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Poppa Pop is a bit of a busybody. Tomorrow's an important business day, that requires heading first class down to London. Apparantly he spent the afternoon heckling with whoever's in charge down south to move the appointment to 9am. 'Are you sure you can get down here for that time?' the voice on the other end of the line pondered out loud. 'HA!' snorted Poppa. 'Of course I can get down there for that time, there's a train that leaves here at 5:55am!' He eats early morning's for breakfast.

£170 later, first class ticket clutched in his hands as he walks through the front door, I can barely suppress a smirk when I casually inquire as to whether he'd heard about the tube strikes today...?

As he orders me to go and find the quickest route from Euston to Canary Wharf stat, I can't help but marvel at the wonder that is the tube map. Like a retro mosaic in 80s strobing, I can think of no other image which better summarises London. If you want to really experience the super city-slick living of our capital, what better way than the underground pandemonium of the tubes? Tourists might flock with their Kodaks round their necks to get snap-happy with the towering presence of Big Ben, or gallavant to the West End to enjoy a musical or two, but it is those angular and controlled contours in every dominant shade that really shape the city.

Central slices through the middle, while the Hammersmith and Metropolitan line slither by barely noticed. Complain about the stuffiness, smell of urine and bastard buskers all you want, this is the stuff that LDN is made of. Isn't it about time a map of the tube is hung in the National Museum of Art?