In the age of the mobile phone...

Well, I suppose the advent of the mobile phone always meant that phone boxes would fade and it's been coming for a while

But this feels like one of the oddest pcitures I have seen for a while.

It's taken on Hampstead High Street - it's just next to the still open, long-queue Post Office.

There are two phone booths, but one, as you can see is empty, gutted.

I find myself split over phone boxes, having had to use one the other day I found that I didn't carry the right change, that the price had gone up of calls and that in fact this 'cash call' cost much more than from my mobile phone and that most scary of all I don't remember mobile numbers any more. My phone remembers the numbers for me...

There's currently a consultation taking place that gives phone companies the ability to remove vast swathes of current provision, but it also has a clause enabling local councils to veto the removal.

Times they are a changing ...

Sing when you're winning...

Early this morning Linda Chung was elected as the Liberal Democrat councillor for Hampstead Town.

Linda won the seat from the Conservatives with a massive swing and overturned a Tory majority of 549 votes to secure her own majority of 128.

The figures in full:
HAMPSTEAD TOWN WARD (Camden Council)
Liberal Democrat 1242 (44%, +11.5%)
Conservative 1114 (39%, -6.9%)
Labour 289 (10%, -1%)
Green 140 (5%, -3.3%)
BNP 29 (1%, +1%)
Liberal Democrat gain from Conservatives

The result is a huge personal tribute to Linda and I'd like to take this chance to express our sincere gratitude to the voters of Hampstead. Hampstead holds a very special place in my heart and I'm mindful this morning of the sterling work of the late Margaret Little as Hampstead's former councillor. Like Margaret, Linda will be a superb local councillor - passionate, energetic and committed. Thank you Hampstead, well done Linda.

Why your vote matters?

No matter who you vote for in an election it is important to vote.

The results are indicative and people/commentators don;t just look at who won, but who lost and how and by how much.

So voting is important because I want the British National Party to be beaten out of sight. I am copying here some of the cards they have been delivering across Hampstead Town over recent weeks.

I am optimistic that Hampstead Town, comprised of one of the most internationalist communities, will reject the BNP, but I am just hopeful that it is resounding. For the record I find their agenda hateful, negative, divisive and believe that it creates divisions based on hate rather than solutions based on realities.

Arts and Crafts movement in NW3

Well, when I started this blog I'm not sure what my expectations were.

I knew I was up for architecture, history and fascinating insights into the character of our local community.

But I didn't for a minute think I would be doing a post on the nature of a roof, but here we are. I was going to my meeting of School Council at UCS and I saw this amazing tiled roof - it's on the corner of Arkwright Road and Fitzjohn's Avenue and is truly impressive.

I've put a small snap on the right hand side so readers can double click and get a large blown up quality pic...

Now I like the idea of this sortof thing but every tile has been laid by hand, the sense of detail, the time, the effort required is vast...

Now I also know these houses are large and therefore were the domain of the rich and wealthy, but nonetheless it is reflective of the arts and crafts tradition - not only was this a commitment to a more rustic pride and tradition, but it was an appreciation of quality and a lifestyle that aspired to be the best for everyone.

The reality was that Arts and Crafts movement was actually a middle and upper class preserve, but the intent was a good one and the fruits can be seen here today in NW3...

The case for looking at our bus routes again

The closure of the North London line has been accepted by users and residents as part of the essential work needed to make the line better and crucially make it more able to carry freight - something I'm hugely in favour of.

But the costs, efforts and communications of the closure have been a bit more tricky.

Overground and Lorol are all pretty new creations but the management of this scheme has been laden with decent folk and good intentions but somehow it falls short of the mark.

The cordons closing stations have been pretty lame. The signage (as shown here at Hampstead Heath station) are well below the standard promised or expected. The staffing is a series of people desperately trying to provide information in a context where there is little.

The provision of a replacement bus however, has provided a fascinating insight. Two elements with the bus, the first is how it is much busier at certain times than you would expect - I caught it late the other night and there were a host people - families, shift workers and visitors. And the second, is how interesting the route is - not as an experience, but in demonstrating the need for more horizontal bus routes. One of the major transport hiccups in london is the way everything flows in and out of the centre and with the exception round here of the C11 and the North London line there is little across north London.

I wonder if there is now a case for approaching TfL and asking that they take a medium to long term look at their bus routes with a view to more and more variation on these routes - there is clearly a demand...

Places of worship wherever you look....

So what precisely was more popular in Victorian England - religion or factionalism.

The population was smaller, more people numerically and therefore proportionately went to church then, virtually all of the current churches in NW3 are at least Victorian pedigree... and then I realised that I was coming across places of worship that had been decommissioned and converted to other uses - in this instance accommodation.

Now when I was growing up in rural Lincolnshire there was a real sense that chapels were closing and being turned into the most attractive private homes...

But I just got to a stage that made me think just how many places of Christain worship were there?

Queuing - what queue?

When the latest round of Post Office closures were being discussed one of the main concerns was over queuing at the surviving branches.

It was an issue we took up and one that I shared concerns over. However, the reality is that I work long office hours and therefore don't access Post Offices during the peak hours so I might have been wrong.

Last Friday morning I nipped into my local Post Office and what did I find? A huge almighty queue - now I ought to warn that the picture isn't of the queue I saw - the picture is a local Post Office queue that I sneaked a while back. Post Offices are being very coy and nervous about being caught with long queues - oh to be a mystery shopper.

But the reality I experienced last Friday morning was a big queue and a long wait for a task that was actually genuinely 10 minutes max - as it was it took 20 minutes - aaaggghhhh.

But at least I didn't have to walk from Parliament Hill, past the closed post office in South End Green and then up to the top of the hill in Hampstead High Street!