Last year London held a Walk To Work Day. This year the UK is holding a Walk To Work Week. The idea's the same. Make a one-off trip to work on foot - either the whole journey or more of it than usual - then pledge to fit more walking into your working day in the future. It'll be good for your health, it'll be good for your waistline, and it'll be better than being crammed on a train or stuck in a bus or jammed in a car. Ignore how cold and wet you might get. Ignore all the extra time it'll take. Just concentrate on the benefits. And get walking.
So yesterday I walked to work. All the way to work. It meant waking up an hour earlier than usual to arrive at the normal time, but that was a small price to pay for keeping off the tube. It was a gorgeous day, and I'd have the sun behind me all the way, so I risked going coatless in the early morning chill. Good choice, as it turned out. Porridge gulped and shoes laced, I set off along Bow Road on my way towards the City. Five miles to go. Best foot forward.
East End pavements are quiet at half past six in the morning. The Tower Hamlets hose-down squad take this opportunity to water-blast the litterbins along the Mile End Road. A few early commuters aim for the tube. London's invisible army of overnight cleaners heads home to bed. Whitechapel Market slowly emerges from the back of a fleet of unbranded vans. A handful of bench-bound blokes quaff silently from 2-litre green bottles - because it's never too early in the day for the first glug of White Lightning. It'll get rowdier later.
All along my walk I was teased and tempted by every tube station I passed. I could have been down there a few feet below the roadway, taking the easy route to work, but I resisted. My time-consuming journey reminded me how the advent of public transport transformed London. Two centuries ago I'd not have wanted to live five miles from work, I'd have lived much closer. London small. Anything to avoid a three hour daily pedestrian commute. And now the city's workers can all live much further out, so we do. London big. Which makes walking to work a occasional lunatic activity.
Cross into the City proper and the narrow streets thicken. It's an early start for many, stepping blearily from the suburbs and filing dutifully towards their desks. On the way they pause to pick up a coffee - there was no time for breakfast at home - and mmmm that smells nice, go on, a lightly-greased croissant too. The sun fails to penetrate the shadowy canyons between the high blocks and skyscrapers, and everywhere a swarm of dark suits and black jackets scuttles on.
I reached my desk about an hour and a half after setting out. I wasn't knackered, I wasn't panting, and I wasn't visibly sweaty. Pity really, because it would have been nice if at least one of my fellow colleagues had noticed and asked me why I was flushed and grinning. Instead my ambulatory saintliness went unheeded. But I'm glad I gave the healthy option a try, because it'd been a fascinating journey across a very varied cross section of London. And maybe that's why, stepping out of the office into the afternoon sunlight eight hours later, I decided to walk all the way home too.
Sorry, it's that campaign again. Only In London - Visit London's 2009 campaign to boost tourism in the capital by publicising its unique attractions. You probably remember last month when they published a list of "the top 100 things to do" in London, then thought better of it and swiftly downgraded the list to merely "100 things to do". Well, that list has now been extended to 166. I knew you'd be excited. Teeth at the ready.
The list is still being marketed as "recommendations for things you can only do in London". I take issue with this claim. Some things you could do elsewhere. Some things have been defined in an extremely restrictive way. And some things are a bit rubbish. Below are some selected lowlights from the latest additions to the list, so that you can see what I mean. And you may well have thoughts of your own on some of the rest.
Attractions that are patently impossible 118. See British law-making in action at the Houses of Parliament during the summer opening (erm, no visible law-making occurs during the summer recess, by definition)
Attractions that you could do better somewhere other than London 115. Visit the Estorick Collection, Britain's only gallery devoted to modern Italian art (or go to Italy, obviously) 139. Visit the burial site of the first plague victim in St Paul's Church in Covent Garden (just a hunch, but I doubt that the world's first ever plague victim died in London) 154. See Upminster Windmill, built in 1803 and one of the finest examples of a "smock" windmill remaining in England (it's a lovelywindmill, but Britain boasts better)
Attractions described in such a contrived way that only one location could possibly satisfy 157. Visit The Geffrye Museum, the world's only museum dedicated to British middle-class homes and gardens from 1600 to present day (unique, by definition) 158. Visit the British Music Experience, the world's only fully interactive permanent exhibition devoted to popular music in Britain (unique, by definition) 160. See the world's most comprehensive collection of British 19th- and 20th-century decorative arts for the home at the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture at Middlesex University in Enfield (unique, by definition)
Attractions that are "Only in London" because they've been defined as London-only 104. Stay in The May Fair Hotel – The official hotel of London Fashion Week (London only) 133. Browse at London's oldest food market, Borough Market (London only) 149. Enjoy the comfort of Electric Cinema in Notting Hill, the city's oldest functioning cinema (London only)
Attractions that appear on the "Only in London" list more than three times 8. Explore ZSL London Zoo, Regent's Park, the World's oldest scientific Zoo (Waltham Forest's only on the list once) 117. Take a dive and visit the world's first aquarium at ZSL London Zoo (Kensington Palace's only on the list twice) 131. Visit ZSL London Zoo, where Christopher Robin (AA Milne's son) first fell in love with a real bear named Winnie, which started the classic tale (Hampton Court's only on the list three times) 141. Explore ZSL London Zoo which bred the first female giraffe in captivity and was home to the first hippopotamus in Europe since Roman times (the O2 and the Tower of London also appear on the list four times each) (I wonder how much they paid for the privilege?)
Attractions that are plain rubbish, as attractions go 127. Go shopping under the tallest building in the UK, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf Tower (but you can't see the tower from the shops, so why make a fuss?) 144. Paint a picture in East London, which has the highest concentration of artists per square metre than anywhere else in Europe (per square metre???) (oh please, put down the book of statistics and walk away) 166. Explore the same streets as Sir Walter Raleigh, who lived on Upper Street, Islington (he'd not recognise the place now though, would he, there's no Tudor heritage left) (so this is drivel) (they really should have stopped the list at 165)
Fantastic attractions that are indeed "Only in London" 111. Visit The Monument, the tallest isolated stone column in the world (historic, unique, freshly-spruced AND a great view from the top) 132. See the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, where Big Ben was cast (a proper gem, even the Queen visited last month) 125. Visit the London Sewing Machine Museum in Balham, the UK's only museum dedicated to sewing machines, with more than 600 sewing machines on display (beat that, rest of world!) (you can't, can you?)
Somewhere random: Leytonstone station When you think of the great film director Alfred Hitchcock you probably think of Hollywood, but you should instead be thinking Waltham Forest. Not quite so glamorous, admittedly, but the great film director had his humble origins in Leytonstone. If he'd followed in his father's footsteps he'd have been a greengrocer on the High Road, but dad's footsteps died out when Alf was only 14 and he ended up at an East End university instead. His career moved rapidly from draftsman to silent movie title designer to film director, and in 1929 he lurched into the limelight with "Blackmail", the first British talkie.
There's no sign of number 517 High Road today, just a rather ordinary petrol station, so Hitchcock stalkers should instead make tracks to Leytonstonetube station. A rather magnificent mosaic tribute was installed here in 2001, and the two sloping subways leading up from the ticket hall now resemble a subterranean art gallery. There are 17 mosaics altogether, lovingly constructed from over 80000 vitreous glass tesserae, and each depicts either a famous Hitchcock movie or a scene from Alfred's life. Some even manage to combine both, which is rather appropriate given that the old man loved to make a cameo appearance in his own films.
Blimey they're good, even if subdued lighting means most aren't displayed in optimal conditions. That's partly to your advantage, however, because you can try to guess which film each mosaic represents before squinting to read the small plaque positioned immediately above or beneath. For example, the celluloid inspiration for the first two illustrations above is obvious. That lady in the shower must be from Psycho, and the woman with peckable spaghetti hair can only be enduring The Birds. But what's that butler doing on the stairs, any idea? You can confirm your suspicion by hovering over the third picture for an answer.
If you can't make it down to Leytonstone, the wonders of the internet allow the entire gallery to be viewed online. You could go direct to the manufacturers, the City Arts & Greenwich Mural Workshop, but if you yearn for finer detail I recommend the excellent Joy of Shards. But nothing quite beats seeing the tiles in the flesh, even if to view them you have to keep stepping out of the way of every would-be passenger rushing down the subway. No murderous thoughts, please, there'll be a better view once the lady vanishes. by tube: Leytonstone
Somewhere pretty: Chingford One thing Waltham Forest does well, which I've not seen replicated in any other London borough, is to produce a high quality series of detailed leaflets documenting its architectural treasures. And not just the grander listed buildings, but also residential streets in heritage clusters. If you live in one of the borough's conservation areas (Leucha Road, Ropers Field, Walthamstow Village, etc) there's probably a leaflet documenting its geographic extent, ornamental features and all necessary planning regulations. There are also four Millennium Heritage Trails, each printed on luxury folded cardboard, for borough residents to get their hands on. I picked up a full set at the Vestry House Museum (grab now, before council cutbacks bite), and followed Trail 1 to the heights of Chingford. It's not all Norman Tebbitt, you know.
There are at least 23 buildings of architectural note in Chingford, apparently, including a 400-year-old dovecote and a late Victorian terracotta-clad pub. The oldest is Queen Elizabeth'sHunting Lodge on the forest edge, which I've visited before (and which is also Londonist's "Museum ofthe Month"). Nextdoor is the Butler'sRetreat, a listed barn used to serve refreshments to Forest-bound visitors, although alas currently closed for refurbishment. Of the remaining buildings of note, most are clustered around Chingford Green - a thin triangle of grass surrounded by one of the borough's larger conservation areas. A wide range of architectural styles are on show, from faux Tudor to faux Gothic, although my favourite was the genuine weatherboarded tweeness of Carbis Cottage. Before the railways came Chingford was but a small hamlet of similarly rural homesteads. It's very different now.
The leafleted trail doesn't shy away from more suburban highlights. There are some particularly grand homes along The Drive, for example, and a few equally over-turreted mansions facing the golf course along Forest View. The north end of Chingford is where Waltham Forest's better off residents come to live, not quite gated luxury but still a million miles away from conditions in the tightly packed streets of Leyton far to the south. For a topping treat, however, trudge up to the highest point of the estate where you'll find a short footpath leading to the summit of Pole Hill. Not only is there a great view through the trees towards the City, but there's also an obelisk or two marking an unlikely geographical coincidence. The Greenwich Meridian passes directly through the top of the hill, so as you stand beside the trig point you are precisely due north of the Royal Observatory. Further details are included in my special Meridian postings from five years ago (including Waltham Forest's series of carefully aligned pavementtributes). Pole Hill's a lovely spot - even Lawrence of Arabia thought so - and all the better if (like me) you get the entire mound completely to yourself. by train: Chingford
Somewhere famous: The Beckham Trail There's no more famous Waltham Forest resident than Posh Spice's husband. Or rather there's no more famous ex-resident, because David Beckham moved out of his parents' Chingford semi several years ago to establish a property portfolio across Cheshire and all points global. But never fear. Since 2003, football fans wishing to follow in David's golden footsteps have been able to follow the official Beckham Trail, courtesy of Waltham Forest's (ill-templated) website. This is a motley collection of ten locations supposedly allowing visitors to track young David's childhood progress, although to be honest it's more a list of municipally-owned properties around South Chingford than anything more exciting. And you never actually find out where he lived. And it's not really a walking route, more a list of car-bound sat-nav destinations. But I gave Becks a try.
1)Whipps Cross Hospital: In common with hundreds of thousands of other locals, little David was born in north-east London's largest infirmary complex. Nobody seems to know in which ward, there's no plaque or anything, so visitors are undoubtedly better off crossing the road and wandering round the nearby lake instead. Ice creams and rowing boat hire available.
2)Peter May Sports Centre: Just off the North Circular, this green ampitheatre is home to the Under-10s of Ridgeway Rovers, who've had less successful seasons since young DB moved on. On Saturday the sport of choice was cricket, and not much of it, so the goalnets flapped desolately in the wind.
3)Walthamstow Stadium: David used to work here as a glass-collector (which may give you some idea how desperate some of the locations in this trail are). Alas nobody works here now, bar a few security guards, because this much-mourned dogtrack closed down last year to be reborn as yet another humdrum housing development. Until that happens, however, the stadium's untweaked white frontage still stirs the hearts of passing travellers (and you can even glimpse the mighty mothballed scoreboard from location number 2).
4&6)Ainslie Wood & Larkswood Park: These are two wood-fringed grass squares with plenty of footie space, one beside David's nan's flat, the other closer to home. Saturday saw many of the district's soccer-addicted youngsters out for a sunny kickaround, some under the organised auspices of grunting coaches, others merely running around for fun. Desperately ordinary, and surprisingly evocative. Non car-drivers also get to enjoy a twin-peaked bluebell-spotting walk between the two locations.
5&9)Chase Lane School & Chingford School: Come see where David probably wasn't the sharpest tool in the box, except on the football pitch. Or in one case don't see, because David's primary has been completely rebuilt under a private finance initiative. Lovely for the kids, no doubt, but no highlight on this tour.
7&8)Ridgeway Park & Mansfield Park: Of the umpteen parks along this trail, Ridgeway was my least favourite. That's probably because it was the only park that was busy, with hoop-shooting, police-leafleting and dog-bothering all popular activities. Visitors should note that the miniature railway only opens on summer Sundays, and that Walt Disney hasn't been back for a ride since 1954. As for Mansfield Park, that was unexpectedly fabulous. After a stroll through floral gardens, the land suddenly tumbled down to the Lea Valley below, with excellent views across a glistening expanse of reservoirs towards Ponders End and Enfield. I just can't imagine how young Becks could have found a surface anywhere flat enough to play football.
10)Gilwell Park: For a change this isn't a park, it's the southeast's most important Scout campsite. And here the Beckham Trail ends, with the rather feeble affirmation that a woggled David once went to cub camp here. It's also a mile outside the borough boundaries, so I gave the place a miss, for now. You might consider giving 80% of the trail a miss, to be honest. Like the route's inspiration, it's past its prime. by train: Highams Park by bus: 97, 215
Somewhere sporty: Leyton Orient David Beckham may have been a temporary local legend, but Leyton Orient have been kicking around Waltham Forest a while longer. The O's are London second longest-serving professional team, after Fulham, formed in 1881 when members of a Hackney cricket club fancied some exercise to see them through the winter. In 1937 the club crossed the Lea from Clapton to Leyton, and they've been playing on the marsh's edge ever since. Orient's brushes with the top flight have been notably brief (a single season over 1961/2, plus an FA Cup semi final appearance in 1978), so the team is often overshadowed by its more prestigious upper echelon neighbours.
Orient's chairman would rather you called his ground the MatchroomStadium, but for most "Brisbane Road" does just fine. It casts a grey and unexciting presence from the western side, looking more like a lacklustre trading estate office block, although the club's logo of two big red wyverns brightens the facade a little. You'll find the stadium off Leyton High Street round the back of Coronation Gardens (where's there's an unlikely hedge maze, which I'll tell you more about if I ever get round to writing a series entitled Labyrinths of London). When I walked past on Saturday morning the street was pretty much empty, bar a semi-luxury Anderson's coach waiting patiently to whisk team members off to an away game. I'd like to think that the handful of sporting chaps I saw climbing aboard were members of the first team, keen to grab the back seats before setting off to play a London derby across the Thames. They probably were, but Orient's players aren't exactly household names (away from the back pages of the Waltham Forest Guardian) so I couldn't be sure. If the club ever takes up the option to play at the 2012 OlympicStadium they'll probably become rather more famous, but a mixture of low attendances and economic uncertainty makes that possibility fairly unlikely. As for the result of Saturday's match, a two-one away defeat to play-off-chasing Millwall. For the O's this season, another big fat zero awaits. by tube: Leyton by bus: 58, 69, 97, 158
Waltham Forest forms a vertical slice of northeast London between the River Lea and Epping Forest. In the south are the Victorian terraces of Leyton, in the centre the varied estates of Walthamstow, and in the north the leafy suburbs of Chingford. All residential aspirations duly provided for. I spent yesterday tracking round some of the borough's more interesting locations, which proved easier than I expected because there's actually quite a bit to see. Where better to start than in the middle, in medieval Wilcumestowe ("The Place of Welcome")?
Somewhere historic: William Morris Gallery Some men are great artists, some great thinkers, some great writers. William Morris managed to be all three, and several other character types besides. He's best known for his designwork, especially his elegant nature-based wallpapers, and his wide-ranging creativity was key to kicking off the Arts and Crafts movement in the late 19th century. He lived and worked in many outerLondon boroughs, but spent his childhood in the rural surroundings of pre-suburban Walthamstow. The family home was at Water House, a substantial Georgian building in the grounds of Lloyd Park, and now open to the public as a museum devoted to Morris's many talents.
The wood-panelled ground floor galleries run through the story of William's life as well as displaying some of his finest works. A spell working as an architect's apprentice diverted his career into interior design, and various floral and faunal wallpapers are amongst his earliest triumphs. A bit oppressive for modern tastes, perhaps, but a Morris-covered wall was usually more worthy of detailed study than any work of art hung on it. Tapestries and rugs also displayed his creative diversity, rich in colour and detail, and the Woodpecker tapestry illuminated on the far wall is a particularly fine example. Also on show are Arts-y Crafts-y works by many of Morris's protégés, including wicker furniture, a selection of ornate glazed tiles and some magnificent stained glass. Walking round the museum is like being in a Victorian version of Habitat, showcasing must-have designs for the budding domestic aesthete.
In later life, troubled by social inequality, William shifted his focus towards political activism and printing. His illustrated books are works of art in themselves, like modern monkish manuscripts, and several can be seen in the Gallery. But its his legacy of beautifully crafted homewares that continue to delight. If you're tempted to further your collection, a small shop in the hallway sells a small range of highbrow tat, including some rather lovely wrapping paper which your aunt would no doubt appreciate.
The local borough were once very proud of their famous son. Indeed Waltham Forest's motto - Fellowship Is Life - is a line lifted from Comrade Morris's politically motivated novel A Dream of John Ball. More modern times, however, have brought persistentthreats to cut visiting hours or even sell off many of the house's contents to raise funds. I'd been delaying my trip to the Gallery until Waltham Forest emerged from my random jamjar, so it's been a nervous five-year wait in case the council shut the place down in the meantime. Thankfully not, and for the time being the museum remains open seven hours a day five days a week, admission free. A much better day out than a trip to IKEA, and far more likely to inspire. by tube: Blackhorse Road by bus: 123
Somewhere retail: Walthamstow Market It's the longest daily street market in Europe. It's over a mile in length. It stretches almost the entire length of Walthamstow High Street. It's so long that there's a station at either end of it. It's an avenue of stalls lined by fairly downmarket shops from top to bottom. It's still the dominant retail presence in Walthamstow, despite the rather bricky modern mall shoehorned in beside it. It takes a lot longer than you'd expect to walk down, or back up, especially if you attempt to push your way through on a Saturday lunchtime. It's Walthamstow Market. And it really is very long indeed.
OK, the market's a little bit shorter than usual at the moment. There are some roadworks in front of the Cock Tavern so only a runty dribble of stalls ply their trade beyond the ploughed-up hiatus at the western end. But elsewhere there are vibrant stalls aplenty, and a stream of human traffic wandering by to peruse what's on offer. You want fruit in a bowl, there's a fruit-in-a-bowl seller every hundred yards or so. Goodness knows how the market supports quite so many identikit plastic greengrocery types, but I fear they may be the future at the expense of your more traditional "pahndabananaz" types. Some of Walthamstow's rag traders still yell out a never-ending volley of "best dresses in the market, only a fivahhh!", but these days most of the racket comes from youngsters hanging out nearby holding court with their mates.
The market's shoppers are a diverse bunch but most are women, bag (or trolley) in hand, picking through the stalls for a cut price bargain. Cheap shoes, a roll of cloth, some non-feather pillows - why pay more? Pensioners pick over the basics to help them through the week, while young parents snap up plastic toys for a quid - anything that might keep their toddler quiet without breaking the bank. Few, if any, of Walthamstow's patrons will be troubled by a 50% tax band. There are plenty of choices for lunch too, with the longest queues for sizzling spiced meats and Tubby Isaac's cockles. Also very popular is the chicken barbecue behind the (much-photographed) bus station, where unnaturally orange fowl roast on two rows of rotating spits. For three quid they'll slice half a bird into manageable strips and pile the dripping flesh into an over-sized polystyrene box. I'm afraid I chickened out and plumped for a hot dog with onions instead. by tube: Walthamstow Central by train: St James Street
Somewhere else retail: Walthamstow Village Don't get the wrong idea about Walthamstow - some of it is gorgeous. The conservation area on the hill round the church stands in sharp contrast to the surrounding area, so more Waitrose-y types flock to live in the oldvillagenucleus with its almshouses, hexagonal Victorian postboxes and half-timbered buildings. The shopping's very different too. A short stretch of Orford Road supports as many as three delicatessens in close proximity (three more than Walthamstow Market), along with middle class restaurants (tapas tonight darling?), an independent wine merchant and a designer boutique entitled Beautiful Interiors. It's only half a mile away, but I suspect that few market shoppers ever make it this far up the hill. I joined the queue in the wittily-named Eat 17 deli, waiting behind folk buying free-range sausage rolls and a week's supply of guacamole, to round off my Walthamstow lunch with a scrummy chocolate croissant. All tastes catered for.
It's now five years since I started out on my random exploration of the capital. At this rate I've still got three years to go, and if I've not reached your borough yet I'll get there eventually. Rather unexpectedly, my map reveals that there are only two clusters still to visit - a thin dangly strip of western boroughs and another big chunk in the east. Which of these leftovers will be my destination for today? Will I have to filter through the bountiful cultural highlights of somewhere central and important, like Westminster or Camden? Or will I be dispatched somewhere rather more peripheral and attraction-lite, like Barnet or Bexley? More importantly, will I be heading west or staying east?
Once I've researched my randomly-chosen borough online I'll then head off and visit some of its most interesting places (assuming it has any). As usual I hope to visit somewhere famous, somewhere historic, somewhere pretty, somewhere retail, somewhere sporty and somewhere random. I might even take lots of photographs while I'm at it, if the borough's photogenic enough. Then after I've made my grand tour I'll come back tomorrow and tell you all about it. Let's see where I'm going this time...
And finally for Portsmouth, you shouldn't visit without ascending the Spinnaker Tower. This is the 170m-high observation tower on the harbourfront, opened in 2005 and looking suspiciously like a giant kingfisher's ribcage, or a very big toastrack, or something. Whoever picked this spot for a viewing platform is a genius, what with the whole of the harbour laid out beneath, and scores of boats streaming beneath, and the Isle of Wight not far away. I took lots of photos both of the tower and from up top, so just this once I'm going to let the pictures do the talking...
Visiting » You can't miss the Spinnaker, in the corner of Gunwharf Quays, it's visible for miles around. » Seven quid gets you up the tower, in a speeding lift, to the first of three observation decks. » Do you dare take your shoes off and walk across the glassfloor, 100m up? (I did, and gave thanks that I didn't have sweaty socks) » The second floor has a small shop selling cuddly Spinnys, and the top floor is smaller but with an open roof. » I can stand and stare at a good view for ages. I stayed for ages.
It's now definitely more than 500 years ago today since Henry VIII became King of England. To round off a celebratory week, I took a walk along Portsmouth seafront to the place where Henry was standing when his beloved Mary Rose sank. Off Southsea.
It's far from the prettiest castle in England. Tudor castles were never pretty, merely functional, and Southsea's a good example. No turrets, no crenellations, just concentric geometric walls and a squatblockykeep in the middle. The castle was built on Henry's orders on the southernmost tip of Portsea Island to repel approaching French warships. It's one of many coastal defences around the Solent, built in the 1540s to protect Portsmouth Harbour from potential attack, although its main claim to fame is as a one-off royal viewing platform.
To follow in Henry's bloated steps, enter the castle through the archway to the left of the lighthouse on Southsea Common, between the Aquarium and the Leisure Pool. You'll be glared at if you don't pop into the shop to buy a ticket, and then there's a choice of three main areas for exploration. You might expect the battlements to be the best option, and they're certainly extensive enough for a good wander, but the outer walls are thick and tall enough to restrict any decent views. A better bet is to follow the sign "to the tunnels", which'll take you on a long trek beneath the surrounding footpaths along a series of dark winding brick passages. Seven year old girls find the whole experience rather scary, from what I saw, but you're made of sterner stuff so you'll have no trouble at all.
Which leaves the central keep to explore. Up the stone steps into a suite of chambers on two levels where an exhibition about the history of the castle awaits. It's a mundane castly tale, with one brief tragic moment upon the national stage, after which the story is more about preparation than action. But there are a few historical pictures and objects to see, plus a video nobody sits and watches (because nobody ever sits and watches videos in museums, not all the way through). And finally up a narrow spiral staircase to the roof (so narrow that the council have installed a push-button traffic light system top and bottom). At last a decent panorama over the Solent, past an ever-chugging stream of boats and ferries, towards the murky Isle of Wight in the near distance. And two miles off shore, somewhere out there beneath the sea, the spot where Henry's beloved Mary Rose sank to the sea bed while he watched. But I do wonder how the fat bloke ever got up the stairs.
Visiting » Entrance to Southsea Castle costs £3.50 (or, if you've got a Portsmouth library card, this summer it's free). I bet you wish you had a Portsmouth Library card. » Southsea Castle's a couple of miles along the coast from the Historic Dockyard and Spinnaker Tower. You'll likely be distracted along the way by the amusement park on Clarence Pier, and the Blue Reef Aquarium, and maybe the D-Day Museum on Southsea Common. Throw in some terribly pleasant middle class shops, and the Royal Marines Museum, and yet another pier, and there's probably enough in Southsea alone to keep you occupied for a day. I see now how my brother managed to spend three years living here. » And that's still only some of what Portsmouth has to offer. Oh yes. Well worth a weekend if you ever have the time.
There's another, less well known 500th anniversary this year, and that's the birthdate of King Henry's favourite warship, the Mary Rose. Construction began on this four-masted gunboat in 1509, in the world's first ever dry dock (in Portsmouth). Her keel was elm, her heart was oak, and a crew of dedicated sailors kept her afloat. A long and successful maritime career ensued, including a refit or two to install greater and heavier weaponry, and the ship engaged in several battles against the French over the ensuing decades. But the Mary Rose engaged once too often, and in 1545 preparations for a skirmish in the Channel proved unexpectedly catastrophic.
Nobody's quite sure why the Mary Rose sank. The weather was OK, and she was only a couple of miles out of Portsmouth Harbour when she started taking on water. Maybe the ship was too heavily laden and lower in the water than normal, and maybe the Solent started lapping in through the gunports. Perhaps a too-swift turn caused her to capsize, or maybe a rogue French vessel managed to get close enough to fire a cannonball into her hull. Whatever the cause, the ship wobbled and toppled and floundered and sank, taking 500 sailors down with her. King Henry VIII was watching from the shoreline, and was both appalled and embarrassed to see so great a catastrophe happen before his very eyes.
Over the centuries the precise location of the carcass of the Mary Rose was forgotten (and occasionally discovered, then forgotten again). It was only in the 1960s that a team of divers pinpointed the wreck, and set in slow motion an amazing rescue operation that continues to this day. Excavation on the seabed began in 1971, and it became clear that much of the starboard half of the hull remained preserved beneath the mud. It wasn't until 1982 that the wooden remains were raised to the surface (in front of a global TV audience), and two more years followed before anyone dare tilt them upright. Even in 2009, a quarter of a century later, the Mary Rose is still heavily protected beneath a metal quayside dome. But not for much longer.
I have to say, even though I sort of knew what to expect, my first glimpse of the preserved ship wasn't quite what I was anticipating. I'd collected my audio guide from the front desk, then passed through a couple of connecting doors to reach the chamber where the Tudor flagship is housed. The gallery was very dark, and it took a while to become accustomed to the view through the misty-ish glass. But there, across a damp artificial chasm, lay the timbers of the world's only surviving 16th century warship. A few decks-worth of wood were semi-visible, from almost bow to almost stern, with each level labelled with its name (orlop, main, sterncastle, etc) in big chunky letters. And gushing down across the wreck was a cascade of white frothing water - a polyethylene glycol solution, so my guide told me - to prevent the timbers from drying out and crumbling away. Got to keep her wet. The pipes that dispense this magic liquid were more easily seen from the far end of the gallery, as was the long lower pool of swirling water resembling an over-Radoxed bath. One view, ten minutes, and straight back out again.
Objects rescued from the shipwreck can be found in a separate museum at the other end of the Historic Dockyard. It has a bit of an early 80s feel, I thought, mostly static displays in themed cases. There was a section on the history of the dive, and the opportunity to watch a film, plus a platform of reconstructed decking. At the far end a bored-looking bloke in Tudor costume sat waiting at a table in case anyone wanted to touch his artefacts. He had few takers. But it was impossible not to be impressed, and moved, by the varied collection of everyday items preserved and displayed throughout the museum. Be it a pair of leather shoes or a urethral syringe, only the tragic death of their owners permits us to view them today.
Back at the Mary Rose itself there are big changes afoot, starting this autumn. 25 years of waxy impregnation have paid off, and the ship's timbers are finally ready to be baked dry. The museum will therefore be closed from mid-September while a replacement building is constructed, funded by £21m of Heritage Lottery money, and the preservation task will enter a new era. Come back in 2012 and you'll be able to see this half of the Mary Rose in a better light, opposite an artificial reflection in which artefacts gathered from the wreck will be properly displayed. It'll be a far more impressive visitor attraction, and you might prefer to save your visit until then. But I'm glad I saw it as a ghost ship in its darkened hangar, before the water gave up its stranglehold for good.
Visiting » The Mary Rose is part of the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard complex, for which a full ticket will set you back £18. If you prefer to visit only a single attraction you still have to pay £10.50, but be warned that the Mary Rose and its museum count as separate attractions so you'll have to pay top whack anyway. It's probably worth it, though. The full ticket also includes a tour of the harbour (where you can get up close to whichever Royal Navy ships are in berth today, and there's probably loads). You get to explore the capacious interior of HMS Warrior, the first armour-plated iron-hulled Victorian steamship. And then there's a boat far more famous even than the Mary Rose herself... » ... the Victory, Nelson's flagship. You can stand on the very spot where he received his fatal wound at the battle of Trafalgar - it's marked by a brass plaque. Below deck see the luxurious captain's cabin from which he directed life aboard, plus the alcove on the orlop deck where he breathed his last. Victory's still a commissioned naval vessel with its own captain, and a skeleton crew sleeps aboard the motionless ship every night. Discover more in a separate Victory museum, and there's even a huge sail preserved from the sea battle with 90 holes blasted through a vast expanse of canvas. » The dockyard's very easy to travel to - it's immediately beside Portsmouth Harbour station at the end of the railway line from London. My return train ticket cost less than my museum ticket (which felt the wrong way round but who's complaining?) » And that's just a fraction of what Portsmouth has to offer. More tomorrow...
It's exactly 500 years ago today since Henry VIII became King of England. I know I also said that yesterday, but a significant number of websites give 22nd April as the date of Henry's accession, so there might be a grain of truth in it. To celebrate I'm continuing my week-long wander through Henry's world with a visit to his finest royal palace. In a park a few hundred yards outside London. Near Cheam.
You could easily miss it. I'm sure most of the people who walk along The Avenue in Nonsuch Park don't realise the significance of the footpath they're walking down. It's a very ordinary strip of tarmac, very straight, overshadowed by a row of tall trees. There's a muddy verge, and a gnarled bench to sit on, and a dog mess bin in case any canine companions get overexcited. Nothing special, on the face of it. But the key to understanding the view is a line of three stone obelisks, each about fifty metres apart, set to one side of the pathway. Picture the obelisks imaginatively and a very different picture emerges.
This used to be the site of CuddingtonChurch, until Henry VIII acquired the entire surrounding village and promptly demolished it. In its place was to emerge a new royal palace, nothing huge, but destined to be more magnificent than any he had built before. This was NonsuchPalace, a multi-turreted wonder in the Italian Renaissance style, and the perfect base from which to hunt, feast or entertain. Work started on 22nd April 1538, the first day of the 30th year of Henry's reign, and the place was probably dedicated to Prince Edward, the king's long-awaited first-born son.
The northernmost modern obelisk is a placeholder for Nonsuch's outer gatehouse. Here visitors would have entered through a fortified archway into the first of two courtyards. Another gatehouse, marked by the central obelisk, then led up a flight of eight steps into a second, more outlandish courtyard. The walls above the ground floor were covered by large stucco panels on which were moulded figures of gods, goddesses and even Henry himself. The gilt-edged figures continued up two five-storey octagonal towers, and the roof was topped off by golden slates and spinning weather vanes. The effect must have been dazzling, and a very deliberate culture shock for those with medieval sensibilities. There was none such like it.
By the time Nonsuch was structurally complete Henry's hunting days were over, so his Royal court only visited a couple of times for a bit of sit-down shooting. The palace was only completed a few years after Henry's death. It then passed into the ownership of less-interested monarchs, until King Charles II decided to donate Nonsuch to his favourite mistress. Bad choice. She racked up huge gambling debts which could only be paid off through the palace's demolition, and from 1683 Nonsuch's constituent parts were sold off as building materials. So diligent was the clearance that nothing at all remains above ground, just three stone pointers to mark the palace's longitudinal extent.
We know a fair amount about the palace layout because of a groundbreaking archaeological dig in the summer of 1959. More then 500 volunteers uncovered the site over a twelve week period, documenting their findings and unearthing (for example) 1500 stucco fragments. Public interest was unexpectedly high, pre-empting the likes of Time Team by several decades, and a temporary museum was set up close by. Then immediately afterwards everything was covered over again, so all that's visible today is a patch of grass and a bench and a dog mess bin. And those three obelisks, of course, one of which now displays a plan of the palace for those who pause to look.
To find out more about Nonsuch Palace it's best to walk a mile to the east, through the park, across the border from Surrey into London. There's a permanent explanatory exhibition inside a preserved Tudor farmhouse named Whitehall, just to the north of Cheam Village. The building's owned by Sutton Council and houses a more general local museum, with the Nonsuch exhibits on the mezzanine floor overlooking an original half-timbered wall. There's probably more to read than to see, and you need quite a good imagination to view these demolished chunks as anything more than ornate rubble. Shame, because had Nonsuch Palace survived it would undoubtedly have become an important heritage site and a major tourist attraction. Instead you'll have to make do with a charming small museum (and tea room), and a wistful walk through a rather beautiful park.
Visiting » Whitehall is open on Wednesday to Sunday afternoons, with earlier opening on Saturdays. It only costs £1.60 to get in, which has to be a bargain, even for somewhere so small. Whitehall is a building with real character, no doubt much frequented by local schoolchildren on Tudor days out, although don't expect anything wildly exciting within. One downstairs gallery is currently hosting an exhibition on King Henry VIII's life, including a few more details about the Nonsuch dig. For further information, the volunteer Friends of Whitehall should be your first port of call. » There's also a group called the Friends of Nonsuch, whose attention is focussed more on the long-term preservation of the park. They have genuine concern that private development may be allowed to encroach on the park, and a blog set up as part of the campaign has only two posts but 818 comments. » The FoN run a small museum in the service wing of NonsuchMansion, a later estate building, featuring a Dairy and "restored Kitchens, Larders, Sculleries & Laundries". It's open to the public on a couple of Sundays a month during the summer months (next opening bank holiday Monday). » The uplifted foundations of Nonsuch Palace's separate Banqueting Hall can still be seen overlooking the Ewell by-pass. » If you're walking the London Loop, then section 7 passes both the Banqueting Hall and the old palace. » Or visit Hampton CourtPalace instead, if you must. Personally I rather enjoyed uncovering Nonsuch's invisible secrets at a fraction of the cost.
Henry VIII 500(1509 - 2009) Tower of London - Dressed to Kill
It's exactly 500 years ago today since Henry VIII became King of England. Half a millennium, precisely. To celebrate I'm continuing my week-long wander around sites with a historical connection the the nation's most famous monarch. Today, to the big new exhibition at the Tower. But is it any good?
There aren't many perks to being a resident of Tower Hamlets, but one truly great fringe benefit is being able to visit the Tower of London for a quid. The world famous castle lies just inside the borough boundary (there's a clue in the name "Tower Hamlets", if you'd not spotted it), so residents are given preferential treatment for admittance. All you need is a library card or a leisure card, and you'll save £16 at the gate. I'd not tried this before, but one flash of my lime green Idea Store card and the lady behind the till printed me a one pound ticket no questions asked. Excellent.
I arrived at nine o'clock, just as the Tower was opening for the morning, so I took the opportunity to nip across the Inner Ward and visit the CrownJewels before everybody else arrived. No queues, just a long sinuous wander through a tortuous sequence of anterooms, then the opportunity to see some of the mightiest jewellery on the planet. The Sovereign's sceptre, for example, is topped by the Culinnan I diamond, while the Queen Mum's crown contains the world-famous Koh-i-noor. Both of these stones, in their time, were the world's largest cut diamond. However Henry VIII would have recognised none of the collection, bar three swords and an anointing spoon, because Oliver Cromwell had 99% of the medieval Crown Jewels melted down in 1649.
And then to the main event, up the wooden staircase into the White Tower for the Dressed To Kill exhibition. Two and a bit floors are given over to Henry VIII's armour, plus various other protective metal bits and weapons. The first case contained a full suit of Henry's armour, raised up on horseback, lights a-flashing. He was a fit twenty-something at the time, waist measurement mid-thirties (as an accompanying graphic delights in telling you). By the third floor he'll be a 51" waist lardarse, because made-to-measure royal armour never lies. That was the ultimate fate of Good King Hal, from buff to bluff.
Back on the first floor there's a complete suit of armour engineered for 29-year-old Henry to wear at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. This early outbreak of the Entente Cordiale gave Henry a chance to show off his sporting prowess, and a big electronic screen nextdoor gives the History Channel a chance to show off some of its finest Anglo-French battle graphics. Very big, very flash, very loud - not that most of the foreign tourists wandering by paused to watch for long. They were much more interested in the genuine weaponry - a jousting pole here, a big sword there, and especially Henry's astonishing curly-hornedhelmet (usually displayed in Leeds). The Royal Armouries hold many Tudor treasures, and a wide selection are on show here.
Up on the third floor there's one final suit of armour. You can't help but gasp at the size of King Henry's codpiece. It juts out alarmingly from the groin area, and it's either incredibly well-padded inside or its owner was genuinely prodigious. Given the bloke's marriage history, it's probably the latter.
And that's the sudden end of the exhibition, bar a big final video screen which displays a sequence of images of Henry from art, film and TV. Watch carefully and you might spot the Carry On team, Keith Michell and three Blue Peter presenters. I was pleasantly surprised that the soundtrack was an old XTC tune (not this one, but this one), pumping out across the top of the White Tower at five minute intervals. I moved on with a smile, to view the usual un-Henry exhibits in the remainder of the building.
The Tower of London's historical links to Henry VIII aren't strong, it was more somewhere for the mass storage of his weaponry and prisoners than a favoured royal palace. But there is one place that bears his mark more than others, and that's Tower Green. Only seven traitors were ever executed here, but the majority of these were under Henry's orders - two of them his doomedwives. Today a tender glass pillow marks the spot, a rather more artistic tribute than the squat plaque that stood here only a few years ago. There's always something new to see at the Tower. Just remember, arrive early, and bring your library card.
Visiting » The Dressed To Kill exhibition runs until January next year. It's not worth visiting the Tower specially to see it, not unless you're on the local resident's cheap rate. But if you've not visited the Tower for years and fancy another look round, Henry's armour might be sufficient to draw you back. » There's tons of other stuff to see at the Tower of London, including the tiny Bloody Tower where two Royal Princes might have died, and Traitor's Gate, and the medieval palace of King Edward I, and a lot ofravens. The tours led by Yeoman Warders are highly recommended - they're all fine showmen as well as knowledgeable custodians of the site. » What you really ought to do is apply to attend the daily Ceremony of the Keys. I must go one night, assuming I can still remember how to write a letter. » But at the moment it's all about Henry. After all, as Tower Hamlets' website proclaims, he really was "one of the most ionic figures from British history".
Henry VIII 500(1509 - 2009) Greenwich Palace - "Placentia"
500 years ago this week, following the death of his father at RichmondPalace, 17-year old Henry Tudor was proclaimed King of England. A charismatic and forceful young man, he was to reign over the nation for nearly 40 years. Over that period he embraced the Renaissance, reconfigured religion, married six very memorable wives and became possibly the most famous monarch the country ever had. In remembrance of his accession, I've been out and about to visit five locations with a particularly H8-ful connection. Starting today with the spot where he was born.
Greenwich may be chock-full of heritage sites and tourist attractions, but you'll find no trace of Greenwich Palace today. It was the first building of any significance in the local area, founded by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in the early 15th century. He named it Bella Court, and it stood on the riverbanks opposite the Isle of Dogs at the foot of the Thames' biggest meander. When Humphrey fell from royal favour (and mysteriously died), the building duly passed to Margaret of Anjou, the feisty wife of King Henry VI. She enlarged Bella Court, added a riverside pier and named the palace 'Placentia', or 'pleasant place'. It was to be the favoured home of Tudor monarchs for the next 150 years.
Prince Henry was born at Placentia on 28th June 1491 (insert your own 'placenta' joke here). He spent a lot of time in this rambling red-brick palace, especially in the years after being proclaimed king. There was good hunting land all around, plus easy access to the river and to the royal dockyards at Deptford and Woolwich. It was in Greenwich that Henry married his first and fourth wives, and here also that the princesses Mary and Elizabeth were born. Henry enlarged the palace further, adding a huge banqueting hall inside and a larger tiltyard outside. He did love his jousting, did Henry, but the Greenwich tiltyard was the last place he ever practised the noble art. A nasty fall here in 1536 left him unconscious for two hours, and his subsequent retirement from the sport may have led to his ballooning obesity in later years.
Queen Elizabeth I spent many of her summers at Greenwich Palace, entertaining noble visitors and carrying out the great business of state. Her successor James I gave the palace to his wife Anne, for whom Inigo Jones built the classicalQueen'sHouse a short distance to the north. During the English Civil War the Palace of Placentia fell into disrepair, and before long the site was ripe for redevelopment. Which is why all you can see on the site today are the Wren-designed buildings of the Greenwich Hospital (1692-1869) - later the Royal Naval College (1873-1998), now the Old Royal Naval College. And well worth a visit.
Today Maritime Greenwich is one of London's four Unesco World Heritage Sites. Two of the top buildings to see at Greenwich are within the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College, on land formerly occupied by the Palace of Placentia. One of these is the Painted Hall, undoubtedly the most beautiful hospital canteen anywhere in the world. It's a long thin building with a lofty paintedceiling, the detail of which depicts "the triumph of Peace and Liberty over Tyrany". There's even finer decoration in a chamber at the far end, both above and around the high table, and the complete ensemble took almost two decades to paint. Here in January 1806 Nelson's body laid in state after being shipped back from Trafalgar, prior to a grand funeral in St Paul's Cathedral. Nowadays the College's owners love to hire out the Painted Hall for events and banquets, so check carefully before you arrive lest you (and your camera) are denied admittance.
Cross the colonnade to see the 250-year-old neoclassical Chapel. It too is a beautiful space, rather brighter than the Hall, with a completely different style of Baroque decoration. The interior looks much as it did in 1789 when the chapel reopened after a disastrous fire, including a suitably maritime-themed altarpiece and the original mahogany pipe organ. The plasterworkceiling is covered by a magnificent expanse of twiddly carved swirls, while the floor is of black and white marble throughout. Many concerts take place in the chapel, especially now that one of the Naval College buildings is occupied by the Trinity College of Music. King Henry would probably have appreciated something bawdier, but five centuries have changed his royal palace beyond recognition.
Visiting » Greenwich is hosting a number of Henry VIII-related events this year, but not until June (which is the anniversary of his coronation). There'll be special guided tours recounting the history of Greenwich Palace, plus a special Tudor-themed weekend at the Old Royal Naval College on 13th and 14th June (including battling knights and a hunting parade). Further details here, and nearer the time. » You can visit the Painted Hall and Chapel free of charge. Other touristy bits at the Old Royal Naval College are currently closed to create a new Visitors Centre, opening early 2010. » The Queen's House contains a small exhibition depicting the history of the old palace. » And don't forget nearby Eltham Palace. Henry VIII spent much of his boyhood at the court here, before it became an Art Deco icon, and a Tudor Joust is planned in the grounds over the weekend of 20th and 21st June. » Two North American towns are still called Placentia - one in Orange County, California, the other in Newfoundland, Canada.
Look, I hate to bring this up again, but the Newham Olympic countdownclock outside Stratford station is wrong. Again.
Back in 2006 it was running seven weeks early, which was particularly hopeless. The clock should have been counting down to late July 2012, but was instead due to terminate in early June. When I pointed out this error on the blog there was a mild storm in thepress, an apology from the council and an appropriate temporal tweak. But now it's wrong again. Just a few days out, and running late this time, but wrong all the same.
Here's how Newham's Olympic countdown clock looked just after 8am yesterday morning.
1198 days equals 171 weeks and a day, which means that the Newham clock is counting down to Sunday 29th July 2012. This is incorrect. The London Olympics are scheduled to start on Friday 27th July, a couple of days earlier. Newham's clock is running two days slow. By the time it hits zero, the first few Olympic medals will already have been awarded. Sorry, guys, wrong again. It's also counting down to half past three in the afternoon, whereas it ought to be counting down to seven o'clock in the evening. But we can probably forgive this inexactitude, at least until 2012 draws closer.
Which brings me to a related question. As of today, Sunday 19th April 2009, precisely how many days are there to go until the Olympics?
I say there are 1195 days to go. My daily countdown clock has been ticking away in the sidebar since 2005, and today it says 1195. That's 170 weeks and 5 days. My clock will hit zero on Friday 27th July 2012, which is the day the Olympics begins. I believe that's correct.
London 2012 say there are 1194 days to go. Their countdown clock appears top left on the London 2012 homepage, and today it says 1194. That's 170 weeks and 4 days. Their clock will hit zero on Thursday 26th July 2012, which is the day before the Olympics begins. I'm not convinced that's right.
Let me explain it another way. On the day before the Olympic Games begin, my countdown clock will say "1 day to go". The official London 2012 countdown clock, however, will say "0 days to go". We can't both be correct.
I guess it depends on how you count, and what convention you use. I reckon there's one day to go when something's happening tomorrow. But London 2012 evidently believe there's one day to go when something's happening the day after tomorrow. That's a less conventional approach, surely, but who am I to argue?
Whoever's right, athletes running in this morning's Newham Classic 10K race will be jogging beneath a big clock that's definitely wrong. Because, however you count, there aren't 1197 days left. I wonder how long it'll be before they fix it this time.
What do people who work in shops actually do all day? Not big shops or supermarkets, because those people are obviously kept busy selling things. But small shops, little shops, boutiques, bijou craft hideaways, that sort of place. What do people who work in those shops do all day? Because most of the time they're not selling anything at all. They must be bored out of their skulls.
You know the sort of place I mean. There are quiet shops on every high street. Curtain specialists, purveyors of ladieswear, mobile phone merchants, letting agents, conservatory showrooms, that sort of thing. The sort of shop you never ever see anyone go into, although someone must occasionally or they'd go out of business. Places that hire power tools, or sell children's clothes, or flog insurance, or trade in peculiar arty ceramic objects, those sort of places. Shops that have to stay open in case anybody ever visits, but 90% of the time nobody bothers.
The boredom's at its worst in suburbia. There are far more superfluous outlets in the suburbs, those little dens of charm attempting to lure inside bored housewives (and househusbands) (but mostly housewives). Why not pop in and buy some embroidered bedlinen, or an organic crystal, or a wrought iron lampshade, or some other useless homely trinket? Suburban daytime residents have more time to waste, and more money to waste, so even the occasional sale can be profitable for the shopkeeper. Best they bide their time patiently just in case.
Peer in through the window of any quiet shop and there'll be somebody sat at the counter waiting. It's their job to be there, so they get paid to wait. Occasionally a would-be customer will arrive, or maybe ring up, and the shopkeeper can engage in business and sound excited and provide top quality service. But the majority of their working day they're not working at all, they're just hanging around on the off chance, because any minute now a major sale might walk in through the door. How incredibly tedious.
So how do these shopkeepers keep themselves amused and awake? Looking wistfully out of the window presumably gets really boring after the fourth hour. There's only so much stocktaking they can do. Maybe a good book keeps them occupied, or a long flick through the newspaper, or a slowly-completed crossword. Perhaps they sit online and read blogs, or update Facebook, or battle in eBay auctions. Or maybe they just pray very quietly beneath their breath that somebody, sometime, will step in and spend some money. Whatever they do, it can't be a very fulfilling use of their time.
So I salute the very small shopkeepers of Britain. They waste several hours a day so that we can wander in whenever we like and potter around and maybe buy something or maybe not. It's through their monotonous uneventful self sacrifice that the economy of our nation ticks over. I couldn't do their job, because I'm rubbish at regular enforced inactivity. But if that's what you do all day, well done. And do tell us the secret of how you stay awake.
Have you visited TfL's online departure boards lately? A place on the web to discover where your local tube station's next train is heading. The next three trains, in fact, in both directions. Plus full details of whereabouts those trains are at the moment, be it in the platform or several stations back down the line. For some underground lines these details have been available for a couple of years. But now they're available for all eleven lines. How wonderful is that? (thanks Rob for letting me know)
Barbican stationplatform 2
Imagine the situation. You're four minutes from the station - maybe at home, maybe at the office, maybe checking the web on your mobile. You check the TfL departure board and discover that the next train to your chosen destination is five minutes away. So there's just time to rush down to the platform as the next train arrives, and no time wasted waiting around. We've had a similar system on the DLR for years, and it's saved me many a premature journey.
If you want to give it a try for yourself, the departure boards page is here. Pick a line, pick a station, track the trains. Or if you can't make your mind up, try the Circle line, or the Central line, or Camden Town, or Acton Town. Clever, isn't it?
In fact it's so clever that in many cases it's better than the information being provided at stations. Take Earl's Court, for example. The information provided online is far more comprehensive and useful than anything you could discover while standing baffled on the platform wondering how long you've got to wait to get anywhere. Or how about Bromley-by-Bow - one of my local stations whose next train indicators were recently upgraded. Online I can see the next three trains plus all relevant timings. Standing on the platform I can see only the destination of one next train, and with no clue as to when it will arrive. I hate that, and I shall hate it more knowing that I'd be better off viewing from home.
The online system may be comprehensive, but it's not yet perfect. I've been clicking around and noted a few issues here and there. Particularly here. • Bow Road: The one station I really care about, my local - no next train information whatsoever. Ditto Mile End (District line). But on either side, at Bromley-by-Bow and Whitechapel - full information? Why the black hole round where I live? Sigh. • Beyond Edgware Road on the Hammersmith and City line: another 'next train' black hole, both online and in real life. But check out the Hammersmith arrivals page and TfL clearly know where all their H&C trains are, they're just not telling you. • The Circle line: A lot of stations are listed as being on the Circle line even though they're not really. Ladbroke Grove and Hammersmith for starters (not until December). And Aldgate East and West Ham (never!). • Waterloo & City line: Abbreviated to the "Waterloo line". When it's working, the online system often lists far more arrivals than departures. • A number of stations have information for some platforms, but not others:Stepney Green, westbound only. White City, no terminating services. Grange Hill, clockwise only. • Last trains: Often gets these wrong, promising additional services even after the last train has passed by. • Blackfriars: No trains stopping until 2011, but full platform information available. • Some stations don't yet exist: Chesham. Wood Lane. Shepherd's Bush Market. The whole of the London Overground. • Any more?
But enough nit-picking. This is a clever system with considerable potential, and it'll no doubt all work one day. Now you can watch London's trains chug around, updated every minute, without even being there. And if only there was web access underground, it'd probably even be more useful than the existing (sometimes visible) next train indicators. It's a grand departure.
Yesterday the Office for National Statistics published their annual Social Trends report. It provides "an up to date and comprehensive description of society, drawing on statistics from a wide range of government departments and other organisations to show how society is changing, as well as some of the factors which may be driving these trends." It's hugely detailed, so something to peruse for hours rather than skim in minutes. If you fancy a read, the 283-page pdf is here. If not, here are a (very) few choice statistical snippets that caught my eye. What a changing country we live in.
Population of the UK (million)
1971
1981
1991
2001
2011
2021
2031
56
56½
57½
59
63
67
71
UK households (by number of inhabitants)
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
more
29%
35%
16%
13%
5%
2%
Household ownership of consumer durables
Telephone
Mobile
Internet
Digital TV
1997
94%
20%
< 10%
27%
2007
89%
78%
60%
78%
Household savings (percentage of households)
No savings
up to £1500
up to £10000
up to £20000
£20000 or more
24%
24%
25%
10%
17%
Cost of selected items
dozen eggs
1 pint milk
800g white loaf
20 cigarettes
pint beer
1971
26p
5p
10p
27p
15p
2007
£2.14
37p
90p
£5.02
£2.62
Source of greenhouse gas emissions (million tonnes CO2 equivalent)
Power & water
Households
Manufacturing
Transport
Agriculture
201
152
114
98
50
Passenger transport (billion passenger kilometres)
Car/van
Bus/coach
Bike
M'bike
Rail
Air
1971
313
60
4
4
35
2
2007
689
50
4
6
59
10
Readership of national daily newspapers
1978
1988
1998
2008
72%
67%
56%
44%
Also tucked away inside: • Table 2.8 Adults living with their parents: by age and sex • Figure 2.15 Civil partnerships: by sex, 2005 to 2007 • Figure 3.6 How confident parents feel helping their children with homework: by school year of child • Figure 4.10 Managers and senior officials in employment: by ethnic group • Table 7.11 Adults drinking more than the recommended guidelines: by sex and socio-economic classification • Table 13.18 Regularity of emotional support or ‘catching up’ with close friends or relatives: by sex and mode of contact
I keep important emails in my inbox until I've dealt with them, then I file them away. I find it's a useful way to prioritise actions and avoid clutter. But sometimes those emails just sit there and sit there, even though I know they need a reply, because I can't bring myself to write one. Maybe if I keep quiet, fail to respond, then the issue will go away. An email ignored is an email solved. I'm bad like that.
There's an email in my inbox from last Wednesday. I ought to reply to it, there's some money due to me if I do. But the hoop I have to jump through to get the money is slightly awkward, and I'm not quite sure how best to leap it. I could probably think up a suitable compromise if I asked somebody else to help me out, but I'm not sure who, and it'd all get unnecessarily complicated. So the easiest thing to do is ignore it. The email festers.
There's an email in my inbox from last week. I ought to reply to it, it's from a good friend of the family who's done a lot for me in her time. It's an invite to a big party, quite a few months in the future, somewhere awkward (but gettable to). I should go, show my face, even though I'd probably only enjoy it for the first couple of hours. I'd prefer to make my mind up later, much later, but there's an urgent RSVP and I don't want to commit myself this early. So the easiest thing to do is ignore it. The email festers.
There's an email in my inbox from last September. It's from a record company executive, a big cheese, offering me a tiny non-musical freebie in response to a post on this blog. I should have said yes, or maybe I should have said no, but whatever the case I should have said something. Instead the easiest thing to do was ignore it. The email festers.
There's an email in my inbox from last December. It's from a retired former colleague, and it's very very long. It's a follow-up to a much shorter festive email he sent the day before, which I "made the mistake of" replying to, so he wrote back bigger and broader and deeper. He said some really lovely things, which I don't know quite how to respond to, and he waffled on about what he'd been up to, which I really ought to have been more interested in. So the easiest thing to do is ignore it, then maybe refer to things in a brief note next Christmas. Meanwhile the email festers.
There's an email in my inbox from 2005. It's from a childhood friend, wondering if I'd like to attend her 40th birthday party, in a hotel somewhere up north. RSVP. I didn't really want to go, not for an entire weekend of "family-friendly activities", although I didn't want to tell her that, so I didn't respond. Shortly before the party I got another email, entitled 'TEST'. I didn't reply to that either, just to maintain the pretence. Both emails fester.
There's an email in my inbox from last January. I should have replied to it, because it's regarding an opportunity I'd kick myself for missing. But there's an awkward request within, one that compromises long-held beliefs, and I'm not quite sure if I'm willing to do that. So the easiest thing to do was ignore it in the vain hope that the problem would go away. It didn't. Today there's a fresh email in my inbox from the same sender asking the same question, a little more urgent this time, and I need to get off the fence. Some emails can't be ignored forever. Damn.
I'm good with short simple emails, I usually reply quite quickly. But make it long, or make it complicated, and I'll probably procrastinate so long that you'll never receive a reply. My apologies if you sent me an email last Thursday, or on 31st March, or four Wednesdays ago, or one hour after we won the Olympics. I did mean to send a reply, honest, but so far I've not been able to face writing one. I'm bad like that. My inbox festers.
LONDON A-Z An alphabetical journey through the capital's museums Handel House Museum
Location: 25 Brook Street, Mayfair W1K 4HB [map] Open: Tuesday-Sunday (10am - 6pm) (late opening Sun, late closing Thu) Admission: £5 Brief summary: where the Messiah was writen Website:www.handelhouse.org Time to set aside: an hour
Exactly 250 years ago today, around eight o'clock in the morning, the great Baroque composer Handel breathed his last. In the heart of Mayfair. You might have thought that George Frideric was German, and indeed by birth he was, but he spent two thirds of his life in England and lived out his last 36 years at a townhouse in Brook Street. The ground floor at number 25 may now be a ladies' designer boutique, but upstairs the rooms have been restored as GFH might have known them. Normally visitors have to enter round the back, in exclusive Lancashire Court, but today (for one anniversary day only) Handel's front door will be open and access to his former home will be free of charge.
In 1723, when Handel moved in, this was a brand new Georgian terrace in a newly fashionable part of town. He was a very busy man, composing and staging Italian operas around the city and writing for the royal court. But here at number 25 he led a rather less gregarious life, allowing only close friends and musicians to visit, and keeping his private life very much to himself. 250 years later, courtesy of the HandelHouseMuseum, anyone can come poke round George's private chambers and see where he composed some of his greatest works. And you might be very surprised to discover which other musician once lived nextdoor.
First stop, at the top of the house, Handel's bedroom closet. It's just big enough to hold a small cinema (i.e. a couple of rows of chairs in front of a TV screen), and here you can watch a short introductory video where various musical Londoners gush generously about the composer's output. The emphasis is rather more on his music than his history, which feels appropriate, and a suitable reminder of the back catalogue's breadth and clarity. When you're suitably primed, step through the rear door into the museum proper. This dark wood-panelled room used to be Handel's dressing room, somewhere for him to try on a decorative waistcoat or puff a powdered wig. Today the room is merely decked out with portraits of 18th century cultural contemporaries, which you can read about on a big text-heavy laminated sheet dispensed by the room's curator. Squint carefully, there's much to discover.
Next into the bedroom, where a period four-poster with red drapes props up the far wall. It's not the precise bed in which George died on 14th April 1759, that's long gone, but it has been sourced and accesorised as far as possible to match the inventory taken after his death. Try not to look out of the window - the glitzy shop windows of Mayfair shatter the Regency illusion somewhat. Then tread downstairs to the first floor rehearsal room. Here Handel first performed his prototype works, sometimes solo but often with invited instrumental accompaniment. Centrepiece is an ornate single-manual harpsichord, still used for live performance today - indeed the museum's owners encourage Baroque musicians to come practice in this room for free. Nextdoor is a rather smaller spinet, this in Handel's official Composition Room. Here he turned out his triumphal Messiah in three weeks flat, here too originated Zadok The Priest and the Music For The Royal Fireworks. Few London spaces have a richer legacy.
Nip nextdoor through a connecting passage into 23 Brook Street and you'll be able to explore a brand new (just-opened last week) exhibition - Handel Reveal'd. A range of Handellian aretfacts are on display across two floors, including a handwritten score completed on Christmas Day, a "life mask" and one of George's share certificates. There's also muted speculation into the composer's confirmed bachelorhood, and a chance to plug yourself into a Walkman to hear the odd overture while you peruse. It's only on the upper floor that Handel's unlikely musical neighbour is revealed. For a few brief months 40 years ago this flat was home to guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, shacked up in a 60s lovepad with girlfriend Kathy Etchingham. Present visitors get to see nothing more than a few press photographs shot here, but these are enough to make you envisage the room in a completely different way. Two geniuses for the price of one, that's Brook Street for you. by tube: Bond Street
We have too few bank holidays. Eight a year, it's not enough.
We have too few 'proper' bank holidays. 'Proper' bank holidays for gardening, DIY or going to the beach. Christmas and New Year don't count, because the entire country's on shutdown anyway. We have only five 'proper' bank holidays a year. Fifty a decade, it's not enough.
We have too few 'proper' bank holiday Mondays. Spring breaks* or summertime hiatus, kickstarting a shortened working week. A proper pause in the rhythm of life, for lazy relaxation or short haul travel. We have only four 'proper' bank holiday Mondays a year. Three hundred a lifetime, it's not enough.
* We have too many spring bank holidays. Two at Easter, then another two right up close in May before we need them. We have half of our bank holidays squeezed into a brief patch of spring. Half our holidays, it's too many. (so we don't need another)
We have too many miserable 'proper' bank holiday Mondays. Chucking it down with rain, or trapped at the in-laws, or forced to go to work, or stuck in a traffic jam, or pig-sick in bed. A day of freedom and hope and possibility, cruelly dashed to become a day of grimness and misery and slog. Every time it happens, it's once too many.
We have too few excellent 'proper' bank holiday Mondays. Today could be an excellent 'proper' bank holiday Monday. You'll never live through more than a few hundred excellent 'proper' bank holiday Mondays. And you've probably got under a hundred left. So get out there today and make the most of it.
It's no fun travelling on the tube at weekends, is it? There you are, hoping to travel from A to B, but the line you want is suspended "due to planned engineering works". There's always an alternative route, but it's usually either inconvenient or time-consuming or both, and often involves the four-wheeled misery that is the rail replacement bus. Meanwhile services on the line segments that aren't suspended get less frequent trains, which are often packed to rush hour proportions, and what should be a simple day out can rapidly become a nightmare diversionary trek. Sure we're going to get better underground services as a result (or at least some signalling that works and a few shinier tiles), but this relentless inconvenience somehow feels a high price to pay. Plus it'll never finish, will it, because there'll always be more engineering work that needs doing when all this lot's finished. Sorry London, but our weekends are probably permanently blighted for the foreseeable future.
If you're feeling particularly pessimistic, you'll be delighted to know that TfL publish a regular pdf bulletin detailing all proposed tube line closures for the next six months. It makes for grim reading, especially if (like me) you live in one of the areas most affected by current ongoing engineering upgrades. Things are particularly unpleasant on the District and Jubilee lines, with only one single weekend between now and September when they'll be running a normal service. The Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines are almost as bad, and there's still no end in sight to part and total suspensions on the Victoria line.
I've summarised TfL's lengthy list in this easy-to-swallow table of weekend tube shutdowns. Every coloured blob indicates a weekend shutdown along part (or all) of a particular line. Now you can plan to be elsewhere as required (or maybe stick to the Waterloo and City line, just to be on the safe side).
Things are worse than this, of course. The London Overground is buggered every weekend between now and the end of the year, and there are also numerous DLR suspensions in the offing (although few of these are yet announced). Add in engineering work on various mainline and suburban rail services, and you might as well stay at home.
And in case you're thinking "it's a lot worse now than it used to be", you'd be right. Here's an equivalent table from four years ago...
The Golf Sale. The legendary never-ending Golf Sale. The sports shop down a Mayfair sidestreet near Oxford Circus. The iconic Golf Sale advertised along Oxford Street by men with sandwich boards since time immemorial. Much imitated, never beaten. The Golf Sale. Closing down. Nip down to Maddox Street fast if you want to snap up a cut-price putter or trolleybag or snazzy jumper.
And no, it's not because profits have collapsed since Westminster Council banned mobile streetsigns a couple of years ago. It's not the credit crunch either, because golfers tend to have sturdy pockets. No, it's because the shop's lease is up for grabs. The tenant is on one month's notice, so as soon as some other retailer expresses interest and signs a contract he'll have just four weeks to get out. Hence the even-bigger-than-normal closing down sale, clearing out as much stuff as possible before the sad day comes.
Before you golfers start worrying too much, there's probably no rush. The closing down Golf Sale has already been running for severalmonths, and a bunker mentality has evolved. Depressed retail conditions don't make leases on Mayfair shops look attractive, so nobody's yet leapt in to snap up number 16 Maddox Street. But an end to the economic downturn could soon see the demise of London's best-publicised golfing outlet, and bring about the disappearance of the capital's most famous fluorescentyellowsign. The final hole could be just 31 days away. Follow the arrows while you can.
East London's premier art gallery reopened on Sunday. The Whitechapel Gallery had been closed for a couple of years while it was extended into the library nextdoor, but now it's twice the size and raring to go. And if a wet and gloomy bank holiday is staring you in the face, you might find a visit brightens your day.
To Whitechapel High Street, which means catching the tube to Aldgate East, not Whitechapel. The station's eastern ticket hall has been simulataneously reopened, so you'll emerge onto the street bang in the middle of the gallery's frontage. It all looks rather splendid now that the scaffolding's finally come down, although definitely two very different buildings bolted together. And yes, there was supposed to be a mosaic in that blank rectangle above the entrance arch, but the 1901 architect ran out of money and only now are there plans to (maybe) fill it in.
The entrance is light and welcoming, drawing you inside past the non-ticket desk (no, really, every exhibition's free). Original galleries, straight ahead. There's no dumbing down here. The Whitechapel's always presented challenging artworks to the local community, and the latest headline exhibition is no exception. Its an Isa Genzhen retrospective (no, me neither), packed with a wide variety of reconstituted industrial materials masquerading as sculpture. Vinyl towers, concrete radios, mirrors with pictures of bacon stuck on them, that sort of thing. It's definitely intriguing, with an air of "I could have done that" about it, except you'd never have had the creative gumption to come up with the ideas in the first place. There's three galleries-worth of Isa, and in the old Whitechapel that would have been your lot. Hurrah for the new.
The library half of the building has more of a heritage feel, though still very much part of a spacious whole. Pride of place in the large ground floor gallery goes to a tapestry depicting Picasso's famous Spanish Civil War artwork, Guernica. The original was only ever exhibited once in Britain, here at the Whitechapel in 1939, a few months before the Luftwaffe recreated the scene in the skies above London. It's still a very haunting image, even in woven monochrome, and is now drawing respectful crowds from a new generation. Elsewhere in the room a large circular display case is given over to examples of East End protest materials and propaganda, from 1930s DIY style-guides to G20 demonstration leaflets 2009-style. Do collect a free newspaper from the back of the room, it explains all.
My favourite display was in Gallery 7 upstairs, devoted to artworks selected from the British Council Collection. This was an eclectic mix curated from the early years of many famous UK artists, including a Lucian Freud portrait, a Bridget Riley wave, a Henry Moore sculpture, a Patrick Caulfield cave and some Damien Hirst spots. After the slightly Blue Peter feel of Isa Genzhen's work, the effortless modernism of these varied masterworks shone through. Four further selections from the collection are promised over the next twelve months, and I shall definitely be back to enjoy each.
I also savoured the tiny upper gallery displaying Co-op memorabilia and divi tokens. This was part 1 of an exhibition entitled S:Coop, organised by Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas. She's designed a minted token being given out in change at nearby Petticoat Lane Market, and this can be redeemed at a temporary ice cream parlour on Toynbee Road. After my trip to the main gallery I traipsed through the streets of Spitalfields and popped in for a yummy scoop. I appreciated the fact that all the ice creams on sale were white, for revolutionary reasons apparently, and plumped for a tasty lemon curd in preference to elderberry, vanilla or rum and raisin. It's a bonkers idea to try to subvert economic activity with patently uneconomic art, but definitely a concept I'd recommend if you're in the area.
So welcome back to the Whitechapel Gallery. The new building's been expertly designed, and the enlarged spaces create a most sympathetic space for the display of all kinds of art. There's also a very well-stocked bookshop with a quirky and appealing selection, plus a heck of a lot of postcards should you fancy taking the exhibited artwork home with you. The cafe was doing good trade yesterday (top of the menu, red lentil soup), while a rather less lentil-ly dining room opens on the ground floor next week. East London's truly blessed with creativity, so do come celebrate, and make it a habit to come celebrate regularly. (n.b. open late Thursdays) (n.b. closed Mondays)
I sometimes get emails from PR folk wondering whether I might be interested in something they're promoting. Erm, no. Do I look like the sort of blogger who waxes lyrical about campaigns and product endorsement? Because if you think I do, you've not been reading for long enough. I write about what I want, not what you want. Please, send your begging emails somewhere else. Here are a few choice examples recently received, but with all the brand names heartlessly deleted for minimum publicity.
Hello Diamond Geezer. I just wanted to drop you a quick line to tell you about an exciting new launch of <illuminated advert> on Piccadilly Circus. <Multinational company> has launched a brand new interactive concept where passers-by can take pictures of themselves interacting with images displayed on <multinational company>'s giant LED screen... It would be great to hear your thoughts, feedback and see your photos or videos of the sign.
Yes I bet it would. Now go away.
Dear Diamond Geezer. Since you blog is all about London, and the various sites and attractions the city offers, also your images are simply beautiful, I have only been to London once, but feel your blog truly does capture the city's atmosphere. Getting back to my point here, I think you might be interested to know that <UK directory service> just launched a new campaign...
No, crawling doesn't work either.
Greetings fellow travel enthusiast, I'm writing to you on behalf of <obscure male-oriented website>.com in preparation of the worldwide unveiling of 2009's Top 29 Cities to Live In; a comprehensive roundup of the year's most inhabitable cities for the everyday man... Although the final rankings are still top secret, I wanted to give you the inside scoop and let you know that London has been officially selected as one of this year’s 29 honorees. I thought this news might be of interest to your readers and I was curious as to whether you would like any additional information for your literature?
So desperately mistargeted, Johnny.
Hi there, Hope you don't mind me introducing myself! I'm from <Viral Seeding Company>, a viral seeding company in London, and we're currently running a campaign to promote <eco-friendly activity> in London, which I think would go down really well on Diamond Geezer. It's a hilarious little clip that's proving very popular so far! If you're interested, we can give you a video player to embed
Is it genuinely viral if you have to infect me first?
Dear Geezer, I thought I'd drop you a line on an event taking place in London on Friday to see if you fancied taking part or covering it... <Drinks company> is bringing the popular social media, Twitter and Google Latitude '<Drinks Company> Safari Hunt' to London, given explorers the chance to hunt down bottles of quality <alcoholic drink> if they can find the <Drinks Company> lions in bars and pubs... The lions can be found by following clues on Twitter (www.twitter.com/<drinkscompany>) and Google Latitude.
Life's too short, count me out.
So just to reiterate, if you're a social marketing guru with a product or service to pitch, please take the hint and try plugging your goods elsewhere. Many thanks.
LONDON A-Z An alphabetical journey through the capital's museums Guards Museum
Location: Wellington Barracks, Birdcage Walk SW1E 6HQ [map] Open: daily (10am - 4pm) Admission: £3 (serving military personnel £1) Brief summary: battles, bayonets and bearskins Website:www.theguardsmuseum.com Time to set aside: up to an hour
And now for a museum so central you've probably never noticed it. Wellington Barracks runs along the southern edge of St James's Park (if you've ever been in the area your eyes have probably been on the park, not the barracks). These buildings are home to a battalion of the Household Division of the British Army (who have to be stationed incredibly close to Buckingham Palace because many of their ceremonial duties involve marching up and down in front of the Queen). Tourists know these soldiers better than locals, because they're the men in red coats and furry black hats who perform daily in the Changing of the Guard. They're representatives of the five regiments of the Foot Guards (Grenadier, Coldstream, Welsh, Scots and Irish). And yes, they have their own museum.
Step off Birdcage Walk into the small courtyard at the eastern end of Wellington Barracks, and you may wonder precisely which building the museum is. The small squat building to the right, maybe (er, no, that's the gift shop, with its masses of shelves of toysoldiers for sale). The much larger Mediterranean-style box to the left, perhaps (er, no, that's the GuardsChapel, a strikingly modern place of worship open for public perusal on weekdays). No, it's none of the buildings round here, grand or otherwise. The Guards Museum is hidden underground, off to the right between two sentry boxes and down some steps into the basement. Maybe that's why you've never noticed it before.
Prepare yourself for a military experience. The bloke on the front desk, undoubtedly a retired soldier, will take your money and check your bag, then direct you off into a world of medals and insignia. If you're lucky the DVD in the mini theatre will be playing to provide an outline of the Guards' historic role, although last weekend the machine appeared to be buggered so I had to skip that. An example of each of the ceremonial uniforms is on display here, including those iconic black bearskins that tower unfeasibly above parading guardsmen's heads. Pay careful attention and you'll be able to differentiate between a Scots Guard and a Coldstream Guard across a crowded parade ground. And then into the museum proper - a series of about five or six rooms outlining the regiments' chronological story.
Try not to be disturbed by the initial tableau of three life-sized guardsman dummies waving a big flag and roaring in battlefield defiance. Instead start to make your way round the walls looking at the artefacts and reading about the history. The Guards started out as a Stuart defence force protecting the King, and have been involved in every major skirmish ever since. Prepare to read about them all. Or, if you're a visiting American child, just whoop at all the weaponry and imagine what fun it must have been stabbing, hacking and slicing through your enemies with it.
There are an awful lot of strange hats. The guards have always been game for wearing particularly ostentatious headgear, some of which make a bearskin helmet look positively tame. There's also a lot of assorted memorabilia, much of it campaign related, with a particular emphasis on the horrors and glories of the Crimea. Some general earned that dangly silver thing, some footsoldier banged that drum in the heat of battle, and some proud veteran donated that letter of commendation. It'd be hard to ever describe the collection as exciting, unless you're the sort who really gets off on all things military, but the artefacts do generate a convincing historical atmosphere.
And it's not all old stuff. After a reminder of the Guards contribution to both World Wars comes an unexpectedly up-to-date section detailing life on the frontline in Afghanistan. There's a mock up of a soldier's desert quarters, complete with army rations and a copy of the Sun newspaper, alongside a caption dating the scene to 2008. It's not all parading up and down for tourists and providing silver service for Her Maj, these guys still put their life on the line during lengthy foreign tours of duty. If that thought stirs your heart, you might appreciate a tour round the basement to pay your respects. by tube: St James's Park
As we established yesterday, I write too slowly. So I've forced myself to write today's post in one hour flat. And now I've gone back to add a quick running commentary so I can tell you how I coped.
Oysterising the Thames
Title's cut and pasted from a press release. Saves thinking up anything original. And the photo's lifted from a post I wrote about riverboat journeys last summer. Speedy start.
You can already flash your Oyster on the bus and on the trains, so why not on the river? That's the latest news from the press release sausage factory that is the Mayor's PR squad. Thames riverboat operators have agreed to accept passengers flashing Oyster cards, as part of the continued rollout of interactive ticketing technology across all multi-modal journey options. Sorry, now I'm the one sounding like a verbose project management nerd. But I can't compete with this magnificent paragraph from yesterday's announcement.
Oh excellent. I don't have to write the next bit either. Quoting other people's stuff is a great way to fill a blog with minimum effort.
I don't believe Boris ever said that, not unless he read it out at a press conference, and it was written for him by some trainee marketing gibbon attempting to combine all relevant buzz phrases into two sentences of meaningless aspiration. But I digress.
Sorry, I was a bit negative there. Normally I tone down these PR hatchet jobs a bit to make things sound a bit more balanced. But no time for editing today, so if you are that trainee marketing gibbon, I apologise.
Incoming email. Could I resist reading it? No. Could I resist replying to it? No. And that was five of my valuable sixty minutes spent doing nothing relevant. How easily my writing time slipped away.
The important news is that we Oyster owners will be able to use our cards on the Thames. In November. That's quite a while away isn't it? A whole summer of messing about in boats will pass, and only then will the conglomeration of riverboat operatives be enabled to beep passengers on board and charge them appropriately. It's not like portable Oyster readers don't exist - they were in use aboard Routemaster buses even before Ken scrapped them. Maybe they weren't water-resistant.
I didn't notice that Routemaster parallel myself, I read it in the comments on another blog. I'm sort of hoping you won't have noticed that, though. Uncredited plagiarism's a great way to look knowledgeable fast.
Anyway, what does this cut-price river future entail? No major new cut price offers, by the sound of it. I can already get one third off a river ticket by flashing my Oyster Travelcard, and that won't change in November. For those with pay-as-you-go, the ticket price will still be five quid come November, it'll just be more convenient to pay it. And five quid's quite a lot really. It's only four quid cash to take the tube, and only £2.20 if you use Oyster. Boris appears to be talking improved convenience here, not greater savings.
I haven't checked the figures carefully. For all I know there was something I missed in the press release that left open the option of lower prices. But I didn't see it at first glance, and I don't have time to go back and check. Instead I went to the kitchen and got myself a cup of tea. Even in one hour flat I was still time-wasting.
I'm not convinced I'll be using the river any more frequently myself. Messing about in boats may be a far more civilised way to travel, but getting on board isn't always straight-forward. Thames Clipper riverboats run at roughly 20 minute intervals, so it's not exactly a turn-up-and-go service. If the boat's full when it arrives (and it can be), it's a damned long wait for the next one. And there are a lot of intermediate piers along the Thames between the West End and Docklands, so a surprisingly large proportion of the journey is spent tying up and casting off.
Apologies, no time to compare how much faster it is to travel by tube than by boat (or vice versa on certain routes). Maybe one of you could do that for me.
Because that's where my hour ran out. Sorry, normally there'd be some concluding statement, something short and snappy, to draw my argument to a close. Instead I'm leaving you all in mid-flow, before I'd reached a natural end. Also I only managed to add a couple of links, and normally I'd have researched and addedrathermore. I really wish I'd had time to go back and edit the piece too, tighten it up a bit, make things more coherent. But no, time's up. It's all a bit disappointing really. I'm going to have to spend longer on this blogging lark tomorrow...
That was an easy enough start. What shall I write next? Let me have a think. Maybe a cup of tea would help.
It ought to be straight-forward to dash off a few hundred words, but it never is.
Perhaps a biscuit to go with the cuppa. Or perhaps not. Let me go and have a look in the cupboard anyway.
I can never sit down and write more than a sentence or two in one go. I lose the flow, then pause and wonder what to write next.
Hang on a minute. It'll come to me eventually, honest.
Something always distracts me, usually temporarily, diverting my attention away from the task in hand.
Nice biscuit. That pile of papers on the table needs tidying. Let me put some different music on.
Writing on a computer is begging for trouble, because there are so many potential distractions.
I need to double check that fact, where's Google? Did someone just send me an email? And has anything happened in the news in the last ten minutes? Unlikely, but worth checking all the same.
My blog may appear effortless to read, but it's rarely effortless to write.
Is effortless the right word? Let me try a few others, to see if they're better. Maybe I should swap the order of the words around a bit. Cut, paste, undo, delete. Is that any better? Actually, maybe it was OK in the first place.
Each new paragraph demands another flash of inspiration to raise it above the mundane.
Hopefully that inspiration will come if I sit and stare out of the window for a bit. Looks nice out there, doesn't it? Remind me, did I just check my email?
Calculating my writing speed in words per minute is usually a thoroughly depressing activity.
How can it take so long to write so little? Any normal blogger would have finished ages ago.
Waiting for the next word, phrase or sentence to emerge eats up huge proportions of my time.
Look, it's got dark outside since I started writing this. A third cup of tea might be a good idea to help me concentrate. And then I'll go back to the last paragraph and completely rewrite it.
I'm sure I used to write faster than I do now. Or maybe I was just more easily satisfied.
Where does the time go? Writing keeps me off the streets, but that may not be a good thing. I need to speed up a bit.
It strikes me that writing about life is no substitute for living it.
Cocktails: You can tell that a restaurant is going to be a bit posh when the coat check attendant nips out from behind the counter with a coathanger to grab your jacket. Thankfully the Oxo Tower restaurant was on the relaxed side of posh, although I wasn't convinced that my attempt at "smart casual" had quite cut the mustard with the Friday evening clientèle. I hovered self-consciously near the private bar, unable to sit down because the nearby seating was clogged by little black dresses and their gentlemen partners. As I scanned the drinks menu I could sense that my presence was obstructing the passing table staff, but they all smiled with good grace as they scuttled by. What to have? I suspected that this was not an appropriate time to request a bottle of Becks, so turned instead to the list of cocktails and attempted to select something both classy and classic. A dash of rum in a reservoir of icy fruit juice sufficed. As I raised my glass in celebratory toast, at least one pound's worth of alcoholic mixture spilled over the rim and formed a embarrassing puddle on the floor. I was somewhat relieved when the waiter announced that our table was ready, and offered to carry our drinks for us on his tray.
Starters: We were led through the restaurant between tightly packed tables filled with impeccable couples. Our designated table was some way back from the window, with a better view of the fire escape than of riverside nighttime London. I viewed the menu with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. I'm a picky eater, and these haute cuisine a la carte menus usually combine several scrumptious-sounding ingredients with at least one thing I detest. Sure enough, the list of starters proved disappointingly tainted. That looks lovely... ah, no, pesto. How about this... hmm, no, pickled prunes. Neither did this seem the ideal time to risk cuttlefish minestrone, nor crab salad, nor king scallops. It soon became clear that the only starter option I would safely stomach was the "ballotine of foie gras". I decided that my conscience would allow me to eat it, just this once, in order to find out what all the luxury fuss was about. My force-fed liver arrived in a medallion-shaped dollop at one end of a smart rectangular plate. I watched others carefully to confirm that the appropriate method of consumption involved cutting a slice of reassembled offal and smearing it on bread. It was, incidentally, damned gorgeous bread - a mushroom and tarragon brioche whose consistency reminded me of the very finest Chelsea bun. As for the foie gras, I was underwhelmed by its unexpectedly bland tastelessness, which was presumably why I'd been given a goblet of plum chutney to tart it up. All of this was accompanied by a challenging glass of smoky South African red, brought to the table by a cheerily obsequious sommelier. I never saw quite how much the bottle cost but I suspect that, even by this early stage in the evening, my allocated portion of food and drink had already cost the best part of forty quid.
Main course: Table cleared (and crumbs quietly brushed onto the floor), we awaited the arrival of our next food parcel. The atmosphere on the eighth floor was convivial, with those at nearby tables seemingly rather more West End than City. I tried not to wreck the elevated penthouse feel by looking upward through white slats into the rooftop air conditioning. Eventually our next platters arrived. I watched with mild jealousy as BestMate's suckling pig was carved at the table, although it's probably a good thing that my arteries were spared its fatty slices. Instead I was presented with yet another conscientiously objectionable foodstuff - a sirloin of veal (sorry, it was that or the salmon, and I'd overdosed on salmon already this week at home). This was accompanied by a "five pepper crust", essentially a broad swirl of saucy peppercorns, and a tear-shaped splodge of parsnip and apple purée. Not a combination I shall ever eat again, but the veal was unexpectedly delicate and tender, and the peppercorns made a very welcome change to the usual steamed veg that lesser restaurants serve. However I had perhaps goofed by failing to order any side dishes (at three or four quid a time, I'd thought best not), so my meaty course lacked anything green, or spudlike, or even healthy. Damned tasty, though.
Dessert: After an appropriate hiatus, and the finishing off of the second bottle of wine, the maître d' approached our table with a smile. A table had become vacant by the window, and would we like to move there to complete our meal? Too right, even if diners at the surrounding tables eyed us with muted jealousy as we moved off. This time, much closer to the bar, there was a far better view of the Thames-side panorama. It's not the most exciting stretch of the river, to be honest, but the mesmerising sight of the floodlit dome of St Paul's more than made up for a certain flatness elsewhere. The dessert menu was uncompetitively priced, with even a small slice of lemon and pine nut tart costing rather more than might be charged for a main course at a decent Norfolk pub. One particularly cryptic item - "Richard's last wish" - appeared at the eye-watering price of £75.00, so we enquired as to what that last wish might be. Extra-vintage cognac, as it turned out, accompanying a trio of matching puddings. So thanks, but no thanks. BestMate plumped for the cheeseboard, so a waiter duly rolled up with the cheese trolley and cut elegant triangular slices of soft, hard and veined for his delectation and delight. I went instead for the Chocolate Plate, which turned out to be a collection of four very different cocoa confections. One saucy sponge, one cubic mousse, one cream-filled tube and one tub of almost-drinkable custard. All quite delightful (and, just for a change, nothing that any animal activist could get seriously wound up about).
Coffee: No, I didn't, because even posh coffee's not me. But I did enjoy a couple of petit fours before BestMate whisked the bill away and asked the head waiter if we could pop out onto thebalcony before we went home. No problem sir, this way please. And so we ended the evening leaning over the rail between the empty exterior tables, gawping down across the glittering Thames and gazing back at the illuminated tower directly above us. Perfect.
Was the food excellent? Too damned right it was, in fact I'd even go so far as to say exquisite. Were the staff good? Absolutely faultless, and never once in any way snooty. Was the evening value for money? Not if you're judging portion size, although the experience was certainly priceless. And would I go again? Sure, but infrequently. Maybe next time BestMate has a milestone birthday. I'd better get saving now.
"About your birthday treat", said BestMate several weeks ago. "It's going to be a month late, because I've had to book it a long way in advance. And I'm not going to tell you what it is either, because it's a surprise. But keep the first Friday in April free."
"About your birthday treat", said BestMate yesterday. "Meet you under the clock at Waterloo station at eight. No trainers. And wear a shirt. That's all I'm saying."
"About your birthday treat," said BestMate as we got out of the taxi and stepped into the lift. "It's on the 8th floor".
<one cocktail, two bottles of wine, three courses and one glass of port later>
"About my birthday treat," I said to BestMate four hours later as we stood on the restaurant balcony gazing down over the twinkling Thamesside rooftops. "That was bloody good. And thanks for paying."
About my birthday treat. I'll tell you more tomorrow.
Well, what else would you call an Underground ornithological photographic contest? It was announced yesterday that TfL have got together with the RSPB to organise a prize photo competition, and they're hoping very much that you'll take part.
Not the two most convincing reasons for running a photographic competition about birds, it has to be said. But who cares when there are freebies on offer, and all you have to do is go snap some feathered creatures.
The competition's rules clearly allow for a wide variety of birdy photos. The pelicans in St James's Park, a nightingale in Berkeley Square, a sparrow in Cockfosters, even the flamingos in London Zoo. Oh hang on, not the latter, because London Zoo's well over five minutes walk from any tube station. Entrants need to pick their spot carefully or they'll be disqualified. For example, I can't enter this seemingly perfect photograph of pigeons on the District line because it was taken aboard a moving train midway between Richmond and Kew Gardens, and therefore more than five minutes walk from each.
Maybe we should take a closer look at this competition's terms and conditions...
By submitting a photograph which you have taken which relates to bird(s) and which you took within five minutes walk from a London Underground Tube station to the 'LU-RSPB Mind the Bird' Group on Flickr accessed via www.tfl.gov.uk/mindthebird, you will be entered into the LU-RSPB photography competition.
Only Flickr users can take part, which is a bit restrictive. As for the subject of the photograph, this only has to "relate to birds", in which case it could presumably be a peacock feather, or a Reliant Robin, or even a hard boiled egg. But it's the bit about "five minutes walk" that's really worrying me. How far is five minutes walk, exactly, and is it different for a 20 year old compared to an 80 year old? More importantly, isn't this competition openly discriminating against wheelchair users? For disabled Londoners with limited mobility, the requirement "five minutes walk" is potentially both offensive and illegal.
No birds should be harmed or unduly disturbed in the process of taking photographs.
So, no shouting loudly at blue tits or firing air pistols at ducks. Mind that bird! But if you find a box of fried chicken on the pavement outside Brixton station, that's presumably fair game.
No purchase necessary.
Erm, obviously.
The prize winners may be required to participate in publicity and promotional activities.
There's no such thing as a free bird table. If you're lucky enough to win the binoculars, the free museum pass and the other goodies, you'll have to look appreciative for the media. So that's me out.
Photographs will be judged according to their originality, appropriateness and relevance to the theme of 'Birds near the Underground' and quality of photography.
That's the only mention of the competition's official theme, hidden away in Term & Condition number 17. But its crucially important to know what the judges are looking for. Not just a bird, but a hint of something tube-related. Quick, take your camera down to Goldhawk Road station, or maybe Ravenscourt Park, or even Canary Wharf, for added relevance.
But remember, the theme of the competition is 'Birds near the Underground', not 'Birds on the Underground'. Whatever you do don't take any photos of birds on the Underground. Because, as some TfL killjoy points out on the competition's Flickr page, photography on the underground is very naughty indeed...
"The Mind the Bird photo competition aims to encourage Londoners to use the Tube to discover the Capital's varied bird life - hence the criteria that photos must be be taken within a five minute walk of a station. Photography is not permitted at London Underground stations without prior permission. Information on photography permits are available at www.tfl.gov.uk/filming. In this competition, we are encouraging our customers to explore the areas surrounding Tube stations rather than snap the bird life within the station itself."
Blimey, how unfriendly is that? Is there really a ban on all photography on the Underground (unless you've bought a £30 one-month licence), or is this just some over-zealous rule-basher overstating the legal case? Suddenly this sounds like a photography competition organised by a company that doesn't like photographers. Probably safest to go shoot a starling in a park instead.
5pm update: Well that's good. The bit about photography not being permitted at London Underground stations has been edited out of the Flickr group comment. Because it is allowed. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
If you were awake before breakfast time last Saturday, you might have heard me on Radio 4 talking about the Olympic Park. The programme in question was Open Country, a long running series about rural Britain, whose latest episode features various eye-witness interviews from the Lower Lea valley. I was right chuffed to be invited to take part, and duly trotted up to the Greenway a couple of weeks ago to be pre-recorded by Matt Baker and a woman with a big furry mike. We chatted about the park and its legacy for 40 minutes or so, and that's been duly whittled down to four and a half minutes in the final broadcast. And blimey, there's me sandwiched inbetween top 2012 honchos and proper wildlife experts. Only on BBC Radio 4.
If you were listening to Open Country on Saturday, you might have been inspired to find out more about the issues by visiting the Radio 4 website. Open Country had its own homepage, with a detailed archive of programmes each supported by background information and a selection of relevant links. On the Lea Valley page there were 250 words to read, and a specially-taken photograph, plus links to British Waterways, London 2012, the Waterworks Nature Reserve and, er, me. Useful multimedia backup there, adding a bit of depth to the broadcast programme. [website Saturday] [now deleted]
If you're around just after three o'clock this afternoon, you might hear me on Radio 4 talking about the Olympic Park. It's the Open Country repeat slot, and there'll probably be rather more people listening this time. They might also be inspired to find out more about the issues by visiting the Radio 4 website. But they'll be disappointed.
Open Country still has its own homepage, but it's considerably depleted. There's a brief series description and a generic photograph of a hill. There are lots of tagged links to other BBC content that you might otherwise not have noticed. The archive of programmes has been hidden in smaller text at the bottom of the page, then buried deeper into yearly catalogues. All of the richness of the individual programme descriptions has been lost. On the Lea Valley page, where there were once 250 words, there are now 34. This bland summary is nothing more than a brief preview of the programme with absolutely no background information whatsoever and no relevant external links. In short, the Open Country microsite now boasts absolutely nothing worth reading.
It's early days for the Radio 4 website revamp, and it would be wrong to judge the entire transformation solely based on a single programme I happen to have taken part in. But where the web designers are claiming "uncluttered", I see "empty". [Before, after] [Before, after] [Before, after] Where there were once useful links chosen by a human, there are now auto-generated connections churned out from an unseen database. And whereas all the most popular programmes used to be given some degree of prominence, the emphasis is now solely on shows available on the iPlayer or via podcast. If you can't listen to it, it's no longer important. The new Radio 4 website appears hellbent on delivering audio content, not enhancing the audio experience. I hope that one day soon it might do both.
Severe delays are occurring due to scruffy bearded protesters waving placards at Lambeth North.
Central
Very severe delays are occurring due to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse appearing unexpectedly on the platform at Chancery Lane.
Circle
Suspended anticlockwise due to the beheading of international statesmen for crimes against the planet at Tower Hill.
District
Severe delays are occurring due to flammable stockbrokers on a bonfire at Mansion House.
East London
The line is closed to enable world leaders to meet in the Thames Tunnel, where nobody will ever think of looking for them.
Hammersmith & City
Chief executive of international bank suspended between Moorgate and Liverpool Street.
Jubilee
Severe delays are occurring in the Green Park area due to excessive security protocols demanded by paranoid American secret servicemen.
Metropolitan
Minor delays are occurring due to an impromptu outbreak of disgruntled morris dancing at Liverpool Street.
Northern
Forcibly replaced between Euston and Elephant and Castle by a carbon-neutral donkey-cart shuttle.
Piccadilly
Severe delays are occurring due to the decadent, decomposing corpse of capitalism.
Victoria
Suspended at police request due to unconfirmed reports of eco-warrior seen drinking alcohol (in direct contravention of Boris Byelaw 743b).
Waterloo & City
Entire line ablaze due to anarchic assembly of angry arsonists.
Show disruptive protests in red
BANK STATION: There is no access to the Northern line platforms for anyone who looks a bit like a banker - you know, smart suit, nice tie, shiny shoes, cufflinks, let's kneecap the bastards.
MONUMENT STATION: Small fire reported in Pudding Lane. No need to panic - unlikely to be serious.
CANNON STREET STATION: Boarded up, battened down and awaiting the worst.
BLACKHORSE ROAD: Station being used as bait to lure anti Lloyds Bank protesters away from the City.
MILE END STATION: Please note that this station has not been vandalised by eco-protesters. It always looks this bad, thanks to the greedy tax-guzzling shareholders of the Metronet consortium.
BOND STREET: Station closed due to overcrowding, following stampede underground after accidental detonation of small nuclear device outside American Embassy.
DLR: Apologies to local residents in the Custom House area, but keeping Obama safe is more important than allowing you onto trains tomorrow.
What's on this weekend? Festival of Reading 2009 Fri 4th - Sat 12th December
Meet East End authors at Tower Hamlets' Idea Stores (including Dan Cruickshank).
East End pavements are quiet at half past six in the morning. The Tower Hamlets hose-down squad take this opportunity to water-blast the litterbins along the Mile End Road. A few early commuters aim for the tube. London's invisible army of overnight cleaners heads home to bed. Whitechapel Market slowly emerges from the back of a fleet of unbranded vans. A handful of bench-bound blokes quaff silently from 2-litre green bottles - because it's never too early in the day for the first glug of White Lightning. It'll get rowdier later.
When you think of the great film director Alfred Hitchcock you probably think of Hollywood, but you should instead be thinking Waltham Forest. Not quite so glamorous, admittedly, but the great film director had his humble origins in Leytonstone. If he'd followed in his father's footsteps he'd have been a greengrocer on the High Road, but dad's footsteps died out when Alf was only 14 and he ended up at an East End university instead. His career moved rapidly from draftsman to silent movie title designer to film director, and in 1929 he lurched into the limelight with "Blackmail", the first British talkie.
There are at least 23 buildings of architectural note in Chingford, apparently, including a 400-year-old dovecote and a late Victorian terracotta-clad pub. The oldest is Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge on the forest edge, which I've visited before (and which is also Londonist's "Museum of the Month"). Nextdoor is the Butler's Retreat, a listed barn used to serve refreshments to Forest-bound visitors, although alas currently closed for refurbishment. Of the remaining buildings of note, most are clustered around Chingford Green - a thin triangle of grass surrounded by one of the borough's larger conservation areas. A wide range of architectural styles are on show, from faux Tudor to faux Gothic, although my favourite was the genuine weatherboarded tweeness of Carbis Cottage. Before the railways came Chingford was but a small hamlet of similarly rural homesteads. It's very different now.
The leafleted trail doesn't shy away from more suburban highlights. There are some particularly grand homes along The Drive, for example, and a few equally over-turreted mansions facing the golf course along Forest View. The north end of Chingford is where Waltham Forest's better off residents come to live, not quite gated luxury but still a million miles away from conditions in the tightly packed streets of Leyton far to the south. For a topping treat, however, trudge up to the highest point of the estate where you'll find a short footpath leading to the summit of Pole Hill. Not only is there a great view through the trees towards the City, but there's also an obelisk or two marking an unlikely geographical coincidence. The Greenwich Meridian passes directly through the top of the hill, so as you stand beside the trig point you are precisely due north of the Royal Observatory. Further details are included in my special Meridian postings from five years ago (including Waltham Forest's series of carefully aligned pavement tributes). Pole Hill's a lovely spot - even Lawrence of Arabia thought so - and all the better if (like me) you get the entire mound completely to yourself.
1) Whipps Cross Hospital: In common with hundreds of thousands of other locals, little David was born in north-east London's largest infirmary complex. Nobody seems to know in which ward, there's no plaque or anything, so visitors are undoubtedly better off crossing the road and wandering round the nearby lake instead. Ice creams and rowing boat hire available.
3) Walthamstow Stadium: David used to work here as a glass-collector (which may give you some idea how desperate some of the locations in this trail are). Alas nobody works here now, bar a few security guards, because this much-mourned dogtrack closed down last year to be reborn as yet another humdrum housing development. Until that happens, however, the stadium's untweaked white frontage still stirs the hearts of passing travellers (and you can even glimpse the mighty mothballed scoreboard from location number 2).
4&6) Ainslie Wood & Larkswood Park: These are two wood-fringed grass squares with plenty of footie space, one beside David's nan's flat, the other closer to home. Saturday saw many of the district's soccer-addicted youngsters out for a sunny kickaround, some under the organised auspices of grunting coaches, others merely running around for fun. Desperately ordinary, and surprisingly evocative. Non car-drivers also get to enjoy a twin-peaked bluebell-spotting walk between the two locations.
7&8) Ridgeway Park & Mansfield Park: Of the umpteen parks along this trail, Ridgeway was my least favourite. That's probably because it was the only park that was busy, with hoop-shooting, police-leafleting and dog-bothering all popular activities. Visitors should note that the miniature railway only opens on summer Sundays, and that Walt Disney hasn't been back for a ride since 1954. As for Mansfield Park, that was unexpectedly fabulous. After a stroll through floral gardens, the land suddenly tumbled down to the Lea Valley below, with excellent views across a glistening expanse of reservoirs towards Ponders End and Enfield. I just can't imagine how young Becks could have found a surface anywhere flat enough to play football.
David Beckham may have been a temporary local legend, but Leyton Orient have been kicking around Waltham Forest a while longer. The O's are London second longest-serving professional team, after Fulham, formed in 1881 when members of a Hackney cricket club fancied some exercise to see them through the winter. In 1937 the club crossed the Lea from Clapton to Leyton, and they've been playing on the marsh's edge ever since. Orient's brushes with the top flight have been notably brief (a single season over 1961/2, plus an FA Cup semi final appearance in 1978), so the team is often overshadowed by its more prestigious upper echelon neighbours.
Some men are great artists, some great thinkers, some great writers. William Morris managed to be all three, and several other character types besides. He's best known for his design work, especially his elegant nature-based wallpapers, and his wide-ranging creativity was key to kicking off the Arts and Crafts movement in the late 19th century. He lived and worked in many outer London boroughs, but spent his childhood in the rural surroundings of pre-suburban Walthamstow. The family home was at Water House, a substantial Georgian building in the grounds of Lloyd Park, and now open to the public as a museum devoted to Morris's many talents.
In later life, troubled by social inequality, William shifted his focus towards political activism and printing. His illustrated books are works of art in themselves, like modern monkish manuscripts, and several can be seen in the Gallery. But its his legacy of beautifully crafted homewares that continue to delight. If you're tempted to further your collection, a small shop in the hallway sells a small range of highbrow tat, including some rather lovely wrapping paper which your aunt would no doubt appreciate.
It's the longest daily street market in Europe. It's over a mile in length. It stretches almost the entire length of Walthamstow High Street. It's so long that there's a station at either end of it. It's an avenue of stalls lined by fairly downmarket shops from top to bottom. It's still the dominant retail presence in Walthamstow, despite the rather bricky modern mall shoehorned in beside it. It takes a lot longer than you'd expect to walk down, or back up, especially if you attempt to push your way through on a Saturday lunchtime. It's Walthamstow Market. And it really is very long indeed.
Don't get the wrong idea about Walthamstow - some of it is gorgeous. The conservation area on the hill round the church stands in sharp contrast to the surrounding area, so more Waitrose-y types flock to live in the old village nucleus with its almshouses, hexagonal Victorian postboxes and half-timbered buildings. The shopping's very different too. A short stretch of Orford Road supports as many as three delicatessens in close proximity (three more than Walthamstow Market), along with middle class restaurants (tapas tonight darling?), an independent wine merchant and a designer boutique entitled Beautiful Interiors. It's only half a mile away, but I suspect that few market shoppers ever make it this far up the hill. I joined the queue in the wittily-named Eat 17 deli, waiting behind folk buying free-range sausage rolls and a week's supply of guacamole, to round off my Walthamstow lunch with a scrummy chocolate croissant. All tastes catered for.
Random borough (21): Time once more for me to take another random trip to one of London's 33 boroughs. As I write I have no idea which one of the 13 remaining borough names will be revealed when I unfold the slip of paper I'm about to pick from my legendary "special jamjar". I could pick any one of the other London boroughs - inner or outer, urban or suburban, small or large, fascinating or dull. I just know it won't be Merton, Islington, Enfield, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Kensington & Chelsea, Hackney, Hillingdon, the City, Bromley, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Hounslow, Brent, Redbridge, Ealing, Harrow or Croydon because they're the twenty (dark grey) boroughs I've picked out already.
Henry VIII 500 (1509 - 2009)
It's far from the prettiest castle in England. Tudor castles were never pretty, merely functional, and Southsea's a good example. No turrets, no crenellations, just concentric geometric walls and a squat blocky keep in the middle. The castle was built on Henry's orders on the southernmost tip of Portsea Island to repel approaching French warships. It's one of many coastal defences around the Solent, built in the 1540s to protect Portsmouth Harbour from potential attack, although its main claim to fame is as a one-off royal viewing platform.
Which leaves the central keep to explore. Up the stone steps into a suite of chambers on two levels where an exhibition about the history of the castle awaits. It's a mundane castly tale, with one brief tragic moment upon the national stage, after which the story is more about preparation than action. But there are a few historical pictures and objects to see, plus a video nobody sits and watches (because nobody ever sits and watches videos in museums, not all the way through). And finally up a narrow spiral staircase to the roof (so narrow that the council have installed a push-button traffic light system top and bottom). At last a decent panorama over the Solent, past an ever-chugging stream of boats and ferries, towards the murky Isle of Wight in the near distance. And two miles off shore, somewhere out there beneath the sea, the spot where Henry's beloved Mary Rose sank to the sea bed while he watched. But I do wonder how the fat bloke ever got up the stairs.
There's another, less well known 500th anniversary this year, and that's the birthdate of King Henry's favourite warship, the Mary Rose. Construction began on this four-masted gunboat in 1509, in the world's first ever dry dock (in Portsmouth). Her keel was elm, her heart was oak, and a crew of dedicated sailors kept her afloat. A long and successful maritime career ensued, including a refit or two to install greater and heavier weaponry, and the ship engaged in several battles against the French over the ensuing decades. But the Mary Rose engaged once too often, and in 1545 preparations for a skirmish in the Channel proved unexpectedly catastrophic.
Over the centuries the precise location of the carcass of the Mary Rose was forgotten (and occasionally discovered, then forgotten again). It was only in the 1960s that a team of divers pinpointed the wreck, and set in slow motion an amazing rescue operation that continues to this day. Excavation on the seabed began in 1971, and it became clear that much of the starboard half of the hull remained preserved beneath the mud. It wasn't until 1982 that the wooden remains were raised to the surface (in front of a global TV audience), and two more years followed before anyone dare tilt them upright. Even in 2009, a quarter of a century later, the Mary Rose is still heavily protected beneath a metal quayside dome. But not for much longer.
Objects rescued from the shipwreck can be found in a separate museum at the other end of the Historic Dockyard. It has a bit of an early 80s feel, I thought, mostly static displays in themed cases. There was a section on the history of the dive, and the opportunity to watch a film, plus a platform of reconstructed decking. At the far end a bored-looking bloke in Tudor costume sat waiting at a table in case anyone wanted to touch his artefacts. He had few takers. But it was impossible not to be impressed, and moved, by the varied collection of everyday items preserved and displayed throughout the museum. Be it a pair of leather shoes or a urethral syringe, only the tragic death of their owners permits us to view them today.
» ... the Victory, Nelson's flagship. You can stand on the very spot where he received his fatal wound at the battle of Trafalgar - it's marked by a brass plaque. Below deck see the luxurious captain's cabin from which he directed life aboard, plus the alcove on the orlop deck where he breathed his last. Victory's still a commissioned naval vessel with its own captain, and a skeleton crew sleeps aboard the motionless ship every night. Discover more in a separate Victory museum, and there's even a huge sail preserved from the sea battle with 90 holes blasted through a vast expanse of canvas.
You could easily miss it. I'm sure most of the people who walk along The Avenue in Nonsuch Park don't realise the significance of the footpath they're walking down. It's a very ordinary strip of tarmac, very straight, overshadowed by a row of tall trees. There's a muddy verge, and a gnarled bench to sit on, and a dog mess bin in case any canine companions get overexcited. Nothing special, on the face of it. But the key to understanding the view is a line of three stone obelisks, each about fifty metres apart, set to one side of the pathway. Picture the obelisks imaginatively and a very different picture emerges.
The northernmost modern obelisk is a placeholder for Nonsuch's outer gatehouse. Here visitors would have entered through a fortified archway into the first of two courtyards. Another gatehouse, marked by the central obelisk, then led up a flight of eight steps into a second, more outlandish courtyard. The walls above the ground floor were covered by large stucco panels on which were moulded figures of gods, goddesses and even Henry himself. The gilt-edged figures continued up two five-storey octagonal towers, and the roof was topped off by golden slates and spinning weather vanes. The effect must have been dazzling, and a very deliberate culture shock for those with medieval sensibilities. There was none such like it.
We know a fair amount about the palace layout because of a groundbreaking archaeological dig in the summer of 1959. More then 500 volunteers uncovered the site over a twelve week period, documenting their findings and unearthing (for example) 1500 stucco fragments. Public interest was unexpectedly high, pre-empting the likes of Time Team by several decades, and a temporary museum was set up close by. Then immediately afterwards everything was covered over again, so all that's visible today is a patch of grass and a bench and a dog mess bin. And those three obelisks, of course, one of which now displays a plan of the palace for those who pause to look.
To find out more about Nonsuch Palace it's best to walk a mile to the east, through the park, across the border from Surrey into London. There's a permanent explanatory exhibition inside a preserved Tudor farmhouse named Whitehall, just to the north of Cheam Village. The building's owned by Sutton Council and houses a more general local museum, with the Nonsuch exhibits on the mezzanine floor overlooking an original half-timbered wall. There's probably more to read than to see, and you need quite a good imagination to view these demolished chunks as anything more than ornate rubble. Shame, because had Nonsuch Palace survived it would undoubtedly have become an important heritage site and a major tourist attraction. Instead you'll have to make do with a charming small museum (and tea room), and a wistful walk through a rather beautiful park.
There aren't many perks to being a resident of Tower Hamlets, but one truly great fringe benefit is being able to visit the Tower of London for a quid. The world famous castle lies just inside the borough boundary (there's a clue in the name "Tower Hamlets", if you'd not spotted it), so residents are given preferential treatment for admittance. All you need is a library card or a leisure card, and you'll save £16 at the gate. I'd not tried this before, but one flash of my lime green Idea Store card and the lady behind the till printed me a one pound ticket no questions asked. Excellent.
And then to the main event, up the wooden staircase into the White Tower for the Dressed To Kill exhibition. Two and a bit floors are given over to Henry VIII's armour, plus various other protective metal bits and weapons. The first case contained a full suit of Henry's armour, raised up on horseback, lights a-flashing. He was a fit twenty-something at the time, waist measurement mid-thirties (as an accompanying graphic delights in telling you). By the third floor he'll be a 51" waist lardarse, because made-to-measure royal armour never lies. That was the ultimate fate of Good King Hal, from buff to bluff.
The Tower of London's historical links to Henry VIII aren't strong, it was more somewhere for the mass storage of his weaponry and prisoners than a favoured royal palace. But there is one place that bears his mark more than others, and that's Tower Green. Only seven traitors were ever executed here, but the majority of these were under Henry's orders - two of them his doomed wives. Today a tender glass pillow marks the spot, a rather more artistic tribute than the squat plaque that stood here only a few years ago. There's always something new to see at the Tower. Just remember, arrive early, and bring your library card.
Prince Henry was born at Placentia on 28th June 1491 (insert your own 'placenta' joke here). He spent a lot of time in this rambling red-brick palace, especially in the years after being proclaimed king. There was good hunting land all around, plus easy access to the river and to the royal dockyards at Deptford and Woolwich. It was in Greenwich that Henry married his first and fourth wives, and here also that the princesses Mary and Elizabeth were born. Henry enlarged the palace further, adding a huge banqueting hall inside and a larger tiltyard outside. He did love his jousting, did Henry, but the Greenwich tiltyard was the last place he ever practised the noble art. A nasty fall here in 1536 left him unconscious for two hours, and his subsequent retirement from the sport may have led to his ballooning obesity in later years.
Today Maritime Greenwich is one of London's four Unesco World Heritage Sites. Two of the top buildings to see at Greenwich are within the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College, on land formerly occupied by the Palace of Placentia. One of these is the Painted Hall, undoubtedly the most beautiful hospital canteen anywhere in the world. It's a long thin building with a lofty painted ceiling, the detail of which depicts "the triumph of Peace and Liberty over Tyrany". There's even finer decoration in a chamber at the far end, both above and around the high table, and the complete ensemble took almost two decades to paint. Here in January 1806 Nelson's body laid in state after being shipped back from Trafalgar, prior to a grand funeral in St Paul's Cathedral. Nowadays the College's owners love to hire out the Painted Hall for events and banquets, so check carefully before you arrive lest you (and your camera) are denied admittance.
Cross the colonnade to see the 250-year-old neoclassical Chapel. It too is a beautiful space, rather brighter than the Hall, with a completely different style of Baroque decoration. The interior looks much as it did in 1789 when the chapel reopened after a disastrous fire, including a suitably maritime-themed altarpiece and the original mahogany pipe organ. The plasterwork ceiling is covered by a magnificent expanse of twiddly carved swirls, while the floor is of black and white marble throughout. Many concerts take place in the chapel, especially now that one of the Naval College buildings is occupied by the Trinity College of Music. King Henry would probably have appreciated something bawdier, but five centuries have changed his royal palace beyond recognition.
Look, I hate to bring this up again, but the Newham Olympic countdown clock outside Stratford station is wrong.
I say there are 1195 days to go. My daily countdown clock has been ticking away in the sidebar since 2005, and today it says 1195. That's 170 weeks and 5 days. My clock will hit zero on Friday 27th July 2012, which is the day the Olympics begins. I believe that's correct.
London 2012 say there are 1194 days to go. Their countdown clock appears top left on the London 2012 homepage, and today it says 1194. That's 170 weeks and 4 days. Their clock will hit zero on Thursday 26th July 2012, which is the day before the Olympics begins. I'm not convinced that's right.
You know the sort of place I mean. There are quiet shops on every high street. Curtain specialists, purveyors of ladieswear, mobile phone merchants, letting agents, conservatory showrooms, that sort of thing. The sort of shop you never ever see anyone go into, although someone must occasionally or they'd go out of business. Places that hire power tools, or sell children's clothes, or flog insurance, or trade in peculiar arty ceramic objects, those sort of places. Shops that have to stay open in case anybody ever visits, but 90% of the time nobody bothers.
Peer in through the window of any quiet shop and there'll be somebody sat at the counter waiting. It's their job to be there, so they get paid to wait. Occasionally a would-be customer will arrive, or maybe ring up, and the shopkeeper can engage in business and sound excited and provide top quality service. But the majority of their working day they're not working at all, they're just hanging around on the off chance, because any minute now a major sale might walk in through the door. How incredibly tedious.
There's an email in my inbox from last Wednesday. I ought to reply to it, there's some money due to me if I do. But the hoop I have to jump through to get the money is slightly awkward, and I'm not quite sure how best to leap it. I could probably think up a suitable compromise if I asked somebody else to help me out, but I'm not sure who, and it'd all get unnecessarily complicated. So the easiest thing to do is ignore it. The email festers.
Exactly 250 years ago today, around eight o'clock in the morning, the great Baroque composer Handel breathed his last. In the heart of Mayfair. You might have thought that George Frideric was German, and indeed by birth he was, but he spent two thirds of his life in England and lived out his last 36 years at a townhouse in Brook Street. The ground floor at number 25 may now be a ladies' designer boutique, but upstairs the rooms have been restored as GFH might have known them. Normally visitors have to enter round the back, in exclusive Lancashire Court, but today (for one anniversary day only) Handel's front door will be open and access to his former home will be free of charge.
First stop, at the top of the house, Handel's bedroom closet. It's just big enough to hold a small cinema (i.e. a couple of rows of chairs in front of a TV screen), and here you can watch a short introductory video where various musical Londoners gush generously about the composer's output. The emphasis is rather more on his music than his history, which feels appropriate, and a suitable reminder of the back catalogue's breadth and clarity. When you're suitably primed, step through the rear door into the museum proper. This dark wood-panelled room used to be Handel's dressing room, somewhere for him to try on a decorative waistcoat or puff a powdered wig. Today the room is merely decked out with portraits of 18th century cultural contemporaries, which you can read about on a big text-heavy laminated sheet dispensed by the room's curator. Squint carefully, there's much to discover.
Nip nextdoor through a connecting passage into 23 Brook Street and you'll be able to explore a brand new (just-opened last week) exhibition - Handel Reveal'd. A range of Handellian aretfacts are on display across two floors, including a handwritten score completed on Christmas Day, a "life mask" and one of George's share certificates. There's also muted speculation into the composer's confirmed bachelorhood, and a chance to plug yourself into a Walkman to hear the odd overture while you peruse. It's only on the upper floor that Handel's unlikely musical neighbour is revealed. For a few brief months 40 years ago this flat was home to guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, shacked up in a 60s lovepad with girlfriend Kathy Etchingham. Present visitors get to see nothing more than a few press photographs shot here, but these are enough to make you envisage the room in a completely different way. Two geniuses for the price of one, that's Brook Street for you.
To Whitechapel High Street, which means catching the tube to Aldgate East, not Whitechapel. The station's eastern ticket hall has been simulataneously reopened, so you'll emerge onto the street bang in the middle of the gallery's frontage. It all looks rather splendid now that the scaffolding's finally come down, although definitely two very different buildings bolted together. And yes, there was supposed to be a mosaic in that blank rectangle above the entrance arch, but the 1901 architect ran out of money and only now are there plans to (maybe) fill it in.
The library half of the building has more of a heritage feel, though still very much part of a spacious whole. Pride of place in the large ground floor gallery goes to a tapestry depicting Picasso's famous Spanish Civil War artwork, Guernica. The original was only ever exhibited once in Britain, here at the Whitechapel in 1939, a few months before the Luftwaffe recreated the scene in the skies above London. It's still a very haunting image, even in woven monochrome, and is now drawing respectful crowds from a new generation. Elsewhere in the room a large circular display case is given over to examples of East End protest materials and propaganda, from 1930s DIY style-guides to G20 demonstration leaflets 2009-style. Do collect a free newspaper from the back of the room, it explains all.
I also savoured the tiny upper gallery displaying Co-op memorabilia and divi tokens. This was part 1 of an exhibition entitled S:Coop, organised by Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas. She's designed a minted token being given out in change at nearby Petticoat Lane Market, and this can be redeemed at a temporary ice cream parlour on Toynbee Road. After my trip to the main gallery I traipsed through the streets of Spitalfields and popped in for a yummy scoop. I appreciated the fact that all the ice creams on sale were white, for revolutionary reasons apparently, and plumped for a tasty lemon curd in preference to elderberry, vanilla or rum and raisin. It's a bonkers idea to try to subvert economic activity with patently uneconomic art, but definitely a concept I'd recommend if you're in the area.
Step off Birdcage Walk into the small courtyard at the eastern end of Wellington Barracks, and you may wonder precisely which building the museum is. The small squat building to the right, maybe (er, no, that's the gift shop, with its masses of shelves of toy soldiers for sale). The much larger Mediterranean-style box to the left, perhaps
(er, no, that's the Guards Chapel, a strikingly modern place of worship open for public perusal on weekdays). No, it's none of the buildings round here, grand or otherwise. The Guards Museum is hidden underground, off to the right between two sentry boxes and down some steps into the basement. Maybe that's why you've never noticed it before.
There are an awful lot of strange hats. The guards have always been game for wearing particularly ostentatious headgear, some of which make a bearskin helmet look positively tame. There's also a lot of assorted memorabilia, much of it campaign related, with a particular emphasis on the horrors and glories of the Crimea. Some general earned that dangly silver thing, some footsoldier banged that drum in the heat of battle, and some proud veteran donated that letter of commendation. It'd be hard to ever describe the collection as exciting, unless you're the sort who really gets off on all things military, but the artefacts do generate a convincing historical atmosphere.
You can already flash your Oyster on the bus and on the trains, so why not on the river? That's the latest news from the press release sausage factory that is the Mayor's PR squad. Thames riverboat operators have agreed to accept passengers flashing Oyster cards, as part of the continued rollout of interactive ticketing technology across all multi-modal journey options. Sorry, now I'm the one sounding like a verbose project management nerd. But I can't compete with this magnificent paragraph from yesterday's announcement.
Cocktails: You can tell that a restaurant is going to be a bit posh when the coat check attendant nips out from behind the counter with a coathanger to grab your jacket. Thankfully the Oxo Tower restaurant was on the relaxed side of posh, although I wasn't convinced that my attempt at "smart casual" had quite cut the mustard with the Friday evening clientèle. I hovered self-consciously near the private bar, unable to sit down because the nearby seating was clogged by little black dresses and their gentlemen partners. As I scanned the drinks menu I could sense that my presence was obstructing the passing table staff, but they all smiled with good grace as they scuttled by. What to have? I suspected that this was not an appropriate time to request a bottle of Becks, so turned instead to the list of cocktails and attempted to select something both classy and classic. A dash of rum in a reservoir of icy fruit juice sufficed. As I raised my glass in celebratory toast, at least one pound's worth of alcoholic mixture spilled over the rim and formed a embarrassing puddle on the floor. I was somewhat relieved when the waiter announced that our table was ready, and offered to carry our drinks for us on his tray.
It soon became clear that the only starter option I would safely stomach was the "ballotine of foie gras". I decided that my conscience would allow me to eat it, just this once, in order to find out what all the luxury fuss was about. My force-fed liver arrived in a medallion-shaped dollop at one end of a smart rectangular plate. I watched others carefully to confirm that the appropriate method of consumption involved cutting a slice of reassembled offal and smearing it on bread. It was, incidentally, damned gorgeous bread - a mushroom and tarragon brioche whose consistency reminded me of the very finest Chelsea bun. As for the foie gras, I was underwhelmed by its unexpectedly bland tastelessness, which was presumably why I'd been given a goblet of plum chutney to tart it up. All of this was accompanied by a challenging glass of smoky South African red, brought to the table by a cheerily obsequious sommelier. I never saw quite how much the bottle cost but I suspect that, even by this early stage in the evening, my allocated portion of food and drink had already cost the best part of forty quid.
Dessert: After an appropriate hiatus, and the finishing off of the second bottle of wine, the maître d' approached our table with a smile. A table had become vacant by the window, and would we like to move there to complete our meal? Too right, even if diners at the surrounding tables eyed us with muted jealousy as we moved off. This time, much closer to the bar, there was a far better view of the Thames-side panorama. It's not the most exciting stretch of the river, to be honest, but the mesmerising sight of the floodlit dome of St Paul's more than made up for a certain flatness elsewhere. The dessert menu was uncompetitively priced, with even a small slice of lemon and pine nut tart costing rather more than might be charged for a main course at a decent Norfolk pub. One particularly cryptic item - "Richard's last wish" - appeared at the eye-watering price of £75.00, so we enquired as to what that last wish might be. Extra-vintage cognac, as it turned out, accompanying a trio of matching puddings. So thanks, but no thanks. BestMate plumped for the cheeseboard, so a waiter duly rolled up with the cheese trolley and cut elegant triangular slices of soft, hard and veined for his delectation and delight. I went instead for the Chocolate Plate, which turned out to be a collection of four very different cocoa confections. One saucy sponge, one cubic mousse, one cream-filled tube and one tub of almost-drinkable custard. All quite delightful (and, just for a change, nothing that any animal activist could get seriously wound up about).
The competition's rules clearly allow for a wide variety of birdy photos. The pelicans in St James's Park, a nightingale in Berkeley Square, a sparrow in Cockfosters, even the flamingos in London Zoo. Oh hang on, not the latter, because London Zoo's well over five minutes walk from any tube station. Entrants need to pick their spot carefully or they'll be disqualified. For example, I can't enter this seemingly perfect photograph of pigeons on the District line because it was taken aboard a moving train midway between Richmond and Kew Gardens, and therefore more than five minutes walk from each.
If you were awake before breakfast time last Saturday, you might have heard me on Radio 4 talking about the Olympic Park. The programme in question was Open Country, a long running series about rural Britain, whose latest episode features various eye-witness interviews from the Lower Lea valley. I was right chuffed to be invited to take part, and duly trotted up to the Greenway a couple of weeks ago to be pre-recorded by Matt Baker and a woman with a big furry mike. We chatted about the park and its legacy for 40 minutes or so, and that's been duly whittled down to four and a half minutes in the final broadcast. And blimey, there's me sandwiched inbetween top 2012 honchos and proper wildlife experts. Only on BBC Radio 4.
If you're around just after three o'clock this afternoon, you might hear me on Radio 4 talking about the Olympic Park. It's the Open Country repeat slot, and there'll probably be rather more people listening this time. They might also be inspired to find out more about the issues by visiting the Radio 4 website. But they'll be disappointed.
Protest for London
