You Can’t Get Away From Suffolk
I was at the Olympic Park yesterday and saw this artwork created by the children at a school in Lowestoft, displayed at the ViewTube.
Art at the ViewTube
It was actually rather good. In fact, if you are in that area, there does seem to be a constantly changing set of artistic displays, which always seem to be worth visiting.
I just can’t seem to get away from the county where I spent nearly fifty years of my life.
How To Look Younger
I was walking down towards the old Middlesex hospital today, when I heard a familiar and distinctive voice behind me. I turned slightly and saw the lady in question getting into the taxi, she had just hailed. I then recognised her, as she was wearing the same dress as she had on BBC Breakfast this morning.
But she certainly looks younger on the television!
Disabled Access to the London Olympics
I am not disabled, although it is probably true to say, that for a time after my stroke, whilst I was in hospital in Hong Kong, I needed to be moved everywhere in a wheel-chair. I do suspect though that if I had been in a top hospital in the UK, like Addenbrookes from the start, they’d have dispensed with one pretty quickly. It’s not to save costs, but there is thinking from the Norwegians, that it is better to get people up and on the move sooner rather than later after a stroke.
But I do think I appreciate the problems of people with disabilities a bit better than I used to. So when Liz put a comment on the post about the London Aquatic Centre, I thought I’d investigate a bit.
I started by typing the title of this post into Google. By the time you try it, you might get better information than I did. The only thing of value was an old political statement from Boris, saying that the access will be the best. He would say that wouldn’t he!
There was also quite a few paid for Google entries trying to sell disabled-friendly accomodation in London for the Olympics.
On the other hand, when I applied for my tickets, I could have applied for wheelchair friendly seats, if I had wanted to. So at least the ticket ballot is disabled friendly. I suspect too, that the venues will have an appropriate number of seats for the disabled, as we have lot of experience of building stadia with them in mind.
Getting to the Olympic Park probably falls into two time periods; before the Olympic Park is completed and after it’s opened.
I’ll deal with the first one now, as why shouldn’t those with limited mobility want to go and view the construction site, as I have in the last couple of weeks? After all lying my hospital bed in Hong Kong, being able to watch the Olympics on television was a hope, rather than something for which my odds of seeing for real,are only a little bit less than say Lord Coe’s.
The Greenway, that I used to access the viewing site is absolutely flat and I think in my current state I could push an average man in a wheelchair from the station at Hackney Wick to the Olympic Park. As with all new London Overground and Docklands Light Railway stations, Hackney Wick has full wheelchair access using lifts. At a weekend, there is quite a bit of free parking in the Victoria Park area, which is not far from the start of the Greenway.
The ViewTube has pretty good disabled access, so you could get a good coffee and a snack.
The problem would come in getting off and on the Greenway at the Pudding Mill Lane end. It is still very much a construction site and although the DLR station has a lift, it might not be easy to negotiate your way through.
Another word of warning is that the best views of the site are at the other end of the Olympic Park to Stratford station.
So don’t go there!
Obviously, once the Olympic Park and the Eastfield Shopping Centre are open, there shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Applying For London Olympics Tickets
I have just completed my application for tickets for the London Olympics next year.
It was not a complicated process for someone like me , but I could expect people like C to have lost patience with the system, as there are just so many tickets to apply for in the initial ballot. I’ve tended to go for between two and four tickets for a large range of events, going for slightly higher price tickets in events I really want to see. I’ve also put in a bid to see some tennis on the centre court at Wimbledon, as there is no other way, I’ll ever get to see anything in that iconic venue.
It will be interesting to see how many tickets I get! In some ways I’m not bothered too much, as I suspect that the best way to see some events will be to go to the Olympic Park or Victoria Park and watch it on the big screens.
Remember too, that modern stadia such as Wembley and The Emirates don’t have many poor seats, so you can probably expect that even a seat in the Gods in the Olympic Stadium will be a lot better than some I’ve paid a lot of money for in various football grounds this year.
The Aquatics Centre Is Taking Shape
This picture shows that the London Aquatics Centre now has a complete roof.
The Aquatics Centre at Stratford
Is yet another venue on time and hopefully on budget?
Government to Sponsor Engineering Prize
This has been announced in The Times today and is also reported in The Engineer.
They ask if it should be called the Brunel, Boulton, Babbage or Bazalgette Prize.
I have my view and it should be called the Blumlein Prize after Alan Dower Blumlein.
I wrote to The Times and they published my letter on the 12th. Here’s an extract.
Sir, I think we should choose the engineer who has probably had the greatest effect on everyone’s lives in the past 100 years. And that is the pioneer of electronics, Alan Dower Blumlein, who, after he perfected stereo recording and electronic television, went on to develop the electronics for radar. He was a true genius who was granted 128 patents before he died at the age of just 38, in a plane crash while testing an airborne radar in 1942.
I am an electrical engineer myself and I was horrified to see that at the new Olympic site there is no mention that it is alongside Bazalgette’s massive Northern Outfall Sewer and that this superb piece of Victorian engineering is being used as a public viewing platform for the works at the site. In due course the waste water from the site will be pumped into the sewer to continue its journey via the beautiful Moorish pumping station at Abbey Mills to the treatment works at Beckton. The Olympic site really is standing on the shoulders of a giant.
World Heritage Sites
Listening to the warm-up to the Grand National today on Radio 5 this morning, it struck me that none of the UK’s historic racecourses are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Liverpool city centre is but surely one of Aintree, Ascot, Epsom and Newmarket should be listed.
After all Newmarket and the Heath have been associated with horses since the time of Boudicca. Newmarket is actually a corruption of New Horse Market. And every thoroughbred horse can trace its ancestry back to the small town in West Suffolk.
And when it comes to other places that should be listed, the Forth Bridge is rightly on the provisional list, but Joseph Balzalgette‘s historic London sewers are not!
The Angel, Islington Is Now Clean and Tidy
This picture shows how islington have cleaned up the Angel.
The New Pavements at the Angel
It must have impressed the BBC as they conducted interviews for BBC Breakfast one day last week on the pavements on the opposite side of the road to this picture.
Just before I took this picture, I had bumped into a person of the female gender, who had just got off the same 38 bus as I had. I won’t call her a young lady, as she’d debussed (does it have one s or two?) and immediately stopped to light up her cigarette. As I was close behind her, I walked straight into her. I apologised profusely, but got a mouthful. Whereupon I told her that she should stop smoking, as it will eventually kill her! Possibly it will be sooner than I think, as she immediately wandered in front of the 38 bus to cross to Islington Green. Luckily for her the driver was paying attention to the lights, which had turned red.
It must be very disheartening for the council, as the pavements were already covered with discarded cigarette ends and chewing gum.
Stupid Calls From the United States
I have my old phone number at my previous house diverted to my mobile phone. It must be very frustrating for the scammers from the United States, who keep rnging me from Delaware, as O2 now properly display their number. so I let them ring and then end the call.
This is a new phenomenon. Until perhaps two weeks ago, these scam calls didn’t give a number, but now they do, so I can treat them with the contempt they deserve. After all, if they are important calls, the caller would probably know my e-mail address, so they’ll do that instead.
It’s funny though that all these calls seem to be from the United States, so is that country, now the new Nigeria?
Industrial Swearing
With all this talk about swearing, brought out by Wayne Rooney, I must repeat this story, which I heard when I worked at ICI in the early 1970s.
ICI had employed their first female instrument engineer. She didn’t suffer any sexism, but she did feel that when she was working with an electrician or fitter on a chemical plant, there was a certain coolness between them.
One day, whilst she was working with an electrician installing an instrument, she dropped something heavy on her foot and did what most of us would do. She swore loudly and very industrially.
The electrician then put his arm round her and said, “Does that mean we can all swear now, madam?”
The Anonymous Widower 