diamond geezer

Europe's Top Ten public holidays

2026-08-15T07:00:00.000+01:00

Slim Summer Saturday

Europe's Top Ten public holidays
(ranked by how many different countries/territories observe them)
(not definitive because dates change) (somewhat subjective because it's complicated)

1) New Year's Day (January 1st)
2) Christmas Day (December 25th)
3) May Day/Labour Day (May 1st, or nearby Monday)
4) Boxing Day (26th December)
5) Easter Monday (this year 6th April)
6) Good Friday (this year 3rd April)
7) Whit Monday (this year 25th May, or nearby Monday)
8) Christmas Eve (December 24th)
9) Assumption (August 15th)
10) Ascension Day (this year 14th May)

England observes the top seven (plus the late August bank holiday). Germany observes the top seven (plus Ascension Day and the Day of German Unity). France and Spain observe the top three (but not Boxing Day or Good Friday). Protestant and Catholic countries cluster somewhat differently.

Ascension Day: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Svalbard, Sweden, Switzerland
Assumption: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Vatican City

Today is one of the top 10 public holidays, the festival of The Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It celebrates the passing of Mary, Mother of Jesus, a story which does not appear in the Bible. Catholic dogma states that her body "was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory", a highly significant event. Orthodox churches instead celebrate The Dormition of the Mother of God, a distinction which hinges on whether or not Mary died before being taken up into heaven. Protestant churches tend not to assume anything mystical happened, marking the day as The Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In Italy the observance has its roots in Feriae Augusti, a Roman harvest festival. The UK generally ignores it. Whatever, if you're in the right country it's a damned good excuse for a day off and fi re wo rks.

Route 533 RIP

2026-08-14T05:33:00.000+01:00

It's time to kill off another London bus route.

London's next dead bus
533: Castelnau to Hammersmith
Location: southwest London
Length of journey: 6 miles, 30 minutes

The 533 was introduced in 2019 as a temporary measure after the closure of Hammersmith Bridge following safety checks. It's still running seven years later because it proved unexpectedly popular. But it dies tonight, as the very last of London's 'five hundred and something' buses bites the dust.

• Route 507: died 28th April 2023
• Route 521: died 28th April 2023
• Route 549: died 6th September 2024
• Route 533: dies 14th August 2026

Six bus routes used to cross Hammersmith Bridge until one day they couldn't and TfL had to conjure up a brand new local network. Residents of Barnes and Castelnau suddenly found themselves unable to connect to the tube so the 378 was created for the long haul to Putney Bridge and the 533 for the longer haul to Hammersmith. The south side of the bridge had been three-quarters of a mile from Hammersmith, now suddenly it was six, and a journey which had taken five minutes took nearer 30. But passengers still boarded the 533 in decent numbers because not everyone wants to walk across a bridge, or indeed can, thus a mystery tour via Chiswick Bridge still appealed.

Technically the 533 isn't being withdrawn because pretty much exactly the same route continues to operate tomorrow. All that's really happening is that the 533's existing loop in Barnes is being broken and the buses are being renumbered 209. But TfL never describe a route change as a 'renumbering', indeed I can't remember the last time they did, instead preferring to describe the switch as a 'restructuring'. ("Route 209 will be restructured to run from Hammersmith Lower Bus Station to Barnes Pond replacing the majority of route 533"). Nevertheless route 209 isn't being restructured it's being killed off, indeed the 209 is genuinely London's next dead bus.

The 209 used to be one of London's most frequent buses, operating a busy shuttle service every six minutes between Mortlake and Hammersmith. Then the bridge closed and it couldn't do that any more so its raison d'être ceased. After a brief fling to Putney Bridge the 209 settled down as a brief link between Mortlake and Castelnau, now London's third shortest bus route and running only every 30 minutes. As such it's almost entirely unnecessary so this once key route is rightly being pensioned off, except because the route number resonates it makes sense to use it for the rejigged 533 instead.

Let's go for a ride, and along the way I'll try to point out why this change (and others starting tomorrow) have more downsides than up.
[changes] [consultation] [geographic map before] [geographic map after] [new diagrammatic map]

This is Castelnau, a lovely suburb surrounded on three sides by a meander in the Thames. It used to be busy with traffic and easy to get to, now it's very quiet and very hard to get to unless you walk or cycle across the bridge. Crossing the bridge is by far your best option, if you can, but if not the 533 is the only direct public transport link. However it's not necessarily very reliable, as I discovered when I turned up and the next bus was 40 minutes away rather than a maximum of fifteen. In that time I could have walked across the bridge to Hammersmith and back, twice, but that would have negated the reason for catching the 533 in the first place. So let's jump ahead to when it eventually arrived, taking all that suburban purgatory as read.

There are nine of us waiting by the time the 533 finally appears, one of whom is a mother with a pram much nicer than the average buggy. The driver plays the Please Stay With Your Buggy For Your Child's Safety message anyway, totally oblivious that the mother has already sat down holding her child and the pram is empty. Castelnau is also the name of the road south, a leafy mile of prime villas several of which are midway through an expensive refurbishment. Five bus routes head this way, but from tomorrow that gets cut to three because it's not just the 209 and 533 being fiddled with. Residents currently have a direct link to both Putney and Wandsworth but when the 378 gets diverted they'll have neither, not without a tedious change, and that's just the first severed connection peeving the locals. Also from tomorrow you have to be standing on the opposite side of the road to get to Hammersmith, and that's going to catch a lot of people out.

The fiveway junction at the Red Lion is where the bus to the London Wetland Centre bears off. Today this nigh pointless twiddle is undertaken by the 485 but from tomorrow it'll be poor sods on the 378 who deviate to the turning circle, pick up nobody and return to wait again at the traffic lights. The 533 instead turns right down Church Road, one of London's more bijou shopping enclaves as exemplified by a cafe called Brekky, a cafe called &Feast and the inevitable Gail's. About half our passengers alight here, which is going to be annoying for them from tomorrow when the number of buses connecting Castelnau to Church Road drops from ten an hour to just four. Worse still the number of buses heading onwards to Barnes Bridge station will drop from six an hour to zero because this is where 533's current loop is being broken. If nothing else it keeps TfL's accountants happy.

Chopping the 533 to create the new 209 means buses will now terminate beside Barnes Pond. TfL soothed nervous respondents to their consultation by confirming that "this turning manoeuvre has been successfully tested using a 10.8 metre bus" and "the bus standing at this location was not found to create any impediment to passing traffic", yet the sight of new electric vehicles parked beside this wildlife haven may still jar. At present the 533's one-way loop delivers us to Barnes Bridge station in two minutes flat. Tomorrow however you should absolutely not board the 209 here because that's doing the loop in the opposite direction, via Castelnau, with an increase in journey times "expected to be between 5 and 7 minutes". Never say TfL's consultations don't point out the downsides of the changes they introduce.

On Barnes High Street a 209 overtakes our 533, and is carrying zero passengers because that's how pointless this runty route currently is. Very soon we're on The Terrace, an exceptionally desirable arc of old cottages facing the Thames where Gustav Holst's prime property recently sold for £3.5million. We have now exited the 533 loop, the start of the four miles that isn't changing, so expect my route-related grumbling to ease soon. I must however first mutter about the two routes that feed in up Avondale Road, having just departed from Mortlake's quirkily tiny bus station. Currently one heads to Castelnau and the other towards Putney but from tomorrow both will go to Putney via very similar routes, a realignment TfL describe as "important" but which many residents think is ridiculous.

At St Mary's Church a Lipman-esque vision in straw hat and dark glasses steps aboard announcing "Thank you driver!", then grabs a copy of Metro and sits down to read it. We soon have at least 20 passengers on board which is either proof of pent-up demand or simply because there hasn't been a bus for ages. So far the journey's taken 15 minutes but that's about to go wrong as we join the queue of traffic waiting to pass through Chalkers Corner. Barely half a dozen vehicles get through on each green light so it takes us almost ten minutes to reach the cemetery, followed thankfully by a proper whizz across Chiswick Bridge. This is the first road crossing upstream of Hammersmith, such is the severance caused by a few cracks on a bridge, such is the vulnerability of west London's seeming interconnectedness.

The next jam starts way before the Hogarth Roundabout, towards which we crawl at a frustrating pace. It takes a full fifteen minutes to get there, a delay very definitely not in the timetable and sufficient disruption to have created the enormous gap in service experienced earlier. Along the way we stop near Chiswick School where a suspiciously large collection of summer students is waiting. They pile aboard in their branded sportswear and soon fill every last seat on the bus, also most of the standing space, as what I thought was going to be a quiet ride turns into a rush hour squeeze. When the mother from Castelnau seeks to alight it's a job to get her pram off, but at least we no longer have to listen to her baby bawling.

What follows is the express part of the route, a mile and a half down the Great West Road without a single bus stop. Well hurrah for that, I was losing the will to live. At the far end we reach the roundabout on the north side of Hammersmith Bridge, just a ten minute walk from where we were forty minutes ago, confirming the pointlessness of riding the 533 from end to end. Many passengers alight here because we're just round the back of the M&S Food Hall so this is ideal for the shops. The rest of us hang on to curl round into the bus station where the driver is very much looking forward to coming off shift. There isn't room to park straight so the old lady with the shopping basket finds herself having to step down to road level then back up onto the kerb. Another 533 is waiting to whisk passengers back to Castelnau but for god's sake don't do that, not unless you absolutely have to, and likewise don't take the restructured 209 from tomorrow.

None of this is ideal and much of it forced by a paucity of sturdy river crossings in the vicinity. But if you do live in Barnes or Castelnau my sincerest commiserations, because a broken bridge can really cut you off and TfL are about to make it even worse.

Wow

2026-08-13T07:00:00.000+01:00

Wow!
(just wow)

My greatest disappointment

2026-08-12T07:00:00.000+01:00

What's been your greatest disappointment?

Something you hoped for, something you missed, something you messed up, something you lost... something that totally didn't go the way you wanted.

I ask because there's a total eclipse of the sun today and I think that's what my greatest disappointment was. Twenty-seven years ago (yesterday) was as disappointing as it gets.

One reason it was so disappointing is that it was so incredibly rare. Only one total eclipse of the Sun was going to be visible in the UK during my lifetime so if I missed it that was it. I wasn't around in 1927 for the last one and I wasn't going to be around in 2090 for the next, which I suspect is also the case for most of you. Also you had to be within a stripe of Cornwall and Devon just 70 miles wide, also you had to be there during the precise two-minute window otherwise you'd never see the exceptional bit. The event had singular SIGNIFICANCE, the ultimate one-off phenomenon.

Another reason it was so disappointing is that I'd been waiting ages for it to happen. Eclipses are entirely predictable so even when I was a child I knew precisely when and where it would happen. I think I discovered this in either the Guinness Book of Records or the Guinness Book of Answers in the mid-1970s, where the inside cover was devoted to a large graphic showing the Great British Eclipse of 11th August 1999. The date engrained itself upon my consciousness and my anticipation only grew throughout my teens, increasingly intent that when I reached the ancient age of 34 I would try my damnedest to be there. The event had maximum EXPECTATION, a buzz built up over decades.

The third reason it was so disappointing is that I'd put in so much effort to be there. I started dating a Cornish native and persuaded them to take the week off too. I made a booking on a hotel room a year in advance, paying well over the odds. I endured endless moans because spending a summer holiday back where you were born isn't everyone's idea of a good time. I joined the traffic jams entering the county and manoeuvred myself into the right position, moving heaven and earth so I'd be there when heaven shadowed earth. The event had maximum INVESTMENT, both in effort and expenditure.

And then of course it all went wrong. The weather forecast was already gloomy when we set off from Essex four days earlier and then only got worse, inexorably lowering my EXPECTATION. After totality was clouded out I was asked "was that it?" and endured retrospective sneers for months, wiping out all of my INVESTMENT. And as sunlight flooded back I realised I'd blown it for a lifetime, it was now abroad or nothing, such was the SIGNIFICANCE of an unseen must-see. From the very highest hopes to the cruellest of all losses, that morning on a Cornish lawn brought the greatest of disappointments. I suspect some football fans feel like this on a regular basis.

But can SIGNIFICANCE, EXPECTATION and INVESTMENT be used to classify some of the other great disappointments in my life?

» When I was six or seven I got inordinately excited that Santa Claus would be riding down my street before Christmas. I understood that it was all organised by our local residents association and that'd he only be on the back of a truck, not a sleigh, but I still believed the real Father Christmas would be visiting Croxley Green. A list of streets and times had been circulated in advance but crucially not a map, so the entire family wrapped up warm and walked down to what we thought was the right location in good time. Nothing happened and no Santa ever appeared, even though we hung around for a good hour in case there'd been some kind of delay. Trooping back home I must have been disconsolate, for which my apologies, such was the significance of what hadn't happened. Sure I only wasted an hour so my investment wasn't huge, but my expectation had been sky high and I can still recall the bitter disappointment.

» A couple of summers later at my primary school Sports Day, the collective disappointment was liquid based. Our class teacher said there'd be refreshments but we'd have to pay a penny for a ticket, and promised us straight-faced it'd be orangeade. We all knew orangeade as the yummy fizzy drink that came in bottles so we paid up with good grace and each received a paper ticket on which was typed ORANGEADE in capital letters. Imagine our crestfallen faces on the day of the event when we handed in our tickets and received in return a bogstandard cup of orange squash. We hadn't been expecting Cresta, merely Corona or equivalent, but all we got was some acerbic over-diluted own-brand. Sure we'd only invested a penny and it was just one hot afternoon, but somehow the communal sense of resentment made the disappointment so much worse.

» In May 1975 we went on a family holiday to Alderney, a small but fabulous island which we explored thoroughly. Towards the end of the week we discovered that the Queen Mother would be visiting on our last day and very much looked forward to catching sight of her. Alas all we saw was her black limo driving past Essex Castle - not even a wave - so thought we'd missed our chance. So you can imagine our delight when it transpired Her Majesty would be departing the airport at precisely the same time we were flying home, and the thrill as we saw her car drive up. Alas it drove round the back of the Royal Wessex helicopter so all we saw underneath was the Queen Mother's legs, and only very briefly as she climbed aboard and flew away. The expectation of a significant royal sighting had been enormous, but this disappointing glimpse was for many years my sole view of any member of the Royal Family.

» Jumping ahead somewhat, in the early 2010s I had an interview for a new job at a prestigious London office. I was the perfect candidate and delivered what I hoped was a winning interview, heading off afterwards with a spring in my step. Alas here I met the only other person in the country similarly qualified, a long-departed nemesis, and realised I did have competition after all. Nevertheless I anticipated victory so was utterly deflated when a thin envelope arrived containing a rejection letter, not the thick wad of paperwork I'd been expecting. I realised afterwards that I'd given the wrong answer to one of the questions - the industry equivalent of fool's mate - so had in fact made the panel's decision for them. I thus missed out on an incredibly significant job opportunity through over-confidence, and should have invested more time in preparing beforehand. Thankfully it all worked out brilliantly in the end because the role would have been a poisoned chalice, but at the time it felt like hubris had led to a catastrophic disappointment.

My argument today is thus that the greatest disappointments are those that maximise SIGNIFICANCE, EXPECTATION and INVESTMENT. And in my life to date paying over the odds to fail to see a long-awaited solar singularity must be the greatest disappointment of all.

Bank accounts

2026-08-11T07:00:00.000+01:00

I opened my first bank account when I was ten days old. I still have the receipt.

Obviously it wasn't me who marched into the Post Office in Croxley Green and deposited a tenner, I presume it was a parent, but I thank them for starting me on the savings path early. They also bought me my first Premium Bond at the same time, just the £1 but it would repay the investment with a £50 prize thirty years later so even more thanks for that.

My Post Office Savings Bank Book arrived shortly afterwards. It had a blue cover and several pages within, all chopped at the top so my name and address on the inside cover was always legible. Each double page had space for eight transactions - deposits on the left and withdrawals on the right - with eight separate spaces for the obligatory date stamp. Everything came with datestamps in those days, rotated every morning by the clerk and pressed firmly onto an inky pad before jabbing down onto the page.

So began a series of deposits, dutifully transcribed. When I got some money as a gift, say for a birthday, I'd troop up the road to the post office and hand it over, receiving a handwritten line in my book in return. The biggest deposit I ever made was after my grandmother died and left me a three figure sum - unimaginable wealth for a nine year-old! Occasionally I took money out but mainly this was a savings account, set up so that a tiny nestegg could accumulate as I grew.

After sixth form I got a summer job doing routine things in a warehouse in Harlesden, and needed somewhere better to put the money. I thus opened my second bank account when I was eighteen years old. I still have the letter.

It took a while to set things up because the first time I applied they thought I was under 18 and refused to progress the application further. I had to contact someone in Bootle to move things along, and by the time the acceptance letter arrived I'd already been paid. It seems amazing these days how much was done by post but the post was so much more reliable in those days, indeed I received the introductory letter the day after they sent it. I can still recite the account number off by heart.

Girobank was also operated by the General Post Office, commencing operations in 1968 and unique at the time for being fully computerised. Initially it made a trading loss but by the time I joined in the 1980s it was well on its way to becoming Britain's sixth biggest bank. It operated mostly via cheques and post office counters, and much use was made of white Postage Paid envelopes - every Girobank member had a stash. The Bootle address alas no longer exists, the former HQ having been demolished in 2024.

I sent off my first pay cheque by return of post and was soon in credit to the tune of £144.42. The bank's second letter thanked me for my deposit and enclosed a Girobank card which would allow me "to cash cheques up to £50 every other working day at either of the two post offices shown on the card". There were no cashpoints for Girobank members in those days, instead I had to write myself a cheque, and I see from the stubs in my cheque book that these were usually for £25 and comprised roughly half of all the cheques I wrote. Meanwhile cheque number 18 paid the deposit on a canal holiday (£26.00), cheque 23 paid for university accommodation (£238.37) and cheque 68 paid London Transport for three all-stations tickets (£36).

I opened my third bank account when I was twenty-three years old. I've still got the opening statement.

I'd recently started my first full-time job and was eyeing up a better rate of interest. I'd had an Abbey National savings account for some time but this was an opportunity to open a current account with them too. That meant I could transfer money from one to the other as necessary, and hopefully build up enough reserves to be able to afford a mortgage one day. The interest rate was 12% back then so mortgages were scary, but equally savings would ramp up very quickly so it paid to stash cash away.

On that day in October 1988 I walked into Windsor town centre wearing my finest pair of white trousers, and was aghast on Clarence Road when a dog called Snoopy leapt up and muddied them with his paws. I entered Abbey National somewhat abashed and waited quite a long time while they opened my bank account and linked it to those I already had, then celebrated by going shopping in Reading. My opening deposit was £10, which by Christmas had edged up to £10.05 thanks to a smidgeon of interest, but the account really came into its own when the first pay cheque arrived (£633.32). A house would follow three years later.

I upgraded to the Abbey National Telephone Banking Service in June 1999. I still have the letter but I won't burden you with it. I wrote my very last cheque on 3rd January 2006 to pay an insurance bill, having only written three in the previous two years. I upgraded to online banking in March 2012, a change triggered by the sending of two letters containing separate verification codes. I still haven't upgraded to mobile banking because I'd rather not carry the key to my savings everywhere I go. I get far far fewer letters than I used to, which is very much how the bank likes it.

And during this period Abbey National evolved until it wasn't Abbey National any more. They demutualised in July 1989, the first UK building society to take the private plunge. Alas I decided to sell my £130 allocation of shares straight away, making a profit of 70p, whereas I could have got ten times that if I'd hung onto them until 2000 (after which consumer confidence stuttered somewhat). The company rebranded as just 'abbey' in 2003, lower case, the logo written in a variety of jaunty colours. Then in November 2004 Abbey National was acquired by Banco Santander, Spain's largest bank, and so began the slow crawl to elimination.

They got rid of the jaunty colours and switched the bank's logo to the parent company's flame. Then on 10th January 2010 they ditched the Abbey name altogether and switched everything over to Santander. That same year Bradford and Bingley and Alliance & Leicester were swallowed up, both former building societies that overstretched, and today they're all lost within the embrace of a foreign institution with firmer foundations. I don't think the switch to Santander counts as my fourth bank account, but yes I have the letter anyway.

I have financial inertia so have essentially stuck with the same bank for over 35 years, despite the fact it may not necessarily be the best fit for my money. I like the fact I know how their systems work, also that there's still a branch within walking distance, also that they've never forced me to use some ridiculous electronic gizmo in order to access my money. I should probably hunt down the best deal and open a fourth bank account anyway, maybe even a fifth in a year's time to keep on top of the best rates of interest, but my dislike of faff has kept me loyal to a bank that's not even called what it used to be.

I kept my Girobank account open until 30th October 2000, barely ticking over, then transferred my last funds across to Abbey National. By that time Girobank had been part of Alliance & Leicester for over ten years, the Thatcher government being unable to hold onto any national asset without selling it off. And Alliance & Leicester was of course also swallowed by Santander after the financial crash, thus it turns out the destinies of both Abbey National and Girobank were ultimately the same. No matter which bank account I'd kept open everything ultimately ended up on the north coast of Spain, and all because bank bosses are keener on switching banks than I am.

Stroudley Walk directory

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

In 2014 I wrote a post about my local shopping parade in Bow, Stroudley Walk, a 1980s redevelopment I described as "aspirational but hideous".

"As the centrepiece of a new estate they planned two arcades of shops as well as a central market. The feature colour was brown with the new shops shielded behind rows of thick brick arches. Were this anywhere posh you might be able to call them arcades but these are merely dingy shields, making it harder than necessary to read the names of the shops behind. On top they built utilitarian flats, again mostly brown. And outside they left a windswept brown space, a pedestrian zone far wider than necessary, plus a substantial dedicated area for the creation of a market. If that ever materialised it's long gone now, with metal studs in the tarmac all that remains to delineate an absence of stalls. Only one stallholder ever turns up these days, selling scant fruit and veg beneath an awning opposite the Post Office. As postwar regeneration projects go it's fairly disastrous." (15 January 2014)

But on the wall of the local tower block was a large poster of a brightened precinct with street trees and jolly pedestrians, under which was written 'Stroudley Walk as it could look from here'. And now it does! It may have taken twelve years, four of which were spent on reconstruction, but the transformation is finally complete. They unveiled most of it in back in April but the last barriers were removed only last week, gifting a brand new central recreational area where the windswept brown space used to be. It is, not unsurprisingly, a vast improvement.

A ring of grass is surrounded by a loop of shrubbery and pristine wooden benching. The obvious centrepiece is a teepee-like clambering thing, a real boon for kids in the summer holidays. Alongside is a sturdy table tennis table that might or might not see action, also a short metal slide on a fall-off-able surface, also a few items of communal gym equipment. A sign declares this to be Stroudley Walk Park, which I think is overstating things, and also sets out very obvious safety risks ("ensure that you are medically fit", "avoid over-exertion", "use only for the intended purpose") for obligatory reasons. Compared to the previous bleak void where only pigeons ever gathered it's a masterstroke.

The biggest change since 2014 has been the refocusing from retail to residential. The entire southern half of former Stroudley Walk has been demolished and replaced by flats. The shorter row of units on the High Street went the same way as 11-storey Warren House behind, their combined footprint replaced by a block of flats twice the height. And although the remainder of the shops have survived, what they sell has changed considerably, in part because trading alongside a building site for four years is commercially challenging.

Let's compare 2014 and 2026.

Stroudley Walk - Traders' Directory

2-4 Stroudley Walk
2014: Post Office This is a hideous building, quite the shabbiest Post Office I've ever had to queue in. The feature colour is 1970s brown and the interior feels like some kind of bunker in a youth centre. It's fantastic for Stroudley Walk that this service exists, both for the boost its presence brings to local traders and for the free cashpoint, but less great that there are imminent plans to relocate to back of the Nisa supermarket on Bow Road.
2026: M.A. Halal Grocery/Stroudley Walk Grocery The horrible Post Office shifted in August 2014 and in its place are two normal-sized units targeting the local Muslim and Bangladeshi population. Both will sell you huge bags of rice and appropriately-slaughtered lamb, and both have an array of fruit and veg displayed on upturned trays outside. Watermelon and jackfruit regularly make an appearance. M.A. moved here from number 39 (now demolished) because the premises were better, and local demand ensures the two neighbouring competitors maintain a living.

6 Stroudley Walk
2014: Bow Fish and Chips I used to pop in here every fortnight or so for wrapped fish and fried potato doused in vinegar substitute, yum, but I gave up a few years back, partly because of my diet but mostly because I was no longer convinced I was eating cod.
2026: Stroudley Grill Here's local demographic transition writ large. The chippie closed in 2018 and swiftly metamorphosed into a halal eatery with sitdown tables because nobody wants fish any more, they want grilled chicken with a spicy kick. It's often packed out. The clientele will no doubt appreciate the extra benches now provided out front, at what always feels like Stroudley Walk's unofficial youth club.

8 Stroudley Walk
2014: RSA Cash & Carry This used to be the Rose and Crown, a classic East End pub which served pints from Georgian times until 2007. Not so many Bromley-by-Bow people drink any more, but they can now buy gizzard, breeder, hen and sheep on the premises.
2026: PFC Espresso Within a couple of months the cash and carry had been taken over by a weird hybrid of chicken shop and coffee bar. They couldn't over-tweak the interior because this is a listed building but you now queue for peri-peri at what used to be the bar, also early plugs for coffee have been since replaced by plugs for pizza.

10-12 Stroudley Walk
2014: Fahima Grocers Halal meat and fish, sure, but also useful stuff in tins.
2026: Stroudley Mini Mart/Ghajni Barbers The former grocers has been split back into two separate units. One is keen to sell you vapes, energy drinks and bagged snacks because that's the modern urban convenience store these days. The corner unit has two barbers' chairs and a range of gloopy product. Someone needs to tell the owner that displaying an AI-originated sign depicting available hairstyles doesn't inspire tonsorial confidence.

16 Stroudley Walk
2014: Ladbrokes At the heart of any down at heel neighbourhood there's a betting shop, this one often with an inebriate band of punters gathered outside to merry the day away.
2026: vacant Here's the sad one. Ladbrokes moved out before lockdown and the shop remained empty for ages, occupied only by some very messy pigeons. In summer 2024 a cafe called Posted rented the space, their aim to sell juice, coffee and sandwiches with a hip grime vibe. It wasn't posh, it didn't grate and it deserved to do much better. Unfortunately they timed their arrival for the moment building works ramped up, reducing access to a grim barriered passage, and I only once saw them busy. After a year they threw in the towel to avoid haemorrhaging money ("We’re hitting the pause button for a little while as the works on Stroudley Walk get finished up") and although they promised to come back as yet there's no sign. Regeneration kills as well as renews.

18 Stroudley Walk
2014: Bow Pharmacy I'm in here regularly to pick up my prescriptions. I'm invariably the only customer wearing cufflinks.
2026: Kamsons Pharmacy Same crew, different name, and a steadfast beacon providing great service to the community. I was amazed a couple of months ago to find the tired interior had suddenly been replaced by a full and gleaming makeover, not just with fewer shelves but fully air-conditioned throughout. It's been a blessing lately.

20 Stroudley Walk
2014: Quix Newsagents Rebranded as a "Best-One" according to the temporary banner outside, but that's been there for a while and no imminent upgrade of facilities is apparent. Photocopier Service available. Currently selling Weetabix for 89p if you're quick.
2026: Best-One A local stalwart which basically hasn't changed except that the newspapers now take up a tiny slot to make way for a long drinks-packed chiller cabinet. Photocopier Service allegedly still available. Of all the shops on Stroudley Walk, the one I visit most.

22 Stroudley Walk
2014: Local People Local Jobs Until fairly recently this was a health clinic, but it's now a community job centre run by my local doctor's surgery because E3 needs places to help with your CV more than it needs wellness technicians.
2026: Jay's Salon/Bow Dry Cleaners The only split unit on Stroudley Walk because not every business wants to pay full rent. Half is a buzzing barbers that does a decent trade despite all the prices in the window having peeled off. The other half is a long-standing dry cleaning business forced to shift from a demolished unit on the High Street. Thumbs up to both.

24 Stroudley Walk
2014: Bromley Furniture IKEA this ain't, but if you need a chair for your bedsit or a bit of carpet or a second hand wardrobe then the bloke sat right at the back would love to see a customer.
2026: Bromley Furniture The only shop on the whole street that hasn't changed since 2014. People round here will always need cheap furniture.

26 Stroudley Walk
2014: Ahmeds Bakers Delight There may be two apostrophes missing but this corner shop sells a decent range of home-baked treats and bread and Halal stuff, and there's a chiller full of Snapple at the back.
2026: shuttered Another casualty of the building works, perhaps, because being at the very far end of an unwelcoming alley for four years must have throttled footfall. I imagine the new tenants of the gentrified tower block would have turned up their noses at the lack of drizzled pastries and sourdough anyway.

It'll be interesting to see how this street directory evolves now that Stroudley Walk is fully open, fully accessible and more fully populated than ever before. As yet however there's not a single nod to anything premium or fancy, and long may things stay that way.

Apostrophes

2026-08-09T07:00:00.000+01:00

I don't know if you've ever noticed, but some tube station names have apostrophes.

And some don't.

with: Earl's Court, King's Cross St Pancras, Queen's Park, Regent's Park, St James's Park, St John's Wood, St Paul's, Shepherd's Bush without: Barons Court, Canons Park, Gants Hill, Golders Green, Parsons Green, Rayners Lane

It's not consistent, it's just how it is.

Perhaps the most inconsistent station is St James's Park.

Most of the roundels say St James's Park...

...but one on the eastbound platform still says St James' Park instead.

This was the name of the station prior to 1951.
Several old tube maps actually called it St James Park, but let's not go there.

Amongst former Underground stations two did and one didn't.

with: Lord's, St Mary's (Whitechapel Road)
without: Carpenders Park

Overground and DLR stations tend not to have apostrophes, only one bucks the trend.

with: Walthamstow Queen's Road
without: Devons Road, Gallions Reach, Highams Park, Queens Road Peckham, St James Street

At other rail stations in London the name is almost always apostropheless.

with: King's Cross
without: Bowes Park, Crews Hill, Elmers End, Haydons Road, Palmers Green, Petts Wood, Ponders End, Raynes Park, St Johns, St Margarets

On National Rail outside London apostrophes are exceptionally rare.
Not even Exeter St Davids.

with: Cobham and Stoke D'abernon, Hall-I'-Th'-Wood
without: all the others

West Midlands Metro has St Paul's but also St Chads.
Nottingham Express Transit has Queen's Medical Centre but also Queens Walk.
Manchester Metrolink has St Peter's Square, St Werburgh's Road and the double whammy of Besses o' th' Barn.

The New York subway only has one apostrophe which is East 143rd Street–St. Mary's Street

The Paris Metro does apostrophes differently.

avec: Aéroport d'Orly, Château d'Eau, Chaussée d'Antin–La Fayette, Créteil–L'Échat, Église d'Auteuil, Fort d'Aubervilliers, Gare d'Austerlitz, Gare de l'Est, L'Haÿ-les-Roses, Mairie d'Aubervilliers, Mairie d'Issy, Mairie d'Ivry, Place d'Italie, Porte d'Auteuil, Porte d'Italie, Porte d'Ivry, Porte d'Orléans, Trinité–d'Estienne d'Orves

Honolulu's Skyline appears to be 31% apostrophied.

with: Kualakaʻi, Keoneʻae, Hoʻopili, Hōʻaeʻae
without: Pouhala, Hālaulani, Waiawa, Kalauao, Hālawa, Makalapa, Lelepaua, Āhua, Kahauiki

But mostly what excites people is St James'(s) Park.

With or without.

Tram stop of the month

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

Slim Summer Saturday

Tram stop of the month: Beddington Lane

Location: Beddington Lane (a lane leading to Beddington)
Opened: 30 May 2000 (like all* the tram stops)
Previously: a minor halt on the Wimbledon and Croydon Railway (1855-1997)
Borough: Sutton (but almost Merton)
Annual taps: 115,246 (the least used tram stop between Wimbledon and Croydon)
Reasons for visiting: few

25 things to see: two dour platforms between two industrial estates, the back of SIG Distribution, four bins, the start of a very lightly-trodden footpath to Hundred Acre Bridge, green roundel, the number 463 bus, TRAQ Motor Racing gokart track, some very isolated houses on Brookmead Road, Mock Tudor frontage, a scrubby corner of Mitcham Common (The Meads), a worse-for-wear information panel failing to ignite excitement in Mitcham Common's flora and fauna, bike rack, air monitoring station, radio transmitters, QR code for funfair held six weeks ago, fingerpost pointing the way to Beddington Village (27 mins), pillarbox, poster for lost cat ('Female cat see in the park'), freshly-built warehouses, Beddington Energy Recovery Facility (a power station), tram speed limit signs (25, 50 and 70), tramlines, tramwires, next tram indicators, trams.

Let me know which tram stop you'd like me to feature next month.

P is for Plashet

2026-08-07T07:00:00.000+01:00

LONDON A-Z
P is for Plashet

For my next unsung suburb I've been to a swallowed hamlet in Newham. Plashet used to be home to someone important enough to have appeared on a banknote and is now a mesh of Victorian terraces with a nice park and a dead library. If there were a stop on the District line between Upton Park and East Ham they could call it Plashet, but there isn't and the name's almost been lost. It's also not quite where modern maps put it because the original crossroads we seek is here.

This is the junction of Plashet Grove and Katharine Road, one named after the hamlet and the other after the banknote icon's daughter. There used to be a large comfortable manor house on the far side, now there's a minimart and a currency exchange. There used to be a farm on the right-hand side, now there's a halal butcher and a pharmacy. There used to be a pub called The Green Man in the foreground, now there's a modern block of flats (quite unusual for the neighbourhood). And there used to be an open field on the left, now a hairdresser, a chicken takeaway and a manufacturer of zips and trimmings. A lot of inner Newham looks like this - terraced streets intermittently mixed with lowly commercial units - it's just that this nucleus used to be a hamlet in a clearing in a wood called Plashet.

The famous occupant of Plashet House was Elizabeth Fry, the pioneering prison reformer. Her crusade began in 1813 when she visited Newgate Prison and was horrified by the cruel and insanitary conditions, especially for women and children. She fought for welfare rather than harsh punishment and for rehabilitation rather than transportation. Founding the British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners in 1821 was only the start, with later successes including education for inmates' children and the introduction of prison inspectors to oversee national standards. Wider humanitarian concerns drove her to push for the ending of slavery in the colonies and help for the homeless, with Prime Ministers and even Queen Victoria taking note of what she said. Elizabeth lived at Plashet House from 1809 to 1829, then moved up the road to The Cedars in what's now West Ham Park, finally returning to the area in 2002 on the back of many a £5 note.

Plashet House was demolished in the 1880s to make way for housing, her former carriage drive essentially becoming St Stephen's Road. In place of her back garden we now find Wortley Road, a typical street of three dozen terraced houses and front gardens only just large enough for two bins. It's one-way because once you've parked on both sides there's not much room left in the middle. A special zone at the southern end provides somewhere to leave mopeds, ideal for offspring who've become delivery drivers. Bay windows are the norm, either in pebbledash or in brick. Only five of the houses at the top end have names (from Goodrest to Gordon House), all the plaques on the remainder having been left blank. A peculiarity of the local area is that you often see a front door open, perhaps someone hoovering the hall, having a smoke or heading off somewhere, possibly because Newham's houses have more than the national average number of occupants.

Elizabeth's standing in society was because she'd married into a family of Quaker bankers and a wider confectionery dynasty. Her husband was Joseph Fry, nephew of the more famous Joseph Fry who founded the chocolate factory that became JS Fry & Sons. Elizabeth alas died two decades before Fry's Chocolate Cream was invented. In an extraordinary coincidence Plashet was also the base for an entirely different sweet company, this being Trebor, which was founded by four sugar-boilers from East London in 1906. One of the quartet was indeed called Robert, but the backwards name actually derived from the builder of a terrace on Shrewsbury Road where they opened their first factory. Full history here. By 1938 the success of Refreshers and Extra Strong Mints had helped the small corner plot to grow into a 580,000 square foot factory along Katherine Road. It's still there and still looks fabulous.

The Luftwaffe scored a direct hit in 1944 but management got production back up and running in a week. More crucially they ran out of space to expand so opened separate Trebor factories in Ilford, Chesterfield and later Colchester, with the Plashet site filling its last bag of sweets in 1983. The Trebor brand was later swallowed by Cadbury's, which intriguingly was the same ultimate destination as Fry's but via a different takeover route. The building inevitably became flats but proper designer ones, as you can see here because one's just been put up for sale, the apartment described as "characterised by industrial proportions". I don't know why they decided to brand the development as 'Bridgepoint Lofts' but the Trebor name lives on in glorious green throwback tiles on the exterior.

Katherine Road was originally Plashet Lane and was named after Elizabeth Fry's daughter who lived in a cottage down the road. She turned out to be the historian of the family, writing a comprehensive treatise on the districts of West Ham and East Ham, but embarrassingly her name was Katharine so the Victorian developers got the spelling wrong. Plashet Cottage was originally sited on a bend just south of the railway, now inevitably another standard terrace, incongruously facing a shop that makes a living acquiring scrap non-ferrous metals. Katherine Road originally had a lot more shops, these since either residentialised or ceded to low level entrepreneurial services like property management, washing machine repairs and shuttered workshops. Meanwhile the site of the village pond is now occupied by the lowliest of community centres because there's virtually nothing of old Plashet left. Just the park.

Plashet Park is all that remains of Wood House Farm, but only in that nobody built any houses on it. It opened in 1891 and was designed by the district surveyor, clearly demonstrating how much useful variety he could cram into an 18 acre rectangle. The park has several recreational zones including sports lawns and an ornamental garden, all divided by avenues of trees ideal for shady rest or perambulation. The bowling green has been a going concern since 1911, whereas the bandstand's been dismantled and a proper playground built alongside, which is probably the correct modern priority. From 1964 to 2000 there was even a petting zoo along the northern perimeter whose butterfly house was opened by a very young Chris Packham. Alas that's since been replaced by a very tame border called the Wildlife Walk where all I saw was a swoosh of yellow grass and some shrivelled weeds, but also a single butterfly so perhaps the legacy lingers. In a part of Newham generally devoid of parks, Plashet's a winner.

In the corner of the park is a marvellous redbrick building with a clock-bearing cupola. This was the Passmore Edwards Public Library, one of several the Victorian philanthropist funded across London, opened in 1899 to give residents of East Ham somewhere to read and study. I bet they felt proud to go in. In 1993 a modern replacement library on Green Street meant it was no longer needed for books so the council instead decided to use the building as Newham's Register Office. Ceremonies were later shifted to the Town Hall after which the ex-library became an arts centre, but only for three years because Applecart Arts went bust and the council are still seeking a new tenant. They describe it as an 'Exciting Opportunity to Lease a Cultural and Community Space in Plashet', but might as well have said 'This Listed Building is a Financial Millstone' because the doors remain firmly locked, sadly.

Perhaps the most extraordinary structure on Plashet Grove is the curving walkway that snakes across the street at the eastern end. It's called the Unity Bridge and links the two halves of Plashet Academy, the south side originally East Ham Grammar School for Girls and the north side Plashet County Secondary Modern School for Girls. After the two schools amalgamated in 1972 a lot of time was spent crossing the road, so when the bridge opened in 2000 not only did it make life safer but also prevented the girls from sneaking off to the shops. Most people would call this area East Ham rather than Plashet but 200 years ago it was known as North End, an entirely separate settlement, because yet again the opening of a station has distorted local geography. Plashet proper is more Katherine Road where Fry and Trebor hung out, where now Azeem Enterprises meets Halal Meat Corner.

The London borough boundaries with fewest crossings

2026-08-06T07:00:00.000+01:00

Some London borough boundaries are easy to cross. The boundary between Croydon and Bromley, for example, is 10 miles long and can be crossed in over 40 different places.

But other London boundaries are much harder to cross, or in a few cases impossible except by boat. So let's investigate...

The London borough boundaries with fewest crossings

It's best to do this in two parts.

a) Boundaries along the River Thames

Starting out east...

Havering → Bexley: 0 (big estuary, no crossing points)
Barking & Dagenham → Bexley: 0 (ditto)
Barking & Dagenham → Greenwich: 0 (technically 1 if you catch a Thames Clipper from Barking Riverside to Greenwich, but physically zero)
Newham → Greenwich: 7 (three railways, one road tunnel, one foot tunnel, one Dangleway and arguably the Woolwich Ferry)
Tower Hamlets → Greenwich: 4 (two railways, one road tunnel, one foot tunnel)
Tower Hamlets → Lewisham: 0 (boundary is less than 1km long, so zilch)
Tower Hamlets → Southwark: 4 (one bridge, one tunnel, two railways)
City of London → Southwark: 8 (three bridges, one footbridge, two railway bridges, two railways)
City of London → Lambeth: 0 (boundary is less than 200m long, so zilch)
Westminster → Lambeth: 11 (four bridges, two footbridges, one railway bridge, four railways)
Westminster → Wandsworth: 2 (one bridge, one railway bridge)
Kensington & Chelsea → Wandsworth: 3 (three bridges)
Hammersmith & Fulham → Wandsworth: 4 (two bridges, two railway bridges)
Hammersmith & Fulham → Richmond: 1 (one bridge, closed to traffic since 2019)
Hounslow → Richmond: loads (because the boundary veers inland above Isleworth)

Westminster to Lambeth is the easiest borough boundary to cross, as you might expect given how central it is.

The five uncrossable boundaries are Havering → Bexley, Barking & Dagenham → Bexley, Barking & Dagenham → Greenwich, Tower Hamlets → Lewisham and City of London → Lambeth. The new Thamesmead DLR extension won't change this. The Thames is currently uncrossable for over 10 miles downstream of Woolwich. The really bad severance out west is between Hammersmith & Fulham and Richmond, a two mile boundary where the only Thames crossing is Hammersmith Bridge which may never carry vehicles again. The actual severance for road traffic is 4 miles.

b) Boundaries away from the River Thames

Now it gets interesting...

i) Lambeth → Bromley: 1
The hardest-to-cross borough boundary is between Lambeth and Bromley. There is only one place to cross and this is it.

This is the Vicar's Oak road junction at Crystal Palace. It's famous as the only place in London where four boroughs meet, or at least they used to but Southwark has since been nudged slightly north. This leaves 75m where Lambeth marginally meets Bromley and the boundary runs down the middle of Crystal Palace Parade.

Technically you can cross this brief stretch of road anywhere but it's dangerous and the only safe place is this pedestrian crossing. The crossing is via two traffic islands and the actual dividing line is on the first if coming from Lambeth (closest to the Westow House pub). This is close to where the Vicar's Oak once stood, long before this was a signalised road junction.

Road traffic driving from Anerley Hill into Crystal Palace Parade also passes from Bromley into Lambeth, as do buses turning right out of the bus station. Traffic driving south down Crystal Palace Parade does not enter Lambeth. But for pedestrians there's just this one crossing, the fewest connections across any borough boundary away from the Thames.

ii) Redbridge → Havering: 2
Unless trespassing, there are only two ways to cross the Redbridge/Havering border. One is the B147 at Collier Row, otherwise known as Hog Hill Road. The other is a footpath across Hainault Golf Club, which you may have walked because it's part of London Loop section 20. Just two connections in two miles... that's private land for you.

iii) Kingston → Sutton: 3
On the opposite side of London is a paltry set of connections in the Worcester Park area. One is the main road under the railway bridge by the station, this the route taken by all the buses hereabouts. The other two are at opposite ends of Caverleigh Way where a small estate of five streets in Kingston can only be accessed via Sutton. The railway line does not switch boroughs.
iii) Kingston → Wandsworth: 3
Kingston has another three-crossing boundary near the Robin Hood Roundabout on the southern edge of Richmond Park. One is a main road, the A3, where it changes from Kingston Vale to Roehampton Vale. The others are two footbridges over the Beverley Brook. They connect two sets of playing fields adjacent to Wimbledon Common, and Capital Ring section 6 crosses one of them.

iv) Brent → Kensington & Chelsea: 3-ish
Nominally there are only three connections between these boroughs - the two gates into Kensal Green Cemetery and the brief cul-de-sac of Alma Place. However the ½-mile-long boundary actually runs down the centre of Harrow Road, not along the wall of the cemetery, so is easily crossed in many places.

v) Enfield → Waltham Forest: 5
Two main roads (including the North Circular), two minor roads and a glum reservoir-adjacent footpath.
v) Haringey → Waltham Forest: 5
One road (Ferry Lane at Tottenham Hale), two railways and two footbridges at Tottenham Marshes.

vi) Southwark → Bromley: 5
And finally back to Crystal Palace and the continuation of Crystal Palace Parade along the western edge of Crystal Palace Park. Again the precise boundary passes down the centre of the road and there are just four pedestrian crossings along this half mile stretch. The railway tunnel west of Crystal Palace station knocks the number of connections up to five.

The other 59 London borough boundaries have more crossings, unless you know better.

Total Eclipse in Europe

2026-08-05T07:00:00.000+01:00

The thing about total eclipses of the sun is that they're very rare, especially in any given location.
London's last was in 1715 and the next is in 2151.
The UK's last was in 1999 and the next is in 2090.

But if you spread the net wider to the whole of Europe they're more common.
The last was in 2015, but only in the Faroe Islands and Svalbard.
And the next is exactly one week away, which is totally exciting.

• It starts on the northern coast of Russia at 5.59pm BST, but that's all permafrost and nobody lives there.
• It then passes over Greenland, but pretty much all icecap and nowhere near the capital.
• It crosses the very western edge of Iceland, scraping Reykjavik and the airport at 6.48pm.
• It sweeps wastefully over the unpopulated Atlantic and Bay of Biscay until 7.26pm.
• It hits the northwest coast of Spain and heads 500 miles southeast, crossing Valladolid, Zaragoza and Valencia.
• It nibbles the tiniest corner of Portugal for just 26 seconds, the country's last total eclipse until 2144.
• It sinks towards the islands of Majorca and Minorca at 7.31pm, just as sunset approaches.
• And it ends in the Med at 7.34pm (8.34 local time) as the shadow of the moon hits the Earth at dusk.

The British mainland remains over 200 miles from the edge of totality so we miss out on the spectacle that makes a total solar eclipse so jawdropping. Instead the UK sees a partial eclipse, admittedly one of the best partial eclipses of the 21st century but still not enough for the average Briton going about their day to notice anything is amiss. In London 92% of the Sun's disc will be obscured, which sounds a lot but 8% of a burning star is still a heck of a lot of energy so relatively normal daylight will continue.

From London the eclipse starts at 6.17pm, imperceptibly with a tiny bite on the right-hand edge. It peaks at 7.15pm with the sun as a tiny sliver resembling a very thin frown. And it ends at 8.06pm, about twenty minutes before sunset so quite low on the western horizon. Because this is an evening eclipse the main action is only about 10° above the horizon so you'll need a clear western skyline be able to see much.

I have to caution at this point about never looking directly at the Sun. The last thing you want is a fingernail-shaped burn on your retina (or even blindness) for the rest of your life. A well-placed cloud might allow you to squint at the outline of the eclipse out of the corner of your eye, not that I'm specifically recommending this, but cloud can also be the curse that blots out the entire spectacle outright. Personally I'm going to whip out my eclipse glasses I got for Cornwall 1999 because they're very carefully filtered, and who knows I might even get to use them this time.

To give you some idea of the scale of the 2026 event, think back to what you saw (or didn't) in 1999. London for example saw a 97% eclipse that day, and this is only 92%. Below is a table giving these percentages for other cities across the UK. Liverpool for example does better in 2026 than it did in 1999 (92% compared with 90%), as do Belfast and Newcastle. Meanwhile Plymouth, Birmingham and Norwich do worse. I've also added a column for the partial eclipse of March 2015, should you remember that, and this peaked further north so Scotland saw greater obscuration then. In 2026 the further southwest you are the better.

	11 Aug 1999	20 Mar 2015	12 Aug 2026
Plymouth	100%	86%	95%
London	97%	84%	92%
Norwich	92%	85%	90%
Birmingham	94%	87%	92%
Liverpool	90%	89%	92%
Belfast	87%	93%	93%
Newcastle	85%	91%	90%
Glasgow	82%	94%	91%
Inverness	77%	96%	91%

What's unnerving for the UK-bound eclipse chaser is that these are the three best solar eclipses of the last fifty years, and also of the next fifty. You have to go back to 15th February 1961 to find the previous time a partial eclipse in the UK exceeded 90%, and ahead to 3 September 2081 until it happens again. If you're not expecting to still be here in 55 years time, next week's solar eclipse is your very last chance to see a mighty bite.

Taking 60% as the cut-off, here's how rare biggish solar eclipses are.

All the biggish solar eclipses visible from London during the last 100 years
• Wed 29 June 1927 (06:20 BST) 95%
• Wed 30 June 1954 (13:34 BST) 71%
• Wed 15 February 1961 (07:42 GMT) 92%
• Wed 11 August 1999 (11:11 BST) 97%
• Tue 4 January 2011 (08:12 GMT) 68%
• Fri 20 March 2015 (09:31 GMT) 84%

All the biggish solar eclipses visible from London during the next 50 years
• Wed 12 August 2026 (19:13 BST) 91%
• Thu 21 August 2036 (19:07 BST) 60%
• Tue 21 June 2039 (19:35 BST) 63%
• Thu 11 June 2048 (13:22 BST) 62%
• Mon 14 November 2050 (13:48 GMT) 73%
• Wed 5 November 2059 (07:37 GMT) 72%
• Thu 5 February 2065 (09:51 GMT) 79%
• Sat 13 July 2075 (04:50 BST) 71%

Nothing exceeds 80% after next week, let alone 90%, until 3 September 2081.

Returning to total eclipses of the Sun, because they're always 100%, how easy is it to travel and see one somewhere in Europe? Alas not very.

There have only been three total solar eclipses in Europe since the start of the century, all in terrible locations.

• 29 March 2006: Georgia, Russia
• 1 August 2008: Greenland
• 20 March 2015: Faroe Islands, Svalbard

Things get better soon, especially in Spain.

• 12 August 2026: Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Portugal
• 2 August 2027: Spain, Gibraltar
• 12 September 2053: Spain, Gibraltar

The 2027 total eclipse occurs less than a year after next week's solar wonder. However it only scrapes the very south of the country (Cádiz, Marbella, Málaga) because the line of totality curves across north Africa. The best places to head are Tangier, Luxor, Jeddah and Mecca, with Luxor being treated to the longest total solar eclipse of the century at almost six and a half minutes. It's then an extremely long time until Europe is troubled again, and in almost exactly the same very limited strip across southern Spain.

• 20 April 2061: Svalbard
• 3 September 2081: Channel Islands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria
• 23 September 2090: Ireland, England, France, Belgium
• 11 May 2097: Svalbard

The Arctic island of Svalbard is having a similarly bumper 21st century with total solar eclipses in 2015, 2061 and 2097, the catch being that cloud cover may deny residents from seeing any of them. The 2081 eclipse is the continental jackpot crossing over a dozen countries, should you still be alive at the time, then 2090 finally brings totality back to England. As in 1999 the southwest coast is favoured, but with the blackout zone stretching further east as far as Hastings. To any readers currently in their teens, enjoy that one!

In conclusion if you've always wanted to see a total eclipse of the sun but don't want to leave Europe, you have two chances in the next twelve months and then no more for the next 25 years. It's Iceland or Spain or miss out.

You'll have to be quick to grab a flight and accommodation, that is unless you're so keen you planned ahead, and then the incredible spectacle of the sun's corona blazing in a darkened sky could be yours. I'd love to see totality properly having been clouded out in 1999, but it's still a very long way to go for what's either going to be the best thing ever or another crushing disappointment. Nature is a dazzlingly cruel mistress, but wow the buzz of exhilaration next Wednesday evening if it all paid off.

12th August 2026 eclipse
• simple BBC guide, Greenwich Observatory guide
• 2026 interactive map (and another one) (and another one)
• Eclipse simulator (press play): London Olympic Park, Santander, Majorca
• Expected cloud cover next week

• European eclipse paths: 1961-1980, 1981-2000, 2001-2020, 2021-2040, 2041-2060, 2061-2080, 2081-2100

The Golden Dangleticket

2026-08-04T08:00:00.000+01:00

Would you like to ride the Dangleway for free for 20 years? That's the prize in TfL's latest marketing promotion and it's all to celebrate the cable car carrying its 20 millionth visitor. To be clear you can't ride it for 20 years non-stop, you'd have to pause overnight and during maintenance weeks, but otherwise you could pretty much spend your life up in the air for nothing.

All you have to do to win is enter a prize draw that started yesterday and ends on 16th August, and one lucky winner will get the prize of a lifetime. You access the draw by scanning a QR code at either of the two Dangleway terminals, or for legal reasons (because this is essentially a raffle) you can also enter online. But perhaps read the terms and conditions first.

You have to be over 18, resident in the UK and unconnected to TfL. The winner "may be requested to take part in promotional activities" so must provide proof of identity, address and age with photograph. The prize is one non-transferable 'Golden Ticket' entitling the winner to unlimited travel on the London Cable Car for 20 years. Friends and family would still have to pay, so unless you enjoy riding solo I suspect two decades of free travel could get boring pretty quickly. And crucially "the Golden Ticket is only valid for one way or round-trip journeys and excludes all other ticket types and promotional offers at the London Cable Car", so no glass floor, no fast track and no Engi-Bear's Football Adventure.

Can the cablecar really have had 20 million passengers? Well yes because it's averaged 1¼-1½ million passengers every year since it started, lockdown excepted, indeed these are impressively consistent figures for an aerial gimmick in its fifteenth year.

If you're the kind of obsessive who maintains a spreadsheet you'll know that 19,300,000 passengers had ridden the cablecar by the end of 2025. Alas TfL's stream of data mysteriously halted in February so I can't tell you precisely when the 20 million milestone was achieved, but typical figures would suggest June or early July.

I shan't be taking part in the draw because I doubt TfL would want me winning a Dangleway-related competition. But I am particularly intrigued by one thing in the terms and conditions, specifically the email address in paragraph 14.

14. The surname and county of the winner will be made available if requested in writing to Guest.services@londoncableway.com within 56 days from the Closing Date.

Hmmm, londoncableway.com... I wonder. There is currently no attraction in the capital called the London Cableway. However TfL have recently stated their intention to seek a new vision for the London Cable Car, evolving from "being a transport mode to one of London's must-do tourist attractions and, importantly, a commercialised leisure attraction." My prediction is thus that the cable car is going to be rebranded the London Cableway, a fresh name for a new tourist offer, at some point in the future. Why else would anyone involved in this competition have a londoncableway.com email address?

Update: The cable car has been operated by First London Cableway Limited since June 2024. Truth is often mundane rather than intriguing. But that doesn't stop London Cableway being a better name than anything TfL have ever called it.

Bromley-by-Bodge

2026-08-04T07:00:00.000+01:00

Bromley-by-Bow station has finally been repaired!
And it only took three years.

Here's how it looked in March 2020 with the new glass roof unveiled.

March 2020

An attractive refresh of a previously grim concourse, now with coffee kiosk, blue tiles and a central roundel. Lovely. Perhaps too tempting though, and so it proved.

In 2022 one of the glass panels got smashed, perhaps by a stone or hurled can, and was replaced by a sheet of wood. In 2023 half the roundel went the same way, and by the end of the year only three of the six glass panels were still intact. It looked a mess.

November 2023

It carried on looking like a smashed mess for the whole of 2024 and then the whole of 2025. By the start of 2026 it had looked a smashed mess for longer than it had ever looked intact.

Then in March 2026 scaffolding suddenly appeared. Finally, I thought, finally they're going to do something about it.

3rd March 2026

They didn't, not immediately. What they did do is hang the name of the station over the scaffolding, in nowhere near the right typeface. But nothing happened to the glass in April, nor for most of May. Only in the last week of May did workers finally turn up to remove the broken glass.

31st May 2026

It was one week's work max, replacing what had been six large glass panels with twelve smaller glass panels. But the scaffolding stayed up.

4th June 2026

I wondered if they were going to add a roundel on the glass again - this seemed the most likely reason for the scaffolding remaining. But they didn't and nothing changed for two months.

Now finally the scaffolding's come down and the end result is clear.

3rd August 2026

It seems TfL have thrown in the towel on the nice glass roundel and it's going to be plain glass forever. Easier to replace if anything gets smashed again but also duller and very much not the design originally intended. A large roundel on the brick wall alongside now suffices.

So hurrah that repairs are finally finished but sheesh, I cannot believe how long it took. The smashed glass was in situ for three years. The scaffolding was up for five months. The actual repairs took one week. As project management goes, it's been Bromley-by-Bodge.

Unblogged July

2026-08-03T07:00:00.000+01:00

31 unblogged things I did in July

Wed 1: They don't ask the question "Do you know who the Prime Minister is?" any more.
Thu 2: The one foodstuff that hasn't survived the recent sweaty heatwave is my pack of Club biscuits. The fondant/chocolate top has collapsed and melted into the wrapper. Kitkats on the other hand remain structurally intact.
Fri 3: Platform 1 at Kingston station is closed for a week so artists can paint a mural celebrating the town and the railway. I only caught the early daubs but hopefully it'll look great when it's finished.

Sat 4: At Willesden Junction station the tannoy kept repeating the announcement 'Taking videos and photos at this station is not allowed without a permit', and I wonder what the miserable killjoys were objecting to. (it wasn't me)
Sun 5: An unexpected consequence of the Olympic Stadium being in Stratford is that gig-goers often end up boozing at Bow pubs before the show. Thus today Bow Road was amok with Metallica fans in double denim and tour t-shirts, several of them bringing their kids in similar attire. As the opening number drifted in through my French windows I considered sighing, but when I saw that attendees had been invited to attend a Volunteer Opportunity at Bow Foodbank I smiled instead.
Mon 6: On the Overground I spotted a (current) EastEnders actor wearing a straw cowboy hat, cowboy boots and fringed jacket. Perfectly in character.
Tue 7: In the second episode of Radio 4 quiz pilot Your Number's Up, when Alexia and Lewis are "sent down to the Maths Cellar" they were in fact going up to the bar because we recorded it in a pub cellar.
Wed 8: I bought a pint of cider in a pub in Haringey and messed up paying for it three times. First I took out a £10 note and was told they don't do cash. Then I tried to pay by tapping the 'tip jar' device. Then I tapped the wrong part of the card reader. Thankfully the 'tip jar' transaction failed, because the barman definitely didn't deserve £2 for good service.

Thu 9: Spotted the Goodyear Blimp over Woolwich, although unfortunately I was in North Woolwich at the time. Londonist have amazing photos of what it's like to go up in it.
Fri 10: Supermarketwatch: First cucumbers got dearer (79p, 89p, 99p) and now they're just getting shorter, all very uniformly so.
Sat 11: All the cool nerds came to the consultation event, and had I been 40 years younger I'd so have wanted to be one of them.
Sun 12: The fourth pilot Radio 4 quiz show, Around The World in 80 Ways, is fascinating but the rules are hard to follow and so is the contestants' progress across an unseen map. If the plans is to pick two pilots to turn into proper series next year, my hunch is that Déjà News and Your Number's Up will get the nod.
Mon 13: Thanks to everyone who helped explain what 'Cgugqg' meant (I wrote it in my diary on 1st August 1976). It's just 'Canada' in mirror writing, so I'd probably seen the word reflected somewhere.
Tue 14: Shock at midnight as I went to clean my teeth but there was no water in my taps. Not a drop. Annoyingly I'd knocked over my last glass of water an hour earlier. Resorted to Aquafresh with milk. [Thankfully my taps spluttered back into action the following morning, but a reminder of how swiftly normality can fall apart]

Wed 15: The classic Route 66 menswear shop in the rotunda outside Southgate station is holding a Closing Down Sale. All hats and caps half price, also generous reductions on stripy shirts, powder blue jackets and leisure footwear. It's the end of an era. [owner is retiring, not defaulting]
Thu 16: Finally found the latest Richard Osman on the shelf of my local library, only 10 months after publication. It ticked all the boxes (especially the popular culture throwaways) and I finished it in two days flat, but the series is becoming incrementally overfamiliar.
Fri 17: For the first time in 35 years I managed to get to my Dad's house using solely public transport, courtesy of a bus that runs only three times a week. It took approximately three times longer than driving.
Sat 18: Wow, well done England, 3rd place in the World Cup is our best performance since 1966, you'd think the nation would be deliriously happy.
Sun 19: Dug out the family album from our holiday 50 years ago to Canada and the USA, seemingly compiled from just four films. There's me at the Von Trapp lodge, there's my brother at Niagara, there's all of us at Ontario Place, there's me eating a Dairy Queen ice cream sundae and here's the view straight down from the top of the CN Tower. I wish we'd taken more.

Mon 20: Wes Streeting is the second Defence Secretary to have lived in Stepney (following Clement Attlee), and I'm not sure how I feel about him being responsible for keeping our country secure.
Tue 21: On the electronic screen by the Bow Flyover I was surprised to see an advert for the Farnborough International Airshow, specifically for a transatlantic commerce company with a presence at the global arms trading shindig. I cannot work out who thought delegates to an event in Hampshire would be in East London at 9am. However I never saw the advert come round again, even though I watched for ten minutes.
Wed 22: The new Radio 6 Indie Forever stream is a great listen if what you want is near-uninterrupted guitar records with no waffle, no promos and no news. So far my favourite is Indie Chill which makes excellent background music, although I'm not sure how many different 2-hour segments they've actually produced. The channel seems to be mostly songs from the 2000s, but with just enough earlier stuff to keep me listening.
Thu 23: There are plans for an InPost Parcel Locker to join the street furniture scrum outside Bow Road station. Somehow it'll be Bow Road's first.
Fri 24: You may remember I successfully spotted all 519 pairs of letters at the start of a modern UK vehicle registration plate, that's from AA to YY, and it took 22½ months. Well I had another go starting from scratch and this time it only took 20 months, the final pair being NR which I spotted today in Queensbury.

Sat 25: South Norwood Country Park is looking particularly parched at the moment. It is not alone in this respect.
Sun 26: The Art on the Underground Spaghetti map for young creatives is very good (36 full colour pages with scribbleable gaps) but does go a bit off-piste in places. (Imagine if pride, joy, frustration, etc came in bags of squishy clay to sculpt) (Can a building or a tree be an angel?) (Please draw something you think deserves its own tiny little private sunrise)
Mon 27: The three week closure of Charing Cross station has been very poorly explained. I picked up a leaflet but it has zero useful detail on which lines divert where, only a QR code leading to a Journey Planner. The station itself is hoardinged off with no obvious posters. How do you get to Staplehurst, as one particularly frustrated soul needed to know.
Tue 28: Rest assured I have no intention of revealing the answer to today's Trafalgar Square Treasure Hunt. I deliberately chose clues that would last, so feel free to have a go anytime whenever. [five correct responses so far]
Wed 29: The downstairs Oyster pad at Bow Church has been splattered with something white and mucky for the last four weeks. This means you can't read the display and it's hard to see the coloured LED light up. This is particularly important given the pad doesn't beep (so as not to annoy the neighbours) so visual confirmation is essential. It's currently annoying lots of passengers who can't tell if they've tapped in or out properly, and all because nobody's come to clean.

Thu 30: The digital blind on the front of SL3 Superloop buses now has an extra blob saying 'Limited Stop' between the destination and route number.
Fri 31: Hampstead did indeed end the month without measurable rain, the first 100% dry month ever recorded. Records go back to 1871. July 2026 was also the sunniest and warmest month on record. Total sunshine hours were 324 hours (beating July 1911 with 312). The average daily maximum temperature was 28.6°C (beating July 2006 and July 2018 with 27.2°C).

King Edward Memorial Park Foreshore

2026-08-02T07:00:00.000+01:00

It took nine years to build the Thames Tideway tunnel from Acton to Abbey Mills, a massive drainage project to detain and divert London's Victorian sewage overflows. But it's taken even longer to finish off the additional public realm on top of the capped shafts, with the last of seven offshore worksites now finally transformed. It's the King Edward Memorial Park Foreshore and by extending into the Thames it's made the east London park 8% larger. [8 photos]

King Edward Memorial Park hugs the river where Wapping meets Shadwell and has already been infiltrated by another tunnel shaft. The Rotherhithe Tunnel passes directly underneath because Edwardian engineers decided this was the ideal spot for a ventilation shaft and also a spiral staircase for pedestrians (not used since the 1970s). The road is 23m down and the Tideway Tunnel more like 60m so there was no chance of the two ever clashing, but the new bore does in fact pass directly beneath the old shaft.

The park was a bit glum during the years of construction blighted by a large worksite on land, a large cofferdam offshore and a lot of cranes and silos digging 19 storeys down. Marshals had to be employed so the Thames Path could cross the access route for the works, which always felt like those passing through were just getting in the way. But now the last construction workers are packing to leave, the access road has been transformed into a welcoming path and local residents are getting used to having a great new viewpoint on their doorstep.

The new protruding foreshore is 70m long and half that wide, with almost all the good stuff around the perimeter. Steps lead down at both ends to a riverside terrace from which passing Clippers and a Rotherhithe panorama can be enjoyed. The lower path has warning signs saying Beware Flood Zone which isn't bluster, it's because higher tides are intended to overtop the river wall onto the lower walkway "providing an opportunity for the public to dip their toes into the river". Sooner you than me. Another sign says Warning During cold weather there is a possible risk of Slip Conditions', which is either stating the bleeding obvious or because they could have thought harder about creating a safer surface.

There's seating throughout, much of it traditional benches with plaques commemorating those who passed away during the construction of the project. Elsewhere are chunky long wooden slatted things that swoosh round the lower terrace, all with the idea of facilitating a communal gathering point because it's much nicer to sit here than in the rest of the park. I had to contend with a resident making a loud phonecall which rather put a damper on a desire to pause awhile, although I imagine on a fine summer's evening the cacophony could be much louder.

Every Tideway foreshore project has some art and here it's Cargoes by sculptor Hew Locke. He's created some absolutely gorgeous bronze boats, each up to a metre long and begging to be touched, which is just as well because one toddler was absolutely going for it. I found four and couldn't work out the theme, perhaps boats that used to ply trade here? Apparently they represent the far-reaching impact of Britain’s maritime power and trading empire on diverse ethnic, social and economic groups across different periods and communities while reflecting on boats as vessels for travel, trade and transformation and as metaphors for human passage. Also there are six so I completely missed a couple - the full list is tug, Chinese junk, flat barge, carrack, Thames barge and Bangladesh riverboat - so look more carefully if you visit.

Up top the chief points of interest are the twin ventilation shafts that appear at every Tideway site, beautifully sculpted in cast iron. They're called vortex columns, resemble weird upward trumpets and here feature a linework pattern inspired by the grilles in the Rotherhithe Tunnel Rotunda. The plaza alongside is extensive and mostly blank apart from a heck of a lot of inspection hatches, because they've hidden a functioning maintenance interface in plain sight. One brass circle does however mark the precise outline of the shaft directly below, so if you're squeamish about heights you might want to avoid standing over the 60m drop.

A plaque reveals that the Duke of Gloucester officially opened King Edward Memorial Park Foreshore last September, or rather lifted a white cloth off the plaque in the bandstand, then walked around and stroked the art while talking to its creators. You may not get the VIP treatment but you have the advantage that you can visit after the site's been fully completed and see it at its best. You might even want to get your feet wet, in which case the weekend of 15th/16th August looks to have a particularly high tide. Also this is just one of seven Thames Tideway foreshore extensions so you could attempt to visit the full set, also the various similarly decorated sites that aren't actually on the river.

It's been a right mess along the river while the Tideway Tunnel was being constructed, but thankfully they've tidied up and arguably left things better than they were before.

Putney Embankment → Chelsea Quay → Heathwall → Effra Quay → Tyburn Quay → Bazalgette Embankment → King Edward Memorial Park

Underblogged July

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

Slim Summer Saturday

31 underblogged things I did in July

Wed 1: Malted wheats for breakfast.
Thu 2: The buzzer wasn't working.
Fri 3: Surrounded by school trip.
Sat 4: Freezer so needed defrosting.
Sun 5: Victoria didn't have any.
Mon 6: Sara Cox pefectly adequate.
Tue 7: It's always New Malden.
Wed 8: Photo of five shoes.
Thu 9: Aww, Bonnie Tyler's died.
Fri 10: Lawnmower shop still trading.
Sat 11: Chatted with the architect.
Sun 12: Slightly overcooked pizza, meh.
Mon 13: Hurrah, Only Connect's back.
Tue 14: Awake much too early.
Wed 15: A dry St Swithins.
Thu 16: Sorry I hit you.
Fri 17: 219 unread emails, sorted.
Sat 18: Massive party across paddock.
Sun 19: It could be Remy.
Mon 20: Farewell Hot Podium Guy.
Tue 21: Cider House is booked.
Wed 22: To Carshalton and back.
Thu 23: Flight Patterns proved hypnotic.
Fri 24: Prog Rock Prom excellent.
Sat 25: Much better around dogs.
Sun 26: Romford got a downpour.
Mon 27: Sold out of crumpets!
Tue 28: Enjoyed Ben Elton's autobiography.
Wed 29: Stupidly wore long sleeves.
Thu 30: Met the line lady.
Fri 31: It was under France.

August preview

2026-07-31T12:00:00.000+01:00

It looks like being a cracking August on diamond geezer!

Come back next month to discover where two confectionery dynasties coincide, which boundary is only 75m long, why Svalbard is the place to be, which pad got splattered, whether Kitkats survive heatwaves, when my freezer was defrosted, which metro station has two apostrophes, when Hastings goes dark, whether St Swithin was right, where Local History month is heading, why orangeade is so disappointing, when the 500s vanish, whether the museum shimmers, which Brent road is named after a cinema, what the cablecar is like, whether a tree can be an angel, whether the gamble paid off, how long I've been showerless and when the Chiswick Dog Show is.

TfL FoI requests in July 2026

2026-07-31T07:00:00.000+01:00

30 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in July 2026

1) In Spring 2026 3,294 users of the Blackwall Tunnel appealed against a £180 fine on the basis that they were unaware of the tunnel charging scheme. All were rejected.
2) Hidden London have scheduled ten BSL tours since a first trial in 2024. The best-selling was at Holborn in July 2025 (6 tickets sold), whereas three tours (Clapham South, Baker Street and Baker Street) have been cancelled due to zero sales.
3) All directly-employed frontline operational staff attend a mandatory one-day in-person Conflict Management Training course.
4) During the last financial year the three most common contraventions on TfL red routes were i) stopping where prohibited (370,524), ii) being in a Bus Lane (163,912) and iii) entering and stopping in a box junction when prohibited (104,117).
5) Confirmed - there are no longer any plans to implement platform edge doors on the Piccadilly line.

6) 69,001 Penalty Fare Notices were issued during the last financial year - 26% on buses, 20% on the Elizabeth line, 18% on the Overground, 17% on the Underground, 10% on the DLR and 9% on trams.
7) TfL Visitor Information Centres are no longer capable of printing paper (magnetic) tickets.
8) From 5 July to 31 October, as part of a trial, the maximum fare for failing to touch in/out on some National Rail routes outside London has been raised to £30.50. This is "to encourage customers to complete their journeys correctly". Refunds can only be claimed by telephone. [they kept that quiet]
9) The Big Red Book, which offers 216 pages of guidance to bus drivers on how best to serve their passengers, is now permanently linked on the TfL website at tfl.gov.uk/big-red-book.pdf
10) On all bus routes speed cushions should be a maximum of 1700mm wide (including side slopes).

11) Over the last year, Tube replacement bus services operated for the equivalent of 340 days with a total Peak Vehicle Requirement of 3,994.
12) 30 bus stops had CCTV fitted to the shelter as part of a 2024 trial to improve passenger safety. Croydon has four such stops, sixteen boroughs have none.
13) The rerouting of route 224 is planned to take place on 28 November 2026. The scheme has been delayed so that the London Borough of Ealing can carry out resurfacing work during the school summer holiday.
14) On Sundays (and Bank holidays), those travelling from Shoeburyness to Bletchley are permitted 375 minutes before a Maximum Fare penalty kicks in, the widest leeway of any contactless journey.
15) On an average weekday, the London Underground's consumption of electric power peaks around 8.30am with a subsidiary peak around 5.30pm. Consumption drops to 20% of the maximum around 3am. At the weekend the peak comes at 5.30pm, but is near-peak from noon to 7pm.

16) The reason why southbound trains at Croxley station never appear on the TfL Go app is because live arrivals on Trackernet are not shown until the train has left Watford. This is expected to be rectified in May 2027 when the 4LM project reaches the Watford branch.
17) Since 2019 temperatures over 35°C have been recorded on the platforms at four zone 1 stations - Covent Garden, Marble Arch, Paddington and Tottenham Court Road. The maximum was 35.63°C on the Central line at Tottenham Court Road in July 2019.
18) Last year black cab drivers handed in £6066.72 cash as lost property, of which only £40 went unclaimed.
19) There are 28 different lift diagrams at Tottenham Court Road station. Whitechapel has 27, Liverpool Street 23, Farringdon 22, Bond Street 20, Paddington 17 and Canary Wharf just 12.
20) Between 1 June 2024 to 31 May 2026 there were no recorded instances of London buses or other TfL vehicles colliding with horses.

21) TfL have withdrawn their estimate that there are half a million mice living across the London Underground network. This is because "given the passage of time and having carried out all reasonable searches, we cannot find any record of where the figure originally came from or on what methodology it was based."
22) TfL still print an initial allocation of 4 million paper tube maps per year at a cost of around £80,000. The artist's fee for the cover comes from Art on the Underground’s allocated budget and does not exceed £5,575.
23) When the 2024 tube stock on the Piccadilly line finally enters passenger service it will have new announcements.
24) Over the last two years rail grinding has taken place on 2977m of Victoria line track between Highbury & Islington and Finsbury Park. No grinding is planned here for the remainder of the year.
25) TfL can't tell you when your great grandad passed out as a taxi driver, sorry, because they only started regulating the service in 2000.

26) Route 186 has been removed from Harrow Bus Station to address overcrowding (too many vehicles at the bus station) and to provide a faster more direct journey for through passengers.
27) The glass lighting panels on the Elizabeth line escalators at Whitechapel station are deep cleaned weekly. If excessive dust is present between the cleans, additional cleans are implemented. [it's clearly not often enough]
28) In the last financial year the revenue generated from ULEZ charges and enforcement activity was £162m. The surplus remaining after removing operating costs and capital financing charges was £118m.
29) TfL measure tube fleet reliability via a metric called Mean Distance Between Failures (MDBF). This is calculated by dividing the number of actual kilometres operated by the number of incidents with a delay of 2 minutes or more. Last year the most reliable rolling stock was on the Circle, H&C and District lines which went an average of 18500km between failures, followed by the Victoria line with 17500km. Next came the Metropolitan (16500km), Northern (14000km), Piccadilly (12500km) and Jubilee (10000km). Rolling stock was least reliable on the Waterloo & City (4000km), Central (4500km) and Bakerloo (7500km). [the Central line is shockingly unreliable]
30) TfL have 14 employees whose primary address is in Scotland. Two of these started work in 2026.

Twenty-nine plus

2026-07-30T08:00:00.000+01:00

Every year I update my table of thirty-plus temperatures, as recorded at Hampstead.
Here's how we left things last year.

Dates on which the temperature at Hampstead reached 30°C

	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep
2010		27	9/10
2011		27
2012			25	18
2013			13 15/16/17 22	1
2014			18
2015			1	22
2016			18/19/20	24	13
2017		17/18/19/20/21	6
2018			5/6/7/8 15 23 25/26/27	2/3 6/7
2019		29	23/24/25	25/26/27
2020		24/25/26	31	7/8/9/10/11/12
2021			18/19/20
2022		17	11/12 17/18/19	11/12/13/14
2023		11 25			6/7 9/10
2024			19 30	12
2025		19 21 28/29/30	1 10/11/12 18	11/12

» in red: reached 33°C
» in red & bold: reached 35°C
» in red & bold & underlined: reached 37°C

And here's what 2026 looks like so far...

	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep
2026	23/24/25/26 28 30	19 23/24/25/26/27	6/7/8/9/10 29	tbc	tbc

That is a fairly astonishing start to the summer, and there's still August and September to go.

• Hampstead's never had temperatures above 30°C in May before. This year it had six days.
• So far this year eighteen days have had a temperature above 30°C. The previous maximum was thirteen.
• So far eight days have had a temperature above 33°C. The previous maximum was five.
• So far three days have had a temperature above 35°C. The previous maximum was two.

What's more the temperature at Hampstead nearly reached 30°C on several further occasions, but I can't count that.
It did reach 30°C at Heathrow, which isn't at such an elevated location, but I can't count that either.

Amazingly Heathrow has hit 30°C on 25 days so far this year.
For perspective, in whole of the 1980s there were only 21 such days.
Now that's climate change.

What I have done is update my table to show all the dates with a temperature of 29°C or above.
Any recorded maximum of 'twenty-nine point something' is shown as a dot.
I've only included May, June and July.

Dates on which the temperature at Hampstead reached 29°C

	May	Jun	Jul
2010	.	27.	9/10
2011		.27	.
2012			25
2013			13 15/16/17 22
2014			18
2015		.	1
2016			18/19/20
2017		17/18/19/20/21	6.
2018		.	. 5/6/7/8 15 23.25/26/27
2019		29	23/24/25
2020		24/25/26	.31
2021			18/19/20.
2022		.17	11/12 17/18/19
2023		.11 25	.
2024		.	19 30
2025		19.21 28/29/30	1 10/11/12 18
2026	23/24/25/26 28 30	19 . 23/24/25/26/27	.6/7/8/9/10.. . .. .29

» small dot: reached 29°C
» in red: reached 33°C
» in red & bold: reached 35°C
» in red & bold & underlined: reached 37°C

There were only 15 twenty-nine-point something days from 2010-2025.
This month has had seven.

Previously the year with the most days above 29°C was 2018, with 12 days.
So far 2026 has had 26. That's just dotty.

Hampstead's also recorded zero rainfall so far this month, with no rain on the way.
July is baked in to be the first month ever to record zero rainfall.
But the drought is another story...

Bus consultation news

2026-07-30T07:00:00.000+01:00

Bus consultation news

TfL have published three consultations shaking up several north London bus routes, including killing off two. It's all to fit their agenda of simplifying the bus network, reducing duplication and minimising the number of empty seats.

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

🚌 Route 67 (Dalston Jn - Wood Green) has been somewhat runty since TfL curtailed the southern end from Aldgate to Dalston in 2019. This consultation proposes to axe it completely. In mitigation route 149 (London Bridge - Edmonton Green) would take over the Wood Green to Stamford Hill section, thereby abandoning three miles up the High Road to Edmonton. The 149 is London's 2nd busiest bus route so many people are up in arms that TfL propose to divert it somewhere less useful. TfL say it's all about capacity and the A10 still has too much, even after route 349 is axed in September. [details]

This graphic appears in the consultation (and a round of applause to whoever chose to include it). Currently the 149 runs the whole length of this diagram, but in future it won't be possible for passengers to ride from Edmonton Green to the City in one go, it'll take at least two buses. TfL estimate that 15% of the 149's current passengers will now be forced to break their journey, which equates to 1.8 million trips annually. This is not "simplifying routeings", this is cutting buses. The worry is that if TfL intend to thin out this corridor comprehensively to save money, which corridor might they screw next?

🚌 Route 253 runs from Euston to Hackney Central and route 254 from Holloway to Aldgate. They overlap considerably for five miles from Holloway to Hackney. The plan is thus to withdraw route 254 completely and leave passengers in the overlap to use the 253. For two miles they could also use the 310, the strictly unnecessary bus introduced to connect the Jewish communities of Golders Green and Stamford Hill. South of Hackney they can always use the 106, which is being extended by 1 mile from Whitechapel to Aldgate to cover the 254's loss. Yes you might have to wait longer for a bus once the 254's gone, but TfL are more focused on their efficiencies than your time. [details]

🚌 Route 42 (East Dulwich to Liverpool Street) often gets clogged up in traffic, in part because it crosses Tower Bridge which goes up and down a lot. It's thus one of London's least reliable bus routes and passenger numbers have dropped by a third since 2021. The plan is thus to terminate it south of Tower Bridge on Tooley Street, not north of Tower Bridge in the City, cutting out the bascule jams altogether. The rationale is that displaced passengers can always switch to route 78 on Tower Bridge Road, even though none of them will enjoy waiting for another bus which might also be delayed by a ship. [details]

The three consultations end on 20th September. Perhaps scream about the 149 the loudest.

Here's a quick summary of where we are with forthcoming bus changes.

This Saturday: 91 extended, 123 shortened, 232 diverted [details]
15th August: 209 restructured, 378 twiddled, 485 diverted, 533 withdrawn [details]
5th September: 259 shortened, 279 diverted, 310 diverted, 349 withdrawn, SL12 introduced
28th November: 224 diverted
Sometime: 10 introduced, 19 shortened, 38 shortened; 341 shortened, 444 diverted, 476 extended
Superloop, sometime: SL13, SL14 and SL15 introduced, D8 diverted, E7 extended
Consulted on: 273 de-hailed, 287 diverted, 350 diverted, 394 extended, 424 renumbered 454 and ridiculously shortened
Consultation underway: 42 shortened, 67 withdrawn, 106 extended, 149 diverted, 254 withdrawn

All London's motorways

2026-07-29T07:00:00.000+01:00

All London's motorways

M1: The M1 is the oldest motorway in London but not London's oldest motorway. When the M1 opened on 2nd November 1959 the southern end was J5 at Watford (which is not in London). In 1966 the first extension reached J4 to the south of Elstree (which was marginally in London). In 1968 the second extension reached J2 at Mill Hill (which is definitely in London). In 1977 the final extension reached J1 at Staples Corner, a contorted junction with the North Circular. There had originally been plans for the M1 to reach Marble Arch but thankfully they were binned at an early stage.

Traffic joining the M1 in London cannot exit the motorway before J5 at Watford. J2 only allows northbound traffic in and southbound traffic out (to the A1). J4 only allows northbound traffic in and southbound traffic out (to the A41). There never was a J3 because the proposed connection to the A1 at Stirling Corner was cancelled, so the spur roads here now only provide access to Scratchwood services. People still call it that even though it was renamed London Gateway services in 1998. The guns on HMS Belfast are deliberately trained on Scratchwood Services, so it's just as well they can no longer fire.

M2: The M2 does not enter London, it starts 10 miles outside.
M3: The M3 does not enter London but blimey it gets close. The A316 comes swooshing down past Kempton Steam Museum, crosses the Surrey boundary and just 500m later the dual carriageway morphs into a motorway at Sunbury Cross.

M4: The M4 starts at the Chiswick flyover, which was opened in 1959 by the Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield. A 1½ mile elevated section continues above the original A4 running to the north of Brentford, and this became the A4(M) in 1961. The new motorway later continued across the Brent valley on concrete stilts, descended round the edge of Osterley Park and drove on west past Heathrow. At Slough it joined an existing section of motorway, formally becoming the M4 on 24th March 1965. This was one week before the county of Middlesex disappeared, hence the M4 became Greater London's first motorway on 1st April.

Heston service station has two disjoint halves and is located close to J3. The westbound side opened on 4th March 1967 and the eastern side on 3rd January 1968. J4 is for the spur to Heathrow Airport, which is also designated the M4 and which also opened on 24th March 1965. Originally the next junction was outside London but construction of the M25 demanded a new stacked connection designated J4B. The Thorney Interchange opened on 19th December 1985 and is now Britain's busiest motorway junction. Traffic on the M4 exits London as the motorway crosses the Bigley Ditch.

M5/M6: The M5 and M6 do not enter London.
M7: There is no M7.
M8/M9: The M8 and M9 do not enter London.
M10: The M10 no longer exists, and never entered London anyway.

M11: The M11 connects London to Cambridge and was opened in stages between 1975 and 1980, the southern end in 1977. Only two miles of the motorway are inside Greater London, much of this formed of slip roads from the North Circular. It had originally been planned to continue the M11 as far as Islington as part of the GLC's misguided Ringways plan but that all fell apart, much to inner London's great relief. The junction at South Woodford was numbered 4 just in case 3, 2 and 1 were ever built.
M12: The M12 would also have started at South Woodford, heading east to Brentwood to act as a much-needed bypass for the A12 Eastern Avenue. It was never built, although the M11 still rises up so the non-existent M12 could pass underneath. Had it not fallen foul of a GLC change of administration it could have been a mighty useful connection.
M15: The M15 would also have started at South Woodford and was pencilled in to head south towards Beckton. The road was indeed built but not fully to motorway standard and is now part of the North Circular, i.e. the A406.

M20/M23/M26: The M20, M23 and M26 do not enter London, but both start less than two miles outside so nearly do.

M25: The M25 is London's orbital motorway, running 117 miles in an almost-loop broken only at the Dartford Crossing. It comprises parts of Ringway 3 and Ringway 4, a more comprehensive 1960s project that was never completed. The northern half was originally going to be called the M16. The first section to open was between South Mimms (J23) and Potters Bar (J24) in September 1975, though not yet designated a motorway. The M25 loop was completed when Margaret Thatcher cut a ribbon near South Mimms in October 1986, telling pessimists not to carp and criticise. Only three sections of the motorway are actually in Greater London, all on the boundary: west near Heathrow (J14-J15), north round Enfield (J24-J25) and east past Brentwood (J28-J29). North Ockendon is the only settlement in London to lie outside the M25. Congestion has seen much of the motorway widened to four lanes.

M40: The M40 does not enter London but blimey it gets close, starting just quarter of a mile into Buckinghamshire at the Denham roundabout.
A40(M): The Westway was one of the most unpopular roads ever to be built in Britain, carving an eight-lane concrete viaduct through the terraces of Paddington and North Kensington. Demolition and construction took most of the 1960s, the road eventually opening on 28th July 1970 as the A40(M). The furious public reaction to its creation effectively killed off most of the urban motorways then being planned. It remained a motorway for three decades until May 2000 when all main roads in the capital were transferred to a new body called Transport for London. However TfL had no legislative power to be the authority in charge of motorways so the road had to become the plain A40, which it still is.

M41: The tiny M41 was built by the GLC as part of their Ringway 1 project. This invasive inner loop would have demolished a swathe of inner London and got built here because not much needed to be demolished. Opened in 1970, the M41 connected the Westway at Ladbroke Grove to the Holland Park roundabout and was just three-quarters of a mile long. But it too fell foul of the transfer to TfL and is now the plain A3220. Cyclists remain prohibited from using it.

A102(M): Also part of the planned London Motorway Box, this 1½ mile dual carriageway connected Hackney Wick to the Bow Roundabout. This East Cross Route was intended to funnel traffic from the M11 towards the Blackwall Tunnel, but the M11 never got this far and so only the eastern edge of Bow ended up multiply-demolished to create the new A102(M). South of the river a separate section of the A102(M) sliced through Blackheath ending at the Sun-in-the-Sands roundabout on Shooters Hill Road, and this was opened on 25 April 1969. Both were declassified due to the aforementioned TfL administrative issue, becoming part of the A12 and A102 respectively.

That's the 1200-word version anyway. See Roads.org.uk, Pathetic Motorways, Sabre and Wikipedia for far far more detail.

Trafalgar Square Treasure Hunt

2026-07-28T07:00:00.000+01:00

The summer holidays are here so let's go on a Trafalgar Square Treasure Hunt!

Here are clues to ten letters of the alphabet, all of which are to be found in or around Trafalgar Square. Can you find all ten and then jumble them up to make a word associated with the square?

Letter 1: This bus stop on the east side of the square has a rainbow flag roundel, added in 2017 as part of London's Pride celebrations. But what's the letter on top of the bus stop?

(This is the easiest question in the treasure hunt. It's so easy you can easily discover the answer even while sitting at home. But that's not really in the spirit of the challenge so for almost all of what follows you do actually have to turn up and explore)

Letter 2: Surrounding Nelson's Column are four dodgy lions, two gushing fountains and probably an awful lot of tourists taking photos. But look down for a change at the drains and inspection hatches set into the surface of the square. These were provided by a company in Essex whose name is written in the centre of the drain covers, also in the centre of the metal covers with the diagonal hatching. The company's name is four letters long. What's the last letter in their name?

Letter 3: The grand staircase on the north side of the square was added in 2002 (using stones from the wall that had to be dismantled to build it). One step up from the bottom are a series of brass plaques. These are part of the Imperial Standards of Length, installed in 1876 to allow the public to check the accuracy of their measuring devices. The brass plaques stretching off to the left measure 'feet'. What do the brass plaques stretching off to the right measure? Take the first letter of this archaic unit.

Letter 4: Next to the very centre of London. The capital's first equestrian statue was placed on the site of the original Charing Cross in 1675. It depicts the highly beheadable monarch Charles I and is famous as the point from which all distances to London are measured. The statue now sits at the centre of a traffic island and is surrounded by a ring of five very old bollards. Each of these bollards features four letters of the alphabet beneath a crown. What's the first letter?

Letter 5: The bookstore Waterstones occupies the corner site where once stood The Grand Hotel, a 500-room hospitality behemoth. The shop appears small on entry but a spiral staircase in the centre leads down to a much larger basement. Here are the majority of the fiction books, also a large travel section, a lot of history, a scant few magazines and a decent collection of board games. Look at the subject headings on the wall closest to the till. What's the subject heading inbetween Biography and Fashion? Again, first letter please.

(I'm aware that Waterstones might be closed when you come on this treasure hunt, in which case here's an alternative clue for letter 5. Find the long metal information panel at the foot of Nelson's column, facing the traffic. What's the illustrator's first initial?)

Letter 6: The panoramic plaque outside South Africa House has dulled somewhat since a famous person with a very appropriate name turned up to unveil it in July 1996. The explanatory text points out that the building behind you is the South African High Commission, not the South African Embassy, and was designed by Sir Herbert Baker. The explanatory text was written by a member of RIBA's Design Unit and for this clue you need the first letter of his surname.

Letter 7: St Martin-in-The Fields is sometimes known as 'the church of the ever open door', and has been since the Reverend Dick Sheppard opened up the crypt 24/7 during WW1. Learn more at the church's special 300th anniversary exhibition adjacent to the reasonably priced cafe. For this clue however you need to go into the main church and find the memorial to the Sharpshooters on the back wall. At the top of the third column find the commemorated soldiers whose initials are EJ and PG. What's the first letter of their surnames?

(In case the ever-open church isn't open, head to the Fourth Plinth and find the Trafalgar Square byelaws posted underneath. What's the first letter of the first word in the final paragraph in the first column?)

Letter 8: The National Portrait Gallery occupies a prime spot on the corner of Trafalgar Square and is an excellent way of whiling away an hour. Here are three chances to identify Letter 8. In Room 18, which couple's portraits hang above George Romney (first letter of their surname)? In Room 19, whose portrait hangs to the left of Charles Darwin (first letter of her first name)? In Room 28 whose portrait hangs to the left of Paul Smith (first letter of his surname). No rush, enjoy your look around.

(In case the National Portrait Gallery isn't open, find the marvellously ornate triple-headed lamp standard on the traffic island at the top of The Mall. Which company manufactured it? Take the second letter of the family surname)

Letter 9: The National Gallery is a world-class warren of fine art, but an awkward place to site a clue because paintings sometimes shuffle around or disappear. Van Gogh's Sunflowers, for example, is on loan to Philadelphia until 11th October. Instead find my favourite summery painting, Bathers at Asnières by Seurat, and take a while to admire the spotty composition. Then check out the explanatory text alongside, stop at the end of the first paragraph and note down the last letter of the last word. That's letter 9.

(In case the National Gallery isn't open, find the entrance to the Canada Gallery and look for the warning sign by the lift platform to the right of the door. It's in two languages. The English version starts with D, how does the French version start?)

Letter 10: Finally head to the corner of Cockspur Street where a well-photographed red phone kiosk stands near the steps up to Canada House. Open the door, steel yourself for the inevitable smell of urine and make a note of the box's phone number. We're interested in the ninth digit, immediately before the '87' at the end. Translate this digit into a letter using the code A=1, B=2, C=3, etc. And we're done.

You should now have ten letters, and all you need to do is jumble them up to make a word associated with the square. Simply email that word to me (the address is at the top of the right hand column on the blog) for the chance to appear in this celebratory winners box.

The first seven solvers of the
Trafalgar Square Treasure Hunt

  1) Matt S (2h 36m)
  2) John A (11h 12m)
  3) Sophia & Arda (1d 5h)
  4) Nic, Aurora and Charlie (4d 7h)
  5) John T (4d 10h)
  6) Ms Wibble (15d)
  7)

Please don't post your answers in the comments box, nor reveal any of the individual letters, because nobody likes a show-off who ruins the fun. And happy searching.

Ultimate London World Cup

2026-07-27T07:00:00.000+01:00

What if all the places in London competed in a knockout competition to see which was best? It'd be like the World Cup but without the football, just an enormous branching chain of towns, suburbs and other settlements. All you'd need is a huge list and a willingness to make hundreds of subjective geographical judgements. Who would win this Ultimate London World Cup?

I'm game, so first of all I made a list. I looked at all 32 boroughs, not including the City because that's atypical (and because it was very likely to win otherwise). For each borough I listed eight of its most important settlements, which was much harder for Barking & Dagenham than for Westminster. That gave me an enormous list of 32×8 = 256 London places, which I then shuffled into an entirely random order.

256 is of course a power of 2 which allows me to create a perfect knockout tournament with no byes. This starts with the Round of 256, moves onto the Round of 128, then the Round of 64 and Round of 32, by which point it's just like a FIFA fever dream. All that's then needed is the Round of 16, the Quarter Finals and the Semi Finals before crowning London's best place in a glorious Final after a total of 255 knockout matches.

Here's the very top of my shuffled list showing the first 32 places (and the first 16 matches).

Let's start knocking them out.

Round of 256

Sutton v Leyton
I know I've always said Sutton's dull but it has more going for it than Leyton, sorry Leyton, but a League One football club and a big Asda don't beat a proper ex-Surrey town. (winner: Sutton)

Archway v Highams Park
I like Highams Park but it's a bit sleepy, whereas Archway has buzz, a historic bridge and a cat statue. (winner: Archway)

Chadwell Heath v Surbiton
It'd be a shock if anywhere in Barking & Dagenham did well and no, Chadwell Heath cannot beat Margo & Jerry's prime suburban bolthole. (winner: Surbiton)

Stamford Hill v Isle of Dogs
Both are worth exploring but the inner Thames meander has so much more to offer. (winner: Isle of Dogs)

Beckton v Eltham
No debate here. (winner: Eltham)

Old Oak Common v Welling
Even though Welling has nothing much it still beats Old Oak Common, which might be amazing eventually but for now is mostly an enormous building site. (winner: Welling)

Walworth v Chelsea Harbour
These are two very different places, almost top and bottom of the social spectrum. I'd like gritty Walworth to beat the artificial luxury bolthole but alas it doesn't. (winner: Chelsea Harbour)

New Addington v Harold Hill
Wow, battle of the huge out-of-town council estates. New Addington wins for its more rural setting. (winner: New Addington)

Clapton v Harrow-on-the-Hill
It's almost unfair, the gap between these two. (winner: Harrow-on-the-Hill)

Penge v Belmont
To be clear that's Belmont in Sutton not Belmont in Harrow. I would rather go to Penge any day. (winner: Penge)

Northolt v Woodford
An interesting battle, the Ealing outlier versus the Redbridge suburb. I lean to the latter. (winner: Woodford)

Roundshaw v Harefield
The Roundshaw estate wouldn't be in the draw if Sutton had eight genuinely interesting locations. (winner: Harefield)

Bowes Park v Northwood
The North Circular despoils Bowes Park, so Metro-land it is. (winner: Northwood)

Hampton v Acton
Hampton's not quite Hampton Court, it's further west and lowlier, so the Ealing suburb triumphs. (winner: Acton)

Sanderstead v Covent Garden
My auntie will be disappointed but it'll take a more captivating place to defeat Covent Garden. (winner: Covent Garden)

Shepherd's Bush v Malden Rushett
To say Malden Rushett is an underdog would be an understatement. (winner: Shepherd's Bush)

There are still 112 first round matches to go so I'd best stop there for now.
Instead let's go back and send those winners into the next round.

Round of 128

Sutton v Archway
Archway has contours, history and class (in parts), plus it's not Sutton. (winner: Archway)

Surbiton v Isle of Dogs
What exactly are we comparing here? Either could triumph depending on the criteria, but I choose the former. (winner: Surbiton)

Eltham v Welling
This is an unexpectedly local derby! But no contest, sorry. (winner: Eltham)

Chelsea Harbour v New Addington
The luxury enclave's over-rated but I couldn't with good conscience choose the council estate. (winner: Chelsea Harbour)

Harrow-on-the-Hill v Penge
Byron's poetic inspiration was the hilltop public school, not the comic suburb. (winner: Harrow-on-the-Hill)

Woodford v Harefield
Woodford's too homogeneous so I pick the village with world class cardiac expertise. (winner: Harefield)

Northwood v Acton
Northwood's too homogeneous so I pick the leafy suburb where Waitrose has its origins. (winner: Acton)

Covent Garden v Shepherd's Bush
Both attract daytrippers but what they've done with the old fruit & veg market beats the modern mega-Westfield. (winner: Covent Garden)

Round of 64

Archway v Surbiton
One has the Thames and the first Modernist railway station, the other has the A1 and that awful tower block. (winner: Surbiton)

Eltham v Chelsea Harbour
Chelsea thinks it's posh but Eltham has an actual royal palace with art deco whimsy. (winner: Eltham)

Harrow-on-the-Hill v Harefield
Winston Churchill never went to school in Harefield (nor Benedict Cumberbatch, nor the bloke who founded Pret A Manger). (winner: Harrow-on-the-Hill)

Acton v Covent Garden
Sometimes you just know which of the two has to win out. (winner: Covent Garden)

Round of 32

Surbiton v Eltham
I thought Surbiton would have been kicked out by now, but Eltham is not the place to do it. (winner: Surbiton)

Harrow-on-the-Hill v Covent Garden
Erm, I think I might need your help on this one. Two near-great places, but which is greater? (winner: ????)

And once that last battle's been decided we're into the...

Round of 16

Surbiton v Harrow-on-the-Hill or Covent Garden
Surbiton loses this battle no matter what, so it all comes down to who wins Harrow-on-the-Hill v Covent Garden.

Phew that was a lot of knockouting, eventually whittling the first 32 places down to just one.

To complete the entire draw would take another seven posts like this, followed by a grand finale where I run through the Quarter Finals, Semis and the Final. I might go all the way and subject you to the whole thing.

Or we might just accept that the obvious place is certain to win. The random draw and knockout phases are entirely superfluous when London's best place is baked in from the start.

Kingston Vale

2026-07-26T07:00:00.000+01:00

A Nice Walk: Kingston Vale (½ mile)

Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, plenty of variety, bikes, horse manure, arterial road, sports ground, signs of autumn, wet dogs, sunshine and shade, a bit of a stroll, won't take long. So here's a walk in southwest London that crosses four different boroughs in just half a mile, nowhere near enough to make a day of it but a nice walk all the same.

Richmond upon Thames

The walk starts on the southeast edge of Richmond Park (for which I apologise because there's no station within two miles [as previously blogged]). Specifically we're just inside the Robin Hood Gate by the car park, not that there are many cars because through traffic was banned a few years ago and now it's mostly bikes. I counted upwards of 50 bikes in one minute, that's how busy the perimeter road is at the weekend, so very much a helmeted domain. I have however never previously seen a sign saying 'Cyclists Caution Roundabout may be slippery', indeed you'd think they'd just de-slip the surface rather than leaving the cobbly disc in situ. Also there's a bus stop here for free-to-ride route RP1 [as previously blogged, obviously], which might be a good way to get here if it's Monday, Wednesday or Friday.

What a lot of signs there are here, also 'Watch Your Speed', also 'Raised Pedestrian Crossing', also 'Road Closed Cyclists and Permit Holders Only', also 'Richmond Park National Nature Reserve', also 'Capital Ring' [as previously blogged]. I learned from further signs that you mustn't take dogs or bikes into the public toilets, also which telephone numbers to ring if you get trapped in the park after hours, also that you shouldn't pick the park's chestnuts. Almost as common as cyclists on a weekend morning are the joggers, some brazenly topless, most clutching bottles, perhaps running a full circuit of the Tamsin Trail [as previously blogged]. Likely no deer will be visible here, it is a bit peripheral, but if deer do give you the willies then perhaps come back in August which is the sole summer month not beset by birthing or rutting.

Obviously Richmond Park is a much better place for a walk than where we're going, as frequently proven [and as previously blogged]. But to cover four boroughs in fifteen minutes we need to leave the park here by passing Robin Hood Lodge towards the Robin Hood Gate. The legendary Sherwood hero obviously never visited Richmond, merely used to have a local pub named after him, itself thought to be named after festivities Henry VIII once enjoyed locally. The water fountain by the toilets is your last chance for refreshment on this walk, also the bowl underneath may prove invaluable for any canine companions. And if you're wondering why the path now smells of manure, you can find out why by stepping through the gate and entering...

Kingston upon Thames

Ah look it's Stag Lodge Stables, an Approved Livery Establishment, which according to a sign outside has been on this site since 'circa 1790'. Horses are in and out of here all the time, hence the mounting blocks just inside the entrance and the Saturday girl shovelling poo with a broom. It also explains the lady in thigh high leather boots carrying a whip striding off towards to the car park. The presence of so many horses is also the reason for the rare pegasus crossing at the Robin Hood Roundabout on the A3. These are found only on bridleways and have amusingly high pushbuttons, ideal for reaching on horseback, also they light up with a green horse not a green man when it's safe to cross [as somehow never blogged].

Alongside is a toucan crossing for pedestrians and bikes (two can cross, geddit?) which funnels into a completely separate mid-roundabout corral. Having watched for a while, un-horsed crossers appear to use whichever side of the divide they prefer. You might be waiting for a while as a stream of traffic flows by (hatchbacks, lorries, learners, 4×4s, open-top MGs, the K3, whatever...) in which case why not peruse the Capital Ring signpost (only 14 miles to Crystal Palace Park, only 31 miles to the Woolwich Foot Tunnel). Tucked away to one side is a mysterious hatch which covers the longstanding Kingston Vale sewage pumping station, site of much recent drainage works so best not explored further. And once you are finally across the road it's time to step onto the northwestern tip of Wimbledon Common [as previously blogged]. It's not clear why an additional pegasus pushbutton has been installed some way from the crossing.

Ahead a dry gravel path crosses a part-parched expanse. A lone sign cautions 'No fire No barbecuing', which is always good advice but especially at present. The grass is currently scattered with vetch and occasional feathers, also strange earthen grooves, also that fluff that dandelions leave behind. These are the Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields, and if you're here on a Saturday morning and step through the hedge you can watch the SW19 Swifts practising flyball, a sport I confess I'd never heard of before.

"Flyball is a fast-paced relay race that involves teams of dogs competing against each other. The goal is for each dog to run through a series of hurdles, retrieve a tennis ball from a spring-loaded box and return over the hurdles to their handler."

Alas this walk heads left towards the river, not right into the thick of canine hijinks, but if you've always wanted to have more fun with your lively dog then bear the Swifts in mind. Instead I watched two terriers splashing in the Beverley Brook, one incredibly reticent, as I crossed the footbridge into...

Wandsworth

We're still in the Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields which now spread flat and green to the horizon. It seems premature to see rugby posts in situ already, given at least a dozen goalposts were carted off to the sidelines before the summer. The clubhouse to the left is home to the Thames Hare and Hounds, the world's first cross-country running club, formed in 1868 when members of the Thames Rowing Club wanted something athletic to do in the winter. They still run lots of races around Wimbledon Common including a regular 5-miler on the second Sunday of the month, perhaps the ideal challenge if Saturday's Parkrun hasn't wiped you out. Our walk continues at a more sedate pace along a dusty river-adjacent track overshadowed by oaks, plus we're only doing half a mile and we're nearly done.

Thick woodland cover signals the edge of Wimbledon Common proper, also a noticeboard pointing out that stag beetles are brilliant and oak processionary moths are bad. The recently renovated footbridge goes by the impractical name of the Brasher-Chataway-Bannister Bridge, a tribute to three extremely famous TH&H runners, but don't cross because it leads back into Kingston and we've been there. If you're the dogowner who left a tied-up bag of poo on a post here, shame on you. The shallow dip of the Beverley Brook proves magnetic for many a passing dog, leaping down to splash with new found friends or barking their approval from the rooty bank. But you must never bring more than four four-legged friends onto the common at a time, hence a slew of notices broadcasting this important news on all approaches. Keep your eyes peeled and you may spot the boundary stone that marks the switch into...

Merton

There it is, a parish marker dated 1861 set back a few feet from the river. But that photo's from a previous visit in spring 2022, not summer 2026, because even though I've spotted the stone several times before I couldn't see it this time. I walked back and forth several times checking on my phone precisely where the borough boundary was, even poking through the undergrowth in case it'd got covered over, but to no avail. Either the stone's been damaged or it was underneath the brambles because I can't believe I'd have missed it otherwise, given how ridiculously long a time I spent looking. By the way those brambles are already sporting their first few ripe blackberries, not yet many but a portent that autumn is hurtling through this heatwave to meet us headlong.

On the Merton side of the boundary I met a tiny whippet and a shaky spaniel, rapidly drying off, also a father and son doing some extraordinarily coordinated exercises while sat on Peta Martin's bench. Several more joggers passed, many wearing t-shirts celebrating longer runs than they were doing today bought for an event that wasn't here. A thick stick floated slowly downstream towards Wandsworth because river levels aren't yet critical on the Beverley Brook, also the pink flowers of Himalayan balsam are becoming ever more intrusive on the riverbanks. There's no point continuing further because that's now four boroughs ticked off, a relatively rare achievement over such a short distance. Also don't expect any convenient public transport to whisk you away from this side of the common, it's a hike out whichever way you head, but as short nice walks go that packed a heck of a lot in.

Weekend Hopper

2026-07-25T07:00:00.000+01:00

Slim Summer Saturday

Today sees the start of the Mayor's Weekend Hopper. It means anyone travelling on buses and trams on a Saturday or a Sunday can make unlimited journeys for the price of a single fare. The offer continues until the end of August. But which bus routes to choose for your special £1.75 fare? Here are twenty suggestions.

• 279 → 76 → 77 → 280
• 96 → 53 → 148 → SL8
• 4 → 8 → 1 → 9 → 6 → 7 → 2 → 3
• 112 → 232 → 34 → 123 → SL2
• 35 → G1 → 355 → 57 → 201 → P13 → 185 → 202 → 160 → B16 → 233
• 25 → 344 → 37 → 85 → 465 → 465 → 71 → 85 → 337 → 344 → 25
• H2 → H3
• 8 → 488 → 276 → 339 → 308 → W15 → 236 → 48 → 205 → 25
• 1 → 59 → 68 → 76 → 139 → 172 → 176 → 188 → 243 → 341
• 173 → 174 → 175
• R5 → R10 → R5 → R10 → R5 → R10 → R5 → R10 → R5 → R10 → R5 → R10 → R5
• 492 → R11 → R8 → 464 → 64 → 412 → 166 → 467 → 71 → 216
• 313 → 179 → 275 → 247 → 499 → 346 → 370
• 246 → 246
• 8 → 188 → 486 → 269 → 227 → 157 → 148 → 260 → 240 → 221 → 444 → 385 → 397
• 404 → 434 → 439
• 389 → 399 → 298
• N87 → N20 → N253 → N5 → N29 → N1 → N171 → N73 → N7 → N113 → N18 → N109 → N22 → N97 → N44
• 62
• SL1 → SL2 → 129 → SL11 → SL3 → SL5 → SL7 → SL9 → SL10