I'd like to apologise, in advance, for something I haven't said yet. I don't know what that something will be, nor precisely when I'll say it, but I apologise unreservedly anyway. My remark will be inappropriate, improper and ill thought-through. On reflection, once this outrage has been brought to my attention, I will publicly regret my verbal outburst. There can be no excuse for my upcoming offensive remark. It will be deemed totally unacceptable. I apologise.
I won't think my comment is offensive, of course. It'll be the sort of comment that slips easily from my lips. I'll think nothing of it, except perhaps that it's witty or clever or appropriate. I may not even notice I've said it. In particular, I won't be trying to be offensive. It won't be a deliberate attempt to be aggressive. I won't be thinking "blimey, I really hate the object of my unknowing insult". I'll not be deliberately vindictively hurtful. But it's not important what I think. What's important is how others react.
You probably won't think my comment is offensive either. You're a rational human being, and you can spot the difference between a light-hearted comment and naked spite. But somebody, somewhere, will take offence. Somebody will think my comment is aimed at them. Somebody will find my words deeply damaging. Their thin skin will be punctured, and I will become the object of their scorn and fury. That's all it takes these days, one pointed finger.
If somebody thinks my comment is offensive then it is, QED. I am therefore guilty, I am therefore to blame. Quick, start up a whispering campaign against me. Whip up a storm, beat your breasts, complain. I will be at fault, and the mob must have my blood. Others can then be as offensive as they like about me, because I was allegedly offensive first. Let rational thought be cast aside. Gasp, point, throw stones. Go on, I'll deserve it.
And please feel free to repeat my offensive comment so that even more people can be offended. Others won't realise quite how awful I am unless you tell them. Broadcast my words, spread them around, emphasise their horror... but only so that you can add your disgust at the end. Don't stop until the entire country knows how offensive I've been, and has had proper opportunity to be offended themselves. Magnify the blame, why don't you, until everyone hates me more than I ever hated one of them.
But why should I apologise, completely and unreservedly, for this offensive insult I haven't yet made? It won't have been heartfelt, nor even intentional, it'll just have been completely misinterpreted by shallow self-important killjoys. So maybe I should get my deliberate attack in first. I really, truly, deeply take offence at the self-righteous lynch-mob mentality which permeates our society today. I detest the blame culture that's enveloping our nation and its once tolerant attitudes. I loathe judgmental media crusades and savage newspaper vendettas. I am outraged by bitter citizens and smug sanctimonious bandwagon-jumpers. I despair at those who tut their way through life, one moan at a time, and drag the rest of us down into a vicious cycle of petty pointless repugnance. It's all your fault, you know, not mine. Go on, you apologise first.
The opportunity has arisen to spaff your brand across the Waterloo & City line.
Bring your dosh, share your collateral, own the journey.
The Waterloo & City is by far the least used tube line, runs nigh empty for a lot of the day and closes at weekends. However it's also entirely self-contained and jam-packed with financial decision makers, so an elite captive audience will be forced to embrace your brand story on a daily basis. What's not to love?
To be clear you don't get to rename the line. TfL's commercial mavens would love to do that, prostituting their most iconic assets to the highest bidder, but instead killjoys embedded in reality always kick up a fuss at the thought of deliberately inconveniencing the travelling public.
Also the stations won't be changing their names because Waterloo and Bank are complex shared interchanges, so trains won't be running from Buxton Waterloo to Monzo Bank any time soon.
But substantial tangible assets remain for full-on brand takeover, from all the platforms and trains to all the experiential spaces (which is the posh name for every possible surface we can smother).
Imagine your company message on every wall and ceiling at Bank station, also scrolling across the electronic display, also embedded in every announcement, also emblazoned across incoming trains, perhaps also performed by singing dogs on digital screens if you choose the deluxe option. How much better it would be than the current fragmented mess where no cohesive narrative dominates and the most popular advert is for a Jeffrey Archer novel.
Please note that the Network South East branding on the edge of the platform will remain in place, so if you run a train company or if your corporate colours clash with blue and red this may not be the opportunity for you.
Please also note that the platforms are often much busier than this, indeed the majority of customer throughflow takes place at peak times in ridiculously cramped conditions, so any intricate subtle messaging may go entirely unnoticed.
A true prize in this takeover will be the opportunity to rebrand the interior of the trains. Passengers are often crammed in like cattle staring at the walls for six minutes at a time, so imagine the cut-through of your message on a twice-daily basis. Also don't underestimate the impact of reupholstering a bespoke moquette throughout the train. Nobody will see it during peak times because every patch of fabric will be arsed-over, but rest assured that influencers will descend en masse during quieter periods to share fawning reels of seating with a global audience.
One of the design assets up for grabs is the Waterloo & City line map itself. However don't get too excited - the line links just two stations so nobody ever bothers looking at it, thus any clever jiggerypokery your creative department comes up with will be entirely wasted. However slip us an extra £0.5m and we'll see if we can squeeze your company name onto the tube map, somewhere in the key, no questions asked.
Also this is nothing new. The travelator at Bank has long been a fully-stickered brand tunnel, replaced every few months by another financial company in need of wider visibility. Nobody who uses the line regularly will blink if another all-encompassing message appears instead, it's been their everyday experience for years.
Note that the current advertiser along the travelator is a spread-betting company, the vast majority of whose investors lose money, so hardly a force for good in the wider world. Meanwhile every panel inside the train carriages is presently monopolised by an app that leverages blockchain, so if you have an exploitative financial brand you might fit in perfectly as the new name here.
Also this is really nothing new. TfL rebranded an entire tube line last year as part of promotion for a new smartphone feature, earning £830,000 for a two week takeover. This limp splash has been the exemplar for tube line renaming in TfL's Commercial partnerships Opportunities catalogue since April 2024, so don't look all surprised when it's suddenly proposed to do this to the Waterloo & City.
Remember that every penny earned in sponsorship is ploughed back into London's transport system, which has often been used as a reason to do a lot more of this kind of thing. However it's worth remembering that a million quid is peanuts in the world of London transport, not even enough to keep the cheapest Superloop bus route on the road. Also a lot of the money effectively pays the salaries of TfL's commercial flunkeys who churn out brand-obsessedbolx and social media posts sprinkled with emojis, so is essentially wasted.
The partial rebranding of the Waterloo & City line could be an exciting and truly unique opportunity with the potential to blend synergies and supercharge brand awareness going forward. Alternatively it's a vulgar stain on what should be a passenger-focused public service, further damaging credibility and helping nobody except big business.
And if you do decide to go ahead with a bid, remember that smothering a few platforms with sloganed vinyl with isn't always the word of mouth success your planners hoped. Nobody recalls last year's rebrand of the Circle line, nor the underlying campaign, nor dashed out to buy a new phone as a result. Sponsor the Waterloo & City line and you may just end up pouring millions down the Drain.
Coastal walking inspires the soul so I headed to the Woolwich foot tunnel to enjoy all that this amazing seaside journey has to offer.
It's quite the start point, being where the Capital Ring begins as well as kickoff for this latest stretch of perimeter footpath. This is what comes of being the lowest pedestrian crossing point on England's longest river. If you appreciate service roads behind leisure centres parked with council vehicles it's also a lovely spot. Less impressive is that the first England Coast Path arrow has been attached to the multifingered signpost outside the foot tunnel so that it points in completely the wrong direction (towards the Thames Barrier rather than the sea). It might be tempting to descend the steps onto the beach as a prelude to the adventure ahead, but if a mudlark with a Sainsbury's carrier bag is already down there picking over the exposed rocks then best give it a miss.
Well this is all very pleasant. Just offshore is the craft that operates the local sea crossing, the Woolwich Ferry, inert and gleaming at its pierhead because the crew are on strike again. Joggers and council operatives pass by, occasionally at pace, while ropes and chains hang from a dilapidated wooden jetty. Whoever put up the ECP signs round here got somewhat overexcited because there are several, correctly oriented, presumably to ensure you don't wander off into the High Street by mistake. Next we enter the shadow of Woolwich's army of waterside hutchstacks, most now complete and occupied, and all very much blocking out the sun for everyone passing at promenade level.
A wet triangle bubbling with fountains is very much what most of us come to the seaside for, and in a gap between buildings Berkeley have duly obliged. But don't be tempted to go paddling until you've read the adjacent safety notice which loudly screams Beware Shallow Water. This is only the first of a volley of nagging messages displayed by local administrative killjoys, of which This Has Been Restored As A Focal Historic Artefact And Should Not Be Climbed On Under Any Circumstances is definitely my favourite. Instead take a seat on the wooden boxes shielding the estate's inner flood defences and gaze out towards boats gently bobbing amid the waves... or if that doesn't appeal someone's had the sense to open a yoga hub which delivers coffee and pilates instead.
A ramp leads up and over into the Woolwich Arsenal development past three candles and an artificial wreath, which sadly suggests someone once threw themselves from this concrete clifftop. The seafront here is suddenly buzzing with activity because this is the main access route from Woolwich town centre, which no doubt is where all the candy floss merchants and amusement arcades are hiding. Weave your way through the copper statues, skirt past the closed refreshment kiosk and whatever you do Please Keep Off The Cannon. This is the point from which Uber cruisers depart for far distant London, should you fancy a jaunt round the bay, and is also where grinning bigwigs in Natural England waterproofs cut the ribbon to declare this stretch of the England Coastal path open.
Ahead lies Woolwich's promenade which is an ideal location to absorb the sea air. Expect to share the path with dogwalkers, parents with pushchairs and a surplus of pensioners, because the coast has always been the best place to retire. On the landward side is a plush fringe of shrubbery reminiscent of Bournemouth's finest gardens and beyond that a long slew of parking spaces. These would be ideal for sitting in the warm behind a steering wheel and eating sandwiches while watching the breakers, were they not a bit too low down and also reserved for local residents. Instead nudge closer to the seawall to spy the boats tugging their cargoes out into open water or to look down onto the line of seagulls congregating along the mud's edge.
That copper-topped building above the slipway looks like it might sell hotdogs and 99s but is in fact a ventilation shaft for Woolwich's miniature railway. Beyond is an elevated coastal strip which ought to be the perfect spot for a holiday camp but has instead been occupied by eight blocks of flats, a little lower than earlier and less encumbered by service charges. A flurry of ECP signs guides walkers to the lower of two paths, now closer than ever to the water and protected only by sky-blue railings. Best not risk the beach - the upturned wheels of a half-submerged supermarket trolley hint at why. Instead listen to the squawks of seagulls scrapping over a muddy treat and maybe the roar of a plane coming in to land at the estuary airport offshore.
Every good seaside resort has a pier and Woolwich is no exception. Alas some jobsworth has blocked the entrance with razor wire under the pretence that this is a Dangerous Structure, no doubt for some ridiculous reason like unsafe timbers or broken guardrail, and the far end is now regrettably funfairless. Deep rivulets cut into the mud carve creeklike channels, one a rushing stream where a heron can be seen stalking its prey beside the outflow. Squint into the distance and you might spot the far shores of some distant land where further beachfront development is gathering apace. Alas we're now too far from town for donkey rides to be a viable proposition, but as the minor resort of West Thamesmead approaches that's the first mile of the newest section of the England Coast Path duly ticked off.
The 48 miles that follow include the wilds of Tripcock Ness, Crossness's sewage cathedral, the buzz of Erith, a massive detour to traverse the Darent, the entertainment capital that is Dartford, the mighty Swanscombe pylon, the Gravesend Riviera, acres of bleak Dickensian marshes, copious saltings, a barely-visible maritime fort, five miles with no connection to any other footpaths whatsoever, the downtrodden seaside resort of Allhallows, a diversion round a danger area, the far end of the B2001 and finally the coastal anomaly of GrainFort.
But there's no need to report back on any of that, given that the first mile through Woolwich boasts everything the English Coast has to offer.
Wed 1: They don't ask the question "Do you know who the Prime Minister is?" any more. Thu 2: The one foodstuff that hasn't survived the recent sweaty heatwave is my pack of Club biscuits. The fondant/chocolate top has collapsed and melted into the wrapper. Kitkats on the other hand remain structurally intact. Fri 3: Platform 1 at Kingston station is closed for a week so artists can paint a mural celebrating the town and the railway. I only caught the early daubs but hopefully it'll look great when it's finished.
Sat 4: At Willesden Junction station the tannoy kept repeating the announcement 'Taking videos and photos at this station is not allowed without a permit', and I wonder what the miserable killjoys were objecting to. (it wasn't me) Sun 5: An unexpected consequence of the Olympic Stadium being in Stratford is that gig-goers often end up boozing at Bow pubs before the show. Thus today Bow Road was amok with Metallica fans in double denim and tour t-shirts, several of them bringing their kids in similar attire. As the opening number drifted in through my French windows I considered sighing, but when I saw that attendees had been invited to attend a Volunteer Opportunity at Bow Foodbank I smiled instead. Mon 6: On the Overground I spotted a (current) EastEnders actor wearing a straw cowboy hat, cowboy boots and fringed jacket. Perfectly in character. Tue 7: In the second episode of Radio 4 quiz pilot Your Number's Up, when Alexia and Lewis are "sent down to the Maths Cellar" they were in fact going up to the bar because we recorded it in a pub cellar. Wed 8: I bought a pint of cider in a pub in Haringey and messed up paying for it three times. First I took out a £10 note and was told they don't do cash. Then I tried to pay by tapping the 'tip jar' device. Then I tapped the wrong part of the card reader. Thankfully the 'tip jar' transaction failed, because the barman definitely didn't deserve £2 for good service.
Thu 9: Spotted the Goodyear Blimp over Woolwich, although unfortunately I was in North Woolwich at the time. Londonist have amazing photos of what it's like to go up in it. Fri 10: Supermarketwatch: First cucumbers got dearer (79p, 89p, 99p) and now they're just getting shorter, all very uniformly so. Sat 11: All the cool nerds came to the consultation event, and had I been 40 years younger I'd so have wanted to be one of them. Sun 12: The fourth pilot Radio 4 quiz show, Around The World in 80 Ways, is fascinating but the rules are hard to follow and so is the contestants' progress across an unseen map. If the plans is to pick two pilots to turn into proper series next year, my hunch is that Déjà News and Your Number's Up will get the nod. Mon 13: Thanks to everyone who helped explain what 'Cgugqg' meant (I wrote it in my diary on 1st August 1976). It's just 'Canada' in mirror writing, so I'd probably seen the word reflected somewhere. Tue 14: Shock at midnight as I went to clean my teeth but there was no water in my taps. Not a drop. Annoyingly I'd knocked over my last glass of water an hour earlier. Resorted to Aquafresh with milk. [Thankfully my taps spluttered back into action the following morning, but a reminder of how swiftly normality can fall apart]
Wed 15: The classic Route 66 menswear shop in the rotunda outside Southgate station is holding a Closing Down Sale. All hats and caps half price, also generous reductions on stripy shirts, powder blue jackets and leisure footwear. It's the end of an era. [owner is retiring, not defaulting] Thu 16: Finally found the latest Richard Osman on the shelf of my local library, only 10 months after publication. It ticked all the boxes (especially the popular culture throwaways) and I finished it in two days flat, but the series is becoming incrementally overfamiliar. Fri 17: For the first time in 35 years I managed to get to my Dad's house using solely public transport, courtesy of a bus that runs only three times a week. It took approximately three times longer than driving. Sat 18: Wow, well done England, 3rd place in the World Cup is our best performance since 1966, you'd think the nation would be deliriously happy. Sun 19: Dug out the family album from our holiday 50 years ago to Canada and the USA, seemingly compiled from just four films. There's me at the Von Trapp lodge, there's my brother at Niagara, there's all of us at Ontario Place, there's me eating a Dairy Queen ice cream sundae and here's the view straight down from the top of the CN Tower. I wish we'd taken more.
Mon 20: Wes Streeting is the second Defence Secretary to have lived in Stepney (following Clement Attlee), and I'm not sure how I feel about him being responsible for keeping our country secure. Tue 21: On the electronic screen by the Bow Flyover I was surprised to see an advert for the Farnborough International Airshow, specifically for a transatlantic commerce company with a presence at the global arms trading shindig. I cannot work out who thought delegates to an event in Hampshire would be in East London at 9am. However I never saw the advert come round again, even though I watched for ten minutes. Wed 22: The new Radio 6 Indie Forever stream is a great listen if what you want is near-uninterrupted guitar records with no waffle, no promos and no news. So far my favourite is Indie Chill which makes excellent background music, although I'm not sure how many different 2-hour segments they've actually produced. The channel seems to be mostly songs from the 2000s, but with just enough earlier stuff to keep me listening. Thu 23: There are plans for an InPost Parcel Locker to join the street furniture scrum outside Bow Road station. Somehow it'll be Bow Road's first. Fri 24: You may remember I successfully spotted all 519 pairs of letters at the start of a modern UK vehicle registration plate, that's from AA to YY, and it took 22½ months. Well I had another go starting from scratch and this time it only took 20 months, the final pair being NR which I spotted today in Queensbury.
Sat 25: South Norwood Country Park is looking particularly parched at the moment. It is not alone in this respect. Sun 26: The Art on the Underground Spaghetti map for young creatives is very good (36 full colour pages with scribbleable gaps) but does go a bit off-piste in places. (Imagine if pride, joy, frustration, etc came in bags of squishy clay to sculpt) (Can a building or a tree be an angel?) (Please draw something you think deserves its own tiny little private sunrise) Mon 27: The three week closure of Charing Cross station has been very poorly explained. I picked up a leaflet but it has zero useful detail on which lines divert where, only a QR code leading to a Journey Planner. The station itself is hoardinged off with no obvious posters. How do you get to Staplehurst, as one particularly frustrated soul needed to know. Tue 28: Rest assured I have no intention of revealing the answer to today's Trafalgar Square Treasure Hunt. I deliberately chose clues that would last, so feel free to have a go anytime whenever. [five correct responses so far] Wed 29: The downstairs Oyster pad at Bow Church has been splattered with something white and mucky for the last four weeks. This means you can't read the display and it's hard to see the coloured LED light up. This is particularly important given the pad doesn't beep (so as not to annoy the neighbours) so visual confirmation is essential. It's currently annoying lots of passengers who can't tell if they've tapped in or out properly, and all because nobody's come to clean.
Thu 30: The digital blind on the front of SL3 Superloop buses now has an extra blob saying 'Limited Stop' between the destination and route number. Fri 31: Hampstead did indeed end the month without measurable rain, the first 100% dry month ever recorded. Records go back to 1871. July 2026 was also the sunniest and warmest month on record. Total sunshine hours were 324 hours (beating July 1911 with 312). The average daily maximum temperature was 28.6°C (beating July 2006 and July 2018 with 27.2°C).
✉ I hadn't planned to go round the Ashmolean, I thought I'd seen it all before, but when I arrived at the station the rain was relentless and Britain's oldest museum was the nearest significant free hideaway. So in I went, and the more I walked around the more I realised that last time I must have rushed it. The Queen opened a huge extension in 2009 and the end result is like walking round a modern cross between the British Museum and the V&A. This time I had a lot more time to read the labels on the archaeological treasures because it's quieter midweek, and it turned out I knew less about Middle Eastern history than I thought, and I hadn't realised the upper floors went on quite so far beyond certain doors and staircases, and I'd totally missed the sinuous trail of modern art which links the two upper halves together, and the temporary exhibitions are of course by definition temporary. Best of all it filled almost two hours and by the time I emerged the sun had come out.
✉ I went back to my old college because it's always good to look around and pretend you're 19 again. Unfortunately it was closed because of exams, so instead I did something I never did 38 years ago and stepped across the threshold of the college across the road. We all tended to keep ourselves to ourselves in those days. The porter was very friendly because they let paying tourists inside now, and he even waived the admission charge after I dug to the back of my wallet and found a card that proved I used to study here. This other college was architecturally impressive with cobbles and golden stone and several interlinked quadrangles and absolutely pristine lawns. It was older than mine so those living in college got to enjoy accommodation in heritage rooms of the type you might see in a period drama, whereas I'd only hung out in a modern annexe with thick concrete walls. Several students emerged from stairwells with books under their arms, studiously ignoring the old bloke on the cobbles, while members of college staff stood up ladders fixing broken roof tiles. And the chapel fair took my breath away, being far larger and far more ornate than I'd ever expected whereas ours had been pretty standard and not especially churchy despite its age. I'm still glad I went to my college not this one, although it would clearly have been a somewhat different experience - a tad more Brideshead - and I'm pleased I've finally seen what I missed out on.
✉ London might have a ULEZ but Oxford has a ZEZ, a Zero Emission Zone. It's not huge, only ten central streets at present and generally avoidable, and was introduced as recently as four months ago. Only zero emission vehicles pay nothing, hence the name, with daily charges rising to £10 for the most polluting vehicles. But if this pilot is successful a much larger zone will be introduced next year covering most of the city centre (so generally unavoidable), then in 2025 the top fee goes up to £20. It's brutal if you're a car owner, which is of course the idea and very much par for the course in the choked city that introduced the UK's first Park and Ride in 1973.
✉ Something else I never did in the 1980s was cross the Cherwell meadows, because why would I walk beyond lectures when it was a long enough walk back to college anyway? But this time I traversed the University Parks, with which I was equally unfamiliar, and there was the limpid river winding placidly beneath the trees. An arched footbridge led to a lone footpath on the far side between meadows alive with buttercups, so quite delightful, except they were all for private grazing so all I could do was look. Eventually I reached some far-flung sports grounds, which must've added a proper hike either side of rugby practice, and beyond that the inner suburb of New Marston. By now I was wondering why the hell I'd never been out here before. I put it down to a) never buying a proper map of Oxford when I was a student, b) the 1980s being pre-internet so lots went undiscovered, c) having sufficient things to do elsewhere. Perhaps it was the better outcome to have left it until later. On the walk back I nodded at a few horses, passed a large number of bikes and I think I trespassed through St Catz.
✉ Yes I dropped into the Pitt Rivers, because you should always reacquaint yourself with the shrunken heads, tribal tattoos and totem pole whenever you're in town. Since I was last here they've come to terms with owning numerous culturally suspect items displayed unsympathetically so have added prominent display boards dissecting radicalised hierarchies, derogatory interpretation and colonial toponyms, and it turns out the shrunken heads have been hived off into storage. There's also a temporary exhibition on the ground floor celebrating queer identity with a strong trans slant, which kids on a school trip were exploring with as much interest as the weaponry upstairs, so if your opinions are still mired in the 20th century perhaps give the place a miss.
✉ It's exam season in Oxford so not only did I pass several candidates in subfusc returning to their colleges for lunch, I also spotted multiple damp floury patches marking the aftermath of celebrations. The authorities have always frowned on squirty revelry and their latest puritan wheeze is a campaign urging students to 'celebrate sustainably'. This reminds students that "even biodegradable materials have a negative impact on the environment" and "money wasted on food and other materials could be donated to food banks", and I trust these killjoys are being summarily ignored.
✉ Beside the Sheldonian is a building I'd never explored before, the History of Science Museum. It's free, so it gets a lot of visitors, but it's also a bit odd. Essentially it's a repository of old scientific instruments like astrolabes, sundials and armillary spheres, dozens of them, plus motley displays on DNA, penicillin and sanitation. Technically it's spread over three floors but one of those is mostly shop and a lot of it is stairs. It's interesting, a bit unfocused, somewhat dated and felt like it was attempting to bat above its weight. And if you were the jolly volunteer who approached me on the top floor and attempted to gain my interest with a flawed question about Enid Blyton, perhaps drop that one.
✉ The Tutankhamun centenary exhibition at the Bodleian, by contrast, is very good.
