It starts from the dock edge by the library and ends at the far end of what used to be the car park beside the empty end of Surrey Quays shopping centre. You can walk it in about two minutes.
The water being crossed is the northern end of what used to be Canada Dock, about a third of it, long reduced to a mere water feature. One edge of the dock has just been "revitalised as a haven for invertebrates, birds and other wildlife", for which read now has multiple green islands planted with trees and grasses, and the boardwalk wiggles across this to provide a better view. It's all been done in conjunction with the London Wildlife Trust so that's good, but ultimately it's all to sell some flats.
It opened on Saturday with a carnival procession, giant puppets, candyfloss tricycles, mixologists and LED drummers. This is the kind of marketing splash you can create if you're a developer trying to make an impression, because the investment is basically peanuts if you intend to sell a lot of flats. Southwark council were more than happy to piggyback and grab some free publicity too, saying "The renewal of Canada Dock is a key part of our plans to transform a historic London docklands location into a distinctive, new waterside town centre in partnership with British Land."
The boardwalk was rather quieter yesterday but not quiet, the red timbers plainly providing a useful shortcut, almost as if they'd always been there. Shoppers were striding across, very small children were toddling across and a security guard was hanging around in the middle because this is one of those public realm situations overseen by private management. Reassuringly there are no plans to close the nearby Tesco Extra yet because a replacement has to be built first and that won't be ready until at least 2029, over on the site where the cinema used to be. But yes the new Tesco will have lots of flats on top and yes, the current shopping centre will also become flats.
About halfway along the boardwalk is an extra connection to the west side of the dock. At present it's not especially useful but will soon link to plots A1 and A2 which are substantially complete. Plot A1 will include a 35-storey building incorporating retail, offices and flats, while plot A2 is mostly about workspace with restaurants and shops on the ground floor and a full-on council leisure centre in the basement. According to the flags flapping on the dockside the development's chosen buzzwords are Flourish, Connect, Inspire, Explore, Excite, Breathe and Play, although thankfully they've removed the hoarding claiming that Canada Water is 'London's best kept secret'.
The swans seem happy enough already. The Deal Porters statue is back in place. Cycling is not permitted. Four litter bins have been provided. Those crossing the boardwalk are generally smiling. It's a pretty good sweetener all told, but ultimately it's all about flats.
You plumped quite decisively for Kamala Harris. This was two weeks after she officially accepted the Democratic nomination for President and a week before she participated in a debate with Trump.
And now here we are the morning after the election. A red dawn is rising.
10 comments from readers who predicted Kamala
• She'll get a comfortable majority.
• Harris by 1 state difference.
• It will be close and it will be contested.
• Democrats have worked out how to focus their efforts effectively on a few big cities.
• It’s Kamala’s to lose.
• Most Americans see through Trump.
• Kamala to win but Trump to contest it. Messy.
• She is vacuous, unpopular and unproven, but she's not Trump or Biden.
• Harris to win it with a small majority in the swing states.
• The women of America will save us.
10 comments from readers who predicted Donald
• Trump remains popular in the states that matter.
• I can't see any other outcome.
• He will win the Presidency, but not by any means that we've seen before.
• Trump will edge the electoral college by the smallest of margins.
• His share is probably underestimated so he will sneak in.
• He'll steal it and the Supreme Court will eventually make a partisan ruling that he won.
• Brown and female remain unpopular characteristics to voters in much of the US.
• Un-dynamic Harris will not quite garner enough votes in key states.
• Americans never learn from their past mistakes.
• Just as with Hillary, our distant view makes Harris appear much more popular than she is.
I think it's best if I stop asking you to predict the future now.
In this series I'm taking the train one stop beyond the Greater London boundary, getting off and seeing what's there. Today that means Dunton Green, one stop beyond Knockholt on the Sevenoaks line, a disparate village at the foot of the North Downs three miles into Kent. Nothing in what I'm about to write is likely to make you want to come here, but I can see why those who live here do.
You can tell a lot about a village from its sign. This is Dunton Green's, a double sided number on the village green erected to commemorate the centenary of the parish in 2008. We have a train steaming out of a tunnel towards a miner. We have some kind of clocktower beside some kind of hall. We have ducks on a river, this being one of the upper reaches of the Darent. And we have men stacking tiles behind a kiln that looks like a beehive. You might have expected to see the parish church, St John the Divine, except this became surplus to requirements in 1987 and is currently occupied by the local veterinary practice. You'll hear more about the rest as this narrative continues.
Dunton Green exists because it lies on the main road between London and Sevenoaks, a milestone placing it three miles from the latter. The main street is thus called London Road and all the older buildings can be found strung out along its length with more modern infill to either side. The oldest would appear to be Donnington Manor, a totally Tudor confection with 15th century roots, although apparently it was mostly assembled in 1936 from shipped-in beams and feature windows as was the fashion at the time. Other jarring notes include the marble elephant out front and the pig-ugly 1970s hotel bolted onto the back, but if you want to visit an escape room or host a wedding there's nowhere else in the village to go. A proper Georgian villa can be found behind, namely Broughton House, now a private home accessed down a 700m-long beech-lined driveway.
Perhaps the strangest thing about Dunton Green is that it has two motorways running through it. One of these is the M25 which skirts the northern tip, and the other is the M26, a much more brutal presence which carves beneath the middle of London Road and essentially divides the village in two. So intrusive was its arrival that the former parish church is on one side of the motorway and the vicarage on the other. Annoyingly for residents it's not possible to drive onto the M26 anywhere nearby, despite the Chevening interchange being just across the fields, because restricted movements mean access is only for eastbound traffic already on the M25. Westbound is even worse, the 18 miles from Wrotham (M26) to Godstone (M25) being the UK's longest motorway journey between exits, should that ever come up in a pub quiz. A better M25-related fact is that the electronic group Orbital - the Chime-tastic Hartnoll brothers - grew up righthere in Dunton Green.
North of the motorway lie the aforementioned manor, the aforementioned ex-church and a long string of cottages, plus a cosy roadside pub called the Rose and Crown. If you've ever walked the North Downs Way this is the only side of the village you'll have seen, a lowly nucleus, before ploughing on across the fields to Otford. But things pick up somewhat on the other side of the tarmac chasm with a more concentrated run of modest houses and also the village hall, formerly a National School. The clocktower alongside is the village's somewhat kitsch war memorial, where the tally balances out at WW1 27 WW2 22. It is at least a little friendlier than the commemorative garden squished along the verge (Private Property, may be used by members of the public, no liability is accepted by the owner, we hope you enjoy our garden).
The next transport link to disturb Dunton Green was the railway, an 1860s shortcut through the chalk of the North Downs to speed up connections to Hastings and Sevenoaks. This required digging the Polhill tunnel, a four year task, during which time the navvies set up camp in the village or moved into 'temporary' cottages kickstarting residential development. A few years later Dunton Green became the starting point of the brief Westerhambranch line, long underused and eventually closed in 1961 even before Beeching wielded his axe. Today Dunton Green is a lowly halt devoid of all former station buildings through which much faster services often hurtle, now with two stand-alone validators waiting to be uncovered when the long delayed Project Oval finally debuts. It's not somewhere to linger.
The station does have one intriguing feature however, which is a long pedestrian subway carved through the embankment which was once needed to burrow beneath the branch line that no longer exists. You reach it by crossing the village recreation ground and striking out across an unexpected meadow, then bearing off towards an arched portal leading to a distant set of steps. I'm not sure I'd want to try it after dark, even though it's lit, so would probably plump for the more convoluted route via Station Approach. Sadly they didn't keep the former trackbed as a footpath, although the former railway bridge on the main street is now used as a subway by children attending the neighbouring primary school.
The village's largest employer used to be the Dunton Green Brick, Tile & Pottery Works, purveyors of bricks, squints, pressed nibbed tiles and chimneypots, which was founded by a local merchant to take advantage of the arrival of the railway. It somehow remained in business until 1956 when its clay pits were exhausted, after which West Kent Cold Storage took over, then in 2009 Berkeley Homes snapped up the site because it was right beside the station and wasn't Green Belt. Today it's the Ryewood estate, home to around a third of Dunton Green's population squished into densely-packed streets interspersed with occasional gushing fountains. Alas only residents have access to the adjacent fenced-off private woodland, unless anyone here knows the PIN code for the gate and wants to share it.
Appropriately the largest business in the village shopping parade today is a tile showroom, although their specialism is more the grey, taupe and white that cover many a local en-suite. The busiest by day must be Bojangles coffee shop and by night probably either Hei's chippie or the two Indians, one a sitdown restaurant and one a takeaway. My favourite is definitely A. W. Services whose window display includes nailbrushes, radiator caps, lawnmower pullcords and a dozen colourful teapots, and whose sign is so old it claims the shop's telephone number is still 23.
Other village treats include two further pubs, the splendidly weatherboarded Duke's Head (a former coaching inn) and The Miners Arms (named after those tunnelling navvies). Alternatively the Dunton Green Social Club flings open its doors at 7pm nightly, with Comedy Night on Friday, the Rockerfellas playing live on Saturday and bingo every Sunday. It all still feels very much like a village, if one that's grown organically with the addition all kinds of housing over the years, a proper residential mishmash. But as soon as you cross the Darent at the foot of London Road everything flips to irrevocably urban, this the Sevenoaks suburb of Riverhead with its bustling roundabout, giant Tesco and dozens of buses a day rather than just four. The young river is an unexpectedly rigid dividing line.
The river also feeds the Sevenoaks Nature Reserve, 170 acres of flooded gravel pits which lie just to the east of Dunton Green but tantalisingly out of reach. I had to walk for almost half an hour to reach the visitor centre at the entrance, eschewing the birding gear and hot chocolates for a yomp between the lakes. Crossing back over the sylvan Darent I disturbed a majestic heron from its lakeside perch, twice, then settled inside the Willow Hide to watch over the Snipe Bog Lake. Several ducks splashed their way across the water, two swans floated in serene isolation and somewhere just beyond the treeline the good folk of the Ryewood estate ordered pizza and watched their screens. It's proper varied is DG.
In an ideal world every TfL station would have toilet facilities but the truth is you're more likely to be caught short.
It was therefore refreshing last week to see TfL announce "bold plans to grow and improve toilet provision" because that'd be a very good thing. The press release promised "investment totalling £3m per year over five years" aimed at "improving and increasing the number of accessible toilets on the network" and "closing the gap in existing toilet provision so that Tube, Overground and Elizabeth line customers are always within 20 minutes of a toilet without having to change train." The press release also linked to a page that linked to a page that linked to a brand new 26 page report where the meat of the proposals can be found, which I suspect not many people have read. I'll get to that in a couple of shakes.
You can view the status quo on TfL's toilets map, a much bigger version of which is available if you click on my piddly one.
As well as differentiating between male, female and accessible toilets, the symbols also show whether the facilities are inside or outside the gateline. This is important because if you're desperate on a train you don't want the toilet to be in a subway outside the station, and conversely if you're in the ticket hall you may not be able to access a toilet on the platforms.
The map shows that some parts of the network have a hugely better provision than others. Beyond Finchley Road on the Metropolitan and Jubilee lines every single station (bar Ickenham) has toilet provision, which is amazing. South of Kennington on the Northern line there are no toilets at all, which is appalling. Only three Elizabeth line stations don't have toilet provision. Only five DLR stations do. Also just because the map shows a station has a toilet doesn't mean it's actually open. It's all very hit and miss, which if you need a wee urgently is never a good idea.
This map shows toilet facilities at tube stations.
You can see the toilet strongholds very clearly - the far east of the District line, the Central line beyond Stratford, the Barnet end of the Northern line and pretty much all of west London. You can also see the toilet deserts - the Bakerloo line, the Victoria line, most of the rest of the Northern line and pretty much the whole of central London. See how the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms were built with toilets but the stations on the Jubilee extension weren't, or at least they haven't been kept open. TfL could be doing so much better.
Things are particularly desperate in zone 1.
The majority of these toilets aren't in TfL stations, they're at the mainline railway termini alongside (specifically Paddington, Marylebone, Euston, King's Cross, St Pancras, Liverpool Street, London Bridge, Cannon Street, Blackfriars, Charing Cross and Waterloo). These have all been free to use since at least 2019 but it's perhaps a bit of a cheek to include them on the map. Elephant & Castle's so-called toilets are on platform 2 at the separate railway station. Vauxhall's are outside at the bus station. Green Park's, Piccadilly's and Westminster's are outside in a subway and I believe cost 50p.
A further seven stations (Earl's Court, Tottenham Court Road, Bank, Battersea Power Station, Nine Elms, Shoreditch High Street and Hoxton) only have accessible toilets. That's excellent if accessible facilities is what you need but it's not necessarily helpful to the wider population with urgent needs.
All of which leaves just four zone 1 stations with a public toilet inside a TfL gateline. I checked out all four.
» Baker Street: The Gents is at the foot of the stairs near the entrance to the eastbound Circle line platform, by the heritage pillared screen. The Ladies is upstairs in the ticket hall but outside the gateline.
» City Thameslink: These are at the Ludgate Hill entrance, just beyond the gateline, with ladies on the left and gentlemen on the right. Technically they're not TfL toilets at all, but the station's on the tube map so they're included.
» Farringdon: These are on the northbound Thameslink platform, close to the Crossrail escalators, and are open for most of the day. It's well worth knowing these exist.
» Victoria: I had to ask two members of staff where these were. One directed me to the railway station but his colleague was better informed and sent me to the new Cardinal Place exit at the top of the escalators. The facilities are behind three separate locked doors, each labelled 'Please ask staff for access to toilet', so prepare to cross your legs for a few extra seconds.
Then I got cocky and tried zone 2.
» Barons Court: Behind the gateline at the top of the stairs. Women on the left, Men on the right.
» Finchley Road: At the top of the stairs down to the northbound platform, but yesterday sealed off by a big sign saying 'No toilet facilities at this station', hmmm.
» Finsbury Park: To find these you have to work your way up to platforms 7 and 8 at the main station. Bog standard platform toilets.
» Kensington Olympia: On the northbound Overground platform, bang opposite where the front of the train stops.
» Stamford Brook: Between the gateline and the stairs, one male, one female.
» Stratford: I'm ashamed to say I'd never noticed these before. They're in the main ticket hall tucked behind the stairs up to the Central line.
» White City: In the ticket hall, just behind the gateline on the left. Pretty much perfectly located.
» Willesden Junction: On the northbound Bakerloo/Overground platform.
» The other 61 tube stations in zone 2: No toilets inside the gateline.
I should point out that I only used one of these, my bladder's not that weak. But it's really not many toilets, is it?
The plan is to improve accessibility and availability, particularly to close the gaps on the network with a lack of toilet facilities. The promised £15m of funding will be used to create new facilities, enhance existing facilities, reopen closed facilities and improve cleaning. They additionally intend to provide toilets at new, expanded or upgraded stations, so for example the following are already funded and on their way:
• Clapton - early 2025
• Seven Sisters - early 2025
• Colindale - late 2025
• West Ham - Spring 2026
• Leyton - late 2026
I'm particularly pleased about West Ham because the station has some of the most passive aggressive Go Away We Don't Have Any Toilets And There Aren't Any Outside Either notices anywhere on the network.
In addition a map-bashing exercise was used to identify nine particularly needy clusters of stations which, if filled, would mean passengers were no longer over 20 minutes from an accessible toilet. These are the clusters...
...and these are the nine stations they've identified to fill the gaps...
• Amersham (convert current facilities to include accessible toilet)
• Sudbury Hill (convert current facilities to include accessible toilet)
• White Hart Lane (install toilet into disused space on Platform 1)
• South Tottenham (convert staff toilet to public toilet and convert storeroom next door to staff toilet)
• Camden Road (convert existing offices on Platform 1 into customer toilets)
• Hammersmith [Dist & Picc] (convert disused ticket office at western gateline)
• Green Park (convert disused ticket office, maybe)
• Morden (convert disused ticket office)
• New Cross Gate (convert secondary staff toilet located behind ticket office)
There are also plans to trial full-time toilet attendants at Baker Street, Farringdon and Stratford, these some of the busiest stations on the network so something you might be amazed isn't currently the case.
Don't expect instant results because it's a five year plan, and it could be argued not an especially ambitious one. But these improved facilities are desperately needed because, let's be honest, the current provision is barely taking the piss.
If it's quarter past seven on the morning of the third of November then I've been single for exactly twenty-five years. Yes, I used to post this everyyear, but now I only do it everyfive.
Twenty-five years of singledom would appear to confirm it's not you, it's me. But don't worry, I'm perfectly happy being partnerless, thanks, and you'd never put up with me anyway.
Some might say that we single people are missing out on the joys of coupledom, and maybe we are, but I'm convinced that there are equally many positive points to being single:
Single: You get the whole duvet to yourself. Coupled: You don't need a hot water bottle.
Single: There's half as much ironing to do. Coupled: There's twice as much ironing to do but somebody else might do it.
Single: You can hoover the carpet when you think it needs doing. Coupled: Somebody else hoovers the carpet before you think it needs doing.
Single: Nobody ever tells you that the kitchen must be repainted and the bathroom must be retiled. Coupled: Two people can repaint the kitchen or retile the bathroom far more quickly than one.
Single: You never have to waste a Sunday doing what somebody else wants. Coupled: You never sit around on a Sunday wondering what the hell to do.
Single: You can watch whatever boxset you like, without arguments. Coupled: There's somebody else on the sofa to snuggle up to.
Single: You can flood Instagram with photos of your cat. Coupled: You can flood Instagram with photos of your children.
Single: Nobody complains when you burp, belch or fart. Coupled: Somebody points out when you have dandruff on your shoulder.
Single: The toilet seat is always where you left it. Coupled: The toilet seat isn't always freezing cold.
Single: You never come home to a blazing row. Coupled: You sometimes come home to a cooked meal.
Single: You get to eat the whole ready meal for two yourself. Coupled: It takes just as long to cook for two as it does for one.
Single: You can spend all your money on yourself. Coupled: There are two salaries coming in and only one set of bills.
Single: You can walk away from a flatshare, any time. Coupled: You might be able to afford a mortgage, together.
Single: There are no important birthdays or anniversaries to accidentally forget. Coupled: Somebody actually remembers your birthday.
Single: You never have to buy useless gifts for your partner, just for the sake of it. Coupled: Somebody buys you presents occasionally.
Single: You can take time out without needing to give a reason. Coupled: Somebody's genuinely interested in how you're feeling.
Single: Nobody insists on coming over to yours for Christmas. Coupled: Everybody insists on coming over to yours for Christmas.
Single: There are no in-laws to be forced to spend time with. Coupled: Being part of two families is better than one.
Single: You're allowed to flirt with people in the street. Coupled: You don't need to flirt with people in the street.
Single: You can still have a riotous social life in your 40s. Coupled: You can still have a riotous social life in your 60s.
Single: You have no friends to go out with because they've all partnered off and are staying in. Coupled: You don't have to go out with those annoying friends you had while you were single.
Single: You don't catch every sniffle, cold and flu bug off your partner. Coupled: If a pandemic lockdown strikes, you have someone to talk to.
Single: You can focus on looking after yourself, not others. Coupled: When you suffer a major cardiac arrest, somebody actually notices and dials 999.
Single: You never get left alone and desolate because your life partner's just passed away. Coupled: When you get old and infirm, you have a carer to look after you.
Single: If you do ever meet the partner of your dreams, it's not too late to marry them. Coupled: Nobody ever meets the partner of their dreams, so better to get married before it's too late.
Single: Being coupled is restrictive, stifling and a sign of personal weakness. Coupled: Being single is unnatural, lonely and a sign of personal failure.
Single: You don't need to depend on others for your happiness. Coupled: You don't need to rely on yourself for support.
Single: You never get your heart broken. Coupled: You sometimes feel your heart leap.
Single: You can have sex with anyone you like. Coupled: You can have sex whenever you like.
Single: The bathroom is always free. Coupled: The bedroom is always full.
Single: You can lie in bed in the morning for as long as you like. Coupled: There's a very good reason for lying in bed in the morning.
Single: Nobody sees what you look like first thing in the morning. Coupled: Somebody loves you despite what they see first thing in the morning.
Single: You never telephone a hotel 60 miles away from where your partner said they were spending the weekend and get put through to room 118 where the phone is unexpectedly answered by the new bloke they intend to replace you with, sounding very guilty and somewhat flushed.
Not that I'm in any way bitter, you understand...
An exhibition of tube maps, dozens and dozens of them, is pretty much nirvana for some people. If this is you be sure to make a pilgrimage to The Map House (nearest station Knightsbridge) before the end of the month. Look for the gold tube map in the window, just round the corner from Harrods.
To be fair it's more a sale in a shop professionally displayed, but I've never seen a collection of tube maps quite as varied as this nor do I expect to again. There are some cracking old maps in the opening gallery, mainly from the era when people drew red lines on existing street maps and everything was geographically pure. I never realised there'd been dotted-line plans to build a railway across the Thames alongside Hammersmith Bridge, for example, and to run it all the way down to Barnes. These maps are large framed beauties, and if you read to the bottom of the highly informative label it's not uncommon for the price to end in two or even three zeros. Flick through the catalogue if you want to see what I mean.
The maps continue down the little stairs and along the little corridor, proper big posters with long-abandoned geometric formats and unfamiliar line colours. But the real treasure trove is perhaps the back room where the post-Beck tube map is celebrated in all its many topological glories. One wall is a chronological run through from 1933, the evolution of rationales plain to see, including a little inward cheer when Harry Beck wrests control back from alternative designers. A proof version of his very first map is included in the display, annotated with suggestions and corrections (you forgot the Watford branch, Waterloo should be red), also a quartet of much later pencil and paper sketches of interchanges as he attempted to squeeze the Victoria line through. Some of the poster-sized maps are so rare that, as the label proudly mentions, not even the London Transport Museum has this one.
Not everything's official, so for example a couple of Max Roberts' circular tube maps gleam in the hallway. But almost everything's up for sale, a little red sticker showing which are already being taken away by a new owner at the end of the exhibition. Rifling through a set of contemporary trifolds I was surprised to see that even a 2022 tube map, which you could have picked up in multitudes for absolutely nothing, is selling for as much as £35. So best just look and admire, and perhaps covet, and do it quickly because you'll never see the like together again. [until 30 November, from 10.30am, not Sunday]
20 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in October 2024
1) The five road junctions with the most casualties and collisions over the last three years (specifically the greatest 'casualty harm') are the Redbridge Roundabout, Seven Sisters, Elephant & Castle, the foot of Ilford Hill and Brixton Hill/Acre Lane. Bow Roundabout is number seven. 2) Of the 1.87 billion bus journeys made during the last financial year, 60% were made by passengers paying full fare and 17% by passengers with free passes (e.g. Freedom Pass). 3) Between 21 May 2023 and 22 September 2024, 65,848 westbound Elizabeth line trains terminated at Paddington and 75,949 continued beyond Paddington. That's a 46%/54% split. 4) On average 410,000 Oyster cards are issued each month. Normally (but not currently) 15,000 60+ Photocards are issued each month. 5) New bus route 310 is 7.57 miles long towards Golders Green but only 7.17 miles towards Stamford Hill. 6) 62 Overground stations, 24 Elizabeth line stations and zero Underground stations have a ticket office. These figures are unchanged since 2020. 7) Standard tube stock driving motor car No 3327 (built in 1927) is the only Underground vehicle to have been displayed at the Science Museum in South Kensington (from 1967 to 1996 in the Rail Transport Gallery). 8) Since 2019 16 people have been prosecuted for alcohol consumption on TfL services, 105 for alcohol possession and just one for being unfit due to alcohol. 9) Since 2021 £695,000 has been spent on the refurbishment of the escalators at Cutty Sark DLR. All four are currently out of service following the identification of defects. 10) TfL will be updating the tube map once the new London Overground line signage has come into use. This is planned to happen before the end of 2024. 11) Plans for the current major roadworks at the Bow Roundabout have been released, solely because one person asked. 12) In the last financial year 2979 people were prosecuted for fare evasion and 12,907 penalty fare notices issued in lieu of initiating a criminal prosecution. 13) Since the start of the year the tube station with the most lift faults is Victoria, the most out-of-service lift on the Elizabeth line is at Canary Wharf and the most broken-down lift on the Overground is at Caledonian Road and Barnsbury. 14) "the speed limit plus 10% plus 2mph" is the standard threshold for speed cameras across the whole of London, including the Rotherhithe Tunnel. 15) There are no plans to introduce Platform Screen/Edge Doors at stations served by the new Piccadilly line tube stock. An upgrade of the signalling on the line is not currently funded. 16) A new DLR timetable begins on 4th November. It exists only as a set of unhelpfully atomised spreadsheets. 17) You can stop asking TfL for the latest copy of their geographic tube map because they haven't updated it since May 2014. 18) Last year 89 'Slips Trips and Falls' were recorded at Bank/Monument stations. On average ¼m passengers use these stations every day. 19) Since 2002 there have been 146 claims against TfL linked to asbestos inhalation, an average of around 7 per year. It is not known how many of these claims are by ex-employees. 20) During 2023/24 TfL received 4540 FOI and EIR requests. 67% were responded to in full, 12% relied on a partial exemption and 21% were refused in full due to an applicable exemption.
The major roadworks at the Bow Roundabout are now into their second month (or their third month if you're the manager who cancels buses).
• Traffic queues are still bad, but not always that bad.
• Pretty much the whole area under the Stratford side of the flyover is now sealed off and in use as a worksite.
• New kerbstones have been added along the edge of the new contraflow exit lane.
• Work has also started on drilling out the expansion joint forming the eastern edge of Bow Bridge.
• The first roadworks have taken place under the Bow side of the flyover, but only to drill out a curve of concrete block paving that's due to become roadway, so fairly trivial.
A few weeks ago this sign was placed on Stratford High Street on the approach to the flyover. Its apostrophes are now concerning me. The apostrophe in B′wall is unnecessary because there's plenty of space to write Blackwall. But I was mainly bamboozled by Ch′ford. Why are they directing traffic towards Chingford, I thought, that's not even on the A12. Only five minutes later did I realise they meant Chelmsford. I wonder how many passing drivers work that out in the brief seconds before the divide. Over-abbreviated place names on lane markings are often highly ambiguous for those without good local knowledge.
Tue 1: Two new developments in Barking & Dagenham are over-egging transport links in their roadside marketing. Barking Riverside says 'Perfectly connected' when the reality is a half-hourly boat, a train to Barking or non-express buses. Dagenham Green says 'Fantastic connectivity by train, tube or bus' and is admittedly very close to Dagenham Dock station but almost a mile from the nearest tube station. Wed 2: Firstfooting, ideally with a chunk of coal, is normally a January tradition. My 2024 firstfooter arrived this morning and only brought a toolbag. Thu 3: The City Lodge guest house on Bow Road replaced the King's Arms pub in 2009, but only now have they finally added a proper sign outside clearly indicating to punters what the building is. £65 a night, if you're ever desperate. Fri 4: I went up the shot tower in Crane Park where the view from the top floor windows is alas mostly foliage. What I was not expecting was being trapped inside the building until three particularly frisky dogs had stopped barking outside the door.
Sat 5: I went out of my way to see the Liz Truss lettuce plaque that's just been added to the Tesco Express in Walthamstow at Bell Corner, but sadly it'd already been removed. Sun 6: Big Brother is back and I am once again watching every minute, mainly to applaud the producers for their character selection and creative pot-stirring challenges. More positively I'm not blogging about it all the time like I used to in 2004. Mon 7:Reddit London are planning a new AMA series (Ask Me Anythings - 45 minute real-time Q&A sessions). Redditor mralistair kindly suggested I should be asked to take part. Someone else then said "I'm sure if you ask questions he'll pick them up and answer them on his blog (either directly or cryptically, spelling out the answer with postcodes or something)" and I thought hmmm, do I want to do that? My chosen response was thus "NORTH LONDON O, xford DUMFRIES & GALLOWAY". Alas I don't think the chief Redditor has worked it out yet. Tue 8: When I went to the Old Bailey to watch a trial, the first court I went into featured an absent defendant, a jury still in the midst of deliberations and a family who had to keep turning up each day in case their offspring's verdict was finally announced. I was pleased when we were all sent out and I was able to pick another court. Wed 9: I took Mike Batt's new autobiography out of the library and it's fascinating. He deals with the Wombles very quickly and then moves on to an astonishing range of everything else, a lot of which he felt was underappreciated at the time. His life story essentially boils down to repeatedly risking everything for creative reasons and repeatedly going bust, with thankful intermissions of staggering success.
Thu 10: I was gutted not to see the aurora, again, despite going out and looking very hard. I stood with BestMate at a dark point on the Greenway, aurora-meter peaking in hand, but we saw nothing more than the capital's usual low level glow. Fri 11: This week's copy of the Standard splashed the Frieze art festival on the cover, which seems very target audience. But I was gobsmacked by one sentence in the editorial ("Frankly, if Frieze doesn't touch you this week - even in a tangential way - are you even a Londoner?"), which suggests that Dylan Jones's vision for the publication is as a patronising elitist mouthpiece. Sat 12: The Archers now has an official podcast hosted by Emma Freud, and it's both "oh for goodness sake does everything have to have a podcast these days?" and "actually this is quite good". But can they keep it up week after week after week? Sun 13: While walking random Bexley footpaths I found myself outside a station I had never seen from outside before, which surprised me because I thought I'd seen them all by now. I think that's the last one in London but I might be wrong. Mon 14: All the trolley-sized self-service tills were out of action at Tesco this morning, and it proved incredibly difficult to balance all my shopping on a basket-sized one. Tue 15: In the subway at South Kensington I saw an advert for the Art Pass saying "Scientific research shows that regularly looking at art could help you live longer", and I thought that's unproveable bolx. I've subsequently found that research and all it said was "Receptive arts engagement could have a protective association with longevity in older adults", and also "This study was observational and so causality cannot be assumed" so yes, the advert is over-interpretation of a woolly result.
Wed 16: At the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park, the red-green contrast by the Still Pond is currently the reverse of what it was six months ago. Thu 17: If you're ever in the middle of the Olympic Park around 10am you can tell the college nearby is a fashion college because all the students are arriving in extraordinary get-ups keen to make a visual statement. Fri 18: Buying my train ticket to Norfolk I was peeved to see the price had risen by 35p since the summer, not because fares have gone up but because train operators have decided to trim railcard discounts from 34% to 33.4%. It's not much in the grand scheme of things but it does send a pennypinching screw-you message to passengers. Sat 19: Important tasks undertaken during visit to the parental home in Norfolk: rebooting the smart meter, connecting the new wi-fi extender, adding photos to a Powerpoint presentation, adjusting various group email addresses, helping to finish off the squidgy cucumber. Sun 20: A message from Liz: "Am just beyond impressed at your impact - have just had occasional to look at the Dangleway on Google maps, and Lo and behold, when I keyed in Dangleway, it took me straight there!" Mon 21: Even the day after his 86th birthday, my Dad still climbs to the upper deck of the Park and Ride bus for a better view. Shame it was all steamed up.
Tue 22: I thought you might like a photo of the family tortoise enjoying the autumn sunshine. You can tell when she's ready for hibernation because she starts digging a hole in the lawn. Wed 23: I'm thoroughly enjoying Ludwig, the Cambridge-based puzzle-focused detective drama, and so it seems is the British public because it has stellar viewing figures. (Next week's final episode, though, felt contrived and unconvincing). Thu 24: Next time I do a PR email round-up I'll tell you about the publicist who sent me 380 copies of the same press release, each addressed to a different person in her mailmerge list. You utter muppet, Lorna. Fri 25: BBC News's style guide is in the news today because they've just decreed that Twitter "in most cases should now just be referred to as X". You could easily spend an hour reading the rest of it, from when to use apostrophes to whether or not there's an h in yoghurt. Sat 26: Fanny the Gipsy Hill station cat has a 2025 calendar available to purchase. It's only £15, plus an extra £5 if you can't pick up your copy from The Great Southern pub in December.
Sun 27: I have never walked into as many spiders' webs as I did today round Hainault's hills, woodland and cemeteries. My thanks to the gardener who started up a conversation just to tell me I had white threads all over me. I feel like I'm still brushing them off. Mon 28: This blog had its 10th best ever day today, visitor-wise, and all because a columnist at the Economist noted my report on the queues at the National Gallery. He tweeted a one-word message ("miserable") which got seen 130,000 times, and mischiefmaker Guido Fawkes then added a link from his homepage ("National Gallery Ruined for Everyone by Soup Throwers"). Sometimes it pays to do proper on-the-spot reporting. Tue 29: Poppies on trains are back, indeed all over the DLR and (for the first time this year) on some Dangleway cabins. A special mention to the sticker-slapper who managed to position one off-centre on the front of a Hammersmith & City line train so that last year's Smudge of Remembrance is still plainly visible underneath. Wed 30: Spurred on by Monday's National Gallery reportage, today's Daily Telegraph includes an article called 'Just Stop Oil are spoiling it for everyone - I've been queueing for almost an hour'. They even used a quote from my blog as the final sentence! If you can't get past the paywall here's a partial snapshot. Thu 31: I went back to the National Gallery this morning because you should never assume arrangements are the same one week later, and it turns out the queueing system has changed. Advance booking is no longer available so all walk-up visitors join the same queue. This is much longer than before but moves faster because the number of bag checkers has been increased from three to five. It took me 30 minutes to gain entry, much better than last week's 55 minutes but still a lengthy queueing marathon. Queues for Members and for visitors to the Van Gogh exhibition were now non-existent. The gallery was also noticeably busier. So it's bad but it might be getting better.
OXFORD STREET Colour group: green Purchase price: £300 Rent: £26 Length: 2km Borough:Westminster Postcode: W1
Oxford Street is one of the Roman Empire's most successful roads, at least in terms of retail income. It started out as a key connection west from Londinium, became the final mile for condemned prisoners on their way to the gallows at Tyburn and is now Europe's busiest shopping street. Over the centuries it's been known as Via Trinobantina, Tyburn Road, Uxbridge Road and even Worcester Road, but by the 1720s had settled into being plain Oxford Street. It's also another of those famous streets I could easily blog about for entire week but I won't, I'll just bring you eight condensed bloglets on a variety of themes. Also can I say up front that if it doesn't look like Europe's busiest shopping street in my photos, that's because I turned up early on Sunday morning when almost all its doors were shut.
i) A quick walk along Oxford Street
With your back to Marble Arch head east. This is the less prestigious trafficked end. Hufflepuff scarves and boxfresh trainers are up for grabs. Yes the Christmas lights are up already. The trees outside Selfridges haven't yet shed their leaves. A few buses, a few taxis. Little kiosks selling shawarma, souvlaki and wheelie suitcases. HMV is back. Squat concrete benches provide somewhere to sit. The next Monopoly Street bears off on the right. Jetsetting tourists are wearing prestige brands in beige and grey. Temporary traffic lights are present even here. A new Jack & Jones/JJXX store opens in a fortnight's time. That's a lovely old mosaic of some scissors. Regent Street cuts a canyon across the Circus. Two scuzzy telephone kiosks have no handsets. A streetsweeper gathers little litter. Scaffolding hides a double-height flagship retail opportunity. It all ends on Tottenham Court Road with a lot of variegated brickwork. Clothes and footwear are readily purchased throughout.
ii) Peak Oxford Street
The largest store of all is Selfridges, indeed across the whole of the UK only Harrods is bigger (and that's not on the Monopoly board anyway). It was opened in 1909 after its owner stealthily bought up an entire city block in an attempt to bring American selling methods to the Brits. The church where my great grandparents had married less than 10 years previously was one of the casualties. Harry's aim was that every visit to the store should be 'an event', a sumptuous maze of departments which retains an air of luxurious pizazz to this day. It may look classical but is in fact one of London's first large steel-framed buildings. The clock above the main entrance was added to celebrate the store's 21st birthday and is supported by the Queen of Time standing on the prow of the Ship of Commerce attended by nymphs. Expect a big reveal for the Christmas window displays soon once the frankly drab Canada Goose adverts are taken down.
iii) the other retail behemoths of Oxford Street
Think department stores and you might also conjure up John Lewis, Debenhams and House of Fraser. But post-pandemic only the first of these survives, with Barbara Hepworth's marvellous winged figure on a side wall. Debenhams closed in February 2021 and is currently ensheathed in scaffolding as it evolves into a mostly-office block called The M Building. House of Fraser closed in January 2022 and is similarly undergoing a £132m refurbishment to convert the upper floors to workspace and restaurants and the basement to a gym and swimming pool, all of which will go under the ridiculous brand name Elephant. Top Shop's rebirth as an unlikely IKEA is closer to completion and due to open in the first half of next year. The other largest stores are probably the two Primarks that bookend the street and the two Marks & Spencers, one of which remains listed and one of which controversially now has permission to tear down and rebuild.
iv) old and new on Oxford Street
For an ancient street there's very little in the way of old buildings along its length. The oldest I've manged to find is the former hat factory at 105-109 Oxford Street, currently home to Harmony and Flying Tiger, whose beige terracotta shell was erected in 1887. One of the few other pre-Edwardian properties is at 147, now occupied by Swarovski beneath a Flemish Renaissance redbrick facade. At the newer end of the scale a large number of smaller properties have been merged into large commercial bubbles such as Park House, a glass cocoon near Marble Arch whose ground floor tenants are mostly fashion staples. Zara is also the main tenant at number 61 whose top three storeys are fronted by an extraordinary wave of rippling glass, this shielding a row of luxury duplex apartments. Here as at the garish gold apartments above the Crossrail station, residential property is finally returning to Oxford Street.
v) transport along Oxford Street
Long queues of buses used to be synonymous with Oxford Street, indeed 50 years ago fourteen different routes plied the central section between Orchard Street and Oxford Circus. Today it's only four, with every prospect that even these will be removed when the Mayor takes control and enforces pedestrianisation. Bus shelters have increasingly become superfluous but haven't necessarily been removed, such as the one outside Selfridges whose roadspace has now been given over to taxis, the other prime means of transport hereabouts. The street is long enough to support as many as four tube stations, and has been since 1900, but if you tried using the two deeper-level Crossrail stations to get from one end to the other you'd probably be wasting your time.
vi) nostalgia on Oxford Street
I remember coming to see the Christmas lights when I was little, they were always an event. I remember Stanley Green the Protein man and the Golf Sale placard. I remember being unimpressed by a Wendy burger soon after they first opened in 1980. I remember spending hours browsing through the newly-released cassettes and CDs in Virgin Records before it became Zavvi before it became Primark. I remember catching the nightbus home from the first stop to make sure I would get a seat. I remember traipsing up and down failing to buy my Mum a Christmas present she would never open. I remember walking through the Plaza shopping mall to buy a Radio Times in WH Smiths. I remember standing amid a river of Palestinian flags in that big protest last year. I remember the fire engine blazing its lights outside Bond Street station on Sunday. I'm sure you all have your memories of Oxford Street too.
vii) the candy stores of Oxford Street
A couple of years ago I counted the number of candy stores along Oxford Street and there were eleven. This week I've counted again and there are only two. It's an amazingly successful extinguishment given that councillors were increasingly suspicious they might be fronts for nefarious businesses. What's more both the current stores are new additions, the larger being CandyLogo which fills the unit alongside what used to be Candylicious and sells all the usual teeth-rotting treats. Gummylicious at number 399B is much smaller and barely worth a rummage, indeed its candy selection barely fills a single set of shelves. Amazingly there are now more Boots the chemists than American candy stores so we can perhaps lay that trope to rest. Gift and souvenir shops remain in multitudes, I counted 15, and also 21 empty shops that thankfully won't be colonised by Jelly Belly beans and strangely-flavoured cereals.
viii) non-retail on Oxford Street
It's not all shops. A single pub survives at the very eastern end, The Flying Horse, whereas once you'd have found 20. The 100 Club is a classic live music venue, originally a restaurant, where Glenn Miller, the Sex Pistols and Sleaford Mods have played. Various schools for teaching English have premises in part-converted offices, purely because the address helps increase sign-ups overseas. The London College of Fashion skedaddled last year to the Olympic Park. There are still two banks - a Lloyds and an HSBC. The Salvation Army own a 500-seater called the Regent Hall which dates back to the 1880s. The Cumberland, formerly the Hard Rock, has over 800 rooms because every Monopoly property needs a hotel. The TwistMuseum occupies part of what used to be British Home Stores and is essentially a sequence of optical illusions and kaleidoscopic photo opportunities for those with £23 to burn. But Oxford Street is mostly shops, pretty much in its entirety.
Some weeks are consequential.
Here comes a consequential week.
a) Today is the Budget.
It's the first Labour budget since 2010 and the first to be delivered by a female Chancellor. What's consequential about this budget is that it marks a complete shift in direction from "what everybody wants is lower taxes" to "if we want to improve services we're going to have to put taxes up". It is thus unlikely to be popular with those who focus on what they spend and popular with those who focus on what they receive. It's also much easier to moan about increases that affect you directly than to appreciate long-term benefits which may only help others, especially when for a decade and a half the emphasis has been the other way round.
This budget also feels like it's been coming for ages, the General Election being 17 weeks ago, but it takes time to check the nation's finances, develop a plan and balance strategic gains with individual pain. There has thus been endless speculation about what measures will be included and which won't, often based on worst-case scenarios, plus strategic pre-leakage of individual policies. Time was when a Budget came as a complete surprise to all, a big bang of news with instant fallout, but these days it seems the blow has to be endlessly softened by rolling the pitch in advance. I for one am tired of hearing about how awful something that hasn't yet been announced might be, but we seem to have had weeks of it.
Here are the Chancellor's big six policies (a list I won't be populating until this afternoon because we don't know what they are yet)
• Employer NI contributions ↑1.2% (& thresholds raised)
• National Living Wage ↑6.7%
• Capital Gains Tax increased
• VAT on private school fees
• No increase to Income Tax, NI, VAT or fuel duty
• £25bn increase to spending on the NHS
These are likely to set the tone for Labour's period in government, the first policies that truly define important spending priorities and who's going to pay for them. The individual measures are likely to have been forgotten by the time the next election comes round but the gist will linger, and it's important whether more people think "this is helping" than "that's me screwed financially". Get it right today and people might see sunlit uplands, get it wrong and they'll only feel hard done by, and the consequences of that could be significant.
b) In three days' time the Conservative's new leader is announced.
On the face of it who cares? The party's in the wilderness with minimal MPs, the Conservative brand remains trashed in the national psyche and the two remaining candidates are considerably more right wing than the country they one day hope to lead. But there's the consequential thing, that the country will one day choose to ditch Labour in favour of 'change', and it's winner takes all for whoever's in charge when the music stops.
BallotWatch #newToryleader
Kemi Badenoch[renewal2030.org.uk](1-6 fav)
» "This is an existential moment, it’s time to go bold, it’s time to renew", says Kemi.
» "Could start a fight in an empty room", say critics.
Robert Jenrick[joinjenrick.com](6-1)
» "Leave the ECHR, cap migration and win the next election", says Robert.
» "Will say and do anything if it improves his standing", say critics.
Tory MPs perhaps blew it by failing to select James Cleverly, but the party membership likely wouldn't have voted for him even if they had. Instead they get to pick between the identity politics warrior and the isolationalist flagwaver, with all the indications being that Kemi will walk it. Will she end up a footnote to history like Hague and Howard or are we destined to live in her no-nonsense anti-woke fiefdom one day, because that'd be truly consequential.
c) In six days' time the next American president is elected.
It could be Vice President Kamala Harris, now that Joe Biden has sensibly stood aside, or it could be the return of former president Donald Trump. From this side of the Atlantic it seems astonishing that Americans might vote for the criminal narcissist bully, let alone vote for him again, but never underestimate the attraction of demagogy, hope and change. Also never forget the vagaries of the presidential voting system which mean you can easily win the popular vote but still lose out in the electoral college (as indeed is currently predicted). Let's see how the key marginal states are looking one week out from the big vote, according to the site fivethirtyeight.
If Trump wins he's more prepared this time with a playbook of ultra-conservative policies ready to go. He'll trash stuff, drill stuff, destabilise stuff and spout scary gibberish that'll monopolise the world's attention for the next four years. He likely gets to top up the Supreme Court and lock out the liberals for a generation, consigning Roe v Wade to permanent oblivion. Expect him to walk away from Europe and abandon Ukraine to defeat, and who knows what he'll lob into the Middle East. As for climate change he doesn't give a damn and there's every chance he'll help condemn the entire world to a miserable future, not just the USA. A whole range of alternative futures splay out from next week, from slow decline to irreversible dystopia.
It might not be that bad because we got through four years last time, somehow, and let's not forget Trump may not win anyway. But this week is a hugely consequential week and this time we can only watch.
I worry sometimes that my content isn't niche enough. Things on hills in Hainault. Ex-country lanes in Harrow. Bridges in Norwich. So today I'm going all-out niche in an attempt to dampen interest even further. Welcome to...
Signs of Autumn in Old Malden
Originally there was only Malden, a manorial Saxon settlement by the Hogsmill, but then (as is so often the way) the railways came. The first station hereabouts lured much of the new housing a mile north, which became New Malden, then a century later came a new line with a new station which might better have been named Malden or even Old Malden but instead they called it Malden Manor. Old Malden is now a council ward south of the A3 where the original Malden was, and I have been there looking for signs of autumn rather than nuancing etymology.
This is the finest leafdrop I found in Old Malden, a sycamore dump on Plough Green opposite the shops. Perfect conditions require a mature tree, an approximately symmetrical canopy, a lack of wind so leaves fall downwards and a lack of small children disturbing the resultant coppery circle. Come back in a few days and this won't look anywhere as good. This former village green is named after The Plough, a 15th century inn which is yet another hostelry to claim Dick Turpin once drank here should you be the kind of person who believes that kind of thing. These days it's a Miller & Carter Steakhouse, an upmarket chain who claim their main menu is "perfected for darker nights spent cosying up to a new season of flavours", but I'm not sure their pan-roasted lamb rump is especially autumnal.
These are the early Victorian cottages on Church Road, not officially listed but certifiedlocally as Buildings of Townscape Merit. Originally they were clustered opposite the smithy, which is long gone, but the village pond is still there and is apparently the oldest pond in the borough of Kingston. A consultation on the future of the pond just closed which will hopefully result in the addition of a small viewing platform and two interpretation boards. If you're wondering what the autumnal thing is it's the fruit bulging on the tree outside number 26. Initially I thought they were apples, probably cookers, but on closer look (particularly the long leaves) I reckon they're actually quinces. Right now is peak season for harvesting quince, ideally just after they've turned golden and taking care not to bruise, but don't eat them raw because they're best in jams and jellies.
Hurrah for libraries and hurrah for Kingston who haven't closed any of theirs so still have the same seven they had pre-austerity. Old Malden's is located in a purpose built, low level building of indeterminate postwar origin, with a porch full of leaflets and a main room where Knit & Natter meet every Monday morning. This being half term they're running special autumnal events for children this week, specifically a dreamcatcher workshop on Friday and a Halloween Craft workshop at 11am this morning. I was expecting Old Malden's suburban streets to be a veritable Hallowe'en hotbed but I didn't see a single house decorated out front with spiders' webs or skeletons, nor any shop prominently flogging pumpkins, which is why you have a photo of the library and not a spooky semi-detached masterpiece. Well done Old Malden.
This is not a road sign you see everywhere, indeed when installed in Old Malden in August it was the first official use of the sign anywhere in the UK. Officially it warns road users of hazards due to small mammals in the road ahead, not 'hedgehog crossing', but that didn't stop the wider media going wild for the pricklier interpretation. There are four signs in Old Malden, two on Avondale Avenue, one on Downfield and this one on The Hollands. These aren't even places where hedgehogs are known to cross roads, more a "stronghold" for hedgehog populations according to local activists, but that was enough to persuade the council that a high bar for installation had been crossed. As autumn progresses I'd have thought hedgehogs are increasingly unlikely to be out in the road, but if the sign reminds residents to check their bonfires pre-Firework Night all the better.
St John's is partially Saxon and gets a mention in the Domesday Book. It was mostly rebuilt in 1611 but the lower part of the original flint and stone chancel wall was patched up and retained, including a blocked-up doorway with a telltale triangular head. It sits in a yew-infested churchyard alongside the actual Malden Manor, although the current house is 18th century and "much altered" so looks more like an egotistical Essex pile. The autumnal connection relates to special church services on upcoming Sundays, first the annual memorial for the dead on the 3rd followed by the Remembrance Sunday Parade Service on the 10th, although this year that's at the Baptist Church. It's perhaps worth saying that Worcester Park's high street is absolutely brimming with red poppies attached to every upright pole but as soon as you cross beneath the railway bridge into Old Malden they all vanish, because Sutton venerates Heroes more seriously than Kingston.
No mention of Old Malden is complete without mentioning that the artist John Everett Millais painted'Ophelia' by the banks of the Hogsmill. Some say it was Tolworth, others Ewell, but a local resident did three years of research and claims it was beside Six Acre Meadow in Old Malden so that's where the information board is. As well as confirming the location it points out that Millais added Ophelia to the scene later, not here but in Gower Street WC1, by painting a model called Elizabeth clothed in a bathtub. The riverbank beside the board has been significantly eroded by people stepping down to gaze upon the waters, and because it's autumn it's got very muddy and by the looks of the prints only dogs have risked it recently. The quagmire should ease in the spring.
The final sign of autumn is in the ticket hall at Malden Manor station. It's a poster alerting passengers to autumn timetable changes "because leaves on the tracks can be as slippery as ice". This year's leaf fall timetable runs from 22 September to 14 December and a copy of the leaflet they no longer print can be downloaded here. Intriguingly I've compared the summer and autumn timetables and they appear to be identical, at least for stations on the Chessington branch, so arguably the poster is more an unnecessary worry than practical information. But signs of autumn are everywhere in Old Malden, as I hope I've just demonstrated, so maybe that's why it's here.
