Apologies to Kurt Russell

It has been asked whether I planned to spend the rest of my life discussing the pros and cons of London train stations, like some fixated alt-trainspotter. Sadly, even at my current prolific rate of blogging I couldn't fill an entire lifetime of bloggery writing solely about London's train stations. Unless it was a lifetime about to be cruelly curtailed in a freak accident during a research trip to Birmingham New Street.

I'm going to have to write about something else. Plus, let's face it, how much can you write about Marylebone. It's, erm, quite nice and you can buy flowers there. And someone already wrote a Wikipedia page about it. London Victoria, who knows, I'd anticipate standing outside for a while waiting for the bowels of the station to be flushed free of its backlog of commuters. There’s a joke in there about bowels, flushing, and Victoria. I am not making it.

It has also been pointed out that I wrote an entire post entitled 'Escape from Kent' without once making an reference to Kurt Russell. Something to be corrected, I'm sure. As anyone familiar with the Saturday nightlife of Chatham will know, he was quite lucky to find himself banged up in a dystopian, grimy New York and LA, filled with criminal lowlifes and mutants. At least they weren’t being vomited out of a local nightclub after 2am with a full tank of Thump Juice and a ill-recalled sense of grievance. Personally, I’d take sewer mutants any time. You know where you stand with sewer mutants. They’re going to try and eat you regardless of whether you may have looked them funny / looked at their girlfriend funny / looked at their pint funny.

In the spirit of “I’ve started so I’ll finish” I will wearily complete my tour de gare of London with honourable mentions for London Euston, which offers a quicker way to travel back to 1960s than building your own time machine, with fewer visits to Maplins.

London Blackfriars will shortly be the only station with entrances on both sides of the Thames, filling both the niche of train station and the thing we used to once call a bridge in one fell swoop. That’s the future. It’s only a matter of time before they build a Tesco that does the same. Shop as you cross.

If I have forgotten a station, don’t remind me, this subject is done.