It's mid-September so Free Building Visits season is here again. That means London Open House which starts today, but also Heritage Open Days which started yesterday, their two weekends unusually coinciding this year. And because Heritage Open Days also includes a few venues in the capital I've already been out and got my moneysworth, which in this case is no money at all (+£2 donation). Bow Street Museum of Crime and Justice Formerly known as: Bow Street Police Museum Location: 28 Bow Street, Covent Garden, WC2E 7AW [map] Open: 11am-4.30pm (Friday, Saturday, Sunday only) Admission: £8 (+£2 encouraged donation) Website: bowstreetmuseum.org.uk Four word summary: the famous court's cells Time to allow: less than an hour Bow Street, just round the back of the Royal Opera House, where London's first police force coalesced. The instigator was a magistrate called Henry Fielding who moved into number 4 in 1748 and became concerned by the amount of gin-based disorder in the locality. He hired eight constables to pursue criminals in a more civil manner than the usual street-based violence, these becoming known as the Bow Street Runners, and when his brother succeeded him as magistrate the patrol was refined into London's first effective police force. 2006 it was no longer required and the building was sold to a boutique hotel chain, although it took until 2021 before a different boutique hotel finally opened. As part of the deal a teensy strip of the old building became a museum, essentially a corridor of cells from the police station half, and if you want to see the courthouse these days you have to hire the hotel ballroom. In the main room we have the actual dock from Court number 2, which the curators hope one day you'll be able to stand on but not before some preservation work has been done. It's also not clear which famous accused stood on this board and which were tried in courts 1 or 3 instead. The walls here tell the story of Bow Street's evolution from Henry's home to full-on cop shop. The story's well told and illustrated but the focus is very much on words and pictures, there being very little in the way of artefacts. One cabinet has a lantern, rattle and inkwell from the olden days plus a trundle wheel used to measure the length of a copper's beat, the other shows what a Bow Street Runner might have worn, and then it's back to reading again. Visitors seemed content to peruse at length. The corridor is a lot more evocative, being original, with six numbered cells leading off the right-hand side. The first has been left as was with a mattress on a wooden plank as a bed, although the toilet wouldn't have had a glass sheet over it back in the day. The other five are now tiny little galleries with more to see and read, one with a video to watch (although it was a bit full in there so I didn't). The displays add background to the main story, particularly about how the police station operated, and I liked the photo of the old canteen that provided underwhelming breakfasts for prisoners who were up before the beak in the early slot. I see why they changed their name in April away from Bow Street Police Museum because it's not really that, but it's not really a Museum of Crime and Justice either. It's more a fascinating historic corridor leftover from a hotel conversion, gamely making the best of what they've got, but I fear they take less in admission in a week than a single guest pays for a night in a king-sized bed nextdoor.

One of the downsides of writing a daily blog is that there's also a daily deadline. This means I'm often preoccupied during the day researching, fieldtripping, writing and editing, which can sometimes get in the way of other things. Today's post is therefore simply a list of the stuff I got done yesterday, things I otherwise would have put off (again). Morning ✔ hang up wedding suit; return suitcase to stash; return swimming shorts to drawer after hot tub excursion ✔ clean out chest of drawers; rationalise tie collection (not sure I still need 50); bin subfusc; return checked 1984 pullover to circulation; retire a dozen work shirts from rail to drawer; bin five shirts and a 90s sweatshirt; shift big jackets into spare room; clean bike leathers; reallocate shirts and jackets to more practical rails; return handkerchiefs to circulation; rediscover all sorts of t-shirts I tucked away last time I rationalised; attempt to work out a better place for the polo shirts to go; bemoan my lack of wardrobes and cupboard space ✔ look up location of nearest clothes recycling bin Afternoon ✔ make a start on sorting out my 'dealt with' paperwork pile; start piles for gas bills, electricity bills, bank statements, etc; spread these out across bedcovers; throw out unnecessary pages; extract at least a dozen letters urging me to get a smart meter; watch piles grow; start new pile for 'one-off letter from mobile phone company'; work down original pile through 2024, ah 2023, oh also 2022, blimey also 2021, sheesh also 2020; realise I haven't attacked this paperwork since the start of lockdown and this is why it's now such a massive task ✔ add sorted paperwork to appropriate files in filing cabinet; remove once-essential now non-essential paperwork from files; close filing cabinet with a feeling of job well done, only took three hours; stare admiringly at empty space on bedroom table ✔ pile of discarded paperwork weighs 3½kg, hell yes Evening (this feels odd, I should be writing something for tomorrow but I am instead crosslegged on the floor sorting stuff) ✔ take pile of leaflets from places I have visited and sort geographically; bin plenty; realise this pile also goes back five years (although the 2020/2021 contribution is small for pandemic reasons); multitask sorting while watching TV ✔ add remaining leaflets to appropriate shoeboxes with relevant regional label; split 'Midlands' box into 'West Midlands' and 'East Midlands'; stack shoeboxes away ✔ flick through my 'to do' shoebox to see if there's anywhere interesting I could go tomorrow I did well. You've therefore done badly, sorry.

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.

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.