It's not much to see. Ruined walls and deep grassy ditches in a remote field above the Kentish marshes. But what's important isn't what's here now, but what was here originally, and what it signified, and that's hu-uge. [5 photos]
Go back 2000 years and the Isle of Thanet was an island, separated from the mainland by the Wantsum Channel. On the landward side was a small peninsula along one edge of a natural harbour, the ideal spot for a large fleet of invading ships to tie up. Nobody's quite sure where Julius Caesar landed in 55BC, nor the more successful Claudius in AD 43. But Richborough and the gentling sloping coast of East Kent are strong candidates, and the area soon became a bridgehead for conquest and colonisation.
The Romans called it Rutupiae, and made it their chief empire-facing port. Shops and granaries were established, along with barracks for a sizeable garrison, after which a prosperous border town grew up which at its height housed over 4000 people. But by the 3rd century things were in decline, extra defensive ditches were dug and additional rectangular fortifications thrown up, ultimately to no avail. Much later the harbour silted up, the river Stour eroded much of the evidence, and today it's hard to comprehend how fundamental these fields once were.
The remains of Rutupiae can be found just over a mile north of Sandwich, another town which used to be much more important than it is now. Walking from one to the other is no fun, following a narrow lane beset by agricultural vehicles. At one point a path breaks off alongside what remains of the river, but it's a lacklustre track littered with mediocre houseboats and a suspicious number of parked-up vans, and I almost preferred walking in the road. Most visitors drive, as both cars in the car park proved.
Make sure you collect the audio trail from the English Heritage visitor desk, otherwise you'll be wandering round the site without much sense of what you're looking at. This leads you through Richborough's history in chronological order, always standing beside something relevant, greatly reducing the risk of you thinking everything you can see was part of the initial settlement. Two of the ditches turn out to be three centuries older than the others. The ruined rectangular walls aren't original, but a last ditch attempt to repel rebellious Celts. That stone here might have been a Saxon font, and these foundations were once a pub. Don't rely on the handful of information boards to guide you, because they've seen better days and what you're supposed to be reading is cracking off.
The one truly amazing relic doesn't look like much - a raised platform of flint in the shape of a cross. It's all that remains of a 25m-high arch the Romans built to stake their claim on Britannia, a lofty classical portal in a barbarian land. It would have been visible to ships approaching from the continent, for a little extra wow, and later in its life was used as a watchtower. Symbolically it was built to mark the start of the key Roman road which headed off inland towards Canterbury, London and ultimately Chester. Yes, Watling Street began right here, and countless legions would have set off from the middle of this field.
Officially this English Heritage site is called Richborough Roman Fort and Amphitheatre, not that you'd realise the amphitheatre existed unless you were particularly awake. The amphitheatre's now a gentle grassy bowl the other side of the road, up a slope, across a meadow, marked by a sign that merely says 'footpath' rather than hinting where it leads. I only found instructions for crossing to the amphitheatre in a folder on a table in the small museum in the visitor centre, and I bet most visitors depart without ever making its acquaintance. Thankfully they're not missing much.
What I found truly evocative about Richborough was how the site bears witness to a civilisation lost. The Romans once dominated our land, these acres the hub of their supply chain, bustling with military might and continental trade. They must have thought they had it made. And yet their power waned, their buildings fell, and changes in sea level hid much of the evidence, until Richborough became little more than a trace on the marshes. It'd be all too easy for us to go the same way, our society ultimately destabilised by complacency, disorder and/or climate change, and we should never forget the warnings of the past.
Have you ever wondered how much stuff TfL has?
Do you run a pub quiz, and need some quantitative data?
The figures you need are embedded in graphics in committee papers for a meeting next week.
To save you downloading all 200 pages, I've grabbed a few modal snippets below.
n.b. The proper word for all this stuff is 'assets'.
n.b. I've cropped and shuffled a few bits to squeeze them in.
n.b. The original's on page 167.
Underground
4 passenger conveyors
16 depots
184 lifts
272 stations
350km of tunnel
430 escalators
500km of drains
600 trains
996 CCTV cameras
1000 points & crossing units
1000km of track
1716 ticket gates
16000 bridges & structures
Buses
34 bus stations
2500 bus countdown signals
8500 buses
12000 bus shelters
19000 bus stops
Surface
6km of tunnel
100km of drains
138 variable message signs
430km of vehicle restraint systems
853 CCTV cameras
1100km of footways
1800 bridges and structures
2500km of highways
6000 traffic lights
11300 cycle hire bicycles
19250 cycle docking points
40000 street lights
40000 trees
45000 drainage gullies
In particular, I worry about people who wear ID cards on lanyards in the street.
I always hated wearing a lanyard. They're an encumbrance. They dangle round your neck and get in the way. They emblazon your identity in front of all and sundry. They tend to have the name of the organisation which provided them plastered all over the fabric. They're like a uniform, because you only wear one when you have to. And I never wanted to have to wear one, because the benefits were all for someone else.
I got my first workplace ID card in 2001. The office entrance had electronic gates to swipe through, then there were further readers beside doors into secure areas, so a card was obviously necessary. But I didn't get a lanyard. I'm not even sure if lanyards were a thing back then.
The ID card came with a plastic holder and a metal clip for attaching it to an item of clothing like a pocket or a belthole. You could choose to hang it fairly unobtrusively if you wanted. But you had to unclip it every time you wanted to swipe through a door or gate, so it wasn't entirely practical.
Everyone was supposed to wear their ID card at all times to enable us to spot intruders, but not everybody did. We all knew each other anyway, and assumed anyone who shouldn't be in the building would have been stopped by the gates at the entrance. As soon as I noticed nobody was policing the wearing of ID cards, mine ended up in my pocket most of the time, and nobody complained.
I got my first lanyard in 2007, as a kind and thoughtful gift from work. Here, they said, this wonderful device will allow you to swipe through doors and gates more easily. Just lean over and wave your lanyard, and you won't have to do any of that annoying unclipping any more. Later they gave us a springy lanyard which extended, so even leaning over was no longer required.
I never used my lanyard, I carried on using my plastic clip. The lanyard solved a problem I didn't have, because my ID card wasn't attached to my clothing, because I was an insubordinate employee. Most importantly I didn't want my name flapping round my neck everywhere I went, especially with that awful photo of me alongside.
I think I decided lanyards were stupid when I realised there was only a 50/50 chance a person's name was actually visible. Half the time the holder flipped round and the name/photo combination faced your chest, which meant you could have been anyone. Any keen intruder could have ensured their lanyard always faced the wrong way, and wandered around the building with impunity.
Everyone was supposed to wear their lanyard/ID combo at all times, and now it was much more obvious if you didn't. Compliant employees were plainly visible with a bright strip of branded fabric around their neck. The rest of us walked around without, but still weren't challenged, except in occasional emails from top management. So my ID card remained in my pocket where I had access to it at all times, my lanyard lay unused in my desk, and all was fine.
I no longer have a job, or an ID card, or a lanyard. But I see a lot more lanyards than I ever used to, out and about in the street, around the necks of people I really shouldn't know the names of.
Becky Penhallick and Tajram Ahuja walked past me on the way to lunch. She's a systems analyst, he's in marketing support, because it said so round their necks. I know the company they work for too, because the lanyard branding was a dead giveaway. The pair of them were unwittingly revealing unique tracking data as they headed off in search of food, because their employer makes them wear a lanyard and they never think to take it off.
Toby Blacknall and Esme Leech were on their way home from school. Their uniform didn't include an identifying crest, but the lanyard round their neck told me which academy they're from, as well as who they are, should I be interested. There's no telling who might be interested. It was only the 50/50 dangle of their classmates' lanyards which prevented their identity from being similarly exposed.
We never wore lanyards when I was in school. A teacher took a register twice a day, and that was it. But times change, and risks heighten, and schools resemble fortresses more than they ever needed to before. It makes sense that only adults with ID can gain entry, but somehow that now stretches to technological confirmation of pupil attendance, and suddenly it's lanyards for all.
What staggers me isn't the fact that lanyards are deemed necessary, but that office staff and schoolchildren continue to wear them in public. I'd whip mine off the minute I walked out the door, because they ought to be a solely internal tool. But more and more people seem perfectly happy to display their identity all the time, flapping randomly around their neck, as if personal privacy is no longer an important part of daily life.
The organisations that make us wear ID do it partly to protect us, but mostly to protect them. They sell the need to display our names and roles as a means to keep us safe, and as a key part of everyday routine, but we forget their jurisdiction ends once we're back in the outside world.
As a society we seem increasingly comfortable in compromising our identity in public without giving it a second thought. A rectangle of plastic designed for safeguarding in fact ends up exposing us to additional potential risk.
So take your lanyard off when you leave the building, for security's sake, and stop letting it all hang out.
Another Autumn, another commission in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall.
So, what have we got thistime?
A big black floor and a room that makes you cry.
2018's artist is Tania Bruguera, and her theme is migration.
I mention this because if you hadn't been told, you'd never have guessed.
Most of the Turbine Hall's floor has been covered with glossy black tiles, for reasons which are not explained in the room, on the website, or in any review I've yet read. But one large rectangle, down at the far end where all the strange stuff usually materialises, is a different shade of black and intriguingly interactive. Take your shoes off before you step on.
This bit of floor is heat sensitive, and standing on it makes it turn white, so you can have fun leaving footprints that gently fade over time. Other parts of the body are available, so sitting down leaves a larger impression, and rolling over onto your front a completely different outline... but careful not to unintentionally reveal too much! Essentially what we have here is an adults' playground, which has been at the heart of several successful Turbine Hall commissions over the years, although this isn't one of the best.
But where's the migration bit? Well, if sufficient people come together and sprawl appropriately, the image of a Syrian refugee is revealed across the floor. Apparently it'd take about 300 people working collectively to achieve this, which is supposed to be the moral message behind the work, and maybe one weekend enough visitors will conspire to make it happen. But midweek, with a few mums on the mat and a group of schoolgirls running amok, not a chance. You couldn't even tell there was an image underneath to reveal - it simply looked like a floor that turns white.
Meanwhile, the room that makes you cry is down the side on the left, and fairly small. A pungent aroma hits your eyes and nose as you walk in, pumped out from vents in makeshift walls. It reminded me of Vicks vaporub, or being made to sit under a towel and inhale from a bowl of mentholated water by my Mum when I had a cold. It didn't make me cry, even though I hung around for a while. Apparently glasses and contact lenses lessen the effect, while being tall increases agitation as your face is closer to the vents. The walls of the room are blank, so even if you do start to weep, it's not clear what you're symbolically weeping at.
The title of Tania's work is an ever changing number, which is supposed to represent "the number of people who migrated from one country to another last year added to the current number of migrant deaths recorded so far this year". It's a variable, so doesn't appear on any walls or posters. The precise number is currently hovering around 10,143,175, and is supposed to be revealed by a stamp on your arm when you enter the pungent room. Unfortunately the member of Tate staff by the door didn't seem to be approaching anyone going in, or coming out, hence no stamping was occurring except on request. Again, nobody would have known what was going on unless they'd read the blurb in advance.
As for the "unsettling low frequency sound" visitors are expected to endure, I completely blanked that after about ten seconds. Tania's only deft stroke is that the Boiler House has been renamed Natalie Bell House for the duration of the installation. Natalie's a local SE1 community activist, part of the group who helped the aforementioned Syrian refugee on his arrival in this country (he's now studying biomedical science and working for the NHS). Naming the main Tate building after a voluntary worker is a clever nod, in sharp contrast to the new extension which has been named after a billionaire philanthropist.
To conclude, Tania's overall conceit falls flat because most visitors will completely miss the underlying message. But what she has created is a floor that changes colour from black to white, so if that floats your boat, you have five months to act like a big kid again.
Much more fun is The Clock, a film by Christian Marclay, currently being screened on level 2. This genius work of art is a 24 hour compilation of clips from other films in which timepieces appear, with each clip scheduled to play at the time depicted. If the grandfather clock in the period drama shows twenty past ten, that scene is spliced into the film to play at 10.20. Robert Powell dangles off Big Ben at 11:43 precisely, while Harold Lloyd's Manhattan clockface antics pop up at quarter to two. It took years to research and cut together, and the end result is an utterly absorbing montage where any era or activity could pop up next.
Sometimes the clock is the centrepiece of the scene, at other times merely a background detail as the camera pans past. Watches feature heavily, be they worn by a clipped hero in black and white or a sultry vixen in full colour. Recurring themes include large clocks on public buildings, trains departing stations and synchronised criminal activity. The film peaks somewhat on the hour, where clips must have been plentiful, and becomes a fraction less specific at, say, 8.33 or 2.54. Scenes sometimes extend to about a minute but are generally more brief, so you never ever get to find out what happens next.
One fun activity is watching to see when and where in each clip the clock or time reference will appear. Sometimes it never does - a character merely flicks their wrist to look at their watch, time unspecified. In other clock-free lulls a brief montage of time-related clips may appear, for example a sequence on "lunchtime" around one o'clock or a collection of afternoon naps nearer three. If you're a film buff you'll love trying to spot the famous movie before it cuts away (When Harry Met Sally! Spiderman! Columbo?!), but a lot of lesser known excerpts and slices of world cinema are interspersed throughout.
I've wanted to watch much more of The Clock since I fortuitously caught 2½ hours at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2011. This time I managed 2, starting with the chimes of 1pm, slouched on one of the 50 sofas in the Tate's impromptu cinema. It being midweek there were no queues outside, but expect space to be more precious at the weekend, and to have to wait your turn. Once you are inside you can stay as long as you like, the excellent thing about this film being that nobody ever needs to get their phone out to check what time it is.
Tate Modern opens at 10am, and closes at either six or ten, so the portion of the overall work you have the opportunity to see is limited. But there will be three overnight 24-hour screenings on 6 October, 3 November and 1 December, so long as you can keep your bladder under control to ensure you don't lose your seat. You have until 20th January to enjoy The Clock, and I hope you'll love it as much as I do.
Route RV1: Covent Garden to Tower Gateway Location: Central London Length of journey: 4 miles, 35 minutes
When TfL launched their much-leaked central London bus consultation last week, one of the three routes proposed for withdrawal was the RV1. Introduced in 2002, it links various destinations on the South Bank with Covent Garden and the Tower, and is the only London route to be designated RV for 'Riverside'. But long-term road works around London Bridge station made it less attractive, passenger numbers slumped, and in February the RV1's frequency was unceremoniously halved. A six-month review was then undertaken, whose outcomes have been published in a 12 page report, resulting in the recommendation that the RV1 is withdrawn. I've been for a ride to see how things are, and will intercut my reportage with quotes from the route's official death sentence.
Following an initial review, the frequency of the service reduced on Saturday 10 February 2018 from every 10 minutes to every 20 minutes on all days of the week.
I turn up randomly at the Covent Garden bus stop, and discover I have 18 minutes to wait. Damn. I'm not put off, but I observe at least six people who are, include a mother who decides to walk her children to their next engagement rather than hanging around for the slowcoach bus. A back door into the Novello Theatre is open, so I wonder if any of the actors from Mamma Mia will emerge while I wait, but all that's on show is a man on a stepladder fixing some electrics and some horrible yellow wallpaper.
The first stop in Covent Garden is about 350 metres from alternative southbound stops on the Strand or Lancaster Place. This would include crossing the road at the Strand/Lancaster Place junction. About 90 customers a day board at the first stop going south.
It's hometime at the primary school one block up the road, and the RV1 is proving a popular means for parents, carers and grandparents to take their charges home. I am treated to a display of scooter riding, impromptu hopscotch and the ritual stuffing of after-school junk food. By the time the driver puts down his Metro and opens the doors, there are 13 of us waiting, including ten on the school run, two 'real' passengers and me. According to TfL's figures, our single busload contains over 10% of this stop's daily total. The RV1 departs Covent Garden more than 50 times a day.
RV1 usage has fallen from about 25,000 customer boardings per week in March 2016 to about 17,000 per week during the summer of 2017. Following the frequency reduction in February 2018 usage initially fell to about 11,000 per week and has stabilised to about 12,000 to 13,000 per week.
We round the great arc of Aldwych and double back to the really busy bus stops outside Somerset House where, alas, nobody is interested in getting on. The view downstream from Waterloo Bridge is arresting, with several glass splinters rising into the sky and the dome of St Paul's illuminated as if by a celestial spotlight. The southbound stop on the bridge is still closed because of makeshift barriers installed last summer to prevent cars mounting the pavement. The 'temporary' replacement stop further down is empty.
The main detrimental impact of the withdrawal of route RV1 will be on customers travelling between the Covent Garden/Aldwych and South Bank areas. These customers will be required to change between stops in the Waterloo area. For some customers this could involve up to a five minute walk, including crossing roads, to interchange with route 381.
Although over a dozen bus routes cross Waterloo Bridge, the RV1 is the only bus which turns left. It does this by turning right at the IMAX roundabout, pausing alongside Waterloo station, then diverting off round South Bank backroads behind the London Eye. No other London bus does this, and this time next year, no bus will.
The RV1 has a looped routeing in the Waterloo area to get between Waterloo Bridge south side and the Royal Festival Hall. Buses take up to seven minutes to travel between them, particularly eastbound, even though the stops are very close, albeit on different levels. Therefore there will be little impact to overall journey times by changing and making this interchange.
Our driver has to honk two stationary taxis, then awkwardly overtake, to squeeze through onto Belvedere Road. We have entered a world of tour buses and jaywalking daytrippers, very few of whom are interested in the RV1.
On weekdays the stops by the Royal Festival Hall (Q and S) are used by about 60 customers boarding per day, and those stops by the Oxo Tower (SH and SG) by about 30 customers boarding per day.
Two fresh passengers are waiting round the back of the Royal Festival Hall - that's 3% of the total TfL say board here every day. One of them is wearing a blue "Please offer me a seat" badge, her difficulties evident as she manoeuvres down the cabin. She's only going two stops, but for her the existence of this bus must be a godsend. She'll have an extra 200m to 'walk' when the RV1 is scrapped.
The main concentrations of ridership on the RV1 are between Waterloo and City Hall with 58 per cent of passengers travelling between various stops on that stretch.
We lose our first four passengers at the OXO Tower, and six more at the Kings Reach Building on Stamford Street. Most of these are the school runners who boarded back at Covent Garden, proving how useful this bus can be when you study in Westminster but live in Southwark. There are now only four of us on board, including one new passenger, as we get caught up at the traffic lights on Blackfriars Road for almost five minutes. The driver flaps his doors at some late-arriving pushchairs, but none of their parents are interested, and on we roll.
Eastbound in the evening peak the busiest point is on Southwark Street by Southwark Bridge Road where there is an average load of about 20 customers per bus. This is in comparison to the capacity of the bus which is about 50 customers.
The RV1 no longer deviates to serve Tate Modern directly, and hasn't for many a year. An obvious tourist boards the bus, along with two rucksacked offspring, and stays aboard for the full length of Southwark Street. It turns out she was looking for Borough Market, but this never appears on the display. By the time she spots artisan foodie bustle out of the window it is too late to alight, and the driver refuses her request to make an exception. At London Bridge we are four.
Withdrawing route RV1 would result in approximately 600 customers per day having to change buses, about 40 per cent of the current usage of the route. The main direct journeys that would be broken would be between the London Bridge Station / Tooley Street area and the Tower of London area. The proposal to extend route 343 northwards over Tower Bridge to Aldgate Bus Station would retain these links. The 343 runs every 8 to 10 minutes compared to the RV1’s 20 minute frequency.
Half an hour after setting out, we've reached the back of More London, whose watery trench was recently filled in because public realm is a lot more risk-averse these days. Wahey, passengers numbers have doubled to eight, the additional patronage being mostly tourists. Our driver finally manages to overtake the 343 he's been trying to overtake for the last three stops, just before we turn into the jam on Tower Bridge Road.
The total cost of operating the RV1 is about £3.3 million per year. Fares revenue is about £650,000 per year, meaning there is a subsidy of £2.6 million a year for the route, about £3.23 for each customer journey. The route has a cost recovery ratio of 20 per cent; for reference the CRR of the network as a whole is about 74 per cent, and for route 381 is 63 per cent.
Our bus suddenly becomes popular for the last hop over Tower Bridge. Two other bus routes go the same way, but they can't have been along recently. A schoolboy pleads with the driver that he's "forgotten his pass", lingers by the door during an impasse, then makes a break for it when two lucky latecomers slide through. There are now a dozen of us on board. The view from midriver is again splendid, looking down over cruise boats and a gunship in the Pool of London.
Customer usage on route RV1 has stabilised since the frequency reduction in February 2018, however it has not improved and is still running at historically low levels. The route has poor cost recovery and is largely paralleled by other services. It does provide some unique links within central London to and from the South Bank but numbers making these journeys are just a few hundreds per day.
According to the on-board display, the next stop is Tower of London. One passenger dings to be let out, but in vain. The Tower of London bus stop was closed fifteen months ago, again for barrier-related security reasons, and still nobody at TfL Bus HQ has tweaked the electronics on board to reflect the new reality. Looks like we're all staying on board until the final stop.
It is recommended that the RV1 is withdrawn.
Most of us alight outside Tower Gateway station, but one pair of tourists haven't understood the phrase "this bus terminates here" and sit tight until the driver ushers them off at the bus stand two minutes later. By my calculations this RV1 journey has carried 32 passengers, plus me, which is 2% of the average daily ridership. Most could have travelled another way and saved TfL some money, but this would have involved waiting longer and/or a change of buses. The loss of the RV1 hints at the future considerably more passengers should expect to face as TfL slim, shave and streamline their network.
