100 things I saw yesterday on a walk to the foot of the Isle of Dogs and back
A man sitting in a rocking chair while polishing his shoes, a vanful of police exiting McDonalds with their breakfast orders, an orange bus, the hottest model, a sign confirming that this business takes Mastercard and Access, an angler casting recklessly, a grimy white van with anus written in big letters across the windscreen, a millrace at low tide, some terribly patient back-and-forth dog-training, Tracey Emin's bronze birds, an iron chicken on a narrowboat, a shiny black suitcase on a narrowboat, a heron eyeing up prey on a stony riverbed, a muddy traffic cone, a strip of police tape sealing off the towpath because of a murder ahead...
Hang on, what?
It wasn't obvious it was a murder at the time, just a single police officer stopping people crossing the Bow Locks footbridge. Meanwhile several of his colleagues were busy in the distance, somewhere outside the new flats overlooking the river, backed up by a number of cars and vans. But murder it proved to be, as the Met website confirmed later in the day.
That's all I know at present because the Met aren't saying much and the BBC don't really do breaking localnews at the weekend, but it's never good to almost stumble upon a murder scene half a mile from home.
A strip of (differently-coloured) police tape at the other end of the towpath suspension, a boy riding a tortoise, a jogger with a Chinese character on his neck, an eleventy-one year-old former fire station, an orange portakabin which used to be a Post Office, the jogger with the Chinese character on his neck running back the other way, 20 storeys of scaffolding up the side of a listed building, a Paradigm academy, the remains of a strawberry milkshake abandoned on some railings, a discarded plimsoll, a chain of seven pedestrian crossings needed to cross one road, a cafe that's finally reopened after the pandemic but is empty, notice of a planning application to replace Tower Hamlets Town Hall with a data centre...
Hang on, what?
It's true, Tower Hamlets Town Hall is to be knocked down and replaced by an eight storey data centre. Admittedly it's not much of a town hall, more a drab 1990s office block. Admittedly all council employees are supposed to be moving out next year to a new Town Hall in the old Royal London Hospital building in Whitechapel. And admittedly the current building is already hemmed in by some of the most important data centres in the country so it makes perfect sense to build one more. But it's still a highly unusual reuse of a prime civic site when normally you'd expect it to end up as flats.
In fact Lighterman House nextdoor is indeed due to become flats, specifically one 30 storey tower (which'll contain 169 homes) and one 36 storey tower (which'll have 716 student bedrooms). Also a couple of canal-like water features are going to be filled in and reused as studios and an access road, plus they intend to knock a gap in a listed dock wall to provide better access. But blimey, town hall to data centre, that's quite something. You have until the end of this week to comment on the proposals.
A bench broadcasting jazz-funk muzak, a new organic supermarket at the cabinet-fitting stage, a pigeon drinking from a water feature, a chocolate-friendly cafe offering a Freddo Cappuccino, a man picking up yesterday's Metro to read on the train, the EAI pumpkin on the DLR pumpkin hunt, the corner of a building site sealed off for temporary use as community allotments, a Yodel van with a DG numberplate and one smashed/taped-up headlamp, a large metal control panel with 'scrap' written on it dumped on the pavement immediately opposite Tower Hamlets' Reuse and Recycling Centre, a friendly postie, multi-cat workboat “JACK D”, a builder pausing for weed and a Red Bull, a Waitrose bag for life filled with empty Czech lager bottles, eight pink roses in full bloom, a newbuild social rent flat with a list of its allocated white goods sellotaped to the front door, several bottles of screenwash, a humped pebbly tideline, a weary father carrying the bike his curly-haired moppet has already tired of riding, an orange plastic boat trailing a dinghy, a flight to Dublin, a dog carrying a wet tennis ball in its mouth, the mad lady's latest banner, a low-swooping cormorant, a reclining gnome, a group of pigeons which on closer inspection contains several doves, umpteen empty waste containers being tugged upstream to the City, the Fitzgerald's bench, a three-generation kickabout, an ill-advised mustard yellow woolly hat, the Cutty Sark, an electric hire bike abandoned near the entrance to the foot tunnel because you can't use it in Greenwich, a Poplar Borough Council manhole cover, the curator of the Brunel Museum...
Hang on, what?
I pride myself on recognising the curator of the Brunel Museum when I see him, even entirely out of context on the wrong side of the river. I was pretty sure he was giving a tour because he was clutching a book about the Great Eastern, a ship which was built by Brunel and launched from a slipway not far upriver, and because the group he was with were hanging on his every word. According to the museum's website they do guided daily boat tours from Embankment Pier to Masthouse Terrace to view the timbers, although according to the museum's website these tours are currently paused, but who knows?
A woman measuring her brassicas with a tape measure, a young couple attempting to stay together while one jogs and one cycles, a bunch of chrysanths inside half an Elmbridge Spring bottle, a river cruise enjoying upper deck commentary, three passengers waiting for the Typhoon Clipper, a Paul McCartney t-shirt, three exemplary cartons, a red sign flashing 'Massage', a poster saying Laslo the cat went missing in September, Perry's shrine, a poster advertising a consultation that finished months ago, Zaoul's bench, two children picking up stones from the foot of a lamppost and hurling them into the Thames, a scooter moving all by itself, a notice confirming that West India Pier is to be recommissioned, one of the Lime employees who rescues lost Lime bikes, two alfresco igloos awaiting lunchtime clientele, a gift shop masquerading as an art gallery, a blue police tent covering the site of a stabbing...
Hang on, what?
It seems there were two serious incidents in Tower Hamlets yesterday and my walk (entirely unintentionally) took me past both of them.
I've never walked down St Anne Street before but on this occasion I stumbled upon a blue MPS tent outside the entrance to some flats, a lot more 'Do Not Cross' tape sealing off the area and a police officer trying to gather information from residents of the block opposite. I generally find Tower Hamlets a very safe place to live, but yesterday's walk proved a double jolt.
A Domino's deliveryman attempting to get his hot pizzas through the police cordon, a woman throwing Waitrose wholemeal bread to the ducks, a windmill on a narrowboat, a man wearing two poppies, a Gorillas dark store, serious firework leftovers abandoned beside a wheelbarrow, a new pontoon, a festive coffee cup, the wrapper for a Sweet Chilli Crispy Wrap (no cucumbers), a big retro sign for Wall's ice cream, an ex-library, a cross-generational fistbump, two men eyeing up a moped, three different vans delivering simultaneously to the same block of flats, a Meat & Fish Bazar, two National Express coaches with consecutive route numbers, a woman wearing a poppy scarf arm in arm with a man sporting a woolly poppy, a Prius picking up two partygoers on a red route, one of my neighbours carrying a bunch of grapes and a bottle of milk.
