Tuesday 23rd August 6.30pm
Hammersmith has frustrated me - I've been through it twice since I started doing this and both times forgot to take pictures. In my defence I was on my way to gigs - Kate Bush, John Grant - so I had other things on my mind. But that doesn't stop me disliking this station, because you have to leave it through a shopping centre which is just about the most stupid idea ever! Except it turns out you don't have to - when I came out of it this time it was just a very short walk before I found myself in front of a statue of three naked men. As you do. Then on the return journey I was straight through the barriers and onto a train. But that was using different lines, which confuses me further - the District and Piccadilly lines come out through the shopping centre, the Hammersmith & City line is across the road in an older, more civilised building. There's no below ground connection between them - you have to go outside and cross the road, which to my mind makes them two separate stations, just like Edgware Road, but on the map they only count as one. It's mystifying. Which is a shame as there are a lot of reasons to like Hammersmith itself.
