The London Office Crane Survey
I liked this survey from Deloitte!
The Tailor Of Bexley
When I had my family traced, the earliest ancestor of mine that could be found was Robert Miller, who was a tailor in Bexley in 1837.
He was found to have had one son; Edward, who was born about 1816 in Bexley, Kent and died in 1871 at Shoreditch.
Linking backwards from the modern day.
My father was Wilfred Ewart born in 1904
My paternal grandfather was Herbert born in 1878 and died in 1929
My paternal great-grandfather was William born in 1853 and died in 1911.
My paternal great-great-grandfather was Edward born in 1816 and died in 1871.
So the tailor of Bexley was my paternal great-great-great grandfather.
My father once told me, that his grandfather, who must have been William, once told him, of a first hand account of Robert the tailor of Bexley, who was his grandfather.
He said that he was German and that he didn’t speak any English. Because of my coeliac disease, which is quite common in East European Jews and his profession, we can probably assume that Robert; the tailor of Bexley was Jewish. My father also told me that the family name was Müller, which had been Anglicised.
Robert Winder in his excellent book; Bloody Foreigners, talks about how many poor Germans came over to London in the early days of the nineteenth century and lived in terrible conditions in the East End of London.
So was Robert one of those poor Germans?
When you dig into your family history, you find professions that are no longer PC. Some of my ancestors were ivory turners and skin dressers in the fur trade.
Transport for London Are Leading The Contactless Revolution
This article from Rail Magazine is entitled Contactless Ticketing Booms In London.
It states the following.
- In the first year, 180 million journeys have been made using contactless cards.
- This accounts for a fifth of all pay-as-you-go journeys.
But what isn’t said is the fact that despite the predictions of some left-wing and green politicians, there has been no hint of any problems. If there had been, the various tabloids would have had a field-day.
When are the rest of the large cities of the UK going to copy London, so I don’t need to use that nineteenth century technology of paper tickets?
A Mother Of All Traffic Jams
I took this picture from the front on a 19 bus, as I tried to get from Piccadilly to Islington.
The bus was turned round, as it was going nowhere, so I got on a 38, which then promptly overheated, but at least as it was a 38, there was another behind.
Traffic everywhere and nothing moving.
Traffic everywhere and nothing moving. My bus journey took over an hour.
So what was causing the slow progress? I think it was a mixture of works for services and the Cycle Superhighway.
It was obviously going on all day, as a visitor later in the afternoon complained of similar problems. A friend visiting London also had problems.
You might ask, why I didn’t take the Underground! I needed to get to Angel and as the Victorian designed the Northern and Central Lines so that they didn’t go near Piccadilly. Buses are the only way unless you want to do some tortuous walking in an Underground interchange.
Wet-Free London
When you know London well, you get to know the public transport routes on which you don’t get as wet as others. I should also say, I never use an umbrella, as umbrellas are for wimps and softies.
I had to go to Maplin’s at Liverpool Street and then John Lewis at Oxford Street.
The obvious way to get to Maplin’s from my house is to walk two hundred metres and get the 141 bus, which stops outside the store.
But the rain was heavy so I took the much shorter walk and got a 38 bus to The Angel. I then got the 43 bus from the sister stop at the Angel to Maplin’s. After getting what I wanted at Maplin’s, I dodged under the buildings into the dry of Liverpool Street station, where I bought my paper.
It was then the Central Line for Oxford Circus, but how wet would I get walking to John Lewis. You used to be able to exit the station on the North West corner of Oxford Circus, so you could walk sheltered by the buildings to the store. But not any more and you have to exit on the South East corner and fight your way through the crowds and the bad weather. If ever a station is not fit for the number of passengers, who use it, it is Oxford Circus.
I did think about using Bond Street and walking back to John Lewis, but it would still mean crossing the road. Then I remembered that the 25 bus passed Chancery Lane station, so I surfaced and walked the few yards to the stop.
The pictures don’t do the rain justice. But at least I got on a 25 bus without getting too wet.
The advantage of the 25 bus, is it stops alongside John Lewis and you just walk into the store.
The 25 Bus At John Lewis
I bet John Lewis would like to have 25 buses go to Oxford Circus – John Lewis rather than Oxford Circus.
John Lewis To Oxford Circus
Leaving John Lewis, I was able to walk along Oxford Street under the shop overhangs to the North West entrance at Oxford Circus station.
Should London Allow All Doors Entry To Buses?
London is unique in the United Kingdom, in that nearly all of the buses have at least two doors.
The standard London buses have a front entrance and a middle exit, which gives the advantage of separating those getting on the bus and those getting off. In addition as the wheelchair ramp is under the middle door, loading and unloading wheelchair-bound passengers is a much less disruptive and much more efficient process.
Last football season in Reading, the bus had to be unloaded to get a wheelchair and its passenger on-board. It delayed the bus by about five minutes. Some fans were getting angry and started a chorus of “Why Are We Waiting”
In contrast in London, I saw an incident, where a passenger in a wheelchair needed to get on and the wheelchair space was full of babies in buggies. The ramp was put down, three buggies were immediately unloaded with no fuss, the wheelchair was pushed in and then two of the buggies were slotted in. The third was folded and carried on. It was all very civilised and in total contrast to the Reading incident. Effectively, the ramp and the pavement creates a very large lobby, which makes it easy for the wheelchair space to be rearranged. In my many trips on London buses, I’ve never seen a problem around the wheelchair bay.
But the biggest argument for a separate entrance and exit bus, was put to me by a bus driver and union rep, I met on a bus in Manchester. He said that because London buses separate entrance and exit, this pushed the low-life away from the driver and they don’t try and steal his money. London buses now don’t accept money and other drivers from places like Scotland and Liverpool have told me they want cashless buses as it cuts attacks on staff.
Additionally in London, we have the three-door Routemasters with an extra door at the rear. All doors have places to touch in with your contactless card, with one each side of the middle door.
Rarely do passengers get in at the two rear doors and not touch-in. If they do, they are often reminded by other passengers, with a knowing look.
Recently, I was at Kings Cross and two buses that get me near my house turned up at the same time; a two-door 476 and a three-door Routemaster running on route 73.
The 476 was in front and empty, but I took the 73, as I felt because it loads and unloads more quickly, it would get me home sooner.
It did! Perfectly illustrating the principle that more doors make a bus go faster.
There is probably an equal split of the type of the bus I can get home from the Angel and I feel that I’m not alone in choosing a New Routemaster if one is following a standard two-door bus. Baby buggy pushers also seem to wait, as it must be much easier to get in the middle door of a new Routemaster.
|As we are well-educated on how to use the buses here in Hackney, I wonder what would happen, if London’s two-door buses allowed entry through the middle door, by putting ticket readers at the door.
Having watched the behaviour of passengers on New Routemasters for quite a few years now, I think it would be worthwhile to try it as an experiment in certain areas of the capital.
We might find it increased the capacity and speed of London’s buses.
A Flypast Over London
I took these pictures as the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight flew over the City of London today.
The fourth picture shows the area where I was standing on the walkway across the Barbican.
It is a good place to see any flypast that is going over Buckingham Palace, as the pilots use the three distinctive towers to line up for their trip across London. This Google Map shows Central London.
Flypast Route Over London
The Barbican is illustrated by the red arrow and Buckingham Palace is at the bottom left hand corner.
The procedure used by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight was explained, when one of the pilots was the guest of Test Match Special on BBC Radio.
When asked what you do if there is an engine failure, the pilot stated that there is only the Thames.
London Just Carried On
Ten years ago today, I published a post on my old blog entitled Carry On London, as a reflection after the bombings earlier in the day.
I make no apologies for repeating it today.
Tuesday, I went to the funeral of a friend. Alex died young at 48. Life is cruel. But even the funeral was not a sad affair! Alex wouldn’t have wanted it so and stated it probably many times before she died!
Wednesday, I was in Trafalgar Square, when my fair and beloved city, London, was announced as the winner of the 2012 Olympic Games. Life can be so sweet.
But then we have the bombings of today!
Thousands of times, I’ve travelled through the tunnels under London. Many times, I’ve done the stretch between Kings Cross and Russell Square, where most of the casualties occurred. Occassionally, I’ve used the two parts of the Circle Line, where the other two bombs went off.
Am I bitter? Angry? Sad? Vindictive?
Not sure!
Sad yes! As why would anybody want to do such a thing! How would I feel if one of my sons did that? I would know I had failed. How would I feel if one of my sons had got caught in the blasts. I don’t know! But thankfully they didn’t.
So it has to be sadness at the moment. Vindictiveness only follows the old eye for an eye maxim, which means that we all go blind!
But perhaps, the greatest thing we can do is just carry on, remembering those that died and vowing to be more vigilant so that it won’t happen again.
Fay would have done that. She worked for my father and during the Second World War, the shy girl from North London, worked as a conductor on the buses. One day, the bus she should have been on, was hit directly by a German bomb. Everybody died! She just remembered the tragedy, I suspect she cried long and hard, and then she carried on.
A few crackpots, who take the good name of Islam in vain, should never be able to bring London to its knees, when the evil Hitler and the Luftwaffe failed.
A last point for Bush and all those who think that the death penalty is a deterrent in these sort of cases. I’ll ignore the fact that the London atrocities may well have been suicide bombers, which are usually pretty difficult to execute. But as I am someone who has no belief in any religious being at all, I do believe that we should do all we can to preserve reasonable life here, as there is nothing more to come. So if we ever execute anybody, then we are losing our own humanity and descending below their level.
Carry on London.
A lot has happened to me since that fateful day of the 7th July, 2005.
My wife of nearly forty years and our youngest son, both died of cancer. I then had a stroke, which left me unable to drive. So I’ve moved back to London and almost ironically, I now live close to the route of the number 30 bus, one of which was destroyed with the loss of thirteen lives in the bombings.
But London has looked after me, as only one of the world’s great cities can.
And London has carried on, just as Fay believed you should.
Is A Mobile Phone A Dog And Bone With Legs?
My father, who was not really a real Cockney, as you couldn’t quite hear Bow Bells from where he was born, was a regular user of rhyming slang.
I was writing a message to someone and suggested we text each other.
I then realised that I’d never heard rhyming slang for mobile phone, which led me to the title of this post.
This page supports the use of Obi Wan Kenobi.
An Amateur Tube Map
This amateur Tube Map is published in Gizmondo.
Amateur Tube Map
It is a brave attempt to make something that is getting increasingly complicated, more readable.
As I travel around Europe, I see some terrible maps, but the biggest sin is places, where they show their maps far to small or place them so you have to be nearly two metres tall to see them.
London has a unique advantage in that many stations have been designed so you go down the escalators, you are often in a large spacious lobby, with often quite large flat walls. Also with the removal of booking offices, there is now often a sizeable flat wall, as you enter the station from the street.
The current common map in stations is printed in A0 format which is 841 x 1189 millimetres. But there are larger paper sizes.
So why not use 2A0 (1189 x 1682 mm.) or even 4A0 (1682 z 2378 mm.)?
They could be printed direct onto high-strength vinyl in a similar way to the advertising you see wrapped around buses and trains.
Not all maps would be this size, but I believe putting them in prominent locations on the transport network would be a good idea.
After all, we’re always being told Big is Beautiful.
Eventually, as electronic screens get larger and more affordable, these could be used.
It doesn’t really matter what the map looks like, as I hope any bad ones would never be displayed.
But size and readability is everything!
The Anonymous Widower 