please empty your brain below
coming next the top 5 diamond geezer blogposts selected purely at random to ensure that they don't feature that old news the Olympics

Peewit | Homepage | 11.06.13 - 7:11 a.m. | #

I suspected this was not all your own work when I saw people's names quoted. Your posts hardly ever refer to people by name - it's usually along the lines "the nice women serving cake by the entrance" or "faceless authority jobsworths". The exceptions are the Mirandas, Alexanders and the like who let themselves in for a dose of DG vitriol for their misplaced PR activities.

Waterhouse | 11.06.13 - 7:40 a.m. | #

Not to mention passing off a paragraph on North Acton in a section entitled "METROPOLITAN Top 5 Tube Flowerbeds"

- A job at buzzfeed awaits, clearly

Though on seeing the title, honestly, my first thought was (based on past years, at least): Preston Road.

East Ham used to (like 25-30 years ago) have a pretty half-decent garden in its unused platform, but last time I looked, it had fallen into deep disrepair...

Dominic H | 11.06.13 - 7:51 a.m. | #

Personally I'm a fan of Preston Road anyway, own work or not.

Karen | Homepage | 11.06.13 - 7:53 a.m. | #

North Acton is on the Piccadilly Now? I suspect you mean North Ealing... :-)

geofftech | Homepage | 11.06.13 - 8:18 a.m. | #

Oh! i see! *chuckle*

Pinner actually sounded like something you would write - "and they tend it with pride", but it was the error of North Acton being Piccadilly blue that alerted me that something wasn't quite right here...

geofftech | Homepage | 11.06.13 - 8:20 a.m. | #

I was fooled all the way. Yes, I acknowledge all the clues. My only excuse is that it's early morning, maybe I'm not properly awake.

Malcolm | 11.06.13 - 8:24 a.m. | #

And there was me thinking that your gardening gene had flowered...

Another thing about these Top 5 etc awards lists - how many people know that most 'awards' are 'competitions' that companies pay to enter?

Blue Witch | Homepage | 11.06.13 - 8:42 a.m. | #

I primarily read for entertainment so don't really care if this is the top five, a top five or even Diamond Geezers top five. I assume everything is your opinion anyway, and I am at liberty to agree or disagree as I please. I personlly think the flowerbeds on the Central platforms at Bond Street are the tops on the whole network. You might disagree. You might even point out thet there are no flowerbeds there. Both of these things would be true but it wouldn't change the truth of what I said - I might be mad, wrong, misguided or anything else but it would still be my opinion. I'm pleased you acknowledged copying another post though.

Richard | Homepage | 11.06.13 - 9:15 a.m. | #

Just read the red bit, ha ha. My initial thought on seeing the blog was "Xst, not anothor b***** Met thing...flower beds..DG??? No way!What's all that red....I'll read that first." So, no I haven't read your blog except for the red bits - which turns out to be the bits you've actually written yourself DG.

B | 11.06.13 - 9:20 a.m. | #

Yes East Ham was rather good, but I don't think it was 25-30 years ago. Surely not.

Even Elm Park has a nice attempt at the end of the platform.

Running Correspondent | 11.06.13 - 10:20 a.m. | #

Damm. If you started doing advertorialtwaddle, I'd be in hook line and sinker.

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 11.06.13 - 10:20 a.m. | #

This Top N mentality has taken a particularly vice-like grip on the travel sections of our national newspapers. It now appears to be impossible for them to publish an article that is not in the "Top 10 last minute bargains", "Top 40 weekend walks" or "Top 20 Tuscan villas with a pool" format. Perhaps it is one of the outcomes of the Leveson Inquiry.

Nightmale | 11.06.13 - 10:35 a.m. | #

@geofftech

The description of the access problems fits North Acton better than North Ealing

@B - the red bit? It's Metropolitan magenta, surely (DG seems to have a problem with red text today - see above)

@Richard
In my opinion, the flowerbeds at Bond Street are not half as lovely as the sea view from the northbound platform at Tooting Bec

| 11.06.13 - 10:54 a.m. | #

Sussed you on the third sentence of Pinner.

Still, I think it's a fair enough effort by the LT Museum.

Chris | 11.06.13 - 12:04 p.m. | #

I was horrified that you might have adopted a more... er... flowery... style.
Phew.

Sarah | Homepage | 11.06.13 - 1:16 p.m. | #

Ah, I thought the mistakes in the Chesham were a bit odd for you to have made!
I was willing to overlook a typo with "You could step even step down" but not a 20 year mistake - "circa 1973, with key elements still in place 20 years later"

But having just admired the flowerbeds on the Chesham branch myself the other day, I was otherwise completely fooled!

dg writes: Sorry, circa 1993!

CornishCockney | 11.06.13 - 1:20 p.m. | #

Dangerous stuff, making things up DG. Once you've started, where do you stop? I must say I was never really convinced by all that stuff about a cable car crossing the Thames - what a daft idea! Or those funny Tudor houses that nobody's heard of. Or all that arcane info about tube trains and cycle facilities that defy logic. I'm just off to the Bow Flyover to have a cycle round what I now know is probably the safest road in London.

Actonman | 11.06.13 - 1:39 p.m. | #

For the pedants reading here:
OED def of Magenta:
mid 19th century: named after Magenta in northern Italy, site of a battle (1859) fought shortly before the red dye was discovered

B | 11.06.13 - 2:35 p.m. | #

Making things even more bizarre, this post is now linked to on Londonist...

dg writes: I do hope they linked ironically.

MarcB | 11.06.13 - 5:19 p.m. | #

You blog was in fun but many years ago in the 1970s London Transport used to run a station gardens competition and my Dad got highly commended a couple of times when he worked at Turnham Green.

Janet kear | 11.06.13 - 7:43 p.m. | #

@janet Kear

what more appropriate station for a keen gardener could there be than "Turn 'em Green"?

timbo | 11.06.13 - 7:55 p.m. | #

TfL have long encouraged floral displays at stations and depots, with annual awards for the best. It's currently run under the "Underground in Bloom" banner, but I too remember awards for best kept stations way back in the early 1970s. The outer reaches of the Metropolitan always did well.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 11.06.13 - 8:11 p.m. | #

East Ham had the model village and garden on the trackbed of the disused bay platform.

Kim | 12.06.13 - 12:42 a.m. | #

I don't think those lupins are lupins. The foliage doesn't look right.

GA Annie | 12.06.13 - 6:54 a.m. | #

The tiny text plays havoc with my old eyes....

NLW | 12.06.13 - 2:47 p.m. | #

How interesting to see this post tweeted excitedly by Google's foodmarketingwhatson London team.

https://twitter.com/GoogleLocalLDN/status/344794380642709504

They can't have read to the end.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 12.06.13 - 8:10 p.m. | #

This is why we love you DG. Pointing out inanities, but with humour instead of a rant

Zoe Sellers | 14.06.13 - 9:12 p.m. | #

Brilliant post. Makes one think, doesn't it. Too many top whatever everywhere on the 'net.

Cynthia Booker | 16.06.13 - 5:30 a.m. | #

The irony is, Preston Road did actually win the award for best station garden several years running. I presume whoever was working on it retired or moved on though, because it's hardly the same now.

Chris Brown (but not that one, obv) | Homepage | 27.07.13 - 11:55 p.m. | #











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