Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song

[freckles_and_doubt]

There's a piece of Harry Potter fanfic I read lo, these many moons ago, about which I can remember nothing except that it featured Draco Malfoy on the run through Muggle England by train. (It may, on mature reflection, have been an A. J. Hall). At some point his train stops in the middle of nowhere, and a soothing voice on the public address system advises passengers that there will be a slight delay because "there is a sheep lodged in the high-tension cables." I always thought this was pure hyperbole. Hah.

Today my otherwise calm and well-planned trek from Golders Green to Kingston was stopped for a total of about half an hour at two stations on the Northern Line, because (a) "they're still having that bit of trouble at Belsize Park" (precisely what kind of trouble history does not relate), (b) "the Fire Brigade are examining Chalk Farm station", and (c) "there's something stuck under the rails in the tunnel." It's a little disconcerting to be told all change, this train has been discontinued, please cross the platform to the other train, oops, sorry, that's also been discontinued, please cross the platform back to the first train, which has now morphed from the desired Charing Cross iteration to one that goes via Bank and is thus perfectly useless for purposes of Waterloo. (And what's with a station called "Bank", anyway? I don't know if it's meant to be taken in the financial or geographical sense, but either way, it's a sad failure of imagination).

It is, I suppose, faintly inevitable that passing through Mornington Crescent repeatedly for several days should cause hallucinatory fragments of the game to circle vaguely and continuously through my skull.

I managed in the end to change at Camden Town without undue trauma, and there was a lovely taxi at Kingston Station who took me and my suitcase (which is, I have to say, doing that inexplicable suitcase thing of becoming heavier and more overfull despite the fact that I'm actually taking stuff out of it rather than adding) to the B&B. It's a slightly downmarket B&B, rooms not en suite, but chintzy and comfy and right on the mighty river Thames, which this evening looked like this, with added swans, sculls and vapour trails:



Achievement Unlocked: Visit All London-Resident Ex-Boyfriends Whose Names Begin with A. (My romantic history has some strangely specific trends, at least in the geo-alphabetical sense). I had lovely lunches with lovely people on Monday and Tuesday, and egadfly and Iza were princely hosts (the latter allowing me to feel useful by assisting her to cut up and laminate untold oodles of stuff for her class full of teeny titchy kiddies, which is absolutely the closest I care to get to kiddies, teeny-titchy, for the use of, en masse, and was rather fun).

Oh, yes. *speaks urgently into Secret Service wrist-mike, à la Chuck*: wolverine_nun, I am happy to report that the bok has bumpied. Repeat: the bok has bumpied. *skulks off*.

Comments

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

The Bank station is near the Bank. Of England. It is, quite clearly, in the financial district. One of the platforms of Bank station is curved to accommodate the subterranean vaults of The Bank. But nowadays they use computerised records instead of coins, and data centres in satellite towns.

Indeed

[bumpycat.livejournal.com]

Much like the British Museum is just "the Museum", the BoE is just "the Bank". Alas, the Museum stop (British Museum, on the Piccadilly Line between Holborn and Russell Square) is now closed.

[pinkthulhu.livejournal.com]

Just like Lords Tube station.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_tube_station

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I feel much more enlightened now, thank you, but I still think it's a damned unimaginative name.

[pinkthulhu.livejournal.com]

Parts of Kingston are lovely (the restaurants and pubs near the river, for example) while the town centre can be pretty rowdy and mostly avoidable on a Friday night.

The labyrinth that is Bank station is mostly confusing, crammed, and tiring to use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank-Monument_station

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Message received.

[rumint.livejournal.com]

I'm most amused by the game Mornington Crescent, it also explains why Stross based the Laundry's secret entrance there :) Thank you for making my day more surreal with 70's parody games.