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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A668964

Hi folks - hope you'll consider this favourably. If you search for London Underground there are only 3 or 4 edited entries that are relevant to the tube so I hope this will be added to the pot and help to increase the relevancy of H2G2.

Look forward receiving your comments.

Sorry I didn't mean to post this twice!

Hi Mole,

I read this and was delighted to see The Great Bear get a mention. I've got a print of it on my wall and from time to time it is fun to have a look at some of the crazy names on the various lines. The Louis line is a complete mystery to me. Half of them don't seem to be 'Louis' at all!

Nice piece. Interesting info, nicely presented. One general comment - please don't take it amiss, but it occurred to me that this was more of a 'guide to internet sites about the LU map'. Just a thought.

Spiff

This is a nice little piece, but I think a bit more infomation wouldn't go amiss, rather than relying on external links.
It might also be worth mentioning that the tube map we see today was designed to look like a circuit board diagram.

Mole,

In your section on "How useful is it", you talk about the tube map being reviled. You fail to mention that it is the single most useful map ever produced in the history of humanity. That is the reason it has survived so long. A complex rail system (the most complex?) has been reduced to a form that anybody can understand. I think this deserves a mention.

You talk about Covent Garden and Leicester Square being the closest two stations, being 0.16 miles apart. This works out at 282 yards. But elsewhere you talk about Mansion House and Bank being only 200 yards apart. Can you clarify this?

Yep Mansion House and Bank are 200 yards away as the crow flows, the other stations are 0.16 miles along the track - station to station.

Mina, Gnoman and Spaceman Spiff - you've all made very good points and I'll take them on board and edit the guide further by the end of the weekend. Thanks for your comments.

Hi again,

Gnomon, I have a theory that people always prefer *other* underground systems to whichever one they know best. When I was in Berlin I found the U-Bahn really good and said so one day in my German class. This resulted in a lively international debate on the merits of different underground systems (our teacher was delighted!) and everyone had a favourite one.

The Italians, I seem to remember thought the London one was great and the U-bahn sucked. The Suisse couple quite liked the U-bahn but thought the Paris Metro sucked. I can't remember who, but I'm sure someone was rooting for Paris and there was another one involved but I can't remember which. There was only one American in the group and he was so in love with Berlin that he was beginning to dread ever having to back to the States again, so naturally he was pro U-bahn. Though come to think of it, he was quite into the Metro as well. All things European, I suppose it must have been.

Personally, my favourite underground *map*, in any case, is definitely Simon Patterson's Great Bear. Wicked!

Spiff

A nice entry, though I confess to not following the links. I have just started re-reading Harry Potter, and Albus Dumbledore says "Scars can come in useful. I have one above my left knee which is a perfect map of the London Underground."

It might also be worth mentioning that it was the first schematic (ie non-geographic) map of any system, and that rail maps all over the world are now based on this idea.

Well done.

Ben

On the other hand the Circle Line has an international reputation for unreliability.

I had a Canadian friend who asked why there were problems one day and was told "It ain't unusual, it's the Cir'le Line" which had her in stitches.

And 6 weeks later I was sitting in a canteen in Stockholm when an American was telling some South Africans and Swedes that he had been delayed on the Tunnel Bana - "I thought I was on the Circle Line".

Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel.

Anyone else read 'A subway called Moebius'?

B

Hi Mole,

Just to reflect what others have said, this is a good article, but long on links, short on content. I want more of this article!
Could you sift through your links and put some of the more interesting content into the article? Provided you reference them, it's not plagiarism (probably). You haven't mentioned any (except Aldwych) of the 'ghost stations' - closed, bricked-up or name-changed stations.
And you haven't mentioned Mornington Crescent, the most complex game ever invented by Commuting Man!

Gif (London troglodyte!)

Is it finchley? I thought it was Mill Hill East where there was something about Beck (as that was where he lived). Also the form we see today has evolved from Beck's original diagram in the 30's.
Perhaps it's worth mentioning that it is a design style much copied throughout the world with many metro systems using similar ideas to produce clear and easy to use maps.
The underground also use more abstract versions of the design of the map in their advertising - there was a poster, something about a new tube for a new millenium where the map outline was made to look as if it was ribbons from a party popper or the child with a plate of spaghetti which is arranged in the shape of the map.

Giford, there are already entries in the Guide about those last two items.

Oo, 2 new postings while I was writing mine!

Cairo underground is good, too - the only one in Africa or the Middle East, and about the only thing in Egypt that works! Moscow underground has cathedral-like stations and, when I went (admittedly over 10 years ago now), a 1-day travelcard cost 3p!

The Tokyo rail system has a line (forget the name) which is yellow on the maps, forms a circle around the city-centre and seems to send everyone to sleep, just like the Circle Line (or is that last point just me?). Can anyone else think of any underground-line parallels?

Mina - Are there? Perhaps they should be referenced here?

Gif

Hi Mole,

I agree with many of the points of the previous posters : I think we should see more of your writing or paraphrasing and maybe less direct quotes.

Not following my advice for a second, the Bill Bryson comment caught my attention : it would have read better if you quoted directly from Bryson (which is OK according to the rules by the way) rather than taking it out of the Dallas news : you are taking an excerpt from an excerpt, which doesn't read well. (Put the link to the Dallas news by all means at the end of this paragraph if people are interested further).

I liked the links, so long as there is no requirement on us to take them if we don't want. The article should always be self contained in itself.

I hope this helps!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A536140 is the ghost stations one, and I could have sworn there was one about the game, but all I can find atm is a reference to it in http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A48502.
The Mole has also written one about ghosts in the underground, and I think she referenced ghost stations there.

Wow guys thanks for all your comments. I've added more content and stripped out some of the links although I will work out how to put them into references at the end - or work out how to just have referenced sites without putting them in the main guide.

How's it looking now?

Definitely an improvement. It feels much more like *your* piece now. Nice one.

Spiff

Hiya!

Oh I just *love* the Circle Line(!) I've actually got an edited entry on that you may want to link to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A592995

The entry is great The Map is one of those wonderful schematics which is both pleasing to the eye and pure clarity The only problem is that the geographical map is sadly out of date, as it still shows the Jubilee Line terminating at Charing Cross, when is goes much further east (Bermondsey etc - I can't remember)...

The only problem I have is that it seems to end a bit abruptly, but a few stylistic changes aside, content is useful and interesting

Will have a look again in the New Year

Stay ,
WD

Looks much better now