Life viewed from London E3
LONDON A - Z Q is for Q ueensbury Suburban options are extremely limited for the letter Q, indeed just two, so I've plumped for Queensbury over the better known Queen's Park. You'll find it two stops from the top of the Jubilee line straddling the boundary between Harrow and Brent, should you ever choose to find it at all. It's essentially a heck of a lot of houses plus a Morrisons and has zero…
Slim Summer Saturday Europe's Top Ten public holidays (ranked by how many different countries/territories observe them ) (not definitive because dates change) (somewhat subjective because it's complicated) 1) New Year's Day (January 1st) 2) Christmas Day (December 25th) 3) May Day/Labour Day (May 1st, or nearby Monday) 4) Boxing Day (26th December) 5) Easter Monday (this year 6th April) 6) Good…
It's time to kill off another London bus route. London's next dead bus 533: Castelnau to Hammersmith Location : southwest London Length of journey : 6 miles, 30 minutes The 533 was introduced in 2019 as a temporary measure after the closure of Hammersmith Bridge following safety checks. It's still running seven years later because it proved unexpectedly popular. But it dies tonight , as the very…
Wow! (just wow)
What's been your greatest disappointment? Something you hoped for, something you missed, something you messed up, something you lost... something that totally didn't go the way you wanted. I ask because there's a total eclipse of the sun today and I think that's what my greatest disappointment was. Twenty-seven years ago (yesterday) was as disappointing as it gets. One reason it was so…
I opened my first bank account when I was ten days old. I still have the receipt. Obviously it wasn't me who marched into the Post Office in Croxley Green and deposited a tenner, I presume it was a parent, but I thank them for starting me on the savings path early. They also bought me my first Premium Bond at the same time, just the £1 but it would repay the investment with a £50 prize thirty…
In 2014 I wrote a post about my local shopping parade in Bow, Stroudley Walk , a 1980s redevelopment I described as "aspirational but hideous". "As the centrepiece of a new estate they planned two arcades of shops as well as a central market. The feature colour was brown with the new shops shielded behind rows of thick brick arches. Were this anywhere posh you might be able to call them arcades…
I don't know if you've ever noticed, but some tube station names have apostrophes. And some don't. with: Earl's Court, King's Cross St Pancras, Queen's Park, Regent's Park, St James's Park, St John's Wood, St Paul's, Shepherd's Bush without: Barons Court, Canons Park, Gants Hill, Golders Green, Parsons Green, Rayners Lane It's not consistent, it's just how it is. Perhaps the most inconsistent…
Slim Summer Saturday Tram stop of the month: Beddington Lane Location: Beddington Lane (a lane leading to Beddington) Opened: 30 May 2000 (like all* the tram stops) Previously: a minor halt on the Wimbledon and Croydon Railway (1855-1997) Borough: Sutton (but almost Merton) Annual taps: 115,246 (the least used tram stop between Wimbledon and Croydon) Reasons for visiting: few 25 things to see: two…
LONDON A - Z P is for P lashet For my next unsung suburb I've been to a swallowed hamlet in Newham. Plashet used to be home to someone important enough to have appeared on a banknote and is now a mesh of Victorian terraces with a nice park and a dead library. If there were a stop on the District line between Upton Park and East Ham they could call it Plashet, but there isn't and the name's almost…
Some London borough boundaries are easy to cross. The boundary between Croydon and Bromley, for example, is 10 miles long and can be crossed in over 40 different places. But other London boundaries are much harder to cross, or in a few cases impossible except by boat. So let's investigate... The London borough boundaries with fewest crossings It's best to do this in two parts. a) Boundaries along…
The thing about total eclipses of the sun is that they're very rare, especially in any given location. London' s last was in 1715 and the next is in 2151. The UK 's last was in 1999 and the next is in 2090. But if you spread the net wider to the whole of Europe they're more common. The last was in 2015, but only in the Faroe Islands and Svalbard. And the next is exactly one week away, which is…
Would you like to ride the Dangleway for free for 20 years? That's the prize in TfL's latest marketing promotion and it's all to celebrate the cable car carrying its 20 millionth visitor . To be clear you can't ride it for 20 years non-stop, you'd have to pause overnight and during maintenance weeks, but otherwise you could pretty much spend your life up in the air for nothing. All you have to do…
Bromley-by-Bow station has finally been repaired! And it only took three years. Here's how it looked in March 2020 with the new glass roof unveiled. March 2020 An attractive refresh of a previously grim concourse, now with coffee kiosk, blue tiles and a central roundel. Lovely . Perhaps too tempting though, and so it proved. In 2022 one of the glass panels got smashed, perhaps by a stone or hurled…
31 unblogged things I did in July Wed 1: They don't ask the question "Do you know who the Prime Minister is?" any more. Thu 2: The one foodstuff that hasn't survived the recent sweaty heatwave is my pack of Club biscuits. The fondant/chocolate top has collapsed and melted into the wrapper. Kitkats on the other hand remain structurally intact. Fri 3: Platform 1 at Kingston station is closed for a…
It took nine years to build the Thames Tideway tunnel from Acton to Abbey Mills, a massive drainage project to detain and divert London's Victorian sewage overflows. But it's taken even longer to finish off the additional public realm on top of the capped shafts, with the last of seven offshore worksites now finally transformed. It's the King Edward Memorial Park Foreshore and by extending into…
Slim Summer Saturday 31 underblogged things I did in July Wed 1: Malted wheats for breakfast. Thu 2: The buzzer wasn't working. Fri 3: Surrounded by school trip. Sat 4: Freezer so needed defrosting. Sun 5: Victoria didn't have any. Mon 6: Sara Cox pefectly adequate. Tue 7: It's always New Malden. Wed 8: Photo of five shoes. Thu 9: Aww, Bonnie Tyler's died. Fri 10: Lawnmower shop still trading. Sat…
It looks like being a cracking August on diamond geezer ! Come back next month to discover where two confectionery dynasties coincide, which boundary is only 75m long, why Svalbard is the place to be, which pad got splattered, whether Kitkats survive heatwaves, when my freezer was defrosted, which metro station has two apostrophes, when Hastings goes dark, whether St Swithin was right, where Local…
30 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in July 2026 1) In Spring 2026 3,294 users of the Blackwall Tunnel appealed against a £180 fine on the basis that they were unaware of the tunnel charging scheme. All were rejected. 2) Hidden London have scheduled ten BSL tours since a first trial in 2024. The best-selling was at Holborn in July 2025 (6 tickets sold), whereas three tours (Clapham South,…
Every year I update my table of thirty-plus temperatures, as recorded at Hampstead. Here's how we left things last year . Dates on which the temperature at Hampstead reached 30°C May Jun Jul Aug Sep 2010 27 9/10 2011 27 2012 25 18 2013 13 15/16/17 22 1 2014 18 2015 1 22 2016 18/19/20 24 13 2017 17/18/19/20/21 6 2018 5/6/7/8 15 23 25/ 26 /27 2/3 6/7 2019 29 23/24/ 25 25/26/27 2020 24/25/26 31 7…
Bus consultation news TfL have published three consultations shaking up several north London bus routes, including killing off two. It's all to fit their agenda of simplifying the bus network, reducing duplication and minimising the number of empty seats. "We will simplify routes in central and inner London, running a smaller number of high frequency, more reliable routes, so that we can deliver…
All London's motorways M1 : The M1 is the oldest motorway in London but not London's oldest motorway. When the M1 opened on 2nd November 1959 the southern end was J5 at Watford (which is not in London). In 1966 the first extension reached J4 to the south of Elstree (which was marginally in London). In 1968 the second extension reached J2 at Mill Hill (which is definitely in London). In 1977 the…
The summer holidays are here so let's go on a Trafalgar Square Treasure Hunt ! Here are clues to ten letters of the alphabet, all of which are to be found in or around Trafalgar Square. Can you find all ten and then jumble them up to make a word associated with the square? Letter 1 : This bus stop on the east side of the square has a rainbow flag roundel, added in 2017 as part of London's Pride…
What if all the places in London competed in a knockout competition to see which was best? It'd be like the World Cup but without the football, just an enormous branching chain of towns, suburbs and other settlements. All you'd need is a huge list and a willingness to make hundreds of subjective geographical judgements. Who would win this Ultimate London World Cup ? I'm game, so first of all I…
A Nice Walk : Kingston Vale ( mile) Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, plenty of variety, bikes, horse manure, arterial road, sports ground, signs of autumn, wet dogs, sunshine and shade, a bit of a stroll, won't take long. So here's a walk in southwest London that crosses four different boroughs in just half a mile , nowhere near enough to make a day of it but a…