January 09, 2005
Cruising NW9
The stormy weather Friday night kept me awake most of the night. I thought the roof of the house was going to blow away at one point! The gales continued into Saturday morning - but the brightness and intense sunshine of the morning was too compelling for us to stay sheltered indoors - and the Saturday morning chores of grocery and supermarket shopping took priority as usual. Our nearest large supermarket is Morrisons (previously known as Safeway) - but there is an even larger ASDA (part of Wal*Mart group) which is a few minutes drive away. And that’s where we went after picking up our weekly batch of fresh fruit and veg on the High Street.
 |
Ms.Route79 drives us to our local ASDA (Wal*Mart) store.
The drive to the ASDA supermarket takes us through a maze of narrow suburban residential streets that make up the bulk of my North West London neighbourhood of Kingsbury - which is in postal code area “NW9”. What better an opportunity for the Route79 school of amateur filmmaking to start the year with a “back seat of the car” short film of the Route 79 tribe navigating the neigbourhood streets on the way to our local ASDA. With Billy Idol’s White Wedding as the audio dub track - I think it works quite well. For those who know the area - or have memories of the area - the video footage is comprised of sequenced clips of Ms.79 driving her car - with me on the back seat holding the camera and filming through the rear windscreen (hence the horizontal window heater lines in the imemdiate foreground). The streets driven include Rugby Road, Princes Avenue, Beverley Drive, Kingsbury Road (our High Street), Stage Lane - as well the ASDA car park - and then finishes off with a quick clip of Honeypot Lane. Along the way you’ll notice the leafless suburban trees and spectacular winter sunshine and blue skies over North West London.
If you have the patience (and preferably broadband or cable Internet access) - then why not check it out for yourself:
Download the video by doing a RIGHT-CLICK and “Save target as” here.
It’s a WMV (Windows Media Video) file with a running time of just over 4 minutes - which at a bit-rate of 340kbps results in a file size of just over 10 megabytes. (Sorry about that - but it’s the furthest I could compress and down-rate the video without losing so much quality that would render it useless). You should save the file to a folder of your choice - it is NOT designed to be video-streamed - you should download it all before attempting to play it. Like I said - if you have a fast Internet connection it will only take a few mins to download - but if you are on dialup then you’ll have to go and make yourself a cup of tea. Like a decent cup of tea - I think it’s worth waiting for - so when it’s downloaded - double-click on it, make sure you turn up the volume REALLY LOUD, and enjoy riding through the streets of our little part of North West London as you accompany the Route 79 tribe on a shopping trip to ASDA!
Do play it with the volume turned up LOUD and the bass turned right UP. Even though the music is from 1985 - it should still get your foot tapping!
Posted by jag at January 09, 2005 02:58 PMComments
Jag - just saving the target file and emailed hubby to tell him too. If he cant download at work...he can see it on the home comp.
Posted by: krissie on January 10, 2005 08:54 AM
Whoa! That's either on fast forward or Ms 79 is one scary driver...
Posted by: Maxx on January 10, 2005 02:35 PM
As always, very nice video! Thanks for the effort!
Posted by: Stefan on January 10, 2005 08:01 PM
Ahh.
And I am waiting for the file to download.
Are ASDA's as big as the regular WalMart stores? They are huge here, (to give any indication of the availability of space here, they seem to be larger than the average football fields by many counts). I usually end up getting lost inside them.
I always thot postal codes have atleast 4 digits in them, and that they are all numbers (numbers cause lesser confusing than scribbled alphabets!)
And I did put up the post on NYC - could not get net access for a while to upload the images.
And the download is only 70% complete.
Posted by: sat on January 10, 2005 09:30 PM
Nice peppy tune to accompany it.
And I must agree with Maxx. - that was one fast ride.
Posted by: sat on January 10, 2005 09:38 PM
Hi Gang, Fantastic, enjoyed that! It certainly brought a few memories back. I keep meaning to tell you that I lived in West Hendon for a few years and trekked up to Kingsbury quite often. I bet the Bandwagon has gone? it was a sort of disco bolted on to the pub on the junction just up from the station (away from Hendon), I think it was called the Prince of Wales but can't be sure. That was a great place as they had two heavy metal nights a week, Sunday being the best. Iron Maiden had a lot to thank The Bandwagon for, as the DJ Neil Kay played a lot of their stuff before they were famous and we, the headbangers, are credited on their first Album. Altho' they never played IM and other bands used to pop up for "appearances" including Motorhead and Ted Nugent to name a couple. I used to travel over on the 83 and the 183. Keep up the good work
Posted by: Brom-man on January 10, 2005 10:09 PM
Krissie - hope hubby enjoyed it.
Maxx: Both. It's on double-speed - and she's a scary driver! ;-)
Thanks once again Stefan!
Sat: Apologies it was a big download. And yes - ASDA are just as big as Wal*Mart - that's prob why Wal*Mart acquired ASDA - but most of the "big four" supermarket chains are like that anyway - and yes - I, too, get lost in them quite often! UK postal codes (and remember that UK *invented* the postal system!) are comprised of one or two letters to signify the town - followed by a single digit that indicates the region in that town - and then three more characters that is digit-letter-letter - which identifies either a single multi-residential block - or a single building - or a small group of no more than a few houses. The slight exception to the rule is the London area - which instead of using one or two letters in the firstpart to indicate town - London is split into different regions - e.g. NW for NorthWest, E for East, SW for SouthWest etc. Hence NW9 is the 9th region in the NorthWest of London - and the next three characters - e.g. 9PT indicates the property or small group of houses. It works very well as a system - and actually causes less ambiguity than all-digit postal codes. There is less likely cause for transposition errors with such a system which combines letters and numbers - and the format is more structural - which again makes errors much more obvious and "out of place" - deterring errors in the first place! I saw your pics of Manhattan - very nice too!
Brom-man: Thanks - glad you like it! I know you mentioned that you used to ride the 83 and 183. As you know 183 goes right through Kingsbury from Hendon - and the 83 is one I catch regularly when I'm bus-hopping down towards Ealing Broadway. I think you must be referring to the Prince of Wales on Kingsbury Circle - which if you are - is now derelict - and has been for the last year almost. See my posting at:
http://www.route79.com/journal/archives/000241.html
... to see a picture that I took of the pub in May last year. Is that the the same place you refer to I wonder?
Posted by: Jag on January 11, 2005 12:49 AM
Jag, thanks for the explanation of the UK postcode system - but can't the 'region within town' bit have two letters as well? At least I have friends in places like L24 and NR14 and I once did a work experience in AB24...
Posted by: Stefan on January 11, 2005 05:26 PM
Hi Stefan - you're absolutely right - the "region within the town" can have 1 or two digits - e.g. SE18 etc. Also - there are special cases in London where the 2 characters after the two-letter "town" bit can be a number followed by a letter - e.g. the address of Buckingham Palace is SW1A 1AA - or my office in the City used be EC2Y 9TH. A great explanation of UK postcode system format can be found at:
http://www.evoxfacilities.co.uk/evoxps.htm
Posted by: Jag on January 11, 2005 08:35 PM
Ah. Now I see the light a bit more clearly. I guess it would result in a lot less missplaced letters.
More often that not, here, given an address, the zipcode is automatically generated. So it is not a problem at all.
Posted by: sat on January 12, 2005 12:53 AM
Indeed Sat. And yes - every address can be used to automatically generate a postcode. And vice versa - every combination of house number postcode can automatically generate an address. This is how address fields are filled out quickly on computer and web-based forms - i.e. just type your postcode etc. and your address appears without you having to type it in!
Also - UK post offices have for a number of years had automatic sorting machines in the sorting depot - which have a pattern recognition optics and software - and as each letter whizzes past a detection camera - the system "searches" for the postocde on the face of the envelope - and then applies pattern recognition to it in order to read it from the millions of different handwriting styles. This is where the postcode format of encoded town names and numbers comes in very useful - as it is much easier for a computer to zero-in on the required postcode in a universe of different handwriting styles if the postcode itself is made up of encoded towns and regions as combinations of letters and numbers. So - if computer sees the first three characters "NW9" - but doesn't recognise the "N" and does recognise the "W" - because of sloppy, unpredictable handwriting style - then a second pass of recognition algorithm can be applied on the "N" - knowing that there are only a few towns where there is a "W" in the second character of the "town" in the postal code. Hence - enabling the software to detect handwritten postcodes more accurately. Of course - all this has to be done in the fraction of a second that the letter moves past the camera so that it ends up in the right sort box!
The postcode/zipcode system and associated national databases makes address management and postal system much easier to automate.
Posted by: Jag on January 12, 2005 09:20 AM
Fantastic video Jag.
Knew all the streets so well. Where exactly is Asda? Was not familiar with Capitol Way.
Loved the soundtrack and, (as has been already said), Ms route 79's driving.
Always entertained by your web site.
Posted by: Tom on January 12, 2005 09:09 PM
Cheers Tom! The ASDA is in a place called Capitol Way industrial estate. Strictly speaking it's in Colindale - but it's just off Stag Lane: if you're going down Stag Lane heading towards Beverley Drive - Capitol Way is a right-hand turn about 100 metres after Princes Avenue (which is a left-turn.) The ASDA is where the arrow is pointing in the following map:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=520451&y=189762&z=1&sv=520451,189762&st=4&tl=~&bi=~&lu=N&ar=y
Thank you for your kind comment!
Posted by: Jag on January 12, 2005 09:29 PM
oh jag......hubby really enjoyed the video....so much he has viewd it several times now, each time with a running commentary of his 'past' ..theres that road, there's the roe green primary school end ....etc etc. The only thing was that the driver was going v v fast - I kept wanting to shout - oy slow down I want to see that a bit better. lol!!!
it was good though. Although, Now I am feeling very left out, with no video of slough......hint hint....lol!
with scanner operational again _ i must get more photos off to you.
Posted by: krissie on January 13, 2005 12:48 PM
Jag, It does look like the pub, the "Bandwagon" was a building on the far right hand side as you look from the circle, connected to the pub.
Posted by: Brom-man on January 13, 2005 11:28 PM
Hi Krissie: ha ha - made me laugh! I can truly imagine what it must have been like watching the roads and things go by and matching those up with memories of the past. I had to "speed" up the driving in order to keep the size of the video file down to a reasonable limit. Video of Slough still to come at some point - so don't worry. Actually I have already done a couple of vids of Slough - ages ago - but they are not so good. Look forward to more pics!
Brom-man: wow - I didn't realise that the Prince of Wales pub and it's associated gig venue was so famous!
Posted by: Jag on January 14, 2005 08:29 PM
Hi Jag,
I just saw your comment on Chandra's site and came back to your site. I am saying back because I had downloaded this video sometime back, it was a bit of a slow download, and I totally forgot about leaving a comment :-) (Your Good Karma on someone else's site has brought me back! LOL)...But it was well worth the wait. An amazing video with an excellent choice of foot-tapping music. I had been to an ASDA when I came over to Swindon, UK, a funny incident happenned. I was searching to buy "The Curiously Strong" Altoids Mints, which boats of a "Made in the UK" tagline. I couldn't find it in the whole of ASDA. Thats when I realized maybe it was just a silly marketing Tagline to fool the Americans (or people from America, in my case) :-)
And your food recipes look mouth-watering. I am a vegitarian, so I might try to make your veggie items. And I will surely remember to leave my comments and pictures when I make them.
And why, may I ask, is an email required for leaving a comment? As it is, everyone gets enough canned spam and leaving it on sites would just make it more searchable for bots. Please, can you keep the email id as an optional thing?
Posted by: Anand Viswanathan on January 31, 2005 12:54 AM
Hello Anand - thank you for your comment. And thanks for the feedback re the video - glad you enjoyed it! Sorry to hear about the curiously strong altoids. For a start - the term "altoid" is pretty alien to us Brits - so I'm not surprised you couldn't find them!
Glad you find the recipes interesting - please do let me know how you get on with them - and feel free to offer any tips on variations that you might try out.
Regarding the email. Apologies for the irritation. I will check out my Movable Type config to see if I can make it optional. But be assured that it is *not* at all published on these pages - so the bots will not ever pick them up.
Posted by: Jag on February 1, 2005 10:16 PM
Wouldnt it be cool to get an email back when someone replies to your comments on a post? I couldnt find anything of that sort on the net. I visit an average of 10-20 blogs a day and keeping up with the replies for my comments is getting a bit tedious :-) I see that you have been blogging for a while now, any suggestions?
And one thing I missed out when I visited London was the Harrod's. It was closed by the time I got to it, I read so much about the sale that goes on there.
Posted by: Anand Viswanathan on February 2, 2005 04:35 AM
Well - your first point is very interesting. I don't think there are any specific solutions that would entirely solve this problem. I tend to find that the "commenter always returns to the scene of a comment" - but it might take some time.
To me - Harrod's is just a novelty "experience" that has to be done once. Once you've done it - it's not very exciting after that. And the sale is hyped up too much in my experience. Still - it one of the things that makes central London what it is I suppose.
Posted by: Jag on February 2, 2005 08:59 AM
Hi Jag,
Actually I think, people with their own sites (like you, for instance), can write up a perl script or something to do this. The real problem is for the ones that depend on free sites like blogspot (like me, for instance). Although, I agree with your view on this, I think it doesnt promote that much of an incentive to come back (if you visit a lot of blogs and write in your comments then you can certainly miss out on some of them).
While I was travelling to London, I read in one of the London Newspapers that the sale in the UK, is actually a sale in it's true sense, because by law the stores are required to keep the price on a sale item above the sale price for atleast a month before it hits the sale price. This was one of my motivation to visit the Harrod's. And, all I could get was a picture standing outside the Harrod's closed doors :-)
Posted by: Anand Viswanathan on February 3, 2005 05:15 AM
Hi Anand - agree with your point about comment-replies. I will now have to work out how to make such a script work on this site.
Re the sales - yes it is written in the law that for a sale to be called a sale - the things on sale should be lower than the prices that have been prior - where prior means for 28 continuous days. Sorry to hear that the store was closed!
Posted by: Jag on February 5, 2005 03:58 PM
Hi jag
i love your site and think you are a really talented artist. Why dont you have an exhibition- i would be there!
Posted by: rita on February 16, 2005 11:13 AM
Hello Rita - many thanks for such kind words! Actually - I did once hold a little exhibition at my workplace - along with a few other fellow artist painters and photographers. One day I might make it big - and hold an exhibition in the top galleries of New York, Paris and London. Or else I can just keep on dreaming ...
Posted by: Jag on February 17, 2005 11:58 AM
Hi,
Your pages on Slough have been very interesting and entertaining for me! I have been trying to find out a bit about the town as I went to see a flat there last weekend as I have been oh so cruelly priced out of the housing market in London. When I told my sister of my plans she told me she laughs as she always hears the theme for the Office (in her head) whenever the word Slough is mentioned! (Hmm - well, she does live in Luxembourg, so maybe it's envy - I jest!)
The main worries I have are the journey to work (at the moment it's straight down the jubilee line from Kingsbury to London Bridge) and the fact that I'll have to give up my bi-weekly salsaerobics class at Kingsbury Fitness First (handily situated across the road and the left a bit of the tube station!!). Also, you mentioned people in Slough (Sloughians - is that the word? ha ha!) staring at you - has this waned yet? Mind you, I should be used to it, as Belgians are the world champions at staring and I encounter this whenever I visit my sister by train (the Eurostar to Brussels is the first leg of the journey). I am wondering if those are strong enough reasons to let the opportunity of living in sunny Slough sail on by!
My boyfriend actually works in Slough and from the picture I've just seen of your office I reckon he works in the same place as you do! Small world, eh? Anyhoo... I am planning to meet up with the boyfriend tomorrow after work to get a feel for the place and also experience what could be my journey home.
By the way, keep up the good work!
Posted by: moonruby on February 24, 2005 03:22 PM
Hello Moonruby - glad you found the "Slough" pages here interesting and entertaining!
I know exactly where that Fitness First you mention is - right above the Aldi! Yes - I don't notice the Slough people staring any more - I think I was just looking to hard at first - but now I guess I have just become a part of the scenery there! During the working days anyway.
Your boyfriend might work in the same place as me? Wow - you should send him round to my desk sometime for a chat and a cup of tea! I never cease to be amazed at how small the world has become.
Anyway - Slough isn't that bad really. I am guessing that Paddington is a place that you're probably going to get to know a bit better if you do move to Slough. The express trains are only 15-20 mins from Paddington - although it can be somewhat expensive. I don't have the luxury of the express trains unfortunately - so travelling between Slough and Kingsbury is a bit of a trek for me. (I go via Ealing Broadway).
Anyway - thanks for your comment! Amazed that there is another "Kingsburian" with a "connection" to Slough - and perhaps even my own office in Slough! Cool.
Posted by: Jag on February 24, 2005 11:35 PM
Post a comment