If you know where the Willis Faber building is (aka the Black Blob), Greyfriars used to be (or perhaps still is) just across the road, in the general direction of the Railway station. I remember the last time I was in the area it all looked unrecognizably different.

In the 1970s I had my bottom pinched by two grrls on the Central Line at Oxford Street tube.
Then they just stared at me; somehow, that taught me something...

Didn't Iris Murdoch and John Bailey write to the BBC and ask them to explain the rules of ISIHAC ?

Does anyone else ever get the East London line from New Cross gate to Whitechapel in the morning? I haven't heard him very recently, but about once a week there's a driver with a lovely sing-song accent (Jamaican?) who at every stop says:

'Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you had a pleasant journey. And, whoever you are, whatever the weather, -- have a nice day!'

It's the 'whatever the weather' that always makes me smile.

PS. Ruth, I sometimes get that N171 over Waterloo Bridge too. Lovely night-time views, as you say!

Yes, it's funny, that. The Central line is the one I've used most over my time in London (6 years next month) - I used to live on it, I now work on it (though more often get the East London line and then a bus up to Bethnal Green from Whitechapel). I've lived in 2 or 3 places up past Caledonian Rd so am quite familiar with the Piccadilly line too, though I've never been as far as Cockfosters, where apparently you can come out straight into the countryside and be surrounded by fields and lovely walks (or so I'm told - must try it some day)!

I'm also now quite familiar with the Southern overground network, since I've lived down there for two and a half years now, and I've been up the Northern line often enough. The part of London I've hardly ever been to is West (unless you count Heathrow): went to Acton once and it seemed to take forever! Don't think I've ever been further than Royal Oak/Queen's Park/Kilburn on the NW London lines.

Oh, you should try Richmond some time - the view from the hill is spectacular, and the park is wonderful. Also there's a very nice place selling German beer and sausages and the like by the waterfront (Richmond/Ham/Petersham area is where the majority of the German community in London live).

Paris 1921.



COTITSALV

From this lovely site. Map-lovers enter at own risk.

A link to a map of D6, also known as "Metro-2"... the "secret" Moscow Metro, built to move top Party officials around Moscow in secret in the days of the USSR.  Also includes complete underground sections leading to military airports (Vnukovo-2) and other secret military installations. The green line was being built even as late as 1997 (!), leading to the Presidential dacha at Barvikha.

http://www.metro.ru/map/secret_map.html

Although it is now widely known to exist, there is still no official confirmation of the system's existence. A look at a geographical map of the stations of the Moscow Metro (rather than the familiar "schematic" map found throughout the system) shows a clear glaring gap in the system, where the central station of D6 is located...  of course it's "Moscow Kremlin".  There are two stations of the "public" metro where D6 runs so close that it actually interferes with the system, as a "giveaway" to its existence.  The convoluted pedestrian tunnels linking the lines at Biblioteka/Arbatskaya/Borovitskaya/Alexandrovsky-Sad gives the game away... why isn't the other station named "Arbatskaya" accessible through a pedestrian tunnel too?  Similarly, why are there two adjacent Smolenskaya stations on different lines, but no pedestrian tunnel to link them?  The answer in both cases is that D6 is "in the way".

For hardened metro fans, this page (sorry, Russian only) has links to photos of all the stations, often including original architects plans for them and other material on them:
http://www.metro.ru/stations/