Mark Pack » Pink Dog

Sainsbury’s is coming to Stroud Green Road

Pink Dog — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:23:03 +0000

Woody's is going, Sainsbury's is coming:

Oh no, here we go again…

Pink Dog — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:14:24 +0000

Given my two long-running struggles to get defunct utility cabinets removed from pavements (both finally successful but only after far more effort and time than any even half-baked system would require - see here and here), you can imagine my enthusiasm when I saw this:

Tally ho and all that.

W3: do you use this bus route?

Pink Dog — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:20:43 +0000

If you're a W3 bus user, then Councillor Richard Wilson (Stroud Green ward) wants to know your views as Transport for London (TfL) are reviewing the route.

The inside story of the new signs appearing on London’s streets

Pink Dog — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:27:25 +0000

Excellent piece in Slate about the new street maps which are sprouting up around London (mostly central London at the moment, though also a strong showing in Islington), including this snippet:

People often overestimate the difficulty of walking to nearby locations, taking the familiar tube instead. In recent years, as the tube has become more congested, that's become a problem. The tube in central London often operates at maximum capacity. At rush hour, the Oxford Circus station—located in a busy shopping district—can get so crowded it will close its doors, waiting to clear passengers from the station before it lets new ones in. As a result, the mayor's office and Transport for London (the agency that runs the Underground) have been looking for ways to encourage walking in the city. They see Legible London as a step in that direction.

How do the signs work? Slate explains how, including the design philosophy behind them.

I've certainly found the signs useful and look forward to more appearing round London, even if they are unlikely to rival this Austrian road sign for sheer information or this Islington sign for its summary of the modern malaise. But let's hope we don't end up with problems like this.

Islington Wildlife: new local blog

Pink Dog — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:10:46 +0000

The headline mostly says it: there's a new local blog, about wildlife in Islington. It's called, drum roll please.........., Islington Wildlife. Looks quite fun and interesting so far and I like the touch of having sketches of the post authors at the bottom of each post.

Whittington Hospital: public meeting

Pink Dog — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:38:27 +0000

An update to my post about the public meeting: you can read a report of it over on Lynne Featherstone's website.

Hunt for the mystery water leak on Stroud Green Road goes on

Pink Dog — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:28:24 +0000

Latest news on the long running saga of the pot holes at the junction of Stroud Green Road and Morris Place: the source of the leaking water still hasn't been located. For a while Thames Water thought it was someone else's water causing the problem, but with the mystery still unresolved (and hence the leak not fixed, and hence the potholes not repaired) Thames Water is rejoining the hunt.

Flash Forward: return delayed by a fortnight

Mark Pack — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:19:51 +0000

The TV series Flash Forward was due to return to TV screens today in the US, for the second part of its first season. However, this has now been delayed by a fortnight, adding to the general sense of problems besetting the show and making it even less likely that the show can continue to have the dates on which events happen in the episodes roughly match up with the dates on which they are screened.

However, in better news James Callis (of Battlestar Galactica) is joining the cast and, despite the show's problems and falling popularity in the US, its popularity in the UK, Italy and Spain may yet help seen it through.

Meanwhile, don't forget the series is based on a most fun book which I wrote about here and you can get from Amazon here. So far, I'd say the book is better than the TV series, though I suspect they cater to different tastes.

Pizza Express: Great Portland Street

Pink Dog — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:50:09 +0000

Another day, another Pizza Express. It's a tough life you know...

This time it was the Pizza Express in Great Portland Street, which has one of the nicest layouts I've comes across in a Pizza Express. Perhaps due to the shape of the site it is located on, it's not a bog standard oblong room and the long expanse of windows along Great Portland Street, combined with the restaurant's relative narrowness, means there's plenty of natural light to go with the decent space around the tables.

Of course, none of that is captured in my photograph:

That's 7 down, 121 to go.

Contact Islington: February update

Pink Dog — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:58:10 +0000

Here then are the scores on the doors for 2010 so far, listing the number of reports I've made:

57 graffiti
12 dumped rubbish from the corporate sector
42 dumped rubbish from private individuals
1 road name sign
2 utility cabinets
8 street lights
11 pot holes
9 others

... for a grand total of 142 reports so far this year, a rate which if kept up through the year would produce a total of 852 by 31 December (down from 924 which is what the January figure would have turned out at over a full year).