Sunset over Battersea

I've been out of the office for a couple of days attending meetings and a conference in London. I made sure I was in town early both days so I got to enjoy the view of the sun rising over Wimbledon and setting over Battersea as I navigated the treacherous environs of South West Trains there and back. Both views are strangely evocative, especially at this time of year - the sunlight is positively golden, and it makes South London look almost beautiful.

Fighting for a seat , it occured to me that public transport in London and the SE is in a no-win situation. There are trains every 4 minutes from my local station into Waterloo (many of them direct or only stopping at Clapham) and yet they were all full to a pretty uncomfortable level. I seriously doubt that the network could physically handle any more trains, and though going faster would help, that isn't the issue either. The issue is the sheer number of people who commute into London from the South East - the concentration of business and services in the Capital is effectively destroying the infrastructure built to support it. The roads are the same - building more won't help, buses don't go to the places we need to go and suffer the same problems as trains. Maybe the answer is to try and disperse some of that high-intensity economic activity over a wider area, to lower the density and reduce the need to all be within one small area. However, that's counter-productive as the employment provided by the service industries to the businesses keeps the city running - recycling and spreading the wealth and pushing on the economy. It's reached a kind of black hole effect where the inertia of the city's economic might creates more commuters, which drives on the economy and creates more commuters etc. etc. Clearly the future lies in matter transporters - all of the movement, none of the mess. Come on, science!

Very glad I had the Blackberry to hand as work has gone completely bonkers the last few days - suddenly a lot of activity on things I thought were dead, and we're clearing away a lot of the fog and confusion around our major project. The news isn't all good, but we are making progress of a kind. Also finding myself in demand for meetings and conference calls, which is nice but a little wearying!

Hopefully a quiet weekend ahead, going with M to a place they are planning to take the schoolkids to in a few months (M is a teacher at a local school, teaching year 4) tomorrow but doing as little as possible the rest of the time - though might go the Gym on sunday.