Tue 1: When these 'unblogged' posts come round I always say 'Questions will not be answered' and yet people still ask questions. Today you asked eight. The answer to one of them was 'yes' but the answer to six of them was 'no'. This suggests that people who don't get the hint about not asking questions aren't very good at asking questions. Wed 2: There are plans to replace a former warehouse on the Carpenters Estate with a low-spec 12-storey hotel, one street back from Stratford High Street. And because that street is called Park Lane they're bound to call it the Park Lane Hotel, and I hate to think how many foreign tourists will be tricked into staying somewhere very much not five star. Thu 3: I've spent a lot of my life being exposed to football, from hours spent sitting through The Big Match to reading acres of soccerchat, and yet never once did I realise you should never call Nottingham Forest Notts Forest else people get very cross. Sorry Notts Forest fans. Fri 4: "That's hilarious, you should definitely write about this in your next unblogged round-up", he said, so I am. Sat 5: Amid the BBC's short-sighted cuts to local radio, I'm delighted that Radio Solent's Stereo Underground will continue (even if it is demoted from Saturday evening to Wednesday night and on just one station rather than several). Elsewhere the bland amalgamatory cull starts in early September. Sun 6: At the entrance to Joydens Wood I held back to allow a man with two dogs to pass through the gate in front of me. One of his dogs promptly curled out a turd onto the path so he patiently bagged it up, walked back through the gate and deposited it in the bin. But while his back was turned his other dog curled out a turd onto the path, which went entirely unnoticed on his return, and it turns out even being a conscientious owner isn't enough. Mon 7: BT Hubs, those thin wi-fi sentinels that block our pavements, repeatedly display the 'Latest News' from LBC on their screens. But it's always yesterday's news, never ever today's, and I now associate LBC with being desperately behind the times.
Tue 8: Something unusual happened at Bow Church DLR station today - the card reader by the Rainhill Way exit beeped. It wasn't a normal beep, it was more a loud weird strangulated buzz, and unusual because normally the pad is completely silent. This is annoying because the only way to tell you've touched in or out is by looking at the little light or trying to read the faint text on the display, and if you weren't expecting silence it then becomes impossible to tell if you're about to be charged a maximum fare or at risk of being accused of fare dodging on the train. The pad hasn't beeped since. If anyone from TFL's reader-fixing department is reading please come and fix our reader, it's been frustratingly mute for years. Wed 9: The Old Ship Inn in Aveley is holding a Greek Toga Party on Saturday night and advertising it with the slogan "Where What Goes On Usually Comes Off", and I'm surprised behaviour like that is permitted in Thurrock. Thu 10: I woke up to discover that Blogger had deleted today's blogpost at moment of publication, apparently because it "violated our regulated goods and services policy". I think they took offence to me linking to individual items in Sotheby's Freddie Mercury sale catalogue. That was several hours work completely destroyed, which you would never have read had I not found a sneaky way to reopen a preview tab and cut and paste the vanished text. Thankfully they left the unlinked version alone but eek, it's so easy to lose everything. Fri 11: I think one of my neighbours has moved out, mainly because they used to get umpteen packages delivered every week and recently there have been none. Sat 12: The driver of the number 51 bus in East Sussex charged me double because he assumed I was travelling with the woman lugging a pushchair aboard behind me, and because I assumed that was the normal fare. Much respect to him - he stopped me as I alighted and gave me a refund.
Sun 13: Battersea Power Station has opened a large food court upstairs called Arcade where you can grab a table and order from a dozen street-food-type vendors, but the only way to order is via a QR code. Very 'bugger off Grandad'. Also a few less staff employed and all the ordering burden put on you, the customer, instead. Mon 14: Why are the puzzles in the Metro newspaper so feeble? The Evening Standard does a full varied page for the commute home but Metro only manages two crosswords and three sudoku, like they're just willing you to throw your copy away. Tue 15: If you ever feel the need to leave a comment saying "thanks for doing this so we don't have to", please stop and remember you never had to in the first place. Wed 16:I Claudius was excellent, wasn't it? I'm enjoying it all over again courtesy of late-night BBC repeats. It's the first time it's been on since 2013 (before that 2006, and before that 1986). Thu 17: One of the sad things about getting older is that you still see gorgeous strangers every day, but you yourself crossed the "might be considered a gorgeous stranger" threshold some time ago. Today - wistful sighs on the Waterloo and City line. Fri 18: If you enjoyed my first compilation of weekly bus news, sorry, I should come clean and confirm I had no intention of there ever being a second. Local media hardly ever reports on bus news, especially now Callum's left MyLondon, and there's little enough wider interest. Weekly rail news is where it's at. Sat 19: Everyone's going to remember this as the August it chucked down with rain every Saturday, but actually this was the one Saturday it didn't.
Sun 20: Five things I saw in the heart of Old Harlow: a proper old thatched cottage, a throwback fingerpost (Cambridge 33, Hatfield Heath 4), a white van with a macho gold logo for Marky's Plastering (est 2021), a cute garage-sized fire station (still operational), an ex-cafe called the Cross Key's (with an apostrophe like that no wonder it closed). Mon 21: At the top end of Whalebone Lane North is a huge field of yellow sunflowers, resplendently Insta-friendly with the bonus of City skyscrapers in the background. I spotted at least three families trespassing very slightly off the pavement to get grinning selfies. Tue 22: Someone in West Hendon feels so strongly about the closure of their local bus stops that they printed this plaintive message across three sticky labels. We salute your indefatigability.
Wed 23: I only follow 90 people on Twitter, most of whom I've never met in real life. Today one of that unseen majority unexpectedly walked past on his way to work with a blue rucksack on his back, and I wondered about saying hello but he was already halfway across the road by then, but hello anyway. Thu 24: The main feeling I got from going to see the giraffes in Croydon wasn't "ooh, what a thriving creative metropolis" but "what a lot of derelict shops and godforsaken building sites, it's like half the town centre is missing." Fri 25: The naming of Overground lines is back in the news today, reported by the BBC just eight weeks after they last reported it, and again only because someone spotted a poster in a ticket hall. Well done Noah. Expect a third burst of the same story when TfL finally decide to put out a press release about it. Sat 26: I thought the sky outside looked a funny orange colour last night but I put it down to stormy weather and the approach of sunset. Only after the fire brigade had left did I discover that the flats on top of the old Poplar Town Hall had been ablaze, just three minutes up the road, despite the conflagration being clearly visible across half of London. When I went down this morning I was expecting obvious destruction but no, just one set of burned out windows visible on the top floor (and quite possibly a heck of a lot of water damage below).
Sun 27: I've worked out the theme in the big bank holiday prize crossword but I've only managed to fill in the bottom half of the grid, not the top half. Testy. Mon 28: I loved walking round Brighton at 9am on a bank holiday before the crowds arrived. Only the locals were enjoying breakfast and a coffee. The jewellers in The Lanes were rolling up their shutters and laying out their trays of rings and watches. The beach was clear apart from a few brave swimmers. The crew at the i360 were standing on top of the shiny doughnut, possibly giving the top of the pole a good grease. Tue 29: Today, around lunchtime, this blog received its 12 millionth visitor. And just one year and ten days since the 11 millionth visitor. Thanks a million. Wed 30: Number of days this summer when the temperature exceeded 27°C: June 11 times, July once, August once. That's poor. Thu 31: Someone needs to tell themedia that a "supermoon" isn't that special, it happens three or four times every year because the definition's quite lax, and a "blue moon" looks exactly the same as a non-blue one. People never used to feel the need to rush out and gawp at a marginally larger full moon, and the blue thing is merely a calendar peculiarity, nothing astronomical, so please save your awe for an eclipse or something genuinely noteworthy. Fri 1: If my aunties are reading, see you tomorrow.
