Something sensational to read on the train

Readers who have put in some time on the railways may remember the neat, brush-painted graffiti that appeared in 1974 on a wall facing the line just outside Paddington station: FAR AWAY IS CLOSE AT HAND IN IMAGES OF ELSEWHERE.

Not until Banksy took up his spraycan did a piece of London graffiti make such a stir. The Telegraph’s Peter Simple column attributed the long-lasting inscription to the shadowy ‘Master of Paddington’ and the Oxford commuter-poet Roger Green mused on the hauntingly unspecific slogan in his journal Notes From Overground, a minor publishing hit of 1984. Another 20 years passed before the perpetrators were outed; it turned out that their declaration was a mash-up of the words of two other poets, Robert Graves and Ruth Padel.

James Attlee’s book is the work of another former commuter, now released into full-time writing after 12 years of long-distance shuttling back and forth on the same line.