Yesterday TfL launched a consultation for the introduction of the next Superloop route, the SL13, which will run between Ealing and Hendon via the North Circular. » One end of the SL13 will be at Ealing Broadway station and the other at Hendon War Memorial. » The War Memorial bit is ignorable, the terminus is essentially Hendon Central station but the bus has to turn round somewhere. » The SL13 is essentially an express version of route 112 (with the Finchley end lopped off) » The SL13 will link two existing Superloop routes - the SL8 and SL10. » The SL13 will be the first all-zone-3 Superloop route (the original orbitals were generally 4/5) Verdict: great » The single-decker 112 will be shadowed by the new faster SL13, both running at a 12-minute frequency. » This is a reduction in frequency for the 112, down from every 10 minutes, so if you use any of the intermediate stops you're about to get a worse service. Verdict: expected ...and that would be all were it not for a lack of parking space. » A lot of bus routes terminate around Haven Green outside Ealing Broadway station and there isn't room for another. This means one of them has to be booted out to make way for the SL13. Sorry Ruislip. » TfL have chosen to boot out the E7, a route which runs through Greenford to Ruislip. Sorry Ruislip. » The E7 will therefore be continuing three more stops along the Uxbridge Road, not quite as far as Ealing Common station, so buses can park and turn round. This will take a few minutes longer. Sorry Ruislip. » The E7 is operated by 11 vehicles. To cope with the extended journey time TfL could buy another vehicle or they could cut the route's frequency. Because they're skint, they've chosen to cut the route's frequency. Sorry Ruislip. » The E7 will now run every 15 minutes rather than every 12 minutes, purely to save money. Sorry Ruislip. » For three miles between the White Hart Roundabout and Ruislip the E7 is the sole bus route, but local residents of these outer suburbs will now see fewer buses. Sorry Ruislip. » The SL13 and E7 will not overlap anywhere along their routes, but the introduction of one is screwing the other. Sorry Ruislip. Verdict: unnecessarily poor (sorry Ruislip) For a laugh, here's how all-over-the-place the numbering of the Superloop routes now is. » TfL have also just published the results of their consultation on Superloop route SL12. This will be introduced next year between Gants Hill and Rainham Ferry Lane. Only one significant change has been agreed, that buses will additionally stop at Rainham Tesco, which is so fundamentally sensible that it should have been part of the original plans. Like I said back in March, "if they don't add an additional stop at Rainham Tesco that would be lunacy". » The SL11 (North Greenwich - Abbey Wood) is due to start in January and the BL1 'Bakerloop' (Waterloo - Lewisham) will be with us before Christmas. » Consultations for the SL14 (Stratford - Chingford Hatch) and SL15 (Clapham Junction - Eltham) are expected in the next few months.

Just before ten o'clock yesterday morning I positioned myself on the river wall at North Woolwich and waited. I'd been tipped off by the Ian Visits website that a flypast was due, specifically that it'd be overflying Valentines Park (09:59) Woolwich Barracks (10:00) and Petts Wood (10:01). They're pretty precise, these Civil Aviation Authority Notices to Airmen. So precise that I was able to draw a line between the points, spot it crossed the Thames by the Woolwich Ferry and try to stand underneath. I got very close. smoking formation suddenly appeared from behind the flats and the flypast was on. I'm not sure if anyone else looked up, I wasn't looking at them, I was staring at the sky. Those on the ferry were probably preoccupied with boarding, those waiting in their cars were obscured by a whopping concrete wall and those out shopping in Woolwich would have had too many buildings in the way. A good thing about being this close to the action was that the pilots had just fired up their coloured smoke so the streams changed from white to red/blue within my field of view. Another good thing about being this close to the action was that all nine trails were distinct and separate in an almost-perfect V. The aerial spectacle zoomed across the river all too quickly, targeting whatever outdoor event at Woolwich Barracks had merited the costly display. The Armed Forces aren't above spending money to entertain themselves. I see I only managed to take eight photos over the course of what turned out to be nineteen seconds, swivelling round midway to focus on Woolwich rather than the sky. And as the smoke trails slowly dissipated and the estuary went back to normal, the usual scream of planes taking off from City Airport eventually returned. These moments of awe and wonder are rare in any one given location, and to take full advantage it pays to know they're coming.

Free Association moves to Southwark in October.

45 45 Squared 32) LYRIC SQUARE, W6 Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, 70m×30m Lyric Square and it used to be the southern end of Hammersmith Grove, a road which now stops early and filters into the one-way system. Background: In 2000 Hammersmith and Fulham council launched a competition to create a new £750,000 public square on a closed section of highway, just round the corner from the Circle line terminus. 50 applications were received and the winners were a practice with the dangerously unappealing name of Gross Max Landscape Architects. Lyric Square opened to the public in May 2005 and won the Civic Trust Hard Landscaping Award in 2006. It looks considerably less dazzling 20 years later with the fountains turned off. ribbed wooden tower to one side. This is a CityTree, a moss-filled tower which supposedly absorbs polluted air and blows out fresh, which may be worth knowing about should you own a patch of public realm in need of livening up with an eco-gizmo. Background: The Lyric Theatre wasn't always here, it used to be just round the corner in Bradmore Grove. Opened as the Lyric Opera House it was repeatedly enlarged through the 1890s and had a dazzling Rococo auditorium designed by the incomparable Frank Matcham. Demolition was ordered in the 1960s, despite a public inquiry, but the auditorium was thankfully saved and rebuilt on the current site behind a jarringly modern facade. The entrance was redesigned when Lyric Square opened, including a new cafe at street level. Outsider Tart, but they don't open on Sundays so I can't rate their peanut butter chocolate fudge and M&M’s cookies. I can tell you that Dracula opens tomorrow, a feminist retelling taking to the stage before the theatre stages a 130th birthday singalong gala night next month, then it's Jack and the Beanstalk for Christmas. Outside theatre hours the buzz on the piazza comes from the constant wash of shoppers passing through, also the outdoor seating at Pret A Manger, also the beery tables at the inevitable Wetherspoon which is called The William Morris. Background: Designer anarchist William Morris is claimed by many London boroughs, but Hammersmith has a strong claim because he lived on the Thames waterfront from 1878 until his death in 1896. A stripe of sunken letters embedded in the pavement outside Pret says "William Morris spoke in this square", which surprised me because the square didn't exist while he was alive, but apparently his diary records an open-air meeting on this site in February 1887. "This audience characteristic of small open air meetings quite mixed, from labourers on their Sunday lounge to ‘respectable’ people coming from church; the latter inclined to grin, the working men listening attentively trying to understand, but mostly failing to do so: a fair cheer when I ended." I doubt Wetherspoons would be William's pub of choice. market, or Thursday/Friday for the food market, which again I didn't. The local BID team also run events to chivvy footfall for town centre businesses, anything from big screen films to sponsored yoga, and I assume the enormous #HAMMERSMITH plonked at the northern end of the square is their idea of good branding. Even when the piazza's quiet it's still plainly a better use of space than the original road, so the lesson here is that you can always conjure up a decent bit of public realm if you're not afraid of inconveniencing a few drivers.