Complete Tosh.com

Londoners have reached record-breaking levels of ambivalence, an exclusive poll for the Evening Standard shows today.

The newspaper claims its YouGov poll shows “massive opposition” to Ken Livingstone’s plans to extend London’s congestion charge.

But we can reveal – using the figures published in the newspaper, but not online – that Londoners show themselves to be largely unconcerned about the charge’s impact. Many are unaware of any changes it has brought to the capital.

Asked if they supported or opposed Ken’s plans to extend the charge zone to the rest of Westminster and also Kensington and Chelsea, more than a quarter said they “didn’t know”, presumably accompanied by a gaze into the middle distance and a shrug. That was the same percentage as said they supported Ken’s plan while less than half – 48% – opposed the extension.

Abandoning any effort at a balanced question, researchers conceded that traffic flow had improved before then asking if respondents felt the charge had helped businesses in the west end, or hurt businesses there. 29%, with no access to accurate statistics while staring blankly at their computer screen, said they didn’t know. 24% had apparently committed those statistics to memory, so were able to say they had “not appreciably changed” business fortunes in the area.

42% half-remembered Evening Standard – or was it the Mail? – vox pops of shopkeepers keen to attribute the failure of their premium freeze-dried salad delivery business to the charge, and felt the charge had hurt businesses there. Nobody was asked if the alternative – gridlock – helped or harmed local business, and discussion of macro-economic factors was, alas, restricted to absolutely hee haw.

Respondents were much more certain when asked about the “service” provided by London’s Creaking Underground System ™. Asked if things had got worse or improved, a resounding 60% said… er… things had “stayed about the same”.

Remarkably, Londoners were also blithely unconcerned by the Standard’s assertion that “the Mayor [presumably from his mad marble control room deep under the Thames] plans to add 15 new skyscrapers to the London skyline in the next 10 years”. More than a quarter of people, faced with this vision, managed to respond that they “don’t know” if they support or oppose this plan.

A spokesperson for the Evening Standard was, last night, not asked if the newspaper felt the woeful lack of concern about important local issues reflected the declining influence and relevance of the new, features led, Evening Standard.

I’m delighted to learn that the London Marathon goes right past my door this Sunday. However, since I’m forbidden by doctors from running daft distances in silly costumes, I’ll just have to raise a glass at the Adam and Eve as the fit people sweat their way by. Shame, that.

We went out for a walk today, and decided to head east and south, round the Rotherhithe peninsula, having pretty well explored upriver towards… well, frankly, the bars and restaurants around Shad Thames.

So, off we toddle, through the mixed-up modern architecture of these reclaimed docks, which were themselves built on reclaimed marshland. We followed the banks of the river, alongside a high, hefty-looking wall which one must assume must have kept the muddy waters of the Thames at bay before they built the barrier down at Charlton.

At the most southerly point of our walk, before we turned north to face the faux American diner-land of Surrey Quays Leisure Centre (or should that be center?) I noticed a small old building, one of the few round here not levelled for expensive, somewhat disappointing apartment blocks. It had quite the saddest little sign on its side.

“Nobody is sure what it is used for” | It’s just a little old building

Move along here: nothing to see. No, we don’t know why we kept this wee old building either.

Some delicious memories from Frank Keating, ex of the Guardian, in the current edition of the Journalist’s handbook. He is recounting with some sadness the lost days of heavy drinking on Fleet Street (which, for overseas viewers, was formerly the home of most of Britain’s national newspaper titles until the late 1980s).

“Only this autumn, stately and eminent Mail-star Andrew Alexander richly reminisced on his Telegraph days in the bloom of youth when “amazing scenes” would take place daily in the Keys. “I once witnessed the features editor throwing a punch at the diplomatic editor, missing and knocking the deputy editor off his bar-stool, who lay on the floor puzzled about his sudden view of the ceiling…. [in mitigation] the old DT [Telegraph] never paid particularly well but it hated sacking anyone. So every drunken bum in Fleet Street dreamed of working for it.”

Heady days.