My favourite fountain pen was a brushed silver Parker 25, always with a black cartridge never blue, which I used all the time at secondary school. But sadly...
It's amazing that the most watched programme on UK television can't attract even 10% of the population these days. Time was when a soap opera...
25 years ago today I came up to London to buy some cool clothes (they're still stashed in a bottom drawer), but I had to walk to the station because I'd crashed the car. Also...
"Are you enjoying that book?" asked the lady on the train, entirely out of the blue, "because I'm reading it next." I was only 60 pages in and told her so. But I could already tell it was up to the author's usual quirky standards...
Every time I buy a bunch of daffodils it comes with a small green rubber band, and now I have a lot of small green rubber bands and no good use to put them to. Maybe...
Let's ride London's most average bus! I calculated the mean of every current TfL bus route number and obviously it came out in the low 200s, and that's why today we're off to Wimbledon...
Gadabout: ABERYSTWYTH
Have you noticed how bikes are getting faster? I dare say with all these 20mph signs everywhere a lot of the zippier e-bikes are actually breaking the speed limit on a regular basis...
40 years ago today my optician asked if I'd got a job yet, then checked my eyes and told me they were much the same prescription as before. They're still much the same now thankfully, apart from...
What would happen if you listed all the chocolate biscuit varieties in alphabetical order? Abbey Crunch would obviously be first if they were chocolatey but no, so it has to be...
The coffee shop at Shortlands station is called Shotlands and I thought that was quite clever, almost as clever as...
Litter bins vary considerably across different London boroughs. In today's post I'm going to analyse that variety objectively and then confirm which borough officially has the best...
Tonight the sun sets on the District line at 6.20pm in Upminster, at 6.21pm from Hornchurch to Bow Road, at 6.22pm from Mile End to Kew Gardens and at 6.23pm in Richmond. This is because...
The upcoming local elections in the borough of Newham are a battle between Areeq, Clive, Forhad, Laura, Mehmood and Terri. Forhad ought to have the Mayoralty on a plate but...
I've often wondered, if you have a box of matches in your house and there's a fire, do they all blaze up and make the fire a lot worse? Or at least burn faster? Perhaps we shouldn't...
When is the right time to take your birthday cards down? Mine have now been up for a fortnight and arguably that's beyond the limit but I'm also tempted to leave them until...
Only one country has exactly 10 neighbouring countries, that's Brazil, although technically Belgium has 39 distinct land borders if you count all the twiddles because...
30 years ago today I realised I'd uploaded a computer virus from a floppy disc at work. Things were obviously safer in those days because none of the machines were connected, but imagine...
If you arrange all the London neighbourhoods in order of their Scrabble score then the smallest total is clearly Lee (3 points) whereas the maximum score is more debatable and is possibly...
But why are the warning stripes on escalators yellow? Wouldn't orange...?
The Bourneview public footpath level crossing in Kenley is still closed, until August apparently, while they explore and carry out additional safety measures. I was thus forced...
The thing about West Finchley station is it's actually east of Finchley Central! And it's not the only geographical inaccuracy on the tube network...
A Nice Walk: Hampton Wick High Street (½ mile)
When you say "Exciting changes to our website and app are on the way" what you really mean is all my data is about to be lost and you need me to jump through hoops because you can't transfer things properly. So it's fortunate that...
It worries me that a lot of the green energy revolution only applies to people in houses, not flats. They have roofs for solar panels, space for heat pumps and parking spaces for charging. All we have is...
I've always hated objectives. I could never take it seriously at work when we had to write some as part of the annual appraisal charade, 'smart' objectives no less, and quite frankly...
The tallest building in Wandsworth is One Nine Elms City Tower, but can you see the tallest building in Ealing (One West Point) from the top floor? Unexpectedly...
Scrolling along the FM band, national station-wise, it goes Radio 2 (88.1-90.1), Radio 3 (90.3-92.3), Radio 4 (94.6-96.1), Radio 1 (97.7-99.7), Classic FM (99.9-101.9). And in those gaps...
Which London station has three bears? It's Elmstead Woods and their names are Billy, Monty and Emma. Let me show you where they are and also the secret garden...
I understand that not everyone still has a CD rack but mine starts with ABC, no hang on Abba, and ends up with Yazoo. I never did get into ZZ Top otherwise...
The flowerbeds outside the shops in Elm Park commemorate 80 years of the garden suburb, that anniversary being in 2015, although they look a bit weedy at present...
20 years ago today I took a set of photos that are still my least-viewed Flickr photos of all time. I guess that's not surprising given...
There are many sights in Neasden but if we're ranking them the top 3 are undoubtedly the temple, the IKEA and...
The Great Tea Experiment
Milk first or hot water first? I decided to test this once and for all by making one of each and blind-tasting the resulting brew, and I did this with both teabags and loose tea. The results are incontrovertible...
Cotes, dill and laid are one-word examples, but Sir Morons and irate sow take two, and arguably Mrs Nerd Pancakes can't be done with fewer than three...
It's exactly 10 years ago today that track renewal work in Croydon town centre affected London Trams services and Line 4 did not run. You may remember...
Which Ordnance Survey maps have you lived on and how much do they add up to? If we're talking Landrangers then my total is 107+144+153+155+164+166+167+169+175+176+177+178 = 1931, although obviously there's a lot of overlap there...
28 records in this week's singles chart have been in the Top 100 for over a year, topped off by Mr Brightside at 497 weeks! It just goes to show how slowly music evolves these days. Even the current number 1 is on 40 weeks, and as for Everybody Wants To Rule The World...
Here are cryptic clues to the names of 30 cheeses. How many can you identify?
