OK, enough frivolity, it's time to get back to the desperately mundane. Let's explore what's new on the street where I live, in a criminally uninteresting local feature I'm calling...
Bow Road update
Merchant's Quarter: I see they've taken down the scaffolding around this brand new development (pictured) at the top of British Street. No architectural gem, this block of shiny flats, just more dull modern ordinariness. I much preferred the scrap of wasteland on which it was built. 425: This new bus route, which I still can't quite see the point of, runs from Clapton to Stratford via Mile End. When the service started it was operated by leftoverdoubledeckers, scrappy old things cobbled together from a variety of operators, sometimes with the number "425" scrawled on a piece of paper and stuck on the front above the driver's head. Now, at last, there are some proper shiny new buses running the route, yet to be graffitied, yet to have some idiot's name scratched into the glass. It's a luxurious ride for the few passengers that bother to climb on board - I've yet to see any 425 even vaguely full. Should have saved some money and bought single deckers, guys. Conkers: It's conker season at the big horse chestnut tree outside Bow Road station, long time readers will be pleased to hear. The pavement's littered with smashed spiky cases, but for the conkers themselves you'll need to arrive early in the morning to beat the local schoolkids. Road works: Delays are expected for traffic along Bow Road on the last weekend of the month. No clues on the big yellow sign blocking the pavement outside the police station as to why, though. Costcutter: The convenience shop with the old Co-op beehive on the roof isn't a Costcutter any more, it's metamorphosed into a Nisa. But no major changes inside. Cupcake: I walked out of my front door earlier this week to find that some kind baking angel had left a small cupcake on my doorstep. I very nearly trod on it, squashing it flat, but thankfully avoided having to go to work with a spongey sole. The cake was iced with sugary whiteness, and had the words "eat me" piped in yellow around the circumference. I resisted the instruction, not wholly certain that the cake wasn't laced with arsenic, cigarette ash or recently-deposited rat droppings. I wonder if it came from thislot? Bow Baptist Church: This erased building is now a building site behind a white wall, awaiting a highrise future (with a new church on the ground floor). Byron Stingily: If there's an exciting weekend disco planned in SW Essex, you can guarantee that the promoter will have tied a big placard to the the traffic lights on the A12 roundabout beneath the flyover. Imagine my excitement when I saw on this poster that "TEN CITY featuring BYRON STINGLY" would be appearing in Loughton on the 27th "performing their all time classics alongside a legendary DJ line up." I struggled to remember any of Byron's banging screechy toons, let alone all time classics, but apparently theyhadplenty. 8pm til late, if you're interested. I shall be unavoidably elsewhere.