In a world of sprawling Mercato Metropolitanos, Market Halls and Arcade Food Halls, the miniscule Holborn Food Hub is a reminder that food courts come in all shapes and sizes. I'm sure they had very good reasons for filling a space the size of a mobile phone repair shop with fully 3 different food vendors and a ludicrously antisocial arrangement of table and chairs all seemingly piled up on top of each other, as whatever they're doing is working - most days the queue at lunchtime stretches down the street. But we were lucky - and early - enough on a Thursday to bag a small table and order a couple of bits from the 7 Floor Malaysia Tea Room (the name is a bit of a mystery - maybe they started on the 7th floor of somewhere else, as Holborn Food Hub is very definitely on the ground floor). Chicken wings arrived first - robust, healthy things, properly jointed (no wingtips here) and with a lovely bubbly, crackly exterior. Assam Laksa was a giant bowl full of pineapple-spiked seafood broth, topped with sticks of cucumber and pineapple and onion and with a mound of thick Udon-y style noodles (I'm sure there's a Malaysian word for them, sorry) hiding underneath. The aroma as it moved around the room was incredible - and triggered a long-forgotten memory of visiting a hawker still in Kuala Lumpur back when I was just fresh out of university. Back then I probably ended up with something more timid like, well, chicken wings - but it's amazing how long the memory of smells linger as more or less everything else gradually fades. Beef rendang was impeccable - probably the best the capital has to offer, and I've tried a few. There is a surprising amount of very bad rendang in London (the Roti King version is awful - particularly odd when you consider the rest of their offering is decent) but this was doing absolutely everything right, from the complex depth of flavour of the sauce to the beautifully meltingly tender chunks of beef. Also worthy of note was the accompanying sambal which added a beguiling whole new set of umami flavours into the mix. Some slices of cucumber added a welcome salad element, fried shallots (I think they were) added crunch and salty vegetal flavour, and finally a hard boiled egg (because why not) completed the dish. Just like the Assam Laksa, if you were served this from a hawker stall in Malaysia you would be more than happy. There was no printed bill - the girl behind the counter just offered the contactless machine having seemingly done the total in her head - but £41 seemed perfectly reasonable for the amount and quality of food, and I should also mention the service which was so lovely and friendly it was like being invited to eat in someone's front room. Albeit a front room with way too many closely-packed tables and chairs. 9/10

How long would it take to ride all the Overground lines? I gave it a go, and I started in the obvious place. Intermission two members of staff on duty, one sweeping the platforms and the other holed up in his kiosk in case any situation transpired that required his involvement. This seemed ridiculously unlikely. But perhaps the most surprising thing about Emerson Park is that TfL's Overground rebranding team have completely forgotten it exists. revealed simultaneously on launch day. This reveal happened everywhere else but failed to happen at Emerson Park which means the orange vinyl sticker is still on display, not the proper grey sign underneath. If you wander over to the panel between the Oyster pad and the Help Point you can see a thin grey strip poking above the top of the orange sticker, as yet unrevealed. And if you look closer at the bumps in the vinyl you can clearly see the raised letters L i b e r t y underneath the phrase 'Trains to Romford and Upminster'. at Upminster on the way to platform 6. But somehow the instruction never made it to Emerson Park, so here we are SIX MONTHS LATER with the signage still in its pre-launch state. It's not even an unstaffed station. Those responsible for Overground rebranding should be mighty embarrassed, as should whoever's responsible for managing this station for failing to notice the non-reveal on any of the last 180 days. I hope to see the proper grey sign next time I go back. OK, here comes my first train, start the stopwatch. Liberty line: Emerson Park to Upminster (00:00-00:04) Suffragette line: Barking to Walthamstow Queen's Road (00:23-00:36) Weaver line: Walthamstow Central to Hackney Downs (00:48-00:57) Mildmay line: Hackney Central to Canonbury (01:06-01:10) Windrush line: Canonbury to Highbury and Islington (01:20-01:21) Lioness line: Euston to South Hampstead (01:44-01:48) Tube Challenge online forum the record is 1 hour and 34 minutes, although only one person's ever tried it before which to be perfectly fair isn't exactly surprising. second fastest person ever to ride all six Overground lines. I particularly like how my optimum route started at the least used Overground station, which is Emerson Park, and ended at the second least used Overground station, which is South Hampstead. And it may have been a stupid thing to do but I'd never have noticed the unrevealed Liberty line panel at Emerson Park otherwise, something TfL have yet to do themselves.

Time Out are liars - official blogpost highlighting Time Out's tendency to lift research from dubious sources and then claim the information is 'official'. They did it again yesterday in a piece called "It’s official: 6 of the UK’s dirtiest beaches for water quality are near London", which it turned out was based on a press release from commercial website Holiday Park Guru. And last week they did it to me. There is now a new cheaper and greener way to get to London Stansted Airport. This would be via coach company Flibco who are indeed new and their coaches are indeed green. So far so good. The piece was plainly lifted from what I'd written, and fair enough they'd credited me and linked through - no complaints there. My issue was this line which was wilfully false. "Flibco joins National Express and First Essex in offering a bus service to the northeast-of-London airport, and, according to research from London blogger Diamond Geezer, it’s officially the cheapest way to get from the centre of the capital to Stansted." I never claimed Flibco was the cheapest, I merely presented all kinds of scenarios which showed it often was. Book well in advance and the Stansted Express is actually the cheapest, whereas Flibco never reduce their fares up front. But that wasn't the aspect which concerned me, it was their claim that what I'd said was somehow 'official'. Specifically it sounded like I'd said it was officially cheapest, which I hadn't, this was merely the Time Out journalist's false interpretation. I did email the journalist in question to express my displeasure, politely, but have heard nothing back. I therefore hope that writing about it in on my blog will bring the matter to the attention of those who work there. I know Time Out read this blog because they appropriated another of my posts last month, again with due accreditation, the very day after I last slagged them off for overuse of the word officially. not official, although if Time Out are happy to assume it is then I am happy to call them liars - official.