please empty your brain below
@DG
Re your interaction with local youth, "a different hand gesture of my own": I presume a friendly wave? Which would confuse them no end.

shirokazan | 24.08.16 - 7:46 a.m. | #

Blimey, this is going to be a long series... How did you pick the "random" numbers? A new jam jar? Well done on making somewhere relatively bleak into another good read.

Waterhouse | 24.08.16 - 7:50 a.m. | #

When I read "National Grid", I thought we were going to get something about electricity distribution!

100andthirty | 24.08.16 - 7:55 a.m. | #

With about 2000 squares, maybe someone could calculate how soon it is likely to be when a random draw will find the same one over again.

But a really good way for DG to help us see the London which is there under our collective noses. Thanks.

Malcolm | 24.08.16 - 8:02 a.m. | #

I really like it when DG randomly selects somewhere. Hopefully this will become a semi regular feature

Tom | 24.08.16 - 8:15 a.m. | #

Vey interesting read - look forward to the other 1999 !

Kevin | 24.08.16 - 8:18 a.m. | #

I think youve picked a really interesting part of east London. The junction of the a13 and renwick road is forecast to be the most congested junction in London in the future. Barking and Dagenham have been lobbying for this bit of the a13 to be put in a tunnel which tfl have looked at - there's some interesting images of what it could look like with 5,000 new homes and a new station on the barking riverside extension.

Flare | 24.08.16 - 8:22 a.m. | #

This post is completely Upney but not quite Becontree.

Julian Bond | Homepage | 24.08.16 - 9:05 a.m. | #

@Malcolm. A bit of research into the generalised birthday problem suggests that there is a 50⅝ chance of a repeat within 54 random selections from a pool of 2000.

The emptiest grid square on an Ordnance Survey map is near Ousefleet near Goole. I wonder which is the emptiest in London?

Timbo | 24.08.16 - 9:14 a.m. | #

Malcolm - Depending what you mean by "likely"... if you class >50% as being "likely", then on the 53rd draw you are just over 50% likely to pick a previously drawn square.

Steve | 24.08.16 - 9:23 a.m. | #

Trunk Road to the Sea indeed.
https://youtu.be/nH44Ekt5n40

As Flare says there are proposals promoted by LBB&D to remove the Lodge Avenue flyover and the nearby flat Renwick Road junction and replace them with a £1bn 1km tunnel. [pdf]

A search shows up stories in the local media saying such proposals had been backed by George Osborne (remember him?) but I can't find anything about their current status.

Lorenzo | 24.08.16 - 9:26 a.m. | #

I absolutely detest that flyover, I always feel I'm going to fall off the edge ... I wish I could drive over it with my eyes closed

Caz | 24.08.16 - 10:38 a.m. | #

That flyover looks pretty substantial compared with the Hogarth flyover in Chiswick.

The generalised birthday paradox explained here, with a ready reckoner at Appendix C. With d=2000 instead of 365, the chances of a collision within the first 53 draws (including the first, where the chances are zero!) are 49.8%.

Empty squares: I have found none which are entirely bereft of public highways, although 4790 only has a public footpath, and there are several marginal cases near the Thames estuary. I believe the new Terminal 2 at Heathrow is now open, so square 0875 is once again accessible. 0769 would be difficult, but is just outside the GLA boundary!

timbo | 24.08.16 - 11:39 a.m. | #

A poison 'throwing' at The Thatched House? - so a not very successful way to harm someone.

| 24.08.16 - 12:06 p.m. | #

Thanks folks for doing the sums when I was too lazy.

Malcolm | 24.08.16 - 2:12 p.m. | #

Now I feel like going down to the pub for a nice Lucozade!

Greg S | 24.08.16 - 4:33 p.m. | #

Because Greater London is not a perfect oblong, some eastings and northings are more likely to represent a Greater London location than others. For example, only two grid squares with a "55" northing are (partially) within the Greater London boundary, four with the "03" easting, and three with the "61" easting. There are nearly sixty with an "85" northing.

All of Greater London falls within "big square" TQ except for a thin sliver of Enfield between TL2700 and TL3500, containing little more than the M25 and Crews Hill railway station.

timbo | 24.08.16 - 4:57 p.m. | #

>>almost attractive

Harsh! But oh so funny.

I enjoyed this article Mr DG. More please :)

Red Cardinal | 24.08.16 - 5:36 p.m. | #

Good stuff! That's you busy for the next 6 years then.

Eric | 24.08.16 - 6:18 p.m. | #

East London.

What are the odds?

FOREVER.

Bert | 24.08.16 - 9:25 p.m. | #

@timbo - how did you search for the empty squares?

Half a physicist | 25.08.16 - 7:50 a.m. | #

This project reminds me of the work of the artists the Boyle family. Mark Boyle (now dead) and his family have, since the 1950s, been randomly selecting parts of the world and then reproducing them in fibre glass and resin. The start of the process is blindfolding friends and getting them to throw a dart or fire an air rifle at a map. One of the art works was on display recently at the Royal Academy summer exhibition. They also turned up on my son's GCSE art syllabus.

Joan | 25.08.16 - 8:33 a.m. | #

@physicist/2

By the old fashioned way of looking at likely areas on an OS map.

dg nods: Always the best way.

timbo | 25.08.16 - 9:34 a.m. | #

DG should visit square MC0316.

JQ | 25.08.16 - 11:01 a.m. | #

@JQ
As Flanders & Swann sang sixty years ago, you'll find "Rockall" there.

timbo | 25.08.16 - 2:50 p.m. | #

The three blocks of flats in 4) were always at Castle Green, never in Upney. Played football there for the cubs in the early 1970s....

Paul | 25.08.16 - 8:24 p.m. | #

..and 0.18m south of the roundabout under your feet was HS1...

xmb53 | 26.08.16 - 9:05 p.m. | #

A very good read, Mr DG.

enonamouse | Homepage | 28.08.16 - 6:46 p.m. | #











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