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Camden Town

Camden Town.

Picture by Ash Lourey: Camden High Street

By 2034 the process is complete: Camden Town has become Gothworld, Europe’s premier subcultural theme park, open 10am to 11pm with half-price entry every second Thursday.

Caraway is five years old, and very excited. Adrian, thirty-nine, argued for the robot zoo and lost, defeated by cries of “da-a-a-ad” elongated with as many extra syllables as it took. He pays the exorbitant entrance fee, and they’re ushered into a dark tunnel; aerial LEDs swarm toward them, dodging just in time, clustering and dissolving, moving into pairs, glowing eye-like. Caraway grips his hand tight and pulls him to a stop, then lets go and runs ahead while the LEDs part in front of her. He chases.

They come out in a wide stone square, refreshment stalls dotted along each side, streets leading off in five different directions. Milling crowds pose with the tall animatronic ravens, and in the centre the Mohawk Fountain rises. Thousands of glass tubes arc four metres into the air, each one throwing out a spray of water, coloured by lights that cycle through black, purple and red. A dozen visitors squat down between the fountain and their friends’ cameras, trying to find an angle that makes the sculpted glass emerge from their heads.

Caraway stares, mouth open, but the rudimentary programming of the animatronic ravens can’t distinguish awe from boredom, and two of them lumber her way. Her eyes grow wider and wider as they approach, extending their stubby wings; but then it’s all too much, and she backs away, groping for Adrian’s hand again.

“We’re all right, thanks,” Adrian says, and the ravens back away.

“I think,” Caraway says, “maybe I’ll like the ravens later, when I’m bigger.”

Adrian squats, and loads up the map. “So what do you think you’d like now? There’s Punkland, there’s Vampire Island, there’s the Mausoleum of Theodoric, there’s Leath— no, you’re probably not tall enough for that one. Cyberstreet?”

Caraway shakes her head. “I want to go on the Sock Slide,” she says, pointing down the nearest street. At the far end, Adrian can just make out two intertwined helter-skelters, one black and one red; only when they’re closer do cartoon cutouts explain to him that it represents a striped sock, traditional subcultural garb from the turn of the century.

After the Sock Slide, Caraway drags him to the Bauhaus of Fun, through the Nick Cave, and up the Stocking Ladder. At the top, they’re belted into place on a gently swaying platform. “We’re doing the goth dance, Dad!” Caraway calls out, giggling; Adrian feels slightly queasy.

Afterwards, on a boat trip, he looks down into the canal as it flows with blood. Halfway through they spring a leak, accompanied by carefully choreographed horror from their host; at the last minute the boat swings sideways and lands them on dry ground, just by a gift shop.

By the end of the day Caraway, exhausted, has run through all the savings on her pocketcard. She’s wearing a fluffy purple Corsette®, a strap-on mohawk, red braces, three plastic wedding rings, and a black ivy-leaf amulet that flashes pink in the dark. It has been, she declares as they leave, the best day ever, and Gothworld is her very favourite place.

Gothworld is, of course, haunted by the ghosts of the real goths. Mostly they cluster around Graveyard Corner, though sometimes they drift up and down between the stalls at Market Towne. They’re paid well above the national ghost average, and get 25 days holiday a year, plus Tuesday evenings off while the exorcist comes in to keep the Punktergeist population under control.

Posted in Northern Line. Tagged with , .

By Holly
April 15, 2009

1 comment

Caledonian Road

Caledonian Road.

Picture by Nicobobinus: Caledonian Road

Shush there, everyone. Shush now. Callum, David, you as well. And come in close so you can hear, because tonight I’m going to talk about a little boy who was just like you. His name was Eldon, and he was a Scottish boy whose parents had died, so he came to live here in the Caledonian Asylum. He wore his tartan breeches, just like you; he studied in the classrooms where you study, and slept in the dormitories where you sleep. Sometimes he got fidgetty during sermons, and fought with the other boys, and sometimes he tried to sneak more than his fair share of porridge; but most of the time he behaved well, or else he tried to. He played pipes in the band, and if he wasn’t very good at it, it wasn’t for lack of practice.

Now one day Eldon noticed—as you might have noticed—that from the very top of the Asylum, you can see into the exercise yard of Pentonville Prison. Many of the men in Pentonville Prison are violent and cruel-hearted and mean only ill to orphans, but Eldon couldn’t tell this as he watched from a distance. There was a tall man with white hair, who would lean on the walls; Eldon called him Mr Slant. There was a young man who would start fights, and Eldon called him Fistgrabber. There was an older man with dark hair who would stop the fights that Fistgrabber started, and Eldon called him Thief.

Sometimes Eldon thought the men in the prison yard were just like him, or rather that he was just like them: that he was shut in the Asylum in the same way that they were shut in the Prison, that his life was regimented as theirs was, that he was told what to do and when to play just like them. Now, you and I know that the Asylum is here to look after children who would be cold and hungry and ill on their own, while the Prison is there to punish those who have stolen and murdered and swindled. But Eldon’s bed was hard, and so were his lessons, and some of the teachers and the older children were unkind; and he didn’t always remember the difference as well as he might.

Eldon, then, was restless.

One way to prevent yourself from feeling restless is to go on a long walk, just like you did this morning, but whenever Eldon went on a walk with the other orphans, they would travel past the Metropolitan Cattle Market, again just like you: and while he was there Eldon would think that perhaps he was less like a prisoner and more like one of the cows. Confused yet obedient; reluctant yet biddable. Tended and fed, but not sure where he was going.

And Eldon began to think about what would happen to him if he left the Asylum, and what would happen to a prisoner who escaped from Pentonville, and what would happen to a stray cow who made it out of the market. He thought that the prisoner would have to stay hidden, and would need someone to go into shops for him; and the cow would need feeding, and have wide warm sides; and that he himself would need someone to explain the world to him and someone to keep him from getting cold at night. And he thought, as he leant out of the very top window and watched the exercise yard below, that Thief was more interested in the fences than he used to be, and seemed occasionally to glance up at the Asylum window and almost to meet his eyes; and he thought as well that the men who ran the cattle market relied on the cows to be really quite stupid, and that a clever cow would be able to evade them easily.

And so one night—a bright night, like tonight—Eldon climbed out of a window and ran away from the Asylum. He stood in the dark between Pentonville Prison and the Metropolitan Cattle Market, and he waited.

He was a little scared, and a little cold, and for a moment he felt silly to have climbed out at all; but even as he worried, he didn’t really doubt. He knew that a thick-lashed wide-eyed cow named Daisy would come through the night to nuzzle him, and then Thief from the prison would arrive as well. They would smile at each other with recognition, and turn away from Caledonian Road and their disparate gaols for ever. Such adventures they would have, the three of them, thief and boy and cow! They would travel all the way to Scotland and back, they would eat pork pies, they would commit cunning robberies and make their fortune and then pay back everything they had stolen. He would never wear tartan or play the bagpipes again. He would be free.

But listen closely, especially you, David: Daisy and the dark-haired thief never came. Eldon waited until dawn, through the rattle of new cows on their way to market, and the bell that rings to wake the prisoners. He was dry-eyed and disillusioned when he got back to the Asylum, and there was no porridge left for breakfast.

You can learn from Eldon, if you’re willing. The moon may be large and the sky may be clear but it’s cold outside, so think carefully. Take a coat to pull around you as you wait for your companions, and leave a window ajar on the ground floor, because nine times out of ten the swashbuckling thief and the loyal cow won’t come.

Posted in Piccadilly Line. Tagged with , , .

By Holly
April 8, 2009

1 comment

Burnt Oak

Burnt Oak tube sign.

Picture by KingDaveRa: Burnt Oak

By the time Delia assumes presidency of the Anti-Tesco Action Group, the Group’s collective disapproval of the supermarket chain has been expressed in a variety of increasingly desperate and decreasingly efficient ways, including:

  • A lawsuit
  • A petition
  • A picket line
  • Several successive manifestoes, each more sternly-worded than the last
  • A poster in which a small child stands outside Tesco and looks downcast
  • Cross graffiti chalked on nearby walls
  • Irritated frowns at anyone carrying a Tesco bag
  • Occasionally saying “Tesco? More like Messco, as in the mess that we believe their business practices and ethical choices to be!”
  • A Facebook group

Delia comes to the presidency with her own ideas about how to proceed, and mostly they consist of this: a really really big mallet.

The immediate effect of the mallet is undeniable. Each time the group uses it to hit a Tesco, that Tesco disappears into the ground, leaving behind a clean-edged hole and an empty carpark. Wheeling the mallet between branches is pretty slow, but the Group estimates at first that they’ll be able to eliminate Tescos entirely by mid-2010. Randolph (Group Treasurer) doesn’t believe it at first—they’ve failed so often, he barely dares to hope—but once he’s seen the mallet in action even he can’t deny its success.

After a few months, though, Delia meets with Randolph and Libbie (Group Secretary) to assess their progress so far—and when they look at the numbers, it turns out they’ve made no headway at all.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Libbie says. At the same time, Randolph shakes his head: “I don’t understand.”

“We get rid of one Tesco,” Delia says, “and another one pops up. It’s like…” and she trails off, staring.

“Like what?”

She scrambles for papers. “It’s like Tesco Whack-a-mole,” she says. “Literally. Get rid of one Tesco in Tooting, another one comes up in Wandsworth. Get rid of that one, and Tooting comes back, or a new branch pops up in Kilburn. Get rid of the Kilburn branch, and you just start a new one in Glasgow, or Poland, or Mars for all we can tell.” She unrolls a map across the desk and circles the sites they’ve already hit with a blue permanent marker, then switches to green for the new Tescos that have emerged in the last three months. There’s a one-to-one correspondence. “No wonder we aren’t making any headway. Every time we push one down, that very act makes a whole new building burst up somewhere else.”

They look at the map, and the momentary euphoria of epiphany fades away. “So the spring-loaded supermallet is useless as well,” Randolph says bitterly.

Delia stands back and tilts her head to one side. “Not so fast,” she says. “They keep coming up, one after another, but if we can just… eliminate the Queen Mole…”

“I don’t think moles work like that,” Libbie says, but Delia’s already spun around to the computer and started typing quickly. “In Wind in the Willows…”

“Here,” Delia says, turning back to the map and pointing. She picks out another marker—red this time—and indicates a point near Burnt Oak. “1929. Home of the first ever Tesco. In the first day of operation, it sold groceries worth four pounds, and made one pound in profit. Burnt Oak is where the rot started. Burnt Oak is where we need to hit. Right there.” And instead of a circle, she draws a thick, decisive cross. “Where’s the mallet now?” she asks.

“York,” Randolph says.

“Have them drive it straight down. There’s no time to lose.”

“I’m on it,” he says, pulling out his phone and turning away from the table.

Delia touches the centre of the cross gently with her fingertip. “Good,” she says quietly, to nobody in particular. “We’ve got a mole to whack.”

Libbie doesn’t think Whack-a-Mole has a Queen Mole either, but she’s only ever seen it on American cartoons, so maybe she’s missed the point. And the big red cross really does look very decisive.

Posted in Northern Line. Tagged with , , , .

By Holly
April 6, 2009

2 comments

Buckhurst Hill

Railway line nearish Buckhurst Hill, with lots of trees.

Picture by Kake Pugh: Top of the Hainault Loop

Some people have calendars, or brightly-coloured placebos lined up among their contraceptive pills. Some people have cheery emails from web services named menstrua.tr or ovaree.com. Anna just bursts into tears on her lunch break, and knows that it’s time to buy pantyliners and boil her mooncup.

Mid-month, while she’s sensible, she writes stern letters and tucks them into the bottom of her bag: don’t do anything you’ll regret, remember this only lasts a few days. It’s not real, it’s just chemicals. When the time comes, she runs into the toilet at work and rips the letters up, or throws them against the wall, or shoves them into her mouth and chews them up between enormous, gulping sobs. They taste real enough.

On the platform on the way home, she hates everything around her with such intensity: the shiny shoes, the free newspapers, the stairs and the advertisements and most particularly the people. She imagines launching herself in front of the train as it arrives, the accelerating steps she’d take and the elegant leap she’d make, perhaps turning over onto her back mid-air, like a high-jumper: she’ll ruin their dinners, add half an hour and a crowded bus ride to their journeys, she’ll find a tiny revenge for the wrong they’re doing her with their unruffled existence.

She doesn’t, of course. She’s too sensible. When the train arrives there are no seats, so instead she stands by the door and runs through impossible conversations in her head. First she disowns her family, then she quits her job and flees the country; then she comes back to stand outside her boyfriend’s house and yell a list of every slight or offense from their six years together, throwing a rock at the windows with each one (that’s an awful lot of rocks, but her aim’s quite poor). She imagines bursting into the bedroom of her flatmate—who once said PMT was a misogynist construct—and battering her around the head with a saucepan, screaming “is this misogynist enough for you, bitch?”. And then the train moves from underground tunnels into the world, and it all gets worse.

When she moved to Buckhurst Hill, she thought the commute would be wonderful: a single tube journey with no changes, and so much of it outdoors, windows showing trees and wide expanses and friendly suburbs instead of overcrowded platforms and unplastered walls. Usually, she’s right, but today she hates it all so much: the taunting homes, the growing twilight.

Her stop. She stands on the platform and turns around to take it all in, to look for anything that isn’t contemptible and vile, but there’s just the grubby white overhang of the awning, the crumbling bricks, and the furious knowledge that in a couple of days she’ll think that it’s all quite pretty. She’ll dismiss, she knows, the clarity of her hormone-fed revelation, just as she does every month. As she walks home she punches herself in the thighs, in time to her steps.

She won’t go through with any of her fantasy revenges, and that too she finds contemptible and vile. Instead, she’ll uproot plants in the garden—but only the ones she knows she can replant easily in the morning. She’ll overturn glasses onto the loungeroom carpet—but only water, never wine. She’ll stand in the kitchen with eggs, and smash them onto the sideboard, spitting fury at tyrannical ovaries as she does; then she’ll kneel on the floor and pull at her hair; and then she’ll pick the eggshells out of the mess she’s made, throw them away, wipe the yolks and the eggs into a frying pan, and make herself an omelette.

When it’s cooked she’ll roll it onto a plate and curl up on her bed, curtains shut against the repellent springtime dusk. She’ll eat it and she’ll cry, aiming tears onto the plate to save on salt.

Posted in Central Line. Tagged with , .

By Holly
April 3, 2009

3 comments

Bromley-by-Bow

Sign outside Bromley-by-Bow station.

Picture by Nicobobinus: Bromley-by-Bow

It’s not unusual to share your name with others. Zeitgeist children cluster in their schoolyards, inscribing worksheets with Olivia P, Olivia J, Olivia F, and on through the alphabet. Funny David Mitchell vies for attention with Writer David Mitchell, both of them overshadowing Politician David Mitchell and Canadian Lacrosse Player David Mitchell, while Accountant Down The Road David Mitchell and That Guy From Karen’s Sister’s Choir David Mitchell languish in obscurity. Even people with more peculiar names—Felicity Matheson, Shari Akbar, Giacomo Corrado—frequently have to share.

All the same, you’d think that one of the few advantages of being named Barnabé Wender would be some level of uniqueness.

Unfortunately for Barnabé Wender—and indeed for Barnabé Wender—there are two of them. Even more unfortunately, they both live in places named Bromley.

Barnabé Wender arranges to meet Barnabé Wender on neutral territory, in St James’s Park, far from either Bromley. The lake’s been drained for cleaning, but there are still a few ducks left, fighting for space around the remaining puddles; Barnabé tears off a chunk of bread and throws it onto the concrete.

Barnabé Wender arrives late, carrying a bulging Somerfield bag. “Barnabé Wender? I’m Barnabé Wender,” he says. His smile is wide.

“Hello,” Barnabé Wender says.

“These are for you, I think,” Barnabé Wender says, hefting the bag. “Amazon wishlist books. They arrived last week—your birthday, I suppose? Lots of notes from people I’d never heard of, anyway. Carmen says she misses you.”

Barnabé Wender takes the bag; he has little choice. “Thank you,” he says stiffly. There’s a teach-yourself-Spanish book on top, and a copy of Singstar Abba, and he tenses at the idea that his friends have seen a wishlist with Singstar Abba on it and thought it belonged to him.

“I’ve updated my profile to make sure it won’t happen again,” Barnabé Wender tells him.

“I appreciate that,” Barnabé Wender says.

They fall into silence. Barnabé Wender has his bread in one hand, and the bag of books in another; he can no longer feed the ducks. Barnabé Wender watches him.

“So,” Barnabé Wender says.

“So,” Barnabé Wender replies.

They’re silent again.

Barnabé Wender has an itchy nose, but it would be a sign of weakness to scratch it, and his hands are full anyway. He concentrates on looking steadily at Barnabé Wender without blinking too much. “This can’t go on,” he says.

“No,” Barnabé Wender replies.

This has happened before. Bromley (home of Barnabé Wender) is five miles north-east of Charing Cross, which is confusing in many ways because Bromley (home of Barnabé Wender) is also nine miles south-east of Charing Cross. North-east Bromley’s addition of “-by-Bow” is enough to distinguish the two locations in casual use, and on careful maps; but it’s a clumsy solution at best, and unequal to boot. Barnabé Wender feels that it’s time for south-east Bromley to make some concessions.

“What I suggest,” he says, “is that you change your name to Barnabé Wender-by-Chislehurst.”

Barnabé Wender smiles again. His hands are empty. “Interesting idea,” he says.

“It needn’t be a legal change,” Barnabé Wender says. “Everyday usage would suffice.”

“The trouble with that,” Barnabé Wender says, “is that I like my name as it is. And I’ve already registered barnabewender.com.”

“But I,” Barnabé Wender says, “have barnabewender.co.uk.”

“Now that’s hardly the same thing,” Barnabé Wender says.

Barnabé Wender tries not to show his anger. “I also,” he says, finally solving his hands problem by putting the loaf of bread in the bag, “have an extensive supply of business cards which I do not wish to waste.”

“And I,” says Barnabé Wender, “know how to punch you so it hurts.”

Barnabé Wender flails defensively with the bag, but it’s too late; Barnabé Wender is already too close, grinning. His eyelashes are dark and long. Barnabé Wender raises his arms to protect his head, dropping the bag; Barnabé Wender goes for his stomach. He’s right; he does know how to punch so it hurts. Barnabé Wender stumbles backwards, out of range, then runs back in to kick, but he’s slow and clumsy and Barnabé Wender evades him easily, moves in to hit him again.

Barnabé Wender turns around, almost falling into a bench, and runs. There are no footsteps behind him.

He reaches the bridge, panting, and then dares a backwards glance: nothing. He turns around completely, to check: still nothing. There’s a tree blocking his view of the place where he and Barnabé Wender met, but there’s no sign of pursuit. He bends over to catch his breath.

A voice comes from close behind him. “You forgot your books,” Barnabé Wender says, and swings the bag up in a wide arc into the side of Barnabé Wender’s head.

It’s dark by the time Barnabé Wender-by-Bow makes it back to his local tube station, bruised and nauseated; he stumbles out of the carriage and over to the wall, where he rests for a moment, then forces himself to straighten up. He makes it outside before he slides towards the ground again. His shirt catches on the brickwork behind him, a plastic supermarket bag is clutched to his chest; his tie is missing, along with one shoe. He blinks, slowly, as Singstar Abba spills from the bag onto the footpath beside him in a shower of crumbs.

Posted in District Line, Hammersmith & City Line. Tagged with , , , .

By Holly
April 1, 2009

1 comment

Brixton

Someone standing under a flyover near Brent Cross.

Picture by rootskontrolla: brixton underground

Mareka Kebile: Wordplay Consultant has a thriving business, a wardrobe full of smart suits, and pretty much the best job title in the world. What she doesn’t have — yet — is a storefront, so she walks along Brixton High Street, looking for attractive shops that display signs of incipient failure. Stockpiled inventory visible through back-room windows. Clothes shops whose wares hang on mismatched coathangers. Cafes with pictures of food above the counter, their colours faded to show yellow chicken, yellow chips, yellow mushy peas, yellow Pepsi. Raised voices after closing time, assistants who look like the reluctant daughters or nephews of the owners.

And at each struggling shop, she offers to help.

“No charge,” she says in BRIXTON CAKES. “I grew up around here, I live around the corner: this is my local high street! I’m just grateful for the chance to help out the community.”

“What is it you do, exactly?”

She smiles. “I’m a wordplay consultant. You know how some shops have a name that’s a bit silly, a bit attention-grabbing? Or there’s an ad that has a funny line? Maybe for a sale? That’s what I do. I help companies to develop wordplay for their store names and their special initiatives.”

“Like…?”

“Well, sticking to bakeries, since that’s your area, MY CAKEY-BAKEY TART has been a big success. PLANET OF THE CREPES in Stoke Newington - and over in Dalston Kingsland, THE GREATEST CREPE. Locally there’s THE BIG SWEEP, they’re a very popular cleaning company.”

The couple who own the shop glance at each other, dubious.

“It may sound unlikely, but I’ve got an analysis here,” and she hands over a 115-page spiral-bound research document, “demonstrating that shops whose names are considered ‘funny’ are 65% less likely to fail within the first five years. Additionally, special offers with ‘funny’ taglines generate up to 170% more sales. And just from personal anecdote—well, my parents used to run a little masonry shop around the corner. It looked like it was going to go under, back in the early 90s, until I persuaded them to change the name. That’s,” and she smiles, “what set me on my path, really: that’s when I knew I wanted to be a wordplay consultant. They couldn’t keep the customers away, for years. They finally closed up voluntarily and retired to France in 2003.”

“And you… you think we should change our name?”

Mareka shrugs. “Well, I don’t know what business has been like for you lately,” she says, telling glossy lies: she’s been watching the empty shop all week, she’s seen them shake out the previous afternoon’s paper doilies and use them again to save a few pennies. “But if it sounds like something you’d be interested in, I’d be happy to work up a few suggestions and come back for a free hour’s consultancy. Say, next week?”

She buys a fruit scone as she leaves, accepting the second appointment time they suggest: it doesn’t do to look too eager. And back home, she gets out her yellow lined paper and her thin black pen, and sets to work.

“The trouble is,” she explains the next week, “your location. What you really need in a good shop name is something that’s relevant to what you do, but also where you are. And Brixton—well, I love it here, but there’s just no good names for a cake shop.”

“Oh,” the woman says.

“Well, thank you anyway,” the man adds.

“Of course,” Mareka says, “if you were somewhere else, the possibilities are endless. BATTERSEA FLOUR STATION. Baker Street would be a godsend, obviously. DOING THE LAMBETH TORTE, even, at a stretch. And there are plenty of shopfronts available at very reasonable prices nowadays. Here, I brought some brochures.”

“That’s kind of you, but we’re not going to move,” the woman says. “You’ve been very helpful, I’m sure, but—”

“Moving is difficult, I know,” Mareka says, “but you wouldn’t have too much trouble selling this place. In fact,” and she puts her briefcase of cash on the table, flips it open, “I’d be happy to take it off your hands myself.”

The room’s silent.

She’s tried too hard, again, she thinks. Moved too quickly. But she likes the shop so much! The ornamental cornices, the tiled floor! And the location, obviously. The bundled notes sit between them.

“I don’t think I understand,” the man says, “what’s going on here.”

She shuts the case. “I just thought you might want to sell your shop. Maybe, to me. I’ve been looking in this area, and, and…” She trails off. She’s been trying more orthodox means for six months now, and she’s just so sick of it; and she needs it to be here, it has to be Brixton, it has to be.

“Why?” the woman asks. “What’s so special about Brixton?”

“It’s, look, never mind,” Mareka says. “Nothing.” She slams the suitcase. “I’m going now, okay? I’m going and I’m taking my puns with me.”

“Your… puns?”

Mareka looks up, straight into the woman’s eyes, and freezes. For a moment, the room’s still.

“You’re not really from around here, are you?” the man asks.

“I, I’m going, okay?” She tries to get her papers together, drops some of them on the floor.

“You don’t live around the corner. You’re only interested for the name.”

She leaves the papers behind and runs out; ding-dong, the door says behind her.

Next week she walks past to see the BRIXTON CAKES sign on the ground. At the top of a sturdy ladder, the man is screwing BUNS OF BRIXTON into its place. She thinks about coming back later to put a brick through the window, cover it all in angry spraypaint, but she knows the statistics. The increase in profits will more than cover any acts of minor vandalism; she’s already lost.

Posted in Victoria Line. Tagged with , , .

By Holly
March 30, 2009

3 comments