It's 40 days since St Swithin's Day.
When it rained.
n.b. It may not have rained for you but it rained where I was and that's what counts. I had to hide in a hedge near Heathrow to avoid getting drenched, and I thought ah well, rain every day until August 24th.
n.b. Obviously the St Swithin's legend has been disproved as rubbish, obviously, because dead Saxonbishops don't affect our weather. But I always enjoy testing a hypothesis with real data
Here then is my day by day record of the 40 days after St Swithin's Day 2025.
If a day was wet - even one drop - I turned the square blue.
If a day was dry - i.e. no rain - I turned the square yellow.
I call it a SWITHINOMETER.
15
WET
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
n.b. Yes I know technically we don't know the colour of today's final square.
But I've seen the weather forecast for here in Norfolk and it's going to be yellow.
I will of course come back and change the table if this turns out to be incorrect.
You can see how the 40 days started out being mostly wet - St Swithin was doing well.
There were only five dry days in the first three weeks.
But then the weather changed (from low-pressure dominated to generally anticyclonic).
And only six days in the last three weeks have been wet.
Here are the overall results.
July 15th
wet days
dry days
2025
wet
20
20
No success there for the dead Saxon bishop.
His saint's day was wet, but exactly half of the last 40 days have been dry.
As far from a weather whitewash as you can get.
UK weather doesn't do 40 consecutive days of exactly the same thing, and this year we've been way out.
I've been recording the post-Swithin weather in my diary since 1980 so I have over 40 years of data.
I blogged about this in some depth back in 2022, so won't trawl over my four decades of personal data again.
But in summary St Swithin's Day has been dry 23 times and wet 18 times.
And Swithin then only predicted the dominant weather 23 times.
Here are the best St Swithin's Day predictions since 1980.
July 15th
wet days
dry days
1989
dry
7
33
1990
dry
7
33
In both 1989 and 1990 Swithin predicted dry weather and 82% of the subsequent days were dry.
The most successful 'wet' prediction was in 1985.
July 15th
wet days
dry days
1985
wet
32
8
No other year comes close.
But some predictions have been appallingly incorrect. Here are the worst two.
July 15th
wet days
dry days
1995
wet
6
34
2016
dry
33
7
Since 1980 Swithin's prediction has been correct 51% of the time.
That's no better than a coin flip.
In that time there have also been six 50/50 ties.
I should say this is all very dodgy data.
It's based on where I was in the country, not a specific location.
It's based on my observations, so I may have missed light rain while I was asleep.
Also my definition of wet is at least one raindrop, whereas most weather stations require more than a 'trace'.
Indeed, several of the blue squares in this year's table represent a mere brief splash, not a proper shower.
If I check the data from my favourite weather station in Hampstead, I get very different results.
July 15th
wet days
dry days
2025
dry (not wet)
7 (not 20)
33 (not 20)
This is because we've had a lot of days this summer with only a tiny bit of rain, which hasn't registered.
Indeed August in London has been ridiculously dry overall.
But I can finish off with one genuinely good conclusion.
This is because I have over 1600 days of data since 1980.
And on every single one of those days I have asked myself "did it rain today?"
Did it rain today?
yes
no
1980-2025
44%
56%
A lot of those will have been brief showers that didn't wreck the day.
But if you've ever thought "it rains quite often during the British summer, doesn't it?"
...the answer is yes it does.
Back to London's premier lost river, now on the descent from King's Cross to Clerkenwell along the approximate line of the Camden/Islington boundary. It's no coincidence that the Fleet once marked the divide, although previously the boroughs were St Pancras on one side and Finsbury on the other. There are very clear contours in the area, the roads dipping down from Bloomsbury and more steeply on the opposite flank, although the precise level of the valley has been disguised somewhat by subsequent development. In 1768 there are accounts of the river flooding four feet deep round here, carrying off three cattle and several pigs, whereas what's being swept away today is the old streetscape. Rows of fine Georgian terraces survive at the top of Pakenham Street, but look down Phoenix Place and pretty much nothing of what I saw 20 years ago remains.
The site to the left was once Coldbath Fields, source of yet another medicinal spring, and in 1794 a conveniently large open space on the edge of town on which to build a massive prison. The delightfully-named Middlesex House of Correction was originally used to house those waiting to be tried by magistrates, but later gained a fearsome reputation as a strict men-only institution with an enforced regime of silence. The governor was eventually dismissed following an inquiry and the prison closed in 1885. Enter the Post Office who purchased the site as somewhere to sort their parcels, a growing trade, creating what would soon be one of the largest sorting offices in the world. The upper section once used for parking hundreds of red vans was sold off a few years ago, inevitably for housing, as was the scrubby car park across the road. The resultant estate is called Postmark and has crammed in 681 luxury flats starting at £990,000, the sole enticing feature being the row of pillar-box-shaped vents along the central raised garden.
A more attractive local presence is the Postal Museum which opened at the top of Phoenix Place in 2017. Step inside for a first class display that clearly delivers, also a free-to-enter cafe (which may help explain why none of the commercial units at Postmark are yet occupied). A separate building houses the entrance to Mail Rail, once the GPO's subterranean delivery service and now a ride-on circuit where you take the place of the sacks. Its builders 100 years ago had to deal with all kinds of underground obstructions including the River Fleet, which is why heavy mid-tunnel floodgates are a feature on your way round. Royal Mail still sort parcels here in the remaining building at the lower end of the site which has been decorated with the names of postal towns between the windows. I smirked when I spotted a UPS van parked outside the delivery bay, and oh the irony as a brown-clad youth hopped out to deliver a package to a resident living on the site of the postmen's former car park.
The dip of the land is particularly pronounced along Mount Pleasant, a concave road that predates the Post Office's arrival. The street pattern was once very dense here alongside the fetid waters of the Fleet, a labyrinth of slums including Fleet Row, Red Lyon Yard and Wine Street. The Fleet Sewer replaced the earliest culverts in the 1860s following the line of Phoenix Place and Warner Street, then a decade later the Fleet Relief Sewer added extra capacity under parallel roads. A bigger intrusion was the construction of Rosebery Avenue in the late 1880s, necessitating a viaduct to be built across the valley to speed up through traffic and requiring considerable local demolition. However walking underneath along Warner Street still feels like stepping back in time, especially the echoing vaults of Clerkenwell Motors and the bleakly open staircase that connects the bustle up top to the cycle-friendly street down below.
As we continue south, the moment when this was the edge of built-up London gets ever earlier. For Ray Street this was around 1700, although at the time it went by the far less salubrious name of Hockley-in-the-Hole. Here the contours of the Fleet encouraged the creation of an infamous resort for the working classes, a natural amphitheatre at the foot of Herbal Hill where the City's low-life gathered to participate in violent sports. It was known as the Bear Garden, a place to watch and cheer on fighting creatures now the South Bank had been cleaned up. A flyer from 1710 reveals that at one event two market dogs were set upon a bull, a mad ass was baited, then another bull was turned loose with fireworks attached to is hide and two cats tied to his tail. The programme of events often included bearfights, cockfights, swordfights and bare knuckle bust-ups, although the worst of the behaviour shifted to Spitalfields in 1756 and the worst you'll find today is a pub. Which is closed.
The Coach was previously The Coach and Horses, a basic joint oft frequented by Guardian journalists when they were based just round the corner. Their HQ is now flats and the London base for LinkedIn, while The Coach reopened as a gastropub in 2018 (think grilled rabbit and onglet steak) and is currently on its second refit. Of far more interest on this safari is the drain cover out front, which 20 years ago was in the middle of the street but is now safely embraced by an extended pavement. This is another fabled location where the Fleet can be heard flowing through the pipework beneath the street, the sound particularly clear at present even though there's been barely any rain of late, so if you've never experienced the rush of a lost river this is the prime location to visit.
And so we hit Farringdon Road, which is reached up a brief slope because the land round here's been substantially reconstructed since a stream once ran downhill. Farringdon Road is one of the great engineering projects of the 19th century, simultaneously creating a major thoroughfare, shielding the first underground railway and burying a river. It's breadth here is striking, opening out into an arched chasm that splits the cityscape as trains emerge from tunnels on the approach to Farringdon station. One nominal remnant from the old days is the span of Vine Street Bridge, no longer open to through traffic but a great place to drop your Lime bike. Of greater relevance is the Clerk's Well, a source of water for the medieval Priory of St Mary and which ultimately gave Clerkenwell its name. It was rediscovered during building works in 1924 and can now be seen through the window of a lowly sales office whose tiny lobby is occasionally opened by Islington Museum, hence I was chuffed to get a closer look in June.
While the Fleet Sewer follows Farringdon Road the historic interest remains on the east side of the railway. Turnmill Street is ancient enough to be named after watermills on the medieval Fleet, and by Tudor times was filthy enough to have become one of London's most prominent red light districts. It's been scrubbed up a lot since, including the purest of officeblocks on the corner where Turnmills nightclub once stood. As for Cowcross Street this was once the route for cattle fording the Fleet - here the Turnmill Brook - on their way to market at Smithfield. It's now a pedestrianised road which divides the two entrances to Farringdon station, with the tube on one side, rail on the other and chuggers in the middle. Crossrail's engineers had to take account of a sewer following a tributary of the Fleet which crosses beneath the southeast corner of the ticket hall, meaning extra care had to be taken when digging out the shaft.
It's just beyond the station that the Fleet officially enters the City of London and Farringdon Road becomes Farringdon Street. Which'd be a good place to pause, I think, before concluding this Fleeting series next week.
And rather than stoking pride, I thought "what a load of bolx".
London is not The Greatest City In The World because there is no definitive ranking of world cities, nor any agreed set of criteria. And the more I read the list underneath the more holes I pulled in the Mayor's case.
» Being "regularly voted #1 city in the world" proves nothing, indeed many cities achieve this accolade depending on what's being voted for and by who. London was crowned the World's Best City for 2025 in the annual ranking by consultant group Resonance, also the best city in the world by intelligence experts BestCities. However New York City was named the best city in the world for 2025 in Oxford Economics' Global Cities Index, while Paris is the best city in the world according to Euromonitor International's Top 100 City Destinations ranking. London was second in the Oxford list and merely fifth in Time Out's 50 best cities in the world in 2025, because nothing's cut and dried.
» "Incredible diversity with 300+ languages spoken" is not a pre-requisite for greatest city, just a nice to have. A quick Google search reveals that Los Angeles is host to more than 800 spoken languages, ditto Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, while Jakarta in Indonesia tops 700. London is way behind.
» "World-class transport" isn't a superlative, merely a subjective ranking. Many would argue that London shares its world-class tag with Tokyo, Seoul, New York, Berlin, Paris and Beijing, then sink into bitter recriminations about what precisely world-class means and why their favourite city's been missed out.
» "World leader in finance, tech and life sciences" is better, with New York, London and Hong Kong unarguably the top three for financial dealings. But Silicon Valley may outdo London for tech, and you can't really argue that Oxford/Cambridge are part of London for life sciences purposes, and is this really what makes a greatest city?
» Do we have the "best museums and galleries on the planet"? New York has more art galleries than London, Paris has more art museums and indeed more museums overall, plus the world's most visited museum which is the Louvre. You could argue that the quality of London's museums is better but that's all getting terribly subjective... which is precisely what art is.
» As for "world-leading nightlife" no way, merely world-class which is something different. Cities with claims on the top spot include Las Vegas, Paris, Bangkok and Madrid, whereas if I check Time Out's latest Top 20 then London doesn't even feature, indeed locally they just list Brighton.
» "Like a certain type of food, niche sport or music? You can get it in London." is somewhat desperate. London's cultural spread may be vast but you can't claim everything is here because it plainly isn't. Not every sport is played in London, nor can you go out of an evening and enjoy hearing Fijian musicians, and even The A to Z of London Food blog gave up when they got to Chad.
» "Home to the world's best sporting events" is either subjective or incorrect, because as soon as you name a great sporting event outside London this claim falls apart. The Super Bowl, the America's Cup, the Winter Olympics, every single golf major, QED.
» "Home to seven premier league clubs" suggests that whoever was compiling this list was running out of ideas. Admittedly no other UK city has more than two, but this is a list the rest of the world can't take part in because it's 100% UK-specific. It's like Americans claiming their major baseball competition is the World Series, then wondering why the rest of the world laughs.
» "Globally-ranked universities" is possibly the worst submission so far. Every university is globally ranked, it's just that it may be 39,407th rather than 2nd. At best London has two universities in the global top 20, admittedly better than New York and Paris but what on earth are we trying to prove here?
» "A city where you can be who you like and love who you love" is both a proud statement of civil liberties and a bland mayoral buzzphrase. Support the wrong pressure group or walk into the 'wrong' toilets and you may find London's not as friendly as it looks. Also most UK cities could make exactly the same claim, be that Liverpool, Manchester, St Albans or Brighton, and several world cities are friendlier places to be.
» "A place for everyone" is a truly bum finish. Millions would love to live in London but can't afford it, the cost of housing having skyrocketed to impossible levels, and that's before you get onto the heated issue of immigration. This final statement is an utterly admirable aspiration, and perhaps broadly true, but you can't use it to claim that London is the greatest city in the world.
I should at this point say that the Mayor of London didn't actually write this rubbish. He likely signs it off but he has a team that writes his social media stuff for him, maybe one specific employee. Pushing the Mayoral agenda, promoting the capital and getting the tone of voice right is a tough call, and generally they do a good job. Over the summer however I have had the feeling sometimes that an intern's been left in charge because there've been some proper duff posts. This was theworst.
On the surface it was a cheery thumbs up to the Mayoral cycling agenda, a concerted attempt over many years to make travelling on two wheels safer, easier and more appealing. But look closer and you'll see the news story being quoted was by Secret London and that should have set alarm bells ringing regarding exaggeration and truth.
The article in question was titled "London Has Officially Been Named Europe’s Favourite City For Cycling – Overtaking The Likes Of Amsterdam And Paris", a headline with typical Secret London bombast and questionable use of the word 'Officially'. When I see an article's been written by Katie Forge my first thought is "has she nicked one of my photos again?" and my second is "what mind-sucking sugar-coated pap has she churned out this time?"
Read on and you discover the 'official' data is courtesy of ferry and cruise operator DFDS whose unscientific methods involved "analysing major cities based on various factors including cycling infrastructure, terrain, weather, and online search volume". It turns out London wasn't top, nor even in the Top 10, having been beaten by proper cycling nirvanas like Helsinki, Strasbourg and Amsterdam. London was merely top of The Internet's Favourite Cycling Cities, a list based solely on "average monthly search volume for cycling-related terms in each city obtained via Google Keyword Planner", an entirely pointless metric.
What's worrying is that the Mayor's team failed to read Katie's report past the opening mush, or maybe only read the mendacious headline which was far more misleading that the article itself. They then proceeded to construct a social media post based on a false premise and sounded really smug about it, which didn't do the Mayor's reputation any good at all. Just like this latest one hasn't.
There is no greatest city in the world, and to claim there is is idiotic. London is amazing but there's no need for exceptionalism because that route only leads to argument and discord.
I note that the Mayor's bio on social media is "Husband, father, and Mayor of the greatest city in the world." Interestingly this use of the word 'greatest' doesn't sound stupid - more like a belief than a fact. It's like how you're allowed to think Liverpool is the greatest football team in the world even if other people may vehemently disagree. It's only when you try proving that your football team is the greatest that your claim falls apart, because any argument you put forward inevitably has holes and can be endlessly unpicked.
Here Sadiq, I've fixed your graphic for you.
It should be enough to say that London is great, which it is.
45 Squared 29) AERIAL SQUARE, NW9
Borough of Barnet, 80m×20m
God I hate Colindale, most soulless of the suburbs, and all its horrible stacky boxes. Not the old part but the new cuboid dystopia near the station, a hellhole devoid of flair whose architects should have been forced to live there in perpetuity. Whichever way you look are bland apartments meeting minimal criteria, also scraps of lawn and prairies of public realm littered with concrete blocks masquerading as character, all shoehorned into a tiny part of Barnet as part of an "area of intensification". What hurts is that so much of this was public buildings and what it's become is private assets, benefitting the few rather than the many. This is the 21st century we're sleepwalking into and I despise it. Welcome to Aerial Square.
Where we are is opposite Colindale station, currently under reconstruction to create a portal to this upthrust hellhole. To the northwest a former hospital has been mulched to create 714 homes. To the southwest the British Newspaper Archive was unceremoniously replaced by 395 flats after its contents were despatched to West Yorkshire. And to the southeast what's been expunged is the majority of the famous Hendon Police Training College, skidpan and all, to be replaced by 2900 residential receptacles of varying sizes. It's a vast site, the Met Police having worked out they could consolidate all their operations into two buildings rather than 25, squeezed into 11 acres rather than 73. The capital's recruits still get trained so they're happy, and thousands of new Colindale residents get somewhere to live for good measure. Aerial Square is the gateway to this underwhelming crush.
Essentially the square is a broadened walkway, a funnel to feed folk from the farthest-flung blocks through to the main road. You can tell how far you are from civilisation by the letter your block of flats begins with, so Ashbrook House, Bronze House and Blackheath House are up front by Aerial Square, while Xenon Court, Youlston Court and Zambra Court are hemmed back by the railway and the M1. Ashbrook House is owned by UNCLE, the gratingly-upbeat rental company who prioritise facilities over square metres, this their largest project with 347 serviced hutches. According to their blurb the block comes with a wellness room, gym and movie room, this because they can upsell a few communal spaces for several extra pounds a month. Spaffing out on BoConcept designer furniture costs extra. It saddens me that London keeps building concierge stacks with fripperies for better-off renters rather than affordable flats unencumbered by extortionate extras.
I looked in vain for a sign saying Aerial Square because what's spelled out instead on the front wall is Colindale Gardens, the name of the estate. Gardens my arse, it's mostly hardstanding, towers and locked courtyards. Aerial Square includes half a dozen wedges of not especially lovely grass, some with raised edges to encourage people not to walk on them. Three further shards include patches of shrubbery with scrappy plants lifted from the underwhelming end of the horticultural catalogue, also a couple of rings of stunted birches providing the absolute minimum of elevated greenery. The artist's impression will have suggested a verdant nirvana but the reality is more a cityscape in greys and browns, thus depressingly less inspiring. You might consider sitting out here in nice weather, but having watched an owner allowing his dog to defecate down the far end I wouldn't recommend it.
What's missing at present is a vibrant frontage, no company yet having taken advantage by renting New Commercial Units 3, 8 or 11. I'm surprised a coffee shop hasn't moved in yet, but maybe that's because New Colindale already has its fair share of anodyne refreshment and snack-based opportunities nearer to the station. When the sales office finally packs up I expect a froth and pastry merchant will descend, and cup-clutching residents unbankrupted by their service charges will then be able to assemble on the fake stone polyhedra dumped out front. I note that these are blocky enough to sit on but with faces carefully angled to ensure overnight sleeping is impossible, because being a public realm engineer these days requires embedding hostility by default.
One day, if we let it, more corners of London will look as nondescript as Aerial Square. It could be anywhere, rather than a former police college and aerodrome, the only nod to variety being that they used three shades of fake brick to create the cladding. We desperately need more housing so it's great to get some, but without character and charm this mesh of flats risks becoming an insipid ghetto and future slum. God I hate Colindale, most soulless of the suburbs, and all its horrible stacky boxes.
That's the shortest public railways in London
...by length, not by time
...could be tube, rail whatever
...within the Greater London boundary
...not private like the Ruislip Lido railway
...regularly timetabled, not one-off or peak-time oddities
...where the driver gets in the cab at one end and expects to drive to the other end
...basically a common sense list, these aren't rigid constraints to be pernickety about
1) Waterloo - Bank(1.38 miles)
Of course Waterloo to Bank is the shortest, unarguably so. It's been part of the tube network since 1994 but would have been on this shorlist before that. It's disconnected from the rest of the network so trains have to be craned in and out. Trains are platform-cloggingly busy in the peaks, in one direction only, and a vacant zippy luxury at other times. The Saturday service introduced in 2013 hasn't resumed since the pandemic.
2) High Street Kensington - Kensington Olympia(1.73 miles)
The District line's mini shuttle, a U-shaped ride generally devoid of passengers except at times of exhibition overload. Only runs at weekends, plus a teensy handful of trains before 7am and around 8pm. Was massively downgraded in 2011 to help make the rest of the District line timetable more reliable. Runs every 20 minutes at best, so if you just miss a train at High Street Kensington it's quicker to walk to Olympia than wait for the next one.
3) Grove Park - Bromley North(1.75 miles)
The shortest National Rail line in London is a spur off the Orpington mainline to deliver folk to the less useful side of Bromley town centre. The journey takes five minutes and is generally timed to connect with a fast train to/from London Bridge. Runs half-hourly - maybe every 20 minutes in the peaks - and not at all on Sundays. How grand the entrance to Bromley North looks, reflecting how important the line once was. Intermediate Sundridge Park is more of a quiet semi-rural throwback.
4) West Ealing - Greenford(2.75 miles)
GWR's west London oddity, lopped off from the rest of their network in 2016 in preparation for Crossrail. This sideshow through the backside of Ealing was never well-frequented, and is even less so now you have to change at West Ealing to get any further into town. Features London's shortest platforms (at South Greenford and Castle Bar Park). Should be getting electric battery trains rather than diesels, possibly imminently, as soon as the extended trial finally ends.
5) Stratford - Canary Wharf(3.22 miles)
It's my local DLR service, part of the inaugural Docklands Light Railway offering in 1987. The default ride is 13 minutes long, although it can be faster to go the longer way by Jubilee or even the Elizabeth line. In peak times half the trains extend to Lewisham, which makes 8 miles altogether, although at present this service is suspended while the DLR has an existential crisis as the old rolling stock becomes life-expired before the new rolling stock is ready.
6) Romford - Upminster(3.5 miles)
The Overground's lowliest outpost finds itself firmly in the shortest railway list. Now branded the Liberty line, it's served by a lone train which shuttles up and down its single track through the duller parts of Havering. When they close it at weekends for engineering works, which is surprisingly often, they just tell people to take the 370 bus and hardly anyone suffers. Intermediate station Emerson Park is permanently the Overground's least used station.
n.b. This is where the Central line's Hainault-Woodford shuttle would fit in, being 3.76 miles long, but most of it runs outside London so I'm skipping it. Feel free to put it 7th if you prefer.
7) Dalston Junction - New Cross(5.75 miles)
You may not have been expecting this one. The Windrush line has four branches, all equally served, and the shortest by far is the spur that runs off to New Cross. Also these trains only run from Dalston Junction, not from Highbury & Islington, making this a shorter journey than it might have been. If nothing else it's easier to get a seat on a southbound New Cross train.
8) Stratford - Meridian Water(6 miles)
Back to National Rail, in this case Greater Anglia, and the backway from Stratford to Tottenham Hale running up the Lea Valley. The line reopened to passengers in 2005 with an intermediate station at Lea Bridge added in 2016. This particular 6 mile service only kicked off in 2019 when tumbleweed Angel Road station was replaced by sparkling Meridian Water, bridgehead to a massive Enfield regeneration project that's barely off the ground. If nothing else, future residents will find it dead easy to reach Westfield.
9) Stratford International - Beckton(6.63 miles)
Back to the DLR and its second-shortest regular run. Direct trains from Stratford International to Beckton are another casualty of the current DLR train shortage, but technically they still exist. Should a Thamesmead DLR extension ever be built then fewer trains will run to Beckton but some will still go this way, retaining its place as one of London's ten shortest railways.
n.b. This is where Elephant & Castle to Queen's Park on the Bakerloo line would fit in, being 6.71 miles long. Technically it's not a distinct railway, but half the trains on the line run between these two points.
10) Bank - Lewisham(6.88 miles)
Again on the DLR, the end-to-end ride from Bank to Lewisham is just under seven miles long and concludes this list. That's unless I've missed something, an even shorter London railway that's escaped my scrutiny of lists and maps. I'm therefore expecting to have to delete this paragraph and insert a new one higher up when someone points out a better candidate, but until that happens the tube has two lines in the Top 10, the Overground has two and the DLR has three.
Also under 10 miles: Stratford International - Woolwich Arsenal (7.2 miles), Tower Gateway - Beckton (7.7 miles), Bank - Woolwich Arsenal (8.9 miles) Also under 11 miles: Victoria - East Croydon (10.5 miles), Liverpool Street - Chingford (10.5 miles), Liverpool Street - Enfield Town (10.75 miles)
Used to be shorter than Waterloo - Bank: Holborn - Aldwych (0.38 miles), Acton Town - South Acton (0.6 miles), Finchley Central - Mill Hill East (0.95 miles)
n.b. If the text is in italics, I'm blogging my reaction to reading back through my diary and seeing what I was up to 30 years ago. Quite shocked in some cases.
Tue 1: I'm in Norfolk with the family, which at this point includes a 1 year-old who isn't walking yet. Blimey, to think he got married a few months ago! My sister-in-law hints that there might be a sibling on the way. Blimey, to think she's getting married tomorrow! Wed 2: Woken by the fish van honking across the road on its weekly tour of the village. Those days of waking late, watching TV, reading the paper, chatting about the garden and getting a meal cooked for me felt so ordinary back then, and are so missed now. Thanks for the lift home Dad. Thu 3: Ham or Chelle? Ham. I got one chance annually to get it right and I blew it. Ooh, Suggs is performing a couple of songs in HMV. I was hoping for so much more today. And no I was never going to get away with it on the walk to the station. Fri 4: Try flushing my printer head but I only make it worse. How much!!! I know communication was difficult back then but it's incredibly hard to justify that total and for so little reward.
Sat 5: A man from the hire company comes round to upgrade my video recorder. The new one has Videoplus and an on-screen menu. I also have a new water meter fitted. You probably shouldn't have gone to the wedding, it could be considered stalking. Oh my god, it's BestMateFromSchool at the bar! But he's just moving on and we have nothing to say. I cannot believe you did that two hours later, it might be the most out-of-character daring thing you ever did, no wonder you eventually chickened out. Sun 6: I ring up the Ceefax Newsround Backchat line to leave a message about Hiroshima but I don't get on. It was an excellent year for dance music, I should have engaged more.
Mon 7:Actually I have already blogged this. I bought Alternative, the new album of Pet Shop Boys b-sides. It was £2 cheaper in Woolies than in Our Price. Tue 8: Very much taking the initiative at work. Later that horrible feeling when you realise everything in the washing machine is pink and it wasn't when it went in. That's a pair of jeans, several socks and two shirts ruined. I blame Millets. Wed 9: Replacement jeans cost £40. I bought the previous pair exactly a year ago, but the shop in Leicester where I got them has closed down. Stop staring, it won't get you anywhere. Thu 10: Spot a man from the cable TV company spraying colourful lines on the pavement outside the flat, so maybe it's coming soon. Oh god it's the night you went to that pub. Played pinball, lost one, won one. Felt a bit out of place but stuck with it, eyes opened. Fri 11: There isn't normally a cruise ship passing over breakfast. If nothing else it was quicker to get to the dentist. No fillings. The sad realisation that the bakery with the iced buns you've loved since you were a child is now a hairdressers.
Sat 12: Lunch is sausages. Best not obsess. Also that lie will come back and catch you out. Finish a Bunthorne. Television includes The Chart Show, Pets Win Prizes and Paula Radcliffe in the 5000m at the World Athletics Championships. Sun 13: Use a spreadsheet to help me deduce how the new-ish National Lottery divvies up its prize fund. I didn't because they wouldn't, but they could have and I wouldn't, and honestly it's so depressing reading this back and remembering you only get to be 30 once and essentially I blew it.
Mon 14: Ah, so it was the 99th Floor Elevators last night. I still love that record. ITV are showing Blade Runner and I was expecting to enjoy it more than I did. Tue 15: A particularly long document needs revising for work purposes, slog through Q3. I know you hate leaving answerphone messages but don't overthink this one, you're wasting your time anyway. Mmmm, lemon pepper chicken. Wed 16: It's Blur versus Oasis week with big displays in the record shop. Blur obviously. I take it back, the answerphone message worked! That may be a first. Thu 17: Woken by the sound of drilling as the cable company finally reach our car park. The bad thing about wearing shorts is forever worrying that something'll fall out of your bulging pockets (especially over water). Picked up some blank videotapes, an Argos catalogue and a Drop The Dead Donkey book. Fri 18: Mmmm, crispy pancakes. Yes, you have put on weight in the last year, but don't worry, you'll get it back down again in 25 years time. Tidy up and buy some grillsteaks. It's the over-optimism that kills you.
Sat 19: A second date! I don't normally get to a second date. Done and dusted in readiness. Aww, 99s by the river while talking aout swans. I confess I'm surprised that little white lie didn't blow it. Pizza and the VJ Day parade. Reading back I have to say I was rubbish at deciding how best to fill the time, but entertainment options were limited 30 years ago. Sun 20: Defrosted mash, anyone? It's easy after the event to read back the optimism and hope for the future in today's diary, all the musts and maybes and hopefullys, when the reality is that after the goodbye at the station you'll never speak again.
Mon 21: 43% of the way through my latest work project. Made a couple of caramel puddings and slipped them in the fridge. No, I refuse to write 1485 on my arm in marker pen. Tue 22: In celebrity news Robbie Williams is presenting the Big Breakfast this week and Dave Gahan has just tried to commit suicide. Oh look, not answering my messages. Wed 23: First day of rain this month! Do some tidying up and fill 6 bags with rubbish. Still nothing. Getting the hint now? Thu 24: In office gossip, apparently the boss is surprised I haven't moved on yet, but in a good way. It also sounds like he'd be amenable to a pay rise, which I will of course never ask for. Phone goes... No of course it isn't. Fri 25: Work interrupted by very large spiders. Spend 28 lines of today's diary mulling over the failed date situation in over-analytical depth, eventually drawing the correct conclusion from the parting words being 'Be good' as opposed to, say, 'Hey we really must do this again.'
Sat 26: The train to London is full of West Ham supporters returning from the Forest match. Oh my god, it's BestMateFromSchool at the bar! But we have even less to say than last time (and our paths will only ever cross again one more time). Take the tube replacement bus to Angel where my evening is essentially wasted. The key phrase in today's diary is 'social leper'. Sun 27: Challenge Anneka returns with a circus skills church conversion challenge. The internet is what's missing from 1995, I've decided.
Mon 28: What the early hours of bank holiday Monday confirm is that I can enjoy two hours on a dance floor if the music's decent (and it's 1995, so it is). Pass a fox on the walk home. The X Files is back, confirming that every vaguely-sci-fi show does a Voyager space probe episode eventually. Tue 29: It's jacket-on weather again. The lights in the entrance lobby have been blown for weeks, and today I finally work out they unscrew rather than needing to call the management company. My life is just work, food, TV and wistfulness at this point. Wed 30: Print out 110 sheets because the paperless office is a long way off. Last pointless attempt at ringing... no, it's the answerphone again. I take the hint, I give up. Thu 31: It's been England's 2nd driest summer on record. I've had a pretty dry time too, all told. I think of all my decades the 1990s was the least interesting, the least sociable and the least satisfying. Sadly I can't go back and try again but I can read all about it in phenomenal detail, and rest assured I have protected you from this.
For my third return to the Fleet I'm heading to King's Cross, and also to St Pancras because the two stations are intrinsically linked to the river that once flowed through them. The river started to be buried hereabouts around 200 years ago as London edged outwards, transforming a healthy stream to a polluted irritant best hidden away. We thus won't be seeing it along this stretch, nor alas hearing it, but there are still signs of its passing in the lie of the land and the sweep of the buildings.
St Pancras Old Church is one of the oldest Christian sites in the UK - some say 4th century, some say 7th - located on a hump of land beside a temperamental river. The current building is however nowhere near original, so what we see today is an early Victorian reinvention of a church that was mostly Tudor, retaining a few Norman recesses and a medieval altar stone. Stepping inside it looks more Georgian than anything, all white walls and monuments, and also quite high church with racks of votive candles and the low whiff of incense. If you've never been before then be aware that Father Owen keeps the doors unlocked most days to encourage visitors, so there's no need to wait until Open House unless you're keen to see a more crowded interior with the addition of guided tours and a table of homemade chutneys.
Outside is an information board featuring a famous illustration of the churchyard circa 1827, a depiction of bathers in a sylvan stream in front of a church with a completely different tower. The adjacent cemetery proved troublesome in the 1860s when the Midland Railway came to open their station at St Pancras. Countless graves were disturbed and the future poet Thomas Hardy oversaw the reinterment works, including the creation of an evocative ring ofgravestones around an ash tree. Alas the 'Hardy Tree' fell in2022 (weakened by a parasitic fungus and a storm), and its chopped-up trunk now lies nearby for general sitting-on, perhaps while perusing the remaining ring of stones and intermingled roots.
In 1700 the land to the south of the church was occupied by medicinal springs called Saint Pancras Wells. Claims that the waters could cure everything from leprosy to piles brought invalids and daytrippers to the spa in their thousands, taking advantage of two pump rooms, a large dining hall and several tree-lined avenues for promenading. The site now lies roughly where Eurostar's international platforms terminate, the evolution of St Pancras station having repeatedly condemned the Fleet to a new course. A cast iron conduit diverted it in the 1860s, then in the 2000s a doglegged realignment was required so that the foundations of the new International station could be strengthened and Thameslink's tunnels could weave through. Even the crown of the sewer had to be lowered to make room for the subway linking St Pancras to King's Cross, so if you've ever walked that you've come pretty close to unseen waters.
King's Cross station arrived a decade earlier on the site of an old smallpox hospital. Lewis Cubitt's grand terminus was in part constrained by the Fleet Sewer, which is why it faces the Euston Road at an angle rather than straight on. A more obvious indicator is his Grand Northern Hotel, now a five storey stack of boutique rooms, the curve of which precisely follows the arc of the former river's passing. I did try to get a good photo of the hotel's lofty sweep but from the north direct sunlight intervened and from the south I ended up with a vibrant sponsored foreground courtesy of a pink lemonade giveaway. When I blogged the Fleet in 2005 all this was tall cranes and temporary walkways, the forecourt still a drab tacked-on concourse with its departures board and Boots the chemist, but today the constant stream of passengers flows more smoothly than the river.
The area around King's Cross was originally known as Battlebridge. The 'bridge' in question spanned the Fleet at the northern end of Gray's Inn Road and was originally known as Bradeford Bridge, mostly likely named after the broad ford that previously crossed the river here. The mainline station might also have been named Battlebridge had its construction not coincided with the brief tenure of a statue to George IV in the centre of the road junction alongside. The ugly cruciform monument was much disliked so was taken down after just 10 years, but it was during this brief window that the Great Northern Railway christened their new London terminus - King's Cross - and the name has stuck ever since. Battlebridge meanwhile is lost beneath the gyratory somewhere outside the Scala, its single brick arch incorporated into the sewer when the river was enclosed.
From here the Fleet follows the Metropolitan line, or rather the Metropolitan Railway followed the Fleet Sewer. The world's first underground railway was a grand plan to link several North London rail termini, and here between Kings Cross and Farringdon two parallel tunnels were dug, one carrying a railway and the other burying a river. In 1862 half a mile of track downstream was flooded to a depth of ten feet when the new sewer catastrophically burst its retaining wall, delaying the opening of the Metropolitan Railway by six months. Here in the King's Cross hinterland the line instead burrows in open cutting - relatively cheap to construct and better for letting the steam escape. Stand in St Chad's Place, Wicklow Street or any of several parallel roads and you can still trace the gaps in the terraces carved out by the railway below. A camera waved over the parapet may even catch a passing train.
The Metropolitan Railway also wiped away the last traces of the elegant spa at Bagnigge Wells. This developed as a lure for gentlefolk in 1758 after two mineral springs were discovered in the grounds of Bagnigge House, formerly Nell Gwynne’s summer residence. Visitors paid threepence to take the waters from the pump or retired to the Long Room to drink their fill at eightpence per gallon, passing time by attending concerts, playing skittles or strolling around the ornamental gardens on the banks of the river. But Bagnigge eventually gained a reputation for 'loose women and boys whose morals are depraved' so in 1813 the proprietors went bankrupt and the once genteel spa was replaced by a tavern. All that remains today is a white stone plaque topped by a carved head, formerly from Bagnigge House and now set into the wall of number 63 King's Cross Road... but come soon before it disappears behind a rampant buddleia.
100 things I saw in Chorleywood (all south of the railway, so nothing common)
Ten Signs
Welcome to Chorleywood (Twinned with Dardilly), 'No foraging', a street sign referencing Chorleywood Urban District Council (dissolved 1974), 'Private Road Access Only', a poster for the Summer Squeeze fete at Clement Danes School in support of the UK Sepsis Trust (today from 10am), Footpath 30 to Mill End, Dog Kennel Lane, warning that dumping rubbish contravenes the Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act 1978, 'Black ice' warning triangle, Neighbourhood Watch (but I got away with taking dozens of photos anyway).
Ten Things Seen In Front Gardens
Man buffing his SEAT Cupra, a tall thick hedge ensuring one neighbour definitely can't see the other, several entrance gates with 12-button pads, pond watched over by stone heron, driveway with five cars and double garage, little circular mirrors, astroturf lawn letting the side down, delivery driver in Slipknot t-shirt fuelled by cans of full-sugar Pepsi, black Subaru Forester with three-character registration plate, swimming pool.
Ten Wildlife Observations
A deep beechy dell with a rope swing, pigeon, red kite, footpath through a notch cut in a treetrunk, acorns because autumn is nigh, beech mast ditto, The Hall Farm ('Chorleywood's finest Aberdeen Angus beef'), lost cat poster ('Kevin is very special to me, he's like family'), tubs of pristine flowers lining the shopping parade, Pheasant's Wood.
Ten Retail Spots
Saturday lad washing windscreens in front of Heronsgate Motors, family bakery making the point that their bread is preservative free (no Chorleywood process here), the splendid independent Chorleywood Bookshop (although from outside you'd assume they were the Chorleywood Greetingscardshop), abandoned bubble tea cafe, salon called Ladies Paradise, workmen renovating the interior of A&E Newsagents (sign in window - 'We Are Still Open For Newspapers Thankyou'), bakery who claim to have been baking since 1838 (though technically in Hatfield), Turkish deli, fried chicken takeaway, off-licence.
Ten Things That Are Very Chorleywood
A Tesla pulling a horsebox, umpteen large detached houses strung out along a lane unsuitable for heavy goods vehicles, Little Manor (the perfect house name for many Chorleywood properties), little white gates at the entrance to the village, 4-bed detached pebbledashed mansion, hedges bristling with holly because that's the civilised suburban defence of choice, isolated parade of shops consisting of interior designer/beauty salon/Italian restaurant, Residents Association noticeboard alerting residents to 18 potential sites for development (Catlips Farm 440 homes!), beech-hedged cut-through, estate agents' window where cheapest property costs £1,050,000.
Ten More Signs
School motto in Comic Sans ('Happy and successful'), 10% gradient, 'Reservoir Roof Weight limit (Pedestrian Lawn Mowers Only)', poster alerting residents that Hate Crime Prevents Self Expression, 'No galloping on verge', Hertfordshire County of Discovery, Three Rivers Fairtrade District, The Chiltern Way, do not half-park on the roundabout, 'CCTV Surveillance of Road and Properties'.
Ten Transport Encounters
A bus timetable for route R2 dated January 2018 (which I assumed was out of date but no), the M25 crossing a country lane on a broad concrete viaduct supported by four dozen pillars, Amazon van delivering to farmhouse, "Please note this bus stop is not currently served by any local passenger buses", Chiltern train crossing a bridge with 14ft headroom, single track road with passing places, nasty encounter with tractor on a blind bend, the terminus of the 322 bus (previously the 385, which 7-year old me would be thrilled to know I've finally visited), a Waitrose delivery van, a passing police car probably wondering why I was taking notes.
Ten House Names
Yarrowslea, Whitestacks, Washacum, Upmeade, Soundgarden, Rorkes Drift, Rompeolas, Meadowsteep, Ladyacre, Five Moons.
Ten Heritage Throwbacks Penn Cottage where William Penn (of Pennsylvania fame) was married in 1672, a Grade II* listed brick wall, Dungeons Farm (as creepy as it sounds), The Stag (old pub serving prosecco to the nouveau riche), lovely black and white fingerpost, Shire Lane (which formed the boundary between Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire until 1991), two thatched cottages, George V pillarbox (installed in Metro-land era), the self-build house on Berry Lane where Len Rawle installed his Wurlitzer organ ("Mellifluating out from modern brick, the pipe-dream of a local man" [Sir John Betjeman, 1973]), a turquoise breadbin on the porch step at The Orchard("That knocker, Voysey. A typical curious shaped handle, Voysey. And this handle or iron hinge with what seems to be his signature tune, the heart. It’s there at the end of the hinge, it’s here round the letterbox, Voysey." [Sir John Betjeman, 1973]).
Ten Final Sightings
'Go Vegan' graffiti, vast house with triple garage, the distant Chess valley, The Swillet (weeny engulfed hamlet), row of 14 actual terraced houses (rare for Chorleywood), man my age wearing Watford FC t-shirt, small triangle of leftover woodland surrounded by detached houses, 2 mile-long winding country lane (at the other end of which I used to go to Saturday morning music school), Scott Mills' house, Heronsgate 251 reservoir pumping station.
45 Squared 28) SAFFRON SQUARE, CRO
Borough of Croydon, 80m×70m×40m
You'll know this one even if you can't put a name to it because it stands out on the Croydon skyline like a bruised thumb.
This 43-storey tower was completed in 2016 and marks perhaps the last hurrah for variegated colourful panelling rather than the current pretend-brick default. It's the tallest part of a Berkeley-led residential development, supposedly decorated to resemble a pixellated crocus, at the foot of which lies Saffron Square. This site on Wellesley Road had previously been occupied by Pembroke House and Randolph House, two large modernist office blocks typical of Croydon's commercial upthrust in the 1960s, but demolished without replacement in 1993. A lot of the rest of the street is in similar flux at present, including adjacent Lunar House and Apollo House which used to be Home Office Immigration Central, as Croydon's second vertical assault spreads in earnest.
It's less appealing at ground level, unless you like heavily overshadowed colonnades and dead-end artificial courtyards. Apartments in the 134m tower use an entrance on the main road labelled Pinnacle Apartments. Everyone in the four other podium blocks uses a separate entrance within the square itself, which I'm sad to report is very much triangular and not quadrilateral. The developers got round the 'poor doors' controversy by building their 104 social rented homes offsite, only some of which are located nearby. Flats in the main tower are currently selling for £200,000-£300,000, even for the two-bedders, so I hope nobody grabbed an original leasehold for investment purposes.
To enter Saffron Square you have pass a triangular pool with several fountains, whose water is supposed to flow seamlessly over the rim and quietly recycle. Alas on my visit the wind was up, perhaps exacerbated by a tunnelling effect beneath Tennyson Apartments, the end result being errant spray and a considerable wet patch puddling off towards the main road. By contrast the two triangular pools in the main square were both empty, I presume drained given the hosepipe weaving across from a utilities cupboard. A few scattered individuals were seated around the edge enjoying a quiet lunch, just as the developers hoped when they planned "a new town square", although it'd be more convincingly civic if there were a second exit at the far end.
The somewhat-artificial courtyard includes two raised beds containing bleached shrubbery and a few stripling birches, also a perimeter of not quite pristine hedges. I'm not quite sure what the two gouged boulders on metal poles are supposed to represent, but that's cheaply-installed box-ticking street art for you. The commercial flank is on the side that misses out on direct sunlight and includes the three things that every development of this scale thrives on - a coffee shop, a residents-only gym and an estate agents. The cafe is called Coffee Village and has no character, which is a reflection on the sterilised locale and not the independent tenant. For anything more substantial you want the Tesco Express slotted in out front, hopefully dodging the rogue fountains' spray on the way past.
As regeneration goes Saffron Square feels like a lost opportunity. As a means of cramming 800 homes into a tiny footprint between two well-connected stations it's a triumph. As a harbinger of Croydon's second highrise wave it's merely a warning of what's due to be coming next. But if you've ever wondered what's below the weird purple skyscraper - still one of the UK's 100 tallest buildings - I hope I've confirmed there's no need to come and look.
An exhibition about lost rivers? Excellent. I was going to report on it when my Fleet walk reaches Islington, but that won't be until Monday and the exhibition closes on Tuesday so best nip in now.
Stepping into the museum's concrete basement off St John Street, it's good to be reminded that Islington was once a green oasis at London's edge. Here were once healing wells, the Fleet and the Walbrook, although not much of the rivers lie within Islington so the borough's pushing its luck somewhat focusing an exhibition on them.
The healing wells included Islington Spa, Bagnigge Wells and Sadler's Well, the latter now best known for the opera house. The exhibition recounts how the chalybeate waters once brought prosperity, started to decline when Joseph Priestly discovered how to manufacture fizzy water (aka 'seltzer'), and lost out entirely as the area became urbanised and polluted. Vulgar entertainments could only hold back the decline for so long.
The Fleet gets its own corner, also a cabinet shared with the New River. If you like maps there is one, also a fabulous illustration from 1825 of the river disappearing underground during the building of the House of Correction at Coldbath Fields. Alongside are a textile installation and a commissioned mosaic by Georgie Fay called The Fragments Flowed Underneath, inspired by the trail of black crossing Charles Booth's poverty map shadowing the route of the buried river.
And in the far corner comes the Walbrook, again with a map and a cabinet of curiosities. Islington only lays claim to the river because the original stream was diverted when the Romans built Londinium's city walls, creating an unpleasant boggy area outside the City later called Moorfields. The innovative exhibit here is a 3D walkthrough of a spectral Walbrook, created by Jamie Turner and Erin Robinson and powered by a nearby laptop. The intention is that you wave your hand over a sensor and somehow 'dowse' your way through a digital river, and if you don't raise your expectations too high you should be successful.
It's a 15 minute kind of exhibition, but worth a look if tagged onto visiting the rest of the museum if you've never been. Just be aware they close for lunch so don't come between 1 and 2, also it's only open today, Monday and Tuesday before the laptop shuts for good and then these rivers will be lost once more.
If you're still commuting to the office, or if you just need something to read on the train, three free London newspapers continue to make themselves available outside stations. Some people start with the news and gossip, others the sport, but many simply turn to the puzzle page and whip out a pen. So which puzzle page is the best, and why hasn't anyone passed judgement on this before?
Commuter puzzle page review
METRO
This is Wednesday's puzzle page, or rather 75% of a page because the right hand column is all horoscopes.
Sudoku: There are three of these starting with Easy, then Medium, then Hard. I think the last designation used to be Challenging sometimes, but Metro changed its puzzle provider at the end of last year and difficulty levels changed somewhat. The Easy sudoku used to be damned simple, a swift write-in with no head-scratching, but the new incarnation is noticeably less straight-forward. Meanwhile The Hard isn't quite as hard, though still tough, and sometimes I will fail to see a way forward before chucking the newspaper in the bin.
Crosswords: A Cryptic and a Quick, each on a 13×13 grid. The Cryptic is less cryptic than a broadsheet, with clues like "Ogre from Georgian town (5)", "Bed with little hesitation providing nonsense (6)" and "Authorisation for take off (6,7)". Sometimes the lack of a subsidiary clue makes it hard to complete but generally it's doable. The Quick is fair thanks to decent-length clues, but with an occasional deviation into general knowledge demand.
Wordsearch: For when you don't really need to put your brain in gear, merely fill time before reaching your destination.
Word scramble: Six themed anagrams, potentially tough if you're not on the right wavelength for the theme of the day (groups from the 1990s: BEST YOKE BRACTS, GRASP USERS, SEE OAF CAB)
Split words: Not something I've seen elsewhere, essentially dead simple anagrams for people who can't do anagrams (one word film titles: V EHE ART BRA, A ARM DON GED, OR AD GL AT I)
Add up: A pyramid of single digits to total in order to find the top number. As arithmetic goes it's basically 8-year-old standard so hardly taxing, although if you've got a higher qualification you'll be aware that a shortcut to the summit total is a+4b+6c+4d+e.
Word Wheel: An old favourite where you try to construct words from the given letters, maybe attempting to scribble them down into the tiny gap in the margin. Personally I never bother because there isn't a solution, merely a target so there's no satisfaction from completion.
Conclusion: Whether you're a words person or a numbers person there should be enough in the Metro to keep you occupied on your journey - a proper puzzling time sink. But not every day.
This is Thursday's puzzle page and it's rather different.
Two additional puzzles appear - Numberfit and KrissKross - both of which are essentially the same jigsaw task with either numbers or letters. With a bit of effort they could have been constructed to be challenging but they're not, and with ambiguity absent it's not difficult to start slotting everything in. Many people appreciate a simple puzzle, and on Thursdays that's what they get.
The drawback here is that online casino Sky Vegas has sponsored the double-page spread, filling half the right-hand page with an oversized word search which also promotes a new series on ITV. Fitting the other puzzles into the remaining space has proven challenging so the crosswords are larger than normal, the Sudokus are tiny and Word Scramble and Split Words have disappeared. The Sudokus are so small that the grid is only 3.5cm wide (that's not even an inch and a half), so if your eyesight's even vaguely dodgy the entire process is now impractical. The moral of the story, as ever, is that adding sponsored content inevitably makes quality worse.
CITY AM
This is Thursday's puzzle page, or rather half-page because it's a bit sparse.
City AM doesn't really do puzzles, indeed even the title 'Coffee Break' suggests it's not for tackling on a journey, rather saving for a spare 15 minutes later. One sudoku, one word wheel, one crossword... and it's not even a decent crossword, it's a quickie slotted into an 11×11 grid. The only innovation is Kakuro, the Japanese puzzle where each horizontal and vertical block has to add up to a certain total. It's always a satisfying solve but again somewhat on the small side given the density of the grid.
City AM are up front about where their puzzles come from - a company called Puzzle Press who construct puzzling content of all kinds for publications nationwide. They're based in Norfolk, a world away from the Square Mile, and have been doing this kind of thing for years so if you need a puzzle spread do get in touch.
Conclusion: More a token presence than a busy spread, but even this is an improvement on the complete absence of puzzles in City AM until a few years ago. I'm surprised because I'd have thought financial types would have relished a mental challenge, but maybe that's why the number puzzles are tougher than the word puzzles.
THE STANDARD
Yes it's still publishing but only weekly, so if you never pass a hopper during the brief window of opportunity then The Standard may now pass you by. The puzzle page hasn't altered since it was a daily though. Here's this week's.
Double Crossword: This is a clever use of space, a set of cryptic clues and a set of quick clues using the same grid. You have to pick one or the other, the answers aren't the same, as you'll soon discover if you try to mix the two.
Battleships: Everyone knows how to play this, but can you get the totals on each row and column to tally? I enjoy this one and I generally get it correct about 90% of the times.
Codeword: Another puzzle page staple but the Standard is the only freebie still to include it. Three letters always feels insufficient to get started, but once you find an opening it generally all pans out as all the words inexorably reveal themselves.
Circlegram: More of a novelty this, a themed venn diagram with one overlapping missing letter. What I can't believe is that anyone ever wants to solve this so desperately that they contact The Standard's clue service at £1 a pop, let alone that this makes the paper any money.
The Tube Quiz: A Standard exclusive, a chain of tube map stations to identify by solving a set of clues. Some are general knowledge, some more cryptic, and as the years have passed they've become increasingly contrived because there's only a finite number of ways of clueing Oxford Circus. "Which station is an anagram of OUTFOX CLOSURE SCHEME?" and "The Crown and Treaty pub, which hosted abortive peace negotiations during the English Civil War, is located in which town?" are two of this week's ridiculousnesses.
Gogen: This is my favourite, a 5×5 grid into which the letters A-Y have to be fitted so that a specific set of words can be traced out. It's a shame I now only get to play this once a week, if I'm lucky, so I'm pleased to have discovered a website where I can enjoy a Gogen daily.
Sudoku: Just the one grid here but generally the standard of Metro's 'Hard'. Comes with a 30 minute target to beat, so technically you could get all the way from London Bridge to Orpington without managing to deduce the final digits.
Quick Crossword: And finally another crossword, just the simple clues this time. It's from the American school whereby clues are single words and most letters overlap, so words like ERA, LEES and ASTER appear a lot (this week 10 across, 18 down and 32 down respectively).
Conclusion: A bumper collection to suit allsorts, showing some originality and with plenty to keep you busy. A quality offering that's better than it needs to be.
Overall conclusion: Given the choice I'd always reach for the Standard first, indeed its puzzles are more engrossing than ploughing through its slanted articles. But if it's not a Thursday then the three sudoku in the Metro usually keep me occupied, then the crosswords if it's a longer trip. City AM generally remains in its hopper.
Observation: At least Londoners do still have puzzles as part of a free newspaper offering that continues to provide a valuable and informative service. Nothing quite beats filling in a grid with a pen rather than tapping on a screen, but I fear one year in the not-too-distant future we may no longer have the option. Yield (4). Delete (5). Finish (6).
Fleeting
