Miscellaneous - Archive Articles

Fire Brigade Dissect a White Whale in Covent Garden

It is almost impossible now to go to the West End in the evenings without seeing a white whale squeezing its way through the narrow streets.

20 years ago – Queen announces public tours of Buckingham Palace

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the announcement that Buckingham Palace would open to the public during the summers.

Westminster Council is selling off its street signs

An unusual auction is coming up next month with a change to acquire some rather unique -- and based on the estimate prices -- curiously cheap bits of London memorabilia.

Preparations for a funeral

When a major event takes place in London, along comes the paraphernalia of ceremony to control and to broadcast.

Dare you enter the Micrarium?

A small room inside a small museum has been given over to the small displays of the small of the animal kingdom. A glowing cupboard surrounded on three sides by bugs, beetles. beasties and bacillus.

The curious history of the kitchen mixing bowl

Over the past hundred years or so, almost every object in the domestic kitchen has been adapted to changing needs and fashions of society. But there is one object that is almost unchanged since it was first made over a century ago.

What lies hidden in Canary Wharf’s steel plant pots

If you travel around Canary Wharf, or some parts of the City of London, you cannot fail to notice large steel plant pots that have sprung up around buildings.

There is a conference taking place

How do I know there is a conference taking place? Because I see a surge in press releases from a range of organisations all making announcements about the same area of research or products all at the same time.

I missed a train today

I missed a train today. I allowed an extra 20 minutes to get to the train, but I still missed it. A train that was to take me to visit a train station.

In which I discuss the future of Heathrow Airport…

This will be a controversial blog post - touching on a topic which is more political than practical - the future of airports in the South-East of the UK.

Happy New Year

I am not actually a huge "oh, the calendar is changing - lets have a party" sort of chap, and only stay up for the fireworks, and even then only because the bed is 10 seconds from the balcony.

The top ten blog posts of 2012

I deem that it is time for a dose of omphaloskepsis, and to find out which of my miserable scrawlings captured your attention the most during the past year.

Artists and scientists are Jiggling Atoms

Over at CERN, scientists collide atomic nuclei together to split them into fundamental particles and study them. Here in London, a number of scientists from the bizarre world of quantum physics recently collided with the equally bizarre world of modern…

Building the Olympics – bedtime reading

Now that we have all gushed over the various Olympic venues, it might be worth sparing a moment to consider the planning and effort that went into building them. Fortunately, the usually subscription only Institute of Civil Engineering have put…

Fighting Fantasy books to return, but not as books

Yesterday glorious news as it turned out that the Fighting Fantasy range of books were 30 years old (ouch!) and new titles would be released. However, it turned out that the new format will be a second attempt to turn…

The unexpected and welcome Olympic Legacy

And so it is over. Today, the athletes. the trainers, the sponsors and their assorted lackeys pack up their bags and leave the party. Years of expectation and effort concentrated into a single moment. Would people turn up, would they…

The Olympic Water Chariots slash their prices

The hideously overpriced canal boat service (link removed, dead link) taking people from Limehouse to nearish to the Olympic Park seems to have finally bowed the inevitability of their reportedly near-empty boats...

Get in early with your Olympic souvenir hunting

Sitting inside the Olympic Park is a “megastore” packed with Olympic branded goodies. Some garish, some surprisingly tasteful, including the canvas bags with 1948 posters on them – alas, a plastic style print transfer that wouldn’t last very long, and…

Cultural food and drink events during the Olympics

A number of countries in addition to sending athletes to London for the Olympics, have also chosen to set up cultural hubs in the city as well.

Private entrance from Westminster Tube Station for MPs

There is often told tales by the subterranean conspiracy lot of a private entrance inside Westminster tube station that our elected masters can use to get into the Parliamentary Estate - should they deign to travel by London Underground.

A second cable car at Greenwich?

A warning message to ships on the Thames, that three cables are be carried across the river to link Greenwich to the Isle of Dogs in a manner very similar to that used for the locked onto a river pier…

A new type of tube train is shown off at the South Bank

If you were heading down into a certain tube station recently via the escalator, you might have been slightly alarmed to see this advancing back up towards you.

Pigeons riding Boris Bikes

Just around the corner from the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel is a Boris Bike stand that would be otherwise unremarkable except that one half of it has been colonised by pigeons, and they have taken to the bikes with great enthusiasm.

How Typhoon jets will intercept unexpected planes during the Olympics

As part of the ongoing militarisation of London in preparation for the Olympics, we are probably aware that there will be missiles stationed in various locations around the venues, and that fighter jets will be on standby to intercept unexpected…