diamond geezer

Pivot

2026-06-07T07:00:00.000+01:00

Some days you get lucky.
Some days you accidentally meet the man who changes everything.
Some days your life pivots and sends you off down a completely different path.
Such a day was 25 years ago today.

Thursday, June 07, 2001

The rest of Britain remembers this day as the first General Election of the 21st century. Tony Blair was defending his first term legacy against the combined onslaught of William Hague and Charles Kennedy, and the outcome was never in doubt. But I remember it as the day I kickstarted my escape and everything got better, not that I realised at the time.

To set the scene I'm living in a Suffolk village and two years into Job 3, my penultimate career option. I've been doing it for two years and am not really enjoying it, indeed of late it's become increasingly untenable. I only took the job because a relationship necessitated it, and since splitting up have been trapped somewhere I didn't really want to be doing something I didn't really want to do. Finding a way out is an increasing priority.

Job 3 involves three things I don't particularly enjoy - feigning expertise, being judgemental and driving. It's bearable because it pays well, the hours are unusually flexible and my colleagues are great... or at least they used to be. Two months ago my wonderful boss retired and his replacement, who's from Lincolnshire, is alas an obnoxious bell-end. He grins enough that most people really like him but he's also lazy, unreliable, full of bluster and prone to offloading work at a moment's notice. Last week (for example) he organised a two-day residential for the team, failed to turn up until mid-afternoon and then waffled late into the evening while handing out tasks he'd concocted on the hoof. "What the hell am I doing here?" I now keep thinking, and I'm not the only one.

My first task this Thursday morning is to walk down to the tinroofed village hall and cast my vote. It's my fifth General Election and the sixth time I'll have voted for someone who wouldn't become my MP. It's also county council election day and so rural is my ward that there are only two choices, one with a blue rosette and one with orange. I then face a long drive west because today is entirely atypical, I'm sneaking off from my actual job to get paid cash in hand for helping to run a conference near Cambridge. Sssh, not a word to the boss.

Friday, May 11, 2001

Zipping back a few weeks, this was the first time I agreed to do the private conference thing. I wasn't terribly comfortable with the idea but my colleague Jean who was organising it assured me it was fine and everyone else had agreed to do it too. It went well, the audience liked me and a few of them said I should come over to their place of work and they'd pay me off the record for that too. Perhaps not.

When I eventually got home I found a job application form on the doormat. I'd requested it over a week ago, leaving my address on an answerphone and hoping it'd arrive soon. It didn't and when I saw the envelope I realised why. Whichever berk had transcribed my address had ended it IPSWITCH SOUTHWARK, rather than Ipswich Suffolk, and the Royal Mail had clearly been somewhat bamboozled. This left me hardly any time to complete the form before the deadline so I dashed it off fairly quickly, assuming they were bound to invite me to an interview. They didn't, and that was my one chance to get Job 4 in London totally blown.

Back to June 7th, and a long drive down the A14 to meet my colleagues before the conference kicks off. We are already gossiping about how much we dislike the boss. I have two sessions to run this morning and one this afternoon. The first is about seasonal issues and endangered animals. The second is about Job 4 and includes a lot of my own in-depth analysis. The third is more of a stretch but I manage to keep the audience on side. And the day rounds off with a talk from a special guest who just happens to be the boss of the team where Job 4 was... and that's where I get really lucky.

The pivotal moment turns out to be the mid-afternoon break. Jean gets a phone call from the boss saying he's noticed she's running a conference without his permission and perhaps she'd like to think about resigning. Much spluttering and eye-rolling ensues. But Jean still finds time to nudge me over towards the special guest and suggests we have a chat. I liked that session where you did the in-depth analysis of the work we do, he said. I applied to your team last month and didn't get an interview, I said. We had 40 applicants and your form lacked depth, he said. But give me a ring at the office because there might be another job going.

At the end of the day the special guest dashed off and we sat in the lounge and discussed the boss's angry explosion. Four letter words were used, all our preconceptions of his bastardness confirmed. But there was also uncertainty because those of us who'd only spoken rather than running the conference didn't know how much trouble we were in, so we took time to get our stories straight. I had a lot to mull over on the long drive home... an increasing desire to quit my job, an impending fear I might get pushed out and the inkling that I might have the means of escape after all.

I still had work to do when I got home, also phone calls to field from concerned colleagues. But at 10pm I switched the TV on and caught the exit poll, seemingly another thumping majority for Tony Blair and very little change since 1997. I only managed four hours sleep and yes, when I woke up it was indeed another landslide. I took time over breakfast to ring Job 4 and request an application form for their latest role, one rung higher than I'd applied for before, taking special care to enunciate my address really carefully this time. It worked.

Friday 8 June: Watch Big Brother, the first eviction of the series, unaware that within three months I'll be living just round the corner from the footbridge Penny just walked across.
Monday 11 June: Jean resigns. The boss calls me in for a grilling, all smarm and sneer but thankfully with zero long-term consequences.
Thursday 14 June: Take the plunge and ring the London office about Job 4, and my next boss advises me "what to write next time".
Saturday 16 June: The form arrives and this time I spend the weekend filling it in very carefully. Operation Escape From Ipswich is underway.
Thursday 28 June: Yay I have an interview next Thursday!
Thursday 5 July: Yay I have a job! In London!

...and I would not be here now had I not bumped into precisely the right special guest at a conference I shouldn't have gone to 25 years ago today.

Bitesize transport news

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

Bitesize transport news

If you want a weekly summary of rail-related transport news, Ian Visits and London Reconnections have you covered every Friday. I'm here a day late with a round-up of briefer transport dregs, bringing you the general gist without the need to click elsewhere.

🚇 Tom Edwards got to ride a new Piccadilly line train for BBC London and his six minute report is on YouTube. The latest window for introducing the first train into passenger service is "December to next summer", so potentially another year of waiting and hassle. TfL boss Andy Lord does a fine job in the video of not quite specifying what the intractable problem is.
🚇 If you were planning to use the Piccadilly line at the weekend over the next six months, it'll likely be part-closed to allow for testing of the very late new trains. This is always the way, a year of two of pain before the introduction of something good, but these are next-level closures. And this is just those announced so far... (if you can't get from zone 1 to Heathrow, I've underlined it)
Closures: 6/7 June, 13 June, 20/21 June, 27/28 June, 11/12 July, 18/19 July, 30/31 July, 1/2/3 August, 18/19/20 August, 25/26/27 August, 18/19 September, 26/27 September, 17/18 October, 31 October/1 November, 21/22 November

🛫 Places are still available for the Sunrise Challenge 5K at Biggin Hill Airport on Saturday 20th June. For £20 you get to run a unique route round the runways and get a medal at the end. All proceeds go to charity. Perversely the run starts at 6.30am despite sunrise being at 4.43am.

🚇 TfL have been introducing new signalling on the District, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines since 2019 and next weekend they finally bring two more sections into operation. That's SMA10 (Barons Court to Stamford Brook) and SM12 (Fulham Broadway to East Putney). It means the only un-automated sections will be the western tips of the District line and beyond Preston Road on the Metropolitan line. It also means next Saturday there'll be no service on the entire District, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines before 10.30am, nor on the Metropolitan line south of Harrow-on-the-Hill, so be warned.

📜 Keep your eyes peeled for a special leaflet celebrating the 40th anniversary of Poems on the Underground. It features forty of the best-loved poems to have appeared on the Underground, was launched on Monday and is supposedly available at selected London Underground stations. They barely print anything these days so good luck finding one.

🚌 From today the frequency on route 104 has been reduced from every 10 minutes to every 12. This is in response to the introduction of 20mph speed limits across Newham.
🚌 Free travel on routes SL4, 108 and 129 ended last week after fourteen months of Mayoral giveaway. Now we'll see how popular the buses through the Silvertown Tunnel really are.

🚌 According to TfL's new Bus Safety Standard, just published, bus journeys are going to get naggingly noisier. That's because it's planned to reintroduce the ‘ding ding’ bell sound from old Routemaster buses to give customers an audible cue that a bus is about to move off. This is "to encourage customers to brace themselves for the bus’s movement, such as by holding onto the handrail." But thankfully not yet. Further testing (including wider-scale trials) will be undertaken before this intrusive ding-dinging becomes a requirement on new vehicles.

🚲 Cycle Islington are celebrating their 50th anniversary on Sunday 21st June with two family-friendly loops followed by birthday cake in Highbury Fields.

🚇 Barons Court's eastbound platform has reopened after five months of canopy repair. The station will remain fully open during the tennis event season (specifically the Queen's Club Championships) before the westbound platform closes on 6th July for most of the rest of the year.

🚊 A (dull) new consultation has just launched in preparation for extending the DLR to Beckton Riverside and Thamesmead. This one ties down precisely where the stations will go and where the worksites will need to be, also where tunnel ventilation shafts will go. The consultation precedes the submission of a Transport and Works Act Order application to the Secretary of State for Transport.

🚡 There's always a new gimmick at the cablecar, and the latest is Sip & Soar with Greenwich Gin. For your £49.95 round trip you get two G&Ts (one on arrival, one mid-dangle), also "a guided introduction to the history of gin" and "an exploration of Greenwich Gin botanicals". But don't do that, even if you really like gin. Instead go to the actual distillery at the Old Royal Naval College and spend just £26 on their Gin Tasting & Masterclass which offers a similar experience but without the view, also you get four gins not two. Every day is bleed a tourist day at the Dangleway.

🚆 10 new Elizabeth line trains have been commissioned to help meet growing demand. The first of these has just left the production line and is being checked on the test track. This confirms that TfL's press office can conjure up a press release out of almost nothing and it'll still be regurgitated in the media.

🚌 If you like free rides in a chuggy convoy of heritage buses, next Saturday (13th June) sees the London Bus Museum's Route 213 Heritage Day. That means classic vehicles between Kingston and Sutton turning up roughly every five minutes from 10am to 6pm. An additional service will operate every half hour on route 293 to Epsom. Just imagine who you might be squashed onto a top deck beside. Full details here.

🚶 According to the mayor's Walking and Wheeling Action Plan, just published, there are plans to introduce one more strategic walking route in the capital by 2029. It'll be "a new river walking route linking existing paths, parks and neighbourhoods", so likely one of the six Greenways first proposed in 2021. Rivery possibilities include the Forgotten Rivers walk (mostly Silk Stream and Fleet), the Southern Rivers walk (likely Surrey Canal, Quaggy and Shuttle) or some weird Counters Creek north/south hybrid. If it's as badly promoted as the new Green Link Walk was, I fear it'll fall similarly flat in a sad wasted manner.
🚶 The Inner London Ramblers have just published their 2025-26 Capital Ring, London Loop, Green Chain Walk & Green Link Walk Report, confirming a lot of fine work has been going on behind the scenes.

Soft drink quiz

2026-06-05T16:00:00.000+01:00

Soft drink quiz
Hidden in this ridiculous sentence are the names of 24 soft drinks.
How many can you find?

Khalil tackled a cop and a popstar but I zeroed in on the tribe naked for Whitesnake helping the loco keep epsilon protocol and stop decking the spiv I'm told, but a bit numb on gold decor on a cairn brushed with tartan goes off rescaling acres talking about demons terminating an alligator, a dead loss so Hugo rang in and dared bullies to scream so daringly at the infant and squat round.

For example, "emblem on a design" contains LEMONADE.
All answers now in the comments box, thanks.

eight lists

2026-06-05T12:00:00.000+01:00

eight lists

Villains from the first season of Batman (Jan-May 1966)
Riddler, Penguin, Joker, Mr Freeze, Zelda, Riddler (again), Mad Hatter, Joker (again), False-Face, Catwoman, Penguin (again), Riddler (yet again), Joker (yet again), King Tut, Bookworm, Riddler (yes him again), Penguin (yet again)

My 20p coins
20p coins I have altogether: 80
Years I have the most 20 coins from: 2015 (9), 2022 (7), 1982 (5), 2008 (5), 2012 (5)
Years I don't have any 20p coins from because they didn't mint any: 1986, 2024, 2025, 2026
Years I don't have any 20p coins from: 1984, 1985, 1988, 1991, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2023
Longest sequence of years I can make a line of: 2002-2016

Interviewees in the first edition of Top of the Pops magazine (March 1995)
Blur, Shampoo, Justine Frischmann, Tony Mortimer, Brett Anderson, Ric Blaxill, Let Loose, Eternal, Adam Ant, Louise Wener, L7, The Human League, Tom Watkins, Rednex, Michelle Gayle, Jamie Redknapp

Square-numbered Ordnance Survey Landranger maps
1 Shetland Yell, Unst and Fetlar; 4 Shetland Mainland; 9 Cape Wrath, Durness & Scourie; 16 Lairg & Loch Shin, Loch Naver; 25 Glen Carron & Glen Affric; 36 Grantown, Aviemore & Cairngorm Mountains; 49 Oban & East Mull; 64 Glasgow, Motherwell & Airdrie; 81 Alnwick & Morpeth; 100 Malton & Pickering, Helmsley & Easingwold; 121 Lincoln & Newark-on-Trent; 144 Thetford & Diss, Breckland & Wymondham; 169 Ipswich, The Naze & Clacton-on-Sea; 196 The Solent & the Isle of Wight, Southampton & Portsmouth

National Express coach fares from Milton Keynes (2001)
London £8, Birmingham £10, Nottingham £12, York £15.25, Dover £17.50, Blackpool £20, Bristol £20.50, Newcastle £22, Swansea £25, Edinburgh/Glasgow £26, Torquay £26.50, Aberdeen £34

Telephone area codes for places starting with Y
Yapton 01243, Yardley Gobion 01908, Yardley Hastings 01604, Yarpole 01568, Yarrow 01750, Yateley 01252, Yatton 01934, Yelverton 01822, Yeovil 01935, Yetholm 01573, Yetminster 01935, Ynysddu 01495, Ynysowen 01443, Yockleton 01743, York 01904, Youlgrave 01629, Yoxall 01543, Yoxford 01728, Ythanwells 01464

Independent Local Radio stations in Scotland (1999)
Borders, Central, Clyde, Discovery, Forth, Isles FM, Heartland, Kingdom, Lochbroom, Moray Firth, NECR, Nevis Radio, Northsound, Oban, QFM, RNA, Scot FM, SIBC, South West Sound, Tay, Waves Radio, West Sound

On TV in Toronto on the evening of Wednesday 21st July 1976
6:00 News, Truth or Consequences, Polka Dot Door, Star Trek
6:30 CBS News with Walter Cronkite, XXI Olympic Games, Hazel, Book Beat
7:00 Crosswits, Bowling For Dollars, Little House on the Prairie, Phil Silvers
7:30 Beverly Hillbillies, Adam-12, Hogan's Heroes, $25,000 Pyramid
8:00 On The Buses, The Railway Children, Stowaway to the Moon, Brush Up Your Math

Long station names

2026-06-05T09:00:00.000+01:00

On my way down to Christchurch last week, I noticed the train passed a lot of stations with long one-word names.

↓ Earlsfield
↓ Berrylands
↓ Farnborough
↓ Winchfield
↓ Basingstoke
↓ Micheldever
↓ Winchester
↓ Swaythling
↓ Brockenhurst
↓ Christchurch

Nothing longer than Christchurch, though.

So I wondered how many UK stations have longer names than Christchurch.
One word, no hyphens.

Here's my list (hopefully correct).

13 letters: Achnashellach, Battlesbridge, Billingshurst, Chatelherault, Glasshoughton, Haverfordwest, Hildenborough, Hollingbourne, Inverkeithing, Kidderminster, Knaresborough, Knightsbridge, Littleborough, Littlehampton, Middlesbrough, Northallerton, Penrhiwceiber, Pontarddulais, Robertsbridge, Rickmansworth, Scotstounhill, Sittingbourne, Whatstandwell, Wolverhampton, Woodmansterne
14 letters: Llanfairfechan, Sawbridgeworth, Wellingborough
15 letters: Stallingborough
16 letters: Penrhyndeudraeth

n.b. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch station is officially Llanfairpwll, so that doesn't count.

@diamondgeezerblog

2026-06-05T07:00:00.000+01:00

Ten years ago, ten years after I joined Twitter, I started an additional account called @diamondgzrblog.

I've started up a new Twitter account. It's specifically for tweeting when there's a new diamond geezer post to read, indeed that's all it'll ever do. It's called @diamondgzrblog, it's started up already, and you're very welcome to follow it.

How it works is clever. It checks my RSS feed every few minutes, and if a new post appears it tweets a tweet. Only the title of the post is included, which might be rather brief and uninformative. But each tweet also includes up to four pictures from the post, if there are any, and this might give a bit more of a flavour. It won't be pretty - the intention is not to create a carefully crafted promotional tweet, merely to issue a notification. Also I fear a lot of you will be asleep when it slips forth, but hey, it's better than nothing, and someone might just retweet it later. (10th December 2016)

After a year @diamondgzrblog had 400 followers and at its peak in July 2024 it had 2778. But it's been downhill ever since, generally due to Elon Musk blundering in and wrecking things, and these days barely 300 people see each tweet and only about 20 act on it. Alas this week it's stopped working altogether because Elon no longer allows automated accounts to operate for free, and no way am I giving the world's richest bigot any money.

So, two things. First I'm going to carry on operating @diamondgzrblog manually, so it should still publish but not necessarily quite so quickly. And secondly I'm starting up an alternative account over on Bluesky.

I've started up a new Bluesky account. It's specifically for announcing when there's a new diamond geezer post to read, indeed that's all it'll ever do. It's called @diamondgeezerblog, it's started up already, and you're very welcome to follow it.

How it works is clever. It checks my RSS feed every few minutes, and if a new blogpost appears it publishes a linked announcement. Only the title of the post is included, which might be rather brief and uninformative. But each announcement also includes up to four pictures from the post, if there are any, and this might give a bit more of a flavour. It won't be pretty - the intention is not to create a carefully crafted promotional masterpiece, merely to issue a notification. Also I fear a lot of you will be asleep when it slips forth, but hey, it's better than nothing, and someone might just reskeet it later. (5th June 2026)

It'll be particularly useful if I publish a post at an unusual time like ten in the morning or four in the afternoon which you might otherwise miss. Thanks to the 100 people who've signed up already. Obviously if you're not on Bluesky (or Twitter) it'll be of zero use so please carry on with your lives as normal. And if you really don't need any more social media in your life then just remember there'll be a new post here tomorrow morning, because there will be, so just turn up and read that.

Wildlife on banknotes

2026-06-04T07:00:00.000+01:00

I'm delighted to announce that the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has agreed to answer your questions on the new designs for our banknotes. Thanks to everyone who submitted a question yesterday via the usual portal.

Governor: Thank you for inviting me. As you may know we've just produced a shortlist of the animals that could become the central image on the £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes and are inviting the public to have their say.

Angry Nige: Why are you replacing Winston Churchill with a beaver?

Governor: We have no intention of replacing Winston Churchill with a beaver. A beaver isn't even on the shortlist.

Angry Nige: Why are you replacing Winston Churchill with some other poncy animal then? No pine marten or hedgehog ever stepped up and defeated the Germans. Why not a Chieftain tank?

Governor: We launched a consultation in July 2025 for a new banknote theme and a majority of the public chose wildlife. Destructive weaponry was not one of the six options.

Angry Nige: Why are you even bothering to print banknotes anyway? Nobody uses cash any more. Get with the program Grandad.

Governor: The Bank is committed to providing cash for those who wish to use it. Indeed there are currently 2.93 billion £20 notes in circulation which is the highest total ever.

Angry Nige: Removing Winston Churchill is outrageous though. The Great British public will never forgive this treachery.

Governor: All the famous people on banknotes get removed eventually. That's because banknotes are updated periodically to incorporate the newest security and accessibility features.

Angry Nige: But Sir Winston's been on our banknotes since the 1940s. Removing him would be treasonous.

Governor: Sir Winston's only been on the £5 note since September 2016, barely ten years. Perhaps it would help if I showed you some actual facts about famous people on banknotes.

series	£1	£5	£10	£20	£50
D	Newton 1978	Wellington 1971	Nightingale 1975	Shakespeare 1970	Wren 1981
E		Stephenson 1990	Dickens 1992	Faraday 1991	Houblon 1994
E		Fry 2002	Darwin 2000	Elgar 1999
F				Smith 2007	Boulton/Watt 2011
G		Churchill 2016	Austen 2017	Turner 2020	Turing 2021
H		?	?	?	?

Angry Nige: Nah I'm not interested in facts. When you're permanently furious you can't be bothered with facts, they go against all your prejudices.

Governor: As you can see there have been four different banknote series since decimalisation. Everyone gets retired after a decade or two. Even William Shakespeare only lasted 21 years as the face of the £20 note.

Angry Nige: What a depressing collection of lefty liberal figureheads. Shakespeare wrote roles for men in dresses, Darwin went against God's word, Austen was an unmarried woman and Turing was a convicted criminal. I can see why it might be less controversial to use animals instead.

Governor: Animals are vital to our landscapes, ecosystems and everyday lives. They have long inspired iconic works of art, music and literature, and we are excited to showcase them on our next series of banknotes.

Angry Nige: Jeez, they don't talk like that on GB News. Anyway, common sense says the four animals have to be the Pitbull, the Doberman, the Rottweiler and the German Shepherd.

Governor: For the wildlife theme the Bank has chosen to focus only on animals native to the UK. Household pets will not be included.

Angry Nige: Sheesh, how woke is this vote? Right then - rat, pigeon, bull and wasp.

Governor: Sorry, a team of experts has produced a shortlist from which the chosen four will be selected. You have to pick from that, we are not seeking any alternative nominations.

Angry Nige: I think the people of this country have had enough of experts.

Governor: Nevertheless there are three shortlists - Mammals, Birds and Amphibians, insects & fish. You get to choose two from each category.

Angry Nige: Nobody wants a basking shark on a banknote. Also what's wrong with a working class dragonfly, why does it have to be an emperor? Also we voted for Brexit precisely to keep migrants like the European hedgehog out of this country - you can't reverse the will of the people.

Governor: You have until 11.59pm on 3rd July to vote for your preferred six. An online form has been provided.

Angry Nige: Typical politicians excluding anyone without a computer or smartphone, also anyone who refuses to reveal their private details to the British establishment.

Governor: You can also send an email to enquiries@bankofengland.co.uk, write to Banknote Imagery Consultation, Notes Directorate, Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London EC2R 8AH or phone 020 3461 4878 any weekday between 10am and noon.

Angry Nige: And then presumably you'll ignore all the voting and just pick the animals yourself?

Governor: Correct. I will of course take the public vote into consideration but I have the final choice. It is important that there are four distinct animals across all four denominations and that they represent different environments from across the UK.

Angry Nige: Total fix.

Governor: Well that's OK. As I recall you don't use cash so it won't affect you.

Angry Nige: How long until this travesty of a decision is offensively foisted on the public?

Governor: The Bank will announce the outcome of this consultation by the end of 2026. But it'll be a number of years before the next series is launched. It's a detailed, multi-year process to design, test and print the notes, ensuring they are high-quality, resilient, accessible and incorporate the latest anti-counterfeiting technology.

Angry Nige: Well by then a Reform government will have scrapped cash and introduced a new English cryptocurrency, so the entire process is sure to be a complete waste of time.

Governor: Do please contribute to the consultation, we're keen to hear your views.

dg: I invite my readers to predict what the final four animals will be. Not the results of the public vote but the Bank's chosen foursome. Not the four you want but the four you think we'll get. Please make your selection and write just four words in this special comments box. comments

Mammals: dolphin, hare, hedgehog, seal, marten, fox
Birds: puffin, owl, kingfisher, curlew, woodpecker, eagle
Other: salmon, shark, bumblebee, frog, dragonfly, butterfly

dg: All other comments in the normal box below.

Angry Nige: I think I've made myself perfectly clear already.

midnight update
your top four: kingfisher, bumblebee, fox, puffin
not far behind: hedgehog, hare, owl, butterfly
no chance: dolphin, seal, marten, curlew, woodpecker, eagle, shark, frog
half of you picked kingfisher, almost half picked bumblebee, nobody picked curlew

LFA2026

2026-06-03T07:00:00.000+01:00

The London Festival of Architecture, which launched in 2004, is Europe's biggest annual architecture festival. It lasts a month and that month is J u n e so it kicks off this week. I clicked through the map-based listings trying to find events that were a) open yesterday, b) interesting c) free d) accessible during a tube strike. And I started at the LFA hub.

New London Architecture at The London Centre
3 Aldermanbury, EC2V 7HH (Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-5pm)

You may remember visiting the enormous model of London housed at NLA off Tottenham Court Road, the perfect plastic replica of inner London with all the potential new buildings highlighted. Well the good news is it's resurfaced in a giant room round the back of the Guildhall, indeed it's been there since 2023 and I'm just not terribly awake. You simply wander in, it's free, and not just in June but any time. The model stretches all the way from Wembley to Dagenham at 1:2000 scale, and is so detailed they've even got my balcony right. A slightly whiter shade shows what developments like Earl's Court and Barking Riverside might end up looking like (although Gallions Reach is very out of date and misses a lot of what's already there).

Across the room is the City of London model, this at 1:500 scale, with highly detailed illuminated models of all the buildings erected after 1980. It's ideal for architects trying to imagine how a new skyscraper might fit into the City and also an interesting focus for a school trip, You'll know all this if you've ever been to see it, and the good news is you can go and see it again. Go this month and there's also this...

A Place to Belong: London's Bus Shelters
also at 3 Aldermanbury, EC2V 7HH (Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-5pm)

Back in February TfL launched a trial of a new bus shelter design, indeed two designs, at 27 locations, But they haven't really said a lot about it, except in a rather wordy press release, whereas this explains more deeply including a table of handle-able materials. Pick up samples of the dark grey, red and wooden seating, also feel the difference between the refurbished metalwork in the type A shelters and the new stainless steel frames in type B. Also if you shine your phone light at the new red retroreflective roof material you can see how it's designed to reflect vehicle lights better at night.

The high level of interesting detail is because this display is presented not by TfL but their design partner Trueform. Did you know for example that the rounded roof is a deliberate echo of the New Routemaster bus, or that bus shelter glass is normally 6mm thick but here they're trialling 8mm? Annoyingly the one thing not on display is an actual bus shelter, this because it's only a teensy display and there wouldn't be room, but there is a list on the wall of where the nearest examples are (none of them especially near). It won't keep you more than a few minutes but if anyone's target audience for this kind of thing you lot are.

From the Thames to Eternity
at St Paul's Churchyard EC4M 8AD (all day, forever)

Some LFA 'events' appear to be projects that were happening anyway and just happen to be launching in June. In this case that's a line of 21 granite blocks stretched along one edge of St Paul's Cathedral's yard, essentially providing a fresh bank of seating for tourists and lingerers alike. What's special about the blocks is that they all used to be part of the Thames Embankment built in the 1870s by Joseph Bazalgette, then had to be removed in 2020 for the construction of London's newest deep sewer. Sustainability ensured a local reuse was sought, because why bring in new benches when salvaged granite is available literally down the road?

Additional work was required to cut out notches suitable for sitting, and not even the off-cuts were wasted because they were crushed to make the 3D-printed information board alongside. I don't think that part's finished yet because on my visit an important-looking stump was being sponged down by workmen in hi-vis. Also two official City types were dashing up and down the row measuring the larger gaps with a tape measure - twice, so it must have been important. Meanwhile several tourists plonked down on the granite and consumed the fish and chips or ice cream they'd just bought from the foodtrucks alongside, unaware that last month they'd have been crouching on the ground.

I only know the backstory because I stumbled upon a temporary pavilion explaining the project round the other side of the cathedral. This looks much more LFA, an ephemeral aluminium frame with flappy flags and information boards, also gabion feet containing 12 stones you're supposed to search for. A lot of effort's been put into creating a learning experience only for every passer-by I saw to completely ignore it, also this is inexplicably 160m away from the project it describes. However you can pick up a special If Stone Could Speak map from the neighbouring City Information Centre and maybe go on a proper geological circuit to see specific rocks in situ (digital map and programme of events here).

Citypoint Summer Pavilion
at One Ropemaker Street, EC2Y 9AW (until September)

They love a pavilion at the LFA - useful, temporary and an opportunity for the designers to show off. This one's at Citypoint Plaza off Moorgate, essentially two wooden sheds and a mini bandstand with plenty of seating. The blurb describes them as "bespoke pavilions", "places to pause", "a vibrant destination" and "a bold playful setting", which is why you should never read the blurb. They're also "painted in the Brookfield Properties Activated colour palette" because sponsors insist on getting their moneysworth. Any other day they'd have been a lovely place to sit and wolf down a bowl of protein slop, but on the wettest day of the year the lack of roof had left surfaces splattered and rather less alluring.

Goulston Street Pocket Park: Macchiato
at 13 New Goulston St, E1 7QD (commissioned by Aldgate Connect BID)

Finally to a street corner close to Petticoat Lane, just outside the collectively right-on Colombian Coffee Company. Here on a former bike park the team from OUT Architects has designed a bench in the form of the circular stain left by a coffee cup because why not. A nice idea, negated only perhaps by the fact lunchtime was in full flow, the streets were abuzz with lunchbuyers and the bench was entirely empty. Apparently it's "a temporary pocket park" but "will remain in place after the festival", so make of that what you will. Whatever, don't feel the need to go see what I saw, why not delve into the programme for yourself and see if you can dig out an architectural gem or two from the surrounding noise.

An hour at Gallions Reach

2026-06-02T07:00:00.000+01:00

I asked ChatGPT for ten posts that the blogger diamond geezer might write.

It gave me eleven.

I've chosen one.

One Hour at Gallions Reach
An apparently pointless excursion to somewhere on the edge of London, which turns out to reveal fascinating details about urban development and retail parks.

estuarine
Gallions Reach isn't on the edge of London, merely at the far end of the Royal Docks, but it is unexpectedly remote for Newham and I did spend exactly an hour there. Officially Gallions Reach is the straight-ish mile of the Thames Estuary between Woolwich and Thamesmead but the name has been adopted mainly by the land to the west, especially since the DLR opened a station here in 1994. Things were very quiet round here then, mostly brownfield where docks and gasworks used to be, but with every subsequent block of flats a sense of artificial gravity has intensified. I'm not a fan.

disconnect
The fringes of Beckton were the ideal spot to hide essential infrastructure nobody would want to live near, most notably a gasworks and a sewage works, thus if you do choose to live here it's a long way to anywhere. But as the housing crisis has intensified it's become worthwhile building stacks of flats even here, that is once the ground's been suitably remediated, and future pressure ensures there's a heck of a lot more to come. An hour-long wander thus means exploring a peculiar mix of vernacular brick and dereliction, also if you've not been back for a few years gasping at the pace of change. Half an hour to the City by train, 40 minutes to North Greenwich by bus.

roundabout
The Gallions roundabout is a Ballardian circuit funnelling vehicles through to arterials and river crossings elsewhere. The DLR curves round on an intrusive viaduct, the station an annoying 50+ steps up, below which developers have recently created a sparse grey piazza called Silley Weir Promenade. That postmodern rotunda in the centre of the roundabout is the Gallions Surface Water Pumping Station, a reminder that the Thames would like to intrude on this land occasionally and that people only live here because we successfully keep the water out. For now at least.

remnant
All the action here used to be on the university side in what's technically Cyprus, while to the east were depots, contaminated land and a stripe of dockside development. But if you thread through the new flats there is one genuine Victorian leftover, a former hotel built for P&O passengers preparing to board liners berthed at the Royal Albert Docks. It's since been rebranded as a bar called Galyons, not a poncy nominal variant but the original name of the medieval family who lived out here on the remote marshes in the 14th century. All burgers come with rainbow slaw, every cocktail's £12.50.

upthrust
The new tranche of flats stretches from the DLR station to the estuary, a grid of bricky blocks with entryphones and occasionally interesting indentations. Construction is almost complete with just one wedge by the riverside remaining behind metal barriers. The resulting patchwork has all the sparkle of Barking Riverside, which is not meant as a compliment. Buildings rise gently in height towards the Thames where you pay extra for views of grey water, incoming planes and Thamesmead. Hats off to the developers for slotting an incredible number of tiny playgrounds almost everywhere, although older children are stuffed because the only garden large enough for ballsports has been deliberately landscaped with rolling humps.

private
The more you walk around the more you see the restriction signs and warning messages. ANPR & CCTV recording in operation. All dogs to be kept on leads. Cyclists must dismount before crossing walkway. Permit holders only. By remaining on this land you agree to abide by all the terms and conditions. That's because Gallions Reach is one of those new London suburbs where the public realm is privately managed and inherently sterile, part of the insidious creep of pseudo-public space beholden to unseen leaseholders. It's by no means unique, merely a modern exemplar, but if you live somewhere older without inbuilt coercion then count yourself lucky.

commercial
When you're this far from anywhere, the local retail offering is important. Hence there are now brief parades near the station, or rather rows of ground floor units nobody gets to live in because the risk of flooding is too high. First to open was a blue Co-op, and ridiculously across the street there's now a green Co-op with pretty much the same special offers pasted up outside (the currently independent Southern variant). Elsewhere it's mainly beauty, wellness and refreshment, from nails to Starbucks, pilates to desserts and haircuts to Mr Todiwala's culinary masterclass. Nothing about New Gallions Wharf says destination, merely local and inward-looking.

connect
Had road planners got their way the Gallions Reach Crossing would by now launch off towards Thamesmead, but funding never materialised and the latest consensus is it'll never be built so all the safeguarded land might as well be released for housing. A fresh DLR link is thus planned with a station where nobody (yet) lives, a fair hike north up Armada Way. I was slightly concerned to see the site's just been sealed off (Danger! Contaminated Ground! PPE mandatory!), given I've once sat where a man in a protective hazmat suit was prodding the ground. Incidentally the new DLR rolling stock withdrawn from public service seven months ago is still sitting there mid-depot, at least six strong, with no phased reintroduction expected before "late summer".

expansion
Beckton Gasworks was once so derelict that Stanley Kubrick filmed much of Full Metal Jacket here. A vast swathe is still sealed off forty years later, too contaminated for anything other than prohibited scrubby undergrowth, but all now pencilled in for the first stage of the Beckton Riverside development. Phase 1 will bring 2900 much-needed new homes, but also the same vacuous sterile grid of skyhutches chronicled earlier in today's post. Expect no joy and no pizazz, merely bogstandard people-packing and a pitiful ceiling of 6% affordable housing because the cost of remediation is so high.

retail
The Gallions Reach Shopping Park opened in 2003 at the arse end of nowhere, sandwiched between ex-Gas and Sewage, but also readily accessible by car from the North Circular and A13. It's thus mostly car park with a rim of massive retail sheds from Puregym round to a mega-Tesco, though now with empty shells where WH Smith and River Island used to be. Streetfood kiosks provide diverting refreshment, even on a Monday morning, and a menagerie of bronze animals helps keep tinier visitors engaged. The ultimate plan is for this to evolve into Beckton Riverside's town centre, which I guess is bad news for everyone who currently shops here, but at current glacial pace it'll be a heck of a long time before Matalan ends up as flats.

✅ urban development
✅ retail parks

Unblogged May

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

31 unblogged things I did in May

Fri 1: To celebrate May Day, and to make the most of the glorious weather, I went for a 10 mile walk up the Chess Valley from Rickmansworth to Chesham. Along the way I passed 16 dogs, 19 horses, 2 cows, 68 butterflies, 8 birds of prey, 5 bluebell woods and 71 people, 13 of whom said hello. Highly recommended.

Sat 2: I have once again managed to ride all the TfL buses in the space of a calendar year, in this case 4 months. My last two buses were the frustratingly infrequent 399 and the Lakeside-bound 372. This is the sixth time I've achieved this feat, the quickest being 2023 when I had the whole lot ticked off by the end of January.
Sun 3: Went to the South Bank because it was the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Festival of Britain. However the Royal Festival Hall was entirely closed to casual visitors having been turned into a massive artsy walkthrough experience called You Are Here, co-directed by Danny Boyle, ticket price £45. The outside section included a soul band, jazz trumpeters and a fog slalom, and the interior a lot of performative dancing. It certainly wasn't the inclusive celebration the original FoB had been, and I haven't seen one good review. [Highlights now on iPlayer]
Mon 4: Another daily game that might suck you in is Clues by Sam, a grid of 20 suspects where you have to decide (by logic alone) who's innocent and who's a criminal. [Nancy is one of Sue's 3 innocent neighbors] Grids get harder during the week, so Sunday's a lot harder than Monday.

Tue 5: Swanley Mini Mart has the most unnerving selection of liquids on its exterior vinyl... Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Red Bull, bottled water... vegetable oil... Fairy Liquid, Domestos.
Wed 6: Hats off to the dog in Richmond who waited until he was right outside David Attenborough's house before squatting and doing a dump on the pavement.
Thu 7: I managed to complete the Guardian's 30,000th crossword, and spotted the hidden clues directing solvers to the perimeter of today's Quick Crossword, and solved the nina directing solvers to today's editorial, and spotted the acrostic message referencing the last 35 primes. However I did not check the bottom row of every prime numbered crossword grid published since January 2025 to discover the final message heralding a special crossword published at noon. Hats off to an incredible creative tour de force.
Fri 8: Bexley Country Market takes place every Friday morning in Freemantle Hall, a cosy circuit with tables of jams, glassware, candles, twee clocks, homemade greetings cards and unusual knitted things, almost like being in a provincial village rather than Greater London.

Sat 9: The police have started doing regular speed checks at Bus Stop M, hoping to catch cars speeding up just before the limit rises from 20 to 30 at the Bow Flyover. I've spotted their snoopy lenses at least half a dozen times this month.
Sun 10: Another daily game for you - dailymetro.live is yet another variant on 'guess the tube station'. The full archive is available to play.
Mon 11: I unfollowed someone on social media who used to be interesting but has become a relentless hypercritical doomsayer and my timeline is much happier as a result. I have my eye on two further accounts that are alas heading the same way.
Tue 12: Yesterday I walked across Ponders End Park. Today I walked over the top of Riddlesdown. Landscapewise south London beats north London hands down.

Wed 13: Zack Polanski liked one of my tweets today, which is often the kind of thing that gets him into deep trouble.
Thu 14: A squirrel turned up on my balcony, dug up a monkey nut and sat there brazenly watching me while chewing it.
Fri 15: Tom Edwards has made a 4 minute piece for BBC London called 'Does Anyone Actually Use London’s Cable Car?', including mention of its alternative title, and blimey it's had 200,000 views on YouTube. Thanks Tom!
Sat 16: I read in Tower Hamlets Slice that the stables at Bow Police station have permanently closed and the 10 horses have been retired, redeployed, or rehomed. This is part of significant budget cuts to the Met's mounted division and ends 80 years of local service. The stables are "pure Moderne in white concrete" and Grade II listed so will be hard to repurpose. On the positive side, no more brown dollops down Bow Road on match days.

Sun 17: I made the mistake of coming home via Hackney Wick and emerged into the mania of the aftermath of the Hackney Half Marathon, the streets clogged with sweaty folk 'rehydrating', also no buses for hours so I had to walk home.
Mon 18: Over the next two months the Radio 4 Sunday afternoon quiz slot will be filled by pilot episodes of potential new quiz series. Tonight I went along to the recording of one of them in a really tiny venue, squished in and watched the bare bones of how radio is made. I was impressed by the host's quick wit and if the show is commissioned I'll be well chuffed to have seen the first one. [31 May & 7 June Bookmarks (with Claire Balding), 14 & 21 June Déjà News (with Lucy Porter), 28 June & 5 July Your Number's Up (with Max Fosh), 12 & 19 July Around the World in 80 Ways (with Simon Reeve)]
Tue 19: At Waterloo station they were giving away free Ginsters pastries which you're supposed to put in a toaster before eating. Obviously nobody has a toaster nearby at 9.30am, and most workplaces outlaw them as a fire risk, so I wonder how many other people wolfed theirs down cold too?
Wed 20: I have once again managed to visit every London station in a calendar year, in this case 4½ months. Specifically I either touched in or out at every station in zones 1-9, I didn't just pass through. There are more than 600 altogether. My last three stations were Tadworth, Chipstead and Thames Ditton. This is the second time I've achieved this feat, and four weeks quicker than last year.

Thu 21: It's been over two months since scaffolding went up across the front of Bromley-by-Bow station prior to repairing the smashed glass roundel, but only this week has someone been up and taken all the glass out. It's now fully boarded-up and looks worse than before.
Fri 22: It's British Sandwich Week, the theme this year 'Seven Days, Seven Sandwiches', and I don't think there's a single concoction on the list anyone from the 20th century would recognise as a sandwich. (folded pinsa bread with a twist, anyone?)
Sat 23: Riding the seriously unbusy Liberty line between Upminster and Romford, I shared the back carriage with a uniformed member of staff who seemingly just shuttles back and forth all day doing bugger all. (n.b. they may not actually stare at their phone all day, but it certainly looked like it)
Sun 24: I've had a Mr Daydream glass tumbler since I was a child, regularly used. Today I filled it with lemon squash, gulped down to cool off, rested it slightly too near the edge of a table and smash, it ended up in sharp pieces on the carpet. Look after your heirlooms, folks.

Mon 25: I think I was the only person at the Dorset seaside wearing jeans, or indeed any kind of long trousers.
Tue 26: On today's walk I listened to Equus, a horse-stabbing play by Peter Shaffer first broadcast on Radio 4 in 1980. I can't believe my English teacher let me read it, review it and submit an essay about it for my O Level. [The play's currently being performed at the Menier Chocolate Factory]
Wed 27: I know I said I wasn't going to carry on doing this but...

				Enf 25
		Harr 25	Barn 25	Hari 25	WFor 25
Hill 25	Eal 25	Bren 25	Cam 33	Isl 33	Hack 25	Redb 25	Hav 25
Hou 25	H&F 25	K&C 25	West 33	City 43	Tow 144	New 139	B&D 25

	Rich 25	Wan 25	Lam 33	Sou 33	Lew 25	Grn 25	Bex 25
		King 25	Mer 25	Cro 25	Bro 25
			Sut 25

Thu 28: Walking through the Olympic Park I heard the sound of whistles, then spotted outrider motorbikes stopping the traffic so a Landrover Discovery with tinted windows could slip safely through. Living on Bow Road this kind of thing happens quite a lot, and I often end up wondering who it is I haven't seen.
Fri 29: I worry that the unprecedented May heatwave has borked the innards of my stash of Creme Eggs. Usually you can count on getting to the Best Before Date on 31st July before the yolk solidifies.
Sat 30: Arrived at Heathrow to find the Piccadilly line closed for engineering works and Crossrail closed due to flooding. The bus station was a grim scrum of folk with heavy suitcases trying to pile onto double deckers to escape, and goodness knows how many people missed flights because they were trying to find a way in.

Sun 31: I dropped by the Arsenal victory parade route but six hours before the bus arrived. Nevertheless the street was already busy with milling fans in red shirts, also dubious persons selling red hats, red scarves, red flags and red vuvuzelas, also excitable fans pouring off the trains in enormous numbers, and this was just the advance guard. I don't know how they filled the intervening hours, nor how those setting off from the outer suburbs three hours later ever got close enough to find a space, and all for just 90 seconds of top deck waving.
Sun 31: My post on London's Free Roof Terraces hit Hacker News today so in piled the Americans, making it the 4th busiest day ever on this blog.

TfL FoI requests in May 2026

2026-05-31T08:00:00.000+01:00

20 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in May 2026

1) The Mayor of London has no personal exemption from the Congestion Charge.
2) When the new Museum of London opens, TfL expects to rename the two adjacent bus stops currently called 'Snow Hill'.
3) In March 2026 TfL earned £88,361 from 10,754 passengers touching in and out at the same station (a "same station exit"). Meanwhile 33,0092 passengers were not charged (whatever that number is supposed to be).
4) TfL Emergency Response Units no longer use the callsigns Charlie 1-1 through to Charlie 5-6 (not used since 2020), Bravo 1-1 through to Bravo 5-6 (not used since 2024) and Echo Mama 1 (not used since 2024).
5) TfL earns more from the Congestion Charge than from ULEZ.

6) There are over 2300 Passenger Help Points at TfL stations. Only four of these aren't working - three on the tube and one at a tramstop. Nobody has complained about this since the start of the year.
7) London's busiest bus stop is Brixton Station (Stop P) with 4,117,594 boarders last year. The FoI team now assert "there is no one single ‘least busy’ bus stop" (which is more realistic than the bolx they published about Dysart Avenue in 2024).
8) Last year only 35 penalty fares were issued to persons aged 16-18 years for tram journeys made on weekdays between 07:30 and 09:00.
9) A bollard on the North Circular at the junction of Brentfield Road and Drury Way has been reported damaged and replaced 24 times since 10 October 2023.
10) The tube station with the most TfL ticket machines is King's Cross St Pancras with 43. The only tube stations with just one ticket machine are Harlesden and Roding Valley.

11) In the last financial year TfL earned £159m from advertising across their estate, up from £131m in 2024/25.
12) In 2024/25 the three tube stations earning the least revenue from advertising were Colindale (£122), Burnt Oak (£2195) and Croxley (£2233). Oxford Circus station earned the most (£13,118,587).
13) TfL have started to refuse FoI requests for the audio files for iBus announcements "because of continued and repeated misuse and abuse of access rights".
14) As of 7 May 2026, 2,635 bus countdown signs are operational and 264 are either not working or not fully functional (LED faults 2, transmission failure 141, offline pending shelter work 96, re-install pending shelter works 24, incorrect routes displaying 1).
15) TfL have no current plans to install travelators or moving walkways on Oxford Street. (subtext: obviously, you muppet)

16) A majority of penalty fares go unpaid (last year 55%).
17) Ten years ago the Rotherhithe Tunnel was used by an average of 200 cyclists and 9 pedestrians each weekday.
18) The London Rail and Tube Services map is not intended to be a comprehensive map of every station outside Greater London where contactless payment is accepted, thus there are no plans to add any additional stations to the map.
19) So far this year 52 pigeons have been culled at Upminster depot (in 2nd place Ruislip depot with 39, in 3rd place Neasden depot with 17).
20) Last year's lost property on TfL services included 26 sex toys. Of these only six were returned to their owner.

Bus of the day - 315

2026-05-31T03:15:00.000+01:00

Bus Route Of The Day
315: Springfield Hospital to West Norwood
Length of journey: 5 miles, 40 minutes

Because it's 31st May I'm exploring the 315 because that's the Bus Route Of The Day.

The 315 is one of Lambeth's duller buses - a bit short, a bit backroad and a bit infrequent. It used to be even shorter, a mere four miles, but a consultation saw it extended to a new estate in Tooting last year. I'm starting at that end near the remains of a hospital that recently rationalised its estate with the majority being sold off to become a large wodge of vernacular flats. That's Springfield University Hospital on the Springfield Estate beside Springfield Park, the last two of which are new. The terminus is up the far end by a care home and a sales office, also a park cafe called Toast, and is additionally served by south London's most annoyingly twiddly bus, the G1. Both routes run only every 20 minutes so you could have a long wait, indeed very little here is focused on convenience and it might well be quicker to walk.

The most annoying thing about the new extension is that Wandsworth council still haven't got round to erecting the proposed bus stops on Springfield Drive so the 315 sails through the estate for 900m without stopping, almost negating the point of sending it here in the first place. It then funnels onto Glenburnie Road whose residents fought tooth and nail to keep it out claiming the street was too narrow, alas ignorant of the fact that TfL can squeeze a bus through pretty much anywhere. Escape comes by the BP garage with the M&S Food, with those who've already boarded keen to alight at the big crossroads because there's a tube station here. This is Tooting Bec, lesser of the Tooting tubes, whose surface buildings are geometric wedges with whopping glass roundels courtesy of Charles Holden.

We turn left onto Balham High Road passing a lot of shops and the London Sewing Machine Museum, except this is never served on 31st May because it only opens on the first Saturday of the month. If you need to go to Streatham you'd now be better off switching to the 24th September because that goes direct whereas the 315 is about to deviate via Balham. Originally the 315 started beyond Du Cane Court, the massive Art Deco Block it's said the Germans had plans for post invasion, and if nothing else it would now have been very convenient for a pastry from Gail's. Bedford Hill then leads to one of the best-named streets in London which is Terrapin Road, a prestige Victorian development previously blogged. Crossing Tooting Common is a bit special, and indeed a bit sprawly in this weather, although the 315 is never quite the closest bus to the Lido.

The traffic lights by St Leonard's church in Streatham can be a bit jammy but the 315 has a sneaky escape route down a road you wouldn't think buses would serve. Gleneldon Road is all Hail & Ride, also big and villa-ey throughout, also with one brief glimpse of a tunnel portal on the railway line carving underneath. It's then time to climb to the heights, this past an opening for Unigate Wood which was indeed once part of a farm owned by the famous dairy. You don't pass treasures like this on any other Bus of the Day, only 31st May, so it's perhaps a shame it's one of London's lesser ridden routes. If you're getting thirsty there's a Budgens by the Esso garage, although I don't think they do appropriately branded milk.

Climbing Canterbury Grove feels like entering proper off-piste suburbia, a sensation only enhanced when climbing higher to the hoop of Royal Circus. Anyone with any sense hops out at the bottom of York Hill which is still marginally Hail & Ride rather than waiting for the driver to pull out towards the first proper stop on Norwood Road. We've hit West Norwood and things are suddenly commercial again, so please note that Four Hundred Rabbits is actually a pizza restaurant and Badger Badger is a beardy gamers' pub. Stops for the cemetery, the station and the bus garage then bring this innately devious route to an end, not that anyone would ever ride it end-to-end because that would be pointless purgatory.

Champions League Final liveblog

2026-05-30T16:00:00.000+01:00

Champions League Final liveblog

16:00 Paris St-Germain v Arsenal kicks off at 5pm (which is 6pm in Budapest) oi oi you Gunners.
16:05 Best find yourself a pub. The final's not being shown on free-to-air channels, only the TNT Sports greedstream, so best squeeze into a bar with all the other sweaty fans and buy some pints.
16:15 Time to stop driving round town with all your car windows down yelling "Goo-ners!" at anyone you see wearing a replica shirt, which appears to be every single male in London aged between 15 and 40. (blimey there are so many red shirts out there on the streets today, also the blue away kit, the grey goalkeepers kit, the pink away kit, the weirdly stripy away kit, the embarrassing kit that still says Visit Rwanda on the sleeve and the kit so old JVC are the sponsor).
16:40 Arsenal have the hope, the dreams, the courage, the ambition, the opportunity to own the moment, the confidence, the inner fire, the relentless desire to win, the tactical clarity, the deep-seated bravery, the talent, the commitment, the heroic mindset, the self-belief, the taste for history, the steadfast vision, the dedication, the tenacity, the hunger for success, the fearless mindset and the passion to seize a glorious victory.
16:41 And so do Paris St-Germain.
16:50 Arsenal's line-up: Raya, Mosquera, Saliba, Findus, Gabriel, Hincapie, Spirograph, Rice, Lewis-Skelly, Odegaard, Bejam, Saka, Trossard, Havertz (except for three of those).
16:59 It's only 10 days since Arsenal won the Premier League and North London self-combusted. Can they top that today?

17:04 Still nil nil
17:09 Goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!!!!!!!!!! 😀
17:54 One nil up at half time (off for pep talk and orange segments)
18:10 Now the second half.
18:29 Penalty! ☹️
18:30 Goal ☹️
19:02 One all at the whistle, so extra time.
19:45 One all after extra time, so penalties.
19:52 Penalties: ☹️😀☹️☹️😀😀☹️😀☹️☹️

20:01 Arsenal have come second, and football fans really hate coming second.
20:02 Imagine the orgasm you will never have.
20:05 The silverware from today's final will not be doing a bus-top circuit of Islington tomorrow alongside the Premier League trophy and something the women won in February, indeed a sense of cheerful misery will be palpable because today's loss has really squished the earlier joy.
20:26 Only 12 days until the FIFA World Cup kicks off with the first of 104 televised matches.

DDA banding

2026-05-30T07:00:00.000+01:00

You can't miss these pink stripes on the pillars at Denmark Hill station. But why are they here?

Some sort of heritage leftover? Some kind of coloured identifier? Something to help train divers brake accurately?

And once you start seeing them, you see them everywhere.

They're also pink at Morden South, so maybe it's a Thameslink thing. But at Chislehurst they're blue. And at Tattenham Corner a sort of turquoise.

Also why are there two painted bands? One at roughly head height and one at chest height. Is it a precision thing?

Keep looking, and it seems a lot of them are dark blue.

Blue again at Grove Park, which like Chislehurst is on Southeastern. But also blue at Hounslow and at Malden Manor, both of which were once Southwestern.

And not just in London.

Here are blue stripes on a white pillar at Christchurch and white stripes on a blue pillar at Stockport. White stripes again at Hartlepool... but now seemingly no consistency in height.

You can also see them on the London Underground.

White on green at Hornchurch, but dark green on light green at White City. Meanwhile at Southfields some bands are white and some are grey.

And it can't be a heritage thing because these next three stations are really new.

Manor Park got a full-on upgrade for Crossrail. Meridian Water didn't exist before 2019. And Beaulieu Park near Chelmsford isn't yet a year old.

So what's going on here?

I had a dig and it's an accessibility thing. If you're partially sighted a free-standing post or column is easy to miss and can cause a nasty injury. So a contrasting band (or two) is added somewhere near eye height to maximise the chance it'll be spotted.

I found these in station guidance:

• Necessary free-standing items such as columns should have adequate tonal contrast with the floor colour and the background they are seen against. They should also incorporate a 150mm wide tonally contrasting band with the bottom edge at 1500mm above the floor.

• Any free-standing post or column within an access route should incorporate a band that contrasts in colour and luminance with the remainder of the item. The band should be a minimum depth of 150mm, placed with the lower edge of the band between 1400mm and 1600mm above ground level. Some guidelines advocate deeper bands or more than one band, but the single band (minimum 150mm) is acceptable to the RNIB.

• It is recommended that upright posts, grabrails and pillars be of a contrasting colour to the surrounding platform surface. Where this is not possible, they must be marked with a contrasting coloured band 140–160 mm wide, with its lower edge at 1500 mm from the ground. An additional lower band should also be used to mark them as a hazard.

It's called DDA banding, and once you start seeing it you see it everywhere.

NW NE SE SW-erly London

2026-05-29T07:00:00.000+01:00

London's most northwest/northeast/southeast/southwesterly

	NORTHWEST	NORTHEAST	SOUTHEAST	SOUTHWEST
*borough*	Hillingdon	Havering	Bromley	Kingston
*postcode*	WD3	CM14	TN16	KT22
*constituency*	Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner	Hornchurch and Upminster	Orpington	Kingston and Surbiton
*settlement*	Hill End	Noak Hill	Cudham	Malden Rushett
*river*	Colne	Weald Brook	Ravensbourne	Bonesgate Stream
*geology*	gravels	London Clay	London Clay	London Clay
*contour*	45m	40m	235m	60m
*wood*	Garett Wood	Burnt Wood	Joeland's Wood	Chessington Wood
*lake*	Inns Lake	Dagnam Park Lily Pond	Keston Common	Barwell Lake
*road*	Springwell Lane	M25	Silverstead Lane	Kingston Road
*M25 junction*	(J17)	J28	(J5)	(J9)
*station*	Northwood	Harold Wood	Knockholt	Chessington South
*tube station*	Northwood	Upminster	Upminster	Heathrow T5
*bus stop*	Harefield West/Belfry Avenue	Maylands Way	Horns Green	Malden Rushett/the Star
*bus route*	U9	498	R5	465
*church*	Harefield Baptist Church	St Thomas	Westerham Hill Baptist Church	Saint Catherine of Siena
scheduled monument	Pinner Hill Ice House	Dagnam Park Farm moated site	High Elms Ice House	Castle Hill earthwork
listed building	Cripps Farmhouse	Church of St Thomas	Flint House	Rushett Farmhouse
*house*	Springhill Farm, WD3 8UR	Grove Farm, CM14 5NG	Stoneridge, TN16 2HY	1 Star Cottages, KT22 0DP
*pub*	The Old Orchard	The Deer's Rest	Aperfield Inn	The Star
*cafe*	Mitchell's Village Kitchen	Bun Appetite	Spitfire Cafe	Vampire's Burger Kitchen
*school*	Harefield Junior	Drapers' Academy	Cudham CE Primary	Chessington School
*hospital*	Harefield	Queen's	Princess Royal University	Kingston
*museum*	Manor Farm House	Upminster Tithe Barn	Biggin Hill Memorial Museum	Kempton Steam Museum
*library*	Harefield	Harold Hill	Biggin Hill Memorial	Hook and Chessington
*embassy*	Cambodia	Togo	USA	Vatican City
*police station*	Harrow	Romford	Bexleyheath	Kingston
*post office*	Harefield	Petersfield Avenue	Biggin Hill	Chessington
*postbox*	Hill End Road	Harold Park	Viewlands Avenue	The Star Public House
*business*	Springwell Cattery	RJ Skip Hire	Shampan	Clays and Cartridges
*Waitrose*	Northwood	Upminster	Biggin Hill	Surbiton
*Co-Op*	Harefield	Harold Hill	Rosehill Road	Ellerton Road
*football club*	Harefield FC	Hornchurch FC	Holmesdale FC	Chessington & Hook United
*golf course*	Northwood	Maylands	Cherry Lodge	Hampton Court
*LOOP section*	13	21	3	8
*blogpost*	2014	2014	2016	2023

» I did this for the four cardinal points five years ago.
» This took ages to compile, again.
» Even so, it won't be 100% correct.

• Northwest is almost in Rickmansworth but you can't count that because it's in Hertfordshire. The chief area to search is thus mostly around Harefield, and if that fails to deliver then maybe Northwood.
• The northeast boundary is two miles of the M25 near Brentwood, but we need to look just inside that so Noak Hill and Harold Hill.
• Southeast is a seriously rural chunk of Bromley where very few people live, so the southern end of Biggin Hill usually wins instead.
• Southwest is a long tongue of Kingston with Malden Rushett at the tip, but generally the place to check is Chessington. I was disappointed that Chessington World of Adventures only satisfied one category.

» Other categories are available.

Hengistbury Head

2026-05-28T07:00:00.000+01:00

A lot of the south coast is unbroken gently-curving coastline, interrupted only by rivers entering the sea. But some of these interruptions are spectacular, the mouths to natural harbours often part-protected by a hooked headland or sand bar. So it is at Christchurch where the harbour is tucked behind a long sandstone headland - that's Hengistbury Head - and almost sealed by the sandy protrusion of Mudeford Spit. Not only is it a gorgeous seascape it's also possible to walk a complete circuit of the harbour, aided only by a teensy ferry hop from tip to tip. So I did. [Visit Hengistbury Head] [40 photos]

The arc of Poole Bay runs ten miles from Sandbanks through Bournemouth to Hengistbury Head with sandy beaches all the way. I started my assault on the headland from Southbourne, easternmost of the coastal suburbs, which is just off the bottom left hand corner of that map. Here a solid grid of bungalows and retirement-focused avenues suddenly breaks into open duneland, the sand underfoot not always the easiest to walk on. It being a bank holiday the beach was packed, thinning slightly as proximity to car parking space decreased, the roasting contingent including dune-sitters, sand-sprawlers and drippy paddlers between the groynes. I stuck slightly inland, following an intermittent boardwalk, and enjoyed the sight and sound of skylarks emerging from the Whitepits and arcing overhead.

This is not the only way in. From the Wick Ferry at Christchurch a mile-long footpath offers a harbour-side shortcut from which the harbour itself is rarely seen. Alternatively you can just drive in past the golf course to a final car park where £6.40 for two hours probably isn't going to be enough. These routes pass a cafe and then a proper Visitor Centre complete with natural history galleries, geological exposition and the inevitable gift shop, or so I assume. By following the track 200m closer to the sea I missed the lot, mainly because it was so hot I didn't fancy adding another ten minutes to my walk. You probably don't want to skip it if you come.

A ditchy rampart called Double Dykes crosses the headland here, a defensive fortification dug in the Iron Age to protect Hengistbury's far end. It's fenced off so you now have to walk around it, additionally because the field contains a 4000 year-old barrow cemetery from the Bronze Age, but that seclusion has done wonders for the wild flowers within. This is also the last point before the headland rears up to a chunky wedge, this part officially called Warren Hill. I could have followed the beach and walked below the cliffs but instead the allure of the rising track was too great, all the better for gaining an overview of the surrounding landscape.

Near the top of the ascent is a skew pillar of yellowish rock strata, this an artwork called Layers of Bournemouth built in situ for a fringe festival in 2018. It's perhaps there to distract from the actual cliff face immediately ahead where encroachment is strictly forbidden. A few steps and a twisty climb later you're at the summit trig point, admittedly only 36m up but with a view the Ordnance Survey would have revelled in. That's Bournemouth in the distance round the curl of Poole Bay, also the sweep of the estuary with Christchurch Priory at its head, barely a mile away but I'd walked much further to get here. Also visible for the first time is the line of huts on the sand bar at the end of the harbour, still tiny, and yes across the sea that's The Needles on the Isle of Wight. I grinned, but then I always was a sucker for geomorphology and height.

The National Coastwatch have taken advantage too with a small hut, a dishy mast and a telescope trained on the start of the Solent. According to the whiteboard out front there had already been 20 'incidents' this year, the last of these the day before. The path weaves down past a gouged lake that in Victorian times was a quarry for ironstone shipped off to the Welsh collieries, that is until unbridled erosion to the headland (and public opinion) caused works to cease. Poole Bay ends at a final groyne pointing seaward, beach occupancy now minimal, and the path pauses by two overelaborate wooden benches where you can stare out towards the next coastline twiddle at Hurst Point. Turn left for Mudeford Spit.

This is again not the only way in. The walk round the base of the cliffs must be dramatic because, as usual, you don't really get a sense of their fragility and majesty from on top. But there's also a much simpler path on the harbourside of the hill, this time nigh flat and passing through properly ancient woodland. This is where those with pushchairs and picnic baskets go, also the famous Land Train that first shuttled along in April 1968. Locals initially detested the intrusion, even scattering nails across its path to deter the owners, but a six month trial swiftly became a long-term summertime connection and today it's run by the council (single ticket £4.95, card and contactless only).

I can't tell you what Mudeford Spit is normally like because I arrived at what might just have been its annual peak - half past two, bank holiday afternoon, mid-heatwave. The sand bar is a kilometre long and barely 100m wide with a chain of 400-or-so brightly painted beach huts all along one side. They're a decent size too, many equipped with solar-powered electricity and an upper mezzanine for potentially sleeping overnight, and I was dead impressed that almost half appeared to be in use despite the relative inaccessibility of the location. Out of these spilled reddened retirees, watersporty types and full family groups, all seemingly normal enough so I was shocked later to discover that these beach huts sell for up to half a million pounds, such is the allure of the barely-attainable seaside.

At the farthest tip are the Black House, a fenced-off enclosure for plovers and a thin bar of sand that tapers to a point. A deep but narrow channel is all that separates Mudeford Spit from Mudeford Quay, this the ultimate outflow from the harbour. To cross would only be a 50m swim, were this not strongly discouraged due to strong tides, whereas on foot it's a six mile walk. Thankfully the Mudeford Ferry exists to shuttle spitgoers and headtrippers back and forth, but departing from a jetty halfway down the spit so crossing feels more like you're getting your £3.50-worth. Two catamarans operate the peak schedule, each with a maximum capacity of 32 but less if someone's carrying a bike, sailboard or trolley. This time it's strictly cash only but cats, dogs and parrots ride for free.

This is again not the only way in. Bournemouth Boating Services run a river cruise from Christchurch Quay to Mudeford Spit, essentially a scenic jaunt through the harbour but also the simplest way to reach the sandy beach hut bonanza from where people actually live. But this time the single fare is £11, a hefty amount that must soon add up if you're out here regularly. Also all the ferries cease ferrying at 5pm precisely, this bad news if you're enjoying a gorgeous sunny afternoon on a farflung coastal feature and plan any kind of evening revelry. Such are the downsides of an expensive tiny property it's impossible to drive to.

The ferry delivers you to Mudeford Quay beside a stack of lobster pots I don't think were only there for tourist purposes. Alongside are a few fishermen's cottages and a heaving pub, also the local lifeboat station, also a quayside rammed with small children lowering lines into the water to catch crabs. This was smuggling central back in the day, as a self-guided Smuggler's Run Trail explains should you choose to follow the multiplicity of boards towards the town. I merely hiked back to Christchurch the easy way along suburban streets, completing my circuit of the harbour and all somehow without overheating. Things may not be precisely the same if you visit as the spit has a long history of breaching, reshaping and regrowth, but this time I was really pleased I'd chosen Christchurch over over-familiar Poole and Bournemouth.

» 40 photos of Christchurch (21) and Hengistbury Head (19) on Flickr

Christchurch

2026-05-27T07:00:00.000+01:00

Gadabout: CHRISTCHURCH

That's Christchurch in Dorset, not the city in New Zealand. Until 1974 it was marginally in Hampshire and since 2019 has been part of a unitary authority uninspiringly called Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. Geographically it's the easternmost of the three, nudging the New Forest, and also by far the oldest thanks to the allure of its natural harbour. I last visited on holiday in the late 1960s when my chief memory is of leaving a teddy bear behind in a seafront cafe, then forcing my parents to go back and search and being disconsolate when nobody could find it. It still wasn't there this time but thankfully there was plenty to see, also my advance rail sale ticket accidentally delivered me to a glorious coastal town on the hottest bank holiday ever. [Visit Christchurch] [40 photos]

10 things to see in Christchurch

1) Christchurch Castle
From the Stone Age onwards settlers have been drawn to the strategic point where the River Stour meets the River Avon. Here the Normans upgraded the site of an Anglo-Saxon wooden fort to a proper motte and bailey, later adding a chunky stone tower on top, some of which survives in ruins. English Heritage don't charge because there's not enough here, it's more a town centre sideshow, also all that remains of the adjacent Constable's House is a few walls. I yomped up some wiggly steps between two family groups, hoping for a better view than I got because a lot of town centre rooftops get in the way, but you do get a good idea of how long the parish church is. Blimey it's enormous.

2) Christchurch Priory
About 20 English cathedrals are smaller, that's how massive Christchurch Priory is. It used to be part of an Augustinian monastery but it was huge even before that, founded by one of William II's chief ministers. It's said he wanted to build it on a hilltop two miles away but one morning the workers found all the construction materials had mysteriously relocated here. It's also said that one particular beam was accidentally cut too short and would have gone to waste, except a mysterious carpenter somehow lengthened it and raised it into place while nobody was looking. Could it have been Him? So pervasive was the legend of the 'Miraculous Beam' that the building became known as Christ Church, eventually edging out the town's original name which used to be Twynham.

There's no charge for entry and from what I heard every first time visitor says "oh blimey it really is big", or words to that effect. Staring down the arched nave through the choir to the lofty altarpiece it does indeed feel much more like a cathedral, whereas in fact it's merely the longest parish church in England. One sightseeing bonus is St Michael's Loft Museum, an unexpectedly large room located above the Lady Chapel and accessed via a one-way system of 72 narrow spiral steps - yours for an additional donation of £1. The church was recently in the news for updating its gargoyles, one of which I spotted high on the exterior at the eastern end - a Covid-era NHS nurse complete with facemask, lest we forget. For a similar medieval take check out the 39 beastly carvings (or misericordia) on the stalls in the choir, some thematically based on Aesop's fables.
On the sign outside it says the 8am service is Holy Communion (BCP), and it took me a while to realise this wasn't a reference to the local council but to the Book of Common Prayer.

3) Red House Museum
The town's museum is based in an old workhouse, a long redbrick building hence the Red House Museum. It's not normally open on Mondays but thankfully they make an exception for bank holidays otherwise I'd never have seen all the treats inside. Downstairs is mostly bygones, much local but some merely evocative of a past era. Upstairs is full-on archaeology, the area being extremely rich in pre-Roman settlements and consequent finds. Another wing focuses on the workhouse itself while a modern annexe does a fine job of bring the surrounding suburbs to life with a series of historic aerial photos. I confess I hadn't known that the WW2 concept of a Bailey Bridge was originally tested here in Christchurch at the Experimental Bridging Establishment.

The gardens are splendid with umpteen specimens carefully labelled, the rosebushes just coming into their own and also a surprising number of dinosaurs lurking in the shrubbery. The lady on the front desk said 10 green-fingered volunteers come in twice a week and yes it shows, also another 40 keep the museum ticking over which is a benefit of Christchurch being a town a heck of a lot of people retire to. So it saddened me somewhat that I was the sole visitor, this despite the town being rammed with bank holiday footfall passing within sight of the building while shuttling between two one-off retail attractions. It seems people prefer fudge stalls and charcuterie to a free dose of heritage, lovingly curated, or perhaps they all visited years ago and history just can't keep up.

not 4) Museum of Electricity
Sorry you're too late for this, it closed in 2012 and the remaining contents were auctioned off last year.

4) High Street
The High Street was bypassed in 1958, removing a historic pinchpoint and returning a little civility to the town centre. It also allows the street to close each Monday for a market, and I don't know if it's bigger on a bank holiday but I was impressed by the extent, the variety and the patronage. I'd never seen a stall populated by multicoloured 3D-printed dragons before. It did however make it harder to see the old buildings behind, like the classical Midland Bank, ye olde coaching inn and the pristine Art Deco Regent cinema. All that remains of the old town hall is the Victorian frontispiece, the remainder now a 1980s shopping precinct called Saxon Square because they found a 7th century cemetery on site during reconstruction. The Celtic Cross outside the discount book shop is thus entirely fake.

5) The Ducking Stool
Most medieval towns had a ducking stool for the punishment of mouthy women, with Christchurch's first recorded in 1350. What's unusual is that a full-size replica has been built and placed by the millstream at the end of Ducking Stool Lane. It looks much too pristine but is also evocative of disturbingly unenlightened times, that is until you spot it couldn't physically lower anyone into the trickle of water except at times of major flood. The Ducking Stool is also stop number 3 on the Christchurch Cultural Trail, a pleasingly short loop designed to help visitors not miss anything important.

6) Christchurch Harbour
The Avon and the Stour are significant rivers with over-used names, one flowing down from Salisbury Plain and the other from Stourhead, obviously. They meet off Christchurch Quay, merging to form a substantial estuary/harbour combo that meanders for almost two miles towards the sea at Mudeford. It's perfect for messing around in boats, awash with yachts and motorcraft and also local youth on stand-up surfboards, or perhaps I just caught things on a perfect bank holiday afternoon. The building that best catches the vibe is The Captain's Club which looks like it ought to supervise regattas but is actually just a luxury hotel and spa. The cheapest way to take to the water is the Wick Ferry, just £1.50 to briefly cross the Stour to Tuckton Tea Gardens rather than endure a mile's walk to the lowest bridging point and back.

not 7) Tucktonia
Sorry you're too late for this too. Inspired by Bekonscot, a local racing driver built a 3 acre model village on a former golf course near Tuckton Bridge. Everything was to 1:24 scale including a substantial number of London landmarks and a runway from which Concorde would take off hourly. Tucktonia was opened on 23rd May 1976 by Arthur Askey, but only because Bernie Ecclestone wasn't available. Visitor numbers were initially strong, fuelled by considerable celebrity endorsement, and even more models were squeezed onto the site. Alas maintenance costs proved excessive, a takeover by Grand Metropolitan stunted investment and nobody had quite anticipated the furious nimbyism of the Fairway Drive Residents' Association, thus the entire project wound up at the end of 1986. Some exhibits transferred elsewhere but most were lost (or burnt in a fire), and the entire site was subsequently redeveloped as a residential development called The Meridians. What a sad waste.
11-part history here, 32 photos here, 10 minute documentary here.

7) The Quomps
The prize for the best name locally goes to the Quomps, the greensward where town meets river. Until the 1920s it was an unenclosed common, then the land was raised and levelled to create a pleasure park. I saw it under entirely atypical conditions as the venue for the weekend-long Christchurch Food Festival, thus covered with stalls, tents and vans selling everything from loaded fries to truffle-infused streetfood. And it was packed, a genteel pilgrimage to calorific consumption which confirmed the utter Middle-Englandness of this southwest conurbation. Also I was well chuffed to find a Chucklehead cider stall, now £6 a pint but a chilled bargain given it won't be coming anywhere near Brockwell Park this year, dammit.
Come back on 1st August for Christchurch's annual outdoor jazz festival, Stompin' on the Quomps.

8) Stanpit Marsh
Downriver from the town centre, just past the boarded-up former council offices, the estuary's edge opens out to a considerable swathe of saltmarsh. Largest of these is Stanpit Marsh, 160 acres of creeky flatness, salt pans, reed beds and sandy scrub. The Visitor Centre is a raised viewing platform with a specimen-packed fieldwork room, a great step up from the original caravan, where the ranger was pointing out highlights to a handful of spotters. I walked out onto the cracked expanse and had the long track all to myself, bar the birdsong and a small newt who scuttled silently across my path. Always read beyond the usual list of tourist attractions if you want a special experience on your gadabout.

9) Another brilliant place
10) The other brilliant place
Of which more tomorrow.

» 40 photos of Christchurch on Flickr

mmmm, Chipstead

2026-05-26T08:00:00.000+01:00

Last week I went to Chipstead station.
Mmmmm, chips, I thought.

Alas there isn't a chippy in Chipstead, the nearest is Mr Chips on Chipstead Valley Road in Coulsdon, and that's much nearer Woodmansterne station.

But it made me wonder how many other UK stations have food in their names.
I've created four lists, from 100% to dubious.

PREMIER LEAGUE One word is food Berry Brow Bournville Bramley Caerphilly Cherry Tree Ham Street Liverpool Lime Street Pineapple Road Pudding Mill Lane Rice Lane Peckham Rye/Rye/Rye House Sandwich Sole Street Strawberry Hill Sugar Loaf Turkey Street	CHAMPIONSHIP The name is part food Appleby/Appledore/Appleford Appley Bridge Battersby/Battersea Park Berrylands Chipstead/Chippenham Codsall Cressing/Cressington Dumfries Eggesford Fishbourne/Fishersgate/Fishguard Hathersage Honeybourne Musselburgh Nutbourne/Nutfield Peartree Plumley/Plumpton/Plumstead Saltash/Saltaire/Lelant Saltings Shippea Hill
DIVISION 1 The name makes you think food Banbury, Bath, Dundee, Eccles, Gloucester, Leicester, Lincoln, Melton Mowbray	DIVISION 2 Arguably there is food Ambergate, Aylesham (and everywhere else called -ham), Bangor, Bayford, Caterham, Cookham, Egham, Fareham, Headcorn, Hungerford, Market Rasen, Mouldsworth, Nuneaton, Pye Corner, Rock Ferry

(might have missed a few)

62 Camden Square

2026-05-26T07:00:00.000+01:00

The temperature record which fell yesterday, the UK's hottest ever day in May, was last broken at Camden Square on 22nd May 1922.

It still holds the record for the hottest ever days in two other months, that's 29.4°C in April 1949 and 35.6°C in June 1957.

But there's no longer a weather station at Camden Square so why was it there then, and where exactly is this record-breaking spot anyway?

Unsurprisingly it's in Camden but not the touristy bit, more to the northeast, parallel to Camden Road and a five minute walk from the station of that name. The 'square' is long and thin, maybe 200m in length, and surrounded by mostly Victorian villas. Most of the square is public gardens, a much smaller part is given over to the exercising of dogs and the southern end houses a children's play centre. It's perhaps best known for Amy Winehouse's last home at number 30 where she died in 2011. But we're interested in number 62 at the southern end where one of the great meteorologists lived, that's the cream one in this terrace between the grey and the pink.

George Symons was born in Pimlico in 1838, a quiet boy who took an increasing interest in meteorological observations. While still a teenager he delivered an investigation of thunderstorms to the Meteorological Society, this encouraging him to focus on the accurate collection of rainfall statistics. In 1860 he published a leaflet listing rainfall totals at 160 stations across the country, the following year upped this to 500, and in 1863 resigned his job at the Board of Trade so he could focus on collecting and disseminating rainfall data. His publication 'British Rainfall' was published annually and relied on the contributions of thousands of amateurs taking regular readings using standardised equipment. Symons thus became founder of the British Rainfall Organization, and I doubt there's ever been a more British organisation than that.

Initially Symons lived at 136 Camden Road, just round the corner, but in 1868 moved to 62 Camden Square and made daily observations here until his death in 1900. His weather station was in a walled back garden - a particularly urban environment compared to later London weather stations at St James's Park, Kew Gardens or the Air Ministry Roof, hence arguably it delivered slightly higher temperatures than might be recorded today. Symons was however a stickler for accuracy, for example encouraging experimentation into the most reliable form of rain gauge, indeed it's thanks to him that the Met Office standard became a five-inch funnel with its rim one foot off the ground checked daily at 9am.

Such was the importance of Symons' record that readings continued at 62 Camden Square for many years after his death. The meteorologist Hugh Robert Mill supervised proceedings (and the annual publication of British Rainfall) until his retirement in 1920, at which point the British Rainfall Organization was subsumed into a department of the Meteorological Office. The Royal Meteorological Society acquired 62 Camden Square in 1922 - the same year the record May temperature was recorded - with daily observations continued by housekeepers until 1957. The station was then moved a short distance to the gardens in Camden Square where it continued until 1969, at which point an 111-year span of record keeping in the vicinity came to a close. Yes there is a plaque.

Here from 1868 to 1900 lived George James Symons FRS, pioneer in the scientific study of rainfall, founder of the British Rainfall Organization, twice president of the Royal Meteorological Society. 1838-1900.

Camden Square continues to hold the UK record for the warmest day in April (29.4°C) and shares the record for the warmest day in September (35.6°C). It also holds the daily records for 16th April, 12th 16th 18th 21st 22nd 28th 30th May, 5th 7th 22nd 29th June, 7th 8th 13th 15th July, 29th August and 18th 19th 23rd September. Of these only the 35°C on 15th July 1881 was recorded by George Symons himself, but I do like the fact that the great man who gave us accurate rainfall records is still directly responsible for the warmest St Swithin's Day of all time.

Further reading
» A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BRITISH RAINFALL ORGANIZATION by D E Pedgley (22 pages, published 2002)
» BRITISH RAINFALL 1899 (319 pages, includes obituary for George Symons)

The hottest day in May

2026-05-25T07:00:00.000+01:00

In an amazing turn of meteorological good fortune, at least for those of us in south and east England, a heatwave has aligned with the late May bank holiday weekend.

We don't normally get temperatures of 30°C and above in May, even late May, because it's still officially spring no matter how you classify it.

The last time England reached 30°C in May was 25th May 2012 and the time before that 27th May 2005. That's only twice this century and just once in the last 20 years. In the 20th century there are reports of hitting 30°C on 21st May 1922, 29th May 1944 (a week before D Day), 12th May 1945 (just after VE Day), 29th May 1947 (after a punishingly cold winter) and 25th May 1953 (a week before the Coronation). 30°C in May is rare and highly intermittent but not unheard of.

The earliest that 30°C has ever been recorded in the UK is 12th May, whereas June is more likely, July is more normal and in some years it never happens at all. If we take the modern definition that a 'heatwave' requires three consecutive days of elevated temperatures, then Britain's never seen one in May until this weekend.

Over the last decade we've averaged twelve days over 30°C each year - fifty years ago it was only four. But it's not all about recent climate change... the only year when 30°C has been recorded from in every month May to September is 1947.

If you tot up all the 30°C days in the last fifteen years, about 45% of them were in July, about a quarter were in August, another 20% in June and just 10% in September. May doesn't really get a look in, even with this year's heatwave factored in.

Today may be the hottest UK bank holiday of all time. The current record holder is August Bank Holiday Monday 2019 when the temperature reached 33.2°C at Heathrow, beating the previous record of 32.8°C on the Late Spring Bank Holiday Monday in 1944. The absence of bank holidays between late May and late August is mostly responsible here.

More extremely, today should break the record for the UK's hottest day in May. The current record is 32.8°C, first achieved on 22nd May 1922 and then equalled on 29th May 1944. That is a very long time for a temperature record to have stood, and at time of posting has six hours left. It's also a fairly complex record shared between four locations - Camden Square in 1922 and Horsham, Tunbridge Wells and Regent's Park in 1944.

Meteorologists keep records not just for months but also individual days of the year, so we can also list the maximum temperatures ever recorded on 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th May.

23rd May: 31.7°C on the Isle of Grain in 1922
24th May: 32.2°C (90°F) at Camden Square in 1922
25th May: 31.7°C at Farnham and Heathrow in 1947
26th May: 29.5°C at Inverailort (Highland) in 2010

Nowhere on Saturday beat the daily record for 23rd May, with Frittenden in Kent reaching only 30.5°C. But Kew Gardens yesterday reached 32.3°C, becoming (marginally) the warmest 24th May ever recorded. Somewhere today is almost certain to beat the daily record for 25th May, and the daily record for 26th May also looks like being smashed tomorrow, probably by several degrees.

Unlike many warm spells, this one's not due to hot air blowing north from Africa. Instead it's classic high pressure behaviour, a huge blob of air being compressed as it moves downward leading to warming through a process known as adiabatic compression. The great heatwave of 1976 occurred for much the same reason, but that was in late June/early July, not at the end of May.

Here are the years in which the UK's monthly temperature records were last broken. For May that's currently 1922 but is about to be 2026.

When the UK maximum monthly temperature record was last broken
*Jan*	*Feb*	*Mar*	*Apr*	*May*	*Jun*	*Jul*	*Aug*	*Sep*	*Oct*	*Nov*	*Dec*
2024	2019	1968	1949	1922	1976	2022	2003	1906	2011	2015	2019

Years in the 21st century are underlined. There are seven of these, and are about to be eight, i.e. two-thirds of our monthly records have been broken since the millennium. Five have changed in the last ten years. Every month from October to February has been upgraded since 2011, suggesting that winter extremes are being affected more than summer extremes.

The elusive monthly records that haven't been broken recently are as follows.

Mar: 25.6°C Mepal (Cambs) 29 Mar 1968
Apr: 29.4°C Camden Square 16th Apr 1949
Jun: 35.6°C Camden Square 29th Jun 1957 / Southampton 28th June 1976
Sep: 35.6°C Bawtry (South Yorks) 2nd Sep 1906

The monthly record being broken today is older than all but one of these.

Meanwhile at the cold end of the spectrum...

When the UK minimum monthly temperature record was last broken
*Jan*	*Feb*	*Mar*	*Apr*	*May*	*Jun*	*Jul*	*Aug*	*Sep*	*Oct*	*Nov*	*Dec*
1982	1956	2018	1917	1979	1975	1978	1964	1915	1973	1919	1995

Years in the 21st century are underlined. There's only one of these, indeed the monthly minimum temperature record has only been broken twice in the last 40 years, whereas in the same period the record for maximum temperature has been broken eight times.

In summary, when it comes to monthly temperature records we've been breaking a lot more maxima than minima recently. It doesn't prove the climate is heating up, not in itself, but it is self-evidently the direction of travel you'd expect if it was. I wonder which monthly record will fall next.

8am update: Last night the temperature at Kenley didn't dip below 19.4°C. This is the warmest night ever recorded in May (beating 18.9°C in Folkestone in May 1947).
noon update: Heathrow has just reached 32.9°C, breaking the record for the hottest day in May. And still rising.
1pm update: Heathrow has reached 33.5°C, making today the hottest bank holiday ever.
5pm update: Kew Gardens has topped out at 34.8°C, breaking the previous record for the hottest day in May by 2°C. That is an incredible margin.
5pm update: Until today 34½°C had never been reached in the UK before 26th June, so we're an entire month early!
6pm update: Wales has also beaten its record for the hottest day in May (was 30.6°C, is now 32.2°C).
7pm update: The Channel Islands have beaten their record for the hottest day in May or June!
8pm update: Also reaching 34°C today - Heathrow 34.4°C, Northolt 34.2°C, Iver 34.1°C and Teddington 34.0°C.
9pm update: ...and it might be even hotter tomorrow.

7am update: Kenley has again had the warmest night ever recorded in May with an overnight minimum of 21.3°C. This is two degrees warmer than yesterday's record!
3pm update: Heathrow and Kew Gardens have broken the May record again, this time reaching 35.0°C.
5pm update: Kew Gardens peaked at 35.1°C, 2.3°C above the previous May record and only half a degree off the UK maximum for June.

K is for Keston

2026-05-24T07:00:00.000+01:00

LONDON A-Z
K is for Keston

My next alphabetical destination is Keston, a rural suburban outlier not to be confused with Kenley which was never in Kent. We're in the London borough of Bromley where things tip over from avenues to country lanes, further out than Hayes but not as far as Biggin Hill. Keston has an exceptionally ancient history, also one of London's handful of windmills, also biodiversity that Darwin appreciated, also the former homes of two of our most consequential Prime Ministers. It's also impressively unfocused so expect a lengthy wander.

The key thing about Keston is that it's where the River Ravensbourne begins. The waters emerge from a natural spring at the top of the common, this at the point where the overlying gravels meet the impermeable clay underneath. It's called Caesar's Well, based on the easily disprovable legend that Julius Caesar's men paused here in 55BC after being led to a source of water by a raven. Did not happen. This was however the source of water for a much older Iron Age fort and was also used by Georgian gentry for secluded bathing purposes. These days the spring bubbles up inside a ring of bricks and is funnelled towards three large ponds dug 200 years ago, a glorious haven for ducks, lilies and yellow iris. The footpath past the top lake is briefly all mud, even after several dry months, which is why London Loop section 3 sensibly offers an alternative route.

Keston Common is just glorious, 100 undulating acres of mixed habitats and much of it registered common land. Most visitors cluster round the ponds for car-parking reasons, also this is where multiple fisherfolk will return once the close season ends next month. Elsewhere are patches of acid heathland (where I spotted conservators at work), shady cone-strewn pebbly banks and also one of London's six lowland bogs. Keston Bog was often visited by local naturalist Charles Darwin whose study of the native sundews inspired his seminal work Insectivorous Plants. One particularly up-and-down section includes a lengthy Iron Age bank and ditch abutting what more recently was a gravel pit, this with banks of wooden stairs installed. Hats off to the Friends of Keston Common who've installed several themed information boards around the site and also reproduced them on their website so you can see how excellent they are.

Across Westerham Road a single public footpath enters the estate of local stately home Holwood House. This was once the pride and joy of PM William Pitt who had John Soane in to tweak the interior and Humphry Repton to do the grounds. Alas all was to no avail because the next owner knocked the lot down and built a fifteen-bay Grecian-style villa in white brick and Portland stone, which still stands. But it's only visible if you walk a long way up the path, the body of the estate otherwise shielded by barbed wire, thick woodland and the occasional keypadded gate. The circular building you can almost see through the trees is a loop of 78 luxury apartments called The Crescent, built on the industrial footprint of a former lab erected by Seismograph Services for England, another former owner. Even less visible are the remaining ramparts of the Iron Age Fort on the northwest flank, and if you'd just paid £20m for the place you wouldn't want anyone looking in either.

Six minutes up the path is Keston's most historic spot, a forked stump known as the Wilberforce Oak. It was here after a country walk in 1787 that William Wilberforce, MP for Hull, sat down with PM William Pitt and made a world-changing decision.

"Just above a steep descent into the vale of Keston, I resolved to give notice on a fit occasion in the House of Commons of my intention to bring forward the abolition of the Slave Trade."

Both men were still in their late 20s at the time and the slave trade wouldn't be ended until they were mid-40s, but that's still quite some breakthrough to commemorate. A beautiful stone bench was added at the site in 1862, including that quote from Wilberforce's diary set inside a lozenge. Alas for the bicentenary in 1987 the seat was relocated just behind the perimeter fence so mere mortals can no longer sit on it, nor thankfully carve their initials. But a weathered stump remains on the public side, partway down a grass bank bright with foxgloves, even if I don't think that's from the actual Wilberforce Oak either, long cleared away.

To the north of all this is the Keston Lodge Estate, 143 acres of former Holwood land sold off to a property developer in 1923. Here Frederick Rogers built 200 luxury homes down seven wide leafy avenues and renamed it ‘Keston Park’, also gifting residents two private woodlands for their recreation. A few ultra-modern boltholes have since been added amid the rustic mega-lodges, and every entrance is now secured by grand electronic gates and signs warning of CCTV and ANPR. I was hoping to snoop because a single public footpath traverses the length of Holwood Park Avenue but alas this is closed for six months "due to utility works and construction development". I thus cannot show you a surreptitious shot of Dormers where Margaret Thatcher raised her children, having spotted it for sale in a 1957 edition of Country Life.

The parish church is some way from the heart of things, way down south by the turnoff to Downe. It's small, flinty and Norman, supposedly with Saxon structures within, more recently appended by a long L-shaped set of rooms masquerading as a cloister. The gnarled yew out front looks pretty ancient too, its girth now comfortably over 4 metres. But something even older survives in the fields beyond, down in the valley, where the remains of a Roman villa and mausoleum are located. Both are off-limits, even by sight, but one of the three tombs is a substantial circular structure measuring 9m across with six radiating buttresses, according to those who've been fortunate enough to get a tour.

Follow Westerham Road and you may catch a glimpse of Keston Windmill, one of six in London, thus not (as many sources quote) "the oldest post mill in Kent". It's jet black and was built in 1716, making it an unlikely survivor, and still has two pairs of millstones and four atypically thin sails. Alas it's only open on occasional days but hasn't been for years, also it's located in the private grounds of a cottage behind high trees so annoyingly well screened. My attempts at taking a decent photo were thwarted by foliage and also by the owners doing some gardening by the roadside, so you'll have to make do with the version on the village sign instead.

I should point out that Keston also has some properly normal bits, normal that is for a village rather than for mainstream Greater London. Its heart is arguably the village green at the southern tip of Hayes Common, this where the aforementioned sign is, also the original drinking fountain from Bromley Market. There are two pubs, The Fox and The Greyhound, both currently behind scaffolding so somewhat unphotogenic. Residents also have the option of two independent cafes, with Heathfields smaller but more chi-chi than Triple Two on the green. The handful of shops offer the chance to get your hair cut, your car fixed or your parcel posted, and if that's not good enough the 146 and 246 buses connect to Bromley town centre three times an hour.

If my Keston ramblings have tempted you to visit then London Loop section 3 passes the Wilberforce Oak, the ponds on the common and the pubs on the green, which are basically the highlights. Alternatively if you come in a fortnight's time you can enjoy KestFest, the village's annual shindig on the green, with food stalls, a dog show, 'fun stalls' and ice cream from Shirley's van. Also live music from DJ Dave and a band called Roof Raisers, all from 1pm on Saturday 6th June... and if you time that walk right you can enjoy the lot.

Britain's shortest train journey

2026-05-23T07:00:00.000+01:00

London's free roof terraces

2026-05-22T07:00:00.000+01:00

A few years ago some City speculators spotted they were more likely to get planning permission if their new skyscraper included a free public roof terrace. Free access to elevated views is always a winner in my book. So yesterday I went up a few.

This was all on-the-hoof so I didn't go up the big three because they expect you to book in advance.

Sky Garden at The Fenchurch Building, aka The Walkie-Talkie
Opened January 2015, 35th-37th floors, blogged here
You have to book at least three weeks ahead, but yesterday 'Closed For Private Event'.

Horizon 22 at 22 Bishopsgate
Opened September 2022, 57th-58th floor, blogged here
Tickets released on Mondays, they go fast but ridiculously early slots are often available.

The Lookout at 8 Bishopsgate
Opened August 2022, 50th floor, blogged here
Tickets released on Mondays, current availability in four days time, but Horizon 22 is better.

I went instead to the walk-straight-ins, starting with the newest.

The Terrace at 1 Leadenhall
Opened April 2026, 4th floor, Ian Visited here (map)
Lift duration: 20 seconds, Staff on duty: 2

This one's odd. When you think roof terrace you normally think lofty and airy, but this one's merely on the 4th floor of a 36 storey skyscraper with a view to match. You walk in round the corner from Leadenhall Market, opposite Waterstones, through a door that doesn't quite scream 'come in'. A bloke at a lectern in what appears to be a service corridor then walks you over to the lifts ("press 4 for me") before returning to his purgatorial wait for almost no visitors. It's certainly quick though, I was on The Terrace less than a minute after walking in downstairs.

The terrace is about 40m long and up to 10m wide, seemingly formed by cutting a two-storey wedge out of the side of the building. At one end is the entrance to a restaurant that hasn't opened yet, so may one day bring some buzz, whereas I had the place to myself apart from a security guard with nobody to watch but me. Eight benches have been provided amid a thin line of shrubbery, but better to walk up to the far ends because the central view is somewhat limited. You can look down in which case what you see is the roof of world-class tourist attraction Leadenhall Market. However all the amazing glitzy dazzle is on the underside, thus from above this could be any Victorian arcade and a few nice finials is as good as it gets.

More awkwardly the view to the south is substantially blocked by ongoing works on 85 Gracechurch Street, a neighbouring 32-storey tower that's only just reached double figures. This will one day have a free-to-visit fifth-floor public terrace, perhaps with the chance for people to be staring back over here, but for now it's just a crane and a heck of a lot of white sheeting. A better view can be had by walking to either end, indeed the chief interest is finding yourself above street level in the heart of the City's chief upthrust cluster.

At the Waterstones end you can see 8 and 22 Bishopsgate, the Cheesegrater and right up close the Lloyds Building with minions riding the elevators on its knobbly metal shell. Then the Scalpel, the roof terrace I'm heading to next, postmodern Minster Court, Plantation Place and the Walkie Talkie. The Shard is still visible (for now), then the Gracechurch Street end has the finer silhouettes of St Paul's dome, St Michael's tower and St Peter's spire. This roof terrace is a true oddity, a public space that's nice to have but fundamentally pointless, and if you ever need a mid-City toilet or a dry spot to eat your sandwiches it'd make an intriguing diversion.

The Garden at 120 at Fen Court
Opened February 2019, 15th floor, blogged here (map)
Lift duration: 40 seconds, Staff on duty: 6

This one's long-established, popular and still the largest roof garden in the City. You do have to endure a scanner chicane before being admitted but I was swiftly through, this time three minutes from joining the queue to reaching the roof. Get stuck behind a full party of teenage EU tourists and it could be rather longer. The lift brings you up mid-terrace with a large pergola close by, in 2019 bare but now with wisteria twinkling its last and a rose-bush shrubbery underneath. The gardeners did good.

But the best thing here is the 360° panorama from the jagged perimeter, some of which is open enough to have a proper long distance view. Tower Bridge is almost unobscured, also the Tower itself, also the helipad at the Royal London in Whitechapel at almost the same elevation as yourself. But spin round and there's also Docklands, the Crystal Palace transmitter and the London Eye, plus close-up the glories of the Gherkin in a convenient slim gap to the north. A few of the younger visitors seemed more interested in pouting than their backdrop but that's their loss. If you've never been up here, or even thought to, give The Garden at 120 a go.

Roof Terrace at One New Change
Opened November 2010, 6th floor, blogged here (map)
Lift duration: 20 seconds, Staff on duty: 3

When a shopping centre was plonked alongside St Paul's Cathedral, someone had the sense to put a tongue of public terrace on the roof. The real motive may have been to give the rooftop bar an amazing setting for sipping frozen margueritas but the rest of us are also elevated winners. The glass-sided lift whisks you up from brand central with excellent views of the cathedral funnelled down a slim reflective notch. The upper terrace is slightly stepped with plants and benches, but if you sit down the view vanishes behind a grey bulwark labelled 'Beware Sudden Drop'. The South Bank and the London Eye get a decent look-in but it's really all about Wren's dome, perfectly framed in a way that the telescope in Richmond Park no longer enjoys. Expect a brief visit, but distinctive.

Level 10 at Tate Modern
Opened June 2016, 10th floor, blogged here (map)
Lift duration: 35 seconds, Staff on duty: 1

Tate Modern had high hopes for the 10th floor of the Blatnavik Building with its cafe and a four-sided observation terrace with excellent views of the Thames. Alas it also had great views into the apartments at Neo Bankside whose residents ultimately sued and won, thus if you arrive by lift today you can only visit the cafe. All the exterior doors are locked and signs on the inaccessible balcony say NO PHOTOGRAPHY OR FILMING, with a grumpy looking security guy positioned to ensure compliance. I asked him "will the balcony ever open again?" and he grunted "no", not even the front bit, and basically the entire 10th floor is now a ghastly waste of architectural effort.

Roof Garden at The Post Building
Opened September 2022, 9th floor, blogged here (map)

This one's by far the westernmost roof terrace, hence offers a unique view across the West End's lowrise rooftops including a close-up of the British Museum's magnificent roof. I still don't understand why it's here nor why it's open daily, nor why they insist on Photo ID "and a full written name" before they'll let you up. However I didn't get the chance to test this out yesterday because when I arrived the roof terrace was "closed due to essential maintenance work", inconveniencing probably nobody but myself. I have to say that's probably the excuse I'd use if I'd built a white elephant terrace for planning reasons and wanted to avoid paying staff costs, or alternatively maybe there is some maintenance issue and the place is cursed. At least with a ticketed venue visitors would have known this in advance. Best go up The Garden at 120 instead, or plan ahead and do one of the three really high ones.

Arsenal, triumph & empathy

2026-05-21T07:00:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday evening, without kicking a ball, Arsenal became this season's Premier League champions.

A draw at Bournemouth ended Man City's chances, gifting Arsenal their triumph, as hundreds of thousands of fans celebrated on the final whistle. They whooped, they grinned, they partied, and many of then were still partying many hours later. Whereas I merely had a tab open on my laptop, and after seeing the final score smiled and went back to what I was doing.

It's been 22 years since Arsenal last won the Premiership, a period which some would describe as 22 years of pain and which I would describe as "a very long time". During that period Arsenal have won the FA Cup five times and the Community Shield six, but apparently it's the Premiership which matters most so this latest triumph tops the lot.

I should be exhilarated and on cloud nine but instead I'm merely a bit pleased. And this is because, as previously described, I don't have sport empathy.

sport empathy (noun): the ability to understand and share feelings of others' sporting achievements

I don't get it. Sport is just a bunch of people competing against others. I can see why winning matters if you're one of those taking part, but I don't understand the rush of emotion that comes from supporting someone else. Your team wins, you cheer. Your team loses, you mope. Your team concedes a goal, you shout at the television as if somehow they can hear you. Your team wins the cup, you float on air. Your team is beaten three nil in the very next match, your world almost ends. Your team fights a scrappy no score draw, you spend an hour afterwards debating with mates what went wrong and what tactics the manager should have adopted, the idiot, what does he know? Armchair football is an endless rise and fall over which you have no personal control. I don't get any of that.

Same with tennis, I never get engrossed in a five set tie break thriller. Same with racing, I never pick a horse and cheer them on to the end. Same with golf, I have zero emotional connection to whoever can hit the ball least. Same with rugby, you'll never find me hanging on every Six Nations result like the world depends on it. Same with boxing, the outcome of the next hyped match is a personal irrelevance. And yet some people are capable of watching almost any sport, picking a side and becoming emotionally invested in the outcome. I can't do that because I have no sport empathy.

I should say I've been an Arsenal fan for 55 years and 13 days. I've been to watch a game and been for hardcore pints in the Tollington afterwards. I even have several photos of myself wearing a red and white scarf while standing beside the FA Cup. I have an interest in Arsenal I have in no other football club because they are, self-evidently, the best team. But I am not excited by them when they triumph, nor do I ever sink into unconscionable depression after they've produced ninety minutes of disappointment.

However I looked at what several fellow Arsenal fans were saying on social media after the Premiership victory, and they had very different thoughts:

» I can't believe it - best feeling ever!
» I’m finding it hard to express how happy I am...
» This has made me cry. Amazing.
» It’s an ecstasy. A joy. A release.
» CHAMPIONS AGAIN OLÉ OLÉ

One even wrote about healing "the scars and wounds of three successive second place finishes", whereas viewed objectively being the second best team in England three years running is really bloody good. I mean, how can this run from 2004 to 2026 be seen as disastrous?

1st 2nd 4th 4th 3rd 4th 3rd 4th 3rd 4th 4th 3rd 2nd 5th 6th 5th 8th 8th 5th 2nd 2nd 2nd 1st

I'm not trying to claim that any particular approach to sport empathy is better, or indeed normal, just observing that a broad church exists. Some get passionate about sport and some don't, and it often feels like the former outnumber the latter. This seems especially evident when a significant sporting event is underway, for example the hype across the country when the World Cup is on, the collective national frisson when the Olympic medal table is updated or the widespread interest in the London Marathon, even for the also-rans.

Which made me wonder, is there perhaps a sliding scale for sport empathy? And could it look like this?

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
A P A T H Y										P A S S I O N

Imagine a sport you're really interested in and how you feel when a competitor does really well, or really badly. That should help narrow down your position on the 10-point sport empathy scale. It could be your reaction to a Wimbledon Final, could be watching the Tour de France, could be the closing overs of a test match, could be an away match at Grimsby on a midweek evening. If sport ever makes your heart beat faster you're probably on the right hand side. If no sport gets your pulse racing you're probably on the left.

I can't be a zero because I am at least interested in sporting outcomes, but my indifference to success probably makes me 1 or 2. Meanwhile the Arsenal fans I saw partying round the Emirates have demonstrated their 10-ness, this because when the most ecstatic event actually happened they embraced every emotion on offer.

A particular aspect of high sports empathy is the ability to become engrossed in any sport, not just one you normally watch. Some people can switch on Sky Sports 3 and be cheering for one side or the other within ten minutes. They, I'd say, have sport empathy in spades.

I don't know what it is in a personality that allows you to latch on to sporting achievement, and likewise those who get regularly excitable probably don't understand why I can't. And not just sporting achievement either, bear with me...

Is there also perhaps a sliding scale for religious fervour? And could it look the same?

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
A P A T H Y										P A S S I O N

Some people believe things to the core, totally swept along by the religion of their choice. Others have a strong faith but keep it more to themselves, and others just don't have it in them to believe in a higher state at all. I think I'm 1 or 2 on this scale too, having never 'got' religion despite being exposed to quite a lot of it.

I wonder if the same scale could be applied to political enthusiasm too. It's not about having strong political beliefs, it's about how emotional they make you, so for example when they announce the exit poll at the General Election do you resign yourself or do you explode.

I think I'm 1 or 2 on this scale too, whereas most of the folk on those marches in central London last weekend were the 9s and 10s. I have a theory that elections are often swung by the 8s, 9s and 10s because they have the ability to pick a side, often based on limited evidence, and then cheer them blindly on. Or maybe I'm just over-thinking this.

Whatever, some of us are hardwired to be emotionally enthused and some of us aren't. How much of society that explains is debatable, but you can see it clearly in fans' reactions to Arsenal's latest triumph, from muted indifference to unbridled passion.

maybe not HS2

2026-05-20T07:00:00.000+01:00

Something unexpected happened yesterday when they announced yet another delay to HS2.

I lost interest, because I might be dead before it opens.

According to the Transport Secretary HS2 will happen, which is good.
But it will be very very expensive and very very late, which is not.

» In 2011, the first time the government provided a prediction, HS2 would connect London to the West Midlands by 2026 and onwards to Leeds and Manchester by 2033 at a cost of £37bn.
» After the legs to Leeds and Manchester were scrapped the expectation was that the remainder between London and Birmingham would open between 2029 and 2033 at a cost of £65bn.
» The latest expectation is that the line from Birmingham won't reach Old Oak Common until [May 2036 - October 2039] and Euston until [May 2040 - December 2043] at a cost of [£88bn - £103bn].

They're giving ranges for everything now, this one of the recommendations of the Lovegrove Review which has dug deep into lessons to be learned by the Civil Service. But the earliest HS2 could reach London is now 10 years from now, and the latest it could reach Euston is 17½ years from now, by which time I might be dead.

It seems ridiculous. They'd drawn a precise line on a map thirteen years ago, which they've stuck to. They started construction six years ago and have already finished much of the infrastructure. The Colne Valley Viaduct is already complete but the first crossing is ten years off, indeed nobody's ordered any trains yet. Curzon Street and Old Oak Common stations are already substantially built, if nowhere near complete. Trams already run to the HS2 terminus in Birmingham, a mostly pointless spur until HS2 itself arrives. Demolition near Euston started eight years ago, but won't become functioning platforms until at least 14 years time. Meanwhile millions of Britons are born and die, thus 15 million of those who heard HS2 announced in 2009 won't be around to see it open.

It was mention of the 2040s that jolted me. The Bakerloo line extension also has an earliest possible completion date of 2040 but that didn't hit me in the same way. I think that's because it isn't funded thus isn't currently going ahead, hence the 2040 deadline is a shibboleth. But HS2 is currently bolted down so will at some point appear, just maybe when I can no longer ride it.

Other large infrastructure projects with a deadline in the 2030s have usually made me think "ooh that'll be good", the unspoken expectation being that I'll experience them one day. But seeing [May 2040 - December 2043] as the backstop deadline here made me translate that into ages... [75 years old - nearly 79 years old] and that proved unexpectedly jarring. What if I'm dead by then?

I'm not being morbid here, I don't have an expectation of stunted longevity, merely an understanding of probability and increased risk. Only one of my grandparents made it to 75, ditto only one parent, also I know which side of my family I take after. And whilst none of us know for sure we'll be here next week, let alone next year, it's only realistic to have more doubts about ten, fifteen, twenty years hence. I wouldn't have had doubts when I was in my 30s, thus when Crossrail was first announced I expected to ride it and nineteen years later I did. But HS2 could still be a similar margin away, and as a 61 year-old I've discovered that doubts have now crept in.

Which is annoying because I have a lot of questions I realise now may never be answered.

When HS2 reaches Old Oak Common in [May 2036 - October 2039] how will Crossrail cope? How often will trains run to Birmingham? Will you see anything out of the window or will all the tunnels and environmental barriers ensure that the journey is an unenjoyable whizz? Will fares on parallel routes to Birmingham go down, relatively speaking? Will PM Nigel Farage scrap the line or name it after himself? Will one or two new Overground stations get added at Old Oak Common? Will Rishi Sunak be barred from the debut service? What will the current wastelands south of Willesden Junction turn into? And will fares be so unappealingly high that even when it's open I won't want to pay, thus rendering my wait for HS2 irrelevant?

As for HS2 reaching Euston in [May 2040 - December 2043], I may very well not know what that ends up looking like. What will they do with the space where platforms 7-10 were originally intended to go? How will the Underground station cope? Do they really intend to hide the new platforms underground to make room for commercial development? Will they link HS1 to HS2 via a blingy subway or a crappy footpath? Will all Birmingham trains stop at Old Oak Common or will some run non-stop? Will it be possible to buy a superfast ticket for under £100, at 2040 prices? Will they have to implement time-consuming security checks that negate all the supposed time saved? Will the fare from Euston to Birmingham be intrinsically higher than Old Oak Common to Birmingham? How many coffee shops will be built on the site of the Bree Louise? Will OOC-Euston appear on the tube map, and how much of a mess will it make? Most importantly, when it's all up and running will we all think it's brilliant or wonder why on earth we bothered? I may never know.

I expect to see 2030. I very much hope to see 2035. I'd be really pleased to reach 2040. I have a suspicion I may not make 2045. I'm not confident of reaching 2050. I'm not at all confident of seeing 2055. I don't expect to experience the 2060s at all.

It's jarring to realise that many of you reading this will see marvels I will never know and witness achievements I'll never see. For balance you'll also face catastrophes I will never endure, nor even know I missed. We all get a slot on this earth and for many people HS2 now falls outside that envelope.

I thank HS2's elongated timeline for forcing me to face mortal reality, not because I expect to miss its completion but because I realise I might. There comes a time when some projects take so long to complete that we may not be around to see them finished.