Ah, the pace of modern change

We had a pleasant Sunday lunch in The Couch today - a favourite haunt for many a year, in that it provides a relatively reliable and calm place to grab food or a drink off the chaos of Oxford Street. Not the best bar in the world, but given the location and the utter crapness of so many London bars, I've no complaints.

Over lunch we were wondering where the Dean Street entrance to Crossrail may end up... Tesco Metro  perhaps? Well, it turns out that we were sitting on it. I may be reading it wrong, but it looks to me like The Couch, and the surrounding block, is definitely going. So enjoy it while you can.

In about 10 years time, this'll be what replaces it (not that I care, I'll be nearly 40 and thus far too old to be found in public hostelries by then):

The Astoria's already gone, of course, and The Ghetto's shut, so a surprising number of places from m'youth will be demolished and replaced by shiny transport gleamingness (NB - this is relatively appropriate given my interest in the latter as well as the enjoyment of the larks in the former).