Mon 1: "Oooh," I thought, "I bet that's the last London park in alphabetical order, I wonder what the first is." So if you see a post one day called The A-Z of London Parks, that's where the idea came from. Tue 2: Unblogged follow-up to my Free Parking post: I went back out to try to find the street closest to Trafalgar Square with free parking, which I believe is Stevenson Crescent in Bermondsey. It's a dense postwar cul-de-sac with private off-road parking but no on-street restrictions (which kick in as soon as you cross St James's Road). You might know it because Cycleway 10 passes through. It's just over a mile from Tower Bridge, should you ever be tempted.
Wed 3: Things you randomly stumble upon when taking a different-to-usual backroad in Ealing - a green plaque saying Kirsty MacColl "lived and recorded here 1985-2000". The plaque was unveiled by the Ealing Civic Society last November. Others similarly honoured locally include Dusty Springfield, Spencer Perceval, Michael Flanders, Waitrose and Winnie the Pooh. Thu 4: Polling stations I passed today - Bow Baptist Church, Hendon Leisure Centre, Chabad of Hampstead Garden Suburb. Only one of these served coffee. All delivered a Labour MP. Fri 5: When to sleep is a tough decision on election results morning. I plumped for 12.30-3am (so was awake to watch the despatch of Shapps, Mordaunt and Truss) and again from 1-3pm (except one of you rang my landline halfway through, grrr). Sat 6: Mark Goodier has taken over Pick of the Pops on Radio 2 and he's perfectly good at it, except his 'innovation' is getting people to message in and say why each particular year is special to them, and ffs every year is special to everyone, nobody cares about Maria from Redditch taking her A Levels or Gerry from Cleveleys buying a camper van. Sun 7: I made a map to show which party came second in London's Labour constituencies, which thus far only people on Twitter have seen, and what's striking is how the Greens are now the main challenger across inner NE/SE London.
Mon 8: I rode what's currently TfL's longest bus journey between stops, which is the 5 miles from Teddington to Hatton Cross, but may not be if an as-yet-unpublished consultation results in the SL7 also stopping at Feltham. (Men Who Hate Buses please note, I nearly wrote a whole post about this but thought of you and cut it down to 36 words here) Tue 9: Went for a walk along the lip of the largest of the Walthamstow Wetlands reservoirs, dodging the goose poo, and it's amazing how lowrise the Tottenham area is, barring the stadium squatting on the horizon like an alien spaceship. Wed 10: I've been keeping an eye on the new exit from Stratford station for several months, passing by every few days in case it had finally opened, and all that paid off when I accidentally turned up this lunchtime within minutes of the barriers being rolled back with a minimum of fanfare. I may never need to use it again. Thu 11: The magpie who likes drinking the water in the rim of a bowl on my balcony is now a family of magpies who like drinking the water in the rim of a bowl on my balcony. Fri 12: The new electric buses on route 276 are having terrible trouble with their digital front blinds where the display frequently judders, flickers, part-shifts or even disappears. You'll see buses heading to Newham Hosp or Stoke New, perhaps the number 276 half-vanishing off the top, sometimes bugger all. Affected vehicles now have a laminated sign in the front window and/or '276' blutacked to the windscreen in case of information blackout. In the old days they'd simply have replaced the blind but taking a glitchy bus out of service is much harder, so the embarrassment may continue for months yet.
Sat 13: One day they will write about that endlessly-repeated near-ear assassination attempt on Donald Trump in a book called Days That Shaped The 21st Century, and I fear not in a positive way. Sun 14: On the Thames Path in Battersea I watched a heron swoop down over the promenade and then release what looked like a display of pretty white streamers. It had instead emptied its bowels from a great height, as I swiftly realised, and several people ahead of me had a very lucky escape. Mon 15: Things my Dad doesn't normally buy from Morrisons in Diss: smoked cheese, Tunnocks teacakes, Walkers salt and vinegar crisps, jammy doughnuts. Tue 16: I'm a "main meal in the evening" person so when I stay with my Dad it's a bit of a culture shock to shift to "main meal at lunchtime". I'm not saying it's wrong, it just takes some adjusting to. Today I watched a demonstration of how to cook sausage and chips in an air fryer because my Dad is more innovative in the kitchen than I am. Wed 17: My brother recently took the opportunity to retire which is nice because I can now go round and stay midweek, and sit in the gazebo, and head out to a garden centre for a nice panini, and discuss wedding preparations, and watch quite a lot of golf.
Thu 18: If you're ever in Hunstanton in need of an ice cream, the Norfolk Apple Crumble from Ronaldo's by the bowling green is very nice, but step away from the town centre to the kiosk at Vegas Amusements on South Beach Road and the Lemon Crunch is 50p cheaper. Fri 19: I've spent the week in Norfolk having lengthy conversations with other human beings, in some cases quite deep, which isn't something I'm used to doing these days, certainly not in person, sometimes no more than a couple of hours a week, often not even that. It's fine but blimey, what a contrast. Sat 20: In response to the gentleman in Chiswick who asked me to blog about the disappearance of two late night journeys from Stratford on route 388, I think they've already sorted it. Sun 21: In good floral news the gladiolus on my balcony has bloomed on two stems this year (last year zero) without doing the usual thing of bowing under the weight and breaking off. In less good floral news only five gorgeous red blooms unfurled, whereas in most years each stem gifts seven. Mon 22:The Line, the 9-year-old near-meridian art project in the Lower Lea Valley, has added something new between Star Lane station and Cody Dock. It's called 'a cloud + a fence', a community collaboration it's claimed "animates the journey", although I walked it and it looked like a few small blue shapes attached to lampposts.
Tue 23:Katie at Secret London wrote an article called This Gothic Castle Hidden Away In A South East London Woodland Boasts Jaw-Dropping Panoramic Views Of London and used my photo of Severndroog, without asking, to illustrate the view from the top. I asked Secret London to remove it, which they swiftly and politely did, although I still don't think they've twigged that a Flickr photo with a Non-Commercial licence shouldn't be used on their platform. Also the view's changed a lot since 2014, but cutting edge on-the-spot journalism is not Secret London's forte. Wed 24: Tower Hamlets council are wheeling out 105 new compactor bins, two of which are outside Bow Road station, although rather than pull them open local drinkers are already content to stack their empties on the top. Thu 25: In shocking news for local walkers and cyclists, the Greenway near West Ham station will be closing on 19th August for 18 months! It's part of a £36m project to reline the key Victorian sewer where it passes across the railway at Manor Road, details of which are described by civil engineering company Barhale here. They have to keep the sewage flowing and the railway running so it's the permissive path on top that takes the brunt. A diversion via Abbey Road station is likely, which'll add almost half a mile to every journey. Newham Cyclists report there'll be a "drop-in session at Canning Road Bridge on 7th and 8th August 10am-6pm where you can raise your concerns".
Fri 26: Well I enjoyed Paris's in-Seine Olympic opening ceremony, a most creative and cultural way to break up the usual tedium of the athlete's parade, even if it was miserably cursed by the rain gods throughout. Sat 27: Rail-related programmes I have enjoyed on BBC Sounds this month: series 2 of Punt and Dennis's on-board sitcom The Train at Platform 4, series 3 of Alexei Sayle's conversational Strangers on a Train, and the Food Programme's lengthy investigation into station catering. Sun 28: In shocking news Stratford Picturehouse has just closed, one of three Picturehouses in the capital to go dark this week after the company entered administration. I loved it, both for its full-on urban architecture and its cheap prices, but also more recently its nigh-empty seats and there lies the rub. We don't know what the future of the building will be, but 1997-2024 would be too brief a life for such a futuristictreasure. Mon 29: In my quest to spot all the numberplate letter pairs I've seen another two this month bringing my total to 515 out of 519. Last week I saw VJ in Walthamstow (and then again three days later in Hayes), and today I finally saw NR on a BMW in Beckton. FYI the pairs I've yet to see are UE/UT/UV and VH. Tue 30: Walking under trees in Highbury I felt a knock on the arm which I assumed was a premature tumbling autumn nut. Half an hour later I discovered a bird had scored a direct hit on my forearm, eeksheesh, although thankfully it was the warmest day of the year so I was in short sleeves and able to remove the huge dollop in a single wipe. Wed 31: This evening this blog is expected to receive its 13 millionth visitor. And just eleven months since the 12 millionth visitor, which'll be the fastest million yet, which is lovely. Thanks a million.
