please empty your brain below
Oh dear, not more buses...

Rotherhithe | 16.06.14 - 7:08 a.m. | #

Feel free to go read something else for the rest of the month.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.06.14 - 7:21 a.m. | #

I have a friend who works in a small office building right next to the M4/Chiswick roundabout. I sometimes go and visit him for lunch and walk across that roundabout. I shall be doing so tomorrow and will look out for the Jayne Mansfield sign.
Back in the 1970's there were plans to put the narrow part of the North circular Road on its approach to Ealing Common into a tunnel.
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1978/dec/15/north-circular-road-ealing
As for the London Octopus my first impression is that in some ways it is an art shape like the Orbit.
Might look good at night with all those LED's.

John | 16.06.14 - 7:33 a.m. | #

Looking forward to Timbo's usual unusual analysis of the numbers!

Happy Harry (in the UK) | 16.06.14 - 7:43 a.m. | #

Well said DG. Hopefully the majority of your readers will see past the particular method of transport you opted to use (a sedan chair presumably not having been available on this occasion ) and enjoy the geographical observations and historical insights which you spend so much of your time generously imparting. I for one very much enjoy these epic journeys through or around London, either to help me plan my own trips or, more often, to save me from doing so myself!

It is also worth noting that, for a large chunk of the population the bus is their car. They, I suspect, will see references to them as a natural element in your overall narrative, rather than as some kind of geeky obsession to be avoided at all costs.

I think many of your readers will feel similarly... and for those who don't, I suppose there're plenty more blogs on the Net.

rjnet | Homepage | 16.06.14 - 7:47 a.m. | #

Surprised not to see a mention of the North Korean embassy, which is incongruously one of the houses on that single-carriageway section of Gunnersbury Road.

DR | 16.06.14 - 8:20 a.m. | #

oh goody, another epic journey

Caroline | 16.06.14 - 8:45 a.m. | #

How odd that you feature Chiswick roundabout and its flyover the week after I've actually driven over the flyover for the forst time ever in 50 yeears. I've driven round the roundabout innumerable times but nevewr over the top until now!

Peewit | Homepage | 16.06.14 - 9:01 a.m. | #

On the plus side, the Octopus People of Alpha Centauri 8 won't have too search too hard for a suitable HQ after they launch their invasion of Earth.

gt | 16.06.14 - 9:06 a.m. | #

Nice shots of the fly past! Apparently Northolt holds an open day on Trooping Day, but you have to apply for tickets in advance.

CornishCockney | 16.06.14 - 9:12 a.m. | #

I never took a moment to recognise the significance of the Chiswick Roundabout until now. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

James Armitage | Homepage | 16.06.14 - 9:38 a.m. | #

peewit - It doesn't get more exciting than that!
Sadly I know the North Circular?Chiswck Roundabout only too well from my early years but am fascinated to see what you will dig up.
I've always felt sorry for the people that live alongside the thing, but I suppose they have chosen to.

Chris | 16.06.14 - 9:57 a.m. | #

There is / was a plan to put a bus service on part of Gunnersbury Avenue. Using Section 106 funds from the Chiswick Business Park development TfL were going to extend the E10 bus from Ealing Bdwy to Chiswick Business Park via Gunnersbury Av, Gunnersbury Lane, Bollo Lane and a new link road. This would have created a new "round the corner" link in the bus network and would most likely have been popular - even more so it had (eventually) run on to Chiswick. It appears to have foundered on traffic issues at the Gunnersbury Av junction plus complaints about buses serving one road in the w/b direction. There is also the curse of borough boundaries in this area as Hounslow have the S106 funding but the "problem" is, I think, in Ealing plus the A406 is a TfL road! It's hard to know for certain if the E10 proposal has been officially scrapped but there are suggestions it has been. I've scoured various council websites to try to find out. A plan to extend route 70 from Acton to Chiswick Business Park was being considered as an alternative but again no news on progress.

I look forward to your words on the eastern section of your journey as you venture on routes xx and xxx. I won't spoil the surprise by revealing the numbers.

PC | 16.06.14 - 9:57 a.m. | #

I once found myself on the North Circular having - don't ask how - missed the M25 exit from the M1, and had to navigate across London to the A23 by my pre-M25 childhood memories. Fortunately it was a Sunday evening.

Sarah | Homepage | 16.06.14 - 10:00 a.m. | #

I thought I'd missed the North Korean embassy, but it turns out I was standing outside when the Queen's Birthday Flypast flew over, so that's it in the centre of the "flying low over Gunnersbury" photo. Maybe the RAF sent those planes as a show of strength.

diamond geezer | 16.06.14 - 10:26 a.m. | #

You're about eighteen years too late to catch a bus along Gunnersbury Avenue - it had a bus service until 1996, although it was Sundays-only service from 1969. Variously numbered 7, 15, 27A, and 265.

timbo | 16.06.14 - 10:48 a.m. | #

@Sarah
You have my sympathy: the North Circular is rarely a good way of getting from north of Lodnon tyo south of it (e.g M1 to M23). It's not so much the NCR itself, but the fact it will lead you inexorably to the collection of signposts known as the South Circular, and then the interminable string of High Streets that is the A23 in south London and which those of us coming back from Brighton after the BHF cycle ride had to endure. (Indeed, from where we hit the end of the motorway, a bike would probably have been quicker than the coach)

| 16.06.14 - 10:56 a.m. | #

London Octopus, probably designed by one of those people on Grand Designs who like their home to look exactly the same as their office or, like a Tesco Express.

mclm | 16.06.14 - 12:15 p.m. | #

I'm glad you could admire the pedestrian and cycling arrangments on the roundabout underneath the Chiswick flyover. It's a model for what could be done at Bow, as I think DG has suggested before.

For many years there were plans to widen the NCR along its single track bit. The section south of Ealing Common was going to burst through a few houses and go up playing fields and open space behind most of the existing houses, returning their road to suburban leafiness. The section north of Ealing Common would have been easier to widen, and some boarded up houses and a rather wide bridge over the railway remain as evidence of the scheme. Of course there were so many complaints that the whole plan was abandoned so we're stuck with this fuming bottleneck for the foreseeable. At least they did a good job sorting out the rest of the NCR.

ActonMan | 16.06.14 - 2:05 p.m. | #

If think NCR is a "fuming bottleneck"...try the SCR!

E | 16.06.14 - 2:45 p.m. | #

It would seem that much of the 'benefit' of the proposed Octopus is its ability to distract motorists with more visual pollution and to take their eyes off the road (never a good idea in road safety terms).

Perhaps the local planning authority should impose a planning condition that restricts its displays to only one face - i.e. no images going 'round the corner', which might lead drivers to stay glued to the ads, as their perspective changes; or to display static images only, nothing that moves; or never to display colours that could be misconstrued as traffic signals, which would successfully rule out Red and Green, probably Amber and also Blue for the emgerency services.

That might put the global marketing barons back in their cage !

Petras409 | 16.06.14 - 5:45 p.m. | #

From the Octopus website:

'it represents the ultimate world wide branding vehicle'
Glad they make clear who our rulers are.

'..a building that reaches out and responds to views in all directions.'
Only marketing guff, but the concept of anthropomorphic advertising is truly appalling.

Siwi | 16.06.14 - 5:57 p.m. | #

Flyover flypast? Nice.

Andrew | 16.06.14 - 6:02 p.m. | #

Looking forward to reading the portion of your journey when you ride the North Circular on my local bus, the 123! (Walthamstow Waterworks to M11 Junction)

| 16.06.14 - 9:06 p.m. | #

Petras, I agree with your concern about motorists' eyes being taken off the road. All the hype about not texting while driving (and rightly so), and yet pictures like that are going to be on the sides of a building? What are they thinking?

In the U.S. we have moving electronic billboards along roads, usually in urban areas, and they are very distracting. I hosted an English person several years ago and he was appalled at the use of billboards and that was even before they started making the electronic moving ones.

placed olives | 17.06.14 - 1:46 a.m. | #

Back in my old neighbourhood again - you would have passed my old school on Gunnersbury Avenue - still shiver from the memories of the freezing Victorian shower rooms in the park after Rugby first thing every monday morning.

Aidan | 17.06.14 - 10:09 p.m. | #

Aidan and I must have gone to the same school. I was in the last year when we were on the Avenue, before we all moved to Boston Manor. As mentioned up-comments, there was a bus service along there on Sunday (I can't remember which of the numbers it was, 7 or 27A I think) which ran all the way into the centre of London. This seemed impossibly exciting to me then and I longed to be able to take that bus. Soon however, me and my friends were catching the Underground into the centre of London anyway and the moment had passed.

Matt | 19.06.14 - 12:30 p.m. | #

A clarification - I had fogotten one detail, which was that the Sunday extended 7/15/27a/265 only served the southern half of Gunnersbury Avenue, as it ran from East Acton via the High Street and Gunnersbury Lane (past Acton Town station, following present-day route E3).
As far as I am aware, the section past the North Korean Embassy has never had a bus service, even on Sundays

timbo | 23.06.14 - 2:55 p.m. | #











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