Ian Dury
I used to work with someone who was a great Ian Dury fan. But as I said in the book of condolence for the singer.
Never met Ian. Never saw the band. Never listened to any record in full.
But! Ian left a deep impression on me! If anything nasty ever happens to me, then I’ll remember his attitude.
What an attitude!
All I did was listen to him talking eloquently about life (and death) on the radio.
Now there is a film about his life.
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
It’s one of those films that you hope is very, very good. There is this article in The Times, that gives some hope, that it doesn’t follow the usual route of biopics.
A Clock at Tooting Bec Station
Tooting Bec station on the London Underground has two of these clocks.
Tooting Bec Station Clock
It would appear that someone has the good sense to keep them working. Whether it is still the original movement I do not know.
They are labeled Self Winding Clock Co of New York. You will find quite a few references to these clocks on the Internet, but only a short article about the actual company on Wikipedia.
I’ve travelled extensively on the London Underground, but I’ve only seen these two clocks. There may be others.
Crystal Palace 3 – Ipswich 1
Selhurst Park is a dump. It looks like it’s been nicked from all sorts of places and to me sums up why as a North Londoner, you rarely venture far south of the River. Whoever’s idea it was to put the river in the centre of London had a good one, as it creates a proper barrier between what is worth seeing and what is not. Selhurst Park is definitely in the once seen, why did you bother category.
Selhurst Park
This picture shows the bad view from the visitors’ stand, but it doesn’t do justice to the old wooden seats, the cramped conditions, the bad screen and the general dereliction of most of the ground. The pitch wasn’t good either.
The football was ruined by the sending off of Jon Stead. The foul was bad, but as he’d just been upended by a Palace player I suspect, he was too angry to think about what he was doing. It was the sort of foul though, that some referees would have been lenient with.
So I left a few minutes before the end and struggled to get back to civilisation, eventually taking a bus and then a train from Penge. And that was cold, but then all trains south of the Thames seem to be much colder than those north of the river.
I’ve now woken up and found I have a splinter in my palm. From those dreaded wooden seats no doubt!
My first London Tram since the 1950s
I can just about remember the original London Trams.
My paternal grandmother used to take me on trips around London in my Cumfifolda push-chair and I have seen pictures of us as the Dome of Discovery and the Skylon at the Festival of Britain site on the South Bank of the Thames in 1951. The only building that remains is the Royal Festival Hall.
I can also remember dark images on a winter’s day from a very low height of a wide street with trams travelling down the centre. I’ve always believed that this was the Holloway Road and as trams on route 35, ran through the Kingsway Tunnel to Archway and Highgate until April 1952. I can remember climbing aboard and travelling. But where I do not know!
Yesterday, I went to see friends in South London on the way to see Ipswich play Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. On way to get across was to take a bus to Wimbledon and then use the London Tramlink to West Croydon.
London Tram at Wimbledon
It was busy and just like any other tram all over Europe. We need more in the UK.
If you ever want to see something like the old London Trams then go to Hong Kong. Long may they survive.
The Anonymous Widower 