It's costing half a billion pounds to erect London's Olympic Stadium. For a couple of fortnights in 2012 it'll be the focus of global attention, packed out with spectators watching world-class athletes compete. But what happens next is yet to be decided. Either West Ham or Tottenham Hotspur will move out of their current ground and make Stratford their home. We'll know soon who the lucky team is. But if Tottenham Hotspur get their way, the entire £537m structure will be ripped down so that they can start again. And that can't be right.
When the design for the Olympic stadium was announced in 2007, the most important word was 'sustainability'. An athletics legacy had been promised to the IOC, so the entire structure would need to be scaled down after the Games. No football takeover was envisaged. The organisers designed an arena with a detachable top, which meant eighty thousand spectators during the Olympics could be slimmed down to twenty-five thousand afterwards. There'd be no long-term infrastructure inside the stadium - all the food, bars and toilets would be in temporary pods outside. This would be no over-sized white elephant come 2013, that was the plan.
And here we are in 2011 with two legacy bids on the table, both from major football clubs. West Ham's proposal keeps the running track, so that both football and athletics can still take place. They've teamed up with Newham Council, for added community bonus points, and plan to sell off their existing Boleyn Ground for housing. That extra cash would allow the restructuring the top of the Olympic bowl to build those all-important urinals, private boxes and burger stalls. West Ham's is the socially responsible option, the community bid that keeps all past promises. OK, so the team's currently floundering at the foot of the Premiership and look to be headed for Championship oblivion, but a lot can change over three seasons and they might fill sixty thousand seats with ease.
Then there's Tottenham, who launched themselves late into the bidding war with what some saw as a pre-emptive strike. Bosses had been trying to redevelop White Hart Lane for years, without success, so expressing an interest in the Stratford site opened up another option. Permission back in N17 has since been granted, but Tottenham's fixation on E15 has grown stronger ever since. They've teamed up with entertainment company AEG, who also run the O2, with plans for a combined football/entertainment venue. Expect Britney concerts as well as local derbies, and absolutely no athletics at all. An eight lane track would leave spectators too far from from the pitch, they argue, so plan instead to pump money into the existing Crystal Palace Stadium to provide an athletics legacy elsewhere.
A big club like Spurs would guarantee a rock solid future for the Olympic Stadium site, but not for the stadium itself. That would be entirely demolished, apart from some of the undercroft beneath, and a brand new full-capacity arena built instead. Tottenham and AEG only want the infrastructure improvements and transport connections, it seems, plus a fresh slate on which to start again. Their replacement would no doubt end up with some ghastly sponsored name, like the Vodafone Arena or the Carphone Warehouse, and would completely erase all memory of the 2012 stadium from the map.
Whichever club's successful, their supporters are going to have to get used to relocation. For Hammers fans that'd be a three mile shift - though much nearer to West Ham station and staying within the old "West Ham" borough which gave the team its name. Tottenham would have to move five miles, well away from their spiritual home, and that's left many supporters veryangryindeed. "No to Stratford Hotspur!" they demand, even if that means losing out on improved facilities and a richer club.
Will we get West Ham and athletics, or will we get Tottenham and Take That? The Olympic Park Legacy Company are due to announce their choice before the end of the month. All that we can guarantee when the final decision's announced is that the stadium's architects, however well briefed, guessed wrongly what kind of legacy venue would be required. Political change and economic reality have shifted priorities, and might well result in half a billion pounds worth of taxpayers money being unceremoniously demolished. My heart's with the Hammers, but my head fears the sledgehammer option instead.
The mode of public transport that's grown most over the last decade is the London bus. They travel a third as far again as in 2000, with a two-thirds rise in passengers. Underground travel's increased by about 10%, which is approximately the same as the increase in London's population over the last decade. Usage of National Rail trains has gone up by a quarter since 2000. Much of the DLR's very large increase is explained by its expanding network. The Thames may be busier than it was, but still has only a couple of million users a year.
On the roads
2000 to 2009
Vehicle kilometres
-6%
Cycle journeys
+61%
People killed or seriously injured
-47%
Private road travel increased by 10% nationwide, whereas London completely bucked the trend and here it decreased instead. Cycling's way up, accidents are way down... it's a triumph all round.
Average number of passengers
2000
2010
%
on a bus
13
17
+22%
on an Underground train
117
122
+4%
on a DLR train
63
79
+18%
on a Tramlink tram
-
53
-
The average London bus carries 17 passengers. The average London Underground train carries 122 passengers. Go on, I bet you can drop one of these two fascinating facts into conversation today.
Visitors to London
2000
2009
%
Annual domestic visitors
18.5 million
10.8 million
-40%
Annual overseas visitors
13.1 million
14.2 million
+8%
Daily commuters
700,000
810,000
+16%
If these transport statistics have been of interest, TfL has a 290 page pdf full of them. Although be warned, most of them aren't especially interesting.
We established yesterday that I'm a sad case who keeps track of pointless transport statistics despite them being of zero practical use. If you're a sad case who fancies keeping track of pointless transport statistics despite them being of zero practical use, then Chromaroma might be for you.
A game fuelled by Oyster data? Now that's clever. Every time you touch in or out with your Oyster card, Chromaroma notices. It takes 48 hours for the data to come through from TfL, but then all your visits to various stations are totted up to score points. There are swooshygraphics to look at, and dynamic maps, if you like that sort of thing. Everyone's part of a colour-based team battling for glory, and teams claim stations as their own when they've swiped the most points. Bonus points are awarded for completing Collections, such as 450 points for visiting all the stations near major football grounds', or 1000 points for visiting every station on the Hammersmith & City line. Then there are special missions, like visiting a particular station at a particular time, or pretending to scour the capital for late-night ghosts. The whole of the capital's train network is covered, including DLR and overland rail, so even South Londoners can join in. And Barclaybikes too, for good measure. Excited yet?
Chromaroma is part of the gradual 'gamification' of data, encouraging users to amend their everyday behaviour through the accumulation of virtual rewards. For example you wouldn't normally visit both Abbey Wood and Worcester Park, but Chromaroma can check if you have, and there are 200 points on offer if you do. Tempted, anyone?
I'm not. Admittedly I've not joined up and had a play, but I've dug deep enough below the password-protected front page to be uninspired. Is the green team winning this week? Has anyone unlocked the three secret missions at Elephant & Castle? Who's the top swiper at Totteridge& Whetstone? I find it hard to believe that anybody cares.
Last year a journalist got so excited by Chromaroma that they wrote possibly the biggest load of techno-marketing-drivel the Guardian has ever published, which was rightly slapped down by more than 70 negative comments. Some of my blog's readers might, I admit, be sufficiently digitally transport-geeky to be excited by all this. But if you require a gameplay incentive to go exploring the fascinating city of London, I reckon your priorities are probably misplaced.
Chromaroma, if played seriously, can be expensive. Visiting stations requires you to touch in or out each time, which costs money. If you only travel via your normal commute, no problem - although you won't score many points playing like that. But go out of your way to visit all 15 stations in Hillingdon, or 50 stations with the word 'Park' in their title, and the Pay As You Go will cost you a fortune! It's no good having a travelcard, by the way, because Chromaroma only works if you're an Oyster user with a Pay As You Go history. There's supposedly some contorted get-around involving setting an Oyster Extension Permit on your travelcard, but OEPs are the work of the devil and a sure fire way to throw away six quid every time you mis-swipe.
Most worryingly, at least to those of us who still value data privacy, is that Chromaroma demands password access to your Oyster account. Unless you give the programmers your security details, you can't play. "We do our best to protect your TFL password," they say, "but you may wish to change this to a password that you don't use anywhere else." That's nowhere near reassuring enough for me, sorry. And do I really want a select group of online players knowing precisely which stations I've visited, even if it was 48 hours ago. No I don't, for stalking reasons. Count me very very out.
The game has dozens of users, so my concerns clearly aren't shared by everyone. Younger folk are increasingly comfortable sharing their entire lives online, without fear of repercussions, because that's the way our interconnected world is going. So if you're a sad case who fancies keeping track of pointless transport statistics despite them being of zero practical use, and likes flashy graphics, and likes going out of their way to meet challenges, and has cash to burn, and doesn't mind sacrificing privacy and security, then Chromaroma might be for you.
Most people never pass through every single station on the London Underground network, not even across an entire lifetime. They spend their days shuttling around a narrow subset of tube routes, with only the occasional need to visit various geographical extremities. There's almost always some station they've never been to, or through, be that Chigwell or Heathrow Terminal 5 or Ickenham. For these people, even 50 years isn't long enough to tick off every station.
I've passed through every single station on the London Underground network, over the years, because I'm that sort of person. I've taken the Central right out to West Rusilip, and the District all the way to Upminster, even the Northern spur to Mill Hill East, simply because they're there. But the full set's still taken me 25 years, from the last time I ventured down to Morden to the first time I ever made it to Chesham.
Last year I passed through about three-quarters of the stations on the London Underground network. I never got to Uxbridge in 2010, nor Cockfosters, nor Amersham. I missed out all the stations from Kingsbury to Stanmore, and from Golders Green to Edgware. I even somehow managed never to pass through Bayswater, I think scared off by the non-circular Circle line. In total I missed out on 57 different tube stations last year, which suggests my blogging coverage of the capital may have been spatially flawed. Could do better.
Tube stations I never passed through last year: Amersham, Uxbridge, Hillingdon, Ickenham, Ruislip, Ruislip Manor, Eastcote, Rayners Lane, West Harrow, Sudbury Hill, Sudbury Town, Alperton, Park Royal, North Ealing, Hanger Lane, Perivale, Greenford, South Ruislip, Ruislip Gardens, West Ruislip, Heathrow Terminal 4, Heathrow Terminal 5, Morden, South Wimbledon, Wimbledon, Wimbledon Park, Southfields, East Putney, Goldhawk Road, Shepherd's Bush Market, Wood Lane, Bayswater, Harrow & Wealdstone, South Kenton, North Wembley, Wembley Central, Stonebridge Park, Harlesden, Stanmore, Canons Park, Queensbury, Kingsbury, Edgware, Burnt Oak, Colindale, Hendon Central, Brent Cross, Golders Green, Cockfosters, Oakwood, Southgate, Arnos Grove, Bounds Green, Wood Green, Turnpike Lane, Roding Valley, Chigwell. (and yes, I am a sad case who keeps track of pointless transport statistics despite them being of zero practical use)
I wonder if I'll manage the full set this year? I've passed through 54 different tube stations so far, kicking off at Croxley just after midnight on New Year's Day. I'll have to go back and get Watford later, I guess, so I'm not playing the game very efficiently. The professionals who try to do this sort of thing in a day would laugh in my face. But I only have 216 more stations to go, so there's every chance of reaching the last one by New Year's Eve. I wonder what the record is for passing through every single station on the London Underground network in the slowest possible time.
» Long-time Londoners - are there any tube stations you've never been either to, or through?
• Bored on Saturdays? You could always join the London Cultureseekers Group, a bunch of friendly folk who visit somewhere interesting most weekends. Yesterday they were at the St John's Ambulance Museum, and next weekend 150 of them are going on a treasure hunt round Clerkenwell. It's £10 to join for a year (sample visits free), and they always end up at a pub or cafe afterwards. [No, I've never been, it sounds far too sociable for me, but my goodness do they sound well organised]
• The Royal Mail has a set of six stamps out on Tuesday to celebrate The Genius of Gerry Anderson. That's six stamps featuring Thunderbirds, Supercar, Stingray, Joe 90, Fireball XL5 and Captain Scarlet. They're available in such a wide variety of formats (miniature sheet, pin badges, postcards, first day covers, etc) that serious collectors are going to have to spend a fortune to keep up. Gerry's due to appear on The One Show tomorrow, and doing a signing in the Strand on Tuesday. [Hmm, I wonder if I should buy a sheet of 80 and use them for the rest of the decade]
• Do you do cryptic crosswords (or attempt to)? Then the Fifteensquared blog will either enhance your experience or provide a dead easy way to cheat. Every day one of their bloggers solves the crosswords in the Independent, FT and Guardian (usually damned fast), then posts the solution and (this is the useful bit) the explanation behind each clue. The Observer, Sunday Telegraph and Private Eye get a weekly look in too. [There's a separate blog for the Times crossword, for those of you behind the paywall]
• Brian McClosky has a set of Smash Hits magazines from 30 years ago, and every fortnight he uploads another one to Flickr. That's every single page scanned, so you can zoom in and flick through all the reviews, song lyrics, interviews and scary adverts. The latest copy's from January 8th 1981, which means 2 Tone, Chas & Dave, the Freshies and Eddy Grant. A regular retrospective treat, if you're 'of an age'. [but sorry, he's already filled in the crossword]
• The Evening Standard are running their Dine at 20 top London restaurants from only £10 special offer again, between now and 13th February. Maybe you could persuade your loved one to do Valentine's Day early to save some cash. No newspaper is required, you can book up without registration via the website. [I enjoyed a (relatively) cheap dinner at the Butler's Wharf Chop House last year, and I (hopefully) have somewhere else lined up this week for lunch]
• Mike Skinner has a newalbum out in a month, reputedly the last he'll ever make. As part of the pre-launch marketing buzz he's been blogging at the-streets.co.uk, and in a typically creative way. Mostly video snippets (like this 2½ minute summary of a trip to San Francisco), often with original musical backing, but also weekly podcasts and some earnest off-the-wall writing. [If you're not a fan he probably won't win you over, but I was won yearsago]
• I've started a Tumblr called We Simply Can't Afford It. I'm trying to record, daily-ish, something that the Coalition government's doing to reshape society or save money. It'll either have you nodding saying "yes, damned sensible too" or you'll be screaming "whatever will the cretins cut next?" [It's only been going a week so far, but I'm assuming the good/bad news will continue]
West London's Trellick Tower has a less famous older brother on the other side of the capital. That's the Balfron Tower - a Brutalist 27-storey apartment block, located just north of the Blackwall Tunnel. Both have a similar silhouette, both were designed by Erno Goldfinger, and both are admired from the outside by people who'd probably never dream of living on the inside. The architect himself was an exception. Goldfinger and his wife moved into the Balfron Tower soon after it was built, and spent a couple of months living in flat 130 on the top floor to find out what living here was like.
The latest creative type to move in is Australian artist Simon Terrill. He spends his time visiting communities, gaining their trust and then taking a giant photograph. He's been able to do that here in Poplar courtesy of the Bow Arts Trust, who moved him in as artist in residence and enabled the realisation of his project. The Balfron Project.
The key date: Thursday 18th November 2010. Simon encouraged residents to be at home around 6pm, then to come out on their balconies (or wherever) for an hour while the event took place. He set up cameras and catering outside, and illuminated the entire front of the building with bright spotlights. Then he stood on a nearby rooftop taking photographs approximately five minutes apart - ten separate images in total. And from these he eventually picked one picture that best represented the people ofBalfron and their beguiling building. This single image has now been printed out, on the rather-large side, and forms the culmination of the entire undertaking.
That photograph is currently on view at the Nunnery Studios on Bow Road. This is the public face of the project, for the next three weekends, so that residents (and the rest of us) can drop in and see what they looked like.
It's not the most inviting gallery, the Nunnery, from the outside. Hidden up a side alley near Bow Church, rarely signposted to catch passing footfall, and requiring a ring on the doorbell to gain entry. But things are more welcoming within. Three rooms in total, the first with a language-mangled Tower of Babel theme. Someone's had fun jumbling up various literary forms, from email to poetry, although the impenetrability wears a little thin after the first couple of sheets. Other than that, the entire exhibit's text free. If you don't ask the curator, or if you haven't read up in advance, you won't have a clue what's going on.
Next up, rather wonderfully, a timelapse film of the entire recording session viewed from afar. It starts in daylight, with late afternoon rain splotching against the camera until eventually (thankfully) it dries up. Clouds rush past as dusk falls, and the traffic on the A12 transforms into a stream of headlamps. At this scale the residents look really tiny, but some are visible as they wave to the camera, and there's definitely a disco underway in one of the flats on a halfway floor. The hour of official illumination speeds by, then the lightshow fades and the Balfron returns to peaceful night. Throw in a slideshow at the other end of the gallery showing the residents out and about and dressed up on the day, and you get a real flavour of what fun the photoshoot must have been.
Finally, with the third gallery to itself, Simon's photograph. The tower's six foot tall at this scale, easily large enough to pick out what's going on in some of the flats and balconies (yes, definitely a disco). A family group peers out from one of the windows in the liftblock walkways. There's a premature Christmas decoration top left, and three great lights blaring out from the roof. Some of the residents didn't play ball, and their flats are dim, or maybe they belong to the people standing out front at ground level in warm winter woolies. The mural invites close examination, maybe even to reveal "ooh look, that's me!"
Don't come specially from the other side of town - you may take longer walking from Bow Road station than you'll spend inside the gallery. But what a great idea to take a snapshot of a building and its community and to exhibit it with pride. The most unusual fraction of a second in the life of the Balfron, forever captured.
Update: All residents of the Balfron Tower (and the neighbouring Carradale Tower) will be forced to leave over the next couple of years so that the block can undergo regeneration. Many will not be able to return, as the housing association needs to sell off at least 100 flats to private buyers in order to fund the repair works. Which is a bit grim, unless you're one of the lucky rich folk who get to move in afterwards.
Walk London CAPITAL RING[section 1] Woolwich to Falconwood (6¼ miles)
The Pool of Woolwich on a January morning - is there anywhere finer? Yes, sorry, there is, but we'll get there later. For now I'm kicking off my London circumnavigation by walking along a less lovely bit of the Thames [photo]. On the Woolwich side a bingo hall and some orange flats on blue stilts. On the North Woolwich side a forest of dishes and the belching Tate& Lyle factory. And plying inbetween, the perennial workhorse of the Woolwich ferry [photo]. There's a certain pre-estuarine charm, if you like that sort of thing, but flats here command significantly lower prices than in Richmond for good reason. The former Woolwich Dockyard's almost all been wiped away for housing, but two 'mast ponds' survive. They look like decrepit 1960s bathing pools [photo], but were in fact used to soak ships' timbers so that the planks wouldn't split or shrink in the water. A couple of leftover cannon face out across the river, but in this low-rise landscape fail to inspire.
The next quarter mile of this long-distance path doesn't exist. It's hoped to drive a right of way along the edge of the river past a slew of warehouses, but it's been hoped for years and shows no sign of happening. Instead you have to follow the "Thames Path (interim route)" past flats, more warehouses and the busy Woolwich Road. The Thames Barrier and its grassy environs would be so much more interesting, but for the time being only if you make a deliberate diversion.
At Maryon Park, the footpath splits. One way's dull but step-free, the other fascinating with a steep climb, but there are no clues on the signposts to help you choose between them. Turn right for the view, from an unexpectedly high spur with great views across Docklands into central London [photo]. I would have climbed right to the top had I not been beaten there by three off-leash dogs, who were intent on looking at me rather than the surrounding panorama. Instead I hurried on to pass Gilbert'sPit - a geologically outstanding excavation [photo]. Various horizontal rock strata are clearly visible on its exposed slopes, and a plaque helps you pick out the Blackheath Beds from the Thanet Sands should you fancy an education. Younger walkers are more likely to be impressed by the children's zoo a little further along, most especially the (ahhhh) deer.
The parks come thick and fast, with football pitches crammed into every available space. If it's Sunday watch out for trackie-clad youths assembling by the changing rooms in Charlton Park, perhaps with a dutiful peroxide girlfriend in tow. It's such a lengthy walk around the park's perimeter, past Charlton House, that the team should be out ready for their mudbath kickabout long before you reach the other side. Hornfair Park's nowhere near as enticing. No Jacobean mansions, no budding Beckhams, just a few rusty goalposts on a municipal slope.
And so to the wilder half of the walk. You have to get past the Queen Elizabeth Hospital first, but then it's time to stride out across the Woolwich Common. This lengthy expanse of heathland stretches down toward the famous barracks, and was once used by the Royal Artillery for target practice. No such dangers amongst the thickets today. I found evidence of only one other visitor, someone who'd been round to every bench before me and left a fire and brimstone tract on each. "Death is not the end", "God can recycle too", "For a free bible please contact <an address in Northern Ireland>".
Shooter's Hill used to be a highwaymen's haunt, apparently. It's the highest point on the Capital Ring so expect quite a climb up some specially-built sandy stairs. But don't expect a view, because the summit's covered with trees, and the viewing tower's locked. That'll be Severndroog Castle, a gothic folly built by an 18th century war widow in an unusual triangular style [photo]. There used to be tearooms at the base, but today it's all boarded up awaiting the transformational magic of a Heritage lottery grant. I was particularly taken by the bleak rosegarden on the other side of the summit, reached down crumbling stone staircases, which was once part of the local stately home. Castlewood House is long gone, as is the next mansion whose grounds the path winds through, but the woods are delightful.
I could tell I was getting close to the Oxleas Wood Cafe by the increasing density of dogs. Owners seemed irresistably drawn to it, despite the fact that all canine visitors were forced to wait outside beyond a protective fence. I was happy to leave Pickle the pug on the other side of the barrier, that's for sure, because he'd been showing far too much interest in my lower limbs. The cafe's definitely more greasy spoon than elegant tearoom, and all the better for it. Fried breakfasts were being waitered out of the kitchen while I queued, each greatly appreciated by the collective clientèle. Mugs of tea for 60p, fresh pasties piled up on the counter, sticky cake... surely only its obscure location prevents this place from being any busier. [photo]
One wildly meandering woodlandwalk to follow, emerging eventually into Eltham Park. The long pond used to be a boating lake, but now it's home to a few ducks instead. Section 1's nearly at an end, and would be even shorter were the park not divided in half by a deep railway cutting and the A2 dual carriageway. Falconwood station is nearby, with trains back to London Bridge and Victoria for those bailing out here. Even if you're not intending to walk the whole of the Capital Ring, merely cherrypicking, I'd say this is definitely one of the more varied and interesting sections.
Walk London CAPITAL RING[sections 1-15] Woolwich to North Woolwich (78 miles)
London has seven Strategic Walking Routes (or 'long distance footpaths' to you and me). Some follow rivers, some go round in circles, and some just wiggle all over the place. I thought it would be a good idea to follow one of them, partly for the exercise, but mostly because London's a fascinating place to wander through. Not the Lea Valley Walk, because I've done all of that. Not the Jubilee Greenway, because it's a year early. Instead I've chosen to follow the Capital Ring, which is a loop roughly halfway between the edge and the centre of London. Officially it's in fifteen different sections, from Woolwich round to North Woolwich via Crystal Palace, Richmond and Hendon. The route aims to link up as many greenspaces as possible, be they parks, recreation grounds or proper woodland, and pretty much succeeds. I've walked bits of the Ring before, but this time I'm intending to do the whole thing in sequence to make one complete circuit. One section every few weeks, that's the plan, but we'll see how it goes.
I'll not be the first web presence to walk the Capital Ring, not by a long chalk. Darryl's done the whole thing, in detail, and with far more photos than I'll be taking. Tim beat me by five years, and Mark by four. John's only just finished. Stephen took Henry the dog with him, and has a rather useful Google map of the route. And you could do it too. Most sections are only 4-6 miles long, which is (probably) well within your capabilities. Each section starts and finishes near a station, for ease of access. Full details are available on the Walk London website, including directions and print-it-yourself maps. Alas WL are't sending out sectional leaflets any more, only useless summaries, but they will email you a special certificate if/when you complete the round tour. Maybe buy yourself the official book to guide you round, if you're serious - it's a heck of a lot cheaper than signing up at a gym this January. If you fancy a taster, Walk London have their regular Winter Wanders weekend at the end of the month, including Ring sections 6, 14 & 15 on the 29th, and 8 & 12 on the 30th. New year, new challenge?
CAPITAL RING: kickoff The Capital Ring footpath starts on the banks of the Thames, which you'd think would be nice. You'd be wrong. The official start is in Woolwich, more specifically round the back of a council leisure centre. Think 1980s tradesman's entrance, think glass and brick, think zero scenic ambience. Listen to the sounds of bathers splashing in the pool round the corner, and steel yourself for the smell of chlorine seeping out of bright blue pipes. There is a proper reason for the start being here though, which is the southern shaft of the Woolwich Foot Tunnel. This 99-year-old tiled passage is the only under-river walkway for miles, so it's the ideal spot for a round-London footpath to begin. Or at least it would be if it were open. Greenwich Council are spending a year repairing the stairs, which shouldn't be a problem because there are also lifts you can use. Well that was the plan, but they've had to install emergency scaffolding in the lift shafts so the entire tunnel's now sealed off behind a blue hoarding. If you want to walk or take your bike through to North Woolwich you can't, until at least March. It'd be nice if the council had updated their sign on the hoarding to explain this, but no. Potential tunnellers are told that the lifts should be working, even though they're not, which is sheer municipal laziness. Instead they point out the Woolwich Ferry, which leaves from a pier almost immediately alongside, as an alternative means of crossing. According to the sign the ferry runs between 0630 and 2200, but this also turns out to be a slapdash council lie. I was trying to get across the river on a Sunday morning, but on Sundays it turns out the ferry never kicks off before half past eleven! For those with cash to spare who fancy a half-mile detour, there is of course now the DLR, but the crap council sign never mentions this. Plus the DLR doesn't accept bikes, so if you're a cyclist on a Sunday morning you're not going to get across here at all. Come the morning of Sunday 23rd January things'll get even worse because the Woolwich arm's of the DLR's going to be closed for engineering works. That'll be no tunnel, no ferry, no DLR... and no useful information on the South Stairs either. West London never allows its cross-Thames traffic to be screwed in this way, but the river out east can be an impenetrable barrier. The Capital Ring footpath starts on the banks of the Thames, which you'd think would be nice. You'd be wrong.
The eclipse-watcher's greatest enemy is cloud. Even though science can predict the precise moment and location of an eclipse several millennia in advance, the weather remains an unpredictable element of sabotage. High cirrus cloud - no problem. Thin altostratus - fine. But lumpen grey stratus, sorry, spectacle denied.
Tuesday morning, and twenty-or-so eclipse-watchers assemble atop Primrose Hill. This is the highest point of land close to Central London with a southeastern view, so it's a good place to be. The time's around eight o'clock, a few minutes before sunrise. Most of the sky is obscured, but miraculously there's a narrow slit of shady light illuminating the horizon. It's not certain, but it looks like the cloud might be thin enough to allow at least some solar light through. Ah no, false alarm. A curtain of grey descends, the imminent sunrise is shrouded, and the moment is lost.
In a city of eight million, I'm distinctly unimpressed by the tiny audience at this prime viewing spot. But the few who've made the effort are here in the hope of seeing something spectacular. Some are optimists, who've heard the weather is supposed to be rubbish but have come up anyway. Some are merely passing through with dogs to walk, and have paused on the summit to see what's going on. Two are professional photographers with giant-lensed cameras, hoping to sell photographs of amber crescents to news-gathering organisations. Others have heard something about an eclipse, maybe on the TV or on the internet somewhere, but haven't quite grasped the scientific details of what's to come. In the absence of any solar activity, it's this latter category who are the most interesting to watch.
» Two parents have brought their young daughters up the hill to see whatever it is they're going to see. They stand at the top of the slope, point towards Canary Wharf and wait. Absolutely nothing happens. This is because there's still one minute to sunrise, but they don't know that so they give up and walk away. » Another pair of skywatchers give up two minutes later. They've heard the eclipse is supposed to be at sunrise, but haven't grasped the concept that it lasts much longer than that, so they turn to each other disappointed and wander off. » Four lads in hoodies come and sit on the bench because one of them heard about the eclipse on the radio. They stare at the Post Office Tower, which is in completely the wrong direction, because the unlit horizon's not offering them any clues. They chatter, they smoke, and then they bugger off to the gym.
But there is something exceptional about this morning's sunrise. It hasn't happened. Normally by twenty past eight the sky over London would be brightening fast, even on an overcast day like this. Not today. The streetlamps scattered across the foot of the hill are still burning orange. The sky remains a dim pre-dawn grey. And all because two-thirds of the Sun is missing. More importantly, it's the top half of the Sun that's had the biggest chunk bitten out by the Moon's shadow. The remaining exposed yellow crescent is lower on the horizon, so has yet to shine down on the cloudtops and illuminate London's morning. If you know and understand what's happening, it's oddly eerie. But almost nobody in the capital has spotted that sunrise has been delayed. They probably just think it's still dark, or foggy, or more likely aren't thinking about light levels at all.
The professional photographers remain on the hilltop longer than most, but leave without taking a single frame. Eventually it becomes obvious, even to the most stubbornly optimistic observer, that the cloud blanket won't be clearing any time soon. The eclipse still has another hour to run, but its black shadow is shrinking fast and soon won't be worth seeing even were it visible. Time to head back to normality, after a non-event caused by evil wildcard cloud. To the handful of us who noticed, another magicalastronomicalphenomenon has been wrecked by meteorology. Spectacle denied.
: Another target has been smashed. Yesterday evening, somewhere around ten o'clock, diamond geezer received its two millionth visitor. Actually that's not quite true, it was just the two millionth time that a slightly ropey stats package has registered a unique visit, which isn't the same thing at all. But, woo, two million visits is not to be sniffed at! It's the equivalent of all the adults in Wales reading my blog once (or, on average, one tube-train-ful of readers every day). And they're coming faster. The first million took five and a half years, the second million's taken less than three.
What's quite interesting, to me at least, is to consider how and why all these visitors have arrived here:
• 20% of my visitors arrived here via a search engine. Most of these poor deluded souls no doubt clicked here expecting that my site would yield the answer to some esoteric query, only to be disappointed by what they didn't find. I therefore shouldn't really count these as true visitors - they arrived here under false pretences. • 25% of my visitors arrived here via another website. That's half of a million arrivals via someone's else's blogroll, or because something I wrote got mentioned somewhere. I have no idea how many of these people ever came back again. But every click-through is appreciated. • Just over half of my visitors arrived here direct, without clicking through from a search engine or any other website. Which is nice, because it suggests that more than a million visits have been deliberate.
Let's explore that middle category in a bit more depth. It's time once again for an update of my regular 'league table' of top linking blogs, ordered by volume of visitors clicking here from there. I've also included the 'highest climbers' since I reached a million back in April 2008. Thank you all for linking (assuming you still exist).
I'm struck by how little has changed here since my chart at one million. Apart from Dave at the Guardian, Ham and those Londonist folks, everyone else is in much the same position as last time. And that's because people don't really click through from blogrolls any more, they click through from mentions elsewhere. A tweet here, a Facebook mention there - that's how new visitors arrive today. A blogger's only as good as their last post, and past reputation counts for nought.
As if to make the point, my two millionth visitor came not from another blog but via a tweet. One out-of-the-blue mention from @LDN last night sent nearly 1000 visitors to my blog in a single hour, which is exceptional. Indeed that's more people than read the same post here during the whole of Sunday, all tempted in by an instant Twitter recommendation. The ability to drive traffic to blogs has shifted, it seems, away from those who generate their own content towards those who merely digest the content of others.
And then of course there's RSS, which means thousands of you now read this blog without ever visiting it. As far as all you're concerned I'm no longer writing a continuous story, I'm generating atomised blogposts. My output is digested as stripped text somewhere else, wherever you think fit, which makes a complete mockery of attempting to count visitor numbers accurately anyway. I guess I must have passed the magic two million many months ago, but didn't realise it. Never mind the inexactitude. I don't mind where you come from, I'm just well chuffed that you bother. Hello and thanks to all of you. And here's to a million more...
And now a proper East End anniversary. It's 100 years ago today since the Siege of Sidney Street. A group of criminal immigrants hid away in a house with firearms, the police turned up en masse to force them out, and an important member of the Government popped down to help organise things. Events you can still imagine happening today, as well as the Daily Mail headline that would follow. (hang on, why imagine)
The story had begun two weeks earlier, on 16th December 1910. A gang of Latvian thieves broke into the back of a jewellers in Houndsditch, but their scrabbling aroused the suspicions of neighbours who then alerted the police. Attempts to engage the burglars in conversation proved impossible, given the language difficulties, so the police got suspicious and entered the building to find out more. A tense shoot-out ensued, and three of the policemen were killed as the gang tried to escape. The incident shocked the public, who were made even more indignant by the fact that almost all of the thieves managed to get away.
Houndsditch today is a gloomy one-way thoroughfare leading out of the City. The Heron Tower is going up at one end, while at the other is the Aldgate gyratory system. No jewellers, just a lot of midrise offices and places where bankers can spend money on food and drink. In this respect it's like a lot of similar nearby streets, with all character and charmed sucked out by Luftwaffe raids and indiscriminate modern architecture. No obvious sign either of the plaque recently erected to commemorate the centenary of the Houndsditch Murders. For that you have to look one street further back, on the Petticoat Lane side, screwed to a low wall near the entrance to Devonshire Square. The plaque already looks slightly weatherbeaten (for which I blame recent weather), and it's not ideal to have to crouch to read the names of the three dead officers properly. But about time.
Sidney Street's a mile away, on the dividing line between Whitechapel and Stepney. The infamous siege took place on 3rd January 1911 after an informant alerted police that gang members were holed up at number 100. At dawn around two hundred armed officers surrounded the building, part of a three-storey brick terrace of typically poor East End stock. The police should have had the upper hand, but the gang had superior weapons and so a lengthy stand-off developed. A top-hatted Winston Churchill turned up, because he was Home Secretary at the time, and got rather closer to the action than many commentators thought wise. One MP in a top hat, scores of officers in helmets, and huge crowds of spectators in flat caps at the end of the street - the scene was headgear-tastic. The field artillery arrived, at Churchill's behest, but by this time one gang member had been shot and the building was on fire. The Fire Brigade left it to burn, and two charred bodies were later recovered from the remains.
Sidney Street's also completely changed since 1911. The old poverty has been swept away to be replaced by a variety of post-war council housing, none of it lovely. The eastern side of the street is now a bland storage warehouse, overlooked by the bright blue tower of the new Royal London Hospital. 100 Sidney Street's long gone, along with the whole of Hawkins Street (which it was on the corner of). In its place stands Wexford House - a block with five long balconies of the kind that actors in The Bill used to spend all their time chasing criminals along. There's a brick staircase out front where someone could put a plaque, but rest assured nobody will because the past's completely vanished around here.
Newsreels of the event were shown in cinemas across London that evening. The siege captured the public imagination, and helped fuel further anti-immigrant feeling across the East End. Churchill's career went from good to (eventually) better. The Metropolitan Police bought themselves better firearms for future incidents. The rest of the gang bar one were later captured, but acquitted. Their leader, nicknamed 'Peter the Painter', was never found and has since entered anarchist folklore. And all this might seem an age ago, except those newsreels still survive and bring the whole peculiarly savage event to life. Video's been making an impact on newsgathering for 100 years, ensuring that the Siege of Sidney Street can never be forgotten.
There's a small exhibition at the Museum in Docklands at the moment, entitled London Under Siege: Churchill and the Anarchists, 1911. It details the background to Houndsditch and Sidney Street, as well as showing two different contemporary newsreels on a big screen. There are bullets and guns, there's the actual safe-breaking equipment, there's even Churchill's big winter overcoat that he wore on the day of the siege. While I was there some bloke was busy bemoaning that some of the information was incorrect, but you'll probably have a quieter time of it. You'll find the exhibition at the end of the gallery tour until April, or just take the lift to the second floor and there it is.
UK Eclipse Alert: On Tuesday morning, just as Britain heads back to work after New Year, a solar eclipse will take place over much of northern Europe. The eclipse won't be total, only partial, but up to 80% of the sun will disappear over Scandinavia, and up to two-thirds here. The partial eclipse will be visible across the whole of the UK, weather permitting, but the greatest coverage will be here in the southeast. The eclipse begins before sunrise, which isn't ideal, so you'll need to find somewhere with a good view of the southeastern horizon and wait. First light's just after eight o'clock. Two-thirds of the sun's disc will be covered at the moment of maximum eclipse, shortly afterwards. And it'll all be over by half past nine. Try not to miss this, because there'll only be a handful of better solar eclipses to be seen in the UK during your lifetime. (but never look directly at the Sun, obviously, or you could do horrible things to your eyesight)
Here are the details for London: • Sunrise on Tuesday 4th January is at 08:06. It'll be a dimmer sunrise than normal because most of the top half of the Sun will be eclipsed, and the non-eclipsed bit will be below the horizon. If the clouds are clear a single spike of Sun will emerge into the daylight, then a second, eventually combining to form a two-horned curve of light. Tell me that isn't something special. • Maximum eclipse occurs at 08:11, five minutes after sunrise. 66.7% of the solar disc will be covered at this point, with a big bite taken out of the top left edge of the Sun. After this, more and more of the Sun will appear as the Moon's shadow moves on. • The eclipse ends at 09:31. The Sun will still be less than 10° above the horizon at this point, this being midwinter, so if there are any buildings or trees between you and the horizon you'll probably see none of it.
And the really special, really rare thing? This eclipse is a direct hit on London. The centre line traced by the Moon's shadow passes precisely across the capital, from Old Coulsdon to Hainault (via Shirley, Hither Green, Silvertown and Ilford). It even very nearly passes through the Royal Greenwich Observatory, which is a nice astronomical touch. There'll be no perceptible benefits to being on this magic line, but it is exceptionally rare for any particular point on the Earth to be hit in this way. (For those of you outside the capital, the eclipse is also a direct hit on Littlehampton, Redhill, Thaxted, Haverhill, Elveden, Watton and Holt)
At this point I should introduce you to NASA's clickable eclipse map. It show's the centre line of the eclipse (in green) and the furthest extent of the Moon's shadow (in yellow). Zoom in, and you can follow the path of the eclipse from North Africa to the icy Russian wastes. Even better, you can click anywhere on the map to bring up the precise local circumstances at that point (Blackheath, maximum eclipse 08:11:47.5, elevation 0°, Sun on a bearing of 128.4°). I could play with this all day (but then I'm sad like that).
When will the UK next see a total solar eclipse?3rd September 2081 (Channel Islands only) When will the UK mainland next see a total solar eclipse?23rd September 2090 (Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hants, West Sussex) (Google map) When will London next see a total solar eclipse?14th July2151 (Enfield Lock, Hainault, Romford, Upminster) [the last was on 3 May 1715]
2011 anniversary quiz Here are 21 events celebrating an anniversary in 2011. How many can you identify? All answers in the comments box (and anniversaries are now clickable). a)patented Jan 1886 (125 years): Karl's four-stroke b)died Jan 1986 (25 years): seven climbed for 73 seconds c)assumed Feb 1811 (200 years): overpowered his mad Dad d)began Mar 1911 (100 years): when global men take a back seat e)began Apr 1861 (150 years): North versus South f)opened Apr 1936 (75 years): funpark in an Ingoldmells turnip field g)ascended Apr 1961 (50 years): he looked down on everyone h)blew Apr 1986 (25 years): the only level 7 event on the INES i)published May 1611 (400 years): In the beginning was these Words j)launched May 1886 (125 years): sold for five cents at Jacob's Pharmacy k)born Jul 1961 (50 years): at Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk l)erected Aug 1961 (50 years): overnight division of capital m)born Oct 1811 (200 years): virtuoso pianist and composer n)dedicated Oct 1886 (125 years): Bartholdi's torch enlightens the world o)born Oct 1961 (50 years): weekly satirical, weakly satirical? p)run Nov 1861 (150 years): two miles down under q)launched Nov 1936 (75 years): Helen McKay, live from Ally Pally r)born Dec 1761 (250 years): lady from the house of wax s)reached Dec 1911 (100 years): Roald's sub-zero trek t)occurred Dec 1936 (75 years): irrevocable determination to renounce u)began Dec 1886 (125 years): the lads from Dial Square
Why wait three hours for eight minutes of fireworks when you can wait five minutes for quarter of an hour? Fantastic though the display at the London Eye might have been, the thought of being penned in for ages on the Embankment didn't appeal. So I took the out-of-town option and headed up to Croxley Green, land of my forefathers, to enjoy the firework display there. No hanging around, just quarter of an hour of New Year community spirit. And not a BBC TV camera in sight.
As midnight approached, the roads leading to the Green filled with well-wrapped villagers. So many, in fact, that many never made it to the display area before midnight struck. I wondered why they didn't rush across the grass rather than queueing on the pavement, but soon worked out why when I saw the mud caked to my shoes. The man from the Parish Council counted down 2011 with his megaphone. He'd only reached 'six...' when midnight arrived, but only those of us with Big Ben in our earphones spotted the anachronism. You probably celebrated late by a few seconds too, assuming you were watching something digital, but I had an FM radio to hand because I never trust leaving New Year to others.
Blam, the first fireworks erupted into the sky, lighting up the sky over darkest Hertfordshire. Nowhere near as many as you'd have seen by the Thames, and all from a single launch point far behind the barriers. But ooh, and ahh, as reds and whites and greens and golds exploded above us to a musical accompaniment. We got Ride of The Valkyries to start with, which worked rather better than Nessun Dorma (live version, with applause) which followed. By the time Rule Britannia kicked in, the display back in London had already finished. But on Croxley Green the flashes, whizzes and shimmers continued, growing ever higher and louder (and probably keeping folk in the nearby old people's home awake). The firework extravaganza finally died away halfway through Jerusalem, which wasn't great timing, and drowned any wild cheering the organisers might have been expecting at the end of their piece. Part of the crowd attempted a lacklustre Auld Lang Syne but it soon died out, thank goodness, and the muddy exodus began.
You may have been part of the quarter of a million crowd lining the Thames, but I bet you didn't enjoy the feelings of communal cameraderie we six hundred had in Croxley. And I bet you didn't get away so quickly either, with most of the audience tucked up home in bed well before 2011 was a hour old. The village never had a New Year firework display back when I used to live here, more's the pity. But Croxley's amateur spectacle made an uplifting change from the brash over-policed crush back in town.
"2011 is going to be a difficult year, as we take hard but necessary steps,"says David. "2011 will be a year of consequences for Britain,"says Ed. "I'm going to help lead this country out of recession next year,"says Boris. "Good luck everybody, I think 2011 might be a rough ride,"says DG.
Olympic update
It's costing half a billion pounds to erect London's Olympic Stadium. For a couple of fortnights in 2012 it'll be the focus of global attention, packed out with spectators watching world-class athletes compete. But what happens next is yet to be decided. Either West Ham or Tottenham Hotspur will move out of their current ground and make Stratford their home. We'll know soon who the lucky team is. But if Tottenham Hotspur get their way, the entire £537m structure will be ripped down so that they can start again. And that can't be right.
West London's Trellick Tower has a less famous older brother on the other side of the capital. That's the Balfron Tower - a Brutalist 27-storey apartment block, located just north of the Blackwall Tunnel. Both have a similar silhouette, both were designed by Erno Goldfinger, and both are admired from the outside by people who'd probably never dream of living on the inside. The architect himself was an exception. Goldfinger and his wife moved into the Balfron Tower soon after it was built, and spent a couple of months living in flat 130 on the top floor to find out what living here was like.
Walk London
The Pool of Woolwich on a January morning - is there anywhere finer? Yes, sorry, there is, but we'll get there later. For now I'm kicking off my London circumnavigation by walking along a less lovely bit of the Thames [photo]. On the Woolwich side a bingo hall and some orange flats on blue stilts. On the North Woolwich side a forest of dishes and the belching Tate & Lyle factory. And plying inbetween, the perennial workhorse of the Woolwich ferry [photo]. There's a certain pre-estuarine charm, if you like that sort of thing, but flats here command significantly lower prices than in Richmond for good reason. The former Woolwich Dockyard's almost all been wiped away for housing, but two 'mast ponds' survive. They look like decrepit 1960s bathing pools [photo], but were in fact used to soak ships' timbers so that the planks wouldn't split or shrink in the water. A couple of leftover cannon face out across the river, but in this low-rise landscape fail to inspire.
The parks come thick and fast, with football pitches crammed into every available space. If it's Sunday watch out for trackie-clad youths assembling by the changing rooms in Charlton Park, perhaps with a dutiful peroxide girlfriend in tow. It's such a lengthy walk around the park's perimeter, past Charlton House, that the team should be out ready for their mudbath kickabout long before you reach the other side. Hornfair Park's nowhere near as enticing. No Jacobean mansions, no budding Beckhams, just a few rusty goalposts on a municipal slope.
Shooter's Hill used to be a highwaymen's haunt, apparently. It's the highest point on the Capital Ring so expect quite a climb up some specially-built sandy stairs. But don't expect a view, because the summit's covered with trees, and the viewing tower's locked. That'll be Severndroog Castle, a gothic folly built by an 18th century war widow in an unusual triangular style [photo]. There used to be tearooms at the base, but today it's all boarded up awaiting the transformational magic of a Heritage lottery grant. I was particularly taken by the bleak rose garden on the other side of the summit, reached down crumbling stone staircases, which was once part of the local stately home. Castlewood House is long gone, as is the next mansion whose grounds the path winds through, but the woods are delightful.
London has seven Strategic Walking Routes (or 'long distance footpaths' to you and me). Some follow rivers, some go round in circles, and some just wiggle all over the place. I thought it would be a good idea to follow one of them, partly for the exercise, but mostly because London's a fascinating place to wander through. Not the Lea Valley Walk, because I've done all of that. Not the Jubilee Greenway, because it's a year early. Instead I've chosen to follow the Capital Ring, which is a loop roughly halfway between the edge and the centre of London. Officially it's in fifteen different sections, from Woolwich round to North Woolwich via Crystal Palace, Richmond and Hendon. The route aims to link up as many greenspaces as possible, be they parks, recreation grounds or proper woodland, and pretty much succeeds. I've walked bits of the Ring before, but this time I'm intending to do the whole thing in sequence to make one complete circuit. One section every few weeks, that's the plan, but we'll see how it goes.
The Capital Ring footpath starts on the banks of the Thames, which you'd think would be nice. You'd be wrong. The official start is in Woolwich, more specifically round the back of a council leisure centre. Think 1980s tradesman's entrance, think glass and brick, think zero scenic ambience. Listen to the sounds of bathers splashing in the pool round the corner, and steel yourself for the smell of chlorine seeping out of bright blue pipes. There is a proper reason for the start being here though, which is the southern shaft of the Woolwich Foot Tunnel. This 99-year-old tiled passage is the only under-river walkway for miles, so it's the ideal spot for a round-London footpath to begin. Or at least it would be if it were open. Greenwich Council are spending a year repairing the stairs, which shouldn't be a problem because there are also lifts you can use. Well that was the plan, but they've had to install emergency scaffolding in the lift shafts so the entire tunnel's now sealed off behind a blue hoarding. If you want to walk or take your bike through to North Woolwich you can't, until at least March. It'd be nice if the council had updated their sign on the hoarding to explain this, but no. Potential tunnellers are told that the lifts should be working, even though they're not, which is sheer municipal laziness. Instead they point out the Woolwich Ferry, which leaves from a pier almost immediately alongside, as an alternative means of crossing. According to the sign the ferry runs between 0630 and 2200, but this also turns out to be a slapdash council lie. I was trying to get across the river on a Sunday morning, but on Sundays it turns out the ferry never kicks off before half past eleven! For those with cash to spare who fancy a half-mile detour, there is of course now the DLR, but the crap council sign never mentions this. Plus the DLR doesn't accept bikes, so if you're a cyclist on a Sunday morning you're not going to get across here at all. Come the morning of Sunday 23rd January things'll get even worse because the Woolwich arm's of the DLR's going to be closed for engineering works. That'll be no tunnel, no ferry, no DLR... and no useful information on the South Stairs either. West London never allows its cross-Thames traffic to be screwed in this way, but the river out east can be an impenetrable barrier. The Capital Ring footpath starts on the banks of the Thames, which you'd think would be nice. You'd be wrong.
Tuesday morning, and twenty-or-so eclipse-watchers assemble atop Primrose Hill. This is the highest point of land close to Central London with a southeastern view, so it's a good place to be. The time's around eight o'clock, a few minutes before sunrise. Most of the sky is obscured, but miraculously there's a narrow slit of shady light illuminating the horizon. It's not certain, but it looks like the cloud might be thin enough to allow at least some solar light through. Ah no, false alarm. A curtain of grey descends, the imminent sunrise is shrouded, and the moment is lost.
As if to make the point, my two millionth visitor came not from another blog but via a tweet. One out-of-the-blue mention from @LDN last night sent nearly 1000 visitors to my blog in a single hour, which is exceptional. Indeed that's more people than read the same post here during the whole of Sunday, all tempted in by an instant Twitter recommendation. The ability to drive traffic to blogs has shifted, it seems, away from those who generate their own content towards those who merely digest the content of others.
Houndsditch today is a gloomy one-way thoroughfare leading out of the City. The Heron Tower is going up at one end, while at the other is the Aldgate gyratory system. No jewellers, just a lot of midrise offices and places where bankers can spend money on food and drink. In this respect it's like a lot of similar nearby streets, with all character and charmed sucked out by Luftwaffe raids and indiscriminate modern architecture. No obvious sign either of the plaque recently erected to commemorate the centenary of the Houndsditch Murders. For that you have to look one street further back, on the Petticoat Lane side, screwed to a low wall near the entrance to Devonshire Square. The plaque already looks slightly weatherbeaten (for which I blame recent weather), and it's not ideal to have to crouch to read the names of the three dead officers properly. But about time.
Sidney Street's also completely changed since 1911. The old poverty has been swept away to be replaced by a variety of post-war council housing, none of it lovely. The eastern side of the street is now a bland storage warehouse, overlooked by the bright blue tower of the new Royal London Hospital. 100 Sidney Street's long gone, along with the whole of Hawkins Street (which it was on the corner of). In its place stands Wexford House - a block with five long balconies of the kind that actors in The Bill used to spend all their time chasing criminals along. There's a brick staircase out front where someone could put a plaque, but rest assured nobody will because the past's completely vanished around here.
There's a small exhibition at the Museum in Docklands at the moment, entitled London Under Siege: Churchill and the Anarchists, 1911. It details the background to Houndsditch and Sidney Street, as well as showing two different contemporary newsreels on a big screen. There are bullets and guns, there's the actual safe-breaking equipment, there's even Churchill's big winter overcoat that he wore on the day of the siege. While I was there some bloke was busy bemoaning that some of the information was incorrect, but you'll probably have a quieter time of it. You'll find the exhibition at the end of the gallery tour until April, or just take the lift to the second floor and there it is.
UK Eclipse Alert: On Tuesday morning, just as Britain heads back to work after New Year, a solar eclipse will take place over much of northern Europe. The eclipse won't be total, only partial, but up to 80% of the sun will disappear over Scandinavia, and up to two-thirds here. The partial eclipse will be visible across the whole of the UK, weather permitting, but the greatest coverage will be here in the southeast. The eclipse begins before sunrise, which isn't ideal, so you'll need to find somewhere with a good view of the southeastern horizon and wait. First light's just after eight o'clock. Two-thirds of the sun's disc will be covered at the moment of maximum eclipse, shortly afterwards. And it'll all be over by half past nine. Try not to miss this, because there'll only be a handful of better solar eclipses to be seen in the UK during your lifetime.
2011 anniversary quiz
Why wait three hours for eight minutes of fireworks when you can wait five minutes for quarter of an hour? Fantastic though the display at the London Eye might have been, the thought of being penned in for ages on the Embankment didn't appeal. So I took the out-of-town option and headed up to Croxley Green, land of my forefathers, to enjoy the firework display there. No hanging around, just quarter of an hour of New Year community spirit. And not a BBC TV camera in sight.
"2011 is going to be a difficult year, as we take hard but necessary steps," says David.
West London's Trellick Tower has a less famous older brother on the other side of the capital. That's the 
"2011 is going to be a difficult year, as we take hard but necessary steps," 