please empty your brain below

Do something else for a year or 2 - like Mainline Stations.
Then do them again. Its amazing how quickly things change.

If random London station is too big (and it looks like a life's work!), what about random tube line?

Thanks for the boroughs - brilliant brilliant series

Brilliant series DG, thanks for expanding our London horizons.

One random point, is it me or does Slough not feature on that towns within 50 miles of London list, however South Ascot does? *Braces for Slough jokes, again*.

Ooh, I like random tube line. That could be fun.

What about Random Street? Obviously you are not going to do them all but you could have one street per letter eg Acacia Ave...Brompton Rd...Coldharbour lane...and so on. If you want to keep the Jar ask for nominations from your readers then you have another 26 places to visit or you could pick them at Random from a A to Z

It was a great series. I was thinking about random street too. Station is also good. You don't have to do them all, just for once, do you? You could set a figure, say 25 in two years or whatever.

I realise now that counties are far too complex - and big.

Random County Town?

You could do random Tube or mainline terminals and explore what there is to see where trains can't go any further.

To keep it manageable, only include interchange-free stations within zones 1-6.

It's time to go back to the beginning and document how each borough has changed over the last 8 years since you first visited it...

I like random postcode. It's not completely infeasible, and it will keep you busy for a good long time. :)

But there are 242 postcodes in London.
Slightly over-challenging, I fear.

What about some random areas just outside the london boroughs, but within the M25? Have you done Sunbury, Chertsey or Weybridge for example?

I'm considering doing some posts on random parks in London - there's loads of tiny parks near me in South London with interesting things to say about them!

How about Random Bridge, a reasonable amount to cover cross the Thames, and I'm sure you could add in a few interesting ones that are not river related for added interestingness.

Random Roman site?

I'm with Simon G above - random street would be interesting, but with some kind of 'theme' behind it. A to Z would be possible, but what about (and I confess I don't know how you sum this up in a short title, but that's for you to worry about!) 'Random Street That Shares Its Name With Somewhere Else in the UK'. You could even attempt to draw parallels between them (using Wikipedia and the net, obviously, because, well, I don't expect you to have been everywhere).

An example: shortly after I moved to the Clapham area, I was moved to visit a location called Ilminster Gardens, near Clapham High Street, purely because it shared its name with the Somerset town I grew up in.

One other thought - random blue plaque location?

Has it really been 8 years?

Congrats, well done and bravo.

Now for that coffee-table tome?

(I know you've often said you wouldn't, but you'd get loads of takers, and maybe a few who'd buy.)

A number of these ideas, like Random Thames Bridge, would only really work if I did them un-randomly, in order. Ditto anything alphabetical.

Random Old London village/district, eg Bloomsbury, Spitalfields, Somerton?
Areas that used to be well defined (and probably rural in their day), that became swallowed up by the ever expanding metropolis - sort of thing.


Random British city?

Random Home Counties borough?

How about Random London Boroughs pre 1965. Would give you approx 2 for each of the 32 current boroughs, not as many as postcodes but more localised than the boroughs.

Or if you can dig them up the old towns, villages etc that ended up "lost" inside London

We all share a fascination with one or more aspects of London. How about a random series of visits to the 'Societies' which enthuse about different aspects of London, say one a month for a year?

Some might leave you gasping to recover your will to live but others might open new, peculiar and previously unseen doors for you - and us! And one evening a month does give you recovery time...

Random end termini of Underground lines, which give around 200-odd options. More if DLR/LO are added in.

200-odd? I think not!

Actually, I've just had a look at the Tube map, and I think random end termini could work quite well. Considering only pure Underground lines (no DLR/LO), not counting any short turning points, but counting one station on those awkward loops to Terminal 4 and Hainault, by my interpretation it comes to 32. That's almost exactly the same size as random boroughs, and spread out in a similar way (although there is the usual problem of south and east London missing out). My list is:

Aldgate, Amersham, Bank, Barking, Brixton, Chesham, Cockfosters, Ealing Broadway, Edgware, Edgware Road, Elephant & Castle, Epping, Hainault, Hammersmith, Harrow & Wealdstone, Heathrow Terminal 4, Heathrow Terminal 5, High Barnet, Kensington (Olympia), Mill Hill East, Morden, Richmond, Stanmore, Stratford, Upminster, Uxbridge, Walthamstow Central, Waterloo, Watford, West Ruislip, Wimbledon, Woodford

I did "go to the end of every underground line" when I got my Freedom Pass. It was a very interesting few months, and there's some I still go back to occasionally now that I've discovered them. I'm sure DG would do the whole thing in much more detail, if he so wished.

I'm surprised no one has suggested Random Pub.

How about you buy an encyclopaedia of London places, and use that to pick random places to visit? The London Encyclopaedia would be a good book to use for this in my personal opinion.

Of course, you'd have to work out a system for choosing your random places from it. I would try closing your eyes, flicking open the book and putting your finger on the first page that it opens to.

How about National Cycle routes?

I second (third?) End of the tube lines.

Random motorway services?

Yes, 'Random Arrondissement' is definitely the way to go. The compactness and complexity of the original series and you only need print out the numbers 1 to 20 for your jam-jar, which saves on typing. I'm sure that a certain cross-channel train service will be happy to subsidise expenses in exchange for a little advertising ba... ah, OK that's not going to happen...


Random street markets? There are others besides Borough and Spitalfields you know!

I meant 20-odd!

Random London village could be fun and interesting to write about and read.

It feels a little strange making suggestions for what you should write about as whatever you come up with I'll almost certainly still read it.

However, I found the articles you did on East Grinstead surprisingly enjoyable so as you've already covered London in impressive detail my suggestion would be for railway termini outside London; I'm sure you've been to a few already but it would include suitably random places like Alton, Uckfield, Braintree and Aylesbury Vale Parkway!

Random kittens. It had to be said, and I think I beat Debster to it too.

I'd been waiting for the kittens to appear, what took them so long?

While I'm not sure there is anywhere with the word 'kitten' in the name, wikipedia does list about 70 British places that start with the letters 'cat'; unfortunately some are a long way from London but places likes Catsfield (Sussex), Catmore (Berkshire) and Catbrain (outside Bristol) are surely worthy destinations for the kitten theme.

"Catbrain"? Excuse me?

Your posts are always well worth re-reading. Many thanks.

For the future : How about London Street Markets ?

Kind regards

Catbrain is an uninspiring area of mainly car showrooms on the edge of Cribs Causeway, the out of town shopping park on the edge of Bristol. I've heard it is named because the stony ground resembled cats' brains, but how true that is I don't know.

As for DG's next project, I like the end of lines idea.
With just LU I make it 31 current places to visit (I disagree with Swirlything about Woodford). If you include the 11 Overground and 7 DLR termini that brings the total to a not unmangable 44 (there are Stratford, Barking, Bank and Richmond terminate more than one mode).

The DLR only termini are Beckton, Lewisham, Stratford International, Tower Gateway and Woolwich Arsenal.

The LO-only termini are Clapham Junction, Crystal Palace, Euston, Gospel Oak, Highbury and Islington, New Cross, Watford Junction and West Croydon.

There are also three disused LU terminals, Aldwych, Ongar and Shoreditch, and one disused (sort of) Overground terminus - North Woolwich.

I've visited all the terminal stations in my role as District Dave's quizmaster and chief quiz photographer, but I've only explored the areas surrounding a few of them - and even then I think only at Beckton and North Woolwich have I done more than scratch the surface (as I live between the two, and there isn't much deeper to scratch).

Some more seaside resorts, with lots of photos. Or spas, in London or in the country.

How about disused burial grounds? There's a fair number of these.


There's always Catford ... I suspect even a good kitten idea would get ignored, though.

and Cat Hill in North London

I won't be against a random town within 50 miles of London
that could be a clue to move out on week end :)











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