diamond geezer

Seven Rickmansworth shops

2026-10-15T07:00:00.000+01:00

I went back to Rickmansworth yesterday and remembered several old High Street shops.

Mac Fisheries
I remember Mac Fisheries, it smelt of fish, all these fish laid out on slabs at the front of the store open to the street, a regular high street staple in the 1970s, I imagine jolly fishmongers in blue and white striped aprons doling out bright yellow haddock to housewives wearing hats, my Mum never wore a hat to go shopping, we'd get the bus down from Croxley and it'd drop us off right outside Mac Fisheries, maybe that's why I remember it, the sign for Mac Fisheries was a blue circle divided by a white cross with a fish in every quadrant, it always reminded me of a road sign, obviously you wouldn't have a road sign for fish, we never bought fish after getting off the bus obviously we bought it just before we caught the bus home, we didn't buy it often, my brother wasn't a fan, alas Mac Fisheries went bust in 1979, I'm not sure how long the Rickmansworth branch held out, you just don't get fishmongers in high streets any more, not mainstream like this was, the town has nothing similar now, I tried to work out what's being sold in the same unit today, maybe Boots Opticians, maybe Kawaii Nails, maybe The Meat Like It Used To Be Company, so I checked an old photo in a newspaper nostalgia article and apparently Mac Fisheries was further up the High Street where Prezzo used to be, I guess it must have moved since 1963, it definitely used to be beside the bus stop, there's no bus stop any more, and no fish.

Bejam
Across the street was Bejam, the freezer store, it felt so futuristic in the 1970s, a shop devoted to all things frozen, we didn't have a freezer until 1974, only a tiny box at the top of the fridge, then we moved to a new house so there was room for a freezer at the back of the garage, not a chest freezer because the Renault 5 would have hit that, this had lots of shelves and the shop you'd visit to fill those shelves was Bejam, the so-called freezer centre, I think back then the ice cream excited me most, especially when it was a tub of raspberry ripple, also nothing has ever topped a Bird's Eye Supermousse, then there were frozen pies and fish fingers, a lot of this stuff was made by Findus, we'd go to Bejam and walk up and down the aisles of chest freezers, sometimes daring to lift the lid and look in, they had big cards with prices on to tempt you to open up, inside might be frozen vegetables or an iced-up pile of roasting chickens, and not usually much on the shelves above the freezers because Bejam was seriously spartan by modern standards, and what do you know the store on the corner of Northway is still a freezer store, it's now Iceland, they bought out the business in 1989 and are rather snazzier, they have glass on the front of the cabinets now, but I remember when it was Bejam, for me it always will be.

WH Smith
There's been a WH Smith here for decades, a true High Street staple, somewhere to buy staplers and felt pens and the Watford Observer, you can tell it's been here ages because it still has beautiful tiles out front proclaiming they sell Maps & Guides and Childrens Books, I loved coming in here, I'd check the paperbacks and also the stationery, might even have bought my Record Mirror, it wasn't a huge store, not like the Watford branch, but it was a wonderland of small desirables at pocket money prices, also Quink cartridges I might need for school, maybe eye up a new calculator, they rebranded it TG Jones last year, a ridiculous idea, clearly asset-stripping, and hey presto the Rickmansworth branch closes on Saturday, the front is smothered with yellow notices, also as the end draws nigh everything's now 70% off, not that much is left, the back half of the store is nigh empty and the stationery selection up front is pretty sparse too, some highlighter pens, 2026 diary Filofax inserts, mini geometry sets, map pins, Dymo labels, loose pencil sharpeners, chalk, a laminator, shelves of non-bestselling paperbacks, amusingly they still have all this week's TV listings magazines because they expect to sell those but the rest is just the dregs, "everything's out" said the man behind the till, they're running the store into the ground, four more days then the doors shut, I bet they take those lovely tiles down, era closed.

Woolworths
Now McDonalds, enough said.

Tames
Every High Street has its independents, some dear old shop run by a local, all the prices stuck on with little paper labels, back in the day those prices all ended with p rather than starting with £, this was Tames, this was Rickmansworth's stationers, it even said The Rickmansworth Stationers on the awning, they sold the more specialist stuff like 24 fibre tips in assorted widths or account books interleaved with carbon paper, also all that ink we somehow got through in those days, they knew which hole punch fitted which ring binder, I'd come in here mainly for a browse but if they had a red Berol pen I was smitten, they also sold office supplies when there were still offices in Rickmansworth, also colour prints before we could do those ourselves before we didn't bother, it says a lot that Ryman never opened a branch in the town, I love how the shop is named after the owners using the full initials, M.F.N. was Michael Frank Norman Tame, he died in 2006 so it's amazing this place lasted as long as it did, the shutters very recently down, the interior dark and frozen awaiting repurchase and rebirth, "Prominently positioned retail premises", "high footfall location", "new lease to be granted for a term to be agreed", I bet it'll be a food outlet or something wellness-related, not a vape shop because there's one of those nextdoor, people don't want stuff any more, thus stationery is stuffed.

Tesco
These days Tesco has a massive supermarket down by the canal where Frogmore Wharf used to be, they moved there in 1992 from the Penn Place precinct, a smaller store with inadequate parking, but until the early 1970s they were here in the High Street near the bottom of Station Road, a smaller store still, but that's the one I remember, a very sharp memory of the first aisle with its high shelves, I was only small, a sparser supermarket than today, for some reason I see washing powder boxes but that's probably not what was here, also cards with prices and slogans hanging from the ceiling, also big baskets rather than trolleys, Tesco totally isn't like this today, they completely reinvented themselves soon after, but because I'm just about old enough I still remember the old ways, the drab units supermarkets used to be, we didn't come here often, we did a lot of food shopping in Budgens down the road, also Sainsbury and Caters in Watford, it was always an event but that's because Mum didn't take me every time, maybe there'd be chocolate mint eclairs to take home, these days the former Tesco store is long demolished, I think it's where the charity shop now is, while anyone wanting spaghetti loops or potato rosti goes to M&S Food a few doors down or Waitrose up by the station because Rickmansworth's been socially climbing since the 70s, but some of us remember how it used to be.

Strawberry Fields
This record shop came to Penn Place in October 1968, Tony Blackburn came to open it and apparently traffic in the town centre seized up, they'd just built a new link road called Northway to bypass the narrow High Street and alongside was Penn Place, this new precinct of lowrise concrete parades, very of its time, so the ideal place for a hip and cool purveyor of vinyl, I was much too young to be impressed at the time, even later when the Wombles first appealed I probably went to Watford for that, but I remember Strawberry Fields with its funky typeface and two red stripes, a burst of glamour across a grey precinct, far more interesting to a child than the dry cleaners or the Rediffusion showroom, they moved to the High Street eventually, meanwhile Penn Place became superfluous to the town's needs, the last business moved out in 1996 and then they demolished the entire futuristic precinct, it's now flats because obviously it's now flats, then Strawberry Fields closed pre-millennium, just as Mac Fisheries and Bejam and the old Tesco went, just as Woolworths and Tames went more recently, now WH Smiths has four days left before it joins the ranks of shops in Rickmansworth I merely remember, the curse of the older person being to know what everything was before it became what it is now, you can't change the past but you can remember it, best embrace the new retail selection, such as it is, even if you'd prefer Strawberry Fields to a smashed avo on toasted sourdough.

1066 London Road

2026-10-14T07:00:00.000+01:00

Today is the 960th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.
To celebrate I've been out in search of every London property numbered 1066.
And I've found four, maybe two more, maybe forty-seven.

You might be surprised to see that some London streets have over 1000 houses. But they do, as you can see, in a few key locations. What you need is a long road, generally arterial, all of which has been numbered consecutively without being renamed midway. Often these are old and important, possibly even ancient, but some are interwar bypasses lined by suburban housing. Let's start with the house with the red door...

1066 Green Lane, Becontree RM8 1BT
Borough: Barking and Dagenham
Highest numbered property: 1148

This 1066 can be found on the massive council estate at Becontree, up in the northeastern corner near the fiveway junction by the leisure centre. It's a lowly pebbledash home erected circa 1930, no frills, bunched together with seven neighbours in a long dour terrace. Minimal windows, limited love. Entrance is through an arch into a porch shared with number 1068, with electricity meters out front and a front garden that's long been crazy-paved. Here the owners park a Ford car and a silver van with ladders on the roof, so likely self-employed, and also a have a skylight in the roof suggesting there are now more than the two original bedrooms. I checked back and the last time this property sold it was bought for just £85,000, now a ridiculously tiny sum but that's what ex-council houses went for in Barking & Dagenham in 2001.

Until the 1920s Green Lane was one of a handful of country lanes that ran through the estate, three quiet miles from Ilford to Becontree Heath. This section was once just past the end of the heath, close to where a footpath from Valence House cut across the fields, but since transformed into very little natural at all. Across the street are a Christian Fellowship that used to be a Pentecostal Church, a car wash that used to be a garage and a pub that now sells more meals than beer. The final house on the other side of Green Lane is immediately opposite but is only number 945, so if the Battle of Hastings had happened in 1065 or 1067 I wouldn't be here.

1066 High Road, Chadwell Heath RM6 4BB
Borough: Redbridge
Highest numbered property: 1211

Just a mile away, round the corner from a Crossrail station, is a road that already existed by 1066. It's the Roman road that originally connected London and Colchester, here passing straight through Chadwell Heath. It's called High Road all the way from Ilford to the edge of Havering, and it turns out three miles is quite enough to get house numbers up into four figures. Only the Redbridge segment is numbered sequentially, indeed just up the road B&D starts and High Road starts again from 1, so we've been extremely fortunate it gets just far enough to enter the Norman era. In fact 1066 High Road used to be 47 Belstone Terrace, but around fifty years ago a lengthy renumbering exercise was undertaken extending east from the original 863 in Goodmayes. There's always a reason for a 1066.

This 1066 is immediately alongside the Wangey Road bus shelter, so close that the owners probably curse every time someone sits on their front wall. It's near the end of a long row of interwar houses, much like semis but bunched together in fours, just before it breaks for what used to be the Gaumont cinema. The front garden includes a trunky conifer that's shot up fast, some dangly fibre optics that look like they came from a garden centre and a stack of recycling tubs, from which I know they buy their milk at Sainsbury's. The house went up for sale in 2022 so it's possible to peer inside, confirming that the owners put a heck of a lot of effort into glitzy internal decor but didn't really give a damn about their back garden. And I thank them for replacing the pane above the front porch about ten years ago because that's where the number 1066 now glitters, prior to which you could only really work it out by sequencing the neighbours.

1066 Eastern Avenue, Newbury Park IG2 7SF
Borough: Redbridge
Highest numbered property: 1228

Another mile away, this time on the far side of King George Hospital, this 1066 is on the A12. Eastern Avenue is a key Essex-bound arterial, built in the 1920s as a bypass for the main road the previous 1066 was on. Back in those days they believed in ribbon development, a line of housing facing both sides of the dual carriageway, although at least here they added a parallel access lane for parking cars. Architecturally it's a hybrid, bottom half redbrick top half pebbledash, and just for a change it's one of a line of maisonettes. Annoyingly 1066 is on the top floor, annoying for them because they get the pebbles and annoying for Battle of Hastings purposes because access is at the side, not the front. If there is a 1066 on the door it's not visible from the road, although I'm sure delivery drivers cope by counting out the neighbours. And in news to depress anyone currently seeking a 2-bedder it last sold for £50,000, this way back in 1995, London's housing ladder now a battle very much lost.

It's likely no coincidence that the only three houses in London numbered 1066 are all in outer east London and all on important parallel 'A' roads. Only here was development late enough for residential roads to run to great length, also there's not much in the way of rivers and contours to get in the way. Bad luck to Forest Road in Walthamstow which only gets to 1051 and to Romford Road in Ilford which only gets to 1043.

1066 London Road, Thornton Heath CR7 7ND
Borough: Croydon
Highest numbered property: 1597

The only 1066 south of the river is, just for a change, a shop. It was formerly a unisex salon and a yoga centre but since the pandemic it's been Gujrati Barber. It trades at the centre of a parade of a dozen shops on another main road, this time halfway between Streatham and Croydon. Yet again it dates from the late 1920s, as if this was the proper peak for four-figure roads (or else an intriguing coincidence). Inside is a pristine white room with mirrors, sinks and product along one side and slouchable chairs on the other, also a TV on the back wall so the Gujrati barber doesn't get bored. I don't know what you pay round your way but a haircut here is just £10, a skinfade only £12 and if you're under 10 or over 65 merely £8. Also this establishment is in direct competition with Bulley's Barbers across the road, a longerstanding groomer and also lowlier, its row of customer chairs not somewhere you'd want to wait for long.

It's not usually the case that both sides of a very long street are numbered in tandem but here the two barbers are 1063 and 1066 so it's all worked out perfectly. Also London Road's numbering starts by West Croydon station and manages to reach an amazing 1597 by the time it reaches the borough boundary in Norbury, so you could also come back here for the anniversaries of Agincourt, Bannockburn and Bosworth Field.

And finally two 1066s that don't work so well.

1064-1068 Harrow Road Harlesden NW10 5NL
Borough: Brent
Highest numbered property: 1108

Just our luck, an extended run of shops and houses breaks here for a garage, and has done since Victorian times. Originally the garage was numbered 1066 but then it got knocked through to create a larger property that faces the road, currently occupied by the Autocare MOT Centre. Bring in your motor for service or repairs and it'll be seen to in the big blue shed, which as you can see is alas numbered 1064-1068. Technically Hastings, but invisibly bookended and thus invisible.

1060-1072 High Road Whetstone N20 0FS
Borough: Barnet
Highest numbered property: 1258

Another High Road but this time between Finchley and Barnet as part of the former Great North Road. Until 2012 there were sparse commercial premises here but someone saw the redevelopment potential and now wham, 46 luxury flats. These were marketed as Whetstone Square, a concierged community "with views over North Middlesex Golf Club", now with a carved rock plonked out front displaying a somewhat contrived shield. The house numbers above the entrance clearly state that this is 1060-1072 but each individual flat has a 1066 High Road address, because obviously if you were in the marketing department that's the number you'd pick. Potentially there are 46 Battles of Hastings here, but you can't see any of that from the street so that's one in the eye for Whetstone.

Turbine Hall 2026

2026-10-13T08:00:00.000+01:00

If it's the second week in October then something new must have appeared in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. And as ever the question is "has someone finally done something decent?"

Probably.

This is Hold by Tarek Atoui, a musical artwork comprising umpteen specially-constructed instruments. There are pipes and drums and mouthorgans and what look like bells but I think are actually horns, also mechanised mallets that occasionally hit things. There are also a lot of cables and loudspeakers because the instrumental music plays, very variedly, interspersed with wheezy strings and electronic sounds. It is, according to the Lebanese artist, a transformation of the Turbine Hall into "a sonic landscape connecting earth and sky".

There's something 1920s Heath Robinson about it, in that you almost expect some ball will come rolling down the pipework and strike some percussive membrane before landing in a metal bowl. Alas it's rather more static than that, other than the mallets, all powered by electronic signals, long cables and a row of laptops on a table at the back. The eclectic orchestra includes Korean drums, Uzbek horns and Chinese polyphonic reed instruments, also apparently the dangly textile strips generate and transmit sound although that may just be artbolx. Other noises include ambient sound reworked through the loudspeakers, and yesterday I heard something bleepy, something double bassy and a lot that was whooshy.

Officially it opens today but the good thing about an enormous intervention in a public space is that you can easily see it the day before. Even better I got to see the artist himself wandering around adding some finishing touches, or perhaps engaged in a desperate race against time to get everything switched on. Some folk were also wiring up a drum kit because one of the performative aspects here is that musicians will sometimes be invited to play along. Tarek himself is participating this weekend alongside Emptyset, Mazen Kerbaj, Kenichi Iwasa and Aya Metwalli.

It's always nice when a Turbine Hall installation is interactive but here the best on offer is sit to on a stone slab, some of which have embedded speakers, and feel the vibrations. I didn't get to try this because downstairs was all sealed off, this the downside of going before it's all properly open. But I did get a good view of the assemblage from the upper mezzanine, also a chance to stand under the sugar/bamboo horns hanging alone up the other end of the hall, also sound carries so you can hear it anywhere.

The Turbine Hall is a tough space to fill and many former contributors have fallen flat. What Atoui gets right is to use the height, just as those floating aerobes did in 2021, and also to flood the space with sound, just as 2003's golden sun once flooded it with light. It's not quite a must-see, it's been years since we had one of them, but it does trounce the recent reindeer bones, manky skins, bottletops and Andean knots. And it's here until April so you've got ages to remember it's here, drop by and have a listen.

2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026
* *** **** * *** **** * ** *** ** ***

Update: I've been back today so I could walk amongst the instruments downstairs and listen to the actual noises (which were low and rumbly, nearer to white noise and melody-free). The installation was proving popular with visitors, many dozens walking around and listening while others lay on the slabs as directed to try to feel the vibrations. I tried but felt nothing, so maybe I was on the wrong block, maybe the sounds weren't bassy enough or maybe there's genuinely nothing to feel, it's an Emperor's New Clothes thing. But it turns out the slabs are the genius idea, they're what make people stop and pay attention, thereby becoming part of the whole and creating the 'community' the artist intended. He was there again, cutting a fine figure in white leather boots with Cuban heels, chatting to visitors and occasionally dashing over to a locked cabinet to nudge the soundtrack by tweaking a touchscreen. Three stars out of five feels appropriate, best since 2021.

Barely transport news

2026-10-13T07:00:00.000+01:00

Barely transport news

Some transport stories are barely newsworthy, but still usefully fill space.

🚡 As part of Befriending Week in November, free return trips are being offered on the cablecar to lonely people who'd like to share a cabin. "Designed to spark conversation and tackle social isolation, passengers are encouraged to exchange questions and stories during the journey," also you get a free hot drink. The last slot sold out last night, sorry, so you could just try striking up a conversation with the person next to you on the tube and see where that gets you.

🏆 The Rail Delivery Group have just launched their annual World Cup of Stations with 20 nominations representing "the stations creating connections that matter". But on the voting website the vote comes before the citations, those citations have been abridged to 40 words of generalised waffle, and you have to click 20 times to read all the citations which doesn't encourage anyone to vote based on facts. Also the whole thing is presented in a scrolling frame so initially you can only see the top end of the voting list so I bet a station near the start of the list wins, just like Ashington did last year, and essentially it's a great idea egregiously delivered.

🚌 This Saturday the frequency of route 359 (Purley - New Addington) is being cut from every 45 minutes to once an hour. It was half-hourly ten years ago so this is a bit pants, especially for those down Purley Downs Road and on the Monks Hill Estate. Also it doesn't save any money, they're still using two vehicles to run the service, also according to the new timetable those buses will now spend 45% of their time sitting around at the termini which seems unnecessarily wasteful.

🍓 Berrylands station has reopened after they replaced both platforms with something less wonky. Access remains up a temporary staircase for now, but there are new shelters on both platforms, also the station signs are now in new GBR style.

🚕 TfL have launched their annual consultation on raising taxi fares. There are four options, three of which are "raise fares by 7.07%" and one of which is "don't raise fares", and no passenger is going to vote for the first three.

👜 TfL's latest TikTok video is 10 seconds of pulling branded goods out of a branded bag, because heaven forbid the priority should be transport when you can plug merch instead.

🚊 A recent FoI request asked how DLR services would be improved now that the new 'B23' units are finally coming into use. TfL generously produced a long list of future milestones so you can see how the rolling stock rollout should proceed.

10th Jan 2027: Stratford-Woolwich all new trains, also first new train on Bank-Lewisham
15th Feb 2027: restoration of Stratford-Lewisham services, also restoration of Canning Town-Beckton in peak hours
30th May 2027: Bank-Lewisham all new trains
31st Oct 2027: full length/new trains on Bank-Woolwich
09th Jan 2028: full length/new trains on Tower Gateway-Beckton
05th Mar 2028: Stratford-Beckton restored in peak hours, also full-length trains on Stratford-Lewisham
16th Apr 2028: full length trains on Stratford-Canary Wharf
05th Sep 2028: Stratford-Lewisham 2 trains per cycle
31st Mar 2029: Stratford-Woolwich 2 trains per cycle
04th Feb 2030: Stratford-Woolwich 15 trains per hour

bathnumber

2026-10-12T07:00:00.000+01:00

While lying back in the bath recently, luxuriating, I wondered "I wonder how many more of these I'll have".

b = bathnumber

b = number of baths yet to come

We all have a bathnumber. We don't know what it is, nor can we measure it with any degree of certainty, but it is a precisely defined value. The number of baths you'll have in the future is not yet a set value but one day will be, thus it's possible to muse on what that final total might be.

Your bathnumber could be 2, 863 or 9701, indeed it could be any of a number of values, and you might have some idea which of those is closest to yours. But you can't be 100% sure what it is, except in certain unpleasantly fatalistic situations, because the future is not yet set. Your bathnumber can only be calculated retrospectively, counting backwards to today, but can still be estimated which is what today's post is about.

My initial estimate for my own bathnumber is that b = 4000.

I checked my life expectancy via the government's calculator and factored in how often I have a bath, then multiplied "number of years remaining" by "number of baths per year". I've rounded it off because writing the precise number would be ridiculous, and also rounded it down because I'll probably end up having fewer baths than that. But it's potentially a huge underestimate if I live longer than my allotted years, or a huge overestimate if I fall ill, move house or simply change my habits.

One of the main reasons I have a lot of baths is that I don't have a shower. My landlord never installed one so for the last 25 years baths have been the only viable option. I used to have a shower in my previous flat and under those circumstances I took a shower maybe three times more often than running a bath. Given the choice, my showernumber would probably be higher than my bathnumber. But when I have the time I totally prefer a bath over a shower, and given I don't have the latter it's just as well I have the time.

What I don't know is how much longer I'll be living in this flat. My landlord could decide to kick me out in a few months or could let me stay forever, I have no current idea. Who knows where I'd end up next, but if it had a shower I might end up taking far more of them, and if it didn't have a bath my bathnumber would drop dramatically. My landlord might also suddenly decide to install a shower in my current flat, which seems unlikely given he's had 25 years and never has, but it can't be completely ruled out.

What I also don't know is whether my bathing habits will change. I used to run a bath every morning before I went to work and now I don't, so that's nudged my bathnumber down. If energy bills tripled I might decide that taking fewer baths was a good economy measure. If the climate changes I might choose to have more baths, or I might choose to take fewer, depending. And crucially I might one day move in with someone else, either because I want to or because I have to, at which point their bathing habits would start to significantly affect my own.

What I really don't know is how my health might change. At the moment hopping in and out of the bathtub is easy but that may not always be the case which could limit my bathnumber pretty sharpish. There may come a day when I simply can't get in any more, or when nobody else is willing to lower me in instead. That might not end bathtimes completely, because who's to say I won't end up with one of those special accessible baths they advertise in Sunday supplements and in the commercial breaks on Countdown? But a huge variety of medical events could well take away my bathing choices, either over a declining period or suddenly, abruptly, bringing about The Last Bath I Will Ever Take far sooner than I'd like.

I can't take these factors in isolation, I should expect them to combine. I might move to a house with a shower AND find I can't I can't get into a bath like I could, in which case my bathnumber would plummet. Or I might enter a new relationship AND decide to bathe more often in their snazzy tub with jets, which would significantly elevate my bathnumber instead. The options and combinations are far too complex to predict, however likely I might think a certain total now is.

Thinking more generally about this, your bathnumber is most strongly influenced by two factors...
...whether you want to have a bath and whether you can.

want
If you're a shower person rather than a bath person your bathnumber will be lower.
If you feel the need to wash more frequently your bathnumber will be higher.
etc

can
If you can't get into a bath any more your bathnumber will be lower.
If you don't have a shower in your house your bathnumber will be higher.
etc

Your bathnumber is also very closely associated with 'the last bath you will ever have'.

It might still be decades away, in which case you could rack up thousands of baths before the final soak. Or it might come early, it might come unexpectedly, indeed it might come tomorrow (although let's hope that it doesn't). And just because it might be close doesn't necessarily mean your future total is low. A tub lover with failing health, for example, might still have a much higher bathnumber than a shower fanatic with decades to live.

Also bear in mind the possibility of an unexpected bath here and there, even in an unpromising future. Who's to say you won't find yourself in a hotel one day with the most appealing bathroom ceramics, or that a nurse won't one day lower you into a warm bath when you thought you might never have one again. The future is unwritten and there are all kinds of scenarios in which one-off baths still happen, or indeed entire changes of bathtub circumstance.

Conversely an uncertain future could always terminate your ablutions in an entirely unexpected manner, reducing your bathnumber overnight. What if in 2027 power cuts knock out your boiler, or in 2028 droughts get critical, or in 2029 the successor body to Thames Water outlaws baths entirely, or in 2030 bubblebath is found to cause cancer, or in 2031 your home burns down, or in 2032 you win the lottery, or in 2033 weather conditions dramatically deteriorate, or in 2034 the American President drops an atomic bomb on Manchester, or in 2035 AI takes over and reduces humanity to slaves, or in 2036 aliens arrive and turn us all to grey goo?

Obviously that won't happen, probably, but it's the wider uncertainty of external events that makes bathnumbers so potentially volatile. The chance of your personal circumstances being identical in 10 years' time is low, in 20 years even lower, and generally that means a lower bathnumber than otherwise anticipated. For example my own bathnumber is likely lower than the 4000 I originally estimated, perhaps markedly so, dammit.

In summary, then...

• Not everybody likes baths and not everyone can have them
• Your bathnumber is all about how many baths you fit in before The Last Bath You Ever Have
• Your bathnumber is proportional to the variability of your future
• Your bathnumber almost certainly won't be what you expect it to be

I'm not suggesting that on your deathbed you'll think "oh, so it was 2167 after all", only that it's a theoretical possibility. I'm certainly not proposing that you count all your future baths, merely to confirm what today's total really was.

But I am suggesting that estimating your bathnumber is an intriguing way to consider your habits, your circumstances, your health, your mortality and the the unpredictability of your future. There are no certainties here.

Also be aware that your bathnumber is a decreasing function, so every time you climb into a nice warm bath it drops by one.

You have a finite number of baths in your future. And one day that bathnumber will be fixed.

U is for Underhill

2026-10-11T07:00:00.000+01:00

LONDON A-Z
U is for Underhill

As we head towards the awkward end of the alphabet London's suburban pickings get slimmer. I discounted Upney as too well known, Upper Belvedere as too focused and Uxendon as too obscure, instead plumping for a decent-sized U with an ultra-prosaic name. This Barnet neighbourhood is so named for the exceptionally obvious reason that it's under a hill, this hill, hence Underhill.

In the stagecoach era Barnet Hill was one of the first major obstacles on the Great North Road, thus a number of coaching inns were established up top as an ideal place to change the horses. In the 1720s another was built at the bottom, this the Old Red Lion, where additional horses known as the 'Hercules Pair' could be hired to assist with the challenging ascent. In 1823 Thomas Telford was charged with making improvements, his solution to bypass the steepest climb by digging up a huge amount of adjacent soil to create the gentler embankment we see today. A small hamlet grew up around the pub, this called Underhill, until eventually cars replaced carriages and houses replaced fields. Suburbanisation was kickstarted by the arrival of a railway terminus across the street in 1872, now the top end of the Northern line. The station served the town above so was called High Barnet, but in terms of contours it'd more appropriately be called Underhill because it is.

In the 1930s the Red Lion was repurposed and rebuilt as an estate pub, and remained a tenable business until 2015 when the owners gave nine days notice of closure. It was pretty soon replaced by a terrace of six modern brick townhouses, which took ages to sell, and alas even the inn sign was swiftly uprooted so no evidence of the historic watering hole remains. What killed pub viability was the local football team moving out, this being Barnet FC who were established just round the corner in 1907. Underhill Stadium was always a lowly affair, the kind of place where black and gold souvenirs were sold from a portakabin and the grandstands were made from corrugated metal. Facilities became increasingly inadequate when the team found themselves in Division Two, so when negotiations over the lease became fractious the chairman decided to move the club to a fresh site in the borough of Harrow instead. The Underhill site was duly sold on to become the Ark Pioneer Academy, thus headteacher Su now oversees 1100 pupils where The Bees once thrashed Burton Albion ten nil.

The alleyway down the side of the stadium remains, that's Priory Grove. It leads to a St John Ambulance depot and a former scout hut/community centre where you can now practice grappling, fighting and self-defence three nights a week. At the far end the path opens out into the top end of Barnet Playing Fields, immediately alongside the huge chunk the academy nicked for their sports pitches. Ridiculously Barnet FC now want to occupy most of the remainder to build a New Underhill stadium, having tired of The Hive in Canons Park in favour of returning to the town they're actually named after. If the mercurial chairman gets his way nine acres of green space would be replaced a 7000 seater, plus car park, plus coach park, leaving just a top wedge that's already part-sealed off due to an infestation of oak processionary moths. Thankfully the council refused planning permission last year, but the intention remains and we're only one decision away from a football reinfestation instead.

For now the playing fields are mostly used for kickabouts, playgrounds, sports practice and walking your dog round the perimeter paths. The Barnet Table Tennis Centre is also here, in case you'd ever wondered where that is. The grass stretches down to a meandering tree-line boundary within which flows the Dollis Brook. It's relatively minor here, no more than about two metres wide, but its waters were still capable of scouring the incredibly obvious valley on whose slopes Underhill rests. One thin stripe of suburbia was squeezed between the playing fields and railway in 1933, including an arc of 16 brick almshouses overlooking the greensward. The estate is an isolated dead end so TfL kindly send an hourly bus to the bottom and back, this the 389, London's shortest route and 2nd-least used service. I can confirm it now uses electric vehicles (a real step-up from the muck they used to send out), also the driver has to negotiate some very closely parked vehicles at the foot of the hill, also the loop had at least six passengers yesterday.

All of this area is classic Underhill, and the wording on a modern Ordnance Survey map would agree. But over the last century the name has also crept west along the only road to precede development which is Mays Lane. This once tracked all the way to Arkley at a safe distance from the river, serving a sparse handful of cottages and a couple of farms. Some of the fields near Underhill once hosted the biannual Barnet Fair, a livestock jamboree established in 1588 which by the mid 19th-century was said to be England's largest cattle market. Later horse racing became the priority but that ended when High Barnet station swallowed up the site, and these days the event is probably best known as rhyming slang for hair, even with the 'Fair' left unsaid. The other pre-suburban intrusion, this time south of Mays Lane, was a sewage farm established in 1874 to help remove High Barnet's effluent. This survived until 1957, for many years supporting the fertilisation of plots of oats and vegetables, after which the Dollis Valley housing estate was built across the site and oh my word.

They built 600 homes here in the 1960s, the most appealing being the lowrise three-bedders closest to the river. These were arranged to take full advantage of the green setting with front gardens opening onto the meadow, hiding all the ugly garages and road access round the back. The remainder of the accommodation was in long five-storey blocks of flats, these having aged far less well to the extent that the council is sequentially replacing them with something modern. There are now eight streets of sleek brick townhouses, desirable as anything, one of which has the impossible name of Unicorn View. But once you get halfway down the estate the last phase of concrete flats remains, decanted and decaying, because council and developer fell out over affordability quotas. Some inadequate understanding has been reached, but for now to walk down Dollis Brook Drive is to experience all aspects of postwar housing in one depressing sweep. The interface from whipsmart to derelict is particularly sharp, suddenly entering a world of dumped mattresses and damp curtains behind smashed glass, beyond which the secluded setting of the riverside homes is grimly diminished.

Hundreds of Underhill's older houses stretch down several steep avenues to the north of Mays Lane, these your more typical interwar semis. They run in parallel and are inadequately connected, in one case enclosing a long stripe of tennis courts accessible only from top and bottom. Manor Road came first and thus leads to Underhill's commercial heart, a row of six shops including Mays Lane's Co-op. The quirkiest is Coopers of Barnet, a true Aladdin's cave of hardware including garden tools, haberdashery, suitcases and every hue of plastic container strewn across the pavement. Almost as offbeat is May's Pet's, an infuriatingly-apostrophied grooming parlour and treat shop, where the traditional small ads in the window include a plug for Louise's Avon catalogue and an irresistible plea... Can You Offer A Home For A Few Stick Insects A Fascinating Low Maintenance Pet Come In The Shop And Meet Them. I can also confirm that at The Local Offey the lottery is working now, and this is why you should always shop local.

I did wonder if this could still be Underhill, being over half a mile from The Old Red Lion, but one of the other shops is the Underhill Barbers so yes it definitely can. Even more convincingly the neighbouring establishment is Underhill School and has been since 1932, where they fully embrace the letter U with a stated ethos of Understand · Uplift · Unite. It seems the Underhill name has spread far along the valley, this because it's still appropriate for thousands of residents who have to schlep up a steep-ish slope to reach the proper shops and services up top in High Barnet. But if you go too much further along Mays Lane the neighbourhood definitely become Ducks Island instead, a completely different suburb and very much non-U, so best stop here.

Oxford Street pedestrianisation - before

2026-10-10T07:00:00.000+01:00

Here's something you won't be able to do in a couple of weeks time.

Ride a bus down Oxford Street.
Pedestrianisation begins on Monday 26th October, with buses removed forever on the evening of Sunday 25th.
So I've been out to do it now, before I never can again.

Importantly it's not the whole of Oxford Street, only the middle half from Selfridges to Great Portland Street, but that is the key shopping bit and includes both sides of Oxford Circus.
n.b. I did a full analysis of the changes in November so won't repeat myself but you can read more detail there, or see the consultation here.

You can get a preview of the upcoming Mayoral tubthumping campaign by looking at the posters plastered over the corner of Oxford Circus station.
» One says Oxford Street. But Better.
» One says More Street. Less Road.
» One says Good News Speed Walkers.
» One says The Crowds Are Staying. The Traffic Isn't.
» And one says "Busy ol' street isn't it? Bag-laden shoppers flowing past stores with a dizzying choice of trainers. Caffeine-deficient commuters making beelines to chains that sound French but aren't. Tourists suddenly stopping to eye tiny souvenir models of Big Ben. Ever thought it'd be better with... more space? Space to stroll. Space to saunter, even. Space to avoid even the most stubborn of pigeons. Great idea! Let's do that. A new pedestrianised Oxford Street is on the way. Less traffic. More space. Still busy, just better." Sheesh.

It should be great for pedestrians and for businesses seeking better footfall, all arriving just in time for Christmas. But it won't be good for taxis, bicycles or buses, all of which will be prohibited from passing through and forced to find an alternative route.

I'm particularly interested in how bus timings are going to be affected.
And to measure that properly you need data from before the change as well as data after.
I have thus been out with a stopwatch to see how long buses currently take to drive down the affected stretch.
And I'll go back afterwards to see if it's a bit worse or a lot worse.

At present routes 7, 94, 98, 139 and 390 use central Oxford Stret, stopping outside John Lewis and Selfridges.
In future two routes are being cut back to Marble Arch to get them out of the way, and three will need to be diverted.
The diversions will go via five different streets rather than one, so you'd expect slower journeys in future.

What I did
• I went to Oxford Street late on a weekday morning.
• I rode the 94, 98, 139 and 390 in both directions, eight journeys in total.
• I rode from the stop before the closure to the stop after.
• I timed the journey and counted how many times a red light stopped us.

98	east	Marble Arch → M&S	1.3km	7m 40s	(5 red lights)
390	east	Marble Arch → M&S	1.3km	7m 00s	(5 red lights)
98	west	M&S → Marble Arch	1.2km	10m 10s	(8 red lights)
390	west	M&S → Marble Arch	1.4km	9m 50s	(8 red lights)

These are the buses that stay on Oxford Street, not Regent Street.
On average it took 7 minutes to go east and 10 minutes to go west.

The difference is almost entirely explained by the queue to get through the traffic lights at Oxford Circus. Westbound traffic only gets 10 seconds to slip through, significantly less than other directions, then it's 1½ minutes before the lights go green again. On my journeys it took three attempts to get through these lights, then the experience was much the same in both directions. Without this snarl-up it would have been 7-8 minutes both ways.

94	east	Marble Arch → Hamleys	1.1km	8m 10s	(5 red lights)
139	east	Portman Sq → Hamleys	1.3km	8m 30s	(7 red lights)
94	west	Hamleys → Marble Arch	1.1km	8m 10s	(8 red lights)
139	west	Hamleys → Portman Sq	1.9km	12m 20s	(10 red lights)

These are the buses that turn into Regent Street at Oxford Circus.
On average, if we ignore the outlier, it took 8 minutes to make these journeys.

The outlier is the 139 heading west because its bus stops are stupid. For some reason the 139 doesn't stop by Oxford Circus, only halfway down Regent Street, so the stop before the imminent closure is a long way away. I suspect this made sense before TfL rationalised the bus stops on Oxford Street because you could get off just round the corner. Now you can't, and it's definitely annoying for passengers who ding the bell by the Apple Store but are unable to get off. It's going to be even more annoying when Oxford Street closes because there'll then be a 900m gap from Regent Street to Henrietta Place, and if that doesn't really piss off thousands of future tourists I'll be amazed.

I'm aware that this is not especially reliable data. It's all down to traffic conditions and passenger numbers, also the luck of the draw with a dozen traffic lights. For example one of my journeys was delayed by a passing fire engine, several by taxis picking up passengers and two had the wheelchair ramp deployed. That said one of the wheelchair rides was the shortest journey of the lot, so anomalies don't always muddy the timings. Also I only made eight journeys and for really reliable data you'd want to do a lot more, but I spent two hours of my life on this and quite frankly eight journeys was enough. Also I did end up with some relatively consistent results so I'm happy I did enough.

My conclusion then is that in decent traffic conditions it currently takes about 7-8 minutes to ride this part of Oxford Street. I can now use this fact later in the month to compare with timings after the closure and see what's happened, even if that means riding lots more buses on tortuous routes several more times.

Before then TfL have further roadworks to undertake, not to beautify the pedestrianised strip but just to make sure the traffic changes work. They have four new bus stops to add to replace the four being de-bussed. They have extra bus stands to add up several side streets. They have new signs to fix, roads to block and taxi ranks to shift, and the follow-up may take some time. Their Oxford Street works webpage says "disruption will be kept to a minimum, with limited works during the Christmas period", so don't expect to see the final results until well into next year.

But if you want to ride a bus to see the Christmas lights sorry, the road will be closing before they're switched on, so the best you can see is some dangling stars and you've only got two more weeks for the experience.

A guided tour round the Greater London boundary

2026-10-09T07:00:00.000+01:00

A guided tour of the Greater London boundary (clockwise)

Hillingdon

Welcome to Heathrow but the side most passengers never see, the cargo-loading logistics backside. Past massive secure sheds trading whatever, first on the local Bedfont Road then switching to the more circuitous Southern Perimeter Road. Two rivers run parallel for a mile and a half, the Longford and the Duke of Northumberland's, each shamelessly shifted out of the way by airport construction. Walk along or walk between, perhaps pausing for refreshment at The Rising Sun or Esso garage, as global jet engines scream alongside.

These roads aren't made for pedestrians - if not aiming for Spout Lane why would you even be here? The Poyle Interchange includes the westernmost point in Greater London, then it's time to follow the M25's clockwise carriageway as far as the M4 stack interchange. The Bigley Ditch threads through in tiny meanders, first the river's former course and then the unengineered original, at least until a Third Runway erases the lot. Maysfield Lake, Thorney Mill, Fray's Island. Across the Slough Arm of the Grand Union and around a GB-shaped lake called Little Britain. Never the main River Colne, always a separate braid, here along the industrial backway into Uxbridge.

A brief buzz beside The Swan & Bottle, a stone's throw from the High Street, then off down the appropriately-named Shire Ditch. On crossing the A40 it's time to leave suburbia behind, it's now all meadows, former gravel pits and floodables. Here are Denham Country Park, vast lakes and, swinging in from the right, the sleek viaduct of future HS2. So few ways in or out unless you're waterfowl, until footbridges at Black Jack's Mill finally offer a hill to climb to Harefield. Canoe slalom by The Coy Carp at Coppermill, also office space to hire, also finally a snatch of canal towpath. At the sewage works bear off round Springwell Lake to get ridiculously close to Rickmansworth, then at Mill End cut back across heron-infested Stocker's Lake.

Here ends twelve miles spent tracking waterways, the Colne having provided an ideal western boundary for the capital. Now once again it's woods and paddocks, fields and farms, regaining vehicular connectivity at Woodcock Hill. Around Bishop's Wood and right up close to Mount Vernon Hospital, although mainly the car parks. From Batchworth Heath an ancient footpath has somehow been preserved amid Metro-land avenues, weaving two miles east between trees, school playgrounds and endless wooden fences. Initially Northwood then more rightly Northwood Hills, rising to 134m at the summit of Potter Street Hill.

Harrow

Coal tax post, private road to Pinner Hill golf course, "you are being recorded by security cameras". To one side is the first hole (a par 5) and to the other the southernmost wedge of beechy Oxhey Woods. The London Loop is now up to section 14, slipping through a wooden gate to dodge South Oxhey's patriotic council estate in favour of stud farm and livery.

Pylons emerge from Hatch End substation in three directions, one across the West Coast Mainline towards Oxhey Lane. Three holes at the Grims Dyke golf club have a tee in Middlesex and a hole in London, while three others swing vice versa. Then yet another golf course at Hartsbourne, no splits this time, before careering into the top of the common at Bushey Heath. The top of Stanmore Hill, also the very last London postcode alphabetically speaking which is WD23 1NX. The top of Stanmore Common, first the woody bit then open heathland that can be an excellent viewpoint. Listen to the roar of the M1 motorway, here running parallel to the A41, past Centennial Park to J4 at Elstree.

Barnet

A mile spent just off the M1's hard shoulder, at least as far as Scratchwood woods if not Scratchwood services. A nudge towards Borehamwood, splitting a static caravan park diagonally in half. Big Morrisons. At Stirling Corner an unexpected bend north up the A1 to encompass Rowley Green and Arkley, borderline attractions including a driving range, Poor Clare Monastery and an ice cream farm. Keeping a decent distance from Chipping Barnet, merely a bump past Byng Road Fields and yet more golf courses, these the 14th and 15th on the perimeter so far. Barroneau's has become the dog meadow at Wrotham Park. At Hadley Highstone, somewhere in the valley of the Monken Mead Brook, is the site of the Battle of Barnet.

Enfield

Welcome to Hadley Wood, though skirting the playing field to climb to the cottages on Waggon Road. Sheer woodland drop above the East Coast Mainline burrowing beneath through 200 yards of tunnel. A return to proper open countryside along an arable footpath crossing Slopers Pond Farm. Next come Stagg Hill and The Ridgeway, both converging on the Potters Bar Interchange. And then, extremely simply, it's seven miles along the hard shoulder of the M25 motorway. A few woods, mostly fields, some of which are destined to become Crews Hill new town. The northernmost point in Greater London. Plantations, cemeteries, the age-old aqueduct of the New River.

A world class £700m film/TV studio campus across Theobald's Park Farm, except construction was officially scrapped last year. News International's enormous printworks, home to 19 triple-width Manroland full colour presses. The Holmesdale Tunnel with a lacklustre linear park on top, ending at the southern end of Waltham Cross High Street. Huge distribution centres, one for Tesco, one for Sainsbury's. And at the River Lea finally a watery turnoff, this following the Relief Channel rather than the Navigation. Gunpowder Park, Sewardstone Marsh, Patty Pool Mead. Here comes the largest reservoir in London, named after King George V because they finished it in 1913, which contains almost 7 billion kettlesworth.

Waltham Forest

A terrace called The Borders, outlier of the E4 postcode district. Gilwell Close, and indeed it is. A footpath climbing to the top of Yardley Hill, also the 379's circular Hail & Ride. Woods, mud, golf course, woods. A small bite out of Epping Forest, not including Chingford Plain. Primrose Woodmouse and, around Connaught Water, Mrs Crustybread. From the Cuckoo Brook to the River Ching, but at Whitehall Plain enough of that.

Redbridge

It's time to slice through Woodford Wells, unless these streets are actually Buckhurst Hill. An ancient trackway straight across Knighton Wood And Lords Bushes, the latter on the left. The junction where the Central line splits, then the anti-clockwise platform at Roding Valley where the shops aren't. All the way to the far end of the rugby ground before joining the River Roding and wiggling south from the manky footbridge. A near straight line across the M11 into one of the other Woodfords, the one with the Guide Dog Training Centre. Repton Park, the luxurious ex-psychiatric hospital with the viral swimming pool. The top of Tomswood Hill boasts a long distance panorama, then a sharp divide between smart detached piles and council streets. The periphery of the Limes Farm Estate, which Chigwell Urban District would have preferred not to build.

Cut-throughs to the tube, beyond which is the outer edge of Hainault's massive depot. Grange Hill station but this time the clockwise platform. A much modified boundary to accommodate all of Hainault's extensive postwar estate and none of the nice Essex lanes. There are still 25 miles to go but, astonishingly, Latchford Place is the last residential street. Instead a long bridleway pierces deep into Hainault Forest Country Park via the heavily wooded higher ground, to just beyond the summit of Cabin Hill.

Havering

The final borough, but it's a long one. First the 11th, 12th and 13th fairways at Hainault Forest Golf Club, then muddy fields north of Havering-atte-Bower. The fledgling River Rom is followed by Straights Plantation (which isn't quite). The lodge to Pyrgo Palace, then broad inaccessible fields to one of London's least-visited corners, the outskirts of Noak Hill. The boundary was once a complex weave along the Weald Brook but since the construction of the M25 simply follows the motorway for five miles, with just a brief indentation at J28 for Brentwood. Putwell Bridge, Gardens of Peace, Nags Head Lane Sewage Works. Footbridges on the alignment of former footpaths, built at great expense for hardly anyone. Round the outside of J29 for Cranham, then at the Southend Railway a perverse burst outside the M25 for the first and last time. Fields that could be mega data centres because Havering could hide them here and nobody would notice, indeed Thurrock have already squeezed in several solar farms.

The easternmost point in Greater London in a far-flung field just off Fen Lane. Back across the M25 in North Ockendon at Dennises Lane. Next the most contorted wiggle of all, first to take in just half of Belhus Wood Country Park as far as Running Water Brook, then back to Damyns Hall, then back on a quadruple twist through Cely Woods, and if people actually lived here they'd think it proper weird. The final golf course is Ingrebourne Links, the final park is Kennington, the final landfill is Aveley and the final car boot sale is Willow Farm. Nothing round here is contoured, or indeed lovely. Multiple articulated lorries park offroad by the A13 Wennington interchange. Purfleet Industrial Park, then High Speed 1, then the line to Tilbury. One last thrust across Rainham Marshes, dodging the RSPB reserve to reach the Thames riverside at Aveley Bay which may be London's only beach.

An invisible line out to the centre of the estuary opposite Crayford Ness, but that's where we kicked off which means this 160 mile guided tour of the greater London boundary is complete.

A guided tour of the Greater London boundary

2026-10-08T07:00:00.000+01:00

A guided tour of the Greater London boundary (clockwise)

Bexley

From mid-Thames at Crayford Ness, skirt the Darent Industrial Park and head up Dartford Creek beneath the guillotine of the mighty flood barrier. One side Crayford Marshes, one side Dartford Marshes. Fork up the Cray rather than the Darent, then switch to the minor Stanham River. The first road crossed is the A206, the first two railway lines head to Dartford. Maiden Lane is the first suburban street (one side London one side Kent), while cars entering Gable Close are surveilled by the first ULEZ camera. Cross Watling Street to follow the backs of semi-detached gardens, not for the last time, then squeeze out through the lights on Station Road. Obviously Dartford council hides its tip here. Span the A2, old and new, then skirt the edge of Dartford Heath to the joys of Joydens Wood. A church, some deneholes and a two mile invisible zigzag through ancient woodland dodging the Fæsten Dic. Silence. Horses. Golf.

Bromley

A mile of Swanley Bypass, half a mile of Chatham Main Line, three miles of open fields. The start of the "how on earth is this actually London?" stretch, and more importantly "why?". A line drawn to keep Crockenhill outside and Crown Wood inside. Skeet Hill Lane, a lot of arable, then the divide between the hamlets of Maypole and Well Hill. Mostly paddocks all the way to J4 of the M25, the spur to Hewitts Roundabout. Knockholt station is not in Knockholt, also London Road ends at the border.

A pavement alongside the A21, then the recently-blogged cul-de-sac of Turnpike Drive in Pratt's Bottom. Horses Field is swiftly followed by Birthday Woods. Here comes the remotest section of the Greater London boundary, so distant from infrastructure that when I tried to visit every grid square in London I came here last. Coppices and stiles. New Years Lane and New Years Wood, between them a cottage with a trigger-happy barking dog. Field boundaries stalked by pylons and not by footpaths. Cudham Lane South where the R5 and R10 buses rarely stop to serve outliers who'd be stupid not to have a car. A sharp wooded drop down Hogtrough Hill. The ridge of the North Downs, a mile and a half with occasionally-excellent views and the odd reclusive bungalow.

Westerham Heights, the highest point in London, a stone's throw from the highest point in Kent. Garden centre facing off against Indian restaurant. An unnervingly quiet country lane where Kent becomes Surrey at a dip in Rag Hill. Paddocks and woodland on steep slopes dividing lower Tatsfield from upper Biggin Hill. Waran Food and Wine on Lusted Hall Lane, the first time in 20 miles it's been possible to buy a Mars Bar. Two farms, a detour round superfluous fields, then back north across hundreds of ploughed acres and woodland named after animals. Skid Hill Lane is home to the monthly Keston Gun Club Clay Shoot and absolutely nothing else and was once a Roman Road, hence its boundariness.

Croydon

The Greenwich Meridian crosses the playing fields of Meridian High School. The postwar suburb of New Addington, where Fairchildes Avenue is the only residential street to abut the Surrey boundary. Down Hutchinson's Bank to run parallel to Featherbed Lane within deep woodland. Well-hidden Scout camp offering archery, laser tag and a Tomahawk Instructor Course. Holes five and six of one golf course lead to hole 2 of another. Round Selsdon Wood, following Baker Boy Lane and Farleigh Border. Then Oaken Shaw, Mossyhill Shaw and Mosehill Shaw as this full-on rural excursion continues. Hamsey Green has a pond, the first decent shopping parade and the start of the London Loop's best section. Out onto Riddlesdown past a large secondary school and summer harvestables (the views!), then steeply down the side of a huge chalk quarry of geological importance. Public footpath level crossing on the East Grinstead line.

Across the dry valley (and the A22), then switch to the Caterham line almost as far as Whyteleafe station. Skirt the edge of Kenley Aerodrome behind three of the WW2 blast pens. The dividing line between where folk in Caterham-on-the-Hill live and where they walk their dogs, which is mainly the airfield and Coulsdon Common. Bus stop, coal tax post and Sea Cadets. Steep descent into Happy Valley - glorious! - then back up the other side into Piles Wood. Arbitrary right turn on bridleway straight across the lower reaches of an arable field to the southernmost point in Greater London.

On Ditches Lane a full mile along the hedge on the left-hand-side, dodging all the rat-running vehicles not expecting to see anybody here. Farthing Downs arguably has a better view than Happy Valley or Riddlesdown but alas the boundary heads downhill before the car park. Drive Road but not Pretty Lane. Straight across adjacent railway cuttings deep in chalk, funnelling the fast track to Brighton and the slow. Three stiles lead to a domain of very big detached houses, all securely on the Surrey side. Gateway to a private road, then the edge of Rickman Hill Rec and tumble down the Cinder Path to Chipstead Valley. The 434, the 166 and the 463, all separately demarcated. Narrow bridge beneath the Tattenham Corner line and along the back of the back gardens on Winifred Road.

Sutton

Around Prospect Plantation, tucking behind the Methodist Church before demarcating Corrigan Rec. The blandly-named Big Wood, opposite all the outlying playing fields a private school can muster. Inaccessible paddocks and greenhouses. Off-road bend to permit the Mayfield Lavender Fields to be part of Secret London. Bridleway between fields and golf course, then between women's prison and suburbia, then between Banstead Common and a cancer hub. Where the 280 terminates, opposite the station insufficient trains stop at. Paths into deep heathland or dental realignment, your choice. Along some Brighton Road to the start of a dual carriageway it's horrible to cross on foot. Two golf courses, only one of which is in Surrey because why should London always miss out? Huge houses named after golfing terms.

The almost-enclave of Cuddington, where Higher Drive is one of London's longest unbroken residential streets. Shabby lane with ancient lampposts. Playing field for rugger and cricket types. The wealthy backside of Cheam, whose residents may or may not stoop to drink at The Grumpy Mole. A woodland edge is the dividing line between ultra-historic Nonsuch Park and merely Cheam Rec. Another London Road, this time the A24. Suburban fringe where Sparrow Farm once stood, including perverse deviation to Richlands Avenue. A mile along the Epsom railway, the true division hereabouts, finally crossing just behind The Brook gastropub in Worcester Park.

Kingston

The Baptist church is in, the rest of The Avenue is out. A long unbroken run behind Highdown to not-quite Ophelia's stretch of the Hogsmill River. Tales of the riverbank, swinging behind a converted mill and a Toby Carvery along Old Malden Lane. Huge sports ground on floodable land where housing was never advised, including football pitches and a professional kart race circuit. Tolworth proper dodged in favour of Tolworth Court Meadows, field upon field of recently grazable space. Bear off down the Bonesgate Stream past skatepark, basketball court and semi-feral council estate.

Here beginneth the six mile circumnavigation of Chessington, mostly rural but with a short bungalowed burst to start. Castle Hill is ancient and small, Horton Country Park is huge and stretches all the way to luxury apartments in a former psychiatric hospital. The London side is a lengthy sequence of fields, so many of them stubbly post-harvest, the boundary delineated by the treeline of Ashtead Common. Coal tax post, inevitably. At the tip of the epiglottis is The Star, Malden Rushett's livelier pub, then curl back past a gun club, Telegraph Hill and the thick timbers of Princes Covert. Chessington World of Adventures comes clearly into earshot, but comes no closer than the foot of the car park.

Beyond the big lake a two-mile alignment to the Esher bypass, the actual A3, but only walkable it as far as the primary school. By now Chessington has become Hook, a sharp left turn at the allotments avoiding Hook Junction in a dash for Love Lane. Suburbia restarts, appropriately in Surbiton, here brushing up against the cul-de-sacs of Long Ditton. The boundary bulges around Victoria Park to ensure it's all the capital. The river is approached through Seething Wells, the former waterworks and current student accommodation also all on the London side. Cue the Thames...

Richmond

For almost four miles the edge of London is the middle of the Thames. First Hampton Court Park then the royal palace itself, chimneys a-dazzle, passing a couple of islands along the way. Hampton Court Bridge is the sole fixed crossing on the periphery, conveniently placed for the station, Turks Pier and The Mute Swan. Of the six islands in the stream, three are Surrey's and three aren't. The corner of Bushy Park is visible from St Alban's Riverside, though likely no deer, then it's Garrick country with his villa and Temple to Shakespeare. The Hampton Ferry ceases crossings after the clocks go back but the canoe club go out in all weathers. Reservoirs and water treatment works shield much of the Middlesex shore, then a row of waterside mansions mean the Thames is done and it's time to cut inland. This is still waterworks country so paths are few and fences secure, with only some of Kempton Nature Reserve occasionally accessible. The first half of the mile along the Shepperton railway is in Richmond...

Hounslow

...but beyond the Staines Reservoirs Aqueduct it's all Hounslow. Bunny Lane once ran alongside Kempton Park racecourse but that's long severed, sorry. The busy dual carriageway by the steam museum is about to transform into the M3, but instead slice past the layby cafe and follow the very minor Felthamhill Brook. Zigzag past Kenyngton Manor Rec and the rugby club to Groveley Hall, the hut where the 2nd Sunbury Guides hold court. Feltham's farthest-flung cul-de-sacs lead to the Chertsey Road and the Sunbury Research Centre, for many decades home to BP's research division (but they plan to move out next year). Straight across the corporate playing field, for now, then negotiate a former gravel pit past a dozen Ashford cul-de-sacs.

Bedfont Lakes Country Park comes in two parts entirely severed by the Staines-bound railway line and none shall cross. The South Side is humbler than the sprawling dogwalk paradise to the north, also it has the cafe and the owl sculpture. Beyond Clockhouse Lane are huge tessellating lakes, the boundary predating them so cutting across three. On the Staines Road a logistics hub with data centre, a mosque, a lowly cafe and the Mr Bubbles carwash. Then the full western perimeter of the hydrocarbon heaven that is Esso's West London Terminal, its field of smelly silos ideally located to serve Heathrow's greedy needs. But the airport's in Hillingdon, just across the Bedfont Road, which means we're now halfway round the entirety of Greater London... a good place to pause.

Forest Hill, Ewell, Cheam and Norbury

2026-10-07T07:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went to Forest Hill, Ewell, Cheam and Norbury.

It's only been a year since WH Smith's high street stores rebranded meaninglessly as TG Jones, but they've already started closing. This is what happens when venture capitalists rationalise their portfolio via a restructuring plan, they shut things, because it's not about community service it's about value for investors. Uxbridge went in July, Brixton in August, Greenford and Worcester Park in September, Pinner goes next Wednesday and Orpington and West Wickham later this month.

This is TG Jones in Forest Hill which was due to shut last week but has had a stay of execution until the end of the month. The upstairs Post Office will also have to close until somewhere else can be found for it, this the inevitable consequence of a policy that shacked up public service in private spaces.

It's a bit grim inside, although this may not solely be a result of impending closure. The range of available goods is somewhat limited, including not much stationery, a handful of jigsaws and one skipping rope. Diaries and Christmas cards are half price (though it's a very limited selection), whereas cards for landmark birthdays are fairly plentiful should you have one coming up. Even the confectionery rack is 20% off, although that may just reduce prices closer to normal. Magazines are however clearly labelled "not included in this clearance offer", plus good luck finding copies of Athletics Weekly, Women's Health or Airgun World once this place closes.

I spent a lot of time in Rickmansworth's WH Smiths when I was a child and much more in Watford's, hunting down a treasured book, treating myself to a geometry set or flicking through the singles and cassettes in the mezzanine record department. Alas Watford's TG Jones is closing on 27th January and Rickmansworth's closes on October 17th, so perhaps I ought to go back beforehand in case there are any local specials. Also remember that just because you no longer rely on these shops many people do, not least the staff who are about to be turfed out of a job. They sounded stoic in Forest Hill as they restocked the shelves, not publicly negative but you could tell something here wasn't right. Alas no longer Smith Nor Jones.

London's TG Jones
Doomed: Cheam, Colliers Wood, Croydon, Eltham, Forest Hill, Harrow, Muswell Hill, Orpington, Pinner, Southgate, Streatham, Temple Fortune, Wandsworth, West Wickham
Not yet doomed: Barnet, Beckenham, Bexleyheath, Brent Cross, Bromley, Chiswick, Ilford, Kingston, Lewisham, Richmond, Romford, Ruislip, Sutton, Teddington, Twickenham, Wallington, Westfield, Westfield

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I hadn't spotted these two road signs in Ewell before. They're on the north site of the gyratory around Bourne Hall, the library complex that looks like a flying saucer. Several large ponds also exist here at the source of the Hogsmill, hence the abundance of wildfowl, hence two signs warning drivers not to run them over. Aww, aren't they cute?

But not official. The official roadsign for "Wild fowl likely to be in road ahead" is a single duck, as exemplified in the DfT's Traffic Signs Manual Diagram 551.2, with zero ducklings following after. Similarly the only animals to appear on approved roadsigns are cattle, horses, deer, frogs, ducks and hedgehogs, never swans and definitely not cygnets. Someone local has felt the need to add these convincing fakes, but when and why?

I checked on Streetview because this is a great way to answer various roadsign questions. The duck/duckling sign appeared sometime between 2012 and 2015, which is ages ago, whereas the swan/cygnet sign appeared between 2022 and 2024. Thus they're not contemporary they're a decade apart, which is intriguing. Even more intriguing is that the swan sign has been attached in front of another sign, that for 'frail pedestrians', entirely obscuring it. Someone has unilaterally decided that warning motorists about wildfowl is more important than warning motorists about old people and I would seriously question that decision, however lovable the cygnet sign is.

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A new arrival on Cheam Broadway is this tanning salon.
It's called TAN-GERINE Tanning.
And I wouldn't have called it that.
Why make yourself bright orange?

When this blog started I used to have a feature called the Creative Lounge in which I invited readers to come up with clever and appropriate names for things. We did new planets, bottled waters, businesses in Diss, modern surnames, chemical elements, London Eye sponsorship, allsorts, just like we were a top-drawer marketing team. So let's see if we can do better with a name for a tanning salon...

Welcome to the Creative Lounge
Take a seat. Take a deep breath.
Now, try flexing your creative muscle...
I started you off, now I've added some of your best ideas. Any more?

Tanning salon names (appropriate)
Goldrush, Tan Tricks, Foxy Brown, Sun Deck, Glow Getters, Hot Tropic, Cheamgleam, Tan-go!, Umberland, Tanfastic, ?

Tanning salon names (inappropriate)
Bronze Meddle, Crispy Bakin', Golden Shower, Brown Nosing, Charredonay, Tan Gents, Let Us Spray, Mixed Grill, Melanomarama, Toast of the Town, Deep Fried Nice, Pay As You Burn, Trumptan, Brassed Off, ?

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This is the display of crisps in the window in the front of Norbury Local at 1522 London Rd. It's typical of many a minimarket cornershop, a wide choice of largish snackbags at quite high prices.

I'm particularly intrigued that some manufacturers now print prices in the corner of the bag, perhaps to ensure they make a profit, perhaps to stop the retailer adding too much of a mark-up, perhaps because people buy more crisps when it's clear how much they cost. But perhaps it's simply taking advantage of people who want a quick snack, because these prices are way above what you'd pay in a supermarket.

30g bag of McCoy's crisps here: £1.35 (4.5p per gram)
45g bag of McCoy's crisps at Waitrose: £1.25 (2.8p per gram)
6 25g bags of McCoy's crisps at Sainsbury: £1.75 (1.2p per gram)

70g bag of Walker's crisps here: £1.49 (2.1p per gram)
6 25g bags of Walker's crisps at Tesco: £1.75 (1.2p per gram)

70g bag of Doritos here: £1.49 (2.1p per gram)
150g bag of Doritos at Morrisons: £2.50 (1.7p per gram)
5 30g bags of Doritos at Asda: £2.15 (1.4p per gram)

Admittedly when you want a street snack you don't want to buy a multipack, but even so the mark-up on these crisps is pretty high for what's essentially an identical product, just a different size. Pay for convenience, pay over the odds.

Performative remembrance

2026-10-06T09:00:00.000+01:00

I was in Kenton yesterday and was surprised to see Harrow council had already slapped poppies on lampposts. It's the first week of October, guys, what were you thinking?

The poppies were all along the shopping parades on Kenton Road, one per lamppost, but not on the Brent side because they're not kneejerk remembrance fetishists. The red flowers also bedecked two shopping parades in Queensbury, and are likely elsewhere but I wasn't on a deliberate scavenger hunt to spot them.

Admittedly Remembrance Sunday is the earliest it can be this year, but 8th November is still FIVE WEEKS AWAY and this premature bloom is entirely unnecessary. The Royal British Legion don't launch their appeal until 22nd October, their starting pistol always fired 17 days before the Cenotaph ceremony, whereas Harrow have gone for 34 days which is effectively Double Remembrance. Are they trying to get value for money for their flappy bits of red plastic, is the councillor in charge a super-patriot or did someone at the depot just get overexcited?

Remembrance started as a two minute silence, was extended to a week in which to buy a poppy and is now a full-on 2½ weeks of red-pinned expectation. But it doesn't need to become a five week campaign covering most of October, which isn't even the month associated with remembrance, just because some official thinks it important to turn Poppytide into a season rather than an event. Even TfL normally wait for the second half of October before slapping poppies on the front of hundreds of their trains, although they also often feel the need to jump the gun Legion-wise.

And don't get me started on how long it can take to remove the poppies afterwards, with some of these plastic poppies still in situ long after Christmas festivities should have taken over, becoming meaningless symbols rather than emblems of retrospection and respect. There is absolutely no need to extend a brief silence to several weeks of performative remembrance, it's pointless artificial virtue-signalling, because it's never disrespectful to wait to remember.

Three more dead buses

2026-10-06T08:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday TfL's Chief Undertaker sounded the death knell for three more London buses, the 415, the C3 and the D7.

RIP 415
The 415 was introduced in 2008 and runs between Tulse Hill and the Tesco on the Old Kent Road. It's shadowed by at least two other bus routes along every road it covers, so arguably superfluous. It will thus die, with the 333 extended from Elephant & Castle to the aforementioned Tesco to retain connections north of Brixton. South of Brixton bus frequency will drop by 30% which isn't great, but arguably nobody loses out too badly. [consultation] [map] [routes before] [routes after]

RIP C3
The C3 was introduced in 1987, initially as a minibus, now a double decker. It runs from Earl's Court to Clapham Junction via Chelsea Harbour and at 5 miles is one of London's shorter routes. It dies because there are currently too many buses between South Kensington and Putney, and apparently the best way to sort that is to divert the 74 to take over the C3 completely. The worst affected passengers are shoppers at Earl's Court's Tesco who may now have to walk over 500m to catch a 74, also those in central London aiming for Fulham who'll now need to change buses. [consultation] [map]

RIP D7
The D7 was introduced in 1989 and runs from Mile End to Poplar around the edge of the Isle of Dogs. It's already had its frequency chopped from 8 buses an hour to 5 and the latest proposal is to extinguish it altogether. In mitigation three other buses will be tweaked to maintain a comprehensive network on the Isle of Dogs, Specifically the 135 and 277 will switch routes and the D6 will go a longer way round to Asda. The biggest losers are those along Westferry Road who'll now have 45% fewer buses, should they still be travelling which apparently fewer and fewer people on the island are. [consultation] [map] [routes before] [routes after]

It's all about cutting excess capacity, reducing duplication and saving money, but as a consequence breaking connections, increasing reliance on the Hopper fare and making people wait longer.

"We will simplify routes in central and inner London, running a smaller number of high frequency, more reliable routes, so that we can deliver an attractive service which is still comprehensive and frequent, but has less duplication and excess capacity."

Consultations are underway and the end result may not be precisely as anticipated. But expect more of this kind of thing going forward.

Dead Buses Since 2023
2023: 271, 332, 507, 521, 168
2024: 455, 549
2025: 347, 497, 118, 414, R6, 283
2026: 472, 533, 349
proposed: 67, 254, 415, C3, D7

New Buses Since 2023
2023: SL10, SL1
2024: SL5, SL3, SL2, S2, 439, 310
2025: BL1, SL4
2026: SL11, SL12, 10
proposed: 454, SL13, SL14, SL15

Pudding Mill update

2026-10-06T07:00:00.000+01:00

It's now 15 years since the Olympic neighbourhood of Pudding Mill got its name and 14 years since the Games skedaddled. And yet the number of homes in this new residential neighbourhood remains zero, indeed not a single foundation has yet been dug. Who says there's a housing shortage?

What Pudding Mill does have is a world-class tourist attraction in the form of the Abba Arena, supposedly temporary but still doing great business which makes it hard to remove. The Voyage show was initially only given planning permission for three years until March 2025, but that's since been incrementally extended and the latest sunset date is 2031. A key issue here is that the arena was built on the site of Pudding Mill's proposed neighbourhood centre, the intended site for shops, employment space and a community hub. It wouldn't really work to build flats in the empty space all around but with nowhere to buy milk because Dancing Queen is still belting out seven times a week.

The latest planning application, just published, solves the problem by shifting priorities to the neighbouring plot. Here the 80-bed Snoozebox Hotel has been offering constricted sleep since 2020 and pre-Abba drinks since 2022, but the fact it's all inside containers makes it very easy to remove. That's currently pencilled in for midwinter, indeed you can't book a stay after 31st January, with the intention that this wedge gets built on first. The revised application proposes to shift all the commercial space here instead, also to switch the tallest buildings so that this is the new landmark neighbourhood centre, not the Abba site. Previously this plot was pencilled in for two 9-storey buildings but it's now destined to hold a 12- and a 25-. Unsurprisingly making architectural changes on this scale has really slowed the process down.

Pudding Mill is due to be delivered in four stages, of which the Abba site is the final phase 4. This Snoozebox wedge is phase 2a, and the much larger plot across Marshgate Lane is phase 1. Nothing's begun on that site either, indeed planning permission only was only granted in May, although initial works may finally take place over the next few months. Then there's the Bridgewater Triangle site across the Greenway where planning permission was sought five years ago and bugger all has been built there too, the last couple of years having been spent tidying up the riverside and replacing a bridge.

It is a very nice new bridge, ideally configured for a car-free neighbourhood, but for goodness sake can't somebody just start building somewhere to live?

King's Road

2026-10-05T07:00:00.000+01:00

This is the King's Road, Chelsea's classic cultural artery.

Here are ten mini-posts about the famous street and what I saw there yesterday.

1) The King in question was Charles II who had it built as a private road to speed his passage to Hampton Court. Access was later extended to the nobility but only if they were in possession of a special token, with plebs forced to travel via the parallel Fulham Road instead. Only in 1830 was the King's Road fully opened up to allcomers, kickstarting wider development in Chelsea, and it's remained a tad posh ever since.

2) It goes on a bit, over a mile and a half, not just the full width of Kensington & Chelsea but a deep nudge into Hammersmith & Fulham. The east end is at Sloane Square and by the time you get to the other end at Sands End the house/shop numbers are up to 646. It then switches to being New King's Road and ends up in the 400s, but Mary Quant barely troubled the Fulham end so I'm ignoring that.

3) King's Road might one day have a Crossrail station, although the project's on ice until sufficient funding is available which is likely never. A Chelsea-Hackney line was first proposed as a tube line in 1970 and came closest to reality in a 2015 consultation linking Broxbourne to inner Surrey. Alas Crossrail 2 was mothballed in 2020 but various buildings opposite Chelsea Town Hall remain safeguarded as entrances and worksites just in case, this the sole stop between Victoria and Clapham Junction. I don't expect The Head of Oscar Wilde by Eduardo Paolozzi will ever need to be moved.

4) Two rooms at the Saatchi Gallery are currently showing brief exhibitions before a six month street art blockbuster opens in November. One room's sponsored by Winsor & Newton who asked artists to submit watercolours on a postcard and are displaying hundreds and hundreds on white shelves. I enjoyed them, mostly because there are so many I could always find several I liked, but not so much that I'd want to bid for any in the follow-up charity auction. The other gallery houses ArtEvol 2026, a salon-style exhibition curated by the London Art Collective, and includes works by Schafernaker and 87 non-meteorologists. Visit before 11th October otherwise it's £25 until May.

5) Some famous addresses along the King's Road include number 203 (the electronics shop where Neil Tennant first met Chris Lowe, now part of The Ivy restaurant), number 213 (where Thomas Arne wrote Rule Britannia, still a private home) and number 430 (Malcolm McLaren's Sex boutique, still a Vivienne Westwood outlet).

6) Down at World's End I was intrigued by this breakfast menu outside the Mona Lisa Cafe. What on earth is a Liver Breakfast, or rather I know what it is because the components are listed but why on earth would a cooked breakfast include calf's liver? I've since discovered it's because the Mona Lisa has been here for over 50 years and specialises in 'English breakfasts & Italian faves', in a proper classic caff style so fried offal is very much what you might get with your bacon and eggs. I've found a photo and actually it looks temptingly good, particularly if I then smothered it in ketchup, but £14.95 still feels like a very SW10 price for a cooked breakfast.

7) Not in the King's Road but up a sideroad I spotted a blue plaque for Joyce Grenfell nextdoor to a blue plaque for Sir Stafford Cripps. He was born at 32 Elm Park Gardens and she lived happily in a flat at 34 fron 1957 to 1979. That's already more blue plaques than in the whole of Havering, Hillingdon and Sutton (0, 0 and 1 respectively) whereas Kensington and Chelsea has 195. Close by are AA Milne, Dame Sybil Thorndyke, Evelyn De Morgan, Jean Rhys and Rosalind Franklin, and score 10 points if you know why all of these people are famous.

8) Just off the King's Road I saw one of the very first numberplates 2R on a seven year-old Mini Cooper. R2 is on a Rolls Royce Phantom which feels more appropriate, although I've never seen that.

9) I thought these consecutive bus stops were a particularly good example of the revised digit spacing TfL introduced about ten years ago. The first shows the original spacing where the 1s were close together and had a serif, and the second shows the current idiom where the 1s are further apart. Not everyone liked the new spacing, especially Men Who Like Buses But Get Angry About Change.

10) The King's Road on a Sunday morning is all posh people buying coffee, also posh people buying matcha and sounding excited about it, also posh people buying pastries at Gail's and walking home to share them with the family, also jogging down the pavement in £200 sunglasses, also sitting down with Eggs Benedict in a cute cafe, also so much long blond hair and designer casuals and rugby shirts and impeccable jackets and boxfresh trainers, also lifestyle boutiques, also wellness clinics, also shops that get by because posh people are never fully happy with their interior design, also smart outlets that exist solely to siphon off disposable income from top taxbracket earners and if you're a bit socialist it's all a bit triggering, especially when compared to how folk in Harlesden or Dalston are getting by, almost as if when the revolution starts it should start here, not that I think like that but it's all too easy to compare Chelsea's easy excess with the lives of the urban majority and conclude that inequality is endemic and perhaps when Charles II built a private road the trappings never quite went away.

Rural vibes

2026-10-04T07:00:00.000+01:00

Rural vibes

✅ Village pond (ring of benches, reedy growth, warning of deep water, rustic litter bins, lifebelt on back of bus shelter, inevitable ducks)

✅ Village green (picnic benches, memorial trough, beacon, premature fallen leaves, beech mast, dogmess bins, playground, bronze statue of girl reading book)
✅ Village shop (shuts for lunch, reopens bang on time, sparse shelves, AI-drawn poster in window, still sells newspapers but also artisan breads and Fairtrade jars, includes craft workshop space)

✅ Former village shop (was bakery, now Eight Mediterranean, "an exciting new coffee shop and restaurant concept offering a selection of the very best of Turkish/Mediterranean cuisine using only the best quality raw materials with special attention being paid to the preparation and presentation of the product as well as the healthiness factor", also breakfast, also cake, chef required)
✅ 'The Old Police House' (currently for sale, offers in excess of £600,000, but there is no 'The Old Post Office' because the Post Office is still open)

✅ War memorial (flat slab rather than inscribed cross, four WW1 silhouettes because one would be insufficient, crocheted wreath, one of last year's poppies still in situ, visit by Air Cadets still a month off)
✅ Bus shelter (four buses a day to a choice of provincial towns, also redundant bus shelter now used for community library, three shelves of books including Bill Bryson, John Grisham and Val McDermid)

✅ Village pub (former Charringtons but now freehouse, early drinkers at window table, blue-timbered bar, homemade Lasagne Special, Quiz Night every Wednesday, potwasher wanted)
✅ Village noticeboard (map, crimestopping advice, upcoming gatherings, parish council notices, subject matter of parochial interest, cultural event which on closer inspection is in nearby town)

✅ Village signpost (points to Women's Institute Hall because of course it does, also Scout Hut, also Playing Field, also 'School' because that's not ambiguous in a village)
✅ Village church (not in village centre but an annoying walk way especially on inclement Sundays, flinty, Norman, rubber stamp for pilgrim passports, Reverend Helen, churchwardens called Chris and Marjory, summer Sunday teas, poorly-located Millennium Hall)

✅ Village hall (prominent Union Jack, potted tubs, annexe named after village elder, regular activities including short mat bowls and Barré with Fi)
✅ Village Club (prominent Union Jack, hanging baskets, bingo, pool, snooker, darts, quizzes, also meat raffle every Friday, also poker every Sunday evening, new members welcome)

✅ Village newsletter (articles include Nigel's Nature Notes and Martial Arts Summer Update, adverts include investment advice and mobile chiropodist, planning notices include single-storey rear extension on Ricketts Hill Road, upcoming events include WI Harvest Lunch and An Evening With Owls)
✅ Street furniture (telegraph poles covered with ivy, old lamppost with LED lamp, horseriding sign, postbox which turns out to be someone's mailbox)

✅ Cottages (some old, some painted, a few terraced, picket fences, ceramic nameplates, shrubbery starting to go red, birdtables)
✅ Bungalows (carport, charging point, veranda, box hedge, pampas grass, loft extension, solar panels, skip for building works, multiple bins)

✅ Detacheds (oddly-shaped pile the first owner somehow slipped past the parish council planning committee, odd name like Wareslea or Glen Nevis, entryphone, gravel drive, room for four cars, security camera, yapping dog)
✅ Lanes (lanes with no pavement which is fine because nobody walks anyway, lanes that peter out into "unsuitable for motor vehicles", unmade road surfaces because the council isn't responsible, corners residents tend to take slightly too fast, lanes that have to be signed 'Public Footpath' because otherwise they'd look too private)

✅ Public footpaths (those generally only used by dogwalkers, those which are just obscure cut-throughs, those which end up in scrappy woodland, those which squeeze between back fences, those you can't imagine anyone using but there's still a Costa Coffee cup halfway along, those which are so steep you'd only walk down)
✅ Villagers (grey-haired shoppers, adolescents back from weekend sport, owner occupiers on their knees in front garden flower beds, bistro sippers, Waitrose unloaders, reluctant carwashers, suspicious twitchers, actual member of Bucks Fizz, seven-time Grand Prix motorcycle World Champion, one of the Cambridge Five spy ring)

✅ Red London bus (departs every 30 minutes from the shelter by the pub, ideal if you want to get to New Addington, far better than schlepping up the hill, driver takes the Hail and Ride sections quite fast, helps groups of teenagers escape to the nearest decent shopping parade, helps Surrey residents take advantage of everything London has to offer, timetable is for a stop at the other end of the route thus useless and has been in situ since March 2024 because TfL never check these things, ensures Tatsfield is surprisingly easy to get to)

Villages outside London reachable by TfL bus
» Colnbrook by 81
» Denham by 331
» Chigwell by 167
» Stapleford Abbotts by 375
» Joydens Wood by B12
» Knockholt and Halstead by R5/R10
» Tatsfield by 464 (possibly the villagiest of all)
» Mickleham by 465 (or this one)
» Claygate by K3
» Sunbury by 216/235

WLO level crossings

2026-10-03T07:00:00.000+01:00

Last week TfL launched a consultation for the West London Orbital, a new Overground route connecting Hounslow and Hendon. It's an easy win, almost entirely following existing tracks and linking key growth hubs including Old Oak Common. If all goes well it could be operational by 2035, which is almost immediate in transport project terms, and seemingly with very few downsides. Except there is an issue for some of those who live nearby because three level crossings may need to be completely closed, including one the new line won't even use.

Here's the new line with the three level crossings along the route shown by orange arrows. Closing them wouldn't be popular.

And they might have to close simply because they wouldn't be open very much any more.

"Under current railway operating rules, the level crossing barriers - which are already lowered for around 40% to 50% of the time during the day - would be closed for longer periods. When WLO services are added, the barriers would be lowered for up to 75% of the time for periods as long as 11 minutes at a time. While technology improvements are being explored which could result in barrier down times not increasing this much, based on current rules the closure of the level crossings to road traffic would be required."

Level crossing 1

This is Churchfield Road in Acton, immediately north of Acton Central station. It's so close that the platforms go right up to the level crossing. It's so close that there are entrances on both sides. It's so close that when the gates are down, the station subway is the only way across. And the intention is to close it if the West London Orbital goes live.

I should say it's not normally closed, I just happened to turn up during a week of Thames Water works. If nothing else it proves that residents can cope locally when the road is blocked. But that doesn't mean they'd enjoy losing this on-street connection forever, especially those I saw crossing it yesterday on bikes and with pushchairs.

At the moment Acton Central is only on the Mildmay line, thus sees four trains an hour in each direction. If the West London Orbital comes into operation that total would double, which means the barriers would have to come down twice as often. That would flip the crossing from 'barriers mostly up' to 'barriers mostly down', such is the potential impact of 16 separate closures every hour. Network Rail are never keen on level crossings and would prefer to close most of them, hence the safety risks introduced by additional trains at Acton Central would be a surefire trigger to close it for good.

This is a busy spot with a gentrified shopping street on one side and Acton Park on the other. It's not a truly main road so traffic would be able to find another way, but closing the level crossing would undoubtedly force more vehicles onto Acton High Street. As for pedestrians and cyclists TfL say "the solution could involve a new pedestrian/cycle bridge or make use of the existing station subway". Squeezing a bridge in might require repurposing existing land, especially given the need for an accessibly long ramp, and would really put a damper on what's currently an easy walk down the street. As for the existing subway expensive lifts would need to be added, also it's all currently behind the gateline so the ticket barriers would need to be moved. The only people gaining here are Network Rail's risk assessors, everyone else would lose out.

Level crossings 2a and 2b

This is Bollo Lane, a short distance south of South Acton station. It's also the site of one of London's rare double level crossings, in this case just 75m apart. The track splits here with one spur heading towards Gunnersbury, the existing Mildmay line with four trains an hour. The other spur heads west towards Brentford and is currently used only by a smattering of freight trains. But if the West London Orbital were introduced it too would see a four-trains-an-hour service, and suddenly the multiplicity of barriers on Bollo Lane would be up and down all over the place. It couldn't continue.

On my visit I got to watch both crossings in action, the first only because a freight train happened to be passing by. Down came the barriers on the Kew line and we waited, and waited, because it turns out level crossing barriers come down really prematurely these days. It was precisely three minutes until the freight train finally arrived and almost four before the barriers went up again. In that time a backlog of at least two dozen vehicles had built up, also five bikes and three mopeds. The other crossing took even longer to reopen, this because Mildmay services are timetabled to pass by within a couple of minutes of each other. It thus took 2½ minutes before the first southbound train passed by, then another two minutes before the northbound train passed through, and ultimately the barriers were down for a few seconds short of five minutes.

You can imagine the traffic chaos if up to 16 closures of 3-5 minutes were required every hour on such a short section of road, also the unacceptability of traffic at one set of barriers queueing back towards the other. Thus if the West London Orbital is ever introduced at least one of the two crossings would have to close. Operationally speaking either would do, so it all comes down to not messing up the buses. Routes 70 and 440 both cross the WLO crossing, then slip into the back of the Chiswick Park business park without troubling the Mildmay crossing. The proposal is thus to close the Mildmay crossing, permanently, thereby ending all through traffic apart from the buses. Entirely counter-intuitively, introducing new trains on one line screws the level crossing on the other.

Level crossing 3

This is Wood Lane in Isleworth, three miles west of the previous pair on Bollo Lane. It's the only road across the railway between Isleworth and Syon Lane stations but that won't save it because it crosses on the flat. Also, this one's going to bugger up a bus route.

For most of the day this crossing only sees two trains an hour in each direction, i.e. four in total. But if the WLO were introduced that'd rise to six in each direction, i.e. twelve an hour, and that's been deemed less tenable. Wood Lane is thus extremely likely to face permanent closure. That would divide what's seemingly a quiet residential area, although while I was here I counted twenty pedestrians on the crossing during a three minute period so it's hardly tumbleweed country. TfL's mitigation for pedestrians and cyclists would likely be a footbridge, again squeezed in somehow, and again an absolute pain forever compared to the easy option available today.

Closing the level crossing would also permanently block the road taken by the H28 bus. This is already a ridiculously tortuous route, meandering back and forth across the Hounslow suburbs, and removing Wood Lane as an option would mean it could only get tortuouser. A diversion route already exists when the crossing is closed which involves doing Syon Lane twice, which is operationally super-sub-optimal, and if that's what the eventual consultation suggests then Wood Lane really is being stuffed over twice.

And those are the three level crossings whose days are very likely numbered if this new Overground connection goes ahead. So next time you hear how excellent the West London Orbital is going to be, yes for the vast majority of Londoners it will be, but if you have the misfortune to live near one of these severed roads you may just curse its introduction.

Four SW London borough museums

2026-10-02T07:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went to four museums run by outer SW London boroughs.
You can only do all four on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday.
Below is my summary addressed across seven categories.
I also awarded a score out of five to help me decide which is best.

Museum of Richmond
Open: Tue-Fri 11-5, Sat 10-4 (closed Sun, Mon)
Address: 2nd Floor, Old Town Hall, Richmond, TW9 1TP
Website: museumofrichmond.com

Building: Top floor of the Old Town Hall, bang in the town centre near Richmond Bridge. Feels very 'Victorian but upgraded in the 1980s', i.e. an out-of-date marble warren with glum stairs.
Welcome: Full-on greeting at the desk starting with the mandated question "Have you been before?", then a scripted summary, then a strong hint that donations are appreciated.
Galleries: One big long room with various alcoves. Separate temporary exhibition space behind entrance. Feels like it's not been updated much since the Queen opened it in 1988.
History: Richmond overflows with history, kicking off with a Tudor palace and skipping on through Georgian buildings, Victorian expansion and the World Wars. Pretty much nothing post-1945. Detailed background information to read. Ignores everything in the borough west of the Thames because that's the domain of Twickenham Museum instead.
Stuff: Plenty of cabinets and old things. Bits of old masonry, models, palace remnants, obligatory pots and jars, innards of workhouse clock, WW2 bomb map. Bamber Gascoigne narrates a video.
Extras: Little gift shop. Exhibition of colourful artistic quilts that was supposed to close at the end of September but they haven't replaced it yet. Family trails updated monthly. Regular programme of events including talks, LEGO Club and crafty workshops.
Summary: The whole place feels loved and creative, if a bit behind the times. ★★★⯨

→ catch a half-hourly train or take the 65 bus →

Kingston Museum
Open: Thu-Sat 10-5 (closed Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed)
Address: Wheatfield Way, Kingston upon Thames KT1 2PS
Website: kingstonheritage.org.uk

Building: Purpose-built in 1904 alongside a Carnegie Library, bang in the town centre near the shops. Looks very museum-y from the dual carriageway.
Welcome: Bit of a nod from the bloke on the desk. No pressure.
Galleries: Just the three, plus a separate art gallery upstairs. First 'Ancient Origins' which includes a very old Saxon log boat. Then the larger 'Town of Kings', which kicks off with an unconvincing Athelstan waxwork. The Eadweard Muybridge gallery is more of a connecting corridor. All feels very very old school.
History: Kingston overflows with history, much of it much earlier than Richmond's. Few other towns can compete with 'several kings were crowned here'. But there's more in several themed displays around the central mock-up of the Market House, some of it period-related and much of it connected to famous residents. Eadweard's pioneering photography deserves its elevated status.
Stuff: Plenty of it including dug-up-stuff, military stuff, a workplace clock and a model of old Kingston. Hurrah there's a map where you press a button and a red light lights up, because all museums of a certain age had those. Also look out for Snappity the museum mascot, a mechanical wooden toy made by the Sopwith Aviation Company in 1919, not an actual crocodile.
Extras: The only exhibition that changes is upstairs in the Art Gallery, where a celebration of the fashion Haus of Sibling should have been cleared away by now but hasn't. Also I managed to finish the Knit Wits puzzle trail despite the oddly worded clues and the extremely obvious solution.
Summary: It's lovely that it's still here, but feels even more behind the times than Richmond. ★★★

→ catch the SL7 bus →

Honeywood Museum (Sutton)
Open: Thu-Sat 10-5 (closed Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed)
Address: Honeywood Walk, Carshalton SM5 3NX
Website: friendsofhoneywood.co.uk

Building: 17th century Wandle Cottage overlooks Carshalton Ponds, and is by far the loveliest building in the loveliest location of any of these four museums.
Welcome: Would have been charming except the lady on the desk was chatting as I slipped in so instead I got a charming goodbye.
Galleries: It's a former family home so has loads of rooms, each differently themed, from the table-centred billiard room to the bedroom full of old toys. Quite a lot of narrow stairs to negotiate, which only adds to the atmosphere unless you can't get around easily, in which case be aware that the age of the building mitigates against a lift.
History: It turns out that the borough of Sutton has a quite a history, although most of that is "rural idyll with lavender farms gets swallowed up by nation's capital." Every part of the borough gets a fair shot, be it Beddington, Cheam or wherever, which alas isn't the case in the other three borough museums.
Stuff: Art and photographs are doing a lot of heavy lifting here, also objects that might typically have been found anywhere from Victorian times onwards. There are perhaps more old things at Sutton's other historic museum which is Whitehall in Cheam.
Extras: I couldn't get into one room because the fortnightly embroidery group were holding court. I could get into the garden, the art gallery, the little shop and the cosy cafe, which because it's Oktober has 6% German lager on tap. The volunteers that run the place have truly created a buzzing little hub.
Summary: Local and charming, which when you have a history like Sutton's is the best you can hope for. No spoilers, but it's my favourite of the four. ★★★★

→ catch the SL7 bus →

Museum of Croydon
Open: Wed-Sat 10-4.30 (closed Sun, Mon, Tue)
Address: Katharine Street, Croydon CR9 1ET
Website: museumofcroydon.com

Building: Part of the redbrick 19th-century town hall which looks suitably grand outside, but once inside it's just a big modern space subdivided for municipal reasons and architecturally bland.
Welcome: Nothing in the shared lobby, which was quite busy with librarygoers. But if you make it upstairs an underused bloke sits at a welcome desk covered with leaflets, and he was lovely but heaven knows why a bankrupt council pays for him to be there.
Galleries: Three. One was out of bounds because they were clearing out the Grayson Perry exhibition. One has a new exhibition called Shaping Croydon celebrating placemaking and identity. And the other one's entirely separate downstairs with a permanent collection of old artefacts bequeathed to the council in 1964. The interesting upstairs gallery with the bubblecar I remember from my last visit appears to have been emptied and/or sequestrated.
Stuff: The downstairs collection includes some Anglo-Saxon remnants but most of the items are old European artefacts of zero local relevance. The Shaping Croydon gallery has enjoyable ephemera from the opening of the 12-sided NLA Tower and an old film but is seriously devoid of broader coverage. I actually asked the nice bloke on the way out if that was it, and alas it was.
History: Croydon's a fascinating borough but you'd never guess from this vacuous space. In particular Shaping Croydon feels like a council ego trip filling as large a space as possible with occasional photos, post-its and buzzwords. The Mayor's very pleased with it, but the emperor has no clothes.
Extras: No. You could get a book out nextdoor I guess.
Summary: The council has more urgent things to fund, and it shows. Still, at least it still has a borough museum which is more than Barnet, Camden, Greenwich, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster do. ★

TfL FoI requests in September 2026

2026-10-01T07:00:00.000+01:00

20 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in September 2026

1) Since Superloop routes were introduced, the most used is the SL8 (22.7m passengers) followed by the SL9 (12.7m) and SL7 (10.5m). Already twice as many people have ridden the SL11 (2.2m, introduced January 2026) than have ridden the SL6 (1.1m, introduced July 2023).
2) The estimated final cost for Ickenham's new disabled car park is £1.88m. This is 25% higher than the estimate given in an FoI response a year ago. It equates to £625,000 per parking space.
3) The total cost of withdrawing bus route 347 was £13,325 (consultation £8400, removing seven bus stops £1225, removing timetables £700, changing e-tiles at bus stops £3000).
4) The most common bus-train interchange at Putney Bridge is from the last stop on route 265 to the station. The least common interchange is from bus route 424 at bus stop FH to the station.
5) There are no plans to use double deckers on route 108 due to the height restrictions in the Blackwall Tunnel, obviously.

6) 46% of roads on the TfL Road Network have a 20mph speed limit, up from 14% in 2021.
7) The new Piccadilly line trains are expected to use a synthetic (text-to-speech) voice for on-board announcements. There are no current plans to use this voice on any other train stocks.
8) 36 people work in the TfL pensions fund department, of whom 10 have line management responsibility.
9) Central, Jubilee, Northern, Victoria and all sub-surface lines are fitted with LCF (Low Coefficient of Friction) stick lubrication applied to the wheel flange root of selected wheelsets on every train. All lines use the same lubricant, "KELSAN LCF" manufactured by L.B. Foster.
10) The calming pod being trialled at Ealing Broadway station is not bomb-proof.

11) Once the scrappage of old DLR trains recommences in early 2027, TfL expect to be removing between two and four vehicles every 5 weeks.
12) The cycle hire docking station that's most usually full is Chadwell Street, Angel (18 spaces). The docking station that's most usually empty is Queen Street, Bank (36 spaces).
13) Of TfL's portfolio of 900 railway arches across London, 102 have been empty for over a year.
14) The total operating cost for the Woolwich Ferry in 2025/26 was £11.3m.
15) TfL have stopped sharing audio announcements via FoI requests because "basically people are using the voice on AI tools to get the voice artist to say anything they want which very obviously impacts on the voice artists' commercial interests in a variety of ways."

16) Last year there were 1,984,485 hires of Santander bikes in Westminster, 21% of which were e-bikes. The borough with the second highest total was Tower Hamlets with 1,213,015 hires, 16% of which were e-bikes.
17) The TfL mode with the highest CO₂ per passenger kilometre, by far, is Buses with 65.8gCO₂e/pkm. All other modes have emissions between 22 and 31, the lowest being the Tube with 22.8gCO₂e/pkm.
18) Expected completion dates for future railway projects (subject to planning, funding etc) are as follows: West London Orbital (2035), Old Oak Common Elizabeth line (2036-2039), DLR Thamesmead extension ("in the 2030s"), Bakerloo line extension (2040), Crossrail 2 (early 2050s).
19) The DfT are part-funding a two-year upgrade programme to build barcode readers directly into some TfL ticket gates. In the meantime handheld scanners are in use at the six stations experiencing the highest volume of barcoded tickets, namely Farringdon, Finsbury Park, Kentish Town, Moorgate, Old Street and Stratford.
20) TfL are not able to tell you "how many completed fares Uber has completed in the West Lancashire area since they have been operating in that region" and suggest you contact West Lancashire council instead.

This month's most obsessive request: a 1673-word submission about repairs to Barons Court station which ends thus: "The correct response was not “TfL is not aware.” The correct response was: we will inspect the station, investigate the defects, and challenge those who inspected or signed this work off. That is your duty. It is not my duty to assemble a case file for you. I have already told you what is on site: flaking and chipped paint, rust coming through, overcoating without proper preparation, furniture paint failing, and a colour scheme that has not been justified. In your own letter you accepted that chipped paint on newly painted platform furniture requires remedial action. You cannot accept that and then declare yourselves unaware of the rest. I am not required to keep sending photographs and videos in order to make TfL look at its own station. Your attachment limits are your problem. If you need to see the defects, send someone to the platform. I expect named responsibility, documents and inspection. I do not expect another letter that protects the organisation and writes as if I had not seen the station."

October 1

2026-10-01T00:10:00.000+01:00

It's the first of October, one of the less consequential starts to a new month.

April 1st means foolishness and financial beginnings.
May 1st means dancing, witchcraft and socialism.
December 1st means Advent, chocolate and red ribbons.
But October 1st means nothing much because the September/October interface is mostly meaningless.

I tried researching reasons why October 1st might be of importance.

• It's Lincolnshire Day, Nigerian Independence Day and the National Day of the People's Republic of China
• It's International Music Day, International Coffee Day and World Vegetarian Day
• It's the start of Black History month
• It's one of the four days when Ofgem adjusts the energy price cap
• It's roughly World Poetry Day (1st Thursday in October)
• It's just after Michaelmas (September 29th), one of the historic quarter days
• It's when the summer season at a lot of UK attractions ends
• It's around the time universities go back (but most already have)
• It's approximately harvest festival time

...but none of those are truly culturally significant, especially here in the UK.

I tried doing the same for the other 1sts of the month:

January 1st: new year, New Year's Day, public holiday, resolutions, cultural reset; the night before: Hogmanay, full-on partying, honours; around now: shortest days, sales, Twelfth Night
February 1st: nothing much; around now: Candlemas
March 1st: St David's Day, meteorological spring; the night before: maybe a Leap Day
April 1st: April Fools Day, new financial year; around now: new tax year
May 1st: May Day, morris dancing, International Workers Day, public holiday; the night before: Beltane
June 1st: meteorological summer; around now: public holiday
July 1st: nothing much; around now: Wimbledon, shortest nights
August 1st: Lammas; around now: harvest begins, school holidays underway, Edinburgh Festival
September 1st: meteorological autumn, back to school, back to work; around now: public holiday
October 1st: nothing much; around now: Michaelmas
November 1st: All Saints' Day; the night before: Hallowe'en, Samhain; around now: clocks go back, fireworks
December 1st: Advent calendars, Christmas season, World AIDS Day, meteorological winter; the night before: St Andrew's Day around now: Advent

The most important month changeover is clearly December/January, followed I'd say by August/September and November/December, followed by April/May and October/November.

In fact, let's try to rank all the firsts of the month...

Most culturally important: January 1st
Notably culturally important: September 1st, December 1st
Quite culturally important: May 1st, November 1st
Somewhat culturally important: March 1st, April 1st
Marginally culturally important: June 1st, August 1st
Barely culturally important: February 1st, July 1st, October 1st

Pinch, punch, and nobody really cares it's the first of the month.

Unblogged September

2026-09-30T07:00:00.000+01:00

30 unblogged things I did in September

Tue 1: It's been the UK's hottest summer on record, and I wonder if in 10 years time we'll all be looking forward to September when temperatures finally cool down.
Wed 2: If you fancy another daily game to play, try the slightly-unusual world of enclose-horse. Every day you have a set number of walls to place to enclose as much area as possible without letting the horse escape. Extra points for fruit, avoid the bees, and see if you can get the day's optimal score. (it's not a very good example today, sorry, try this one from three days ago)
Thu 3: It's that time of year again when I walk out of BestMate's house into a spider's web that definitely wasn't there two hours ago (and then spend the entire journey home wondering if I've brushed everything off).
Fri 4: Four months ago the family tortoise escaped from my Dad's back garden, having worked out how to clamber over the edge of her new run. Disaster! Beyond the hedge is open countryside so we thought that'd be the last we'd see of her, which is a bit galling after 45 years of feeding her cucumber and leaves. Amazingly today we found her again hiding in the hedge, none the worse for wear but in need of fattening up before autumn hibernation. Never give up hope...

Sat 5: Celebrity spotting 1: Seen round the back of Kenwood House from the 310 bus, the actual Richard E Grant, actor and star of Celebrity Traitors. I was particularly impressed that I recognised him first from the back of his head (then confirmed it was him when he walked past the bus).
Sun 6: I was sitting on the sofa reading when I heard an unusual scratching noise to my left. I looked round... and a squirrel was hanging off the side of my armchair! On seeing me thankfully it darted back out of the French windows rather than engaging in a panicked orgy of destruction across my living room. It's not been back since, but I am now oddly reticent to leave the door open just in case.
Mon 7: Usually the pavement outside Bow Road station is covered in conkers by now but hardly any of them have fallen yet. I blame the dry weather.
Tue 8: Exactly 50 years ago The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin was first shown on BBC2, so tonight BBC4 obliged with a reshowing. Super. Also I appear to have written the definitive post on where Reggie's house was, as over 200 viewers discovered during the programme. Great.
Wed 9: Celebrity spotting 2: Seen on the concourse at Euston station, the actual Tom Daley, diver and star of Celebrity Traitors. All trains had been cancelled so he was standing around in a crowd of hundreds of other delayed souls (and wearing some impressively flared trousers).
Thu 10: It's not every day you find yourself sitting opposite a falcon on the District line. It was being transported by a lady from London Falconry (and yes it was in a wheeled box, she didn't have it out sitting on a gauntlet).
Fri 11: Celebrity spotting 3: After taking a photo of a tile-edged roundel at Clapham South station, I stepped aside to let someone go past. And it was only Siddy Holloway, TfL's official Goddess of Tiles, so I very much hope she approved.

Sat 12: There was only one Open House visit I didn't tell you about, an architects' practice by the Regent's Canal. I spent most of my time not exploring the building but having a lovely chat with 75 year-old artist Hilary about a Cohousing development in Barnet. She loves living there, and we agreed that loads more people would retire this way if it took less than 18 years to set up.
Sun 13: Celebrity spotting 4: Seen on the platform at St Margaret's station, the actual Pete Townshend, rock guitarist from The Who. My antennae were first raised because he was wearing exceptionally shiny shoes (and confirmed when he started talking about guitars).
Mon 14: Pink recycling bags were actually available at Whitechapel Idea Store, and you could see the shock and surprise on the faces of the happy souls grabbing a roll.
Tue 15: Ah, the conkers are now well scattered outside Bow Road station, indeed one very nearly fell on my head as I walked past this morning. I'm still wondering where to plant it.
Wed 16: It's been over a year since anyone on public transport offered me a seat, so thanks to the 20-something in Kappa trackies on the Elizabeth line but no thanks. (I've reset my counter to zero...)
Thu 17: In this week's unashamedly posh Standard newspaper, a double-page spread of 26 fashionable Must Buys For The New Season. Average price £439 (cheapest item £35 socks, most expensive item a £4250 handbag). Last week it was "affordable" skiing holidays. I don't know why they bother distributing copies outside Plaistow station, it's very much not aimed at people there.
Fri 18: Seen on a black Land Rover Defender in Tottenham, the numberplate MU51CTV. I looked to see if Simon Cowell or anybody famous in the world of music TV was driving, but the man at the wheel rang no bells.

Sat 19: Speaking of numberplates, I spotted an impossible combination on a Citroen Spacetourer in Sydenham. PSD7BKS just cannot be real. I did some checking and a) it should be PS07BKS, b) Citroen have recalled the vehicle, c) the vehicle's never had an MOT despite being six years old. I do hope the owners eventually get caught out.
Sun 20: Do people not carry pens any more? Up the far end of the District line a large man in a suit leant over and asked if he could borrow mine, then jotted something down, then handed it back. I also came to the rescue during Open House when a woman wanted her book purchase signed by the author and nobody else present had a pen except me. Sorry, I bet it smudged.
Mon 21: Heard at Canary Wharf station ... "Please refrain from smoking, vaping and misbehaving at all times". Wow that's vague.
Tue 22: The library book I'm reading has just been selected for the Booker Prize shortlist, and blimey the judges are a lot braver with their choices these days.
Wed 23: I was trying to work out why there was a stationary Elizabeth line train on the railway bridge over Bow Road, given it leads to the c2c line where purple trains don't go. It turns out it was a reversing procedure, a way to get off the mainline and then return to Stratford. But you really don't see that very often.
Thu 24: Back in August TfL held a two week competition - essentially a raffle - to win a Golden Ticket pass for unlimited Dangleway travel. The terms and conditions said that afterwards you could email them to discover the surname and county of the winner, so I did. I won't reveal the surname, save to say it ends in 'v'. I was much more intrigued by the county which they gave as "Surrey, Greater London", despite the fact that Surrey and Greater London are administratively distinct. Everything points to the winner being a Sutton resident with 'Surrey' merely part of the postal address, not district of residence. I wonder how many times they'll bother to go.
Fri 25: To celebrate living in my flat for 25 years I went out and bought a new paper lampshade to replace an aged paper lampshade, and wow that's brightened up the room.

Sat 26: In excellent news, the card reader on the southbound platform at Bow Church station now beeps again. I had been told it was muted so as not to annoy neighbouring residents, but the silence also annoyed loads of passengers who weren't sure if their card had been read or not. In equally good news, while I was in Spain someone wiped off the layer of white muck that had obscured the display for months, hurrah.
Sun 27: Went to Harrow to buy next year's diary from Ryman, like I always do. Was shocked to see the shop had closed and was being turned into a Wingstop! Thankfully they've opened a new store across the arcade, and blimey it looks unnervingly modern inside. My farewell line "see you next year" always gets a laugh.
Mon 28: Back in March the evil accountants at Cadbury reduced the number of bars in a Double Decker multipack from 9 to 7, which was essentially a 29% price rise overnight. In unexpected news they've just changed the number again, but this time up from a 7-pack to an 8-pack. It still costs £3 so that's 14% cheaper, hurrah (but still 13% dearer than last year, boo). Sometimes it seems shrinkflation goes the other way.
Tue 29: Further signs of gentrification in Stroudley Walk - the back of the phone booth is displaying an advert for Waitrose. (also, credibly cool cafe Posted has just reopened after a 15 month 'temporary closure', hurrah)
Wed 30: I have managed to unlock the PIN to my debit card, phew, and it only took three visits to Santander branches to spot the special button off the edge of the cashpoint homescreen. (if you ever want a Santander with no queue, try Cheapside)

Unblogged September 28th

2026-09-29T07:00:00.000+01:00

30 unblogged things I did on September 28th

Mon 28: When I went to make my first cuppa of the day the tap spluttered to life, suggesting the water supply had been off overnight, but thankfully it powered back into action and I got my hot mug.
Mon 28: Annoyed that it took me four goes to guess today's Daily Metro, I should definitely have got it in three.
Mon 28: [gets on scales] A month ago I mentioned I'd put on three pounds during my holiday in Spain and it hadn't shifted. It still hasn't, indeed the last time I weighed this much was April 2020. I've decided not to buy any chocolate biscuits in Tesco this morning to see if that helps.
Mon 28: My blogpost on Reading's Bayeux Tapestry has been picked up by the Hacker News aggregator portal and as a result has had thousands of extra readers. Amongst the comments are the inevitable "As an aside, I see that this blog has been around from early 2000s, and has been regularly updated, almost every day. Quite fascinating...", also "Jesus, you're not wrong. Click any random month from the last 20 years and there's a post from practically every day", also "Out of interest, how do people find these 'hidden gem' sites? I'd never find these from google".

Mon 28: I think that's a record for "the number of bikes I've seen ignoring the traffic lights at the Bow Roundabout over a ten second period", easily double figures.
Mon 28: They've moved the mushrooms again, I wish they'd stop moving the mushrooms.
Mon 28: Managed to pick up the only cucumber that didn't have a barcode on it, had to get help.
Mon 28: Ah, the till wants my PIN number. Bugger I've got it wrong, maybe I mistyped. Bugger I've got it wrong again, maybe I got it round the wrong way. OK, I can't afford to get it wrong again, I'm sure it's this... bugger I've got it wrong again. Thankfully I had cash in my wallet, otherwise I'd have had to leave £40 of groceries behind.
Mon 28: I think that's the first time I've ever carried five bags home from the supermarket.

Mon 28: My building society won't let me check my PIN number online, I can only do that in their app, which I don't have. Thankfully I keep a lot of paperwork, including the letter my building society sent me in 2018 with my card's new PIN number, the one they told me I should definitely destroy. Yes that's what I thought it was.
Mon 28: According to the Royal Mint, their new six-colour 50p piece is "the first time Cluedo has been honoured on an official UK coin". Well of course it is you greedy desperate money-grabbers, of course it is.
Mon 28: You don't have to guess where the 'tower and two trains' picture was taken. Every photo on diamondgeezer has alt text if you hover over it.

Mon 28: The local company that used to be called Jim'll Mixit, and is now just Mixit, has flyposted adverts on the hoardings that still surround the derelict gents lavatory at Bow Church.
Mon 28: If'd you'd looked before you pressed the button you'd have seen there was no traffic coming so could have crossed anyway. Now the lights are going to change pointlessly in maybe 15 seconds time and inconvenience drivers, unnecessarily increasing transport entropy.
Mon 28: Oh god it's the 9.45am nightmare of an entire class of schoolchildren piling into your train carriage, and suddenly that's every seat taken and several small hands clutching the pole beside you. But in this case the teachers are totally on top of things, the children are perfectly behaved and I hope they had an excellent visit somewhere in the Westminster area.
Mon 28: Why do stations in west London have flower stalls outside while stations in east London never do? [rhetorical]

Mon 28: There are adverts all over the tube for a new TfL campaign with the strapline 'The stop is just the start'. Apparently it's supported by "a multi-channel roll out across TV, OOH, cinema, social, print, digital and CRM", and agency VCCP reckon it's "by far and away some of the best work we've ever done with TfL". But I'm not sure how effectively the main message is going to hit home. “We needed to give people an emotional connection to the network that feels inspiring and inviting. By showing that every bus, Tube, train or tram stop is just the start of a new adventure or connection, we’re reminding Londoners that TfL is the key to getting out and truly experiencing the city.” I was thinking of writing a whole post about it but it's not really interesting enough.

Mon 28: Got on a Richmond train at Earl's Court because five minutes ago it had said the next train was to Wimbledon and I failed to notice they'd switched platforms. Was punished for my error when the smelly man opposite took off his shoes.
Mon 28: On the bus we passed the All England Lawn Tennis Club, its 42 acres mostly inert because it's out of season. What a waste of land this is for eleven months of the year, flowering for just one. And I wondered if there are any other examples of enormous tracts of land used only briefly, seasonally, that could potentially be housing instead.
Mon 28: On my Superloop journey across Sutton I listened to an interesting Radio 4 documentary about the 1976 IMF crisis. I think I was too young to understand it at the time. Denis Healey comes out of it quite well and only says 'silly billy' once.
Mon 28: Picked up a London Heritage Quarter walking map at London Bridge station, which isn't even in the London Heritage Quarter, and just like Midtown the name's never going to catch on is it?
Mon 28: During today's journey round London I've managed to read 80% of a best-selling hardback thriller. That's annoying because the remaining 20% isn't going to sustain me on tomorrow's journey so I'll need to take two books.

Mon 28: It's 25 years since I sold my car, which is perhaps just as well now the price of a litre of diesel has reached a record-breaking £2. It was 79p back then.
Mon 28: If I keep chucking things out at this rate, I'm going to have to buy some more bin bags.
Mon 28: It may not be normal to have mint sauce on fish but that's one of the benefits of living by yourself.
Mon 28: I only checked my spam email because it's was a plot point in a soap opera, otherwise I might never have seen your message about the Letraset I sadly don't have.
Mon 28: I enjoyed watching the first episode of Michael Palin's new travel documentary on Channel 5, in which he travels across the nefarious inequality of the Philippines archipelago. He has a knack of illuminating both the good and bad sides of an unfamiliar country without appearing judgemental. Nobody else would get a tour of the presidential palace simply because the president wanted to ask a question about the Fish Slapping Dance.

Mon 28: Disappointed that nobody left a comment pointing out that if Flamsted Avenue in Tokyngton really is named after a west Hertfordshire village, they spelt it wrong.
Mon 28: Excited to report that the naff Brent climate change video I linked to yesterday has had 40 extra views, on top of the 163 it had in the first 15 years.
Mon 28: Please don't leave a comment telling me that PIN Number is an example of Redundant Acronym Syndrome. I know it is but I chose to write it anyway, just like I sometimes deliberately write less when you'd prefer me to write fewer, because in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter.

T is for Tokyngton

2026-09-28T07:00:00.000+01:00

LONDON A-Z
T is for Tokyngton

For my 20th unsung suburb I'm off to a classic of the genre, a true "where on earth is that it sounds ridiculous why have I not heard of it before?" And yet it's a substantial neighbourhood in a world famous location, as a large white arch attests, also real enough to appear on official yellow fingerposts so it definitely exists, QED.

Tokyngton is essentially the area due south of Wembley Stadium, which residents can't easily get to because there's a railway in the way. It's bounded to the east by the River Brent, to the south by the Bakerloo line and to the west by Wembley town centre. The name means 'the farm of the sons of Toca' and was first recorded in the 12th century, with a chapel and manor house following in the 13th and 14th. Tokyngton Manor's estate once stretched as far as Kingsbury and Kilburn, later contracting into Oakington Farm, an arable concern covering 300 acres. Even by the start of WW1 the sole buildings in the area were the farm and its gatehouse on the Harrow Road, after which a magic wand was waved and 2500 homes appeared instead, so comprehensively that almost nothing's been built in Tokyngton since WW2. It pretty much all looks like this.

This is Oakington Manor Drive, one of the estate's major spine roads, lined by endless semis and run-together semis which look like they've come straight from the Metro-land handbook. The impetus to develop the land instead came from a different railway, the Chiltern Main Line, which carved through in 1906 only narrowly avoiding the farm buildings. The lord of the manor then sold his land to Wembley council with the intention of developing a ‘garden city’ estate, stipulating that the former farmstead should become the heart of its main park. You might even want to use it as a library, he said, but they disagreed and by 1939 the part-Tudor building was so dilapidated that the ARP used it for air raid practice and destroyed it with explosives. You'd never get away with that today.

The site of the manor house is now occupied by Tokyngton Community Centre, a lowly hut that's home to a Montessori school during the week and Destiny House International at weekends. The remainder of the triangular park is easily large enough for kickabouts, basketball and supposedly a substantial wildflower meadow, although it's impossible to confirm the latter in September. Amusingly the football area has been bedecked with pictures of England captains, just in case the sight of Wembley's arch immediately behind isn't sufficiently inspirational. Step away from the trees and the elevated location offers views of a distant skyline including Hampstead, the BT Tower and the Shard, so it's easy to imagine how this might have been a strategic summit in medieval times. And yet on my visit there was absolutely nobody else here, only latecomers heading into church, because old school recreation can no longer compete with the brazen commercialism on offer immediately across the railway line at Wembley Park.

But mostly Tokyngton looks like this. Broad avenues, bay windows, Mock Tudor gables, sloping tiles, shrubbery, off-road parking, satellite dishes, extended porches, occasional pebbledash and house after house after house. The pattern is broken only a lofty redbrick church added in 1933, a primary school surrounded by a ring of back gardens and a health centre where the library used to be. The street past St Michael the Archangel is wider than all the rest, while further downhill one short street is actually called Wembley Way. Signs of life include a pile of lager cans on Park View suggesting some serious drinking went down last night, also padding cats, also pensioners from the subcontinent heading home with spicy shopping. Brent has Britain's highest proportion of residents born outside the UK and Tokyngton ward is comfortably above the borough average, such is Wembley's demographic transition since these streets were laid.

Tokyngton's eastern perimeter is marked by a half-mile linear park, through which flows the culverted River Brent. Originally the top end was called Tokyngton Recreation Ground and the lower end Monks Park but it's all since been rebranded as Brent River Park. One information board at the southern end includes my favourite excruciating outdoor cartoon, a six-panel account of a video about wind power and climate change made by a local youth group in 2011. The vinyl's peeling slightly now but most of the speech bubbles are alas still legible ("I'm So Excited To Meet The Brent Youth Volunteers And This River Park Is The Perfect Place", "It's Great To Reuse These Plastic Bottles And Create Mini Wind Turbines" "Have You Heard About The London Array?"). The final panel includes an exhortation to watch their video on YouTube, which I see has only had 163 views in the last 15 years, and rarely I have seen something so well-meaningly pointless.

The sole pre-20th century survivor hereabouts is the Harrow Road, still a key northwestern artery and still undulating up towards New-Wembley-Flats-on-the-Hill. The manor's former gatehouse is long gone, its location marked by a very short row of shops that goes grilled chicken/betting shop/minimarket/launderette. Tokyngton's main shops fill a typically 30s parade closer to the North Circular, bookended by a ghost sign for a shoe shop that must have moved out decades ago. Amidst the usual takeaways are specialists in Pakistani, Afghan and Goan cuisine, also two Brazilian butchers and a shisha cubbyhole. Apparently a lot of people call this end Monks Park rather than Tokyngton, or even Stonebridge Park given that's what the adjacent Bakerloo line station is called.

Tokyngton's sole tall building can be found here beside the dual carriageway, a 22-storey 1960s office block called Wembley Point. It's since been rebranded Wem Tower, now that what it contains is 439 contemporary micro-apartments as part of a "new vertical living concept", not that open plan hutches and high service charges are especially original.

A separate stripe of Tokyngton runs south of Harrow Road, hemmed in on the far side by the Wembley Brook and an enormous rail depot. Its main spine road is called Tokyngton Avenue and looks just like the rest of the neighbourhood except slightly more downmarket, suggesting it got built second. Here the semis run together in fours or sixes, the gables aren't quite so angled and the builders didn't try quite so hard with the bay windows. Nine of the sidestreets are named after west Hertfordshire towns and villages (Aldbury, Berkhamsted, Bovingdon, Flamsted, Gaddesden, Nettleden, Northchurch, Tring and Wiggington) but my favourites are the two that aren't. These are Sylvia Gardens and Derek Avenue, a dated pair that conjure up unanswered questions every time I see them. Who were Sylvia and Derek, were they married, were they perhaps related to the builder or developer and did they ever see themselves immortalised in an address? Answers on a postcard please.

It may not be the most thrilling of suburbs but one thing binds all of Tokyngton together and that's living in the Wembley Stadium events parking zone. Signs on every street warn that only permit holders can park here between 10am and midnight on event days, otherwise you risk being towed away. Residents can buy up to three permits per household, they cost £15 and are valid for 15 years. Obviously the system's gone paperless, but if you insist on paying by cash you can turn up at the car pound in North Wembley and hand over your notes there. Currently the only event days on the list are 2nd October for England v Czechia and 16th October for the arrival of the Jacksonville Jaguars, but it's up to you to check. It's not just the white arch that looms over Tokyngton, so does the intermittent inability to park outside your own house.

Turnpike Drive

2026-09-27T07:00:00.000+01:00

n.b. This is not today's intended post, but I didn't manage to get to the seaside yesterday.

Yesterday I found myself in Pratt's Bottom, the most hilarious of Bromley's outlying villages. It has a pub called The Bull's Head, a church called All Souls, a short parade of shops including World of Sewing and a bus every hour and a quarter. It's also unusual in that part of the village is in London and part isn't, thanks to suburban development whose boundaries didn't matter so much when all this was Kent.

Specifically I found myself in Turnpike Drive, a postwar cul-de-sac set back parallel to the main Sevenoaks Road. And what's really unusual about Turnpike Drive is that some of its residents live in London and some live in Kent. There are hardly any cul-de-sacs with London and non-London residents, even though the Greater London boundary is over 250 miles long.

The entrance to the cul-de-sac is in Kent. The road it bears off is called Stonehouse Road, which beyond this point is private and has a sign to tell you so. It has houses called Cobblecroft, Colts Wood and Copperkins, whereas Turnpike Drive just has numbered bungalows, 36 in total. Seven of these are in Kent and the remainder are in Bromley, that's how divided this cul-de-sac is. I checked and it does indeed have two bin days, the Kent end every Friday and the Bromley end every other Monday.

Here's the London end and you can see how generic the bungalows are. Nothing particularly changes up this end, the lampposts are still the same and the pavements are similarly paved, also I suspect if you hang around long enough the same number of curtains twitch. But numbers 5 to 31 all have a Labour mayor while 1-4 and 32-34 are overseen by a Reform county council because lines on maps matter and this one splits the street.

The reason for the divide is an old footpath which once cut diagonally across the field that used to exist here. On one side was Orpington Urban District and on the other side Sevenoaks Rural District, or at least it was in the 1950s when Turnpike Drive was built. The footpath survives as a signposted bridleway, arriving up an alleyway between 6 and 7 and continuing down another alleyway between 31 and 32. If you've ever walked the Green Street Green Circular Walk you'll have crossed Turnpike Drive about halfway round, and if you haven't you've probably never been.

n.b. There was once a turnpike at Pratt's Bottom, it being a waypoint on the main road from London to Hastings, now the A21. But Turnpike Drive isn't on the site of the turnpike, that was nearer to the Esso garage, so it's not particularly well named.

I wondered precisely how rare a part-London cul-de-sac was, so I scanned all around the Greater London boundary to see how many I could find. I make it three. Here's another.

This is Mountview in Northwood, 30 miles away on the opposite side of the capital. It's a short cul-de-sac of 22 houses just south of NATO's Allied Maritime Command at Northwood Headquarters. Again it started out as a field crossed by an ancient footpath, originally left empty when the avenues of Metroland were built all around. Then in the 1960s a small enclave of more upmarket houses was squeezed in, the boundaries of the site forcing the road to start in London and end in Hertfordshire.

There are thus nine properties in the London borough of Hillingdon before the cul-de-sac bends across the boundary to service 13 homes in the district of Three Rivers. Again bin days are different, the Hillingdon houses weekly on a Monday and the Herts houses fortnightly on a Tuesday. There is another split cul-de-sac a little further west along Eastbury Avenue, that's Little Stream Close, but all the houses are at the Hertfordshire end so that doesn't count for today's purposes.

The third split cul-de-sac is Grovewood Place, Woodford IG8. Here five of the 26 houses are in London and the rest are in Essex. I don't have a photo of that, sorry, I just happened to have the Northwood one from a previous post.

There are perhaps 20 cul-de-sacs where the London boundary is at the beginning, not in the middle, so either everyone lives inside the capital or everyone lives outside it. These include Amanda Close in Hainault, Audley Drive in Hamsey Green, The Coppice in Joydens Wood and Gable Close in Dartford.

But I believe there are only three cul-de-sacs where some residents can vote for London's Mayor and some can't.

• Turnpike Drive (Pratt's Bottom BR6): 29 homes London, 7 homes Kent [81%/19%]
• Mountview (Northwood HA6): 9 homes London, 13 homes Herts [41%/59%]
• Grovewood Place (Woodford IG8): 5 homes London, 21 homes Essex [19%/81%]

And Turnpike Drive in Pratt's Bottom is the Londoniest of the lot.

update
» Stonehouse Road, the aforementioned private road adjacent to Turnpike Drive, is another split cul-de-sac with 9 out of 50 homes in London and the rest in Kent.
» By using the Wayback Machine I've unearthed a copy of the 1991 Boundary Commission report which considered realigning the boundary between Bromley and Kent. It concluded that the entirety of Turnpike Drive and Stonehouse Road should be united in Bromley, even following strong objections from Kent County Council, Sevenoaks District Council, Halstead Parish Council and local residents. However by the time plans were finalised in a 1993 Act of Parliament the changes had been substantially downgraded to "minor realignments in the vicinity of Stonehouse Road, Sevenoaks Road and Turnpike Drive", hence the two cul-de-sacs remain divided.
» Oaks Way (Surbiton) wasn't strictly a cul-de-sac so I've removed it from the list.

Liveblog 260926

2026-09-26T07:00:00.000+01:00

Liveblog 260926 (with hourly updates)

07:00 I have woken up and brewed a cup of tea.
08:00 I have bought a newspaper and am off to catch a train to the seaside.
08:15 I am at the ticket office trying to buy my ticket. I want to use a Delay Pay Rail Travel Voucher to pay most of the fare. The man behind the counter tries scanning it several times, also asks his colleague for advice, also looks in his folder for advice, also rings someone up for advice, also the colleague tries to scan it at her terminal instead, thereby holding up the queue for five minutes, but everything fails to apply the discount.
08:20 OK, I'll try at another station.
08:40 I am a different ticket office trying to buy my ticket. I still want to use a Delay Pay Rail Travel Voucher because otherwise it'll cost four times as much. The woman behind the counter tries tapping all sorts of things on her terminal, thereby holding up the queue for five minutes, but everything fails to apply the discount.
08:45 OK, I give up.
09:00 I am back home with a cup of tea, having failed to catch a train to the seaside.
10:00 I have applied for a refund for my travel voucher, but it's all a bit late now.
-----END-----

Bow Roundabout update #25

2026-09-26T06:00:00.000+01:00

Bow Roundabout update #25

Last week I told you that a wedge of raised tarmac on Stratford High Street had been removed, immediately adjacent to the contraflow beneath the flyover that's never been opened. "All it needs now is a repaint," I said.

Well, that repaint has now happened. I know it may not look like it because the arrow and hatched area are still visible, but unwanted white lines are hard to get rid of.

Previously all eastbound traffic leaving the Bow Roundabout was funnelled into a single lane, leaving space for a contraflow on the right. We now have two eastbound lanes helping traffic flow faster, and as a result the contraflow lane has ceased to exist.

Previously the eastbound lane and contraflow were separated by a double white line but that's been erased and replaced by a single dashed line instead. This stretches all the way up to Marshgate Lane, beyond which it was always two eastbound lanes anyway.

This all sounds great but there are three catches:
i) Bus Stop W at Marshgate Lane is undergoing lengthy roadworks, so a few metres further on all traffic has to funnel down to one lane to get past. The kerfuffle includes "kerbing and paving works, bus island construction, cycle lane construction, resurfacing and temporary island removal" and is expected to continue for another month.
ii) Newham council are planning some sort of bus priority project along Stratford High Street. This might well mean the left-hand lane is nabbed for buses only, leaving just one lane for all other traffic again.
iii) Removal of the contraflow lane may only be an 18 month trial implemented via an Experimental Traffic Management Order, after which Newham will make a decision either to revert or "to convert to legal permanency".

But it does look ever more certain that the contraflow lane is dead and the new road under the flyover will never open, despite having been built at great expense, thus everyone who dug it, fitted traffic lights to it and paid for it has completely wasted their time.

Previous updates: #0 #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 #23 #24