Your guide to London's culture and transport news and events taking place across the city.
Your guide to London's culture and transport news and events taking place across the city.
Architects Drawings Overlook the Tidal Aspect of The Thames
Some new higher detailed images of the planned London River Park have been published on the BBC News website this morning. I will presume they are all the images provided, as the River Park’s own website doesn’t have the images…
Thanks to a birthday gift voucher from my flatmate, I was in the Transport Museum’s shop the other day picking up some goodies, including a moquette design tea towel – which it turns out isn’t that effective in its tea…
How the media deal with blogger identities
I have noticed an odd discrepancy in how the traditional media deals with websites/blogs where the primary author is better known by a pseudonymous identity than by their real name. If a person is a singer or actor, they will…
BT Tower about to lose its antennas
It's been drawn to my attention that BT has filed a planning application to make changes to the BT Tower that will strip it of the antennas that occupy the upper third of the main tower.
On the opposite side of the Isle of Dogs from where I live is a large blue bascule style bridge (map link) that carries road traffic over the lock admitting river based traffic into South Dock. One of the busier…
There are Owls on the London Underground
Did you know there are owls on the London Underground – and they are used to scare pigeons away? No, neither did I until recently, so I went to have a look. Yes, there’s some – sitting on top of…
Yesterday I put a link on Twitter to the results of a PR company approaching the wrong blogger with an offer, and unlike most of us, they took up the freebie, and wrote a very funny review of a nightclub…
Probably one of the more famous features of Kew Gardens is the huge glasshouses that protect plants more used to a climate somewhat warmer than can be offered by the UK's Met Office.
Do you drink 6 to 8 glasses of water per day?
Do you drink eight glasses of water per day? Or at least try to? Then a question for you – what is a glass of water? If you are a regular reader of this blog, your reply might be along…
Donating art to the nation – avoiding tax
If you are the sort of person who has large tax bills and also owns rather nice lumps of art or other “significant” objects, then the government is proposing let people donate that item to the Nation in exchange for…
Riverside path reopens at Canary Wharf
One of the pleasures of living in the docklands area is the ability to walk along the riverside - although the council required private housing to provide a river path which is nice, but declined to make the same requirement for its own housing, which is less nice.
If Monty Python were around today
A famous cafe sketch satirised the – at the time economic – aim of serving Spam as a stable part of many meals. Just over 40 years later, and I present an alternative version – based on the culinary fashion…
Youh ish ma besht friend you ish.
Finally was in a position yesterday to take a photo of this poster on the underground that has amused me for some months. Am I the only one who thinks the guy looks drunk and is slurring sweet nothings into…
Fantasy Architecture – Parliament Square
As noted elsewhere, there are plans to make the grassy protest site of Parliament Square considerably more convenient for protesters tourists to access by means of putting a pedestrian crossing in place.
Does The Queen have a Boris Bike account?
Silly question to which I am sure the answer is NO, but the TfL website isn’t taking any chances with its feedback form. I have had a problem with logging in to my Boris Bike account, and being the sort…
Twitpic changes its terms of service
Update: That was fast – after a bit of a Twitter outcry, the terms and conditions have been changed (again) to remove the offending paragraph about being barred from selling your own photos to media agencies, although they are still…
Riding the night bus into London
While most people use the Night Bus to get home after a night out, a smaller number travel the other way, heading into work or travelling home against the usual flow of traffic. Waiting at the bus stop, ten minutes…
If Guggenheim designed carrier bags
A few years ago, in that random way that it does, a conversation amongst friends with a shop worker drifted towards staff packing carrier bags, and he bluntly informed me that he wasn’t allowed to as he hadn’t been trained…
Turning the deep level air-raid shelters into cheap hotels
60 years ago, the Festival of Britain opened, largely at the South Bank in London, but it was actually a nationwide festival with events all across the country. However, London was the focus, and the city was barely recovering from…
A Giant Advert is Floating Over London
The Goodyear blimp is making a fairly rare visit to London for the next few days and it is delighting people as it slowly glides around the city skyline broadcasting a message of hope and deliverance an exhortation to buy…
From The Clothing Of The Dead, The Rings Of Unanswered Phones
While the emergence of camera phones has changed how disasters and incidents are shown to a wider world, the ringing of unanswered mobile phones is increasingly the dominant sound that follows devastating terrorist attacks, such as happened yesterday at a…
On behalf of the General Public, an apology
We the general public wish to issue an apology. We are deeply sorry that our desperate fascination with tittle-tattle and petty gossip has caused an entire industry to emerge in the UK dedicated to feeding our nosy addiction. We are…
Views of London from a “hidden hill” in Rotherhithe
The areas around Rotherhithe and Surrey Quays were once a series of docks that were slowly filled in and lost in the 1970s and early 1980s. As befits an area that was originally a marsh, and then an industrial hub,…
