What's cooking?

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

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

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!

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....

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

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

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.