Twenty years ago today I posted my first photo to Flickr. I'd been to Lewisham for the day as part of my Random Borough project and thought you deserved to see 13 of the better pictures in greater-than-microscopic size. For my inaugural upload I picked the ever-photogenic Laban Centre on Deptford Creek in cobalt sunshine, and invited you to take a peek. (more tomorrow - in the meantime you might enjoy my new Flickr photostream with more shots of gorgeous Lewisham) seven-digit ID number. By contrast my latest photos are eleven-digiters, confirming an explosion of digital imagery over the last two decades. Sticking photos online was relatively new back in 2005, hindered by retro-mobile technology and substandard transfer speeds. Today we think nothing of uploading photos and videos for immediate consumption, so much so that the visual has overtaken the written in our digital communication. Flickr - for some reason I'd signed up over a year previously. They were a cute fortnight-old start-up at the time, complete with an occasional inability to spell. Welcome to Flickr, diamond geezer! Please note: ln the initial weeks of the beta period reliability may be sporadic while we optimize the system and new servers. Outage start times and anticipated lengths wiltbe posted to the news page with as much notice as possible. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience thls may cause. Flickr is that it's still going. Twenty years is forever online, plenty long enough for your premise to collapse or for the big company who bought you to let you wither and then pull the plug. In this case Yahoo proved poor masters and eventually got rid, which would have meant oblivion had not a smaller company called SmugMug stepped in. Thus the site is still here, thank God, and so are hundreds of millions of images representing a phenomenal social record. the next one, a Tellytubbyesque landscape from the front of the same building, a total high enough to place it in my Top 200 Most Viewed Flickr photos of all time. Alas this is an increasingly meaningless ranking after a fortnight of statistical blips in October 2022 gifted entirely random photos massive viewing totals. But if I strip out those annoying interlopers these are my Flickr Top Five, my photo-sharing greatest hits. 1) Entrance to nudist beach, Telscombe Cliffs (44,296 views): It's the phrase 'nudist beach' that keeps punters coming back, alas missing the key word 'entrance' (because there's nothing to see here). 2) Met No 1 (26,343 views): In 2013 a 'Learning English' website used my photo of a steam train at Farringdon to illustrate a podcast, and attributed it properly, which has brought a steady stream of visitors ever since. 3) Fatboys Diner (20,527 views): This Fifties trailer alas no longer serves burgers at Trinity Buoy Wharf but my wonky 2008 photo still has traction. I saw its empty silver shell recently from a train, awaiting rebirth. 4) American Embassy, Nine Elms (19,731 views): Very occasionally one of my photos is embraced by Explore, Flickr's global daily Top 500 feature, which loved this photo of Nine Elms' defensive cube. It's rather easier to get into Explore now than it used to be. 5) Shivering Sands sea forts (18,145 views): I got lucky with a level horizon on a rocking boat off Herne Bay, garnering multiple Flickr favourites and a long shelf life as a "go-to" photo for this rusting offshore marvel. eleven photos in my online portfolio have had fewer than 200 views over the years, which if you're on Flickr yourself you'll know is a phenomenal strike rate. They're all from a particularly dull set I uploaded in 2006 so it serves me right. Of the dozen other photos that never mustered 300 views, what barely interested anyone are a trip to Rome, a Paralympic tennis match and a week in San Francisco, which I've never quite understood. I suspect photos of my recent trip to Dover would be in these doldrums had I actually managed to upload them, but I haven't yet which is annoying - an anniversary opportunity lost. Flickr albums where appropriate, especially if I go to a far-flung place and want to make it easy to showcase my visit. Here are my five most-viewed albums ever, and perhaps you can see why they are. 1) Olympic Stadium site (10,406 views): I stood on the same bridge over Marshgate Lane and took a monthly photo of the Olympic Stadium arising, so this is a unique record of inexorable change and rightly my most-viewed album. 2) Metroland Revisited (9,324 views): For John Betjeman's centenary I followed in his documentary footsteps up the Metropolitan line, and it was 2006 so photo quality wasn't great but nostalgia won out. 3) Fleet River (NE branch) (9,255 views): My month-long bloggery down the River Fleet was much shared at the time and brought diamond geezer to a wider audience. I compiled five albums of Fleet photographs, geographically focused, and if I extended this list to a Top 10 the other albums would be 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th. 4) Inside the Gherkin (9,164 views): For Open House 2006 I queued for hours to see London from the top of the Gherkin, and thousands of people have subsequently wanted to know what that view looked like. 5) My Most Interesting Photos (8,481 views): Flickr's algorithm nebulously combines views, comments and favourites to create a ranking by 'Interestingness', which for years had the Maunsell Forts at the top of the list. This album alas no longer automatically updates, otherwise it'd show that my Most Interesting photo is now of icy boats at Richmond Bridge. Early Flickr had some mighty cunning coding under the bonnet, including a naming convention so forward-looking it still works today. My first photo is still www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/8919372, my first set of Parisian photos is still www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/albums/263401 and (I don't know if this works for you) a list of all the photos I uploaded in 2008 in order of Interestingness is still www.flickr.com/search/?w=36101699310%40N01&s=int&d=taken-20080101-20081231. otherwise have lost when my hard drive died in 2006. But the potential danger works both ways. I've invested hours of my time curating an online portfolio, currently 18852 photos in total, complete with captions, tags and geographical locations. But there's no guarantee whatsoever that Flickr will maintain functionality in the future, or indeed continue to function at all, so all that effort may one day be wiped out. Flickr can survive another decade without something going wrong, be that degeneration of functionality or withdrawal of service. But I said exactly that in 2015, and yet here it is still going strong. I hope you enjoy looking at the photos I stick on there, be that for artistic, geographical or purely inquisitive reasons. And I hope they'll still be there to look at in 2035, even if the things I've taken photographs of are by then long gone.

Route 129: Lewisham to Gallions Reach Location: London southeast, crossriver Length of bus journey: 9 miles, 70 minutes 129 has been searching for a purpose ever since it was introduced as a stumpy three mile route in 2006. The original idea was to connect the new Millennium Village on the peninsula to the centre of Greenwich, a double decker shuttle which was one of the ten shortest bus routes in London. Planners intended it would one day be extended to new developments on Surrey Canal Road and thence to Peckham, but New Bermondsey Overground station remains a mirage two decades later so that never happened. Jump ahead to 2022 and the 129 was extended instead to Lewisham, this to make up for route 180 being diverted for Crossrail reasons, although that didn't bring a huge rush of punters either. Now it's become one of three cross-river buses in east London, striking out through the Silvertown Tunnel to connect Lewisham to City Airport and Beckton, and we wait to see if this is a link anyone genuinely needs. 129's first stop ought to be outside the Lewisham Centre but it's closed due to 'Urban Realm development works', which according to a poster were supposed to finish last week but evidently haven't. At least it tells you where to go instead. The second stop alas has no poster, just a Countdown screen insisting several 129s are due in the next few minutes when in fact bugger all are coming. Here I meet a flustered old lady trying to get to Canary Wharf with the aid of some scribbled instructions her nephew gave her. Alas her intended chain of buses fails at square one, causing instant confusion, and trying to persuade her to give up waiting and catch the DLR instead falls on deaf ears. displaced 400 much-peeved residents. Then finally we're back on line of route, where I can confirm nobody has bothered to put up a new 129 timetable at the Lewisham Station stop because of TfL's usual uncoordinated backroom inefficiencies. Things have started badly. We've reached the start of the original runty 129 outside the Old Royal Naval College, suddenly with so many more miles to go. Potential passengers are asking the driver if he's going to North Greenwich, because last week that was the key destination on the front of the bus but it's now vanished in favour of a less helpful housing estate in Newham. For a direct bus they really should have taken the 188 which takes a shortcut whereas we're doing the full length of constricted Trafalgar Road before heading north. "Are you going under the tunnel?" asks one keen old lady, and technically the answer's no but the driver helpfully says yes. We exit the bus station novelly by turning right at the roundabout, then right again down a special canyon-like bus lane. Three hi-vis-ed stewards wave us on, just this once. In no time we're turning into the main flow of traffic almost immediately before the tunnel portal, and then we're in. A double decker in a Thames tunnel is a proper novelty for London. We stick to the left lane along with the HGVs while everything else sticks to the right, all proceeding at just under 30mph and all contributing to the Mayoral coffers. It's less straight than I was expecting but not as wonky as the Blackwall Tunnel. As sightseeing trips go it's not especially incredible, although if you stop and think precisely what we're ducking under maybe it is. One final bend and then daylight appears in the distance and then we're out - just under a mile, fractionally under two minutes. The first stop is a good half mile beyond the tunnel outside West Silvertown station, or technically just past. Here the pile-off begins as we lose the passengers who merely wanted to ride through the tunnel, which is the vast majority. The 129 then begins its new life threading through the Newham hinterland, an estuarine strip initially bursting with fresh flats. It can't currently stop at the next bus stop because extensive cycleway works are in progress but 'Thames Barrier' is announced anyway. Nobody is inconvenienced. The announcements then glitch into overdrive and start mentioning future stops, repeated stops and especially Connaught Bridge, perhaps because we're stopping there twice but more likely teething troubles. When Crossrail started in 2022 TfL entirely rejigged bus stopping patterns in this corner of Beckton, mysteriously rerouting the 300 and leaving Royal Albert Way unbussed. The 129 now follows its former path, making sense of the former subtraction as if this were the plan all along. We pass a few parks, a closed city farm and not many houses before lining up on Tollgate Road where potential passengers are far more plentiful. None oblige. One of the remaining enthusiasts in the front seat lifts his sleeve to reveal the bus-related tattoo he just got, and the other is perhaps less impressed than he'd hoped. We've now been going over an hour, and as a blessing the driver doesn't deviate into Beckton bus station but stops outside. I have no interest in riding the 129 back the other way because it's pretty mundane apart from the two magic subterranean minutes in the middle. Let's hope other people find it useful and it doesn't prove a wasted connection.

The Silvertown Tunnel opened this morning. comments if(postComments['199122220152314'] != null){document.write(' (' + postComments['199122220152314'] + ')')}else{document.write(' p(0)')}; (I'm only interested if the answer is 'Yes') I have also had the entire top deck to myself, spotted lots of police, timed the journey through (2 minutes) and been charged to ride a 'free' bus. The inside of the tunnel is big and grey, as you might expect.

pre-1897 late 19th century Blackwall Tunnel (→ Blackwall 1897) early 20th century 58 tram (→ Lewisham, Camberwell, Victoria) 108 bus (→ Bromley-by-Bow, → Crystal Palace 1934) mid 20th century 108A bus (→ Bromley-by-Bow, → Eltham, 1944-1968) 185 bus (replacement for 58 tram 1951) late 20th century Blackwall Tunnel 2nd bore (→ Blackwall 1967) 108 bus (→ Stratford 1977, → Eltham 1970, → Lewisham 1986) MILLENNIUM (1999/2000) Jubilee line (→ Stratford, → Waterloo, Wembley, Stanmore 1999) River pier (→ Canary Wharf, Westminster 1999) 161 bus (→ Woolwich, Chislehurst 1999) 188 bus (→ Greenwich, Central London 1999) 422 bus (→ Woolwich, Bexleyheath 1999) 472 bus (→ Woolwich, Thamesmead 1999) M1/M2 bus (→ Charlton, Greenwich, 2000 only) 21st century 486 bus (→ Welling, Bexleyheath 2001) River (→ Woolwich 2002, Silvertown 2019, Barking 2022) 129 bus (→ Greenwich 2006, → Lewisham 2022) 132 bus (→ Eltham, Bexleyheath 2009) Dangleway (→ Royal Docks 2012) 335 bus (→ Kidbrooke 2019) 180 bus (→ Woolwich, Erith 2022) TODAY Silvertown Tunnel (→ Silvertown 2025) Cycle Shuttle (→ City Hall 2025) 129 bus (→ Beckton 2025)

Dover to Deal (10 miles) Dover is a town most people pass through, a swirl of traffic converging on a mighty seaport, but also a historic town in its own right primed for national defence. I was merely passing through, launching off through the more ordinary side of town where residents buy vapes and 10% of the high street shops are empty. Ducking beneath the dual carriageway brings you to the so-called beach, still lapped by waves despite being inside the harbour, its promenade overlooked by faded Victorian grandeur and an artful curve of postwar flats. If you're heading for the heights rather than the continent you need the backstreet which eventually leads to Dame Vera Lynn Way, an inclined footpath which skims under the A2 viaduct and whose sign confirms "...To The White Cliffs of Dover". And won't you look at that! Far better to continue along the prescribed path To The Lighthouse. It's a bit like crossing Beachy Head but not as high, and a bit like crossing the Seven Sisters but nowhere near as up and down, and all with the aid of an all-weather chalk path which neither of those enjoy. A skirt around Langford Hole provides an undulating vista with the sheer chalk face of the upcoming headland rising bright above a rock-strewn coastal shelf. These are the white cliffs that welcome you home from the deck of a ferry, a true national emblem, and here you are striding across the top of them amid billowing grassland dotted with stunted trees and gorse bushes. I swear I head a skylark at one point. The next five miles are previously unblogged, kicking off with a steady descent into the amazing hideaway of St Margaret's Bay. The original village is safely inland but a separate settlement grew up on the steep slopes above the bay, a string of residential fingers clinging to the contours along which decades of incomers built their dream homes. Some are classic detached, others more ostentatious or resolutely postmodern with a price tag to match. A large central dip contains The Pines Garden, an ornamental treasure which I suspect peaks in summer because the spring blooms were quite muted. Alongside is a tearoom which doubles up as St Margaret's Museum, all free to explore but you might find yourself having to edge round a table of patrons enjoying afternoon tea while trying to learn about wartime gun emplacements or experimental microwave dishes. The beef and red wine pie smelled divine. I'd been warned this might happen, but while down on the beach at St Margaret's Bay my phone chirped into action with a text message saying "Welcome to France". I checked and sure enough my phone was now connected to 'Orange' rather than EE, no British mast having line of sight over the chalk rim. More worryingly it informed me "While you're here you'll automatically pay £2.59/day to access your UK plan", which after all the hassle I've been having with data back home was almost the last straw. Climbing a few streets brought the ridiculous response "Welcome back to the UK, we hope you had a great trip!", and I hope EE recognise it's impossible to visit France and come back in the space of 18 minutes so don't overcharge me. The path ahead crosses undulating downland, again reminiscent of Beachy Head, with adjacent fields of grass rippling in the strong wind. A lot of weekend walkers and daytrippers were striding alongside me, the coast path being understandably popular on a bright spring day, most of them hiking in packs and the majority less than half my age. I let them pass while I scrutinised a tiny patch of purple orchids, although I suspect they'd have overtaken me anyway. And then the houses started, a single track of isolated homes with clifftop out front and farmland out back, one or two of which looked like they must have featured in either Grand Designs or Country Life. This continued for a good half mile before a golf club inevitably intruded, branded The Course On The Cliffs, after which the chalk finally faded away and the path descended to beach level. Walmer has a less exclusive waterfront, and also one of England's busiest lifeboats which RNLI volunteers were keen to show off because their craft has been replaced this very week. The new one goes by the peculiarly inshore name of 'Hounslow Branch' in memory of Lorna Newman, a former resident of Heston in west London who left her entire estate to the charity. A plaque in Upper Walmer marks the supposed location of the first Roman invasion of Britain, i.e. Julius Caesar was here, and when you look at how easy it would have been to lay up a war fleet on the shingle beach it all makes perfect sense. Alas he arrived two millennia too early to enjoy a pizza from Roman's Retreat or "cakes, baps and offensively large Scotch Eggs" from Hut 55. Previous local bloggage: Dover, Deal/Walmer, Dover, Dover, Betteshanger, Ham Sandwich