Afternoon, Surbiton. No issue over the weekend — I was counting. Voting shut at midnight on Sunday, and 418 votes from 99 of you have decided the first Best of Surbiton.
Nobody paid to be on the ballot. Nobody could have paid to win it. Every name on it was put there by a reader replying to this email, which is the only reason it is worth anything. Here is what the town said.
Eight categories. The share is of the votes cast in that category.
Best pub
The Antelope· 28 votes, 32%
Best coffee
ICON· 23 votes, 37%
Best place to eat
The French Table· 25 votes, 35%
Best takeaway
Ploy's· 38 votes, 54%
Best hairdresser or barber
Surbiton Barbers· 15 votes, 42%
Best tradesperson
Transgas· 7 votes, 27%
Best estate agent
Matthew James· 13 votes, 46%
Best dentist
Maple Dental Practice· 15 votes, 44%
Every category in full — all 46 businesses, every count, not just the winners:vote.optimax-ai.com/surbiton/best-of/results. If you voted for someone who came fourth, you can see exactly how it went.
Best tradesperson came down to a single vote. Transgas finished on seven, Vic the plumber on six, Chris at W. Stephens and Sons on five. Four of the eight nominees were separated by three votes in total. It is the smallest category on the ballot and it was by a distance the tightest — and if you have ever wondered whether writing in makes any difference, that is your answer.
Two categories tied for second. Surbeanton and Coffee on the Corner finished level on fifteen each behind ICON. Surbiton Dental and Stedham House finished level on seven each behind Maple. Nothing separates them and I am not going to invent something that does.
And the landslide: Ploy's took 54 per cent of the takeaway vote, more than the other four nominees put together. There was never a moment on any day of voting when it was not winning.
How it was counted. One vote per email address per category, and the database refused a second one rather than trusting anybody. What a database cannot see is one person working through five addresses on the same device, and last Wednesday evening two devices did exactly that — seven votes in about half an hour, every one of them for the same business in the same category.
Those seven came out before anything was counted. They changed nothing: that business won its category by 27 clean votes and would have won it without them. I have left the reasoning on the results page rather than in a drawer, because I said in print that duplicates get removed and this is what that turned out to mean.
Nine days ago I printed that two of you had nominated the dentist at Maple Dental under two different spellings, Mez and Maz, and asked which it was. Four of you wrote back inside six hours. One had gone and checked an email from him. It is Dr Mehroze Umar — Mez — and his practice has just won best dentist in Surbiton. One reader also wanted it on the record that the receptionist, Suzanne, is the reason half of you go there. Consider it on the record.
If you run one of the 46 — or you know someone who does.
Every business on that ballot, winner or not, can take its Best of Surbiton badge and put it on a website or in a window. It is free, there is nothing to sign, and there never will be. Tell them where it is:
The K4 diversion has one more day. It is still running via Lingfield Avenue, Maple Road and Claremont Road for the electrical work on Ewell Road, with nothing served between Cheyne Hill and Surbiton Station towards Chessington, or between St Mark's Church and Cheyne Hill towards Kingston. It ends at 6pm tomorrow. Every other local route — K1, K2, K3, K5, the 71, 281, 406, 418, 465, S3 and SL7 — is on a good service as I write.
Trains are back to normal. Something went wrong between Surbiton and Raynes Park this morning; the lines reopened and the knock-on delays were expected to clear by two o'clock. If you are travelling after that, it is over.
Tonight. Dry the whole way through. About 20°C at six, 18°C by nine, and the first faint chance of anything falling out of the sky is around eleven. Walk somewhere.
Tomorrow is the day. Up to about 26°C, dry, and the warmest day in the forecast by a clear two degrees. Whatever you were going to do outdoors this week, do it tomorrow.
Then it breaks. Wednesday goes to a 55 per cent chance of rain, and Thursday to 82 per cent with about 14mm behind it — that is a proper wet day, not a shower. It stays warm through all of it, around 23 to 24°C, which will make Thursday feel closer to muggy than cold.
Thin week for what's on — the summer programmes have wound up and September has not started. The cornerHOUSE has its film club matinee at 3pm on Sunday and not much before it. If you know of something happening between now and the weekend, reply and I will put it in tomorrow; that is genuinely how most of this section gets filled.
Ninety-nine of you voted. Forty-six businesses in this town got told, by their own customers, that they are worth naming. Thank you for doing it — and for the 268 replies that built the ballot in the first place. Round two is next summer.
Back tomorrow,
Mike
Surbiton Daily · a short email every morning about our bit of south west London. Written for the 717 of us who read it. Got something for tomorrow? Reply to this email — every reply reaches a person, not a robot.