David Bowie Centre Location: V&A East Storehouse, 2 Parkes Street, E20 3AX [map] Open: 10am - 6pm (until 10pm on Thursdays and Saturdays) Admission: free Two word summary: Starman's hoard Five word summary: documenting David's life and creativity Website:vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/david-bowie-centre Time to set aside: half an hour
When the V&A Storehouse opened in the Olympic Park in May last year, one corner of the 2nd floor wasn't open. The David Bowie Centre's door was finally unlocked in mid-September but, to regulate numbers, you had to book a free slot in advance. Finally on Tuesday the requirement to plan ahead was removed and now anyone can wander in and admire the creative ephemera of a boy from Brixton. Oh! You Pretty Things.
David planned ahead keeping decades of cuttings, papers, props and costumes, then bequeathing his 90,000 item archive to the V&A. They decided the best place for it was their new Storehouse at Hackney Wick with its acres of storage space, filling racks with stacks and stacks of boxes. Only 159 items made the cut for display, at least in the initial selection, but other objects can be booked in advance for your hands-on perusal in a separate lab alongside. When I walked in yesterday a woman was examining two of David's gold discs, her hands carefully covered by a pair of purple disposable gloves, and when I walked out later the frames were being packed respectfully away.
The first glass cabinet contains Fan art, shoes and instruments, which it has to be said is not a typical museum category. They couldn't really kick off with anything other than a jacket with a Ziggy Stardust slash, archive number 1972.2035.0025. As with every other item in the V&A Storehouse it doesn't have an information label but yes it is the real thing designed by Freddie Burretti in red lamé for David's most iconic tour. Alongside are glam platform shoes, gold boots and some kind of guitar, and whilst they're all lovely to look out you'll only know precisely what they are if you notice the QR code, get your phone out and scan for a catalogue. I don't think I saw a single visitor do this with any of the exhibits in the Centre, merely staring with ignorant admiration, so essentially all the V&A's descriptive curatorship is going to waste. The QR link leads to this index, should you want to dig down deeper for yourself.
The main space is extremely tall and divided into two halves, one with shelves and the other with ten tall glass-fronted displays. Within are an eclectic selection of things to admire and things to read, notionally themed but you'd never really guess. Some of the suits are fabulous, for example an Alexander McQueen Union Jack concoction, a lurex jumpsuit and a narrow-waisted turquoise number as seen in the video for Life on Mars. I was less drawn to the photographs, perhaps because images are more easily shared and all you're seeing is a print, although they do form a considerable proportion of what's on show. But I did love the many manuscripts scribbled in David's handwriting and somehow saved through the years, including sheet music for Fame and (omg yes) the lyrics for Heroes as they were first written in black pen on a sheet of torn red graph paper.
Items are often symbolic of culture at the time, for example an electronic Stylophone used on Space Oddity (1969), an East German entry permit (1977) and a Yahoo! Internet Life Online Music Award (2000). The cabinet for the Glass Spider tour is topped off by the gold resin wings Bowie wore on stage in 1987, again not that most people staring up at them would have realised. A couple of the displays focus on artists who worked with Bowie rather than the man himself, which although emblematic of high esteem did feel overly tangential when space here is so limited. But I did love David's rejection letter from Apple Records dated 15th July 1968 ("The reason is that we don't think he is what we're looking for at the moment") and also a reference written by his father a few years earlier, perceptively noting "It is impossible to get him to relax and once having made up his mind to do something nothing will stop him in his effort to make a good job of it".
The opposite wall is stacked high with boxes, all labelled but closed. A few items are available for you to flick through in flappy plastic folders on the study table in front. High above are 21 iconic costumes hung on a looping rail, but all inside sturdy plastic wrappers so you can't see much of them, only read some text explaining what they are. And on the wall is a huge screen playing Bowie videos and live performances, which a large proportion of the visitors were watching rather than studying the actual objects. It does provide the best soundtrack you'll ever hear in an exhibition space but equally you could just sit at home and watch most of these on YouTube, plus they'd be in the proper landscape format rather than lopped-off portrait.
One thing which struck me while looking round was how a single Londoner was being celebrated on such a great scale. Imagine being deemed so important that a national museum chooses to celebrate your work with a named gallery. Imagine them taking ownership of tens of thousands of items relating to your career development. And imagine people standing reverently in front of some post-its you scrawled on for a project you never realised! Who keeps everything from their early scribblings to later artistic paperwork, who has sufficient space to stash it all away and who also has the nerve to consider the nation might think it worth saving? Personally I have enough old papers that that V&A could easily fill a cabinet with several formative childhood works, were I ever to be deemed a key national icon, but instead the contents of my spare room will all be heading down the tip after I'm gone. Such is the rarity of genuine Fame.
The visitors yesterday were a mix of older folk who experienced the magic first time around, and were maybe transformed by it, and youths too young to remember anything. It seemed a particularly popular destination for middle class family groups, say 60-something parents and 30-ish offspring, each thrilled to be pointing things out to each other. The entire crowd at the V&A Warehouse are those with culture on their mind, barely a Brexit voter amongst them, because why hang out at Westfield when you could enrich your artistic credentials up the road in E20. A sign outside the David Bowie Centre warns that visitors may be held outside if the room exceeds capacity, so this weekend may not be the most convenient time to visit. But it's well worth a look when you have the time, in both Sound and Vision, very much Hunky Dory, as Boys Keep Swinging.
If you want a weekly summary of rail-related transport news, Ian Visits and London Reconnections have you covered every Friday. I'm here with a much less interesting round-up of London's less newsworthy dregs, most of them not even about trains.
💷 The Mayor announced his 2026 fare rises in December but didn't publish the usual detailed fare tables alongside. His Mayoral Decision documentation was finally (and silently) published last week. We now know TfL fares will rise on average by 3.2% on 1st March 2026. (but on the tube, DLR and Overground it's 6%). Also the freeze on bus and tram fares lasts only until 04:30 on 5 July 2026, by which time "the Mayor must decide whether to extend the current bus and tram fares freeze or introduce changes to the fares".
🚡 In further fare rise clarification, the single fare for a one-way dangle on the cablecar will remain at £7. However the round-trip fare will increase by 50p to £13.50 (i.e, you'll only be saving 50p for a double crossing). Also the price of a 10-ticket carnet will increase from £19 to £20, i.e. it'll now be £2 per journey, so buy now to beat the March fare rise.
🚌 On Sunday a roadrun of vintage buses will take place to commemorate the first day of RM1 in public service on Wednesday 8th Feb 1956. Participating vehicles will gather at the Ace Café from 8am, then depart Golders Green station between 9.30-10am to follow historic route 2 to Crystal Palace. Passengers will not be carried. Buses are expected to arrive at the Crystal Palace coach park between 11.30am-12.30pm and then hang around until 3pm, so that's probably the best place to see them. Happy birthday to the Routemaster!
🌺 If you fancy seeing the Hawaiʻi exhibition at the British Museum, you can get two tickets for the price of one if you show proof of travel via the TfL Go app at the ticket desk. For those of us who don't pay as we go, a TfL Oyster photo card or a TfL Staff photo card are also acceptable, which is a nice improvement on previous offers. Alas the 30% off entry to Kew Gardens offer expired at the weekend, having run since 2024.
🚽 The toilets at Wimbledon station are closed from 28th January until "early spring", whenever that is.
💳 I mentioned previously that Chase have agreed to sponsor all TfL's Oyster pads for the next five years, replacing Google Pay as ‘Official Payment Partner’. The first stickers appeared in December but over the last week they've started spreading all over the network so you'll be seeing them everywhere imminently. According to the contract TfL have to have every pad stickered by 2nd March, after which they rake in £2½m a year until 2030. The sponsor is entitled to suspend payment if "the Government of the United Kingdom dissuades members of the public from using public transport for any reason" for a period of at least 30 days.
🚌 A recent consultation proposes diverting route 310 between Archway and Finsbury Park to travel via Holloway Road rather than Crouch Hill. We know there's no business case for route 310, it exists solely to ease travel between Golders Green and Stamford Hill, but hopefully following a different route to the 210 will boost wider ridership.
🚆 There are no trains through Dartford this weekend, or next weekend, or for the entire week after that. It's for engineering works replacing rails and for narrowing the gaps at Dartford station. Replacement buses will operate between Slade Green and Gravesend and between Barnehurst/Crayford and Dartford.
🚌 Bus stop U in Aldersbrook still has a yellow poster advising passengers that route 308 will be diverted over nine future weekends due to Crossrail construction work. The poster is nine years old, its contents having expired in September 2017, and I'm not saying it's London's most out-of-date bus changes poster but it must be right up there.
🚡 Have you ever wanted to use the cablecar but been held back by an access need? Well now you can apply for an IFS Cloud Cable Car Digital Access Pass and staff will know how to assist. Relevant needs include visual assistance, level access, distance limitations, audible information, urgent toilet access, priority boarding and help from staff while queuing. An IFSCCCDAP also permits an essential companion/carer to travel free of charge, although you still have to pay because the card's not a freebie. If you already have an Access Card you don't need to apply again. Also you don't have to have a special card to ride the cablecar, you can just turn up, but it might just smooth your journey.
🚌 Starting tomorrow the frequency of buses on route 3 is decreasing to every 12 minutes rather than every 10 minutes.
🎨 Art on the Underground are launching an "Art Map" in March 2026 which'll be available to pick up from zone 1 stations. I don't know any other information, having merely seen a poster, but it may well be an update of a previous Art Map launched in 2016 (which was very good, is still relevant and which you can download here).
🚌 Bus route 724 will be stopping at the bottom of Scots Hill, Croxley Green, from 22nd February. Ditto the 725 which is like the 724 but goes to Stevenage not Harlow.
🚲 The cycle hire docking station at Manbre Road in Hammersmith is closed until Tuesday 3 March. I did say this was dull transport news.
LONDON A-Z
I'm three letters into my alphabetical romp through London's unsung suburbs and already suffering from buyer's remorse. Yes I've picked three intriguing locations so far, but just think where I could have gone instead.
For A I considered Albany Park but decided against because I'm trying, where possible, to avoid places with stations. I could have blogged interestingly about Addiscombe or Addington, but both have tram stops which makes them too well known. I was tempted by Arkley but I'd blogged its semi-visible windmill and water tower before. I could have run with Ardleigh Green but wasn't sure I could get enough words out of it. I definitely considered Aperfield but it's debatable where it stops being Biggin Hill. In the end I plumped for Aldborough Hatch and I'm pretty content with that choice. But I very very nearly went to Aldersbrook because it's the epitome of a large off-the-radar settlement.
A is for Aldersbrook
About 5000 people live in Aldersbrook, a Redbridge suburb that's easy to define because it's entirely surrounded by grassland. To the south are Wanstead Flats, to the north is Wanstead Park and to the east is the River Roding, or rather a smaller stream with a name you can probably guess. The Alders Brook is a mile-long braid of the Roding, a thinner wigglier tributary that rejoins the main river near Ilford Bridge. On the neighbouring meadows a manorhouse was well established in Tudor times, then demolished to make way for Aldersbrook Farm, then sold off to the City of London who planned to build an enormous cemetery instead. That's still here and still enormous, also an amazing place to walk around, and its gothic gates are the first thing you see if approaching Aldersbrook from Manor Park. If this had been a proper A-Z post I'd have gone into more detail about the backhistory, but it isn't so let's move on.
The Aldersbrook estate was built between 1899 and 1910 and has barely expanded since, so rigidly have the City of London protected the integrity of Wanstead Flats. The original landowner decreed that all the housing be of "villa-style", thus to walk around the estate today is to experience the peak of Edwardian suburbia, a web of splendid avenues where every home is bedecked with intricate flourishes. The luckiest residents still have geometrical ceramic pathways leading to a fanlit door, also recessed porches with decorative tiling to dado level, also moulded plasterwork around decorative sash windows. But it's the porches that stand out most, many topped with fiddly carved timber or ornate cast iron, and I'm sorry I can only show you two in my photos because by no means all the outdoor flourishes look like this. To see more there's always Streetview, but easier just to scan through the Conservation Areadesign guide instead.
Few public facilities were provided for residents of Aldersbrook, and definitely not a pub, although this was the era when places of worship were still deemed important so even the Baptist church has a significant spire. A single parade of shops exists in the southeast corner which until recently offered a chippie, off-licence, salon and various cemetery hangers-on. I was shocked to see they've all been decanted in favour of two knocked-through units, one of which opened as a Tesco Express before Christmas while the other remains unlet. Aldersbrook Library is a lowly hut, supposedly once the old farm's dairy, and only intermittently-open. But if it's a sit-down coffee you seek then your sole option appears to be the legendary Wanstead Tea Hut beside the lake in the park, although they don't bother in bad weather and Tesco's Costa machine isn't quite the same. There's also a Greggs at the Esso garage (where the original farm used to be), but that's no premier coffee experience either.
It's not all Edwardian delight round here, and the further west you go the more modern flats appear. East Ham council used to run a large children's home behind Woodlands Avenue and when that closed the site was redeveloped as three-storey flats, screamingly Sixties in design. Considerable Eighties filler lies behind, these the only residents with their own designated parking spaces. And at Blake Hall Crescent is the famous Aldersbrook Lawn Tennis Club, a long sliver of all-weather courts not yet back in full operation. You can watch the tennis action from the three bus routes that skirt Aldersbrook, but no public transport ventures into the Edwardian interior so you may never have seen how appealingly off-piste it is You lucky residents, you have a little treasure here. But I didn't write about Aldersbrook, I wrote about Aldborough Hatch, so that was merely the potted version.
There was an even greater embarrassment of riches for B. The split-level oddity that is Belvedere. The ancient extremity of Bedfont. The inner hoods of Brook Green and Brompton. One of the two vastly-different Belmonts. The near Dartford-ness of Barnes Cray. The A40-adjacent Brentham Garden Suburb. The teensy hamlet of Berry's Green. In the end I went for the Bexley trio of Blackfen, Blendon and Bridgen. But I was also seriously tempted to take you to the isolated highlands of Enfield and the outlier that is Botany Bay...
B is for Botany Bay
If London had a sensible northern border that wasn't the M25, Botany Bay would be in Hertfordshire. It sits adrift on a high road called the Ridgeway with a river valley on each side, roughly halfway between Potters Bar and Enfield. It's so remote that its name does indeed come from the Australian penal colony at Botany Bay, its location amid the Elizabethan hunting ground of Enfield Chase deemed notably inaccessible. As a minor hamlet it still only has about 200 residents strung out in very mixed housing along the main road. Some live in old brick cottages, others in bungalows, villas, semis and bespoke detacheds, all added as and when. There's even a smart rustic cul-de-sac that could have been the first flourishings of broader development but plainly wasn't, this still a tiny island in a sea of Green Belt.
Pubs: 1. The Robin Hood has been here since 1904, a large faux-timbered roadside inn with a car park to match. Food is very high on the agenda, the twin boards out front currently promoting Sunday roasts and a special Valentine's experience featuring Jamie Cullis from 8pm. The village highspot, it would seem. Shops: 1. But not a convenience store, instead the farm shop at Botany Bay Farm ('where London meets the country™'). I confess the large sign saying HAND MADE SAUSAGES AND LOCALLY PRODUCED HAM AND BACON properly tempted me, also the jar of sparkly rainbow drops by the till, but villagers and drive-by patrons may better appreciate the range of breads, preserves, cakes and juices. Alpaca Experiences: 1. Botany Bay Farm diversified into alpacas in 2024, its herd of ten tame trotters available for 40 minute trekking sessions most weekends. Rest assured that only the farm's Longhorn cattle end up in the shop as meat, the alpacas are instead shorn to produce knitted snoods, gloves and beanies.
Cricket Clubs: 1. Botany Bay's cricket club was founded in 1899 and was a founder member of the Middlesex League. To my eye the pitch looks sloping, which is perhaps why nobody scored a century here until 1937. Rugby Clubs, Petanque Clubs, Darts teams and MG Owners Clubs: 1 of each, all based at the cricket club. Jazz nights: 2. Trad on Tuesdays and modern on Thursdays, again at the cricket club who certainly know how to diversify. Tonight it's Liane Caroll, 'the phenomenal pianist and vocalist' (and a regular at Ronnie Scott's) who'll be performing over supper. Bus routes: 1. The 313 provides a regular 20 minute service to towns with proper shops and services, and also offers an amazing view of undulating rural fields from its upper deck (but only if you come on a day when it isn't raining).
As for the letter C I went with Cranford but could have gone with Carterhatch, Chase Cross, Chelsfield, Childs Hill, Clayhall, Coldblow, Colham Green, Coney Hall, Coombe, Corbets Tay or Cudham, a truly bumper selection of outliers. Think you know London? There's always so much more to discover and I've got a long way to go yet.
C is for Cranford For my third alphabetical visit to unsung suburbs we're off to Cranford, once described as "one of the smallest and prettiest villages in Middlesex" and today absolutely none of those things. It lies on the River Crane, fairly obviously, and straddles the boroughs of Hillingdon and Hounslow (though mostly the latter). What tarnished Cranford was mass transit, first a main road, then a bypass, then a motorway, then the expansive environs of Heathrow which encroach just across the river. A few treasures remain but you do have to look quite hard, and best bring boots because it's muddy out there.[14 photos]
Cranford started out as a few cottages near a crossing over the River Crane. The main road west from London passed this way, a couple of miles beyond the important coaching hub of Hounslow, becoming safer and more strategically important after being turnpiked in 1717. The bridge here needed rebuilding in 1776, then was widened and strengthened in 1915 to cope with a greater volume of traffic. The stone parapet displays the arms of the county of Middlesex, who were dead proud of it, and also marked the dividing line between the parishes of Cranford and Bedfont. These days the Bath Road carries so many vehicles that unbroken barriers have been built down the central reservation, so impenetrable that it took me five minutes to cross from one side of the bridge to the other. The A4 essentially divides Cranford in two with pedestrians very much an afterthought, although there is a subway with authentic prewar signage if you walk as far as the roundabout.
If you've ever driven through Cranford you'll know it as the place with the turrets. Most of the rest of the main street is drab but in the middle of Berkeley Parade is an extraordinary cluster of fairytale towers surrounding the central crossroads. They have crow-stepped gables and pointy tops in Scottish Baronial style and were added to the shopping mix by E B Musman in 1930. At the foot of the towers are gorgeous wooden doors leading to twin flats above, although like much of the parade they look like they've seen better days. A busy carwash blocks the best view to the south but this just adds to the overall idiosyncrasy. Alas the northeast turrets were demolished in the 1960s to be replaced by anodyne flats whereas the northwest pair have been more elegantly absorbed into a hotel. It's notionally a 4-star Hilton but its signs were taken down recently because sssh, the clientele are now mostly migrants.
The rest of the main road is a mix of local services and airport filler, including boxy budget hotels for those whose flight plans require an overnight stay. The Moxy looks tackier than the Ibis, though it's a close call. Heathrow-edge development has been inexorable here with what used to be the White Hart now a drive-in KFC and the village pond the site of a chunky office block that now hands out degrees from the University of Derby. Bullish optimism can be the only reason behind naming a business Sublime Solicitors, ditto the nextdoor Jolly Cafe. Meanwhile the old flatroofed Cranford Library has just been closed so that a sparse collection of books can be shifted down the road into what the council describes as a Community Hub. Activities provided include money management advice, Storytime and 'all ages mindful colouring' (but it's closed on Wednesdays, so don't all rush).
Thankfully there is an older heart to suburban Cranford, a lengthy High Street which wiggles off the Bath Road opposite Tesco Express. It includes a few Edwardian cottages at the southern end and further up a converted stable block beside a proper listed Victorian villa with stone dogs guarding the door (alas extremely well hidden by shrubbery). But the real treat is a cylindrical brick hut dating back to pre-police days in 1838 which is one of only two parish lock-ups remaining in London. Drunks and thieves would have been confined overnight in dark cramped conditions before being turned over to a magistrate, highway robbery being a particular issue in the locality. The lock-up cuts a strange sight on the verge outside a block of flats, and could perhaps be mistaken for a bin store were it not for the information board placed out front when it was renovated in 2017. Full marks to Hounslow and the Heritage of London Trust.
Far less impressive is the church of Holy Angels, a geometric redbrick building built in 1970 to replace a previous church twice destroyed by arson. It was still in use as a place of worship until fairly recently but you can plainly see damp patches and peeling strips on the exterior, also metal panels securely affixed where all the windows and doors have been sealed up. The parish website confesses "As a result of bad design and sub standard construction at the time of building, Holy Angels is now closed. We await the outcome of discussions concerning the building", thus the congregation now has to troop off to another church we'll get to later. The Catholic church nextdoor is also oddly polygonal but thankfully had a different architect so remains in one piece, if locked away to restrict regular access.
The second road to despoil rural Cranford was The Parkway, a dual carriageway added in 1959 to bypass Cranford, Hayes and Yeading. Alas it sliced straight through the top of the High Street taking out a couple of big villas, and today the old road abruptly meets a seething airport feeder where pedestrians have a choice between several pushbuttons or a ridiculously long footbridge. On the far side is Cranford's only pub, The Queen's Head, which claims to be "the first pub in England to be granted a Spirits Licence" although the current building's a very '30s rebuild. Across the road The Jolly Gardeners initially looks like it might still serve pints but no, it closed 15 years ago and has morphed into a shabby home that still advertises hot food and Taylor Walker cask ales in increasingly decrepit gold lettering.
Cranford has a second historic nucleus to the northwest but to get there you need to cross the River Crane and there are no good options. To the north of Cranford Bridge is an older arched bridge used by drivers as a cut-through to Harlington, but much too narrow to be safely used by pedestrians. The London Loop prefers to cross Berkeley Meadows and then hug the river through Cranford Park, where I stared at the quagmire by the entrance gate and decided against. More direct is Avenue Park, essentially a cluster of playgrounds leading to a vast sodden meadow, which has a single footbridge at the very far end but is sadly devoid of any tarmacked means of getting there. The only all-weather route is a lengthy walk alongside the thunderous Parkway to a turnoff by a motorway junction, or of course to drive, which is likely how most parishioners get to church these days.
CranfordPark was once the site of two medieval manors controlled by the Knights Templar and Hospitaller, one moated and the other taking advantage of raised land beside the River Crane. In 1618 the combined estate was bought by a courtier of James I and later passed into the hands of the Earls of Berkeley who used it as their summer seat. Alas in 1944 their vacated manor house was demolished along with half the stable block, although the east wing of equine stalls survives and looks unexpectedly magnificent as well as magnificently unexpected. If you visit only one building in Cranford this is the one you should see. Also intact is London's oldest ha-ha - an unobtrusive boundary ditch visible from only one side - although several bricks on the corner have recently been dislodged so if anyone reading this works for Hillingdon council you might want to get that sorted. A visitor centre used to sit atop the old cellars but that burned down and construction of its replacement appears to have stalled, indeed its windows are already smashed, so you'll need to bring your own refreshments.
Immediately adjacent is St Dunstan's Church, Saxon in origin and medieval at heart. These days it's very much High Anglican so all Masses and Benedictions rather than Communions and chumminess, and likely smells it too. The churchyard is full of old graves and surrounded by memorial tablets packed onto the perimeter wall. At the far end facing sideways is the memorial to much-loved comic Tony Hancock whose ashes were scattered here, but marginally outside the burial ground because his death was a suicide. It jolts somewhat to see he predeceased his mother. And less than 100m away is the third road to sever Cranford which is the M4 motorway which was squeezed through a narrow gap between church and council estate in the early 1960s. Junction 3 was carved out of Crane-side woodland to link with The Parkway, diverting the river and allowing parishioner access through St Dunstan's Subway. Look one way and you could still be on a country estate, look the other and convoys of articulated lorries are rumbling towards Slough. Poor Cranford... and there's one more blight to come.
Houses in south Cranford have the misfortune to be directly on the Heathrow flightpath and less than a mile from the end of the northern runway. I was fortunate on my visit that planes were taking off from the southern runway so any noise pollution was merely a semi-intrusive whine. But the pattern alternates delivering a regular stream of decelerating jet engines roaring low over the houses in Waye Avenue, either before or after 3pm, ensuring there are few less appealing streets to live anywhere in the capital. Residents foresaw this problem in 1952 and got a civil servant to agree that planes would never take off over Cranford, only land, except in times of exceptional need. The so-called Cranford Agreement was never legally ratified but has held sway ever since, even though the Coalition government decided they'd like to end it. Plans for a third runway have since muddied the waters and more crucially the airport's not yet built sufficient taxiways to enable mass eastbound take-offs from the northern runway. But one day the gentlemen's agreement will fail and Cranford will be crisscrossed not just by two dual carriageways and a motorway but also a horrendous flighpath... so if you're visiting, come before then.
• Gastronomic world records broken in 1971: 437 clams in 10 minutes, 1lb unpipped grapes in 86 seconds, 12 whole lemon quarters in 162 seconds, 60 pickled onions in 15 minutes 12 seconds, 1 quart of milk in 6 seconds, 2 pints of beer drunk while upsidedown in 45 seconds
• Herbs in The Herbs: Parsley, Dill, Sage, Sir Basil, Lady Rosemary, Constable Knapweed, Bayleaf, Aunt Mint, Mr Onion, The Chives, Tarragon
• The year in various calendars: AM 5786, AD 2026, AM 1742, AH 1447, BS 1432, SH 1404
• Archers characters who've appeared in more than 200 episodes in the 2020s: Alice 332, Susan 268, Tracy 261, Emma 260, Helen 248, Lillian 241, Kirsty 238, Lynda 237, Brian 234, Jazzer 233, Fallon 228, George 223
• Things I bought 40 years ago today: 3 pairs of white socks, 'Happy Birthday' banner (reduced in closing down sale), 2 birthday cards, stamps, soluble asprin.
• Refreshment outlets in the Millennium Dome: Acclaim, AMT Espresso, Aroma, Bakers Oven, Costa, Great American Bagel Factory, Harry Ramsdens, Hot Bites, Internet Exchange, Juicepiration, Main Square Cafe, Meridian Cafe, McDonalds, New Covent Garden Soup Co, Mezzanine Cafe, Opa John's Famous Wrolls, Street Bites, t.fresh, Trade Winds Food Court, World Bites, Yo! Sushi
• Letters that appeared half as often on Smarties lids: q, z
• The shortest films to win an Oscar for Best Picture: Annie Hall (1h33m), Marty, Hamlet, The Broadway Melody, The Artist, The Lost Weekend, Casablanca, The French Connection, It Happened One Night, Kramer vs Kramer (1h45m)
• Paris Métro stations that opened on 3rd February: Billancourt, Marcel Sembat, Pont de Sèvres
• Departments on the ground floor at Grace Brothers: Perfumery, Stationery and leather goods, Wigs and haberdashery, Kitchenware and food
• Sponsors of the Rugby League Challenge Cup: State Express, Silk Cut, Kellogg's Nutrigrain, Powergen, Leeds Met Carnegie, Tetley's, Ladbrokes, Coral, Betfred
• Words you can make out of squirrel: lurers, quires, risque, rulers, squire, squirl, surlier
• Unlikely Batman Exclamations: Holy Armadillos! Holy Chocolate Eclair! Holy Interplanetary Yardstick! Holy Knit One Purl Two! Holy Mashed Potatoes! Holy Priceless Collection Of Etruscan Snoods! Holy Reverse Polarity! Holy Tuxedo!
• Vegetarian restaurants in Rutland: Castle Cottage Cafe, Don Paddy's, Hitchen's Barn, Jashir, Sarpech, Soi, The Blonde Beet, The Mad Turk
• English constituencies where over 98% of the population is white: Torridge and Tavistock, Whitehaven and Workington, North Northumberland, Tiverton and Minehead, Penrith and Solway, North Norfolk, Thirsk and Malton, Easington, Bridlington and The Wolds, Bishop Auckland, Staffordshire Moorlands
• Crevasse fields in Queen Maud Land: Hamarglovene, Jutulgryta, Jutulpløgsla, Kråsen, Styggebrekka, Trollkjelen, Ulendet
• London museums that closed in the last 10 years: British Dental Association Museum, City of London Police Museum, Clowns Gallery Museum, Firepower!, Greenwich Heritage Centre, Jewish Museum, London Motor Museum, London Motorcycle Museum, Museum of Army Music, Pollocks Toy Museum, Royal London Hospital Archives
• 5 things I did 25 years ago today: downloaded songs off Napster, loitered on IRC, drove to Essex, watched marmalade bubble, performed surprisingly well in a remembered digits test
• Anagrams of SI units: Adrian, twat, coolbum, nemesis, slate, sluices, yarg, restive
• Years I've been alive that aren't UK dialling codes: 01965, 01966, 01973, 01976, 01979, 01990, 01991, 01996, 01998 and all subsequent years
• Stations opened in the last three years: Reading Green Park, Marsh Barton, Thanet Parkway, Portway Park & Ride, Headbolt Lane, Brent Cross West, East Linton, Leven, Cameron Bridge, Ashley Down, Ashington, Seaton Deleval, Newsham, Blyth Bebside, Beaulieu Park
• Words that are animals backwards: doc, flow, god, kay, lee, mar, reed, stab, star, sung, tang, tarps
• Daily newspapers, cheapest first: i, Mail, Sun, Star, Express, Mirror, Times, Guardian, Telegraph, FT, Racing Post
• Watch With Mother shows broadcast on Tuesdays: Andy Pandy, Bizzy Lizzy, Trumpton, Mary Mungo & Midge, Bagpuss, Mr Men, Bod, Thomas, How Do You Do!
• Tetley teabag pack sizes: 1, 20, 25, 40, 50, 75, 80, 100, 120, 160, 200, 240, 250, 400, 420, 440, 600, 800, 1100, 1540
15 lists but I'm not telling you what they are (before 10am)(one guess each)
• ✅Capital cities more than 2000m above sea level: La Paz, Quito, Bogotá, Addis Ababa, Thimphu, Asmara, Sanaa, Mexico City, Tehran
• ✅No 1 singles about days of the week: Sunday Girl, I Don't Like Mondays, Freaky Friday, Funky Friday, Saturday Night, Saturday Night At The Movies
• ✅Square-numbered chemical elements: H, Be, F, S, Mn, Kr, In, Gd, Tl, Fm
• ✅Shakespearean characters beginning with N: Nathaniel, Nerissa, Nestor, Nicanor, Norfolk, Northumberland, Nurse, Nym
• Stars with negative magnitude: Sirius, Canopus, Rigil Kentaurus, Arcturus
• ✅Names of more than one book of the Bible: Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Corinthians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Peter, John
• ✅Yellow Mr Men: Happy, Funny, Bounce, Nonsense, Skinny, Mischief, Brave
• ✅European constitutional monarchies: Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, UK
• ✅Lyons Maid ice lollies in 1973: Apple Jack, Captain Cody, Choco, Fab, Freak Out, Jack of Diamonds, Jelly Terror, Jungle Jim, Lemon and Lime Squeeze, Mivvi, Orange Maid, Red Devil, Score, Smash, Zoom
• ✅Essex islands: Cindery, Cobmarsh, Foulness, Great Cob, Havengore, Hedge-end, Horsey, Lower Horse, Mersea, New England, Northey, Osea, Pewit, Potton, Rushley, Skipper's, Wallasea
• ✅Prime numbered bus routes in Croydon: 109, 127, 157, 197, 353, 359, 367, 433, 439, 463
• ✅Countries that have hosted the Winter Olympics but not the Summer Olympics: Switzerland, Norway, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina (as Yugoslavia)
• ✅Local authority districts adjacent to Buckinghamshire: West Northamptonshire, Milton Keynes, Central Bedfordshire, Dacorum, Three Rivers, Hillingdon, Slough, Windsor & Maidenhead, South Oxfordshire, Cherwell
• ✅Inanimate constellations: Antlia, Ara, Caelum, Carina, Circinus, Corona Australis, Corona Borealis, Crater, Crux, Eridanus, Fornax, Horologium, Libra, Lyra, Mensa, Microscopium, Norma, Octans, Pictor, Puppis, Pyxis, Reticulum, Sagitta, Scutum, Sextans, Telescopium, Triangulum, Vela
• ✅98-storey buildings: Central Park Tower, Chongqing International Land-Sea Center, KK100, Trump International Hotel and Tower
Thu 1: I kicked off 2026 watching the fireworks on Croxley Green, a decent seven minute display which it felt like the entire village had come out to watch. "They don't do anything like this in Watford," said the lad behind me. Inevitably it ended with a technicolour bang and Sweet Caroline. I was home by 2am. Fri 2: Time to make a start on the 50th volume of my diary. Expressed my anticlimactic disappointment at the 75th anniversary episode of the Archers. Sat 3: The snowline in Sydenham almost perfectly matches the Lewisham/Bromley border, suggesting only outer London got sprinkled. Sun 4: Hurrah, Counterpoint is back in the Radio 4 quiz slot ending months of obvious filler. But they've recorded it without a studio audience so it sounds a tad flat, also the questions suddenly appear very skewed towards recent music. In one programme I heard no questions about any music over 100 years old until the final five minutes. Where did the classical go?
Mon 5: There's a creepy ad campaign all over the tube at the moment urging people to pay £20 for a blood test (do you have low testosterone, might your other half have low testosterone? what if you were tired because you had low testosterone?). The cheap price up front is in the hope you do have low testosterone and they can flog you treatments from £99 a month, without you stopping to think that maybe you should just ask your NHS doctor instead. Tue 6: Took down my Christmas cards. I still have no idea who sent one of them because the inside of the card was empty, the postmark was illegible and I didn't recognise the handwriting on the envelope. Wed 7: Gosh, we haven't had a week this cold since (checks) the second week of January last year. Thu 8: Bugger, not again. Fri 9: The website streetmap.co.uk appears to have vanished. I used it in yesterday's post to show where Aldborough Hatch is but I couldn't do the same again now because the site's not there. This is annoying because I've used Streetmap's Ordnance Survey mapping and street name searches for decades, and really annoying because there are now thousands of Streetmap links in my blogposts that no longer work. Such is instant digital obsolescence.
Sat 10: The view of St Paul's from King Henry's Mound in Richmond Park has been entirely wrecked by the 42-storey Manhattan Loft Gardens in Stratford. Admittedly it was wrecked 10 yearsago but I may not have looked through the telescope since then because there's usually a queue. Sun 11: A radio programme you might enjoy from Michael Rosen's series Word of Mouth: The Story of A-Z, an alphabetical odyssey - where did all our letters come from and how have they changed over time? Mon 12: On my all 33 boroughs journey I reached Southfields just as council workmen arrived to take down the local Christmas tree. This felt terribly late, even on an Orthodox timeline. Tue 13: Something in Vietnam has accessed my blog over 30,000 times today making it the busiest ever day on diamond geezer by a factor of 2. However my usual stats package has filtered it out, confirming it's really just a dead average Thursday. Wed 14: In my post about the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum I wrote "A lot of us wouldn't be here (or have been born at all) without antibiotics". Too right, said my Dad. He told me he had peritonitis as a teenager which, without Fleming's discovery of penicillin, could very easily have resulted in neither of us being here now (and me not at all).
Thu 15: A team of council workmen have spent months digging up the pavement along the A12 between the Bow Roundabout and Tesco and laying nice new slabs. I take this public realm investment as a sign that the ridiculous plan to add a major road junction here has been abandoned, hurrah. Fri 16: People have noticed that Streetmap is missing and are suggesting alternatives that show genuine OS mapping. The best I've seen so far are sysmaps.co.uk (which is properly linkable), the Saturday Walkers Club and maps.the-hug.net (which doesn't zoom in all the way). However I have no confidence that these'll still be around in five years time, let alone 20. Sat 17: Round the corner from Ealing Broadway station is a rustic restaurant with an old sign outside saying Wine and Mousaka Restaurant, and I was surprised to discover it really is called Wine and Mousaka. Sun 18:...and the Native Hipsters have released a new album called Wild Campfire Singalongs (lead single Too Many Chefs). If you enjoyed their seminally weird "There Goes Concorde Again" from 1980, this may be for you. It's only £2 for a digital download, £9 for a limited edition CD or you can simply listen to the sour low-fi album on Bandcamp. Mon 19: I went out after dark to see if I could see the Northern Lights, convinced there was indeed an eerie red glow in the sky over Stratford, but it turned out to be illumination from the Orbit reflecting off low cloud.
Tue 20: The rack of leaflets in my local Tesco no longer includes programmes for the Norwich Playhouse (95 miles away) but does now include a stack of glossy Discover Rutland tourist brochures (90 miles away). Wed 21: I received an email from my mobile phone provider telling me they were moving my plan "to our latest pounds and pence terms. In future, your price change won’t be affected by inflation, so you’ll know exactly how much it will increase each year." My next price rise will thus be £2.50, which they're very much hoping I won't notice is 12% and thus hugely more than the 2% they added last year. Little weasels. Thu 22: A 'Board of Peace' packed with the world'sworstdictators in a blatant attempt to sideline the UN should be an idea from an Austin Powers film, not real life. And we're only a quarter of the way through Trump's term... Fri 23: Well the Traitors was fun, wasn't it? Actual watercooler television and we get precious little of that. It just goes to show that if convincing liars stick together they can win big (see also yesterday). Sat 24: I thought the Royal Mail was supposed to have stopped Saturday deliveries. By contrast I now seem to get most of my post on Saturdays and barely anything at any other time. It's a poor show whatever.
Sun 25: I've been shocked by the widely varying prices for a single Creme Egg this year.
• Asda 70p
• Tesco 85p (or 75p with a Clubcard)
• My local newsagents £1.09
• TG Jones in Watford £1.25
• WH Smith at Euston £1.29
• WH Smith at Heathrow T5 £1.49!
Mon 26: My blogpost about the 100th anniversary of television has turned out to be one of my five most-read posts ever, gaining a global audience, mainly it seems because barely anybody else in medialand noticed the anniversary. Tue 27: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has revealed the 2026 Doomsday Clock time and it's 85 seconds to midnight, down from 89 seconds to midnight. This may be the closest the world's ever been to Armageddon, in their expert opinion, but after the year we've just had I'd have expected them to nudge us even closer. Wed 28: My 7 visits to Waltham Forest this month, if you're interested, were 4th Jan) Lea Bridge, 7th) Leyton, 12th) Blackhorse Road, 18th) Walthamstow, 23rd) Blackhorse Road, 24th) Leytonstone, 28th) Olympic Park Thu 29: I'm going to be a great uncle! This is very exciting news, the start of a whole new generational cycle. I wish there was a more important-sounding term than 'great uncle', but the baby will have two proper uncles so maybe I'm more distant than I thought. Fri 30: Today I finished off my last mince pie, bought from the reduced shelf after Christmas. Admittedly the best before date was 18 January but it tasted great and it's only eight months before I can stock up again.
Sat 31: Prize for the most obtuse roadworks sign goes to this yellow riddle outside Northolt station.
In a peculiar act of recycling, a tube train from the 1970s was relaunched in West London yesterday but not on the tube, and everyone said how cutting edge it was. [10 photos]
This is a Class 230 train with pioneering battery-charge capability, finally entering passenger service on the GWR branch line between Greenford and West Ealing. It's a very short line and also woefully underused, indeed its three intermediate stops are all among London's least-used stations. Nobody'll ever invest money in electrification here so GWR's plan is to electrify the train instead, running off a regularly recharged on-board battery. If it works here it could work on their other short diesel-operated branches in the southwest, boosting the railway's green credentials, and it seems to work here because they've finally let passengers on board.
These three carriages were once to be found shuttling back and forth on the District line. After being decommissioned ten years ago several units were bought up by Adrian Shooter's company Vivarail, which planned to reuse the bodywork to create modern electric trains. They managed to send five sets to the Isle of Wight, five to the Welsh Borders and three to Bedfordshire but underestimated the complexities of the operation and went bust in 2022. GWR then took on some of the units and have been using one set here at Greenford to conduct their battery charging trial, kicking off as long ago as March2024. You might thus have seen it packed with measuring equipment and engineers but never passengers, not until yesterday when the line was suddenly busier than it'd ever been for years.
The Greenford branch is ideal for a trial because it's been completely separate from other scheduled service since 2016 when they lopped off the Paddington end for Crossrail. It's also twelve minutes end-to-end which means a half-hourly service can be operated with just one train, which is good because just one train is what they've got. Most of the brief turnaround at each end is taken up by the driver walking down the platform from one cab to the other. But GWR's cunning plan has been to also use the 3½ minutes spent at West Ealing to rest the train on specially adapted rails and fast-charge its on-board battery. With an extra boost every half an hour the train need never run out of juice and can continue to rattle back and forth all day. GWR staff were a bit worried on Day One because unusually high passenger loadings were delaying the train by 1½ minutes, thus shortening the recharge time, but the batteries coped admirably and still "had days in them", from what I overheard.
When rolling stock makes its debut a certain crowd turns up. There are the devoted Must-Be-On-The-First-Trainers, which was a pain yesterday because the debut was at 5.30am. There are the Men Who Work In Rail, here to see what their competitors are up to. There are the Excitable Children, also the Quiet Men Sitting By Themselves, also the People Who Still Believe In Using A Camera. There are the Overenthusiastic Teenagers talking to each other loudly or approaching strangers and asking "did you know this used to be D Stock?", oblivious to the fact that everyone present knows. There are the Droning Pessimistic Men who've heard that the doors slam with a nasty clunk, oh yes listen to that, they're going to break soon aren't they? There are sometimes Documentary Makers You Must Have Seen On TV, here to refresh their rail credentials. And there are always Content Creators Insistent On Filming Everything For Immediate Upload Accompanied By A Woefully Unengaging Commentary, often accompanied by an entourage, so best keep out of their way as they pass.
It's easiest to recognise the train's former tube incarnation from outside. The bodywork still has that memorable District line shape, if part-disguised with a coat of GWR's drab dark green and a big yellow flash on the front. Also the doors are still those single-leaf sliding things, both slow and narrow, which is one reason why the S Stock's dwell time was a big improvement. Step inside the clinically white carriages and you have to look much harder, what with new flooring, forward-facing comfy seats and tables and power points added underneath. Yes those telltalle large windows are still there, but not the overhead grabrails, plus now there are bins and a chunky toilet carved out of the middle carriage. An unusual difference is that the doors closest to the driver's cabs are permanently out of service, or rather 'for Emergency Use only', so don't wait there if you intend to alight.
Along with dozens of others I went for a battery-driven ride from West Ealing to Greenford. I may have done this more than once. The route curves away from the Great Western mainline and passes over a level crossing inside the local rail depot, then dives through an artificial tunnel underneath a council estate. Some of the stations are so close together that the "We are now approaching Castle Bar Park' announcement plays before the doors have fully closed at Drayton Green. Local residents who would normally catch the train on a Saturday were bemused to see a completely different train approaching, and even more surprised to have to search for a seat. Most of the journey is completely straight, including a lengthy viaduct over the A40 and River Brent, then at the northern end the track finally curls upwards to terminate between the Central line platforms at Greenford. And repeat.
For now the battery train is only making an appearance on Saturdays. Come midweek and you'll get the usual 2-car diesel and on Sundays the service never runs at all. Also be warned that Saturdays 14th February, 28th February and 7th March are off the cards due to engineering possessions involving West Ealing sidings. Also be aware that if the train has technical difficulties the usual train is sitting waiting on standby so can be resuscitated at a moment's notice. But if you want to experience District line déjà vu in a groundbreaking FastCharged train then next Saturday should be ideal, plus you won't have to suffer such large crowds of First Day hangers-on. And who know, battery trains might well turn out to be the long-term future on non-electrified lines, and then you can tell your grandchildren that you remember going on the first one through the anodyne suburbs of Ealing back in 2026.
For twenty-threeconsecutiveFebruaries on diamond geezer I've kept myself busy by counting things. Ten different counts, to be precise, in a stats-tastic 28-day feature called The Count. You therefore won't be surprised to hear that I intend to do exactly the same again this year, indeed you'd be more surprised if I didn't. Expect to read a post of comparisons and contrasts at the end of the month.
I kicked off this annual exercise back in 2003 which means I already have over two decades of thrilling historical data to analyse and this'll be a 24th datapoint. Here's my selected list of ten countables for February 2026.
Count 1: Number of visits to this blog (Feb 2025 total: 97446) [↑4% on 2024] Count 2: Number of comments on this blog (Feb 2025 total: 764) [↓11%] Count 3: Number of words I write on this blog (Feb 2025 total: 38040) [↓3%] Count 4: Number of hours I spend out of the house (Feb 2025 total: 161) [↑7%] Count 5: Number of nights I go out and am vaguely sociable (Feb 2025 total: 4) [↑33%] Count 6: Number of bottles of lager I drink (Feb 2025 total: 4) [↑4] Count 7: Number of cups of tea I drink (Feb 2025 total: 126) [↑2%] Count 8: Number of trains I travel on (Feb 2025 total: 163) [↓38%] Count 9: Number of steps I walk (Feb 2025 total: 427000) [↓6%] Count 10: The Mystery Count(Feb 2025 total: 0) (again)
I've also been counting something in January, which is how many days I set foot in each of the London boroughs.
Enf
7
Harr
7
Barn
7
Hari
7
WFor
7
Hill
7
Eal
7
Bren
7
Cam
7
Isl
7
Hack
7
Redb
7
Hav
7
Hou
7
H&F
7
K&C
7
West
7
City
7
Tow
31
New
28
B&D
7
Rich
7
Wan
7
Lam
7
Sou
7
Lew
7
Grn
7
Bex
7
King
7
Mer
7
Cro
7
Bro
7
Sut
7
In a 31-day month that is ridiculous behaviour, sorry. We ascertained earlier that some of you have never been to Havering, Sutton, Barking & Dagenham and/or Harrow, but I've been to all of them exactly seven times since the start of the year! I like to do something mammoth in January - in 2024 it was riding every bus route and in 2025 it was visiting every z1-3 station - so 2026 is fairly tame by comparison. But rest assured I will not be keeping this up into February, it's time to count other things instead.
For twenty-three consecutive Februaries on diamond geezer I've kept myself busy by counting things. Ten different counts, to be precise, in a stats-tastic 28-day feature called The Count. You therefore won't be surprised to hear that I intend to do exactly the same again this year, indeed you'd be more surprised if I didn't. Expect to read a post of comparisons and contrasts at the end of the month.
