The Circle Line

The Circle Line, as the name might suggest, is an underground subway that circles London. I'm being patronising, 99% of people reading this already know this but for completeness I mention it. My question to you is: Have you ever, in one journey, been to every stop on The Circle Line? I have. In fact, I believe that I did 3.5 loops of The Circle Line non-stop once.

It was a dark and stormy night. No it wasn't! It was a Saturday afternoon. Ed, Peter, Andy and myself were playing golf and Richmond Park Golf Course. It was at a time when Ed and I were playing particularly badly and Andy and Peter were going through a purple patch. Unfortunately Ed and I drew the same short straws and were teamed up together. Peter and Andy were very excited at the prospect giving us a solid hiding and goaded us into beer bets they felt they had already won.

It was one of those strange days. Ed and I played, as expected, badly, and both our scores were horribly. However, the bets and games did not rest on the total score but on each hole that was won. What I didn't mention was that Ed and I dovetailed playing bad holes and when I had a blowout hole Ed won it and vice versa. I believe that we had the game sown up by about the 15 and had won all bets (beers). Andy and Peter couldn't believe this and didn't believe that our luck would continue for the last 4 holes and so they goaded us into a double or nothing to the end. We won that as well.

So we end up in All Bar One in Richmond at around 5pm and Ed and I don't hold back on our unlimited free beers. Neither of us could hold our drink and we had won more than we could handle so it was effectively unlimited. By 9pm I knew that the combination of gloating and drinking had put me into a dangerous state and I had to get home and sleep it off ASAP.

I jumped on The District Line at Richmond and somehow managed to cross over to The Circle Line when we arrived in Central London. After that I remember opening my eyes every now and then and seeing a station name and realising that we'd past my stop but being on The Circle Line I knew we'd come back to it again and so I closed my eyes and continued to sleep.

At 1:40am I was woken by the driver telling me that this was the last stop and I had to get off. I was at Notting Hill. I estimated that given the time I'd spent on the tube that I'd circled to city 3.5 times. I was feeling dizzy.

It probably took me about an hour to walk home from there. I couldn't for the life of me find a cab.