The Escapist is a great film by Rupert Wyatt (2008) about a bunch of desperados running away from a British prison.

Frank Perry and his inmates escape by oppressive underground tunnels. One of it is an abandoned tube station in Central London, Union Street.  The station is the perfect stage for a moment of suspended reality in the film. It looks phantasmagorical and just as sad and hopeless as the drama of the film.

I have not found any information or picture about the station. It is not on the list at http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/. It might as well just be a fictional stage of the film.

The Mill Lane Open Space is a diminutive natural area in West Hampstead. Its narrow entrance does not anticipate the nice surprise that this piece of London nature is. It is in Mill Lane, London Borough of Camden, NW6 1. It is owned by LB Camden.

There are two great things about the space: the pond and a corner with a large pile of logs. They both support a good number of frogs and newts.

We visited the site at the end of May. Some big Yellow Flag Iris (Iris pseudacorus) dominated the dry pond. The plant is native to Britain but cultivated worldwide. In some regions, the flag iris scaped to become an invasive aquatic plant. Its rhizomes make the pest practically impossible to eradicate.

In Mill Lane however, the flower is a very nice feature of the site.

You can find the most interesting pubs pown the Thames on a boat full of turists.

There are pubs with names of famous historic characters, like Captain Kidd (the pirate) and Samuel Pepys (the administrator). Some pubs look from the river as lame as their names suggest, like The Banker, The Brasserie and the Old Salt Quay. The old pubs look like a piece of History looking over the river, like The Grapes, The Mayflower and The Prospect of Whitby.

It would be great to enjoy a couple of pints in one of the oldest pubs. If I visit one, I will choose one where I could book a table in a balcony in to watch the boats pass by. Probably in one lazy afternoon in the summer.

King’s Cross development is elbowing its way through a relict of the past, Kings Cross Gasholders. The site was a widely unknown landmark by Londoners and tourists.

Kings Cross is now a territory taken over by civil works firms busily completing the new train station and urban development. Continue reading →

Victor Hwang owns the Battersea power station and its surrondings. He plans to use his Parkview International to become even richer by building flats and, marginally, some private leisure venues in the landmark.

Vauxhall bridge:

Continue reading →

The mission
I had to travel almost 6 kilometers to dispose of some household recyclable waste from the leafy surroundings of North West London to Regis Road in Kentish Town, Camden, in London.
Continue reading →