Afternoon, Surbiton. Yesterday I opened a ballot and asked a town to vote. You did not hang about.
Nearly 200 votes on day one
In the first twenty-four hours the ballot took nearly 200 votes, across every one of the eight categories. I am not going to print standings while the vote is running — a leaderboard changes how people vote, and this contest is only worth anything if it stays straight. What I will say is that several categories are close. Close enough that one vote will decide them.
And the ballot grew by one overnight. Yesterday I said I could not place a nominated dentist called Lily Furniss, and asked if anyone knew where she practises. Desi answered within four hours: Gentle Smiles Dental, on Victoria Road — checked, confirmed, and on the ballot as of this morning. If you already voted for a dentist, your vote stands as cast; the door I left open in print is the door she came through.
Voting closes Sunday night:
The rest of today. This morning's dampness is done. Dry from here, about 23°C by early evening, and the sky actually clears after seven — a genuinely pleasant evening.
Tomorrow, corrected. Yesterday I called Thursday “the wet one”. It has improved: still about 21°C, but the morning now looks dry, with the drizzle risk squeezed into mid-afternoon to early evening — and even then it is light stuff, not a soaking. Take the light jacket, skip the umbrella panic.
The weekend. Saturday is the cool one — about 19°C, mostly dry. Sunday is the day: about 22°C, clear, barely a breath of wind. If you are picking one day for the Street Art Festival, pick Sunday.
The K3 is back. Yesterday's sinkhole diversion at St Leonards Road in Claygate has cleared — TfL shows a full Good Service on the whole route this afternoon, Claygate loop included. That is the bus back to normal; whether the hole itself is filled is a separate question nobody has published an answer to.
Reader radar: what is being dug up at the top of St Marks Hill? Chris wrote in yesterday to flag new roadworks at the crossroads at the top of St Marks Hill — his read: “pretty big and long-term based on how much earth they have moved.” It is not on any official list I can find yet, which readers of this newsletter will recognise as a running theme. If you know what it is — or you can see it from your window — hit reply.
Unchanged. Hook Road keeps its lane closures both ways to 18 October, and Leatherhead Road its two-way lights at Bridge Road to 16 September. Malden Way northbound is still on the service road at Oxford Crescent — that one clears Saturday night.
Rail. Nothing new posted for the weekend — only the standing Berrylands closure, with buses from New Malden and Surbiton as before.
Tonight. Quiz night at the Victoria on Victoria Road — 7.30pm, £2.50 a head, bar-tab prizes. And at Ram Jam behind the Grey Horse in Kingston, the weekly open mic runs from 7pm.
Tomorrow. Ram Jam has a big one: Rapper's Delight — Sheldon the Rapper launches his album War of the Words, with Eighty Leon and X-IT on the bill, from 7pm. Closer to home, the Berrylands has its quiz at 8pm, £2.50 a head.
The weekend, in one line each. Street Art Festival across Kingston town centre Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm, free — and Sunday has the better sky. Trolls The Musical JR at the cornerHOUSE, Friday 7pm and Saturday 6pm. Tolworth Station garden volunteers, Saturday 10.30am. Crack Comedy at Ram Jam, Friday 8.30pm. And Sunday afternoon the Canbury Gardens bandstand plays 3pm to 5pm, free, down by the river — Svetlana and Mark, new to Berrylands and asking for exactly this sort of thing: that one is for you.
Nearly two hundred votes in a day. Whatever else this newsletter is, it is proof this town turns up.
Back tomorrow,
Mike
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