transport

i saw the minis again this morning. they’ve got unique numbers on. today’s were 33 and 265. let’s see if we can find all 350.

we’re all on heightened alert. firemen are practicing their worst case scenarios (with dogs) in abandoned tube stations.
they announced on my train on monday that we should all keep our hand luggage near us to prevent terrorism. on tuesday they said we should keep our hand luggage by us so no-one stole it (you obviously can’t trust a terrorist).
they even shut paddington station for an hour yesterday morning as they found a suspicious package, which eventually exploded (because the police blew it up – it wasn’t a bomb)
so what would today bring in the fight against terrorism ? razor blades. what ? yes, complimentary razors for anyone of shaving age (and gender) walking through paddington station.
so at least if an attack comes we are all armed to fight back.

on a comedy related theme, i went to a very high security government building for a meeting this morning. i put all my valuables (camera, pedometer etc) in my bag before i arrived so they could all go throught the x-ray machine.

here is a designer unique mini. and it’s designer unique mini twin. there’s another one in an adjacent street, but i would have had to move a few houses to get all three in the same shot. so i didn’t.

last time i saw this place it was not covered in firemen. today it was.
they were having a training exercise. it involved dogs at some point. i know this because a sign told me.
i was a bit confused at first because i ended up walking through the middle of the firemen on the wrong side of the security tape ! i then went round and back to the other side of the road to take this photo. this no doubt aroused many suspicions of suspicious behaviour.

it’s quite common to see kids’ soft toys stuck to the front of dustbin lorries. i suspect this must traumatise some kids – especially if it was their old favourite toy which was stuck on there.
teddy bears were never designed for the outside life and rapidly become brown soggy blobs of fluff through all the heavy street wear. they so provide a nice contrast to the bin men who put them there though. it proves these most menly of men (you rarely see bin ladies) still keep in touch with their femine side.
i may mention this next time i see such a bin lorry. but i may not.
this collection of teddys, dolls and union jacks was on a delivery van. i hope this craze will spread to all modes of transport, and not only restrict itself to commercial vehicles.

my local train station foot bridge has been painted blue. it looked and smelt lovely this morning. please enjoy it with me.

drain unblocking vans are always brightly coloured. but why ? i went down and knocked on the window of this van and asked the chap inside.
unfortunately he was incomprehensible but i think he said “it’s management’s idea. our senior management are women aren’t they ?” i said i didn’t know and left it at that.
possibly it’s something of a backlash against their engineers being constantly covered in brown yuckyness ?

the misery of the modern commutter is sound waves. the noise of squealing wheels and brakes, and modern man speaking on his wires free eletrical telephones and magical musical listening lanterns.
i looked out my train window this afternoon and saw a train with a particularly wide mouthed occupant.

at what point in life do you not get excited when fire engines come whizzing down your street ? it’s the noise and the colours. red fire engines and yellow hats look so good together.

this puzzled me. has someone travelled to work by dirt ?
or has someone stolen a car by digging underneath it and pulling it down a hole ?
or is this a giant cat poo from the giant cat which lives in london ?

this bike as a long tube sticking up in the air on its rack at the back. it reminds me of one of those kids training bikes with a handle on the back. or a dodgem car. perhaps bikes are powered by overhead electricity lines in these modern days.
or maybe it’s an undercover police bike and the tube conceals the various aerials and communication paraphanalia [no ‘e’s for me].

the lost underground station at The Strand.

i love this picture. it was at the highest point of our cliff walk. and it was just there, all silver and unmarked in the middle of field. it contained a man eating a sandwich.

it’s obviously a space ship.

there’s a recording studio for one of the major record labels near my office. often large lorries full of orchestral instruments get loaded and unloaded outside their doors.
just now there was a tesco’s lorry parked up and it got me thinking, what if no-one noticed it was the wrong lorry. the musicians would be playing empty joghurt pots and shaking bags of pasta shapes along to the beat.
there’s plenty of room for a whole concept album. i’m also sure there is a host a supermarket/music puns you could insert here.
more generally, wouldn’t it be excellent if all the lorries that travelled the country all got mixed up and people had to work through the consequences.
if only i were a lorry driver. i’d have some real fun.

last week i walked 45km
this week so far i’ve done 55km
Length or Distance Converter
100km is 62 miles. i’m over quarter of the way to paris