London at an angle

I travelled in today on a route I’d never used before.

I caught a hummingly fast train from Denmark Hill station, which is tucked into a deep cut opposite the vast redbrick bulk of the Salvation Army headquarters. The station, I note with envy, has a funky looking bar (albeit one with a poor reputation). Within five minutes I was coasting smoothly across the river as river tugs heaved past below. It was like being on a very horizontal version of the London Eye as we eased into Blackfriars, a station that I realise I had never before passed through.

The final treat was the interchange at Westminster station, the escalators of which are in a large open space (to which this picture does incomplete justice), forming a thrilling architectural play as you spiral around them. They seem to me to be the sort of thing that Piranesi would have come up with had he excitably shared several espressos with a Futurist of an afternoon. There are, of course, no prisoners or torture contraptions on show, but this being Westminster, they are there in spirit.

A very good day, and not just for the reasons outlined above.