Mon 1: While researching the number of ticket offices at every London rail terminus I managed to take photos at 15 different stations without anyone ever expressing suspicion at what I was doing, so hurrah for See It, Tolerate It, Disregard It. Tue 2: In a quiet carriage on the Victoria line, eight police officers suddenly boarded at Seven Sisters to deal with an incalcitrant masked passenger, seemingly off her head on something. She hid up the far end, then tried to escape into the next carriage, and was eventually coerced onto the platform allowing the rest of us to continue on our way.
Wed 3: After the torrential rainstorm this morning the pavement outside Bow Road station was absolutely littered with conkers, so today may well be the peak day for nutfall this season. Thu 4: My iPhone has suddenly developed the very annoying glitch of its brightness setting fading to dark in a few seconds, even when I'm not using it. This makes it very difficult to type in the right passcode to reawaken it, which risks locking me out because I can't see what I'm doing, and I fear I'll end up carrying a brick round in my pocket. [A reboot solved the problem, which hasn't returned, although I only risked doing it while my phone was plugged in on charge] Fri 5: I've been all over London recently so I know St George's flags draped from street furniture are a relatively rare and localised phenomenon, but sheesh South Ockendon is dripping with the things from almost every lamppost along a mile of main road. Sat 6: I decided I wouldn't take too many photos on my Seven Sisters walk because I've walked it ten times and seen it all before, but I still got home having taken 300 photos, the same number as last time.
Sun 7: I almost missed the Emergency Alert because my phone was in Airplane mode, but I suddenly remembered at 3.01pm and can confirm it still blared loudly even a minute late. Mon 8: This week's tube strike really shows up TfL's lack of foresight in removing the disruption map from their website. Unless you have the app you can't easily see what's running, only read a summary and try to picture it yourself, which isn't easy, and basically screw you. Tue 9: Today I'm 60½ which is the age I might have qualified for a 60+ Oyster if the staggered entitlement plan proposed during lockdown to save money had been implemented, so I'm glad it wasn't. Wed 10: The tacky laminated notices stuck to the drinking troughs in Woolwich's revamped Beresford Square have been removed. There's now a proper sign alongside which warns "Please enjoy these facilities responsibly. Supervise children. Do not drink the water".
Thu 11: An article on the back page of my National Trust magazine uses the terminology "D/deaf" 12 times without ever explaining it. I had to look it up ("deaf" means has a hearing loss, "Deaf" means has never been able to hear), and it turns out the BBC's Ouch magazine explained it all back in 2003. Fri 12: A Bulgarian with faltering English stopped me by the Bow Roundabout and asked how to cycle to "Edmonton Green Tottenham". I had a go, mainly by pointing unhelpfully in the right direction, but what I fear I failed to impress on him was that it's a very long way and I wouldn't start from here if I were you. Sat 13: It was the Ace Cafe, in case you were wondering. Sun 14: At one Open House venue today the guide was very young and being watched like a hawk by an older man who appeared to be a relative. "You must ask for feedback," the older man said, so rather than saying the tour had been tentative, slow and a bit dull I wrote "excellent" and said thanks at least three times. Mon 15: After 19 years on Twitter I have finally sent 4000 tweets. The first thousand took 3 years, the last thousand took 8 years, and at the current rate I will never reach 5000.
Tue 16: An upcoming artist called A.R.Turner has taken out loads of adverts across the tube to promote his one week show at the Saatchi Gallery. When I got there it turned out I'd seen most of the paintings already in his posters, and the adjacent RPS International Photography Exhibition 166 was much better. Wed 17: Hurrah for the 200th anniversary of the railways because it meant Michael Palin and Victoria Wood's Great Railway Journeys (from 1980 and 1996 respectively) were shown on BBC4 tonight and are still on iPlayer. An utter double delight. Thu 18: The crocosmia bulb I planted out on the balcony just a week ago is already in bloom with two big purple flowers. I'm impressed.
Fri 19: The new Rivermark development at Poplar Riverside is rising fast but the marketing office is two miles away. According to the hoardings that's "36 mins by bus" or "40 min by DLR", which should be a stark warning of how badly connected a home here would be. Sat 20: You can no longer see Poplar station from West India Quay station, after 30-odd years, because the core of One North Quay has now shot up inbetween. Sun 21: As part of Oxford Street's car-free day I appeared on local TV news for ten seconds so I hope you caught that. I rewatched myself several times. Mon 22: I spotted an 'Igloo Boat' in the North Dock at Canary Wharf, because nothing says mid-September like bobbing around in a snowglobe eating cheese fondue while surrounded by little Christmas trees. Tue 23: It's the first morning the temperature in my lounge has dipped below 18°C since the end of April, perfectly timed for the autumn equinox (sigh).
Wed 24: While at the Science Museum I noticed a special exhibition on the first floor called The Future of Food. It's free to enter but ridiculously they still make you queue up for a ticket, even when it's nigh empty, because they're donation-obsessed. It was interesting too, and very colourful, and much larger than I was expecting (but you're not allowed to photograph the box of fish fingers). Thu 25: A consultation launched today on yet another Superloop route, the SL14 from Stratford to Chingford Hatch. It's essentially an express 158, which nobody was expecting, with a slight extension to the back of beyond at the end. Also they intend to kick the D8 out of Stratford bus station to make room, which'll make catching a bus home from Stratford an annoying tad harder. Fri 26: I've been trying over and over to book half price rail tickets as part of LNWR's Car-Free Day promotion but kept getting the error message "We're sorry, it seems you have encountered an error in our site that we may not be aware of". Five days later, on what must be my 20th attempt, I finally clicked the right button that made it work, somehow. Expect northern reportage later this month.
Sat 27: We have a date - the Greenway sewertop path between West Ham and Plaistow closes on 14th October. Until 2028, sigh. Sun 28: Ian Marchant's fine Radio 4 documentary The Ghost Trains Of Old England is back on BBC Sounds as part of a series of railway anniversary archive classics. He visits Stalybridge, Teesside Airport and Newhaven Marine as well as bothering the Department of Transport to book a rail replacement taxi, and it's a true pioneer of nerd rail content. Mon 29: According to the notes for a TfL panel meeting next week, "In May our campaign recommenced to reposition the IFS Cloud Cable Car as a London leisure and destination attraction". I thought that's how it'd been postioned for over a decade. Tue 30: They promised the first new DLR train would be in service by the end of September 2025 and they weren't wrong, even if it was just the one unit on the last day of the month shuttling between Stratford International and Woolwich Arsenal.
Wed 1: It's exactly seven years since I wrote my first Unblogged post, which is why this month I've celebrated by writing two.
