Mizter T wrote:

Anyway, it all seems a rather inevitable course of events!

Making front page of the Standard was hardly inevitable... must have been a
very slow news day!

But
inspired by "Basil Jet's" comments in his reply, what other features
do utl-ers think should be on the map (a crowded, busy, non-clean
version if you will)? Heathrow flightpaths? Thames Water Ring Main?
Air quality? Decent minicab firms? High-frequency night bus routes
that mirror Tube lines? The aural footprint of the Bow Bells?

You seem to be implying that my suggestions were farcical. Before posting, I
graffitied the Lea and the Regents Canal on a tube map, and it looked
extremely fetching.... the canal frames Central London with irresistable
logic, and the Lea gives a scale to the whole thing and makes you very aware
that it is a map of much of Greater London. Once you've seen it, returning
to the map with just the Thames is very disappointing.

Remember that no Essex station was on Beck's original map (except as a
handnote), partly because the Central hadn't been extended past Liverpool
Street and the Victoria Line hadn't been built, so Beck didn't decide not to
show the Lea on the original map, although he did make that decision for
later maps.