Walking 19km from Gloucester Road to Waterloo

This walk with my regular walkee was essentially his plan, and one we have used many times, with a few diversions suggested by me. 

His plan was to walk through Hyde Park, through Covent Garden, cross Tower Bridge and finish at Waterloo. My variations were to include some roads we had not walked before which explains the indirectness of the route through the West End and the more southerly route south of the river back to Waterloo,

The weather forecast was not great and we were prepared to abandon the walk early if it became unpleasant to continue but the rain was little and infrequent and in the end we went further, 19km, than the 15km originally planned.

That also meant that we were out long enough for us to stop at a proper cafe where I had the customary all-day vegetarian breakfast which, uncustomary, came with chips. I forgave them the chips and was grateful for the respite that Al's Cafe in Bermondsey Street offered.

The walk took us to several interesting places thanks, I will claim, to my hunt for new roads. Amongst these were Lincoln's Inn, a new shopping plaza off Long Acre which Stanfords had relocated to, the former Prudential building by Chancery Lane, and Phoenix Garden on Stacey Street.

A lot of the familiar places, such as Covent Garden and Tower Bridge, were well worth another visit too.

Familiar and unfamiliar, there was lots to enjoy on this walk and we went home a little tired, well fed and very satisfied.

Summer 1954 at Richmond Theatre

Summer 1954 is two one-act plays, Table Number Seven and The Browning Version, by Terence Rattigan paired together as one show. I am not a great Rattigan fan (normally) but as a serious theatre-goer it made sense to see some serious theatre  on my birthday.

As it was my birthday I pushed the boat out a little and paid £50 for seat Dress Circle A 21. This is more that I would normally pay for Dress Circle and I head up to Upper Circle for the more expensive productions but this was my birthday and I was worth £50 (plus a little bit more for beer and ice cream).

I head heard The Browning Version on the radio but too long ago to remember much about it, and Table Number Seven was new to me so I was looking forward to hearing two new stories.

Table Number Seven came first and we set in a hotel in Brighton where several elderly people lived. 

The story was about one of them who had been caught acting inappropriately (for 1954) and the reaction of the other residents to this. These reactions varied from hostility to indifference as they discussed how the hotel should respond.

There were other events going on in the residents' lives and these gave all of the characters a richness that made the main story compelling and believable. 

It was all the little character details and the great skill of the ensemble cast that made the play a great success.

The Browning Version had a different setting and a different story but the theme and construction was the same. Events happened and we learned more and more about all of the characters.

It was all the little character details and the great skill of the ensemble cast that made the play a great success.

In both plays one character has to make one big decision in the main story line and while there was drama in that it was all the little steps along the way to those decisions that mattered. They were two rich and rewarding plays. Ideal for a theatre loving birthday boy!

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at Sadler's Wells (25 Jan 25)

Sadler's Wells has the admirable habit of running a Matthew Bourne ballet over the Christmas period and in to the New Year and my equally admiral habit is to go on, or near, my birthday. This year it was a slightly refreshed Swan Lake and that is as close to unmissable as you can get. I have seen it many times for very good reasons.

Frankly, £45 for Seat 4 in Row A of the Second Circle was something of a steal.

The pre-theatre meal in Banana Tree, a regular venue for me, was a near disaster despite booking a table beforehand. For reasons never explained, we had to wait almost half an hour for a table. At least they were reasonably apologetic about it, priorities our order and gave us a discount. The food was good too.

That little annoyance over, I settled into my seat ready to be swept away by the music and movement.

I think I spotted a couple of very minor changes in this production (there may well have been many more that I missed) but it was very much the show that I knew and loved and I loved it again.

I have nothing to add to what I have said about Swan Lake before, it is just a sumptuous mix of music and movement that captivated me for a couple of hours.

I thought that it had only been a few months since I saw Swan Lake at the cinema but, apparently, it was almost a year and a half ago. Here's hoping that the next wait to see it is not to long either.

NAOMI In Fashion at V&A

I had a few hours to fill before a theatre date and was with two women so we decided to fill the time with the NAOMI In Fashion exhibition at V&A. 

We were all members of V&A so we could just turn up and walk in, which we did having first taken advantage of members' privileges to drop out coats of in the cloakroom for free.

It was a fairly small exhibition, unlike say Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty which had been on in the largest space and this was, appropriately, in the fashion space, as Wedding Dresses had been. That suited me as while I was not quite there under duress I do not think that I would have gone but for the external influences, unlike the other fashion exhibitions which I had definitely been up for.

I had not followed Naomi Campbell's career at all and only knew the things forced on me through the mainstream media. I probably could have learned a lot more about her life had I read more of the exhibition notes but it was not her life that I was interested in, it was the clothes that she had worn, and she had worn some incredible outfits (using "incredible" in several ways). 

I was also interested in the way that she had been photographed. There were plenty of outfits and photographs on display so that was good.

The common factor in the exhibition was Naomi and as that did not interest me I found the collection of clothes by many different designers to be a disjointed exhibition.

I was also surprised at how few of the outfits actually impressed me and it is telling that I have chosen an Alexander McQueen one. If I had to pick another it would have to be a Vivienne Westwood tartan outfit.

NAOMI In Fashion did not do a great deal for me but it did enough, and it was free.

It was also at V&A which meant that I could go and have a coffee and a cake in the Members' Room afterwards. A fair start to a busy day.

Tarantula at Arcola Theatre

I have a Google Alert running for Philip Ridley and I believe that I have seen every production of his plays in London over the last ten years or so (and one in Brighton too) so I was always going to go to see Tarantula and it was a nice bonus that it was on at Arcola Theatre, one of my very favourite theatres and where my love affair with the works of Philip Ridley began in 2014.

Tarantula was a new piece for the stage (it had been done online) but I had some idea of what to expect as it was part of a series of monologues that I saw in 2018. One of the actors then was Georgie Henley and it was pleased to see that she was doing Tarantula.

Some of his other monologues from that period are still on line at We Are Tramp and are well worth watching.

These monolgues are of various lengths had the usual Ridley mix of darkness, surrealism, real life, comedy and savage twists, all the things that make me love the plays so much.

Tarantula is narrated by a young woman (or man, it does not matter which) who lives at home with her parents, an elder brother and a much younger sister. She falls in love, twice, and we here the details of chance encounters, first hesitant dates and the consequences of unexpected events.

The first romance ended particularly badly, thanks to the spider, hence the need for the second. 

The play was incident rich and had me fully engrossed for ninety minutes, so much so that the lights going off came as a complete surprise. The way the scenes were string together reminded me a little of Under Milk Wood with the first romances being used as the thread to link the stories. Each romance was a major plot line across the stories with the first ending violently and the second ambivalently (much as Gators had).

Tarantula was sold out so I guess there are quite a few Ridley fans out there and we saw a play that had all of his hallmarks, which is all that I hoped for. We also saw an astonishing solo performance that included a lot of emotion, movement, expression and words. It was award winning stuff and I suspect that the awards will come.

Tarantula was a reminder of what makes Philip Ridley so special and also of how good and actor Georgie Henley is and why Arcola Theatre is such a good venue. Three out of three.

Walking from Wood Green to Knightsbridge

Wood Green and Knightsbridge are 15 stops apart on the Piccadilly Line and they are also 18km apart using the route I took today.

The route was suggested by my usual walking companion who likes walking through parks and there were several on this route.

We had dome something familiar before, in 2020, but I managed to find a few different paths along the way and we also went a little further this time.

We wanted to start at Alexandra and Wood Green is the nearest convenient station. We joined the 8:57 queue at Richmond Station, changed at Hammersmith and were in Wood Green just under an hour later.

The route from there was pretty straight forward series of parks: HIghgate, Hampstead, Primrose, Regents and Hyde.

When walking between them I took us onto some new streets and managed to add 19 to my CityStrides LifeMap despite this being pretty well walked territory for me.

We took a short coffee break just after leaving Hampstead Heath and revisited Euphonium for the first time since 2019!

The transition from Hampstead Heath to Regent's Park was problematic because a) I tried to walk several new roads and b) all of the footpaths that I proposed to use were gated. Hence the awkward squiggle in the middle of the route.

There is no best way between Regent's Park and Hyde Park and in my quest for new roads we have walked a lot of them but there are still quite a few to do. Luckily this is an area we walk through several times a year so I expect to eventually complete all of the roads there.

Unusually, I took a few photos along the way. Normally I do not bother as the act of taking a photograph interrupts the walk but this time I wanted to show more than just a map.

I had not walked through the centre of Muswell Hill before and made a point of doing so this time and that is where I found this impressive steakhouse.

This is as close as we got to Kenwood House before we turned south again to battle with the muddy paths on Hampstead Heath.

It is impossible to go through the Primrose Hill, the park, without climbing the actual hill to get this popular view of London. I liked the greyness of the sky that still left visible the prominent landmarks from Shard to Eye .

The statistics say we did 18.5km in 4 hours and climbed 200m along the way (is that all?!) but map and the pictures tell a more accurate story and this was a delightful walk.

Twelfth Night at Orange Tree Theatre

I had not been to Orange Tree Theatre for a little while, by my standards, for various reasons but Shakespeare is always tempting so I forked out £29 for a seat in the second row (B45).

The billing for the show included "Oliver Ford Davies, one of the leading Shakespearean actors of his generation, returns to the OT to play Malvolio, opposite Jane Asher as Maria" and they both made the poster but while it is always good to see fine actors that was not part of my decision making.

This Twelfth Night was set in the 1940s and featured music and songs played on a piano in the middle of the stage. That might sound a little extreme, perverse even, but I found it to be a fairly honest version of the play and it was all the better for being so with the original words doing all of hard work.

Well, nost of the hard work - those words needed good actors to deliver them and with this cast we had them. In an ensemble performance I will pick on just two for special mention, Patricia Allison (also in the poster) as an earnest Viola and Robert Mountford as a gloriously funny Andrew Aguecheek.

Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's funnier and more approachable plays and this version was a lot of fun.

Walking from Hammersmith to Vauxhall

My regular walking companion often suggests that we walk along The Thames and while I prefer new territory (which is increasingly hard to find) I like The Thames too so I often agree to his suggestion. The stretches close to Kingston and Richmond are very familiar to us so we prefer to start a little distance from home and on this day we settled on Hammersmith. The end point was to be determined later depending on time.

We followed Thames Path most of the way, crossing from the north bank to the south bank at Battersea Bridge with me forcing us to take a few small detours to take in roads that we had not walked before. Doing that enables us to discover things like South Park in Fulham and impressive looking Victorian school building opposite it.

The two highlights on the north bank were both newish housing development, Chelsea Riverside where we walked through the nicely landscaped grounds and Powerhouse where we admired the conversion of the former Lots Road Power Station.

On the south bank we took a scenic route through Battersea Park to walk around the lake rather along the river for the umpteenth time.

We almost came a cropper at Battersea Power Station where it looked as though we would not be able to get through the site and we got right to the end of the wide path along the river before we found a small turning to the right that took us back on to the main route.

One of the reasons we walk that section several times a year is because of the constant building works which means there is always something new to see and criticise.

One of the newer building is the American Embassy and it is always good to see the Palestinian flag flying nearby.

We had done 15km by the time we got to Vauxhall so that seemed an appropriate place to stop. It was only lunchtime so there was plenty of time for more walking later in the day.

My podcasts (January 2025)

Podcasts have become extremely popular in recent years allowing people to make podcasting their day job which is a far cry from when I first started listening to them in 2006.

I have written about podcasts a few times since then and I did a list of everything that I subscribe to in 2019. It is time for an update.

Looking back at that 2019 list there are a few podcasts that have been cancelled and which I miss greatly; these include Digital Planet, Material World and Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone. There are also several that I have fallen out of love with, hence the need for a new list.

I am not going to go through everyone of them, you can see what they are, but I will say something about some of the new ones.

The FT news briefing is my attempt to listen to financial news that focuses on the finance and leaves the political stuff to other shows. I gave up on all of the BBC finance shows for that reason and while it is far from perfect the FT news, being American based, is at least fairly neutral about UK.

Here Comes The Guillotine is funny chat with a twist of politics and I like that it is very Scottish with a strong dollop of Irish. The different perspective makes it more interesting.

Happy Heat Pump is new and has yet really to find its feet. I expect to be getting a heat pump in the not to distant future and I was hoping that this would help me with the various choices (water or air to water or air) but it, so far, added more complexity, e.g. solar panels and batteries, to what was already a difficult decision.

Trashfuture is an intelligent look at the world today through justifiable cynical eyes and is delivered with humour. I've been to see live recordings, twice.

The World This Week is another attempt to get away from the dreadfulness of BBC and covers the political news with a French perspective.

 

Cory Doctorow's podcast is cantered on his many books, fact and fiction, both of which have a heavy technical content which suits me.

Limelight is a BBC drama podcast. BBC seems not what to do with podcasts and it is unclear how they choose what to release as full podcasts, as podcasts that you can only subscribe to on BBC Sounds and which are just drama shows on BBC Sounds. I like the flexibility of podcasts (e.g. no 30 day limit for listening) and wish BBC would release more drama that way.

Moral Maze is there because sometimes we have Humanists debates on the same topics. It usually a pretty poor discussion and it drives me mad. I should stop.

The Political Fourcast is another BBC alternative, this time UK politics from Channel Four.

99% Invisible is a gem. It talks about design in a way that entertains and informs in equal measure. Unmissable.

No Gods No Mayors and Well There's Your Problem are adjacent to Trashfuture but lack its precise direction. If I walked less and so had less time to listen to podcasts then I would probably drop these.

The War on Cars does what is says on the tin. It is American where the car problem is even greater but the problems and solutions they discuss apply to us too.

Page 94 is a Private Eye fill-in between the print issues and is excellent.

It's Bloody Complicated is a political discussion from Compass, an organisation that I belonged to for a while. Not particularly original or challenging but it is good to hear something from the centre-left.

BBC Best of Today stopped before I could unsubscribe and is only here because of the special Christmas programmes where they have guest editors. If it every comes back properly then I will unsubscribe.

Trash Talk and Uncensored are comedy podcasts by well known comedians who manage to make some good political points along the way.

Michael Spicer No Room is a topical sketch show which manages to stand head and shoulders above the many other topical sketch shows. There has been one full series and a couple of once-offs. I am hoping for a lot more.

Walking to West Hampstead (8 Jan 25)

As long as I have sufficient time and the weather is not too unbearable,  I like to walk to the monthly British Czech and Slovak Association Get To Know You Social at Bohemia House ("serving the Czech and Slovak community since 1946") in West Hampstead. The factors driving my choice of route are the time available, location of Pokemon Go target gyms and finding roads I have not walked along before.

This time I had six hours available (I would have preferred more!) which had to include some sort of a break for lunch.

I started with a well walked path to Richmond, Isleworth and Brentford before following the canal north then west.

The time limited how far west I could go, it was walking in the wrong direction, and I turned off the canal at Glade Lane Canalside Park and headed through a part of Southall I had not walked before.

Previously I had walked thought the commercial centre of Southall which was far more interesting that the suburban area I went through this time.

I turned east to walk through parts of Ealing that I had hardly touched before. The map below is part of my CityStrides LifeMap with this walk highlighted. There is a very obvious barren area in the centre of the map around Park Royal. This proved to be a very industrial area and I will not be rushing back, despite the numerous unwalked roads there.

The aim of seeing new interesting things was not really achieved, though anything new always has some interest even if it is an industrial estate, and there were a few nice new places on this walk, such as the west to east crossing of Brent Rive Park.

The substantive aims of the walk were definitely met, I arrived in West Hampstead almost spot on 6pm having covered a decent 30km in a little under six hours.

I averaged 28,811 steps a day in 2024

I very mixed year for walking mainly thanks to health issues, generally I am fit and can easily manage 30k steps in a day but I had several stays in bed for a few days and a couple of operation too both of which seriously eat into walking time.

At times during the year I was hoping to average 30k steps, and was on target to do so, but flu type illnesses hit me hard in November and December and in the end I had to settle for just under 29k steps, which I am very happy with.

My totals for previous years are:

• 2023: 27,080
• 2022: 29,142
• 2021: 26,128
• 2020: 27,919
• 2019: 23,908
• 2018: 19,365
• 2017: 18,047

The big jump from 2019 is because I retired and had lots more time for walking. That shows that I am spending my retirement well!