Enquiries Made
Actually I got answers swiftly about the tower blocks and their cladding. Apparently the Department of Communities and Local Government have changed their testing regime, so that the combination of (questionable) panels with (inert) rockwool is no longer deemed sufficient. As a consequence of that the London Fire Brigade have changed their advice, and so Westminster City Council have been pushed to remove it all as quickly as possible. There are six blocks on the Estate, and the Council and CityWest Homes reckon that they could only replace the cladding quickly enough on two of them to enable the rockwool to be re-used, before it became degraded by wind and rain, and so the perfectly serviceable rockwool is being thrown away along with the cladding panels, as I observed. It wouldn't be clever to allow the rockwool to get full of rainwater and then shut it in behind panels, so that's fair enough. The problem now is that they won't finish the work until the spring, and so the flats will be cold and damp again this winter. Still, residents will at least be reassured that Westminster are trying to make the blocks as safe as possible. The important point is that it is central government which has changed the rules since Westminster gave their original message of reassurance, so there is nothing fishy about what is happening. It is worth saying that the combination of rockwool and proper fire stopping should be sufficient anyway, and the design of the blocks is such that the cladding is only on the narrow sides, so they are nothing like Grenfell; still, I know I would prefer to be reassured.
Tuesday 26 September 2017
Monday 25 September 2017
AT THE EQUINOX
Tower Blocks
The vehicles around the foot of Princethorpe House, which caused me such anxiety because of their reversing alarms, turn out to be engaged in removing the cladding from the side of the block. This has also begun on Wilmcote House as well. The contractors appear to be throwing away both cladding panels and insulation. This is surprising, since residents were assured by CityWest Homes and Westminster City Council that the cladding was safe, with rockwool insulation and adequate fire stops between compartments. Now it's possible that the panels have failed the government tests, as most apparently have, so it might be appropriate to change those, but why dispose of rockwool insulation? It seems a bit fishy, and rather concerning. I will make enquiries.
A Trip to the Cinema
My neighbour (and old friend) the Vicar of St John's Wood and I went to see "Victoria and Abdul" at the cinema together. It was slightly bizarre to find that we were sharing a small sofa, clearly designed for customers desiring rather more physical intimacy than two middle-aged clergymen, but it was actually jolly comfortable. The film was great fun, with Judi Dench clearly enjoying herself hugely doing her Queen Victoria turn.again. I became concerned at one point that I was laughing too loudly, because it was genuinely funny. The late Tim Pigott-Smith gave another excellent performance as the Queen's Private Secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, whose brother was a famous Anglo-Catholic priest, the Vicar of St Mary Magdalene's, Munster Square. I found myself location-spotting (as one does when one's own premises get used as a location) and thinking that they must have used the Painted Hall at Greenwich right at the start of filming, because it has been full of scaffolding for ages. They had clearly been to Agra quite genuinely, though there was a horrible bit of CGI with the Taj Mahal at the end. Their great coup was to get permission to film at Osborne, which was so recognisably itself: no set designer would ever propose something as overbearingly ugly as the Durbar Hall, which still houses the vast carpet which was the beginning of the story. The film is thoroughly to be recommended.
Changing Police Priorities
The Police Ward Panel met recently in Paddington Green Police Station, which was a rare privilege. I think we were all rather childishly excited about penetrating behind the scenes at this formerly famous "high security police station". I remember that when we first came to London you would know that terrorists had been arrested by the television satellite vans parked outside Paddington Green. The building seems to be pretty much dormant now, pending its sale to the developers of the site next door, and we met in what was clearly the canteen. Proceedings were enlivened by the sight of a mouse crossing the illuminated panels in the suspended ceiling.The Superintendent was keen to hear our responses to the proposed further closures of police stations, including the loss of front desk facilities at Paddington Green, but I pointed out that for our people the pass has already been sold, as Harrow Road station was the one which was convenient for them to go to report things. That one is now being developed as luxury flats, and frankly Paddington Green was always a bus ride away, and so not much better than Kilburn or Charing Cross. The Met don't seem to want to interact with the public any more.
Bright College Days
At the weekend I attended an "Old Members' Gathering" at my Cambridge College, which was very enjoyable. It was rather reassuring to see how many of our contemporaries had been doing socially useful things for the past thirty years. There were one or two disillusioned doctors (and by the end of the evening very drunk doctors) and a number of people planning to do (or already doing) things that they really enjoyed and were interested in having given up climbing the greasy pole. This was a big contrast from last time, nearly ten years ago, when I remember a general crackle of careerism and networking. Some things about Cambridge are completely changeless, others much altered. In the latter category the rail service to Kings Cross, which enabled me to leave College just before 9 and be back to celebrate Mass at St Peter's at 11. Back in our day it was only electrified to Royston, and you had to change trains there, so the longer ride into Liverpool Street was the route I took more often. Some things do change for the better!
The vehicles around the foot of Princethorpe House, which caused me such anxiety because of their reversing alarms, turn out to be engaged in removing the cladding from the side of the block. This has also begun on Wilmcote House as well. The contractors appear to be throwing away both cladding panels and insulation. This is surprising, since residents were assured by CityWest Homes and Westminster City Council that the cladding was safe, with rockwool insulation and adequate fire stops between compartments. Now it's possible that the panels have failed the government tests, as most apparently have, so it might be appropriate to change those, but why dispose of rockwool insulation? It seems a bit fishy, and rather concerning. I will make enquiries.
A Trip to the Cinema
My neighbour (and old friend) the Vicar of St John's Wood and I went to see "Victoria and Abdul" at the cinema together. It was slightly bizarre to find that we were sharing a small sofa, clearly designed for customers desiring rather more physical intimacy than two middle-aged clergymen, but it was actually jolly comfortable. The film was great fun, with Judi Dench clearly enjoying herself hugely doing her Queen Victoria turn.again. I became concerned at one point that I was laughing too loudly, because it was genuinely funny. The late Tim Pigott-Smith gave another excellent performance as the Queen's Private Secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, whose brother was a famous Anglo-Catholic priest, the Vicar of St Mary Magdalene's, Munster Square. I found myself location-spotting (as one does when one's own premises get used as a location) and thinking that they must have used the Painted Hall at Greenwich right at the start of filming, because it has been full of scaffolding for ages. They had clearly been to Agra quite genuinely, though there was a horrible bit of CGI with the Taj Mahal at the end. Their great coup was to get permission to film at Osborne, which was so recognisably itself: no set designer would ever propose something as overbearingly ugly as the Durbar Hall, which still houses the vast carpet which was the beginning of the story. The film is thoroughly to be recommended.
Changing Police Priorities
The Police Ward Panel met recently in Paddington Green Police Station, which was a rare privilege. I think we were all rather childishly excited about penetrating behind the scenes at this formerly famous "high security police station". I remember that when we first came to London you would know that terrorists had been arrested by the television satellite vans parked outside Paddington Green. The building seems to be pretty much dormant now, pending its sale to the developers of the site next door, and we met in what was clearly the canteen. Proceedings were enlivened by the sight of a mouse crossing the illuminated panels in the suspended ceiling.The Superintendent was keen to hear our responses to the proposed further closures of police stations, including the loss of front desk facilities at Paddington Green, but I pointed out that for our people the pass has already been sold, as Harrow Road station was the one which was convenient for them to go to report things. That one is now being developed as luxury flats, and frankly Paddington Green was always a bus ride away, and so not much better than Kilburn or Charing Cross. The Met don't seem to want to interact with the public any more.
Bright College Days
At the weekend I attended an "Old Members' Gathering" at my Cambridge College, which was very enjoyable. It was rather reassuring to see how many of our contemporaries had been doing socially useful things for the past thirty years. There were one or two disillusioned doctors (and by the end of the evening very drunk doctors) and a number of people planning to do (or already doing) things that they really enjoyed and were interested in having given up climbing the greasy pole. This was a big contrast from last time, nearly ten years ago, when I remember a general crackle of careerism and networking. Some things about Cambridge are completely changeless, others much altered. In the latter category the rail service to Kings Cross, which enabled me to leave College just before 9 and be back to celebrate Mass at St Peter's at 11. Back in our day it was only electrified to Royston, and you had to change trains there, so the longer ride into Liverpool Street was the route I took more often. Some things do change for the better!
Tuesday 19 September 2017
VEHICULAR WOES
The trouble with having a big building project on the go is
that it is very stressful. Inevitably there are things that nobody has
anticipated, which have to be paid for, so there’s stress about costs. More
stressful than that, though, for me is the problem of the builders upsetting
people. Our building site is right next to the Primary School, and so there are
obvious sensitivities, but the scope for annoying people is just vast, and it
is painful to me that my parishioners should be annoyed. One day last week I
was almost physically sick with worry at the breakfast table because I could hear a heavy vehicle’s
reversing alarm, and it was a time when we should not have had any lorries
moving anywhere near the site; I kept imagining the fury of the parents who
would be fearful for the safety of their children, and the fury of the head
teacher who would have been fielding the parents’ complaints. As it turned out,
I was worrying for nothing. It was nothing to do with us. CityWest Homes are
doing something to the tower block the other side of the school which involves
a crane, and that was where the alarm was coming from.
Today I helped to supervise the road crossing, where the
children interact with the traffic (in practice other children’s parents’
cars). If it helps everyone feel safe, it’s worth it.
This has become necessary because our scaffolding (behind its hoarding)
occupies almost the whole of the pavement alongside the church, and so after
the first day of school, it was felt that it was better to direct the children
a slightly longer way so that they wouldn’t walk through parked (or potentially
parking) cars. This means they have to cross Rowington Close. Since the only
traffic generally at that time is parents dropping children, you would suppose
that it should be straightforward, but it seems not. We’re offering a bit of
supervision to see that order prevails. The most dangerous thing I saw today was a mother nearly running over her own child (at very low speed).
The very worst bit of parking I’ve seen recently was at
Regent’s Park, where I cycle. Hanover Gate meets the Outer Circle in a T junction; this is
controlled by traffic lights, and there are pedestrian crossings on each arm.
The car was parked between the two crossings, exactly opposite the other arm of
the junction; of course it was on a double yellow line. I couldn’t work out why
this was a good place to park, because it’s not particularly convenient for
anything. You see taxis and minicabs stop to set people down in illegal places,
but generally there is some reason for why they have stopped at that particular
point, and they will move off again in a couple of minutes. This car, on the
other hand, was just parked next to the hedge around the Park, and stayed there
for a couple of hours at least, on a weekday evening. Bizarre.
As to bad driving, a black cab on Saturday afternoon worried me. I
was overtaken by a young man on a time trial bike, and then by an occupied cab. As it
came alongside the bike the cab began to flash its lights, and clearly started
to slow down and bear in towards the pavement. The cyclist was forced into the
back of a line of parked cars and had to stop. The cab driver suddenly
accelerated away; I passed him letting his passengers out a hundred yards
further on. Odd and dangerous behaviour.
Totally inexplicable was the 31 bus which, stationary at the
traffic lights at the T junction at the bottom of Chippenham Road, suddenly
decided to move away during the pedestrian phase of the lights, sailing across
two pedestrian crossings where the signal was green for pedestrians. It was not
as if he was anticipating his own phase, either, as that was not the next
phase. Anyway, the lights were clearly red. Nor was he slipping through at the
end of his phase; he was stationary for perhaps a minute and then just took it
into his head to go, for no discernible reason. Astonishing.
The traffic is particularly heavy on Chippenham Road up to
the traffic lights outside St Peter’s, because of roadworks on Elgin Avenue.
Buses are diverted, which makes it all much worse. Every so often, though, you
see someone lose patience with queuing and simply pull out and overtake the
queue as it starts to move. Perhaps it’s not so dangerous (if you know the
sequence of the lights) but it’s just deeply anti-social. Watching this from
the Office the other day I was moved to ponder the value of queuing. We always
used to say that we thought if the EU was in the business of standardisation
then we should all have standardised French bank holidays and British queues. Because the
queue really is a thing of virtue, and it is profoundly democratic. I remember
being struck, in Bologna Station a few years ago, to notice that the advance
ticket window was now protected by an automatic door, so only the person first
in line could get there, because I’m sure many of us will have had the
experience at an Italian ticket window of someone coming up beside you, or over
your shoulder, and engaging the ticket clerk in conversation while they are
supposed to be attending to you. Obviously the other person’s business is very
important, or urgent, or simple to resolve and so they know you won’t mind; but
That’s Not The Point. You wait your turn. That’s how it’s done in a civilised
society. You will notice that the airlines strive to maintain class privilege
by having a separate queue for club or business class passengers, and we can
bear that, because we feel that the basic queue is not being significantly
undermined by that, but just marching to the head of the queue is never
acceptable. It’s not just the Brits being anal, it’s actually about democracy.
Friday 8 September 2017
CONSIDER THE LILIES
The Birds of the Air
We have a very healthy colony of wood pigeons around us at the moment; sometimes you can see a dozen together, feeding on the grass behind the flats, or denuding trees of berries. They always look fat and prosperous. Mysteriously I found one with a broken neck on my lawn a couple of mornings ago, presumably killed by a cat, but if so the cat had made no attempt to eat it. Casimir? Hardly. He ignored it when I found it, and I'm fairly sure it wasn't there when he came in the previous night. Perhaps this is the work of the cat he fights with, trying to show how tough it is. Meanwhile, the swans on the canal have cygnets that are almost full size. There's one pair with two, and another pair with seven, which is an amazing achievement. Cycling along the canal reveals that there are large colonies of swans, and we only get errant pairs; the occasional pair nests on the island in the Pool, but we almost never get the quantities you see around Alperton or Southall. I'm pleased to see we have a pair of Egyptian geese again, as they are just charming birds. Bizarrely there was a salmon's head on the cycle path the other day, cut clean off, and more bizarrely, split in half, Damien Hirst-wise. This was not the result of bird activity!
Harrow Road Fashions
I am well aware that I am not particularly well-placed to pass comment on people who dress unusually, but there have been one or two characters about recently. This morning on the Harrow Road I saw someone who might have come from the retreat from Moscow; he appeared to be wearing a carpet and carrying an unfeasibly large number of things. Admittedly he did not have an 1812 musket, but instead had a large umbrella in a decorative cover. He also had grey dreadlocks emerging from his hooped woolly hat. Presumably an authentic gentleman of the road. There is a mother who I often see taking her child to school whose make-up always impresses me (it is very professional), and she teams it with carefully teased and highlighted frizzy hair and leopard-print leggings. Always cheers me up. Then there's a chap of Caribbean background who cycles in a little West African hat, and whose clothing is always impressively layered, with a definitely "ethnic" flavour, but I couldn't tell you which specific ethnos.
Panic Over
Last night I had a big scare. A plumber had been installing a new boiler, at the back of the garage, to replace one which failed last week, so I had taken the car and the bikes out of the garage. When he went home he told me he would be back in the morning to finish off and said he had left the garage door closed. After dinner I went out to put the car and bikes away, but when I went to open the garage door I found the knob rotated freely without achieving anything, and then it came away in my hand. The door was securely closed, though unlocked, with car and bikes outside (which, I suppose, was less disastrous than it might have been). There is no other way in. I texted the plumber, suggesting he bring tools to try to fix it in the morning. He rang me almost immediately, which was very sweet, wondering what he had done, and was confident we could fix it in the morning. I was less so, and spent some time on the internet trying to find suggestions, which was pretty fruitless, because people are only interested in electronic doors these days. I brought the bikes into the hall, and spent a sleepless night. When the plumber rang the bell this morning I was astonished to open the door to find that he had the garage door open already. He had moved the lever inside with a long screwdriver. Last night |I couldn't see anything to be moved when I looked into the hole, but I was hugely relieved. The pin holding the knob to the shaft had simply corroded away. so I found a new pin of suitable size and he fixed it. Panic over.
Deliveries
One of the advantages of having a building site on your doorstep is that it is somewhere for deliveries to be made. This week I had some new vestments coming, and the suppliers were anxious that they needed to be signed for, so I told them to deliver them to Lee in the site office if I was out. That all happened very smoothly (I had warned Lee) even if it was a bit incongruous for all concerned. To be fair, I have taken in deliveries for the site as well, particularly at the start, when they were all working in the school. Blessedly, the work in the school was finished in the nick of time, despite the best efforts of the gas people, so they only had one day of cold lunch (it might have been so much worse). At the moment repairs are going on to the school's automatic gates, as Cadent (the gas people) managed to sever the cable that controlled them (which, to be fair, wasn't buried at the correct depth). The contractors have allocated a man to be gatekeeper pending the repair, which frankly gives the school more security than the automatic gates. We are all going to know each other well by the end of this.
We have a very healthy colony of wood pigeons around us at the moment; sometimes you can see a dozen together, feeding on the grass behind the flats, or denuding trees of berries. They always look fat and prosperous. Mysteriously I found one with a broken neck on my lawn a couple of mornings ago, presumably killed by a cat, but if so the cat had made no attempt to eat it. Casimir? Hardly. He ignored it when I found it, and I'm fairly sure it wasn't there when he came in the previous night. Perhaps this is the work of the cat he fights with, trying to show how tough it is. Meanwhile, the swans on the canal have cygnets that are almost full size. There's one pair with two, and another pair with seven, which is an amazing achievement. Cycling along the canal reveals that there are large colonies of swans, and we only get errant pairs; the occasional pair nests on the island in the Pool, but we almost never get the quantities you see around Alperton or Southall. I'm pleased to see we have a pair of Egyptian geese again, as they are just charming birds. Bizarrely there was a salmon's head on the cycle path the other day, cut clean off, and more bizarrely, split in half, Damien Hirst-wise. This was not the result of bird activity!
Harrow Road Fashions
I am well aware that I am not particularly well-placed to pass comment on people who dress unusually, but there have been one or two characters about recently. This morning on the Harrow Road I saw someone who might have come from the retreat from Moscow; he appeared to be wearing a carpet and carrying an unfeasibly large number of things. Admittedly he did not have an 1812 musket, but instead had a large umbrella in a decorative cover. He also had grey dreadlocks emerging from his hooped woolly hat. Presumably an authentic gentleman of the road. There is a mother who I often see taking her child to school whose make-up always impresses me (it is very professional), and she teams it with carefully teased and highlighted frizzy hair and leopard-print leggings. Always cheers me up. Then there's a chap of Caribbean background who cycles in a little West African hat, and whose clothing is always impressively layered, with a definitely "ethnic" flavour, but I couldn't tell you which specific ethnos.
Panic Over
Last night I had a big scare. A plumber had been installing a new boiler, at the back of the garage, to replace one which failed last week, so I had taken the car and the bikes out of the garage. When he went home he told me he would be back in the morning to finish off and said he had left the garage door closed. After dinner I went out to put the car and bikes away, but when I went to open the garage door I found the knob rotated freely without achieving anything, and then it came away in my hand. The door was securely closed, though unlocked, with car and bikes outside (which, I suppose, was less disastrous than it might have been). There is no other way in. I texted the plumber, suggesting he bring tools to try to fix it in the morning. He rang me almost immediately, which was very sweet, wondering what he had done, and was confident we could fix it in the morning. I was less so, and spent some time on the internet trying to find suggestions, which was pretty fruitless, because people are only interested in electronic doors these days. I brought the bikes into the hall, and spent a sleepless night. When the plumber rang the bell this morning I was astonished to open the door to find that he had the garage door open already. He had moved the lever inside with a long screwdriver. Last night |I couldn't see anything to be moved when I looked into the hole, but I was hugely relieved. The pin holding the knob to the shaft had simply corroded away. so I found a new pin of suitable size and he fixed it. Panic over.
Deliveries
One of the advantages of having a building site on your doorstep is that it is somewhere for deliveries to be made. This week I had some new vestments coming, and the suppliers were anxious that they needed to be signed for, so I told them to deliver them to Lee in the site office if I was out. That all happened very smoothly (I had warned Lee) even if it was a bit incongruous for all concerned. To be fair, I have taken in deliveries for the site as well, particularly at the start, when they were all working in the school. Blessedly, the work in the school was finished in the nick of time, despite the best efforts of the gas people, so they only had one day of cold lunch (it might have been so much worse). At the moment repairs are going on to the school's automatic gates, as Cadent (the gas people) managed to sever the cable that controlled them (which, to be fair, wasn't buried at the correct depth). The contractors have allocated a man to be gatekeeper pending the repair, which frankly gives the school more security than the automatic gates. We are all going to know each other well by the end of this.
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