The DLR Reaches Stratford International
Today the DLR was opened to Stratford International station. So I went for a ride and took a few pictures.
It is an impressive line.
One thing that it does is to create a step-free route from stations on the North London line to the London City Airport, with a single change at Stratford.
I also joked with one of the staff about tourists coming to Abbey Road station to see the crossing. Nothing surprises her!
Good Riddance To The Sixty Watt Light Bulb!
People have a lot of misplaced love for the old sixty watt light-bulb, as this story on the BBC shows.
It doesn’t bother me, as I won’t have an incandescent bulb in the house because of the safety risk, when they fail. An A & E doctor once told me, that they’d had several people come into hospital after falls, where an incandescent bulb had failed and this had tripped out all the lights, which meant they had fallen over the cat, dog or whatever.
But the lights I hate are those halogen MR16 and GU10 bulbs. There average life span is very short and the light they give out, used to give me headches until I went gluten free. I have a lot of those size of bulb in this house and all have been replaced with LED versions, which are brighter, use less energy and rarely fail.
My real problem in this house is finding some lights to replace some of the awful ones that Jerry installed to boost his profits.
Some Truly Hideous Lights
They really are truly hideous. Some of the lights he used were even worse and when I left them on the front patio for someone to take if they wanted, they didn’t remove one. But they did take a couple of old incandescent bulbs!
Holland & Holland
I believe this is a rather expensive shop in Bruton Street. I was really put off it because a man and a woman, who could have been employees, were having a cough and a drag outside.
Gypsies
The BBC phone-in this morning got very heated when they were discussing gypsies.
I lived in the country for forty years and everything you didn’t lock up properly disappeared very quickly. The gypsies always got the blame, whether it was their fault or not. I would say though, that if you wanted to hear a farmer get angry, then just bring up the subject of gypsies.
My late wife, C, was a barrister and she was involved in the divorce of a leader of the gypsy community, who incidentally lived in a 1930s semi-detached house in quite a large town. His attitude to those who claimed they were gypsies, was that many were just criminals taking advantage of rights and our good nature. Incidentally, my wife found him to be a very honourable man, who fully abided with the divorce settlement.
We are on the one hand guilty of labelling a community with the habits of their worst members. But then we’ve done that for years with everybody.
Shopping At Nags Head, Holloway
I was not impressed yesterday, when I went shopping there. Both Marks and Waitrose were empty of things I wanted ans so was the cashpoint at Santander. But they did deduct the money I tried to take out, although it was reversed correctly this morning!
Except for Franchi, I think I’ll give the area a miss in the future.
Along The River Lea To Lea Bridge
The River Lea has the reputation of being a rather stagnant open sewer in the east of London.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
And Here’s A Video
No visit to a museum like Markfield is complete without seeing the machine fully working.
Note how getting a machine like this going, isn’t just a simple matter of flicking a switch, but often involves quite a bit of physical work and gentle coaxing.
Two Proper Cups of Tea
The picture shows the two cups of tea we bought at the Markfield Museum.
Two Proper Cups of Tea
They had lots of things to eat, but not much that was gluten-free. The cafe also has free wi-fi, which is a must these days and seems to be in any pub or cafe worth visiting.
The Markfield Beam Engine
The Markfield Beam Engine sits in a park in Tottenham with a cafe and a rose garden.
It is well worth a visit.
Nimbys and Bananas
An eminent professor of engineering at a top level university has just told me about the term Banana or Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. Or perhaps Near Anyone.
There are a lot more here in the Wikipedia definition of Nimby.
All of these people are usually members of the Council for the Fossilisation of Rural England.
I of course prefer a scientifically correct approach.
The Anonymous Widower 