Bottle dating

31 August last fell on a Sunday in 2014.

Internet traffic

95% of internet traffic goes by undersea cable, not satellite. It's all a question of distance, and the finite speed of light. Taking the extreme case, a cable to the antipodes is about 12,000 miles. To get there via geostationary satellite needs 100,000 miles (since no one satellite, even at he geostationary height of 25,000 miles, can have line-of-sight to two antipodal points). At the speed of light, that's a delay of nearly half a second which, for modern computers, is an eternity.

Heathrow Crossrail fares

The announcement says the fares to Heathrow will count towards the appropriate cap (£12.50). There will not be a higher cap set for Heathrow, even though the individual fares will be higher.

As was pointed out on London Reconnections: "Travel by Heathrow Express and you pay £25 just to Paddington. Travel on Crossrail (Lizzie/whatever) and you can get all your travel for the whole day for half that amount."

Sunrise and sunset

At 56N (the latitude of Edinburgh) the maxima and minima azimuths of sunrise and sunset are at 90 degrees to each other, so exactly NE, NE, SW, and SE.

I am told it is possible to see the sun set twice in Blackpool, first by watching from the beach, and then from the top of the Tower, where the sun will still be completely above the horizon. (It may depend how long you have to queue for the lift!)

Heathrow to Central London by bus

Making use of the Heathrow Freezone, I think it can be done for £1.50, in theory at any rate. Take any bus to the edge of the Freezone at Harlington Corner or Hatton Cross. That costs nothing and you don't need to touch in.

Then, buses 81 or 222 from Harlington or 482 from Hatton Cross to Hounslow West, followed by the H91 to Turnham Green can, according to Journey Planner, be done in less than an hour (50 minutes from Hatton Cross, a bit more from Harlington). With a bit of luck a 27 will turn up at Turnham Green before your hour is up and then you're away - right through Zone 1 and out to Chalk Farm if you so desire.

Central London to Heathrow by bus

I don't think it can be done in two buses - X26 to East Croydon and then the 468 to Elephant & Castle doesn't really count as E&C is a boundary point. There are several three-bus possibilities (e.g via Shepherds Bush and Hounslow) but although the Hopper is no longer restricted to one change, you probably can't get from Zone 1 to any suitable second change point before your hour is up.

Sweetwater bridge

The span that collapsed had only been installed last weekend and the bridge had not yet opened to pedestrians. The fatalities were in vehicles on the highway underneath.

Long gaps between stations

I doubt that the Post office railway precluded a station at Mount Pleasant - it wasn't a problem at Liverpool Street or Paddington, and anyway the Circle Line was there first. I had assumed the reason was because the Metropolitan railway's original raison d'etre was getting people from the main line stations to the City. Clerkenwell is walking distance from the original terminus at Farringdon so there would have been few takers for the service, and the railway didn't want its services clogged up with short-hop passengers anyway. There are other examples of long gaps between a terminus and the first station out - see Deptford, New Cross, Finsbury Park, Acton Main Line for examples.

Circle line trains

Outer rail trains to tend to get held up more than inner as they have conflicts with other trains crossing their paths at Minories Junction, Gloucester Road, High Street Kensington, Praed Street Junction, Baker Street and Aldgate.

Poplar station

The site of the London & Blackwall Railway's Poplar station was somewhere between Poplar and Blackwall DLR stations. It was the North London Railway's station, also called Poplar, that was on the site of the present All Saints.

Decimalisation

On the day of decimalisation some prices were indeed rounded down. One example was the dog licence - pegged at 7/6d since at least the Edwardian era, it became 37p (not 38p) when the new halfpenny was abolished in 1984. They were abolished three years later, except in Northern Ireland where they now cost thirty three times as much.

Bike hire costs

I don't know how many users of the Bike Hire scheme have annual membership, but for them it costs a lot less than £2 a day - if you use it every day it's less than 25p per day (not per journey!)

George Osborne

The editor of the Evening Standard is not an Old Etonian.

Bus route 53

There has been a route 53 along the Old Kent Road much further back than 1952.

Prime numbers

The digit '0' appears in many prime numbers - the first is 101.

The centre of London

The geometric centre of Greater London is near the London Ambulance Service HQ in Waterloo, whilst weighted for population you end up in the Shell Centre on the South Bank. The centroid of the Congestion Charge Zone is on the other side of the river, near Somerset House, whilst according to Londonist the centroid of Zone 1 is on the Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus. The statue of King Charles I seems a reasonable compromise between these four!

Antipodes

I understand anti-podes means opposite-feet. The singular of "podes" is "pous" (cf octopus, platypus)

Runners-up

In any knockout tournament, the second-best team could have been any of those knocked out by the eventual winners - they may not even have made it to the second round. Getting to the final doesn't even prove you are in the top half!

Pubs on platforms

Kew Gardens used to have an on-platform pub, although it is technically a National Rail station (albeit served by Underground trains as well).