Events that don't cost a penny.

31 unblogged things I did in August Fri 1: I ummed and ahhed about doing another month-long series about the River Fleet, because maybe it's best to only do things once, but once I was stalking through the woods at the top of Hampstead Heath hunting for muddy rivulets it all felt worthwhile. Sat 2: I didn't blog about my walk across Richmond Park so I've had nowhere to put this photo of the flower beds near Pembroke Lodge. Sadly my shot of the deer and the bike came out blurry. Sun 3: In Richmond Park yesterday I saw an unusual red spotty butterfly and wondered what it was. I wasn't expecting to hear the answer on the 6.30am radio news - it's a Jersey Tiger, one of the exotic species wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation are urging people to spot for their annual butterfly count. Also it's a moth. Mon 4: The gloriously down-to-earth Blackmans shoe shop off Brick Lane closed two years ago and the business went online. Its replacements are a designer menswear boutique and a creative hair agency, such is the driving thrust of gentrification hereabouts, and let's just say that for the price of a houndstooth cardigan you could have bought 23 pairs of plimsolls. Tue 5: The elderly lady sitting beside me in Mansfield bus station got very agitated when the bus arrived and I didn't board first. She'd assumed there was a queue and I was at the front of it, I knew if there was a queue I wasn't at the front of it, and the lad who got on the bus first never even considered that the disparate rabble was a queue at all. She tutted to another waiting pensioner, hoping for support, and I recognised her as one of the miseries who go through life picking fault in other people. Daily Mail reader, obviously. Wed 6: I was thrilled when I switched on my TV and got an on-screen message saying that "Viewing on this TV is being measured" by BARB, the independent ratings agency. That's what media dreams are made of. Then I did an online search and discovered this had happened to loads of other people over the last few weeks so I was nothing special after all, dammit. Thu 7: I see TfL are still prominently displaying their "Please carry water with you in hot weather" posters on days nobody would describe as hot. Fri 8: Ten dull things I did today: microwaved a croissant, got 90p off a Pukka pie, took the binbag out, squeezed past two bikes on a train, found a newspaper in Ruislip Manor, passed the Cricklewood sheep, pointed at a bad map, watered a bay tree, cropped a miner, sang along with the Wombles on Top of the Pops. Sat 9: I thought Royal Mail had ended Saturday deliveries but today I received a bank statement and a Tesco Clubcard voucher. It's also the first post I've received in two weeks, so maybe they're only doing Saturday deliveries now. Sun 10: My Dad rang and the phone came up with his real number for the first time in years, rather than 'Withheld'. Previously I've always known it was him because nobody else with a withheld number calls. Mon 11: Seen on a rack outside a gift shop at Piccadilly Circus - really crappy tote bags, £12.99 each or two for £20. I guess some overseas fools must buy them. Tue 12: I was pleased when the gladiolus on my balcony pushed up three shoots this year (last year two, previously one). Alas none of them have brought forth any flowers (2023 was my only previous floral failure). Wed 13: Started watching Destination X, then remembered they're doing two episodes a week and I hadn't seen last Thursday's. By the time I'd fired up iPlayer they'd summarised last week's show and completely spoilt the "where are we?" surprise. Thu 14: There are numerous posters across the transport network for an upcoming cinema release starring Joaquin Phoenix. It's a western called Eddington, and I bet that works fine with American audiences but I can't stop thinking it's a shootout between PM Jim Hacker and Jerry from the Good Life. Fri 15: That's the first time I've ever seen a parakeet from my window. I've seen them around London for many years but it's my first sighting here in Bow. Sat 16: Another Saturday mail delivery. It included a gas bill (posted 10 days ago) and a greetings card (posted five days ago, 1st class!), so the mail round here is screwed. Sun 17: There's a barber shop in Kingston with a sign in the window that says "your beard is your identity". I guess for a heck of a lot of men it is, but I can't grow one so I fear that makes me a non-entity. Mon 18: Paid my gas bill. Meanwhile British Gas posted "a gentle reminder to pay your gas bill". It'll arrive in 10 days time. Tue 19: Just down the road from Harold Wood station is a small undistinguished garden, supposedly of Asian plants, added as part of Havering council's legacy offering for the 2012 Olympics. I very nearly blogged about it but could find no further information online, so you got lucky there. Wed 20: At Tesco Express on Bow Road a man appeared to be humping the cashpoint out front. He looked straight at me as if to say "yes I am humping a cashpoint, what of it?", and I walked swiftly on. Thu 21: Visited a different library to usual and picked up the latest copy of Michael Palin's diaries. It's both fascinating and reassuring, although I should perhaps have started with the 1969-1979 volume rather than launching straight into 1999-2009. Fri 22: Six things seen through my Dad's window: a bright red butterfly on the rudbeckias, a hot air balloon, a man on the roof of the cottage opposite bashing the chimney to pieces, jackdaw, wild rabbit, nextdoor's son riding the family tractor. Sat 23: The celebrant at my niece's wedding finished off with the wise words "Life is what you make it, but love is what makes it worth living". Everyone else smiled because a happy married life lay ahead, but I sat there thinking "dammit, I guess I've completely wasted my life". Sun 24: Why is it so hard to make a good cup of tea in an unfamiliar kitchen? Kettles all boil water, milk is milk and I brought a teabag with me specially, but the end result was still dire. Mon 25: Just after leaving Ipswich the train driver suddenly announced "If you look out of the window on the left you should be able to see a polar bear", and he was right. Tue 26: I laid back in the bath and enjoyed this year's episode of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme. I'd heard all the sketches before because I was in the audience last month, but still laughed along. They record it twice so I wonder how much I actually witnessed. Wed 27: The TJ Jones in New Malden (formerly WH Smith) has a handwritten sign on both doors saying "WE DO NOT SELL POKÉMON HERE". I doubt that any of this improves customer footfall. Thu 28: Received an email from a Guinness World Record Holder saying "Just found this daily puzzle - tubedoku.com. Perhaps you've seen it already but thought it would be right up your street." He was right, I've added it to my daily regime, and it might be up your street too. Fri 29: Ooh, you can walk across the central span of Hammersmith Bridge again, also cycle across it, that's much nicer than squeezing along the edges. [Quick check, ah, you've been able to do that since April] Sat 30: I got a spare set of keys cut because when you live by yourself the potential jeopardy of getting locked out is huge. Gosh replacement fobs are expensive. Also the locksmith winked at me on the way out, and I wonder if he thought I was up to no good. Sun 31: For completeness' sake here's the wet/dry weather for the last week of August following on from my St Swithin's Day report. Not good if you were on holiday, basically. 25262728293031     Last month's blogposts Most read: London's Worst Bus Route (thanks Roger) Least read: Fleeting - Clerkenwell (also least read of the year so far) Most commented: Unblogged July (46 comments) Least commented: Footpath 47 (2 comments)

Paternoster Square will host a microbiome festival.

Fleeting BLACKFRIARS Let's finish off my five-part walk down the River Fleet by following the long-buried section through the City of London. It's barely a ten minute walk from Smithfield to the Thames but packed with interest, so much so that 20 years ago I spent a week writing about it, but this'll be a more fleeting precis. Relevant landmarks along the way include Holborn Viaduct, Ludgate Circus and Fleet Street, obviously, plus several structures that weren't here back in August 2005. And OK there's no sight or sound of the river this time but the signs are everywhere. The Fleet enters the City beside Smithfield Market. The area was originally known as Smooth Field, a grassy bank leading down to the river, hence the ideal place for a cattle market. Of the subsequent buildings the closest is the General Market Building, long vacated and currently being reimagined as a home for the London Museum which is due to open next year. The Victorian facade isn't quite ready so is screened at present by a long white hoarding featuring 33 pigeons each decorated by an artist from a different London borough. Here we read "These hoardings are a creative expression of our new brand identity", also that the museum will be "a shared place where all of London's stories cross and collide", and I fear that someone at the museum may have paid their strategic narrative agency too much money. The standout structure hereabouts is Holborn Viaduct, or the Holborn Valley Viaduct as it was known when the foundation stone was laid in 1867. The valley of the Fleet is particularly pronounced here, so for centuries cross-town traffic had been forced to dip down Holborn Hill and climb Snow Hill on the opposite side. The new cast iron span was over 400m long, supported on granite piers, and cost over £2m in conjunction with the associated road improvements. It still looks gorgeous with its red and gold gloss exterior and dragon-supported City arms, plus four statues on the upper parapets representing Commerce, Agriculture, Fine Arts and Science. Look underneath to find arched vaults, one currently occupied by a wine merchant, or head to one of the four corner pavilions to find staircases connecting top and bottom. The two southside stairwells are gloriously evocative whereas the northside pair are modern rebuilds with less character, lifts and in one case a huge tiled mural depicting the viaduct's construction. Holborn Bridge, now Holborn Viaduct, once marked the Fleet's tidal limit. North of here the river was originally known as the Holebourne, literally the stream (bourne) in the hollow (hole), in case you'd never realised how the name Holborn was derived. South of here the river lived out its final days as a canal, Sir Christopher Wren having transformed the filthy channel into what he hoped would be a majestic 50-ft-wide waterway after the Great Fire. Things didn't quite turn out as hoped, the water soon silted up again and under private ownership the canal fell into disrepair. In 1733 the section between Holborn and Ludgate was arched over and topped off with a long line of market stalls - the Fleet Market - which was eventually cleared away in 1829 after becoming a dilapidated impediment to traffic. Although Farringdon Street is a Victorian creation this valley section feels increasingly modern as large-scale office developments inexorably replace the buildings to either side. Goldman Sachs massive HQ occupies a huge block as far down as Stonecutter Street while a new 13-storey curtain of student accommodation is rising opposite adjacent to Holborn Viaduct. Its hoardings are emblazoned with Fleet-related ephemera and artefacts, quite impressively so, including pewter tankards, Turnmills flyers and fascinating double page spreads from old books. One consequence of construction is that Turnaround Lane has been wiped from the map, a medieval alley so called because if you drove a cart down it to the river you'd have to come back up again. Of the handful of parallel alleys that survive, all have been relegated to become dead-end service roads for adjacent office blocks, each brimming with nipped-out smokers. The notorious Fleet Prison was once slotted between Bear Lane and Seacoal Lane, originally located here just outside the City walls after the Norman Conquest. Its 19th century replacement was the Congregational Memorial Hall, birthplace of the modern Labour Party, whose memorial plaques can be seen embedded in the wall of the latest office block to grace the site. Back in 2005 this was a huge hole in the ground and now it's the Fleet Place Estate, a split-level generic mass of workspace offering KERB streetfood and "best-in-class end-of-commute facilities". Close by is Ludgate Circus, originally the site of Fleet Bridge, the key river crossing on the medieval road between Westminster and the City. To one side was Ludgate Hill and on the other side Fleet Bridge Street, its name subsequently shortened to Fleet Street. The bridge was essentially buried at the same time as the river in the 1760s, and the current concave crossroads appeared 100 years later. Blackfriars Bridge and not its Victorian replacement. This was the second section of the Fleet to be arched over, covering Wren's former wharfage, a hollow subsequently used to funnel both the Fleet Sewer and the Fleet Relief Sewer towards the Thames. It's a fairly lacklustre road today, its bland nature exemplified by the presence of Fleet Street Quarter's Green Skills And Innovation Hub halfway down. It would have looked considerably more magnificent 500 years ago when Henry VIII built a royal palace here, and far less appealing a century later after that had evolved into the Bridewell house of correction, lowest of the Fleet's three notorious lockups. The Bridewell Theatre round the back is a much more recent addition inside a converted Victorian swimming pool. On the opposite bank was Blackfriars Priory, which despite being dissolved 500 years ago still manages to lend its name to much of the modern locality. As well as the bridge there's also the railway station, which now spans the Thames, and the tall thin Black Friar pub whose exterior mosaic features two friars dangling a fish by the mouth of the Fleet. The expansive road junction here was originally called Chatham Place and is now a major feeder of bicycles as well as passing cars. Until 2017 it was possible to descend to the walkway beneath Blackfriars Bridge, peer down and see the outfall where the brick-chambered Fleet Sewer overspilled into the Thames. The best view was from a staircase that no longer exists, this because the Tideway super sewer took control and has been refashioning the waterfront for several years longer than originally intended. 110m of fresh foreshore is scheduled for completion next month, and already looks nearly ready, while the former outfall has been encased behind a slabby protrusion that'll feed any brown sludge into the mega-tunnel 48m below. And that's my fleeting return to the Fleet completed, a five-part skim down the river from fledgling peaty trickle at Kenwood to brand new post-Bazalgette megapipe at Blackfriars. Its path is rarely visible but can often be easily traced if you know where to look, and hides a fascinating fluvial history. What's more it's changed far more than I expected since I last blogged the Fleet 20 years ago, so who's to say I won't come back in 2045 and give it another go? The original August 2005 Fleet posts All five of this year's posts on a single page The original 170 Flickr photos 75 Fleeting photos from 2025 (21 from round here) [click the little icon top right to get a slideshow] history of the River Fleet (2009) map of lost rivers 1300 map, 1682 map, 1746 map, 1746 map, 1790 map

The best features from Londonist over the past week.