UNVISITED LONDON TQ0875: Heathrow Airport(Hillingdon)
Last time we spoke I'd resigned myself to never stepping inside grid square TQ0875. It lay behind the security perimeter at Heathrow Airport and alas I'd never taken a flight from Terminal 2B. You had other ideas.
"Have you considered and excluded what appears to be a dead-end lane in the north-east corner of TQ0875?" asked Colly.
"It looks like the Google car got to the end of that if it's Exeter Road," said MKIan.
"I'll try to walk there tomorrow to see if it is accessible," said Sophie, following up with "Here's an Imgur link to my visit to the grid square".
So it was doable.
So I gave it a go.
The eastern end of Heathrow Airport is a forbidding zone of hangars, backroom services and securely fenced-off apron. But there have to be access roads, and there are, and it wasn't clear from maps how public these might be.
Eastchurch Road bears off from the Hatton Cross roundabout, just north of the tube station, signposted towards 'BA East & West Bases'. It's mainly accessed by airport vehicles, but twin pavements and a blue sign saying Pedestrians convinced me it wasn't off-limits to those on foot. One side of the road's mostly bus depot and car parking but the other is full-on airport, with half a dozen big British Airways planes parked up inbetween flights. Expect the whiff of jet fuel in the air. As you follow the road BA's enormous technical blocks grow ever closer, twin temples to the gods of maintenance, plus a concrete multi-storey and a mega-hangar formerly owned by British Midland. Still pavement, still no signs saying "don't", so let's continue.
Exeter Road is the second turning off the first turning on the left, past an aircraft maintenance company's yard designed for messy practicality. And then things start funnelling down, the pavement now questionable and with high security fences on both sides. The ugly grey hulk on the right is the Virgin Atlantic Engineering Hangar, from which serviced jets head out onto the taxiway, and beyond that a large blastable space where fire practices can be held. Behind the barrier is a scorched green fuselage which gets used by safety crews togged up in full gear when practising how to rescue passengers should a plane catch fire. And if you get as far as seeing that you've entered TQ0875. Yippee!
There is a certain geographical ridiculousness that getting this far into Heathrow is even possible. The tip of Exeter Road is very nearly in line with the ends of the runways, and almost halfway inbetween, and exists only to serve a security checkpoint and two barriers into the airport proper. Thankfully I didn't need to go quite that far - simply stepping into TQ0875 had been uncomfortable enough - so I grabbed a few souvenir photos and started to head back. This was when the police turned up.
Heathrow's byelaws are impressively vague regarding behaviour on their land, perhaps because they apply equally to travellers in the terminals and miscreants intent on trespass. "No person shall loiter, frequent or remain on the Airport without reasonable cause", they say, and also "No person shall remain on the Airport after having been requested by a Constable or an Airport Official to leave." I was all ready to explain that at no point had I seen a sign telling me not to be here, and also praying I wouldn't end up confessing I was only here on a map-ticking challenge, when to my relief they drove straight past. They drove straight past me on the way back too, suggesting that venturing this far was fine after all, but I was still very relieved when I finally reached the tube station and slunk away unchallenged.
So yes, I have now stood in every 1km×1km grid square in Greater London. I think this may be a genuinely unique achievement.
I'd like to apologise for sometimes publishing two posts in a day.
Normally it's one, and a lot of you are used to it being one so when it's two it can confuse.
It's particularly peeving if you turn up early when there's only one post and then I sneak in a second and you don't see it until later, probably the next day. Sorry about that.
Yesterday was a case in point. "I don't find your Open House stuff compelling, sorry", said a friend, having completely missed that I'd posted something much more up his street shortly after he'd looked.
This issue only inconveniences those of you who arrive early. Over the years I've trained you to expect content at 7am and hundreds of you turn up shortly afterwards, fairly certain of having something new to read. But if I publish another post later you won't see it unless you think to check back, whereas anyone who arrives afterwards will see both so nothing amiss.
It all comes down to the timings of the first post (X) and the second post (Y), and whether you turn up in the gap (X→Y) or not.
When I have two daily posts X is normally 7am and Y can be 8am, 9am, 10am or (less likely) later. I don't want to delay Y too much or the second post won't get much feedback. But if I make Y too early then the first post gets demoted too soon and any momentum there swiftly dies a death.
Sometimes I make X 1am and Y 7am because very few people turn up overnight, and then everyone who turns up for 7am sees both straight away. Another solution is to make X 6:59am and Y 7am because both then appear virtually simultaneously, and then I don't get my Dad telling me "oh, you posted another one did you?"
The whole thing's been complicated by my RSS feed getting lethargic recently, sometimes taking up to three hours to trigger, so a late post often ends up with an even later notification. This is also delaying tweets to @diamondgzrblog which is supposed to alert 2500 Twitter followers to a new post within minutes but can now take hours. Again, apologies.
Anyway, I will continue to sometimes publish two posts in a day, even if it means you miss one unless you come back later. I also reserve the right to play around with the precise values of X and Y, in ways which may or may not suit you, although either X or Y will usually be 7am.
But as a rule of thumb, if you turn up at 7am and the day's post looks a bit short then I may well have a second post up my sleeve so it should be worth coming back to check. I'm just playing with you by posting more, sorry.
Yesterday I arrived on the DLR platform at Stratford just in time to see my train back to Bow Church depart so had to wait for the next one. Before the pandemic the wait was no more than five minutes but since 2020 that's doubled, annoyingly, so I had nine minutes to hang around. And the announcements almost never stopped.
1st minute
• Docklands Light Railway customer information. CCTV is in operation at this station and on all DLR services. Customers are also reminded to keep their personal belongings with them at all times when travelling on the railway. If you see something that doesn't look right speak to a member of staff or text British Transport Police on 61016. See It Say It We'll Sort It.
• Customer information. All folded and unfolded e-scooters and e-unicycles are prohibited on all TfL premises and services.
2nd minute
• Welcome to Stratford station. Please remember to keep priority seats free for people who need them and to look up to see if someone needs your seat more than you. It can make a huge difference if someone doesn't have to ask.
3rd minute
• Please continue wearing a face covering on TfL trains and at TfL stations if this helps you to travel with confidence.
4th minute
• Docklands Light Railway customer information. CCTV is in operation at this station and on all DLR services. Customers are also reminded to keep their personal belongings with them at all times when travelling on the railway. If you see something that doesn't look right speak to a member of staff or text British Transport Police on 61016. See It Say It We'll Sort It.
5th minute
• Customer Information. We're doing our bit to keep you safe by using an industrial grade hospital cleaner on our trains and stations. Please do your bit by using the hand sanitiser provided and washing your hands before and after travelling.
6th minute
• Please continue wearing a face covering on TfL trains and at TfL stations if this helps you to travel with confidence.
7th minute
• Docklands Light Railway customer information. From Monday 26 September a new DLR timetable will bring customers quicker and easier journeys. For more information visit tfl.gov.uk
• Docklands Light Railway customer information. CCTV is in operation at this station and on all DLR services. Customers are also reminded to keep their personal belongings with them at all times when travelling on the railway. If you see something that doesn't look right speak to a member of staff or text British Transport Police on 61016. See It Say It We'll Sort It.
8th minute
• Welcome to Stratford station. We know that travelling may not be the same as it was so feel free to ask staff for help but please keep your distance for everyone's safety and remember that some people may find it more difficult to social distance than others.
train arrives
I won't have got the wording of all these announcements 100% correct, sorry, because if you sit on a platform taking notes you risk one of your fellow passengers texting 61016. But ten announcements in nine minutes is ridiculous, indeed total overkill.
» One of the announcements was played three times - the bloody See it Say It Sorted message - voiced by two different people.
» Four of the announcements were about Covid, so would have been relevant six months ago but really should have been switched off by now. To still be playing the one about observing social distancing suggests that staff at Stratford station are utterly tone deaf.
» The message about looking up to see if someone needs your seat might be appropriate during busy times but this was in the middle of the day when multiple spare seats were available on every train. Also this campaign's been promoted regularly for months, maybe even years, because Stratford never knows when to retire its announcements, only how to stack them up.
I went back later to check how often the messages repeat...
Every 5 minutes (plus extra inserts): See It Say It Sorted Every 5 minutes: face coverings Every 10 minutes: e-scooters & e-unicycles/new DLR timetable Every 15 minutes: priority seats/hand sanitiser/social distancing
I suspect platform 4 at Stratford suffers particularly because it gets DLR announcements as well as station announcements - things are nowhere near as bad at Bow Church. Also Stratford station has past form on verbal diarrhoea - you may remember back in 2019 they were announcing the closure of platform 13 twenty-four times an hour.
Anyway the good news is that the new DLR timetable being introduced on Monday will double off-peak services on the Stratford branch from every ten minutes back to every five minutes. Not only won't I have to wait so long, I should hear only half as much babble before I escape. Give it a rest guys.
