Ben Myring

The busiest road in London is officially going car-free – as plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street have just been given the green light Sadiq Khan has confirmed that the plans to pedestrianise the busiest street in London could come into effect as early as summer 2026.

Oxford Street is going traffic-free.

I’ve given the green light to transform it into a world-class, fully accessible pedestrian avenue. The heart of London, reclaimed for people.

this is absolutely fantastic

This comment deserves much more love and appreciation

Great video. The homes are thoughtful, attractive and well designed. Khan is eloquent and considerate. Much more like this please.

More beavers released but critics say it’s too dam slow to rewild England Environmentalists criticise Labour’s slow and expensive rewilding project as a ‘bumbling bugger-up’

Thank you to @adamvaughan.bsky.social of the Times for covering the work of the Knepp beavers.

They're busy rewilding the land, holding back flood water, cleaning streams. We urgently need more beavers in the UK. We urge the government to speed up wild releases.

www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

The UK government didn't want you to see this report on ecosystem collapse. I'm not surprised | George Monbiot It took an FOI request to bring this national security assessment to light. For ‘doomsayers’ like us, it is the ultimate vindication, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Please spread this far and wide, as stories don't get much bigger than this. When the government blocks even the intelligence services from telling us we're heading for environmental catastrophe, you know we have a problem. A very big problem.
Thank you.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Mark Carney has delivered one of the most important speeches of our era. There is a better future waiting for Britain if we dare to follow his example.

inews.co.uk/opinion/trum...

Happy birthday to J.R.R. Tolkien, who faced the worst of humanity and dreamed anyway.

The new Jackie Chan / Ralph Macchio crossover Karate Kid movie is much better than it deserves to be, and picks up where the Cobra Kai series leaves off. Worth watching just for the post-credits scene.

from a letter by JRR Tolkien to his son Michael: [here is] the tragedy and despair of all machinery laid bare. Unlike art which is content to create a new secondary world in the mind, it attempts to actualize desire, and so to create power in this World; and that cannot really be done with any real satisfaction. Labour-saving machinery only creates endless and worse labour. And in addition to this fundamental disability of a creature, is added the Fall, which makes our devices not only fail of their desire but turn to new and horrible evil. So we come inevitably from Daedalus and Icarus to the Giant Bomber. It is not an advance in wisdom! This terrible truth, glimpsed long ago by Sam Butler, sticks out so plainly and is so horrifyingly exhibited in our time, with its even worse menace for the future, that it seems almost a world wide mental disease that only a tiny minority perceive it. Even if people have ever heard the legends (which is getting rarer) they have no inkling of their portent. How could a maker of motorbikes name his product Ixion cycles! Ixion, who was bound for ever in hell on a perpetually revolving wheel! Well, I have got over 2 thousand words onto this little flimsy airletter; and I will forgive the Mordor-gadgets some of their sins, if they will bring it quickly to you

J.R.R. Tolkien, literal Butlerian Jihadist

CAMBRIDGE: New data. Clear preferences. The public want buildings that fit in, not stick out.

A new poll by DeltapollUK Create Streets finds 71% of Britons prefer a traditional alternative to the current design for the Christ’s College library.

First look: new proposals to pedestrianise Soho unveiled Architects John Lacey and Russell Potter have put forward proposals to close key Soho streets off to cars in a move to prioritise people

A pedestrianised Soho would be such a victory for civilisation.

www.standard.co.uk/homesandprop...

This is excellent

My two-week Tring to Turkey rail holiday — that even won over my teens Mark Smith, the voice of rail travel website The Man in Seat 61, gathers his family and takes the scenic route to the Turquoise Coast via Prague, Budapest and more

My article in The Times today, telling the tale of our family summer holiday to Kusadasi by train (includes a quote from Eurostar’s train manager Blake!):
www.thetimes.com/travel/desti...

The fact that people are allowed to store their cars in the street is really weird - after all, a car is an individual's own private property and their responsibility. I can't think of a single other item you can store in public in this way.

EUROSTAR GOES DOUBLE-DECK:
Eurostar confirms order for 30 new double-deck trains from Alstom, similar to TGV-M, with option for 20 more, in service from May 2031. The 200m sets can run to/from London as 2 x 200m with 1,080 seats.
(Another move in the Battle for Temple Mills...)

I remember, many years ago now (with ny transport strategist hat on) being asked in a BBC interview if Crossrail would be Khan's biggest legacy. The thing that had the biggest impact on London.

I said:

"No. It'll be ULEZ."

(The low emissions zone)

My favourite Barry Cryer story is his account of Nicholas Parsons asking Ross Noble who his favourite comedian was. "Richard Pryor" Noble replied, "Genius! So sad he set himself on fire while freebasing crack cocaine".

Parsons, visibly upset, asked Barry later: "did you hear about Richard Briers?"

Nighttime photos of the Cheonggyecheon Stream in Downtown Seoul, a former motorway restored into a linear park with wide footpaths, terraced seating, accented lighting, and abundant greenery.

Nighttime photos of the Cheonggyecheon Stream in Downtown Seoul, a former motorway restored into a linear park with wide footpaths, terraced seating, accented lighting, and abundant greenery.

Nighttime photos of the Cheonggyecheon Stream in Downtown Seoul, a former motorway restored into a linear park with wide footpaths, terraced seating, accented lighting, and abundant greenery.

Nighttime photos of the Cheonggyecheon Stream in Downtown Seoul, a former motorway restored into a linear park with wide footpaths, terraced seating, accented lighting, and abundant greenery.

In the heart of Seoul, a ribbon of water now threads through where an expanse of asphalt once stood. The Cheonggyecheon Stream restoration, which replaced a major elevated motorway with an ecological and recreational corridor, has become a powerful case study in placemaking and traffic evaporation.🧵

I think this might be one of the most clear-eyed articles about Cyberpunk 2077 I've read. Actually looking at the game's themes, rather than getting caught up on a thought-terminating cliche and single word in the title.

What "we" don't talk about enough is that, behind ALL the talk on immigration, there is the massive, looming presence of an awareness that an age of prosperity is over, things will probably just get worse, and "we" should build walls to hide behind, before it's too late.

All too often we think and behave like a satrapy.

There was a substantial Armenian population there. The medieval Armenian kingdom of Cilicia was centred there. When the Ottoman Empire disintegrated the French intervened in the region and for a brief time looked like the kingdom might be restored as a French protectorate.

Lawrence of Arabia's map, presented to the Eastern Committee of the War Cabinet in November 1918

Some years ago I went to the National Archives to see the original of this map, drawn by TE Lawrence and presented to the British war cabinet in November 1918. Proposes a divvying up in which Faisal getting Syria and Transjordan, and Abdullah gets Iraq. Always struck by the ?? over Kurdistan.

this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either

Burning banned on England’s deep peat to protect wildlife Ban on burning heather and grass on deep peat extended to improve air quality for local communities, reduce flood risk and protect wildlife.

Great to see that government WILL ban moorland burning on peat deeper than 30cm, and over a much greater area than previously

Big win for communities who've suffered the smoke + floods stemming from this Victorian practice

Only losers are ~150 wealthy grouse moor owners

www.gov.uk/government/n...

Foundation is the finest show on TV right now. The preposterous scale of it, and the sheer quality of the implementation.

Exactly right Ray

Alien: Earth’ Episode 5 Recap: Ghost Ship

Just a kickass episode of the Alien show, I dunno what else to tell you. I mean, I guess I *do* know what else to tell you, because here's a whole review, but that's the gist of it. (gift link)