4♦ Paddington/St Marylebone After the Ace and Three of Diamonds I've dealt the Four, which corresponds to an adjacent non-existent central London borough. The Metropolitan boroughs of Paddington and St Marylebone found themselves part of a city in 1965, and covered (approximately) all of Westminster to the north of the Central line. Westminster actually spreads a lot further north than most tourists realise, so for this excursion I thought I'd head up to the extremes of St John's Wood, Maida Vale and Queen's Park.
Specifically I've been hunting for blue plaques, of which there are tons in the other half of Westminster, but rather fewer in this. I used English Heritage's website to track them down at home, and their excellent (free) Blue Plaques app in the field. This shows all the blue plaques near you, assuming there are any, plus details of the commemorated individual and their address. I'd say it's a good urban winter activity, given it's mud-free and there are always cafes nearby. Here are six plaques I tracked down in the northern half of Paddington and St Marylebone.
BEECHAM, Sir Thomas, C.H. (1879-1961) Conductor, Impresario
31 Grove End Road, St John's Wood [more info]
Estimated property value: £4,788,000
A lot of music fans flock past Sir Thomas Beecham's house every day, but they don't stop. They're on their way to the zebra crossing at the end of the road, the one outside Abbey Road Studios made famous by The Beatles, where they stop the traffic and take photos of themselves striding across the road. Close neighbour Sir Tom used his musical talent and family fortune to achieve prominence in classical circles, and lived at a number of London addresses before ending up in this Georgian villa in 1950. By this time he was living with his second wife, a concert pianist 29 years his junior, and both were regular visitors to the recording studio up the road. The six-bedroomed house behind the high brick wall is currently the base for a registered osteopath and bioresonance therapist, according to another plaque on the gatepost, which might make you think twice about popping inside for an appointment.
TUSSAUD, Madame Marie (1761-1850) Artist
24 Wellington Road, St John's Wood [more info]
Estimated property value: £5,485,000
Artist in Wax is a fantastic title, don't you think? The famous French sculptor lived here only briefly, three years after her first permanent exhibition opened not so far away on Baker Street. The precise location of her home is just to the north of Lord's Cricket Ground, on the main road out of town, immediately opposite the Wellington Hospital. Specifically it's opposite the BP garage, which isn't necessarily the kind of thing you expect to find squashed underneath the largest private hospital in the UK, or maybe it is. 24 Wellington Road looks like small fry compared to the villas squashed on either side, but a massive luxury overhaul has taken place behind the period facade, including 1000 square feet of open plan living space on the ground floor, and a gym and swimming pool in the basement. The now-unhistoric property sold for five and a half million pounds at the end of last year, which is almost as expensive as a ticket to Madame Tussauds these days, or feels like it.
BAZALGETTE, Sir Joseph William (1819-1891) Civil Engineer
17 Hamilton Terrace, St John's Wood [more info]
Estimated property value: £1,931,000 + £920,000
Joseph William Bazalgette is the great man responsible for the Victoria Embankment and London's intricate network of sewers. As chief engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works his endeavours banished the 'Great Stink', and helped make our capital sufficiently sanitary to expand. 17 Hamilton Terrace is the only one of his homes that survives, an elegant townhouse in yellow brick with three elliptical-arched recesses adjacent to a square porch. The family moved in when Joseph was about 12, at which point the "very excellent gentleman’s residence" was new, and they moved out in 1847. HamiltonTerrace remains a gorgeous street, a broad thoroughfare of eternally aspirational villas arrayed with tightly pollarded trees and enough space down the centre of the road to park an additional line of cars. What's more the drainage system is sorted - Bazalgette made sure his Middle Level intercepting sewer ran directly underneath St John's Wood Road at the end of the street.
TURING, Alan (1912-1954) Mathematician, Computer Scientist
2 Warrington Crescent, Maida Vale [more info]
Now the Colonnade Hotel ★★★★
I will confess to being surprised when I saw what I took to be Alan Turing's childhood home. A white stucco residence over five floors isn't the kind of place I'd expect Britain's greatest computer scientist to have grown up, and indeed it turns out he didn't. Instead this one-time Victorian home was knocked together with the house nextdoor to create a boarding school in 1880, and a few years later became the Warrington Lodge Medical and Surgery Home for Ladies. Ethel Turing checked in briefly in June 1912, while her husband was on leave from his position with the Indian Civil Service, and it was here that baby Alan Mathison was born. The building became a hotel in 1938, first the Esplanade, now the Colonnade, and now offers 43 rooms to mostly Middle Eastern guests, which is why there's a posh Persian restaurant on the ground floor. And Alan it turns out grew up in St Leonard's-on-Sea while his father's Indian commission continued, spending his pre-boarding years in the care of a retired army colonel. The blue plaque on Baston Lodge is far better deserved.
LOWE, Arthur (1915-1982) Comedy Actor
2 Maida Avenue, Maida Vale [more info]
Estimated property value: £1,138,000 + £3,339,000
OK, so this isn't a 'real' blue plaque, but I couldn't resist stopping by this tribute to one of Britain's best-loved comic actors. Arthur Lowe was born in the Peak District, where Derbyshire council have erected their own blue plaque, and made his stage debut in Manchester in 1945. A key role in the early years of Coronation Street brought him to national attention, and taking on the role of Captain Mainwairing in Dad's Army cemented his fame. He moved into this grandly symmetrical house the year after the sitcom first aired, and it remained his base until a heart attack cut short his life at the age of 66. His former home is now two flats, and is located overlooking the mouth of the Maida Hill Tunnel on the Regent's Canal, at the start of the final stretch down to Little Venice. Arthur enjoyed a watery vista, and spent a lot of time on his steam yacht Amazon, which he bought as a houseboat but later made seaworthy - there's no way it would have fitted on the canal. This plaque is one of ten installed in London by the Dead Comics Society, now the less macabre British Comedy Society, still celebrating a run of mirthsome stars from Peter Sellers to Richard Briers.
At last, here's a house the name on the plaque spent most of his life living inside. Edward Ardizzone was a British painter and illustrator of many talents, including that of official war artist, but is best known for his children's books. If you went to school in the 70s or 80s, your copy of Stig of the Dump was liberally illustrated by him, and his penmanship will be innately familiar. Ardizzone grew up in Ipswich, but the family moved into Elgin Avenue in 1920 when he was working as an office clerk, and Edward was still there in 1972 after retiring as a tutor with the Royal College of Art. Alas these days his home at number 130 is another hollowed-out sham, a four bedroom split level luxury apartment with a minimum of interior walls, not that you'd ever guess from out front.
The Bakerloo line extension inched forwards yesterday. It may even be ready by 2029. Go on, take your age, add twelve and imagine how old you're going to be by the time it might possibly be finished. This isn't happening any time soon.
Last time round, which was September 2014, TfL's consultation asked which route should be taken. Would trains reach New Cross Gate via Camberwell and Peckham, or would a more direct line be taken down the Old Kent Road? And would trains terminate at Lewisham, or would they continue down to Hayes, or Beckenham, or even Bromley?
In the end, money talked. There wasn't enough cash to spend on a lengthy extension, so Lewisham would be the end of the line. And the Old Kent Road route got the nod over Camberwell because more houses could be built in the surrounding Opportunity Area, and developers would be crucial in helping to part-fund the project.
Just released, TfL's latest consultation is asking the question "What shall we knock down in order to build this?" They're not being quite that brazen, instead they're asking where the station buildings and ventilation shafts on the new extension should be, but it boils down to the same thing. And this is really important, not just for anyone who might lose their business or local amenity, but also because the precise location of two of the stations is still up for grabs.
Elephant & Castle → Old Kent Road 1 → Old Kent Road 2 → New Cross Gate → Lewisham
There is a heck of a lot of information on the TfL consultation page, because TfL planners have been doing a heck of a lot of planning since the last consultation sewed up the general route. You can't simply dig tunnels 20m below the ground without knowing what you've got to avoid and where you're going to link to the surface. Longlists for possible shafts and stations were drawn up, and analysed, and all the pros and cons totted up. [detailed report]
As many as fourteen different potential locations were considered for the two new Old Kent Road stations, most of which were too near things or too far away from things or caused too much hassle. We're left with two possible locations for what's currently called Old Kent Road 1, and two possible locations for Old Kent Road 2. And at the heart of the consultation is narrowing each of these pairs down to a single spot.
The vast majority of the maps in the consultation package are close-ups, and the two overview maps are a little vague. So I thought I'd have a go at knocking up my own overview Google map to show how all the bits of the extension might fit together. Please note that this isn't accurate, not least because nobody knows quite where the tunnels are going to go yet. But it does show where the stations might go, that's the brown blobs, and there are blue rectangles if you zoom in to give a better idea of the orientation of the station box. The three orange crosses are ventilation shafts, with a choice of two at the northern end, one of which will end up fixing the route trains take to the first extension station.
Elephant & Castle station will be getting a major upgrade. It's currently essentially two stations linked, somewhat awkwardly, and much better infrastructure is required to help passengers interchange and exit smoothly. It may be that the existing overshoot tunnels are used, or it may be that a new tunnel veers off earlier on a fresh alignment, which would require a new set of platforms. Because there's so much uncertainty, TfL have simply coloured in a large area of land around the Elephant & Castle road junction and are asking "where would it be best to locate a station?" It might be that the shopping centre gets replaced with a new station underneath, or any one of a huge number of other possible options, hence this consultation is highly significant. [factsheet]
Old Kent Road 1 station, as it's still being called, will be located near the eastern tip of Burgess Park, somewhere near the big Tesco. In one of the two options it will actually replace Tesco, with the entire supermarket and its carpark swallowed up as a worksite during the construction period. Similar games are currently being played with Sainsbury's at Whitechapel and Nine Elms, so presumably a rejigged Tesco will open later on the remainder of the site. Option two would be a location on the other side of Dunton Way, causing less damage to shopping facilities but not quite so well connected. But whichever option is chosen, the location is pretty much the same. [factsheet]
Old Kent Road 2 station remains a geographical uncertainty, with the two potential locations approximately 500 metres apart. One would be opposite B&Q, at the bottom of St James's Road, requiring the demolition of PC World. This one's close to a major new development hub, which would be good, but also unnecessarily close to Old Kent Road 1, which would be inefficient. Option two would instead cover Toys R Us and its car park, at the top of Asylum Road. This location better balances the gap between adjacent stations, but isn't as close to the aforementioned development area and would connect with fewer buses. Deciding which of these two locations wins out is key, hence this consultation is locally really important. [factsheet]
New Cross Gate is already a station, so the only question is where the Bakerloo bit goes. TfL are already convinced it needs to slot into Sainsbury's car park, sort of diagonally, and they'll need to demolish the supermarket when work gets underway. Once completed, wahey, we'll have a fresh interchange between Bakerloo, Overground and National Rail, making this the Willesden Junction of the southeast. [factsheet]
Lewisham will be the end of the line, and again there's only one location under consideration for the terminating platforms. This'll be immediately to the southwest of the existing station, where the line branches off to Hayes, pretty much on top of Thurston Road. TfL already own some of the land here and use it as a bus stand, which makes life a lot simpler (apart from the problem of where to park those buses). I note that the alignment of the platforms also allows for a further extension of the Bakerloo line towards Hayes, although that'd be extremely expensive to achieve and we'll all likely be dead before that happens. [factsheet]
A series of consultation events are taking place, starting in Elephant & Castle this Saturday, and you have until April 21st to make your thoughts heard. What gets decided will make an enormous difference to the economic geography of the Old Kent Road, in particular two as-yet-to-be-decided locations. Choose wisely.
And while you're here, let's have a prediction contest. TfL can't keep calling their two new stations Old Kent Road 1 and Old Kent Road 2, they'll eventually have to give them real names. What do you think those names are going to be? Might be the name of a road, might be the name of a place, might be the name of a housing development, who knows. A look at the map around each potential station location might help, as might this Gizmodo post with a selection of streetview images, or of course there's the TfL consultation.
Old Kent Road 1
Old Kent Road 2
Old Kent Road (Andrew)
Burgess Park (Malcolm)
Bricklayers Arms (Still anon)
Walworth East (Jack)
East Walworth (Mikey)
Old Kent Road Tesco (Alfie)
Tesco Southwark Superstore (Geofftech)
Mandela Way (Alan)
East Street Market (lockedintheattic)
Dunton Road (Patrickov)
Albany Road (Madison)
Old Kent Road West (Adrian)
Old Kent Road (solar penguin)
North Peckham (Kevin)
Peckham North (Mike H)
Peckham Gateway (Dominic H)
Peckham Park (Edward)
Peckham Park Road (Adam S)
Surrey Canal (Jo W)
Canal Bridge (Rotherhithe)
Asylum Road (Uncle Audrey)
Livesey (QRP)
Commercial Way (Darren S)
Old Kent Road East (Adrian)
Give us your best sensible suggestion in the comments above, either for station 1 or for station 2, and I'll add it to this table. And then we'll come back in two, five, maybe even twelve years time and see who was right.
Until September 2015, the London borough of Bromley had a proper museum. It says a lot that I never visited. I nearly did once, I got to the front door but it was closed and I couldn't work out whether it was really open so I walked away. I fear I missed out on a friendly cheerful repository of historical ephemera in one of the most interesting boroughs in London. It's closed for good now.
For the previous 50 years Bromley Museum had been located in Orpington Priory, said to be Bromley's oldest surviving building, originating in the 13th century, rebuilt in the 15th and enlarged in the 17th. It's constructed of flint and timber, on two storeys, and is just the kind of building you might hope to find a museum collection inside. But modern financial reality eventually intruded, for which read austerity and cutbacks, and Bromley council decided the amenity had to go.
It's fair to say that people weren't best pleased. Here's one local blogger on the decision, and another on the closure, as a museum curator, assistant and education officer lost their jobs. But councillors saw the bright side, because that's their job, as they announced the opening of an alternative more central facility.
The new location is Bromley Central Library, three miles from the Priory, just off the High Street beside the Churchill Theatre. The building opened in 1977, and looksit, with a reinforced concrete frontage, large open galleries and echoing geometric stairwells. The museumy bit only opened in November last year, as blogged here, although it's not really a museum in the way you'd expect. Instead these are now Bromley Historic Collections, an amalgamation of museum and archive services under one roof, and open so long as the library is.
The main display space is on the first floor, at the top of the main staircase. Don't expect to see a curator, because there isn't one, neither did I spot any library staff in the checkout zone. Instead there are terminals where borrowers swipe their books in and out, because that's the modern way, and beside that four large glass cases, a lot of carpet and a fire engine. It's a historic fire engine, obviously, indeed more of an 18th century truck, and the largest item on display in this slimmed down collection.
A seriously eclectic sample has been selected to fill the space, from a leather hobnail boot to a Morphy Richards iron (as manufactured in St Mary Cray). Here too are bottles from the Chislehurst Mineral Water company, a Roman brooch from West Wickham and a match programme for Cray Wanderers versus Beckenham circa 1957. The exhibits are numbered on the information panels but not in the cases, and the whole thing's themed rather than being chronological. All in all it's an interesting set to pick over and peruse, but very little is covered in depth, as if this were a taster for a museum that no longer exists.
One exception to the rule is the Crystal Palace, with an assemblage of goodies featuring a sheet from the original plans, a photo of some navvies re-erecting the structure in Sydenham, and a glass tile part-melted in the fire that burnt the place down. Also scattered around are memories of some of Bromley's most famous residents, of which there are many, this once having been a not inconsiderable part of Kent. Come and see WG Grace's autograph, a selection of books by Enid Blyton and HG Wells, and possibly the museum's best loved artefact, David Bowie's customised green corduroy jacket.
A smaller area, over by the front window, is being used for temporary exhibitions... or in other words a chance to get some interesting stuff out of storage. The first six-month exhibition, perhaps predictably but nonetheless deservingly, focuses on Bromley's First World War. There must be dozens of similar displays in museums around the country, but each provides the much-needed local angle. That said, this corner of the library is a bit out of the way, and not especially obviously worth looking at, so I do wonder how many users come over to investigate.
I noticed that the signs around the stairwell suggested that the Collections continued on the second floor, so toddled up not necessarily expecting much, and was pleasantly surprised. Up here are the council archives, a store of old books and documents for perusal, once you've had a word with the nice lady at the desk. It's very much a "don't bring food and drink" and "don't use a biro" kind of place, but welcoming and with a selection of periodicals to read and local history books to buy. If you're one of the borough's 300000 residents, or ever had family here, you should take a look.
And up at the far end of the room, in a special now-permanent gallery, is the section I found most interesting of all. This is the John Lubbock Exhibition Gallery, an extensive and well thought-out tribute to a great Victorian collector, scientist, author, banker and politician. John grew up in Downe, and became a great friend of his near neighbour the young Charles Darwin, championing his evolutionary ideas as they grew older. John's great passion was archaeology - several anthropological artefacts from around the world are on display - and it's thanks to him that Stonehenge was preserved for the nation. He's also the man who first laid down the UK's bank holidays in law, for which we are all eternally grateful, indeed the sheer breadth of this polymath's achievements astounded me.
Meanwhile, back in Orpington, the Priory has been leased to a contemporary art organisation called V22, which plans to open artists' studios in part of the building this summer. The trustees have a long term aspiration to open part of the building to the public, but not as a museum, so what's now provided at Bromley Library will have to do. Change happens, and it's not as bad as it could have been, nor as good as it should.
Admission price for one adult (List taken from the London Planner, February 2017)
£30+
£39.00 Warner Bros Studio Tour
£35.00 Madame Tussauds (walk-up)
£32.00 Madame Tussauds (pre-book, before 3pm)
£30.95 The View From The Shard (walk-up)
£30.00 London Dungeon (walk-up)
£25-£29.99
£29.00 Madame Tussauds (pre-book, after 3pm)
£28.50 London Dungeon (pre-book, weekend afternoon)
£27.00 Shrek's Adventure!
£26.95 London Bridge Experience & Tombs
£25.95 The View From The Shard (pre-book)
£25.50 Houses of Parliament (guided tour)
£20-£24.99
£24.95 London Eye (walk-up)
£24.50 London Aquarium
£24.00 London Dungeon (pre-book, weekday afternoon)
£24.00 Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and Tour
£23.00 Buckingham Palace (summer only)
£23.00 Big Bus Sightseeing Tour
£22.50 Tower of London
£22.45 London Eye (pre-book)
£22.00 Chelsea Stadium Tour & Museum
£21.50 London Zoo
£21.00 London Dungeon (pre-book, morning)
£20.00 Westminster Abbey
£20.00 Star Wars Identities (at The O2)
£20.00 Wembley Stadium Tour
£20.00 Arsenal Stadium Tour & Museum
£20.00 Lord's Cricket Ground tour
£20.00 World Rugby Museum (closes next month)
£15-£19.99
£19.00 London Stadium Tour (walk-up)
£18.50 Houses of Parliament (audio tour)
£18.00 St Paul's Cathedral
£17.70 David Hockney (at Tate Britain)
£17.25 Churchill War Rooms
£17.00 London Stadium Tour (pre-book)
£17.00 London Transport Museum
£16.50 Hampton Court Palace
£16.00 Shakespeare's Globe (exhibition and tour)
£15.00 Kensington Palace
£15.00 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
£10-£14.99
£14.50 London Film Museum
£13.00 Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum
£12.15 Cutty Sark
£12.00 Leighton House Museum
£10.30 The Queen's Gallery
£10.00 Handel & Hendrix in London
£5-£9.99
£9.90 Fashion and Textile Museum
£9.50 The Royal Observatory
£9.30 The Royal Mews
£9.00 Tower Bridge Exhibition
£8.00 Banqueting House
£8.00 Lord's Cricket Ground Museum
£7.50 Clink Prison Museum
£7.00 18 Stafford Terrace
£7.00 Cartoon Museum
£7.00 Courtauld Gallery
£7.00 Household Cavalry Museum
£6.00 Dr Johnson's House
£6.00 Guards Museum
1p-£4.99
£4.00 The Monument
free
Changing The Guard, Bank of England Museum, British Museum, Geffrye Museum, Horniman Museum, Imperial War Museum, Museum of London, Museum of London Docklands, National Maritime Museum, Natural History Museum, Queen's House, Science Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Wallace Collection, Wellcome Collection, Guildhall Gallery, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern
For a contrast to Harrogate, try neighbouring Knaresborough, three miles distant. The train heads out of town round the Yorkshire Tea factory, past the golf course and onto the viaduct, and whoa! A deep gorge lies beneath, the broad sweep of the river Nidd at its foot, with houses and cottages clinging to the cliff on the far side. Atop the first bend are the ruins of the Norman castle around which the town first grew, connected to the riverbank via steep steps, and beyond that a warren of medieval streets. How could you not get off the train thirty seconds later and explore? [12 photos]
Sorry, that's not a photo from the train, that's the view from what's left of the castle. By the time I'd got my camera ready the trundle across the viaduct was over, and the windows of a Pacer aren't photogenically transparent anyway. But I did get out and explore, finally arriving in a town I'd wanted to see ever since Treasure Hunt visited in 1984. I was one of the few students in college with my own TV at the time, and the biochemist three doors down the corridor wanted to come and watch because his nextdoor neighbour appeared in Clue Three. Knaresborough was Clue Four ("A bear of very little brain is well and truly petrified by the Nidd"), and Anneka ended up with a damp backside after a spell of punting, as I remember.
Knaresborough, it turns out, is a delight. This is immediately apparent outside the station, where the subway morphs into a cobbled street that forks as one branch descends precipitously to the waterside. Some of the neighbouring cottages are thatched, and others painted in a black and white chequerboard pattern that's also to be seen decorating other buildings in the vicinity. Alternatively take the stone steps down from opposite the church, which twist appealingly on the descent, and be careful to mind your footing if they're slippery. Some of the garages down here on the access road must be at least two storeys beneath the houses they serve, suggesting the view from the back garden is grand. In spring and summer you can hire a rowing boat from Blenkhorn's on the riverbank, or Marigold's on the opposite side of the viaduct, but in February alas not so.
The Tour de France sped across High Bridge in 2014, and a trio of sleek peloton sculptures has been installed at the foot of Bond End alongside a pair of wooden sheep. On the far side of the bridge is the entrance to Knaresborough's most famous (and long-lived) tourist attraction, Mother Shipton's Cave. The crone in question lived over 500 years ago and was famous for her prophetic visions, which may have foretold the Spanish Armada and the Great Fire of London, or else her utterings were merely brilliantly vague. For £7 you can follow the track along the western bank to enter her cave and a small museum, plus the Petrifying Well which turns small objects hung from it to stone. A transformation once thought to be evil magic is truly only mineralogy, and 4-month-old calcified teddy bears are readily available in the shop. But not in February, which is a damned shame, and that was my Treasure Hunt target dashed.
To the castle instead, whose grounds are always open, mainly because there few walls remain. King John was the first monarch to take an interest in this easily-defended site, specifically as a base for hunting in the adjacent forest, while a century later Edward II installed his 'favourite' Piers Gaveston in luxury within. Various cycles of dereliction and repair ensued before a Civil War siege resulted in wholesale demolition, bar the Courthouse and a bit of the King's Tower. The town's war memorial now sits within what used to be the inner courtyard, from which there must be the best public views in town... deep into the gorge towards the viaduct and across towards the undeveloped bank opposite. I may have uttered the word 'wow' out loud, not that the lone dogwalker nearby seemed to have noticed. One good thing about visiting in February is that branches which might part-obscure the panorama are bare, and one bad is that the town museum in the Courthouse is firmly closed.
Which left the town to explore, which was both open and charming. Unlike Harrogate, Knaresborough still has the feel of an old market town because the central maze of streets survives relatively unscathed. Delicatessens, soft furnishers and soap merchants intermingle with banks and betting shops, with the range of services offered just about sufficient to ensure residents don't have to leave town too often. I confess I might now be addicted to pork pies topped with mushy peas and mint sauce now I've sampled one from Hirst's Bakery on the High Street - so much tastier than the whopper I bought in Leeds last month. I also enjoyed tracking down the modern tromp d'oeil paintings in many a bricked-up window, which feature several local personages from Guy Fawkes to cyclist Beryl Burton (leaflet here). Sure, by coming in February I missed a lot, indeed too much. But if you're the one-time sidebar blogger who moved here, congratulations, you chose damned well.
This'll be the last of my three long distance jaunts up north, courtesy of a ridiculously cheap deal offered by Virgin Trains East Coast last November. First I got to Leeds for £5 each way, then toDarlington for a tenner, and on this particular trip I reached York for five. I even had time after my zip round Harrogate and Knaresborough to spend some of the afternoon in the National Railway Museum, which I've visited before but on a day when it was rammed. Next up I'll be heading out west, courtesy of a cut-price GWR ticket offer, to a couple of cities my life has somehow avoided thus far. Until then, let's focus on turf nearer home for a bit.
The North Yorkshire town of Harrogate owes its existence to mineral waters. Once a tiny settlement in the thrall of neighbouring Knaresborough, the discovery of medicinal springs in the 16th century brought the place to prominence, and the discovery of dozens more in the 18th century created a spa town like no other. The cream of Georgian society visited to sample the waters, and their legacy is one of the most desirable places to live in the north of England. I'd say genteel and appealing without being snobby, although all my evidence comes from a brief two hour whizz-around, so who can tell? [8 photos]
The first spring to be exploited for medicinal gain was the Tewit Well, just to the south of the current town centre. A Tudor soldier named William Slingsby took his wife on a tour of Europe and noted, when he got home, that the waters bubbling out of the ground in Harrogate were similar to the esteemed source at Spa in Belgium. Stop now if you're considering marketing a gin called Slingsby, because a Harrogate-based business have beaten you to it, flavoured with local botanicals but made in Birmingham.
The real find was at a squelchy acre called Bogs Field, where 36 different springs bubble to the surface, each with a different mineral composition. Some are chalybeate, that's rich in iron, while others only a few feet away are more sulphurous. Some say that a greater number of mineral springs come to the surface here than in any other known location on earth, which if true is a damned impressive claim to fame. Today that boggy field has been swept away to create the centrepiece of an ornamental park named Valley Gardens, complete with Sun Pavilion, pergolas, artificial stream and paths for promenading. But scattered across the central flowerbed are several hatches, each still with a spring or well beneath, with a few sturdier cappingstructures located in rockeries to one side.
Originally health-seekers ladled the water from the earth, but things became more civilised as a spa society emerged. At the Old Sulphur Well a manageress called Betty Lupton dispensed the waters for six decades before a rotunda was built in 1843, and visitors then paid to enter the Royal Pump Room before breakfast to take the waters. A tap was provided outside to maintain public access, and still functions, although a notice alongside warns that this may no longer be especially beneficial to your health. Meanwhile the Pump Room has become the town's museum, along with the elegant annexe erected alongside in 1913, and £4 allows you inside for a walk around a few choice exhibits and a peer down the well. It's eye-opening to see how sick people invested so much trust in various forms of hydrotherapy before the advance of modern medicine and the NHS.
Only one of the former spa buildings dotted around High Harrogate is still used for taking the waters, somewhat more luxuriously than before, and that's the Turkish Baths on Parliament Street. The Grand Pump Room at the Royal Baths is now a Chinese restaurant, while the Promenade Rooms have in their time been a library, the town hall and a housing benefits office, and are now the town's Mercer Art Gallery. I enjoyed the latest pair of exhibitions here, one a portmanteau retrospective of the collection's 25 years, the other a tribute to artist/illustrator Isabel Alexander whose Ravilious-esque works evoke the wider British landscape. That's all free to visit, but sorry, closed on Mondays.
The northwestern side of town is the most debonair, that's Montpelier Quarter, with leftover hotels and theatres from Harrogate's Victorian heyday. This is also where you'll find the legendary Betty's Tea Rooms, founded by a Swiss confectioner in 1919, its exterior alas currently veiled beneath scaffolding. Here lovely ladies (and some of their husbands) take tea and cakes and fancies, while the adjacent shop provides sticky goodies if the queue at the door's too long. Visible outside is one end of The Stray - 200 acres of grassland forming a kind of Green Belt (or rather Green Crescent) around half the town centre. First protected from development in 1778, townspeople kicked up such a fuss when the council dared to suggest ploughing up a small area for flower beds that the plan was immediately withdrawn. Crocuses are perfectly acceptable, however, and should provide the usual spectaculardisplay in a few weeks time.
A much more modern facility is the Harrogate International Centre, one of the largest conference venues in the country, beaten only by Birmingham and London. A suite of eight exhibition halls leads back from the Edwardian Royal Hall towards an alien rotunda squatting beside the Holiday Inn. This 2000-seater auditorium was completed in 1982, perfectly timed for its first event to be the hosting of that year's Eurovision Song Contest. The continent's finest tunesmiths descended on Harrogate, where a beaming Jan Leeming hosted the show in which Nicole took first place for Germany, Bardo came 7th and Finland scored nul points. This was back in an era when the whole thing could be wrapped up in 2¼ hours flat, and rewatching the awkwardly parochial first few minutes I was struck how similar the town looks today, but blimey how fashions and polite society have changed.
And then there are the shops. These are quite upmarket, befitting Harrogate's affluent reputation, with designer labels arrayed beneath ironworked arcades in the pedestrianised centre. But there's still room for a Primark, TK Maxx and Asda, plus several independent traders of endearingly local provenance. The office block on top of the station looks misjudged, the Big Issue remains on sale and the smart avenues don't go on forever, but it's easy to see Harrogate's consummate appeal. Never assume that all of 'The North' is the same, especially if you've never made the effort to visit.
07:00 I have to work from home today. 07:01 I try never to work at the weekend, but there's a deadline tomorrow morning which has to be met. Yes, I should have fitted this work in last week, but last week was busy. I could get up really early tomorrow but there's no guarantee I'd get everything sorted before the deadline. So I'm doing it today. And you're my distraction. 08:13 Obviously I've overslept. 08:20 I'm sure there's time for a cup of tea while I catch up on all the global angst that's been happening while I slept. 08:47 And some breakfast. And maybe a bath. 09:29 Still faffing online. 09:30 I could probably have all this work finished by lunchtime if I knuckled down and stopped faffing, but I'm at home rather than in an office so there's nobody eyeing me disapprovingly. 09:54 Have got round to opening the folder with the work in. 09:58 Making another cup of tea. 10:24 Chatting to a friend about railway stations in a separate window. 10:33 Excellent, that's one twelfth of the work completed, apart from the classification bit I've got to come back and check at the end. 10:55 I bought a bunch of daffodils on Friday. They're coming into bloom nicely. 11:24 The second of the twelve things is a right pain. Checking Twitter instead. 11:47 At least the weather's a bit meh. There's nothing worse than working from home at the weekend when outside looks far more appealing. 12:18 If I stopped doing this quite so conscientiously, I could be finished soon. Instead, nowhere near. 12:45 Making another cup of tea. I ought to be making lunch, but I recognise that would be a massive distraction. 12:52 Briefly diverted by a reminder that today is the 5th of February, which requires listening to this song. 13:08 Heavily distracted by lunch. Reminding myself that breaking for lunch is perfectly legitimate, even when the morning's work has been intermittent. 13:29 One good thing about keeping an eye on social media all through the morning is that there isn't as much to catch up on over lunch. 13:46 Definitely working again. 13:47 I'm over halfway now. 13:48 If only I'd knuckled down earlier I could have been off out doing something by now. 13:49 No really, definitely working, and not just updating the blog. 14:11 In news from The Count, my Becks total for this month is already higher than the combined total for the last four Februaries (which may be a contributory factor to why I haven't finished this work yet). 14:35 Probably time for another cup of tea. 14:52 A lot of people out there appear to be enjoying their Sunday more than I am. 15:03 Bopping along to a classic 80s soundtrack while I work - another advantage over the office. 15:21 That's all the stuff looked at, now all I need to do is the classification bit. Nobody else likes doing the classification bit, so whereas I should just be checking it, I've got several gaps to fill in. 15:23 Faffing around with some photos instead. 16:04 On a 'normal' day's work I might have been packing up and going home now, but no, I'm still engaged with something I could have finished hours ago. There again, I haven't got to waste any time going home, and I was still asleep at the time I might normally have got into the office :) 16:20 Might be overdoing the tea now. 16:37 OK, done. Hurrah! However, because I'm at home I still have to do that thing where you send all the documents through the ether to reach the filing system that only works in the office. So that'll be several more minutes. 16:49 And finally I have to write the email that announces I've done everything, rather than turning round to someone and telling them. 16:56 Sorted. At precisely sunset. Meh. 17:00 Now all I have to do is write you a post for tomorrow. Back to normal...
Knight Dragon unveils new 1.4 million sq ft project - the first building in the UK to be designed by international architect Santiago Calatrava - at the heart of its transformation of Greenwich Peninsula
The angle most news outlets took was 'tube station to be renamed', whereas in fact something far more significant is going on.
Peninsula Place is a new 1.4 million sq ft landmark for London, designed by architect, engineer and artist Santiago Calatrava and set to transform Greenwich Peninsula.
It's to be built on the site of the existing tube and bus station at North Greenwich, and presumably a fair chunk of the surrounding land as well, maybe including some of the bleak piazza you walk through to reach the O2.
Residents and visitors to the Peninsula will arrive from the tube into an 80ft high winter garden and glass galleria.
That makes it sound like most of the tube station beneath ground level won't be changing much, other than to add some more impressive entrances and improve accessibility. I'm anticipating something like the recent revamp of Birmingham New Street, but with a lot more plants on top.
The scheme will include a new tube and bus station, theatre, cinema, performance venue, bars, shops and wellbeing hub.
Yes, of course there'll be shops. The current retail offering around the Dome is pretty lacklustre, unless you like restaurants, so this is an opportunity to create far more of a buzz. Also, a lot of people will be living on the peninsula soon, and they'll need something better than a coffee kiosk and a Tesco Express. As for the 'wellness hub', sigh, that's a clear sign that those with cash to squander will be welcomed here.
Above this will rise three towers of workspaces, apartments and hotels...
It's taken four sentences to get round to it, but there's the first mention of flats. Because that's what this really is, a housing development at the most expensive point on the Greenwich peninsula. More particularly, it's the transformation of an award-winning station building that's mostly air and roof into three towers of prime 30-storey real estate. This might fill TfL's coffers with a lot of cash.
...all connected to the Thames by a stunning new land bridge.
At present the link to the Thames is a poorly signposted pathway past a building site up a hotel access road, so any improvement ought to be welcome. It's not entirely clear what the land bridge will be passing over, but apparently there'll be a public park by the riverside at the far end.
Its elements form part of one design family, creating a series of distinctive linked structures.
If you're an architect, why not cut and paste that sentence and use it as part of all the design and access statements you release in the future?
THE WINTER GARDEN
Visitors will emerge from the tube into the 80ft high winter garden, an urban forest that sits beneath a glass cupola, which floods the space with natural light and unfolds to let in the air and the weather. Above, three towers gradually step back to reveal a series of green terraces.
Sounds artificially lovely. Most importantly, however, the stepped terraces mean that residents on all floors will have excellent views of the central garden, upping the price of each flat and the overall value of the package. Well played Santiago.
THE GALLERIA
The 500ft long galleria features a repetitive arboreal structure; slender columns form an “avenue of trees”, their detailed branch-like crowns connecting to support the glass canopy. This vaulting arcade creates a promenade of pavement cafes, shops and restaurants.
Although trees are mentioned a lot here, this is just a posh way of describing the shopping mall. The artist's impressions in the press pack suggest it might be a triple decker affair wrapped around the interior of the building, but it's hard to be sure. Has anybody managed to uncover the planning documents for this development, because I couldn't locate them on the Greenwich borough portal?
THE BRIDGE
A new foot bridge links the galleria to a public park on the Thames. Here the mast and cables create a giant sundial sitting on the prime meridian line.
Oh hurrah. Ever since the Millennium Experience was mothballed, the meridian has been a vastly underplayed aspect of the North Greenwich peninsula. If this new bridge manages to reignite the meridian's presence, especially with underlying chronological inspiration, that could be rather wonderful.
“The model for us was London itself; to catch a bit of the city, the passage, the small discoveries that make London picturesque."
Yeah, enough already.
But it’s also a place meet for the first time. To say a goodbye. To watch your kids being silly in the sunlight. As Calatrava says, ‘it’s built around emotion’.
No really, you're embarrassing yourself now. And you've missed a word out.
As for renaming the tube station, I haven't found that in any press release, but journalists who went to the press launch are reporting so.
In 2023 things will be very different in North Greenwich. Visitors to the area will emerge from the Jubilee line into a lofty winter garden, replete with slim columns, foliage, bars and restaurants. The station will also have been renamed Greenwich Peninsula.
It's quite hard to get a tube station permanently renamed these days, and only far-Eastern building developers seem to manage it. The end of the Northern line extension will be Battersea Power Station station to keep a Malaysian consortium happy, and now Knight Dragon have managed to morph North Greenwich into Greenwich Peninsula.
Poor old The O2, which for a number of years managed to shoehorn the name of the world's largest entertainment venue onto the tube map, but has now been trumped by a housing development. Maybe this is why the southern end of the cablecar was never named Emirates North Greenwich, but was ahead of the curve with Emirates Greenwich Peninsula. Whatever, I'm not sure I like the mouthy six-syllableness of the tube station's intended name.
But there you have it, the relentless evolution of a former gasworks into a forest of densely-packed high rise flats continues. And twenty-five years after the Millennium Dome was erected, we might finally get a glass structure to outrank it.
As we saw yesterday, top website Londonist isn't what it used to be. As I'll explain today, neither are its tweets.
I've been keeping an eye on the Londonist Twitter feed over the last month, and have a list (far too long to publish) of every tweet Londonist has tweeted since Big Ben rang in the New Year.
» 5 London facts you'll want to tell everyone
» Are these London's prettiest pubs? We reckon so
» 7 secrets of the natural History Museum
...
» London's most relaxing events
» Love bagels? Love burgers? We tried the new Bagel Burger.
» Ever noticed the dome on top of Kennington Station?
Londonist's tweets are generally short and sweet, and rarely come close to filling the 140 character limit. Numbered lists are mentioned a lot, and tweets are frequently worded as a question, encouraging a response. There's often a hint that Londonist knows something you don't, providing all the more reason to click through, and the phrasing sometimes over-promises. But most importantly the tweets are simple, making them accessible to everyone, and they're relentless.
By my reckoning Londonist tweeted a total of 958 times in January 2017. That's a lot of tweets, indeed it's equivalent to an average of 31 tweets a day. Moreover this daily Twitter target is hit with impressive regularity - on almost every day in January Londonist tweeted somewhere between 29 and 33 times. Viewed another way, Londonist is firing out an average of one tweet every 47 minutes, which might be seen as somewhat excessive. If you're one of their 1 million+ Twitter subscribers, there's very likely a Londonist tweet sitting somewhere in your recent timeline.
It used to be, way back, that Londonist posted something new and then tweeted about it. This now very rarely happens. Instead a certain amount of gaming is going on behind the scenes to ensure that tweets are delivered at the most appropriate time. I've spotted that Londonist concentrates its tweets during certain key periods when the maximum number of readers will be viewing, and then goes quiet at other less optimal times. A typical day starts off with one tweet every 20 minutes between 5.40am and 8.00am, to give Londoners something to read over breakfast or on their commute. Things then go silent until 11.20am, followed by another burst over lunchtime between 12 noon and 1pm. The afternoon cluster kicks off at 3pm with tweets every 20 minutes until 6pm, to catch those bored in the office or on their way home. The final sequence runs from 8pm to 11.20pm, again every 20 minutes, as smartphone surfers relax at the end of the day. There are occasional tweets dropped in at other times, and the rules do seem to change from month to month, but this seems to have been January's underlying plan.
The key statistic to be aware of is that Londonist tweets four times as often as it posts. There were, if you remember, 224 fresh articles in January 2017, but there were also as many as 958 tweets. This massive imbalance could mean that Londonist is tweeting its fresh posts more than once, or it could mean Londonist is tweeting old posts to fill the gap. In fact it means both.
Of the 958 tweets last month, approximately 300 related to posts that Londonist actually published in January. That's about 30% of the total... let's be generous and call it one-third. This means that two-thirds of the time Londonist is tweeting about old stuff it posted months ago, sometimes last year, sometimes the year before, and occasionally further back than that. This is why it's become important for the site to have a back catalogue of non-time-dependent posts, because it's then possible to tweet them again months later, potentially several times. But it also means that for every three times you click on a Londonist tweet, two of these will lead you to an old post. If you've ever thought "oh, I think I've read that before" or "oh seriously, not that post again", this recycling of old stuff is why.
» Cumming Street to Helmet Row: the rude A-Z (from August 2010)
» London under water (from July 2013)
» Bet you didn't know all these things about the DLR... (from August 2014)
» 8 of the best independent trainer shops in London (from October 2015)
» Because frankly, Crossrail 1 is old news (from December 2015)
As a further example, last month food and drink made up 19% of Londonist's Twitter output, a percentage exactly in line with the proportion of food- and drink-related posts currently being published. But again it's old stuff which predominates. To be more precise, for every four tweets about food and drink only one related to something first posted in January 2017, and the other three were from the archive.
If you're the person who writes Londonist's tweets, this repetition of old material makes sense, optimising already-written collateral and generating income. But if you're the person on the receiving end then this diluted stream of tweets appears annoyingly stale and increasingly irrelevant. It's enough to make any long term Twitter follower consider unsubscribing.
Meanwhile, yes, Londonist is also tweeting its fresh posts more than once. About 70 of January's new posts were tweeted twice, that's 30% of the total, while 13 got the nod three times. Only two were tweeted as many as four times, that's these two, for reasons I don't fully understand.
» In pictures: 24 photos of beautiful London tube stations
» Why does Croydon have a different postcode system to the rest of the country?
What's peculiar about the first of these tweets is that the linked post actually contains 69 photos not 24, suggesting that the person who wrote the tweet can't count. What's more one of the 69 photos was of Drayton Park, which isn't a tube station, and incredulously this was the photo used to illustrate the tweet. It's since been removed from the post, but served its purpose because the prettier the photo the more people will share the tweet, and clicking through is what Londonist's presence on Twitter is all about.
A number of Londonist's pre-2017 posts were also afforded the honour of being tweeted at least four times last month, as follows...
» Pack a few mince pies and you're ready to go
» 11 London wetherspoons worth drinking in
» Alternative tours in London you will love: (sponsor)
» Don't just stay in London, have an experience: (sponsor)
» 13 unique things to do in London you will love: (sponsor)
The first of these tweets relates to Londonist's guide to The Best Bus Routes For Seeing Christmas Lights, a semi-fictional piece which I pulled apart in November for its shower of inaccuracies. Unbelievably this rubbish got tweeted eighteen times over the Christmas period, including four times in January when no right-minded person would have been interested in Christmas lights. The post has since been mysteriously deleted, but for a few weeks it was clickbait gold, as the tweet's alluring photo delivered thousands of Twitter users through to the Londonist website.
Notice how three of the other most-tweeted tweets were for sponsored posts. Londonist is scrupulously fair in flagging up its paid-for tweets, but they do perhaps get more than their fair share of exposure. Last month 5% of Londonist's tweets were sponsored tweets - that's one in every 20 - as advertisers made sure they got sufficient bang for their buck.
At the other end of the tweeting scale, about half of Londonist's January 2017 posts were only tweeted once. What's more some of these single tweets were at 6am on a Saturday morning, or half past eleven on a weekday evening, when a minimal number of people would have been looking. You might expect 'tweeting once' to be the norm, but it's a peculiar inconsistency when so many other new posts get more exposure, and perverse when Londonist's stream of tweets is so full of older stuff. Still, at least these single-tweet posts did better than the handful of posts that were never tweeted at all, often because they were a bit challenging, and so would have been barely read. It isn't the Londonist website which drives traffic these days, it's social media, so the number of readers a post gets is directly proportional to its exposure on Facebook and Twitter.
Meanwhile a fascinating and unlikely disconnect has developed between Londonist on Twitter and the Londonist website. You might expect that every new post would be mentioned on Twitter shortly after it's been posted on the website, but this rarely happens. Of the 224 fresh posts that appeared on Londonist in January 2017, only 45 were tweeted on the day of publication, the vast majority of which related to daily or weekly events round-ups. The other 80% of new posts had to wait at least a day before they got tweeted about, and the average delay is more like two days. It may seem mad, but this is another advantage of non time-critical posts - it doesn't matter when you tweet about them. Indeed if you want to keep up with Londonist's most recent posts then Twitter is the last place you should be looking, because the Londonist website is where it's at. Good luck finding all the new stuff on the bloated front page, buried underneath a wall of 24 'highlights' of indeterminate origin, but that's where all the new stuff is.
Londonist has over a million followers on Twitter, so what it chooses to tweet makes a real financial difference. For example, if only 1% of followers are tempted by a tweet to click through to the website, that's ten thousand extra pageviews, and ten thousand extra pageviews means more guaranteed advertising revenue. That's why every tweet is carefully crafted to encourage engagement, even if the reality's just a link to some old piece dragged out of the archive. And Twitter's not even the most important driver, that's bound to be Facebook, except I'm not on Facebook so I'll spare you an analysis of Londonist's January 2017 output there.
But 'clickability' is Londonist's true new mantra. The site needs readers to survive, else its writers don't get paid, and the modern way to gain readers is to attract them click by click. This requires a succession of tweets with clickbait triggers, a bottomless pit of non-chronological London-related posts on which to draw, and an ad-friendly website optimised for single landings rather than navigation. We live in an 'attention economy' where those who shout the loudest prosper, and otherwise intelligent offerings go to the wall.
And that's why top website Londonist is evolving. It still has dozens of excellent posts each month, but it's not a sequentially scrolling blog any more, its overall content is dumbing down, and its tweets are increasingly out of date.
Top website Londonist is evolving. It still has dozens of excellent posts each month, but it's not a sequentially scrolling blog any more, and its content is subtly changing.
Let's take a look back at Londonist's posts from January 2017 to help explain what's going on. I've made a list of all the post titles over here, if you're interested in seeing for yourself, because the site no longer supports chronological archives.
Last month, Londonist posted a total of 224 fresh articles. That's an average of 7 posts a day, which is an impressive strike rate... but it's down from 10 a day this time last year. Comparing January 2016 and January 2017 directly, there's been a cut of roughly 25% in output. The biggest decline has been at the weekend, when readership is at its lowest. Previously there were 4 or 5 posts each day at the weekend, but now it's generally 2 or 3, and occasionally only 1.
Londonist used to be a comprehensive source of news, but no longer. Indeed one glance at the phenomenally out of date 'News' page on the Londonist website should convince you of this, with front page stories about Heathrow's Christmas advert, the Croydon tram crash and the 'New Bus Hopper Fare', introduced last September.
In January 2016 around 20% of Londonist's posts could be described as news-related, but in January 2017 that's dropped to only 5%. In particular the daily news round-up at 4.30pm has been scrapped, and merged (in much reduced form) into the daily 7pm events listing. A couple of last month's posts consisted of photos from protests, and five posts could be described as investigative journalism, but news is no longer something Londonist sources itself. Instead four posts have appeared in the last week lifted from CityAM, with permission, and labelled "This article was originally published on CityAM."
There's also been a decline in in-depth coverage of the arts. In January 2016 just over a quarter of Londonist's articles were rooted in film, theatre, art, music or comedy, but that's now reduced to 6%. I haven't included the daily and weekly events round-ups in these totals, and here a comprehensive listings service continues, but reviews of shows and exhibitions are now a rarity. Transport-related articles have also slipped back slightly, from 13% in January 2016 to 10% last month, but a lot of this can be explained by the overall reduction in news content.
So, where's the new focus in Londonist's output? History and geography are the big winners, and now form one third of the website's content. Every day there are fresh posts about quirky London stories from days gone by, and facts about places around the capital. Some of these are in-depth explorations, particularly where history's concerned, but in general they're listicles with short snappy factoids and associated photos. Increasingly certain formulaic structures are used, as can be seen from this lists of Londonist post titles from the last month.
Things You Might Not Have Done In Camden Town
Things You Might Not Have Done In Greenwich
Things You Might Not Have Done Near Brick Lane
Things You Might Not Know About Kew Gardens
Things You Might Not Know About The Borough Of Islington
Things You Might Not Know About Wembley Stadium
5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About The Science Museum
7 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Primrose Hill
9 Things You Didn't Know About Strand
7 Secrets Of Hampstead Heath
7 Secrets Of London Bridge Station
7 Secrets Of Shaftesbury Avenue
9 Secrets Of Piccadilly
7 Interesting Facts About Brick Lane
7 Interesting Facts About The British Museum
Odd numbered listicles are always best, as you can see. Of the 17 posts last month whose title started with a number, only three were even-numbered.
The other genre with a big increase in postings since last year is food and drink. In January 2016 only 8% of Londonist's posts were food and drink related, but last month that more than doubled to 19%. Food gets the lion's share, particularly restaurant vignettes, generally assembled into genre-based multiple listings. My word there are a lot of these, and invariably posted with an unwarranted superlative in the title. Indeed Londonist's editor appears convinced that the site's lists are utterly definitive, and uses the label 'Best' with delusional frequency. Take a look at this lot, all posted during January 2017.
London's Best All-You-Can-Eat
London's Best Boutique Hotels
London's Best Brunch
London's Best Delis
London's Best Dumplings
London's Best Hotel Bars
London's Best Hotel Restaurants
London's Best Japanese Ramen
London's Best Places to Celebrate Pancake Day
London's Best Themed Restaurants
London's Best Unsung Restaurants
The Best Beer Festivals In London In February 2017
The Best London Restaurants For Healthy Eating
The Best New London Restaurants To Try In January 2017
The Best Places In London To Celebrate Burns Night
The Best Pubs In London For First Dates
The Best Train Station Coffee Shop In London?
Two years ago, in an appeal for new contributors, Londonist stated "We are looking for a novel approach to tackling a subject, so a listicle of, say, 'The 10 Best Pubs In London' will just get deleted." These days 'The 10 Best Pubs In London' is precisely what we get, which is a clear indication that a change in editorial control has led to a degree of dumbing down.
And overuse of 'Best' is only part of it. Other superlatives are used with similar abandon, as Londonist fires out photo-heavy lists gushing over restaurants and bars its reviewers rather like.
London's Craziest Bars
London's Craziest Cocktails
London's Most Fun Desserts
London's Most Fun Street Food
London's Most Glamorous Afternoon Tea
London's Most Romantic Food
London's Most Stylish Cafés
London's Most Thrilling Dining
London's Poshest Bar Snacks
London's Poshest Dining Rooms
London's Poshest Dishes
London's Trendiest Restaurants
Reassuringly there are also specific reviews of individual restaurants, providing honest and in-depth critique, and not all of it positive. But these only seem to appear about once a week, whereas the generic 'London's [superlative] [type of food]' posts churn out on average more than once a day.
One final growth area is 'the post consisting almost entirely of photos'. You know the sort of thing, lots of websites do it, appealing to those who prefer the visual over having words to read. In January 2016 barely 1% of Londonist's posts were of this type, usually only on Fridays, and sourced from Londonist's bottomless Flickr pool. But in January 2017 they formed 8% of Londonist's online content, with a wide variety of other photos appropriated (including, in one case, one of my own). Apparently it's fine to borrow a photo so long as you link to the source underneath, and that's allowed Londonist to knock up several lengthy pictorial posts with ease.
Amazing Photos Of London In The Fog
Derelict London
Putney Is As Pretty As A Picture
Beautiful London Tube Stations
Beautiful Photos Of London's Tube Stations
Celebrities On The Tube
Vintage Pictures Of Tube Stations
In Pictures: 30 Years of London City Airport
In Pictures: London In The 19th Century
In Pictures: Piccadilly Circus Through The Ages
Here's What London Looked Like in 1967
London In 1951
London In 1956
London In 1985
London In 1993
So what might be going on?
Essentially, Londonist has been evolving from a blog to a format that's more like a magazine, and now specialises in London-based posts with a shelf-life. On a blog only your most recent posts count, whereas in a magazine each article retains relevance, making non-chronological articles more cost-efficient to produce.
For example, news is all well and good today, but of no interest next week, hence news-related posts have ebbed away. Meanwhile history never changes, and geography only rarely, hence posts on people and places can be promoted not just now but in the future. Galleries of photos are remarkably good value too, as they retain their eternal visual appeal. And food and drink posts may need a little tweaking to keep them fresh, but restaurants rarely vanish overnight, so these too have considerable longevity.
You can see how important 'timeless posts' are to Londonist by looking at its Twitter feed. I've been keeping an eye on this too over the last month, and have a list (far too long to publish) of every tweet Londonist has tweeted since Big Ben rang in the New Year. Perhaps we should consider this tomorrow...
As the world descends inexorably into self-inflicted decline, here's our exclusive list of the best protests in London this month.
The Best Protests in London - February 2017
Wed 1: Article 50 Action - For everyone who can't believe their MP just voted against their conscience (Trafalgar Square, 8pm) Thu 2: Get A Move On! - Why is it taking so long to enact the Will of the People? (Trafalgar Square, 6pm) Fri 3: Impeach Yourself - After a disastrous fortnight, calls for Donald Trump to fall on his sword (Grosvenor Square, 7pm) Sat 4: Ban The Bigots - Standing shoulder to shoulder with the latest religion to be discriminated against (Hyde Park, 2pm) Sun 5: We Hate EU - Condemning the repressive evil of our former European cousins (Westminster Bridge, 11am) Mon 6: End Immigration Now! - Lynch mobs at airports ensure that no unwelcome Americans sneak in (Heathrow, from 9am) Tue 7: Send Them Home! - Hopefully we'll see several people who don't look like us and insult them (Romford, 8pm) Wed 8: February May March - Head down to Whitehall and protest against Theresa the Appeaser (Parliament Square, 6pm) Thu 9: Halal Night - Easily led Britons are encouraged to hurl bricks through kebab shops windows (your local high street, 11pm) Fri 10: Shaking Fists At Clouds - Angry Express readers write their favourite alternative fact on a placard (Embankment, 4pm) Sat 11: Placeholder - Protest against whichever inalienable human right the President rolled back in a tweet this morning (Hyde Park, noon) Sun 12: Orangemen's Parade - Loyalist procession in support of golden boy Donald Trump (HMS Belfast, 3pm) Mon 13: Punch A Nazi - We'll find one, and you can come and bash some sense into him (South Bank, 7pm) Tue 14: Valentine's Love-In - Solidarity with American LGBT citizens whose visas have just been withdrawn (Trafalgar Square, 5pm) Wed 15: Stop Reacting, It Only Encourages Them - A silent stay-at-home protest (7-8pm) Thu 16: I Can't Believe How Much Weetabix Costs - Consumers rally against a sharp rise in inflation (Oxford Street, 10am) Fri 17: FFS - Weary Londoners take to the streets aghast at Trump's latest unbelievably ridiculous decision (Piccadilly, 5pm) Sat 18: Yeah Go On Then - Passive Britons applaud white supremacists because surely they can't be that bad (Embankment, 3pm) Sun 19: A Funeral for Britain - Follow our symbolic hearse as the economy heads inexorably towards disaster (Westminster, 1pm) Mon 20: Candlelight Vigil - In fellowship with our American cousins lost in last week's lone wolf atrocity (Trafalgar Square, 7pm) Tue 21: I Never Voted For This - Selfish Remoaners refuse to recognise they were democratically outnumbered (Embankment, 6pm) Wed 22: American State Visit - The Queen joins protesters on The Mall turning their backs as Trump rolls by (Green Park, 10am) Thu 23: Two Minute Hate: Live on BBC1, Michael Gove invites you to hurl abuse at experts (7.30pm, between The One Show and Eastenders) Fri 24: Bring Back 2016! - Citizens demand a return to brighter more optimistic days (Hampstead Heath, 2pm) Sat 25: CND March - Ten million jittery Britons assemble following yesterday's nuclear codes Twitter debacle (everywhere, 11am) Sun 26: Military Parade - Our new Russian allies drive tanks down The Mall in a show of solidarity and peace (Westminster, 3am) Mon 27: St Brexit's Day - A spontaneous celebration as the Government triggers Article 50 (everywhere, 2pm) Tue 28: Rose-Tinted Street Party - Oh thank God, a bright future awaits us all (Parliament Square, 3pm)
For fourteenconsecutiveFebruaries on diamond geezer I've kept myself busy by counting things. Ten different counts, to be precise, in a stats-tastic 28-day feature called The Count. You therefore won't be surprised to hear that I intend to do exactly the same again this year, indeed you'd no doubt be disappointed otherwise. I kicked off this annual exercise way back in 2003, so I now have over a dozen years of thrilling historical data to analyse. Expect a post or two of comparisons at the end of the month, if you're vaguely interested, and if you can bear the wait. Here's my selected list of ten countables for February 2017.
Count 1: Number of visits to this blog (Feb 2016 total: 60609) (↑4% on 2015) Count 2: Number of comments on this blog (Feb 2016 total: 687) (↑10%) Count 3: Number of words I wrote on this blog (Feb 2016 total: 31192) (↑3%) Count 4: Number of hours each day I sleep (Feb 2016 total: 174) (↑7%) Count 5: Number of nights I go out and am vaguely sociable (Feb 2016 total: 8) (-) Count 6: Number of bottles of Becks I drink (Feb 2016 total: 1) (↑1) Count 7: Number of cups of tea I drink (Feb 2016 total: 133) (↑3%) Count 8: Number of trains I travel on (Feb 2016 total: 132) (↑6%) Count 9: Number of steps I walk (Feb 2016 total: 238180) (↓16%) Count 10: The Mystery Count(Feb 2016 total: 0) (again)
Once again I'll be using an online website called Daytum to keep track of my counts. Daytum is a real-time data tracker which displays numbers in aprettyway, and which somehow hasn't gone offline since I started using it. For a while it'll be displaying last February's totals, but then I'll set everything back to zero and start reporting this year's counts from scratch. I then aim to update my counts on Daytum at least once a day until the 28th of the month, and then I'll come back and tell you how my February went. Who knows, the Mystery Count might even require enumeration this year, although I wouldn't get your hopes up. Stalk away.
For fourteen consecutive Februaries on diamond geezer I've kept myself busy by counting things. Ten different counts, to be precise, in a stats-tastic 28-day feature called The Count. You therefore won't be surprised to hear that I intend to do exactly the same again this year, indeed you'd no doubt be disappointed otherwise. I kicked off this annual exercise way back in 2003, so I now have over a dozen years of thrilling historical data to analyse. Expect a post or two of comparisons at the end of the month, if you're vaguely interested, and if you can bear the wait. Here's my selected list of ten countables for February 2017.
Once again I'll be using an online website called Daytum to keep track of my counts. Daytum is a real-time data tracker which displays numbers in a pretty way, and which somehow hasn't gone offline since I started using it. For a while it'll be displaying last February's totals, but then I'll set everything back to zero and start reporting this year's counts from scratch. I then aim to update my counts on Daytum at least once a day until the 28th of the month, and then I'll come back and tell you how my February went. Who knows, the Mystery Count might even require enumeration this year, although I wouldn't get your hopes up. Stalk away.
