The Mousetrap is the play that refuses to die. It's also an iconic part of London's cultural life, if not for critical acclaim then for sheer persistence, having reliably entertained West End audiences for over 70 years. So when London Theatre Week recently offered cut-price tickets I thought it was about time I booked a seat at St Martin's Theatre and experienced all the spoilers for myself. The Mousetrap started out as a 30 minute radio play on the BBC Light Programme on the evening of 30th May 1947. It was specially written by Agatha Christie for Her Majesty Queen Mary on the occasion of her 80th birthday, and was originally titled Three Blind Mice. If you'd been listening to Much-Binding-In-The-Marsh on the Home Service instead you'd have missed it. Later that year it was adapted as a 30 minute play for BBC Television, then in 1948 reworked as a short story for American readers of Cosmopolitan magazine. Christie subsequently decided it might make a good full-length play so set about writing the stage version which made its debut at the Theatre Royal Nottingham on 6th October 1952. It's been running ever since. Mathew Pritchard on the occasion of his ninth birthday. She thought it might run for 14 months tops whereas in fact it's proven to be one of the best birthday presents ever, and Mathew still runs a charitable trust promoting the arts in Wales on the proceeds. She also stipulated that no film version could be produced until the show had been closed for six months, which of course it still hasn't, so if you want to discover the plot your only options are to read all the spoilers on Wikipedia or turn up in person. St Martin's Theatre in Covent Garden, just across the street from The Ivy restaurant. The Mousetrap first arrived at the Ambassador's Theatre on 25th November 1952 after a brief provincial tour taking in Oxford, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds and Birmingham. It played there until March 1974 when over the space of a weekend it transferred nextdoor to St Martin's Theatre where it's been playing ever since. Technically the pandemic forced a pause in March 2020 but The Mousetrap was the first West End show to reopen the following spring and officially its opening run continues. Not only is this a record-breaking debut it's also by far the longest run of any play anywhere in the world, and even in its 73rd year The Mousetrap is still raking them in. The Mousetrap is a one-set play, that set being the hall at Monkswell Manor, an isolated country guest house in the wilds of Berkshire. The first couple we meet are Mollie and Giles, the newlywed proprietors hoping to make a go of the place and nervous of who their first guests might be. It's also snowing outside which means the scene is set for a classic lock-in murder mystery, and which also keeps the stage hands busy dropping flakes past the hall's lattice windows. As various characters turn up, not all of them anticipated, Christie skilfully weaves a complex tale out of seemingly not very much. Some characters seem pure cliche while others are more compellingly complex and may not be all they appear on the surface. The script is also well sprinkled with comedic moments, indeed it's quite some achievement for a play steeped in 1950s sensibilities to still be making audiences laugh in the 2020s. eight actors are required and none of them are big names, each cast signing up for a six month stint on the understanding that the play's the star. The current lot includes one who's done The Play That Goes Wrong, one that's done Hollyoaks, four who were in Doctors and one who was a Slytherin bully in the first Harry Potter. The latter is Alasdair Buchan who as an 11 year-old put on an amateur version of The Mousetrap at school only for his headmaster to receive a cease and desist letter from the show's West End producers. Thankfully this didn't count against him when he joined the cast three decades later, and his depiction of Mr Paravicini (the mysterious foreign stranger) was one of the play's comic highlights. ice cream tubs. The current going rate is £4 for the 125ml Mini Tubs or £5 for the 180ml Upsell Tubs, and I was surprised the lemon sorbet didn't sell better. She also had £6 programmes to sell, these smallish but also fairly thick because a 73 year-old play has quite a backstory to be elaborated. In a nice touch if you take your programme to the bar they'll officially stamp it with the performance number and then you've got a proper souvenir on your hands. Sitting beside the exit had one final benefit in that I was out on the street before the rest of the theatre disgorged so was able to get a clear view of the wooden board in the foyer. And wow the count was now at 29983 performances, a phenomenal total, and incredibly close to a proper quadruple-zeroed milestone. The Mousetrap's 10,000th performance was way back on Friday 17th December 1976, a few months after Agatha Christie's death, and the 20,000th was on Saturday 16th December 2000. By my calculations the 30,000th will thus be the matinee on Saturday 22nd March 2025, i.e. a fortnight from today, so steel yourself for a burst of publicity celebrating the amazing success of the world's longest running play. Did you ever see such a sight in your life? See how they run. See how they run.

Five questions for the price of one What does the bottom of the Thames look like? You can't see normally the bottom of a tidal river because it's covered by a huge amount of water. But at low tides some of the bed appears, at spring tides more appears and at spring tides near the equinoxes a lot more than normal appears. This was Silvertown Reach earlier in the week, just upstream from the Thames Barrier, a couple of days after the new moon which tends to be when the highest and lowest spring tides take place. I unintentionally turned up close to low tide and was amazed by the extent of the slope of riverbed extending down to the shallow water's edge. What's more it wasn't excessively muddy like it can be further downstream, more a compacted surface of sand and mud with thin stripes of gravel. I got a particularly good view by standing halfway down Royal Wharf Pier, perched above a broad swathe that was much more beach than quagmire, and was considerably more uniform and featureless than I might have been expecting. Obviously not all of the Thames riverbed through London looks like this but it does feel fairly representative - no rocks, no piles of litter, no magic undersea kingdoms, just a smoothish surface swept by the tides twice a day and never fully revealed. What happened to Bethnal Green's gasholders by the Regents Canal? You know the ones on the bend in the canal by Cambridge Heath Road close to Broadway Market. They became flats of course, or rather they're in the process of becoming flats, much like the cluster up at King's Cross did. Developers St William specialise in challenging sites and in this case are slotting a stack of residential wedges inside the ironwork to create something whose exterior is mostly balconies and which looks entirely un-heritage. The two original structures are being accompanied by three separate cylindrical towers each on a former gasholder footprint, and they look a tad more garish. The development's been named Regent's View, despite the fact most residents won't be able to see the canal, and its 555 premium apartments for well-off incomers are currently being marketed via a depressingly familiar brochure. "One of East London’s most desirable addresses" yadda yadda "urban village surrounded by artisanal shops" yadda yadda "a truly exciting new destination" yadda yadda "The vibrant colours draw inspiration from the local area’s energy, blending the past and present while introducing a bold vision for the future" bleeeurgh. Much is made of the fact that the City is three minutes away by tube, and less that this requires walking 12 minutes to Bethnal Green first. Obviously it's great that London's housing stock is being increased and that the gasholders are being preserved, but looking at the end result they might as well not have been. What's London's most oppressive park now Lyle Park isn't? Lyle Park was a gift to the people of Silvertown from golden syrup magnate Sir Leonard Lyle in 1924, a thin riverside park tucked into a tiny gap between a petroleum depot, varnishing works and engineering sheds. If you've ever been you'll know it's unexpectedly lovely with ornamental gardens, a brief river terrace and a decent kickabout space, hence much appreciated locally. But for several decades it's only had one entrance, an 200m-long track alongside tennis courts, leading to a park sealed off from its surroundings and overlooked by nobody. "I like it here," I've often thought, "but if anyone with malicious intent turned up I'd have absolutely no means of escape nor any way of attracting attention and that makes me very uncomfortable". Now suddenly all that's changed with the completion of the Riverscape development at Royal Wharf. Riverscape is essentially a wall of flats tacked on to the western edge of a dense urban development, but with gardens that deliberately and directly connect into Lyle Park. Now you can finally walk into the park from the Thames-side promenade and also via a new gate halfway along, and suddenly it's an integral accessible patch of loveliness which the developers have essentially bolted on for free. It feels utterly safe here now, hurrah, which makes me wonder what London's most oppressive park must be now Lyle Park isn't. Why is Tower Hamlets so bad at recycling? DEFRA checked, is my home borough of Tower Hamlets where only 18% of potential recyclables are collected. It's a challenging location, not least because as many as 88% of the borough's homes are flats or maisonettes, and you can't just stick a bin in the garden when there isn't one. A lot of us therefore have to leave our recycling in pink bags at the kerbside, made harder by the fact our libraries never seem to have a stock of them, and many's the time I've thought why am I even bothering. recently rearranged and retimed the hours you're allowed to leave your bags out. Previously this was early morning and very late night only, with a truck rumbling along the road immediately afterwards to collect everything. That's now been lengthened to two two-hour slots at less insomniac times of day, which should be better, as part of the council's implementation of their Commercial and Household Waste Regulations 2024. really hard to do when everyone's in flats. The idea is you drop your food waste into the top of the black roadside bin, which has gold lettering on the front and on the lid trying to make it clear it's for 'food waste only'. But not unexpectedly passers-by are using them for general litter instead, there being hardly any proper litter bins hereabouts, hence you can often see bottles, cans and takeaway detritus poking out of the top, and I suspect this well-meaning plan will turn out to be unmanageable. How annoying are ambiguous signs? This sign has appeared by the roadside in Woolwich High Street, and it's not the only place one has materialised. Ostensibly it alerts drivers that the Silvertown Tunnel will be opening on 7th April 2025, which is fair enough. But underneath it says, indeed instructs, 'Use Blackwall Tunnel', and what on earth is that about? Is it telling drivers to use the Blackwall Tunnel now, which is obvious because you can't use the other tunnel before it's opened? Is it telling drivers to use the Blackwall Tunnel now and switch to the Silvertown Tunnel later, which feels superfluous? Or is it saying that even when the Silvertown Tunnel opens you should continue to use the Blackwall Tunnel for some unspecified reason, which feels odd? This sign is particularly close to the Woolwich Ferry so maybe it's a hint that if the ferry's closed then the Blackwall Tunnel is a better option and the Silvertown Tunnel won't be, but I don't think that's true. All that's clear is that whoever wrote this sign knows what they meant, but unfortunately they haven't conveyed this meaning to passing motorists. And how pointlessly annoying is that?

Four questions for the price of one How did this Prius end up in Clapton Pond? It smashed through the railings, obviously, as you'd likely be able to guess even if you hadn't seen the large gap in the fence and the missing hedge. It must have failed to stop at the lights on Downs Road and carried on, either due to some kind of mechanical failure or because the driver fancied a giggle, and came to a halt in a few inches of water immediately in front of the fountain. Apparently it happened overnight, this being Tuesday morning, and I happened upon the unlikely scene about an hour before council operatives came along and winched the car out. Zero points to the clickbait news website who headlined their report on the incident 'Emergency Services Respond to Trapped Occupants' despite the picture beneath showing an empty unsubmerged car with two passenger doors wide open. It just goes to show that you can't beat proper on-the-spot reporting, and also that you never know what you're going to see when you walk around London. Why is Hackney Walk being demolished? fashion nexus which Hackney council built on Morning Lane with post-riot funding, betting that a row of gold-panelled railway arches near a Burberry outlet could attract thousands of well-heeled punters in search of designer bargains. It could not. The pioneer brands in 2016 found they had more staff than customers, by 2020 only one store in the converted railway arches remained open and by 2022 even Nike had skedaddled from the bookend unit leaving everything vacant. Regeneration millions have rarely been more impressively wasted. Now in 2025 it seems the shutters have been screened off by a wall of wooden panels, labelled 'Caution Demolition - Keep Out', and behind the scenes workmen are hacking away to remove fittings, fascias and ex-luxury trappings. I understand the site is returning to the care of Network Rail spin-off the Arch Company and that yet more government funding (this time a levelling-up grant) is being directed to the area, hence the need to rip everything back to basics. Best it seems that this golden eyesore is removed in the hope that eventually nobody remembers this embarrassingly expensive white elephant ever existed. How many daffodils are there here? clumps in total, some of which had as few as 1 or 2 buds open and the best of which had 13, 14 and 16. Altogether 140 daffodil stalks were in bloom, suggesting an average of 7 flowers per plant. Conveniently the municipal gardeners had planted them in distinct rows, 12 in all, with approximately 30 plants in each line, which suggests 360 plants altogether. Assume 7 flowers each and that makes 12x30x7 in total, i.e. this is a photo of approximately 2500 daffodils. No wonder they look lovely. The entire park has four or five patches like this so that'd be more like 10000 altogether. I hesitate to try to scale this up but there might well be a million daffodils in bloom across the borough of Hackney, maybe 30 million across London and 100s of millions across the country. Hurrah for spring's floral multitudes. What's wrong with Cherry Jaffa Cakes? This billboard can be found on Lea Bridge Road not far from Lea Bridge station. I had to read it twice. I Want To Eat Jaffa Cakes With You, it said, But Not The Cherry Flavoured Ones. That's odd, I thought. It looked like an advert but it couldn't be an advert for Jaffa Cakes because even if McVities were being ironic they wouldn't have said that. The important bit turned out to be what it says in small white letters in the bottom right-hand corner which is 'Real Hackney Dave'. Initially I wondered if it was a Valentine's Day message that'd been up too long, but it's not because it turns out Real Hackney Dave is a local artist. He used to be big in advertising but since retiring has got into screen printing big time and is particularly keen on large slogans and slapping words across found images and ephemera. I can't find this particular artwork in his online gallery or shop, but he has put up a glittery piece called 'I Want To Eat Biscuits With You' on Threads. Jaffa Cakes famously aren't biscuits according to UK tax law. Also McVities don't seem to be making cherry Jaffa Cakes at present, only Raspberry, Cola Bottle and Original, so the correct slogan on the poster really ought to be But Not The Cola Bottle Flavoured Ones.

The major roadworks at the Bow Roundabout are so nearly complete. We have a reshaped roundabout, we have resurfaced roads, we have repainted lines and we have a new contraflow lane under the flyover. The resurfacing works that were meant to take four nights eventually took six, this because the condition of the road surface at the end of Stratford High Street turned out to be much worse than expected. An army of hot machines turned up and a lot of overnight traffic was deflected elsewhere. The end of the former contraflow lane was the last to be flattened and redrawn. The day everything goes back to normal still isn't clear, with the yellow signs by the road saying 8th March, the workmen's signs saying 9th March and the official online roadworks portal now suggesting, sigh, 15th March. Further work on Bow Bridge's western expansion joints may take another week, according to another letter local residents have been sent, but those shouldn't significantly disrupt any traffic. Previous updates: #0 #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17

What's London's largest square? covered that. I reckon it's this. And you're right, it's not really the largest square you can fit inside Greater London, only the largest where the sides run north/south and east/west. Twist your square and you can do a lot better. We can do better still with a rectangle. London's biggest triangle is even better. I should say at this point that I haven't proven this is London's largest triangle, I've merely jiggled around with straight lines and tried to optimise the area inside. It might well be that a slightly different triangle gives a slightly bigger area, but I reckon ony slightly so 405 square miles is pretty much the largest you can get. Likewise that last rectangle might be beatable, as might that square, but so marginally I still reckon I've got the percentages right to the nearest whole number. Its diameter is just under 21 miles and its centre is reassuringly close to Piccadilly Circus. The circle has an area of 342 square miles which is 56% of the area of Greater London. Again that means we've enclosed more than half of the capital, which I was not expecting to be possible with a circle. I can get up to 69% with an ellipse and 74% with an irregular quadrilateral, but probably best not go there.