8:41

To get  to work I usually have to leave the sunny climes of Nunhead and travel to Epsom.  Sometimes I drive, but more often I use the train.  And if that is what I have to do, there is  only one service for choice. 

Because there is only one direct train from London Bridge, through Peckham, to Epsom each day.  I don't know why; perhaps some requirement written into the original laws privatising our railways.  But whatever the reason, if I don't want to change at Sutton or Wimbledon - and in all likelihood Tulse Hill as well - I have to get the 8:38 from Peckham Rye.

Except that I don't, quite.  Or rather that is the train I get, but I board it at East Dulwich, at 8:41.  Which means I get the chance to grab a Danish pastry and double expresso from the very worthy Blackbird bakery. And if I'm early I can sit inside by the coal fire and begin the paper before heading for the train.

Being a commuter, of course, I always try to sit in the same place each day.  Part of the routine. And I always get a seat because I'm heading out of London, against the flow of traffic. 

So that is where you will often find me - second coach from the back, in the middle section.  Across the gangway from the seats dedicated to those unable to stand. 

It's a strange thing, tho' - those seats are often occupied by pasty white, overweight, hairy programmers on the way to Sutton, discussing software design.  So much so that when they aren't there I almost feel the urge sit there myself just to fill the vacancy..

Past

See this! Posted on the Nunhead Forum a few months back and just spotted... Nunhead Station in 1955.

Lots of comments on the Forum (which sometimes adopts a rather grumpy, crusty-old-man tone, rather like, er, me), about how much nicer the station was then.  I'm not so convinced...

Haldane and Engel's Thoughts

In On Being the Right Size, Haldane worries about how well socialism might run large organisations, but remains silent regarding the ability of capitalism and representative democracy to do the same.  He wrote the essay just before the stock market crash of course, and in our own time we have  witnessed the substantial failiure of the Western banking system, built around capitalism.  So it is at the very least a legitimate question to ask.

By coincidence, it is also one of the questions which drives Matthew Engel's Eleven Minutes Late: A Train Journey to the Soul of Britain (revised edition, 2010), which I got for Christmas.  He makes a whole series of telling points.  For example: 

- That Bitain's railways, originally created through the competition of entrepreneurial capitalists, are inefficient, poorly organised in terms of routes and stations, and much less effective than the later continental railways.  The latter were far more commonly state-planned and delivered - and all the better for it. 

- That the influence of politicians, almost universally with short-term interests, on the railways has been pretty much entirely malign or ineffectual - not least because of their relatively short-term planning horizon, which is wholly inappropriate for creating and sustaining a major National infrastructure and service.

- That as a result of both of these effects there has been little or no true strategic thinking regarding the railways in Britain for most of their life.  And it truly shows.

And barely needs to be said that many of his arguments about rail could be readily extended to the rest of British life.  He's fairly unsparing (although always a good read).

We didn't know it did this...

The new sign outside Nunhead station..

It glows in the dark!

(Well, a bit of it does....)

Station

Peckham Rye Station

Just a few photographs of Peckham Rye station (taken surreptitiously from Platform 2).  Buried beneath all of the rust and light engineering is a rather attractibe station.

Royal Ascot

When the Ascot races are on, the railway company puts on a few extra trains.  That's how, at Richmond station on Friday evening, I discovered a new train on the departure board just pulling in on platform 2.  Great! I thought and jumped straight on.

To find myself surrounded by tired, drunk racegoers.  In top hats, smart suits (morning dress some of them) and expensive, ill-fitting posh frocks.  Loud and raucous.  I've been on the train from London Bridge to South Bermondsey, surrounded by Millwall fans, and felt less intimidated.

Sitting there (hey, at least I got a seat), something else bothered me.  Then I realised what it was - I was the only person in the carriage reading.  Weird.

For Simon Hoggart in the Saturday Guardian 'The most expensively-dressed women often look as if they've stepped from the pages of Viz magazine'.  Which feels about right.  But he likes the spectacle - he comments that Waterloo is 'transformed' by the crowd - and I agree.  But not in a good way.

Anyway, as I was heading onwards I noticed one short, noisy woman with a smart, black, off-the-shoulder dress and a grating upper-class acccent being arrested and carefully lead into a waiting Police van.  It took three officers to do this, and she ended up sitting on the floor of the van and repeatedly kicking the side.

What's the line?    'I don't think the Police went looking for trouble, but they expected it....'

You Look Away for Just a Second...

... and look what they do! Local artist Randy Klein  has installed this archway/gateway/piece of art at the entrance to Nunhead station.  Well really, he could have asked first...

That being said it is a quite pleasant view from the platform down the tracks.  And I gather it lights up at night.  We shall see.

The Pubs Around Nunhead: 3

This used to be The Railway, on the corner of Gibbon Road and Kimberley Avenue. One of those Nunhead pubs best described as 'scuzzy' for much of its life, I think. Towards the end it was taken over by the local gay mafia and became briefly wonderful. The conversation and decor improved enormously (although it was still just as sticky) - and it was a place to go to be briefly entertained.

And then it shut. The flats built on the site retain nothing of the old building, although the unattractive pub sign remains, as you can see.
This gives a better sense of how it relates to the station and the local street architecture:

More than Most...

So today we went to Oddballs (est 25 years!) in Camden Market. This is a shop to visit and to spend a long time in. Not because it is very, very large (it isn't), nor because it carries a huge range of stock (it isn't bad, but that isn't the point).

No, the reason for staying a while is that the staff are exactly what you used to get from the BR International Booking staff at Victoria station when trying to book an open return railway ticket to Vienna via Cologne (pre-privatisation and pre-Tunnel).

In other words, knowledgeable, helpful specialists who are deeply interested in their subjects and in your wants. At Victoria in those Halcyon days, a somewhat portly man in his thirties carefully leafed through multiple International Railway timetables and complex fares manuals, (real books, not Web sites), making notes on a pad with a stub of pencil and occasionally looking up to ask me for detailed clarification on difficult points regarding my desired journey. He thoughtfully offered choices to help me reduce the overall ticket price, and advised me (from his personal knowledge) on the platform layout at Cologne station so that my changes would be easier. This is all true, it really happened, and not that long ago (1989/1990), and it was wonderful. Today, following the nasty Tory demolition of the railway system in the UK (which I think we can all agree has resulted in an unsightly, disorganised and loathsome mess of a service and inter-alia created a new, mean-spirited language that diminishes those who choose to use the railway, changing us from passengers to customers and promoting the cheap shoddy term 'train station') , the same travel problems have no easy solution (although to be honest, the Man in Seat 61 isn't a bad try at offering something a bit more limited on the InterWeb).

Deep breath.

What I was going to say is that a visit to Oddballs is joyful, because of the staff. Today we witnessed one of the chaps on duty spend about half an hour with a Dutch family whose son wanted a new yo-yo - and that, if you don't know about these things, is a complex and difficult decision. The boy showed what tricks he could do and there followed a complicated Dutch - English conversation (given the topic, let's say it was in Danglais), with illustrative tricks being demonstrated with the various different yo-yo technologies by the shop assistant. At the end, with the relevant yo-yos being selected for purchase, the conversation moved on to additional equipment and adaptations; when the assistant could not quite work out how the chuck worked on one machine, he took the trouble to ring up someone who knew more about it on his mobile. Meanwhile, the other assistant spent considerable time (well over 20 minutes) coaching on how to perform tricks using two diablos at a time (diablii?), on the same string. Both of these exemplars discussed different equipment with other customers as they continued, and the yo-yoist stopped briefly at one point to show me some nice Henry's Thuds - and just as a side illustration he performed a five-ball cascade. Marvellous. We must have spent an hour in there and I was entranced. Oh, and we did of course spend a fair amount of money in the shop as a result. Just don't tell the Tories about it.

There is a further point, of course. Both examples suggest that online shopping - e-commerce - is unlikely to be able to offer the full, fun experience of a physical visit to certain shops. Those quirky bookshops with (hopefully) serendipitous filing systems, and those markets where you can smell the carrots, cheeses or tomatoes before you buy. Not to mention those places where you can also smell the books... Oddballs has a very good Web site - with lots of demonstration videos and Flash movies - but it is nothing like the real visit.

But as the railways have proven, this doesn't mean that these wonders will survive. And they certainly won't if we don't get out and use them. So the message is: get out there and enjoy the show.

(The title of this post comes from the name of a now-defunct juggling shop that I used to frequent, called More Balls than Most. Like Oddballs, and BR International Enquiries, a visit was a real treat. But it is no longer there. Again - don't let this happen to a joy near you).