Think of it as the Formula 1 of the skies. A lot of very rich middle-aged men playing with very expensive toys in a 6-month-long global competition, because they can. That's the Red Bull Air Race. Although in this case, unlike in Formula 1, all the rich middle-aged blokes take part themselves rather than staying behind the scenes flashing their wallets. All the glamour and beauty comes from their aerobatic skills, and not their Chuckle Brothers looks. This weekend the "competition named after a fairly cheap energy drink" has touched down in London, on the River Thames alongside the Millennium Dome. I was lucky, I got a free ticket as a resident of one the three boroughs adjoining the site, so I went down to Peruvian Wharf to watch yesterday's Qualification Day. And wow.
I must congratulate the organisers on their choice of location. Not only did the Dome and Canary Wharf provide a most impressive backdrop to the event, but they also managed to find a stretch of the Thames where virtually all non-paying spectators could be barricaded outside without any view whatsoever. When each grandstand seat costs £50, you don't want common plebs accidentally enjoying a slice of the action, do you? A brief glimpse of the action was possible from the elevated section of the DLR between East India and Canning Town, but otherwise it was pay up or go home disappointed. Queues at the ticket office were not excessive.
Here's how London's air race works. A series of inflatable cone-shaped slalom gates have been erected on barges mid-river along Bugsby's Reach, between (approximately) Trinity Buoy Wharf and the David Beckham Football Academy. A series of top international stunt pilots then take it in turns to manouevre their way down the course and back, twice, completing a a nailbiting 360 degree loop inbetween each pass. Some gates have to be entered vertically, others horizontally, and there's a special 4-cone "quadro" gate at the end which requires two perpendicular passes. Missed gates suffer a time penalty, signalled by a loud horn, and the fastest pilot wins. You have to be a damned marvellous pilot to be able to complete the course, speeding above the surface of the river at up to 250mph, and enduring 8G forces during the loopy turns at each end which do nasty things to your insides. This is not a sport for wimps.
Having arrived well before lunchtime, it took a long time for the action to actually start. Maybe that's why the event is sponsored by Red Bull, because you need something artificial to keep you awake before anything happens. But we were lucky with the weather. It was cool and unexpectedly windy, so the pilots decided they needed an extra warm-up round before the competition proper and we got 50% extra flying time. For the qualifying proper, each of the 12 participants flew the course twice. They zoomed in overhead from their temporary runway at City Airport, then circled the sky south of the Dome above the Blackwall Tunnel approach road. On the command "smoke on!" they dived down to the first gate and began weaving their way at great speed between the 20m-high towers. Ninety-odd seconds was all it took to complete the course - that and a serious amount of nerve.
It was all too easy easy, after the first few passes, to become strangely blasé about the incredible spectacle unfolding in front of your eyes. Only one pilot accidentally clipped one of the gates, which emitted a strange high-pitched pop before deflating limply into the river. Not to worry, a crack team were ready in a nearby speedboat with a spare, and the spiky-tipped inflatable was ready for action again within minutes. Other than that, no accidents. I suspect a lot of the crowd, video cameras poised, were secretly disappointed by that.
Throughout the afternoon we spectators were treated to a full multimedia experience, via a televised commentary broadcast on big screens alongside each grandstand. We even enjoyed real-time close-up cockpit shots of the pilots' cheeks wobbling as they swooped overhead, and were able to lip-read the odd swear word after a particularly disappointing circuit. The Brit/American commentary double act were always ready with all sorts of statistics that sounded meaningful but almost certainly weren't, always to two decimal places. Thankfully the grinning duo managed to stay the right side of knowledgeable throughout.
And the commentators kept very quiet about one particular quirk of the day's events. The Qualifying Day was designed to select the 12 fastest fliers who would go forward into today's competition. But there were only 12 pilots taking part anyway, so Saturday's events served only to shuffle Sunday's running order. London's part in this year's Red Bull Air Race will all be over by ten past two this afternoon when trophies will be awarded to the victorious competitor in the knockout final (from what I saw, that'll probably be rugged American Mike Mangold). Don't worry if you haven't got tickets - you can watch the event on Channel 4 shortly afterwards, starting at ten to three. It won't be the same as actually being there (zoom, whoosh), but you'll probably see more and in greater detail. And it'll be considerably cheaper too.
There are precisely five years to go until London's Olympic Opening Ceremony. Five years before a horde of choreographed schoolchildren cavort across the 2012 athletics track wearing primary-coloured t-shirts and waving ribbons. Let's hope the weather improves by then. But there's no Olympic Stadium in place yet, nor even a flat space on which to build one. The site in Marshgate Lane is still covered with warehouses, factories and dilapidated sheds. The one big difference this week is that they're all empty. Everybody who used to work here has now left (or been forcibly evicted), and the site has been handed over to the Olympic Delivery Authority and their big yellow bulldozers. Bang on schedule.
July has been a transition month in the Olympic Park. Last month any well-equipped terrorist could have driven a nuclear missile up Pudding Mill Lane and nobody would have noticed. Today they'd not be so fortunate. Every road entering to the Olympic Park has been blocked off by largemetalgates, and firmly locked. Dare to walk up to one of these gates, even unarmed, and a security guard will appear from the shadows and look you quizzically up and down. I got a very hard stare from the guard at the southern end of Marshgate Lane at the weekend, presumably because I was the first human being he'd seen that day. I didn't dare tell him that I'd already found a secret back entrance into the Olympic site, one that everyone appears to have overlooked, and that I didn't need to go through his poxy gate anyway. Ah yes, the southern gate to the Waterworks River footpath is still unlocked. Has nobody official noticed yet? Admittedly you'd need to be Indiana Jones to hack your way through the mega-undergrowth along this seriously overgrownfootpath, especially after the wet summer we've just endured, but any dedicated miscreant could still gain access to the heart of the Olympic building site if they so desired.
There remains one official footpath right through the middle of the Olympic Park, and that's the Greenway. Walkers won't be able to stray from the sewer-top path at any point, a big blue wall makes sure of that, but it's still possible to stand on a bridge above Marshgate Lane and gaze out across the soon-to-be demolished buildings . I intend to go back regularly and watch the view evolve, from industrial estate to levelled earthworks to gleaming international sporting hub. And, who knows, maybe I'll get a ticket to be back on site in 60 months time, beneath the fireworks, watching the flags of many nations parading around an athlete-packed arena. It's impossible to imagine at the moment, but this week marks the beginning of an unstoppable transformation.
Sunday, 22 July, 2007
The London blues
Yesterday the Conservative Party (finally) launched its London Mayoral Candidate shortlist. It's a list of four right-on souls, one of whom will be selected to stand against Ken for Mayor in London-wide elections next spring. How very exciting. The Conservatives have taken months longer than expected to reach the shortlisting stage because insufficient major figures put their name forward for this prestigious post. Things were so desperate that not even DJ Mike Read could be persuaded to put his name forward. But now we have four successful applicants. One is Boris Johnson, about whom we all already know too much. But who are the other three? I wasn't sure, so I've been to each candidate's own website to check up on their opinions and policies. Here's my (clickable) guide to the potential future face of true blue London.
3) Andrew Boff Website:www.andrewboff.com But there's nothing on that website, just some dripping water and the phrase "be patient". That's not very impressive for someone who runs his own IT company, is it?Er, no.
So, there are the non-Boris three. It's important to be fully briefed on their backgrounds because every registered London voter will be allowed to take part in the next stage of the selection process. Yes, even non-Tory voters can apply for a ballot form, which sounds like a desperately risky strategy to me. David Cameron must be keeping his fingers crossed that Labour and LibDem voters don't gang together and vote for the least electable candidate, just for a laugh. The election continues over the summer, with the Conservative Mayoral candidate finally announced in September. It'll be Boris, obviously. But hey, let's give the other three their chance. Even if nobody stands a chance against Ken anyway.
Friday, 20 July, 2007
I SPY LONDON the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Part 19:The Tower Bridge Exhibition
Location: Tower Bridge, SE1 2UP [map] Open: 10am - 6:30pm (half an hour earlier from October to March) Admission: £6.00 5-word summary: iconic bridge and engineering marvel Website:http://www.towerbridge.org.uk Time to set aside: an hour and a bit
Tower Bridge was opened in 1894, the response to a very particular design brief - how best to relieve road traffic across the Thames downstream of London Bridge whilst still permitting ships access to the Pool of London? Horace Jones' twin-towered bascule bridge provided the ideal solution - both practical and elegant - and unwittingly created a national icon. Few world landmarks have a more recognisable silhouette than Tower Bridge. The briefest sight of this multi-storey marvel in a film, TV report or photograph announces "This is London" to even the most casual observer. Maybe that's why the bridge is permamently swarming with tourists from every continent, each intent on capturing theperfectimage whilst simultaneously blocking the pavement and the sightline of others.
The very best time to visit, unless you're in a vehicle, is when the bridge is being raised. This happens surprisingly frequently, up to 1000 times a year, and yet it's an event I saw for the first time only last weekend. By pure fluke I happened to be at the entrance to the central span of the bridge when the siren went, the traffic halted and the pedestrian gate was closed in front of me. Damned exciting stuff! The bridgemaster waited until everything was clear - no chance of any death-defying gap-jumping here - and gave the signal from within his pierside command cabin. The two halves of the roadway clicked apart and quivered gently into the air. Slowly, but surely, they lifted to their maximum elevation - 86 degrees to the horizontal. And then, much to the delight of the crowds now thronging the piers, a twin-masted sailing ship cast off from its moorings beside HMS Belfast and sailed majestically (just) beneath the bridge's gothic portal. There's a sight you don't see every day. And then the roadway lowered slowly back into place before repeated sirens indicated that it was safe to cross again. Up and down in ten minutes flat. Why leave such magical London encounters to chance? The Tower Bridge website lists every scheduled bridge lift for the forseeable future, which is cracking inside knowledge for anyone with a camera (or any commuter attempting to take the bus from Liverpool Street to Bermondsey).
The bridge used to be raised far more frequently, and until 1912 there was an alternative public route for pedestrians to make their crossing. Each tower contains a double stairwell, four storeys high, up to a pair of metal walkways strung across the gap 140 feet above the water. This must have been a lengthy and strenuous detour, but Victorians were made of stern stuff. And the view from the top was fantastic. Which is why, just 25 years ago, the upper walkways were glazed over and reopened to tourists. You'll find the entrance on the upstream side of the northern pier. Pay up, pass through the security patdown, and wait for the lift. They don't let you walk up the stairs any more, oh no, presumably because the majority of potential visitors couldn't.
At the top of the towers are two large screens displaying looped information films, one detailing the bridge's construction and the other a century of Tower-ing greatness. Each presentation looks very dated - more a subtitled slideshow than a major multimedia experience. Look up and you can peer inside the spotlit turret, where a few plastic workmen have been positioned in an attempt to create some authentic 1890s atmosphere. Rather more exciting are the two latticed walkways across the river, up at flag-fluttering level. Ignore the row of information panels (unless it's foggy) and concentrate on the view. Downstream there's Canary Wharf, Butler's Wharf and the grand sweep of the Thames curving between Wapping and Rotherhithe. And upstream <switch walkways> there's City Hall, HMS Belfast, the Towerof London and the majestic City skyline. There are even special sliding windows in the glass to allow you and your camera an obstruction-free perspective across the panorama below. It's a view few Londoners bother to see. Their loss.
Back to the south tower to wait for the lift down to ground level, where the doors unexpectedly open straight out onto the pavement. Part two of your six quid visit continues beneath the roadway at the southern end of the bridge, at the end of a painted blue line. Make sure you haven't lost your ticket - you'll need it to get into the Engine Rooms. No prizes for guessing what you're going to see here. Steam engines, hydraulic pumps and whirly Victorian shiny things - i.e. all of the original mechanisms that used to power the raising and lowering of the bridge. The exhibit's not a thriller, but it is a slice of true London's technological history. Electricity took over fairly recently, in 1976 to be precise, and now the bridge goes up and down at the touch of a button. Sorry, but you won't necessarily get to see this happen for the admission price, you just have to get lucky. Or do a bit of research first. by tube: Tower Hillby DLR: Tower Gatewayby bus: 42, 78, RV1
Anyone fancy running a railway? Because you couldn't do much worse than the gibbons who are running the London Underground at the moment. I'm talking about the tube's maintenance and renovation contracts here, and I'm talking the commercial disaster area that is Metronet. They thought repairing track and re-tiling stations would be easy. They thought it would be risk-free to cream off profits at the taxpayer's expense. They thought they had a 30 year licence to print money. They were wrong. And now they're paying.
Metronet has responsibility for maintaining nine of London's 12 tube lines. They look after rolling stock, stations, track, tunnels and signals, and are also in charge of upgrading the network. Do it well and they get paid handsomely, but get it wrong and there are heavy financial penalties. Unfortunately, for shareholders at least, a repeated string of incompetent balls-ups doesn't pay well. Unstressed rails buckling in the sun. Frozen points and snowy signal failures. Misplaced equipment derailing passing trains. Overnight engineering work over-running. Etc etc. So yesterday the independent PPP arbiter ruled that Metronet couldn't have lots of additional money to pay off a £2bn overspend, and now the company faces bankruptcy. Hoo bloody rah.
I see this as divine judgement for all the agonies that I, and three-quarters of the network, have suffered over the last 4 years. Metronet started their station renovation program at my local tube station, and made an almighty mess of it. They forced the station to close early when there was bugger all going on inside. They treated heritage features with contempt. They failed repeatedly to complete work to agreed quality thresholds. And they took 20 months to finally finish everything, whereas they were only scheduled to take eight. Two years later, and Bow Road isn't the only station they've botched. Have you been to Epping recently, or Ruislip Manor or Chigwell or Turnham Green or White City or Great Portland Street or Theydon Bois or Chiswick Park? Probably best not to look around too carefully. It's amazing that Metronet have limped on this far, to be honest. Their fall from grace is sweet justice.
But if/when Metronet collapses, there's going to be a downside. All that renovation work still needs doing, there'll just be nobody left to complete it. TfL will have to carry the can for the forseeable future, spending millions of pounds they'd earmarked for other projects. Various stations that are currently mid-re-tile will end up looking a mess for even longer. Metronet's five funding partners are going to have to write-off massive losses (and that's bad for me because one of them supplies my water and another my electricity). And thousands of Metronet's employees are likely to be out of a job, which is a shame because it's not your fault if your boss is rubbish (although perhaps you ought to have noticed by now).
Foreign investors are already circling like vultures, eager to snap up Metronet's leftovers. But I hope that somebody somewhere sees sense and takes this opportunity to pull the plug on these over-generous 30-year infraco contracts. Even TubeLines, responsible for upgrading the rest of the network, hasn't been doing the job terribly well - just relatively better. Why are we giving huge amounts of public cash to private investors? Surely their profits could be better spent on new trains and a decent lick of paint? It may be too late for Bow Road, but London needs to make a better job of protecting and restoring what ought to be the finest underground railway in the world.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Inconvenience - a play in two parts
Scene 1: Southwark Cathedral It's Saturday, and my brother and his family are down from Norfolk for the day. We've paused for lunch at Borough Market, where we've purchased organic burgers and fresh pancake-y things, and now we're sat munching them in Southwark Cathedral churchyard. Youngest nephew: I need to go to the toilet. I need to go now. Anxious Mum: Oh great, that'll be urgent then. Can somebody accompany him to a nearby toilet? Devoted uncle: Come on youngest nephew, let's go and find a toilet. Erm, surely there's one around here somewhere. Youngest nephew: I really need to go to the toilet. I really need to go now. Devoted uncle: Erm, I can't see a toilet in the market. And I can't see any signs for toilets anywhere. Maybe there'll be one inside the cathedral. Youngest nephew: I really really need to go to the toilet. I really really need to go now. Devoted uncle: Ah brilliant, there's a publicly accessible gents toilet in the cathedral's rear extension, down these steps. Perfect. Let's open the door and go in. An unclean heavily-bearded man is crouched by the sink opposite the urinals. It's not precisely clear what he's up to, but it's not pleasant. He's already peeled off his trousers and boots, revealing scabby legs completely covered in coin-sized red blisters. He smiles, in a kindly but slightly demonic way. He is not an attractive sight. Bearded devil: Don't be afraid. Do come in. Youngest nephew: I don't need to go to the toilet. Let's go now.
Scene 2: London Bridge station We've gulped down the remainder of our lunch, and have hurried off in search of a toilet at the nearby station. Because all stations have toilets. Youngest nephew: I need to go to the toilet. I need to go now. Resourceful dad: Damn, the main toilets are on the other side of the ticket barrier. But come this way, because that sign says there's another toilet beside Platform 13. A few minutes later... Resourceful dad: There isn't a toilet anywhere near Platform 13, or if there is I can't find it. Youngest nephew: I really need to go to the toilet. I really need to go now. Anxious mum: There's a superloo here on the pavement by the bus station, except there's a queue of seven people waiting to use it. We'll never get inside in time. Youngest nephew: I really really need to go to the toilet. I really really need to go now. Resourceful dad: Hang on, I've spotted a poster for McDonalds over there. It's only 2 minutes away. They'll have a toilet I can get you into. A few minutes later... Resourceful dad (beaming): Success! But I can't believe how difficult that was. Devoted uncle: It's coming to something when you have to rely on a much maligned multinational company to provide adequate public facilities for performing a bodily function all humans require. Youngest nephew: Can I have a drink please?
Sunday, July 15, 2007
I SPY LONDON the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Part 18:London Zoo
Location: Regent's Park, NW1 4RY [map] Open: 10am - 5:30pm (closes earlier in winter) Admission: £14.50 (plus optional £1.50 donation) 5-word summary: historic (but expensive) beast-packed menagerie Website:http://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo Time to set aside: a day
London Zoo is the oldest scientific zoo in the world, opened in 1828, and occupies a triangle of land in the top right corner of Regent's Park. The zoo is rammed full of grunting squawking beasties, 651 species in total, and every day a 652nd species queues at the entrance gate to come inside and take a look around. It costs a fortune to buy tickets, not helped by an additional £1.50 "optional" donation slapped onto the admission price, and a family of 4 shouldn't expect to see change from £50. But where else in London are you going to see lions, tigers and giraffes? And penguins and zebras? And ickle cutesy-wutesy meerkats? Just remember that all the "big" animals such as elephants, rhinos and cheetahs are housed up the M1 at Whipsnade instead, so don't be disappointed when you don't see any. And don't visit if the Victorian concept of caged animals makes you feel uneasy.
To get the most out of a visit to London Zoo you need to arrive early and keep moving. There are a very large number of enclosures, cages and exhibits crammed into 36 acres, and it's a bit galling to get home, look at the map and notice that you missed something. Follow the green line painted on the paths and you should stumble across most of the creatures housed within. But don't expect to see every animal along your journey. Many spend much of the day asleep, or lurking in their indoor quarters, and it can be quite a challenge to spot them stalking out and about.
The zoo's newest attraction, opened in March, is Gorilla Kingdom. Essentially it's just a very big enclosure housing three gorillas, but laid out like an African forest clearing with a wiggly pedestrian walkway around the perimeter. Nobody stops to peer into the monkey cages alongside, they're all too busy peering across the moat or through the glass wall to see if the large female is waving her hairy backside at the crowds again. Other new geographical-based habitats include a Rainforest Lookout (packed with "small animals") and an African Bird Safari (a posh name for a mini-aviary). Elsewhere you can now walk through an enclosure swarming with squirrel monkeys, and stroll through a heated tunnel full of giant flapping butterflies. Integration is the zoo's latest watchword, and each new development is moving gradually away from "one cage, one animal".
Several old-style enclosures remain. The giraffes still live in Decimus Burton's 1836 Giraffe House whose simple functional design is very much fit for purpose even in the 21st century. The flamingo pond is even older, not that you'd ever guess. The gloomy Reptile House looks every bit of 80 years old, however, with its slimy inhabitants slithering around inside compact glass-fronted prisons. The owls roost forgotten inside a row of dreary cages to the north of the canal. The bears have been rather luckier. They have a fake terraced mountainside to lumber across, unexpectedly expansive, complete with four concrete peaks and a nice view of the cafe.
Finest of all the zoo's architecture is surely the Lubetkin Penguin Pool - a perfect 1930s example of emerging Modernist design. An elliptical concrete curve, painted shining white, surrounds an azure blue central pond. Two elegant intertwined spiral ramps cross the centre of the pool. Imagine a parade of penguins waddling up the staircase behind, then gently descending the central ramp before splashing into the pool for a swim and going round for another circuit. This is spectator heaven. Unfortunately it wasn't penguin heaven, lacking sufficient environmental variety, and the penguins have now been shipped off to a new enclosure on the opposite side of the park. This has burrows for nesting, and a deeper pool for swimming, and none of that nasty concrete which used to hurt the poor fellows' feet. It's a popular spot, and the daily fish-feeding frenzy still attracts impenetrable crowds, but this mass migration has left the original Grade 1 listed pool unused and overlooked. Zoo authorities have tried filling it with alligators, and later with porcupines, but none of them really settled either. Until further notice this magnificent Art Deco animal hotel remains vacant. [photos]
Despite the exorbitant admission price London Zoo still makes for a winning day out, as a very tired nephew and niece of mine will testify. They were particularly taken by the lions, even though the lions didn't do much apart from snooze on a waterside platform in the afternoon sun. They loved the pack of show-off otters, even more adorable than the grinning meerkats in the enclosure nextdoor. They adored the tiny baby monkey they spotted deep in camouflaged foliage, and pointing her out excitedly to fellow visitors. They enjoyed standing right next to a naughty zebra while it did a poo by the fence. They even liked the Snowdon Aviary, tucked away in the overlooked northwestern corner of the site, where the birds flew free beneath a spiky cabled roof. I just didn't have the heart to tell them afterwards that they probably missed seeing a third of the animals in the zoo because we didn't walk along the right paths. Never mind, that'll give us something to look out for the next time we go. by bus: 274by canal: London Waterbus
It's been a long time coming, but the world's greatest cycling event finally swept into London yesterday. 189 lycra-clad blokes, most of them French, pedalled their hearts out on a five mile circuit round the centre of town. Half a million people came to watch them speed by. And, what do you know, even the sun finally came out.
I avoided the start down Whitehall and the finish up the Mall, and headed instead to the open green spaces of Hyde Park. Here I had a look round the People's Village - an enclave of cycle-related exhibits coupled with un bon marché français. This was the perfect spot to learn about sustainable transport policy, or to have a go on an under-16s obstacle course, or to buy some garlic sausages. I wasn't quite tempted to convert to two-wheeledness myself (I'd rather keep my body in shape by not falling under the wheels of a lorry, thanks) but the focus was appropriately positive throughout. The 2012 Olympic bus was in attendance, with that much-loved logo on its side, overseeing some have-a-go sporting sessions. And the must-have freebie du jour was the Orange Broadband periscope, which just everybody was queueing for, but only one of which I actually saw being used.
Wherever the Tour goes, the Caravan precedes it. This is a long procession of the Tour's sponsors, out to make an impression before the main event begins. Furry lions parade past, grinning girls hurl promotional goodies out of the windows of their converted cabs, and giant washing powder packets wheel by. Most surreal of all yesterday, however, was that all the sponsors were French. There was no nod whatsoever to the native British audience who were instead treated to publicity from bottled water brands they can't buy, and supermarkets they can't shop at, and police forces they'd never want to be recruited into. But that didn't stop the spectators from trying to grab every plastic freebie thrown their way. Skoda sunhats, Haribo sweeties, cheap plastic wristbands, even pointless shiny silver discs - all were grappled for with a vengeance. I failed miserably to collect a single item, beaten even to the shrink-wrapped cardboard fan in the shape of a pizza slice that fell at my feet. Ah well, the child who wrestled it from me looked suitably delighted.
Before the official start the riders made practice laps of the track, just to check where all the bends were and how best to take them. This was good, because otherwise there'd have been nothing to see for nearly an hour and a half, apart from the backs of the heads of the people standing in front of you. I'd taken up position by the Serpentine, inside the western loop of the cycle circuit, where by 2pm there was little chance of escape over a woefully inadequate pair of pedestrian footbridges. Nearby spectators rang their friends attempting rendezvous, only to discover that it might be hours before they could all meet up at the same location.
And then the first rider appeared. You could tell he was on his way by the ripple of applause spreading across the park from West Carriage Drive, and by the gendarme outrider on his official French police motorbike. Whoosh! That was a man in head-to-toe lycra, beneath a plastic teardrop helmet, pedalling like the clappers on his vélo rapide. Behind the anonymous cyclist came his team car with a pair of bikes on the roof (presumably as spares, in case of mishap, although that seemed rather pointless on a circuit lasting less than ten minutes). And then a final police outrider. And then a minute's gap. And repeat 188 times.
Some might call the Prologue repetitive and boring, especially for the spectators. The atmosphere was great, but we had no idea who was passing and no idea who was winning, neither did most of us care to be honest. We were there for the 'event'. Our role was just to watch, and to applaud, and to make up the numbers along the circuit. The endless stream of passing cyclists gave all the photographers in the crowd the opportunity to repeatedly practice their camera technique ("damn missed him, but never mind there'll be another one along in a minute"). But for some the excitement paled as the novelty value wore off, and the less stalwart spectators drifted away well before the three hours was up. It'll be more exciting at the Grand Depart this morning, along the first stage of the race proper. Oh you lucky people of Greenwich, Bexley and Kent, you have it all to come. Just don't blink as the peloton charges through, because you've only got the one chance for a decent photo.
Below are descriptions of five different walks around the 2012 OlympicPark. Five walks you could have made yesterday, but can't make today. Each walk's description will be accompanied by a set of geotagged photographs (linked throughout the text) so that those of you who've never been to the Lower Lea Valley can visualise what's about to be wiped away. Should you care. And maybe in 2012, if this blog is still here, we can all look back and see what's been built on the site of what. Five years and counting. Bring it on!
Walk the Olympic Park (1) Marshgate Lane 40 photographs here
If you're trying to locate the southern end of Marshgate Lane, look for the Porsche showroom on Stratford High Street. Nobody who buys one of their vehicles would ever dream of driving north up this grimy, dusty road, but that's where we're heading. Turn right at the temporary traffic lights, then sharp left at the arched entrance to the Marshgate Business Centre. What an unloved street lies ahead. Along its crooked length are several brick-fronted warehouses and workshops, almost as if the 21st century arrived and nobody here noticed. Fading signs on gates and doors boast 0181 telephone numbers. Times have been hard for Freetrade Beers & Minerals Limited and Kenton Steel, and for a score of other recently-moved-out very small businesses. Worshippers no longer flock to the outwardly underwhelming Celestial Church, not now that the shutters have come down for the last time. It's humbling to remember how many local Londoners have scraped their living down this backward backstreet.
The Olympic gate has been erected beside a pile of rusting car bumpers outside the Bodyworks Accident Repair Centre. Beyond the road vanishes beneath a dank dripping railway bridge, emerging on the other side alongside an open expanse of automotivescrapyard. Somebody around here must like tyres because they're piled up everywhere - until recently blocking pedestrian access to the Greenway above. The roadway beneath these old iron sewerpipes is even darker, and puddlier. Step through the mud, past a couple of rotting sofas and an unseen plaque to the Victorian engineers who created this essential effluent motorway. It's a minor miracle that nobody ever started a fire down here, mangling the ironwork above - North London's toilets would have backed up for miles.
Phew, that's the grim bit over. The four storey brick building to your right marks the entrance to the Marshgate Centre. Which is much less posh than it sounds. The upper windows are smashed, the hanging basket has seen better days, and a rather paranoid sign by the front door announces Be aware!! This area infested with thieves!. There are rather better security gates nextdoor at Prism Chemical Services, which is just as well given the stockpiled Hazchems stashed away in silos stretching back to the riverside. To the right is Knobbs Hill Road (quite frankly I'm amazed that nobody's stolen the street sign), the first of three bleak sidestreets lined by warehouses, steel fences and car spares outlets. Don't venture right down to the end or the insane dog that guards the Bedrock sheds will practice his 100 decibel bark, frustrated that he can't slip through the locked gate and tear you limb from limb.
Back on themainroad, some of Marshgate Lane's bigger businesses now grace the roadside. The roses at PA Finlay & Son recently gave one last futile display, bursting red and pink through the security fence. Next it's the salmon-coloured chic of H Forman & Son, who had the misfortune to upgrade their fish-smoking factory just before the Olympic decision came through. Bosses here have been amongst the most vocal against forced relocation, but they're still having to move out all the same. The owners of the next office block vacated a while back, and the ODA's building contractors have moved in instead. A fleet of decontamination chambers stand waiting in the car park, ready for operatives in respirators to deal with all the asbestos and other fibrous nasties that will be displaced by the area's imminent demolition.
And so we come to the higher ground which, in five years' time, will be the location of the Olympic Stadium itself. It's almost impossible to visualise today. Maybe once the surrounding warehouses have been cleared and the ground levelled it'll become a bit easier, not that you'll be allowed in to see it. Our walk ends up the third and final sidestreet, turning right across the multi-storey grandstand, across the athletics track and into the central green bit of the stadium where all the javelins will land. Why not break into a run and sprint up the road, just so that you can say you've completed the 100m where the world's greatest will compete in 2012. On your way you'll pass a Belgian truck driver parked up for the night, a rotting mattress and a large warehouse where Bywaters used to hire out skips. The finishing line is marked by three fluttering flags, in this case representing a Mercedes Service Centre and not the medal winners' rostrum. And finally, at the very end of the road, there's a factory that makes lace curtains - I rather hope that the royal box ends up here. How absolutely insignificant this sidestreet looks today. But sixty months from now, for a single fortnight, it'll be the very centre of the world. And you were there first.
Walk the Olympic Park (2) Pudding Mill Lane to Carpenters Lock 30 photographs here
Pudding Mill Lane DLR station has always been a windswept platform in the middle of nowhere serving a population of not many. Following the closure of the roadbeneath the rail bridge, severing contact with the industrial area to the north, expect it to get even quieter. Pudding Mill Lane itself is nasty, brutish and short. It weaves between metal fences, scrapyards and incinerators - a far cry from its pre-industrial past as a winding country lane. A steady succession of trucks rumble their dusty cargoes in and out of an extensive triangular compound beside Marshgate Siding. If you want Renault spares, if you need low cost plant hire or if you just have a skipload of rubbish that needs burning, you've come to the right place. In five years' time this metallurgical melting pot will be the site of the pre-race Warm-up Athletics Track. Let's hope it scrubs up clean.
After dipping sharply beneath the Greenway (warning, road liable to flooding), Pudding Mill Lane fades away and Marshgate Lane takes over. To the left of the road, in a broad man-made channel, lurks the Pudding Mill River. This is a wholly insignificant backwater, a severed stagnant sidearm running for little more than a quarter of a mile between wasteland and warehouses. The ODA cleared away the surrounding undergrowth earlier this year, revealing a naked river containing surprisingly little wildlife in need of rescue. Ducks and pondweed have since recolonised the water, and a huge pile oftyres has been dumped on the banks close to a concrete roadbridge. This artificial stream still has an unexpected charm, particularly along its final northward wiggle, but it won't stay this way for long. The Pudding Mill River is destined to vanish like the windmill after which it is named, and will disappear forever beneath the Olympic Stadium and its surrounding service areas.
A white-arched footbridge marks the shady corner where this doomed waterway enters the Old River Lea. This whole area is swarming with rivers, bifurcating and braiding across the Lea Valley floodplain. And the Old River Lea is probably the prettiest of the lot, shielded from the surrounding industrial gloom by a thin screen of verdant trees. At its mouth are the legendary lockkeepers cottages bought up by Channel 4 to host the Big Breakfast where Chris and Gaby once held court. The sunshine panorama in the backyard remains intact, but this is now a semi-private family home. Further upriver a winding towpath runs opposite an inaccessible reedy shore, where moorhens nest undisturbed amongst the rushes. Branches drip with flowers and foliage, brick towers mark the site of absent lock gates, and rats scuttle unseen through the undergrowth. Well it's nearly perfect, anyway.
And at the other end of this all-too-brief river, at the very heart of the Olympic Park site, stands Carpenters Lock. 'Crumbles' might be a better word than 'stands', to be honest. There have been no boats through this dilapidated structure for years, and the access footpath was fenced off a few years ago to deter all but the most determined photographer. No point in any last minute restoration. Olympic architects have other plans for this spot, with the central Olympic spine path due to plough across the river right here. Which is a shame, because there's a perfectly decent footbridge close by already. It's a gently humpingblue-greenbridge with latticed sides, used by long-dead horses to tow barges downstream towards the Thames. Shame that it's a little on the narrow side, and would almost certainly collapse under the weight of spectator footflow when the basketball arena is up and running. But don't worry. This iconic bridge appears to be marked as a thin stripe on legacy plans for the Olympic Park, so I have every hope that it'll survive the oncoming bulldozer onslaught intact. I look forward to standing here again.
Walk the Olympic Park (3) Carpenter's Road 30 photographs here
The western perimeter of the Olympic Park runs for over a mile alongside the natural barrier of the River Lea. If your small business is to the west of the river it survives, no matter how rundown or ramshackle. If your small business is to the east of the river it dies, no matter how wholesome or upmarket. A single narrow road bridge crosses the river between the two zones, at White Post Lane in the top right corner of Tower Hamlets. Let's head over onto the doomed side.
To your left, behind locked gates, stand the empty brick shells of KingsYard. Several small businesses once made their home inside a trio of long three-storey buildings surrounding a central courtyard, including such esteemed names as Stratford Catering Equipment Manufacturing Ltd and the Bilmerton Wig Supply Centre. They've all left now, so sadly there's no longer any need for Tony's Cafe to serve up daily kebabs and cuppas between 7am and 3pm. Come 2012 Kings Yard will be transformed into the Olympic Park's Energy Centre, pumping out gas-fuelled zero-carbon goodness from a cutting-edge Combined Cooling, Heating and Power Plant. On the opposite side of the road a number of more modern industrial estates are waiting to be wiped away to make room for the Basketball Arena. The Royal Opera House's scenery and costume workshop is moving out, as are major distribution depots for Boots the chemist and FedEx international couriers.
On eastward into Carpenter's Road. This is a favourite East End boy racer backstreet, so it's appropriate that the majority of the businesses down the rest of the road are automobile related. Crash your car here and someone will be on the spot in seconds to nab your bumper, remove your windscreen or cart off your chassis, for cash. Pause a while on the next roadbridge and look out across the River Lea's eastern channel. You might spot a bobbing moorhen, you might spot a soaring seagull, or you might be really lucky and spot a purple Silverlink train rattling by across the water. Three lonely traffic lights guard the road junction into Marshgate Lane, where the occasional lorry queues to let absolutely nothing pass. Passengers crammed in aboard every route 276 bus soak up the unsightlyview as they pass between twin building sites. 2012 contractors have been busy here since the start of the year on the site of the new Aquatic Centre, levelling the ground ready for the global Speedo invasion. It'll be a long time coming.
Carpenter's Road narrows alongside a long hangar-like structure divided up into a series of trading units. You can bring your broken-down taxi here for repair, or pick up some Japanese auto spares, or even snap up a cut-price car battery. Bits of windscreen litter the roadside - yours for a very reasonable price. Behind one set of locked gates they brew tarmac, behind another it's readymix concrete. And so itcontinues down the road - a whole string of businesses which wouldn't be acceptable (or have sufficient cash to pay the rent) anywhere else. Olympic regeneration will replace them all with a brand new residential neighbourhood, no doubt packed with incoming couples who've never fiddled under a bonnet in their lives. And the displaced employees of Carpenter's Road will have to make a fresh start elsewhere, if elsewhere will have them.
Pass beneath the low railway bridge and you reach the existing housing estates in the suburban no-mans-land south of Stratford station. Residents here are doomed to look out of their windows and watch a steady stream of construction traffic spluttering through their community over the next few years, with barely an extra penny spent on where they live. The bounteous OlympicLand is so very close to home, and yet still so very far away.
There used to be a second road north from here, but the top half of Warton Road was closed off earlier this year to allow construction of the Aquatic Centre to commence. A miserable stubby dead end remains beyond the railway, hemmed in between crumbling brick walls and green-painted security barriers. Behind a corrugated iron fence lies what used to be AV Autos, purveyors of the finest Fiat spares, and at the far end a locked gate provides unnecessary vehicle access to Thornton Fields railway sidings. I don't think I've stood anywhere quite so irrelevant and forgotten anywhere else in the Olympic Park. And I'm pleased I slipped in just before another brand new gate slams shut and snuffs out this tiny island of desolation forever.
Walk the Olympic Park (4) the Bow Back Rivers 40 photographs here
Most valleys have one river, maybe two. The Lower Lea Valley has at least ten. There are waterways of all different lengths and sizes - some narrow, some broad, some natural, some artificial, some sweeping, some stunted, but all characterful. The smaller rivers are threaded tributaries of the River Lea, linked to one another at both ends, which makes for a fascinating intertwined network of watery goodness. And perfect for a signposted "circular" riverside ramble - the Bow Back Rivers Walk - conceived 1999, half-closed 2005, eradicated 2007.
Let's begin this two-kilometre stroll at the City Mill Lock on Blaker Road, an unexpectedwatery vista beside the ugly reality of Stratford High Street. At Otter Close a triangular estate of apartment blocks bites deep into the Olympic Park like a sharpened fang. All the surrounding land is earmarked for essential security screening facilities, but these apartments have somehow survived compulsory purchase destruction. A path leads north along the City Mill River to the Greenway, where a secret staircase leads down to dragonfly level at the water's edge. Take the tunnel to your right, beneath the sewer, emerging into a shielded greenenclave around a reedy stagnant inlet. Standing here you could be lost to the world, at least until a DLR train rumbles over the next bridge and all the passengers look down wondering what the hell you're doing here.
The rest of the City Mill River towpath provides a walk of contrasts. To your right a bush-covered fence screens off what appears to be an area of open wilderness. It used to be, until recently, but then the bulldozers moved in to clear the site leaving acres of sterile wasteland. This long strip of former woodland will form the main pedestrian route through the Olympic Park, but for now it remains inaccessible brownfield. Meanwhile, on the opposite bank of the river, there's an alternative view of the Marshgate Lane industrial estate from the rear. The path passes brick warehouses and gleaming silver silos. It continues past a scrapyard with its own rowing boat and a quarter mile longtumbledownshed. An angry unshutuppable alsatian patrols the riverbank, incensed that you've dared encroach on his private domain. Expect considerably better security in 2012 when the Olympic Stadium touches down precisely here. For now the view remains distinctly lowrise, and unexpectedlyphotogenic.
A ramp leads up from the City Mill River to the top of Marshgate Lane, and then it's just a few steps along the road to start the return journey down a parallel waterway. This is the Waterworks River, which boasts one of the most temporary footpaths in East London. Riverside access was opened up in 1999 when British Waterways stepped in to clear vegetation from the river's western bank. The path was made fully wheelchair accessible... apart from a single step over a drainage pipe which meant that disabled visitors could only get 90% of the way down before having to turn round and retrace their steps. The route was never popular, never busy, and maybe that's why the gates at both ends were firmly locked a couple of years ago. The footpath has since gone to rack and ruin, with two summers' vegetation allowed to run rampant, and anyone attempting the signposted circular walk has been sorely disappointed. What a waste of money, and what a sad loss of such a glorious backwater secret.
Until a couple of months ago. All it took was a couple of bent-apart bars in the locked gate and suddenly the Waterworks river was accessible again. Not for wheelchairs, admittedly - they'd have been stymied by the fallen trees, discarded kitchen sinks and shoulder high brambles. But any able-bodied explorer with a sense of adventure and sufficient protective clothing could have fought their way through this impromptu urban jungle. And what a treat for those who made the effort. Dog roses and convolvulus aplenty, magpies and moorhens on the wing, ladybirds clustered on untrampled nettles, and the feeling that this was your own private nature reserve unseen by human eyes. Apart from those truck drivers on the other side of the river, obviously, busy building up the foundations of a massive Olympic roadbridge.
Halfway along the footpath (don't worry, that's the worst of the impenetrable stuff over), a ramp leads up to the pedestrian entrance to Thornton Fields railway sidings. It's here, beneath gantries and criss-crossed power cables, that unwanted mainline trains are stored between the morning and evening peaks. But they'll be moving out too next year, to replacement sidings in Leyton, because the 2012 hamburger stalls have got to go somewhere. Back on the riverbank the skyline is dominated by a brand new apartment block - 18 storeys of pure white curviness. This is the Icona building, granted planning permission before the Olympic bid was won, and whose trademark red, yellow and green balconies will no doubt become a familiar feature of 2012 TV coverage. But it's still the glorious combination of overgrown footpath, tidal waterway and forbidding warehouses that makes this last stretch down to the Greenway a hidden treat. It's just a shame there was so little time to experience it.
Walk the Olympic Park (5) Waterden Road 28 photographs here
In contrast to the myriad routeways through the bottom half of the Olympic Park, there's only one up top. Waterden Road runs due north between the two main channels of the River Lea, with a swathe of mostly brownfield land to either side. It ought to be a major cut-through for cars and lorries but instead it's used almost exclusively by local traffic. At its southern tip the road curves and humps over the North London railway line, before stuttering to a pause at a set of totally unnecessary traffic lights. These have been erected in preparation for the opening of StratfordInternational station, connected via a brand new link road which glides on concrete stilts across the river valley. Except that the station hasn't opened yet (and won't for years), so this virgin carriageway runs slap bang into a metal barrier, wasted and abandoned amidst a future Olympic construction site. Highway chiefs have at least now switched off the utterly pointless pelican crossing, but it was fun stopping the non-existent traffic while it lasted.
Stand around here at 5pm on a weekday and you can watch a steady stream of workers heading home from one of Waterden Road's many non-premium businesses. They file off towards the railway station at Hackney Wick, or walk the long way home to Homerton. They'll be back for their next shift soon enough, or maybe sooner if they plan to frequent any of the local evangelical churches, dodgy nightclubs or cheap dining establishments. The biggest employers down Waterden Road are the bus companies. There are three large bus garages here altogether, currently home to hundreds of double deckers, scores of bendy buses and a handful of heritage Routemasters. All are utterly crucial to East London's transport infrastructure. The ODA won't be able to lock off this road for good until all three garages have been relocated elsewhere, and for the time being various alternative sites in West Ham and Bow are still at the planning stage.
For a peek somewhere special, follow the side alley round the back of First's bus garage. If the gate's unlocked, and nobody's looking, you might be able to cross the footbridge into the green oasis of the Manor Garden allotments. Here generations of Hackneyfolk have cultivated treasuredplots of land, bringing forth vegetables and flowers (and even more vegetables). The 80 allotments run for more than quarter of a mile altogether, sandwiched in a thin strip of land between two rivers, and perched high enough up to afford a fine view over the surrounding valley. Most of the sheds and gardening equipment have seen better days, and none of the plots would ever grace the Chelsea Flower Show, but that's part of the charm of the place. Even when there's nobody around you can feel a very real sense of community in the air - this is somewhere to relax as well as to grow. But the Olympics are cutting short the final summer season, and the few remaining tenants are being allowed to hang around just long enough to gather in their last harvest. As dusk falls across this unique eco-friendly environment, I fear the temporary replacement allotments over in Leyton will be a wholly inadequate substitute.
Last Sunday lunchtime, back on Waterden Road, I watched a slow-moving procession bringing pre-Olympic closure one step further forward. A bright yellow JCB pulled up beside a lorry parked at the southern traffic lights and raised a single metal gate into the air. Workmen in fluorescent jackets used Stop/Go signs to halt the infrequent traffic and the JCB started to make its way gradually, cautiously, up to the northern end of the road. The gate dangled precariously in mid air, the driver taking particular care beneath low slung wires and cables, until the convoy reached a pair of sturdy steel posts recently bashed in beside the East London bus garage. Here the workmen proceeded to lower the hinges carefully into position, half blocking the road, before returning to fetch a matching gate for the opposite post.
These Olympic Park gates have been carefully sited to block off almost all of Waterden Road, but still to leave access to the Travellers site at Waterden Crescent and also the car park at the Kingsway International Christian Centre. The KICC has one of the largest weekly congregations in the UK, and several thousand Afro-Caribbean worshippers were packed inside their vast warehouse church while the gate-laying ceremony took place outside. This site is earmarked for the Olympic Hockey Stadium, and the church is hoping to relocate to a new riverside estate in Havering (if Havering will have them). But, however fervent their Sunday prayers, there'll be no Second Coming here. A five year lock-in is on its way.
NDHaving arrived well before lunchtime, it took a long time for the action to actually start. Maybe that's why the event is sponsored by Red Bull, because you need something artificial to keep you awake before anything happens. But we were lucky with the weather. It was cool and unexpectedly windy, so the pilots decided they needed an extra warm-up round before the competition proper and we got 50% extra flying time. For the qualifying proper, each of the 12 participants flew the course twice. They zoomed in overhead from their temporary runway at City Airport, then circled the sky south of the Dome above the Blackwall Tunnel approach road. On the command "smoke on!" they dived down to the first gate and began weaving their way at great speed between the 20m-high towers. Ninety-odd seconds was all it took to complete the course - that and a serious amount of nerve.
Five years to the Olympics
July has been a transition month in the Olympic Park. Last month any well-equipped terrorist could have driven a nuclear missile up Pudding Mill Lane and nobody would have noticed. Today they'd not be so fortunate. Every road entering to the Olympic Park has been blocked off by large metal gates, and firmly locked. Dare to walk up to one of these gates, even unarmed, and a security guard will appear from the shadows and look you quizzically up and down. I got a very hard stare from the guard at the southern end of Marshgate Lane at the weekend, presumably because I was the first human being he'd seen that day. I didn't dare tell him that I'd already found a secret back entrance into the Olympic site, one that everyone appears to have overlooked, and that I didn't need to go through his poxy gate anyway. Ah yes, the southern gate to the Waterworks River footpath is still unlocked. Has nobody official noticed yet? Admittedly you'd need to be Indiana Jones to hack your way through the mega-undergrowth along this seriously overgrown footpath, especially after the wet summer we've just endured, but any dedicated miscreant could still gain access to the heart of the Olympic building site if they so desired.
. I intend to go back regularly and watch the view evolve, from industrial estate to levelled earthworks to gleaming international sporting hub. And, who knows, maybe I'll get a ticket to be back on site in 60 months time, beneath the fireworks, watching the flags of many nations parading around an athlete-packed arena. It's impossible to imagine at the moment, but this week marks the beginning of an unstoppable transformation.
I SPY LONDON
Tower Bridge was opened in 1894, the response to a very particular design brief - how best to relieve road traffic across the Thames downstream of London Bridge whilst still permitting ships access to the Pool of London? Horace Jones' twin-towered bascule bridge provided the ideal solution - both practical and elegant - and unwittingly created a national icon. Few world landmarks have a more recognisable silhouette than Tower Bridge. The briefest sight of this multi-storey marvel in a film, TV report or photograph announces "This is London" to even the most casual observer. Maybe that's why the bridge is permamently swarming with tourists from every continent, each intent on capturing the perfect image whilst simultaneously blocking the pavement and the sightline of others.
The very best time to visit, unless you're in a vehicle, is when the bridge is being raised. This happens surprisingly frequently, up to 1000 times a year, and yet it's an event I saw for the first time only last weekend. By pure fluke I happened to be at the entrance to the central span of the bridge when the siren went, the traffic halted and the pedestrian gate was closed in front of me. Damned exciting stuff! The bridgemaster waited until everything was clear - no chance of any death-defying gap-jumping here - and gave the signal from within his pierside command cabin. The two halves of the roadway clicked apart and quivered gently into the air. Slowly, but surely, they lifted to their maximum elevation - 86 degrees to the horizontal. And then, much to the delight of the crowds now thronging the piers, a twin-masted sailing ship cast off from its moorings beside HMS Belfast and sailed majestically (just) beneath the bridge's gothic portal. There's a sight you don't see every day. And then the roadway lowered slowly back into place before repeated sirens indicated that it was safe to cross again. Up and down in ten minutes flat. Why leave such magical London encounters to chance? The Tower Bridge website lists every scheduled bridge lift for the forseeable future, which is cracking inside knowledge for anyone with a camera (or any commuter attempting to take the bus from Liverpool Street to Bermondsey).
At the top of the towers are two large screens displaying looped information films, one detailing the bridge's construction and the other a century of Tower-ing greatness. Each presentation looks very dated - more a subtitled slideshow than a major multimedia experience. Look up and you can peer inside the spotlit turret, where a few plastic workmen have been positioned in an attempt to create some authentic 1890s atmosphere. Rather more exciting are the two latticed walkways across the river, up at flag-fluttering level. Ignore the row of information panels (unless it's foggy) and concentrate on the view. Downstream there's Canary Wharf, Butler's Wharf and the grand sweep of the Thames curving between Wapping and Rotherhithe. And upstream <switch walkways> there's City Hall, HMS Belfast, the Tower of London and the majestic City skyline. There are even special sliding windows in the glass to allow you and your camera an obstruction-free perspective across the panorama below. It's a view few Londoners bother to see. Their loss.
Anyone fancy running a railway? Because you couldn't do much worse than the gibbons who are running the London Underground at the moment. I'm talking about the tube's maintenance and renovation contracts here, and I'm talking the commercial disaster area that is Metronet. They thought repairing track and re-tiling stations would be easy. They thought it would be risk-free to cream off profits at the taxpayer's expense. They thought they had a 30 year licence to print money. They were wrong. And now they're paying.
I see this as divine judgement for all the agonies that I, and three-quarters of the network, have suffered over the last 4 years. Metronet started their station renovation program at my local tube station, and made an almighty mess of it. They forced the station to close early when there was bugger all going on inside. They treated heritage features with contempt. They failed repeatedly to complete work to agreed quality thresholds. And they took 20 months to finally finish everything, whereas they were only scheduled to take eight. Two years later, and Bow Road isn't the only station they've botched. Have you been to Epping recently, or Ruislip Manor or Chigwell or Turnham Green or White City or Great Portland Street or Theydon Bois or Chiswick Park? Probably best not to look around too carefully. It's amazing that Metronet have limped on this far, to be honest. Their fall from grace is sweet justice.
London Zoo is the oldest scientific zoo in the world, opened in 1828, and occupies a triangle of land in the top right corner of Regent's Park. The zoo is rammed full of grunting squawking beasties, 651 species in total, and every day a 652nd species queues at the entrance gate to come inside and take a look around. It costs a fortune to buy tickets, not helped by an additional £1.50 "optional" donation slapped onto the admission price, and a family of 4 shouldn't expect to see change from £50. But where else in London are you going to see lions, tigers and giraffes? And penguins and zebras? And ickle cutesy-wutesy meerkats? Just remember that all the "big" animals such as elephants, rhinos and cheetahs are housed up the M1 at Whipsnade instead, so don't be disappointed when you don't see any. And don't visit if the Victorian concept of caged animals makes you feel uneasy.
The zoo's newest attraction, opened in March, is Gorilla Kingdom. Essentially it's just a very big enclosure housing three gorillas, but laid out like an African forest clearing with a wiggly pedestrian walkway around the perimeter. Nobody stops to peer into the monkey cages alongside, they're all too busy peering across the moat or through the glass wall to see if the large female is waving her hairy backside at the crowds again. Other new geographical-based habitats include a Rainforest Lookout (packed with "small animals") and an African Bird Safari (a posh name for a mini-aviary). Elsewhere you can now walk through an enclosure swarming with squirrel monkeys, and stroll through a heated tunnel full of giant flapping butterflies. Integration is the zoo's latest watchword, and each new development is moving gradually away from "one cage, one animal".
Finest of all the zoo's architecture is surely the Lubetkin Penguin Pool - a perfect 1930s example of emerging Modernist design. An elliptical concrete curve, painted shining white, surrounds an azure blue central pond. Two elegant intertwined spiral ramps cross the centre of the pool. Imagine a parade of penguins waddling up the staircase behind, then gently descending the central ramp before splashing into the pool for a swim and going round for another circuit. This is spectator heaven. Unfortunately it wasn't penguin heaven, lacking sufficient environmental variety, and the penguins have now been shipped off to a new enclosure on the opposite side of the park. This has burrows for nesting, and a deeper pool for swimming, and none of that nasty concrete which used to hurt the poor fellows' feet. It's a popular spot, and the daily fish-feeding frenzy still attracts impenetrable crowds, but this mass migration has left the original Grade 1 listed pool unused and overlooked. Zoo authorities have tried filling it with alligators, and later with porcupines, but none of them really settled either. Until further notice this magnificent Art Deco animal hotel remains vacant. [photos]
It's been a long time coming, but the world's greatest cycling event finally swept into London yesterday. 189 lycra-clad blokes, most of them French, pedalled their hearts out on a five mile circuit round the centre of town. Half a million people came to watch them speed by. And, what do you know, even the sun finally came out.
Wherever the Tour goes, the Caravan precedes it. This is a long procession of the Tour's sponsors, out to make an impression before the main event begins. Furry lions parade past, grinning girls hurl promotional goodies out of the windows of their converted cabs, and giant washing powder packets wheel by. Most surreal of all yesterday, however, was that all the sponsors were French. There was no nod whatsoever to the native British audience who were instead treated to publicity from bottled water brands they can't buy, and supermarkets they can't shop at, and police forces they'd never want to be recruited into. But that didn't stop the spectators from trying to grab every plastic freebie thrown their way. Skoda sunhats, Haribo sweeties, cheap plastic wristbands, even pointless shiny silver discs - all were grappled for with a vengeance. I failed miserably to collect a single item, beaten even to the shrink-wrapped cardboard fan in the shape of a pizza slice that fell at my feet. Ah well, the child who wrestled it from me looked suitably delighted.
And then the first rider appeared. You could tell he was on his way by the ripple of applause spreading across the park from West Carriage Drive, and by the gendarme outrider on his official French police motorbike. Whoosh! That was a man in head-to-toe lycra, beneath a plastic teardrop helmet, pedalling like the clappers on his vélo rapide. Behind the anonymous cyclist came his team car with a pair of bikes on the roof (presumably as spares, in case of mishap, although that seemed rather pointless on a circuit lasting less than ten minutes). And then a final police outrider. And then a minute's gap. And repeat 188 times.
If you're trying to locate the southern end of Marshgate Lane, look for the Porsche showroom on Stratford High Street. Nobody who buys one of their vehicles would ever dream of driving north up this grimy, dusty road, but that's where we're heading. Turn right at the temporary traffic lights, then sharp left at the arched entrance to the Marshgate Business Centre. What an unloved street lies ahead. Along its crooked length are several brick-fronted warehouses and workshops, almost as if the 21st century arrived and nobody here noticed. Fading signs on gates and doors boast 0181 telephone numbers. Times have been hard for Freetrade Beers & Minerals Limited and Kenton Steel, and for a score of other recently-moved-out very small businesses. Worshippers no longer flock to the outwardly underwhelming Celestial Church, not now that the shutters have come down for the last time. It's humbling to remember how many local Londoners have scraped their living down this backward backstreet.
Phew, that's the grim bit over. The four storey brick building to your right marks the entrance to the Marshgate Centre. Which is much less posh than it sounds. The upper windows are smashed, the hanging basket has seen better days, and a rather paranoid sign by the front door announces Be aware!! This area infested with thieves!. There are rather better security gates nextdoor at Prism Chemical Services, which is just as well given the stockpiled Hazchems stashed away in silos stretching back to the riverside. To the right is Knobbs Hill Road (quite frankly I'm amazed that nobody's stolen the street sign), the first of three bleak sidestreets lined by warehouses, steel fences and car spares outlets. Don't venture right down to the end or the insane dog that guards the Bedrock sheds will practice his 100 decibel bark, frustrated that he can't slip through the locked gate and tear you limb from limb.
Pudding Mill Lane DLR station has always been a windswept platform in the middle of nowhere serving a population of not many. Following the closure of the road beneath the rail bridge, severing contact with the industrial area to the north, expect it to get even quieter. Pudding Mill Lane itself is nasty, brutish and short. It weaves between metal fences, scrapyards and incinerators - a far cry from its pre-industrial past as a winding country lane. A steady succession of trucks rumble their dusty cargoes in and out of an extensive triangular compound beside Marshgate Siding. If you want Renault spares, if you need low cost plant hire or if you just have a skipload of rubbish that needs burning, you've come to the right place. In five years' time this metallurgical melting pot will be the site of the pre-race Warm-up Athletics Track. Let's hope it scrubs up clean.
After dipping sharply beneath the Greenway (warning, road liable to flooding), Pudding Mill Lane fades away and Marshgate Lane takes over. To the left of the road, in a broad man-made channel, lurks the Pudding Mill River. This is a wholly insignificant backwater, a severed stagnant sidearm running for little more than a quarter of a mile between wasteland and warehouses. The ODA cleared away the surrounding undergrowth earlier this year, revealing a naked river containing surprisingly little wildlife in need of rescue. Ducks and pondweed have since recolonised the water, and a huge pile of tyres has been dumped on the banks close to a concrete roadbridge. This artificial stream still has an unexpected charm, particularly along its final northward wiggle, but it won't stay this way for long. The Pudding Mill River is destined to vanish like the windmill after which it is named, and will disappear forever beneath the Olympic Stadium and its surrounding service areas.
And at the other end of this all-too-brief river, at the very heart of the Olympic Park site, stands Carpenters Lock. 'Crumbles' might be a better word than 'stands', to be honest. There have been no boats through this dilapidated structure for years, and the access footpath was fenced off a few years ago to deter all but the most determined photographer. No point in any last minute restoration. Olympic architects have other plans for this spot, with the central Olympic spine path due to plough across the river right here. Which is a shame, because there's a perfectly decent footbridge close by already. It's a gently humping blue-green bridge with latticed sides, used by long-dead horses to tow barges downstream towards the Thames. Shame that it's a little on the narrow side, and would almost certainly collapse under the weight of spectator footflow when the basketball arena is up and running. But don't worry. This iconic bridge appears to be marked as a thin stripe on legacy plans for the Olympic Park, so I have every hope that it'll survive the oncoming bulldozer onslaught intact. I look forward to standing here again.
To your left, behind locked gates, stand the empty brick shells of Kings Yard. Several small businesses once made their home inside a trio of long three-storey buildings surrounding a central courtyard, including such esteemed names as Stratford Catering Equipment Manufacturing Ltd and the Bilmerton Wig Supply Centre. They've all left now, so sadly there's no longer any need for Tony's Cafe to serve up daily kebabs and cuppas between 7am and 3pm. Come 2012 Kings Yard will be transformed into the Olympic Park's Energy Centre, pumping out gas-fuelled zero-carbon goodness from a cutting-edge Combined Cooling, Heating and Power Plant. On the opposite side of the road a number of more modern industrial estates are waiting to be wiped away to make room for the Basketball Arena. The Royal Opera House's scenery and costume workshop is moving out, as are major distribution depots for Boots the chemist and FedEx international couriers.
On eastward into Carpenter's Road. This is a favourite East End boy racer backstreet, so it's appropriate that the majority of the businesses down the rest of the road are automobile related. Crash your car here and someone will be on the spot in seconds to nab your bumper, remove your windscreen or cart off your chassis, for cash. Pause a while on the next roadbridge and look out across the River Lea's eastern channel. You might spot a bobbing moorhen, you might spot a soaring seagull, or you might be really lucky and spot a purple Silverlink train rattling by across the water. Three lonely traffic lights guard the road junction into Marshgate Lane, where the occasional lorry queues to let absolutely nothing pass. Passengers crammed in aboard every route 276 bus soak up the unsightly view as they pass between twin building sites. 2012 contractors have been busy here since the start of the year on the site of the new Aquatic Centre, levelling the ground ready for the global Speedo invasion. It'll be a long time coming.
Carpenter's Road narrows alongside a long hangar-like structure divided up into a series of trading units. You can bring your broken-down taxi here for repair, or pick up some Japanese auto spares, or even snap up a cut-price car battery. Bits of windscreen litter the roadside - yours for a very reasonable price. Behind one set of locked gates they brew tarmac, behind another it's readymix concrete. And so it continues down the road - a whole string of businesses which wouldn't be acceptable (or have sufficient cash to pay the rent) anywhere else. Olympic regeneration will replace them all with a brand new residential neighbourhood, no doubt packed with incoming couples who've never fiddled under a bonnet in their lives. And the displaced employees of Carpenter's Road will have to make a fresh start elsewhere, if elsewhere will have them.
Most valleys have one river, maybe two. The Lower Lea Valley has at least ten. There are waterways of all different lengths and sizes - some narrow, some broad, some natural, some artificial, some sweeping, some stunted, but all characterful. The smaller rivers are threaded tributaries of the River Lea, linked to one another at both ends, which makes for a fascinating intertwined network of watery goodness. And perfect for a signposted "circular" riverside ramble - the Bow Back Rivers Walk - conceived 1999, half-closed 2005, eradicated 2007.
The rest of the City Mill River towpath provides a walk of contrasts. To your right a bush-covered fence screens off what appears to be an area of open wilderness. It used to be, until recently, but then the bulldozers moved in to clear the site leaving acres of sterile wasteland. This long strip of former woodland will form the main pedestrian route through the Olympic Park, but for now it remains inaccessible brownfield. Meanwhile, on the opposite bank of the river, there's an alternative view of the Marshgate Lane industrial estate from the rear. The path passes brick warehouses and gleaming silver silos. It continues past a scrapyard with its own rowing boat and a quarter mile long tumbledown shed. An angry unshutuppable alsatian patrols the riverbank, incensed that you've dared encroach on his private domain. Expect considerably better security in 2012 when the Olympic Stadium touches down precisely here. For now the view remains distinctly lowrise, and unexpectedly photogenic.
Halfway along the footpath (don't worry, that's the worst of the impenetrable stuff over), a ramp leads up to the pedestrian entrance to Thornton Fields railway sidings. It's here, beneath gantries and criss-crossed power cables, that unwanted mainline trains are stored between the morning and evening peaks. But they'll be moving out too next year, to replacement sidings in Leyton, because the 2012 hamburger stalls have got to go somewhere. Back on the riverbank the skyline is dominated by a brand new apartment block - 18 storeys of pure white curviness. This is the Icona building, granted planning permission before the Olympic bid was won, and whose trademark red, yellow and green balconies will no doubt become a familiar feature of 2012 TV coverage. But it's still the glorious combination of overgrown footpath, tidal waterway and forbidding warehouses that makes this last stretch down to the Greenway a hidden treat. It's just a shame there was so little time to experience it.
In contrast to the myriad routeways through the bottom half of the Olympic Park, there's only one up top. Waterden Road runs due north between the two main channels of the River Lea, with a swathe of mostly brownfield land to either side. It ought to be a major cut-through for cars and lorries but instead it's used almost exclusively by local traffic. At its southern tip the road curves and humps over the North London railway line, before stuttering to a pause at a set of totally unnecessary traffic lights. These have been erected in preparation for the opening of Stratford International station, connected via a brand new link road which glides on concrete stilts across the river valley. Except that the station hasn't opened yet (and won't for years), so this virgin carriageway runs slap bang into a metal barrier, wasted and abandoned amidst a future Olympic construction site. Highway chiefs have at least now switched off the utterly pointless pelican crossing, but it was fun stopping the non-existent traffic while it lasted.
For a peek somewhere special, follow the side alley round the back of First's bus garage. If the gate's unlocked, and nobody's looking, you might be able to cross the footbridge into the green oasis of the Manor Garden allotments. Here generations of Hackneyfolk have cultivated treasured plots of land, bringing forth vegetables and flowers (and even more vegetables). The 80 allotments run for more than quarter of a mile altogether, sandwiched in a thin strip of land between two rivers, and perched high enough up to afford a fine view over the surrounding valley. Most of the sheds and gardening equipment have seen better days, and none of the plots would ever grace the Chelsea Flower Show, but that's part of the charm of the place. Even when there's nobody around you can feel a very real sense of community in the air - this is somewhere to relax as well as to grow. But the Olympics are cutting short the final summer season, and the few remaining tenants are being allowed to hang around just long enough to gather in their last harvest. As dusk falls across this unique eco-friendly environment, I fear the temporary replacement allotments over in Leyton will be a wholly inadequate substitute.
Last Sunday lunchtime, back on Waterden Road, I watched a slow-moving procession bringing pre-Olympic closure one step further forward. A bright yellow JCB pulled up beside a lorry parked at the southern traffic lights and raised a single metal gate into the air. Workmen in fluorescent jackets used Stop/Go signs to halt the infrequent traffic and the JCB started to make its way gradually, cautiously, up to the northern end of the road. The gate dangled precariously in mid air, the driver taking particular care beneath low slung wires and cables, until the convoy reached a pair of sturdy steel posts recently bashed in beside the East London bus garage. Here the workmen proceeded to lower the hinges carefully into position, half blocking the road, before returning to fetch a matching gate for the opposite post.
