I'm on the M25, for the first time in a while, and there is traffic. Not a lot of traffic for the M25 but I'm travelling nowhere near 70 mph. The M25 is an almost circular motorway around London with the Dartford Crossing (which travels northbound) and the Queen Elizabeth II bridge (which travels southbound) and the surrounding roads leading to the M25 in both directions part of the A282. Almost all of Greater London (the proper definition of London) is inside the boundaries of the M25 except two parts. The first is a tiny section near Heathrow which only contains half a roundabout and is probably the way it is to follow a river. The second section is much larger and is on the complete opposite side of London in the east, near Upminster, and contains many fields and a few houses. This section of London outside the M25 is served by the 347 which is London's least frequent bus route (exc...

Christmas lights are wonderful things and bring a lot of joy to the darkest month of the year with the amount of light in a day diminishing until the 21st and then slowly increasing. The earliest sunset is before then and the latest sunrise after because of the Earth's elliptical orbit and the tilt of the earth in relation to the elliptical which is the plane of the sun and planets rotation. Christmas lights come in many different levels of effort and beauty. On the small side we have houses with one singular set of lights, then the quantity of lights increases with houses with many hundreds of lights which catch your attention as you walk by. Then we have the houses (or streets) that go above and beyond and are defined by being featured on slow...

It's christmas so we must talk about christmas and how wonderful it is after a disaster of at least 18 months, we can hope for a better 2022 with no corona restrictions but I think it is a false hope. With Omicron increasing and rumours of another lockdown we can hope this is the last time things will get bad, but I doubt it. So on this christmas day you should enjoy yourself and whilst being prepared for whatever comes don’t let it hinder your enjoyment of today and every other day. If you want to go to a Christmas market and you're anywhere near London, you go to Winter Wonderland. And as I had a special request to go to a Christmas market, we went to Winter Wonderland. Winter Wonderland is in Hyde park, one of the few royal parks (so I as...

Most trains run pretty often with the vast majority at least hourly with significantly better frequencies in cities (up to 24 trains an hour with crossrail). In fact on the Victoria line at peak times there are an astounding 36 trains an hour in peak hours. This means that there is a train every 100 seconds and with a bit of maths with the doors being open for about 15 seconds, it means that 15% of the time there is a train ready to swift you away to your destination. But a parliamentary train is the exact opposite, usually running once or twice a day to fill contractual obligations to have a specific service. And the one I tried to ride runs once a week in one direction only. The Service ...

What is the 969 The 969 is London’s least frequent bus with only 2 return journeys between Whitton and Roehampton Vale a week. The last survivor in London’s once large mobility bus network with these route numbers being in the 900. The 969’s runs on Tuesdays and Fridays with the route starting in Whitton at 10:00 and travelling through Richmond, Barnes and Roehapmton to the ASDA in Roehampton Vale arriving just after 11:00. The return journey follows roughly the same route and departs ASDA at 13:15 and arrives in Whitton at 14:15. The Penultimate Mobility Bus The Route 965 Bus ro...

Being a regular swimmer I have been to many pools. Some old, some new all the same but slightly different. The vast majority of Swimming pools in the UK (and I think the world) are 25 metres long with some pools used for large competitions like the Olympics and Commonwealth Games being 50 metres long. Other pools can be of various lengths with some not just being a box with added features like slides and lazy rivers. Most swimming pools are indoors but some are outdoors. Most swimming pools are heated (thankfully) but others not. Every "heated" pool has its own unique temperature within a small but noticeable range, this goes from "are you sure the boilers are working" to "I didn't pay for a jacuzzi". As I have been to many poo...

Exactly 100 words about each of the 19 tunnels that pass under the Thames. Only tunnels that you can travel under as a member of the general public are counted (or have the majority of their construction completed) this excludes any utility tunnels constructed for power cables and the Silvertown tunnel which only started construction in March 2021. The tunnels are counted as one even if they have separate bores (avoiding me having to write double). The tunnels are ordered from west to east to mimic the flow of the Thames. And finally even this introduction was exactly 100 words. Victoria Line - Between Vauxhall and Victoria Opened in 1971, on the Victoria line extension from Victoria to Brixton, two years after the northern section of the line opene...

It's dark, and not because its early, it's almost 5pm rain is dismally falling and I'm starting a coach trip to Portsmouth. Today I'm not going for sightseeing and fun. Today I have a job to do, unpaid (as it's volunteering), today in a couple hours from writing this, I'm going to be a judge. Not in a court (but that would be very interesting) but a swimming judge whose powers are limited to disqualification. This does mean that whilst I'll be very close to the sea and the harbour any sights will just be small in the distance (maybe invisible as it is pitch black outside). I'll be in a random swimming pool virtually the same as any other pool. I've been to many pools in my life and let me tell you that whilst some are newer than others they are all (well basically all) 25 or 50m long and contain a large amount of water. We are traveling on the A3. ...

This post has the "wild opinions" tag. That means the content of this post is neither my opinion nor the opinion of anyone else. The contents are untrue and definitely misleading. Read at your own risk. When I went to the moon (actually not like the film studio for Apollo 11, in 1969) on SpaceX's dragon rocket I was very happy. The falcon 9 did what it required and did the first stage of the flight correctly. Launching at 17:38:01 on the 32nd of August 2021. The booster landed like it always does nowadays. Except that one time when it crashed to avoid a bird. I had my sights set for the moon and had only now realised it takes a couple days to make the journey. The Dragon capsule is small but very comfortable and full of the latest technology. It only has a couple of actual buttons with most thing...

The tower lies in the forest. A long way from civilisation. After a couple hours of walking me and a couple of friends stumbled upon this closed abandoned mysterious tower. The tower as its name suggests towers above us mere humans and peaks above the trees. The tower is both dominant and hidden; when it makes its presence known, it is powerful But as I realised because I stumbled upon the tower after walking along a meandering path, the power of the tower appears very suddenly. The tower is a stone's throw away from a river, a river I'll call the River Crane, as the tower like a construction crane dominates its local landscape. But the river is also called Crane because of the local bird population which is full of cranes (also known for their long necks). The rive...