A few months ago, Transport for London published a set of advertisements aimed at encouraging people, particularly women, not to take the unlicensed “minicabs” which attempt to pick up passengers by the side of the road, because it could lead to them getting attacked. Just this past week, an American blog, Sociological Images, picked […]
Continue reading about London minicabs and public service ads
Various newspapers have reported that two sculptures to be erected at both ends of Brick Lane in east London, a narrow street which has become a trendy hang-out place and which is supposedly full of Bengalis, have been dubbed the “hijab gates” and have become the focus of a lot of local opposition. Quoted […]
I’m stopping to type this on my phone in the middle of a long trudge through the snow and ice on the back streets between Kingston and New Malden. I’m using the back streets to avoid a common hazard of British urban snow, namely narrow pavements sloped into main roads.
There is one of these on […]
A while back, before I got the hang of Twitter as a means of announcing blog posts and conducting cross-border conversations without having to log into a chat client (and well before getting my Android phone yesterday and being able to tweet on the go without incurring international text charges), I thought Twitter was just […]
Continue reading about Arrogant privilege rears its head again
There is an article in the current issue of The Spectator by Andrew Gilligan, attacking a project to make Green Park station, an important London Underground interchange, wheelchair accessible or, in London Transport jargon, to provide ‘step-free’ access from the street to the platforms. Currently, very little of London’s rail network is wheelchair-accessible; there […]
Continue reading about Wheelchair access at Green Park is money well spent
The Guardian reports today that the British operation of Whole Foods Market, which took over the old Fresh and Wild organic chain and opened up a huge supermarket in a former department store in Kensington, is £36 million in the red. The company has already closed the loss-making Bristol shop, but the Kensington shop […]
I read a short article in the Evening Standard yesterday evening that Borders was to shut its flagship bookshop in Oxford Street; after looking it up I discovered that four other Borders stores are to go, including Swindon, London Colney, Llantrisant and Blanchardstown in Dublin. I don’t know about Swindon, but Blanchardstown is part […]
Continue reading about Borders to shut London flagship store
There is a letter in today’s Guardian in response to the long saga of the intervention by the Prince of Wales in the planning dispute in Chelsea. The letter is from Georgine Thorburn of the “Chelsea Barracks Acton Group”, and asserts that her organisation had opposed the development proposed by Richard Rogers’ practice on […]
Continue reading about Planning decisions are never democratic
Recent Comments