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20 places of interest in Vitoria-Gasteiz

2026-08-19T07:00:00.000+01:00

20 places of interest in Vitoria-Gasteiz
(assuming it isn't festival week)

1) Catedral de Santa Maria
What marks out Santa Maria Cathedral as special is that it very nearly fell down, hence even ten years ago you could only visit in a hard hat. It was built in the 13th century at the highest point hereabouts and along one edge doubled up as part of the city's defensive wall. Unfortunately the design failed to take into account the slope, the underlying geology and the importance of supports and by the 16th century problems with subsidence were already evident. In the 1960s architects made things worse by removing several internal arches and in 1994 the preponderance of cracks saw the cathedral closed to the public. Structural rehabilitation began in 1999 on a painstakingly broad scale, and only in the last few years has all the scaffolding come down permitting normal worship and helmet-free tours to resume. A few tours are delivered in English and if you're lucky you'll get Xuban running yours. [11€, 90 mins]

The tour starts in the crypt, a vast excavated undercroft that was once occupied by a medieval cemetery. Here thick concrete pillars were added early in the project to provide resistant capacity sufficient to keep the walls up, which is suitably reassuring as you walk through. None of this subterranean support is visible in the cathedral proper which now looks like any other magnificent religious space, although the lofty vaults still wiggle in an unstraight manner where compression has done its worst. Oddly for a cathedral tour the ground floor is the least visited space because next it's off up the back stairs to climb narrow passages to the triforium. This is the pillared gallery along the side of the nave, many metres up, and although the high walk wasn't quite enough to trigger my vertigo it did require considerable faith in the consolidation project.

Some reassuringly chunky stairs have been built up the belltower where the tour concludes with 360° views across the city. Closest are the red roofs of the old town, with Vitoria's three other significant towers proudly on view. Beyond that are increasingly modern flats, the city having built up in concentric rings over the last century, a planning masterstroke which means there's always room on the periphery for further accommodation. What you won't find up the belltower are any bells, this because the last thing a potentially unstable building needs is heavy weights at its highest point, hence they're all lined up outside at ground level. More weirdly the bronze statue alongside is of Welsh author Ken Follett dressed in a suit and sensible shoes while stroking his chin. The follow-up to his most successful historical novel The Pillars of Earth was heavily inspired by the restoration project at Santa Maria, and the praise he's heaped on the cathedral has seen the city take him to their hearts.

Perversely the tour ends at the cathedral entrance, an enclosed portico with much intricate decorative stonework. Much was originally painted until foolish conservators in the 1960s scraped it off and in doing so damaged the statues underneath. Only Mary herself survives in her medieval finery, the 2020s plan being to project the original colours onto the walls instead. We were treated to an initial lightshow before being despatched after a fascinating ninety minutes, because sometimes the best tours of a cathedral barely touch on anything religious at all.

2) Fournier Museum of Playing Cards
Here's a splendidly niche attraction, a card-based offering based in a Renaissance palace in the old town. It's here because one of the world's largest playing card companies was founded here in 1870 by Heraclio Fournier González, with the word VITORIA displayed prominently on the design for the Ace of Spades. His son Félix started the collection which now comprises 20,000 decks from around the world, a selection of which appear across three floors around a central arched courtyard. Downstairs is an original press with a sheet of Latin-style cards, the four suits being cups, coins, swords and batons. Upstairs the cases contain historic and thematic examples, also displays where identical denominations are laid out for comparison.

The old designs could be either simple or complex but with no digits in the corner, thus the illustration had to convey all the meaning (count the swords!). Various royal figures appear in the European cards, also some fairly intricate aces, also Jack-Cavalier-King was sometimes numbered 10-11-12. From India comes a Kamasutra set you wouldn't use with minors, and from Vitoria some gorgeous childish sets you definitely would. Also on display are factual cards which were the Enlightenment version of Top Trumps, and of course tarot cards which are a whole different illustrative genre altogether. Throw in a temporary exhibition on the 1860 eclipse, this because one of the De La Rue playing card dynasty came to see it, and you have a free museum that's a really good deal.

3) Arabako Arkeologia Museoa
The city's archaeological museum fills a modern building alongside the playing card museum to form a cultural duo known as BIBAT. Unfortunately both close mid-afternoon (as many Spanish institutions do) and by the time we'd finished the playing cards they were already sounding the 1.50pm chimes. I thus missed many floors of old things from Álava, a lunch of pintxos now the only viable option.

4) Artium
This subterranean gallery showcases the official Collection of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country. It's a millennial project thus all postmodern up top, with a lengthy labyrinth of white-walled chambers concealed underground. I liked the variety of the works on display from abstracts to architectural blueprints and lumpy sculptures to comicbook illustrations. One half covers the permanent collection while the other arm is for temporary exhibitions, the emptiest of which was a huge room of video installations exemplifying "a genealogy of practices influenced by decolonial thought, cybernetics and feminism". Basque artbolx is just insufferable as the British version. Visiting the Artium costs 5€ if you come in the 11am-2pm session but is free if you come 5pm-8pm. We visited in the post-siesta slot and could sense the discontent in the cashier's tone as she issued a free ticket with no optional donation.

5) Museo de Bellas Artes
The Basque Capital also has a museum of fine arts covering classic Basque and Spanish works. I didn't go in because if you visit a city with friends and want to keep them, sometimes you cut your losses.

6) Salburua
On the northeast outskirts of the city is a large reclaimed wetland area called Salburua. Formerly drained for agriculture, the 400 acre site now again has three lakes and a considerable wildlife population. We didn't spot any mink but in the shady borders we saw lizards, from the bird hides we saw deer and on the way to the hides perhaps a dozen storks circling in the sky. Alas drought conditions have shrunk much of the damp area to cracked mud else we might have seen more. On the farthest edge is a visitor centre with a lengthy cantilevered arm shooting out over the smallest lake, oddly inaccessible from the cafe, and just beyond is the city's basketball arena which resembles a silver crown. A 20 mile Green Belt walk encircling the city starts and finishes at Salburua.

7) Palacio de Montehermoso
8) Palacio Escoriaza-Esquivel
Napoleon's brother stayed in the first of these before losing the key battle of Vitoria in 1813. It's now a cultural centre with nice gardens. The latter was the home of Henry VIII's doctor Fernando and his sweetheart Victoria, both of whom are depicted above the door presenting each other with a rose.

9) The city walls
A lot of Spanish cities demolished their walls when they expanded. Here short sections of the 11th century defences remain, some chunky and others reconstructed in cedarwood to show how tall they would have been.

10) The old town (Casco Viejo)
A lot of my report yesterday came from the old town, a truly atmospheric almond-shaped nucleus which merits lengthy wandering. Its narrow streets are named after the trades once carried out in each, for example knifemakers, cobblers, blacksmiths and painters. Changes in elevation are dealt with by long steps, a long arched colonnade and in a few places covered escalators, upwards only. Bars and cafes are endemic.

11) Virgen Blanca Square, 12) Plaza de España, 13) Parque Florida, 14) Catedral Nueva, 15) Basque Parliament, 16) Arms Museum of Álava, 17) Viena Cafe, 18) Errekaleor

19) Centro Memorial de las Víctimas del Terrorismo
In 2021 the former Bank of Spain building was converted into the Victims of Terrorism Memorial Centre, a place of reflection in a territory where violence and terrorism lingered longer than most.

20) Euskotren
Like many Spanish cities Vitoria-Gasteiz has its own tram network, in this case two overlapping lines connecting the suburbs to the city centre. The first of 23 stops opened in 2008 with the latest extension to Salburua opening in 2023. Some of the earlier platforms are too short for the new 7-car trams. It's 2€ a ride or 0.74€ if you have the special Barik card which obviously everyone does, which is a bargain. Trams run only every 15 minutes and skip several areas, so we found it quicker to walk, but many British cities of a similar size would look on with jealousy at such a transport facility.

» 60 photos of Vitoria-Gasteiz (half of them illustrating today's post, do have a look)
» Vitoria-Gasteiz on Wikipedia
» Vitoria-Gasteiz tourist brochures

Virgen Blanca Festivities, Vitoria-Gasteiz

2026-08-18T08:00:00.000+01:00

Vitoria-Gasteiz is the second largest city in the Basque Country and also its administrative capital. It's located between the coastal cities of Bilbao and San Sebastian but 30 miles inland, so a long drive away. Travellers thus generally ignore it in favour of the better known tourist traps but that would be a mistake, especially if you turn up at festival time like I did. I have rarely seen quite so many people having quite so much fun for quite so long quite so late, and I merely turned up on Day Four.

From the smallest village to the largest city, all Basque communities have a festival of some kind. Vitoria-Gasteiz has two, kicking off at the end of April to celebrate San Prudencio, the patron saint of the province of Álava. But they go really big in summer for the city's patron, the Virgen Blanca, whose six day bonanza sees everyone hit the streets for an imbalanced mix of religion and revelry. Day 1 is always August 4th (whatever the day of the week), and not a lot of work gets done in the city until the man with the umbrella returns to the sky.

This is Andre Maria Zuriaren plaza, or Virgen Blanca Square, but not at time of maximum merrymaking. The green letters are to celebrate Vitoria-Gasteiz being chosen as European City of Culture in 2012 in recognition of its unusually ecological suburbs. During festival week they shift the letters round the corner where they won't get knocked, so everyone ignores them, whereas I spent at least five minutes waiting for families to stop posing in front and/or guzzling from the adjacent water fountain.

The official start to the festivities comes at 6pm on August 4th, at which point the square is absolutely rammed with Basque youth and sturdier members of the community. I watched on YouTube from the safety of home and was glad not to be in the hormonal wine-soaked crush. As the bell of San Miguel strikes six a mannequin is set loose from the top of the tower and starts a slow descent by rope across the full width of the square. He's called Celedón, always sports a beret and an umbrella, and represents the spirit of a local peasant conjured up by the first organisers in 1957. His precipitous journey eventually ends at a first-floor window above a bank, disappearing through a curtain to reappear as a human actor who then proceeds to make the reverse journey across the square on foot. Mass drinking ensues, but elsewhere because within minutes the street cleaners have moved in to clear the square ready for a religious procession. Mad but brilliant.

By the time we arrived the citizens of Vitoria-Gasteiz had been partying for three evenings and three nights, some of the hardier souls surviving round the clock. And yet there were still crowds in the street, specifically a snaking procession of cuadrillas making music and making merry. The cuadrilla is a collective peculiarity of Basque society, a group of friends who stick together for socialising almost to the exclusion of all others. Some are formed at elementary school where the class essentially becomes the social unit for the next three decades, others evolve in geographical locations. At festival time 23 cuadrillas with musical prowess or a particular penchant for hijinks come out to play jovial brass tunes they must have spent months practising, and/or to drink from the backs of vans as they wander the streets and generally entertain the crowds. For some reason there is almost always a tuba.

It's all about the dressing up with each cuadrilla having a different style. Some go black and yellow, others go red or turquoise and a fair few go all-out Basque in light blue with a beret. Many women are out on the streets in a blouse and long skirt (which makes them "neskak") whereas males sport a blue blouse, trousers tucked into white socks and clog-like shoes tied with high laces (which makes them "blusas"). Neckerchiefs are extremely common, either the blue and white check of Eusakia or the prouder bright red of Vitoria-Gasteiz. A lot of male youths have visited the barber recently for a half-shorn haircut some might describe as daringly inadvisable, perhaps as a collective rite of passage. Come any other week and everyone's in shorts and t-shirts but during Virgen Blanca a full-on Basque stereotype prevails and it is joyous.

The serious drinking takes place in the old town, a compact zone generally described as having an almond shape. Four concentric streets are so rammed with bars that they can cope with the most serious influx of boozers, but also so narrow that a single group of partygoers can force very slow progress. There are also cultural events scattered throughout, so for example a heavy metal band might play in Machete Square (where beheadings were once sanctioned) while a 70s covers band in spangly silver entertains the oldies in Spanish Square. So engrained is the gratification that you can even find tuba processions in the middling suburbs in the early hours, where any resident likely to be disturbed has already fled the city for an annual holiday.

At 11pm nightly a firework display takes on Monte De La Tortilla, a raised grass oval to the south of town. A crowd gathers to enjoy 15 minutes of bright flashes (if nothing flash), then makes its way down the hill to the enormous funfair in what's normally a car park. As well as the usual rides and sideshows the offering includes dozens of stalls dispensing food and refreshment, for example two stomping automatons notionally pressing the season's grapes for a glass of mildly-warmed wine. The most Spanish stall I saw was a meat tombola offering prizes of huge haunches of ham, also hunks of pate, chorizo and cheese as consolation. Watch your phone if you visit because dozens get stolen, whereas the worst crime we suffered was being charged 15€ for a plate of chips. And they were still singing along to Boney M in the city centre after we schlepped back at 1am, and who's to say we shouldn't have stayed out even longer.

The UK has no equivalent to this six-day Basque festival. The Notting Hill Carnival perhaps comes close in terms of all-out dressed-up on-street revelry, even if the food and music are completely different, while Pride is as colourful and as boisterous but too much of a rally and too commercial. The joy of the Virgen Blanca is that the festivities are pure with no agenda, just a population letting its hair down in midsummer with as much alcohol, culture and collective glee as it can muster. The trick is to stay resilient and pace yourself until Celedón returns to his tower late on 9th August when the city mutes again, at least until next year.

» 60 photos on Flickr of lively Vitoria-Gasteiz (so far)
» Vitoria-Gasteiz tourist brochures

The Basque Country

2026-08-18T03:00:00.000+01:00

The Basque Country (a brief introduction)

Also known as: Euskal Herria (in Basque), País Vasco (in Spanish) or Pays basque (in French)
Official languages: Basque, Spanish, French (English comes 4th, if at all)
Located: at the western end of the Pyrenees, around a bend in the Bay of Biscay
Not a country: more a region inhabited by the Basque people
Within: mostly Spain but partly France
Definitely contains: the three provinces of Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa in Spain
Also definitely contains: the three provinces of Labourd, Lower Navarre and Soule in France
Arguably contains: Chartered Community of Navarre (in Spain)
Population: 3 million approx (i.e. the size of Wales)
Area: 8000 square miles (i.e. the size of Wales)
Largest cities: 1) Bilbao (350,000), 2) Vitoria-Gasteiz (250,000), 3) Pamplona (200,000), 4) San Sebastián (190,000)
Internet domain: .eus
Basque Scrabble tiles: [1 A E O T N I U] [2 K R] [3 D] [4 B Z] [5 G H L S] [8 J M P RR TS TX TZ] [10 F X]
60 photos on Flickr: (so far)

Total eclipse of the sun

2026-08-17T09:00:00.000+01:00

In a total solar eclipse, the difference between 92% and 100% is everything.

At 92% the sky goes a bit weird and those with glasses see a small solar crescent. Curmudgeons remain unimpressed.

At 95% the solar disc is still aflame but sunset appears to be approaching early.

At 98% the daylight dims and, if you're watching safely, the crescent shrinks to a toenail.

At 99% the horizon darkens, distant streetlamps come alight and everyone notices something is afoot.

But only at 100% does the magic happen as the sun blinks out, the moon is surrounded by a fiery corona and night comes to day.

This solar spectacle is like nothing else you will ever see, should you be lucky enough to ever see it. I'd only previously seen the clouded-out version courtesy of Cornwall 1999, but Spain 2026 thankfully delivered the full-on phenomenon with not a cloud in the sky from start to finish. How lucky was I?

Apologies, I wasn't focusing on taking great photos, I was watching the 64 second miracle with the naked eye instead.

To see a total solar eclipse you need to be in the right place, which in this case was a 200-mile-wide stripe across northern Spain. Leon and Zaragoza fell under the shadow, Madrid and Pamplona just missed. Ideally you wanted to be near the centre of the stripe, thus Burgos got a near-max 1 minute 48 seconds of totality and Bilbao barely 30 seconds. You also need to be in the right place at the right time, which in this case was the hour before sunset on August 12th 2026. You also need a clear enough view of the sun at the precise moment of totality, which across Spain was potentially problematic because the evening sun would be less than 10° above the western horizon. One mountain in the wrong place and the sun would have set before the magic moment, which scuppered a couple of viewpoints I'd been scouting.

For my chosen location I picked Vitoria-Gasteiz, the Basque capital, because that's surrounded by a flattish plain before the sierras begin so the peaks wouldn't get in the way. It's also the city BestMate'sOtherHalf hails from so we had accommodation and no need to travel on the day. Traffic's usually OK before a total eclipse but clogs up immediately after totality finishes, and with Spain's limited network of main roads you don't want to get stuck on an autoroute for hours as night descends. The local government even banned all heavy lorries from travelling between 5pm and midnight to keep the carriageways clear. Far better to be able to walk to your viewing site, which in this case was the 10th floor of a Vitoria-Gasteiz hotel. BestMate'sOtherHalf'sBestMate is the hotel manager so wangled us into the sweet spot on the roof, a terrace aligned so perfectly westward that it might as well have been a solar stage.

Vitoria-Gasteiz has a great backhistory when it comes to the observation of solar eclipses. It was one of the locations used by international scientists to view the total solar eclipse of July 18th 1860, the first time an attempt was made to confirm the origin of the flares seen at totality. The British astronomer Warren De la Rue took his newly invented photoheliograph instead to the village of Rivabellosa, 15 miles to the southwest, and successfully photographed the prominences seen around the moon. By comparing photographs taken in different locations, which looked identical, he was able to confirm for the first time that the flares were not a lunar phenomenon and must come from the sun.

A small pyramidal monument has been erected where the Vitoria-Gasteiz astronomers gathered. The city has since expanded and their viewpoint is now adrift within a small park in an outer suburb, with a small primary school at the foot of the slope and several football pitches across the street. You couldn't have watched the 2026 eclipse from here because a line of trees now blocks the evening sun, so we didn't try, but it's nice that the adjacent street has been named Astronomo kalea (Astronomer Street).

A hotel roof proved the perfect location this time, but a experiencing a total solar eclipse isn't just about being in the right place at the right time at the right elevation, it's also totally about the weather. When the first local forecast popped up two weeks before the event it was for a showery evening, meh, but the following day the forecast switched to wall-to-wall sunshine and so it stayed right up until the day of the eclipse. With totality consistently scheduled for the middle of three cloudless days I almost stopped worrying, but even one rogue cumulus can totally wreck the experience so I was never quite at ease. As it was August 12th dawned hot, sunny and clear with a forecast high of 36°C and I genuinely couldn't have hoped for better.

There must have been at least 100 of us on the roof terrace, most with locally-sourced eclipse glasses and me with my official Royal Greenwich pair from 1999. The first bite came on the lower right at 7.32pm, eventually growing as more of the sun was eaten away. Normally such progress is asymmetric but on this occasion the nibbles were making directly for the centre of the disc, hence a total eclipse was due. It wasn't until maybe ten minutes before totality that anything about the sky looked weird, and not until five that something was atmospherically awry. As the final minutes ticked down I couldn't quite believe my great gamble was about to pay off, no clouds anywhere, just a view for miles towards the mountains and an inevitable syzygy as the moon's shadow came sweeping in from the coast.

The northern sky darkened noticeably and streetlamps came on in the distance, yet still the sun was a golden sliver outshining any man-made source. Thirty seconds before 8.28pm it still wasn't evident any solar sorcery would be happening. Then suddenly, precisely when predicted, the yellow sun blinked and fizzed and metamorphosed into a black disc surrounded by a golden halo. Totality is safe to watch with the naked eye so those in the know whipped off their specs and stared at the inverted sun hanging menacingly in the sky. You could easily imagine how primitive societies would have been in total awe of such a spectacle, and also wonder how on earth they ever managed to predict one.

The black sun blazed beautifully in the centre of my view, the solar flares spreading in all directions as they had from here in 1860. I knew I only had 1 minute and 4 seconds to enjoy the spectacle, a minuscule fraction of a lifetime, but somehow it seemed to continue for much longer. A light plane swooped across the town and at one point added its silhouette to the disc, which would have made quite the photo if I'd had a decent lens. At our elevation it was impossible to judge the reaction of local wildlife, who'd likely imagined sunset had arrived early, but it was perfectly possible to scan a broad horizon as the area of relative darkness slowly shifted. Initially the darkest area was to the north, then briefly equidistant, then darker to the south as the moon's shadow sped inexorably onwards.

As the end of totality approached the famous 'diamond ring' could be seen, the sun's fire searing through valleys on the moon's lower rim to create a small strong burst of light. Then with a subliminal flicker the full glare returned (so glasses back on), the tiniest crescent again capable of lighting up the sky. It never got properly dark, only unnaturally very dim, and now very gradually much brighter as the whole phenomenon re-enacted in reverse. A brief round of applause accompanied the end of totality and then all the chatter on the rooftop was about what we'd just seen, with the remainder of the partial eclipse generally ignored. The 90%-99% phase that had so impressed during the build-up barely drew attention during the wind-down, despite the extent of obscuration being better than any future eclipse expected here this century. Once you've seen 100%, nothing else will ever do.

I stayed watching longer than most, then retired to the bar for a celebratory drink. I also permitted myself a congratulatory whoop because not only had the stars aligned, the weather had played ball too. I made a point of checking the cloud cover at 8.28pm on all the other days of my holiday, and can confirm that on six out of the ten days that particular minute would have been fully clouded out. One day out of ten had intermittent cumulus near the horizon so might have been dodgy and on only three days was the sky perfectly clear. I'd played the Spanish weather and succeeded against odds of just 30%, without which luck I might still never have seen totality and be agonising about whether to try again.

In a total solar eclipse, the difference between 99.9% and 100% is everything. And I am so thankful to have enjoyed everything, because it really was amazing.

10 days in Spain

2026-08-17T07:00:00.000+01:00

I don't know about you but I've spent the last 10 days in Spain.

One minute was to see the total eclipse and the rest of the time was a long holiday. BestMate'sOther Half is from the Basque Country so I've had the perfect tour guide, excellent hospitality and a chance to meet all the friends I've long heard about.

Over the ten days I've been to four cities, several towns, two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, loads of tourist hotspots and a heck of a lot of cafes/bars/restaurants. I spent most of the time in the Basque Country but also seven hours in France and some time in neighbouring provinces because we drove all over.

I also had 10 days off from writing anything, which was lovely but it may take some time to catch up. Expect a dozen or so posts over the next few weeks, but not all in one go because that would be excesivo. If you're only here for the transport posts rest assured there'll be some of those, one surprisingly close to home. Also I have no intention of engaging in conversational topics in advance, so questions along the lines of "did you...?", "have you...?" and "were you...?" will be ignored.

Steel yourself for wine, walnuts, walls, festivals, funfairs, funiculars, pintxos, patxaran, sculptures, salt, storks, swords, belltowers, barrels, bulls, beaches, berets and all things Basque. Muchas gracias.

Q is for Queensbury

2026-08-16T07:00:00.000+01:00

LONDON A-Z
Q is for Queensbury

Suburban options are extremely limited for the letter Q, indeed just two, so I've plumped for Queensbury over the better known Queen's Park. You'll find it two stops from the top of the Jubilee line straddling the boundary between Harrow and Brent, should you ever choose to find it at all. It's essentially a heck of a lot of houses plus a Morrisons and has zero history prior to the 20th century, being the ultimate posterchild for "previously this was all fields". Again boundaries are somewhat woolly so I'll be starting at the station and working outwards, this precisely the development policy enacted in the 1930s.

Queensbury station opened in the middle of nowhere on 16th December 1934, part of an expansion of Metro-land on an extension to Stanmore. The government had welcomed the plunder of unspoiled Middlesex countryside because the engineering works and subsequent housing development would deliver thousands of jobs at a time of high unemployment. So empty was the local area that the name for the new station was chosen in a newspaper competition, ultimately plumping for Queensbury as a companion to Kingsbury one stop down the line. At the time it was on the Metropolitan line but this branch was rebranded Bakerloo five years later, and in 1979 switched again to the Jubilee. And immediately outside the station they built a shopping parade with a spiked roundel as a focal point. Bravo.

Four arms of shrubbery spread out from the central pole with a silver maple in each quadrant, an arrangement best seen from above. As roundabouts go it's unusual in that you can park on the inside ring, this deemed better than providing an actual car park for the surrounding shops. Space on the outside is instead occupied by a bus stand, this for non-TfL services arriving from Hatfield (ideal for Hertfordshire residents making a leap to the Underground). A long tongue of greenspace stretches off to the east, this grassy geometric infill also a feature of the wider estate. Crusty visits from the local pigeonfeeder appear to take place daily.

The shops here include the usual range of minimarts and salons but the food options trend subcontinentally as befits an area with a high Hindu population. One is simply called Rice & Curry (because being upfront pays), Dalina's Savouries are 'Pure Vegetarian' and the fascia at Hungry Head reads 'Pizza Chips Chicken Chapati Burger'. By far the widest restaurant is The Regency Club which for over 30 years has served grilled Kenyan/Indian fusion to its private members, ideal for a large family celebration. The only place where the retail perimeter breaks is where the cinema once stood, initially the Plaza (1938), then the Essoldo (1950), then the Essoldo Bingo Club (1967), then the Classic Bingo Club (1972) and finally flats (1985-ish). The cinema lives on only in the name of Essoldo Way, a drab service road where Brent council have squeezed a scant few homes between the back of the shops and the Harrow boundary.

Across the railway the original town planners incorporated a stripe of factories and light industrial works so that the new resident population would have somewhere to work. Only one of these buildings survives, its windows suspiciously shuttered, the rest having been replaced by a conveniently not-out-of-town trading estate. The chunkiest facilities are two self-storage units, seemingly competing for local clutter, while the largest by acreage is Queensbury's quintessential Morrisons. Here the bag-luggers and boot-fillers of NW9 and HA3 come for their Price Cut deals, a free local paper and perhaps a free 10 minute aircon check in the car park while they shop.

The sole survivor from 100 years ago is Honeypot Lane, then an isolated rural track, now the local spine road. It runs almost two miles from the edge of Stanmore to where Kingsbury didn't used to be, lined mostly by semi-detached pairs. It's a great name for a road so several businesses take advantage, notably the Honeypot Cafe (Good Food Good Mood), a grocery store called Hunny Pot and the original estate pub. Queensbury doesn't really do pubs any more so it's now called Everest Spice and "Offers A Refined Indian Dining Experience", naturally including Hyderabadi handi murgh and chilli garlic mogo. Elsewhere down Honeypot Lane a few modern vernacular blocks of flats now intrude, looking every bit as 2020s as the rest of the street looks 1930s.

For a kickabout you want Queensbury Recreation round, or Queensbury Park depending on which sign at which entrance you read. This is also the best place, indeed the only place, to see the local river which is the Kenton Brook. This piddling stream runs for barely a kilometre from a source opposite Morrisons to become the sole tributary of the Wealdstone Brook. Ten years ago Thames 21 did a wonderful job of releasing a short section from its culvert and looping it out around a freshly-dug wetland scrape. I was looking forward to seeing it but instead saw zero water whatsoever, partly because of the drought we've been having but mainly because it's now fully surrounded by reeds and thick undergrowth - great for rewilding, less good for noticing it exists in the first place.

You might think Queensbury Circle would be the lovely loop outside the tube station but instead it's the name of a larger roundabout on Honeypot Lane sponsored by Sheetal's Hair, Beauty & Laser Clinic. Here the Metro-land planners built a larger shopping parade which spreads up Streatfield Road with layers of flat-roofed flats on top. Typical units include a launderette and a betting shop, while atypical units include Sri Lankan groceries, the Warsi Shopping Mall and the Bollywood Paan Centre (offering a chewier alternative to vaping). But the place of greatest pilgrimage is Skipjacks, a 44 year-old local chippy with a proper sitdown restaurant nextdoor. It won the award for Best Chip Shop in London & South East England about 20 years ago, and still hangs a banner proclaiming the fact out front. I note they do Fried, Grilled, Matzo, Mediterranean or Halal, also the cod portions look well chunky, also last week was their annual holiday and they're reopening on Tuesday.

The other local parade is on Mollison Way, northeast of the tube station, and occupies Queensbury's sole slice of pre-history. In 1916 a flying school was established on fields west of Burnt Oak Farm, the site then purchased in 1920 by the de Havilland Aircraft Company and named Stag Lane Aerodrome. Here the Tiger Moth was built and made its first flights, also several world speed records were broken, also Amy Johnson earned her pilot's licence. For a few short years the skies fizzed with innovation, then in 1930 de Havilland shifted aircraft production to Hatfield and in 1933 the airfield was sold for £100,000 with planning permission for 1200 homes. The very last landing was in August 1934, just four months before the Underground arrived, and today rather more than 1200 homes cover the site.

I like the scribbly silver planes that grace the front of some of the more recent flats, these obviously on de Havilland Avenue. The airfield offices were last to be demolished, replaced first by the GPO's international telephone exhange (the world's largest) and then by the Bacs offices where a computer centre processed most of the UK's inter-bank payments. None of those merit a plaque but Stag Lane Aerodrome does on the front of one of the flats, also the whole shebang is commemorated by a Mollison Way Heritage Trail with information panels outside the shops. Alas one panel's missing, one's grubby and one which appeared to have a map was surrounded by a gathering of local children so I never got a look. Whether the far end of the aerodrome is genuinely part of Queensbury is debatable but there's definitely something worth coming back to explore, one day when I'm not mostly focusing on Morrisons and the station.

Europe's Top Ten public holidays

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

Slim Summer Saturday

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

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

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

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

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

Route 533 RIP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow

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

Wow!
(just wow)

My greatest disappointment

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

What's been your greatest disappointment?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bank accounts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stroudley Walk directory

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's compare 2014 and 2026.

Stroudley Walk - Traders' Directory

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apostrophes

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

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

And some don't.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Paris Metro does apostrophes differently.

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

Honolulu's Skyline appears to be 31% apostrophied.

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

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

With or without.

Tram stop of the month

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

Slim Summer Saturday

Tram stop of the month: Beddington Lane

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

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

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

P is for Plashet

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

LONDON A-Z
P is for Plashet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The London borough boundaries with fewest crossings

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

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

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

The London borough boundaries with fewest crossings

It's best to do this in two parts.

a) Boundaries along the River Thames

Starting out east...

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

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

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

b) Boundaries away from the River Thames

Now it gets interesting...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Total Eclipse in Europe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things get better soon, especially in Spain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Golden Dangleticket

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bromley-by-Bodge

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

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

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

March 2020

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

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

November 2023

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

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

3rd March 2026

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

31st May 2026

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

4th June 2026

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

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

3rd August 2026

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

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

Unblogged July

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

31 unblogged things I did in July

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

King Edward Memorial Park Foreshore

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Underblogged July

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

Slim Summer Saturday

31 underblogged things I did in July

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

August preview

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

It looks like being a cracking August on diamond geezer!

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

TfL FoI requests in July 2026

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

30 things we learnt from TfL FoI requests in July 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

Twenty-nine plus

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

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

Dates on which the temperature at Hampstead reached 30°C

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dates on which the temperature at Hampstead reached 29°C

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

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

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

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

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