WALK LONDON Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk Kensington Gardens to St James's Park (3½ miles)
This isn't one of London's six Strategic Walks, but it seemed sort of appropriate to walk it today, ten years on. I'm planning to walk the southern half of the figure of eight route, starting from Kensington Gardens and heading towards St James's Park (via Hyde Park Corner). I'll be reporting back live, via email, at various points along the way - including a playground, some palace gates, a fountain and a memorial service, amongst other assorted Diana-ry. There's noofficialwebsite for the walk, neither (inexplicably) has the Daily Express yet published a 32-page souvenir pullout guide. But if you want to follow the route on a map, I've knocked one up here. (read from the bottom up)
The Guards Chapel: Outside the Wellington Barracks, on the southern fringe of St James's Park, an ever increasing crowd has gathered. We gawp across Birdcage Walk, past a wall of staring white-shirted policemen, to the steps of the chapel beyond. An almighty cheer greets the arrival of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, their limo perfectly timed to be not quite late. At 12 noon precisely the service begins, relayed to those of us outside through a handful of loudspeakers. Comforting choral musics washes across the road, which we struggle to hear beneath the racket of helicopter blades from above. Some have brought with them orders of service printed from the internet and join in with each hymn in faltering soprano. Others are less subdued and get shushed as they chatter. With undignified irreverence the crowd around me erupts into applause at the end of Prince Harry's tribute speech, like a mob of emotional barbarians. I'm embarrassed by their lack of stiff upper lip and slink off to leave others to their remembrance. I leave them singing Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer into any lens a TV crew dares to point at them. Diana may have been dead for a decade, but her lingering influence remains unextinguished. And me, I'm heading out of the park and off shopping. It's what she would have wanted.
posted 12:37
Hyde Park Corner: A brief frenetic interlude from the remainder of this delightful parkland walk. The walkway cuts through the middle of this six lane roundabout, past grand statuary and Antipodean war memorials. A trail of fresh horse manure marks the path that Diana's coffin trod, beneath the Wellington Arch and on to Westminster Abbey. As then, the police have sealed off Constitution Hill to all but royal traffic. Four black limousines cavalcade past, at funereal speed. I make the mistake of trying to photograph them, rather than looking to see who they actually contain. I have more luck standing in the crowds outside Buckingham Palace. Princess Anne and Peter Phillips are driven by, followed a minute later by Prince Charles. Through the half-open car window he looks every inch the not quite grieving husband, and rather older than I remember. Round the corner, the memorial service is about to begin.
posted 11:57
Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain: Whatever its detractors may say, this loop of grey Cornish granite has a genuine tranquil charm. On sunny summer afternoons you'll find happy families all around the perimeter and legs a-plenty dangling in the water. This morning, however, is pre-autumnal and overcast, and the enclosure is nigh empty. A pair of Japanese tourists attempt to take photos whilst keeping each other out of shot. The only child present - an angelic ringletted girl - dares to stand on the granite sill and is glared at by a watchful attendant. Her finger prods "Sit Down Now!" There are just two floral tributes here, petrol station bought, laid beneath an immature sapling at the water's edge. The fountain gurgles, and prays for sunshine.
posted 11:29
Serpentine Gallery: I'm taking a brief spiralling diversion up around the edge of Eliasson's 2007 Pavilion. This is a temporary wooden helix with a tearoom in the middle and parkland views from the top. A must-climb, any time between now and November.
posted 11:06
Kensington Palace: A crowd has gathered outside the gilded iron gates. It's not quite as big a crowd as that fateful morning ten years ago, and there are far fewer floral tributes, but it's a respectable turnout all the same. The laminators of Middle England have been busy overnight. All along the railings are weatherproofed photographs of the princess, lovingly handmade banners (Diana Forever) and printouts of conspiracy webpages. There are also several fawning mawkish poems, written by emotional matrons with too much time on their hands and too little literary talent. The crowds stop to read, and take photos of each. On one bench the Diana Circle have set up court, and are playing "Time To Say Goodbye" from a tinny speaker. And all around hover the intrusive lenses of the world's media. They poke their TV cameras at anyone who expresses any form of emotion, maybe pinning their bouquet to the railings or just standing in silent contemplation. Even a decade later, the media are still on Diana's back.
posted 10:40
Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Playground: It's a little bit too early for a spin on the roundabout or a scramble over the pirate ship. Gates to this adventure utopia don't open until ten. But there are already mums and pushchairs massing round the entrance, peering inside the tree-trunk birdcage and gobbling down muffins from the cafe nextdoor. There's an age limit of 12 years and under, so none of these children will remember the flawed mother whose death inspired this mega-playground's construction. A sign on the gate reads "No adults without children". I feel excluded and unwelcome but take heart from the fact that, were she alive today, even Diana herself wouldn't officially be allowed inside.
WALK LONDON Capital Ring[section 10] South Kenton to Hendon Park (6½ miles)
What the hell was I doing in South Kenton, up at the obscure end of the Bakerloo line? No offence to anybody who lives here, but this is not premier walking country. But the Capital Ring footpath has to circle London somehow, and if that means traversing dead ordinary suburban streets to get from one green bit to the next, then so be it. Even if the green bits are as ordinary as Preston Park. It was the first "highlight" of my walk - a very typical municipal rectangle of bowling greens and swings and tennis courts and trees. No doubt it's much loved by locals, but it wasn't worth buying a Travelcard extension for.
More endless pavements followed, across Preston Road and along the avenues of Uxendon. At last, down an alleyway between two white-painted semis, I entered the western tip of Fryent Country Park. It was only a bit of scrubland alongside a Jubilee line embankment to start with, then opened out into an unexpected hay meadow. Here I engaged in cowardly dog-avoidance tactics by lingering and pretending to admire the view for a bit, whilst secretly waiting for two bouncy alsatians to pass by across the top of the field. Phew. There followed a woodland climb to a delightful secluded hilltop lake (where I stood face to face with a fox for half a minute and, in contrast, felt no fear whatsoever). Through a break in the trees there should have been an excellent view over Wembley Stadium, just a mile to the south. Excellent on a fine day, that is, but I'd ventured out beneath a flat grey sky and so, alas, the arch was almost perfectly camouflaged amid the gloom.
In the car park at the bottom of the hill, on a particularly uninformative noticeboard, came the official civic greeting - "Brent Council Environmental Services Landscape & Leisure Division Welcomes You". I felt duly underwhelmed. The country park continued across a busy main road, where I encountered several sorrowful magpies flapping their way through a series of muddy meadows. This is how rural Middlesex must have looked before the railways came - all hay and hedgerows. I got to see how built-up Middlesex looks today in a 270° panorama from the top of another low summit just to the north. And then it was back down, past a swooping kestrel, for another over-long walk through a maze of residential backstreets. Here milk floats whirred silently down Reggie Perrin avenues. Trainee drivers reversed L-plated cars around well-rehearsed corners. Yet another dug-up front garden succumbed to crazy paving for off-road parking. It was all so very Metroland, and so very familar.
Kingsbury has two highly unusual parish churches. St Andrews number 1 is built of flint rubble with a squat short spire, and is almost 900 years old. The building still stands, but only just, shored-up by the efforts of local parishioners and the Churches Conservation Trust. Graffiti sprayed on the outside walls and a graveyard of semi-toppled tombstones both suggest that there is much expensive restoration work still to be done. Nextdoor is St Andrews number 2, seemingly a very typical Victorian building in neo-Gothic style, except that the entire church was moved here brick by brick in 1933 from its original location just off Oxford Street.
I passed down the lane beside the twin churches and approached the shores of northwest London's largest reservoir - the Welsh Harp. It was constructed in the 1830s to feed the Grand Union Canal, later becoming increasingly popular as a site for fishing and funfairs. The opening of a local station in 1870 brought Londoners flooding to the banks of the reservoir for picnics, racing and general frolics. More recently the Welsh Harp has evolved into a site for watersports, notably sailing and canoeing, as well as becoming an important wildlife reserve. I was expecting rather more impressive views across the water, to be honest, but the northern path ran behind a screen of trees for most of its 1km length so I was mildly disappointed.
I should have cut and run at the eastern end of the reservoir, after a particularly hairy crossing over a very narrow road bridge. But no, I was stupid enough to continue along the Capital Ring path until the end of this section, along various residential streets with no redeeming features whatsoever. Here the car is king - this is no place for walkers. I crossed three major roads in fairly close succession, first the A5 (a busy high street), then the M1 (in embryonic form, slightly north of Junction 1) and finally the A41 (a jammed-up dual carriageway). I passed very close to Brent Cross shopping centre, without ever noticing it was there. And I ended up in Hendon Park, another pleasant but non-special grassy quadrant. The Green Belt, alas, is several miles further out. But if you want suburban realism with the occasional rural treat, the Capital Ring's the way to go.
WALK LONDON Thames Path Hampton Court to Richmond (7½ miles)
This is magnificent. A meandering stroll along the leafy banks of the Thames, out west where the river is wide and the motorcruiser is king. We're talking rustic, affluent and tranquil. Erith this is not. And where better to begin than the royal palace at Hampton Court? Don't expect to see much of the 500 year old tourist attraction, not without paying. There's a semi-good view of Henry VIII's Privy Garden through a heraldic gate on the riverside, but the path soon strides off around the edge of the estate. And the estate is huge! It takes a good three miles to walk round the southern perimeter, round the back of a hidden golf course, no deviation permitted. Don't worry, you won't tire of the view. On this side of the river there's an arboreal strip of meadow, on the other the detached marinas of Thames Ditton. The drab grey estuary is still tens of miles away.
Kingston Bridge is a scenic arched affair, and supports the only road across the river between the start and end points of this walk. The Thames Path takes this opportunity to swap banks, thrusting walkers into Kingston's vibrant retail centre. Try not to let the shops distract you. On through Canbury Gardens, looking out from municipal parkland to vast riverside mansions opposite. Those who live here have a few million to spare, plus a jetty at the bottom of the garden to moor up a speedboat or two. This stretch of the Thames is also a popular place for sculling and rowing, and you may spot several oar-ed eightsomes thrusting by. But only so far.
Sluice gates jut out into the river at Teddington, channelling downstream traffic through a narrowing sidestream. Teddington Lock forms the upper limit of the North Sea's tidal influence, and it's also the site of Thames Television's legendary TV studios. Kids teatime stalwart Magpie was filmed here, as well as Monty Python's fish-slapping dance (down by the lock itself). Pause for a while to enjoy the view from the ornate spikypedestrian footbridge, before continuing north along another mile of isolated towpath. Tracks lead off into an overgrown expanse of flood meadows and reclaimed gravel workings, now the Ham Lands nature reserve. Somewhere worth exploring in greater detail, I suspect. And out in the middle of the Thames, inaccessible from the southern side, lies Eel Pie Island - Twickenham's most unusual suburban hinterland. Its seven wooded acres provide a semi-private residential outpost for creatives and eccentrics, as well as the odd boatyard and burned-down jazz venue.
Round the bend, in the middle of nowhere, a grand Stuart mansion looms out of the trees. It may look inaccessible by road, but coachloads of old ladies wandering through the entrance gate tell a different story. Ham House is a rare survivor of Stuart nobledom, snapped up by the National Trust and filled with gaudy furniture and delicate hangings. There are no electric light fittings in the house (and all the curtains are kept closed) to ensure that various portraits and tapestries are protected from premature fading. The semi-darkness may also enhance the house's reputation for ghosts and hauntings (or that may just be psychic tosh). The house's famous gardens, of which there are several, are quite splendid. Some are very formal, with shrubbery laid out to pristine perfection, while others look gorgeously natural but are in fact 100% 17th century artificial. Ham House is a detour well worth taking (but be warned - not on Thursdays, Fridays or any day during the winter months because the gates are very shut).
You can abandon the walk here by taking the foot ferry across to Marble Hill House, but it's not too much further ahead to Richmond. The path crosses Petersham Meadows, a key part of the famously-good view from Richmond Hill above. Don't be tempted to ascend the hillside, stick to the Thames-side path. It's here that the Richmond riverside kicks in, the first intrusive civilisation for miles. A new wooden cafe has just been opened beneath the tallest plane tree in London, should you be thirsty. A variety of tickets are available for cruises both down and up river, should you be tired. And keep your eyes open for local celebrity residents strolling along the towpath, should you spot Richard E Grant in a white t-shirt and jogging bottoms carrying designer shopping bags. Like what I did. See, I told you it was classy along here.
WALK LONDON Jubilee Walkway The Camden Loop (2 miles)
They're all over the centre of the capital. They're scattered sporadically across pavements, squares and piazzas. They've been there for the last 30 years. They're the metal plaques of the Jubilee Walkway. You've probably seen them, but I bet you've never tried to follow them. Good, because you'd have failed utterly. There are no signposts, no indications of which way to go next, just a few silver circles underfoot. It's quite impossible to trace the route from one to another... unless you have a copy of the Jubilee Walkway leaflet. So, I got hold ofa leaflet.
It's 14 miles altogether around the Jubilee Walkway, from Buckingham Palace in the west to St Katharine's Dock in the east. The route runs both north and south of the river, and has been designed to connect the majority of London's key attractions. Most of the walkway was established to commemorate the Queen's Silver Jubilee, but I decided to follow a more recent "Golden" addition - the Camden Loop. I hoped it would be an exciting trek through the backstreets of Bloomsbury, from Holborn up to the Euston Road and back again. Alas, it didn't quite turn out to be exciting.
The Camden Loop breaks off from the main Jubilee Walkway beside a special plaque along Chancery Lane. This is the heart of legal London, surrounded by Inns of Court, solicitors chambers and shops that sell smart clothes for posh barristers. Look around you on the route northward and you'll probably spot some poor underpaid clerk wheeling a trolley of ribboned documents from one Georgian terrace to another. That'll be a highlight. The officially designated route manages to miss the more interesting half of Lamb's Conduit Street, preferring the "launderette & lavatory" end to the "boutique & bistro" end. It diverts around Coram's Fields - a much loved half-term haven for energetic kids and their frustrated parents. And it cuts through the Brunswick Centre - a residential glass ocean liner with a revamped shopping arcade at its heart.
Don't come this way expecting to walk through history. These are the genuine back streets of Bloomsbury, where residents live and shop and hang out in the local community centre. They share the area with several hotels, some aligned in elegant crescents, others crammed together in ugly terraces, but all desperately seeking to attract visitors arriving at nearby Kings Cross station. The walkway follows a seemingly random path through the backstreets, emerging briefly onto the Euston Road before plunging back into residential anonymity. British Library users should join the route here. Keep your eyes peeled and you might spot a blue plaque on a council-infill tower block, revealing that it was built in 1972 on the site of a centuries-old pub. OK, so maybe there is plenty of history here after all, just not the sort you were expecting.
At last, from Euston station southwards, the walk improves a bit. The route passes by, and through, the campus of the University of London. Ignore that, and concentrate instead on the series of leafy squares that follow. Gordon Square was once the hub of literature's bohemian Bloomsbury Group (Virginia woz ere). Woburn Square is rather smaller, and narrower, and most definitely more of an Oblong. The path skirts Russell Square, entered past the quaint green Cabman'sShelter in the northwestern corner, with a brief glimpse of the stark tower at Senate House along the way. And then, most unusually for a long distance foothpath, the route passes directly through a public building. When the British Museum is closed you'll have to find your own way, unsignposted, round from the back to the front entrance. But during opening hours you can walk directly through China, and Egypt, and any other ancient land that takes your fancy. Not even the Pennine Way can beat that.
After the Great Court's millennial glass triangles, the rest of the Camden Loop is somewhat of a disappointment. Streets of faux antique shops selling replica trinkets to tourists. A huge abandoned GPO sorting office whose sixth floor cracked panes are open to the sky. And the murderous thundering traffic of High Holborn and Kingsway. End of loop. It's been a two mile diversion to Euston and back, and for what? The direct route would have taken no more than 10 minutes, and passed the veritable delights of Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Sir John Soane's Museum. Next time I'll save my shoe leather and take the shortcut.
WALK LONDON The London Loop[section 5] Hamsey Green to Coulsdon South (6 miles)
The London Outer Orbital Path (or LOOP) footpath skirts the rim of London like a muddy one-lane M25. It's a marathon route, 150 miles long in total, divided up into 24 manageable chunks. The first section to be officially opened was the southernmost, scudding along the bottom of London along the border between Croydon and Surrey. This is an especially scenic section, linking four expanses of City-owned chalky downland. It's also the only section not to have a map and full downloadable directions on the Walk London website. Grrrr. I knew it would be a bit risky trying to follow the route without an official leaflet or guidebook, relying only on signposts and waymarkers. But I like a challenge.
Riddlesdown: Catch the 403 bus south from Croydon, along cosy Tudorbethan avenues, and you'll eventually reach the suburban outpost of Hamsey Green. It boasts a Woolworths (which is pretty impressive for somewhere I'd not heard of before) as well as a Co-op and the Thread Bear needlework boutique. The Loop walk begins at a signpost on the tiny village green, outside the Good Companions pub, and heads west towards the grassland summit of Riddlesdown. There's a bit of meadow first (the only stretch of the walk within Surrey) and then a glorious view out across the hills above Whyteleafe. Listen carefully and you might hear an Oxted-bound train emerging from a tunnel beneath the chalk and whistling along the valley below. The official footpath skirts three sides of Skylark Meadow, avoiding a disused quarry with sheer white cliffs. Descent is via an old Roman track, Riddlesdown Road, once the main route south to the coast but now just a leafy bridleway with well-spaced dog bins.
Kenley Common: Cross the valley via Barn Lane, at the top of which a staircase of 82 wooden steps leads even further up the hillside to the next downland plateau. The Loop passes through the woodland and grazing pasture to the north of the common, missing out completely on the excitement to be found on the other side of a tall hedge. Whoosh! That orange and white blur was a glider swooshing a few metres above your head, coming in to land on the runway at the old WWII KenleyAirfield. So long as you stay outside the perimeter track, the MoD don't mind you getting right up close to watch operations on the airfield itself. Look - a pack of yellow jeeps swarms around each returning craft, reattaching a rope to the nosecone ready to yank the glider back up into the sky. If the wind's right it won't be long before you see (and hear) a take-off launching steeply into the clouds, with the cable parachuting back to earth a few seconds later. Don't get too jealous, but these unpowered pilots have a far better view across the landscape than you'll ever get from the ground.
Coulsdon Common: I got rather lost (and rather muddy) on the next short section of the walk, which deviates unnecessarily around a field close to the Wattenden Arms pub. I was back on track soon afterwards, only to find two disturbingly frisky horses guarding the next field and eyeing me with hoof-kicking intent. When even their owner failed to control them ("whoa!!!") I retreated rapidly back over the stile and hunted for an alternative route. A short detour by road sufficed, past a far more docile fox, although this meant missing out on a close-up view of the Croydon Astronomical Society's white-domed observatory. There followed a brief residential interlude up Rydons Lane past the homes of the almost-rich, including one particularly offensive bungalow with nine cars parked on the crazy paving out front. A short stroll across Coulsdon Common followed - all very green and pleasant, but still relatively ordinary compared to the rest of the walk.
Happy Valley: And now the best bit - the unspoilt contours of Happy Valley and Farthing Downs. Both are easily accessible, but abundant hordes of local dog walkers seem to prefer not to venture too far from the car parks at either end. Happy Valley was an unexpected treat, with a criss-crossing network of footpaths to explore across acres of sloping wildflower meadows. A good place for a picnic, if only I'd thought to buy some appropriate comestibles in Waitrose in Sanderstead several hours previously. I thought I was alone on the track through Devilsden Woods until I came across an Indian lady gyrating by the bridleway. She stopped and yelled "not yet!!" down the wooded slope... to two men with a film camera... and then continued her silent dancing after I'd passed.
Farthing Downs: Before long the woodland track emerged onto a long finger-like ridge on the very roof of London. I don't know what I'd been expecting from the map, but this was better. One mile of chalky upland, scattered with Iron Age tumuli and grazing cattle, with an unfenced road passing unobtrusively along the centre. Halfway along stood a windswept beech glade (one of whose trees dates back to 1783), beside a much younger Millennium Cairn (recently fenced-off due to post millennial vandalism). The views to either side were a majestic mix of rolling green hills and farmland, threaded with suburban veins of white-fronted semis. Directly ahead lay the urban sprawl of Coulsdon, my ultimate destination, and beyond that something far more recognisable. A row of distant City skyscrapers, one of them definitely Gherkin-shaped, marked out the centre of London 15 miles to the north. Canary Wharf was unexpectedly far to the right, behind the TV masts at Croydon and Crystal Palace. It was then a gentle descent down the tip of Farthing Downs, past a City-of-London-owned cattlegrid (honest), before retuning to civilisation with a bump. This section of the walk ended, conveniently, at the footbridge over the tracks at Coulsdon South station. I could have carried on along the Loop for another 100 miles or so, clockwise round to Rainham, but I wimped out and returned home on the quarter past three.
WALK LONDON The Green Chain[sections 2 and 3] Erith to Oxleas Meadows (6 miles)
Mmm, Erith. Down on the underwhelmingly flat bit of the Thames estuary, on the last bend before the eastern edge of London. We're not talking gorgeous here. Erith had a brief spell as a tourist resort in the 19th century when paddle steamers ruled the river, but most of the place was rebuilt in the 1960s and 70s, and any charm the town might have had was sucked clean away. The London Loop walk begins here, down by the muddy-brown riverside. From the end of the rickety wooden landing stage you can look straight across the Thames to the walk's finishing point on Rainham Marshes - less than a mile as the seagull flies, but 150 miles away on foot (via Uxbridge). Erith's river wall is also one of the starting points for the Green Chain Walk - a 40-mile network of interlinked footpaths sprawled across four southeast London boroughs. The first signpost is located in a particularly grim spot, well away from the town centre on the river wall beside some graffitied apartment blocks. Quick, let's walk away from the grey-brown water and try to find a view with a bit of green in it.
There isn't an awful lot of open space and woodland in this corner of Bexley, but the Green Chain is very good at linking together what little exists. This section of the walk heads first for Frank's Park, a tree-packed oasis atop the hilly ridge above Belvedere. Watch out for the dog mess - they don't seem to be very good at pooper-scooping round here. Next there's half a mile along suburban sidestreets, with a view to the north across terraced rooftops to an industrial Thamesside skyline. Then, just beyond a pub which the guidebook tries to make sound interesting but isn't, the walk enters the unexpectedly glorious surroundings of Lesnes Abbey Park. Follow the wooden posts up to the heathland summit tumulus, where a carpet of purple heather blooms, and then descend to view the razed ruins of Lesnes Abbey. Only the outline of the 12th century abbey remains, etched out in low stone wallsacross a grassy lawn. I was duly charmed. From here you can look out across the marshes once owned by the local monks - now covered by the estates of Abbey Wood and Thamesmead. An unloved information centre tells the abbey's story on peeling display cards, and directs visitors to the elevated fossil beds on the woodland plateau where shark's teeth can still be found.
At Bostall Common the Green Chain splits in two. It does this a lot, so you really have to know where you're going or else you might end up in Woolwich by mistake. My choice was southwest through the woods, emerging shortly afterwards at the entrance to Plumstead Cemetery. Here sat Sally, beneath a limp green parasol, attempting to sell bouquets and floral tributes to a passing trade of non-existent mourners. Up next onto East Wickham Open Space, a very ordinary scrap of common but with a newly-planted avenue of oak trees down the centre, just to give us Green Chain walkers somewhere interesting to go. The world's most pointless cycle gate has been erected at the western exit, spanning just halfway across the path so that even a motorbike and sidecar could easily squeeze by. This may be a good time to stop for a reviving shandy in the Glenmore Arms, especially if it's suddenly started chucking it down. Try not to let the pub's complete absence of punters disturb you.
Of all the walks I'm following this week, the next few hundred yards were the narrowest and most overgrown. Not somewhere you'd want to walk through in shorts, not unless you're a masochistic nettle addict. Far safer to heed the sign at the entrance announcing that "This land belongs to clients of KSLAW LLP Solictors" and warning that members of the public use it at their own risk. And then, wholly unexpectedly, the path breaks out into open farmland. Freshly harvested fields, piled-up hay bales and hilly hedgerows ripe with blackberries, all highly unlikely sights in the suburban backwaters of Zone 4. The backside of a petrol station soon ruins the rural illusion as the path crosses Watling Street in its modern guise - the A207 atop ShootersHill. And finally into ancient forest at Oxleas Wood, its leafy bridleways reprieved from severance by an unwanted ring road as recently as 1993.
The end of the walk is marked by that most welcome of sights - a tea hut. It's tarted up as a proper cafe these days, but it still sells everything a weary long distance traveller might reasonably expect. Egg sandwiches, fried breakfasts and steaming jacket potatoes for starters. A chalked-up menu above the bar displays an impressive list of culinary options, eagerly served up by a crack team of smiling food and beverage operatives. Just don't ask for an ice cream if the tub's only just come out of the freezer, otherwise you may be standing waiting for some time. Five of the Green Chain's ten walks start or finish at this most civilised of locations - a veritable footway service station. And they'll sell you a pack of Green Chain route maps from behind the counter for just £3.50. Even better value than a cheese roll and a cuppa, I thought.
WALK LONDON The Lea Valley Walk Ponders End to Waltham Abbey (3 miles)
For starters, let's clear up the name of the river. The river is the River Lea, but the man-made channel that runs close by is the Lee Navigation. The valley is the Lea Valley, but the recreational area is the Lee Valley Park. If it's natural it's "Lea", and if it's artificial it's "Lee". Honest. Simple. OK, let's go for a walk.
I could have gone for a Lea Valley walk a few metres from my front door, because the official route ends close by at Bow Locks. Instead I headed rather further north, to Enfield's industrial quarter, and strolled along a less familiar stretch. First stop Ponders End station, in the shadow of four landmark tower blocks, as I attempted to follow woefully inadequate signage down to the riverside. After a tour of various local dual carriageways I eventually found the pedestrian entrance to Ponders End Lock, and was welcomed to the waterway by two swans and their seven overgrown cygnets. It was a winning start.
It soon became apparent that this stretch of the Lea Valley forms a narrow north-south netherworld sliced off from reality. The western bank is hemmed in by warehouses and long thin industrial estates, while the view to the east is blocked by the grassy slopes of a giant reservoir. Everything runs parallel to the river, not across it - the roads, the railways, the cycle tracks and even the electricity. It was possible to trace by eye the route of the river for several miles, just by following the army of pylons stalking towards the horizon. These pylons make fishing difficult - there were signs everywhere barring anglers from casting any line that might cause accidental electrocution. But horses nibbling grass around pylons' feet in the riverside meadows didn't seem to mind, and elderberries grew perfectly ripe beneath the silent hum.
The isolation ended, briefly, at Enfield Lock. This is murderous country, with the surrounding housing estates built on land previously given over to the manufacture of armaments, gunpowder and munitions. The brick-built Royal Small Arms Factory, which once produced Enfield rifles, now forms part of the shopping centre at the heart of a modern development of Courts, Mews and Closes. Elite residents enjoy a waterside location, parking up their 4x4s outside fake cottages behind secure electronic barriers. The two main attractions beside the lock appeared to be a boarded-up fun-pub, ripe for demolition, and a wildlife-free "Swan and Pike Pool". The London Loop walk crosses the river here. It is perhaps unfortunate that long-distance strollers should be forced to visit this washed-out spot twice.
My view of Leaside improved somewhat further north along the river. Housing faded away as the towpath doglegged around the Green Belt haven of Rammey Marsh. Scores of immobile narrow boats were tied up here, providing a home from home for smiling couples sat at picnic tables on their own patch of riverside lawn. A bit further ahead, crossing the valley on concrete stilts, six lanes of rumbling M25 severed the landscape. Somewhere in the gloom beneath the motorway bridge is the spot where London meets Hertfordshire meets Essex. It's not a charming spot, that's for sure. I stopped off at the Hazelmere Marina cafe for a well-deserved ice cream (being, alas, too late to enjoy a proper cooked breakfast). And a few steps later, past one final swan, I reached my destination at Waltham Abbey Lock. I could have carried on along the Lea for another 35 miles, to Luton, but I'm not that much of a masochist. The Abbey and its gardens were a much more pleasant target, and considerably close at hand. Time to Lea-ve.
London's a great city to walk in. The centre's compact enough to cover on foot, full of sights and parks and bustle and so many things to see. And the suburbs are perfect for a ramble, full of footpaths and woodland and peace and quiet. But we Londoners rarely get out our walking shoes to explore the capital properly. Oh no. Most of us just end up sitting in cars or trains or buses instead, on our way to the same old destinations over and over again. And that's a shame.
Transport for London agree, which is why they've established a network of six strategic walking routes across the capital. These are specially signposted routes, some walkable in a day, others requiring rather longer. They cover every corner of London, from Trafalgar Square to Cockfosters, and there's bound to be one near you. Some of the routes follow major rivers, some look a bit random, and others appear to have been sketched out on a map by someone attempting to draw a circle with a pair of wobbly compasses.
Details of all six walks can be found on the new Walk London website. There's an interactive map to help you to decide where to go. There are pages devoted to each of the walks, and in some cases to each subsection of each walk. There's another page where you can order free leaflets by post - although the service is very slow, and not terribly reliable, and restricts you to a piddling three leaflets (out of 60) in each submitted request. But never mind, because most of the leaflets can also be downloaded direct from the site, which means you could be out and walking within the hour.
I couldn't let August pass without doing something special. So I thought I'd go out and take a stroll along each of London's six strategic walks. Not the whole of each route, you understand, but a section of each. It would take far longer than a week to walk the lot... and anyway, severalpeoplehavealreadybeaten me to it. I've picked sections across all corners of London, not just in the middle. And I've had a great time so far, exploring byways, bridleways and towpaths I'd never even considered visiting before. I hope I can polish off the rest of the six walks before next Friday. If so, expect to read a report about each over the forthcoming week. Because sometimes the journey can be more enjoyable than the destination.
London's six strategic walks • Thames Path: follow the meandering banks of London's greatest river (67 miles within the Greater London boundary) • Lea Valley Walk: a waterside stroll beside East London's not quite so famous river (12½ miles within Greater London) • Capital Ring: a circular footpath around the edge of Inner London, sort of Zone 4-ish (78 miles, in 15 sections) • London Loop: a circular footpath around the edge of Outer London, sort of Zone 6-ish (150 miles, in 24 sections) • Green Chain Walk: a network of interlinked paths cutting across four SE London boroughs (40 miles, in 10 sections) • Jubilee Walkway: perfect for tourists, wandering around central London's most famous sights (14 miles, all in Zone 1)
Go fetch your trainers, and let's go for a walk...
Why are all the good TV programmes on at the same time? Nine o'clock in the evening, usually. It's the height of peak viewing, the moment when all the mainstream channels rise to a televisual crescendo. At nine o'clock there's no scheduled news bulletin to get in the way, just a clear 60 minute slot ready to be filled with top notch entertainment. Eight o'clock can be almost as busy, and ten o'clock too, all equally susceptible to prime-time pile-up. You wait ages for a decent bit of must-see TV, and then three programmes turn up at once.
Last night, for example, the first series of Gavin and Stacey (exquisite comedy, BBC2, 10pm) kicked off at precisely the same time as the first series of Skins (unexpectedly hip, C4, 10pm). Both big hits on digital, but both launched simultaneously on terrestrial, presumably to annoy new viewers. And it's a similar mess tonight at 9pm, when I'll be torn between the latest episode of Heroes on BBC2, Big Brother on C4 and The Secret Life of the Motorway on BBC4. You might prefer the Diana documentary on ITV or even the Anglo-German football match on BBC1. Scheduling trauma, I'm sure you agree.
Now I know what you're saying. You're saying "watch it later on your BBC iPlayer". But only one of those programmes will be available on demand via the iPlayer. You're saying "get yourself a Sky+ box". I don't have one, neither am I allowed one. You're saying "get yourself a generic hard-disc-based recording system instead, then". I don't have one of those either, thanks. You're saying "just use your video recorder for heavens sake". But video recorders (and most digital TV recorders) can't cope with recording two channels at the same time while I watch another. Three simultaneous must-see programmes just doesn't compute. And who wants a hard drive full of 40 hours of programmes I'll never get round to watching anyway?
But there is a way to watch all of these programmes live, straight off the telly, because most TV channels have started showing most programmes twice. If you don't catch Heroes at 9pm on Wednesday, it's on again at 11:20pm on Thursday and yet again at 11:15pm next Sunday. Tonight's Big Brother will be repeated over breakfast tomorrow. The BBC4 motorway documentary is screened again at 11pm and 3am. And if you missed any of the latest Doctor Who episodes during the spring they're all being repeated ad nauseaum at teatime on BBC3, probably for the rest of eternity. But it's a bit complicated, isn't it? Without a copy of the Radio Times you'd probably never spot some of the more obscurely timed repeat showings. So they might as well not exist.
Which is why I'm unexpectedly impressed by the new channel from the C4 stable, Channel4+1. It's just exactly the same programmes as on Channel4, but an hour later. No new content whatsoever, just a 60 minute timeshift. Sounds pants, doesn't it? A shameless imitation of existing channels E4+1 and Film4+1. But, actually, Channel4+1 could be really useful. Switched on C4 in the middle of your favourite programme? Never mind, it'll be on again soon on the new channel. Can't remember whether Big Brother's on at 9 or 10? It's definitely on at 10, on one channel or the other. And that problem I mentioned earlier where far too many good programmes are being screened at the same time. No longer a problem, just watch (or record) the C4 programme one hour later. Simultaneous screengasm could be a thing of the past.
Who'd have thought it? Channel4+1 (and all those other +1 channels) aren't a complete waste of the broadcasting spectrum after all. Not when the alternatives are endless R&B music videos or yet more shopping channels. And missing all your favourite programmes. Although, if it proves too popular, I can see there may eventually be a need for Channel4+1+1. I bet some executive's already got plans in the pipeline for that.
sixlinks • Is the world ending again? Catch the latest scare story at the London Evening Standard Headline Generator[courtesy of linkmachinego's Flickr set] • If you're enjoying BBC4's motorway season, you might also enjoy the Motorway Service Area Trivia site[via i like] • Possibly the most frightening garden ornament of all time - Meerkat Wobblers. A family of four unbearably cute polyresin mammals (one with its own red and white spotted neckerchief) which poke up from your shrubbery and quiver in the breeze (and you thought gnomes were tacky) • How many ways can a PG Tips monkey die? 205 so far, on the Monkey Suicide website [via linkbunnies] • Simple to play, but infuriating to beat, online games (number 47):Bloons (once you pop, you just can't stop) • What might London's skyline look like in five years time if all the planned skyscrapers actually get built? The London Skyline 2012 thread at Skyscraper City has before and after shots, as viewed from Forest Hill (and an annotated version further down the page)
Why are all the good TV programmes on at the same time? Nine o'clock in the evening, usually. It's the height of peak viewing, the moment when all the mainstream channels rise to a televisual crescendo. At nine o'clock there's no scheduled news bulletin to get in the way, just a clear 60 minute slot ready to be filled with top notch entertainment. Eight o'clock can be almost as busy, and ten o'clock too, all equally susceptible to prime-time pile-up. You wait ages for a decent bit of must-see TV, and then three programmes turn up at once.
Last night, for example, the first series of Gavin and Stacey (exquisite comedy, BBC2, 10pm) kicked off at precisely the same time as the first series of Skins (unexpectedly hip, C4, 10pm). Both big hits on digital, but both launched simultaneously on terrestrial, presumably to annoy new viewers. And it's a similar mess tonight at 9pm, when I'll be torn between the latest episode of Heroes on BBC2, Big Brother on C4 and The Secret Life of the Motorway on BBC4. You might prefer the Diana documentary on ITV or even the Anglo-German football match on BBC1. Scheduling trauma, I'm sure you agree.
Now I know what you're saying. You're saying "watch it later on your BBC iPlayer". But only one of those programmes will be available on demand via the iPlayer. You're saying "get yourself a Sky+ box". I don't have one, neither am I allowed one. You're saying "get yourself a generic hard-disc-based recording system instead, then". I don't have one of those either, thanks. You're saying "just use your video recorder for heavens sake". But video recorders (and most digital TV recorders) can't cope with recording two channels at the same time while I watch another. Three simultaneous must-see programmes just doesn't compute. And who wants a hard drive full of 40 hours of programmes I'll never get round to watching anyway?
But there is a way to watch all of these programmes live, straight off the telly, because most TV channels have started showing most programmes twice. If you don't catch Heroes at 9pm on Wednesday, it's on again at 11:20pm on Thursday and yet again at 11:15pm next Sunday. Tonight's Big Brother will be repeated over breakfast tomorrow. The BBC4 motorway documentary is screened again at 11pm and 3am. And if you missed any of the latest Doctor Who episodes during the spring they're all being repeated ad nauseaum at teatime on BBC3, probably for the rest of eternity. But it's a bit complicated, isn't it? Without a copy of the Radio Times you'd probably never spot some of the more obscurely timed repeat showings. So they might as well not exist.
Which is why I'm unexpectedly impressed by the new channel from the C4 stable, Channel4+1. It's just exactly the same programmes as on Channel4, but an hour later. No new content whatsoever, just a 60 minute timeshift. Sounds pants, doesn't it? A shameless imitation of existing channels E4+1 and Film4+1. But, actually, Channel4+1 could be really useful. Switched on C4 in the middle of your favourite programme? Never mind, it'll be on again soon on the new channel. Can't remember whether Big Brother's on at 9 or 10? It's definitely on at 10, on one channel or the other. And that problem I mentioned earlier where far too many good programmes are being screened at the same time. No longer a problem, just watch (or record) the C4 programme one hour later. Simultaneous screengasm could be a thing of the past.
Who'd have thought it? Channel4+1 (and all those other +1 channels) aren't a complete waste of the broadcasting spectrum after all. Not when the alternatives are endless R&B music videos or yet more shopping channels. And missing all your favourite programmes. Although, if it proves too popular, I can see there may eventually be a need for Channel4+1+1. I bet some executive's already got plans in the pipeline for that.
sixlinks • Is the world ending again? Catch the latest scare story at the London Evening Standard Headline Generator[courtesy of linkmachinego's Flickr set] • If you're enjoying BBC4's motorway season, you might also enjoy the Motorway Service Area Trivia site[via i like] • Possibly the most frightening garden ornament of all time - Meerkat Wobblers. A family of four unbearably cute polyresin mammals (one with its own red and white spotted neckerchief) which poke up from your shrubbery and quiver in the breeze (and you thought gnomes were tacky) • How many ways can a PG Tips monkey die? 205 so far, on the Monkey Suicide website [via linkbunnies] • Simple to play, but infuriating to beat, online games (number 47):Bloons (once you pop, you just can't stop) • What might London's skyline look like in five years time if all the planned skyscrapers actually get built? The London Skyline 2012 thread at Skyscraper City has before and after shots, as viewed from Forest Hill (and an annotated version further down the page)
I have become an outpatient. For the very first time. Lucky me.
I arrive at the backstreet hospital entrance with minutes to spare, and enter the central waiting area of a nearly-Victorian building. All human life is here, sitting patiently on shabby chairs. A red LED display - reminiscent of the delicatessen counter at a 1980s supermarket - announces the lucky number of the next patient to be processed. Nearly a hundred lives are on hold here, awaiting the signal to proceed. The ceiling is high, peeling and oppressive. Had this hall been built more recently architects would surely have divided the atrium into at least two floors. A faint glimmer of natural light squeezes in through the doorway. I'm not quite sure where to go or what to do.
I try to report to main reception, but main reception is closed for lunch and doesn't reopen until 2. A hastily-printed message blu-tacked to the metal shutter advises me to go to Medical Reception instead. Medical Reception is also closed for lunch, and doesn't reopen until 1:30. I stand and wait in a narrow corridor, painted regulation magnolia (with regulation green trim). Three grey-haired ladies stare back at me, as if I am somehow too young to be here. Time passes. The queue lengthens. The list of fire regulations pinned to the wall fades imperceptibly.
Our receptionist returns from his fast-eaten sandwich. He checks in the first old lady, then hunts for her medical notes in the vast pile of paperwork filed beside his desk. "Is this it?" he asks, holding up a foot-high stack of bulging folders held together by a web of elastic bands. The old lady nods, and a nurse volunteers to carry this heavyweight medical history through to the waiting area beyond. When my turn comes, my notes are nowhere to be found. I wait for two minutes while the 20th century computer operating system boots up. My notes are still nowhere to be found. I am sent on a wild goose chase to the Outpatients Annexe, along a poorly signed long twisty corridor, where they don't have my notes either.
Eventually a third receptionist does manage to locate my paperwork, just a couple of feet away from the first place someone looked. My medical history can be summarised in a folder less than half a centimetre thick, for which I am duly grateful. I'm ushered into the waiting room beyond, again a riot in magnolia and green, where I hunt for an unoccupied corner. A table in the centre of the room is scattered with out-of-date Heat magazines, but most patients prefer to read the tabloid they've brought with them. Or just to stare into space. A husband leads his veiled wife into the room, points at the chair she must sit on and then sits down beside her. They wait in silence, as do I. As do we all.
At last my consultant arrives. I recognise him from the brief life-changing chat he gave me in a nearby hospital bed three months ago. I also recognise him from the nightclub where I unexpectedly bumped into him two days later, knocking back several beers with a friend of a friend. If this man dares to lecture me on my health, I promise, I'll remind him that he's not exactly pure as the driven snow himself. But I'm not to get the chance. A junior consultant calls my name instead and ushers me into a tiny room of his own. I explain my symptoms for the umpteenth time to the umpteenth person, and submit to another battery of tests. Nothing's changed, everything's still normally abnormal, which is exactly the news that everyone was hoping to hear.
Off I head, back into daylight, clutching yet another prescription to add to to my morning cocktail. Oh joy. And I'll be back here again in two months' time, to this long-forgotten outpost of austere Edwardian gloom, for my second outpatients appointment. I wonder how much thicker my notes will be by then.
Compass points (an occasional feature where I visit London's geographical extremities) SOUTH London - Chaldon
When you think of South London you probably don't think of rolling cornfields and verdant hedgerows. But that's exactly what the southernmost tip of London is like, 15 miles due south of Charing Cross, down on the border between Croydon and Surrey. See the tree marked in my photograph with a green circle? That's as far south as Ken Livingstone's influence extends. It's the spot in London closest to the equator, where the sun rises highest in the sky during the summer, and where daylight is longest in midwinter. Of all the locations south of the river, it's the ultimate place that black cab drivers will never take you. [map]
The border between London and not-London sweeps in across this cornfield via woodland on the outskirts of Caterham. Then it turns right, at the aforementioned tree, and follows a leafy country lane north towards Farthing Downs. Ditches Lane is a picturesque rat-run, much loved by motorists "out for a drive", but it's only a single track road with passing places and therefore a potential accident blackspot. Locate the passing place closest to the border, and the tarmac alongside reveals clear evidence of the precise spot where south London terminates. Council operatives from the London borough of Croydon have painted a white line down each side of the lane, whereas their Surrey counterparts have not. Where the fading line disappears, that's outer London.
I arrived on foot, down the hillside from the country park at Happy Valley. The footpath descended across an idyllic hayfield, between newly-mown stalks of harvested corn. The field was flanked on either side by thick green woodland, within which the occasional gunshot could be heard as some local landowner revelled in murderous sport. The sky was abuzz, not just with disturbed birdlife but also with helicopters, gliders and the occasional biplane. To the west, beyond the shrouded lane, another golden field rose up to a low tree-topped ridge . And a few steps ahead, invisible except to cartographers, the dashed line marking the fringe of Surrey.
Further ahead, at the foot of the freshcut slope, lay the northern edge of the village of Chaldon. A few nondescript cottages could be seen, but the village's pride and joy - the historic parish churchof St Peter and St Paul - was shielded behind a screen of trees. I'd been hoping to look inside to view the church's 12th century mural, reputedly the earliest known English wall painting , but alas I was thwarted by a badly-timed wedding. Damn you, oh happy couple and your be-hatted congregation. Instead I was forced to turn round and head back up the lane, and back into the cornfield, and back across the border into the capital. Maybe I'll get inside the church next time... assuming there is a next time. I can't ever imagine returning to this remote corner of South London by accident.
See also • NORTH London: On the clockwise hard shoulder of the M25 between junctions 24 and 25, just north of Crews Hill station [map](I visited in 2004) • WEST London: At the exit for Poyle on the roundabout above junction 14 of the M25, close to Heathrow Terminal 5 [map] • EAST London: Just off Fen Lane between North Ockendon and Bulphan, east of Mar Dyke but west of the Dunnings Lane crossroads [map] » see all four geographical extremities on a Google map
That's grey and threatening during the early morning, the odd shower with sunny intervals during the day, a heavy downpour at teatime, light drizzle in the early evening, and an overcast end to the day with the odd shower. Which looks about right.
Yesterday's weather was hugely complicated, and yet the online forecast still attempted to summarise it in just one symbol - "light rain". This single symbol might have been a decent summary of the day as a whole, but it was rarely representative of the weather at any one given moment. Which is a bit rubbish.
Anyone who'd seen this single symbol and then planned their day around it would have been sorely disappointed, even deceived. They might have cancelled an outdoor activity in the late morning or early afternoon because it would be "raining", whereas in fact the weather was mostly dry. Or they might have fired up the barbecue in the early evening, because the forecast was only for "light rain", and then been utterly drenched by a torrential downpour.
Why do we pretend that Britain's weather can be summarised in a single graphic? It can sometimes, during an anticyclonic heatwave for example, but most of the time our weather is much more complicated than that. One single symbol can never hope to hint at all the nuances of a day's weather.
In particular, it's not enough to know that it'll rain at some point during the next 24 hours, we need to know when. Sure, most TV weather forecasts give further detail, as do online forecasts if you know where to look. But one weather symbol per day isn't informative, it's just dumbed-down meteorology for stupid people. Weather forecasting websites are treating us like ignorant fools, and what's worse we believe them.
What we need is additional information. We need better-pinpointed rainfall forecasts which detail "when", as well as "how heavy". They'd only be best guesses, obviously, because rainfall is notoriously difficult to predict with any accuracy. But they'd be better than nothing. We need the Met Office to provide us with something like this...
London rainfall forecast: 18th August Light showers: around 3am, and between 10am and 4pm Heavy rain: around 5pm Light showers: just before midnight
...or they could even do it graphically...
Surely it wouldn't be too hard to provide simple short-term weather forecasts that hint more accurately at roughly when a band of rain is due, not just that it'll be wet. It can't be beyond the computing power of the Met Office computers in Exeter. Even if the forecast is just for the next 8 hours and not the next 24, a simple graphic with approximate times would still be bloody useful. How about it?
Although I fear that today's forecast might still look like this...
London rainfall forecast: 19th August Chucking it down: all day Weather warning: stay in
What is the point of the 5-day weather forecast? You know the sort of thing. Forecasts like this on the BBC website, or like this on the Met Office website. Forecasts that predict what the weather's going to be like for the next five days. Forecasts that people use to help plan their outdoor life, up to five days into the future. Forecasts that people read avidly. Forecasts that people trust and believe. Forecasts that are always wrong.
I've been checking London's 5-day forecast online every day this week, on both the BBC and Met Office websites, to try to answer the following question.
"What's the weather going to be like on Saturday?"
Here's what I discovered.
Monday: Sorry, no weather yet. Saturday may be five days away but there's no news on Saturday's weather forecast. The 5-day weather forecast only includes today and the next four days. It's a four-day weather forecast. Sorry.
Tuesday: According to the 5-day forecast, Saturday's weather will be sunny intervals. Looks nice. Not perfect, but nice enough. Looks good for going out and doing stuff. Looks perfect for barbecues and going to the park and hiking and sightseeing and all sorts of outdoor things. Saturday will be fine.
Wednesday: According to the 5-day forecast, Saturday's weather will be partly cloudy. That's a shame, the forecast's deteriorated since yesterday. Where's the sun gone? Ah well, at least Saturday won't be wet. It'll still be OK for going out and doing stuff. Saturday will be OK.
Thursday: According to the 5-day forecast, Saturday's weather will be light showers. That's annoying, the forecast's deteriorated again since yesterday. Looks like it's going to rain now. That's not so good for going out and doing stuff. Ah well, at least there'll still be sunshine between the showers. Saturday will be mixed.
Friday: According to the 5-day forecast, Saturday's weather will be light rain. That's not fair, the forecast's deteriorated again since yesterday. Looks like tomorrow will be dull and wet. Not good for barbecues and going to the park and hiking and sightseeing and all sorts of outdoor things. Might as well make plans to stay in. Saturday will be grim.
Saturday: And now it is Saturday, and the weather forecast is still for light rain. And, looking out of the window, that forecast appears to be correct. It's dull and grey out there, with the threat of imminent drizzle. It looks like the BBC got the weather forecast right, but they only got it right yesterday. Why did they bother predicting today's weather earlier in the week? All they did was raise our hopes on Tuesday, and then slowly dash those hopes bit by bit throughout the week. Saturday is looking disappointing.
The 5-day forecast is a sham. The 5-day forecast is a lie. And yet we still check it, religiously, to try to find out what the future holds. Why do we bother? Why do they bother publishing it? If all the supercomputers at Met Office HQ can't predict when a band of rain will pass overhead more than 48 hours in advance, why tell us? Even in the 21st century, the mysteries of Britain's weather are still completely beyond prediction. It's about time these 5-day forecasts came with a health warning, and that we stopped believing them. Because the weekend isn't always as good as they promise it's going to be. Still, at least next Wednesday looks nice...
Theory: Time travel doesn't exist Proof: This week Scottish postal worker Angela Kelly won £35.4m on the Euro Millions lottery
Slightly more detailed proof: This week Scottish postal worker Angela Kelly won £35.4m on the Euro Millions lottery. This is Britain's largest ever single lottery win. To share her winnings, all anyone else had to do was pick the right seven numbers. But nobody did, only Angela. If time travel existed, somebody else would have whizzed back to last week and spent £1.50 on the same seven numbers, and then grabbed half of Angela's millions. Or maybe bumped Angela off and collected the whole £35.4m themselves. But they didn't. So time travel doesn't exist. QED.
Rather more convincing step-by-step proof: a) Angela Kelly won £35.4m in last Friday's Euro Millions lottery draw.1 b)All the details of her win, including the numbers on her ticket and where she bought it, have now been made public.2 c) These details will remain in the public domain in the future, and could be read by anyone who had invented time travel. d) Time travel is bound to be very expensive, and no time traveller could resist thirty-five million pounds.3 e) First, set the controls of your time machine for Sainsburys in East Kilbride, last Thursday.4 f) Wait for Angela Kelly to turn up (it'll be easy to spot her - her photo's been in all the papers).5 g) Distract her before she reaches the lottery terminal at customer services, so that she arrives and asks for a ticket at a slightly different time. She'll then receive seven different random Lucky Dip numbers, and will win nothing.6 h) The entire prize fund is now up for grabs. Fork out £1.50 and put your money on 23, 40, 42, 43, 49, 2 and 6.7 i) Wait until Friday evening, and smile when your numbers come up. j) Sigh when it turns out that 1000 other time travellers have had the same idea, and you've each won £35000.8 k) But this didn't actually happen, did it?9 l) Therefore time travel doesn't exist. QED.10
Nit-picking footnotes: 1 Awww, it couldn't have happened to a nicer person, could it? 2 That'll teach her to go public. If only she'd stayed anonymous, none of this lottery-napping would be possible. 3 Centuries of rampant inflation might one day reduce the value of £35m to mere small change, in which case Angela's prize fund isn't quite so irresistable. 4 A Scottish new town isn't the most glamorous of locations, admittedly, but your excursion back in time to watch frolicking dinosaurs can wait. 5 Keep your fingers crossed that you don't arouse suspicion by hanging around the checkouts all day waiting for Angela to turn up, and then get asked to leave by a security guard. 6 Actually Angela still has a 1 in 76 million chance of winning the jackpot, randomly, but that's not exactly likely is it? 7 If you're travelling back from the distant future it might be very difficult to acquire an old pound coin and an ancient 50p piece, but somebody on eBay should be able to flog them to you. 8 Or maybe that's the same time traveller going back to last Thursday 1000 times, just to win as many shares in the jackpot as possible. 9 Unless Angela is herself a time traveller. Unlikely I know, but not impossible. 10 OK, maybe there are a few holes in this argument. But if you do ever invent time travel, don't forget to pop back to last week and make your fortune.
Do you spend enough of your day thinking? Does your grey matter get plenty of exercise? Are you making the most of your Prefrontal Cortex?
Never fear! Dr Hirosaki can help!
Now you can fill the spare moments of your life with Dr Hirosaki's cutting-edge quizzes and puzzles. Dr Hirosaki can stimulate your brain cells and stop them from wasting away. His cranial tests are guaranteed to keep you young and alert, honest they are. Answering a never-ending series of ridiculously easy questions can help to prevent early onset Alzheimers, really it can. Come on everybody, fork out £30 for a cartridge for your favourite mobile games device, and let's enjoy some certified brain gain.
Here's a trial test to discover how young your brain is. The clock is ticking. Are you game?
1) Count the tulips. A 3 B 5 C 7 D 44
2) What letter comes before T in the alphabet? A E B A C S D Y
3) What is 5+1? A 4 B 6 C 8 D you don't really need a 4th option, do you?
4) Which of these is not a circle? ABCD
5) Count the tulips again. A only 3 B still 5 C about 7 D at least 44
6) What level of intelligence are these questions aimed at? A a 6 year-old B a 12 year-old C an A level student D a university graduate
7) Why are you wasting your time on this ridiculous quiz? A because it's great fun! B because I find sudoku a bit too hard C because I'm afraid of getting old and losing my mind D because it's the latest craze and I'd really hate to miss out
8) Would you like to count the tulips again? A ooh, yes please! B could you make it a bit easier? C 5!!! D no, bugger off
Dr Hirosaki's Brain Training is now available in all good retail outlets. Or you could just buy a book and read it, which would be a lot better for your brain, and a lot cheaper too.
There's exactly one month to go until this year's London Open House event. For those who love buildings, Open House Weekend is like architectural Christmas. Hundreds and hundreds of the capital's buildings will be open to the public for free, most of them never normally accessible even at a price. Some of these buildings are small and bijou, while others are huge and iconic. And every year I, and thousands of other Londoners, join queues across the capital to try to visit as many as possible. Over the years I've visited the Olympic viewing platform, Crossness Pumping Station, the Alexandra Palace TV studios and Lloyd's of London, amongst scores of other brilliant locations. It's always both fascinating and knackering, but ultimately very rewarding.
The programme for Open House 2007 has just been released. I paid £4 to have a copy sent to my letterbox, but you can buy a pdf for £3 or try exploring the website for free. The website has improved a lot over the years, now with borough-by-borough searching and a pinpointed Google map. But it's still not easy to search the available buildings online and to pick out the jewels in the list, not unless you pay up and buy the proper catalogue. So I've had a quick look through the 72 page booklet for you, to select a few rather special buildings for which booking is required in advance. Most of the rest you can just turn up and queue for on the day, but if you don't reserve a free ticket for this lot soon then you'll never get inside. In particular, may I draw your attention to the exceptionally rare opportunity to ascend to the top of the Gherkin and to stare down on London from the 40th floor. Only 500 Londoners will get the chance, and you need to be ready on the Open House website on Friday morning (17th August) to have any hope of booking your place.
Here's a fully clickable list of pre-bookable architectural goodies...
• There are two kinds of household in Britain - those with a car (81%) and those without (19%). • There are two kinds of car-owning household in Britain - those that need a car, and those that don't. • There are two kinds of car-owner in Britain - those that are healthy, and those that are fat bastards.
A report published yesterday by the Institute for European Environmental Policy sheds light on just how fat the UK's car drivers are becoming. It's their own fault, apparently, for sitting behind the wheel of a car when previously they might have walked somewhere. Passing your driving test and buying a car is a one-way ticket to obesity, so they say. Drivers, on average, walk approximately half as far every year as adults in non-car households. And that difference adds up. Here's how...
» The average car owner walks 141 miles a year (680 yards a day) » The average non car-owner walks 272 miles a year (1310 yards a day) » The difference between the two equates to approximately 8 minutes walking each day
» The average car driver burns 14 kcal in 8 minutes (105 kilocalories an hour) » The average pedestrian burns 40 kcal in 8 minutes (300 kilocalories an hour) » The difference between the two equates to approximately 26 kcal each day
» So the average car owner burns 26 fewer kilocalories every day than the average non-car owner » That's 3500 fewer kilocalories every 19 weeks (equivalent to one pound of fat) » That's an extra 2¾ pounds of fat every year (equivalent to one extra stone every 5 years)
All this additional driving is creating a slow but inexorable increase in the nation's collective waistline. Drivers risk piling on an extra stone of fat every five years, just because they don't walk as far as they could. Over a 30 year period this adds up to nearly six stone, which is an awful lot of wobbly belly. A little less exercise every day over a very long period of time is helping car drivers to evolve into fat bastards. So it says in the report. Thank goodness I sold my car when I moved to London, otherwise I'd probably be a fat bastard too by now.
There are plenty more figures in the report, all 75 pages of it. Here are a few choice selected statistics, comparing now to 30 years ago, just to show what a nation of fat bastard car drivers we're becoming.
1975
2005
Adults in car-owning households
59%
81%
Adults with driving licences
49%
72%
Number of private cars registered
12 million
27 million
Journeys of less than 1 mile made on foot
86%
76%
Average distance walked (per year)
248 miles
169 miles
Average time spent walking (per week)
1hr 40m
1hr 17m
Percentage of adults who are obese
6%
24%
So, car drivers of Britain, take heed. Your future waistline is in your own hands. You'd better start parking your vehicle at the end of the road and walking the last bit home. Or sell the damned thing and throw yourself at the mercy of public transport. Because you don't want to end up a fat bastard in 30 years time, do you?
Not every battle against mobile phone marketing is won.
Here's a new road sign that's just appeared beside the A12 Blackwall Tunnel Approach road (close to Bromley-by-Bow tube station, outside my local supermarket). Sigh. This is what six million quid a year buys you. Not just a Teflon-coated millennial structure, not just a station on the tube map, but your company's name emblazoned across an official government roadsign. The signwriters have even gone to the bother of writing the chemical symbol using the mobile company's chosen typeface, and not the Department of Transport's official font. No doubt O2's marketing team are delighted at prostituting themselves even further into the East London consciousness. They may not be quite so happy with the squashed hedgehog logo - presumably they'd have preferred the "unique ergonomic form" of a Motorola Z8, or something similar. But they'll be happy enough.
There's no mention on the sign that visitors still have more than 2 miles to drive, nor that queues are likely through the Blackwall Tunnel and they might miss the start of their chosen gig, nor that they'll be expected to fork out an exorbitant £20 for parking once they arrive. Drivers don't need such important information, it seems, they just need to be reminded which phone network to use. I may not have a car, nor any desire to spend £150 on a ticket to see the Rolling Stones, but I'm still going to have to look at this branded monstrosity every time I go shopping. At least until O2 plc goes bust, or gets renamed after its parent company, or finds something better to spend its marketing budget on. Here's hoping.
I SPY Almost-LONDON the definitive DG guide to places a few yards over the border into Essex Part 1:Gunpowder Park
Location: Sewardstone Road, Waltham Abbey, Essex EN9 3GP [map] Very nearly in: the London Borough of Enfield Admission: free 5-word summary: reclaimed firing-range, now arty park Website:www.gunpowderpark.org Time to set aside: an afternoon, maybe
On a sunny summer's day, there are few things better (and cheaper) than visiting a country park. Gunpowder Park is one of the newest, opened three years ago on the site of an old munitions testing ground near Waltham Abbey. Don't worry, they've removed all the unexploded nitro-glycerine shells and tarted up the 250 acres a bit, because nobody would come and visit otherwise. Although it was a bit quiet here yesterday, with just six cars in the car park, so I had vast tracts of land all to myself for a lot of the time. Magic.
An awful lot of effort has gone into making this a 21st century park, even if at first glance it looks like a few fields and some woods. The park has been zoned into four distinct bio-regions, each with its own ecological identity. There's a "comprehensive network of surfaced paths accessible in all weathers", because cyclists and pushchairs are very important these days, and because some people hate mud. And there's a visitors centre in the top right hand corner of the park, cunningly constructed out of caged rubble, where you can use the toilets and change a nappy. I was expecting a café and gift shop but no, the shutters were down and the "exhibition space" was closed. At least the invisible park rangers had kindly left some maps in a waterproof box outside the door. Do take a map - you might miss some of the good bits otherwise.
Somebody let a crack team of landscape artists loose on Gunpowder Park. This is no ordinary country park, oh no, this is a "physical and virtual focal point for exploration, innovation, communication and collaboration.". Yeah, right. And that's why there are big swirly earthworks and lumpy mounds everywhere across the top half of the park - supposedly an arty manifestation of a "dynamic landform explosion". The design looks great on an aerial photo, but I must say I never realised I was walking around a giant picture until I got home and looked "from above" on the internet. The scorched landscape in the northern meadows has a "not quite all grown yet" feel to it, and a large area has had to be fenced off recently while some suspect underground utility shafts are investigated.
Further south is a large area of wet woodland, once the dominant ecosystem across these parts of the Lea Valley. I wandered into the heart of the Osier Marsh, along specially constructed wooden walkways, to view the wildlife in some old flooded gravel pits. They look far lovelier now that the Ministry of Defence has left and indigenous wildlife has taken over. A notice attached to one of the hides overlooking the East Pool advised us to look out for a pair of Mute Swans and their "three signets", but I couldn't see them. Nearby a French artist had set up four fluorescent tubes on a white board and called it a "Love Motel", in the hope that it would attract nocturnal insects to mate and feed on his sculpture. Alas the only animal life I spotted in the area were an Essex family out walking their pitbull, and an old man taking his poodle for a ride on a mobility scooter.
The remaining quadrant of the park is given over to arable farming. There are seven fields, each currently teeming with something thin and stalky that isn't quite ripe yet. I particularly enjoyed walking along the central footpath, up to the highest point of the park with views in all directions. To the east are the rolling hills above Sewardstone and Gilwell Park, to the south a chain of pylons snaking down the Lea Valley towards Ponders End, and to the north an utterly huge Sainsbury's warehouse conveniently located for the nearby M25. But best of all was that the footpath precisely followed the Greenwich meridian. I'm a sucker for any physical manifestation of the line of zero degrees longitude, and this mile-long rural trackway was a right charmer. South of the summit the path skirted the edge of one of the fields, along a precisely aligned "meridian hedgerow". What an utterly delightful idea. Why stand straddling the brass line in the tourist-packed courtyard at Greenwich when you could stand in an empty Essex field and pick zero-degree sloes and red berries instead?
Don't bother making the effort to visit if you're a confirmed townie or seek only some genuine countryside. But if you enjoy the experimentally rural, Gunpowder Park might well be worth a few hours exploration. by train: Enfield Lockby bus: 121, 491, 505 by bike: National Cycle Route 1by car: M25 J26
Gallowatch: This is an email from the other side of the street. I live one side of Bow Road, the side that's part of the Bethnal Green & Bow constituency. My MP is therefore notorious Scottish loudmouth George Galloway. I've just wandered across the pelican crossing to the other side of Bow Road, the side that's part of the Poplar and Limehouse constituency. George holds no sway here, and I can sit in the bus shelter without fear of electoral embarrassment. Over here, on the even-poorer side of the street, the current MP is Labour Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick. But maybe not for much longer. Mr Galloway hasannounced that he's crossing the road for the next election, and taking up the fight in Poplar and Limehouse instead. He always said that he wouldn't fight another election in Bethnal Green & Bow, but he's only travelled nextdoor to find his next target seat. George's new battleground constituency includes several impoverished chunks of Shadwell and Poplar, as well as the shiny highrises of Limehouse and Canary Wharf. In this part of the East End there's a solid core of voters who appreciate everything his Respect Party stands for, as indicated by a local by-electionwin this week. But will the wealthier Docklands element fall for his beguiling cat-licking charm? One hopes not. As soon as the next election is called, my side of the street will finally be free of an MP who's treated his constituents with self-obsessed disinterest. But the other side of Bow Road may not be so lucky. At least they have the chance not to vote for him in the first place. Come on Gordon, name the date and bring it on! And let's make both sides of my street a better place to live.
This is an email from a nightbus - a nightbus that talks. Don't expect to sleep past your stop any more, because this bus wakes you up every couple of minutes by telling you where you are and where you're going. "This is route N73 to Walthamstow Central" "Marble Arch station" A friendly but narcoleptic female voice keeps interrupting my night-time journey to announce every passing bus stop with unconvincing enthusiasm. "This is route N73 to Walthamstow Central" "Selfridges" I'm on board a double decker that's been fitted with Transport for London's new iBus service, featuring scrolling text and aural prompts. They call it passenger empowerment, and it must be extremely useful if you're blind, or deaf, or a tourist, or new to the area. But it's bloody annoying if you know where you're going. "This is route N73 to Walthamstow Central" Yes I know it is dear, you've told me several times already, and it said so in big letters on the front of the bus when I got on. Please shut up and let me drift off into sweet thoughts about getting home and sleeping for the rest of the night. But no, you're going to drone on and on and on, stop after stop, forever and ever until the end of time. Because, as TfL gradually roll out their iBus system across nigh every vehicle in the network, there'll soon be no escape from your patronising voice telling us something we already know every step of the way. "This is route N73 to Walthamstow Central""Oxford Circus" I'm sorry love, but this is where I get off and change onto another nightbus that your pre-recorded tones haven't yet polluted. I'd rather listen to the drunks and flirts and snorers than listen to you telling me where we're going, over and over again. Enjoy the silence, while it lasts.
There's one particular page on the revamped London 2012 website that pleases me very much. It's the page describing one of the places where an Olympic event will take place. It's the page devoted to the basketball and gymnastics venue. It's the page about the O2.
The London 2012 website duly enthuses about North Greenwich's famous spiky arena. It was "originally built for the Millennium celebrations", the site explains, and it's been "transformed into a sports and entertainment arena with shops, restaurants and more."A recent entry by Neil on the London 2012 blog goes one step further and declares "WOW what a superb venue!" He and his wife were very impressed indeed after a recent visit to see Prince. "As we left we both agreed it was a shame we live just a little to far from the venue, else it would become a regular feature of our lives." Yes, really, that good.
And why do I love this particular London 2012 webpage? It's because the venue being described is called "The Dome". There's not a mention of an oxygen molecule anywhere, nor any reference to a mobile phone company with millions of pounds to spend. Nowhere is this arena described as "The O2". It's just "The Dome", like it always used to be, before the marketing fatcats moved in.
There are very strict rules on Olympic sponsorship. Sporting venues used for the Games aren't permitted to carry the name of a sponsor or a brand, not even one that's paid to be an official marketing associate. So the Olympic basketball and gymnastics events won't be held in "The O2", because that name's not allowed. And the London 2012 website will have to carry on calling it "The Dome" for at least the next five years. And I like that. Oyes, I like that very much indeed.
Devices found: Doddmeister, Nokia 6233, Ryan, The Jackie, Riaan, Yiddo, Nj, Secret lemonade drin, Soph's Fone, XxJaZzY dArLiNXx, Paraphilia, LG KE970
I can see the point of Bluetooth per se. It's a brilliant way of transferring data from multimedia device to multimedia device without having to pay for broadband, text messaging or mobile upload charges. It's perfect when you know that someone wants to send you something over a short distance, like a ringtone or a hilarious video snippet. But why leave your phone's Bluetooth switched on permanently, all day long, in the vain hope that someone might send you something? Because they won't.
Devices found: Beaney, Nokia 6233, Blackberry 8100, Nokia 6680, Matts new phone, W850i, Nokia, Caller 2007, short-pocketpc
This wasn't always the case. Four years ago "Bluejacking" was all the rage. Hardcore mobile users revelled in new technology which allowed them to send dodgy messages to other people's phones, just for a laugh, because they could. Oh how they enjoyed their evil digitised prodding. But it's all a bit passé now, and nobody does it any more. I've left my mobile's Bluetooth switched on for the last week, and nothing. Not a poke.
Devices found: ¤¤¤N80, Noel, Blackberry 8800, Chris, Nick mobile, Send 2 This 1, SAMSUNG SGH-D600, Russ, Keith carpet, * ¥ 4rif ¥ *
But there are still huge numbers of people out there with Bluetooth-enabled phones. I know, because I've been using my mobile to "discover" them on the tube this week. There I am rammed into the same carriage as them, elbow to armpit, and there they are broadcasting their witty and amusing phone names to everyone within a 10 metre radius.
Devices found: Sully, Nats, SAMSUNG SGH-D500, Davetherave, Anthony, Nokia 6230i, NOKIA N80, Michelle's phone, Ting Tong, Nokia 6300, Jonboy!
Maybe it's an ego thing. Maybe the joy of mobile Bluetooth is in giving your phone a name (of up to 20 characters) which represents your personality. Bluetoothers strut around in life with a digitised namebadge, readable to anyone who cares to look, in the hope that someone out there will find their electronic alias too witty to resist. I mean, look at these lists of usernames I tracked down on the tube this week. Ha bloody ha. Who wouldn't want to hook up with such raw playful talent?
It makes no sense. Permanently discoverable Bluetooth must surely drain your phone's battery more quickly than necessary. And for no particularly good reason, because nobody's using it to send stuff out of the blue anyway. Because it doesn't work. I know, because I tried Bluetoothing several times on the tube yesterday, and to no avail. I attempted to send a photo of a kitten from my phone to everybody else in the vicinity, working one-by-one down the list of visible devices, but not one potential recipient even noticed. Connection failed. Retry? I think not.
Devices found: W850i, Dude, MISS SARAH C 07, Nokia N95, N91, Macasta, Steph;-)
So if your Bluetooth is permanently enabled, why not save your battery (and save yourself some embarrassment) by switching it off? It's not big and it's not clever, and neither is that RiDiCuLص$ name you're using.
I'm not flying anywhere on holiday this year. I'm not killing the planet by jetting off around the world. I'm not watching in-flight movies whilst firing evil fumes into the atmosphere just so that I can get a suntan on some foreign beach. Oh no. I've been away but I've stayed local, and I've taken the train. I'm being really really green this year, and really really good.
I wasn't quite so well behaved last year. Last spring I flew long-haul across the Atlantic to the west coast of America, contributing 2.0 tonnes of CO2 to global meltdown in the process. And last summer I flew short-haul to the Outer Hebrides, expelling another 0.2 tonnes of evil greenhouse gas. That's 2.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide I've saved this year by not flying as far as I did last year. Aren't I an ecological angel?
So, I wondered if anybody wanted to buy my 2.2 tonnes of unused carbon footprint. If I don't need it this year, then maybe one of you does. I've calculated that my leftover aviation ration would counterbalance the CO2 output from a return flight from Heathrow to Hong Kong. Or it would allow a family of 4 to fly to the Greek islands and back. An absolute bargain for any holiday traveller with a guilty environmental conscience, I reckon. Anybody up for some carbon trading?
Or maybe you'd like to transfer my 2.2 tonnes of CO2 to a different means of transport. You could drive across America from coast to coast in a Ferrari. You could take a group of seven friends the full length of the Trans Siberian Railway. Or you could circumnavigate the Circle line 1000 times, just for fun. Whatever, I'm not fussy, I'll sell my carbon ration to anyone.
I reckon there's a lot of money to be made in this carbon offset business. An increasing number of consumers seem to think that they can use as much energy as they like so long as they swap their gassy output with someone else. They'll happily pay some upstart company to plant three trees in Norway to cancel out their wasteful lifestyle, just so long as they get sent a big green certificate saying it's all above board. Kill the planet now, and pay someone else to mop up the mess for you later. It's the future, you know?
While we're at it, I don't have a washer drier either. Or a big plasma telly. Or a mobile phone charger plugged into my wall on permanent standby. Maybe you'd be interested in sending me money to cancel out your own sloppy emission habits. I've got a Paypal account somewhere, and I'm more than willing to swap your cash for my pristine ecological behaviour.
Enter amount £ (and then carry on as normal...)
• If you want to take this seriously (and maybe make some money), how about carbon rationing?
[I can provide references from at least one other public service website, whose media manager invited me into the office last week to give their site a good 90-minute user-experience going-over. That's the power of blog!]
Marathons are for wusses. For a true test of all-round fitness and stamina there's only one true test, and that's triathlon. First a swim (of up to 1500m), then a cycle (of up to 40km) and finally - assuming you're not completely knackered already - a run (of up to 10km). That's a very long way, especially on the hottest weekend of the year, which made competing in the London Triathlon a real test of character. More than ten thousand competitors took part, split into 37 different waves across two days, with many raising considerable sums of money for good causes. I went down to the ExCel Centre in Docklands to view the spectacle , and I couldn't fail to be impressed.
Step 1: Swim With the temperature nudging thirty degrees, what better start than a refreshing dip in the Royal Victoria Dock? Competitors zipped up their wetsuits, slipped into the water and swam out to the starting position beneath the Britannia footbridge. I watched from above as "Male Olympic 40-54 Group 1" trod water behind a row of buoys and canoes, waiting for the race to begin . A jovial pink-haired fellow roused the waiting paddlers with the odd "oggy oggy oggy" through his megaphone, before the siren sounded and a seething shoal of swimmers set off determinedly through the water . Only 30 miles to go. A plane heading for City Airport flew screamingly low directly overhead. The swimmers splashed on, turning back at an orange buoy just before they reached the runway. On arrival back at the dockside they were helped from the water and ran up a ramp through jets of showered spray , before being urged to remove their wetsuits and drop them in a plastic bag. The event was organised with military precision.
Step 1½: transition There's an added difficulty in multi-discipline sport, and it's switching from one mode of transport to another. You can't take your bike for a swim, so you have to find it inside a giant bikeshed before you can continue the course. A huge cavernous expanse of the ExCel Centre had been given over to this function, with about quarter of a mile of bikeracks laid out in long rows to create the world's largest changing room. Dripping wet competitors jogged in, located their bike somewhere down one of the dark aisles and switched into cycling mode. It's no good just being a mega-athlete in this sport - you have to be a speedy quick change artist too.
Step 2: cycle It's a two-wheeled London summer. Everywhere you look, it seems, there are lycra-clad thighs vigorously pumping atop a streamlined saddle. Yesterday, at ExCel, there were several thousand. It was no good attempting to drive between Docklands and the City yesterday afternoon, because the roads had been given over to manic pedalling. North of Canary Wharf the cyclists enjoyed three lanes to themselves, while four-wheeled traffic was corralled into a single bumper-to-bumper crawl lane alongside. Some of the cyclists were heading for Tower Bridge, twice, while others sped as far as Westminster. It looked to be a most glorious route in the cloudless summer sunshine, but for the participants there was no time to stop and admire along the way.
Step 3: run After a second transition stage (dump bike, remove helmet, put trainers on) it was time for the final run. I can't even manage half a mile these days, but these elite Olympic-level participants still had six and a bit to go. Luckily, by ambling over the elevated footbridge across the docks, I could reach the turn-round point in Britannia Village before they could. Here a giant orange bottle proclaimed the name of the event's sponsored energy drink, and sweltering athletes grabbed a cup (to ensure "hydration") before dashing back around the water's edge (past not terribly many spectators) to the race's finish. Unusually the finishing line was indoors, inside the ExCel Centre itself, next to a small exhibition of triathlon-related stalls. Here you could buy figure-hugging wetsuits and heart-rate monitors and nutrition supplements, amongst other specialist fare. The Territorial Army were recruiting, presumably because ultra-fit athletes require less training than their usual lager-drinkers and kebab-munchers. I walked away with a goody bag containing a free baseball cap, a bag of nuts and a bottle of the sponsor's beer - an alcoholic beverage that no true triathlete would dream of drinking on a race day. And I walked away with enormous respect for anyone sufficiently fit and motivated to take on such an enormous physical challenge, all for a cheap metal medal and the satisfaction of having completed the course.
• Despair at the lack of summer. • I mean, it's August, it's been raining for months and we haven't had any really decent summery weather since April (and that wasn't proper summery, just late-springy). • Notice that the weather forecast is suddenly promising hot sunny cloudless weather for a 48 hour period, coinciding precisely with the weekend. Whoop. • Search out summer wardrobe, visit supermarket to buy raw barbecuable meat, plan torrid two-day blowout. • Squeeze into unflattering t-shirt (revealing pasty arms and ill-advised tattoo); squeeze into too-tight shorts (revealing flabby legs and paunch overspill); squeeze into £1.99 sandals (revealing imperfect toenails and lack of fashion sense). • Pack picnic hamper with sausage rolls, scotch eggs, cheese sandwiches and lots of other food you won't feel like eating later. • Notice that lawn needs watering, fairly desperately. • Ignore lawn, pile into car and head to the nearest bit of seaside. • Sit in queue on local motorway, sweating profusely and cursing the rest of the population for having the same idea. • Eat contents of picnic hamper while sat in car waiting for space in cliff-top carpark. • Find ten square feet of available space on beach, plonk down on pebbles, remove t-shirt, roll over and begin sunbathing. • Wake up two hours later to discover that your skin is glowing red and that a seagull has left its mark on your towel. • Go for walk along seafront. Buy drippy 99 cornet and tray of greasy undercooked chips. Feed ten quid into "grab machine" in amusement arcade on pier without ever picking up evil-looking cuddly toy. • Return to car and join snail's pace exodus home. • Fire up barbecue in back garden and invite neighbours over for evening of carnivorous activity and heavy drinking. • Apologise three hours later that barbecue still isn't warm enough yet. Continue to drink copious amounts of vodka-infused Pimms-like punch. • Risk nibbling on under-cooked chicken leg and lamb kebab. Error. Decide to abandon barbecue and send someone down to the Indian for a takeaway curry instead. • Turn up volume on ghetto blaster in an attempt to blot out loud reggae coming from five gardens away. • Admire unusually vibrant blue colour of sky just after sunset. • Roll into bed, being very careful not to rest on the sore patch of charred skin round the nape of your neck. • Repeat on Sunday.
I'm sure that, inspired by the vibrant brand message of the London 2012 Olympics, all of you are regular readers of the London 2012 website. You'll remember the site's clean crisp design, with plain white background and understated layout. Well not any more. The website's gone the same way as the much-loved 2012 logo, and is now a vision in edgy pink. And that electric light blue colour. And a bit of yellow and orange. It's cutting edge, it's street style and it's well down with da yoof. They're going to adore it, should they ever think to visit.
Of course, when any website upgrades there are always teething problems. Sidebars that don't quite say what you want, links that catapult readers to the wrong location, and malfunctioning databases displaying not quite the right information in not quite the right place. That's why you beta test any website before you put it up live, and why you check every possible interaction thoroughly before the public are allowed in. The website of London's premier sporting bid would never make such elementary errors, would they?
Here's one of my favourite pages on the new site. It's this month's "news archive" page, where each of August's media reports will be filed away. Except that the page has been labelled "August 2008". Only 12 months out, guys. It's an easy mistake to make, and so elementary that I'm sure someone will have rectified the error well before you get round to clicking on the page to view it.
And then there's the London 2012 blog - a well-managed stream of first-person updates related to all aspects of the approaching Olympics and Paralympics. That's gone very pink indeed. There are lots of tags, because tags are very 2.0 (with "Culture" a completely different tag to "culture", apparently). Now you have to click to read each post, and to see any relevant photographs, whereas previously the whole post appeared on the main page. Individual posts used to kick off with a thumbnail photo of the author, but all of these have suddenly vanished. Text now flows in oh-so skinny columns down the right-hand edge of photos, and captions have become detached from the image they describe. To top it all, the blog's new RSS feed is trapped two months in the past. It's not quite online nirvana, alas.
More seriously, all of the blog's comments have vanished. Every single one of them. There weren't too many comments before, not least because you had to register before you could leave one. And what comments there were felt a bit clean and sanitised, but they were still a legitimate means of responding to a civic project of international importance. No longer. You can read, but not reply. This disappearance may just be a temporary error. Certainly the blog still displays a link to "commenting guidelines". And, if you scan down the sidebar, there's a link to "recent comments". Except there are only two, and they all seem to be part of a test post dated "Jan 1 2009". Hmmm. Another error, surely, that's accidentally slipped past the relaunched site's army of debuggers.
The site also suffers from that perennial problem of any "back to the drawing board" relaunch, which is that most of the URLs have changed. I've linked to several London 2012 pages from this blog before, and suddenly almost all of those links are broken. This link to the Aquatics Centre - broken. This link to the Olympic Delivery Authority - broken. Even the link in my sidebar to the 2012 blog has broken, because the web designers have changed its URL from blog.london2012.com to london2012.com/blog. I'm sure that the new address is a better match to agreed website naming conventions, but it currently has zero brand awareness and will have to build up its online linkage from scratch.
So, there are only three possible conclusions to be drawn. i) the web designers on the London 2012 site haven't got their act together ii) the new London 2012 website has been launched before it was ready iii) both of the above
Never mind, it's only us geeky Londoners who've noticed so far. The world won't be arriving on the 2012 website for another 5 years, and there's plenty of time to build dynamic online brand perfection before then.
What time does your evening start? That last chunk of the day, after work and after you've travelled home. The good bit, before bedtime. Do you start your evening early and enjoy several hours of quality time? Or do you traipse home late and tumble almost immediately into bed?
Maybe Friday isn't the best day to ask this question. Many people try to start their Friday evenings a little earlier than on other weekdays, often in an alcoholic establishment close to their place of work. But consider a typical weekday earlier in the week. What time does your evening start? Please post a brief comment in the appropriate box below, and let us know.
4 something (or earlier)
I don't really fit any of those categories
5 something
6 something
7 something
8 something (or later)
I'm lucky, my evenings generally start at four-something. I get into work early so that I can get out early, and only have to face a half-hour commute to get home. By five o'clock I'm usually changed into non-work clothes, slouching round the flat and making myself a cup of tea. And that leaves several hours before bedtime to do with what I will. I suspect that most of you are not so fortunate.
I noticed a big differential in work-finish times yesterday when another company invited me to a meeting that started at 5pm. To me, a meeting starting at 5pm is pretty much taboo. But to employees of the organisation I was visiting it seemed almost normal. I headed round to their offices after (my) work, to find their offices still heaving with people, still working. By the time our meeting finished, around half past six, their workplace was a lot quieter but still not completely dead. It's not an atmosphere I recognise. If you're still at work at half past six at my place, the cleaners glare as they hoover round you.
After my late meeting I travelled home via Canary Wharf, passing through the tube station at around 7pm. Here the platforms were still swarming with commuters, only recently escaped from the office, and there was even a queue at the top of the escalator as even more attempted to follow them down. Outside in the piazza the bars and restaurants were packed with merry suited workers, quaffing copious amounts of alcohol with their colleagues before finally deciding to make their way home later in the evening. Many of these financial whizzkids had long commutes ahead of them, on the slow train out to Essex or across town to the distant suburbs, and wouldn't be getting home before nine at the very earliest. Not long then until bedtime, and less than 12 hours before they'd have to be back at their desks bright and early to start all over again. It's not a lifestyle I'd enjoy. Sooner them than me.
So I'm mighty glad that my current line of work (usually) allows me to make a proper evening of it, most nights of the week. I get a long swathe of free pm time to fill, and enjoy a very decent after-office quality of life. My apologies if you don't. My apologies if you stay at work late, and face a hellishly long journey home, and have to devote what little time you have left to cooking or helping the kids with their homework or even getting your laptop out and catching up with yet more work. I know, I am blessed. You can't put a price on a good long evening, can you?
My local Sainsbury's stoppedacceptingcheques yesterday. And so did yours. And every Sainsbury's across the country. None of them are accepting cheques any more - ostensibly "to help stop cheque fraud", but in reality because very few Sainsbury's shoppers still use them. And because cheques can't be scanned easily and so cost a lot more to process. And because there's little more annoying than being stuck in a checkout queue behind someone paying by cheque (except perhaps being stuck behind someone paying by credit card when the card doesn't work). Sainsbury's have helpfully published a fully comprehensive FAQ to help behind-the-times shoppers adapt to the new rules ("I have a latex allergy. What are the buttons on your chip and PIN terminals made of?"). But, no matter what your problem, writing a cheque at the checkout is no longer an option.
And Sainsbury's are not alone. Argos have gone cheque-free in the last week or so, as have Morrisons. It's the same story at Asda, Boots and WH Smith, and even London Underground ticket offices stopped accepting cheques a couple of weeks ago. The days of writing out amounts in words and figures are surely numbered.
I can barely remember the last time I paid for something by cheque, whereas I used to use them all the time. So I thought I'd flick back through an old pile of chequebook stubs to count up how many cheques I'd torn out in each of the last 8 years. I used to write the equivalent of one cheque every 6 days, but now it's more like 6 cheques in three years. I blame Chip and Pin, and the relentless advance of online banking. Here are the figures.
Number of cheques I wrote in each year
1999
60
2000
52
2001
38
2002
12
2003
11
2004
3
2005
2
2006
1
2007
0
So I'm not going to miss the demise of cheques at all. Probably. Unless I'm trying to pay money by post. Or unless I'm in the backwoods of somewhere like Northumberland, where I noticed several restaurants which still don't accept new-fangled plastic, only good old cheques. Or unless my debit card gets stolen and I have no other means of payment for a week while my replacement arrives. In fact, maybe I ought to hang onto my cheque book for a bit longer, just in case. And society ought to think twice before consigning cheques to oblivion because for some people, and on certain occasions, there is still no practical alternative.
Anybody else got all their worldly savings in Abbey National? I've had the Abbey habit since the 70s. But now I'm getting nervous. First they got rid of the word "National", ditched the traditional "umbrella couple" logo and went all trendy and lower case. Then they were taken over by Spanish bank Santander, ditched the new look and introduced Santander's "flame" logo to British High Streets. More recently they've started writing "Part of the Santander Group" immediately underneath the word Abbey every time it appears, and running TV ads telling us that Santander is a wonderful European bank with 150 years of history behind it. They're clearly buttering us up for a big rebranding announcement. Presumably, imminently, the next step will be the eradication of the old Abbey name to be replaced by that of their Spanish buyout puppetmasters. Anybody else want all their worldly savings in "Santander"? Because I don't. Should I withdraw all my money and stick it in a nice solid traditional British bank instead? Or is there no such thing any more? Or should I stop worrying because they're all as bad as each other? And it's only a name?
Regular readers will know that August on diamond geezer is local history month. 31 days devoted to some London-related geographic adventure, probably linear in nature, with daily posts reporting back on the sights and sounds along the way. Four years ago I explored famous (and not so famous) places within 15 minutes of my house. Because I live somewhere surprisingly interesting, and most probably more interesting than you. Three years ago I took a long slow walk along Piccadilly, a rather more upmarket location, and found 31 points of interest to tell you about. Two years ago I followed the course of the long-buried River Fleet, from Hampstead Heath to the Thames. I really enjoyed uncovering the tracks of the old river, and it's probably the biggest online project I've ever tackled. And last year, for a fortnight if not the full month, I followed in Betjeman's footsteps from Baker Street out into Metroland. Sir John certainly had a good eye for all things suburban, and it was another fascinating trek.
Regular readers will know that August on diamond geezer is local history month. But not this August. I'm not going on a big all-consuming London safari this month, and I'm not blogging about it here in enormous detail. You may be disappointed, because you look forward each summer to see which eclectic location I've selected for in-depth psychogeographic analysis. Or you may be relieved, because you find all this introspective London stuff mind-bogglingly tedious. Whatever. Not this August. Not 2007.
I'd had quite a few ideas for monstrously big bloggy projects that I could undertake this month. I wondered about following another tube line, or maybe the DLR, but decided against a station-by-station analysis. I wondered about doing a "London alphabet", tracking through some capital locations from A to Z, but that would have run out of steam with 5 days to spare. I wondered about visiting every bridge and tunnel down the Thames, but that's been done elsewhere. I wondered about walking around, or through, my local borough of Tower Hamlets, but you're probably sick of the Olympics and their environs by now. And I wondered about several other things too, but I'm not going to reveal what they are because I'm probably going to do them at some point and I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise. Just not this month.
I've been busy recently, that's why. Not mega-super-busy, but busy enough not be able to commit the semi-extreme amounts of time that such major blog projects require. Instead of exploring some obscure London suburb with my camera I've been standing in a pub having a drink instead, or just out being sociable at some event somewhere. Some would say this is a far better use of my time. I might even agree with them. It won't last, of course, but while it does I've put my normal August online plans on hold.
Don't worry, there'll still be lots of London-y stuff in the future, including those special feature weeks where I spend seven days talking about nothing but some aspect of the capital (and, in the process, annoying several of my readers who couldn't give a damn). But there'll be nothing ultra-big this August. You'll cope. You may even prefer it that way.
What's on this weekend? A.V. Roe Centenary Sunday 12 July, 2pm
A replica triplane celebrates one hundred years since Britain's first ever flight on Walthamstow Marshes.
WALK LONDON
This isn't one of London's six Strategic Walks, but it seemed sort of appropriate to walk it today, ten years on. I'm planning to walk the southern half of the figure of eight route, starting from Kensington Gardens and heading towards St James's Park (via Hyde Park Corner). I'll be reporting back live, via email, at various points along the way - including a playground, some palace gates, a fountain and a memorial service, amongst other assorted Diana-ry. There's no official website for the walk, neither (inexplicably) has the Daily Express yet published a 32-page souvenir pullout guide. But if you want to follow the route on a map, I've knocked one up here.
The Guards Chapel: Outside the Wellington Barracks, on the southern fringe of St James's Park, an ever increasing crowd has gathered. We gawp across Birdcage Walk, past a wall of staring white-shirted policemen, to the steps of the chapel beyond. An almighty cheer greets the arrival of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, their limo perfectly timed to be not quite late. At 12 noon precisely the service begins, relayed to those of us outside through a handful of loudspeakers. Comforting choral musics washes across the road, which we struggle to hear beneath the racket of helicopter blades from above. Some have brought with them orders of service printed from the internet and join in with each hymn in faltering soprano. Others are less subdued and get shushed as they chatter. With undignified irreverence the crowd around me erupts into applause at the end of Prince Harry's tribute speech, like a mob of emotional barbarians. I'm embarrassed by their lack of stiff upper lip and slink off to leave others to their remembrance. I leave them singing Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer into any lens a TV crew dares to point at them. Diana may have been dead for a decade, but her lingering influence remains unextinguished. And me, I'm heading out of the park and off shopping. It's what she would have wanted.
posted 12:37Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain: Whatever its detractors may say, this loop of grey Cornish granite has a genuine tranquil charm. On sunny summer afternoons you'll find happy families all around the perimeter and legs a-plenty dangling in the water. This morning, however, is pre-autumnal and overcast, and the enclosure is nigh empty. A pair of Japanese tourists attempt to take photos whilst keeping each other out of shot. The only child present - an angelic ringletted girl - dares to stand on the granite sill and is glared at by a watchful attendant. Her finger prods "Sit Down Now!" There are just two floral tributes here, petrol station bought, laid beneath an immature sapling at the water's edge. The fountain gurgles, and prays for sunshine.
posted 11:29Kensington Palace: A crowd has gathered outside the gilded iron gates. It's not quite as big a crowd as that fateful morning ten years ago, and there are far fewer floral tributes, but it's a respectable turnout all the same. The laminators of Middle England have been busy overnight. All along the railings are weatherproofed photographs of the princess, lovingly handmade banners (Diana Forever) and printouts of conspiracy webpages. There are also several fawning mawkish poems, written by emotional matrons with too much time on their hands and too little literary talent. The crowds stop to read, and take photos of each. On one bench the Diana Circle have set up court, and are playing "Time To Say Goodbye" from a tinny speaker. And all around hover the intrusive lenses of the world's media. They poke their TV cameras at anyone who expresses any form of emotion, maybe pinning their bouquet to the railings or just standing in silent contemplation. Even a decade later, the media are still on Diana's back.
posted 10:40What the hell was I doing in South Kenton, up at the obscure end of the Bakerloo line? No offence to anybody who lives here, but this is not premier walking country. But the Capital Ring footpath has to circle London somehow, and if that means traversing dead ordinary suburban streets to get from one green bit to the next, then so be it. Even if the green bits are as ordinary as Preston Park. It was the first "highlight" of my walk - a very typical municipal rectangle of bowling greens and swings and tennis courts and trees. No doubt it's much loved by locals, but it wasn't worth buying a Travelcard extension for.
More endless pavements followed, across Preston Road and along the avenues of Uxendon. At last, down an alleyway between two white-painted semis, I entered the western tip of Fryent Country Park. It was only a bit of scrubland alongside a Jubilee line embankment to start with, then opened out into an unexpected hay meadow. Here I engaged in cowardly dog-avoidance tactics by lingering and pretending to admire the view for a bit, whilst secretly waiting for two bouncy alsatians to pass by across the top of the field. Phew. There followed a woodland climb to a delightful secluded hilltop lake (where I stood face to face with a fox for half a minute and, in contrast, felt no fear whatsoever). Through a break in the trees there should have been an excellent view over Wembley Stadium, just a mile to the south. Excellent on a fine day, that is, but I'd ventured out beneath a flat grey sky and so, alas, the arch was almost perfectly camouflaged amid the gloom.
Kingsbury has two highly unusual parish churches. St Andrews number 1 is built of flint rubble with a squat short spire, and is almost 900 years old. The building still stands, but only just, shored-up by the efforts of local parishioners and the Churches Conservation Trust. Graffiti sprayed on the outside walls and a graveyard of semi-toppled tombstones both suggest that there is much expensive restoration work still to be done. Nextdoor is St Andrews number 2, seemingly a very typical Victorian building in neo-Gothic style, except that the entire church was moved here brick by brick in 1933 from its original location just off Oxford Street.
This is magnificent. A meandering stroll along the leafy banks of the Thames, out west where the river is wide and the motorcruiser is king. We're talking rustic, affluent and tranquil. Erith this is not. And where better to begin than the royal palace at Hampton Court? Don't expect to see much of the 500 year old tourist attraction, not without paying. There's a semi-good view of Henry VIII's Privy Garden through a heraldic gate on the riverside, but the path soon strides off around the edge of the estate. And the estate is huge! It takes a good three miles to walk round the southern perimeter, round the back of a hidden golf course, no deviation permitted. Don't worry, you won't tire of the view. On this side of the river there's an arboreal strip of meadow, on the other the detached marinas of Thames Ditton. The drab grey estuary is still tens of miles away.
Sluice gates jut out into the river at Teddington, channelling downstream traffic through a narrowing sidestream. Teddington Lock forms the upper limit of the North Sea's tidal influence, and it's also the site of Thames Television's legendary TV studios. Kids teatime stalwart Magpie was filmed here, as well as Monty Python's fish-slapping dance (down by the lock itself). Pause for a while to enjoy the view from the ornate spiky pedestrian footbridge, before continuing north along another mile of isolated towpath. Tracks lead off into an overgrown expanse of flood meadows and reclaimed gravel workings, now the Ham Lands nature reserve. Somewhere worth exploring in greater detail, I suspect. And out in the middle of the Thames, inaccessible from the southern side, lies Eel Pie Island - Twickenham's most unusual suburban hinterland. Its seven wooded acres provide a semi-private residential outpost for creatives and eccentrics, as well as the odd boatyard and burned-down jazz venue.
Round the bend, in the middle of nowhere, a grand Stuart mansion looms out of the trees. It may look inaccessible by road, but coachloads of old ladies wandering through the entrance gate tell a different story. Ham House is a rare survivor of Stuart nobledom, snapped up by the National Trust and filled with gaudy furniture and delicate hangings. There are no electric light fittings in the house (and all the curtains are kept closed) to ensure that various portraits and tapestries are protected from premature fading. The semi-darkness may also enhance the house's reputation for ghosts and hauntings (or that may just be psychic tosh). The house's famous gardens, of which there are several, are quite splendid. Some are very formal, with shrubbery laid out to pristine perfection, while others look gorgeously natural but are in fact 100% 17th century artificial. Ham House is a detour well worth taking (but be warned - not on Thursdays, Fridays or any day during the winter months because the gates are very shut).
You can abandon the walk here by taking the foot ferry across to Marble Hill House, but it's not too much further ahead to Richmond. The path crosses Petersham Meadows, a key part of the famously-good view from Richmond Hill above. Don't be tempted to ascend the hillside, stick to the Thames-side path. It's here that the Richmond riverside kicks in, the first intrusive civilisation for miles. A new wooden cafe has just been opened beneath the tallest plane tree in London, should you be thirsty. A variety of tickets are available for cruises both down and up river, should you be tired. And keep your eyes open for local celebrity residents strolling along the towpath, should you spot Richard E Grant in a white t-shirt and jogging bottoms carrying designer shopping bags. Like what I did. See, I told you it was classy along here.
They're all over the centre of the capital. They're scattered sporadically across pavements, squares and piazzas. They've been there for the last 30 years. They're the metal plaques of the Jubilee Walkway. You've probably seen them, but I bet you've never tried to follow them. Good, because you'd have failed utterly. There are no signposts, no indications of which way to go next, just a few silver circles underfoot. It's quite impossible to trace the route from one to another... unless you have a copy of the Jubilee Walkway leaflet. So, I got hold of a leaflet.
The Camden Loop breaks off from the main Jubilee Walkway beside a special plaque along Chancery Lane. This is the heart of legal London, surrounded by Inns of Court, solicitors chambers and shops that sell smart clothes for posh barristers. Look around you on the route northward and you'll probably spot some poor underpaid clerk wheeling a trolley of ribboned documents from one Georgian terrace to another. That'll be a highlight. The officially designated route manages to miss the more interesting half of Lamb's Conduit Street, preferring the "launderette & lavatory" end to the "boutique & bistro" end. It diverts around Coram's Fields - a much loved half-term haven for energetic kids and their frustrated parents. And it cuts through the Brunswick Centre - a residential glass ocean liner with a revamped shopping arcade at its heart.
Don't come this way expecting to walk through history. These are the genuine back streets of Bloomsbury, where residents live and shop and hang out in the local community centre. They share the area with several hotels, some aligned in elegant crescents, others crammed together in ugly terraces, but all desperately seeking to attract visitors arriving at nearby Kings Cross station. The walkway follows a seemingly random path through the backstreets, emerging briefly onto the Euston Road before plunging back into residential anonymity. British Library users should join the route here. Keep your eyes peeled and you might spot a blue plaque on a council-infill tower block, revealing that it was built in 1972 on the site of a centuries-old pub. OK, so maybe there is plenty of history here after all, just not the sort you were expecting.
And then, most unusually for a long distance foothpath, the route passes directly through a public building. When the British Museum is closed you'll have to find your own way, unsignposted, round from the back to the front entrance. But during opening hours you can walk directly through China, and Egypt, and any other ancient land that takes your fancy. Not even the Pennine Way can beat that.
The London Outer Orbital Path (or LOOP) footpath skirts the rim of London like a muddy one-lane M25. It's a marathon route, 150 miles long in total, divided up into 24 manageable chunks. The first section to be officially opened was the southernmost, scudding along the bottom of London along the border between Croydon and Surrey. This is an especially scenic section, linking four expanses of City-owned chalky downland. It's also the only section not to have a map and full downloadable directions on the Walk London website. Grrrr. I knew it would be a bit risky trying to follow the route without an official leaflet or guidebook, relying only on signposts and waymarkers. But I like a challenge.
Kenley Common: Cross the valley via Barn Lane, at the top of which a staircase of 82 wooden steps leads even further up the hillside to the next downland plateau. The Loop passes through the woodland and grazing pasture to the north of the common, missing out completely on the excitement to be found on the other side of a tall hedge. Whoosh! That orange and white blur was a glider swooshing a few metres above your head, coming in to land on the runway at the old WWII Kenley Airfield. So long as you stay outside the perimeter track, the MoD don't mind you getting right up close to watch operations on the airfield itself. Look - a pack of yellow jeeps swarms around each returning craft, reattaching a rope to the nosecone ready to yank the glider back up into the sky. If the wind's right it won't be long before you see (and hear) a take-off launching steeply into the clouds, with the cable parachuting back to earth a few seconds later. Don't get too jealous, but these unpowered pilots have a far better view across the landscape than you'll ever get from the ground.
Happy Valley: And now the best bit - the unspoilt contours of Happy Valley and Farthing Downs. Both are easily accessible, but abundant hordes of local dog walkers seem to prefer not to venture too far from the car parks at either end. Happy Valley was an unexpected treat, with a criss-crossing network of footpaths to explore across acres of sloping wildflower meadows. A good place for a picnic, if only I'd thought to buy some appropriate comestibles in Waitrose in Sanderstead several hours previously. I thought I was alone on the track through Devilsden Woods until I came across an Indian lady gyrating by the bridleway. She stopped and yelled "not yet!!" down the wooded slope... to two men with a film camera... and then continued her silent dancing after I'd passed.
Farthing Downs: Before long the woodland track emerged onto a long finger-like ridge on the very roof of London. I don't know what I'd been expecting from the map, but this was better. One mile of chalky upland, scattered with Iron Age tumuli and grazing cattle, with an unfenced road passing unobtrusively along the centre. Halfway along stood a windswept beech glade (one of whose trees dates back to 1783), beside a much younger Millennium Cairn (recently fenced-off due to post millennial vandalism). The views to either side were a majestic mix of rolling green hills and farmland, threaded with suburban veins of white-fronted semis. Directly ahead lay the urban sprawl of Coulsdon, my ultimate destination, and beyond that something far more recognisable. A row of distant City skyscrapers, one of them definitely Gherkin-shaped, marked out the centre of London 15 miles to the north. Canary Wharf was unexpectedly far to the right, behind the TV masts at Croydon and Crystal Palace. It was then a gentle descent down the tip of Farthing Downs, past a City-of-London-owned cattlegrid (honest), before retuning to civilisation with a bump. This section of the walk ended, conveniently, at the footbridge over the tracks at Coulsdon South station. I could have carried on along the Loop for another 100 miles or so, clockwise round to Rainham, but I wimped out and returned home on the quarter past three.
Mmm, Erith. Down on the underwhelmingly flat bit of the Thames estuary, on the last bend before the eastern edge of London. We're not talking gorgeous here. Erith had a brief spell as a tourist resort in the 19th century when paddle steamers ruled the river, but most of the place was rebuilt in the 1960s and 70s, and any charm the town might have had was sucked clean away. The London Loop walk begins here, down by the muddy-brown riverside. From the end of the rickety wooden landing stage you can look straight across the Thames to the walk's finishing point on Rainham Marshes - less than a mile as the seagull flies, but 150 miles away on foot (via Uxbridge). Erith's river wall is also one of the starting points for the Green Chain Walk - a 40-mile network of interlinked footpaths sprawled across four southeast London boroughs. The first signpost is located in a particularly grim spot, well away from the town centre on the river wall beside some graffitied apartment blocks. Quick, let's walk away from the grey-brown water and try to find a view with a bit of green in it.
There isn't an awful lot of open space and woodland in this corner of Bexley, but the Green Chain is very good at linking together what little exists. This section of the walk heads first for Frank's Park, a tree-packed oasis atop the hilly ridge above Belvedere. Watch out for the dog mess - they don't seem to be very good at pooper-scooping round here. Next there's half a mile along suburban sidestreets, with a view to the north across terraced rooftops to an industrial Thamesside skyline. Then, just beyond a pub which the guidebook tries to make sound interesting but isn't, the walk enters the unexpectedly glorious surroundings of Lesnes Abbey Park. Follow the wooden posts up to the heathland summit tumulus, where a carpet of purple heather blooms, and then descend to view the razed ruins of Lesnes Abbey. Only the outline of the 12th century abbey remains, etched out in low stone walls across a grassy lawn. I was duly charmed. From here you can look out across the marshes once owned by the local monks - now covered by the estates of Abbey Wood and Thamesmead. An unloved information centre tells the abbey's story on peeling display cards, and directs visitors to the elevated fossil beds on the woodland plateau where shark's teeth can still be found.
At Bostall Common the Green Chain splits in two. It does this a lot, so you really have to know where you're going or else you might end up in Woolwich by mistake. My choice was southwest through the woods, emerging shortly afterwards at the entrance to Plumstead Cemetery. Here sat Sally, beneath a limp green parasol, attempting to sell bouquets and floral tributes to a passing trade of non-existent mourners. Up next onto East Wickham Open Space, a very ordinary scrap of common but with a newly-planted avenue of oak trees down the centre, just to give us Green Chain walkers somewhere interesting to go. The world's most pointless cycle gate has been erected at the western exit, spanning just halfway across the path so that even a motorbike and sidecar could easily squeeze by. This may be a good time to stop for a reviving shandy in the Glenmore Arms, especially if it's suddenly started chucking it down. Try not to let the pub's complete absence of punters disturb you.
The end of the walk is marked by that most welcome of sights - a tea hut. It's tarted up as a proper cafe these days, but it still sells everything a weary long distance traveller might reasonably expect. Egg sandwiches, fried breakfasts and steaming jacket potatoes for starters. A chalked-up menu above the bar displays an impressive list of culinary options, eagerly served up by a crack team of smiling food and beverage operatives. Just don't ask for an ice cream if the tub's only just come out of the freezer, otherwise you may be standing waiting for some time. Five of the Green Chain's ten walks start or finish at this most civilised of locations - a veritable footway service station. And they'll sell you a pack of Green Chain route maps from behind the counter for just £3.50. Even better value than a cheese roll and a cuppa, I thought.
For starters, let's clear up the name of the river. The river is the River Lea, but the man-made channel that runs close by is the Lee Navigation. The valley is the Lea Valley, but the recreational area is the Lee Valley Park. If it's natural it's "Lea", and if it's artificial it's "Lee". Honest. Simple. OK, let's go for a walk.
I could have gone for a Lea Valley walk a few metres from my front door, because the official route ends close by at Bow Locks. Instead I headed rather further north, to Enfield's industrial quarter, and strolled along a less familiar stretch. First stop Ponders End station, in the shadow of four landmark tower blocks, as I attempted to follow woefully inadequate signage down to the riverside. After a tour of various local dual carriageways I eventually found the pedestrian entrance to Ponders End Lock, and was welcomed to the waterway by two swans and their seven overgrown cygnets. It was a winning start.
These pylons make fishing difficult - there were signs everywhere barring anglers from casting any line that might cause accidental electrocution. But horses nibbling grass around pylons' feet in the riverside meadows didn't seem to mind, and elderberries grew perfectly ripe beneath the silent hum.
My view of Leaside improved somewhat further north along the river. Housing faded away as the towpath doglegged around the Green Belt haven of Rammey Marsh. Scores of immobile narrow boats were tied up here, providing a home from home for smiling couples sat at picnic tables on their own patch of riverside lawn. A bit further ahead, crossing the valley on concrete stilts, six lanes of rumbling M25 severed the landscape. Somewhere in the gloom beneath the motorway bridge is the spot where London meets Hertfordshire meets Essex. It's not a charming spot, that's for sure. I stopped off at the Hazelmere Marina cafe for a well-deserved ice cream (being, alas, too late to enjoy a proper cooked breakfast). And a few steps later, past one final swan, I reached my destination at Waltham Abbey Lock. I could have carried on along the Lea for another 35 miles, to Luton, but I'm not that much of a masochist. The Abbey and its gardens were a much more pleasant target, and considerably close at hand. Time to Lea-ve.
Transport for London agree, which is why they've established a network of six strategic walking routes across the capital. These are specially signposted routes, some walkable in a day, others requiring rather longer. They cover every corner of London, from Trafalgar Square to Cockfosters, and there's bound to be one near you. Some of the routes follow major rivers, some look a bit random, and others appear to have been sketched out on a map by someone attempting to draw a circle with a pair of wobbly compasses.
Compass points
When you think of South London you probably don't think of rolling cornfields and verdant hedgerows. But that's exactly what the southernmost tip of London is like, 15 miles due south of Charing Cross, down on the border between Croydon and Surrey. See the tree marked in my photograph with a green circle? That's as far south as Ken Livingstone's influence extends. It's the spot in London closest to the equator, where the sun rises highest in the sky during the summer, and where daylight is longest in midwinter. Of all the locations south of the river, it's the ultimate place that black cab drivers will never take you. [map]
. And a few steps ahead, invisible except to cartographers, the dashed line marking the fringe of Surrey.
Further ahead, at the foot of the freshcut slope, lay the northern edge of the village of Chaldon. A few nondescript cottages could be seen, but the village's pride and joy - the historic parish church of St Peter and St Paul
Yesterday's weather was hugely complicated, and yet the online forecast still attempted to summarise it in just one symbol - "light rain". This single symbol might have been a decent summary of the day as a whole, but it was rarely representative of the weather at any one given moment. Which is a bit rubbish.
Tuesday: According to the 5-day forecast, Saturday's weather will be sunny intervals. Looks nice. Not perfect, but nice enough. Looks good for going out and doing stuff. Looks perfect for barbecues and going to the park and hiking and sightseeing and all sorts of outdoor things. Saturday will be fine.
Wednesday: According to the 5-day forecast, Saturday's weather will be partly cloudy. That's a shame, the forecast's deteriorated since yesterday. Where's the sun gone? Ah well, at least Saturday won't be wet. It'll still be OK for going out and doing stuff. Saturday will be OK.
Thursday: According to the 5-day forecast, Saturday's weather will be light showers. That's annoying, the forecast's deteriorated again since yesterday. Looks like it's going to rain now. That's not so good for going out and doing stuff. Ah well, at least there'll still be sunshine between the showers. Saturday will be mixed.
Doctor Hirosaki's Brain Training
The programme for Open House 2007 has just been released. I paid £4 to have a copy sent to my letterbox, but you can buy a pdf for £3 or try exploring the website for free. The website has improved a lot over the years, now with borough-by-borough searching and a pinpointed Google map. But it's still not easy to search the available buildings online and to pick out the jewels in the list, not unless you pay up and buy the proper catalogue. So I've had a quick look through the 72 page booklet for you, to select a few rather special buildings for which booking is required in advance. Most of the rest you can just turn up and queue for on the day, but if you don't reserve a free ticket for this lot soon then you'll never get inside. In particular, may I draw your attention to the exceptionally rare opportunity to ascend to the top of the Gherkin and to stare down on London from the 40th floor. Only 500 Londoners will get the chance, and you need to be ready on the Open House website on Friday morning (17th August) to have any hope of booking your place.
I SPY Almost-LONDON
On a sunny summer's day, there are few things better (and cheaper) than visiting a country park. Gunpowder Park is one of the newest, opened three years ago on the site of an old munitions testing ground near Waltham Abbey. Don't worry, they've removed all the unexploded nitro-glycerine shells and tarted up the 250 acres a bit, because nobody would come and visit otherwise. Although it was a bit quiet here yesterday, with just six cars in the car park, so I had vast tracts of land all to myself for a lot of the time. Magic.
Somebody let a crack team of landscape artists loose on Gunpowder Park. This is no ordinary country park, oh no, this is a "physical and virtual focal point for exploration, innovation, communication and collaboration.". Yeah, right. And that's why there are big swirly earthworks and lumpy mounds everywhere across the top half of the park - supposedly an arty manifestation of a "dynamic landform explosion". The design looks great on an aerial photo, but I must say I never realised I was walking around a giant picture until I got home and looked "from above" on the internet. The scorched landscape in the northern meadows has a "not quite all grown yet" feel to it, and a large area has had to be fenced off recently while some suspect underground utility shafts are investigated.
The remaining quadrant of the park is given over to arable farming. There are seven fields, each currently teeming with something thin and stalky that isn't quite ripe yet. I particularly enjoyed walking along the central footpath, up to the highest point of the park with views in all directions. To the east are the rolling hills above Sewardstone and Gilwell Park, to the south a chain of pylons snaking down the Lea Valley towards Ponders End, and to the north an utterly huge Sainsbury's warehouse conveniently located for the nearby M25. But best of all was that the footpath precisely followed the Greenwich meridian. I'm a sucker for any physical manifestation of the line of zero degrees longitude, and this mile-long rural trackway was a right charmer. South of the summit the path skirted the edge of one of the fields, along a precisely aligned "meridian hedgerow". What an utterly delightful idea. Why stand straddling the brass line in the tourist-packed courtyard at Greenwich when you could stand in an empty Essex field and pick zero-degree sloes and red berries instead?
Step 1: Swim
Step 2: cycle
Step 3: run
The 48 hour heatwave
I'm sure that, inspired by the vibrant brand message of the London 2012 Olympics, all of you are regular readers of the London 2012 website. You'll remember the site's clean crisp design, with plain white background and understated layout. Well not any more. The website's gone the same way as the much-loved 2012 logo, and is now a vision in edgy pink. And that electric light blue colour. And a bit of yellow and orange. It's cutting edge, it's street style and it's well down with da yoof. They're going to adore it, should they ever think to visit.
