A selection of thoughts from Sunday 1) I only received 5 birthday cards this year, most of them from people who remember me being born in 1965 (dgD, dGA3, dgDBM). Pictured are some of the 43 cards I received when I was born, all of a very 1960s aesthetic. Number of birthday cards received (age 0) - 43 (age 20) - 23 (age 40) - 16 (age 60) - 5 2) I was hoping to catch a nice early train from Hackney Wick but there weren't any, indeed it turns out on Sundays there never are. The entire Mildmay line between Willesden Junction and Stratford is unserved before 9am on Sundays, with the first westbound train departing Stratford at 0900 and the first eastbound train departing Willesden Junction at 0902. The station with the slowest start is Camden Road whose first Sunday train arrives at 0922, and I wonder if that's the latest timetabled start on any day on any TfL line. 3) Sunday was an unseasonably springlike day for early March, at 18°C the warmest 9th March since 2014. The warmest 9th March on record was in 1948 with 23.9°C recorded at Wealdstone, that's 75°F. While I was researching this online I also found the weather forecast for the day I was born ("England and Wales will be sunny and rather warm this afternoon, but frost and some fog patches will return tonight in midland and eastern districts"). The temperature was -5°C at Kew when I was born, rising to 10°C in the afternoon, and my Dad would have cycled through fog to see me at the hospital. The Met Office has a nerdily detailed archive of weather forecasts and data records for the whole country here. 4) To enjoy the weather I walked the Croxley Boundary Walk, a 6.3 mile waymarked circuit around the village where I grew up. It's a fantastically varied walk for somewhere so close to London (canal towpath, country lane, fields, village green, river valley, chalk stream, woods, disused railway, moorland) and well signed throughout. On the way round I spotted several signs of spring (catkins, snowdrops, daffodils, crocuses, celandines, flowering cherries, budding trees, nest-building, butterflies, bees collecting blossom, emerging bluebell stalks), also a fox, several swans, a heron and a pair of red kites. I previously walked the Croxley Boundary Walk on 9th March 2014, and blogged about it then so I won't again, but do enjoy a few photos and yes I do recommend it. 5) On the way round the Croxley Boundary Walk there's a lovely path that climbs across a large field from the edge of Whippendell Woods. I was shocked to discover there's now a plan to turn this field into 600 houses, unexcitingly titled 'Land north of Little Green Lane', which would extend the village's built-up area by 5%. Thankfully the top end of the field would survive, reworked as Rousebarn Country Park, but the whole plan's brazenly speculative and very poorly connected to the rest of the village. Whatever the government's definition of 'grey belt' is, this definitely isn't it. 6) I've had plans for a while to see if I could get a mention on the radio on the occasion of my 60th birthday. In the event one of my target shows turned out to be pre-recorded, one was doing an International Women's Day special, one doesn't really do dedications any more, one I wasn't listening to at the crucial moment, one I forgot about until it was too late and the one email I did send made no ripples whatsoever. If anyone sent in a message on my behalf and I missed it do let me know, else I'll have to wait another ten years. 7) BestMate and BestMate'sOtherHalf took me out for a meal in the West End and we started off with cocktails. We thought we'd try the Cellar Door, the speakeasy bar squished into a former gents toilet off Aldwych, which Londonist described as "a mirrored microcosm", Time Out as "a tiny basement" and Secret London as "lav-ley". It seems it only picks up after 9pm, pre-cabaret, so it was pretty much dead. Also they were probably the slowest cocktails I've ever had, sluggishly confected, so the atmosphere really didn't match the setting. 8) For my birthday meal we went to London's oldest restaurant which is Rules in Covent Garden, established 1798. It's a classical warren adorned by Georgian portraits, seemingly with a regular clientele of ruddy couples, shire buddies and old money. The food's extremely traditional, all meat, game and oysters, although not so staid that they won't stick a candle in some ice cream and bring it to your table. For my main I was totally set on steak and kidney pudding until I saw they were doing a proper Sunday roast, then couldn't resist crumble and custard for dessert. BestMate has kindly shielded me from the overall bill. Also we had the table next to the really famous one, the one where M's seen dining in Spectre and which brings all the James Bond fans to the pass. 9) While I was out, Radio 4 broadcast a half-hour documentary by a blogger who rides buses and writes about them, in this case the new V1 nightbus from Manchester to Leigh. It was dead thoughtful of them to schedule something so on point on the occasion of my birthday. Incidentally if you're waiting for me to report back on the number 60 bus route, I'm planning to make that the first trip I do with my 60+ Oyster card when it arrives, which it hasn't yet so you'll need to be patient. 10) I may have overdone it, I had to lie down at one point. But if what you want for a milestone birthday is a memorable day then Sunday certainly delivered.

Unblogged things I did in March 1965 I wasn't around at the start of March 1965, I was lurking embryonically ready to make a grand appearance. Even when I did emerge I had no linguistic ability, no long-term memory nor any recognition of what on earth was going on, plus there were no blogs or the internet I could have recorded things on anyway. But my Mum had just started keeping a diary, perhaps in recognition of the enormous changes a first child would mean in her life, which allows me to bring you this (heavily edited) account of my earliest days. The first nine days are in her own words, the rest of the month I've paraphrased. Cast of characters Mon 1: Rather cold but nice bright morning. Got all my washing and ironing done nice and early. Had a quick clean round downstairs. Sat and almost finished one dress in afternoon. Watched TV and knitted in evening. [Monday was always washday in the 60s, even when you were nine months pregnant] [I wonder if that dress was baby sized and meant for me had I been a girl] [likely candidates for programmes watched included Date With Doonican, Bewitched and Perry Mason] Tue 2: Letter from dgGM and dgGF, they hope to come this weekend. Did the net curtains and some woolies. Cleaned all the windows inside. Very cold wind today. Went to the shops in the afternoon, then wrote a letter to dgGM. Watched TV in the evening. dgD has another cold coming. [My mum had taken to spring cleaning with a vengeance, either because this was normal back then or because she realised she wouldn't be getting much cleaning done imminently] [temperatures would fall to -7°C that evening, the coldest night of the winter] [wow, the joys of receiving a letter and writing back the same day, safe in the knowledge it would arrive almost immediately] [likely candidates for programmes watched included Compact and The Danny Kaye Show] Wed 3: Had a quick clean round. Went to dGA1 in the morning. Went to clinic everything alright. Lost 4ozs this week. Was home before 2.45. Sat and finished rompers. In bed early as both tired. [My auntie lived a few miles away so I suspect my pregnant mum rode round on her scooter, a very mid-60s form of transport] [I can just picture the Sirdar knitting pattern for those rompers] Thu 4: Card from dgGM to say dgA2 was coming out of hospital. Snowing very hard this morning. Didn't get up for church. Swept snow away in front and at back. dgD went to Cubs. I watched TV and knitted. [I'm not sure why my mum would have been off to church, Ash Wednesday was yesterday] [I found this newsreel from 4th March 1965 showing heavy snow in Trafalgar Square and train derailments] [My Dad wasn't in the Cubs, he helped out] [likely candidates for programmes watched included Top of the Form, Top of the Pops and Dr Kildare] Fri 5: Up early for milkman. Down the shops early, went to library. Did a quick clean round. Snow going slowly. dgDBM came round for evening. dgGM and dgGF arrived at 8.30. Stayed up talking late. [Paying the milkman required getting up early on a Friday, even I remember that] [My Dad's BestMate wasn't my godfather yet but it was already clear he was going to be] [My grandparents lived on the other side of Hertfordshire so that would have been quite a journey on a Friday evening after work] Sat 6: dgGM did my washing and all got dry. dgGF and dgD went into Watford in the afternoon. Sat and talked rest of afternoon and evening. Did watch TV as well. [This was well before washing machines so laundry was a big thing] [Watford FC were playing away at Colchester that afternoon so I know nobody sneaked off to the football] [likely candidates for programmes watched included Dixon of Dock Green and The Black and White Minstrel Show] Sun 7: dgGF swept the chimney with help from dgD. Gave the room a spring clean. dgGM washed our carpet. dgGM2 and dgGF2 called in. dgD cleared the shed. dgGM and dgGF left 6.15 to go home. [There's a heck of a lot of serious cleaning going on. Was the entire 1960s like this or was everyone just treading water waiting for me to arrive?] [seriously bad timing here from my grandparents, having to travel 20 miles home just before the event they were really looking forward to was about to happen] Mon 8: More or less spring cleaned all rooms upstairs. Did a little bit of washing. dgD home at six, felt alright. By 6.30 thought I might be in labour. dgA3 called in with my birthday present. Neighbour came round and kept time. Went to hospital just after 10. dgD came home having been told it wouldn't be yet. Given something to make me sleep but by 1.30 getting more pains. Taken to delivery ward by 2.30. Given an injection don't remember much else. [A pivotal day that started with cleaning and ended in labour] [how suddenly my parents' lives changed, from a normal day at work to here comes a child in half an hour flat] [good timing from my auntie to bring my Mum a birthday present just before she went to hospital] [how typical that my Dad got sent home from hospital just before everything really kicked off] Tue 9: About five was told to push. Used mask till just before the end and then I watched dg being born. Most wonderful feeling. dgD was told to ring at 6 so didn't make it in on time. dg arrived 6.4am. Was put in a two bed ward, much better. Had flowers from dg, dgGM/dgGF and telegram from family friend. dgD brought my birthday cards in when he came to see us. He held dg for a second, and came again in evening. 7lb 12oz. Black hair and brown eyes. All his skin peeling. [I don't know what you did on your 30th birthday but my Mum spent hers in hospital on heavy drugs, screaming in agony and giving birth to me] [we didn't have a phone at home so my Dad had to ring the hospital from a phone box outside the library, which isn't how it would happen these days with vastly improved telecommunications] [I was born four minutes after his phone call while he was cycling in] [I didn't really send my mum some flowers, my Dad bought them on my behalf (and accidentally left the shop without paying for them)] [my Mum really appreciated having one present to open in hospital, my auntie tells me] [technically I was her biggest 30th birthday present, obviously] [it's sad how little contact my parents had with me on my first day] [a birthweight of 3½kg is average today and I think was above average back then] [I bet you don't have this level of detail about your first day on the planet] Wed 10: Apparently I refused to take to breastfeeding so had to go on the bottle, which I can see my Mum was extremely disappointed about. Sorry about that. Back at home a lot of post was arriving. Thu 11: I was laid down in a different room to my recuperating Mum so she didn't see me much. On the plus side that meant she didn't have to change my first nappy, a sister did that for her. Fri 12: Had my name registered by the local registrar. Mum was still having an uncomfortable time of things and needed help to sleep. Sat 13: Still in hospital. My Mum dressed me and changed my nappy for the first time. I still had dry skin so a nurse oiled me. Sun 14: My long-distance grandparents came to see me for the first time. Visiting time was stretched from half an hour to an hour. They were thrilled to see me. Mon 15: Mum changed my nappy and I promptly filled the clean one. Sorry Mum. Tue 16: Mum now feeling a lot better. Finally allowed home a week after I was born. I was taken home in my godfather's two-seater sports car, clutched in my Mum's arms. Visited my Auntie's house on the way back. Neighbours started popping in to see me. I slept all the way through from midnight to 7am - well done me. Wed 17: A nurse came round to check my umbilical cord, which came off later in the afternoon. Mum was back doing the washing again. Thu 18: My grandmother and another auntie came round, which finally allowed Mum to get her hair done. Fri 19: Visits from my auntie, cousin, neighbour and health visitor. My auntie bought me a little nylon suit and my Mum some flowers. I slept through til 5am again. Sat 20: The first day in my life that no health professional saw me, I was solely in the loving care of my parents. I also got to experience sleeping in my new pram. Sun 21: Went on my first outing... to my grandparents down the road. Stayed to dinner and tea, which my Mum appreciated not having to make. Mon 22: A lot of my Mum's diary is now all about sleeping and feed times, so perhaps best leave it there. But how absolutely fascinating to have a window into my earliest days, and all the chaos and emotion and joy and pain and I brought. Thanks Mum, from your 60 year-old son on the day after what would have been your 90th birthday.

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?