You know the feeling. You’re busting for a piss, doing the cross-legged dance of bladder pain and plucking up the courage to sneak into a random pub to relieve yourself. Wouldn’t it be nice to know if there was a place nearby that didn’t mind you using the facilities? Well we’re very grateful to Who’s Jack for bringing us this Tube map with nearby free comfort stops. PHEW! Never be caught short again.

Like Tube maps? Here’s one of ghost Tube stations, sponsored Tube stations and a realistic Tube map. 

We all love LEGO. Whether you’re four or 40, those little colourful bricks will forever have a small place in our hearts. Therefore you will be pleased to know that London Underground has decided to continue its 150th anniversary celebrations by displaying five LEGO tube maps across the city.

Each of the maps will show a different point in the London Underground’s history, spanning from 1927 to what the future will have in store for us in 2020 (this one went on display this morning at King’s Cross St Pancras station). Each map took four days to build and is made up of over a staggering 1,000 LEGO bricks.

If you want to see brick by brick how our beloved Tube network has changed over the years, get down to King’s Cross St Pancras station, South Kensington, Green Park, Stratford and Piccadilly Circus for a closer look.

For information on the LEGO tube maps visit the Transport for London website.

click pic to enlarge

Ever wondered why there’s an inordinately long time between Kings Cross and Caledonian Road on the Piccadilly Line? That’s because York Road station used to break up that monotonous trip. It’s just one of the many ‘ghost’ stations dotted around the capital that have been plotted on this Tube map. Some (like Aldwych) you can occasionally gain access to, many you may have noticed up on street level and others just pass by as a creepy mid-tunnel blur. But now you know where they are, you can press your nose up against the grubby glass and try to catch a glimpse of them as you whizz past.

See our gallery of pictures of abandoned Tube stations. Like Tube maps? Here’s one of what the Tube map would look like if the stations were sponsored. 

(Click to enlarge)

Fancy catching the tube from BalhaM&S to Old Spice Street – changing, of course, at Vauxhall Astra? That’s what Tories of the Greater London Authority have proposed in a recent paper, arguing that Transport for London should allow stations and tube lines to be sponsored, with the revenues used to reduce fares. Fortunately for those who find the idea somewhat unseemly, TfL say that “the Tube map is an iconic brand and to clutter it up with other people’s brands excessively would not be appropriate”.

Click the map to see Paul Speller’s depiction of our future branded dystopia (albeit created a few years ago, now.)

See the tube map that shows where it’s quicker to walk and the beautiful circle-based redesign.

What’s in a Tube stop? Well, it could be hundreds of thousands of pounds, that’s what. We all know that living next to a Tube station can increase the price of a property and we know that certain areas of London are significantly more expensive than others, but what does it really look like in black and white? Estate agents Wetherell and researchers Dataloft tracked all the sale and rental prices of two bedroom flats in the centre of London for one year and devised this alternative tube map to depict their findings.

Unsurprisingly, Knightsbridge came top with the average sales amounting to £2.6m and the average rent costing a whopping £1,252 per week. King’s Cross came in last with the sales costing just £466k and rent coming in at £512 per week. More interesting nuggets of information came from the fact that proximity doesn’t always equate to similarity. Sloane Square and Victoria may be within minutes of each other but the pricing does not reflect that. With properties selling at £1.4m in Sloane Square, they go for a slightly more humble £985k just down the road. Similarly, Great Portland Street came in fourth while its surrounding areas, Edgware Road and King’s Cross, came in at fourteenth and twentieth respectively.

Other discoveries include that the Piccadilly Line is the most expensive and prestigious line according to property prices and the Northern Line is the least valuable with the Victoria Line seemingly hugely undervalued. We don’t know how accurate all the figures are, but we know where we’ll be heading next time we’re planning on moving house. Carly-Ann Clements 

So, will this influence where you next plant your roots or do you think it’s all codswallop?  Find more of Wetherell and Daraloft’s discoveries here.

The 100th RHS Chelsea Flower Show is well under way: the blossoms have been installed, the gnomes have been allowed back in and the Royals have had a nose around. Now all that’s left is to celebrate in the best way we know how – with a Tube map of course. Here’s the London Transport Museum‘s floral tribute to the annual bouquet bash.

Plant buffs, can you guess the flowers for each line? 

For the less green fingered amongst us. Here’s the cheat sheet…

Grey Hydrangeas – Jubilee Line

Chocolate Cosmos – Bakerloo Line

Green Chrysanthemum – District Line

Blue Tulip – Piccadilly Line

Black Pansy – Northern Line

Red Rose – Central Line

Himalayan Blue Poppy – Waterloo & City Line

Maroon Lily – Metropolitan Line

Blue geranium – Victoria Line

Allamanda Cathartica – Circle Line

Pink Gerbera ­ –  Hammersmith & City Line

Orange Gerbera  –  East London Overground Line

Read about the highlights from the last 100 years of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Bored of your commute? Why not pretend you’re playing a game of old school Super Mario Brothers with this lovely Tube map. Jump into tunnels at interchanges, rescue princesses in distress, power up with a mushroom, collect the coins and try to avoid the Hammer Bros. Dungarees are optional.

Click on the map for a bigger version or to see it really close up, head to imgur.com.

We see it every day and most of us probably know it pretty much by heart, but how often do you spare a thought for its creator, the one and only Harry Beck. Well, from today anyone walking past 14 Wesley Road in Leyton will, because to mark the 80th anniversary of the Tube map design English Heritage have erected a blue plaque at his east London birthplace. London Transport Museum Director Sam Mullins unveiled the plaque this morning and if you look closely, you’ll notice that like the other plaques to Underground-related figures, the inscription is in the lovely Underground new Johnston typeface. All hail Harry Beck and his often copied, much loved and always useful Tube map.

Read more about the Tube map or see how many zone 1 tube stations you can remember in 10 minutes.

Trust the London Transport Museum to pull out all the stops to celebrate the Tube’s big 150. They’ve delved into their archive of 3,300 Underground posters (I’d love to be let loose in there to snoop around!) and got a panel of experts to pull out their 150 from each decade since the 1880s, including many big name artists like Man Ray, Paul Nash and Edward McKnight Kauffer (below).

You’ll recognise lots of the iconic posters on display but there will be plenty to baffle, delight and intrigue even the heartiest of Tube buff. To make it more managble, the posters have been split up into themes including ‘Brightest London’ (nights out and sporting events), ‘Finding your way’ (maps, etiquette and reassuring messages), ‘Love your city’ (the best of the capital’s landmarks’ and ‘Keeps London going’ (developments, technology, improvements etc).

These posters aren’t merely a celebration of our treasured Underground system, but a tribute to all the things that makes this city and its inhabitants so great: culture, diversity, reliability, technology, fun, beauty, speed and excitement. Sonya Barber

For info, see Poster Art 150 listing and see more at our poster gallery.

They’re asking for everyone to vote for their favourite. I found it too hard to choose so some of my faves are below. You’ll just have to go along to judge for yourself.

Many of you will have already guessed it. The panic, confusion, fear and grief will have set in. Yes, we are sad to confirm that there is no Time Out diary for 2013. Gone are the useful listings, au revoir to the lovingly designed diary pages and ciao to the maps, address book and tube map. In the age of iPhones, androids and all that jazz, you have all those things at the touch of a screen but somehow that doesn’t quite compare to the papery goodness of an old-fashioned diary. We have been inundated with despairing tweets so we thought it was only fair to put you out of your misery. Yes, we miss them too.

However there is a glimmer of hope – if enough of you email in, we may well bring it back for 2014.

Register your interest at guides@timeout.com. In the meantime, you’ll have to do with our Time Out app for iPhone and iPad, this trusty blog and a Google calendar.