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September 19, 2003

Misc stills

Needed to empty my camera out last night. Here's a randomish sample of recent images. Occasionally I take the Met Line tube from Wembley Park to Baker Street in the morning. And when I do - I always look out for the slightly different view I get of the Wembley Stadium construction work. If you look closely - you can see some really tall concrete blocks have been erected. It's hard to figure where they fit in the overall scheme of things - but I am also told that Wembley Stadium will be visible from Central London. I am intrigued.
Wembley Stadium being rebuilt
When I get to Baker Street I change to the Hammersmith & City Line platform and walk all the way to then end of the platform so that I can get onto the front carriage. There is a little whiteboard on the wall at the end of the platform where the station staff can leave messages for train drivers to read when they stop at the platform. There is an Indian-looking member of London Underground staff - he looks roughly in his late-forties/early-fifties who carefully updates the message here on the platform every few hours or so. I have seen him writing many times - he really does take his time - writing each letter ever-so-carefully. The message you see below took him nearly 8 minutes to write. I was there watching him. I am guessing that his English is not very good - because everytime I am down here and I see his message - there are almost always some serious grammatical errors. Can you spot the one below?
Message for train drivers stopping at Baker Street
Yesterday I had to go to a meeting in Central London - a place called John Adam Street near Strand. The building I had the meeting in was very plush! I joined the meeting on the 9th floor of this office building. During a coffee break - I decided to take a picture of the view out of one of the windows. This office must have one the best views in Central London! To the left was a panorama of the City beyond Waterloo Bridge - and to the front was the London Eye. I spent the entire coffee break just staring out the window daydreaming in silence. I shouldn't have done that - because I then spent the next 2 hours of the meeting desperately wanting to go to the bathroom.
City panorama
On the bus on the way home at the end of the day I often keep my camera ready and accessible should I feel the need to capture something. It never ceases to amaze me how many cameras there are out there as well. There are five video-surveillance cameras on the bus itself - and there are plenty out there on the street. The whole of Ealing Road and Wembley High Road is covered by dozens of cameras mounted high up on metal poles.
Being watched 24/7
At the corner of Ealing Road and Wembley High Road is a shop that always makes me smile when I see it as the bus drives past. It's an Indian or Sri-Lankan owned shop that sells cheap-ish clothes and jewellery- and for cash only. But what makes me smile is the name of the shop.
Happy Text!

Posted by jag at September 19, 2003 07:36 AM

Comments

Nice update Jag.. feels like I made a quick journey to London y'day... oh.. yes.. I very much miss the Picadilly line.. :)

Posted by: Chakra at September 19, 2003 09:23 AM

Ineteresting post Jag. It feels like you covered a fair amount of London with those photos. Is running good service? ;-) I wish I could remember to take my camera everywhere with me.

Posted by: Stu at September 19, 2003 02:06 PM

Chakra: one day you will back in London I'm sure!

Stu: I carry my camera (and my laptop) with me everywhere. This is because it is one of the most expensive items in my household - and my house got burgled a few years ago - and my laptop and camera (along with a few other small carry-able items like Sony Playstation etc.) were taken. So now I carry the cam around with me - that way there's less to burgle at home. And re: covering London - most of the pics I take or on my journey to and from work - or if I go somewhere else on business - so it looks like I cover a lot - but most of it is pretty mundane really.

Posted by: Jag at September 19, 2003 03:28 PM

whenever i head into uni on the good ol' jubilee line i see old wembley stadium, or the remains of it. end of an era i guess

and ... is it me not being on the tubes much, or have the underground been putting up a lot of those "current status of the underground" things recently, i swear i never saw them before

Posted by: Jaina at September 20, 2003 09:48 PM

Hi Jaina - what you are seeing now at the stadium site is the skeleton of the new stadium. The old one has long gone. Yes - it definitely is the end of an era ...

I think the LU have stepped up a campaign to keep everybody VERY informed of what's going on. I seemed to notice this started just after the Central Line failure earlier this year.

Posted by: Jag at September 21, 2003 09:24 AM

At least your LU station assistant had very neat handwriting. But I am loving the way it took him eight minutes to write the message.

Bless!

Posted by: Annie Mole at September 23, 2003 01:37 AM

Annie: yes - he is real careful about the way he writes his letters: he goes over them with his marker pen several times - and if he's not happy he rubs the letter out with a tactical cloth and re-writes the letter he's not happy with - until he gets it right! Immersed in such concentration I am not surprised he loses sight of the overall composition and makes grammatical errors!

Posted by: Jag at September 23, 2003 09:39 PM

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