transport

“hey son, just have a look out the window and see if granny’s still alright sat up on the roof in her favourite chair. i’m a bit concerned i didn’t tie that safety rope properly”

pointless windows

from matt and nancy’s wedding.

heathrow baggage collection is one of the grimmest places in the world. but there is one lovely wooden chair.

i’ve written before about underground train upholstery. here is the circle line seat covers again. this time with sync flash to add to the madness.
it’s like we’re stuck in a 1980s computer graphics flash back thing. i seem to remember spending days typing programmes (spelt in the english way back then) from magazines in to my BBC model B computer to make it display similar patterns to these seat covers. of course they’d never work as the computer would crash before you ran them, or the tape would never load back in.
oh happy days.

some people use a removal company to help them move house. they put all your belongings in to a van and drive them to your new home where they helpfully unload them and pop them in to the appropriate room.
care needs to be taken when selecting your removal men. we all know people who’ve had bad moving experiences.
but would you use the budget removal men that this household is using ? sure they were probably cheap, but what if it rains ?

this is really boring, so sorry !
on the way home from our fantastic fun filled day in london we travelled on one of those fancy new Aldante high speed trains. they are usually used for long distance journeys so i was quite impressed we got one for our slow stopper service.
could this be a glimpse of what’s to come ? will my commuting life become much more luxurious thanks to recent changes in the train franchise ?
somehow i doubt it, but it was fun anyway.
here are kezia and esther listening to jane reading stories to the carriage about fairies.

here is kezia dressed as a dog in the transport museum. i think the idea is that if you are dressed as a dog all the cars in the area will slow down to look and say “aaaw, isn’t she cute”.
as a result they won’t crash in to you (although the distraction may cause them to veer up the opposite pavement in to a lamp post or something).

update: as requested, close-up of the fire-engine sign:

you know when they say “sorry, this train is delayed due to an aggressive passenger in one of the carriages. the transport police have been called” ? well that happened to me this evening. and the aggressive person was in my carriage.
it was actually a lady in her 50s who was stubonly refusing to pay her fine. she was more stroppy that aggressive but there was potential for passenger uprising when the ticket man tried to drag her off the station by pulling her handbag and at one point taking her luggage off the train !
then some of the other passengers shouted “oi, you can’t steal that woman’s bags” and another shouted “throw her off, i’m not subsidising non-payers”.
he then went and sat next to her and kept repeating “you are very annoying. get off the train” in a voice which was cross between a robot and monty python. eventually she paid her fine when the fuzz turned up.
so, not only was my journey to london pointless it was also filled with excitement like seeing duran duran and seeing a stroppy middle aged woman.
here she is walking down the platform when she finally got to her destination. i didn’t dare use the flash. but the picture sums up how most of the train was feeling.
erk. too many words in this post. sorry.

disability rights legislation came in to force recently (today?) in the UK and now shops and businesses are required to take special measures to accomodate people with disabilities. this is a good thing.
however, what people didn’t realise is that it also covers short sighted people who drive cars. these people can’t see traffic lights and so represent a danger to themselves and others.
the government has come up with an ingenious idea. they’ve put ladders next to every set of traffic light so short sighted people can climb up and have a close look at whether the lights are red, amber or green.
[some of this is slightly made up]

life is becoming more integrated. cameras on your mobile phone, cars with MP3 players and DAB radios, egg and chips, and of course, diggers on lorries.
it’s a super dooper scooper.

a sign and some cameras further down the road.

matt sent me this car he spotted on Whitechapel High Street. it looks very good.
it has an L plate which means someone is learning to drive in it. or maybe it means the car is learning to be a real car. from the looks of it it needs plenty more practice.