As a prelude to my two scheduled days out to White Hart Lane this week, I’ve been reminiscing about my childhood experiences as a football fan, which I’ve detailed in an essay for the Off Modern Blog.
You can read it here > Football and the Other.
The East London Line is on the verge of rattling into life again after a 2 year hiatus. South-East based art students can breathe a sign of relief as Beyond Retro is only a 20 minute journey away, and The Amersham Arms can once again proclaim New Cross the New Hoxton™.
The East London Line was always fairly idiosyncratic; never entering Zone 1, and with only 8 stations along its length. Compared to the sterile efficiency of the Jubilee line however, the Line had a great amount of charm.
The line has been taken over and extended by London Overground, with a variety of monolithic additions, not least the giant bridges over Shoreditch High Street and through Little Millwall, north of New Cross. As such I imagine most of the Line’s endearing foibles will be gone on its return.
This video details a journey from New Cross to the old Shoreditch terminus when the East London Line was still part of the London Underground, and it was still acceptable to drink two cans of Super on your journey to Canada Water.
East London Line – New Cross to Shoreditch - from a TFL Training DVD bought from an ex-driver.
“You’ve got a figure
like a nigger
only bigger”
As for what’s going on in the second spread, I’m open to any suggestions.
So, I went along for the results of my personality test at the Scientology Dianetics Centre yesterday. It was surprisingly uneventful other than the fact that the building was amazing and the girls were all beautiful.
I would go into more detail but really I wasn’t paying much attention when they analysed my test results what with all the attractive architecture and Scientologist girls.
Suffice to say they told me i wasn’t achieving my potential and that Scientology and Dianetics could help me do that. As long as I bought lots of books. And DVDs. And volunteered down at the Centre. You get the drift.
They gave me a nice DVD too.
I’m going to go back and take some photos later in the week but for now here’s a photo of the central staircase.
I developed this in our home darkroom and wiped it dry with a polyester jacket because I was too lazy to get a cloth.
Fortunately a few scratches can’t diminish the delights of Butlins in rainy December.
More photos on my Flickr
House sharing inevitably generates passive aggressive behaviour patterns, which although tiresome, can lead to some wonderful intra-house correspondance.
These are a handful of the notes I’ve collected over the past three years of sharing a house, and as soon as I can dig the rest out from under my bed I will add some more to the collection.
Once I found a discarded notepad in the Hobgoblin pub in New Cross.
It started off a bit strange, with shopping lists for “leci”, “tobac”, “T Bags” and “puff”. Then it had a design for a water tower, and a page about electro active polymers. Then a page that said “The actions the Jews are taking justify what Hitler did to them”.
I feel a bit weird keeping this book with my personal effects but I can’t bring myself to get rid of it whilst I still have no idea what it all means.
Below are a few pages of the notepad reproduced for your viewing displeasure.
