Diamond Geezer
diamondgeezer.blogspot.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2014
Diamond Geezer is a long-running anonymous London blog covering the city's geography, transport, and oddities.
What HN saysHN links it for London trivia such as high streets. Commenters note the author follows up on questions raised in HN threads.
29HN people shared it
16linked it in comments
60stories submitted
1.6Kstory points
5 months agolast shared
2014people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Where else in London are there pylons?2 people · 92 points · first shared 2022 · 66 comments on HN
- 2How deep are the Crossrail platforms?2 people · 5 points · first shared 2024 · 2 comments on HN
- 3Londons shortest and longest high2 people · first shared 2024
- 4A sheepish apology2 people · first shared 2025
- 5Homepage2 people · first shared 2023
- 6Asbestosis1 people · 288 points · first shared 2025 · 222 comments on HN
- 7Four strange places to see London's Roman Wall1 people · 287 points · first shared 2025 · 94 comments on HN
- 8Where is London's most central sheep?1 people · 247 points · first shared 2025 · 161 comments on HN
- 9The candy stores of Oxford Street1 people · 142 points · first shared 2022 · 224 comments on HN
- 10How many High Streets are there in London?1 people · 105 points · first shared 2024 · 114 comments on HN
- 11How to walk underground from Liverpool Street to Farringdon1 people · 98 points · first shared 2022 · 79 comments on HN
- 12Crossrail gets cross1 people · 89 points · first shared 2022 · 86 comments on HN
- 13Waverley, the last seagoing paddle steamer1 people · 61 points · first shared 2024 · 29 comments on HN
- 14The Angel, Islington1 people · 51 points · first shared 2024 · 41 comments on HN
- 15The longest periods of British Summer Time1 people · 30 points · first shared 2022 · 30 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
markx2 · 2024-06-24
I value links.
WordPress used to have a Links section in the sidebar by default. It was later criticised for the default links being to WP founders/devs. But it was there, and you could change it.
Links are the web for me. "If you like my site maybe you will like what I like".
Go look at https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/ - links!
Go look at other sites and if they are WP chances are no link list.
Am I blaming WP? Yes because I thought it was a terrible change. No because other site builders/SSG's appear to have followed.
Links make the web what it is.
We need more, not less.
DrBazza · 2025-09-16
This chap
https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/?m=1
Goes into all sorts of London miscellany as well.
pasc1878 · 2024-06-10
dg follows up about High Roads and other questions https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2024/06/high-streets.html
Many of his points are answers to issues raised here - he has read this thread.
dontdoxxme · 2024-06-09
Diamond Geezer has been blogging for years and definitely understands what a high street is. In fact he’s probably planning a follow-up already about High Roads. (There’s already a visit to the shortest high streets as a follow-up: https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2024/06/londons-shortest-and-longes…
am_lu · 2023-10-09
Not sure if Diamond Geezer is reading this forum, he may be, some of his blog posts get reposted in here and sometimes mentions extra 100k views.
https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com
tikkabhuna · 2026-05-19
It feels rather odd to see a local place on HN. On a tangent, Diamond Geezer posted about their 15,000,000th visitor[1]. HN came in 4th for referrals and was noted “Hacker News are an American aggregator portal who've only sent people here a dozen times but in such huge numbers that they're fourth”.
[1] https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2026/05/fifteen-million.html?m=1
zeristor · 2025-05-24
Found via:
https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/05/local-news.html
Sometimes the provenance is just as interesting
gadders · 2025-01-23
FYI - he's published an update: https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-sheepish-apology.html
tl;dr; - he missed a small zoo near Waterloo Station.
Xophmeister · 2025-01-23
Looks like there's an errata, already :)
https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-sheepish-apology.html
ldjb · 2024-06-09
Today's blog post is related:
London's shortest and longest High Streets
https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2024/06/londons-shortest-and-longes…
tobylane · 2022-11-13
The factory and strike recently gained a heritage blue plaque. https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-match-girls-blue-plaque…
2b3a51 · 2022-05-27
Thanks for posting this, it was interesting although I agree that including a trans-train ambulation was cheeky. The author's subsequent post strikes me as extremely valuable given the advent of 205 metre long trains...
https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2022/05/where-to-sit-on-crossrail-t…
simpleigh · 2021-08-17
That's not right, I'm afraid - the Underground is usually profitable and subsidises loss-making forms of transport (particularly buses). Here's some high-level, pre-pandemic figures: https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2018/03/average-yield-and-operating…
(based on TfL's draft budget for 2018-19)
darrenf · 2018-11-23
I'm a zone 4-6 dweller of 40+ years and don't recognise this characterisation, I'm afraid. Three years ago Diamond Geezer published a map of all the places in London's boroughs which are more than 1 mile (yes, not km, but bear with it) from the nearest station, so you can see the "prisons" here: http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2015/07/over-one-mile.html
twic · 2018-10-21
Not exactly the same thing, but you might well enjoy the Boring Conference: http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2015/05/boring-v.html
harel · 2015-05-12
There is never a "majority" vote. It would take the majority actually going out to vote.
There is a silver lining there as well for the Tory-disappointed. Keep in mind that most likely a lot of the votes that gave Cameroon his win, came from people who might have voted UKIP and changed their mind in the last minute.
I'd like to believe the Conservative of today are not those from the 80s and that today, all parties except the extremists, start from the centre and lean from there.
Edit:
let me drop this here: The majority vote that gave the win was actually a lot smaller than people think. The deciding factor was in the hands of about 1000 people:
http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2015/05/majority-2015.html