The view from space

Google maps orbital photography is pretty cool. Especially when you find images of pac-man on the ground, or perhaps a giant I-pod, a sinister looking face embedded in rock stratta, rude words, peoples names (seriously, check out the scale of this one) and even UFOs.

Chernobyl

On 26 April 1986 Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded scattering radioactive material across a wide area. This is a dramatic photo essay of the effects of this disaster twenty years on. Caution, this is not comfortable viewing (sound required).

Commuting arrangements

When I moved jobs I resigned myself to having to take public transport to work. Something that, at the time, I wasn’t entirely happy about. However, since then and my initial parking issues at work I have managed to wrangle me a car parking pass so I can park at work.

This has put my initial plan of catching the train into work into a bit of a tailspin. Predominantly I have been catching the train into work and had bought a monthly railcard which has since expired. For the last week and a bit I have been alternating between driving in and catching the train on a day return ticket and having now done both from my new address am in a total quandary as to which is the preferable mode of transportation.

Here are the pros and cons for each:

Driving

Journey time: 45 minutes to 1 hour 45 minutes
Reliability (traffic): Low
Cost: Circa £7 return (fuel only)
Advantages: Can use car for site visits, don’t have to sit next to fat people

Train

Journey time: 50 minutes
Reliability (trains running on time): High
Cost: £9 (monthly season ticket), £12 (day return)
Advantages: Can enjoy leisure time (which with a good book I actually quite enjoy), simplicity, can go down pub after work and have a few beers, easy to stop off at shops in Ealing and pick up groceries, no concerns about traffic

On balance I would say that they weigh up in favour of the train which is nice and easy but more expensive. However having the usefulness of the car at work is a real bonus and makes site visits much faster so I have to spend much less (albeit paid) time there.

The crux of it comes down to time and cost. The price of a day return is pretty awful at £12 so I can rarely justify commuting in on this one off arrangement very often. The £9 monthly season ticket is just about acceptable (and decreases the longer the period of time I subscribe to) but I am not about to pay for a season ticket and drive at the same time as the combined cost of about £16 makes it ridiculous to do this and in effect pay twice. Whilst the car can be faster than the train it can also be much, much longer with traffic. Conversely, whilst some trains invariably run late for the most part they are near to time. In any case, with the frequency of services, if one is late you can just catch the next (or earlier) one.

Anyhow, my present thinking is that I will catch the train in on a monthly season ticket and for gaps at either end I will drive and catch up on (hopefully most) site visits. I don’t know if this is the best solution but hopefully if I ever get access to work’s electric pool car it may solve itself.

Elevated section

This is the elevated section of the M4 between the M25 and the Chiswick turn off with the North Circular. As you can see it is quite high up.


For background information this stretch of road was designed and built in the 1960s with a design speed of 33mph. The speed limit is an unenforced and frequently flouted (including by me) 40mph with a high accident rate.

The route is populated by numerous massive advert hoardings as you can see in my pictures below (sorry for the wonkiness of them, I was trying to drive at the same time).






I don’t think these pictures adequately illustrate the scale of these hoardings but by way of comparison, look again. Compare it to the size of the nearby 10 to 15 storey buildings. Yes 10-15 stories; they are of a similar height.

Now I am led to believe (but am not going to say it out-right because that may considered slanderous) that these hoardings are predominantly unauthorised. Even if they are not they are pretty awful. They can be removed either through direct action by the Council (LB Hounslow) or prosecution or, if authorised, through the issue of a discontinuance notice.

These beauties really do need some attention in my humble (yet chartered) opinion.

(There is more to this story but I can't put details of that on the internet because it really could be massively slanderous).

Hows your arse?

A delightfully chauvinistic and low-brow post to mark this shot of some random girls arse crack that I captured over the weekend which I thought I would share. It was funny at the time but sticking it on the internet makes it even funnier.


So girls, have you got a good arse? Perhaps you could put it to good use? Feedback welcome (!).

More motoring offences

So amidst my speeding infractions, from 1st March to 19th April my car has been untaxed. I have therefore been operating an illegal vehicle for this time and I only noticed by chance that it was majorly out of date when at some petrol station in Gunnersbury. So this has included driving to work from Amersham and parking on street in Ealing, travelling to my parents house several times, going to Bicester, Windsor, Slough and many other places and included picking my parents up from the airport.

I hadn’t taxed my car because, well, I forgot basically as the papers got filed away in (the ironically titled) ‘Nick’s box of important documents’ while I was packing stuff up at Amersham and were deposited in a cupboard in my new place whilst many more (supposedly) pressing issues were resolved.

So I have had to go through the irritating process of sorting out a retrospective tax disc which apparently involves me writing a grovelling letter to the DVLA requesting that they be nice to me and me offering to pay my ‘tax arrears.’ I have had to make three visits to the post office and endure their predictably poor and antiquated systems and being told because its retrospective I needed something called a log book which was a bugger to find in the aforementioned ‘Nick’s box of important documents’ (and turns out to be neither bookish in nature nor a log of anything, multicoloured confusing form perhaps describing its function better). I finally managed to get my tax disc today to get me road legal again but still have to write my grovelling letter to the DVLA to clear my name.

However, that I haven’t gotten enforced for all of this makes me wonder quite how much I could have got away with and whether I should bother with a grovelling letter to the DVLA at all.

Experience of dealing with people who I have been enforcing planning stuff against generally have some excuse (occasionally quite comical and often pretty weak) as to why they flouted planning regulations and for the majority of the time they abjectly fail to appreciate that they have done anything wrong because they had some ‘really good reason’ to justify it.

Well, not me in this case. I didn’t pay my car tax which was very naughty and I have no excuse other than being busy and forgetting about it which is a crap excuse. So there. It would be nice if I could sort it out more easily though and not have to jump through multiple procedural hoops to sort it out. Especially as I would imagine that a retrospective tax disc is not an uncommon phenomenon. Oh, and yeah, I could have done without disapproving looks from jobsworth post office workers too.

Interim co-team leader

Well, my previous concerns have come to fruition. I have recently been asked to act as ‘interim’ team leader to half a team at work (four people) amidst various reorganisational bits and pieces. Now the clever bit about tagging the words ‘interim co-’ to this means that I don’t actually have team leader authority, nor do I have team leader pay, nor do I have team leader job title but get all the grief for it and I still have to carry a fair proportion of my regular work load on top of ‘interim co-’ team leading. However this is clearly a good addition to my cv (when suitably pimped of course) and puts me on the front line for actual advancement to team leader status (setting aside that I remain unconvinced that this a career direction I wish to pursue at the moment).

Overall I am not sure if I am pleased about this or not. Sure the bossing folks about and throwing my weight around is no doubt going to be a bit of fun for a while but not having ever really done that kind of thing before am not sure how long the appeal of that will last.

Is it just me or…

Are seats on trains about 10% too small to comfortably sit on.
Do big fatties choose to sit next to me on the train because I am not a big fatty.
Do cold, wet shower curtains have special adhesive properties that attract them to skin like magnets to iron.
Is it bizarre that nobody has yet created envelopes that taste nice to lick the adhesive on.

Stuff II

So about six months ago I compiled a list of stuff that I wanted. Here it is again but this time with an update as to how things have moved on (struck out if I got it and commentary in italics):

Flashy digital camera - Got one incorporated as part of my new(ish) mobile phone
Jazzy mobile phone - Erm, see above (?)
Touch screen multi device remote control- Well it’s not touch screen but I got a multi device remote control for Christmas
Big TFT monitor - Check
Car (some sort of coupe) - Scratch this one, I don’t use my car enough any more to justify this
Another pair of white trainers (cos the ones I’ve got are getting a bit mucky) - I can’t find a pair I like so I gave the old ones a wash
Big double bed - Yes still waiting on this one
Sofa (one of the ones that goes round corners) - Not only have I not achieved this one, I actually threw the sofa I did have in the dump
PDA - Not interested in this any more
Laptop - Yup, still want one of these
PSP - Or some other portable media player still needed
X-Box 360 - Lost interest in this
Wireless micro surround sound system - Yeah that would be good
Watch - Forgot about this one
New suit - Yes, er, see the dry cleaning conundrum
Set of good non-stick pans - Well I bought another one recently so now I have two non-stick pans, that’s a set right?
Suede leather bean bag - Not allowed to get this now
Poncy imported beers - Check (of course)

Now my post six months ago was supported with a link to some sage advice from Cat and Girl which, in summary, said stuff can’t buy you happiness (but managed to do so in a way that implied capitalism was fundamentally flawed as a consequence but I am not going into that).

This is, to an extent true, although I have been pretty happy with the purchases I did make. However changing jobs, moving flats and just doing something entirely new and different to what I was doing when I wrote stuff has had a much bigger effect.

Grand designs

So pretty much all the time I have been running this blog I have had some longer-term objectives. Namely find a new job, sort out new job, move jobs, find a new home, move home, change commuting arrangements, etc. However, now I have come to a point where things are starting to settle down into a fairly consistent rhythm and I have no longer term grand designs for the time being.

At the moment my most pressing objectives are how to best manage my work/life time balance, working out what sort of portable media player I want (and then invariably attempting to rationalise the most expensive one) and finding time to get me a new sofa. There is also settling into the new work routine and other work related stuff which I might say something about but don’t want to put anything on the internet that could land me in hot water.

None of these objectives are particularly lofty or wide ranging and all are pretty self explanatory. So this leaves me wondering what the next longer-term challenge is so that I have something to aspire to rather than just existing.

Thus far I have three things which I have been mulling over and thinking about:

1. Buy a house slash flat.
2. Upgrade and rework the blog.
3. Take up some form of life beneficial hobby such as learning how to draw technical plans.

Maybe I will do all of them, maybe none of them, I am still musing about them all. I might do a blog post about all of these individually in more depth at some point if I get anywhere with them.

Micro-traffic

Ever wondered why traffic seems to stop for no apparent reason on a busy motorway and then start off again with no explanation as to what the problem was in the first place.

Have a look at the surprisingly engaging micro-simulation of road traffic.

Repetition

(Almost) every morning I board the 08:15 train from Maidenhead to London Paddington. As a consequence my morning routine has to be pretty ordered and I end up leaving my flat at almost exactly the same time every day in order to complete my eight minute walk (front door to platform edge) to the station.

On my walk every morning I pass walking in the opposite direction people who (I presume) have just left trains arriving at Maidenhead. Of course they, like me, are locked into a routine by train timetables so we pass each other at almost exactly the same point every day. These people are (and generally in this order):

Tall guy with skinny jeans and light jacket.
School kid with broken leg (presuming this will not be a permanent feature) and his two friends.
School kid with no friends.
Chubby girl with dark jacket.
Older guy with blue-grey jacket who looks a bit like a flasher.
Two black guys sitting at Shoppenhangers Road bus stop.

I recognise them and they, I would imagine, recognise me. Its hard not to even after just a few weeks of doing this as it happens at the same time and place every day and we all always wear almost exactly the same thing.

Sometimes I think that perhaps I should start saying ‘hi’ or giving an acknowledging nod to these people (obviously not to the school kids who I try to knock over). Crazier ideas include doing something bizarre one day to keep them on their toes. I can’t help but think that this little routine crossover we have is something that could capitalise on and make life more interesting. Just not sure how to go about it.

LED throwies

LED throwies (via) are LEDs in various colours with integral power supply and magnetic properties thought up by the Graffiti Research Lab. This means you can throw them onto ferrous surfaces in large numbers to create a pretty fun effect like in this video.


I am not too sure whether I really like these or really don’t. On the one hand they do create a quite cool effect and the (relatively) high cost for any meaningful numbers of them I would imagine would prevent them from becoming to be too profuse. On the other hand I don’t agree with the principle of sticking them on other peoples property without their consent, they’re not going to look so cool in daylight and their power source is not going to last for long leaving irritating bits of plastic lying around.

The dry cleaning conundrum

Both of my two suits are in urgent need of a good dry cleaning. However, I presently have virtually no way to actually get this done due to the constraints of wearing them at work and having no access to a dry cleaners when I am not at work as they are all closed (and with Sainsbury’s having been demolished and being re-built in the town centre there aren’t even any supermarket annexe dry-cleaners open later).

To put you in the picture, at the moment I have two suits and six shirts. Three shirts match one suit and three shirts match the other. So it is fairly impracticable to go for an entire week wearing just one suit or the other. Meaning I need to deposit one suit with the dry cleaners mid-week and collect at the weekend (or vice versa).

However, I leave for work at around 8am and am generally not home until around 6pm. So I cannot drop off or pick up suits from dry cleaners in Maidenhead as there are none which are open when I am there during the week. Equally I can’t take a suit with me on the way to work as carrying it on the train would be a nightmare in the morning due to the crowded train and logistics of getting it there and back without it getting damaged or majorly creased.

So far I have four possible solutions, none of which I like.

First one is to leave work extra early one day mid-week so I can be back to Maidenhead before 5pm and get a suit to the dry-cleaners and then pick it up on Saturday (or vice versa). I don’t like this though as it means I would have to leave work extra early mid-week when I like to stay later so I can build up my flexi-time and leave extra early on a Friday and have some residual time left over in case of a ‘I’m hungover so I am going in late this morning’ situation.

A variation on this is to do the going home extra early mid-week thing but take both suits at the same time and then go into work in casuals for the rest of the week (because I don’t actually possess any clothing that could be considered ‘smart casual’). I am allowed to do this but it is seriously frowned upon to be in casuals and see members of the public which is an almost daily occurrence and not being able to do so can seriously impinge on my work schedule (no site visits). This has a slight advantage though as it would be a less frequent occurrence than the above option as I could do both suits in one go and thus have to do it half as often.

The third is to take a day or two off work and take both suits to be dry cleaned at the same time. I really don’t like this idea as it means taking time off work to do dry cleaning which is a ridiculous reason to use up work leave.

Or I could just buy another suit (expensive and time consuming) and thus have the flexibility to drop one of the then three off and leave it at the dry cleaners weekend to weekend.

I haven’t decided which one is the best yet. Any other suggestions are welcomed.

Time

Time is one thing I am very short of at the moment. Not in a bad way, its nice being busy and having things to do and people to do it with. But also it would be nice to have chance to take a step back and have a breather, even just a little one.

I have absolutely no idea how people who are busier than me operate. My busyness is caught up with work, commuting, general life admin (shopping, paying bills, etc.) and that is about it. Everything else is being busy having a good time. I don’t have any kids, a second job or any other such commitments to worry about. I sometimes wonder how these people cope. I don’t think I would make a very good single working parent for this reason alone (ignoring other obvious issues).

And being busy is also the reason why this blog post is constructed somewhat hurriedly at work before I am busy going out and having a good time.

Oh so you blog do you

As I have said before, the folks I work with don’t know about the blog. I haven’t been intentionally not telling them about it, it just hasn’t come up.

Thus far, I think most people have found out about the blog through linky referrals from other web pages, such as Bng’s blog or via an email. Comparably few have actually been told about it face to face. Those who have been told have generally responded with an ‘oh, what’s that all about then? Isn’t that kinda weird?’

Both of these questions could most easily be resolved by reading it in the first place, rather than me telling you all about it face to face, but you can't say that to someone. I have rapidly learned that interpersonal conversation and the blog have a large crossover and I often repeat what I have posted to the blog because people haven’t read it or vice versa.

But sending people an email with a link in it always strikes me as a little self-promotional and disassociated. I mean people might not be interested, or care, or may still not grasp what’s going on. So I have left it at as a none-issue.

So for the folks at work I am not going to tell you about the blog but will respond if you ask, but why would anyone ask?

207

So yesterday I got on a bus. This is a picture of it (and also of my finger over the lens).


This is the first time I have been on a bus (except once when I was drunk and my better judgement failed me and once in Portugal when I didn’t have a choice) since I moved out of Sheffield and I don’t recall getting on a bus in the final year there (but probably did) and you know it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be.

There was the guy who sat next to me who smelled of cigars and kebabs (so a bit like a Saturday night come Sunday morning) and this giant fat guy who really got in the way which wasn’t so great but other than that it was ok. The bus steaming past queuing traffic in the bus lane was kinda handy. Of course it overtook us back when the bus stopped.

It was also a really jazzy high-tech bendy bus and there is none of this pay the driver on entry nonsense. It just stops opens a bank of four doors (I think, but looks like three in the picture) and tilts to the left so it is even with the kerb and folks get on and off (although the lack of paying the driver apparently leads it to be known as a free bus which is a, well, rather massive design flaw).

It was kinda fun, mostly because it was a new experience really rather than being particularly pleasant. My employer has access to a small fleet of electric cars which I am signing up for so hopefully soon I will be able to use those instead of having to use public transport when out and about.

Literature

Some literature I have read over the past few months that I thought was pretty good:

Curious incident of the dog in the night time (find a long journey and read it all in one go, made me want to laugh and cry at the same time).

How to be good (cynically reassuring in a positive way).

High society (a bit trashy and obvious but thoroughly readable).

God’s debris (mildly thought provoking and free, the ending gave me one of those shivers down the back of your spine, first and only time that has happended from reading a pdf document).

What I found a bit too heavy:

The light of other days (the text is too small and the content too clever for my relatively low-brow tastes).

Currently reading:

Life of pi (slow starter and nearly gave up on it but it suddenly gets really good at page 97).

Does anyone have any recomendtaions as I probably will haved finished Life of Pi by the end of the week Tuesday what with my current high-literature-consumption train riding lifestyle.

Phone dump II

Now I have the interface between my phone and pc working again and home internet getting connected I can add some imagery to the recently rather stark appearance of the blog. So, like phone dump, a bunch of stuff I captured on my phone camera over the past month or so with some commentary as appropriate.

My points for speeding endorsed on my license. I thought I would actually get ‘points.’ You know like stars or dots or blips or something. But no, apparently fixed penalty 03 covers it. They could have stamped it straight.


My new flat the day before I moved in. The lamp shades (really the ones that came with the flat were pretty awful) and hoody unceremoniously deposited near the wall were my first mark on the place. It looks a bit different now.


Moving day. This is Graham having a break in the car park to my old place.


This is Gunnersbury, just off the north circular. Guess what is proposed to go here... A replacement telephone booth. Not very exciting but I was all over the enthusiastic about doing the planning of somewhere new at the time.


My old freezer compartment. The nuances of this was formerly going to form a post in its own right before I realised that the contents of my freezer were probably not going to be particularly interesting and thus that blog post idea was ditched (and yes that is two different flavours of ice cream, phish food and Dublin mudslide if you are interested, both very good).


The hoody crew: Me looking like a wonky eyed idiot and Elia looking a little better in a pub in Maidenhead. Kieron was there too but he had gone off to hide in the disabled toilet at the time.


And stuff that didn’t make it: Two photos I had of a massive fire near work that closed down the entirety of The Broadway for a full afternoon. I deleted them accidentally much to my own irritation. They were like the most interesting shots I had. There was like fire and smoke and fire engines and ambulances and stuff and all sorts.

I often wish I took more photos of stuff, especially when people are around. What with digital photography being so easy and disposable, occasionally interesting and with my mobile phone camera being pretty good considering its dinky size and really quite secondary function as a camera.