Wed 1: I don't know what happens when you walk out of a shop without paying, but if it's The Village Deli in Highgate and your card didn't go through then the nice lady behind the counter walks out into Pond Square and gets you to swipe again on her mobile terminal before you can bite into your baguette-based snack. (n.b. This didn't happen to me, I just watched) Thu 2: I made the rookie mistake of entering a tube carriage occupied by a school party heading to the Natural History Museum. All was well until a second school party boarded at the next station bound for the Science Museum. It could have been hell, but instead the children just looked politely at each other's worksheets (and in one case wished they were going to the other museum). I slipped out long before they got there. Fri 3: You hopefully didn't notice but this blog's entire underlying platform for dealing with your comments upgraded this morning - long overdue I'm told. A little bit of beta-testing with the fine folk at Tridentscan swiftly smoothed out any wrinkles and even the Apple apostrophe issue is sorted now, hurrah. Sat 4: ...but OMG what's happened to IP addresses? They used to all be simple four combinations of four numbers (e.g. 82.253.44.165) but now increasingly they're complex combinations of eight hexadecimals (e.g. 2a00:2c35:4028:c01:d1b1:d2ee:5a8a:3fec). I know this is IPv4 being replaced by IPv6 and it's all about safeguarding the future, but it's not exactly person-friendly.
Sun 5: While I was walking up New Road in Croxley I stopped to take a photo of the house I grew up in, instinctively, and because it's been massively tweaked over the last couple of years. A minute later the new owner arrived, walked up her new steps into her new porch and let herself in, and I was quite glad not to have to have an awkward conversation about what on earth I'd been doing. Mon 6: I considered going for a very long bus ride today, taking advantage of this winter's amazing £2 flat fare offer, until I realised I already had and when I wrote about it you weren't interested, so I didn't. Tue 7: I logged into itvX for the first time to watch Nolly, the Russell T Davies docudrama about Crossroads icon Noele Gordon. It was of course excellent (the drama, not the streaming service), although I enjoyed episode 1 more than episode 2 more than episode 3 which is probably the wrong way round. Wed 8: Aww, the pre-Worboys road sign on Brownlow Road in Bounds Green has disappeared... well, has been replaced by a proper modern easily-readable sign. Thu 9: It's always a pleasure to peruse the travel books along the upstairs gallery at Daunt Books in Marylebone. I was not however tempted by the title '111 Places in Coventry That You Shouldn't Miss'. Other places in the series include New York, Denver, Seattle, Singapore, Iceland, Turin, Liverpool, Bradford, Hadrians Wall, Essex, Poole and Greenwich.
Fri 10: At the end of my walk round Rotherhithe, while waiting for the bus to whisk me away, I spotted the local vicar heading for the Overground carrying a bottle of wine. He waved a friendly wave of recognition and I smiled back, and that's how you know you've been in a place too long. Sat 11: My Dad's operation went well and he's adjusting nicely, and you have already made so many incorrect assumptions about the first half of this sentence that I wouldn't even risk leaving a comment. Sun 12: The Twitter app on my phone pre-dates the Musk era, because I never update it unless I absolutely have to. Alas today he turned off the live feed in an attempt to force retrograde users to upgrade, so it's now permanently mid-morning on the 12th February. However he hasn't turned off lists, direct messages and the ability to tweet, so up yours Elon. Mon 13: Down by the Grand Union an unsupervised pug stared me off, then came charging towards me, and I yelled so loud that the owners eventually emerged from the towpath and wondered how their coochyickledoggie could ever have alarmed anyone that much. Tue 14: I posted my brother's birthday card yesterday afternoon and I'm pleased to say that first class mail still works, even overnight before Valentine's Day. Wed 15: The 385 may be London's friendliest bus route. The driver was so chirpy and chatty, not just with her regulars but also with me who she'd never seen before. When I dinged the bell to alight I was surprised when she pulled up 20 metres short, but it was all to ensure that one very special passenger could alight immediately outside her front door. "Nobody else gets that privilege," she said. Thu 16: Hi Joseph, sorry it took me so long to notice. That is quite someevaluation, although I'd disagree with four of your presumptions. BestMate nodded along throughout. Given where we met I'd say touché.
Fri 17: There's a Portuguese restaurant on the edge of Willesden called Dollis Grill, only a few steps from the obvious tube station, and I presume the location came before the name. Other London suburbs should follow suit. Sat 18: A 2007 spider map is still posted up outside Hounslow station and it may be the oldest bus map in London. I'd like to report that it remains correct but no, one of the routes was massively tweaked five years ago so by rights it really should have been replaced by now. The modern alternative, alas, is probably no map at all. Sun 19: My nephew has just got engaged. If you remember his first appearance on this blog, visiting the capital for the first time, the evolution from 'can we go to Hamleys?' to 'living with fiancée on the 18th floor' is quite unnerving. Huge congratulations both. And so it begins... Mon 20: My tweet about the closed shops on Hackney Walk has subsequently inspired a ten minute segment on BBC Radio London (which you can listen to here) and also a story on the BBC News website. They wanted to interview me but Nick was a much better choice. Tue 21: Today I met The Shrieking Woman of Sydenham. She walks up to you outside the shops, asks for money in a loud voice and if you refuse screams at you to f*** off. She does this repeatedly, despite her behaviour plainly encouraging nobody to contribute, and you can hear her vituperative shrieking as she progresses down the street. (I assume she's a fixture, but if not then I must've just got unlucky) Wed 22: You always know the battery in your smoke alarm is going to fade away, just not when. So I'd like to thank it for starting to beep at 7.05am and not one, two or even worse three hours earlier. Thu 23: Nobody commented on the fact that I published a carbohydrates wordsearch just before my review of Apprentice cafes, but if you check the top left corner of the grid hopefully you'll see why.
Fri 24: I remembered to walk down to Three Mills at spring tide to watch the waters of the river Lea flooding across the towpath. But I hadn't remembered stout footwear so decided it was best to walk back the way I came. Sat 25: Spring update: In the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park only the camellias have so far burst forth, indeed many of their pinky-white flowers have already fallen. Elsewhere across London this has been the week the cherry trees erupted, so it's a shame that temperatures have dropped and the sun's barely been out because no bees will be going anywhere near that blossom for the foreseeable. Sun 26: A year ago when I renewed my annual z1-3 Travelcard I added £20 Pay As You Go. I still haven't spent all of it. Mon 27: It was lovely to meet one of you at the opening of the new Bank station entrance, and I'm sorry if I got in the way in one of your photos. My photos have so far been seen by about 300 people on Flickr, 3000 people on the blog but 300,000 people on Twitter, so that was a useful morning's work.
Tue 28: I dropped in at Swiss Cottage library to see the exhibition Like Gods. Artist Ruth Beale has been down in the stacks interviewing her dad about his science fiction collection, some of which is on display, plus all the library's sci-fi books have been relocated to eight letter-shaped shelves. It's a fifteen minuter at most but intriguing, and with the added bonus if you've never been of poking round Swiss Cottage library, the interior of which somehow resembles a Sixties space liner.
