Sound and Fury

I saw Timon of Athens at the Globe on Saturday. The weather was superb, which is lucky. The play was interesting, and given the whole banking crisis thing, the play seemed really appropriate. It’s all about debt and usury and so on. You could do some interesting things if you embraced a kind of banking setting for the play. Timon’s finding a $700bn stash of gold, perhaps. Timon ends the play paying prostitutes to spread disease and funding a warlord to attack his native Athens and then dies. This does not bode well for the credit crunch.

Lehmann of Athens. Heh.

Just in case anyone had any lingering doubts about my credentials as pedant extrordinaire, here is something mindblowingly petty that has really started to annoy me recently. Earl’s Court, King’s Cross, Regent’s Park, St. John’s Wood and St. James’s Park tube stations all have an apostrophe. But Barons Court and Parsons Green don’t.

Perhaps it has something to do with rank? Kings, regents and saints all presumably deserve apostrophes, as do earls. However, barons, the lowest rank of the British peerage do not deserve apostrophes. Nor do parsons, unless of course they get canonised…

Unfortunately, there are no tube stops named after or for a viscount. So we cannot settle the questions as to whether the second lowest rank of the peerage deserves an apostrophe or not.

There are two options. One is to revise all the tube maps and allow everyone to have apostrophes. (Knight’sbridge… maybe not.) Or rename “Hammersmith” tube station to “Viscount’s Park” or “Viscounts Park” depending on what the guidelines on apostrophe allowances suggest. In fact, we can go further: all the central Picadilly line stations should be named after ranks in the peerage. It would require some swapping of stations, because Regent’s Park is unaccountably not on the “noblility line” as I shall rename it. So along with the aforementioned stops, some of the other Picadilly stops should be renamed. Gloucester Road becomes Marquis Palace; South Kensington becomes Duke’s Forest; Hyde Park Corner becomes Archduke’s Corner… and so on.

This kind of initiative is surely right up Boris’ street. Incidentally, now would be a perfect time to put it into effect: A new stop on the Hammersmith and City line (Wood Lane) opens later this year, so the maps need redoing anyway. Might as well start thinking about your enduring legacy, Mr Johnson… What could be more appropriate than imbuing the already regal blue of the Picadilly line with a little extra nobility.

And what do I want in return for suggesting this fantastic idea? Not a lot. I’d settle for a barony, although obviously I’d prefer a title that deserves an apostrophe…