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.

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.

My former colleague at Figma, Claire Butler, recently wrote a really great post about what she learned working at Figma. The lesson that stood out to me most was this one, “When you’re stuck, commit to action. Strategy will follow.”  In other words, if you’re making something new, planning too far ahead will likely just […] The post Commit first, plan later appeared first on Herbert Lui.

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