This is Canary Wharf, sorry Kaneary Wharf, the latest in a long line of rebranded tube stations.
The name change was only supposed to be up for a few days but then England performed better than expected so it lingered until Sunday. As a reference to England captain Harry Kane it's a bit contrived, but no station name provided the same open goal that (Gareth) Southgate offered in 2018.
It's a lacklustre takeover, solely affecting the two enormous roundels in the middle of the platform, also two scruffy vinyls in the upper concourse designed to be seen by those coming down the escalators. "Minimal effort maximum exposure" is the general mantra these days, all the better to avoid people moaning about inaccessible navigation.
Another London station got a World Cup-related makeover last week and that's Bellingham, renamed by Thameslink as Jude Bellingham. But that was just a bit of fun whereas Kaneary Wharf is a sponsored takeover, not a patriotic cheer. The footwear company endorsed by Harry Kane has paid TfL a chunky fee to slap a pair of football boots on the roundels in an attempt to get additional publicity, and paid several hundred thousand pounds for the privilege.
I thought I'd dig back into the history of sponsored tube stations to see how we got from "I don’t think it’s right to sell off Tube stations" to "This activation is a great example of how TfL can work with brands". [a lot of the backstory is clickable]
It's often said that Arsenal football club were the first company to shoehorn their name onto the tube map. In 1932 legendary manager Herbert Chapman decided it would be excellent publicity for his club if Gillespie Road station were renamed, his timing perfect as the Piccadilly line was just being extended into the suburbs. Months of lobbying were eventually successful, the name initially being tweaked to Arsenal (Highbury Hill) and then in the 1960s to pure Arsenal. But Chapman never paid a penny for the change, agreeing instead to an option whereby old stocks of tickets would continue to be used until they ran out, hence I don't think we can truly call Arsenal a sponsored station.
Let's start instead in February 2006 when the internet was suddenly agog at the concept of The Sponsored Tube Map. This was compiled by blog reader Paul (Hi Paul!) and replaced the name of every tube station with a sponsored alternative. Top class puns included Seven-up Sisters, Harpiccadilly circus, Sarson's Green, Aldigate, Perriervale, NatWestminster, iPoddington and Heinz Park Corner. How the blogosphere laughed. Paul had actually been inspired bya post I wrote a month earlier but I'd hate you to think any of this is my fault. Alas once the map went viral TfL got terribly litigigious and it had to be taken down.
On the July 2007 tube map the name of North Greenwich station changed to "North Greenwich for the O2". This wasn't direct sponsorship but acknowledged that O2 had bought the naming rights to the Millennium Dome, and remained on the tube map until May 2013.
In 2011 Australian wine company Oxford Landing gave it a go. They spent months negotiating with TfL to replace every sign at Oxford Circus to say Oxford Landing instead, also to flood the station with adverts. They say TfL were interested but insisted on a ten-year term with an eight-figure pricetag, citing roundel-related copyright reasons. TfL have confirmed that informal talks took place but denied the wine maker would have been allowed to re-brand everything, this because revenue-raising "does not extend to selling the names of our stations."
TfL signed their first name-related deal in2012, not for a station but for an entirely new mode of transport. Emirates sponsored the Dangleway to the tune of £36m including a chance to name not just the service but also the terminals at each end. Emirates North Greenwich and Emirates Royal Docks were unnecessary mouthfuls but deemed acceptable for the cash they raised. A door had been opened.
In2013 the Conservatives on the Greater London Assembly published a report called 'Untapped Resource: Bearing Down On Fares Through Sponsorship'. They claimed the vast majority of the public were in favour of bearing down on fares by selling off naming rights to stations, bus routes, even entire tube lines. They recommended long-term deals (because they're more valuable) and location specific changes (e.g. 'Knightsbridge, home of Harrods' or 'Virgin Euston'), particularly with respect to forthcoming extensions. In response TfL took the moral high ground and ruled it out.
Graeme Craig, TfL’s commercial development director, said: "This report is well-intentioned but I don’t think it’s right to sell off Tube stations to someone waving a cheque book and offering a bad pun. A Tube map is to show people where a station is and renaming would bring about confusion, especially among the 30 million visitors on the network every year. The mayor has in the past ruled out the renaming of stations, largely due to the cost of changing the thousands of signs and maps across the network."
In April 2015 TfL embraced their first sponsored station as Canada Water became Buxton Water on the day of the London Marathon. Every roundel on the Jubilee line and Overground platforms was renamed, tiny bottles of water were dished out in the ticket hall and a regular announcement namechecked the sponsor five times in less than thirty seconds. Nestle stumped up £110,000 for the one-day switcheroo, which TfL claimed was "part of its wider commercial plans to generate £3.4bn in non-fare revenue over the next decade". Buxton Water made a 0.003% contribution to that goal.
And on it went...
• January 2017: Amazon Web Services spent a perhaps excessive £390,000 for the right to "temporarily change internal signage referring to the station name at Westminster Underground Station to “Webminster”, to be visible during operational hours on Thursday 12th January only." This included 43 roundels, 29 line diagrams, 6 wayfinding entrance signs and 60 platform frieze illuminated panels. The general public were duly underwhelmed.
• July 2018: In an extremely memorable takeover Southgate station was renamed Gareth Southgate following England's World Cup almost-triumph. Eight roundels on each platform got the special treatment, and because this was a zone 4 station the price of a 48-hour takeover was only £80,000. What far fewer people remember is that the campaign was sponsored by Visa, so not much credit there.
• October 2019: Disney paid £105,000 for a week of activation activities at King's Cross St Pancras. This included the right to stick a bar across every roundel saying "Lion King's Cross".
• January 2020: In one of the most creative rebrands, Piccadilly Circus was renamed Picard-dilly Circus to promote a new Star Trek-themed TV series. Amazon Prime paid £250,000 for two days, which as well as including 24 platform roundels also covered the right for "up to 6 promotional staff to roam the station and interact with TfL customers".
• October 2020: O2 paid £400,000 for a three week campaign to promote new 4G connections on the Jubilee line. Seven stations each got a couple of rebranded roundels and a 2m square activation space in the ticket hall. They were lucky to get in just before Boris ordered a second lockdown, but I still suspect customer footfall was inefficiently low.
• November 2020: In possibly the best rebranding yet, four roundels outside Oxford Circus station were replaced by colourful symbols to promote the launch of the PlayStation 5. Sony paid £280,000 for two days, for which they also got to add "30 vinyl based symbol installations" at Oxford Circus station, also one snazzy roundel each at Lancaster Gate, Mile End, Seven Sisters and West Ham. Passengerwise it was a disaster because lockdown was back in place, but the visual image went uber-viral and probably paid for itself several times over.
• January 2022: the BBC paid £135,000 so that four roundels at Green Park station could be changed to Green Planet for two days.
• September 2023: This proved one step too far. Bond Street station got a full blue makeover, both out front and on the platforms, as it became Burberry Street for the duration of London Fashion Week. Passengers complained that the name was unfamiliar and misleading and made wayfinding too difficult. Given the £200,000 deal involved 80 roundels, 132 platform friezes and 30 line diagrams you can see their point. TfL apologised afterwards and have never rebranded an entire station since, indeed this may be the over-reach that finally killed off the idea.
• January 2024: Samsung forked out an incredible £830,000 to promote their new 'Circle to Search' phone feature over a 30-day period. Rather than changing roundels a circular tube map was created and this was permitted to be displayed at "up to 8 large scale locations throughout Kings Cross Underground Station and "up to 10 locations where the London Underground Map is currently located". The map was produced in-house, hence a sponsor-free version was later shared via an FoI request.
• July 2024: Samsung again, this time plugging their new Fold phone by renaming Old Street as Fold Street. They paid £250,000 for a one-week campaign including a bespoke Fold-themed Old Street roundel and a lot of vinyls round the Old Street roundabout. The peripheral location didn't aid public recognition, the brand ambassadors looked well bored and I suspect this campaign misfired somewhat.
• July 2025: TfL announced it was seeking "the first ever sponsor of the Waterloo & City line". The name of the line wouldn't change but a successful partner would get to rebrand platforms, trains, moquette and the travelator surround, weekends excepted.
• September 2025: Charing Cross became Haring Cross for two days for vodka-related reasons, raising £210,000. According to the PR company the brief was to "Create cultural cut-through with a disruptive moment to amplify the partnership between Absolut Vodka and Keith Haring" and the campaign achieved 122M+ Earned Reach. I wrote "nothing sounds so interesting as a tube station pop-up you never saw, thereby avoiding the underwhelm of seeing it in person."
• January 2026: Heineken spent £375,000 to rebrand eight Bakerloo line stations for three weeks. They were advertising an alcohol-free lager, hence the use of 0.0 in all collateral from Bakerl0.0 to Oxf0.0rd Circus. The contract specifically restricted the takeover to 50% of all Bakerloo line platform roundels and 50% of named Bakerloo line platform friezes.
• February 2026: Six roundels at Tottenham Court Road and Covent Garden stations were reworked to show the Guinness Harp as a promotion for a new brewery attraction. Eight line diagrams were also given a black background to represent a frothing pint. Guinness paid £255,000 for this four day takeover which, crucially, never changed the name of the station
• March 2026: Warburtons spent £260,000 to add four crumpet roundels to the northbound Jubilee line platform at Baker Street station. No money was wasted southbound, or indeed anywhere else, thus renaming the station Bakers Street caused an absolute minimum of disruption. I was wholly unimpressed by the delivery, concluding "it doesn't matter how lacklustre the actual activation is, it's all about the write-up elsewhere".
• March 2026: New Balance trainers paid £200,000 for a three-day campaign at Waterloo station, plus an additional £150,000 of advertising spending. For this they got rights to "a limited number" of themed platform roundels (specifically 18%), also cobranding on 50% of Bakerloo line platform friezes, also ads on all Bakerloo line diagrams.
• July 2026: Kaneary Wharf, duration and cost to be confirmed.
As you can see, the implementation of sponsored rebrandings appears to have ramped up recently with six activations over the last twelve months. Over one million pounds has been raised in this way since the start of the year, which might sound a lot but is barely 0.01% of TfL's budget. Reassuringly takeovers are no longer allowed to cover the whole of a station, it's all about the maximum impact a creative change can deliver. But it does reflect a shift in policy from 2013 with TfL now happy to encourage brand-led experiences of limited duration, publicly focusing on the fact they make passengers smile, not that they're commercial advertising.
Emma Strain, customer director at TfL, said: “We are always keen to work with brands to create new experiences for the millions of people who travel on our network. Through well-planned, creative activations like these, we can help companies reach people as they travel across London. Any activations on our network are fully assessed to ensure that they do not impact our services, staff or customers, and the additional revenue raised is invested into London’s transport network to provide further improvements across the capital.”
We have thus far dodged the prostitution of 'Burger King's Cross' or 'Knightsbridge, home of Harrods' as permanent station names, but TfL are now much happier to offload tube stations to someone waving the modern equivalent of a cheque book and offering a bad pun. I'm not convinced it helps.
🇫🇷 C'est le 14 juillet, la fête nationale 🇫🇷
So I've been to a central London street named France.
Petty France is a short street just south of St James's Park. Its name comes from a small settlement of French traders that grew up on the edge of in Westminster in the 16th century. One end was for woolstaplers (i.e. traders in wool) and called "Petty Calais", and the other end for French merchants who sailed over to buy which became known as "Petty France". Its strategic semi-rural location, roughly halfway between Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, would eventually make Petty France an attractive place to live. During the French Revolutionary War residents voted to change the name, aghast at its connections, and in the precise opposite of what might happen today chose to rename it in honour of the Duke of York. The road retained the name York Street until approximately 100 years ago when its original name was restored.
The eastern end of Petty France is the mini-roundabout at the foot of Queen Anne's Gate, just outside a busy tube station. The famous building on the left is the historic headquarters of London Underground, Charles Holden's groundbreaking nine-storey cruciform office block, which was constructed on top of St James's Park station in the late 1920s. It was called 55 Broadway because the main entrance opens onto a brief stretch of road of that name, whereas had the door been a few feet to the left it might instead have been known as 100 Petty France. Given it doesn't officially open onto today's street I shall instead cross the street to number 102.
The hulking concrete of 102 Petty France is admired by lovers of Brutalist architecture and virtually nobody else. It was built by Basil Spence on the site of a former mansion block and completed 50 years ago. Originally it was intended to be a commercial office development but the Home Office needed space so they moved in instead, staying until 2005 when they departed to a purpose-built building in Marsham Street. This was perfect timing for the Ministry of Justice, founded in 2007, so a new tranche of civil servants moved in and this is now David Lammy's administrative domain.
It's very much an bureaucratic fortress with a perimeter of concrete blocks and sturdy bollards, also CCTV cameras pointing every which way and more. I suspect they got exceptionally suspicious when I started taking photos, indeed this is now an intensely surveilled street. The building's only assuaging feature is a series of justice-related quotations in the lower windows, from John Locke and the 1689 English Bill of Rights to Francis Bacon and (obviously) Magna Carta. It may look incongruously tall but it has the same number of floors as the block it replaced - Queen Anne's Mansions - which at 14 storeys was once the loftiest residential building in Britain. The most famous person to rent a flat there was probably Sir Edward Elgar who stayed for six months in 1910 while trying to write his Violin Concerto.
Even Queen Anne's Mansions was controversial, not least because it replaced the home of one of Britain's greatest poets. That'd be John Milton who moved into a 'pretty Garden-house on Petty-France' in 1651 when he was Secretary for Foreign Tongues in Cromwell's administration. His rear garden would have opened directly onto St James's Park and was also terribly convenient for Parliament. John was alas going blind around this time, thus when it came to writing Paradise Lost it all had to be dictated and that particular challenge started here. Later occupants of number 19 include philosopher Jeremy Bentham, founder of University College London, and the libertarian essayist William Hazlitt, both drawn here by Milton's previous presence. Demolition of this revered property came in 1873, also the felling of a tall tree planted by Milton himself, and somehow this makes the Ministry of Justice's current tenure all the more uncomfortable.
The whole of the rest of the north side of Petty France is occupied by an even more repellent official building - Wellington Barracks. A military garrison opened here in 1833 facing onto St James's Park, ideally situated for London ceremonial, with the addition of interlocking concrete buildings out back in 1979. This required the demolition of all the existing buildings fronting Petty France, replaced by a very thick wall, an accommodation block and the entrance to a large area of parking. Armed soldiers oversee the raising of the barrier at all times, just in case, so this is an even worse place than the MoJ to be taking photos. Looking up towards the soldiers' tiny rooms everyone has the same utilitarian curtains and some display the flags of the occupant's army company, proudly proclaiming "look, I'm in the Coldstream Guards".
The other side of Petty France is if anything drabber, at least at the eastern end. Albany House is an L-shaped office block built just north of the tube platforms in 1972 and currently to let. Its sole redeeming features are two anthropomorphic bronzes either side of the main entrance, a twisted holey pair called Man and Woman by Willi Soukop (who was a tutor of Elisabeth Frink). A more significant government office block lingers up the road at number 70 - Clive House - which for 50 years was London's regional UK Passport Office. Until 2002 you might have found yourself dashing here for an emergency replacement and waiting in an accursed queue, before that particular service moved to Eccleston Square. Clive House was recently offloaded by the Civil Service as part of a consolidation/savings programme, and there are plans for the Ministry of Justice's building to follow suit, not yet in train.
Thankfully some older buildings survive in the remaining quarter of the street. The Adam and Eve on the corner of Palmer Street has been serving beer for over 300 years, although the existing building dates to 1881. These days it focuses on the passing tourist trade, plugging Pub Food and Fish & Chips in the windows, although a few more hanging baskets wouldn't go amiss. Those outside the Buckingham Arms are gloriously colourful and attract considerably more tourist interest, indeed I had to apologise to a florally-obsessed Japanese couple for getting in their way. The beer's good, CAMRA says, but the current pub manifestation is only from 1898. Petty France's sole listed building is a few doors down, roughly opposite the barracks' entrance, a small 17th century hint of how this street would once have looked.
Tourist coaches often park up Tothill Street, the other side of the tube station, their cargoes snaking off towards the Palace behind a flag-holding guide. Other visitors rouse from their hotel beds and need somewhere that serves sparse luxury patisserie, so two outlets called Royal Quarter oblige. Employees of the Crown Prosecution Service and Office for Budget Responsibility can instead buy nicotine pouches and Red Bull at Portlands Express convenience store, while military types whip out their IDs to gain admittance at the barracks' back door. It's all tourists, civil servants and soldiers down Petty France these days, and no sign of anything French whatsoever.
Fifty years ago today I flew to Canada. I know because I kept a diary of the trip and here's the cover.
It was the best, biggest and longest holiday my family ever went on, also totally out of the ordinary for the era. Most families still holidayed in the UK, indeed when I got back to school in the autumn only two of my class had been abroad that summer. It was doable because we weren't paying for accommodation, we were staying with my Mum's penfriend who she'd been at school with in the 1940s, at least until her sudden emigration to Canada. I was now about the same age they'd been, i.e. 11 years old, and my parents were keen to make this one-off transatlantic holiday before I'd have to pay full adult fare. Somehow they wangled me out of my last week at primary school - it'd never be permitted today - and so began an amazing three weeks in and around the province of Ontario.
13th July 1976 (London → Toronto)
We got up early ready to head off to Heathrow by taxi, it being too risky to leave the connection to the 724 coach. My brother and I didn't have to worry about the packing because Mum always chose our clothes, also we were still on a parental passport. It was my first visit to Terminal 3 having never flown long-haul before and I was very much looking forward to our flight in a Boeing 747. Unfortunately when we got to Gate 3 there was no Jumbo, only a VC10, a plane so old that it'd soon be reaching the end of its working life. The switch may well have been the reason for BA619's delayed take-off, our departure being precisely 1 hour and 12 minutes late which I know because I was being particularly anal about recording everything in my diary. Honestly, all the clues to how the blog might turn out were already there.
I failed to write down what time we took off but I do know they gave us an in-flight snack at 11.00am, that Manchester and Carlisle passed underneath at 11.05am and 11.20am respectively, and that we touched down at Prestwick airport at 11.40am. Here there was an issue with "a false bomb scare" which I seem to have taken completely in my stride but may have given my parents the heebeegeebees, the result of which was another lengthy delay while we waited for the extra passengers to board. It was 1.05pm by the time we took off and 2pm by the time lunch was served somewhere over the Atlantic. I'd love to know what that lunch was but sadly this is where I stopped recording everything in such granular detail. All I know is that the mid-morning snack had included cream cheese and a danish pastry, and that my insular 1970s palate was thrilled by the novelty of a cosmopolitan sugar rush.
One thing British Airways gave young long-haul fliers in those days was membership of their Junior Jet Club. A special brown envelope was delivered by the stewardess, inside which were a pristine blue membership book and a pin badge with wings. On the inside page was a greeting from Captain Leo Budd, one of BA's Concorde pilots, the supersonic wonder which had made its maiden passenger flight six months earlier. The next pages had 50 spaces to record flights made, the idea being that the captain of your flight would sign it and record the number of miles travelled, in this case 3557. All you had to do to receive "a special mileage certificate" was to get that total up to 25,000, the equivalent of seven transatlantic flights, which needless to say never happened.
Annoyingly I didn't get a JJC Pack on the flight out, only on the way back on 6th August. This meant I'd already missed out on 3557 logged miles, indeed actually 3621 because a flight via Prestwick is 64 miles longer. 11 year old me had already learned that AirMiles were a scam. My log book had been signed with a squiggle and underneath it said P.P. CAPTAIN, which I thought was extra special until my parents explained that meant the captain hadn't signed it. We weren't made of money so I never got my mileage certificate, indeed it turned out I wouldn't fly with British Airways again until 2001, and the Junior Jet Club was disbanded in 1984. Perhaps unsurprisingly my JJC badge is still attached to its original card.
Anyway, back on my outbound flight the novelty of flying over an ocean soon wore off. Also a VC10 wasn't as much fun as a 747 with its multi-channel inflight entertainment system, so I hope I took a good book. We spotted Canada almost four hours after leaving Prestwick, likely Goose Bay, which was my very first sighting of another continent. Landing at Toronto didn't seem to worry me, I was too busy checking my watch and noting it was 2.15pm local time, then bemoaning how long it took them to attach the steps. Such was 'security' in those days that Mum's penfriend was waving to us as we disembarked the plane. Before long we were following her to Car Park 6 before driving back to the suburb of Oshawa (and also I assume hugging and embracing after all those missed years but I never recorded that bit).
14th July 1976
I was still writing my diary comprehensively at this point, as you can see.
I had my first experience of product placement in a television programme (Rocketship 7) and was distinctly unimpressed. Later we went to the shops and I went in my first drug store, which looked suspiciously like a chemist. In the afternoon we went to the Ontario Centre, which I assume was a shopping mall but I didn't write down enough clues to be able to confirm this 50 years later. I disliked the moany woman in the InfoCentre but liked Coles, a bookshop. I felt patronised when a waitress gave me a colouring book. After supper we "went down to the Creek where we made a bridge", I assume Pringle Creek but I don't think anybody called it that at the time.
15th July 1976
And after that, annoyingly, I just wrote notes. My intention was to write it all up in proper sentences but I never did so all I have now in my diary is a list of words that no longer make proper sense. I deduce from "Turnstile. Cinesphere, Roof. Forum. Boats." that we went to Ontario Place, a recreational island off Toronto, also that it was brilliant because I left myself three blank pages to write a full account. 16th July is even worse, it just says "Help. Footsteps. Smoke. Pancakes. Tire. Haircut. Sprinkler. Doctor. Pack." And on 17th July we drove off on a week-long campervan tour round Lake Ontario, including my first ever visit to the USA, but I wrote about that last week so won't go over it again.
Some further highlights...
25th July:Camp Sumac. Dairy Queen Peanut Butter Sundae. 26th July: Science Centre (we totally loved the Ontario Science Centre) 27th July: Bo Peep. 28th July:Lake Simcoe. Eildon Hall. 29th July:Pickering Nuclear Power Station(alas no tours today) 30th July: Science Centre (again) 31st July: Parade. Pouring rain. 1st August: Cgugqg (I have absolutely no idea) 2nd August:Holiday. Fireworks. 3rd August:Centreville. Ponderosa Steak House. 4th August: Go Train. CN Tower (the world's tallest free standing tower had only been open for five weeks and the queue was 1½ hours long) (I wrote only three words - fantastic, windy, scared) 5th August:Planetarium. Check-in. BA600. Bye. 6th August:(back to drought-stricken England)
It's thus not quite as memorable as I'd like it to have been. But wow, what a holiday!
Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, chunky sculptures, ursine whimsy, suburban-adjacent, wildlife-abundant, shady interludes, refreshment opportunities midway, mostly off-piste, a bit of a stroll, won't take long. So here's a walk round Chislehurst that's both wooden and woody, nowhere near enough to make a day of it but a nice walk all the same. [map][leaflet]
The Bear Trail started as a single carved log in 2013, re-envisioned over lockdown as three dozen cheery bears scattered around the environs of Chislehurst. All were carved by Bedfordshire sculptor Will Lee in his workshop near Ivinghoe using sustainable oak, cedar and redwood. The trail was organised by the Chislehurst Society who initially promoted it heavily, raising money for two local defibrillators, but less strongly of late so good luck finding a map or leaflet. Each bear also has a QR code but this now leads to a page saying 'file not found', suggesting it only takes five years for a great idea to erode.
The original leaflet had a hand-drawn map, full walking directions and a single 12km circuit. The current pdfs instead show two big loops, red and blue, but with nigh no background information and an over-focus on using What 3 Words. I used the former leaflet because it's vastly superior, despite no longer being hosted on the Chislehurst Society website. I also chose to walk just a third of the main loop because it had well over half of the sculptures, stopping at Edgebury just before a 2-mile-long bear desert.
Elmstead Woods is arguably London's prettiest station thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the local gardening team. The two outer platforms are pleasant enough with memorial rosebeds, arty pillars, hidden compost heaps, shrubby tubs, a fairy garden and even a steam train called Steve. But the horticultural masterwork is on the central island between the waiting room and the tunnel, a patch of platform transformed into an intricate garden with raised beds and bee-magnets. And there waiting to greet you is Gardening Bear with spade and secateurs at the ready, surrounded (because it's summer) by a blaze of floral glory.
The next raised bed is wilder, this on the footprint of a former Permanent Way hut and attracting many a butterfly with its buddleia. Then heavens there's an actual lily pond tucked between platforms 2 and 3, this because it's amazing how much you can jazz up a black plastic liner, beside which Fishing Bear has been snaffling wooden prey with his paw. The adjacent patch of lavender is at its peak at present - I lost count of the bumblebees. Then come two shady benches ideal for waiting in a heatwave, one of which involves a little climb and the other overseen by a bear named Emma. It's phenomenal what they've done here on two hours of hard graft every Tuesday morning, as the certificates round the ticket office attest. Throw in a second-hand book corner that feels larger than some Bromley libraries and Elmstead Woods station is always worth dropping by simply for an appreciative look.
After leaving the station it was almost a mile before I saw my next bear, this after a hike up Elmstead Lane and down Cow Path. The latter is a long thin remnant from more rural days, a narrow stripe of brambly all-weather woodland preserved between encroaching cul-de-sacs. Cow Path starts with a pawprint post to confirm you're on the right track, its entrances adorned with multiple signs barring bikes and motorbikes but not cattle. And it ends with a furry wooden carnivore staring up at the sky bearing a carved message, hence its name is Welcome to Walden Rec Bear.
The next two bears are small and hidden in trees on the edge of Walden Wood so hard to spot. It took me three attempts before I found one high in the gnarled branches of an oak and the second I confess defeated me, my only failure on this 18-bear orienteering challenge. Cow Path weaves on from wood to rec to wood to rec, as I would have known if I'd ever managed to tick off the entire Green Chain Walk but this flailing Chislehurst tendril had eluded me. And it's on entering Whyte's Woodland that I finally reached that very first bear sculpture, carved in 2013 from the trunk of an oak tree felled by lightning. I had to wait 30 minutes before a mother and her small child stopped sitting/clambering on it, so I hope you appreciate the effort.
It's the Boating Bears, two of them facing each other in a tiny rowing boat and another two seemingly sitting on teensy rafts or inflatable rings. The fifth may just be sitting beside a fish, it's hard to be sure because Will Lee was just making the best of a fallen log, not attempting to be physically consistent. Ahead in Chislehurst Rec I found an extra bear that's not in the original leaflet - Baloo the Scout Bear, complete with green uniform and an armful of badges - this because the 5th Chislehurst Troop are based close by. The Friends of Chislehurst Recreation Grounds are the voluntary overseers of this chain of green spaces, their latest battle trying to keep the Roost cafe open, but otherwise what an excellent job they're doing.
Cow Path ends at the top of bustling bijou Chislehurst High Street, right beside the library which is good because there's another bear outside. He's called Darwin not because the great naturalist had connections to Chislehurst but because living in Bromley was sufficient. There are no maps or leaflets in the library, I checked. The other bear in the High Street is in the window of an estate agents, seemingly the only business persuadable to participate, and is no longer clutching his original SOLD board. To find the next you have to disappear down Church Passage where Lord of the Manor Bear stands guard outside the Old Chapel. This looks more 1990s than genuinely Old, having been blandly converted, and is home to a) The Chislehurst Society b) a second bear propped up in the side window. Twelve down, half a dozen to go.
Time for the second dull road walk, this time quarter of a mile up Belmont Lane to Edgebury. It's time to explore Belmont Open Space, five acres of dippy grass and woodland threaded through by the diminutive Kemnal Stream. I'd been before but only ever spotted one bear, the obvious one by the footbridge sitting on a book of fairy tales - naturally Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I'd missed Oak Tree Bear because he's tiny and several branchesworth off the ground, also Football Bear because he's inside the playground and I'm a bit old to be creeping in there. My favourite pair of bears were in a secluded glade at the foot of the slope, one beside a bench and a second reclining on a log opposite, briefly joined by a red admiral bringing a burst of colour.
This is where I capitulated rather than slog on to Scadbury Park for scant reward, hence I also missed out on Commuter Bear and Ticket Collector Bear at the ultimate destination of Chislehurst station. But if you've never been to Kemnal and Foxbury before then it's worth dipping deeper into this remote valley before heading off, even given the lack of bears, because it's full-on WTF round here. Obviously the Chislehurst Bear Trail is aimed at families with kids, not old men from the era of Winnie-the-Pooh and Rupert, but don't let that put you off an ursine exploration. It's really an excellent opportunity to explore somewhere new, the hunt for whimsical carvings simply an enticing extra, so why not grin and bear it?
Saturdays are the least-read days on the blog, summer Saturdays especially, so I'll be winding things down on Saturdays over the height of the season. Readers with an annual subscription can apply for a 2% refund in the usual place.
Slim Summer Saturday
(there were five posts yesterday, so no need to miss out)
I'm one of millions who take a daily aspirin tablet, medically advised. Mine come in packets of 100 and at the start of the year that packet cost £1.99.
I went to the pharmacy yesterday to buy some more but they weren't on the shelf behind the desk any more. Staff went hunting and came back with a box costing £3.60.... but there were only 28 tablets in it. "How much?!" I asked, "for how few?!" They apologised because there's been a shortage, abruptly raising prices. They checked locally and this was genuinely the best price available.
To do the maths...
• Previously 100 tablets cost £1.99, i.e. 2p each
• Now 28 tablets cost £3.60, so 13p each
• That's a 6-fold increase in six months! (technically a rise of 540%)
At these prices a year's-worth of aspirin would cost £47 (previously £8)
The reason is significant product shortages. According to the news back inJanuary, "the UK is witnessing a country-wide shortage of aspirin, with pharmacies being unable to meet demand and prices being at an all-time high. Manufacturing delays are being cited as a primary source for these delays, with pharmacists having to ration stock." Meh.
How I solved this problem: I went to Boots where a box of 100 aspirin still costs £2.10. That's corporate buying power for you. How I intend to solve this problem: I can ask my doctor to prescribe the aspirin so I'll get it for free. (this wasn't a sensible option 10 years ago because the prescription fee was much higher than paying for a box of aspirin)
Count Binface, intergalactic space warrior, could pull off an astonishing triumph in the forthcoming Clacton by-election. Betting companies currently only give him odds of 5 to 1 to win, but should he perform well the subsequent humiliation for Nigel Farage could conceivably change the course of UK politics.
2017 Maidenhead (General Election): 7th place with 0.4% of the votes against Theresa May (as Lord Buckethead) 2019 Uxbridge and South Ruislip (General Election): 7th place with 0.1% of the votes against Boris Johnson 2021 London (Mayoral Election): 9th place with 1.0% of the votes against Sadiq Khan 2023 Uxbridge and South Ruislip (by-election): 7th place with 0.6% of the votes against Steve Tuckwell 2024 London (Mayoral Election): 11th place with 1.0% of the votes against Sadiq Khan 2024 Richmond and Northallerton (General Election): 6th place with 0.6% of the votes against Rishi Sunak 2026 Makerfield (by-election): 7th place with 0.2% of the votes against Andy Burnham
Count Binface's highest vote is 24,775 against Sadiq in 2021, his lowest is 69 against Boris in 2019.
His highest percentage share is 0.98% against Sadiq in 2024, his lowest is 0.14% against Boris in 2019.
His highest placing is 6th against Rishi in 2024, his lowest is 11th against Sadiq in 2024.
His highest placing is likely to become 1st or 2nd in Clacton in 2026, and maybe then the hand dryer in the gents' urinals at the Crown & Treaty pub in Uxbridge will be moved to a more sensible position.
It's that time of year when the ONS reveals the most popular baby names. They do however continue to divide the data into two lists, one for boys and one for girls, so what happens if you combine the two?
The top 20 baby names in England and Wales, 2025
Muhammad, Noah, Leo, Luca, Arthur, Oliver, George, Oscar, Theodore, Freddie, Archie, Theo, Olivia, Henry, Lily, Amelia, Jude, Arlo, Isla, Alfie
There are 16 boys' names in that list and only four girls' names. The top 10 are all boys. The top girls' name is Olivia with a count of 2386, twelve behind the 12th boys' name which is Theo. This suggests that when parents are naming girls they use a wider variety of names than when naming boys.
The top boys' name, Muhammad, was given to more than twice as many babies as Olivia. The ONS confirms that there were 585,396 live births in England and Wales in 2025. Of these 1.0% were named Muhammad and 0.4% were named Olivia.
Here are some well known Underground superlatives.
Longest escalator: Angel (27.4m vertical rise) Shortest escalator: Stratford (4.11m vertical rise) Deepest lift shaft: Hampstead (55.2m) Longest tunnel: East Finchley to Morden (27.8km) Longest direct journey: West Ruislip to Epping (54.9km) Shortest distance between stations: Leicester Square to Covent Garden (260m)
But all of these are on hot sweaty sticky deep tube lines.
Nobody wants to be doing that in this weather.
So what happens if you restrict the records to the four air-conditioned lines?
Longest escalator: Sloane Square (7.77m vertical rise) Shortest escalator: Westminster (5.99m vertical rise) Deepest lift shaft: Moorgate (6.3m) Longest tunnel: Sloane Square to Aldgate? (7.0km) Longest direct journey: Chesham to Aldgate (47.7km) Shortest distance between stations: Monument to Cannon Street (340m)
The Elizabeth line is not an Underground line, obv.
The Prime Minister has hinted that there might be a bank holiday if England win the World Cup. Sir Keir said "On the question of a bank holiday, I think I don't want to jinx it, but ask me again if we get to the final." According to the BBC it's understood the extra bank holiday would be on the Friday following England's win - 24 July.
A normal citizen might have thought "oh excellent, I hope that happens!" or "damn, that'll mess up my plans for 24th July". What I thought, obviously, is "ooh, would that be the first ever bank holiday in July?"
I thought a bit more and no, we had a bank holiday for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer on 29th July 1981. But it would be only the second time there's been a bank holiday in July.
Then I wondered "Are there any months that have never had a bank holiday?" which is a better question. I knocked up a spreadsheet listing all the bankholidays from 1871 to 2026, and yes there are two such months.
There have been 1049 bank holidays altogether and this is how they pan out by month.
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Count
53
0
68
246
163
47
1
154
3
0
1
313
%
5%
0%
6%
23%
16%
4%
0.1%
15%
0.3%
0%
0.1%
30%
The two bank-holiday free months are February and October. It's never ever happened.
July only has one - the 1981 Royal Wedding.
November only has one - the 1973 Royal Wedding.
September only has three - the 'August' bank holiday in 1968 and 1969, also the Queen's funeral in 2022.
December has had the most bank holidays, 30% of the entire total.
April and May have had 39% of all bank holidays between them.
More than two-thirds of English bank holidays have been in April, May or December.
England would of course have to win three more games to change any of this, so best not get your hopes up.
Twelve special stones have been scattered in and around the High Street, all celebrating music giants with a connection to the area. Bob Marley doesn't get a mention because he merely spent a year living in Neasden, two miles distant.
The project was created by community group Harlesden Bassline in partnership with Brent Council and used £70,000 of funding from the government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The stones were embedded in the pavement a few months ago, but only on 1st July did the great and good gather to celebrate the fact you can now walk all over them.
It's not just singers and bands, the commemorative discs also pay homage to record producers and record shops based in the local area. The very first stone in the trail commemorates Sonny Roberts and can be found outside his former record shop near Willesden Junction station.... now occupied by a Brazilian butcher.
Orbitone Records opened in 1970 and was the UK's first black-owned record shop to cater for Caribbean and African music. As well as selling to the local immigrant community its fame spread more widely, with DJ's John Peel and Gary Crowley often dropping by to browse. In 1984 Sonny even produced a chart hit, that being Hot Hot Hot by Arrow, from a recording studio in Kilburn since replaced by a block of flats. The business did so well that Sonny moved to larger premises at 78 Craven Park Road before retiring to Jamaica with his wife in 1997. You get absolutely none of this backstory from the plaque, alas, only the fact that Sonny Roberts was a TRAILBLAZER.
The trail's opening celebration was held at the old Picture Palace, a Harlesden cinema opened in 1910 and closed not long afterwards. Brent council bought the building a few years ago and have transformed it into a community centre called the CAVA Centre of Excellence, a none too catchy name which stands for Community Asset Voice Alliance. As far as I can tell the site has no connection to any of the trailblazers but there are still three commemorative plaques in the pavement outside - General Levy, Janet Kay and Ruff Cutt UK.
General Levy worked with Sonny Roberts at Orbitone but is best known for his groundbreaking work in ragga, jungle and dancehall, including the 1994 hit Incredible with M-Beat (wicked, wicked, junglist massive!). Janet Kay was born in Willesden and very nearly had a number 1 with Silly Games in 1979. Seeing her plaque instantly triggered the exalted tune in my head, a little too high for me to hum along, and also made me realise she's now an MBE (since 2023, it turns out). Ruff Cutt is an NW10-based label with a more recent reggae pedigree, and all three of these recipients turned up for their stone's unveiling back in February.
I've already shown you eight of the twelve discs so as you can see I did a very good job of finding them. The Harlesden Walk of Music doesn't make this easy however, the map being well-hidden, a bit off-target and generally of inadequate resolution. If you want people to follow a trail best not flash a blurry image on Instagram or post it once on Facebook. The best map I found was tucked away as image number five on the crowdfunder page, and even then it wasn't 100% obvious which street some of the plaques were actually on. For example I spent far too long checking the pavement outside a wholesaler's rear entrance on Crownhill Road when I should instead have been round the front. The front was rather special though, being the double entrance to Hawkeye Enterprises Ltd.
The main shop is a Jamaican bakery, so serving up soft-style patties and molasses-stuffed bulla as well as bread, buns, cakes and puddings. The real interest is down the side passage which leads to a separate shop behind the bakery, but owned by the same family, which is a reggae-focused 'records and CDs store'. Amazingly it's only a year off its 50th anniversary although sadly shop manager Gerry Anderson died in 2022. Hawkeye still acts a focus for the community, as does Starlight Records across the street, these the last two surviving record stores in Harlesden. Both have a pavement plaque and both of these are more easily recognised than 2018's World Reggae Day contribution, a sapling called the ReggaeTree.
Some of those commemorated already had a blue plaque in the area - not from English Heritage but erected by appreciative local parties. One of these is for TheCimarons, the UK's first roots reggae band, who met for the first time in a youth club on Tavistock Road in 1967. Much of their early career was spent as session musicians at Willesden-based label Trojan Records, invariably reggae-based, although their biggest chart success was as backing group for Snoopy vs The Red Baron in 1973. The old plaque is locationally accurate but easily overlooked up a sideroad, whereas the new pavement slab is on the high street outside Harlesden Methodist Church with far more footfall.
Another existing plaque was for singer Dennis Brown, described by Bob Marley as "The Crown Prince of Reggae", who chose to live in Harlesden when he moved from Jamaica in the 1970s. The Harlesden Walk of Music doesn't expect you to hike up to 55 Hazeldean Road to see it, nor to visit Brownlow Road where Delroy Washington lived, so placing both their stones outside Harlesden Library saves everyone a lengthy walk.
Incidentally the library is currently hosting an exhibition of Brent Reggae Album Covers, about a dozen in total, on boards scattered between the bookshelves. It showcases cover shots of reggae albums that have been photographed in Brent since the 1960s, for example the Wembley back garden on the front of Dubbing in the Back Yard released by King Tubby and the Aggravators in 1982. The exhibition's on for five months to celebrate British Black Music Month (which lasts two months), so best ignore the temporal challenge and focus on the pin-sharp drilldown into musical nostalgia.
The northernmost stone celebrates another local record label, Jet Star Records, and can be found outside a hair salon at 78 Craven Park Road. Again you learn nothing about Jet Star by spotting it, any background information being hidden away on a non-obvious Harlesden Walk of Music online resource. On their socialmedia presence they seem more interested in the impressive line-up of reggae stars and relatives who attended the launch event than in promoting the twelve stones themselves, or indeed telling you where to find them. But from what I saw those stones are already bringing moments of joy to central Harlesden as shoppers look down and remember, confirming reggae runs deep in NW10, and it's fabulous to see an area embracing and celebrating its cultural heritage in this way.
Usually my transport round-ups cover all kinds of London transport but this time it's almost all buses, sorry.
💷 The Mayor has announced that bus fares will rise by 10p in November. He didn't phrase it like that, he called it a extended summer fare freeze, and lots of media outlets ran with this more positive spin. His initial decision to freeze fares temporarily was announced last December, funded by City Hall, and only now has he confirmed when that freeze will end. It means bus fares will rise from £1.75 to £1.85 on 1st November, a 5.7% increase which is double the rate of inflation. However bus fares haven't actually risen since March 2023, a hike forced by the government, so you could argue that climbing only 5.7% after 3½ years is a really good deal.
Here's a history of London bus fares over the last 20 years. I've assumed that Sadiq's latest rise is really introducing the 2027 increase four months early.
Cost of a London bus journey
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
£0.80
£1.00
£0.90
£1.00
£1.20
£1.30
£1.35
£1.40
£1.45
£1.50
£1.50
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
£1.50
£1.50
£1.50
£1.50
£1.55
£1.65
£1.75
£1.75
£1.75
£1.75
£1.85
The bottom row of the table is effectively Sadiq's record as Mayor of London. Since 2016 he's frozen fares seven times and overseen a 23% fare increase (from £1.50 to £1.85). Boris's tenure is on the row above, a 67% increase from 90p in 2008 to £1.50 in 2016. That's the difference between a Labour Mayor who believes in keeping fares down and a Conservative Mayor who believed in better reflecting cost pressures. You cast your vote, you take your choice.
🎾 For a fortnight in July London gets a new bus route numbered 840, its purpose to get you to the tennis at Wimbledon. Such are the crowds that the 493 gets diverted away from the grounds for two weeks, also no tube station is quite close enough if you're in high heels or carrying a hamper. Go-Ahead thus put on a special bus service from Wimbledon station to the Championships and employ a small armada of brand new double deckers to do repeated ferrying. Quite a queue builds up, sometimes stretching back as far as Greggs, and a staff member wanders down the line issuing tickets from a card reader. Cash is not accepted.
I'm not quite sure what the fare is, only that it's at least twice the normal London bus fare. The All England Club can only tell you last year's fares which were £4.00 single, £6.50 return. Go-Ahead only have the 2024 fares which were £4.00 single, £6.00 return, so it's gone up. South Western Railway reckon it's "£3.50 for a single ticket" so they're even more out of date. Such fares are unlikely to deter those who've forked out for Wimbledon tickets but it's quite steep for a six minute ride, indeed you could say it's a racket.
🚌 The results of three bus consultations were published last month, confirming that eleven bus routes will change on some as yet unannounced date.
Central London - through Islington and Westminster
• Route 38 currently runs from Clapton Pond to Victoria. In future it'll only run to Holborn, a 2-mile shortening.
• Route 19 currently runs from Finsbury Park to Battersea Bridge. In future it'll only run to Victoria, a 2-mile shortening.
• New route 10 will run from Newington Green to Battersea Bridge, taking up most of the slack along the lengthy section currently shared by routes 19 and 38. I wrote about this in more detail in November, including a helpfully-simple graphic.
North London - through Tottenham and Seven Sisters
• Route 349 runs between Ponders End and Stamford Hill. It will be withdrawn.
• Route 279 will be diverted to Stamford Hill rather than Manor House to make up for the loss of the 349.
• Route 259 will be extended north to Ponders End to make up for the loss of the 349, but also cut back from King's Cross to Holloway. I wrote about this in more detail in November, including a helpfully-simple graphic.
North London - through Meridian Water
• Route 192 will no longer pass through Meridian Water to Tottenham Hale, terminating instead at Picketts Lock.
• Route W8 will no longer terminate at Picketts Lock but pass through Meridian Water to end at Tottenham Hale.
• Route 476 will be extended from Northumberland Park into the new Meridian Water development.
• Route 341 will be cut back from Meridian Water to Northumberland Park.
• Route 444 will be diverted through the new Meridian Water development, along roads not yet built.
🚌 On Saturday the frequency of route 286 (Greenwich to Queen Mary's Hospital) is being cut from every 12 minutes to every 15. A small shave, but yet another incremental worsening of London's bus network.
🚌 Outer London, specifically outer Havering, is due to get a brand new bus route on 27th July. It's not a TfL route, it's existing Basildon route B1 which will be extended from Laindon to Harold Wood. It means south Essex residents will have a direct connection to the Elizabeth Line (and residents of Harold Wood can nip by bus to Taco Bell in Basildon). According to the B1 timetable double deckers will run every 20 minutes Monday to Saturday (first bus 6am, last bus 8pm) and every 30 minutes on Sundays. According to the service permit the bus will exit the capital via Cockabourne Bridge and Hall Lane, shadowing route 346, but won't stop anywhere other than the station.
🚌 One day I will ride all the numbered non-TfL buses that enter London, probably when I finally get a Freedom Pass. In the meantime let me make a provisional list.
🚡 And finally, is the Cable Car flogging yet another new thematic money-making experience? Of course it is. It's Engi-Bear's Football Adventure and it runs all summer long. I am not joking.
"Celebrate the summer of football 2026 at the London Cable Car with Engi-Bear's Football Adventure, a fun, family-friendly experience for children aged 5-15. This experience includes a return cable car journey alongside a passport activity booklet packed with fun tasks, including a flag hunt to spot flags across the London Cable Car terminals. After completing the adventure, head to the cafe in the Cable Car Experience at Greenwich Peninsula, where each child will receive a champions certificate and medal."
More flag-spotting than football, then. They're charging £10.50 per child which isn't too much of an upsell, given a round trip normally costs £6.75. But if all you're getting is an activity booklet, a certificate and a medal, likely cheaply produced, it's still an incremental earner. The price goes up to £19.50 if you choose the Ultimate option which also includes face-painting, specific dates only. I don't know if Engi-Bear turns up too, but if you're the poor employee who gets to wear the ridiculous yellow costume I pity you.
Note how carefully the marketing team HAVEN'T mentioned the World Cup or FIFA to avoid any trademark issues, they're simply piggybacking opportunistically on the general concept of football. The whiff of commercial desperation is increasingly evident, and as the Dangleway enters its fifteenth year I fear it'll only get desperater.
