Between 1997 and 2011, I lived in an ex-council flat just off Lambeth Walk. This meant not only that each day started with a cheery Cockney dance – it was a condition of the lease – but also that my local tube station was one of Zone 1’s most under-used and enigmatic: Lambeth North. And this, in turn, meant that I quickly became aware of an oddity at the far end of the southbound Bakerloo Line platform one stop up the line at Waterloo: a small, yellow, hinged panel in the end wall on which was written, in stark black capitals, DANGER: VOID BEHIND DOOR.

This puzzled me: if, as implied, the panel really did conceal a fully functioning portal into a realm of infinite, timeless and possibly diabolical darkness – which seemed unlikely, but the Bakerloo’s a funny old line – then obviously it was good of London Transport to warn us. But I still couldn’t help feeling that I must be missing something.

Then, one day, whilst I was in a state of emotional turmoil, I had an epiphany. Which I wrote about in Smoke. And then, when we put the magazine online, I rejigged it so that it made a bit more sense. You can find the rejigged version HERE.

Danger: Void Behind Door was also the title of a previous blog which ground to a halt following the re-election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London; I’ve copied the pieces which seemed worth saving over to this site, and chucked the old blog behind the bins.