Scene 1: The date is March 31st 2010. Doris Wilkins is walking to the shops to spend her pension. A police officer helps her across the road. Doris: Ooh thank you kind sir. Police officer: That's no problem Mrs er.... what's your name, madam? Doris: It's Doris. Doris Wilkins. Police officer: Can you prove that, madam? Doris: What do you mean, prove it? I've always been Doris ever since I was born. My name's Doris Wilkins and I live over there at number 37. Police officer: I'm sorry madam, but that's not good enough any more. Do you have an ID card? Doris: No I don't. I don't need a passport these days, I only ever go as far as Penzance for the bingo now. Police officer: I'm sorry madam, but I'm going to have to insist that you get yourself an ID card. We can't be too careful you know, what with terrorists on the loose, illegal immigrants in every port and benefit cheats at every turn. Doris: But I don't need an ID card, I know who I am already. I don't have dementia or anything. Police officer: I'm sorry madam, but you need to apply for one as soon as possible. We can't have ambiguous unidentified citizens walking the streets, can we? Imagine the threat to society that you're creating. Doris: You're joking, obviously. Police officer: Not at all madam. The Government voted this in four years ago. Don't worry, you can apply online. Doris: My nephew has that interweb thing, but he lives in Newcastle. Police officer: Don't worry madam, I have a pile of paper forms here. Just fill one in and pop along to your local passport office, will you?
Scene 2: The date is April 1st 2010. Doris Wilkins has been waiting at her local passport office for several hours. An Identity Confirmation Officer summons her to the admin booth. Clerk: Bore Da! Doris: Don't you talk your funny Welsh at me young lady. Do you know how long it's taken me to get here from Cornwall? Clerk: I'm sorry madam, but Newport is your closest 'Identity and Passport Office'. Now, could you just stare into this camera while I take your photograph? Doris: But I haven't had my hair done since last week, and I look a mess. Clerk: Never mind, madam. And make sure you don't smile. Our multi-million pound computer system can't cope properly if you smile. Doris: I'm not bloody smiling after that train journey. Clerk: Thank you. Now if I could just take your fingerprints... Doris: What do you mean, fingerprints? Who do you think I am, some evil criminal? Clerk: Well I can't be certain yet, madam. You haven't been verified. Doris: This is a diabolical liberty, this is. I was in the RAF in the war, you know. Clerk: Maybe you were, madam. Now, can I have your payment please? That'll be 133 euros with a biometric passport, or 43 euros without. Doris: What's that in old money? Anyway, I don't have any cash left, I spent it all on that rip-off of a Virgin train service trying to get here. Clerk: Never mind madam, we can deduct the requisite payment from your pension. Now, the only other thing I need is to see some verification of your identity. We need to be able to prove that you are who you say you are before we can issue you with your card. Doris: I've got my bingo membership certificate here if that helps. Clerk: I'm sorry madam, we'll need something better than that. Do you have an ID card?
Hello children everywhere. Do you have a Blue Peter badge? Oh good. They're lovely aren't they? Big and white and rubbery with a lovely ship on the front. But is yours a genuine Blue Peter badge obtained through the correct channels? We hope so. Because we've heard that certain naughtypeople have been obtaining Blue Peter badges by nefarious means like buying and selling them on eBay. Honestly! And then going along to major UK attractions like Hampton Court and Edinburgh Zoo and demanding free admission. Tut. We're very disappointed with you all.
There are several official ways to obtain a genuine Blue Peter badge: • Write us a letter, preferably in wax crayon so it reassures us that you're six years old. Tell us about your rabbit, or write a poem about raindrops, or outline an idea you've had to save the planet by recycling bottletops. You can even apply online these days, just in case you've forgotten how to hold a pen. • Enter one of our exciting competitions (for bike safety or something equally worthy) and win a prize. A picture of a puppy painted in non-lifelike primary colours usually swings it. • Do something really really brave, like setting fire to your house and then single-handedly rescuing a small kitten by fighting through the flames. We can give you a gold Blue Peter badge for that (and your kitten might get one too).
However, we've been made aware of several unofficial ways to obtain a genuine Blue Peter badge: • Bid for an unwanted badge on eBay. Pah! We send these badges out for free, and you're flogging them on the internet for up to £70. How could you? It's little more than online prostitution. • Mug a small child at knifepoint as they approach the gates of Blenheim Palace proudly wearing their competition winner's badge. • Trash the Blue Peter Garden by breaking in overnight and throwing the tortoise into the goldfish pond, then sending an schmaltzy email to the programme saying "I woz shocked it is awful I hope you catch the bastards wot dunnit".
And we've been disturbed to hear of several ways to create a fake Blue Peter badge: • Make your own badge using a cereal packet, a squeezy bottle, a safety pin and some sticky-back plastic. Everybody has some sticky-back plastic lying around in a drawer at the back of the garage, don't they? But make sure you ask an adult to help you with the safety pin. • Find yourself a small boat, preferably one with billowy sails, and stick it to a large piece of MDF. It might fool the myopic bloke at the Warwick Castle ticket kiosk if you're lucky. • Get a qualified tattooist to ink the Blue Peter ship onto your lapel (n.b. logo may not appear genuine when you reach pensionable age).
It's become clear to us that this appalling situation cannot continue. We've taken firm action and have withdrawn all privileges for Blue Peter badgeholders forthwith. Yes we know the Easter holidays are coming up but bad luck, you're all now going to have to pay full price to get into Legoland and Woburn Safari Park. Serves you right.
Obviously the long term solution is to introduce Blue Peter ID cards. Every time a child sends us a letter we'll ask them to attach full biometric details including a strand of their hair and a passport sized photo showing distinguishing facial features. Initially this will be optional, but from 2007 BPID cards will be issued to every child in the country alongside the annual television license. Rest assured that this is in no way an invasion of children's privacy. Neither is this an over-bureaucratic over-reaction to a minor security issue. This is about stopping greedy middle-class families from gaining free admittance to the London Eye. This is about freedom. And later on this is about us selling all your information to the Home Office. They're stilltrying to create a national identity database by stealth, but here's one we made earlier.
Yesterday I offered you this Deal or No Deal situation (lifted from Monday's show) and asked what you'd do. [£5] [£50] [£100] [£750] [£5000] [£20000] [£35000] [£250000]
180 of you responded, thanks. Here are the results: Banker's Offer £3500: 7% deal, 93% no deal Banker's Offer £7000: 24% deal, 76% no deal Banker's Offer £17000: 66% deal, 34% no deal Banker's Offer £33000: 91% deal, 9% no deal
Only a handful of you would cave in and deal at £3500. A quarter of you would be willing to accept £7000. Two thirds of you would be happy to walk away with £17000. And almost all of you would accept £33000 and continue no further. By the looks of it, the knife-edge Banker's offer which would split you down the middle comes in at just over £10000. Which is very interesting. And very wrong of you.
Look at those eight amounts of money again. Two of them are very big but one, the quarter of a million, is absolutely huge. Numerically, the £250000 box dominates the list. It's worth more than four times as much as all the other boxes put together. Receiving a cheque for that amount of money would transform your life... and there's a one in eight chance that the £250000 is in your box. Those may not sound like great odds, but when before in your life has anybody ever offered you a one in eight chance of winning quarter of a million pounds. Nobody ever will again. Isn't it worth the risk?
Well maybe not. Every Deal or No Deal player has a certain notional amount of money they'd not be prepared to throw away. An amount which would make a big difference to their life and pay off a debt or three. An amount they'd not be prepared to gamble with, because the promise of 'cash-in-hand' is much stronger the risk of the unknown. Once the Banker's offer hits this magic amount then contestants cave in and stop. For some it's as little as £3500. For many (as we've seen) it's about £10000. Most people succumb once the offer rises into five figures. And that's great news for the Banker, because it means that (on average) people stop too early. Much too early.
Consider those boxes again. The eight amounts of money add up to a massive £310000. Divide that total by eight and your average expected winnings are approximately £39000. If the Banker was being perfectly fair, he should be offering you £39000 to stop. But he doesn't need to, because he knows that you have no concept of theoretical probability and you'll stop for less. Much less in fact. Most of you would stop for £17000, which is less than half what you deserve. Almost all of you would stop for £33000, and even that's below the statistical average. In reality, on Monday's Deal or No Deal, the Banker offered a paltry £7000 in this situation. And that's less than 20% of the expected winnings. Pitiful. Monday's contestant carried on, but according to my survey a quarter of you would have stopped, swindled.
And there's more to your delusion. Here again is the position the game is at: £5 £50 £100 £750 £5000 £20000 £35000 £250000 The next stage is to open three of these boxes, leaving just five. Sounds dead risky doesn't it? What if the big numbers are revealed? There's a 50-50 chance that the next round of box-opening will wipe out more reds than blues, and that would leave you in a worse position. Or so you'd think. You'd be wrong.
There are 56 different possible ways that the game could proceed. One would be to open £5, £50 and £100, which would be fantastic. Another would be to open £20000, £35000 and £250000, which would be a disaster. And there are 54 other possibilities inbetween. It's counter-intuitive, but you are nearly twice as likely to keep the £250000 box as you are to lose it. 64% of the time the big number stays. And if the £250000 stays, then your expected winnings (now averaged over just five boxes) must increase. Which means you can expect a better banker's offer after the next round two thirds of the time. You'd be a fool not to go on.
Except, as we know, chance is unfair. The Banker plays this game every day, so things average out. You only get to play ONCE. You can't necessarily afford to take risks. You're just as likely to have the five pounds in your box as the quarter of a million. Opening more boxes is a risky strategy, whereas a banker's offer is a dead cert. Keep going and that potential fortune could slip oh so easily through your fingers in seconds, because dreams can vanish if you push your luck too far. Most people placed in this situation are stubbornly risk-averse, and that's the reason why nobody on the programme has yet won the £250000. Six contestants have had the correct box in front of them, but none has been willing to progress far enough to open it. The show's producers are laughing all the way to the Bank. And we're still watching, because human fallibility makes the best television of all.
Total Eclipse - 29th March 2006 When? This morning. Starts 08:34 GMT (in Brazil), ends 11:48 GMT (in Mongolia) Where? Visible as a total eclipse across parts of West Africa (from Ghana to Libya), Turkey, Southern Russia and Kazakhstan. You almost certainly don't live beneath the path of totality. How long for? Maximum eclipse (in Libya) lasts 4 minutes 7 seconds, just after 10am GMT Can you show me an animated map?Certainly. Fab, isn't it? Can you show me some 2006 eclipse weblinks? Sure. Hereareseveral. What will I see from America or Australia? Nothing. It's night time. What will I see from London? A feeble partial eclipse covering no more than 17% of the Sun's disc (see illustration top right). Starts 10:45 BST, maximum 11:33, finishes 12:22 (see animated graphic) When can I next see a bigger eclipse from London?20th March2015 (84% obscured) When can I next see a total eclipse from London?14th June 2151 (bad luck, you won't see it)
A quarter of a million pounds, 22 identical sealed boxes and no questions... except one... Deal or No Deal?
You must have watched it by now. DealorNoDeal is an unlikely TV blockbuster, a game show based on luck which requires (almost) no skill to play. It's revived Noel Edmonds' career and it's put a huge smile on the faces of Channel 4 bosses.
Here's how it works: • Before the game starts, 22 players each select a different box numbered from 1 to 22 • Sealed inside each box is a different amount of money, as follows: 1p 10p 50p £1 £5 £10 £50 £100 £250 £500 £750 £1000 £3000 £5000 £10000 £15000 £20000 £35000 £50000 £75000 £100000 £250000 • One player is selected at random and brings their box to the central table. • One by one each of the remaining 21 boxes is opened, five at first, the rest in groups of three. • At the end of each round a shadowy telephone presence called the Banker offers a certain amount of money. The contestant then has to decide whether to stop (deal) or continue (no deal). • If the contestant refuses all of the banker's deals, they open their box and walk away with the contents.
Which all sounds a bit dull, doesn't it? It's 100% chance. The contestant has absolutely no way of working out how much money is in their box, they can only narrow down the options as the remaining boxes are opened. The show is full of people wittering on about 'luck' and attempting to read some pattern into the unpredictable. All drivel. But what do you know, it works.
Still not convinced? You can have a go at playing the American version of the game online here or here. Or you can read a UK fan's in-depth blog here. I'm not claiming that Deal or No Deal is the best television going. It's not worth staying off work for, for example, but it is miles better than Ready Steady Cook. And Noel's up for a Bafta, so the programme must have something going for it.
Every show is different because the random revelations play out in a different order each day. Every show is dramatic because host Noel Edmonds manages to coerce emotion out of every situation (yes, I know, who'd have thought?). And every show is fascinating because the contestants blunder about willy-nilly with absolutely no concept of theoretical probability whatsoever. They don't understand when to stop and when to continue. They're just interested in rubbing their lucky charms and opening box 17 anyway because it was Auntie Bessie's birthday.
So, here's an example from midway through yesterday's game... There are eight boxes left unopened. Eight amounts still to be revealed. One of them is yours. Remaining amounts: £5 £50 £100 £750 £5000 £20000 £35000 £250000
The phone rings. Here's what the banker might offer. What would you do in each case? (please give four answers) Take the money, or carry on and open three more boxes?
Element-ary quiz: Below are cryptic clues to the names of 30 chemical elements (none of which end in the letter 'm'). How many can you identify?
1) can 2) guide 3) flattener 4) ringtone? 5) in second 6) policeman 7) my sibling 8) five cents 9) maybe none 10) note ancient
11) makes 4 line 12) Super planet 13) I nothing eat 14) from this bum 15) stupid swindle 16) a man's gene? 17) mad dog Henry 18) forms tea stain 19) that twat Faldo 20) found in 10 mouths
21) interplanetary singer 22) rich Noel created this 23) swan left of spacebar 24) mystery, nothing back 25) not quite Turkish straits 26) sounds like kitchen bowl 27) hurls up (from volcanoes?) 28) returns in bassoon or oboe 29) were Jason's men made of this? 30) negative coordinates zero (reversed)
fivelinks • Feeling down on a Monday morning? Get out your virtual guitar and play the desktop blues(via in4mador) • What would happens if global warming caused a rise in sea level of two metres, or five, or ten? It could be bad news for most of Hammersmith, Peckham and Stratford, but not for Westminster, the City and my house. Try flooding where you live to different levels to see if your house stays above the water. • The Armstrongs, BBC2's cult double glazing couple, have their own blog. It's everything you'd expect. • My thanks to possbert, strangeblueghost and Pamela for having a go at Friday's Me Me Meme. Anybody else tempted? • Wikipedia's list of lists: a catalogue of potentially useful stuff including a list of films about possessed body parts, a list of Simpsons characters, a list of albums containing hidden tracks and a list of global tongue twisters.
Isn't Spring late this year? The vernal equinox may have passed and BritishSummerTime may officially have begun, but the naturalworld seems not to have noticed. Normally by the end of March the trees are budding, the bumblebees are stirring and golden daffodils are fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Not this year, with a blocking anticyclone lumbering the UK with a cold, late winter. But temperatures are finally lifting, not a moment too soon, and Spring may (possibly) be just around the corner. Yesterday I visited London's two largest Royal Parks to see if I could spot Spring for myself. [photos here]
Richmond Park A vast expanse of green and brown, muddy grass and bare branches. A moving tribe of beige and fawn, deer cower in the undergrowth. A steady stream of lime and pink, cyclists and joggers panting by. A distant view of gold and blue, St Paul's is framed between the trees. A hilltop garden of yellow and mauve, daffs and crocuses struggle through.
Richmond Park is enormous. You could cover it with a town the size of Watford, but thankfully nobody's ever tried. Most of the park is rough undulating grassland, sprinkled liberally with ancient forest and thick plantations. I saw little evidence of approaching springtime yesterday, just a lot of trees with empty branches and a few dead brown leaves underfoot. Herds of fallow deer eyed me suspiciously as they nibbled on stumpy bracken. Large numbers of cyclists and joggers were out parading in their finest lycra - I was very definitely in a pedestrian minority. From King Henry's Mound I enjoyed one of London's protectedviews - ten miles eastward towards St Paul's Cathedral. No tower blocks are permitted anywhere along this very special line of sight, and a treeless corridor cut through nearby Sidmouth Wood ensures that Wren's dome remains visible. And it was only here beneath the mound, within the cultivated gardens of Pembroke Lodge, that any evidence of Spring was visible. Formal flowerbeds brimmed with soggy primroses, while scattered daffodils and crocuses pushed bravely through the surrounding slopes. Give it a few weeks, and the rest of the park might catch up.
Bushy Park The second largest Royal Park is far less well known, tucked away beside the meandering Thames between Hampton Court and Kingston. BushyPark is an odd mix of formal and informal, with stretches of open grassland surrounding a fenced-off woodland core. Yesterday the park displayed little evidence of budding Spring. The deer-stalked common looked more early January than late March. Dog walkers hurried along bare paths, out from the car park and back again beneath the invisible sun. Cars queued under leaden skies around the Diana Fountain water feature (that's a towering 17th century block of sculpture depicting the Roman goddess, not Hyde Park's farcical granite trough for a Disney Princess). Only in the central landscaped gardens had a few bulbs braved the winter frost, not so much a carpet of daffodils as a threadbare strip of lino. A few premature rhodedendrons were semi-opened up, providing welcome nectar for a handful of lethargic bumblebees. Two rabbits scampered out of the brambles, perhaps surprised to see their first human intruder of the day. There were also plenty of paired-off birds to be seen, including amorous ducks and a couple of screeching yellow parakeets nesting high in a silver birch. I felt I'd come visiting too early in the season. Spring may not yet have sprung in Bushy Park, but there was clear evidence that it's trying ever so hard to break out.
I should qualify that statement, and say that it only applies to fertile heterosexual couples engaging in penetrative intercourse without the use of contraception. If you should fall into this category, I'd like to assure you that today's warning is based on sound scientific fact. Please read the following information very carefully. It could save a life.
Please do not have sex today
Spring is (at last) in the air, and young couples' thoughts are turning more and more to love, romance and shagging. A bit of warmth and sunshine can have strange effects on the human libido, making it all too easy to get carried away by carnal thoughts. Just one unplanned kiss can lead to full-on sexual arousal and, before you know where you are, you've ended up in the bedroom engaged in intimate physical contact. So I'm told. Should you find yourself in this situation today, stop immediately.
If you engage in penetrative intercourse today without the use of contraception, one of you risks getting pregnant. If you get pregnant today, you'll probably give birth to a baby in nine months time. If you give birth to a baby in nine months time... well, just look at the calendar. Work it out for yourself. Think before you shag.
No child deserves to be born on Christmas Day. Nobody wants their birthday to be overshadowed by the biggest national celebration of the year. Nothing is more guaranteed to give a child major personality problems later in life than to share their birthday with the baby Jesus. Is five minutes of horizontal ecstacy today worth the lifetime of personal trauma to follow? Don't do it.
Jesus is particularly appropriate as a role model for the child with a Christmas birthday because He only received a miserable total of three birthday presents. No doubt each of the wise men told him "I've brought you one big combined present, honest", even though they were secretly relieved at not having to bring more. Any child with a Christmas birthday has to survive 364 days gift-free, with merely the promise of something meagre and average at the end of the present-drought. Meanwhile for the rest of the year they get to watch siblings and friends receiving double the presents, double the attention, and thereby double the love. A Christmas birthday also means a birthday party amalgamated with the festive celebrations. There may be a large birthday cake but, by the time everyone's stuffed themselves with turkey and pudding, nobody can ever face eating even a small slice of it. This is enough to scar any impressionable child for life, and all because you failed to consider the consequences of having sex today. It's inconceivable.
Children born on Christmas Day are also at serious risk of being given an embarrassingly festive name. Just think of all the people you know called Noel. Yes, him for example. Are children born in August ever called Carol, or Holly, or Robin? I think not. All these poor unfortunate individuals are highly likely to exhibit some signs of personal trauma caused by resentment towards inconsiderate parents. You don't want to risk your child suing you for emotional scarring in later life do you? Abstain today.
If you have a Christmas baby, you're also responsible for bringing another Capricorn into the world. Stubborn, inflexible and goal oriented, they often jump to conclusions and miss the big picture. Is this what you want in your family? Cross your legs for a few weeks and have a nice well-adjusted Aquarian instead. Hold it in.
So, there you have it. Unprotected sex today will mean an unhappy and maladjusted life for your son or daughter in the future. Please remember this important advice should spring fever strike today and you find yourself rampaging towards the bedroom whilst ripping one another's clothes off. You may feel like getting stuck in and reaching orgasm, but for one sperm and one egg there'll be a lifetime of psychologists' bills to pay. Please do not have sex today.
This has been a public service announcement. Thank you for listening.
I bet you've seen this meme doing the rounds. It's great isn't it? Really clever. I love reading this sort of stuff. Anyway, Mibbytagged me so I thought I'd better join in because it'll be fun. And illuminating. I love a good meme, me.
Name seven things in your fridge: a carton of milk (I'm afraid it's the really unhealthy full cream stuff), some new potatoes (presumably shipped in from abroad at great expense to the environment), a bottle of four-year-old champagne (which I've never quite had a good enough reason to open), a big steak and kidney pie (because I've got an all-day meeting at work today and they'll only serve up crap sandwiches so I'll be hungry later), a carton of value orange juice (dead cheap, I hate to think how few oranges are in it), a slab of cheese (mmmmm, cheese) and a strange mysterious green stain which probably once oozed out of a cucumber.
When was the first time you went abroad? I guess the Isle of Wight doesn't count!!! So in that case it was thirty years ago when I was 11 we flew to Canada. Flying was a really big thing in those days - almost nobody travelled abroad for their holidays at the time. And I saw Niagara Falls and I went up the CN Tower in Toronto in the year it opened and I got my fingers shut in a big American car door and it hurt.
Who were the last five people to send you a spam message? Northwest B. Ghoul, Sterling Talley, Jeffery Reese, Hobnails P. Fellini, Demetrius Mclain
If you were a type of chocolate biscuit, what type of chocolate biscuit would you be and why? Probably a Jaffa Cake, because they're soft and round but a bit tangy and all orangey inside and you can pick the chocolate off. Not that I'm like that, but I do really like Jaffa Cakes. Although they might not be a biscuit, they might be a cake.
Describe your best friend using only Madonna song titles: Like A Prayer, Causing A Commotion, Gambler, Another Suitcase In Another Hall, Lucky Star, Take A Bow
What's the funniest thing you've ever seen a kitten do? Aww there was this one time when this kitten I had she was well cute she went missing one day it was a Saturday and she was nowhere to be seen so I spent all day looking for her I hunted round the house and found nothing not a thing so I went round the local estate looking for her twice I think and into the woods too but she wasn't there either and I didn't know where she was and she was only little really tiny and I thought maybe she'd run away so I went home and waited and later that evening I looked in the cupboard under the sink in the kitchen and there she was on a shelf she'd been there asleep she'd been in the house all that time and I hadn't noticed I'd even looked in that cupboard earlier and I hadn't seen her and I couldn't get angry about it but what a waste of a Saturday and I know it doesn't sound funny and it wasn't at the time but I can laugh about it now.
LOL that was fun. And it saved me thinking up something original of my own to write about today. So now I'm going to tag Brad, littlegreenpea and Mr Squiggles to try this meme on their blogs. Because they like this sort of thing too. And because, like me, they've clearly run out of blogging inspiration. Come on everybody, why not join in? Let's meme!!!!
Do you have a local free newspaper? One that keeps you in touch with what's going on round your way? A weekly freesheet poked through your letterbox packed with stabbings, golden weddings and lost dogs? Because I don't any more, and I sort of miss it.
For years, a free newspaper was a regular part of my life. If planning permission was sought for a lean-to shed down my road, I knew about it. If an old schoolmate hit fifty runs in a weekend league cricket match, I knew about it. If roadworks at a nearby mini-roundabout threatened major traffic congestion, I knew about it. The local paper was a window on my immediate environment, keeping me in touch with what my neighbours were up to. Even if it was only a coffee morning or an unmuzzled dog on the rampage, it was better than hearing nothing. And now I live in London I have nothing. And I think I'm missing out.
I may live in a densely populated patch of the largest city in Western Europe, but nobody seems to think that my letterbox merits a local freesheet. No thick supplement of houses for sale or rent ever wings my way. Heartbreaking local crime stories pass me by. Local council initiatives go unannounced. There's a captive audience of hundreds of thousands of eager citizens round my way, but if I want a local paper I have to pay for it. I could buy the East London Advertiser and Tower Hamlets Recorder every week (I'm discounting the Evening Standard because that only feels local if you live in Putney or Notting Hill), but I was brought up on free local news and somehow paying for my weekly mugging update feels wrong.
Was it the internet that killed off the local free paper? I can now read about joyriders on the A13 online. I can find local houses for sale online. I can discover which dodgy student band is playing in the pub down the road online. I have no need to wait until Friday evening for a hastily-assembled wad of newsprint to be thrust into my letterbox, because I can find out what's going on right here right now via my computer. Except that I can't usually be bothered to look. The great joy of the local freesheet was that it reported on the commonplace and the mundane whether I wanted to hear it or not. And now I'm not hearing anything. Am I the only person living under this unfair local information embargo, or is free-paper-lessness now a nationwide phenomenon?
Silver discs(March 1981) A monthly look back at the top singles of 25 years ago
Something highly prophetic happened on Top of the Pops in mid-March 1981. A technicians' strike (or something similar) meant that no live acts could appear, and the whole show featured nothing but new-fangled pop videos from end to end. I'd never seen anything like it. How times change.
The three best records from the Top 10 (17th March 1981) KimWilde - Kids In America: She was only 19 at the time - no longer a kid, and had never even been to America. But we didn't care, we loved the record, and we loved Kim. As the daughter of 60s rocker Marty Wilde music was in her blood, which did at least mean she could sing. This, her debut record, sounded both angry and glamorous (but in a very approachable Home Counties style). Kim's reinvented herself recently, flogging cod liver oil for Holland & Barrett and standing knee-deep in manure on daytime gardening programmes, whilst still somehow keeping her credibility. She may have moved on, but they played Kids In America on daytime Radio 1 last month and to my ears it still sounded just as fresh and sparkling and lovely as ever (although sandwiching it between two R&B dirges probably helped). "Outside a new day is dawning, outside suburbia's sprawling everywhere, I don't want to go baby. New York to East California, there's a new wave coming I warn you." Toyah - It's A Mystery: At the opposite end of the pin-up scale to pouting Kim came post-punk Toyah. Across the country copycat girls tried to tease their hair into extreme shades of red and daubed their faces with suburban warpaint. Leaping into the chart for the first time, perhaps more through hard graft than pure musical talent, Ms Willcox offered us her 'Four From Toyah' EP in the hope that we might like one of them. Thankfully we did, and an endearing pop (and acting) career followed. And she's still going strong, as anyone at (ahem) Butlins in Minehead or Skegness last weekend can testify. "It's a mystery, oh it's a mystery, I'm still searching for a clue, It's a mystery to me. A shot in the dark, the big question mark in history - is it a mystery to you?" TeardropExplodes - Reward: Bang! This song punched you in the face with its perky brass opening, then hurtled onward without pausing for breath. Three minutes of uplifting joy from the pen of musical maestro Julian Cope, although none of his later musical masterpieces managed to reach the same giddy chart heights. One of my schoolfriends was absolutely convinced that this song kiched off with the lyrics "Bless my cotton socks I'm in the nude". I hate to disappoint him, but... "Bless my cotton socks I’m in the news, The king sits on his face but it's all assumed. All wrapped up the same, All wrapped up the same. They can’t have it, you can’t have it, I can’t have it too until I learn to accept my reward"
My favourite three records from March 1981 (at the time) DepecheMode - Dreaming Of Me (reached number 57): I didn't realise when I taped this single off the radio that this was the beginning of a 25-year love affair. Casio drumbeats and a synth siren, followed by plinkety keyboards with a teenage bedroom vibe - it was an inauspicious start for the four lads from Basildon. Nobody yet really knew what the band looked like, or even how to pronounce their name properly [see debut NME article here]. But I was instantly attracted by the unique close harmony vocals and alluring melody, and I adored it. The single may not have reached the Top 40, but various careers spanning teenypop, Yazoo, leather shorts, Erasure, near-fatal overdoses and stadium rock all began here. I'm just chuffed that I noticed. "So we left, understanding, cleancut so we're sounding fast. Talked of sad, I talked of war, I laughed and climbed the rising cast" B Movie - Remembrance Day (reached number 61): Perhaps not great timing to release a song about November 11th in March, but hey, I'll still happily replay this gorgeously atmospheric single even in May or August. The Mansfield band had just featured on Stevo's seminal Some Bizarre album (alongside the equally unknown Soft Cell, Blancmange, The The and Depeche Mode), but alas their music never really captured the public imagination. If you remember B Movie you'll want to visit their tune- & nostalgia-packed website, and you might even want to head down to the Metro club in Oxford Street this Saturday for a (very) rare gig. And yes, they all look like bank managers now. "Hailstones and epitaphs, mourning bells and half mast flags, in the cemetery where they fell all those many years ago, now it's just a memory eroded by the years" Small Ads - Small Ads (reached number 63): You won't remember this, I bet. A bunch of chirpy geezers, cooler than Chas & Dave and more tongue in cheek than Madness, singing a song about local newspaper classified advertising. Wholly appropriate, then, that you can now buy a copy on eBay. I'm tempted. "This year's registration with a slightly dented wing, only down in Finchley, think I'll give the bloke a ring"
20 other hits from 25 years ago (and this is easily the best list yet): Jealous Guy (Roxy Music), Kings Of The Wild Frontier (Adam and the Ants), This Ole House (Shakin Stevens), Can You Feel It (Jacksons), You Better You Bet (The Who), Star (Kiki Dee), Ceremony (New Order), Something 'Bout You Baby I Like (Status Quo), Intuition (Linx), It's A Love Thing (Whispers), What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted (Dave Stewart and Colin Bluntstone), Walking On Thin Ice (Yoko Ono), I Missed Again (Phil Collins), Lately (Stevie Wonder), Mind Of A Toy (Visage), St Valentine's Day Massacre EP (Headgirl), Can You Handle It (Sharon Redd), Capstick Comes Home (Tony Capstick), Slow Motion (Ultravox), Up The Hill Backwards (David Bowie) ...which hit's your favourite? ...which one would you pick?
Yesterday the Government announced that Britain's first car share lane will open next year on the M62 between Bradford and Leeds. Any vehicle containing more than one occupant (or a very convincing inflatable doll) will be able to use the lane, shaving eight minutes off a typical morning commute. Research suggests that only one in every six vehicles using this stretch of motorway during peak hours currently contain two or more occupants. They'll be in for a treat next year, then, speeding past all the lonely singletons queued nose to tail in the bog-standard lanes alongside. I do hope those evil individuals are feeling appropriately guilty as they commute passengerless to work, murdering the planet as they do so.
They've had carpoollanes in other countries for some time. In California, for example, they're sometimes called "diamond lanes" (which is the only reason I stopped to take this photograph, honest). As you can see, this diamond lane in San Francisco is a huge success, completely empty of any traffic whatsoever. Maybe that's not surprising in a country where only 7% of vehicles have multi-person occupancy, or maybe it was just a very quiet Sunday afternoon. Whatever the case, carpoollanes haven't been universally popular in the States, seen by some as a chronic waste of valuable roadspace and by others as creating new forms of risk and congestion.
Our Transport Secretary, Darling, says that car share lanes are "a sensible measure to try and encourage people where they can to share lifts, especially if they're going to work maybe in the same place or same area." But I have my doubts as to just how feasible car-sharing really is.
The major flaw with car sharing is surely the unpredictability of most people's journeys. It's great if you always go into work at eight and always return on the dot of five, but most of us don't lead such rigid lives. What if one day you want to go into work early, or divert along the way to pick up a prescription or some dry cleaning? And how much time would you end up wasting each month if your carshare partner always finished work half an hour after you, or decided to stay late one night to complete an urgent project. And what about spontaneous leisure journeys, or shopping trips? Even by using a carpoolingwebsite it's still nigh impossible to find the perfect partner whose journey requirements perfectly match your own. Car share lanes are likely to prove too impractical for the majority of road users, benefitting only those who already drive around accompanied by friends or family. The rest of Britain's solo drivers are unlikely to be able to change their existing behaviour, even if they'd like to.
And anyway, the Department of Transport already has a fully-trialled 100%-effective road congestion solution whereby several road passengers share the same vehicle. It's called a bus. A few more of those running regularly and reliably around the country and we might be able to cut road congestion without spending the odd £2½million on one mile of new road.
Sorry, after 10 days of consecutive posts about London I was planning to talk about something, anything else today. But no. Sorry...
Why is it so difficult to find out what's going on in London? There's so much going on in fact, so much background noise, that often the big events can slip past unnoticed. I was lucky yesterday - I noticed one twenty minutes before it began and was able to head along without missing much. But all too often the first I find out about a fascinating event is reading a review afterwards, too late. Damn you London.
So, where do you go to find out about this kind of event in advance?Time Out's useful, but expensive, and you only get a few days advance notice. Visit London, the capital's official tourist site, is comprehensive but it's hard to find the special events in amongst the Lion Kings and Mary Poppins. No, what I need is a list of upcoming "big free events", far enough in advance that I can plan to attend them (or not). And I can't find one. So I'm having a go at making my own...
Here's the diamond geezer clickable list of the next ten upcoming "big free events"* in London. Except it's not yet especially comprehensive, or upcoming. Can you help me to improve on the current ten? Please help.
* that's "big", as in not your local church hall jumble sale * that's "free", as in not something you pay to enter * that's "event", as in not some three month art exhibition
I SPY LONDON the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Part 7:Imperial War Museum
Location: Lambeth Road, SE1 6HZ [map] Open: 10am - 6pm Admission: free (some exhibitions cost) 5-word summary: military might and reflective remembrance Website:www.iwm.org.uk Time to set aside: at least an afternoon
Just down the road from Lambeth North station, just that little bit further than the original Bakerloo line ventured, stands the imposing Imperial War Museum. The jingoistic name probably deters a lot of more sensitive souls from visiting, wrongly expecting that the place is full of guns, artillery and body armour. Which is a shame, because that's only partially true. I was in the area, so I thought I'd pay the formerlunaticasylum a visit.
Once you get past the queue at the cash desk (which always strikes me as strange in a free museum, but I guess they need the opportunity to flog you a £3.50 audio guide) you enter into a tall airy entrance hall packed with the machinery of war. Mighty rockets rise up from the floor (that's a V2, that's a Polaris). Field guns and tanks are scattered around for intimate perusal (that's a Howitzer, that's a Sherman). A selection of classic warplanes hang across the ceiling (that's a Sopwith Camel, that's a Focke and yes, that's a Spitfire). There's nothing here over 100 years old because the museum concentrates on 20th century conflicts, from trench warfare to more modern genocide. But for me the jewels in the collection aren't these large objects of military strength, they're the exhibitions spread across the six floors behind.
As you might expect, the majority of the museum is given over to remembering the First and Second World Wars. Downstairs is a traditional glass-cased walkthrough of the history of each, complete with a fibreglass WW1 trench to shuffle down and a blacked-out WW2 air raid shelter experience. There's a special area devoted to D-Day, in some depth, as well as a skim through some of the later global conflicts of the 20th century. I was especially impressed by The Children'sWar, an extensive exhibition recounting the experiences of evacuees and those left to fight WW2 on the Home Front. Like all the best history it's delivered as much through written and spoken testimony as through collections of appropriate artefacts. Best of all was the chance to walk through a full size mocked-up 1930s semi-detached house, peering into the period kitchen, austere bedrooms and gadget-free parlour. It's hard to remember that for most of the children being taken around the exhibition this is a glimpse back into the long lost past, whereas I could easily imagine my parents and grandparents sitting down at the dining room table for a rationed meal or hiding inside the steel cage of a squat MorrisonShelter during an air raid.
But you have to ascend to the third floor to enter the most thought-provoking galleries of all - the Holocaust Exhibition. Two floors of the museum have been given over to detailing the Nazis' so-called Final Soulution, starting with an in-depth exploration of the politics and propaganda which allowed mass genocide to sneak up almost unnoticed. Due attention is paid to the creeping tide of oppression as Hitler's borders expanded, notably across eastern Europe, and it's chilling to hear genuine first person testimony every step of the way. The journey to (and through) Auschwitz is remembered in graphic detail, and the inhumanity of this place of extinction is brought home by the tales of a handful fortunate enough to survive. You won't leave unmoved. And if a few gung-ho Playstation addicts visit the museum expecting bloody war but discover instead this heartfelt plea to peace and tolerance, the museum has done its job well. by tube: Lambeth North
Baker100 Here endeth my journey along the 100-year-old Bakerloo Line. I'm always fascinated by following lines across London to see where they lead, and the Bakerloo didn't disappoint. I hope you found the trip interesting too (assuming I have any readers left, that is). And watch out, because yet another tube line has a centenary later this year. I wonder whether Hammersmith to Finsbury Park is quite so absorbing...
At the far eastern end of Waterloo mainline station, just that little bit further than most commuters usually venture, there's an exit out into nothingness. OK, so it's not quite nothing, particularly if you turn left up towards Westminster Bridge Road, but I turned right. A long straight pavement stretches the full length of platform 1, but on the opposite side of a stark brick wall [photo]. Alongside is a rat run for buses and queueing taxis, shielded behind some grey functional railings with a view downhill across the wastes of North Lambeth. And the highlight of 'Station Approach Road' is a small mini-roundabout. Sorry, it's not exactly a heritage hotspot like Regent Street, is it? At the far end the pavement descends into a roadside subway that's even bleaker. I stopped to take a photograph of this unappealing hole, only to be laughed at by an incredulous passer-by. He may have had a point [photo].
But my exit was into one of the area's more characterful and historic streets - LowerMarsh. The name's a hint to its origin - a road cutting across extensive marshy land to the south of the Thames and once the quickest way to walk between Westminster Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge without getting your boots wet. Lower Marsh has been a shopping street for centuries and retains a charming run-down retail look today. The buildings are a higgledy-piggledy ragbag of mixed-height terraces, selling nothing overly corporate [photo]. I arrived in the middle of a Saturday afternoon when you might have expected trade to be at its height, but instead the street was unexpectedly quiet and market-free. I guess that weekday office workers now form the mainstay of local business. Otherwise I'd undoubtedly have popped into independent bookshop Crockatt & Powell, being the only blogging booksellers I know. Alas, like the Golf Sale earlier in my walk, I find the prospect of a solo browsing experience somewhat uncomfortable, so I passed by.
With just a few hundred yards of my Bakerloo line walk remaining, I finally located something I'd been searching for in vain for the last three miles - a bakery. Admittedly it was nothing truly local, just an identikit blue Greggs outlet selling all the usual cakes and savouries, but this was the first building on my journey where I could actually have bought a loaf baked on the premises. Except unfortunately they'd sold out of bread and were down to the last few leftover pastries, so I made do with a sausage, cheese and bean melt while the ladies cleaned up behind the counter. I'd found a baker but I couldn't find a loo, so I decided against purchasing an accompanying beverage. By the look of the street outside, however, I bet some of the side alleys get used as an extremely public convenience every now and then. Lambeth North station was now just around the corner, and I felt a world away from my starting point on the edge of leafy genteel Regent's Park.
Baker100 - Lambeth North station Station opened: Saturday 10th March 1906 Station originally called:Kennington Road, but changed to Westminster Bridge Road after just five months, then changed to Lambeth (North) in 1917 (and lost the brackets in 1927) Distance from previous station: 900m End of the line: Not any more, obviously, but it was when the line opened. The tracks to Elephant & Castle were opened five months later. Nearby depot: There's room for 10 Bakerloo trains in the London Road depot, just off St George's Circus. It's hard to believe that railway sidings still take up so much prime land so close to central London, but they do. Apparently the depot is haunted by the ghost of a nun. Most outstanding feature outside the station: Tall-spired Christ Church, once home to William Wilberforce's anti-slavery campaign, now home to an ultra-progressive ministry called (ouch) church.co.uk (the sort of place that has a TV vicar and a Sunday evening service called "headspace") Thrilling fact: There are 84 steps down to platform level Below ground: A proper old-style tube station with curvy platforms, creaking lifts and genuine old ivory and brown tiling, mercifully free of the ravages of a wholesale Metronet upgrade. [photo][photo][photo] Proper history of the station:here Local Bakerloo book: Geoff Ryman's unique novel 253, in which a packed Bakerloo line train hurtles southward towards Elephant & Castle, and we learn in detail about each of the 253 characters on board. Just before the train crashes. Not only is it a great book, but it started out online so you can read the whole thing here. Recommended.
Until a few years ago, the best way to cross the Thames from Charing Cross to Waterloo was by train. You wouldn't have wanted to walk across the old Hungerford footbridge, a narrow confined passageway on stilts hemmed in beside the old iron railway bridge. Not unless you were a beggar or a mugger, anyway. There's been a footbridge here since 1845 when Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the first to connect southern shoppers to bustling HungerfordMarket on the north bank. Structurally it was gorgeous. As a pedestrian tollbridge crossing a stinking river, however, it was a financial disaster. In 1859 the South Eastern Railway bought up Brunel's bridge and promptly demolished it, replacing it with a sturdy box girder rail bridge designed by John Hawkshaw. Commuter trains still rumble through his iron lattice today, crawling slowly across the river into Charing Cross station (built on the site of the old Hungerford Market). The desolate red footbridge endured far longer than it should, but the demolition order finally came and the new HungerfordBridges are its replacement. They were tough to build, not least because the fragile Bakerloo line passes only a few metres beneath the riverbed, but they were finally opened in 2002.
Aaah that's better. Not just one footbridge but two. Not a narrow walkway but a broad span. Not a boxy iron tube but an elegant wave of supsended steel cables. Not a criminal paradise but a busy thoroughfare. Not a shortcut to scurry down but a tourist destination in its own right. Not a grim view of passing trains but an open vista across the Thames. Walk across the eastern side and there's St Paul's rising above Blackfriars Bridge. Walk across the western side and there's the London Eye looming above the Houses of Parliament. The GoldenJubileeBridges were clearly meant to be photographed and to photograph from. So my apologies to any passing couples whose path I blocked while I was busy snappingaway, but there was no need to be in such a hurry, OK?
The new bridges have increased pedestrian access to the SouthBank, at least for us northerners. Most of the arty buildings here grew up as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain - an event a bit like the Millennium Dome except that it was an enormous success. Closest to the bridge is the RoyalFestivalHall, recently buried beneath a shroud of boards and sheeting awaiting concrete rebirth. Architecturally it's not to everybody's taste but inside the auditorium, where it counts, the acoustics in are spot on. Well, I thought so when I performed here as a spotty 12-year-old, one of hundreds of Hertfordshire schoolchildren press-ganged into singing some worthy Vaughan Williams oratorio to a packed audience of devoted parents and grandparents. You might remember me - I was the well-scrubbed short kid seated stage right who felt distinctly faint just after the interval and had to sit down mid-performance. Sorry. I've not been back inside since, just in case somebody official recognises me. Quick, let's hurry onward, along to Waterloo. Meet you under the clock?
Baker100 - Waterloo station Station opened: Monday 8th August 1898 Distance from previous station: 500m (beneath the River Thames) You are now entering: the London borough of Lambeth Named after: That big battle in 1815 where we whopped the French. No connection whatsoever to Abba. Change here for: Waterloo & City line (arrived 1898), Northern line (arrived 1926), Jubilee line (arrived 1999) and mainline services (arrived 1848) Thrilling fact: Waterloo station has 24 escalators, more than any other underground station. Bakerloo line platforms: sort-of ordinary tiling, but with medieval-looking mosaic panels spaced out close to most of the exits Nearest baker: There are plenty of food outlets on the concourse of Waterloo mainline station which pretend to be bakers. Upper Crust promise 'delicious baguettes baked all day long', Delice de France reheat croissants to order, and Krispy Kreme churn out something almost, but not quite, like a genuine doughnut. There's even a kiosk called 'Daily Bread', except that they only serve sandwiches, not still-warm cottage bloomers. Most disappointing. Nearest loo: Opposite mainline platform 18, except that I wasn't paying 20p to spend a penny!
There are several ways to walk the (very) short distance between Charing Cross and Embankment tube stations. You can follow the Bakerloo line and stroll down Northumberland Avenue, once home to a most grand Turkish Baths, now flanked by grim Government offices. You can follow the Northern line down narrow Villiers Street, lined with endless eateries and a monstrous block of accountants. You can walk through Charing Cross station itself, taking the raised walkway south through a piddling little tourist market. Or you can take the route I took, inbetween the lot of them, along quaint quiet Craven Street. Here, tucked away out of sight from most passing tourists, I stopped off to visit an unique slice of Americana...
I SPY LONDON the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Part 6:Benjamin Franklin House
Location: 36 Craven Street, WC2N 5NF [map] Open: 10am - 5pm (Wednesday - Sunday) Admission: £8 5-word summary: American diplomat's dramatic walk-through experience Website:www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org Time to set aside: an hour
I'd never paid cash before to spend time shut away alone in a private house with a histrionic woman. Neither was that my plan when I went to visit one of London's newest tourist attractions, opened in January this year on the 300th anniversary of its most famous resident's birth. But that's how things turned out.
You probably think of Benjamin Franklin as a quintessential American, battling for freedom against the British and signing his name at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence. But what's far less well known is that Franklin spent more than fifteen years of his life living in London. He spent a year in his late teens learning the printing trade (residing in Little Britain, no less) before returning home to set up the Pennsylvania Gazette. In 1757 he came back to London as a fifty-year-old international diplomat, staying considerably longer and taking up lodgings with the Stevenson family in a terraced townhouse in Craven Street [photo].
I found the door to 36 Craven Street without too much difficulty, but had far more trouble trying to work out how to pay to get in. A sign on the iron railings directed me round the corner to Craven Passage (ooh, atmosphericarchedtunnel) beneath Charing Cross station where I eventually found the New Players Theatre. A girl behind the counter in the musty box office cheerily sold me an entrance ticket before revealing that I was the only person signed up for the 1pm tour. A tour earlier that morning had been sold out, she assured me, but her tally chart suggested business had been very slow since. Still, there was no point in complaining, a solo tour would clearly be the ultimate in heritage value for money. I was led back to Franklin's terraced house in Craven Street, ushered into the creaking hallway and taken down to the basement. Here I sat alone and watched a short film about Franklin's London life, edited with a clear nod to any parties of American tourists who might have been visiting. But they weren't, it was just me.
And then Polly made a dramatic entrance. Polly was the daughter of Ben Franklin's London landlady - and this was definitely either her or a very convincing actress in a big powdered wig. With the distant ringing of a bell from upstairs she bade me follow her up to the drawing room where virtual tea was being served. A highly ingenious interactive audio-visual presentation was underway, with the wood-panelled walls of each room being used to screen a different tableau from Franklin's London biography. Voices and period music played over hidden speakers, with Polly narrating her part of the story to perfection during each narrative pause, live to the audience. Which was just me. Polly's professionalism shone through as she delivered a bravura performance without ever looking me directly in the eye, or blushing all red and embarrassed at being shut in the same room with one single male vistor. I couldn't help but be impressed as she led me through the house with as much energy as she would a party of 12, and Franklin's story unfolded from a very human angle.
I don't think I'd previously fully appreciated the broad diversity of Franklin's genius. Not content with being a newspaper baron and civic-minded statesman, Ben was also a talented scientist. His particular interest was the new-fangled study of electricity, including that legendary kite-flying lightning experiment and a lot of playing around with coils and magnets. He kept busy during his voyages across the Atlantic by taking readings which established the path of the Gulf Stream. And in the tiny rear study upstairs at Craven Street he entertained the great thinkers of his day andinvented bifocals. Here Polly's emotional parting scene recalled the day in March 1775 when ambassador Ben, disgraced in British eyes as a whistleblower, finally packed his bags and returned to revolutionary America. The special relationship he established between our two countries remains today (twat presidents notwithstanding). And Franklin's London life has been, I think, beautifully remembered here at Craven Street in unique and dramatic fashion. If you don't mind risking forming another minimalist audience, I know Polly would be delighted to show you round.
Baker100 - Embankment station Hang on, isn't this station called Charing Cross? It used to be when it opened, but since 1974 it's been called Embankment. I warned you yesterday that this was complicated. Station opened: Monday 30th May 1870 Change here for: District and Circle lines Quick history: The District line got here first, running alongside a sewer inside the newly-constructed Victoria Embankment. The Bakerloo and Northern lines burrow underneath. Distance from previous station: 370m That's not far! No, Charing Cross to Embankment is one of the shortest inter-station journeys on the entire tube network. And the Northern line journey between these stations is 100m shorter still! Surely it would be quicker to walk? You'd think so, wouldn't you? So I did an experiment to find out. I timed how long it took me to get from the Trafalgar Square entrance [photo] to the Embankment exit [photo] by train, and then timed how long it took me to walk back again. First, by tube. It took a minute to descend to the foot of the escalator, another to get to the platform, a third to wait for a train, a fourth to ride to Embankment, a fifth to mount the first escalator and a sixth to climb the final escalator and exit. My walk back up Northumberland Avenue took only four minutes and 45 seconds. So yes, it's definitely quicker to walk. Station layout: Fairly simple, all things considered - see 3D cross-section here Bakerloo platforms: white tiles, decorated with fluttering red, blue and brown ticker tape Thrilling fact: Immediately before World War Two giant steel floodgates were built here (and at Waterloo) to prevent innundation by the Thames should a German bomb ever penetrate the tunnel beneath the river. I've been here before: The construction of the Victoria Embankment(August 2005)
Baker100 walk: Piccadilly Circus to Trafalgar Square
The Bakerloo line runs beneath Haymarket on its way to Trafalgar Square. I think the underground train has the right idea - it's not missing much above the surface. There's no longer a great deal of visual interest down this once historic street, just a few tourist tat shops, grim restaurants, archaic offices, the Sports Cafe and a seen-better-days cinema. But a handful of buildings still really stand out.
With its six tall Classical columns, the Theatre Royal is probably the most impressive building in the street. The present building was designed by (who else?) John Nash in 1820, although the original theatre dates back a century earlier. HerMajesty'sTheatre across the road is even older, and has changed name (and gender) five times since 1705 to match with the reigning monarch. Early in its history, as the King's Theatre, it became renowned as the home of London opera under the musical directorship of George Frideric Handel (yes, really, him). The current building, opened in 1897, has a tradition of hosting long running musicals, including Chu Chin Chow(opened 1916, for 2238 performances), Fiddler On The Roof(opened 1967, for 2030 performances) and The Phantom Of The Opera(opened 1986, now over 7500 performances, and no sign of giving up the ghost). Perhaps most memorably of all, for some, Tommy Cooper suffered a fatal heart attack live on ITV whilst performing on stage here in 1984.
On the corner with Pall Mall stands New Zealand House, the official presence of the Kiwi government in the UK. The building is a 15-storey early-1960s tower block, which you might therefore expect to be a concrete monstrosity but actually it's nothing of the sort. Architect Robert Matthew hoped to create a 'romantic silhouette' on London's skyline and successfully created an elegant tower, now Grade II listed. The view's not quite so impressive at ground level, however, and the multilayered glass effect is now somewhat ruined by the need to hang billowing curtains in every window. New Zealand timbers were used for some of the interior decor, and there's a mighty tall Maori totem pole erected in the atrium. Post-war planners were particularly worried by the potential security risk created by the view from the top floor penthouse, and they were right to be. I've been right up to the outdoor roof terrace as part of London Open House weekend a few years ago (oooh, spectacular), and I'm sure if I'd taken a pair of binoculars I could have seen right into the gardens of Buckingham Palace. It's a great pity that the roof is so rarely open to the public. [photos & history here]
From here it's a short walk along either Pall Mall (past the National Gallery's carbuncle extension) or Cockspur Street (past the Scottish tourist office) to the edge of Trafalgar Square [photos]. And you may remember I wrote about Trafalgar Square in enormous detail last October, so I have no intention of repeating myself here. Onward to the station...
Baker100 - Trafalgar Square station Station opened: Saturday 10th March 1906 Distance from previous station: 500m Hang on, there isn't a tube station called Trafalgar Square: No, not any more. But there used to be when the Bakerloo line opened. Station renamed Charing Cross: Sunday 4th August 1974 Incredibly complicated 'renaming' history of this and neighbouring stations: I've written about this in some depth before, or read about it all here Brief summary of the above: Trafalgar Square and Strand stations were combined to create Charing Cross station in readiness for the completion of the Jubilee line. Subterranean station cross-section here. Change here for: Northern line, but only if you want a very long walk because the two halves of the station really aren't very close together at all. Line maps on board Bakerloo line trains don't show this station as an interchange, recommending that you change at Embankment instead. Exit: You emerge from the ticket hall directly into the southeast corner of Trafalgar Square [photo]. It's about as convenient as any tube station gets. Bakerloo line platforms: A 1970s brown vinyl makeover, featuring murals inspired by Trafalgar Square and the National Portrait Gallery above. The panels were designed with integral litter bins, but the threat of terrorism means that these are now inelegantly blocked. Cardinal Wolsey now has a featureless white rectangle across his chest, for example [photo] I've been here before:All about Trafalgar Square(October 2005)
Very little of the layout of central London was ever consciously planned - most of it just evolved. RegentStreet, underneath which the Bakerloo line runs, is a rare exception. Along with Portland Place (see yesterday) this was part of the processional route carved through the West End by John Nash for the benefit of the Prince Regent. How often the prince rode this way is not recorded, but Nash's broad boulevard soon became a fashionable magnet for the well-to-do of Georgian London. The very finest section of the road was the sweeping curve to the south - the Quadrant - whose shadowy colonnades were later removed to stop prostitutes gathering there after dark. Initially the two major road junctions at either end were called "Regent's Circus North" and "Regent's Circus South", but the need for clarity following the introduction of omnibus services caused conductors to rename them "Oxford Circus" and "Piccadilly Circus", and so they remain today. None of Nash's grand terraces still stand - the individual shops were too small for modern business needs so they were all demolished between 1902 and 1927. The replacement façades do still look pretty damned impressive, however [photo], and the street continues to take its heritage very seriously. Perhaps that's not surprising when the Crown is your landlord.
Walk down Regent Street today and what strikes you, apart from the grandeur, is the huge amount of scaffolding on show. In some parts of the street the majority of buildings appear to be boarded up, shielded behind poles and sheeting, while major reconstruction work takes place behind. Modern businesses have different needs to old, and some degree of rebuilding and inconvenience is needed while new retail outlets move in. It's all an illusion, though. The façades may stay intact but everything behind gets gutted - as you can see in this photo taken from Swallow Street, round the back of the main Regent Street curve. When the cranes finally move out and the new businesses and luxury penthouses move in, only a historical veneer will remain. So much of London's history, alas, is but skin deep.
Many of Regent Street's shops are world famous. Hamleys, for example, has to be the favourite destination for generations of toy-seeking children. It gets a bit crowded in there at weekends and school holidays, but you'll be glad to know that they still demonstrate pocket-money bubble-blowing machines and mini looping aeroplanes on the ground floor. Another traditional favourite is Liberty, its Tudor building constructed in 1924 from the timbers of two ships: HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan. Aquascutum and Austin Reed are also Regent Street staples, and there's a distinctly upmarket flavour to many of the other retailers here. Maybe that's why I've never properly appreciated this street - it's always seemed to be pitched somewhere over my head, more about excessive style than any sense of value. Not even the new AppleStore has encouraged me to change my mind. One recent Regent Street casualty was department store Dickins & Jones, closed for business in January after more than two centuries of trading. I hate to think who'll move in and replace it. After all, who now remembers Swan & Edgar at the foot of the street, closed in 1982 and now ignominiously replaced by a Virgin Megastore?
But one retail legend shows no sign of fading away. As long as I can remember there's been a bloke standing in Regent Street with a big arrowed sign saying GOLF SALE. I don't think it's been the same bloke every time, and the sign itself has also evolved (was yellow on black, now black on fluorescent yellow), but the campaign continues. Westminster Council tried to ban this board-borne advert a few years ago, but discovered that the relevant legislation didn't seem to extend to pavements and so the board remains. It's multiplied as well, with several feeder boards pointing towards the main sign pointing down Maddox Street. This isn't a sidestreet you'd otherwise choose to walk along, but on this occasion I thought I'd follow the pointing arrow to see what was there - something I've studiously avoided in the past (not least because I am so very definitely not a golfer). And there, just beyond the burger restaurant and the slightly rundown tanning salon, was the notorious Golf Sale. I was expecting more, perhaps, not just an ordinary shop with an array of golf bags and clubs lined up on the pavement. The big yellow sign at Oxford Circus may have read 'Walk In', but it seemed that nobody had. Two sales assistants stood chatting close to the door in a shop packed with golf equipment but no customers. I would have gone in, but I always feel very uncomfortable in any shop where the staff outnumber the visitors so I walked swiftly past and continued on my way. Even world renowned marketing campaigns, it seems, don't always deliver successful results.
Baker100 - Piccadilly Circus station Station opened: Saturday 10th March 1906 Distance from previous station: 1km Quick history: Two brand new underground lines met beneath Piccadilly Circus in 1906 - the Baker Street & Waterloo and the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton. The original station building was located on the corner of Coventry Street and Haymarket. As passenger numbers grew, a splendid new circular ticket hall was constructed beneath Eros, opening in 1928 (see cutaway diagram here). Long history: Is this long enough for you? Three things I found outside the station: half the tourists in the western world all jostling for position trying to take photographs of each other in front of Eros [photo]; two highly embarrassed men in big round pumpkin-shaped hats giving away free Mentos mints; a thin blue police telephone box (no longer functional) Change here for: Piccadilly line Bakerloo platforms: tiled with primary-coloured red, blue and greenery Thrilling fact: Because the Bakerloo platforms are slightly staggered, you can stand at the northern end of the northbound platform and watch trains curving into the southbound platform. Old photo here. Nearest baker: I don't know if it counts, but the very first Lyons Teashop opened a few doors up Piccadilly. Now a British Airways Travel Shop. Nearest loo: The subways around the ticket hall contain some pretty robust public conveniences. Many decades ago they'd no doubt have been frequented by those seeking Dilly Boys on the meatrack. Savvy? I've been here before:Piccadilly month(August 2004)
And now the Bakerloo heads south, beneath Portland Place. This is one of the most elegant streets in London, although it would have been even grander had architect John Nash had his way. He planned a processional thoroughfare for the Prince Regent, leading from Carlton House on the Mall to the prince's summer villa in Regent's Park. It was to be a straight line, but land battles with Sir James Langham and the residents of Cavendish Square forced part of the road further east than Nash would have liked, creating a distinctly imperfect kink around Langham Place (full history here). But the road remains far broader than most, like a Georgian dual carriageway, and is always a impressive place for a quiet stroll. Here are some of the architectural (and other) treats to be seen down Portland Place:
• Park Crescent: One of Nash's first crescents[photo], originally planned as a full circle (or circus). The purity of its white stone colonnades still makes me think that Mary Poppins is about to fly in at any minute. • Several statues down the 'central reservation': A real mixed bag, including Joseph Lister (who pioneered the use of antiseptics in surgery - pictured), SirGeorge Stuart White (Boer War commander) and QuintinHogg (founder of the first polytechnic). • RIBA: The headquarters of the Royal Institute of British Architects is a sheer stark slab of 30s brutalism [photo]. On the pavement outside there's usually a poignant one-woman protest aimed directly across the road at the Chinese Embassy (read more here). • Lots of scientific associations: The largest of these is the Institute of Physics, but there's also the Royal College of Radiologists, the Institute of Chemical Engineers and my personal favourite, the Anaesthaesia Heritage Centre. No, really. • BBC Broadcasting House: About which I wrote in depth when I went for a tour last year. The interior of the building is still being renovated, but it looks like they've pretty much finished the exterior at last. The Bakerloo line passes very nearly underneath the building, which used to cause all sorts of sound problems when certain radio programmes were being recorded, but the latest design features heavy soundproofing throughout. There's an outstanding history of the site here, of the original building here and of the new development here. • The Langham Hotel: London's first purpose-built grand luxury hotel, originally with 600 rooms (now 427). Famous regular visitors included Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Noel Coward, Antonin Dvorak and Haile Selassie. 100 years ago a room cost 9 shillings (45p) a night - today that's merely an insulting tip. Full historical trivia here. • All Souls, Langham Place: John Nash's signature circular church, with the famous lemon-squeezer roof and spire [photo]. Inside there's perhaps more a feeling of theatre than temple, but that's perfectly in keeping with this modern church's vibrant outreach ministry. How many other churches allow you to download their last four weeks' sermons?
Baker100 - Oxford Circus station Station opened: Monday 30th July 1900 Distance from previous station: 900m Exit: The old Baker Street & Waterloo Railway station, designed by Leslie Green, on the corner of Oxford Street and Argyll Street Entrance: steps down from the four corners of Oxford Circus, into the new ticket hall built for the opening of the Victoria line in 1969 Surroundings:northwest - H&M (smiley Swedish clothing); southwest - United Colors of Benetton (purveyor of ultra-matched separates); southwest - Shelly's Shoes (sold-out Carnaby Street bootseller); northeast - Niketown (corporate sportswear temple) Station layout: Oxford Circus station is bloody complicated beneath the surface, with long winding tunnels everywhere which seem to take forever to walk down. I could try describing the layout, but I'd rather guide you towards these fine below-surface plans and 3Dcutaways. Tell me you're not impressed. Station history: short version here, extremely detailed pdf version here Change here for: Victoria line (a very easy same-level interchange) and Central line Bakerloo platforms: tiled with a green and white maze mosaic Thrilling fact: Smoking on tube trains and underground stations was only banned in 1985 after ascaryfire at Oxford Circus station trapped 1000 late-night commuters in smoke-filled tunnels. Local character: Where Oxford Street once had Stanley Green, the Protein Man, now it has Paul Howard, the Sinner Winner Man. "Why be a sinner, when you can be a winner?" If you ever risk crossing Regent Street just north of Oxford Circus you'll probably hear Paul's dulcet tones booming out from the traffic island [photo], trying to convert passers-by to the living gospel. "If God's not the boss you're gonna suffer loss." There he stands in his orange anorak (with arctic-fur collar), politely haranguing pedestrians with his streaming megaphone monologue. "If we don't team up with God we never win." There's just a hint of a Deep South guttural aitch whenever he utters the word "je-h-esus" (which is often), but stay and listen too long and you'll realise that a lot of what he has to say is on a recycled loop. "Why be a sinner, when you can be a winner?" Read the b3ta interview with Paul here, download a signed poster here and buy the official t-shirt (honest) here.
And now to walk the entire length of the original Bakerloo line, above ground, to see what's there. It's only three miles from Baker Street to Lambeth North, but there's absolutely tons to see.
Today I'm tracing the tracks from Baker Street to Regent's Park station. Here's an old map showing the geographical route (northeast-ish), which is absolutely nothing like the fantasy route (southeast) depicted on the official London Underground tube map. Whatever today's map may say, the Bakerloo line definitely runs to the north of the Circle line between Edgware Road and Regent's Park, and not to the south.
[I would at this point show you the relevant tiny snippet of the current London Underground tube map, but it's probably best not to for scary legal reasons. And if you're a fan of strange and wonderful tube maps (like the anagram one, the sweary one and the upsidedown one) then you might want to head over to Geoff's map archive and download as many as you can before TfL's humourless solicitors move in on Monday and extinguish the lot].
The first eastward building you meet on leaving Baker Street station is one of the most famous in London - the Planetarium. Its green copper roof is instantly recognisable, as is the small ringed planet perched right on the top of the dome [photo]. As a child I remember reclining on the comfy seats inside the Planetarium and being totally overawed by the astronomical lightshow projected onto the roof above me. I quite fancied going back for another look this year, except that the show has now been dumbed down to a mere ten minutes and entrance is only available as part of a combined ticket with Madame Tussaud's nextdoor. Sorry, but there's no way I'm forking out £22 (yes, £22!) to gawp at a few waxwork celebrities, even if some are supposedly interactive and reveal a bit of greasy flesh. Tragically the owners have decided that the only stars which attract tourists nowadays are of the two-legged kind, so in June the Planetarium in its current form will be closed and transformed into the Auditorium - a new audio-visual show which promises to "get into the heart of celebrity". Sounds absolutely ghastly, but I'm sure the vacuous crowds of tourists who throng the Marylebone Road will lap it up.
From here the underground Bakerloo line skirts the southern edge of Regent's Park. This is one of the largest open spaces in central London, transformed from Tudor hunting lands into elegant parkland by John Nash. He's also responsible for the imposing terraced villas which line the edges of the park [photo], now home to the aspirationally exclusive. I passed several moneyed old couples out taking a stroll through the park, the men gnarled and grimacing, ostentatiously parading their fur-coated wives and pampered dogs. Younger visitors cycled, or jogged, or even scootered, while out on Marylebone Green a semi-serious soccer kickabout was underway. The scenic central lake [photo] is actually part of the old River Tyburn, here visible for the one and only time before plunging beneath the city of Westminster on its way to the Thames. At the moment a carpet of daffodils is pushing bravely through the winter mud, but it won't be long before this lovely park truly springs to life.
Baker100 - Regent's Park station Station opened: Saturday 10th March 1906 Distance from previous station: 900m Surroundings: The station entrance is encircled by a large area of trees and gardens which you might expect would be part of Regent's Park, but you'd be wrong. This is Park Square Gardens, a privileged enclave for the exclusive use of (very) local residents. Iron railings and padlocks segregate several acres from public access, and there's even a caretaker's cottage in one corner to ensure that all undesirables are kept at arm's length. No doubt the lawns are covered by Raybans and Riviera-tanned skin in the summer, but give me the common ground to the north any day. Station building: One of relatively few tube stations with no building on the surface [photo]. Entrance is down some steps (past a tramp) through a pair of twin bore green-tiled subways [photo]. Ticket hall: gloomy, narrow and partly wood-panelled Thrilling fact: If you choose to take the stairs rather than the lift, there are 96 steps down to the platforms. Platforms: dark and melancholy with original Edwardian tiling, including the words 'Regent's Park' picked out in brown rectangles. Change here for: Great Portland Street station, which is only 100 metres up the road. Again, you'd never tell by looking at the tube map. Don't change here for: London Zoo (which may be in Regent's Park but it's almost a mile away, and Camden Town station is rather closer). Advance warning of closure: Regent's Park station is closing for a year, starting on June 5th, so that essential maintenance work can take place. Metronet are in charge, so I wouldn't hold out much hope of them leaving all the heritage features intact or even finishing on time. I've been here before: Walking the Regent's Canal(May 2005)
It's exactly 100 years today since London Underground's Bakerloo Line opened, on Saturday 10th March 1906. Only eight stations were ready for traffic at the time, but the tuppenny tickets proved most popular and 37000 passengers packed the trains that day. To celebrate this centenary I'll be taking a virtual journey along the original line, station by station, from Baker Street to Lambeth North. It's not just an interesting underground journey, it's also a damned fine walk above ground, so there'll be plenty to see along the way over the next week. Mind the doors.
At the turn of the 20th century there were three different east-west underground lines through the centre of London (the Metropolitan, District and Central) but no lines travelling north-south. The new Baker Street & Waterloo Railway aimed to change that, allegedly inspired by the desire of certain Westminster gentlemen to reach Lord's more easily to watch the cricket after work. This was one of London's first deep level tubes, burrowing deep beneath London's streets rather than using much cheaper cut and cover methods. Initial construction was slow due to lack of funds, but inspirational American businessman Charles Yerkes stepped in with financial support and provided the impetus to complete the project. And it was an Evening News headline soon after the railway's opening which first nicknamed the line the "Baker-loo", and the name has stuck ever since.
Here's a brief Bakerloo line history (and if you need a map to follow, try here):
1906: The Bakerloo opened between Baker Street and Lambeth North (then called Kennington Road). Tunnels to Elephant & Castle opened in August of the same year. All further extensions were to the northwest. 1907: Extended westward to Marylebone (terminus of the Grand Central Railway) and then Edgware Road (not the Metropolitan station of the same name). 1913: Extended southward to Paddington - following an extremely tight curve which looks very different on a geographically accurate map compared to the usual smoothed-out Harry Beck version. 1915: Extended northwest to Queen's Park, where Bakerloo trains met up with overground trains on the London & North Western Railway. Some Bakerloo trains continued to Willesden Junction and (in 1917) to Watford Junction. 1939: The Stanmore branch of the Metropolitan line transferred to the Bakerloo. 1979: The Stanmore branch switched to the new Jubilee line (I've covered this in enormous detail before, remember...) 1982: Northernmost Bakerloo terminus cut back from Watford Junction to Stonebridge Park. 1984: Trains restored between Stonebridge Park and Harrow & Wealdstone (which is how things stand today).
The Bakerloo's a strange line. It ventures from darkest Southwark to leafy suburbia. Its squat little trains rattle and wheeze through bendy tunnels. Its underground stations remain gloomy and labyrinthine. Its overground stations feel bleak and unloved. But the Bakerloo's still a great little line, nimbly joining several key London locations, and a characterful throwback to how the underground used to be. And it's brown. Even 100 years ago, brown was cutting edge.
Baker100 - Baker Street station Station opened: Saturday 10th January 1863 Bakerloo line platforms: tiled with an ingenious Sherlock Holmes design, constructed from miniature Sherlock Holmes silhouettes [photo]. Change here for: Jubilee line (a very easy same-level interchange), Metropolitan line, Circle line, Hammersmith & City line. You'd be quicker changing here: From here to Waterloo by Bakerloo line takes 10 minutes. From here to Waterloo by Jubilee line takes 9 minutes. Thrilling fact:Baker Street was one of only seven underground stations on the world's first underground line between Paddington and Farringdon. Immediately outside the station: hundreds of tourists buying tacky souvenirs, long queues for sightseeing buses, a statue of the ubiquitous Sherlock Holmes, Transport for London's Lost Property Office (it's amazing what people lose). Nearest baker: Presumably there were once bakeries in this street, but I couldn't find one. There's a small tiled arcade above the station where you can buy pizzas, chocolate bars and nuts. There's a row of touristy gift shops and cafes in front of the station where you can buy a very artificial looking apple danish. But something traditional and baked, like a loaf of bread? Not a chance. Nearest loo: Beneath the pavement, just across the road from the station, are a pair of well-tended public conveniences. I had to pass a sleeping dog to get into the gents, then walk round a tall green pot plant to get to the urinals. The tiles above the splashback were illustrated with colourful cartoon characters, but a Westminster council CCTV watched my every move, to the last drop. I've been here before: Winding your way down on Baker Street(Gerry Rafferty, 1978)
Shoot-out at the Blind Beggar: Wednesday March 9th 1966
Forty years ago tonight one of the East End's most notorious murders took place. Ronnie Kray walked into the Blind Beggar pub on the Whitechapel Road and shot dead gangland rival George Cornell, supposedly for calling him a "big fat poof". Which of course he was, although it was highly inadvisable to mention this out loud. George may have been stupid, but his cold-blooded murder shocked the East End. And you wouldn't guess from looking at the pub today, but the BlindBeggar has quite a history...
Legend tells that the original 'blind beggar' was Henry de Montfort, a medieval nobleman. He was left disfigured following the battle of Evesham in 1265 and reduced to begging on the streets in this part of ye olde Whitechapel. Henry's daughter Bessee was a bit of a looker and soon attracted the attention of many noble suitors, but all were discouraged from marriage by her father's wretched appearance. That is until one gentleman finally had the courage to ask him for Bessee's hand in marriage, upon which Henry revealed that he was in fact heir to the Earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort, and handed over a large sum of money to pay for the wedding. That's oneversionofthestory, anyway.
In Pepys' time Whitechapel and Bethnal Green were well-to-do country villages situated in green fields outside the City walls. However, the growth of the capital over subsequent centuries brought great poverty and slum conditions to the area. In 1865 former Methodist minister WilliamBooth arrived here from Nottingham and was shocked by what he saw. He was walking along the Whitechapel Road when he came across a religious open-air meeting taking place outside the Blind Beggar. William stepped up to preach and so impressed the organisers that they invited him to lead their small tent-based mission nearby. From this chance meeting was formed the Salvation Army, and Booth devoted the rest of his life to raising the poor of the East End out of poverty through the power of the gospel. A statue close to the pub marks the birth of this earnest international organisation (take a historical walkabout here) although I've never once seen a single tambourine waved in the vicinity.
100 years later, Reggie and Ronnie Kray ruled the roost in Whitechapel. They ran the underworld north of the river, while the Richardsons held sway over the south. George Cornell was a burly meathead with a sadistic reputation, originally a mate of the Krays but who later defected to work for the southern gang. George was rumoured to have been heavily involved in a fatal shootout at a club in Catford on 7th March 1966, a gun battle in which one of the Kray's cousins was fatally wounded. Two days later Ronnie heard that George had dared to go drinking in Kray territory, at the Blind Beggar, so he dashed round from a nearby pub to exact his revenge. George greeted Ronnie with a sarcastic comment, so Ronnie whipped out a pistol and shot George three times in the head. Like you do. To the police's dismay not one of the regulars drinking in the pub that night was willing to testify against Ronnie, and so his fearsome gangland career stuttered on unchallenged for another year.
The Blind Beggar today is just an ordinary East End pub with beer garden, conservatory and satellite TV. It still gets its fair share of curious visitors, popping in for a half of shandy as an excuse to hunt for evidence of bulletholes in the walls or bloodstains on the carpet. And there are still just enough Whitechapel residents to keep the business ticking over, though not as many as before because most of the locals these days don't drink alcohol. But you won't see any gangland villains hanging out on the comfy sofas today, nor disguised noblemen begging on the street outside. And, if anybody asks, I wasn't there on that dark March evening forty years ago, honest. I have an alibi - I was attending my first birthday party twenty miles away at the time.
Queen Quality and the Demon of Risk(a modern fairy tale)
Once upon a time, not so long ago in a country not so far away, there lived a humble carpenter called William. William was a great craftsman and carved the finest furniture you ever did see. His tables were a marvel to behold. His cupboards were masterpieces of great beauty. But it was for his magnificent chairs that William was best known. Each chair was carved from solid oak. The legs were curved and elegant. The seats were smooth and comfortable. The backs were intricate and ornate. Everything about William's chairs was exquisite, and he was duly proud of his work.
One day William was at home in his workshop when there was a knock at the door. Imagine his surprise when there, large as life on his front doorstep, stood the Queen! "Hello good citizen William," she said. "I am undertaking a new project at the castle and I am in need of fine furniture. I have heard great things of your woodworking skills, and have come to ask if you would carve me a chair for the royal bedchamber. It must be a great chair, the very finest you can create, and free from all imperfection. We must ensure quality. I'm sure you will not let me down. I bestow upon you three days in which to complete your task." William bowed low as the Queen departed.
On the first day, William set about finding the very finest wood with which to make the chair. He was just about to venture out into the forest when there was a knock at the door. It was the Queen again, holding a sheaf of parchment in her hand. "Oh William, you cannot begin your task until you have completed this Project Initiation Document. I know that you are a great carpenter, but imagine what might happen if your goal objective parameters were left undefined. I cannot allow such a threat to quality". And so William spent most of the first day preparing the Project Initiation Document, consulting with the village elders whenever he got to a particularly difficult part of the 18-page form. Just before sunset he finally found time to go out and collect some wood, but it was a bit scrappy and not up to his usual standards.
On the second day, William busied himself in his workshop ready to carve the various parts of the chair. He was just about to dig his chisel into the wood when there was a knock at the door. It was the Queen again, holding a sheaf of parchment in her hand. "Oh William, you cannot continue your task until you have completed this Risk Assessment Spreadsheet. I know that you are greatly skilled with the fretsaw and the drill, but imagine what might happen if some unforeseen disaster were to impact upon the successful delivery of project milestones. I cannot allow such a threat to quality". And so William spent most of the second day updating the Risk Assessment Spreadsheet, addressing all relevant Health and Safety protocols where necessary. Just before sunset he finally found time to make a start on carving, but the light was failing and his carpentry was not up to his usual standards.
On the third day, William prepared to assemble the chair and to sculpt tiny royal crests into the armrests. He was just about to start putting the pieces together when there was a knock at the door. It was the Queen again, holding a sheaf of parchment in her hand. "Oh William, you cannot complete your task until you have filled in this Performance Appraisal Overview. I know that you are a most talented carpenter, but I must insist on firm documentary evidence that all designated objectives have been achieved. I cannot allow such a threat to quality". And so William spent most of the third day completing the Performance Appraisal Overview, obtaining written feedback from key stakeholders as appropriate. Just before sunset he finally found time to assemble the chair, but there wasn't time to do anything fancy with the armrests or to give the wood a proper varnish.
As night fell, the Queen summoned William to the palace. Here he placed his creation in front of her Majesty, with some trepidation, and handed over the relevant paperwork. "Excellent, you've completed all the necessary forms," said the Queen, before locking them away (unread) inside an overflowing filing cabinet. "My auditors will be duly satisfied. But what kind of chair do you call this? The wood is cheap and knotted. The carving is rudimentary and rushed. The armrests are plain and undecorated. And the varnish is still damp! I don't understand what could possibly have gone wrong. After all, I ensured that you followed all appropriate quality procedures."
"With greatest respect, your Majesty," replied William, "I spent so long filling in all those forms that I didn't have the opportunity to engage properly with the project. You were reluctant to trust me to do a good job, so instead you wasted my time by requiring me to prove that I was doing a good job. Your over-bureaucratic quality procedures actually prevented me from ensuring quality. It's your own bloody fault you blinkered managerial pedant."
"Ooh excellent!" exclaimed the queen. "I think I've just invented Business Quality Management. I must initiate rollout to all organisations across the country immediately. We must ensure quality." And nobody lived happily ever after.
Thanks for voting yesterday in my readership survey - more than 300 of you were kind enough to take part. Now I know a lot more about you all, and how my readership has changed over the last two years. According to my 2006 survey results, the typical diamond geezer reader is a straight-but-coupled 30-something male blog-reader from the London area. If anyone out there reckons they could be Mr Average, please stake your claim in the comments box. And here are those results in a little more detail.
Male or female?
male (218)
72%
female (85)
28%
Hmmm, that's almost three male readers to every female. The proportion of women is slightly higher than two years ago, but not by much. Maybe cyberworld is still full of blokes, or maybe I'm just not posting enough kittens.
Age
<20 (11)
4%
20s (85)
28%
30s (94)
31%
40s (60)
20%
50s (36)
12%
60+ (17)
6%
Well over half of my readers are aged between 20 and 40, with slightly more 30- than 20-somethings. Since 2004 I've picked up rather more older readers than before, especially over the age of 50, but my attempts to attract the yoof market have clearly backfired. What I need is a diamond geezer myspace profile to get down wiv da kidz. So I started one. Well wikkid innit?
Where do you live? (pick one)
London (130)
43%
England (85)
28%
UK (15)
5%
Europe (16)
5%
World (57)
19%
OK, I know I write about London a lot, but by no means exclusively. So I continue to be amazed that my readers are increasingly far more likely to live in London (population 7 million) than anywhere else (population 6½ billion). Altogether just over three quarters of you are from the UK, but the proportion of overseas readers is gradually increasing. Heaven knows why you foreigners are interested in local London stuff, tea and nostalgic 80s TV programmes, but thanks for sticking with me.
A bit more about you
straight, single (97)
32%
straight, coupled (168)
56%
gay, single (19)
6%
gay, coupled (18)
6%
Nearly 90% of you are straight (I suspect that's just below the global average), nearly 40% of you are single (I suspect that's just over the global average), and straight readers are noticeably more likely to be in a relationship than gay readers (I suspect that's deeply meaningful and many of you could blog about the subject at great length).
Do you have your own blog?
yes (135)
44%
no (169)
56%
Although this vote ran very close, I note that the balance has tipped slightly in favour of non-bloggers over the last two years (was 47%, now 56%). Which is odd, because I thought everyone had a blog these days. Maybe your life isn't worth writing about, or maybe you have much better things to do with your time than telling the world what you had for breakfast and what you think of the Prime Minister. And that's fine because, quite frankly, I wouldn't have the time to read 300 of your blogs every day anyway.
How often do you read diamond geezer?
daily (175)
58%
often (94)
31%
occasionally (20)
7%
first visit (14)
5%
Well over half of you come back every day, eh? That's comforting, because I do try very hard to post something every day for you to read. And yes, I know that a lot of you so-called daily readers probably read from work and have the weekends off - my visitor stats would support that - but you're still showing real online commitment. And a special hello to the 14 of you who were making your very first visit yesterday (assuming you ever come back again, that is).
When was your first visit to diamond geezer?
2002 (20)
7%
2003 (37)
12%
2004 (78)
26%
2005 (88)
29%
2006 (77)
26%
And finally, a tribute to the longevity of blog readers. I started diamond geezer 3½ years ago (almost exactly), and 7% of you claim to be part of my first tiny readership trickle. Less than 20% of you were around the last time I ran this survey. Most of you are rather more recent, with about a quarter of you arriving here only within the last couple of months. Thanks to you all for sticking around, however long it's been. But I wonder if these results mean that I can get away with recycling more old posts without most of you noticing? (like this one for example...)
Readership survey(2) : Precisely two years ago I ran a readership survey to find out who was reading my blog. Fascinating the results were too. A lot's changed since then (not least in the last couple of months) so I thought I'd run the survey again. I wonder how different 2006 is to 2004. Go on, tell me about yourself...
5 linkybits • "Snakes On A Plane" may just be the best title for a film, ever. Admit it - you can immediately picture the entire plot, can't you? Samuel L Jackson stars (apparently he signed up purely on the strength of the title, and refused point blank when producers tried to rename it "Pacific Air Flight 121"). Released later this year. More here. • Depeche Mode's latest single "Suffer Well" (their 40th) has been re-recorded in Simlish - the language used in videogame The Sims. There's even a Simlish video, here. • More than 200 lesser-known London locations are lovingly catalogued at Hidden London - from Ruislip Common to Foots Cray. Refreshingly non-Zone-1-centric. • Have you ever needed to create a basic CSS stylesheet with a particular number of columns in a particular format? I know I have. Now there are 40 downloadable formats (like, for example, one liquid central space sandwiched between two fixed width columns) at Layout Gala, all ready for you to copy. Very simple, and dead useful. • Pelmanism with kittens - the Meowmory game.
I can't remember the last time I drank a Coke. Or a Pepsi, or a Tango, or a Fanta, or anything else similar for that matter. I used to drink a lot more of the stuff, but now I'll choose almost any other beverage in preference. I used to lug 2 litre bottles of sugary fizz home from the supermarket on a fortnightly basis, but I stopped doing that a few years ago. I gave up on bottles of squash at about the same time (there's still a quarter of a bottle of Robinsons left in my kitchen with a 2004 sell-by date). And I used to need a spoonful of sugar in my tea but I don't any more, so I've not bought a single bag of sugar since last century as a result. I can't claim that my life is sucrose-free, but most of my drinks are these days. And it seems I'm not alone.
UK drinks giant Britvic posted a profits warning last week saying that "the decline we have seen this year in January and February has been more severe than anything we have seen in the past." Britons are increasingly ditching colas and carbonates for what they perceive to be healthier options (such as Pepsi Max, fruit juices and bottled water). No longer do we stare at a can of Coke and think "mmm, it's the real thing and it looks delicious" because an inner 'green' voice is telling us "there's 35g of sugar in there, I'd be far better off chewing a carrot". It seems we don't want to be a bunch of obese fatties with decaying teeth any more. Fizz is on its way out.
A similar revolution is underway in the nation's schools. A governmentreportpublished last week proposes that schools should be barred from selling confectionery, bagged savoury snacks and carbonated drinks. I find it staggering that big Coca Cola vending machines were ever allowed in secondary schools in the first place, but I guess that raising revenue to pay teachers' salaries was more important than stopping kids becoming roly-poly lardbuckets. No longer - it's chilled water and unsalted nuts at breaktime if these proposals are given the go-ahead. The only junk being eaten in schools will be the stuff which ill-informed parents stuff into lunchboxes or which children buy outside in the corner shop.
Not surprisingly drinkscompanies and vending associations are up in arms. The rush towards healthy eating risks haemorrhaging their profits even further, and so some major PR campaigns are underway to try to promote fizzy drinks as part of a healthy balanced diet. I'd be proud of this stuff if I were being paid squillions as an advertising copywriter, but it's clearly drivel dressed up as fact.
Here are ten quotes lifted from press releases and other marketing blurb. Nine are genuine, and one I've made up. Can you spot the fizzy fake?
a) "Soft drinks are a good source of fluids as up to 95% of their volume is water, and keeping hydrated helps young people to maintain concentration. Offering a wide variety of soft drink types and flavours encourages fluid intake among young people." (Coca Cola)
b) "Research has shown that children are more likely to drink sufficient to replace lost fluids and maintain hydration during activity when presented with flavoured beverages." (British Soft Drinks Association)
c) "Many schools recognise and welcome the role vending can play in encouraging students to remain on site during breaks and lunch and are conscious that with schools open for longer hours and to more groups within the community, the provision of refreshment outside normal catering hours, which vending can provide, will be essential." (Automatic Vending Association)
d) "Many soft drinks provide significant nutritional and functional benefits. Some can provide one of the recommended 'five a day' servings of fruit and vegetables." (Coca Cola)
e) "Sugar is a natural and safe ingredient from which children can benefit. It is an excellent source of energy and is therefore particularly useful for active children with high energy needs." (British Soft Drinks Association)
f) "Our strategy encompasses both product responsibility as well as the promotion of active lifestyles – we’re committed to acting on both sides of the energy balance – calories in, and calories out." (Coca Cola)
g) "Replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners to assist weight loss can be counter-productive as it may, in fact, lead to increased fat intake. Allowing sugar in a low-fat diet can make it more palatable and easier to follow." (World Sugar Research Organisation)
h) "Children need to be fully informed to make educated choices about their dietary intake. Presenting them with the complete range of carbonated and still drinks helps to ensure healthy lifestyle choices which will be maintained into adulthood." (this is the fake)
i) "All soft drinks are healthy because they provide the vital fluids our bodies need with some also providing contributions to the various vitamins and minerals we need every day." (British Soft Drinks Association)
j) "The removal of such a highly efficient country-wide beverage distribution system could have an impact not only on pupils' hydration, but also on pupil behaviour as they would be more likely to buy products outside school before, during and after the school day" (Coca Cola)
Blogging from bed: One of the joys of having a new laptop is the ability to take it anywhere. No longer am I restricted to a clunking great PC on the end of a power cable - now I have wireless-enabled portability. I have yet to risk taking my laptop out of the house, for example to slouch on a Starbucks sofa to check my email, but I have made it as far as the bedroom. Horizontal blogging is a new experience for me, tucked up beneath a warm duvet rather than risking the chilly air of the living room. Normally I've not been one for hanging around in bed once I've woken up, because there never seemed to be much of interest to do whilst lying there (maybe I was missing out on something). But now I can surf, and search, and research, and chat, and generally interact, and more, from the comfort of my own pillowspace. It's really quite liberating. Maybe I need never venture out of the bedroom again (except to visit the kitchen and bathroom, and perhaps leave the house occasionally). I'm still struggling to find the most comfortable position for in-bed laptop use - is it propped up on my left elbow, or reclining flat with laptop perched on chest, or sat bolt upright resting my back against the headboard, or balancing the laptop on the duvet between knee and pillow, or something else? I wouldn't want to wreck my spine through incorrect posture just for the sake of short-term laziness. But I could get used to this.
Retail therapy: Regular readers may be wondering what's happened to my annual series of 'retail therapy' posts. Because, as you know, I'm rubbish at shopping, and every year I need your guidance to help me to spend cash on myself as my birthday approaches. Except that this year the unthinkable has happened, and I've managed to spend money all on my own. Last month, for the first time in living memory, I actually spent more than I earnt. I understand that some people do this every month (presumably because they like being in debt), whereas this is virgin territory for me. I bought some clothes, which I never normally do. I visited Oxford Street and came home with books, shoes and CDs, which is unheard of. I acquired a second-hand flatscreen monitor, but only managed four days use before my computer died. I took a financial plunge and splashed out on a brand new cutting-edge laptop. I even booked some plane tickets. Blimey. But don't worry, I've not been completely won over by spending. I've not opened an eBay account, or had a total 'brown' makeover, or started throwing money to beggars, or developed an irrational IKEA addiction. I might still need your help next year. But it's a start.
It's not every day you return home to discover that the Government plans to divert one of London's major sewers beneath your flat. Thankfully this hasn't quite happened to me, but it's come bloody close (like, within fifty metres) and that's scary enough.
Crossrail is coming. Very slowly, admittedly, but by 2013 it's hoped that rail travellers will be able to zoom underneath central London and out into the suburbs far faster than is possible today. Sounds great. And it will be, except for the unlucky few who live just that bit too close to the proposed route of the new tunnels, because you can't build a new railway without making a mess. In East London, for example, there's a bigfuss up Brick Lane about the proposed Hanbury Laneshaft which will see lorryloads of spoil being carted through the streets of Banglatown. Elsewhere Crossrail planners appear to have hunted down most of the available patches of open space directly above their tunnel route (like half of Finsbury Circus, the fountain beneath Centre Point, a Sainsbury's car park and a traveller caravan site), and plan to transform them into ventilation shafts and temporary worksites. If it can't fight back, they'll build on it.
One of the areas to be seriously affected is Bow. We're not getting a station or anything useful, but Crossrail is due to burrow within 100 metres of my house before passing underneath the River Lea (pictured) and emerging from deep tunnel just to the south of the Olympic site. Us locals are therefore promised "about four years and three months" of major building works while they construct the tunnel portal. Plans include the closure of various riverside towpaths for "a year and three months", a month-long closure of the busy A12 Blackwall Tunnel Approach road, a realigned DLR station and the eastward diversion of a major sewer. We're advised that all this work will provide "adverse visual impacts" for residents... unless we happen to like cranes and concrete mixers, that is. And this is in addition to six years of neighbouring Olympic redevelopment. Which means that my local area is about to turn into a giant building site for the forseeable future - peaking in 2010, apparently. But not quite directly affecting my house. Or so I thought.
I received a letter this week advising me that Crossrail's plans have altered slightly. That sewer they were planning to divert eastwards is going to have to curve west instead to avoid some very solid industrial foundations. And this new realignment will bring a lot of tunnelling and a stream of effluent very nearly, but not quite, underneath my flat. Delightful. The sewer diversion also requires three new permanent access shafts, so Crossrail have looked for the three least contentious patches of land round here and plan to build on those too. Residents of BowQuarter will no doubt be delighted by the construction of the new 'Manhattan Shaft' close to their esteemed apartments. The view from my window, or at least the green part of it, will be replaced by yet another grey-topped worksite, at least temporarily. And the drive-through burger restaurant down by the Bow Flyover will have to be demolished so that the third sewer shaft can be built. Hmmm, the destruction of a McDonalds restaurant and its replacement by a sewage outfall - maybe all this new development isn't quite so bad after all...
World Book Day is celebrated throughout the world on April 23rd. Everywhere except in the UK, it seems, where 'World Book Day' is being celebrated today instead. Don't ask me why. One of the reasons that UNESCO selected April 23rd in the first place is that it's Shakespeare's birthday, and also the date in 1616 on which Shakespeare, Cervantes and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. But this cuts no ice in the UK where we appear to be celebrating DrSeuss's birthday instead. No doubt it all made perfect marketing sense to the publishing people who switched the date.
In London we're being invited to Get London Reading, with a special emphasis on books written in or about the capital. Here are three ways to get involved:
• Get London Reading (website): This is a really well researched and link-friendly site, packed with hundreds of eclectic book choices. Pick a London borough and this site'll offer up a selection of literary gems and accompanying anecdotes. Boroughs like Westminster and Tower Hamlets are dripping with booky goodness, whereas the poor researcher has clearly struggled in less inspirational boroughs such as Barking and Dagenham. Well worth a look.
• London by The Book (booklet): Here's a very special (and very detailed) 64-page Rough Guide, featuring literature inspired by various different parts of the capital. Highgate, for example, boasts JB Priestley, Coleridge and Betjeman, as well as the more recent memoirs of illiterate nonagerian SidneyDay. You can pick the booklet up for free in various London book stores (I found mine in Waterstones, and it's lovely), or you can download a complete pdf here. Recommended.
• London Reading Map (map): Booksellers Waterstones are giving away a free fold-up map on which they've pinpointed key locations from 100 different London books. Featured writing ranges from Zadie Smith's WhiteTeeth (west) to Monica Ali's Brick Lane (east), with a fair sprinkling of classics and lesser known novels inbetween. It's very nicely done, even if some of the locations are a bit tenuous and the cartographer can't spell 'Marylebone' properly. The map tempted me to splash out on The London Pigeon Wars (by Patrick Neate) and Foxy-T (by Tony White), and if they turn out to be any good I'll review them later. You still have a month to get hold of a copy.
What's your favourite 'London' book? So far you've suggested... London Fields (Martin Amis); London: The Biography (Peter Ackroyd); London: The Moving Metropolis (Sheila Taylor); Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K Jerome); News from Nowhere (William Morris); Roofworld (Christopher Fowler); Spanky (Christopher Fowler); Deluxe London A-Z; Little Dorrit (Charles Dickens); Confusion trilogy (Neal Stephenson); Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman); Mother London (Michael Moorcock); Borribles trilogy (Michael de Larabeiti); Hangover Square (Patrick Hamilton); 253 (Geoff Ryman); Day Of The Triffids (John Wyndham); The End of the Affair (Graham Greene); Armadillo (William Boyd); Absolute Beginners (Colin MacInnes); A Vicious Circle (Amanda Craig); The Buddha of Suburbia (Hanif Kureishi); From Here to Here; From Hell (Alan Moore); The Lonely Londoners (Sam Sevlon); City Of Spades (Colin MacInnes); Bleeding London (Geoff Nicholson); The London Nobody Knows (Geoffrey Fletcher); Di and I (Peter Lefcourt); Murphy (Samuel Beckett)
An open letter to the cow who stood in the rear doorway of the front District Line carriage at Mile End station last night
Hello. You don't know me, but we took the same train home yesterday evening. In fact you wouldn't know me if you saw me, because I was the bloke standing behind you. But that's my point.
We were both stood on the platform at Mile End station around quarter to eight last night. I was leaning against the tiled pillar reading my newspaper when you waltzed off the Central line train behind me. You were lucky, the next District Line train was just pulling into the platform, whereas I'd been waiting five minutes and I'd nearly run out of stuff to read. I don't know whether your Tuesday had been as hectic and hassle-filled as mine - somehow I doubt it. Twelve hours earlier I'd been standing on the opposite platform, yawning, on my journey into the office. There I endured a day of patronising emails, pointless admin, seven-hour meetings, marketing doublespeak and corporate backstabbing, before finally stumbling homeward ready for a quiet evening to recuperate. And then I met you.
There were scores of people standing on the platform, so we were both towards the rear of the crowd as the next train arrived. You were wearing one of those Persil-white anoraks with the big furry hood, more Girls Aloud than trainspotter, with some kind of boyfriend in tow. You seemed engrossed tapping something important into your flash electronic handset, a shiny metal pointer gripped between your ruby-tipped fingers. Then, as the train doors opened, you walked slowly forward like a blinkered automaton to join the other commuters crammed arm-to-elbow inside the carriage. Just one narrow space remained in the doorway - occupied by your big black rucksack - and just one person remained on the platform - me.
You never noticed me behind you. You didn't think to move slightly further inside the carriage in case anyone else might be queueing up behind. You didn't hear me thinking "surely she's going to move slightly forward out of the way and let me on board, isn't she?". You didn't spot me staring at you in mounting disbelief as the train prepared to depart. You didn't flinch whan I stepped up nimbly from the platform behind the imminently-closing door. You didn't feel me squeeze deftly into the remaining few centimetres of borderline floorspace. You didn't spot me spreadeagled flat against the glass as the train jolted out of the station. You didn't feel the vibrations when your rucksack bashed into my ribcage on one, two, three... eleven, twelve separate occasions. You didn't share the eyebrows-raised glances that I swapped with the woman standing beside you, equally gobsmacked by your oblivious impertinence. You didn't once realise that your unyielding self-centredness had extended your own personal space whilst violating my own. And when I nipped out of the carriage with relief at the next station to start my walk home, you never even noticed that I'd gone.
Sorry, I should have had the guts to tell you all of this face to face. Except I never saw your face, only your backside and your rucksack. Especially your rucksack. I should have told you that people with good manners sometimes think to look behind them because they consider others as well as themselves. I should have told you that you were a thoughtless bastard. But I didn't. So pray you don't pull the same trick tonight because, after the day I'm expecting to have, I may just punch you in the face this time. Or dodge in front of you so that your ego gets squashed in the closing door or, even better, left behind on the platform. But somehow I doubt you'd even notice. Cow.
What's on this weekend? A.V. Roe Centenary Sunday 12 July, 2pm
A replica triplane celebrates one hundred years since Britain's first ever flight on Walthamstow Marshes.
A very stern message from the Blue Peter team
• Trash the Blue Peter Garden by breaking in overnight and throwing the tortoise into the goldfish pond, then sending an schmaltzy email to the programme saying "I woz shocked it is awful I hope you catch the bastards wot dunnit".
When? This morning. Starts 08:34 GMT (in Brazil), ends 11:48 GMT (in Mongolia)
So, here's an example from midway through yesterday's game...
In search of Spring
A vast expanse of green and brown,
The second largest Royal Park is far less well known, tucked away beside the meandering Thames between Hampton Court and Kingston. Bushy Park is an odd mix of formal and informal, with stretches of open grassland surrounding a fenced-off woodland core. Yesterday the park displayed little evidence of budding Spring. The deer-stalked common looked more early January than late March. Dog walkers hurried along bare paths, out from the car park and back again beneath the invisible sun. Cars queued under leaden skies around the Diana Fountain water feature (that's a towering 17th century block of sculpture depicting the Roman goddess, not Hyde Park's farcical granite trough for a Disney Princess). Only in the central landscaped gardens had a few bulbs braved the winter frost, not so much a carpet of daffodils as a threadbare strip of lino. A few premature rhodedendrons were semi-opened up, providing welcome nectar for a handful of lethargic bumblebees. Two rabbits scampered out of the brambles, perhaps surprised to see their first human intruder of the day. There were also plenty of paired-off birds to be seen, including amorous ducks and a couple of screeching yellow parakeets nesting high in a silver birch. I felt I'd come visiting too early in the season. Spring may not yet have sprung in Bushy Park, but there was clear evidence that it's trying ever so hard to break out.
Silver discs (March 1981)
Kim Wilde - Kids In America: She was only 19 at the time - no longer a kid, and had never even been to America. But we didn't care, we loved the record, and we loved Kim. As the daughter of 60s rocker Marty Wilde music was in her blood, which did at least mean she could sing. This, her debut record, sounded both angry and glamorous (but in a very approachable Home Counties style). Kim's reinvented herself recently, flogging cod liver oil for Holland & Barrett and standing knee-deep in manure on daytime gardening programmes, whilst still somehow keeping her credibility. She may have moved on, but they played Kids In America on daytime Radio 1 last month and to my ears it still sounded just as fresh and sparkling and lovely as ever (although sandwiching it between two R&B dirges probably helped).
They've had carpool lanes in other countries for some time. In California, for example, they're sometimes called "diamond lanes" (which is the only reason I stopped to take this photograph, honest). As you can see, this diamond lane in San Francisco is a huge success, completely empty of any traffic whatsoever. Maybe that's not surprising in a country where only 7% of vehicles have multi-person occupancy, or maybe it was just a very quiet Sunday afternoon. Whatever the case, carpool lanes haven't been universally popular in the States, seen by some as a chronic waste of valuable roadspace and by others as creating new forms of risk and congestion.
Yesterday's jewel of an event was the London Maze, an annual free 'local history' fair devoted to London and its past, which somehow I'd never heard of before. The fair takes place at the Guildhall in the City, and attracts stallholders from small museums, libraries and local history societies. I missed Peter Ackroyd's opening ceremony, but arrived in time to collect my free carrier bag and fill it with leaflets. Where else could you find the Association of London Pumping Heritage Attractions, the Lambeth Local History Forum, Barking & Dagenham Heritage Services, The London Topographical Society and the Old Operating Theatre Museum, all under one roof? And what a roof, by the way. There was also free admission to the Guildhall Art Gallery (whose latest exhibition London Now - City of Heaven, City of Hell was small but unexpectedly brilliant). Best of all, though, was the chance to pop down to the basement and view the remains of London's Roman Amphitheatre. Somewhere along the gladiators' entrance passage I took this rather dark photograph of a genuine AD120 wall. Coincidentally the London Flickr Meetup group were there too, flashing their giant lenses, and cowfish got a much better shot here. You can normally get in to see the ruins for £2.50, but I'd have been gutted to miss this opportunity to step back two millennia for free.
I SPY LONDON
Location: Lambeth Road, SE1 6HZ [map]
Once you get past the queue at the cash desk (which always strikes me as strange in a free museum, but I guess they need the opportunity to flog you a £3.50 audio guide) you enter into a tall airy entrance hall packed with the machinery of war. Mighty rockets rise up from the floor (that's a V2, that's a Polaris). Field guns and tanks are scattered around for intimate perusal (that's a Howitzer, that's a Sherman). A selection of classic warplanes hang across the ceiling (that's a Sopwith Camel, that's a Focke and yes, that's a Spitfire). There's nothing here over 100 years old because the museum concentrates on 20th century conflicts, from trench warfare to more modern genocide. But for me the jewels in the collection aren't these large objects of military strength, they're the exhibitions spread across the six floors behind.
Baker100
But my exit was into one of the area's more characterful and historic streets - Lower Marsh. The name's a hint to its origin - a road cutting across extensive marshy land to the south of the Thames and once the quickest way to walk between Westminster Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge without getting your boots wet. Lower Marsh has been a shopping street for centuries and retains a charming run-down retail look today. The buildings are a higgledy-piggledy ragbag of mixed-height terraces, selling nothing overly corporate [photo]. I arrived in the middle of a Saturday afternoon when you might have expected trade to be at its height, but instead the street was unexpectedly quiet and market-free. I guess that weekday office workers now form the mainstay of local business. Otherwise I'd undoubtedly have popped into independent bookshop Crockatt & Powell, being the only blogging booksellers I know. Alas, like the Golf Sale earlier in my walk, I find the prospect of a solo browsing experience somewhat uncomfortable, so I passed by.
Station opened: Saturday 10th March 1906
Aaah that's better. Not just one footbridge but two. Not a narrow walkway but a broad span. Not a boxy iron tube but an elegant wave of supsended steel cables. Not a criminal paradise but a busy thoroughfare. Not a shortcut to scurry down but a tourist destination in its own right. Not a grim view of passing trains but an open vista across the Thames. Walk across the eastern side and there's St Paul's rising above Blackfriars Bridge. Walk across the western side and there's the London Eye looming above the Houses of Parliament. The Golden Jubilee Bridges were clearly meant to be photographed and to photograph from. So my apologies to any passing couples whose path I blocked while I was busy snapping away, but there was no need to be in such a hurry, OK?
Station opened: Monday 8th August 1898
You probably think of Benjamin Franklin as a quintessential American, battling for freedom against the British and signing his name at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence. But what's far less well known is that Franklin spent more than fifteen years of his life living in London. He spent a year in his late teens learning the printing trade (residing in Little Britain, no less) before returning home to set up the Pennsylvania Gazette. In 1757 he came back to London as a fifty-year-old international diplomat, staying considerably longer and taking up lodgings with the Stevenson family in a terraced townhouse in Craven Street [photo].
I don't think I'd previously fully appreciated the broad diversity of Franklin's genius. Not content with being a newspaper baron and civic-minded statesman, Ben was also a talented scientist. His particular interest was the new-fangled study of electricity, including that legendary kite-flying lightning experiment and a lot of playing around with coils and magnets. He kept busy during his voyages across the Atlantic by taking readings which established the path of the Gulf Stream. And in the tiny rear study upstairs at Craven Street he entertained the great thinkers of his day and invented bifocals. Here Polly's emotional parting scene recalled the day in March 1775 when ambassador Ben, disgraced in British eyes as a whistleblower, finally packed his bags and returned to revolutionary America. The special relationship he established between our two countries remains today (twat presidents notwithstanding). And Franklin's London life has been, I think, beautifully remembered here at Craven Street in unique and dramatic fashion. If you don't mind risking forming another minimalist audience, I know Polly would be delighted to show you round.
Hang on, isn't this station called Charing Cross? It used to be when it opened, but since 1974 it's been called Embankment. I warned you yesterday that this was complicated.
With its six tall Classical columns, the Theatre Royal is probably the most impressive building in the street. The present building was designed by (who else?) John Nash in 1820, although the original theatre dates back a century earlier. Her Majesty's Theatre across the road is even older, and has changed name (and gender) five times since 1705 to match with the reigning monarch. Early in its history, as the King's Theatre, it became renowned as the home of London opera under the musical directorship of George Frideric Handel (yes, really, him). The current building, opened in 1897, has a tradition of hosting long running musicals, including Chu Chin Chow (opened 1916, for 2238 performances), Fiddler On The Roof (opened 1967, for 2030 performances) and The Phantom Of The Opera (opened 1986, now over 7500 performances, and no sign of giving up the ghost). Perhaps most memorably of all, for some, Tommy Cooper suffered a fatal heart attack live on ITV whilst performing on stage here in 1984.
Station opened: Saturday 10th March 1906
Walk down Regent Street today and what strikes you, apart from the grandeur, is the huge amount of scaffolding on show. In some parts of the street the majority of buildings appear to be boarded up, shielded behind poles and sheeting, while major reconstruction work takes place behind. Modern businesses have different needs to old, and some degree of rebuilding and inconvenience is needed while new retail outlets move in. It's all an illusion, though. The façades may stay intact but everything behind gets gutted - as you can see in this photo taken from Swallow Street, round the back of the main Regent Street curve. When the cranes finally move out and the new businesses and luxury penthouses move in, only a historical veneer will remain. So much of London's history, alas, is but skin deep.
But one retail legend shows no sign of fading away. As long as I can remember there's been a bloke standing in Regent Street with a big arrowed sign saying GOLF SALE. I don't think it's been the same bloke every time, and the sign itself has also evolved (was yellow on black, now black on fluorescent yellow), but the campaign continues. Westminster Council tried to ban this board-borne advert a few years ago, but discovered that the relevant legislation didn't seem to extend to pavements and so the board remains. It's multiplied as well, with several feeder boards pointing towards the main sign pointing down Maddox Street. This isn't a sidestreet you'd otherwise choose to walk along, but on this occasion I thought I'd follow the pointing arrow to see what was there - something I've studiously avoided in the past (not least because I am so very definitely not a golfer). And there, just beyond the burger restaurant and the slightly rundown tanning salon, was the notorious Golf Sale. I was expecting more, perhaps, not just an ordinary shop with an array of golf bags and clubs lined up on the pavement. The big yellow sign at Oxford Circus may have read 'Walk In', but it seemed that nobody had. Two sales assistants stood chatting close to the door in a shop packed with golf equipment but no customers. I would have gone in, but I always feel very uncomfortable in any shop where the staff outnumber the visitors so I walked swiftly past and continued on my way. Even world renowned marketing campaigns, it seems, don't always deliver successful results.
Station opened: Saturday 10th March 1906
Change here for: Piccadilly line
• Park Crescent: One of Nash's first crescents [photo], originally planned as a full circle (or circus). The purity of its white stone colonnades still makes me think that Mary Poppins is about to fly in at any minute.
Station opened: Monday 30th July 1900
Bakerloo platforms: tiled with a green and white maze mosaic
Today I'm tracing the tracks from Baker Street to Regent's Park station. Here's an old map showing the geographical route (northeast-ish), which is absolutely nothing like the fantasy route (southeast) depicted on the official London Underground tube map. Whatever today's map may say, the Bakerloo line definitely runs to the north of the Circle line between Edgware Road and Regent's Park, and not to the south.
The first eastward building you meet on leaving Baker Street station is one of the most famous in London - the Planetarium. Its green copper roof is instantly recognisable, as is the small ringed planet perched right on the top of the dome [photo]. As a child I remember reclining on the comfy seats inside the Planetarium and being totally overawed by the astronomical lightshow projected onto the roof above me. I quite fancied going back for another look this year, except that the show has now been dumbed down to a mere ten minutes and entrance is only available as part of a combined ticket with Madame Tussaud's nextdoor. Sorry, but there's no way I'm forking out £22 (yes, £22!) to gawp at a few waxwork celebrities, even if some are supposedly interactive and reveal a bit of greasy flesh. Tragically the owners have decided that the only stars which attract tourists nowadays are of the two-legged kind, so in June the Planetarium in its current form will be closed and transformed into the Auditorium - a new audio-visual show which promises to "get into the heart of celebrity". Sounds absolutely ghastly, but I'm sure the vacuous crowds of tourists who throng the Marylebone Road will lap it up.
Station opened: Saturday 10th March 1906
At the turn of the 20th century there were three different east-west underground lines through the centre of London (the Metropolitan, District and Central) but no lines travelling north-south. The new Baker Street & Waterloo Railway aimed to change that, allegedly inspired by the desire of certain Westminster gentlemen to reach Lord's more easily to watch the cricket after work. This was one of London's first deep level tubes, burrowing deep beneath London's streets rather than using much cheaper cut and cover methods. Initial construction was slow due to lack of funds, but inspirational American businessman Charles Yerkes stepped in with financial support and provided the impetus to complete the project. And it was an Evening News headline soon after the railway's opening which first nicknamed the line the "Baker-loo", and the name has stuck ever since.
The Bakerloo's a strange line. It ventures from darkest Southwark to leafy suburbia. Its squat little trains rattle and wheeze through bendy tunnels. Its underground stations remain gloomy and labyrinthine. Its overground stations feel bleak and unloved. But the Bakerloo's still a great little line, nimbly joining several key London locations, and a characterful throwback to how the underground used to be. And it's brown. Even 100 years ago, brown was cutting edge.
Station opened: Saturday 10th January 1863
Thrilling fact: Baker Street was one of only seven underground stations on the world's first underground line between Paddington and Farringdon.
Forty years ago tonight one of the East End's most notorious murders took place. Ronnie Kray walked into the Blind Beggar pub on the Whitechapel Road and shot dead gangland rival George Cornell, supposedly for calling him a "big fat poof". Which of course he was, although it was highly inadvisable to mention this out loud. George may have been stupid, but his cold-blooded murder shocked the East End. And you wouldn't guess from looking at the pub today, but the Blind Beggar has quite a history...
'My father,' she sayd, 'is soone to be seene;Legend tells that the original 'blind beggar' was Henry de Montfort, a medieval nobleman. He was left disfigured following the battle of Evesham in 1265 and reduced to begging on the streets in this part of ye olde Whitechapel. Henry's daughter Bessee was a bit of a looker and soon attracted the attention of many noble suitors, but all were discouraged from marriage by her father's wretched appearance. That is until one gentleman finally had the courage to ask him for Bessee's hand in marriage, upon which Henry revealed that he was in fact heir to the Earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort, and handed over a large sum of money to pay for the wedding. That's one version of the story, anyway.In Pepys' time Whitechapel and Bethnal Green were well-to-do country villages situated in green fields outside the City walls. However, the growth of the capital over subsequent centuries brought great poverty and slum conditions to the area. In 1865 former Methodist minister William Booth arrived here from Nottingham and was shocked by what he saw. He was walking along the Whitechapel Road when he came across a religious open-air meeting taking place outside the Blind Beggar. William stepped up to preach and so impressed the organisers that they invited him to lead their small tent-based mission nearby. From this chance meeting was formed the Salvation Army, and Booth devoted the rest of his life to raising the poor of the East End out of poverty through the power of the gospel. A statue close to the pub marks the birth of this earnest international organisation (take a historical walkabout here) although I've never once seen a single tambourine waved in the vicinity.
"I went off to the Mile End Waste, where Mr Booth was preaching. Well, I think he was the most impetuous man I ever met. There he was holding forth, surrounded by the blackguards of Whitechapel, who in them days were the greatest vagabonds you could meet anywhere on God’s earth. Some were mocking, and some were laughing; but Mr. Booth he shouted at them finely, and then gave out a hymn, and led the singing till he just drowned their noises, or nearly so."100 years later, Reggie and Ronnie Kray ruled the roost in Whitechapel. They ran the underworld north of the river, while the Richardsons held sway over the south. George Cornell was a burly meathead with a sadistic reputation, originally a mate of the Krays but who later defected to work for the southern gang. George was rumoured to have been heavily involved in a fatal shootout at a club in Catford on 7th March 1966, a gun battle in which one of the Kray's cousins was fatally wounded. Two days later Ronnie heard that George had dared to go drinking in Kray territory, at the Blind Beggar, so he dashed round from a nearby pub to exact his revenge. George greeted Ronnie with a sarcastic comment, so Ronnie whipped out a pistol and shot George three times in the head. Like you do. To the police's dismay not one of the regulars drinking in the pub that night was willing to testify against Ronnie, and so his fearsome gangland career stuttered on unchallenged for another year.Yesterday I was 40.
Retail therapy: Regular readers may be wondering what's happened to my annual series of 'retail therapy' posts. Because, as you know, I'm rubbish at shopping, and every year I need your guidance to help me to spend cash on myself as my birthday approaches. Except that this year the unthinkable has happened, and I've managed to spend money all on my own. Last month, for the first time in living memory, I actually spent more than I earnt. I understand that some people do this every month (presumably because they like being in debt), whereas this is virgin territory for me. I bought some clothes, which I never normally do. I visited Oxford Street and came home with books, shoes and CDs, which is unheard of. I acquired a second-hand flatscreen monitor, but only managed four days use before my computer died. I took a financial plunge and splashed out on a brand new cutting-edge laptop. I even booked some plane tickets. Blimey. But don't worry, I've not been completely won over by spending. I've not opened an eBay account, or had a total 'brown' makeover, or started throwing money to beggars, or developed an irrational IKEA addiction. I might still need your help next year. But it's a start.
One of the areas to be seriously affected is Bow. We're not getting a station or anything useful, but Crossrail is due to burrow within 100 metres of my house before passing underneath the River Lea (pictured) and emerging from deep tunnel just to the south of the Olympic site. Us locals are therefore promised "about four years and three months" of major building works while they construct the tunnel portal. Plans include the closure of various riverside towpaths for "a year and three months", a month-long closure of the busy A12 Blackwall Tunnel Approach road, a realigned DLR station and the eastward diversion of a major sewer. We're advised that all this work will provide "adverse visual impacts" for residents... unless we happen to like cranes and concrete mixers, that is. And this is in addition to six years of neighbouring Olympic redevelopment. Which means that my local area is about to turn into a giant building site for the forseeable future - peaking in 2010, apparently. But not quite directly affecting my house. Or so I thought.
An open letter to the cow who stood in the rear doorway of the front District Line carriage at Mile End station last night
