diamond geezer

 Saturday, May 31, 2008

  WALK LONDON
  MoDA Suburban Guided Walk (Walk 1)
  Arnos Grove to Southgate (2 miles)

As the Piccadilly line crept northwards in the early 1930s, so the tendrils of semi-detached suburbia pushed out into the fields between Barnet and Enfield. A delightful location, therefore, for an architectural stroll. The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture has published three pocket-sized mini-booklets detailing guided walks in the area, each starting and finishing at a classic tube station. So I bought the set from the shop at their museum in Cockfosters (£1.99 each, or £5 for three) and set off to rediscover suburban bliss.

Some would argue that there's no finer tube station than Arnos Grove . Charles Holden's drum-like ticket hall rises with pleasing lofty symmetry, very much a child of the Art Deco 30s, and perfectly in tune with the surrounding suburbs. These are no identikit homes, these are proper little domestic palaces in a variety of architectural styles. Booklet in hand, I headed off along the designated trail. Within a couple of minutes I'd admired a Grade II listed swimming pool, a geometric-framed library and a neo-Tudor pub, all of which I might easily otherwise have ignored. Down into Arnos Park - a reminder that not all these former fields ended up beneath houses and gardens - and up the other side into residential Arcadia.

Morton Way, and the avenues leading off from it, are quintessential suburbia. Well-spaced gabled semis, set back from grassy verges behind manicured privet hedges. 75-year-old trees with lopped-back branches, shadowing conservatory extensions and set-apart garages. Herringbone brickwork and diamond-lattice windows, brightened by the occasional intricate leaded light. Steep tiled roofs topped with obsolete chimneypots, shielding over-prominent burglar alarms. And so much larger than any London developer would build today. You could get at least four flats out of the floorspace taken up by one semi-detached home, and probably a block of 20 if you threw in the back garden too.

In Whitehouse Way are a few contrasting clusters of flat-roofed modernist semis, noted by Pevsner, each pair with gently curving frontage. My printed guide helped me to identify the shiny pigmented blocks surrounding certain doorways as Vitrolite (alas no longer made, should you want some for your own residence). Onward up Summit Way to the heights of Southgate. It was striking how few of these houses still have a green front garden. Where once were lawns and flowerbeds, the only variety these days is whether the crazy paving is rectangular or irregular, and which car has been parked on top of it. Homeowners' horticultural skills, out front at least, are restricted to a few tiny strips of earth dotted with the occasional shrub or rosebush.

On a midweek morning, these residential streets were a hive of middle class activity. The postman was delivering a package to number 48, watched from the end of the garden by a padding tabby. Further up the road a vanful of builders were attempting to look busy, while nextdoor's windows were receiving vigorous attention from a window cleaner perched up a long ladder. Meanwhile the lady of one house was scrubbing down her front porch with purple cleaning fluid, a flash of bright red stair carpet visible in the hallway behind her. I received a polite "good morning" from a permed pensioner walking down the hill trailing a tartan basket on wheels. If only I'd seen a milkfloat humming by, the suburban illusion would have been complete.

It's not all semis. There was a luxurious stack of cottage-y flats at Bush Court, round the back of Chase Side, perfect for the newly-relocated 30s commuter. And then there was Southgate station, of a similar age, and even more outlandish . It looked like a flying saucer had landed, or maybe some engineer had built a translucent electricity substation in the wrong place. Surrounding half of the squat circular building was the austere brick crescent of Station Parade. A large clock ticked silently at the centre of a sheer brick curve, beneath which were tiny unbranded shops named only by retail category - "JEWELLER" "ARTS AND CRAFTS" "TAKE AWAY FOOD" "FRIED CHICKEN SHOP". The whole area may now be three quarters of a century old, but it has a coherent modernist appeal that vanquishes anything truly modern.

Walk 2: Southgate to Oakwood. More of the same, but with allotments.
Walk 3: Oakwood to Cockfosters. More of the same, but with contrasting council houses. This walk also passes the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, on the campus at Middlesex University, which you still haven't visited yet, have you? Their Shell Guides exhibition runs until November, so don't delay too long.

• How to buy the three MoDA walks
• Follow the three walks on a Google map
• Guided tour of the four northernmost Piccadilly line stations (June 22, £12)

posted 08:00 :

 Friday, May 30, 2008

  WALK LONDON
  Linked (the M11 Link Road)
  Wanstead to Leyton (3 miles)

Now this is a brilliant idea. You head to East London. You collect a free black box receiver from a local museum or library. You plug in some headphones (provided). And then you go for a walk along a prescribed three mile route. Listen carefully, because 20 audio transmitters have been attached to various lampposts and buildings along the way. As you approach, these broadcast a series of memories and reminiscences from the people who used to live here. All the broadcasts are looped, so you can listen to as much or as little as you like. And by the time you get to the end of the walk you should have a much better understanding of what life here used to be like. It's called Linked, and it's a brilliant idea. What's less brilliant is that the idea was needed in the first place.

It was obvious, from the 1960s onwards, that a relief road was needed between the foot of the M11 and the Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road. Traffic often queued up through Wanstead, Leytonstone and Leyton, and the problem grew worse with every passing decade. So a link road was planned - a dual carriageway carving through the heart of east London - in an attempt to ease the pressure. But this six-lane highway required the demolition of 400 homes, the evacuation of hundreds of families and the sacrifice of a random linear neighbourhood. As local residents moved out the protesters moved in, and an intense long-term battle with the developers ensued. Many fiendish means of resistance were used to delay the inevitable, but the authorities (of course) eventually won. The new link road opened as the A12 in 1999, and traffic delays have been much reduced ever since. But of the communities that used to thrive here, only memories remain.

I think I looked a bit of a wally standing in the middle of a Wanstead footbridge wearing my municipal-issue headphones. I was trying desperately hard to listen to the first set of recorded voices, but struggling to hear anything coherent above the roar of the traffic below. Something about Anderson shelters, I thought, but there was no volume control on my little black box so it was impossible to tell. Ditto at the next transmitter (something unintelligible about a golf club, I think). Suddenly an audio artwork located along the edge of a busy main road didn't seem a terribly sensible idea after all.

But on the far side of George Green, beneath a cylindrical transmitter, I finally latched on to the full impact of the piece. Protesters (including Jean the lollipop lady) recounted their fight for the 250-year-old sweet chestnut that used to stand here. Some chained themselves to the tree, some lived in a treehouse in the branches, while Jean was sacked from her job merely for encouraging others to surround it. Her audio ramblings brought a sense of pathos to the tree's ultimate destruction. The new link road soon carved through central Wanstead in a cut and cover tunnel, and the spot where the chestnut once stood is now part of an illusory platform of grass whose depth is clearly insufficient to support roots.

On to Leytonstone, learning along the way of demolished houses and long gone drill halls. I thought there'd be more transmitters along this stretch - maybe I missed some - but the installation didn't really spring to life until closer to the tube station. I wonder what people thought I was doing, hanging around beneath unwelcoming footbridges and lurking on drizzly street corners. I couldn't move too far or the transmissions would fade away, so my loitering must have looked very suspicious. Few local residents realise that this artwork even exists - indeed the library I visited had only hired out two other receivers since Easter.

The most evocative radio messages came at the Leyton end of the walk. The strongest resistance to the new dual carriageway erupted in Claremont Road, an ordinary terrace of ordinary houses running parallel to the Central line. Protesters moved in before compulsory purchase orders could be served, and filled the street with abandoned vehicles and immovable 'sculptures'. A community of resistance fighters was established, holding out longer than any other until eventually removed kicking and screaming from a final stronghold on the rooftops. The Linked transmitter chooses to tell the story of an earlier resident, remembering happier days before the agonies of moving out. The tale is all the sadder because Claremont Road (see photo) has now been reduced to a mere stump, with no houses of its own, ending abruptly at a brick barrier. There's no longer a community behind the wall, just the perpetual hum of traffic rumbling by. Standing listening to the past in a short cul-de-sac of parking bays really brought home the car's crushing victory.

Few people may be listening, but these transmitters continue to pump out memories of the past all day every day. The gardens described along Grove Green Road still exist electromagnetically, even though the tulips, barbecues and wallflowers have long been wrenched away. The violent acts of the evicting bailiffs, revelling in unnecessary destruction, are still witnessed once every five minutes above Colville Road. And drivers speeding happily along the A12 may not hear it on their radios, but this gaping tarmac chasm is permanently flooded by echoes of what was here before. Indeed, as one protagonist still repeatedly declares, "The house exists in my brain, the community exists in my heart." Do one day get hold of a receiver and bear witness yourself.

• Visit the official Linked website here
• Follow the Linked walk on a Google map
• Background to the protests (especially Claremont Road)
...and now to stick my radio receiver and headphones back into the envelope provided so that someone else can have a listen...

posted 07:00 :

 Thursday, May 29, 2008

  WALK LONDON
  The Beverley Brook Walk
  New Malden to Putney (6½ miles)

According to the Walk London website, tomorrow is National Walking Day. I'm not sure I believe a them, because no other website backs up their claim. But they're celebrating this weekend by running 37 guided walks across London, each following a different part of one of the capital's strategic walks. And I'm celebrating by going for three completely different walks, for three consecutive days, and then writing about them. They're three very contrasting walks, each in some way official, and in completely different parts of London. Starting today with a stroll along a river you may never have heard of.

The Beverley Brook rises on the southwest edge of London, sort of Worcester Park-ish, and flows to the River Thames at Putney. It's not much of a river, often little more than a concrete culvert, but it drains 64 square kilometres of the capital. And some it is really very pretty. Not so the first stretch of the official Beverley Brook Walk. Up the High Street from New Malden station, across a golf course to the A3, then threading a few suburban avenues. Come on, where's this river?

Ah, that's better. From the grounds of the local rugby club, the Beverley Brook runs up the western edge of Wimbledon Common. You're probably thinking open heathland and Wombles, but this corner of the famous common is all woodland. And extremely quiet. The river wiggles northward at the bottom of a deep earth channel, occasionally ruffled by a mandarin duck or a paddling dog. Onward beneath thick trees for almost a mile, with cyclists banned and horse-riders diverted elsewhere. If only the brook didn't have low concrete edges, this really would be quite delightful.

The A3 intrudes again, forcing a detour over a high footbridge (for the walk, obviously, not the river). And then, through the Robin Hood Gate, straight into the giant green lung of Richmond Park. Mind the horse manure, and the bikes, and the kids scrabbling for an ice cream. The river's a little wider here, heading up the eastern side of the park parallel to the road for about a mile. And, if you walk unobtrusively enough, you might be lucky enough to find yourself right up close to one of the park's herds of deer. At this time of year it pays to be cautious of overprotective mothers, but I managed to get surprisingly close to a young buck skipping down the bank to drink fron the stream. Highlight of the walk, that.

Exit via the Roehampton Gate, and up a narrow alley to the edge of some more playing fields. That's the last you'll see of the river for a while. Time to safari through suburbia while the brook flows onwards mostly out of sight. There's a brief glimpse at Priest's Bridge (more a street name than a feature), then a double level crossing to negotiate on the way to Barnes Common. Finally, after an eerie trek through an abandoned cemetery, a footbridge brings you back to the water's edge. This is all very pleasant. But just two more bends and the journey is at an end. Suddenly, really very unexpectedly, the Beverley Brook opens out into a small basin and dribbles into the Thames. The contrast in size and breadth is instant and extreme. That's Craven Cottage almost immediately opposite, and the many boathouses of Putney stretching out to your right. Take your pick how you depart - the official walk is at an end.

• Follow the Beverley Brook walk on a Google map
• Print out a copy of the official walk here
• Some more photos, from Jon, and lots more from Francois

posted 07:00 :

 Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Disappearing London: Oriental City

Chinatown in Soho is all very well, but there's a far more genuine East Asian dining experience a few miles up the A5 in deepest Colindale. It's called Oriental City, and it's an unexpected eastern treasure. Alas, it's also doomed. This Sunday evening, at 7pm precisely, the dim sum will stop, the diners will be ejected and the doors will be permanently locked. And all because what this part of London really needs, apparently, is eight blocks of flats, a health and fitness studio and a B&Q. It's a damned shame.

From the outside, on the Edgware Road, Oriental City looks like a rather shabby grey warehouse. The garden frontage is threadbare and overgrown, guarded over by a handful of gruff marble dragons. A row of blue canopies give the place a slightly, but not especially, eastern flavour. Various letters have fallen off the wall and not been replaced (ORIENAL) (RIENTAL). And yes, that's Sonic the Hedgehog, attempting to entice passing 90s youth into the "Sega Park" within. Please, don't let any of it put you off venturing inside.

Most shopping malls have a Food Court, but here it's Oriental City's finest feature. A choice of freshly-cooked cuisine, be it Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Indian or Chinese. Colourful pictorial menus, brought to life on sizzling grills or spinning spits. A large central space to sit down with friends or family beneath dangling orange balloons, waiting for your order number to appear on the electronic displays. And happy feasting punters, chopsticks poised, perched on plastic chairs at wood-effect tables. There were still a few spare seats yesterday afternoon, but I bet this place will be packed out by the weekend.

Hidden behind the Food Court there's a rather austere Japanese supermarket, much larger than you might expect, but whose shelves are now running down in readiness for closure. Elsewhere, in several small retail units around the site, simultaneous Closing Down sales are underway. There's 80% off giant porcelain vases, 3 for 1 on Japanese lifestyle goods, and a pile of cut price handbags to be fought over. If you've ever wanted cheap plastic flip flops, half price pastel crockery or a special silky kimono, now is the time. And up the semi-functional escalators, level with the top of the car park, they're serving the final meals in the China City restaurant. It's a crying shame.

Some of the retailers have hand-written or printed signs to inform loyal customers that they're relocating elsewhere. The supermarket's off to Queensway, for example, while the Hamazaki Bakery is moving to Whetstone. For other businesses, however, the notices have a more melancholy undertone. "Our last day will be 1st June 2008 and we will be taking orders until 6:30pm. We have not found our own premises yet but please leave your email or mobile number so we can update you." There may be plans to incorporate an oriental marketplace in the new development, but that's several years from completion and many of these family-run businesses will never survive an enforced hiatus. I can't believe that Oriental City's "revitalised" replacement will ever have the character and genuine charm of the original.

Not being a fan of dim sum, duck and dumplings (as some of you can attest) I didn't stop for a final meal in the condemned Food Court. But I did pause at the Wonderful Patisserie (only the Chinese could get away with a name like that) on my way out. Their sugary fruit-topped cakes looked mighty tempting, but alas unwise, so I made do with a box of Fortune Cookies. No, hang on, the girl behind the counter insisted that they were now 2 boxes for 75% of the price of 1, and who was I to argue? I've got one of the cookies here now, so let's see if its contents offer any insight into the complex's future... "The heart is wiser than the intellect." The heart is certainly wiser than Brent Borough Council's planning committee. Cardiac arrest in four days, and counting.

• Jag is a regular at Oriental City and has taken a great set of photos to show you what you're missing
• Jag has also filmed a poignant one minute wander round the Food Court
• Various reports about the closure
• Brent Planning Committee report (November 2006)
• Artist's impressions of the new development

posted 01:00 :

 Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Borough museums: There are 33 London boroughs. Some of these have their own museum devoted to telling the story of the borough's local history. And some of these museums are quite good. Alas, I can't say the same for the latest addition to the list - the Islington Museum. It opened earlier this month in a basement beneath Finsbury Library, up a very ordinary street you'd never visit by accident. No expense has been spared on a shiny new lift and access ramp down from the pavement, but alas not enough appears to have been spent on making the interior interesting. The museum looks a bit like a conference centre foyer filled with display boards... text-rich and artefact-lite. The permanent display is divided up into nine categories (fashion, childhood, sport, etc), although the selected information rarely makes the borough sound terribly special. A lot of the stuff on show (wartime memories, handbells, old medicines) could have come from anywhere - it's not especially Islington. Even the purchase of local historical souvenirs is currently impossible ["we are not yet able to process your purchases here"]. But there was one display case which made my visit worthwhile. Playwright Joe Orton spent his formative years defacing book covers in Islington Library, and earned 6 months in jail for his trouble. Four of these vandalised masterpieces are now in pride of place in the Lesbian, Gay and Transgendered section of the museum. Hypocritical of the council, maybe, but belatedly appropriate, and the only (current) reason that I'd recommend a visit. Still, at least Islington actually has a museum, which is a lot more than can be said for some...

London's borough-funded borough-themed museums
Barking and Dagenham: Valence House Museum [Becontree RM8 3HT] (closed for refurbishment until May 2010)
Barnet: Church Farmhouse Museum [Hendon NW4 4JR] (closed Fri)
Bexley: Hall Place [Bexley DA5 1PQ] (closed for restoration until late summer 2008)
Brent: Brent Museum [Willesden NW10 2SF] (opened last year) <thumbs up>
Bromley: Bromley Museum [Orpington BR6 0HH] (closed Sun)
Camden City
Croydon: Museum of Croydon [Croydon CR9 1ET] (closed Sun)
Ealing/Hounslow: Gunnersbury Park Museum [Acton W3 8LQ] <thumbs up>
Enfield: Forty Hall [Acton EN2 9HA] (closed Mon, Tue) (new museum opens 2009) <thumbs up>
Greenwich: Greenwich Heritage Centre [Woolwich SE18 4DX] (closed Sun, Mon)
Hackney: Hackney Museum [Hackney E8 1GQ] (closed Sun, Mon) <thumbs up>
Hammersmith & Fulham:
Haringey: Bruce Castle Museum [Tottenham N17 8NU] (closed Mon, Tue) <thumbs up>
Harrow: Harrow Museum [Headstone HA2 6PX] (closed Tue)
Havering (museum proposed within the Old Brewery, Romford)
Hillingdon
Islington: Islington Museum [Finsbury EC1V 4NB] (closed Sun, Wed)
Kensington & Chelsea
Kingston: Kingston Museum [Kingston KT1 2PS ] (closed Sun, Wed)
Lambeth Lewisham Merton Newham
Redbridge: Redbridge Museum [Ilford IG1 1EA] (closed Sun, Mon) <thumbs up>
Richmond
Southwark: Cuming Museum [Walworth SE17 1RY] (closed Sun, Mon)
Sutton: Honeywood [Carshalton SM5 3NX] (closed Mon, Tue)
Tower Hamlets
Waltham Forest: Vestry House Museum [Walthamstow E17 9NH] (closed Mon, Tue, Wed)
Wandsworth (closed last year, may reopen privately)
Westminster

posted 07:00 :

 Monday, May 26, 2008

Bus 135: Crossharbour (Asda) - Old Street
Location: London east
Length of journey: 7 miles, 50 minutes

A new bus to link Canary Wharf to the City. It's amazing there hasn't been one before. So they launched it on a Saturday on a bank holiday weekend, presumably to give the drivers three days to get the hang of the route before the passengers turned up. Everything should be working fine by Tuesday.

I stood for nearly half an hour outside the Asda superstore on the Isle of Dogs, waiting for a 135 to whisk me away. Lots of 135s arrived and proceeded to circle the car park, but none ready for the beleaguered shoppers of E14 to board. Most of Asda's bus-bound customers were either old or obese, struggling from the entrance laden with carrier bags filled with toilet rolls or pushing a tartan trolley piled high with 3 for 2 tins. Not all of Docklands goes to Waitrose. Time passed. A 135 stopped by the bus stop so that an inspector could push a rubber strip back beneath the door-opening mechanism. They're brand new these buses, which is why the vehicle I eventually boarded smelt like fresh rubber rather than sweat and chips.

And straight into a stretch of roadworks, and off on diversion. The 135 will normally be scheduled to run round half of the Isle of Dogs, but my bus managed to tour the lot. All the way round the Thames loop from top right to top left, with barely a river view in sight. Passengers waiting in Manchester Road were perplexed. Not only was our 135 an unknown quantity, it wasn't supposed to be passing their stop anyway. The on-board audio description service also failed to cope with the change of route. Rather than announcing the next stop, a disembodied female voice repeatedly declared <This bus terminates here> until, thankfully, the driver switched her off.

An aside: Is it just me, or does anybody else find these "route-related service information" announcements really annoying? <135... to... Old Street> I don't mind being told what the next stop is, that's rather useful. <West India Avenue> But I am pig sick of being told, every single time the bus stops, what number it is <135... to... Old Street> and where it's going. <135... to... Old Street> Yes, I know it's a bloody 135 to Old Street, I wouldn't have got on board otherwise. <135... to... Old Street> Shut up! Some of these audio systems even operate in persistent nagging mode, repeating a limited repertoire of nannying announcements inbetween every stop. <Please take all litter with you when you exit the bus> <If you see an unattended bag, please tell the driver> <Closed circuit television is in operation on this bus> <Vandalism on London buses is a criminal offence> <135... to... Old Street> And TfL think this is a good thing? I am increasingly tired of being treated like an ignorant criminal every time I travel. <135... to... Old Street> Please, somebody make it stop.

The first part of my 135 journey was a mind-numbing waste of time. It's only half a mile, direct, from Crossharbour to Canada Square, but we took 20 minutes via the indirect not-quite scenic route. It would have been far quicker to walk. Even threading between the gleaming towers at Canary Wharf seemed to take forever, not helped by having to pause at jobsworth security barriers while private vehicles ahead of us were lightly scrutinised. Only when we escaped out onto the Commercial Road did our progress finally quicken.

In Limehouse I spotted someone I'd always believed existed but had never previously seen - the Bus Stop Route Number Updater. He was a cropped tanned bloke with a fag in his mouth, sitting in the back of a scruffy truck by the roadside. In his lap was the "Exmouth Estate" bus stop information board, and in his left hand a plastic bag full of fresh shiny "135" tiles. As I watched he shuffled the existing numbers around, a bit like one of those 4×4 plastic puzzles you find inside crackers, until the top row read "15 115 135". Jackpot. His handiwork can now be seen at bus stops all along the route - each with one gleaming new tile amongst a stack of weatherbeaten old squares.

And so to the City, whose highrise ostentation came in sharp contrast to the mean streets of Shadwell. Beneath the iconic Gherkin, round a gaping hole which will one day support 36 floors of world class office space, and past the fresh-spiked peak of the Broadgate Tower. What with Docklands earlier, TfL could market this bus to hard-pushed tourists as "the skyscraper tour". Or maybe not. There wasn't much towering above the end of the route, skirting the edge of Shoreditch to pull up outside Old Street station. Unsuprisingly, I don't believe that any of those Asda shoppers followed me this far.

posted 01:35 :

 Sunday, May 25, 2008

The diamond geezer Eurovision textmap 2008

I think the voting epicentre has moved even further east this year.
Maybe even into the corner that's not actually Europe.

    ICE           NORWRUSS
    LAND         OSWFINR
                RED LAUSSIA
               WDEN NDRUSSI
              AYSW FINLRUSS
             NORE  AND RUSS
             WADEN     RUSS
       UK    Y SWE  ESTRUSS
    IU UN      ED   LARUSSI
   REL  I    DEEN  LITRUSSI
   AND TE    N     THBELRUS
      DKIN  GER POLAUBELSIA
     GDOM NEMANYNDPOBELARUS
         FBEGERMLANDUKRAINE
     FRANCELANCZEPOLUKRAINE
      FRANCEGERCHSLOVKRAINE
      FRANCESWAUHUNGROMMO
      FRANCITZSTARYANIALD
 SPAINSAFRMITASLCRSROMA
 POSPAIN    LY  BOERNIA
 RTSPAIN   F IS  SMBBUL
 UGSPAIN   I  AL  AMGAR GEAZ
 ALSPAI    T   YI LGRETURKAR
              TAL  EE  TURKE
             Y     CE   TURK
             M            CI

Key
» the winner (272 points)
» scored more than 150 points
» scored 100-150 points
» scored 50-99 points
» scored less than 50 points
» did not qualify for final
» did not take part

posted 00:30 :

 Saturday, May 24, 2008

The Telectroscope

Victorian engineering was often something special. Those top-hatted inventors were always exercising their grey cells, attempting to conjure up something mechanical and fantastical. Tower Bridge for example, or the Brooklyn Bridge, its contemporary counterpart in New York. Believe it or not, there were once plans to link these two bridges via a strange brass "visual amplifier" named a Telectroscope. No actual physical travel was to be possible, just a projected image propagated along a deep subterranean tunnel. London would be able to look at New York, and New York would be able to look back at London. Now, at long last, one intercontinental Telectroscope has finally been built, emerging this week down beside the Thames at City Hall. Fancy a look?



This amazing invention resembles a giant steampunk telescope half-sunk into the piazza. At the Tower Bridge end is a circular glass screen, beyond which a long dark tube curves and bends into inky blackness beneath the earth. A variety of shiny valves and dials control the transmission, each no doubt essential to the design. As for what happens down the tunnel between here and New York, heaven only knows. There's the odd clue on the inventor's descendant's website, but I rather hope it's all done with mirrors.

Roll up, roll up. It only costs a quid to enter the Telectroscope's outer enclosure (although, grrr, New Yorkers don't have to pay a cent). You hand over your coin to the automated seller in the glass booth by the entrance, and he signs your souvenir ticket with an invisible signature before depositing it in front of you. Next, walk along to the screen and join the small crowd peering into Manhattan. There it is, that small distant circle projected deep inside the machine. That crowd you're staring at is 3500 miles away, and they're staring 3500 miles back at you. Wave now!

It's fascinating watching to see what two distant groups of strangers do in this situation. Their only possible connection is visual, but some still choose to shout unheard words of greeting. Both sides have a small whiteboard on which short messages can be scribbled, although the pens have pretty feeble nibs so it's very hard to read what the other half are saying. But not impossible. "Hello from New York!" "It's very sunny here!" "Blow us a kiss!" Big smiles! What not enough people appear to be doing is to put the marker pen down, lower their camera and actually interact with their transcontinental counterparts. This should be long distance mime, it should be animated two-way audience participation. But it'll probably just end up as a few Flickr photos and forty seconds uploaded to Youtube.

You have three weeks to get yourself down to City Hall (or, indeed, the Fulton Ferry Landing) and enjoy the transatlantic Telectroscope experience. The enclosure is open 24 hours a day, allegedly, which will keep the supervising staff on their toes. Be warned, if it's busy they'll only let visitors stand and stare for five minutes max. I was lucky after work yesterday, the queues were almost non existent. But I suspect that word of mouth will spread fast, a bit like the Sultan's Elephant a couple of years ago, so pick your moment carefully. Brooklyn sunset will probably be particularly quiet at our end.

posted 00:01 :

 Friday, May 23, 2008

Answer to London bus quiz (2)
From tomorrow, the lowest number not used by a London bus route won't be 135, it'll be 218. From tomorrow TfL are introducing a new bus route between Canary Wharf and the City, and they're numbering it 135. This numerical choice makes good sense, it's the lowest number currently available, and this is likely to be an important route. How often have you found yourself outside Old Street station and suddenly wanted to take the bus to the Asda superstore at Crossharbour? Well, from tomorrow, you can. The new 135 also calls in at Liverpool Street, Commercial Road and Limehouse, so you can imagine just how useful it will be. With "135" imminently taken, that'll be every single number from 1 to 200 used. Or indeed every number from 1 to 217. But not 218. There is no number 218 bus in London. Which, from tomorrow, makes 218 the lowest number not to be used by a London bus route. You never know, this random factoid might come up in a pub quiz one day, and then you'll be grateful.
But there was once a London bus route numbered 218. It ran for many decades between Kingston and Staines, out on the Surrey fringes. This was, incidentally, the last bus route in London to be operated by the classic red RF bus. [This fact probably won't come up in a pub quiz, sorry] And then, back in 1986, the 218 was transferred from London Buses to Surrey County Council. The 218 still runs today, once an hour (Sundays excepted), but it's run by Surrey and not by Boris so it doesn't count. London's lowest unused bus route number, as of tomorrow, will be 218.

posted 16:00 :

 London bus quiz (2)
Tomorrow, what will be the lowest number* not used by a London bus route?
* ditto

posted 12:00 :

Answer to London bus quiz (1)
The lowest number not used by a London bus route is 135. There is, currently, no number 135 bus trundling around the streets of the capital. There's a 1, and a 2, and a 3, and every other number up to a 134, but there isn't a 135. There is a 135 in Manchester (it's bendy), there's even a 135 in Sydney (in Manly), but there isn't a 135 in London. There used to be a 135 here, though. London's last 135 ran between Archway and Marble Arch (ooh, very arch-y) between 1987 and 2000, after which it was withdrawn and replaced by other services. And there used to be a different 135 before that, shuttling around the Enfield area, but that was withdrawn in 1981. So there's no 135 in London today.
A couple of years ago the lowest unused London bus number wasn't 135, it was 129. The original 129 ran for decades out Ilford way, but this service came to a premature end in 2004 when the 128 took over instead. So "129" was going spare in 2006 when TfL needed a number for a brand new route in Greenwich. This particular reincarnation of the 129 travels indirectly from North Greenwich bus station to the Cutty Sark, making it one of the shortest bus routes in the capital. There are plans to extend the 129 to Peckham later this year, so this might finally become a more useful bus to catch. But, with the number 129 now plugged, London buses' lowest gap is at 135.

posted 10:00 :

 London bus quiz (1)
What's the lowest number* not currently used by a London bus route?
* Whole number, not fraction, because taking the 38¾ to Hackney would be silly.
** Positive, obviously, because taking the -38 to Hackney would be even sillier.
*** Yes, I know I could have said "positive integer", but I thought I'd play safe.

posted 07:00 :

 Thursday, May 22, 2008

  Olympic update
  The big build begins


Today, under the watchful eye of international Olympic officials, construction of London's 2012 stadium commences. Blimey that was quick. Just ten months ago I was wandering around the Marshgate Lane industrial estate - watching the ducks, admiring the roses and peering into the window of the Mercedes repair shop. And now they've all been utterly swept away in a whirlwind of dumper trucks and diggers, and a global landmark building is about to be erected in their place. It's all kicking off weeks ahead of schedule, even before the 2008 Olympics have begun, following not-quite-one-year of Digging, Demolishing and Design. Sometimes, it seems, project management actually works.



The transformation is astonishing. What used to be a hilly mound between braided rivers has been summarily flattened, and all that remains of the previous industrial landscape is a single tarmac road snaking across a plateau of barren earth. Raised embankments, a few metres high, mark the egg-shaped perimeter of what will one day be the stadium proper. Outside this proto-arena a brand new water feature has appeared, approximately the size of an Olympic-sized swimming pool but rather more irregularly-shaped and full of muddy liquid. I don't think this hole is part of the final plans, but it certainly looks a lot cheaper than Zaha Hadid's genuine Aquatics Centre planned for the opposite side of the river. Whatever, it is now possible to stand on the Greenway bridge and to imagine what might be about to appear. The great knockdown may be complete, but the grand build up will take considerably longer.

There are now none-too-subtle hints that this area is evolving from a demolition zone into a building site. Two huge blocks of multi-storey portakabins await the imminent arrival of thousands of construction workers. A big green footbridge crosses Marshgate Lane so that everyone can pass safely from one side to the other without being knocked down by a passing truck. Spiked yellow buoys block off all river access into the site, lest some cavalier boatman might sail in and compromise hard-earned security. And outside, beyond the blue-walled perimeter, numerous newly-erected road signs prepare to direct heavily-laden lorries to one of 14 different entrance gates. The concrete is coming, and the world's athletes will only be 50 months behind.

• The latest in my monthly series of photos of Olympic Stadium development
• At Anna's insistence, I've now assembled all ten photos into their own Flickr set (the slideshow now runs forwards rather than backwards)
• Keep an eye on the East-Olympic area on the Newham Olympic webcam (Warning: Java may stall your computer) (Warning: end result may not be worth the wait)
• Sixty Minutes: Rob has assembled a collection of sixty, one minute films (each a 360º panorama shot from a motorised tripod) shot in the area designated for Olympic redevelopment.
• And what are Boris's revised Olympic priorities? Lower taxes in Bromley and more kids in Richmond playing lacrosse. And not quite so much regeneration round my manor (damn)

posted 07:00 :

 Wednesday, May 21, 2008

return to: St Pancras

It's now six months since St Pancras station reopened. What a lot of publicity and bluster there was, most of it from Eurostar, rejoicing in the architectural splendour of the old Barlow Train Shed and revelling in the sheer decadence of a new luxury rail experience. But has the station lived up to the hype? Is this really "Europe's destination station", or is it just a lot of trains and a few shops selling sandwiches? I've been back to check.

Good news for the marketeers. There are still people gawping at the giant Lovers statue and taking photographs of themselves next to Betjeman. There are even a few people sipping bubbly at the world's longest champagne bar, although from a distance they look like they're sat in a very thin wood-panelled burger restaurant. But that's upstairs, under the lovely roof. If the station's commercial heart is to survive, then the shopping experience downstairs really has to work.

And it sort of does. Along the main arcade are all the sorts of retail outlet that a passing business traveller might desire. Greetings cards, knickers and flowers, obviously, plus dress shirts, fragrance and watches. There's a tiny Hamleys, in case you want to buy one of a handful of fluffy gifts for some distant offspring, and there's also a rather decent Foyles (where the best selling book, perhaps unsurprisingly, is a nine quid history of St Pancras station). Plus tons of places to eat and drink (or, more accurately, to sip and graze). There's almost nowhere to sit down otherwise, so the Paris-bound are irresistibly drawn to join artificial cafe society. But this is nowhere you'd go out of your way to visit at weekends.

There's one main reason why central St Pancras is now buzzing. It's because there are an awful lot of people catching trains. The Underground arrives at the southern end of the station, while trains to Bedford, Leicester and beyond depart from the northern end. This means that thousands of commuters every day are forced to endure a forced daily route march past the Body Shop, Costa and Le Pain Quotidien. It's no wonder that some of them succumb and buy something.

But one newly-opened corner of the station still echoes with the sound of inactivity. It's called the "Circle", and it's tucked out of the way near the not-yet-opened farmers market. You could easily pass through the station without ever realising that its shops existed, which is why a series of giant advertising boards have been liberally scattered throughout in a desperate attempt to attract custom. It's not really working. The only people I saw in Monsoon and Vodafone were bored sales assistants. The shelves at the front of the deceptively large M&S were stacked with lunchtime sarnies that nobody had bought. Piles of newspapers in Smiths looked doomed to be pulped at the end of the day. And the chalked sign in front of the out-of-the-way Starbucks read just a little bit too desperately. Please come and join us!

Things will change when the tube station's new northern ticket hall opens in a couple of years time. Escalators will deposit passengers right in front of Starbucks' welcoming portal, and some might even notice the large Boots and Yo Sushi hidden behind. Until then the businesses represented in the Circle will probably wish they'd rented somewhere in a much more conspicuous location with significant footfall, far from this bypassed layby.

St Pancras. It's not so much a "destination" as a retail walkthrough with a nice roof. But hey, still hugely lovelier than the grim desert nextdoor at King's Cross.

posted 07:00 :

 Tuesday, May 20, 2008

ATTENTION CITIZENS: Do you show sufficient respect to our marvellous boys and girls in the Armed Forces? We at the Ministry of Defence don't reckon that you do. Which is why we've published a report proposing the introduction of a new bank holiday called British Armed Forces and Veterans Day, every June. Because respect is due. Or else.


Programme for British Armed Forces and Veterans Day
Trial run: Little-Dumley-in-the-Marsh, Monday 30th June 2008

04:47 Reveille: played by the Little Dumley Infants Wind Band
06:00 Commemorative flypast by the Red Arrows. That'll rouse the lazy civvies who think a bank holiday is for laying in bed and going to IKEA.
07:00 Kit inspection: Sergeant Major Harris will be on hand to ensure that everyone in the village has shiny-buffed boots and perfect hospital corners.
08:55 Message of Support: Prime Minister Gordon Brown (tbc) speaks out via YouTube, and then Ross Kemp reads a stirring poem.
09:00 Homecoming Parade: Our Lads are back home after three months in a godforsaken foreign desert fighting some war that almost nobody in the UK understands. Come and watch them march up and down a bit.
10:00 Meet The Regiment: Find your Army soulmates, either in the West Henley ToffGenerals or the East Thurrock CannonFodders.
10:30 Wild Applause: Don't forget to burst into spontaneous appreciative clapping every time you see a man in camouflage gear. Oh rah rah that man.
11:00 Not the Two Minute Silence: Oi, you lot, stop gathering by the war memorial! Today is about remembering our glorious Armed Forces and Veterans, not commemorating the dead. They get a day to themselves in November. Now get back to the parade ground and start cheering.
12:00 Another Flypast: It's some old Spitfire and a couple of Chinooks this time. Honestly, it's noisier than living under the Heathrow flightpath.
12:15 The Flotilla of National Pride: The Royal Navy, who've been feeling pretty excluded so far, push a few paper boats across the duckpond.
13:00 Gasmask Pilates
13:30 Vocational Learning Demonstration: Teach yourself some useful army skills, like tank-driving, battle logistics and bayonetting.
14:00 'Freedom' Parade: Because if we brand the Armed Forces properly, somehow all that killing doesn't sound quite so bad.
14:45 Press Gang: Royal Navy Recruitment Officers kidnap a few lanky-looking adolescent yobs from the bus shelter on the edge of the village green and cart them off to live out the rest of their lives in a submarine.
15:00 Military Tattoo: Anybody fancy "I ♥ Our Brave Boys" needled into their forearm?
16:00 I Fought In The War You Know: The Vicar awards tiny gold-plated medals to all the local WW2 veterans that society has shamelessly ignored for the last 60-odd years.
16:30 Teenage indoctrination: Members of the newly formed Little Dumley Combined Cadet Force stand around in ill-fitting uniforms, fondling rifles and making their mothers terribly proud.
17:00 The Great Military Quiz: Schoolmistress Miss Humphries tests Class 3B on all the famous battles they've been learning about in Citizenship lessons this term.
17:45 Rounding Up of the Conscientious Objectors: Join the vigilante squad in the High Street so that the disrespectful can be named and shamed in tomorrow's Sun.
18:30 The Goat Race: Regimental mascots compete for a shiny silver cup.
19:00 Billycan Bonfire: Come share some rations out of a warm squeezy tube.
20:00 The Royal Tournament: Ah, remember the golden days when our TV schedules were cleared once a year so that the BBC could screen bagpiping bandsmen, formation horse-trotting and that pointless contest where two teams dragged a cannon across an obstacle course without touching the ground? Well it's back, and you will not switch over to ITV.
22:00 Fireworks: Choreographed by the Basra Aerial Assault Display Team
22:30 The Last Post: Little Dumley's residents bubble with crusading pride. And then straight to bed, because it's back to work in Civvy Street in the morning.

posted 07:00 :

 Monday, May 19, 2008

Inside City Hall

For one weekend every month, from roof to basement, the giant glass goldfish bowl at City Hall is opened up to the viewing public. Negotiate the knife-detecting security arch at reception and you too can check out the seat of London democracy. See the lovely view from the roof. See the offices where your taxes are spent. And see the debating chamber where our capital's elected representatives attempt to run things whilst simultaneously shunning that new BNP oik. I couldn't resist a trip to the very heart of Project Boris, just in case there were any clues inside regarding what he's up to. But there weren't. It's still a bit early in the Mayoralty, and he doesn't seem to work weekends.

First stop, the roof. The public lifts allow access only to the second floor and below, plus a single illuminated button for the ninth floor. Up top you'll be welcomed by smiling City Hall employees (presumably on overtime) and directed out into a tedious entertaining space called London's Living Room. Forget that, and head out onto the balcony. There's a great view of Tower Bridge from up here, as well as a direct line of sight across the Thames to the Tower of London. Close by is the cluster of City skyscrapers of which Ken was so fond (time will tell if Boris is quite so keen) with the pointy Gherkin at its heart. Further out, look, Canary Wharf, and Shooter's Hill, and the whole glorious panorama of southeast London. It used to be possible to see southwest London too, but then some property developers erected the shiny glass blocks of More London and now all you can see is posh offices and a concrete plaza . Ah well, it's still a damned good free view all the same.

To get back down, you take the stairs. But these are no ordinary stairs, they form a precipitous swirly spiral that slowly descends inside an open cavern at the front of the building. Small loops at first, then increasingly wider and broader as they cascade earthward. Looking down , or up , there's always a photogenic backdrop. And there's also a unique opportunity to peer through the surrounding glass into six consecutive floors of GLA offices. No sign of Boris's lair, but plenty of hole punches, highlighters and stacked-up boxfiles. On one desk a half-eaten box of Cheerios, on another a pink squishy pig and an invite to a champagne reception at Kew Gardens. Oh, and if the IT department are reading, there's a red flashing light on printer 4250PCL on the third floor. Oh yes, this is certainly open democracy.

At the foot of the stairs is the main debating chamber. I think the royal blue carpet has been there since Day 1 and isn't a recent Boris initiative. Make sure you time your visit to avoid Sunday lunchtime, otherwise this section might be closed off to allow the filming of some BBC Politics programme that nigh nobody watches. Take a look at the latest designs that may one day fill Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth - there'll be a chance to vote for your favorite later. And on, down to the ground floor, around yet another spiral ramp . Norman Foster's City Hall building is an especially curvy building, and sometimes it feels as if he could have crammed in a whole lot more offices if only half the building wasn't spiral ramps.

And finally, don't forget to pay a visit to the Visitor Centre on the lower ground floor. The centrepiece is a massive photomat depicting an aerial view of the whole of Greater London. It's incredibly detailed and up to date (this version was reinstalled only last month). Come hunt for your house, and your place of work, and ooh look that's Wembley Stadium, and blimey isn't Bromley green? Plonked on top of the map at present is a temporary installation entitled Greenhouse Britain (sorry if you live in Docklands or Dagenham, you're currently obscured). This is a very Ken exhibition, all global warming and sustainable living, and one wonders whether Boris will want to fork out taxpayers money on similar stuff in the future. Or even want to waste cash on opening up City Hall for one weekend every month. I hope so. But if not, come soon.

posted 07:00 :

 Sunday, May 18, 2008

A Century of Olympic Posters
Museum of Childhood: 17 May - 7 September

It being a year divisible by 4, curators at the Victoria and Albert Museum have been busy assembling an appropriately Olympic exhibition. They've gathered together a comprehensive collection of Olympic posters, from Paris 1900 right up to London 2012, and all are now on show at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. Not a very thrilling concept you might think - there's only so much you can do with five rings and a few sportsmen - but it's actually a fascinating way to view the evolution of global 20th century design. See how the artists of the day tackled the Olympic brand brief, from proud torchbearing patriotism to abstract symbolic ingenuity. And yes, all leading up to that design at the end.

This is a rather larger exhibition than I was expecting, filling at least half of an upper gallery. I'm not quite sure why it's being hosted at the Museum of Childhood - the theme certainly falls well outside their usual pre-adolescent focus. But very young children seemed to be enjoying the exhibition all the same, providing them with a fantastic space in which to run around and chase one another. Most of the genuine visitors appeared to be twenty- or thirty-something male meeja types, here to update their creative portfolio, and absolutely none of them with children.

The first Olympics are represented here by their programme covers, as it wasn't until Stockholm 1912 that an official poster was published. Early Olympic posters often had a very strong nationalistic theme, with artists depicting proud rippling athletes in front of recognisable landmarks. Berlin 1936 for example, with laurel-crowned victor towering above the Brandenburg Gate, or London 1948 (Big Ben plus discus-hurler plus rings - sorted). In the 1960s, however, things started to change. Tokyo 1964 ditched sport in favour of a big bold rising sun, and Mexico 1968 went all op-art with eye-popping concentric black lines. It's this dazzling Mexican design that still stands out as the most modern anywhere in the collection, and the one that'll probably sell the most postcards in the shop downstairs afterwards.

Munich 1972 was the first Olympics to take poster design seriously, approaching the pick of contemporary artists to create an extensive colourful collection that wouldn't have looked out of place in an Athena shop. This photograph shows a selection, plus in the foreground a genuine London 1948 torch (as used on the run across Belgium, apparently). From the 70s onwards I was impressed by how many of the Olympic logos I remembered. These variations on the simple five-ring design may have had an official lifespan of only a fortnight, but their iconic audacity has nevertheless imprinted upon the global consciousness. (Sorry if that last sentence reads like critical artistic tosh, but most of the labels in the exhibition were like that and I fear I've been infected by pretentious verbosity)

On into the modern day. Soft abstract designs dominate, with cunning logos (like Barcelona 1992 or Sydney 2000) where a handful of brushstrokes represent leaping athletes. Photography has been used only infrequently - Nagano 1998, with a thrush sitting on two ski poles, is a rare exception. And then, yes, all the way up to date with London 2012. The Back The Bid posters, with athletes vaulting over major landmarks, still retain a forceful impact. And then there's Lisa Simpson. We haven't had an official London 2012 poster yet, so the organisers have merely spraypainted a large angular blue logo straight onto the wall. According to the art critique label alongside "The London 2012 brand was launched on 4 Jun 2007, when the emblem was first revealed, exciting an extraordinary public reaction". I'll say. Seen here in context it's very much the odd one out, but it certainly upholds the Olympic tradition of cutting-edge design. What's needed in this space is an electronic poster, not yet published, representing the irreversible shift to dynamic multimedia. But that's for the next exhibition - Two Centuries of Olympic Posters. The children running around the gallery today may well enjoy that.

posted 09:00 :

 Saturday, May 17, 2008

BoJoBuswatch

I don't know about you, but I'm too frightened to travel by bus in London these days. It didn't seem too bad a month ago, but now I sense a climate of fear every time I even think of going for a ride. Every big red bus has become a four-wheeled chamber of terror, inside which any number of terrible misdemeanours might occur. The familiar London bus stop has become a beacon of impropriety, enticing the wicked and malevolent to gather beneath its blood-red roundel. Bus shelters have become hotbeds of vice and felony, and our bus stations have descended into sinister anarchic no-go zones. How can I have been so blind not to see it before?

But, with characteristic speed and vigour, our new Mayor has acted. His latest policy announcement will increase the number of law enforcement officers targeting bus-related disorder. Trained police officers will be on patrol across the capital to stamp out misbehaviour on our public transport network. Teams of bus hub crime fighters will work together to confront wrongdoing and put an end to petty law-breaking. Low-level anti-social behaviour will be eradicated, and Londoners will be able to flash their Oysters in safety once more. How terribly reassuring.

Boris's new initiative kicks off by targeting as many as three of London's bus stations. It's good news for inhabitants of Canning Town, Wood Green and West Croydon, who will now see nine police officers wandering around their local transport interchange. Admittedly only two of these will be real police officers, but Community Support Officers and Special Constables can be pretty forceful too. They'll be making a visible difference as they wander around checking for knives, looking hard and glaring at teenagers. Other areas of London can look forward to similar levels of invincible crime protection, but not until next year.

I went to Canning Town bus station the other day. There was no actual crime going on, but the fear of crime permeated the building with a foul stench of terror. Large groups of East End youth hung around the automatic doors, no doubt preparing to board the bus to Romford and terrorise the passengers with their ringtones. A pair of foreign-sounding gentlemen crept up behind me, clearly intent on riding ticketless with their feet up on the seats. Every posse of adolescent girls appeared poised to sit on the back seats and launch into a tirade of boisterous swearwords. Which loutish lad would be the one to press the emergency alarm to exit the bus between stops? I even thought I saw a blade-wielding assassin stepping up onto the number 323, but thankfully it was just an old lady flashing a razor-sharp Freedom Pass. As I stood there, quivering, I thought "you know, what this place really needs is a visible police presence so that no marauder dare venture forth onto the bus network and exhibit anti-social behaviour". Boris has answered my prayers.

The Mayor's new policing policy goes straight to the heart of the problem. Stick a handful of uniformed officers at a few key transport interchanges and people will start to feel a bit safer, even if they were actually pretty safe already. Because what's crippling London's bus network isn't crime, but the fear of crime. Passengers don't care that serious bus-related offences are actually on the decrease, they just want reassurance that their next journey won't be their last. The Mayor has correctly recognised that Londoners are a bunch of screaming wusses with no accurate perception of reality, especially those who never travel by bus because they think it's too damned scary. Be afraid, be very afraid.

posted 08:00 :

 Friday, May 16, 2008

Ronan Point (16th May 1968, 5:45am)

Exactly 40 years ago, eighteen floors above the streets of Canning Town, Mrs Ivy Hodge decided to make herself a cup of tea. This turned out to be a ghastly error. The match Ivy struck beneath her kettle ignited a gas leak, hurling her headlong across the kitchen. The force of the blast blew out the concrete walls of her brand new council flat, setting off a terrible chain reaction. Catastrophic structural failure caused the entire southeast corner of her tower block to collapse - wall by wall, flat by flat - sending 22 sitting rooms plummeting to the ground. With just one match Ivy had unwittingly killed four of her fellow Ronan Point residents, altered government housing policy and brought about the premature demise of the Modernist architecture movement. It's dangerous stuff, tea.

Ivy survived, but her early morning brew exposed a fatal flaw in Newham's building plans. Mid-60s architects believed that stacked-up living was the future, and newly created Newham council had taken this philosophy very much to heart. They'd been busily building up into the sky, replacing acres of pre-war slums with stark concrete tower blocks. But construction workers here on the Freemasons Estate had cut corners, failing to bolt together the prefabricated concrete sections with due care, and relying rather too heavily on gravity. One blown-out wall was enough to destabilise this unfortunate house of cards, and Ronan Point's downfall was inevitable.

The disaster could have been far worse. It being before 6am, very few of the kitchens and sitting rooms beneath Flat 90 were occupied. One woman who'd been sleeping on the couch overnight managed to scramble to a narrow ledge along the inner wall, and was rescued from the rubble by her husband. The four flats above Ivy were more seriously damaged, but fortunately these were still unoccupied because Ronan Point had only opened back in March. And even the offending gas stove survived. When the residents moved out so that the block could be rebuilt (yes, rebuilt, not demolished), Ivy took it with her.

The Canning Town collapse had several ramifications. A ban was placed on the supply of gas to high rise blocks. Legislation was passed requiring any new towers to be able to withstand much stronger explosions. And the tide of public opinion started to swing away from head-in-the-clouds elevated boxes back to communal lowrise living. You didn't see Mary, Mungo and Midge much on TV after the early 70s, did you? Newham council took a little longer to come back down to earth. Ronan Point was finally demolished in 1986, along with its eight sister blocks on the Freemasons Estate. Not a trace remains.



Today a carpet of two- and three-storey dwellings covers this part of Canning Town. Families live in council houses with their own garden and a car parking space out front, next to scrappy patches of grass where wandering dogs relieve themselves. There are bland brick tenements and pebbledash terraces, plus shuttered shops in a peeling parade offering everything from bread rolls to betting slips. Take a walk up Freemasons Road from the ExCel Exhibition Centre and you'll probably be passed by several kids on bikes and the occasional tartan shopping trolley. Look out for the clenched fist sculpture outside the credit union, and smile at the portraits of "Leslie" and "Ethel" carved into the pavement between Leslie Road and Ethel Road. It may not be nirvana, but it's a lot more desirable than Ivy's 60s skyline. And, if you fancy a cuppa, a lot less dangerous.

posted 05:45 :

 Thursday, May 15, 2008

Finally, after two months of dietary restraint and a week of waiting, my blood test results are back. I returned to see my doctor yesterday to find out if a diet of chicken, porridge and no-chocolate-whatsoever has had any positive effects on my arteries. And hurrah, it has. Back in March my cholesterol level was 5.5 (which is both "average" and "too high") and now it's dropped to a much more respectable 3.7. My tubes are one-third less congested than they used to be. Hurrah! In addition, individual counts for various subcategories of fatty deposit are also now within tolerable limits, whereas none of them were before. See, this is what happens when you shun the delights of (sob) pies and (sniff) cake for eight weeks.

My doctor is very impressed. So am I, to be honest. But I'm not very impressed by the way our five minute chat panned out. The conversation seemed personable and informative at the time, but it was only after I walked out of the surgery that I realised there were several key areas we hadn't discussed. We talked about the fact I'd been eating very sensibly, but I forgot to give details. I didn't mention my biscuit deprivation, my total crisp avoidance or my general cheeselessness. Unbelievably I didn't bring up, and he didn't ask about, the stone in weight that I've lost as a side-effect of a low-cholesterol diet. And although I now know that I don't need to be prescribed wonder-statins (which I'm very pleased about), neither of us discussed precisely what steps I ought to be taking next. It's odd, I knew exactly what I was going to say when I walked in, but somehow I managed to say none of it.

Maybe the doctor assumed from my silence that I intend to keep up this puritanical food intake into the forseeable future. No way. Man cannot live by oily fish alone, and I need some variety in my diet over the next 40 years or else I'm going to go mad. I think I can allow the odd Creme Egg, croissant and roast dinner to slip back in, just so long as I don't revert to my previous over-lipidy ways. At least my latest blood test has provided some proper data on which to base future food consumption. If my previous diet led to 5.5, and angelic eating has made me 3.7, then I reckon I now know how to aim for 4.3. Hell, I might even allow myself to go out for a meal again, rather than just sitting there like a lemon while other people tuck into pizza and ice cream. It may not be NHS-sanctioned, but it sounds like a plan to me. I wonder if I can still remember what a good cheddar tastes like.

posted 07:00 :

Three nice things what I have bought recently
1) Album: In Ghost Colours (Cut Copy): I can't quite remember how I stumbled across this band, given that they're only big in Australia, but I'm glad I did. Cut Copy's music is sort-of electroindiepop, but with guitars. It's sort of New Order, but maybe even more 80s than that. Great stuff. Cut Copy's rather lovely debut album Bright Like Neon Love came out four years ago, so I've been counting the days to mid-May to get my hands on the follow-up. The first 20 seconds could easily be New Musik, which is reason enough to cheer, and latest single Lights & Music is three minutes of chirpy upbeat delight. There's always an emphasis on slickly poptastic melody, and the complete 16-track package is (I think) worthy of repeated adoration. In Ghost Colours is now available for just £8 at whatever ghastly name Virgin Megastores are calling themselves these days, or for even less at River Warrior Stores.
2) Book: Derelict London (Paul Talling): I first directed your attention to the Derelict London website four years ago. Paul's a photographer with an eye for the decaying, the demolishable and the doomed. If it's faded, forgotten or falling down, he's probably been out to snap an image for posterity. And now Paul's compiled images of more than 100 of his favourite overlooked locations, complete with passionate commentary, into a compact manbag-sized book. I think it's fair to say that no previous volume has brought together the Gypsy Hill public toilets, Palmers Pet Shop (Camden), The Intrepid Fox and Feltham Arena. As some indication of how enticing the book is, I forked out good money to buy Derelict London a full fortnight before the publisher emailed me to offer a free copy. Hurry now, most of the buildings depicted here probably won't be standing in five years time.
3) Chocolate bar: Dairy Milk (Cadbury): Mmmm, it's been a long time...

posted 03:00 :

 Wednesday, May 14, 2008

BoJoWatch: trees a jolly good fellow?

"The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has today announced the closure of The Londoner newspaper saving London nearly three million pounds. A percentage of this saving will be spent on planting 10,000 new street trees as London's new Mayor continues to deliver on his manifesto pledges."
See, I told you. Boris has ditched The Londoner (which he describes as "the Mayor's personal newspaper") and plans to spend some of the saved millions on trees. Very politically astute, swapping newsprint for timber. Some people are impressed. Here's why I'm not.

"The Londoner is distributed to three million homes across Greater London. Had Ken Livingstone been re-elected, Londoners would have spent around £2.9 million next year on The Londoner. By scrapping this, we will save £2.9 million."
The Londoner newspaper used to cost each London family 97p a year (that's 9.7p per copy). Not extortionate, and far less than is wasted producing other London freesheets, but perhaps unnecessary. I wouldn't know, because The Londoner's distribution was so poor that I can't remember the last time I received a copy.

"Boris Johnson's manifesto commitment is to use some of the money saved from The Londoner – around £1 million per year – to deliver our pledge of 10,000 street trees by 2012."
Aha, so only 35% of the money spent on The Londoner is going on trees. The rest will presumably go on other projects, or be used to cut future years' council tax. One thing's for certain, it won't go on trees.

"The Mayor proposes to work in partnership with charities like Trees for Cities and the London Boroughs to launch a major effort to bring street trees to those areas of London that need them most."
Ooh good. We like Trees For Cities, they're a fine bunch of volunteers who work with local communities to get more trees planted. They're also custodians of the 41 Great Trees of London (one of which is the Lewisham Dutch Elm at the centre of today's photo).

"Rather than dictate from City Hall where these trees should be planted, it is intended that these charities would compile a list of the 40 areas in London that would most benefit from new street trees."
This is an example of the new era of delegation at City Hall. Why make a decision yourself when you can outsource it to someone else instead? And 40 areas isn't many, is it? It's only about one area per borough. Don't expect any of these new trees to be planted down the street where you live.

"On average we will plant 250 trees in each area, and all 40 areas will have trees planted by the end of the four-year Mayoral term."
Ah, so it's 40 areas over the course of four years, is it? That's only 10 areas each year. Less than one location a month. We're talking tokenistic gesture politics here.

"Londoners will be able to vote on the Greater London Authority website to determine the order in which areas are planted."
Oh for goodness sake. This is nothing but a pointless green gimmick. The area that shouts the loudest will get their trees first, and the least web-savvy neighbourhood (probably the area that needs the trees most) will have to wait for 47 months. Boris has merely come up with a cross between Trunk Idol and Twig Brother.

"With a major injection of funds and high profile support from the Mayor, it is anticipated that there is significant potential for tree-planting partnerships with companies and local authorities. Trees for Cities have previously secured significant amounts of match funding for tree planting projects and estimate that each annual grant of £1 million for tree planting would generate match funding of £500,000 from the private and public sectors."
Hang on, the tree planting isn't yet fully funded. One third of the money (and thereby one third of the trees) depends solely on attracting sufficient interest from the private sector. Taxpayers' money will pay for only 6667 trees over the next four years. Scrapping the Londoner will fund fewer than 5 trees a day. That is, quite frankly, pathetic.

"£1.5 million a year for four years is a total of £6 million which, using an average cost of £600 per tree, would give a total of 10,000 street trees over a four-year term."
Ten thousand may sound like a big number, but really it isn't. Boris's grand plan delivers just one tree per year for every 3000 London residents. It's a drop in the environmental ocean, and a mere 1% of what Ken was pledging. I am not impressed.

posted 07:00 :

 Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Flood risk

Somewhere else I went at the weekend was Ladywell Fields. Local community groups were holding a Fun Day in the park, to celebrate the completion of a major environmental project. The River Ravensbourne, which runs along the eastern edge, has been allowed to break out into the fields through a man-made meandering channel. Here's what the featureless flat grassland used to look like (2006), here's the new stream under construction (2007) and here's the finished result (2008). Before, after. It's a doubly clever idea, both making the park a more attractive place to visit and also providing extra drainage capacity following heavy rain. On Saturday the new waterway was the centre of attention, with several small children scrambling along the gently sloping banks and paddling in the sparkling water. Really, it's a most attractive piece of landscaping.

But one aspect of the project made me sigh, deeply. A dozen or so wooden posts have been bashed into the banks, in pairs, at regular intervals along the new stream. These fulfil no decorative function, nor are they linked together by chains or rails to form a protective barrier. They don't support noticeboards with maps or background information, neither are they present to delineate a waterside path. No, these posts exist solely to display three yellow warning symbols. They're risk management beacons, liberally scattered by the authorities to warn approaching visitors of perceived potential dangers. And they state the utterly bleeding obvious, and the blatantly untrue. Repeatedly. Here are those three pointless warning triangles in a bit more detail.

Caution - Area liable to flooding
Well, yes, obviously. It's a river, isn't it, and that's what rivers do. Every now and then, after particularly heavy rain, they fill up and overspill into the surrounding flood plain. Do visitors to a river really need to be reminded of this? I mean, you don't see this notice plastered every 20 metres down the Thames, or attached to every lamppost in downtown Tewkesbury. This warning message might just possibly be useful during an especially violent storm should a tidal wave be about to sweep across lower Lewisham. Or it might just possibly prevent the occasional lost drunkard from stumbling into deep floodwaters after dark. But quite frankly I doubt it. Why is this warning here?

Warning - Strong currents
Er, I don't think so. Look at that little river, it's not exactly torrential is it? There's barely a current, let alone a strong one. I know it's not rained much recently, but this shallow channel is almost never going to fill up with gallons of gushing water. It's just a wiggly sideshoot of a major river, not a streamlined sluice susceptible to raging riptides. Nobody's going swimming here - it's going to be a nice paddle across the pebbles or nothing. Hell, even the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain is more dangerous than this, and there are no ubiquitous yellow triangles encircling that. Why is this warning here?

Caution - Soft mud
Hmmm, where? There's not a square inch of soft mud anywhere to be seen along this river at the moment. Obviously the weather has a part to play here, but soft mud is by no means a permanent feature of this corner of Ladywell Fields. And what's so wrong with soft mud anyway? It might discolour your favourite trainers, but it's not exactly killer quicksand. If the authorities are really concerned about soft mud, why don't they slap thousands of warning notices all over the UK's forests and woodland, just in case? Honestly, this is little more than disproportionate anxiety about the almost insignificant. Why is this warning here?

Perhaps I shouldn't have been overly surprised by these excessive levels of risk management pedantry. There's a clue in the name of the body responsible for the improvement works in Ladywell Fields, which has the cumbersome acronym QUERCUS. You won't be surprised to hear that the Q stands for Quality, and the S stands for Stakeholders. This isn't Lewisham, it's an Urban Environment. And anyone who travels along the Ravensbourne valley, obviously, they'd be a River Corridor User. An organisation called QUERCUS could only be a European-funded partnership, couldn't it, intent on developing symbiotic communities and realising key objectives. All the right ideas, but delivered with a repressive bureaucratic flourish. I'm surprised they didn't go the whole hog and install lifebelts, tannoy announcements and emergency 999 hotlines. Be grateful that our nation's streams and rivers weren't installed by committee.

posted 07:00 :

 Monday, May 12, 2008

Upminster Windmill

You've just missed National Mills Weekend - two days when more than 300 UK wind and watermills opened their doors to the public. Yes, who knew? It's an annual event, apparently, but not the sort of thing that gathers a huge amount of pre-publicity. I mean, where should one go to see advance notice of this kind of thing? Time Out missed it completely. Enjoy England, the official national tourist website, is always unhelpfully location-specific rather than time-specific. Visit London continues to emphasise the mainstream, and hides the occasional quirky gem deep within its unmanageable database. It was only by chance (and at the last minute) that I discovered this weekend's windmill festival on the ever-comprehensive 24 Hour Museum website, which is currently celebrating Museums & Galleries Month. You didn't know that either, did you?

Anyway, despite the limited promotion, I thought that a visit to one of London's few remaining windmills was required. I've not been to the mill at Upminster before (nor, indeed, to Upminster full stop), so that's the windmill I chose. It's only open on a handful of weekends each year, so probably won't be accessible when I finally pull Havering from my special jamjar. And the mill is free to enter and staffed entirely by volunteers, which I always think are two damned good reasons for visiting anywhere. So off to the eastern extremity of the District Line I went.

Upminster Windmill is very much in the middle of suburbia. There are semi-detached houses on three sides of Windmill Field, and the mill would have followed suit had Essex County Council had their evil way in the 1950s. But local people successfully fought off the developers, and when the area was transferred to London in 1965 the new council was rather more sympathetic. What's special about this windmill is not its history or its design, but just that it's managed to survive.

Recently the mill has fallen victim to the wind it was meant to tame. A particularly violent storm on 18th January 2007 snapped off one of the sails, and the opposite sail then had to be removed to allow the structure to balance. Since then the windmill has looked slightly lopsided, with only two sails, while a pair of traditional replacements is built. These should be up and operational next month, paid for by the council's building insurance, and Upminster's iconic four-ness will be restored once again.

Sails aside, this is a traditional five storey smock mill. The tower is octagonal, with sloping wooden sides, topped off by a cap and fantail that allow the sails to rotate into the wind. It stands 17 metres tall and, yesterday at least, formed a perfect backdrop for the taking of arty blue-skied photographs. The mill dates back just over 200 years, built on the highest point in Upminster, and continued to grind wheat until the 1930s.

My guided tour began with a ladder-climb to the very top, beneath the cap, where the power of the sails is transferred to the central vertical shaft. Here we came face to beak with some pigeons who've recently broken in through a gaping hole in the woodwork, and are now making a mess with their roosting, nesting and guanoing. As we slowly descended, our guide explained the mechanics of flour production one floor at a time. Hoist up each sack using this, drop the grain through that hatch there, crush the kernels with these stones here, and filter out the surplus bran through this. It was an appropriately interesting 45 minute tour, illustrated with various tools and machinery, and kept children involved and entertained throughout. Admittedly Upminster's innards aren't yet restored to full working order - a Lottery grant will be required for that - but hopefully proper functionality will come soon.

I was especially impressed by the (mostly retired) volunteers who keep the windmill open, tirelessly battling against petty vandalism, irregular opening hours and mechanical failure. Only through their dedication has Upminster Windmill survived through the years to inspire and to educate. It's important to remind each new generation that we didn't always have the convenience of ciabattas, ovenbake baguettes and sliced bread. They were bloody clever, our forefathers, and Britain's remaining windmills stand as a monument to their ingenuity.

Windmills in London
» Barnet Gate Mill (Arkley, private, restored)
» Ashby's Mill (Brixton, conserved, at risk)
» Keston windmill (Bromley, private, conserved)
» Shirley windmill (Croydon, post mill, restored)
» Upminster windmill (being restored to full working order, next open June 7th)
» Wimbledon windmill (mid-common, converted to museum)

posted 07:00 :

 Sunday, May 11, 2008

Silver discs (May 1983)
An occasional look back at the top singles of 25 years ago

Three obscure-ish but memorable records from May 1983
Jane - It's A Fine Day: This unique acappella ditty is perfectly evocative of a warm pre-summer's day, just like today. Throw open the French windows, sit back in your deckchair and perspire a little. " It's a fine day, people open windows, they leave their houses, just for a short while." Ah yes, a fine day indeed. This is the original version, a sparse vocal performance by Jane Lancaster, not so much sung as breathed. "They walk by the grass and they look at the grass, they look at the sky." The lyrics were from a poem written by Jane's boyfriend Edward Barton, and originally doomed to indie obscurity until John Peel (and then Cherry Red) picked up on their timeless charm. "It's going to be a fine night tonight, it's going to be a fine day tomorrow." Never a hit, alas, until Opus III slammed the vocals over a dance beat and reached number 5 in the charts nine years later. "Sitting in this field, I remember how we were going to sit in this field but never quite did, rain or appointments or something." Mixes perfectly does our Jane, just like a good Pimms. [YouTube]
"We will have salad."
Kissing The Pink - Last Film: Ahh, I loved this one. From the opening whistling drumbeats to the disciplined harmonies of the chorus, there always was a hint of military madness about it. The band looked like a bunch of earnest geeks, probably because they were a bunch of classically trained musicians (from Willesden) masquerading as popstars. The name Kissing The Pink was a reference to snooker, obviously, although sexual connotations required abbreviation to KTP in America. The band had tons of other great songs, many on the LP/cassette "Naked" which I bought and played over and over, and you almost certainly didn't. Three consecutive weeks at number 19 on the singles chart was as good as they ever achieved over here, but One Step was the best selling song in Italy in 1985 (yes really), and the club-friendly Certain Things Are Likely reached number one on the US Dance Chart. Sadly underrated, but oh so quintessentially English. [ToTP]
"In the last film I ever saw, they wore suits and they wore ties. In the last film I ever saw, they kept the change and they told lies."
Seona Dancing (pronounced "Show-na") - More To Lose: I used to record lots of songs off the radio in the 1980s, including this keyboard curio from some obscure new wave band I'd never once seen on the telly. I must have missed Razzmatazz that week. Just as well perhaps, because the duo's floppy fringes, dangly earrings and eyeshadow might have put me off. So imagine my surprise, several years later, to discover that the band's pretty boy singer was none other than Ricky Gervais, before he was famous, back when he was only proto-desperate. New Romantics in the Philippines adored him, but the UK was not taken. Maybe it's just as well, because if Ricky from Reading had become a big star a quarter of a century ago, pinned up on teenagers' walls and promoting hairgel, we might never have seen The Office. [audio] [Razz] [fansite] [myspace]
"A thousand tortured lives have fallen, wounded dying cut down by the questions that we've sharpened, just to save our losing days"

25 (mostly great, all clickable) hits from 25 years ago this week: True (Spandau Ballet), (Keep Feeling) Fascination (Human League), Temptation (Heaven 17), Words (F.R. David), Dancing Tight (Galaxy), Pale Shelter (Tears For Fears), Candy Girl (New Edition), We Are Detective (Thompson Twins), Our Lips Are Sealed (Funboy Three), Can't Get Used To Losing You (The Beat), Beat It (Michael Jackson), Blind Vision (Blancmange), Let's Dance (David Bowie), Church Of The Poison Mind (Culture Club), Love Is A Stranger (Eurythmics), Blue Monday (New Order), Rosanna (Toto), Miss The Girl (The Creatures), Breakaway (Tracey Ullman), Boxerbeat (JoBoxers), I Am (I'm Me) (Twisted Sister), Buffalo Soldier (Bob Marley and the Wailers), Stop And Go (David Grant), Bad Boys (Wham), The House That Jack Built (Tracie) ...which hit's your favourite? ...which one would you pick?

posted 09:00 :

 Saturday, May 10, 2008

London songs: Hilly Fields (1892) by Nick Nicely

In the suburbs to the west of Lewisham, sort of Brockley/Ladywell-ish, there's a big convex park called Hilly Fields. It's an extensive green space with proper steep slopes, boasting fine views over Docklands and the uplands of Dulwich. Victorian developers devoured most of the surrounding area in the late 19th century, but this verdant hillock was saved from residential destruction by Octavia Hill, one of the founders of the National Trust. At the summit are tennis courts and half a secondary school, as well as (at this time of year) a very popular ice cream van. In the heat of a pre-summer's day it's a perfect spot for a minor kickaround, or for watching your dog let off steam, or for sitting on a folding chair in the shade of a blossoming horse chestnut whilst reading Daily Mail supplements with the wife. East London has nothing similarly contoured which could possibly compete.

And this is the local park which Nick Nicely sang about in his seminal psychedelic 1981 masterpiece - Hilly Fields (1892). Described by some as "the Strawberry Fields of the Eighties", it's a mysterious combination of synthesiser, cello and reefer madness. Hilly Fields was even sufficiently cutting-edge to include a bit of scratching, well before Malcolm McLaren kickstarted that particular bandwagon. What do you mean you've never heard the song before? Head on over to Nick's myspace and familiarise yourself immediately. Admittedly you might hate it - it's a Marmite kind of a song - but I've adored it for a quarter of a century. Nick spent six months perfecting the track, which nearly made it onto the seminal Some Bizarre sampler but didn't quite, and which EMI ought to have promoted more as a single, but didn't. Shame, but maybe New Romantic Britain wasn't quite ready for a late 60s acid revival. Lack of commercial success halted Nick's musical career, although he still lives nearby and no doubt revisits Hilly Fields regularly. Sitting up there in the sunshine earlier today, humming along, I can see why.
"18th of July, marked in with a circle of red.
He left them all behind, filed under missing or dead, it said...
1892, lines are still on you, Hilly Fields."

posted 23:55 :

So, erm, the plan today was to tell you all about my boat trip yesterday. That would have been really interesting, and there should have been some great photographs. Except that I never got to go on the boat trip yesterday, because they cancelled it without warning me in advance (something to do with dredging, the excuse was), and I only found out when I arrived at the quayside. Ah well, I'm sure I'll get my deposit back eventually. I had a lovely sunny day at the seaside instead, gobbling fish and chips and downing pints. I even managed to go sort-of-brown, rather than sort-of-red. But there are no great photographs, and there was nothing much really worth writing about. So, bad luck. In the meantime, does anybody know of a decent optician in the E3/East End area? I need to get my eyes tested before I run out of contact lenses, and there's no way I'm going back to the bunch of incompetent disorganised jobsworth chancers at Canary Wharf who mucked me around last year. Any recommendations?

posted 08:00 :

Final diet update: after 2 months
Chocolate: nil, nada, nichts
Chips: two small servings of low fat oven chips
Crisps: not a single packet
Cheese: only 300g (of low fat tasteless cheddar)
Red meat: one serving of low-fat mince
Chicken: absolutely loads
Salmon: over and over and over again
Porridge: 42 bowls
Weight lost: one stone (6kg) (woo!!!)

posted 01:00 :

 Friday, May 09, 2008

Round about now, if everything's gone to plan, I should be heading back onto dry land after a marvellous afternoon of messing about in boats. I hope I got some decent photographs. Hurrah for scheduled post publishing. And now for something I haven't done for the last two months - a proper fish supper! Fish may not have been banned as part of my low-fat cholesterol diet, but battered cod straight out of a spitting fryer was most definitely off limits. Especially with a side order of thick greasy vinegar-splattered chips piled up on the side of the plate, mmmm. Tonight's fatty feast is because I went back to the doctor's yesterday for a second blood test, signalling the end of my two months of extremely strict eating. Hopefully my cholesterol levels have dropped significantly, but I won't actually find out my results until next week. So I've decided to have a celebratory unhealthy blowout anyway, which yesterday included steak and kidney pie, pancakes and my first Creme Egg in eight weeks. It can't affect my test results, so why not? And tonight, I don't know about you, but fish and chips and a mug of steaming tea in a seaside restaurant sounds absolutely perfect.

posted 17:00 :

Of course, scheduled post publishing has its risks. Post too far into the future and events may overtake planned reality. I must never assume that it's possible to predict precisely what's going to happen next, because what happens next may turn out to be completely different. Right now, for example, I was planning to be on board a boat in the middle of the Thames, investigating a few more of London's wartime estuary defences. But things may not have worked out in quite the way I planned. I might have missed the train out of town, reached the harbourside too late and had to watch the boat sail off into mid-river without me. I might have discovered that my online booking hasn't been accepted, that the boat is full and that I've wasted my time travelling all the way down here. I might have misjudged the weather forecast and accidentally picked the only afternoon this week that isn't sunny, and stormed back home in disgust. Or I might even have fallen victim to the Great Thames Tidal Surge Disaster of May 2008, and be posting posthumously. Well, you never know. But hopefully I'm out on the river, in the sunshine, having a whale of a time. Ooh, blimey, look at that! Fantastic! Fingers crossed.
[n.b. Twitter may have a more timely update]

posted 13:00 :

And here's another post I wrote earlier. I'm almost never at home to blog at 10am on a weekday... but now, with Scheduled post publishing, I can pretend to be. I actually published this particular post 12 hours ago, but Blogger has held it back until precisely now. And this is great. I can now stick up pre-prepared posts while I'm at work, or while I'm out and about, or even while I'm on holiday, and you'll think I'm blogging in real time. It means the end to week-long hiatuses, like when I was incommunicado in the Outer Hebrides, because I can write you a week's worth of thrilling stuff in advance. Trust nothing from now on, it's all an illusion. For example, it's now 10am and I'm not actually blogging. I've taken today off work and I'm sitting on a train at a central London terminus about to travel out of the capital. The weather forecast looked really good earlier in the week, and a day trip to the seaside sounded like an utterly splendid no-brainer of an idea. Looking at the cloud, I'm not so sure now. Whenever 'now' is. Blimey, this time-travelling is really complicated.

posted 10:00 :

This is the first post I've ever published while I was asleep. Look down there at the timestamp. It's 4am, and I'm unconscious to the world under the duvet in the bedroom nextdoor. And yet this blogpost has appeared, all by itself, with no human interaction whatsoever. At 03:59 it wasn't here, and now 60 seconds later it is. Hello to any of you who happen to be awake (or, more likely, abroad) at this unearthly hour. All this synchronised excitement is thanks to a new Blogger feature called Scheduled post publishing. Regular commenter siddiq has the heads-up. It's very simple. If I write a new post and change its timestamp to some moment in the future, and then press publish, Blogger will wait until the appropriate time before publishing. Yes, I know that other blogging platforms have had this particular future-feature for absolutely ages, but it's long-awaited for us freebie-kids on bog standard Blogger. Hurrah! Can you hear me snoring?

posted 04:00 :

 Thursday, May 08, 2008

Two Forts Way: According to Thurrock Council there's a three mile pedestrian and cycle route along the banks of the Thames to the east of Tilbury, called the Two Forts Way. It looks almost convincing on an Ordnance Survey map, hugging the edge of the estuary and wiggling round the edge of a giant power station. So I thought I'd give it a try, on my way from Tilbury Fort to another defensive position further downriver. I'm glad I knew this thoroughfare existed before I got there because the signage was almost non-existent, and I'm particularly glad I didn't bring a bike.

Setting out from Tilbury Fort, all well and good. And then a small crossed-out sticker on a metal staircase hinted that this was where National Cycle Route 13 faded away. Erm, OK, up and over, to the high tide side of the river wall, and along the rather chancy path hugging the concrete edge. To my left towered the twin belching chimneys of Tilbury 'B', and to my right loomed a Mauritanean tanker. At one point, below the power station pier, the Thames was lapping over the footpath and I had to detour inland through a forgotten wildlife garden and over an enclosed rusty footbridge. Great stuff, if a little unexpected. Eventually these industrial ramparts dissolved away, and I found myself walking across deserted marshes covered by golden rape. Just me and the river and the occasional silent angler. Tiny newts scuttled across the path and I was repeatedly dive-bombed by butterflies. Even greater stuff. It was a real shame when, after a mile of 'proper' irregular footpath, the bland tarmac cycle route suddenly returned. Giggling kids and families with pushchairs signalled car park ahead, and the magic of the secret trail ebbed away. I hope they never link the two ends together with anything too accessible.


Coalhouse Fort: When warships grew stronger and Tilbury Fort grew obsolete, the Victorians installed three replacements on the penultimate bend of the River Thames. The best preserved of these is Coalhouse Fort, an armoured casemate battery with curved granite walls set behind protective earthworks. Bloody enormous guns were lined up around the perimeter to take aim at any French (and later German) battleships that dared to approach. None ever did. The fort is now in the care of a devoted band of volunteers who are slowly restoring its crumbling fabric, and who open up the gates to visitors on the last Sunday of the month and on bank holidays. So I popped in here too. The £3 for admission was a bargain, and they chucked in a free hour-plus guided tour as a bonus. I was impressed by our guide who managed to keep talking throughout, in spite of the echoing moans of a couple of uninterested toddlers being dragged round by their smiling parents. From the dark (now damp) tunnels where the gunpowder was stored up to the gun emplacements on the roof, she battled to tell us every last elaborate detail of the fort's operation. Most informative, perhaps overly so, but a fascinating behind the scenes glimpse of 19th century ingenuity all the same.

Once dismissed from the tour I went to looked round a couple of pleasingly amateur museums, each crammed with a hotchpotch of military exhibits and ephemera. There's a particular emphasis on aviation, including several 'bits' that the curators hire out to film crews who need authentic plane crash debris. Out in the courtyard I found a selection of old army vehicles, and the remains of a V2 bomb which landed on Wickford (ha!), and a handful of stalls peddling crystals and tarot readings. I'd turned up on the day of the fort's annual Psychic Fair, although very few stallholders had made the effort. Judging by the lack of consumer interest, it was the psychics who'd stayed at home who had the true predictive ability. I was too late to pay a pound for a visit to "The Haunted Tunnel", and I also missed Yvette Fielding who was here with her over-hyped film crew a couple of months ago. If you dare follow in her (and my) footsteps, your next opportunity is in three weeks time.


Bataville: And finally, on the long walk back to East Tilbury station, what looks like a peculiar Eastern European outpost. To the west of the road are a series of blocky white factories, now mostly empty, and to the east a compact square estate of semi-continental-style houses. All date back to the 1930s when Tomas Bata came from Czechoslovakia to build a shoe factory in these estuarine meadows. He was a man with a passion, not just for footwear but for the welfare of his workers and their families. He planned a utopian 'garden village' settlement, promoting modernist design, with all of its services managed by the Bata Shoe Company. There was a Bata cinema and a Bata butchers and a Bata supermarket and even a Bata war memorial (plus, of course, a Bata shoe shop).

Shoe production has long since moved overseas, leaving the estate as a peaceful commuter village with half a row of shops and a central library. Walking round the tightly-packed grid of leafy residential avenues it's clear that this is still a desirable place to live, even without the community infrastructure so carefully cultivated by its original benefactor. But Tomas's legacy lives on at the Bata Reminiscence and Resource Centre, whose website will tell you all you need to know about the history of this unique location. If expansion plans for the Thames Gateway go ahead, there may yet be thousands more homes on their way. Let's hope they don't smother the site's quintessential Bata-ness.

posted 01:00 :

 Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Tilbury Riverside: On the grey northern banks of the Thames, just before the estuary opens up to the sea, lies the historic town of Tilbury. It's home to one of the three largest container ports in Britain, and the only commercial survivor of the outward expansion of London's docklands in the 19th century. Huge ocean-going ships sail in daily to unload their cargoes, and vast acreages of unsold shiny cars cover the quayside. It's all screened-off and rather ugly, at least until you make your way a mile out of town to the one remaining accessible stretch of river frontage. There used to be a major train terminus down here until the 1960s, back when this was London's main passenger liner terminal. Thousands emigrated to Australia through its portals, and 60 years ago the Empire Windrush docked here heralding the beginnings of Commonwealth immigration. It's rather quieter these days. The terminal now hosts only the occasional deep water cruise and the notoriously unreliable Gravesend Ferry, while the railway line is used only by freight. There was no ferry service on Bank Holiday Monday, just a deserted locked-off jetty (so no chance of escaping to Kent). Business was unexpectedly buzzing at the World's End pub, appropriately located at the end of a bleak mudflanked cul-de-sac. A few yards further along the river wall, however, was my intended destination.


Tilbury Fort: How best could the Kings and Queens of England prevent enemy boats from sweeping up the Thames to capture London by force? A large military fort at Tilbury, that's how, guns poised ready to sink any advancing maritime threat. Henry VIII built the first defensive structure here but it was Charles II who instigated the impressive star-shaped structure still to be seen today. It's essentially pentagonal, with diamond-shaped bastions poking out into a series of concentric moats. Alas you don't get any sense of the geometric splendour of the site by visiting, that's only evident from the air. But the front entrance - a decorative Water Gate - is mighty impressive, and there's plenty more to see inside.

"I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm." (Queen Elizabeth I, Tilbury, August 1588)

Entrance costs only £3.70 (very Thurrock prices, I thought), and with your ticket you get a push-button audio tour and free rein to explore the site. Out across the parade ground for starters, or up onto the bastion wall to look out over the concentric moats and wooden drawbridges protecting the fort from land-based attack. Younger visitors will enjoy scrambling over the earth banks and grassy peaks labelled "do not climb", even though English Heritage might wish they didn't. One especially well-preserved building is the East Magazine, used for storing thousand stacked-up barrels of gunpowder. It's surrounded by an additional curtain wall to limit the possibility of serious blast damage - risk management is certainly no 21st century invention. Elsewhere you can go down into the dark storage tunnels of the north-east bastion, these a later addition to the fort, or climb up onto the gun positions overlooking the Thames. Blam! Pow! Gotcha!

And yet, for all its impressive fortifications, Tilbury Fort never really earnt its keep. No enemy gunboats ever made it this far up the Thames, and the only wartime action was the shooting down of a single WW1 Zeppelin. And so the fort survives, battling on against a regular invasion of Essex dads, spray-tanned mums and their bloated runaround offspring. The Spanish Armada was surely nothing in comparison.

posted 07:00 :

 Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Zero marks

As the weather finally improves, I'm getting increasingly worried. As I look around at others in the sunshine, I fear that I may not be normal. As Britain starts to strip off for spring, I have a terrible confession to make. Yes, unbelievable as it may sound, it's absolutely true. I don't have a tattoo. How did that happen?

There is no blotchy blue design sprawled across my upper arm. No dragon's claw or dolphin's tail pokes out from beneath the hem of my t-shirt sleeve. I haven't got a row of Chinese characters running down my forearm, nor the name of my firstborn emblazoned across my shoulderblade. There's no intricate Celtic knotwork encircling either of my biceps, nor the emblem of my favourite football team etched permanently into my calf. No constellation of stars adorns the nape of my neck, and no mythical beast-filled tableau plays out across my chest. My skin, alas, is totally wholly 100% tattoo-free.

It's bewildering, to be honest. Surely by this point in my life I should have subjected myself to the needle at least once? Surely my mates really ought to have cajoled me into the artist's chair for a shared Maori symbol or an impulsive Union Jack. There must, surely, have been one drunken evening when I felt the need to stumble into a tattoo parlour and demand that a comedy bulldog be injected beneath my skin? I must, surely, have woken one morning with a thumping hangover and wondered why my skin was suddenly peeling in technicolour. How can I have held out for so long?

And yet no. My unblemished skin remains a virgin embarrassment. Other men can whip off their t-shirts in public to reveal inclusive tribal markings, but I need to wear long sleeves to hide my un-inked shame. Other people wear their personality with pictorial pride, like a hieroglyphic hallmark (football team, sign of zodiac, MUM, firstborn), whereas I have no distinguishing features whatsoever. Everybody else's epidermis appears to have succumbed to indelible scarring, but not mine. As the sun starts beating down for summer, I can no longer pretend to be a functioning part of modern society. I am so very very sorry.

I guess a tattoo's just something I've been putting off, like a trip to the dentist. Maybe one day I'll identify a particular design I want plastered all over me in perpetuity. Maybe one day I'll choose to adorn my bodily canvas with something spontaneous and witty. Maybe one day I'll step up and join the ranks of the permanently marked. Maybe one day I too will be innately fashionable, even with nothing on. In the meantime, I'm resigned to being alienated by my lack of artistic taste.

Please, I beg of you, don't laugh at me. And I promise not to laugh at you when your dragon fades, and your angel blurs, and your phoenix sags, and your inkblot wrinkles, and your beloved divorces, and your football team rebrands, and those Chinese characters turn out to spell a particularly crude swear word. In 20 years time, I may still relish being the odd one out.

posted 07:00 :

 Monday, May 05, 2008

Simon Patterson: The Undersea World and Other Stories
National Maritime Museum (1 May - 26 October)

I don't know about you, but most of the art I did at school wasn't very good. A few charcoal sketchings, a couple of badly misfired clay objects and several posterpaint daubings. It came as some surprise, therefore, when my secondary school art teacher saw fit to place one of my not terribly good paintings on the art room wall. And even more of a surprise when that same painting (of a plate of food) was still there on the same wall four years later. School art doesn't usually have longevity, and isn't usually great. But one of my contemporaries from school moved on from art lesson brushwork to exhibit in galleries worldwide. Simon was a couple of years below me, but I was at least in the same class as his brother. And yesterday I went to Greenwich to see a proper exhibition of his work. This time with no double-mounted sugar paper anywhere in sight.

You probably know some of Simon Patterson's work. He was the mastermind behind the first tube map mashup - The Great Bear - in which the names of all the stations were replaced by famous people. Engineers on the Bakerloo line, philosophers on the Circle and Footballers on the Jubilee, etc etc. It doesn't sound terribly original now but the trick, as with all wonderfully simple ideas, was to come up with it before anyone else. The Great Bear is the first thing you'll see as you enter this exhibition. It's based on the 1992 tube map so it still looks like a proper work of art - no accessibility blobs or excess information overload here. And no obtrusive IKEA advert either (but there is a station rather prophetically called Boris). Stand and admire - you'll not see the tube map this clean and clever again.

And there's more (though, to be honest, not a huge amount more) as the exhibition continues. A quartet of giant abaci, each inscribed with the name of a famous ship. A liner's cross section marked out with geological timelines. A pair of slide rules depicting biblical, scientific and psychological evolution. Three fully rigged racing sails, each labelled with the biographical details of a famous writer. All perfectly in tune with the National Maritime Museum's historical obsession with time and the sea. But someone really ought to have gagged the art critic whose gushing prose appears in the show's catalogue. I mean, really, who writes this sort of stuff...

"Patterson's artistic practice uses wry humour to question the ways language is used and misused in a flawed network of knowledge, power, doubt and affirmation. Language is built on consensus, yet in Patterson's hands the register shifts to one of dissensus as he negotiates between universal solutions and failures that are, paradoxically, essential for language to do its work."

Ah, I've not heard him called "Patterson" since the early 80s. Further inside there are two exhibits on a rather grander scale. Cosmic Wallpaper is a giant starchart mural with stellar names replaced by a Deep Purple discography. Strange, I didn't have the Patterson family down as a prog rock stronghold. And there's the NMM's new commission, Cousteau in the Underworld. At first sight it looks like a room hung with vintage Mediterranean sea charts, but look closer and you'll see that not everything in sepia text is a genuine place name. Some are more definitely linked to Greek mythology, while whole sentences appear to have been lifted from a Wikipedia biography of France's finest undersea explorer. Yeah, very clever. Sometimes I feel Simon's a one trick pony, but it's a mighty fine trick.

Outside, above the museum's Neptune Court, there's one further physical installation. A giant white kite, emblazoned with the name "Yuri Gagarin", has been lodged against the glass ceiling. This is an "itinerant sculpture" and has been travelling the world since 1999 (up an E3 tree, between Australian town hall pillars, in a Japanese tea garden, etc) before it eventually reaches its final destination at the Moscow airfield where Gagarin lost his life. Very deep, very symbolic. And finally, if you can find your way to the rear parlour of the Queen's House nextdoor, a rare venture into video. Simon's filmed two 18th century pocket watches and added a one minute soundtrack of a man and woman exercising. It sounded like shagging to me, but the guidebook assured me they were instead "pushing their bodies to physical limits, intertwining mechanical and experiential time".

The exhibition won't detain you for long, but it's well worth a look at some point over the next six months. Especially the legendary tube map. And once the doors have shut and Simon's work has been cleared away, I wonder if they'd be interested in a commission from one of his artistic contemporaries. I must have that painting of a dinnerplate somewhere...

Three other fine things to do in Greenwich
» The rest of the National Maritime Museum (it's great)
» The Peter Harrison Planetarium (now a year old, and fab)
» Old Royal Naval College May Fayre (today only, 11-4)

posted 00:05 :

 Sunday, May 04, 2008

A walk along the Regent's Canal

What lovelier way to spend a bank holiday weekend than a canalside walk? So yesterday I walked the entire length of the Regent's Canal, all 8½ twisty watery miles from Limehouse to Paddington. I've walked it before, three years ago, and blogged about the journey at great length. But quite a bit has changed since then, both alongside the towpath and on it, so I thought I'd take a second look. And get a bit of useful exercise to boot.

Blimey, wasn't the towpath busy yesterday? I know it was sunny and warm, but I don't remember anywhere near this many people using the towpath a few years ago. If the legacy of Ken's cycling revolution is evident anywhere in London, it's here. Bike after bike ting-tinged past, as blokes in lycra and women in t-shirts sped by on their sustainable journeys. The joggers were out in great numbers too, especially on the eastern half of the canal, puffing away on their Saturday morning self-improvement constitutional. And then there were the walkers, a steady stream of assorted pedestrians stepping out to enjoy the springtime sunshine, heading nowhere in particular with the occasional canine companion in tow.

The water was rather quieter. Very few narrowboats chugged by, for reasons which would later become apparent. Instead the canal was dotted with randy waterfowl, flapping and preening and nest-building as their seasonal mating instincts kicked in. Most were swimming around in pairs, a look of blissful happiness on their beaks, while a few already had their new fluffy extended family paddling alongside.

I noticed an awful lot of new buildings beside the canal that weren't there last time I walked by. In Tower Hamlets the last of the old warehouses had been demolished to make way for tight-packed residential developments with "waterside aspect". In Haggerston an unusual shipshape apartment block has been shoehorned in beside the canal - unexpectedly hideous, but no doubt it looked better on the drawing board. North of King's Cross a series of glass and steel cliffs plunge down to the water's edge as the area moves definitively upmarket. This eastern end of the canal is certainly seeing a continued economic renaissance, although the canalside council blocks of Hackney stand as reminder that not everybody is seeing the benefits.

Two stretches of the walk came in sharp contrast to the peace and quiet of waterside life. There's no towpath through the thousand-yard Islington tunnel so I had to divert up into the busy shopping hub around Upper Street, fighting my way through the latte drinkers and roaring traffic. Signage here was as poor as ever, and I nearly got lost threading my way through the residential streets beyond. And the second jolt came at Camden Lock. Increasing crowds of glowering emo kids and vegan noodle munchers signalled that the market was in full swing up ahead. The towpath diverts right through the centre of this bizarre bazaar, so there was no alternative but to try to force my way (ever so slowly) through the throng of spicy-lunching trinket shoppers.

And finally, almost three hours after setting out, I reached journey's end at Little Venice. Good timing. The annual Canalway Cavalcade was in full swing, and the basin was packed with colourful narrowboats here to celebrate "funtime on the water". Several canalfolk had chugged their decorated craft from far and wide to be here, and were tied up on the banks enjoying the carnival atmosphere. We don't get to host this sort of gathering often enough in central London, and the brightly painted boats were a sight to savour. Most photogenic.

Hundreds of happy visitors milled around on the quayside, perusing the stalls and sipping the odd pint of real ale. Even the Mayor was here in his ceremonial limo (that's the Lord Mayor of the City of London, not the new floppy-haired Mayor of Henley). Every now and then a purple-painted morris dancer wandered by, off to bash a bladder in another demonstration of Mayday merriment. I had to step carefully to negotiate past the oversized pushchairs, almost towpath-width, that certain inconsiderate parents were wielding. But what an excellent end to my walk. Festivities continue today and tomorrow, should you fancy partaking in a little Canalway magic. And don't worry, you don't have to walk all the way there - not unless you want to.

posted 09:00 :

 Saturday, May 03, 2008

Gallowatch
• George's percentage of votes in the London-wide Assembly elections: 2.4% (not enough)
• Number of times George has voted in Parliament in the last nine months: 4 (out of 182)
• Number of Parliamentary debates in which George has spoken in the last nine months: 1
• Most recent update on the georgegalloway.com news page: January 2007
• Number of months until George is no longer my MP: 25 or less

Bojowatch
• Number of gobsmacking gaffes, cretinous decisions and complete balls-ups: 0 (so far)
• Number of outer London boroughs directly responsible for Boris's election last night: 6
• Number of months to the Henley by-election: somewhere between 1 and 25
• Number of days to the London Olympics: 1546
• Number of those 1546 days on which Boris will be Mayor: 1461

posted 12:00 :

My MP is George Galloway.
My Mayor is Boris Johnson.
One celebrity left wing tosser, one celebrity right wing tosser.

I despair, I really do.

posted 00:00 :

 Friday, May 02, 2008

the Londoner  a newsletter from the Mayor  final edition - May 2008 The Londoner is a freesheet packed full with all the latest news and propaganda from the Greater London Assembly. Or at least it used to be. Now I'm in charge, I'm cancelling this ludicrous free sheet, this Pyongyang-style newspaper, and spending the money on something more useful. Pimms anyone? CUTTING CRIME WITH BORIS I'm going to start as I mean to go on. I invite you all down to Marble Arch this afternoon, to the site of the old Tyburn Tree, for London's first public execution since 1868. Once a sufficiently large baying mob has gathered, the cull will begin. I'm going to flag down a passing bendy bus and send in a pack of foxhounds to drag out all the fare dodgers. Then I'm going to string the scallywags up for all to see and watch them dangle until their hoodies stop jiggling. Ha, that'll show them. I bet the crime figures plummet after this splendid show of force. Tally ho! FOR SALE! LUXURY APARTMENTS Over 100 shiny glass apartments are now available at City Hall, following the eviction of the previous tenant and his extended family. This splendid riverside accommodation comes complete with ninth floor penthouse, central spiral staircase and excellent views over some old Norman castle. Would suit Mayfair clubbers, pinstriped fogeys and anyone who wants to live inside a glass testicle. Located within easy walking distance of all major City institutions (but tenants will probably prefer to take a taxi to work instead). Central heating system runs off cheap Venezuelan crude. Extortionate service charges have been a speciality for several years. Contact De Pfeffel Estate Agents for further details.

ROUTEMASTER COMPETITION Yes folks, it's time to get rid of Ken's evil bendy buses. Not immediately, obviously, because I've not got anything to replace them with. So today I'm launching a competition to design a new Routemaster for London's streets. I haven't got a bloody clue what the new buses should look like (apart from the fact that they should be red, obviously). So I'm linking up with children's TV programme Blue Peter, because if anyone can come up with a cute lovable slightly wonky design, it's a 7 year old. Drawings scribbled in crayon will score extra points. Feel free to ignore the infirm, the wheelchair-bound and the disabled, because that'll be cheaper. And then, in true Blue Peter fashion, we'll bin all the genuine entries and sneak into 1st place a design drawn by one of our Tory wonks. He calls it a "car". CONGESTION CHARGE SHRINKS A special message to all my friends in Kensington and Chelsea. Last year Ken extended the Congestion Charge into your fine leafy streets, and then he planned to charge you £25 to drive your reasonably sized off-roaders down to Harrods. Well, stuff that. I can't change the rules until the new London Assembly meets next week. But, ssssh, don't tell anyone, I've already turned off all the cameras in the Western half of the zone. Now you can chug around Chelsea, hop across Holland Park and career through Knightsbridge to your heart's content. Trust me, no snapping lens will ever flash you. And you can spend all the money you've saved on petrol. And olives. See, and people said I wouldn't have any good ideas. MAYDAY, MAYDAY You may, over the last 24 hours, have developed a sudden uncontrollable urge to leave London and never come back. Well, good news! I'm laying on coaches for all of you non-believers, and paying for a one way ticket to The North for everyone who wants it. Be there in Trafalgar Square at noon on Saturday, and be off with you! Hurry now, while the capital's transport system still works...

(© bojo 2008)

posted 07:00 :

 Thursday, May 01, 2008

How to vote in today's London Mayoral Election
(assuming you live in London, obviously)

1) What do I do with my postal vote?
Post it, you idiot, preferably yesterday. Let's hope it arrives in time to be counted. Don't forget there's always a small but finite chance that your postal vote will end up lost in a binbag, or eaten by a rat, or steamed open and re-crossed by some scheming enemy of democracy. Still, if you can't be bothered to turn up in person, what do you expect?

2) Where's my polling station?
You should know where that is, either because they sent you a card or because it's your local primary school and you've had to take the day off to babysit the kids.

3) What do I say to the nice lady behind the desk?
Tell her your name and address, and she'll look you up on her list. At this point you may suddenly discover that you're not registered to vote. Oops. It's probably your own fault for not sending the form back. But it might just be that your electoral identity has been stolen by somebody who can read upside-down.

4) Hang on, I appear to have been given THREE pieces of paper.
Yes, that's right. You're not just voting for a celebrity clown to be Mayor, you're also voting for a bunch of obscure London Assembly members. Be brave and we'll take this one step at a time. Pink sheet first.

5) Blimey, I thought there were only three candidates for mayor.
No, there are ten, although you wouldn't guess from the tiny amount of press coverage some of the smaller candidates have had. Please, don't vote for the bigot by mistake. Or the nutter. Or the bigoted nutter.

6) Is that Boris Johnson's middle name? LOL ROFL
Stop giggling and concentrate. This is where you pick your first preference for Mayor of London. Feel free to pick one of the smaller parties - they'll never get in but your cross will make their candidate feel 0.00001% better about themselves.

7) OK I've voted for Mayor. What's this second column for?
That's for your second preference. If you didn't vote for Ken or Boris in the first column, vote for either Ken or Boris now because everybody else will have been knocked out by the second stage. This is your real vote. This one decides London's future for the next four years. This one actually matters.

8) Now, what about the yellow ballot paper?
This is where you vote for a constituency member of the London Assembly. One of the non-entities on the list has probably been your elected representative for the last four years, but they've made so little impact on your life that you've never heard of them. The rest are even less famous. Try not to pick the candidate with the funniest name.

9) And the final paper, what colour's that, apricot?
It's peach, obviously. This is where you pick a party, not a person, and the remaining eleven seats are shared out according to the votes (using the "Modified d’Hondt Formula"). There are two big dangers here. One is that enough people might gang together and vote in the BNP, which would be ghastly. And the other is that enough people might gang together and vote in George Galloway, which would be insufferable.

10) OK, I've posted all my votes in the ballot box. Now what?
We don't find out who won until tomorrow, probably quite late tomorrow, after they've spent all day counting the votes. And don't worry, it's a secret ballot, so if you picked a winner and they turn out to be a cringeworthy embarrassment, nobody need ever know.

posted 07:00 :