Nice name for a street

This is also a reminder to me to start posting up some of the pictures I've been taking in EC1 - slightly North of the City, it's the lost part of London, no-one seems to know what's really in it, and it's full of fascinating buildings, secret tunnels, and secret fascinating buildings, with tunnels.

Dartmoor

Dartmoor is completely beautiful. And unlike the nice moors of the Peak District, features wild ponies. Very tranquil, must return one day soon.

Had to be there really

Pub, or laundry and music? Maybe one first then the other. Been looking for early Ride - Photograph era, I suppose it's time to dust off the vinyls again.

Torquay #1

Some pictures of lovely Torquay - we got here on a summers' evening after a bit of a hot and dusty drive, booked into a delightful B & B, and made our way down to the seafront. What greeted us was completely brilliant. Sandy beach, rocky cliffs, palm trees, and the most garlicky pizza imaginable. Cool white buildings, staircase lanes and trees. Proper sausages in the B & B too.

Lyme Regis

Some pictures from a trip to Lyme Regis - a very lovely seaside town - best swimming is to be had when the tide is in, unless you like big rocks, a very charming and enchanting town, and also the place where I had the single nicest pastie of my entire life. And a thatched cottage by the sea. How twee is that? Well worth a visit.

Brixham

Brixham is the westernmost town on the English Rivera, a lovely fishing town with a great atmoshphere - one meal of fried whitebait is big enough for two. Also is home to a famous salt water swimming pool. The fishing boats from Brixham wind up as far afield as the Northoug Sea, although they have a nicer place to come home to than Grimsby

More from the Jurassic Coast

Fossils! All found on the beach, and some views of the Dorset Coast, all from our August Holiday. The one in two halves I split with a home made stone axe - you can see that the frost has got ina little bit so it wasn't really transportable. The ammomite was a bit of a find - too heavy to cart home being almost a foot across and set into a rock that probably weighed around a ton. Nice coast isn't it?

Norfolk Broads

A little bit of a photographic treat from the Broads. We do get around a bit. More on the West Country coming soon.

Interim panoramas from Dorset and Devon

Something to enjoy while I upload the rest of the coastal holiday pictures - a nice big lulworth and a nice big Durdle Door, and Brixham Harbour - click on the pictures to make them bigger.

Jurassic Coast

These pictures taken around Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove in Dorset which is one part of where we went on our holidays - the second picture is what a continent looks like when squeezed up against another one and the edges change shape - to get an idea of the scale of the place, if you look carefully you can see a person on the rocky beack. Durdle Door of course is the massive arch reaching into the sea. Just thinking about this holiday puts me in a good mood. And it's only about 3 hours from London. Beautiful isn't it?

Bournemouth

Bournemouth was the first stop on our giant coastal tour, a great town with seven miles of sandy beaches. Lovely town, all the things Brighton ought to be, including a comparitive total lack of crooks. We were there for a record breaking warm day which apparently was mentioned on the news because of the busy beaches, but at ground level there was still enough room. Normally we had the beach almost to ourselves, expecially on one stormy dat when the waves were as big as tube trains, and a chance to catch up on some surfing.

Saltaire

A bit fascinated by a photo of this place from one of my Mums' Architecture books from college that I remember reading when I was a kid. So with a little while left living in the Midlands decided to visit. It's sort of near Bradford. Amazing place, like a model town blown up to full size. Titus Salt was an industrialist and philanthropist, but why he built Saltaire is vague, in his own words "to do good and to give his sons employment". Looking at his other inventions and ideas he comes across (came across) as a bit of a visionary. Somewhere else to add to the list of nine hundred places which are nicer than Peckham. It's posh oop North.

Off travelling again

Off travelling again, more nice pictures and interesting things to follow soon. Spot the station. (Matt and Wayne will know this one). Clue: Non-hilly country after Austria, unique language.

Soon

Who else remembers the MBV gigs of 1991? My ears rang for a week. Heady. Trippy.

Watford to London on the Towpath

Takes about seven hours in the saddle Watford to E3 - took towpath out to Baker Street, look at TFLS 'bikes on the tube' section for where you can take a bike (basically platforms without escalators mostly), tootle to watford, through a huge park which is only populated by 340 women with prams, a bit spooky, then down the towpath. Usual deaf old towpath people - they are moved around the country in a minibus and positioned in my path, obstruction. 'havent you got a bell?' 'well I thought the thing I was ringing for the last 20 minutes was, apparently it is two miniature interconnected woks' then you're in some lovely countryside as the canal winds its way South - then you get to somewhere in Middx and smell the samosas - time to tootle through lovely Southall. It makes for a fascinating day out. No punctures, had a delicious picnic lunch, all in all about 55 miles of cycling. So not a really long distance one, but being offroad and bumpy did take from 8.30 - 5. Arriving in Little Venice was ace. First pic - three of my favorite forms of transport. Last but one - ladbrooke Grove where the Clash come from. Seemed rather nice actually. Still, not a proper punk band like The Council. 4th pic - a miniature canal sysem! last pic - a nice canal bridge over nth circular. If you can ride one and havent got one then you're not properly alive. Bikes are wonderful. Yes!

Lea valley cycling

A very nice day off cycling up the Lea Valley, the biggest hedge in the known world, went out almost to Harlow on the Lea valley track, which was ace, involving tootling through a willow forest of all things, in the middle of which sounded as though there was a cuckoo of a size I'd not want to meet on a dark night. Possibly a giant manga cuckoo of gargantuan dimensions. Met some nice interesting people on the way. Reckon Enfield is the new Laurel Canyon. last photo but two - I'm excited by these 'factory roads' where no traffic goes, and weeds start to grow up through the roads, buildings crumble, decay and nature taking over again - it's exilirating. This one also went through the middle of pylons, which has a sort of chartm to it.

olympic site

model Watford, model Mannheim, and a model Sheffield

Holidays in Suffolk

Some pics from Suffolk Holiday earlier this year, winding up at latitude Festival. The lump in the sea is the remaisn of Mr Colemans house (of Colemans Mustard) which shows how much the cliffs have receeded. Set white balance at night for 1970's Kodak Film type photo effect with a blueish tinge. ISTR Ilford was generally more yellow. View of beach from clifftop tent location was a nice bonus.

Travelling again, back in a while

This one still makes perect sense

Woke up singling this today

Who else remembers Ride?  Woke up singing Ox4, especially the bit 'I'm going home'.

Couldn't find any Ride to post up here with decent sound, so heres My Bloody Valentine instead. Psychadelic days at college - this was part of the soundtrack. (And LSD by Northside).  Nowadays it still sounds great, if a bit confusing.

Becenscott Model Village (and Grommit)

It later had 75% deep circumferential cracks, which were welded back together

This photo dates from the 1960s and it shows a boiler after it has failed a hyrdostatic pressure test. As you can see, the failure is what one might call "catastrophic". After the test, the boiler was cut in half and the half without the hole was welded to another half. The boiler was then used in the nuclear power station, Sizewell A.

jet powered Russian train

For more info click on this fine site. http://englishrussia.com/?p=1316 - apparently they had one in America too.

some russian cartoons

Song for today

The BNP, religious fundamentalists, the database state, the police state. The 'climate of fear'. This has manifested itself in recent years as curbs on free speech. Police violence at demonstrations. What we're not allowed to photograph. Nationwide phone tapping is now allowed. So apparently, is torture. Monitoring of this message is allowed. We're at a bit of a crossroads in the UK right now; Every country that lost its freedom didn't do so overnight. It happened bit by bit. But now it's happening faster. This rather fine song by the manics is about the Spanish Civil War but combined with a healthy dose of Orwell sums up what I think of the situation right now. I hear it's nice in Australia.

Focus

Well, the occasional cheeky fag was sustainable for a few months, until we started in Germany. Arses! How did that happen? Beset with occasional cravings since returning, as opposed to a wholesome need to feel a bit giddy when drunk, time to go on the gum. Never was there a song that so eloquently described what giving up smoking feels like as this.

Giant Seagull!

Coastal Road trip

Well the road trip last year, or was it the year before? Anyway, the one that took in Hastings and Brighton was so good, we went off for another one, mainly in Kent. Here are some highlights. in no particular order, a steam powered hand cranked foghorn and the shell ladies of Margate, a steam train in Folkestone docks, and the beautiful gorgeous town of Rye. What a delicious town. You could just grind it up, make it into flour, and eat it.

6, 10.15, 11.00

This is U2 at Red Rocks. I had the whole thing on tape and used to drive around Cambridge in my green ford escort with it on full volume. If you get bored with Bono (uncool to the point of cool though - and who else could sing like that at the time?) ffwd to the guitar at 2.47. This was one of the best things to happen in Cambridge. Me driving round it playing U2. This came out around the same time. It's 10.15 Saturday Night. The Cure were the other good thing about driving through Cambridge. One of the coolest songs ever. . Saving the best for last. If Ten years later I was no-where near Cambridge but the area does have a lot of airbases and I was in the Lake District with a mate who's dad was in the RAF. I played him '6 o'clock' by the lovin spoonful. What a fine song that was. Lovin spoonful takes me back to the psychadelic times on Paton Street where you'd go out on Friday night and go to bed sometime on Sunday Morning. I saw more sunrises those two years than the rest of my life. Drinking mugs of tea and making a giant aztec mural on the back wall in chalk. Every now and then we'd add a bit more.

I can't remember what these pictures are

Well of course I will when I see them, I'm just doing this with HTML so can't see the images, and can't remember where I got today. Interesting seeing what turns up then .

Urban Exploration in a forest in Northamptonshire

These scallops have blue eyes

and lots of them, usually about 80. They are relatively simple eyes, but plenty of them allow a scallop to see predators coming. Heres a scallop, yesterday. Grinning at something. Possibly in Specsavers.

Asbo sign in Westminster

Yes, you read it right, That's ALFRED HITCHCOCK.

Who remembers this one?

Freak Scene - happy times in 1988.

Me, Loughton, about 1982

Cheers to Matt for digging out some old photos - we'd get all day tickets and zoom around on the tube getting off at random and doing photography. This must have been before starting out, or returning. About 6 weeks worth of doing the paper round and you had enough cash to develop a roll of film. One letterbox had a rudimentary auto-feed on the other side of a stiff brush- barking and snarling and the papers would rattle thier way in. It was always tempting to feed it more than one paper. Loughton is a funny place. Not forest and not town, but not suburbs. Nice enough place to live for a few years and as well as a massive forest up the road it had a tube station and an ace swimming pool and a bigger library than most cities.

50k for a flat? Not bad.

Prices are dropping in the East Midlands now, and fast. And everywhere else. This means unless you live somewhere that's always been overpriced like here, London, Cambridge or central Manchester, someone will soon buy the street you live on [Hibbett, 2003] But you can tell why this one is so cheap - look, there are no doors between the rooms.

We Rock

A treat from Mr Otway - this from teh gig at Putney last week. Engineering heritage and rock memorabilia factoid: My Nan's brother lives up the road from him and bought a lawnmower engine off this man. Voon used to support him and he bought me a pint on at least one occasion. A nice bloke. Big ups to the Aylesbury Massive.

Well done Mr Otway

A fine gig last night in putney, and a great version of this song.

Mount Hua in China,

Here is the link to a fascinating webpage about this area in China http://www.ssqq.com/ARCHIVE/vinlin27d.htm Not for the faint hearted. Start by catching the cable car

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Then walk along the Plank Road

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The plank road gets higher, and narrower. Look at the nice view.

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Don't look down Hold on Now is time climb a bit. Feet go in the holes in the rock And you arrive at the monastery.

Woolwich Ferry

A short walk from King George DLR station and you can have some nice views of the river on the famous free ferry. Woolwich is a bit of a dump but it will get a DLR station soon. You can walk back under the river in a really long foot tunnel.

Some nice cows in a field in Suffolk

The great John Seymour (the father of self sufficiency in the 20th Century) once said that he'd managed to learn more philosophy from a cow than from any priest, poet or academic. I'd agree. The other nice thing about cows is how they want to be in pictures, and they line up nicely for the camera.

fine week in Center Parcs (Centre Parks)

very nice week spent in Elveden Forest. The best bit is the 'subtropical swimming paradise' with a nice big pool, waterslides, and jacuzzis, as well as an outdoor heated salty pool - but also the forest location - it's big enough to have some really good bike trips. Cars arent permitted on the site during the week, just bikes, which really makes a difference. The whole place has a bit of a 1980's Z for Zacchariah feel, especially with the occasional roar of American military jets from deep somewhere in the forest. Despite reports otherwise, we found the food to be reasonable value and very good indeed. Try the nachos in the diner. The food shop is high quality and reasonably priced. You get a nice kitchen in the chalet including pots and pans. Only thing I would change would be to lower the price for sailboat hire and give them the whole lake. Oh yes also the information needs improvement - we were told there is a sauna in with the main pool that is free - this isn't true. But it's worth the money to go to the full blown 'aqua sana' spa that's on site. For thirty something quid you get to spend a day as a Roman emperor, best steam rooms and saunas ever.

C

Tower Bridge

This nice picture taken on a walk with MJ Hibbett from Mile End via the Thames path to Bloomsbury

Two pictures of the Thames being beautiful

Taken on a bike ride to Isle of Dogs, late summer 2008.

Nice wind turbines at Burton Wold Wind Farm

This is a small set of pictures I took of the wind farm you see from the A14 going between Huntingdon and the M1. I *like* wind turbines. They are *nice*.

Loughton Brook, Epping Forest

Very nice part of the world - it's the place I think of when I want to relax. Spending last Saturday there was incredibly relaxing. Dig these beautiful views.

Weekly Zombies - Time of the Season

I really hope you lot out there in interwebland are digging these gear Zombies tracks. You'll probably *not* know that this song was covered by the mighty Chrysanthemums, the whole Zombies 'Odessy and Oracle' album in fact, with Yukio Yungs vocals and Alan Jenkins guitar solos. I got to meet Alan once, we recorded in his studio and he made strong sweet coffee in the dark, and even spent a delightful evening round his house, as I remember it being full of piles of interesting books and instruments recording equipment. One of lifes genuinely nice and fascinating people, and switched me on to playing guitar solos as often as possible. The Chrysanthemums made a great concept album called 'little flecks of foam around barking'. Before them came the Deep Freeze Mice, and after them came The Creams and the Thurston Lava Tube. Alan wrote a book called 'how to be in a pop group' - if you are in a band and can find a copy it will guarantee to save your sanity. Anyway, heres the Zombies I'll post a link to Alans website if the cordelia link starts working, it seems to be down today. I hope it's not affected by Crunchy crunchy credit crunch. , no it's just BT broadband being a bit s l o w - heres Cordelia Records web site http://cordelia.stayfree.co.uk/index.html

objects in Poplar and Docklands