A Sad, Lonely Lith On The Regent’s Canal
I encountered this sad and lonely lith surrounded by rubbish on the Regents Canal today.
I was walking the canal to try to see if I could find anything to raise at the De Beauvoir Ward Forum in the evening.
We need more of these at every entrance to the tow-path and I hope the rubbish is cleared up soon.
It’s the first lith, I’ve seen that has been vandalised.
Racism In Moscow
One of the stories dominating the news on my trip north was the racial abuse of Yaya Toure in Moscow by so-called fans of CSKA Moscow.
I shall be looking forward to the fifth of November and the return fixture in Manchester.
Knowing Manchester City fans, they might come up with an unusual and probably humorous protest, that everybody, except racists, will applaud.
As my father often said, there’s nothing that bigots, fascists and bullies hate more than ridicule.
The Disused Circular Railway In Paris
Surprisingly, I’d never heard of this railway that connected the main railway stations in Paris, but there was a piece on it, on BBC Breakfast this morning. If such a railway had existed in say London or New York, it would have been the subject of books, documentaries and probably as famous as the sewers of Vienna, immortalised in The Third Man.
I think the next time, I visit Paris, I’ll find a tour or an expert and do an explore.
Walking Around Glasgow City Centre
I had an hour or so before I needed to get to Glasgow Central station, so as it was fine, I walked around looking at the buildings.
Glasgow is easy to navigate, as it has lots of wayfinding liths, just like London.
As you can see, some are megaliths and have a lot more than just a simple map and a few words.
Without doubt liths are the way to go.
This was illustrated, when I came across a group of students and a local, who were discussing in detail, the direction the students needed to go.
In my view, Glasgow’s liths may only have one problem, except for the misplaced Tourist Office.
And that is on Friday, with all the rain, they didn’t stand out, as the colours were too subtle. Perhaps, that is why London’s liths have yellow tops.
Glasgow’s Impressive Buildings And Structures
There has been a lot of building in Glasgow lately, much of it to do with the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
I was totally surprised by the combined velodrome and sports hall, called the Emirates Arena, which looked a real world class building from the outside.
What with three large football grounds; Ibrox, Celtic Park and Hampden Park, the SSE Hydro and the Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow certainly seems well prepared for the Games.
The finnieston Crane is a Glasgow landmark and was used to lift heavy cargoes onto ships. It reminds me of the massive seaplane crane at Felixstowe, which was used to lift seaplanes and flying boats out of the water. There’s a picture in this report.
i can’t find anything suitable about the Clyde Harbour Tunnel of which the two rotundas are part. They look very much like the buildings of the Greenwich Foot Tunnel in London, except they are much larger.
Coeliac Or Just Gluten Free?
I was asked this question in Jamie’s Italian in Edinburgh.
How professional is that?
I had a very nice rabbit pasta.
What The Hell Is That?
Because my eyesight to the left may not be that good, where fast moving objects are concerned, I’m always careful crossing the road.
I usually put my hand either on top of or on the rotating button of the pedestrian light control, so that I can turn my head to check the traffic properly, whilst effectively seeing the green light with my hand.
It works very well, unless like today, you encounter a control like this.
What The Hell Is That?
What the muck was I do not know, but it looks like some lazy bastard had put the remains of an apple there and left it to rot. As there was a bin about five metres away, and I spent a minute or so getting a clean hand, I hope that whoever they were, doesn’t get a good night’s sleep tonight.
I’ll contrast that with the behaviour I had seen earlier, where a young girl of about seven, missed as she put her crisp packet in a bin at the Angel, because the wind blew it out of her hand. She then ran back, retrieved the errant packet and binned it successfully.
Replacing A Television
My 32 inch Sony television is now past its best, as it’s been on Radio 5 so much, the phosphor on the plasma screen has been damaged. I originally bought it in John lewis in Cambridge and when I moved, I mounted it on a John Lewis swing mount, so I could watch it in both my living room and the kitchen, when I’m cooking. The system works well and I can link it into any related device with ease to watch films on my laptop or BBC iPlayer.
So it would seem logical to upgrade it with something more modern, that had more than one HDMI port, an LED screen and perhaps some built-in smart technology. My watching habits are fairly simple, in that I never record programs for later viewing, but I do use iPlayer regularly. With the exception of sport, I never watch a channel with adverts. If I could pay a subscription for advert free television, I might watch programs like Downton Abbey. Incidentally, I’ve never seen an episode.
My reasoning suggested that a modern Sony of a maximum of 40 inches from John Lewis, that fitted the current bracket might be a good purchase.
But firstly, the Sony I thought I should buy, would appear to be difficult to fit on a swing mount. Apparently, it needs to go flat on the wall. So I suppose you can’t use it in buildings like lighthouses or windmills.
I then settled on a Samsung, but the John Lewis assistant, then told me, it would have to have a new bracket if they fitted it, despite the fact that the new bracket would be the same as my old one. I know it will be mounted on a very solid brick wall and the new television will be a lot lighter than the old television, but drilling a new set of holes is probably not a good idea.
I did buy the Samsung and I’ll fit it myself.
It does strike me though, that with new technology coming in regularly, many people will want to replace a television and will get rather annoyed, when they find they either can’t fit the obvious one of their favourite make or they need an unnecessary new bracket.
Memories Of Williams Brothers
Williams Brothers, was the grocery shop of choice of many in North London, in the 1960s. They had the odd supermarket, but most like the one I used to go to for my mother in Cockfosters were ones, where the assistant did the fetching and carrying.
What singled out Williams Brothers from other stores, was that for every pound you spent you got a token, which could be exchanged for money, when you got to a particular value.
Children loved all this and used the tokens, which were available in various denominations, in all sorts of games.
It does puzzle me, why this simple but probably expensive to run loyalty system, hasn’t made a comeback somewhere! After all, every coffee shop seems to have a loyalty scheme, for which you always misplace the card. Perhaps plastic tokens would be easier to collect.
In the end, Williams Brothers was taken over by Budgens.
I’ve Given In
I said in this post, that a Sky Satellite dish is so yesterday.
However, as I have received a letter from BT on the subject of broadband, I decided that the best solution would be to get a dish to get reasonable sports on my television.
The letter from BT is a classic, and it is only thanks to my MP that I got a reply.
Here’s one section.
I’ve been in touch with our supplier, Openreach to ask about Mr. Miller’s situation. Unfortunately, he’s currently unable to get fibre broadband as his phone line is routed directly from the exchange to his premises.
Openreach have confirmed that the Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) technology which they have deployed needs a fibre-enabled street cabinet to supply the service. But because Mr. Miller is located very close to the exchange and is fed directly from it, i.e. not via a street cabinet, this unfortunately means that he can’t have the fibre product at present.
So the solution to my fibre broadband problem, is to move further from the telephone exchange.
I am a qualified electrical engineer and do understand the technology, the problem and the solutions. So I can’t help but find their statement mildly amusing.
But I suppose to actually be honest about the problem, as BT has been in the end, after a kicking from my MP, would only chase customers away to other broadband suppliers, who of course because of my local loop problem, can’t actually deliver the product that everybody wants.
In my view, there should be an on-line database that everyone can access, that shows the phone and broadband standard and quality, that is available at every house or business premises in the country. After all, you might find the ideal building for your new offices and it would be prudent to confirm the status of the phones and broadband before you made an offer.
But why stop at phones and broadband, as it would be much better if all the other services were listed as well.
The Anonymous Widower 