Thu 1: I kicked off 2026 watching the fireworks on Croxley Green, a decent seven minute display which it felt like the entire village had come out to watch. "They don't do anything like this in Watford," said the lad behind me. Inevitably it ended with a technicolour bang and Sweet Caroline. I was home by 2am. Fri 2: Time to make a start on the 50th volume of my diary. Expressed my anticlimactic disappointment at the 75th anniversary episode of the Archers. Sat 3: The snowline in Sydenham almost perfectly matches the Lewisham/Bromley border, suggesting only outer London got sprinkled. Sun 4: Hurrah, Counterpoint is back in the Radio 4 quiz slot ending months of obvious filler. But they've recorded it without a studio audience so it sounds a tad flat, also the questions suddenly appear very skewed towards recent music. In one programme I heard no questions about any music over 100 years old until the final five minutes. Where did the classical go?
Mon 5: There's a creepy ad campaign all over the tube at the moment urging people to pay £20 for a blood test (do you have low testosterone, might your other half have low testosterone? what if you were tired because you had low testosterone?). The cheap price up front is in the hope you do have low testosterone and they can flog you treatments from £99 a month, without you stopping to think that maybe you should just ask your NHS doctor instead. Tue 6: Took down my Christmas cards. I still have no idea who sent one of them because the inside of the card was empty, the postmark was illegible and I didn't recognise the handwriting on the envelope. Wed 7: Gosh, we haven't had a week this cold since (checks) the second week of January last year. Thu 8: Bugger, not again. Fri 9: The website streetmap.co.uk appears to have vanished. I used it in yesterday's post to show where Aldborough Hatch is but I couldn't do the same again now because the site's not there. This is annoying because I've used Streetmap's Ordnance Survey mapping and street name searches for decades, and really annoying because there are now thousands of Streetmap links in my blogposts that no longer work. Such is instant digital obsolescence.
Sat 10: The view of St Paul's from King Henry's Mound in Richmond Park has been entirely wrecked by the 42-storey Manhattan Loft Gardens in Stratford. Admittedly it was wrecked 10 yearsago but I may not have looked through the telescope since then because there's usually a queue. Sun 11: A radio programme you might enjoy from Michael Rosen's series Word of Mouth: The Story of A-Z, an alphabetical odyssey - where did all our letters come from and how have they changed over time? Mon 12: On my all 33 boroughs journey I reached Southfields just as council workmen arrived to take down the local Christmas tree. This felt terribly late, even on an Orthodox timeline. Tue 13: Something in Vietnam has accessed my blog over 30,000 times today making it the busiest ever day on diamond geezer by a factor of 2. However my usual stats package has filtered it out, confirming it's really just a dead average Thursday. Wed 14: In my post about the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum I wrote "A lot of us wouldn't be here (or have been born at all) without antibiotics". Too right, said my Dad. He told me he had peritonitis as a teenager which, without Fleming's discovery of penicillin, could very easily have resulted in neither of us being here now (and me not at all).
Thu 15: A team of council workmen have spent months digging up the pavement along the A12 between the Bow Roundabout and Tesco and laying nice new slabs. I take this public realm investment as a sign that the ridiculous plan to add a major road junction here has been abandoned, hurrah. Fri 16: People have noticed that Streetmap is missing and are suggesting alternatives that show genuine OS mapping. The best I've seen so far are sysmaps.co.uk (which is properly linkable) and maps.the-hug.net (which doesn't zoom in all the way). However I have no confidence that either would still be around in five years time, let alone 20. Sat 17: Round the corner from Ealing Broadway station is a rustic restaurant with an old sign outside saying Wine and Mousaka Restaurant, and I was surprised to discover it really is called Wine and Mousaka. Sun 18:...and the Native Hipsters have released a new album called Wild Campfire Singalongs (lead single Too Many Chefs). If you enjoyed their seminally weird "There Goes Concorde Again" from 1980, this may be for you. It's only £2 for a digital download, £9 for a limited edition CD or you can simply listen to the sour low-fi album on Bandcamp. Mon 19: I went out after dark to see if I could see the Northern Lights, convinced there was indeed an eerie red glow in the sky over Stratford, but it turned out to be illumination from the Orbit reflecting off low cloud.
Tue 20: The rack of leaflets in my local Tesco no longer includes programmes for the Norwich Playhouse (95 miles away) but does now include a stack of glossy Discover Rutland tourist brochures (90 miles away). Wed 21: I received an email from my mobile phone provider telling me they were moving my plan "to our latest pounds and pence terms. In future, your price change won’t be affected by inflation, so you’ll know exactly how much it will increase each year." My next price rise will thus be £2.50, which they're very much hoping I won't notice is 12% and thus hugely more than the 2% they added last year. Little weasels. Thu 22: A 'Board of Peace' packed with the world'sworstdictators in a blatant attempt to sideline the UN should be an idea from an Austin Powers film, not real life. And we're only a quarter of the way through Trump's term... Fri 23: Well the Traitors was fun, wasn't it? Actual watercooler television and we get precious little of that. It just goes to show that if convincing liars stick together they can win big (see also yesterday). Sat 24: I thought the Royal Mail was supposed to have stopped Saturday deliveries. By contrast I now seem to get most of my post on Saturdays and barely anything at any other time. It's a poor show whatever.
Sun 25: I've been shocked by the widely varying prices for a single Creme Egg this year.
• Asda 70p
• Tesco 85p (or 75p with a Clubcard)
• My local newsagents £1.09
• TJ Jones in Watford £1.25
• WH Smith at Euston £1.29
• WH Smith at Heathrow T5 £1.49!
Mon 26: My blogpost about the 100th anniversary of television has turned out to be one of my five most-read posts ever, gaining a global audience, mainly it seems because barely anybody else in medialand noticed the anniversary. Tue 27: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has revealed the 2026 Doomsday Clock time and it's 85 seconds to midnight, down from 89 seconds to midnight. This may be the closest the world's ever been to Armageddon, in their expert opinion, but after the year we've just had I'd have expected them to nudge us even closer. Wed 28: My 7 visits to Waltham Forest this month, if you're interested, were 4th Jan) Lea Bridge, 7th) Leyton, 12th) Blackhorse Road, 18th) Walthamstow, 23rd) Blackhorse Road, 24th) Leytonstone, 28th) Olympic Park Thu 29: I'm going to be a great uncle! This is very exciting news, the start of a whole new generational cycle. I wish there was a more important-sounding term than 'great uncle', but the baby will have two proper uncles so maybe I'm more distant than I thought. Fri 30: Today I finished off my last mince pie, bought from the reduced shelf after Christmas. Admittedly the best before date was 18 January but it tasted great and it's only eight months before I can stock up again.
Sat 31: Prize for the most obtuse roadworks sign goes to this yellow riddle outside Northolt station.
