Three Mills, Bow
In my previous post, I said things just had to get better and they did.
These pictures were taken in the area called Three Mills, which is now a studios.
It wasn’t what I’d expected. Especially, as one of the mills is the largest tidal mill in the world.
I have a feeling that Bass Charrington, who owned the site in the 1970s, used these buildings from where they marketed the infamous, Hirondelle wine. It was a success and the company was a customer of Time Sharing Ltd.
A Walk From Bromley-By-Bow
In some ways London can be confusing to the visitor in that it does tend to reuse place names. For instance tonight I wanted a walk and as there had been reports of a new bridge over the River Lee at Bow, I thought I’d try and find it. So I went not to Bromley but to Bromley-by-Bow station, which is on the District and Metropolitan lines. This is also the destination of the 488 bus, which starts running from Dalston Junction station tomorrow, so I wanted to see if it was worth a visit.
Initial impressions were not good, as I took a rather grim underpass to the other side of a dual carriageway leading to the Blackwall Tunnel and then passed a typical Tescos.
Has any of their supermarkets, ever won an award for atchitecture? This one certainly didn’t deserve one, unless it was for the demolishing the worst building in East London.
My walk had to get better.
Murtagh Nicks The Oaks
I have just seen one of the great pieces of riding by Johnny Murtagh to win The Oaks on Dancing Rain.
It reminded me of Steve Cauthen in his pomp, who won so many great races in a similar fashion, by dictating the pace from the front. He even did it for C and myself on our horse Golden Panda at Nottingham in very much an inferior race.
The irony of Dancing Rain’s victory is that a couple of month’s ago, the filly broke her trainer’s wife Maureen Haggas’s leg in a freak accident. Maureen was at Epsom hobbling around on crutches.
The Barriers Go Down at Dalston Junction
I came back through Dalston Junction station today and the barriers are down at the Southern exit.
The Barriers Are Down at Dalston Junction
As you can see they’ve got all the signs up for the extension of the 488 bus route, which starts tomorrow on Saturday the 4th.
The bus spider map for Dalston has the new route fully shown, but they haven’t updated the maps in the station yet.
Etchings in the Evening Sun
This picture shows the decoration on the new sewage pumping station at the Olympic Park, highlighted by the evening sun.
Decoration on the Olympic Park Sewage Pumping Station
The images are taken from the original drawings from Joseph Bazalgette’s Abbey Mills pumping station.
I hope that when the Olympic Park is fully open, buildings like this won’t be hidden behind excessive security fences.
The Other Side of the Olympics
Tonight, I went to a preview day of an art exhibition at the ViewTube.
It was a series of drawings about the building of the various Olympic stadia by Jeanette Barnes, who lives close to the main Olympic Park.
In this picture the artist is shown with some of her art.
Jeanette Barnes and Some of Her Olympic Drawings
Here is a larger image of one of drawings.
The Aquatic Centre by Jeanette Barnes
And a collection of smaller ones.
More Drawings by Jeanette Barnes
I like her work and hope the exhibition goes well. Certainly, the Pimms they were serving was excellent.
Her work wasn’t the only art on show tonight.
Children's Art at the ViewTube
This was created by the local kids.
And of course starting to tower above it all is the ArcelorMittal Orbit.
ArcelorMittal Orbit
It’s rising fast.
How To Handle Enquiries
Horse racing often gets a certain amount of negative publicity.
On Saturday, I am thinking of going to the Epsom Derby, as if the Queen’s Horse, Carlton House, should win, it will be one of those truly I-was-there moments, that only happen once in a century.
So I phoned the enquiries number at the course, got straight through to a real person and the conversation went like this.
Q: Can you buy tickets for the Upper Tattersalls Enclosure on the day?
A: Yes! We hope to have lots on the gate.
Q: Will I be able to get into the centre of the course to the fun fair and the market from there?
A: Yes!
Q: How far is the enclosure from Tattenham Corner Station?
A: About half-a-mile.
I then decided I was going, especially as there is a direct train from London Bridge at 11:45.
So why sometimes do simple questions about events sometimes take hours?
Transmanche Metro
This is an idea that I found on Wikipedia for Stratford station, which talks of the proposed “Transmanche Metro” service to Calais via local stations.
It appears to contain a certain degree of kite-flying and some of the references seem to link it with French politics. There is this article on a holiday home web site.
On the other hand a direct route from Stratford in East London to Lille, via Ebbsfleet, Ashford and Calais might prove to be a lower cost alternative to Eurostar, especially for commuters, business and families, especially if it offered a virtually turn-up-and-go service.
The problems with setting it up would probably be more to do with the vested interests of Eurostar and SNCF, than anything to do with access to the Channel Tunnel or safety issues.
Will it ever happen?
Probably not for a couple of years or so, but then who’d have thought that such as Ryanair and easyJet would grow so big, when they started by providing a low-cost alternative to the major airlines. So don’t predict anything!
Yorkshire Has Its Own Ways of Dealing With Unwanted Noise
After the problems with swearing in Barnsley, we now have a story of how a group of over-excessive bell ringers were locked in their belfry by an irate pensioner.
Don’t get me wrong, I quite like bells, but they have a time and a place. And in this case three hours was probably too long a time, especially as they weren’t for a particular celebration like a wedding, but just for fun.
The Other Side of the Olympic Site
Yesterday, I took the train from Stratford to Tottenham Hale. It is actually a slow train to Stansted Airport, that stops in several places on its way to the airport.
It runs every thirty minutes or so, so it is not often the most convenient way to get between the two places, but because of the various developments and countryside along the line it makes a pleasant alternative as you wander up the Lee Valley.
The Anonymous Widower 