Concrete Pencil: Fine lines

The Jubilee line takes some beating. Quick, clean, modern-feeling stock. But lacking in character (station architecture notwithstanding).

It used to be the District line for me. I've lived in London a decade and it was the last line (I think) to keep those '30s-feeling dangly sprung handholders.

Those trains made you feel like you were in some black-and-white novel of noble literary drunkenness, away under a pea-souper for your next pint of porter.

A couple of friends expressed a preference for the Bakerloo. Good side-by-side seats with no pesky arm-rests; nice orange, brown and yellow interiors.

It takes me places I wouldn't normally go. Lambeth North. Marylebone. Maida Vale.

The Victoria line also has side-by-side seats, but you share the inner cushion with your neighbour, so when some skinny Oxford Circus puffa jacket in the grips of shopmania flumps herself down even a man of my substance gets a jolt.

The Viccy line wins serious points for its platform-level proximity to other lines. From the Northern at Stockwell: 15 paces. Same for the Bakerloo at OC. And the Piccadilly at Finsbury Park. The Piccadilly. I live on the Piccadilly, but thankfully on an overland too, which means I can usually avoid that awful royal blue. For Caledonian Road. For that endless interchange to the Jubbly at, of all places, Green Park. For tourist-stained Covent Garden. For Hammersmith. We don't salute you.

Central line: Mile End to Notting Hill in 13 uneasy movements. Why, if you were in the east, would you want to go that far west?

The Circle line has never meant much to me either. The Met's just annoying. Apart from that Farringdon, Barbican above-ground, below-street level bit, where it's very briefly as good as the network gets.

No, for me it will always be the Northern. Waterloo, my Motherstation (where my train came in from the sticks).

Back then I'd be straight to Camden Town, no messing. Or maybe Kentish Town for the Town & Country Club, as it should still be called.

It's got Highgate and Hampstead and Archway's Boogaloo. My daughter was born on the Northern line (at a hospital, you understand).

It's got TCR for Bradley's Spanish Bar and all the liquid joys of Soho. The Claphams, Oval - Bank or Charing Cross Branch - Goodge Street, Angel and Mornington Crescent.
It's got at least one nutter per train, and it's as black as Nick Cave's trousers.

A piece of my heart will always be on it, waiting for the High Barnet branch at Euston.