A room of one zone

British Broadcasting for Cyclists

2011-06-23T21:07:00.000+01:00

Curious. On Monday the London SE News that tags onto the end of the 6 o'clock news did a feature on cycling outnumbering other vehicles on Cheapside, in the City of London. They even sent a TV journalist over to stand on the pavement and talk about it.

And I, in turn, started a forum thread about it here: http://www.cyclechat.net/topic/86234-more-bikes-than-cars/ and cycled up to Cheapside the following day armed with a camera. Unfortunately, it was well after the rush hour when I got there so cycle commuters were thin on the ground and there was nothing relevant worth photographing.

Anyhow, it was from the thread I'd kicked off that I discovered, courtesy of ''EC2boy'' from Cyclists in the City that the information seemed to have been published on 19 June in the Sunday Times. Cyclists in the City quote the ST as saying

"On Cheapside, a street in the City of London, cycles make up more than 50% of the commuter traffic, according to official data, and account for up to 42% of traffic on Southwark Bridge across the Thames. In one Bristol suburb more than one in four people cycle to work....Since Bristol was designated a “cycling city” in 2008 under a government scheme the proportion of cyclists on some of its roads has trebled. In the suburb of Ashley a quarter of people now bike to work."

So, all in all, congratulations to the British Bicyclists on Cheapside and also to the other BBC for actually covering the story on TV.

And yet....

...3 days later, Tom Edwards, ''Transport Correspondent, London,'' produces a blog entitled ''Cyclists outnumbering motorists: Strength in numbers?'' stating, amongst other things, that ''A story has been doing the rounds about how on some roads cyclists outnumber motorists.'' but pooh-poohing such an absurd idea with this:

Having looked at the figures, one thing stood out. The figures seem to be measured only on bridges, in some cases where the cycling superhighways cross the Thames.

Now, I was a little confused as to how the BBC's ''Transport Correspondent, London'' could have been unaware of the transport item broadcast only 3 days earlier by his colleagues, the article in the Sunday Times 4 days earlier, yet attempt to assert that there was nothing to substantiate the claims of these cycling mythologists anywhere else but on the bridges, and preferably those bridges where there are occasional splashings of blue paint on the carriageway.

The only explanation I could come up with boiled down to ''Man on Bridge with phone camera decides it's all about the bridge''

Oops, his photo is on a bus lane, not a''cycle superhighway'' anyway, so that doesn't really illustrate his thesis.

Anyhow, I thought that a little further information posted onto the comments on his blog might be useful for other readers. So here's what I wrote:

Er, the regional programme that follows the 6pm BBC News (20/6/10) did an item on cyclists outnumbering other forms of transport on Cheapside in the City of London. Cheapside doesn't cross the Thames. The item appears to have been in response to a Sunday Times article on the 19th. More info here: http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.com/2011/06/jeremy-clarkson-still-thinks-were-anti.html

However, that comment was never published. It spent a while in ''pre-moderation'' before it was rejected. Why?

Your comment was considered to have broken the following House Rule:

"We reserve the right to fail comments which...

Are considered to be off-topic for the discussion."

So, let's get this straight. BBC does story. BBC bloke on a good wage does blog contradicting said story ''doing the rounds''. Commenter cites BBC to contradict Blog. Blog rejects comment as off-topic.

If you want something that breaks the ''house rules,'' here goes:

Tom Edwards, and whoever rejects comments on your blog if it's not you, read the papers, watch the BBC - you know, those guys that pay you on the public's behalf - if you say something and a commenter says ''er, that's not true'' it's not off-topic. It simply shows that you are a useless journalist and suppressing information from other people to stop you looking like a twat does nothing at all to stop you being a twat.

What's cooking?

2011-04-23T20:21:00.000+01:00

Nice to see Doctor Who back on TV but by far the most unsettling image I saw was when it had finished. I put the recording on hold, did a few potter-aboutish things and returned to the room. There in front of me was this....

What on earth was she cooking? Those TV chefs frighten me...

Forest Hill Beers

2011-04-22T19:40:00.000+01:00

I should have got some work done today but it was such a fine morning that I thought I'd take advantage of the quieter roads on my ''ride every road'' travels. Just passing Tintern Street, off Ferndale Street, SW4 I noticed a very faded sign on the side road so, as I had a camera on me, I stopped to take a photo. Nothing spectacular

BARTS

MARKET

However, it was only when I looked 90 degrees to the right that I saw this...

I didn't know that there had ever been such a company but, apparently, they were swallowed up by Whitbread in the 60s. I wonder whether they ever made a Perryv Ale. Looking back at Google's street view, it's clear that the sign has been recently and carefully restored. This is how it looked before:

Meet Crunchy the Credit Crunch Monster

2011-02-03T17:23:00.003Z

I celebrated the warmer weather today with another of my radial rides - this one took me over near Old Street and Liverpool Street. It was there that I met Crunchy. Actually, I wouldn't have known that it was Crunchy if it hadn't been for the blue plaque underneath:

Alongside the plaque there's a motto for our crowded and crunchy urban existences...and even the tube trains seem to have run out of space underground.

(Great Eastern Street, EC2)

Just around the corner in Leonard Street, Masker has been at work:

And these road signs did actually make me stop.

Sunshine!

2011-01-09T20:07:00.000Z

It feels like it was the first time this year, and it was welcome. My alarmingly clunky bottom bracket managed to get me to the Wolds of Woolwich and back. Here's a well-preserved bit of shop front that has far outlasted the shop itself. It's on the corner of Eglinton Road and Herbert Road, SE18. I'm trying to figure out whether it once had an entrance on both sides of the tile work.

Here it is a bit closer up, looking a bit like a big tin of peas:

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After cycling just over 3000 miles last year, I've set myself a 4000 target for this year. And I'm already behind the 10.92 miles a day schedule. But only by about 3 miles. Most of this cycling will probably take place in and around the area as I continue my impossible ''ride every road'' project. This is where I've got to so far. (The red radials mark where I need to go next to keep expanding the circle). It's only an area of just over 50 square miles, which would have taken no time to cover in open countryside. In London, there are an awful lot of roads between Walworth and Woolwich, Borough and Bexley, Beckton and Beckenham, Bromley and...er...Bromley... I've now forgotten more roads than the average Londoner has ever known.

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You can't put a bus lane there!

A festive Boxing Day ditty....

2010-12-26T22:03:00.000Z

As I have never ever seen such a spectacular night's day of cricket, I thought a mightily contrived Christmas song might be appropriately catchy....

On the first day at Melbourne my true love sent to me

12 balls for Watson

11 Aussies cussing

10 runs for Ponting with...

9 working fingers

8 for 77!

7 for 77!?

6 for 77!!!

5 no balls....

4 each for the swingers

3 stumps still standing

2 batting sessions

And they still couldn't knock up a ton...

Union Cycle Works

2010-12-04T14:41:00.000Z

I noticed this sign back in September but the workshop, behind the Deptford Project Café, under the arches of the old horse ramp up to Deptford railway station, was closed. Then, about a month later, Deptford Dame did this post with a link to an article about it on the East London Lines blog.

Having recently spotted that Union Cycle Works were holding 'Open Tool' sessions on the 1st Saturday of the month, I eventually got down there to have a look around this morning. Union Cycle Works is run as a community project that gives work skills training to disadvantaged people and, as a bonus, have started their 'Open Tool' sessions for people who don't have the room or the necessary tools at home.

I walked in as a complete stranger and got a warm welcome from Joe (though East London Lines names him as Jo Harrington) who was very happy to take the time and explain to me what they were doing and when they were doing it.

So, if you need to get any fettling done and you don't have the room or tools at home, this might be just the place to bring your bike and, for a voluntary contribution, get a bit of advice and the use of their tools. This place could prove to be a very useful little resource that not many people seem to know about yet. So shush, don't tell everybody!.

And you can also get a good meal and coffee in the railway carriage while you're at it.

Bike Buddies and Shop fronts

2010-11-07T21:16:00.002Z

A short while ago somebody wrote in to the Bike Radar forum about a commuting journey into town from south east London. They were having some doubts about doing the journey. A handful of locals responded, offering to accompany the person in. We thought it would be a good idea to put up a list of people who would be able to help new or returning commuters make that mental leap from thinking wistfully about riding in while watching cyclists filter past their bus to actually doing it.

And so an online Google docs spreadsheet was born. It's a list of experienced riders, what time and which way their route takes them, with contact details. Nobody's pretending to be a qualified cycling instructor - it's just people who are already out and about who are happy to encourage a few more out onto the road. Because it was first set up in south east London, a lot of the routes so far run from there into town - but there are also names from further afield and it's not restricted to any given area. It should work the same for any regular commuting destination.

So, if you are a regular cyclist willing to give a bit of encouragement or if you are thinking about taking the plunge, have a look at the ''Cycling Buddies'' page up above. It might be possible to rendez-vous.

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It was high time I took my camera with me on the bike to take few photos. I was up around Spitalfields and then back via Borough.

Opposite the church in Fournier Street, E1, just over Commercial Street from the market is the remains of the Market Café's frontage over the windows.

Then, just south of the market, in Crispin Street, E1, is this shop front for all those looking for notable paper bag merchants.

And, two doors away - for nut nostalgics - there's Percy Daltons (I assume they're no longer trading but maybe they're still around.)

And around the corner in Brushfield Street, E1, there are a couple of well-preserved shop fronts. First there's A Gold's.

Which, once upon a time, was a French Milliners. More recently they've been trading in foodstuffs though. Once again, I'm assuming that Little Lemon Ladies is something you eat and not what type of clientèle they serve.

Just to the left is a boundary marker which caught my eye because I've only just discovered that the old parish I live in was also called Christchurch

And immediately to the right of Gold's is another picturesque shop front, Verde's.

This is the view from around the corner - the woman behind the shop window has just realised she's being framed. (And I've just realised my bike and red jacket are visible in the reflection - still, it's good to be visible when you're on a bike....)

From there, with my toes getting numb from the cold, I went over Southwark Bridge - on the Cycle Superhighway number 7 - to Borough.

This Monster one in Borough High Street is pretty well known - I'm just adding it to my collection.

And another one I'd never spotted before further south on the SC7. But I can't for the life of me remember what street this wardrobe dealer - ''Wardrobes Built to any size'' - was in, nor had my toes recovered enough circulation for me to stop and try to figure out what the previous name was - just a few letters are legible in the picture.

Music pub, Kennington

2010-10-22T19:07:00.001+01:00

I came across the Sir Robert Peel in Langdale Close, SE17 on my travels. Not only does it do music in that after-work hiatus on a Friday night (Juanita will be performing right now, until 7:30) but above each door it has a tune, complete with music. I've never seen that before.

and

Here are the lyrics for the 2 songs. The connections between the two seem to be a) Jimmy Roselli has recorded them both and b) they both reprise the changing of hair colour from gold to silver.

PAL OF MY CRADLE DAYS (1919)
Recorded by: Rose Marie; Ann Breen; Jimmy Rosselli;

What a friend, what a pal, only now I can see,
How you dreamed and you planned all for me,
I never knew what a mother goes through,
There's nothing that you didn't do.

Chorus:
Pal of my cradle days, I've needed you always.
Since I was a baby upon your knee,
You sacrificed everything for me.
I stole the gold from your hair.
I put the silver threads there,
I don't know any way I could ever repay,
Pal of my cradle days.

Greatest friend, dearest pal,
It was me who caused you
Every sorrow and heartache you knew,
Your face so fair Is wrinkled with care,
I placed every line that is there,

Repeat Chorus: End

WHEN YOUR OLD WEDDING RING WAS NEW
(Douglas / McCarthy / Solieri)

Jimmy Dean - 1964
Jimmy Roselli - 1967
Sonny Knowles - 1990
Also recorded by: Joe Longthorne; Rose Marie;
Sydney Devine; David Alexander; Schmitt Bros;
Ray Anthony; Nighthawks Barbershop Quartet;
George Wallington Trio; Majella; Pat Roper;
Tony Kenny; Don Cornell.


Shades of night are falling
Bringing memories
Memories of a bygone day
Though it may be December
Though we're old and gray
To me you're still my blushing bride of May

When your old wedding ring was new
And each dream that we dreamed came true
I remember with pride how we stood side by side
What a beautiful picture you made as my bride
Even though silver crowns your hair
I can still see those gold ringlets there
Love's old flame is the same
As the day I changed your name
When your old wedding ring was new

Bicycle Quoits, Onions and various fadeds.

2010-10-16T15:52:00.000+01:00

Bicycle quoits looks like a fun game. Does anybody know the rules?

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In the middle of this extensive cyclepath, by College Road, Dulwich, the council have thoughtfully provided a bin with a place to stub your cigarettes out. I admit to liking the occasional roll up but I can usually cover that kind of distance without having to light up.

(On the positive side, though, it will protect you from colliding with the lamp post.)

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There was even a man in a beret selling onions and garlic outside this rather busy shop in Lordship Lane today. Wow, I thought, a genuine French Onion seller! Well, the writing and the prices are French so he may well have come over from Brittany but that bike hasn't gone anywhere for a long time to judge by the flat tyres...shame, really, I preferred the illusion.

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I spotted a few faded signs around the west end of Lordship Lane a while ago and remembered to bring my camera with me went I passed by today. This one is on the corner with Blackwater Road.

And not far away on Pellatt Road, just off the north side of Lordship Lane, there's this one

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Below, a pretty well-known one from Stepney Green on an earlier day's ride. I've uploaded it simply because it's the best-preserved sign I know of around here.

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You get to spot some strange things when you're exploring the [snigger, snigger] back routes. This is something I saw while I was behind [ahem!] Daren...

Where are these?

2010-10-01T05:59:00.002+01:00

Instead of saying where these are, I wondered if anyone could pinpoint these, or work out roughly where I'd been cycling on yesterday's lovely autumn afternoon.

Location 1: Cycle and Motor Works

Location 2: Plumber, ''...& Hot Water Engineer, Carpenter, Decorating...'' and ''The House Shop and ...''
(all three taken from the same spot)

Location 3: ''Sharon''

Location 4: ''John Campion, Merchant Tailor, Hosiery and Boys Outfitter''
''Broadway House, for Clothing Hosiery Hats, Boys Outfitting''

Serving red herrings since 1770

2010-09-27T17:54:00.001+01:00

This seems to be a local Greenwich speciality - backdating heritage.

The new fish and chip shop on the one-way system in Greenwich has only been open for months at most. And yet they claim to have been serving fish since 1770.

No they haven't! ''Established 2010'' has less of a ring about it though. I wonder where they got the idea....

Established 2009, I believe. They do do a beer that might taste like a beer would have done when there actually was a brewery nearby but I might as well claim to have be living in an Anglo-Saxon house because there might have been Anglo-Saxons around on the same site as where I live.

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Anyhow, here's a house martin's nest under the eaves of a Greenwich South Street house

This nest was established shortly after the last ice age. Fact!

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And here's a photo of the film props in the Old Naval College. I'm only posting it because security tried to stop me taking photos. I'm not sure how you can privatise sight in a tourist centre. Perhaps it's been like that since 1717. Or was it 1770?

But I suppose if you're not allowed to take photos, it makes this a pirated image, which seems perfectly appropriate under the circumstances.

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This Creek Road tree's determination not to give up has long been a sort of encouragement for me. But I noticed today that despite its regrowth, it might not be long for this world as the bark has dropped and the wood underneath is rotten. Because it's been like a personal symbol for me, I found this saddening.

Partially Entire.

2010-09-22T19:11:00.000+01:00

So it was off for a ride around Walworth for the last day of summer - which, given the band of rain descending on us from the north-west, could well turn out to truly feel like the last day of summer. Trawling around the side roads, I came across this in John Ruskin Street, SE17.

As I was taking the photo, a chap on one of those electric wheelchairs came gliding past and said ''That used to be a good pub.'' ''Did it have its own courtyard?'' I asked and he said, ''Yes, but it's all 'Mews' now.'' Its sign has been well-preserved but looks strangely incongruous in what is longish continuously-terraced street. But it may have been the length of the terrace that explains the courtyard - apparently it also served as a passageway to the next street, Grosvenor Terrace. One of those short cuts that may have taken longer than planned on a hot day perhaps.

And it strikes me as a strange name for a pub, The Entire.

Here's the sign in more detail, showing the mosaic:

Around the corner, in Iliffe Street, I came across this attractive shop front.

And back on the Walworth Road, at the junction with Fielding Street, here's a genuinely faded sign. I can make out ''BANKS'' at the top and ''AND FANCY GOODS'' at the bottom. I'll leave the rest for you to work out...

While we're remembering the Blitz...

2010-09-07T19:51:00.001+01:00

It seemed very timely to come across an air-raid shelter sign on the 70th anniversary of the Blitz.

This is a Home and Colonial faded sign with a darker Shelter sign below it, on Dartmouth Road, just a few yards up the hill from Forest Hill train station.

Above the H & C, ...NIAL is all that's still clearly visible. Below the H & C are the words ''VALUE, ECONOMY, and QUALITY. As usual, I was on my bike, I was pleased to find a bicycle reference on the Home and Colonial Wikipedia entry. John Betjeman's poem Myfanwy contains these lines

Smooth down the Avenue glitters the bicycle,
Black-stockinged legs under navy blue serge,
Home and Colonial, Star, International,
Balancing bicycle leant on the verge.

I missed the black stockings though.

There are a few more faded signs around that part of Dartmouth Road.

The middle one is pretty well faded, but by tweaking the image in Paint.NET (I love free software!) I came up with something a bit more legible.

The good and the bad.

2010-09-01T13:41:00.001+01:00

Yesterday at 8:36am I realised an ambition that has quietly been growing for a number of months...I am now a cycling grandfather! A quick ride up to Sidcup and voilà! (Mother, father and granddaughter are all exhausted but fine.)

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And at pretty much the same time this morning, a cyclist ended up under the wheels of a rush-hour construction HGV at the junction of Deptford Bridge and Deptford Church Street.

Mercifully, it was not a fatality. The woman was admitted to hospital with ''leg injuries'' - I couldn't get any more information out of the WPC I spoke to. There's a lethal combination that repeats itself: London, drag-sweeps, construction lorries in rush-hour traffic and a disproportionate number of women cyclists.

No one is ever in such a rush to get there - stay behind. Always.

Bike piranhas

2010-08-23T20:54:00.000+01:00

I noticed this bike a couple of days ago. Almost new, it had been securely locked up outside the A4E offices on the corner of Greenwich High Road and Norman Road. You occasionally see a missing front wheel on a locked-up bike, especially when it's got a quick-release front wheel. But this is an entirely different kettle of fish - they didn't come tooled up to break the lock and steal the bike, instead they must have come tooled up for bicycle dismantling.

Front wheel, check. Forks, check. Handlebars, check....crank, pedals, saddle and stem, entire brake system (bar the disk on the remaining rear wheel) , entire chainset (bar the remaining cassette)

There are a few scratches on the frame but I suspect the bike was virtually new - it's still got a 54cm frame-size sticker on it - and the thieves damaged it while they were speed-stripping it. They didn't touch the lock though - it must be indigestible to bike piranhas.

The saddest part of this - well, apart from how the owner must have felt when he first saw what they'd done to it - is that the thief, once upon a time, must have been a cyclist to be carrying and using the necessary tools. So it's treason. A hybrid and a low-bred.

Anyhow, even if you have a decent lock, be very careful about leaving your bike overnight in Greenwich.

A little follow up to ''I was right about the saddle''

2010-08-19T18:11:00.004+01:00

(streetview here)

I recently posted up an old Yellow Pages advert that someone found on Youtube, part of which had been filmed under the Point and on Maidenstone Hill. Darryl, over at 853 posted a comment with a link to a more recent appearance of Maidenstone Hill on TV. This time it was a BBC Christmas identity used in 2006 and 2007 - it starts at 5:56 on here

So alongside Maidenstone Hill in 2010

and Yellow Pages' faux-nord depiction, complete with mocked-up corner shop

I can now add a surprisingly wintery version

Earlier clips show a giant snowball being pushed up the streets.

Screenshot (at 6:01):

Yesterday (Trinity Grove looking onto Dutton Street, Maidenstone Hill behind):

This screenshot (6:03) had me fooled for a while

Until I reversed the image

and made it match up with this

Even standing on tiptoes I can't get as high up as a film crew can so you'll have to imagine cherry-picking about 30 foot higher and looking down. The POV of the camera is just about opposite from the Trinity Grove photo above. The chimney pot changes from background to foreground.

The best brown bread made from da mental vaporz

2010-08-15T18:42:00.000+01:00

A couple of random ''faded'' photos. Here's one of the many Daren bread bakery adverts, this time in Daneville Road, SE5, Camberwell. It's just occurred to me that, going back to my childhood, I have absolutely no memory of Daren bread yet these painted adverts have been up all that time.

As ever, you try to make out the words. I've no idea about the text above DAREN. And almost invariably, you find deciphering the words is made harder by different layers. So this is all I can make out:

DAREN

THE BEST BROWN BREAD

Made from......

DA MENTAL VAPORZ

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And here's one in Bermondsey, as you might have guessed. (It's in Tanner Street, SE1)

The left-hand side of the frontage has long-since disappeared. Was it IRON & WIRE WORKS? ...CKLE & Co.?

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And a curiosity: something that was once internal but is now external, made with some fairly hefty metalwork.

My first thoughts were that it was an oven within a now-disappeared building. But the three partitions above the iron doors, what were they for? And to add to my perplexity, the upper part doesn't appear to join up with the chimney. So maybe it's not an oven after all. I couldn't see a street name and have forgotten the name of the adjacent street. But it's on a dog-leg dead-end street off Arthur Street. There's no name marked on google maps and as it's a bit off-road, there's no street view. This is the closest I could get from street view - the air-extractor to the left is visible here

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Here's two side-by-side window bays in Barnham Street, SE1. I can't decipher the one on the left and the one on the right appears to say J ROOM - but suspect there may be two layers.

I was right about that saddle though...

2010-08-13T17:50:00.004+01:00

Many thanks to Bunneh for posting this up. It's an old Yellow Pages advert that I'd never seen before, in which a northern lad is dreaming about getting a racing bike. His dad is talking down his expectations - about that kind of bike without proper mudguards and chainguard and with a razor-sharp saddle. ''Mebbe next year, eh...'' And then, come his birthday...yes you've guessed it....

(For some reason - it worked when I tested it but it hasn't embedded - here's the address anyway.)

But the main reason why I liked the clip was because when the lad sets off up the hill, I suddenly realised that I knew this ''northern'' street.

Because it's Maidenstone Hill, all the way north in London, SE10 - a street which I ought to recognise because my very first ever girlfriend lived at the top of that hill.

I couldn't take a photo from the first floor, but this is how it looks from the street - note the corner shop in the ad was once a corner shop but hasn't been one for over 30 years - they've just dressed up the outside

So down the hill I cycled, got back to a computer to see how they compared. So I started the youtube video again and went ''hang on a minute..." because if was only after coasting back to Deptford that I realised the opening shot was also up that hill. But there was no way Google Streetview could have that image on streetview because it's not a road. Right, off up Point Hill for the second time. Here's the opening shot:

And here's the view from the path.

(I was going to take a closer picture but there was a woman with a child at one of the windows and I thought I might get taken for a snooper.)

Greenwich, bikes, nostalgia...right up my street.

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Talking of Greenwich, bikes and nostalgia, here's a curiosity about Witcomb's cycles in Deptford (now gone)...the presenter fails to cycle up Hyde Vale and remounts up by the drinking trough.

The video's here

Rights of passage.

2010-08-10T17:59:00.001+01:00

This is simply to add to Deptford Dame's blog post about a very dangerous junction. I've seen a number of near misses and come across scary accounts from cycling forums. I've even seen a copy of an email from TfL which appears to explain why this dangerous junction exists:

''We have considered changes to signal timings but we found this to be detrimental to overall junction capacity''

Actually, this statement is a little misleading - it reads like they're talking about considering making a change, whereas in fact it's really a question of changing back, because they've already changed it from a three-phase traffic light to a two-phase one. And they're not going to change back because it would be detrimental to overall junction capacity.

I could always approach this from a cyclist's point of view but, you know us cyclists, we're always moaning and jumping red-lights and knocking down old ladies in Westminster. Well perhaps the reason why it's not worth arguing from a cyclist's perspective because traffic engineers have a very limited understanding of cycling.

So let's look at how it is for cars, vans, people-carriers - they might understand the problem better.

This is the junction:

To the right there are two vehicles stopped, the people-carrier waiting to go straight on, the van waiting to turn left. They are on a green light so both waiting vehicles should have priority over oncoming traffic because technically the oncoming traffic is crossing a lane of traffic. But a car has started to turn right in front of them and claimed priority. Behind the turning car in the middle of the picture, back at the traffic island there are two cars and a van approaching. But there's a bit of a gap - the van can go safely after the car has passed...

So the van has now gone yet the people-carrier driver hasn't made much progress because the 2 cars and a van have advanced and claimed their apparent right to the road by driving across his path.

Right, there's now no oncoming traffic, maybe it's safe to cross now....well, almost. From where the driver got stopped there is no way of knowing whether it's either legal or safe to cross because there are no traffic lights visible from where he got stopped. Would you drive across the A2 without knowing what the lights were doing?

In the face of a stream of traffic turning across your path when you want to turn up the hill you may want to drive on the other side of the road. Illegal but possibly the safest option.

Here's a rarity - I've only ever seen it happen once. A particularly vigilant driver has seen and waited for the car to emerge from Deal's Gateway and pass on towards Greenwich. Tip: if you want to see this happen again, you might want to bring a chair, some sandwiches and a Thermos along with you.

Ok, I give in, here's a cyclist after all....he got across alive but not without having to swerve onto the wrong side of the road to avoid the white van seen passing out of shot on the left.

I thought it might be a good idea to see whether the residents of Deal's Gateway, who must repeatedly have to face this situation, so I wrote. No reply. Today I spoke to Gareth, the Estate Manager for Deal's Gateway, and he obligingly came out and had a look with me, seemed sympathetic and understanding of the problem but ....

Tomorrow then, if I get the time, I'll see whether it's possible to drag some police/wardens on bikes out to have a look at it.

EDIT: due a spot of confusion on my part I mistakenly demoted Gareth - I've corrected the error. Congratulations on getting your old job back. Gareth also asked if I would remove part of the text which I have also done....

Famous last words....

2010-08-04T10:38:00.001+01:00

Two weeks ago, while returning over Tower Bridge after a spot of two-wheeled exploring, I noticed that there was a lot of mudlarkery going on on the shore of the Thames below the Tower.

I wrote at the time:

Surprising that it's possible to dig up artefacts at such a shallow depth in the heart of London. I would have thought that they'd all have been whisked away many years ago.

And what do I see this morning? A story on the BBC website about a rare find:

A linked article from the East London Advertiser confirms that this mediaeval roof finial was found on that very shore by a mudlark. Experts at the Museum of London believe that the finial, which would have adorned the ridges of roof tiles around the 12th or 13th Century, was made near Woolwich.

I like the thought that back in the middle ages Woolwich was producing articles that adorned the roofs of the city. Sceptics, though, might see it as a forerunner of the garden gnome....

Cavendish's cussed kissing culminates on the Champs...

2010-07-25T17:38:00.001+01:00

You have to feel a little sorry for the podium girls. Cavendish finishes off first in the final sprint on the Champs-Élysées and the podium girls have obviously done a little bit of research. ''T'inquiètes pas, l'Anglais, il en fait trois...'' But a fat lot of good that did them! Having established a bises times threes precedent in previous victories, up he goes and with the Arc de Triomphe in the background and the end of one of France's biggest showcases and cycling's most epic race, the world looks on as she goes....

''Un, deux...QUOI?''

And there she is stranded, still offering her right cheek while Cavendish has already moved on... And don't ask me what he's doing to that trophy!

Around 2-and-a-half miles from home...

2010-07-23T20:07:00.000+01:00

These radial routes take me in all directions. Monday I was by Tower Bridge, where there was a lot of diggery-pokery going on and the shore beneath the Tower of London. Surprising that it's possible to dig up artefacts at such a shallow depth in the heart of London. I would have thought that they'd all have been whisked away many years ago.

Wednesday I was over by the Excell centre where this fairly well-known faded sign is (Junction of Boxley Street/North Woolwich Road). I wonder whether the old telephone exchange was ALBany or ALBion.

And today I was completely in the opposite direction near Horniman's Museum. I was quite impressed to see a road sign for an 18% incline - I didn't know gradients got that big in South East London. But I resisted to urge to take a picture because I was already at the top of the hill and downhill at 18% represents no challenge. I'm going to have to come at it from the other side. (There was no way if I'd gone down that I'd have managed to turn around and go back up again.) Still, down the west side of the hill I passed this sign that I've been meaning to snap. It doesn't really need much information because it tells you pretty much where and what it is...

Does the fact that it's no longer a Post Office make it a post-Post Office?

The Old Dog and Bell.

2010-07-17T15:18:00.002+01:00

I went out for a rare evening drink last night to the Dog and Bell, where I met up for a drink with an old schoolfriend, Ian Powling. I knew he was going to bring some photos but I hadn't been expecting to see so many photos of the pub as it was back in 1984. In the days before Charlie and Eileen, previous owners had allowed Ian to film a scene for a short (award-winning) film called ''Just Looking'' in there. It's quite odd to see the pub as it was 25 years ago., though it's good to see that London Pride, with an earlier logo on the hand pump, was already being served. Behind the bar, there are Scampi Fries, a smoking-paraphernalia cabinet on the wall and their generous selection of whiskies is already in evidence.

Looking from the bar to the door, where now stands an indoor-porch kind of arrangement, there was a simple curtain .

That curtain and rail is behind the seated drinker facing the camera. And behind where the man is standing is where the steps and entrance to the side bar now stands.

More Bog and Del than Dog and Bell, this is the view looking the other way from the bar. The bar curved round - it's now a wall with a corridor and on the far wall is the door leading to the ladies(?) toilets.

Looking directly away from the bar, where a small table now stands, is the end of a bench seat which stretched right up to the curtain-rail by the entrance (see 2 pictures above.)

I'm going to have to go back and do some ''as it is now'' photos to help comparison. Though, as I think I appear as a much younger marmoset in one of the photos linked below, I'm not going to do a then and now of myself.

There are more photos of the pub here

(Pictures copyrighted to Ian Powling.)

Get here by DLR....how, exactly?

2010-07-15T21:31:00.001+01:00

A Time Out Guide to Greenwich & Docklands by DLR 2010 landed on my doormat this morning. I was surprised to see the picture on page 6.

Greenwich, cyclist, bike with the caption ''Get here by DLR.'' But the DLR doesn't allow bikes on their trains. So how can the pictured person get there by DLR?

Exceptionally, because of a triathlon event being held at the Excel centre, they will be running a train service for competitors from Bank to Excel and bikes will be allowed on board special trains on 4 and 5 August. But, unless you want to cycle from the Excel centre - further away than the towers on the horizon - you're going to have to get here not by DLR but by bike.

Faire les bises

2010-07-13T21:00:00.002+01:00

I guess it's probably because I'm half-Swiss and I've spent a fair while in France that I appreciate the confusion that cross-border kissing can cause. The Swiss rule is a triple peck, the most common French rule is a double peck, though in some rural areas it can stretch to four. And most English people just do a single peck. Because I'm very familiar with that moment of feeling a little lost, I've been enjoying the embarrassment that Tour de France cyclist Andy Schleck has managed to cause whenever he gets the maillot jaune. That's twice now that he's managed to confuse a podium girl by insisting on his Luxembourgeois right to treble pucker. In the screengrab below she's just realised that she can't just stop at two and hand over the stuffed lion. He's waiting to close the deal.

I now want him to win a few more yellow jerseys out of simple curiosity about how long this cross-border comedy of manners will go on for before the message finally gets through.

UPDATE after Stage 11: Kissing chaos continues. For a start, the Manxman Cavendish won the finishing sprint and gained the green jersey. He gets up on the podium and kisses the two girls in threes - and they seem to be ready for three - and then afterwards he repeats the triples with the 2 dignitaries to the side of the podium. Then comes Schleck again, having retained the yellow. The first girl imposes a 2-cheek limit and he then turns to the stuffed lion lady and he reasserts his treble. He then wanders off to shake hands with the male dignitaries and faire les bises with the 2 women. The first woman, perhaps preconditioned by Cavendish offers her left cheek, then her right cheek, then her left cheek for the finale...only to be left hanging because Schleck has gone straight on to the 2nd woman. The first woman, an ex-French time trialler, looked a little discombobulated.

Do not allow your fowl to dog this area

2010-07-10T19:12:00.000+01:00

I think I ought to start a series of ''Do not...'' photos. There are thousands of them around and making them is apparently easier than spelling four-letter words. In fact, I've half a mind to put a few up myself after the recent spate of unnecessary do-nottery on the Crossfields estate. I wonder how long it will take before the caretakers rip them down

-0-

Oh, and here's a photo of the Hygienic Bakers on Inchmery Road, Catford, SE4.

Just off Dog Kennel Hill there are a few streets with rather attractive street lamps. One street in particular, Marsden Road, SE15, has added a little detail to the curved form of the lights.

Disintegrated Transport Planning (2)

2010-07-05T22:59:00.000+01:00

Ok, it's time to correct my first post on the Greenwich pedestrianisation plans.

I have to admit to having been misled by the consultation document. Where the key to the page 2 diagram indicates ''Pedestrian area, resident and business access only'' it turns out that GBC just bunged an old inaccurate and out-of-date map into the consultation.

Apparently the light brown area is wrong and the key to the dark brown area is also wrong. But hey, they had a map of some sort - even if they know it's wrong it'll be fine for a consultation, won't it? Just bung any old rubbish in, that's good enough for the public!

Being a simple person, I understood the ''only'' in 'resident and business access only'' to mean ''only''' and then spent a good time calculating distances according to that. Time wasted.

But I've been assured that the map is wrong and cyclists will be allowed to use the pedestrianised area. I only have one person's word for it, mind. My maps showing east-to-west routes are now inaccurate because cyclists will apparently be able to now cycle through rather than around the area, albeit ceding right of way to pedestrians.

However, while bike commuters travelling up to town won't have a significantly longer journey, all cycle routes from south-to-north (Greenwich Foot Tunnel) except via Greenwich Park will be longer. This also includes journeys from New Cross to the foot tunnel. Here's a current-proposed journey from Blackheath Hill/Greenwich South Street to the foot tunnel.

That's an extra 0.17 of a mile comparing the shortest current route (in blue) and the shortest possible proposed route (in green). The total length of the pedestrianised area is 0.16.

Coming down from Hyde Vale....

Longer again. Sure, it's not a lot longer but each time the added length is caused by the proposed one way section between Greenwich South Street to Greenwich Church Street. A cycle contraflow on this section would cure this.

The same goes for cyclists coming from Ditch Alley (the link from Lewisham below Wickes to Egerton Drive) and from New Cross or Deptford Broadway or Brockley or.....

You get the picture: longer journeys for cyclists.

Why? Because this project has started with a simple desire to pedestrianise a small area without considering cyclists. They produced their original consultation maps that didn't show cycle routes. Cyclists complained. They've half accommodated cyclists in the 2nd proposal, curing the problem caused by ''disappearing'' the Ha'penny Hatch/Norman Road omission. But even after having made concessions to cyclists, they still produce an incorrect consultation document and longer routes for cyclists.

If we imagined beginning the process again, we could start with a problem: too much motorised traffic. How do we reduce the amount of motorised traffic that makes life so unfriendly to pedestrians? Displace the traffic or encourage alternative means of transport?

I'm obviously in favour of the alternative means of transport option. But no, they've come up with an option that displaces traffic from Greenwich to... er, Greenwich, forgets completely about getting people out of cars and into public transport or onto bikes, and increases journey distances for cyclists.

In my first post about Disintegrated Transport Planning, Jed wrote about the problems that would be caused for buses, and I'm the first to admit I'm the last person to catch a bus so I haven't begun to consider them yet. But the problems for the buses have been created for exactly the same reasons that they've been created for cyclists. Start with pedestrians versus traffic and forget about what reduces traffic.

Join it all up, for heaven's sake!

Faded Catford

2010-07-05T07:42:00.001+01:00

My impossible ''ride every road'' project took me down to Catford last week. As a teenager I used to have a fair number of friends who lived in this part of the world but they're long gone and, given that part of Catford's raison d'être is that its roads don't go anywhere, I haven't really been down that way for decades. So freewheeling down Sandhurst Road I was pleased to find this pretty well-preserved Butcher's sign above the corner grocery-cum-off licence at the junction of Muirkirk Road.

R C EVANS

FAMILY

BUTCHER

PURVEYOR OF

ENGLISH

7 SCOTCH

MEAT

Finest Quality

LOWEST PRICES

A little further down the road, at the junction of Inchmery Road, there's this one. With several layers and highly faded, it's little more than the vague memory of a Chemist's sign.and I can't decipher anything but individual words.

I was also pleased to have spotted this one opposite when I arrived at the junction from a different direction. Not instantly visible, the main clue is the advertising hoarding above - sites for advertising often stay as sites for a long time. SWAN LAUNDRY.

My feeling of self-satisfaction at spotting such an unobtrusive feature was short-lived. Checking back on Google map's ''street view,'' I discovered that I appear to have ridden straight past this rather more obvious one....

I think I'll have to revisit the street to see what lies behind that young tree. It appears to be:

WARNER BROS

HYGIENIC BAKERY

with

HOVIS on the back wall.

Welling coiffeur...?

2010-07-01T21:04:00.002+01:00

For a moment, when I caught this wall painting in the corner of my eye, I thought I was in France. But no, it's definitely Welling High Street, which, although I suppose it could be seen as being on the French side of Shooters Hill, is rarely thought of as having any French connection. Below the name Thibault you can make out the word Hairdressing. Though the shop's since changed use it's not forgotten its roots. Now the Barber Shop Café, the red and white striped pole remains above the shop front.

Disintegrated Transport Planning

2010-06-27T11:46:00.002+01:00

It starts with the desire to pedestrianise part of the Greenwich Town Centre.

Fair enough, you might say: there's too much traffic jamming up the one-way system and generally making the town centre unfriendly to pedestrians, motorists and cyclists alike. Below is the bit Greenwich council wants to pedestrianise. It looks a pretty modest proposal: 0.16 miles (232 metres), of existing road given over to pedestrians. On the online consultation document this area is marked as ''Pedestrian area, residents and business access only,'' so cycling is not permitted.

But there's too much motorised traffic - where can it all go? I know, a gyratory system! Instead of a one-way system in central Greenwich that takes 0.28 miles (448 metres) to go round, they come up with a 2-lane gyratory one-way system which is 1.1 miles (1,774 metres) to get round.

In fact, for the first consultation exercise back in December 2009 there were a number of different proposals, such as keeping parts of it 2 way for buses, or putting in a cycle contraflow along Greenwich High Road. The aim of these hybrid plans was to undo some of the damage done to bus routes or to cycle routes.

I should perhaps say ''purported aim'' because the consultation document used out of date maps that actually removed all evidence of a well-used cycle and pedestrian route into Greenwich from Deptford in the east, namely, the Ha'penny Hatch. (The new amended consultation plan, detail below, still doesn't show the route. The Hatch bridges Deptford Creek between the two sets of railways where they split on the left.)

Where there's a box marked 4 on the map, the original proposal was to have a 2-lane one-way entrance into Norman Road by the North Pole pub, and all evidence of a cycle route had been removed. This proposal would have prevented cyclists getting from the Hatch to Greenwich High Road without first being sent north, i.e. completely the wrong direction. In addition, the proposal would have meant trying to force 2 lanes of right-turning traffic between these 2 buildings.

My own feeling when I saw this was that the mouth of Norman Road was not wide enough to allow 2 lanes of traffic into it and that, as it would have to be one lane, there would therefore be room to put a cycle lane. (Note that the lights have had to be set back on Norman Road because it's already too narrow for LGVs to turn into it.) I suggested this and was told a by a consultant that a cycle lane couldn't be done. Luckily, other people must have also raised this problem in the consultation, and they've since looked at the map and decided that it could be done. The green arrows on the amended consultation document indicate a cycle contra-flow, albeit on the wrong side of the road.

But much of that is a a very localised bit of history and unimportant in the grand gyratory scheme of things. Let's get back to the overall view. If we accept that life is unpleasant for pedestrians in central Greenwich, we're going to have to also accept that there are simply too many vehicles passing through Greenwich. One way of fixing this is to push traffic out of the way, displacing the problem. Another way is to encourage more people to use smaller, more fit-for-purpose means of transport. Which is where, ding ding, the bicycle comes in!

More people on bikes means fewer motorised vehicles on the streets. Sure, they have a slower top speed, but they're smaller, greener, and more flexible than motorised vehicles so that they can often be faster in busy urban environments.

Increasingly, there are more people getting on their bikes for the daily commute or for pleasure and exercise. On a good day, the commute, pleasure and exercise come together all in one. So let's look at these biking commuters - how do they get round Greenwich? And how would the proposed road changes affect their daily journey?

-0-

For the biking commuter heading into town from East Greenwich, Charlton, Woolwich - present in blue, shortest proposed route in red. Route from Trafalgar Road to Creek Road Bridge.

Blue route 633 metres, red route 821 metres. Impact on cyclists: longer journey. Incentive to choose cycling: zero.

-0-

For the cyclist heading to Docklands via the Greenwich Foot Tunnel from Blackheath, Eltham, etc. Present route, blue. Shortest proposed route in red. Park gates to tunnel.

Blue route 570 metres. Red route 1,349 metres. Impact on cyclists: journey length doubled. Incentive to choose cycling: zero.

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For the cyclist heading to Docklands from Lewisham. South Street/Circus Street to Foot tunnel

Blue: current route (776 metres). Shortest route under proposals in red (1,564 metres). Impact on cyclists: an incredible doubling of distance. Incentive to choose cycling: zero.

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And for me, heading toward the Coop/Somerfields to do a bit of shopping from Deptford. Ha'penny Hatch to Shop.

Blue route: 755 metres. Shortest possible proposed route:1,122 metres. Impact on cyclist: 67% longer journey. This additional distance will also affect all cyclists heading from the A2 at Deptford Bridge. Incentive to choose cycling: zero.

----0----

In fact, no cycling route is improved and many are made more lengthy. The plans will further inconvenience cyclists and it can only act as a deterrent for new cyclists to get out of their tin boxes and go smaller and greener. Deterring cycling is the last thing we need to alleviate the problem. Producing consultation maps that do not show current cycle facilities is also deeply misleading because it hides the true picture from the public.

And all for what? 232 metres of pedestrianisation. The plans are an object lesson in how not to design an integrated transport system. I will be making this point to TfL, cycling organisations such as CTC and, of course, to Greenwich Council to make very clear my opposition to this scheme. If the solution to too much traffic is making journeys longer for alternative transport then clearly they haven't understood a single thing.

Here's one for palimpsest decryptologists...

2010-06-24T12:24:00.000+01:00

I've been past this one a few times but each time I didn't have a camera on me. It's on Hither Green Lane, SE13, opposite Beacon Road.

There's evidence of 2, maybe 3 layers.

What I can make out from the off licence part with the white background is:

FOX & SONS

BEERS

ALES STOUT

IN BOTTLE AND CASK

The word WINES also appears over, or under, ALES and STOUT.

Between the top line and ALES STOUT there's BEER, which obscures a word that ends .....NBOROUGH. Farnborough? And from another layer there's also the word AGENT written diagonally in the top left corner. And to add to the confusion, there's an E which extends beyond the top-right white background.

I really have no idea...

Signs and drain forests.

2010-06-22T18:04:00.000+01:00

This old shop front should probably be one for Sébastien Ardouin's excellent blog, Painted signs and mosaics because it's more ceramics than faded sign. I've no idea whether it was an old general stores or something more specialised. It's nice to see that it's in pretty good condition. Wastdale Road, just off the Stansted Road, Forest Hill.

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After too long off the bike, I couldn't stay indoors when the weather's this good. In addition to cycling around looking at walls, you also have to pay attention to the road every now and then. Which is how I managed to avoid running over this drain forest in Vancouver Road, SE23

I find there's something very reassuring about the ways vegetation manages find the most unlikely niches. Here's another one from last year in Greenwich, Lassell Street, SE10

Brazil v North Korea

2010-06-15T20:36:00.000+01:00

I just loved this guy, half time and the score's 0 - 0.

Old faded puzzle.

2010-05-22T18:26:00.003+01:00

This is confusing me. In Lewisham, opposite the clock tower, there's the old RACs building which stood next door to the now-disappeared department store Chiesmans. From the dates engraved on the tower, as well as by the style of architecture, this building was there by 1933.

Now, if you look to the building immediately to the right, there's a faded blue wall poster.

What I don't understand is why is it there? It's not legible from the road and you can't go between the two buildings. This is about as much as you can see:

It's advertising a building society, the ????perance Building Society. (Temperance?) and they had an address in Somewhere Hill, EC4. There's a very faded logo at the top and odd words that are still legible (???? your house).

Clearly, there's no point in putting up a sign where it can't be seen. Two possibilities spring to mind. First, that the advert preceded the Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society building. But this would make the sign 80 years old. Surely paint wouldn't have lasted that well.

Second possibility: the sign was put there deliberately to be seen by RACS customers as they went up and down the stairs, assuming that the stairwells to the upper sales floor ran down to that side of the building. Something in the back of my mind tells me that this is the correct explanation. However, the windows running along that side are small and none too plentiful. Even if the stairs did run up that side of the building, no one would have got a good view.

Does anybody know the answer?

Little hills and a faded sign

2010-05-20T05:09:00.000+01:00

Though London is pretty flat by many cities' standards, there are still some pretty short sharp climbs in south east London to get the muscles working. Covering the southern end of Brockley as part of my radial route routine, I found myself climbing over Blythe Hill from various angles. Though it only reaches a height of about 200 feet a couple of ascents were enough to see me staggering to a park bench at the top, where a passing young woman gave me a wry you-must-be-mad grin. Though, as she must have also walked over the top voluntarily, maybe it was a look of complicit understanding.

Anyhow as I waited for the rest of my thigh muscles to follow the rest of my body up the hill I was treated to the sight of 3 long-tailed tits hovering like humming birds, with their tails pointed vertically downwards, like makeshift airbrakes, around a flowering bush. Just too far away to get a picture of them - besides, they'd flitted off to another part of the park by the time I'd dug my camera out - but here's a view looking south from the top of Blythe Hill. It looks curiously unlondonlike yet it's only a couple of miles from Deptford.

-0-

And then on way back to Deptford I noticed this sign alongside Brockley Road at the end of Whatman Road. I suppose I'd always been watching the traffic whenever I'd passed before.

-0-

Consolations of insomnia. Looking west from my balcony on Crossfields, the Greenwich Novotel turns to gold in the early morning sun.

Camberwell Beauty

2010-05-15T18:49:00.000+01:00

It's funny, the only time I've seen a Camberwell Beauty was in France. This is the nearest I've come to seeing one in London. It's on the side of the public baths in Burgess Park. Is it tempting fate to mention that it almost felt like summer might be on its way today?

Faded Fangs

2010-05-13T17:27:00.001+01:00

If you go by bike you see more of your surroundings than if you were driving. But I was reminded yesterday that if you go by foot and have a wandering eye, you'll see even more. Walking over to Ditch Alley from Egerton Drive, I spotted a wall sign that I must have passed thousands of times. I must also have stopped seeing it at some point, probably way back in the 1960s until it disappeared from my seeing eye under what I'll call the blindness of familiarity. It's on the Blackheath Road end of Egerton Drive on the west side:

A closer look will reveal the words

ARTIFICIAL TEETH

???? 10 till 7

10 till 2 Saturday

I wonder why they'd chosen the word ''artificial'' instead of ''false'' - I suppose it might have been following the expression ''artificial limb.'' After all, we wouldn't dream of calling a prosthesis, say, a fake leg, we'd simply call it an artificial leg.

This faded sign is just 50, 60 yards up Blackheath Road, where the Taylor & Sons sign remains.

-0-

Perhaps some of our road markings could also be classed as faded signs. They certainly can be as fascinating and undecipherable. Here's a landing strip for a Vertical Take Off and Landing Bicycle. It's a bit small so it would require a very skilled bicycle pilot to get both wheels in the box. (Apparently, because it's surrounded by a continuous line it would be illegal to cycle into it.)

Its main function, of course, is simply to accustom drivers to ignore bike lanes and routinely drive over them.

Oh look, there's another one on the other side of the road...perhaps it's a game of hopscotch

Seriously though, I've no idea what the point of them is. And I'd lay odds that drivers won't know either.

-0-

Finally, just because I was passing, here's the Beerseller's Asylum on Nunhead Green. I saw the name on the old Stanford map and the very idea of it has made me smile every since. It's between the Nun's Head and the Pyrotechnic's Arms.

Curiosycles...

2010-05-03T15:44:00.001+01:00

Spotted at Tescos early this bank holiday Monday after a beautifully car-free morning ride (but, my, was it cold!)...

This bike certainly wasn't built for speed, with its big road-hugging motor cycle tyres and its absence of gears, and neither was it built for doing the shopping - no baskets or pannier racks - yet shopping is what its owner appears to have been doing. I particularly like its straight-V handlebars.

Though they have been making odd-looking bikes for quite some time. Here's one with an early suspension system that I have had lying around on my hard drive for a while

The outer rim is sprung, and it would apparently have worked like serial shock absorbers as the wheels went round. I was surprised to see a penny-farthing with drop handlebars.

(I would say where I found this photo but I can't remember apart from the fact that it was in a bike museum somewhere in the Netherlands. Or was it Denmark?)

And when it comes to complicated-looking engineering, how about the bike park at Silkmills? I still haven't quite worked out how this thing works - how do you get your bike onto the upper level? Note that the resident cyclists don't seem to be using the 2nd tier. But it's got to be the most fiendish bike park I've ever seen.

-0-

Just because I happened to be passing with a camera, here's the Ladywell ghost sign. There is a better photo of it on the ghostsigns.co.uk site, taken I believe by Caroline of Caroline's Miscellany. Bolton Corner, where Ladywell Road reached the north end of Rushey Green. Bolton & Co also had a shop on The Pavement, Ladywell. And I don't know where that might be, or have been - presumably down by the station.

More faded London and cycle lanes

2010-04-30T18:20:00.000+01:00

Life has taken me up to Whitechapel a couple of times in the last week. There is a cluster of fascinating buildings around the Royal London Hospital, many of which ended up being swallowed up by the hospital over a very long period. This hospital appears to have had a talent for expanding since very long ago. The brand new all-in-one building to the east has been conceived to capture it and put it all in the same place and must be due to open shortly. But I doubt whether the hospital has it in its genes to stay put for any period of time.

This old wall sign is on one of the buildings incorporated into the hospital and I wonder what it said and how long ago it was painted. My best guess for the text: JUVENILE CLOTHIER, though I can't make out the arched word at the top beyond an H to start with and an S to finish. As for its age, well...very old.

-0-

Down by Limehouse basin there's a very odd cycle lane. They've dispensed with the normal traffic to the left principle, made it one way and put a contra-flow cycle path on the wrong side of the road. I'll now have to go back and try to figure out why they've done it like that. It is confusing - I ended up cycling towards an oncoming cyclist in the same lane. I was correctly on the wrong side of the road, the oncoming cyclist was incorrectly on the right side. So I veered over to the left which in nearly all situations would have been correct but it meant going out head first into oncoming one way traffic.

The important thing with such eccentric road layouts is that they are signed very very clearly. Though how you're supposed to cycle along this path is a bit of a mystery...

Presumably the bins are there for putting broken bikes into

Old signs, new roads

2010-04-21T22:11:00.002+01:00

According to to my mapping program, I've now cycled every road for 146 square miles in the area. This figure must be wildly, no wildly wrong - it's more like having cycled every street in a medium-sized city. The streets I've cycled are marked as a grey area on this map:

The red radii mark the next directions which need exploring on future rides, so that the area ridden expands out from where I begin my rides. The day before yesterday I was wandering around the south-east parts. I even stopped to photograph the old ''Youngs'' bike shop sign that their successors have obligingly left in place.

(It's a bit of nostalgia for me - I've owned 2 Youngs bikes and cycled to the south coast and back many times on a Youngs frame. With a young body, of course.)

Today, though I went via Crofton Park, over the bridge into Nunhead, ''did'' the edge of Peckham Rye, and then north to Bermondsey. I saw one of the Daren Bread signs, but this time it had not been painted onto the wall, it was a, presumably later, affixed sign. Still hanging on just! (This is on the corner of Surrey Road and Inverton Road, Camberwell.)

Later I took in Nunhead Lane and as I had a camera on me I took this one (end of Barset Road).

I got distracted by a young lad from the shop just behind the camera - he was wondering, even after I'd explained to him, why I was taking photos of a street road sign. Eventually he admitted that he'd never noticed it. I wonder how many times he's looked out of the shop window at it without seeing it.

-0-

As you descend from Nunhead into Peckham, it's very noticeable how the standard of driving deteriorates. Instead of getting safely and efficiently from A to B, the rules seem to change into an obligation to perform manoeuvres in the wrong place - three point turns at a junction, for example, whilst talking on a mobile phone, or driving onto the roundabout an Asylum Road without slowing or even looking right to see if anyone is already on the roundabout with right of way. While talking on a mobile phone, obviously. Never has a pub been better named:

It's a good job I learned about getting around in Peckham with the armour protection of a car around me. Cycle on the brakes...

-0-

A couple of minor observations about cycling every road. First, you'd expect that roads were about getting places. And they are but only in part. Virtually every newer development follows the dead-end principle. It's a maze of roads that don't go anywhere - the aim is for quiet, therefore no through traffic, and for somewhere to park the car. I've done an uncounted number of U-turns.

Even where there was originally a fairly square grid road pattern, council building projects in a place like Peckham have also blocked off hundreds of roads. Which could be ok for bikes in theory but isn't because the bike gets blocked off too, denied access because the bike counts as traffic.

The rule seems to be: EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE ABLE TO PARK NEXT TO THEIR HOUSE BUT THEY DON'T WANT CARS GOING PAST. The ultimate aspiration is therefore, logically and in practice, dead-end.

Secondly, people see a bike and automatically think the rider is a local. So they ask you where number 39 is. And you have to say, ''I've never been here before.'' Conversely, people think you're lost when they see you pootling up a cul de sac and give you directions. It's simply too complicated to explain that you don't know this road, in fact that's why you're there!

Bits of faded London and Preachers

2010-04-05T20:05:00.005+01:00

It wouldn't be Easter without going out for a little ride, so I wandered off for a turn around Danson Park today. On the way there, I spotted this on Lee High Road....WITALLS Motor Agents. I've no recollection of ever seeing it before, but my newly-developed habit of keeping an eye out for them while cycling seems to catch a few of them. And, as part of my cycle every road routine, I popped up into some of the side roads along there. It was uphill, and my hill technique can be summarised in this basic principle: keep it slow. And keeping it slow gives you less to worry about what's up ahead and lots more time to look around for things to stop and take a photo. But this retake of the omnipresent NO BALL GAMES sign made me smile.

And on the way back I managed to combine ball games and a wall advert. Yes it's Welling United, a team I never knew existed until this afternoon.

As the ground's sign shows, it's Park View Road, Welling. The advert isn't actually painted, it's in the plasterwork. Anyhow, whether you want to get alabastered or plastered, the building is now an Off Licence.

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As if we haven't heard enough about the church just recently, a friend told me that someone who played a notorious part in New Cross history, Gilbert Deya, nay, self-declared Archbishop Gilbert Deya, was still going through appeals and has not yet been deported. You may remember a story about kidnapped babies from a few years ago. The BBC's article will give the background. But I prefer to think the reason he's so reluctant to leave this country is because it's a rock....

And, while I'm on the church theme, has there ever been a stranger place for, or a denser combination of ministries, than at the end of Brookmill Road, SE8? I've-seen-the-light industrial units.

Next to Rhema Chapel (2 units) there is the Grace Christian Centre

And next to the Grace Christian Centre there is Winners House of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. And verily, they went forth and multiplied. There's also the Spirit and Live Bible Church and the Victory Life Bible Church just further along. Looking completely out of place, these last two are separated by DMC Kitchen Installers.

So that new kitchen must be fulfilling some kind of spiritual need, just like you always suspected.

(logo by SE8 signs)

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In case all this seems a little anti-evangelical, here's an article from the Times about the Vienna Boys Choir, penned by what must be one of the most appropriately-named journalists ever.

Portrait of an ASL

2010-03-23T10:09:00.000Z

Looking at the Woolwich Road junction with the Blackwall tunnel approach overpass on google street view the other day, I was reminded of a cyclist who was killed at this junction almost a year ago. This is what I saw:

The thing partially obscured under the silver car is a bike lane, the thing under the white van and blue car is an ASL (an Advanced Stop Line, for the use of cycles, and cycles only). I don't know what date this view was recorded but it's before the fatality.

So what have the highway people done in the year since Adrianna's death to improve cycle safety? I went along to see this weekend.

Have they made the cycle lane any clearer? No. Have they made the ASL more visible? From the evidence of this picture, no. All that they have done is to put up a ''cycle route ahead'' warning sign.

And how is the ASL line faring?

Well, it's not too clear is it! The lorry, by the way, is not committing any offence because it was already there when the lights changed. This, however, is the next step:

The blue car rolls up beyond the stop line with the lights still on red, perhaps taking its cue from the lorry already in the ASL and edging forward to get a better view of traffic approaching from the right. Or perhaps it's so the car can get away from the lights in front of the lorry (both are heading for Greenwich). Or perhaps because of inattention, deliberate disregard or ignorance. Or any combination of these.

In the space of a few minutes I watched how traffic approached the ASL. I ended up with so many pictures of infringements that it would take too long for me to upload all the photos. So, just a handful.

The did not see/did not know driver - note it's a left-hand drive vehicle so if you spot a beer can, it's actually in the passenger's hand not the driver's.

The follow the leader driver - ''well, he was there first:''

The ''I really can't be doing with these stop lines'' drivers:

And finally the ''I'm having my lunch not wearing a seatbelt with kids in the back (unbelted)'' driver:

I think a picture is emerging...

Maps and hills.

2010-03-22T16:54:00.000Z

Following on from the last post about maps where I mentioned Quo V2, I just wondered which hill was the best to take from Greenwich up to the A2 (avoiding Blackheath Hill because it can get very unpleasant on a bike. So I plotted 4 routes up onto the heath using Quo and then looked at their profiles.

Starting with the shortest route, Point Hill - this is also the steepest. This route appears furthest to the left.

Then comes Hyde Vale, it's quite a bit longer but it's pleasant. When you get to the vale at the top, there are birds to accompany you. Watch out for Green Woodpeckers!

Moving right, the third to appear is Crooms Hill. It's a little longer, but pretty steep by the church. It's a little tight near the bottom because of parked cars but at least you have the park at your side.

Finally there's Greenwich Park. This is the climb with the smoothest ascent and the smoothest road surface. And it's the smoothest, fastest descent - apart from weekends when the weather's good, when you'll be slaloming stray dogs, runners and oblivious strollers.

As I rarely take the same route twice in a row, I end up taking different ones, but the two I climb most often are Hyde Vale (maybe because I lost my virginity behind one of the trees) and Greenwich Park. Down, however, I'll nearly always take Greenwich Park - except on sunny weekends.

Maps and stuff

2010-03-16T14:46:00.001Z

I seem to have a growing fascination for maps. Not just old ones but even new ones. And when setting out of a shortish ride I will often look for route suggestions on some of the free online route planners. And once I've got an idea about the lie of the land, I then choose which way to go - because great though these tools are, they never go exactly the way I want to.

A regular favourite is cyclestreets.net. Though it will only plan journeys up to 25 miles (or is it kilometres?) part of its charm is that it will find you three routes. On the traffic-light plan, there's a Red route (fastest), an Amber route (''balanced'') and a Green route (quietest). In addition, it will ask you what speed you will cycle at and then give you the time it will take for the outward journey, and if you reverse the journey, it will calculate a revised time, based on a cycling version of the walkers Naismith Rule. Finally, it will give you an elevation profile so that you get an idea about which bits are uphill and which are downhill.

And example: I want to go from the Creekside Centre in Creekside, SE8 to the café at the top of the hill in Greenwich Park. So I go to their journey planner and type in Creekside. This gives you a green marker for your start point

Now for the finish point. Because I don't have a name for the destination, I simply click on the map in the desired place and this places the marker on that point.

So now I have a start point and an end point. You can put the start time for your journey if you like, but you'll have to choose your speed. Quick, cruising or unhurried. Being only moderately enthusiastic, I will choose cruising speed. Then click Plan this journey and give the program a couple of moments to calculate a route or three. And this is what you end up with: the three colour-coded routes, plus an elevation profile giving the height (this view is the top of the Amber route - there are slightly different times and profiles for the other two routes.) So, it's going to take me 12 minutes to do the 1 1/4 miles. Below this screen image there are step-by-step map details:

How about the journey back? Under the red ''Link with Creekside, NCN'' text, there's a return button. This will calculate the journey back to the Creekside centre.

And, as expected, fuelled up with caffeine, the journey back will take me just 6 mins 27 seconds.

If you have GPS devices you can export the routes them and also to programs like Google Earth. It's free and uses open source maps and is uncluttered by adverts.

However, great though this is, there's a rider: I wouldn't take any of these routes. I'd zoom down to the bottom gate in the park, coast down King William Walk and then navigate the one-way system in Greenwich taking care not to knock tourists over who have a habit of wandering along in the middle of the street. And the quickest route directs the cyclist through the Greenwich Industrial Estate (between Norman Road and the access road to the DLR station). This route though, is now shut off to the public - the estate is no longer industrious.

(Also cyclestreets.net have a photomap where you can upload pictures: these can be related to nasty holes in the ground, cycling facilities, bike repair shops, signs.) Here's one I uploaded as an example of redundant signpost frenzy:

Here, using another program, Quo v2, (free to download but you have to buy the OS maps to go with it - still cheap though) is the route I'd take, out in blue and back in green. But I'll go into Quo in more detail in another post.

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College Road

A murderous week on London's streets

2010-03-13T20:29:00.007Z

Ok, I know, cyclists actually live for longer on average than our more sedentary road users,and that cycling is a safe mode of transport, but think how much longer the cyclist's average life could be.

On 9 March 2010, a cyclist was knocked down by a tipper truck near Weston Street. 21 years old, a fourth year medical student on his way to lectures, this cyclist died instantly as the Keltbray tipper lorry ran over him.

A day later, in Hackney (roundabout, Lauriston Road and Victoria Park Road) a woman in her early 20s was hit by a left-turning tipper lorry, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Of course, the place for apportioning blame for these is the courts. Nevertheless HGVs, with their distant, elevated driving positions, their many blind spots and their drag sweep when turning,mean that lorries and buses are a constant danger for cyclists. So, no matter what the circumstances were, take a look at this poster and think:

If you feel that this poster and or any of the writing above might serve a purpose on your blog please, please, copy what you want and pass it on. I know it's grim to even think about but it is our duty to try and prevent accidents. And if you have a little spare ink in your printer, why not print off a few sheets using the links below...?

2 x A5 PDF
A4 PDF

UPDATE: John, via the comments page has just reminded me of the TfL road safety video here http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/11687.aspx Both the advice to cyclists and the graphics showing LGV blind spots are very illustrative of the dangers.

Cycling grandfather (1)

2010-03-11T19:31:00.004Z

So, a couple of days ago, my daughter phoned me up. Yesterday this arrived on my doorstep:

This little thingummybob is a 58mm Marmoset Minor, or Marmoset III, if you prefer. Early days yet, of course. But if all goes smoothly, I'll be a grandfather in 6 months time. This in fact is his/her very first appearance on a public forum so you'll have to pardon the back-to-the-camera shyness.

How do I feel? I think ''eekstatic'' describes the mixture of panic and joy. But I may turn out to be one of the pioneers of cycling grandfather blogs - fairly unsurprisingly there don't seem to be many at all. Cue puns about the cycle of life....

A little while later....

test

2010-03-10T16:33:00.002Z

Sorry if this ''what does this do?'' experiment has bumped the blog up the listings on some other blogs.

(Very) faded London.

2010-03-01T18:48:00.006Z

I managed to find the marker of the old boundary between Kent and Surrey the other day in Plough Street. Though it's not the original marker, it serves as a reminder how boundaries shift over time. Today, estate agents consider the St Pauls part of Deptford as Greenwich and, in a previous post I noted how what was once Deptford Common and Deptford Cemetery are now Brockley, and on another front, the big blue sign greeting travellers when they get to Deptford Bridge reads ''Welcome to Lewisham.'' And what was once known as Hatcham now only persists in street and building names but no longer as a district. In fact, I don't know where the boundaries of Hatcham used to be before they got swallowed up by New Cross. Anyhow, I managed to spot an old, very faded, wall advert above the now-closed corner shop on Camplin Street and Egmont Street. As they're just behind Hatcham Park Road, I'll risk saying that it's in Hatcham.At the bottom, the word BREAD is legible though none of the upper part is still visible. Maybe someone somewhere will know what it once said - or depicted - I get the impression that there are traces of a picture but this is probably a trick of the brickwork lines.

And here's another robin being exceptionally possessive of a Greenwich Park Litter bin. The plucky wee fellow was only about 4 foot away from me but definitely didn't want me coming any closer. Robins have their boundaries too...Our peripatetic cryptologist, CarolineLD, has paid a visit and pointed out the letters DAREN leading diagonally downward - I've reposted a detail, in B&W with a shade more contrast. It looks a little more visible to me that way.

Cycling scapegoats: addendum

2010-02-28T19:26:00.006Z

After my last post about cycling scapegoats, John pointed me in the direction of a recent Evening Standard article. The person behind this anti-cycling ranting in Westminster council is Angela Harvey, chairman of the Built Environment Policy and Scrutiny Committee and of the South Area Forum. She also spoke on yesterday's BBC's Radio 5 Weekend Breakfast programme. (It's a 3 hour programme so skip forward to 1:41:00 for the 5 minute feature.) After her Standard assertion about a rogue cyclo-terrorist:

We're always getting little old ladies who are knocked down and abused by a cyclist, who leave them on the ground as they ride away.

was apparently hit by a Freedom of Information request and found to be red-light jumping reality, she dropped this fantasy and, stressing that she is a cyclist, talked about towpath prams:

...cyclists are rushing through and we may end up with a pram in the canal. That's what we're very worried about.

I'm not quite sure how giving Council officers powers to issue fixed penalty notices to cyclists for road traffic offences can have anything to do with Regent's Canal racers. Last time I looked, canals weren't on a public highway. British Waterways affairs actually have nothing to do with what the residents have talked about. And the reason cyclists use the towpaths is because they want somewhere quiet, flat, red-light free to commute and exercise on. Because the roads are jammed up with traffic. Towpath use - responsible towpath use - is actually relieving the strain on Westminster's roads and they aren't thinking of improving cycle provision apart from the City Hall inspired cycle hire initiative*. Each cyclist on the towpath is one fewer on the road. And each cyclist on the road is taking up far less room than the alternative modes of transport.

So, because Angela Harvey has a bee in her bonnet about cyclists, they're damned for being on the roads (knocking down old ladies) and for being off the roads (pushing prams into the canal).
If you want to see this Angela Harvey, she was last seen riding roughshod over Westminster Bridge on a red Vendetta.

*For a cheap laugh, the minutes of Westminster's cycle workshop are worth a read. Whereas we only get a cycle hire scheme, they actually get a Cycle High Scheme

Cycling scapegoats

2010-02-23T06:23:00.005Z

Evidently taking its cue from the Daily Mail school of journalism, the BBC's Inside Out (London) broadcast a piece on red-light jumping cyclists in the city last night. As any journalist writing an ''Opinion''* article in the Mail will know, the best way to kick things off is to appeal to prejudices with the all-time classic cycling cliché: the lycra lout. These are the opening words of Matthew Wright's presentation:

''I think we're all familiar with the capital's lycra louts, that breed of cyclist that bombs about the street, flouting the Highway Code, missing pedestrians by a whisker and giving the vast majority of sensible riders a bad name. Well, thanks to pressure from those who've borne the brunt of bad riding, councils and the Met police are starting to clamp down on these two-wheel transgressors....''

Well, so much for challenging stereotypes, eh? The rest of the piece showed lots of cycling clips, many perfectly law-abiding cyclists and the odd dangerous and illegal manoeuvre. And what do you know? None of the transgressors filmed were wearing lycra. That wasn't the point though, was it? I don't know how many hours the film crew spent trying to nail a shot of a lycra wearing cyclist breaking the law or putting pedestrians in danger, but they didn't manage to film a single one doing it. (They did admittedly manage to get one fellow in lycra being pulled for an infraction but missed the actual offence.) But though the film failed to nail any of these two-wheeled lycra lout transgressors, the stereotyping remained unchallenged and, if anything, was reinforced.

Now, I'm not going to defend red-light jumping. But having twice been alarmed yesterday by the sudden acceleration of a car behind me making a dash through a ''London green,'' while I was already slowing for the red light, I will argue for a sense of perspective. Which is more dangerous, a cyclist weighing under 100kg travelling at 15mph or a motor vehicle accelerating through a red light? This is not a particularly difficult question.

What I find most unsettling about this picking on sound-bite scapegoats is that it diverts attention away from the real dangers on the road. Focusing on the cyclist blinds us to where the dangers actually are - and this is why I use the word ''scapegoat.'' Drivers see the hi-viz motes but not the beam in their own eyes.

And as an illustration of that selective blindness, here's a still from the programme. Yes, before a bevy of bobbies, we can all see the cyclist red-light jumping. But unremarked and uncriticised in the programme, what's that behind the cyclist? Oh, they didn't notice the big blue thing in the background. Because they were busy concentrating on cyclists. Perspective, please!
*''Opinion'' here is used by the press to evade censure. ''It's not a reflection of our editorial policy, the views expressed are those of the commissioned author.'' Right, that went well, let's commission another piece....

Deptford Commoners?

2010-02-18T10:16:00.019Z

I find that maps, both old and new, have started to fascinate me - particularly on wet, cold misty mornings. Whilst whiling away the morning hoping that the weather would improve I ended up looking at Wyld's 1872 map of the local area. Looking south of Deptford I was surprised to see that the area to the south of Lewisham Way did not get the name of Brockley but is shown as Deptford Common. Even the Brockley Cemetery is given as two adjoining cemeteries: Deptford and Lewisham. So as Deptford has shrunk, Brockley has spread a little. But because there is a historical precedent, the next time I go to (contemporary) Brockley I shall consider it as Deptford. And Hilly Fields as Deptford Common. In fact I believe that it would be perfectly acceptable to call the next Brockleyite I meet a Deptford Commoner. I wonder how they would react....

edorourke (see comments) has very kindly taken the trouble to put the two map files I originally uploaded together into one file. My previous best attempt was to place the two side by side, but it's much better as one file.

Apologies to any Brockley people for associating the place with Deptford and Common.

Eclipse of the Laban

2010-02-16T18:30:00.009Z

Though I've always had reservations about the perspex-like cladding on the Laban - it reminds me of document folders that Rymans used to sell back in the 80s - there's no doubt that it stands out pretty proudly when viewed from the Ha'penny Hatch.This was how it looked about 6 months ago (summer 09) - the blues still form a link between sky and water. But I took stock of the view again yesterday (Feb 10) and the view has changed dramatically.
Ok, fair enough, it's a greyer, murkier day and it's not taken from exactly the same spot but the Laban's lines no longer reach the sky, instead they hit the grey-green cladding of the Creekside Village behind it. And it's still going up. It's beginning to look like a squat box dominated by the apartments of the ''village,'' and the Laban will get smaller and more insignificant as this goes on.

That's not the reason I had a camera with me on the Hatch: I'd brought it with me to photograph a periscope that some visual comedian has installed just on the Greenwich bank, west of the bridge. There is also a black binliner in an improvised holder attached to a post with cable ties and there were 3 clumps of artificial flowers that had disappeared the previous night. I have visions of a night carouser drunkenly presenting his girlfriend with a Valentine's day bouquet that night who is now walking with a very definite limp...
I tried taking a photo of what you can see through it but as I didn't have my glasses on I didn't notice that the camera's settings had got changed. So all you can see is that light does pass through it and it looks a little like a tunnel
I have absolutely no idea what linked the periscope, the bin plus liner and the plastic flowers - apart, of course, from the people who put them there. Curiously, the last person I bumped into and had a quick chat with on the hatch is called Perry.

Anyhow, here's an old view of the railway bridge and the hatch from an altogether different era

From Chemist to Pharmacy

2010-02-14T12:43:00.005Z

An old sign that I saw yesterday in Nunhead...reminded me that Chemists, or Dispensing Chemists, no longer call themselves Chemists. I'm not quite sure if it happened all at once or slowly over a period of time any self-respecting chemist is now a pharmacist. This sign - on Evelina Road at the top of St Mary's Road, SE15 - Green(-e or -es?) Chemist had been established over 50 years when it was painted. Today it calls itself a Pharmacy. No change in use over the years, but a subtle change in terminology. Perhaps it avoids moments of temporary confusion at dinner parties when a dispensing chemist gets introduced as a chemist and the intellectual guest starts asking questions about the periodic table. Perhaps it simply sounds more formal - the medical profession are a little prone to choosing the most imposing title they can. I had an unresolved kidney problem, but I didn't get referred to a kidney doctor, nor even a renalogist (which I would have understood). No, it had to be a nephrologist - a title very few punters will readily grasp.

The Bakery photo in yesterday's post, became a Duncan's Chemist, now it too is a Pharmacy.
Meanwhile, back to Nunhead. Green's chemist-cum-pharmacy has another sign painted up over its entrance.
The end of ''Nunhead'' is still visible, as is the postcode, SE15, down on the bottom right. It seems to read ''Nunhead nr St....'' and I thought perhaps it could have been the nearby St Mary's. But, because there is an overlay of different writing - for example, the word ''OFFICE'' is legible on the lower level and the ST seems just a little too big, I'm inclined to think it was simply ''ST'' for Street. What appears to be a B at the start of the second line, could quite conceivably be a P - was it once, a Post Office? All in all, the still-discernible letters seem to give an obviously false message:

NUNHEAD NR STABUT
BXOFFICEA SE15

Faded New Cross

2010-02-13T13:45:00.013Z

I seem to have been avoiding New Cross on my wanderings. I think this is mostly because it's so unfriendly to cyclists. But I did notice the other day that there were a lot of faded wall adverts along New Cross Road and the Old Kent Road.

I don't recall ever having noticed this one before:Clutton(?) Swan & Co, Artistic Ticket Writers. It's behind the Amersham Arms in Amersham Road.

Just opposite the Bryant and May safety matches advert in Alpha Road, at the end of Mornington Road, there's another one peering out from under a couple of J C Decaux hoardings:From underneath the competing Telecom adverts the words ''The finest the...'' are visible and the original advert appears to continue upwards almost to the top of the Vodafone boards.

Further on towards Peckham, I noticed that wall adverts seemed to come in pairs of sites, like the Bryant and May/The finest the...'' ones, over the road from each other. Just before New Cross Road changes into the Old Kent Road, there's a fairly recent undertakers sign:
To judge by the Google street view, this is only visible in winter when the trees just in front of it are leafless. And just over the road, there's this one:
''Nestlé Milk, rich in cream.'' And underneath that, are the traces of a previous Bryant and May advert. Maybe there's also a suggestion of a third advert, starting with an ornate outline of the letter R, which starts just before the N of Nestlé and and continues - beyond my deciphering powers until it finishes with an S just after the final letter of Nestlé. ''Redfern's?'' is my best shot, whoever they might have been.

Some of them are even harder to work out. This one, just opposite New Cross Gate station may as well have been written for the Enigma code.I fancy I can make out the words ''Film Cinema'' in the second line down, and also the word ''TOWER'' in large capitals at the bottom. But there again, the word after TOWER appears to say ''scream'' and that makes absolutely no sense at all.

Using the ''now you've stopped to take a photo, look the opposite way'' theory - I can imagine the signwriters also thinking, ''now we've stopped, let's see if they might be interested over the road'' - there's this:Again there's a degree of overpainting and I can barely make anything out apart from ''orders promptly'' down by the graffiti.

Finally, here are a couple of indecipherables:

Greenwich High Road, next to the Prince of Wales Pub, latterly the St Christopher's Inn, super-latterly Belusha's, there's a chemist which was a bakery at one time. The Greenwich Phantom has a photo of an advert for Justice Pies. What I only recently noticed was that up top the word ''bakery'' is still visible. The name though is beyond me.
And down alongisde the Sainsbury's in New Cross, at the corner of Hart's Lane and Hatcham Park Road, there's this. Though the lower word is not legible from the photo, when you're up close, it seems to read ''Corn''. But what words that end in -OUS could the first word be?

COULD CYCLISTS MAKE MIDDLE BRITAIN OBESE?

2010-02-02T20:44:00.004Z

I recently came across a random Daily Mail headline generator. It's from a blog by Chris Applegate which goes under the (obscure for me) title of qwghlm.co.uk. Go on, make your own Daily Mail-o-matic headlines....

(Obviously the title is one of the generated headlines. Cyclists are one of the DM's bogeymen for 2009. Let's see how they get on in 2010... )

Recyled memories

2010-01-31T21:41:00.003Z

Part 1

Caroline's Miscellany has just posted an article about Witcomb Cycles, ex of Tanner's Hill. It got me thinking about them. I remember buying a second hand Witcomb bike from them back in the days. It was white, not particularly light and, surprisingly for a Witcomb bike from Witcomb's it had had the serial number ground off it. When that bike got nicked from outside the Duke, many many years ago, I went back to the shop to sort out the insurance that I'd bought from them at the same time. Ernie was only going to let me use the money to buy another Witcomb bike. Annoyed at feeling like a captive customer I contacted the insurance company and they paid me the money very quickly, very few questions asked.

Looking back it strikes me as being a carousel. Sell 2nd hand bike plus insurance, nick it (or buy it from the thief, no doubt with a deductions for the frame grinding) and then get the bikeless customer to buy another one from them with the insurance money. And once I was out of the shop, they could get back to selling my old bike...

So they've gone and moved to Wales while old Ernie is celebrating his 75th wedding anniversary in Bexley.

Their website is still promising to go online late in 2009, their blog seems to have had most of its photos removed, so the business is clearly not going according to plan. But while I was looking around, I came across this old (early 70s?) short film about them. Made by the Central Office of Information for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as part of a series ''This week in Britain,'' it shows the workshop-cum-shop, the road outside, still open to traffic. At the same time, it give a curious - nostalgic for some - cultural view of the world as it was. Towards the end of this 5 minute film, you see the presenter cycling up Hyde Vale - well, failing and dismounting actually. Their bikes are so good you can't get up onto the heath via the gentlest hill in West Greenwich....

If you've got 5 minutes.....Witcombs

- 0 -

Part 2

Last week, while cycling down on the Woolwich Road, I came across something I'd never seen before. On the site where Stella Chandler, the cyclist killed under the wheels of a HGV at the bottom of Vanbrugh Hill at the end of last year, there was an accident reconstruction under way. A team of officers, equipped with the actual truck, the actual bike, as well as cameras and a theodolite, were painstakingly working their way through how the accident had happened. In fact, as I was coming in the opposite direction, the first thing I saw on the other side of the road was a cyclist almost under the front wheels of a truck.

I slowed, stopped and crossed over the road. There, Stella's sister plus friends and family were watching. I spoke to her sister. Though she didn't give her name, I think it is Eileen. She explained to me that she'd been there for 2 hours already and she was happy to talk at length about Stella. She was 67, a retired careworker who still visited the people she used to care for. Living near the bottom of Maze Hill she found that hill too steep to get up on her journey to Charlton so she took the lower Trafalgar/Woolwich Road to get to Westcombe Hill because it was a gentler way of getting up to her Charlton visit. I mentioned that I had been shocked by the lack of press interest and she told me that the Mercury had run an article on her a couple of weeks ago. I don't have a hard copy of the article, but this is the online version (Mercury)

So, unusual among deaths involving bikes and lorries, Stella was caught under the front wheel of the lorry. And the bike was undamaged, though I can't imagine how it got away from the lorry when the rider was under it.

But that's a strange strange job for the policewoman riding the bike in the reconstruction: getting on a dead woman's bike and manoeuvring it virtually under the wheels of the tons of steel that killed her.

New East Greenwich...

2010-01-21T19:25:00.007Z

....Now not even Old New East Greenwich but Greenwich Peninsular. As part of my ride every road project, I cycled up to the Pilot Inn, a Fullers House, on a little remnant of a road that used to be Ceylon Place, though I doubt it's still called that. Nice to note that it is a bike friendly establishment - though really bike friendly pubs should be up a good hill (work up thirst) so that leaving the pub requires the least amount of effort and the greatest amount of wheeeee....

Ample bike parkingAnd above and just to the left of the door, there is a plaque, giving the date it was built and where it was built....Ceylon Place, New East Greenwich, 1801
It was good of C17 builders to think of putting a return address on the building, in case it ever managed to get lost. Though if you look for it on maps.google.com you won't find it any more. They call it River Way, not that it goes to the river. (Much like Kay Way, the truncated mouth of Straightsmouth in West Greenwich. Shouldn't Ways go somewhere when you could call it River Close - from rue close, which gives us a bit of a clue that it's a dead end for motorised traffic? And, coincidentally, the river is close.

Rather mysteriously, though, it doesn't seem to appear on Wyld's ''A New Topographical Map Of The Country In The Vicinity Of London, Describing All The New Improvements, Metropolitan Boroughs And Parish Boundaries c1872'.'' Nor is New East Greenwich anywhere to be seen. So 71 years after it was built, all that was mapped was a couple of buildings to the east of Over Brickfield.

On the 24th day of Christmas...

2010-01-17T20:23:00.009Z

...the council left a tree...
I've no idea how long the tree in Giffin Square will remain there. About three years ago, it stayed around until late March. Towards the end it began to smell really good - a rich sweet aroma of sap - which became more fragrant as the tree withered more and more. It became a personal symbol of the contempt Lewisham Council shows to Deptford - and also of Deptford's instinct for creating something attractive out of that neglect. But to be fair, this year, they haven't even taken up the Lewisham centre tree either.
I'm going to make an effort to see how long they remain in situ this year.

- 0 -

Ok, I got tempted out on the bike again after 13 days without a ride, by sunshine, mild weather and dry roads. After about 3 miles and a mild hill, I realised that Santa had stolen my muscles, and decided to have a wander around around a radial route - it's part of a project of cycling on every cyclable road around where I live, gradually spiralling outwards. I noticed an old ''faded London'' type wall advert in Brockley that I'd never noticed before.
This one is next to the church car park at the bottom of Wickham Road at the junction with Brockley Road.

And because it always amused me how Lewisham Council's insecurity about its lack of history - because, let's face it, Lewisham is never going to be able to match Deptford or Greenwich - had led it to create its own fake city walls on the roundabout south of the shopping centre:Monumental pretensions....

- 0 -

Back in October I wrote a post about spider flight - taking my cue from a spider's web outside my front door that looked like a propeller. After a while, I started getting Japanese spam on that thread at a rate of one message per morning - and they still keep arriving at around 4am each morning. To that thread only.

Then, this afternoon, I noticed that the same spamming was happening to one post on the Brockley Central blog. Sometimes it comes from the same website and it looks like it comes on a daily basis, though at around 8pm for them. I couldn't think why these two posts had aroused the interest of Japanese spammers when the only thing that I could find that they had in common was a reference to spiders! So, purely out of curiosity, I'm mentioning spiders to see whether it's possible to trap spiders on the web...

Here's some spider writing from just over the road from the Lewisham City Ramparts...

Wintermission

2010-01-13T19:24:00.005Z

After 10 days without getting out on the bike, due to aches and pains and ice/slicks incompatibility, I'd been getting myself ready for a ride. Now that the temperature is getting milder - hell, it's not even freezing now - I thought that this could be the day for a relaunch. So, lying in bed this morning, I found myself actually planning a ride. And then I looked out of the window. Ok, the ice had mostly gone, but this morning's winter instalment was a fresh coating of wet snow. A tougher person than me would have said, ''It's only a bit of slush,'' and would have got the bike down the stairs. And that's fine for tougher people but not for me. So, instead of smoking more and more roll-ups sitting in front of the computer, I resolved to walk to Canary Wharf instead. My (nominal) reason, apart from the obvious ''get out of the house and get some exercise'' one, for going there was to get some Tewkesbury mustard from the Waitrose that's secreted away in their basement. (Mustard is becoming a big motivator this season.)

Apart from the general quietness brought on by the acoustics of snow, Docklands as a whole seemed almost deserted and definitely muted. I imagine hushed conversations along the lines of ''If the bank relocates to Geneva, I'm going to have to take a big hit selling the apartment....'' and such forth. Of course, they're probably all just talking about Premier league fixtures and the Winter skiing trip but, as it seems such a world away from Deptford, I can only try to imagine.

On the way back, I took a detour round Asda (no complaints about their cycle parking - because although Asda do not seem to have a green sign for bikes, the stands are numerous and unmissable). I discovered, in passing, that they also have an ''Extra Special'' brand of Tewkesbury, and couldn't help buying another two jars. From there, I went round Mudchute farm. Some of the Mudchute area is almost rural - it seems both miles away from the financial centres and miles from the pretty urban parkland of Greenwich. You could almost imagine yourself in the (almost) countryside.
And here a llama stands before a cloud-shrouded city skyline with little care for the textiles futures market.Finally, on the way back before the 100 steps of the south lift of the foot tunnel, here's a photo of Trinity Hospital, looking as under-sized and dainty as ever next to the oversized brutishness of the old power station. And it's got itself a white topping for the day.

Winterlude

2010-01-06T14:45:00.008Z

In Greenwich Park today, a squirrel shuffled up to me in the snow, sniffed my boot, and began to climb up my trousers. I ended up brushing him off by the time he got above my knee. I was afraid he might be after my nuts.

One way of looking at it is to say the park squirrels are very tame. Another way of looking at it - probably equally valid - is that they have learned that the humans are very tame.

Anyhow, here's a bin-robbing robin...
And while the fauna's behaving strangely, here's some flora trying something even stranger...
This tree is growing above a first floor window of the Deptford Arms. No idea why. It's a tree of paradise, which somewhat flatters the Deptford Arms. And immediately over the road...

You can get boxes of anything here - but how can you ask for a box of COW FUKU without offending?

Cycling Limited Destruction

2010-01-01T15:15:00.006Z

I have this strange cycling routine: whenever I come back from a ride I take in a new road or two so that I end up having ridden every ridable street for miles around. And then I realise that I haven't been up this cul de sac or that close. Here's one that I came across yesterday in East Greenwich - Peterboat Close, just by the Tunnel Approach Road. Virtually nobody will have cycled up it because nobody would have any reason to. And yet it's precisely up this sort of dead-end street that they're planning cycling destruction. Or at least they were.

Yes, obviously it started life as Summatoruvver Recycling Limited*. But the gate must have started falling apart at one stage and, true to their word, they've recycled the gate itself. The bit that was on the left has been re-welded to the right, with a spare panel thrown in for good measure. So what was the italic writing? What ends with -ial? Special Destruction? Facial Destruction? Racial Destruction? Given the general feel of the area, though, I'm going for Terrestrial Destruction. And, all in all, they've done rather a good job.

--0--

Down by the Thames this afternoon, I saw these waders. I got home, leafed through my AA Best of Britain's Birds (£3 from the remainders shop opposite the picturehouse) and failed to decide which kind of bird it was. To judge by the long, straight two-tone beak, I'd pencil in snipe, but as my ornithological knowledge doesn't even go as deep as these birds, I am therefore going to call it a Lew for the simple reason that it looks a bit like a curlew without the curl.**

*I just did my own research! If you take the last bit of the telephone number and stick it on the front plus an 020 to kick things off, and then google it, you end up discovering that it's Lombard Recycling Limited. It's still Cycling Limited Destruction to me though.

**I've just got round to reading my mail in Yahoo! and there was a reply from someone who knows a lot more about birds than me - they're black-tailed godwits.

''No photos, we're a supermarket''

2009-12-30T20:35:00.006Z

Supermarkets, what are they like? Very often, my choice of supermarket is governed by some small item that I want to buy and then the rest just sort of arrives in the basket. Very often this means mustard. I'm a bit fussy with mustard: the Colmans English has bite but not a well-rounded flavour, Dijon is ok as a standby but I prefer German- or Jewish-style mustard. I once got stopped at Geneva airport because of the tubes of mustard (Swiss mi-fort mustard comes close) in my hand baggage. Apparently, if they'd let me through with the mustard I could have applied it to my body and blown the plane up. Confiscated. But all this is another subject...

Back to supermarkets: Somerfields in Greenwich used to sell German mustard. They stopped. Sainsburys used to do an own-brand German-syle version. They stopped. Tescos in Surrey Quays used to sell a German mustard until a couple of years ago. They stopped. I've all but given up now, though I now tend to cycle to Waitrose in Beckenham just to buy their Tewkesbury mustard, which is usually a 10 mile journey. So I tend to buy 2 jars at a time. (Ok, I could go the the nearer Canary Wharf Waitrose, but that wouldn't be as much fun.)

And sometimes I just stop at any old supermarket on the return leg of a little ride. Just before Christmas I stopped at ASDA at Charlton. Now, there's absolutely no chance of getting decent mustard there - but there are also no hills or stairs before I get to the foot of my incontournable 67 stairs at home. Anyhow, having previously looked around in vain for a proper place to lock the bike and noting that their customers are generally the fattest I have ever seen - I decided to avail myself of the camera I had with me for evidence of their lack of facilities. So I took this one, because although the railing is not meant for bikes, it's all I'd ever seen.And then I set off round the corner where I'd seen a sign for motorbike parking and a very tidy smoking shed but nothing for cyclists. And I took 2 pics of that. However, some ASDroid having a ciggie took exception to me taking photos. He emerged from the shed and informed me that ASDA do not allow photos to be taken of ASDA facilities (OR LACK OF) or of ASDroids. Not being interested in the photo that he could conceivably have been identified in, I deleted it in front of him. I then told him that I was taking photos of ASDA facilities (LACK OF) and that if he wanted me to delete the previous photo he'd have to restrain me and call the police. At this point, he got out his phone out to call the police.

So I said, ''Are you going to restrain me?''
''No,'' was the reply.
''Oh well, I'll be on my way, then.''

And on my way I went. Here's the photo:So, scanning from right to left, there's a Disabled Parking sign with another sign attached ''Strictly no parking....Emergency Vehicles Only.'' Accompanied by strictly parked vehicles. Then there's the smoking shelter. Then there's the motorbike sign. And finally I discovered ASDA's bike facilities: a row of ''wheel benders'' beneath the motorbike sign. Note that they're being used in direct proportion to their utility. No one knows they are there and no one will ever use them - but they're not there to be used, are they?

Strange, if you go to the ASDA website, they have lots of stuff on how open they are - they even have a webcam of people wandering around the foyer of ASDA house, they have nothing, NOTHING at all about not allowing photos and menacing customers with calling the police for testing that much-vaunted openness.

Window into Asda

Openness and access - we don't want to do everything "behind closed doors"

Oh, well, there's another store on my ever-growing veto list. Come and get me, ASDA!

Writing on the wall

2009-12-28T17:13:00.011Z

Here's a little seasonal graffiti from behind Telegraph Hill - I'm not quite sure where it is really - it's not quite New Cross, not quite Brockley and not quite Nunhead either. (Foxwell Street) Is it just me or should the 'Xmas has come' bit be underneath?

And here's some slightly older wall writing...it's fairly well known because it's still in pretty good condition
4/- is 20p in modern money. Paying back £40 at 20p a week must have taken forever. (Clarendon Rise, SE13)So what would happen if I asked for Daren Bread? (Or, considering it's been repainted ''askask for Daren Bread''). This one is on Avignon Road, SE4 - or is it SE14? - and I do not recall ever knowing that it was there even though I went to school just 100 yards up the road. A lot of the streets in this area were built by the Haberdashers' Company and many of the end houses still bear the metal plaques. Maybe it's Hatcham....

It's an almost old-fashioned area - a little removed from any major shopping centre, there are still a good number of corner shops/off licences that have survived where many others in London have been converted back into housing. And there are also a fair number of car repairs places still surviving even though it's a mostly quiet residential area.

To judge by the old garage sign on the house wall there has been a garage here for some time. Just below the M.O.T. sign on the house front, there is a small Haberdashers' Company plaque painted over in white.

Bike bits

2009-12-20T18:30:00.010Z

Ghost Bikes
There is now another ghost bike in place where Stella Chandler was fatally injured by a left-turning HGV in Greenwich. ( Junction of Woolwich Road/Trafalgar Road and Vanbrugh Hill/Tunnel Approach Road.) In the past, it has been Greenwich Cyclists who have put these bikes in place and, although I could find no reference to this at either the site or the web address (http://www.greenwichcyclists.org.uk/), I'd guess that they were the ones who put the bike there. All in all, I'm still distressed that this accident appears to be such a mundane everyday event that there was no coverage in the national or local press, local radio. greenwich.co.uk are the only people who picked up the news after reading about it in a local blog but even now, 10 days after her death, their article still reads ''Cyclist seriously injured after being hit by lorry.''
One junction along there is another ghost bike placed in commemoration of Adrianna Skrzypiec*, who died in a hit-and-run variation on the theme in May 2009.

And there would be another one in Greenwich Park, Greenwich Cyclists put one there after the death of Lennard Woods, July 2007, but the park authorities objected. You can't have tourists learning our dirty secrets, can you? The press photo below shows it:
The musycle
3) Cycling can get to be a dispiriting business sometimes. So to cheer things up a little, here's a tune played on bicycle parts to crack your Christmas nuts to....http://www.specialized.com/bc/microsite/holiday/index.html

Cycling on thin ice
Today it was quite possible to find yourself on sheets of the smoothest of ice. I discovered today that when you put your foot down on ice it slides one way and the bike slides the other way. This is not particularly elegant.

Strange winter visitors
The icy weather brings odd creatures out onto the roads in Greenwich Park. This feller was perfectly happy to get out of his cab for a photo, but became a little dischuffed when I had to turn down his request for a charity donation (for a charity not for him, I mean) because I didn't have any money on me. So if you manage to spot the Pearly King of St Pancras (which shouldn't really be that hard) make sure you put in an extra coin for me...
*UPDATE (02 01 10) : I noticed on New Year's Day that Adrianna's ghost bike had been removed. JUST the bike had gone so it's not as though family and friends had decided to remove all reminders of her death.

Santa wars breaks out (again)

2009-12-15T19:48:00.012Z

I've no idea who started it but it now seems to be a bit of a tradition in East Greenwich: come the season of Advent and the Christmas lights hit the house fronts. Mauritius Road seems to be the street with the most houses illuminated:

But it's round the corner in Christchurch Way where it begins to get a bit more heavy duty.

But I think this is the house where it all started off - and they don't seem to be showing any lack of enthusiam after all these years.
And to think that I was going to come home with some photos of those St Alphege's Advent windows.

Sssh! Cylist down.

2009-12-12T19:47:00.005Z

I'm feeling a little sickened. No, more than a little.

On Monday, I read on the Greenwich Phantom's blog that there had been a development in the death of Adrianna Skrzypiec who had been knocked down and killed by a hit and run HGV in May this year. Apparently, after over 6 months someone has recently been charged in connection with the death. I'm hoping this means the police have found the HGV driver but, in truth, I don't know any of the details.

Two hours later, I read on the same blog that there had been another Greenwich/cycle/HGV/woman accident at the next junction along that day. From accounts it looks like another left-turning lorry dragging a cyclist under its wheels, this time where Woolwich Road meets Trafalgar Road and Tunnel Approach Road meets Vanbrugh Hill.

Later, greenwich.co.uk picked up the story from the Greenwich Phantom and put up a few lines to the effect of ''woman hit by lorry...no further details.''

Today, I went back to the greenwich.co.uk site and learned from the people who had posted there, that the woman, called Stella, a 66-year-old retired careworker, had died on Thursday, 10th.

So, having cycled quite a lot recently - including along that stretch of road - and knowing all about the blind spots that lorries have, the scenario is fairly clear. Lorry can't see what's in blind spot but goes there anyway, anything caught in the lorry's sweep path goes unnoticed - and all too often, unliving. I'm no good at statistics, but if my memory is correct, out of the 9 cyclist fatalities under the wheels of HGVs in London this year, 8 of them have been women. Apparently, according to statisticians, 8 out of 9 is not significant. (Do we have to allow more to be killed to make it statistically valid?)

This death, Stella, retired careworker went almost entirely unnoticed by the media. The BBC haven't covered it, the South London Press haven't. I take from this that it's no longer a story - it's just collateral damage. The juggernaut must roll on and the press isn't interested.

Why a lorry might be turning up Vanbrugh Hill anyway is a mystery - there's absolutely no reason because it's quiet (and steep) residential street. The only business that might need deliveries up there is the Vanbrugh Arms (though that's not how to get there) or to the Seren estate. More likely in my head, though, is that the driver had had enough of waiting in snarled-up traffic heading into Greenwich and was making an impatient bid for a way round the blockage.

At this point, the worldseems to divide into two: those who blame the inexperience of the cyclist straying on the left of a truck and those who blame the truck driver, who is apparently allowed to obliterate a section of the road to their left without being expected to take proper care about what is in the vehicle's sweep path.

And I've seen arguments about this on cycling websites - the risible sentences passed down to lorry drivers versus the naivety of cyclists. And while they argue....

Convex mirrors placed at lights would be cheap - they would work as outboard wing-mirrors for the truck so they could see down the length of their vehicle and also allow cyclists to see whether the advanced stop line has been taken up by vehicles, which routinely ignore them. They would remove the apparent assumption that lorries can turn into spaces without being able to see what might be in the vehicle's sweep path. The ''I couldn't see'' plea would be met with ''did you look?''

Inexpensive and it could save lives. Or do we just say ''shame?''

UPDATE: 15:00 14 December. I visited the scene of the fatality this afternoon and met a cousin and a friend of the deceased who were there to place flowers (photo above) in memory of Stella. The cousin had no more information other than that the police aren't saying anything. greenwich.co.uk have still not updated the news - the site's headline still reads as it did in the beginning ''serious injury...no further information'' despite the report author having twittered ''Oh no, commenter on Greenwich.co.uk says the lady cyclist involved in a road accident last week has died.'' two days ago. But at least they began to cover the story which is more than any local, national press or media have done.

Well, well, well...

2009-12-08T09:50:00.007Z

Walking along Giffen Street yesterday I saw a brace of our estate caretakers peering down through the fence into the ground where land is being cleared for the new Tidewell* school. ''Admiring a hole in the ground?'' I quipped. But what they were looking at was this:

Three circles of old brickwork in different sizes had become exposed after perhaps centuries in hiding. Reassuringly, the excavators seem to have done a pretty careful job once they had been uncovered - none of that ''Quick, get rid of it before an archaeologist finds out!''

I wondered whether they might have been kilns or the bases of small chimneys but it appears more likely that they are the remnants of old wells.

I gather that they are now waiting for archaeologists to come and inspect. According to the caretaker I spoke to this morning, he'd been given an approximate age of a couple of hundred years.

*Writing Tidewell instead of Tidemill was a purely unconscious rebranding - and it's not as though I don't know the school; I know it very well.

UPDATE: And now it's gone. I passed by this morning - one day later - and the exposed remains had been completely buried by at least a metre of soil. They must have done that only hours after I took the photos above. I've no idea whether archaeologists had been and gone or whether the workpeople had quietly swept it under the carpet so that they could get on with their work. Whichever, this little part of Deptford's history made only a fleeting reappearance before being reinterred - a relic of the past standing in the way of the future.

Minor mysteries (2) - WHERE EXACTLY IS WHICH MERIDIAN?

2009-11-23T19:49:00.006Z

Ok, moving swiftly on (temporal) from Time, or moving up (spatial), I'm now in a minor quandary about the spatial dimension.

We all know where the meridian is - it's that imaginary line that runs through the long room in Flamsteed house (or maybe I got that wrong) and to help tourists - or Greenwich's proud heritage - they've helpfully marked it out on the forecourt, on the pathway immediately below and on the road down to the King William Gate - you can even become at one with this wonderful landmark as you go to the public conveniences.

And yet...and yet...I've got this digital Ordnance survey map and the meridian (for mapping purposes) is not where they tell us it is. Have a shifty at the two red dots in the image below:

(You might need to big it up in a clickety-click kind of way to see the points.) The point over to the left/west is pretty close to where we all know the meridian is. And yet, my digital map tells me that this point is longitude W 0.00180046. And if I tell my OS map to stick a point on 0.0000000 (which should be right to quite a few decimal places!) around the same latitude, it sticks a point 0.08 of a mile to the East - this is the second red point. The old reservoir to the south is west of the heritage meridian and east of the OS meridian. And of course, the Wolfe statue is also sitting somewhere in the middle. (I've only just noticed that the name Wolfe very conveniently has a W at the beginning and an E at the end. Perhaps we should go for a Wolfe meridian....) It's curious really. Greenwich is the one place where you'd expect to be able to find the damn meridian. But it's not that easy. Or is it?

(Any expert who happens to randomly arrive on this page will probably reliably inform us that, due to the vagaries of the Earth's rotation, time is now measured with a series of atomic clocks in Paris, amongst other places, and that the meridian moves around depending on whether the Earth is in a rush or taking the leisurely approach to planetary rotation. However, this complicates things even more - we'd then have a heritage meridian, an Ordnance Survey meridian and a notional meridian that moves about....)

This time and space business really can be confusing!

Though it's not all getting more and more complicated - I was chatting with my clever program-writing mathematically-competent brother the other day when I confided in him that I had no idea what an algorithm was. So, I've just asked a mathematician, there's me expecting a volley of algebraical theorems and....this was his reply:

''OK, it is just a step by step procedure such as "wet hair, shampoo, rinse, repeat until done"

Wow, so it's that easy! He may have skipped a couple of details, of course...but I'm just going to file it as one minor mystery solved.

Minor mysteries (1) - THE TIME SIGNAL

2009-11-23T19:13:00.002Z

Is it just Radio4 that gives that ''pip-pip-pip-peep'' time signal? Anyhow, listening to an exceptionally long series of pip-pip-pip-pip-pip-peeps last night I got to thinking that you only know when the hour has arrived because it's a longer note. But, here's the rub, you only know that it's a longer note when it hasn't stopped as quickly as the previous ones did. So you're only going to know when that times comes after it's come. In other words, you're late!

It would be so much easier to change the pitch of the penultimate note: A A A B A. The lead-in As would give you the rhythm, the B (a higher note) would tell you that it was the last pip before the hour. And then you'd get the time much more accurately. Because this, for some reason, is held to be important.

A A A B A is only an idea. You could just as easily change the B bit.

pip pip toodle pip!

Where do bikes belong?

2009-11-22T18:11:00.016Z

Since getting exceedingly fed up catching the bus to work, waiting in the cold, never knowing when I'm going to arrive or whether I would be spending the whole journey listening to some edgy schoolboy's rap music droning tunelessly on, I got myself a cheap new bike in April. Since then I've done 1600 miles in a mixture of commuting, weekend runs and evening fresh air runs. I've also done a fair bit of reading cycling blogs. And one of the things that becomes striking very quickly is that there is an awful lot of debate about where bikes should go. Many motorists believe firmly that bikes shouldn't be on the road. Many pedestrians believe just as firmly that they should go on the road - usually with the law on their side.

And what do road planners think? Well, I think you have to say that they really don't know - some of them don't even seem to grasp the fundamental points - such as what a bike looks like...
Some of them think they should be mingled unobtrusively with the street furniture
Or given their own micro-traffic chaos systems of their own (here they can practice changing over from cycling on the left to cycling on the right in preparation for the day when we all change over.)
Others seem to think that the best place is to force them into the most dangerous place in the road - in the door zone with traffic to one side shaving the bike lane. Or to just paint lines in the road that drivers simply drive in Still others display considerable ingenuity in making sure that the lanes don't go anywhere at all

Other, more ingenious planners sidestep deciding where bikes should go by using both road and pavement (provided they don't lead anywhere or come from anywhere)

On a more local note, here's Tunnel Avenue in Greenwich - ticking box A for not going anywhere and ticking box B for doing it with no reason.
And where Plumstead meets Woolwich, three bike lanes come from nowhere and go precisely nowhere. The building behind is the Plumstead Radical Club. They clearly hold Radical Cycling Club events there. But this for chappie on Google street view, evidently doesn't really know what's going to happen to him when he reaches the epicentre...because radical cyclists are capable of appearing from three different directions and from nowhere at the same time. I'd be a little nervous too.
It really shouldn't be funny - but you have to have to give people some credit (and taxpayers' money) for coming up with designs that combine ingenuity with built-in inutility.

UPDATE 30 August 2010:

This one solves the problem of cars driving in cycle lanes...

There's a thief about....

2009-11-11T18:20:00.012Z

A couple of weeks ago some beastie came along onto my 4th floor balcony and ate the roots of my basil, oregano and coriander. Whatever it was, it displayed no interest whatsoever in the foliage, just the roots. And yesterday, what did I see but a squirrel hanging around outside! I really should have taken more notice of the street signs they put up in the street below a couple of years ago, they were actually quite prophetic:

If I ever get hold of him, he'll have no idea where to look for his nuts!

And while I'm thinking about the signs that were put up for the Deptford 2007 exhibition, there's another few that seem to have foreseen post-Boris London.

Bye-bye bendy bus...
Playing Franny's cycling knight in shining armour and riding off in pursuit...

Designs and photo: (c) Sue Lawes & Lionel Openshaw : www.se8signs.co.uk

Ha'penny Hatch gets a service

2009-11-09T19:49:00.005Z

After a lazy stroll into the kitchen for the morning pot of tea this morning, I looked out of the window and saw the footbridge had been lifted. I've never seen it up since they built it. In the time it took me to find my camera and open the front door it had been lowered again - surprisingly quickly, though finding anything in here is never a quick job. Anyhow, I managed to grab this image.Seconds later it was almost back to normal:

And just a couple of seconds later, after a posse of hi-vizened engineers wandered up and had a leisurely peek about the place, everything returned to normal again. Even the guy who, at a guess, isn't allowed to practise his drums indoors made an afternoon reappearance, serenading pedestrians with his snare drum paradiddles.

Spider flight?

2009-10-10T23:10:00.008+01:00

I know it's a bad photo but I'm hoping that it'll still be there tomorrow when I've had time to figure out how to focus my camera manually - this will mean RTFM!!

Meanwhile, it's that time of year when spiders become hyperactive. This one appears to have been very busy inventing the gossamer propeller right outside my front door. It's pretty effective for catching flies - but will it fly?

Update: Nah, the bottom part of the web was missing yesterday morning. The spider was still there, finishing off one of those fake-wasp drone thingies. Today, there are only a couple of strands. My spider has either taken off for newer pastures or been plucked off its web by a passing bird with a big appetite.

Disappearing industries

2009-09-27T19:29:00.026+01:00

A while ago my dad was looking to replace his typewriter and found that they'd almost disappeared from the market. I think it would be even harder to replace a typewriter ribbon, and many people wouldn't even know what carbon paper was or what it was used for. Here, on the National Cycle Route 21, on an industrial estate by Lower Sydenham Station, is a factory whose fate was sealed by computers and printers.

Though the Columbia Ribbon & Carbon Manufacturing Co Ltd no longer seems to exist, the building is still in use - lights on, the odd door open from time to time - perhaps as warehouse storage, but the frontage, which displays a degree of assured confidence that makes it stand out from the rest of the light industrial units surrounding it, has prevailed. So far. Maybe it is under some kind of preservation order. Or perhaps the present occupiers are an industrial version of the hermit crab - happy to occupy the shell of a now dead animal.And, while talking about industrial buildings that stand out, just off the NCR21 there's also this one. It's on Ladywell Bridge, just by wartime the ''shelter for 700'' sign (see earlier blog - ''Shelter'')
This building also seems a million miles away from any similar enterprise - it simply stands out on its own.

London Skyride

2009-09-20T18:36:00.019+01:00

...or should I call it The Mayor of London's Skyride? No, I'll call it London Skyride because none of the other Skyrides feel the need to name it after their mayor. Anyhow, it happened today. I rolled up at Cutty Sark Gardens expecting there to be a handful of bikes - but you'd need pretty big hands for this lot:

And this was early, bikes were still arriving from all directions. Just after 11am we set off for London, (accompanied) children going immediately after the leader and the rest of us followed in what was possibly the most chaotic ride up to town - and definitely the slowest - that I've ever experienced. Here's a view of the monster crocodile just on our way down Creek Road

Just up the road, where Church Street joins Creek Road there was already one taxi driver at the front of the queue, swearing and handwaving and rolling menacingly forwards at one of the marshalls, fulfilling the traditional role expected of a London cabbie - and, of course, by almost everyone who's cycled in London . I don't suppose he'd ever seen that many taxi-fare dodgers in his life before. It was facinating to watch the different reactions of motorists, though most of the smiles and waves of encouragement did come from cars on the other side of the road.

Several hundred car horns later - isn't it illegal to sound horns on a Sunday? - we eventually stop-started-crawled our way to Tower Bridge and over to the Skyride eastern access point near Tower Hill.

A lass on a podium to the left of the picture above was announcing over a PA that they'd been expecting 50,000 but believed that they already had 60,000. I've no idea how you can estimate the number with any degree of accuracy - I had certainly never seen so many bikes in one place before. Even without lights, there were enough to create their own traffic jams.

Here's a tribute to Sponge-Boris No-Pants:

I guess I'm being a little unkind...it really does makes a change to see London dominated by bikes without fear of traffic - well without fear of the usual traffic, anyway. Trafalgar Square seemed pretty spacious:

Though that's most likely because the route onto the Mall was so busy:

Strangely, the atmosphere wasn't particularly carnivalesque, more about lots and lots of people enjoying a gentle ride through a busier yet quieter London on a lovely warm Autumn day. Though there's always some clown who feels the need to go just that bit further, that little bit higher...this man, innocent though he looks, almost took me out on a sharp bend with his rear wheels. And he didn't even notice!

And of course some people just have to push the envelope, or in some cases, envelop the push bike: below are some BSOs (Bicycle-Shaped Objects)....

And if you've ever had to cycle into a headwind, you'll know the immensity of the force you're fighting against. This young lad has reconceived the Raleigh Chopper (c. 1975) by using a headwind to generate the power needed to ride into a headwind. Pure genius!

Almost finally here's St Pedal's Cathedral, simply because it is Sunday after all...

And, do you know what? Many cyclists are what I've seen called ''sociable loners'' - and I think I'm one of them. On the way out, the lass on the podium had revised her estimate upwards to 75,000 and I think I cycled past/round/with/had to evade most of them. It was quite a relief to get onto the Lower Road back to Deptford where you can ride more smoothly, without too many lights or people holding you up, doing silly things in the road, without upsetting tetchy cabbies. Because in the end, I want to cycle peacefully and safely with everyone, be they in a car or on a bike, without feeling in danger. So yes, there have to be more cyclists on the road simply to make drivers more cycle-aware. And you're not going to achieve that by segregating two-wheelers from the four-or-more-wheelers.

Still, it was a lovely day out, and doing it one day a year isn't going to ruin your life - unless you're a taxi driver with anger management problems. In which case, get your heart MOT'd at the first opportunity.

Deptford X is coming

2009-09-17T12:11:00.008+01:00

I've been noticing a few odd sights appearing recently around Deptford: people are getting ready for Deptford X. This slice of yellow appeared over the last couple of days in Creekside. I wouldn't advise parking on it though.

And along the ha'penny hatch I noticed this yesterday. I'd never actually really thought about how all those plants have names, though I do remember loving the sound of ''rose bay willow herb'' when I was on a primary school nature study trip back in the 60s. This would be a Creekside Centre-led project - there's a man in there who can tell a dragon-tailed spindlewort from and old maiden's tooth. Nice to have some educational graffiti....

And there's a strange vehicle recently appeared in the grounds of the Steven Laurence centre in Brookmill Road. It's in honour of Ken Saro-Wiwa. I don't know for sure that it's actually linked to Deptford X but it certainly seems to have arrived at the same time.

Shelter

2009-09-03T20:40:00.007+01:00

I grew up with lots of bomb shelter signs around - I even remember a fire warden sign painted on the outside of a house in Langdale Road, SE10. But gradually they've disappeared with the passing of time. I've no idea how many remain in the area but I thought I'd photograph these before they disappear.

The one above is at the High Street end of Frankham Street in Deptford and I guess it might have been indicating Tidemill School - though that is a bit more than 50 yards.

And this one is in Speedwell Street, also just off the High Street - I didn't even know it was there until today.

And on Ladywell Railway bridge this one is still visible:

Peasants' Revolt.

2009-08-26T19:06:00.006+01:00

The Climate Camp arrived on Blackheath today. Using no doubt 100% green recycled fuel, lorries have brought thousands of metal fences so that they can build themselves a ''defensive'' barrier. There are rather more white vans than green vans as well. And that police helicopter hovering high over the camp - at a discreet distance, of course - can't be doing much good for reducing carbon dependency.

I wonder if they remember what happened to Wat Tyler.

Well, if we're all going to get overheated about global warming, this man has a temporary fix.

Odds and ends

2009-08-21T16:13:00.040+01:00

Aesthetics versus health

2009-08-14T19:54:00.015+01:00

I'm going to start with a question: in the picture below there is something that allegedly detracts from the aesthetics of this hospital entrance. Can you guess what it is?

Well, what did you go for? The brightly coloured ambulances, the grit bin on the grass, the car in the ambulance parking space? I bet you haven't guessed what it is.

Ok, I'll move a little to the left and let's see how this aesthetic world becomes immediately compromised...

Can you see it now? Still not sure. I'll move in a little to help you...

There, now you see it! The bike. Someone has had the temerity to introduce a symbol of fitness into this shrine for the sick.

Now, the last time I went to this hospital I went by bike and locked my bike not 10 yards away from where this bike is standing. My nephrologist will be pleased with me, I thought: after all he's always trying to get me exercising again.

Instead, a security guard approached me and ticked me off with the warning that I was liable to have my bike removed should I park there again. I was more than a little taken aback. It's a hospital so there are millions of signs all around but none to say where bikes should be left, and also none to say that bikes should not be attached there. When I asked why I couldn't leave my bike there, I was told that it was for aesthetic reasons.

Deeply irritated by the guard's aesthetic evaluation of my old bike, I wrote a letter to the hospital and received the following reply.

Whilst I note your observations regarding the lack of facilities for cyclists on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital site, I have to inform you that we are consistently striving to improve the aesthetics of the site, and this would include discouraging cycles from being chained to our main entrance.

As an organisation promoting the good health of the population, we have attempted to facilitate the provision of cycle parking. This is in fact highlighted on our website (extract enclosed) and on our patient information maps (also enclosed). Should you require any...etc.etc.

Yours sincerely

xxxxxxxxxxx
for Clive Aylett
Head of Estates & Facilities

Now, just for the sake of argument, let's assume that it's perfectly reasonable for security staff to act as style police and that there is a clear aesthetic argument for eliminating all sight of bikes, wouldn't an aesthetic considerations also force the ambulances out of the way too? And the grit bin too?

And now let's look at the claim that they ''have attempted to facilitate the provision of cycle parking.'' Doesn't ''facilitate'' mean ''to make easier?'' In other words, they have tried to make it easier to provide bike stands. And in this I think they have actually succeeded - instead of taking the trouble to put up signs and providing secure parking stands, they've taken the easier, more ''facile,'' way of using completely unsatisfactory sheds with ''wheel bender''-type stands way out of sight from the entrance .

This is the shed for ''Bycycles(sic) and motorcycles'' in car park 2

First of all, you'll notice that these stands are anything but secure. If you lock your bike to the ramps, thieves simply come along and pull the stand away from the ground. Look at the two detached ramps in the foreground: they should illustrate the danger.

As for the bike you see, it actually is securely attached because the chain is wrapped around the centre pillar - but that's about the only safe place to leave your bike. Yes, they've definitely made the provision of cycle parking so much easier for themselves. And if no one uses it (because it's useless) it's wasted public money.

Would anyone feel confident leaving their bike in this out of the way shed hidden in a car park - an ideal place to drive a van up and lift the stolen bikes into?

This is the first thing you notice as you approach the second shed right around the back of the hospital by the accident and emergency entrance:

This of course is a sure sign that there are thieves about - the previous shed seems to illustrate that too. (And if you look at how the bike's locked up, someone's going to lose their cartoon wheels very soon....)

Feeling confident about leaving your bike there?

And onto the sheds: where the two personnel are walking, the words ''and motorcycles'' have been painted over just so we're clear about what this shed is for. Yes, it's the same sygnwriter's handiwork. A couple of bikes have been left up at the smoking shed end. Brave of them, but maybe they reasoned that there would nearly always be someone around in the shed...

(That brash red bike in the foreground, lowering the tone of the neighbourhood, isn't locked - it's mine.)

All in all, pretty shoddy all round. It's probably not worth mentioning that the ''patient information map'' does state ''...cycle racks are located in the car parks'', however it omits to say that that there aren't cycle racks in car park 1 and the car park that they didn't get round to numbering, and they're not marked on the map itself. And as mentioned, there are no signs about bike racks anywhere around the hospital. Their website does specify where the sheds are, but unless your bike is set up for wi-fi broadband, you're not going to find out where they are, are you?

Oh damn, I've mentioned it now.

New Ordeal

2008-05-28T21:00:00.007+01:00

28/5/08 pm

I'm putting this post up on the hoof because sometimes we all need some time to wind down, and it's football tonight. And tonight I need time to wind down.

As if it's not enough to be taken away from the primary school where I'm volunteering (for health reasons my last profession as a musician has fallen apart so I'm trying to remotivate myself, get references - which you tend to lose when you're a self-employed musician - and develop reliable and consistent relationships with the children and the teachers), I now find myself on an ''opportunity''* forced on me by the job centre under menace of having my benefit suspended. I have to give up on the school and any good that might do me and attend a place in Woolwich in SE London 5 days a week for 2 weeks. My time is spent sending pointless speculative employment letters out to schools in the area.

Pointless, because schools tend to advertise jobs via their local council's websites anyway and pointless because it's the Whitsuntide half term, so there's nobody there to read my CV after it pops into the mailboxes of SE London schools. But rules is rules, and I have to apply for at least 10 jobs a day. Even though it's guaranteed to be a waste of time.

Anyhow, seeing that I'm losing 2 weeks of my life - and continuity with the children and the school - and seeing that the New Deal system is wilfully harming my job opportunities, I look to see what possible positive things I can claw back so that it's not all a complete demotivating waste of time. So, I was offered the opportunity of 'mentoring' on the bumf handed out by A4E - it stands for Action For Employment apparently.

So, after over a week of sending off pointless emails to people who are not there, it occurs to me that I haven't seen this fabled mentor, who might have been able to advise me about how to deal with the health issues that caused my unemployment and crucially affect my chances of ever working again. I find someone, a certain John Barber, and he asks what Job Centre I've been referred by. I say Deptford. And he says that they're not doing mentoring for Deptford.

According to A4E, Deptford Job Centre won't submit the LS2s - some kind of form, obviously - so they've decided to move the goalposts for people who come from Deptford and withdraw the mentoring service. Without telling anyone, of course. I had to squeeze that information out of them.

So, all in all, I'm caught in a battle between A4E and a certain err...she's not the most helpful person in the world...called Pauline Kazai (even the telephone number she gave me was on permanent no reply - I was only able to contact her because I spotted her name and number on a sheet on an A4E staff member's desk - and their desks are the only place we were able to make phone calls from) at Deptford Job Centre who is not the kind of person who has ever apologised to anyone in her life.

But what I do know is that they've taken me out of a situation where I had a chance of getting back on my own 2 feet, withdrawn the only possible means of gaining any help from the service I was forced to attend. It's out of my hands - it's a dispute between A4E and the Job Centre - but the result is a withdrawal of help from the poor claimant as punishment for their own dysfunctionality. And the taxpayer thinks this is to help us find work.

No, this is wasting public money and hurting the people it pretends to help.

29/5/08 am

Because I spent part of yesterday arguing with both A4E and the Job Centre advisor, there's going to be fallout, starting from today. A4E will be the quicker to react, the Job Centre will kick in next Monday

29/5/08 pm

Well, I was right on one count and wrong on one! First, because I'd named John Barber as the person who had told me that mentoring was not available for 'clients' from Deptford Job Centre to the New Deal advisor, Pauline Kazai, she must have contacted him and he was not best pleased that someone had 'gone over his head'.

'But you're over my head,' I replied.

He went on to say that I'd get mentoring when I was on the 13 week course (this is where they follow up the 2 week course with a 13 week course), and that I should come downstairs where a mentor would see to me. Cue Tracey, mentor, who'd been told to help me with job searching. She was in the middle of printing out a list of schools in the area. She had been told to help me with job searching, and that was what she was going to do. For two hours she looked for vacancies with me by my side. I ended up with one possible vacancy to apply for. I explained that I had no difficulty doing the job searching, but I had asked for access to the mentoring service because I needed help with health issues. And she replied that she was a mentor and she had been told to help me job search. I really have no idea why they had given me a form at the beginning that asked me to say in which field I judged I thought mentoring could be useful. Because my previous career had fallen apart because of health problems (severe arterial stenosis of the right kidney, failed procedure aimed at widening the constricted artery, hypertension even after daily medication with calcium channel antagonists, statins, ACE inhibitors, diuretics, capped with a recent addition to my symptoms of amaurosis fugax - which for non-medics translates as temporary blindness, in my case in the left eye). The medication plus the hypertension and temporary periods of blindness obviously affect the range of jobs I can perform, and that is why I ticked the 'help with health problems' box.

How naïve of me to think that it was a genuine option. Naïve too of the Gateway to Work trainer and adviser to think that it was an option too. Well, they're learning too.

Where I was wrong was where I predicted Pauline Kasai at the job centre to launch her counter attack on next Monday. When I got home, there was a handwritten compliments slip changing the time of my appointment with her from Monday to Friday afternoon - a time that she knows is when I am at school. So it looks like a deliberate attempt to interfere with me working as a volunteer at the school. This truly is despicable. A New Deal advisor taking me out of the school, where I am trying to get myself back into the jobs market, and then interrupting my work there. Deliberate or not the effect is to destabilise my attempts to get references and work-related experience. (And to interrupt the essential continuity with the children - it's to do with reliability, consistency and developing relations.)

Think about this: tax payers are paying for Job Centre Staff to actively harm someone's chance of finding work. Where on earth is the sense in that?

Aftermath

I went in for my last day (well, half-day – they don't do Friday afternoons) on 23/05/08 anxious not to lose my temper or do anything that might give A4E a pretext for kicking me off the course before I'd completed it. I arrived early, took a walk along the Thames to calm the nerves, and then kept my head down.

However, instead of sending out a string of speculative letters and CVs, I spent the most part of the morning looking for ways to get help. I searched through the direct.gov.uk pages on New Deal provisions, volunteer organisations but found nothing. In despair, I decided that I would call on MIND on the way home to see whether they could help me. I remembered that I'd seen a doctor almost a year ago about depression and she'd given me a hand out about them.

I'd never followed it up; instead, to get myself out of depression, I'd decided to start doing voluntary work as a means to getting myself remotivated. Eventually, the school I had written to gave me the chance to come in as a volunteer in October. It seemed to help: I was working voluntarily in a field I was interested in, my attendance and performance, my relationships with teachers and children could lead to references (a problem because I'd been self-employed before), I could demonstrate an active interest in the field of work I was looking for. It also took me away from the cycle of depression that had been menacing me.

Now, several months down the line, the forces that be had taken me out of my place of voluntary work and sent me on a course, undermining the very important continuity that I'd built up at the school. My jobcentre advisor knew that it would not help me in my attempt to find work, although I doubt whether she would accept that it was actively harming me – her approach was that I simply had to do it or lose benefit, irrespective of whether it harmed or helped. And A4E's Gateway to work people simply said that it was a problem I'd have to take up with the job centre. The mentoring that had been offered to me on day one had not materialised. Had been withdrawn, in fact. And when I complained, I was given help in an area that I did not need help in but denied help in the area I'd asked for help in. And the job centre had already started to destabilise my return to volunteering work by changing my appointment time to when I was meant to be in school.

So, faced with the prospect of continuing harassment from the job centre, future time wasted on further periods of enforced job search and interruptions to my attempt to get myself back on my own two feet, and not finding any possible source of help, a visit to MIND seemed just about the most logical thing to do.

And – typical – when I got there, the voice on the intercom said that there was no one there and that I would do better to phone up. So I didn't even get in the door.

It's conditions like these that lead people to giving up. The main problem though is that I'm not brave enough to commit suicide.

4/6/08

So I told the teacher whose class I was meant to be in on Friday that I couldn't be there because the Social Security have called me in. It ends up that I'm no use to him or the kids if I can't be reliable (unfortunately, for months, I had to leave his class - on Fridays - every fortnight to sign on. Eventually a helpful job centre employee told me that I could change my signing time so the disappearance problem vanished. Well, it's now back....). And it's true, I am no use to him if I'm being called away for job seekers interviews or being sent on 'courses' all the time. So, well done Ms Kazai, you've got me out of one class! What's your next trick?

What escapes me completely is what good all this is meant to do. I'm trying to get back into a working environment and they're trying to take me out of a working environment. I can understand those little hitlers wanting to break me, but what good will that do them? Is the aim to get me onto the sick? That's not going to save the government any money is it?

* apropos ''opportunity''...During a phone call between Kazai and myself at A4E, I referred to the 2 week séjour there as a course. No, I was told, it's not a course, it's a provision. (Presumably it's not a course because you don't learn anything there.) Later, when I went in to the follow up meeting - the one that definitively made Friday attendance at the school unworkable and which, curiously, Karzai didn't turn up to - another person dealt with me, and this person (Tracy or Tracey) reprised the title of the thing-that's-not-a-course without any prompting. They'd evidently discussed this case in detail before Kazai couldn't turn up. I had to point out that even Gateway to Work use the word ''course'' in their introductory material. Response: it doesn't matter what it's called. Fine, but don't contradict me when I use the GTW-adopted phrase.

Oh, and did I mention tea at A4E? Shortly after the first session the tutor, or advisor, or whatever gave us a break to have tea or coffee. So, down to the kitchens I wend. No tea bags. There's coffee but coffee can make me spikey. There's a notice on the wall explaining that on 18 December 2006 someone driven to distraction had blocked up a toilet with tea bags. (Note that this happened in 2006 so the person responsible will be long gone.) Temporarily mastering the art of serenity, I arrive the next day armed with a bag of extra strong Tetley's teabags. This worked for a day or so but then there was an A4E administrator who announced that someone (unknown, but staff) had overheard a conversation during which someone was alleged to have said that they were going to put bleach in the water supply. Outcome - because these people think in terms of outcomes - no more water dispensers and the kettles were removed. I've still got that bag of teabags now. A notice went up explaining that due to ''an attempt to poison the water supply'' bottled water and kettles has been removed from the kitchen. I don't know - how does an allegedly overheard threat to contaminate the water supply'' turn into an actual attempt to carry it out?

Orienthearing

2007-05-04T15:05:00.000+01:00

I found this picture on maps.google, and because I'm a double bass player, I couldn't help seeing a rather mysterious bass standing in a field in front of some trees. But it's not; it's actually a building's shadow in the Thames early on a clear midwinter morning. I wonder if there's a whole orchestra hiding somewhere out there in our cities?