Thu 1: While I was in Trafalgar Square today I stood in the shadow of Nelson's Column and took a photo of it stretching towards the National Gallery. It's much better than the photo I used last week in my post about the shadow of Nelson's Column so I've replaced it, not that I expect many people will ever notice. Fri 2: This year's National Trust handbook has arrived, and I see half of the 12 properties in London now expect you to book in advance rather than just turn up. If heading to Bexleyheath, Chelsea, Hampstead, Rainham or Wandsworth Road beware. Sat 3: On this month's list of BBC Sounds programmes I enjoyed and you might too, the 'Archive on 4' documentaries about i) the evolution of Glasgow - Motorway City ii) the life and times of Barry Humphries. Sun 4: "Don't worry," Dad said, "you can't prune a rose bush too severely." I fear I’ve just pruned my rosebush too severely, but we'll see.
Mon 5: Local Bow Road news: After a year of frankly makeshift notices stuck beside the door of Bromley Public Hall, Bow Coroner's Court now has a proper sign with a suitably reverential black background. Tue 6: Something small and flaky just slipped through the 'D' key on my laptop's keyboard, and I'm now having occasional trouble with keys in the bottom left hand corner not working. Letterswise that's Z, X, C and V, so it ould be worse, but ery annoyingly it's also making ut and paste a bit intermittent. Wed 7: I finally went back to the cinema for the first time since February 2020, which may be my longest ever gap. At least one of the pre-roll adverts was the same. Thu 8: Subsequent to revisiting my 2004 map of 'counties visited', I've now discovered an online map that lets you tick off all the UK postcode areas you've ever been to. My sole omissions within England and Wales are BB, HD and SR, i.e. Blackburn, Huddersfield and Sunderland, so I now have another list of geographic targets to aspire to.
Fri 9: Supermarket update I see the number of packets of Mini Cheddars in a big bag has just been reduced from 14 to 12. Same price, but that's effectively a 17% price rise overnight. Bloody shrinkflation. Sat 10: The Z, X, C and V keys on my laptop are still misbehaving, in that they tend not to work initially but then ease back into life like they've warmed up and then there's no problem, mostly. It's not a good sign, but my laptop is almost 9 years old so I'm impressed it's got this far before starting to play up. Sun 11: I ignored the invitation in my inbox to an 80th birthday bash in June because I didn't recognise the name, nor the address, nor the email. Turns out it's from the couple at whose wedding I was a page boy, but I was only 4 at the time which I think is a reasonable excuse for not remembering them. Mon 12: Between today'spost on spotting numberplate letter pairs and the end of the month I've seen another six, bringing my total to 495 out of 519. I finally saw MG on an MG in Barking on Wednesday so that's all the M's done. FYI the pairs I've yet to see are GT, NR, OF, PV, RC/RG/RL/RM/RP, UE/UH/UT/UV/UX, VB/VH/VJ/VL/VR/VS/VY and XG/XW/XY.
Tue 13: While I was in Rugby I walked part of the Great Central Railway, now the Ashlawn CuttingNature Reserve. It passes through the town in a deep wooded cutting, ideal for cycling, dogwalking and observing a long notch full of wildlife. On my way down I passed an information board, from which I learned lots, but on my way out three council operatives were midway sawing through the board's legs and carting it away on the back of a truck. They had proper uniforms so I don't think they were metal thieves, but it saddens me I was the last person ever to read it. Wed 14: The password which unlocks my laptop includes the letter 'v', always has, and today I had the forethought to realise this wasn't a good idea in these current keypressing circumstances. So today I changed it lest I be logged out of my machine forever, because I realised this could easily happen, and as it turns out just in time... Thu 15: Over breakfast the Z, X, C and V keys stopped working and never came back to life. I am now working on a laptop with only 22 funtioning letters of the alphabet. Fuk. I still managed to write 1900 words about the new Oerground line names for tomorrow's post but it wasn't easy, especially with ut and paste inaessible too. Fri 16: If you'd sent me a note rather than knocking on my door I'd have replied sooner, sorry.
Sat 17: This morning I found myself walking through dense crowds around Arsenal's stadium, which at first seemed odd because I knew the men's team were playing away at Burnley, but then I realised this was the women's team playing Manchester United at home. All the usual matchday shenanigans were present - burger vans, souvenir scarf-floggers, hordes surging up staircases - but also a lot more female supporters and young fans. Apparently it's the first time the stadium's sold out for a women's fixture... and how far the game has travelled in such a short time. Sun 18: Somewhere new I walked through but never blogged about: the East Acton Golf Links estate. I bet there's some history there - ah yes it's a former golf course - and look they named one of the roads Long Drive, ha! Mon 19: Today I spotted comedian and raconteur Clive Anderson on the platform at Drayton Park. Celeb-wise I'm trying to work out if that trumps sharing a lift with TanyaReynolds, the actor who plays Lily in Sex Education, at Belsize Park station on Saturday. Tue 20: If you liked the circular tube map which was plastered up around the Circle line recently for sponsorship reasons, the good news is that an FoI request has unearthed a detailed pdf copy... and best of all it's entirely unbranded.
Wed 21: 'Electric Boulevard', the swooshy walkway leading from Battersea Park Road to the lower floor of Battersea Power Station, is now fully open. It doesn't lead to the tube station (yet) so you won't be using it when you arrive, but I bet loads of shoppers funnel themselves down it suboptimally on the way out. Thu 22: Oooh, the Z, X, C and V keys suddenly came back to life this evening, I was so happy. But only for an hour and then they stopped working again and they haen't worked sine. The last 'c' my laptop ever typed is somewhere in the text of my post about the Brue Groe waiting room. Fri 23: One of this month's more unsung bus route changes is that the 189 now goes to Brent Cross West station by double-running down a new road where nobody yet lives. So far it mostly annoys passengers who'd rather not waste 4 minutes twiddling. I dinged the bell to alight at the station but the driver sailed straight past, so I dinged again on the second pass. This time she slowed down, looked back down the bus and called out "Are you sure?", somewhat incredulously, before finally opening the doors. I guess there aren't many takers yet.
Sat 24: Other things that Mason and KJ discussed on the top deck of the SL3 included Quality Line nostalgia, where Colin and Jeff had got to, the fact that Abellio are everywhere, bus garages in Enfield and a game of 'look at this photo, name that station' - 'ooh, Sundridge Park'. Sun 25: The new exhibition at the National Archives in Kew, Great Escapes, is an excellent assemblage of personal histories and documentation charting great bravery and resistance during WW2, and a timely reminder that there were innocent PoWs on both sides of the conflict. Mon 26: If you haven’t seen them yet, the newly-launched TFL archive pages on Google Arts & Culture are absolutely excellent. The collection includes over 2000 images and documents in umpteen themed portfolios, for example the Hammersmith & City line, women in the workforce, celebratory maps, and the Dangleway. Apparently they took three years to put together and it shows, the quality is flawless. That said the presentation is a little bit coffee-table, more something to swish around on a tablet than for the serious extraction of information, but how lovely to have a heritage resource as good as this. Tue 27: Blimey, it's like all the magnolia trees across London have decided it's spring and unfurled their pink cups, without realising it's still February and no insects will be flying in any time soon.
Wed 28: I'e now been koping with a 90%-funktional keyboard for a fortnight, during whih time I have somehow turned out 20000 korretly-spelled words for the blog. It's inwolwed a lot of right-klikking and kunning use of spellkhekkers, and wasted a lot of my time, but it kan be done. Yes I know I should piggybakk another keyboard onto my laptop - that'd make things easier - and yes I am now looking seriously into buying a replasement. But oh god there's so muh khoise, things hawe totally mooed on sinse 2015, so I want to get this right before I deside. You may hae thoughts so here's a speqial komments boks ekklusiqely for my laptop/keyboard situation.comments Thu 29: I'm reading a library book where the premise is that all the action happens on 29th February, the two protagonists' birthdays, every four years from 2004 to 2024. It's sort of clever but ultimately, unsurprisingly, too contrived to take seriously. To maximise appropriateness I saved the last chapters to read today on the day they were supposed to happen. A saccharine letdown, alas.
Finally, let's see how my annual counts are going...
• Number of London boroughs visited: all 33 (at least three times each)
• Number of London bus routes ridden: all 545 (100%, including the two new ones)
• Number of Z1-3 stations used: all 350-odd (100%)
• Number of Z4-6 stations used: 0
