For my next alphabetical visit to unsung suburbs we're off to Farnborough, not the Hampshire town with the air show but the former Kent village on the outskirts of Orpington. What a lovely place to live; convincingly rural, urban-adjacent and suitably bypassed.
Farnborough has Norman roots and grew up astride a ridge on the main road from London to Sevenoaks. A bit further on than Locksbottom and not quite as far as Green Street Green, if that helps you locate it. The name means 'village among the ferns on the hill', or did when that name was originally Fearnbiorginga. For many years it boasted several coaching inns, then on 13th April 1927 a bypass was opened for which current residents are extremely grateful, publicans excepted. It's now a quaint linear village on the brink of the North Downs, but with a wedge of suburban infill on the bypassed flank which helps sustain a busy community, so essentially the best of both worlds. If you've ever walked London Loop section 3 you'll have seen this for yourself.
In the middle of the village is a triangular space faced by rows of cottages and a mortgage broker. The central greenspace has all the obligatory parochial features - a village sign, a flagpole, some benches around the base of a tree and one of those flat silhouettes of a WW1 soldier with his rifle planted in the ground. A small flowerbed has been immaculately planted with bright bedding plants, all of which looks uplifting until you spot that the sponsor is the local mausoleum, or as the business-speak puts it "the UK's first indoor above-ground burial facility". Renting a niche for your loved one starts at £40 a month, rising to £93,555 for a 99 year lease on a family vault.
Villagers have been particularly good at placing informative plaques beside points of interest, for example outside old inns and alongside the village pump. That's a nice old pump I thought, then I read more carefully and learned it's not the original (they bought it at auction) nor is it on the original site, instead positioned on some incongruous grass where the village pond used to be. Another plaque, nudged into a picket fence, points out the prominent site of an 18th century coaching inn called The George. After the bypass was built it became a pub called The George and Dragon, then in the 1970s merely a restaurant and more recently a small millennial housing development. It's a little odd to be looking at a black and white photo of bowler-hatted passengers in horse-drawn coaches while in front of you a window cleaner is up a ladder using his squeegee on replacement uPVC windows.
Two former coaching inns survive - The Woodman and the Change of Horses (formerly known as the New Inn). Coach drivers would stay here overnight, their horses put out to pasture in the field opposite, while passengers were instead accommodated in greater comfort at The Whyte Lion up the road in Locksbottom. Today both Farnborough pubs lure in their punters with Craft Beers and Home Cooked Food, and in one case Dog Friendly Quiz Nights (although on closer inspection that's probably two attractions). I note that The Woodman's somewhat unadventurous menu tops out at £15 for 'Trio of sausages' whereas the Change of Horses' longlist stretches to £21 for 'Ultimate Pie of the Day', so I'd suggest your palate would probably prefer the latter.
The shops are decent, along a parade that's patently been extended as the size of the village has grown. The only chain in sight is Londis where the Post Office still resides, while elsewhere you can get your bike fixed, your nails done and some brunch cooked. The village barber is called Ieuan and the village delicatessen is run by Nanny Smith, although I suspect that may be a pseudonym. Birds Tea Rooms are sadly long gone, this the preferred refreshment opportunity for the weekend crowds that started flocking from London after the number 47 bus was extended to terminate here in 1913. As for the former bank, seemingly much too large for such a small village, it's been cleverly repurposed as the local doctors' surgery. The blacksmith's cottage nextdoor is creepily overdecorated, this because it's been converted into what looks like an exuberantly twee antiques shop.
10 Farnborough nuggets
• Farnborough's main road is one of London's 57 High Streets.
• The village green alas got turned into a road junction, it's where the bypass bears off.
• A milestone near The Woodman confirms 'London 14 Sevenoaks 10'.
• This being ex-Kent yes, there is a converted oast house.
• I spotted a private cul-de-sac called Strawberry Fields, but no Penny Lane.
• Farnborough Old Boys Guild FC lost five nil to Otford on Saturday.
• The village hall hosts Karate, am-dram, bridge, pilates and two W.I.s.
• The cottage with the tiny front door on Church Street is called Little Door Cottage.
• It's a 25 minute walk to Orpington station up Tubbenden Lane.
• Wikipedia says Nigel Farage was born in Farnborough, but that may just be because Princess RoyalUniversity Hospital in Locksbottom is technically in Farnborough parish.
For the best part of Farnborough you have to head south down Church Road, this leading unsurprisingly towards the church of St Giles The Abbot. It's impressively old and flinty, the main portion of the nave dating back almost 900 years, and topped by a typically squat Kentish spire. Even if you have to make do with the exterior it's pretty impressive, including a large graveyard, the village war memorial and a seriously chunky yew tree planted in 1643 after a particularly ferocious storm. The grave to hunt for is that of Urania Boswell, better known as ‘Gipsy Lee’, whose ostentatious Romany funeral procession in 1933 was memorably captured by Pathé News.
Below the church the land opens up and drops away into open countryside, a boon for every local dogwalker, or you can thread down through a strip of woodland instead. At the foot of the slope you enter High Elms, now a 250 acre country park but originally the country seat of the Lubbock dynasty. The 4th Baronet, John Lubbock, was one of the more consequential Victorian politicians. It was he who introduced the Bank Holidays Act to Parliament in 1871, also the Ancient Monuments Act in 1882 which preserved Stonehenge and Avebury, also he who coined the words coined the terms "Palaeolithic" and "Neolithic", also a founder member of the Electoral Reform Society, also Chairman of the London County Council, also President of the Royal Statistical Society, also a childhood friend of Charles Darwin who lived a short distance away at Down House. Not bad for a posh boy from Farnborough.
Today you can wander freely round his estate, other than the chunk that's become a golf course, exploring chalk slopes, ornamental gardens and deep woodland. Alas the big mansion burnt down in 1967 and the site is now a flat lawn surrounded by all the original terraces and shrubbery so quite an eerie prospect, not least the drive that sweeps up to a crescent of tiles laid outside the kitchen door. Closer to the car park Bromley council maintain an outdoor education centre complete with beehives, dipping pond and nature trail, although you have to come at the weekend to pick up local maps and trail leaflets. The cafe was proving very popular, even midweek, although I'm not sure the ladies who lunched really wanted the wild boar burger in a brioche bun at the top of the specials board.
It seems extraordinary that this is part of our capital city, but that's F in London for you.
40 years ago today I completely ballsed-up a job interview. Not that I realised at the time.
It was March 1986, I'd just turned 21 and was in my last year at university. There was thus ever-increasing pressure to find myself a job, or else to cop out and dive into additional study. My mind was loosely focused on the former.
I'd never had specifc ambitions for any particular career and there were many avenues my degree could lead me. But [Vinegar] had always appealed, ever since my Dad started bringing home the industry's in-house magazine at weekends. That looks interesting, I thought, I could probably do that. Alas they never let me. n.b. I'm doing that thing again where I replace a key word in the post with a grocery item, sorry.
I'd picked up a booklet from the university careers service to tell me more, there being no internet to turn to, and should perhaps have read it more carefully. "The graduate will be entering a fast moving world where crises seem to occur frequently," it said, which might have been a warning. "One graduate estimated 80% of his time was spent in meetings or discussion", it said, which might not have been my forte. And most importantly "In a good year there might be 140 or so jobs for inexperienced graduates," correctly suggesting my chances of getting into [Vinegar] were slim.
I sent off a few speculative letters, attaching what passed in those days as a CV, and had already been called to one interview. But when that reply came it was brief and to the point ("I am afraid that we shall not be inviting you for final interviews...") so I was pinning my hopes on application number two. A few days later they too turned me down but also offered an olive branch ("...we are interested in conjunction with another opportunity in the company"). And that role actually looked much more up my street so I was excited to get the opportunity to come up to London for a formal set of interviews. I've still got the train ticket.
The big day started with a fairly urgent bath because I probably shouldn't have let my mates take me on a long muddy walk yesterday, also the purchase of a clean set of shoelaces. I had cereal for breakfast, a fact I'd successfully bring up later, and changed into the suit I'd recently bought in Top Man for interviewing purposes. I don't think I did myself any favours by piling all my paperwork into a plastic carrier bag rather than a briefcase. And then I headed to the station (cheap day return £3.80, as pictured). The GLC only had a fortnight left at this point, but thanks Ken for only charging 50p for the final leg from Paddington to Oxford Circus.
I had almost two hours to spare so walked the length of Oxford Street, nipping into HMV where I bought Complete Madness on cassette and also the brand new Depeche Mode album, just released. I bought a burger from McDonalds and ate it in Soho Square, realising perhaps too late that it had left me somewhat greasy. Then I ambled back towards Regent Street to explore Hamleys, its board games and its very slow lifts. And then, with just 20 minutes to go before the interview, my inadequate knowledge of central London completely let me down.
The interview was in Berkeley Square which I knew was a short walk to the west. I knew you got there down Bruton Street because I'd checked in an A-Z back in college, but I couldn't find a turning off Regent Street with that name however hard I looked. I began to panic slightly because time was ticking down. In desperation I cut through in generally the right direction, came up against all sorts of unhelpful blockages and ended up asking a shop assistant in the Royal Arcade for directions. Her route proved simple but indirect and sent me on a scenic tour of Mayfair, first walking very fast and then breaking into a fairly desperate jog. I arrived at reception with just 15 seconds to spare, but also red-faced and panting which is about the worst first impression you can give.
I didn't get much of a chance to survey my three fellow applicants because the interview process started annoyingly promptly. We were taken up in the lift to an office where big boss Tony shook my sweaty hand, then ran through some slides while I attempted to get my breath back. I don't want to say they'd already disqualified me by this point but it's highly likely. We were then led off to one of four different rooms for an interview with a team member, shuffling every half an hour until we'd been grilled by them all. I silently awarded myself marks out of ten for each one.
• Caroline was lively and cheerful, and I can still picture her white-walled studio with its central desk. She ran through my CV and I showed her a piece of work I'd brought with me, and when she smiled I thought I'd cracked it. She also asked an innocuous question about [Malt Extract] which I glossed over, whereas with the benefit of hindsight I see it was about women's rights and I missed that entirely. 9/10 (ludicrously optimistic)
• Terry seemed impressed by how much I knew about [Vinegar], for which I thank all the weekends spent reading that magazine. This also seemed the right moment to mention what I'd had for breakfast, which meant more brownie points. But when he got into the more fundamental questions I struggled a bit, and perhaps I should have read that careers booklet more than once. 7/10 (possibly fair)
• Tony was thankfully running late, because if I'd had the full half hour with the boss I might have performed even worse. He kicked off with some big philosophical questions about [Vinegar], then spent most of the rest of the time telling me his thoughts instead. I now realise this was probably because I didn't have anything substantial to contribute and he'd totally clocked that. 2/10 (brutally honest)
• Linda was my final interviewer and focused more on the specific role they had a vacancy for. "What do you think it involves?" she asked, and I think I gave a reasonable account. I also managed to ask a couple of good questions back before drying up, and so our half hour came to a premature end. Thank you and goodbye. 6/10 (give or take)
"Well I think I could cope, it's quite a nice place and the job's OK," I'd write in my diary later. I also hoped Tony had been a bastard to everyone, not just to me. But mostly I focused on the news that only seven people had been called to interview, which in a cutthroat industry must have meant I was in with a decent chance.
I bought an orange juice to sustain me on the six o'clock commuter train back to university, sat near the front and almost finished the crossword. I was seriously tired and thirsty by the time I returned to digs, also sweaty because it had been a warm day, also upbeat because I thought it had gone well. But after sleeping on it I was less sure, running over all the moments where it could have gone better and all the things I should have said, now merely hoping rather than expecting there might be good news.
They sent the rejection letter to my home address, not to my university pigeonhole, so Dad brought it over when he came to collect me at the end of term. I don't know who was more expectant, him or me. But once I'd got through the upbeat opening paragraph it was soon very clear I hadn't got the job, and with it my best chance of getting into [Vinegar].
At least they enclosed a separate envelope containing £3.80 in expenses so I wasn't totally out of pocket. Over the Easter holidays I struggled to find more companies to write to, lacking somewhat in enthusiasm and proving to be extremely poor at self-promotion. I did eventually apply for roles at other several other companies but I never got as far through the process, and it became increasingly clear [Vinegar] probably wasn't for me.
After a few months of soul-searching, procrastination and indecision I finally took a sideways leap into [Ketchup] instead, where it turned out the interview was a formality and that's how I found myself studying up north rather than working in London. I was definitely a better fit for [Ketchup] and managed to climb a pretty good career path, whereas with [Vinegar] I doubt I'd have survived to the end of my 20s.
It all turned out fine in the end, which isn't what I'd have guessed 40 years ago when I was offered a great big opportunity and put my foot in it. Some days in your life prove to be pivotal, and sometimes a ghastly failure is what you need to set your life on the right track.
An extraordinary advert appeared in the Metro yesterday.
Reform needs candidates for the council elections and they're inviting you to stand. Yes you. Get your name on the ballot paper, hope that people vote for you and you could be running a London council in two months time.
It's perhaps not a surprise. Reform weren't a significant presence at the last London council elections in 2022, winning just 0.2% of the vote and zero seats. They'd only rebranded from the Brexit Party the previous year, Nigel Farage had stepped away and zero momentum had built up. So with no existing base to build on a heck of a lot of candidates need to be found for 2026, and it seems they've not got their full complement yet.
Data check 2022 Number of wards contested: 32 out of 679 (5%) Number of wards where candidates got more than 100 votes: 16
Data check 2026 Number of wards to be contested: 679 Number of candidates needed: 1817 Number of councils up for grabs: 32
The traditional main parties have existing roots in all the boroughs, even the Greens, so have a firm base from which to select sufficient local candidates. They'll have been planning their shortlist for a while (would you do it Jess? Is it Ishtar's turn? the results of the ballot are Dan, Karima and Nat) so are unlikely to be caught out with a blank space on the ballot paper. But Reform aren't organised locally, it's a more top down thing, hence finding hundreds of ward-specific candidates is a proper challenge.
And not a new one. Richard Tice launched a national campaign six months ago to find local election candidates, at which point they needed 215 in Greater Manchester and 105 in Lancashire. I can't find a specific number for London but if they're now taking out adverts asking for candidates it must still be quite a few. And time is running out.
Local election timeline
• Publication of notice of election: Monday 30 March
• Deadline for submission of nomination papers: Thursday 9 April
• Publication of statement of persons nominated: Friday 10 April
• Polling day: Thursday 7 May
Specifically all the candidates have to be nominated by 9th April, which is 23 days away, i.e, Reform have just over three weeks to fill potentially hundreds of gaps. How badly wrong could that go?
There are loads of people out there who'd make excellent local councillors. Opinionated, conscientious, dedicated, fair and willing to step up to make life better for those who live around them. But there are also people out there who'd make appalling local councillors, not because you disagree with their policies but because their character is fundamentally flawed. They might be lazy, untrustworthy, clueless, toxic, fraudulent, even criminal... and a three week vetting process is never going to be able to weed out all the worst candidates.
Reform do have form in appointing people whose past behaviour catches up with them or who've said things not even their leader can condone. Two of their five MPs elected in 2024 had to be suspended from the party the following year, and several county councillors successful in 2025 have already fallen on their swords. The party's often been willing to champion the unorthodox, but this it seems can come with a greater than normal risk of impropriety. What are the chances of rooting out all the bad apples in three weeks flat, especially when that's based on a self-selecting online process?
And this matters because Reform are going to storm to victory in multiple electoral wards, all the polls suggest it. Even though London overall is one of the least Reform-oriented parts of the country there are still lots of places, especially in outer London, where whoever wears the turquoise rosette is nigh guaranteed a win.
Wards that alreadyhave a Reform councillor Barnet: Hendon Bromley: Bickley & Sundridge, Bromley Common & Holwood†, Farnborough & Crofton Havering: Rush Green & Crowlands, Squirrels Heath (2) Waltham Forest: Hatch Lane & Highams Park North (3) Westminster: Abbey Road, Lancaster Gate
† by-election (the rest were defections)
Constituencies where Reform came2nd in the 2024 parliamentary elections
• Barking
• Dagenham & Rainham
• Erith & Thamesmead
I'd expect Bexley, Havering and Barking & Dagenham to have the greatest chance of electing a lot of Reform councillors, even potentially falling to turquoise control. They were also the only boroughs with a Leave vote above 60% in the 2016 referendum, so they have past form. Elsewhere it's the Greens who might hoover up votes from those disillusioned by recent governments, but the further you head into ULEZ fury territory the more likely it is the protest vote goes to Reform. Which means a lot of people who currently have zero experience of the nitty gritty of local politics could find themselves in charge of bins and parking in two months time.
It's not clear whether this Centre of Excellence is a collegiate gathering, an online course, a helpline number or an AI bot offering advice. But Reform are more than willing to train new councillors at breakneck speed, also while they're on the job, because their candidates have insufficient experience in place up front. And yes, thousands of elected officials are thrown in at the deep end every time there's any kind of election anywhere, but normally there are old hands amongst their colleagues plus specific local support to back them up. Nothing about Reform's Centre of Excellence suggests a local approach based on local issues.
As an indication of how successful Reform are about to be, check the slogan at the foot of the advert... REFORM WILL FIX IT.
That's a cracking slogan, genius in its confident ambiguity. It's never specified what IT is, but a dissatisfied voter will supply the issue of their choice and see what they want to see. Potholes fixed? Excellent. Parking restrictions fixed? About time. Wokery fixed? Perfect. People who don't look like you fixed? Good riddance. It appeals in particular to the voter who simply wants 'anything but this', i.e. an immediate switch of direction, which is generally how most changes of government are instigated.
I considered applying to become a Reform candidate myself and started working my way through the online process. Alas it seems you have to be a party member, and even when I pretended I was the application then stalled when it refused to accept my telephone number. But you might have more luck, and if successful may discover there are hundreds of voters in your ward willing to vote for an inexperienced unknown with questionable opinions simply because they're not the incumbent. If you don't apply, some really dubious people are likely to get voted in instead, and all because Reform failed to plan sufficiently in advance.
Shrewsbury is a historic market town in Shropshire, about 10 miles short of the Welsh border. It's on the upper River Severn and was founded on high ground inside a pronounced meander. It retains a medieval street pattern and a lot of Tudor buildings, the Luftwaffe and civil engineers having left it mostly alone. It's much bigger than every local town bar Telford so a significant retail centre. It has centuries of history, a very famous son and a Wikipedia page that tops 12,000 words. And it's absolutely lovely, as I suspected when I passed through in 2010 and have now been back to confirm. Add it to your must-go list. [Visit Shrewsbury][40 photos]
12 things to see in Shrewsbury
1) Shrewsbury station
This is first not because it's the finest spot in town but because you'll likely arrive here. The station occupies a commanding position on the neck of Shrewsbury's Severn meander so was built in imitation Tudor style to blend in with adjacent buildings. It once had an eighth platform used for transferring prisoners to Shrewsbury Prison nextdoor (this now a visitor attraction but I didn't have the necessary 90 minutes to spare). The longest platforms span the river and if you walk to the far end you get a great view of Severn Bridge Junction and the world's largest operational mechanical signal box. Tim Dunn's favourite three storey wonder has been controlling the local semaphore signals since 1902, and is scheduled to continue past 2050 because replacing everything with electronic systems would be too complex and too expensive.
2) Shrewsbury Castle
William the Conqueror grabbed the highest point by the river for his Welsh-facing castle which was rebuilt in the 12th century in the local sandstone. It looks much younger, at least when viewed from the flatter inward side. Wandering around the gardens is free, a chance to enjoy some intricate flowerbeds and wonder why one contains an eagle taken from an imperial German barracks. These days the castle's interior is occupied by the Soldiers of Shropshire Museum (£8), and this might be right up your street but I can't think of anything duller. Instead the thing to do is climb the curving steps at the back of the garden to the foot of Laura's Tower from which there are the most marvellous views across the river, the railway and the Wrekin. Do not miss this one, it puts the whole town in perspective.
3) Charles Darwin Trail
Shrewsbury is inordinately proud of the naturalist and evolutionary pioneer Charles Darwin who was born here in 1809. The family home still stands, a large villa in Frankwell called The Mount where a comfy start was granted to the son of a doctor. It's possible to download a 12-stop trail which ends there and kicks off at his statue outside the town's library (which looks every inch like an Oxbridge college). But all you really need do is wander the town and you'll find something that honours him, for example the Darwin Shopping Centre with its illustrated porch or the intriguingly-ribbed concrete arch called Quantum Leap which was added on the riverside for his bicentenary. Meanwhile in the heart of the town are three axe-shaped sculptures called Darwin's Gate, which if you stand downhill in the right spot coalesce to form a Saxon helmet and/or a stained glass window.
4) St Mary's
Darwin worshipped at St Mary's, largest of the town's many churches and whose spire is said to be one of the tallest in England. Alas there are so many old churches that this one's been deconsecrated, but in good news it's been taken over by the Churches Conservation Trust and is freely accessible six days a week. The interior sparkle is brought by one of the country's finest collections of stained glass, much of it imported from continental Europe but the best of all originating in a local friary. The 8m-high Jesse Window depicts the lineage of Jesus, each vibrant slot representing either an ancestor or one of 21 prophets looking on, all dazzling down in a medieval grid of golds, reds and blues. Don't worry, there's a key underneath to help you distinguish Solomon from Samuel and Zephaniah from Jehoshaphat.
5) Shrewsbury's streets
A ridiculously high number of Tudor buildings remain in central Shrewsbury, so you can buy a Costa coffee inside a top-heavy black and white Elizabethan inn or burritos from behind a glorious monochrome shopfront. You get quite blasé about it eventually as you follow yet another alleyway or set of medieval steps and stumble into yet another corner of the 1500s, all densely packed. My favourite sequence runs down the steepish hill of Wyle Cop, topped off by the actual pub where Henry Tudor is said to have stayed the night before the Battle of Bosworth Field. A particularly chunky merchant's house owned by William Rowley survived slum clearance in the 1930s and ought to be impressive but is now unceremoniously surrounded by car parks. A lot of Shrewsbury's streets have one word names assigned in medieval times, the weirdest of which are Mardol, Shoplatch, Bellstone and Dogpole. Yes there is still a Grope Lane, and I'm uncomfortable that it led to Fish Street.
6) Shrewsbury Market Hall
The Old Market Hall sits atop a pillared undercroft in the centre of The Square and would have been the trading focus for miles and miles around. The redeveloped interior may now be England's only Tudor cinema (today screening Hamnet and Mother's Pride). A new Market Hall opened nearby in 1965 with a startling modern design featuring a tall brick clocktower and a (now-peeling) ribbed exterior. Inside is a large central atrium packed with green-and-white topped stalls surrounded by a balcony plied by quirkier traders, none too tacky and none too pretentious, which'll be how this market regularly wins awards as Britain's best. What lets it down slightly is being on the first floor accessed only by stairwells and a lift, also don't bother climbing right to the top because the intended roof garden never materialised.
7) Shrewsbury Museum (not pictured)
The town's museum and art gallery (SMAG) lurks at the back of The Square inside a former Victorian Music Hall. If you dodge the cafe you should find the entrance to the Roman gallery, there being much to display from in and around the former town of Wroxeter. Then it's upstairs for a much longer historical circuit, as befits an ancient settlement with a lengthy tale to tell. Yes kings dropped in, yes the Civil War intruded, and with Ironbridge just down the road there's much to explain plus a lot of Coalport china on display. Entrance is free, supported by donations and an optimistic gift shop. And if that fold of red cloth in a perspex box really is half the blood-stained cloak Charles I wore to his execution, that is quite a trophy.
8) St Chad's
This extraordinary neoclassical church with three tiered-steeple was built in the 1790s after the original medieval church collapsed. It's thus a refreshing Georgian contrast to all the Tudor buildings elsewhere, not least the fact that the main body of the church is entirely circular. On stepping inside it feels like something Sir Christopher Wren might have delivered in the City of London, whereas the architect here was a less well-known Scot called George Steuart. With its balcony seating and fine acoustics St Chad's is popular for concerts, including short bursts every Friday lunchtime. Charles Darwin was baptised here soon after the church was built but not in the current fossil-flecked font, he was dunked in a silver bowl that's now under lock and key.
9) The Quarry and the Dingle
Just below St Chad's, as a 300-year old solution to the Severn sometimes flooding, is a large green horseshoe that forms Shrewsbury's premier recreational space. It's called The Quarry because part of it once was, a central dip now known as the Dingle. This contains a small lake and a gorgeous sunken garden which was designed by none other than Blue Peter and Gardeners World stalwart Percy Thrower. He was Parks Superintendent for Shrewsbury from 1946 to 1974 which entitled him to live in Quarry Lodge by the park gates, and is celebrated with a surprisingly realistic bust amid the Dingle's shrubbery. The display of bulbs and spring flowers should still make him proud. Elsewhere the park is mostly grass for lounging and kickabouts, but with a separate small rose garden and a long riverside promenade shaded by lime trees.
10) River Severn
You're never far from the Severn in central Shrewsbury, given it wraps round on almost all sides. Only two main road bridges cross the river, that heading east called the English Bridge and that heading west the Welsh Bridge. Driving between them is not straightforward. A third private bridge heads south, and last year not only did they increase the toll from 20p to 30p but the barriers also went cashless so you can no longer throw your coins in. Three footbridges complete the complement of crossings, the eldest a century-old suspension bridge and the youngest a recent connection to a large west bank car park. The river looked placid on my visit but overtops regularly in wet winters, though hopefully less so since flood defences were built following the town's notorious 2000 inundation.
11) Shrewsbury Abbey
A Benedictine monastery was founded outside the town in 1083, located just beyond where the English Bridge now lands. After Henry VIII's dissolution tantrum only the nave survived, repurposed as a parish church, and quite a lot of the former foundations were lost when Thomas Telford drove his Holyhead Road through the abbey grounds. These days you're welcome to drop in daily to admire the lofty stonework, to spot the tomb of a Norman knight who was on the winning side at Hastings and to try to work out precisely which monument on the north wall houses the relics of Saint Winefride. The Abbey is also one of dozens of places where you can pick up a free town map, annually updated, also a free town guide, because Shrewsbury knows it's touristworthy and is keen to promote itself.
12) Shrewsbury's shops
You may be wondering where the 'proper' shops are in this throwback labyrinth, and the answer is that Shrewsbury confines modern development mostly to a northern quarter once occupied by car parks, garages and an abattoir. A substantial shopping centre weaves back off the main street, somehow stacked across three levels on the flank of an embankment with access to the bus station one floor below. Here are the obligatory H&M, M&S and JD Sports, their potential catchments spreading deep into mid-Wales. But you don't want to come here for the shops, you want to come for the buildings, the heritage, the riverside aspect and the opportunity to revel in the kind of English town you may have thought no longer exists. As one resident once said, it's all about the survival of the fittest.
This is the banner outside Bow Baptist Church, a modern space stacked underneath a block of flats by the Bow Flyover. It's the fifth church on the site, rather smaller than the third incarnation which could seat 1000 Victorian worshippers, but still bigger than the original 1785 shack. I blogged about it when I went inside for Open House so that's not what drew my eye this time, which was SUNDAYS 10:30AM.
...and I wondered, what's the most common time for a Sunday morning service and why?
The Sunday service at Bow Baptist Church has been at 10.30am for at least the last 20 years. It's a good time for a service, not too early for worshippers to wake up for and all wound up by lunchtime. But is it the best time, or indeed the most common time, or do other churches tend to start their Sunday mornings earlier or later?
I went for a wander round Bow and had a look.
• St Mary's, the medieval parish church in the middle of Bow Road, also chooses 10.30am.
• Bow Methodist Church, the other side of the tube station, instead goes for 11.00am.
• Bromley by Bow Church in Community, who are United Reformed, also start at 11.00am.
• Our Lady & St Catherine of Siena, our Roman Catholic church, muddy the waters somewhat by having masses at 9.30am and 11.30am. The first one's 'Sung' and the second's 'Family' so targeted at two different congregations. If you're trying to fit in two services 10.30am is clearly suboptimal, but most churches just go the once.
For further data I scouted round all the other churches I could find in the E3 postcode district.
I have to disqualify the Hope + Anchor Community Church because they meet in the afternoon, this because they worship in a creative hub in Hackney Wick who don't tend to unlock before noon.
To summarise for E3: 9.30am: Our Lady & St Catherine of Siena (Sung) [1] 10:00am: St Paul's Bow Common [1] 10:30am: St Mary's ('Bow Church'), Bow Baptist Church, All Hallows Bow, St Barnabas Bethnal Green, St Paul Old Ford, East London Tabernacle, Tower Hamlets Community Church, Victoria Park Baptist Church [8] 11:00am: Bow Methodist Church, Bromley by Bow Church in Community [2] 11:30am: Our Lady & St Catherine of Siena (Family) [1]
10.30am is definitely the most popular time round here, outnumbering all the other service times put together.
I also checked for the village where I grew up, which would be Croxley Green in Hertfordshire.
That's a lot more varied. When I was a child I thought 9.45am was normal, not especially early, and it meant the All Saints' service was generally done and dusted by 11am so Mum could get home and put the roast potatoes in. I realise I've been conditioned to see 10.30am as late, whereas for many churches it's spot on.
Finally, for some variety, I've looked up some churches round Telford in Shropshire.
This is a considerably wider spread with no obvious peaks. 9.15am is the earliest time yet, but that's because the vicar at Christ Church also has to oversee at Hadley at 11am.
It's a very unscientific survey but if you combine all that data you get this graph.
Yes 10.30am appears to be the most common time for a Sunday morning church service. No need to wake up before 9, all finished by noon and the afternoon's your own.
Of course these days barely 5% of Britons go to church on Sundays, so are far more likely to be interested in what time the big supermarket opens.
But that's an entirely different survey.
Doesn't the incorrect Tesco sign demonstrate a good case for always using the 24 hour clock, particularly when midday or midnight is featured?
Richard | 15.03.26 - 7:11 a.m.
This is the Creme Egg part of the post, unlocked by a reader leaving precisely the tangential comment I expected. And it only took 11 minutes! I sometimes predict what someone's sure to say, sealing it in an imaginary red envelope and waiting. When it appears I add an envelope symbol ✉ to the comment and treat myself to a Creme Egg, this because someone's gone and been really obvious. I should say that anyone who writes a comment starting "This is probably the Creme Egg comment..." is instantly disqualified so please don't do that.
Anyway I thought someone would get excited by my local Tesco claiming to open at 12am on Sundays, because they obviously meant noon but have been wholly ambiguous, plus surely noon and midnight can't be either am or pm at all.
So to shut down the debate I've checked with the ultimate arbiters, the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, and here's what they say.
If you work for my local Tesco please sort your signs out. And I am very much enjoying my Creme Egg thankyou. Now, back to church service times please...
The least used station in... West Midlands BORDESLEY (Annual passenger usage: 29062)
It's time once again to visit a ceremonial county's least used station.
I went to Greater Manchester's last year and before that Gloucestershire, Kent, Norfolk, Bucks, Surrey, Beds, Essex, Greater London, Herts and Berks. This one's properly odd, also oppressive, also rarely served, also sometimes extremely busy, also mostly locked, also at the heart of a built-up area, also a bit scary, and also doomed because it's scheduled for closure. So I got there just in time.
Bordesley is an inner Birmingham neighbourhood just over a mile east of the city centre. It's marginally inside Birmingham's mega inner ring road, the Middleway, and a tad further out than Digbeth. It was once filled with furniture factories, wharves and criminal gangs, being the very place where Peaky Blinders was notionally set. It's now run-down, semi-industrial and a focus for regeneration. It gained a station in 1855, later resited but still the last stop before Birmingham Moor Street. The issue is that hardly any trains stop here, indeed since 2007 the timetable has included just one train a week northbound only. That parliamentary train is currently the 14.08 to Kidderminster on a Saturday afternoon, after which the gate is locked again and the island platform goes back into enforced hibernation.
But Bordesley is also the closest station to St Andrew's, home to Championship side Birmingham City, and when they have a home match it's opened briefly to assist with fans' travel. Were it not for this double life Bordesley's annual passenger numbers would be pitiful, probably in the low hundreds, but instead it attracts 29,000 a year because all those home matches add up. So when I had an hour to waste in Birmingham on Wednesday evening the first thing I did was check the football fixtures, then smiled because Birmingham were playing QPR at home, then looked to see what the special timetable was. Several trains were making additional stops, ten northbound between 6pm and kick-off and five southbound between the final whistle and 11pm. And one of those looked doable so I bought a single ticket, walked quite fast to Bordesley and hoped to catch a rare train back. It was a ridiculously unlikely window of opportunity but it worked.
The station entrance is underneath a very broad railway viaduct, this the main route into Moor Street from Marylebone and Solihull. It was also very gloomy and I suspect it always is, not just because I'd turned up at dusk. This is not a station that shouts about its existence, this advertised only by a single West Midlands Railway sign on the wall and a few grubby poster frames. Alongside is a locked gate to some manky Victorian urinals (which Geoff managed to explore when he dropped by), also a bus stop somewhat optimistically named Bordesley Rail Station because making an interchange is nigh impossible. Five years ago there was a timetable poster (singularly titled 'Departure from Bordesley') but that's since been covered over by a list of engineering works. And last month the DfT added an additional official notice entitled PROPOSAL BY OPERATOR TO CLOSE BORDESLEY STATION, the proposed date of "on or after 4 June 2029" tucked away in the smallprint.
With the gate unlocked for football purposes it was possible to wander in and stand at the foot of a broad twisty stairwell. There's no ticket office here, not even a broom cupboard, just a list of platforms and a warning to fold pushchairs on the stairs. I was quite relieved the lights were on because it would have been seriously oppressive otherwise. But I'd only got halfway up the stairs, hovering for another photo and thinking blimey this is quiet, when there was a sudden commotion from above. A train had just arrived and hordes of Birmingham supporters in blue kits and scarves were storming downwards, clearly surprised to find a human obstruction in their way. I pushed on past at least 100 fans taking advantage of Bordesley's rare opening, meeting the stragglers on the platform, and as the doors closed on the Worcester train mused on the fact that even least used stations can have a rush hour.
And then I had Bordesley to myself. The stairs emerge at one end of a long wide island platform, adrift between the rails on a high brick viaduct. Ahead is a sign saying 'Smartcard reader' but underneath simply a post where one used to be attached. Behind that is a squat white waiting shelter with slot windows and no seats, so attractive to huddle in only if the weather's poor. As a nod to the 21st century the outer wall boasts a modern touchscreen help point on which the next trains are listed, normally zero or one but in this case seven thanks to QPR. And beyond that is nothing but an intermittent chain of lamps that stops well before the far end, where a lone signal gantry hangs expectantly over the northbound track. As befits a least used station it's a whole lot of empty nothing.
It is however an excellent viewing platform from which to view Birmingham's inner suburbs, or would have been if I'd arrived before twilight. To the east a lowrise skyline with the occasional silhouetted church. To the north a few large sheds and maybe some floodlights. To the west not as many high towers as you'd think Britain's second city would have. Up the line a modern bridge over a dual carriageway and a few canalside warehouses. And immediately alongside the station several soaring liftshafts, the spines of a brand new housing development of 550 build-to-rent flats called Smith'sGarden. One's so tall it's easily spotted from the city centre, but it's been that height for ages because the construction firm Elements Europe went into administration last summer and the entire project's stalled. Serves them right for boasting of "excellent connectivity" whilst overlooking a station with one train a week.
It may even have no trains a week by the time the first flat's occupied. The DfT very rarely go to the effort of properly closing a station, but in this case Bordesley's fate has been sealed by multiple factors. Most importantly it's in the way of a necessary transport project, the Bordesley Chords, which are needed to connect this viaduct to the Camp Hill line below. This freight line is reopening to passenger traffic next month with three new stations (Moseley Village, Kings Heath and the delightfully-named Pineapple Road). But trains will have to come the long way from New Street whereas with the extra chord's connections they could come direct from Moor Street, as could several other services unlocking a serious central bottleneck. Sacrifice one lightly-used station to create a junction and many more passengers could benefit.
It's also the case that Birmingham City intend to move into a superduper new stadium at the start of the 2030/31 season. It'd be near where they play now but crucially closer to Adderley Park station, a regular stop with regular trains, so the whole point of retaining Bordesley for football traffic would be lost. In addition there are plans to extend the West Midlands Metro to the new Sports Quarter, very likely with a stop near the current Bordesley station although they only got the funds to start planning it last month so it's too early to be sure. At present the tram tracks stop 500m away in Digbeth and aren't yet connected to the main network because HS2 needs to finish some intermediate works first, but one day, maybe, hopefully.
My isolation was shattered when, right on time, a train from Stratford-upon-Avon slid into platform 2 and another blue-clad throng emerged. I counted at least 100 which I thought was impressive, but only served to emphasise how unsuitable the stairs are for a sudden rush of footfall. They'd all be back later heading south whereas I was almost certainly the only northbound passenger of the day, dropped off just two minutes later at Birmingham Moor Street. Poor Bordesley - one of just a handful of inner Birmingham neighbourhoods to be blessed with its own station but cursed by an appalling service and now facing the axe. But there's no reason why this godforsaken station shouldn't close in 2029 because a tram could do the job infinitely better, and the sacrifice of one is for the good of the many.
I had 40 minutes between trains at New Street on Wednesday morning so went to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. It's a fairly short walk away in Chamberlain Square. I seriously whizzed round.
The building closed for a humungous refit in March 2020, taking advantage of grant money and the pandemic. It mostly reopened in October 2024 although most of the ground floor is still out of bounds. There is currently a paid-for exhibition downstairs in the Gas Hall, although the lady on the front desk wasn't busy and assumed I wasn't going in before she told me it was £9.
It's all quite steppy to get in at the moment, arriving in The Round Room to face a diverse display called One Fresh Take. I spotted a Bridget Riley, some Victorian penguins, an Epstein winged bronze and Cold War Steve's excellent Benny's Babbies in which the Crossroads handyman peers out from behind the Bullring. The overbridge crossing Edmund Street is in all-black mode, lined by an over-running all-black Ozzy Osbourne retrospective brightened with gold discs and GQ awards, which continues to bring in crowds who wouldn't normally be seen in a gallery. Good start.
Wild City is new with perhaps too much 'ooh look a pigeon', but I'm neither a child nor a family so very much not target audience. The Art Gallery rooms are much better with the city's renowned collection of Pre-Raphaelites and much graceful brushwork displayed in well-spaced gold frames. If gold's your thing then walk right to the back to see the Staffordshire Hoard, a record-breakingly large stash hoard of Anglo-Saxon metalwork uncovered in a field near Lichfield in 2009. It dazzled, but I did not have time to be talked to at length by its curators.
Aha there's an upstairs, this being Birmingham: Its people, Its history. Most city museums have something similar, a run-through civic history from prehistoric times to the modern day, just not always on this scale. But being Birmingham it only really takes off in the 18th century with the Midlands Enlightenment, then majors on all kinds of tradesmanship, expanding suburbs and the obligatory WW2 bit. I found the Elephant Room on the way out with its motley ethnography but decided to skip the gift shop, which is annoying because on the other side of that was the Industrial Gallery with its giant HP Sauce sign and I totally missed all that. Definitely something to return to. And I'll tell you tomorrow what I did with my 60 minutes between trains at New Street on Wednesday evening.
I haven't whinged about unsolicited PR emails for a while, which may be why chancers have started sending them again. These needy requests are generally sent by hopeful marketeers with a press release to regurgitate or sponsored content they want amplified. We don't do that here, thanks.
Here then is a roundup of some of the bumf that's arrived in my inbox over the last year, with all the brand names they were desperate for me to mention cruelly blanked out.
Imogen had a freebie to offer.
I hope you're well.
My name is Imogen and I work for PR and communications firm <next-gen creative + comms agency> - we look after the sleep-tech firm <sleep-tech firm>. We would love to collaborate with you on your site diamondgeezer.blogspot.com and send you an Hybrid Pillow or Hybrid Duvet for you or one of your writers to enjoy and review or as a giveaway for your audience.
Alas none of my writers were interested, also I didn't fancy schlepping down the Post Office with a duvet.
Joe runs a London museum and was very kind.
One of our volunteers reads your blog and told me we’d had a mention - thank you! We’re about to open a new <kitten-related> exhibition and she suggested we extend you and invite to the gala event, please see below.
Sadly I don't attend exhibition openings, so I apologise to the readers who would have loved being my plus-one at this event.
Toby was just starting out.
Hey!
I’ll cut to the chase. I'm a recent marketing graduate and freelance writer living in London. I’m currently looking for unpaid opportunities to build up my portfolio, and I thought a perfect place to start would be penning my thoughts about this fantastic city!
My reply was hopefully informative.
If I ever posted an article called 'Breaking Down London's Best Suburbs For Digital Nomads' my readers would assume I'd either gone mad or was spoofing them. All the best with your new career.
Wilmer got in touch.
Hello,
Happy Saturday! My name is Wilmer and I'm a writer who loves to travel. I recently came across jack of diamonds while looking for some new inspiration for an upcoming trip and I loved a lot of the articles I saw, especially the ones related to traveling without a lot of money.
If you can't even get the name of the blog right, Wilmer, no way am I granting you a guest post.
Ollie wanted to set up an interview.
Good morning, Hope you are well!
We’re inviting selected media to the Ideal Home Show at Olympia for an in-person interview opportunity with interior designer <Appeared On Interior Design Masters But Got Knocked Out In The Early Rounds>. A former VOGUE and Fashion Week model turned designer, <AOIDMBGKOITER> is partnering with < Lift Installer> to challenge the idea that accessible homes can also be beautifully designed, a conversation that’s gaining real momentum as more homeowners look to future-proof their properties.
I congratulated Ollie on a impressively mistargeted invitation.
Other email titles I immediately knew weren't for me have included...
» Invitation to UK's Biggest New Dinosaur Event
» Heads-up: Mural unveiling
» Guest Post Enquiry - PLEASE READ AND REPLY
» < catering company> brings its innovative food, drink and service expertise to < London hotel>
» Lets Make Some Travel Plans 😍
Igor hoped he could write something for the blog.
Hi there,
I’m exploring long-term content collaborations with quality sites. I focus on well-researched topics and would love to contribute a post that fits your readership.
I suggested Igor might like to write something about numberplate distributions, Merseyside statues or tube station passenger data, and he went very quiet after that.
Nakibul wanted to make video content for the blog. It wasn't his submission that floored me, it was the follow-up.
Hellow! Did you read my previous email? I didn't hear back from you or anyone on your team. If it makes sense to talk further, let me know how your calendar loo
Other unnecessary nudges have included...
» I'm reaching out again to check if you were able to review my previous email.
» Hey, Just bump this to the top of your inbox in case you missed it.
» Just wanted to follow up real quick in case my last message got buried (totally happens).
» I'm about to archive this thread as I haven't heard back from you.
Emma wins the prize for smuggest PR schmooze.
Hey Editor,
I’m Emma, Head of Content at <luxury furniture showroom>. Don’t worry, I’m not here to pitch scatter cushions.
Over the years, I’ve written for some rather exceptional design houses – names you’d likely recognise. So when it comes to interiors, I know my travertine from my terrazzo. I think your readers might enjoy something thoughtful from the heart of London’s design scene, and I’d love to contribute a guest post. No fluff, no filler – just well-written content your audience will actually read.
I advised Emma that my audience would not read it, indeed they'd more likely roast her alive. She did not reply.
Finally Steve had bashed some data about the 'Top UK Hotspots for Taxi-Riding Dogs'.
Hello, sorry to bother you!
I wasn't sure how best to send you this, so copied the press release to below here... hope that's okay?
I had no interest in contrived statistics from <cab comparison website> so replied thus.
The best way to have sent it to me was not to have bothered.
I don't reproduce press releases. I do sometimes rip the piss out of them anonymously though.
And so I have.
So if anyone else with a promotional background is thinking of emailing me to beg a mention, I won't so please don't. Fun though it is to mock and laugh at, I much prefer an inbox uncontaminated by the plaintive sound of desperation.
It's exactly a year since the major roadworks at the Bow roundabout were completed. It took five months to remodel the interchange ready for the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel and I wrote 20 blogposts detailing the machinations as the project progressed. So it's incredible to report that THE PROJECT STILL ISN'T FINISHED and ONE KEY PART HAS YET TO OPEN TO TRAFFIC. A heck of a lot of the effort expended has thus far been ENTIRELY WASTED, also a heck of a lot of money, with no sign of completion any time soon.
» They reshaped the roundabout and added a third lane on the Bow side. That part works fine.
» The widened the approach from Stratford High Street by increasing it from two lanes to three. That part works fine too.
» But they also altered the contraflow lane by diverting it under the flyover, and THAT HAS NEVER RE-OPENED.
Ever since the Bow Flyover was built a contraflow lane has existed along the edge of the flyover. This allowed traffic from Marshgate Lane, Cooks Road and the Abba Arena to reach the roundabout direct. It'd be a long detour up the dual carriageway without it, indeed is a long detour because it's been closed for the last eighteen months. But it made the roundabout more complicated than it needed to be and its existence was also counter-intuitive for pedestrians crossing the road, thus potentially dangerous.
To simplify the roundabout they decided to reroute the contraflow underneath the flyover to join with the main body of traffic approaching from Stratford, a cunning tweak which required introducing an extra set of traffic lights. But the contraflow lane has never reopened, the additional traffic lights are entirely superfluous and as things stand at least two months of roadworks need never have happened.
Here's the as-yet unused contraflow wiggle.
It starts at a Road Closed sign, watched over by a piddly CCTV camera on a stalk.
It bears off underneath the flyover towards the extra set of lights.
But it doesn't enter the main body of traffic because it's permanently barriered off, indeed it's barriered off at both ends.
An additional pedestrian crossing was added under the flyover so that people could cross the contraflow lane safely. But pushing the button has no effect because the green man is permanently lit because the traffic light is always red because there's no danger from passing vehicles because there have never been any. I keep thinking one day they'll remove the barriers and allow traffic through the contraflow section but they never have, not since all the workmen packed their vans and drove back to the depot 52 weeks ago. What the heck is going on?
Someone has tried to find out what's going on by submitting an FoI request, but unfortunately it got rebuffed. They asked.
It's the slip road from Marshgate Lane, you muppet, not Marshgate Lane itself. Construction of the slip road was very much a TfL project, thus somebody at TfL knows why it's never opened, but they never got the chance to explain because a minion quashed the FoI. It's either local ignorance or a predisposed attitude not to tell the public things if a get-out clause can be contrived.
The underlying issue is actually the height of the flyover and the risk of tall vehicles damaging it. The centre of the flyover is perfectly high enough for the roundabout to have functioned safely for almost 60 years. But the contraflow ducks underneath further along where there's less headroom, thus one rogue lorry could cause considerable damage.
As part of the roadworks last year three warning signs were added, each indicating a height limit of 3.9m/12'9". Two appear at the roadside and another is stuck to the underside of the flyover. But a truck driver could easily fail to spot the first two until it was too late, having nowhere else to go, and the really high sign is of no practical use because it's perpendicular to a driver's line of sight as they approach. These signs clearly aren't a foolproof deterrent.
As for when this might be fixed, TfL have already missed their own deadline. Scroll to the very bottom of their Silvertown Tunnel webpage and they've written this...
It seems TfL aren't willing to risk any damage to crucial concrete infrastructure so are keeping the contraflow closed until they come up with a more robust solution than three piddly signs. But there's no indication of what that solution might be, if indeed they know themselves, hence we're now three months beyond the date they said all this would be fixed.
The FoI request also queried why "the lanes exiting towards Stratford suddenly converge into one lane from the roundabout". Indeed they do and this wasn't supposed to be the case. By detaching the contraflow from the roundabout TfL's intention was to provide two exit lanes onto Stratford High Street instead of one. Traffic would still have to merge into one lane shortly afterwards, just beyond the pedestrian crossing, but since last year a string of cones has blocked off the second lane 50m early. This forces vehicles to merge prematurely, and if the pedestrian crossing's in use a queue can quickly build back onto the roundabout with disruptive consequences.
Ridiculously there are still roadworks signs on the roundabout, this despite there being zero roadworks, simply to alert drivers to the cones. But it's hard to see why those cones need to be in place, specifically why it's been deemed necessary to keep Stratford-bound drivers away from the entrance to the contraflow, given the road markings painted last year indicate that vehicles were intended to merge here instead. All I can imagine is that the paltry tarmac triangle alongside the merging point has been deemed insufficient to deter traffic from entering the contraflow lane which could cause a nasty head-on crash, so cones have been deployed to force an earlier merge.
Whatever the reason one thing's clear - insufficient planning was done before the Bow Roundabout roadworks were undertaken. Road markings were painted for a lane merge nobody's now willing to condone. And more importantly a contraflow lane was diverted beneath the flyover without thinking through all the potential 'low bridge' consequences, and thus has never opened.
So here we are A YEAR AFTER THE PROJECT WAS COMPLETED and a substantial part of the modification HAS NEVER BEEN USED. For this they buggered up traffic at the Bow Roundabout for five months, and as things stand a lot of that trouble was unnecessary and a wodge of investment has been wasted. Are they still working on making good or have they simply forgotten and moved on? Twelve months on I think we should be told.
This is the Creme Egg part of the post, unlocked by a reader leaving precisely the tangential comment I expected. And it only took 11 minutes! I sometimes predict what someone's sure to say, sealing it in an imaginary red envelope and waiting. When it appears I add an envelope symbol ✉ to the comment and treat myself to a Creme Egg, this because someone's gone and been really obvious. I should say that anyone who writes a comment starting "This is probably the Creme Egg comment..." is instantly disqualified so please don't do that.
