Square Routes: Day 10 x 10
Bus 100: Shadwell - Elephant & Castle Location: London east, inner Length of journey: 6 miles, 40 minutes
And finally, route 100 - possibly the bendiest bus route in London. I don't think I've ever been driven around quite so many corners as I was on this particular bus journey. Our little single decker snaked through Shadwell, wriggled through Wapping, curled through the City and finally wound up at the Elephant. And it all began down one of the most infamous streets in East London.
The 'Battle of Cable Street' was a pre-war watershed in the British fight against facsism. Back in October 1936 Sir Oswald Mosley aimed to stir up racial tension by rallying his loyal Blackshirts for a march through the Jewish East End of London. But he had reckoned without the strength of feeling of ordinary Londoners who were determined that the march should not pass. They set up barricade after barricade down Cable Street using bricks, barrels, corrugated iron, paving stones, timber planks and a builder's lorry. A pitched battle was fought, not against the fascists but against the police who had come to bring order to the streets. Stones were thrown, batons were raised and several participants were either injured or arrested. The protest had the desired outcome, however, and Mosley's march was re-routed west into the City where it soon dispersed. Sir Oswald would no doubt be appalled by modern Shadwell and its integrated multi-ethnic mix. The Itthadi Supermarket now stands side by side with Peter's Pie and Mash, and a giantmural on the side of the Old Town Hall commemorates the day the flames of intolerance were snuffed out.
We headed south into Wapping past the monolithic headquarters of News International and the failed retail centre at Tobacco Dock. Where Shadwell had been poor, Wapping was bubbling over with unexpected affluence. The bus squeezed down narrow cobbled streets, the old dockland wharves to either side now converted en masse into elegant yuppie housing. Pirates used to be executed round here, now estate agents sell off studio flats for criminal amounts. Remind me to come back and blog about Wapping properly sometime, it's a fascinating and historic place.
The City of London may only cover one square mile, but our journey aboard the 100 appeared to thread around most of it. To our right the Royal Mint, to our left the Tower of London, to our left the Gherkin, to our right the Barbican, to our left the Museum of London, to our right St Paul's Cathedral, and to our left an enormous crane blocking the road while topping out yet another enormous new office block. The direct route from Commercial Road to Blackfriars Bridge would have been far quicker, but not half as interesting.
We then began our final descent into South London, speeding past Southwark station, rounding St George's Circus and lurching towards our destination at Elephant and Castle. Words cannot describe the awfulness of the shopping centre here (except for words such as 'hideous', 'over-pink' and 'poverty-stricken'). The market clinging to the pavement outside the main entrance was wretched enough but the bleak selection of shops inside was even worse, reminiscent of some struggling postwar Eastern European state. The quicker they knock this place down the better, although I believe 2010 is the earliest likely date. I had to leave - my tenth and final Square Route had finally driven me round the bend.
100 links
• Route 100: journey time and connections
• Route 100: timetable
Square Routes: Day 9 x 9
Bus 81: Hounslow - Slough Location: London west, outer Length of journey: 12 miles, 55 minutes
The 81 heads west out of west London and keeps going, and keeps going, right off the edge of the map. I think (and Matt will undoubtedly tell me if I'm wrong) that the 81 is the London bus route that terminates the furthest away from the centre of the capital. About 25 miles away, in this case. And, as for that final distant destination, I had hoped I'd seen the last of this particular town earlier this year when my bosses sanely decided not to relocate my workplace in this far-flung hellhole. But no, here I was destined to return. Bloody square numbers.
Hounslow felt far west enough, but this was merely where my journey on the 81 began. The bus station here has seen better days, just eight featureless bus bays beneath an ancient roof, and thankfully due to be rebuilt before the end of the decade. I could have bought a halal burger for just £1.50 nextdoor in the Hounslow Snack Bar but I chose not to. The town centre was thronging with red and white buses, while jet planes droned overhead on their final approach into Heathrow. I didn't think the shopping centre was too bad actually, but then I'm used to East London and almost anywhere else's shops are better than that.
In the High Street our bus was boarded by a teenage single mother in a bright pink coat with white fur trim. At first glance her hair appeared blond, but closer inspection showed that her roots were as black as her eyeliner. She carefully manoeuvred a giant pink three-wheeler pram (with leopardskin trim) into the wheelchair space, then settled down to flick through something important on her mobile phone. The pram was full of cuddly toys, its interior completely sealed off from the outside world by a protective plastic covering. Of the baby itself I neither saw nor heard any trace for the entire journey.
We followed the old Bath Road out of Hounslow, then took the A4 along the northern perimeter of Heathrow Airport. I ducked instinctively as an Air China jumbo screamed unexpectedly low above our heads. The airport stretched out beside us for a good three miles, a mass of towers and tailfins and terminals. On the opposite side of the road stood an endless succession of anonymous shoeboxes, or 'hotels', where weary business travellers prepared to spend yet another lonely night emptying the minibar. Near the motorway slip road the bus was boarded by a swarm of off-duty cleaners and service staff, heading west away from their menial jobs towards where the cheaper housing is. Some town planning joker had named a nearby cul-de-sac 'Heathrow Close', which was an understatement.
Suddenly we were crossing over six lanes of snarled-up traffic on the M25 and making a clean break out of London. Grey gave way to green. The winding village of Colnbrook looked like it had been successfully saved from the ravages of 75 years of motor damage thanks to the building of one of Britain's first bypasses. Langley was more suburban, one of its lampposts transformed into a shrine by the addition of several bouquets of flowers. The bloke beside me began to fall asleep, as if in anticipation of our final destination, gradually lowering his weary head onto my shoulder. As we swung round the M4 roundabout he woke with a start, apologised profusely to cover his embarrassment and then promptly fell asleep on my shoulder again.
And then Slough was upon us. Home of the Mars Bar, birthplace of Thunderbirds and an inspiration to John Betjeman. Or, as far as I could tell through the bus window, a fairly typical modern town with a huge shopping centre, lot of cars and no character. My apologies to those who live and work here, but I'm glad that I do neither. We made a full circuit of 'that roundabout you see in the opening titles of The Office' before pulling up just outside the equally legendary Brunel Bus Station. It's a grim building, dark and filthy and forgotten. My photo shows the westernmost bus stop on the entire London Transport bus network, where a line of Slough residents waited to board escape vehicle 81 back to civilisation. I had the choice of a dingy subway leading south towards the delights of the town centre or a short walk to the railway station and a fast exit. I'm sure you can guess which route I chose.
X-17
25 years of Festive Double Issue Radio Times Covers(from the dg personal collection)
1979 Group of children in woolly hats dressing up red pillar box as snowman (120 pages, 30p)
1980 Nursery scene featuring three children gazing out of window at distant star (120 pages, 36p)
1981 Dove of peace resting on church bell (120 pages, 50p)
1982 Old galleon laden with presents (120 pages, 50p)
1983 Christmas tree featuring items from the Twelve Days of Christmas (120 pages, 56p)
1984 Christmas wreath on red front door - or is it a winking face? (160 pages, 60p)
1985 Photograph of the Trotter family (Del Boy, Uncle Albert in Santa costume, Rodney) (160 pages, 64p)
1986 Photograph of the Fowler family (Michelle with baby Vicki, Lou with baby Martin, Pauline) (160 pages, 70p)
1987 Two tousled, blond, lantern-carrying carol singers accompanied by over-cute dog (160 pages, 74p)
1988 Theatre stage featuring various tasteful pantomime characters (160 pages, 80p)
1989 Photograph of King's College chorister looking supremely angelic (164 pages, £1.00)
1990 Jolly old Santa watching TV while being offered mince pies by fawning children (164 pages, £1.10)
1991 Jolly old Santa reading Radio Times featuring jolly old Santa on the cover (180 pages, £1.10)
1992 Freckled girl looking over the shoulder of wrapped-up snowman (212 pages, £1.20)
1993 Young two-front-teeth-less boy dressed in Santa costume (220 pages, £1.30)
1994 Smiling modern family drawn '50s style' wearing party hats (220 pages, £1.30)
1995 Jolly old Santa clutching big black clapperboard (220 pages, £1.50)
1996 Top-hatted snowman emerging from golden jack-in-the-box (220 pages, £1.50)
1997 Merry old Santa pulling cracker with distant snowman (230 pages, £1.50)
1998 Cowboy Santa (with lasso) riding reindeer across snowy desert (228 pages, £1.40)
1999 Blond cherub with golden halo looking into crystal ball containing Millennium Dome (228 pages, £1.50)
2000 Giant Harry Potter emerging from pages of glowing book (204 pages, £1.55)
2001 Grinning redhead wearing Christmas-tree dress while skating on village pond (220 pages, £1.65)
2002 Santa flying aboard giant robin through sky above snowy landscape (220 pages, £1.70)
2003 Jack-in-the-box-in-the-box-in-the-box (236 pages, £1.80)
2004 Santa flying yellow plane over Christmas pudding with Britain-shaped cream topping (236 pages, £1.80)
Square Routes: Day 8 x 8
Bus 64: Thornton Heath - New Addington Location: London south, outer Length of journey: 8 miles, 30 minutes
...except that 64 is also a cube number as well as a square number. So I took a ride on the 64 and wrote about it last year. The 64 is a fascinating non-tram ride through the outskirts of Croydon, so it's very different to all of this month's previous journeys. Go read it on my Square Routes page. Or just hang around for a new journey to the edge of London tomorrow...
Square Routes: Day 7 x 7
Bus 49: Shepherd's Bush - Clapham Location: London southwest, inner Length of journey: 6 miles, 50 minutes
"We must ask ourselves what the man on the Clapham omnibus would think." (Lord Justice Bowen, 1903)
According to legal counsel, the man on the Clapham omnibus is the 'ordinary, reasonable man', intelligent but non-specialist. So I thought that on this journey I'd look inside the bus for a change, observing "everyman" to see what he was doing and listening in to what he had to say. I was helped in my quest by the 49's on-board camera system which relayed seven different interior shots onto a screen directly in front of me throughout the journey. And I suspect that things have changed somewhat on the Clapham omnibus since 1903.
The man on the Clapham omnibus...
...is wearing a fleece, is listening to music on headphones, has been playing kickabout on Shepherd's Bush Green, is carrying 12 cans of cheap lager in a Morrison's carrier bag, is plugged into his Nokia phone, is young and overweight, is reading a discarded tabloid, is wearing a cheap suit, is "going to meet Dom", is sitting on the back seat with his two hungover mates, says he should have got off at the last stop, is wearing grey sweatpants, is reading a London tourist guide, is accidentally dropping books onto the floor out of a Waterstones bag, is drinking a bottle of Strathmore water, is talking into his mobile in Japanese, hasn't shaved, is probably single, is carrying a manbag, is listening to the women on the Clapham omnibus discussing hair extensions, has big teeth, is eating something that smells like macaroni cheese, is wearing a baseball cap, is breathing out alcohol, has spent £50 at the Virgin megastore in Kensington High Street, is out with his wife, is wearing a scarf, is gossiping in French, is clutching a printed out map, is carrying a green rucksack, is lugging a pushchair on board, has been to the National History Museum with his son, isn't driving a 4x4 like everyone else in Kensington, is sipping a steaming latte, is off to buy antiques in the Kings Road, is bald, is discussing Chelsea Harbour in a loud voice, is drinking Fanta, is carrying a set of golf clubs, is cradling his sleeping girlfriend on his shoulder, is bashing on the ceiling yelling "Last stop, all change".
49 links
• Route 49: anorak-level bus information
• Route 49: anorak-level route information
• Route 49: journey time and connections
• Route 49: timetable
Square Routes: Day 6 x 6
Bus 36: New Cross - Queen's Park Location: London southeast-northwest, inner Length of journey: 9 miles, 65 minutes
And now for something just a little bit special. The 36 is one of London's seven remaining Routemaster routes, or at least it is for the next couple of months. I rode it just in time because on 28th January next year all the Routemasters on route 36 are due to be whisked away and replaced by a fleet of anonymous (but accessible) buses. The accessibility argument is especially weak in this case because the 36 is shadowed along almost all of its route by bendy bus route 436. Given the choice, as far as I could tell, passengers waiting at bus stops were far more likely to board a friendly 36 than an impersonal 436 if both arrived together.
The 36 is the longest of London's remaining Routemaster routes, crossing the capital from southeast to northwest. The route used to be even longer (and there used to be a 36A and 36B too) but the original southern terminus at Hither Green was cut back to Lewisham in 1991 and shorn still further in 1994. The route now begins in New Cross, just along the road from the bus garage, and it was here that I leapt onto the open platform ready to be carried away. The bus headed off on a direct line through South Caribbean London, where fast food shops sell patties instead of burgers and where plantains are ten for a pound. We passed shabby old housing infilled with trendy new apartment blocks, we squeezed through the bustling pedestrianised main shopping street in Peckham and the engine throbbed as we queued to traverse the ancient crossroads at CamberwellGreen.
I was surprised to discover that a TV screen had been placed just above the window at the front of this old Routemaster, broadcasting a diet of adverts, news, adverts, information and more adverts to the captive audience on the upper deck. I watched Michael Palin dash through the Arctic pulled by huskies approximately every ten minutes throughout the journey and I learned that transferring money to Ghana and Cameroon needn't cost the earth with Cashmo. Most eerie of all, however, were the occasional live shots taken by a small black and white camera positioned just above the bus's rear platform. Watching people hopping on and off was like viewing an old sepia film from yesteryear, and a reminder of these buses' long and distinguished heritage.
In Kennington I was treated to a grandstand view of the Oval cricket ground (now the ghastly-named Brit Oval) and of a vast crescent of green plastic seats which next month will be opened as the redeveloped Vauxhall End. We drove on round VauxhallCross, a giant ring road which has been undergoing a radical facelift for what seems like forever. In the centre of the roundabout lay a gleaming new bus station with futuristic steel canopy, but completion was running months behind schedule and, when we passed by, the slip road remained barriered to all traffic. (Update: the bus station opened on Saturday) On our way across Vauxhall Bridge we passed the landmark owl-shaped towers of St George Wharf, while over the river in upmarket Pimlico I spotted "Noel Coward House" (you wouldn't get away with a name like that in South London).
At Victoria the bus's clientele altered - south London disembarked and north London clambered aboard. Two hoodied boys bounded up to the top deck and spent the next 15 minutes discussing PlayStation strategy in white middle-class street patois ("did ya see the boss demon on the next level, well hard he was"). Leaf fall along Grosvenor Place allowed us to see directly into the Queen's back garden (nice tennis courts you have there, Ma'am). Up at Speaker's Corner the audience numbered only six, so there was no need for one over-optimistic orator to have brought a stepladder along with him. And a volley of passengers leapt off the platform at the Royal Oak traffic lights, as if making up for the fact that they won't be able to do so in two months time.
The final leg of the journey headed northwest into inner suburbia, crossing over the main Paddington railway line, beneath the concrete pillars of the A40Westway and above the Grand Union canal. Our bus played leapfrog with another, each taking on passengers at alternate stops as we wended our way through the last few streets of terraced villas. Our destination was a quiet triangle of roads beside Queen's Park station, at which point the conductor babysat the bus for a couple of minutes while the driver popped off to the nearby corner shop. Two Routemaster fans were standing around snapping photos of the doomed buses as each pulled up. I joined them and made three.
36 links
• Route 36: anorak-level bus information
• Route 36: anorak-level route information
• Route 36: journey time and connections
• Route 36: timetable
Square Routes: Day 5 x 5
Bus 25: Ilford - Oxford Circus Location: London east, inner Length of journey: 10 miles, 90 minutes
The 25 is my local bus. It's the only bus that travels up the Mile End Road from Whitechapel to Stratford, and it goes straight past my front door. It is therefore a bus route I know far too much about. The 25 is also a bendy bus route. It's the only bendy bus in east London, and it's always packed, and we local residents hate it. I rode the 25 on its first day of bendiness about six months ago, wrote up my report of the horrors of bendy transformation here, and vowed that I'd never travel the complete route again. So it's that report from June which you'll find on my Square Routes page.
1) You have to buy your ticket before boarding: If you're well off you have a pre-paid Oystercard which makes boarding a bendy bus simple. If you're not well off (and let's remember that the 25 passes through Tower Hamlets, the poorest borough in the country) then you have to buy a ticket with cash before boarding. Transport for London have kindly provided a ticket machine at every bus stop along Route 25, but these are notoriously slow and unreliable. Sometimes the machine takes your money and doesn't dispense a ticket. Sometimes the machine won't even take your money, but the bus driver still won't let you pay on the bus so you're completely stuck. Many's the time I've seen unfortunate local residents still struggling to insert a one pound coin into the machine while the bus driver closes the doors and drives off. And when the cost of a ticket rises in January from £1 (one coin) to £1.20 (two coins), expect things to get worse.
2) You can get on board without paying: Actually that's not quite true. You'd never dream of getting on board without paying because you're an upstanding member of the community, but lots of people aren't. Other people get on board without paying. They just slip onto the bus through its middle or rear doors, smile at saving a quid and slip off again a few miles later. I saw herds of ticket inspectors on the route catching unticketed miscreants during the first week of bendy operation but I've not seen any since.
3) Bendy buses are too long: Bendy buses are 18 metres long, so they take up nearly twice as much road space as the double deckers they replaced. This means that traffic jams are getting longer. Longer buses are also far more likely to stop while blocking road junctions or pedestrian crossings, especially in heavy traffic. There are now two bendy bus routes down Oxford Street, a road which was always notorious for bus congestion, and it's evident that the congestion has got much worse since they were introduced. On the 25, for example, it's now usually quicker to hop off at Tottenham Court Road and walk the last half mile to Oxford Circus.
4) Bendy buses are relatively unmanoeuvrable: London's roads weren't designed for bus juggernauts, and the capital's streets are narrow, twisty and littered with obstructions. A bendy bus trying to change lanes can block the entire road, much to the annoyance of other road users. A bendy bus trying to turn a corner has to drive slowly and carefully, and can knock down street furniture and mow down the odd pedestrian in the process. It's like trying to sail an oil tanker down a narrow river. The western end of route 25 has been particularly affected, because here the bus has to take a five minute diversion down Regent Street and around Hanover Square just to avoid one impossible right turn to reach the last bus stop outside John Lewis.
5) The service on a bendy bus route is less frequent: Because bendy buses hold more people than the buses they replaced, Transport for London have bought less of them and are running them at more widely spaced intervals. TfL would argue that, overall, capacity has increased. I'd argue that I now have to wait longer for a bus. In fact I often have to wait an awful lot longer because these new buses travel bunched-up in convoys, usually with one nigh-empty bus trailing behind one packed-out service, but unable to manoeuvre past and overtake. Here's a photo showing four bendy buses nose to tail beside the Bow flyover, and I'll leave you to imagine the gap in the service that both preceded and followed this procession.
6) There aren't enough seats: Despite being nearly twice as long as the old double deckers, a bendy bus has a third less seats. Think of them more as tube carriages on wheels, with more space to stand and less places to sit. That's fine when there are less than 60 passengers on board because everyone still gets a seat. It's far less good when there are 'up to 140' passengers on board because that's really quite hellish, in the same way that travelling on the Central line in the rush hour is hellish.
7) It's no fun standing on a bendy bus: Unlike trains, London buses do not travel in fairly straight lines. They veer round roundabouts, swerve round corners and stop frequently (and rapidly) at traffic lights. This does not make for a pleasant travelling experience (unless you really enjoy rollercoaster rides, in which case it's a lot cheaper than a trip to Alton Towers). If you do end up standing then the hanging strap things are also really difficult to hang onto. They're not like those nice knobbly things that hang from the ceiling of tube trains, oh no. Instead you get to hang onto a grey plastic loop attached loosely around a high horizontal bar, and this rotates as the bus jerks about. Every time the bus swerves, you swerve. Every time the bus stops, you swing around. Hang onto one of these straps for any length of time and you'll probably do terrible things to your wrist as you jerk around like a demented puppet. I reckon these straps are a real design faux pas and should be replaced immediately.
8) It's really quite dangerous standing on a packed bendy bus: When a bendy bus gets crowded (and the 25 regularly does), tons of people end up standing squashed down the aisles and particularly in the two open spaces beside the middle and rear doors. This is especially dangerous should you end up standing just inside the doorway because the bus designers haven't provided anything suitable to hang onto. There are bars and straps further inside the bus, but you probably won't be able to reach those because other people will be hanging onto them or just standing in front of them and blocking them. All it then takes is one jolt or one fast corner and you're very likely to fall over, or at least smash into the five people attempting to stand next to you.
9) The view isn't very good: I miss the view along route 25 that I used to get from the top deck of the old double deckers. The view from a single decker just isn't the same, not least because a sizeable proportion of the seats face backwards. You'd never choose to view the Christmas lights down Oxford Street, for example, from a bendy bus.
10) Bendy buses are rubbish: They may still be red, but they're just not 'proper' London buses, are they? They're just rubbish.
Square Routes: Day 4 x 4
Bus 16: Cricklewood - Victoria Location: London northwest, inner Length of journey: 6 miles, 65 minutes
My apologies if you live in Cricklewood or Kilburn, but the number 16 bus route isn't exactly a thriller. There may be Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner to enjoy, but all you see for most of this journey down the A5 arterial road are shops, shops and more shops. Most of them aren't even very exciting shops, just the sort of anonymous retail outlets you'd find along any street just outside any town centre. So I thought that for my account of this journey I'd just list the names of some of the shops I saw from the top deck along the route. There are actually tons more shops than I managed to list, but my pen started running out halfway down Cricklewood Broadway so listing suddenly became an extremely challenging task. But the bus was travelling very slowly in the Saturday afternoon traffic so I did manage to scratch down the names of the following...
Cricklewood Broadway: Lidl, Wickes, Matalan, The Cricklewood, Hammond and Son Butchers, decks.co.uk, Eboneeze health & beauty salon, Curtains Direct, thisisfurniture.com, Sheila's Restaurant and Cafe, Beacon Bingo, M C Clary Coin Op Laundry, Vid Biz, Pound Village, Cricklewood Halal (best meat and grocery), Shannon Dry Cleaners, Walford & Co Solicitors, Bagel Delight Bakery, KFC, Burger King, McDonalds, Iceland, Rupali, Herbal Acupuncture, Pink Rupee Tandoori, American Wheels, Kwik Fit. <there are no shops on Shoot Up Hill> Kilburn High Road: Kilburn Flowers Ltd, Naam Travel, Pandora's Box 2nd Hand Shop, North London Tavern, The Kebabish, All Cash Amusements, Small & Beautiful Restaurant, Food City, NYC Hip Hop Clothing, Poolcrest Snooker Centre, Call The World For Less, Tricycle Theatre, Planet Pizza, Woody Grill, Nail Art, Classy Chicks, Poundstretcher, H Samuel, Benny Dee Clothing, Woolworths, Greggs, Brent Textiles Ltd, Purple and Pink, Dumpling Chinese Restaurant. <there are no shops on Maida Vale> Edgware Road: Remedys Pharmacy, Threshers, Café La Marquise, Al Sutan Supermarket, Kandoo Persian restaurant, Zorba Fish Restaurant, Al Kanater (Lebanese cuisine), Caesar Ceramics, Video Prince, Micro-logic.com, Fatoush, Gulf Telecom, Grosvenor Victoria Casino, Shazia Food Hall, Woolworths, Al Mustafa, Beirut Express, Maroush Deli, Kiddy Boom, Starbucks, the Tyburn Bar, Odeon Marble Arch, Sainsbury's Local, Pret, Chequepoint bureau de change. Park Lane: MG Rover, Stratstone Aston Martin showroom, BMW Park Lane, Porsche, London Hilton. <there are no shops on Grosvenor Place> Victoria: The Beresford Clinic, Brava! Lingerie, Balls Brothers, H Stain Jewellers, The Shakespeare, Victoria Cafe.
16 links
• Route 16: anorak-level bus information
• Route 16: anorak-level route information
• Route 16: journey time and connections
• Route 16: timetable
Square Routes: Day 3 x 3
Bus 9: Aldwych - Hammersmith Location: London west, inner Length of journey: 5 miles, 40 minutes
I made this journey three months too late. Back at the start of September this was a Routemaster route, but alas the new replacement boxy double deckers make the number 9 now as anonymous a route as almost any other. Shame. My third square route was a relatively-brief jaunt from the West End to West London, beginning almost directly outside the boarded-up entrance to another long lost transport legend - the disused underground station at Aldwych (deceased 1994). King's College nextdoor is much older, 175 years old this year, but still very much functional.
My journey would have been much more pleasant in a Routemaster. Just one stop down the Strand we had to wait for two minutes while a balding Japanese man battled to find change and then feed it into the ticket machine beside the bus stop. Actually we didn't have to wait - our driver was just being kind - but this delay would never have happened with an on-board conductor to sort everything out. My grandstand view of Nelson's Column would also have been considerably better had I not been sitting on a stiff plastic seat of the kind you'd expect to find in a cheap cafeteria. Still, such is progress.
Apart from TrafalgarSquare, route 9 has much to recommend it to the tourist. This might explain why five tourists crammed into the three seats next to me at the front of the top deck for most of the journey. They ooh-ed at Admiralty Arch, they ahh-ed at Piccadilly Circus and they prodded furiously in the general direction of the Ritz. I could have told them everything there is to know about Piccadilly as we sped down the bus lane there, but instead I chose to keep quiet. Knightsbridge was a bit of an ugly disappointment, although the retail cathedral of Harvey Nicks definitely caught their eye. They strained in vain to spot Princess Di'sfountain through the trees in Hyde Park as we passed close by, then disembarked rapidly when we reached the Royal Albert Hall. I'd like to think that this was for cultural reasons but I suspect it was more likely they just wanted to take each other's photos beneath the gaudy gold of the Albert Memorial.
Just before we reached Hammersmith, a sad sight caught my eye at the end of Kensington High Street. Here stands the CommonwealthInstitute, a low concrete building with a curved green copper roof which for 40 years promoted cultural diversity to an under-enlightened nation. I remember being taken round the exhibition halls as a child and seeing strange African masks from distant lands that Britain had only just realised it didn't rule any more. Alas the building now lies empty, having been closed to the public two years ago by its somewhat suspect board of trustees. A number of Commonwealth leaders support the idea that the Institute should be knocked down and the money from the sale of the land used to fund schooling for disadvantaged children. No doubt property speculators are licking their lips at the prospect, but I would be saddened if this slice of post-imperial heritage were to be replaced by 'Tanzania Court' and 'Lesotho Villas' (1 and 2 bedroom apartments available). As my number 9 journey had shown, the past is always in danger of being lost forever.
Square Routes: Day 2 x 2
Bus 4: Waterloo - Archway Location: London north, inner Length of journey: 8 miles, 55 minutes
From Waterloo you can catch the Eurostar to Paris and Brussels, or you can catch the number 4 bus to Finsbury Park and Archway. It's a tough choice, but I took the latter option. Waterloo station is so big that it took me a good ten minutes to find the right bus stop from which to begin my journey, out beside the rumbling Waterloo Road. An endless stream of red double deckers navigated down the street, pulling in to pick off passengers from the harbour of their bus shelter. I waited ages 4 my chosen vessel to arrive. We sailed off round IMAX Island, then steamed ahead across Waterloo Bridge. The view to port and starboard along the river from my lookout in the crow's nest was picture perfect.
The bus skirted Aldwych, passing a cluster of dossers drinking out of brown paper bags. We entered the City at the original site of Temple Bar and descended Fleet Street, now a mere shadow of its former journalistic self. I was surprised to see that the only publishers remaining in the street are Kall Kwik (based, believe it or not, in the very shop where Sweeney Todd once used to slice and dice his unshaven victims). Up Ludgate Hill we just caught a glimpse of Temple Bar in its new setting, lost in the scaffolding and redevelopment around St Paul's Cathedral. Herds of open-topped sightseeing buses passed us by, and tourists stared into our ordinary top deck as though we were sights ourselves. A few minutes later we exited the City past the giant concrete blocks of the Barbican, its flowerboxes arranged in regular tiers like some multi-coloured waterfall.
As soon as we drove north of the City our view immediately changed. The backroads of Islington (officially the very southern end of the A1 trunk road) weren't quite so wealthy, or quite so photogenic. There were a couple of exceptions - notably Upper Street (a buzzy place to whine and dine) - but either side we were suddenly reminded that real people live in London and that not all of them can afford the antiques being sold up the road. Life looked at its grimmest around Finsbury Park, although the road here did boast a view of London's finest footballstadium - as well as the Arsenal Fish Bar, the Arsenal Cafe, the Arsenal Supermarket, the Arsenal Barbers, the Arsenal Tavern and The Gunners (another pub, of course).
By the time we reached the Holloway Road our driver appeared to be trying very hard not to stop, but he was thwarted by passengers who kept trying to flag the bus down. He paused briefly along a residential avenue in Tufnell Park to let on board a mad lady and her two contrasting dogs. Mrs Mad charged up to the top deck where she let both her smelly alsatian and small yappy mongrel off their leads and let them both roam free. Then she spent the rest of the journey talking to both of her canine companions. I'm sure that repeatedly gurgling "Ooh you're so big, you're so big" is normal behaviour for a pet owner behind closed doors, but her unhinged utterances felt extremely uncomfortable on board public transport. On reaching our final destination at Archway Mrs Mad then yelled loudly at the driver to open the doors and let her menagerie disembark which, after a short delay for effect, he was only too pleased to do. I followed a safe distance after.
4 links
• Route 4: anorak-level route information
• Route 4: journey time and connections
• Route 4: timetable
• Huge petition against appalling service on route 4
It's time once again for diamond geezer to spend a few days exploring London by bus. I thought I'd get out and view some more of the capital from the best vantage point of all, the top deck of a London bus. And then I'd come back and tell you all about what I saw. Just like I did this time last year.
Last year I travelled on seven buses whose route numbers were cube numbers. This year I've decided to switch my mathematical allegiance to square numbers. (1x1, 2x2, 3x3 and so on.) Square routes. I'm only going up as far as 10x10 because the journeys get a little too suburban after that, but the first ten square routes are fascinating enough. Oystercards at the ready - hold very tight please.
Square Routes: Day 1 x 1
Bus 1: Centre Point - Canada Water Location: London southeast, inner Length of journey: 6 miles, 35 minutes
...except that 1 is a cube number as well as a square number, which means that I made this particular journey last year. You can re-read my account of bus route 1 here. Or you can wait for the first new journey tomorrow.
Square Routes (the journeys I didn't make)
The 'Battle of Cable Street' was a pre-war watershed in the British fight against facsism. Back in October 1936 Sir Oswald Mosley aimed to stir up racial tension by rallying his loyal Blackshirts for a march through the Jewish East End of London. But he had reckoned without the strength of feeling of ordinary Londoners who were determined that the march should not pass. They set up barricade after barricade down Cable Street using bricks, barrels, corrugated iron, paving stones, timber planks and a builder's lorry. A pitched battle was fought, not against the fascists but against the police who had come to bring order to the streets. Stones were thrown, batons were raised and several participants were either injured or arrested. The protest had the desired outcome, however, and Mosley's march was re-routed west into the City where it soon dispersed. Sir Oswald would no doubt be appalled by modern Shadwell and its integrated multi-ethnic mix. The Itthadi Supermarket now stands side by side with Peter's Pie and Mash, and a giant mural on the side of the Old Town Hall commemorates the day the flames of intolerance were snuffed out.
We then began our final descent into South London, speeding past Southwark station, rounding St George's Circus and lurching towards our destination at Elephant and Castle. Words cannot describe the awfulness of the shopping centre here (except for words such as 'hideous', 'over-pink' and 'poverty-stricken'). The market clinging to the pavement outside the main entrance was wretched enough but the bleak selection of shops inside was even worse, reminiscent of some struggling postwar Eastern European state. The quicker they knock this place down the better, although I believe 2010 is the earliest likely date. I had to leave - my tenth and final Square Route had finally driven me round the bend.
The 81 heads west out of west London and keeps going, and keeps going, right off the edge of the map. I think (and Matt will undoubtedly tell me if I'm wrong) that the 81 is the London bus route that terminates the furthest away from the centre of the capital. About 25 miles away, in this case. And, as for that final distant destination, I had hoped I'd seen the last of this particular town earlier this year when my bosses sanely decided not to relocate my workplace in this far-flung hellhole. But no, here I was destined to return. Bloody square numbers.
Suddenly we were crossing over six lanes of snarled-up traffic on the M25 and making a clean break out of London. Grey gave way to green. The winding village of Colnbrook looked like it had been successfully saved from the ravages of 75 years of motor damage thanks to the building of one of Britain's first bypasses. Langley was more suburban, one of its lampposts transformed into a shrine by the addition of several bouquets of flowers. The bloke beside me began to fall asleep, as if in anticipation of our final destination, gradually lowering his weary head onto my shoulder. As we swung round the M4 roundabout he woke with a start, apologised profusely to cover his embarrassment and then promptly fell asleep on my shoulder again.
X-17
The man on the Clapham omnibus...
And now for something just a little bit special. The 36 is one of London's seven remaining Routemaster routes, or at least it is for the next couple of months. I rode it just in time because on 28th January next year all the Routemasters on route 36 are due to be whisked away and replaced by a fleet of anonymous (but accessible) buses. The accessibility argument is especially weak in this case because the 36 is shadowed along almost all of its route by bendy bus route 436. Given the choice, as far as I could tell, passengers waiting at bus stops were far more likely to board a friendly 36 than an impersonal 436 if both arrived together.
I was surprised to discover that a TV screen had been placed just above the window at the front of this old Routemaster, broadcasting a diet of adverts, news, adverts, information and more adverts to the captive audience on the upper deck. I watched Michael Palin dash through the Arctic pulled by huskies approximately every ten minutes throughout the journey and I learned that transferring money to Ghana and Cameroon needn't cost the earth with Cashmo. Most eerie of all, however, were the occasional live shots taken by a small black and white camera positioned just above the bus's rear platform. Watching people hopping on and off was like viewing an old sepia film from yesteryear, and a reminder of these buses' long and distinguished heritage.
At Victoria the bus's clientele altered - south London disembarked and north London clambered aboard. Two hoodied boys bounded up to the top deck and spent the next 15 minutes discussing PlayStation strategy in white middle-class street patois ("did ya see the boss demon on the next level, well hard he was"). Leaf fall along Grosvenor Place allowed us to see directly into the Queen's back garden (nice tennis courts you have there, Ma'am). Up at Speaker's Corner the audience numbered only six, so there was no need for one over-optimistic orator to have brought a stepladder along with him. And a volley of passengers leapt off the platform at the Royal Oak traffic lights, as if making up for the fact that they won't be able to do so in two months time.
The 25 is my local bus. It's the only bus that travels up the Mile End Road from Whitechapel to Stratford, and it goes straight past my front door. It is therefore a bus route I know far too much about. The 25 is also a bendy bus route. It's the only bendy bus in east London, and it's always packed, and we local residents hate it. I rode the 25 on its first day of bendiness about six months ago, wrote up my report of the horrors of bendy transformation here, and vowed that I'd never travel the complete route again. So it's that report from June which you'll find on my Square Routes page.
My apologies if you live in Cricklewood or Kilburn, but the number 16 bus route isn't exactly a thriller. There may be Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner to enjoy, but all you see for most of this journey down the A5 arterial road are shops, shops and more shops. Most of them aren't even very exciting shops, just the sort of anonymous retail outlets you'd find along any street just outside any town centre. So I thought that for my account of this journey I'd just list the names of some of the shops I saw from the top deck along the route. There are actually tons more shops than I managed to list, but my pen started running out halfway down Cricklewood Broadway so listing suddenly became an extremely challenging task. But the bus was travelling very slowly in the Saturday afternoon traffic so I did manage to scratch down the names of the following...
I made this journey three months too late. Back at the start of September this was a Routemaster route, but alas the new replacement boxy double deckers make the number 9 now as anonymous a route as almost any other. Shame. My third square route was a relatively-brief jaunt from the West End to West London, beginning almost directly outside the boarded-up entrance to another long lost transport legend - the disused underground station at Aldwych (deceased 1994). King's College nextdoor is much older, 175 years old this year, but still very much functional.
My journey would have been much more pleasant in a Routemaster. Just one stop down the Strand we had to wait for two minutes while a balding Japanese man battled to find change and then feed it into the ticket machine beside the bus stop. Actually we didn't have to wait - our driver was just being kind - but this delay would never have happened with an on-board conductor to sort everything out. My grandstand view of Nelson's Column would also have been considerably better had I not been sitting on a stiff plastic seat of the kind you'd expect to find in a cheap cafeteria. Still, such is progress.
From Waterloo you can catch the Eurostar to Paris and Brussels, or you can catch the number 4 bus to Finsbury Park and Archway. It's a tough choice, but I took the latter option. Waterloo station is so big that it took me a good ten minutes to find the right bus stop from which to begin my journey, out beside the rumbling Waterloo Road. An endless stream of red double deckers navigated down the street, pulling in to pick off passengers from the harbour of their bus shelter. I waited ages 4 my chosen vessel to arrive. We sailed off round IMAX Island, then steamed ahead across Waterloo Bridge. The view to port and starboard along the river from my lookout in the crow's nest was picture perfect.
As soon as we drove north of the City our view immediately changed. The backroads of Islington (officially the very southern end of the A1 trunk road) weren't quite so wealthy, or quite so photogenic. There were a couple of exceptions - notably Upper Street (a buzzy place to whine and dine) - but either side we were suddenly reminded that real people live in London and that not all of them can afford the antiques being sold up the road. Life looked at its grimmest around Finsbury Park, although the road here did boast a view of London's finest football stadium - as well as the Arsenal Fish Bar, the Arsenal Cafe, the Arsenal Supermarket, the Arsenal Barbers, the Arsenal Tavern and The Gunners (another pub, of course).
