I always loved the London Underground. OK, at rush hour it is not much fun to be squashed in next to thousands of people, but when you are a tourist like I was this week, you can avoid rush hour and it's a much more pleasant experience. I was first in London on 1981, and I thought that the Underground, or "Tube, as the Londoner's call it, was so atmospheric. I loved the way that, when trains pulled into a station, they would push warm air into the station.
They also have great names for the lines and the stations. I love names like "Piccadilly", "Bakerloo", "Epping", "Morden". It's also one of the most comprehensive underground networks in the world, if not the most comprehensive. I love the story of that sexploitation film maker, Russ Myers, arriving in London for the first time and finding all sorts of naughty meanings in the station names. You can imagine he could have almost directed a film called- "Shaftesbury Avenue". So I spent quite a bit of time in London, hopping on and off my old haunts (and some of the stations are supposed to be haunted by the way!), on the Underground.
This was a Piccadilly line train arriving in Holborn station, I can't exactly recall where I was going at the time.
I didn't realise, until a colleague in the states told me, that they never use the term "Way Out" for "exit", in America. Right enough, I have never seen it there. So it seems funny to see the term used again. I think this is a nice photo, taken in St. John's Wood station, just down the road from Abbey Road, where the Beatles recorded all their classics and the first Pink Floyd album was made.
Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland - April 19 2007
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