Afternoon, Surbiton. Short one, because it is Saturday and you have better things to do. Three things worth knowing: what is on tonight, what the sky is going to do while it is on, and the fact that the awards shut tomorrow.
India Day, on Surbiton Hill Road
6pm to 10pm at Hollyfield School. Namaste Kingston are running it: cultural performances, music, dance, food, family activities, in support of Kingston Hindu Temple. Ticketed. This is the rare one that is actually in Surbiton rather than a bus ride away, and it starts at six.
⛅ What the sky does while you are there. My two models genuinely disagree tonight, so here is both. One has the showers finishing by six and a clear, still evening after. The other keeps a four-in-ten chance of a shower running right through the evening. Neither is much bothered about how heavy it would be.
They agree on the warmth. Mid-twenties at six, about 22°C by nine, low twenties overnight. Take something light for your shoulders, and do not cancel on the strength of a cloud.
One practical note. The K4 is still on diversion, and Surbiton Hill Road is precisely where it is not running. If you were planning to bus it there, read the roads box at the bottom first.
Two dentists for the whole town
Nominations close tomorrow night. The full ballot ran yesterday; it has moved again since, including one that arrived while I was writing this.
Added today. Vic the plumber and Chris at W. Stephens and Sons for tradesperson · Matthew James for estate agent · The Victoria and The Antelope for pub · Ploy's and a third vote for The French Table for place to eat · and a second vote for Maple Dental.
The gap, if you want to fill one. Dentist is now the thinnest category on the board — two practices, Stedham House and Maple Dental, standing in for every dentist in Surbiton. If yours is not one of those two and they have ever fitted you in at short notice, that is worth a line.
One small thing while I have you: I have Maple Dental's dentist spelled Mez from one of you and Maz from another. If you know which, tell me, because I would rather put the right name on a shortlist than the popular one.
Hit reply with a category and a name. One line is plenty. The ballot goes out Monday, voting runs from there, one vote per email address.
The amber alert ended at 10am this morning, exactly as it said it would. Five days of it. What replaced it, at the same moment, is a yellow alert that runs until 9am on Tuesday — low impact, the sort that matters to hospitals and to people already vulnerable rather than to most of us. Worth knowing if you were about to assume it was all over.
Tomorrow. Grey and damp first thing — a little light rain around eight or nine — then it lifts through the morning and gets up to about 26°C mid-afternoon. Dry evening. A good day for doing nothing outdoors after about eleven.
Then Monday about 26°C and dry, and Tuesday it finally breaks properly — low twenties with actual rain in it.
The 2am KFC question
The KFC on North Parade in Chessington has applied to stay open until 1am Monday to Thursday and 2am on Fridays and Saturdays — deliveries only after 11pm. Fifteen objections went in, and Kingston's licensing committee heard it on Wednesday.
The objection is not really about chicken. It is about mopeds. One resident told the hearing the area is “pin-drop quiet” after eleven and that scooter noise is “a scourge in the daytime”, let alone at two in the morning; he said he would consider moving. The operator's lawyer argued the numbers at night are small, that drivers leave faster than they do in the day, and that more of them are on electric bikes now — and that nobody complained during a trial run of 2am delivery nights in June and July. The responsible authorities did not object.
The committee has not decided yet — the ruling is due in the next few days. Reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which is the only reason any of us get to read what was actually said in that room.
Still no trains to Guildford tomorrow. All lines shut between Surbiton or Leatherhead and Guildford for the second day. Buses replace trains Surbiton to Guildford, and Leatherhead to Guildford. It affects anything running Waterloo or Wimbledon to Guildford. Check before you leave rather than on the platform.
The K4 comes back at 6pm tomorrow. Until then it is diverted in both directions via Lingfield Avenue, Maple Road and Claremont Road. Towards Chessington nothing is served between Cheyne Hill and Surbiton Station; towards Kingston nothing between St Mark's Church and Cheyne Hill. That is the India Day stretch, tonight included.
Everything else is running. K1, K2, K3, K5, 71, 281, 406, 418, 465 and the S3, all on a Good Service as of this afternoon.
And if you want something for tomorrow: The Cat in the Hat finishes its run at the Rose with performances at 11am and 2pm — forty-five minutes, no interval, aimed at three and up, which is about the right length for a warm Sunday. The Bricklayers Arms festival in Kingston runs its second day. And the Farmers' Market was this morning, so that one is a note for the third Saturday of September.
Enjoy tonight if you are going. If you are not, the garden at about half past eight is going to be the best it has been all week.
Back tomorrow,
Mike
Surbiton Daily · a short email every morning about our bit of south west London. Written for the 648 of us who read it. Got something for tomorrow? Reply to this email — every reply reaches a person, not a robot.