31 unblogged things I did in May Thu 1: After seeing the bluebells BestMate drove us on to Maldon. We watched the tide coming in, visibly, admired the sailing boats and stood by the squidgy creek at the point where the annual Mud Race would be taking place at the weekend. It looked innocuously simple, and plainly isn't. Fri 2: Reform winning control of ten English councils - ten! - is either a temporary electoral aberration or a staging post to a populist government in 2029 because "they can't be worse than the current lot", and of course they can. Sat 3: I picked up my first free prescription from the chemist, having passed my 60th birthday, and it felt very odd walking out without paying but in a good way. Sun 4: Pick of the Pops is back at 5pm on a Sunday, which feels appropriate. The second hour clashes with Now Playing on 6Music, but they'll solve that problem at the end of the month when Tom Robinson retires. Mon 5: I do not recommend lugging a large heavy suitcase to Dorset (required because it had to contain everything for a week away plus my wedding suit). The final half mile along an unmade country lane where wheelie suitcases simply don't function comes particularly unrecommended. Tue 6: If the cottage comes with a hot tub then obviously I'm going to use it, kitted out in my finest C&A bathing shorts. Wed 7: As part of pre-wedding arrangements we met the new in-laws for the first time (not my new in-laws, but I'm not sure there's a specific term for the mother and father of a nephew's wife). They were of course lovely, with a fine line in fruit cake and the full set of railway branch line histories in the living room bookcase. Thu 8: One of the joys of being in Dorset is the opportunity to climb a hill before breakfast, then get on with the rest of the day. Fri 9: Radio 4's Open Country is in Dorset telling the tale of the Abbotsbury Swannery, and judging by what they said about cygnet-hatching they must have visited the day after we did. Sat 10: After a wonderful wedding day with bacon rolls, coach detours, rare bells, confetti tunnels, giant Jenga, marital crossword, big bunny anecdotes and heartfelt cheers, I climbed up to the balcony and looked down on the banqueting tables and dancefloor and thought "I guess I'm never having this, never mind, same again in August." Sun 11: Things that happen the day after a wedding: everyone says how lovely it was, slices of uneaten cake are consumed, those with work tomorrow drive home, a final treat of fish and chips. Mon 12: There appears to be a resident cat at Dorchester South station because it was lounging on platform 2 both on my way down and my way back up. It was fun watching concerned passengers trying to lure her away from the very edge of the platform as a train approached, with zero success. I wonder if it was the legendary Susie. Tue 13: Bugger, I think I left my phone charger plug in Dorset, it's definitely not in my suitcase. Wed 14: I was casually watching the lunchtime news when someone I hadn't seen for over 30 years suddenly popped up talking about a key issue of the day. Ah, so that's what you're doing now. Sorry to hear your Dad died. Thu 15: Bought a replacement phone charger plug for £2 at Cex (second hand). The assistant only spotted it at the back of the bottom shelf because she was a foot shorter than me. Fri 16: I have once again managed to ride all the TfL buses in the space of a calendar year, in this case 4½ months. My last three buses were the frustratingly rural R8, 464 and 146 because you always end up in Biggin Hill and Keston eventually. This is the fifth time I've achieved this feat, the quickest being 2023 when I had the whole lot ticked off by the end of January. Sat 17: Someone offered me a seat on the Northern line on Tuesday, then someone offered me a seat on the Central line today. This has only ever happened to me four times, three of them since my 60th birthday, and I really didn't think I'd visibly aged that much in two months. Sun 18: Found my lost phone charger plug. It had got caught up in the one pair of boxer shorts I brought back unworn. Mon 19: The shanty town under the Bow Flyover has expanded to a new cluster of grot on the roundabout, just behind the big Bow sign. It includes a couple of chairs, a small tent, a bathtub, a wall mirror, a chest of drawers, a carrycot, a clothes drier, several boxes and a grate for lighting a fire. I'm surprised nobody's made an attempt to clear it away. Tue 20: Took a ride on the SL4 through the Silvertown Tunnel, early afternoon, and I was the only passenger. However I know you should never read too much into a single evidence point, even on a free bus. Wed 21: Walked the Grand Union towpath between Hanwell and Hayes via what appears to have been rebranded the Southall Wellbeing Way. Some of the watery and wooden interventions were nice but the best things were still the little ducklings, the stalking heron and the giant silver fish, and could someone please put the brand consultants back in their box. Thu 22: The stamp cost five times as much as the card, and even then it was probably late, sorry. Fri 23: Ten stations I used this week that I've never used before: Albany Park (sheesh that's some footbridge), Belmont (on its 160th birthday), Belvedere (I was sorry to hear about your lost cat), Eltham (unnecessarily big), Hackbridge (I handed in a lost Zip card), Plumstead, Strawberry Hill (ooh, that's off-piste), St Helier (love the wild flowers), Tolworth (so concretey) and Whitton. Sat 24: When I wrote about the Bonesgate Stream I didn't mention these four lovely leafleted walks published by the Community Brain, an enabling organisation based at Tolworth station. The Malden Rushett and Tolworth to Chessington walks best shadow the river. Sun 25: Watched the aftermath of a rave along the River Lea as groups of twatted revellers emerged from the towpath by the Bow Roundabout. One was being pushed in a trolley, one stumbled into the local corner shop for an urgent banana, several appeared to be struggling with the concept of 'stairs', and one group were ejected from their Uber a minute after it arrived and waddled off to brave public transport. Mon 26: If I were ranking the 500-or-so bank holidays I've experienced, today would probably come in the low 300s. Tue 27: I know you're unhappy with things as they currently stand but could you stop going on and on about them, negatively, relentlessly, as if we all feel as pissed off about everything as you do, it's so tedious, and now so are you. Wed 28: I had a dream about BestMateFromSchool, not an especially exciting one but congratulations to my subconscious because today is his 60th birthday. Thu 29: OK we've now watched the new season of Black Mirror. The first story (about medical subscription) was the most nightmarishly believable, and the rest were fun but too many stories relied on brain-transference gizmos so were more sci-fi than darkly plausible. Fri 30: The latest cartographic online meme is an interactive map of the UK by programmer Sophie Stone, allowing users to mark areas as lived, stayed, visited, stopped, passed through or never been. Each county scores a maximum of 5 points and my total is 241 - can you beat that? Sat 31: Here's another website for you, Is the UK hot right now?, which uses the latest data to show temperature anomalies around the country on a colourful map. Pick a location to see even more anomaly data and specific local graphs. Finally, let's see how my annual counts are going... Number of London boroughs visited: all 33 (at least nine times each) Number of London bus routes ridden: 547 (all) Number of Z1-3 stations used: all Number of Z4-6 stations used: 174 (70%)

One of west London's most important roads is 100 years old today, the Brentford By-Pass or as it's better known the Great West Road. Hounslow council are making a big thing of it. The new dual carriageway swept through fields and parkland to the north of Brentford and Hounslow, starting where the Chiswick Roundabout is today and ending eight miles away in East Bedfont. Brentford High Street had long been an appalling bottleneck for westbound traffic and planners recognised that the increasing popularity of the motor car was only going to make congestion worse. The new road was duly opened on the afternoon of Saturday 30th May 1925 by King George and Queen Mary who joined local dignitaries in walking along a short stretch and making speeches. You can see a few photos of the event here, here, here and here. This is what the Middlesex County Council spokesman had to say... "Of the numerous arterial road schemes promoted by the Highway Authorities of the country in conjunction with the Ministry of Transport, the road now to be opened is one of the earliest in its origin, the Act for its construction having been passed in 1914 to alleviate the inconvenience caused by the narrow western exits from London. Progress was delayed by the Great War, and the magnitude of the scheme has since been increased by an extension to the Staines Road, and by an addition to the width of the highway. Much work has thus been found for the unemployed, and it is hoped that the road in its present form will add to the dignity as well as the convenience of the Metropolis, beside promoting the orderly development of the County of Middlesex." [30 May 1925] The final section to open was the eastern end between Syon Lane and Chiswick which includes the section now known as the Golden Mile. Businesses flocked to this part of the new road, attracted by excellent connectivity and plenty of space, building factories that very much reflected the aesthetic of the day. One of these was the Gillette Factory, a landmark Art Deco building on the corner of Syon Lane whose lofty brick tower is topped by four neon clocks that can be seen for miles around. Not only was this Gillette's European headquarters but also their chief UK factory for the manufacture of razor blades, at least until 2006 when production moved to Poland and the place emptied out. The Gillette Factory endured several vacant years while investors decided no, arterial Brentford wasn't a great location for a luxury hotel, then creative types moved in and filmed a few low-key productions for lesser-watched streaming channels. It's recently been decided that the premises should become a full-on six-stage film studios, indeed Hounslow council are very keen, plus it makes sense because the site stretches all the way back to the rainbow-topped headquarters of Sky TV. When I came to walk the Golden Mile earlier this week I was pleased to see the scaffolding had been removed from the clocktower, the outer brickwork had been scrubbed up and that the cherubic lamps around the perimeter still glow. I wasn't impressed by much else though. Alas only a few buildings from the Golden age of the Great West Road survive. There's the Coty Cosmetics factory at number 941, a squat block with white walls and strip windows which looks like it could have been a 1930s air terminal, but which is now occupied by a tech-heavy private health clinic. There's the Pyrene building at number 981, designed for a fire extinguisher company by the same group of architects who conjured up the glorious Hoover Building in Perivale. It's very white and very long with a thin central tower, and is now an office block substantially occupied by students on skills-based courses who cluster on the elegant front steps for a vape. And there's also the former Currys head office at number 991, another sleek white beauty with flag-topped clocktower, which since 2000 has been home to outdoor ad agency JCDecaux. Their name was in the corner of the digital billboard in my first photo, if you noticed. Firestone Tyre Factory. Of all the buildings along the Golden Mile the Firestone was by far the longest, fronting a 26 acre site, but also the most rapidly undone. When the business closed in 1979 the new owners exchanged contracts on a Friday, then sneakily demolished the ornate frontage on the Saturday before a civil servant could get round to signing a preservation order. On the positive side this triggered the 20th Century Society to campaign more vigorously for the preservation of modern buildings, and on the downside the bastards totally got away with it. In 2025 the Firestone building is being replaced again, this time by "A New Iconic HQ Distribution/Logistics Warehouse". The architects have at least gone for an Art Deco-inspired design solution, although the artist's impression looks more slatted plastic than iconic glass and the currently reality is a half-clad functional lattice. If it improves the backdrop to the Firestone's surviving front gates and chunky lanterns, however, good luck to it. The really big redevelopment story along the Golden Mile is currently the transformation of GlaxoSmithKline's enormous ex-HQ, a futuristic upthrust which opened in 2002 on a landscaped site beside the Grand Union Canal. All the staff moved back to central London last year and the latest plans foresee a "housing-led mixed-use redevelopment" of tightly-packed polygonal towers, one 25 storeys high, delivering upwards of 2000 new homes. It's by no means the first Golden Mile site to pivot to boxy residential and it won't be the last. The best way to see the Golden Mile thus isn't really on foot because the surviving treats are too sparsely spread, it's from the road itself. I recommend boarding the road's bespoke red double decker, the H91, a route which conveniently runs along five miles of the Great West Road from Gunnersbury to Hounslow. For the first mile the M4 shadows the A4, quite literally, passing directly overhead on a four lane viaduct supported by an sequence of chunky concrete pillars. Only on reaching Brentford does the motorway veer off, bombarded by elevated advertisements, leaving the way clear down below to enjoy what remaining treats the Golden Mile has left. "The unavoidable transformation of the country surrounding London needs to be carefully guided and controlled. Haphazard growth has inflicted irreparable damage on many parts where, instead of preceding it, roads and communication have lagged far behind industrial development. Your council, I am glad to say, have boldly grappled with this problem, and this spared their successors the costly and wasteful experience of making new roads through congested areas." [King George V, 30 May 1925] To celebrate the 100th birthday of the Great West Road an anniversary website has been set up at goldenmile.london including historical links and modern stories. It is perhaps a tad commercial, overplaying the interest anyone might have in bold redevelopment visions and Brentford's vibrant cuisine, but it does include details of a number of special commemorative events. Chief amongst these are a GM100 Public Exhibition at Boston Manor Park this weekend (10am-4pm Sat, Sun; free entry) and a Classic Car Cavalcade departing Boston Manor Road at noon tomorrow before heading to Gillette Corner. Later chances to look inside some of the Art Deco treasures appear to be sold out, but all the good bits are in a new illustrated book The Great West Road: A Centenary History written by James Marshall and purchasable from the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society. The road that unchoked Brentford and transformed Hounslow, the Great West Road, is thankfully 100 years old today.

I wouldn't normally feel comfortable sticking a score on a place after sampling just 2 dishes from a menu, but I will make an exception for the Knave of Clubs for two reasons. Firstly, they have put the rotisserie "centre stage" at one end of the large dining room and that is what, I imagine, the large majority of their visitors will be ordering. Secondly, I bloody loved the place, so I don't think they'll mind me writing about it even without trying most of what their kitchens can offer. We started, though, with oysters - an extremely reasonable £20 for 6 large, lean specimens supplied with all the correct condiments. In a town when the average price per bivalve is hovering around the £5 mark (and in some cases is well above that), it's nice to know that there's somewhere still offering value like this. The same sense of value is evident in the rest of the menu. They really could charge a lot more for a whole chicken than £38, especially given the quality of these birds (from arguably London's best butcher Turner and George), and even if they didn't come with a giant helping of sides. For your money you get loads of chicken fat roasties, a nice sharply-dressed green salad, some slices of baguette and a little pot of light, homemade aioli. All of this generosity would have come to naught if the chicken itself wasn't up to scratch, but fortunately thanks to the provenance I mentioned, plus judicious use of brining (not too salty but just enough to ensure every bit of the flesh is tender and juicy), plus a really lovely chermoula spice rub, the end result was a truly impressive bit of rotisserie - the best pub roast chicken I've had the pleasure to tear into in recent memory; certainly the best value. We absolutely demolished the chicken then spent many happy minutes mopping up the chermoula cooking juices with the slices of baguette, and for a while, all was well with the world. The bill, with a £32 bottle of wine came to £51pp - you really can spend a lot more than this and get a lot less, and not just in central London. In fact the whole experience, including the lovely and attentive staff, made me forgive the only real complaint I have about the place - bloody communal tables. But the spots are spread out around them quite generously, and actually just gives me an excuse to return and try the bistro-style One Club Row upstairs in the same building, where chef Patrick Powell (ex- Allegra) is really stretching his wings. I bet it's great. Watch this space. P.S. Anyone who subscribes by email I am aware of the fact that follow.it have started to be very annoying and not posting the content in the body of the email, just a link to it hosted by them. I didn't ask for this, and am not making any money from it. If you want to continue receiving the full posts via email, can I suggest you subscribe to my substack here, where you can opt to receive the full posts via email, for free.