diamond geezer

Tower Hamlets local elections 2026

2026-04-11T07:00:00.015+01:00

London's borough councils are up for grabs in the local elections next month, including Tower Hamlets where I live. Sometimes things can go off the rails here so I've had a go at researching who's standing for what, just in case they do again.

But first a quick historical recap.

1964-1982: very safe Labour
1986-1990: Alliance/Liberal Democrat interlude
1994-2002: very safe Labour
2006: no overall control (George Galloway intrudes)
2010: very safe Labour
switch to elected Mayor
2010-2014: Lutfur Rahman swipes it
2015: 2014 election declared void
2015-2018: John Biggs (Labour)
2022-2026: Lutfur Rahman swipes it back

Sorry, my recap includes a prediction of who's going to win the upcoming election, but it's such a dead cert that I won't be wrong.

Council elections were relatively normal in Tower Hamlets until 2009 when a dodgy petition triggered a referendum on introducing an Executive Mayor for the borough. This seismic change passed with 60% of the vote. The subsequent ballot was won by Lutfur Rahman, now running his own party after a massive falling-out with former Labour colleagues. No matter that Labour had 63% of Tower Hamlets councillors, by becoming Mayor Lutfur took full control of everything and the majority opposition could only sit and watch.

Rahman won again in 2014 although the result was much closer, the cursed 52%-48% ratio. But a lot of well dodgy practices had taken place so in 2015 the electoral court declared the previous election void. Labour's John Biggs duly took over after a 55%-45% victory and Lutfur was banned from politics for seven years. But as soon as those seven years were up he came back, stood again and won, because here in Tower Hamlets we have no qualms in voting for a dubious not-quite criminal and gifting him total power.

In 2026 there are nine candidates for Mayor, one of whom is Lutfur who's going to win again.

» Lutfur Rahman: Aspire
» Sirajul Islam: Labour
» Mohammed Hannan: Liberal Democrats
» Hirra Khan: Green
» John Bullard: Reform UK
» Dominic Nolan: Conservative
» Hugo Pierre: Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
» Zami Ali: Tower Hamlets Independents
» Terence McGrenera: Independent

The only credible alternative is Sirajul Islam for Labour, or would be were the party more popular nationally which it absolutely isn't. Labour's John Biggs got 33% of the Mayoral vote last time but that percentage can only go down. No other party got more than 10% in 2022 and the Greens didn't even put forward a candidate. It's entirely possible that the Greens will do rather well in neighbouring Hackney, but this is Tower Hamlets and there's no hope of a Green surge for the Mayoralty.

mini bios
• Lutfur Rahman (Aspire) has been found "personally guilty of corrupt or illegal practices, or both"
• Sirajul Islam (Labour) is the current leader of the opposition on Tower Hamlets council
• Mohammed Hannan (Liberal Democrats) came last in Canary Wharf ward in 2022
• Hirra Khan (Green) co-leads an environmental charity and is also standing as a councillor in Bromley-by-Bow
• John Bullard (Reform) is thus far a mystery, likely parachuted in to fill a gap
• Dominic Nolan (Conservative) has been a councillor in Fife, but won only 6% of the vote in Poplar in 2022
• Hugo Pierre (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) is certainly a trier, this is his 4th Mayoral election
• Zami Ali (Tower Hamlets Independents) has his own website but hasn't added any news since January, a no-hoper
• Terence McGrenera (Independent) is a local journalist disillusioned by Tower Hamlets political bickering

Here in Tower Hamlets we also vote for 45 councillors across 20 wards, but their main job is either to agree with the Mayor or hold him to account. In 2022 Lutfur's party Aspire won 26 seats, Labour won 19, and the Conservatives and Greens one each. Since then five of those candidates have become independents, which would have been enough to put the council into 'No overall control' were Lutfur not fully in control anyway. The only by-election in the last four years was for my ward, Bow East, after one of the Labour councillors was unexpectedly elected as MP for Cities of London and Westminster.

Aspire, Labour and the Conservatives have all managed to put forward a full range of candidates in each of the 20 wards. The Greens, Liberal Democrats and Tower Hamlets Independents each have two gaps. Reform UK failed to fill ten slots although they've managed to cover every ward. Only residents in Bethnal Green East get the opportunity to vote for The Forward Party, which appears to be the one-man soapbox of a Tiktokker called Adham who likes parading round parks while you read long captions across his head.

Bow East candidates
» Aspire: Hamida, Mansur & Yusuf
» Labour: Abdi, Amina & Marc
» Liberal Democrats: Dan, Daniel & Folkert
» Green: Jonathan, Mads & Ottilie
» Reform UK: Gary, John & Kevin
» Conservative: Georgie, Jade & Robin
» Tower Hamlets Independents: Hira, Salim & Shofiqul
» TUSC: Naomi

Here in Bow East, Aspire are currently winning the letterbox battle with two massive expensively-produced leaflets. One's a folded sheet of A3 covered in bullet-pointed things Lutfur's council has achieved over the last for years, several of them bilingually. The other is ward-specific, half the size, and features our grinning leader alongside his three Aspire candidates. However absolutely no attempt has been made to link any of the party's policies to Bow East ward, merely to dazzle.

Labour have also sent two leaflets, one general and one specific, although these are rather smaller. Sirajul does at least look to have been in the same room as the three Bow East candidates when the cover photo was taken. There are specific mentions of Roman Road Market and 'Vicky Park', generally decrying how Aspire should be looking after them better. Marc Francis has been a Labour councillor here since 2006, but may very well not be in a month's time.

The Greens have sent two copies of something they call Bow East News, generally in the hope I'll be on first name terms with their three candidates. They have the localest policies, even down to litter in a single street, also two attempts at making 'genocide in Palestine' sound locally relevant. The trio have a decent chance of getting at least one of them elected, Bow East being one of the Green's four target wards hereabouts (along with Bow West, Mile End and Bromley North).

Nothing as yet from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or Reform UK, partly because it's still early days and partly because they don't have a hope so why waste money.

Politics in Tower Hamlets is rarely dull but I suspect it will be this year, however much reshuffling takes place at councillor level, as Lutfur Rahman wins his fourth election for Executive Mayor. Technically the end result is always in doubt until the final votes are counted, but it would be nice to live in a borough that wasn't quite so one-sidedly anomalous.

Night Bus Facts

2026-04-10T07:00:00.145+01:00

Nightbus facts

How many nightbuses are there?

64 'N' buses: N1, N2, N3, N5, N7, N8, N9, N11, N15, N18, N19, N20, N21, N22, N25, N26, N27, N28, N29, N31, N32, N33, N38, N41, N44, N53, N55, N63, N65, N68, N72, N73, N74, N83, N86, N87, N89, N91, N97, N98, N109, N113, N118, N133, N136, N137, N140, N155, N171, N199, N205, N207, N242, N250, N253, N263, N266, N277, N279, N343, N381, N472, N550, N551
57 24-hour routes: 6, 12, 13, 14, 23, 24, 35, 36, 37, 43, 47, 52, 57, 64, 69, 76, 85, 88, 93, 94, 102, 105, 108, 111, 119, 123, 128, 134, 139, 148, 149, 158, 159, 176, 188, 189, 213, 214, 220, 222, 238, 243, 264, 281, 285, 295, 297, 321, 341, 344, 345, 365, 390, 453, 474, 486, EL1

...so 121 altogether

(in what follows, night buses start with N unless otherwise specified)

Lowest numbered: N1 (Tottenham Court Road - Thamesmead)
Highest numbered: N551 (Trafalgar Square - Gallions Reach)

The lowest number that isn't a nightbus: 4
The only overnight bus that starts with a letter that isn't N: EL1
Five consecutively numbered nightbuses: N25, N26, N27, N28, N29

Can you show me a map of all the nightbuses? Yes, here's one. I generated it using route-mapster.vercel.app (which if you like bus map facts is seriously brilliant)

[Night routes in orange, 24-hour routes in blue]

The extremes of the nightbus network
Most westerly: N9 (Heathrow Terminal 5)
Most northerly: N279 (Waltham Cross bus station)
Most easterly: N86 (Harold Hill)
Most southerly: N68 (Old Coulsdon)

The only nightbus to go outside London: the aforementioned N279

Nightbuses that go nowhere near the daytime route with that number
N5: Trafalgar Square - Edgware (not Canning Town - Romford)
N20: Trafalgar Square - Barnet (not Walthamstow - Debden)
N97: Trafalgar Square - Hammersmith (not Stratford - Chingford)

Nightbuses whose numbers aren't used by daytime buses: N118, N472, N550, N551

How many nightbuses start at Trafalgar Square? 22

Earliest start for a nightbus: 2300 (on the N140 from Harrow Weald)
Latest start for a nightbus: 0115 (on the N133 in both directions)
Earliest finish for a nightbus: 0512 (on the N28 in both directions)
Latest finish for a nightbus: 0717 (on the N140 to Harrow Weald) (and on Sunday mornings, 0807 on the N9 to Heathrow)

The three most frequent nightbuses
N15 (every 10 minutes, every 8 at weekends)
N25 (every 8 minutes, every 10 at weekends)
N29 (every 10 minutes)
n.b. the vast majority of nightbuses run every 30 minutes

When was the first nightbus? 1913, on route 94 (here's a photo of the B-Type outside Piccadilly Circus station)

When was the first 'N' nightbus? 12th October 1960
Here's an N83 timetable (Charing Cross - Tottenham) from July 1961.

What was the nightbus network like in 1972? There were 19 proper Night Bus routes, numbered consecutively from N81 to N99, which generally bore no relation to similarly-numbered daytime routes. Of these only the N97 survives today. Four other routes ran overnight, the 11, 109, 168 and 185. I've blogged about this before.

Number of nightbus routes 25 years ago: 61
The following year 24-hour services lost their N prefix.

Here's a nightbus map from 2005 (by Mike Harris).
And here's the 2015 Central London nightbus map.

The nightbus route that travels the furthest every year: N15 (390,156 km, way way ahead of the N29)
The nightbus route that travels least far every year: N472 (47,709 km)

A long way away from an overnight bus: Northwood, Pinner, Ickenham, Mill Hill East, Marks Gate, Upminster, Biggin Hill, Wallington

London's five busiest nightbus routes (2024/25)
  1) N15 Oxford Circus - Romford (1.5m passengers annually)
  2) N25 Oxford Circus - Ilford (1.1m)
  3) N18 Trafalgar Square - Harrow Weald (0.94m)
  4) N207 Holborn - Uxbridge (0.85m)
  5) N29 Trafalgar Square - Enfield (0.84m)
The next ten: N279, N9, N8, N98, N140, N87, N38, N155, N68, N205

London's five least busy nightbus routes (2024/25)
  1) 486 North Greenwich - Bexleyheath (39,000)
  2) 213 Kingston - Sutton (44,000)
  3) N33 Hammersmith - Fulwell (52,000)
  4) 365 Orchard Estate - Havering Park (54,000)
  5) 85 Putney - Kingston (55,000)
The next ten: 474, 321, N72, 158, 24, 119, N381, N472, 93, 264

The only single decker nightbus routes: N33, N72
The only nightbuses to start and finish in the same place: N5 and N113 (Trafalgar Square - Edgware bus station)

London's newest nightbuses
N472 (North Greenwich - Abbey Wood) [24 January 2026]
N118 (Trafalgar Square - Ruislip) [17 January 2026]
N263 (Moorgate - North Finchley) [6 April 2025]

The three bus stops served by the most nightbuses
Southampton Street/Covent Garden (A)
Bedford Street (J)
Savoy Street (U)
...all served by the N9 N15 N21 N26 N44 N87 N89 N91 N155 N199 N343 N550 N551
(n.b. three routes were missing from the tiles when I took these photos in 2024)

Bus stops that are only used by nightbuses
N8: The Lowe (in Hainault)
N9: Holland Road, Nene Road Roundabout, Newbury Road/Compass Centre (north of Heathrow)
N199: Murray Road (in St Mary Cray)
N205: Warton Road (will be served by the D8 later next year)
N551: Tobacco Dock, Wellclose Street
N3/N87: Abingdon Street (outside Parliament) [dubious]
N133: The Drive (in Morden) [very dubious]

London's longest night bus routes
1) N199 Trafalgar Square → St Mary Cray 21.92 miles
2) N89 Trafalgar Square → Erith 21.33 miles
3) N9 Heathrow T5 → Aldwych 20.94 miles
4) N68 New Oxford Street → Old Coulsdon 19.74 miles
5) N15 Romford → Oxford Circus 18.75 miles

The shortest nightbus route: The N97 is 6.13 miles long
The shortest overnight route: The 238 is 4.83 miles long

Square numbered nightbuses: N1, N9, N25
Cube numbered nightbuses: N1, N8, N27, N343
Prime numbered nightbuses: N2, N3, N5, N7, N11, N19, N29, N31, N41, N53, N73, N83, N87, N89, N97, N109, N113, N137, N199, N263, N277

Nightbuses which run within a single borough: 64, 278, 365
The borough with only one nightbus: Sutton (plus three 24 hour routes)
The borough with 49 nightbuses: Westminster (77% of the total)

Have you ridden on all the nightbuses? Yes I have, it took three nights, although this was in 2018 and there were only 50 back then.
Has anybody else done this? Geoff's just ridden all 64 and made a video about it.
Has anybody else done this? Yes.

Bow Roundabout update #22

2026-04-09T09:00:00.022+01:00

It's now 13 months since long term works at the Bow Roundabout were supposedly completed, but they remain partly out of use. The reverse contraflow lane beneath the flyover has never reopened, despite being the focus of a substantial portion of the works, despite a great deal of time and money having been spent re-engineering it. I told you this last month. Since then two things have changed.

The first is that the wobbly plastic barriers sealing off the contraflow have been replaced by chunky concrete blocks. This gives the closure a more long-term feel, and also prevents overheight lorries and mischievous cars from crashing through the barriers. I presume this is why the spindly security camera overlooking the barriers has now been removed.

The second is that the information on TfL's Silvertown Tunnel webpage has been updated. It used to say...

The link under the flyover at Bow will remain closed until we complete more work to protect the structure later in 2025.

No such works have been completed. It now says...

The link under the flyover at Bow will remain closed until further notice. This is to support the planned introduction of bus priority measures. The London Borough of Newham will implement these measures.

That's passing the buck for you. I'm not aware of what these measures might be, but "bus priority projects on High Street Stratford" were apparently put forward at a council meeting in January. Their implementation might thus be months off, and could involve a lot or only a little further disruption, but this does mean the saga of the Bow Roundabout upgrade lingers on and on.

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

Installed by cretins - update

2026-04-09T07:00:00.008+01:00

I have, on several occasions, lambasted the Next Train Indicators at Mile End station. Originally it was because you couldn't see them, then it was because some became hidden, then it was because they moved and you couldn't see them from different places. At one point HM Inspector of Railways turned up and urged the removal of a blocking sign to prevent a possible decapitation risk on platform 1. That was sorted but the underlying issue has not changed, which is that you cannot see the time of the Next Train from a substantial proportion of all four platforms.

The chief issue is that there are only four Next Train Indicators and they are all at the far end of the platforms. Walk down the stairs or arrive on a train at the western end of the station and you can easily see when the next trains are due. But arrive on a train at the eastern end of the station and you can see bugger all, this unless you have the eyesight of a hawk and can read small orange letters 100m away. I can't do it, plus the key information like the number of minutes is often hidden behind protruding objects so couldn't be seen anyway.

Four small Next Train Indicators have been added halfway down the platforms, each on the inside of a pillar, these designed to assist platform staff in marshalling passengers during busy rush hour periods. But most of them face west, not east, so can't be seen by anyone in the eastern half of the platform either. The entire Next Train Indicator get-up at Mile End is an impractical mess seemingly installed by cretins.

This regularly proves awkward, generally when changing trains, because you can't tell if the next train is 1 minute away or 11. Usually it's 3 or less but occasionally it's a very big number and you can't tell so you stand there like a lemon on the platform because you don't realise the service is borked. As happened yesterday.

I got off the front of a Central line train and crossed to the District line platform, expecting a train to carry me one stop to Bow Road but unable to confirm this. After a few minutes I started to get suspicious and walked all the way down to pillar 13 to check on the small screen... and sure enough the next train was still 7 minutes away. For Mile End that's disastrous, and it looked like there was then an 11 minute gap coming along behind. Meanwhile on the opposite platform, a 15 minute gap! Nobody in the control room had made any announcements so everyone was just standing there, the eastern half in total ignorance of imminent trainlessness.

The issue arose in 2009 after inept infraco Metronet were given the job of upgrading Mile End station with modern electrical paraphernalia. Their solution included introducing a suspended ceiling to hide all the wiring and other gubbins, but this decision also reduced headroom so it was no longer safe to hang a Next Train Indicator from the ceiling. The boxes were thus all moved to the far end of the platforms where nobody could hit their heads, and suddenly passengers on half the platform could no longer see when trains were coming.

Annoyingly Metronet went bust in 2007 and were taken over by TfL in 2009 before the suspended ceiling was fitted. But because Metronet's plans were so far advanced TfL had no choice but to go along with them, installing a substandard information system while making other aspects of the station better.

What hurts is that Mile End's now been substandard for well over 15 years and nobody's attempted to improve things, bar those tiny boards most people can't see either. Various solutions would sort it, like adding thinner overhead boxes or simply adding Next Train Indicators at the eastern ends of the platforms so everyone could see one. But there must be no money, or no resources, or no willingness, or just an assumption that the current system works when plainly it does not, as those of us who use the station know to our cost.

And so we continue to keep our fingers crossed that a train's coming, hopefully soon, and just occasionally it's not.

The dead end of Beckton

2026-04-08T07:00:00.091+01:00

Six years ago I followed a seriously uncompromising footpath round the back of Beckton sewage works as far as Beckton Creekside Nature Reserve. This creekside haven was as remote as I dared go at the time, there being no alternative exit from the lengthy access road down to the Barking Flood Barrier. But this time I took company and walked all the way to the main drainage outfall of Bazalgette's great sewer, gazing out at the unfinished wedge of Thamesmead across the estuary, along what might be London's longest dead end path...

The path with no exit has two entrances, neither of them especially appealing. The most direct access starts opposite the 5-a-side on Jenkins Lane adjacent to convenient bus stops on routes 325 and 366. It used to start beneath a rusty welcome arch courtesy of Thames Water but that's now vanished, its replacement a scrappy laminated sheet tied to the first security gate. The fenced slalom ahead is optimistically titled the Northern Lagoon Walkway, not that anything tropical will be visible as you wend between brackish scrub and empty warehouses for slightly too many minutes. We didn't go that way.

We walked in underneath the A13, in fact we walked all the way from Barking, attempting to follow the river Roding as it morphed into the muddier Barking Creek. A quiet path hugs the edge of Cuckold Haven Nature Reserve, currently bursting out into shades of spring green, with occasional glimpses of flats and reeds where the treeline thins. At Whitings Trash Screen the Environment Agency prevents gunk from exiting a small drainage channel and a final stepped path drops in round the back of Shurgard Self Storage. The A13 is supported on chunky concrete supports, an underside that barely anybody sees but is sufficiently graffitied to confirm you're not the first ones here.

Beyond the bridge is where the Beckton Showcase cinema used to be, but that closed in 2022 and has subsequently been replaced by four huge white sheds called Valor Park. These have a lot of tall flappy doors suggesting future use as a distribution depot, and also a rim of saplings recently planted in the hope of blocking out clear sightlines from the footpath. Employees might one day be able to exit through security gates to a bench freshly placed on the riverside, perhaps to enjoy a smoke in view of the Bestway cash and carry, but thus far the only occupants are a security handler and their vanful of canine defence. And beyond that is the all-important kissing gate, we're going in...

Everything ahead, which is a thin strip of just over a mile, is the property of Thames Water. Beckton Sewage Works opened in 1864 as the endpoint of Joseph Bazalgette's sewage solution, initially covering 9 acres and since expanded to 250. Most of the former marsh was covered in a mosaic of settlement tanks and circular sludge pools, since augmented by hundreds of pipes, modern plant and the end of the Lee Tunnel. If your toilet lies north of the Thames then your organic waste may ultimately be dried here and burnt as 'cake'. You get the best view of the sewage works on the first bend, a ridiculously extensive landscape of concrete structures and sudden drops, alien enough that you might expect characters from Blakes 7 to come running through at any minute.

A few minutes down, just off-road, is the entrance to Beckton Creekside Nature Reserve. This approximately triangular enclave, hemmed in on two sides by mudflats, comprises mostly scrubby woodland and is home to several species of flora and fauna. Marked paths guide visitors away from the riverside and past the foot of a hulking pylon, its four feet planted in a reedy pool. One track leads up a very slight elevation to a 'view'point with a single picnic table, for hardy sandwich-munchers only. You might meet conservation volunteers here once a month or, as in our case, a seated visitor keen for our human incursion to go away. At the far end is a second gate back onto the road, this where nervousness originally nudged me back but this time we were going all the way.

The access track continues straight along the edge of the sewage works proper, specifically alongside a concrete trench in which a river of sorts flows inexorably towards the Thames. It fills from dubious culverts and frothy sluices, carrying best not think what, all safely contained behind a barb-topped fence. Signs warn of deep danger and also that this road is liable to flood at high tide, although I think it'd have to be a big spring tide to do any damage. Eventually the reeds open out to reveal the very end of Barking Creek, also the backside of the industrial warehouses at Creekmouth on the opposite bank. The pylons ahead are super-tall so they can cross the creek with ease.

I was expecting the tip of the path to be empty but instead a team of workmen had driven here in two vans and were busy hacking down surplus undergrowth around the sludge valves. A separate hi-vis worker was sipping a hot drink by the seawall, presumably on a break, and having had the sense to cycle here rather than walking. We had to wait for him to ride off before we got the estuary to ourselves. The Thames feels massive here, as do the surrounding structures safely tucked out of general view. The Barking Flood Barrier is 60m high and of 1980s vintage, a fluvial guillotine ready to do its protective duty if the Thames ever threatens to invade.

This is a great place to watch birds, for example the wildfowl swimming happily in the swirling effluent from the outfall conduit. On our visit the tide was also coming in, creeping visibly across the mudflats and rising around a crescent of gulls standing on a semi-submerged bar until forced to fly off. Creepiest of all were the rooks perched individually on all the fencepoles screening off the water treatment works, occasionally flying down to the concrete wall but mostly just being sinister and watching our every move. But it still wasn't as scary as I'd previously anticipated, indeed I might now even be tempted to walk it solo.

The access road bends here to follow the Thames, soon ducking beneath two thick green pipes. These stretch way out into the river onto a wooden jetty and are part of Boris Johnson's fiasco of a desalination plant which has operated only five times since 2010. The gates underneath are labelled 'These gates must be kept locked at all times' but were intriguingly open, indeed temptingly so. We wondered if they were only open because the workmen had driven through so decided against exploring, but I understand others have continued round several bends towards an 'attraction' Google Maps describes as The Two Benches. If that's the case you might be able to go another quarter mile to a properly locked gate just round the back of the Gallions Reach Retail Park, and if they ever unlock that a fabulously bleak looping footpath could be possible. In the meantime perhaps I've tempted you to visit the backside of a sewage works down what might just be London's longest dead end.

Update: several of you have confirmed that it is possible to walk further, indeed you've done just that, along a further stretch of tank-overlooked riverfront. This makes the dead end a full mile and a half long (i.e. an hour to walk it there and back)

BM25

2026-04-07T07:00:00.043+01:00

Twenty-five years ago tonight I met BestMate for the first time. There was no inkling that he was BestMate at the time, nor that he'd ever turn out to be, but that's the way things happened. It took a while as these things do, but here we are quarter of a century later and the friendship's strong as ever. How surprised am I?

My life's not been big on friendships. I got through primary school with some good friends, though not really best. My first best friend at secondary school semi-faded away, while the next best friend turned out not to be. At university I fell in with a crowd of soulmates rather than a single wingman, all of whom I subsequently lost touch with. I spent the next ten years entirely without anyone you could describe as a close friend, getting on with life without the need to socialise much. When things got unexpectedly tough I found strong emotional support where I might not have expected it, so thanks for that. And then out of the blue, in April 2001, BestMate turned up.

Our friendship didn't ignite until I moved to London a few months later, our homes now considerably closer. Before long my evenings and weekends changed dramatically. Instead of me sitting at home on that new internet thing we'd go out and drink beer in a variety of interesting places around town. Rather than staying in and watching my telly I could go round and watch his. I had someone to talk to about stuff and he had someone to talk to about stuff too, either in person or via an online Messenger service. You probably think nothing of having a friend on call because normal people always have friends, but for me this was an inertia-busting transformation.

I saw a side of life I'd almost certainly have missed out on otherwise, not least because some things are so much better done in two-or-mores than ones. I wouldn't have dreamed of spending a week in New York by myself, nor dining solo at a top London eaterie, nor repeatedly staying out all night and rolling in at 4am, but friendship took me there. I look back through my 2002 diary now with a sense of dazzled opportunity. Records show that by February 2003 I was spending far more nights out than nights in, which is pretty much unheard of in my introverted world, but that's what ganging up with an extrovert does for you.

If some people collect friends like Panini stickers, BestMate has a complete albumful. He knows everyone and everyone knows him, so he can't have been lacking a posse of friends in his life. That's been useful for me because I was exposed to a broad cross-section of society whenever we went out, who otherwise I'd just have stood in the corner and observed. But I'm still not really good friends with any of his really good friends, because I simply don't connect like that. Back in the day he'd have been climbing the walls if he didn't see any of his friends in a 48 hour period, whereas I can go for weeks with no ill effects. It makes it all the more surprising he's hung onto me ahead of all the rest.

Our friendship was sorely tested when he suddenly upped sticks and went to live on the west coast of America. Suddenly I couldn't pop round for a cup of tea, let alone hand deliver his birthday card, so things moved onto a different level. The internet allowed us to maintain conversation, helped by the fact that late evening over there was breakfastime over here and I was the only UK friend awake and online. Had this been ten years earlier, I don't think being long-distance penpals would have worked quite as well.

This transatlantic hiatus lasted four years, during which time I got to re-experience what not having a best friend in my physical environment was like. Quieter, simpler, and more opportunity to concentrate on blogging rather than socialising to fill my spare time. But we still picked up again afterwards where we'd left off, pretty much, and it was great to have that listening ear back around the corner. Our social whirl never quite returned to those early days but it never died down either, not until middle age hit us both and an evening in with wine started to beat a night out with beer.

When it comes to BestMate's OtherHalf, and there've been several, I got to be the objective one as the relationship began and the supportive one as it fell apart. The latest, we both agree, is a keeper. I've been honoured to be invited along on several holidays, usually long weekends, to such farflung spots as Amsterdam, Blackpool and Reykjavik. I fear that without BestMate I'd have maxxed out on day trips to the seaside and weekends touring the outskirts of Hillingdon rather than properly experiencing Berlin, Rome and Copenhagen. I'm still never going to compete with OtherHalf for his time and attention, but that doesn't stop us sharing an understanding or a bottle or a trio of cinema tickets or whatever.

It's great to have a sounding board, someone who's always there to bounce off when the need arises. He can advise on my finances and I can advise on his downstairs neighbours. I know which is his least favourite Yes Minister episode and he knows not to try and hide sweet potato on my plate. We have twenty-five years of common acquaintances and shared experiences to riff off so the conversation never runs dry. A lot of what we communicate simply goes unsaid, which is something you only get with years of experience.

He puts up with the fact I count things. He puts up with the fact that I go round to his far more often than I invite him round to mine. He puts up with all the things we don't have in common as well as all the things we do. He puts up with me never answering my mobile because it never normally rings so I'm not paying attention. He even puts up with me turning down his offer of a night out because I have a bus stop visit to write up. He understands, and, trust me, that's rare.

For our first anniversary we had an early morning bagel in Brick Lane. For our fifth we could only chat online from different continents. For our tenth we started the day in one pub and ended the night in another. For our fifteenth we splashed out and let Jamie Oliver's underlings serve us in Fifteen. For our twentieth we met up mid-pandemic for a walk along the same creekside path we followed on day one. And for our twenty-fifth he's planned something he's not yet let on about, somewhere up in town, but slightly delayed because filial duties come first.

I'm still not quite sure how I ended up with a BestMate, nor do I believe I could ever recreate the situation where it might happen again. To be honest, the whole set-up only works because he's the one who says "why don't we?" and I say yes. But the last twenty-five years have been hugely enriched by me knowing him, so I simply wanted to express my amazement and appreciation. Thanks, and here's to quarter of a century that wouldn't have been half as much fun otherwise.

Ranworth Broad

2026-04-07T01:00:00.002+01:00

✉ Postcard from Ranworth Broad

The thing about a lot of the Norfolk Broads is that you can only see them from the water, surrounded as they are by wetland and woodland. Many aren't even accessible by public footpath, let alone a road. But Malthouse Broad is fully visible and also car-park-adjacent, assuming you can find a space. Head for the staithe - the local term for a landing stage - where all kinds of boats moor up around a small square of grass. 24 hours max if you come by water, with a £12 overnight fee unless you're a parishioner in which case mooring's free. The village of Ranworth is small by national standards but normal for Norfolk, a few miles from the A47 not quite as far as Acle. I should point out that the Visitor Centre is more a visitor shop, that scooped ice creams can be found in the Granary and that the local pub is closed until 21st April following a winter spruce-up.

From the staithe a footpath leads alongside Broad Road to the edge of a patch of wet carr woodland. Think alder and birch trees growing from squidgy pools, with plenty of grasses and reeds and the occasional burst of yellow irises. Thankfully a wooden boardwalk has been constructed to enable further progress, zigzagging onward for a good few minutes and occasionally wide enough to permit the overtaking of dawdling families. At the far end half-hidden behind tall reeds is a thatched two-storey ornithological hideaway, courtesy of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, where you can either buy bird goodies or point your binoculars across the water in search of tufty feathers. I don't know what the Queen spotted when she opened the place in 1976 but we spotted a great crested grebe as well as several swans and a big Mississippi-style paddle steamer.

This is actually Ranworth Broad, a separate swathe of water to the broad beside Ranworth. Beside the sole access point is a jetty from which a reed-lighter called Little Tern sets off on 40-minute wildlife-spotting trips, although the heritage aspect is a smokescreen because it's all electric now. Miss that and you're walking back, but you can vary the route and loop pass the parish church instead. St Helen's is sometimes known as the Cathedral of the Broads, more for its treasures than its scale. The painted rood screen is one of England's finest, the illustrated prayer book is late medieval and the church tower can be climbed for a suggested £2 donation. The 89 spiral stairs are teensy, then come two actual ladders to get you past the belfry before pushing open a trapdoor to emerge on the roof. I turned down this opportunity, I believe for the second time, but if you truly want to see the Broads there's nowhere topper.

Some photographs

2026-04-06T07:00:00.159+01:00

Some photographs

This is the latest artwork on The Line, the meridian-adjacent sculpture trail between Stratford and Greenwich. It's attached to the back wall of Three Mills Studios and is called Dreams Are a Language Made of Images. The artist is Zineb Sedira and the text is based on a quote from the Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. It says DREAMS ARE A LANGUAGE MADE OF IMAGES. IN CINEMA, EVERY OBJECT AND LIGHT MEANS SOMETHING, AS IN A DREAM if you can't be bothered to click on it. Apparently the work 'encourages reflection about the interrelationship between dreams and cinema, here with the added element of the river', although I just thought the aluminium letters looked pretty with the sun on them at that angle.

I see a lot of these little key boxes stuck to the wall outside blocks of flats, all with combination locks or push-button pads. I've never seen so many as here, though, on a block of flats in the middle of Thornton Heath. Why do people do this, why don't they just carry keys? Or are these spare keys, or for Airbnbs, or something HMO-related? And isn't this risky too, I mean I could stand outside on the pavement and try several codes, and if I did it enough times over enough weeks I could eventually break into your flat. You've even labelled the flat number for me, cheers!

They've done up the Octagon Building in New Addington, the first thing you see as you get off the tram, with jaunty green paint and a digital sign and a really rather good local map. But why, I wondered? Turns out it's a project funded from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, a levelling-up cash-pot established by the previous government in 2022. Croydon council received funding for projects here and in Thornton Heath, Selsdon and Purley. In New Addington they also refurbished the market square stage and created some new lamppost banners, and it certainly brightens the place up but I guess half a million doesn't go very far.

There are a lot of these revamped See It Say It Sorted adverts cropping up everywhere, a new blue-background series encouraging you to clock suspicious behaviour amongst your fellow passengers. The usual dodgy suitcase stuff (THAT LOOKS A BIT ODD), skulking doors (ARE THEY GOING SOMEWHERE THEY SHOULDN'T?) and lurking ne'erdowells (ARE THEY AVOIDING THE AUTHORITIES?). In this case the exhortation is to query WHY HAVE THEY BEEN HANGING AROUND FOR SO LONG?, something which could have a perfectly innocent explanation. I find it sad that they're suggesting alerting the authorities, especially when someone's hugely more likely to be waiting for something rather than an evil terrorist. Also if you've noticed that someone's been hanging around for a long time then you probably have too, so just turn yourself in and be done with it.

This looks nice, except it's in Beckton so how can it be? Beckton Park doesn't have the greatest of reputations, a lot of blank grass with occasional pylons and a rat infestation at the northern end. But this is the southeastern corner, just opposite the DLR station, and it's had a full-on glow-up over the last couple of years. It now has two acres of wildflower meadow, currently roped off so it's pristine next month, also a path across the middle called the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Pathway. They had to get the Palace's permission to call it that. It's a bit worthy (they've planted 7 red oak trees, one for each decade of the Queen's reign, also a Dutch Elm 'demonstrating resilience and strength'). But it is a splendid improvement on before, for which we thank the Beckton Parks Masterplan, the Mayor of London's Rewild London Fund and the University of East London Sustainability Research Institute.

This is the new extension to the ExCel exhibition centre in the Royal Docks, recently opened. They built it across a former car park, this because multi-storey exhibition halls and conference suites are more valuable than windswept parking spaces. It's vast and generally empty, more full of bored-looking security guards than people, and also a dead end so you can't walk through it like the rest of the complex without looking a bit suspicious. But it's also very swish, with banks of escalators up and banks of escalators down, so you may one day find yourself here when attending a commercial gathering or while dressed as Darth Vader.

Moon News 6th April

2026-04-06T01:00:00.022+01:00

Human altitude records

pre-1783: jumping, diving, mountaineering
1783-1956: balloons (1st flight higher than Everest in 1862)
1956-1961: rocket aircraft (overtaking balloons at 24 miles)
1961: Yuri Gagarin (203 miles)
1965: Gemini 5 (218 miles)
1966: Gemini 11 (854 miles)
1968: Apollo 8 (234,473 miles)
1969: Apollo 11 (234,480 miles)
1970: Apollo 13 (248,573 miles)
6 April 2026: Artemis 2 (252,757 miles)

The Easter summary

2026-04-05T07:00:00.185+01:00

Easter posts I have written

• (20th April 2003) Easter daze
• (23rd March 2008) Extremely Early Easter
• (24th April 2011) Extreme Late Easter
• (27th March 2016) March Easters
• (1st April March 2018) Easter(n) Avenue
• (2019) Why is Easter late when it should be early?
• (21st April 2019) Easter weather
• (17th April 2022) The average date of Easter
• (31st March 2024) Gaps between Easters
• (2025) It was nearly Easter today
• (20th April 2025) Nowhere Easter
• (5th April 2026) Not this year sorry

Years with Easter on 5th April

  1643 1654 1665 1676
  1711 1722 1733 1744
  1795 1801
  1863 1874 1885 1896
  1931 1942 1953
  2015 2026 2037 2048
  2105
  2167 2178 2189
  2235 2246 2257 2268

(that's a heck of a lot of 11 year gaps)

Number of years until Easter is next on this date

Mar 22: 259	Mar 29: 17	Apr 5: 11	Apr 12: 67	Apr 19: 45
Mar 23: 134	Mar 30: 33	Apr 6: 16	Apr 13: 5	Apr 20: 61
Mar 24: 365	Mar 31: 60	Apr 7: 49	Apr 14: 21	Apr 21: 4
Mar 25: 9	Apr 1: 3	Apr 8: 65	Apr 15: 37	Apr 22: 31
Mar 26: 36	Apr 2: 25	Apr 9: 8	Apr 16: 2	Apr 23: 53
Mar 27: 131	Apr 3: 41	Apr 10: 13	Apr 17: 7	Apr 24: 69
Mar 28: 1	Apr 4: 57	Apr 11: 40	Apr 18: 23	Apr 25: 12

Recipe for making a Creme Egg

Ingredients
300g milk chocolate
350g powdered sugar
50g unsalted butter
60ml golden syrup
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
Yellow food colouring

• Beat the softened butter until creamy. Add the golden syrup, vanilla extract and salt. Mix well. Gradually add the powdered sugar until a smooth and thick dough forms. Add a few drops of yellow food colouring to a quarter of the mixture and form into small balls. Wrap the remaining mixture around the yellow centres and shape into small egg-shaped pieces about 1 inch in length. Place on a baking sheet and chill for at least 30 minutes in a refrigerator.
• Chop the milk chocolate and combine with the vegetable oil. Microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring inbetween, until the chocolate is completely melted and smooth.
• Remove the chilled filling from the refrigerator. Dip each egg-shaped filling into the melted chocolate, ensuring complete coverage. Return baking sheet to the refrigerator and chill the eggs for an additional 10-15 minutes, or until the chocolate coating is set.
• Alternatively, buy a box of real ones because these will be a huge disappointment.

Moon News 5th April

2026-04-05T01:00:00.004+01:00

Surnames of people who've been to the Moon
On it: Armstrong, Aldrin, Conrad, Bean, Shepard, Mitchell, Scott, Irwin, Young, Duke, Cernan, Schmitt
Around it: Borman, Lovell, Anders, Stafford, Collins, Gordon, Swigert, Haise, Roosa, Worden, Mattingly, Evans; Wiseman, Glover, Koch, Hansen

Still alive and have been to the Moon
On it: Aldrin, Scott, Duke, Schmitt
Around it: Haise; Wiseman, Glover, Koch, Hansen

Presidents while people have been to the Moon
On it: Nixon
Around it: Johnson, Nixon, Trump

Census 2031

2026-04-04T07:00:00.104+01:00

The UK census* is held every ten years*, and has been since 1801*.
* 1941 was skipped for wartime reasons
* Technically it's three censuses, one for England and Wales, one for Scotland and one for Northern Ireland
* Scotland held their last census a year after everyone else due to the pandemic

It's always around the end of March or the start of April, this because it minimises potential distortion due to seasonal agricultural work or holiday travel. It's never the Easter weekend, instead always 2-4 weeks away.

1981: Sunday 5 April (Easter April 19)
1991: Sunday 21 April (Easter March 31)
2001: Sunday 29 April (Easter April 15)
2011: Sunday 27 March (Easter April 24)
2021: Sunday 21 March (Easter April 4)
2031: Sunday ?? ????? (Easter April 13)

We don't yet know when the 2031 census will be because they haven't decided, but my best guess would be 24th March or 27th April.

And that means we are pretty much exactly halfway between censuses, the last being five years ago and the next in five years time. Assuming it happens, that is.

It takes a very long time to prepare a census, in this case six years. In July 2025 the Cabinet Office wrote to the Office for National Statistics requesting them "to conduct a mandatory, questionnaire-based, whole-population census of England and Wales in 2031", having deemed it nationally worthwhile. Two subsequent consultations, now closed, have considered which topics should be included and "the needs for additional response options in a future ethnicity standard". If you don't ask optimal questions you get suboptimal data.

A Census Taskforce is now scoping plans and building on the experience of Census 2021, preparing for "an inclusive, digital-first census". You can thus expect to complete an online form in spring 2031, certain previous questions tweaked, with postal or face-to-face alternatives for those unable to access digital services. But what if it never happens?

This Labour government clearly believes in the importance of a national snapshot because they've triggered the process again. But some politicians have argued that we could instead sample the population, asking say 5%, and this would give broadly accurate answers while saving a lot of money. More drastically a White Paper in 2018 suggested that the Conservative government's ambition was that "other sources of data" would be used after 2021, thus the population would never need to be asked again.

The UK census is the gold standard in data collection but this counts for nothing in the world of politics. Indeed it would be a point of some pride for certain politicians to cancel a bureaucratic state-focused busybody survey prying into the lives of private citizens, saving millions of taxpayers money at the same time. Populists famously have no time for experts, so scrapping the census would be a bold policy win. Who needs accurate data when we could instead have lower taxes, or at least the promise of them?

We're due a new government by 2029, at this stage likely to be more right wing than the current administration. If that's the case then 2029 is plenty early enough to scrap a census in 2031, saving the majority of the intended costs. It'd be an easy policy win, a promise of hundreds of millions saved, also a trimming of the civil service' remit, also a swipe at woke questions about gender. One successful manifesto promise (or one capricious whim) and Census 2031 would be dead in the water.

We'd cope without a census because everything's estimatable. But without accurate data several decisions would become harder to make, that is assuming the government of the day were interested in data which isn't a given, because who needs facts when you have common sense? It would however be a damned shame to scrap the census for short term reasons, ending a sequence stretching back over 200 years, just because capricious politicians weren't interested in it any more.

	UK	England	London	Tower Hamlets
1801	10,942,000	8,331,000	1,097,000	144,000
1851	27,369,000	15,289,000	2,651,000	377,000
1901	38,237,000	30,072,000	6,510,000	597,000
1911	42,082,000	33,561,000	7,162,000	570,000
1921	44,026,000	35,230,000	7,387,000	529,000
1931	46,075,000	37,359,000	8,110,000	489,000
1941	48,216,000	38,084,000	8,615,000	419,000
1951	50,225,000	38,669,000	8,197,000	231,000
1961	52,709,000	41,159,000	7,997,000	206,000
1971	55,515,000	43,461,000	7,452,000	166,000
1981	55,100,000	45,978,000	6,713,000	143,000
1991	57,439,000	48,198,000	6,394,000	153,000
2001	59,113,000	49,139,000	7,172,000	196,000
2011	63,182,000	53,107,000	8,174,000	254,000
2021	67,026,000	56,490,000	8,799,800	310,000
2031	????	????	????	????

We are pretty much exactly halfway between censuses, the last being five years ago and the next in five years time, but only assuming the next one happens.

Moon News 4th April

2026-04-04T01:00:00.028+01:00

Ages of people who've flown to the Moon

1960s: 35 37 38 38 38 39 39 40 40 40
1970s: 36 36 36 37 37 38 38 39 39 39 40 41 41 47
1980s: -
1990s: -
2000s: -
2010s: -
2020s: 47 49 50 50

The youngest current astronaut (Christina Koch, 47) is six weeks younger than the previous oldest astronaut (Alan Shepard, 47).

Birth decade of people who've flown to the Moon

1920s: 4 astronauts
1930s: 20 astronauts
1940s: -
1950s: -
1960s: -
1970s: 4 astronauts

8 men born in 1930 have flown to the Moon.
Nobody born between April 1936 and October 1975 has flown to the Moon.

TfL FoI requests in March 2026

2026-04-03T07:00:00.003+01:00

33 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in March 2026

1) Seven parts of the DLR network have their own names: North route (All Saints to Stratford), East route (Blackwall to Beckton), South route (Heron Quays to Lewisham), West route (Westferry to Bank & Tower Gateway), Central area (Poplar, West India Quay and Canary Wharf), London City Airport extension (West Silvertown to Woolwich Arsenal) and Stratford International extension (Canning Town to Stratford International).
2) Planning documents for the first tranche of Superloop routes have been made available, in case you'd like to know why they go where they go as often as they do.
3) If you have a 'DLR spotting book' and are wondering what happened to '4 Wheel Diesel Hydraulic Locomotives Numbered 5610 & 5611', there's no evidence that either ever existed.

4) The speed restriction between Charing Cross and Leicester Square on the Northern line is to reduce and mitigate against train shoebeam damage caused by track geometry from tunnels built over 100 years ago. The restriction will be removed when the situation improves.
5) In February TfL began a 12 month trial of video‑analytics technology at Stockwell, Clapham North, and Clapham Common focusing on counting people entering and exiting the gateline. This will strengthen understanding of fare‑evasion levels and help assess how enhanced data could support more effective deployment of enforcement officers across the network.
6) TfL don't know why there's a bollard at the junction of Furlong Road and Holloway Road because it was installed in November 2015 and they bin all documentation after 7 years.

7) The timetabled running time from Pimlico to Vauxhall is 65 seconds (but 68 seconds in the opposite direction)
8) In the last 12 months Tram Safety Officers have interacted with customers with regards to smoking/vaping on 146 occasions. No penalties were issued.
9) TfL fleecingtons (showerproof soft-shell jackets) have modal branding and are available in 10 sizes from XXS to 5XL. Before washing the zipper should be closed and the garment turned inside out. Fabric softener must not be used.

10) When the bus stop "Hume Way" was renamed "Highgrove Pool & Fitness Centre", it cost £328.12.
11) By undertaking further mileage running restrictions, the current DLR timetable can be sustained until at least the end of March 2026. TfL are exploring other options to extend this date.
1 2) The floor inside an Elizabeth line carriage is 1145mm above rail level. Overground trains are slightly higher (Class 378 1148mm) (Class 710 1155mm).

13) TfL awarded Stagecoach a £1,967,010 contract to operate the Silvertown Tunnel Cycle Shuttle for 3 years. Demand continues to be around 110-130 cycles on weekdays, lower at weekends.
14) In the month of February, only 8 passengers used a paper ticket to enter Chigwell station. By contrast 1567 passengers used Oyster and 1122 used contactless.
15) Mood lighting has been disabled on new buses "as we have been experiencing issues of these lights being used instead of the main lights".

16) 83 current TfL employees have been off work sick for more than 24 months since 2019. 40% of employees have been off work for 4 weeks or less during that period.
17) 156km of TfL roads have had a speed limit lowered under the Lowering Speed Limits programme.
18) Names proposed for Santander Cycles for International Women’s Day, but not used, include Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Kittie Knox, Rose Yates, Sylvia Pankhurst and Queen Marie of Romania.

19) Lost property found on buses last year included 15570 telephones, 11396 rucksacks, 9385 spectacles, 2915 umbrellas and 444 suitcases.
20) When making manual announcements on the Bakerloo line, the driver presses 1 for 'Let customers off the train first please', 2 for 'Please move right down inside the car', 3 for 'Please stand clear of the doors' and 4 for 'All change please, this train terminates here'.
21) The refurbishment of the toilets at Amersham station has been delayed by unforeseen asset issues in the male facility.

22) Last year 35,166,468 sales were recorded at London Underground ticket machines. The fewest sales were at Emerson Park with 6188.
23) The most popular journey on the Underground last year was again Bank to Waterloo with 1,315,723 taps. The reverse journey was made 1,268,090 times.
24) In last year's sole parakeet incident, the Traffic Signal Controller located on the A23 Purley Way/Commerce Way became heavily contaminated with bird guano, preventing engineers from safely accessing the unit. The contamination resulted from parakeets roosting in a privately owned plane tree situated above the controller.

25) Last year there were 15390 incidents of damage to TfL buses resulting from collisions and crashes, down from 15939 in 2024.
26) 701 candidates applied to the TfL General Management Graduate Scheme last year, of whom 272 passed the online tests, 36 attended interviews and 10 were appointed.
27) If you try to find out why the new Piccadilly line stock is late by asking "So, Hey TFL FOI Team, We Could Pick The Random Date From: Between: Dec 2026 To: June 2027, With The Drumroll, Please? Thanks", expect the response "TfL does not hold the requested information".

28) Last year 88 wigs were logged as lost property, 11 of which were returned to their owners. TfL have had no success returning two sets of false teeth, nor an urn containing ashes.
29) Fitting out Woolwich station for Crossrail cost £294,203,000. Additional Compliancy Works at Canary Wharf cost £122,414,000.
30) Members of the Royal Family do not receive free travel on TfL services, but 'Gold Level' athletes have been eligible for a free Athlete's Oyster Photocard since May 2006.

31) The borough whose residents received the most ULEZ penalty charges last year was Enfield (64,140), followed by Haringey (48,082) and Barking & Dagenham (42,356).
32) If you ever wanted to know precisely where all the 272 Labyrinth artworks are, here's a list.
33) When a suspicious muppet asked "I wish to fact check a series of articles published on the IanVisits website. I have tried looking all over your website and could not find the information. As the author of these articles does not provide sources or links to supporting documents, I believe this is potential fake news until verified", TfL responded by linking to the four supporting documents and confirming in each case that Ian was correct.

Moon News 3rd April

2026-04-03T01:00:00.006+01:00

Number of people who've travelled more than 1000 miles from planet Earth

time immemorial-1967: 0

1968: 3
1969: 9
1970: 3 (1 for the second time)
1971: 6
1972: 6 (2 for the second time)

1973-2025: 0

2026: 4

Total: 28 (27 men, 1 woman)

Unblogged March

2026-04-02T07:00:00.475+01:00

31 unblogged things I did in March

Sun 1: I have bought an air fryer. I am still getting used to how long it takes too cook things, trying to find the balance between undercooking the chicken breast and shrivelling the oven chips to a crisp.
Mon 2: Vegetable of the day.

Tue 3: Scaffolding has gone up outside Bromley-by-Bow station, suggesting TfL are finally getting round to repairing the glass roundel smashed over two years ago. [n.b. as of 2nd April, no further action]
Wed 4: Took BestMate on the Brockley Three Peaks walk and unexpectedly hit the emotional jackpot ("ooh this is where I was christened..." "they never had artisan cheese shops here in my day..." "hang on, this is where my grandparents are buried...")
Thu 5: The reason why the quiz Counterpoint no longer has a studio audience was explained on Radio 4's Feedback. It's because "Counterpoint is recorded with all the contestants in the studio for production flexibility." It is now, anyway.
Fri 6: There's a new tube station guessing game in town - Mind The Map. It names a station and you have to click in the right place on a geographical map, up to 272 times. It took ages but I managed to get to the top of the leader board before six other people overtook, generally thwarted by how long it takes to scroll the map, not my tube knowledge.
Sat 7: I was very nearly thrown down the stairs on the number 32 bus because the driver braked unexpectedly, and thankfully I was holding on tightly enough but that could have been life-wrecking.

Sun 8: This month's dubious car numberplate is OH 61RTH (on a Mercedes in Seven Kings). This month's impressive numberplate is THE 60S (on a Mini in Hyde Park).
Mon 9: I wasn't expecting my air fryer would keep setting off the smoke alarm (for no readily obvious reason).
Tue 10: My Christmas-gift hyacinth is now shrivelling and I'm wondering, can I keep the bulb for next year, could I plant it in a pot outdoors or was it a one-off and I should just bin it?
Wed 11: I received my TfL renewal email saying "You've now had your 60+ London Oyster photocard for a year". It confirmed that to continue using it I had to provide proof of a London address and pay a £18 address check fee. I tried, but the website refused to let me pay claiming the address on my payment card didn't match the address on my TfL account. I tried over 10 times, and the helpful bloke on the helpline tried two more, but no luck. In the end I had to wait 10 days for a letter to arrive and take it to the Post Office.
Thu 12: I counted how many times Angela Scanlon looked down at her iPad during tonight's post-Apprentice recording of Unfinished Business and it was 51. This is one reason why visualised podcasts make dreadful TV. (Another is limp forced bonhomie, and maybe just kill the show off)

Fri 13: It feels like bad form to decorate the new electric charging station on Edgware Road with giant petrol pumps.
Sat 14: I'm not usually a fan of What 3 Words, but I do like that Pine Walk Allotments in Bromley display their location on the gates as ///bought.dream.fork.
Sun 15: In Bethnal Green a tall white truck attempted to drive under a railway viaduct, perhaps not realising that 11'6" only applied to the centre of the arch. I watched as fine particles showered from the brickwork, then more open-mouthed as the driver ignored the noise, ploughed on and ended up getting lodged under the bridge. There are so many scrape-lines in the ceiling that I guess this is a fairly regular occurrence.
Mon 16: On the R8 to Biggin Hill, along some ridiculously narrow lanes, oncoming traffic is generally expected to manoeuvre out of the way of the bus. But our driver was almost scuppered by meeting the Bromley dustcart coming the other way. Fortunately we'd just reached the first decent passing place, otherwise a public-service stand-off could have ensued and we might still be stuck there.

Tue 17: The platforms at Berrylands are seriously shonky, skewwhiff and worryingly insubstantial, so I'm not surprised the station will be closing for four months from 11th May for a complete replacement.
Wed 18: Today I blogged about my failed interview 40 years ago, and belated congratulations to the (just) one reader who correctly guessed in the comments who/what it was for. If you'd left an email address I'd have congratulated you directly.
Thu 19: Hello to the woman who walked off a train a Baker Street without looking and hit me in the leg with her fold-up bicycle. Ouch. I may however have exaggerated my limp as I hobbled off.
Fri 20: I enjoyed three hours of Comic Relief, or at least enough of it to make watching worthwhile. But I was amazed its viewing figures were only 2m this year, accelerating a longstanding downward trend (2025 2.6m, 2024 3.7m, 2023 2.9m, 2022 3.5m, 2021 4.5m, 2019 5.8m, 2017 6.3m, 2015 8.4m, 2013 10.3m).
Sat 21: After five years with my 'new' electric cooker I switched from using the front right hob to the back left hob. I presumed they were identical but blimey back left heats up so much quicker, and if I'd experimented previously I could have had years of quicker dinners.

Sun 22: I went for a farewell walk along Footpath 47 at Barking Riverside, all along the waterfront as far as the section they haven't strimmed to death yet. It'll never be quite so undeveloped again.
Mon 23 Supermarket update: The latest price shock is for a 500g pack of own-brand sultanas. Six months ago £1.05, start of the year £1.15, last week £1.29, this week £1.49.
Tue 24: In the latest edition of Westcombe News, available in the SE3 area and online, I learned that the bee-specific count in Vanbrugh Pits is exceptionally high and that Sam Mendes has been filming for his quartet of Beatles movies outside 82 Beaconsfield Road. A cracking local focus.
Wed 25: Back in January we mused on what might be the oldest year of establishment on the front of a London Tesco. I proposed it might be 'Bishopsgate Est 1988', today I spotted Whitton Est 1965', but the winner still appears to be 'Victoria Est 1960'.

Thu 26: Every year there's a 'leaf week' when trees collectively switch from bare branches to small green leaves and in 2026 I reckon this week is that week. It's definitely normally in April.
Fri 27: London's longest business name may be Supermegahyperdupermarketmetroexpress, a tiny creative bazaar in a container outside North Acton station. Apparently it's only open on Fridays, but it wasn't.
Sat 28: The latest daily word game I'm playing is Cadgy, where you try to make 20 words by picking one letter from each of five columns (and 40 words on Fridays).
Sun 29: The guest on Lev Parikian's Six Things podcast this month is Matt Brown from Londonist. His six things he really enjoys include Tube Station Smells, Parakeets, Wetherspoons Carpets, Wazzbaffles and... oooh, thanks Matt!
Mon 30: If you use the Journey Planner at nationalrail.co.uk, it now opens your search in a new window and displays a list of local hotels, even if you're only going one stop from Hendon to Cricklewood. To avoid this abhorrent commercial hijack you have to untick the booking.com box before searching, and so much for a nationalised railway.
Tue 31: Since 1st January I've ridden on 50% of London bus routes and been to 80% of tube stations, so I'm taking it slowly this year.
Wed 1: No of course TfL aren't publishing new bus maps, the very idea of it. Check the date.

New London bus maps

2026-04-01T07:00:00.382+01:00

Unbelievably it's been 10 years since TfL last bothered to print a set of London bus maps. Ten whole years.

They used to be updated regularly, then came a 14 month hiatus from January 2015 to March 2016 and then they just stopped. No good reason was ever given, although saving money probably had a lot to do with it.

It's since become harder and harder to work out where buses go, at least for those of us who like to plan our own journeys rather than slavishly following an app. I still use the 2016 quadrant maps when travelling around London, they're often invaluable, although the Central London bus map is now impractically inaccurate because so many subsequent changes have occurred.

So it's a joy to report that a new set of London bus maps has finally been published, a proper geographic suite, almost as if TfL have finally seen the error of their ways. I couldn't wait to grab some paper copies.

Physical and digital copies will be provided. Look out for them in bus stations and larger tube stations, while the full set will be available at Visitor Centres, the London Transport Museum and City Hall.

This time there are nine maps rather than five, that's one for each of the eight compass points plus one in the centre. A West End and City summary will appear on the reverse of each map.

The North East map, for example, covers buses from Chingford to Upminster and from Loughton to the Royal Docks. Heathrow appears on two maps but Crystal Palace, annoyingly, is split across three.

It's hoped that having nine maps rather than four means they'll be more useful for planning local journeys. It also allows areas to be shown at greater scale. However the fold-out maps are smaller in size than the previous incarnation, and also printed on thinner paper so may not survive several outings in your jacket pocket.

The front cover designs return to the theme of local attractions. The Central map has a fairly standard Westminster view, bus included, while North East heads to the Olympic Park and North West features Wembley Stadium. South London offers a quirkier pair of dinosaurs, North plumps for parakeets in Highgate Woods... and as for South West, well, we'll get to that.

The real surprise is what they think counts as a bus map these days. It's definitely not what we've been used to.

Don't expect to see a simple road map, it's now a lot more colourful. Don't expect to see a lot of place names, it's now all about interchange with stations. Don't expect the previous confusion with very small numbers, instead a different kind of confusion with big numbers. It's going to take some getting used to.

Previously route numbers were shown alongside the roads and you had to follow them across the map. Now the routes are shown as coloured lines and only numbered at the ends. Arguably it's much easier now to see where the buses go, but patently it's also harder to see what they are.

TfL have very much been following this philosophy of late, for example when producing maps for consultations. I've long thought this unhelpful, especially where several routes follow the same road, but here's that fundamental shift writ large. I mean, just look at the size of the key.

Colourblind passengers may find this particularly hard to get their heads around, if indeed they can use the new maps at all.

Also the edges of the maps now feel less helpful. Whereas previously the routes would go right up to the edge they now end with arrows, some distance away, and this may make gaining an overview harder than before. There also seems to have been somewhat of a cop out in the Purley area, sacrificing the southernmost tip of London to ensure greater clarity.

At least they've gone for dotted lines to make the Superloop stand out.

I am greatly reassured that TfL have finally seen sense and reintroduced London-wide bus maps with up-to-date information. Perhaps the absence of maps meant they no longer knew where their own buses went, making network management increasingly difficult! A fresh suite of public-facing maps thus helps them as well as us. It should also be simple to update the digital maps with revised information every time a bus route changes.

But we need to talk about the South West London map because that is an abomination, and I hope it doesn't set the tone for what's to come.

Uniquely amongst the suite of nine, the South West London map has been produced 'in conjunction with Gail's'. Not only does the bakery chain get a namecheck on the cover alongside a striking photograph of their Brentford store, but the Gail's logo also appears on the map itself. And this being southwest London there are a considerable number of them - I counted nineteen - all given undue prominence simply because the company paid to shoehorn their brand onto the map.

I'm reassured that so far only one map has been commercially sullied in this way. Maybe TfL's commercial team failed to find any relevant businesses for the other sections or maybe they're all in the pipeline, so god help us if Wetherspoons takes South East London or Greggs goes Central.

Whatever, it is a joy to finally have accurate and up-to-date bus maps again, ten years after some budget-focused bigwig decreed we could all do without and should trust an app instead. The full suite of nine should be going live at tfl.gov.uk/maps/bus later this morning, and do look out for physical copies of the maps as you travel around London.

As a special launch offer all bus drivers have been provided with copies of their local map today and will be able to dispense one if you ask, so be sure to request one as you board.

These maps are sure to make travelling around our capital easier, even if they take some getting used to. And they finally right a wrong created ten years ago when some high-minded official decided we no longer needed to know where any of London's buses go, indeed we've all been in the dark ever since.

G is for Grove Park

2026-03-31T07:00:00.339+01:00

LONDON A-Z
G is for Grove Park

For my next alphabetical visit to unsung suburbs we're off to Grove Park, not the well-known one in Lewisham but the less well-known one in Chiswick. Indeed if you head to Chiswick station, that's precisely where Grove Park is.

Modern Chiswick covers the inside of a double bend in the Thames between Brentford and Hammersmith. It once comprised a scattering of villages and a lot of fields and orchards, nobody being particularly keen to live on land that regularly flooded. But a couple of large houses broke the mould, most notably Palladian wonder Chiswick House but also Grove House, a Georgian mansion further to the southwest. It had extensive river-facing gardens once described as some of the finest in England, and its owners included Earl of Grantham and the Duke of Devonshire. Then came the railways, specifically the Hounslow loop which cut across the Thames from Barnes in 1849, adding a very lonely-looking station initially called Chiswick and Grove Park. This triggered the building of a hotel and some well-to-do housing, but not too much, thus most of the land to the south remains as playing fields of one kind or another. And it's still a really nice place to live.

It's hard to define Grove Park's boundaries so let's start at the station and wander around a bit. The southern side boasts an elegant shopping parade, brief enough to be imposing, and whose parking spaces were recently half-filled to create a nicer place to sit. Perhaps grab a frothy coffee from Café Grove, or else some paracetamol from Busby's, a pharmacy which flags its independence with a stripy awning. Across the road is the Old Station House, Grove Park's original hotel, whose upstairs rooms have just been transformed into luxury apartments and whose downstairs may or may not reopen as a pub. If your cat's sick or you want the Co-op, try the even shorter parade opposite the London-bound platform.

The first housebuilders had little imagination when it came to street names, hence we have Grove Park Gardens, Grove Park Road and Grove Park Terrace. Other streets got named after the Duke of Devonshire, his wife, his son's title and a Yorkshire abbey they collectively owned. Grove Park Road still boasts several chunky Victorian villas, gracefully spaced, but its most characterful house is probably the vicarage at number 64. This is where the poet Dylan Thomas lived from 1938 to 1941, roughly coincident with the publication of his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, at least according to those who compiled the Chiswick Writers Trail. John Thaw and Sheila Hancock used to live at number 70 before they skedaddled to Wiltshire.

St Paul's Church was built from Kentish ragstone, has a pleasing symmetry and is topped by a teensy steeple and a fake belfry. The Duke funded it so that his new estate could become a parish in its own right, with other benefactors including Baroness Rothschild and the future Edward VII. I'm not sure if it's usually unlocked or whether I squeaked in while the weekly Coffee Club was clearing up, but I can confirm they have a wide range of jigsaws for sale by the rear pew at £5 a time. As for the super-streamlined Art Deco block opposite that's Hartington Court and it replaced the only other mansion to precede the railway. The even older Grove House was dismantled in 1928, some say to be shipped to America, and in its place are the dazzling white semis on Kinnaird Avenue.

It's quite hard to see the Thames in Grove Park because the waterfront was subject to a landgrab by the first wealthy homeowners. Walk far enough north and you reach the enchanting tidal riverside at Strand-on-the-Green, but that's one of Chiswick's original component villages so out of scope for a Grove Park post. I did however discover a permissive path alongside Redcliffe Gardens, a former missionary training college, which residents permit the public to walk down between 7am and dusk. At the far end eight steps lead down to a rock-strewn tidal strand, pleasingly exposed on my visit, but alas further access was along an absolute mudbath of a footpath so I decided to back off. That's private footpaths for you.

Grove Park Terrace is split by a rarity in residential London, a full-on level crossing. It's a fairly essential traffic connection hereabouts so uncloseable, and with Victorian houses on all sides entirely unbypassable too. But there is just room for a footbridge, which is just as well because Network Rail lower the barriers long before any train appears, indeed I watched three cyclists get so bored waiting that they headed off elsewhere. Closer to the station enough space was found for a proper viaduct, again funded by the benevolent Duke of Devonshire, which is just as well because without Grove Park Bridge TfL would never be able to send a bus here.

These days the Grove Park name also spreads north of the railway, and this is where the suburb's swishest row of shops can be found. Nominal proof comes courtesy of the Grove Park Deli, purveyors of Norbiton Fine Cheese, picnic quiches and balsamic olives. I can imagine Time Out running a gushing feature back in the day, also focusing on Nuka's Thai, Halo salon and the snug ambience of The Copper Cow. Checking the newspaper rack outside Budgens, they've reassuringly placed broadsheets on the top row, tabloids on the second and the Times Literary Supplement at the bottom. But this is probably as far as Grove Park goes because the church a tad closer to the A4 is St Michael Sutton Court, Little Sutton being another of the constituent villages from which Chiswick coalesced.

For leisure purposes, residents of Grove Park are fortunate to have the grounds of Chiswick House on their doorstep, with the Western Wilderness accessed up an alleyway from Staveley Road. But this street also has its place in history as the site of the first V2 bomb to land in London. The supersonic missile debuted without warning on the evening of Friday 8th September 1944, destroying eleven houses and leaving a crater 30 feet wide and 8 feet deep. Three people died; a toddler asleep in a cot in her front bedroom, her 68 year-old neighbour who ran three local sweet shops and an army engineer walking to the station to see his girlfriend. 60 years later a granite memorial was placed at the site, or rather squeezed into a gap beside an electricity sub-station because the actual landing spot was in the middle of the road, but it's none the less respectful for that.

Heading south Grove Park ends abruptly on the edge of Quintin Hogg Memorial Sports Ground, originally the playing fields for the Central London Polytechnic. Full marks to them for never replacing the original sign. Closer to the river Grove House's former ornamental lake has been repurposed as Chiswick Quay Marina, the nucleus of an exclusive nautical enclave. And if you continue to the far end of Hartington Road be sure to look out for the green gates by the traffic lights on the approach to Chiswick Bridge. The metal panels feature a hugely distracting plug for Dukes Meadows (Pay & Play - Golf, Tennis & Ski) and also a much smaller sign saying 'Ibis Cottage', this being the name of the incredibly famous property concealed down the drive. For this is the location of the Taskmaster House, Alex Horne's comedian-testing hideaway, which you have far more chance of seeing on Channel 4 than through the gates in real life.

I did however find a gap marginally wide enough to peek through and was thrilled to see that something challenging was underway. Two balloons were resting on pedestals in the driveway, one blue and one yellow, but the slit was really narrow so heaven knows what they were for. I did spot a couple of people wandering about, by the looks of them technicians rather than comedians, so most likely setting something up rather than filming. But look out for these coloured balloons when series 22 screens in the autumn, whatever task they were mastering, because the tip of Grove Park is much better known than you thought.

Housing deficit

2026-03-30T07:00:00.004+01:00

The UK has a serious housing deficit estimated to be in the region of 5 million unbuilt homes. That'll be why the government's recently advanced its new town strategy with plans including 15,000 new homes at Thamesmead Waterfront and 21,000 more at Crews Hill and Chase Park. But we also have a problem with tens of thousands of homes planned but never completed, especially near me where the Lower Lea Valley is awash with construction sites cleared but insufficiently built upon. To try to determine the extent of the problem locally I've been for a walk from West Ham to Pudding Mill Lane, increasingly perturbed by the extent of the unbuiltness.

Here's a very rough map with all the major planned redevelopment parcels coloured in.
Green for 'construction underway or complete' and yellow for 'nothing yet'.

In what follows I'm going to assume flats are a good thing, not sterile highrise neighbourhoods, because the more housing we build round here the less chance your local Green Belt has to be sacrificed.

1) Twelvetrees Park (aka West Ham Village)
3800 new homes planned, 750 built (26 acres, 85% of site empty)
This one sits immediately alongside West Ham station in an absolutely prime location, but also on the site of a former gasworks so hard land to remediate. Last year they finished the first wedge of flats overlooking the station, creating the illusion it's a lot more complete than it is, and also opened up two footbridges so the first residents can escape. A new station entrance is planned but thus far barely started because the contractor went bust, so even that's way behind schedule. If you cross for a peek you enter a brief canyon of public realm before descending alongside a tumbling water feature to a set of fountains that residents are advised not to play in. A small Sainsbury's has opened to cater for the captive audience but the staff looked seriously bored yesterday. Eventually there'll be an extensive linear park but so far they've only completed a a small scrappy triangle, beyond which is an expanse of delineated brownfield that'll be covered at a snail's pace. Proportionally speaking we're still at Twotrees, nowhere near Twelve.
approved 2018, began 2021, first homes 2025, estimated completion 2040s

2) Bromley-by-Bow Gasworks
2150 new homes planned, none started (23 acres)
This is about as challenging as housebuilding gets, melding 2000 flats into the largest group of Victorian gasholders in Britain. The cluster of seven is readily seen from the train between West Ham and Bromley-by-Bow stations, and it's this excellent connectivity which has persuaded developers St William it's worth the expense of construction. They plan to build seven circular blocks of flats inside the existing ironwork, a bit like at Kings Cross, then add six more circular blocks to help get their moneysworth. One bombed gasholder becomes a central water feature while another will have its unique radial truss lifted to crown a 'innovative open air space'. Affordable housing barely gets a look in. Also it's all smoke and mirrors because each gasholder's cross-bracing has to be removed and then "re-erected with required alterations" so the flats can be built inside. It's an astonishing place, as I discovered when I was lucky enough to get a tour of the toxic brownfield in 2022. But it'll look incredibly different once the transformation's complete, which is absolutely no time soon, and thus far all that's appeared are a few diggers and some scaffolding.
decommissioned 2010, plans approved 2024, construction begins 2027

In 20 years time you'll be able to walk from the back of Twelvetrees Park to the back of Bromley-by-Bow Gasworks, opening up a much-needed local connection. I had to walk the long way through the industrial estate instead, a diversion which enabled me to confirm that Poplar Riverside (2800 homes) remains 75% empty, Rivermark (530 homes) is mostly underway and Calico Wharf (800 homes) is a desolate void after its Chinese owners pulled out two years ago.

3) Bromley-by-Bow North
1200 new homes built, 50% of site untouched (20 acres)
This is a stripe of land tucked between the A12 and the River Lea, just south of the Bow Roundabout. It's been in developers' line of sight for ages, and I attended a consultation on future plans way back in 2009. However only one central chunk got the go-ahead, becoming a fortress of 219 flats in 2016. The triangular neck closest to the flyover was supposed to follow as the footprint to a residential skyscraper but that's never happened. In 2019 the railway's edge began its transformation into a 965-flat site called Leaside Lock, and this is finally nearing completion seven years later. But the land around Tesco has never even reached the planning permission stage, perhaps held back due to complex land ownership, and I for one am delighted about that. The intention was to build a lot of flats and a tiny replacement supermarket, disadvantaging thousands of existing residents, and I continue to pray that this gets left alone while developers focus on hundreds of nearby acres they've demolished already.

4) Sugar House Island
1200 new homes planned, 33% occupied (26 acres)
IKEA bought this site in 2012, a tongue of land between two of the Bow Back Rivers. They handed it on to another developer sharpish, the intention being to mix commercial space with semi-dense housing. Buildings along Stratford High Street were prioritised so they were mostly done by 2019, then the focus shifted to a residential stripe behind. Wander round and the neighbourhood feels quite substantial, so only if you exit the site and look across the river do you see quite how much remains unbuilt. By my calculations two-thirds of the site remains unconstructed and at this rate it'll end up being well over 20 years between initiation and completion. Nobody in the world of residential development, it seems, is capable of hurrying up a bit.
approved 2012, began 2017, first homes 2020, estimated completion 2030s

5) East Quay
750 new homes planned, none started (3 acres)
This Leaside site, just north of the Bow Roundabout, could be the poster child for slow development. Half the site was razed by Crossrail. I attended the initial consultation event in 2018. The remaining oil silos were flattened in 2021 after developers London Square bought the land. Their plans included a 33-storey tower but this fell foul of post-Grenfell rules on double staircasing so had to be redesigned, at which point the project stalled and nothing whatsoever has happened since. The hoardings still say 'East Quay Coming Soon' but it totally isn't, red tape and finance have killed it, and if you visit the URL underneath you just get 'Error 404'. If anyone's living here before 2033 I'll be amazed.

And so we come to three post-Olympic developments where... not a sausage.

6) Pudding Mill
950 new homes planned, none started (13 acres)
Since being handed back after the Olympics not a single foundation has yet been built in Pudding Mill, only a handful of meanwhile uses. Chief amongst these is the Abba Arena, a world class attraction that squats on what will one day be Pudding Mill's highrise centre, but which currently has permission to remain until March 2031. The Snoozebox Hotel opposite is protected until 2028 so the only patch currently up for grabs is the expanse of empty hardstanding on Marshgate Lane which has been empty for years. The latest planning documents suggest works might begin here in the autumn for completion in 2030, but that's already a 2-year slippage and will likely slip further. It's shocking that a key Olympic neighbourhood won't see a single resident until almost two decades after the closing ceremony.
named 2011, plans approved 2023, first homes 2030?, estimated completion 2034

7) Bridgewater Triangle
575 new homes planned, none started (6 acres)
This is essentially Pudding Mill East, over on the other side of the Greenway. It's the development whose towers are due to overshadow the Manor Farm allotments, you may remember, so a bit further ahead in the planning schedule. I thought they'd started given the riverside footpath's been closed for a year but no, they're just doing embankment works to create a nicer walkway and the first ground-breaking's not due until June next year. So so slow.
construction begins 2027, estimated completion 2031

8) Rick Roberts Way
750 new homes planned, none started (5 acres)
And finally, a tongue of land beside the Greenway which was used as a coach park in 2012. It's subsequently been used to sell used cars and currently supports a large Padel club, having always been at the end of the redevelopment queue. One end is due to become a secondary school and the other end housing, but unbelievably no progress has been made due to "the development agreement not being finalised with the preferred bidder in 2025". While the LLDC reviews "alternative delivery strategies" this site continues to be wasted, and for goodness sake how hard can it be to build some houses?

I know it's been a self-selected sample but even in this small patch of the Lower Lea Valley that's 12,000 homes which have been pencilled in but not yet built. Is it a planning system logjam, is it a lack of available construction companies, is it the financial squeeze, is it an excess of red tape, is it commercial reticence to flood the market, is it because private developers can only invest money from sales made, or is it just that building new homes is always a painfully slow process? Whatever, there are huge swathes of East London where everyone would like to build homes but nobody is, seemingly because it's too difficult. Perhaps we should stop bickering over which bits of countryside to plough up and focus instead on turbocharging construction on brownfield sites already agreed.

Three timetable tales

2026-03-29T07:00:00.163+01:00

Three timetable tales

This is the timetable for the Silvertown Tunnel Cycle Shuttle bus, or SCS for short.

It runs every 12 minutes throughout the day, every day of the week. The first journey is at 0634 and the last at 2134. That's five buses an hour for 15 hours, or 76 journeys in total. And given the buses run in both directions, that's 152 crossings per day. I wonder how many bikes are using it.

We can see some data in a presentation given to the Silvertown Tunnel Implementation Group last month. They provided a graph showing daily shuttle usage across certain weeks last year. And as you can see, the number of bikes never once reached 152.

(It did exceed 152 in the first week the bus operated, with a maximum of 299 passengers on day 1, but in normal operation never that high again)

I therefore declare that the bus runs more often than the number of bikes who want to use it, which is insane. Put another way, the bus drivers are crossing the river more often than the cyclists.

It's very much the Mayor's prerogative to run a green-friendly bus to encourage cycling take-up, and still hugely cheaper than adding a cycle lane to the tunnel would have been. But the Silvertown Tunnel Cycle Shuttle Bus is an ABSOLUTE WASTE OF MONEY, regularly running empty for the benefit of a tiny number of Londoners, and there must be a better use for the £1,967,010 being squandered on it.

Friday's TfL press release, which limped very much below the media radar, was about improvements to the Mildmay line timetable.

Olympia partners with TfL to boost peak-time Mildmay line services
From Monday 18 May, additional Mildmay line shuttle services will run between Clapham Junction and Shepherd's Bush during weekday peak times

It's unusual for an exhibition centre to fund extra train services, but that's because they're reopening fully after a lengthy transformation and want the publicity. Add more trains and people are more likely to come is the philosophy, which is especially true when you're opening 25 new bars and restaurants and want to be taken seriously as a prestige hospitality destination.

But it's not many trains, just three services in the morning peak and five in the evening peak. And they're only going five stops, not even as far as Willesden Junction.

Here's part of the new timetable, just published, jiggered about so you can hopefully see what's going on.
(click to embiggen)

The extra shuttles have the green outline and start in May. All the other trains are in the existing timetable. The trains labelled 'SN' are hourly Southern trains running between East Croydon and Watford Junction.

The evening peak's current status quo is five Mildmay trains an hour plus one Southern train. The new shuttles will boost this by adding two trains an hour, cutting the gap between some trains from about 12 minutes to about six. That's very welcome extra capacity if you're used to cramming into a rush hour train. It does however come with a significant downside at Clapham Junction, which is that the extra trains run from a completely different platform.

Mildmay trains normally run from platform 1. But the extra trains are running from platform 17, which if you know Clapham Junction is way over on the other side of the station. Indeed platforms 1 and 17 are as far apart as you can get, accessed along a long squeezy subway or via a much longer footbridge. The smallprint in the press release thus reminds passengers "to allow up to 10 minutes to walk between platforms 1 and 17 at Clapham Junction", which pretty much wipes out all the benefits of running the extra trains.

Imagine turning up on platform 1, as normal, only to discover that the next train goes in six minutes from the other side of the station. You might reach platform 17 just in time for the doors to close, then have to trek back to platform 1 only for the doors to close there too. The switch doesn't really take 10 minutes but at rush hour you'd be hard pushed to do it quickly, so best not risk it, plus your average passenger won't even notice that the extra trains exist and will stay put anyway.

The extra trains are being funded by the consortium who acquired the Olympia complex in 2017 and will run for the next five years. But the three morning peak extras seem wasted because nobody wants to visit a luxury restaurant nexus at 8am, and the evening ones are a drop in the ocean running from an inconvenient platform. If they'd really wanted publicity then running a decent service on the District line to Kensington (Olympia) would have made a bigger splash, but operational difficulties alas make that a non-starter. It's clearly a lot better than nothing, but don't expect it'll genuinely help you reach 'London's newest entertainment destination'.

I was outside Alperton station in the week hoping to catch a bus to Wembley Central. How long will that take, I thought. So I checked.

According to the timetable the 297 gets there in 4 minutes, the 83 gets there in 6 minutes and the 483 gets there in 10 minutes. But all three buses follow exactly the same route stopping in exactly the same places, so the disparity is ridiculous.

I know these times are best guesses, and were originally described alongside as "off peak journey time in minutes". I know that different routes may have different loadings so it's possible there might be some variety here. But it is utterly ridiculous to suggest that one route should take more than twice as long as another, in this case a 6 minute difference, all on timetables freshly posted in the last six months.

And this is no unique occurrence, I've seen this kind of discrepancy across London. It seems there's no consistency in the production of these timestrips, no underlying model, just a bunch of backroom gibbons churning out numbers that sort-of look right. Obviously travel times will vary according to traffic conditions, but there's no excuse for giving three wildly different estimates for an identical journey.

(it took 6 minutes, by the way, in fairly decent conditions, so '4 minutes' looks ridiculously optimistic unless it's late at night and '10 minutes' is proper pessimistic assuming jammy cloggage)

Local government reorganisation update

2026-03-28T07:00:00.008+00:00

Local government reorganisation update

In December 2024 the government announced that it intended to replace all England's two-tier systems with unitary authorities. There'd no longer be local councils AND county councils, just the one authority locally, mainly to save money. It was also suggested that the new authorities should have a population of at least half a million.

"New unitary councils must be the right size to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks. For most areas this will mean creating councils with a population of 500,000 or more, but there may be exceptions to ensure new structures make sense for an area, including for devolution, and decisions will be on a case-by-case basis."

All affected councils were encouraged to come together to discuss what should replace them, then suggest proposals to the Secretary of State who would make the final decision. So let's see how that's going.

One council was way ahead of the game and that was SURREY. They submitted final plans in May last year, five months ahead of anyone else. The county council suggested a 2-authority split, supported by two of the existing boroughs. The other nine boroughs supported a 3-way split. The government responded in October by officially selecting the 2-authority option. That decision was made law three weeks ago through the Surrey (Structural Changes) Order 2026. And this means Surrey's existing district and county councils will be abolished on 1 April 2027 to be replaced by two new councils, West Surrey Council and East Surrey Council.

West Surrey: Guildford + Runnymede + Spelthorne + Surrey Heath + Waverley + Woking (population 685,000)
East Surrey: Elmbridge + Epsom and Ewell + Mole Valley + Reigate and Banstead + Tandridge (population 565,000)

Elections to the two new councils are taking place in May. Each will 'shadow' the existing authorities before taking over in 2027. No decision has yet been made on the seat of government for each new council. There has been a request from throwback obsessives to name the western authority "West Surrey and South Middlesex", this on the basis that Spelthorne was dragged screaming into Surrey in 1965. The Secretary of State has agreed to discuss the proposal, but will hopefully reject this ridiculously long name given 95% of the new authority was never in Middlesex.

Four further counties had their futures confirmed this week.

ESSEX will be moving to a five authority model in 2028. There had also been proposals for three authorities and for four, but these had less support. Thurrock and Rochford were the sole supporters of a 4-authority version, in both cases keen not to be lumped in with Basildon and Southend.

West Essex: Uttlesford + Harlow + Epping Forest (population 330,000)
North East Essex: Braintree + Colchester + Tendring (population 520,000)
Mid Essex: Brentwood + Chelmsford + Maldon (population 340,000)
South West Essex: Thurrock + Basildon (population 370,000)
South East Essex: Castle Point + Southend + Rochford (population 370,000)

The five councils are based around the key local centres of Harlow, Colchester, Chelmsford, Basildon and Southend. Each will have a population of around 350,000 apart from NE Essex which'll exceed half a million. Thurrock and Southend are already unitary authorities and will be absorbed into larger ones. Two of the new authorities are estuarine, three are coastal and three are London-adjacent. Havering remains firmly in the capital. All council names are indicative and subject to change.

SUFFOLK is going three-way. This one's messier.

Western Suffolk: West Suffolk + parts of Babergh + parts of Mid Suffolk
Central and Eastern Suffolk: East Suffolk + parts of Mid Suffolk
Ipswich and South Suffolk: Ipswich + parts of Babergh + parts of East Suffolk

The intention is to coalesce around Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich and Lowestoft although detailed boundaries are still to be finalised. It's thus not possible to give precise populations but each will have approximately 250,000 residents (rather fewer than Essex or Surrey). The 3-way split was the preferred option for all six existing borough councils, but not the county council which wanted one county-wide unitary instead. Well of course they did.

NORFOLK is also going three-way.

West Norfolk: Breckland + King’s Lynn + West Norfolk + a bit of South Norfolk (population 300,000)
Greater Norwich: Norwich + parts of Broadland + parts of South Norfolk (population 280,000)
East Norfolk: Great Yarmouth + North Norfolk + parts of Broadland + parts of South Norfolk (population 330,000)

Norwich's boundaries will expand to take in surrounding suburbs and towns, a move that's long overdue. The rest of the county will be split west/east, probably administered from King's Lynn and Great Yarmouth. East Norfolk is a strategically unhelpful shape and feels very much like the leftovers. All three authorities have a similar population, well below the half million minimum the government originally proposed. This is apparently deliberate, creating similar structures across Norfolk and Suffolk to fit the devolution footprint of their future strategic authority.

As for HAMPSHIRE, this complex coastal county will shift from 14 authorities to just five.

North Hampshire: Basingstoke + Hart + Rushmoor (population 410,000)
Mid Hampshire: New Forest + Test Valley + Winchester + East Hampshire (population 480,000)
South West Hampshire: Southampton + Eastleigh (population 510,000)
South East Hampshire: Portsmouth + Havant + Gosport + Fareham (population 580,000)
Isle of Wight (population 150,000)

This reorganisation will also include boundary changes designed to strip Mid Hampshire of several city suburbs. SW Hampshire thus gains seven parishes around Southampton Water and SE Hampshire gains four parishes north of Havant. Again expect name changes before the new authorities go live, given SW Hampshire is essentially Southampton and SE Hampshire is essentially Portsmouth. Also North Hampshire contracts to North Hants which is very nearly the name of a completely different county, so I bet that gets changed. The Isle of Wight gets the rare luxury of being left unaltered.

Fifteen counties haven't yet had their administrative futures confirmed. Chief amongst these is SUSSEX where the Secretary of State announced this week he wasn't quite convinced by any of the proposed options. Instead he'll be starting a further technical consultation wherein Brighton & Hove expands from its current footprint and Chichester switches sides. If this goes through there'd then be four authorities: an enlarged Brighton & Hove, a coastal strip from Littlehampton to Shoreham, the rest of West Sussex and the rest of East Sussex.

No results have yet been published for consultations in
    • Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
    • Derbyshire and Derby
    • Devon, Plymouth and Torbay
    • Gloucestershire
    • Hertfordshire
    • Kent and Medway
    • Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool
    • Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland
    • Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire
    • Nottinghamshire and Nottingham
    • Oxfordshire
    • Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent
    • Warwickshire
    • Worcestershire

...so watch this space. It really is all change out there.

A Year in Normandie

2026-03-27T07:00:00.384+00:00

David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting
At: Serpentine North Gallery
Location: West Carriage Drive, Kensington Gardens, W2 2AR [map]
Open: 10am-6pm (Monday from noon, weekends until 7pm)
From: 12 March to 23 August
Admission: free
Exhibition guide: guides.bloombergconnects.org
Four word summary: seasonal iPaddery and tablecloths
Time to allow: 30 mins

A David Hockney exhibition is usually quite an event; a big venue, fully ticketed, long lines. This is a medium event in a small venue, partially ticketed and I walked straight in.

It's at Serpentine North, a former gunpowder magazine in the heart of Hyde Park. This is the 2013 adjunct to the original gallery on the south bank of the Serpentine, just across the bridge, and if you've never been your cultural credentials are lacking. Picture a squat square building with hanging space around all four outer walls and two central rectangular galleries. For the Hockney show the perimeter has the trees and the thin centre has the tablecloths.

I wasn't going to go because the website said 'sold out'. Unsurprisingly when you offer free Hockney tickets to the masses they leap in and grab the lot, whether they genuinely want to turn up on a Thursday morning or not. But the smallprint said 'sold out' merely meant all the pre-booked tickets had gone, and that "Walk-ups are welcome but you may need to queue". It also said "The average queue time is currently 10 minutes", which didn't sound too terrible a price to pay. So I gave it a try and found no queue whatsoever, just a smiling member of staff gesturing me into the darkish interior. Tickets for June–August are being released at a later date if you prefer certainty of access.

A Year in Normandie is Hockney's response to moving into rural studios near Caen in 2019. When the pandemic struck he headed outside and painted the landscape around him, or at least dabbed creatively on his iPad, then shared these works with an appreciative global audience. As the title suggests he kept up his visual documentation for a year, right round to Spring again, and ended up with a portfolio of over 100 seasonal works. Around half have been selected to create an extended mural encircling the gallery, here on its first visit to the capital, as a panoply of French trees burst out into leafy splendour and then let it all drop again.

We start in foggy grey, branches bare, and as time passes the sky clears and the first green shoots appear. Hockney does a lot with blobs and splotches, for example a splatter of white and pink as spring blossom or a burst of yellow circles representing meadow flowers. Blossom season seems to go on for longer than you'd expect, proportionally speaking, but it is the most evocative of times so no complaints. Eventually all the trees are plain green confirming summer's here, this before rolls of golden hay appear and the descent into autumn begins. The first brown leaves appear on the bend into the final wall, and within a few frames they're tumbling and gone as a carpet of snow descends instead.

Superficially it has the flavour of a child's picture book on the seasons but is plainly more intricate than that. Skies change, motifs reappear, and could that possibly be the same tree as before but in different leafy guise? A rippling river flows through just one short subset of the autumnscape, a long grey cloud dominates a snatch of summer and one particular meadow appears as the backdrop for an entire month in spring. It all confirms an underlying structure deeper than simply a conveyor belt of trees, and you certainly get a good sense of David's rural environs in Beuvron-en-Auge.

David says one of his inspirations was the Bayeux Tapestry, another Normandy construct telling a lengthy tale in panoramic panels. He was more directly influenced by Chinese scroll paintings, 14th century landscapes illustrated on a continuous roll of paper or silk. These never ever depicted shadows, focusing instead on the permanent and physical, and this artistic foible allows Hockney to keep his grassy surfaces simple.

I confess to being less taken by the ten still lifes in the central galleries, these much more recently completed, and each for some conceptual reason featuring a gingham tablecloth. The perspective of each table is also 'wrong', all forward slanting and unnatural, but that's an accomplished artist doing what he likes and playing with the viewer. I was soon back walking the perimeter again, trying to mentally assign a month to each short strip of paintings (that's April cherry, that's a June storm, that's August hay and that must be November leaffall). In the end I found it so evocative I walked round three times, then exited through the obligatory giftshop and suspected they're going to do a roaring trade on books, cushions, coasters, postcards, trays and teatowels.

One of Hockney's Normandy paintings has been blown up to excessive proportions and is exhibited as a mural round the back of the restaurant across a flowerbed. I admired it more after a member of kitchen staff had finished his cigarette and moved out of the way. But the finest work out back was a nearby fruit tree bursting with frothy white blossom, bumblebee included, also a horse chestnut whose branches were tipped with sappy balls of green which within a fortnight will be a proper blanket of leaves. Beautiful stuff, and no tickets or walk-up queues required. Appreciate the seasons indoors sure, but don't forget to appreciate the real thing outside too at this pivotal time of greatest change.

Sunset on the District line

2026-03-26T07:00:00.043+00:00

I've decided to finish one of yesterday's posts.
(sorry, probably not the one you wanted)

Last night the sun set on the District line at 6.20pm in Upminster, at 6.21pm from Hornchurch to Bow Road, at 6.22pm from Mile End to Kew Gardens and at 6.23pm in Richmond. This is because the District line runs from east to west and because the Earth is not as big as you think it is.

There is a tendency to assume that London has one sunset time. A weather forecast might show a specific sunset time. Diaries usually list sunset times for London and other cities. A clickbait website might write "The first 6pm sunset since October will be taking place in London tonight – and summer is officially within touching distance". These would all be incorrect, or at least only correct for part of London not all of it.

I've made a diagram. (click to embiggen)

These are sunset times along the District line yesterday. The sun set first in Upminster because this is on the eastern side of London. The time was 6.20pm, or more accurately 6.20 and 53 seconds because you can be really accurate about celestial geography. By Upminster Bridge it was 6.20 and 57 seconds, and at Hornchurch it was 6.21 and 1 second. We've only gone 1½ miles west but that's already an 8 second difference. That's how susceptible sunset times are across relatively short distances.
(I used the excellent Suncalc website to calculate the times precisely, this simply by clicking on a map)

Heading into my neck of the woods, Bow Road had a sunset at 6.21 and 58 seconds while Mile End's sunset was 6.22 precisely. The switch to 6.23 took place almost at the western end of the line, with Kew Gardens 1 second before and Richmond 3 seconds after. I've focused solely on the Richmond branch here to keep things simple, but on a train heading to Ealing Broadway the divide would come between Acton Town and Ealing Common.

These stripes may look to be of different widths but that's because tube maps aren't geographically accurate. They are in fact each approximately about 11 miles wide, i.e. for every 11 miles you go west, the sun sets a minute later. And there's a jolly good reason for that.

It's all to do with the length of a line of latitude through London. Imagine drawing a line west from the Houses of Parliament all the way round the world until it returned to Westminster. That line would precisely follow 51½°N and would be 15,501 miles long.

Here's how you work that out.
The formula for the length of a line of latitude is q×cos(L°)
where q is the length of the equator and L is the angle of latitude
The length of the equator is 24901 miles.
In London's case L = 51½° and the cosine of 51½° is 0.662.
So our line of latitude is 24901 × 0.622 = 15501 miles long.

There are 1440 minutes in a day and the Earth rotates an equal amount in each of them.
The key calculation is thus 15,501 ÷ 1440 = 10.8
i.e. in London the Earth rotates 10.8 miles every minute.

And that's why sunset in Richmond is a minute after sunset in Bow which is a minute after sunset in Upminster.
And this is always true, it doesn't depend on the season.

Here's how it looks on the Elizabeth line, another east/west railway but considerably longer.
These are sunset times tonight.

Again each of these stripes is 11 miles wide.
But this time there's a five minute difference from one end of the line to the other.
The sun sets five minutes later in Reading than in Shenfield.
And considering just the London bit, three minutes later in West Drayton than in Harold Wood.

This is why "The first 6pm sunset since October will be taking place in London tonight" is a potentially misleading headline. The clickbaiteers published it on 13th March, and it was indeed true for anywhere east of Whitechapel. Crucially it was correct for the Greenwich meridian. But anywhere west of Whitechapel saw its first 6pm sunset on 12th March, and Heathrow Terminal 5 scraped a 6pm sunset on 11th March, so for the majority of Londoners it wasn't actually true.

It's also why the Great Western Railway adopted 'railway time' in 1840, local time in Bristol being 10 minutes later than local time at Paddington. This was the first instance of a standard time replacing local mean time, and would ultimately lead to the official adoption of Greenwich Mean Time in 1884.

Be aware that sunset times also change going north/south, but at this time of year not very much.
Sunset barely changes along the Northern line tonight, being 6.24pm in both High Barnet and Morden.
The big changes are east/west because that's the way the world spins.

Also be aware that the 11 mile thing is only true for those living on a similar latitude to London.

If you live north of London your line of latitude is shorter so your sunset stripes are narrower.
For example Edinburgh is at 56°N and 24901×cos(56°)÷ 1440 = 9.7
So in central Scotland the sun sets a minute later for every 10 miles you go west.

If you live south of London your line of latitude is longer so your sunset stripes are wider.
For example Rome is at 42°N and 24901×cos(42°)÷ 1440 = 12.8
So in the Mediterranean the sun sets a minute later for every 13 miles you go west.

If you need a conclusion after all that, it's that London doesn't have just one sunset time it has several, generally a three minute spread. So try not to be too precise about sunsets if you don't know precisely where you're talking about.

(sorry, you probably wish I'd finished one of the other 39 unfinished posts)

» The book I finished yesterday was The Long Shoe by Bob Mortimer.
» London's most average bus number is the 219.
» The first chocolate biscuit in alphabetical order is probably a Bahlsen.
» The 1-word London place name with the highest Scrabble score is perhaps Bexleyheath (29).
» West Harrow is east of North Harrow.
» Clue 14: What a very tall one-legged clown has

40 posts I will not be finishing today

2026-03-25T07:00:00.053+00:00

40 posts I will not be finishing today

My favourite fountain pen was a brushed silver Parker 25, always with a black cartridge never blue, which I used all the time at secondary school. But sadly...

It's amazing that the most watched programme on UK television can't attract even 10% of the population these days. Time was when a soap opera...

25 years ago today I came up to London to buy some cool clothes (they're still stashed in a bottom drawer), but I had to walk to the station because I'd crashed the car. Also...

"Are you enjoying that book?" asked the lady on the train, entirely out of the blue, "because I'm reading it next." I was only 60 pages in and told her so. But I could already tell it was up to the author's usual quirky standards...

Every time I buy a bunch of daffodils it comes with a small green rubber band, and now I have a lot of small green rubber bands and no good use to put them to. Maybe...

Let's ride London's most average bus! I calculated the mean of every current TfL bus route number and obviously it came out in the low 200s, and that's why today we're off to Wimbledon...

Gadabout: ABERYSTWYTH

Have you noticed how bikes are getting faster? I dare say with all these 20mph signs everywhere a lot of the zippier e-bikes are actually breaking the speed limit on a regular basis...

40 years ago today my optician asked if I'd got a job yet, then checked my eyes and told me they were much the same prescription as before. They're still much the same now thankfully, apart from...

What would happen if you listed all the chocolate biscuit varieties in alphabetical order? Abbey Crunch would obviously be first if they were chocolatey but no, so it has to be...

The coffee shop at Shortlands station is called Shotlands and I thought that was quite clever, almost as clever as...

Litter bins vary considerably across different London boroughs. In today's post I'm going to analyse that variety objectively and then confirm which borough officially has the best...

Tonight the sun sets on the District line at 6.20pm in Upminster, at 6.21pm from Hornchurch to Bow Road, at 6.22pm from Mile End to Kew Gardens and at 6.23pm in Richmond. This is because...

The upcoming local elections in the borough of Newham are a battle between Areeq, Clive, Forhad, Laura, Mehmood and Terri. Forhad ought to have the Mayoralty on a plate but...

I've often wondered, if you have a box of matches in your house and there's a fire, do they all blaze up and make the fire a lot worse? Or at least burn faster? Perhaps we shouldn't...

When is the right time to take your birthday cards down? Mine have now been up for a fortnight and arguably that's beyond the limit but I'm also tempted to leave them until...

Only one country has exactly 10 neighbouring countries, that's Brazil, although technically Belgium has 39 distinct land borders if you count all the twiddles because...

30 years ago today I realised I'd uploaded a computer virus from a floppy disc at work. Things were obviously safer in those days because none of the machines were connected, but imagine...

If you arrange all the London neighbourhoods in order of their Scrabble score then the smallest total is clearly Lee (3 points) whereas the maximum score is more debatable and is possibly...

But why are the warning stripes on escalators yellow? Wouldn't orange...?

The Bourneview public footpath level crossing in Kenley is still closed, until August apparently, while they explore and carry out additional safety measures. I was thus forced...

The thing about West Finchley station is it's actually east of Finchley Central! And it's not the only geographical inaccuracy on the tube network...

A Nice Walk: Hampton Wick High Street (½ mile)

When you say "Exciting changes to our website and app are on the way" what you really mean is all my data is about to be lost and you need me to jump through hoops because you can't transfer things properly. So it's fortunate that...

It worries me that a lot of the green energy revolution only applies to people in houses, not flats. They have roofs for solar panels, space for heat pumps and parking spaces for charging. All we have is...

I've always hated objectives. I could never take it seriously at work when we had to write some as part of the annual appraisal charade, 'smart' objectives no less, and quite frankly...

The tallest building in Wandsworth is One Nine Elms City Tower, but can you see the tallest building in Ealing (One West Point) from the top floor? Unexpectedly...

Scrolling along the FM band, national station-wise, it goes Radio 2 (88.1-90.1), Radio 3 (90.3-92.3), Radio 4 (94.6-96.1), Radio 1 (97.7-99.7), Classic FM (99.9-101.9). And in those gaps...

Which London station has three bears? It's Elmstead Woods and their names are Billy, Monty and Emma. Let me show you where they are and also the secret garden...

I understand that not everyone still has a CD rack but mine starts with ABC, no hang on Abba, and ends up with Yazoo. I never did get into ZZ Top otherwise...

The flowerbeds outside the shops in Elm Park commemorate 80 years of the garden suburb, that anniversary being in 2015, although they look a bit weedy at present...

20 years ago today I took a set of photos that are still my least-viewed Flickr photos of all time. I guess that's not surprising given...

There are many sights in Neasden but if we're ranking them the top 3 are undoubtedly the temple, the IKEA and...

The Great Tea Experiment
Milk first or hot water first? I decided to test this once and for all by making one of each and blind-tasting the resulting brew, and I did this with both teabags and loose tea. The results are incontrovertible...

Cotes, dill and laid are one-word examples, but Sir Morons and irate sow take two, and arguably Mrs Nerd Pancakes can't be done with fewer than three...

It's exactly 10 years ago today that track renewal work in Croydon town centre affected London Trams services and Line 4 did not run. You may remember...

Which Ordnance Survey maps have you lived on and how much do they add up to? If we're talking Landrangers then my total is 107+144+153+155+164+166+167+169+175+176+177+178 = 1931, although obviously there's a lot of overlap there...

28 records in this week's singles chart have been in the Top 100 for over a year, topped off by Mr Brightside at 497 weeks! It just goes to show how slowly music evolves these days. Even the current number 1 is on 40 weeks, and as for Everybody Wants To Rule The World...

Here are cryptic clues to the names of 30 cheeses. How many can you identify?

Cutty Sark station reopens

2026-03-24T07:00:00.065+00:00

Cutty Sark station reopened yesterday after a 10-month closure to replace all its escalators.

(that's all you need to know)
(read on for background detail, jazz and cupcakes)

Cutty Sark station opened on 3rd September 1999 as part of the DLR's Lewisham extension. It had been dropped from the original plans for being too expensive, but Greenwich council insisted and the money was found. It's on a tightly confined town centre site, three storeys deep, hence the need for two sets of escalators to connect the platforms to street level. And those escalators weren't especially well maintained by a private contractor, thus were increasingly frequently out of order. Alternative access via stairwells and a tiny lift proved unpleasant and ultimately inadequate, especially for a busy station in a key tourist area. When TfL took responsibility in 2021 they spent £695,000 on repairs, which repeatedly failed, so eventually decided the only solution was to shut the station and replace all four escalators. The £4m renovation project that kicked off in May 2025 is now complete.

Cutty Facts
• The stairwell at Cutty Sark has 121 steps.
• Cutty Sark is (usually) the 5th busiest DLR station.
• Cutty Sark has (by far) the shortest platforms on the DLR, at 59½m.
• Cutty Sark is the 2nd-deepest DLR station (20m down, whereas Bank is 40m).
• 'Cutty Sark (for Maritime Greenwich)' is the longest name of any DLR station.

Yes they are very nice escalators, better than the creaky shonky things that were here before. These are the main pair from the platforms up to the mid-level concourse, then another set takes you to the street. Look, if you visit on the day the station reopens it's possible to get a photograph with nobody standing on them. I believe they're a tad narrower than your average escalator but that's cut-price millennial engineering for you. They're now that clever modern standard that doesn't run at full speed when empty so should last longer as well as being more efficient. They were manufactured in Slovenia by vertical transportation company Schindler, in case that should ever come up in a pub quiz.

While the station was closed they also took the opportunity to improve other aspects:
» A new lift (still small but quicker and more reliable)
» LED lighting throughout (yes, definitely brighter and more pleasant)
» White wall coverings throughout (when in doubt, slap a cover on)
» A new fire detection system (hopefully never required)
» Raised ceiling above the two upper escalators (can't say I noticed)
» New local artwork celebrating the local area (about that...)

They say artwork but it's more advert. Two large floor-to-ceiling panels are emblazoned with photos of local tourist attractions like the park, the Royal Observatory, the Painted Hall and the marathon. To be fair it is very attractive and there is a world-class embarrassment of riches hereabouts, hence why Visit Greenwich were involved in its installation. But when TfL say 'art' they normally mean high-level concept-driven creative excellence, and this is more a promotional photographic showcase. Fair enough.

The LED lights are doing a great job compared to the relative gloom experienced previously. Also the platform areas are brighter, what with white panels covering every surface. But what's less bright, indeed seemingly untouched, are the outer walls on the far side of the tracks. These weren't touched during the upgrade because trains continued to pass through the station at speed, so still look distinctly grubby in comparison. Another eerie touch is that none of the adverts have been changed since the station closed, indeed for a lot longer that that. One of the largest ads is for Eurostar and promotes swift travel to the 2024 Olympic Games ("Proudly taking Team GB and ParalympicGB to Paris"). On the opposite platform is an ad for the "sparkling rom-com" Fly Me To The Moon featuring Scarlett Johansson, and when it says "in cinemas everywhere July 11" that again means 2024, so it's all disturbingly throwback.

The weird thing about Cutty Sark is that you tap your card halfway up, or halfway down depending. The ticket machine's on the street but you won't see a validator until you've gone down the first flight and entered a large elliptical concourse. It is thus easy to miss, especially if you've taken the stairwell, and I bet many passengers exiting the station also fail to touch out. I bet they're not expecting cupcakes either.

The cupcake window was extremely brief and part of a special reopening ceremony yesterday morning. Two ladies in identical belted jackets stood beside a small table over which was draped a DLR-blue tablecloth, presiding over the distribution of celebratory sweet treats. Several trays of chunky cream-topped freebies awaited anyone wandering by, which proved very welcome, any dietary concerns addressed in asterisked smallprint displayed alongside. Each cupcake had a DLR logo on top neatly printed on rice paper. I note they were baked by an outfit in Manchester called Candy's Cupcakes, not locally sourced, which may be useful information if you ever need an inexpensive gimmick for your own sponsored PR shindig.

And that wasn't all. The concourse was full of people, most of whom had either been involved in the project or were employed by the company that runs the DLR. They're called Keolis Amey and they do all the operational stuff, generally behind the scenes but on this occasion had come out to applaud themselves. One of the main project managers was rightly pleased they'd managed to reopen the station earlier than expected and gave a bit of a speech thanking everyone involved. The big KA boss also gave a speech and although he wasn't quite as loud he too praised the construction team, the project team and everyone in the wider community. Several members of the wider community weaved through the event to reach their train or reach the surface, some clearly peeved by the unexpected blockage, others easily assuaged by a cupcake.

And then there was the jazz. A group of purple-shirted students from Trinity Laban had been invited to perform at the event and they were fantastic. They did two numbers, easing into a percussive beat and then swaying to a loud brassy rhythm, their music reverberating around the concourse. I'm not sure they had any direct link to the project other than ticking the 'community' box, but thanks to them it did feel like a celebration rather than a backslapping exercise. Maybe more impromptu musical performances should be hosted here, the acoustics are great, also if you're ever thinking of taking up an instrument then brass looks a lot more exciting than strings or wind.

Not only is Cutty Sark station now open again but it's also reappeared on the tube map, online version at least. I can confirm that using the station is now a more pleasant experience and hopefully a more reliable one. Just don't come expecting jazz or cupcakes because they were a one-off. And don't come this weekend because the entire Lewisham branch is closed, which I'm afraid is the downside of reopening a station earlier than expected.