Blimey, that's a lot! I'm duly honoured by each and every one of these blogroll links, so many thanks to you all. But I also notice that the list is 20% shorter than last time...
I compile this list every year, so I started by checking all 200+ blogs on last year's list to see how many of them still linked here. About one in three have fallen by the wayside and don't appear this year. Some have just vanished, which is a pity. Some are now on hiatus (either deliberately, or through month-long neglect) which is a shame. Some have deleted their blogroll altogether, because blogrolls are so passé aren't they? And a few are still going strong but have removed me from their blogroll, which I guess is the way it goes, and I'm not bitter, honest. Still, at least several new blogs have come along and added me instead, so I'm not losing out completely. Which is nice. (blogs that weren't on last year's list are underlined)
I've always tried to keep my blogroll manageable (20 sites max), although I'm aware that this means I don't link to as many other blogs as I could/should. So today's post is a small way of making up for that omission. I hope it's a fairly complete list, courtesy of Technorati and various other useful web services, but I bet it isn't. Let me know if I've missed you/anyone off the list. And the rest of you, maybe you'd like to click on a few of these 167 links to see what you're missing.
I'm sitting on a grassy slice of England that probably won't be here in ten years' time [photo]. The cliffs at Walton-on-the-Naze are an unstable layer cake of clay and sand [photo], and every so often another few metres crumble and fall to the beach below [photo]. The first time I saw a minor landslip I assumed it must be a rare event, but now I'm almost blasé about spotting tumbling streams of fine golden sand and claggy rock [video!]. Walton's cliffs are supposed to be packed with world-class fossils, though I've not yet managed to find even a shark's tooth, let alone an evolutionary missing link. Up top is a broad expanse of mowed grass peppered with picnic benches, safely back from the edge but affording no view of the dangers beyond. For the perfect panorama you have to climb 100 or so steps up the Naze Tower, a turret-y navigational aid built in 1720 before the advent of lighthouses. Spiral staircases link its seven floors, containing tea rooms, a small museum and an art exhibition. And the view is excellent, from Felixstowe round to Frinton, via the glistening curve of an estuarine marsh [photo]. Visit soon, before time and tide steal the clifftops and even the tower away.
posted 11:21
The two mile walk round the Naze is rather special. This marshy tongue of land pokes north towards Harwich, with seabirds and wildlife the only permanent residents. They enjoy the nature reserve at the peninsula's core [photo], and visiting humans get to enjoy a single remote path around the perimeter. Make sure you stick to the overgrown upper track on the sea wall to get the full view of creeks, yachts and salt marsh. There'd be more birds at migration time, but there's still plenty of flapping, swooping and worm-tugging going on. Painted ladies flutter by, yellow rape plants bend in the onshore breeze and there's even a cuckoo to be heard in the bracken. Delightful, and far less busy than the sandy beaches of the main resort [photo]. Essex folk are here in sunny Walton today in large numbers, prowling the promenade or hemmed in behind flapping windbreaks on the sand. There's much tanned paunch on show, from both sexes, while grinning children lick lollies in the surf. And I'm now sat on the tip of the pier, the third longest in Britain, with a handful of hardy anglers waiting for an offshore fishy tug [photo]. As the lady in the tiny Tourist Information Office said, if the choice is Clacton or Walton-on-the-Naze, this place wins every time, no contest.
posted 13:59
Seaside postcard: Frinton-on-Sea South of Walton pier the shoreline is overlooked by more beach huts than I have ever seen in my life. Stacked four or even five avenues back up the slope, they look like a timber village of oversized dog kennels. Like the majority of second homes, most are locked and empty, but some are thrown open to reveal towels, lilos and bottles of orange squash [photo]. A single line of huts stretches over a mile south to Frinton, above groyne-edged sandy segments dotted with tanners, sporty kids and picnickers. The People's Enclave of Frinton, beyond the clifftops, likes to think of itself as an exclusive bastion of Middle England. There's nothing downmarket in their High Street [photo] (although there is now a pub, the Lock and Barrel, which for some heralds the unstoppable march of depravity). Old ladies pushing two-wheeled trolleys coexist with teenage clusters in bikinis and t-shirts, at least for the summer months. At the top of the town is The Barrier, a level crossing which marks the entrance to Frinton Within. Houses on the southern side of the railway line have premium value, and local newsagents know to stock more Mails and Telegraphs than all the other questionable publications combined. Sadly for many, last month National Rail committed sacrilege and replaced the old manual crossing gates with automatic drop-down barriers [photo]. They don't like change round here, but they can't keep it out forever.
posted 16:34
(Tracy Jacks) left home without warning (Tracy Jacks) at five in the morning (Tracy Jacks) got on the first train to Walton (Tracy Jacks) and stood on the seafront
LONDON A-Z An alphabetical journey through the capital's museums Jewel Tower
Location: Abingdon Street, Westminster SW1P 3JX [map] Open: daily (10am-5pm) Admission: £3 Brief summary: small remnant of medieval Westminster Website:www.english-heritage.org.uk Time to set aside: half an hour
Some tourist attractions sound more exciting than they really are. The Jewel Tower is one such place. They're right about the tower bit, but the jewels are long gone. One wonders how many foreign tourists take one look at the queue snaking out of Westminster Abbey nextdoor and decide instead to spend their valuable time visiting its exciting-sounding neighbour. They must be terribly disappointed. But if you come to look at the building, not its contents, you shouldn't be too upset.
The Palace of Westminster was the pre-eminent site of power in medieval London. Much of it survived until a very serious fire in 1834, after which only three fortunate corners remained. One of these was Westminster Hall, another was the crypt of St Stephen's Chapel, and the third was the Jewel Tower (which lay beyond the palace garden, far enough away from the flames). To pay a visit to this lucky remnant, find Westminster's non-Big-Ben end and then walk across College Green (where TV cameras wait patiently to interview anxious MPs). Tread down the steps and try not to fall in the remains of themoat (look, it still goes under the road towards the palace proper). Once inside, first stop is the shop.
After the nice lady has taken your money (I got the nice lady, you may not be so lucky), the tour begins two floors up. To get there requires ascent of a stone spiralstaircase, of the kind that there really aren't enough of in London. The Jewel Tower has only two rooms per floor, but they do at least feel proper medieval (with thick Kentish ragstone walls to match, so that's your mobile reception gone). The top floor's all about recounting the tower's history, which means a lot of information panels to read and not too much else. The building was originally the "King's Privy Wardrobe" where King Edward III secured his treasures, constructed in 1365 (or thereabouts) by master mason Henry Yevele. Some of the original elm foundations are on display on a ledge by the window. Eventually all the royal gold moved out to the Tower of London, and the building was used for several centuries as a document archive for the House of Lords. Fortunate, that, what with the big 1834 fire and all. Most recently the Jewel Tower was home to a weights and measures office, and examples of gallon, pint and bushel cups are on show in room number two. It gleams, sort of, but this can't be the treasure tourists expect when they visit.
Down on the first floor is an exhibition entitled Parliament past and present. In this case 'present' means 1997 not 2009, which under current circumstances is probably a good thing. This untimely freeze-frame means that when you see the Speaker's robes in a glass case it's that nice old Bernard Weatherill, not the current discredited incumbent. It also means a big laminated photo of PM Tony Blair at the dispatch box, plus a giant grinning Gordon Brown exemplifying the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer. The historical panels are probably of more interest, unless you feel patronised by paying good money to read what is essentially a nicely illustrated pamphlet in 20-or-so bite-sized chunks. Again, foreign tourists probably pass though relatively fast.
And finally back to the ground floor shop, because this is the most interesting room in the building. Not the selection of English Heritage goodies at eye level, but instead look up at the 14th century roof. That's the original rib vaulting, complete with decorative bosses and grotesque heads, and a fine example of medieval mastercraftsmen at work. It's not worth three quid just to see this bit, although you might get into the shop for nothing if you claimed you were only here for heritage jams and a teatowel. Whatever, it's wonderful that this small part of the old Palace of Westminster survives. At least something round here has long-term integrity. by tube: Westminster
J is also for... » Jewish Museum(closed for major renovation until the Autumn, otherwise I'd definitely have gone there instead)
I have banking inertia. I'm one of those over-loyal creatures of habit who leaves his money where it is, even when it's obvious I could be earning better elsewhere. Indeed, I've only ever entrusted my money to two financial institutions. And this time next year, thanks to a bunch of brand-hungry Spanish financiers, neither of them will exist any more.
My first building society was the Abbey National. I signed up with them in the 1970s, back in the days when they were represented by a married couple under a roof-shaped umbrella. I threw my savings at them, I opened additional accounts, and I even whacked through a five-figure mortgage when the time came. I stuck with the Abbey National when they transformed from a building society to a bank, even though I wasn't 100% convinced demutualisation was the right way to go. Even when the boss decided to drop the 'National' and just call the company 'abbey' (in bright neon lower case), I still hung around.
And now the bank's new owners are taking away the Abbey bit as well. By next Easter everything old will have been gobbled, swallowed and re-packaged under the Santander label. Abbey may have been owned by the Spanish for five years, but now they're taking over everything including the bank's public face. This'll help UK customers to "leverage" global opportunities, apparently. But it'll also help shareholders to close down lots of "unnecessary" branches, and to sack long-serving "colleagues", and to "consolidate" customer service. Ultimately it means even less choice on the high street. And it's a damned shame.
I rather like the idea that my current bank started out in a Baptist Church in Abbey Road, West Hampstead, in 1874 (erm, this church, here), and that the Abbey name has transferred all the way through to the present day. I trust the bank more as a result, even though its underlying operations are now identical to those of its Spanish overlords. I know a mere re-branding really ought not to disappoint me, but it does, it really does. Maybe this is the kick up the backside I need to finally take my business elsewhere.
As for my first bank, that was gobbled up two decades ago. I entrusted my first salary cheque to the National Girobank, and many's the financial transaction I sent off in a Freepost envelope to a mysterious postcode in deepest Bootle. But, like many a long-serving buildingsociety, somebody suddenly thought it would be a good idea to float the privatised bank on the stock exchange. Lots of lovely income from the Alliance and Leicester deal to start with, but then the takeover sharks circled and gobble gobble munch munch gone.
Both the Abbey National and National Girobank are now consumed within a faceless pan-continental bank. There are lots of other historic names absorbed in there too, all of whom started out with big ideas but none of whom could quite survive through a century and a half of turbulent financial opportunism. The future of all these institutions can now be spelt out in nine letters. Sad innit?
Santander — swallowed Abbey(2004) (to be eradicated by Easter 2010) —— rebranded from Abbey National (2003) ————— swallowed Scottish Provident (2001) ————— swallowed National & Provincial BS (1996) —————— merged from the Burnley BS and Provincial BS (1984) ————— swallowed Scottish Mutual (1992) —— merged from the Abbey Road BS and National BS (1944) ——— established as the Abbey Road & St John's Wood Permanent Benefit BS (1874) ——— established as the National Freehold Land and Building Society (1849) — swallowed Alliance & Leicester BS (2008) (to be eradicated by 2011) ————— swallowed Girobank (1990) —————— established as Post Office Giro (1968) —— merged as the Alliance and Leicester BS (1985) ——— amalgamated as the Alliance BS (1945) ———— established as the Brighton & Sussex Equitable BS (1863) ——— merged with the Leicester Temperance & General (1974) ———— established as the Leicester Permanent BS (1853) — swallowed Bradford & Bingley BS (2008) (to be eradicated by 2010) ————— swallowed Hendon BS (1991) —— merged as the Bradford & Bingley BS (1964) ——— established as the Bradford Second Equitable BS (1851) ——— established as the Bingley, Morton and Shipley Permanent BS (1851)
Breakfast quiz: Here are cryptic clues to 30 foodstuffs you might eat for breakfast. You might even have consumed several of them already this morning. How many can you identify?
1) gesg 2) energy 3) sleepers 4) Papal ova 5) can speak? 6) dread fibre? 7) raised glass 8) small label 9 9) naked babes? 10) #sepia #beige 11) pulp chambers 12) sounds regular 13) talks too much 14) the Spice Girls? 15) prison sentence
16) sack the Spanish 17) where golf begins? 18) America in wise herb 19) hides in tall branches 20) dark chocolate sorbet 21) policeman in henhouses 22) Kevin, Richard or Francis 23) limb dipped in French sick 24) evidence of peeling toes? 25) one invading angry insect 26) slime gunged all over you 27) made from geek and deer 28) price to pay for throat-clearing 29) something gamekeepers try to prevent 30) Anneka, Akabusi, lemon meringue & custard
(Answers in the comments box) (All now guessed, thanks)
Parallel to the north-eastern arm of the Central line, on a ridge more Essex than London, lies the ancient woodland of Epping Forest. It covers almost 6000 acres, from Epping in the North to Wanstead in the south, and it's all owned and managed by the City of London Corporation. And, for some reason, until last weekend I'd never properly visited before. So, walking boots laced and map in hand, I took the train out to Epping and set off from there on a ten mile stroll. And blimey, why did I wait so long?
Less than half an hour's walk from the station is the edge of the forest proper. A broad grassed path curves across Bell Common to a very innocuous cricket pitch, but the thin soil hides a multi-million pound secret beneath. When the M25 passed this way in the 1980s, local protests ensured that a cut and cover tunnel was dug beneath the outfield. Stand here today and the motorway is entirely invisible, even if the sound of peaceful birdsong is tinged by the distant murmur of traffic noise.
Surprisingly few officialpathways pass through the forest, although there's nothing stopping you stepping off beneath the tree cover and making your own way. Off-track's the way to go, especially if you're one of the many sportybikers for whom Epping Forest is undulating heaven. It's rather more of a trial for cycling families seeking energetic togetherness, however. "Is this the last hill, Daddy?" asked one particularly sulky young girl on a pink bike. Whatever Daddy told her was undoubtedly a lie, but it worked.
Every now and then the oak and beech trees cleared, and there was an excellent view out across the surrounding countryside. Down below are the flat plains of Essex and Hertfordshire, whose fertility is the main reason they've been cultivated and populated while up here hasn't. The finest view was from the top of WoodredonHill, from which it was possible to make out the M25 threading west towards Cheshunt, with Waltham Abbey beyond and a giant Sainsbury's distribution centre in front. Well worth a stare.
After relative solitude on woodland tracks, High Beach came as a jolt to the system. This is the forest's social nucleus, where cyclists meet bikers meet Essex drivers (for picnics and kickabouts, from what I saw). No need to venture far from the visitor's centre for a variety of tasty options. The King's Oak pub was trumped by the excellent refreshment kiosk nextdoor (burgers, rolls, ice cream), or else there were a couple of tea huts dispensing hot liquids and snacks. On a sunny bank holiday weekend, the (well hidden) bikers' tea hut throbbed with merry leather.
Back in the forest, it was easy to lose the crowds by walking more than a few hundred yards from the nearest car park. I was passed by several whooshes of lycra-clad two-wheelers, and many a gaggle of weary parents pushing toddlers, and even by a gang of huffing hiking cub scouts, but most of the time I wasn't passed by anyone at all. Perfect natural solitude. And don't expect (at this time of year) to see any colours other than green and brown - the handful of pink rhodedendrons I spotted were rare exceptions.
After my lengthy stroll I needed to get back to the Underground, which here is always further away than it looks. I don't think I'd have made it back to a station without a map. The forest trails are completely unsigned, and most lead far from civilisation, so you really have to know where you're going. This must be a real problem for cyclists, and I saw several temporary bike trails waymarked with flyaway sawdust. I was also surprised that some of the tracks were still muddy in places - this must be proper wellington boot territory after heavy rain.
I ended my walk by making my way northeast to the commuter village of TheydonBois, not least in order to discover what this mysterious tube network extremity looked like. My favourite spot was a meadow on the outskirts filled with golden buttercups, where sunsoaked couples lounged in the long grass. Then, finally, across the over-sized triangular village green to the iris-edged duckpond, wondering how much it must cost to live in rural commuter heaven. But when it's this easy to get to, I shall be out here more often.
Exactly ten years ago today I did something I thought I'd never do. I lived together. And I have to say, I don't know how I did it.
Two delivery vans pulled up at the house that day. All my stuff went into either the spare room or the boarded loft above the garage, because it never was quite an arrangement of equals. But it was proper sharing of house and garden and stuff, proper living together, which I'd never managed before and have never managed since. Because I don't know how you do it.
Two people, one bathroom. How does that work? "I'm just going for a shower." "But I wanted to wash my hair." "Sorry, you'll have to wait." "But I'm going out in half an hour, I need to get in the bathroom now." "Hang on, this shower's cold, there's no hot water." "Ah yes, I used it all up when I had a bath earlier..."
Two people, one TV. How does that work? "Have you got the remote?" "Yes, course I have. Why?" "My favourite programme's just starting on the other channel." "But I'm watching this." "That's not fair, we always watch what you want to." "Can't you record it and watch it later?" "But that's not the same, and someone's bound to put the result on Twitter before I get round to watching it." "Ssh, it's just getting to the good bit..."
Two people, one fridge. How does that work? "Where's the milk?" "I finished it off earlier." "Well, why didn't you buy some more?" "Because I don't need any milk, because I used up the last of the old bottle, didn't I?" "And what's this meat doing at the back of the fridge, it's well past its sell-by date." "I thought you liked that, I hate it, I bought it for you..."
Two people, one garden. How does that work? "That lawn needs cutting." "There's nothing stopping you from getting the lawnmower out." "But it's not my turn." [30 minutes later] "You missed a bit..."
Two people, one weekend. How does that work? "Lovely weather for it, what shall we do today?" "I need a coffee. Let's go somewhere that serves coffee." "But where shall we go later?" "I need some new shoes. Let's go somewhere that sells shoes." "But where shall we go later?" "The spare bedroom needs repainting. Let's go somewhere that sells magnolia emulsion." "But where shall we go later?" "Oh, I'll be too tired to go anywhere later..."
Two people, one bed. How does that work? (well, obviously, that bit works fine. I meant for sleeping) "Ready to turn the light off?" "I haven't quite finished this magazine article yet, and then I fancied reading the next one." "But I'm tired, and you know I can't sleep with the light on." "Go on then, but I want five minutes extra tomorrow." "Take your knee out of my back." "Only if you give me half my pillow back..."
Two people, one house. How does that work? "I've brought you a cup of tea in bed." (Ah yes, that's how it works)
OK, so I may not have had the best living together experience myself. But I'd rather live alone any day. How do the rest of you do it?
London 2012 has a very big stadium, as becomes particularly obvious when you're parked in a minibus directly alongside the outer rim. Up top is a not-quite-complete ring of gleaming white roof trusses, all linked together like a set of giant drinking straws. Beneath that is a detachable ridged bowl resting on a framework of thin steel, where thousands of spectators will sit to watch tiny athletes sprinting around the inner track. Then you reach 'platform level', which is a concrete circle propped up on stilts around the perimeter allowing access to the seats in the permanent lower grandstand. And down at ground level is a temporary decorated screen, erected for reasons of safety and security, on which is displayed artwork produced by a dozen local schools. You've seen thrillinger stadia, to be honest, but then the best view is rarely to be had from the outside.
I think our bus had parked on top of the culverted Pudding Mill River, or thereabouts, but it was very hard to tell. There used to be a gentle hill here too, but both valley and earth have been levelled out and there are almost no distinguishing features left. Instead there's a new distinguishing feature, and it's of global significance.
Once our tour guide had outpoured every relevant nugget of stadium-related trivia the bus moved on. We passed beneath the green footbridge that crosses from the edge of the stadium to an office block of piled-high portakabins. This is the nerve centre of "Team Stadium", where construction workers change into muddy safety boots and engineers plot the progress of their grand designs. You wouldn't believe how busy Pudding Mill Lane DLR station is these days after they all clock off at the end of a workday afternoon. Our tour was after hours, however, so we encountered no congestion on our drive round the southern perimeter.
Another bridge crossing, because a network of rivers threads through the site so there need to be lots of ways of getting across. I was pleased to note that the City Mill River was still very much intact, glistening in the evening sun with its banks lined, infilled and strengthened. It provided a striking waterside setting for the grand arena, and who knows, it may even be the water and not the buildings which makes the biggest impression on world TV audiences in 2012.
One final port of call on our whistlestop tour of the proto-Olympic Park. The bus headed down what's left of Carpenter's Road to stop beside the fledgling Aquatic Centre. Only the building's inner skeleton was visible, a series of metal supports linked by struts and supporting girders, creating a signature waveform at roof level. The structure's already more interesting-looking than the stadium, and that's before it receives its outer layer of metal cladding. I rather liked the opportunity to see the Aquatic Centre's secret interior close-up, even if it was still a few months too early to see how all the curves and towers properly join together. A little too early as well to see the bridge that's going to sweep out of the neighbouring Stratford City complex and pass above the central neck of the building on its way to the stadium beyond. There's a heck of a lot of transformation still to go.
Time to round off the trip, backtracking past the stadium and dipping down beneath the Greenway. I was particularly pleased by this because I'm taking a set of photographs from the top of the Greenway bridge every month, and our minibus journey at last afforded the reverse view. We then exited the park through the southern transport interchange, a brand new hub where Park workers transfer each morning to the shuttles which will transport them to their various worksites. It's all run withbuses, this London 2012 project, and having visited some of the outer reaches of the construction site I can see why.
And that was it, end of tour, so our bloggers minibus headed back to the layby outside Stratford station. Thanks were due to our 2012 hosts (and who knows, maybe they even spent your taxes on the petrol). And then we went down the pub.
The Olympic Park was sealed off from the outside world almost two years ago, and now nobody gets in. Not unless they work on the site, that is, or are a visiting dignitary. But on Thursday evening, after construction work had finished for the day, the barrier at the northern end of the park was raised and the bloggers tour bus snuck inside for a scout-round. This is the main entrance point for trucks and lorries delivering building materials, so there'll be a heck of a lot of those this summer as the peak of the 2012 construction timetable is reached. I do hope they hurry up and get the Prescott Channel dredged down south, otherwise the promise of eco-friendly delivery by barge is going to miss the tide.
You only get a true picture of the scale of Olympic construction if you've been here previously. Most of the northern chunk of the park was once covered by vegetation, be it the rolling slopes of the Eastwaycyclecircuit, the riverside plateau of ArenaFields or the fertile ridge of the Manor Garden allotments. All had been utterly and entirely swept away, with the former carpet of green long-vanished beneath a landscape of brown. There were earthworks everywhere, including some fairly substantial hillocks that will one day become contoured parkland, but for now really rather desolate.
A network of temporary roadways and pedestrian routes weaved their way through this vast undulating building site. Every now and again there was a row of diggers or a fenced-off worksite or a lonely bus shelter or clump of roadsigns, but most of the space was still yet-to-be-built-on soil. Our tour guide pointed out the Velodrome compound where construction had already begun, then apologised that the gates were closed so that absolutely nothing was visible from outside. Drive round here in a few months time and you might see something poking above the fence, but for now it's like nipping around the backlot on a feature length episode of Bob The Builder.
We paused for a while on a particularly open corner to scan the eastern horizon, where a series of tall concrete lift shafts marked the accessible heart of the Olympic Village. The planners have been very good at replacing like with like. Just as the Velodrome is being built over a former cycle track, so the Olympic Village is being erected on top of a former communal housingestate - tower block for tower block. The new Stratford International station (over there, that distant glass box) covers part of an old railway goods yard, and will whisk in Javelinned spectators from St Pancras at 140mph. And heavens if that wasn't a brand new Westfieldshoppingcentre rising faster than everything else, because the deadline for shopping always arrives first.
The bus retraced its steps through a strip of vanishedvegetables and across the River Lea via a temporary bridge. A telltale pavement revealed that we were now driving along what remained of Waterden Road - formerly the site of three busgarages but now boasting nothing more than the "Handball Arena" bus stop. A brief row of verdant sycamores had somehow survived obliteration, so not (quite) every tree you see here in 2012 will be a transplanted sapling. To our right work had begun on the architecturally bankrupt International Broadcast and Media Centre. It'll be so big, our guide informed us, that you could fit five Jumbo Jets inside. One only hopes that no evil foreign power ever attempts to put this particular statistic to the test.
Over the railway and into ex-Carpenter's Road, and I couldn't help but try to visualise what used to be here in place of what was springing up. A car spares backyard here, a low-rise dairy there, and... ooh, blimey, exactly the same Victorian factory block as I remember from two years ago. The former textile mill at Kings Yard is apparently the only building on the Olympic Park site to be retained, and will later become a Visitor Centre in the shadow of the hi-tec Energy Centre nextdoor. Your grandchildren may one day pop along to show their kids what 2012 was all about.
Our guide got especially excited by some green soil-washing machines to our left, describing them as one of her favourite things in the entire park. I wondered whether this was to encourage us to take lots of photographs of them (so, thatworked), and maybe a subliminal hint to describe them in our post-tour write-up as evidence of London 2012's innate environmental committedness (so, that worked too). To my mind the soil-washers served only to symbolise the Lower Lea Valley as a contaminated industrial playground, now requiring large amounts of public money for urgent deep-level cleansing. But, speaking as a local resident, I'm more than delighted by that.
Next stop the Olympic Stadium. But that'll be tomorrow.
I find it hard to believe, but it's only a year ago today that construction work began on London's Olympic Stadium. Last May an expanse of knocked-down warehouses; this May a towering bowl visible for miles around. It still takes my breath away walking home from my local supermarket, because I'm not yet used to there being a shiny international sporting arena poking out above the Bow Flyover. But it's not easy to see what's going on around the rest of the Olympic Park, even from my favourite vantage point up on the Greenway, because this is one vast construction site and only the bits around the edges are really visible.
Yesterday I got rather closer to the heart of the 2012 action when a motley collection of ten-or-so London-ybloggers were invited on an hour-long bus tour around the Park, from top to bottom. We had to report to a lay-by outside Stratford station where the official Olympic tour minibus was waiting, and we had to wave some official form of ID like a passport or a driving licence to prove we weren't evil nation-hating terrorists. When it became clear that we weren't going to be allowed off of the bus at any time during the journey many of us wondered whether the ID check had been entirely necessary, but I guess the Games organisers can't be too careful. Even media-savvy tourists are potentially dangerous these days, especially when they're armed with zoom lenses, Twitter-enabled iPhones and audio-blogging devices.
The first 20 minutes or so of the tour were spent crawling very slowly through the rush hour streets of Leyton, but at least we had a motivational video to watch instead, like you do on an Olympic tourbus. There was also a brief quiz to fill the time, which I might have tried harder at if I'd known what the prizes were going to be. And then we got to stare out of the dirt-speckled windows for a bit, wondering whether it would be worth taking any photos when we got to the Park or whether everything would be all splotchy.
I'll tell you rather more about the main bit of the trip tomorrow (yeah, I know, it's a bank holiday weekend and you won't be around to read it, but sorry, I'd quite like some sleep). In the meantime I can direct you towards what some of my fellow passengers have already written. Here's Ham's stadium shot over at London Daily Photo, and here are some of Enzo's Twitpics. For rather more detail (including several chunks of audio commentary from en route) the Onionbagblogger has an impressively full review. 6pm update: Ian's written a marvellous lengthy illustrated post over here, and there's a gallery of excellent photos in a Londonist update from M@ here.
And I can let you look at some photos. They're not too splotchy, thankfully. There aren't too many reflections of the bus window (although there are some). And because the vehicle was moving most of the time, I won't be showing you the 90% of photos that were either too blurry or where a big fence suddenly got in the way (or more usually both). You can leap to my selection of ten best shots here. Or you can pick and choose from the list below. Or you can just enjoy all the other bloggers' photos and come back here tomorrow.
TfL snuck out a press release yesterday in which they announced several additional weekend closures on the Jubilee line later this year. They hid the details well by cramming them into a footnote, preferring instead to highlight why this interminable series of shutdowns is necessary. Better signalling, faster journeys, more frequent trains... it sounds like 2010 is going to be Jubilee heaven. But for the remainder of 2009, weekends are going to be Jubilee hell.
The list of closures in TfL's press release is incredibly difficult to follow. Plus they've only mentioned the additional line closures and not the existing ones, so it's nigh impossible to get an overall feel for how much disruption there's going to be, and when, and where. And there's a lot. So I've had a go at collating all the relevantinformation myself.
Here's a table showing every weekend closure on the Jubilee line for the six months from June to November. Each pair of columns represents a weekend, and grey shading means the line's closed. Grim, innit?
June
July
August
Sept
Oct
Nov
6
13
20
27
4
11
18
25
1
8
15
22
29
5
12
19
26
3
10
17
24
31
7
14
21
28
Stanmore
W Hampst'd
Green Park
Waterloo
Stratford
For example, over the weekend June 6/7 the Jubilee line is closed between Green Park and Stratford, while over the weekend November 28/29 it's closed between Stanmore and Waterloo. Saturday closures aren't always the same as Sunday. And there are two days when the closure isn't all day, so they're in slightly lighter grey.
If you live at the Docklands/Greenwich end of the line, then weekends look choked up until the middle of July. But after the summer holidays the disruptions disappear, and then it's plain sailing round to Stratford until the end of the year.
It's the northern end of the line where the relentless closures will hurt most. Most weekends until September, and then every single weekend from the top end downwards. If you live in Stanmore you're going to be bloody sick of rail replacement buses by Christmas. If that's not bad enough, there are also 19 days when the parallel stretch of the Metropolitan line will be shut down (between Harrow-on-the-Hill and Aldgate). I've marked these dates in purple, if you squint carefully enough.
We have contractors Tube Lines to blame for these extra closures, because they're not managing to complete this Jubilee re-signalling work as quickly as they initially promised. It will all be worth it in the end, honest, although these umpteen extra network shutdowns are absolutely nothing for TfL to crow about. All I can recommend is that Londoners make the most of Saturday 29th August, because that's the only weekend-day during the next six months when the entire Jubilee line will be running normally.
The Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr Michael Martin MP, will be executed at Tyburn Gallows at 3pm this afternoon.
This man has presided over the greatest ever crisis in confidence in parliamentary history, and you the taxpayer have paid for his misdemeanours. Every plasma TV, every flipped mortgage and every crumpled receipt for twelve toilet rolls, all of this was Michael's fault. He should have had the hindsight to see how corrupt the system was, like the rest of us now have, and forced our greedy politicians to toe the line. But he failed. And now he must pay the price.
We thought it would be nice to erect a gibbet in the traditionallocation, at the western end of Oxford Street, on the traffic island opposite Marble Arch. Tyburn used to be plenty big enough to accommodate an angry mob back in the 18th century, but things were rather less built-up back then. Now Boris tells us we can't even erect grandstands in the Edgware Road for the spectators, something to do with smoothing the traffic flow, so we're relocating to Hyde Park instead. [Event will be held in the Odeon cinema if wet]
It's time for Gorbals Mick to go, and you can be a part of his departure. Do come along this afternoon. Bring a friend, why don't you, and maybe bring a can of petrol and a cigarette lighter too. Justice will be swift, and retribution will be sweet. He had it coming. Come and throw the first stone.
Event Timetable 1330: Richard Littlejohn welcomes the baying crowd and whips them up into a frenzy 1335: Warm-up entertainment begins (sponsored by British Gas) 1336: Katherine Jenkins sings Time To Say Goodbye 1340: A wooden mock-up of Parliament is set on fire (or, if the crowd's really angry, maybe the real thing) 1350: T-Mobile flashmob erupts into spontaneous choreographed fist-clenching, to the tune of We Will Rock You 1355: Sacrifice of convenient scapegoat (will then be turned into kebabs to feed the crowd) 1400: Warm-up show-trials begin (sponsored by Rentokil) 1405: Ordeal by water - Douglas Hogg MP is thrown into the Serpentine, because it's the nearest thing round here to a moat (if he floats, he's guilty) (if he sinks, he's also guilty) (because all MPs are guilty as hell, aren't they, every last one) 1420: Ordeal by fire - John Prescott MP has two toilet seats hung around his neck, which are then set alight (if he burns, he's guilty) (if he merely chars, he's toast) 1430: Ordeal by combat - Two obscure backbench MPs with questionable mortgage claims fight to the death over which of them followed the rules better (with commentary by David Dimbleby) 1445: Two Minute Hate (sponsored by the Daily Telegraph) 1447: The Lord High Executioner leads the procession to the gallows, wearing his finest ermine hoodie 1450: The Speaker is transported in an ox-cart from the steps of Primark (bottles may be chucked) 1455: Ceremonial tying of the noose (followed by commercial break) 1500: Hanging (further programmes may run late if extra time is required) 1510: Drawing 1520: Quartering 1530: Moral bloodlust duly cleansed, the British public get back to their mucky money-grabbing lives
Of all the acts of post-war architectural vandalism wreaked in the capital, few rankle quite so greatly as the wanton destruction of the Euston Arch. This towering Doric gateway stood in front of the original Euston station from 1837 until 1962, when it was unceremoniously demolished to make way for the characterless dingy shed from which trains to the northwest now depart. Many voices were raised in protest at the Arch's imminent demise, and snowballing public interest subsequently saved many a heritage building, but "progress" at Euston was alas unstoppable. [Read more about the Arch and the campaign to restore it here. It's mighty detailed and interesting stuff, which I'm not going to repeat here]
But what do you do with 4420 tons of demolished arch? The chief contractor responsible for smashing the arch to bits was called Frank Valori, and he managed to find two particularly interesting hiding places for the dismembered stonework. One of these was his own back garden (at "Paradise Villa" in Kent) where a row of stones was used to create a fetching (and very cheap) terraced rockery. The other, rather more considerable, dumping ground was in Bromley-by-Bow in East London. British Waterways had problems with a scoured-out riverbed that needed infilling, so roughly 60% of the Euston Arch was dumped into the tidal waters of the Prescott Channel. And, hurrah, yesterday they started lifting the stones back out. [Watch a 1993 programme about the dismantling of the Euston Arch, and Dan Cruickshank's hunt for the remains, here. Proper historical detective work it is, ending up in a rose garden]
You'll know the southern end of the Prescott Channel well. It's one of the Bow Back Rivers, round the back of Three Mills Studios, and in the summers of 2000 and 2001 it appeared on your television every week. The first Big Brother house was built on the opposite bank to the TV studios, so every Friday the evicted housemate made their exit across the footbridge to reveal all to Davina. Yes, that river. Who'd have guessed there was a couple of thousand tons of dismembered railway arch in the waters directly underneath? [Watch a 1994 programme where Dan Cruickshank (and Kevin the Diver) discover a chunk of Arch in the Prescott Channel, here. Blimey]
More recently the Prescott Channel has been the site of major Olympic development. In order to bring building materials into the Park by boat, a set of enormous lock gates is being constructed to stabilise water levels upstream. It's meant the temporary sealing off of three local footpaths, and the permanent demolition of Davina's Bridge, but the outcome might just be ecologically worthwhile. [I wrote a long post about the new lock and the old Big Brother house here, so I won't repeat it all today]
Blimey it's taking a very long time to build the new Prescott Lock - considerably longer than originally planned. Construction began in March 2007 and was due to be completed "in summer 2008 in time for the main construction phase of the Olympic Park." Nope. The deadline later slipped to "autumn 2008", with landscaping of the surrounding riverbanks to be complete by "February 2009". Failed, on both counts. There's still a sprawling worksite on ThreeMillsGreen, sealed off behind an unwelcoming wall, and there's no sign that anyone's even close to prettifying the scenery or re-laying turf. All three footpaths are still closed off, no longer with visible signs to indicate diversions nor anything to suggest when these riverbanks might reopen. At the moment they're still at the "dredging the river" stage, and this explains why the Euston Arch is finally being exhumed. [You can flick through five year's worth of photos of the Prescott Channel here, courtesy of LoopZilla's Flickr account]
I popped down after work to try to take a look at the site, but it wasn't easy. Riverside access to the Prescott Channel is still impossible, even if the tourist map outside the House Mill already shows a not-yet-complete configuration of new cross-lock footpaths. After a failed scout-round on all sides, perturbing more than one security guard in the process, I realised that the only decent view was to be had by train. And so it was, staring out of the window of a rattling Hammersmith & City line carriage, that I finally managed to catch sight of a lone dredger in the mud. All the workmen had gone home so no Doric chunks were being lifted out of the water while I sped by. But the lock gates looked sturdy and intact so, once the channel's finally been cleared of all underwater obstructions, there might eventually be some proper 2012 construction traffic heading this way. Better late than never. [Read the British Waterways press release here]
Hurrah for the London Olympics, because without their sustainable transport policy the remains of the EustonArch would have been doomed to a forgotten underwater life. As it is, this grand gateway may yet be reborn beside the Euston Road, where it ought to look bloody marvellous. One day. [Just to check, you have clicked on the website of the Euston Arch Trust, haven't you? It's here, and it's excellent]
Compass points (an occasional feature where I visit London's geographical extremities) WEST London - M25 Junction 14
Two of London's geographical extremities are delightful rural backwaters, and two are on the M25. Sorry, this is one of the latter. Just to the west of Heathrow terminal 5, where the A3113 meets London's orbital, is the westernmost spot in the capital. You might even have been there. Don't worry, it wouldn't surprise me if you didn't remember. [map][aerial shot]
The M25 to the west of London is one scary motorway. Upgraded due to excess traffic flow, no fewer than twelve carriageways thunder their way through the middle of Junction 14's roundabout . Four each way for the motorway proper, then two each side for the Terminal 5 slipway, which coils and swerves to the north on its way to London's least favourite airport. Heathrow's southern runway is aligned nearly perfectly with this particular roundabout, so the roar of traffic is supplemented every 90 seconds or so by the whining drone of jet engines thundering almost overhead. You wouldn't live here, but unbelievably there's a Travelodge right beside the roundabout where people pay good money to do just that.
An act of Parliament in 1993 tweaked the Greater London boundary to encircle the roundabout, marking this point as the farthest outpost of the borough of Hillingdon. This used to be part of Surrey, and most of the outside of the roundabout still is. Meanwhile the Travelodge is a few yards into Berkshire, or rather it's in the less exciting unitary Borough of Slough (which in this case sounds rather more appropriate). And the whole area was once a liminal swathe of Middlesex, before any of this boundary swapping took place. It's very borderline, this place, and that's why we're here.
It's not the done thing to go jaywalking on motorways, so it's fortunate for boundary-searching pedestrians that the Colne Valley Way weaves its way through the middle of this very roundabout. I made my approach from the village of Stanwell Moor, an isolated Surrey outpost hemmed in by giant reservoirs and persistently blighted by low-flying 747s . A well hidden footpath tracked across the wooded River Colne (lovely) before emerging beside a travellers' caravan site (less so), then continued round a leafy bridleway to a concrete underpass (ditto). Under the roadway I expected to see the M25 burrowing through, but instead discovered that two sides of the roundabout were packed with trees. A crescent to the east, a crescent to the west, and a footbridge curving across the motorway to link the two.
The second slice of woodland is the westernmost green space in the capital. It's supposed to be unreachable, but the gate off from the bridleway was unlocked so I stepped through for a look. Here was deep bushy thicket, where the dog-rose bloomed and weeds flourished, with a litter-strewn grassy path through the centre. One spot had partly subsided, and a yellow gas signlet warned against deeper excavation. At the bottom of the slope there was a thin gap between the trees, wide open to the screaming traffic, above which oncoming jets approached perfectly framed. Best back away now, I thought.
Stepping up from the bridleway onto the roundabouts's inner bank, between the teasels, I looked out past the nearest set of traffic lights towards the reservoir beyond. A few yards ahead of me was the westernmost spot in London , over there on the verge along the outer rim of the roundabout. It was unmarked by stone or obelisk, but there was a large green roadsign in almost exactly the right position. Get in lane now, it advised, and keep left for Poyle and Datchet. Alternatively lanes 2, 3 and 4 steered vehicles safely into the capital, which for many was likely to be a wiser choice.
Unbelievably this precise spot used to be the site of a railway station, or rather an insignificant halt, on the Staines andWest Drayton Railway. This single-platform station opened as Stanwell Moor & Poyle in 1927, but was later given the more appropriate name Poyle Halt. Local demand was never great, so passenger services ceased post-Beeching in 1965. The line was then used solely for freight, until in 1981 the M25-builders came along and severed the tracks. Now rail has been consumed by road, and Poyle Halt lies buried beneath the western side of the roundabout.
Junction 14 was more characterful than I was expecting, though admittedly that wasn't much. But it's a plane-spotter and lorry-spotter's heaven, because the bridleway provides an excellent vantage point for close-up views of both. Next time you're passing through, or above, you can bore any travelling companions by telling them you're at London's westernmost point. But really, I only stopped off here so that you don't have to.
See also • NORTH London: On the clockwise hard shoulder of the M25 between junctions 24 and 25, just north of Crews Hill station [map](I visited in 2004) • SOUTH London: On a bend in Ditches Lane, just north of St Peter and St Paul Church in the village of Chaldon [map](I visited in 2007) • EAST London: Just off Fen Lane between North Ockendon and Bulphan, east of Mar Dyke but west of the Dunnings Lane crossroads [map] » see all four geographical extremities on a Google map
Blimey, that's a far less East-centric map than last year. Instead there might even be bloggers the other side of the former Iron Curtain moaning about how well northwest Europe has done this year. Well done to Jade from the People's Republic of Plaistow for dragging the UK back into the top five for the first time in ages. And well done to ultra-victorious Norway, whose cheeky fiddler ticked all the important Eurovision boxes (most notably 'tune'). Maybe we have a song contest again.
ICE RUSS LAND SWFINR ED LAUSSIA DEN NDRUSSI SW FINLRUSS E AND RUSS DEN RUSS UK SWE ESTRUSS IU UN ED LARUSSI REL I DEEN LITRUSSI AND TE N THBELRUS DKIN GER POLAUBELSIA GDOM NEMANYNDPOBELARUS FBEGERMLANDUKRAINE FRANCELANCZEPOLUKRAINE FRANCEGERCHSLOVKRAINE FRANCESWAUHUNGROMMO FRANCITZSTARYANIALD SPAINSAFRMITASLCRSROMA POSPAIN LY BOERNIA RTSPAIN F IS SMBBUL UGSPAIN I AL AMGAR GEAZ ALSPAI T YI LGRETURKAR TAL EE TURKE Y CE TURK M CI
Key » (387 points) » scored more than 150 points » scored 100-150 points » scored 50-99 points » scored under 50 points » did not qualify for final » did not take part
Crossrail is underway. There's a sentence it once seemed nobody would ever write. But work on the grand east-west rail link finally kicked off yesterday, at Canary Wharf, when Boris and Gordon joined together for the first dig. There'll be a brand new station here by 2012, although there won't be any trains for another five years after that. You weren't in a hurry to get to Paddington or Heathrow, were you, because you'll have to wait.
Crossrail is underway. You can tell because a fleet of floating cranes has appeared in the middle of West India Quay's North Dock. You may not be especially familiar with this particular section of watery strip, because it's shielded from the current heart of Canary Wharf by a screen of tall towers. The basin's northern bank remains entirely undeveloped (and was, until a couple of years ago, the site of a large open car park), so the best unobstructed view is from the DLR between Poplar and West India Quay. Now there's a barrage in the water and a stack of portakabins on the dockside and a building site starting to emerge mid-channel. Blimey, there's a whirlwind of change a-coming.
Crossrail is underway. I think they've learned a trick from the Olympics, which is to kick off construction with your grandest most iconic structure. For 2012 bosses that's meant erecting the Olympic Stadium ahead of everything else, so that they can point TV cameras at it and say "look at that, we're really doing something here". And for Crossrail that means starting with a long thin six-storey station surrounded by water in the middle of an old dock. The design reminds me somehow of a two-headed fish, with its body stretched out in the middle like a very fat eel. Or something like that.
Crossrail is underway. They're employing a very similar strategy to the Jubilee line extension, and building the new station inside a pumped out dock basin. The tracks will be 22m below water level and 13m below the dock bed, linking up with Whitechapel and Custom House to either side. Above the station proper will be four floors of retail space, because apparently what Canary Wharf needs is a third shopping mall for workers too busy to walk to the other two. And then on top of that will be a rooftop park beneath a timber lattice with views out across the surrounding water towards such shiny delights as the HSBC Bank tower. If all goes to plan this sleek slice of infrastructure will be the catalyst for major development on the north bank, and the influence of Docklands will extend out even further.
Crossrail is underway. Not that anybody down on the quayside yesterday evening seemed to care. Outside Brodie's Bar on Fisherman's Walk, gaggles of bankers in dark suits stood impervious to the drizzle raising a beery toast to the week's deals. Their drinking space had been part-obstructed by one of Crossrail's blue walls, behind which some rather less financial types will be earning a builder's wage. Further east a pair of security guards watched over traffic on the Upper Bank Street bridge - a structure which'll be closing for a year from next week because someone's about to build a station through it. But what a station.
Crossrail is underway at Canary Wharf. And about time too. It's taken almost two decades to get to the stage where the Prime Minister can watch the Mayor digging a hole, but it's good to see the two of them united in a desire to get the entire project complete. Shame that neither of them them will still be in office to see it finished, eh, but at least one of them might survive long enough to open the shopping centre.
But as of this week you also get something new. Google have added a "Show options..." option at the top of the list of results. And there are a heck of a lot of options.
First, videos. Ah, here we go. The entire canon of David Jason's ITV drama-lite series, chopped up into 10 minute chunks and uploaded to YouTube. Lovely jubbly? If you think not, you can drill down further to explore short, medium or long videos (I recognise the bloke at the top of the "short" list), or narrow things down according to how recently the video appeared. I'd never otherwise have discovered diamondgeezer.com's gem-encrusted talking skull (and I rather wish I hadn't).
Thirdly, reviews. This doesn't seem to be working brilliantly, because the number 1 review isn't for diamond rings, it's a review I wrote about the beta version of the BBC iPlayer. Hopelessly out of date by now, but it's easy to amend the list to feature far more recent opinions.
Play around with some of the extra features underneath and you can get ordinary search results but with added photos, or ordinary search results but with longer chunks of text. You can also leap to what Google believe to be related searches (farewell 'diamond geezer', hello 'silly putty'?). Beware, there's no way back.
Then there's the rather flash Wonder Wheel, which is highlighted in multi-coloured type in the hope that you'll definitely click on it. A selection of related searches appears, graphically represented like a spider's legs, and you can click on one to get further related searches, and more, and more. I managed to get from "diamond geezer" to "tom sharpe" in three clicks, but you could go much further.
And finally there's a Timeline option, which in this case allows you to track various diamond geezers through past decades. 1969 turns out to be my post about Victoria line tiles, and 1979 links to my Jubilee lineanniversary month. Clicking on the bar graph at the top of the page allows you zoom in on smaller time periods, right down to a single month. The graph's very informative - spot the chronological difference between, for example, Henry VIII and Susan Boyle.
Suddenly Google Search is a page to play with, and not just a launchpad into other web material. Impressive stuff? Or merely an irrelevant sideshow? You might enjoy playing yourself, purely in the interests of research of course. But don't overlook the terribly useful "Reset options" button at the bottom of the list, otherwise you could end up in a right mess.
I'd like to apologise, completely and wholeheartedly, for expenses squandered during the development of this blog.
These sums were spent purely for research purposes, you understand, and at no time did I claim back money contrary to agreed legislation. However, it is entirely possible that some of these payments came indirectly from the public purse, or from the generous pockets of others. I realise now that financial behaviour of this kind is indefensible. I claimed it all under the best of intentions, but only in retrospect do I realise that everybody despises me for being a greedy trough-snouter. I therefore promise to pay back everything that I spent, and to wear a hairshirt until further notice. Please do not hate me.
Here are those dodgy expense claims in full.
Oystercard annual season (Zones 1-3) £1136 I wouldn't be able to slag off the tube, or praise it to high heaven, if I didn't travel on it. This annual outlay is therefore entirely unjustified, and I shall walk everywhere from now on.
1 pair yellow socks (1984 vintage) 99p As a student little did I realise, when I bought this semi-luminous footwear, that it would raise a cheap laugh in a blog about Camden Town 25 years later. Unfortunately the Oxford branch of C&A has since closed down, so I shall instead donate my 99p to a charity for redundant shopfloor workers.
Entrance fee to a museum starting with the letter J £3 Whose ridiculous idea was it to visit a London museum starting with every letter of the alphabet? Ah, mine. My sequential trawl has so far cost me more than £30, when there was actually no need whatsoever to visit any of them. Such a waste.
1 pair nice trainers (blue/grey) £84.99 I can't believe I forked out that amount for a pair of plastic shoes, but I was entranced because they looked nice. And I really needed some new trainers when the old pair I've had since 2002 finally wore out. It's all the walking around the capital I do, so blame the blog. And if the new pair lasts as long, the offensive price tag will only work out at a pound a month.
Birthday meal at the OXO Tower amount unknown (but undoubtedly huge) I'm sure that BestMate truly meant for me to enjoy my night out at this swanky exclusive rooftop restaurant. But I repaid him by treating the entire evening as a journalistic opportunity, and spent far more time writing up my experience than I had on eating the Oxo's delicacies in the first place. Pah, I didn't even contribute to the tip. I must take him out for a meal immediately, and probably to somewhere better than the Bow Flyover McDonalds drive-thru.
1 copy of the Daily Telegraph 90p I wonder why expense-busting journos haven't got round to my MP yet. It's either because he's played the expenses system without bending the rules even once, or because they're saving him up for a future exposé. Here's hoping it's the latter, because then I can buy a copy of the Daily Telegraph and frame it.
1 bath plug (black) 88p The Home Secretary was blasted for not paying for her bath plug, and I haven't paid for mine either, because my landlord did. Unforgivable, sorry. Thank goodness I don't have a moat to clean, or a tennis court to dig up, or some second home wisteria to remove.
In conclusion, I accept that these collective financial transgressions debar me from any future public office. I was only following the rules, honest I was, but I should have realised that following the rules wasn't good enough. Any hopes I might ever have had of standing for Parliament are shot to pieces, and rightly so. The media's persistent moral witch-hunt has ensured that the British public will now only ever vote for an MP with a squeaky clean background, and that the ethically bankrupt need not apply. Perfect behaviour is required - not a skeleton in the closet, nor even a packet of post-its nicked from the office stationery cupboard umpteen years ago. Let's hope that the nation can find 650 self-supporting angels to vote for at the next election, somewhere.
We'd never get on. You're far too opinionated, and your pronouncements aggravate me. You go on and on about the same old things all the time, expecting me to see every issue from your point of view, never for one minute considering the possibility that you might be wrong. If we were sat in a pub, you'd be pontificating over your pint and I'd be volunteering to buy the next round in an attempt to escape. You do certainty, I do uncertainty. We'd never get on.
We'd never get on. You're far too negative, forever pointing out the downside to everything. You love nothing better than nit-picking the tiniest detail, even though your focus on smug point-scoring pedantry is enormously irritating. If we were at the cinema, you'd be the one whispering plot-holes in my ear and I'd be wishing you'd shut up and let everyone watch the film in peace. You're a pessimist, I'm an optimist. We'd never get on.
We'd never get on. You're far too boring, and your limited range of conversational topics bores me rigid. I'm far too polite to mention it, but your constant uninspired blathering is unutterably tedious. Do you seriously believe that anyone else finds this stuff interesting, or does that thought never cross your mind? If we were introduced at a dinner party, I'd be praying not to be the one sat beside you all evening. You drone, I tolerate. We'd never get on.
We'd never get on. You're far too self-centred, and everything has to be about you. No matter what topic we start off discussing, you always manage to twist the conversation round to what you think, where you've been and what you've done. If we spent the day together round town, I know we'd end up doing precisely what you wanted without any consideration of what I might prefer. You're overwhelming, I'm underwhelmed. We'd never get on.
We'd never get on. You're far too keen, your fawning behaviour verging occasionally on the obsequious, and it's making me feel uncomfortable. Why this constant need for commitment and reassurance, because I'm afraid it isn't mutual. If we were at a party you'd be the one following me around trying to make conversation all the time, and I'd be hiding in the kitchen to keep out of your way. You want attention, I need freedom. We'd never get on.
We'd never get on. You're obviously lovely, charming and delightful, but for me that's not enough. Your sense of humour and intelligence shine through, but in my world even near-perfection is insufficient. If we ever met I'm sure I'd have a delightful time in your company, and things might initially look like they were going fine, but it'd only be a one-off. You might seek a longer friendship, but I'm persistently ungratefully unsociable. We'd never get on. Please, don't take it personally.
When I first moved to London in 2001, I always used to buy the Evening Standard to read on the train home from work. Plenty of news had happened off-radar during the day, and an evening paper was a useful way to catch up before I got home. There was usually plenty to read, especially in the Hot Tickets pullout every Thursday, and I didn't feel like I was wasting my money.
And then I gave up buying the Evening Standard to read on the train home. The newspaper seemed increasingly aimed at Putney women, not East End blokes, so I found the majority of its content either disagreeable or irrelevant. Chief in this respect was Friday's ghastly ES glossy - umpteen pages of aspirational Belgravia tosh which I couldn't throw in the bin quickly enough. I abandoned ship and moved on.
I am therefore target audience for the Evening Standard's latest "Sorry" campaign, part of a rebranding exercise under new editor Geordie Greig. He wants to turn the paper around from doom-mongering partisan has-been to optimistic sparky cheerleader, in a last-ditch attempt to arrest years of declining circulation. A Monday giveaway spearheaded his fresh approach.
So, could yesterday's freerelaunch issue change my mind and bring me back into the ES fold? Not easy, given that it took me six attempts to find an orange-shirted distributor who hadn't already given away their entire allocation. But I finally managed to find an ungrabbed copy outside a backstreet newsagent, and settled down on the tube home to give the new design a thorough perusal.
New masthead - bold and eye-catching. New orange colour - weak and pasty. Iconic Eros statue - retired. And what of the main headline? "CITY TYCOON: MY SECRET LOVE LIFE" Sigh, some tedious four-page story about a philandering City banker battling through an £11m divorce settlement. Precisely the sort of irrelevant toff-level "human interest" story which switched me off from the paper in the first place. Moving on...
There was a second story on the front page - a single column about the PM's latest response to the MPs expenses scandal. I'd read this story on the relaunched Standard website at lunchtime, so I knew Gordon's speech had gone down well with nurses' leaders. Except, according to my copy, this speech was something Gordon was still "due to say". My homebound copy of the Evening Standard had been published before noon, and events had since moved on. Lunchtime lift accident at Tower Bridge - nowhere to be seen. Prince William opening the Whitechapel Gallery - invisible. With the newspaper's mid-afternoon edition recently cancelled, I was unimpressed by my out-of-date reading material.
Inside, a refreshing welcome from the Standard's new editor. No sign of the word "sorry", though, which appears to be restricted only to the advertising campaign. And opposite, to underline the paper's new upbeat stance, a full page feature on inspirational pupils in the "poor borough" of Dagenham. I skimmed over it to be honest, because good news rarely sells, but it was encouraging to observe the paper looking optimistically eastward for once.
Not so hot on pages 6 and 7, however. A full page advert for Fendi handbags opposite articles on Mayfair dining, Harvey Nicks and tax-whingeing financiers. Don't care, not listening. The Comment spread managed to be slightly more socially balanced, squeezing reverence for EastEnders inbetween articles on Theatreland and Oxbridge. But the long-established "Londoner's Diary" remained focused on society luvvies one might invite to one's dinner party, and definitely not on Amy, Lily and the usual tabloid fodder.
I read some interesting Olympic news I'd not seen anywhere else (ooh, stadium-sidefireworks to see out 2011) (ooh, High Street 2012 has been rescued by £2m of funding), and perused the critic's reviews of various arty events I shall never attend. But on the whole I flicked past more pages than I read (Tom Wolfe's story about rich fliers at American private airports, no) (seven pages of business news, maybe for you, not for me). Even in-depth reaction to the weekend's sporting disasters was feeling fairly stale by Monday teatime.
On my way home I also picked up a londonpaper and a London Lite, although I didn't manage to grab a free KitKat with the former. Both free papers felt weedy in comparison to the Standard, and were clearly aimed at a rather lower reading age or attention span. I was particularly aware that almost all of the news stories in the London Lite were slimmed down recycled versions of longer articles I'd just read in the Standard, and even less interesting as a result. Into the recycling with them both, and fast.
So I gave the new London Evening Standard a try but, sorry, it's still not for me. I'll happily click through its website over lunch to read the latest news about the capital I love, but I don't see the point in forking out good money to read exactly the same stuff on the way home. The Standard may have changed, but dissemination of news is changing even faster. Less carping and more uplift won't be nearly enough, I'm afraid, to wrest a daily 50p from my pocket.
And now a local history post. Don't worry, it's also a local history post about where you live. Stay with me.
The London borough of Tower Hamlets, where I live, has been around since 1965. Before then it was three metropolitan boroughs (Bethnal Green, Stepney and Poplar). Before that it was a slum-ridden chunk of east Middlesex. Go back far enough, before trade and transport transformed the place, and it was mostly rural with the odd big village. Changed, irrevocably, utterly.
This change is reflected in the area's population figures. Here's a list showing how many people lived within the boundaries of modern Tower Hamlets over the last two centuries...
1801: 131,000 (a lot of people already, the East End got packed out early) 1851: 330,000 (more than doubled, as docks and the railways drew more people in) 1901: 578,000 (Cockneyfolk living in overcrowded slummy hell) 1951: 233,000 (all bombed out, with rebuilding underway) 1981: 140,000 (post-war low, everyone's moved out to the suburbs) 2001: 196,000 (climbing again thanks to yuppies and immigration)
That's an astonishing rise and fall. I think Tower Hamlets' population figures are better shown as a graph...
You'll see I've also added Croydon's population figures as a comparison. A very different story. Two centuries ago Croydon was an intensely rural area with fewer than ten thousand residents. And then the railways came, and the population's barely stopped rising since. All of London's major recent growth has been in the outer suburbs, so no wonder they're Boris's main priority. (Of course you don't get the full story without also considering population density. Croydon's about five times the size of Tower Hamlets, so my local borough's still more overcrowded than anywhere in Outer London. And in 1901, ridiculously more overcrowded)
I found these figures on the Vision of Britain website. It's a lottery-sponsored online project based at the University of Portsmouth - a 'geographical survey' featuring two centuries of maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions. Type in where you live, be it Bristol, the Derbyshire Dales or the Outer Hebrides, and you can view a wide range of themed statistics for your borough. I've concentrated on Total Population, but you could also explore (for example) issues of industry, class and education. Hurrah for free census data, where would social historians be without it?
It's probably much more interesting to investigate where you live than where I live, so I'll leave you to it.
What I really wanted to do this weekend was head up to the Chilterns for a walk in the bluebellwoods. Train to Tring, down the lane to Aldbury village and then a wander through the Ashridge Estate to Ivinghoe Beacon. Vibrant colours, radiant glades and rolling chalkland. It would have been lovely. Instead I can only imagine how lovely that walk might be, because I'm stuck in London instead.
So it was very kind of the villagers of Aldbury to pop down to London yesterday and amuse me with their handkerchiefs. They (and the menfolk of many other southeastern villages) were in town for the Westminster Day of Dance - a Morris Dancing extravagnza centred on Trafalgar Square. You might have seen the Ravensbourne Morris Men outside a pub on the Strand, or the Thaxted Morris Men in Waterloo Place or even the Westminster Morris Men in the heart of Chinatown. You'd certainly have heard them. Jingle jingle jingle, wherever they walked, which would have been rather further than their usual hike from the village green to the village pub.
I bumped into a quintet of Morris troupes in Victoria Tower Gardens, in the shadow of the Palace of Westminster, performing for a handful of bemused foreign tourists. I'm not quite sure what these overseas visitors thought of grown men in floral hats thwacking big sticks in public. They weren't to know that this rhythmic stepping was a long-established English rural tradition with its origins in Whitsuntide festivities. Indeed I doubt that many of the city-bound youngsters watching with their parents had ever seen the like before. But the small crowd certainly enjoyed the spectacle, grinning broadly and taking lots of photos. Jaunty tune, clink, accordion melody, clink, waggled hanky, clink, jig on the spot, clink.
Whilst their eyes were fixed on the garter-wearing dancers, various spectators were visited by the Aldbury Morris Men's hobby horse. He's called Dobbin, and he's obviously a real horse and not a man in a black cloak holding a papier mache head on a stick. As the Men's fool, Dobbin engaged in the centuries-old tradition of "making the audience look stupid". He crept up behind one woman and nuzzled his paper face gently in her hair, in that special way that only morris dancing horses can get away with without being arrested. The woman was genuinely startled, but only briefly, and was soon smiling as broadly as her amused boyfriend.
Dobbin progressed round the ignorant rear of the crowd, scaring a pushchair-bound toddler and kneeling suggestively behind a crouching photographer. You had to smile, not least because if you'd already spotted the stalking horse then there was no danger of him embarrassing you. This may be a cheap way of entertaining a crowd - ridiculing unwitting bystanders for the amusement of everyone else - but nobody really seemed to mind. Indeed several "victims" chose to express their gratitude by posting a coin into a slot on Dobbin's face, which I suspect ended up as beer money for the lads down the pub later.
With the fool's circuit complete, the chimes of Big Ben signalled that it was time for the morris men to move on. They untied their pig's bladder from the arm of one of the Burghers of Calais, assembled their sticks and bells and drums and lunchboxes, and processed merrily out of the park. I bumped into the Aldbury Morris Men again a couple of hours later, performing to much larger crowds in Trafalgar Square. Still highlyentertaining, but somehow it wasn't quite the same, hemmed in between the fountains and tightly encircled by spectators. Much better, I thought, to have seen them on the "village green" at Westminster where their Maytide revels felt rather more at home. Thanks guys, and I promise to come and see your bluebells next year.
Localnewspapers are increasingly under threat, and it's all your fault. You don't buy local newspapers any more, do you? You get all your news off the TV and the internet, and usually from a restrictive handful of national-based media. There's lots of news happening much closer to home, but you never notice. Shame on you, because if local newspapers fold (and many will), there'll be far less social glue to hold your local community together. You could at least read your local newspaper website, couldn't you? Even if it is a bit bland, and rather generic, and all about street crime and hospitals and golden wedding anniversaries. You'll miss it when it's gone.
If you live in London, you'll probably find your local newspaper website on this helpful list. I've picked out just a few to see what their TOP local story is this weekend. Prepare to be excited (especially if you live in Muswell Hill)...
» Barking and Dagenham Recorder: FOUR HELD OVER SUSPECTED KIDNAP Hostage negotiators secured a man's release after a siege near Barking Park... » Barnet & Potters Bar Times: "IT'S INCREDIBLE NOBODY WAS HURT" A mature oak tree came crashing to the ground near Friary Park last weekend... » Bexleyheath, Welling and Crayford Chronicle: TESCO TO OPEN NEW STORE IN BEXLEYHEATH Barnehurst Ward councillors Bill McEwan and Simon Windle have welcomed the news... » Camden Gazette: 50 EVACUATED IN FLATS BLAZE Residents have described how a flaming chest of drawers flung from a tower block window sparked a blaze leading to the evacuation of 50 people... » Croydon Guardian: NORBURY'S FIRST DANCE FESTIVAL GOES WITH A SWING Despite the weather Norbury’s first-ever dance festival was a great success... » Ealing Gazette: TRAFFIC LIGHTS SCRAPPED AFTER BORIS SEES RED IN EALING Frustrated drivers will have to rely on common sense navigating congested junctions following a move to switch off traffic lights in the borough... » East London Advertiser: ADVERTISER 'PAPER OF THE YEAR' 2ND YEAR RUNNING The East London Advertiser has just been voted Britain’s best local weekly newspaper... » Haringey Independent: MUSWELL HILL BUS STOP GETS ITS COUNTDOWN RETURNED A bus stop in Muswell Hill has had a new countdown timer installed... » Hounslow Chronicle: HOUNSLOW WOMAN GIVES BIRTH IN A TAXI A speedy baby was born in the back seat of a taxi as the parents raced to West Middlesex Hospital... » News Shopper: CARETAKER'S CHARITY WALK FOR YOUTH CLUB A caretaker is raising money for a local youth club by walking 31 miles in one day. » Richmond & Twickenham Times: TRADERS FEAR WHITE HART LANE CLOSURE WILL HURT BUSINESS Barnes traders fear businesses could be dealt a deathblow as planned utility works are set to close White Hart Lane for three months... » Romford Recorder: BEYOND BELIEF! Local artists saw red this week after they were asked by Havering Council to help brighten up Queen's Hospital with paintings of any subject - except churches. » South London Press: THOUSANDS ATTEND RALLY TO SUPPORT AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS More than 2,000 Latin Americans travelled from Elephant & Castle to Trafalgar Square to join the national rally on Monday... » Stratford & Newham Express: CHRISSIE O GETS FREEDOM Newham's brilliant athlete Christine Ohuruogu is granted the Freedom of Newham next Thursday... » Uxbridge Gazette: HUGE HAUL AS CANNABIS FACTORIES RAIDED A staggering £140,000 worth of cannabis was found after two factories were raided by police in South Ruislip this week...
With the trottered feet of a flu epidemic stalking the capital, I've paid a visit to the unlikely spot where the science of epidemiology began. Not a hospital, nor a university, nor indeed a science laboratory, but a water pump in a very ordinary central London street. Cover your nose and follow me...
The centre of Soho is, and indeed was, a maze of streets. These days the area is packed with restaurants, bars and offices, but in the mid 19th century this was a relatively poor residential neighbourhood. Sanitation in these tightly-packed homes was less than ideal, with no internal plumbing to speak of and undrained cesspits in the cellars. A perfect breeding ground for what was to become "the most terrible outbreak of cholera which ever occurred in this kingdom".
The outbreak began on the last day of August 1854, and within a week had killed off ten percent of local residents. Rich and poor, young and old, all were struck down apparently indiscriminately, and each in a matter of hours from the appearance of initial symptoms to agonising death. Common understanding at the time was that the cholera was spread via an airborne "miasma", i.e. that some form of foul air was to blame. Given the polluted stink of Victorian London, this explanation would have appeared convincing. But one local man noticed what others had not, and in doing so kicked off a brand new science.
John Snow was an anaesthetist living nearby in Frith Street, and was already a miasma-sceptic following a nasty cholera outbreak south of the river five years previously. He took this latest opportunity to track all 500 deaths on a map, and noticed that the homes of the victims appeared to cluster around one particular corner of Soho. More precisely they were focused around the corner of Broad Street and Cambridge Street, where stood a water pump used by all of those struck down by the disease. One of the houses nextdoor - 18 deaths. Across the street - at least one casualty in almost every house from Dufours Place to Berwick Street. Whereas at the Poland Street workhouse (with its own pump) only a handful of residents died, and at the Broad Street brewery (where they drank only liquor) no casualties at all. Every death, even those which appeared seemingly random, could be traced back to a sip of water drawn from that fateful Broad Street pump.
At John Snow's insistence the pump's handle was removed, and almost overnight the outbreak ended. Part of this was coincidental timing - many of the surviving residents had already fled from the area and were drinking healthier water elsewhere. But Snow was to be proven absolutely correct, and a leaky infected cesspit was later shown to be the indirect source of this waterborne infection. He wrote up his results in a compelling treatise, and from such beginnings a new branch of preventative medicine began.
Broad Street still exists today, though it's now called Broadwick Street. This is a wide semi-cobbled thoroughfare linking Carnaby Street with Wardour Street, and an ever-popular rat-run for a steady stream of cars and cabs. At the foot of Poland Street a replica water pump has been installed, its handle duly removed, in commemoration of Snow's great leap forward. It's not quite in the correct location, however, because it ought to rise up from the pinkgranite kerbstone in front of the pub on the opposite street corner. The pub's called the John Snow, naturally (although the great physician was actually teetotal and would no doubt be shocked by this inappropriate comemmoration). On summer evenings the pavement throngs with drinkers spilling out from the bar, gossiping in the open air with a cooling pint in hand. I doubt many of them realise that liquids dispensed from that very spot once killed hundreds of people.
Cheers John, you helped to make urban life a whole lot safer.
Lunch hour, forget sandwiches, why do the normal thing? Try the National Portrait Gallery, off Trafalgar Square. Nice bit of culture, free entry, whistle-stop tour. Up the escalator, it's bloody long, anticipatory ascent. Step back in time, then walk the walls to the present day. It's a Great British history told in watercolour faces.
Those Tudors look pasty and stern, nice ruff your Majesty. Stuart gents, prim and beardy, tourists stop to peer. The only painted ladies are royalty and wives, that'll change. Regency gentlemen, natural posers, why the silly hats? Men of arts, men of science, men of curly wigs and whiskers. Gallery attendant's watching CCTV. Smile, you're a portrait too.
Downstairs: a corridor of statesmen, highly impressive busts. Queen Vic, Duke of Wellington, some poet, Queen Vic again. As years pass, fame and talent finally outshine blood and breeding. She wrote, he painted, he invented, their eyes stare back. Like Madame Tussauds, but flatter, cheaper and more realistic. Glass walls for actors and starlets, the New Elizabethans.
Up to date-ier, these folk are still alive, their youth gleams. I'm not sure Prince Charles likes that one, it's mostly fence. A roomful of poets, a roomful of astronomers, there's Moore. Judi darling, Ms Lily Allen, the fabulous boys from Blur. That rich bloke's only on the wall because he paid for it. Cultural appetite satisfied, step back to your desk refreshed.
And with that 2am declaration, the General Election result is sealed. Thank goodness that's over - there's nothing thrilling about a patently one-sided campaign. Sometimes a government's time runs out and the tide of change is unstoppable. The result's been a foregone conclusion for well over a year, the only points of interest being how thumping the final majority might be and which ministers might look the most distraught on losing their seat. I think those tears were genuine, don't you? So that's the political pendulum swung firmly back to the right for the first time this century, even if a mountain of debt means there's very little scope for political manoeuvre. But I think we can be certain that ID cards are dead, proportional representation remains out for the count, and fox-hunting will be back in the countryside by Christmas. More importantly, I've finally got rid of that egotistical blabbermouth waster as myMP. A blue dawn is rising. Can I go to sleep now? (Go on, see if I'm wrong)
The entire Circle line closed. Most of the Jubilee line closed (sorry Stanmore). An important chunk of the Central line closed (sorry Epping, sorry Hainault). The middle section of the District line closed (causing lengthy diversions for anyone trying to get from one side to the other). The entire Victoria line closed (first thing in the morning if not later). The entire Waterloo & City line closed (because it always is on a Sunday, although this particular Sunday it might be useful if it were open).
These track closures are particularly annoying if you're trying to get from the East End to the West End by tube. Want to travel from West Ham to Westminster? Normally one train, but this Sunday it'll be at least three. Want to travel from Woodford to Waterloo? Get on a bus. For many Londoners, this Sunday's not looking like fun at all.
But things are even worse than TfL's map shows. The entire Docklands Light Railway is also closed, every last bit of it (sorry Docklands). The Overground from Richmond to Stratford is closed, every last bit of it (sorry Hackney). The Overground from Barking to Gospel Oak is closed (doubly sorry Walthamstow). The Overground from Willesden to Shepherds Bush is also closed (sorry Westfield). And can we see these additional disruptions on the map, in order to get a complete picture of engineering-induced gridlock? No, sorry, not allowed.
And it's even worse than that, because there are also track closures on various National Rail lines in the capital. Victoria to Peckham, suspended. Stratford to Tottenham Hale suspended. More astonishingly, Southeastern trains through London Bridge will be diverted away from Charing Cross and will terminate instead at Cannon Street. This is despite the fact that Cannon Street has no tube service whatsoever on Sunday, and neither do any of the Circle line stations to either side.
London's rail network has more holes in it this Sunday than a chunk of Swiss cheese. And is there a map anywhere which shows how all these slices of disruption fit together? No there isn't. Tube, DLR, Overground and Rail all display their line closure information in unhelpful segmented silos. No rail company or higher authority provides a complete engineering overview because it's nobody's responsibility to do so. Joined-up thinking isn't legislated for, so it doesn't happen. In the meantime the travelling public are left to try to work out how to manoeuvre round the gaps, even though not all of the gaps are obvious. Come on, somebody, somewhere, do London a service and provide us with the big picture. Every weekend. And especially this weekend.
25 years ago this morning, nearing the end of my first year at university, I slipped out of college at some ungodly hour and took the train up to London. I'd been to the capital many times before, of course, but this was the first time my solo teenage self had ever gone just for the sake of it. I took the opportunity to wear my brand new very-proud-of-it shirt, a black and white number with chessboard-sized checks, which I'd purchased the day before out of my meagre student grant. I note from my 1984 diary that I also chose to wear a pair of yellow socks, for which I now apologise deeply, but apparently 25 years ago these were deemed somehow fashionable. The people of 80s London would, no doubt, have been impressed.
I made tracks not to some obscure suburban museum or ancient medieval ruin, but instead to window-shop the entire length of Oxford Street. You may mock, but London's most famous retail thoroughfare has long had a magnetic attraction for incoming visitors to the capital. It's not like the shops there sold anything I couldn't buy out of town, but they did have quantity and convenience on their side. No trendy shirts attracted my attention on that Saturday morning, but I was tempted by a Human League album on audiocassette (quick check, yes, it still plays, but the 20th century sound quality leaves much to be desired). My ears were also serenaded by the passing chants of the legendary Hare Krishna procession, although thankfully for my studies I resisted any temptation to follow the group back to their Soho HQ for a vegan bowl and a strange haircut.
Next stop Camden Town. I know, how incredibly predictable for a first teenage jaunt, but you only ever find out these places aren't for you by visiting them. I did at least show promise for the future by choosing to walk there - a two mile yomp through the less than beguiling arteries of Euston. I've learnt a lot since then, and when I tried the same journey yesterday I managed to follow a rather more interesting backstreet route. My 1984 self discovered little to excite in north London's alternative Mecca. I'd made the journey specifically to visit one particular shop, but on arrival couldn't quite bring myself to cross the threshold and so stood wistfully on the pavement outside. I missed my chance back then because that shop's long gone, replaced by some kinky tat merchant peddling boots and blackness to would-be goths and rebels. No sign either of anywhere selling yellow socks. I must have been ahead of my time.
Then back to central London, by tube this time, to explore the mean streets of Westminster. I had my eye on a pair of white shoes, for reasons now thankfully lost in the mists of time. Maybe they were particularly trendy that spring, or perhaps I thought they'd go especially well with lemon-shaded hosiery. Having nobody with me to advise otherwise, I snapped up a pair near Bond Street for a mere £9.88. My suburban dustbin would claim them a few months later. Next to Soho, because you have to walk through Soho when you're a hormonal teenage bloke, it's the law. Nevertheless I was surprised (and mildly chuffed) to be propositioned by a lipsticked lady as I walked innocently passed the doors of one insalubrious establishment. I wondered at the time if she'd been particularly taken by my shirt, but I now know that these sexual sirens will yell out expectantly at anything with a Y chromosome and a pulse. No thanks, love.
I returned to university later that afternoon with a bag of underwhelming goodies and tired feet. It had been a very one-dimensional visit to the capital, more a tentative exploration of youthful independence and boundaries. But it must have planted a seed, because umpteen years later I've made umpteen capital explorations of a far more interesting type. And on my latest, round Camden Town and Soho yesterday, I was particularly pleased to notice a couple of well-dressed lads wearing large-check black and white shirts. The 1984 look is back in fashion, apparently, at least above the waist if not below the ankle. I was even moved to try on my slightly-faded 25-year-old shirt when I got home, in case I might be able to wear it again and look hip and cool out on the streets. Alas the days when I could button up a small-sized garment are long gone, so back into the vintage drawer it went. Probably just as well - one's childhood misadventures are best remembered but never repeated.
Some days are a rollercoaster ride. A huge range of experiences crammed into 24 hours, never stopping, not a moment wasted. A day to remember. Up early to make the most of the post-dawn hours, then staying up late to make the most of the pre-dawn hours. Productively reflective, uncharacteristically sociable. Ever busy, here, there, everywhere. Zipping around town, lapping up the sunshine, striding across the moonlit Thames. Discovering somewhere you should have gone many years ago but never quite got round to visiting before. Unexpected bad news before breakfast, recovery underway, much to ponder. Going out, going out, and going out again. Meeting old acquaintances and making new. Not spending the entirety of a party in the kitchen. Nipping across the transport network like a pro, making connections like clockwork, nabbing an hour-long seat on a jam-packed nightbus. Finding a well-stocked queueless supermarket, throwing together something more than edible, then exercising lunch away. Making the most of opportunities, grasping with both hands, smiling a lot. Taking photos before the rest of the world wakes up. Remembering how to do something you thought you'd forgotten, and getting back into the groove. Getting a bit of sun-soaked colour back into your cheeks. Staring at the London skyline with a lager in hand, discovering something in common, knowing when to leave. Wondering about the situation elsewhere, hoping things are getting better fast. Edging your way into new circumstances without a hand to hold or shoulder to lean on, and coming out the better for it. Everything coming together. Making other people happy. Some days are unmissable.
Some days are a dead loss. 24 hours of doing nothing much, getting nowhere, slowly. Acres of time padded out to bridge the gaping chasm between dawn and dusk. Minimal inspiration, maximum procrastination. Every moment wasted, a day to forget. Looking through imprisoning glass at fluffy clouds scudding across an azure sky. Wondering what it might be like out there in the real world, but not having any impetus to find out. Using tried and tested techniques to fill fifteen minutes, an hour, an afternoon. Things you really should be doing, things you cleared the decks to attempt, but things that just refuse to get done. Expectations high, expectations dashed. Staring at a churning laptop, hourglass spinning, waiting, a life on hiatus. Muted frustration. Not turning on the TV because there's nothing on, anywhere, is there? Days when the highlight is emptying the washing machine, or towelling down a bubbly fork, or filling in three clues in the crossword. Days when nothing quite comes together. Slouching, snacking, and not helping matters by walking no further than the kitchen. Doubting. Waiting for input that never comes, and conversations that never happen. Pressing refresh, repeatedly, to confirm your suspicion that everyone else is having a more interesting time than you. Switching to the armchair for a change of scene. Watching time pass, irreversibly, imperceptibly. Reflecting on ignored alternatives, and wondering why you dismissed them. Apathy, withdrawal, inertia. Going to bed early because it makes the day shorter. Wondering whether yesterday was an illusion, and fearing that today is the norm. Making nobody happy. Some days are skippable.
Some weekends you get one of each, for balance. And on bank holidays you get another roll of the dice. I hope it's another Saturday, but I expect it's another Sunday.
LONDON A-Z An alphabetical journey through the capital's museums Island History Trust
Location: 197 East Ferry Road, London E14 3BA [map] Open: Tue, Wed & first Sunday of the month (1:30-4:30pm) Admission: free (Open Days £2) Brief summary: Docklands in black and white Website:www.islandhistory.org.uk Time to set aside: dependent on family connections
The Isle of Dogs is no island, more an East End tongue hanging down within the Thames's snakiest meander. And while the E14 postcode may now may be best known for its shiny towers and financial dominance, that's only the very latest part of the story. The history of the peninsula stretches back to medieval times - first a marshy outpost, then the very heart of international trade, then a place of belching industry. But one constant presence has been the island's community - a group of people isolated by geography and bound together by circumstance. This museum celebrates their resilience.
The Island History Trust base themselves in a community centre at the foot of the Isle of Dogs, down where the genuine residents live. Long before property developers sought to build riverside flats and waterside towers, a motley assortment of working class terraces grew up to provide the docks and their supporting industries with personnel. Some of these streets are delightful (Thermopylae Gate, anyone), others merely post-warestates built up on the site of bombed out back-to-backs. Over the years many of the former residents have moved away, priced out by incomers, but when the Trust holds an Open Weekend they pop back for a natter and some tea and cake. There's much to remember.
5000 large black and white photographs take up a lot of space. They're all filed away in cardboard boxes, lovingly laminated and carefully catalogued. Sit at one of the centre's tables and you can flick through the Industrial selection, sit at another and a century of schoolchildren beam out. Someone's gone to a lot of effort to try to name all the people and locations in the photos, and if you have a particular Docklands resident in mind you can try to track them down using a very detailed card-based indexing system. Be warned, they may be grinning at a street party, or looking distinctly under-nourished, or wearing an especially ridiculous hat. (God help us if pancake-sized flat caps ever come back into fashion) (I'll give it three years)
While I sat looking through a box of street scenes, one former lady resident started hunting through a neighbouring pack of sporting photos. "That's your Uncle Frank," she told the intrigued youngster tagging along beside. "And that's my brother Albert, all dressed up for the football, he did love his football. He used to play in four different leagues - Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon - and he signed up under a different name each time because officially he wasn't allowed to play in more than one." With a grin of recognition on the boy's face, that was another family legend safely entrusted to the next generation.
Many people seemed to be using the Open Day as an opportunity to meet up with old friends, neighbours and former schoolmates. There were gossipy chats in every corner, with the volunteers' tea and homemade cakes going down a storm. Barring a few tagged-along grandchildren I did feel like I was the youngest person in the room by about 20 years, but I was made more than welcome all the same. A couple of very informative display boards explained the industrial and social history of the area - the latter surprisingly more interesting than the former. And it was also fascinating to find out, through those extra-special very ordinary photographs, a lot more about the ordinary lives of a century of genuine East Enders.
If you ever had relatives down on the Dogs, or if you're a more recent arrival to the area with an interest in its past, I know that Eve and her volunteers would be more than pleased to welcome you. Normally their collection's open in an upper room on the first Sunday of the month, with photos to explore and publications to peruse. For a rather broader experience (and tea and cakes), the twice-yearly Open Weekend continues today and tomorrow from 11 til 6. Few communities can boast such a comprehensive repository of the everyday. by DLR: Mudchute
Has it really be a year since London swapped Ken for Boris? Yes it has, which explains why you haven't been able to move all week for BJretrospectives in the media. But what's BoJo actually done for the capital in the last 12 months? What are his big schemes, what's he forced through and what's he cancelled? Here's my attempt at a semi-comprehensive list.
Introduced
» council tax - GLA precept frozen » final bit of funding for Crossrail » investment in grassroots sport » greater access to shop toilets » £6m for 11 parks » funding for East London Line Phase 2 » more police patrolling at stations » funding for anti knife crime projects » TfL fare rises » 24 hour use of Freedom Pass » Routemaster replacement competition » information boards for utility roadworks » a few thousand new street trees » car-friendly traffic light rephasing » plans for Inner London cycle hire scheme » free travel for war veterans » Mayor's charitable fund » powers devolved to borough councils » musical instrument donation scheme » motorbikes in bus lanes » Oyster to be rolled out to river services
Cancelled
» Congestion Charge Zone, Western Extension » Phase 3 of Low Emission Zone » bendy buses » jobs at City Hall » budget at GLA » £25 Congestion Charge for 4×4s » The Londoner newspaper » weekly press conferences » Police Commissioner Sr Ian Blair » funding for four rape crisis centres » drinking alcohol on public transport » 50% affordable housing target » bottled water at City Hall » DLR Dagenham Extension » Thames Gateway Bridge » Greenwich Waterfront Transit » East London Transit » Cross River Tram » Croydon Tramlink extension » funding for anti-racist festival » funding for other (unsponsored) festivals » pedestrianisation of Parliament Square » completion of London cycle network » Venezuelan oil deal
I've not included absolutely everything Boris has done, I've tried to concentrate on larger projects and priorities. I've attempted to be objective. I've tried to focus on things that are agreed, funded or achieved. I've not included anything that's wild speculation (e.g a Thames Estuary airport). And I've not included anything that Ken organised and Boris merely opened (e.g. Woolwich DLR). But I've probably missed some importantstuff out. Any extras?
Are you looking for something interesting and exciting to do this May bank holiday weekend? Are you worried that covert swine-flu-spreaders are showering the capital with virulent plague? If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then you're in the right place. I've put together a special (clickable) list of anti-social isolated weekend entertainment options. And I've called it...
The Top 10 Uncontagious Things To Do In London this Bank Holiday Weekend
1)Attend Canalway Cavalcade: Narrowboats galore will be heading to Little Venice this weekend as part of British Waterways' annual floating London rally. There'll be boaty stalls and waterside entertainment, making it a jolly pleasant trip out for all the family. For added safety avoid the packed towpaths and hide yourself away in self-enforced mid-basin quarantine aboard one of the narrowboats. 2)Picnic in the middle of a Royal Park: Should anybody else be sitting in the middle of your chosen park, move fifty yards upwind (which should be place you out of reach of any lung-strangling droplets they might expel while you're eating). Don't forget to pack a corkscrew, a box of tissues and some bleach. 3)Walk the Jubilee Greenway: The Duke of Gloucester launched it yesterday - 60 miles of round-London footpath to celebrate the Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012. What with all the publicity it's had of late, the route might be quite busy, especially the Buck House, Camden and South Bank sections. But try the strip through Beckton and I'd be surprised if you meet another living soul. (my JG review from 2007) 4)Wake up early for International Dawn Chorus Day: The Wildlife Trust want you to get up before crack of dawn this weekend to go stand in a field (or somewhere) and listen to some natural twittering. It's perfectly safe, honest, because there's absolutely no risk of avian flu at the moment. 5)Visit Vestry House Museum in Walthamstow: If my Waltham Forest posts have stirred you to visit E17, make sure you start at the Vestry House Museum in Walthamstow Village. I can guarantee that the exhibition of memorabilia from the Hawker Siddeley Power Transformers Factory won't be packed out. 6)Go to the cinema: Not any old cinema, obviously. You don't want to go somewhere popular and watch a blockbuster in case you're surrounded by sneezing heavy breathers. Try the 10am screening of Beverley Hills Chihuahua at the Wandsworth Cineworld instead - I bet that'll be quiet. Or catch up on the Romanian Film Festival at the Curzon Mayfair - I bet that'll be quieter. 7)Explore the City of London on foot: Because it's shut until Tuesday. A three day ghost town, no airborne danger whatsoever. 8)Stay at home and re-grout the bathroom: Because that's what bank holidays are for, aren't they? Or gardening. I just hope you've already been to Homebase, because now's not the time to stand in a long queue of coughing DIY-ers buying tiles and bedding plants. 9)Stock up on tinned food: Because everyone should have a month's worth of bottled water and tinned food stashed away in the back of a kitchen cupboard, just in case Armageddon approaches and panic buying strips supermarket shelves of essential comestibles. What do you mean, you haven't? How starving are you going to be when global pandemic strikes and civilisation collapses? 10)Go to Trafalgar Square and breathe deeply: Because it won't kill you. Not yet anyway.
I'm sitting on a grassy slice of England that probably won't be here in ten years' time [photo]. The cliffs at Walton-on-the-Naze are an unstable layer cake of clay and sand [photo], and every so often another few metres crumble and fall to the beach below [photo]. The first time I saw a minor landslip I assumed it must be a rare event, but now I'm almost blasé about spotting tumbling streams of fine golden sand and claggy rock [video!]. Walton's cliffs are supposed to be packed with world-class fossils, though I've not yet managed to find even a shark's tooth, let alone an evolutionary missing link. Up top is a broad expanse of mowed grass peppered with picnic benches, safely back from the edge but affording no view of the dangers beyond. For the perfect panorama you have to climb 100 or so steps up the Naze Tower, a turret-y navigational aid built in 1720 before the advent of lighthouses. Spiral staircases link its seven floors, containing tea rooms, a small museum and an art exhibition. And the view is excellent, from Felixstowe round to Frinton, via the glistening curve of an estuarine marsh [photo]. Visit soon, before time and tide steal the clifftops and even the tower away.
posted 11:21The two mile walk round the Naze is rather special. This marshy tongue of land pokes north towards Harwich, with seabirds and wildlife the only permanent residents. They enjoy the nature reserve at the peninsula's core [photo], and visiting humans get to enjoy a single remote path around the perimeter. Make sure you stick to the overgrown upper track on the sea wall to get the full view of creeks, yachts and salt marsh. There'd be more birds at migration time, but there's still plenty of flapping, swooping and worm-tugging going on. Painted ladies flutter by, yellow rape plants bend in the onshore breeze and there's even a cuckoo to be heard in the bracken. Delightful, and far less busy than the sandy beaches of the main resort [photo]. Essex folk are here in sunny Walton today in large numbers, prowling the promenade or hemmed in behind flapping windbreaks on the sand. There's much tanned paunch on show, from both sexes, while grinning children lick lollies in the surf. And I'm now sat on the tip of the pier, the third longest in Britain, with a handful of hardy anglers waiting for an offshore fishy tug [photo]. As the lady in the tiny Tourist Information Office said, if the choice is Clacton or Walton-on-the-Naze, this place wins every time, no contest.
posted 13:59Seaside postcard: Frinton-on-SeaSouth of Walton pier the shoreline is overlooked by more beach huts than I have ever seen in my life. Stacked four or even five avenues back up the slope, they look like a timber village of oversized dog kennels. Like the majority of second homes, most are locked and empty, but some are thrown open to reveal towels, lilos and bottles of orange squash [photo]. A single line of huts stretches over a mile south to Frinton, above groyne-edged sandy segments dotted with tanners, sporty kids and picnickers. The People's Enclave of Frinton, beyond the clifftops, likes to think of itself as an exclusive bastion of Middle England. There's nothing downmarket in their High Street [photo] (although there is now a pub, the Lock and Barrel, which for some heralds the unstoppable march of depravity). Old ladies pushing two-wheeled trolleys coexist with teenage clusters in bikinis and t-shirts, at least for the summer months. At the top of the town is The Barrier, a level crossing which marks the entrance to Frinton Within. Houses on the southern side of the railway line have premium value, and local newsagents know to stock more Mails and Telegraphs than all the other questionable publications combined. Sadly for many, last month National Rail committed sacrilege and replaced the old manual crossing gates with automatic drop-down barriers [photo]. They don't like change round here, but they can't keep it out forever.
posted 16:34Some tourist attractions sound more exciting than they really are. The Jewel Tower is one such place. They're right about the tower bit, but the jewels are long gone. One wonders how many foreign tourists take one look at the queue snaking out of Westminster Abbey nextdoor and decide instead to spend their valuable time visiting its exciting-sounding neighbour. They must be terribly disappointed. But if you come to look at the building, not its contents, you shouldn't be too upset.
After the nice lady has taken your money (I got the nice lady, you may not be so lucky), the tour begins two floors up. To get there requires ascent of a stone spiral staircase, of the kind that there really aren't enough of in London. The Jewel Tower has only two rooms per floor, but they do at least feel proper medieval (with thick Kentish ragstone walls to match, so that's your mobile reception gone). The top floor's all about recounting the tower's history, which means a lot of information panels to read and not too much else. The building was originally the "King's Privy Wardrobe" where King Edward III secured his treasures, constructed in 1365 (or thereabouts) by master mason Henry Yevele. Some of the original elm foundations are on display on a ledge by the window. Eventually all the royal gold moved out to the Tower of London, and the building was used for several centuries as a document archive for the House of Lords. Fortunate, that, what with the big 1834 fire and all. Most recently the Jewel Tower was home to a weights and measures office, and examples of gallon, pint and bushel cups are on show in room number two. It gleams, sort of, but this can't be the treasure tourists expect when they visit.
And finally back to the ground floor shop, because this is the most interesting room in the building. Not the selection of English Heritage goodies at eye level, but instead look up at the 14th century roof. That's the original rib vaulting, complete with decorative bosses and grotesque heads, and a fine example of medieval mastercraftsmen at work. It's not worth three quid just to see this bit, although you might get into the shop for nothing if you claimed you were only here for heritage jams and a teatowel. Whatever, it's wonderful that this small part of the old Palace of Westminster survives. At least something round here has long-term integrity.
My first building society was the Abbey National. I signed up with them in the 1970s, back in the days when they were represented by a married couple under a roof-shaped umbrella. I threw my savings at them, I opened additional accounts, and I even whacked through a five-figure mortgage when the time came. I stuck with the Abbey National when they transformed from a building society to a bank, even though I wasn't 100% convinced demutualisation was the right way to go. Even when the boss decided to drop the 'National' and just call the company 'abbey' (in bright neon lower case), I still hung around.
As for my first bank, that was gobbled up two decades ago. I entrusted my first salary cheque to the National Girobank, and many's the financial transaction I sent off in a Freepost envelope to a mysterious postcode in deepest Bootle. But, like many a long-serving building society, somebody suddenly thought it would be a good idea to float the privatised bank on the stock exchange. Lots of lovely income from the Alliance and Leicester deal to start with, but then the takeover sharks circled and gobble gobble munch munch gone.
Breakfast quiz: Here are cryptic clues to 30 foodstuffs you might eat for breakfast. You might even have consumed several of them already this morning. How many can you identify?
Parallel to the north-eastern arm of the Central line, on a ridge more Essex than London, lies the ancient woodland of Epping Forest. It covers almost 6000 acres, from Epping in the North to Wanstead in the south, and it's all owned and managed by the City of London Corporation. And, for some reason, until last weekend I'd never properly visited before. So, walking boots laced and map in hand, I took the train out to Epping and set off from there on a ten mile stroll. And blimey, why did I wait so long?
Less than half an hour's walk from the station is the edge of the forest proper. A broad grassed path curves across Bell Common to a very innocuous cricket pitch, but the thin soil hides a multi-million pound secret beneath. When the M25 passed this way in the 1980s, local protests ensured that a cut and cover tunnel was dug beneath the outfield. Stand here today and the motorway is entirely invisible, even if the sound of peaceful birdsong is tinged by the distant murmur of traffic noise.
Surprisingly few official pathways pass through the forest, although there's nothing stopping you stepping off beneath the tree cover and making your own way. Off-track's the way to go, especially if you're one of the many sporty bikers for whom Epping Forest is undulating heaven. It's rather more of a trial for cycling families seeking energetic togetherness, however. "Is this the last hill, Daddy?" asked one particularly sulky young girl on a pink bike. Whatever Daddy told her was undoubtedly a lie, but it worked.
Every now and then the oak and beech trees cleared, and there was an excellent view out across the surrounding countryside. Down below are the flat plains of Essex and Hertfordshire, whose fertility is the main reason they've been cultivated and populated while up here hasn't. The finest view was from the top of Woodredon Hill, from which it was possible to make out the M25 threading west towards Cheshunt, with Waltham Abbey beyond and a giant Sainsbury's distribution centre in front. Well worth a stare.
After relative solitude on woodland tracks, High Beach came as a jolt to the system. This is the forest's social nucleus, where cyclists meet bikers meet Essex drivers (for picnics and kickabouts, from what I saw). No need to venture far from the visitor's centre for a variety of tasty options. The King's Oak pub was trumped by the excellent refreshment kiosk nextdoor (burgers, rolls, ice cream), or else there were a couple of tea huts dispensing hot liquids and snacks. On a sunny bank holiday weekend, the (well hidden) bikers' tea hut throbbed with merry leather.
Back in the forest, it was easy to lose the crowds by walking more than a few hundred yards from the nearest car park. I was passed by several whooshes of lycra-clad two-wheelers, and many a gaggle of weary parents pushing toddlers, and even by a gang of huffing hiking cub scouts, but most of the time I wasn't passed by anyone at all. Perfect natural solitude. And don't expect (at this time of year) to see any colours other than green and brown - the handful of pink rhodedendrons I spotted were rare exceptions.
After my lengthy stroll I needed to get back to the Underground, which here is always further away than it looks. I don't think I'd have made it back to a station without a map. The forest trails are completely unsigned, and most lead far from civilisation, so you really have to know where you're going. This must be a real problem for cyclists, and I saw several temporary bike trails waymarked with flyaway sawdust. I was also surprised that some of the tracks were still muddy in places - this must be proper wellington boot territory after heavy rain.
I ended my walk by making my way northeast to the commuter village of Theydon Bois, not least in order to discover what this mysterious tube network extremity looked like. My favourite spot was a meadow on the outskirts filled with golden buttercups, where sunsoaked couples lounged in the long grass. Then, finally, across the over-sized triangular village green to the iris-edged duckpond, wondering how much it must cost to live in rural commuter heaven. But when it's this easy to get to, I shall be out here more often.
Olympic update
London 2012 has a very big stadium, as becomes particularly obvious when you're parked in a minibus directly alongside the outer rim. Up top is a not-quite-complete ring of gleaming white roof trusses, all linked together like a set of giant drinking straws. Beneath that is a detachable ridged bowl resting on a framework of thin steel, where thousands of spectators will sit to watch tiny athletes sprinting around the inner track. Then you reach 'platform level', which is a concrete circle propped up on stilts around the perimeter allowing access to the seats in the permanent lower grandstand. And down at ground level is a temporary decorated screen, erected for reasons of safety and security, on which is displayed artwork produced by a dozen local schools. You've seen thrillinger stadia, to be honest, but then the best view is rarely to be had from the outside.
Once our tour guide had outpoured every relevant nugget of stadium-related trivia the bus moved on. We passed beneath the green footbridge that crosses from the edge of the stadium to an office block of piled-high portakabins. This is the nerve centre of "Team Stadium", where construction workers change into muddy safety boots and engineers plot the progress of their grand designs. You wouldn't believe how busy Pudding Mill Lane DLR station is these days after they all clock off at the end of a workday afternoon. Our tour was after hours, however, so we encountered no congestion on our drive round the southern perimeter.
One final port of call on our whistlestop tour of the proto-Olympic Park. The bus headed down what's left of Carpenter's Road to stop beside the fledgling Aquatic Centre. Only the building's inner skeleton was visible, a series of metal supports linked by struts and supporting girders, creating a signature waveform at roof level. The structure's already more interesting-looking than the stadium, and that's before it receives its outer layer of metal cladding. I rather liked the opportunity to see the Aquatic Centre's secret interior close-up, even if it was still a few months too early to see how all the curves and towers properly join together. A little too early as well to see the bridge that's going to sweep out of the neighbouring Stratford City complex and pass above the central neck of the building on its way to the stadium beyond. There's a heck of a lot of transformation still to go.
You only get a true picture of the scale of Olympic construction if you've been here previously. Most of the northern chunk of the park was once covered by vegetation, be it the rolling slopes of the Eastway cycle circuit, the riverside plateau of Arena Fields or the fertile ridge of the Manor Garden allotments. All had been utterly and entirely swept away, with the former carpet of green long-vanished beneath a landscape of brown. There were earthworks everywhere, including some fairly substantial hillocks that will one day become contoured parkland, but for now really rather desolate.
We paused for a while on a particularly open corner to scan the eastern horizon, where a series of tall concrete lift shafts marked the accessible heart of the Olympic Village. The planners have been very good at replacing like with like. Just as the Velodrome is being built over a former cycle track, so the Olympic Village is being erected on top of a former communal housing estate - tower block for tower block. The new Stratford International station (over there, that distant glass box) covers part of an old railway goods yard, and will whisk in Javelinned spectators from St Pancras at 140mph. And heavens if that wasn't a brand new Westfield shopping centre rising faster than everything else, because the deadline for shopping always arrives first.
Yesterday I got rather closer to the heart of the 2012 action when a motley collection of ten-or-so London-y bloggers were invited on an hour-long bus tour around the Park, from top to bottom. We had to report to a lay-by outside Stratford station where the official Olympic tour minibus was waiting, and we had to wave some official form of ID like a passport or a driving licence to prove we weren't evil nation-hating terrorists. When it became clear that we weren't going to be allowed off of the bus at any time during the journey many of us wondered whether the ID check had been entirely necessary, but I guess the Games organisers can't be too careful. Even media-savvy tourists are potentially dangerous these days, especially when they're armed with zoom lenses, Twitter-enabled iPhones and audio-blogging devices.
TfL snuck out a press release yesterday in which they announced several additional weekend closures on the Jubilee line later this year. They hid the details well by cramming them into a footnote, preferring instead to highlight why this interminable series of shutdowns is necessary. Better signalling, faster journeys, more frequent trains... it sounds like 2010 is going to be Jubilee heaven. But for the remainder of 2009, weekends are going to be Jubilee hell.
You are cordially invited to a lynching.
We thought it would be nice to erect a gibbet in the traditional location, at the western end of Oxford Street, on the traffic island opposite Marble Arch. Tyburn used to be plenty big enough to accommodate an angry mob back in the 18th century, but things were rather less built-up back then. Now Boris tells us we can't even erect grandstands in the Edgware Road for the spectators, something to do with smoothing the traffic flow, so we're relocating to Hyde Park instead. [Event will be held in the Odeon cinema if wet]
Of all the acts of post-war architectural vandalism wreaked in the capital, few rankle quite so greatly as the wanton destruction of the Euston Arch. This towering Doric gateway stood in front of the original Euston station from 1837 until 1962, when it was unceremoniously demolished to make way for the characterless dingy shed from which trains to the northwest now depart. Many voices were raised in protest at the Arch's imminent demise, and snowballing public interest subsequently saved many a heritage building, but "progress" at Euston was alas unstoppable.
You'll know the southern end of the Prescott Channel well. It's one of the Bow Back Rivers, round the back of Three Mills Studios, and in the summers of 2000 and 2001 it appeared on your television every week. The first Big Brother house was built on the opposite bank to the TV studios, so every Friday the evicted housemate made their exit across the footbridge to reveal all to Davina. Yes, that river. Who'd have guessed there was a couple of thousand tons of dismembered railway arch in the waters directly underneath?
I popped down after work to try to take a look at the site, but it wasn't easy. Riverside access to the Prescott Channel is still impossible, even if the tourist map outside the House Mill already shows a not-yet-complete configuration of new cross-lock footpaths. After a failed scout-round on all sides, perturbing more than one security guard in the process, I realised that the only decent view was to be had by train. And so it was, staring out of the window of a rattling Hammersmith & City line carriage, that I finally managed to catch sight of a lone dredger in the mud. All the workmen had gone home so no Doric chunks were being lifted out of the water while I sped by. But the lock gates looked sturdy and intact so, once the channel's finally been cleared of all underwater obstructions, there might eventually be some proper 2012 construction traffic heading this way. Better late than never.
Compass points
The M25 to the west of London is one scary motorway. Upgraded due to excess traffic flow, no fewer than twelve carriageways thunder their way through the middle of Junction 14's roundabout
. Four each way for the motorway proper, then two each side for the Terminal 5 slipway, which coils and swerves to the north on its way to London's least favourite airport. Heathrow's southern runway is aligned nearly perfectly with this particular roundabout, so the roar of traffic is supplemented every 90 seconds or so by the whining drone of jet engines thundering almost overhead. You wouldn't live here, but unbelievably there's a Travelodge right beside the roundabout where people pay good money to do just that.
The second slice of woodland is the westernmost green space in the capital. It's supposed to be unreachable, but the gate off from the bridleway was unlocked so I stepped through for a look. Here was deep bushy thicket, where the dog-rose bloomed and weeds flourished, with a litter-strewn grassy path through the centre. One spot had partly subsided, and a yellow gas signlet warned against deeper excavation. At the bottom of the slope there was a thin gap between the trees, wide open to the screaming traffic, above which oncoming jets approached perfectly framed. Best back away now, I thought.
Stepping up from the bridleway onto the roundabouts's inner bank, between the teasels, I looked out past the nearest set of traffic lights towards the reservoir beyond. A few yards ahead of me was the westernmost spot in London
Junction 14 was more characterful than I was expecting, though admittedly that wasn't much. But it's a plane-spotter and lorry-spotter's heaven, because the bridleway provides an excellent vantage point for close-up views of both. Next time you're passing through, or above, you can bore any travelling companions by telling them you're at London's westernmost point. But really, I only stopped off here so that you don't have to.
Crossrail is underway. You can tell because a fleet of floating cranes has appeared in the middle of West India Quay's North Dock. You may not be especially familiar with this particular section of watery strip, because it's shielded from the current heart of Canary Wharf by a screen of tall towers. The basin's northern bank remains entirely undeveloped (and was, until a couple of years ago, the site of a large open car park), so the best unobstructed view is from the DLR between Poplar and West India Quay. Now there's a barrage in the water and a stack of portakabins on the dockside and a building site starting to emerge mid-channel. Blimey, there's a whirlwind of change a-coming.
Crossrail is underway. Not that anybody down on the quayside yesterday evening seemed to care. Outside Brodie's Bar on Fisherman's Walk, gaggles of bankers in dark suits stood impervious to the drizzle raising a beery toast to the week's deals. Their drinking space had been part-obstructed by one of Crossrail's blue walls, behind which some rather less financial types will be earning a builder's wage. Further east a pair of security guards watched over traffic on the Upper Bank Street bridge - a structure which'll be closing for a year from next week because someone's about to build a station through it. But what a station.
New masthead - bold and eye-catching. New orange colour - weak and pasty. Iconic Eros statue - retired. And what of the main headline? "CITY TYCOON: MY SECRET LOVE LIFE" Sigh, some tedious four-page story about a philandering City banker battling through an £11m divorce settlement. Precisely the sort of irrelevant toff-level "human interest" story which switched me off from the paper in the first place. Moving on...
So it was very kind of the villagers of Aldbury to pop down to London yesterday and amuse me with their handkerchiefs. They (and the menfolk of many other southeastern villages) were in town for the Westminster Day of Dance - a Morris Dancing extravagnza centred on Trafalgar Square. You might have seen the Ravensbourne Morris Men outside a pub on the Strand, or the Thaxted Morris Men in Waterloo Place or even the Westminster Morris Men in the heart of Chinatown. You'd certainly have heard them. Jingle jingle jingle, wherever they walked, which would have been rather further than their usual hike from the village green to the village pub.
Whilst their eyes were fixed on the garter-wearing dancers, various spectators were visited by the Aldbury Morris Men's hobby horse. He's called Dobbin, and he's obviously a real horse and not a man in a black cloak holding a papier mache head on a stick. As the Men's fool, Dobbin engaged in the centuries-old tradition of "making the audience look stupid". He crept up behind one woman and nuzzled his paper face gently in her hair, in that special way that only morris dancing horses can get away with without being arrested. The woman was genuinely startled, but only briefly, and was soon smiling as broadly as her amused boyfriend.
The centre of Soho is, and indeed was, a maze of streets. These days the area is packed with restaurants, bars and offices, but in the mid 19th century this was a relatively poor residential neighbourhood. Sanitation in these tightly-packed homes was less than ideal, with no internal plumbing to speak of and undrained cesspits in the cellars. A perfect breeding ground for what was to become "the most terrible outbreak of cholera which ever occurred in this kingdom".
At John Snow's insistence the pump's handle was removed, and almost overnight the outbreak ended. Part of this was coincidental timing - many of the surviving residents had already fled from the area and were drinking healthier water elsewhere. But Snow was to be proven absolutely correct, and a leaky infected cesspit was later shown to be the indirect source of this waterborne infection. He wrote up his results in a compelling treatise, and from such beginnings a new branch of preventative medicine began.
And with that 2am declaration, the General Election result is sealed. Thank goodness that's over - there's nothing thrilling about a patently one-sided campaign. Sometimes a government's time runs out and the tide of change is unstoppable. The result's been a foregone conclusion for well over a year, the only points of interest being how thumping the final majority might be and which ministers might look the most distraught on losing their seat. I think those tears were genuine, don't you? So that's the political pendulum swung firmly back to the right for the first time this century, even if a mountain of debt means there's very little scope for political manoeuvre. But I think we can be certain that ID cards are dead, proportional representation remains out for the count, and fox-hunting will be back in the countryside by Christmas. More importantly, I've finally got rid of that egotistical blabbermouth waster as my MP. A blue dawn is rising. Can I go to sleep now?
diary geezer - Saturday 5th May 1984
Next stop Camden Town. I know, how incredibly predictable for a first teenage jaunt, but you only ever find out these places aren't for you by visiting them. I did at least show promise for the future by choosing to walk there - a two mile yomp through the less than beguiling arteries of Euston. I've learnt a lot since then, and when I tried the same journey yesterday I managed to follow a rather more interesting backstreet route. My 1984 self discovered little to excite in north London's alternative Mecca. I'd made the journey specifically to visit one particular shop, but on arrival couldn't quite bring myself to cross the threshold and so stood wistfully on the pavement outside. I missed my chance back then because that shop's long gone, replaced by some kinky tat merchant peddling boots and blackness to would-be goths and rebels. No sign either of anywhere selling yellow socks. I must have been ahead of my time.
The Isle of Dogs is no island, more an East End tongue hanging down within the Thames's snakiest meander. And while the E14 postcode may now may be best known for its shiny towers and financial dominance, that's only the very latest part of the story. The history of the peninsula stretches back to medieval times - first a marshy outpost, then the very heart of international trade, then a place of belching industry. But one constant presence has been the island's community - a group of people isolated by geography and bound together by circumstance. This museum celebrates their resilience.
While I sat looking through a box of street scenes, one former lady resident started hunting through a neighbouring pack of sporting photos. "That's your Uncle Frank," she told the intrigued youngster tagging along beside. "And that's my brother Albert, all dressed up for the football, he did love his football. He used to play in four different leagues - Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon - and he signed up under a different name each time because officially he wasn't allowed to play in more than one." With a grin of recognition on the boy's face, that was another family legend safely entrusted to the next generation.
