Transport

Aug 022012
 

Someone told me Patrick Stewart often gets the tube at Bermondsey; I picture him softly mouthing shwoosh when the platform-edge doors open… just secretly, to himself…

Jul 212012
 

Arm-in-arm, stiletto-heeled, they totter through the Sunday morning rain: a stubbled drag queen with mascara tears and a dead-eyed girl in a silver dress, united by lust for Vauxhall tube.

Jul 012012
 
Plunger

Few people know that, should the Regent’s Canal ever get blocked, a large plunger is available for public use on the towpath just off Roman Road. Here, a local woman runs for assistance after spotting signs of backing up in Mile End Park. [see more…]

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Jun 202012
 
Ceci n'est pas un Wheelie Bin

… René Magritte’s time with LT’s maintenance department didn’t last long, as his playful signage at Stratford station provoked not only much philosophical debate in the canteen, but also a major hygiene problem on the westbound Central Line platform. [see more…]

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Jun 152012
 
Is This What People Do?

by Matt Haynes
The lorries are starting to move now, rumbling across the deck of the James Newman and onto the ramps that shake and ring beneath their tyres. He is supposed to leave too, supposed to climb the yellow metal steps from the passenger deck to the red metal gates that always remind him of Meccano. There is an announcement over the tannoy, every time a ferry docks, forbidding passengers to remain on board. [read more…]

Jun 142012
 

In a trackside back garden grainy with dusk, somewhere between Dagenhams East and Heathway, a solitary fat boy steadies himself, uncloses his eyes, and shoots one final, match-winning basket.

Jun 112012
 
Community Manifesto

by Mike Loveday
We watch the three of them stand inside the train sobbing. They stand inside the first carriage, facing the closed door at the back of the driver’s cabin. They stand and sob constantly, even when the train eases into each station. They cry to the limits of their lungs because they want everyone on the Chiltern Line to hear, everyone across London, through the countryside, on the roads, in the towns and in the villages. [read more…]

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Jun 082012
 
A102(M)

by Matt Haynes
As the doors shut and the train accelerates away from the station, the boy’s father holds the palm of his hand six inches behind his son’s back. The same conversation, almost word-for-word, has occurred at Devons Road, Langdon Park and All Saints (for Chrisp Street Market). Soon, almost certainly, it will occur at Pudding Mill Lane. [read more…]