31 unblogged things I did in July
Wed 1: They don't ask the question "Do you know who the Prime Minister is?" any more.
Thu 2: The one foodstuff that hasn't survived the recent sweaty heatwave is my pack of Club biscuits. The fondant/chocolate top has collapsed and melted into the wrapper. Kitkats on the other hand remain structurally intact.
Fri 3: Platform 1 at Kingston station is closed for a week so artists can paint a mural celebrating the town and the railway. I only caught the early daubs but hopefully it'll look great when it's finished.
Sat 4: At Willesden Junction station the tannoy kept repeating the announcement 'Taking videos and photos at this station is not allowed without a permit', and I wonder what the miserable killjoys were objecting to. (it wasn't me)
Sun 5: An unexpected consequence of the Olympic Stadium being in Stratford is that gig-goers often end up boozing at Bow pubs before the show. Thus today Bow Road was amok with Metallica fans in double denim and tour t-shirts, several of them bringing their kids in similar attire. As the opening number drifted in through my French windows I considered sighing, but when I saw that attendees had been invited to attend a Volunteer Opportunity at Bow Foodbank I smiled instead.
Mon 6: On the Overground I spotted a (current) EastEnders actor wearing a straw cowboy hat, cowboy boots and fringed jacket. Perfectly in character.
Tue 7: In the second episode of Radio 4 quiz pilot Your Number's Up, when Alexia and Lewis are "sent down to the Maths Cellar" they were in fact going up to the bar because we recorded it in a pub cellar.
Wed 8: I bought a pint of cider in a pub in Haringey and messed up paying for it three times. First I took out a £10 note and was told they don't do cash. Then I tried to pay by tapping the 'tip jar' device. Then I tapped the wrong part of the card reader. Thankfully the 'tip jar' transaction failed, because the barman definitely didn't deserve £2 for good service.
Thu 9: Spotted the Goodyear Blimp over Woolwich, although unfortunately I was in North Woolwich at the time. Londonist have amazing photos of what it's like to go up in it.
Fri 10: Supermarketwatch: First cucumbers got dearer (79p, 89p, 99p) and now they're just getting shorter, all very uniformly so.
Sat 11: All the cool nerds came to the consultation event, and had I been 40 years younger I'd so have wanted to be one of them.
Sun 12: The fourth pilot Radio 4 quiz show, Around The World in 80 Ways, is fascinating but the rules are hard to follow and so is the contestants' progress across an unseen map. If the plans is to pick two pilots to turn into proper series next year, my hunch is that Déjà News and Your Number's Up will get the nod.
Mon 13: Thanks to everyone who helped explain what 'Cgugqg' meant (I wrote it in my diary on 1st August 1976). It's just 'Canada' in mirror writing, so I'd probably seen the word reflected somewhere.
Tue 14: Shock at midnight as I went to clean my teeth but there was no water in my taps. Not a drop. Annoyingly I'd knocked over my last glass of water an hour earlier. Resorted to Aquafresh with milk.
[Thankfully my taps spluttered back into action the following morning, but a reminder of how swiftly normality can fall apart]
Wed 15: The classic Route 66 menswear shop in the rotunda outside Southgate station is holding a Closing Down Sale. All hats and caps half price, also generous reductions on stripy shirts, powder blue jackets and leisure footwear. It's the end of an era.
[owner is retiring, not defaulting]
Thu 16: Finally found the latest Richard Osman on the shelf of my local library, only 10 months after publication. It ticked all the boxes (especially the popular culture throwaways) and I finished it in two days flat, but the series is becoming incrementally overfamiliar.
Fri 17: For the first time in 35 years I managed to get to my Dad's house using solely public transport, courtesy of a bus that runs only three times a week. It took approximately three times longer than driving.
Sat 18: Wow, well done England, 3rd place in the World Cup is our best performance since 1966, you'd think the nation would be deliriously happy.
Sun 19: Dug out the family album from our holiday 50 years ago to Canada and the USA, seemingly compiled from just four films. There's me at the Von Trapp lodge, there's my brother at Niagara, there's all of us at Ontario Place, there's me eating a Dairy Queen ice cream sundae and here's the view straight down from the top of the CN Tower. I wish we'd taken more.
Mon 20: Wes Streeting is the second Defence Secretary to have lived in Stepney (following Clement Attlee), and I'm not sure how I feel about him being responsible for keeping our country secure.
Tue 21: On the electronic screen by the Bow Flyover I was surprised to see an advert for the Farnborough International Airshow, specifically for a transatlantic commerce company with a presence at the global arms trading shindig. I cannot work out who thought delegates to an event in Hampshire would be in East London at 9am. However I never saw the advert come round again, even though I watched for ten minutes.
Wed 22: The new Radio 6 Indie Forever stream is a great listen if what you want is near-uninterrupted guitar records with no waffle, no promos and no news. So far my favourite is Indie Chill which makes excellent background music, although I'm not sure how many different 2-hour segments they've actually produced. The channel seems to be mostly songs from the 2000s, but with just enough earlier stuff to keep me listening.
Thu 23: There are plans for an InPost Parcel Locker to join the street furniture scrum outside Bow Road station. Somehow it'll be Bow Road's first.
Fri 24: You may remember I successfully spotted all 519 pairs of letters at the start of a modern UK vehicle registration plate, that's from AA to YY, and it took 22½ months. Well I had another go starting from scratch and this time it only took 20 months, the final pair being NR which I spotted today in Queensbury.
Sat 25: South Norwood Country Park is looking particularly parched at the moment. It is not alone in this respect.
Sun 26: The Art on the Underground Spaghetti map for young creatives is very good (36 full colour pages with scribbleable gaps) but does go a bit off-piste in places. (Imagine if pride, joy, frustration, etc came in bags of squishy clay to sculpt) (Can a building or a tree be an angel?) (Please draw something you think deserves its own tiny little private sunrise)
Mon 27: The three week closure of Charing Cross station has been very poorly explained. I picked up a leaflet but it has zero useful detail on which lines divert where, only a QR code leading to a Journey Planner. The station itself is hoardinged off with no obvious posters. How do you get to Staplehurst, as one particularly frustrated soul needed to know.
Tue 28: Rest assured I have no intention of revealing the answer to today's Trafalgar Square Treasure Hunt. I deliberately chose clues that would last, so feel free to have a go anytime whenever.
[five correct responses so far]
Wed 29: The downstairs Oyster pad at Bow Church has been splattered with something white and mucky for the last four weeks. This means you can't read the display and it's hard to see the coloured LED light up. This is particularly important given the pad doesn't beep (so as not to annoy the neighbours) so visual confirmation is essential. It's currently annoying lots of passengers who can't tell if they've tapped in or out properly, and all because nobody's come to clean.
Thu 30: The digital blind on the front of SL3 Superloop buses now has an extra blob saying 'Limited Stop' between the destination and route number.
Fri 31: Hampstead did indeed end the month without measurable rain, the first 100% dry month ever recorded. Records go back to 1871. July 2026 was also the sunniest and warmest month on record. Total sunshine hours were 324 hours (beating July 1911 with 312). The average daily maximum temperature was 28.6°C (beating July 2006 and July 2018 with 27.2°C).
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