Watney the Wapping Squirrel

A snap out of the window of Watney the squirrel who has recently moved to Wapping. In an exclusive interview with Pootling Around Watney stated that although Shadwell had better transport links than Wapping, he was 'looking to find somewhere to raise a family' and that he was 'hoping for an historic drey with period features and maritime character'.

Rumours over Watney's hipster lifestyle have persisted and it is believed that by moving Watney hopes to avoid falling back into arguments over where the Aldgate/Whitechapel/Shadwell/Stepney/Bow/Limehouse boundaries lie.

Watney has sought to avoid the limelight and this was one of the first times he has been spotted after emerging from an alleged self-imposed hibernation, though Watney states this is not true and he does not sufffer from metabolic depression. The troubled squirrel still faces questions about his past as some commentators have suggested he may be biologicaly female.

Coffee: compared and contrasted

For most of today I have been having what I think are palpitations, the after effects of having 4 double espressos in 3 hours, the result of me sacrificing myself to find the best takeaway coffee around. It probably would have been sensible if I haven't made my own espresso before I set off on my mission.

I like my coffee to be hot, but not so hot that I can't drink it immediately - I like to enjoy the intensity of the crema in the first few sips. A good latte should be textured and not too foamy, and by not overheating the milk you avoid denaturing the protein in the milk, which improves flavour. Clearly, if you like your coffee scalding hot so it's still hot when you get to your desk, you might disagree with my assessment. I used a digital thermometer with probe to measure the temperature of the liquid.

All of the coffees ordered were the smallest size available and I didn't reveal my purpose to ensure I was treated like any other customer.

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A pootle around the Surrey Docks

Previously on the blog I had a little wander from Greenwich to Surrey Quays and today I decided to continue my meandering south of the River.

Leaving Surrey Quays station, you aren't really greeted with one of the great vistas of London, unless you're a big fan of Tesco car parks. However, I understand from @suzmorana that this Tesco has a good range of overpriced US imports.

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Child poverty and health outcomes

On yet another trawl through data websites I found one which includes various health statistics for different local authorities. Whilst a the datasets are a few years old (2007/2008), I thought they looked like they might have some interesting nuggets in them.

In this post, I look at the link between levels of child poverty and obesity and tooth decay in 5 year old children. As you may be aware, Tower Hamlets has very high levels of child poverty, which in part is due to the general level of poverty in the borough, but possibly exacerbated by more prosperous families leaving Tower Hamlets.

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Return to Nappy Valley: Tower Hamlets, a tale of two boroughs

I have returned to my investigations into the 'Nappy Valley' phenomenon, which as discussed in previous posts is the perceived disappearance of children (and their parents) from Wapping as they approach school age.

I previously found that Wapping's population distribution appeared to support this perception, but I have been curious what the cause of this is. I will move on at some point to look at school performance but I need to do some background reading to get a better grip on the education system.

What I have got my hands on is a data set showing the population distribution for different ethnic groups across Tower Hamlets as a whole dating back to 2001 and forward projected to 2031. There are a number of different ethnic/racial groups but I have focused here only on 'White' and 'Bangladeshi' as together they account for around 85% of the population in Tower Hamlets and the remainder of the population is divided into a number of other groups. 'White' here includes all 'white' groups and does not refer to an ethnic, but a racial group.

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Many ways to skin a cat but please don't ring 999...

In a few past posts I explored the data on London Fire Brigade incidents, and given the wealth of interesting informtation it contains (more for identifying anecdotes for the pub than anything else) I may return to the theme again.

However, what really got me thinking was the number of ways that you can present data to try and get a message across. Very often a table is the easiest, albeit least sexy way of doing this. However, when there's a geographic dimension, I think a map can be very power if done well, but one's ability to do this may be constricted by available software. However, with a little time and patience, and using what you do have available, you can start developing ideas.
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Population growth - to infinity and beyond?

 Projections of population growth have recently been released for London boroughs with projections extending to 2041. Clearly, these are just projections, but I assume those responsible know what they're doing.

If we focus on LBTH's population, you can see that between 2001 and 2041, it is expected to double from 202,000 to 400,000, and half of this increase will have occured by 2017.

The population estimate for Tower Hamlets in 2013 is 270,000, which shows a quite substantial increase in 12 years.

Using this data we can calculate a compound growth rate, which for Tower Hamlets is 0.72% per year. However, if we look at the year-on-year increases in population, which I've plotted below, we can see that the largest proportionate increases are expected to have already occured between 20004 and 2011, with an gradual stepped decrease in growth rates indicating that the growth rate is expected to slow.

 However, the actual number of new residents will still be reasonably significant and will increased by between 7,000 and 8,000 each year until 2021, before dropping to 5,000 new residents per year until 2026 and then 3,000 per year until 2041. All of these new residents will clearly drive a need for improvements in transport, health and education infrastucture.

But, is Tower Hamlets different to the rest of London? The simple answer is yes. I've indexed the forecast populations of LBTH, Inner London and Outer London in the chart below to show the relative level of population growth. Whilst LBTH's population is expected to double (100 to 200 on the chart below), Inner London's population will only increase by 46 per cent and outer London by 32 per cent, so whilst all of London will be getting even more crowded, we may feel more of a squeeze in Tower Hamlets than elsewhere.

To contexualise this, in 2001, the population density was such that if everyone stood outside, and spread themselves out equally into a grid, there would be one person every ten metres. In 2041, this will have reduced to one person every 7 metres (and as a result each square actually halves in area from 106 square metres per person to 54 square metres a person).

A pootle along the river from Greenwich

Despite having lived in Wapping for 7 years, my forays across the river have been limited to Surrey Quays/Canada Water and B&Q on the Old Kent Road, so when @potoft informed me she would be cooking Sunday lunch, I took the opportunity to get out and about and have a walk.
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Wapping weekend wildlife from the window

One of the joys of spending time in the kitchen is perhaps ironically the opportunity to look out of the window. I'm lucky to be able to see a few bushes and trees and a patch of grass. This morning whilst having my breakfast I noticed two rather chubby squirrels chasing each other around one of the trees and their little game continued for a good ten minutes entertaining me and @potoft to the extent that my cup of tea and croissant went cold. I was able to take a couple of photos, but wasn't able to get a photo of both squirrels together, as their game meant they kept to opposite sides of the tree, and were a bit too fast for my lens.

Just in the time I was having my breakfast and then loading the dishwasher I noticed quite a few creatures:

• 2 Squirrels
• 1 Woodpigeon
• 1 Jay
• 1 Chaffinch
• 1 Robin

This set me thinking of all the animals I've seen in Wapping, and most were but a short walk from my front door. My quick list of animals is below, but I'm bound to have missed others and I wonder what others have seen and all within an inner city area.

• Foxes
• Crabs
• Kingfishers
• Mallards
• Peregrine falcons
• Moorhens
• Herring gull
• Various terns and oteher gulls
• Heron
• Greylag geese
• Egyptian geese
• Cormorant
• Moorhen
• Coot

Foggy St Pauls Shadwell

Photo- The Path

A quick stroll around the foggy basin

Reservoir levels - Lee Valley 1987-2012

Part of an on going attempt to improve the quality of my data visualisations on the blog, I'm attempting to come up with slightly more innovation or interesting ways of presenting data graphically. This chart shows the amount of water in the Lee Valley Reservoirs between 1987 and 2012.

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Infographic - Everything you need to know about... David Bowie

Ahead of David Bowie's 25th studio album, I thought it might be a good idea to educate the youngsters about David Bowie and produced this little infographic.

Wapping Music Videos - OMD - Messages

Last Friday lunchtime I was enjoying a crafty pint at the Prospect of Whitby with my housemate @potoft to celebrate my membership of the exclusive '100 Club'. The music changed, and OMD's Enola Gay came on. What followed was a bizarre three minutes and thirty three seconds (less fade out) of what a passerby might mistake as the Pilsbury Doughboy body-popping whilst remaining seated and drinking a pint of real ale. However, I like to ramp up the surrealism by making sure that my song and dance numbers attain a mythic quaity, by not only including 'air keyboard' but also performing them during less appropriate moments, which I think adds a certain aesthetic edge. On this occasion my performance may have coincided with a pair of American tourists saying grace, and I'm not sure if they appreciated my interpretation of Psalm 149 (Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp).

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