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gluttons-for-punishment · 3 months ago

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MY LIFE WITH QUEEN

One day in 1974 I was reading the paper and it said that "the Queen" was going to be on Top Of The Pops. Obviously this was a bit of typical puerile stupidity on their part. The Queen wasn't appearing on Top Of The Pops.

Queen were.

And they did. Seven Seas Of Rhye was their first hit, and I quite liked it partly because of the fun outro. Music had joy in it, back in the day.

The likes of Slade and Wizzard and Gary Glitter didn't take it all too seriously. They were all regulars on TOTP and it was a lot of fun.

Queen were on again a little while later with their follow-up, Killer Queen. Everyone liked that. Their lead singer was weird, exotic, almost Oriental-looking with big white teeth. He fitted into the now jaded Glam Rock aesthetic but with an edge, and more class than all the others.

I was listening to the radio the following year and I heard this strange record going "Mama Mia! Mama Mia!" and I thought what the fuck? That ain't Abba!

Then I heard the whole thing, Bohemian Rhapsody in its entirety, all five minutes and fifty-five seconds of it, and I was hooked for life. Queen were like a breath of fresh air, a sparkling gem amid all the Osmonds / Bay City Rollers / David Essex dross that was stinking up the airwaves. I set about investigating their back catalogue.

Someone taped their latest album A Night At The Opera for me. My mate Bernie had Sheer Heart Attack, so I got a copy of that too. Once I'd saved up enough pocket money I went out and bought Queen II. From this album, The March Of The Black Queen has consistently remained in my top three for nearly half a century.

That Christmas Eve, Queen's concert at Hammersmith Odeon was transmitted live on The Old Grey Whistle Test. I took an audio recording of the show on my little portable cassette recorder. The quality was pretty dismal but I played that tape to death and learned it all by heart. In the intervening years it's been repeated over and over again by the BBC, always in a savagely truncated form. It was finally given an official full-length deluxe box set release in 2015 under the title A Night At The Odeon, forty years after the initial live broadcast.

In the scorching endless summer of 1976 Queen announced that they were going to play a free concert in Hyde Park. I wasn't going to miss that. So I set off early in the morning of 18th September with a mate from school (whose name escapes me) after a fry-up made by my sister. We got to Hyde Park and sat on the grass with 150,000 other fans and stared at the empty stage. There was a middle-aged couple sitting behind us who may or may not have been Brian May's parents. A young hippy who looked like Jesus wandered through the crowd giving out cherries.

The first band of the day was Supercharge. Their lead singer was a big fat guy who came on stage wearing a leotard like the one Freddie wore. Next was Steve Hillage, whose endless noodling bored me to tears. Then it was Kiki Dee, who was in the charts at the time with her duet with Elton John, Don't Go Breaking My Heart. She performed the song with a cardboard cut-out of Elton, with the audience singing Elton's lines (Elton was actually present backstage at the time, but didn't appear on stage as he didn't want to steal Queen's thunder).

Then at dusk Queen finally came on with a blinding flash and blew me away. They opened with Procession and a clip from Bohemian Rhapsody and went straight into Ogre Battle.

"Welcome to our picnic by the Serpentine!"

By now, everyone had got to their feet and moved closer to the stage. I got separated from my mate. I didn't care. All my attention was focussed on the band.

The best bit was Freddie, solo at the piano, performing the as yet unreleased You Take My Breath Away. That was amazing. A flawless performance that's included for posterity on the 2011 re-release of A Day At The Races.

They finished with In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited but didn't play an encore: apparently the show was running late and the band had been threatened with arrest if they went back on stage, due to the huge numbers of people out there in the dark.

My first ever concert experience was absolutely euphoric. It was like losing my virginity. I was still on a high as I drifted away in the dark to get the tube home.

Their next album, the first new one to come out after I became a fan, was A Day At The Races. I got the LP for Christmas, some two weeks after its release, but by some careful snooping I'd found it hidden in my mum's bedroom and played it a couple of times beforehand. When I finally got my hands on it, I played it to death.

By now I was a member of the fan club, and used to ring them now and again to see if there was any news about forthcoming releases (the music press were always a few days behind). I'd sometimes pop into their offices at South Audley Street if I happened to be in the West End, always hoping there'd be one or two band members present. There never were. One day I was up there with my mate Mark and we casually asked the fan club secretary if there were any plans to re-release I Can Hear Music, the pre-Queen single Freddie had recorded with the engineer Robin Cable and released under the name Larry Lurex in 1973. She said no, but she had a few copies for sale. Were we interested?

Hell, yeah! It was a one-sided white label seven-inch single, a test pressing as it later turned out. I was disappointed that the far superior B-side Going Back wasn't included, but it was the elusive and rare Larry Lurex so I had to have it. We got one for our mate Andy too. 75p each. Bargain!

My copy disappeared into the ether decades ago, but Andy still has his. And apparently it's one of the most collectible Queen items (second only to the 1977 Bo Rhap blue vinyl single) and sells for an absolute fortune.

[Whilst visiting and working in the West End in the late Seventies I went past Trident Studios in St Anne's Court, off Wardour Street, many times without really realising its significance. Standing opposite Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed, a fantastic science fiction bookshop (where I acquired loads of quirky unofficial Tolkien stuff when Tolkien fandom was an underground movement rather than a multi-million-dollar industry), this was where Queen recorded their first three albums. Elton, Bowie and The Beatles had recorded there, too. Further on from the studio, towards the Dean Street end, was a tenement brothel where the ladies would sit by the open windows and call out to you as you walked past.

Of course, it's all gone now. Dark They Were closed in 1981 and there are shops and offices where the ladies of the night used to ply their trade. Trident is now a post-production facility.]

My second experience of Queen live was at Earls Court with Mark and Andy, high up in the balcony, miles from the stage. I snuck my little Kodak 126 camera in with me and succeeded in getting a series of very muddy, very distant images of the massive crown-shaped lighting rig. At one point Freddie was performing You Take My Breath Away at the piano when, at a particularly quiet part of the song, someone knocked over the drum kit (at least, that was what it sounded like). Freddie looked startled for a moment then, like the total professional he was, continued as if nothing had happened. This was followed by a performance of White Man that was powerful enough to blow your bollocks off. Freddie: "This is a real bitch of a song that's really fucked up my voice."

For the encore, Freddie strutted on stage in a shimmering silver leotard that sparkled like a glitterball. A brief but brilliant segment of Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting was included in the rock'n'roll medley.

Later that year I went on holiday to Italy with my family. When I returned home on Saturday 8th October there was a postcard waiting for me from the fan club.

My postcard is long gone. This is someone else's that I found online.

I read the first couple of sentences and thought "oh! fantastic! I'm gonna be in a Queen video!" but then as I continued I realised that the event had come and gone and I'd missed it by two days.

Mark and Andy were there. They said the band ran through the new song - We Are The Champions - a few times so the audience would be familiar with it for the recording, and after three takes played a surprise fifty-minute concert. What a unique experience, that I missed out on by two fucking days.

Empire Pool, Wembley was a much nicer venue than Earls Court. I got to see Queen there three nights running in May 1978. On this tour they opened with the fast full band version of We Will Rock You and included the brilliant It's Late, which for many years was my all-time favourite Queen track, in the set. The low point was probably Get Down, Make Love, but the gigs were brilliant. Electrifying.

Following this tour they released the Jazz album, which was a bit disappointing. For the first time, there were more duds than gems on a Queen album. The only track I really liked was Jealousy.

I was in the HMV shop in Oxford Street one day in 1979 and there were three or four copies of Live Killers for sale, autographed in gold ink by all four members of Queen. I didn't buy one because I'd already got a copy of this (disappointing and lacklustre) album. I wish I had. They go for between five hundred quid and a grand these days.

Later that year they released Crazy Little Thing Called Love. I gave it a listen. "That's fucking crap," I spat. "The worst thing they've ever done. The final nail in their coffin."

You could say it grew on me after a while.

Queen went on tour at the end of the year. It was called the "Crazy Tour", as they were playing small venues. I got to see them three times that year, first at the Lyceum in central London on 13th December - fantastic, me and Kate were right at the front! The following day I was so hoarse from cheering and singing my lungs out that I was sent home from work by a manager who thought I was suffering from a bad throat infection.

The following evening it was the Rainbow in Finsbury Park. But the best was yet to come: their gig at the Tottenham Mayfair (formerly the Royal nightclub) five days later remains the best concert I've ever been to. A full account of this concert is elsewhere on this blog.

A year later, another tour, to promote the albums Flash Gordon and The Game. Two nights at Wembley Arena (formerly the Empire Pool) this time, 9th and 10th December. I woke up on the morning of the 9th to the devastating news that John Lennon had been murdered. That took the shine off the prospect of going to see Queen.

I still went. I was in the balcony, with a side view of the stage. At one point in the concert, with no announcement or fanfare, they played Imagine. Just Freddie and Brian. Freddie had the lyrics on a sheet of paper. It was the best moment of the whole evening.

My enthusiasm for Queen nosedived in the early Eighties after the release of Under Pressure. I didn't bother buying Hot Space until a few weeks after its release, and then only after I'd heard Back Chat. Bowie had replaced Queen as my favourite, and I just wasn't interested any more. Consequently I didn't bother to see them on the 1982 tour: the closest venue was Milton Keynes Bowl, and it just wasn't worth the effort.

Next time around, for the tour promoting The Works in 1984, they played Wembley Arena again so I grabbed a couple of tickets. Me and my friend Claire were in the balcony again for this show. At one point I mentioned how brilliant it would be if Bowie would appear with them to perform Under Pressure, but Claire pointed out that as the date was 4th September, it would more likely happen the following evening, on Freddie's birthday (it didn't).

Queen's "show-stopping" appearance at Live Aid (13th July 1985) has gone down in history as one of the greatest rock performances of all time, but at the time it was hard to figure out why: to an experienced fan like me, it wasn't really anything out of the ordinary. They were always that good. Usually they were better. But it was a revelation for the general public who'd seen them as some kind of novelty act or bunch of glam-rock throwbacks, and as a result they gained millions of new fans. I watched it live on the BBC that Saturday, recording it on VHS and - in stereo!!! - on cassette from Radio 1.

I missed the Magic tour, their final tour with Freddie as it happened. Following their Live Aid appearance, everyone wanted to experience them in concert so the shows got bigger and bigger. Wembley Stadium and ultimately, Knebworth Park. It was essentially a greatest hits show, with the band playing mostly their hit singles with little room for the deep cuts which were much more appealing for veteran fans like me.

I watched the Wembley Stadium concert on TV though, and they were on top form. The broadcast and subsequent home media release successfully capture the essence of the atmosphere you'd feel at a Queen concert.

As the Eighties faded away the AIDS crisis became more and more prevalent. The vindictive gutter press gleefully jumped on the bandwagon and harrassed any gay celebrity they could think of, including Freddie. Following his gaunt and frail-looking appearance at the Brit Awards in February 1990, they quite literally hounded him to the grave. For over a year these vultures were camped outside his home, hoping for a scoop and a hysterical headline, and every time he emerged into the outside world there were intrusive and sensationalised pictures of him all over the papers.

Not surprisingly, the vile S*n was the biggest culprit.

I thought: "you fucking wankers." - Roger Taylor on the British press

Like most fans, I was in denial. I didn't believe he was ill. I couldn't bear to believe it. There were repeated rebuffs from the Queen camp - "Freddie's fine, he's as fit as a fiddle" - that we latched on to. This became harder when the videos for I'm Going Slightly Mad and Headlong were released. Freddie did look ill.

Sunday, 24th November 1991, the headlines screamed: FREDDIE: "I'VE GOT AIDS". Just after 7:00 the following morning, Monday 25th, I was woken by my girlfriend rushing into the bedroom declaring "Gary! Freddie Mercury's died!"

They make his life a misery and hound him to his death, then pretend they care. Fucking wankers.

Monday morning. That was a very hard day to get through. At work, there was wall-to-wall Queen on the radio. The jokes started up already: rotten seamen, etc. I was so stunned that I could hardly concentrate on anything else. Queen had been a more or less constant presence in my life from adolescence through to my thirties, and now that was suddenly wrenched away.

That evening, the other half was out so I had the flat to myself. I got a few beers in to toast Freddie and settled down to watch the tribute shows on TV. I was able to keep it together until the premiere showing of Freddie's final video, These Are The Days Of Our Lives. He looked so ill, so thin and frail, so sad. What he must have been through, how he must have suffered. It was hard to believe that was actually the same man on the screen. I sat there and cried my eyes out.

Bohemian Rhapsody got a re-release and became Christmas number one again. John and Roger and Brian announced a tribute concert that would take place the following Easter. A plethora of cash-grab tribute books and magazines were rush-released; I bought them all.

The tribute concert took place at Wembley Stadium in April 1992. I went with a mate from work, Allan Harvey, but we got split up in the 72,000-strong crowd before the concert began (echoes of Hyde Park). The concert itself was a mixed bag: some genuinely emotional moments, and a hell of a lot of shite. Roger Daltrey and Robert Plant were just fucking terrible. Paul Young was OK. Bowie's performance wasn't exactly inspiring: he seemed to be making an appearance for the publicity, rather than to pay tribute to Freddie. And his "Lord's Prayer" moment made me (and the rest of the world) lose the will to live.

Elizabeth Taylor made an appearance, giving a speech about the AIDS crisis (man in crowd: "Get 'em off!" Liz: "I'll get off when I'm finished!"). Elton John gave a solid performance of The Show Must Go On and duetted with the notoriously homophobic Axl Rose on Bohemian Rhapsody. The climax of the show, featuring Liza Minelli (one of Freddie's favourite performers) trying to sing We Are The Champions was just plain embarassing.

The highlight of the show was, without a doubt, George Michael. He gave a fantastic performance of Somebody To Love, '39 and, with Lisa Stansfield, These Are The Days Of Our Lives; as live performers go (those that I've seen, anyway) he's second only to Freddie. I still think this was the only part of the concert that stands up to repeated viewing.

Three years later Made In Heaven, Queen's posthumous fifteenth and final album, was released. This was ingeniously cobbled together from bits and pieces Freddie had recorded before he got too ill, outtakes from previous albums, and a couple of re-worked Queen versions of Freddie solo tracks. Despite a couple of crappy fillers (My Life Has Been Saved, indeed) it was their best album for years. I bought it on the day of release and sat there that afternoon getting hammered on Tungsten lager and listening to these precious sounds.

These days "Queen" (minus John) are still touring with American Idol contestant Adam Lambert as their frontman. I'm not really interested. I'm not a fan of Lambert, I don't like the Broadway-style approach the band take these days, though a few people I've spoken to have said it's a good show. I'm content with the eleven Queen concerts I attended in the Seventies and Eighties with Freddie Mercury at the front of the stage (even though the last one was over forty years ago).

It's fairly safe to say Queen have stood the test of time. They're still immensely popular some fifty years after their first release, even though increasingly these days their fanbase weren't even born when Queen were in their heyday. Those of us who experienced Freddie Mercury on stage are beginning to die off now. But Queen still keep bringing joy to new ears, and I'm quite confident that their body of work will still be appreciated in another fifty years.

QUEEN

My experiences

Hyde Park: 18th September 1976

Earls Court: 1st July 1977

Empire Pool, Wembley: 11th / 12th / 13th May 1978

The Lyceum: 13th December 1979

Rainbow Theatre: 14th December 1979

Tottenham Mayfair: 19th December 1979

Wembley Arena: 9th / 10th December 1980

Wembley Arena: 4th September 1984

Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, Wembley Stadium: 20th April 1992

#queen #freddie mercury #john deacon #roger taylor #brian may

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damonalbarn · 11 months ago

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Bumped into Damon Albarn and had just bought a birthday card for my wee brother Was on the tube in London after buying the card. It was the middle of a weekday on the Hammersmith and City Line so very quiet in my carriage. Someone was drumming with a pencil on a notepad and it was winding me up. I looked up to see who was doing it and it was Damon. Realised I had a golden opportunity to get him to sign the card. Wee brother is a big fan. I approached him after he got out at Great Portland Street and he couldn’t have been nicer about it.

u/WoodenConsequence882 r/CasualUK [X]

#love it #reddit

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tawus · 10 months ago

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circling back to this cheeky fucker...

“This is Edgware Road where this train terminates. Change for the Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines…”

You got awoken by Lemon’s deep voice and blinked through your daze.

��…Please take your belongings with you when you leave the train. All change!”

You were sprawled on the backseat as Lemon switched off the engine and began gathering up his belongings from the driver’s seat. He glanced back at you, having successfully stirred you, and added with a wink, “Mind the gap between the train and the platform, darling.”

At this time the back door opened and there was Tangerine, standing tall in his still damp trousers and sky-blue shirt, offering you his hand.

He was a little dishevelled after the long night and his blue gaze was tired. But he’d slicked his curls back and was smiling that easy smile which betrayed not an ounce of his exhaustion.

#sophisticated #tangerine x reader #tangerine x you #tangerine x y/n #sneak peek #atj #aaron taylor johnson

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stephensmithuk · 4 months ago

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The Valley of Fear: The Solution

CW torture.

East Ham is an area 8 1/2 miles east of Charing Cross. It dates back the 11th century when the Manor of Ham was divided into West Ham, East Ham and Little Ilford, now known as Manor Park. While having became pretty developed since the railway had arrived in 1859, it was left in Essex after the 1889 creation of the London County Council, becoming a borough of its own. In 1965, it joined London, merging with West Ham to become Newham. Its railway station is served by the District and Hammersmith & City lines of London Underground, with disused mainline platforms still in situ; there is a c2c train depot to the east.

A casement is an older form of window:

Not sure how you'd tell a boot was American just from the toes though.

"Peine forte et dure" is from Law French, an archaic version of French used in English courts for some centuries and where a number of legal terms still used (like "tort") come from.

The term means "hard and forceful punishment" and refers to a method used when someone refused to pled guilty or innocent to a crime. Basically, they would be tied down spreadeagled nearly naked, a board placed on their chest and then weights placed on that. Their diet would alternate between bread only and water only on a daily basis until they either agreed to plea or died. An incentive not to plea was that if you died here, your property would not be forfeit to the Crown, but would be if you were found guilty of a capital crime. It was not unheard for bystanders to sit on someone to put them out of their misery.

The last use was in 1741 and the penalty abolished in 1772; refusal to plead would be taken as "guilty" until 1827 when it was changed to be deemed as a "not guilty" plea. Giles Corey was one man who pressed to death at the 1692 Salem witch trials for refusing to plead on a witchcraft charge; the story goes that he asked for "more weight" when asked multiple times during the three-day-long process. His wife, Martha Corey, was convicted and hanged.

It is entirely possible for someone to have a mixture of British and American in their accent, sometimes switching mid-speech. For example, Enola Holmes herself, Millie Bobby Brown, will use different accents depending on her environment.

However, the "Mid-Atlantic accent" is best known for its use by some actors in classic Hollywood.

It is unclear what accent that James Douglas would have.

There isn't any real records of the smoking rates in late Victorian Britain, but I am sure that these were rather high. Douglas is clearly an addict since he asks to light up straight away.

The jack-in-a-box was a widely known toy by this point.

Caribou is the American term for Rangifer tarandus, a group of up to six species known in European as reindeer. The UK no longer has a native population, but there is a domesticated batch in the Cairngorns in Scotland.

While Douglas has a clear case for self-defence, I am pretty sure he could be charged with perverting the cause of justice or something like that for the corpse shenangians.

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #history #factoids #acd canon #the valley of fear #vall

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sourcreammachine · 1 year ago

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this is fucking deranged

this is baso one train interchange why does it look like this

[ID: extract from National Rail's supplement to the london tube map, with commuter rail lines as well as the tube. this extract shows that map's depiction of the king's cross st pancras and euston area, large rail interchanges extremely close to each other that together become the busiest heavy rail terminus in the uk. both euston and KCSP, and the nearby farringdon, are depicted as an 'internal interchange', which means there are platforms connected by tunnels, as opposed to a regular interchange with multiple entrances on the surface. internals are depicted as circles connected solid bars, while externals are simply one circle. euston and farringdon have two connected circles, while KCSP has six. euston is also connected via a dashed line to ‘euston square’, indicating the two stations are less than ten minutes apart and foot traffic is encouraged (‘square’ is actually literally just outside the entrance of euston). the western lobe of euston is depicted as the terminus of the Lioness Line (orange) and the northwestern railway (lime with bars), which emerge from the station going northwest, depicted as being attached to each other. passing through this lobe is the western branch of the Northern Line (black). the eastern lobe of euston depicts the other branch of the Northern Line, coming from the north but turning east at euston to travel to KCSP, intersecting with the Victoria Line (azure), coming from the southeast before also turning east at euston to run parallel to the Northern Line towards KCSP, though with a gap between the two. no rail termini emerge from the western lobe of euston. the next stop on the western branch of the Northern Line after (western) euston is warren street, which also is the next stop for the Victoria Line after eastern euston, creating a right-angle triangle with the Victoria, western Northern, and the euston internal interchange. to western euston’s southwest via the ten-minute walk dashed line is euston square, which is an interchange for three tube lines, the Hammersmith City (salmon), the Circle (yellow), and the Metropolitan (dark magenta) all of which run next to each other horizontally. the three lines cross the northern-victoria-euston triangle without stopping at euston itself, towards KCSP.

KCSP is an intimidating Y shape of six lobes - three in a vertical line, then two emerging on the northwest spoke and one on the northeast. despite the name of this underground station, drawn as the internal interchange, being ‘king’s cross st pancras’, the giant Y is actually not labelled this at all - the western fork hovers near the label ‘st pancras international’ while the eastern hovers near ‘king’s cross’, and the southern fork remains unlabelled. the southernmost lobe of KCSP is for the glued-together Hammersmith, Circle and Metropolitan from euston square (not euston proper), after which the lines turn southeast to farringdon. this lobe also is for the Piccadilly line (navy), which comes from the northeast before turning south - the only Piccadilly stop in the KCSP-euston area. the middle of the three vertical lobes is for the Northern, travelling east from euston - and nothing else. the northernmost of the vertical lobes is for the Victoria - and absolutely nothing else. the Victoria crosses the Northern at euston whilst travelling diagonally, but then deliberately creates itself a gap before turning horizontal, to reach a separate lobe from the Northern due to KCSP being an internal interchange. both the Northern and Victoria politely duck under the Piccadilly after KCSP. from the Victoria lobe emerges the two spokes for king’s cross and st pancras international. King’s Cross is the terminus of the Great Northern (golden-brown, bars) and a branch of the Thameslink (maroon, bars), both heading north but separated by a tiny gap from each other. the first of the two lobes for SPI is the terminus for HS1 (blue, bars of yellow), which is absolutely not a commuter line - it goes to bloody Paris. this lobe is also bisected by a different branch of the Thameslink, going vertically, after which it sails over the Victoria, Northern and the triple glued-together lines, immediately after which it turns southeast, over the Piccadilly to farringdon. HS1 and this Thameslink out of SPI are once again separated by a tiny gap. the western lobe of SPI is the terminus of the EMR (cyan, bars), which emerges due north. the gap between the EMR and Thameslink is almost imperceptibly larger than the gap between Thameslink and HS1. after the lowest lobe of KCSP with which they intersect the Piccadilly, the triple lines (Hammer., Circle, Metro.) turn southeast to the northeasternmost of farringdon’s two lobes, with which they intersect nothing. this lobe is connected via an internal interchange to another, which is where it intersects the Thameslink coming from SPI, but also the Elizabeth Line (violet)/end ID]

#196 #london #tube map

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princessbrunette · 7 months ago

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central line supremacy. only one i unfortunately can’t get behind is hammersmith and city however i do love the lizzie line (ik it’s not a tube but it’s a struggle out in zone 4 ☹️)

- 🗽

lizzie line is so luxurious i love it there 🙂‍↕️

#🗽 anon #chatting ૮₍ • ˕ - ₎ა♡₊˚

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surprisinglyokay · 2 years ago

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Having recently read a fanfic in which Sherlock and John catch trains to various parts of southern England exclusively from London’s Waterloo station, even when this is not the usual/logical route, I’d like to share this for writers who might not be familiar with the whole business of trains in/to/from London.

Let’s start with the history of how and when rail services came to London. This article explains how and why we have so many terminal stations (short version: because when they were built, the railway companies were privately owned and all needed their own terminus in London).

The main terminal stations are Waterloo (south), Paddington (west), Euston (north-west), King’s Cross (north-east), St Pancras (East Midlands and Eurostar), Liverpool Street (east), Fenchurch Street (south-east) and Victoria (south). There are others (see the article linked above and my husband’s comment below).

As we know, within London and the suburbs, these termini are linked by the London Underground (aka The Tube) network. There is also the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) - a driverless system - and other overground rail services. Here is a map of it all from Transport of London (TfL). Baker Street is served by five tube lines: Bakerloo (brown), Metropolitan (maroon), Jubilee (silver), Circle (yellow), and Hammersmith & City (pink). It’s also only a five-minute walk from Marylebone (the nearest terminal) which itself is just behind the Landmark hotel, which we know as the exterior for The Restaurant Scene.

Aside: I think Sherlock is unlikely to catch a bus unless directly related to a case - they’re just too slow for him. But you can find bus maps and all kinds of other TfL mappy delights here.

If you have characters using public transport in the UK, your best bets for accurate research are:

Google Maps (in public transport mode)

National Rail (see the page footer for all the useful stuff)

Transport for London

All these also have apps available.

I’m happy to do Sherlockian Britpicking (my day job is copy-editing) if that’s helpful for you.

If you want to go the full Howard Shilcott, I still very much enjoy reading the rail enthusiasts’ forums posts about the myriad tube-related continuity errors in TEH. I’ll let you Google those for yourself. 😉

———

Ran this past my husband (who is totally the full Howard Shilcott) and he made a few corrections (and a lot of faces!) before I posted: he wishes it to be known that he ‘remains unhappy about [my summary of] Fenchurch Street’ and thinks I should add Charing Cross to the list so people know how to get to Kent. So that’s all clear then. 😂

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ghost-lobster · 2 years ago

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Combining two of my own interests in a way that no one asked for and will be interesting to maybe three other people lets go: Which London Underground lines the ghosts would have been able to use! This may be a long read.

Going with ghosts from Fanny onwards, as they are the only ones that would have been able to.

Fanny - born 1855, died ambiguously past some point in 1912

Bakerloo - opened 1906, would have been able to use it!

Central - opened as the Central London Railway in 1900, so yup! She also would have been around for two of its expansions, one in 1908 and another in 1912.

Circle - not technically its own line in her lifetime, but the tracks the now circle line is on were owned by two railway companies - the Metropolitan Railway and District Railway.

District - opened 1868, had several expansions within her lifetime from then.

Hammersmith & City - opened 1864. She also would have been around for it becoming electricity operated in 1906!

Jubilee - no, opened as the Jubilee line in 1979.

Metropolitan - opened 1863, made electric in 1905 (not north of Rickmansworth until 1961)

Piccadilly - opened 1906

Waterloo & City - opened 1898, although at this point it technically was not its own underground line.

Captain - assuming he was born sometime in the 1890s-1900s and died in/just past 1945

Bakerloo - yep! Would also be alive for its claim of the initially Metropolitan Stanmore branch!

Central - depending on exactly when he died he could've seen some of this lines expansion post-ww2, but other than that, it was around in his lifetime!

Circle - would have been around for the Circle line becoming more similar to how it is today, although it still didn't technically become its own line until 1949 (assuming he's dead at that point).

District - yeah it was there. Same as Fanny really.

H&C - Would have seen its expansion in 1936, which replaced the old District line up to Barking.

Jubilee - same as Fanny

Metropolitan - also largely the same as Fanny

Northern - opened in 1937 from a combination of two railways. Expanded a bit between 1939 and 1941. There were further plans for extension but these were put on halt due to the war and eventually scrapped in 1954.

Piccadilly - would have been alive for its expansion in the 1930s.

W&C - around for the replacement of the original wooden trains on the line in 1940.

Pat - born 1945, died 1984

Bakerloo - around for the closing of the Stanmore branch on the Bakerloo line in 1979 following the opening of the Jubilee line.

Central - yeah it was there for him. No major changes.

Circle - Became its own line in 1949 when he would've been 4 ig lol.

District - no major changes

H&C - still nothing really new

Jubilee - alive for its opening!

Metropolitan - alive for the switch to electric trains between Amersham and Chesham in 1961

Northern - no major changes

Piccadilly - would have been alive for the expansion to Heathrow Airport terminals! Former terminal 1 and terminals 2 and 3 were added between 1975-77

Victoria - woo vicky line is here! Construction began in 1962 and it opened gradually between 1968-71.

W&C - no major changes

Julian - born ??? like the 1950s/60s maybe?, died 1991 or 93 I literally can't remember rn my bad

also going to omit lines where nothing drastic happens now soz

Central - just missed out on being able to witness the closure of the Epping to Ongar service in 1994.

H&C - became its own real line in 1988!

Jubilee - If he died in '93 not '91, he may have been able to witness the very beginning of the extension of the Jubilee line

Piccadilly - also would have seen the expansions to Heathrow, but with terminal 4 as well, which was added in 1986.

Victoria - same as Pat

W&C - just missed out on being able to witness the Waterloo and City line actually become its own line in 1994.

#uhh yeah #i could not sleep at all and this is what came as a result #bbc ghosts #tbh this was not even that thorough research so apologies if some of this is false... if it is please blame the tfl website #i also think ive got a cold???#so mb if this isnt coherent

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baronmpontmercy · 1 year ago

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Why is everyone and their mother on the Hammersmith and city line this morning

#who are you people

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djmossback · 2 years ago

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Spacebar 20 May 2023

Third Space Saturday

The Set 2100 to 0153

Sade, Hang On To Your Love (12”, Long Version)

Joe Jackson, Steppin’ Out (12” 45 RPM CUT)

INXS, The One Thing (Extended Version from the Deka-Dance ep)

Cameo, Back and Forth (7” edit, on the 12” single)

Prince, I Wanna Be Your Lover (7” 45)

Haircut One Hundred, Love Plus One (7” 45)

Police, Roxanne (7” 45)

UTFO, Roxanne Roxanne (7” 45)

Soho, Hippychick (12” Cut)

Lakeside, Fantastic Voyage LP CUT

Mark Morrison, Return Of The Mack LP CUT

Bee Gees, Jive Talkin’(7” 45)

Alan Jackson, Chattahoochie (7” 45)

Michael Jackson, Workin’ Day And Night (7” 45)

Bay City Rollers, Saturday Night (7” 45)

S.O.S Band, Take Your Time (Do It Right) (7” 45)

David Bowie, Let’s Dance 12” cut, long version

Stealers Wheel, Stuck In The Middle With You (7” 45)

Average White Band, Pick up The Pieces LP CUT

Amii Stewart, Knock On Wood (12” Cut)

Human League, Human (12” Cut)

Orb, Little Fluffy Clouds (12” Cut)

Commodores, Lady (You Bring Me Up) (7” 45)

Mos Def, Ms. Fat Booty (12” Cut)

Scritti Politti, Sweetest Girl (12” Cut)

Abyssinians, Declaration Of Rights LP CUT

Kate Bush, Sat On Your Lap (7” 45)

Cheryl Lynn, Got To Be Real (7” 45)

Soft Cell, Tainted Love (7” 45)

Generation X, Dancing With Myself (7” ep )

Dry Cleaning, Scratchcard Lanyard (7” 45)

Tommy Tutone, 867-5309 (7” 45)

Junior, Mama Used To Say (12” Cut)

Siouxsie & The Banshees, Peek-A-Boo (12” Cut)

Kylie Minogue, Can’t Get Blue Monday Out Of My Head (12” Cut)

DEVO, Snowball (remix) (7” 45)

TLC, No Scrubs (12” Cut)

Vince Staples, Norf Norf LP CUT

Apollonia 6, Sex Shooter (12” Cut)

Pet Shop Boys, West End Girls (12” Cut)

Nazareth, Hair Of The Dog LP CUT

Rufus Thomas, Walking The Dog (7” 45)

ZZ Top , Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers LP CUT

Bob Seger System, Ramblin Gamblin Man LP CUT

Cure, The Walk EP CUT

Sleaford Mods, Nudge It LP CUT

Presidents Of The United States Of America, Lump LP CUT

Ruts, Babylon’s Burning LP CUT

Cramps, What’s inside A Girl (12” Cut)

Cypress Hill, How I Could Just Kill A Man (12” Cut)

Killing Joke, Follow The Leaders LP CUT

Stooges, Loose LP CUT

Bad Brains, Pay To Cum (7” 45)

Rick James, Super Freak (12” Cut)

Climax Blues Band, Couldn’t Get It Right (7” 45)

Cyndi Lauper, Girls Just Want To Have Fun (7” 45)

Link Wray & His Ray Men, Rumble LP CUT

Thin Lizzy, Boys Are Back In Town LP CUT

Jay-Z, 99 Problems LP CUT

Gap Band, You Dropped A Bomb On Me LP CUT

Cars, Gimme Some Slack LP CUT

Booker T & The MG’s, Hip-Hug Her LP CUT

Ice Cube, Amerikkka’s Most Wanted (12” Cut)

Leroy Sibbles, Express Yourself LP CUT

Heatwave, The Groove Line (7” 45)

Fred Schneider & The Shake Society, Monster (12” Cut)

G.Q., Boogie Oogie Oogie (7” 45)

Devon Russell, Move On Up LP CUT

The Clash, White Man In Hammersmith Palais (7” 45)

Ray Bryant Combo, Madison Time LP CUT

Eddie Cochran, Twenty Flight Rock LP CUT

Moon Mullican, Seven Nights To Rock LP CUT

Fugazi, Song Number One (7” 45)

Laid Back, White Horse (12” Cut)

Kendrick Lamar, YAH LP CUT

I was late. Did yardwork and took a walk, and got my wife out the door to her night shift. Then I dozed off. Woke up, got going.. Did not prepare anything different for the night. I just took an extra box of 45's. I need to get the library together! I have a lot of records, in no real order…..

Order. Maybe that’s not who I am. I have to try. Who knows whether I will keep it together, but I’m going to have to try, just to honor the creators of these records, to serve the interests of the people who provide the theater of operations I’m working in, and to the people who wander in, to have a drink, to play a game or make a connection somehow. At the very least, do no harm to the vibe.

LEAVE THE VIBE CAMPSITE IN BETTER CONDITION THAN YOU FOUND IT!

#djmossback #vinyl records.#barcade #djlife #music #djset #djs

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