This is London calling

I've picked bits from Ian Visits, London Weekly News for this morning's post.

This one is from the BBC so it should be accurate. 

A woman missed her footing when boarding a train at Clapham Junction resulting in serious leg injuries. The warnings about Mind the Gap are constant on London's train system, by staff, by recorded announcements, by live public address announcements and painted on platforms. Yet still they still happen. Nearly 40 million people boarded or alighted at Clapham Junction in one year and of those, 29 people were injured in some way. Clearly people do mind the gap, but oh my. What a gap! (Even though this is from the BBC, I am not sure this photo is reliable. Surely it can't be like that.)

I thought there might have been other bits of interest to write about, but it seems not. Well, there was a man who was gaoled for nine months for exposing his genitals and bum on a station platform, West Ham Station to be precise. The Standard published the photos......well, one of his face and it is an uninteresting face. No photos of what caused such offence to fellow commuters. Typical of media. They never give the full story. 

Yes, I know I should not make light of a serious offence. If I was wearing pearls, I would be clutching at them. But really, nine months gaol because people briefly saw men bits? If it wasn't to their taste!, they could quickly avert their eyes. Regular users of public transport around the world probably come across people all the time with mental health issues. There are far worse things than seeing a todger at a railway station. 

The bottom of the barrel has been scraped. I thank you. 

YouTuber Award

This was written a number of days ago, well before our friend in London was visiting Oslo, where it is currently -1/30. 

I follow quite a number of YouTubers. I find YouTubers rather more interesting than tv. Perhaps it is the personal touch.

Weirdly I follow drain cleaning YouTubers. It is as much about their presentation and characters as it is about drain cleaning. 

I watched an interesting enough video a few days ago of a train trip from Aberdeen to Penzance, but the presenter didn't project his character very well, apart from moaning that it was 14 hour train trip. There was a lot of scenery and not much talking. 

Narrow boaters on English canals, even once they cease to be narrow boaters, as a couple have done, are very popular.

But the most I like are professional travellers, especially if they use trains. There are some seriously good class acts out there. I could make many recommendations and some wouldn't be to your taste. They make a living from being successful YouTubers. 

The most popular YouTuber I watch is https://www.youtube.com/@thepoolguyml with 2.62 million subscribers. That number of people plus, world wide want to watch him cleaning and renovating pools. I am sure it nothing to do with Miles looks and sexiness factor.

Ultimately, and it is a hard call really, my 2024 best YouTuber goes to the Scottish bloke, Steve Marsh. This is one of his latest clips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeb2xU6Btk0  where he is visiting the Artic Circle in Sweden. I believe he is a case of what you see is what you get with Steve. Sometimes his clips include his partner, sometimes not. At times I use a bit of fast forward with YouTube clips, but never Steve's.

Oh wow, Steve's latest clip where he visited the Swedish Ice Hotel is so long but I sat mesmerised.  

After experiencing three days of 38/100 degrees, watching how to deal with extreme cold is very cooling. 

Tube Map

In a promotion for the new Samsung S24 phone, a circular London railway map has been produced. It looks great, except I struggled for ages to find stations I know well. 

I easily found Kings Cross/St Pancras and Paddington but it took some time to find the other stations I was familiar with. They would be Lancaster Gate, Bank, Old Street, Moorgate, Edgware Road, North Greenwich, Bayswater, Embankment, Charing Cross, Vauxhall and London Bridge.

I think I will stick with the modified original Beck map. Maybe you like this circular Tube map.

London Style

Admittedly this is in central London in the 1930s, an area where poor EastEnders dropping aitches everywhere would not be but there was something very telling in the colourised clip from back then. 

I did watch the whole eight minute clip but you will see enough in the first location if you give it two and half minutes. In the clip I saw one stout man. The rest of the men were not and so nicely dressed.

As for the women, they looked stunning; beautifully dressed and not one person with a weight problem to be seen. I think we have really got something wrong with our diets and exercise in the twenty first century, me included. 

I should leave out that many children in England back then suffered Rickets because of malnutrition and hence vitamin deficiency.  Ah yes. I don't know the location and no doubt I could research, but save me the time and tell me where it is if you know.