The reason why I was late to bed on Saturday night is that I was reading about the London Ringways, which was an absurd, insane plan by the GLC in the late 1950s to steamroller a dense motorway network through central London and its suburbs. If you've ever felt that Brixton could be dramatically improved by the addition of a six lane motorway six storeys above the ground, this is the concept for you.

The theory at the time was that London was facing such a massive increase in road traffic that a massive response in the form of road building was required to deal with it. While this may actually have been true, the staggering financial, environmental and political cost was too much to bear and the whole thing had been abandoned by 1973.

Well, not entirely. The east side of Ringway 1, the tighest circuit, was actually constructed through east London in the form of the approaches to the Blackwall Tunnel. If you've ever wondered why the junction at the top end of the A102, around Hackney Wick, is so fragmented and bizarre is that it was originally designed to connect to the M11 and the north side of the Ringway, which would have continued through Islington to plough under Highbury Corner and then rise above Camden Market in an enormous, complex interchange. The M11 itself was destined to tear through the north of the City and terminate at the Angel. You can kind of see how this would have worked when you look at the impact of the end of the A40 - the Westway is another isolated remnant of this bizarre, grandiose scheme.

(Ringways 3 & 4, approximately, were eventually consolidated into the M25)

I am, of course, very glad that I didn't spend two years living in the armpit of a motorway in Canonbury but reading about these plans immediately started to provoke a narrative. It might only have taken a slightly different mood in parliament in the early 60s to have forced them through, and what a different London we would see today if it had. And given our record of maintaining things we've built, it's slightly frightening to imagine the state they might then be in today.

I'm pretty certain I need to own a copy of this:

http://gremolata.com/actioncookbook.htm

http://taggalaxy.de/

Engrossing Flickr/Papervision mashup. Search for Elisha, then choose baby. Most of them are of ours.

#1: Lord of War

The gap between the keyboard surface and the edging trim is exactly the right width to trap arm hairs in as the user's arm moves. Ow.

Grand Designs... wow...

Anyone worked out where in Oxford it is?

Firefly - complete series DVD
Sopranos - complete season 1 DVD

The Sopranos is quite a big box so a contribution to postage would be appreciated. Or collection in central London.