frame

Another view from Amsterdam, keeping with the cycling theme. I like the cyclist with the picture frame, forming a little piece of kinetic art.

red nose day

Red Nose Day is a UK-wide fundraising event organised by Comic Relief every two years which culminates with a night of extraordinary comedy and moving documentary films. This is the 11th Red Nose Day; the biggest TV fundraising event in the UK calendar.

On Red Nose Day everyone in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is encouraged to cast inhibitions aside, put on a Red Nose, and do something a bit silly to raise money - celebrities included. It is an event that unites the entire nation in trying to make a big difference to thousands of poor and disadvantaged people across the UK and Africa.

Raised by Saturday morning £40,236,142.

d'vjiff vlieghen

Yesterday, after a slightly chaotic early evening shopping for replacements because of lost luggage, four of us headed for a recommended restaurant, but it was full. After wandering past a few herbally charged koffie shops and psychedelic mushroom vendors, we found an enjoyable subsitute brasserie for the evening.

And then, tonight, by complete co-incidence, Desiree had booked eight of us a table at the exact restaurant we'd not been able to visit yesterday.

So we enjoyed the "Five Flies" which is a rambling dining institution spanning five adjoining Golden Age houses.

There's real Rembrandt etchings, wooden jenever gin barrels as well as crystal and armor collections.

There was a 'surprise' menu which suited our lively group just fine and included mainly Dutch cuisine with local, fresh, and organic ingredients. A raucous and fun evening!

tags technorati : rashbre amsterdam city urban

bicycles of Amsterdam

I've been back in Amsterdam this week, although mainly locked away in meetings. I did have around one hour of down time and a chance to go for a wander nearby the hotel. So here's a selection of bicycles around the centre.

Sometimes they are neatly chained in a group, with various forms of customisation.

Sometimes theres a longer row and every one has a strong security chain to keep it in place.

And the skills of the average cyclist are high. It may look tranquil to cycle but with cars, trams, taxis and tourists, there are many hazards to negotiate on the average journey.

tags technorati : rashbre amsterdam city urban

smokin'

Once again I'm travelling; Monday from London to the West of England by car and then back to Heathrow, before flying to Leeds, which turned out to be a 25 minute hop, skip and a jump.

Tonight, I've been out with Alex into the cafe society of Leeds but back to the hotel early because on Wednesday at 04:00 I'll be heading over to Amsterdam. Lets just say my route from bed to the hotel room door has been somewhat optimised in preparation.

Not much time to post blog entries, because my time is filled with meetings.

Tourist London Part 2

I didn't have time to finish Saturday's walk in my blog post yesterday, so here's the rest of the trip. It was nearly all on foot, though I added a short bus ride and a tube ride at the end, because that's what a tourist might do! I should add that my primary purpose was some shopping, so there are sections which I didn't bother to record related to shops.

We'll start with the statutory photograph of the London Eye, but this is a collector's edition, because you can see the red blimp, which has been put there as a special reminder that next weekend is Red Nose Day in the United Kingdom. We'll all be walking around with red noses, for charity next Friday.

The area around the London Eye always is awash with tourists and there are usually mime artists and other performers to keep everyone entertained. I listened to a guy playing acoustic guitar, singing "Wonderwall". A few minutes later a couple of bottles of Corona beer appeared and started shaking hands with tourists. I think they were recruiting people to join a party bus around Parliament Square.

For those that prefer a more traditional pint, there's also the Ship and Shovell, which is a pub quite close to the Hungerford Bridge. Remarkably this pub is divided in half, with one part on each side of the alleyway.

From the alleyway by the pub, its a short walk to Trafalgar Square, which was in mid demonstration, this time related to Zimbabwe. There's a demonstration or protest around somewhere in central London most weekends.

Lord Nelson (and probably some pigeons) look across Trafalgar Square and towards the Houses of Parliament.

I also paused by the elevated top end of the Square to look at the fountains and the view along Whitehall (past Downing Street where Tony Blair lives) and towards Victoria Tower which can be seen in the distance.

At the top of the Square is the National Portrait Gallery, and at the moment there is an interesting exhibition of fashion photography taking place.

A few minutes further and its another major tourist haunt, called Leicester Square. This is the heart of Theatreland although I find the Square itself can be a little seedy. It can dress up for important film premieres, but otherwise seems to become a mid evening magnet for drunken tourists. Around the edges are cafes and restaurants which can be a little over-subscribed. There are plenty of interesting streets nearby, with all manner of strange delight, in the area known as Soho.

Also, just behind the Theatreland area is Chinatown, which interlinks with Soho and has a large selection of Chinese restarants and shops. Like many large cities with a Chinese area, the signage and shop signs are mainly in Chinese.

In the interests of tourism, I decided to take a bus from this area back towards the river. I actually wandered through Charing Cross Road and past the empty tower block called Centre Point before catching a bus, and decided it would need to be a bendy bus in the interests of modernity. The photo shows the middle part of the bus and also the Oyster Machine that is used to read Londoners' tickets without needing to remove them from the wallet or purse. RFID rules.

I took the bus to Holborn and then cut through a few alleyways to get to St Paul's Cathedral. I was making for the Millenium Bridge and the photo of St Paul's here is taken from the bridge.

The light was changing because it was approaching sunset. I quite like this one of St Paul's, from the Millenium Bridge.

Looking East from the bridge, there's a view of Tower Bridge, although there are a couple of other bridges in between which means we don't see it fully. It gives an impression though along with a view of the 17:42 from Cannon Street (OK, I made that last bit up).

It was appraoching sunset as I walked across the bridge towards the other Tate Gallery, called Tate Modern. I was hoping it would still be open when I arrived and sure enough, it was.

The Tate Modern is built in a huge ex Power Station, with a tall chimney and a large space called the turbine hall. This is used for large installation pieces, like the current exhibit which features some huge spiralling slides, which can be ridden on a piece of matting. There was quite a line for this, although some people seemed quite prepared to sit around and do other things. There are floors of interesting modern art in the Tate, which has also been imaginitively organized.

To complete the journey, I decided to walk back to a tube station, in this case by followiing the orange lamp-posts specially marked with "Southwark", the name of the station.

I'd planned to go from Southwark to Westminster and then to change to the district line to get to Sloane Square.

Unfortunately, the train line at Westminster was closed for some engineering works, so I had to abandon that idea and instead to take the escalators from the quite deep tube station back to the surface.

I emerged into what was now darkness, by the side of Big Ben and Parliament Square. All was not in vain though, I spotted those two beer bottles now on their party bus, with a group of other folk, driving around the square. In my photo, they are just passing by Brian Haw, the long term peace protestor, who sits outside Parliament reminding the politicians to think.

Time for an expresso, and then home.

flickr set of whole route

tags technorati : rashbre london city urban

Tourist London Part 1

After yesterday's post, which showed a small part of London from the air, on my flight back to Heathrow, I thought today it would be fun to combine some shopping with a walk and to snap a few well know London scenes. So prepare for a short virtual tour using some pictures I took today. I'm posting them small, but they are all in my flickr stream in a larger size. Click on any of them to take a look.

This is my actual route and I'll show a few tourist areas and landmarks along the way. We'll start by Chelsea Bridge Wharf, and head over Chelsea Bridge getting a good view of Battersea Power Station, which is now planned for redevelopment, It used to provide power and hot water to a large part of South London and its famous for appearing on the cover of a Pink Floyd album.

Then, along the the northern bank of the River Thames, called the Embankment, passing a traditional red phone box along the way.

The Embankment is one of the roads which forms the edge of the revised Congestion charge, for driving in central London. It costs £8 ($15) to turn into any of the side roads around here and every one of them has an array of number plate recognition cameras, to stop people from cheating. Of course, parking is extra. In this area its around £2.40 ($4) per hour.

Next stop along the Embankment is the Tate Britain gallery, which currently has an excellent exhibition of work by Hogarth, the political cartoonist. The museums and galleries in London are mainly free, with a suggested donation depending on how wealthy you are.

Then towards Vauxhall Bridge, which is like many of London's bridges, well decorated and well lit at night. I like Chelsea and Albert bridge, with their fairy tale lights.

Of course, the bridge itself is a great place to get a photo opportunity of London buses, just five in a row waiting for the traffic lights here. The oyster card means a bus ride is £1 or £2 if you use real money. The advantage of the oyster card is that it only allows you to spend up to a maximum within a day and it works for buses and tube transport. And in the background, you can see some of the stylish apartments which are springing up all along the South Bank.

So, across this bridge, still on foot, and a glimpse of the Palace of Westminster - which is where parliament meets. On the South Bank, there's the London Eye, which seems to be one of the most photographed London tourist sights nowadays.

So here, from the Lambeth side of the river, is that well known clock tower, within which is the bell called Big Ben. Tony Blair and the gang hang out in the common looking building to the side, next to the other place where the Lords and Ladies visit when they are 'up' in town.

Then its climb the steps to the edge of Westminster Bridge, where the relative tranquility of the Lambeth Walk is shattered by the hubbub of thousands of tourists. I'll pause here, with a final gratuitous shot of a bendy bus and a black cab. My walk today continued, but the blog can take a rest until tomorrow. Time for a grande latte.


tags technorati : rashbre london city urban

london high

Sitting near the front on the way back from Frankfurt, we had a pretty good view of London, whilst the plane was banking to get into line for the final approach. There's a good view of the London Eye and Parliament, as well as the roof of Waterloo train station.

It was already late afternoon and a clear sky, although a few minutes earlier we'd had quite a lot of bumpy turbulence.

tags technorati : rashbre london city urban

SMS-ville

I arrived at the airport and my phone blasted me with a flurry of texts and voicemails, but not until I'd walked outside to the transit area.

Fortunately, one of the messages was from Roger, who'd decided to hire a car and planned to meet me at the airport but didn't know which flight/terminal or anything.

Texts and phone calls later, he arrived in his silver Sixt and we sat-navved our way to the hotel before a mid evening supper and a few drinks.

berry

I received a new blackberry today from the phone company. I hadn't ordered it, but I'm told it was sent as a replacement because my old one would not work properly because of the change to Amercan Daylight Saving Time.

I do have quite a few appointments with people in the USA and so I suppose there will be plenty of chances for things to go wrong when, for a few weeks, the USA Eastern Time will only be four hours different from the UK.

I'm not the only one confused by this, judging by the look on Britney's face when she was using her Blackberry on the way to the hairdressers a short time ago.

Lording it

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but like many Brits, I have a peerage. My full title is Baron Rashbre of London and I even have one of those Latin mottos : "illic est fun progressus". For those not familiar with the titled ranks, a baron is a fancy word for a Lord.

Of course, a lot of this has been in the papers recently, including allegations that some people have paid money to a political party in order to get a peerage. There has even been suggestion that there have been coded emails floating around in Downing Street talking about Ps and Ks (Peerages and Knighthoods). But surely if this was the case then chief of staff Jonathan Powell and director of government relations Ruth Turner would know about it, yet there seem to be strong denials.

Now that the police are involved, I'm sure we will all hear what has happened, once those unfortunate embargoes have been lifted, which stopped even the BBC from reporting on this for a while. I suppose now the Guardian newspaper has managed to get its story printed before the judge had a chance to ban it, then we will start to get more information.

And I suppose there will be changes at Downing Street soon enough, when Mr Blair decides to hand the keys over and presumably quite a few of his staff will line up for their redundancy cheques as a replacement set of advisors are brought in by his successor.


Perhaps it was prescient of Becky, 24 who commented from within Page 3 of the Sun a full year ago, on this very matter.

Or another way to find out what has been happening may be to enquire directly to existing Lords and Ladies who have blogs, websites and email addresses.

tags technorati : rashbre Lords london peerage parliament cash for peerages blair

sniggle

There's a series of adverts on the side of buses and taxis in London at the moment that say "Walk". In green writing. Of course, they are advertising a healthy spread for your bread, but its also a good form of culture jamming, or sniggling, as the street describes it.

And to make it more fun in London, there's an excellent piece of work been done by St Martin's College of Art, which shows the walking time between places on the tube. As a Londoner, I will use overground walking shortcuts, but its amazing how many people only know the tube routes, however convoluted.