The Good Don’t Always Die Young!
Unless of course you consider 95 to be before your time.
Arthur Budgett was a racehorse trainer, who is one of only two people to have bred, owned and trained two Derby winners. In his case they were Blakeney and Morston. C and I actually used Blakeney to cover one of our mares and I had the pleasure of meeting the horse several times at the National Stud, where he was very much a favourite of everybody.
To get more of the flavour of someone who seems to have been a truly good man, read his obituary in the Telegraph. I particularly like this paragraph.
That he had only two head lads — Denis Rayson and Tow Dowdeswell — throughout the 30 years that he was training speaks elegantly of his consistency of character and the esteem in which he was held by his staff. Despite all the success he enjoyed, Arthur Budgett remained a modest and unfailingly courteous man, though he would fight his corner resolutely when he thought he was being unfairly treated — as happened when one of his horses was subjected to a dope test, and an official attempted to prevent him from having an independent vet carrying out another test. Budgett won his point; had he not done so, his career could have been brought to a very early end.
They don’t make people like that these days. More’s the pity.
Is London The Best Therapist In The World?
Today, I had to go for the MRI Scan to my arm and shoulder. I decided as the weather was so good that despite my hay fever and the high pollen count, I’d walk to the hospital from Great Portland Street station.
Flower Gardens in Regent's Park
As you can see Regent’s Park was at it’s glorious best and ready for the real summer. One Cypriot couple I met had come to the Park specifically to see the roses. Madame Tussaud eat your heart out! Who wants to see a lot of wax models? I don’t! Unless you can stick pins in them!
I walked past the Open Air Theatre and on to the lake, where mothers were doing what they have for hundreds of years and we used to do in the 1970s and that is feed the ducks and geese.
Feeding the Ducks in Regent's Park Lake
C had a phobia about large birds and I can remember her screaming madly, when a gaggle of angry geese almost chased her into the lake, not far from where the above picture was taken.
She didn’t fall in there, but she did have to jump in here to retrieve our middle son, who fell in throwing bread for the ducks on the other side of thec lake.
Where Our Son Fell In
Both survived without any harm, although it was rather wet walk home to our flat just north of the Park.
I was also pleased to see that the rails, I remember so well because of a photo I took, are still in place after forty years.
A Fence in Regent's Park
They say things don’t last, but memories and that fence do!
A few minutes later I was at the hospital on the other side of the Park.
It seems that in many places in London, I seem to come across items, buildings and bridges that remind me of my past, comfort me and tell me that I did the right thing to come home to the city of my birth and childhood.
She is my friend and therapist and she is always with me.
And for me, as I live in her bounds, all the consultations cost is a bit of effort and perhaps some rubber from my trainers. She is truly the best free therapist in the world! But then others will say that about New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Rome and masses of other places.
But it is only your home city that can reach the places in the mind that others can’t reach.
Littering
A new campaign is being started to stop the amount of litter, getting on the streets.
I think some of the problems are down to the way we are designed.
One of the reasons we create so much litter, is we only have two hands. I’ve just watched a mother pushing a buggy down the street to take her child to school, whilst she was smoking with one hand and texting with the other. The dog end went on the pavement. Here in Hackney we have some very clean streets, due to an excellent street team, but people should use the bins provided.
Most of the litter on the streets is discarded flyers from fast food shops, taxi companies and others, dog ends and empty beer cans. The latter strangely seem to be put in many cases in my can and bottle recycling bin, which sits on my front patio, by the wheelie bin.
On a more serious note, there were 50,000 or so blockages in the London sewers last year. One was an infamous Fatberg outside a fast food restaurant in Leicester Square, but many were caused by people putting their rubbish down the toilet rather than walking downstairs to put rubbish in their communal bins.
Not the Dreaded Knotweed
I know that these days the boundary between town and country is very vague these days, with foxes and muntjac everywhere, but I was surprised to see this at Caledonian Road and Barnsbury station.
Japanese Knotweed at Caledonian Road and Barnsbury Station
It would appear that the unwanted Japanese knotweed gets everywhere.
A Circus Performer on a 141 Bus
When I was returning from Oxford Street yesterday, I took the route using the Central line via Bank and a 141 or 21 bus to the end of my road. It is an easier route especially, if you are laden down with parcels as I was.
I sat just behind the wheelchair bay and shared a seat with an attractive young lady, who was also travelling fairly heavily laden. She had the aura of being someone like a dancer or athlete and after we’d chatted for a few minutes, I asked what she did. She said she worked as a circus performer (An aerial artist no less!) and had just done a show in London and was returning home before going to Glastonbury, where she will be performing in the Circus Tent.
I’m posting this, because Danny Baker on Radio 5 Live, asked if people had ever met anybody from a circus.
So I now have!
Chaos In Oxford Street
I needed to get some towels and a couple of lamps from John Lewis yesterday evening, so I took my usual route of Overground to Highbury and Islington station and then the Victoria line to Oxford Circus.
For some years now, getting out of Oxford Circus station has been a nightmare, so much so that I used to get there by taking a Central line train to Bond Street instead and then walking backwards.
That is not really an option now, as they are rebuilding Bond Street station and the narrow pavements cluttered by smokers outside the stores are not an easy route.
So it was a walk up the stairs to Argyll Street and then across the centre of Oxford Circus. At least that crossing works well, but then the north side of Oxford Street was cluttered with smokers and locked up stalls, that sell junk.
It is not good and it never has been in my memory.
Some years ago, I proposed an alternative which was published as a long letter in the Evening Standard.
I read with interest an article in the Evening Standard yesterday and feel I should comment about a proposed monorail for Oxford Street.
I should explain that I am an engineer with a lot of experience of transport projects around the world, mainly because the software I wrote, Artemis, was used to plan them.
I am also an inveterate traveller and have experience of a very large number of cities around the world. That experience is usually as a tourist and includes the Sydney monorail, the escalators of Hong Kong and the underground walkways of Perugia. I should also say that I visit the Oxford Street area at least once a month for shopping, eating or business.
I will agree with the plan, where the monorail gives the whole street a connection and a focus, but I believe that a moving walkway suspended over the street below would be much more flexible and inherently better.
1. It could be built in stages, with perhaps a spectacular star over Oxford Circus as a first phase to move people from say Regent Street North to Oxford Street East and West without getting involved in the fearsome crowds at road level.
2. Walkways are basically hop-on and hop-off. So if you see a shop or something else that interests you, then all you do is wait to the next hop-off point and exit.
3. As the walkway progressed down Oxford Street, it could rise and fall so that it was level with the floors of the major stores. How much would John Lewis pay for an entrance at first floor level?
4. Stops would be much more frequent than a monorail.
5. Walkways are a fail-safe system in that when the motor breaks, the system is still walkable. What happens when a monorail breaks down as the Sydney system did when I rode it?
6. Walkways can add spurs as required to Conference Centres, attractions and also to move people well away from Oxford Street.
7. As they would run effectively from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch, they would take the pressure off the Central Line.
8. Just as in Hong Kong it would be covered in a clear plastic roof. Video screens could be included under the roof to sell advertising.
9. Security is important and I’m sure the Police would like a high-level walkway from which to view the crowds below.
10. Bulges and platforms could be attached to the walkway, so that cafes and other attractions could be setup. If access is provided to stores on route, there would be no problems as to servicing these cafes.
11. The whole system has to be commercial. Imagine a platform just by Selfridges which sells the Wallace Collection, with a down escalator pointing that way.
Admittedly, it was published partly as part of their campaign against the then mayor, but I believe the idea of an overhead moving walkway would improve the movement of pedestrians around the area.
Thinking about it six years after the original letter was published, there are other factors that now apply.
- Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street are to become major stations on Crossrail and they will probably discharge more people into the area making it worse. Especially, as many will be long-distance travellers trailing mobile obstacles behind them. The pavements are just not big enough.
- The Eastern end of Oxford Street is scruffier now and who would want to shop there, when there are shopping centres at Westfield and the soon to open, Eastfield, just a few stops away on the Central line.
Certainly, I can’t wait for Eastfield to open, as then I’ll be closer to a John Lewis.
You will see I call the new shopping centre at Stratford, Eastfield. It’s what many of the locals do, despite the fact that it’s promoted as Westfield Stratford City.
But then East is east and West is west and ne’er the twain shall meet.
Are Pensions Just An Enormous Ponzi Scheme?
The title of this post was suggested by someone who I know well, who works in the City.
He has a point, as once people stop joining and contributing, it all goes belly up.
Think about it! And think too about all the rules brought in to protect the early joiners in the scheme and also to make sure that advisors get their part of your hard-earned pension pot!
On Line Grocery Shopping
It was reported today on BBC Breakfast that on-line grocery shopping is not being the great success it should be.
As a widower, who lives alone and who is very computer literate, you’d think I would do a lot of on-line grocery shopping. When my wife was alive, we did quite a bit as we both worked full time and I actually worked at home to take in the deliveries.
Now, I’ve had a serious stroke, can’t drive and have moved to Dalston and although I buy lots of goods like books, furniture and electrical items on the web, I haven’t bought any groceries on-line.
Last week though, I saw the future. I went to my local Waitrose in Upper Street, did a large shop and then they delivered it an hour or so later. As I had a job to do at home, it only meant, I had to get the bus home to arrive before the delivery did.
The only problem was the driver had left his pen at the previous delivery. So I gave him one of my many spares.
But it was just so much less hassle than waiting in at home to collect some goods that might be quite not what you want. As after all, I had chosen them in the shop, so if they were wrong, it would have been my fault.
As shopping innovations like this get more common, on-line shopping will continue to lose out. And in some cases it will replace driving to the supermarket.
Why Businesses Have a Cash Flow Problem
When I moved in here, I had a small problem and a local builder came round and fixed it. They did a good job and got me out of a hole.
Yesterday, six months later, I got a bill for the work. The only surprise was that it was probably about twenty pounds less than I had expected.
As I usualy do with bills that aren’t worth disputing, I decided to pay it immediately. I have given up on cheques and always pay bills by direct transfer. But there were no bank account details on the bill or even an e-mail address. So I had to ring them up to get the information I needed. And the phone was engaged.
I do think this is typical of many small businesses and is it any wonder they have a cash-flow problem!
Does A Blank Square Exist On An Ordnance Survey Map?
They are talking about the Ordnance Survey on BBC Breakfast this morning?
At my primary school, de Bohun in Southgate, there was a guy called Peter Laws. His parents were keen walkers and the family always scanned a new map to see if any of the one-kilometre squares on the map were blank. They had never found one!
But that was in 1958 or so!
So does a mythical blank square actually exist?
Every time I’ve bought a map in the last fifty years or so, I’ve always searched and never found one.
The Anonymous Widower 