Fun with psychogeography

[hirez]

Driving in on the A1 past the set of art-deco flats that look like a spaceport hotel, it came to me that while I'd been in London, I'd never felt of London. You know those seabirds that build nests on the tiny outcroppings of rock on otherwise sheer and windswept cliff faces? Exactly like that.

Ancient history. You can never go back.

Later, I half-heard a conversation along the lines of 'The country's the wrong shape; Brighton should be on the Northern Line."

Thus: Brighton on the Northern Line. (Large JPG)

The thing about Harry Beck's splendid diagram is just that. It's a diagram. Distances and relative geography are largely irrelevant. This means one can play Hob with people's internal maps, and indeed overlay those internal maps on what has become a form of consensus reality.

I've always thought of 'my' London as being very different from the one that (say) Tara Palmer-Thomkinson would have experienced. The map's the same, but the things you see when you get there are... Otherwise.

This, then, is a first pass at diagramming 'my' London. The things and places I remember - meeting Andrea and Cal on the way to the pub, or figured large - various works and venues. Of course, memory is imperfect and things have fallen out. I'll get to them in due course.

Comments

[hirez.livejournal.com]

It's yer conceptual distance, innit guv. I want to know if it feels closer because it's on that diagram.

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

but you've got it wrong! Brissle is on the Piccadilly Line extension. And tack»head on the Fleet?

Kraftwerk is on the Victoria though; I've always thought it an ironic transtemporal reference to the Saxe-Coburgs, but who can tell these days...

[hirez.livejournal.com]

The Bristol thing was a hard decision. I think on balance, that it probably should have been a District line thing. The less I have to travel on the Gibberdilly line, the happier I am.

Tack>>head == Kilburn National, 1989.

But that's the point of this thing. My diagram != anyone else's. Indeed I'd like to see other people's.

[lastaii.livejournal.com]

Well indeed, it's *your* impression of how it works, so it's right for you :)

I just highlighted the Brizzle thang because, well, frankly I was off my face on chilli vodka...

It works

[sarah-mum.livejournal.com]

Ah, so it's your fault I drove to Hammersmith this afternoon just to drop someone home.