News mill: York has UK's top roundabout - official

York's Holgate Mill 'roundabout' (all pictures; see map) has been chosen as the top gyratory in the UK by the prestigious UKRAS (UK Roundabout Appreciation Society). Their 2013 calendar features it on the front cover.

After the good news making the York Press yesterday, the mainstream media has picked up on it, and when I arrived this morning, there was a camera crew doing a feature for Look North tonight.

Well, I say 'crew'. It was one bloke doing camera, sound, interviewing and direction. In TV school they call this versatility. In TV itself they call it economy.

Anyway, after his interview with tourismo tsarina Gillian Cruddas (right), the multitasking camera guy borrowed my bike to get footage riding round the thing itself (bottom right).

He then videoed me doing the same, so you may briefly glimpse me in the feature tonight.

And I say 'roundabout'. It's not a real roundabout as it doesn't serve a junction; it's just a doughnut-shaped episode of a residential through-street - Windmill Rise, about half a mile south of the station - that happens to enclose a rather nice restored mill, landed Tardis-like amid a housing estate.

But it did look quirkily attractive (right) in today's crisp autumn sunshine.

Much in the same way as I didn't, following my recent grapple with a feisty Bradford curry.

Elephant soon to be only half as lethal

Work has started remodelling one of the notorious twin roundabouts at the Elephant and Castle, here in south London. By early 2011 the southern roundabout should look like this, reports the SE1 website.

At the moment, the gyratory is a horrible experience for cyclists. It's especially dangerous for those heading south (from the bottom right of the picture to the top right). Buses in the left-hand lane on the approach to the roundabout force you into the middle lane (where the grey car is in the illustration of the future layout). Fast traffic intending to turn left (to the left of the picture) comes up behind you, overtakes you and then cuts across left in front of you, usually hooting, and swearing in some of London's hundred-odd languages in daily use.

There is a so-called Elephant and Castle cycle by-pass, but it's incomplete, slow, narrow and hard to follow. It's quite fun tracing it all the way round if you have an hour to spare one day and want to visit nooks and crannies of south London you've never been to before, though.

Anyway, the new layout should be a massive improvement. Even if a better option was vetoed by TfL because it would have reduced traffic flows. All we need to do now is deal with that lethal northern roundabout...