The congestion charge as its name suggests charges drivers £15 a day to drive in Central London. Currently these fares operate between 07:00 and 18:00 Monday to Friday and 12:00 to 18:00 on Weekends and Bank Holidays but during the pandemic the times of operation were increased to between 07:00 and 22:00 everyday. The charges and fines are recorded using several hundred cameras in and on the border of the zone. The Zone The Congestion Charging Zone is roughly similar to zone 1 on the Tube Map (but the Congestion Charge Zone spans less far west than Zone 1). With it, roughly, bounded by the A5, A4202, and Vauxhall Bridge Road on the west and the A3204, A201, and Tower Bridge Road on...

Bees, through being pollinators, are vitality important in fertilising many flowers which grow into plants for us to eat (and for other animals to eat which we then eat). This is why the declining bee population is so concerning with some people believing that bee extinction will be the cause of human extinction. Bees are small animals and are the right size to fly into a flower, collect pollen, and then play their role in fertilisation by releasing their pollen into another flower. But bees are just like humans and they need to get something out of their work which is fertilising plants. This is the role of nectar which has a sweet smell that invites the bees to a flower and when consumed the pollen of the flower is unknowably transferred onto the bees body. T...

BT (British Telecommunications) is a telecommunications company based in Britain and it used to be owned by the public sector (which meant that the government directly oversaw its operation). But in 1984 it was privatised under Margaret Thatcher's reign with all the government's shares sold by 1993. British Telecommunications (that is an eighteen character word and the reason why the company is almost always shortened to BT) owns a lot of street infrastructure and a few famous towers leftover from its public sector days. BT has towers in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, London, Manchester, and Swansea. Cardiff’s and Swansea’s towers are just tall office blocks, Bristol’s and Manchester’s are actual telecommunication towers. But Birmingham’s and London’s to...

London has a lot of famous buildings with most of them known by normal unremarkable names. Examples of normal names include the Houses of Parliament which is home to parliament, and Tower Bridge which is a bridge with two famous towers located on its length and is next to the Tower of London. But Londoners have a good imagination and have consequently given interesting names to many of London's buildings. These are not usually their official names but are well recognised by the majority of Londoners. The Cheesegrater The Cheesegrater is located proximally to the Gherkin and the Walkie T...

The entrance to Shoreditch Shoreditch station (not to be confused with Shoreditch High Street station) was the terminus of the East London Line. The East London Line was London's twelfth tube line and operated between New Cross/New Cross Gate and Whitechapel with occasional extension to Shoreditch. But the East London Line closed on December 22 2007 with Shoreditch...

The River Thames is the second longest river in the UK and flows from Thames Head in Gloucestershire out to the North Sea in the Thames Estuary. On its journey the Thames pases Oxford, Reading, and Windsor among other towns and villages with it then flowing into and through London. The Thames is located in the south of the UK and subsequently rarely experiences subzero weather. This makes the freezing over of the Thames last year (don't get your hopes up) a rarity. The River Isis The River Thames is also called the River Isis in the section between the source at Thames Head and Dorchest...

Mudchute is located on the Isle Of Dogs in the Docklands. These are just a few of the many unusual names of places in the UK which are in common day use. But it might be easier to locate if you knew that Mudchute Park and Farm is located just south of the esteemed perfection of Canary Wharf. Which is so rich it even has touchless pedestrian crossings and a station on the soon to be opened Elizabeth Line at Crossrail Place . Location Mudchute Park and Farm is located in Mudchute and is very close to Mudchute DLR station. Mudchute is located in the southern part of the Isle Of Dogs which isn't actual...

The X140 runs from Heathrow to Harrow, is one of TfL’s 3 buses with the X prefix, and one of only 4 which have a limited stop element. The X140 only started at the end of 2019 and runs, roughly, on the same route as the 140 and N140. The X in X140 means express, and while it skips some stops the X140 stops much more frequently than the comparable X26, which runs from Heathrow to Croydon. Other Express Buses TfL operates over 600 bus routes, including the 81 which runs to Slough , and only 4 have "limited stop" or express elements. These are the 607, X26, X68, and X140 with each of them operating in a un...

South Western Railway is getting new trains (eventually). The 90 trains were ordered in summer 2017 and despite the first train being scheduled to start service in summer 2019, still to this day none of South Western Railway's Aventra's are in revenue earning passenger service. In fact the end of 2021 was the scheduled date for all the 775 carriages to be in service. This means these trains are very late and (most of) the trains they are going to replace are deteriorating pretty rapidly. Aventra's The Aventra is the platform created by Bombardier for commuter trains. The platform has proved ver...

Old City Hall The Mayor of London who leads the GLA (Greater London Authority) requires a place of work; this is still true after the pandemic. The GLA was created in 2002 and since then they have been located in the purpose built City Hall building, located in the Londo...

Heathrow Airport has 4 terminals separated in 3 disconnected areas. This means that Heathrow Airport needs to provide a way to get its passengers between the terminals. This can be done by using local buses, the national rail network consisting of TfL Rail (soon to be the Elizabeth Line) and Heathrow Express, and the Piccadilly Line. The Terminals Heathrow Airport consists of 4 separated terminals which are numbered 2-5. There used to be 5 terminals but terminal 1 closed down in 2015 and currently terminal 4 is also closed (temporarily) due to COVID-19. ...