I have been to all the stations in London. It's a lot of stations. I'm including tube, DLR, Overground, Crossrail and all National Rail services, even trams, and that's why it's quite so many stations. Also when I say 'been to' I mean properly used, not just passed through on a train. At each station I either touched in or touched out, sometimes both. » What precisely counts as a station is a moot point. Is Canary Wharf one station or three? Is Marylebone one station or a rail terminus plus the tube? I got round this pedantry by going to both of them, just to be sure, also both halves of Shepherd's Bush, both sides of Mitcham Junction and the two Heathrow Terminal 5s. Don't nitpick, just do the lot. It's not easy to visit all the stations in London, and also not easy to know you have. You need a list and you need excellent record keeping, also patience, drive and time. Are you absolutely certain you've been to Albany Park, Eden Park and Grange Park? Have you really been to West Drayton, Drayton Park and Drayton Green? I'm certain because I made a spreadsheet and ticked everywhere off. I wonder how many others can say the same. this year. I broke down the challenge into two halves. All the stations in London z1-3tramsz4-6 about 350 stations39 tram stopsabout 230 stations JanuaryFebruarymid-March-mid-June It turns out visiting all the z4-6 stations is harder than visiting all the z1-3 stations, even though there are fewer of them. That's because they're spread across a much wider area, usually further apart and because train frequencies in outer London aren't so good. There are a lot of half hourly services in zones 4-6 so you can end up waiting for a while, also the next station may be too far to walk, also there may not be a decent bus service connecting the two. The optimum solution is often to bounce back and forth, first two stations forward then one back, but sometimes the timetable conspires not to make that work. Ticking off the ten stations in Bexley took over three hours, for example. Yes I do have a lot of time on my hands. I was impressed by the community heritage on the Enfield Chase line where posters and artworks give the place a lift. I was surprised by the masses of nigh empty carriages rattling through the suburbs of Bexley and Bromley. I was amazed by the number of staffed ticket offices in backwaters with even fewer annual passengers than the lowliest tube station. I was mighty glad I don't live on the Hounslow Loop because that is one miserably infrequent service. I discovered that catching a bus is usually quicker than waiting for a train down some of the south Croydon valleys. I checked out the crumbling platforms at Berrylands, the nexus that is Bickley and the massive gap in the middle of Cheam. Basically I caught up on all the outer station knowledge I should have gained over the last quarter century but didn't because I had the wrong ticket. I've visited every tube station since the start of the year including the 16 that are outside London. I finished off the tube by exiting Rickmansworth last week. I have in fact been visiting every station in zones 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, even the 41 that are outside London, because my 60+ Oyster card permits that too. Even Swanley and Dartford in Kent, even Elstree & Borehamwood in Herts, also the two Ewells in Surrey, I've done the lot. I didn't just whizz round the Banstead Loop for a laugh, I was station-ticking all the way. (some time after ten o'clock) which will also mark the final completion of my Visit Every Station challenge. All the stations accessible with a 60+ Oyster card z1-3tramsz4-6beyond z6 350 stations39 stops230 stations41 stations JanuaryFebruarymid-March-mid-June The rest of the year is looking brighter already.

Observation: The music played on Sounds of the 70s on Radio 2 isn't what it was when Johnnie Walker was in the chair. Hunch: Bob Harris is playing older, gutarrier records. Hypothesis: He plays more records from the first half of the 1970s than the second half. Research: I went back to the oldest Sounds of the 70s still on BBC Sounds, listed all the records played and noted down their year of release. Songs included Metal Guru by T Rex (1972), Hotel California by The Eagles (1977) and Top Of The World by The Carpenters (1973). Method: I looked up all the records in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles to see when they first charted. If they weren't hit singles I checked their release date using Google and Wikipedia. Data: (click to view) Results: 1973, 1976, 1974, 1977, 1977, 1972, 1971, 1977, 1977, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1979, 1972, 1975, 1973, 1973, 1973, 1978, 1972 Rearrange in chronological order: 71 71 72 72 72 73 73 73 73 73 74 75 75 76 77 77 77 77 78 79 Analysis: 20 records were played. 11 were from the first half of the 1970s. That's 55%, a slight majority. Interpretation: Actually that's a lot of mid-70s. 16 of the 20 records were from 1972-1977, i.e. 80%. The start and finish of the decade barely got a look in. Supposition: Bob Harris was the host of the Old Grey Whistle Test from 1972 to 1978. Maybe he's biased towards that period. Further research: Obviously it makes sense to gather more data. Five shows are available on BBC Sounds. Best get data from all of them. 18/5/25: 71 71 72 72 72 73 73 73 73 73 74 75 75 76 77 77 77 77 78 79 25/5/25: 70 70 70 70 70 71 71 71 72 72 74 74 76 76 76 77 77 78 79 79 79 01/6/25: 70 71 71 73 73 73 73 74 74 74 75 75 75 76 76 77 78 78 78 79 08/6/25: 71 71 71 72 72 72 74 74 74 75 75 75 76 76 76 77 77 78 78 79 79 15/5/25: 70 70 70 71 71 72 72 72 73 73 74 74 74 75 76 77 78 78 78 79 Overview: That might be more balanced. I should tally up all the years and draw a graph. Insight: OK that's really quite well spread out. 102 songs were played so you'd expect ten songs from every year, and in fact every year falls within the range 10±2. Verdict: There is no significant disparity in the years represented. It seems the producers of the show are trying to be pretty balanced. BUT: What I did notice while compiling the data is that 41 of the songs played weren't in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles. That's 40% of the total. That's a very high proportion not to have been UK hit singles. Conclusion: Bob Harris is playing a lot of album tracks (and US hit singles). That'll be be why I'm enjoying the music less. Sounds of the 60s. ...and that is definitely unbalanced. Further observations: See also my in-depth 2020 analysis: Is there any pattern to the years picked on Pick of the Pops? Datasets for future consideration • The chronological spread of Radio 3's Composer of the Week • The geographical spread of locations for a) Any Questions b) Gardener's Question Time • The work schedules of the Radio 4 Today Programme presenters • The balance of history to science and culture on In Our Time • How often the same adverts come round on Greatest Hits Radio • How long since Smooth Radio last played True by Spandau Ballet • Locations for Radio 3's Choral Evensong • The most played games on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue • The proportion of successful challenges that are hesitation, repetition and deviation. • The average score on The Easiest Quiz On The Radio • Frequency of Radcliffe & Maconie interstitials

Route 241: Royal Wharf to Hackney Wick (Here East) Location: London east, cross-Newham Length of bus journey: 8 miles, 50 minutes route 241 was extended from Stratford City into the Olympic Park. No fuss was made, no hordes descended. Buses which would normally have terminated outside Westfield instead continued via a wilfully tortuous route to the multi-storey at Here East, inevitably rammed with empty seats. The extension is designed to deliver a bus service to the East Bank, the cultural waterfront whose landmark buildings are currently half open. It also delivers a bus service to Sweetwater, one of the five post-Olympic neighbourhoods where currently nobody lives because not a single flat has been built. Arguably it's still too early for the extension to be useful and yet the change has been in the offing for well over a decade waiting for the right moment to launch. I first blogged that route 241 might be extended across the Olympic Park way back in July 2010 when the idea appeared in planning documents for the Orbit. Instead when Westfield opened in 2011 the 241 was merely extended across the railway to Stratford City bus station, leaving the 388 to take responsibility for travel to the top of the park. A specific extension to Here East first appeared in a consultation in December 2012, at this stage an aspirational change waiting for the Olympic Media Centre to be reopened. A firmer proposition appeared in July 2017 as part of a wide-ranging review of routes connecting to Crossrail, but bosses ultimately decided not to proceed. The emergence of a free shuttle bus for Here East employees in May 2017 likely delayed things somewhat, and a proper 241 extension consultation only emerged in May 2024 when Carpenters Road reopened. And now finally here we are, 15 years on, mostly needlessly. entire route, not just the extension, all the way from flat-stacked Royal Wharf. It wasn't terribly busy at that end either, this being another extension circa 2022 on a much-tweaked route. If the Thames-side incomers want to go to Stratford they take the DLR rather than slum it through Custom House and Plaistow, and only on reaching these parts do passenger numbers really start ramping up. I'm pleased to report that timetables at bus stops all appear to have been updated, or at least I never spotted one that hadn't. A yellow poster has also been added explaining the extension into the Olympic Park, not that I can imagine anyone in south Newham ever wanting to make use of it. Our accumulated load started disembarking at Stratford Broadway, poured off at the station and fully emptied out at Westfield, this being where the 241 formerly stopped. The twisty-turny extension starts here. ridiculously twisty, this the fault of the post-Olympic road network which never quite links up in an optimal way. Crossing from one side of the station to the other has already taken 7 minutes and now we face another loop to get from 'up here' to 'down there'. The first stop on the new extension is outside the Aquatics Centre, a stop in use since 2013 and now served by three different routes. It might feel like overkill to serve a swimming pool and a skatepark, but the opening of a whopping university campus alongside in 2022 means that 16 buses an hour is sometimes justified. OK, now the new bit. a grimy backroad lined by mucky businesses nowhere else wanted. Originally the 276 ran along it, mainly as a quick route to Hackney Wick, but was diverted through Bow instead in 2007 when all this was sealed off to build the Olympic Park. After the Games Carpenters Road reopened as little more than a service road, this time with the 339 wending its way through, this until December 2018 when the road closed again to enable the construction of the East Bank. Neither the 276 nor the 339 have ever returned and the backroad is now the province of the 241, whisking students and punters to all things cultural. A pair of brand new bus stops await. Onwards. map in the recent consultation, only two more round the corner that don't yet exist. 339 remains the better option if you're heading canalside. And when the bus finally climbs up to Marshgate Lane the really stupid thing is that construction teams painted BUS STOP on the road back in 2021 in readiness for this weekend, but no bus stop has been added. They even added an annoying kink in the adjacent cycle lane in readiness for a shelter, squishing the pedestrian gap to a bare minimum, but it turns out they needn't have bothered. next stop is a longstanding one, immediately outside the Copper Box on the main drag of Westfield Avenue. This time there are flats nearby, also flats under construction, also regular sporting events, a large food court and a shortcut across the river to Hackney Wick station. The 388 stops here and what's more it takes the direct 4 minute route to and from Stratford, not the circuitous 8 minute safari we've just endured. There's then no further stop until the terminus at Here East, even though it might be useful to fill the 600m gap to serve for example the new V&A Storehouse and adjacent facilities. Instead it's all the way or nothing, turfed out kerbside between yet another university and a multi-storey car park. Was it really worth it? It will be worth it one day, when the East Bank is finished and 1500 unstarted flats along the extension are complete. This is just TfL getting in early, while simultaneously getting in 13 years later than they first suggested. A fine balance needs to be struck, and somebody has judged that now is the time to push things further with three extra vehicles on the route, even if initially they carry mostly empty seats. In the meantime the 241 extension is a round-the houses route that doesn't yet go round any houses, thus generally unnecessary, and you're unlikely to be riding it any time soon.

The news from Watford Here's some news from Watford in insufficient detail, some of which I could have written more about, one of which I might return to and one of which I definitely will. • Watford has a new website encouraging you to visit Watford, live in Watford and move your business to Watford. It's called Watford Actually. I only laughed occasionally. "Watford offers the perfect blend of vibrancy and comfort" was one such occasion. "A lively town brimming with attractions for every interest!" was another, especially because they had to admit the Harry Potter Studio Tour isn't (quite) in Watford. • If you were planning to book tickets for the Harry Potter Studio Tour this month you can't, it's sold out. The next available date (at time of writing) is 31st July on the last tour of the day at 6.30pm. If you want a tour before 5pm the earliest date is 17th August. If you want a tour before 3pm try September after the schools go back. The cheapest no-frills tour is £56, since you ask. You should see the queue at the bus stop outside Watford Junction station. • In exciting news Watford's big shopping centre is being renamed The Harlequin Centre. I thought it already had been but when I reread last month's news story it actually said the change would happen "in the summer". For now it's still atria Watford, a rubbish name based on the fact the roof has a lot of glass. Before 2021 it was intu Watford, the rubbish name of a company destined to go bust. But before 2013 it was always the Harlequin Centre, a name suggested in a newspaper competition in 1992 when the place opened, which everybody in Watford's always loved so they're delighted it's coming back. n.b. The Harlequin name is believed to have been inspired by the Harlequin line, which in 1988 became the official nickname for the railway line serving Watford High Street station (this because it passed through Harlesden and Queen's Park). • I saw these bins in Cassiobury Park Avenue and I worried Watford Council had changed their logo again to some awful sunshine thing. Then I checked and it turns out the awful sunshine thing was the town's logo between 1997 and 2003, at which point the new Liberal Democrat administration sighed deeply and restored the traditional coat of arms. Then in 2016 they tweaked the shield and changed the town's motto from Audentior to Be Bold. That means these three bins are in fact showing three Watford logos in chronological order, first sunburst (1997-2003), then Audentior (2003-2016), then Be Bold (2016-now). Design agency Fresh Lemon gave the Watford council brand a jazzy revamp earlier this year but mainly only changed the backgrounds. • Watford has a new orbital path called the Watford Green Loop. It's 6½ miles long and designed to be walked or wheeled for a decent bit of exercise. The route crosses Cassiobury Park (pictured), then follows the River Gade and (cough) crosses an industrial estate to the Ebury Way, a longstanding cycle path along a former railway line, then ticks off Oxhey Park before (cough) crossing a retail park and following a bit of the River Colne, finally looping round the top of the town centre and back to Cassiobury Park. If you live in North Watford it's not exactly convenient but needs must. The Watford Green Loop won the 2025 Local Government Chronicle ‘Future Places’ award earlier this week and the council are well chuffed. I'm very tempted to do a circuit. • Watford also has a newish Heritage Trail in the town centre, complete with downloadable leaflet and snazzy information boards. Essentially it's a walk from the Town Hall to the Hornet statue - nothing too taxing - via some properly old buildings round the back of the church. It's nice to see Watford Museum staff doing something visible while they wait to reopen inside the Town Hall in 2027. • If you ever danced the night away in the nightclub by The Pond, it closed on New Year's Day 2024 and was put up for sale with a £6m price tag. In its final days it was Pryzm but before that the 2500-capacity venue's been known as Top Rank, Bailey's, Paradise Lost, Kudos, Destiny and Oceana. A plan to replace it with 147 flats failed so it's still on the market, now for £4m, which means you can enjoy a short fly-through video here and get all nostalgic. • Watford's Art Deco Colosseum, formerly the Assembly Halls, is said to have some of the best acoustics in the country. The production of Captain Pugwash I enjoyed as a birthday treat in 1974 was certainly top notch. However the concert hall's been closed since 2020 for (very) significant refurbishment, and is finally due to reopen on 29th August. The first event, unexpectedly, is a gig by Ocean Colour Scene supported by PP Arnold (followed in September by Jake Bugg, David Essex and The Stranglers). • Not Watford, but The Sportsman pub in Croxley Green sadly closed at the end of February. It's currently To Let, like anyone is going to want to reopen a pub in a village that still boasts four pubs and a Harvester, but was also designated an Asset of Community Value last month which might save it. • Not Watford, but Scotsbridge House at the foot of Scots Hill has been completely demolished. I was totally taken aback. I remember it as a crowded cluster of old buildings, and the sign outside for the British Friesian Cattle Society always had me intrigued. Alas it seems the farming organisation couldn't financially justify 40 employees rattling around in lovely premises by the River Chess so sold the site in 2023 and scarpered to Telford, and now every last bit of it is rubble. Coming soon are 59 flats, which I see come with 160 parking spaces which tells you all you need to know about the intended residents. Thankfully Three Rivers Museum made a lovely 10 minute video about the place back in 2015 so we'll always have that. • Not Watford, but the Croxley Revels are on 28th June this year, and haven't you always wanted to go ever since you saw John Betjeman gently mocking it in his Metro-land documentary?

I've been to see some art. Serpentine Galleries Giuseppe Penone: Thoughts in the Roots (until 7 September) [exhibition guide] Arpita Singh: Remembering (until 27 July) Serpentine Pavilion 2025 by Marina Tabassum (until 26 September) medical capsule, much enlarged, chopped up into four ribbed slices. The chops help embrace the open air but also let the rain in, as I discovered when I dashed inside during a cloudburst and realised I was still getting wet. The interior feels a bit like a waiting room, all peripheral seating plus the obligatory hot drinks offering at the far end. Vision 1, Functionality 0. Play Pavilion (until 10 August) White Cube Richard Hunt: Metamorphosis – A Retrospective (until 29 June) Richard Hunt. I really liked his late period plantlike spikes but could have done without the formative prequels. It's so purely presented that Richard and his oeuvre only really made sense once I'd watched the four minute looping video showing him hard at work in a cluttered industrial workshop. National Gallery The Carracci Cartoons: Myths in the Making (Room 1, until 6 July) (on a practical note the horrific queues that blighted the gallery last autumn have all died down - I waited no seconds whatsoever at the main entrance) National Portrait Gallery Stanisław Wyspiański: Portraits (until 13 July) Lines of Feeling (until 4 January) Photo Portrait Now (until 28 September) Newport Street Gallery Raging Planet (until 31 August) The Power and the Glory (until 31 August) visited recently and found it uncomfortable, not especially artistic and eminently skippable. I left reassured that all the photos were from before I was born so we've learned since, and unnerved that we might not have learned at all. Tate Modern UK AIDS Memorial Quilt (until 16 June) UK AIDS Memorial Quilt, created to commemorate lives lost in the 80s and 90s, is out of long-term storage and back on view for one weekend only. The Turbine Hall is the perfect place to lay out 42 colourful twelve foot panels remembering 384 people who died in the AIDS epidemic, commemorated here with love and creativity by their friends (and sometimes family). Some were well known names - Robert the photographer, Mark the activist, Christopher from Blue Peter - others shone brightly in their own corner. Each panel is unique, from simple symbolism to complex reminiscence, with red ribbons, rainbows and teddy bears frequently seen. In most cases you can only guess at the backstory from pictorial clues. It's the dates that really hit home, so many born in the 50s and 60s cut down in their 30s and 40s, and a few babies lost at barely two months for added shock. Some who've come to Tate Modern to see the quilts plainly remember the struggle first time round, and in a sign of quite how far things have moved on I also saw a teacher leading her primary class round the fabric cemetery and pointing out names and memories. If you can't pay your respects in person several panels are explorable on the Memorial Quilt's website. Bow Arts Gallery Bow Open: Connections (until 31 August) well chuffed to have had his systematic imprint selected. The most fun work by far is Campbell McConnell's 90 second video of medieval actresses repeatedly overacting. The space out the back is totally wasted. Try not to tread on the fabric snake. Halcyon Gallery - 146 New Bond Street Point Blank by Bob Dylan (until 6 July) The Beaten Path, which was also exhibited here, and there was his reinterpretation of my snap of Blackpool Pier on page 228... and 229... and 231. You have to smile, and I did just that all the way back out onto the Mayfair streets.