway, 1954)

Just a thousand souls lived in Pinner before the railway arrived. The Metropolitan changed all that, spreading a fast-growing crop of perennial dwellings across acres of former fields. But the medieval High Street retains much of its charm [photo], climbing the hillside from the River Pinn to the Parish Church [photo]. Actually the river's more a concrete channel strewn with plastic bottles and the church is half hidden behind a mock Tudor Chinese restaurant, but this is everything the centre of neighbouring Harrow isn't. Every year, on the Wednesday after the May Bank Holiday, the High Street is blocked off and filled with brightly-coloured stalls, hubbub and merriment. The annual Pinner Fair [photo] is a genuine Metro-land tradition, dating back to 1336, and it was to this event that the Betjeman camera crew came. They missed out on filming the church choir at the top of the hill, which is a shame because one of the choristers at the time was a 13-year old Simon le Bon. And they resisted a trip to the anonymous house on the Pinner Hill Road where 1972 singing sensation Elton John had been born. The former Dwight residence is still a very ordinary-looking home, far less grand than its immediate neighbour, with a bus stop and a green litter bin plonked on the pavement outside [photo]. It's a very long way from here to the Hollywood Bowl.

To the east of the village centre, just over the railway, is the only road in Metro-land to be named after Sir John [photos]. The developers of this cul-de-sac of 46 retirement flats, built in the year Betjeman died, must have thought it would be a good idea to honour the former Poet Laureate with his very own corner of suburbia. What a mistake. No self-respecting lover of British architecture such as he would ever want to live in one of these brown brick boxes [photo]. Each building's design nods in the direction of a traditional Home Counties villa, but without originality, character or soul. A narrow strip of communal front garden features little more than a scrap of shrubbery beside a patchy lawn. There's a uniformity here which is in direct contrast to the early 20th century buildings all around. The terrace of older houses nextdoor is enlivened by individual ownership and a splash of character. Pinner Court across the road is an imposing green and white block of balconied apartments with a slightly oriental flavour [photo], and the adjacent Harrow Fire Station is the very model of symmetrical simplicity [photo]. But, alas, Betjeman Court is nothing special, nothing special at all. Millions of modern Britons live somewhere remarkably similar.

  Metro-land revisited
  Grim's Dyke
  Harrow Weald

One of the most memorable scenes in Metro-land occurs when Sir John Betjeman visits Grim's Dyke [photo]. Here, in a quintessentially English house topped with chimneypots and half-timbered gables, he stumbles across a grand luncheon of the Byron Dining Club. The not-so-merry wives of Harrow have gathered in the wood-panelled dining room to preen and gossip over a very splendid three course luncheon. Almost everyone is "beautifully be-hatted" beneath some monstrous mound of millinery, perhaps topped off with a ribbon, flower or brooch. They wear sturdy navy jackets with cream lapels, accessorised by pearls and bulbous gold earrings. The look is perfectly artificial and, to modern eyes, damned by obscene daintiness. Most reprehensible of all, despite the fact that one of the finest poets of the 20th century is standing in the doorway, they prefer to listen to a blandly fawning speech from Mrs Elizabeth Cooper instead. You could never fill a room with uptight middle-aged ladies such as these in 2006.

"Merrie England outside, haunting and romantic within...
tall brick chimneystacks, not hidden away but prominent and part of the design,
local bricks, local tiles, local timber - no façade is the same,
gabled windows gaze through leaded lights down winding lawns."
John Betjeman at Grim's Dyke ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

As I discovered when I tried to visit, Sir John had twisted geographical reality by calling in at Grim's Dyke. The house is located in Harrow Weald on the very border of London, nowhere near any station on the Metropolitan Railway. But Norman Shaw's design is still an undeniably striking piece of architecture [photo] and was well worth a detour. This late Victorian homestead is a glorious cross between a cottage and a castle, well shielded from any modern interference by deep oak woodland. The building's now a hotel, seemingly frequented by old couples and beefy golfing chums. I skulked around the undergrowth behind the closely-manicured lawn, in the perhaps false belief that this was a public right of way. And discovered here, beside the not-quite-visible Saxon earthwork which gives the house its name [photo], a particularly poignant spot. Grim's Dyke was once owned by WS Gilbert (of "and Sullivan" fame), and it was here in an ornamental lake [photo] that the great man died. He'd invited two local girls to come swimming with him in the lake (er, right) but, in attempting to rescue one of them who'd got into difficulties, suffered a heart attack and drowned. Some safety do-gooder has since erected a sign reading "WARNING DEEP WATER" beside the lake, although sadly it came nearly a century too late.

• Grim's Dyke - a history, & photos

 Thursday, August 24, 2006

  Metro-land revisited
  Harrow School
  Harrow-on-the-Hill

There are two Harrows - the elite on the hill and everybody else down below. The famous public school got here early, founded in 1572, and perches atop the summit as befits its perceived importance. The Metropolitan Railway [photo] got here relatively late, in 1890, and populated the surrounding fields with upwardly mobile state-school fodder. The contrast between the two areas is considerable.

Harrow-on-the-Hill station [photo] down in the valley is a multi-platformed hub, constructed with plain brick simplicity. The tiny waiting rooms on each platform survive, but the newsagents' kiosks haven't been so fortunate and now contain vending machines dispensing chocolate, wet wipes and disposable rain ponchos. Beyond the ticket barriers, out into the centre of town, this could be any garish minor town centre. A hexagonal office block squats inelegantly above the bus station. A gold-painted fibreglass cherub on a nearby wall attempts to imbue the redevelopment with history, and fails. The St Ann's Shopping Centre has been sucked dry of any ounce of character - an artificial retail boulevard alongside a soulless plastic mall. It's great if you want to go shopping, far better than anything my local area has to offer, but I suspect Betjeman would have absolutely hated it. He was much more at home up on the hill.

"Then Harrow-on-the-Hill's a rocky island
And Harrow churchyard full of sailor's graves
And the constant click and kissing of the trolley buses hissing
Is the level of the Wealdstone turned to waves."
John Betjeman (Harrow-on-the-Hill)

Harrow School is undeniably impressive [photo], even if you have no intention of forking out £24000 a year to attend full time. There's no recognisable campus, just a hotchpotch of buildings integrated into the surrounding village, so visitors are able to take a really good look around. At the heart of the school is a cluster of old and historic buildings [photo], including a chapel by George Gilbert Scott, a vast stone war Memorial and the 'Old Schools' 17th century classroom block. Further out are numerous houses for boarders, each with their own master and matron, and a lane leading down to the extensive (and very famous) playing fields. There's a special musty shop where boys can buy cufflinks and hand-sewn name labels, and another selling sensible shoes, hockey sticks and cricket flannels. But because I visited during the holidays there were no boys in boaters crocodiling along the streets, just summer school students jabbering their way from dorm to library, which wasn't quite the same.

Elsewhere on the hill are strings of charming cottages clinging to steep tumbledown lanes [photo]. Were these in the Cotswolds there'd be coach parties of tourists spilling out onto the pavement, cameras in hand, buying tea towels and boxes of over-priced fudge. Thankfully not here. And right up on the summit, with its spire visible for miles, is the parish church of St Mary [photo]. It's a little charmer inside, a consequence of 900 years of unbroken history, including a medieval chancel and some Victorian extensions by Gilbert Scott (again). The churchyard is also worth a look, partly for the gobsmacking verse written in tribute to London's first railway accident amputee [photo], but also for the extensive view to the east. It was here, atop an old tomb beneath a drooping elm, that the schoolboy Lord Byron came regularly for peace and inspiration. He never quite got his wish to be buried on this spot, but a plaque beside the south porch tells that his illegitimate daughter Allegra is buried somewhere nearby.

"Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,
Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still,
Thou drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs I lay,
And frequent mused the twilight hours away;"
Lines Written Beneath an Elm in the Churchyard of Harrow (Lord Byron, 1807)

I enjoyed my walk around Harrow-on-the-Hill rather more than I was expecting. It's such an unexpected oasis amongst the uniformity of the surrounding area, and Byron was right about the view. OK so it's a bit posh, but you don't have to approve to appreciate. And I'm glad I downloaded the walking tour from this page on the local borough website before I went, otherwise I might easily have missed Churchill's first boarding House, the spot where Lord Shaftesbury devoted his life to the poor, and the plaque on Grove Hill commemorating Britain's first motorist fatality [photo]. You might not want to spend five years of your life here, but I bet you'd enjoy a couple of hours.

 Wednesday, August 23, 2006

  Metro-land revisited
  Wembley Stadium
  Wembley Park

"When melancholy Autumn comes to Wembley
And electric trains are lighted after tea,
The poplars near the stadium are trembly
With their tap and tap and whispering to me."
John Betjeman (Harrow-on-the-Hill)

No other location on Betjeman's Metro-land journey has changed so utterly since 1972 as "trembly" Wembley. Sir John came to see the now-demolished Twin Towers stadium, and even to stand in the centre of the pitch. But he wasn't here for the football, he was here to remember the tower erected on the site several years before... and most especially the unique buildings that used to stand just across the road.

Wembley owes its world-wide fame to Sir Edward Watkin, Managing Director of the Metropolitan Railway, but not for the reason he hoped. Watkin's 1890 plan was to build a rival to the Eiffel Tower, here in the undeveloped Middlesex fields. He mounted an international competition and soon began to build the winning design, one level at a time, close to a new halt on his railway named 'Wembley Park' [photos]. But the crowds never came, the money ran out and the unstable tower was demolished after only its first storey had been completed. It was probably for the best - the view over Brent and Harrow is nothing special compared to looking down across Paris and the Bois de Boulogne.

In place of Watkin's Folly, indeed on the exact same spot, was built the Empire Stadium. Centrepiece of the British Empire Exhibition, this steel and concrete coliseum was knocked up on schedule in 300 days flat. Bolton won the first match in 1923, fending off pitch invasions long enough to beat West Ham in the legendary "White Horse" FA Cup Final. The stadium saw 72 FA Cup Finals in all, as well as one fairly memorable World Cup Final and 262 international matches. But Twenties design wasn't up to the demands of 21st century sport, and the Twin Towers were razed to the ground in 2003. It's taken rather longer than 300 days to finish erecting the replacement, although from the outside everything looks complete already. The Wembley Arch is visible for miles around, looming over the stadium like the handle on a very large metal shopping basket. It's four times higher than the original towers and really most impressive [photos], but I suspect that a slightly simpler design might not have delayed the incompetent construction company for quite so long.

"The British Empire Exhibition exhibition will be the chief event of 1924. It is costing over £10 million to produce, and an entirely new concrete city has been erected to house it... The grounds at Wembley will reproduce in miniature the entire resources of the British Empire. There you will be able to inspect the Empire from end to end... Every aspect of life, civilised and uncivilised, will be shown in an exhibition which is the last word in comfort and convenience."
Feature in "Metro-land" brochure (1924)

As an impressionable 17 year old, Betjeman was enthralled by the British Empire Exhibition. He came especially to see the ecclesiastical basilica inside the Palace of the Arts, drifting disinterestedly past the more down-to-earth exhibits in the Palaces of Industry and Engineering (textile production and shipbuilding weren't really his style). The exhibition was the British Empire's last gasp - at the very peak of its extent but already ominously declining in power. 56 national pavilions were constructed to showcase local agriculture, crafts and exports, with Canada's one of the largest and Bermuda's one of the smallest. And there was an Amusement Park, also on a grand scale, featuring switchback coasters, a scenic railway, a giant Dancing Hall and even a walk-through reconstruction of a coal mine. The whole exhibition must have been breathtaking to the average Briton, previously unexposed to such global visions, and 27 million visitors eagerly flocked through the gates.

After the exhibition closed in 1925 many of the pavilions fell into disrepair, and most have now been demolished. The British Government Pavilion was razed the year after Betjeman visited, with two of the lions guarding its entrance given sanctuary at Woburn Safari Park. In place of these temples to Empire have sprung up warehouses, light industry and cavernous megastores. Londoners flock here now to experience Allied Carpets, JD Sports and Lidl. Last year only the Palaces of Industry and the Arts remained. The corner of the former still stands humbly alongside Wembley Way, its pillared facade now faded and grimy, enduring new life as a White Arrow courier depot [photo]. But broad acres of the remainder have oh-so-recently been delisted, destroyed, erased, to leave a broad open scar where once was magnificence [photo].

"Oh bygone Wembley, where's the pleasure now?
The temples stare, the empire passes by."
John Betjeman on Wembley ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

The rebuilding of Wembley stretches far beyond the stadium. The Arena is blazing the way forward, its scrubbed-up interior now augmented by an imposing interactive fountain feature in the new plaza outside [photos]. I'm far less enamoured by imminent plans to construct "boutiques, offices, crèche, apartments, hotels, greenspaces..." all around, blocking off views of the stadium and blocking out all memory of the past. Developers Quintain describe the New Wembley as a "modern, urban and exciting place" with "high quality, state of the art, leisure, business and retail facilities" [photo]. Sounds grim, doesn't it? But Wembley's fields have seen enormous changes since the Metropolitan Railway first passed by, as each generation seeks to lure in the crowds where once there were none. Let's hope that the new stadium, whenever it's ready, becomes a beacon for positive regeneration and not a new Palace of Greed.

• Wembley Stadium - old/new
• Wembley Regeneration Homepage
• Satellite photos of the old Wembley
• Betjeman also visited (briefly): Kingsbury 'Castle'

 Tuesday, August 22, 2006

  Metro-land revisited
  Gladstone Park
  Neasden

"Over the points by electrical traction
Out of the chimneypots into the openness
Til we come to the suburb that's thought to be commonplace
Home of the gnome and the average citizen
Sketchley and Unigate, Dolcis and Walpamur"
John Betjeman on Neasden ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

If you were making a documentary about Neasden today, you wouldn't go the local park. More likely you'd go to the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir [photo], the impressive pinnacled Hindu temple on Brentfield Road, to be compared and contrasted with that other great modern temple, the blue and yellow IKEA on the North Circular. But neither of these had been built when Betjeman came in 1972, and I suspect he wouldn't have visited either. Instead he headed northeast from the station, up the slopes of Dollis Hill, to Gladstone Park.



This is one of the larger parks in north London, safeguarded against creeping urbanisation by Victorian philanthropists. There are 97 acres to slouch in, jog through and kickabout on, as well as large ares of woodland and hay meadow. Take a seat on one of the benches at the crest of the hill and the park spreads out in front of you, down a steep grassy slope to a sea of identikit semis in the valley below [photo]. You can see for miles, round from the old Post Office Tower to the new Wembley Stadium, across swathes of undulating suburbia. Look carefully and you can spot the Trellick Tower, and Harrow on its hill, and a steady procession of jets descending to land at Heathrow. It's perhaps not surprising that a grand home, Dollis Hill House, was built on the hilltop, nor that one of its most famous residents was William Gladstone the Liberal Prime Minister. Another regular house guest was author Mark Twain, who later penned perhaps the kindest words ever written about Neasden.

"I have never seen any place that was so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of country, and everything that went to make life delightful, and all within a biscuit's throw of the metropolis of the world."
Mark Twain (Innocents Abroad, 1869)

Dollis Hill House today is a pitiful shell of its former self [photo]. Following a couple of arson attempts coupled with insufficient funds for renovation, one suspects it's only the scaffolding keeping the place upright. The stable block is in better shape, doubling up as an art gallery and cafe, with an immaculate walled rose garden nestling behind [photo]. An ornamental pond also survives, though the nude statue standing ankle deep in the murky green waters is a much later addition [photo]. This is a favourite spot for parked-up baby buggies and wheelchairs, or just for plonking down with a picnic beneath the rustling leaves and throwing crusts at the ducks.

Betjeman preferred civic pride to hilltop history and met up instead with local birdwatcher Mr Eric Sims, creator of the Neasden Nature Trail. Mr Sims effused on film about the variety of birdlife to be seen in Gladstone Park, and the bracing stroll he had devised to allow local residents to experience the same. Look, a hen blackbird, and here a house sparrow, and there's a pigeon. His enthusiasm appears out of all proportion, as these are birds which might be seen in any park across the nation. In suburbia, when you have no real countryside to hand, you have to make do with what you have. A check on Gladstone Park's website today reveals that others still share his in-depth fascination with the mostly-ordinary. Blue tits, chaffinches and crows are still lovingly catalogued, along with rarer visitors such as the green woodpecker (spotted by Colin George on June 29th last year) and a flock of redwings (spotted by Martin Thompson the previous April). Another scarily obsessive part of the site measures out each of the park's pathways so that those out power-walking can tell, to the nearest hundredth of a mile, precisely how far they've travelled. Alas of the Neasden Nature Trail itself, a product of the pre-internet era, there is no sign.

Eric and Sir John also narrowly missed the area's most fascinating secret location. While they were peering through binoculars in the Brook Road allotments, a small doorway across the street shielded something far more extraordinary. This is the entrance to 'Paddock' [photo], the government's bombproof WW2 bunker, to which Winston Churchill and his cabinet would have retreated had Whitehall ever been bombed. Paddock contained scores of rooms across two floors, protected beneath five feet of reinforced concrete, with enough room for 200 support staff within. But Churchill only ever visited once, for a dry run, and after the war the site was mothballed and forgotten. It was still top secret in 1972, and only came to light when a local housing association was given permission to build on top of it.

I'm not convinced that the family currently living in the house nextdoor to Paddock are aware of their secret neighbour. They gave me the funniest look as I stopped to take a photograph of the locked entrance door, maybe because they thought I was snapping their wheelie bin instead. And then they drove off in their car, hesitantly, hanging around in a nearby road until they were absolutely certain that me (and my camera) were no longer hanging around [photo]. They must surely notice next month when the bunker is opened up for London Open House weekend and scores of vistors in yellow hard hats start gathering in front of their driveway. I was lucky enough to get a ticket two years ago and ventured down in the wartime depths, along the long damp corridors and into the rusting cabinet room. It was a fascinating visit, and such an unexpected find beneath the streets of Neasden. But I think one visit was quite enough. Churchill and me, we have that in common.

• Paddock virtual tour
• Subterranea Britannica history of Paddock (seriously detailed)
• more Paddock photographs

 Monday, August 21, 2006

  The soul of Metro-land
  as seen from a passing carriage


Paddling pools stagnate by tall rusty climbing frames,
    Long winding hosepipes cross half-dried up lawns,
Net curtains twitch as a cat fouls the flowerbed,
    Lingerie shakes as the breeze sways the line,
Pigeons perch briefly on steep-slated chimneypots,
    Squat loft extensions encroach on the sky,
Frilled stripy sunshades shield lunch on the patio,
    Rainwater puddles fill green plastic chairs,
Satellite dishes protrude from the pebbledash,
    Lawnmowers buzz between rose bush and shed.

A hedge to divide up each thin strip of empire,
    Exposed for inspection from each passing train.
diamond geezer (2006)

  Metro-land revisited
  Marlborough Road


From Baker Street the Met line burrows north, more than two miles out to Finchley Road without stopping. But the journey wasn't always this fast. There used to be three stations inbetween, one at Lord's, one at Marlborough Road and one at Swiss Cottage. The former was well used during the cricket season, but otherwise all three stations barely justified their existence. Then in 1939 the new parallel Bakerloo line tunnels were opened, along with new stops at St John's Wood and Swiss Cottage, and the old three stations were closed for good. Only Marlborough Road is still clearly visble, both above ground and below, although you have to know where to look. You probably wouldn't give this Chinese restaurant a second glance, for example, not unless you were a St John's Wood resident with disposable income to expend. But this is the old station building, now scrubbed and whitewashed and serving up "Dim Sum daily" [photos]. It's a bit of a comedown, but still a culinary improvement on 1972 when Betjeman found an Angus Steak House here instead.

Sir John was also able to stand on the disused platform - one of the many advantages of being a documentary-making Poet Laureate. Here he waited, at the bottom of a deep brick canyon, looking appropriately wistful as the shiny white trains sped past. All that passing passengers get to see today, during a brief few seconds of daylight, is a rather more overgrown and rubble-strewn platform [photos]. The walls are arched, echoing the design of the station building above, and still painted a very faint shade of Metropolitan purple. And there's a wire-framed door in the east wall with a green sign labelled "Emergency exit", just in case any train should ever need to be evacuated here in a hurry. You never know your luck, you might end up here one day and be able to pop upstairs for a Chinese takeaway.

"Early electric, punctual and prompt,
off to those cuttings in the Hampstead hills,
St John's Wood, Marlborough Road, no longer stations,
and the trains rush through."
John Betjeman at Marlborough Road station ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

• Marlborough Road 1969
• See inside Marlborough Road station today
• Scores more abandoned and disused tube stations

 Sunday, August 20, 2006

  Metro-land revisited
  Chiltern Court
  Baker Street

Betjeman began his Home Counties Odyssey at Baker Street station... or, to be more accurate, in the elegant restaurant above the station. He sat beneath the gilded ceiling at a lined-topped table surrounded by folded napkins and gleaming china, as had so many diners before him. Sir John was clearly very much at home in such surroundings.

"Here the wives from Pinner and Ruislip, after a day's shopping at Liberty's or Whiteleys, would sit waiting for their husbands to come up from Cheapside and Mincing Lane, and while they waited they could listen to the strains of the band playing for the tea dances, before they took the train for home."
John Betjeman in the Chiltern Court Restaurant ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)

This is Chiltern Court [photo], the former headquarters of the Metropolitan Railway, looming large above the Marylebone Road. It's a vast building, as you'll know if you've ever looked across while standing in the queue outside Madame Tussauds nextdoor. There is no finer symbol of the financial success of Metro-land. This state-of-the-arts eleven-storey apartment block was the most luxurious in London when it opened in 1929. According to publicity at the time, the building contained "40 passenger and service lifts, postal chutes on each floor, hot-water radiator heating and automatic telephones." Residents were "able to proceed direct, not only to the Stores or the Restaurant, but also to the station platforms" [photos]. No wonder HG Wells found the place irresistable - he spent several years living in flat number 47. A mere half a million quid will get you a two-bedroom flat in Chiltern Court today - "conveniently located for Baker Street station". [entrance]

The Chiltern Court restaurant doesn't serve Brown Windsor soup to prim ladies and their stockbroker husbands any more. It's been bought up by the Wetherspoons chain and now lives out its days as the rather less exclusive Metropolitan Bar [photo]. A meal costs much the same as when Sir John sat here, but he didn't have to face 2-for-1 price deals, ketchup sachets and disposable serviettes. Any old pleb can get past the doorman these days, and believe me they do. The tables and chairs are rather less grand than before, and are filled with students, cheery tourist types and bloated lagerboys. The walls have been repainted navy blue instead of ruby red, and one is nearly completely obscured behind the well-stocked bar. But look up above the chunky square pillars and lo, the sky-blue ceiling is still liberally covered with the stucco crests of the Metropolitan Railway. If you're able to block out the occasional ringtone and the whirr of a nearby slot machine, you could almost be sat here back in the restaurant's heyday. Just don't look down.

"Here the beery blokes from Watford and Uxbridge, after a day's boozing in Camden or Soho, would sit waiting for their girlfriends to come up from Lakeside and Bluewater, and while they waited they could watch the football on Sky playing on the plasma flat screen, before they threw up on the train home."
diamond geezer in the Chiltern Court Restaurant Metropolitan Bar, 2006)

• 15 page article from the December 1927 issue of The Railway Magazine, all about Baker Street station and its traffic (including plans for the new Chiltern Court) [pdf]
• Photographs of Baker Street station from The Railway Station Gallery

 Saturday, August 19, 2006

  Metro-land
  a history


"The Company also has an important Extension line... The district through which it passes has been happily named Metro-land, and it is the purpose of this Guide briefly to describe the more important of the small townships which the Metropolitan serves, and in the steady development of which the line has been the principal agent."
Foreword to "Metro-land" brochure (1924)

The Metropolitan Railway was the first steam underground in the world. It chugged beneath the Marylebone Road from Paddington to Farringdon, before spreading its tentacles out further around central London. So successful was the fledgling railway that its bosses started to look further afield, with dreams of connecting their network to Oxford, Birmingham and even Manchester. They took an existing stumpy branch line terminating at Swiss Cottage and extended it outwards - first to Willesden, then to Harrow, Rickmansworth, Aylesbury and beyond. Further branch lines followed, to Uxbridge, Watford and Stanmore, until the Metropolitan railway was the driving force across the northwestern Home Counties.

Long-distance traffic proved elusive, however, not least because the hoped-for connections to the Midlands failed to materialise, so the Met turned their attention instead to the land alongside their tracks. They'd had the sense to buy up acres and acres of fields while the railway was still under construction, because they realised the potential of future property development. Not only could they sell off executive villas for a tidy profit (detached houses in Ickenham sold for £650 each, for example) but they could also fill their trains with regular season-ticketed commuters (£2 first class for a month's travel from Ickenham to Baker Street). It was a surefire recipe for success.

The first published guide to Metro-land was launched in 1915. This annual glossy brochure attempted to lure the well-to-do away from built-up crammed-together London by painting a picture of a well-connected rustic paradise. All that a flat-renting smoke-dwelling clerk had to do was flick through the Metro-land brochure and select the station of his dreams. Everywhere was "traditional" but "modern", "delightful" but "convenient", "unspoilt" but "accessible". Estates were often "garden villages", country rambles were always "charming" and the golf clubs were nothing less than "luxurious". Estate agent superlatives haven't changed much over the years. The 1924 edition of the guide, the "British Empire Exhibition Number", is now available in bookshops should you want to take a look for yourself.

During the 1920s and 1930s the population of Metro-land increased dramatically. But as commuters moved in, so the countryside they had come to enjoy disappeared beneath acres of sprawling semis. Railway bosses had destroyed much of the rural idyll they were trying to sell, and these phenomenal growth rates stalled. When London Transport nationalised the line in 1933 their priorities were transport, not housing, and so the Metro-Land brand was dropped. It was left to private property investors to continue the area's transformation, at least until the Second World War and the emergence of the Green Belt put a stop to it.

Large swathes of northwest London are still mothballed in the 1930s, architecturally at least, thanks to the Metropolitan Railway. Hundreds of thousands of Londoners would live nowhere else, because they don't build homes like this any more. Indeed, it would be environmentally irresponsible to build on such a scale ever again. You don't get a tennis-court-sized garden in a modern housing development, you get a concrete patio and a windowbox. You don't get detached isolation in an inner city apartment, you get paper-thin party walls and ghetto-blasting neighbours. And you don't get a home of character with chimneypots in Prescott's Britain, you get a box surrounded by identical boxes, if you're lucky. Metro-land may be a fake Arcadia, but it's still a very desirable place to live.

The expansion of Metro-Land
from Baker Street to... Swiss Cottage (1868), Willesden Green (1879), Harrow (1890), Pinner (1885), Rickmansworth (1887), Chesham (1889), Aylesbury & on to Verney Junction (1892), Uxbridge (1904), Watford (1925), Stanmore (1932)

• The history of the Metropolitan line

 Friday, August 18, 2006

  Metro-land
  revisited


"Child of the first war, forgotten by the second, we called you Metro-land.
We laid our schemes, lured by the lush brochure,
Down byways beckoned, to build at last the cottage of our dreams,
A city clerk turned countryman again, and linked to the Metropolis by train."
"Metro-land", John Betjeman (BBC, 1973)

In the summer of 1972 the newly-appointed Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, took a train ride out into the London suburbs. He followed the tracks of the Metropolitan railway from Baker Street out into the northwestern suburbs, through Middlesex, Herts and Bucks, and he took a BBC camera crew with him. The resulting documentary, Metro-land, is a television classic, lovingly reflecting the quirkier side of everyday Englishness. Sir John explored the extraordinary architecture to be found in London's commuter belt and met the ordinary people who lived therein. From mock-Tudor semis to the Harrow Women's Institute, his lilting prose exalted the eccentric and the commonplace.

There was much to see. In the early 20th century Metro-land had sprawled outwards from the extending railway line, covering the countryside with faux-rural housing stock. Pavements replaced hedgerows, lawns replaced fields and half-timbered gables replaced woodland. Those who had lived in the city rushed to resettle in outskirts Arcadia. They came in search of peace, and space, and a vegetable garden of their very own - all within easy commuting distance of the urban workplace. Here and there an existing village was swallowed up, its history and customs absorbed to create a new artificial heritage. Middle England had reinvented itself, and Betjeman was on hand to celebrate the end result.

Best of all, Sir John came to my village on the day of our annual village fete. He stood on a street corner close to my house to watch the carnival floats pass by. He watched my six foot something music teacher waiting proudly on the village green with the school orchestra stacked up behind. And he smiled benignly as the Queen of the Revels tried hard not to burst in fits of giggles during her coronation ceremony. I was only seven years old at the time and I don't appear on screen, but I was there, somewhere in the background, buying ice lollies and trying to win bottles of Cresta in the tombola. In his documentary Sir John lovingly chronicled my world, my childhood and my semi-detached roots. Which makes Metro-land the perfect topic for this year's diamond geezer local history month fortnight.

To commemorate the centenary of Betjeman's birth, I'm attempting to revisit the locations that he visited in his seminal documentary all those decades ago. From the bustle of Baker Street to the forgotten fields of Quainton Road, and around ten stations inbetween. Will I rediscover early 20th century suburbia, or has life moved on? I shall be trying to follow the Neasden Nature Trail, searching for the pond in Harrow where half of Gilbert and Sullivan drowned, hunting for a giant organ in Chorleywood and, yes, returning 'home'. To Metro-land.

"Gaily into Ruislip Gardens runs the red electric train,
With a thousand Ta's and Pardon's daintily alights Elaine;
Hurries down the concrete station with a frown of concentration,
Out into the outskirt's edges, where a few surviving hedges
Keep alive our lost Elysium - rural Middlesex again."
"Middlesex", John Betjeman (1954)

• Metro-land is now available on DVD (hurrah)
• Celebrating John Betjeman's centenary (born 28th August 1906)

 Thursday, August 17, 2006

Rules of Big Brother 1 (2000, 64 days): 10 housemates enter house. Housemates nominate two fellow housemates each week, then the public vote to evict one of them. Nasty Nick's ejection is the only tweak. Sorted.

Rules of Big Brother 7 (2006, 93 days): 14 housemates enter house. First two housemates nominated for eviction by the Big Brotherhood. Shabaz walks. Dawn kicked out. Bonnie evicted. Two new housemates added. George walks. Two housemates barred from nominating. Sezer evicted. Two housemates barred from nominating. Sam evicted. Golden Housemate Suzie enters house after finding golden ticket in Kitkat bar and being selected by random lottery ball. Only Suzie's nominations count. Grace evicted. Four rule-breaking housemates forced to nominate in public. Lisa evicted. Two housemates nominated for (sssh, don't tell anybody) moving to the house nextdoor. Aisleyne moves next door. Five new housemates move in nextdoor. Jayne moves into main house. Jennie and Michael move into main house. Jonathan evicted. Aisleyne brings Spiral into main house. Lea evicted. All housemates except Jayne face eviction. Nikki evicted. Housemates face Jayne-induced punishment week. Jayne evicted. Housemates nominate in pairs for double eviction. Half of housemates sent to prison. Prisoners discover secret luxury hideaway. Michael and Spiral evicted. Housemates nominate using automated keypad. Surprise double eviction of Mikey and Suzie. Public vote to select four ex-housemates to return to house nextdoor. Jennie wins immunity from eviction. Four ex-housemates voted back into house nextdoor. Richard and Imogen move nextdoor. Imogen evicted. Nikki returns to main house. Other three ex-housemates evicted. Six housemates remain until final day. Pete wins.

Not that the producers are getting desperate, of course.

Three of my Top Ten linkers have a book out this month...

1) Girl with a One-track Mind: Confessions of the Seductress Next Door
by Abby Lee from girl with a one track mind [published 3rd August]
Top blogger gets book deal - hurrah! Top blogger sweats for months to deliver manuscript - phew! Top blogger serialised in Sunday Times - hurrah! Top blogger appears stacked up on Charing Cross Road - hurrah! Top blogger outed by Sunday Times journalistic scum - gutted! Top blogger has best-selling paperback - bittersweet.

2) Blood, Sweat and Tea: Real Life Adventures in an Inner-city Ambulance
by Tom Reynolds from random acts of reality [published tomorrow]
What's it really like rushing around East London aboard a London ambulance, battling ill health, public stupidity and mindless bureaucracy? If you've been reading Tom's insightful blog for the last three years, then you'll already have some idea. Now all of his best posts have been morphed and updated into a shiny new volume, available in all good bookshops from tomorrow. I've had an advance copy for a fortnight (which is one of the advantages of appearing on page 279), and it's amazing the gravitas which print brings to Tom's writing. Go on, stick a copy on your bookshelf. I remain worried, however, that I risk appearing in the sequel should I ever have a nasty accident at home and be forced to ring 999.

3) Tales of Mirth and Woe
by Alistair Coleman from Scaryduck [published 1st August?]
This book may be listed on Amazon but it's strange, I've heard nothing about it recently on Scary's site, nor seen it in the shops. I wonder if this is perhaps just another one of his stories...

[Please note that the official diamond geezer book is available today at your office photocopier (please staple top left) in 48 monthly archives]

 Wednesday, August 16, 2006

1/2: This afternoon, probably somewhere around teatime, diamond geezer will receive its half-millionth visitor. Actually that's not quite true, it'll just be the half-millionth time that a slightly ropey stats package has registered a unique visitor, which isn't the same thing at all. But what's quite interesting, to me at least, is to consider how and why these visitors have arrived here:
• 20% of my visitors arrived here via a search engine. Most of these poor deluded souls no doubt clicked here expecting that my site would yield the answer to some esoteric query, only to be disappointed by what they didn't find. I therefore shouldn't really count these hundred thousand as true visitors - they arrived here under false pretences.
• 40% of my visitors arrived here via another website. That's two hundred thousand arrivals via someone's else's blogroll, or because something I wrote got mentioned somewhere. I have no idea how many of these people ever came back again.
• 40% of my visitors arrived here direct, without clicking through from a search engine or any other website. Which is nice, because it suggests that at least two hundred thousand visitors have come here deliberately.
Let's explore that second category in a bit more depth. It's time once again for an update of my regular 'league table' of top linking blogs, ordered by volume of visitors clicking here from there. I've also included the 'highest climbers' since my last update back in February. Thank you all for linking. Go on, go check out a few of the following and return the favour...
  1) girl with a one track mind (↑15)  
  2) arseblog
  3) casino avenue
  4) scaryduck
  5) blue witch
  6) random acts of reality
  7) my boyfriend is a twat (↑1)
  8) london underground
  9) linkmachinego
10) funjunkie		11) route 79
12) onionbagblog
13) london calling
14) planarchy (↑3)
15) big n juicy
16) troubled diva
17) d4d (↑1)
18) bitful
19) rodcorp (↑4)
20) stroppycow (↑14)
The next 20: 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Analysis suggests that the above list is the product of two particular types of bloglinks - slow drips and big bangs:
• Slow drip links send a steady flow of visitors here over a long period of time. A tiny 'diamond geezer' link might nestle quietly in the blogroll, perhaps sending a few passing clickers here every week, or perhaps used daily by the blog's owner. But those few clicks all mount up over months or even years and hey presto, a position in my Top 20. Thanks to all of you slow drippers - the blogosphere wouldn't work without you.
• And then there are big bang links, which appear on major(ish) blogs with high visitor traffic. One single prominent mention can attract hordes of visitors who suddenly, rightly or wrongly, descend to see what all the fuss is about. Just one big bang link can outrank a slow dripper in 24 hours flat, or even continue to gather readers three years later.

I can illustrate this by considering my new number one linking blog - girl with a one track mind. If you've never before visited this fine blog (not-worksafe), it's probably best described as "everything hot-blooded men wished girls thought about". Here's how the Girl ended up sending thousands of visitors my way:
• Back in February I was filling a slot on her blogroll and she was feeding me a slow dripper. This was merely foreplay.
• In March she thrashed me into submission to win best UK/Irish blog in the Bloggies, and my dribble-through increased.
• In April came an explosive bang when the Girl directed readers towards my April Fool post. Her passionate readers expected pussy, but all they got were kittens. None have yet sued for misdirection.
• And now she has a blockbuster paperback, recently sprawled across the media in a most unattractive manner. As thousands of new readers come across her daily, I continue to be on the receiving end of countless misguided infiltrations.
• End result: the Girl stands atop my pile, astride all opposition.

In conclusion I'd like to thank everyone - all the slow drippers, the big bangers and especially those of you who arrive here unaided - because every click-through is appreciated. Here's to the next half million...

 Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Blimey - I'm being quoted in high places!
In praise of... wheelie bags
If you see people pulling something behind them these days, especially during the holiday season, it is more likely to be a bag than a dog. The invention of the wheelie is one of those things - such as hard hats and shopping trolleys - that seem so blindingly obvious in retrospect it is a wonder it did not happen earlier. But it did not...

Not everyone approves, particularly those at the receiving end of a battalion of them thundering down the platform or collecting at the bottom of an escalator. One London blogger called them "the instruments of the devil" used by people who decelerate without warning and fail to signal before swerving in front of you. Clearly he thinks there ought to be some kind of driving test. But to most travellers they are one of those unsung inventions that make life a bit easier and reduce back strain. The past few days could have been even worse for the thousands stranded in airports as a result of the terrorism threat but for a pilot's bright idea less than 20 years ago.

Leader column, The Guardian, 15 August 2006		Case study
Londoners have fallen in love with a new pet. These special travelling companions go everywhere with their mistresses and masters, always following on very close behind. They come in all shapes and sizes, they stand alert by one's side when not required and they have to be carried on escalators... I am of course talking about wheelie suitcases.

These instruments of the devil are everywhere across the capital, usually directly in front of you. I'm sure they weren't around in any great numbers a year ago, but now all of a sudden it appears that everybody has to have one... Many of those people manoeuvring wheelie suitcases around town have clearly never passed a driving test in their lives. They cut you up, they decelerate without warning, they fail to signal before swerving out in front of you, they block the path of oncoming traffic and they collide with your nearside without ever stopping to give you the address of their insurance company.

This blog, 8 September 2003
The leader writers at the Guardian are obviously very late, and very wrong, but I'll let them off just this once.

fivelinks
• In case you didn't spot my hidden link last week, you can now play Repton, Chuckie Egg, Hopper and other 80s computer game classics online. Not that I'm recommending you waste your whole day at work clearing away the diamonds, you understand.
• The latest YouTube star is geriatric1927 (or 78-year old Peter from somewhere in central England). He only published his first two minute video ten days ago but now, eight videos later, he's been viewed 300000 times to worldwide acclaim. Just for being himself. Fair warms the cockles of your heart, it does.
• London Walks for your mp3 player - gosh, that's a good idea. Includes Soho, Greenwich and the City, amongst others, so far. [via Londonist]
• With the emergence last night of BBC1's "The One Show", comparisons are already being made to 70s current affairs legend Nationwide. Sorry Adrian and Nadia, but there is no comparison - Nationwide was tons better. Click 1969 on this timeline and you can even reacquaint yourself with Herbie the skateboarding duck.
• This month's dg kitten experience is brought to you by Mister Herman's Cat Games. Discover 48 ways to torment a cat, including "Kitty Under Glass", "Tape the Kitty's Paws", "Sleepy Kitty Surprise" and far, far worse. Nobody would ever actually play one of these games, obviously, would they? [via in4mador]

Oh boy, Blogger is about to change. They've left our Blogger blogging interface alone for a couple of years, but now it seems that a new beta version is ready to be rolled out. Why am I so nervous? We're promised dynamic serving (which should speed publishing up a lot), we're promised "labels" (which seems to be a new word for "tags"), we're promised new site feed settings (ho hum) and we're promised additional privacy (should we want it). But all Blogger users are going to be forced to sign up for a Google Account in the process, and once we've switched to the new version we can't switch back. Apparently I'm one of the rare few to have been offered the opportunity to switch on day one, but so far I've resisted the temptation. Has anybody else out there taken the plunge into the buggy beta version? Am I being over-cautious. Or are Blogger about to bugger everything up again?

 Monday, August 14, 2006

Results:
My northernmost reader: Björn Friðgeir in Reykjavik, Iceland [64°09'N, 21°55'W]
My westernmost reader: Damien in Eugene, Oregon, USA [44°03'N, 123°06'W]
My easternmost reader: ChrisG in Beachlands, Auckland, New Zealand [36°53'S, 175°0'E]
My southernmost reader: EnZedGasMan in Wellington, New Zealand [41°17'S, 174°47'E]
(unless, of course, you know different)

 Are you my northernmost reader?

Take a look in the comments box above and, if you live closer to the North Pole than the current record holder, tell me where you are and we'll see if anyone can beat you.		 
Are you my westernmost reader?

Take a look in the comments box above and, if you live closer to the International Date Line (West) than the current record holder, tell me where you are and we'll see if anyone can beat you.		Bow
London
E3		Are you my easternmost reader?

Take a look in the comments box above and, if you live closer to the International Date Line (East) than the current record holder, tell me where you are and we'll see if anyone can beat you.
 Are you my southernmost reader?

Take a look in the comments box above and, if you live closer to the South Pole than the current record holder, tell me where you are and we'll see if anyone can beat you.		 

 Sunday, August 13, 2006

Silver discs (August 1981)
A monthly look back at the top singles of 25 years ago

The three best records from the Top 10 (11th August 1981)
Human League - Love Action (I Believe In Love): It was in this week 25 years ago that both the Human League and Duran Duran launched into the UK Top 10 for the very first time. With the mewl of an electronic cat and the snapping of camera shutters, the future suddenly became mainstream. The decade would never look back. Love Action thrust half-fringe Phil and his jiving Saturday girls into full public glare. It's still a brilliantly inventive record, every layer glistening with its own hooky melody. Meanwhile Hard Times lay wasted on the B side, never quite making it onto the album Dare because vinyl had insufficient capacity. Love and Dancing, anybody? [TotP] [video]
"I’ve had my hard times in the past, I’ve been a husband and a lover too, I’ve lain alone and cried at night over what love made me do"
Duran Duran - Girls On Film: How do you make the leap from New Romantic also-rans to world class music icons? You launch a flash record into the Top 10 and then promote it with an unashamedly pornographic video. Producers Godley and Creme set out to court controversy by filming six minutes of slinky pouting models wearing not much, from pole-dancing pillow fights to the notorious final mud-wrestling sequence. But did any of us actually see this rampant nipplefest when we were impressionable teenagers? Did we hell. Newborn MTV demanded heavy censorship while the BBC banned the video outright. It's only thanks to YouTube that I've finally been able to watch the scenes I'd been missing out on for 25 years, and... no, Mary Whitehouse would never have tried that with an ice cube, would she? [watch the full uncensored video here]
"See them walking hand in hand across the bridge at midnight, heads turning as the lights flashing out it's so bright, then walk right out to the fourline track, there's a camera rolling on her back"
Electric Light Orchestra - Hold on Tight: By contrast, Jeff Lynne's ELO had graced the Top 10 on several previous occasions. Most early 80s homes owned at least one slice of ELO vinyl, most probably 1977's epic Out of the Blue, although this latest single was a bit of a departure. Gone were the trademark classical strings, updated for the new decade with synthesisers and whining guitars, and this was a storming track. But the concept album era was on the wane, and the band's future lay ultimately in a never-ending succession of repackaged greatest hits CDs. This single well deserves its place therein. [video]
"When you get so down that you can't get up, and you want so much but you're all out of luck, when you're so downhearted and misunderstood, just over & over & over you could"

My favourite three records from August 1981 (at the time)
Aneka - Japanese Boy: Sorry, but as a teenager I enjoyed a good novelty record as much as the next spotty oik. Never mind that the geisha singing this quasi-oriental track was really a Scottish housewife in a rather blatant ginger wig, I loved it. Never mind her expressionless air hostess smile or the two chopsticks poking out of the top of her head, this was cheesy holiday camp brilliance. Never mind. Two follow-up singles failed miserably to dent UK public consciousness, so Mary Sandeman returned to her day job as an ordinary mezzo soprano Scottish folk singer. But at least one with a chart-topping hit in her closet, which is more than Isla St Clair ever managed. [watch, if you dare]
"Was it something I said or done that made him pack his bags up and run, could it be another he's found, it's breaking up a happy home"
Thompson Twins - Perfect Game: Before the Thompson Twins were famous, well before they were famous, there was Perfect Game. This track was raw, it was under-produced, it was about the taboo subject of mental illness and it knocked some of the band's later more successful singles into the shadows. Back in 1981 the band weren't yet a threesome - more a giant post-punk double-digit collective with a penchant for percussion and African rhythms. Tom and Alannah had recently met in neighbouring Clapham squats (and yes, she had frizzy trademark hair even back then). Perfect.
"Somebody's crying now, his head is full of pain, taken to the building where they're playing the perfect game"
...and then there was a Northern Soul cover version. I think I'll do that due justice next month. August has enough classics already.
"Sometimes I feel I've got to run away..."

15 other hits from 25 years ago: One In Ten (UB40), For Your Eyes Only (Sheena Easton), Show Me (Dexy's Midnight Runners), Walk Right Now (Jacksons), Beachboy Gold (Gidea Park), Si Si Je Suis Un Rock Star (Bill Wyman), Startrax Club Disco (Startrax), Hand Held In Black And White (Dollar), I Love Music (Enigma), Wunderbar (Tenpole Tudor), Fire (U2), Backfired (Debbie Harry), Rainy Night In Georgia (Randy Crawford), Chemistry (Nolans), Arabian Nights (Siouxsie and the Banshees) ...which hit's your favourite? ...which one would you pick?

 Saturday, August 12, 2006

Becks writes his life story (in words of one syll-a-ble)

i am born in the east end
i love my mum, i love my dad
i am dead good at ball games.

i am signed by the man u team
my first game is at home to leeds
i am so cute and skill.

i meet posh spice, we shag
she makes me wear a dress, then we wed
look... one, two, three boys!

i score lots of goals from free kicks
oops, a bad foul, i am sent off
now all the fans hate me.

i play so well i get made big team boss
my face sells specs in the far east
cor, see my tatts!

sven takes a shine to me
my foot breaks, but mends in time for the world cup
we lose, sob.

i change my hair a lot
a quiff, then blond, all cropped, a fin, then braids
like a big girl.

fergs throws a boot at me, ouch, he is mean
i don't like man u no more
i tell all in the sun

i go play in spain
i am a brand, i am a star, i am a god
but i'm not as good as i was.

one last world cup chance
a red card ends it all
new boss steve says no thanks, bye.

 Friday, August 11, 2006

I'm off by train to Norfolk this morning. It's a very straight-forward journey - a short bus ride up to Stratford station, buy a ticket, pass through the barriers and hop aboard a fast train out east. But I wonder how different things might now be, were I to try to make the same trip in two years' time...

 Monday, August 11, 2008


07:00 Exit house
07:01 Walk to Stratford rather than waste time trying to board the Armoured Bendy Bus
07:25 Arrive at Stratford Domestic Fortress - join long queue to enter station
07:40 Preliminary security check - sneered at by police dog
07:48 Undergo compulsory fingerprinting and electronic ID check
07:49 Accidentally mistaken for terrorist suspect with similar name to myself
07:50 Wait in quarantine zone while policewoman confirms I'm not a 67 year-old Nigerian female
08:41 Allowed to return to queue as fellow passengers give me suspicious looks
08:54 Exchange pre-booked ticket for biometric boarding pass
08:55 Place boarding pass inside clear plastic bag
08:56 Surrender newspaper, apple, biro, bottle of water and other dangerous hand luggage and place in incinerator provided
08:58 Suitcase taken away for detailed forensic examination
09:03 Remove shoes and other superfluous items of clothing which might be harbouring explosive padding
09:05 Walk through electronic security scanner, which then beeps for no reason because they always bloody do
09:06 Patted down by scary bearded security guard using her large rubber wand
09:11 Replace trousers and continue into station
09:16 All documentation triple-checked before being allowed to enter the platform
09:19 Genitals sniffed by fierce-looking police hound
09:20 Train is not due for well over an hour, but I was expecting those security checks to take longer
10:25 Starting to lose the will to live
10:38 Announcement that train will arrive 45 minutes late due to "additional security protocols at Liverpool Street"
11:53 Train actually arrives 75 minutes late due to "decamping suspicious looking passengers at Bethnal Green"
11:54 Take pre-assigned seat in extra-secure carriage and fasten safety belt
11:59 In-train attendants begin 5 minute safety demonstration "for the benefit of passengers joining the train at Stratford"
12:04 Train departs
12:33 Still nothing to do but re-read the safety instructions or stare at the blacked-out windows
12:47 Bloke comes round pushing trolley selling security-cleared beverages
12:55 & 14:32 & 15:25 Similarly long and tedious waits at Colchester, Ipswich and Stowmarket
16:06 This journey may be damned slow and bloody boring but hey, at least it's safe
16:42 Finally arrive at rural Norfolk station in one piece
16:43 Terrorist group explode bomb in Yorkshire shopping centre instead

 Thursday, August 10, 2006

Carbon audit, anyone?

It's official. We're all destroying the environment through our thoughtless production of huge amounts of carbon dioxide. If we continue at this rate there won't be a planet left for our grandchildren to enjoy, and that would be a bad thing. So the government is to take firm and decisive action to safeguard the future... by introducing an optional carbon audit. I've reproduced part of it below. Imagine the enormous impact on climate change if a few people take this online survey and maybe change their behaviour a bit, for a few weeks. The whole planet could be saved. Go on, click away and play your part.

1) Do you own a car?
a) Yes, I have a really big 4x4 and I drive it very fast (200 tonnes)
b) Yes, but I only use it to drive to the bottle bank and back (5 tonnes)
c) No, I bicycle everywhere because I'm an environmental angel (0 tonnes)
2) Do you ever fly abroad on holiday?
a) Yes, but no more than five times a year (500 tonnes)
b) Sometimes, but I prefer caravanning instead (70 tonnes)
c) No, I always spend my holidays at home fitting loft insulation (0 tonnes)
3) Have you fitted energy efficient light bulbs?
a) No, don't be silly, they cost more (80 tonnes)
b) Yes, but only when one of my normal bulbs blows (4 tonnes)
c) No need, I'm sitting here in the dark instead (0 tonnes)
4) Do you offset your carbon emissions?
a) Yes, I often pay for a new pine forest to be planted (-500 tonnes)
b) Yes, I've installed a wind turbine on the roof (-250 tonnes)
c) No, but I've tried to cut down on eating baked beans (-5 tonnes)
5) Have you been breathing recently?
a) No, I've been holding my breath for the last five minutes trying to prevent excessive carbon dioxide emissions (0 tonnes)
b) Blimey, I never realised breathing was bad for the environment - I'll stop now (0 tonnes)
c) Yes, sorry, but it's no good saving the planet if I can't live to enjoy it (1000 tonnes)
[hang on, this might be a real carbon audit here]

 Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Why the NHS is utterly brilliant

I've been lucky in my life so far. I've only been into hospital twice - once to be born and then again a few years later to have an ingrowing toenail removed. I'd still be alive today even without a national health service. My middle-aged body hasn't seriously malfunctioned yet, not as far as I know, and I'm still here unassisted. Not all of you might have been so fortunate. One single accident, illness or condition might already have stopped you in your tracks before you reached the age you are now. But you're still here, because modern medicine patched you up, for free. And I'd really miss you if you weren't here.

Why the NHS is truly buggered

<arrive home to find automated message on answerphone, as follows>

Automated female voice 1: <official name of hospital>
Automated female voice 2: Patients at this hospital now have access to a personal telephone at their bedside. You can call this patient directly without going through the hospital switchboard or disturbing the nurses. Calls are charged at 39 pence per minute off peak and 49 pence per minute at all other times. The telephone number you need to dial is...
Automated female voice 3: <0><7><0><4><6> <3><8> <x><x><x><x>
Automated female voice 2: Let me repeat those details again for you. You can contact...
Automated female voice 4: <Ms> <horribly mispronounced name of patient>
Automated female voice 2: ...in...
Automated female voice 1: <official name of hospital>
Automated female voice 2: ...and their personal telephone number is...
Automated female voice 3: <0><7><0><4><6> <3><8> <x><x><x><x>
Automated female voice 2: Friends and family often choose to make a gift purchase of TV and telephone time using their credit card. If you would like to arrange this, please call 0800 959 3100. Any unused credit can be fully refunded on request.

<deep sigh, and ring extortionately-priced telephone number>

Coming soon (no doubt):
• dial-a-ride ambulances (please swipe your Oyster card on entrance and exit)
• McDonalds franchises for in-hospital catering
• £5 surcharge on flowers not purchased from the stall in the foyer
• hourly admission charges for visitors (blood relatives half price)
• pedalo hospital trolleys
• coin-in-the-slot anaesthetic in the operating theatre
• your choice of 'Economy', 'Standard' or 'Deluxe' nursing
• free upgrades to private healthcare with new NHS Reward Points

 Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Some people moan too much. If the weather's too hot, they'll moan. If the weather's too cold, they'll moan. If the air conditioning isn't turned down to exactly the temperature... no, not that far, up a degree, oh for heaven's sake can't you even get that right you moron... they'll moan. Everything is flawed, everything is imperfect, and everything is someone else's fault.

Bloggers are particularly good at moaning. My journey into work this morning, you wouldn't believe how bad it was. That new government initiative, it's rubbish isn't it? I've spotted somebody who thinks differently to me, the idiot, here's why they're wrong. Oh yes, if you need an easy target for debate, just pull something (or someone) apart.

Of course not all moaning is a bad thing. Constructive criticism can often be helpful. Complaining about poor customer service is almost always justified. Trying to change the world through the ballot box is the cornerstone of democracy. But for some people, too many people, moaning is a pointless negative emotion which all too easily spirals out of control.

If you're watching a football match on TV, shouting at the screen doesn't make your team play any better. If you're waiting for a delayed train, stamping your feet up and down the platform never makes it arrive any sooner. If you're diagnosed with something potentially serious, griping about it won't make you healthier any quicker. Sometimes you have no control whatsoever over your situation - you're in the hands of others - and moaning really doesn't help anybody.

So today I just wanted to salute those amongst us who have every reason to moan, but don't. Those who surprise others by getting on with their life where others might expect them to grumble. Those who know that some things are better faced up to than confronted. I hope I'd be like that if I were ever in a similar situation. And, if I were, at least now I know where I get it from.

Blimey. MSN Search UK have decreed that diamond geezer is one of the "30 best blogs" on the internet. Which is very kind of them, if completely misguided. They've decided to split their shortlist of "essential online diaries" into six categories, as follows , and I'm completely mystified by the classification they've selected for me. Go on, which category do you think best fits my blog? And then check. Surely not?

 Monday, August 07, 2006

Town v Country: where do you feel safer?



Here's a fairly typical London subway. It's gloomy, it's secluded and it's just that bit too quiet. Walk down here and you're on your own... or rather you hope you are. Is that something moving in the shadows up ahead, or someone? If it's a gang of local youths approaching, will they demand your wallet at knifepoint or will they just walk on by? It's easy to let your imagination run away with you in an urban hellhole like this. And yet walking through this subway didn't worry me at all. Not one negative thought flashed through my head - I just kept my eyes open and walked confidently ahead. Other people approached but I didn't quiver, not once, and nothing untoward happened. I even flashed my camera around in a 'please steal me' kind of a way, but nobody did. Maybe it's over-confidence, but I have no irrational fear of urban crime.



Here, on the other hand, is a typical Home Counties field. A swathe of rolling grassland leads down to a wooded river valley, miles away from the grime and bustle of the modern city. Gorgeous isn't it? I was there yesterday afternoon, soaking up every ounce of rural charm. Birds soared overhead, butterflies frolicked in the vegetation and the sun beat down upon my sweaty brow. What could be more peaceful? And yet, standing here taking this photograph, I was nervous as anything.

I can't walk down a country footpath without fearing what might be round the next corner. It's not so much the humans I worry about as the canine companions they might have brought with them. Yes, I know that a rural footpath is perfect for exercising frisky dogs and that they have every right to be here. And yes I know that responsible dog owners always keep their dogs under control when others pass by. But from a distance I can't differentiate an off-leash controlled dog from a manic ill-trained beast, and I have a tendency to imagine the worst. The very last thing I want to meet out here in the middle of nowhere is a bouncy over-friendly hound yapping round my ankles... or maybe even higher. I'd rather experience only the natural wildlife, thank you very much, and never have to worry about the motives of four-legged visitors.

So, against the generally accepted view of things, I feel safer in urban areas. Rural footpaths give me the willies, and I never feel at ease while I'm walking along one. I'm getting better - I managed several at the weekend - but I still tend not to go walking in the countryside as often as I might. Which is a shame. And I suppose I should count myself extremely fortunate that I've never (yet) suffered any form of violent experience on the streets of London which might deter me from venturing outdoors in the city as well. If being hounded is the worse of my fears, life can't be all bad.

 Sunday, August 06, 2006

The internet changed my life

The world wide web is 15 years old today. I guess that makes it a petulant teenager, which seems appropriate - it's irresponsible, it's untidy and it spends a lot of its time hunting for pornography. But in those fifteen years the internet has undoubtedly changed the world. It certainly changed my life.

I keep a diary so I know exactly what I was doing on Tuesday 6th August 1991 - the day the world wide web went public. I was woken (thanks Mum) by the arrival of a letter from my solicitor. I was attempting to buy a flat at the time - something I eventually managed without searching for property online or sending a single email. It would never happen today. I read through the newspaper and then, just in case something important had happened since the paper was printed, I checked the latest news on Ceefax. It would never happen today. In the afternoon my brother told me he'd heard that one of his best mates at school had since transformed into a multi-earringed peroxide-haired jazz player. We wanted to check, but there was nowhere to look. It would never happen today. And then I spent the evening at my keyboard playing a very long game of Repton. My computer was plugged into the mains but not the telephone socket, so all that could appear on my screen were words I'd written or software I'd bought. It was all so very insular and, thankfully, it would never happen today.

My life now is very different, and a lot of that is thanks to the internet. I get more emails in a day than I used to get letters in a month. I can check the news whenever I want, rather than waiting for the TV or a newspaper to tell me. I can do instant research without once having to visit a library. I can fill my spare time online without ever needing to leave the house and meet people in real life. And I can communicate with you and you can communicate with me because we're connected, which we never were before. Hurrah!

The day the internet really changed my life was Tuesday 3rd November 1998. That was the evening when I used my fledgling internet connection to check a recruitment website in a county 50 miles away and, hey presto, discovered a particularly appropriate job. I'd never have noticed the post otherwise, not anywhere paper-based and certainly not before the closing date. I got the job a month later, uprooted myself from comfortable normality and took an enormously big risk... which promptly backfired spectacularly. But without that risk I'd never have got the job I'm in now and I'd probably never have moved to London. And I doubt you'd be reading this blog today because in my old job I'd never have found the time to write it. Who'd have thought so much could hinge on one single 1998 webpage?

I owe the internet a lot, because I'd not be where I am today without it. How about you?

 Saturday, August 05, 2006

Message to ITV viewers who may just have arrived here via Google:
This is not David Jason's Diamond Geezer.
But this is diamond geezer's David Jason.

Where's your nearest London football club?

As the new football season kicks off, you'll either be thinking "Oh no, not again, the bloody World Cup's not been over for a month yet!" or "Ooh, where's my nearest London football club?" Assuming it's the latter, here's a special 2006/7 season map to help you.
Every London borough containing a League football club is shaded, using a different colour for each division.



London's football clubs aren't terribly well spread out, are they? The borough of Hammersmith and Fulham may be tiny, but it boasts as many as three top flight soccer teams. Meanwhile residents of south London get to share just three clubs between them, and two of those cling reluctantly close to the Thames. North-east-ish Londoners are absolutely spoilt for choice with some very big names on their doorstep. But north-westerners have a bit of commuting to do, and may find that their closest club isn't even in London. Still, with 30% of the country's Premiership clubs and only 15% of the population, Londoners can't really complain.

PremiershipChampionshipLeague OneLeague Two
Arsenal
Charlton
Chelsea
Fulham
Tottenham
West Ham
(Watford)		Crystal Palace
QPR		Brentford
Leyton Orient
Millwall		Barnet

• Apologies to non-residents of London, for whom this post is irrelevant.
• Actually no, because everybody has a nearest London football club.
• For example, if you live in Liverpool then your nearest London football club is Barnet FC.
• Sadly I'm willing to bet that more people in Barnet support Liverpool than support Barnet.

 Friday, August 04, 2006

How not to buy the Evening Standard

It should be very easy not to buy a copy of the Evening Standard. Walk straight past the vendor sat outside your local tube station, ignoring the big poster and the folded newspapers piled up in front of him, and go catch your train home. Even staring out of the window into a dark tunnel can be more interesting than reading the Standard's daily mix of froth, gossip and lifestyle.

But wait! The newspaper's editors have a devious trick up their sleeve - the suggestive headline. This hints that something really interesting has happened while you've been at work, but completely fails to reveal the outcome. There's only one way to satisfy your immediate curiosity, and that's to fork out 40p on buying a copy. Read beneath the headline and you'll soon realise that nothing earth-shattering has happened. You've been had. But it's too late - the Standard has your 40p and you have nothing of any value.

Come on London! You too can learn to interpret the Standard's suggestive headlines. You too can read between the lines to discover their true meaning. It's easy, and it could save you up to £100 a year.

Lesson 1: immediately following the monthly meeting of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee

Headline INTEREST 
RATE
SHOCK		 INTEREST 
RATE
DECISION		 INTEREST 
RATE
SURPRISE
TranslationInterest rates
have risen		Interest rates
stay the same		Interest rates
have fallen

Lesson 2: when a public figure is in the spotlight

HeadlineROCKSTAR
DEATH
TRAGEDY		BECKHAM
DIVORCE
SENSATION		 TORY MP 
DRUGS
SCANDAL
TranslationObscure 60s guitarist
has snuffed it		Posh and Becks deny rumours of splitPolitician quits pharmaceutical company

Lesson 3: when nothing particularly newsworthy has happened

HeadlineCRIME
 TERROR 
INCREASES		MORTGAGE
DOOM
CRISIS		TUBE
HORROR
NIGHTMARE
TranslationPutney woman has handbag snatchedHouse prices in Putney fall by 0.1%Putney commuter fails to get seat

Now test yourself by studying Darren's flickr gallery of 174 Evening Standard headlines.

 Thursday, August 03, 2006

Top telly - most watched

BARB, the organisation which tallies UK TV viewing figures, is 25 years old this week. Its statistical accumulation is carried out by inviting 5100 random UK households to record all their TV viewing habits in a big diary, originally paper-based but now via a proper electronic gizmo. BARB have even managed to randomly select at least one person who watches price-drop.tv, so full respect to them. To celebrate their 25th anniversary BARB have set up a special website which lists, amongst other things, the 10 most watched programmes in each of the last 25 years. And blimey it's fascinating watching tastes come and go, and seeing viewing figures tumble. You can view the complete set of 'most watched' programmes here, or just skim through my list of five-yearly highlights below...

1981's TV Top 3
1) Royal Wedding (39m)
2) Jaws (23.9m)
3) Diamonds Are Forever (19.2m)		You'd never get a film topping the TV ratings these days, would you, but 25 years ago video rental had yet to take off. And that Diana was always a dead cert ratings banker. Here she was, showing off her crumpled wedding dress to two thirds of the entire UK population. Diana also topped the TV charts in 1995 with her Panorama interview (22.8m) and in 1997 with, well, you know (19.3m).
1986's TV Top 3
1) EastEnders (30.1m)
2) Just Good Friends (20.7m)
3) Coronation Street (19.2m)		This was the EastEnders Christmas when Den served Angie with her divorce papers and a depressed Arthur trashed the living room, giving the newly-fledged E20 drama the best soap ratings of all time. Twee comedy was also making its mark, not just with soppy Vince and Penny at number 2 but also, further down the top 10, with Duty Free and Last of the Summer Wine. You can see where UK Gold gets its programming ideas from.
1991's TV Top 3
1) Coronation Street (20.4m)
2) London's Burning (18.9m)
3) Neighbours (18.8m)		Now here's Corrie back on top, although its most watched episode in this year featured nothing especially memorable ("Betty struggles to cope in the pub without Alec when Bet takes the day off to shop."). And here we are back in the era when Neighbours was inexplicably popular, with daily viewing figures greater than the entire population of Australia.
1996's TV Top 3
1) Only Fools And Horses (24.3m)
2) Coronation Street (19.8m)
3) Casualty (18.0m)		After fifteen years of dodgy scamming in the Peckham area, this was the Christmas when the Trotters finally struck gold in the form of an antique watch. I was one of the 30 million who decided to give it a miss. And why do people still watch Casualty? It's just social inadequates having freak accidents and getting treated by emotionally incompetent medics, isn't it?
2001's TV Top 3
1) Only Fools And Horses (21.3m)
2) EastEnders (20.0m)
3) Coronation Street (16.2m)		Five years after supposedly the last ever Only Fools And Horses episode, the BBC dragged the show back to keep Christmas audiences happy. I think I hid in the spare room for the duration. And EastEnders had an audience again, here for the top-rated episode in which Phil Mitchell revealed the identity of the evil minx who'd shot him a month earlier. Back then, strangely enough, the British public actually cared.
2006's TV Top 3
1) England v Sweden (18.5m)
2) England v Ecuador (16.3m)
3) England v Portugal (16.2m)		We've not had Christmas yet, so this list could change, but oh how telling of modern Britain. We don't come together for comedy any more, or for drama, or even for soap, but we are all transfixed by eleven over-rated male models displaying their football incompetence on the world stage. Maybe if the lads from Coronation Street agreed to play five-a-side against the louts from Albert Square the soaps might stand some hope of a renaissance. But probably not.

[Go on, check out the full set of yearly top tens, you know you want to. See if you can find Mary Poppins, Dennis Norden's Laughter File, Challenge Anneka, Name That Tune and the Grand Royal Knockout Tournament]

 Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Test your tube memory: How good is your knowledge of the London Underground Map? Here's a challenge and a half! Test yourself online by writing the names of as many stations as possible onto a blank tube map. There are 324 stations to fill in altogether (including the DLR and the North London line). I managed 273 before my brain gave out - can anybody beat that? How many can you remember?

Sign here: Denzil Road

This is Denzil Road, NW10. This is backstreet Neasden. Here in the London borough of Brent the street signs look very different to those we saw in Bow yesterday. The main typeface is clear and bold, yet still with a characterful jaunty curve. Other information is banished to the perimeter in tiny red capitals, with the postcode presumably included just in case a passer-by suddenly feels the urge to post a letter to one of the street's residents. And, erm, well, there's not much else to say, is there? It's just a bloody street sign for heaven's sake.

Yes, you're right, there's no way I can keep up this street sign stuff for a month. I can write in-depth about nothing much for a day, but that's my limit. I confess I've been wanting to write a post about the street signs of Bow Road for some time, because I'm impressed by their historical diversity. But now I have. So let's move on. Local history month will therefore be starting a little later than usual. I do have a particularly special topic in mind, but one that's far better suited to a local history fortnight. So let's try again in a couple of weeks. Honest, it'll be worth the wait. And NW10 will be back too...

 Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Sign here: Bow Road

You can learn so much about an area's history just by looking at its street signs. When were they erected, and who or what were they named after? So that's my quest this August, starting with (where else) my local street. I've walked the full length of Bow Road, all nearly-one mile of it, and photographed an incredibly wide variety of street signs at various junctions along the way [album here]. And what a fascinating window into the past these signs provide as they evolve from old to new. As follows...

Converse to what you might expect, there's only one proper 'Bow Road' street sign along Bow Road. Here it is, just outside St Clement's Hospital, at the point where my home street morphs into the Mile End Road. This is an unloved sign, hidden on a wall beside a phone box behind a bus shelter [photo], which may just be why it's managed to survive for so long. And look, some humorous south-of-the-river wit with a black marker pen has tried adding an 'S' to the postcode, turning Bow into Blackheath. No thanks. [photo]

This Bow Road sign, by contrast, looks rather more artificial. It's stuck to the front of the local undertakers and was probably knocked together by an old employee, I'd guess in the 1950s or 60s. Bow Road is almost a millennium older. It's been the main thoroughfare from Essex to London ever since Queen Matilda lost her horses in a nearby ford and ordered the construction of a bow-shaped bridge over the Lea. Honest. [photo]

Here's a much older street sign, probably the oldest along the entire road. It's also stuck to the undertakers' wall, but this time high aloft a side alley above where the local fire station once stood. The alley's recently been fenced off and gated as part of a modern apartment development, and I suspect that's the only reason why this charming metal sign still exists. [photo]

This sign's not quite so ancient but it's definitely older than I am. It predates the reorganisation of London's boroughs in 1965, back when round here was all Poplar and not Tower Hamlets. The sign's showing signs of rust and decay now, having seen much better days, but it has a character more modern street signs sorely lack. [photo]

Here's another, rather less ornate, sign from the days of the London borough of Poplar. I suspect that the lettering at the top once used to be red, but that decades of weathering have taken their toll. Note too that, whereas earlier postcodes boasted full stops after both the E and the 3, these are now restricted to following the initial letter E only. [photo]

We're post-1965 now, with a sign on which the name of the new borough is almost more prominent than the name of the street. You probably can't see very clearly but somebody's scratched the face of a rather sad-looking bloke in the top right-hand corner [photo]. But at least this rather grim sign is doing better than its counterpart on the opposite side of the street which has been completely removed from its posts by thoughtless vandals. [photo]

This is a dreadfully uninspired street name, plonked on a featureless wall down one of the least attractive streets in the whole of Bow. The council apartments here look like a stack of unfinished piled-up concrete blocks - which makes me suspect that the architect never lived in one himself. The street sign design matches the tedium of the area to perfection. [photo]

One of the innovations introduced by Tower Hamlets councillors in the 1980s was the creation of several local 'neighbourhoods'. Bow Road marked the dividing line between two of these - Bow neighbourhood to the north and Poplar neighbourhood to the south. The two street signs pictured here, snapped on opposite sides of the road, reflect their neighbourhood location with a coloured logo. Personally I think Bow's navy blue [photo] looks rather more impressive than Poplar's weak green [photo], but you may disagree. The Coborn Road sign also displays one of the curses of modern street furniture - the advertising sticker. Who knows what 'mystic' event this was promoting, but it's probably now years out of date. Note too that, as we near the present day, street signs are getting longer and thinner, and that postcodes are becoming full-stop free. [photo]

The best laid schemes of council administrators don't always go to plan, and here some rampant ivy down the wall of a gentrified terrace has obscured most of this street name from view. Sadly this is Alfred Street and not Albert Square - you have to head across the Lea to Stratford to find a genuine one of those. [photo]

Over the last couple of years Tower Hamlets council have started wiping away most of the old street signs across the borough and replacing them with basic, white signs such as this. They're very clear and simple, and have probably been designed to comply with some all-encompassing legislation on accessibility for partially sighted citizens. But they're not exactly historically sensitive examples of modern design, are they? The only thing that's still interesting about this particular street sign today is the baffling name of the street. [photo]

And finally, here's a street sign designed not by the council but by a bunch of artists. This one appears high up on the wall of the Bow Arts Trust, above an alleyway which previously didn't have a name but does now. It's shameless, I tell you, and proof positive that street signs continue to evolve even into the 21st century. [photo]

And that's your lot for today. I hope you've found my journey through the history of Bow Road street signs fascinating. If you have, maybe you could try something similar for the street where you live. Who knows what you might find! But do come back tomorrow because we're off to Denzil Road, NW10. See you there...

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