Bank Junction
These pictures show Bank Junction, at around mid-day.
Would banning of all vehicles except buses and cycles work?
The taxi-drivers think not! Thyey’ve been protesting all wek!
Russian Sex Workers Are World’s Best, Boasts Putin
This is the second headline on the front page of The Times today.
I suppose as President Putin is an important Russian, he should have access to all the statistics and know the truth!
I certainly won’t be arguing with him or going to Moscow to give the city’s highly-rated sex workers a personal rating!
The Thames Beach By St. Paul’s
Just to the East of the Millennium Bridge, I took this picture of the beach.
There are a surprising number of places on the Thames, where there are beaches like this.
Bollards To Illegal Parkers
The City of London has its own distinctive way with street furniture.
But it’s not just bollards.
A walk through the City of London is always rewarding.
The Victoria Embankment Work-Site Of The Thames Tideway Tunnel
As I walked along the Thames, signs of works for the Thames Tideway Tunnel are appearing.
These pictures were taken at the Victoria Embankment Work-Site.
There is not much to see at present, but most of it is so the Tattersall Castle can be moved.
When the tunnel is finished, the site will look like this.
The main purpose of the site, is to connect the Regent Street combined sewer overflow to the main tunnel.
Anybody fancy a coffee, a drink or a meal in the sun by the Thames on top of the sewer outfall in 2021?
Piccadilly Circus Has Gone Dark
Pictures like these of Piccadilly Circus will be all over the media for a couple of days.
It’s only so that the screens can be replaced with ones that are bigger and better.
Gas-Lighting
This article on CNN is called Donald Trump is ‘gaslighting’ all of us.
It introduced me to term gas-lighting, which all goes back to a 1940 British film and an earlier play.
This is said about the term in the Wikipedia entry for the film.
The psychological term gaslighting, which describes a form of psychological abuse in which the victim is gradually manipulated into doubting his or her own reality, originated from the play and its two film adaptations.[7] Gaslighting, today, mostly refers to one of the methods of abuse used by a narcissist to emotionally control a victim, through which the narcissist gains pleasure.
Now CNN is accusing Trump of doing this to us all.
This is an extract.
After mimicking a disabled reporter and seeing the video used as evidence against him, he repeatedly denied it, claiming his opponents should be embarrassed to say he did. “I would NEVER mock disabled. Shame!” The denials continued after Meryl Streep brought up the subject this week at the Golden Globes. With the video easily available, Trump’s argument boiled down to “Who do you trust, me or your lying eyes?”
Here’s the video.
Trmp is going to gove the World’s comedians more material, than any other politician in history.
Kempton Park Racecourse Could Close For Housing
This article on the BBC is entitled Kempton Park racecourse faces closure to make way for housing.
This Google Map shows Kempton Park racecourse and the surrounding area.
Kempton Park
It is a large site of about a third of a square mile, bounded on the Southern side by the Thames, with the Shepperton Branch to Waterloo on the Northern side.
Note.
- London needs lots of quality housing and it would certainly provide that.
- Kempton Park station currently has two trains per hour (tph) taking 44 minutes to and from Waterloo.
- As I said in An Analysis Of Waterloo Suburban Services Proposed To Move To Crossrail 2, whether Crossrail 2 is built or not, four tph could run on the Shepperton Branch to Waterloo in perhaps 30 minutes.
- There might be space for a section station on the London side of Kempton Park station.
- Road connections are good to the M3 and M25.
- A black-cab or mini-cab to Heathrow wouldn’t be outrageous.
On this rough look it certainly looks to be a good site for housing.
It is also possibly the only site owned by The Jockey Club, whose sale would create enough cash for thei improvements to go ahead.
But as on Radio 5 tonight, not all horse racing participants and fans will like this decision.
Summoned By Bells
When I saw the pictures of the new bells for Southwark Cathedral, I just had to go and have a look.
It was just as well I did, as after the dedication yesterday, they will not be on view, but hanging in the belfry.
I’ve Listened To The Tape
I went to Liverpool University in the Autumn of 1964.
The University in those days had a Rag \Week, which in Liverpool was called Panto Week.
This link to the University of Liverpool web site, gives a flavour.
There used to be a debate in the Mountford Hall of the Guild of Undergraduates and usually someone locally famous was invited. In 1965, it was The Scaffold.
I don’t know how I got there, but a few days after seeing the Scaffold, I ended up in a Hall of Residence listening to a tape of the debate of the previous year.
It was a virtuoso performance by Ken Dodd and it went on for hours.
I wonder, if that tape still exists!
The Anonymous Widower 