Yesterday, I found an audio clip I’d recorded on my phone. I’m not sure when I recorded it, or why.
I’d been out somewhere and had fallen asleep on the train on the way home and had missed my stop. I had to get a cab home, and for whatever reason, decided to record some of the journey. There’s about thirty seconds of car noises, then you hear a muffled voice say “You sleeping in my car?” and then I say that I wasn’t asleep, then he says “You were really” and laughs and then says that I’m nearly home and it’s only about five miles. Then there’s a couple more minutes of car noises and the clip ends.
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m trying to find out what this advert, exposed as part of the renovation works at Waterloo, relates too:
Something which ended in the letter “e” was opposite platform six (I assume it’s opposite, it could have been “beside” platform six, but that seems like a slightly odd choice of words).
At the bottom of the poster, it says “Promoted by Ian Fletcher” and then “[something] Children, Pembridge Hall, Pembridge Square, London, W2″
Tom Cleaver pointed out in the comments to yesterday’s post that up until 1981, Mencap used to be called “National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children” and that they were based in Pembridge Hall, as this advert shows:
So, the “[something]” in front of “Children” is “Handicapped”. It also means whatever it was which was opposite platform six was there before Mencap changed its name in 1981. But what could this early version of Mencap be offering “instantly” opposite platform six?
Also, a couple of people mentioned that the “6″ looked a bit odd, as if it had been altered in some way. On my way home yesterday, I took another photo from the other side of the poster:
The six has been stuck on. This means either whatever it was used to be opposite a different platform and was moved, or that it was a generic poster, perhaps used in lots of different stations with the platform numbers added later.
Back in March, I had an idea of spending full day at Waterloo station. I’d take a day off work, get the same train I normally get each morning, but rather than continuing my onward journey, I’d stay in the station all day and then get the same train I normally get to go home.
It didn’t quite work out as planned and I only spent half the day at the station. Little did I know however, just how significant my timing would be. I took the 31st March off work and, though I knew that there were plans to “improve” the station, I hadn’t realised the station would change so quickly. The next day, the Sloe bar closed. Over the next few weeks, the Proteus retail units which ran along the centre of the concourse were dismantled one by one. This video captured a moment in history:
A long mezzanine floor of retail units is being built along the length of the wall facing the platforms. 1,860 square metres. 17 new “retailing opportunities”. You can’t stand in the way of progress. There’s no point living in one style and dying in another.
As part of the redevelopment, the retail units which used to surround the steps down to the Underground opposite platforms seven and eight (Cranberry, Upper Crust, Thresher, Tie Rack and TM Lewin) have also been removed. During this process, a fragment of an old poster has been revealed above the steps:
Someone was being invited to visit something (ending in “e”) which used to be somewhere near platform six (I’m guessing it’s “opposite platform 6″, or possibly “beside platform 6″, but opposite seems more likely) and whatever it was offered instantly. But who was being invited to visit what near platform six and what was available instantly?
There’s something written in small red lettering along the bottom of the advert. On the left it says “Promoted by Ian Fletcher” and then on the right it says “[something] Children, Pembridge Hall, Pembridge Square, London, W2″.
The school is a non-selective day school for girls aged 4 to 11 situated in Notting Hill, West London. The school opened in 1979 and was originally run by a religious order of nuns. In 1983 it moved to 18 Pembridge Square. In September 2002 it was sold to the Alpha Plus Group and in 2003 expanded into number 10 Pembridge Square and became a three-form entry school. The Alpha Plus Group Board carries out the corporate governance responsibility for all of the schools and colleges in the group.
Nuns? Anyway, let’s assume we’re looking at something from the early 1980s. It sort of looks like it’s from that period, it has that kind of Preedy brown lettering, and I need to start somewhere.
I started looking on Google for photos of Waterloo from the 1980s. I found these beautiful pictures from 1987:
My train normally leaves from that platform.
This one is good:
You can almost see something by platform six, but I don’t think it’s the same thing as in the torn advert.
Both those pictures come from this collection of photos which is part of a quite incredible website, Nosher.net and features a remarkable wealth of images from the last thirty years or so:
Perhaps in fifty or a hundred years’ time, people will look at these photos with the same curiosity as we do those of Victorian times: a brief glimpse of how life was, of strange people, strange fashions or strange activities that were once considered harmless (even though it currently remains legal to photograph almost everything in the UK). The photos are from various sources, from scans of varying quality through to a couple of gorgeous Pentax digital SLRs – the *ist D and the K10D. They’re simply a documentary of an average existence.
“Simply a documentary of an average existence” – that is a wonderful phrase.
These photos are beautiful, but they still haven’t help me solve the mystery. I remembered the video to West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys. There’s a bit where Neil and Chris walk through Waterloo station. It was a long shot, but maybe that would offer some sort of clue:
I like Neil’s coat.
Unfortunately, even though they walk right past platform six, there’s still nothing which helps me.
One day, I’ll find out what used to be opposite platform six. I won’t give up until I do.
On Saturday, I met up with Lewis Dryburgh and Peter Fletcher. Between them, Lewis and Peter represent two thirds of The Quotidian Revue – the show which is certain to be a surefire hit at this year’s Edinburgh Festival in spite of the fact that the other third of The Quotidian Revue is me.
Lewis lives in Aberdeen, which is approximately four hundred miles from London, and rather than travel down to London and back to Aberdeen in one day (a total journey of approximately eight hundred miles1), he booked into the County Hall Premier Inn:
Located in the historic County Hall building, next to some of London’s most eye-catching attractions, a perfect location for those who are here to visit London’s famous landmarks. Amongst the easily accessible attractions are The London Eye, Westminster Abbey and Big Ben.
Our London County Hall Premier Inn has everything you’d expect, incredibly comfy beds in every room and an integrated restaurant serving a mix of traditional and contemporary dishes.
I’ve never stayed in a Premier Inn before, although my understanding is that everything is premier except the price, and I’d imagine the breakfast served in the integrated restaurant is no exception to this rule. The breakfast is not actually included in the price of the room, and costs an additional £7.99, but you can eat as much as you like:
Eat as much as you like of our freshly cooked Premier breakfast. Succulent, premium pork and vegetarian sausages, eggs, cooked the way you like them, select back bacon, baked beans, mushrooms and more. And if you’d like to mix and match, you can also choose from our Continental selection too.
I know they say you can eat as much as you like, but that seems excessive. I mean, two fried eggs, two boiled eggs plus scrambled egg on toast. No-one needs to eat that much egg in one go, even if previous limits on egg consumption have been lifted . Also, given the total size of that breakfast, I’m surprised whoever assembled it has picked a relatively modest number of sausages (two) compared with the amount of cereal they’ve gone for (a bowl of corn flakes, a packet of Coco Pops, a packet of Bran Flakes, plus a bowl of porridge and a bowl of granola).
That much food would take a long time to eat, and so it is not surprising that after a while, the integrated restaurant would start to get busy as people work their way through mountains of toast and, not just pots of yoghurt, but bowls of pots of yoghurts. To try to combat this congestion, Premier Inn recommend avoiding the integrated restaurant between 8am and 9.30am:
Essentially Premier Inn are asking people to avoid having breakfast during breakfast time (although the Premier Inn breakfast is served from 6.30 until 10am on weekdays and 7am until 11am on weekends). There is also a risk that so many people will obey the sign that the integrated restaurant will be full right up until 8am, then become deserted for an hour and a half, and then everyone will pile back in again. It seems a crude and potentially self-defeating attempt to manage a queue system.
Ultimately, Premier Inn have brought this problem upon themselves. The idea of an “all you can eat” breakfast is not that uncommon, but in their own marketing literature, they are encouraging people to eat much more food than they could ever realistically want or manage and in doing so have created a situation where their own integrated restaurants are unable to cope.
I would suggest that they amend their slogan to “Premier Inn – everything’s premier except the price and our understanding of basic operations research”.
—— NOTES 1 Distance from Aberdeen to London ≈ 400miles, Distance from London to Aberdeen ≈ 400miles
=> Distance from Aberdeen to London and then back to Aberdeen ≈ 400miles + 400miles ≈ 800miles
If you are not familiar with Kung Fu Panda 2, Wikipedia explains:
Kung Fu Panda 2 is a 2011 3D American computer-animated action comedy film and the sequel to the 2008 film Kung Fu Panda. The cast of the original film reprised their voice roles. The film was released on May 26, 2011 in Real D 3D and Digital 3D.
If you are not familiar with the 2008 film Kung Fu Panda, Wikipedia explains:
Kung Fu Panda is a 2008 American computer-animated action comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by John Wayne Stevenson and Mark Osborne and produced by Melissa Cobb, and stars the voice of Jack Black along with Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Randall Duk Kim, James Hong, Dan Fogler and Michael Clarke Duncan. Set in a version of ancient China populated by anthropomorphic animals, the plot revolves around a bumbling panda named Po who aspires to be a kung fu master. When an evil kung fu warrior is foretold to escape from prison, Po is unwittingly named the chosen one destined to bring peace to the land, much to the chagrin of the resident kung fu warriors.
Ian McShane is doing well for himself, isn’t he?
I haven’t seen either of the Kung Fu Panda films, although I do believe that the first one contains only half of the awesomeness of the sequel.
I didn’t think that this was a successful pun, as the word “thorly” was too far removed from the word “thoroughly” to work. This was brought into sharp focus by the deft hyphen use by the people at Yahoo Movies who described the film as “thor-oughly entertaining”:
You can understand how pleased I was, proud even, to see that Robbie Collin from the News Of The World had clearly taken my criticism on board and worked harder when writing his review for Kung Fu Panda 2:
A terrific movie… CHOP DRAWER
This is much better. Well done Robbie. “CHOP DRAWER”. Good work.
When Mark Adams from the Sunday Mirror reviewed Thor he said it was “an epic action-packed fantasy adventure”:
This is almost just a functional description of the type of film Thor is, rather than any kind of recommendation or or critique or expression of opinion or thought but it was enough to make Kenneth Brannagh happy and he included it on his poster without question. Personally, I think the literal descriptive style suits Mark Adams best. Look what happens when he tries to be funny:
