District 150 Three stations on the District line celebrate their 150th birthday today. This might sound impossible given that the London Underground system itself is only 145 years old, but these three out-east stations were originally part of a completely different pioneering railway network. The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LTSR) struck out for the Essex coast in the 1850s, originally via Stratford, but then craved their own direct connection to Fenchurch Street. A new link was built between Bow and Barking, with new stations at Bromley-by-Bow, Plaistow and East Ham, and opened on Wednesday 31st March 1858. If you'd like more information there's a special (extremely well hidden) 150th anniversary page on the TfL website, and they're also selling rather tasteful 150th anniversary posters at the Museum shop.
Here's an anniversary tribute to the three 150-year-old stations, starting with my very-local one.
District 150:Bromley-by-Bow Originally called: Bromley (until 18 May 1967) Now between: Bow Road and West Ham Annual entry & exit: 2.6 million passengers Number of platforms: 4 (2 still in use, 2 woefully overgrown) Station entrance: A nasty 1972 concrete block with no redeeming features [photo](was rather lovelier until a nasty fire in 1970) Heritage features: Clusters of four iron LTSR monograms on the eastern platform; out-of-date signage outside the front of the station declaring Bromley-by-Bow to be on the "District and Metropolitan lines"; proper "next train" lightbox (about to be replaced by bland electronic display, recently installed by jobsworth cretin much further back from the edge of the platform and obscured between two pillars); Mitchell and Webb "PC & Mac" posters (just how far behind the times is this station?) Claim to fame: Look very closely at the tube maps on EastEnders and you'll see that Walford East takes the place of Bromley-by-Bow. What's on the special 150th anniversary poster:Clock Mill, one of the two mills at Three Mills on the River Lea. Anniversary celebrations: A Clock Mill poster on display in the ticket hall (no mention that the anniversary is today, though) 5 things I found outside the station: the A12 Eastway(bulldozed through local streets in the 60s), the Queen Victoria pub (closed), the knocked-down remains of gothic St Andrew's Hospital (to be reborn as 956 distinctly non-gothic semi-affordable homes), my local supermarket, the field where the old Big Brother House used to be.
District 150:Plaistow Between: West Ham and Upton Park Annual entry & exit: 5.2 million passengers Number of platforms: 5 (2 originals still in use, 1 additional siding for reversing Hammersmith & City line trains, 2 gradually decaying) Station entrance: A block-y brick building, dating from 1905 [photo] Heritage features: Plenty of green LTSR monograms, especially on the western platform; a forest of thin iron pillars painted with gold trim; white wooden canopies in "arcade" style; double length wooden benches with inlaid LTSR metalwork; the whole station remains relatively un-butchered. Fact file: London has two Plaistows, both close to places called Bromley. This Plaistow is by far the less glamorous. Personally, I blame the giant sewer running through the centre. What's on the special 150th anniversary poster: That'd be Abbey Mills pumping station, the Victorian sewage cathedral. Except, erm, Abbey Mills is closer to Bromley-by-Bow than it is to Plaistow, and closer still to West Ham. Bad choice (but Plaistow itself has nowhere better) Anniversary celebrations: Nothing whatsoever. Not even a poster. Not even today. 5 things I found outside the station: a busy bus stop, a beeping pelican crossing, a Dagenham Motors car showroom, one of Plaistow's two job centres, BestMate's flat.
District 150:East Ham Between: Upton Park and Barking Annual entry & exit: 11.6 million passengers Number of platforms: 4 (2 still in use, 2 screened off behind a nasty vinyl wall) Station entrance: A long multi-entrance building with a gabled brick facade and ornate chimneys, leading into a spacious ticket hall [photo] Heritage features: Plenty of double LTSR monograms; splendid wooden canopies; the remains of an old stabling bay; lightbox "next train" indicator; eastbound platform considerably heritage-ier than the westbound; ooh you can almost imagine the Victorian ladies in their crinolines waiting for the next steam service to Leigh-on-Sea. Fact file: Vera Lynn grew up in East Ham. And Jimmy Greaves. What's on the special 150th anniversary poster: The St Pancras-like gothic towers of East Ham Town Hall (now Newham Town Hall) 5 things I found outside the station: a nigh-stationary queue of traffic, 8 passing bus routes, various non-highbrow retail outlets along an Edwardian High Street, a variety of Asian restaurants, The Who Shop.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, slightly earlier than advertised, a whopping great bridge was shifted into place above Shoreditch High Street. It was lifted by a giant yellow crane (Britain's heaviest crane, no less). And, unlike certain airport terminals I could name, the whole thing went like clockwork. Apart from the clock part, that is.
"Work starts at 08:00", said the press release. So I was a little surprised to be walking up Bishopsgate at 07:58 and to see the bridge already nudging the final few inches across the road. Obviously it's TfL's prerogative to slide their bridges whenever they like, and this was never meant to be a spectator sport, but I was disappointed all the same. Maybe I should have stayed at home and watched the whole thing on webcam instead - except that didn't appear to be working either. Ah well. I may have been too late for the horizontal but there was a lot of vertical still to go.
350 tonnes of bow-string bridge hung weightily in mid-air above the road. There must have been nearly 100 orange-jacketed workmen watching proceedings, but only a handful of them were actually doing anything. The crane operator was very busy, of course, and a few guys with guide ropes edging the bridge into the correct alignment above the concrete supports. And high up above the sealed off High Street, on the roof of the TEA building, the TFL webcam operator and friends. For everybody else this appeared to be little more than a good opportunity to stand and stare, along with a few early morning spectators, as the latest chunk of London's transport infrastructure fell oh-so gradually into place. Mustn't rush. Come 2010 this bridge is due to be supporting umpteen trains an hour, so it was important to position it absolutely precisely. Inch by inch. Slowly does it. OK, bored now.
Meanwhile, on the other side of a Victorian brick wall, another pack of workmen were busy laying the foundations for a new Shoreditch station. It'll be built beside the old Braithwaite Viaduct, and marks the point where the old East London line will rise up above ground level to cross the new bridge and continue on existing elevated tracks to Dalston. Oh lucky residents of Dalston who'll soon be able to add Wapping and Penge to the limited list of destinations to which they can travel by train. Nowhere useful, then. But we're assured that this new orbital railway will transform the lives of the Hackney communities through which it passes. Next train in 1.2 million minutes. Might be quicker to walk.
Ever since my doctor probed my cholesterol level and told me that average was too high, I've been eating really well. Almost puritanically so, in fact. I've been avoiding all those evil fat-rich foods in the red column, and trying to learn to love the extra-healthy stuff in the green column. Really, I hadn't previously realised quite how much fun a man could have eating button mushrooms. Nor how exciting it could be to nibble almonds as a mid-evening snack. And if the world's stocks of salmon suddenly nosedive, that'd be because I've recently recognised the benefits of fish-swallowing several times a week. Ah yes, it's the low-cholesterol lifestyle for me.
I'm trying ever so ever so hard to eat like an angel. If someone brings a box of doughnuts or minibites into the office, I'm giving it a miss. If a plate of biscuits is passed round at a meeting, I'm taking nothing. If I suddenly feel the urge for a KitKat or a packet of crisps in the evening, I'm reaching for a carrot instead. And when I walk past the fish and chip shop on the way home, I may breathe in and sigh but I always keep walking. Hell, I haven't even licked an Easter Egg recently. How do people keep this up forever?
I'm learning to walk around supermarkets whilst avoiding certain previously favourite aisles. I'm managing to put together a fairly well-balanced diet using a limited number of non-thrilling ingredients. But the biggest problems come when I attempt to eat out. I'm a damned fussy eater, and there's not always something on the menu that I both will eat and can eat. That steak looks nice, but it'll have to be the chicken. That chicken looks nice but it's smothered in cream. That cheesecake looks gorgeous, but both cheese and cake are off limits. And that vegetable tofu stir-fry may be medically acceptable but quite frankly I'd rather starve. Please, don't bother suggesting nice healthy meals that you think I'll enjoy, because I almost certainly won't.
And then there's porridge. Thank you all for your astonishing response to my recent post about porridge. You've suggested sufficient hints, tweaks and additional swirly additions for me to be able to enjoy a different porridge-y taste every day for an entire month. I've settled on chucking in a handful of dried fruit and a dollop of (low sugar) strawberry jam, or perhaps a slightly too large spoonful of sticky sweet golden syrup drizzled greedily into the centre of a steaming bowl. I've cut down on milk and upped the water content, as you suggested. And yes, thanks, now it's edible. Although I've since splashed out on some proper organic Scottish oatflakes, like you recommended, but I don't yet have the knack of making them taste like anything other than non-adhesive flapjacks. Not even after a good overnight soaking. I may have to go back to the cheap own-brand wood shavings I was enjoying previously.
Only another five weeks and then I can have another blood test to see if my extra-healthy diet has had any effect. I'm not sure which I'm dreading more, the possibility that my cholesterol levels haven't budged an inch, or the success of a diet I couldn't possibly maintain for 40 years.
Diet update: 3 weeks in Chocolate: nil (over Easter!) (go on, admit you're impressed) Chips: just one small serving of low fat oven chips Crisps: nil (I'm nibbling carrots, grapes and almonds instead) Cheese: just three thin slices of tasteless low-fat plastic Red meat: just one pack of extra lean beef mince Weight lost: five pounds (2½kg) (woo!)
And now I'm off out to watch TfL use a megacraneto slidea big bridge across Shoreditch High Street. If you log in before 10am, you might even spot me on the official slidy-bridge webcam. If it's working. What you won't spot is me joining BestMate for a greasy bacon fry-up afterwards. Bowl of porridge anyone?
After my obscure trip to Rutland, I thought I'd go somewhere that even fewer of you have visited. Heathrow Terminal 5. Yes, I know that someof you have been there in trials to test the luggage system (you could have tried harder, couldn't you?). And one of you was even on the first tube train into the terminal yesterday morning andhad it all blogged before 9am (well beyond the call of duty, eh?). But I had the day off work, and the weather was sunny, and my camera battery was recharged, so off I went. I'm always inquisitive to see a brand new carbon-guzzling megastructure. Plus there was a brand new tube station to see, and there hasn't been one of those before since the turn of the century. Here are 25 photographs to whet your appetite. Go on, I know you want to know see what the place looks like.
Terminal 5 didn't look like a reputational disaster zone when I arrived. The underground station was clean and efficient, if architecturally uninspiring. OK, so the "next train" indicator seemed to be playing up a little, and I can't believe that a mere 6 ticket gates will be enough to stop queues from forming, but it's all functional enough. From down here there's a choice of either escalators or lifts to your above ground destination. If you're heading for Departures then make sure you take the lift, it'll save a tedious 5 floor ascent. And don't worry, nobody'll be taking your fingerprints on the way up.
Ooh, Departures. Very nice. From up here on the top deck you get a real sense of the size and scale of this monumental building. It's 400m from one end to the other, and you can see and walk all the way down from A to H. Look at that one-piece undulating roof, and see the hassled airport staff trying to update would-be travellers with the latest flight cancellations. Everything's been designed to work like clockwork. Automated check-in terminals are clustered close to luggage-dump desks, with a long row of non-glitzy shops and security gates behind. There are very few seats to sit on, but that's OK because the whole check-in procedure "should only take ten minutes". On a good day, that is. Yesterday there were unexpected queues, considerablylonger than planned, and the "fast bag drop" desks proved embarrassingly badly named. Somewhere beneath our feet the miraculous new baggage-handling sysytem had gone very wrong indeed. Fortunate then that the world's media were on hand, lenses poised, to capture the full human drama of this very British triumph. Er, fiasco.
If you're only a sightseer nosing around the terminal (or if you suddenly find yourself with unexpected hours to spare), there's plenty to see close by. Go and peer out of the sort-of observation window on the southern wall and look down over the masses of identically-finned BA planes gathered round the terminal building. Or follow the T5 employees popping outside to the elevated coach drop-off lanes for a quick cigarette. It's surprisingly quiet out here, bar the occasional roaring jumbo, and aspiring plane spotters would appear to be untroubled by jobsworth security guards. Or maybe that's just a first day special offer. Oh and over there in the distance, somewhere across the M25, you can easily spot the famous silhouette of Windsor Castle. In common with many of her loyal south London subjects, I do wonder how the Queen gets any sleep at night.
There's one more level to explore, although it's nowhere near so impressive. Arrivals is on the ground floor, three escalators down. Personally I preferred the intermediate glass staircases, spaced out along the terminal building, although it's a 12 flight descent so better down than up. The Arrivals area is a bit dull, to be honest, bar the upward view of steel rods and hanging circles. Just as well that nobody's going to be hanging around here for long, waiting for three hours for relatives to collect their delayed baggage. From here it's a short walk to what T5 optimistically describes as the "Interchange Plaza". Or, in other words, the bus station. It's a bit gloomy, but it's nowhere near as bad as the miserable concrete dump round the back of Terminal 4.
I chose to depart not by bus (nor thankfully by plane) but back on the tube. And I ended up waiting for the lift with two clearly-annoyed ladies, their anger not helped by the elevator's non-appearance. Come on, where was the button to summon the bloody thing? Ah, it must be automated, we decided. That'd be why it took us to the wrong floor and sat there, doors wide open, waiting for nobody at all to get in. "We're going home," the dear ladies sighed, clutching a pair of un-checked red suitcases. "Our flight's cancelled, and we just grew tired of waiting." The lift responded by spluttering into action and slipping gradually downwards, taking British Airways' reputation with it.
n.b. A few weeks ago I was approached by a T5 marketing presence offering a variety of promotional T5 widgets and T5 images for my blog, should I be interested. There was even a special YouTube interview with Ian Bailey, designer of the Terminal 5 baggage system, which they hoped I'd link to. Well Claudio, good news, I have now.
RUTLAND: The Rutland Belle For that quintessential Rutland experience, only a sedate voyage around Rutland Water will do. In the likely event that you don't know anybody with a boat, especially one that can sail to a landlocked reservoir, a trip on the Rutland Belle will have to suffice. The season opened this Easter weekend, and the boat sails four-ish times a day from Whitwell Harbour until the autumn. There's the pier, down by the cafe/restaurant, past the diving gear shop. Come on, hurry up, she sails at noon.
I was sold my ticket by a uniformed bloke in a sailor's hat. "One adult?" he beamed, and handed me a pink ticket. Half a minute later I was handing over the same pink ticket to another smiling operative on the jetty, this time in a thick black jumper with gold epaulettes. "Sorry, we're only doing the round trip today, the pontoon at Normanton isn't operational yet." Damn, that was my main reason for paying seven quid 30 seconds ago. But never mind. I stepped aboard, through the deserted cabin and up to the ever-so empty upper deck. Just me, then? So much for the great UK bank holiday tourist rush. Thankfully my embarrassment was spared by a late party of pensioners. The husbands were determined to join me upstairs to take photographs, but their wives forced them to stay downstairs in the warm for the duration. Very wise, as it turned out.
The ticket seller locked up his booth, climbed to the upper deck, strolled past me with another grin and shut himself in the wheelhouse. The ticket collector then leapt aboard the boat, cast off from the jetty and positioned himself behind the bar. It's a very small business, this. And then off we chugged, all not very many of us, for a tour of the eastern end of the reservoir. First to the largest bronze sculpture in the world (at least it was in 1980, but it's almost certainly been overtaken by something bronzier since), poking up from the edge of a picnic area like a deformed razor blade. On past the odd fishing boat and the occasional skiff. And then a quick jaunt alongside the dam, which looked like 1km of piled-up pebbles with a lot of cyclists on top. It's rather thicker beneath the waves, for which the villagers of Empingham downstream are duly thankful.
Next stop Normanton Church. Or alas, in this case, non-stop. This former private chapel proved a real headache for the engineers who built Rutland Water in the 1970s. The building was just too far down a grassy slope to be safe from the rising waters and would have been part submerged, rendering it unserviceable. A cunning plan was therefore proposed whereby the lower half of the church would be filled in using concrete and limestone, raising the floor to just below window level. A protective pier of stones was then constructed around the perimeter, leaving the deconsecrated church connected to the mainland via a short causeway. And now Normanton Church houses an unlikely museum which tells how 3% of Rutland came to be flooded, and how this unique building survived. Alas I never quite made it inside, but the views from the passing boat were reallyratherstriking.
At this point, as we neared the extensive marina of the Rutland Sailing School, the wind chill factor cut in. I nipped downstairs to the bar to order a half pint of warmest tea, then confused the barman by going back upstairs into the freezing winds to drink it. Madness, obviously, but I'd paid handsomely for the view and had no plans to surrender to a mere Arctic blast. The tea kept me heated for a few minutes, but for the last mile of the voyage I was shivering as if encased in a block of ice. I shall never complain about overheating on the Central line again. Whitwell Harbour's becalmed shelter therefore came as a blessed relief, and I rattled off the boat as rapidly as possible. And behind me followed Captain Trevor, back to the booth at the top of the jetty, ready to sell tickets to the next batch of not-yet-chilled sightseers. I bet they enjoyed their trip too, but I bet they sat downstairs.
RUTLAND: Rutland Water Rutland's most famous feature is a big lake. A really big horseshoe shaped lake (which is kind of appropriate in a county obsessed by horseshoes). RutlandWater is the largest reservoir in the UK, conceived in the 1960s as a solution to Eastern England's water supply problems and covering more than 3000 acres of rolling countryside. Bad luck to the residents and farmers of Nether Hambleton, whose homes and livelihoods disappeared beneath the slowly-filling waters. Sacrificed to prevent hosepipe bans in Milton Keynes, what a way to go. But the nearby village of Upper Hambleton was more fortunate and survives intact on a thin-necked ridge up the centre of the lake. It's a great leveller, water.
Rutland Water today is a mecca for outdoor and active types. If you fancy some watersports action then you'll find sailing clubs and windsurf schools galore. If you fancy a bit ofangling then rejoice that the waters are restocked with slippery trout at regular intervals. And if you fancy cycling then you're in luck, because the lake 26 mile perimeter is perfect for a one-day circuit. Indeed there are cyclists everywhere along the orbital path, sometimes at beginner level, sometimes over-confident, trundling over the cattle grids and wheeeee-ing down the hills. Mind out of the way, here come five more, on their way from one car park to the next.
But pity any poor deluded soul that attempts to make their way to the the interesting spots on the water's edge by public transport. Especially on a bank holiday. On Easter Monday all of Rutland's buses were running a Sunday service, which alas translated as "no service whatsoever". Any attempt at reaching the leisure hub at Whitwell therefore relied on a five mile windswept stroll from Oakham (and, later, a five mile windswept stroll back). It's amazing what a dedicated blogger will do just to get a photograph of a drowned church. Here's my report on the most interesting section of the walk, followed (tomorrow) by a report on the sightseeing boat trip at journey's end.
The path heads east into Barnsdale Wood, with tall slender trunks spreading down to the water's edge. Only trees above the 85m contour have survived - the roots of the remainder have long been submerged. Alas I think I mistimed my visit by a few weeks because the carpet of bluebells through the wood was still only green. Mid-April will be far more impressive. One thing I really appreciated was that Anglian Water, the reservoir's owners, have insisted that all dogs be kept on a lead. Hurrah. This makes for a far more pleasant day out for those of us who don't want to be licked to death by a bouncy Weimaraner, or nibbled by the Staffies.
And down the hill to Whitwell - Rutland Water's northern leisure hub. Here you can hire a canoe, or take out your yacht, or climb an artificial rock face, or go shopping in the cycling megastore. There were even some brave souls on Monday in three-quarter length baggywear preparing to head out windsurfing. Sooner them than me. Few Bank Holiday tourists will have realised the village's obscure claim to fame. Back in the 1970s regulars at the Noel Arms pub wrote to the Mayor of Paris, Jaques Chirac, requesting to be twinned with his fair city. Oh, they added, and if you don't reply within a few weeks we'll take that as your consent. No return communication was received, and so the official village sign now proudly boasts "Whitwell - twinned with Paris". Rutlanders eh, they're a breed apart.
RUTLAND: multum in parvo Up until yesterday, there was only one English county south of the Lake District that I'd never visited. Rutland. Perhaps not surprising, given how small it is. Rutland's tiny, about the same size as the Isle of Wight. It has by far the lowest population of any English county or unitary district - if you gathered all the residents together they'd not even half fill Wembley Stadium. It nestles inconspicuously amid rolling green countryside between Leicester and Peterborough. And there are only two towns. Ah yes, Rutland is quite unique.
Ah, and sorry, Rutland's not a real county either. It used to be, for several centuries, up until 1974 when it was suddenly and unpleasantly swallowed up by Leicestershire. Local people were mighty annoyed and campaigned for restoration, and they were almost successful. An independent Rutland was reinstated with much pomp and ceremony in 1997, but only as a unitary district and not a proper council. Elected representatives have therefore been rather cunning and renamed Rutland as "Rutland County Council", just so that the place still sounds like a proper shire county. This means that the council's full legal title is "Rutland County Council District Council", which is administrative madness. At least the county motto is rather more appropriate... multum in parvo (much in little).
I decided to undertake a long overdue day trip to Rutland yesterday. I got there rather quicker than I expected (just 100 minutes by train from King's Cross). I went on a very long ten mile walk, and my feet still ache. I took lots of photos, some of which I've assembled in this lovely gallery (which I fully expect to get my lowest number of viewers ever - even lower than Margate - but never mind). And I fitted in as much as possible during my delightful but brief stay. But then that's Rutland for you - multum in parvo.
RUTLAND: Oakham There's only one station in Rutland and that's in the county town of Oakham, so that's where I went first. I was a little unnerved to spot that I was the only passenger getting off of the train, and no doubt the waiting taxis were mighty peeved when I walked straight past them into the town centre. Oakham was shut, probably because it was Bank Holiday Monday morning. The streets were pretty much deserted, apart from pensioners posting letters in the Market Square and well-coiffured ladies in jogging pants nipping out of badly-parked cars to buy newspapers. Shame, because the town centre retains that special non-Starbucks charm, and it might have been nice to browse for East Midland knick knacks, or maybe that special garish menswear that only rural gentlefolk buy. At least all the butchers were shut, so I wasn't tempted to buy myself a giant juicy cholesterol-boosting pork pie - one of the local specialities.
And yes, even in a town with fewer than 10000 inhabitants there's still plenty to see. Oakham Castle for a start, although only the GreatHall survives. It's the oldest surviving aisled stone hall in the country (Norman, you know) and has been used as a law court for over 800 years. And it has one really unusual defining characteristic. The interior walls are absolutely coveredby giant horseshoes. It's a tradition round here that every visiting peer or member of the royal family donates a decorative horseshoe on their first visit to the town. The older ones are the largest, while the newer ones alas look distinctly like garish toilet seats. Yes, especially your blue horseshoe from the swinging 60s, your Majesty.
The town also boasts a surprisingly large museum, also free to enter. There's a history of Rutland up front and all the usual Roman finds upstairs. But the speciality here is agriculture, with a variety of traditional machinery on show from tractors to threshers, plus various scary implements with rusty spikes. There's even the old Oakham gallows complete with dangly rope and one-way staircase. Meanwhile across the road are the administrative offices of Rutland District Council, combining a large old building with a brand new (and rather swish) extension. I'm not convinced that a county with only 35000 inhabitants needs quite so many administrators, but the electorate round here wouldn't have it any other way. Oh yes, multum in parvo indeed.
I SPY LONDON the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Part 23:Eltham Palace
Location: Court Yard, Eltham SE9 5QE [map] Open: 10am - 5pm (11-4 in winter) (closed Thur, Fri, Sat) (closed January) Admission: £8-ish 5-word summary: classy medieval/Art Deco hybrid Website:www.elthampalace.org.uk Time to set aside: half a day
Wow. If you like your sightseeing to be a surprise, then don't read past this first paragraph. But wow. The family home of Stephen and Ginny Courtauld took me aback with almost every room I walked into. Especially the first room. And the big old hall. And the cage. I bet King Henry VIII loved the place. What a shame that its most famous 20th century owners barely had time to enjoy the fruits of their Art Deco makeover.
You wouldn't expect to find a redeveloped palace in the middle of London's southeast commuter belt. But here it is, up a tree-lined sidestreet across a very old stonebridge. The oldest still-operational bridge in London, apparently, and with a rather picturesque willowedmoat beneath. There's not much other evidence of Eltham's medieval past, not yet, just one long wing of a more modern-looking stately home. Admittance is via the servants' entrance, and then into a long pea green back corridor which looks like it belongs in a pre-NHS hospital. Round the next corner there's a bloke dishing out protective blue plastic slippers to slip over your footwear. It's not a glamorous look, and completely at odds with the stylish decor coming up next, but it'll help to protect the flooring ahead from unintentional damage. Ok, first room...
Wow. Is this the portholed lounge of some 1930s ocean liner? No, it's the house's main triangular entrance hall, complete with blackbean veneer walls and a unique glass domed roof. The central rug's rather special, all geometric brown and beige and fawn, so please don't step on it. There are extra-large cloakrooms behind the marquetry panels, as befitted the home of a wealthy socialite, and there's also a walk-in telephone cupboard. They were very big on new-fangled telephones, the Courtaulds. Look down at the skirting board and you might even spot the special sockets where servants plugged their vacuum cleaners into an automated suction system. Elsewhere on the ground floor there's an art-packed drawing room, a smart panelled library for him and a sumptuous boudoir for her. With, up on the wall, a large leather map of the Eltham area. I know, a leather map, whoever heard of such a thing?
And then, through a Chinese screened doorway, suddenly it's the Middle Ages again. Ginny and Stephen built their family home in the grounds of a ruined royal palace, and deftly incorporated the GreatHall as their main entertaining space. At 100ft long and 55ft high, there was plenty of room to serve cocktails. The hall is a magnificent 15th century relic, designed by Edward IV's chief mason and still with its oak hammerbeam roof intact. Here the English Tudor court came to celebrate Christmas, and here the young Henry VIII spent much of his childhood. Try not to think about the underfloor central heating the Courtaulds installed - they had different planning regulations in those days.
Retrace your steps into the Art Deco Thirties, and upstairs to the bedrooms on the first floor. Yes, these are as modish and dapper as you might expect. Stephen's bedroom has block-printed wallpaper and a blue bathroom, while Ginny's en-suite features a most ostentatious bath beneath a shining gold mosaic. In another room you can watch the two textile millionaires at play in a selection of their home movies, and outside on the landing is the centrally heated cage in which Ginny kept her pet ring-tailed lemur. He was called Mah Jongg and he had the run of the house down a special bamboo ladder. It's how the other half lived, don't you know.
And finally back down to the dining room, complete with inlaid black marble and a recessed spotlit aluminium ceiling. A dinner party here, seated on rose-pink upholstered chairs whilst servants scuttled around with silver platters, must have been quite magnificent. Alas the Courtaulds didn't have very long to enjoy this cultured decadence. The house and landscaped gardens weren't completed until 1936, leaving only a handful of perfect summers before war broke out. Stephen and Ginny hung on here until 1944, assisting the WRVS and stamping out fires, before escaping first to Scotland and later to Rhodesia. Their loss is our gain. And wow. by train: Elthamby bus: 126, 161
Good morning, HappyEaster, and welcome to the earliest Easter Sunday that you will ever experience. And here, very simply, is why it's so early. Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. This year, 2008, everything in this list has happened really really fast...
Equinox: Friday 21st March Full Moon: Saturday 22nd March Easter Sunday: Sunday 23rd March
Bang, bang, bang. You can't beat that.
Golden Number
Day of Month
Sunday Letter
March 21
C
XIV
March 22
D
III
March 23
E
March 24
F
XI
March 25
G
March 26
A
XIX
March 27
B
VIII
March 28
C
March 29
D
XVI
March 30
E
V
March 31
F
April 1
G
XIII
April 2
A
II
April 3
B
April 4
C
X
April 5
D
April 6
E
XVIII
April 7
F
VII
April 8
G
April 9
A
XV
April 10
B
IV
April 11
C
April 12
D
XII
April 13
E
I
April 14
F
April 15
G
IX
April 16
A
XVII
April 17
B
VI
April 18
C
April 19
D
April 20
E
April 21
F
April 22
G
April 23
A
April 24
B
April 25
C
As I mentioned on Friday, we have a full moon on 22nd March once every 19 years. It's a common event. The reason that 2008 is so special is that 22nd March is a Saturday, allowing 23rd March to be a Sunday. There are seven possible days of the week on which the 23rd can fall, and only when it's a Sunday does the ultimate Easter occur. A one in 19 chance, multiplied by a 1 in 7 chance, that's an event of 1 in 133 year rarity.
OK, so once you know the date of the first spring full moon in any year, how do you find the date of the next Sunday? Ah, well, that's where the Sunday Letter comes in. Know the Sunday Letter and you can work out which of the next seven days is a Sunday. Every year is assigned its own Sunday Letter (one of the letters from A to G), roughly corresponding to the seven different days of the week on which January 1st can fall. This Easter the Sunday Letter is E. Next year it's D, then C, then B, and then for 2012 (a leap year) it skips A and flips back round to G. There's a ready-made list of Sunday Letters for the 20th and 21st centuries here.
You can then use today's big long table, reproduced from the Book of Common Prayer, to work out the date of Easter. For any particular year you need to know only two things - the Golden Number (see Friday's post) and the Sunday Letter. Start in the first column with the Golden Number. Then move down the table until you find the next row with the correct Sunday Letter. That's the date of Easter Sunday. Simple?
• For example, in 2008 the Golden Number is 14 (XIV), so start on the March 22nd row. The Sunday letter is E so move down to the next E, which is March 23rd. And so Easter is March 23rd. • For example, last year the Golden Number was 13 (XIII), so start on the April 2nd row. The Sunday letter was G so move down to the next G, which is April 8th. And so Easter was April 8th. • Oh, and if the full moon is on a Sunday, then Easter jumps to the following Sunday. That's to make sure it's never celebrated on the same day as the Jewish Passover.
Whichever date is associated with the Golden Number, Easter can fall on any of the seven dates below it. So not every year with a Golden Number of 14 has a really early Easter. In 2027, for example, Easter will fall on March 28th (Sunday Letter C) and in 1970 Easter was as late as March 29th (Sunday Letter D). Easter 2008 is only fabulously early because the Golden Number is 14 and the Sunday Letter is E.
Meanwhile down at the bottom of the table, Easter can sometimes run very late. This tends to happen when the Golden Number is 6 (as in 2000), 9 (as in 2003) or 17 (as in 2011). The latest Easter of all (April 25th) can only happen in a year with Golden Number 6 and Sunday Letter C - years such as 1943 and 2038. But we've got a close contender coming up very soon. In 2011 everything in the Easter calculation list is going to run really really slowly...
Equinox: Friday 21st March Full Moon: Sunday 17th April Easter Sunday: Sunday 24th April
So, calendar freaks, do come back in three years time. In 2011 we've got an extremely late Easter on our hands. And you just wouldn't believe how rare it is to have an extreme late Easter so close to an extreme early Easter...
• The cycle of Easter dates repeats every 5,700,000years. During this period, Easter falls on March 23rd only 54,150 times (less than 1% of the total). • Today, March 22nd, is the least likely date for Easter to fall - this happens in less than ½% of years. April 19th is the most likely, at nearly 4%. • Easter falls on March 28th in both 2027 and 2032, a gap of five years. No shorter interval is possible. • Almost exactly half of our Easters occur on the same date 11 years later (but never more than four in a row). For example, Easter falls on March 31st in 1991, 2002, 2013 and 2024, but not in 2035. • Consecutive Easters are always separated by 350, 357, 378, or 385 days (that's 50, 51, 54, or 55 weeks). For example, Easter 2008 is 350 days after Easter 2007, but 385 days before Easter 2009. So we've just had the shortest possible gap between Easters, and we're about to enter the longest. • In 1926 the League of Nations proposed that Easter Sunday be observed on the first Sunday after the second Saturday of April (i.e. the Sunday nearest April 12th). However world religions failed to agree on this simplification, and so the movable lunar feast continues. • The last time Easter fell before the clocks went forward was in 1959 (back when the clocks changed to British Summer Time in mid-April, not March). • The coldest recent UK Easter was in 1964. Over the weekend 27-29 March temperatures barely reached 6°C in southern and central parts of the country, and were accompanied by a raw easterly wind. • The snowiest recent UK Easter was in 1983. Over the weekend 1-3 April there was up to 10cm of snowfall in Scotland, the Midlands and Kent. The following Easters were all snowy: 1958, 1965, 1970, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1994 and 1998.
Here's a table showing the date of Easter from 1900-2099
If there's a digit in the table then Easter is in March, and that's the last digit of the date (22nd-31st). If there's a letter in the table then Easter is in April, and the letter follows the code a=1, b=2, c=3 etc.
» For example, the symbol in the table for 2008 is a digit, so Easter is in March. That digit is a 3, so Easter is on March 23rd. » For example, the symbol in the table for 2009 is a letter, so Easter is in April. That letter is L, which is the 12th letter of the alphabet, so Easter is on April 12th.
Here's a list of really earlyEasters, so you can see how rare they really are: • Easter on 22nd March: last happened 1818, next happens 2285 • Easter on 23rd March: last happened 1913, next happens 2160 • Easter on 24th March: last happened 1940, next happens 2391 • Easter on 25th March: last happened 1951, next happens 2035 • Easter on 26th March: last happened 1989, next happens 2062 • Easter on 27th March: last happened 2005, next happens 2016 (but then not again until 2157)
Extreme Early Easter (full moon 18:50 GMT, 21/03/07)
The Easter story, according to the Bible, is intrinsically linked to the Jewish festival of Passover. And Passover is a lunar festival, linked to the date of the full moon. So Easter has to be linked to the date of the full moon too. Here's how the date of Easter is determined...
Easter Day is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.
To get an early Easter you need an early full moon. Like we have this year. This year the spring equinox was yesterday, the next full moon is today, and so Easter is on Sunday. It's not very often that there's a full moon almost immediately after the equinox and then a Sunday very soon afterwards. And that's why Easter is bloody early this year. Happy with that? Good, please stop reading now.
OK, now for the real, rather more complicated explanation. You knew it wouldn't be that simple, didn't you? One reason for this is because the church's method of determining Easter doesn't use the real spring equinox, it always uses March 21st. You can thank the Council of Nicæa in 325AD for that one. And Easter calculations don't use the date of the real full moon either, they use something called the Paschal Full Moon instead. These form an artificial list of full moon dates, applicable globally, almost but not quite linked to the real ones. So the actual rule for determining the date of Easter is this...
Easter Day is the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon on or after March 21st.
Let's take a more detailed look at these mysterious Paschal Full Moons. The ancient church didn't want to have to mess around with actual astronomical data, because that was quite difficult to predict accurately in those days, and leap years kept getting in the way. So they took advantage of a convenient lunar coincidence called the Metonic Cycle and used this to help. The phases of the Moon may not repeat on the same day every year, but they do repeat (give or take 2 hours) on the same day every 19 years. So if you know the dates of the spring full moons over a 19 year period, you can repeat that list every 19 years afterwards. Simple?
Table to find the date of the Easter Full Moon
Golden Number
Years
Full Moon
I
1976 1995 2014
April 14
II
1977 1996 2015
April 3
III
1978 1997 2016
March 23
IV
1979 1998 2017
April 11
V
1980 1999 2018
March 31
VI
1981 2000 2019
April 18
VII
1982 2001 2020
April 8
VIII
1983 2002 2021
March 28
IX
1984 2003 2022
April 16
X
1985 2004 2023
April 5
XI
1986 2005 2024
March 25
XII
1987 2006 2025
April 13
XIII
1988 2007 2026
April 2
XIV
1989 2008 2027
March 22
XV
1990 2009 2028
April 10
XVI
1991 2010 2029
March 30
XVII
1992 2011 2030
April 17
XVIII
1993 2012 2031
April 7
XIX
1994 2013 2032
March 27
Here's a table showing the 19 possible Paschal Full Moons. I've listed all the years from 1976 to 2032, but you can trawl back as far as 1900 and forward as far as 2199 should you want to. Remember, these are all artificial full moons for calculation purposes only.
Every year on the same line has the same full moon date. For example, the Paschal Full Moon in 1995 fell on April 14th, the same as 19 years earlier in 1976 and 19 years later in 2014. These years are described as having a Golden Number of 1 (which is the remainder when dividing the year by 19, plus 1). Don't worry about that. All you need to know is that every year with the same Golden Number has the same Paschal Full Moon. Every year with a Golden Number of 1 (including 1900 and 2185, for what it's worth) has its post-equinox full moon on April 14th.
Scanning down the table you'll see that the first post-equinox full moon in the year 2000 was on April 18th, and that's the latest date possible. It's years with a Golden Number of 6 that have the very latest Easters. And the Paschal full moon this year is on March 22nd, which is the earliest date possible. It's years with a Golden Number of 14 that have the very earliest Easters. Well, near enough, but I'll come back to the extra complications on Sunday.
And one more thing. During the 20th, 21st and 22nd centuries the Paschal Full Moon never falls on March 21st itself, which means that Easter Day can never fall as early as March 22nd. But in other centuries the table of Paschal Full Moons is different. Throughout the 19th century, for example, March 21st was linked to a Golden Number of 14 (that's because 1900 wasn't a leap year, so the pattern skipped a day). And hey presto, in 1818 there actually was an Easter Day on March 22nd. Similarly there'll be another March 22nd Easter in the 23rd century, in 2285. But between 1900 and 2199, March 23rd is the earliest Easter we can possibly get. It really is an utterly extreme Easter this year. Sorry, is anybody still reading? I did warn you to stop earlier, didn't I?
Extreme Early Easter (vernal equinox 05:48 GMT, 20/03/07)
It can't have escaped your notice that there's an early Easter this year. Like, very very early. March 23rd is a ridiculously early date for Easter to fall, but that's the way the calendar works out this year. Oh yes, this is most definitely an Extreme Early Easter.
This year's Easter isn't quite record-breakingly early, but it nearly is. There's not been an Easter this early since 1913, which is nearly a century ago and you won't remember that. There won't be an Easter this early again until 2160, which is more than a century and half away and you definitely won't be around for that. And there won't be an earlier Easter than this until 2285, which is so far into the future that we'll probably have drowned the planet by then. Oh yes, this is most definitely an Extreme Early Easter.
Thanks to to some verycomplicatedecclesiasticalrules involving equinoxes and full moons (which I'll go into tomorrow), Easter Day can fall on any Sunday between March 22nd and April 25th. The period between March 28th and April 20th is the most common, and any Easters outside that range are rather less frequent. This year we're right up at the start of the possible range, on March 23rd, because a couple of unlikely events have combined to create a freak rarity. An Extreme Early Easter.
As a movable feast, Easter feels very wrong when it moves too early. It may be nearly three months since we last had a bank holiday, but somehow mid-March is too early to be having a double bank holiday break. School holidays are also all over the place this year because of the early Easter. Some schools are breaking up today and having the next couple of weeks off, whereas others are waiting until mid-April, when Easter "normally" is, and having their break then. Hell, we've not even put the clocks forward yet. And look at the weather, it's more like winter than spring out there. Actually, maybe there's a reason for that. An Extreme Early Equinox.
Today is the first day of spring* - the vernal equinox. The overhead Sun crossed the equator at 05:48 this morning, and we're now entering into the warm half of the year. Yes really, March 20th, not March 21st, is the first day of spring. Spring used to start on March 21st, certainly a century ago it did, but the shifting equinox means that it'll now always be on March 20th. Well, every year from 2008 until 2044 anyway. I explained all this last year, were you not paying attention? * yes yes yes, I know, northern hemisphere only
It takes the Earth approximately 365 days, 5 hours and 49 minutes to orbit the Sun, so every year the spring equinox shifts almost 6 hours later than the year before. That's approximately 24 hours later every 4 years, which is then cancelled out by the presence of a February 29th a few weeks before the next spring equinox occurs. But this still leaves the calendar 11 minutes short of reality every year, and this tiny difference shifts the spring equinox approximately three-quarters of an hour earlier every 4 years.
So it's not just Easter that's early this year, it's spring too. An equinox before sunrise on March 20th - it's unheard of. In fact the spring equinox hasn't taken place before 6am on March 20th since 1896. Spring hasn't begun this early since the 19th century! But don't get too excited. The phrase "spring hasn't begun this early since the 19th century" has been true every leap year since 1900, and will continue to be true every leap year until 2024. So our premature spring isn't the reason why Easter is early this year. Our early Easter is a result of something that's happening tomorrow. Come back then and I'll tell you more.
Who would have thought that London'sMayoralelection might hinge around the humble Routemaster bus? This much-loved workhorse has come to symbolise the supposed chasm that exists between moderniser Ken and fresh-thinking Boris. Mayor Ken killed off the redoubtable Routemaster a few years ago, and now Boris wants to bring them back. Doesn't he? And all at the expense of the nasty evil fare-dodgingcycle-crushing bendy bus. Who could have a good word to say about London's fleet of 337 bendy buses... except perhaps passengers with wheelchairs, or mums with prams, or travellers with suitcases, or freeloaders who fancy a trip across town for nothing. It'll be fab to rid of these articulated roadhogs. Won't it? Well, actually, maybe not.
Boris Johnson has managed to plant an incredibly alluring idea in the minds of London's electorate. "Vote for me and I'll scrap all the bendy buses and bring back Routemasters." As campaign ideas go, it's brilliant. Alas that's not what he's promised at all, it's just what people think is on offer. What Boris has actually pledged is the following...
So here's problem number 1. Boris can't bring back old Routemasters because accessibility legislation bans the use of non-inclusive 1950s technology. There aren't enough of the old vehicles left anyway, because most of those withdrawn from service a few years ago are now either in private hands or rusting. So all that Boris can promise is a competition to design a "new Routemaster". Something like this Johnson-approved blueprint here (although the design can't be anywhere near perfect otherwise he wouldn't be relying on a contest). Expect the timelag from competition launch to first on-road replacement to be several years. Long term good, but medium term nil.
Then there's problem number 2. The new design won't really be a Routemaster at all, just a rear-platform people-mover with an evocative name. Call it a Routemaster if you like, Boris, but it won't be the classic bumpy spluttering vehicle we know and love. It'll be some new shiny thing with intrusive on-board announcements and electronic destination panels. But before the election, of course, all that matters is a convincing sounding rebranding exercise.
Then there's problem number 3. However much Londoners might wish them gone, Boris can't wipe bendy buses from the streets of the capital on the morning after he's elected. Remove them and there'd be hundreds of thousands of passengers on twelve bendy bus routes stranded at their stops. So the unloved bendies stay, for several years, until somebody's invented and built their replacements. But will the electorate notice this subtle difference in time - it's replace and then scrap, not scrap and then replace.
Then there's problem number 4. Planning to replace only bendy buses won't reinstate Routemasters on their traditional routes. There are 12 bendy bus routes, but there were as many as 20 recent Routemaster routes, and the overlap is surprisingly small. In fact only four RM routes would be reinstated under Boris's plans, a mere 20% of the total. He'd rescue the iconic 12, 38 and 73, and restore part of the old 36. But he'd also upgrade eight routes that either haven't been RM since the 80s (18, 25, 29, 149, 207, 453) or have never been (507, 521). And he'd completely ignore 16 rightful Routemaster routes (6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 19, 22, 23, 94, 98, 137, 159, 390). This isn't true replacement, not at all.
Then there's problem number 5. Scrapping bendy buses, designing a Routemaster-y alternative, kitting them out with 21st century facilities and hiring conductors doesn't come cheap. Certainly nowhere near as cheap as the £8m Boris initially claimed, more like more than ten times that amount. All of which has to be paid for somehow. But I'll leave others to arguethatone.
So, in conclusion, Boris's idea is quite good, but it's nowhere near as good as most Londoners believe it to be. Basically, electorate, you've been had. Even if you vote in Boris now, you won't be seeing any "new Routemasters" (or fewer bendy buses) until around the time of the next Mayoral election in 2012. If you're lucky.
Which leaves Ken's transport plans - a rather uninspiring "more of the same". At least "more of the same" won't include more bendy buses - we had the last changeover in 2006 and Ken now promises he's not planning on introducing any more. But more of the same doesn't win votes, even when it's actually quite progressive. Oh London, I worry about you sometimes. And if you can't see through Boris's Routemaster ploy, then I fear you deserve everything you get.
Until last week I wouldn't have dreamed of having porridge for breakfast. I mean, porridge? It's not had a good press, has it? Goldilocks had trouble finding porridge at the right temperature. Oliver Twist could never get enough gruel to fill his echoing stomach. And those ReadyBrek kids from the 1970s used to glowred like they'd spent the night inside a nuclear reactor. Porridge certainly isn't the breakfast of choice for the modern generation. It's been outstripped by muesli, and croissants, and extra-sugar pre-diabetic chocoflakes with marshmallow floaty bits. Even a full fat fry-up has a higher media profile than porridge. But I'm not allowed a full fat fry-up any more, so porridge it is.
When adjusting one's diet to lower cholesterol, porridge is apparently the way to go. Its oaty structure acts like a "cholesterol hoover" in your veins, so I'm told, in much the same way that gobbling oily fish unclogs your tubes and makes you healthier. So, it's either herrings for breakfast or it's porridge. I've plumped for the latter. Except, oh dear, porridge isn't exactly tasty is it?
I bought a trial box of porridge oats on my first tentative post-diet supermarket excursion last week. What a depressing occasion that was. I was forced to bypass some of my favourite aisles (sorry no pies, sorry no biscuits, sorry no cake, sorry) in favour of new and unexpected haunts. Welcome to the low-fat healthy eating area. It was all so unfamiliar, and almost nauseatingly wholesome. Erm, right, so this is the porridge section is it? Oh dear, not a mouth watering prospect.
The following morning I poured out my first bowl of porridge for my inaugural breakfast experience. As I ripped open the packet I accidentally managed to cover half the kitchen with a thin layer of finely milled dust. Damn, wasn't expecting that. A few minutes with a cloth later and I was busy reading the packet, having suddenly realised that I had no idea what one actually does with porridge. Ah, OK, boiling milk. But whipping out a saucepan smacked rather too much of washing up. Was there an alternative option? Yup, good, microwave. I mixed in some appropriately skimmed milk and waited for the ping.
And what do you know, the resulting stodge tasted absolutely foul. Like some sort of papier maché or wallpaper paste (not that I know what either of those taste like, you understand, I'm just guessing). Ugh. I rushed back to the kitchen to throw in a handful of dried fruit - rather a large handful just to be on the safe side - and then shovelled the gloopy gruel down my gullet as fast as humanly possible. Never again.
On Day 2 I read the instructions on the packet again and realised that the ratio of oats to milk was probably crucial. So I risked another attempt, spooning the correct measure of wood shavings into my bowl and then stirring in a precise number of millilitres of cow juice. And that tasted a bit better. Still not in any way delicious or even appetising, but potentially bearable every single morning for the next 40 years. Sigh.
On Day 3 I got overconfident. I thought I knew what I was doing, guessed at the proportions and managed to mix myself another thick mound of steaming glue. The perfect porridge combination isn't yet second nature. Or maybe I should be using water instead of milk, I dunno. I'll get the hang of it eventually. And now this morning, as I post today's blog over breakfast, I'm staring not quite excitedly at yet another pool of oaty stodge. I'm sure it'd be lovely with a big dollop of chocolate sauce swirled into the middle. Sigh, chocolate. I remember chocolate.
Diet update: 1 week in Chocolate: nil; Chips: nil; Crisps: nil Cheese: two thin slices of tasteless low-fat plastic Weight lost: damn, nil Porridge: too much already
Blimey, that was quick. Just eight months ago an undamaged collection of factories and warehouses stood on the Olympic stadium site. And now they don't. The entire area has been cleared, erased, flattened and lowered to create an arena-sized bowl, and the transformation is amazing. I should know, I've been back to watch the changes month by month, and my last visit made me gasp. OK, I'm easily impressed, but it's already possible to visualise precisely where the 2012 centrepiece will take shape. And still the scuttly diggers swarm up and down what used to be Marshgate Lane, repeatedly rearranging the earth until Lea Valley reality is appropriately realigned. It won't be long now.
One of the best jobs in London is surely that of the Blue Badge Guide. These 500-or-so highly trained professionals spend their days taking tourists visitors around the capital, pointing out sights of interest and recounting fascinating historical tales. Sometimes they stand at the front of coaches and tell Japanese holidaymakers that it's not far to Windsor Castle, honest. Sometimes they walk round Westminster holding an umbrella in the air and wishing that their schoolkid charges would pay attention to their amusing anecdotes. Sometimes they stand beside busy road junctions yelling out hilarious stories that absolutely nobody can hear. They get paid less than £200 a day for their troubles, they work unsociable hours, and even if the weather's rubbish they still have to go out anyway. No really, it's a great job.
Once a year London's Blue Badge Guides organise a special day of free walks. Anybody can turn up and wander around town under their expert tutelage for a couple of hours, and hopefully learn lots of fascinating stuff in the process. 2008's special day was yesterday, as part of British Tourism Week, and I went along to sample a couple of the walks on offer. In the morning I joined Margaret at London Bridge station for a two hour stroll through the City via the medium of "nursery rhymes". She was rather pleasantly surprised when as many as 85 punters turned up, and then attempted to lead her tortuous crocodile (including two walking sticks and one pushchair) down steps, along riverbanks and through narrow alleyways. Our apologies to the miseryguts rambler who tried forcing his way through our rather wide group in a subway beneath Southwark Bridge while we were singing Oranges and Lemons.
And then in the afternoon a completely different walk, this time around the back streets of the East End. The title of the tour was 'Great British Villains', on which Ian our guide promised to take us to the notorious haunts of the Kraybrothers. This time just over 50 people turned up - still more than enough to be a handful. We started outside the Blind Beggar pubon the Whitechapel Road - where else? But Ian knew his Krays (as I suspect he knows pretty much everything else) and whisked us off to far less familiar spots. Up a grim sideroad beneath a stark brick railway viaduct he pointed out the pub where the Krays had been drinking immediately before (and immediately after) Ronnie shot George Cornell in the Beggar. This rather bleak-looking ex-boozer had been called The Lion, but was more widely known locally as "Widows" or "Madge's" after the 60s landlady who ran it. It's since been converted to rather seedy-looking flats, of course. And it's not somewhere I'd have noticed otherwise, nor wanted to linger given the staring eyes of the mechanics in the car-fiddling yard nextdoor.
Elsewhere Ian showed us the church where Reggie got married in style (now more flats) and the church where all the family funerals were held (now a dog-walking ground for evil-looking Staffies). Yet another local pub, the Carpenters Arms, was owned by the nefarious twosome and used as the springboard for some right dodgy activities. If you were invited in here during the Sunday afternoon unlicensed intermission, you were almost certainly up to no good. On we walked, surely now a larger group than when we set out, past an unseen bullethole and the Kray's former boxing club.
And finally to the house at 178 Vallance Road where Ronnie and Reggie grew up, except that alas it no longer exists. A row of six smart 80s-built homes has replaced the previous terrace, so we can only imagine the cosy two-up two-down where the twins cosseted their mother and stashed their weapons. Ooh look, there's a special plaque outside number 178 unveiled by no less a personage than the Prince of Wales! It's nothing Kray-related though, just a housing cooperative coincidence. And then, after an appreciative flourish, Ian took his leave and wandered off.
It's not easy to become one of London'sBlue Badge guides (in much the same way that it's bloody difficult to become a London cabbie). You first need to pass a "pre-entry" test consisting of two hours of quick questions about Europe, London, art, architecture, geography, history and the like. If successful you then have to pass an interview - presumably to check that you have an outgoing personality - and then stump up nearly £4000 to study on a two year induction course. There are lectures every Tuesday and Thursday evening for six months, twice, plus a series of must-attend tours and visits most Saturdays. You weren't planning on having a social life, were you? The final exam is in six parts, including written papers and practical assessments, with extra tests if you want to qualify in more than one language. But the stringent admission policy must work because every single one of the Blue Badge guides I've heard, from the Palace of Westminster to the backstreets of Whitechapel, has been wonderfully informative and personable. Get your application in next January and maybe you could be stepping out onto the London streets at Easter 2011 with an appreciative audience of visitors hanging on your every word.
Yes, really, today. March 15th. Top of the morning to you, and get celebrating.
I bet you thought St Patrick's Day was March 17th. I mean, it's always March 17th isn't it? Any excuse for a celebration of all things Emerald. A chance to pin a shamrock to your breast, whip out your shillelagh and totter down to the pub for a pint of Guinness. But no, St Patrick's Day isn't on March 17th this year. Not officially.
Then maybe you thought St Patrick's Day might be March 16th. That's the day Ken Livingstone's picked for London's annual St Patrick's Day parade. Any excuse to march down Whitehall dressed as a leprechaun. A chance to spend the whole day drinking too much while staggering round the West End wearing one of those ridiculous tall green hats and urinating into doorways. But no, St Patrick's Day isn't ever on March 16th. Not officially. It's just that Ken likes to shift any ethnic celebration to the nearest Sunday because Sundays are quieter, and it's easier to tidy up Trafalgar Square afterwards.
This year St Patrick's Day is today, March 15th. So says the Catholic church in Ireland, and they ought to know. There's a problem with March 17th this year, and it's all down to the ridiculously early Easter we're having. This year March 17th falls at the start of Holy Week, and Vatican rules decree that the Monday of Holy Week is a far more important day (liturgically speaking) than a mere provincial saints day. Most Irish Catholics celebrate St Patrick's Day by going to Mass, and it just wouldn't be right to be cheering on the Apostle of Ireland when they should be remembering the passion of our Lord. So, sorry Pat, but your special day has been displaced.
This year St Patrick's Day ought to be on Tuesday April 1st. Displaced religious festivals are supposed to shift to the next available free day in the calendar, and in 2008 that's in a fortnight's time once all the hubbub of Easter is over. But that's a very time to wait, and Irish cardinals weren't willing to hang around that long. Imagine the confusion if scheduled civic events were held back until April, and thousands of tourists turned up in Dublin two weeks prematurely. So they asked the Vatican for special dispensation to shift the official religious celebration of Paddy's Day earlier rather than later, and the Pope said yes.
So St Patrick's Day 2008 is today, on Saturday March 15th. It's an extremely rare rescheduling, and the first time anything like this has happened for nearly 70 years. Back in 1940 Easter was also ridiculously early, on March 24th in this case, which meant that St Patrick's Day clashed with Palm Sunday and had to be shifted. And this temporal relocation won't happen again until 2160, which is the next time that Easter falls on March 23rd. I'll tell you a lot more about Early Easters next week. In the meantime slap on your shamrock, doff your floppy hat and get down the pub. With a bit of luck we non-Catholic souls can all celebrate St Patrick for three days in a row this year. Make the most of it (hic)
I SPY LONDON the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Part 22:The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture
Location: Middlesex University, Cat Hill, Barnet EN4 8HT [map] Open: 10am - 5pm (2pm - 5pm Sundays) (closed Mondays) Admission: free 5-word summary: the history of the home Website:www.moda.mdx.ac.uk Time to set aside: an hour and a bit
The far northern suburbs between Barnet and Enfield are an unlikely spot for a museum. Just down the road from Cockfosters station, off the Cat Hill roundabout, amidst undulating avenues of spacious semis. No really, that university campus behind the duckpond hides an unlikely secret repository. Honest, it's not just students allowed through the entrance, this place is wide open to the infrequent public. Go on, step inside and try to follow the signs up the service road. See that curved glass roof on the front of what looks like a humanities block. That's the entrance into a tiny treasure trove of 20th century domestic design. a proper little community resource. Yes, who'd have thought?
Don't turn left, that's the toilets. Head right, through the swing doors and across the shop (you can come back to this later), then make your way into the ground floor gallery. Look, lots of lovely old things! Old things which, if you're a certain age, will bring back evocative memories of rooms your older relatives used to live in. This is the Exploring Interiors permanent exhibition, blessed by period samples of classic home decoration. In one cabinet are Edwardian drapes and pre-war wallpaper, in another are catalogues depicting frilly lampshades and patterned linoleum. This is a temple to fixtures and fittings and fabrics and furniture - a last resting place for electric two-bar heaters and Coronation TV sets. The gallery's not huge, but it successfully conjures up a picture of how homes really used to be. Isn't that my grandmother's china service?
Various visitors have left their thoughts hanging up on fluorescent post-its:
"In the 1950s it was my job in the winter to light the fire in the dining room so I could do my homework. The room took ages to warm up! The bath was so cold in winter it gave you goose bumps to touch it." [Reg] "I like the pictures and the kichen because there very old and I like learning about history" [from Shabela]
If you've planned ahead the staff will allow you inside the Study Room to delve deeper into the museum's collection. Or you could search it from home via the special online search engine. I mean, who could resist exploring The Crown Wallpaper collection, consisting of 5000 wallpaper samples and pattern books from the 50s and 60s? Beats a room full of tedious Celtic rock fragments any day.
Upstairs there's one more gallery, fitted out to house special temporary exhibitions. And between now and November that exhibition is a bit of a winner. The Shell Guides: Surrealism, Modernism, Tourism is an eight-cabinet celebration of an extraordinary series of very ordinary travel books. The Shell Guides were founded in 1935 by Sir John Betjeman, then writing for the Architectural Review. He foresaw the need for newly-mobile middle class England to get behind the wheel of their newly purchased motor cars and to start exploring the country's cultural hinterland. The series kicked off with his adopted homeland, Cornwall, then spent the next 50 years slowly rambling around the UK from county to county. Each guide presented an off-beat collection of discourse and photography, concentrating on buildings, myth and landscape rather than historical fact. Within this framework a variety of guest editors were given free rein to interpret the guidebook brief as they saw fit, producing an eclectic set of volumes linked only by the sponsor's name.
"The Guides managed to appear conventional and mainstream while in fact preserving a subversive and challenging view of Britain. Only the words 'guidebook' and 'Shell' enabled the editors to hide this fact from the public"
For an exhibition which is essentially a room full of printed pages and book covers, it's really very interesting. There are tantalising glimpses of gazetteers and footnotes, as well as black and white illustrations and associated ephemera. Take a seat on the comfy sofa at the far end of the gallery and you can enjoy a series of related videos, including a 60s girl about town filling up her tank with pre-trip petrol, and Sir John's dainty observations on the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Even the jaunty signature music manages to perfectly evoke the timeless optimism of these unique travelling companions. And by the time you reach the cabinet where all 36 guides are proudly displayed, you'll want to smash the glass and take the lot home. Keep watching eBay, they're bound to appear eventually. by tube: Cockfostersby bus: 298, 299, 307
It was just a routine blood test, so I was told. A smiling nurse rammed a needle into my arm, then packed off three vials of the red stuff to the local hospital for analysis. Lots and lots and lots of tests, from thyroid to glucose via potassium, were all whisked through the lab in record quick time. The next communication stage, however, took rather longer. Eventually I received my second class letter (four days to travel quarter of a mile, but that's E3 mail for you) inviting me along to the surgery to "discuss the results". Hmmm. And so I wandered along to meet my doctor on Monday, wondering what might not be quite so routine after all.
And everything was fine, absolutely fine, bar one small cluster of results which had tripped the computer's automatic trigger. Cholesterol - HI. Damn. My 5.5mmol/l may have been precisely the same as that of the average British male, but medical science considers anything above 5.0 to be too high. Damn. And especially for me, in conjunction with recent occasional outpatients visits, 5.5 is definitely above acceptable tolerance levels. Damn. "But look," I said, "at least one of my cholesterol tests came out really low." Alas, that was my 'good cholesterol' (which turns out be a real concept, and not a devious marketing strategy thought up by fish salesmen). So, all in all, not great.
My doctor looked at me with that kindly expression which means "I've just had to tell you something that'll change your life, and tonight I'm going home to burger and chips". And then he reached over to the top drawer of his filing cabinet and pulled out a photocopied sheet with a grid of foodstuffs on it. I recognised it immediately. My mum was given something remarkably similar 30 years ago. I remember she brought it home, stuck it up in the kitchen and then never quite ate the same food as the rest of the family forever afterwards. I then wished I hadn't remembered that.
I was disappointed to notice that the sheet I'd been given was sponsored by Flora margarine. "Ah, yes, sorry", said my doctor, "do try to ignore that." It turned out that he'd been good and photocopied the sheet so that the grid didn't have a giant advert for tubs of polyunsaturates on the reverse. But it still struck me as pretty poor that this crucial turning point in my life was being exploited by greedy Unilever marketeers. Can the NHS not afford its own unbiased information booklet on a condition which must affect millions of patients in this country? Seemingly not. Well yah booh sucks to you Mr Flora and your poxy margarine, because I never spread anything yellow and fatty on my bread anyway.
My doctor and I had a long and intelligent conversation about the causes and implications of my diagnosis, which was reassuring. We specifically discussed chocolate (not surprisingly, not recommended). I agreed that I'd have a go at adjusting (nay, transforming) my diet in an attempt to get my cholesterol down to well-below average levels. And he asked me to come back and have another blood test in a couple of months to see whether my restraint has had any effect. If not, mine might be another life thrown to the mercy of the 'miracle' statintablets. We shall see. In the meantime, I appear to have 18 leftover Creme Eggs sitting in my kitchen, all suddenly past their eat-by date. Anybody want to swap them for eight weeks' supply of oily fish?
I love Creme Eggs. I love their rarity, bestowed upon the world for a short season of calorific abundance. I love their bright shiny wrappers, gleaming purple and yellow and red. I love their big round chocolatiness, all firm and tempting to the touch. And I love their sweet interior, with swirling creamy fondant and gooey sugar yolk.
I love Creme Eggs. When New Year comes round I always nip down to the supermarket and buy myself a couple of dozen. One of the two multipacks gets ripped open straight away. I peel off a single wrapper, dive in and savour the new season taste. Then I wait a while, usually about a week, before daring to enjoy another. I always treat my stash with due luxurious reverence. The first box usually lasts me until Easter, and then I have 12 more eggs to ration through the long summer months. They're never quite the same after their sell-by-date, not even straight out of the fridge, but they still taste great eaten "rare" in out-of-season November.
I love Creme Eggs. I love the syrupy stickiness as I peel off the foil. Can I unfurl the chocolatey contents without ripping the wrapper, or will I be thwarted as the coating tears into tiny fragile fragments? If the paper's still in one piece then I try to fold it back around the base of the egg to give me something to hold onto, then bite softly into the brown fudgy top. Just the top half off the egg to start with, never everything all in one go. I relish the sickly taste of the carbohydrates on my tongue, then swoosh the liquefying contents around the inside of my mouth before gulping them down my welcoming throat. I always intend to eat my egg slowly but I have minimal restraint, and the second half usually follows pretty soon afterwards. Gobble, swallow, gone.
I love Creme Eggs. I love the sense of wicked satisfaction after I've devoured one. I love scrunching up the wrapper into a tiny ball of foil and seeing how small I can squash it before throwing it deftly into a bin. I love the sweet smell that lingers on my fingers for up to an hour afterwards - a perfumed reminder of guilty pleasures past. And yes, I know these chocolate confections are nothing more than an unholy cocktail of vegetable fats, sugar, emulsifiers, unskimmed milk, cocoa solids, glucose syrup and artificial flavourings, but I love Creme Eggs all the same.
My doctor told me yesterday that I probably shouldn't ever eat another one. I've had better Mondays.
Bus 43: London Bridge - Friern Barnet Location: London north Length of journey: 9 miles, 70 minutes
Last year I rode the 42 to Dulwich. So this year, for my birthday, I thought I'd ride the 43 to Barnet. I wondered if, perhaps, its lengthy journey to the north London suburbs would provide a metaphor for life. And, you know what, maybe it does.
Life kicks off with a long wait: The 43 must have the scariest bus queue in London. Fifty metres of pavement adjacent to bus stop C have been marked out for a narrow doublebacked queue, with painted lanes arrowed up and down and back up again, as if this were some over-popular Disneyland attraction. Every weekday morning hundreds of Kentish commuters pour out of London Bridge station and wait here patiently, politely, for their cross-river transport to the City. But at the weekend getting aboard was rather easier. There were only four of us waiting, and we ignored the arrows on the ground altogether.
Life can get lonely: The City of London is an unnervingly quiet place on a Saturday afternoon. The financiers stay at home, the shops are firmly closed, and crews of workmen take the opportunity to lug giant cranes up medieval lanes to shift the skyline while nobody's looking. And so we sped through EC2 while absolutely nobody whatsoever boarded our bus, not until we passed Moorgate's rampant griffin and entered downtown Islington. And even then not one soul dared to climb the stairs to join me on the top deck. The girl with the guitar; the pair of mums with bag-filled pushchair; the lady jabbering in a foreign language consisting entirely of vowels; the screaming kid emitting "I'm being kidnapped" yelps - they all crammed in downstairs and left me sitting in peace above their heads. I expected my solitude to end in Upper Street, packed with trendy trinket shoppers, but almost everybody lined up at its chain of bus stops turned out to be waiting for other services to take them somewhere rather nicer instead.
Life begins at Highbury: Well, Highbury Corner at least. The long trek up the Holloway Road, past the off licences and chicken cottages, was where the 43's journey finally got busier. I listened in on the witterings of my fellow passengers. "If I wasn't going to the estate agent I'd definitely be going to your house to see the mannequins." I never did get to the bottom of that mystery. "I'm not five Daddy, I'm five and a half. How old are you, are you 43?" Honest, the flaxen-haired angel sat behind me really asked that, and Daddy really was. "Goodbye darling, hugs and kisses, and love to Jemima." Hmm, leafy Tufnell Park ahead.
Life is an uphill struggle: Virtually the whole of the 43's journey from the Thames to the suburbs was slowly, relentlessly, uphill. Onward we crawled, up the A1, through ringroad-scarred Archway, beneath Suicide Bridge, and ascending the organic slopes of Highgate. No burger'n'kebab joints were evident here - the residents appeared to dine out in cantinas and brunch daily on Eggs Benedict. The bus then queued behind a traffic jam of Ocado vans before turning right, past Peter Sellers' cottage and woodland daffodils, to the giddy heights of Muswell Hill. Here in this highbrow middle-class enclave, looking down across an ocean of lesser rooftops, our journey peaked. Very tasteful, very much like a Home Counties market town. Along the Broadway I spotted several proper independent shops, and the odd boutique, and even a pub discreetly tucked inside a huge Victorian church. Blue-rinsed ladies lined up to board the bus with their trolley of M&S comestibles to ride the few stops home.
Life gets you down: And finally back down into the valley, past the first bog standard suburban streets of the entire journey. On and on, across the streaming North Circular and out into unexplored ColneyHatch. The penultimate passenger alighted at the old Friern Barnet Town Hall, now converted into luxury apartmentettes. And only I stayed on until the occasionally-open library, where this bus terminates. At this lonely outpost the driver had only a man with a clipboard for company, and a tiny lockable portakabin for officially sanctioned bladder-emptying. It was a very different spot to go-ahead London Bridge, three score minutes and ten ago.
Life ends up in hospital: But blimey, what was that enormous building just up the road? I mean, like, truly enormous (in terms of length rather than height, that is). Look, a 500m-long residential block with central dome and various perpendicular wings, looking every inch a college or important administrative bastion. Except no, this grand Italianate building was once the largest mental hospital in London. Forget Bedlam, this was the pinnacle of Victorian lunatic provision, tucked away on the leafy outskirts of town where everybody could forget about it. ColneyHatchAsylum boasted the longest corridor in Britain, perfect for wheeling patients down, and up to 3500 inmates were crammed and strait-jacketed inside. As its infamy spread, so Londoners started using the words "Colney Hatch" as a term of abuse, and pretty soon the local station had to change its name to "New Southgate" to avoid any unwanted stigma. It's not a mental hospital any more, of course, it's been reborn as the rather exclusive Princess Park Manor development. There's only one vehicular entrance, guarded by fearsome security guards who check off every visitor against an approved list. The rest of the perimeter is securely fenced, no longer to lock the inmates inside but to keep undesirable elements out. Now jogging bankers exercise on the landscaped lawns, and a gated elite live out their days in rooms which were once anything but desirable. But I'm not convinced many of them ever commute aboard the 43 to the City - they'd have to be insane to sit on a bus for that long.
Silver discs(March 1983) A one-off clickable look back at the top singles of 25 years ago
The Top 10 singles the day before I turned 18 (8th March 1983) 1) (↑1) Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart: Topping the charts in the week I turned adult was this classic histrionic epic from a raspy-throated Welsh singer. Bonnie's career had been up and down almost as much as her voice, but this Meatloaf-esque song sealed her fame. The video appeared to show her cavorting round a windswept boys' boarding school, but I could never quite be sure because I only ever saw the video once. Pre-YouTube, that is. Total Eclipse is still performed wherever a karaoke machine is installed, and was the first ever song by a Welsh artist to top the American singles chart. "Every now and then I get a little bit terrified but then I see the look in your eyes, every now and then I fall apart" 2) (↓1) Michael Jackson - Billie Jean: Before this single was released, MJ was just another talented jumped-up former child star with a frizzy grin. And then here he was singing about disputed parentage, and moonwalking round a pavement of flashing lights, and looking sleek and just a little bit feral, and the nation suddenly loved him. Bilie Jean elevated young Michael to invigorated superstardom, and a series of hit singles off the mega-selling Thriller album sealed his fate. Nutter, obviously, but a damned talented nutter. "Billie Jean is not my lover, she's just a girl who claims that I am the one, but the kid is not my son" 3) (↑2) Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (are made of this): Blimey, it was a good week wasn't it? Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, no longer Tourists, launched their Top 3 career with this instantly arresting song. Its driving beat was utterly unlike anything else around at the time, and Annie's visual image didn't hurt either - all flame-haired red crop and piercing stare. The Queen and King of musical self-reinvention remain the UK's most successful ever female/male duo. "Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree? I travel the world and the seven seas, everybody's looking for something" 4) (↑8) Forrest - Rock The Boat: Formerly a Billboard #1 by the Hues Corporation, this was a typical mid-80s synthy cover version performed by Dutch singer Forrest Thomas. Sinitta appeared in the video, which I think tells you all you need to know. "Ever since our voyage of love began, your touch has thrilled me like the rush of the wind" 5) (↓1) Toto - Africa: Sometimes American rock bands get it spot on. Twinkly keyboards and understated maracas lay beneath this singalong African anthem, still a staple of cosy MOR radio to this day. And yes, they really did get away with rhyming "company" with "Serengeti". "She's coming in 12:30 flight, the moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation" 6) (↓3) Kajagoogoo - Too Shy: How Eighties is this? A bunch of make-upped blokes with scary haircuts and a pretentious name, and a lead singer with an even scarier haircut living life as an anagram. I guess that's what living in Leighton Buzzard did to you. Too shy shy - still catchier than a barbed wire fence. "Something's wrong, you're not naive, you must must be strong" 7) (↑14) Bananarama - Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye) : Another top cover version, sung in one-part harmony, from the three girls nextdoor. You could easily imagine bumping into Siobhan, Keren and Sara on the pavement outside Top Shop, or waitressing at a Golden Egg restaurant, or appearing on Blockbusters with Bob Holness and a gonk. And hurrah for that. "He'll never love you the way that I love you, cos if he did, oh no, he wouldn't make you cry" 8) (→) Madness - Tomorrow's Just Another Day: Just another Madness record, from just past their peak, and just a little more downbeat than usual. "I need a moment to reflect on the friendships I have wrecked" 9) (→) Thompson Twins - Love On Your Side: At long last, after years of trying, the British public finally caught up with Tom, Joe and Alannah. With their former tribal rhythms replaced by a more commercial mainstream sound, two years of of well-deserved fame followed. I went to see them perform at the Oxford Apollo, at my very first gig, as an impressionable 18 year old. Hmm, they looked a lot smaller in public than on the telly, but maybe that's because I was jiggling away at the back of the balcony. And blimey, they could actually sing and play at the same time. Revelation. "I hear you laughing in some other room and it makes me feel locked out" 10) (↓4) Musical Youth - Never Gonna Give You Up: Cheery reggae beats from Birmingham's underage finest. Not really in the same league as Pass The Dutchie, but who could possibly argue with a band whose lead singer was called Dennis? "You take sugar and I have none, you take your coffee black and I have mine white"
20 other hits from 25 years ago: Communication (Spandau Ballet), Tunnel of Love (Funboy Three), She Means Nothing To Me (Phil Everly & Cliff Richard), Get The Balance Right (Depeche Mode), Change (Tears For Fears), Hey Little Girl (Icehouse), High Life (Modern Romance), Up Where We Belong (Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes), Genetic Engineering (OMD), Waves (Blancmange), Rip It Up (Orange Juice), Wham Rap (Wham), Shiny Shiny (Haysi Fantayzee), Sign Of The Times (Belle Stars), Drop The Pilot (Joan Armatrading), Oh Diane (Fleetwood Mac), Down Under (Men At Work), Christian (China Crisis), Fields of Fire (Big Country), Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (Indeep) ...which hit's your favourite?
He writes oblique intricate prose about London. He's an award-winning author with a shelf ofbooks to his name. He lives in Hackney, sort of Hoxton-ish. He's Iain Sinclair. And last night he was giving a talk, for free, at the Museum in Docklands. They do this sort of thing in arty venues across East London on the First Thursday of every month, you know. And Iain's talk was also a special event on the first day of the East Festival, which is casting its cultural shadow across the next five days in this part of the world. So I went along to feast on words.
Around 100 people turned up to hear Iain's take on East London. We were treated to an hour of chat, both from Mr S and from Sara Wajid of Untold London (a diversely-historical London website). She introduced him as a chronicler of the disappeared for whom "location is his muse". I liked that line. And I liked Iain. He spoke as he writes, in meandering anecdotes, not sticking to any linear narrative but most entertaining all the same.
Iain's had many jobs in his time, from a cellar worker at the family-run Truman Brewery to a behind the scenes dogsbody at the Raymond Revue Bar. His favourite job, however, involved several years spent mowing the grass in various Hawksmoorchurchyards. A good run around on the lawnmower, the chance to eye up the local community, and long lunch breaks sat reminiscing with old boys who remembered the way the East End used to be. Where once was a grand riverside landscape dotted with dominant steeples, now the invasive "Not London" towers of Docklands overshadow all.
Although Iain's well known as a psychogeographer, it's not a term he feels particularly comfortable with. Psychogeography is just another niche concept hijacked by the mainstream, made popular by repetition and dilution, so he told us. But he's definitely a fan of going places to discover things, as exhibited by his circumnavigation of the M25 for London Orbital. "A quest is the excuse for a journey". I liked that line too, because it's a concept I'm frequently guilty of myself.
Iain told us several stories, including that of bricked-off Rodinsky's Room at 19 Princelet Street, and how the displaced inhabitant ended his life in an asylum. Iain recalled interlinked tales from his latest anthology London: City of Disappearances (which he signed for grateful punters downstairs afterwards). And he read us an extract from his nearly-published book based around his home borough - Hackney: A Rose-Red Empire. The day the London Fields Lido reopened, so we heard, its swishing electronic doors were mobbed by canine invaders. No Sinclair story is ever ordinary.
By the end of the hour, and a brief Q&A session, we knew precisely what Iain thought of Olympic developments in the Lea Valley. A black hole erasing undocumented marginal lands, no less, now brutally hidden behind an unsettling blue wall. And we could probably have listened to him for another hour, had the Museum not been quite so keen to cajole us out of the theatre and down towards the exit. I avoided the book signing and headed back out to the artificial quaysides of business-blasted West India Dock. From the wine bars came the merry braying of bankers, gulping bubbly where labourers once ate their cheese and pickle sandwiches. He makes you look at things differently, does Iain. But I think I'm still more comfortable listening to him than reading him.
A message to the staff at the Museum in Docklands. If your evening talk is due to start at 7:30, don't announce the time as 7pm on your website. Lovely though it was to listen to the London Gay Men's Chorus singing three part harmony in the foyer while strolling around the labyrinth of nigh-empty galleries, I'd really rather have spent the extra half-hour at home.
There are two kinds of people in this world - those who take offence and those who don't.
Some people, it seems, can be offended by almost everything. "Why are you looking at me like that?" "You realise your last comment was inherently racist, don't you?" "How dare the Government spend my taxes on that!" These people go around finding fault in everything, and then assuming it was all deliberately aimed at them. "Why don't you look where you're going?" "I have never been so insulted..." "Turn that bloody music off!"
Sometimes taking offence is about justice. Offended people often feel personally wronged by the slightest incident, and then insist on expressing their opinions and delivering a damning verdict. "You know you're not allowed to put your feet on the seat, don't you?" "How dare you travel by plane, you're killing the planet." "It's barbaric, and it deserves the death penalty!" A lot of tabloid journalists (and tedious bloggers) function at this level, without ever putting forward a positive idea of their own. They devote their output to wagging an accusatory finger and pandering to petty prejudices. "Britney's night of shame!" "Sign our anti-paedo petition now!" "Hanging's too good for them!"
Sometimes taking offence is about self-righteousness. Offended people often imagine they lead nigh-perfect lives, and then abuse anybody else who doesn't measure up to their high standards. "Don't be so bloody patronising!" "I can't believe anyone disagrees with my views on Iraq." "Tell the chef I'm never eating here again!" A lot of politicians (and political commentators) function at this level, especially when in opposition. They spend their lives taking offence on ideological grounds and picking holes in others' activities, without ever stopping to reflect on their own inadequacies. "How can anybody believe that?" "But we've caught you doing something that's against parliamentary rules!" "Resign, resign!"
I'm not somebody who takes offence. If a passer-by steps on my toe in the street, I don't assume they did it deliberately. If a colleague takes the mickey out of me at work, I don't punch them in the mouth. If somebody ignores me at a party, I don't go off and sulk in the corner. If I'm speaking with incompetent call centre staff over the phone, I don't yell back at them. If somebody writes what I believe to be an ideologically unsound blogpost, I don't waste my time ranting at length in their comments box. If somebody drops a chocolate wrapper on my doorstep, I don't stab them to death. I believe in tolerance and giving people the benefit of the doubt. And my life is much happier as a result.
I'm not alone. There are a lot of us around, those who don't take offence, but alas there are still far too many who do. If only these offended folk could learn to view the world a little more objectively, and to interact with others more calmly and rationally. Where appropriate, of course. It's always right to stand up to bullying and crime and nuisance and verbal abuse where they exist, but there's no need to imagine the worst in everything and to get stressed and angry about it. Stop jumping to conclusions. Get yourself a sense of humour. Learn to disagree without seething. And smile. Life may be full of annoying insensitive people, but life's too short.
Thanks for voting yesterday in my readership survey - nearly 600 of you were kind enough to take part! Now I know how my readership has changed over the last fouryears, and also how very similar it is too. According to the 2008 survey results, the typical diamond geezer reader is a straight-but-coupled 30-something male blog-reader from the London area (just like the results suggested two years ago). If anyone out there reckons they could be Mr Average, please stake your claim in the comments box. And here are those results in a little more detail.
Male or female?
male (407)
72%
female (162)
28%
Hmmm, that's more than two male readers to every female, a proportion which has remained exactly the same over the last two years. Maybe cyberworld is still full of blokes, or maybe I'm still not posting enough kittens.
Age
<20 (21)
4%
20s (138)
24%
30s (188)
33%
40s (109)
19%
50s (83)
14%
60+ (38)
7%
Just over half of my readers are aged between 20 and 40, with rather more 30- than 20-somethings. Since 2004 the profile of my readership has aged slightly, with a definite increase in 50-somethings stopping by. But the yoof market still appear to be off elsewhere, babbling on Bebo or faffing around on Facebook (or just txting with da homies kno wotya mean innit like).
Where do you live? (pick one)
London (281)
49%
England (149)
26%
UK (26)
4%
Europe (31)
5%
World (91)
16%
I reckon that about half of the posts on this blog are about London, which may explain why about half of my readers are Londoners. That's a stonkingly high proportion, and one that's been rising steadily over the years (up from one-third in 2004). Don't worry, there's still a lot of non-London stuff on my blog too, which is probably why my nationwide and worldwide readers still stick around. But I bet that if I still lived in Ipswich, most of you wouldn't bother coming back.
A bit more about you
straight, single (185)
32%
straight, coupled (317)
56%
gay, single (37)
6%
gay, coupled (31)
5%
These are nigh exactly the same proportions as two years ago. Do these oh-so consistent results allow us to extrapolate, Kinsey-style, that just under 90% of the world's population is straight? And should I take heart from the fact that nearly 40% of you are still single?
Do you have your own blog?
yes (225)
39%
no (347)
61%
Hmmm, this vote's changed considerably over the years. Back in 2004 more than half of you were bloggers, and now that figure is less than 40%. Is this because fewer people are blogging, or is it because those people who used to blog have given up? Or is it merely because blogging is no longer a secret niche activity overlooked by the mainstream? Whatever, there are still 225 bloggers reading this blog - so my deepest apologies if I don't have time to read all of yours.
How often do you read diamond geezer?
daily (358)
62%
often (166)
29%
occasionally (46)
8%
first visit (8)
1%
I blame RSS. Nearly two-thirds of you now claim to come back every day, whereas it used to be only a half. That's comforting, because I do try very hard to post something every day for you to read. Meanwhile the proportion of readers visiting only occasionally has plummeted - it's all or nothing these days. And a special hello to the eight of you who were making your very first visit yesterday (assuming you ever come back again, that is).
When was your first visit to diamond geezer?
2002/03 (64)
11%
2004/05 (145)
25%
2006 (136)
24%
2007 (160)
28%
2008 (72)
12%
And finally, a tribute to the longevity of blog readers. About one in ten of you claim to have been reading since the early days, with more and more of you joining in as the years have passed. But I'm surprised to see that less than half of you were around the last time I ran this survey. There's a lot of monthly archives for you lot to catch up on, you know. Thanks to you all for sticking around, however long it's been. And I wonder how different things will look by the first week of 2010...
Readership survey(3) : Precisely four years ago I ran a readership survey to find out who was reading my blog. And then two years ago I repeated that survey to see what, if anything, had changed. And it had. And I suspect a lot's changed since then, so I thought I'd run the survey again. I wonder how different 2008 is to 2006 and 2004. Go on, tell me about yourself...
Plan your weekend: Advance warning that the London Transport Museum Depot is open this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, 11am - 5pm, £8). And it's only open for 12 hours a year so this is a mighty rare opportunity. The Depot in Acton holds several bits of old train, plus a collection of vintage buses and trams, as well as scores of smaller items of transport related ephemera. If you like this sort of thing, and can stand being surrounded by enthusiasts in a big shed all day, then it's well worth a visit. I went last year, and I think so. And Martin agrees, and Russell and Arthur, and Fimb, and another Martin. Go on, maybe this year. But a word of advice if you decide to go. There's always a big queue waiting outside to buy tickets, so it pays to buy yours in advance. Last year I bought my ticket at the London Transport Museum shop in Covent Garden just after 10, then caught the Piccadilly line to Acton and swanned in past the waiting queue when the doors opened at 11. Great for taking photos before the place fills up.
Britain's worstciviliandisaster of World War Two took place on 3rd March 1943. The disaster occurred on a night when no bombs fell. It took place in a tube station not yet served by tube trains. It killed 173 East Londoners, a third of them children. And all the carnage took place on this insignificant staircase. Who'd have thought?
65 years ago, with the eastern Central line still under construction, Bethnal Green station was opened to the public to be used as an air raid shelter. Every time the sirens sounded thousands of people would make their way down to the safety of the platforms below, grabbing a few precious spare feet to spread out their bedding and to wait for the all clear. That wet Wednesday evening was nothing special. The air-raid warning blared out at 8:17pm, heralding what locals believed to be Hitler's retaliation for a recent raid on Berlin. Local residents dutifully made their way through the blackout to the tube station, either directly from home or emptying out of pubs, buses and cinemas. If only they'd known that this was a false alarm then many might have stayed where they were, and lived.
The entrance to the station was down a 19-step staircase lit by a single 25-watt bulb. There were no handrails in those days, nor any painted markings to show the edge of each step. At the foot of the stairs was a square landing, then seven further steps down to the ticket hall and the top of the escalators. Within this tiny space the tragedy unfolded. At 8:27 a sudden blast on experimental anti-aircraft guns in Victoria Park caused the crowd to panic and rush forward. Down on the first landing a woman carrying a baby tripped and fell, and an elderly man then tripped over the pair of them. This was all it took for the crush to begin, as scores of other shelterers pushed, stumbled and fell into the darkness. Soon the stairwell was filled with a deep pile of helpless bodies, smothered and fighting desperately for breath. Meanwhile further arrivals attempted to enter the station from above, unaware that they were treading on a floor of asphyxiated flesh, and unable to prevent themselves from becoming part of it. Within the space of just two minutes, nearly 200 lives were lost.
The British Government hushed up the terrible incident, fearing it might damage civilian morale. The findings of the official inquiry were held back until the war was over, and it took several decades for a small plaque to be erected in the stairwell in the victims' honour. It's not much to show for such a major incident, especially since TfL have installed a rather tasteless "Emergency - Do not enter" illuminated sign beside it.
Now survivors and local residents have come together to campaign for a more fitting permanent memorial, using publicity surrounding the 65th anniversary to generate awareness of their cause. Their aim is to try to raise £600,000 so that a huge inverted staircase, etched with the names of the dead, can be suspended directly above the scene of the tragedy. This Stairway To Heaven, as they've called it, would be a startling sight alongside a busy road junction. No longer would this be a forgotten subterranean disaster, but a constant jarring reminder on the conscience of the community. Because sometimes, let's remember, stringent Health and Safety regulations are there for a reason. And sometimes you're only a few steps from heaven.
I SPY LONDON the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Part 21:RAF Museum
Location: Grahame Park Way, Colindale, London NW9 5LL [map] Open: 10am - 6pm Admission: free 5-word summary: those magnificent men's flying machines Website:http://www.rafmuseum.org/london Time to set aside: at least half a day
It's cub scout heaven. A handful of giant hangars in North London, hemmed in beside the M1, packed with instruments of aerial death. Look, an aeroplane, and look, another aeroplane, and look, several more aeroplanes. Just like it was back in the 1970s when I first visited with my cub scout pack, only now quite a bit bigger. So yesterday I went back for another look, this time woggle-free.
There's the main visitor entrance, over there near the car park beneath the swirly yellow sculpty thing. Don't worry, it's free to enter, so you can walk straight past the disinterested door staff without coughing up. Take the underwhelming back stairs up to the first floor and enter the terribly modern Milestones of Flight hangar. That's a Blériot, and that's a Gipsy Moth, and that's a Fokker, innit? There are rather more planes in here than you'd find stacked up over Heathrow at the start of the Easter holidays, and these are rather more famous too. Just don't step over the protective string for a closer look or one of the guides will bark at you. Along one wall is an extremely detailed Timeline of Flight listing aviation accomplishments every year from 1903 to 2002, which would take at least an hour to read properly. This is good stuff, this. But don't get any ideas about going upstairs to enjoy the state-of-the-art 3D cinema or Air Traffic Control exhibition - they'll probably be "out of bounds" due to lack of staff.
On through the canvas tunnel into the main body of the museum. Oh look, yet another hangar filled with planes, this time even more cavernous. And rather darker (plane spotters be warned, not a great place for taking photographs). This is Bomber Hall, home to Buccaneers and Lancasters and scores of other aircraft used for airborne massacre. It therefore seems more than a little inappropriate to spot a bloke eating his sandwiches beneath the delta wing of a Vulcan nuclear bomber, or a mum changing her son's nappy sprawled out beside the remains of a crashedHalifax.
Guess what's in the hangar nextdoor? Yes, lots more planes (and a few helicopters thrown in for good measure). There'll also be also an awful lot of cub-scout-aged boys, caught up in the excitement of aeronautical nirvana, dragging their weary parents around from Kittyhawk to Lockheed. If there's a technologically inspired pre-teen in your family, bring them along to Hendon and they're sure to have a whale of a time plane-spotting. There's even a special section of the museum - Aeronauts - packed with child-friendly interactive experiments. From the whoops of delight I heard coming from this area yesterday afternoon, obviously nobody realised they were swotting up on their Science curriculum.
And there's more, even more, in two further giant hangars outside. The Grahame-White building - Britain's first purpose-built aircraft factory - contains all the old biplanes from the Red Baron era. It's only open in the morning, so if you arrive early make sure you go there first. And across the car park is the Battle of Britain collection. Make sure you enter by the left-hand door, else you'll end up in the restaurant. And don't be tricked by the initial exhibits into thinking that this is going to be a really naff collection of stilted waxworks. Oh no, it's another collection of planes, this time all WW2-related. Spitfires and Hurricanes stand wing to tail with Messerschmitts and Heinkels, again in a rather gloomy lens-unfriendly environment. And every hour, on the hour, the lights are dimmed completely to permit the projection of the "Our Finest Hour" audiovisual presentation. I didn't wait, and the comatose attendant looked like she'd been unbothered by queues for many a month.
This is an old-school museum, plane and simple. Informative displays tell you all you need to know, without too much additional flashiness. It feels a little under-staffed, which may be why all the upper floors were roped off yesterday. But there's tons here, quite literally, in one of London's more under-appreciated visitor attractions. Mind out of the way - cub scout pack coming through! by tube: Colindaleby bus: 303
World class: Passing through Bow Road tube station last night I was intrigued to spot the arrival of a rare and special visitor in the ticket hall - the legendary TfL Opinionometer. This interactive installation takes the form of a small silver keypad on a message board, and TfL use it to collect multiple choice opinions. They stick up a question or two above the buttons, and passing passengers press the options that match what they think. Obviously I wandered over to give TfL a piece of my mind. And here's the question they wanted me to answer...
You what? Bow Road station, world-class? What planet are you on?
Bow Road station is a couple of 100-year old platforms up the less glamorous end of the District line. Metronet's incompetent refit gave the station plastic walls and a clashing non-heritage paint-job. There are freshly-installed seating areas located so far down the platform that trains don't actually stop there. The westbound train describer only gives 50 seconds warning of the arrival of the next train, and the eastbound train describer no longer works at all. Neither is visible from the entire length of the platform. The ticket office is open only sporadically, and the queue for the ticket machine occasionally snakes out of the door. Staff sometimes give a toss when some thug escapes fare-free through the luggage gate, but not always. Seventy-odd unnecessary CCTV cameras track every move around the station, and intrusive superfluous announcements blare out at too-regular intervals. The photo booth in the entrance hall has recently been ripped out, as have the chocolate and drinks machines on the platform. There's no champagne bar, as at St Pancras, nor a VIP lounge, as at Stratford International. There's no access for passengers in wheelchairs, no smiling member of staff to welcome you through the portal, nor even a booth that sells overpriced frothy coffee. Bow Road is no world-class station, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Which moron set up this survey? Why the hell are they asking random passers-by at Bow Road station to give a value judgement on a lunatic concept such as this? There's not even any attempt to give an objective explanation of what "world-class" means. It's just a worthless buzzphrase slipped into TfL's vision statement by some vacuous managerial gibbon. Every company has to have an inspirational vision statement these days, because Quality Review Monkeys say so, but they're usually so bland as to be meaningless. TfL's vision statement is little more than shallow aspirational fluff. Sure we'd all like a world-class transport network, but does anybody actually have any idea what being "world-class" entails?
I gave the Opinionometer a 4. Bow Road station has a few qualities of a world-class station (frequent trains, for example). But somewhere in TfL HQ some poor unfortunate statistician has added my 4 to their database and is probably using it to generate nonsensical conclusions. "67% of respondents had less positive opinions on Bow Road's transport infrastructure quality." "Stakeholder confidence in TfL's world class vision has not yet reached ceiling targets." "Baseline figures suggest deferred quality optimisation." "Aspirational shortfall is at critical levels." "Station staff should buck up their customer interface protocols or resign."
It saddens me that somebody somewhere in TfL thinks that this survey is a sensible use of time and effort, or even likely to give accurate results. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. And who needs every aspect of the TfL network to be world-class anyway? Maybe they could just concentrate on giving us a half-decent station instead.
What's on this weekend? Festival of Reading 2009 Fri 4th - Sat 12th December
Meet East End authors at Tower Hamlets' Idea Stores (including Dan Cruickshank).
District 150
Originally called: Bromley (until 18 May 1967)
Between: West Ham and Upton Park
Between: Upton Park and Barking
Bridge over Shoreditch High Street
"Work starts at 08:00", said the press release. So I was a little surprised to be walking up Bishopsgate at 07:58 and to see the bridge already nudging the final few inches across the road. Obviously it's TfL's prerogative to slide their bridges whenever they like, and this was never meant to be a spectator sport, but I was disappointed all the same. Maybe I should have stayed at home and watched the whole thing on webcam instead - except that didn't appear to be working either. Ah well. I may have been too late for the horizontal but there was a lot of vertical still to go.
After my obscure trip to Rutland, I thought I'd go somewhere that even fewer of you have visited. Heathrow Terminal 5. Yes, I know that some of you have been there in trials to test the luggage system (you could have tried harder, couldn't you?). And one of you was even on the first tube train into the terminal yesterday morning and had it all blogged before 9am (well beyond the call of duty, eh?). But I had the day off work, and the weather was sunny, and my camera battery was recharged, so off I went. I'm always inquisitive to see a brand new carbon-guzzling megastructure. Plus there was a brand new tube station to see, and there hasn't been one of those before since the turn of the century. Here are 25 photographs to whet your appetite. Go on, I know you want to know see what the place looks like.
Ooh, Departures. Very nice. From up here on the top deck you get a real sense of the size and scale of this monumental building. It's 400m from one end to the other, and you can see and walk all the way down from A to H. Look at that one-piece undulating roof, and see the hassled airport staff trying to update would-be travellers with the latest flight cancellations. Everything's been designed to work like clockwork. Automated check-in terminals are clustered close to luggage-dump desks, with a long row of non-glitzy shops and security gates behind. There are very few seats to sit on, but that's OK because the whole check-in procedure "should only take ten minutes". On a good day, that is. Yesterday there were unexpected queues, considerably longer than planned, and the "fast bag drop" desks proved embarrassingly badly named. Somewhere beneath our feet the miraculous new baggage-handling sysytem had gone very wrong indeed. Fortunate then that the world's media were on hand, lenses poised, to capture the full human drama of this very British triumph. Er, fiasco.
There's one more level to explore, although it's nowhere near so impressive. Arrivals is on the ground floor, three escalators down. Personally I preferred the intermediate glass staircases, spaced out along the terminal building, although it's a 12 flight descent so better down than up. The Arrivals area is a bit dull, to be honest, bar the upward view of steel rods and hanging circles. Just as well that nobody's going to be hanging around here for long, waiting for three hours for relatives to collect their delayed baggage. From here it's a short walk to what T5 optimistically describes as the "Interchange Plaza". Or, in other words, the bus station. It's a bit gloomy, but it's nowhere near as bad as the miserable concrete dump round the back of Terminal 4.
T5 × 25
I was sold my ticket by a uniformed bloke in a sailor's hat. "One adult?" he beamed, and handed me a pink ticket. Half a minute later I was handing over the same pink ticket to another smiling operative on the jetty, this time in a thick black jumper with gold epaulettes. "Sorry, we're only doing the round trip today, the pontoon at Normanton isn't operational yet." Damn, that was my main reason for paying seven quid 30 seconds ago. But never mind. I stepped aboard, through the deserted cabin and up to the ever-so empty upper deck. Just me, then? So much for the great UK bank holiday tourist rush. Thankfully my embarrassment was spared by a late party of pensioners. The husbands were determined to join me upstairs to take photographs, but their wives forced them to stay downstairs in the warm for the duration. Very wise, as it turned out.
Next stop Normanton Church. Or alas, in this case, non-stop. This former private chapel proved a real headache for the engineers who built Rutland Water in the 1970s. The building was just too far down a grassy slope to be safe from the rising waters and would have been part submerged, rendering it unserviceable. A cunning plan was therefore proposed whereby the lower half of the church would be filled in using concrete and limestone, raising the floor to just below window level. A protective pier of stones was then constructed around the perimeter, leaving the deconsecrated church connected to the mainland via a short causeway. And now Normanton Church houses an unlikely museum which tells how 3% of Rutland came to be flooded, and how this unique building survived. Alas I never quite made it inside, but the views from the passing boat were really rather striking.
Rutland's most famous feature is a big lake. A really big horseshoe shaped lake (which is kind of appropriate in a county obsessed by horseshoes). Rutland Water is the largest reservoir in the UK, conceived in the 1960s as a solution to Eastern England's water supply problems and covering more than 3000 acres of rolling countryside. Bad luck to the residents and farmers of Nether Hambleton, whose homes and livelihoods disappeared beneath the slowly-filling waters. Sacrificed to prevent hosepipe bans in Milton Keynes, what a way to go. But the nearby village of Upper Hambleton was more fortunate and survives intact on a thin-necked ridge up the centre of the lake. It's a great leveller, water.
But pity any poor deluded soul that attempts to make their way to the the interesting spots on the water's edge by public transport. Especially on a bank holiday. On Easter Monday all of Rutland's buses were running a Sunday service, which alas translated as "no service whatsoever". Any attempt at reaching the leisure hub at Whitwell therefore relied on a five mile windswept stroll from Oakham (and, later, a five mile windswept stroll back). It's amazing what a dedicated blogger will do just to get a photograph of a drowned church. Here's my report on the most interesting section of the walk, followed (tomorrow) by a report on the sightseeing boat trip at journey's end.
Up until yesterday, there was only one English county south of the Lake District that I'd never visited. Rutland. Perhaps not surprising, given how small it is. Rutland's tiny, about the same size as the Isle of Wight. It has by far the lowest population of any English county or unitary district - if you gathered all the residents together they'd not even half fill Wembley Stadium. It nestles inconspicuously amid rolling green countryside between Leicester and Peterborough. And there are only two towns. Ah yes, Rutland is quite unique.
There's only one station in Rutland and that's in the county town of Oakham, so that's where I went first. I was a little unnerved to spot that I was the only passenger getting off of the train, and no doubt the waiting taxis were mighty peeved when I walked straight past them into the town centre. Oakham was shut, probably because it was Bank Holiday Monday morning. The streets were pretty much deserted, apart from pensioners posting letters in the Market Square and well-coiffured ladies in jogging pants nipping out of badly-parked cars to buy newspapers. Shame, because the town centre retains that special non-Starbucks charm, and it might have been nice to browse for East Midland knick knacks, or maybe that special garish menswear that only rural gentlefolk buy. At least all the butchers were shut, so I wasn't tempted to buy myself a giant juicy cholesterol-boosting pork pie - one of the local specialities.
And yes, even in a town with fewer than 10000 inhabitants there's still plenty to see. Oakham Castle for a start, although only the Great Hall survives. It's the oldest surviving aisled stone hall in the country (Norman, you know) and has been used as a law court for over 800 years. And it has one really unusual defining characteristic. The interior walls are absolutely covered by giant horseshoes. It's a tradition round here that every visiting peer or member of the royal family donates a decorative horseshoe on their first visit to the town. The older ones are the largest, while the newer ones alas look distinctly like garish toilet seats. Yes, especially your blue horseshoe from the swinging 60s, your Majesty.
I SPY LONDON
You wouldn't expect to find a redeveloped palace in the middle of London's southeast commuter belt. But here it is, up a tree-lined sidestreet across a very old stone bridge. The oldest still-operational bridge in London, apparently, and with a rather picturesque willowed moat beneath. There's not much other evidence of Eltham's medieval past, not yet, just one long wing of a more modern-looking stately home. Admittance is via the servants' entrance, and then into a long pea green back corridor which looks like it belongs in a pre-NHS hospital. Round the next corner there's a bloke dishing out protective blue plastic slippers to slip over your footwear. It's not a glamorous look, and completely at odds with the stylish decor coming up next, but it'll help to protect the flooring ahead from unintentional damage. Ok, first room...
And then, through a Chinese screened doorway, suddenly it's the Middle Ages again. Ginny and Stephen built their family home in the grounds of a ruined royal palace, and deftly incorporated the Great Hall as their main entertaining space. At 100ft long and 55ft high, there was plenty of room to serve cocktails. The hall is a magnificent 15th century relic, designed by Edward IV's chief mason and still with its oak hammerbeam roof intact. Here the English Tudor court came to celebrate Christmas, and here the young Henry VIII spent much of his childhood. Try not to think about the underfloor central heating the Courtaulds installed - they had different planning regulations in those days.
Extreme
Who would have thought that London's Mayoral election might hinge around the humble Routemaster bus? This much-loved workhorse has come to symbolise the supposed chasm that exists between moderniser Ken and fresh-thinking Boris. Mayor Ken killed off the redoubtable Routemaster a few years ago, and now Boris wants to bring them back. Doesn't he? And all at the expense of the nasty evil fare-dodging cycle-crushing bendy bus. Who could have a good word to say about London's fleet of 337 bendy buses... except perhaps passengers with wheelchairs, or mums with prams, or travellers with suitcases, or freeloaders who fancy a trip across town for nothing. It'll be fab to rid of these articulated roadhogs. Won't it? Well, actually, maybe not.
In London's wet city,
Blimey, that was quick. Just eight months ago an undamaged collection of factories and warehouses stood on the Olympic stadium site. And now they don't. The entire area has been cleared, erased, flattened and lowered to create an arena-sized bowl, and the transformation is amazing. I should know, I've been back to watch the changes month by month, and my last visit made me gasp. OK, I'm easily impressed, but it's already possible to visualise precisely where the 2012 centrepiece will take shape. And still the scuttly diggers swarm up and down what used to be Marshgate Lane, repeatedly rearranging the earth until Lea Valley reality is appropriately realigned. It won't be long now.
One of the best jobs in London is surely that of the Blue Badge Guide. These 500-or-so highly trained professionals spend their days taking
And then in the afternoon a completely different walk, this time around the back streets of the East End. The title of the tour was 'Great British Villains', on which Ian our guide promised to take us to the notorious haunts of the Kray brothers. This time just over 50 people turned up - still more than enough to be a handful. We started outside the Blind Beggar pub on the Whitechapel Road - where else? But Ian knew his Krays (as I suspect he knows pretty much everything else) and whisked us off to far less familiar spots. Up a grim sideroad beneath a stark brick railway viaduct he pointed out the pub where the Krays had been drinking immediately before (and immediately after) Ronnie shot George Cornell in the Beggar. This rather bleak-looking ex-boozer had been called The Lion, but was more widely known locally as "Widows" or "Madge's" after the 60s landlady who ran it. It's since been converted to rather seedy-looking flats, of course. And it's not somewhere I'd have noticed otherwise, nor wanted to linger given the staring eyes of the mechanics in the car-fiddling yard nextdoor.
And finally to the house at 178 Vallance Road where Ronnie and Reggie grew up, except that alas it no longer exists. A row of six smart 80s-built homes has replaced the previous terrace, so we can only imagine the cosy two-up two-down where the twins cosseted their mother and stashed their weapons. Ooh look, there's a special plaque outside number 178 unveiled by no less a personage than the Prince of Wales! It's nothing Kray-related though, just a housing cooperative coincidence. And then, after an appreciative flourish, Ian took his leave and wandered off.
A very happy St Patrick's Day to all my readers.
The far northern suburbs between Barnet and Enfield are an unlikely spot for a museum. Just down the road from Cockfosters station, off the Cat Hill roundabout, amidst undulating avenues of spacious semis. No really, that university campus behind the duckpond hides an unlikely secret repository. Honest, it's not just students allowed through the entrance, this place is wide open to the infrequent public. Go on, step inside and try to follow the signs up the service road. See that curved glass roof on the front of what looks like a humanities block. That's the entrance into a tiny treasure trove of 20th century domestic design. a proper little community resource. Yes, who'd have thought?
Various visitors have left their thoughts hanging up on fluorescent post-its:
"In the 1950s it was my job in the winter to light the fire in the dining room so I could do my homework. The room took ages to warm up! The bath was so cold in winter it gave you goose bumps to touch it." [Reg]If you've planned ahead the staff will allow you inside the Study Room to delve deeper into the museum's collection. Or you could search it from home via the special online search engine. I mean, who could resist exploring The Crown Wallpaper collection, consisting of 5000 wallpaper samples and pattern books from the 50s and 60s? Beats a room full of tedious Celtic rock fragments any day.Upstairs there's one more gallery, fitted out to house special temporary exhibitions. And between now and November that exhibition is a bit of a winner. The Shell Guides: Surrealism, Modernism, Tourism is an eight-cabinet celebration of an extraordinary series of very ordinary travel books. The Shell Guides were founded in 1935 by Sir John Betjeman, then writing for the Architectural Review. He foresaw the need for newly-mobile middle class England to get behind the wheel of their newly purchased motor cars and to start exploring the country's cultural hinterland. The series kicked off with his adopted homeland, Cornwall, then spent the next 50 years slowly rambling around the UK from county to county. Each guide presented an off-beat collection of discourse and photography, concentrating on buildings, myth and landscape rather than historical fact. Within this framework a variety of guest editors were given free rein to interpret the guidebook brief as they saw fit, producing an eclectic set of volumes linked only by the sponsor's name.
"The Guides managed to appear conventional and mainstream while in fact preserving a subversive and challenging view of Britain. Only the words 'guidebook' and 'Shell' enabled the editors to hide this fact from the public"For an exhibition which is essentially a room full of printed pages and book covers, it's really very interesting. There are tantalising glimpses of gazetteers and footnotes, as well as black and white illustrations and associated ephemera. Take a seat on the comfy sofa at the far end of the gallery and you can enjoy a series of related videos, including a 60s girl about town filling up her tank with pre-trip petrol, and Sir John's dainty observations on the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Even the jaunty signature music manages to perfectly evoke the timeless optimism of these unique travelling companions. And by the time you reach the cabinet where all 36 guides are proudly displayed, you'll want to smash the glass and take the lot home. Keep watching eBay, they're bound to appear eventually.I love Creme Eggs. I love the syrupy stickiness as I peel off the foil. Can I unfurl the chocolatey contents without ripping the wrapper, or will I be thwarted as the coating tears into tiny fragile fragments? If the paper's still in one piece then I try to fold it back around the base of the egg to give me something to hold onto, then bite softly into the brown fudgy top. Just the top half off the egg to start with, never everything all in one go. I relish the sickly taste of the carbohydrates on my tongue, then swoosh the liquefying contents around the inside of my mouth before gulping them down my welcoming throat. I always intend to eat my egg slowly but I have minimal restraint, and the second half usually follows pretty soon afterwards. Gobble, swallow, gone.
Bus 43: London Bridge - Friern Barnet
Life kicks off with a long wait: The 43 must have the scariest bus queue in London. Fifty metres of pavement adjacent to bus stop C have been marked out for a narrow doublebacked queue, with painted lanes arrowed up and down and back up again, as if this were some over-popular Disneyland attraction. Every weekday morning hundreds of Kentish commuters pour out of London Bridge station and wait here patiently, politely, for their cross-river transport to the City. But at the weekend getting aboard was rather easier. There were only four of us waiting, and we ignored the arrows on the ground altogether.
Life is an uphill struggle: Virtually the whole of the 43's journey from the Thames to the suburbs was slowly, relentlessly, uphill. Onward we crawled, up the A1, through ringroad-scarred Archway, beneath Suicide Bridge, and ascending the organic slopes of Highgate. No burger'n'kebab joints were evident here - the residents appeared to dine out in cantinas and brunch daily on Eggs Benedict. The bus then queued behind a traffic jam of Ocado vans before turning right, past Peter Sellers' cottage and woodland daffodils, to the giddy heights of Muswell Hill. Here in this highbrow middle-class enclave, looking down across an ocean of lesser rooftops, our journey peaked. Very tasteful, very much like a Home Counties market town. Along the Broadway I spotted several proper independent shops, and the odd boutique, and even a pub discreetly tucked inside a huge Victorian church. Blue-rinsed ladies lined up to board the bus with their trolley of M&S comestibles to ride the few stops home.
Birthday musings
Silver discs (March 1983)
1) (↑1) Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart: Topping the charts in the week I turned adult was this classic histrionic epic from a raspy-throated Welsh singer. Bonnie's career had been up and down almost as much as her voice, but this Meatloaf-esque song sealed her fame. The video appeared to show her cavorting round a windswept boys' boarding school, but I could never quite be sure because I only ever saw the video once. Pre-YouTube, that is. Total Eclipse is still performed wherever a karaoke machine is installed, and was the first ever song by a Welsh artist to top the American singles chart.
Stairway to heaven
The entrance to the station was down a 19-step staircase lit by a single 25-watt bulb. There were no handrails in those days, nor any painted markings to show the edge of each step. At the foot of the stairs was a square landing, then seven further steps down to the ticket hall and the top of the escalators. Within this tiny space the tragedy unfolded. At 8:27 a sudden blast on experimental anti-aircraft guns in Victoria Park caused the crowd to panic and rush forward. Down on the first landing a woman carrying a baby tripped and fell, and an elderly man then tripped over the pair of them. This was all it took for the crush to begin, as scores of other shelterers pushed, stumbled and fell into the darkness. Soon the stairwell was filled with a deep pile of helpless bodies, smothered and fighting desperately for breath. Meanwhile further arrivals attempted to enter the station from above, unaware that they were treading on a floor of asphyxiated flesh, and unable to prevent themselves from becoming part of it. Within the space of just two minutes, nearly 200 lives were lost.
The British Government hushed up the terrible incident, fearing it might damage civilian morale. The findings of the official inquiry were held back until the war was over, and it took several decades for a small plaque to be erected in the stairwell in the victims' honour. It's not much to show for such a major incident, especially since TfL have installed a rather tasteless "Emergency - Do not enter" illuminated sign beside it.
There's the main visitor entrance, over there near the car park beneath the swirly yellow sculpty thing. Don't worry, it's free to enter, so you can walk straight past the disinterested door staff without coughing up. Take the underwhelming back stairs up to the first floor and enter the terribly modern Milestones of Flight hangar. That's a Blériot, and that's a Gipsy Moth, and that's a Fokker, innit? There are rather more planes in here than you'd find stacked up over Heathrow at the start of the Easter holidays, and these are rather more famous too. Just don't step over the protective string for a closer look or one of the guides will bark at you. Along one wall is an extremely detailed Timeline of Flight listing aviation accomplishments every year from 1903 to 2002, which would take at least an hour to read properly. This is good stuff, this. But don't get any ideas about going upstairs to enjoy the state-of-the-art 3D cinema or Air Traffic Control exhibition - they'll probably be "out of bounds" due to lack of staff.
Guess what's in the hangar nextdoor? Yes, lots more planes (and a few helicopters thrown in for good measure). There'll also be also an awful lot of cub-scout-aged boys, caught up in the excitement of aeronautical nirvana, dragging their weary parents around from Kittyhawk to Lockheed. If there's a technologically inspired pre-teen in your family, bring them along to Hendon and they're sure to have a whale of a time plane-spotting. There's even a special section of the museum - Aeronauts - packed with child-friendly interactive experiments. From the whoops of delight I heard coming from this area yesterday afternoon, obviously nobody realised they were swotting up on their Science curriculum.
World class: Passing through Bow Road tube station last night I was intrigued to spot the arrival of a rare and special visitor in the ticket hall - the legendary TfL Opinionometer. This interactive installation takes the form of a small silver keypad on a message board, and TfL use it to collect multiple choice opinions. They stick up a question or two above the buttons, and passing passengers press the options that match what they think. Obviously I wandered over to give TfL a piece of my mind. And here's the question they wanted me to answer...
You what? Bow Road station, world-class? What planet are you on?
