Ed Jefferson
City Monitor
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Ed:
Here’s everything we learned from this election-themed tube map we just made
It is ELECTION TIME, so I thought it was time for CityMetric to have exciting NEW MAP: the TUBE MAP of MPs! No, this is not some hilarious satires where I label Chuka Ummana as an interchange between the red line and the yellow line LOL!!! I have instead just drawn dots on the actual tube map to indicate which party currently controls the constituency it’s in – or at least did before parliament… → Read More
What would a fairer version of the TfL fare zones look like?
Recently, the internet website CityMetric investigated Andrew Adonis’s claim that there was a strong case to move East & West Croydon up a TfL transport zone, from 5 to 4. It concluded that, based on distance from Charing Cross, there wasn’t an overwhelming reason to do so. But, as noted in the original piece, measurements from Charing Cross might not be the best way to structure London’s… → Read More
Which London borough has the worst pubs? An important CityMetric investigation
There are countless ways of ranking different parts of London from best to worst: transport links, crime rates, does it have a Wimpy, etc. But only one truly matters: are the pubs crap or not? To start this investigation, we need a list of all the pubs in London – and the Greater London Authority helpfully keeps a list of all 4000+ of the city’s pubs as part of its ‘Cultural Infrastructure map’,… → Read More
Park Life: A brief history of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens
We can date the park in its modern form to the 19th century. But the idea of a greenish-space for various kind of recreation is considerably older (e.g. probably: a hunter chasing a wooly mammoth passes a nice bit of grassland on a sunny day and decides to sack it off). In the 17th and 18th centuries in particular, many of the functions of a modern park were fulfilled by “pleasure gardens”: sort… → Read More
22 other skyscrapers that we assume will be joining the Tulip on the London skyline
This week City of London planners have approved a new ‘the’ skyscraper to join the Gherkin, the Walkie Talkie, and the Cheese Grater on London’s skyline: the Tulip, so-called because it looks like how someone crap at drawing would draw a tulip. If it actually ends up getting built, the Tulip will be stand out in function as well as design in that it will serve no particular function other than… → Read More
Park life: Where are the world’s smallest and largest parks?
Burntwood in Staffordshire: the hometown of the discoverer of the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold on record, the lead singer of Reef, and Lightning from Gladiators. And, if you’re to believe the locals, the smallest park on the planet. Prince’s Park, named for the future Edward VII in honour of his wedding, is certainly quite small: at an area of under 135m², you could fit 10,518 of it into… → Read More
Park Life: Nudity, death and bears in West Hendon
Some parks were created for the rich, some parks were created for the poor, but Brent’s Welsh Harp Open Space is different: it was created for THE CANAL. Why that should be the case may not immediately be obvious from a map, the Welsh Harp reservoir that gives the green space sits in the middle of the River Brent, which is notably not a canal – but if you look closely at where the river leaves… → Read More
Park life: What’s the best park in London to hold a duel?
One sight that’s sadly disappeared from our parks in the 21st century is the duel: two idiots enter, shoot guns (or, earlier, wave swords) at each other according to a pre-agreed and often arcane set of rules, then somewhere between none and two idiots leave. Why in parks? “Trying to, at absolute best, maim each other” was not particularly encouraged by the authorities: the sanctioned version,… → Read More
The Oscars last went hostless in 1989. It ruined a man’s career
“More than a billion and a half people just watched that. And at this very moment they’re trying to make sense of it.” → Read More
The rise and fall of the point-and-click adventure game
A simpler time. Of clicking on literally everything in a virtual room in efforts to move the game on. → Read More
“Lord of the Rings is racist about orcs” is not an important new front in the Culture War
The battle of the Times editorial pages. → Read More
Where do subway trains go when they retire?
What happens to subway trains when they’re no longer useful? Mummy and daddy may have told you that there's a lovely farm in Wales where London Underground and Paris Metro trains frolic together in the fields, but the sad truth is that most of them end up as scrap. Most of them: but not all. Some find a second life, a working retirement, doing any number of exciting things. As school libraries… → Read More
What’s the best way to cross the Thames in London? We’ve ranked all 63 options
There are, depending on how you count, about 60 ways of crossing the Thames in London. That includes everything within the M25, and also the M25 crossings itself – a definition which involves counting things that aren’t really London, but somehow feels right. But! Which one is the best? Using special river crossing science we have once and for all determined the best, worst, and most… → Read More
Which cities have appeared the most in Doctor Who?
This Sunday sees Sheffield join an elite club. That’s right: along with Aberdeen, Bristol, Cardiff, Hull, Liverpool, Leeds, and London, Sheffield will become “a real UK city that has been featured in BBC TV’s Doctor Who”, which is clearly way more important than being a City of Culture or hosting an Olympics or whatever. To celebrate this achievement, we’ve decided to count every appearance of a… → Read More
From Platform 0 to Platform 9¾: The strange world of British Rail mathematics
Any fans of traditional counting systems unfortunate enough to find themselves travelling via King’s Cross will immediately develop a headache. There are 13 platforms – only one of which doesn’t exist – and yet the highest platform number is 11. The non-existent platform, Platform 9¾, is in the wrong place. As a tribute to the fictional magic platform created by the liar JK Rowling for her Harry… → Read More
Five foods that are definitely in crisis because my millennial family won’t eat them
My first hint that something might be wrong was when I offered my 21-year-old cousin Sarah an egg sandwich. → Read More
12 of the worst slogans ever used to promote cities
Whether it’s to boost tourism or to help create a general sense of civic pride, it’s important for a city to be more than a city: it should become A Brand. And as a brand, it needs a slogan! Unfortunately, lots of cities have traditionally been extremely bad at this for any number of reasons: here are some our favourite bad and/or baffling attempts at sloganeering: “It’s a location, not a… → Read More
Do British cities have grid systems? We used science to find out
Grids! What are they good for? Basic urban planning, it turns out: take a look at how a US city is laid on a map, and often you’ll be looking at a grid of streets criss-crossing at exactly 90 degrees. This is not strictly speaking an American phenomenon – similar systems have been used across the world for thousands of years because, well, it’s an easy way to divide up land. Fans of Worthing in… → Read More
Nine ways to keep The Wright Stuff going without Matthew Wright
Do not fear, Channel Five. → Read More
Westworld tricked its fans with a spoiler prank – but is the show even worth spoiling?
It could be argued that if all a television show has going for it is suspense, it hasn’t got very much going for it at all. → Read More