The other thing I decided to count this year, as well as characters in The Archers, was the number of times I visited each London borough.
• Technically I counted the number of days I visited each borough.
• If I set foot in a borough on a particular day, that counted as 1.
• I didn't count boundary crossings because that would've been impractical.
• Standing on a station platform or riding through on a bus didn't count.
Up until Monday 16th March it was all going really well.
Enf
4
Harr
3
Barn
6
Har
6
WFor
9
Hill
4
Eal
6
Bren
5
Cam
11
Isl
7
Hack
13
Redb
4
Hav
3
Hou
5
H&F
5
K&C
4
West
20
City
11
Tow
76
New
37
B&D
3
Rich
4
Wan
7
Lam
10
Sou
8
Lew
5
Grn
9
Bex
3
King
3
Mer
5
Cro
3
Bro
5
Sut
4
You can tell I live in Tower Hamlets because that scored the maximum possible total of 76 days.
Newham came a very strong second, partly because that's where Stratford is, but mainly because I live less than 200m from the boundary.
Westminster was third, it being the West End where much of London's important stuff is. The other high scorers were either in central London or in neighbouring boroughs. None of the high numbers were especially unexpected.
What's unusual are the outer London totals. If you'd been doing this survey there'd have been a lot of 0s, 1s and 2s, whereas my lowest total is a 3. Admittedly I get around London a lot, but even so it's not normal to make quite so many multiple journeys to the suburbs. Indeed it's surprisingly hard to accidentally go to Havering, Kingston or Harrow, and yet I managed three visits apiece in two and a half months flat.
In fact what we have here is an excellent example of Campbell's Law, which states "the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making... the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."
Counting which boroughs I'd been to made me much more aware of those I hadn't visited, and this started to colour my choices of where to go next. "I see I haven't been to Hillingdon, Harrow and Brent so far this year," I said on January 11th, so I went to Hillingdon, Harrow and Brent. "I see I've only been to Bexley twice this year," I said on March 5th, so I went to Bexley. It felt good to be exploring London so equitably, but my data was now driving my activity rather than the other way round.
And then everything changed.
On Monday 16th March non-essential travel was discouraged, since when another 76 days have passed.
My counts for the last 76 days look very different.
Enf
0
Harr
0
Barn
0
Har
0
WFor
45
Hill
0
Eal
0
Bren
0
Cam
0
Isl
0
Hack
45
Redb
0
Hav
0
Hou
0
H&F
0
K&C
0
West
0
City
0
Tow
76
New
57
B&D
0
Rich
0
Wan
0
Lam
0
Sou
0
Lew
0
Grn
0
Bex
0
King
0
Mer
0
Cro
0
Bro
0
Sut
0
Again Tower Hamlets scores the maximum of 76 because that's where I live. But now only three other boroughs score anything at all, while the remainder of the capital remains unvisited.
You'd expect Newham's total to be high. If I can't walk too far from home, and Newham is less than three minutes away, then I'm going to be visiting Newham a lot. What really stands out are the extremely high totals for Hackney and Waltham Forest.
The explanation is that my daily exercise under lockdown generally involves walking to the top of the Olympic Park and back, and doing this always ticks off Hackney and Waltham Forest. Over 76 days I've made this walk a total of 45 times, hence the massive (and equal) totals for the two boroughs. I vary the route each time so it's never got boring, but I always make sure I get as far as the Hockey and Tennis Centre... because that's Campbell's Law distorting my behaviour again.
Without recourse to public transport or a bike, other boroughs remain awkwardly far away. The City of London would be the next closest borough, but that's a 45 minute walk along pavements not ideally suited to social distancing. Southwark is technically possible in 45 minutes if I walk through the Rotherhithe Tunnel, but I have no plans to ever do that again. Meanwhile Islington's 50 minutes away, Redbridge 55 and Greenwich (via the foot tunnel) 60, with Westminster, Camden and Barking & Dagenham further still. While I'm perfectly capable of walking that far, and walking back, I won't be rushing to try.
We'll see how the easing of lockdown goes, and how slowly the use of public transport opens up again, but I expect my counts for the next 76 days to look a lot more like Map 2 than Map 1.
Finally, here are my counts for English counties so far in 2020.
CUMBRIA
DURHAM
TYNE AND WEAR
NORTHUMBERLAND
LANCASHIRE
WEST YORKSHIRE
NORTH YORKSHIRE
EAST YORKSHIRE
MERSEYSIDE
GREATER MANCHESTER
SOUTH YORKSHIRE
LINCOLNSHIRE
CHESHIRE
STAFFORDSHIRE
DERBYSHIRE
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
SHROPSHIRE
WEST MIDLANDS
LEICESTERSHIRE
RUTLAND
HEREFORDSHIRE
WORCESTERSHIRE
WARWICKSHIRE
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
GLOUCESTERSHIRE
BEDFORDSHIRE
1
CAMBRIDGESHIRE
NORFOLK
1
OXFORDSHIRE
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
1
HERTFORDSHIRE
1
SUFFOLK
1
BRISTOL
BERKSHIRE
GREATER
LONDON
152
ESSEX
1
SOMERSET
SURREY
1
KENT
1
DEVON
1
WILTSHIRE
1
HAMPSHIRE
EAST SUSSEX
1
CORNWALL
1
DORSET
ISLE OF WIGHT
WEST SUSSEX
I'm pleased to have visited as many as 12 counties before lockdown in March, especially managing to tick off Wiltshire, Devon and Cornwall. But all of these trips were of course made during the first 76 days of the year, and the entirety of the last 76 days has been spent in Greater London. I'm not holding out much hope of increasing the number of green boxes during the next few months. Sorry Midlands, sorry northern England, it may be some time.
Sometimes when you start counting something, it doesn't go to plan. But I'm pleased to have tried, because I now have a quantitative record of just how restrictive 2020 has been.
