There are several pleasant ways to do this, but on this occasion I chose a three-mile dogleg via Epping Forest rather than two miles direct across the fields. I blogged these walks in 2009 and 2015 respectively, adequately at the time, so best not repeat myself. But here are several things I noted along the way in 2026 (and you can take "oh this is really nice" as read).
Theydon Bois - a quick summary
Rare example of a village with its own tube station, in this case on the Central line. The Underground's fifth least-used station, likely because the local population is barely 4000. Famously the only place on the tube without any street lights. The name rhymes with 'Boys' (whenever I blog about Theydon Bois this is generally the only thing people want to comment about). Used to have four pubs but The Railway Arms and Sixteen String Jack closed in 2011 and 2016 respectively and are now flats. A really nice place to live. The most famous resident is West Ham's boss David Sullivan who lives in a £15m mansion up the far end (and is likely very depressed this morning).
Best shop in the village?
This is hard to judge on a Sunday but contenders include Greens the Butchers, what used to be Premier Valet Services and the proudly independent Watch Service Centre. The busiest is almost certainly the Tesco Express by the Queen Victoria. A good spread of restaurants exists for those who don't fancy schlepping into Loughton. My favourite is definitely the Theydon Bois Bakery, a proper baked-on-the-premises treasure with sunburst windows, stripy awning and a giant gingerbread man standing in the window. Alas on this occasion the front display of loaves and sticky cakes was dark and the morning crowd were all round the corner gossiping outside the Brick Lane Bagel Co, which I fear will one day be the last dough-house standing.
What's the big news locally?
A plan to build on the Green Belt has locals up in arms, so much so that it gets five separate mentions in the latest village newsletter. Redrow Homes have applied to build 150 homes in two fields to the east of the railway line, whereas present housing is only to the west. Only government changes to the planning regime could override the existing Metropolitan Green Belt designation, but every available argument is being thrown at the plans in an attempt to quash them dead. Arguably this agricultural land should be preserved for future generations but also arguably land immediately adjacent to a tube station is a no-brainer for development. Indeed an aerial shot in the parish council's latest submission is supposed to show the downsides, but I couldn't help noticing that the existing village swallowed up considerably more fields, thus NIMBY residents are essentially arguing against the reason they were able to live here in the first place.
How many forest gates are there?
I've long been fascinated by the numbered signs seemingly placed at every entrance to Epping Forest, having found several during lockdown around Whipps Cross and Wanstead Flats. This one's at Genesis Slade car park, specifically number 32, Genesis Slade being the deep rivulet that flows (in damper times) from the Forest into Theydon Bois. I was thus thrilled to discover that Derek Seume has been diligently cataloguing every gate and sharing his discoveries a) on a Google mapb) in a spreadsheetc) on the Instagram account @eppingforestgates. I now know that Gate 1 is at Rye Hill, the northernmost of all (just outside Harlow), while Gate 197 is at the southern tip at Rabbits Road/Manor Park Triangle. Additional gates have been added since the original designation, the highest of which is believed to be Gate 217 (Staples Road), but should you ever discover the location of gates 13, 30, 41 or 74 do please let Derek know.
Can you hear the M25?
No, it's brilliant, it's entirely inaudible even as you're crossing it. That's because, famously, when M25 engineers reached Bell Common they dug a cut and cover tunnel and reinstated a cricket pitch on the top of it. The full tunnel is 470m long, marked only by a slim gap in the Forest, and Epping Foresters Cricket Club play centrally enough that no racket from either end intrudes. I should have arrived mid-match but alas Sunday's game against Hatfield Heath was cancelled. Instead I was intrigued by the equipment at the nets being sponsored by Cracking Safes, a company founded by a retired police officer which sells un-nickable cabinets to rich folk with valuables they want to keep. It says a lot for the local population that they might indeed want to buy a premium safe including "watch winders" to keep their prestige wristwear ticking over, even in storage. Less silly mid-off, more deep extra cover.
Why does this hotel look familiar?
It's The Bell at Epping and it was in the news for weeks last summer as the site of serious anti-immigrant opposition. Formerly a coaching inn and then a hotel, The Bell was first used to house migrants in May 2020 with total numbers topping out at 138. The flashpoint arrived after one resident was arrested for sexual offences in the town, at which point the angry brigade turned up and incited further offences of their own. Epping Forest council lost their battle against the High Court two months ago and all was quiet outside yesterday, indeed I initially assumed the place was empty. But security guards were watching me as I peered through the metal railings, these liberally plastered with lots of little flag stickers (as indeed is every other bit of public infrastructure hereabouts). Take it as read that every lamppost in Epping appears to be flying at least one St George's flag, and perhaps a Sports Direct Union Jack too.
When is TG Jones closing?
No specific date has yet been given but last week the former WH Smith on Epping High Street was suddenly covered with big yellow 'Store Closing Down' and 'Everything Must Go' notices. I ventured inside to find reductions on everything from bestsellers to Post-its and boxfiles to fibretips. This year's Guinness Book of Records (rrp £22) was £6, now £4.80. A box of 30 Christmas cards was £1, now an incredible 70p. It must be gutting for staff watching unfillable gaps appearing on the shelves, and will be gutting for Epping residents trying to buy newspapers and magazines forthwith. But I also noted the store nextdoor, the Epping Mini Market, whose frontage advertises DRINKS SWEETS VAPES SNACKS because that's all most people really want to consume these days.
How bad are the buses out here?
It says a lot that the bus stops in the high street are served by 18 different routes but only six of them run more than twice a day and only three of them bother on Sundays. Admittedly the Central line is much more frequent but if you want somewhere off-tube your options are rather more limited. Local company Central Connect don't do useful overview maps either, sorry. Above is the splendid vehicle operating on route 339 which connects to the Epping Ongar Railway, generally summer weekends only. I'd seen a different 339 at Leytonstone earlier in the day, 10 miles distant, which got me wondering which Home Counties bus route is closest to a TfL route with an identical number. I'd like to suggest it might be Central Connect route 20 [Harlow ↔ Ongar] which here in Epping is just 2½ miles from TfL route 20 [Walthamstow ↔ Debden], unless of course you know different.
Some things I did yesterday, in non-chronological order.
🎪 I attended Cheam Charter Fair. This happens every May and has done since 1259, allegedly. I missed the mayoral procession where everyone dresses up but Park Road was still amok with folk in period costume making royal progress along the row of stalls. This is the bishop and his entourage stopping by the Brownies and offering to take some group selfies. A much better photograph would have been King Bobby VIII sat on a wall eating an ice cream cornet but I didn't risk that.
I've written about Cheam Charter Fair before so I won't go into similar detail... not that I expect you'll go back and read that so perhaps I should mention the splat-a-rat, the face-painting, the care home offering free notepads nobody was taking, the ubiquitous pot plants, the handicrafts and the extraordinary good value at the Mother's Union cake stall. It's not something worth traipsing across London for but as a beacon of annual community loveliness Cheam Charter Fair is hard to beat.
⚽ I shared a train with several Chelsea supporters, all Wembley-bound for the Cup Final, all from the team's heartland in Surrey, all in replica kit, all well-behaved, all just a little bit better groomed than supporters of most teams, of all ages from 8 to 50 and all more cheerful than they would be on the way home.
👯 I failed to board a DLR train because the rear carriage was packed with provincial daytrippers in fancy dress heading to the Abba Arena. I see a lot of this being local - a bevy of buxom folk in beads and sequins, also cowboy hats in ill-advised colours, often more Mamma Mia than proper '70s - but nothing quite prepares you for the spangled crush if you're anywhere near Pudding Mill Lane just before a show starts or just after it turns out.
🛸 I went inside Ewell library at Bourne Hall, the amazing circularbuilding that looks like aliens have landed. Even their refreshment zone is called the Flying Saucer Cafe. I didn't go upstairs and see the museum again but that is the best reason to visit (unless you're local and have a Richard Osman to return). Stereotypical readers may like to know that a Collectables Transport Fair is being held on Saturday 13 June (a week before the Bourne Hall Summer Festival).
🐎 I passed a giant steaming branding iron at Waterloo station. It was promoting a TV streaming service I don't have, more specifically a new mini-series I wouldn't watch even if I did.
🏴 I passed a few red-blooded folk on their way to the Tommy Robinson march, one barging through and fizzing with anger, also a poppy dangling from his rucksack, also a St George's flag hoisted on a four foot pole that could conceivably double up as an offensive weapon. Another man had a red Make England Great Again cap (Mega rather than Maga) and was carrying a much larger England flag with the word ENGLAND written on it just to make a point. And I thought to myself Keir Starmer may be weak and ineffective but at least he's not doing anything as destructive as this lot and their ilk will do when their favoured nationalist populist government finally gets voted in by voters seeking change "because someone else deserves a chance", maybe as soon as three years time, and then I sighed and reminded myself it hasn't happened yet.
🏆 At Cheam Charter Fair I was drawn to the tombola organised by St Raphael's Hospice and the extraordinary array of not-quite-valuable prizes laid out across their stall. Smellies, something bottled, a DVD of some kind, some sort of knitted thing... mostly giftwrapped in cellophane with ribbons. The offer was three tickets for a pound, and a prize if any of the tickets you drew ended in 0 or 5. I didn't calculate the odds in advance but I was tempted to have a go because it was all in a good cause. First ticket 375, hurrah a prize! Second ticket 252, alas no. Third ticket 125, hurrah another prize! And blimey, what prizes.
375 was a porcelain bowl with a floral motif, about four inches square, and crammed full of something. I couldn't tell precisely what because of the way the cellophane was crinkled but I initially thought pot pourri. In fact no it was a bowl of wrapped toffees, 18 in total, and could have been more had the bottom of the bowl not been deviously covered with crumpled cardboard. As for 125 this turned out to be a pink cross-stitched pocket containing a) some paper tissues b) an apple lip balm. I'm in awe of the effort some volunteer put in to create this - the needlework is impeccable - only for it to be won by some bloke who only uses cotton hankies and never uses lip balm. I do at least know someone who might appreciate it.
I have also calculated the odds since and winning two prizes wasn't quite as unlikely as I'd assumed it was.
🚆 The zones covered by Oyster and Contactless have got so complicated that they now have to display this banner outside Shenfield station. I've split it for legibility.
Another way to phrase it would have been 'if you're travelling towards Liverpool Street you can tap with anything, otherwise no Oyster, also Contactless isn't valid beyond Witham or on the Southminster branch'. But I guess their version is at least crystal clear. Also there's still an announcement on purple trains approaching Shenfield saying Oyster and contactless aren't valid beyond here so leave the train, go downstairs and tap out, and perhaps someone should get round to changing that.
🎵 I enjoyed watching Eurovision with lots of memorable candidates for the top song all scoring highly, even if we did come very last, and the inevitable existential crisis was thankfully dodged for another year. Bangaranga!
This week I went to Kent House station.
And I have more questions.
Mainly one big one.
Why is it called Kent House?
It's got to be something to do with the county of Kent and a house, hasn't it?
For context, Kent House is on the railway line between Victoria and Bromley South. The stations to either side are Penge East and Beckenham Junction. It opened in 1884. It's not in Kent although it used to be. And much of this is of importance.
Where was the Kent boundary?
For centuries the counties of Surrey and Kent covered everything we now know as South London. The boundary ran south from the Thames near New Cross to a point just east of East Grinstead. In this particular area Penge was on the Surrey side and Beckenham on the Kent side (although to be upfront Penge was an administrative oddity originally classified as an exclave of Battersea and sorry, I don't have time to go into that again). This meant the Kent boundary ran really close to what's now Kent House station, indeed passed just 30m from the far end of the platforms, so something very Kenty is going on here.
When was the Kent boundary?
Yes the important bit is when. Up until 1869 the historic Surrey/Kent boundary was the historic one. In 1889 the County of London was formed and swallowed the north of Surrey, including Penge, so the local boundary was now London/Kent. Then in 1900 Penge got the chance to shift its allegiance, and wanted to rejoin Surrey but actually ended up part of Kent, hence there was no longer a boundary here. Penge stayed part of Kent until 1965 when the London borough of Bromley took over and the name Kent House thus became an anachronism. What's crucial is that Kent House station opened in 1884 when this was Kent and the adjacent boundary was with Surrey.
Is this the Kent House?
I've long thought this glorious building alongside the station might be the Kent House. It has ornate plaster twiddles, glass whorls and tiled twirls, as befits a structure of fine stature, also it appears to be older than anything else round here. But it's not a listed building despite looking like it ought to be, also it's not on the main road where you'd expect a nominal building to be, also why do the initials 'TW' appear on the facade? More importantly the date on the front of the building is 1887 which is three years after the station opened so can't be the reason for the original name. Ah well.
What's going on with the cafe?
Until the end of last year a smart little cafe called Kent House Coffee and Flowers operated out of here. The words along the window read BEER WINE COFFEE CAKE FLOWERS GELATO, i.e. essentially trying to appeal to everyone. But they closed and the place is now being fitted out by a new operation who've been busy replacing the previous black and white colour scheme with something a lot more leaf green. This fresh outfit are called At Kent House, an offshoot of Home & Happiness on Penge High Street, and this time the words in the window are COFFEE BRUNCH SMALL PLATES HOMEWARE GIFTS & MORE. It all sounds somewhat Amandaland and is opening later in the spring, having currently reached the "yes you can come in and have a look but you'll have to take your shoes off" stage of redecoration.
So what was the actual Kent House?
It was a very old house, the name having first been recorded in the year 1240. For centuries there really was nothing much else around here other than the Surrey/Kent boundary, so Kent House would indeed have been the first Kentish location encountered if approaching from the west. In 1778 historian Edward Hasted wrote...
"KENT-HOUSE is situated on the very edge of this county, towards Surry, and seems to be so called either from it’s having been once the outer bounds of this county, or from having been formerly the first house on the entrance into this parish within this county, from that of Surry. It was for some generations in the possession of the family of Lethieullier; the first of whom was Sir John Le Thieullier a Hamburgh merchant, who had raised himself by his industry in trade, and settled in this parish."
The Angersteins took over shortly after that, rich merchants from Charlton, and in 1806 it became a 178 acre farm called Kent House Farm. A contemporary illustration shows it looking rather more like a manor house than a farmhouse, with tall chimneys and a nice little urn out front. Later it became a nursing home and then the Kent House Farm Hotel, all this while the surrounding land was sold off for housing. But Kent House station opened before suburban encroachment had covered the fields, hence was the only local thing it made sense to name the station after.
How far from Kent House station was Kent House?
About half a mile to the north, reached (unsurprisingly) up Kent House Road. The houses start off enticingly Victorian, then get sturdily but appealingly interwar. Along the way is the Kent House Tavern (alas closed 2013, since unsympathetically converted into housing) and also a run of delightfully throwback shops including an upholsterer, a carpet fitter and ye olde drycleaners. As suburbia goes it's at the very appealing end of not quite posh. However the closest station to the site of Kent House is actually New Beckenham, because logic and station naming don't always go together.
Does Kent House still exist?
Alas no. The hotel was sold for housing, being a fairly spacious plot, and replaced by a run of much more modern houses and a cul-de-sac. That's Beckett Walk, a name I can find no local connection for, a brief dogleg lined by maisonettes and a couple of proper houses. I can't find a date but looking at them I'd say 1970s, give or take. Here I found fresh-mown verges, almost-mature trees and a gentleman sat reading the paper on a chair in his front garden, most surprised at being disturbed. It's a shame that absolutely nothing of Kent House lingers on, save in the name of a station no longer in Kent, but if you rewind back to 1884 it does at least make a bit more sense.
Wes Streeting wrote an autobiography a few years ago, which given recent events may turn out to have been somewhat premature. In it he recounts his turbulent childhood in Tower Hamlets and subsequent political awakening, with rather more on the former than the latter. Wes's Dad was from a longstanding Bow family based just off Roman Road, while his Mum spent her earliest weeks in Holloway Prison before her family moved to Stepney Green. I nipped up to 46 Armagh Road where his paternal side originated but Tower Hamlets council demolished those terraces 50 years ago so no luck there.
However the book contains enough detail to identify several homes Wes lived in locally, all of which are still standing, so I set off on what can best be described as a Wes Streeting orienteering exercise. Starting here.
This former workhouse infirmary lurks round the back of Queen Mary University up Bancroft Road. Wesley Paul William Streeting arrived on a Friday lunchtime after a lengthy labour, the relationship between his parents already teetering. The name Wesley came from Wesley Jordache, a character in the 1976 American mini series Rich Man Poor Man. As for his middle names Paul was Mum's brother (who'd died aged six while walking alone to the shops in Brockley) and William was the name of both of Wes's grandfathers, two gentlemen very much chalk and cheese.
First stop after ten days in maternity was Wes's Dad's home, 200 yards up Bancroft Road. The Streetings had lived here since the demolition of Armagh Road in 1976, a two-bed maisonette on the third and fourth floors of a typical Tower Hamlets block. In those days it was possible to nip upstairs without accessing a security gate. Today the family nextdoor display a Palestinian flag on their balcony, a bit further along is the cross of St George and the residents of number 18 have simply hung a 'Home' roundel on their replacement PVC door. This particular granddad Bill was a smartly suited man who volunteered with the Scouts and also a strong supporter of Margaret Thatcher, even if he never bought his council house.
This was the home of Wes's other grandparents and the first place Wes and his Mum made their home. Wes slept in a drawer from the dresser for the first few days. This is borderline Wapping, at the far western end near St Katharine Dock and the former Royal Mint. It's also a proper redbrick council house, not a stacked flat, on a small characterful estate of little alleyways, green spaces and private parking lots. It even still has the off-red Wapping Neighbourhood signs the Liberal Democrats introduced in the late 1980s, admittedly now very faded but I don't think I've seen a full set like this anywhere else.
Nanny Libby was very much the Labour supporter, a campaigner for social justice and a foundational political influence. Grandad Bill on the other hand was an East End rogue who knew the Krays and undertook a number of armed robberies while wearing a rubber mask and wielding a shotgun. He spent a lot of time in prison, so much so that Wes often didn't see him for a year, and wasn't averse to stealing a car just to drive the family to the seaside. Nan had only been to prison once but shared a cell with Christine Keeler and the two remained friends afterwards. If Wes's life story ever makes it to a biopic, there'd be plenty of meat to it.
When Wes's parents decided to make a go of their relationship they wangled a council maisonette in Stepney. It's so close to the Royal London Hospital that you can see the blue tower and helipad at the end of the road, not that either were there in the 1980s. Clichy House is a very typical Tower Hamlets block - 24 flats with zero individuality, a row of lockups out front and either a tiny garden or a teensier balcony depending on which floor you're on. All the blocks round here were given names with a French theme. Alas the family soon ended up in debt and the couple split, so Wes grew up here with a single mother eking out a living as a silver service waitress, or whatever was going. Only once did armed police raid the flat looking for Wes's grandfather - an indignity no previous Prime Minister has suffered.
Wes's first school was a small four-classroom affair close to St Dunstan's church and Stepney City Farm. It's well-fenced these days, substantially shielded by a massive boxy academy and accessed down an odd leftover of a cobbled street. Wes loved dressing up and reading Ladybird books, and hated not being able to buy sweets on the way home because his family was skint. For primary school Wes hoped to go the the local church school but, scuppered by not actually being Roman Catholic, ended up trotting down to St Peter's in Wapping instead. Here he was a bit of a swot, enjoyed acting, met his best friend Luke and was pushed by headteacher Mrs Dodd to get a place at Westminster City for his secondary education. The school is still used as a polling station and it may encourage Wes to hear that St Katharine's & Wapping was the only ward in Tower Hamlets to return two Labour councillors last week.
In 1994 the Streetings were shifted to yet another maisonette in yet another council block, this time a massive one. At least it was on the ground floor so had a garden, not that you can do much in five metres by three, and also central heating so very much a step up. Council flats were always let empty in those days so a lot of time was spent adding carpets, wallpaper and appliances, also the electricity meter couldn't be fiddled so power cuts were now a regular issue. These days you can't get round the back without a keyfob, the abandoned Ford Transit outside is 'Council Aware', and basically don't head to mid-Stepney if you appreciate good architecture.
Wes's parents splitting meant he often spent the weekend with his Dad in Dagenham. Finally a proper two-bed house not owned by the council, although this being the Becontree estate it had been once. Finally a proper garden, finally a cul-de-sac he could play out in, and finally a chance to go to Sunday School like the good little boy he was. Around this time he got another brother, indeed he has five and a sister as a byproduct of several step-parents over the years. It's a bit scrappy up Digby Gardens today, not helped by the pebbledash nor the fact that number 5 has a skip outside with several doors dumped in it. Also the front door was open so I can say I've seen the stairs Wes climbed on Saturday evenings and that's no idle boast.
Dad Mark eventually quit his job as a shipping clerk to train as a publican with the Scottish & Newcastle, ending up running the big pub on Roneo Corner in Romford. After various housing issues Wes ended up living here full-time in one of the four upstairs bedrooms, with leftover Thunderbirds wallpaper and syrupy Coca Cola on tap. It meant a protracted commute to school but it was better than following Mum to Epping, Archway and ultimately Preston, also it was possible to snaffle profiteroles from the pub kitchen without ever getting caught. These days the pub doesn't bother opening until 3.30pm on weekdays and also has a Quality Seafood cabin out back, as befits a community that's fled from the East End.
Wes's biography doesn't give the location of his final teenage home in Upminster Bridge, and after that it's all working in McDonald's (Romford), going to university (Selwyn Cambridge) and entering politics (via the NUS and Redbridge council). But I'd seen enough on my safari to realise that this was one hell of a nomadic dysfunctional childhood, held together only by family members doing their best. By following him from Mile End to Stepney, Wapping and Dagenham, in council houses recent Prime Ministers would never have tolerated, the fact he ended up supporting Labour was never really in doubt. It's not yet clear if Wes has shot his bolt too early, or indeed has all the support he says he does, but if he does end up in Number 10 I really can't work out which of these very minor homes is best deserving of the blue plaque.
: Sometime this evening, probably around eight o'clock, diamond geezer will receive its fifteen millionth visitor. More accurately it'll be the fifteen millionth time that an archaic stats package has registered a unique visit, which very much isn't the same thing, but I think still very much worth celebrating.
Fifteen million visits is an astonishing total - the equivalent of everyone in the Netherlands reading my blog once. But viewed another way it's not much - on average three busy tube trains of readers a day.
What I do know is that my audience has been coming faster.
The first million took five and a half years.
The last million's taken eleven months.
For the first decade and a half the graph was a curve because my readership was (gradually) growing, with the fastest spurt in the pre-Olympic heyday of 2011/2012. But since 2018 it's become much more of a straight line because my readership's levelled out, with each successive million taking about approximately one year.
That's good because it means I'm not haemorrhaging readers, but also bad because I'm no longer gaining a wider audience like I used to. What I seem to have is a long-standing core readership, cheers, with a few new regulars who somehow stumble here balanced by others drifting away. In a resolutely post-blog era it could be a lot worse.
However the jump from 14 million to 15 million is the first time a million's taken longer to reach than the million before. What's more my stats package suggests a number of these so-called visitors have been 'bad bots', zapping in to crawl my content and digest it elsewhere. It's less than 5% of the total but enough that the 15 million milestone would otherwise have been reached in June, not May. It all suggests that the number of humans reading this blog is alas going down, indeed diamond geezer may have peaked.
Each time one of these millionaire milestones rolls by I like to look back and analyse which sites my readers have arrived from. For the first ten years this meant a league table of top linking blogs, ordered by volume of visitors clicking here from there. This used to be hugely important back in the era when blogs thrived solely because other blogs linked to them, but times change.
Blogs no longer have a fraction of the traction they enjoyed a decade ago now that social media is king, because the ability to drive traffic has shifted away from those who generate their own content towards those who merely digest the content of others. I've thus had to broaden this category to all forms of social media including Twitter, Facebook etc.
Here then is the latest update of my Top 10 linkers across the last 24 years, i.e. 2002-2026.
Twitter is top by miles with over 10% of all blog referrals. And that's old-school Twitter, not Elon Musk's X variant which has become tumbleweed, thus my @diamondgzrblog account now generates minimal interaction. Reddit is second with 5% of referrals, none of it my doing, instead courtesy of kindly souls who suggest I've written something interesting and very occasionally a lot of people turn up. They used to turn up more often before most of London's tube geeks were siphoned off into a minor subreddit, so its second place is again mostly a reflection of past supernovae.
The first proper blog appears at number 3, the inimitable Ian Visits who's kindly nudged visitors my way for well over ten years, especially as part of his Friday rail news round-up. Hacker News are an American aggregator portal who've only sent people here a dozen times but in such huge numbers that they're fourth. Facebook is a mystery because I'm not on there but people must still be posting links to the blog on a fairly regular basis. The rest of the top 10 includes two London-based behemoths, two blogs that went quiet years ago and Feedly, an RSS portal whose readers come here (I suspect) mainly to read the comments.
Before you get the wrong idea I should say the vast majority of my fifteen million readers didn't click in from anywhere, they rely on force of habit. I've hit this milestone by being reliable rather than clickable, because there'll almost certainly be a new post to read every morning which hopefully you'll want to read. As far as I can tell at least 90% of you currently arrive off your own bat, not because something elsewhere directed you here... although that's probably how you ended up at diamond geezer in the first place.
Also I know that a lot of you read the blog without actually visiting it, courtesy of my RSS feed, which makes a mockery of attempting to count visitor numbers anyway. I probably passed fifteen million several months ago, maybe even years back, but didn't realise.
So I don't mind where my fifteen million came from, nor that I can't count you all, I'm just well chuffed that you still bother turning up. Thanks to all of you, and here's to millions more...
Update: the 15 millionth visitor arrived at 9.06pm breezing in via Sky Broadband from somewhere in London, no referrer, just a traditional one-off diamond geezer reader, cheers!
Today's maths comes to you courtesy of Wembley Master Chef, 44 Harrow Rd, HA9 6PG.
This Pizza Deal poster appears in the window.
That's good value, isn't it?
Well let's check...
First let's scale that down to the cost of one pizza, not two.
Diameter
Price
7 inch
£3.75
9 inch
£4.95
12 inch
£6.95
15 inch
£8.45
We can try to find the best value pizza by calculating price per inch.
Diameter
Price
p per inch
7 inch
£3.75
54p
9 inch
£4.95
55p
12 inch
£6.95
58p
15 inch
£8.45
56p
This suggests the 7 inch pizza is the best value at 54p per inch.
But they're all remarkably close, each just over 50p per inch.
It almost looks like this is how they determined the prices.
But pizzas aren't linear, it's the area that increases.
Please ignore everything in the previous table, it's mathematical rubbish.
We could try to estimate the area by counting the number of pepperoni slices on each pizza.
Diameter
Price
no of slices
p per slice
7 inch
£3.75
12
31p
9 inch
£4.95
26
19p
12 inch
£6.95
32
22p
15 inch
£8.45
35
24p
This suggests the 9 inch pizza is the best value at 19p per slice of pepperoni.
The 15 inch pizza might look more packed but its slices are 24p each.
However this is also mathematical rubbish because you can't just go by photos.
In particular the 12 inch and 15 inch pizzas are shown pretty much the same size, and they're not.
My suspicion is that these pizza images aren't real, merely AI conjuring.
So we can't use fictional pepperoni slices to calculate best value either.
What we should be doing is calculating the area of each pizza in square inches.
It's good old A=πr².
Diameter
Price
Area
p per sq in
7 inch
£3.75
38 sq in
10p
9 inch
£4.95
64 sq in
8p
12 inch
£6.95
113 sq in
6p
15 inch
£8.45
177 sq in
5p
That's more like it.
The 7 inch pizza is the worst value at 10p per square inch.
And the 15 inch pizza is the best value at 5p per square inch.
This is because a 15 inch pizza is a lot bigger than it sounds.
Diameter
Area
compared to 7 inch
7 inch
38 sq in
×1
9 inch
64 sq in
×1.7
12 inch
113 sq in
×3
15 inch
177 sq in
×4.7
A 15 inch pizza is almost 5 times the size of a 7 inch.
But at Wembley Master Chef the price is only roughly double.
So if you want best value cheesy pepperoni stodge, go large.
I also checked the cost of buying these pizzas online. Ouch.
Diameter
Shop deal
Online order
7 inch
£3.75
unavailable
9 inch
£4.95
£8.90
12 inch
£6.95
£11.90
15 inch
£8.45
£14.90
The last column is even if you order online and collect it yourself.
In each case you're paying 75% extra for the privilege of ordering online.
So at the end of all that, two conclusions.
1) Larger pizzas are much better value.
2) Don't order online.
#busnatter
The Mayor is introducing a Weekend Hopper fare in the summer.
It means you'll only pay one fare to ride buses and trams all day.
But it's only for six weekends (25 July - 31 August)
But also Bank Holiday Monday, so better than that
But that still only makes 13 days of actual savings
But what a great PR stunt, making bus travel more affordable
But bus fares are already capped (at three fares daily)
But that's £1.75 × 3= £5.25 so not necessarily cheap
But basically all this does is save £3.50 (i.e. a coffee)
But if you used it every weekend you could save £45
But nobody actually makes unlimited bus journeys every day
But it is green and skewed towards less affluent Londoners
But it's hardly "a whopper of a deal", it's peanuts
But children already travel free on buses anyway
But don't gripe, any saving can only be a good thing
But what a waste of scarce public funds this is
But they reckon it'll only cost the Mayor £20m
But why are they announcing this now, it's ten weeks away!
But it might help some families make school holiday plans
But seriously, why are they over-promoting it so early?
But Sadiq has only promised to freeze bus fares until July
But it would be cynical to suggest this is a mere distraction
But maybe it's good news now ahead of bad news later
But it might encourage a few people to travel a bit more
But wow what a lot of publicity this tiny thing has got
But try not to get the top seat behind the frog's eye
On Sunday I finally visited Cocksure Lane in North Cray.
I'd been intrigued by it on a map for years and now finally I was here.
A country lane off a country lane in a seriously peripheral part of London.
On Saturday I snapped this shot while walking down Grand Avenue in Tokyngton.
Sometimes the best views are in the most unlikely places.
And yesterday I had 25 minutes to wait for an Overground train.
So rather than wait on the platform I went for an explore.
And that's how I found myself in Keats Close in Ponders End.
Rather fewer delights there, but another street in the capital ticked off.
I have, over the last 25 years, been to a heck of a lot of London.
And I wondered, how many people have been to more of London than me?
To be clear that's the whole of Greater London, not just zones 1 and 2 in the middle. A lot of people have done Kensington, Islington and Southwark but rather fewer have put in the legwork in Ruislip, Hainault and Purley. London isn't merely a Square Mile, it has an area of 607 square miles and a lot of people have never seen the half of it.
I'm sure loads of people have been to more pubs than me. When it comes to football stadiums, shops and restaurants I bet I'm soundly beaten. But when it comes to average residential streets, footpaths and all - the very meat of suburbia - I'm sure I've trodden more pavements than most.
I've been to Harrows Meade in Edgware, Rogers Road in Dagenham, Doris Avenue in Barnehurst, Gibbons Road in Neasden and Worlds End Lane in Chelsfield. I've walked the Blackberry Path in Cricklewood, Pig Farm Alley in Sutton and Hutchinsons Bank in New Addington. I have yet to tackle Cow Path in Elmstead or Emperor's Gate in South Kensington but, like Cocksure Lane, they could always be on a future list.
When I say 'been to' I'm happy to include all forms of transport, even trains if they're above ground and you've bothered to look out of the window. Most car owners will only have seen the main roads unless they drive for a living. Yes buses are better at nipping down the lesser streets, and yes cycling can down lead you down some proper backways. But if you haven't explored widely on foot you won't have sunk your teeth into a neighbourhood properly, and I have done a heck of a lot of exploring on foot.
It helps that I've been to every station in London and ridden every bus route too. I haven't ridden the full extent of every bus route because that would be purgatory but enough to know what the backstreets of Greenford look like, also Orpington and Hounslow. I've also been to every single 1km grid square in London - it was my post-lockdownproject - and I do genuinely think nobody else has ever done that.
You may assume I've been everywhere but don't overestimate my reputation purely from what I've written. There are still tens of thousands of streets I've never walked down, thousands of footpaths I've never followed and dozens of parks I've not yet stumbled into. There are apocryphal tales of people walking every street in London but I don't believe anybody ever has, except within some much smaller confined locality.
As an example, here's a map of where I've been in Poverest. If you're already thinking "where's Poverest?" then QED, I have been to more of it than you.
I've explored Robin Hood Green, climbed Englefield Rise and ridden the bus round Avalon Road. I've looked in on Beril Cafe, Poverest allotments and Fordcroft Romano-British Bathhouse. As you can see there are a lot of streets I've never been to, indeed a majority, so if you live round here you'll have beaten my total. But I bet I beat 99% of Londoners with my Poverest tally, and there are hundreds of other London neighbourhoods to take into account too.
I am arguably wasting my life by exploring London like this. I could have been having a nice day out yesterday rather than accidently stumbling upon Keats Close, or even stayed in and watched Netflix rather than giving in to pointless wanderlust.
So I wondered, have any of you have been to more of London than I have?
Also how many people overall have been to more of London than me?
Also who in the long history of our capital city has seen the most of Greater London?
And could that person possibly be me?
Update: No, it's not me, A runner called James Salmon is systematically visiting every street in London and recording his route via an app called CityStrides. He started in April 2021 and in the last five years has run along 29,023 of the 39,451 streets listed in London. He spent Sunday running 12 miles round Wanstead. You can view his map here and it is astonishing! However because he's working sequentially he's barely touched Newham, Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Bexley or Bromley yet, indeed he's done none of Poverest whatsoever. Arguably I have the better spread, for now, but by 2028 James's achievement should be maximal and unbeatable.
My next alphabetical destination proved a conundrum because no London suburb starts with J. The Ordnance Survey maintains a list of "populated places", 681 of which are in the capital, but that alas jumps straight from Islington to Kenley. Only four of the placenames even include the letter J, these being Clapham Junction, St James's, St John's and St John's Wood, none of which count as little-known locations. So I've had to plump for Joyden's Wood instead which is in Kent, or at least the vast majority of it is.
Joyden's Wood is a vast tract of ancient woodland partially devoured by suburbia. You'll find it between Old Bexley and Swanley, safely tucked between the A2 and the A20. The first building work hereabouts was the Fæsten Dic, a mile-long defensive earthwork believed to have been built by Kentish Saxons in the 5th century. The earliest medieval settlement was a manor house called Baldwyns, this sold off in 1894 to create a large mental asylum, then in 1924 a wedge of woodland was appropriated to create the Baldwyns Parkestate. Considerably more land was given over to housing after the war, this where you'll now find a library, two primary schools, three dozen streets and a chip shop. This is the suburb now generally known as Joyden's Wood, almost all of which is on the Kent side of a district boundary that once ran almost unnoticed through the woods.
I have instead set myself the task of documenting the London side of the divide which alas includes only a quarter of the wood, all on the unpopulated side, plus six cul-de-sacs, a couple of country lanes and a lot of places where horses live.
The wood Joyden's Wood is a fabulous place to explore, especially at present when its many weaving paths aren't the usual mudbath. Find one of the handful of entrances and you can lose yourself in a forested wilderness, ideally following the broad tracks or minor sidepaths rather than the outer loop of churned-up bridleway. Expect to meet dogwalkers doing a circuit, although rather fewer on the London flank because there's nowhere to park, or if you're lucky absolutely nobody at all. The woods didn't always look like this, the Forestry Commission got somewhat over-zealous planting pine trees in the 1950s, but the Woodland Trust have done a good job of thinning them out again.
I made my way from the perimeter to the path that most closely tracks the Greater London boundary. To my right a break in the wire fence led off to a steepish climb beneath a thickening canopy, the wood's character very much a consequence of its endlessly undulating contours. Birdsong accompanied me along the way, half of it from Kent. Birch trees occasionally (and unnervingly) creaked in the wind. Just off the main track I found a deep sandy dell, crossed a dried-up a stream on a bridge of logs and stumbled upon the last of the season's unshrivelled bluebells. I did not find the wooden fighter plane, the boardwalk or the Saxon earthwork because they're on the wrong side of the line (as previously enjoyed).
Another wood
Gattons Plantation is an adjacent woody oblong, also with a Joyden's Wood sign on the gate but entirely separate. You get here along Parsonage Lane, a proper winding lane liberally dollopped with manure. They totally love horses out here, with any land that isn't woody having been taken over by paddocks, stables and riding schools, also irregular detached houses inhabited by folk who enjoy a ride. As London goes, this edge of rural Bexley is beyond atypical. For the plantation turn right into Cocksure Lane and look for the swing gate into 35 acres of dense oak cover and undergrowth, passing a ripped-up poster on Coppicing before you start your circuit. I'd tell you more but this is probably more North Cray than Joyden's Wood and I might need that for N.
More stables Stable Lane is well named because Mount Mascal Stables is tucked away down the far end. Again it's notionally in North Cray but because Joyden's Wood is immediately adjacent I'm totally including it. MMS is massive, a warren of paddocks, barns and outbuildings with copious car parking, plus the underlying smell of soiled hay. A public footpath passes through so I got to see small children taking trotting lessons while proud parents watched on, also dressage arenas with letters round the outer rails, also smiling passengers arriving for a 90 minute hack or a Standard Pony Party. This is how the active equestrians of DA5 spend their weekends.
Further up the lane are occasional sprawling cottages, a half-occupied business estate and a permanently closed nursery (perennials, not toddlers). I passed a sign saying 'New Laid Chicken Eggs £2.00 box of 6', just before the man whose chickens they were emerged and took his half-dozen back indoors. The only modern intrusion is the entrance to an electricity substation, a chicane of barriers and warning-strewn fencing leading to a huge fizzy grid cunningly concealed in a grassy dip. Hurst 275Kv Substation is one of the stopping-off points for the London PowerTunnels 2 project, a 20 mile high-voltage connection between Wimbledon and Crayford which went live hereabouts last summer. I should have guessed it was important from the glare the security guard gave me when I took a photo of his portakabin.
The other lane
Tile Kiln Lane is proper ancient, the original link from Bexley to Baldwyns and still the same width too. It climbs and curls between stone walls, then up past yet more horses and the entrance to a single private cottage. Vehicles are barred from the central stretch, a part-grooved lane encroached by twiggy trees where you could imagine it's still the 18th century. Alongside is a meadow called Coldblow Field because this smidgeon of outer Bexley generally goes by the Coldblow name, but I shall be claiming the next suburbanised quarter mile as proper Joyden's Wood because its houses were built when all this was incontrovertibly Kent.
Residents of this mix of bungalows, townhouses and squished detacheds get to vote for London's Mayor but pay for it by having a ULEZ camera perched at the entrance to their mini-enclave. In the grounds of St Barnabas Church I found a mysterious knobbly boundary marker rusting away in one corner, also a coal tax post so peripheral it occupies a sawn-out slot in somebody's garden fence. The last cottage before Kent is the oldest by far, a hexagonal oddity with a thatched roof which was formerly the lodge for the big manor beyond. The bus stop outside has a B12 tile saying 'AM only' because it's part of a unique TfL loop that operates clockwise before noon and anti-clockwise after. Pictured is the last bus before the switcheroo (although it's actually timetabled for twelve minutes past twelve).
The shops
The Kent side of Joyden's Wood has most of the shops but the Bexley slice does merit one short parade, so close to border that there's a coal tax post outside the Chinese restaurant. The salon nextdoor recently switched from curlers to skin fades while the dry cleaners at the far end sold up in 2019 and is now a kebabbery. Astonishingly one shop still specialises in TV sales and satellite repairs, admittedly now doubled up with a strong sideline in vapes. But the finest shopfront here must be that of Modern Screws, still ready to sell you a pack of steel pop rivets or a Grub Screw Micro Assortment, even if its '60s typeface immediately contradicts the 'Modern' half of its name. There is much of joy in Joyden's Wood, even on the flank that's barely Joyden's Wood at all.
The Dangleway no longer has a sponsor.
You'd be forgiven for not noticing.
For ten years the cablecar was sponsored by a Middle Eastern airline and then, in a baffling marketing switcheroo, by a cloud-based software solution for enterprise resource planning. If a single company executive ever took their offspring for a ride and was moved to switch their AI data platform to IFS Cloud I'd be amazed.
IFS Cloud had a five year sponsorship deal so could have continued until October 2027 but instead decided to break early. According to Ian Visits they pulled the plug on 18th March, since when the Dangleway's name has officially been 'London Cable Car', all branding deleted.
You can check this by going to the TfL website.
The statuspage used to show 'IFS Cloud Cable Car status' but now shows 'London Cable Car status'.
The cablecar homepage used to be full of IFS Cloud references but now there are none.
IFS Cloud would have appeared three times in that last sentence and now it's zero.
As far as I can tell, the big switcheroo occurred around 16thApril.
And yet the old name lingers on.
I nipped down to the north terminal which should by now be called Royal Docks but instead has the old name everywhere.
The big letters on the terminal building still say IFS CLOUD ROYAL DOCKS, even though it would be quite easy to take the first eight letters down.
The terminal still has a massive purple IFS Cloud CABLE CAR lozenge on the exterior.
All the dangleway cabins are still wrapped in IFS Cloud branding.
All the fare posters are still IFS Cloud branded.
The lifts are still covered with purple cloud stickers and the IFS logo.
Royal Victoria DLR station is still absolutely plastered with IFS Cloud posters.
Even the fake gondola you're supposed to take photos in still has the @IFSLondonCableCar hashtag.
It does say Welcome to the Cable Car as you walk in, but even that's not the right name.
I wondered whose fault this was.
Shouldn't the sponsor pay to remove their branding official period is over?
Well actually no, I checked the 2022 contract and these signs aren't their responsibility.
Instead it says "TfL/DLR to arrange at its own cost" for every aspect of the on-site branding.
It seems TfL are just being lazy, or else they don't particularly care.
The old names also still appear on the tube map.
It's still IFS Cloud Cable Car on the paper tube map because that's not due an update until the summer.
Ditto all the posters on platforms - IFS Cloud continue to get free advertising there.
Oddly the online maps haven't been updated either, despite the fact this would be easy.
But it is London Cable Car on all the signage on trains and at stations, comprehensively so. This has been the case since April 2022 when TfL decided it would be cheaper long-term to make every enamel sign and line diagram sponsor-free. That way they don't have to go round and put stickers on everything every time a sponsor departs, a decision which has just been proven to be very sensible.
All I can say is well done to IFS Cloud because they stopped paying for all this advertising two months ago but TfL are still screaming their name across the entire physical Dangleway and its two terminals. For an organisation obsessed by brands it's a peculiar misstep.
And don't expect another sponsor because it seems TfL are planning on taking a fresh approach, focusing more on temporary activations and seasonal chutzpah.
Here's what legendary Dangleway topdog Danny Price has to say.
If you thought recent sponsorship blasts from Guinness and Warburtons on the tube were gauche and ill-judged, brands will now have the option of smothering the Dangleway in collateral instead, where thankfully most Londoners are unlikely to see it.
Also TfL recently issued a contract opportunity seeking partners to work with them on 'London Cable Car Customer Enhancements'.
There you go, confirmation that TfL have given up on the Dangleway as a method of useful public transport and are going all out on pumping tourists and sightseers for cash.
Imagine approaching your gondola ride through a swirling light tunnel backed by a pumping disco beat while a brand of orange juice exhorts you to share a selfie with their chosen campaign hashtag. It'll likely be more ghastly than that, but it'll be a while before we have clarity on quite what Boris's aerial white elephant is going to evolve into. Do come back and join me in ripping the piss whenever this new immersive reality emerges.
