Qualia compilation 8: Eye operation

As a child, I had a pronounced squint. Attempts at curing it by taping over one lens on my National Health Service spectacles to 'train the lazy eye' failed. So, at the age of eight, I was directed to the Moorfields Eye Hospital for an operation. As a procedures go, it was relatively easy, something that I could understand; the surgeon would cut away some muscle tissue in the corner of my left eye which was pulling it inward.

To get to Moorfields, we took the Underground – a wonderful experience for me. The Piccadilly Line from Boston Manor, flashing by the stations between Acton Town and Hammersmith, then diving underground after Baron's Court. The atmosphere of the tube train was exciting and unforgettable. I must have made the journey two or three times, visiting the hospital before the operation, the operation itself – and then maybe for a check-up later. 

Though I have taken many tube train journeys since, those first ones that still stick with me, the long dark tunnel, the noise, the cables running alongside the track, the tiled stations, the atmosphere of times long past. [Incidentally, the Piccadilly Line opened in December 1906, so the stations then were only a little older in early 1966 than my memories of the qualia I experienced at that time are today.] Moorfields Eye Hospital was opened in 1899, of a similar vintage to the Piccadilly Line.

The children's ward was large; my bed was by one of the large windows. Tiled from floor to ceiling with Edwardian nursery-rhyme illustrations – Little Bo Peep, Little Jack Horner, Little Miss Muffett, Little Boy Blue – I felt I was too grown-up for such a babyish place. In the bed next to mine was a girl called Fiona, the first time I'd ever encountered a girl with such a posh name. My parents bought me a Corgi Toys Chrysler Imperial convertible, and Profile Publications on the Boeing B-29 Superfortress and Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter.

Before the operation, I had changed into my Paisley-patterned Marks & Spencers Winceyette pyjamas (specially washed and ironed for the occasion by my mother) and a nurse gave me something to make me go to sleep. I remember that pill having a strange effect on me; I became hyperactive, bouncing manically around my bed. Then, quickly, I lost consciousness.

When I awoke, my left eye was patched up; the next morning the patch was removed, the surgeon looked at my eye, made me follow his pencil with my gaze, and judged the operation a success. My mother said she knew it would be, because my surgeon had shiny shoes – the mark of a fastidious character.

One side-effect of losing my squint (apart from no longer having to wear glasses) was that my eyes could now focus to infinity. Before, when in Elthorne Park, I couldn't see its westernmost fringes with any clarity; I imagined the park stretched out all the way to America. Now able to resolve detail at at a distance, I could see where the park ended. I could see the canal and the farm beyond, and part of the magic of childhood had vanished.

I also became more popular among my classmates at school; no longer was I a 'specky' (wearer of spectacles) with a bandage over my 'lazy' eye; I was considered normal.

This time last year:
A date for the history books

This time three years ago:
WinterCity/SummerCountry

This time four years ago:
Homage to Americana

This time five years ago:
This land is my land

This time nine years ago:

The day, seized.

This time 12 years ago:
Classic British cars for British week

This time 13 years ago:
Cara al Sol - a short story

This time 14 years ago:
Pumping out the floodwater

This time 15 years ago:
To Góra Kalwaria and beyond

This time 16 years ago:
Developments in Warsaw's exurbs

Too good to skip over

I know little of the north; not much of the south, and far less of the east. "From the Mile End Road to the Matchsticks, Becontree," sang Ian Dury in Plaistow Patricia. The Mile End Road I know, but Becontree and Plaistow are places that I have never been to.

My London is Central - City and West End - and West. Below: Kingsway - a thoroughfare built at the beginning of the last century; it was unique for having under it a subway for trams - double-decker trams. Sadly, it closed in 1957; cars now use it. Tuesday 21 January - a beautiful sunny day!

Below: mystery location - a beautiful tympanum, replete with meaning, over a church door. Anyone know where it is - and what the church is?

Back in the suburbs... below: approaching Perivale station on the Central line.

Below: the lychgate outside St Mary's church, Perivale, its tower visible in the distance, down the footpath. Corpses en route for the church for burial would be kept under the roof overnight, before the funeral service.

Below: the sun sets over the Gurnell Grove estate (visible on the horizon), the river Brent flowing through Ealing Golf Course in the foreground.

Below: Meadvale Road, Ealing, soon after sunset. Pitshanger Park lies behind the houses to the right of the photo.

Below: Cleveland Park bus stop - a 297 and an E10 bound for Ealing Broadway pass.

Back to Warsaw via Heathrow. Although my TfL Rail train from West Ealing to Heathrow Central also known as Terminals 2 & 3 was on time, there was a problem with the (free) connection to Terminal 5, provided by Heathrow Express. For some reason, it was cancelled, the next one would be in half an hour. No good. So I made my way to the Piccadilly Line station, also named Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 (formerly known as Heathrow Terminals 1, 2 & 3 until Terminal 1 was closed in June 2016). The TfL station and the Tube station are about a ten-minute walk away. Here, I could catch a Tube train to Terminal 5 (also for free). And while here, check out this beautiful mural of Concorde tails (below) by Tom Eckersley, dating back to when the station was opened in 1977.

This time two years ago:
The Hunt for Tony Blair
[Apologies to UK readers - the YouTube link is geo-blocked there]

This time four years ago:
Lux Selene

This time seven years ago:
David Cameron, Conservatism and Europe

This time eight years ago:
Citizen Action Against Rat Runners

This time nine years ago:
Moni at 18 (and 18 months)

This time ten years ago:
Building the S79 - Sasanki-Węzeł Lotnisko, midwinter

This time 11 years ago:
My return to skiing after an eight-year break

This time ten years ago:
Moni's 15th birthday

Homeward from the demo

One thing struck me as demonstrators started to drift away. They didn't drop their placards, banners and flags, but continued on their homeward journey proudly displaying their convictions. The shower passed, the sun came out, and tens of thousands of people dispersed, making their way towards the next Tube station but one, to avoid the biggest jams. Soon, St James's Park, Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens were full of banner-waving pro-Europeans, open and tolerant.

Below: looking east along St. James's Park lake towards Whitehall - Dover House and the War Office building behind it. A few flags out along the footbridge. The War Office is being turned into a Raffles Hotel. By a Spanish firm for an Indian investor on behalf of a French hotel group.

Below: a few pelicans were out on the lake shore, drying their plumage after the short, sharp shower. Looking at them, I pondered how evolution can force certain species to evolve so far into one niche (in the case of the pelican, fish-eating) that they become over-specialised.

Just look at the powerful muscles (behind the eyes) required to operate that huge bill.

Below: after a long walk around London's royal parks, I turned back towards St. James's Park underground station. A mistake, as engineering works on the District and Circle Lines meant westbound trains only ran as far as South Kensington. So I returned to Ealing via Victoria, Oxford Circus and the Central Line - all full of demonstrators with EU flags, blue face paint, 'Bollocks to Brexit' stickers and assorted placards. Short aside - above St. James's Park underground station is 55 Broadway, the headquarters of London Underground. Built in the 1930s, it is an outstanding piece of architecture. TfL, the current owner, will be moving out and a luxury hotel will occupy the building instead.

This time four years ago:
Kielce - the woes of Poland's smaller cities

This time six years ago:
Wine connoisseurs or wine snobs?

This time seven years ago:
Poland's golden autumn

This time eight years ago:
Visceral and permanent - a short story

This time nine years ago:
Crushed Velvet Dusk in my City of Dreams II

The City in its Morning Glory

Climatically, the tables are turned - London's getting better weather this week than Warsaw (22C in London, 9C in Warsaw). Glorious autumn sunshine, low, strong rays lighting the way to work.

I'm wandering around Clerkenwell, down towards Holborn and back to Farringdon, retracing my old route from the Underground station to the journalism department at The City University (as it was styled back in 1980).  For a year as I did my postgraduate studies, I'd pass through here each weekday from Paddington station. But wait! Not once in my daily commutes did I notice that Farringdon station was originally named Farringdon and High Holborn (below)!

Left: looking down White Horse Alley from Peter's Lane, strong sun from the east augmented by sunlight reflected from the Save The Children building (out of shot to the right).

Clerkenwell has changed much since I studied around here; it was a run-down, slightly seedy part of London in the early 1980s. The last bowler hats had all but disappeared by then; today Clerkenwell is trendy and Millennial-friendly, a good place to work.

Right: each successive train unloads hundreds of commuters who spill out onto the streets radiating from Farringdon station, office-bound, skinny latte and hummus and wheatgerm sandwiches in hand. Rapid reinvention of properties, new shops and cafes replacing those that struggled to maintain footfall, ensures the dynamism of street-level London. Time passes quicker than in the suburbs.

Left: a relic of the 1960s - the ghost shop sign of E. Higgs Air Agency Ltd, which according to Companies House was established in 1965 and was wound up on 1 January 1989.

Thirty years out of business but the sign's still there, surely the only shop sign showing a Vickers VC10 in existence.

Below: I find it hard to resist strolling around Smithfields Market. This is new to me - the Port of London Authority cold storage, to the north of the market buildings.

Next door to the PLA's cold stores, the Central Cold Storage (below).

Below: Smithfield Market's Meat Inspectors' Office, 79-83 Charterhouse Street, the frieze carries the crest and motto of the City of London corporation - Domine, dirige nos - 'Lord, lead us', flanked by fattened livestock being led to their slaughter.

Left: Snow Hill police station, manned by the City of London Police (as opposed to the Metropolitan Police). Built in 1926, the Grade II listed building is a mixture of moderne and Arts & Crafts; very unusual. It was built on the site of the Saracen's Head Hotel, a famous coaching inn.

It's name lingers on; below - this is Saracen's Head Buildings, Cock Lane, E.C. 1, former London offices of John J. Royle of Manchester, a teapot manufacturer.



The weather is set fair for another four glorious days of cloudless early-autumn skies - I must make the most of such moments!

This time eight years ago:
Waiting for autumn

This time nine years ago:
Made in England to last

This time ten years ago:
How the S2/S79 looked back then...

This time 12 years ago:
Endless summer, Park Łazienkowski

More from Walker's London

"Great was my joy with London at my feet -
All London mine, five shillings in hand
And not expected back till after tea!"

- from John Betjeman's Summoned by Bells; Chapter 6, London.

My morning meeting on Chancery Lane over, time to get in my daily dose of walking London thoroughfares, narrow and broad, well-trodden and little known. Follow me, then, on a Most beautiful sunny day in late January, for a walking tour of the West End...

Just off Chancery Lane is Carey Street, once home to the bankruptcy court, hence the old saying that someone's 'on Carey Street', it suggests that they are insolvent.

Below: turn through 180 degrees, and here's the back of the Royal Courts of Justice.

"Five floors up the Charing Cross Road and never a job at the top of them." Up there, maybe, still work the successors to fictional theatrical agent, Raymond Duck.

This is the lowest of low seasons for tourists - as a result, a walk along Oxford Street around lunchtime was actually pleasant - not being jostled by frenzied shoppers barging by with large bags and boxes, I could focus on the architecture. Below: look up from the shop fronts! An eclectic mix of facades at the Tottenham Court Road end. The area around the junction of Oxford St, Tottenham Court Rd and Charing Cross Road is still a huge building site after the best part of a decade, given the overrun on Crossrail.

Below: the architectural splendour of what was the Waring & Gillow's furniture showroom, now clothing retailer H&M's flagship London store.

Below: the 1950s replacement for the John Lewis department store destroyed during WW2. A rare example of the British expression of modernist architecture that I actually like.

Below: by Bond Street, Debenhams flagship store, visually enhanced in 2013 with a new facade.

Below: Selfridges. Opened in 1909, this department store is considered the best on a street known for its department stores.

Below: waiting at Marble Arch for the Central Line train back to Ealing Broadway.

Below: glorious winter afternoon, Cleveland Park.

This time three years ago:
Daffodils and crocuses in bloom, in January!

This time four years ago:
Populist start to election campaign

This time five years ago:
Straż Ochrony Kolei explained

This time six years ago:
The end of winter? So early?

This time seven years ago:
How much education for the nation? 

This time eight years ago:
To the Catch - short story

This time nine years ago:
Eternal Warsaw

This time 11 years ago:
From the family archives

Autumnal travel woes

Where shall I start? Maybe in Edinburgh, with my search for the Russell Garden. With my Booking.com reservation in hand (which it says I'm to show at reception), I am going up and down, round and round Russell Gardens looking for numbers 1 to 5, the address given for the Russell Garden. Except there is no building spanning those numbers that looks like a hotel. All I see is a development of 1990s town houses, four or five storeys high, within which are flats. I ring the number given on the reservation. No answer.

It's dark, it's raining, the battery on my mobile is down to 13% (Google Maps is very energy intensive), and the buildings are not properly numbered. From number 4 to number 20. I ring again. No answer again. Maybe I'm in the wrong place? I ask a local resident. "No hotel round here. Maybe an Airbnb?" "No," I replied - it's a hotel - the Russell Garden. I broaden my search to take in Roseburn Street and Roseburn Terrace. I phone a third time - still no answer. With my phone down o 9%, I call Booking.com's helpline. The extremely helpful lady talks me through it. The address is Flat 5, number 1, Russell Gardens. It looks like the owner of the flat is trying to big up the place by making it sound like a proper hotel, which it isn't.

Anyway, I find Flat 5, number 1 Russell Gardens. The three-bedroom flat (shared bathroom) is decent enough for the money. Half an hour wasted in the rain. Once inside, WiFi and central heating on, mobile charging, and all is well. But the accommodation gets a bad review from me because of the experience of locating it.

Two days later I'm back in London, flying into Gatwick as the Heathrow flight from Edinburgh was prohibitively expensive. Travel tip: Gatwick Express trains charge £19.90 for a single ticket to London Victoria - Thameslink trains charge £9.00 for a single ticket to St Pancras. Better - if you have a credit/debit card or TfL Oystercard, you can touch in/touch out and get better fares from Gatwick to London (Thameslink or Southern trains both charge £8.30 for a single to town).

My return home from London to Warsaw was an expensive and stressful nightmare. Friday 30 November. Arriving in good time at St Pancras to catch a train up to Luton Airport Parkway station, I find the lower concourse totally jammed with people. It seems that for the past hour not a single train, either East Midlands nor Thameslink has moved an inch up the line from St Pancras. Signal failure between St Albans and Luton. People milling around watching the indicator boards, listening for announcements. Nothing's happening. Minutes tick away. People with holiday flights to catch, with huge suitcases, look anxiously at their watches. No change. Finally, after about 45 minutes, there's news of a train heading to Bedford via Luton. It will be touch and go whether I make the flight.

Meanwhile, I'm checking availability of catching a later flight should I miss my one (17:15 departure). The next WizzAir flight at 20:30 is sold out. Tickets for one the following morning are now showing at over £100. I check BA. Saturday morning flight to Warsaw: £535. Along with a thousand other travellers, I make my way down to Platform B to catch the train to Luton. Boarding takes ages - the train is totally chock-full. Finally we depart, only to stop a minute later in the tunnel. We wait. The driver tells us that we are being allowed up the line one signal at a time, we'll be on the slow line, stopping at all stations along the way. Rather than shooting past all the suburban platforms we'll call in at all of them, starting at Kentish Town. Here, more desperate commuters struggle to squeeze in. We depart, we stop, we start, we stop. We wait. I'm looking at my watch. The odds of getting to Luton Airport Parkway, catching the bus to the terminal and getting through security in time before the gate closes are getting ever longer.

At the next station I make a fateful decision. If I stay on the train, get to Luton - then what? Having missed my flight, I either buy an expensive ticket and sleep in the airport (something I've done twice at Luton - never again) or buy an expensive hotel room. Or head back to London... So I jumped off the train at West Hampstead and took the Tube back to Ealing Broadway. Returning to my father's, I went online to buy a ticket for Warsaw with BA, shunning the "London" Luton Airport experience with WizzAir. The best price was £73, plus £6.00 for the off-peak rail fare from Ealing. I spend an extra £11 to get a window seat. Good. I buy the ticket (seat 37F) and immediately I check in via the app on my phone. All set.

Saturday spent working, Sunday morning (today) I wake up at 05:00, leave my father's at 05:45, walk to Ealing Broadway in good time to catch the 06:20 TfL rail service to Heathrow. Because of engineering works, this was the first train from Paddington to Heathrow via Ealing Broadway this morning. At 06:15 there's an announcement that the train is 'delayed'. Anxiously, I ask station staff what's up. Helpfully, they check, phoning Paddington station. Apparently, the train is faulty and has not yet left. Same situation as on Friday. Clock ticking away to departure time, gate closes at 07:55. It's now 06:30. Will the train arrive? If the next one, scheduled at 06:50, arrives on time, will that get me there on time? Important point - my flight is from Terminal 5. This means changing at the station for Terminals 2 & 3 and waiting for the free transfer train to Terminal 5. The word is that one of the six carriages is defective; the train needs to be separated, the defective carriage removed, then re-assembled as a five carriage set (is this correct train buffs?). Looks touch and go.

MyTaxi app gives an estimated time of arrival of 30 minutes for a cab to reach me at Ealing Broadway station. Luckily, there's a black cab rank outside. There's one cab standing there. Three guys getting in. I have a word with the driver. He says he can take me, because his passengers are going to Brentford, right on my way to the A4 and the airport. And they'll pay the first £10 of the fare, which he says will be £45 to Terminal 5. Off we go. The taxi's radio is playing Easy Like Sunday Morning. Right. The cab makes its way through South Ealing, soon the three guys are at their destination and the driver points us towards Heathrow. But by the time we reach Hounslow, he tells me that not having expected a fare all the way to the airport, he needs fuel. We stop. I wait as he tanks up (mercifully not all the way). He pays, runs back to the cab, and we're off. We arrive at Terminal 5 departures, I make it through a crowded security queue to the gate with eight minutes to spare.

Passengers for Warsaw board a bus. The bus to the plane takes forever... Hang on - we're heading back to Terminal 3, where all the BA flights for Warsaw used to arrive and depart from. We reach the plane - just one set of steps at the front, none at the rear. I board, make my way to row 37... the very last row on a BA Airbus A321 (WizzAir crams in 38 rows). And guess what - there's no window!

I point this out to the stewardess, who says yes, they know, it's embarrassing, happens every flight - apparently when the planes were first specified, they were meant to have two extra toilets at the back (four in total); a late design change and row 37 has no windows. Still, the flight's not overbooked, as soon as everyone's seated I'm given a window seat. And when I'm waiting for the toilet at the rear of the plane, I'm assuming that the wording 'CREW USE ONLY' means the second toilet, currently not engaged, is out of bounds for passengers. Turns out it isn't. "I know, confusing, isn't it?" said the stewardess.

Having said all this, BA now has the edge on WizzAir. Not just the "London" Luton Airport thing; now WizzAir has shrunk (once again) the dimensions of free carry-on baggage. Until last month, it was 55 x 40 x 23 cm, and 10kg maximum weight. Now it's just 40 x 30 x 20 cm, still 10kg. It's not as if the older size didn't fit under the seat in front - it did. Wizz just wants to force passengers to upgrade for 44zł to WizzPlus that allows to take the larger size. I checked with the Samsonite shop in Złote Tarasy - yes, they'd heard about the new Wizz size restriction, no, they do not currently make rucksacks that small. So for this trip, I had to pack my laptop into a satchel with one shoulder strap. As I wrote here, the rucksack with its equal weight distribution on both shoulders is healthier for the musculoskeletal system. Carrying 10kg on one shoulder for 10km (today I walked 16,000 paces with the bag) is not good. So, until I find a small rucksack, it's bye-bye WizzAir.

My journeys across London by Tube were hampered by delays and overcrowding. Here's Bank Station last Thursday (below)...

Signal failure at White City. Trains crawling from station to station, stopping at tunnels. By the time the westbound Central Line train for Ealing Broadway got as far as Chancery Lane, I'd had enough and walked down to Temple station on the District Line to catch a train for Ealing Broadway. It was the first train in! Great! Except that at Earls Court it was announced that this train was now bound for Richmond - sudden change of destination. Hop off at Turnham Green... station announcement - the next train for Ealing Broadway will arrive in 18 minutes time! Crap service, really.

So crap I thought in Poland it must be better. Gdziesz tam. Having flown into Warsaw Okęcie airport, I walked to W-wa Okęcie station to catch the 12:51 train two stops south to Jeziorki. On reaching the platform I hear that the train is delayed by 25 minutes. And the next southbound one after that, by 22 minutes. All rubbish. Flying or going by train - stress, frustration, delay, costs.

Yes, I could have insured my flight against missing it because of stupid old Network Rail. But by not insuring any of my 15 return flights this year, the money thus saved paid for the BA flight home today.

This time three years ago:
Thoughts on Polish hypochondria

This time six years ago:
Blogging resumes as Orange gets its act together

This time seven years ago:
The meaning of Clarkson 

This time eight years ago: 
A bad day on the railway

This time nine years ago:
In which I walk to work

This time 11 years ago:
Act 1, Scene 1, a blasted heath

West Ealing to Castlebar Park - waiting for Crossrail

All change at West Ealing! Work on getting the new Elizabeth Line ready (as London's Crossrail will be called) is reaching the end, and for West Ealing - the nearest mainline station to my father's house - a new importance. No longer a sleepy stop where infrequent commuter trains call, along with those less-frequented stations along the Great West Railway's line to Paddington - now, West Ealing will be on the Underground, a junction station serving GWR and the Lizzie Line (as it's informally called).

Since May, the new Crossrail stock is being live-trialled on the line between Paddington and Hayes & Harlington, stopping at Southall, Hanwell, West Ealing, Ealing Broadway and Acton Main Line along the way. Below: a westbound service for Hayes & Harlington calls in at West Ealing. Full-size trains will be making their way under London (hopefully from December), linking Paddington and Liverpool St stations.

Below: take a good look; get used to it; this rolling stock will no doubt still be in service in 50 years' time. (Today, I travelled on the Bakerloo line, on a train built in 1972).

Andy P. has travelled on the new trains from Ealing Broadway - here's how they look inside. The Tube-train like interior is the result of the Tube being more popular than Network Rail, on account of its greater reliability, he says. [Photo: Andy Picheta]

West Ealing - an important part of my childhood. For whether over Drayton Bridge, by the station entrance, or over Jacob's Ladder, a footbridge to the west of the platforms, I'd go this way with my mother to my nursery school on The Avenue. I still remember steam trains submerging the bridges with damp grey fog as they chuffed beneath. And below was the siding the served the Co-operative's milk service; this abandoned platform would be full of milk tanks.

And finally it arrives, perhaps one of the shortest (2.5 miles/4km) lines on British network rail - the shuttle from Greenford to West Ealing. Well do I remember this from my childhood and youth - slam-door diesel units (single-car or two-car sets) running backwards and forwards providing an alternative to buses and tube services between London's western suburbs and the city centre. Looking at the traffic on this line, I doubt if there's enough revenue coming in to cover its cost. Probably around 16-20 people used it today, peak time (17:36 departure); because it no longer starts at Paddington, and there's a long walk to cross the platforms, I guess many regulars will give up on it and will change at Ealing Broadway and catch a bus.

Below: looking down the line towards South Greenford (well, Perivale actually) and Greenford.

Well do I remember my very first visit here. The late winter or early spring of 1970; my father was just about to put down an offer on the property we moved into in May of that year. One foggy night, we walked from our house in Hanwell to look around Cleveland Road and surrounding area. We did so, and then walked on to Castlebar Park Halt, as it was then, to await a train to West Ealing. Back then, there were no trees, just a platform among the meadows than stretched across from the posher parts east of the line, and the council estate beyond the fields to the west of the line.

Below: imagine no trees, no fencing, no electronic information boards, no CCTV cameras, just a concrete platform. Here we stood, gazing down the line towards Greenford, until we could make out the lights of a single, green diesel railcar heading towards us. In the fog, we were an island, the train a ship to take us back to civilisation.

Below: I remember when this was all fields - then the fields were built over - and now those buildings have been demolished. In the distance, the well-built 1950s council estate; in the foreground an estate that didn't stand the test of time. Out of shot to the right, the Old Bill - a flat-roofed pub known for fisticuffs and drugs raids, closed in 2006. This was not a good area.

The Lizzy Line is holding property prices in its catchment area relatively stable; once full operational, West Ealing will be half an hour away from the City of London, shaving 40 minutes off the day's commute. That's over three hours a week. I dare say that was once an area known for scuzzy accommodation for ne'er-do-wells (brick courtyards full of broken plastic toys) might become a sought-after location for future financial elites - but then there's Brexit.

This time last year:
Trump flies into Warsaw

This time four years ago:
Making Poland's railways safer

Meditations upon the Piccadilly Line

Crossing London from St Pancras towards Ealing, as I do each month, a mundane underground journey... Today, the crosswords done, no WiFi or reading matter left, I gazed at the familiar diagram of the Piccadilly Line, known to me from childhood. the stations along the way, from Cockfosters in the north east to Uxbridge and Hounslow in the west, extended since to Heathrow Airport.

Opposite me, on a nearly-empty Sunday morning service, the diagram. I pondered on those names, letting my mind roam among the memories of the stations, the areas they serve, the associations those names conjured up...

My first forays on the Piccadilly line were as a child in the mid-1960s; I was born with a squint in my left eye and had an operation to straighten my gaze at Moorfields Eye Hospital. I must have visited it twice (at least), taking the Tube from Boston Manor, the nearest station to our house in Hanwell. I still have vivid recollections of the moment the train started going underground, east of Baron's Court. Backs of tall, brick terraced houses overlooking the tracks, still dark with soot, the cables running parallel to the train as it dived into the tunnel,

Looking along the line, from west to east, I know the stretch from Acton Town to Kings Cross St. Pancras very well indeed; I am able to visualise the stations above ground and their immediate vicinities. Leicester Square, across the road the (long-gone) Happy Garden restaurant was a favourite lunchtime venue (for the duck noodle soup) during my days working at Centre Point; Covent Garden - lift-only access to a street teeming with tourists; Green Park station on a sunny day; Hyde Park Corner with its many entrances via subway; Knightsbridge - if the train window aligns itself with a station name-sign, you can see six consecutive consonants (GHTSBR) as you look out of the window; making little sense at first sight; South Kensington - alight here for the museums - and the long pedestrian tunnel linking them.

Yes, all of London's Underground resonates strongly with me, the Piccadilly, District and Central lines most of all as they link the Ealings and Actons (as Sir John Betjeman put it) with the heart of the capital.

West of Acton Town - South Ealing and Boston Manor; my first regular Tube journeys to school - until we moved to posher surroundings, after which Ealing Broadway became the station for my short commute to school, near Acton Town. And Saturdays, on my way to Polish scouts, I'd travel the line east to Hammersmith and track back to Ravenscourt Park on the District Line. Sometimes, I'd find an empty carriage at the end of a unit with the driver's door left unlocked. I'd pull down the handle and let myself in, sitting in the driver's seat as the train sped through Chiswick Park, Turnham Green, Stamford Brook and Ravenscourt Park on the fast line; I'd take care to leave in good time to alight at Hammersmith without getting caught by platform staff.

 The Piccadilly line north of Ealing Common - North Ealing, Park Royal and Alperton - I know less well; the Sudburys and beyond not at all. Eastcote and that. Below: Piccadilly line train cuts through suburban parkland, One Tree Hill, just north of Alperton station.

The line to Heathrow I know much better - Osterley, the Hounslows, Hatton Cross and the three Heathrow terminals.

North east of Kings Cross St Pancras is terra incognita (I can honestly say I've never, ever, alighted at Caledonian Road, Holloway Road, Arsenal, Turnpike Lane, Bounds Green or Wood Green); I have explored Southgate and Cockfosters on account of their magnificent station architecture, though the last visit was well over 30 years ago.

Below: former Victoria Line 1967 stock now used for tunnel cleaning, standing at Acton Town; the station is very much as I remember it from my schoolboy days, except for the modern footbridge in the foreground)

This time last year:
S7 extention from airport to Grójec gets go-ahead
[no sign of any work as yet]

This time two years ago:
Metro Wilanowska redevelopment gets under way

This time four years ago:
Local politics, local politician

This time five years ago:
Communication breakdown

This time six years ago:
Getting ready for the opening of Modlin airport

This ten ten years ago:
Maybugs in July - a plague of cockchaffers 

Tottenham Court Road revisited

Back again after a while - this used to be the nearest Tube station to where I worked for 16 years (at Centre Point from 1981 to 1997). At first I used it daily, but the sheer awfulness of the Tube in those days prompted me to change to bicycle or bicycle plus train to Paddington from the late '80s on. Even so, from time to time I'd be forced to use the Tube, so Tottenham Court Road - so I knew it very well.

Closed for the best part of this year, the Central Line platform reopened two days ago, so a visit was in order en route to a business mixer held nearby. I was expecting more change - at platform level, things looked as they did in the 1980s (below). After 11 months out of action, there could have been a sense of work having been... er... finished. The ceiling panels have not been fitted, the tiling is as was.

Much of the mosaic tiling by Eduardo Paolozzi, dating back thirty years, back to the days when I'd commute through here daily, is still in place. Paylozzamoni, as Private Eye used to call him, was well remunerated for his mechanical chickens and consumer electronics, though I never liked the style; if the lot disappeared to another site, I wouldn't be in the least bit dismayed.

Does any Londoner feel any sense of emotional attachment or aesthetic pleasure from passing these mosaics at Tottenham Court Road? I much prefer the late Wojciech Fangor's dynamic typography adorning the second line of Warsaw's Metro.

Up at concourse level, there are improvements - more space, better channelling of passengers towards the escalators. The modern concourse reminds me of ones on the recent Jubilee Line extension.

The station, located at the very centre of London, will also have two CrossRail platforms when the project is completed in three-four years time. This will mean many, many more passengers passing through. Tottenham Court Road, at the intersection of the Central Line (since 1900) and Northern Line (since 1907) is in any case extremely busy. It is busy with two existentially different breeds of human - the commuter and the tourist. It's like comparing carnivore and herbivore. The former is in a hurry and knows precisely where they're going. The latter has time on their hands, and is unfamiliar with the topography of the place. There are huge numbers of both here. You're rushing to a meeting and a Spanish backpacker asks you if this is the Piccadilly Line.

Stepping out at the entrance by Centre Point, I was immediately disorientated by the changes. Gone is the Astoria theatre on Charing Cross Road; gone is the block of flats across the street. I paused for a second to look round, trying to work out where New Oxford Street now is. Immediately, three commuters crashed into me, all of them too engrossed in their smartphones while rushing up from the station.

The changes round here are massive. And massively inconvenient. Streets cut off to pedestrians, being routed round the long way. And though work on the CrossRail redevelopment has been going on for six years, it is obvious that there's still a vast amount still to do. Meanwhile, the very promise of CrossRail - linking the main lines coming into London from east to west under the heart of the capital - is driving up house prices with the promise of shorter commuting times.

I trust the new station entrances will be able to handle greater traffic flow than the old ones. Change is all around. New developments mean more commuters. London attracts more and more people from around the world, to live and work, and to visit and spend.

This time last year:
Zen and the Art of Publishing

This time three years ago:
Wrocław, another Polish city of neon

This time four years ago:
Ronald Reagan remembered

This time five years ago:
Accident of birth

This time seven years ago:
Under the Liberator

This time eight years ago:
Jeziorki on old maps