A Problem With Buses
Today, they decided to dig up the road at Highbury Corner and it created a bit of chaos on the way back from Waitrose on the Holloway Road. If I can for this journey I use a 393 and then swap to a 277 or a 30 for the last bit.
But the trouble was that the stop to do the change was closed because of the hole-digging and I got taken off into the depths of Highbury. So in the end I had to walk home in the pouring rain.
On the other hand, I wasn’t stuck in the jams caused by the works.
London Bridge is Going Up
The picture shows the new bridge going up, that will take the Thameslink tracks to Charing Cross over Borough Market on a viaduct.
New Thameslink Bridge at London Bridge
When I met one of the project managers at King’s Cross a few weeks ago, he assured me it was all on schedule.
This viaduct at Borough Market will remove one of the worst bottlenecks on the railway network and illustrates how the Victorian builders of the network, often did things on the cheap and without any thought for the future. After a long public enquiry, the permission was finally given for the new viaduct to effectively double the capacity through the area.
Hopefully, when the market is rebuilt underneath the viaducts, it will continue to be an asset to London for many years in the future. Some though have expressed serious doubts about the scheme.
I Am Here
As you walk along the Regent’s Canal towards Mare Street, you pass this block of flats.
Haggerston Estate, Hackney
The blocks are apparently fairly derelict and scheduled for redevelopment. The faces in the windows, are those of former residents and were created by an arts project called I Am Here
The Castle Climbing Centre
I passed this iconic building, which is now the Castle Climbing Centre, on a 141 bus. It used to be a water pumping station and I took a video as I passed.
In the next month or so, I must go and look inside. And perhaps have a climb, as that must be good for my balance.
What Do We Do With the Olympic Stadium?
The row about what to do with the Olympic Stadium in Stratford after the Olympics rumbles on apace.
The original plan to turn it into a smaller 25,000 seat stadium might be a wonderful legacy for athletics, but would it be the best use of it after the Olympics. There are perhaps a couple of meetings a year that could fill such a stadium, unless the World or European Championships are held in London. And knowing London and Londoners like I do, 25,000 seats would probably be too small. So we might have a white elephant that would require lots of continuing funding.
To have a dual-use stadium as West Ham propose may not be a good idea. Fans don’t like watching football over an athletics track and I can understand why. I watched Ipswich play in the old Olympic Stadium in Moscow and the view was atrocious. Especially, as I had forgotten my binoculars. I also went to Stamford Bridge, when it still had the dog track in place and that wasn’t good either. So I can understand the views of fans and Harry Redknapp, when they say football and athletics don’t mix.
But there is a more fundamental problem and that is that football (and cricket and rugby for that matter) rely heavily on providing a lot of corporate entertainment with boxes, restaurants and fast food bars. Athletics crowds are different, probably more knowledgeable and have different and conflicting needs. They also stay longer making a whole day of the trip.
There is probably only one mixed use stadium that works and that is the Stade de France in Paris. In some ways this illustrates the problems, in that the French stage football, rugby and athletics, whereas, in England, rugby has Twickenham and football has Wembley.
The question has also to be asked if athletics wants a spiritual home like football, rugby and cricket.
It probably does, but a 75,000 seater stadium would be a white elephant, costly to fund.
It could also be argued that it has a spiritual home at Crystal Palace, which has been the scene of some great days of athletics. But it needs to be knocked down and rebuilt, preferably to a size of 30,000 seats that could be temporarily expanded to stage World or European Championships. One of the other problems of the stadium, was that it didn’t have good transport links direct from North and East London. But this has been partly solved by the new East London Line.
In fact, it would be good for South London if the whole Crystal Palace site was properly developed as a sport and leisure park, to compliment Stratford. Very little has been done since the original palace burned down before the Second World War. And if Crystal Palace is properly redeveloped, why not do the same at Alexandra Palace? The famous race course is still there.
What we need is a proper strategy for London, that is properly thought through. In fact this is the main problem with the Olympic stadium in that it was built to a cost for a limited life, rather as part of a whole strategy.
I have just Karen Brady, the West Ham, Vice Chairman, on BBC Breakfast and she put a convincing case for their mixed-use plans, which would include cricket. So is this just one part of a strategy, which should include plans for North, South and West London as well.
And then there is the elephant in the room; Chelski. Arsenal have a 60,000 seat stadium and Tottenham will have one, whether they move to Stratford or not. They wouldn’t be able to develop at Stamford Bridge, but what about a new stadium, where HS2 connects to Heathrow at Old Oak Common?
So the problem is a lot bigger than just what you do with Stratford.
Jazz At the New Merlin’s Cave
I took a 38 bus this lunchtime to go and have lunch with a friend and passed along Rosebery Avenue from Saddlers Wells Theatre to the main sorting Office at Mount Pleasant.
When we lived in the Barbican in the 1970s, sometimes C and I would go for a drink with the children at a jazz pub called New Merlin’s Cave to see John Chilton’s Feetwarmers and sometimes George Melly at Sunday lunchtimes. The pub was to the north side of the bus route.
I looked up the pub on the Internet and found this history.
Did those who were children in the 1970s suffer from being in a jazz club with all that booze and cigarette smoke?
Sadly the New Merlin’s Cave is no more!
Bus Roulette
I said yesterday, that on my way to Kings Cross, I would be playing bus roulette.
I drew 476 and as I was a bit early, I got off at the last stop on Pentonville Road and crossed a couple of roads and walked into the front of King’s Cross Station. It was probably easier on a dry day, than going to the official stop opposite the station and using the underpass.
Coming back from York, I played roulette again and got another 476 to the Balls Pond Road from directly outside King’s Cross Station.
In some ways it is a bit of a forgotten route, as perhaps only one in four of the buses that go down the Essex Road to the Angel and on to Kings Cross are 476s.
Stoic Londoners
Last night, I had to go to the bus stop to pick up a friend, who was coming to dinner.
At the moment, the Balls Pond Road, is more like the Balls Pond Roadworks and as buses through Dalston appeared to be being diverted, buses were stacked up to get to the stop, where my friend was to alight.
But was it all fraught, with shouting and waving?
No! Everybody just got on with their travel, perhaps walked a bit if necessary and got off buses in the middle of the road, if that was all they could do.
Hopefully, it’ll all be better in a week or two, when the works finish.
You do sometimes think that stupidity makes it worse. Yesterday, as I walked back from Dalston Junction, the road was narrowed by the road works, so what did some idiot decorators do? Block the pavement with ladders, so they could paint a building. This meant mothers with buggies had to use the road and weave between buses, trucks and other vehicles. Hopefully, there wasn’t an accident.
A Dickensian Tavern
As I passed through Clerkenwell, I walked up Britton Street to the north of the famous meat market and had a drink in the Jerusalem Tavern. The tavern is owned by St. Peter’s Brewery and serves their gluten-free ale.
If you’ve seen any period dramas, based on the stories of authors like Charles Dickens, you’ll recognise the style of the pub. But of course it doesn’t have footpads and low-life of the period and is probably a lot more hygienic.
So any coeliac who likes their beer and visits London, should put this unique drinking establishment on their list of places to visit.
Anyone for a Cold Bath?
I’ve not had a bath in some months, as these days I have a shower, when I smell like I need one. But this curious sign was on the wall of a building in Clerkenwell.
Coldbath Square
It must be surely one of the strangest road names in the UK, let alone London. You can read about the area here.
For many years there was a grim prison on the site and this is taken from the article.
The prison, built on a plan of the benevolent Howard’s, soon became a scene of great abuses. Men, women, and boys were herded together in this chief county prison, and smoking and drinking were permitted. The governor of the day strove vigorously to reform the hydra abuses, and especially the tyranny and greediness of the turnkeys. Five years later he introduced stern silence into his domain. “On the 29th of December, 1834, a population of 914 prisoners were suddenly apprised that all intercommunication, by word, gesture, or sign, was prohibited.” “This is what is called the Silent Associated System. The treadmill had been introduced at Coldbath Fields several years before. This apparatus, the invention of Mr. Cubitt, an engineer at Lowestoft, was first set up,” says Mr. Pinks, “at Brixton Prison, in 1817. At first, the allowance was 12,000 feet of ascent, but was soon reduced to 1,200.”
I think it is true to say that our justice system is much more enlightened these days.
The Anonymous Widower 