Abbreviated version: Hurrah, my broadband finally started working again yesterday afternoon. I had eleven days without.
What happened: A couple of Saturdays ago a fibre optic cable somewhere in Mile End failed. Before dawn on Monday Openreach sent an engineer round who confirmed someone needed to come back in daylight. On Tuesday someone came back in daylight, opened up a manhole and found flooding down there. Faffing around in the water proved ineffective so Openreach realised they'd need to source hydraulic pumps. Several attempts were pencilled in but the issue was not solved, hence the protracted delay.
How I found this out: On Tuesday I finally managed to speak to a human on a BT helpline. I think they could hear the surprise in my voice. They did some digging into my broadbandlessness and confirmed it was infrastructural damage so an Openreach issue, not a BT problem. They didn't know when pumps might tame the flooding allowing the cable to be repaired, but it was reassuring to know this was a real problem and they were trying to solve it. I will eventually receive some daily compensation.
How it ended: Yesterday I spotted an Openreach engineer fiddling with a cabinet beside an open manhole at the end of Fairfield Road. This looks hopeful, I thought, but when I got home I still had no broadband. I checked online and they were hoping for a fix by 10am this morning. But a few minutes later the red ring on my BT Hub turned blue and I had broadband again. Oh the relief of being able to do everything online again.
How Joni Mitchell summed it up: Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
Flickr update
I told you yesterday about my Flickr albums that have had the most views over the last 20 years. Here are the ten albums that have had the fewest views. I have updated this list several times over the last 24 hours.
1)Cheltenham & Gloucester (25 photos, 150 views): The lovely spa and cathedral towns, not the building society. 2)Slough (30 photos, 162 views): I should have guessed my Slough collection (Mars, Herschel, Thunderbirds) would underperform. 3)Wensum bridges (12 photos, 163 views): Bridges in Norwich proved a bit niche last year. 4)Welwyn Hatfield (26 photos, 166 views): Perhaps it's new towns that don't generally attract attention. 5)Redditch (20 photos, 172 views): Nobody gave a damn about this West Midlands new town last year. 6)Prime Meridian (40 photos, 194 views): From the Thames to the Humber (skipping from Stratford to Cleethorpes). 6)Ironbridge (30 photos, 194 views): What's wrong with you? Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale are fabulous. 6)Folkestone Triennial 2017 (32 photos, 194 views): The fourth annual crosstown art show (returning in 2025). 6)Poole (40 photos, 194 views): Perhaps if I'd mentioned Brownsea Island it'd've performed better. 10)Paris 2018 (30 photos, 195 views): Including La Petite Ceinture and Maison La Roche. 10)Foro/Palatino (30 photos, 195 views): Classical architectural remnants in the heart of Rome. 10)Open House 2014 (64 photos, 195 views): That was the year I went up Tower 42 and the Balfron Tower.
These are the other albums that appeared in the Bottom 10 yesterday but were subsequently clicked out.
13)King's Lynn (40 photos, 196 views): Once a year the Mayor takes to the dodgems in the market square. 15)Midland Metro (30 photos, 197 views): Multiple cultural locations along Birmingham's tram route. 17)Fernsehturm (20 photos, 198 views): The 360° panorama from Berlin's highest restaurant. 18)Dartford (25 photos, 202 views): Yeah I get that. 19)Dover to Deal (25 photos, 204 views): Uploaded yesterday, four days after I wrote about my clifftop walk. Please have a look :)
I've also gone back and added photos and links to my Dover to Deal post, so feel free to go back and read that as it was intended.
Bow Roundabout update
I thought the new contraflow lane under the flyover might finally open when the Silvertown Tunnel did, but it didn't. An update to TfL's Silvertown Tunnel webpage explains why.
All physical mitigation works are now complete. The link under the flyover at Bow will remain closed until we complete more works to protect the structure later in 2025.
I suspect they've realised it'll take more than a small low headroom sign to protect the underside of the flyover from potential damage so will be adding more signs or some other kind of protection. A lorry hitting the concrete structure could be incredibly disruptive.
I will thus be proceeding shortly with my in-depth analysis of the reconfigured Bow Roundabout because it turns out I could have done this four weeks ago. I'll then return to consider the impact of the contraflow whenever they finally get round to opening it. If this bores you, don't feel the need to tell us again.
Superloop update
These are the ten Superloop routes ordered by frequency, most frequent first.
Every 8 minutes: SL4 (Canary Wharf → Grove Park) Every 10 minutes: SL8 (Shepherds Bush → Uxbridge) Every 12 minutes: SL1, SL2, SL3, SL5, SL9, SL10 Every 15 minutes: SL6, SL7
The new SL4 is the most frequent of all, which is an excellent way to burn money.
London Loop update
Last week I walked section 22 with BestMate. This week we walked section 18, i.e. Chingford to Enfield Lock. This is another section that can be ridiculously muddy even in normal weather, indeed at the end of February the Inner London Ramblers warned of "slippery mud" and "extensive flooding" and strongly recommended the wearing of "good boots". I can confirm that after six weeks with no rain it was merely a very pleasant ramble and unusually solid underfoot. Here, in addition to the absence of mud, are the ten things which most surprised us along the way.
1) A seafood takeaway on a boat at Enfield Lock selling tiger prawns, calamari and octopus. 2) Wondering why all the ducks along the Lea were in groups of three, in each case two males pursuing one female. 3) A songbird in a tree on Sewardstone Marsh belting out a ridiculously wide range of chirpy songs, as if working through the preset tunes on an old Casio keyboard. 4) An Islamic cemetery that definitely wasn't on the hillside last time I walked this. 5) A girl dangling her feet in a freshly dug grave and laughing while on the phone to a friend. 6) Noticing that all the graves were pointing in a southwesterly direction that definitely wasn't southeast towards Mecca (then using Google to confirm that Muslim graves are always aligned at right angles). 7) Wildlife including a woodpecker, four deer and a particularly graceful heron. 8) The Leopard Gates outside the Scouts National HQ at Gilwell Park, where one of the leopards got damaged so the 97 year-old sculptor came out of retirement to carve a new one. 9) The absolutely excellent view across London from the top of Yates Meadow, which the official Loop route inexplicably bypasses. 10) Walking round a corner and suddenly passing two young men coming the other way, one wearing a straightjacket and looking immensely embarrassed at being spotted in what they'd hoped was the middle of nowhere.
60+ card update
I can confirm that a 60+ card gets you half price on Thames Clippers. You don't tap in on the pier, you pay for a half price ticket at the bar. This reduces the fare to something rather less extortionate.
