33. Bank

Thursday 13th March 12.05pm

This is another one of those stations that has too many things going on and ends up making you want to weep: three tube lines plus a connection to the DLR, and it's joined up to Monument station (which I've already been to). It has a confusing amount of exits and as I wandered round trying to work out which one I wanted I was afraid I was going to get trapped in it forever. Ninth busiest station on the network, which is hardly surprising as it's right outside the Bank of England and near all that type of stuff, but I'd happily never go there again.

It shares with Oval the honour of having the shortest name, and it seems both blunt and arrogant, as if there was only one bank and why would you be so stupid as to think there'd be another? Funny what feeling you get from a name.

Wikipedia entry here.

6. Waterloo

Sunday 11th February 5pm

The busiest Tube station on the network, attached to one of the unloveliest railway stations imaginable. Perhaps it was more glamorous when Eurostar stopped there but now it's untidy and unloveable. So although it's right behind the National Theatre and all that other stuff on the Southbank I usually find it easy to cross the river and travel from somewhere else.

The problem with the Tube station is that is has a confusing amount of exits, and it doesn't matter which one you pick it's always the wrong one, which I guess is what happens when you try and squeeze too many lines into one station. The Jubilee line section of it is of course magnificent - big and concretey, like the space-age future we were promised but never got. Pop fact: the ABBA song of the same name - key lyric, "I was defeated/you won the war" - is not actually about a commuter trying and failing to get out of the station.

Wikipedia entry here.