A Beagle Comes To Hoxton
One of my Internet trawls found this restaurant, called Beagle, that is opening in Hoxton. I paid it a visit today.
It is conveniently situated underneath the railway arches of the East London line at Hoxton station, just behind the Geffrye Museum.
One of the staff said they would be doing gluten-free food, so I think I’ll give it a try after it opens on Monday the eighth and when I return from my travels to Budapest.
The designers seem to have done a good job.
I wonder if it will set a precedent for stylish restaurants in stations on the London Overground!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to eat and drink your way in a complete circle around London!
Hackney’s New Recycling System
I used to like the old system, where I put out two green boxes on a Thursday. You seemed to know where you were and I separated glass and plastic bottles into one box and paper in the other.
Since they have gone to green sacks, I have not had anything collected, as I’m not sure how it is collected. I do have three green sacks full of rubbish in the garage, but as I’m not here next week, when will they be collected? At least being clean recyclables, they don’t smell!
Countdown Comes To Hackney
I don’t think it was working yet, but Pedestrian Countdown has arrived in Hackney, as this picture shows.
Countdown Comes To Hackney
I was on my way from my doctors to Paddington station, so I was going to Haggerston station, which you can see in the background.
It is not a simple journey and it requires two changes at Canada Water and Waterloo stations. The latter is a change to avoid.
Waterloo Interchange
At least there is a moving pavement in the long tunnels. I think of all London’s main stations, Paddington is the most difficult to get to from Hackney and other parts of North East London.
Visitors Parking Vouchers In Hackney
I may be a non-driver these days, but it doesn’t mean, I don’t have visitors with cars.
Last week, I bought some all day vouchers and today, I bought some for two hours.
Would you believe that effectively you have two separate accounts for each voucher?
The guy behind the desk in the Parking office thought it was crazy too!
Surely systems should be devised to be the most convenient for everybody. I can’t imagine that this is convenient for anybody!
Patchy Paperwork
I was interviewed today, by a student from Liverpool University about some of the aspects of widowhood.
One thing that got me at the time of C’s death, was how professional some organisations and companies were and on the other hand how sloppy some others were.
I was moved to write to The Times, and this is my letter they published on April 16th, 2008.
The paperwork carried out when a relation dies should be standardised across all organisations.
I was widowed last year, and it is only now that I’m starting to get my life together. The response of the various government and local authority departments in handling all the paperwork involved has been very patchy.
Registrars: excellent, very sympathetic and efficient; Work and Pensions: bereavement allowance came through with a few hiccups, but not too difficult; Premium Bonds: system worked but could have been better; council tax: this was reduced automatically on signing a form by St Edmundsbury — totally painless; DVLA: its online systems worked well; winter fuel payment: found difficult to claim and missed it for last year.
The private sector wasn’t that much better, with some companies having people whose sole job appeared to be to deal with bereavement faring much better than those that didn’t. Some wanted death certificates, some accepted faxed copies and others took my word.
We need a lot more joined-up thinking in this important area, as, with nearly a million deaths in the UK every year, it would surely help the bereavement process for those left behind if every company, organisation, government department and authority were automatically notified. After all, if St Edmundsbury can do it here in supposedly sleepy Suffolk, then surely everyone else can.
Since moving to London, I could add a few to both lists, although nothing has been specifically about bereavement. In some ways the biggest surprise has been that the London Borough of Hackney hasn’t made any mistake, that has caused me the slightest bit of inconvenience.
Football As Monoculture
This is the sub-title on a wonderful picture of football on Hackney Marshes in a piece by Simon Barnes in The Times today.
There are 88 football pitches on the marshes these days.
The marshes were also the venue for BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in 2012.
Liverpool University Comes To London
Liverpool University is opening a campus in London. The details are here on their web site. As I was going to the area this morning to shop at the Marks and Spencer on Finsbury Pavement, I took a few pictures.
It is an area, I know well, as we used to live in Cromwell Tower in the Barbican, which can be seen from the front of the building.
Note the 205 bus in the picture, which is the easiest way to get to the area from Euston, especially if you need step-free access.
It is an area too, with a lot of interesting history and a bright future, as it is close to Shoreditch, Bunhill Fields, Spitalfields and Silicon Roundabout.
According to Wikipedia, Finsbury Square is in the London Borough of Islington.
Hackney Is London’s Cycling Capital
That is the strapline on this report in today’s Standard. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
Hackney has been declared the cycling capital of London after research showed that more residents commute to work by bike than by car.
The figures, drawn from the 2011 Census by the Office of National Statistics, reveal that 14.6 per cent – or one in seven – of Hackney residents use a bike as their main method of getting to work.
This is the highest bike ridership in London – neighbouring Islington is second on 9.6 per cent – and is three-and-a-half times higher than the city-wide average of four per cent.
Obviously, Hackney is near to the City and it’s an easy cycle to work. But perhaps a bigger factor, is that Hackney must be one of the flattest boroughs in London.
Hedgehog Decline
A few years ago, when we owned the stud, I remarked that I hadn’t seen a hedgehog in years. when I lived in London as a child, they were always about and you used to see quite a few squashed ones on the road.
Now it would appear they are in serious decline according to this article in the Mail.
I’ve never seen one here in Hackney, although given the number of gardens, parks and cemeteries, there must be a few. On the other hand, we do have lots of foxes.
I did type “Hackney hedgehog” into Google and found this article. The writer suggests that foxes could have predated on the dead hedgehogs found.
So is Basil Brush one of the reasons for the decline.
The Fountains Are Going Strong
As I passed through Victoria Park on the bus this morning, the fountains were alive with the joys of winter.
I didn’t take a picture then, as I was rather surprised to see them, but I did at Canary Wharf.
The Fountains At Canary Wharf
You’d think in this very cold weather, they’d be switched off.
The Anonymous Widower 