A Tidy Site Is A Safer Site
I saw this notice on the fences round a Crossrail site near Liverpool Street station.
A Tidy Site Is A Safer Site
Agreed. The most untidy site I have been over was a nuclear power station in the United States. It was an accident waiting to happen. But one didn’t, although the station is now closed.
A Hassle And Courier-Free On-Line Purchase
I’ve had various issues with couriers in the past, like this episode.
So on Saturday night, when at 23:00 or so, I decided I needed some new trousers, I ordered them on line from Marks and Spencer and said that I’d like to pick them up sometime today, in their shop at the Angel. I chose the Angel store, as usually I pass through the area, at least once a day, often when I go to the Waitrose a few doors away or Chapel Market.
The original e-mail from Marks, said that the trousers would be in store after midday, but this morning I got an e-mail saying that they had been delivered to the store at 09:30.
I picked them up just after lunch.
Forty years ago, this small store, had been our local Marks and Spencer when we lived in the Barbican and most Saturdays we’d push the children up the hill to the Angel to do our weekend shopping.
Times have certainly changed. Picking those trousers up from Marks and Spencer was certainly less handle and there was nothing couriers could do to to throw spanners in the works.
Searching For A Genius Loaf
I generally have a soft brown, Genius loaf in the bread bin and today, I threw the remains of the last one out, as all I had left was the wrapping and two rather battered crusts.
So as I wanted to get a paper, I thought I’d get a new one at the littleWaitrose at Highbury Corner. But they only had the soft white bread, which would not be my first choice.
I know I can usually get the desired bread at Sainsburys at the Angel, but that would have meant coming back from there in the scrum of the rush hour. so I took the Overground to Dalston Junction, to try to buy the bread at the Co-Operative store at the station.
They did have a loaf, but the sell-by date was not very far away and the loaf felt, as though it was not that fresh.
So I took the bus home.
It’ll teach me not to do all my shopping at a bigger Waitrose like Canary Wharf or Bloomsbury. I don’t think I’ll bother with buying food at that Co-operative again.
C Would Have Laughed At This
When we were in Liverpool in the 1960s, Widnes was the butt of lots of jokes as it had rather a nasty smell.
C Would Have Laughed At This
So to see a block of flats in Islington given the same name made me titter. C would have laughed like a drain.
But compared to some street names it isn’t the most romantic place to live.
The next door block was called Tranmere.
White Van Gentlemen
I saw this van in the Holloway Road.
White Van Gentlemen
But they are parked in the bus lane on an Arsenal match day.
Is This The Reason Why You Should Swap To A Small Energy Supplier?
I’ve just been reading this article in The Times about the new energy supplier Ovo.
This is the paragraph, that caught my eye.
Ovo offers only two tariffs and has one structural advantage over its bigger rivals: in common with fellow start-ups such as Ecotricity and First Utility, it doesn’t have to put a government- mandated “green levy” on consumers’ bills because it has fewer than 250,000 customers. That means its customers are exempt from an average surcharge of £112 a year.
So it would seem that by changing to a small supplier, you’ll save over a hundred pounds a year. Obviously, if your chosen small supplier gets bigger than 250,000 customers, you’ll need to change to another small one.
Incidentally, I’m not in favour of green levies, as insulating houses is the responsibility of the property owner and wind turbines that of the builders! Not me!
This all sounds a good deal to me. I shall be investigating! Especially, as the fixed price deal with my current supplier runs out next year.
Art Under Attack
I went to this exhibition at the Tate on Thursday night.
It was the private view for members and the best bit about the exhibition was that you could see all the exhibits well, as there wasn’t many people there.
Or perhaps a lot of members had read the review of the exhibition in the Telegraph. It opens with this paragraph.
When some bright spark at Tate Britain came up with the idea of doing a show about the history of Iconoclasm in this country why wasn’t the plan strangled at birth?
And finishes with this.
This show may have been tripe, but as a nation, we can’t afford not to support the arts.
I didn’t think a lot to it either, but then I’m no expert and I went alone. However, I did leave with the impression, that the lady folded in Allen Jones‘s work called Chair, had an unlikely resemblance to the late Princess Diana. But then she was only eight, at the time the work of art was created.
Praise For Kings Cross From Down Under
One of my Internet alerts is for Kings Cross Square and I picked up this article praising the area from the Sydney Morning Herald web site.
Afterwards, Australian visitors, will only need to go to Highgate Cemetery to feel at home.
Dull-As-Ditchwater Television
The BBC has just started broadcasting proceedings in the Court of Appeal.
Judging by the excepts I’ve seen, I shall not be watching. It must surely rank for exciting content with BBC Parliament.
Why is the BBC wasting our licence fees on this dross?
The test card and Cambidge University’s first webcam, were much more interesting.
I did here a rumour that the Security Services wanted this coverage, as it is ideal to show to reluctant suspects. After a few hours of programmes such as this, they usually decide to tell everything.
A Pre-Match Meal In Ipswich
Yesterday, it was football at Ipswich at 19:45 due to SKY, so it was an early train to avoid the rush hour and a pre-match meal in Pizza Express on the waterfront.
PX is the only really coeliac-friendly restaurant in the town centre. I’ve yet to find a good Indian one, close to the football ground.
PX was heaving, so it does appear that the demand might be coming up in the town, which in my view and those of some of my friends is a restaurant graveyard. I always wondered if East Suffolk people go to bed early, ever since my father and I used to walk home from his club in Felixstowe at about 21:30 and see all the houses cmpletely dark.
But getting to and from the quay and PX in the dark is a walker’s nightmare, with uneven pavements and all sorts of barriers everywhere. How many drunks will tip into the dock?
However there did seem to be a lot of good development going on at the waterfront, but knowing Ipswich as I do, I doubt that it will be complete for upwards of five to ten years.
The quay might end up as a good place to go, but it’s not that close to the town centre, the railway station and the other attractions in the town, like Christchurch Mansion, the Wolsey Theatre and the football ground.
If ever a town was crying out for a free circular bus-route that ran around the town centre like Manchester’s Metroshuttle, it is Ipswich!
At least though the meal was good and walking down the hill to the restaurant from the station was easy, even if I didn’t find the quickest route back to the football ground in the dark. In the light, I’d have had the liths to guide me!
I shall go again in the light!
The Anonymous Widower 