November 2023. Stoke Newington. London.
With Dad home from Addenbrookes by taxi on the Wednesday night (first time he or I had been in one of those for a while) I decided to stay round my parents for a while to assess ongoing care needs.
That’s been very useful, and of course Waterbeach has a few things to commend it,
but I knew I’d need to occasionally escape the confines of the Fens to stay sane.
So on Friday night, with tea and medication taken, I caught the 17:27 train to That London.
I’d had to miss a few planned gigs of late, including 3 dates on the Haley Blais tour, but somehow bagged a ticket for an astonishing night in Stoke Newington.
All I had to do was get there for 7.30pm.
On a bus, the route to Stoke Newington looking less convoluted (and cheaper at a flat £1.75) than the underground.
I hate buses. Sorry if any busmen read this blog. Google told me to catch the 476 from just outside the Scottish Stores, but the electronic display never showed a 476, and the number 73 went from 4 to 6 to 9 minutes delayed, with an astonishing zero (0) buses passing along Pentonville Road for 10 minutes.
And when the 73 DID finally show, all the other downsides of buses came to the fore. How do you pay ? What do you ask the driver for ? Do you need to swipe your contactless card just on boarding (Yes) or on leaving as well ?
And of course, they’re so bumpy. Not quite Isle of Wight bumpy, but hugely uncomfortable. I could have walked in half an hour.
But the journey through Islington revealed a city buzzing with life, the pubs spilling onto the pavements.
Ten minutes walk from Newington Green to Stokey, a place devoid of GBG interest of late,
But I was headed for St Mathias Church’s music night, and the App was leading me in the wrong direction until I bumped into Haley Blais’s actual American band who said, “Er, that looks like a church”.
In the words of the last song on the album, “one minute she wasn’t there and the next minute there she was”.
retiredmartin 
Wait until you get your bus pass, that’ll change your mind. Already got my Scottish one. #SemiretiredBill
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Quite right they’re the best way to see London and immeasurably more enjoyable than a football match.
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Are all the buzes in London red? Are they all double deckers? I come from Stoke and have never been to London. That is why I read your log.
Brendan Beef (I’m a butcher – beef is not my real name)
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If that’s what people call you then it is very much your real name
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Change your name to Beef by deed poll.
Yes, I believe Dick Whittington bought a job lot of red paint and it’s still being used on the buses, Brendan Beef.
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Beef not beer. It’s a butcher’s not an offie. FFS
Brendan
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Auto correct, Brendan 😉
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Bus routes and times on Google maps can be very misleading. They seem to be based more on wishful thinking than actual information. Try using bustimes.org, which not only has up to date timetables, but also maps of the route which sometimes show the progress of actual buses.
Probably a good idea to practise at home rather than en route to a gig, though.
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You’ll be telling me to use What Pub next.
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“Probably a good idea to practise at home rather than en route to a gig, though” – so not just the musicians ?
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Jack Harper, Stan’s scheming, workshy conductor and best friend, who also happens to be his next-door neighbour (although throughout the series he regularly attempts to discredit Stan by underhanded means, such as innuendo, accusation or the like, and steals Stan’s girlfriends on several occasions). He and Stan are always getting into trouble and getting reprimanded by Inspector Blake. Whether it is tampering with radio controls, putting “diversion” road signs in the wrong places or going on dates with the buxom clippies, they are always getting into scrapes. Jack is also the shop steward of the bus depot, and frequently abuses his position to thwart Blakey’s schemes, usually with the catchphrase “As shop steward I am here to tell you…..”.
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I never knew if you were supposed to swipe your contactless card on leaving the bus, either. It’s immaterial now, that I’ve got a bus pass, but my card, issued by Kent County Council, never seems to register on the electronic reader, next to the driver, as you board the bus.
Perhaps Citizen Khan has a downer on Kent residents, even though many of us don’t vote Tory, but the lack of an audible beep, or a pulsing green light, never seems to phase the driver, and I’m normally just nodded on, as OK to board.
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I’ve found this when in London, too. It seems that the concessionary bus passes for pensioners don’t produce the correct response from the units on London Transport buses. Most drivers are used to this and just wave you through, but one made me go back and scan it again.
It should surely be quite easy to fix. Or perhaps they want to discourage tourists?
I hope you set your phaser to “stun” before you use it on bus drivers, Paul. Or did you mean faze? 🙂
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Well it discourages me. After 8 minutes standing waiting I was wishing I’d taken the slightly longer and rather more expensive tube, or just started walking which is often the best option.
Lots of times the tourist is told to remember to swipe on and off the tube; what’s so different about the bus ?
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Will.
Fifteensquared this is not.
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Fifteensquared ? Is that a secret society?
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Crosswords. https://www.fifteensquared.net/2023/11/15/guardian-29228-brockwell/
Cryptic crosswords are usually in a grid that is 15 squares each way. The website has blogs of each of the puzzles on most national papers. Nothing like as exciting as Retired Martin’s blog, obviously.
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I see that one of the commenters on that crossword called it “chewy”.
I’m sure that they knew exactly what they meant.
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