Using public transport in London

St Helier station
Originally uploaded by Darren Foreman

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner, but I love London so. And I've been a regular user of public transport in London for as long as I can remember.

When I was a very small nipper I was regularly hauled up the Northern Line from Morden to Oval (I think) to get my eyes seen to. Once I came back with an eye-patch, and not long after that I started wearing glasses.

A few years later I was getting buses from Raynes Park to Wimbledon, and then Morden, on the way home from double games on a Wednesday afternoon. At least a couple of times my bro' and I fare-dodged our way down to Ash Vale -- we started at Morden Road as it was an unmanned station, unlike St Helier which, at the time, had a ticket office and everything. These days St Helier has fuck all, just a huge exposed staircase. It is still right next door to a huge estate for disabled ex-servicemen and their families, however.

I remember when bus tickets cost 15p or 20p depending on how far you were going, and when the Capitalcard existed. That one meant you could use trains, unlike the Travelcard which only allowed tubes and buses. I think the latter was 70p. I also remember getting the 88 bus from Mitcham to Acton Green just because it was a huge, massively long bus journey which started locally to us. I was about 12, and pretty sad even then. Though not as sad as whoever wrote that Wikipedia page about it, fucking hell.

Early technique for visiting central London was another route learned from Kevin: bus to Wimbledon, tube to Earls Court, change for another tube to Leicester Square and hey presto, the West End. Why didn't we start at Morden? I don't recall, though the Northern Line was pretty shitty.

Once I became flush enough to use the Capitalcard, or perhaps when they abolished it and added trains to Travelcards, I started starting at St Helier, and my days out would include the odd fast train from London Waterloo to Surbiton (and back), for 2 reasons: it was the longest non-stop journey in my quarter of London, and Surbiton station had great bannisters you could slide down. I was about 15, and still pretty sad.

Since then I've gone into the centre shitloads of times. Before university it was to go to gigs -- I went to more than 70 in 1991, at the Marquee, the Dome, the Astoria, etc. During university it was to get to Victoria for the coach, or Euston for the train. And since university it has been to drink, to go to gigs, or to work: I've worked in (or beyond) central London since October 1997.

That's a whole lot of travelling on public transport in London. Here are some of the lessons I've learned.

1. "Seek assistance" is London slang for "if at first you don't succeed, try and try again, and again, and again, and again"
2. When you get on a train or tube, there is no-one behind you. Stay near the door, surveying the whole carriage for a suitable place to sit or stand. You are not blocking anyone.
3. If the tube driver is standing on the platform having a smoke and a chat, they're going to leave imminently, so run and barge people to get to your favourite carriage. Hurry!
4. The words on the front of buses are lies. You should always get on the bus and ask the driver where they're going.
5. "No exit" means "exit", especially when written on the steps at a busy station. People getting off trains are more important than people getting on them, so ignore anyone trying to battle past you to get on the train you just left.
6. It takes, ooh, a good 5 minutes, surely, to walk the length of an 8 carriage train, so you really need to run along the platform if it's less than that 'til departure. Hurry!
7. Waiting 10 minutes for "the fast train" is an efficient use of your time. The timetable which says that one arrives just after the slow train you're not getting on is a lie.
8. The "please don't use your mobiles here" posters and announcements were drawn/made with a little wink. Just keep your calls down to 15 minutes or so, no-one'll mind.
9. On crowded station concourses, do not under any circumstances face the direction in which you are travelling.
10. A queue of 50-odd people at a bus stop will only take around 2 seconds to board, so if you're over 50 yards away you must run for it. Hurry!
11. The buttons at pedestrian crossings do not make the lights change. No-one knows what they do do, and it might be bad, so don't use them.
12. Bicycle lanes are for pedestrians.

I might look for a job I can walk to.

London: A Life In Maps

In a fit of culture I went to the British Library last weekend, to have a butcher's at their London Maps exhibition. Quite good it was. I was expecting more schematics than there were, I can only recall there being any in the last bit where a few tube and train maps cropped up; mostly the maps were just maps of central London, concentrating on the north side of the river (from St James's to the Tower, really) to begin with and gradually increasing in scope as London itself did so. Took a good while to come across a map that went out far enough that it had Surbiton labelled on it, and even then it was spelt Serbiton. C'uh.

The little bits of text describing each map were great. I loved reading about two cartographers in the 1600s, whose names escape me but who were vying for supremacy in the burgeoning "map London" industry, if that's what you can call it. The idea that people back in the day really did have arch enemies, as they were referred to, appeals greatly to me. I wonder if I can cultivate such a relationship with a coder at, say, Google.

Understandably enough a lot of the maps were pretty samey. Understandable because there's an objective truth being laid out, obviously. Because of that it seemed the rival map makers had to find their own way of making their mark and trying to convince people (financers or royalty, I assume) that theirs was best. In at least 3 instances the tactic seemed to be "make the map as ridiculous in scale as possible; make it out of 16 sheets, 8 high by 2 wide, such that a ladder is required to see the top; or make it so long it takes 5 minutes to walk from one end to the other". Yes, some of the maps were huge, and not just because they wanted to include masses of detail either. In fact some of the most detailed maps were a pretty normal size and required lots of squinting to make sense out of.

Having to walk from one end to another of a map brought London's size into context though. I recently walked from Waterloo station to Tower Bridge and back of an evening -- in the late 1600s, that was the entire breadth of the city. When I walked the 13 miles home back in November, that would have been an epic journey worthy of chronicling, through countryside and lots of disparate villages. Bit different now.

Other ways of making the maps stand out seemed to be in the insignia. In a spare bit of space on most maps was the title, the author's name, the long subtitle that was all the rage, and all that gubbins. They were surrounded with the most immaculately presented and fabulously detailed little coat-of-arms type things and were, in general, far more ornate and impressive than the maps themselves. Odd.

It was quite interesting to learn that the train system, certainly in south west London (the Kingston Loop et al) is the same now as it was in the late 1800s; it was very funny to see a PUBLIC TRANSPORT IS TERRIBLE AND WILL KILL YOUR HORSES pamphlet; but the best thing of the whole exhibition was seeing a panorama that didn't use the word panorama -- oh no -- it was a cosmorama. That's my new favourite word, that is.

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I really hate the HSBC cash machines at Cambridge Circus. Every time I use them I forget just how tormenting they are. Here's a tip: always ask for an amount of pounds divisible by 20. Don't be fooled by them offering you £30 or £50 -- they never have tenners and always ask you to pick £40 or £60. Poxy fucking things.

All the way home

Good entry this one. Boring, no photos, and loads of text. You lucky lucky people.

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So, last night: with music to my ears (albeit with broken headphones, FFHS) and nothing to do, plus a weather forecast saying it was the only evening this week without rain, I walked home. All the bloody way. 12.6 miles.

See yell.com has a walking route calculator thing. You can shove in a couple of postcodes and say you want to walk rather than drive, and instead of the perhaps more sensible response of "how far?!? fuck off!" it actually tells you the route. I thought from the office to home was 18 or so miles but it turned out to be just over 12. I had a bit of a fight using gmap-pedometer 'cos I didn't trust the route yell gave me to be the shortest, turns out it pretty much is though. How dare it know better than me, bah! But still I failed to follow it exactly, through a combination of pig-headedness, road/area preference, and forgetfulness.

First things first, office to Piccadilly Circus. Small distance, horrid walk at 6pm. Too many people around. Just nasty as hell. As soon as I got onto Piccadilly itself though it got better, presumably because people are scared of getting poisoned through being in close proximity to that sushi restaurant where the Russian spy got fucked over the other week.

First deviation from yell's route came at the end of Piccadilly. I didn't want to walk along Knightsbridge, plus I still wasn't convinced it was the shortest route. Instead I wanted to head through Belgravia towards Sloane Square and get on the King's Road at source. I managed the last bit but not without getting a little lost inside Belgravia, ending up on Sloane Street which was rather surprising. Turned out it wasn't a massive diversion though.

The King's Road, and New King's Road, is bloody long. It also fluctuates greatly between posh and lovely and grim and nasty. At one end there's Sloane Square and Peter Jones and a bunch of mews, in the middle there's a knife amnesty bin next to Tesco, ... I love London. I love the way the whole place is a mixture of ace and grim separated by pretty much fuck all. Pick the wrong direction from any given place and you can be somewhere shitty inside 5 minutes. Start somewhere shitty and walk for 5 minutes and you'll find tree-lined roads or a nice park or a river or little square or whatever.

Anyway. At the end of the New King's Road is Putney Bridge, and just as I was walking down the side of the station I got a call from the Frankenkarma's creator. Not sure what he was most interested in checking up on, my progress or his baby's ;-) I was doing better than it was... not 'cos it was broken though, only because the battery had run out and my headphones were fucked. Mind you this had made answering the phone a lot easier 'cos I was listening to XFM on it, playing the same old fucking shit AGAIN.

Putney's where the walk gets rubbish. I really like the centre of town, Belgravia, the King's Road, even the New King's Road in a way, certainly from Parson's Green to the bridge, and I don't mind Putney High Street (which was the scene of my first calorie stop; prawn mayo sarnie, sausage roll and a diet coke please mate ). But from there on...

As it goes the aforementioned had predicted I'd give up on the trawl up Putney Hill, not necessarily through fatigue but because it's a shit walk. He's right 'n all. Walking along the A3 through Roehampton Vale isn't my idea of fun and isn't something I'll be doing again in a hurry. In fact the nasty stretch was a good 4 miles all told. Bah! How disappointing that the entire route home isn't glorious.

Oh yeah. On the A3 there was a road sign saying "Kingston 4". About a mile later there was one saying "Kingston 3". And about a mile later, at the foot of Kingston Hill (where I was coming off the A3) there was a pedestrian/cyclist sign saying "Kingston 4". FUCKERS.

Kingston Hill is long. Not that steep, but fucking long. It never feels that long on an 85 or K3 but that's probably because they're going along at 40mph or so. As I walked I kept thinking, I know this bit, the crest is soon.. and it never was. Well obviously it was, after a while, but a lot longer of a while than it was meant to be. But it was informative, in so far as I'd never realised before just where the border between SW and KT was -- and I'd never have placed it halfway up the hill near the Uni.

Kingston Hill is something else too: very very boring. But I had Radio 1 on 'cos XFM was just pissing me off way way way too much, and they were playing a variety of stuff most of which I'd never heard of. Hurrah! And then along came Tim Westwood too! Hurrah!

Trouble set in near the tail end of Kingston Hill. By the time I'd reached the top I was knackered by the climb but determined to carry on, but as soon as the descent kicked in my mind wandered toward the possibility of jumping on a bus. There were Surbiton buses now, see. I could just get a K3 home. At Norbiton I could get a K1 or K2 also. And if I went into Kingston town centre I had even more choices... in the end the only thing that happened in Norbiton was I stopped for more liquids. Lucozade hydro-active FTW!

As it turns out Kingston was the scene of my second yell deviation. Not through choice this time, I thought I'd remembered the route properly but after checking it this morning I hadn't. But even given that, and my earlier Belgravia shenanigans, the full route was only 0.4 miles longer. Stepped in the door dead on 2130 which meant I'd taken exactly 3.5 hours. That means I averaged 3.6mph, about 0.6mph faster than normal but with liberal adjustments for calorie stops, hills, and traffic/road crossing (virtually none of which were present on any of the river walks) I reckon I must have walked at 4mph pretty much the whole way. Go me! And stuff!

Anyway, that's that then. I can walk home on a weeknight and feel virtually no ill-effects the next morning. My feet are a tiny bit sore but my legs aren't. Not that I plan to do it regularly mind, but it's nice to know it's possible. It'll do as a contingency plan for next time the trains get proper fucked up ;-)

Rage against the machines

Last but one day of freedom today. Got up late :-( but still managed to get out of the house at just after midday. Only 2 hours or so after I had originally planned, bah.

First machine rage: my new Karma. Volume control works. Scrolly wheel works. Sound only comes out of the left earphone. Tried a couple of pairs to make sure it's the Karma's fault. Fucking hell. Means I don't have a proper mp3 player any more :-(

Figured I'd go for another walk today. I'd decided to go to Kew Bridge and pick up where I left off on Friday. So after leaving the house I bought 3 drinks, a lottery instant, and got on a 281. The bus dictated the route and I thought I'd stay on until Twickenham and then get a bus or train to Kew Bridge from there. It also gave me a nice long journey so I could get online.

Second machine rage: my phone was fucking playing up. ssh connections were being proper shit, and when I finally got online the phone then crashed and rebooted after I SMSed Loz (ironically enough about the ssh client I was using). Grr!

Off at Twickenham and onto the platform. Actually I failed to read the signs and went down to the wrong one.

Third machine rage: damn trains. I went up/across/down to platform 3, by which time they'd made a platform alteration, and I had to go up/across/down back to platform 5. Gah!

So here I was. On the devil's side of the river, I made my way back to the south and set off Chiswickwards. Today's weather forecast said it was going to be 18 or 19 degrees celsius, but as of tomorrow or Wednesday it's going to be a few degrees lower. "Welcome back to work!" temperatures, innit. Anyway with weather like this and still no work, I figured this was the last time for a while I had no excuse not to (a) walk a decent distance (b) wear shorts.

Kew Bridge. Chiswick Bridge. Barnes Bridge. Hammersmith Bridge. Putney Bridge. Wandsworth Bridge. That was my route today, all on the south side of the river and mostly on the Thames Path. Actually it may all have been the Thames Path, but there's a bunch of it between Putney and Wandsworth that isn't actually by the Thames. Bah.

The whole route from Kew to Putney is really nice. The bridges themselves are quite cool, the greenery is great, there's the Harrods Furniture Depository and the Stag Brewery and Craven Cottage to look at, and a bunch of pubs to stop in if you're so inclined. I imagine it's great when the sun's out but I wasn't that fussed. It seems to me that walking is just, well, fun. Really. I mean I guess I'm a latecomer to this but I've discovered, realised, whatever, that walking as an end in itself is really quite enjoyable. It's all liberating and stuff, not trying to get somewhere specific by a particular time or anything, I have the freedom to just stop wherever and whenever I want or, more often, just keep going and see how far I can get. Today I really only thought in advance of getting as far as Hammersmith. But once there I just though, fuck it, carry on to Putney and get the bus home. And at Putney I thought, why stop now?

Mind you the answer to that question is actually "because Wandsworth's all shit and stuff". The walk between those two bridges is barely next to the river and fairly unpleasant, especially towards the end with all the timber yards and civic amenity sites and all that nonsense. When I did finally reach the bridge I decided against going on, 'cos it was getting a bit dark and I'd stopped for a few minutes to stare at the flocks of birds flying around like swarms of bees. Quite a cool sight that. But it was the first time I'd stopped for longer than it takes to take a photo and when that's done, fuck it, I'm not starting again.

Oh, and Wandsworth to Battersea is a shit walk 'n all. I did get halfway across towards the north thinking I'd pop in the nearest enemy territory pub, but turned back after being overcome with a "north of the river? Are you fucking mental?" revelation/stench. So that was it really, I made my way to Wandsworth Town station (rather circuitously, because I got lost) and got a couple of trains home.

Fourth machine rage: there was another power cut in my flat. Thankfully only for 2 minutes, I was almost out of the door and off to the pub when it all came back on.

Fifth machine rage: when the power came back on -- not when it went off, when it might have been more understandable -- my laptop crashed and rebooted.

Once the power came back I again sought out gmap-pedometer.com to work out how far I'd walked. Turns out it was just over 8 miles. Not bad that. It means in the last 4 days I've walked a marathon, pretty much. Not quite 3h30m but still...

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So, Mastodon, Blood Mountain. What a fucking odd album that is. Only given it a couple of listens so far, but I can't really categorise it as metal, or in fact as any one genre. It jumps all over the fucking place. In fact listening to it is like eating with chopsticks: you can get into it for a few seconds at a time, sometimes even half a minute, but then it all goes totally wrong and you can't get a grip on anything at all. Everything goes all over the place and you're left wondering when you'll next get your teeth into something.

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In December 2004 I posed the somewhat rhetorical question on my old blog "What kind of fucking road name, or word, is Yeend?" after having come across a road called Yeend Close in Molesey. Well colour the question no longer rhetorical and me enlightened, because as of yesterday I know exactly what kind of road name and word it is. In West Molesey there is a church called St Peter's and for 53 years the Reverend John Yeend was its vicar, and the aforementioned road was named after him. The name/word itself dates from at least the 1500s, is from the Gloucestershire area, and possibly dervices from "Ye Ende". I know all of this thanks to an email from a guy named Dave, in whose direction this part of this blog entry constitutes a doffed cap.

complete and utter walker

As if I wasn't living in the past enough, today I walked home* from high school. What the hell is going on with me? I seem to have become addicted to walking. It surely won't last, but really, it's a bit odd. My addictions are rarely healthy.

The only thing on my plate was visiting me old man for lunch, sometime between 1400 and 1500. But the trains are all fucked (no services at all thanks to engineering works) so I expected to get 3 buses. Ended up getting just the one. First off I walked 1.75 miles to the outskirts of Kingston, taking a pretty odd route, on which I discovered the Eight Bells is now called the Honest Cabbage(!). Got a 131 from there, supposedly to go into Wimbledon but I wasn't getting on with the bus at all. Too many people, too bumpy, stopping too much, and I was in desperate need of a drink. So I got off in Raynes Park, just near Krispy Kremes, (ie one stop before RPHS) and walked the rest of the way, taking a route I trod weekdaily from 1987-1990. Hold up, let me shove it into gmap-pedometer.com and see how far it is.

Hmm. 2.4 miles. I thought it would be more than that. Anyway, there we have it. Another 4.15 miles walked. I hope I lose some weight from all this. I even briefly considered walking part of the route home, but got as far as the bottom of the hill when I happened to be at the bus stop the moment a 93 arrived. Bussed all the way in the end, along with every urban savage and skaghead alcoholic around. Fucking North Cheam, jesus.

These boots really ARE made for walking

Feet felt fine this morning. So fine in fact that I've been out and walked for another 2 hours or so already today, into and around Kingston and back.

Felt pretty rough last night though. But rough might not be the right word. I just felt ... strange. I dunno, can't really explain it really. I didn't have a headache or stomach ache but couldn't finish the pizza I ordered; my legs and feet felt OK; but I just didn't feel right. So odd I can't even honestly say whether it was physical or mental. Fuckin' weirdo.

My sleep patterns are a bit screwed too. I got to sleep at about 0100, and woke up just before 0500. Went online for a bit, chatted with Phil, and decided to read me brother's blog. I'm terrible with blogs -- I write and write and write but hardly ever bother reading anyone else's, and for some reason this was on my mind. Maybe my ears were burning, 'cos it turned out the most recent post at the time was in reference to one of mine. No death but a bit odd if you ask me...

Got back to sleep some time approaching 0630 IIRC, waking up again at 0900. Not really in the mood for getting up I stayed in bed reading Fortean Times until a fairly sudden mood change enveloped me and I decided to go shopping. For metal. With my feet and legs showing no signs of having been put through any punishment I figured I'd walk again, and headed into Kingston. Didn't have much of a list, other than wanting to buy the new album by Converge, and the one by Death Breath.

Oh, bollocks, in the course of looking up Converge's URL it seems the album I just bought (No Heroes) is available in its entirety, officially, on myspace! Bah. Not to worry. But anyway, yes I managed to buy that album. I also got:

• Blood Mountain by Mastodon. No idea what these guys sound like other than this album is supposed to be superb.
• Stench of Redemption by Deicide. Heard one track off this, read some reviews, and just generally wanted some death metal. In fact I'm listening to this album as I type this.
  
• American Hardcore: The History Of American Punk Rock 1980-1986 by various artists. Didn't know this album existed, despite owning the book. Turns out it's not an accompaniment to the book though, but a soundtrack to the movie inspired by the book(!). I wish the difference were subtle, but judging by the tracklisting it means no Dead Kennedys and no Misfits. Not too bad for the album, they'd almost certainly be tracks I own, but it means the film is unlikely to be as good (for me personally) as the book. Oh well.

4 albums all less than a tenner each is quite a result. Although it seems to be the norm these days. Which is even more of a result, I guess. No Death Breath in HMV though, but my shopping wasn't over. I had a quick scan over the rest of the shop and found Lady Vengeance on DVD in a 3-for-20-quid sale, or as individually priced. The individual price was 19.95. I wanted the film anyway so looked for 2 others worth parting with 5p for, and ended up with Hostel and Syriana.

Left HMV and got most of the way out to the pedestrianised bit where a proto-Hayseed Dixie were putting on a bit of a show before remembering I had books to look for too. Well, book: after reading a review in Fortean Times I've decided I want to buy Skipping Armageddon: [subtitle I can't be arsed with]. Basically a demolition job (I think) on some crazy-ass right-wing religious nutjob. But Waterstones didn't have it, and neither did Borders. Well, I guess they might have, but I couldn't actually work out what section it'd be in. I had a look at religion, and politics, and social science, and biography, but no luck. Nearly bought a Mark Thomas book (this one), thought 18 quid was a bit steep for John Hartson's autobiography, but left empty-handed. I've got about 6 books I'm either halfway through or yet to start anyway FFHS.

I nipped to Banquet Records after Borders. I'm sure last time I went there they had a decent metal selection, but it's pretty piss-poor right now. Loads of punk/emo nonsense but barely any metal now. I'd gone in there really to look for Death Breath, but no chance of them having it really. Shame. :-( In fact it sparked off a bit of a lament. Why is Kingston so rubbish for music shopping now? Back in the day we had HMV, Virgin, The Record Shop, Beggars' Banquet (as was) and Tower Records. Can't remember if all 5 ever existed at the same time, but nonetheless it was until fairly recently a lot better than it is now. Virgin turned into some fucking clothes shop, Tower is half clothes, half PC World, and The Record Shop is now a knitting machine place (if I'm remembering where it was correctly). Actually, didn't TRS have two shops once upon a time? Ah I dunno. Anyway, record shopping in Kingston is shit now :-(

Enough about that though. Came home on foot (although I did wait for a bus for a few minutes, admittedly) and my feet still don't hurt. WTF?

These boots are made for walking

Specifically, these boots are made for walking. I've mentioned them before and it turns out people really do read this blog, because since I've been back a bunch of people have asked me about them. I've told them all the same thing: yes, I fell for the marketing spiel about all the extra muscle use you get and the better posture and all that, but I really do believe it. My knees feel better, in a whole I-don't-feel-my-knees-a-lot these days kind of way. I'm convinced my calf muscles are a bit beefier, and at the very least I'm aware of my posture when I stand and am making a genuine effort never to rest all my weight on just one leg. The soles help with that a lot.

Anyway today they got a proper work out. Like a lot of my best plans, the one I'd come up with yesterday/this morning failed dismally. First thing I did when I got up was watch an episode of Seconds From Disaster, for fucks sake. It wasn't even one narrated by Mr Excitable, so fuck knows why I bothered watching it all the way to the end. Inertia's a powerful thing. But I do have some semblance of resolve, and I had a shower in ostensible preparation for departure after it. Of course I sat around afterwards for a bit, cursing at another Seconds From Disaster being on with the decent voiced bloke. I expressed my annoyance at this on IRC:

-me <dsf> fucks sake @ good voice bloke

'cos I just knew I was going to stay in and watch the episode, and then the flat suffered a power cut. Everything down. No TV, no lights, no Internet. So there's my decision made: go the fuck out.

Before losing power I'd done a little bit of research into boating options. I figured an open-top bus tour in town wouldn't last masses of time, and a ride along the Thames would be a pleasant way to start my sightseeing. Unfortunately I gauged from the Turks and TfL river websites that no services operate in October that go anywhere near here. I hoped there was a private service I could get from Richmond, maybe, and while searching I'd come across this write-up of a Thames Path walk some people had done in the opposite direction. Interest piqued and my hand forced, I shoved on some shorts and a dark shirt and headed out.

Truth be told I never really thought I'd walk to Richmond. Ham's about my limit really, having done that once before. I went to the newsagent and bought a couple of Diet Cokes (one with cherry, one without; y'know, in America there's such a thing as Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Coke... I know because the website told me), then headed down the well-trodden path of St James's Road, Maple Road, Cadogan Road and onto the path by Raven's Ait.

Good start this. Great weather, and very few people around until Kingston town centre. A nice walk. A little bit of urban savagery going on under the bridge -- it is half term after all -- but nothing too off-putting. The tunes on my karma were keeping me happy and I figured, what the hell, might as well carry on to Ham.

Come the road up to Ham, just after Boaters, I thought, hrm. Do I really want to go get a bus, or should I carry on walking? Richmond's not that far from Ham, really. The river was looking gorgeous and the weather was still top, plus my feet weren't aching at all. I could always give up somewhere in Petersham or whatever, or even cross the river at Teddington. Yes, Teddington, there's my escape hatch.

Meh. Can't be bothered crossing the Thames at Teddington. I mean, why should I? I was on the right side, the south of the river. Besides, having got this far I thought I should take a look at the lock, 'cos I'd never been there before. And I did, crossed over onto the little island (didn't spot David Essex though) and had a wander around the immaculate little garden there. I thought I could cross back over onto the path at the end, but couldn't -- but the walk to the end wasn't wasted because the amateur/disinterested (delete as appropriate) ornithologist in me was impressed to see a parrot in the tree. Damn thing hid so I couldn't get a snap of it though.

Teddington Lock has some history. Apparently 100 boats made by a guy named Doug Tough were used in some massive famous battle or manoeuvre or summat in World War II. Dunkirk, that was it. Teddington saved us from the bosh! Etc. It's also got a TV studio where a litany of dreadful shows have been born.

Back onto the path and onwards to Richmond. OK, so it was a little further than I'd anticipated... geography was never a strong point and buses do kinda make things seem a bit closer together than walking does, but still. I got a little distressed when I reached the big corner in the river at Petersham, but hey, this was the home straight now. At Richmond I'd find a boat, maybe, and if not just go get a train. Although actually I was more thinking of grabbing something to eat and a pint, and/or do some CD shopping in HMV. I once bought an R&B album called More! Bump & Grind in Richmond HMV, y'know. Yes, that's More! as in More! magazine.

When I reached Richmond I thought, hold on, I don't like Richmond. It's a shit town, clogged up with traffic in streets that are too narrow and it's full of expensive pubs and wankers. So despite being knackered (but not yet knowing how far I'd walked; I'd SMSed Chris but the google maps pedometer thing wasn't working) I just carried straight on through. Thoughts of Brentford or even Hammersmith came to mind. There wasn't going to be a bus tour, but I might as well carry on to somewhere I don't mind and see just how far my legs would take me. Good things these shoes.

Turns out my head gave up before my legs. An opportunity to cross onto the north bank was at Richmond lock, or somewhere just beyond Richmond at least. In fact beyond Twickenham bridge I think. But anyway, I decided against it. South is where it's at, dude. Unfortunately the walk from there to Kew Bridge is mostly not very interesting. A lot of vegetation hides the Thames from you, inland there's a disgusting algae-filled stream or summat, and the path was all muddy and puddleful.

Ah well. Fuck it. In for a penny and all that. The Karma was still going strong and I did see some amazing autumn colours in the trees, plus I was underneath Heathrow's landing flight path. And after a while the vegetation went away and it was all river on the left, Kew Gardens on the right. Yeah, the real Kew Gardens. Not that I wanted to visit it, but it was kinda cool to be next to it I thought. It also meant the next bridge was close. Kew Bridge, innit.

Not that close, mind. I guess Kew Gardens is pretty big. Hmph. But I got there eventually... and there were signs. Being quite adept at navigating the Thames Path by now, what with it just being this big path that goes next to the Thames, the sign wasn't that important in terms of what it pointed to -- but what was handy was the mileage. The implication -- explication? -- that the next bridge was Chiswick Bridge, and more than 2 miles on, was enough to make me call it a day. My feet or legs weren't exactly giving out, but there were definite signs of tiredness. And I was really quite thirsty, and not far from the Magpie and Crown in Brentford, a short walk from the north side of Kew Bridge. Oh, and far from actually going strong, my Karma's battery had died just before the bridge. I guess I really will have to start using my "new" one soon -- around 3 hours life when it's supposed to last 11 sucks.

So, across to the dark side I went and turned left. Oh, bollocks. See, in my mind, Brentford's just, like, right there. Over the bridge and you're there. 10 yards to the Ealing road where the 65 goes and surely no more than 500 yards to all the shops and the pub and stuff. Except no, I'm wrong. It's actually quite a way. The Waterman's Arms, Albany parade, various other bits and bobs were all this side of Brentford whereas in my head they were the other side. Bollocks. Waterman's Park is quite nice but having got in the whole "that's it, the walk is over" mindset I was now getting a bit pissed off.

Actually, I guess I wasn't pissed off really. Could have done with some music but the walk didn't really matter, especially given how far I'd already gone. A bit more wasn't exactly going to kill me. And I wasn't lost; in fact I've decided being lost in London is almost impossible, considering to my mind "lost" means not having a clue how to get from where you are to where you want to be, and the public transport is such that that can't really happen.

Anyway, I got a bit of cash out and went into the pub. The Magpie and Crown does decent beers, both English and foreign, and I had a Cornish one called Sharp's Cornish Coaster. Bloody nice it were 'n all. Sat down with it and got online for a bit, although the power cut hat trick came along fairly soon as my phone died too. That's my fault for not having charged it overnight though.

The pub has sold 1713 different guest ales since January 4th 1996. Currently they sell Stiegl lager instead of Stella, and haven't had (m)any complaints about it. Quite right too, because Stiegl is fucking great. So great I had two pints of it.

Brentford has a tattoo parlour called "Ouch". Not sure I'll be going there. Mind you it's quite an amusing name, and marginally less shocking than the BBC using the same name for their disability website.

Brentford also has a carpark called "The Butts". Snigger. Beats Kingston's "The Bittoms" hands down.

The nuts and jelly beans machine in the pub was broken. A guy came in to fix it, armed only with a can of WD40. He's earning his money.

The latest issue of London Drinker has a letter about BITE in it. Someone's angry at negative comments disappearing for some pub or other.

I felt quite isolated without my phone. It was worse than any time during my holiday, in fact. Despite being in England and enjoying understanding both the language and content of the bar conversations going on around me (Hard-Fi's lead singer is a Brentford fan; some rival karaoke bint "doesn't even have Sexyback"; Oldham's Boundary Park is a cold ground in which to watch football; etc) I was really pretty alone. No matter what timezone I was in I knew I could get hold of someone online or by SMS, and spent a fair bit of time being kept company in one way or t'other. But here, in Brentford, I had nowt. Very isolating, as I say, and not at all liberating. I love and need my phone.

The only solution to this isolation was to go home. Plus it wasn't a bad idea anyway, since I was half-pissed, still hadn't eaten, and it was getting a bit cold outside. Bought some food and diet coke, staggered along to the 65 stop (where I got asked if I'd been waiting long about 10 seconds after thinking "I wonder if she'll ask me how long I've been waiting?) and got the bus to Kingston. Fell asleep on it! But since missing my stop was an impossibility I guess that wasn't so bad, and no-one stole anything from me.

Back home and I set about working out just how far I'd walked. Mark had SMSed me on request earlier with the fact that Surbiton to Kew is 7.2 miles by road, which is more direct than the river. gmap pedometer worked for me though, and I used it to work a few things out. Turns out I walked 10.3 miles (click for the route -- need to zoom out 3 times!) and burned 1732 calories. Fucking hell!

I wonder how my legs are going to feel tomorrow.

Hello, hello, it's good to be back

skyline 3
Originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

I've had a whole bunch of "glad I'm back moments", hell I even blogged about some of the things I missed, but yesterday gave me another good 'un. I left the house -- way too late, after frying my brain with a load of dreadful TV -- because I was meeting a couple of people for a couple of drinks in town and I'd wanted to do a bit of CD shopping beforehand. But I never made it to Virgin or HMV, because halfway across Waterloo Bridge on the bus (I was already cursing myself for not walking) I just had to get off.

It's the skyline, see. I love it. It's one of my flimsy justifications for getting the bus from Waterloo to work rather than walking; the view from the top deck of the 176 going across the Thames is astounding. I guess it's probably half-decent from the other buses that go across Waterloo Bridge too, but anyway, yesterday I wasn't actually on the top deck, stood on the bottom one instead. Managed to get a look out East though and that was it, time to get off.

See, the weather was fucking amazing. Behind me the sun was setting, in a cloudless sky. Shining brightly, in fact too bright really to go stare west towards Jubilee bridge and parliament, but that's OK because it wasn't what I wanted to look at. What was best about the weather was that view to the East.

Unlike the cloudless sky to the West, East there was a backdrop of really dark cloud. But the sun was lighting up all the buildings, making the contrast stunning. What's more, the dark cloud's edge was cutting the city in two, creating yet another contrast. Ah fuck it, I'm rubbish at describing this shit really. Good job I took some photos. As it happens this was one of the rare moments I wished I had a real camera and some photographic nous, but I don't and I don't. Hopefully the 5 snaps give a hint though. The real thing I'm trying to say is just that London's skyline is fucking ace and I was lucky enough to spot it on a day when it was really fucking ace. In fact I didn't just take the snaps and fuck off (like I do with a lot of sights), I stood there for probably 15 minutes just staring at it and having a think. I absolutely adore this place.

Today I'm going back into town. Not to try and fluke another great sight or two -- is it even possible to "try and fluke" something? "You make your own luck" is a bollocks phrase -- but to go on an open top bus tour of London or summat. I've done enough of this in other cities, perhaps it's about time I saw this place through a tourist's eyes 'n all. Plus I desperately need to get out of the fucking house and do something vaguely active and debatably worthwhile with one of my last days of freedom. Switch Off (my) Television Set And Go Out And Do Something Less Boring Instead, innit.