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?

What makes a person entrepreneurial? Professor Saras D. Sarasvathy believes the distinguishing factor is in the reasoning process. She identifies two types of reasoning: When you think with causal reasoning, you focus on what you want to do—the desired end goal, or the destination—and then work backwards from that. Business leaders, managers, and strategists tend […] The post Causal and effectual reasoning appeared first on Herbert Lui.

One of the earliest pieces of productivity advice I came across was the concept of grouping similar tasks together, and doing it all in one go. This is known as “batch processing.” For example, if you’re going to read and respond to your emails, don’t do them one at a time throughout the day. Make […] The post Don’t let batch processing get in the way of building momentum appeared first on Herbert Lui.

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.