Getting a lift up at Leicester Square

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ALDOUS HUXLEY published his novel “Point Counter Point” in 1928.

In the first chapter of the book, Walter takes an Underground train from Chalk Farm station to Leicester Square station. When he arrives there:

“He stepped out on to the platform and made his way towards the lifts.”

When I read the word ‘lifts’ (elevators in US English), I was puzzled.

I have been using Leicester Square Station since the early 1960s, and never noticed lifts from the platform to street level. As long as I can remember, passengers use escalators, not lifts. Had Huxley got it wrong – unlikely – or were there once lifts at the station?

Out of curiosity, I consulted that font of all knowledge Wikipedia. From their article about the station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_Square_tube_station), I learned that it had lifts at the time when Huxley wrote his novel. In the 1930s when the usage of the station began to increase significantly, it was rebuilt to accommodate escalators, which replaced the lifts. As for the now unnecessary, Wikipedia revealed:

“ The redundant lifts were removed but the lift shaft remains in use as a ventilation shaft hidden behind a small door on the first landing of the Cranbourn Street entrance stairs. The redeveloped station opened in 1935.”

So, as the saying goes, ‘there you have it’. Until the 1930s, lifts operated at Leicester Square Station. I would have been unlikely to know that has I not started reading “Point Counter Point”.

Hop-on hop-off but better keep off: sightseeing in London

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VISITORS TO LONDON are offered tickets to travel on buses that follow various routes that connect places that the companies operating them, like Big Bus and Toot Bus, consider to be of interest to tourists. Once a ticket has been purchased, the holder can get on the open-topped double-decker bus at one stop along its route, and disembark at another, and continue doing so all day. However, the ticket holder can only use the buses of the company that issued the ticket. Using Big Bus as an example, the price per adult ranges from £49.99 for a 24-hour ticket to as much as £69.99 for a 48-hour ticket, which includes a boat trip and walking tours. Children’s tickets are £10 cheaper than those for adults.

What these companies offer is without doubt helpful for minimally adventurous tourists. But the users of this service are confined to travelling along the few routes on offer, and must wait until one of their company’s vehicles arrives.

The hop-on hop-off companies provide travel within the Transport For London (‘TFL’) zones 1 and 2. An adult 24-hour TFL travel card, which gives unlimited use of all Tube, DLR, Elizabeth line and London Overground services within these zones costs £16.60, and £29.80 for zones 1 to 8 inclusive, which covers most of London. With a TFL travel card, the tourist can hop on and off as many bus and tube trains as he or she wants within the validity of the travel card. The zone 1 and 2 card costs one third of the price of the cheapest adult Big Bus ticket, and allows the traveller much greater flexibility.

Using a TFL travel card means that you are on your own, without a guide. But that hardly matters as there are good travel apps to help you find your way from A to B. And if you select bus routes carefully, you can get to see much of London from a regular TFL bus route. For example, the number 148 will carry you alongside Hyde Park, down Park Lane, past Hyde Park Corner and Buckingham Palace, to Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, and across the Thames on Westminster Bridge. Further along this route, you will reach the Imperial War Museum. Another route, number 9, runs past the Design Museum, Kensington Palace, the Royal Albert Hall, Knightsbridge (near Harrods), Green Park, Hyde Park Corner, the Royal Academy, Piccadilly Circus, Regents Street, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, and Aldwych (where you can catch one of several buses to St Paul’s Cathedral). And this is only two of many bus routes that link places that many tourists wish to visit. In addition to the buses, the TFL travel card holder can cover great distances quite rapidly using the tube trains.

With a little bit of ingenuity and a TFL travel card, a visitor to London can get a far more interesting experience of London, its sights, and its people, than if he or she opts for the relatively inflexible, far costlier hop-on hop-off buses,

Joining the dots at London’s Liverpool Street

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ELECTRONS ORBIT around the nucleus of an atom in an organised way, so I recall from science lessons I attended many years ago. Whether they are considered as particles or waves, they are located at discrete distances away from the nucleus. They can ‘jump’ between different orbits, but cannot remain between them. This oversimplified scientific knowledge came back to me yesterday (16 July 2026) when I first set eyes on a wonderful outdoor sculpture, “Infinite Accumulation”, by Yayoi Kusama. It stands near to the Liverpool Street station entrance on London’s Elizabeth Line railway.

Like the electrons in their pre-determined discrete orbits around an atom’s nucleus, passengers travelling on a train can only embark or disembark at discrete points, the stations, along the line, but not between them.

Kusama’s sculpture, which at first sight resembled a disorganised version of the Atomium in Brussels, consists of highly polished, curving stainless steel tubes, which are punctuated at intervals by equally shiny spheres.  Although the artist might have intended something different, I interpreted the spheres as representing stations along the route of a railway line (the tubes connecting the reflective balls). Seeing the discrete, separated spheres was what made me think about the atom and is electrons.

My interpretation differs from that on a website (https://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/infiniteaccumulation/)  about the artwork:

“Yayoi Kusama is best known for her use of massed, repeated polka dots, which first emerged in her work in the 1960s and have become one of her signature motifs … For this monumental site-specific work, Kusama has expanded the polka dot into linked forms which interact with and define the public spaces outside the new Elizabeth line entrance to Liverpool Street station. These dynamic serpentine arches were created intuitively by Kusama, hand-twisting the wires on the original models for the artwork … This dynamic, highly reflective architectural form, mirroring the viewer and the world around it, means Infinite Accumulation responds to both individual and collective experience within the changing spaces of the urban landscape of London.”

All this makes sense, but I cannot escape from the idea that the artwork is an abstracted three-dimensional version of a schematic route map for an Underground line.

PS: my apologies are due to any physicists or chemists, who find my scientific knowledge to be too rudimentary.

In touch with history in Munich (München)

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UNITY MITFORD WAS one of the famous Mitford sisters. She had sympathy for the German Nazis, and in particular  its leader, Adolf Hitler. It is likely that she had a crush on him.

 

In Munich,  Hitler used to like dining at an Italian restaurant called Osteria Bavaria, an old establishment first opened in 1890. Knowing that Hitler used to frequent the restaurant, Unity Mitford used to arrive there, sit opposite the dictator’s usual table. When he arrived, she would try to catch his eye, and would be invited to join his table. All this occurred long ago before I  paid a visit to Munich in the early 2000s.

 

While in the city,   I discovered  that the restaurant was still in existence, but had been renamed Osteria Italiana. We reserved a table for dinner. Our table was in one of the place’s several dining rooms. The walls of the dining area had been maintained as they were when the Osteria first opened. The Italian food we were served was first-class. Our friend, who lived in Munich, warned us not to mention Hitler while we were in the restaurant.  She was terrified that if any of our fellow, mostly German, diners heard his name, they would have been embarrassed.  We did as she asked.

 

As we were leaving the Osteria, I noticed something at the entrance, which I had not seen when we arrived. It was a sign, both in German and English, that read:

“In touch with history.”

I thought that was a great way of alluding to a hateful person, who made a huge impact on the affairs of the world.

Charles Dickens slept here. So did I

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THE AUTHOR CHARLES Dickens visited the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds several times. In 1835, 1859, and 1861 he stayed at the Angel Hotel, whose ivy covered facade faces the ruins of an abbey. The hotel still exists.

 

In the 1960s,  my parents used to take me and my sibling to spend a night at the Angel Hotel in Bury St Edmunds.  In those days, it was an old-fashioned hotel. The only thing I can remember about it was that the rooms were equipped with a peculiar contraption to be used if fire broke out.

 

The device consisted of a belt, which the wearer fastened around the waist. The belt was attached to a cord that was wound around a spindle. In case of fire,  the wearer was to climb out of the bedroom window,  and drift down to the ground. The spindle was geared so that the rate of descent would have been sufficiently slow to prevent injury when the wearer reached the ground. Fortunately,  we never needed to use this potentially dangerous mechanism – something that would now never be sanctioned by health and safety authorities.

 

Now, almost 60 years later,  my wife and I visit Bury St Edmunds every now and then, and often park outside the Angel. Today, 13 July 2026, we entered the Angel, whose interior has been modernised so that it would have been unrecognisable to Charles Dickens,  and it evoked no memories for me.

Is it a bar or a bank? Coffee or cash?

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NOT LONG AGO, the High Street Kensington branch of the Santander bank re-opened after a period during which it was being revamped.

On entering the branch, a bank official, standing behind a small desk, asks how she (or, sometimes, he) can help you. The wall on one side of this desk has several ATM machines for withdrawing cash and performing other banking transactions. Behind these, deeper in the building, there are desks behind which sit banking assistants, who carry out the duties that one would expect of bank tellers.

The greetings desk stands between what I have just described, and another space, which is furnished with tables, desks, and comfortable chairs. At one corner of this lounge-like space, directly behind the front desk, there is a counter with coffee making machines, snacks, and a barista.  The counter is a coffee bar, where beverages can be purchased either to take away or to consume at the tables and chairs. Free Wi-Fi is available in the lounge area, and during the day it is filled with people working on their laptops.

The coffee supplied is from a company called Ozone. The Santander website (https://www.santander.co.uk/workcafe/london-kensington-high-street)  noted:

“Founded in New Zealand and established in London, Ozone also operates eateries and cafés with a focus on sustainable dining and zero food waste targets and known for their warm Kiwi hospitality. At Santander Work Cafés, Ozone Coffee is proud to bring their premium coffee expertise alongside delicious breakfast and lunch options, baked goods and tasty snacks, creating the perfect spot to work and connect.”

Apart from the lounge, or ‘Work Café’, being a comfortable place to sit and relax, the bank’s coffee bar serves excellent coffee, which is far better than that which is sold at nearby establishments dedicated to coffee making.  

Discovering the artist’s points of view

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THE ARTIST LAURENCE Stephen Lowry (1887-1976), best known as ‘LS Lowry’ was fond of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland. He visited the town frequently between 1935 and his death. And while he was there, he created over twenty paintings of the town and its nearby surroundings.

When we visited Berwick in May 2026, we were unaware of Lowry’s artistic connections with the town until quite by chance we came across a placard near a building with sloping walls. The placard contained a photograph of Lowry’s painted depiction of the building and some background information. It is one of 19 similarly informative panels that together make up the town’s Lowry Trail. Each of the panels is placed where it was most likely that Lowry would have been when creating one of his town paintings. And each has a reproduction of the painting he created when he was at the spot where the panel has been placed. It was fascinating seeing a painting and what its subject matter looks like today. In some of the paintings, Lowry played with the composition to include features that would not have been observable had he remained in only one spot while composing the picture.

By following the Lowry Trail, which is described in a helpful booklet produced by the town council, one not only learns about the artist, but also gets to see much of the town. Berwick-upon-Tweed is an attractive town filled with historic buildings and picturesque viewpoints. The trail helps the visitor to make the most of the sights in a most interesting way.

Idle thoughts about the prevalence of allergies

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TODAY SO MANY people seem to have allergies

In the 1960s, when I was at school in London, nobody in my classes or amongst my friends and family and other acquaintances ever mentioned being allergic to anything. Occasional seasonal hay-fever is all I can recall in that era.

What has happened since those days before the epipen was even dreamed about?

I asked a medical academic about this a few years ago, and he told me about a study carried out in the USA. The occurrence of allergies amongst children brought up on farms was significantly lower than for those brought up in cities. He suggested that on farms, young kids get exposed to dirt containing allergens to a far greater extent than those being raised in more hygiene aware environments in cities.

It is true that many children (in families above the ‘bread line’) in cities are brought up cleaner environments (hence the popularityof medicated wipes) than kids who are free to roam around in farms.

Can one conclude that being overconcerned with youngsters’ hygiene might not be altogether beneficial when considering allergies?

Although I am not advocating the complete abandonment of hygienic practices, occasional exposure to some dirt during early childhood might possibly reduce the chance of a child devloping allergies in later life.

Just thinking aloud!