please empty your brain below
In Dalston don’t forget Ridley Road market which is about to get improved before the Olympics. Also the Rio Cinema - a genuine old style cinema (circle and stalls single screen)

John | 14.04.10 - 9:00 a.m. | #

Also in Dalston, 2 of London's most vital music venues: Cafe Oto and the Vortex Jazz club. Hence the reopening of the ELL will be a big deal for South Londoners who are into experimental and improvised music.

mapsadaisical | Homepage | 14.04.10 - 10:26 a.m. | #

Who is running the sweepstakes for the time of the first signal failure tomorrow?

dtl | Homepage | 14.04.10 - 10:51 a.m. | #

Amen to Mapsadaisical and don't forget the Arcola theatre. And also don't forget that Surrey Quays was Surrey Docks until shopping centres were thought more important and the windswept spaces of the Greenland and South Docks are still there close by.

Otter | 14.04.10 - 11:18 a.m. | #

dtl - if it was like the last reopening of the line in 1998 then signal failure should occur at the peak of the morning rush hour. At least it did when I first tried to use it back then.

Mark | 14.04.10 - 11:21 a.m. | #

Ah, New Cross Gate, next to the site of the infamous Railway Tavern, where bar staff would be happy to serve kids from the Haberdashers' Aske's schools even though they were wearing school uniform. Those were the days.

Max Roberts | Homepage | 14.04.10 - 11:38 a.m. | #

Whitechapel is also legendary for its Pakistani restaurants - Tayyabs, Lahore, and new-comer Needoo.

Lucky Dalston residents now have easy access to the best lamb tikka in town...

Dan | 14.04.10 - 11:39 a.m. | #

Dalston also has Tina We Salute You, an arty coffee shop which does a very nice breakfast.

martin | Homepage | 14.04.10 - 12:20 p.m. | #

Had a great chicken tikka roll from Needo a few weeks ago. Couldn't get into Tayyabs at the weekend. Went to Lahore instead. Pretty good.

Mat | Homepage | 14.04.10 - 12:22 p.m. | #

Whitechapel is close to the Fym Fyg Bar, a cracking comedy venue where you can regularly see Lee Hurst. Shadwell is handy for Cable Street (scene of the famous defeat of Moseley's black shirt fascists), Wilton's Music Hall (one of the last in London) and the Lahore Kebab House, one of London's finest (and cheapest) curry venues.

It sounds like Diamond Geezer needs to get out a bit more, or is it just that it's easier to criticise than to praise?

Jonathan | 14.04.10 - 12:48 p.m. | #

Yes, but there isn't actually anything to see in Cable Street so not much reason for visiting and Wilton's Music Hall is great but not exactly open daily. I mean, you would hardly get an announcement "This is Shadwell. Alight here to see the road where the Cable Street riots took place and for Wilton's Music Hall".

Pedantic of Purley | 14.04.10 - 2:51 p.m. | #

"Diamond Geezer needs to get out a bit more".

LOL. Read the blog archives.

Shadwell. Utterly, utterly grim and dull. And any romanticisation of the Cable Street riots (which may have been an embarrassment for Mosley's fascist mob, but not their defeat as such) strikes me as pretty dodgy, to say the least, unless one thinks that street disorder and mass brawling is the correct means to change society.

Ah, but I can hardly wait for Penge West to be connected to Shoreditch High Street by direct train. The excitement of learning what lies in wait in Penge West is just too much.

Venichka | 14.04.10 - 4:30 p.m. | #

It still makes me chuckle to see "Hoxton" and "hip" together! My Dads family all lived there for at least 100 years until just before WW2, and "hip" was most definitely not the word they would have used!

CornishCockney | 14.04.10 - 5:03 p.m. | #

Now, what would be really great for those of us living in the south and south east is if the railway folk would think of putting a decent interchange in so that we don't have to (a) go into central London to get to the East End or (b) make at least three changes to get to the East End whilst avoiding central London.

"But, how would this be achieved, graybo?" I hear you cry. Simple - extend the East London Line to EAST Croydon (yeh, yeh, yeh, station capacity, blah blah blah, meh) or get London Bridge-bound trains from the Sussex and Kent coasts to stop at Norwood Junction or New Cross/Gate. Voila! The entire East End opened up and loads of pressure taken off LBG and CHX. Or is that too bleedin' obvious?

graybo | Homepage | 14.04.10 - 5:32 p.m. | #

I move away from Wapping and the station re-opens. That says so much about my life.

Clair | Homepage | 14.04.10 - 5:56 p.m. | #

Graybo. If they could have extended the East London line to East Croydon they would have done so. It was their first choice but there really is no platform space and the Southern Milton Keynes service already terminates there clogging things up (this will change when it uses the new facility to reverse at South Croydon but probably out of service). West Croydon is the best they can currently do. If proposals to enhance East Croydon fully come to fruition one day then we will get two terminal platforms and I suspect the thing would then be looked at again.

Pedantic of Purley | 14.04.10 - 5:59 p.m. | #

New rumours are actually saying that it won't open till Monday now! Some blame some camera problems, others are saying it's all politics... hmm.

sweek | 15.04.10 - 8:31 a.m. | #

It would be nice if some of the fast trains stopped at New Cross/Gate for interchange. As it is, it's probably faster for people from farther out to sit on the train straight into London Bridge for access to the ELL. I thought part of the idea was relieving pressure there.

Chz | 15.04.10 - 9:10 a.m. | #

Also in Dalston is Shanghai - a chinese dim sum place housed in an old, beautifully tiled eel pie & mash shop. Between 2-4pm the dim sum is ridiculously cheap, but insist on sitting in the front bit of the restaurant - otherwise the staff will whoosh you to the extention out back, which is just a generic chinese restaurant.

http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/venue/2:1288/shanghai

jambo | Homepage | 15.04.10 - 1:07 p.m. | #

Dalston is more famed for its residents than its attractions. everyoneindalstonisweird.com

Dalston | Homepage | 15.04.10 - 1:19 p.m. | #

Although the line wasn't open today, the man at the gate at Dalston Junction station was giving quick tours of the building.
And since it was a nice day, I went for a walk from Dalston to Wapping.

martin | Homepage | 15.04.10 - 7:46 p.m. | #

When you use that orangey colour font for your subtitles I can't read it, because I'm colour blind. Serious. Please stop doing it. Please please.

adaptor-plug | 17.04.10 - 10:34 a.m. | #

I'm colourblind and it's a problem for me too!

Adrian | 17.04.10 - 3:05 p.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy