Welcome to diamond geezer, East London's hottest property blog. As regular readers will know, this is the place to come for everything that's fresh, new and exciting in the world of bricks and mortar. So today I'm delighted to be able to welcome visitors from The Times newspaper's Property section. Their esteemed housing gurus have scanned cyberspace for the best property blogs on the web, and diamond geezer has been duly selected as one of their "Top 25 Property Blogs". We're a happy family here at number 19, so please step inside. I do hope you'll feel right at home.
The view from London E3 If it's a prime London location you're after, you can't do better than Bow. This bijou East End jewel stands astride the old Roman Road to Colchester, and the area still drips with historic charm to this day. Some of the rugged brownbrick apartment blocks overlooking Bow's medieval church date back almost to the 1950s. Thousands of local residents wake each morning in their council-owned maisonettes, fling open their windows and breathe in the exhaust fumes from the Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road. These are perfect family residences, often sleeping four to a room, with the smell of spice wafting gently across washing lines and threadbare lawns. To the west the three towers of the Crossways Estate soar majestically into the concrete sky. Take the unpredictable yellow-stained lift to the top floor and soak up the glorious view across East London's almost-gleaming rooftops. Local services are second to none, with a launderette on your doorstep and an off licence conveniently situated for that mid-morning can of bench-slurped low-cost lager. For the perfect dinner party, the friendly chefs at the Bow Fish Bar will pack you off home with gift-wrapped cod and vintage Panda Pops. Who needs cottage living when you can have urban style? There's nothing artificial about Bow. I can't imagine why it doesn't feature in the property supplements more often.
Property Exchange Poplar E14: Two bed double flat on third floor with entryphone. Fitted kitchen with small balcony, bathroom with shower and toilet. 3 massive storage points. Near all amenities. 2 mins walk to Limehouse DLR. Would like 3-bed house or flat in any area within Tower Hamlets.
Tower Hamlets Homeseekers Brodick House, Saxon Road, E3 flat, 2 bed 4 person, 4th floor, one lift, separate bathroom and w/c, electric storage heater, no garden, wet-floor shower, no bath. £102.20 weekly Landlord: Tower Hamlets Council.
Olympic chic If property investment is your forte, now is the time to cast an eye over London's Olympic Quarter. New nine-storey buy-to-let opportunities are springing up all along 2012's Marathon Boulevard, and the wise entrepreneur is already making plans to move in. These elevated apartments make an ideal second home, perfect for stumbling back to bed late after all the excitement of the javelin finals in five years time. The finest prime estate potential can be found on the northern outskirts of up-and-coming E15, nestling beside the leafy pastures of Hackney Marsh. It's here that the Athletes Village will be established, rammed full with sports-friendly carbon-neutral dwelling spaces. But the athletes won't be around for long. After the Olympics these stylish designer boxes can be snapped up for peanuts - ideal for those in need of a little luxurious loft living. There'll even be a state-of-the-art John Lewis nextdoor, and on-the-spot connections to Paris, the Riviera and beyond. Whose property portfolio could possibly resist?
So it's almost inexplicable that the current residents of this blessed plot are moving out. Members of the Clays Lane collective are abandoning their low-cost high-rise homes and dispersing across the capital. The Romanies of the Clays Lane Travellers site, and their colleagues at nearby Waterden Crescent, are packing their caravans and travelling on. And the allotment holders of Manor Gardens are relinquishing their tumbledown sheds and vegetable plots to be ploughed up by the Olympic bulldozers. How kind and thoughtful of these honest East End folk to sacrifice their existing property holdings so that the rest of us can pounce in 2012 and snap up a buy-to-let bargain. Because the Lower Lea Valley is heading relentlessly upmarket. The time for exploitation draws near. You might want to contact your estate manager now to ensure that you have all the relevant funds ready. Who'd want to miss out on the Olympic goldrush?
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London has a new endangered species. They're tall and red, with a grey stripe and a white underbelly. They tend to perch by the roadside or stand on street corners. They're almost always seen in pairs. They're request stops. And they've been earmarked for extinction.
Bus stops - both compulsory and request - have been used in London for about70 years, and there are now more than 18000 of them. At compulsory stops (red roundel on white) buses always stop, even if no passenger requests it. At request stops (white roundel on red), buses only stop if someone on the pavement gesticulates or if someone on board the bus dings the bell. That's what's supposed to happen anyway. But not for much longer.
TfL want to simplify the current system because it's a bit confusing for customers (especially tourists and those with an IQ below 70). Starting this autumn all London bus stops will be compulsory bus stops, with just one set of rules. Passengers won't have to think "Ooh, is the next stop a request stop? Do I need to ring the bell?" because there wont be any request stops any more. And because they will have to ring the bell.
Ringing the bell to get off the bus shouldn't be too much of a hardship because, according to a TfL survey, 80% of people do it already. And everybody does it on nightbuses. But passengers may take rather longer to get used to the new waiting arrangements. Look, here comes a bus. Dont worry, you don't have to wave at it, because it's going to stop anyway. It won't drive past, honest it won't. Because drivers are going to be following new instructions.
Yes, that's bound to work isn't it? Drivers will love stopping all the time, even when it's obvious that nobody wants to get on, just in case somebody does. And this change will mean that bus services in London can only get slower. Previously buses only wasted their time by pulling in at every compulsory stop. Now they're going to waste their time by pulling in at every stop. If ten different routes use one particular bus stop, all ten routes will have to stop even if a passenger is waiting for only one of them. If a couple of teenagers are having a chat on the pavement within a few feet of a bus stop, all the buses are going to have to stop. The drivers will flap their doors open, sit and wait for a few seconds while the kids ignore them, and then close the doors and wait to pull back out into the traffic again. Simpler rules to understand, yes. But faster bus services? Afraid not.
So, the days of the request stop appear to be numbered. If you have any thoughts on these proposals, TfL's Head of Stakeholder Engagement for Surface Transport would like to hear from you. There's a consultation period until 20th July, including a "response framework" questionnaire for interested parties to fill in. Unless responses are numerous and negative, expect all of London's red bus stops to turn white in the Autumn. And be prepared to spend even longer travelling on buses as drivers are forced to pull in to pick up people who didn't wave because they didn't want to get on board. Ding ding.
1951: Born in Glasgow, the eldest son of Dr John and Bunty. 1954: Having experienced extreme poverty for three years, moves to Fife where life is slightly less dour. 1958: Spends every Sunday going to church, taxing his younger brothers and pulling the legs off spiders. 1961: Joins Kirkcaldy Academy where he specialises in hard sums, social justice and heavy frowning. 1965: Passes his O Levels two years early, like the big girly swot he is. 1967: Attempts to keep healthy by playing rugby, but carelessly dislodges his retina instead. 1972: Graduates from Edinburgh University, where he gains a taste for power by being elected Rector. 1976: Evolves into a long haired dope-smoking lecturer-type (but without the dope-smoking, honest). 1980: Sells his soul to the media by becoming a Scottish TV journalist, attracting several hundred viewers. 1983: Elected as the new MP for Dunfermline South. Dr John and Bunty are very proud. 1985: Starts crawling his way up the Labour Party by becoming Shadow Tradebloke and Shadow Economicman. 1994: Agrees power sharing deal at the Granita restaurant in Islington. Gordon gets 50%, and Tony gets 95%. 1997: Election win. Tony gives Gordon the economy to play with, and Gordon gives it away to some bankers. 1998: Starts fiddling with the tax system, and taxing with the fiddling system. 2000: Growls defensively at the Euro, which cowers in a corner and scuttles off. 2001: Election win. Takes from the rich (but not enough) and gives to the poor (but not enough). 2002: Gives Tony a hard stare for not quitting yet, and storms off to bash a pension fund in anger. 2003: Becomes a father, and suddenly transforms into a soft, caring family man (honest, it's not all spin). 2005: Election win. Stares even harder at Tony, who is now assuming God-like proportions on the world stage. 2006: Starts planning his first 100 days in power, and picking new curtains for number 10. 2007: Ruthlessly sweeps aside all competition for Labour leader and is crowned King of the Country in an unopposed bloodless coup. Spends his first 24 hours as PM announcing constitutional reform, affordable housing, retreat from Iraq, an end to world poverty, a new moral order and free lollipops for all. Dr John and Bunty would have been very proud. 2008: Alas the replacement Chancellor isn't terribly good, and blows Gordon's economic stability in an orgy of financial incompetence. 2009: Election loss. Oops, that was a bit careless. Gordon retires and becomes a monk. 2015: Refuses invite to appear on 'The Tony Blair Hour', now the highest rated chatshow on American television.
How many UK PrimeMinisters have you lived through? It may be fewer than you think. Me, I've only lived through six, all of whom I can actually remember. Recent residents of 10 Downing Street have had a remarkable longevity, with both Margaret and Tony managing more than a decade at the top. One wonders whether the next incumbent will perhaps let the side down.
3/4: I may not have posted anything last week but still you came, and on Friday diamond geezer received its three-quarters-of-a-millionth visitor. Woo. This may be a wholly meaningless milestone but hey, any excuse for an update of my regular 'league table' of top linking blogs. As usual it's rank-ordered according to the volume of visitors clicking here from there. And this time I've also included the 'highest climbers' since the half million last August. It's all kicking off.
Thanks for linking, because every click-through is appreciated. And do all feel free to click on a few of the above blogs and return the favour. I'll see you back here for an update sometime next year, maybe, for the magic million.
It's been a very long time coming, but North Greenwich's giant white elephant finally reopened to the public yesterday. There had been a couple of trial events last week, one for Greenwichresidents on Wednesday and a knees-up for sponsors and theiremployees on Saturday. But Sunday was the first day that anyone could go inside and experience the new "hub of entertainment" for themselves. So I did. And I took photos. And it was great to finally get back inside.
Day O1 Rather brilliantly, the owners of the revamped Dome synchronised their reopening with the last day of the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival. The public spaces in and around the Dome were filled with stilt walkers, musicians and eccentric street art, and there was much to see and enjoy. Crowds stood spellbound in the main entrance watching acrobatic "conedancers" [photo]. Milling spectators blocked the foot of the cinema escalators while a deaf drag act camped it up (in sign language) to a diva-esque musical medley [photo]. Elsewhere there were bungee tumblers to admire, giant mechanical insects to experience and intimate one-on-one performances by unembarassable face-painted actors. The annual GDIF is always spectacular, and this was no exception.
The O7 But what's left beneath the Teflon tent once the street theatre departs? Not as much of interest as I was hoping. The main public space is Entertainment Avenue, a fake street stretching two-thirds of the way round the perimeter of the Dome. Only half of it is open at the moment [photo], lined by a selection of pizzerias, steakhouses and Mexican grills. So, it's great if you fancy lunch, but not terribly exciting otherwise. The passage isn't especially broad, particularly with al fresco dining tables spilling out of the surrounding restaurants, which has caused considerablecongestion for early visitors. In the main entrance hall there's a bubbly blue chandelier [photo] and also a single mobile phone shop (you can guess who) which looks like a cross between the Apple Store and the Rainforest Cafe. In London Piazza [photo] (is that really the best name you could come up with guys?) there's a knobbly translucent igloo called the Chill where you can "recharge your personal batteries" with the aid of headphones and a piped "audio landscape" (no thanks). And in Cinema Plaza [photo] (good grief, that's even worse) you can act out your own music video and have it uploaded to your mobile phone. It didn't take me long to work out that I'm so not target audience for this place.
The RadiO2 At the heart of the complex is the main arena, surrounded by a grey concrete walkway blessed with numerous lavatories, bars and ketchup dispensers [photo]. From what I could see through the doors on Level 4 the main arena looks like any other modern cutting-edge arena with a capacity of 20000 - lots of identikit blue stacked seats and corporate boxes. From others'photos there appears to be a giant O-shaped walkway in front of the main stage with a large "2" lower right so that, presumably, the name of the main sponsor imprints itself on your retina during every performance. I truly hope that this was only a temporary debut feature. Bon Jovi were the first paid-for act yesterday, and a succession of stadium-sized ultra-safe Radio-2-friendly acts are lined up to follow them. Which is great, because music of this calibre usually inspires me to stay at home instead, which should save me a lot of money in the future.
The Onoyoudon't Black shirted security guards were everywhere yesterday [photo]. It was their unenviable job to keep tens of thousands of curious non-fee-paying visitors at bay, and to stop us from going where we shouldn't. Not up these stairs, not past this rope, and most definitely not inside that arena. One told me off for walking through a restaurant seating area when I was trying to find the way into the cinema (signage is pretty poor, so it wasn't as obvious as you might think). The bloke who frisked me (front and back) before I could pass into the outer arena walkway [photo] was rather friendlier, and declined to confiscate my phone when I told him it wasn't the officially preferred network. But most scary of all was the shaven-headed bloke in a fluorescent jacket labelled "Trademark and Copyright Team" [photo]. He was scanning visitors as they arrived, no doubt on the alert for any outbreak of unofficial ambush marketing. Because, you know, the main Dome sponsors have paid a lot of money to splash their name everywhere, and our appreciation of their brand monopoly needs to be enforced.
The Ozero The reborn Dome is clearly going to be a great success, if only because of the arena at its heart. Anywhere that can sell Barbra Streisand tickets at £500 a time is most definitely onto a winner. The Indigo nightclub should draw in the punters after dark, and people will always want to eat overpriced pizzas. But that's as far as it goes for now. I'm not convinced that North Greenwich needs another multi-screen cinema (there are 11 screens here to add to 18 more just half a mile down the road). A third of the available internal space is wasted on a walled-off concrete void where the Super Casino was going to be, but isn't [photo]. Indeed, despite the vastness of the site there's not really anything here (yet) to make this a must-visit spur-of-the-moment destination. Maybe they should bring back the acrobats, drag queens and stilt walkers because, alas, I'm not sure why I'd want to go back inside otherwise.
I'm back home again, after an improbably rain-free week in Northumberland. If you want to read about some of the places I've visited, look below (I'll be filling in the six-day gap bit by bit over the weekend). If you don't care about where I've been, come back on Monday (you miserable Londonophiles).
The north Northumberland coast forms one of England's official Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. There are no major towns or industrial estates along this coastline, just dunes and rocks and beaches and several tiny fishing villages. One of these is Craster (population 370), whose shell-shaped stone harbour is protected from the fiercest North Sea storms by a natural rocky breakwater. The local economy was based on the humble herring, unladen at the quayside and cured in smokehouses above the harbour. They still smoke Craster kippers here today, but the herring is imported (and the seafood restaurant nextdoor is unexpectedly unwelcoming). Almost all of the cottages along the harbour are now holiday homes, which is all very well at this time of year but sadly bleak and soulless during the windswept winter. It seems that we tourists are busy destroying the very communities we've come to see.
A mile and a half north of Craster lie the ruins of DunstanburghCastle. You can't drive there, so the coastal footpath is awash with ambling tourists. A National Trust volunteer lies in wait at the start of the walk, eager to pounce on passers-by and sign them up for long-term heritage membership (direct debit preferred). It may be several minutes along the path, especially in misty weather, before the long wall of the castle appears spread across the headland in front of you. Don't get over-excited - this one long wall is all you're going to get. The rest of John of Gaunt's fortress was destroyed during two sieges in the Wars of the Roses, so the only buildings standing within the invisible ramparts are the ticket office and a couple of portaloos. A single spiral staircase ascends the crumbling gatehouse tower [photo], through whose arrow-slit windows dart hungry swifts in search of food. From the top storey you can look back along the coast to Craster, or maybe out across the pristine sandy curve of Embleton Bay (if the mist isn't too thick). Oh yes, this is truly Natural Beauty. Outstanding.
Also worth a visit... Howick Hall: Ancestral home of Earl Grey (yes, him, the Prime Minister who introduced bergamot-blend tea to Britain in the 1830s). The gardens are exquisite [photo], the new arboretum is extensive, and the tearoom serves proper Earl Grey. Unexpectedly adorable.
Alnwick (pronounced 'Annik') is a market town on the Great North Road which owes its importance to a large Norman castle. It's the second largest inhabited castle in Britain, after Windsor, and you'll have seen it many times on the small and big screen. The first Edmund Blackadder lived here, as did Kevin Costner's arch-enemy the Sheriff of Nottingham. More recently it's doubled up as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films - many's the Quidditch lesson that's taken place on the pristine lawn between the main keep and the Barbican tower [photo]. Alnwick Castle is home to the Duke of Northumberland, one of the more important British noblemen, who graciously allows the public to troop around his state apartments to see how the other half 0.001% live. Every room on the tour is over-ornate, über-showy, and littered with old portraits and modern family photographs. The ubiquitous photos feel like a Hello centrespread ("In medieval magnificence we meet Ralph, Lady Isobel and their utterly gorgeous offspring") and no opportunity is missed to point out that the family are jolly good friends with the Queen and several of her ancestors. The view from the battlements [photo] is of a totally unspoilt verdant valley and, after the tourists go home in the evening, this must be a magical place to live. Don't be jealous now.
A new attraction just down the road is the AlnwickGarden, the horticultural brainchild of the Duchess of Northumberland. She's created a new green public space for locals and tourists alike, complete with water features, sculptures and acres of plants. The garden has only been open since 2002 and isn't quite finished yet, but there's still plenty to see. Centrepiece is the Grand Cascade which tumbles valleyward with choreographed fountains spurting half-hourly into the sky [photo]. At the top of the slope is a well-tended Ornamental Garden, and lower down a series of smaller themed areas. Particularly popular are the sweet-smelling pergolas of the Rose Garden and the metal water sculptures in the Serpent Garden[photo]. A deadly Poison Garden has been established behind locked gates, inside which tour guides delight in pointing out all the killer plants that lurk unnoticed in your own back garden. Toddlers play happily on the mini-tractors at the foot of the main fountain, scooping water from the cascade and dumping it unceremoniously on their parents' feet. Older children, meanwhile, are more likely to enjoy swaying across the rope bridges of the big wooden Treehouse. It's a glorious half-day out, especially in midsummer sunshine, but you're probably better off coming back when the place is finished.
Also worth a visit... Barter Books: a huge second-hand bookshop housed inside Alnwick's disused railway station [photo]
If you want to visit the cradle of English Christianity, you need to pick your time carefully. A three mile causeway is the only road link between Holy Island and the Northumberland mainland, and for ten hours each day it lies underwater. Cross at the wrong time and you'll have to abandon your vehicle and climb a ladder into a wooden refuge above the incoming waves. There are no traffic lights, no warning signals, just a set of tide tables in a glass case at either end of the causeway. If you and your submerged car end up splashed across the local press, it'll be your own fault.
Alternatively, if you're even more careful, you can walk across the bay by following a line of tall wooden posts. A monk called Aidan came this way in 635 AD, sent to the island on a mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria to Christianity. Modern Britain bears the stamp of his religious legacy to this day. His monastery's most famous treasure are the ornate LindisfarneGospels, rescued from the island when the Vikings invaded and now to be seen... ah, damn, 350 miles away in the British Museum. Benedictine monks returned to Holy Island in 1082, founding a Priory whose imposing ruins still stand today [photo], just down the road from the post office, two pubs and several gift shops. Don't come here today expecting peace and spiritual solitude.
The southwest corner of Holy Island has evolved into a tourist-orientedvillage. Coach parties stream across the causeway between high tides. Visitors wander the narrow lanes clutching ice creams and tea towels. The street down to the parish church is lined with holiday cottages. A hoppa shuttle ferries elderly visitors a few hundred yards from car park to interactive Heritage Centre. The boathouses by the harbour are swarming with artists and amateur photographers [photo]. The beach is infested with schoolkids munching crisps and sandwiches. And yet, against all the odds, a tangible sense of spiritualenlightenment remains.
The southeast corner of the island is very different. Here, atop a lone rocky crag surrounded by sheep, sits the lonely outpost of Lindisfarne Castle[photo]. There's nothing overly special about the outer structure, an old Tudor fort, but the inside is quite spectacular. 100 years ago this crumbling pile was transformed into an intimate holiday home for the founder of Country Life magazine by renowned architect Edwin Lutyens. He converted the internal space into a series of arched rooms and twisty passageways, with steps and low ceilings which no doubt today would be banned under Health and Safety legislation. From the roof you can look out in splendid isolation across the village, harbour and bay [photo]. From the bedrooms the view is a little bleaker, but offset by the Gertrude Jekyllgarden - a stone-walled quadrilateral of hardy plants. You'd probably love a stately pile like this, but the original owner sold up after just ten summers and the "Castle" is now under the ownership of the National Trust. Don't stay too long yourself either, you don't want to have to swim home.
Back in industrial Victorian Britain, Sir William Armstrong was an all-round inventive genius. He was an expert scientist with an interest in electricity and hydraulics. He was a successful engineer who designed ships and weapons of mass destruction. And in 1880 his Cheviot moorland house, Cragside, became the first anywhere in the world to be lit by electricity [photo].
Sir William's thirst for invention led him to design several labour-saving devices which kept his household ticking over more efficiently. In his kitchen he installed an automatic rotating spit and an elementary dishwasher – not bad for the 19th century. To help his staff to move around the house quicker he installed a fully functional hydraulic passenger lift. And to power all of these appliances, in an age well before the National Grid, he created a series of artificial lakes and used them to generate a steady supply of hydroelectricity. Which is how, in 1880, he became the first person to adopt Joseph Swan's brand new electric filament bulb to light his house. Thomas Edison may have been first to the patent office, but William Armstrong was first to flick the domestic switch.
The original four table lamps – resembling glowing glass globes perched on top of elegant china vases - still light the drawing room today. Most visitors fail to notice their significance, preferring instead to ooh and aah at all the fixtures and furnishings preserved throughout this vast 100-room house. Cragside's setting is spectacular, perched halfway up a hillside overlooking a thick coniferous valley. At this time of year Sir William's 400 acre estate is resplendent with pink and purple rhododendrons (not all of which have yet wilted, not quite). The National Trust faithful come in their hundreds to enjoy the heady combination of horticultural expertise and engineering brilliance. And a very nice teashop, of course.
A couple of miles off the north Northumberland coast, close to Bamburgh Castle, lie a chain of 28 rocky islands with a population in the hundreds of thousands. Seabirds, that is, who flock to the FarneIslands in early summer to breed and to nest. And for less than £20 you can sail out to see them, and walk amongst them, and even get aerially bombarded by them. What a treat.
Pick your day carefully (becalmed and blue sky-ed is perfect) and head for the small coastal resort of Seahouses. Down by the harbourside are the ticket offices of fivedifferentboatcompanies, each fighting for a share of the seasonal tourist trade. Some appear to be doing rather better than others (although the more popular your tour operator, the more squashed you'll be in the boat that takes you out around the islands).
On the chugging journey across to the islands you start to notice cute little birds bobbing in the waves, and scudding low over the North Sea like tiny guided missiles, and soaring with wings outstretched over the boat, and... good grief, there are puffins everywhere! These adorable little birds are the most populous on the islands, but they share the rocks with guillemots, kittiwakes, cormorants and gulls. In May and June the cliffs of the larger islands are covered with squawking breeding pairs (and a nasty smelly white substance whose origin you can all too readily imagine). The boat sails right up close to several of the larger colonies where parents are nesting, chicks are hatching and neighbours are squabbling. It's like starring in your very own episode of Springwatch.
Out on the furthest islands the boat pauses beside a colony of grey seals. The seals stare back at the human intruders with a mixture of disinterest and disdain, before flopping inelegantly into the water or closing their eyes for a good long bask. Just round the corner is the Longstone Lighthouse, from which GraceDarling and her father set out in a tiny rowing boat in 1838 to rescue nine survivors from the wreck of the Forfarshire. Had Blue Peter been broadcast in those days, 22-year old Grace would undoubtedly have won a gold badge for her endeavours. As it was, sadly, she dies from tuberculosis just four years later. It's a tough life living in a windswept wavestruck tower in the unforgiving waters of the North Sea.
Highlight of my tour was a landing on Inner Farne – an NT-owned historical site and utterly-teeming bird sanctuary [photo]. It's chick-feeding time at the moment, and the island is a seething mass of avian life. And dangerous too. Walk up the boardwalk from the harbour and you can expect to be repeatedly dive-bombed by angry Arctic terns [photo]. They're enraged that you've ignored their angry guttural squawks and have dared to intrude so close to their nests. Down they swoop, aiming for the top of your head, ready to peck and poke in the hope that you'll move away quickly. And ouch, that nip hurts. Well-prepared trippers wear a protective sunhat, or wave an arm above their head in an attempt to keep beak away from bonce. Meanwhile the island's four semi-resident bird wardens walk around serene and unperturbed beneath guano-splattered headgear.
St Aidan lived on Inner Farne back in the 7th century, and very sensibly he built a small stone chapel which provides refuge from aerial attack. But don't hide away, be brave, because the footpaths further up the island are all perfectly safe too. You can walk right up to the clifftops and look down on guillemots and razorbills packed and stacked across the rockface [photo]. Some are nesting only a few feet away, with greedy gaping beaks peering out expectantly from beneath their parent's black oily wings. Meanwhile in the grassy centre of the island are crowds of lovable puffins, guarding over the burrows in which their single offspring are busy hatching [photo]. Off flies Dad across the sea, returning with a mouthful of sprats which he attempts to get back to Mum before a diving gull snatches them away. You could easily stay and watch this natural spectacle for hours, but the boat'll be leaving soon. Good luck getting back to the harbour unassaulted.
Of all the pitched battles fought between the English and the Scots (eg Bannockburn 1314, Wembley 1977), the largest and bloodiest skirmish took place nearly 500 years ago on Flodden Field. King James IV of Scotland thought it would be a good idea to declare war on England while King Henry VIII was away fighting in Italy. And so, on a damp September afternoon in 1513, a huge Scottish army assembled high above the Tweed Valley on the eastern edge of the Cheviot Hills. Their defensive position was strong, but a cavalier advance down from the hilltop proved a costly mistake. Within just three hours the advancing English army had slaughtered ten thousand men, and one of those was the King himself.
They grow barley in Flodden Field today, beneath a tall stone cross which commemorates the dead from both sides [photo]. Standing atop the ridge you can look out across the battlefield, now verdant farmland, towards the slopes down which so many Scottish pikemen made their final charge. A narrow boggy gully divides the enemy positions, once running with blood, where skylarks now play. Recently a mile-long walking trail has been established around the heart of the battlefield, with a series of excellent information boards relating different chapters in this sorry tale of mass inter-national carnage. A couple of miles to the north the Scottish border weaves invisibly across a silent valley. The site has an eerie silence, and an inappropriate beauty.
It's been a year since I last took a week's holiday, so I thought it was about time I did the same again. I'm not going quite as far as Scotland this time, but nearly. I'm off to the toppermostcounty in England which, scandalously, I've never visited before. I'll be staying in a fishing village along the utterly gorgeous coast, with a bedroom view straight out across the North Sea. Let's hope it doesn't chuck it down with rain too often.
I have severe doubts that this rural location will be blessed with leaky wi-fi connections, so blog updates are unlikely until I return (but you never know). In the meantime I shall attempt to provide you with a steady stream of Twitters by uploading text messages direct from my mobile phone. Don't expect thrilling hourly updates, but I'll try to bring you a flavour of the glorious North East whenever the opportunity arises. Because I'd hate you to think that you were missing out.
If you get bored while I'm away, here are some other things to look at:
• The Millennium Dome reopens on June 24th as a mobile-sponsored entertainment hub - The O7. A new public space has just been opened outside, called PeninsulaSquare, and I've been along to take some photos. To see 20 of them, either click on the photo link in my sidebar or click here. It'll never be this empty again.
• You could always go and Walk the Olympic Park.
• There's plenty of olddiamond geezerstuff to look through instead. This blog now has 58 monthly archive pages listed in the sidebar, so you could pick one of those at random every day and re-read it. That'd keep you busy until August (but I promise I'll be back a lot quicker than that).
An important settlement for around two millennia, London is today one of the world's leading underwater theme parks.
Only a few remnants of Old London remain above sea level, notably Purley Cliffs and Biggin Hill. At low tide the London Eye, rebuilt following terrorist attack in 2039, can just be seen poking above the waters of Westminster Bay.
London forms part of the Northwest European continental shelf, and falls under the administrative jurisdiction of the ReUnited Kingdom.
Tourism and cultureVisitors to London usually set sail from the nation's capital, Birmingham-on-Sea. Hoverskims depart from Bullring Beach every hour, taking approximately seventeen minutes to reach the Greater London Maritime Zone. On arrival at North Greenwich Floating Pierhead, visitors descend by glass elevator into the world's largest underwater seadome - The CO2. Here all Carbon Passports are scanned and debited, and those with Negative Emission Equity are quarantined until their personal account equalises.
Bay-top attractions include the Hammersmith Lightship, Harrow Weald Island and the Dagenham International Surfboard Marina. A honeymoon resort has been established on the Canary Wharf Islands - an artificial archipelago of submerged skyscrapers. Couples can get married on a variety of themed lagoon beaches, taking full advantage of the area's tropical climate. Because the site lies in international waters, inter-species marriages are permitted here.
Environmental historyMain article: History of pre-Innundation London. Much of London was lost beneath the sea during the three-day winter of 2063 when the Thames Riverwall gave way. The subsequent tidal wave caused 13 million deaths in the Woolwich area alone, and finally ended a century of property price rises across the capital. Private equity consortium Metrowet was later found guilty of gross negligence and its directors banished to Lunar Penal Camp 7. English First Minister Jadine Mbutu was forced to relocate Parliament first to Hampstead and then, as water levels rose further, to a village hall just outside Coventry.
Archaeologists recently embarked on a series of deep-level dives to recover artefacts from the London surface[27]. Beneath Livingstone Square they found evidence of an ancient means of submarine travel called Oyster, whereby residents used blue cards to propel themselves along flooded tubes in leaky metal carriages. They also discovered millions of abandoned rusty four-wheeled vehicles, each powered by a petrol-driven engine banned under the Mumbai Convention of 2070. Carbon Police are currently attempting to trace the former owners of these vehicles so that their descendants can be sued for contributing to global flooding.
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It's getting more and more crowded on the tube, and not because there are more passengers. It's because of bags. People never used to carry quite so many bags around with them, but now nearly everybody has at least one. Handbags, shoulder bags, carrier bags, gym bags, the list is almost endless. And what a lot of carriage space they take up. There you are trying to squeeze onto a train in the rush hour, but it's almost impossible to get on because a significant percentage of the carriage space is being taken up by bags. See that suited City bloke with a laptop bag in his hand and a holdall slung over his shoulder? Don't get too close or he'll squash you. Selfish space-hogger. See that secretary standing in the doorway with her cavernous handbag and three designer shopping bags? She may be thin herself, but these bags make her the spatial equivalent of an obese whopper. Selfish space-hogger. See that paint-stained workman with a chunky fat toolbox down on the floor where everyone keeps tripping over it? Nobody can get close to him. Selfish space-hogger. See that shaggy student type with a bulging rucksack drooping from his back? He's taking up double the space he would normally, because nobody can stand in the shadow of his artificial hunchback. Selfish space-hogger. This crowd and their excessive bag quotient are smugly clogging up the train, and there I am left standing on the platform as the doors close. Bags don't buy tickets, bags don't have a job to go to, but bags are travelling by tube in place of genuine passengers. If only a few more people would leave their carriers at home, more of the rest of us could be carried ourselves.
It's getting more and more crowded on the tube, and not because there are more passengers. It's because of newspapers. People never used to carry quite so many newspapers around with them, but now nearly everybody has at least one. The number of free papers being thrust into Londoners' hands is almost endless. And what a lot of carriage space reading those newspapers takes up. There you are trying to squeeze onto a train in the rush hour, but it's almost impossible to get on because a significant percentage of the commuters inside insist on reading their newspapers. See that suited City bloke with a Financial Times flapping in his hands? He's not shutting it for anyone. Selfish space-hogger. See that secretary standing in the doorway engrossed in her London Lite? She's not noticed you, so you'll have to squeeze round to one side (if you can). Selfish space-hogger. See that paint-stained workman checking out the back of a red-top tabloid? Nobody's getting in the way of him reading the latest sports news. Selfish space-hogger. See that shaggy student type flicking through a discarded Metro? He's taking up double the space he would normally, because nobody's allowed to stand within his quarantined newsprint triangle. Selfish space-hogger. This crowd, and their refusal to stop reading when more commuters want to get on, are unnecessarily clogging up the train. Nobody has a divine right to read in an overcrowded carriage, nobody's open newspaper deserves to leave other passengers stranded on the platform. If only a few more people would learn to tolerate unstimulated commuting, more of the rest of us could climb on board.
Millinery guidance for the young gentlefolk of Bow
serious headgear advisory for the E3 massive
Pop down to your local clothing shop and buy yourself a cap. Caps are very trendy at the moment. Everyone's wearing caps. Get yourself a cap.
yo wasapenin, wotcha need is a well smart cap, coz caps are totally phat bro, getchaself a right blingin cap from down Roman Road market alright
Now this must be a large cap, sonny. Not a dinky little baseball cap but a proper high fronted number with a nigh vertical slope. These finer touches are important.
gotta be full frontal, a proper biggedy biggedy cap, buy yourself a boss style, da steeper da better, coz anything flat is well last year, and we laugh at ya
Place the cap upon your head but don't pull it down. It must look like it's made of helium and somehow floating a few millimetres above your scalp.
wear ya cap with pride, but keep it light, mustn't squash your shiny gel spikes in front of your bruvvas, whatever, coz that'd be totally asbo
Whatever you do, don't let the peak of the cap face the front. That's so wrong. An anti-clockwise rotation of between 110° and 160° is sartorially acceptable.
spin dat cap boi, spin it good stick it to the rear boi, stick it outback twist dat cap boi, twist it good yer looking cool boi, rolling fresh
Now tilt the cap slightly backwards. It needs to recline at a jaunty angle, preferably somewhere between 20° and 40°. Not too far back, obviously, or you'll look like an idiot.
tippit back and make a stand, you gotta look erect, point your cap away from da street and up to da skies, dats how we do, it's completely mortal, it's proper beats
That's it, you've got the East End cap mentality perfectly. Now go and meet your cap-clone mates, hang around on your nearest street corner, and sneer.
hey streetmaster, yer looking wicked and yer face is right jackin, this is yer empire now capboi, it's gettin tribal, go hang out with da E3 massive and get random
By the way, I have to say that the new DizzeeRascalalbum isn't very good, is it? Nothing stand-out, nothing with chart hooks, which is a damned shame.
big up our mate mcdizzee, yer Crossways posse salutes ya boi, dem is well banging tunes, coz grime is where it's at, and der rascal's cap is fierce innit?
Is it just me, or are there more stupid people than usual working for London-based PR projects at the moment?
The latest media-based fiasco to hit town is Capital Radio's Lights Out London campaign, which is planned to take place between 9pm and 10pm on Thursday of next week.
Well, sadly no. Because the hyped-up PR gibbons have forgotten one very important fact about next Thursday - the longest day of the year. It won't actually be dark at 9pm. Brilliant.
HM The Queen: I say Philip, it's 9 o'clock and Buckingham Palace is taking part in the Lights Out London event thing. Be a good chap and turn off all the unnecessary lights in one's royal residence will you? HRH Prince Philip: But it's not actually dark, so I haven't turned any of the lights on yet. HM The Queen: Oh bugger.
If you head down to the middle of Canary Wharf at 9pm to experience the magic moment when all the lights go out and the stars suddenly become visible, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Sunset in Londonon June 21st isn't until 9:20pm, and even then it won't get dark immediately. Halfway through the hour-long event it'll still be bright enough outdoors not to need streetlights. Only as 10pm approaches will the sky darken appreciably, at which point the event will end and everyone will switch their lights back on again. Genius.
Still, it could have been worse. Capital Radio were originally planning to hold the event between 8pm and 9pm - far more media-friendly but astronomically even more useless. If they wanted to make a proper impact they should have waited until 10pm for the grand switch off, or chosen a date in the spring or autumn with an earlier sunset instead. But no, they're blundering on with their mistimed event, diluting any appreciable impact that this otherwise creditable campaign might have had.
Of course, even if it's not dark at 9pm next Thursday you can still make a difference by switching off all unnecessary appliances (including those on standby). This may not produce a grand visual gesture across the not-quite-twilight skies of the capital, but the National Grid will certainly notice if enough people take part. Switch Off London, they should have called it, even if that's not as alliterative as the original name. Because the daylight kick-off to Lights Out London is doomed not to be noticed.
As for me, I intend to be hundreds of miles away from the capital at the time, in a tiny fishing village where the sun doesn't set until rather later in the evening. It seems that I'll be participating in Lights Out London by default. So do me a favour. If you see anyone turning the lights off in my flat between 9pm and 10pm next Thursday please ring 999 immediately, because that'll be burglars.
For those of us who live in the Lower Lea Valley, the most important current item of 2012 news isn't the launch of the new Games logo, it's the imminent sealing off of the OlympicPark. Because the end is nigh, and now there's a date. Up until Sunday July 1st you'll still be able to live in, work in and wander through these 500 designated acres of industrial riverside. But on Monday July 2nd all the roads will be sealed off, a barrier will be erected around the perimeter and permanent eviction begins. If you want to pay a visit to this extra-special environment, for free, just three weeks now remain. After that you'll have to wait for five years, and buy a ticket.
The Olympic Delivery Authority's lawyers have been extremely busy right across the area recently attaching Compulsory Purchase Orders to walls, fences and lampposts. Each pack consists of several sheets of paper which read "Oi, we're coming in and we're taking over", only in considerably more legal language. Many businesses up Marshgate Lane have upped and gone already. They've cleared out their belongings, left a forwarding address on the gate and scarpered, leaving the ODA with plenty of clearing up to do. But not everybody's gone yet. They're still curing salmon at H Forman & Son, and the guard dogs at Wallis Motor and Salvage still bark as ferociously as they ever did. Meanwhile to the north of the site, along Waterden Road, an evangelicalchurch, a Travellers' site and three bus garages have yet to move on. There's an awful lot of packing up still to go.
But an extensive network of wooden fences are already being erected. They're big and blue (why are they always blue?) and they're being hammered in alongside the handful of public footpaths that will remain open during the run-up to the Games. Nobody will be able to stray off the Greenway in the future, not once the final gap in the blue fence is plugged. Beyond the new wall, until very recently, were earthy mounds over which young bikers loved to practice their motocross skills. But these have all been levelled and severed, and the local boy racers are now noticeable by their absence. Meanwhile the green metal signposts which marked access points off the pathway have been ripped from the verge and dumped in an unceremonious heap of rubble behind the fence. It's a sign of things to come.
I took a not-quite-last stroll around the Olympic Park yesterday afternoon, just because I could. And I was particularly pleased to discover that the towpath alongside the Waterworks River had been unexpectedly unlocked. This path was firmly sealed off at both ends a couple of years ago, and I thought I'd never walk along it again. But someone has bent the bars in the fence at the northern end, and the gate to the south was wide open, so I thought I'd risk the 1km jungle safari inbetween.
It definitely wasn't this tough a journey the last time I visited. But natural vegetation has now had a couple of seasons to colonise the riverside (formerly wheelchair accessible) and the footpath is almost impenetrable at times. Thorny brambles, cow parsley and nettles stood above head height in places, and I was glad not to be wearing a t-shirt and shorts. At certain points I had to crouch to squeeze through a tunnel of foliage or stumble inelegantly over a fallen tree. But the riverside vista, now so rarely seen by human eyes, was well worth the adventure. Dragonflies floated silently above the water's edge. Bumble bees buzzed from dog rose to convolvulus. Freshly-paired waterfowl paddled between the reedbeds. Were it not for the excavators digging the foundations of the new Aquatic Centre on the opposite bank, it would have been hard to imagine that this was central London at all. But this won't be an overgrown rural idyll for much longer. By 2012 this towpath will have been swept away to make room for the Park's central walkway, and crossed by the main "land bridge" between Stratford City and the Olympic Stadium. And, I fear, it'll only be a few select visitors who'll ever remember the living waterway that once existed here.
All of the Bow Back Rivers are worth one final visit (or even a first visit if you've never been here before). Remember this is your very last chance to see the site that, for a single fortnight in 2012, will be the most famous location on the entire planet. And if you're heartily sick of me saying that, take comfort that I'll stop saying it in three weeks time. I wonder how many final visits I can make before then.
If it's a prime London location you're after, you can't do better than Bow. This bijou East End jewel stands astride the old Roman Road to Colchester, and the area still drips with historic charm to this day. Some of the rugged brownbrick apartment blocks overlooking Bow's medieval church date back almost to the 1950s. Thousands of local residents wake each morning in their council-owned maisonettes, fling open their windows and breathe in the exhaust fumes from the Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road. These are perfect family residences, often sleeping four to a room, with the smell of spice wafting gently across washing lines and threadbare lawns. To the west the three towers of the Crossways Estate soar majestically into the concrete sky. Take the unpredictable yellow-stained lift to the top floor and soak up the glorious view across East London's almost-gleaming rooftops. Local services are second to none, with a launderette on your doorstep and an off licence conveniently situated for that mid-morning can of bench-slurped low-cost lager. For the perfect dinner party, the friendly chefs at the Bow Fish Bar will pack you off home with gift-wrapped cod and vintage Panda Pops. Who needs cottage living when you can have urban style? There's nothing artificial about Bow. I can't imagine why it doesn't feature in the property supplements more often.
If property investment is your forte, now is the time to cast an eye over London's Olympic Quarter. New nine-storey buy-to-let opportunities are springing up all along 2012's Marathon Boulevard, and the wise entrepreneur is already making plans to move in. These elevated apartments make an ideal second home, perfect for stumbling back to bed late after all the excitement of the javelin finals in five years time. The finest prime estate potential can be found on the northern outskirts of up-and-coming E15, nestling beside the leafy pastures of Hackney Marsh. It's here that the Athletes Village will be established, rammed full with sports-friendly carbon-neutral dwelling spaces. But the athletes won't be around for long. After the Olympics these stylish designer boxes can be snapped up for peanuts - ideal for those in need of a little luxurious loft living. There'll even be a state-of-the-art John Lewis nextdoor, and on-the-spot connections to Paris, the Riviera and beyond. Whose property portfolio could possibly resist?
London has a new endangered species. They're tall and red, with a grey stripe and a white underbelly. They tend to perch by the roadside or stand on street corners. They're almost always seen in pairs. They're request stops. And they've been earmarked for extinction.
TfL have been reviewing the current system of request and compulsory stops in London. We propose to remove the distinction between compulsory and request stops. This will result in a single approach to the use of all bus stops. Both passengers and drivers will be affected.Bus stops - both compulsory and request - have been used in London for about 70 years, and there are now more than 18000 of them. At compulsory stops (red roundel on white) buses always stop, even if no passenger requests it. At request stops (white roundel on red), buses only stop if someone on the pavement gesticulates or if someone on board the bus dings the bell. That's what's supposed to happen anyway. But not for much longer.So, the days of the request stop appear to be numbered. If you have any thoughts on these proposals, TfL's Head of Stakeholder Engagement for Surface Transport would like to hear from you. There's a consultation period until 20th July, including a "response framework" questionnaire for interested parties to fill in. Unless responses are numerous and negative, expect all of London's red bus stops to turn white in the Autumn. And be prepared to spend even longer travelling on buses as drivers are forced to pull in to pick up people who didn't wave because they didn't want to get on board. Ding ding.
2007: Ruthlessly sweeps aside all competition for Labour leader and is crowned King of the Country in an unopposed bloodless coup. Spends his first 24 hours as PM announcing constitutional reform, affordable housing, retreat from Iraq, an end to world poverty, a new moral order and free lollipops for all. Dr John and Bunty would have been very proud.
It's been a very long time coming, but North Greenwich's giant white elephant finally reopened to the public yesterday. There had been a couple of trial events last week, one for Greenwich residents on Wednesday and a knees-up for sponsors and their employees on Saturday. But Sunday was the first day that anyone could go inside and experience the new "hub of entertainment" for themselves. So I did. And I took photos. And it was great to finally get back inside.
The O7
Black shirted security guards were everywhere yesterday [photo]. It was their unenviable job to keep tens of thousands of curious non-fee-paying visitors at bay, and to stop us from going where we shouldn't. Not up these stairs, not past this rope, and most definitely not inside that arena. One told me off for walking through a restaurant seating area when I was trying to find the way into the cinema (signage is pretty poor, so it wasn't as obvious as you might think). The bloke who frisked me (front and back) before I could pass into the outer arena walkway [photo] was rather friendlier, and declined to confiscate my phone when I told him it wasn't the officially preferred network. But most scary of all was the shaven-headed bloke in a fluorescent jacket labelled "Trademark and Copyright Team" [photo]. He was scanning visitors as they arrived, no doubt on the alert for any outbreak of unofficial ambush marketing. Because, you know, the main Dome sponsors have paid a lot of money to splash their name everywhere, and our appreciation of their brand monopoly needs to be enforced.
I'm back home again, after an improbably rain-free week in Northumberland. If you want to read about some of the places I've visited, look below (I'll be filling in the six-day gap bit by bit over the weekend). If you don't care about where I've been, come back on Monday (you miserable Londonophiles).
The north Northumberland coast forms one of England's official Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. There are no major towns or industrial estates along this coastline, just dunes and rocks and beaches and several tiny fishing villages. One of these is Craster (population 370), whose shell-shaped stone harbour is protected from the fiercest North Sea storms by a natural rocky breakwater. The local economy was based on the humble herring, unladen at the quayside and cured in smokehouses above the harbour. They still smoke Craster kippers here today, but the herring is imported (and the seafood restaurant nextdoor is unexpectedly unwelcoming). Almost all of the cottages along the harbour are now holiday homes, which is all very well at this time of year but sadly bleak and soulless during the windswept winter. It seems that we tourists are busy destroying the very communities we've come to see.
A mile and a half north of Craster lie the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle. You can't drive there, so the coastal footpath is awash with ambling tourists. A National Trust volunteer lies in wait at the start of the walk, eager to pounce on passers-by and sign them up for long-term heritage membership (direct debit preferred). It may be several minutes along the path, especially in misty weather, before the long wall of the castle appears spread across the headland in front of you. Don't get over-excited - this one long wall is all you're going to get. The rest of John of Gaunt's fortress was destroyed during two sieges in the Wars of the Roses, so the only buildings standing within the invisible ramparts are the ticket office and a couple of portaloos. A single spiral staircase ascends the crumbling gatehouse tower [photo], through whose arrow-slit windows dart hungry swifts in search of food. From the top storey you can look back along the coast to Craster, or maybe out across the pristine sandy curve of Embleton Bay (if the mist isn't too thick). Oh yes, this is truly Natural Beauty. Outstanding.
Alnwick (pronounced 'Annik') is a market town on the Great North Road which owes its importance to a large Norman castle. It's the second largest inhabited castle in Britain, after Windsor, and you'll have seen it many times on the small and big screen. The first Edmund Blackadder lived here, as did Kevin Costner's arch-enemy the Sheriff of Nottingham. More recently it's doubled up as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films - many's the Quidditch lesson that's taken place on the pristine lawn between the main keep and the Barbican tower [photo]. Alnwick Castle is home to the Duke of Northumberland, one of the more important British noblemen, who graciously allows the public to troop around his state apartments to see how the other
A new attraction just down the road is the Alnwick Garden, the horticultural brainchild of the Duchess of Northumberland. She's created a new green public space for locals and tourists alike, complete with water features, sculptures and acres of plants. The garden has only been open since 2002 and isn't quite finished yet, but there's still plenty to see. Centrepiece is the Grand Cascade which tumbles valleyward with choreographed fountains spurting half-hourly into the sky [photo]. At the top of the slope is a well-tended Ornamental Garden, and lower down a series of smaller themed areas. Particularly popular are the sweet-smelling pergolas of the Rose Garden and the metal water sculptures in the Serpent Garden [photo]. A deadly Poison Garden has been established behind locked gates, inside which tour guides delight in pointing out all the killer plants that lurk unnoticed in your own back garden. Toddlers play happily on the mini-tractors at the foot of the main fountain, scooping water from the cascade and dumping it unceremoniously on their parents' feet. Older children, meanwhile, are more likely to enjoy swaying across the rope bridges of the big wooden Treehouse. It's a glorious half-day out, especially in midsummer sunshine, but you're probably better off coming back when the place is finished.
If you want to visit the cradle of English Christianity, you need to pick your time carefully. A three mile causeway is the only road link between Holy Island and the Northumberland mainland, and for ten hours each day it lies underwater. Cross at the wrong time and you'll have to abandon your vehicle and climb a ladder into a wooden refuge above the incoming waves. There are no traffic lights, no warning signals, just a set of tide tables in a glass case at either end of the causeway. If you and your submerged car end up splashed across the local press, it'll be your own fault.
Benedictine monks returned to Holy Island in 1082, founding a Priory whose imposing ruins still stand today [photo], just down the road from the post office, two pubs and several gift shops. Don't come here today expecting peace and spiritual solitude.
The southeast corner of the island is very different. Here, atop a lone rocky crag surrounded by sheep, sits the lonely outpost of Lindisfarne Castle [photo]. There's nothing overly special about the outer structure, an old Tudor fort, but the inside is quite spectacular. 100 years ago this crumbling pile was transformed into an intimate holiday home for the founder of Country Life magazine by renowned architect Edwin Lutyens. He converted the internal space into a series of arched rooms and twisty passageways, with steps and low ceilings which no doubt today would be banned under Health and Safety legislation. From the roof you can look out in splendid isolation across the village, harbour and bay [photo]. From the bedrooms the view is a little bleaker, but offset by the Gertrude Jekyll garden - a stone-walled quadrilateral of hardy plants. You'd probably love a stately pile like this, but the original owner sold up after just ten summers and the "Castle" is now under the ownership of the National Trust. Don't stay too long yourself either, you don't want to have to swim home.
Back in industrial Victorian Britain, Sir William Armstrong was an all-round inventive genius. He was an expert scientist with an interest in electricity and hydraulics. He was a successful engineer who designed ships and weapons of mass destruction. And in 1880 his Cheviot moorland house, Cragside, became the first anywhere in the world to be lit by electricity [photo].
A couple of miles off the north Northumberland coast, close to Bamburgh Castle, lie a chain of 28 rocky islands with a population in the hundreds of thousands. Seabirds, that is, who flock to the Farne Islands in early summer to breed and to nest. And for less than £20 you can sail out to see them, and walk amongst them, and even get aerially bombarded by them. What a treat.
Out on the furthest islands the boat pauses beside a colony of grey seals. The seals stare back at the human intruders with a mixture of disinterest and disdain, before flopping inelegantly into the water or closing their eyes for a good long bask. Just round the corner is the Longstone Lighthouse, from which Grace Darling and her father set out in a tiny rowing boat in 1838 to rescue nine survivors from the wreck of the Forfarshire. Had Blue Peter been broadcast in those days, 22-year old Grace would undoubtedly have won a gold badge for her endeavours. As it was, sadly, she dies from tuberculosis just four years later. It's a tough life living in a windswept wavestruck tower in the unforgiving waters of the North Sea.
Highlight of my tour was a landing on Inner Farne – an NT-owned historical site and utterly-teeming bird sanctuary [photo]. It's chick-feeding time at the moment, and the island is a seething mass of avian life. And dangerous too. Walk up the boardwalk from the harbour and you can expect to be repeatedly dive-bombed by angry Arctic terns [photo]. They're enraged that you've ignored their angry guttural squawks and have dared to intrude so close to their nests. Down they swoop, aiming for the top of your head, ready to peck and poke in the hope that you'll move away quickly. And ouch, that nip hurts. Well-prepared trippers wear a protective sunhat, or wave an arm above their head in an attempt to keep beak away from bonce. Meanwhile the island's four semi-resident bird wardens walk around serene and unperturbed beneath guano-splattered headgear.
Of all the pitched battles fought between the English and the Scots (eg Bannockburn 1314, Wembley 1977), the largest and bloodiest skirmish took place nearly 500 years ago on Flodden Field. King James IV of Scotland thought it would be a good idea to declare war on England while King Henry VIII was away fighting in Italy. And so, on a damp September afternoon in 1513, a huge Scottish army assembled high above the Tweed Valley on the eastern edge of the Cheviot Hills. Their defensive position was strong, but a cavalier advance down from the hilltop proved a costly mistake. Within just three hours the advancing English army had slaughtered ten thousand men, and one of those was the King himself.
It's getting more and more crowded on the tube, and not because there are more passengers. It's because of bags. People never used to carry quite so many bags around with them, but now nearly everybody has at least one. Handbags, shoulder bags, carrier bags, gym bags, the list is almost endless. And what a lot of carriage space they take up. There you are trying to squeeze onto a train in the rush hour, but it's almost impossible to get on because a significant percentage of the carriage space is being taken up by bags. See that suited City bloke with a laptop bag in his hand and a holdall slung over his shoulder? Don't get too close or he'll squash you. Selfish space-hogger. See that secretary standing in the doorway with her cavernous handbag and three designer shopping bags? She may be thin herself, but these bags make her the spatial equivalent of an obese whopper. Selfish space-hogger. See that paint-stained workman with a chunky fat toolbox down on the floor where everyone keeps tripping over it? Nobody can get close to him. Selfish space-hogger. See that shaggy student type with a bulging rucksack drooping from his back? He's taking up double the space he would normally, because nobody can stand in the shadow of his artificial hunchback. Selfish space-hogger. This crowd and their excessive bag quotient are smugly clogging up the train, and there I am left standing on the platform as the doors close. Bags don't buy tickets, bags don't have a job to go to, but bags are travelling by tube in place of genuine passengers. If only a few more people would leave their carriers at home, more of the rest of us could be carried ourselves.
It's getting more and more crowded on the tube, and not because there are more passengers. It's because of newspapers. People never used to carry quite so many newspapers around with them, but now nearly everybody has at least one. The number of free papers being thrust into Londoners' hands is almost endless. And what a lot of carriage space reading those newspapers takes up. There you are trying to squeeze onto a train in the rush hour, but it's almost impossible to get on because a significant percentage of the commuters inside insist on reading their newspapers. See that suited City bloke with a Financial Times flapping in his hands? He's not shutting it for anyone. Selfish space-hogger. See that secretary standing in the doorway engrossed in her London Lite? She's not noticed you, so you'll have to squeeze round to one side (if you can). Selfish space-hogger. See that paint-stained workman checking out the back of a red-top tabloid? Nobody's getting in the way of him reading the latest sports news. Selfish space-hogger. See that shaggy student type flicking through a discarded Metro? He's taking up double the space he would normally, because nobody's allowed to stand within his quarantined newsprint triangle. Selfish space-hogger. This crowd, and their refusal to stop reading when more commuters want to get on, are unnecessarily clogging up the train. Nobody has a divine right to read in an overcrowded carriage, nobody's open newspaper deserves to leave other passengers stranded on the platform. If only a few more people would learn to tolerate unstimulated commuting, more of the rest of us could climb on board.
For those of us who live in the Lower Lea Valley, the most important current item of 2012 news isn't the launch of the new Games logo, it's the imminent sealing off of the Olympic Park. Because the end is nigh, and now there's a date. Up until Sunday July 1st you'll still be able to live in, work in and wander through these 500 designated acres of industrial riverside. But on Monday July 2nd all the roads will be sealed off, a barrier will be erected around the perimeter and permanent eviction begins. If you want to pay a visit to this extra-special environment, for free, just three weeks now remain. After that you'll have to wait for five years, and buy a ticket.
But an extensive network of wooden fences are already being erected. They're big and blue (why are they always blue?) and they're being hammered in alongside the handful of public footpaths that will remain open during the run-up to the Games. Nobody will be able to stray off the Greenway in the future, not once the final gap in the blue fence is plugged. Beyond the new wall, until very recently, were earthy mounds over which young bikers loved to practice their motocross skills. But these have all been levelled and severed, and the local boy racers are now noticeable by their absence. Meanwhile the green metal signposts which marked access points off the pathway have been ripped from the verge and dumped in an unceremonious heap of rubble behind the fence. It's a sign of things to come.
It definitely wasn't this tough a journey the last time I visited. But natural vegetation has now had a couple of seasons to colonise the riverside (formerly wheelchair accessible) and the footpath is almost impenetrable at times. Thorny brambles, cow parsley and nettles stood above head height in places, and I was glad not to be wearing a t-shirt and shorts. At certain points I had to crouch to squeeze through a tunnel of foliage or stumble inelegantly over a fallen tree. But the riverside vista, now so rarely seen by human eyes, was well worth the adventure. Dragonflies floated silently above the water's edge. Bumble bees buzzed from dog rose to convolvulus. Freshly-paired waterfowl paddled between the reedbeds. Were it not for the excavators digging the foundations of the new Aquatic Centre on the opposite bank, it would have been hard to imagine that this was central London at all. But this won't be an overgrown rural idyll for much longer. By 2012 this towpath will have been swept away to make room for the Park's central walkway, and crossed by the main "land bridge" between Stratford City and the Olympic Stadium. And, I fear, it'll only be a few select visitors who'll ever remember the living waterway that once existed here.
