There are only a handful of boroughs left to visit, but still enough for today's journey to be wholly unpredictable. Will it be out to the west, to inner Camden, densely-packed Hammersmith & Fulham or suburban Barnet? Or is it finally time to head east, which my jamjar has been unbelievably reluctant to do over the last six years, to see the supposed delights of this side of town? Will I get to spend the day somewhere hip, happening and action-packed? Or will I be boring you next week with tales of attraction-lite outskirts where nothing happens?
Once I've researched my randomly-chosen borough online I'll then head off and visit some of its most interesting places (assuming it has any). As usual I hope to visit somewhere famous, somewhere historic, somewhere pretty, somewhere retail, somewhere sporty and somewhere random. I might even take lots of photographs while I'm at it, if the borough's photogenic enough. Then after I've made my grand tour I'll come back tomorrow and tell you all about it. Let's see where I'm going this time...
Run: The Olympic Marathon really isn't coming our way, is it? Not because we're ugly, nor because we're boring, but because we'd disrupt the special lanes of 2012 delegate traffic. Athletes and sponsors have to be able to get around town or else the Games seize up, so apparently it's for the greater good that 100-or-so athletes go running somewhere else. Personally, I don't get it. The road from Aldgate to Bow isn't part of the main Olympic Route Network - all the big limousines are to be directed down round via Poplar instead. There's a half mile overlap close to the stadium, between Bow and Stratford, but this is all dual carriageway and flyover so it'd be piss-easy to separate runners and vehicles. There'd be much more of a gridlock issue at the Tower Bridge end, Lord Coe has hinted, and that's the dealbreaker. But the road to Stratford doesn't start at Tower Bridge, so an eastbound marathon still ought to be perfectly possible. Most bastardly of all, the revised marathon route is then likely to head along Upper Thames Street and the Embankment ("heavily used every day of the Games with most extensive traffic management measures"). If the marathon can still shut three miles of Olympic Core Route in central London, what's the problem with a fraction of a mile further east? Dear Seb, if an announcement on the amputation of the East End's marathon is imminent, you'd better come up with a better excuse than this. A gold-medal-winning PR disaster awaits.
Rail: Good news, travellers. Crossrail looks likely to survive the upcoming slash'n'burn cuts, and will go ahead with all its stations and spurs intact. Which is great if you live in Maidenhead or Romford or Abbey Wood. But still of no use in E3. Ours is the only postcode along the entire route which Crossrail will tunnel under, but within which it won't stop. W1 and W2 get stations, and EC1 and E1, even E16, but not E3. Our nearest stations will be at least a mile away. None of the convenience, but of all the hassle of shaft-building and boring machines for several years. But you're right, who'd want to stop here anyway?
Walk: Boris's Story of London Festival started yesterday, and runs for ten days. There's only one event scheduled for E3, and even then only just. Blue Badge guides are leading £8 walking tours towards the Olympic Park, and they'll be setting off from Bromley-by-Bow station next weekend at 11am. Sounds great, except that these are pretty much the same £8 walking tours which set off from Bromley-by-Bow station every single day of every week. They're pretty popular, it has to be said, but they're by no means a special event put on for the Mayor's festival. If it's a unique local walk you want, I'd recommend the 14th Floor Project's free guided tours round nearby housingestates (being held in E2 and E14 next week) instead.
District line, Whitechapel-ish (11:30pm, front carriage)
» The gentleman in the padded jacket stares into nothing. » The bloke in the ribbed top is plugged (via white headphones) into his iPhone. » The bloke in the grey jersey is plugged (via black headphones) into his iPhone. » The man in the sweatshirt has his phone lengthways, and is tap-tap-tapping a graphic entity around the screen. » The lawyer in the suit and unbuttoned white shirt checks his emails whilst listening to some piped music. » The youth in the stripy top and red neckerchief watches tumbling blocks fall into pixellated spaces. » The red-coated woman flicks through Marie Claire, then pauses at the Love & Sex section. » The youth in the fake leather jacket watches a video, possibly a film, it's hard to tell. » The youth in the genuine leather jacket reads a book with a broken spine (he's about halfway through). » The lady in the calf-length boots with the capacious handbag enters lengthy strings of text into her phone. » The man in the marketstall coat is plugged into his favourite tunes, just loud enough for someone else to hear. » The bald beardy bloke writes in his bright blue spiral-bound notebook with a biro. » The girl in the red check coat stares into space, then thinks better of it and gets a book out. » The woolly-hatted adult of indeterminate gender quickly replies to a text now the train's no longer in a tunnel. » The man in the knitted jacket reads a copy of the Metro that's somehow survived since morning. » The man beside the man in the knitted jacket reads his Metro over his shoulder. » The boy in the claret tanktop and the girl in the dark coat actually talk to one another, briefly. » The bloke in the scarf reads one page, then *swish* another page of his e-book. » The blogger in the checked shirt scribbles notes around the margin of his newspaper. » The gentleman in the padded jacket still stares into nothing. Which, in this carriage, makes him unique.
THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON Stamford Brook lower course: Ravenscourt Park → Hammersmith Creek
At the northern end of Ravenscourt Park there's a pond. It's a rather attractive asymmetrical pond with a central island, and a stone footbridge up one end beneath which the watery channel disappears. It's a waterfowl magnet, and the parkkeepers have kindly provided an identification board in case you can't tell your moorhens from your mallards. What most visitors don't realise is that in a previous incarnation it used to be part of a moat fed by the Stamford Brook. The moat surrounded Paddenswick House - a mansion of great standing dating back to the 12th century, and once owned by Edward III's mistress. Paddenswick House was upgraded several times over the years, and the gardens were duly landscaped (hence the park), but incendiary bombing in 1941 left the structure in need of total demolition so there's no trace now. Apart from the moat, that is. [photo]
Within the grounds of Ravenscourt Park the Stamford Brook's trio of headwaters finally merged, then headed south. We know that their combined flow was still visible 100 years ago in a culvert running beneath 180 King Street (now an estate agents) [photo]. From King Street onwards the river was once wide enough to be navigable, and the wharf-lined inlet so formed was known as Hammersmith Creek. It's anything but picturesque today. Hammersmith and Fulham TownHall has been erected either on top of or right beside the old waterway, and you won't be seeing this building appearing on local postcards. Having said that, one bunch of architects have ambitious plans to restore the Stamford Brook to the surface here, including a potentially very expensive crossing of the A4 at aqueduct or surface level. The full scheme will never happen, not in this financial climate, but something more symbolically fluvial could easily reappear beside the town hall as part of a smaller scale redevelopment.
And finally, Furnival Gardens. This Thames-side park lies on the northern rim of the Hammersmith meander, and was created for the Festival of Britain out of an area of bombed wasteground. It's a very pleasantspot, with manicured flowerbeds and a small walled garden. Pleasant enough to be the location of choice for toddling families, keen joggers and Woodpecker-swilling inebriates. A semi-private pier juts out into the Thames, from which it's possible to look back towards the riverbank. If the tide's low enough, revealed before you is the outlet of the sewer which replaced Hammersmith Creek [photo]. One flap, which raises if it rains too much [photo], and a grey sludgy channel guiding whatever emerges into London's largest river [photo]. It's no wonder that Thames Water are keen to construct a mega-expensive replacement, starting very nearby indeed and heading down to Beckton. Those who live nearby will raise a cheer that former plans to sink the new tunnel from Furnival Gardens have been withdrawn. And come 2020 even the old Stamford Brook dribble-pipe will have been realigned, redirected and reborn.
Random borough (27): Time yet again for me to take another random trip to one of London's 33 boroughs. As I write I have no idea which one of the seven remaining borough names will be revealed when I unfold the slip of paper I'm about to pick from my legendary "special jamjar". I could pick any one of the other London boroughs - inner or outer, urban or suburban, small or large, fascinating or dull. I just know it won't be Merton, Islington, Enfield, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Kensington & Chelsea, Hackney, Hillingdon, the City, Bromley, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Hounslow, Brent, Redbridge, Ealing, Harrow, Croydon, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth, Greenwich, Richmond, Kingston or Westminster, because they're the twenty-six (dark grey) boroughs I've picked out already.
At the northern end of Ravenscourt Park there's a pond. It's a rather attractive asymmetrical pond with a central island, and a stone footbridge up one end beneath which the watery channel disappears. It's a waterfowl magnet, and the parkkeepers have kindly provided an identification board in case you can't tell your moorhens from your mallards. What most visitors don't realise is that in a previous incarnation it used to be part of a moat fed by the Stamford Brook. The moat surrounded Paddenswick House - a mansion of great standing dating back to the 12th century, and once owned by Edward III's mistress. Paddenswick House was upgraded several times over the years, and the gardens were duly landscaped (hence the park), but incendiary bombing in 1941 left the structure in need of total demolition so there's no trace now. Apart from the moat, that is. [photo]
