August on diamond geezer is traditionally Local History Month. I sometimes interpret the title somewhat broadly, but generally the idea is to come up with an all-consuming safari, researched in slightly excessive detail, and then impose this on you as the month progresses. Here's what LHM has involved thus far...
My apologies, but some of these features don't fit on one page any more, that's ever since the bastards at Blogger truncated my archives in 2010 in order to 'speed up loading times'. But you can always click back using the "Older posts" link at the bottom of the page, indeed you can always do this, not just for these special features.
My favourite Local History Months have been the waterside walks, that's the Fleet, the Lea and the New River. Tracing the Fleet was particularly fascinating, because it's no longer visible, and my in-depth tracking has probably generated more long-term interest than anything else I've ever written. The other two rivers involved considerably longer walks, but still the same discipline in coming home and writing about each stretch in semi-forensic detail. London2012 dominates the rest of the list somewhat, because you don't get much more locally historic than an Olympics at the bottom of the road (with High Street 2012 an attempt to record my local neighbourhood before the legacy vortex struck). And as for retracing John Betjeman's Metro-land, nobody did local history stuff better than he, so it was inspirational to follow in his documentary footsteps four decades on.
For 2014 I considered doing something WW1-related, given that today's the centenary of Britain entering the Great War. But that didn't throw up any obvious London-related travelogue, plus it feels like the media's been commemorating nothing else for months. I mulled over other ideas for a Local History Month, some more local and historical than others, but nothing suitable emerged. So in the absence of inspiration I resigned myself to "doing a 2011", and opting out.
But then on Friday, over lunch with a colleague, ker-ching. They're an inveterate Munro-bagger, so were updating me (as is their habitual wont) on how their collective mountainous ascent is progressing. Very well, as it turns out. Of all the 282 Scottish peaks higher than 3000 feet (i.e. the Munros) they've now climbed more than 250, so they're nearly done. And as they rambled on with details of plans for future conquests I thought, I could do that, but in London.
Outside Scotland, where contours are less spectacular, other peak-bagging categories exist. There are Marilyns (hills with a relative height of at least 150 metres), Nuttalls (hills at least 2000 feet high with a relative height of at least 15 metres) and Hewitts (hills at least 2000 feet high with a relative height of at least 30 metres). Another sought-after category, for ramblers rather than mountaineers, are the County Tops. These are the highest points above sea level in each administrative county or unitary authority, for example Scafell Pike in Cumbria or Ditchling Beacon in East Sussex, and some people go round trying to tick all those off. Not me.
I've decided to climb the London Borough Tops, or in other words the highest points in each of the 33 London boroughs. I haven't had to do any original research because this is an actual thing, and onlinelists and even bits of books exist. Someone's dutifully scoured the contours on Ordnance Survey maps to determine the highest spot height within each borough's boundary, or attempted to because the cartographical interpretation isn't always necessarily 100% accurate. So I already know where I've got to go to in Harrow, Hounslow, Havering et al - now all I need to do is get there.
But before I go exploring, here are a few words about the geography. London isn't especially hilly, it's essentially a river valley, with the Thames carving a dent in the landscape across the middle. The fact that rivers flow downhill from source to estuary means that London tends to be higher in the west and lower in the east. And London's U-shaped valley profile means that the land tends to be higher to the north and south and much lower through the centre. It's no coincidence that the highest points in northern boroughs tend to be towards their northern border, and the highest points in southern boroughs tend to be towards their southern border.
You'll also notice that a lot of the highest points are actually on the border of a borough rather than somewhere within. That's because the land is rising to a higher point beyond, but the border is as far as the administrative district goes. This is bad news for anyone expecting me to be climbing a lot of hills, because in a lot of cases I'm merely going to a random spot on a borough border that's not an all-round viewpoint at all. Enfield, Newham and Sutton are cases in point, whereas Greenwich, Ealing and Waltham Forest deliver mid-borough heights. Have patience, you'll discover more as I ramble round.
Getting round all 33 London Borough Tops is going to take some time, because they're well spread out and some are in rather awkward places. Rob and Darren tried it by car last year, for example, and even they couldn't manage them all in a day. I'm going by public transport (with a bit of hiking), obviously, so it'll take me considerably longer. I've divided up the 'peaks' into five blocks I think I can manage in one go, of which thus far I've completed one, at a cost of eight hours of my life and eleven miles of shoe leather.
I think I've taken on something suitably challenging for a Local History Month. Now all I need to do is keep you reading as I report back in batches from the middle of nowhere. Or else come back in September, I might be done by then.
Possibly the best thing in London this August is this cornershop in Bethnal Green.
The special thing isn't that it's a cornershop on the corner of a street, reopened specially for one month only. It's not even an especially special street, indeed highly typical for Tower Hamlets, with a run of Victorian terraces on one side and a row of renovated council blocks on the other. No, the special thing is what the shop sells, all the groceries laid out on the shelves within, because the whole lot has been hand-sewn. [10 photos]
Just inside the door are a few racks of vegetables, these the least accurate copies in the shop because they appear to have faces. Far more convincing are the packs of digestives and Rich Teas on the adjacent shelves, and the cans of beer and bags of cat litter underneath. It's all made of stuffed felt, even the KY Jelly and Tampax alongside, and that's just a few of the non-perishables.
Up the back is a rack of newspapers, each of these hand-stitched too, and each with a slightly tongue-in-cheek cover story to match the masthead. The top shelf magazines have sewn breasts, naturally, or there are some fishing magazines if that's too hardcore. The freezers contain oven chips and ice lollies, in convincing bags and packets. A selection of chocolate bars and sweets in jars are lined up by the till. And no, you're not supposed to touch, but yes, the whole lot is purchasable.
Everything in the shop has its price, from can of Heinz beans to tin of Spam. The prices are a lot more than you'd expect if the contents were normal, but then this is art, and each item took Lucy some time to craft. Head up to the till (yes, that's fabric too) and you can tell her what you'd like to buy. Nothing's for takeaway now, else the shop would empty out, but the idea is that you come back in a few weeks and pick up your shopping before the end of the month.
Alternatively an online despatch service operates, and you don't even need to turn up at the shop for that. Prices are higher this way, so I'm glad I live sort-of locally and can go grab my selected item without postage and packing. But never forget that the whole installation is a social comment on branding and consumerism, obviously, rather than an actual shop. And how messed up are we for wanting to buy what are essentially pincushions at inflated prices simply because they have our favourite brandsewn on?
Lucy has another retail outlet plan up her sleeve, this time in Soho, so you'll probably be able to guess what reproductions she'll be selling there. In October the Cornershop moves on to Brighton, so presumably Lucy has some spare stock up her sleeve. But if you want to see the only all-felt cornershop in the East End, you only have until the end of the month before the shelves are emptied.
"Hey," says BestMate, "it's Friday, we should go to the pub." I turn him down.
I used to say yes on a Friday night when asked, or any evening of the week, more often than not. Pubs can be mighty fine places with the right atmosphere and company, plus the alcoholic beverages they serve slip down a treat too. But five times this year, on each of the five Fridays I've been asked, I've turned that invite to the pub down. Because it's always the same bloody one.
I've been to many excellent pubs this year. Ancient hostelries on the estuarine Thames, sipping ale on the rear wooden decking. Suit-packed saloons in the heart of Covent Garden, stood out front beside the lump of modern art. Chichi gastropubs in the backstreets of Kensington, their decor an expensive imitation of the run-down boozer the place used to be. Riverside taverns where sunburnt geezers arrive by motorboat and geese shelter from the sun beneath the lock gates. Oh yes, I don't mind a good pub. But I've gone off BestMate's favourite somewhat.
His preferred pub is always busy. This can be a good thing, because it means we're more likely to bump into someone we might know. BestMate knows everyone, or so it seems, so for him the more people in a particular location the more random acquaintances he gets to talk to. And I don't mind that, it's good to meet new people, even if at the end of the night you'd be pleased never to have to meet some of them again. But busy can also be bad, and Friday nights doubly so.
The bar is always, always packed. It doesn't matter how early we turn up, there's always a crowd elbow-deep attempting to buy a round for half a dozen friends. I like to at least make eye contact with the bar staff when I approach, but in this pub I can only perch awkwardly at the back of the throng and attempt to get someone's attention. Buying a round is always stressful, not least because I'm rubbish at pushing forward, or rather others are considerably better. Sometimes I can stand waiting for five minutes or more without beer or even acknowledgement, which makes me feel woefully insignificant. And I'm not even after anything complicated, I only want a bottle.
But this particular pub has stopped selling my favourite bottle. I should be grateful - Beck's isn't exactly the highpoint of global lager output, so its absence should nudge me into buying something better. But I take an Aspergers approach to alcohol, I like familiarity of experience. A tried and tested regime keeps me on my feet for longer, especially in a social situation when other people are buying for me, but that's not possible here. So instead I end up drinking lagers I like less, or liquids that incapacitate me quicker, and my social night out inevitably suffers.
Then there's the area set aside for drinking, or lack of it. Time was that everyone stayed inside the pub, summer or winter, in a fog of swirling smoke. Then the pavement space opened up, and those of us who preferred freedom from nicotine stepped outside and enjoyed the air. It wasn't long before legislation banished the smokers too, and soon the pavement was as packed as the interior. This in turn forced the landlord to install barriers to stop punters spilling into the road, or rather to avoid falling foul of the council's licensing requirements. All of which has made the Friday night pub experience more like a cattle market than a street party, and I guess I've fallen out of love.
I should be less intolerant of imperfection and make an effort to attend, rather than always opting out like a reclusive wuss. Equally there will come a Friday when BestMate heads elsewhere, to some alternative drinking establishment that isn't an over-desirable hub "where everyone goes". My diary is poised to accept his invite, when it comes, indeed my Saturday evening contains just such an opportunity. But on Friday night while the world went out and did something more exciting, I merely sat at home with a cup of tea and wrote about my social opt-out. It may be a far cheaper option than frequenting a London pub, but it's not, I fear, the best way to be spending one's life.
Imagine that in 1978 the Greater London Council had published a London Infrastructure Plan 2014. It would have been a thick document, probably typewritten and photocopied, setting out the infrastructure the capital might need 36 years into the future. It would also have been rubbish. The plan would have been based on decreasing population figures, continuing the capital's steady post-war decline. It would have anticipated the extension of the M1 motorway beyond the North Circular Road into the heart of London. It would also have highlighted the imminent arrival of the Jubilee line, and potential extensions to Lewisham and Hayes.
It's easy to see today that a plan written in 1978 would be pure fiction. Well-meaning fiction for sure, and potentially correct short-term, but doomed to obsolescence as the decades passed. Changes of government derailed certain plans, collapse of funding caused others, and subsequent changes in policy sent all sorts of schemes in completely different directions. We should therefore be terribly sceptical when the Mayor launches a London Infrastructure Plan 2050 covering a similar timespan. It's excellent to have long-term plans, indeed essential if the great ship Megacity London is ever to be steered. But as for how much of the document's blue-skies thinking is likely to happen by mid-century, I'd not expect a close match between pdf and reality.
What's coloured my perception of the document is the realisation that by 2050 I expect to be dead. Clearly this is a somewhat negative view to take, because society needs to plan beyond its lifespan to survive. But I look at some of the proposed ideas in Boris's document and think "What, seriously, one of the richest cities in the world can't get its act together to build a few miles of this and that within the next 25 years?" And I know several projects will be completed, but a megalopolis of ten million plus could do with a few more and sooner. What does it say for our collective will to organise when the extension of an Underground line to Hayes, first proposed when I was at primary school, probably won't be achieved until I'm underground myself?
So here's a list of rail projects proposed deep in the appendix to the Mayor's London Infrastructure Plan 2050, a fascinating document, chronicled below so that you can come back in the years to come and see what actually happened.
2016: World Class capacity Victoria line 2017: Tottenham Court Road major upgrade; Vauxhall capacity and access upgrade; 4-car trains on Overground Gospel Oak-Barking 2018:Thameslink Programme complete; Bond Street major capacity and access upgrade 2019:Crossrail 1; World Class capacity Jubilee line; Victoria major capacity and access upgrade; Elephant & Castle capacity and access upgrade 2020:Northern line extension to Battersea; Overground extension to Barking Riverside; New stations for Beam Park, Brent Cross, Cricklewood 2021: Old Street capacity upgrade 2022: Northern line capacity upgrade; New entrances at Bank station plus a new southbound Northern line running tunnel and platform; DLR Royal Docks capacity enhancements 2023: Holborn new entrance and interchange link 2024: Camden Town major interchange and access upgrade, Paddington major capacity and access upgrade; Old DLR stock replaced; Chiltern electrification and longer trains; Chiltern service Wycombe to West Ealing and/or Old Oak Common via Greenford; Capacity upgrade on Brighton Main Line, High Speed 1 and Essex Thameside 2025: DLR station at Thames Wharf; DLR night services from Bank to Lewisham and Woolwich 2026:High Speed 2 Euston to West Midlands; Crossrail 1 to West Coast Mainline Watford Jn/Tring; HS2/Overground station at Old Oak Common; DLR all three-car; Major Tramlink upgrade potentially doubling service frequency 2027: Sixth carriage added on Overground NLL/WLL 2029: Sixth carriage added on Overground ELL; Full automation of Piccadilly line; 30tph on Crossrail 1 2030:Crossrail 1 to Dartford/Ebbsfleet (and new airport?); Crossrail 1/Heathrow Express merger; South London rail link to Heathrow; Tramlink extension to Sutton 2031: DLR enhanced frequencies to Stratford 2032: Full automation of Central line 2035:Crossrail 2; Bakerloo line capacity upgrade; Significant capacity enhancement schemes at Baker Street, Piccadilly Circus, Moorgate, Liverpool Street, High St Kensington and Harrow-on-the-Hill 2040:Bakerloo Southern extension via Old Kent Road and Lewisham to Hayes and Beckenham Junction; Two additional trains per hour on Overground Gospel Oak-Barking; 50% frequency increase on Overground NLL/WLL 2040+:Crossrail 3 from Thames Estuary Airport (via East London to Central London and Beyond); New orbital route from Hounslow to Brent Cross (via Brentford, Acton, Old Oak Common and Neasden) 2045: Full automation of Bakerloo line; Northern line extension phase 2 to Clapham Junction 2050: Tower Gateway DLR closed and replacement station constructed underground on Bank branch with direct link to Tower Hill; Significant capacity enhancement schemes at Waterloo, Earl’s Court, White City, Green Park, Warren Street, Walthamstow and Embankment
I'm duly honoured by each and every one of these blogroll links, so many thanks to you all. But I also notice that the list is 10% shorter than last year (which in turn was 5% shorter than the year before) (which was 15% shorter than the year before that) (which was 20% shorter than the year before that) (which was 20% shorter than the year before that) (which was 20% shorter than the year before that). As declines go, this is steep.
I compile this list every year, so I started by checking all 95 blogs on last year's list to see how many of them still linked here. More than one in four have fallen by the wayside and don't appear this year. Of the missing 28 blogs, three have vanished off the face of the internet (or have been replaced by something spammy-looking). Four have removed their blogrolls after updating to a revamped template (which appears to be 'a thing', as the mobile-friendly web gets less cluttered). One blog is still going strong but has removed me from their blogroll (most years it's more than that, so I must be doing something right). And as many as twenty are now on hiatus (either deliberately after a farewell post, or through month-long neglect) which is a shame. Over the years that's an incredibly high proportion of blogs that have faded away because, well, it's all a bit passé innit?
A few blogs have returned to my list after a year or more off. They slipped out because nothing was posted when I ran this survey last July, but something's appeared again this month so now they're back in. For some, it seems, their blog has become somewhere to publish thoughts occasionally, when inspiration strikes, without feeling pressured to post something more regularly. Meanwhile I can usually refresh my annual list by adding several new blogs, but this year (although I've hunted) there don't appear to be many to find. My list is ever-shrinking, and is now barely a third the size of the 200+ it held six years ago. Talk about a dying art.
Alas this is evidence of the continued long-term decline of blogging as a means of communication. Fewer people blog these days because alternative platforms exist (and take far less effort to update, and get instant feedback). Blogrolls have become invisible and irrelevant, especially to anyone subscribed via an RSS feed, so only us old-school bloggers maintain them. The majority of fresh 2014 blogs have no blogroll at all, because sidebars don't look good on smartphones, and because the modern focus is more about self-promotion than sharing. Most importantly, new readers no longer come clicking via a long-standing blogroll in a sidebar, they arrive via a one-off reference on Twitter/Facebook/whatever. A blog is now only as good as its last post, and long-term reputation counts for very little.
A bunch of the UK's longest-standing bloggers started getting nostalgic for the old days yesterday, on Twitter. Remember the times when blogs actually got comments, they said. When blogs had readers, and those readers spoke to one another in tight-knit conversations, and you felt like you knew everyone? No longer. Online conversation has exploded somewhat since those pioneering years, now with the majority of the country jabbering away rather than just the few dozen early adopters who were around at the turn of the century. Self-broadcasting is no clique any more, it's a universal collective, which leaves those of us who still create long-form prose down something of a cul-de-sac.
I still have a blogroll, of course, I have done since I started. It's over there on the right hand side of the page, assuming you're reading this page as I intended rather than just the stripped-out content elsewhere. I link to 20 blogs I like and admire, partly to showcase them to others, but also so I have a quick means of reading them. Less than half of these blogs have a blogroll, so only a fraction link back, but hey, no problem.
Anyway, I hope that today's list of blogs with diamond geezer on their blogroll is fairly complete, but I bet it isn't. Let me know if I've missed you/anyone off the list, and I'll come back and add you/them later. And maybe you'd like to click on a few of these 85 links to see what you're missing. I can't promise they're all thrilling verbal discourses, but I'm sure you'll discover plenty that are.
This used to be the Crossways Estate, a council estate with a grim reputation, and indeed a Grime reputation. It's where Dizzee Rascal grew up, the roof taken over by pirate radio stations and with a fair amount of crime and ill-will in the stairwells below. Overcrowded, unloved and a bit too 'real', the site became a prime target for major redevelopment.
The scrappy tarmac football pitches around the towers were soon swept away, and streets of new low-rise houses and flats built in their place. By 2011 this had become the Bow Cross estate, a mix of council-let and affordable housing, with two of the towers utterly refurbished and reclad in a more appealing pastel palette. Prices for a one-bedroom flat started at £160,000, a number now so small as to appear quaintly unattainable by 2014 standards. Such is the nature of the housing vortex that's currently swallowing London, and the Olympic fringes in particular.
Early next year the third tower block will finally be ready for tenants, that is once the kitchens have been replaced, the exterior's been fully covered and the scaffolding's come down. What used to be dour unwanted Mallard Point is being reborn as Bellevue Bow, an aspirational lifestyle destination for incoming professionals, and nowhere that former residents could possibly afford. A one bedroom flat now costs £299,000, or rather did because all the cheap options were snapped up when the project launched a couple of weeks back, and the cheapest remaining two-bed is going for £428,000.
That's not Bow, that's East Londonsville, a new amorphous residential zone whose residents are lured in not by what's on the doorstep but by how easy it is to get to somewhere more interesting. For shops, get on the train. For culture, get on the train. For coffee and chi-chi chic, there's a bus to somewhere more aspirational if you can be bothered to take it, but in reality you'll probably end up nipping down to the Tesco Express for a pizza and some lagers. As a post-Olympic price-wave sweeps out across the East End, we risk no longer living in communities but in residential bubbles whose residents spend all their cultural time elsewhere.
Anyway, if you're moving in, do enjoy the expensive views from your ex council flat, I'm sure they'll be excellent.
One of the not-so-subtle changes in the marketing of the cablecar is the shift from "there" to "there and back". At the start of its life we were told how useful it'd be to get from A to B, and now we're invited to travel from A to B to A, for the experience rather than the destination. It gets the numbers up.
Or rather it doesn't. Here's a year-on-year comparison between passenger numbers in the last full week of July.
week ending 28 July 2012: 103,665 week ending 27 July 2013: 44,005 (↓58%) week ending 26 July 2014: 36,691 (↓17%)
The 58% drop between 2012 and 2013 is of course explained by the Olympics, and by the novelty factor of a thrilling means of transport in its first month. More worrying for TfL is the 17% fall in the last twelve months, which suggests either a decrease in cross-river traffic or a declining number of tourists, or both. And last week wasn't a one-off, the monthly totals for July throw up very similar percentage falls.
4 weeks ending 28 July 2012: 310,077 4 weeks ending 27 July 2013: 162,069 (↓52%) 4 weeks ending 26 July 2014: 132,046 (↓19%)
One of the means of luring in additional punters to the cablecar is of course the TfL website. The Dangleway appears relatively high up on the homepage, often getting the priority splash across the top, in the hope you might be tempted to visit. Click through and you'll reach the cablecar's homepage, and from there likely discover the "The Emirates Air Line experience". This is an interesting webpage in that only a tiny proportion of it, mostly photographs, is devoted to what a cablecar ride is actually like. The rest is devoted to "Things to do nearby"...
... a candid admission that two ten minute flights won't fill your time, so you'll need to mix in something else. And what a motley collection of recommendations it is too. I thought I'd take a look at the list of Things to do nearby, and query whether the cablecar really is a good way to get there.
Near Emirates Greenwich Peninsula
The Emirates Aviation Experience: The cablecar plus the Emirates Advertainment Experience go together so well that there's a £10 joint ticket. So yes, obviously this should be on the list. [walk: 15 seconds]
The O2: It's only a short walk away, so this is clearly the main thing to visit on the cablecar's south side. And if your family is the kind who likes a chain restaurant meal and then going to the cinema, a joint Dome/Dangleway day out could well be a hit. [walk: 5 minutes]
Thames Barrier: It's an architectural wonder, so you might well enjoy staring at London's flood defences from close up. The tiny visitors centre with its £3.50 exhibition underneath the cafe, perhaps less so. But it's not exactly close to North Greenwich, nor is the walk along the Thames particularly scenic. [walk/bus/walk: 35 minutes] [walk: 37 minutes]
Thames Path: This goes right past the cablecar terminal, so yes, you could set out on a riverside walk from here. TfL's website suggests maybe a walk "from the Thames Barrier to Greenwich" [walk: 4 miles], "on to the London Eye" [walk: 13 miles] "and beyond" [walk: 13+ miles]. I'm not hopeful that many cablecar users will fancy the latter two options.
Find more things to do on the Visit Greenwich website: Ah, yes, Greenwich is ace for a day out, hence you might well want to "discover the Cutty Sark, the Royal Observatory and Greenwich Park." Indeed there's so much to do in Greenwich to fill a day, a lot of it free, that you don't really need to hike downriver to throw in a cablecar flight as well. [river: 16 minutes] [tube & DLR: 24 minutes] [bus: 31 minutes] [walk: 40 minutes]
Near Emirates Royal Docks
The Crystal: I was amazed to discover that this Siemens-sponsored sustainability exhibition now charges £8 admission. It was tough enough getting punters inside when it was free, but apparently charging started in April, and sorry, it's not worth the cash. Stick to the cafe alongside, if indeed you go at all. [walk: 2 minutes]
Thames Barrier Park: Oh yes, we like "the award-winning Thames Barrier Park in Silvertown" with its "great views of the flood barrier". But if you were going there, you'd probably not go via the cablecar, it's on the wrong branch of the DLR. [DLR: 20 minutes] [walk: 22 minutes]
Newham City Farm: Now this sounds like family fun - a combined cablecar plus animals day out. But again the City Farm isn't exactly close to the northern terminal, being rather more Beckton-y than Royal Victoria-ish. [DLR/bus: 19 minutes] [DLR/walk: 24 minutes] [walk: 40 minutes]
Museum of London Docklands: Seriously, someone at TfL thinks that this is "near Emirates Royal Docks"? It's a 2 mile walk away, and not even a nice one, indeed there are a dozen DLR stations closer to the Museum than Royal Victoria. [DLR: 21 minutes] [walk: 40 minutes]
Excel London: At last the list hits the largest attraction adjacent to Dangleway North, the Excel conference centre. But blimey what a tedious place this is unless you've got a ticket to a conference or a show. Plan ahead, or really don't bother coming. [walk: 6 minutes]
WakeUp Docklands: This is a watersports centre based at the western end of the Royal Docks, plus it has a bar on a boat. It's not really a family location, but if you fancy wakeboarding or paddleboarding, and have plenty of cash for booking a session plus kit, this is surely the most thrilling ride in the area. [walk: 3 minutes]
What's not on either list is a Thames Clipper Ride, which you may remember is the latest double-ticket Dangleway offer. Or, surely, combining a trip on the cablecar with a spin round Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has got to be an attractive school holiday day out, what with Stratford being barely 15 minutes away by train. Just make sure you find something else to combine your cablecar ride with, because the experience may be fun but it's not going to fill much of a day.
Yesterday was the second anniversary of the start of London 2012. To celebrate, a Great British Carnival was held in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Hundreds of colourful characters turned up, in a feathery calypso spectacle pitched somewhere between Notting Hill and Rio. Community groups dressed for the occasion, giant beasts paraded through the park, and the public turned out in droves to watch, to listen, and to sprawl on the lawns in the sunshine. It was, I'd say, everything those who drew up the Olympic legacy vision ten years earlier might have been hoping for. A brownfield zone transformed into attractive open space, a collection of buildings and infrastructure capable of supporting regional growth, and a location embraced by the local population and beyond for the purposes of recreation and enjoyment. Above all the place still manages to feel communal rather than commercial, which is quite something when just across the railway at Westfield is one of the most concentrated hubs of branded retail activity anywhere in London. That purity may not last, especially as the fringes of the QEOP are taken over by flats and offices and yet more flats, hemming in the parklands as a ribbon of green in a canyon of steel and glass. But in 2014, as in 2012, the Lower Lea Valley remains a recreational and redevelopmental success, and a place that can still draw in the crowds.
Yesterday was also two years since Danny Boyle's Opening Ceremony with its steampunk rings, its trampolining nurses and its parachuting Queen. Last year they repeated the whole thing on BBC3, and many of us tuned in to relive the unexpected feeling of pride and satisfaction that we experienced first time round. This year it's Glasgow's turn to showcase itself through sport, so BBC3 were obviously showing that instead and any hopes that a 2012 rerun might be an annual event were quietly put to bed. So I went round to a friend's to watch the Opening Ceremony again on DVD, and it was still unexpectedly great, even if we did fast forward through the athletes section a bit. And by the time I got home there was only time to write a paragraph and a half of platitudes, rather than an in-depth report on the carnival and all the changes wrought recently in the Park, but that's OK because I've written that kind of post umpteen times before so you know what to expect. You'll cope, I'm sure, and I'll be back to drone on about the place again. But blimey, two years, eh?
A trio of towers
A concrete icon
A tumbling down
Didcot A
You'll have seen them from the train, or while driving through South Oxfordshire, the cooling towers of DidcotA. This coal-fired power station was commissioned in 1968, and belched out electricity until its switch was flicked in Marchlastyear. Now the towers are being demolished, their firing squad assembled at dawn, indeed by the time you read this they'll have crumbled to dust. But yesterday they were still standing, so I headed up the Thames Valley for one last stare. [20 photos]
You can't miss them, not in this flat valley, perched by the Great Western Railway close to where the line to Oxford turns off. The exposed nature of the site led to the CEGB commissioning architect Frederick Gibberd to do something a bit special to blend them into the landscape. He designed a cluster of hyperbolic cooling towers, initially taller but reduced to 375 feet in line with decreed safety requirements. To get the composition right he undertook a visual study, shuffling around different numbers of towers of differing heights, before eventually ending up with two groups of three at opposite corners of the site. As of this morning, just one group remains.
Yes, they're not all going, not yet. Three towers remain, these actually much easier to get close to thanks to a cycleway along the northern perimeter of the site. Take the path from Sutton Courtenay and pass by the landfill gravel pits to reach the edge of the remaining cluster, rising high beyond a line of trees and bushes. There is a mathematical elegance to their structure, the line on a graph writ large, ending at an open circumference in the sky. This close sometimes one of the trio disappears, masked by another, then peeks out from behind the rim as the composition shifts. They'll fall too before long, but for now this quiet byway is your access to close-up concrete contemplation.
It's not so easy, sorry wasn't so easy, to stand in the vicinity of the three Southern Cooling Towers. They stood in the Didcot corner, close to the main entrance and alongside the railway siding that brought in the coal. It's possible to wander a short distance down the access road to see the trio looming beyond the trees, but a sign reading 'Private Property' precludes getting any nearer. The southern perimeter road looks promising on a map but is shielded by an earth bank, so the closest vantage point turns out to be a small trading estate just up the road near the end of the footpath. All three towers can be spied across the car park, but only two from the scrubby meadow round the back. Sorry, could be spied, this new state of towerlessness is taking some getting used to.
A demolition on this scale takes some organising, and the companyresponsible were already out in force at noon yesterday. Men in orange hi-vis were stationed at regular intervals along the surrounding roads, watching over the 'no waiting' cones, while a minibus of reinforcements emptied out to shift metal barriers across what might have been excessively tempting stretches of pavement. Had I turned up a few hours, or even minutes, later, I'm not sure I could have taken the shots I managed. But they were probably best seen from further away, as Gibberd intended, as three sculptures on the horizon. To that end the car park by the railway station afforded a very good vantage point, or indeed anywhere for miles around with an unobstructed view.
The towers' explosive end was scheduled for between 3am and 5am this morning, which annoyed many local residents because pre-dawn on a Sunday is a fairly anti-social time, and they'd have liked to have watched the destruction with the sun above the horizon. But the demolition company were adamant - the towers are close enough to the Bristol mainline that dust from the collapse needs to be cleared from the rails before the first train runs through at seven, so before sunrise it must be. Perhaps they'll relent when the three northern cooling towers are toppled, which is currently scheduled for sometime next year.
Because climate change and European directives wait for nobody, even gas-powered Didcot B looks likely to fall silent over the next few years. Energy may have made our island's fortune but it's no longer our forte, hence the gradual disappearance of the structures that powered our industrial past. English Heritage considered listing Didcot's towers but decided there were better examples up north, hence down they've come and now some of the land can be reused. Those who live nearby may be pleased to get their valley back, unadorned, but for those who saw these giant hyperbolas as art, a journey through South Oxfordshire will never be the same again.
This contactless fares thing is really happening, then?
Yes, it may be a year later than planned, but yesterday TfL announced their firm intention to roll out contactless payments across London this autumn.
When precisely do contactless payments launch on TfL services? On 16th September 2014, which is a Tuesday. Remember the day of the week, it'll be important later.
Which TfL services will that include?
The Underground, the Overground, the DLR and Trams. That's in addition to all of London's buses, which have been available to contactless users since December 2012.
Which TfL services won't that include?
It doesn't look like you'll be able to use your contactless card on River Buses or on the cablecar, which will upset a small number of people. More importantly, it's possible you won't be able to use your contactless card on all of the rail services in London where Oyster is currently available, not unless TfL negotiations with rail companies are sorted out before September. This has the potential to be a right pain, because you'd have to stop and think which kind of journey you're going on before you set out. West Croydon? Contactless. East Croydon? Oyster. TfL think they can sort this one out in time, fingers crossed they do.
Is this the end of Oyster?
Not at all. TfL have pledged to keep Oyster available for all those who need it, or want it. That includes everyone without a bank account, and everyone without a contactless card, which is still most people (approximately 70% of UK cardsaren't contactless). It may be that in the future the chip in your Oyster card is replaced by a chip that works much like a contactless card, operating a new kind of TfL travel account. But there'll always be a non-bank version of London's travel ticket, because society would be scuppered if there wasn't.
Have they solved 'card clash', then?
No, that's still just as much of an issue as it was before, indeed probably more so. Unless you've been involved in the contactless trial, your card won't have been activated so can't currently be used to pay for journeys. From 16th September you may need to be more careful. Touch your Oyster card on the way in but accidentally your contactless card on the way out and you could be stung for two incomplete journeys. Keep more than one contactless card in your handbag or wallet and you may be stung quite regularly. That's why announcements about card clash have been broadcast ad nauseam for several months, because TfL need this new behaviour hardwired before the new system launches.
What are the main benefits of going contactless?
The biggest benefit is that you'll no longer need to top up your Oyster credit because the money comes straight off your credit or debit card. No longer will you need to stand at a machine and add cash or push your plastic into the slot. Now your card will work directly on the barriers, so the queues at ticket machines should get shorter (and will eventually, presumably, need fewer members of staff to supervise them).
How is this better than the existing ability to top-up your Oyster account automatically when it goes below a set total?
Perhaps one of my readers can tell me.
So now it's just turn up and go?
From September 16th, yes. If you're new to London you won't need to send off for an Oyster card in advance or queue up for one when you arrive, your existing bank card is now your permit to travel. But watch out because not all foreign-based contactless cards will work TfL's system, a particular exception at start-up being Mastercards issued in the USA or Canada.
Won't going contactless clog up my bank statement with itty bitty journeys?
No. Only one charge per day will be sent to your bank for payment, and only one daily charge will appear on your statement. The payment reference will mention TfL but won't list everywhere you've been.
So hang on, how do I find out if I've been overcharged?
TfL aren't expecting you to be overcharged. But you'll be able to register for an online account which will allow you to view your journey and updated payment history at the end of each day. There's already a similar service for Oyster users. For example I can see eight weeks worth of my travel history online, and TfL email me every Monday with a pdf listing every journey I've made in the last week and how much it cost. All the information you need is already available.
How is the payment system fundamentally different to Oyster?
Oyster works by charging you as you tap in and out. On a bus or tram the money is deducted at the start of the ride, while on trains a calculation is made at the end of the journey to work out how much you should then be charged. Contactless will work differently. Contactless merely records that you've touched in or out when you swipe, no money changes hands at the time. Then overnight a computer at TfL HQ tots up where you've been and calculates what your fare should be, resulting in one single payment for each day you travel. This is cutting edge technology, using cards to make payments later rather than at the point of contact, and TfL are rightly proud of what they've achieved.
Will I see any difference at ticket barriers?
Yes. At present, your Oyster balance flashes up on the display when you touch in and again when you touch out, allowing you to keep an eye on that balance in case it nears zero. If you use contactless then no amount of money will be shown, not even the fare for the journey you've just made, because officially that's calculated later. You are about to lose visibility of how much your travel costs as you speed around town, which'll make checking your statement later all the more important.
Won't contactless cards be slower to operate ticket barriers?
A bit slower, yes. Oyster cards are quicker at checking you're entitled to travel and opening the gates, helping to prevent congestion on the way through the barriers. But contactless cards can now deliver transaction times in under the crucial 500ms at which longer queues begin to form, so TfL hope you won't spot the difference.
Will prices be the same as Oyster?
They should be. There'll be no special discounts applied for users of one system or the other.
Even daily capping?
Yes. For contactless in the future, just as for Oyster now, if you travel a lot on a particular day there's a prescribed maximum you can be charged depending on time of travel, zones covered and modes of transport used. That cap will simply be applied at the end of the day, rather than cutting in at the point where your fares exceed the limit.
How about weekly price capping?
That'll work too. TfL are introducing 'Monday to Sunday' fare capping which will automatically calculate the best value for contactless travel over one week, that is so long as you use the same contactless card throughout. But note TfL's sudden insistence that a week must now start on Monday, whereas currently with travelcards a seven-day cap can kick off on any day of the week. For example if you visit London for seven days starting on a Thursday and pay by contactless card, your visit will no longer count as one consecutive period. Instead you'll have a Thursday to Sunday period followed by a Monday to Wednesday, neither of which is likely to hit a weekly cap, and you may end up worse off than now. Think of it as a limitation of the new system, which requires a uniform week for all, rather than a genuine conspiracy.
So why are TfL introducing this new system on a Tuesday?
Beats me. They've already started trumpeting the excellence of their 'Monday to Sunday' fare capping system, but then the first contactless week will only have six days in it. Sounds like a sure-fire recipe for complaints to me, that is unless they come up with a first-week exception or a promotional gimmick.
What happens if you don't have any money in your contactless account?
Good question. Presumably if it's a credit card that's not a problem, because credit cards are all about managing debt. But if your debit card goes into the red thanks to a TfL journey... good question.
How are ticket inspectors going to be able to check that you've paid when people start using contactless cards?
Good question. Passengers involved in the contactless trial have been given membership cards to act as proof that they're not freeloading. But that's not going to be possible once Joe Public starts using the system, so when the DLR attendant approaches you with their Oyster reader... good question.
Does 'contactless' only work via cards?
Not at all. EE have a Cash on Tap app which you'll be able to use on the tube by swiping your phone past the ticket barriers... if you're up for that. Contactless-enabled key fobs and wristbands will also work, for those at the cutting edge of technology. Expect other networks and interactive media to follow.
Are TfL hoping that everybody switches to contactless?
Eventually, yes. They expect the move will save them up to £80m in the next five years by reducing payments to the firm providing Oyster, and this saving can only increase as the technology becomes more tempting. "From our perspective and from a consumer perspective the contactless system is better," according to TfL's Director of Customer Experience. "We'll be encouraging them to start using it – Oyster is not broken, the point is we have a better system."
Are TfL recommending that everybody switches to contactless?
No. At present contactless is essentially a replacement for Pay As You Go, and while that's most users of TfL services, it's by no means everyone. In particular the contactless system can't currently cope with periods longer than one week, so anyone with a monthly or annual Travelcard should continue to use that for the foreseeable future. In addition, Freedom Pass users should continue to use their Freedom Passes, and anyone with concessionary travel should continue to use their special Oyster card. Remember this as TfL's publicity machine rolls out in the lead-up to the launch date in September - a lot of people would be worse off switching to contactless, and they'll need to remember NEVER to swipe their contactless card.
And why should I believe you on any of this?
Oh you shouldn't. I haven't been part of the contactless trial, and I wasn't invited one of the TfL press conferences which explained the system in detail. But feel free to chip in and correct anything you think I've got wrong, or add any additional information you think is relevant, because that'd be very helpful.
Do you have a contactless card?
No, I don't have a contactless card. But the rest of you, you have fun out there.
The Thames through London is spanned by dozens of bridges, some of which are showcased in a new exhibition at the Museum in Docklands. It's housed in the ground floor gallery where last year they put on Estuary, so it makes perfect sense that this year they've moved on and are doing Bridge.
The exhibition's mostly art and photographs, so don't come along expecting lots of facts and figures you could probably find on Wikipedia. But this allows the museum to dig into its fine collection, and those of others, to showcase rarely-seen images of iconic (and less iconic) structures. The highlight, heritage-wise, is a small collection of magic lantern slides and negatives depicting Victorian riverscape in sepia and black. The picture quality's not great, nor should it be, but the feeling that you're looking back in time is inescapable. These photos are kept in a darkened room to one side of the gallery, and the real gem is so fragile that it's kept behind glass and only lights up, briefly, when you press a button. It's a salted paper print developed by William Henry Fox Talbot, photography's founding father, and dates back to the first few years of his pioneering process. By now it should have faded irretrievably, but good fortune and conservation have preserved it for modern eyes. A bunch of boats on the foreshore is clearly seen, and that's what used to be Brunel's Hungerford Bridge in the background, long since replaced. I'm told that the Fox Talbot print "will be on display for one month only", and given that the exhibition opened precisely four weeks ago, that leaves you just this weekend to see it.
In the main gallery, at the other end of the timescale, one frame contains an illustration of Thomas Heatherwick's Garden Bridge, a vision of London yet to come. Another "under construction" picture shows the skeleton of Blackfriars Bridge as it might have been, raised up on two arches built from intertwined metal girders. Progressing round the exhibition space there are occasional visits to non-central spans at Richmond, Hammersmith and Dartford, and one to the lovely Albert. But the majority of the curated images alas stick to more familiar ground, specifically the bridges along the golden touristy stretch from Westminster to Tower. See London Bridge during its construction, or one of its constructions, and look inside to see the cable-carrying concrete conduits that snake within. Watch out for St Paul's in the background, unchanging, as the riverfront evolves from trading interface to commercial centre. sailing ships become boats become tourist cruisers, lamps become electric lights, horses and carts become red double deckers. What shines through is continuity and change, the river ever present, while how we choose to cross relentlessly updates.
It's not all static images. A slideshow in one booth shows an artist walking on London Bridge, back and forth in the stream of morning commuters, oblivious to their part in her artwork. And then there's "the film", an eleven minuter screened in a darkened cinema area beside the main entrance. Back in 1997 percussionist Paul Burwell was sent on a journey downriver on the back of a boat, his voyage captured in a short entitled Beating the Bridges. The boat set off at 5am up Hammersmith way (drummer-free at this point, so as not to antagonise the waterfront), before slowly working its way through the centre and out to the estuary at Dartford. Paul's semi-manic bashing begins around Westminster, and while he beats and flails in rhythm we watch London's bridges pass by in panorama overhead. I think I spent as long watching William Raban's filmlet as I spent wandering round the remainder of the exhibition.
There is a large folded guide to pick up, or preferably purchase for a quid, although the contents are less about the Bridge exhibition and more about what you can see that's bridge-related in the remainder of the museum, so I wasn't over-excited. You should of course walk around the main museum if you never have, I think it's a fascinating guide to London's maritime history (although a friend considers the Museum in Docklands the most boring museum in London, so be warned). I'll also say that I enjoyed last year's Estuary more, or at least it held my attention for longer, but that was less pictures in frames and more multimedia. But Bridge is well worth a look, not least for the breadth and rarity of what's on display, and you have until November to get here. Perhaps even make the journey to Canary Wharf by Thames Clipper, because that way you get to experience ten of London's bridges for real, and surely that's the best experience of all.
I was very surprised last week to receive an email inviting me to a TfL press event. This never happens. I was even more surprised when the subject of the event was to promote the cablecar.
"Good Afternoon,
To celebrate the introduction of the Emirates Air Line and Thames Clippers exclusive joint packages, we are holding an event to exclusively allow media and press to see what passengers will experience flying and sailing across the Thames."
I've never been the cablecar's greatest supporter, so I wondered if I'd been invited for entertainment purposes so they could throw me out halfway across. But I couldn't have gone anyway, the event's while I'm at work, so I sent a polite email turning them down and continued with my life.
Anyway the event's today, which means you might start seeing press pieces about combined cablecar and riverboat tickets later on. So I thought I'd get in early and see what the package prices look like, and whether this might be value for money.
There are three joint packages - the Single, the Return and the Roamer - each available until the end of August. You'll only uncover the prices if you dig around on the Thames Clipper website and attempt to buy each one. And these packages can only be booked online, in advance, not as turn up and go, so best hope the weather's nice, otherwise you may find you've paid for a damp splash and a ride in the clouds.
Let me calculate what it would cost to go on the cablecar and the riverboat separately, and then compare the total with the cost of the supposedly special package. Hold tight, this gets a bit complicated.
For the aerial half of the package, everyone gets a return trip on the cablecar and a visit to the Aviation Experience (which is the advertainment shed adjacent to the southern terminal). Normally the prices are as follows.
Dangleway
Adult
Oyster
Child
Return flight plus
Aviation Experience
£10.00 =£4.40×2+£1.20
£7.80 =£3.30×2+£1.20
£6.00 =£2.30×2+£1.40
I'm not sure why anyone would want to visit the ground floor of the Aviation Experience, indeed it's so Emirates-based that they ought to be paying you. It was empty when I popped by at the weekend, as was the cafe nextdoor and the Emirates giftshop. That's a very peculiar outlet because it sells branded airline souvenirs, not cablecar souvenirs, which may be why I don't think I've ever seen anyone buying anything. One of the two staff was shuffling coffee cups while the other sat bored stupid in the corner waiting for a customer. My appearance, and then almost immediate disappearance, must have been such a disappointment.
For the Thames Clipper half of the package, you can choose between a single riverboat ride, a return trip or unlimited daily travel (anywhere between Westminster and Woolwich). If bought separately, these are the prices.
Thames Clipper
Adult
Oyster
Travelcard
Child
Single
£6.80
£6.12
£4.50
£3.40
Return
£12.00
£10.80
£8.00
£6.00
Roamer
£16.50
£16.50
£11.00
£8.25
Riding a Thames Clipper boat is surprisingly expensive. I mean, nearly £7 for a single journey is a heck of a lot, as is £12 for a return. But then what you get is a ride down the centre of one of the finest riverscapes on the planet... past Royal Greenwich, under Tower Bridge and past St Paul's. Most of the seats are inside, which diminishes the visual experience somewhat, but there are three benches out the back and here you can really feel at one with the river. I took a ride at the weekend, carefully starting at the North Greenwich end and travelling into the West End against the flow of passengers. That meant I got a prime seat at the rear overlooking the wash as we whizzed at high speed around the Isle of Dogs, which was great, and something most Londoners probably ought to do more often. By the time the majority of tourists got on at Canary Wharf and Tower Hill we were going rather slower, and they merely got to stand in the doorway and eye my prime position somewhat jealously. Ha, and woo.
Add the cablecar experience to the boat fare and you get these totals, i.e. how much these two things would normally cost if you did them together.
Bought separately
Adult
Oyster
Travelcard
Child
Dangleway + Single
£16.80
£13.92
£12.30
£9.40
Dangleway + Return
£22.00
£18.60
£15.80
£12.00
Dangleway + Roamer
£26.50
£24.30
£18.80
£14.25
One of the treats lined up for the press on the cablecar today is "a guest appearance from BBC presenter, global adventurer and Londoner Simon Reeves, narrator of the new Emirates Air Line in-flight films designed to compliment the great views." I think they mean complement, but I'm not sure, because the in-flight films weren't working when I boarded my cabin at the weekend. Instead the screen alternated between a logo and a message about EU funding, which was less than thrilling, and additional information about the sights was nowhere to be seen. I hope Simon's video mentions the scrapyard below, and the row of cement mixers, and the wasteland gap where the Silvertown Tunnel will eventually go, but I fear not.
Here are the savings you get if you buy the joint package instead.
Joint package savings
Adult
Oyster
Travelcard
Child
Dangleway + Single
£3.80
92p
-70p
£1.50
Dangleway + Return
£3.40
-
-£2.80
£1.80
Dangleway + Roamer
£4.70
£2.50
-£3.00
£2.45
If you're an adult and you don't have an Oyster card, the joint package saves you about four quid. If you're an adult and you do have an Oyster card, one of the packages saves you nothing, and the other two save you not much. If you're an adult and you have a Travelcard, do not buy the special tickets because you will lose money. And if you're taking a child with you, yes you'll save a bit, but you'd save more by only going on the river or the cablecar, not both.
The idea behind the joint package stuff is, obviously, to upsell the cablecar. Its existence is increasingly justified by the number of leisure visitors who can be enticed aboard and not by any attempt to attract "commuters". This'll explain the cablecar's appearance in the latest Pudsey the Dog film, and the doling out of free cinema ticket goody bags to the first 20 children to ride the cablecar each day this week. You don't get this level of hyper-publicity on the buses, the Victoria line or the tram to Croydon. I think TfL's Head of Aerial Tourism, Danny Price, will be pleased not to have to meet me this morning.
There is one more special joint fare, and this is aimed squarely at families with children. For £50 two adults and up to three children can ride the cablecar and get a Roamer ticket on the river, which is essentially an entire day out. And that's a bargain, at least compared to the price of paying separately. Take three children with you and you'll save as much as £25 on the normal price, indeed the family ticket saves money even if you only have one child. If your brood get bored in the school holidays and you have fifty quid spare, TfL very much hope you'll give it to them.
It's easy to see today that a plan written in 1978 would be pure fiction. Well-meaning fiction for sure, and potentially correct short-term, but doomed to obsolescence as the decades passed. Changes of government derailed certain plans, collapse of funding caused others, and subsequent changes in policy sent all sorts of schemes in completely different directions. We should therefore be terribly sceptical when the Mayor launches a London Infrastructure Plan 2050 covering a similar timespan. It's excellent to have long-term plans, indeed essential if the great ship Megacity London is ever to be steered. But as for how much of the document's blue-skies thinking is likely to happen by mid-century, I'd not expect a close match between pdf and reality.
One of the not-so-subtle changes in the marketing of the cablecar is the shift from "there" to "there and back". At the start of its life we were told how useful it'd be to get from A to B, and now we're invited to travel from A to B to A, for the experience rather than the destination. It gets the numbers up.
The exhibition's mostly art and photographs, so don't come along expecting lots of facts and figures you could probably find on Wikipedia. But this allows the museum to dig into its fine collection, and those of others, to showcase rarely-seen images of iconic (and less iconic) structures. The highlight, heritage-wise, is a small collection of magic lantern slides and negatives depicting Victorian riverscape in sepia and black. The picture quality's not great, nor should it be, but the feeling that you're looking back in time is inescapable. These photos are kept in a darkened room to one side of the gallery, and the real gem is so fragile that it's kept behind glass and only lights up, briefly, when you press a button. It's a salted paper print developed by William Henry Fox Talbot, photography's founding father, and dates back to the first few years of his pioneering process. By now it should have faded irretrievably, but good fortune and conservation have preserved it for modern eyes. A bunch of boats on the foreshore is clearly seen, and that's what used to be Brunel's Hungerford Bridge in the background, long since replaced. I'm told that the Fox Talbot print "will be on display for one month only", and given that the exhibition opened precisely four weeks ago, that leaves you just this weekend to see it.
It's not all static images. A slideshow in one booth shows an artist walking on London Bridge, back and forth in the stream of morning commuters, oblivious to their part in her artwork. And then there's "the film", an eleven minuter screened in a darkened cinema area beside the main entrance. Back in 1997 percussionist Paul Burwell was sent on a journey downriver on the back of a boat, his voyage captured in a short entitled Beating the Bridges. The boat set off at 5am up Hammersmith way (drummer-free at this point, so as not to antagonise the waterfront), before slowly working its way through the centre and out to the estuary at Dartford. Paul's semi-manic bashing begins around Westminster, and while he beats and flails in rhythm we watch London's bridges pass by in panorama overhead. I think I spent as long watching William Raban's filmlet as I spent wandering round the remainder of the exhibition.
I was very surprised last week to receive an email inviting me to a TfL press event. This never happens. I was even more surprised when the subject of the event was to promote the cablecar.
