45 45 Squared 25) MARKET SQUARE, N9 Borough of Enfield, 70m×50m Market Square in Edmonton. New not old, enclosed not open, basic not aspirational, blouses not yogawear, also you can't drive a vehicle into it which I think is a first in this year-long series. Come with me to the heart of Edmonton Green Shopping Centre, N9's sinuous concrete stripmall. fairly typical town centre until the late 1960s when the newly-formed Enfield council decided to bulldoze the majority in favour of full-on retail redevelopment. Frederick Gibberd & Co (of Harlow fame) came up with an innovative brutalist concoction mixing tower blocks with shopping opportunities and car parks, while Edmonton Green was substantially remodelled for through traffic. A new bus station replaced the old marketplace and all the stalls were moved into a large covered square at the core of the new development. North Mall bears off from one corner, South Mall from the opposite corner and a lowlit connector to the outside world from one side, all feeding shoppers into Market Square. Five parallel bands of glass let the light in. The original stalls are long gone, replaced by brighter permanent units with standard fascias. Some are small with space for key-cutting, engraving or a nail bar, a few are substantially larger and the majority appropriate for medium-sized traders in luggage, Caribbean groceries or dried nuts. The three prime corner units are all occupied by greengrocers, such is the demand for low-priced fruit and veg hereabouts, all neatly arrayed in bands of red, orange and green across hundreds of plastic bowls. Why walk all the way to Asda or Lidl when Letherbarrow's has all the loose tomatoes, peppers and grapes any family could need? Then there's Crystal Meats who are from the shrinkwrapped tray school of butchery, any three for £10, also Fashion Express who sell those huge checked bags ideal for taking washing to the launderette. It's all impressively tidy. outer edge of the square, the remaining beacons including JD Sports and William Hill, although the draw was considerably higher when Superdrug was still a Tesco. As for the Railway Tavern this claims to be a traditional pub, and indeed the original did stand by the level crossing on the Green for years, but this glum replacement has all the character of a dingy unit in the corner of a postwar market. Oh and there's also an upstairs, assuming you can get there. For some impractical reason it's only accessible up a single tissue-strewn staircase, or an adjacent lift, so first floor businesses must suffer terribly from low footfall. That said if you want the Turkish accountants, the special needs theatre or the local MP's office, you're more likely to be on a mission than just ambling by. What's unexpected is that after you've walked round the balcony a separate passage heads out onto the open roof... and into a street in the sky. A lot of councils tried mall-top living in the 70s, notably in Wood Green, but it's still surprising to see a row of eight townhouses on top of Clarks and Cardfactory, complete with washing hanging on the line and a lady sipping coffee in her front garden. My initial conclusion was that Edmonton Green Shopping Centre was a postwar success, still very well used and with a minimum of empty units. Then I remembered that there is essentially nowhere else for Edmonton's shoppers to go, the exterior retail offering having been so comprehensively extinguished, so of course tumbleweed has been held at bay. At least Market Square itself remains a cut above what most towns of this size offer, still appealingly blessed with everyday essentials, so long as you don't look round the edge or go upstairs.

45 45 Squared 24) THE SQUARE, TW9 Borough of Richmond, 60m come together beneath a zinc-scaled dome. One of the main streets is The Quadrant, one of the passageways is The Passage and stretching briefly to the east is The Square. This isn't square, just as The Quadrant isn't part-circular, although it may once have been more rectangular than it now looks, perhaps. Sorry, I thought the centre of a historic town would be easier to research, but rest assured there is a history behind all this somewhere. the Old Fire Station and the Dome, and I believe once passed behind the former and now loops round the latter. The Dome is everything a prominent Victorian building should be, especially if you need activewear for your next yoga session because the lower storey is now a branch of Lululemon. Excitingly the top floor is currently up for lease as open plan office accommodation, including a boardroom inside the dome itself offering 360 degree views in case your meeting content is particularly tedious. Saffron with a reassuringly dense menu pinned up outside, should you fancy an al fresco skewering. Even smarter is Major Son & Phipps alongside, a thin estate agents with a chic Parisian feel to its signage, one of whose staff is a dog called Scooby who merits his own page on the company website. Across the road a plaque above the Nationwide Building Society references The Imperial 1890, this being the pub that once occupied the building before a pizza chain moved in in the 1980s. The bubble tea shop isn't original either, ditto the Argentinian steakhouse and pizzeria in what is now The Square but used to be The Passage. Do try to keep up. The final standout building is the Old Fire Station, an overtwiddly redbrick number from 1870 with a distinctive clock tower that would have looked right at home in the centre of Trumpton. Look out for the carved heads of two moustachioed Victorian firefighters above the ex-entrance. When fire engines grew too big the main body became a shop and is currently yet another estate agents with a solicitors' office perched above. Meanwhile the front end became public conveniences, but Richmond council don't believe in those any more so it's now a coffee shop whose slogan is "Every single step is artisanal", so still very much taking the piss. only brief but everyone who heads south round Richmond's one-way system passes very briefly through half of it, and now you know what it's called even if it's hard to discern precisely where it starts and why it finishes.

Yesterday Ofcom agreed to Royal Mail's request to deliver 2nd class mail slower and on fewer days. Great, said Royal Mail, we'll start doing just that from 28th July. You'll either have to post your letters and cards earlier or shrug and put up with it. a) Saturdays will be excluded The Saturday thing This means if you want a letter to arrive by Saturday, you'll have to readjust your posting date so it arrives by Friday. For example if someone you know has a birthday on Saturday 26th July, posting it three days before on Wednesday July 23rd should be adequate. But if someone you know has a birthday on Saturday 2nd August, it'll need to go in the box a day earlier on Tuesday 29th July. change won't affect letters posted on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays because these should continue to arrive before Saturday. But it will affect letters posted on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, all of which should arrive later because Saturday's no longer a "working day". do still have to be collected on Saturdays and Royal Mail doesn't know which is which until they've been collected. However although 1st class letters will continue to enter the sorting process immediately, 2nd class letters can now be set aside on Saturday and sorted on Monday. The alternate weekdays thing Here's their graphic. Effectively Royal Mail will split their delivery routes into two halves, A and B. On any particular day only one or the other will get 2nd class deliveries. This means only half the staff will be needed, hence considerable savings. Previously you'd never go more than two days without a potential 2nd class delivery. Now you might go four days without one, with either Friday-Sunday or Saturday-Monday skipped each week. Also the A/B pattern won't always be rigidly stuck to. In weeks with a Bank Holiday Monday the same delivery pattern as last week will apply, so Week 1 will be followed by Week 1 or Week 2 by Week 2. It means the usual gap of '2 working days' will still apply, even if in reality that means no 2nd class post from Thursday to Tuesday or from Friday to Wednesday. The eased target thing At present Royal Mail have three potential days to deliver 2nd class mail and still hit their target. In the future they may have two potential delivery days or they may have just one, depending on which Week it is. For example a 2nd class letter posted on Monday could currently be delivered on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. In future the delivery window will either be Tuesday/Thursday or just Wednesday, which doesn't leave Royal Mail much room for error. 1st class targets are also being changed. Currently 93% should be delivered the next day and this is being reduced to 90%. Ofcom argues this should aid efficiencies and is still higher than comparable European countries. Again there's a new 'tail' target, specifically that 99% of 1st class mail be delivered in three days.  within 1 daywithin 3 dayswithin 5 days 1st class90% (was 93%)99% (new)  2nd class 95% (was 98.5%)99% (new) An example A few other snippets from the Ofcom consultation In summary Ofcom wants you to know two things... ✉ Unless there are 1st class or other priority letter or parcels for you, you will not receive letter deliveries on Saturday. ✉ Any 2nd class letters posted on Wednesday to Saturday may arrive a day later than now (excluding Sunday).