Tom Dixon’s Water Tower House
As I walked from Kensal Rise station to Ladbroke Grove, I couldn’t avoid seeing this building by the Grand Union Canal.
It is a house created by Tom Dixon from a water tower. This page on the inhabit web site gives more details.
This Google Map shows the area, where a bridge carries Ladbroke Grove over the Grand Union Canal.
Grand Union Canal At Ladbroke Grove
The house is the round structure on the South side of the canal, by the bridge, to the right of the long silver building.
On the canalside in front of the house and the silver building is another interesting structure.
It is a Monitoring Station for the electricity cable networks that are run by National Grid. It appears to be in a state of refurbishment at the moment, which stopped me taking a picture of the plate which gave details of its function.
A Bookies With A Clock Tower
Corals Betting Shop in Hackney has an interesting juxta-position with St.Augustine’s Tower.
A Bookies With A Clock Tower
The tower and its contents are Grade 1 Listed.
The Peer-to-Peer ISA Is Here
I don’t understand ISAs but I know a man or woman who claims they do. Read their article on the Zopa web site.
Merkel Can And Thatcher Could Burn Midnight Oil
According to one reporter on the BBC this morning, Angela Merkel did her usual and kept going for many hours in the Greek debt negotiations.
I’ve also read reports, that Margaret Thatcher used to show the same stamina. In fact, she was awake working, when the Brighton Bomb went off.
Interestingly, they are both women with a scientific training!
Thoughts On Handrails
Transport for London and their various predecessors have always been very particular about handrails on stairs in stations and also on buses. Here’s some examples.
But are we that particular in our homes. I put this handrail on my stairs.
The Handrails On My Stairs
And I put extra hand holds in my bathroom.
A Handhold In My Shower
I feel very strongly that when you fit rails and hand holds for safety reasons, that you should not have to pay VAT on the hardware and the work. Especially, if as in the case of the handrail on the stairs bloody Jerry should have put them in when he built the house.
My MP agrees and she has written to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
I suspect in the case of my professionally-designed and Sheffield-built handrail, the biggest objections to removing VAT will come from those snake oil-salesmen, who get the elderly and disabled to buy unnecessary stair-lifts.
An interesting point, is that probably quite a few premises that have to fit extra handrails and handhold are commercial premises, like offices, restaurants and shops, who of course would be registered for VAT.
Planning A Home Run From Dubrovnik
I have decided that my next Home Run will be from Dubrovnik. I am not booking it yet, as I have one health issue to clear up first. I also want to get some more of my kitchen done first. So dates look like as follows.
Leave London on July 27th by either easyJet or British Airways.
Return to London on Aug 6th or 7th on a late Eurostar out of Paris. Ipswich are at Brentford on the 8th, so I want to be home before this match.
C and myself only went to Croatia once and that was on a long drive back from the Greek Islands in the 1970s, where we passed through Zagreb. One of C’s phrases was to describe people as grebes for some reason, so I can remember her making comments about the Zagreebians.
So one of the reasons is to get myself more knowledge of Croatia.
I also intend to go to Munich to get a pizza and a beer and to Karlsruhe to have a further look at their large tram-train network or Stadtbahn.
A Possible Itinerary
July 27th – Fly to Dubrovnik – Spend three nights in Dubrovnik
July 30th – Bus to Split – Spend one night in Split
July 31st – Train to Zagreb – Spend two nights in Zagreb
August 2nd – Train to Ljubljana – Spend one night in Ljubljana
August 3rd – Train to Villach and Munich – Spend one night in Munich
August 4th – Train to Karlsruhe – Spend two nights in Karlsruhe
August 6th – Train to Paris and London
Monkey Hadley Common
Monkey Hadley Common or Hadley Wood as we called it, was one of the places I used to go regularly as a child with my friend Richard Plumb.
Today, I walked through it with a friend before having some lunch at Cockfosters.
Surprisingly, despite being probably fifty-five years since I’ve been there, some parts had changed little and I could remember everything well.
There was always fishing in Jack’s Lake and that was probably a lot cleaner.
Ofen we would go through the woods to the East Coast Main Line, where we would do the things that boys did in those days, like putting coins on the track, so the trains would flatten them.
Do kids still do that?
The railway incidentally is much changed with electrification and whereas in the 1950s, you saw perhaps one express to and from the North every half-an-hour or so, the trains are much more frequent now.
The Church Where C And Myself Married
These pictures show Christ Church, Cockfosters, where C and myself got married on September the seventh, 1968.
That day is still the only one, where I have entered the church. And it was locked today. If that sounds strange, C had been a Sunday School teacher in the church and we had met the vicar before the wedding, in the vicarage.
One of the church’s claims to fame, is that it was where the Memorial Service for Elvis Presley was held in the UK.
Read This Article If You’re With The Big Six Energy Companies
It surprises me how many people are still with the Big Six energy companies.
Anyone stupid enough to still be, should read this article by Stewart Dalby on the Proactive Investors web site.
His experience of changing from British Gas to Good Energy was much the same as mine when I changed from mPower to OVO. The big company used every trick in and out of the book to stop him changing.
The Big Six energy companies are a total disgrace and Stewart’s headline on his article sums up what you do.
Self-help is the only way to beat the Big Six
But remember the paraphrase of the Cat Steven’s song – The First Cut is the Deepest – The First Change is the Toughest
You may need to be extremely patient to get the change you want.
One thing I would always do, is go direct to the company to which you want to change and not use any intermeiate or comparison site. So if you have trouble changing, at least you can test out your new supplier’s customer services and if they’re any good they probably know how to shove a red-hot poker up the big company’s arse.
But once you’ve done it, you will have all the numbers available to do it again. (OVO sent me a single A4 page!) And I very much doubt that a small supplier would be as difficult to change from, as any of the Big Six.
My New Cooker Hood Has Arrived
My cooker hood arrived around seven this evening in the most inappropriate and large packaging.
Let’s hope it fits to the wall!
The Anonymous Widower 