The Crystal Reindeer
This Christmas art was at the back of Broadgate.
Strangely, there was no details of the artist.
The Gherkin And The Light
The sun this December has been astounding.
I was trying to get a picture of the light reflections on the Gherkin and the other buildings and took these images.
Sawyer And Gray At Highbury Corner
Highbury Corner is a bit short of eating places that appeal to me. Over the past couple of months, I’ve passed a new cafe called Sawyer and Gray on my way to the bus stop to get the 30 home.
Today, after coming back from my travels to the station and after buying my Sunday Times in the littleWaitrose, I ventured inside to have a cup of tea.
I liked what I saw and decided to have some scrambled egg and smoked salmon for an early lunch.
It was very good and I shall go back again. When Kings Cross and Euston have got their escalators fixed, it will be very convenient for a sustaining drink on the way home from a trip up north.
Note that the restaurant is a bit of a Tardis and as it has a basement with seven tables, it’s a lot bigger than it appears from the street.
A Waste Of Space
The photographs show the central island at Highbury Corner.
Note that a couple of these pictures were taken over several days and in some, workers would appear to be tidying it up.
Surely something better could be done with this green space. Walk for about ten minutes and you come to Newington Green, which is a green space with a cafe in the middle of a busy traffic interchange, that has improved immensely in recent years.
Two points.
1. One thing that needs sorting is the position of the bus stand for the 277, which is totally in the wrong place.
2. The memorial garden to those that died in the V1 attack is tucked away and might be better moved to the middle, if public were to be allowed access.
With a bit of imaginative thinking, Highbury Corner could be a green space to welcome people to the thriving Upper Street.
My New All-Purpose Shopping Bag
I bought this stringbag for £2.95 and when I go out, it fits neatly in my shoulder bag or pocket.
My New All-Purpose Shopping Bag
Isn’t a stringbag the most useful of bags? After all it did lend its name to that most mighty of the Royal Navy’s attack aircraft; the Fairey Swordfish, which was called the stringbag on account of its ability to carry virtually anything to its target. Wikipedia has a full explanation.
The Swordfish is almost unique amongst military aircraft for two reasons.
Several aircraft types were built to replace it in service and it out-served them all.
In some attacks, it pressed the attack home successfully, because it flew slower than the low limit of the gun-aiming computer of the ship being attacked. The Germans hadn’t believed that an attacking aircraft would be as slow as a Swordfish.
But this unusual biplane did carry out one of the most unlikely battle successes of the Royal Navy, by attacking the Italian fleet at anchor in the Battle of Taranto. The lesson was not lost on the Japanese, who inspected the port after the attack. But the Americans, who must have known what happened at Taranto, did nothing to change their thinking.
My Christmas Presents To My Son And His Partner
They usually like me to give them gift vouchers, for somewhere like Liberty or Selfridges, so they can choose something for themselves or their home, which has just be renovated.
To complicate matters my son’s partner is Korean, so I couldn’t be over-the-top in a way only the English would understand.
The frames were simple ones from John Lewis and the translation was courtesy of Google’s English to Korean translator.
It was totally correct. Isn’t the Internet a wonderful thing?
Who would have thought that this idiot, who had trouble getting O levels in French and English, would be able to get a translation into Korean right?
I’ve Got A New Radio Station
A few months ago, my FM radio mysteriously disappeared from the downstairs bathroom. It was old anyway, but it would have allowed me to listen to BBC London on 94.9.
I do not know how it disappeared, and I suspect, it was a walk in thief as the cleaners went out, or the builders buried it under their mess.
But I’ve just found out that after retuning my television, I can get the station on Freeview 721.
Putting Some Green Style Into Wood Green
My memories of Wood Green High Road go back a long way. My father’s print works was just around the corner in Station Road and I can still remember the trolley buses turning round just down from the tube station in front of the Nags Head pub. The pub is now called The Goose and it’s not the only name change in the area, as the hill up from the station to the north was called Jolly Butcher’s Hill. Look at picture 166 on this page, as it’s exactly how I remember the area.
Trolleybus Ascending Jolly Butchers Hill in Wood Green
Thanks to trolleybus.net for sending me a copy of the image.
I remember one story my father told about the pub now called The Goose. My father and his mother, at one time lived above the print works and one Sunday, their black dog returned home just before lunch with a large just-roasted joint of beef in his jaws. My grandmother retrieved it from the dog and put the less-impressive joint she was going to roast away for a later meal. My father always thought that the free meal had come from the Nags Head, where the cook had put the newly-roasted joint on a back window-sill to cool down before carving. He used to tell stories like this with a lot of gusto and actions.
I also remember several times going for lunch at the QS restaurant just about fifty metres down the High Road for lunch with my mother. That because something like a Wimpy bar around 1960 and I can still see Ally flipping burgers in the window. It was the height of sophistication to a teenager.
Further down, you went under the railway bridge, which took the Palace Gates Line over the top and my mother and I would often go past the old Alexandra pub to the Marks and Spencer. I went there recently and it still has a lot of the feel of those years. The Alexandra incidentally was demolished to make way for Wood Green’s first supermarket.
Because of this history, I was pleased to see that Haringey council are updating the High Road. This page described what will happen in detail, with wider pavements, new street furniture and quite a few trees.
As I had to get on the Piccadilly Line today and the weather wasn’t too bad, I’ picked the tube up at Wood Green, after taking a few photos on my way down the High Road.
I’d started walking from Turnpike Lane station and walked north.
I wonder how the walk will have changed when they’ve spruced up the High Road.
It’s Not Christmas Is It?
This picture of Southwark Cathedral was taken on Christmas Eve in 2014.
It’s Not Christmas Is It?
Not very Christmasy!
Sunlight And Shadows Through The City
I came home from London Bridge on the 141 bus and it was a gorgeous sunny day.
Ido like taking pictures of the sunlight and the way it creates effects and shadows.
The Anonymous Widower 