metrocentric | Jan. 18th, 2005

We have a tradition here in England of leaving our Second World War defences intact wherever possible. It matches our mood as an island race. Just because we're not currently at war with anyone (Iraq doesn't count, they're not our neighbours, and anyway that's not a war, it's subcontracting) doesn't mean that we should Let Our Guard Down. One never knows when the Continentals may make an assault on our shores. Hence the practice amongst the elderly of driving down to the South Coast, pulling their cars up to the seafront and glaring balefully out to sea while they eat their cheddar and pickle sandwiches. The Price To Be Paid for our Way of Life is Eternal Vigilance. Also dotted along the shoreline are occasional dark concrete and breeze-block boxes, designed to accommodate Captain Mainwaring, Corporal Jones, Private Pike, Uncle Arthur, and a machine-gun, to greet Jerry should he attempt to make landfall.

At Putney Bridge station today, I noticed one of these boxes, at the southern end, just beyond the platforms. I'd never seen it before and I must have got on or off there about three dozens times in my life, but I rather doubt it's a new addition. The apertures through which the Home Guard are to stick their fire-arms command a line of fire stretching from the nearest end of the town-bound platform to the jumble of housing and commercial units off Hurlingham Road. They can give anything approaching from Parson's Green and Fulham Palace Road a good seeing to.

Hold on a minute. I'm no expert on military tactics (whenever we start having a pop at some country or other, such individuals are invariably wheeled out to appear on telly - usually balding fellows, with strangulated vowels, strangely elusive stares, and a string of convictions for fiddling with boy scouts), but this seems a tad arse-about-face. If the enemy are approaching from the north then they already have the Capital and the damage is done, surely? With Piccadilly and Whitehall in enemy hands it matters little if they then go on to capture points south of the river, even if they do so by District Line and using Oyster Cards confiscated from the citizenry. Is Southfields of strategic importance? Is there some hitherto unrealised objective necessary to global domination located in Roehampton? Would we even wish to lift a finger to prevent Wandsworth falling into the clutches of the interloper? Let them have the Brighter Borough, I say.

In any case, defences further up the track are too well-developed to allow undesirable aliens so far. Having stood on the platform at Earl's Court and seen the sixth successive Ealing Broadway or Richmond train in a row pull in, I reckon even a horde of rampaging Visigoths would give it up as not worth the swing and lay waste to a more accessible part of town.