Perverse reading: "Underground Overground" by Andrew Martin

It is a pretty perverse choice, it has to be said, to read a sideways-look at the history of the London Underground while doing an "executive leadership" course in the Silicon Valley sunshine. But there you have it, it was next in my reading queue. In my defence, I could add that this was my first e-book, thus appropriate to the location, read on my new kindle, which I recently bought in the face of the reality that I cannot practically schlep my usual pile of summer reading books on the long distance holidays we have planned this year. In my further defence, I would say that if you have been obliged to read the latest work of your Stanford Business School management guru at the same time, a little bit of drizzle-doused, understated English quirkiness is probably a reasonable antidote.  (Complimentary copy of said tome, Power Up - actually lower case power up - is beside me as I write. Don't expect a review here...)

At the risk of slightly undermining my apparent commitment to new technology, I should point out that I do possess the old-fashioned paperback version of this book, and bought the kindle version later for travel purposes. I mention the fact merely to point out that this is yet another of that now venerable category of serendipitously-found-books-in-Foyles-St-Pancras. Yes, that modest bookstore worked its magic once more, a few months ago, only to be overlaid by the technological revolution by the time I got round to actually reading it.


But what of the actual book? Truth to tell, I wonder whether I am revealing my inner nerd? Maybe, though this is not a trainspotter's book. And though I believe it to be well-researched and historically accurate, nor is it a reliable history. The author is in fact a journalist, who, building on a York schoolboy's fascination for the Tube, ended up writing a column for the London Evening Standard on the many and various vicissitudes and misadventures of Londoners on the Underground system and their love-hate relationship with the sprawling phenomenon under their feet, which in fact did so much to create the sprawling metropolis they inhabit.

In fact, this is a book about the relationship between the growing, chaotic city on the surface and the equally chaotic development of the transport system which consciously and unconsciously fed the growth of the commuter supercity. Like so much else in British life, it emerges that the Underground system was never planned, but grew haphazardly and anarchically, driven by a heady mix of the profit motive, Victorian chutzpah, patrician high-mindedness, social reforming zeal, corporate ambition, financial mismanagement, wartime necessity, political opportunism and an always-too-late realisation that London has a serious traffic problem. Martin tells the story with dry humour, insight and a great eye for anecdote and quirk. In some ways, its one of those muddling-through-and-proud-of-it books that the Brits love to buy about themselves, though, curiously, it emerges in this case that much of the muddling through was actually the work of Americans, who have had a great deal to do with the development of the Underground system. Just to illustrate the point, I had never asked myself why Tube trains have "cars" rather than "carriages" like normal trains. Well, it's American, innit, a usage introduced by some until now forgotten American Tube investor and developer in the early twentieth century.

Anyway, I, like my countrymen, have a weakness for this kind of book, amusing but also informative. I am prompted to visit Finsbury Park Tube (as once I did daily) and actually see this time the oddities of the place produced by its particular role in Underground history (the Big Tube, anyone?). Given the time, I might tarry a while in Baker Street station, one of the most peculiar and historic stations, or visit the remarkable modernist architecture of some suburban stops. In the end, this is a book about people, and how the built world is, like them, organic and irrational yet somehow still seems to thrive. 

Recommendation? Something tells me that this is not for everyone. It's a book for Brits, methinks, or possibly for those who really want to get inside their heads, and not even for all of them. All I would say is, if you think you might be interested, yet fear unleashing your inner nerd, this is nerdiness mitigated by humour and a fine eye for a story.

You'll not be getting a review of
the Californian management book,
 so I may as well add the picture here.