I used to live on the outskirts of Kington, famous for many things; crowning a few kings back in the Middle Ages, housing SW London's first superclub, a domino effect with the phoneboxes . . . and the only London borough without a tube station. True story. What a pain in the proverbial. It used to take me ten minutes to walk to the bus stop, then a 25 minute bus ride, and finally I'd arrive at Putney Bridge and *then* I could get on a tube. OMG was I glad to be out of there. It was the single most effective tool for causing me to leave my parents' house of my own free will.
Now I live in Shepherds Bush and that means I can walk to a tube station. Actually walk! To a tube station! In less than ten minutes! Five if I'm really late for work (which is, you know, most days). And since my work is on the central line as well, that means I only need to take ONE mode of transport and it's half an hour door to door!!!! THAT'S JUST CRAZY TALK.
Ok, so when it has signal failures, you're unlikely to move for 20 minutes . . . and the trains are all ancient, the seats have no padding, it's inevitably packed to bursting at rush hour and most of the passengers are tourists on their way to Westfield who don't understand the meaning of "please move along inside the cars" despite a massive gap behind them, but still. I don't care. It connects with every single other line so you can get anywhere in London with the bare minimum of effort and people can't complain that you live far away when you're just two stops outside of Zone 1. I can even get to the scary east side without trying too hard, although I don't like to think about that. It was easier to avoid when I lived out in the sticks. Now I don't have any excuse not to go to Bethnal Green so I'm actually going to have to *go* there.
Oh dear, you just lost yourself a star. read more