Leinster Gardens looks like any other Bayswater street, with its long sweeping mid-Victorian terraces. But all is not as it seems, indeed two of the houses secretly aren't there at all.
The terrace on the left was built around 1855, a wall of white stucco five storeys high. At ground level the houses have projecting porches, each paired with a neighbour, supported by Ionic columns. The first floor windows are flanked by fluted columns topped with a shallow pediment, and set behind a continuous balustraded balcony. The upper floors have smaller balconies, and progressively less decoration, but the overall effect is of a seamless architectural whole. This is very much not the case.
At numbers 23 and 24 the doors don't open, and for very good reason. The downstairs windows are completely absent, merely white panels somebody hoped you wouldn't notice. None of the upstairs windows have glass in them, just grey paint, the telltale reflections from their neighbours betraying the deception. And although the other houses in the terrace have an extra extension set back atop the mansard roof, numbers 23 and 24 have nothing. And that's because they're not really there.
Initially this was a quiet part of town, as well as well-to-do. But then the railways came, specifically the newfangled Underground railway which burst into action between Paddington and Farringdon in 1863. It was so successful that additional westbound extensions were built almost immediately, the first above ground to Hammersmith, the second below ground to South Kensington. This veered off from the original line after Edgware Road, first stop Paddington Praed Street, second stop Bayswater. Leinster Gardens' misfortune was to lie on the path inbetween. [map 1868][map 1896]
Digging an underground railway was a messy disruptive business in the 1860s. Cut and cover methods had to be used, which involved digging a very big trench, adding a railway and then covering over the top. The 1863 railway had followed main roads, so only disrupted traffic, but here in Bayswater the line was forced to duck beneath a residential neighbourhood. A photograph in the LT collection shows digging underway at Craven Hill, one street before Leinster Gardens, the road thick with mud, a deep trench to one side and access to neighbouring houses seriously compromised.
At Leinster Gardens engineers took drastic action to cross the terrace and demolished numbers 23 and 24 entirely. Rather than rebuilding after construction they left the railway open to the sky, because in those days steam trains needed intermittent ventilation and this was an ideal spot. But because wealthy local residents would have complained if the gap in their terrace had been left empty, a false facade was built recreating the two missing houses, front view only. It remains unnecessarily impressively convincing.
But if you head round the back, via a convenient alley, the secret is revealed. Porchester Terrace does have a house-less break in it, through which can be seen the backs of the real houses in Leinster Gardens and the gap inbetween. Both sides have to be supported by girders to prevent collapse. The brick parapet in front of the cutting is quite high, so the best view is probably from across the pavement, but a camera waved over the wall reveals the deeper panorama down to the tracks below. Time it right and you might even catch a train passing through.
Yet from the front you might never know, indeed there are tales of modern residents in flats to either side having no idea that their neighbours didn't exist. The 'houses' at numbers 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens may be Grade II listed but in reality are only a few feet thick, and one of the more delightfully quirky corners of London's Underground network.
This post is from an occasional series of things you probably already knew, but that I hadn't properly blogged about before. I gave Leinster Gardens fairly short shrift back in 2010, as a subsection of a subsection of a broader post, so this time I thought I'd do it justice. Sorry if you thought you'd heard it all before. But it strikes me that sometimes it's important to blog the obvious stuff, rather than forever chasing the increasingly obscure, because there'll always be people to whom the 'well-known' is fresh and original.
The 50p was introduced in advance of decimalisation to help ready the population for changes ahead. It replaced the ten shilling note. Its shape was ground-breaking - heptagonal to ensure it was instantly recognisable and of constant width so it could roll freely through a machine. In 1969 a 50p coin was worth the equivalent of £8 today. At the time it was the world's most valuable coin in general circulation.
Over 2 billion 50p coins have been minted. 1.3 billion are still legal tender.
The first special 50p coin appeared in 1973 to commemorate Britain's entry into the European Economic Community. It featured nine hands to symbolise the nine members. 90 million of these nine-handed coins were minted, a far greater number than any subsequent variant 50p design.
The next special 50p design didn't appear until 1992. It too represented our European partners, in this case the EU Single Market. Only 109,000 were minted, making this the rarest of all 50p coins. If you have one it may be worth £50. The only other large commemorative 50p coin was minted in 1994 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D-Day, and there were 6,705,520 of those.
By 1996, 806 million original-sized 50p coins had been minted. 88% of these depicted Britannia, 11% the nine hands, 0.8% D-Day and just 0.014% the Single Market. That's how rare the Single Market coin was.
In 1997 the Royal Mint slimmed down the 50p following a government review. The new coin was thinner and of smaller diameter, making it less heavy on the pocket (8g rather than 13½g). The first smaller 50p coins entered circulation in September 1997 and the old 50p coins were withdrawn six months later. 806 million new of these new coins would be issued across the following decade.
In 2008 the Royal Shield replaced Britannia as part of a revamp to the entire range of decimal coins. 23 million of these redesigned 50p coins were minted in the first year, and another 153 million have been minted since. Of all the 'ordinary' 50p coins currently in circulation, there are five Britannias to every one Royal Shield.
As for commemorative 50ps, the next pair arrived in 1998. One celebrated the 50th anniversary of the NHS and the other the 25th anniversary of joining the EU. 5 million of each were minted. In 2000, somewhat quirkily, a coin was issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Public Libraries Act. There were 11 million of those.
From 2003 anniversary coins generally appeared once a year, because it seems there was always something worth celebrating.
2003: 100th Anniversary of the formation of the Women's Social and Political Union (3.1 million) 2004: 50th Anniversary of the first four-minute mile by Roger Bannister (9 million) 2005: 250th Anniversary of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (17.7 million) 2006: 150th Anniversary of the institution of the Victoria Cross (12 million) (10 million) 2007: 100th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Scouting Movement (7.7 million) 2008: 2009: 250th anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (210,000) 2010: 100 Years of Girlguiding UK (7.4 million) 2011: 50 years of the work of the World Wide Fund for Nature (3.4 million) 2012: 2013: 100th Anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Britten/Christopher Ironside (5.3 million) (7 million) 2014: 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow (6.5 million) 2015: 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain (5.9 million) 2016: 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings (6.7 million) 2017: 300th Anniversary of Sir Isaac Newton's Gold-Standard Report (1.8 million) 2018: 100th Anniversary of the Representation of the People Act (9 million)
Circulation figures varied greatly year by year. 18 million Samuel Johnson dictionaries were minted, more than any other commemorative 50p, which is why I have one in my collection. But only 210,000 Kew Gardens pagodas were minted, so they're very rare indeed, and should you ever find one you could sell it for 100 times its face value.
Note that in 2006 there were two different Victoria Cross designs, and in 2013 two different 100th birthdays were celebrated. No special 50p coins were introduced in 2008 because that was the year the main design changed. And 2012 was another fallow year because of these...
29 different Olympic designs were minted, all of them in 2011, as the Royal Mint hurled a volley of special coins into circulation. They immediately became very collectable, but their scarcity made collecting them difficult, indeed I've only just this weekend found my 11th. The 'easiest' one to find is Archery, because there were 3,345,500 of those, and the hardest to find is Football with just 1,125,500. Like so.
It's often quite hard to know what sport is being depicted without checking against an official list. The rarest Olympic coin in my collection is a Tennis 50p, which sometimes sells on eBay for £4.
Perhaps emboldened by the success of the Olympic collection, the Royal Mint have been firing out numerous Beatrix Potter inspired designs over the last few years.
2016: Peter Rabbit (9.7m), Jemima Puddle-Duck (2.1m), Squirrel Nutkin (5m), Mrs Tiggy-Winkle (8.8m), Beatrix Potter Portrait (6.9m) 2017: Peter Rabbit (19.9m), Benjamin Bunny (25m), Tom Kitten (9.5m), Jeremy Fisher (9.9m) 2018: Peter Rabbit (1.4m), Flopsy Bunny (1.4m), Tailor of Gloucester (3.9m), Mrs Tittlemouse (1.7m)
The most common design, by far, is Benjamin Bunny - there are 25 million of him. A different Peter Rabbit design was minted each year, peaking in 2017. Between them, Benjamin and Peter make up over 50% of all the Beatrix Potter coins in circulation. If you have a Flopsy Bunny in your pocket, that's the rarest in the collection (joint equal with a 2018 Peter Rabbit).
And then, presumably because they sold well to private collectors, the Royal Mint started featuring children's characters willy-nilly.
2018: Paddington at the Palace (5.9m), Paddington at the Station (5m), The Snowman 2019: Paddington at the Tower of London, Paddington at St Paul's Cathedral, The Gruffalo, Gruffalo and the Mouse, Wallace & Gromit, Sherlock Holmes, Stephen Hawking
Agreed, Steven Hawking isn't a children's character, Also, not all of these weird designs are destined for public circulation, most are only available as proof coins or in presentation packs. But the Royal Mint's output has a much more commercial edge these days, even if that means putting Wallace & Gromit and the Gruffalo on our currency. Watch out for those elusive Brexit coins in 2020, perhaps.
And finally, here's what I really wanted to find out from doing all this 50p research. What proportion of all the 1.3 billion 50p coins currently in circulation are of which type?
If a shopkeeper hands you a random 50p in your change, it'll probably have Britannia on it. Only one in seven 50p coins ought to have the newer Royal Shield design. One in 12 should be a Beatrix Potter, which is a lot more common than I was expecting. And one in 25 should be Olympic... except collectors have already whipped most of these out of circulation so in reality they're a lot rarer than that, so don't get your hopes up.
Next month's General Election will define the future for a generation or leave us trapped in political stalemate, depending. How the nation votes is crucial.
But my vote isn't. I live in one of the safest constituencies in the country which is going to return a Labour MP no matter what. Other than a brief aberration when George Galloway got in instead, Bethnal Green and Bow's Labour candidate has always polled more than twice as many votes as their nearest contender. And we're by no means London's only one horse race.
This map shows the constituencies in which the winning candidate at the last General Election polled over 70% of the vote.
16 of London's 73 constituencies fall into this category, that's just over 20%. Most lie within an East End/Lea Valley cluster, plus others in Ealing, Brent, Southwark, Lewisham and Croydon. All 17 are Labour held. In the three constituencies of East Ham, Tottenham and Walthamstow the percentage was actually over 80%. Other parties won't be wasting their time bringing in their big names to campaign here.
Across the whole of the UK there are 37 constituencies in which the winning candidate polled over 70% of the vote. Almost half of them are in London. Of the others, nine are in Liverpool, four in Manchester and three in Birmingham. Leeds, Leicester, Nottingham, Runcorn and Sheffield have one each. Again all are Labour held. The highest Conservative share of the vote was 69.9%, in South Holland and the Deepings in southeast Lincolnshire.
This map shows the constituencies in which the winning candidate at the last General Election polled over 60% of the vote.
36 of London's 73 constituencies fall into this category, that's roughly half. The Labour zone includes a solid northeastern block, a broad swathe of the inner southeast and an outer western band. Three Conservative constituencies also feature, each along the eastern edge of the capital. It's not inconceivable for these 36 constituencies to change hands at the forthcoming election, but each party starts off with over 60% of the vote so they probably won't.
Across the whole of the UK there are 204 constituencies in which the winning candidate polled over 60% of the vote. That's about 30% of the national total. Just over half of these constituencies returned a Labour MP and just under half returned a Conservative. London has a higher proportion of these safe seats than the wider population.
This map shows the constituencies in which the winning candidate at the last General Election polled less than half of the vote.
There are only 13 London constituencies in this category, one sixth of the overall total. Most are in outer London. Most are Conservative held. In Harrow and Barnet Labour are the main challenger, while in southwest London it's the Liberal Democrats. These are the constituencies the campaign will target, with their soft sub-5000 majorities, where every vote does potentially count. It's worth noting that Boris Johnson's constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip is very nearly one of them, he polled 50.8%.
Across the whole of the UK there are 172 constituencies in which the winning candidate polled less than half of the vote. That's about a quarter of the national total. These are the constituencies in which the winning candidate could have been beaten if everybody else had voted tactically. All but two of the constituencies in Scotland fall into this category. If you live in one of these potential marginals, all the might of the campaign and the corresponding advertising spend is focused on you.
The upcoming election is volatile enough that some parties may do a lot worse, or a lot better, than last time round. Past performance is no guarantee of future success. But I live in a 72% Labour constituency where my vote is technically irrelevant. The rest of you, for God's sake don't fcuk it up.
Crossrail is now running over a million minutes late.
1 Abbey Wood
due 2018 expected 2021
2 Abbey Wood
due 2018 expected 2021
3 Abbey Wood
due 2018 expected 2021
Services are currently running 1085760 minutes late
An update on progress yesterday confirmed that Crossrail "will open as soon as practically possible in 2021." The railway which was supposed to open last year won't be opening next year after all.
During the early years of the project, its opening date was a distant moveable feast.
In July 2014 management fixed on December 2018 for the opening of the first section from Paddington and Abbey Wood, with the entire line connected up a year later.
And they stuck to this December 2018 deadline for the next four years, at least in public, with no hints that anything might be awry.
Then in August 2018, one hundred days before the intended opening date, the truth emerged. Problems with signalling and station construction required a delay until "autumn 2019", which of course it now is, so that was an inaccurate prediction too.
This week's announcement is delay number four, like so...
Previously we had a six month window centred on the end of 2020. Now we have a twelve month window centred on the middle of 2021. At the very best that's 1st January 2021, but the direction of travel suggests it'll be a lot later in the year than that.
Crossrail is therefore on track to be at least two, maybe three years late. To put it another way, a railway line which should have opened 11 months ago won't be opening for at least another 14 months, and maybe 25.
Signalling is difficult when new trains are trying to interface with existing lines and fresh infrastructure. Numerous software versions haven't quite delivered, so have needed significant tweaks, and each period of rewriting slows things down. Version 10 was installed in October, but still doesn't tick all boxes so version 11 is intended to go live next month. If version 11 works then Trial Running will begin "at the earliest possible opportunity in 2020". If it doesn't work then the next stages of testing a fully operational railway will have to be delayed again while we wait for version 12. Let's hope it doesn't take 13.
As for stations, they're all behind schedule too. It is astonishing that not one of the nine new underground Crossrail stations is yet fully complete, even though they were once supposed to be receiving passengers last year.
Complete by the end of 2019
Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Custom House
"Substantially complete by the
end of the first quarter in 2020"
Paddington, Liverpool Street, Canary Wharf, Woolwich
Complete heaven knows when
Bond Street, Whitechapel
Over the last few months Crossrail have released short progress videos on YouTube for all of these stations.
Even once stations are structurally complete, a lengthy programme of safety testing needs to be carried out and this takes many months. Often safety testing can't take place at the same time as test trains are running through the station, and this division of time slows down progress even more.
Bond Street is a real problem because it's so far behind. It needs to be certified safe as an evacuation route before the operational railway can begin, but the testing phase can't begin until construction is complete. Even if every other bit of Crossrail were ready, passenger trains still wouldn't be allowed to operate until Bond Street was available as a potential escape route.
Crossrail is therefore at least One Million Minutes Late, which could stretch to One And A Half Million if the opening date turns out to be at the end of 2021.
We're told that a better estimate of the opening date will be given "early in 2020", once upgraded software finally permits Trial Running to take place. Hopefully they'll confirm that services between Paddington and Abbey Wood will commence in 2021, but I wouldn't bet against the window nudging into 2022.
A Grand Day Out: The Historic Dockyard, Chatham Location: Chatham, Kent, ME4 4TZ [map] Open: from 10am (closed December, January) Admission: £25.00 (free with an Art Pass) 5-word summary: four centuries of maritime history Website:thedockyard.co.uk Time to set aside: a day
In Tudor times Chatham was home to the largest dockyard in the country, and the Medway estuary became the hub of Britain's naval strength. Chatham's influence declined steadily as ships grew larger, although ship building and maintenance continued here for centuries until a final post-Falklands hurrah in 1984. Today the Chatham Historic Dockyard houses a most impressive collection of sea-going craft, historic buildings and industrial archaeology across an extensive site. There's tons to see, not just a bunch of old sailing ships, and November's a particularly quiet time to visit.
A lot of extra stuff has opened since I was last here in 2007, thanks to a generous Lottery grant, including a much spruced-up entrance building. Now your welcome includes barcode-operated entry gates, a ramp down to a tour-booking desk and a series of spacious interactive galleries. One gallery looks at general maritime dominance stuff, another lets you try your hand at dockside skills and a third celebrates the evocative ship's timbers they found under some floorboards. Fiona Bruce narrates throughout. A costumed lady tried to nudge me inside Hearts of Oak, an extensive audio-visual adventure, but I didn't have the requisite half an hour to spare.
At the heart of the site, within the dry docks, are three historic warships. One's a sailing ship, HMS Gannet, not especially overdressed but worth an explore. I was much more intrigued by HMS Cavalier, a naval destroyer launched just in time for the end of World War 2. It ended up here after being decommissioned in 1972, so below decks still has the feel of life afloat in a lightly-technological era. Wandering the corridors I eventually found the radio room, the galley, the captain's quarters and some fairly basic urinals. Most exciting was the Naafi, stocked with Imperial Leather, Golden Virginia and tins of creamed chicken soup. Checking the pricelist outside I can confirm that in 1972 a finger of Fudge cost 1½p, a packet of Spangles 2p and a Cadbury's Bar Six 4p.
But the most amazing of the trio is HMS Ocelot, a Cold War era submarine, and the last ship to be built here at Chatham. You don't often get to see a giant black tube out of the water, let alone the chance to climb through its hatch down into the bowels. An informative tour leads you from the torpedo deck to the silent engines, and along the way you get to swing yourself through the hatches like a pro. There are switches and dials everywhere, and bunks tucked in wherever possible, and I can confirm that the attack periscope works because I looked through and spotted Chatham. I cannot imagine how a crew of 69 men spent months aboard without resurfacing, or shower facilities, but I loved my half an hour below.
Alongside are the covered slips, giant sheds within which ships could be built or repaired in the dry. The finest is No 3 Slip, in 1838 the largest wide-span timber structure in Europe, which resembles an upturned hull with chequerboard skylights. Ground level is covered by oversized military machinery, but the real treat is to climb up (and up) to a suspended timber platform where boats were once stored, and admire the intricate roof close up. In the slip nextdoor is the RNLI's historic lifeboat collection, which contains a greater variety of lifesaving craft than you ever dreamed possible, one of which is an actual Blue Peter lifeboat your unwanted paperbacks might have paid for. My favourite RNLI anecdote is that the organisation was originally called the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, an acronym that definitely needed changing.
The Dockyard's other great treasure is the quarter-mile-long Ropery, at time of construction Europe's longest brick-built building. It was here that men spun and wound the ropes for great ships like the Victory, which needed 31 miles of the stuff, making this a crucial Empire-building trade. A fascinating tour of the building runs every day just after noon, and if you come on a weekday you get to watch a modern ropemaking company using the old machinery. They ride the full length of the gallery aboard a machine which braids the three threads together, tar each end to seal it then coil the resulting 220m rope ready for sale. If your tall ship, theatre or gymnasium needs ropes, Chatham can still provide.
Other things to visit within the Dockyard include a museum (Steam, Steel and Submarines), a fine collection of Georgian residential buildings (Call The Midwife often films here) and a store of hundreds of model ships loaned by the Imperial War Museum. The latter looked like it was going to be much more interesting than it turned out to be. Food is taken care of in the Wagon Stop canteen, which doubles up as a diner for the students and office workers stationed across the site, or in the more substantial Mess Deck back at the entrance. And it really does take all day to look around properly, hence the fairly steep entrance fee. You have another two weeks to get here before the dockyard closes for the winter.
» Getting here: I took a High Speed train from Stratford in just half an hour, then spent another half hour traipsing across Chatham to the Dockyard entrance. Alternatively the M2 coach runs direct from North Greenwich in 40 minutes (£13.50 return). In reality everyone drives.
» What's close by: Across the car park is Dockside, a large retail outlet mall with the Kentish consumer in mind. I've seen outlettier.
» What's nearby: The Royal Engineers Museum (£9.20) and Napoleonic Fort Amherst (free), but you probably won't have time to see either of those.
London gained a new river pier last month, at Royal Wharf, from which you can catch Thames Clipper services into central London.
That's Royal Wharf, the major new residential neighbourhood at Silvertown in Newham, which when complete next year should have 10000 residents. Those residents already have a DLR station at Pontoon Dock to link them to Canning Town, and now they have a river boat service from a brand new pier jutting out into the Thames. It's a long pier too, the first arm launching off at an angle towards a jagged platform, the second stretching further via a covered walkway to a floating jetty. I think it's the longest publicly accessible pier anywhere in London.
The Thames Clipper service runs every half hour, roughly speaking, except between 10am and 5pm on weekdays when it doesn't operate at all. It's essentially the same service that Woolwich gets, Royal Wharf being an extra stop (which means commuting from the Royal Arsenal now takes two minutes longer). Alas I visited during the day when there were no boats and found the entire pier locked shut, presumably to prevent high jinks, which was a shame because it looked like there was a seating area halfway out with fine river views. So I went back again after dark.
The riverside at Royal Wharf is a lonely place at night. Much of the western half of the site is still a building site so you can only approach from the east, and the entrance to the jetty is tucked away in an unfinished corner. No large obvious sign has been placed by the riverside, only an information board (with times and fares) plonked on the tarmac and a machine for buying tickets. But I did now have access to a blade of light stretching off above the river, the slats along each side blazing red, and somewhere beyond maybe a boat.
I decided against taking a seat on the illuminated triangle halfway down, it being a bit drizzly, but if I had I could have enjoyed views downstream towards the Thames Barrier. I can also confirm that the grimmer flank of industrial Greenwich looks prettier after dark. It's here at the halfway point that the River roundel appears, plain enough above the entrance to the covered walkway, but from onshore it's distant, small and easily overlooked.
The platform at the foot of the ramp is an unexpectedly impressive structure. A terrace of wooden seating faces the river, protected behind a large pane of glass in case of inclement weather, almost as if this were somewhere to put on a performance rather than somewhere to wait for a boat. Another ticket machine is available, plus a Next Boat Indicator which is supposed to tell you if anything's coming during the next 30 minutes. I learned not to trust it.
Being so far out into the river it was now possible to see the full sweep of North Greenwich on the western horizon and beyond that Canary Wharf, which is a panorama tenants at Royal Wharf alas don't get. A boat did eventually arrive from central London and disgorged just three passengers, suggesting the service has yet to take off with its target audience. After it sped away I was left alone in the middle of the Thames, no more than a metre above the waves, exploring the various nooks and crannies and enjoying a rare spell of midriver solitude. And then I walked back up the ramp.
I didn't get on the boat because travelling by Thames Clipper from Royal Wharf isn't cheap. A journey upstream to North Greenwich or Canary Wharf costs £4.40 with Oyster, this being the flat fare for the 'East' zone, and if commuting into Central London the fare is £7.30. Indeed the boat journey costs more than twice as much as travelling via DLR and Jubilee line, and it takes more than twice as long. If you hate battling the crowds on the tube and have time and money to spare then the Thames Clipper option may be for you, but otherwise it's hard to see the benefit.
Here's what Thames Clippers said when the service started, not entirely truthfully.
Firstly the new pier is only convenient if you happen to live at Royal Wharf. The Royal Docks are vast, so most of its residents don't live anywhere near a single jetty in Silvertown. Secondly anyone travelling this way to get to ExCel is a fool because that's the other side of Royal Victoria Dock and requires an additional 15 minute walk via a lofty footbridge. And thirdly City Airport is even further away than that, so anyone with luggage really ought to have caught the DLR instead.
Meanwhile here are some highly misleading travel times from the Royal Wharf developers' website.
The DLR times are from Pontoon Dock, which is fair enough because that is one minute's walk from the edge of the estate, but the Underground times are from Canning Town so look much better than they really are. As for those Crossrail times, not only did the purple line not open last year but getting to Custom House will require a lengthy hike across the aforementioned footbridge. There are no direct buses. Even the riverboat times are wrong, based on some fantasy timetable the marketing team dreamed up rather than real life.
Here's what the times should have been, assuming an optimum start point on the very edge of the Royal Wharf estate.
I wonder how many new residents were tempted in by the effortlessly short journey times, only to realise later they're not that good.
I hope they enjoy living in their stacky boxes, most without any kind of river view, on a densely packed estate served by three coffee shops, a Sainsbury's, two letting agents, a pharmacy and a nail bar.
Most roads in London lie within a single postcode district. Not many lie within two. Hardly any lie within three. I've found one that crosses four.
Most roads lie within a single postcode district because postcodes are explicitly related to postal delivery. It makes sense for a postal round sorted by hand, and worked on foot, to try to keep entire streets together wherever possible. For example the first mile of the Edgware Road forms the boundary between postcode districts W1, W2, NW1 and NW8, but the Royal Mail's dividing line deliberately passes to one side so that the whole stretch of road is entirely within W2. Postcode boundaries may wiggle quirkily in places, but don't generally split streets in two.
The only street I've managed to find which passes through as many as four postcode districts is a long one, and an old one, the Harrow Road. This kicks off from the aforementioned Edgware Road and heads west towards, unsurprisingly, Harrow. By the time it metamorphoses into Harlesden High Street its house numbers are already in the 1000s, but we don't need to go that far, indeed the 'four postcodes' bit all takes place between the 300s and 700s. It's not an especially exciting stretch, sorry, but it is an excuse to go for a 30 minute walk.
Harrow Road W2 [Paddington]
The road's first three quarters of a mile are overshadowed by the A40 flyover, and the postcode district doesn't change, so let's skip that. We'll join things as the road veers off, uphill, just beyond Royal Oak tube. This is a fairly lowly corner of the London borough of Westminster, an area called Westbourne Green, where council blocks and highrises are the order of things. Westminster Academy stands out as a rare 21st century addition. The parade of shops beneath Oldbury House boasts generic blue signs denoting what's sold within - Fish Bar, Dry Cleaners, Hair Salon - but only for businesses that haven't changed hands since they were installed. Although the local greenspace looks mildly attractive it was previously the site compound for the building of the Westway.
Across the canal things get older, on one side of the road at least, which is lined by four-storey early Victorian terraces with small shops on the ground floor. Most sell food, either to takeaway or eat in, with a definite emphasis on the Middle Eastern. Stop by for Lebanese cuisine, or a dash of Persian, or whatever it is the bearded chef with the jazz hands is beaming about. Many cafes have segregated space outside for a couple of tables, but all lying fallow until the weather picks up again in the spring. The Windsor Castle pub hosted some of the earliest gigs by the Rolling Stones, The Who and U2, but closed ten years ago and is finally being remodelled by a demolition crew. The shopping experienc peaks beyond Elgin Avenue, and is locally bustling, although an Iceland supermarket's about as highbrow as it gets. One of the shops is called Luxury Pound Plus, the commercial equivalent of having your cake and eating it. Lovers of plastic containers in various shapes and colours will find a wide variety to browse along the pavement.
The dividing line between W9 and W10 runs between Bravington Road and First Avenue, and unusually chops one short shopping parade in half. From the Fridge Centre up to the pharmacy at number 570 it's all W9, then nextdoor at 572 Ahmed's Halal Bazaar is in W10. The streetsign on the side of the Queen's Park Meeting Hall (now the All Stars Boxing Gym) confirms the intermediate change.
Harrow Road W10 [North Kensington]
If you've ever walked up the Grand Union towpath from Little Venice, this is the moment when the Harrow Road briefly appears across the other side. It can be accessed on foot via the Ha'penny Bridge. In November nobody risks sitting on the adjacent benches, but pigeons perch on the railings for a better view. The further west you walk the emptier the retail units become, until they all are, their former shop windows sequentially shrouded and sheeted. A further canal break occurs opposite Queens Park Public Library, or PVBLIC LIBRARY as the painted signage has it. Next come 1980s-style terraced flats, and what used to be The Flora (but no longer offers Cooled Lagers and a Patio Garden), and then W10's half mile is over.
Harrow Road's junction with Kilburn Lane and Ladbroke Grove is also where Westminster meets Kensington & Chelsea meets Brent.
Harrow Road NW10 [Willesden]
Unusually the south side of Harrow Road remains in W10 while the north side enters NW10. Only Brent have bothered to put a street sign up, confirming the latter. On the W10 side it's no time at all before Kensal Green Cemetery kicks in, a vast space whose residents have no need of postcodes, but they do have one and it's W10 4RA. Much of the old cemetery wall is being replaced, initially by temporary panels, but one scaffolded section further up retains a proper Kensington & Chelsea street sign. I was expecting this to say W10, but for some reason it says NW10, so I'm now wholly unsure how the postcode boundary hereabouts really works. In good news this doesn't matter, because we're already on postcode number four so there's no need to walk any further.
It's 50 years ago today since my very first day at school. Not nursery school, because I'd been going up the road to play in the sandpit for a couple of years before that. But proper big school where all the old kids went, some of them even six or seven years old.
To start with I was only invited to go into school for a couple of afternoons a week. The nation's pre-infants weren't enlisted en masse into full time education in those days, oh no, we were generally left free to toddle about in the garden and go down the shops with our mums. But I was permitted admission a few months earlier than most because I was a precocious little thing, and going to school meant I could ask lots and lots of questions to somebody who was actually paid to answer them.
It wasn't far to walk, just a minute up the road and a couple of minutes down. Obviously on that first day I was taken by a parent, but before long I'd be allowed to walk home at lunchtime all by myself. You allow a four year-old boy in shorts to do that today and social workers would be down on you like a tabloid headline writer.
The young woman with long blond hair standing under the porch was to be my first class teacher. Her name was Carol, although at the time I only ever knew her as "Miss". She welcomed me to the school and led me past the coathooks out of sight of my anxious parent. Had I realised what my mum was thinking I'd have turned round and said "Don't worry, I'm not planning on bursting into tears the minute you've gone, although obviously I still love you very much", but I didn't.
My new classroom was big and broad and tall, with high windows it was impossible to see out of when you're only three foot something. The Victorians had built it a century earlier, but I hadn't learned about them yet. Within five years the building would be replaced by something much more modern, but I was to get the full draughty space and outside toilet experience.
Around the edge of the room were paintings my new classmates had created and brief bursts of handwriting, single-mounted, stuck with small silver stars. Below the boards were numerous plastic drawers, some for scrap paper, some for scissors, and one of which was destined to be mine. I was a bit miffed that Miss had already written my name on it in chunky bold marker pen when I was perfectly capable of writing my own name unaided. Precocious, yeah.
I was taken over to sit next to a girl called Marianne. Such a very 1960s sort of a name, not that I realised this at the time because I was into nursery rhymes and not waspish folk singers. I wasn't initially very chatty with my new friend, sitting there in her polyester blouse and grey skirt, but within a year she'd be inviting me to her birthday party. We spent much of the afternoon bonding over a jigsaw. It wasn't the most academic start to my formal education but, despite this early setback, I still managed to knuckle down and gain a place at university several years later.
Everyone else had had lunch, because they'd been here all day. School lunches were served in a separate building, just down the hill, watched over by the chief cook and her army of pink-pinnied dinner ladies. She'd bang her ladle on the table before saying grace, then dish out plates laden with potato dollops and diced beetroot, but as yet I knew nothing of these culinary treats because I had a better chef at home.
My teacher didn't attempt to teach me phonics, or assess my nascent ability against centrally prescribed Early Learning Goals. However, I was given my very first maths exercise book, which was slim and yellow and ruled with chunky squares inside. Miss personalised everybody's book by writing a selection of digits and symbols on the front cover. I remember being distinctly unimpressed by her choice of numerals, and insisted that she give me an out-of-curriculum 'zero' as well. I think she smiled as she drew it, but that may have been a fixed grin.
I later made acquaintance with the class guinea pig, or at least the straw-filled cage in which it supposedly lived. We didn't do pets in my house, what with my dad being allergic to all things furry, so this close encounter was quite a revelation. Several months later I'd make the mistake of convincing my teacher to let me take the cage home for the weekend, which would lead to an impromptu domestic science lesson when an entirely predictable itchy rash broke out.
I don't remember meeting the headmistress on Day One. You only got sent to her if you did something particularly good (which might merit a special butterfly sticker) or particularly naughty (but I never did so I can't speak from experience). Her office could be glimpsed from the foot of the staircase up to the television room, where we'd sometimes sit crosslegged and wait for the musical clock to tick down.
During afternoon break I learned from my new classmates that there was to be a very special Guy Fawkes treat the following day. Every child in the school was to be given a sparkler, a whole entire sparkler of their very own, and then allowed to wave it around in the lower playground as it flashed and spluttered and fizzed. In those days no nannying health & safety risk assessments intervened, teachers simply handed us a lethal weapon and let us get on with wielding it. I was extremely excited, until I remembered that tomorrow was a Wednesday and I didn't yet come to school on Wednesdays. This was undoubtedly the day's low point.
I'm sure I pestered my mum about the sparkler situation when hometime came around, but was told point blank that I definitely couldn't come back until Thursday. If only the teachers had told me back then how rare a day off would be in the future, I doubt I'd have complained quite so much. But my first day at school had achieved its intended goal and I was already aching to come back. It wouldn't all be jigsaws and guinea pigs on the thousands of schooldays that followed, but I wouldn't be where I am today without the education that Miss and her talented successors provided.
If it's quarter past seven on the morning of the third of November then I've been single for exactly twenty years. Yes, I used to post this everyyear, but now I only do it every five.
Twenty years of singledom would appear to confirm it's not you, it's me. But don't worry, I'm perfectly happy being partnerless, thanks, and you'd never put up with me anyway.
Some might say that we single people are missing out on the joys of coupledom, and maybe we are, but I'm convinced that there are equally many positive points to being single:
Single: You get the whole duvet to yourself. Coupled: You don't need a hot water bottle.
Single: There's half as much ironing to do. Coupled: There's twice as much ironing to do but somebody else might do it.
Single: You can hoover the carpet when you think it needs doing. Coupled: Somebody else hoovers the carpet before you think it needs doing.
Single: Nobody ever tells you that the kitchen must be repainted and the bathroom must be retiled. Coupled: Two people can repaint the kitchen or retile the bathroom far more quickly than one.
Single: You never have to waste a Sunday doing what somebody else wants. Coupled: You never sit around on a Sunday wondering what the hell to do.
Single: You can watch whatever boxset you like, without arguments. Coupled: There's somebody else on the sofa to snuggle up to.
Single: You can flood Instagram with photos of your cat. Coupled: You can flood Instagram with photos of your children.
Single: Nobody complains when you burp, belch or fart. Coupled: Somebody points out when you have dandruff on your shoulder.
Single: The toilet seat is always where you left it. Coupled: The toilet seat isn't always freezing cold.
Single: You never come home to a blazing row. Coupled: You sometimes come home to a cooked meal.
Single: You get to eat the whole ready meal for two yourself. Coupled: It takes just as long to cook for two as it does for one.
Single: You can spend all your money on yourself. Coupled: There are two salaries coming in and only one set of bills.
Single: You can walk away from a flatshare, any time. Coupled: You might be able to afford a mortgage, together.
Single: There are no important birthdays or anniversaries to accidentally forget. Coupled: Somebody actually remembers your birthday.
Single: You never have to buy useless gifts for your partner, just for the sake of it. Coupled: Somebody buys you presents occasionally.
Single: You can take time out without needing to give a reason. Coupled: Somebody's genuinely interested in how you're feeling.
Single: Nobody insists on coming over to yours for Christmas. Coupled: Everybody insists on coming over to yours for Christmas.
Single: There are no in-laws to be forced to spend time with. Coupled: Being part of two families is better than one.
Single: You're allowed to flirt with people in the street. Coupled: You don't need to flirt with people in the street.
Single: You can still have a riotous social life in your 40s. Coupled: You can still have a riotous social life in your 60s.
Single: You have no friends to go out with because they've all partnered off and are staying in. Coupled: You don't have to go out with those annoying friends you had while you were single.
Single: You don't catch every sniffle, cold and flu bug off your partner. Coupled: When you suffer a major cardiac arrest, somebody actually notices and dials 999.
Single: You never get left alone and desolate because your life partner's just passed away. Coupled: When you get old and infirm, you have a carer to look after you.
Single: If you do ever meet the partner of your dreams, it's not too late to marry them. Coupled: Nobody ever meets the partner of their dreams, so better to get married before it's too late.
Single: Being coupled is restrictive, stifling and a sign of personal weakness. Coupled: Being single is unnatural, lonely and a sign of personal failure.
Single: You don't need to depend on others for your happiness. Coupled: You don't need to rely on yourself for support.
Single: You never get your heart broken. Coupled: You sometimes feel your heart leap.
Single: You can have sex with anyone you like. Coupled: You can have sex whenever you like.
Single: The bathroom is always free. Coupled: The bedroom is always full.
Single: You can lie in bed in the morning for as long as you like. Coupled: There's a very good reason for lying in bed in the morning.
Single: Nobody sees what you look like first thing in the morning. Coupled: Somebody loves you despite what they see first thing in the morning.
Single: You never fall in love with a psychopath and end up assuming the endless lies, habitual insults, screaming rows, repeated infidelity and occasional violence are somehow normal, because sometimes there are good days.
Not that I'm in any way bitter, you understand...
Today's post is about making a journey through tube stations whose names include every letter of the alphabet.
What's the shortest route which ticks off all 26 letters?
n.b. Tube stations only.
n.b. Route must pass through consecutive stations.
n.b. We're looking for the journey which passes through the fewest stations.
n.b. In case of a tie, the fewer trains the better.
For example, OVAL ticks off four different letters, KENNINGTON gets six more, but WATERLOO would only add another two. So that's not a great start.
The key to this challenge is knowing where the least frequent letters are.
In particular there's only one Z on the tube map, at BELSIZE PARK, so we're going to have to include that.
Hurrah, that's ten letters of the alphabet [ABEIKLPRSZ] sorted already.
No stations further up the Edgware branch of the Northern line have any interesting letters, so we need to head south instead.
And that forces us to go to CHALK FARM and then to CAMDEN TOWN, which it turns out is a truly excellent start.
Chalk Farm gifts us [CFHM], then Camden Town offers [DNOTW], and suddenly there are only seven letters [GJQUVXY] left to collect.
We can ignore U, because that comes for free when we collect Q, and G shouldn't be difficult to get either.
In which case the entire problem boils down to "What's the quickest way to grab J, Q, V, X and Y starting from Camden Town?"
I've knocked up a map.
• There are five X stations on the Underground (Brixton, Croxley, Oxford Circus, Uxbridge, Vauxhall), but only Oxford Circus is in the centre of town.
• There are three J stations on the Underground (St James's Park, St John's Wood and Willesden Junction), but the latter is too far out.
All my attempts at finding a best route pass through Oxford Circus, for the X, before heading on to either St John's Wood or St James's Park for the J.
It all comes down to how best to collect the Q, V and Y along the way.
• For Q, central London offers Queensway and four Something Squares.
• For V, either Covent Garden or Victoria look most promising.
• Although there are several Ys, Piccadilly Circus is the most central.
And here's what I reckon is the quickest way to complete the A-Z challenge (unless you can do better).
First the Northern line, Bank branch, south. That's 20 letters done already.
BELSIZe PARK → CHalk FarM → CamDen TOWN → EUston
Then onto the Victoria line, via an easy cross platform interchange at Euston.
→ Warren Street → OXford Circus
Then to the Bakerloo line, via another easy cross platform interchange.
→ PiccadillY Circus → CharinG Cross → Embankment
And finally to the District line to pick off the final J, V and Q.
→ Westminster → St James's Park → Victoria → Sloane SQuare
This journey ticks off all 26 letters of the alphabet in 13 stations via four trains. I think that's unbeatable.
And, having tried it, it took 27 minutes. If only it had been 26.
Update: No, Chris can do it quicker, in just 12 stations! (but on seven trains, so slower)
BELSIZe PARK → CHalk FarM → CamDen TOWN → EUston → Warren Street → OXford Circus → Tottenham Court Road → Leicester SQuare → PiccadillY Circus → Green Park → Victoria → St James's Park
I then noticed that five of the stations I'd passed through hadn't contributed anything. If you take out Chalk Farm, Camden Town, Euston, Warren Street and Embankment, the other eight stations still contain all the letters of the alphabet between them.
BELSIZe PARK →→ OXForD CircUs → PiccadillY Circus → CHariNG Cross →→ WesTMinster → St James's Park → Victoria → Sloane SQuare
So here's my challenge for you. What's the fewest number of tube stations required so that every letter of the alphabet appears at least once? The stations don't have to be adjacent, they can be anywhere on the network.
Eight is beatable. Can you do it in seven, or six, or even five?
Update: Ian's done it in six.
[BELSIZe PARK, FUlHaM BrOaDWaY, QueeNsway, RodinG Valley, VauXhall, Willesden JunCTion]
Update: That used 71 letters, but Ian's second attempt only needs 59.
[BELSIZe PARK, BOroUGH, OXForD Circus, QueeNsWaY, ST JaMes's Park, Vauxhall]
Update: Swapping Vauxhall for Oval cuts this to 55 letters.
[BELSIZe PARK, BOroUGH, OVal, OXForD Circus, QueeNsWaY, ST JaMes's Park]
Update: Two readers, the wub and zin92, have slimmed it down to 52 letters.
[BELSIZe PARK, CHalk FarM, OVal, QUeeNsWaY, ST John's WooD, UXbridGe]
We're fairly certain six stations and 52 letters is the fewest possible. Thanks!
Tue 1: The delivery driver failed to deliver my new cooker (because he couldn't park), so I a) headed out to Tesco and stocked up on more ready meals b) popped round to BestMate's for a bath because he has hot water c) returned home and enjoyed a microwaveable beef lasagne. Wed 2: While walking in Beddington Park, beneath some trees by the Wandle, I suddenly felt a nip on the back of my head. Something had pierced the surface of my skin, which couldn't have been a branch, and I still have no idea what it was but I have a horrible suspicion and I don't want to think about it. Thu 3: Walked up the centre of Hackney Marshes between the goalposts.
Fri 4: I lugged an old computer monitor to the Tower Hamlets tip, and blimey they made them heavy in 2002. I had to manoeuvre it onto two buses, then faced what should have been a short walk but took ages because I had to keep stopping to rest, and I was so pleased when the council operative took it off my hands and carried it effortlessly to the recycling zone. Sat 5: I haven't walked round the centre of Luton for ages, and was disturbed to see it's exactly the same except it's completely changed. The big shopping centre is no longer an Arndale. The indoor market is full of stalls selling globally diverse foods. George Street is deader. Also the residents look a lot younger, although that may just be me. Sun 6: Time for electric cooker delivery attempt number three. A different delivery driver turned up in a similarly large van, and only agreed to park outside because it was stupid o'clock on a Sunday morning. An hour later I had a new cooker! The first meal I attempted to cook on it was chicken pie with boiled potatoes, but the pie cooked faster than I'm used to while the saucepan of water boiled slower, and I think it's going to take me some time to get used to electric rather than gas. Mon 7: Trawling through my spare room I found a piggybank containing 54 decimal halfpennies, my collection of PalitoyPocketeers, a Kodachrome transparency of my grandparents holding my brother at his christening, my first pair of National Health spectacles, a set of Kan-U-Go cards, my National Girobank cheque guarantee card (expires end of 07-85), and Rabbit, the faded blue creature I used to take to bed. Tue 8: I stayed in all day because my landlord was supposed to be coming round with a gas engineer to discuss where my new boiler should go, but it turns out they couldn't make it and forgot to tell me, so all I ended up with was a tidier flat. Wed 9: Thank you for dropping by and leaving a comment on that post from 2008. Thu 10: The Uxbridge Conservative & Social Club, Boris's local, has a sign on its gatepost in Comic Sans advertising the misspelled Fairfiled Brasserie. Although the sign urges passers-by to Please Come In For A Delicious Lunch, the next sign along the path says Private Property Members and Guests And Affiliated Members Only so I'm not sure how welcome walk-in diners actually are.
Fri 11: Took a couple of old jackets to the charity shop. In one of the pockets I found a plastic bag from A D Munro, a supermarket on the Isle of Harris, confirming I hadn't worn it since 2006. Sat 12: The names in Brewdog have got sillier. Sun 13: Still having baths round at BestMate's because there is as yet no progress on the boiler front. Mon 14: That's an impressively pointless State Opening of Parliament, given that the session won't even last three weeks before proroguing for an election. I wonder whether the Queen will bother to turn up for the next speech or just send Charles instead. Tue 15: I went into the gents in Oakwood Park N14, because needs must, only for the gardener to close the door and trap me inside while he fired up his leaf blower. Wed 16: The tube was delayed, so I just missed the Overground, so I just missed the bus, so I just missed the tram, otherwise I might have got to the arse end of Croydon an hour earlier. Thu 17: I don't think the Next Train Indicator at Euston is supposed to do this.
Fri 18: We have tickets for Noises Off, the West End revival, so find ourselves tucked into the stalls somewhere near Meera Syal's feet. The evening is spent enjoying the top class farce, but also trying to remember what shows the other actors were in (ah yes, Miranda, Mum, The Bill and that series of BT Broadband adverts). Sat 19: Spotted by an old friend passing through Euston station, but they were weighed down with luggage and I never spotted them, so only learned about the close pass via FlickrMail later in the evening after they'd got home to Dorset. Sun 20: It took me a while to find the right 81st birthday card for my Dad, but I did eventually find an 18th birthday card that looked right upside down. Mon 21: Have discovered that if I go to a different library rather than my local one, almost all the books are different rather than the same old same old, so it's much easier to find something fresh to read. Tue 22: The so-called Street Food Quarter at the O2 is packed with sit-down restaurants serving food in disposable trays, but daytrippers from Essex probably find it edgy, and anybody craving Dirty Fish Burger and Chips should definitely dash down. Wed 23: I sneezed over breakfast, before which I wouldn't have guessed I had a cold, and after which I definitely knew. Thu 24: At the end of a long trip to the West Midlands, there's nothing quite like admiring Wolverhampton at dusk.
Fri 25: There are only four HMV stores left in London, one at Westfield (Shepherd's Bush), one in Uxbridge, one in Romford and one in Bromley. Sat 26: By mid-afternoon the newspaper kiosk outside Bow Road station has loads of copies of today's papers left, probably because there are no trains, but that's a heck of a lot of painstakingly-written carefully-packaged content destined to be pulped. Sun 27: The clocks have gone back and temperatures have dropped. It's not an excellent time of year to have no heating, but (as yet) it's nothing an extra layer can't solve. Mon 28: Dropped in on the Bauhaus exhibition at RIBA on Portland Place. The content was interesting but the presentation was frustrating - too deliberately bauhauseque. If you enjoy peering at flatroofed buildings through awkward holes be sure to visit before the end of January. Tue 29: Oh great, a General Election, just what everyone wanted. I suspect it'll all come down to Nigel Farage in the end, and not in a good way. Wed 30: I needed some new trainers, because my second best pair now have a hole in them, so rather than buying online I traipsed to an outlet store on the other side of London. Hurrah, they just happened to have the brand, make, colour and size I wanted on their Last Pairs shelf, at hugely unlikely odds, and that saved me £30. Thu 31: Took BestMate to Oakdene Park, Whetstone Stray and Underhill. I'm still having baths round at his, because there is as yet no date for that situation to change.
