Category Archives: A window on My World

Monthly Musings

7 August, 2026 Gibson Square 4 Comments

July 2026

🚘 First long drive

This month’s musings are late publishing as we’ve been away. After yet another operation I’ve driven to Dorset, the furthest I’ve been behind the wheel for months.

🎤 London Appreciation Society

I’ve been contacted by the London Appreciation Society to give a talk next year. Astonishingly I had never heard of them, but they’ve been around since 1932 and the organisation is so popular there is a 5 year waiting list to join. Talks are given on a wide-range of subjects given by ‘expert and engaging speakers’ at a convenient and comfortable lecture hall. Let’s hope I don’t let them down.

🏗️ Gallows Corner

This important junction is still not fully open, and rumours circulating suggest a late autumn completion, a year longer than scheduled, as the money has run out for its completion. .

💊 Another hospital visit

I know I’m always banging on about the virtues of the NHS, but I’ve had another brush with that amazing organisation. Three days before our holiday, I managed to injure my arm whilst gardening. Arriving in Dorset, the wound still looked nasty. A phone call to 111, where Wayne asked all the right questions and booked me an appointment at a community hospital later that afternoon. Nurse Jane checked me out and dressed the wound, and made an appointment for me to have the injury redressed three days later.

🦜 RSPB Arne

We made a trip to a BBC Springwatch filming location. Very hot, so many birds weren’t flying, including the sea eagle we’d hoped to see, but a great place to connect with nature.

📅 April’s posts and pages

Most read post – Ten things Londoners never do
Most read page – About

📈 Last month’s statistics

6,693 views (+59.2%)
6,415 visitors (+72.4%)
39 likes (±00.0%)
54 comments (-18.2%)
13 posts (-13.3%)

A window on My World

Monthly Musings

1 July, 2026 Gibson Square 6 Comments

June 2026

🎨 John Rocque’s 1746 London map

For some time, Matt Brown, writing on Substack’s Londonist: Time Machine, has been colouring-in the most detailed survey of London of the 18th century. Across its 24 sheets, thousands of alleys, wharves, lanes and landmarks were accurately mapped in a clear, consistent style. Adding colour to the previously black-and-white map helps to see the patterns of land use, reveals the hidden watercourses, City ward boundaries, churchyards, houses and plantations that made up the city. When finished the entire map, if printed out, would be four metres wide and over two metres tall. So why am I featuring it here? I believe it deserves to be displayed in the restaurant at the soon to be opened London Museum in Smithfield. What do you think?

💊 Another month, another hospital op

For the fourth time within months I’ve used the services of the NHS. This recent procedure was to remove a cateract. The organisation gets its fair share of criticism, but I’ve been very impressed at the professionalism and care, so much so I tracked down the surgeon who performed my pacemaker operation for going the extra mile to save my life.

🏗️ Gallows Corner

This important junction is still not fully open, and rumours circulating suggest a late autumn completion, a year longer than scheduled. At least this post box topper by Stitch-in-Time Group, just yards from the building site, made me smile.

🦅 Another sighting

I still need help, with that huge identified bird still coming down in our garden. Any ideas?

📅 April’s posts and pages

Most read post – Ten things Londoners never do
Most read page – The Knowledge

📈 Last month’s statistics

4,185 views (-1.2%)
3,701 visitors (-3.6%)
39 likes (+39.3%)
66 comments (+32.0%)
15 posts (±0.0%)

A window on My World

It’s is my birthday

9 June, 2026 Gibson Square 8 Comments

I thought I’d look up what was happening all those years ago, and give you, dear reader, a chance to guess my age.

I’ve have lived for 28,855 days.

First, it was a Monday and the temperature outside was 54°F with showers after heavy rain the previous day.

Mick Box guitarist member of the heavy metal band Uriah Heep was born not far from me in Whipps Cross Hospital, Walthamstow on the same day.

Fitzrovia, where I entered this world, curiously now has an Indian restaurant on Charlotte Street named after the year of my birth.

Before the Second World War Fitzrovia had a highly visible German community and Charlotte Street was nicknamed Charlottenstrasse. Greeks and Italians came to Fitzrovia post-war about the time I arrived.

A post-war shortage of commercial space in central London prompted the re-zoning of Fitzrovia as a light industrial area and some fine Georgian properties including British artist John Constable’s house was knocked down and replaced by an office block.

Fitzrovia had been the centre of Bohemian artists, including Walter Sickert, Ford Maddox Brown, Dylan Thomas and George Orwell.

Souvenirs by Frank Sinatra had reached number 1 on 29th May and remained there for 4 weeks until 26th June, so the nurses tending to me could have been singing along to Old Blue Eyes.

Labour leader Clement Attlee was Prime Minister having recently beaten Winston Churchill in 1945, it would be another year before the National Health Service was formed making me one of the last to ‘benefit’ from pre-NHS obstetrics. Nearby Harley Street was called by cabbies ‘The Resistance’ due to doctors opposing the proposed National Health Service.

My generation was later dubbed ‘baby boomers’.

Potatoes were rationed as the long hard frost and deep snow in the first 3 months of the year had destroyed much of the stored potatoes.

Brighton Rock was showing in London’s cinemas, it starred Richard Attenborough whose brother, David is still making nature films for the BBC.

Ten things I’ve done in London

I was once filmed in a BBC documentary.

Twice took Diane Abbott home by cab within a week, no tip each time, but a receipt was requested.

Watched three Concordes flying up the Thames from Lambeth Bridge.

Photographed by a news agency holding four martins that my father was nursing for the London Zoo.

The Queen waved at me from the Gold State Coach as I stood in Fleet Street commemorating the fifth decade of her reign.

Served a six year printing apprenticeship in Clerkenwell.

Took my first girlfriend to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the pictures in Barnet – bored.

Dragged off to panto at the London Palladium to see Tommy Cooper say Pieces of Eight in Robinson Crusoe.

Watched nine Red Arrows fly overhead whilst standing by The Queen Victoria Memorial.

Picked up a bust of Tony Blair from Ten Downing Street and took the artist to Hampstead.

A window on My World

Monthly Musings

2 June, 2026 Gibson Square 6 Comments

May 2026

🎬 Cabbie The Movie

Instead of a short sizzle teaser, the producers are accelerating the timeline to make the full £2.5m feature film. This has been possible with the ‘industry noise’ needed to attract a substantial level of interest among London’s cabbies. In September, the producers are planning for the shoot and next year are going to Cannes with the finished movie, backed by the very people who keep London moving.

🐧 Rook or Raven?

For some weeks now, this monster of a bird has been dominating our feeder. Is it a fledgling rook from the large rookery nearby, or a rare raven, usually only seen in London at The Tower?

🏗️ Gallows Corner

This important junction, with no realistically feasible detour, which closed in June last year for work to replace the flyover that was scheduled to last 12 weeks, has still not opened after 12 months of chaos in the surrounding area. Forty-tonne lorries still trundle down the country lanes of Havering-atte-Bower. So chaotic is this upgrade that the Mayor, Sir Sidiq Khan, has been dragged into the row at City Hall.

🦆 Avian Spotting

After much deliberation, I’ve purchased a second-hand spotter scope on Ebay. A Hawke Sport Optics 20-60x85mm Angled Waterproof Spotting Scope, Bag, Stand & Box, since you ask. Five times more powerful than my binoculars, it should improve my trips to nearby Rainham Marshes.

⌛ Anno Domini

In one week’s time I will have reached my eighth decade. It seems only yesterday that I worked for a City printer producing financial documents whilst going out after work to learn The Knowledge. Starting CabbieBlog wasn’t that long ago either.

📅 April’s posts and pages

Most read post – Ten things Londoners never do
Most read page – Taxi Tales

📈 Last month’s statistics

4,192 views (-19.0%)
3,804 visitors (-22.8%)
28 likes (+7.7%)
48 comments (+6.7)
15 posts (+15.4%)

A window on My World

Monthly Musings

1 May, 2026 Gibson Square 2 Comments

April 2026

📖 A brilliant notebook

In May 2011, the Filofax Flex was launched, a modular, ringless organiser designed to bridge the gap between traditional ring-bound planners and modern notebook folios. Much slimmer and lighter than traditional Filofax organisers, allowing it to lie completely flat when open, featuring a structure of internal and external pockets that offered multiple permutations of pencils, notebooks, diaries, year planners and jot pads. Also, the top and bottom slots even made the folder reversible for both left- and right-handed users. Unfortunately, it wasn’t popular and was discontinued by the end of 2014. With my old one written to destruction, I’ve had to purchase another secondhand from eBay.

👃 Tube station smells

Long before COVID-19, I developed an olfactory dysfunction, where even strong smells weren’t definable. So I was fascinated when top London geek, Matt Brown, discussed on Lev Parikian’s Six Things Substack podcast the Tube Station map he had produced of smells. Yes, apparently Waterloo-Lambeth smells of ‘rodent’, a mousy smell; Warren Street has hints of ‘sooty milk’; Marylebone conjures up ‘Scalextric sparks’; while my favourite is the aroma of a ‘sweaty cardigan’ at Embankment.

🔥 1666

Listening to the excellent TimeTable London podcast, which a recent episode featured Jonnie Fielding, founder of Bowl of Chalk Walking Tours (No, me neither), he also mentioned writing a book, which is a rather good thriller with The Great Fire of London as its backdrop.

🏗️ Gallows Corner

This important junction, with no realistically feasible detour, which closed in June last year for work to replace the flyover that was scheduled to last 12 weeks, has opened after 11 months of chaos in the surrounding area. At least 40-tonne lorries will stay on the A roads and not the country lanes of Havering-atte-Bower. STOP PRESS: Opening delayed – again

🦆 Sam & Ade Go Birding

According to actor Sam West, birdwatching exists on a sliding scale of geekery ‘bird watching’ is what normally adjusted people do when they stare at the sparrows through the kitchen window; birding is more organised, involving making drawings and lists, noting what you see and where. This is a rabbit hole I’ve dived down since seeing my first kingfisher. ‘Twitching’ is the hobby at full stretch, with enthusiasts dashing around the country to spot rare visitors, ticking off the entire catalogue of 636 British species plus any foreign intruders. A bemused Adrian Edmondson accompanies Sam in this C5 series.