Number 95

is the bus that travels from White City to Hanger Lane. I know this because I caught it this evening, then changed to the number 83 to Ealing Hospital. The tubelines into West London all went into meltdown this evening. Why, I am unsure.

Thankfully, my train terminated at the aforementioned White City, and so I waited for 20 minutes in front of BBC Television Centre (the home to many of my dreams as a child), then caught the bus. I was even more grateful that it happened at this point of my journey (or as grateful as one can be when your journey time is doubled), as I have been stranded at East Acton Tube station before - missing in Acton, if you will (there was a student band at my halls of residence in 1995/6/7 who thought that was a wonderful pun - I assume they had actually lived in Acton, rather than simply being illiterate or having no proofreading skills). And now I wonder whether there are American and Ethiopian bands missing in Akron and Axum respectively. God, I hate my brain.

Despite being next to the A40 out of London, East Acton is, in fact, the middle of nowhere. For all I know, there could be a dimensional portal at the exit to the station - such is your chance of catching a bus towards any local population centres. I am sure Warsaw and Krakow both have more connecting bus services to Ealing than East Acton does - and it is less than 2 miles away. There is a bus that runs to and from Hammersmith, but it just stops in the middle of an industrial estate. End of the line. Quite literally, if it was the last bus leaving Hammersmith bus station, you saw the word Acton and assumed it would at least carry you vaguely in the direction you wanted to go.

Ah, I feel much better now.

Babe,

I’m back again… As Take That sang in one of their unforgettable mid-90’s classics. No blogging proper today - masses of work to do, and then exciting football of the highest order tonight. So in the meantime, an list of things to help me remember what to write about in the next few days:

1. Barcelona
2. Sevilla beating Barcelona
3. Bar signs
4. Cars with their roofs (or should that be rooves?) removed
5. British weather
6. Pork products
7. Irish placelore
8. Good urban design

Tourism

Today I have mostly been visiting:
Waterloo Station
Tower Bridge
The Tower of London
The Number 15 bus
Notting Hill
Ping Pong on Westbourne Grove

Ealing, 08.34 today

Mortality

So my bank think it is necessary for me to take out life insurance before my 30th birthday. They have never contacted me about this before. Do they know something I don’t? Especially as is there is no lump sum at the end of the policy, and they frequently refer to the fact that my dependents will receive a payout if I should die within the first 15 years of the policy.

Is another 15 years really the best I can hope for? If so, that is two thirds of my life over with already. And it means that I was middle-aged at 22 - something that probably won’t come as a surprise to most of you. And I certainly feel it. My back has been bad this week - it went whilst cleaning the kitchen floor. It is almost back to normal now - after 2 days and repeated hot baths it seems to have clicked back.

It caused enormous hilarity for the other residents of Ealing as I hobbled down to the Tube station on Wednesday morning - even the mentally ill Irish woman I pass at precisely 9.52 looked at me with pity, rather than screaming obscenities at me as usual - this was, of course, compounded by the ’snowstorm’ that hit Britain and brought London to a halt once again. I no longer have either the energy or the inclination to rant once again about lack of preparation/Tubes/trains, etc. And it makes no difference - an inch (2.5cm for the European readers) of snow. I will point you back to my Grossman/TFL post, as this explains it all.

Vasilii Grossman versus TFL

“…After Unecha, we travelled in a freight car. The weather was wonderful, but my travel companions said this was bad, and I realised this myself. There were black holes and craters from bombs everywhere along the railway. One could see trees broken by explosions. In the fields there were thousands of peasants, men and women, digging anti-tank ditches.

We watch the sky nervously and decided to jump off the train if the worst came to the worst. It was moving quite slowly. The moment we arrived in Novozybkov there was an air raid. A bomb fell in the station forecourt. This train wasn’t going any further…”

Vasilii Grossman, A Writer At War

“Throughout the day, fallen trees and other debris have caused disruption to most open sections of the Tube network.

Speed restrictions have also been introduced on some open sections of the Tube network for safety reasons.

LU is working with infrastructure companies Tube Lines and Metronet to remove debris from tracks as quickly as possible but inevitably this will result in disruption to services.”

TFL

The goose is getting fat…

…despite the fact this is the least Christmassy start to a festive period ever. It is sunny here in London - the leaves have fallen, but there has been a noticeable lack of both cold and rain (I have been thinking back, and the last snow of any note I can remember in these here parts was in January 1996 - I have vague recollections of wandering back from a pub in Hampstead to my halls of residence. God, I wonder what my drinking partners that night are doing now?).

The only discernable change has been in the erection of Xmas lights (the Regent Street one shave been sponsored by some dreadful Aardman film, and so have images of animated rats/mice plastered all over them) and a sudden quadrupling of the number of people using (in the loosest sense of the word - is it really so shocking to think that you would need your ticket when you reach the barriers!) Oxford Circus Tube between 10 and 11 in the morning. Although this may also be due to the fact that the Tube, especially in West London, has been generally appalling for the last two weeks. I have 3 Tubelines and 1 rail service to get home. On at least 3 occasions in the last 2 weeks, only the rail service has been running.

Even the singalong carol concert at the Albert Hall is being conducted by a certain Mr Cohen. Amazon are offering cheap everything for Xmas, so you can’t even enjoy the threat of impending bankruptcy come Boxing Day. I mean, what is happening to our traditions? Christmas tree (German?), Father Xmas (Dutch/American?) - do we even actually have traditions, or would the British Xmas without foreign influence be as miserable as the Cratchitt’s?