November catch-up(because some things have moved on)
St Pancras: If you thought you'd "done" St Pancras, how about St Pancras at Christmas? Anything to get some more shoppers and champagne sippers back into the station. There's a shedload of festive activities scheduled inside the station between now and Christmas Eve, some of which you might actually want to attend. Unfortunately you'll have to negotiate the Flash-ridden Christmas at St Pancras website first (you might want to go and brew a cup of eggnog while it loads). While you're there, don't forget to laugh at all the effort that's gone into spelling "Advent Calendar" wrong.
Legible London: As well as the new miniliths on the street, there's also a Legible London exhibition providing further information on the project. Brilliantly it's been located in a tiny, hard-to-locate backwater off Regent Street, outside the trial prototype area. See if you can find the venue before it closes at 4pm on Saturday. Highlights of the exhibition include, apparently, a replica street sign and a free yellow booklet. If you're interested, there's a good example of LL's new pedestrian mapping style on the exhibition flyer.
The tube map: The ugly November 2007 tube map, the one that includes the London Overground, now appears all over the Underground network. But if you thought that was bad, I've seen an early version of the next map, due out in January...
• Remember I mentioned that the East London line closes down just before Christmas and will be replaced by four bus services? Well, from what I've seen, those four bus services are due to appear on the January tube map. And not in a straight line, oh no, they've been staggered so that each bus service is readily identifiable. Just to give you an idea of how messy this looks, consider Canada Water as an example. At the moment Canada Water station appears as a single blue wheelchair-accessible blob. Not next year. From January Canada Water will appear as three linked circles - one blue blob on the Jubilee line, one connection to bus service ELP to Rotherhithe, and one connection to bus service ELC to New Cross Gate. Hideous. Throw in some additional bus symbols, one red dagger at every former ELL station and a big orange information box, and this is visual clutter of an extreme magnitude.
• Oh hell, what's happened to Canary Wharf? It used to be marked as one station, but now it's two (Jubilee and DLR). These two stations are linked not by a line but by a distance (200m), written diagonally, and Heron Quays (150m) has been joined in the same way. If that wasn't bad enough, in real life the Jubilee station is to the east of the DLR but on the new map it appears to the west. Chuck in three red daggers and the resulting accessibility-fuelled carnage has to be seen to be believed.
• In "new station" news, Langdon Park on the DLR will be open before January (we think it'll open next weekend), while Shepherd's Bush station on the London Overground still won't. And Wood Lane station on the Hammersmith & City line is labelled as opening "late 2008".
• There are no stations labelled Heathrow-something any more. Instead there are three stations called "Terminal 1, 2, 3", "Terminal 4" and "Terminal 5 (opens Spring 2008)". Floating around nearby is a chunky blue box labelled Heathrow Airport.
• There are zonal changes out in Hertfordshire which will benefit Oyster customers. Carpenders Park debuts in zone B, while Bushey and Watford High Street appear in zone C. Watford Junction, however, remains outside the zonal system. For a cheaper journey you should take the Metropolitan line instead, where Watford station remains (rather inconsistently) in zone A.
• Various other stations on the London Overground have shifted zone. In every case this is a "good thing". Acton Central moves from Zone 2 to Zone 3, Willesden Junction will be in Zone 2 as well as Zone 3, and (hallelujah) Hampstead Heath finally moves from Zone 3 into Zone 2. That's an awful lot more LO journeys which can now be made within a single zone. Hurrah.
I don't believe that the new January map is available anywhere online (because it's not January yet), but I hear it'll be in the new London Overground timetable. And now even horribler.
London's streets aren't especially walking-friendly. There's street furniture to negotiate, traffic lights to traverse and a whole host of annoying pedestrians forever getting in your way. Plus it's ever so easy to get lost if you don't know where you're going. Could you (would you?) walk from Covent Garden to Marylebone, or would you just flag down a taxi or take the tube? When even local residents take several years to build up a mental map of inner London, what hope is there for new arrivals and temporary tourists?
Our capital's maps aren't much good for walking either. The A-Z is for drivers, and the tube map (despite being the map of choice for 45% of London's walkers) is geographically distorting and often wildly misleading. The maps on bus shelters used to be invaluable for navigating around unfamiliar parts of town - I used to use them all the time. But then they got redesigned and simplified for the sole benefit of bus travellers, and now alas they're as useless as the tube map for walking from A to B. Without a Multimap print-out in their hand, walkers can just get lost.
Now there's a new project on the streets attempting to make a difference. It's part of an initiative called Legible London, which "proposes to change the existing fragmented approach to walking information into a single reliable, consistent and authoritative system." Or in other words they've erected some new signs. There are 19 prototypes altogether, all of them in the area around Bond Street tube station, where Christmas shoppers are being used to test out the functionality of the new system. Everything was unwrapped yesterday, and very pretty they look too.
These new signs are slim, tall and sleek, with maps and key navigation information etched upon both surfaces. They're called "miniliths" (which, presumably, are just like monoliths but thinner, and so don't get in the way of passing wheelchairs). A memorable neighbourhood, such as Mayfair or Fitzrovia, is namechecked at the top of each post, and beneath that there's directional information to nearby streets, attractions and tube stations. Underneath that are couple of proper maps, with 5- and 15-minute walk radii superimposed, and finally a list of local streets with map references. Meanwhile down the thin edge there's an 0870 number (and unique minilith ID) should you wish to listen toan audio commentary about the location where you're currently standing. The posts are packed with hopefully-useful information. Go on, surely you're now confident enough to give walking a try.
Oxford Street last night was bustling, dark and damp. The miniliths outside Bond Street station weren't quite getting in the way (they've replaced existing street furniture, not added to it), but they weren't quite being noticed either. They're good for standing beside with a pushchair, but not yet part of pedestrian Londoners' everyday orientation. Meanwhile, at the bottom of South Molton Street, the freshly unveiled minilith was having to compete for attention with a series of illuminated Christmas angels. The angels won. But as I hung around attempting to take a photograph, wahey, a couple of passing shoppers stopped to peruse the map and attempted to work out where to walk next. Result.
If the prototypes are a success, you're going to see a lot more of them. There are already tentative plans afoot to erect more across Covent Garden, the South Bank, Richmond, Twickenham & Kew, the Royal Docks and Hackney, and by 2012 much of central and East London may be covered. The new maps will also be appearing in tube stations and, best of all, on appropriate bus shelters. I think I like them. I think they may even be extremely useful.
Now is the time to tell the project organisers what you think, so that future rollout can be even more effective. Should the signs be self-illuminating? Can you cope with that fact that north isn't always at the top? Will Londoners ever develop mental maps based on artificial neighbourhoods named by project consultants? If you're interested to find out more, there's already tons to explore on the project's website. Get your feedback in soon, and let's hope that a proper Legible London becomes a reality.
I SPY LONDON the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Part 20:London Transport Museum
Location: Covent Garden Piazza, WC2E 7BB [map] Open: 10am - 6pm (late opening until 9pm on Fridays) Admission: £8.00 (under 16s free) 5-word summary: looking back at getting around Website:http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk Time to set aside: at least a couple of hours
After a couple of years of shutness and renovation, London's Transport Museum finally reopened to the public last Thursday. You should have seen the queues at the weekend. I did, so I went back yesterday after work instead.
It costs eight quid to get in (even if it's dark and closing time is imminent), and another fiver for the guide book (which is packed with sufficient detail and photos to be worth buying). The first thing you'll see when you enter is a huge glowing wall bedecked with interlocking metro maps of the world . Don't look too closely, it's geographically irrelevant, and serves only to blocks out the displays behind from the eyes of unpaid members of the public. Head up the ramp (it's not signposted, but head up the ramp) and wait for the lift to the second floor. Enter 2007, exit 1800.
Getting around 19th century London wasn't easy. There was a river, and there were sedan chairs, and there were also rickety vehicles pulled by horses. Highlights on the top floor include a replica of the very first horse-drawn bus carriage (it ran five times a day from Paddington to Bank) and a horse-drawn double decker omnibus (complete with fake dollops of manure). There are several informative panels to read and models to look at, as well as "twirly things" for kids to fiddle with (because they're not interested in proper information, obviously). While you're up here, take time to enjoy the view looking down over the rest of the museum. This used to be the Covent Garden Flower Market, you know, and the glass and ironwork are really rather splendid . And then descend the (vertigo-inducing) staircase to the Metropolitan mezzanine.
The museum has a bit of a Metro-land fetish, and rightly so. This floor includes a model showing how the first cut-and-cover lines were excavated, and a great big steam locomotive that used to run out of Baker Street, and also a gorgeous wooden carriage full of suburban ladies and stacked luggage. Go sit inside, you know you want to. The view inside the adjacent District line carriage is rather scarier . I don't know where the curator finds his mannequins, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a 1970s department store.
And now down to the ground floor . Do try to follow the arrows, although it gets increasingly difficult to work out which route you're supposed to be following as your journey progresses. Now we're into the "underground" section of the tour, with "proper physics" exhibits on tunnel digging and escalators, plus a grim windowless carriage from the pioneering City & South London Railway. Take a seat inside and you'll never complain about your morning commute again. Devotees of London Underground style will be delighted by a gallery given over to countless examples of classic design. The museum's a little light on proper "artefacts" elsewhere, and here at least are lovely leaflets and station models and roundels and, of course, Harry Beck's iconic tube map. Do stay for a while and watch a succession of swirling illuminated displays projected onto the floor . And remember, all 5000 posters are available to buy in the shop (and online).
There's one last tube carriage to enter, this time from 1938 Northern line stock, with one end given over to a projected film of appropriately costumed travellers from decades past. Ooh look, that passenger's got a mohican and a Union Jack t-shirt - it must be the 1970s. If the queues are short enough you might prefer to try driving a tube simulator (a proper real tube simulator, not your usual museum cop-out button-push) but don't stay in there for too long because the rest of us want a go, thanks. And I bet you'll enjoy a mesmeric animated version of the London tube map, showing the network evolving year by year from 1863 to the present day .
OK, enough of trains, bring on the buses. Not very many buses, admittedly - if they'd really tried there'd have been room to cram another half dozen onto the museum floor. But at least there's an example of each important style - from a 1910 motorbus to the front slice of a modern wheelchair-accessible cuboid. There's a fine view from the top deck of a Stratford tram (blimey, did people really climb narrow steep staircases like that without falling over?). And yes, of course there's a Routemaster, sandwiched inbetween London's first one-man-operated bus and a single decker Green Line coach. Oh, and there's a taxi too. Nobody was looking at the taxi.
Rather too much of the ground floor has been given over to 21st century pursuits. The centrepiece isn't a train or a bus but a huge interactive map (very flash, but not quite exciting). Over in the far corner there's an unconvincing DLR mock-up, and a display on sustainability, and some dull words about Oyster cards. Somehow the future is never as interesting as the past. Oh, and I didn't spot a single mention of the new London Overground, not anywhere (except in the gift shop where you can now buy notebooks, pencils and mugs in a delightful shade of vomit-orange). There are a couple of areas set aside for young children to play in, including a minibus to crawl over and a separate activities studio, so don't be afraid to bring your offspring. And there's a mini art gallery too, which is quite the most soulless viewing space I think I've ever entered, with all the charm of a Travelodge foyer. Are we done yet? Take the exit past the trolleybus and maybe you'll be tempted by a souvenir teatowel on the way out.
And my verdict? You'll probably enjoy the first 80% of the tour rather more than the over-corporate finale, but yes, the new streamlined museum is well worth a visit. You'll probably wish there were more objects to look at rather than all that social history to experience, but for those who crave a more hardcore experience there's always the next Acton Depot Open Weekend. You'll probably want to visit the new Covent Garden collection on a schoolday to avoid the crush, and you'll probably wish they'd labelled the larger exhibits more clearly. But there isn't another city on the planet that could assemble as varied and fascinating a transport museum as has London. by tube: Covent Gardenby bus: RV1
One day you won't need to carry a camera in your pocket. One day you'll be able to take pictures of everything, all the time, everywhere you go. One day scientists will be able to shrink a cheap digi-camera small enough to be something you can wear, permanently and nigh invisibly. Maybe it'll be part of your clothes, like a lapel badge or something. Or something that hangs out of your ear like a bluetooth headset or an earring. Or part of a pair of glasses. It'll be spyware as spywear. It'll be inexpensive, and affordable, and acceptable. And it'll see everything you see, and record it all. Sounds great, eh?
One day you'll be able to record your entire life on video. The price of memory will come down so low that it'll be feasible to keep a realtime lifelong videostream in electronic storage, to refer back to whenever you like. Aww look, there's the first time you met your beloved, and your cousin's wedding, and your eldest child leaving for their first day at school, all captured for posterity. And that beautiful sunset you saw last week, and that cute look your kitten gave you this morning, and that gorgeous blue-eyed commuter you saw on the train. One day you need never forget anything you see.
Imagine the convenience of being able to rewind to any point in your life and remind yourself what you were doing. Bored looking out of the window on the bus? One day you'll be able to enjoy replaying last year's holiday video instead. What was that website password you've suddenly forgotten? One day you'll be able to go back and watch yourself typing it in. Whose fault was that car accident you were involved in? One day you'll be able to prove it wasn't you. Hell, why blog? One day you'll be able to simulcast your life via wi-fi and YouTube or something, and it'll be far more interesting.
One day you'll be a walking copyright nightmare. Cinemas aren't going to take kindly to patrons recording every last reel of the latest blockbuster to watch again and again. One day your arguments will be absolutely water-tight. "Yes you did say that actually, and I can prove it by replaying this mini video-clip." One day you'll be the star in your own porn movies. Assuming that anyone ever wants to risk having sex with you ever again, that is, for fear of ending up filmed and recorded on a permanent hard drive.
One day it'll be impossible to forget anything. That impromptu sexist remark you made at work will get you the sack, because everybody else will have recorded it. If you witness a crime, the police will summon you to court to send the guilty bastard down. When you search back through your memories, Google will add relevant adverts in a floating sidebar. Losing the memory stick containing your LifeMovieTM will mean you really have lost your identity.
One day the government will demand that everybody films their own lives and records the results on a biometric chip. The system will be introduced for "security reasons", and subject to a compulsory annual subscription charge. Some secret police department will have the job of downloading the nation's optical experiences and reviewing them for security transgressions. If you've not done anything wrong, you'll have nothing to fear, honest. One day Big Brother will be watching what you see, and seeing what you watch.
In amongst all the celebrations surrounding the Queen's diamond wedding anniversary last week, you may have missed one particularly forward-looking announcement. London is to get a new long distance footpath. It'll be opening in 2012 - an auspicious year not just because of the Olympics but also because Her Majesty will be celebrating her Diamond Jubilee. The new footpath will be called the Jubilee Greenway, and it'll be a companion route to the existing Jubilee Walkway (established 1977). The Jubilee Greenway will be 60 miles long (did you see what they did there?) and will circle Central London linking together all the 2012 Olympic venues. Even better, the entire footpath already exists. All that the organisers have to do is to make it a bit more accessible and add some nice benches, and it'll be ready. Let's just hope that Her Maj doesn't snuff it prematurely during the next fifty months, rendering all their preparations unnecessary.
So, do you fancy walking the Jubilee Greenway five years early? Easy. Here's where it goes...
» Buckingham Palace: This being a circular route you can start anywhere. But starting outside the Queen's bedroom window somehow feels most appropriate. Head up Constitution Hill, dodging the traffic lights across Hyde Park Corner, and into... » Hyde Park: This is Olympic Venue number 1, with the Serpentine due to host the wet bit of the Triathlon. The route passes the Diana Memorial Fountain, just in case you want slip over on some granite, then passes Kensington Palace, just in case you want to read any mad Diana poems tied to the front gate. Quick, escape this Diana mournfest by heading north through the backstreets of Paddington to Little Venice. » Regent's Canal: I told you this footpath was nothing new. The Regent's Canal has been open since 1820, and the Jubilee Greenway will follow the towpath all the way from Little Venice to Victoria Park. On its way it passes Olympic Venues 2and 3 - Lord's Cricket Ground (where the archery will be held) and Regent's Park (finishing line for the road cycling). Look, I've taken lots of photographs of the Regent's Canal already, just to show you what you're missing. » Victoria Park: Ah, the green lung of the East End, and a magnificent open space to boot. This is Olympic Venue number 4, where the walking events will take place. Which means, ah yes, we must be very close to the Olympic Park itself. » The Greenway: To us locals, the Greenway is just a long distance muggers paradise built on top of the main North London outfall sewer. But not for long. The western end (straight past the Olympic Stadium) is already getting a pre-2012 upgrade, and improvements are planned for the remainder later. And blimey, who'd have thought, this runty sewage-whiff backalley through Plaistow and East Ham appears to have lent its name to the entire Jubilee Greenway project. » Beckton: Soulless housing estates and acres of dogwaste-littered parkland - what a gorgeous setting for our monarch's Diamond Jubilee tribute. Olympic Venue number 6, the ExCel Exhibition Centre, is almost nearby. » The Woolwich Foot Tunnel: Just when you thought things couldn't get any grimmer, they do. The run-down council blocks of North Woolwich, the subterranean hellhole of the Woolwich Foot Tunnel, and then the estuarine greyness of riverside Woolwich itself. The perfect place for a closely-fought gun battle (at Olympic Venue number 7). » The Thames Path: Hmm, this is a bit of a cop-out. The Jubilee Greenway now follows the Thames Path almost all the way back to Buckingham Palace, which'll save an awful lot of money by not needing to upgrade it. See the Thames Barrier! Experience the grey industrial grimness of the North Greenwich Peninsula. Pause at the Dome (Olympic Venue number 8) for a brief burst of rampant commercialism. Pass through Maritime Greenwich (hey horse riding fans, it's Olympic venue number 9) past a hopefully-restored tea clipper. And then, oh blimey, it's a very long way round the Rotherhithe peninsula, keeping as close to the river as new housing developments will allow. Yes, I've taken lots of photos of this stretch too. » Still the Thames Path: Under Tower Bridge and, finally, into the scenic heart of London. It's only taken us 57 miles to get to the good bit. Here the Jubilee Greenway will follow exactly the same riverside route as the Jubilee Walkway - two for the price of one. Past the Eye, over Westminster Bridge to Big Ben, and up Whitehall. » Horseguards Parade: This is Olympic Venue number 10, solely because a committee of old men believe that beach volleyball's blatant mammary-jiggling deserves a place in the Games portfolio. And look, down at the other end of the Mall, there's Buckingham Palace which is back where we started. God bless you Ma'am, and do please try to hang on until at least your 86th birthday.
The Museum in Docklands chooses to tell the capital's trading history in linear fashion. Visitors enter the galleries via Roman/Medieval London and work their way chronologically through the centuries to end up at a display of modern shiny skyscrapers. The emphasis is very much on London and what Londoners were doing in each time period, as you might expect. And that's how it's been since the Museum opened. Look, you can see the place for yourself in a (lengthy) video walkthrough here with Jonty from Big Brother - one of the museum's guides (no, honestly, it's much better than it sounds).
But earlier this year the management came along and ripped out the first two decades of the 19th century. Sorry to all the old merchants in wigs who battled to get the docks built in the first place, your story has been cast adrift. Instead their gallery has been emptied to make way for something far more important - sugar. Ah no, London didn't get proper rich by trading iron or coal, London got rich by trading human beings.
The London, Sugar and Slavery gallery, which opened at the Museum of London earlier this month, makes for uncomfortable viewing. If you're from an African background it tells the story of how your ancestors were ripped from their homes and transported across the ocean to be sold into a life of submission. And if you like to think that's not your story, then your ancestors were probably responsible for sustaining the slave trade themselves. Be it a ship owner transporting bipedal cargo or just a Georgian householder taking sugar in their new-fangled cuppa, this whole sorry situation was created by their actions.
The gallery opens with a celebration of ancient African culture... from which, just around the corner, the white man stole countless lives. The displays avoid strident inter-racial hectoring, preferring to tell the story of both slaver and enslaved. The language used is carefully selected, but unsanitised ("You will find that some terms that were used in the 1700s are unavoidable"). Feel how heavy the shackles were, see how far the slave ships travelled, and look at that lovely porcelain sugar bowl. Oh, and take a careful look at the bricks of the room you're standing in. The museum is housed in Warehouse No. 1, originally built by the West India Dock Company to store sugar, rum and coffee from the slave plantations of the West Indies. The foundations of the London Docklands were built with blood money.
The focus of the exhibition then shifts to commemorate the abolitionists, fighting to undo the evils of their greedy forefathers and (eventually) changing the system for the better. It's no cosy tale. In a wall display about the spread of Empire, for example, one unusually forthright phrase stands out. "Believing it had a right and duty to police the world, the British Government interfered in the affairs of many countries". And so we did. And that unforgivable interference has brought a lasting cultural legacy to the UK, explored in the final section of the exhibition. Caribbean settlers would never have made their homes in Britain if Britons hadn't transported their ancestors far from home in the first place. It may be too late to apologise, but it's not too late toremember. by DLR: West India Quay by tube: Canary Wharf by bus: 277, D3, D7, D8 open: 10am - 6pm daily admission: £5
How do you get from Wapping to Rotherhithe in a month's time?
Ah, not so simple. One month from today the East London line will be closing down, for 2½ years, so that it can be magically re-engineered as part of the new London Overground. And that means that the Thames Tunnel will be closing too, and no trains will be running between Wapping and Rotherhithe until June 2010. So you're going to have to find another route. Sorry, your journey may take a little longer.
If you're a car driver there's an obvious road option - the Rotherhithe Tunnel. Drive from Wapping to Limehouse, and then you can head under the Thames through this 99-year old single bore tunnel. The full journey is longer than you might expect - 2.7 miles according to the AA - and should take about 13 minutes. Or you could drive west instead and cross the river via Tower Bridge - again 13 minutes but this time 2.9 miles. It's not exactly speedy, but it'll do. If you have a car.
Or you could walk. Believe it or not pedestrians are allowed to walk through the Rotherhithe Tunnel. I can't imagine why anyone would want to risk walking alongside the rumbling traffic for a mile, breathing in lungfuls of trapped exhaust fumes, but apparently an average of 20 people a day do exactly that. The healthy alternative is to head up Wapping High Street, cross Tower Bridge and continue down Jamaica Road. It's a 2½ mile walk, though, and takes 50 minutes at a medium walking speed. Maybe not.
Or you could take the bus. Route 395 runs through the Rotherhithe Tunnel on its all too brief journey from Limehouse to Canada Water. Ah, hang on, no it doesn't. The 395 was scrapped last year because too few people were using it. At the time of its death it was a 15-seater red minibus, running only twice an hour and for no particularly good reason. Now a similar journey from one side of the Thames to the other requires threeseparatebuses and over an hour's travel time.
Or you could take the tube. There won't be a direct tube connection once the East London line closes, of course, so TfL are running four rail replacement bus services instead. Sorry, they won't be much use either.
• Shoreditch → Whitechapel (every 20 minutes) • Whitechapel → Shadwell → Wapping (every 10 minutes) • Rotherhithe → Canada Water (every 15 minutes) • Canada Water → Surrey Quays → New Cross → New Cross Gate (every 5-8 minutes) [Full details in this comprehensive leaflet]
Notice that you can't ride the whole line in one go, it's been split into four distinct sections. And one section is missing, the half-mile under the Thames between Wapping and Rotherhithe. Damn.
So why isn't there going to be a direct cross-river replacement bus service? It's because of width restrictions in the Rotherhithe Tunnel. No bus bigger than a minibus would be allowed, and minibuses (like the old 395) are too small to cope with the expected number of displaced passengers. So there won't be any buses at all. TfL recommend that you make cross-river journeys "via the Jubilee line and DLR". What they don't tell you is how long those alternative journeys will take...
From Wapping to Rotherhithe, your first step will be the replacement bus service to Shadwell [average wait 5 minutes, journey time 6 minutes]. Here you can catch the DLR [transfer time 5 minutes]. Going west via Bank would involve travelling through Zone 1 which might cost extra, so we'll go east instead [average wait 2 minutes] to Canary Wharf [journey time 7 minutes]. Next walk to the Jubilee line [transfer time 7 minutes] and ride one stop west to Canada Water [average wait 2 minutes, journey time 3 minutes]. And finally exit the station [transfer time 5 minutes] and catch the replacement rail bus to Rotherhithe [average wait 7 minutes, journey time 4 minutes]. That's a grand total of 53 minutes for those who choose to follow TfL's advice. It would be quicker to walk.
In one month's time, when the East London line closes, it'll be completely impossible to cross the Thames by public transport at any point between Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf. A 3-mile-long invisible barrier will have been erected across the middle of the capital, inhibiting all passenger travel across the river between south and east London. It's all for a good cause - a much better railwayfrom the summer of 2010. But you'd better start planning those alternative routes now.
You know how websites sometimes "upgrade" and "improve their functionality" to improve the "end user experience"? Don't you just hate it when that happens? Today's example: Flickr - the online photo management application.
Today Flickr has two new functions. One of them is called Places, and it's quite cool. The concept is very simple - a page on Flickr for every place in the world. Just type a placename into the search box and off you go on your travels. There's a page for Paris, and a page for Timbuktu, and a page for Skegness, and even a page for the beach at Luskentyre in the Outer Hebrides. On each page you get a selection of either interesting or recent photos, plus a couple of local photographers and some relevant groups. Take the London page, for example. Lots of iconic photos of the London Eye and Big Ben and bright red phone boxes. Just what you'd expect to find. The images aren't quite so relevant in other locations, however. Wickford in Essex, for example, is a town seemingly populated entirely by cats, while Amersham in Bucks is famous only for "Tricia's birthday party". Never mind, I'm sure the site will sort out appropriate tagging eventually.
Meanwhile several Places appear to be missing. Take Brixton, for example. Flickr knows of several Brixtons - one a village in Devon, another in South Africa, one in Australia and a fourth in New Zealand - but it's never heard of the big one at the end of the Victoria line. And then there's Croydon. Flickr's heard of Croydon, the major settlement in South London, but apparently nobody else has. "We couldn't find any photos taken in Croydon." it complains. "It looks like no one on Flickr has ever taken a photo in Croydon." Yeah right. Quarter of a million people live there and not one has a camera? I think not. The problem appears to be that the whole of London has been defined as "London", and therefore no individual suburbs, towns and boroughs have their own individual identity. All you'll ever find for Ealing or Muswell Hill or Streatham are the same pictures of the London Eye and Big Ben and bright red phone boxes. Still, if this means that Wembley's been forgotten, maybe that's just as well.
And then there's the really rubbish thing that Flickr have just done. They've replaced their existing maps with "an experimental new map view", just to be a bit more flash and wow and 2.0. Unfortunately they've got rid of the old maps rather too prematurely. The new map view is still very experimental, and unfortunately it's trying to be too clever at the expense of functionality. Previously you used to be able to zoom in on a point on the map and see pink dots representing a selection of photos geotagged around that location. Not any more. Now a "Photo Ribbon" slowly loads across the bottom of the map, and pink dots eventually appear to show where these were taken. Previously hundreds of photos - now approximately 20 (restricted to either "recent" or "interesting" shots). Flickr's world is smaller and less fascinating as a result.
And lots of great things that used to be possible no longer are. A couple of years ago I walked twelve miles due west from my house and took 40 photos along the way. You used to be able to see all 40 photos on one map, just to prove that they fell in a straight line. Not any more. Now you can only see about half of them at any one time, and you have to jiggle along the Photo Ribbon to see the rest. Same with my more recent Meridian set. You can see the Greenwich end or you can see the Essex end, but you can't see both. Want to follow my photos along the Regent's Canal? You can't, not all the way in one go. Where's Metroland? Not telling you. Flickr maps used to be map first photos second, but now it's photos first map second. Geography has been abandoned at the expense of flashy visuals. There's dumbing down for you.
This is a very new feature, and the developers admit that they're still ironing out a number of bugs. But it's also the perfect example of why you shouldn't remove something old (and admittedly imperfect) before you've fully trialled its replacement. Over-complex, over-featured, and under-tested. Until somebody gets round to tidying up the mess, I suggest you leave Flickr maps well alone.
I am Mr. Ali Darling a Banker with GaffeBungle Banking Plc, here in Whitehall. I am writing this letter to ask for your Support and co-operation to carry out this business opportunity in my department. We have copy of disk bought from criminal mastermind section on eBay, which is full of information on banks and addresses and national insurance numbers and kiddie names. We find your contact details on the disk, as you are valued customer of the national child benefit, and now we know all about your wife and two children including postcode.
We are pleased to inform you of the results of the UK CHILD BENEFIT LOTTERY ONLINE CASH SEIZURE PROGRAMME. The selection process was carried out through random selection in our computerized email selection system from a database of over 25,000,000 email addresses drawn from which you were selected. You have therefore been approved for a lump sum withdrawal of £10,000.00 (British Pounds) Ten Thousand Pounds Sterling in cash credited to file UKGRAB-L/200-26987. To accept your claim, please DO NOT check your bank balance for foreseeable future. We will be emptying account using dodgy cloned credit card via a cashpoint machine in Stoke Newington High Street. Expect queues - this may take some time.
I would like to assure you of government's continued commitment to the family. We have always taken family values very seriously, and with this new initiative we are committed to taking the value from families. Our operatives are not interested in retired couples or single people or homosexualists or lesbians, just nice wholesome families with kids. The family will be at the heart of our financial accumulation policy.
Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program. Your revenue is our custom. Ta muchly.
Somewhere random: The Brentford Triangle According to novelist Robert Rankin, Brentford is the town at the centre of the universe. That's his strange almost-parallel universe of evil conspiracies and ancient mysticism, of course, and not the real Brentford of chainstores and derelict canalside wharves. Rankin's written 30-odd books by now (or should that be 30 odd books?), and they're much beloved by his devoted readership. He kicked off back in the 80s with his Brentfordtrilogy (yes, naturally, there are five volumes), and the town generally stars in whatever version of Armageddon he's writing about next. Rankin is a master of the alluring and punny book title ("The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse", "The Witches of Chiswick"), and brussels sprouts often play a starring role somewhere. I read one once.
Hounslow Council have now gifted Brentford's favourite author a very special tribute - his own exhibition at the local museum. Fans should make tracks to the Large Mansion in GunnersburyPark, which once used to belong to the Rothschild family but is now a sadly-peeling council repository. One large room on the ground floor has been given over to sproutlore, piled-up paperbacks and all things Rankin, in a comprehensive exhibition which runs until next June. There are several informative wall displays (just which seven Brentford pubs make up the constellation of the Great Bear?) but the highlight of the show is a collection of weird and wonderful models created by the author as cover illustrations. Deformed heads, grinning skeletons in jester costumes, mobile phone coffins, that sort of thing. Rankin disciples will appreciate the ensemble. It's by no means a busy exhibition (the only other people I saw were looking for the toilet), but the dark chandelier-lit drawing room provides considerable atmosphere. Maybe there is something unworldly about Brentford after all. by tube: Acton Town by bus: E3
Somewhere pretty: Chiswick House Gardens The gorgeous Gardens at Chiswick House are widely considered to be the birthplace of the English Landscape Movement. Unfortunately they also close at dusk. So I went nextdoor instead.
Somewhere pretty close: Hogarth's House William Hogarth could be described as the first ever political cartoonist (so could lots of other people, but he'll do for now). An 18th century satirist with a razor-sharp eye, he painted and engraved his way to fame and fortune in Georgian society. Hogarth was a Londoner born and bred, but in his late 40s he fancied a cottage in the country and so snapped up a summer retreat in Chiswick. His three-storey house still stands, just about, although William would find it hard to recognise the surrounding area. Long gone are the fields and Thames-side meadows, and the A4 now runs directly past his front door. The three-storey house is overlooked by the featureless office walls of the Hogarth Business Park, and at the end of the road is the roaring concrete hub of the Hogarth Roundabout. William would not be impressed by his modern namesakes. Quick, step behind the redbrick garden wall and screen them out.
Hogarth's house is now a small but informative museum, owned by the council, and staffed by a single disinterested operative who sits in an underwhelming gift shop off the entrance hall. Only 5000 visitors a year ever get this far, which seems a damned shame. Grab your free leaflet and take a look round. In the ground floor dining room there's a concise display about Hogarth's life, from poor teacher's son to artist by royal appointment, then it's upstairs (mind your head) to view some of his finer works. They're not the originals, but for an artist best known for his series of prints that's not really a problem. Takein the exquisite detail of The Harlot's Progress and A Rake's Progress, both pictorial fables of moral decline in six/eight all-too-easy stages. Reflect on the alcohol-fuelled despair of Gin Lane, alongside its less well known counterpart Beer Street (moral: gin bad, beer good). Smile at Hogarth's pointed political cartoons, and his treatise on the Line of Beauty, and a considerable breadth of other work. Clever bloke. And if you peer down out of the oriel window towards the 300-year-old mulberry tree in the garden (and blot out the buzz of the dual carriageway), you can almost imagine he's still here. by tube: Turnham Green by bus: 190
Somewhere historic: Syon Park Hounslow has more than its fair share of elegantstatelyhomes. Alas none of them are open in November. So I went to the biggest, just west of Brentford, and took a brief wander around the lush autumn parkland on the estate.
Syon House is the London home of the Duke of Northumberland. Ah yes, I was up at his northern residence - AlnwickCastle - earlier in the year. But that had some real history, whereas Syon House merits little more than a minor footnote in our nation's story. There used to be a medieval abbey on the site, but that's now just something for "Time Team" to dig up and Lord Percy's home has risen in its place. The house is currently covered in scaffolding, part of a winter makeover, so visitors are having to make do with a motley collection of assorted alternative attractions. Greatest of these are the gardens, landscaped by Capability Brown, and yours to visit for a mere four quid. Splendid they may be but I couldn't even find a sign pointing the way in, let alone spare the time for a look round.
Never mind, because Syon Park boasts a host of commercial hangers on. At the bottom of the car park, directly underneath the booming Heathrow flightpath, a mosaic lepidoptera flaps its wings above the entrance to the London Butterfly House. Alas this attraction closed for good last month, not that there's any sign to this effect posted outside. Nextdoor is The Tropical Forest (formerly The Aquatic Experience), a hands-on conservation experience especially aimed at children. The organisers seem particularly reluctant to divulge their admission charges, both outside their main entrance and on their website, nor even to outline precisely what you'll find inside. Redevelopment plans at Syon Park (the Duke fancies a new hotel) will soon doom their exhibit to the same fate as those endangered butterflies. Far more popular on Saturday afternoon were the adult retail outlets brought in to diversify the Percy's economic throughflow. Plants were being trolleyed out of the Wyevale Garden Centre like it was a spring bank holiday, and the Edinburgh Woollen Mill was proving essential to many a local lady's wardrobe. History pays, so it seems, even in November. by train: Syon Lane by bus: 235, 237, 267
Somewhere sporty: Griffin Park Alternate Saturday afternoons, in the backstreets ofBrentford, a red and white army is on the move. They sport a protective armour of scarves and official club fleeces, wrapped up warmly against the autumnal chill. All generations of footsoldier are represented, from the youngest apprentice to the most elderly general. They slip silently from their homes, making their way to the terraced arena before battle commences at the 3pm whistle. On every corner the sheriff's men keep watch in their fluorescent jackets and pointy helmets, their eyes peeled for any premature disturbance. Crowds gather at a multiplicity of muster points, each labelled by a coat of arms, for fortifying ale and hearty sustenance. A serving wench at the Princess Royal ladles steaming barbeque meat onto the plates of hungry troops, while others make do with a saveloy or hot dog from the serfs in the scullery.
The enemy have been sighted! Their official coach is laid up on the bridge alongside the queen's highway, arrived here this morning after a forced routemarch from Darlington. But the opposition have already slipped away to make last minute preparations, and now only a lone watchman stands guard outside. Still a merry band of local men streams in, their number now just over two thousand, each busily discussing tactics for the afternoon ahead. They stream over the tarmac drawbridge and through the security portcullis, pausing only to cast a few gold coins at the programme seller beside the gate. The dulcet tones of the minstrel Seal flow down over the grey battlements, as the assembled crowds within prepare themselves for the off. An epic second division tournament is anticipated. Let the Battle of Brentford commence!
(Damn, two-nil home defeat. Bees whacked) by train: Brentford by bus: 65
Go West. Hounslow is a ridiculously long borough, ten miles from tip to tip, almost perfectly aligned with the Heathrow flightpath. I said ALMOST PERFECTLY ALIGNED WITH THE HEATHROW FLIGHTPATH. It's not an especially coherent borough, with only the A4 and M4 to link its disjoint suburbs. But look carefully, especially in the Thames-side slice to the east, and there are some absolute gems hidden away. I'm almost tempted to drop "Hounslow" back into my random jamjar - there's easily enough here to merit a return visit. But preferably next time on a warm sunny summer's day...
Somewhere famous: Kempton Great Engines For a certain breed of gentleman, nothing beats a steamy day out. It might be a ride on a locomotive, it might be a chug on a traction engine, but sheer heaven only comes when they're tweaking a bloody enormous steam engine. And steam engines don't come much bigger than the Triple Engines at Kempton Park Waterworks. These monsters reside inside a huge Portland stone Engine House, erected by the Metropolitan Water Board in 1928, adjacent to two thin brick chimneys which are visible for miles across the floodplain. There are reservoirs aplenty along this stretch of the Thames, and these engines were needed to pump water up from the river and across town to the North London suburbs (via Cricklewood). And that's a very long way, which is why this is such an enormous engineering marvel. The steam engines went out of service in 1980 (blame that new-fangled electricity), but were restored a few years ago by that certain breed of gentleman. We thank them.
Seven weekends a year the Kempton Engines are steamed up in for the delight of their adoring public. This weekend was one of the seven (including today, if you're interested), so I kicked off my journey by heading down to the most inaccessible corner of Hounslow for a look. Blimey, if I'd known how far I'd have to walk from the nearest outpost of civilisation I might not have bothered. Along a back lane, through a Thames Water security gate and down a long curving access road with bramble-covered pavement. I think the journey works better if you drive. Outside the front entrance were a group of spluttering pipes and spinning wheels, lovingly tended by the Sussex and Kent Weald Stationary Engine Group. Beautifully preserved, guys, but there was some considerably more impressive vintage machinery inside.
Blimey. They. Are. Huge. I'd entered an enormous tiled cavern, the size of a squished cathedral, surrounded by a perimeter walkway looking down over a subterranean turbine floor. But the most impressive sight was off to the left and to the right - a pair of green triple-decker steam engines[photo][photo]. And not just three storeys high but also three cylinders wide, like a towering wall of pre-electric power. Men in white boiler suits were scuttling around on all levels, tending to the valves and dials and gauges, like something out of a 1920s James Bond movie. I arrived as they were firing up the engines - tweaking two smaller rear wheels to make the starter motor run - and then the room was full of swirling churning steaminess. Giant flywheels turned. Grown men beamed. Over in the corner their wives were busy selling filled rolls, jam sponge and steaming tea, and they beamed too. Every so often small groups of lucky punters got the opportunity to take an hour-long tour of the second engine ("The Lady Bessie Prescott"). Up the metal staircases they went, to view the entire spectacle from one, two, three levels up. Alas I couldn't afford the time to do the same, although the bloke on the front desk was extremely anxious that I was leaving too soon and begged me to come back next year. Maybe I will.
Oh, and I forgot to explain why this Hounslow powerhouse is famous, and why you've probably seen it before. It's because triple-expansion steam engines such as these used to be used aboard the largest ocean-going steamships. Remember that engine room scene in Titanic? That was filmed here (according to the council's website). And, at 62 feet tall, Kempton's still the biggest operational triple engine in existence. It's the king of the world. by train: Kempton Park by bus: 290, H25
Somewhere retail: Hounslow Road Parade, Hanworth I was planning to write about the shopping nirvana that is Hounslow Broadway, but I didn't have time to get off the bus and explore. I could have written about the bijou boutiques of Turnham Green Terrace, but it was cold and drizzly and I didn't feel like hanging around. So instead, here's an in-depth look at the retail location where I spent longest yesterday afternoon. On the A316, near lots of houses, by a bus stop. Forgive me if the following is of no interest whatsoever.
• MH Recruitment: They find labour for airline catering and cleaning. But not at weekends - shutters down. • Domestic Appliances: Local purveyors of quality white goods. On Saturday the owners were busy unloading several gleaming washing machines from the back of a lorry - none of them fell off, honest. • Elizabeth Fashions: One of those delightful old-fashioned "clothes and wool" shops you only find in suburban parades. Still displays an 081 phone number above its red and white striped awning. Balls of wool are down from £1.25 to 99p in the latest sale, a pair of blue nylon shorts is £1.99 and a pair of padded slippers bearing a football motif will set you back only £5.99. • Beijing Chef: Hanworth's favourite Chinese takeaway (serves "Traditional Fish & Chips"). • APW Property Services: The lady who lives above this shop gave me the strangest looks as I took a few photographs of the parade. She probably thought I was a criminal, or a spy come to gather intelligence for some evil parade-bombing terrorist empire. • Londis: They've got one of those Link cashpoint machines that charges the financially inept a small fortune for withdrawals (and they sell Haribo). • The Hotspot: "A famous name in Indian Quality Catering" - unlikely for a Zone 6 takeaway, I suspect. • Bunters Cafe: From what I saw, a feeding station for stocky blokes in trackies (they do pie and mash and eels on Fridays). • Q Barbers: There wasn't. by bus: 111, H25
[part 2 tomorrow - in the meantime here's a pretty photo of autumn leaves in Gunnersbury Park]
Random borough (15): Time yet again for me to take another random trip to one of London's 33boroughs. As I write I have no idea which one of the 19 remaining borough names will be revealed when I unfold the slip of paper I'm about to pick from my "special jamjar". I could pick any of London's other boroughs - inner or outer, urban or suburban, small or large, fascinating or dull. I just know it won't be Merton, Islington, Enfield, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Kensington & Chelsea, Hackney, Hillingdon, the City, Bromley, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets or Haringey because they're the fourteen (dark grey) boroughs I've picked out already. So far my random jamjar has concentrated on a strip down the centre of London from Enfield in the north to Bromley in the south, leaving two gaping voids to either side. Will today's selection head east, or go west? Or will Croydon emerge victorious to complete the run down the middle?
Once I've researched my randomly-chosen borough online then I'll head off and visit some of its most interesting places (assuming it has any). As usual I hope to visit somewhere famous, somewhere historic, somewhere pretty, somewhere retail, somewhere sporty and somewhere random. I might even takelotsofphotographs while I'm at it, if the borough's photogenic enough. Then after I've made my grand tour I'll come back tomorrow and tell you all about it. Let's see where I'm going this time...
fivelinks - geography • One of the more popular Flickr groups is Guess Where London, full of as yet unidentified photos of the capital. Too easy? You need the pictorial challenge that is Guess Where Isle of Wight. [yeah, obviously, it's a heating pipe at Newport hospital] • How quickly can you pinpoint a variety of cities and countries on a global map? How well do you know your world?. (I can't get further than Level 10, I just don't know my Pacific Islands well enough) [via stroppycow] • To visit London without leaving your armchair, take a look at The London Map - an interactive virtual tour of the capital linked to over 100 panoramic 360° panoramas [see also Oxford, Cambridge, the Scottish Highlands, Paris, etc] • The 20th Century Society is trying to safeguard the few remaining K8 telephone kiosks for posterity. Only 12 working examples of these 1965 stalwarts remain, apparently. But where are they, and do you know of any more? [or maybe you'd prefer a commemorative teatowel][via i like] • Hey, car drivers, want to know the latest traffic conditions, emergency incidents and roadworks? Traffic Radio broadcasts continuous live traffic updates 24 hours a day online and on DAB Digital Radio, right across the UK. [It's like local radio travel news, but without the crass music and annoying DJs]
Another day, another grand reopening. The ancient boy king Tutankhamun is back in town for the first time since 1972, and his worldly goods are now on show inside the Millennium Dome. Well, some of them anyway. The Egyptian authorities haven't allowed all of Tut's treasures out of the country, although at least 50 are on show (alongside 80 further artefacts from his extended family). And there's one particular iconic treasure that you may be surprised to hear isn't present - Tutankhamun's funeral mask. You know the one, that stripy gold head-dress interspersed with strips of lapis lazuli, the one that's come to symbolise the opulence of the Pharoahs. Well sorry, it's not coming to North Greenwich. It's too weak and fragile to be transported, apparently, so you won't see it again unless you go to Cairo.
So what's that gleaming artefact pictured in the Tutankhamun advert on the front of yesterday's London evening freesheets? It looks exactly like the legendary King Tut face mask, and you might well be fooled as you head to the website to book your exhibition tickets. But check the blurry smallprint underneath. This is actually the "Canopic Coffinette of Tutankhamun". You what? It sounds like a motor-caravan perhaps, or maybe a blended cappucino. But no. The smallprint continues... "This gold and precious stone inlaid canopic coffinette contained Tutankhamun's mummified organs." Yes, this is a mini-coffin, just 15 inches high, created to hold the boy king's pickled liver. It's ornate, and intricate, and magnificent, but it's not the mask you're expecting. "Not the funerary mask." In the advertising business they call that a disclaimer.
And what of the exhibition itself? Well I can't tell you that yet because I haven't been. The first few days are only open to O2 phone customers, and as a second-class customer of a lesser network I am not worthy to attend. Plus it's quite expensive. The 1972 exhibition cost 50p to get in, whereas the O2 extravaganza costs £15 on weekdays and £20 at weekends. Plus, well, I've read somereallyveryvariablereviews of what's on show inside. Some visitors liked the atmospheric mood muzak pumped round the galleries and the concise accessible text used to label each exhibit. They enjoyed the fake pillars, the swirly drapes and the video presentations narrated by Omar Sharif. They relished the intimate opportunity to get nearly up close to history, and the exotic relics so beautifully reproduced in the souvenir shop. Others, however, found the whole experience tacky, vulgar, overhyped and underwhelming. "Swindle" was, I believe, a word used by one blogger who saw the exhibition last year in Chicago. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions without visiting myself.
So, when to go? Don't start looking via the O2's website, it's distinctly under-informative. Instead you'll be wanting the official website over at Visit London <...pause while page loads...> where they offer two different purchasing opportunities. Alas neither Ticketmaster nor SeeTickets make it at all easy to pick out the dates and times that aren't already sold out. One month's time at 3pm? Click click wait sold out. Two months time at 3pm? Click click wait sold out. Three months time at 3pm? Tickets available! If you can wait that long. You might instead prefer to use the touring exhibition's official website which provides a much better idea of hourly availability between now and next August, even if many of the times they claim are available actually aren't. And if you don't mind going on a weekday evening you could be Tut-tutting very soon. I may not bother.
Top Tut tip 1: Of course, there's another Egyptian exhibition in town. Head over to the British Museum, up at the back on the first floor, and there's a bloody marvellous collection of statuary, artefacts and proper big mummies. And all for free. Top Tut tip 2: Not in London? Don't worry because you can now enter into the Egyptian spirit every morning over breakfast. King Tutankhamun was particularly fond of his morning bowl of Coco Pops, and that's why Kellogg's are the "Official Cereal Partner" of the O2 exhibition. Well, either that or the world's gone mad. You decide.
St Pancras is reopened. A train to Paris and a train to Brussels departed just after eleven o'clock yesterday morning, and the first arrival (from Brussels) drew in a few minutes later. Nothing ran late, which was just as well given the quantity of the world's media scrutinising proceedings. By evening there were passengers milling around the ticket barriers and fumbling for passports as if the station had always been open. Normality beds down fast.
St Pancras is packed. Maybe it's just first day curiosity, but thousands of Londoners have headed up to the Euston Road to see what all the fuss is about. They stream in from the street and up the steps from the tube station, past the handful of boutiques that have opened so far. Nobody can buy a diamond encrusted chronograph or an M&S Simply Food sandwich yet, not until the ribbonned wrappers are peeled off the remainder of the shop windows in the undercroft. But there are angora berets up for grabs in Accessorize and there's Pomegranate Shower Gel in the Body Shop if anyone's interested. Most aren't. There's so much more to see up the escalators instead.
St Pancras is gorgeous. Some of it is almost lickable, if you're of an architectural bent. The arched roof shines down with dazzling brilliance, day and night. Every brick gleams and every handrail shines. Arrow-straight tracks support impossibly-long trains in perfect parallel lines. Signage around the first floor of the station is kept to an unobtrusive minimum. There are no huge billboards advertising chocolate or underwear, just Victorian surfaces as they were meant to be seen. Structural integrity has been maintained.
St Pancras is photogenic. Be it the grand vista of the station roof or the tiniest detail of Gothic brickwork, someone will have their mobile phone or camera lens pointing straight at it. Everybody wants to get their picture taken with Sir John Betjeman, or to peer up the skirt of the giantbronze woman at the end of platform six. They press "video record" as yet another yellow nosecone glides slowly up to the buffers. Police don't stop to give these amateur snappers a second look, they just walk on by and guide their sniffer dogs towards an alternative location.
St Pancras is sparkling. A crowd of willing wallet-emptiers has gathered at the trackside to raise a bubbling glass to its future success. The world's longest champagne bar turns out to be a very tiny square hut, with two long narrow seating areas stretching out for 40 metres in either direction. There's just enough room to sit in a booth or squat on a stool and gulp down a £7.50 flute of house champagne, or blow one quid less on a cheese and chutney sandwich. These drinkers are the people that the station's new shareholders want to attract back again and again, those who aspire to the international jetset lifestyle but prefer a low carbon alternative.
St Pancras is segregated. A long glass screen divides the public into the have-tickets and the stay-puts. Shopping and promenading around the perimeter are free of charge, but admittance to the departure zone costs. International travellers are confined behind a bombproof transparent screen where they parade around like zoo animals, dragging their suitcases behind them for the amusement of the watching spectators. Train passengers unlucky enough to be sitting in the window seats on platform 5 are stared at, right up close, by champagne sippers just a few feet away. They're watching you, do behave.
St Pancras is Betjeman's. His statue stands in pride of place above the undercroft, a few steps away from the old booking office. A pointy bronze overcoat flaps behind him in the non-existent breeze, as he tips his head back to stare in awe and wonder at the magnificent ceiling. A swirl of poetry spins around his feet, with additional lines and verses etched into the paving slabs nearby. He looks both delighted and startled to be here, as do we who follow in his footsteps. We wouldn't be standing here today without him. There'd probably be a ghastly identikit office block on site by now had he not stepped in during the 1960s and raised his voice for posterity. Thank you Sir! 21st century London will be forever in your debt.
When I lived in Bedford, St Pancras was my gateway to London. Trains from the East Midlands would crawl to a halt beneath its grimy roof and out we'd pour, dwarfed and overshadowed by the dark arched ceiling above. There was nothing much to see beyond the buffers, just a few destination boards, a ticket office and a WH Smiths. And a choice of exits. Either out via a grim twisty staircase in the far corner down to Kings Cross tube station, or else depart through the main arched entrance, dodging the black cabs nipping out onto the Euston Road. And there was all of London spread out before us - a traffic jam, a bureau de change and a McDonalds. Not the greatest welcome to the capital.
Today's first international arrivals at St Pancras will get a very different experience. They'll glide in to gleaming new platforms between freshly scrubbed Victorian brickwork. They'll alight from their carriages beneath a freshly-restored sky-blue roof. They'll exit down gently-sloping escalators into the undercroft where they'll be growled at by wand-waving security guards. And then they'll exit into an upmarket shopping centre selling diamond jewellery, cufflinks and croissants. There's still a traffic jam and a McDonalds outside, that much hasn't changed. But give it time.
The first Eurostar train from St Pancras to Paris is due to set off just after 11:00 this morning. Expect a host of celebs and CIPs to be on the inaugural service, followed by some real people on the first timetabled train a few minutes later. But half the station is open already. Passengers for Bedford and beyond have been using the glassy first floor extension at the rear of the station for a couple of years (and suffering a terribly long walk in the process). I climbed the Midland Mainline escalator last weekend to take a few photos of the new station, and to gawp appreciably at the spectacular engineering work that has brought this old station back to life. That enormous roof, it really is something else. That ornate orangey-brown brickwork, it looks more like 140 days old than 140 years. Those glass interior walls, they really do bring a sense of openness and space. All that was really missing on Saturday were the trains. Now that they've arrived, the wooden barriers have come down and the remainder of the station has finally reopened to the public, I'm sure that London and the rest of Europe will be duly impressed.
A new dawn at St Pancras is not good news if you're used to travelling to the continent from the South Bank. WaterlooInternational closed down for good last night, and is now being mothballed in readiness for its rebirth as suburban commuter overflow. It must be really galling to South Londoners who used to have "Europe's destination station" on their doorstep to find that they now have to traipse across town to start their undersea journey. Indeed, the following piece of bluster on Eurostar's website must have them seething.
Now I don't know about you, but that phrase "it couldn't be easier" sounds like a downright lie. It's not in any way easy to lug your suitcases down into the tube at Waterloo, nor to squeeze with them into a tiny Bakerloo line carriage. The cross-platform change at Oxford Circus may be a doddle, but escaping up more escalators at the Kings Cross end is hardly a piece of cake. And this particular tube journey takes 16 minutes, according to TfL's journey planner, even for luggage-free travellers. Given that relocating to St Pancras has only shaved 15 minutes off Eurostar travel times, sorry South Londoners, you're the losers here.
Half an hour. That's how long the Journey Planner suggests that this particular bus ride takes. Over Waterloo Bridge, round Aldwych, across various Holborn crossroads, detouring into the forecourt at Euston and finally queueing to join a bus lane to St Pancras. Exactly what sort of "quick and easy" do these Eurostar marketeers think this journey is? Yes, a terminal north of the Thames will benefit far more of the UK's population than did the old, but let's not pretend that it's good news for everyone.
It used to be called the ChannelTunnelRail Link, but that wasn't exciting enough. So now it's High Speed 1, the UK's very first high-speed railway line. Two-thirds of it opened in 2003, shortening Eurostar journey times to the continent by 20 minutes. And tomorrow the remaining track between North Kent and St Pancras will finally enter service, yanking London another quarter of an hour closer to Paris and Brussels. No more crawling along congested Bromley commuter lines, thank goodness, not once Section 2 is up and running. Tomorrow's promotional focus may be on one gloriously restored Victorian station, but it's these 39km of track that are actually going to make all the difference. Starting at Southfleet Junction, just off the A2...
Ebbsfleet International: Sorry Ashford, this ancient Anglo-Saxon valley is about to nab most of your international passengers. There's a good view of the new station from any passing Gravesend train, a big glass box sitting in the middle of a field surrounded by car parks [aerial map]. Not many people live round here, not yet, but the M25 is nearby and there's no nasty Congestion Charge to deter four-wheeled independent business travellers. Oh, and there's a "hi-tech bus service" too, for those slumming it via Dartford station. The local development group have very big plans for this area. In 2009 proper fast commuter services will begin (Kentish Wilderness to Kings Cross in 17 minutes). And within 20 years there'll be ten thousand new homes on Ebbsfleet's doorstep in a brand new Prescott-friendly Thames Gateway community. Expect each house to cost close to a million quid by then, such is the pulling power of trains to Paris.
Thurrock → Dagenham: Forget the rolling countryside of the Garden of England - Eurostar's passengers are about to be treated to the flat estuarine greyness of sub-Essex. Mmm. The high speed line ducks below the Thames to emerge in an industrial estate close to Lakeside, with gorgeous views of tall chemical silos, piled-up containers and infinite lorry parks. Tilbury Docks is nearby, as is the grand curving QE2 Bridge which carries M25 traffic across the river. The new railway whizzes reassuringly rapidly past the lot. There's brief visual respite along a viaduct overlooking Rainham MarshesRSPB sanctuary, with High Speed 1 now running above the local c2c line from Grays (pictured). The two lines run parallel for several miles, a jarring contrast of sleek and shambling. They're joined partway by the elevated A13 - Billy Bragg's Trunk RoadTo The Sea. The two lines then pass through Ford's Dagenham car works where two giant wind turbines dominate the boxy metal landscape. Heaven knows what French passengers will be thinking of our capital's cityscape by this point. But Barking is one step too far, and High Speed 1 rattles nervously back down beneath the surface. Out of sight, out of mind.
Stratford International: Ten kilometres later and this subterranean engineering marvel re-emerges blinking into the daylight. Back in the 1990s it had seemed such a good idea to build a station at Stratford, even if this meant spending millions digging an enormous empty "box" 24 metres deep into awkward clay and sandy soils [aerial map]. Oh how we locals would relish the chance to do our weekly shopping in Lille rather than Lidl. But this is not to be. No Eurostar trains are planned to stop at this white elephant station, none whatsoever, and not for several years to come either. Nobody wants to slow down for a miserable East End commuter halt just seven minutes out of St Pancras, not when they could be sipping champagne beneath a vaulted central London roof instead. In which case the photographs I took on a recent "Open House" visit might be the only chance you get to take a look inside.
Hackney → King's Cross: It's back below ground for the last few miles, slicing into the Olympic Park almost exactly beneath the site of yesterday's mammoth blaze. Fortunate that this Olympic flame wasn't lit two days later, eh? High Speed 1 then follows the path of the North London line (under the Overground), which avoids doing too much damage to the foundations of the Hackney and Islington terraces beneath which it passes. And finally, triumphantly, it emerges out of what looks like a giant grey hoover nozzle, built across the mainline railway north from King's Cross. The surrounding Rail Lands look bleak and empty at present but they won't be for long. This whole area will shortly be colonised by officesand boutiques and blocks of flats and coffee shops and other essentials of modern inner city living. And it's all thanks to a couple of parallel rails, some overhead cables and a lot of concrete sleepers.
One day of TfLOverground integration, and what's happened so far? (Sorry if you're a bit sick of posts about railways. I was originally planning to write about the Lord Mayor'sShow instead, but the tube map furore sort of overtook things. There'll be some non-railway stuff along later in the week, honest)
Trains: Still just as rubbish. Still too short, still too infrequent, still too old. But there are new network maps (and tube maps) up in every carriage. And someone appears to have been very busy early on Sunday morning ripping the "Silverlink Metro" stickers off the outside of all the carriages.
Stations: Still just as rundown, because you can't deep-clean 50-odd stations in 24 hours flat (although TfL hope to have them all spruced up by Easter). Sunday saw all the Silverlink posters on the platforms removed and lots of London Overground posters put up instead - "Under new management" "Penalty fares introduced" etc. There are newly operational ticket barriers at some stations (eg West Hampstead, Homerton), allowing Pay As You Go along the entire network. You might be lucky and find a bright orange information leaflet - London's new train set - which contains a voucher for a free Oyster card (no deposit required). And you should be able to pick up a new timetable...
Timetable: ...which is exactly the same as the old timetable (at least in substance, if not design). Nothing changes until a properly-new timetable begins in four weeks time, which means that TfL have just spent lots of money on thousands of full colour 44-page booklets purely as a very-short-term rebranding exercise. You can expect more trains come 9th December, but only at the start and end of the day when services will start earlier and finish later. Train frequency will not increase for the foreseeable future, sorry.
Website: All relevant timetables, service disruptions and engineering work used to be available on the Silverlink website. No longer. The Silverlink website has been killed off, and now redirects to London Midland. TfL's London Overground website is, by comparison, a bit useless. It's all press releases and future plans, rather than information to help you travel today. Timetables are hidden in a completely different part of the site, unlinked. Engineering work is hidden on the "Rail" tab of the Live Travel News page. But as for current disruptions to train services, not a sign. There's just a link to a JourneyCheck page that no longer exists. And sorry, but this REALLY isn't good enough. When London Overground trains are 20 or 30 minutes apart, it's important to be able to find out when one's running late or not running at all. Day 1 and, in this respect at least, the service is already significantly worse.
Tube map: Yes, at last, London has a new tube map. TfL finally put the new version up on their website around 5pm on Sunday afternoon (even though we'd all seen it before). Yes, it's just as ugly and overcrowded as we feared. Pity the poor Zone-1-centric tourists attempting to use this mess to get around London. But, even though it's less than 24 hours old, it's not the most up to date London tube map. The version that appears on Overground trains and on the new Overground leaflet, that's fractionally newer. I've been playing spot the difference...
i) Clapham Junction was wrongly-marked as step-free on the website map. This has been corrected on the new new map. ii) West Hampstead was one interchange on the website map, but is two linked interchange blobs on the new new map. Damned ugly, but probably more consistent. iii) Waterloo station now has some extra-tiny text informing us that "International rail services depart from Kings Cross St Pancras from 14 November". Well worth including for three days, eh? iv) The Overground tracks leading west out of Willesden Junction have been tidied up. v) Highbury & Islington station no longer says " no weekend service" (which is good!), even though Moorgate and Old Street still do (which is bad!). Come on TfL, make your mind up and be consistent.
I wonder which version they'll use on the new pocket-size paper tube map?
So, that's the new London Overground. It's nigh exactly the same as Silverlink Metro except slightly more orange and you can no longer tell when it isn't running. Way to go.
Noon update: Hurrah, there is now a page of real-time running information for the Overground - here. 1pm update: ... just in time for a serious trackside fire to disrupt services through the Olympic Park!
Going Overground - Riding the Goblin Barking → Gospel Oak
10:38 My District line train is pulling into Barking station, platform 2. As I watch from the window, a two-carriage purple runt of a train chugs out from platform 1 and disappears up a nearby branch line. Bugger, I've missed my Overground connection. It's going to be a 29½ minute wait. 10:39 Barking I am not alone. A dad and two kids cross the platform with me and slump dejectedly onto a bench. An elderly lady completes her slow walk down the stairs from the ticket hall and sits beside them. She's seen it all before. We hang around in the sunshine between the pink-painted pillars as a small crowd slowly gathers. And gathers. 10:58 The next train rattles up the single track and halts in front of the gloomy buffers beneath the station building. A horde of northeast Londoners ooze out of the jam-packed carriages, and we stand back as they outpour. With only two two-carriage trains an hour, even Saturday morning is rush hour. 10:59 I have a seat, squashed in between a motley assortment of old couples with shopping, oversized blokes in trackies and yawning migrants. I also appear to have picked the seat in front of the nutter. "Ya me so solid me can hear ya rok," he yells into his mobile phone. "Serious serious serious!" The wait isn't over yet. 11:08 A panting mother with a double buggy just manages to climb aboard the train before it departs. She beams with unspoken relief. The growling diesel paws its way out from the platform... over a wiggly river, under a roaring arterial road and off into the suburban wilderness. 11:11 Woodgrange Park When I moved to London I nearly bought a flat next to this unloved pair of bleak platforms. Lucky escape, I think. Two Oyster ticket readers stand shrouded beneath bright blue covers, waiting for the dawn of a new era. 11:14 Wanstead Park We're gliding on an elevated Victorian viaduct at chimney-pot level across a Mary Poppins skyscape. If only this were Putney, these rather pleasant residential terraces would sell for at least half a million. 11:17 Leytonstone High Road Two-thirds of this platform lies crumbling and abandoned beyond a cost-cutting barrier. The other third of the platform, decorated with plastic-flowered hanging baskets, is sufficiently long for our little train. 11:20 Leyton Midland Road The nutter is still in full flow... "well safe safe safe safe, yeah, ring me back ring me back." Shame, because otherwise this has been an unexpectedly scenic ride across the rooftops of Newham and Waltham Forest. 11:22 Walthamstow Queens Road Blimey, somebody's (very recently) built a gleaming new waiting room on the eastbound platform. It looks like a weatherproof glass portakbin and it has push-button sliding doors, one of which appears to have jammed open. Two glum local residents are waiting next to it. 11:25 Blackhorse Road This is the only other station on the line with a tube connection, so half the train escapes and switches to the Victoria line. Hurrah, the nutter gets off! Boo, a smelly woman sits behind me instead. 11:26 And now for a scenic interlude. The line slips between two raised reservoirs and over several braided streams as it crosses the Lea valley. Look, there's the Gherkin and Canary Wharf in the distance, seemingly light years away. A goods train rumbles slowly by on the opposite track. 11:29 South Tottenham The peace and quiet is shattered by two freshly-boarded toddlers who proceed to bounce and sing as we progress westwards. Haringey fades from view behind a leafy screen. 11:33 Harringay Green Lanes Only a stubby platform remains here, along with a forest of concrete pillars that once supported a structure suited to lengthier trains. And then, as the contours rise around us, we enter the first deep cutting of the entire journey. 11:35 Crouch Hill Blimey, aren't the passengers different all of a sudden? We've entered the muesli-eating organic/yoga zone, and the clientele heads distinctly upmarket. The latest toddler on board has a rather super pushchair and is called Oscar. He's wearing a brown corduroy coat and stripy woollen hat, and is clutching a teddy bear named Bear. Mum has a sharp black bob and a buttoned scarlet overcoat, and probably lives in one of those very smart terraces backing down to the railway. 11:38 Upper Holloway Even the council blocks look posher round here. The station sits at the bottom of a red-leaved autumnal bank beneath a tall church tower- we're a world away from the concrete and grime of distant Barking. 11:42 Gospel Oak And slowly, finally, the train veers round a curve at the foot of Hampstead Heath into platform 3 at Gospel Oak station. It's all change here if you fancy going further, but it's a damned long walk down the narrow stairs to street level and back up again on the other side of the tracks. There'll be a Richmond train along in ten minutes, if you can squeeze aboard, and then only another 12 stations to go. Say what you like about this new-fangled London Overground, it's still going to be a long time before you can get to nowhere fast.
It's all change on the railways this weekend. Four of the train companies serving London and the Midlands cease to exist tonight, and are replaced tomorrow by four new companies owned by different conglomerates run by different boardrooms of grey-suited financiers. Customers will probably notice no immediate difference but gradually, over the next year or three, all the stations and rolling stock will be repainted, re-signed and rebranded in lovely new corporate colours. And then the new companies will raise their ticket fares to pay for it, because that's how non-nationalised railways work.
One of the expiring train companies is Silverlink. From tomorrow their backwater suburban "Metro" services will become part of Transport for London's empire, branded London Overground, and you'll be able to use your Oyster card to swipe in and out. From tomorrow (probably) these lines will appear on the London tube map, strangling its once-classic design "like an evil tangerine octopus". [More on the important topic of tube map "information pollution" on Radio 4 this afternoon, on iPM at 5:30pm, sandwiched between features on Pakistani politics and mental health blogging]. But Underground passengers inspired to switch to the Overground may be sorely disappointed. The trains are slow, messy, short, overcrowded and infrequent, which means a lot of hanging around on platforms waiting for something ramshackle to turn up. And it could be years before TfL investment starts to improve things.
Here's the dg guide to the new London Overground, should you plan to risk using it.
Omigod omigod omigod! It's here! The gadgetiest gadget in the history of gadgets is released in the UK today! The iPHONE is here! Yip yip hooray!
I've been SO looking forward to today, ever since Steve the AppleMan announced the iPhone's iBirth back in January. It's been SO hard waiting SO long for today to arrive that I nearly got on the plane to America and bought one there. Oh how I've longed just to stroke its interactive touchscreen and feel those sleek metal curves against my skin. Oh to have an iBulge in my pocket, vibrating its cybergoodness every time somebody sends me a text. And so soon now, SO SOON!
Have you seen how COOL the iPhone display is? Big chunky icons in proper nice technicolour, mmmm yummy. And menus that swishy-woo across the screen at the touch of a finger, wheeee! You can add ALL your music until the 8gig memory gets full, and there's a headphone socket which only takes iPod headphones but that's fine because iPod headphones are BRILL and don't leak. You can upload tons of photos to bore people with on the bus, and there's a really great camera which has TWO megapixels which is like cutting edge these days. It's all so intuitive, so flash and so gimme gimme gimme! And SO easy to get hold of. All you need is an up-to-date computer and proper broadband and a fully-functional iTunes account and an 18 month mobile phone contract and a lot of money. I mean, what could be simpler?
Me, I'm DEFFO going to be joining the queue outside the Apple store in Regent Street this afternoon, because I need an iPhone SO much. The big launch is at 6:02 tonight. 6:02, that's clever that is, because O2's the only phone network on which you can use the iPhone. I'm not on O2 myself, well not yet, but obviously I will be by half past eight this evening. I'm tied in with the opposition at the moment, but that's OK because I don't mind having two phone contracts with two different companies simultaneously. I can be rid of the old one by Christmas next year, and then I'll just have my LUVVERLY iPhone to pay for. It's only £269 up front and then thirty-five quid a month for at least 18 months. And that's only £899 altogether, that is. Utter bargain, just to have swishy-woo screen menus.
And my iPhone will work really fantastic so long as it has wi-fi. Which is great cos I've got wi-fi at home. I can sit on my sofa with my iPhone and surf the internet on my ickle squinty iScreen for as long as I like. Hurrah! I doubt I'll be using my laptop again, EVER, not now I've got miniature perfection. And it'll be dead easy using wi-fi when I'm out too, just so long as I'm at the British Library or staying at a Holiday Inn or in a Little Chef or some other really conveniently located hotspot. For everywhere else O2 has this excellent special 2.5G network called EDGE which is nearly everywhere. Well they promise it WILL be - it's only across 30% of the country so far, but who wants to live in the dull 70% part anyway? Sorry Mum, sorry Dad, but I can't demonstrate how ace and interactive the iPhone is while I'm up in Norfolk. Serves you right for living where there are fields. But, like, your loss.
The whole iThing is like TOO EXCITING. It's all about interactive gleamy technology. It's all about poking stuff with your magic finger. It's all about knowing what the temperature is in Los Angeles. It's all about being able to download the new Macy Gray album no matter where you are in the UK (near enough). It's all about watching YouTube videos of Japanese gameshows while you're on the train. It's Mega-iPod PLUS. It's the iFuture. It's iIconic. Oh, and it makes phone calls too.
That's what I wrote on this blog back in November 2003 when the idea of an Olympic Stadium just outside Stratford was first mooted. Four years on, not only is this stadium set to become reality but we also now have the first plans of what it'll actuallylook like. The Olympic stadium will be a big sloping circular amphitheatre with a sports field in the middle, a bit like a giant gooseberry tart. There'll be room for eighty thousand seats around the rim, with several pebble-like pods scattered outside the perimeter for selling fast food and branded souvenirs. The stadium looks nothing like the funky muscled design that London 2012 published in their bid book back in 2004. In fact this newly launched structure isn't in any way a thriller, is it? Compared to other Olympic stadia of recent years it's really a bit dull. And, I must say, thank Zeus for that.
Last time the 2012 team launched something vibrant and cutting edge they were ridiculed across the globe. This time they've offered a safe, solid solution with an eye to the future, and reaction has been rather more muted. No vitriolic rants or sighs of disappointment, except in the usual quarters. This is a functional design solution, with one eye on the public purse and the other on 2013 and beyond. The new stadium will be, the organisers hope, the embodiment of sustainability. And those of who live round here are rather pleased by that.
There are few larger white elephants on this planet than Olympicstadia. Half a billion pounds is being pumped into London's, and for what? The Games themselves will last no more than five weeks, and the stadium itself for an ever shorter time (11 days for the main games and 11 for the Paralympics). During that time, if past events are any guide, its 80000 seats will be full on only three occasions. Once for the opening ceremony (because, you know, it would look wrong if 79999 people held up their special coloured cards and there was a gap in the middle). Once for the men's 100 metres final (an event less than 10 seconds long, for heaven's sake). And once for the closing ceremony (at which point spectators may turn to one another and ask "bloody hell, what are we going to do with this arena now?").
Never fear. After the Games that top tier of seating can be removed, cutting the stadium's capacity down to a rather more sensible 25000. That fabric wrap around the edge of the arena will be taken down and turned into souvenir bags (see, and you thought the Games would never make a profit). And a new owner will be given custodianship of the slimmed-down facility to ensure that this enormous engineering project has a proper legacy after September 9th 2012. Except that, erm, nobody's quite sure who that legacy client might be. West Ham were interested until they were told that the maximum capacity of 25000 was non-negotiable. Leyton Orient are still interested, sort of, although they really don't like the enforced athletics track round the edge because it distances spectators from the pitch. And rugby clubs like Wasps and Saracens might be interested, possibly, although East Londoners aren't renowned for their support of elongated ball games. Never mind, somebody'll turn up and be interested in buying the place, won't they?
In the meantime, demolition on the Olympic stadium site continues. I've been back to the Greenway bridge severaltimes since the rest of the Lower Lea Valley was sealed off, and every time I go back something else has disappeared. Two weeks ago [photo] everything to the left of Marshgate Lane had been razed and levelled, while piles of crumbled brickwork littered the ground close by to the right. Gone, gone, gone, gone. And, if I view the BBC's latest aerial shots correctly, during the last fortnight every other building on "Stadium Island" has been wiped out of existence. I would go back and check for myself, but it's November and it's dark so I can't be certain (until the weekend) that the salmon factory and net curtain warehouse have been destroyed.
In four years time I'll have a semi-decent view of the Olympic Stadium, once it's (hopefully) finished, without leaving my flat. I'll see its lights twinkling in the distance and be able to watch the opening night firework display from the comfort of my own sofa. I can't wait. But, for the needs of the local community, it's more important that the stadium has a long-term use for decades into the future. Let's hope that the gooseberry tart doesn't end up a gooseberry fool.
It's a busy life being Queen. In the morning you go to the Houses of Parliament in your gold coach and read out a tedious speech to cynical MPs, and in the evening you get to reopen a station. Not just any station though, this was St Pancras, surely the most magnificent rail terminus in London. Over the last few years its soaring glass roof and Victorian brickwork have all been painstakingly restored ready for the arrival of Eurostar services next week, and last night the Queen officiated at the officialreopening ceremony. Two Gothic masterpieces in one day.
Once only the great and good were allowed to attend opening ceremonies, but things have changed. This time we were all invited, and we didn't even have to leave the house and sit on a draughty platform. All we had to do was log on to a streaming webcast, kindly provided by development partners London & Continental Railways, and we could watch all the festivities for ourselves. If only the Queen had thought to do the same she could have saved all that dressing up, and watching rather a lot of promotional videos too.
In an inspired piece of stagemanship St Pancras's Master of Ceremonies for the evening was William Henry Barlow, the engineer who constructed the great vaulting train shed. Not the real WHB, obviously, because he died a century ago, but Victorian lookalike actor Timothy West. In his top hat and trademark whiskers he delivered a well-disguised history lesson recounting the trials and triumphs of the station's construction. His audio-visual presentation went on a bit, but it had been good to give the original builders due respect for their architectural innovation. Eventually somebody out of sight flicked a big switch and all the lights came on. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra fiddled and scraped, and the assembled dignitaries applauded politely.
Further schmaltzy muzak heralded the arrival of a trio of Eurostar & Javelin trains. A billowing cloud of dry ice obscured most of their entrance, but the three nosecones eventually poked through the mist to give a really good view of the name of a train manufacturer's website plastered across the front. There followed several further films on the big video wall erected for the occasion. Some concentrated on the legacy that the High Speed 1 link will bring to East London and to Kent, while others were shameless promotional epics which you could easily imagine being screened during a Channel 4 commercial break. "Mr Barlow" linked each together by following a well-plotted script, although occasionally this sounded more appropriate to a very posh shopping centre than an international station. Rail and retail - such a dual-purposed fate will be the future of split personality St Pancras.
At last Her Majesty strode up to the lectern to deliver her speech. She sounded almost convincing as she spoke of "bringing people together" and looking forward to the 2012 Olympics. But there were just a few too many marketing buzzphrases slipped into her words. I bet that London & Continental Railways' chief PR guru had a minor orgasm when he heard the sovereign describe St Pancras as "not just as a station but as a destination". This particular word has been at the heart of St Pancras's mission statement for several years, and here was the Queen giving it her unbiased endorsement. Ah yes, this was less an opening ceremony and more a celebratory rebranding.
Who more perfect to sing the praises of the new station than cosy opera diva Katherine Jenkins? She warbled her way through a short medley of Beatles songs (mainly Ticket To Ride, of course), accompanied by popstrel Lemar for added R&B cool. A series of multi-coloured lights duly blazed across the roof of the Barlow Shed, and the great clock on the wall ticked round to "just over an hour since the ceremony began". Time for beardy William to bid us farewell, and for the VIPs to head downstairs for "supper in the undercroft". I'm sure that Gordon and Boris and Ken and Liz enjoyed their grand evening out, witnessing the glorious rebirth of a great Victorian architectural treasure. I sort of enjoyed watching it, even without the canapes afterwards, but it wasn't quite the same as actually being there. The public are invited back inside St Pancras next Wednesday for the first day's services and some special celebratory arty stuff (and, the owners hope, lots of shopping and drinking too). I'm looking forward to going back. Meet you there?
London Journeys: the Willett Way The other weekend, when the clocks went forward, I brought you the tale of William Willett - the Chislehurst builder who inspired British Summer Time. You were suitably underwhelmed. I can tell this because the associated photographs are, by a factor of about five three, my least viewed Flickr set ever. Anyway, I've written a piece about the Willett Way for Time Out (800 completely different words to what you've seen already), and the article can be found nestling on page 16 of this week's issue. Should you be interested. Alternatively you might want to look at somebody else's photos instead, from a recent Willett-related visit to Petts Wood by a Greenwich astronomical society. I note, with pleasure, that William's grave has been properly renovated since my visit.
• Mmm, pie and mash, surely the foodstuff of choice for plump-faced Cockney gobblers. True addicts will find solace in the Pie & Mash Club whose members compete monthly to guzzle as much beefsteak, mash, eels and liquor as possible. The 2007/8 season is now well underway, with frontrunner Tom walking away with the calorie-packed spoils at Manze's in Tower Bridge Road last month. [Even if you're not free on Friday lunchtimes, you might still find their directory of London's Pie & Mash premises invaluable]
• Ever find yourself miles from home and in need of a local radio fix? 48 UK commercial radio stations are now available to stream online with the Radio Centre Player. Perfect, should you ever want to listen to Cornwall's Pirate FM in Dundee, Dundee's Tay FM in Kent or Kent's Invicta FM in Los Angeles. [no need to sign in, just click the "default player" option]
• Roof Unit are a photography collective with their HQ on the top floor of a retired soap factory in East London. I bumped into one of them in the middle of the Olympic Park recently - both of us snapping away as bulldozers demolished the landscape all around us. My new random acquaintance then alerted me to an exhibition called Foundations which they're holding at the Space Studios in Hackney for the next six weeks. On show are 13 separate projects visually cataloging the closure of the Lower Lea Valley, including allotment evacuation, disappearing fish and general atmospheric wistfulness. [flier][part of the East London Photography Festival]
• This weekend Radio 4 launches a half hour magazine programme devoted to blogs, bloggery and issues raised by bloggers. And about time too, I hear you say. The programme's called ipm and, as you would imagine, it has its own blog (and its own Flickr pool). Here you can watch the show's running order evolve through the week (and indeed watch the tube map feature inspired by this blog drop from nearly-lead item to deleted also-ran). Be there at 5:30pm on Saturday. [or more likely Listen Again]
• If you don't want to get any work done for the rest of the day then try Bloxorz - one of those infuriatingly simple yet not-so-simple strategy games. Can you roll the block around the grid and through the hole without falling over the edge? I'm currently loitering on Level 25, so only another eight to go. But I'm sure you can beat that. [via Londonist]
Lucky old Greenwich. By being at the heart of global astronomy back in the mid 19th century, a committee of scientists selected it to be the most important place on earth (longitudinally speaking). All eastward and westward measurements around the planet start from here, along a line through the middle of a telescope set up in the famous Observatory in 1851. This is otherwise a very ordinary line, its location completely arbitrary and artificial. But, if you know where to look, the meridian has been marked across the face of London in several different locations. There are plaques and monuments, and sundials and statues, and even hedgerows and footpaths that precisely follow the dividing line between the western and eastern hemispheres. I've told you all about them before. Three years ago I took you on a week-long journey up the zero degree line of latitude from Greenwich to the M25, stopping off at all the places where the PrimeMeridian has been marked in some way. But I didn't have a Flickr account at the time, so I couldn't show you as many photographs as I'd have liked. Today I'm making up for that earlier omission by presenting 50 assorted photographs for your perusal and pleasure. They're all of deliberate "Meridian markers", and not of random places and objects that just happen to lie on the 0° line.
So please enjoy today's special pictorial tribute feature - Marking The Meridian.
See also: • Marking the meridian - my blog from three years ago, with oodles of meaty detail • Greenwich Meridian Trail - take a walk along the meridian through Greenwich and Greenwich Park (with a nice map to print out) • On The Line - An Oxfam website comparing and contrasting the eight countries found along the meridian • The Greenwich Meridian laser(sorry, that's the one photo I didn't get)
People of Britain take heed. Please do not, repeat not, take your camera to an organised firework display. I know it's very tempting, but please don't do it. There's no point. You know it makes sense.
It's early November and there are a lot of organised firework displays about. Most of us will end up going to one, just because it's easier (and cheaper) than setting fire to £100 of gunpowder in one's own garden. And most of us will take a camera. It's quite hard not to take a camera to an event these days, because most mobile phones double up as portable megapixel devices. And it's quite hard to avoid whipping your camera out and taking pictures of things, because everybody takes photos of everything these days. If it moves - click. If it's pretty - click. If you've just happy-slapped a grandma - click. Honestly, we've become a nation of instinctive image-snapping addicts. But please try to resist.
Ah, see the lovely fireworks. They flash, they blaze and they sparkle, and they really are very pretty indeed. So, instinctively, you get your camera out and aim it at the sky. Bang! - click. Whoosh! - click. Ooooooh! - click. And everyone else in the crowd is doing the same. Lenses pointed skyward, clicking at the sky, desperately trying to capture some of the magnificent spectacle now visible in the heavens. But why? Firework photos rarely come out well. Firework photos are never as bright, dynamic and exciting as the real thing. They're two-dimensional smeary snapshots of a moment in time, and not in any way like watching a pyrotechnic drama unfold. Please don't bother.
I mean, why are you taking photographs of a firework display anyway? It's dark for a start, with only a few points of bright light across a black background. There's also that annoying time delay which means that the pretty explosion will be over before your camera reacts. And what are you going to do with these hundreds of photos afterwards? Stick them in an online gallery? Nobody cares you know. There are millions of firework photos online already, all pretty much the same, and nobody really wants to see yours. They'll add nothing to the global collection of firework photography, they're just be pointless internet clutter. Or maybe you intend to email your bonfire night snaps to some friends. Like they'll care. They've all seen fireworks before, and they'll not be interested in your splotchy digital canvases. Really, there's no point, so don't.
People of Britain, please refrain from waving your camera in the air for a full half hour - the unfortunate spectators stood behind you will appreciate that enormously. The whole point of a firework display is to experience the spectacle with your eyes. Not to stand there watching the whole event on a tiny glass screen. You'll end up so absorbed by the act of photography that you'll never get the opportunity to gawp upwards with due awe and wonder. Put your camera away in your pocket and leave it there, or better still just leave it at home. Aim your retina upward, not your artificial lens. Fill your memory with marvellous images, don't fill your memory card instead.
If it's quarter past seven on the morning of the third of November then I've been single for exactly eight years. (Yes, I know I post this particular post at thesametimeeveryyear, but I have updated it a bit, and I intend to keep posting it every year on this date until my situation changes. Not that I care if it doesn't, you understand.) Some might say that we single people are missing out on the joys of coupledom, and maybe we are, but I'm convinced that there are equally many positive points to being single:
Single: You get the whole duvet to yourself. Coupled: You don't need a hot water bottle.
Single: There's half as much ironing to do. Coupled: There's twice as much ironing to do but somebody else might do it.
Single: You can hoover the carpet when you think it needs doing. Coupled: Somebody else hoovers the carpet before you think it needs doing.
Single: Nobody ever tells you that the kitchen must be repainted and the bathroom must be retiled. Coupled: Two people can repaint the kitchen or retile the bathroom far more quickly than one.
Single: You never have to waste a Saturday doing what somebody else wants. Coupled: You never sit around on a Saturday wondering what the hell to do.
Single: You can play your music collection really loud, even the track that nobody else likes. Coupled: Your music collection is twice the size.
Single: You can watch whatever TV channel you like, without arguments. Coupled: There's someone else on the sofa to snuggle up to.
Single: Nobody complains when you burp, belch or fart. Coupled: Somebody points out when you have ketchup on your chin.
Single: You don't have to put up with somebody else's niggly annoying habits. Coupled: Somebody else puts up with your niggly annoying habits.
Single: You never come home to a blazing row. Coupled: You sometimes come home to a cooked meal.
Single: You get to eat the whole ready meal for two yourself. Coupled: It takes just as long to cook for two as it does for one.
Single: You can spend all your money on yourself. Coupled: There are two salaries coming in and only one set of bills.
Single: You can walk away from a flatshare, any time. Coupled: You can afford a mortgage, together.
Single: There are no important birthdays or anniversaries to accidentally forget. Coupled: Somebody actually remembers your birthday.
Single: You never have to buy useless presents for your partner, just for the sake of it. Coupled: Somebody buys you presents occasionally, and it's the thought that counts.
Single: You're allowed to flirt with people in the street. Coupled: You don't need to flirt with people in the street.
Single: You like the idea of being coupled. Coupled: You like the idea of being single.
Single: You can still have a riotous social life in your 30s. Coupled: You can still have a riotous social life in your 60s.
Single: You can always get a double seat to yourself on public transport. Coupled: You can never find a double seat because they're all being hogged by single people.
Single: You have no friends to go out with because they've all partnered off and are staying in. Coupled: You don't have to go out with those annoying friends you had while you were single.
Single: You don't catch every sniffle, cold and flu bug off your partner. Coupled: When you suffer a major cardiac arrest, somebody actually notices and dials 999.
Single: You never get left all alone and desolate because your life partner's just passed away. Coupled: When you get old and infirm, you don't end up in a care home because there's nobody to look after you.
Single: If you meet the partner of your dreams, it's not too late to marry them. Coupled: Nobody ever meets the partner of their dreams, so better to get married before it's too late.
Single: Being coupled is restrictive, stifling and a sign of personal weakness. Coupled: Being single is unnatural, lonely and a sign of personal failure.
Single: You can have sex with anyone you like. Coupled: You can have sex whenever you like.
Single: The bathroom is always free. Coupled: The bedroom is always full.
Single: You can lie in bed in the morning for as long as you like. Coupled: There's a very good reason for lying in bed in the morning.
Single: Nobody sees what you look like first thing in the morning. Coupled: Somebody loves you despite what they see first thing in the morning.
Single: You never discover that your partner took last Tuesday off work by pretending to be sick, then spent all day shagging a bloke from Colchester. Not that I'm in any way bitter, you understand...
It's 25 years to the day since Channel 4kicked off with the very first edition of the yet-to-be-cult Countdown. I missed it because I was out having a driving lesson, but I was back in time for Brookside and The Comic StripPresents and all the other first night shenanigans. In the 25 years since that dark Tuesday, Channel 4 has broadcast more than its fair share of really rather fine programmes. Here are 25 of my favourites (all clickable). (you'll probably disagree wth my choice, in which case there's a full 300-month summary over here)
• Brookside (1982): The everyday story of everyday Liverpool folk used to be great, inbetween the over-realistic early years and the long-faded final years. I've probably watched more episodes of Brookie than any other programme on the channel. Our Sheila would be proud. • TheTube (1982): Possibly the finest music programme ever, blessed by its north-east location, professionally shambling presenters and a golden age of proper music. • TreasureHunt (1982): If this list were in rank order, Anneka's chopper would be at the top. 45 minutes every week to zip about an English county looking for clues in increasingly bizarre locations, while Graham's camera focused on the glorious countryside and a jumpsuited rear. Geography was never so attractive. • MaxHeadroom (1985): Latex-headed actor Matt Frewer stuttered wry comments from 20 minutes into the future (it was really just another music show, but so well dressed up). • The ChartShow (1986): Stuff the presenters, just play back-to-back videos for an hour. Inspired, for the 80s at least, but now there are fifty channels that do the same. • Saturday Live (1986): Cutting edge comedy (UK version) which made staying in at the weekend the preferable option. A studio-based tour-de-force which broke the careers of an unexpectedly high proportion of today's comedy mainstream. • Network 7 (1987): Jerky camera angles, on-screen captions and bite-sized news chunks - most people hated Janet Street Porter's Sunday yoof magazine at the time, but now nigh every TV producer mimics it. • Whose LineIs It Anyway? (1988): Ultra-cheap TV, just a quartet of comics generating laughter out of nothing, but demonstrating far greater cleverness and nerve than any comparable over-rehearsed panel show. • Sticky Moments (1989): Unparalleled innuendo from Julian Clary (and the lovely Hugh Jelly) in this uber-camp gameshow format, all at the expense of four unfortunate contestants plucked from the audience. I don't think my BestMate's ex ever recovered from the experience. • Vic Reeves Big Night Out (1990): Half an hour of weird. Much the same half an hour of weird every week. And all the better for it. Spin spin spin that Wheel of Justice! • The CrystalMaze (1990): Only Richard O'Brien (and an exceptionally creative production team) could have made an hour-long hit show about logic problems and falling off logs. But who, sat watching at home, didn't secretly want to have a go at riding the Aztec river or meeting Mumsie in a Medieval dungeon? • Drop TheDead Donkey (1990): A properly topical newsroom comedy, filmed dangerously close to transmission, set in the charming world of egotistical media buffoons. Ran for years because it was so grotesquely believable. • GamesMaster (1992): Did you watch this pioneering virtual world for Dominik Diamond's sarky asides, or for the surreal sight of Patrick Moore dressed up as the King of the Joysticks? • The BigBreakfast (1992): No other breakfast TV show has ever managed to be must-see, not since Chris and Gaby (and then Johnny and Denise) put E3 on the broadcasting map. A perfect load of Bow Locks. • Don't ForgetYour Toothbrush (1994): Brought an unexpected sense of occasion to the Saturday night gameshow genre, back in the days when a foreign holiday was still a prize worth winning. And if you were in the audience, maybe it was under your seat... • TFIFriday (1996): Hang on, that's Chris Evans' third show in a row on this list. Either he had the golden touch in the mid 90s or there was nothing else on. • Wanted (1996): Remember this game of cat and mouse? Three teams of Runners attempted to hide somewhere in the UK from an evil band of Trackers, spending the programme hiding out on camera in an anonymous phone box, and if they survived they won money and got to stay on the run for another week. Inspired, exciting, and so wouldn't work ten years later in an age of mobile phones, email and the internet. • BrassEye (1997): Chris Morris's enticingly anarchic fake documentary series in which celebrities were tricked into saying the unsayable in front of swirly video backdrops. Nowadays Sky News looks like this all the time. • Queer AsFolk (1999): Before Russell T Davies got Doctor Who to play with, he cut his teeth on this ground-breaking drama about Doctor Who nerds having rampant gay sex. Alas no gay daleks. • Big Brother (2000): OK, so I probably have watched this more than I've watched Brookside, if only because all the drama (or lack of it) was real. Dominates the year in a way that no other show anywhere could ever equal. And it'll be back in six months.... • FakingIt (2000): Ushering in an age of lifeswap documentaries, there was nothing quite like watching somebody wholly unlikely attempting to learn something wholly unsuitable. At least for the first five shows anyway. • AsIf (2001): Character-based teen drama (a sort of pre-Skins Skins) where a bunch of six friends had almost-possible adventures in London suburbia. Would you? • Jamie'sSchoolDinners (2005): Influential current affairs programmes don't have to be dull and boring. Mr Oliver has been single-handedly responsible for transforming the nation's school canteens into healthy green eateries, and significantly decreasing take-up in the process. • The ITCrowd (2006): It's about time a Channel 4 comedy was funny. Maybe it's because every workplace has an IT department and they're all, well, you know, a bit odd. • UglyBetty (2007): It's saying something when my favourite programme on C4 at the moment is an American import. But this is Dynasty with teeth braces and botox, and it's hard to beat that. Here's to another quarter century.
Londyńskie Wiadomości Operatywny wydanie 1 - Listopadowe 2007
Tam są tysiące Polskiego lud w Londynie. Teraz będę pisać dla mojej Polskiej publiczności. Mam nadzieję co wy cieszycie się wiadomościami.
CHODZENIE PODZIEMNY Tunele metra nie są dostępne dla każdego. Obowiązują ostre restrykcje. Żeby się tam dostać, trzeba tam pracować. Na szczęście jest tam Łukasz Wiśniewski z Krakowa. Dzięki niemu dowiemy się, jak wygląda praca w tunelach, dlaczego bilety za przejazd są takie drogie i co było powodem niedawnego wypadku na Central Line. Łukasz mieszka niedaleko stacji Ruislip Gardens, w piątej strefie. Przeczytany artykuł tutaj.
HOROSKOP Skorpion (23.X - 21.XI) W nadchodzącym tygodniu klopoty ze zdrowiem mogą pokrzyżować Twoje plany. Jeśli tylko gorzej się poczujesz, wybierz się do lekarza. Nie licz na to, że te objawy same miną. Praca pochlaniać będzie sporo Twolej energii. Nowy, ważny projekt wymaga Twojego nadzoru. Wolny czas po pracy przeznacz na odpoczynek.
Mieszkanie Wynajmę SOUTH EALING. Studio flat z osobnym wejściem w pobliżu Piccadilly Line, autobus E3 65 H91. Cena £170/tydz. z rachunkami + 2 tyg. depozytu. Tel 07960186777 NEASDEN. Flat £1400/miesiąc, na 1 piętrze, 4-5 sypialni, salon, kuchnia. 2 lazienki, ume-blowane, doestępne od 5.11. Tel 07869280348 Patrycia PERIVALE: Dwuosobowy pokój do wynajęcia. Tel. 07828257232 Romek
PO CZYM POZNAĆ POLAKA? Ogolony na łyso, odziany w dres prymityw, albo krótko ostrzyżony osobnik z wąsami, które maskują braki w uzębieniu. Polka – na głowie pasemka, krótki top z dekoltem po kolana, złota torebka, złote buty, złoty pasek. Tak Polki i Polaków widzą inni... Polacy. Kpimy z „drespoli” i „disco-Polek” irytując się, że kompromitują nas w oczach Brytyjczyków, że utrwalają w oczach Wyspiarzy nasz negatywny obraz, ale zaraz, zaraz... skąd mamy pewność, że w tym różnorodnym, wielobarwnym tłumie nasz rodak czy rodaczka jest w stanie zwrócić na siebie uwagę czymkolwiek? Przeczytany artykuł tutaj.
Wlazł Kotek Na Płotek I Mruga Wlazł kotek na płotek i mruga, i mruga, ładna to piosenka niedługa, niedługa.
Nie długa, nie krótka, lecz w sam raz, lecz w sam raz. Zaspiewaj koteczku jeszcze raz, jeszcze raz. Śpiewają po tutaj.
PLANOWE PRACE REMONTOWE METRA 03-04.11 Linia Circle: W weekend nieczynna Linia District: W weekend nieczynna pomiędzy Mansion House i Whitechapel Linia Jubilee: W weekend nieczynna pomiędzy Wembley Park i Stanmore Linia Northern: W weekend nieczynna pomiędzy East Finchley i High Barnet oraz pomiędzy East Finchley i Mill Hill East Linia Piccadilly: Brak remontów Linia Victoria: W weekend nieczynna pomiędzy Walthamstow Central i Brixton Skończony informacja tutaj.
Now there's a new project on the streets attempting to make a difference. It's part of an initiative called Legible London, which "proposes to change the existing fragmented approach to walking information into a single reliable, consistent and authoritative system." Or in other words they've erected some new signs. There are 19 prototypes altogether, all of them in the area around Bond Street tube station, where Christmas shoppers are being used to test out the functionality of the new system. Everything was unwrapped yesterday, and very pretty they look too.
Oxford Street last night was bustling, dark and damp. The miniliths outside Bond Street station weren't quite getting in the way (they've replaced existing street furniture, not added to it), but they weren't quite being noticed either. They're good for standing beside with a pushchair, but not yet part of pedestrian Londoners' everyday orientation. Meanwhile, at the bottom of South Molton Street, the freshly unveiled minilith was having to compete for attention with a series of illuminated Christmas angels. The angels won. But as I hung around attempting to take a photograph, wahey, a couple of passing shoppers stopped to peruse the map and attempted to work out where to walk next. Result.
I SPY LONDON
After a couple of years of shutness and renovation, London's Transport Museum finally reopened to the public last Thursday. You should have seen the queues at the weekend. I did, so I went back yesterday after work instead.
. Don't look too closely, it's geographically irrelevant, and serves only to blocks out the displays behind from the eyes of unpaid members of the public. Head up the ramp (it's not signposted, but head up the ramp) and wait for the lift to the second floor. Enter 2007, exit 1800.
And now down to the ground floor
OK, enough of trains, bring on the buses. Not very many buses, admittedly - if they'd really tried there'd have been room to cram another half dozen onto the museum floor. But at least there's an example of each important style - from a 1910 motorbus
WALK LONDON
In amongst all the celebrations surrounding the Queen's diamond wedding anniversary last week, you may have missed one particularly forward-looking announcement. London is to get a new long distance footpath. It'll be opening in 2012 - an auspicious year not just because of the Olympics but also because Her Majesty will be celebrating her Diamond Jubilee. The new footpath will be called the Jubilee Greenway, and it'll be a companion route to the existing Jubilee Walkway (established 1977). The Jubilee Greenway will be 60 miles long (did you see what they did there?) and will circle Central London linking together all the 2012 Olympic venues. Even better, the entire footpath already exists. All that the organisers have to do is to make it a bit more accessible and add some nice benches, and it'll be ready. Let's just hope that Her Maj doesn't snuff it prematurely during the next fifty months, rendering all their preparations unnecessary.
The Museum in Docklands chooses to tell the capital's trading history in linear fashion. Visitors enter the galleries via Roman/Medieval London and work their way chronologically through the centuries to end up at a display of modern shiny skyscrapers. The emphasis is very much on London and what Londoners were doing in each time period, as you might expect. And that's how it's been since the Museum opened. Look, you can see the place for yourself in a (lengthy) video walkthrough here with Jonty from Big Brother - one of the museum's guides (no, honestly, it's much better than it sounds).
How do you get from Wapping to Rotherhithe?
Ah, not so simple. One month from today the East London line will be closing down, for 2½ years, so that it can be magically re-engineered as part of the new London Overground. And that means that the Thames Tunnel will be closing too, and no trains will be running between Wapping and Rotherhithe until June 2010. So you're going to have to find another route. Sorry, your journey may take a little longer.
From Wapping to Rotherhithe, your first step will be the replacement bus service to Shadwell [average wait 5 minutes, journey time 6 minutes]. Here you can catch the DLR [transfer time 5 minutes]. Going west via Bank would involve travelling through Zone 1 which might cost extra, so we'll go east instead [average wait 2 minutes] to Canary Wharf [journey time 7 minutes]. Next walk to the Jubilee line [transfer time 7 minutes] and ride one stop west to Canada Water [average wait 2 minutes, journey time 3 minutes]. And finally exit the station [transfer time 5 minutes] and catch the replacement rail bus to Rotherhithe [average wait 7 minutes, journey time 4 minutes]. That's a grand total of 53 minutes for those who choose to follow TfL's advice. It would be quicker to walk.
Hounslow Council have now gifted Brentford's favourite author a very special tribute - his own exhibition at the local museum. Fans should make tracks to the Large Mansion in Gunnersbury Park, which once used to belong to the Rothschild family but is now a sadly-peeling council repository. One large room on the ground floor has been given over to sproutlore, piled-up paperbacks and all things Rankin, in a comprehensive exhibition which runs until next June. There are several informative wall displays (just which seven Brentford pubs make up the constellation of the Great Bear?) but the highlight of the show is a collection of weird and wonderful models created by the author as cover illustrations. Deformed heads, grinning skeletons in jester costumes, mobile phone coffins, that sort of thing. Rankin disciples will appreciate the ensemble. It's by no means a busy exhibition (the only other people I saw were looking for the toilet), but the dark chandelier-lit drawing room provides considerable atmosphere. Maybe there is something unworldly about Brentford after all.
William Hogarth could be described as the first ever political cartoonist (so could lots of other people, but he'll do for now). An 18th century satirist with a razor-sharp eye, he painted and engraved his way to fame and fortune in Georgian society. Hogarth was a Londoner born and bred, but in his late 40s he fancied a cottage in the country and so snapped up a summer retreat in Chiswick. His three-storey house still stands, just about, although William would find it hard to recognise the surrounding area. Long gone are the fields and Thames-side meadows, and the A4 now runs directly past his front door. The three-storey house is overlooked by the featureless office walls of the Hogarth Business Park, and at the end of the road is the roaring concrete hub of the Hogarth Roundabout. William would not be impressed by his modern namesakes. Quick, step behind the redbrick garden wall and screen them out.
Syon House is the London home of the Duke of Northumberland. Ah yes, I was up at his northern residence - Alnwick Castle - earlier in the year. But that had some real history, whereas Syon House merits little more than a minor footnote in our nation's story. There used to be a medieval abbey on the site, but that's now just something for "Time Team" to dig up and Lord Percy's home has risen in its place. The house is currently covered in scaffolding, part of a winter makeover, so visitors are having to make do with a motley collection of assorted alternative attractions. Greatest of these are the gardens, landscaped by Capability Brown, and yours to visit for a mere four quid. Splendid they may be but I couldn't even find a sign pointing the way in, let alone spare the time for a look round.
Alternate Saturday afternoons, in the backstreets of Brentford, a red and white army is on the move. They sport a protective armour of scarves and official club fleeces, wrapped up warmly against the autumnal chill. All generations of footsoldier are represented, from the youngest apprentice to the most elderly general. They slip silently from their homes, making their way to the terraced arena before battle commences at the 3pm whistle. On every corner the sheriff's men keep watch in their fluorescent jackets and pointy helmets, their eyes peeled for any premature disturbance. Crowds gather at a multiplicity of muster points, each labelled by a coat of arms, for fortifying ale and hearty sustenance. A serving wench at the Princess Royal ladles steaming barbeque meat onto the plates of hungry troops, while others make do with a saveloy or hot dog from the serfs in the scullery.
Go West. Hounslow is a ridiculously long borough, ten miles from tip to tip, almost perfectly aligned with the Heathrow flightpath. I said ALMOST PERFECTLY ALIGNED WITH THE HEATHROW FLIGHTPATH. It's not an especially coherent borough, with only the A4 and M4 to link its disjoint suburbs. But look carefully, especially in the Thames-side slice to the east, and there are some absolute gems hidden away. I'm almost tempted to drop "Hounslow" back into my random jamjar - there's easily enough here to merit a return visit. But preferably next time on a warm sunny summer's day...
For a certain breed of gentleman, nothing beats a steamy day out. It might be a ride on a locomotive, it might be a chug on a traction engine, but sheer heaven only comes when they're tweaking a bloody enormous steam engine. And steam engines don't come much bigger than the Triple Engines at Kempton Park Waterworks. These monsters reside inside a huge Portland stone Engine House, erected by the Metropolitan Water Board in 1928, adjacent to two thin brick chimneys which are visible for miles across the floodplain. There are reservoirs aplenty along this stretch of the Thames, and these engines were needed to pump water up from the river and across town to the North London suburbs (via Cricklewood). And that's a very long way, which is why this is such an enormous engineering marvel. The steam engines went out of service in 1980 (blame that new-fangled electricity), but were restored a few years ago by that certain breed of gentleman. We thank them.
Blimey. They. Are. Huge. I'd entered an enormous tiled cavern, the size of a squished cathedral, surrounded by a perimeter walkway looking down over a subterranean turbine floor. But the most impressive sight was off to the left and to the right - a pair of green triple-decker steam engines [photo] [photo]. And not just three storeys high but also three cylinders wide, like a towering wall of pre-electric power. Men in white boiler suits were scuttling around on all levels, tending to the valves and dials and gauges, like something out of a 1920s James Bond movie. I arrived as they were firing up the engines - tweaking two smaller rear wheels to make the starter motor run - and then the room was full of swirling churning steaminess. Giant flywheels turned. Grown men beamed. Over in the corner their wives were busy selling filled rolls, jam sponge and steaming tea, and they beamed too. Every so often small groups of lucky punters got the opportunity to take an hour-long tour of the second engine ("The Lady Bessie Prescott"). Up the metal staircases they went, to view the entire spectacle from one, two, three levels up. Alas I couldn't afford the time to do the same, although the bloke on the front desk was extremely anxious that I was leaving too soon and begged me to come back next year. Maybe I will.
• MH Recruitment: They find labour for airline catering and cleaning. But not at weekends - shutters down.
Random borough (15): Time yet again for me to take another random trip to one of London's 33 boroughs. As I write I have no idea which one of the 19 remaining borough names will be revealed when I unfold the slip of paper I'm about to pick from my "special jamjar". I could pick any of London's other boroughs - inner or outer, urban or suburban, small or large, fascinating or dull. I just know it won't be Merton, Islington, Enfield, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Kensington & Chelsea, Hackney, Hillingdon, the City, Bromley, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets or Haringey because they're the fourteen (dark grey) boroughs I've picked out already. So far my random jamjar has concentrated on a strip down the centre of London from Enfield in the north to Bromley in the south, leaving two gaping voids to either side. Will today's selection head east, or go west? Or will Croydon emerge victorious to complete the run down the middle?
St Pancras is reopened. A train to Paris and a train to Brussels departed just after eleven o'clock yesterday morning, and the first arrival (from Brussels) drew in a few minutes later. Nothing ran late, which was just as well given the quantity of the world's media scrutinising proceedings. By evening there were passengers milling around the ticket barriers and fumbling for passports as if the station had always been open. Normality beds down fast.
St Pancras is photogenic. Be it the grand vista of the station roof or the tiniest detail of Gothic brickwork, someone will have their mobile phone or camera lens pointing straight at it. Everybody wants to get their picture taken with Sir John Betjeman, or to peer up the skirt of the giant bronze woman at the end of platform six. They press "video record" as yet another yellow nosecone glides slowly up to the buffers. Police don't stop to give these amateur snappers a second look, they just walk on by and guide their sniffer dogs towards an alternative location.
When I lived in Bedford, St Pancras was my gateway to London. Trains from the East Midlands would crawl to a halt beneath its grimy roof and out we'd pour, dwarfed and overshadowed by the dark arched ceiling above. There was nothing much to see beyond the buffers, just a few destination boards, a ticket office and a WH Smiths. And a choice of exits. Either out via a grim twisty staircase in the far corner down to Kings Cross tube station, or else depart through the main arched entrance, dodging the black cabs nipping out onto the Euston Road. And there was all of London spread out before us - a traffic jam, a bureau de change and a McDonalds. Not the greatest welcome to the capital.
Today's first international arrivals at St Pancras will get a very different experience. They'll glide in to gleaming new platforms between freshly scrubbed Victorian brickwork. They'll alight from their carriages beneath a freshly-restored sky-blue roof. They'll exit down gently-sloping escalators into the undercroft where they'll be growled at by wand-waving security guards. And then they'll exit into an upmarket shopping centre selling diamond jewellery, cufflinks and croissants. There's still a traffic jam and a McDonalds outside, that much hasn't changed. But give it time.
The first Eurostar train from St Pancras to Paris is due to set off just after 11:00 this morning. Expect a host of celebs and CIPs to be on the inaugural service, followed by some real people on the first timetabled train a few minutes later. But half the station is open already. Passengers for Bedford and beyond have been using the glassy first floor extension at the rear of the station for a couple of years (and suffering a terribly long walk in the process). I climbed the Midland Mainline escalator last weekend to take a few photos of the new station, and to gawp appreciably at the spectacular engineering work that has brought this old station back to life. That enormous roof, it really is something else. That ornate orangey-brown brickwork, it looks more like 140 days old than 140 years. Those glass interior walls, they really do bring a sense of openness and space. All that was really missing on Saturday were the trains. Now that they've arrived, the wooden barriers have come down and the remainder of the station has finally reopened to the public, I'm sure that London and the rest of Europe will be duly impressed.
A new dawn at St Pancras is not good news if you're used to travelling to the continent from the South Bank. Waterloo International closed down for good last night, and is now being mothballed in readiness for its rebirth as suburban commuter overflow. It must be really galling to South Londoners who used to have "Europe's destination station" on their doorstep to find that they now have to traipse across town to start their undersea journey. Indeed, the following piece of bluster on Eurostar's website must have them seething.
"It couldn't be easier to reach St Pancras International from Waterloo International... hop on the Bakerloo line from Waterloo International to Oxford Circus, then the Victoria line straight to Kings Cross St Pancras."Now I don't know about you, but that phrase "it couldn't be easier" sounds like a downright lie. It's not in any way easy to lug your suitcases down into the tube at Waterloo, nor to squeeze with them into a tiny Bakerloo line carriage. The cross-platform change at Oxford Circus may be a doddle, but escaping up more escalators at the Kings Cross end is hardly a piece of cake. And this particular tube journey takes 16 minutes, according to TfL's journey planner, even for luggage-free travellers. Given that relocating to St Pancras has only shaved 15 minutes off Eurostar travel times, sorry South Londoners, you're the losers here."Or you could even catch the bus – the number 59 goes all the way from Waterloo International to St Pancras International. Whichever way you choose, it's quick and easy to get to St Pancras International."Half an hour. That's how long the Journey Planner suggests that this particular bus ride takes. Over Waterloo Bridge, round Aldwych, across various Holborn crossroads, detouring into the forecourt at Euston and finally queueing to join a bus lane to St Pancras. Exactly what sort of "quick and easy" do these Eurostar marketeers think this journey is? Yes, a terminal north of the Thames will benefit far more of the UK's population than did the old, but let's not pretend that it's good news for everyone.Thurrock → Dagenham: Forget the rolling countryside of the Garden of England - Eurostar's passengers are about to be treated to the flat estuarine greyness of sub-Essex. Mmm. The high speed line ducks below the Thames to emerge in an industrial estate close to Lakeside, with gorgeous views of tall chemical silos, piled-up containers and infinite lorry parks. Tilbury Docks is nearby, as is the grand curving QE2 Bridge which carries M25 traffic across the river. The new railway whizzes reassuringly rapidly past the lot. There's brief visual respite along a viaduct overlooking Rainham Marshes RSPB sanctuary, with High Speed 1 now running above the local c2c line from Grays (pictured). The two lines run parallel for several miles, a jarring contrast of sleek and shambling. They're joined partway by the elevated A13 - Billy Bragg's Trunk Road To The Sea. The two lines then pass through Ford's Dagenham car works where two giant wind turbines dominate the boxy metal landscape. Heaven knows what French passengers will be thinking of our capital's cityscape by this point. But Barking is one step too far, and High Speed 1 rattles nervously back down beneath the surface. Out of sight, out of mind.
Stratford International: Ten kilometres later and this subterranean engineering marvel re-emerges blinking into the daylight. Back in the 1990s it had seemed such a good idea to build a station at Stratford, even if this meant spending millions digging an enormous empty "box" 24 metres deep into awkward clay and sandy soils [aerial map]. Oh how we locals would relish the chance to do our weekly shopping in Lille rather than Lidl. But this is not to be. No Eurostar trains are planned to stop at this white elephant station, none whatsoever, and not for several years to come either. Nobody wants to slow down for a miserable East End commuter halt just seven minutes out of St Pancras, not when they could be sipping champagne beneath a vaulted central London roof instead. In which case the photographs I took on a recent "Open House" visit might be the only chance you get to take a look inside.
Stations: Still just as rundown, because you can't deep-clean 50-odd stations in 24 hours flat (although TfL hope to have them all spruced up by Easter). Sunday saw all the Silverlink posters on the platforms removed and lots of London Overground posters put up instead - "Under new management" "Penalty fares introduced" etc. There are newly operational ticket barriers at some stations (eg West Hampstead, Homerton), allowing Pay As You Go along the entire network. You might be lucky and find a bright orange information leaflet - London's new train set - which contains a voucher for a free Oyster card (no deposit required). And you should be able to pick up a new timetable...
no weekend service" (which is good!), even though Moorgate and Old Street still do (which is bad!). Come on TfL, make your mind up and be consistent.
Going Overground - Riding the Goblin
11:08 A panting mother with a double buggy just manages to climb aboard the train before it departs. She beams with unspoken relief. The growling diesel paws its way out from the platform... over a wiggly river, under a roaring arterial road and off into the suburban wilderness.
11:35 Crouch Hill Blimey, aren't the passengers different all of a sudden? We've entered the muesli-eating organic/yoga zone, and the clientele heads distinctly upmarket. The latest toddler on board has a rather super pushchair and is called Oscar. He's wearing a brown corduroy coat and stripy woollen hat, and is clutching a teddy bear named Bear. Mum has a sharp black bob and a buttoned scarlet overcoat, and probably lives in one of those very smart terraces backing down to the railway.
Olympic update
That's what I wrote on this blog back in November 2003 when the idea of an Olympic Stadium just outside Stratford was first mooted. Four years on, not only is this stadium set to become reality but we also now have the first plans of what it'll actually look like. The Olympic stadium will be a big sloping circular amphitheatre with a sports field in the middle, a bit like a giant gooseberry tart. There'll be room for eighty thousand seats around the rim, with several pebble-like pods scattered outside the perimeter for selling fast food and branded souvenirs. The stadium looks nothing like the funky muscled design that London 2012 published in their bid book back in 2004. In fact this newly launched structure isn't in any way a thriller, is it? Compared to other Olympic stadia of recent years it's really a bit dull. And, I must say, thank Zeus for that.
In the meantime, demolition on the Olympic stadium site continues. I've been back to the Greenway bridge several times since the rest of the Lower Lea Valley was sealed off, and every time I go back something else has disappeared. Two weeks ago [photo] everything to the left of Marshgate Lane had been razed and levelled, while piles of crumbled brickwork littered the ground close by to the right. Gone, gone, gone, gone. And, if I view the BBC's latest aerial shots correctly, during the last fortnight every other building on "Stadium Island" has been wiped out of existence. I would go back and check for myself, but it's November and it's dark so I can't be certain (until the weekend) that the salmon factory and net curtain warehouse have been destroyed.
It's a busy life being Queen. In the morning you go to the Houses of Parliament in your gold coach and read out a tedious speech to cynical MPs, and in the evening you get to reopen a station. Not just any station though, this was St Pancras, surely the most magnificent rail terminus in London. Over the last few years its soaring glass roof and Victorian brickwork have all been painstakingly restored ready for the arrival of Eurostar services next week, and last night the Queen officiated at the official reopening ceremony. Two Gothic masterpieces in one day.
Marking the meridian
It's early November and there are a lot of organised firework displays about. Most of us will end up going to one, just because it's easier (and cheaper) than setting fire to £100 of gunpowder in one's own garden. And most of us will take a camera. It's quite hard not to take a camera to an event these days, because most mobile phones double up as portable megapixel devices. And it's quite hard to avoid whipping your camera out and taking pictures of things, because everybody takes photos of everything these days. If it moves - click. If it's pretty - click. If you've just happy-slapped a grandma - click. Honestly, we've become a nation of instinctive image-snapping addicts. But please try to resist.
I mean, why are you taking photographs of a firework display anyway? It's dark for a start, with only a few points of bright light across a black background. There's also that annoying time delay which means that the pretty explosion will be over before your camera reacts. And what are you going to do with these hundreds of photos afterwards? Stick them in an online gallery? Nobody cares you know. There are millions of firework photos online already, all pretty much the same, and nobody really wants to see yours. They'll add nothing to the global collection of firework photography, they're just be pointless internet clutter. Or maybe you intend to email your bonfire night snaps to some friends. Like they'll care. They've all seen fireworks before, and they'll not be interested in your splotchy digital canvases. Really, there's no point, so don't.
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