When writing about dining out, the media tend to focus on restaurants, independent cafes and bijou little nooks, also pubs, hotels and takeaways. But there's one place you're always guaranteed a hot meal at a bargain price and that's a supermarket cafe, the unsung destination of choice for many a prudent diner. Assuming you can still find one, that is. The supermarket cafe is usually to be found in a quiet corner somewhere near the entrance, just past the trolley park, the rack of magazines and the backs of the checkouts. Here a long counter awaits the weary shopper, perhaps several, with an array of packaged goodies, plated treats and hot cooked staples awaiting your delectation. The range is generally limited and traditional - all the elderly crowd pleasers - often with a proper breakfast option if you arrive early enough. The drinks machine has long been a fixture just before the till, but these days more likely to generate something frothy than a pot of tea. Warm desserts with dolloped custard were alas phased out long ago in favour of something ready-sliced. And when your tray's full just pay the bill, pick a table and enjoy a leisurely natter, safe in the knowledge your meal out hasn't broken the bank. As long as you go to the right supermarket, that is. Asda on the Isle of Dogs where the supermarket cafe is still a pleasingly retro experience. Step behind the rack of flowers to discover a single white counter, lightly-staffed, and beyond that a puce-walled corner with perches, banquettes and proper tables. The food queue starts by a stack of brown plastic trays, then come the wraps and baguettes (would you like that warmed?), then the slices of sponge under plastic domes with tongs on top. The selection on the hotplate looked very limited but if you wanted the battered cod or lasagne you'd be able to select a portion straight away. By the till are more cakes plus a rack of Walkers crisps and a pleasingly old-school Coca-Cola dispenser, and if you insist on ordering tea there are six options but they're all Tetleys. What's not to enjoy? Asda hot menu Mains (all £6.75): cod and chips, scampi and chips, lasagne, stew & dumplings, chicken tikka masala, beef chilli, cheeseburger, double chicken burger Veg options (£6.50): mac & cheese, sweet potato & spinach curry Fry-up (£6.10): cooked breakfast/all-day brunch Soups (£3): tomato, creamy chicken, hearty veg (all served with roll and butter) Sides: garlic bread, chips, fries, peas, baked beans, side salad, onion rings, chicken nuggets It could still be 2005 with that list, maybe 1995 but probably not 1985. Also I note that a lot of the mains don't require a lot of chewing. Your supermarket needs to be a certain size before its worth having a cafe, so large sites with big car parks are the most likely locations. In rural Norfolk there are plenty, for example, although you have to drive a fair way to get to them. The edge of any provincial town will have an in-store cafe offering, or indeed that retail park by the bypass, such is the culinary allure of the out-of-town supermarket. But Tower Hamlets is not well blessed with the things, so I wondered where my nearest cafes were at other supermarket chains. Tesco cafe Typical lunch items: Chilli Con Carne Jacket Potato, Brunch Burger with Hash Brown Bites, Scampi and Chips, Harissa Chicken and Chorizo Toastie My nearest: Beckton (5 miles), then Woolwich, then Meridian Water. Sainsbury cafe Typical lunch items: Chicken Tikka Masala, Steak & Ale Pie, Sausages & Mash, Avocado & Eggs on Sourdough My nearest: There are none in London, the nearest being at Northfleet in Kent (ah, I see Sainsburys have plans to close all 61 of their remaining cafes, sad face emoji) Morrisons cafe Typical lunch items: Gammon, Egg, Chips & Peas, Ultimate Mixed Grill, Crispy Breaded Falafel Burger, Battered Sausages, Chips and Mushy Peas My nearest: Stratford (1 mile), then Chingford (because proper cafes are rare) Waitrose cafe Typical lunch items: Beef Bourguignon, Mozzarella & Pesto Salad, Chicken Tikka Flatbread, Goat’s Cheese, Fig & Caramelised Shallot Quiche My nearest: Canary Wharf (1 mile) (but it's a bit posh and they also have an olive bar and I don't think this properly counts) It seems my best options for cheap comfort food and chatter are Asda at Crossharbour and Morrisons in Stratford, and that's about it within easy travelling distance. Other low price sit-down locations are of course available, but a bite at Wetherspoons or a perch at Kebabish will never match the retro canteen experience. The supermarket cafe lingers on and is much appreciated by many, but the days of piling up your hot meal on a tray may already be numbered.

Attend inauguration, take Presidential oath, act as "a peacemaker and unifier", label Mexican cartels as terrorists, rename the Gulf of Mexico, rename Mt McKinley, pledge to an expanding nation, take back the Panama Canal, send astronauts to Mars, suspiciously-Nazi salute, sign order to withdraw from Paris climate agreement, sign migrant detention bill, unconditional pardons for Jan 6 attackers, roll-back on trans rights, roll-back on gender identity, redefine birthright to US citizenship, withdraw from World Health Organisation, make federal workers easier to fire, federal regulatory freeze, impose tariffs on Mexico, impose tariffs on Canada, delay ban on TikTok, drill baby drill, introduce External Revenue Service, establish Department of Government Efficiency, end government support for electric vehicles, end Green New Deal, axe education department, launch cryptocurrency, video call with Chinese President, appoint vaccine sceptic as Health Secretary, recommit to death penalty, put diversity staff on leave, deploy troops to Mexican border, suspend refugee programme, pause foreign development assistance, end 'corrupt' DEI policies, human rights start at conception, scrap FEMA, back biblical claim to Palestinian land, fire independent watchdogs, make claim on Greenland, reinstate troops who refused vaccination, eliminate DEI in military, curtail gender transition, offer federal employees payouts if they resign, reopen Guantánamo Bay, blame plane crash on diversity, impose tariffs on China, sack USAid workers, take control of federal payment system, revoke deportation protections, delay tariffs on Mexico and Canada, stake claim on rare earths in Ukraine, shrink US government, propose wholesale removal of regulations, plan for US to own and redevelop Gaza Strip, plan to relocate all Palestinians from Gaza into Jordan and Egypt, attend Super Bowl, ban trans athletes from women's sports, eliminate anti-Christian bias, sanction international court, remove Federal Election Commission chair, reverse ban on plastic straws, cut medical research funding, speak to Putin about Ukraine, 25% tariffs on aluminium and steel imports, propose Canada as 51st state, end production of one cent coin, call for end to Gaza ceasefire, cosy up to Russia, speak to Putin about Ukraine ceasefire, make premature concessions on Ukraine, fire air traffic control staff, attempt to rehire traffic control staff, rebuke Europe and its leaders at security summit, fire National Park workers, question the legitimacy of judges, liken oneself to Napoleon, threaten tariffs on foreign cars and semiconductors, fast-track fossil fuel projects, plan cuts at the Pentagon, layoffs at the Internal Revenue Service, face-to-face peace talks with Russia, blame Ukraine for war with Russia, claim Putin can be trusted, call Zelensky a dictator, launch new world order. And that's just the first month.

As an East London resident I've received a 20-page booklet through my letterbox about the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel in April. If you didn't get a booklet you can download one here. Eight pages are given over to information for drivers, which makes sense given most of the tunnel's users will be drivers. The eight pages are mostly about what you have to pay and whether you have to pay it. You might therefore expect that one of the maps in the booklet would be aimed at drivers. Not so. There is such a map, it's on the TfL website and you can see it here. But it never made it into the booklet because someone thought two maps aimed at bus passengers and cyclists would be sufficient. Let's Make This Bus Map Unnecessarily Complicated department has been at it again. It shows the three routes which make up TfL's commitment to running 21 buses an hour through the two tunnels. One is the existing 108 through the Blackwall Tunnel, one is the extended 129 and one is the new Superloop SL4, both of which will use the Silvertown Tunnel. LMTBMUC department is obsessed with routes rather than stops. • I don't care which bore of the Blackwall Tunnel the 108 will use, nor all the ridiculous twiddles the 108 and 129 have to make to enter the bus station at North Greenwich. I might care that the 108 makes several extra stops northbound on its detour to the tunnel but the map doesn't show where they are, nor does it have arrows to show which way the loop goes. • I don't care about the twiddles on the 129 either, whereas I would really like to know where the first stop beyond the tunnel is going to be and how far it'll be from anywhere useful. I'd also quite like to know where the 129 goes next but the next four miles through Newham are not shown, only a box saying that the route terminates at Great Eastern Quay. I bet most people have no idea where that is and the booklet doesn't enlighten them. • I can see where the SL4 runs but because it's a limited stop route I really need to know where I can catch it, and on that there's nothing. That's key because on the north side of the tunnel it won't stop anywhere in Newham, only in Tower Hamlets, and heading south it won't drop anyone off in North Greenwich, only two miles away up the A12. The next page of the booklet does at least say "Express service stopping in key town centres between Westferry Circus in Canary Wharf to Grove Park via Silvertown Tunnel". But it doesn't say what those key town centres will be, nor does it mention the three-mile non-stop section, and you're not going to attract any passengers like that. Cyclists don't care what ridiculous one-way circuits the shuttle bus has to make, they only need to know where to board and where it'll drop them off. The red blobs alas get somewhat lost amid the red lines. What is it with TfL and overcomplicated underinformative maps? Drivers, bus passengers and cyclists who might use the Silvertown Tunnel would really like to know.

On EastEnders' 40th birthday, let's go in search of the soap's iconic pub. London has only one remaining Queen Victoria pub, as far as I can tell, but remnants of several pubs of that name survive. The Queen Victoria, 148 Southwark Park Road, Bermondsey SE16 3RP corner pub from when this entire area was packed with Victorian terraces. You can still find a few of these if you walk down the right streets, then you turn a corner and it's all postwar flats and modern apartment blocks as is so often the case in inner London. Had the pub been one street corner to the east the Luftwaffe would have got it but instead it shines on with its yellow brick, sash windows and brown faience tiles. One less storey and it could almost pass for the actual fictional Queen Vic. Indeed a bit of digging suggests the soap's producers visited when the show first went into production and used the bar "for a dummy run". So says Julie O'Sullivan, the pub's millennial landlady, although she also claims that "Barbara Windsor, Dot Cotton, Ross Kemp, Shane Richie" have drunk here which suggests she sometimes mixes the real and the fictional. Alas Julie had the lease taken away from her in 2019, such is the way of pubcos, and the latest owners haven't quite retained the ambience. The central wooden bar is still there but now with downlit optics and the upper display shelf removed, plus Julie would never have allowed those chairs in here or illuminated a ring around the dartboard. But it still looks good because Craft Union like to put on a decent show, and it still has a bottle blonde behind the bar (called Carole) with a cheery voice well capable of passing an E20 audition. formerly The Queen Victoria, 118 Wellington Street, Woolwich SE18 6XY hostel, and still might be upstairs, but the former bar has since been taken over by a lowly convenience store called the Q. Victoria Supermarket. I'd have abbreviated it 'Queen Vic Supermarket' instead and taken down all the Oyster top-up signs, but I was not consulted. It still looks striking from a distance, a three storey gabled building with two tall chimneys rising higher than seemingly necessary and a fading inn sign depicting a book-reading monarch above what used to be the door. These days you enter up the side, they hope enticed by a wall of generic grocery vinyls and adverts for Lyca mobile, and it's so out of date the alcohol options still include a bottle of Becks. But the interior is low-key, low-lit and low-appeal, and all I spotted was Robinson's fruit squash, so unless you live locally and have run out of something urgent I probably wouldn't. formerly The Queen Victoria, 1 Gillender Street E3 3JW Charrington & Toby Ale tiles out front. formerly The Queen Victoria, 72 Barnet Grove, Bethnal Green E2 7BJ Still in the East End, not only does this look every inch a Victorian boozer but it's attached to a proper Victorian terrace, part of a patch of conservation area between Columbia Road Market and Roman Road. Just look at the gorgeous 'The Queen Victoria' moulding on the roof beneath a royal crest. In this case closure came in 1993 before this corner of Bethnal Green became the gentrification magnet it is today, and the odd grey doors at pavement level now lead to separate flats. The planters out front somehow haven't been removed by Tower Hamlets' car-friendly Mayor, not yet, and yes I did have to wait for marketgoers clutching wrapped flowers to get out of the way before I took that photo. formerly The Queen Victoria, 78 How's Street, Haggerston E2 8LP pub and all the houses it served have long been swept from the map. Instead the area's now solid former council housing, almost entirely flats, with the location of the Queen Vic now a row of parking spaces along the front of Fellows Court. Pubs are no longer a feature of the surrounding neighbourhood, the nearby shopping parade is as downbeat as it gets and the local primary school closed last year due to lack of pupils. If EastEnders were set here, sorry Haggerston, it'd be an utter gloomfest. formerly The Queen Victoria, 236 Church Hill Road, North Cheam SM3 8LB current plan is to build a 7-storey block of flats as a 'gateway development', which anywhere in inner London might look quite normal but would be a jarring highrise imposition here. No replacement pub is planned but a Wetherspoons exists just round the corner on London Road and that's quite enough. formerly The Queen Victoria, 13 Tooting Grove, Tooting SW17 0RA pub with copper roof, renamed 'The Little House' before it closed in 2010. An English Heritage spot-listing failed so now subdivided into five quite nice-looking flats. formerly The Queen Victoria, 98 Mitcham Road, Croydon CRO 3RJ formerly The Queen Victoria, 136 Falcon Road, Battersea SW11 2LP formerly The Queen Victoria, 121 Bath Road, Hounslow TW3 3BT formerly The Queen Vic, 118 Wellington Street, Maryland E15 1HH And finally a classic pub that's now lumpen flats. For almost all of its life it was known as The Albert House, having originally been the pub at the end of Albert Road. At some point that street inexplicably became Albert Square, despite not even being oblong, and that no doubt is why the pub's final owners decided to name it The Queen Vic. It didn't ultimately help to bring a rush of punters, even with a flapping inn sign out front, and when I turned up for the 20th anniversary it was already being redeveloped. The resulting block is called Basle House and the bit that used to be the pub has hardly any windows and looks terribly bland. Judging by the outbreak of angry posters all over the bin store an angry row appears to have broken out regarding the improper dumping of black bags, but as storylines go that's pretty poor so I'd stick with the real Queen Vic on the actual Albert Square tonight instead. from 2015: locations that inspired EastEnders [photos] from 2010: Two Albert Squares, E15 and SW8 from 2005: The real EastEnders, E20 at 20

25 dull lists One stop short of Barking: Upney, East Ham, West Ham, Upminster, Woodgrange Park, Barking Riverside, Stratford Current Walkers crisp flavours: ready salted, cheese & onion, salt & vinegar, prawn cocktail, roast chicken, smoky bacon, tomato ketchup, pickled onion, cheese toastie (and beanz), roast chicken (and mayonnaise), sausage sarnie (and ketchup) Days on which I had my hair cut in 1985: 17th January, 6th March, 24th April, 18th June, 8th August, 7th October, 13th December Towns where the National Eisteddfod has been held at least three times: Aberdare, Aberystwyth, Bala, Bangor, Caernarfon, Cardiff, Carmarthen, Denbigh, Liverpool, Llandudno, Llanelli, Llanrwst, Mold, Mountain Ash, Neath, Newport, Pwllheli, Rhyl, Swansea, Wrexham Ferry departures from Wemyss Bay on Sundays in the summer of 1993: 0930, 1130, 1330, 1530, 1730, 1920, 2040 Winners of the prestigious Only Connect Third Place Play-off: Chessmen, Wrights, Trade Unionists, Wordsmiths, Poptimists, Forrests, Whodunnits, Ramblers, Scrummagers, Mercians, Cat Cows or Crunchers European countries that drive on the left: Channel Islands, Cyprus, Ireland, Isle of Man, Malta, UK Zodiac signs in Polish: Baran, Bliźnięta, Byk, Rak, Lew, Panna, Waga, Skorpion, Strzelec, Koziorożec, Wodnik, Ryby Numbers which haven't been drawn in the National Lottery so far this year: 3, 4, 9, 15, 21, 37, 40, 43, 44, 48, 49, 53, 58 US states ending in a consonant: Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming Satellites of Saturn discovered in 2000: Albiorix, Erriapus, Ijiraq, Kiviuq, Mundilfari, Paaliaq, Siarnaq, Skathi, Suttungr, Tarvos, Thrymr, Ymir Lettered buses than ran in London 25 years ago but have since been withdrawn: C2, C4, H23, H24, H29, H30, H40, K9, K10, P3, P15, PR1, PR2, R62, R69, S5, T4, T123, TL1, W10, W17, X30, X53 Chemical elements with a double letter: Beryllium, Potassium, Copper, Gallium, Yttrium, Palladium, Tellurium, Ytterbium, Thallium, Hassium, Tennessine, Oganesson European countries that'll see a total solar eclipse in the next 50 years: Greenland, Iceland, Portugal, Spain, Russia, Gibraltar, Ukraine 6Music's daytime schedule from next week: 5am Chris Hawkins, 7am Nick Grimshaw, 10am Lauren Laverne, 1pm Craig Charles, 4pm Steve Lamacq/Huw Stephens House numbers I've lived at: 7 (twice), 8, 20, 26, 46, 59, 125, 200, 215A Programmes on BBC1 40 years ago today: Breakfast Time, Play School, A Change In The Weather, Pebble Mill At One, Postman Pat, Ken Hom's Chinese Cookery, See Hear, Songs of Praise, Super Ted, Jackanory, Bananaman, Newsround, Blue Peter, Grange Hill, Wogan, Fame, Are You Being Served? Panorama, Dirty Harry Postcode areas adjoining PE: LN, NG, LE, NN, MK, SG, CB, IP, NR Female hurricane names for the 2025 Atlantic season: Andrea, Chantal, Erin, Gabrielle, Imelda, Karen, Melissa, Olga, Rebekah, Tanya, Wendy Hills in the City of London: Addle, Bennet's, Cock, College, Dowgate, Fish Street, Garlick, Huggin, Lambeth, Laurence Pountney, Ludgate, Old Fish Street, Peter's, Primrose, Snow, St Andrew's, St Dunstans, Tower, White Lion Blue Peter cats: Jason, Jack, Jill, Willow, Kari, Oke, Smudge, Socks, Cookie Prime numbers whose digits total 5: 5, 23, 41, 113, 131, 311, 401, 1031, 1301, 2003, 4001, 10103, 10301, 20201, 21011, 30011, 101021, 101111, 103001, 120011, 121001, 200003, 201011, 202001, 210011, 1001003, 1003001, 1010003, 10011101, 10101101, 10110011, 10111001, 11000111, 11100101, 100100111, 100111001, 101001011, 10000000000000000000000000000000000000121 Accented letter e's: è, é, ê, ë, ē, ė, ȩ, ę, ě, ȅ, ẹ, ẽ, ę̋, ḕ, ḗ, ḙ, ḛ, ḝ, ė̄, ê̄, ê̌ "A dull, boring list" (generated by AI): Lampposts are... installed by the local council, typically made of metal, painted grey or black, numbered for maintenance purposes, use LED or halogen bulbs, turn on at dusk and off at dawn, occasionally have stickers on them. Places mentioned in tomorrow's post: Bermondsey, Woolwich, Haggerston, Bethnal Green, Bromley-by-Bow, North Cheam, Hounslow, Battersea, Maryland