22. Shepherd's Bush Market

Friday 20th December 9.15pm

Quite how Shepherd's Bush ended up being served by three Tube stations so close together is something of a mystery as surely even the area's biggest fan would admit that it's nothing special. This station is named after what must have been the area's biggest attraction but it didn't actually get that name until 2008 when the huge Westfield shopping centre opened and they realised that two Tube stations and an Overground station all sharing the same name might be confusing.

It's basically identical to Goldhawk Road station, which is no surprise as they're at opposite ends of the market: two above ground, elevated platforms and a small ticket office at street level. I guess these kind of stations were intended to be the starting point for journeys not destinations so they saved the glamour and the style for the bigger stations in the centre of London, but somehow they ended up winning as this line now uses the most up-to-date trains, with walk-through carriages and tons more room that the old trains.

Wikipedia entry here.

21.Goldhawk Road

Friday 20th December 6.15pm.

There's not really much need to use this station - there are two others at different corners of Shepherd's Bush Green, both situated much nearer places you'd want to go, so I was partly just here to tick it off the list but mostly because of music. There's a song on the last Pet Shop Boys album called Love is a Bourgeois Construct which is mad but which included my favourite lyric of the year: "I've been hanging round with various riff-raff, somewhere on the Goldhawk Road" - so how could I not visit?

The station itself is about as unremarkable as they come, although it seems to be typical for this part of the line. The trains run above ground, elevated above the city around it. The platforms are open air and then you walk down some stairs to a small ticket office at ground level and then you're out in the street - it couldn't be any more functional if it tried!

Wikipedia entry here.

20. Holborn

Sunday 24th November 4.45pm.

I figured that a Sunday afternoon in the weeks before Christmas was exactly the kind of peak time Transport for London suggest you avoid using Covent Garden station so despite being on the Plaza I opted to walk to Holborn instead. It's only two stops from King's Cross, neither of them very long, and on another day I might have been tempted just to walk the whole way instead.

The outside is one of those grand but quite restrained entrances, but inside is the usual rabbit warren of tunnels and stairs to get you down to platform level, with so many twists and turns it's hard to know quite where you've ended up. But the platforms for the Piccadilly line at least have been smartened up with metal cladding on the walls instead of tiling, with pictures inspired by the British Museum (which is very nearby), including wrestling naked Greeks which I stupidly forgot to take a picture of.

Wikipedia entry here.

19. Blackfriars

Saturday 23rd November 2013. 11.30am.

Stupidly it's not a station I even knew existed, despite walking past the new entrance on the south bank of the Thames a few times in recent years. I thought it was an Overground station, and a mainline station, because so much attention has been given to the bridge with its roof of solar panels.

But it turns out it's a Tube station too, albeit one that had been shut for three years, which is clearly the amount of time it takes me to forget things. It's actually quite useful for that poorly served bit of south London near Tate Britain if you're feeling too lazy to walk so I expect our paths will cross again, and I'd definitely like to use the entrance south of the river as well just to see how that works.

Like all new Tube buildings it's light and airy, with wide platforms and corridors, tons of public space in neutral colours, and a big glass building when you get to street level. It'll be interesting to see how history looks on these kind of designs once they start to age a little.

Wikipedia entry here.

18. Green Park

Wednesday 19th June 11.30am

This is more of a useful change than a destination as it's served by the complimentary colours of the Jubilee, Victoria and Piccadilly lines. As for a destination, it really only serves Green Park, although it is next to the Ritz but I don't suppose people going to stay there arrive by Tube do they? Inside it's a bit of a maze, which is what you'd expect when three different lines were built at three different times, but outside it has a rather lovely entrance from the Park.

Wikipedia entry here.

17. Embankment

Thursday 19th June 10.45am.

As a station this is easily overlooked as it's just a single storey building in the shadow of the huge Charing Cross station, but that's silly because it's actually much better connected, serving four lines instead of the two you can get from Charing Cross. And it's smaller and easier to navigate than Charing Cross as it only has two exits from the escalators whereas Charing Cross has more than you can fathom. So how come I never use it and mostly just walk through the ticket office on the way to the bridge over the Thames?

Wikipedia entry here.

16. Lancaster Gate

Tuesday 18th June 1pm.

There's not much to say about this station really. It's small and doesn't connect with anything so it's only useful if you want to go to Hyde Park (which I did) or if you're staying in one of the hotels in the area. But it does mean that on a weekday it's really quiet so there's nobody getting in the way when you're trying to take a picture of the station's name. It's one of those stations with lifts although there are only 70-odd steps to the street so it would hardly be a nightmare if you had to climb them (I didn't). And it's one of those old stations with a tiny ticket office, and just three exit barriers onto the street.

Wikipedia entry here.