Hyde Park

I've been asked (via Mary and Julie) to load some more from Hyde Park. We'll drop it onto Christina's site, when sufficient time.

loose ends

- ease of access to the chapel and its environs
- the big hole road works
- access to the sea and boats
- previous users of hire cars
- access to tranquilisers and sedatives
- access to hair samples to check chemicals ingestion
- knowledge of medical procedures
- unidentified people carrying children
- timing, clarity and effectiveness of room checks
- Occam's razor

water

Nya, I'm sitting here looking at a big glass bottle of water which costs €4.30 to open. I'm in a hotel by the Rhine River in Dusseldorf and I can walk ten steps to the hotel bathroom, where the water in the tap is free.

The glass of water by the side of the bottle is from that tap and it tastes wonderful. Cool, smooth and probably surprisingly pure.

If I'm outdoors like on Saturday at a concert I might buy water, but for day to day consumption, the tap still provides a great choice. I admit I use a filter at home and keep the filtered water in the fridge, but the source still comes from the tap. And if I take water with me when I go cycling, I simply fill a camelback and drop it into the rucksack.

2.17 billion litres per year from bottles in the UK, costing £1.5bn. Thats a lot of landfill.

9/11

I was going to pick up a car. I arrived at the garage and they said it would be a few minutes, but I could watch the television whilst I waited. They said there'd been an accident and a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. In my mind I imagined a Cessna or something similar and idled across to the television. A few others were also watching. " plane has crashed into the Pentagon", someone commented. "OK", I thought, "the other guy said the World Trade Center - obviously a mistake". I watched for a few minutes as the enormity started to unfold. Then, like many others, I shared the world's shock at the events of that terrible afternoon.

why

Here's the thing...A couple of blogs I read fairly regularly are diamond geezer and maximum bob. They've both recently posted about how their blogs are viewed and in the case of dg there's a fairly thoughtful equation about hits, viewers, readers and those that interact.

I offer my humble chart into the discussion; Its all about activity vs words. If I'm busy, then I should have more things to write about. But then I don't always have time. So last night, tucked in the hotel, I listed a few bloggable things that I could feature over the next period. I stopped when I got to number 26.

I'm not trying to say that what I do is interesting to anyone but me, but I think it provokes an interesting quandary. Doing stuff or writing about it? There's a balance to find between the two.

Its also a challenge with ideas to 'use them up' before they go stale. As an example, the fabulous mar, a reader of rashbre central commented a few days ago about my city dweller emphasis in a number of the posts. My amused response? to take a camera out on a recent bike ride to snap a few scenes of the countryside through which I was riding. Just for fun of course. Have I posted it? Nope. And if I leave it much longer all of the trees will have gone brown and then it won't be realistic any longer.

I admire someone like dg who can develop a full blown project around a blog entry. Planning, exploring a neighbourhood, photography, meaningful commentary about what has been seen and a post of maybe 750 plus words. Similarly maximum bob who will drill into a topic to a degree worthy of a thoughtful lesson plan.

So I'm batting along at around ten minutes for a post (including a photo upload) and as a rule I sub-edit the wordage down after crashing out an initial idea. When I do a Thursday Thirteen or describe an amble across part of London or somewhere I'm visiting, then probably the time and words go up, but I must balance driving a blog with having time to read the thoughts of others and dropping an occasional comment.

ok. twenty minutes for this one (extra links to find)

activist

Body Shop creator Anita Roddick passed away today. She started a company from necessity but created something with a global conscience and a direct line to the producers of its products in underpriviledged parts of the world. Thirty years for big business to catch up with the sentiment.

An activist, a networker, an articulate entreprenuer who claimed to have learned it all from life. Actually a blogger too.

no one shall sleep (nessun dorma)

A late night again yesterday - it was 'The Last Night of the Proms' in London. This is a traditional night at the end of the series of inexpensive concerts put on throughout the summer at the Royal Albert Hall. They are rooted in classical music, though the definition becomes broader every year.

On the last night everyone attending the main concert dresses up and takes flags, streamers and similar and there is always a conclusion with stirring British music comprising sea shanties, "land of hope and glory" and "Jerusalem".

flags whilst will young sings
Tickets for the Alb are like duck's teeth, so along with several hundred thousand others, we ambled to the Park to watch it on the big television screens. Actually there's a full show also from Hyde Park and we managed to get very close to the main stage and also near to one of the big screens, so it was easy to see everything.

trexstacy
Whilst the main performance from the Royal Albert Hall comprises classical music, the Park has a mixture and this year included Lesley Garrett, Juan Diego Florez, a T-Rex tribute band and Julie and Andrea's favourite, Will Young. More of that later when I can load some mobile phone video.

Great evening, with much flag waving as well as various sporting victories for England along the way, winning the soccer against Israel, the cricket and then beating the USA at rugby. "Tramontate, stelle! All'alba vincerò!"..."Set, stars; at dawn I will win!", as Pavarotti had sung from the same spot.

you say potato, I say potato art

Thanks, storm, for bringing the London bus shelter potato art phenomenon to rashbre central's attention. Now will there be any at Black Friar's? or maybe some on the Tubers? or on the Bakedloo line?

These spudniks are all very sci-fry.

tags technorati : rashbre potato bus shelter art spudnik

another invader

This is not just any brick wall, this brick wall has another one of those space invaders half way up it.

I spotted it a few days ago during my travels around London.

You may have to look carefully to see it as well as to wonder how it got there in the first place.

tetris

This week has been a bit like one of those games of tetris - you know the one where you have to get all the blocks arranged as they come streaming towards you. In my case the blocks have just been lots of things to do.

Last Saturday I was bouncing around in the mud on a bicycle with scarcely a care in the world and then the busy-ness started. Sunday involved rescuing a forlorn car via a lovely lunch in an old church which had been converted into a restaurant. Then back into Central London, before I returned home to pack for Belgium.

A few days away in various meetings, then back for a late hotel meeting, home to sleep, then breakfast meeting, office and then tomorrow a few of us are heading to the last night of the Proms, in Hyde Park.

Sunday its Dusseldorf, Germany, by plane. Somewhere in between, I need to catch up on several weeks of paper mail and clear it into the "Action, Information, Rubbish" piles. After another spell away, I'm back in time for a jazzy evening on Friday. So blogging may be sporadic.

purr

rashbre central hasn't really featured pretty pictures of kittens very much, but I thought after the recent visits of Faz, bob-kat and Storm, that I'd better make an exception. So, for cat lovers everywhere, heres' a gratuitous link to the wondrous Purr 'n' Fur.

Thursday Thirteen (V45)

1) Thus week I have been in Brussels, Belgium and not really had any time to post blog entries or snap any photos.

2) I did go out one evening to a rather agreeable restaurant, where about ten of us enjoyed a typically Belgian supper together. We were a mixture of nationalities, with the Americans and Nordics being used to eating early and the rest of us prepared for a more leisuredly pace.

3)A bonus of the visit was being given some rather special Belgian chocolates, which have survived their trip back to England and are still unopened. Maybe this weekend...

4) I arrived back in the UK at around 19:30 in the evening and then had to go straight to another meeting in a hotel near Terminal Four. Then a phone conference call on the way home. Yes, I do have a handsfree in the car.

5) As well as the chocolates, I received another gift a few days ago; its a book on hypnotism. I shall need to practice in front of a mirrrrorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

6) Dusk this evening and I have already been hypnotised, but its by a bat that has spent a happy 30 minutes flitting around and around the garden. Quite inquisitive, once it spotted me it came up close for a look, but all the time flying at probably 40 miles per hour.

7) Strangely, I first spotted the bat a few days ago when returning on my bike. It whooshed past and I thought, "No- it can't be", but it was.

8) Also flying around this evening is a helicopter. Its quite late and an unusual sound effect at this time. Reminds me of some American cities.

9) The bat and the helicopter are not as scary as the eight Russian "bear" bombers which have been chugging around outside British airspace today. Mr Putin is testing American airspace too, whilst also selling weapons. Mr Bush probably sees it a s a competition.

10) I notice that the box of Belgian chocolates has mysteriously opened itself.

11) I don't think there'll be too many additives in the chocolates, compared with the number in some childrens' foods, which have just, today, been declared to have the potential to create hyoperactivity. "quelle surprise", as the Belgians might say (if they came from the French speaking area).

12) The French are also about to host the Rugby World Cup. I see England is to play the USA first. No problem.

13) Thatl'll do for this evening; as its already 23:30 on Thursday, I douby if I'll get any 'swaps' from this entry!

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Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday