Seven things I saw/received/thought/encountered over the last couple of days...
1) Down at Chrisp Street in Poplar the hit squad are busy. They've already demolished several buildings along Cordelia Street and on Tuesday morning I watched them knocking down another on Market Way. Yellow claws grabbed 1950s masonry and tugged, while a man with a big hose fired a jet of water from the first floor of a condemned block of flats, and down came a former resident's wall in irregular chunks. Everything except "the Festival of Britain buildings, Clock Tower and Idea Store" is due to be replaced by 2027. Meanwhile the big Co-Op closed last month and this week they sealed off its service road pending redevelopment. A replacement supermarket is promised for 'late 2024', and in the meantime residents will have to cope with the current Iceland and a new Spar.
2) BT have triggered the email confirming the imminent death of my landline. "We're moving you on to our Digital Voice service," they confirmed, before adding "It should start within 48 hours of 22 Feb 2022." As timings go, I find that unhelpfully vague. Most of their email waffles on about broadband speeds but eventually they mention the important thing which is that I'll need to plug my phone into a Smart Hub, not the wall. As for making phone calls during a power cut the advice is now that "you should always keep a fully charged mobile phone handy for emergencies", which is absurdly unrealistic. I have no intention of buying a spare mobile and leaving it plugged in just so that it's 'always fully charged'... although one day I may regret saying that.
3) What's London's lowest house number? It may well be this block of flats in Lyttelton Road, Leyton... Minus One House. Sadly it doesn't have a '-1' by the door which would be a clincher, but Minus One House is indeed the official address for the nine flats in the block. I think the anomaly happened because this was originally the back of 301 Leyton High Road, so when a new front door appeared nextdoor to 1 Lyttleton Road the weird numbering made some kind of sense. Elsewhere in London there's a Minus One on Kingsway in Orpington, but that's a cheat because nextdoor is number 3. There's also a Minus One on Cross Road in Romford, but that's a cheat too because the next house along is number 5. I strongly believe -1 Lyttelton Road is London's lowest (although the UK's most negative is Minus Two on Woodside in Cam near Stroud).
4) My local Tesco always sells its bunches of daffodils for £1. The first two bunches I bought this year had eight flowers each, which I thought was a bit stingy. This week's bunch has 17. I suspect it's a supply and demand thing because daffodils are more plentiful in February than in January. But the price of a single daffodil has dropped from 12½p to 6p while technically the price of a bunch has remained the same.
5) Crossrail may not yet have sprung forth but there's been an Elizabeth line van driving round my neck of the woods for the last couple of years. Here it is popping into the McDonalds drive-through by the Bow Roundabout... a juxtaposition which got me wondering who the new line's sponsors might be. Back in 2018 the plan was that Crossrail would launch with six 'exclusive brand partners' splashed across every aspect of the line. They'd feature in all the digital adverts across all the stations, promote themselves via collateral tie-ins and have their logos splashed across the tube map. But that was back when Crossrail was undamaged goods and TfL might've expected a multi-million pound windfall. I'm not sure if they're still planning a major brand blitz, and how sick we might get of the same six sponsors plastered everywhere, but steel yourself for marketing overload just in case.
6) Sky have sent me a mailshot urging me to buy one of their new all-in-one streaming TVs, aka Sky Glass, from only £39 a month. There's no need for a dish because everything comes via broadband, and no need for a separate box or soundbar because everything's built into the screen. I have no intention of buying one but I enjoyed reading the smallprint. The £39 a month consists of a £13 loan payment and a £26 Sky Ultimate TV subscription - that's the smallest sized screen with the most basic package. A 65 inch screen costs £8 a month more. It's obligatory to take Netflix but Sky Cinema is £11 extra and Sky Sports another £20. An additional feature is "Fast forward ads", which you get free for 12 months but would then be charged £5 a month for. That's £60 a year just to be able to skip the adverts on a service you're already forking out over £300 a year for! I did wonder if Sky Glass was a closed box system that only lets you watch Sky services but no, and I see it still has to show BBC/ITV/C4/C5 at the top of the TV Guide. I shall stick with my existing telly and paying one TV licence, not the equivalent of four.
7) Last year the London Blossom Garden opened in the Olympic Park as a place to remember all those in the capital who've died of Covid. Sadly it opened a month too late for any of the 33 trees to be in blossom which may be why it's never taken off as a place of commemoration. But this week two of the trees have burst forth with white flowers (and another is about to join them) so it looks like the intended spectacle is just kicking off. This trio won't still be in bloom in five weeks' time on the second anniversary of lockdown, which I suspect is when the garden will return to the news, but let's hope most of the other trees manage to put on a dazzling display at the right moment. A lot is riding on spring 2022, reputationally speaking.
