The London Transport Museum Gift Shop

A couple of weeks ago I went for a wander in the LTM's gift shop just to see what kind of wonderful things they stocked in there.  I'd never ventured upstairs before, but despite the heat, I'm glad that I did as they had a huge array of transport-related books up there, plus posters and maps galore - ergo, it was brilliant.  I must admit that I already owned some of the books they had in stock, sad geek that I am, but I leafed through a few others:

There's something about a book of maps which really floats my boat; yesterday I managed to pick up a copy of Metro-Land from a bookshop and it contains the plans from the original Metropolitan Line which looks vastly different from the current purple line's topography.  I also thought that the descriptions and prices of the suburban houses was also rather quaint, considering how much they'd be worth today, especially as quite a few of them nestle in the 'stockbrokers' belt'.  It seemed to accompany Betjemen's seminal documentary, which I've seen recently repeated on BBC4.

I thought the pictures detailed above were aesthetically pleasing and would be happy to decorate Duchess Towers with them.  There were drawers full of posters which could also be framed, especially the art deco ones.  Some of the station architecture on lines such as the far reaches of the Piccadilly are rather wonderful and are incredibly futuristic, echoing the images of UFOs and creations derived from worlds outside our own.  Truly amazing.