h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are two lifts to get you to the surface. They take forever, and you'll have to fight your way to get into them...

... which makes the stairs very tempting. DON'T!

The spiral stairs have about a million steps. Two-thirds of the way up you will realise your mistake. You'll be too tired to keep going up, and unable to face the prospect of going back down to join the seething masses at the lifts.

So you will die a lonely death on the stairs.

Actually there are three lifts at Russell Square, but they're still crap. They're designed for offices rather than public transport and so due to excess weight refuse to ascend whenever they're full. The doors are knackered too.

There was a plan in the 1970s to tunnel up diagonally to the surface and install a Holborn-style escalator. The station entrance would have moved to the middle of the North side of the Square, roughly where house no. 21 is gradually falling to pieces.

Climbing the stairs is good for your calorie-controlled diet - there are 175 of them!

Hello,

I am coming from the US this month, and I am trying to figure out the fastest, (and least expensive) way to my hotel, which is across from the British Museum on Great Russell St. We are coming into Heathrow Airport. So far I've got us using the underground from the airport to Tottenham Ct Rd, then changing to another line that goes one stop to Leicester Square and walking the rest of the way. Does this sound right? Is there any better way?

Bruce in California

We decided that it will be less stressful to just bite the bullett and pay the cost of a pickup service that takes us directly to the hotel. After a full day of flying coupled with jet lag, I think we'd be better off to rest up before we attempt to use the tube. I only paid one way, figuring after a week in London, we can probably get back to the airport easier than getting to the hotel.

Thanks for the heads up!