They didn't have blogs or the internet forty years ago, indeed my Sinclair ZX81 wasn't capable of much, but here are 30 things I didn't digitally publish at the time. To help you get your bearings I was 19 and most of this is the end of the summer break from university. The second half of the month is far more interesting than the first. Sorry there are no photos.
Sat 1: New month, new season on the TV. New programmes include Saturday Starship (hosted by Tommy Boyd and Bonnie Langford) and Bob's Full House, which was followed by new series of Juliet Bravo and the Paul Daniels Magic Show. Sun 2: The first brussels sprout of the year appears on my plate at dinner, alongside the usual roast beef and roast potatoes. Mon 3: As a member of the student diaspora I am allowed to claim unemployment benefit fortnightly during the summer holidays, so today I sign on in a grim building off the Watford ring road (thankfully since demolished). They pay me £54.10. Pop into Marks & Spencer to return a dress for Mum, and thankfully they don't ask to see the receipt because that had blown out of my pocket while I was crossing the canal. Tue 4: The pound slips to a record low of $1.292 so mortgage rates might have to go up. Stevie Wonder's I Just Called To Say I Loved You reaches number 1. Wed 5: Stamp prices have just risen to 17p first class and 13p second class. I go to the Post Office to buy 26 ½p stamps to stick on a 'Greetings from Croxley' postcard to send to a friend in Southport. Thu 6: Peter Powell presents his last Radio 1 teatime show and I'm mortified to discover that Bruno Brookes is taking over next week. Fri 7: Being a student means being able to watch afternoon telly, which today includes a new show called That's My Dog which I decide is awful. Today's competitors are Honey and Blaze and the mystery celebrity dog owner is Katie Boyle. Sat 8: Being a student means waking up at half past nine and never leaving the house. Breakfast is Coco Pops. Lunch is steak and kidney pie.
Sun 9: My grandmother comes to lunch and stays for tea, and inbetween tells me all about her recent stay in a holiday camp. I wish I'd written down a bit more of what she said. Mon 10: Do an experiment with my radio and discover 22 different local radio stations on VHF (at university it's only 4). Tue 11: I would like to apologise to my parents for waiting until they went out and then ringing a premium phone line, safe in the knowledge that itemised billing had not yet been invented. Wed 12: Go up to London to do a few odd jobs in a small Soho office - sticking labels on envelopes, buying duplicator paper, withdrawing money from the bank, collating membership lists and filling envelopes with magazines. I don't think I ever told the unemployment people about this. Thu 13: A new blond ex-trampoline champion starts as a presenter on Blue Peter. That won't end well. Fri 14: Dad drives me back to Oxford where this academic year I'll be staying in shared digs above an estate agents on the Cowley Road. We spend quite a lot of time on Andy's BBC Micro playing Frogger, Chuckie Egg, Aviator and Pac-Man (called Snapper). Also go to Sainsburys to buy £55 of provisions, because thankfully September 1984 is about to get a lot more interesting.
Sat 15: Ten of us head to Black Prince Wharf to set off on a fortnight's canalboat holiday looping round the south Midlands. Our narrowboat is called Chieftain, a 62-footer, and we spend most of the first evening learning how to steer it and not run aground. Sun 16: It's very much a learning experience through the first locks on the Oxford Canal. I have not been allowed near the steering yet. Spend the evening at the Three Tuns in Kings Sutton where we manage to get into a fracas with the locals which ends with angry puddle-splashing. Mon 17: Up early because we have to be through Claydon Locks by 2pm due to water restrictions. Make it with 20 minutes to spare. Patrick falls in the water in Banbury. Our evening pub is the Butchers Arms in Priors Hardwick, which can only be reached from the towpath through cowpatty fields occupied by bulls. The lure of alcohol spurs us on. Tue 18: I'm on windlass duty up the Napton flight of locks (nine), after which we join the Grand Union and the canal is suddenly much wider. Share our trip down the Stockton flight (eight) with another boat, which Paul unfortunately manages to nudge onto the sill at the Bascote staircase. Wed 19: Maximum lockage, first the 21 locks on the Hatton flight then 20 more through Lapworth. I am trusted on the towpath but not at the tiller. End the day at The Camp in King's Norton, which I realise is fellow student Derek's local so I ring him up from a phone box and we all end up round his place having tea with his parents. Derek has his own Wikipedia page these days. Thu 20: Tardebigge has the longest flight of locks in the UK, 30 in total. We manage to get jammed in the first one but the rest is plain sailing and it even stops raining halfway down. Near Stoke Prior I fall down some steps while getting back onto the boat, get a thorn in my finger and hurt my back. It gets me off lock duty for a couple of days. Fri 21: We're cruising rivers now, first the Avon and then at Worcester we swing onto the Severn. Passing through the lock at Tewkesbury requires paying a £20 toll. Slight panic as twilight approaches and we haven't reached a mooring point (there being no towpath), but the thought of beer spurs us on through turbulent Pershore Lock where we tie up.
Sat 22: Hilary and I have to go shopping in Evesham because we've somehow run out of sausages again. Our Saturday evening mooring point is the basin in the centre of Stratford upon Avon, where Patrick manages to crash the prow of the boat into someone's pristine flowerbed and I still feel bad about this. Sun 23: Apathy is setting in and the towpaths are muddy so it's getting harder to cajole people into doing lock-opening duty. End the day at the Tom O' The Wood pub near Kingswood where I have a toasted cheese sandwich. Then I walk down to the local phonebox and ring home, where I'm thrilled to discover the family has just bought our first video recorder. "You MUST record Threads," I say, "it starts in 30 minutes." Mon 24: The 200th lock of our grand tour leads us out of the Stratford upon Avon canal and back onto the Grand Union. Our headlamp keeps blinking out in tunnels. We do Hatton locks again and get the Bascote staircase right this time. Nobody is impressed when I make cup-a-soups for lunch. Tue 25: We're ahead of schedule so divert to Braunston to see what's there. An enormous boatyard, it turns out, and a tunnel it's too muddy to reach the mouth of. Some of us have tired of spending every night in a pub, the rest return raucously from The Crown and do unspeakable things with ice cubes. Wed 26: The best weather and scenery of the trip as we round the ridiculous meanders of the Oxford Canal at Napton. Slow progress through the locks stuck behind a family with a know-it-all Dad. Win at skittles in the pub, but blimey it's a dark walk back along the towpath afterwards. Thu 27: Sausage stocks now only permit one each for lunch. A lot of the day is spend trailing behind other boats which aren't going as fast as we'd like. The Great Western Arms at Aynho offers video snooker! Fri 28: The end of the trip, after being buzzed by a low-flying plane at Upper Heyford. Nowhere in my diary does it say I steered the boat during the last two weeks, which was probably very wise. My fellow narrowboaters dive back into Oxford's pub and social scene with a vengeance, and I hope their livers have subsequently recovered.
Sat 29: I thankfully escape the post-narrowboat mop-up because I have to attend my cousin's wedding in Chigwell. We've bought them an electric carver. Hymn singing, it turns out, is not one of our family's strengths. The reception is at Limes Hill Hall in Grange Hill, where the buffet ends with lemon sorbet and both Agadoo and the Birdie Song are played at the disco. Sun 30: After a very welcome roast dinner - not sausages again - I settle down with our new video recorder to watch Threads. Wow, it's both fabulous and appallingly grim (and is back on BBC Four next Wednesday if you fancy feeling utterly depressed again). Bed early because I'm signing on again in the morning.
20 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in September 2024
1) The average e-scooter hire trip lasts 16 minutes, is 1½ miles long and is undertaken at 6½ mph. 2) TfL plan to replace the Lodge Avenue flyover on the A13 with a like-for-like replacement, with construction starting in early 2025 (and perhaps continuing until 2027). 3) In the first 33 weeks of this year TfL received a total of 567,564 complaints, of which 92.4% were addressed within 10 working days. 4) Since the Elizabeth line was launched in May 2022, the day with the fewest trains on time was 20th October 2023 (60), the day with the most cancelled trains was 25th July 2023, the day with the most trains over 20 minutes late was 6th September 2023 (6%) and the day with the most trains missing stops was 27th February 2024 (30%). 5) TfL do not have plans to strengthen any of their bridges purely due to the increase in numbers of electric vehicles. It will thus not cost "trillions of pounds". 6) TfL actioned 993 pigeon-related work orders in 2023. 19% resulted in the clearance of nests on the tube network, 10% resulted in a last resort cull and 29 related to reports of trapped birds. The remaining orders included attendance to remove pigeon guano, repairs of bird netting and installation of bird spikes. 7) Since 2010 the longest road closures on Bow Road have been 6-8 March 2019 ("trace, then excavate to repair gas escape and reinstate where possible") and 11-14 November 2022 ("excavate to locate missing valve, make repairs, check main, backfill and reinstate"). 8) TfL would like to integrate Oyster with Apple wallets but this would require updating card readers on buses and in stations. The project for this is "in-flight" but will take a further 3-4 years to deliver. 9) A speed restriction has been imposed on the southbound Victoria line between Oxford Circus and Green Park stations since 16th January 2023. This is due to the presence of asbestos in caulking and an ongoing water leak. 10) The busiest hour for vehicles entering the Congestion Charge zone is 6pm-7pm (approx 6000 vehicles each weekday). The least busy hour, unsurprisingly, is 3am-4am (approx 600). 11) There are no plans to provide signage in Yiddish at Stamford Hill station, despite any ridiculous rumours you may have heard. 12) The 'Mind The Gap' announcement plays at ten stations on the Northern line, including in both directions at West Finchley and Golders Green. There are also seven platforms where one set of doors does not open, including both platforms at Charing Cross. 13) Between April 2023 and April 2024 there were 27 confirmed fires at tube stations. 80% of these resulted from litter, vandalism or sleeper/wood fire. 14) Underground, Overground and Elizabeth line ticket machines all accept the new King Charles banknotes (and have done since June), but ticket vending machines on the DLR do not. 15) Following a decision to introduce temporary speed restrictions on the DLR for safety reasons, a journey from Stratford International to Woolwich Arsenal now takes 158 seconds longer. In the opposite direction the increase is only 114 seconds. Meanwhile Tower Gateway to Beckton is 73 seconds longer, Bank to Lewisham 69 seconds longer and Stratford to Canary Wharf 57 seconds longer. 16) The Banksy artwork painted on the TfL traffic signal controller box in front of the Gross Domestic Product Shop in Croydon was removed by workmen on 14th October 2019 and is being kept in safe storage. 17) TfL plan to launch the new London Overground lines by the end of the year but do not have a precise date at the moment. The next tube map will be issued at a similar time. 18) In 2023 the zone 1 tube station with the greatest number of "slips, trips and falls incidents" was Baker Street (147). The only zone 1 station with zero incidents was Lancaster Gate. 19) A temporary speed restriction has been implemented for eastbound trains departing Westbourne Park station. This is due to a track geometry fault, and will be in place for some time because the repair is complicated. 20) Over the last 12 months the tube station at which the most sexual offences were reported was King's Cross St Pancras (17), and the tube line on which the most sexual offences were reported was the Central line (133). Bow Road and the Waterloo & City line recorded zero.
Last week the Deputy Mayor approved the All England Club's planning application to build 39 new tennis courts across Wimbledon Park. But was that decision right or was it wrong?
It was right because Wimbledon is one of the most prestigious sporting events in the world, two weeks in July when the eyes of the world are on SW19. And this is on a surprisingly compact site, barely 40 acres in extent, which somehow contains 18 tournament courts, umpteen practice courts, hospitality venues, circulation space and backstage facilities. How much better things would be if they could extend across the road with a new show court and dozens of practice courts, and throw in a new public park for good measure.
It was wrong because this a greedy landgrab, not just a minor development, the new site being almost double the size of the old. The site the All England Club have got their hands on is 25% larger than St James's Park, for heaven's sake. What's more it's all Metropolitan Open Land so development is permitted only in "very special circumstances", and hitting a few balls about for not many days a year is hardly a justifiable excuse.
It was right because the expansion will allow the preliminaries of the tournament to be played in Wimbledon for the first time, rather than in cramped conditions in Roehampton. That effectively means a three week tournament, not to mention thousands more people who'll be able to attend and experience the Wimbledon magic, not to mention increased gate receipts which can be ploughed back into tennis.
It was wrong because Wimbledon's status as a major Grand Slam tournament isn't exactly under threat unless they expand massively. Three weeks of tennis will also be excessive, especially for local residents who'll now have to endure 50% more road closures, bus diversions, security faff and general commotion, not to mention years of construction traffic, and all because a sports club got all-out hungry for money.
It was right because the site in question is only a golf course. Not only is it a private space there's currently no public access, not even a public right of way across the site, so the tennis club should be praised for opening up the place. What's more the All England Club have owned the lease on the golf course since 1993 so they're not exactly rushing into this. And what's more it was the members of that golf club who agreed to sell up, indeed they've already left.
It was wrong because of course the members sold up, the All England Club offered them all £85,000 each to bugger off. Golf courses aren't exactly uncommon so the members could easily play somewhere else, whereas the opportunity to grab a massive windfall doesn't come up very often. The All England Club have simply been throwing their money about, safe in the knowledge that playing the long game would eventually see them victorious and getting their own way.
It was right because the golf course has been closed since 2022 so it's currently a huge area of wasted space. It was also a condition of the sale of the leasehold in 1993 that the site only be used for recreational or leisure purposes, not housing or any other kind of commercial development, so nobody's going to come along with a better offer than the tennis/park option currently on the table.
It was wrong because the golf course forms part of the wider Wimbledon Park, about half by size, with a proper public park to the east and a large boating lake at the heart of things. The existing park is busy and much-loved but not terribly well connected locally and the opportunity could have been taken to create a major recreational facility for year-round use, not a “tennis industrial complex” that will lie silent for much of the year.
It was right because one arm of the golf course is going to be transformed into an additional park, mostly linear, greatly increasing scenic opportunity hereabouts. A boardwalk will also be created around the lake creating a leisure circuit that's never existed before, and OK it'll all need to be closed for three weeks in high summer to facilitate crowd flow, but that's because the new park also conveniently aligns as a scenic customer entrance.
It was wrong because this is a Capability Brown landscape for heaven's sake. In 1795 he tweaked the trees and rusticated the avenues and dammed a stream to create a lake, and now the tennis crew want to come along and pour tons of concrete across the area. What's more they also intend to cut down 300 existing trees that have been growing around the golf course for decades, and all because these beautiful specimens don't fit with their proposed sporting footprint.
It was right because they'll only be cutting down newer trees, not the category 'A' significant ones, all of which are being retained along with 90% of the category 'B's. As they say in the project blurb, "the removal of the golf course template of trees grants the opportunity to provide a more naturalistic parkland setting throughout", although obviously this won't appear instantly so may not look great initially.
It was wrong because the powers that be simply capitulated to the bottomless pockets of the racketeers. The site straddles two boroughs, and even though Wandsworth said no Merton rolled over and said yes so the decision got passed up to the Deputy Mayor and he passed judgement on Thursday saying "go ahead". The Deputy Prime Minister has already washed her hands, saying the decision should be made at local level, and basically sport and money have won out over community and nature.
It was right because I've walked round the edge of the contentious bit and quite frankly it's nothing special. The trees are nice but the grass looks relatively sterile, as you tend to get on golf courses, so not especially anything you'd fight to preserve. It wasn't always easy to see through the perimeter but even after 20 minutes I wasn't especially enthused, so it's hard to see how a shoal of tennis courts can be worse than a swathe of private land you can't get into anyway.
It was wrong because blimey this site is enormous. It took me 10 minutes to walk one edge of the proposed park and another 15 minutes to walk the intended dividing line between old courts and new. You could do all sorts with the land, specifically creating an extended Wimbledon Park properly integrated with the existing public space, creating a biodiverse recreational masterpiece with a lovely lake in the middle. Alas, that's now never going to happen.
In summary it's both practical and greedy, both a necessary expansion and an obscene landgrab. It is thus both right and wrong, and I heartily recommend walking around the edge of the contested land rather than jumping to conclusions from afar.
The square after Coventry Street on the Monopoly board is theWater Works. London has all kinds of water infrastructure, from sewage treatment works to reservoirs and ring mains, not to mention sewers, pumping stations and the Tideway Tunnel. But I thought I'd visit the largest water treatment works in the capital, measured by capacity in megalitres, which it turns out is beside the Thames and very nearly in Surrey.
Hampton Water Treatment Works
If you intend to draw drinking water from the Thames, best do that upstream of the tidal limit. This was the rationale behind the Metropolis Water Act of 1852 which required that intakes for drinking water could no longer be located along the sewage-infested river below Teddington Lock. The Grand Junction Waterworks Company, the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company and the West Middlesex Waterworks Company thus joined together to build a water treatment works on the north bank of the Thames between Hampton and Sunbury. A mile upstream from Hampton Court Palace, not far from Kempton Park racecourse, if you're trying to get your bearings.
Initially the works included sand filter beds, a reservoir and three steam-driven pump houses built in brick in institutionally grand Italianate style. The site was soon expanded and by 1900 there were four reservoirs and 40 filter beds, making Hampton one of the largest waterworks anywhere in the world. At one point the engine houses required over 100 tons of coal a day, supplied by barge and delivered to the site via a small industrial railway. Today Hampton Water Treatment Works covers 160 acres, can pump out 700 megalitres a day and supplies about a third of London's fresh water. And I've been for a walk around it.
Hampton's a charming and historic village, once home to celebrated actor David Garrick, with a heritage core around St Mary's church. Stay downstream of the old Post Office boatyard and you can continue to believe this version, with lengthy riverside gardens and a medieval ferry to whisk you over to Molesey. But upstream all this is abruptly whisked away, indeed the citizens of Hampton sacrificed access to the edge of the Thames over 150 years ago and may never get it back. The first obstructions are the Riverdale and Morelands engine houses, two long brick buildings completed in 1870 and distinguished enough that even the cast iron railings out front are Grade II listed. Neither looks to be part of current operations so my first assumption was 'must be flats' but in fact they were sold off in 2012 to create laboratories to support biotechnological start-ups.
Beyond the traffic lights the heritage buildings continue, as yet unoccupied. The first, with its startlingly rectangular chimney, is the RustonBuilding and is one of the original engine houses on site. A plan to turn it and its neighbours into homes and offices is currently battling through the planning process, the outcome pivoting on the fine balance between the proportion of social housing and the ongoing risk of the interior deteriorating further. It feels wrong that all of this is just round the back of the local library. But eventually the view opens out, past old buildings that look like they still perform some infrastructural function, to reveal a massive open space with watery indentations.
The largest is the Grand Junction Reservoir, which I was surprised to see wasn't full given the amount of rain we've had recently but apparently it's used to balance the flow into the works. It exists to feed water into the ozone plant (or as it says on the sign 'Hampton Ozonation') and looked to be a favourite spot for passing waterfowl. The next two pools were dry, one with JCBs carefully spreading layers of sand or gravel in some kind of sanitation ballet. Hampton has to re-layer its slow sand filters every three years, and I'm pretty sure the diggers were busy building up a special biological filtration matrix which, delightfully, is called a Schmutzdecke.
If you're thinking of visiting Hampton this is by far the best place to get a view across the treatment works, the barbed wire effectively beneath you, so you could stop here and catch the 216 back to Kingston. But I wanted to circumnavigate the site which meant taking a strange hemmed-in footpath between sturdy fences, with the gloopier end of the waterworks to one side and the Stain Hill Reservoirs on the other. It could have been quite oppressive but this green stripe in fact supported a variety of wildlife including butterflies, robins, probably foxes if you come at the right time, and squirrels collecting the bountiful harvest of gale-blown horse chestnuts.
Lower Sunbury Road, where I emerged, is wholly different to Upper Sunbury Road up top. For a start it's much quieter, which was good because only occasional vehicles were splashing up mucky puddlefuls following a recent cloudburst. The waterworks was also much better hidden from view thanks to a strategically planted hedge, hence numerous signs saying 'Warning Sharp Thorns'. Other warning notices here include 'Deep Cold Water', 'Danger Deep Water', 'Keep Out', 'Keep Away' and a more verbose poster so old it features an 071 phone number. Through the branches I just about saw the thirteen parallel filter beds, each long and thin and railing-edged, through which the water for my morning cuppa might have passed.
The Thames isn't far away on the other side of the road but the waterworks hogs that too, every acre hereabouts being valuable. The only gap is for a private sailing club and then, unexpectedly, a grubby carpark filled with motley vehicles and evidence of manual labour. This is the access point for PlattsEyot, one of the larger islandson the Thames and still a working landscape because its boatyards have never been replaced by residential hideaways. It was first used for boatbuilding in 1868, then during WW1 as a secret construction site for torpedo-skimming motor launches, and was connected to the Middlesex bank during WW2 by the Royal Engineers. Their bridgestill stands and can only be driven across in something small, hence the makeshift Thames-side car park.
A fire three years ago caused nasty damage to some of Platts Eyot's remaining boatyards and destroyed a Dunkirk Little Ship which was being repaired at the time. Just don't expect to head across the bridge to take a look because the island's private, and is actually bestseen from the Surrey bank so best move on. All that follows is yet more well-screened waterworks perimeter plus the fortified main entrance and a scattering of functional definitely-not-listed buildings. Ahead are the traffic lights I mentioned five paragraphs ago where I took a last glimpse at the multiplicity of filter beds, their output ultimately linked across London via the Thames Water Ring Main. Hampton Water Works may go generally unseen but give thanks it's been doing its intended job for over a century and a half.
One thing that happens when transport deadlines slip is that some things happen anyway, things that were supposed to be associated with the launch. The weekend Crossrail was supposed to open but didn't, for example, Adidas inexplicably released a set of purple trainers with a 3D Elizabeth Line logo on the right heel. This was December 2018, a long-targeted date for those in the know but never directly communicated to the public. As we now know the line didn't open for another 3½ years, but Adidas's marketing deal was already sealed so they launched anyway into a meaningless void.
This week has long been pencilled in as Overground renaming week by those behind the scenes, but again never directly communicated to the public. Press releases have generally mentioned "the autumn" or "by the end of the year", because never reveal too much if you're not certain you can deliver. Had things gone to plan the media would currently be full of the Mayor launching the whole caboodle but alas not, delivery has indeed stalled, most likely as a direct consequence of that pesky cyberattack. Pick your battles.
One thing's that's slipped is the new tube map. Last month an FoI confirmed it was expected to be released on September 23rd, i.e. this week, in conjunction with the Overground turning six shades of not-orange. But that hasn't happened, indeed an FoI published on Wednesday confirmed "We plan to launch the new London Overground lines by the end of the year. The Tube map and signs will be issued at a similar time. We do not have precise date at the moment." However this hasn't stopped the new tube map's cover from appearing on posters across the Underground.
It's by Rita Keegan, it's called The Fabric of Time and it's described as the 40th pocket Tube map cover. It consists of several squares of moquette on a black background and I suspect you're going to like it, certainly much more than certain recent squiggles, when you finally get your hands on a copy. Alas that won't be yet, indeed might still be a few months, but the poster campaign launched anyway because there are frames to fill and nobody stopped it.
My hunch is that the new tube map has already been printed, because you can't knock out millions of copies overnight, and are sitting in boxes somewhere waiting for a revised launch date. If that's the case then they'll have been printed with 'September 2024' on the cover, a date which is going to look increasingly amiss as weeks and maybe months go by, so look out for that when they finally appear.
I mentioned recently that this week's line closures poster includes disruption on five out of six of the new lines, so would have looked particularly impressive under the new nomenclature. A reader them emailed me to say that one such poster did indeed slip through the net and was pasted up at an unnamed station before being rapidly whipped down again. If anything exemplifies how incredibly close TfL got to renaming the Overground lines this week, this is it.
See how the six new Overground line names appear as sub-brands under the overall Overground umbrella, i.e. there's still an orange title at the top, then the other colours underneath. Also note that the new Overground lines always appear with a white band through the middle like a stripe of toothpaste. Officially it's called a dual line and "is composed of two lines and a white space of equal weight". Don't sound too surprised by this - TfL released their Digital Standards for the new Overground lines way back in March where everything's explained, and three weeks ago added a video on YouTube to exemplify the TfL London Overground line naming customer journey. Watch that and you'll be well ahead of the curve.
And then yesterday TfL launched something else which would have made perfect sense if the Overground lines were being renamed this week, but instead looks like pre-arranged premature emission. Six self-guided Overground walking tours were released, each devised in conjunction with walking app Go Jauntly, and promoted in their own press release. They provide six chances to get out and about on the new lines, despite the fact they don't have those names yet, and discover multiple stories behind their heritage. And they look miserable.
To clarify, they've been put together really carefully and are packed with detail and copious background information. They range in length from 5 miles to 8 miles and one of the route descriptions stretches to 42 pages. Someone has spent a lot of time making them relevant, comprehensive and as accessible as possible, paying full attention to visiting points of interest and where to cross streets. And yet this is simultaneously their downfall because they're so circuitous, atomised and tortuous that walking them would bring very little joy. I certainly shan't be bothering, and I'm about as target audience as it gets.
For example the Weaver line walk starts with a loop round Spitalfields (steps 1-75), then a loop round Hackney (steps 78-133), then a loop round Walthamstow (steps 135-139). You're expected to catch the train inbetween. The Suffragette line walk starts in Barking and makes a ridiculous special effort to visit a bench in a distant park before doubling back to the station. The Liberty line walk is a short circuit of Romford and then a lengthy there-and-back along the Ingrebourne Valley, linked by train. The Windrush line walk starts in Dalston and wants to end in Brixton but Brixton doesn't have an Overground station so you have to meander there from Clapham. The Lioness walk could just have been a wander round Wembley but someone chose to add a mundane hike from South Kenton to Headstone Lane past several football pitches which is a step too far.
Practically speaking the worst might be the Mildmay line walking tour (8.5 miles, 5 hours and 40 minutes) which is so keen to link as many points of LGBT interest as possible that it becomes entirely unwieldy. It starts near the Mildmay Hospital, obviously, but in doing so has to admit this is nowhere near the Mildmay line and requires a trip on the Windrush line instead. A loop round Dalston follows, then a lengthier figure of eight round Highbury, admittedly ticking off several historic aspects but along an otherwise circuitous slog. And finally it relocates to West Brompton for an extended plaque-spotting deviation (Freddie Mercury, Frankie Howerd, Radclyffe Hall) ending near Kensington Palace to pay tribute to Mildmay-supporter Princess Di. Full marks for shoehorning in so many diverse icons and events, seriously, but there's no need to actually walk the thing, it's far too impractically contrived.
In summary, six Overground lines should have been renamed this week but they haven't, hence a few linked projects have slipped out anyway. A bit careless really.
I went to the doctor's a couple of weeks ago, not because I needed to but because I thought I should. "Oh that seems fine," she said, in a wholly reassuring way. "But perhaps we ought to do some checks."
And so this week I've been for three checks, coincidentally on three consecutive days, involving visits to three different health-based locations. I should say up front that none of the checks have thrown up anything out of the ordinary, so that was wholly reassuring too.
On Monday I went back to my doctor's surgery for Check 1. It's always fascinating watching the comings and goings while you wait, the constant flow of staff and patients, the latter mostly young or old. I had been expecting the reception desk to be a flurry of activity as potential patients rang in to try to get an appointment, it being that time of the morning, but it seems that's no longer the arrangement. The new normal is to request a telephone consultation*, a chat with someone who doesn't actually have to look at you, merely ascertain whether someone else ought to see you later. You could describe it as an at-distance triage solution, or as efficient use of limited resources, or as an example of the increasing impersonalisation of society.
* I had in fact bypassed all this two weeks ago by taking the self-important approach, which had been to walk in off the street and present myself in person. I was initially told I'd have to go away and ring up in the morning, but when I responded with a querulous stare the receptionist went away and checked. "Can you come back in an hour?" she asked, and I could so I did and the whole thing was sorted that afternoon.
Monday's visit was thankfully brief, being called through to the consulting room after not as long as I was expecting. The check was efficiently completed, not for the first time, and I managed to ignore how mildly unpleasant it was. Thankfully it all went very smoothly, the only unexpected thing being that Wednesday's doctor would be able to deduce what Monday's check had been just by looking at me.
On Tuesday I went to my local pharmacy for Check 2. Pharmacies do a lot more these days than just dish out tablets and offer advice, things which surgeries might have delivered in the past, thereby making greater use of their expertise and easing pressure on the NHS. I had a little scribbled appointment card as if everything was proper, which in the new paradigm it clearly is. I still had to sit around and wait while the usual palaver of pharmacy life took precedence, all the prescription-seeking, linctus-purchasing and paracetamol acquisition the local populace requires. I was at least offered a seat - they keep one for this purpose - but up close to the counter while umpteen medicines exchanged hands which isn't what I'm used to at the doctor's.
I remember the little room at the side of the pharmacy being built but had never been inside before, just thought it looked rather small. And indeed it was, but perfectly adequate for the check about to take place. What struck me most was all the paperwork the pharmacist had to go through before everything could kick off, in this case on-screen IT paperwork using a patently antiquated interface. Type this here, click, type more, click, type it again, next screen, and repeat. Maybe half the time I spent in that cubicle was spent dealing with the computer screen, not delivering the check, which can't have been the best use of a professional's time. But we got there in the end and I couldn't fault the care taken over delivery.
On Wednesday I went to my local hospital for Check 3. The system was very keen to make sure I went because I was sent an email, a text message, a text message and another text message in advance. What surprised me was that the text messages told me where to go, when and why, nudging me strongly towards turning up, whereas the email merely told me to 'Log in to see the details of your appointment'. That meant I had to go through the palaver of logging in to my NHS account, remembering the password and dealing with an unexpected error message that locked me out for an hour before it eventually told me what the appointment was. The email also advised me to "log in regularly" to get all further notifications, so seemed to be relying on me checking rather than proactively managing my visit. I wondered if I'd also get a letter but I didn't - the NHS isn't made of money - and what I ended up thinking was "blimey, no wonder so many people don't turn up".
I knew which hospital and which department to go to but that's as far as the information went. I hadn't been told how to get there, which door to use and which floor it was on, I was left to work that out for myself. What's more they've completely rebuilt my local hospital since I was last inside so I didn't know for sure where the front door was, it's quite well hidden, and inexplicably I'd never deduced where it had to be. It's bloody obvious now but I still walked round the wrong side of the building first and it amazes me that the appointment onboarding process doesn't provide sufficient information to nail down where to go.
As I wandered through the broad white corridors I thought "sheesh, this is completely different to the Victorian building I was wheeled through back in 2008", and also "hang on how many more swing doors have I got to walk through", and also "I wonder if that old man is a patient or a consultant", and also "why am I crossing back over the road again?" I eventually found myself where I was supposed to be, only to be directed down two more corridors past a nurse who asked me where I was going, and settled in the waiting space alongside a rack of leaflets about unpleasant medical conditions. Thank goodness for smartphones, all of us sat there seemed to be thinking, as we flicked through something less downbeat while we waited.
My check-up lasted less than ten minutes and I would give myself six out of ten for my performance. I failed to put my symptoms into words, I couldn't remember the date of my last check-up, I'm pretty sure I gave an incorrect answer to one of the questions and I really shouldn't have brought up that barely relevant childhood anecdote. Something about being in a room with a professional creates an undue amount of pressure, even when they're very pleasant, and I gushed to fill the gaps when I really should have kept quiet. I also misunderstood the part about the couch, because it turned out I didn't actually need to lie down and shouldn't have tried. It's just as well it wasn't my actions being checked, merely my body.
At one point the doctor stopped addressing me and started talking to the medical student who was in the room to observe, using my body as a canvas for educational demonstration. It took a while for me to realise that she'd given me the all clear and I had to ask again to doublecheck. When you're under the care of the NHS it turns out what you really want to know is "will I need to come back again or is this it?" and this needs to be explicit so it sets your mind at rest. I left the room entirely reassured, and then abruptly realised that I'd failed to put my clothes back on properly and that I should probably address that before I reached reception.
So, as I suggested, it looks like checks 1, 2 and 3 all had positive outcomes for which I am particularly grateful. I could still receive a future communication asking me to get back in touch but that now seems much less likely, so it's been a much better week than the week it could potentially have been. But as I walked out of the hospital yesterday I reflected that one day the news may not be as good, that this might one day be a building I become considerably more familiar with, and that engaging with the NHS won't always be the novelty it is today. May that day be as far away as possible.
Paddington tube station has another entrance. I know, another one.
It already has a District/Circle/Bakerloo entrance on the mainline concourse, a separate District/Circle entrance across the road on Praed Street, a completely separate Circle/Hammersmith & City entrance over by the canal and, technically, a newish Bakerloo entrance via a long subway from the very separate Crossrail entrance. It used to have a Bakerloo entrance on the mainline concourse but this narrow passageway closed just before lockdown and has since been converted into something considerably flashier. And further away.
The new entrance is part of the Paddington Square development, a spectral white cuboid with several floors of offices sandwiched between a rooftop restaurant and a retail undercroft. The architect Renzo Piano describes it as "a world-class gateway into London, floating above the ground with an animated and organic public realm unfurled beneath", and I'd describe it as a glass cage of concentrated capitalism, shoehorned alongside a station to funnel hungry tourists into a hospitality honeytrap. The masterstroke is incorporating a tube station at its roots.
If you're disembarking from a mainline train, Paddington Square will be to your left alongside the open ramp out of the station. Head upwards from the piazza and you'll find a Wahaca and a Gail's - obviously a Gail's - plus scrutinised escalators ushering smartly clad office fodder to their desks. For the Bakerloo line aim for the concrete slot guarded by a row of bollards and take the escalators down beneath the swirly red and yellow sculpture - the only new artwork hereabouts worth looking at. Oh look, more shops, so far just a Pret and Starbucks but with room for many more. A separate food hall is due to open before Christmas, but for now the numerous security guards watching over everything have very little to do.
The new ticket concourse is off to the side and is deliberately wide, instantly doubling the number of gatelines leading to the Bakerloo. It all looks functional and modern, but after you funnel up the silvery staircase you'll find yourself in a familiar spot - the tiled concourse at the top of the original escalators. What used to be the (fairly narrow) access passageway is now merely the connection to the District and Circle lines, and thus thankfully rather quieter than it used to be. This being the 21st century there's also a lift, a pair of them in fact, connecting directly down to the Bakerloo line platforms. It's like a totally different entry experience, which eventually evaporates when you see the age of the trains rolling into the platform.
Intriguingly I reckon this'll be more popular as an exit than an entrance. It's so far from the mainline platforms that many people may filter in another way. But as you exit up the escalators the Way Out signs are really clear and they deliver everyone through the new ticket hall and out into a realm of beverages and food-to-go. Everyone's now also forced to go outside before reaching the mainline station, whereas at least with the old squished exit you stayed dry if it rained. On the positive side TfL haven't paid a penny towards all this and have got a step-free entrance in return, so that's a big win. But it also means a longer walk via additional changes of level past a shedload of shops, because that's the reality of unfurling an animated public realm to create a world-class gateway.
I wondered if the new ticket hall at Paddington would display copies of the new tube map but it didn't. They'd put up copies of the old one, the map that should have been replaced by now, and all because the renaming of the Overground lines is running unexpectedly late. Even two weeks ago the 'Go live' dates were officially scheduled to be between Monday 23 – Friday 27 September, i.e. right now, but instead everything's been delayed again behind the scenes. Might be further fallout from the recent cyberattack, might just be project creep, but it all means unexpected delays.
It's a shame because the six Overground line closures scheduled for this weekend are across five different lines and that would have looked properly inaugural on the posters. The spread looks almost suspiciously broad, but I checked and they've been in the calendar for months so I doubt it's deliberate.
This, however, is somewhat embarrassing...
It's a sign on the wall outside Upper Holloway station and it suggests that the Overground serves Highbury & Lisington station.
In good news the error is only on the temporary vinyl covering the new sign underneath, which it seems someone didn't proofread very carefully. I can confirm that the green-edged sign underneath definitely has the correct name because the raised letters are visible as faint contours in the vinyl. But if the Overground renaming had gone ahead on schedule this embarrassing mistake would be in the bin by now, whereas alas today anyone can go along and giggle.
Thankfully signage does sometimes get correctly updated. I'm delighted to say that there is now a poster at Bus Stop M to say that route 8 no longer starts here. Here's the van which turned up on Monday morning to deliver it.
The wording on the poster is generally correct, so should be helpful in deterring passengers from waiting for a bus that isn't coming. But it still mentions Bow Church DLR station twice, which route 8 has never served and which the suggested alternative buses don't serve either. This suggests the minion who wrote it didn't really understand the local situation, but hey, better two weeks late than never.
When it opened anyone could pay four shillings to take a lift to the top of the Post Office Tower, and in that first year over a million people took up the offer. But the viewing platforms closed in 1971 following a terrorist explosion and the famous revolving restaurant closed in 1980, making access to the top very difficult unless you were a BT employee, telethon phone-answerer or Noel Edmonds. Hurrah then that Open House managed to wangle some tickets, this for the second year running, and once again ran a ballot knowing these would be vastly oversubscribed. All you had to do was be extremely lucky, or be the plus-one of someone who'd got lucky themselves, and a lifelong ambition could be realised.
The Post Office Tower, a potent symbol of the white heat of technology, rose inexorably above the streets of Fitzrovia in the early Sixties. It needed to be over 150m tall so the microwave aerials attached to the top had a clear view of further towers on the horizon, and it needed to be in central London so the benefits of the new communications tower weren't negated by having to lay cables to the outskirts. It was opened on 8th October 1965 by Prime Minister Harold Wilson who rang up the Mayor of Birmingham to celebrate and then descended to the observation deck where, as Tony Benn's diary recalls, ‘it was so misty we could hardly see anything at all’. Thankfully the view this weekend was rather better. [12 photos]
The public entrance to the tower is generally shuttered and staff enter via a more austere lobby round the corner. So it was a bit of thrill to go up the special steps and present my credentials at the desk, security having been ramped up somewhat since that gents toilet exploded. The permanent artworks here are phonebox-based, but there are also display cases showcasing early ephemera like a first day cover with POT stamps, an original paper bag from the gift shop and the Queen's signature on the first page of the Visitors Book. They sell a few modern day souvenirs too, for example pin badges and tiny boxed gold tower models, although on closer inspection most of these appeared to be for the 50th anniversary which they're still trying to unload.
The most mobbed artefact was a menu from the Butlin's Top Of The Tower restaurant, presented mostly in French, in which Les Scampis cost £1.70, a side order of Les Courgettes Provençale 40p and 'Two large fillets of Sole, one coated with a Lobster Sauce and the other with a Champagne Sauce with a Bouchée of Lobster and a Barquette of Caviar' just £2.35. If you wanted the plebbier roast beef dinner (£1.75) you had to come for Saturday or Sunday lunch. And all this was just a lift ride away, perhaps alighting at floor 35 for the cocktail lounge before walking down to 34 for the à la carte. Originally each lift travelled at 1000 feet a minute but these days, according to the still-Imperial display screen, it's a steady 600 all the way.
You step straight out onto the deck. It's not a big space, despite being the widest part of the tower, at barely 20 metres in diameter. It's also somewhat nondescript now the restaurant's gone, all white walls and grey carpet, making the view across central London all the more impressive. We've got quite blase about visiting observation decks atop City skyscrapers of late, but this would have been utterly astonishing when it was the tallest building in London, a title it held until the Nat West Tower overtook in 1980. And it still offers a unique perspective on London, what with Westminster and Camden councils being much less cavalier about approving tall buildings, hence almost nothing gets in the way of the surrounding rooftops.
In excellent news the outer ring still rotates. It does this every 22 minutes so if you take a seat the whole of central London sweeps past you almost three times an hour. What's a little unnerving is that the colour plates identifying the landmarks beneath don't move, they merely inch past because they're attached to the outer wall. Look northwest for Wembley Stadium, northeast for Alexandra Palace, southeast for Tower Bridge and southwest for a surprisingly large Broadcasting House. What you get to see at its best depends very much on the angle of the sun and cloudcover, but I was particularly impressed by the lush extent of Regent's Park and merely squinted at the Crystal Palace and Croydon transmitters on the southern horizon.
Up here you can see that some of the finest stucco mansions don't look quite so snazzy from the back, and that the London Eye and Hyde Park are a lot further away than you might think. I had hoped to get a decent view of the broad demolished swathe that should one day be HS2, but annoyingly the angle wasn't quite right and the Euston Tower blocked a lot of it. One thing that really stood out was the relatively regimented grid formed by the adjacent streets, this because Fitzrovia and Marylebone feature a lot of densely packed Georgian rectangles. By contrast when you go up a tall building in the City you're surrounded by a mostly medieval street pattern, organically grown, with buildings scattered according to no obvious pattern.
You could have spent all your time up here staring through the windows but the space itself had a few additional intriguing features. A TV screen was showing a Pathé news report on the revolving restaurant, all Sixties glamour, beige meals and flash carpeting. You can watch that here if you want to get the flavour. The refreshment table topped with PG Tips, an urn and milk stirrers was likely temporary. I also wanted to interact properly with the revolving ring so stood with my feet either side of the dividing line and waited. After ten seconds one foot was noticeably further ahead than the other, after 20 I was becoming unstable and after 30 I was at risk of doing the splits so withdrew. A waiter could have stepped across easily without missing a beat.
Within the central core one door led to a staff-only galley, although I doubt this was used for cooking meals because the original kitchens were two floors up on 36. I was more interested in the door labelled Bathroom's, not for the criminal grammar but because these were signposted as being on floor 35 which meant the opportunity to climb a few metres higher. This turned out to be via a narrow spiralling staircase, again white-walled, past a somewhat unnerving fire alarm. I tried to imagine glamorous hepcats descending with Babychams in hand on their way to enjoy Duck à l'Orange or Chicken Supreme, but the illusion was dashed somewhat by the discovery of a row of cubicles and a bored-looking security guard in a garret alongside. The view from the Shard's toilets is better.
My Dad had the good fortune to go to the top of the Post Office Tower while it was being built, such was his job, and remembers that the lift didn't go all the way at the time. 60 years later I have finally followed in his footsteps, taking the more comfortable route, and have finally ticked off a long-standing item on my bucket list. One day you too may follow, especially now the building's been purchased by a hotel company, although that complex transformation remains many years off we were told. In the meantime thank you Open House for the joy of a once in a lifetime opportunity, atop a building the same age as I am.
For Open House this weekend I visited twelve different and varied properties, ranging from underwhelm to amazeballs. I'll save the wow until later but here are brief reports on the others, hopefully as testament that exploring otherwise inaccessible spaces is an opportunity not to be missed.
There are also now 42 photos on Flickr if you want see a bit more from my double weekend.
It's always good to visit an architectural practice during Open House because they tend to have really good buildings and can talk about them in depth. This one's for Allies and Morrison on Southwark Street, not far from Tate Modern, and won a RIBA award in 2004 when they moved in. A&M masterplanned the Olympic Park and Kings Cross, amongst many other megaprojects, so I thanked them for the former and kept quiet about the second. We were led round in small groups to tour the building, from the unlofty roof terrace to the in-house model room via at least four different kinds of staircase. Making 3D models of potential layouts is still important to allow designers and clients to understand what's proposed, and the end result is a huge variety of gorgeous mini artworks, many of which are dotted around the offices as either inspiration or decoration. Thanks, I enjoyed this one.
As sustainable green eco-construction goes, a five storey office block made entirely from timber is about as good as it gets, indeed this Shoreditch newcomer is London's tallest fully-engineered timber office building. All the walls and partitions are wooden, be that ribbed bars in the lobby or relentless planking on the stairs. In the basement I made the mistake of gushing about the colour palette to a lady who told me she wasn't an interior designer, she was the architect. On the roof terrace I dodged the deckchairs and watched the Overground rushing bydown below. And all credit to the volunteers who had to keep beeping their smartcards to let us through doors and into lifts, because modern security does not fit with free flow exploration.
307 Regent Street is the birthplace of British cinema because this is where the Lumière brothers premiered their firstshort film outside France in 1896. The Polytechnic Institution had pioneered the presentation of magic lantern shows to a mass audience, and also introduced London to Pepper's Ghost, so was the obvious location for a debut cinematographic demo. The public cinema which followed showed a diet of military films, then diversified into natural history and travelogues before returning to use as an educational space. In 1951 (as the Cameo Polytechnic Cinema) it showed the very first X-rated film in the UK, La Vie Commence Demain, and in the swinging Sixties hosted film premieres before closing again in 1980. Ten years ago a majorrefit added a single rack of seating with space for a foyer underneath and this is now a renowned independent cinema, although still owned by the University of Westminster. Their archivist delivered a profusely illustrated backhistory, and advised that if you want to hear the Comptonorgan it's always played before the matinee on the first Monday of the month.
The shabby arcade cut-through above the District line station at Victoria has been closed for five years for a glow-up but finally reopened last week. TfL are well chuffed with it, not just because they've restored it to its Edwardian glory but because they can make a lot of dosh in rent by leasing out the retail units. So far the only tenant is a cookie shop but the arcade does look good, with ornamental scrolls and marble risers and replica luminaires and inset tiling and one particularly dazzling Art Deco sunburst on the front of the next unit to open. It's already won an award. TfL are so chuffed they made it the subject of last week's only press release, but alas almost no news organisations used it, and perhaps they'd have been more excited if they'd chatted to one of the enthusiastic employees involved in delivering the project like what I did.
I've lost count of how many livery halls I've visited through Open House and have now ticked off five more. The finest were the first and last.
• Apothecaries Hall is the City's oldest livery hall, dating to the late 1660s, and a classic of the genre. It was rammed with liverymen and liverywomen, as well as visitors, requiring a one-way system to usher everyone past the medicine jars, stained glass windows and gilded ephemera.
• Bakers Hall was new on the list this year. They have the first Modernist livery hall, which is the fourth on the same site after fire and bombs got the others. My favourite features were the three John Piper stained glass windows in the Livery Hall, each of which represents a different historic conflagration. Rather less impressive was the table of paid-for refreshments where the biscuits were mass produced and plastic wrapped rather than properly baked. Nobody was biting.
• Coopers Hall occupies a small but splendid Georgian house on the edge of Spitalfields. Barrelmaking isn't common these days so they've had to reinvent themselves somewhat as charitable brethren rather than artisanal supporters.
• Painters Hall has the best portraits on the walls, obviously, although their full-length Queen Elizabeth looks patently wrong and has recently been demoted to a side wall to make way for a much better portrait of her son as Prince as Wales.
• Stationers Hall lurks behind Ludgate Hill and is unexpectedly large, or rather a chain of capacious spaces. The largest is the Great Hall which is bedecked with shields and banners, and where various bookbinders were demonstrating their trade and wares. The livery company represents printers and publishers so not unexpectedly its handout was a booklet which felt luxurious to the touch, I'd say probably 300-350 gsm.
Additionally there were...
The Invisible One: I thought I knew where this was - easily reached through a courtyard - but the gates were locked so I walked all the way around the block and saw no signs so gave up. If I'd read further down the listing I'd have seen I was supposed to walk to the back of a car park and find a hidden entrance there, so I failed and the signage failed.
The Badly Described One: "Come behind the scenes" said the Open House blurb, but when I turned up the patronising lady on the door said "behind the scenes" was only for booked tours and I'd missed those but I could go to the cafe. If it had been described properly I wouldn't have bothered going.
The Too Early One: I had two properties close together but the first didn't last as long as I expected so the second hadn't opened when I arrived. I had to weigh up whether it was worth hanging around for 20 minutes (hmm, it's quite small) and decided not so moved on.
The Bit Late One: I thought there were 45 minutes left but when I finally found the right building the security guard said she was about to close up. She didn't seem too pleased when the tour guide offered to show me round anyway, but I wouldn't have missed much if I'd have been turned away first time.
The Abandoned One: I decided to visit a geographical outlier but on the way there my train broke down, then the train behind us overtook without our driver mentioning this, so my apologies to the far-flung community centre but I gave up and went home.
(and by my calculations that takes me over the 250 mark for Open House Properties I Have Visited Since 2002, hurrah!)
