My Saturday didn't quite go to plan. I'll start with the good bit, and then you can watch things head downhill.
» I went to the cinema to see Attack The Block, which is the new sci-fi action comedy film directed by half of Adam and Joe. It's set on a South London housing estate, so I went to watch it in South London for added buzz. Usual story - aliens invade tower block, bunch of teenage muggers sees them off. Los Angeles tried something similar with Skyline, but whereas that was abysmal this is great. It's very down with the hood, avoiding too much patronising crass patois, despite being written by a middle-aged white man. The plot even hangs together, pretty much, apart from the entirely unbelievable bits. There's a lot of swearing and drugtaking and kids with knives, as well as intergalactic teeth, and don't go see if fireworks give you the willies. But I really really enjoyed it.
» Attack The Block is supposedly set in Oval, the inner-city cricket haven, so I walked there after the film for a bit of location spotting. I was trying to track down Wyndham Tower, the 19-storey tower block around which the entire plot revolves. I had no idea precisely where it was, but a massive concrete pile of flats couldn't be too hard to hide. Not by the station, not down the Brixton Road, and all the blocks towards Stockwell were the wrong shape and size. I eventually twigged that the film wasn't shot round here at all, and that the name of the tower was a slipped-in sci-fi reference. How stupid did I look?
» Next stop Brixton, for National Mills Weekend. Brixton has a well-hidden windmill (the last in Inner London), which reopened at the start of the month for the first time since the 1930s. Today was supposed to be its second public day, but I turned up to find barriers in place and an apologetic lady from the council. She wouldn't quite explain what was wrong, other than that some unexpected interior repairs needed doing, and could she please have my email address. The lady from the Friends of Brixton Windmill wasn't much more forthcoming about the closure, except it might take about a month, and could she please have my email address. Both of them were incredibly keen to invite me back, whenever the next opening is, although their desire to grab my contact details felt more like you'd expect from windmill-based chuggers. Keep your eye on the website, and maybe they'll be just as pleased to see you soon. (If you're interested, Keston, Shirley, Upminster and Wimbledon windmills really are opening today)
» I thought I'd go and see the Westminster Morris, on their annual day of dance. A dozen troupes of hanky-wavers and stick-bashers filled the heart of London and jingled their leg-bells, as if somehow Charing Cross was still a medieval village. I arrived in time to see eight old men in hats having a whale of a time jigging about while their colleagues looked on, tankards of real ale in hand. And then two minutes later they stopped for an hour-long tea break, so that's all I saw.
» I wanted to see "Oil Stick Work", a digital projection at Canary Wharf station that's part of Art on the Underground. This is a weird one. An American builder is being paid to paint a grain silo in Kansas with a small black crayon, starting each day at dawn and stopping at dusk. He's painting so slowly that the entire process is due to take three decades, ending in 2038, because that's art innit? A live feed of this pointless painting has been shown on a big screen at the far end of the Canary Wharf ticket hall since 14th May last year, but I never usually go up there so hadn't seen it. Yesterday was my last chance before the transatlantic viewing window closed, so I made a special effort because it would be a shame to miss out. No luck, the screen was blank. A notice by the escalators thanked passers-by for coming to see the artwork, but apologised that the plug had been pulled early due to technical problems. I bet nobody else came specially on the last day, just me. The painting continues.
» I got semi-invited to a Eurovision party, round at some house I've never been to, belonging to some people I don't really know. I didn't go because it sounded dangerously sociable in a not-quite fun way, but that wasn't the answer other people wanted.
» I stayed in for the evening and wrote about how I didn't get to see a tower block, a windmill, some morris-dancing, some digital art and several bowls of European dips.
One of Boris's flagship policies is the production of a New Bus For London. At the moment however there's only one bus, and it doesn't work. It's a full-size prototype, designed to look red, curvy and futuristic, but also engineless so can't be driven anywhere. And it's currently on show at the London Transport Museum, where anyone can pay £13.50 to have a look at it. But last night (and again next Friday) the museum opened late with the express intention of allowing Londoners to take a look inside the New Bus for nothing. Bargain. Might have seen you there.
They've lined up the New Bus on the museum floor next to a 50 year-old Routemaster, where last night both were drawing admiring glances. This juxtaposition is particularly instructive because the New Bus is supposed to have been inspired by the Routemaster and yet the two look completely different. A huge glass windscreen, diagonal black stripes and watering-can headlamps - you won't find those on the old 1960s workhorse. The only real connection is the rear platform, and even that's not especially similar. The New Bus platform has a glass door which folds back out of the way when there's a conductor around, and its pole is recessed so you can't hang onto it and drag behind the bus. The rear door will only be sealed off when unattended, but we were reassured that the driver will still have full control and will open it automatically at bus stops. One door at the back, a second door in the middle and a third door at the front... the TfL guide was very proud to point out that the New Bus will be a three door bus. Each of the three doors also has its own Oyster reader, for speedy boarding, which looks like it'll make means fare dodging fairly simple. In this respect, and in being longer than every other double decker on the road, I'm afraid Boris's beloved New Bus bears more than a passing resemblance to a bendy.
There was a very slow queue waiting to take a look inside the New Bus last night. Still few enough that every single one of us would have been able to board the real thing and get a seat (seated 62, standing 25, wheelchair 1), had we been allowed. But this mock-up isn't the real thing, so staff were rightly paranoid that if too many visitors boarded simultaneously the fragile floor might collapse. So it was six visitors at a time, one tour on the lower deck and another on the upper, which took absolutely ages to clear. "I haven't waited this long for a bus since the 1950s," said the gentleman waiting patiently in front of me. Forty minutes, near enough, it was, before either of us finally got inside. At this rate (this week and next) I reckon that about 0.002% of the population of London will have passed through the New Bus. It's not really a consultation, this, merely a very small-scale showcase.
"Welcome to the New Bus", said our guide, as we plonked down on the somewhat scary moquette. "Please note that there are three doors" (we'd noticed) "and a lot of glass" (great for looking out) "and a platform at the rear" (which I couldn't see because the seatback went quite high). She reassured us that the seating will be arranged differently in the real bus, and that the wheelchair space will be bigger, and that the lighting will be less harsh throughout. Indeed she insisted on telling us that several improvements have been made to the design in the six months since this mock-up was built, so if we saw anything we didn't like we shouldn't worry because it had probably already been changed. It seemed somewhat perverse to have queued for so long to see an interior that's already deemed out-of-date, but we got the general idea.
There are two staircases, which is new for London, and which should improve passenger flow between the decks. So while the other tour party were descending at the rear we nipped up the nine steps behind the driver to see upstairs. Blimey the roof's low up here. I'm about five foot ten and my head was a couple of inches below the ceiling, so long as I stayed in the centre, but anyone who's six foot anything is going to have to permanently duck. One of the reasons for the low ceiling is the New Bus's air-cooled ventilation system. If you find buses sweaty in the summer and steamed-up and stuffy in the winter then you're going to love this pioneering climate control. Conversely if you're the more resilient type then you'll probably think it's a complete waste of money and that a few opening windows upstairs might have been a nicer idea.
There'll be a fully functioning New Bus prototype by November, and five actual genuine New Buses in passenger service sometime in early 2012. That's later than planned, but perfectly timed to appear on London's roads just in time for next year's Mayoral elections. You won't be using them regularly soon, not when they'll comprise less than 0.1% of the capital's bus fleet, and you probably won't be using them at all if Ken gets re-elected. But if Boris gets another term at TfL's helm, and recession-funding allows, expect to see this streamlined vanity project winning more than a few hearts as it swoops by.
To resolve their obviously-extremely-serious issues, they've had to roll every Blogger blog back to Wednesday afternoon, which is why Thursday's posts have temporarily disappeared*. And I fear the post I had ready for you today may have completely vanished (which is a shame, because it was rather fun, and I'm not writing it again)**.
Normal service should be restored eventually. Now please, get on with your lives.
You remember the Paralympics. The parallel event to the big one. The Olympics' smaller sibling. The event where aspiration overcomes adversity. All the sports that nobody watches for three years and fifty weeks. Anybody want any tickets?
Probably not enough people, if the just-released schedule is to be believed. Whereas tickets for the Olympics started at £20 and hit the stratosphere, half of those for the Paralympics cost £10 or less. Other than the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, nothing costs more than £45, while children get in for a fiver. They're almost giving these two million seats away for nothing - which is precisely what the organisers of most previous Paralympic Games have felt forced to do. At least in London there's some expectation that great sport merits paid-for tickets. But these rock-bottom prices hint at an underlying assumption that the Paralympics will be particularly hard to sell.
There are some real bargains here. Tickets for the Olympic equestrian events are over-subscribed, whereas here you'll be able to see a similar level of competition (it ain't the horses that are disabled) for a tenner. The Olympic Stadium will only ever be used for 18 days of top-level athletic competition, but here you'll be able to get in and see half of them on the cheap. And there are two extra-special 'day passes' available, both for a tenner. Spend all day at the Olympic Park watching whichever of five sports takes your fancy, or instead a day at ExCel watching six. The experience might be similar to wandering around the outside courts at Wimbledon, missing out on the big names and queueing for the best seats, but it'll still be a unique day out.
People of London, the Paralympics are to your advantage. Your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to say "I was there". A chance to enjoy the Olympic Park experience on the cheap. World class sport, for less than the price of a West End cinema ticket. All this plus a one-day Travelcard thrown in for nothing on top. Tickets don't go on sale for another four months, so be patient. But if you don't get your Olympic first choice over the next few weeks, here's a super dead-cert back-up.
♕ On 13 June 1996, Queen Elizabeth II overtook Queen Elizabeth I (16198 days) to become our fifth longest-reigning monarch. ♔ On 4 July 2002, Queen Elizabeth II overtook King Edward III (18410 days) to become our fourth longest-reigning monarch. ♔ On 8 March 2008, Queen Elizabeth II overtook King Henry III (20484 days) to become our third longest-reigning monarch. ♔ Today, Queen Elizabeth II overtakes King George III (21644 days) to become our second longest-reigning monarch. ♕ On 10 September 2015, Queen Elizabeth II may overtake Queen Victoria (23226 days) to become our longest-reigning monarch.
The door to A&E opens automatically. It's changed beyond all recognition since the last time I was here, which is not surprising because this is a completely different building. The last place was a Victorian warren, whereas this is a shiny white tower.
I follow the signs to reception, where a headscarfed girl waits patiently behind shatterproof glass. She tells me the patient's only just arrived so would I mind waiting, so I wait. The seats are uncomfortably metallic, and bolted to the floor lest anyone try to hurl one across the room. An older lady sits beside me, new to using crutches and not yet adept. She comments on how good the coffee machine smells, but we both agree that no liquid which dribbled out of its nozzle would be drinkable.
In the corner of the room is a podium for a security guard. The architects appear to have built him an alcove where he can hide away and not quite see anything, which is ideal because there is absolutely nothing to see. He smiles weakly and paces up and down occasionally, because this is midweek teatime not weekend midnight. Behind him is a large free-standing poster warning of the 'current influenza outbreak', and asking all visitors to please stay at home rather than putting patients' lives at risk. Visitors ignore it, and each other, and continue to sit in withdrawn silence.
I ask again at reception, and am told that I can now pass through into A&E proper. I'm expecting rows of moaning invalids on trolleys, but instead meet a grey corridor bustling with nursing staff. Numerous cubicles are curtained off to either side, but never curtained off quite well enough to conceal all the goings on within. A hairy leg here, an exposed stomach there, and eye contact with a woman who'd rather I hadn't seen her modesty compromised. Further into the labyrinth I go, rather further than expected, and through the double doors at the end.
It's my second visit to Resus, but this time it's not me on the table. Millions of pounds of expensive equipment is stacked all around, complete with wires and pipes and cables, but thankfully is nothing being used for its life-preserving function. In the absence of Friday night debris or any sudden cardiac arrest, the resuscitation area is currently a mere extension of the cubicle campsite along the corridor. The tales these tables could tell would fill an entire series of Casualty, but none of the present clientèle would make it past the cutting room floor.
My must-visit patient is waiting patiently at the end, an extra tube in his arm compared to last time I saw him. He's been given the children's booth, the one with smiley Disney characters stuck to the wall and a variety of Fisher Price toys to play with. Yes, everything's fine, or it would be if only they'd hurry up and let him out. A steady drip of medical personnel stop by, one with a ham salad sandwich, another with a clipboard to jot down readings from the monitor. One reading suggests that the patient is dead, but closer inspection confirms that a lead is merely unplugged.
For long periods of time, nothing much happens. That's in our booth, whereas nextdoor a woman is very much in pain and I feel somewhat uncomfortable to be here. I walked in off the street not half an hour ago, unchallenged, and here I am standing in the heart of a busy hospital overhearing agonies anyone would rather keep private. Indeed nobody's even asked me to clean my hands, neither were the squirty alcohol dispensers sufficiently conspicuous along the long corridor for me to have noticed them. I have drifted into somebody else's workspace - an interloper, a fly on the wall, out of place.
Just when we fear we've been forgotten a doctor turns up and asks questions, so many questions. He's concerned, he's probing, he's interested, but thankfully he's relaxed. And soon, he says, please wait a little while longer, which extends into half an hour and then some. There are more readings to take - some sticky, some probing - as the best part of the evening ticks gently away. The lady nextdoor moans louder, and the nurses nip in with an extra screen lest I catch sight of why.
The staff are all brilliant, not least the way every nurse seems to know precisely what's going on despite not having been involved in any of the previous procedures. They smile, they cajole, and they nudge appropriate behaviour even when the patient would rather do quite the opposite. And finally they announce discharge, you're free to go, look after yourself. We thank them profusely and head for the exit, and they get their bed back for the next unwitting soul from the back of an ambulance.
I wash my hands on the way out. It seems better late than never.
One of the defining themes of Boris's first year as Mayor was the cancellation of transport projects. Let's not take the DLR to Dagenham, let's not build a bridge to Thamesmead, let's not drive a tram through Camden, there's no money. Now suddenly, as the last year of his mayoral term begins, quite the opposite. Last week a massive splurge of potential DLR extensions seeped out, merely aspirational at this stage, not much likelihood of happening soon (including the resuscitation of that link to Dagenham). And yesterday came the official Taking-Seriously of a possible Northern line extension to Battersea. I wish I were more excited.
A public consultation is now underway to investigate a private-sector funded 3km extension of the Northern line from Kennington toBattersea Power Station. Here it is on my modified tube map. The City branch of the Northern line would be unaffected, with trains continuing to run all the way down to Morden. But trains on the Charing Cross branch would enter fresh tunnels via the reversing loop at Kennington before swinging out west into northern Wandsworth. In effect this would mean the splitting of the Northern line into two separate services, something that's long been on the cards for efficiency reasons, a bit like the old Bakerloo line got split into the new Bakerloo line and the Jubilee.
The first stop on the new Northern line extension would be Nine Elms. This would serve the existing community, saving them a half-mile walk to Stockwell or Vauxhall, as well as serving the new US Embassy and a host of housing developments planned nearby. And the second (and final) stop would be Battersea. Not the heart of Battersea where most people currently live, but the outskirts close to the famous derelict power station. Again the reason is regeneration, with plans afoot to turn Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's electric cathedral into a massive complex of shops, offices, homes, hotels and "public realm". It'll be both fantastic and ghastly, rescuing classicarchitecture by utterly commercialising it. And, of course, the whole thing's only feasible if there's a tube station next door.
Never mind that there are already two stations close by to the site of the proposed new Battersea tube. Never mind that Battersea Park already has up to ten departures an hour to Victoria, and Queenstown Road has eight to Waterloo. They won't do because getting to them involves a five minute walk, and you don't attract shoppers and penthouse-dwellers with a five minute walk. And they won't do because they're National Rail stations, and you don't attract office workers and major investment with boring old overground. According to the developers' website, "the only credible solution is to extend an existing system – and this means the Underground!" Hence their willingness to offer millions of pounds to lure the Northern line out west.
These days, it seems, no new London transport development is possible without private money. We get hire bikes because Barclays want their name on them. We get a new station at Wood Lane because Westfield demands it. We get Crossrail stopping in Woolwich only because a housing company stumped up the cash. And we get this new extension to Battersea solely to boost a commercial proposition and an American embassy. Why else do you think there's that massive right-angled turn in the railway at Kennington? In any socially-motivated world the Northern line extension would continue straight on into poor old Camberwell, which is the biggest railway black hole in central London. Instead the power station project acts like a giant financial magnet, tugging the tunnels away to where business requires it, not where communities might best be regenerated.
Notice how the proposed Northern line extension doesn't link up with anything. It zips straight across the Victoria line without any interchange being constructed (because a stop at Vauxhall would apparently overwhelm the existing station). It stops really close to Battersea Park and Queenstown Road stations, but makes no attempt to join up with either (because connectivity to shops trumps connectivity to railways). And it terminates well short of Clapham Junction, which would be an obvious next stop (because that's where the money runs out). In the 1960s the Victoria line was deliberately built to link up with everything it passed. In the 2010s we dare not link to anything in case passenger numbers create too much congestion. This is a cut-price stand-alone extension, built for one purpose only - private profit.
Mustn't grumble - any tube extension's better than no tube extension. And there's still no guarantee that sufficient funding will be found to pay for these two extra stations (London Reconnections has more on that). Battersea Power Station is already on its second regeneration proposal in the last five years, so who's to say that this one will ultimately come to fruition. If you've got an interest, one way or the other, best pop along to one of the publicexhibitions over the next few weeks. And maybe by 2017, just maybe, This is a Northern line train to Battersea, via Charing Cross.
Did you order some 2012 Olympic tickets? Because tomorrow's the day that money could start disappearing from your bank account. Best be prepared. 5pm update: In a very last minute announcement, it appears that no money will be taken before next Monday. Not quite going to plan, eh?
But nobody seems to be willing to explain quite what we should be prepared for. Olympic ticketing bosses have released an absolute minimum of information about what might happen when, yet we're all supposed to have faith and trust them not to plunge too many would-be purchasers into overdraft. Here's what we do know...
1) "Where demand for tickets exceeds supply, London 2012 will use an automated and random selection process (‘ballot’) to ensure the fairest possible distribution and allocation of tickets on a session-by-session basis." The actual ballot process isn't being made public, no doubt because it's very complicated. But rest assured that consultants KPMG are overseeing the entire process, and if they say it's fair then it undoubtedly is. We know that "more than 50% of the 645 sessions will go to a random ballot", which could be anything from 323 to 645 of them. We know that "track cycling, rhythmic gymnastics, triathlon, modern pentathlon, equestrian (cross country) and both the opening and closing ceremonies" have sold out, presumably at all price levels. We know that "the majority of the sessions in swimming and tennis" will go to a ballot, which isn't exactly a surprise. But conversely there must be hundreds of sessions that haven't sold out, anything up to 322 of them, and allocating the tickets to these should be pretty much automatic. If you've applied for something unpopular (like, say, the early morning preliminary rounds of the badminton), you can expect to be paying for all of the tickets you applied for, no competition.
2) "If you are successful, payment will be taken between 10 May 2011 and 10 June 2011." This is an incredibly lengthy ticket allocation process. For a start it's taken two weeks to get around to taking the first payments - that's while they've been busy checking none of you naughty folk have applied twice. Now there are five weeks to whisk money out of your account - that's a grand total of 23 working days. What's not yet clear is whether the money will come out of your account in one go or in dribs and drabs. They could wait until they have all your sessions sewn up, even the ten-times oversubscribed Opening Ceremony, and suck you dry once. Or they could leave the problematic sessions until later and whip out the unballoted sessions immediately. What I'm suggesting here is that it's quite possible that millions of 'easy' payments will be taken tomorrow, on Day One. And also that if a certain amount of money disappears out of your bank account this week, then don't necessarily assume it's the sum total of all your ticket winnings. 5pm update: Scrap that. It's just been announced that all funds will be taken in one go. Some time "between 16 May 2011 and 10 June 2011".
3) "Please ensure you have sufficient funds available between these dates." When you applied for tickets, the system will have made clear the "maximum cost" - that's how much you'll be stung for if every session comes up trumps at the highest price range you accepted. You'll have been sensible I know, and not over-reached your finances. But some people have applied for far more than they can afford, on the slightly risky assumption that they won't win all the tickets they wanted. They're in for a nasty surprise if they're much luckier than they thought, because the rules decree that tickets can't be cancelled. For those with a Visa credit card, their total ticketing bill will be taken, no questions asked, so long as their credit limit isn't breached. But most Visa cards in the UK are debit cards, which rely on actual funds being present in the account. Holders may need to transfer some savings across today, ready for any potential outflow tomorrow, then keep them there until either something or nothing happens. No available money, no tickets. Except...
4) "If someone does not have enough money in their account to pay for the tickets, organisers will contact them and give them another chance to pay." This is new, and it's good news. It doesn't appear anywhere on the 2012 website, which is a poor show, but it's on the BBC website which is the next best thing. Essentially it means that you don't have to store any spare funds in your Visa account at all, because you'll get a warning email asking where your money is and a second chance to pay. But you'll only get this opportunity once, and it's all or nothing. If you're even £1 short and they can't take the money, you'll then lose every single ticket in your shopping basket. Then they'll give your tickets to somebody else. What's not clear is if those unclaimed tickets will be thrown back into the pot, or saved to resell after the allocation process is complete. If it's the former, then that's bad news for people whose payment was taken early. If it's the latter, then there should still be some unclaimed hard-to-get tickets available at the end of June.
5) "A notification will be sent to confirm which tickets you have been allocated by 24 June 2011." Olympic organisers appear to be really really reticent to tell you what tickets you've got. They won't tell you up front before taking your money, which is perverse, and more than a little cruel. And they reserve the right not to tell you for a full two weeks after the final payments are taken, which is either LOCOG playing really safe with deadlines, or an admission of wholesale ineptitude. It shouldn't be rocket science to auto-generate an email linking payments to ticketing sessions, especially when the money's long gone, but apparently it is. Be patient and you'll discover whether that £420 withdrawal is one ticket for the athletics or 21 tickets for the football. But watch out earlier for a telltale twelvepence. If (and only if) the amount withdrawn from your account includes pence as well as pounds then congratulations, you've won a cheap seat for the Opening or Closing Ceremony.
Other important dates: » This Wednesday - Paralympic Games ticket prices and the draft competition schedule will be available » Thursday 26 May - Tickets go on sale for the first series of Olympic 'test events' (in basketball, BMX, beach volleyball and mountain biking) to be held in summer 2011. Annoyingly, by 26 May you won't have been told whether you've got tickets to any of those sports in 2012, so you'll be applying in the dark. There are a total of 30 sessions up for grabs, and this time it's first come first served. » "June/July" - Leftover Olympic tickets will be offered to all those who applied last month but didn't get all the tickets they requested. But you've got to be in it to win it. If you didn't apply before, you won't be able to apply now. » Friday 9 September - Tickets for the Paralympics go on sale. They'll be a much harder commodity to shift, I reckon, but well worth considering if you don't get your Olympic first choices. » "Winter 2011" - All remaining tickets go up for sale, via Ticketmaster and Visa, open to all. » "Early 2012" - The official ticket reselling website goes live. If you have any unwanted sessions, or if your uncle can't attend any more, or if you overstretched yourself financially and need to liquidate some cash, bad luck, LOCOG will be keeping hold of your money for at least six months. And that's assuming anybody's willing to buy your tickets off you - if not, you're stuck with them. » "Summer 2012" - Your tickets finally arrive in the post (by secure delivery). This may be the first time you discover what your seats actually are (A7? R21? ZZ46?), even though you paid for them more than a year earlier.
If you'd been standing by the bus stop opposite Bow Church yesterday afternoon, you might have spotted a larger than normal car pulling up between two bendy buses. You might then have noticed four people getting out, one of them an 85 year old woman. You'd have seen she was dressed impeccably, in a navy jacket with cream slacks, and that her hair was a lightly sculpted grey. You'd have noted that she was a little unsteady on her feet as she walked, supported, to the nearby pedestrian crossing. You might have watched her party cross the road and enter the churchyard gates, then walk down the long path to St Mary's door. And you might well have thought "hang on, I'm sure I recognise that face from somewhere... but was it from the golden age of Hollywood, or was it just some actress who did daytime TV?" And unless you knew what was going on, you'd probably have wandered off none the wiser. But yes, there really was a celebrity in E3's midst on Saturday - none other than screen legend Angela Lansbury.
Never fear, Angela wasn't here in Bow in her role as Jessica Fletcher, so there was no sudden unexpected outbreak of murders for her keen eye to investigate. Instead she'd flown over specially from Los Angeles to attend a memorial service for her grandfather, George Lansbury, who died on this day in 1940. The East End adored George, who became Poplar's Mayor, its local MP and ultimately the leader of the Labour Party. He never quite made it to be Prime Minister because Stanley Baldwin got the nod instead, and was edged out of politics in the late 1930s when his pacifism failed to capture the national mood. And he worshipped weekly at St Mary's, hence the special service this weekend, and its very special guest.
This is just the sort of event that Bow's latest rector loved to organise, and he'll have been instrumental in inviting Angela across the Atlantic to unveil a plaque in her grandfather's memory. Alas the Reverend MichaelPeet died last month, following a recurrence of cancer, and his funeral was held at the church two days before George's memorial service. He'll be a hard act to follow - one of nature's natural campaigners, founder member of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement and for two decades a much-loved community priest [obituary]. St Mary's is celebrating its 700th anniversary this November, and Michael had a whole series of special events planned which will go ahead in his honour. But hereabouts 2011 is more likely to be remembered for the two commemorations of the first week of May. From Hollywood to Bow, they will not be forgotten.
The first map shows the size of the 'Yes' vote. 60-69% 50-59% 40-49% 30-39% 20-29%
» Only ten UK districts returned a 'Yes' vote. Six of these were in London - Hackney, Islington, Haringey, Lambeth, Southwark and Camden. They're the six green boroughs on this map... London's progressive centre. » Hackney was the only borough in the country where more than 60% of electors voted Yes. » Only eleven UK districts came within 5% of saying Yes. Four of these were in London - Lewisham, the City of London, Tower Hamlets and Brent. » More than half of London's boroughs appear in the top 50 most-Yes-voting districts.
» At completely the other end of the scale, Havering appears in the top 10 most-No-voting districts (77.3% No). » Bexley also strongly voted No (76.5%). No other London borough appears in the top 150 most-No-voting districts. » Other districts near London voting heavily No were Castle Point, Broxbourne, Rochford, Epping Forest, Basildon, South Bucks, Hertsmere and Brentwood.
The second map shows turnout. 45-49% 40-44% 35-39% 30-34% 25-29%
» London's highest turnout was in Richmond, where 47% of the electorate voted. Richmond was the only London borough with turnout above the national average (42%). » Nationally, only 40 out of 440 districts had a turnout less than 35%. Fifteen of these were London boroughs. » The three lowest turnouts in the country were in Newham (27%), Barking and Dagenham (28%) and Tower Hamlets (29%). London's apathetic heartland is marked on the map in light pink.
» 21% of London's electorate voted No. 14% voted Yes. 65% couldn't be bothered. » Nationally, there were 240 districts in which more than 30% of the electorate voted No. None of these were in London. » Newham didn't vote Yes, but only 15% of its electorate voted No.
Have PR folk continued to send me desperate emails requesting I showcase their promotional content on my blog? Yes, I'm afraid they have. And I still wish they so wouldn't bother.
Dear Diamond Geezer, I hope you are well. We hope to offer you complimentary treatments to our flagship spa in Soho in return for a review on your blog. We are <brand name>, London’s original and premier fish therapy concept spa.
I had to read that twice to make sure I wasn't dreaming. But no - "fish therapy concept spa" - very much awake.
In our recent campaign to introduce our offerings to the wider public we noticed that your blog is one of the most prominent among our target groups.
Now I'd be worried if I were you. Ms Chan seems to believe that you, dear reader, are the sort to go dangling your feet in tepid water while tiny fish nibble the dead skin off your toes. And maybe you are, but I bet you wouldn't pay her prices for the privilege.
We are wondering if you would be interested in reviewing our fish therapy treatments? Please do not hesitate to contact us for further enquiries or to arrange a review session.
I bet you're disappointed I turned this one down. You'd love to hear my report from their "basement fish pedicure hall", especially if there were photos. Sorry to disappoint you all, but it ain't happening.
Hi there, I wanted to get in touch to invite you to the event I’m currently working on, <event at ExCel>. At this year’s event we have a whole host of exciting features happening... <Illumination showcase> is definitely worth a visit if you’re looking for new lighting solutions! I’d love if you could attend the show to gather content for your site/blog and also blog live from our dedicated bloggers lounge.
Oh Alexandra, do you really think I want to sit in your wi-fi alcove and write rapturously about lightbulbs? Sadly you probably do.
Hi there! I found your blog and think it looks really great! I work with <app name>, an iPhone App that lets anyone publish, discover and share ‘Pocket Tours’ that have geo-tagged ‘spots’ with audio, text and photos. We’d LOVE to have the 'Diamond Geezer tour of London' on <iApp name>.
I bet you would, Olivia. Saves writing your own content, doesn't it, you cheapskate limpets.
Hi, I hope you are well. I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to <copywriting agency>. We are a leading online content agency, creating unique daily exclusive news, social & video features for our high profile client base in all major sectors. We are looking for quality content partners and publications interested in receiving EXCLUSIVE UNIQUE bespoke content for their publications.
Do I look like I can't write my own content? Seriously? I emailed Dale and asked him that very question, but alas he has yet to respond.
Apologies for the impersonal email. We’re publishing a non-fiction title: <book title> on May 12th and I wondered if you’d be interested in reviewing the book?
Dear Natalie, you work for the publishing company I just didn't write a book for. So that's a 'No', as you really ought to have guessed.
Hello, My name’s Fabiola and I work for <media agency>, a media agency in London. I think you have a great blog, with a fantastic following and more importantly, great quality. I’m looking to build relationships with influential bloggers. If you are interested I can email you with various information (depending on the individual campaign) on new products, (sometimes with free samples), competitions, videos and unique articles or give you insider tips and exclusive info and content to share with your readers.
Fabiola's request perfectly sums up all that's shallow and shabby about sponsored blogging. She dreams of a world where marketing stunts and vacuous press releases gain precedence over journalistic investigation and independent truth. I am so not going there.
To Fabiola's credit she later emailed me back and apologised for not doing her homework before contacting me. But she won't be the last to try. If you're thinking of following in her footsteps, PR gurus, please take the hint and don't bother.
Walk London CAPITAL RING[section 6] Wimbledon Park to Richmond Bridge (7 miles)
If there's a better section of the Capital Ring, I'll be surprised. A three hour trek that's almost entirely green, all the way. A lengthy trek across undeveloped open space, far from the madding crowd. Indeed, most of the way it's hard to believe that this is London at all. Parks, commons, meadows, ponds and rivers - what's not to recommend?
One of the first things you see as you enter Wimbledon Park are the tennis courts. Not the tennis courts, those are further along, but twenty municipal courts for the benefit of local extremely-amateurs [photo]. Only one knockabout was taking place when I walked past, whereas the neighbouring playground area was packed out with parents and little children busy making a racket. The park's flowerbeds are pretty, but the new WaterfallGarden is prettier, very recently renovated and restored with tropical foliage and a meandering bridge. Beyond the trees lies the first lake of the day, landscaped by Capability Brown, now home to umpteen sailing boats and some very cute ducklings.
That's the proper Wimbledon tennis place across the lake - the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Ring doesn't quite go that way, which seems a shame if you've come all this way and never seen the place, but you'd never see any Tennis from outside through the fortress walls anyway. It's a different matter with the Croquet. These lawns are perfectly visible through the railings at the foot of Queensmere Road, laid out with hoops and flags in front of the old clubhouse and lovingly tended by diligent groundsmen [photo]. Properties along the road up the hill are as exclusive as you might expect, hidden behind electronic swing gates through which cars with very personalised numberplates occasionally vanish.
The path onto Wimbledon Common features the first decent stretch of woodland since Oxleas, twenty miles back. Before long it emerges at the windmill, still the major landmark round these parts, and inside which (a plaque tells us) Robert Baden Powell knocked up Scouting For Boys [photo]. Even if the museum's not open, the chalet-style cafe round the back probably is. This place is everything good about a greenspace tearoom, with homemade hot food up for grabs and an entire display case stacked with sliced-square cakey goodness. I exited with a double cornet, but only because they didn't do bakewell tart and custard as a takeaway.
Those who spent their childhood watching TheWombles might think that Wimbledon Common was mostly open space, but no, it's mostly trees. Allegedly there are a million of them, but I doubt anybody's ever counted. So, after the windmill, the Ring enters Wimbledon woodland and stays there for a good half hour. There are some glorious paths up, down and over, turning left at an unexpected lake and crossing a secluded circuit of the London Scottish golf course. My walk was blessed with bluebells, blossom and wafts of fragrant perfume, but the lush foliage of summer would be just as impressive. Cyclists beware - there are relatively few paths you're welcome to ride along, and I passed more than one party bemusedly trying to find a route that wasn't prohibitively labelled.
The Beverley Brook marks the western edge of the common, itself the route for a fine long-distancewalk, and this you follow northwards. Crossing the busy A3 used to involve a footbridge detour, but now there's a convenient double set of traffic lights - one for pedestrians and another for those on horseback. Which brings us to the Robin Hood Gate and the highlight of this section - the crossing of Richmond Park. You could fit the City of London three times inside its borders, so it's a bit of a triumph that this old royal deer park remains undeveloped. There's so much to see that the Ring's course merely scratches the surface. Just make sure you follow the correct path out of the car park, otherwise you could find yourself wandering miles off course.
Ascending gently towards Spankers Hill Wood, only the distant tower blocks of the Roehampton Estate give any hint that civilisation lurks beyond the treeline. There are several fallen tree trunks here, great for kids to play on and also an important habitat for the endangered stag beetle. As the centre of the Park approaches, suddenly there's a big car park - a reminder that most people only start walking once they get here. There follows a large expanse of acid grassland, allegedly scattered with nesting skylarks, so dogs on leashes please. And straight across the causeway between the Upper and Lower Pen Ponds, originally dug for the extraction of gravel, now scenic home to a broad cross-section of friendly waterfowl. Hillocks, plains and plantations - everything about the middle of Richmond Park is on a grand scale yet still delightfully natural. And, for London, amazingly remote. [photo]
Eventually, definitely eventually, the Ring emerges onto the Queen's Road on the western flank of the Park. Here you might be lucky enough to meet some of the deer who roam freely, assuming you haven't already met them elsewhere on the way over [photo]. You're also much more likely to meet people, because there's a refreshment kiosk (and wedding hotspot) at Pembroke Lodge, along with some splendid ornamental gardens. The Ring passes beneath the Lodge's outer boundary, with excellent views from the upper slopes across outer-southwest London. If visibility's good, every take off and landing at Heathrow is easily witnessed. The view northwest from King Henry's Mound is more famous, and protected by law. No high buildings are permitted to be erected anywhere along the 10 mile line from here to St Paul's Cathedral... although I've only once stood here in atmospheric conditions sufficiently crystal clear to see Wren's dome in distant miniature.
And down, steeply down, to Petersham. Here there's a rare main road to cross, and the first pub of the walk, then a narrow passage through to the edge of Petersham Meadows. These grazing lands are protected by Act of Parliament, and look best from Richmond Hill (but we're not going there). Instead the designated path follows a "dry route during flood" before aligning beside the River Thames for the final stroll into Richmond[photo]. Suddenly there are cafes and boathouses and reclining sunbathers (weather and flooding permitting), plus a series of pubs ideal for riverside drinking. If seven miles of semi-rural walking have tired you out, these urban comforts will be a welcome sight. Me, I'd happily have delayed my return to reality a little longer.
At present, the UK uses the ‘first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the ‘alternative vote’ system be used instead?[YES][NO]
But I suspect they'll be in the minority. Most people will be answering a different question.
The 'alternative vote' - do you really care?[YES][NO]
And most people don't care, not at all, which has left the door open for a deeply patronising and negative campaign by politicians and the media.
They've appealed to simplistic base emotions.
Do you want to allow the Nazis, the BNP and cheating MPs with duck islands to run the country?[YES][NO]
They've tried to make the alternative vote system sound over-complicated.
Can diddums cope with ranking candidates in order? [YES][NO]
They've whittled down the issues to a supercilious clash of personalities.
Would you like to kick David Cameron?[YES][NO] Do you support that liar, Nick Clegg?[YES][NO]
They've appealed to the nation's inner conservatism.
They've courted the apathetic with unremitting zeal.
We know you don't give a damn about this 'alternative vote' thing. But would you mind voting 'NO' anyway?[YES][NO]
And they've discovered that a substantial proportion of the population are perfectly willing to do what they're told even if they don't quite realise why.
Indeed the entire referendum debate has been woefully shallow, persistently condescending and unremittingly depressing.
So, which way to jump? A month ago I was torn between 'NO', 'YES' and abstain, each of which seemed equally imperfect. A 'NO' vote would mean backing an appalling campaign of misinformation. A 'YES' vote would be recommending electoral reform that wasn't in any way proportional. And abstaining would be a complete abdication of personal responsibility. But now I think I've finally made up my mind.
A month ago, Britain might have voted 'YES'. Today it's almost certainly going to vote 'NO' by a landslide. My vote will therefore have absolutely no consequence on the national outcome, whichever way I swing. But if I vote 'YES' I can reduce the size of that landslide, by one, so that the decision is fractionally less clear cut, the establishment's victory is fractionally less great and the PR argument is fractionally less dead. Voting 'YES' means I'll have no guilt over maintaining the status quo, but also no responsibility for instigating a change.
London's ten rarest bus routes* ** * scheduled TfL buses, in one direction, ordered by weekly frequency (no school journeys, no mobility services)
1)347Romford → Upminster → Ockendon On the eastern edge of town the 347 runs ever so occasionally, acting as a lifeline to not very many houses stretched out along far distant lanes. It's a very long wait if you miss one... although there are rural communities outside London who'd think "every two hours" was a magnificent service. I've got to go to work somewhere on the 347 route today, for the first time ever, but alas the first bus doesn't run until 9am so it's worse than useless for me. Mon-Fri 4 buses, Sat 4 buses; weekly total 24 buses
2)W10Enfield → Crews Hill Most people who go to Crews Hill go to the garden centres, and they have cars because it's difficult to lug wisteria, potting compost and a trellis on the bus. The W10 stops short of the greenhouses, on the estate up Rosewood Drive, helping these borderline London residents to go shopping in Enfield... so long as they're quick. The weekday service is the worst anywhere in London, only operational between 11am and 2:30pm. Mon-Fri 4 buses, Sat 7 buses; weekly total 27 buses
3)389Barnet → Western Way 4)399Barnet → Hadley Wood The 299 bus runs regularly between Muswell Hill and Cockfosters. Once the morning rush hour is over, one vehicle flips its blind to become a 399 and nips round Hadley Wood to the shops in Barnet. Here it flips its blind again to become a 389 for the eight minute trip to the Underhill estate. Then it's eight minutes back to Barnet, and flip back to 399, and back to Hadley Wood, and flip back to being a 299 again. And repeat until the evening peak. Flipping infrequent. Mon-Fri 5/6 buses, Sat 5/6 buses; weekly total 30/36 buses
5)385Chingford → Crooked Billet I say Crooked Billet, but I really mean the big Sainsbury's close to what used to be Walthamstow Stadium. The 385 exists solely so TfL can claim that people living along the eastern edge of the Lea Valley reservoirs have a bus service (even if it is a bit sparse and packs up by 4pm). Mon-Fri 6 buses, Sat 6 buses; weekly total 36 buses
6)N28Camden Town → Kensington → Wandsworth 7)N31Camden Town → Kensington → Clapham Junction You might not have realised, but London boasts a magnificently regular night bus service. Every London nightbus runs at least every half hour... except for these two, which run only hourly on weekday nights. Admittedly they follow the same route from Camden to Kensington, which is as good as a half-hourly service, but it's a much longer wait beyond that. Mon-Fri 4/5 buses, Sat 9 buses, Sun 9/8 buses; weekly total 38/42 buses
8)H3Golders Green → Hilltop → Golders Green (circular) This little minibus meanders through the back of Hampstead Garden Village, to the north of the Heath, along long residential roads where every householder owns a car. It stops at the Spaniards Inn, nips up to East Finchley station, turns round beneath East Finchley Cemetery and then heads all the way back again. You just wouldn't. Mon-Fri 7 buses, Sat 7 buses; weekly total 42 buses
9)R10/R5Orpington → Knockholt → Orpington (circular) The southeast corner of London is remarkably rural, green and villagey. These titchy minibuses tour the border with Kent, serving Cudham on the London side and Halstead on the other, via a variety of other obscure non-urban locations. The R10 goes one way round the big loop while the R5 goes the other, slightly more often. Mon-Fri 7/8 buses, Sat 7/8 buses; weekly total 42/48 buses
10=)359Addington → Selsdon This brief south London shuttle links a tram interchange and a supermarket, diverting midway to rumble round the Monks Hill estate. The 359 is highly unusual in that it runs every 35 minutes, not every 30, for no obvious reason other than to make the timetable terribly hard to memorise. Mon-Fri 9 buses, Sat 9 buses; weekly total 54 buses
10=)375Romford → Havering-atte-Bower → Passingford Bridge And finally, back to Romford for London's only every-90-minutes bus. There's a bit of a history here. London Transport used to run a bus all the way from Romford out to Epping, until 1981 when an Essex company took over. They then pulled out in 2008, due to the introduction of the Low Emission Zone, leaving no link whatsoever and several communities bus-less. TfL promptly stepped in with the 375, which trots infrequently up to the edge of London, continues to the first practical turning-round spot at Passingford Bridge, and then heads back to Romford again. It's no bloody use as a link to anywhere, but it keeps the edge of Havering ticking over. Mon-Fri 9 buses, Sat 9 buses; weekly total 54 buses
It really is sixty years ago today that the Festival of Britain opened. The main Festival on the South Bank was the hub of the entire event. The Pleasure Gardens in Battersea were much enjoyed. You've probably heard of both, and if you're old enough you may even have visited them. But East London also hosted a Live Architecture Exhibition as part of the Festival, and that's not quite so well known.
Plans for an "Exhibition of Architecture, Town Planning, and Building Research" began in 1948, because it takes time to throw a major national celebration together. It was thought that the general public wouldn't be interested unless they had some buildings to walk through, so the idea was to hijack a post-war housing development currently at the planning stage and turn that into the exhibition space. Eyes alighted on a heavily-bombed area of Poplar, between the Limehouse Cut and the East India Dock Road, which it was thought was just close enough to the South Bank (via riverbus) to attract the crowds. Originally known as "Neighbourhood 9", it was renamed the Lansbury Estate in honour of George Lansbury the famous Poplar politician.
Building work ran behind schedule (nothing changes), but by 1951 there were at least some new buildings for visitors to see. The first tenants were Mr and Mrs Albert Snoddy, their two children and a pet tortoise called Tommy, all of whom were rehoused from a nearby slum about to be demolished. On 14th February they moved into a ground floor flat in Gladstone House, where they paid the princely rent of £1 9s a week. The great Lansbury experiment was underway. [video]
The first visitors arrived on Thursday 3rd May 1951, entering the site at the foot of Saracen Street, and paid 1s 6d for the privilege. First up was "Gremlin Grange", a mocked-up house deliberately designed with defects such as cracked walls, leaky water tanks and too-thin walls. This was closely followed by the Building Research Pavilion in which the scientific principles behind good construction were exemplified, followed by a properly-built bungalow to contrast with the house before. Then came the Town Planning Pavilion - a red-and white-striped tent on the East India Road, climaxing with a scale model of the fictional New Town of Avoncaster. Visitors could then treat themselves to a cuppa at the Rosie Lee Cafe before setting off on a lengthy tour round the actual Lansbury Estate to see all these building principles put into practice. All terribly worthy and educational, which perhaps explains why only 86000 people turned up over the next five months. Battersea Pleasure Gardens, in contrast, registered 100 times as many paying visitors.
The exhibition pavilions are long gone, replaced by slightly more modern apartment blocks. But 60 years on almost every other part of the original Lansbury Estate still stands and remains in use. Gladstone House is still there, surrounded by green lawns and trees, although there's no sign of Tommy the tortoise [photo]. Two blocks up is 2 Overstone House, the exhibition's official show flat (pictured here), where today's inhabitants have decorated their front door with two propped-up blue mops. The terraced houses on nearby Pekin Street look completely out of place in an estate of mostly flats, but were presumably included to show a more desirable form of architecture suitable for New Town expansion. And looming over them all is the cavernous brick tower of St Mary and St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, now at the heart of the local community. [photo]
On the far side of the estate is Chrisp Street Market, whose square and surrounding buildings were also completed for 1951 [photo]. The pub on the corner is still called The Festival Inn, and appears to be frequented by folk for whom every day is an alcoholic celebration [photo]. The shops were meant to form the neighbourhood centre for the whole of Poplar and the Isle of Dogs, and remain popular with Lansbury residents, but are considerably more downmarket than the new malls at Canary Wharf. The most striking remnant of the Festival of Britain is the Clock Tower on Chrisp Street, originally designed as an observation tower. It has two staircases - one meant for going up and one for going down - but alas these have long since been padlocked and the view is now wholly inaccessible. [photo]
Most of the original homes on Grundy Street are currently shrouded behind blue netting while the council undertake repairs and maintenance to extend the lifespan of these pioneering houses. All shrouded that is except for number 14, the exhibition's official show home (pictured here), which was presumably built to a much better specification than its neighbours and will outlast them all. Only one major building from the original estate has been lost, and that's John Roche secondary school. It was deemed surplus to requirements a few years ago and so has been bulldozed to create space for 490 new residential units. The builders are in now, creating what they've chosen to call New Festival Quarter, but the identikit mix of modern mews and tall blocks is nothing that the original 1951 planners would ever have been proud of.
I was wandering around with my camera in the leafy squares of the Western Housing Site when one current resident looked down from her balcony in Granville House and demanded to know why I was taking quite so many photographs. She was disappointed, and somewhat mystified, to discover that I was merely a Tower Hamlets resident touring the area in an attempt to appreciate the Festival buildings. "You don't have to live in them!" she said. "They've not had any money spent on them in sixty years." One day, she hopes, the man wandering around with the camera will be from the council and he'll have a proper renovation budget to spend. It's good to see that so much of the Lansbury Estate survives, and a tribute to all those who put this futuristic architectural exhibition together. But it's getting on, and it's not perfect, and I'm afraid it won't last for ever.
I've dined out out in Attleborough. I've removed radishes from my dad's allotment. I've watched my niece perform on stage at the Theatre Royal. And I've been to Sainsbury's (that's the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, which is an aircraft-hangar-style building on the main UEA campus, in Norwich, by the lake, quite huge it is, one of Norman Foster's first commissions back in the late 1970s, full of art collected by Robert Sainsbury the grocery millionaire, most of it old, some very very old, most of it objects rather than paintings, things like ancient stone hippos and humanoid sculptures, there's also a special exhibition at the moment on Basketry, you wouldn't think basketry would be very interesting, but actually they've curated a wide variety of most interesting crafty bits, from Peruvian canoes to bespoke arty commissions, the exhibition continues downstairs, a most amazingbuilding, well ahead of its time, you don't see Tesco doing anything cultural like this, but the shop doesn't sell baked beans.
For May Day, what lovelier sight than an English hillside smothered with bluebells? This is the woodland dell at Emmetts Garden, a National Trust property a few miles south of the M25 atop the Kentish Weald. There's no house to visit, just the six-acre garden, but that's impressive enough. The grounds were laid out in the late 1890s by ardent horticulturist Frederic Lubbock, and contain an unusual variety of plants and shrubs from all around the world. Don't ask me what they all were, I was only good at identification if there was a label, but they delivered a mighty splash of colour. A lot of rhododendrons, I think, and a large rock garden, plus an especially striking lawn of pink, black and red tulips. One particular anonymous white shrub filled my nose with joy, although I have a nasty feeling that same smell once existed on my grandmother's dressing table in liquid form. The rose garden showed no signs of floral action, not yet, but elsewhere it was blossom and petals all the way. I don't think I'd ever seen a handkerchief tree before, its branches dripping elegantly with green leaves and furled white blooms. But it was the bluebells that impressed the most. I thought there were plenty in the south garden, but the display on the wooded slopes below was on a totally different scale. A carpet of densely-packed blue, stretching several hundred yards along the escarpment, all dappled through the trees in the afternoon sunlight. Occasionally there were squashed patches where some overenthusiastic photographer had encroached in search of the perfect photo, but this was still by far the finest display of bluebells I've ever seen. Give it a week or two and they'll all die off, and by June this'll be nothing but a charming but very green hillside. But with some mighty fine roses nearby, and a tearoom, and some other exotic combination of blooms to make you go "ooh, wow". Emmetts Garden, Ide Hill, Sevenoaks. Until October.
How to get there (1):Drive. How to get there (2): Make sure it's a Sunday or bank holiday Monday. Get yourself to Bromley North, Bromley South or Hayes station (trains run regularly from central London). Board the 246, which runs hourly and is one of London's most extreme bus services. Stay on right to the end, past Biggin Hill, across the M25 and through Westerham. Get off at Chartwell, which was Winston Churchill's Wealden home (and is also a lovely place to visit). Go to the table in front of the ticket office and pick up a free photocopied leaflet titled "The Weardale Walk", which details the five mile circular walk to Emmetts Garden and back. Head out of the car park and up the footpath over the hill to French Street, which is a pretty hamlet in the middle of nowhere. Walk along a deserted country lane, then climb a track into Weardale Wood. At the top of Toys Hill is a patch of grass where stately Weardale Manor used to stand, until it fell into disrepair and got bombed and had to be demolished. Continue across the lane, past the pub and across the woods on the eastern slopes. Find the right footpath and you'll emerge directly into Emmetts Garden, by the tearoom, without ever passing a ticket booth. A sign urges ramblers to pop into the shop and pay up if they want to visit the gardens, and obviously you should do this and not sneak in for free (however easy this would be).
» Next stop Brixton, for National Mills Weekend. Brixton has a well-hidden windmill (the last in Inner London), which reopened at the start of the month for the first time since the 1930s. Today was supposed to be its second public day, but I turned up to find barriers in place and an apologetic lady from the council. She wouldn't quite explain what was wrong, other than that some unexpected interior repairs needed doing, and could she please have my email address. The lady from the Friends of Brixton Windmill wasn't much more forthcoming about the closure, except it might take about a month, and could she please have my email address. Both of them were incredibly keen to invite me back, whenever the next opening is, although their desire to grab my contact details felt more like you'd expect from windmill-based chuggers. Keep your eye on the website, and maybe they'll be just as pleased to see you soon.
They've lined up the New Bus on the museum floor next to a 50 year-old Routemaster, where last night both were drawing admiring glances. This juxtaposition is particularly instructive because the New Bus is supposed to have been inspired by the Routemaster and yet the two look completely different. A huge glass windscreen, diagonal black stripes and watering-can headlamps - you won't find those on the old 1960s workhorse. The only real connection is the rear platform, and even that's not especially similar. The New Bus platform has a glass door which folds back out of the way when there's a conductor around, and its pole is recessed so you can't hang onto it and drag behind the bus. The rear door will only be sealed off when unattended, but we were reassured that the driver will still have full control and will open it automatically at bus stops. One door at the back, a second door in the middle and a third door at the front... the TfL guide was very proud to point out that the New Bus will be a three door bus. Each of the three doors also has its own Oyster reader, for speedy boarding, which looks like it'll make means fare dodging fairly simple. In this respect, and in being longer than every other double decker on the road, I'm afraid Boris's beloved New Bus bears more than a passing resemblance to a bendy.
There was a very slow queue waiting to take a look inside the New Bus last night. Still few enough that every single one of us would have been able to board the real thing and get a seat (seated 62, standing 25, wheelchair 1), had we been allowed. But this mock-up isn't the real thing, so staff were rightly paranoid that if too many visitors boarded simultaneously the fragile floor might collapse. So it was six visitors at a time, one tour on the lower deck and another on the upper, which took absolutely ages to clear. "I haven't waited this long for a bus since the 1950s," said the gentleman waiting patiently in front of me. Forty minutes, near enough, it was, before either of us finally got inside. At this rate (this week and next) I reckon that about 0.002% of the population of London will have passed through the New Bus. It's not really a consultation, this, merely a very small-scale showcase.
There are two staircases, which is new for London, and which should improve passenger flow between the decks. So while the other tour party were descending at the rear we nipped up the nine steps behind the driver to see upstairs. Blimey the roof's low up here. I'm about five foot ten and my head was a couple of inches below the ceiling, so long as I stayed in the centre, but anyone who's six foot anything is going to have to permanently duck. One of the reasons for the low ceiling is the New Bus's air-cooled ventilation system. If you find buses sweaty in the summer and steamed-up and stuffy in the winter then you're going to love this pioneering climate control. Conversely if you're the more resilient type then you'll probably think it's a complete waste of money and that a few opening windows upstairs might have been a nicer idea.
Olympic update
A public consultation is now underway to investigate a private-sector funded 3km extension of the Northern line from Kennington to Battersea Power Station. Here it is on my modified tube map. The City branch of the Northern line would be unaffected, with trains continuing to run all the way down to Morden. But trains on the Charing Cross branch would enter fresh tunnels via the reversing loop at Kennington before swinging out west into northern Wandsworth. In effect this would mean the splitting of the Northern line into two separate services, something that's long been on the cards for efficiency reasons, a bit like the old Bakerloo line got split into the new Bakerloo line and the Jubilee.
These days, it seems, no new London transport development is possible without private money. We get hire bikes because Barclays want their name on them. We get a new station at Wood Lane because Westfield demands it. We get Crossrail stopping in Woolwich only because a housing company stumped up the cash. And we get this new extension to Battersea solely to boost a commercial proposition and an American embassy. Why else do you think there's that massive right-angled turn in the railway at Kennington? In any socially-motivated world the Northern line extension would continue straight on into poor old Camberwell, which is the biggest railway black hole in central London. Instead the power station project acts like a giant financial magnet, tugging the tunnels away to where business requires it, not where communities might best be regenerated.
If you'd been standing by the bus stop opposite Bow Church yesterday afternoon, you might have spotted a larger than normal car pulling up between two bendy buses. You might then have noticed four people getting out, one of them an 85 year old woman. You'd have seen she was dressed impeccably, in a navy jacket with cream slacks, and that her hair was a lightly sculpted grey. You'd have noted that she was a little unsteady on her feet as she walked, supported, to the nearby pedestrian crossing. You might have watched her party cross the road and enter the churchyard gates, then walk down the long path to St Mary's door. And you might well have thought "hang on, I'm sure I recognise that face from somewhere... but was it from the golden age of Hollywood, or was it just some actress who did daytime TV?" And unless you knew what was going on, you'd probably have wandered off none the wiser. But yes, there really was a celebrity in E3's midst on Saturday - none other than screen legend Angela Lansbury.
Never fear, Angela wasn't here in Bow in her role as Jessica Fletcher, so there was no sudden unexpected outbreak of murders for her keen eye to investigate. Instead she'd flown over specially from Los Angeles to attend a memorial service for her grandfather, George Lansbury, who died on this day in 1940. The East End adored George, who became Poplar's Mayor, its local MP and ultimately the leader of the Labour Party. He never quite made it to be Prime Minister because Stanley Baldwin got the nod instead, and was edged out of politics in the late 1930s when his pacifism failed to capture the national mood. And he worshipped weekly at St Mary's, hence the special service this weekend, and its very special guest.
The first map shows the size of the 'Yes' vote.
The second map shows turnout.
Walk London
One of the first things you see as you enter Wimbledon Park are the tennis courts. Not the tennis courts, those are further along, but twenty municipal courts for the benefit of local extremely-amateurs [photo]. Only one knockabout was taking place when I walked past, whereas the neighbouring playground area was packed out with parents and little children busy making a racket. The park's flowerbeds are pretty, but the new Waterfall Garden is prettier, very recently renovated and restored with tropical foliage and a meandering bridge. Beyond the trees lies the first lake of the day, landscaped by Capability Brown, now home to umpteen sailing boats and some very cute ducklings.
Those who spent their childhood watching The Wombles might think that Wimbledon Common was mostly open space, but no, it's mostly trees. Allegedly there are a million of them, but I doubt anybody's ever counted. So, after the windmill, the Ring enters Wimbledon woodland and stays there for a good half hour. There are some glorious paths up, down and over, turning left at an unexpected lake and crossing a secluded circuit of the London Scottish golf course. My walk was blessed with bluebells, blossom and wafts of fragrant perfume, but the lush foliage of summer would be just as impressive. Cyclists beware - there are relatively few paths you're welcome to ride along, and I passed more than one party bemusedly trying to find a route that wasn't prohibitively labelled.
Eventually, definitely eventually, the Ring emerges onto the Queen's Road on the western flank of the Park. Here you might be lucky enough to meet some of the deer who roam freely, assuming you haven't already met them elsewhere on the way over [photo]. You're also much more likely to meet people, because there's a refreshment kiosk (and wedding hotspot) at Pembroke Lodge, along with some splendid ornamental gardens. The Ring passes beneath the Lodge's outer boundary, with excellent views from the upper slopes across outer-southwest London. If visibility's good, every take off and landing at Heathrow is easily witnessed. The view northwest from King Henry's Mound is more famous, and protected by law. No high buildings are permitted to be erected anywhere along the 10 mile line from here to St Paul's Cathedral... although I've only once stood here in atmospheric conditions sufficiently crystal clear to see Wren's dome in distant miniature.
Today sees the UK's first referendum since 1975.
Plans for an "Exhibition of Architecture, Town Planning, and Building Research" began in 1948, because it takes time to throw a major national celebration together. It was thought that the general public wouldn't be interested unless they had some buildings to walk through, so the idea was to hijack a post-war housing development currently at the planning stage and turn that into the exhibition space. Eyes alighted on a heavily-bombed area of Poplar, between the Limehouse Cut and the East India Dock Road, which it was thought was just close enough to the South Bank (via riverbus) to attract the crowds. Originally known as "Neighbourhood 9", it was renamed the Lansbury Estate in honour of George Lansbury the famous Poplar politician.
The exhibition pavilions are long gone, replaced by slightly more modern apartment blocks. But 60 years on almost every other part of the original Lansbury Estate still stands and remains in use. Gladstone House is still there, surrounded by green lawns and trees, although there's no sign of Tommy the tortoise [photo]. Two blocks up is 2 Overstone House, the exhibition's official show flat (pictured here), where today's inhabitants have decorated their front door with two propped-up blue mops. The terraced houses on nearby Pekin Street look completely out of place in an estate of mostly flats, but were presumably included to show a more desirable form of architecture suitable for New Town expansion. And looming over them all is the cavernous brick tower of St Mary and St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, now at the heart of the local community. [photo]
Most of the original homes on Grundy Street are currently shrouded behind blue netting while the council undertake repairs and maintenance to extend the lifespan of these pioneering houses. All shrouded that is except for number 14, the exhibition's official show home (pictured here), which was presumably built to a much better specification than its neighbours and will outlast them all. Only one major building from the original estate has been lost, and that's John Roche secondary school. It was deemed surplus to requirements a few years ago and so has been bulldozed to create space for 490 new residential units. The builders are in now, creating what they've chosen to call New Festival Quarter, but the identikit mix of modern mews and tall blocks is nothing that the original 1951 planners would ever have been proud of.
