Finally, the sun came out

Wednesday, 17th of December, was a sunny day at last. Here are a few pictures from that day. All are from the Shoreditch, Hackney, Bethnal Green area.

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope 2009 will bring good and wonderful things!

The foundry of J. Hoyle & Son, est. 1880. The foundry master (?), the elder gentleman in the picture, cheerfully announced "I'm smiling!" as he came out with the younger guy just when I was taking a picture.

Winter day in Victoria Park

Regent's Canal

Alright, here are some assorted pictures along Regent's Canal. I only walked a short way of it, from Victoria Park to about Kingsland Road, a couple of kilometers I guess. Would be good to one day walk the entire length of the canal. Well, perhaps in the spring or summer.

Graffiti, graffiti everywhere. This just on the opposite shore when going to the canal past my hotel.

View through Canal bridges, taken on monday, the 15th December. I recall this bridge is the next one from that of Cambridge Heath Road, towards Islington (going to opposite direction from the Cambridge Heath Road bridge, you reach Victoria Park after half a mile). Pardon me for using such a terribly touristy expression, but I think there's something wonderfully quaint about that shop sign, "Ron's Eel and Shell Fish". I wonder if eels and shell fish make good business, or is the sign old, and the business since expanded to other types of fish?

A small canal lock further towards Islington, on monday. Unfortunately I didn't get any good, detailed pictures of the lock.

Cloudy day on the canal, on the way to Islington. The red building on the left is a school, I think.

A lifebuoy by the canal close to the school in the above picture. No doubt a necessary implement when you have a school so close to water.

Sleepy, misty morning on Regent's Canal (Victoria Park on the left), on tuesday, 16th of December.

More pictures

Well, I had the damnest luck: I woke up yesterday morning at 8 am with some kind of a virus: fever, throwing up, diarrhoea (I bet you all just needed to hear that, eh?). I stayed in bed the whole day, drinking this medicine which rehydrates the body and restores the minerals, fearing my Christmas would be ruined. But thankfully I'm feeling much better: the fever seems to be gone, I'm able to eat, though still feeling a bit weak.

Here's the next patch of pictures.

This is from one of the side streets of Brick Lane. The street address really shows the influence of immigrants, particularly from Bangladesh, in the area. I read somewhere that the percentage of Anglo-Saxon (hm, or Anglo-Norman? whatever) population here is about 39.

Written in blood. A very dramatic message in this painting, most likely expressing personal frustration or anger or sorrow. I wonder if the angel on the pedestal and the writing were done by the same person? If I remember correctly, this was on a street close to my hotel to the right: my hotel was Hackney Road 419-437, then take the street that goes towards north past the hotel on eastern side, skip east after one block, then again back north. This bit has industries and the gas works quite close and gets you to Regent's Canal after just some more steps.

Burned (?) parking meter (?) on Brick Lane

A shop, or possibly a tailor's?, near Brick Lane

Motorcycle repair and/or sale not too far from Brick Lane

Mosaic decoration in a building wall, again not too far from Brick Lane.

I think I'll post some pictures from Regent's Canal in the next patch.

Merry, warm Christmas to everyone!

London pictures (the beginning)

Sorry about the delay with the pictures and update on the rest of my journey. Came back on thursday, then had quite a pile of pictures to sort through, some Christmas presents to get, and today 6,5 hour train journey up north to spend Christmas holidays with my parents.

I'm not quite sure about the best method of displaying the photos, as I really took a large number of them. Maybe I'll post a few at a time, that way they'll last longer. Here, to start with, is a few greyscale shots from those brick houses in East London, around about Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. By the way, in case someone didn't know, Boris (in the 3rd picture) is London's current mayor, conservative Boris Johnson. Obviously not all like him.

So, tuesday started with me walking the half a mile stretch of Regent's Canal from my hotel to Victoria Park, where I got some pretty good, somewhat melancholy winter photos, aided by a slight fog.

Next, back along the same stretch of canal, up on Cambridge Heath Road and towards Bethnal Green tube station. On the way I stopped by the Museum of Childhood, a branch of the Victoria & Albert Museum. What a marvellous place! It has toys, games, doll houses, all sorts of things which people used to amuse themselves from the 17th century onwards. I ended up staying a couple of hours, a good portion of which was spent trying to get Robbie The Robot, a 7-foot mechanical robot to work by connecting the cogwheels at its back. I failed in the mission. Eventually a little girl came to inquire what I was doing, and when I explained, noted "Oh dear". Her mother then came and tried to work the robot. I left them to it.

In the evening I and my friend did the Shoreditch walk from the London Footprints website (http://www.london-footprints.co.uk). The website has some 60 walks all around London and is a very useful resource in that it reveals many historical details about the buildings and locales along the walks you otherwise might not easily find in any guide. The website has only one, but major, shortcoming: it would be much easier to follow the walks if they had maps showing the routes, with the buildings and spots of special interest marked with numbers. We had a bit of trouble finding the starting spot of the walk but it was a most enjoyable evening.

WEDNESDAY. Sunny day! Not seen many of them this winter. The sunny weather of course affected the mood of the pictures I took. Among others, I got some rather fantastic pictures of the canal and the gasworks there. A particularly enjoyable occurrence was when I was taking pictures of the J. Hoyle & Son Foundry (est. 1880) just on the Hackney side of Regent's Canal: the current foundry master (not sure about the proper job title) happened to step out and was very pleased to end up in the picture, cheerfully announcing "I'm smiling!".

Evening: rock'n'roll! I made my way to the Indig02 venue for the Who show just before the support band started. Not the most fantastic spot: some way from the stage, a bit too close to the speakers. Nevertheless, I had good enough a view to Pete (until, that is, some tall guys got in front of me). A venue with a size that is to my taste, some 2300+ people. Excellent show. Good setlist, with some songs played more rarely (Tattoo, Sister Disco), Pete and Roger seemed in good shape and mood, joking and talking. Well worth the 45 pounds. However, I have a confession to make which might cause some fans to name me a heretic: I saw a review where the writer was enthusing about Pete's leaps and rock'n'roll strutting, finding it incredibly intense. I know those are the thing for many fans, but I must say I'd prefer Pete in a quieter context. The reason is I just can't take all that strutting seriously, and I have a feeling that Pete doesn't take it seriously either.

THURSDAY: Homeward bound. All too soon. I really like the areas of East London I spent the days in, and would have stayed longer if possible. Couldn't be helped. I hopped on the central line tube at Bethnal Green Station and travelled to West Ruislip in West London, where my friend picked me up. We drove to Runnymede, a beautiful rural place along the Thames in Surrey, to have a walk along the river as there were a few hours left before I needed to be at the airport. A truly idyllic location to live - if not for the proximity of Heathrow and the noise caused by planes taking off and landing. My friend then drove me to the airport and it was bye bye London. I hope I'll have the opportunity to spend a longer time in East London in the future.

More pictures to follow in the next installment.

Londinium!

I am currently located in London.

Originally I didn't plan to go but then found a really good offer in a travel agency: 4 nights at a new 3 star hotel in Shoreditch, East London (LARGE room, even has a bath, breakfast included) plus flights only 540 euros in total. As I have a good friend in London, and an ambition to go to East London to photograph those Victorian brown-brick buildings, the offer was perfect. Off I went and booked a little Christmas holiday for myself. As an afterthought I decided to try and find a ticket for one of The Who's three London shows, and as luck would have it, found a floor ticket for the 3rd show (on wednesday).

I arrived yesterday. My friend got me from the airport and drove me to the hotel, then we went on a little walk in the neighbourhood, Brick Lane and so on. Today's programme contained lots of walking in East London and taking pictures: first, some of the area south of the hotel, towards Brick Lane. Then back north, to Regent's Canal which is close by; walked the half a mile along the canal to Victoria Park though decided not to go 'round it after all as it's a rather depressing weather for parks: cloudy, slightly foggy, chilly. So, I turned back and walked some way along the canal westwards, towards Islington, then made my way back to the Spitafields Market and Brick Lane, then to the hotel. I had a really good time, though my enjoyment - and photography - was slightly marred by the weather. For one thing, cloudy, nearly white sky is bad for photography. Well, can't do much about winter, eh?

I must say I'm liking the area a lot. As those who know about London history should know, East London used to be a rough area. I guess some areas there still are (others would know that better than I), but Shoreditch has become a very trendy district, with artists etc moving in. However, NOT trendy in the sense of being all surface and style. It's alive and vibrant with the bustle of multicultural life, and I much prefer that to the "fancy" parts of the city. And oh yes, there's something about those brown-brick buildings.

Tomorrow will of course include lots more walking and photographing, though I haven't decided the "programme" in detail yet.

Will put up photos eventually, when I have time. Now, I think I'll draw myself a hot bath. Good hotels are almost sinfully enjoyable!

Water

A couple of pictures here I like a great deal: fairly simple in composition but beautiful. I suppose water is a kind of a classic theme in visual arts, but it's such a beautiful and fascinating element.

Birch Trees

Silver

EDIT (WEDNESDAY): Have you seen the news about those riots in Athens, Greece, that have been going on since saturday? A bit frightening, because I'm familiar with the place: I stayed there for about 8 months in 2003. I think I even recognised the cell phone and computer store they mentioned in the newspaper as being robbed by some rioters! Looking at the map the article had, I'm pretty sure it was a store I walked past many a time on my from the place I was staying in to a library fairly close to the Acropolis, or wherever in the city.

Computer geekdom

This one just to get away from the dark pictures for a bit, taken on November 28th. The wall belongs to the offices of WSOY, a large book publisher. It's a huge construction of glass walls around a steel (or whatever it is) structure. I usually don't like modern architecture that much, but this building sort of works.

The trouble with this time of year is that the opportunities for this sort of pictures are few and far between (hm, did I use this expression correctly?). It is steadfastly refusing to get cold - by this I mean below zero - so on most days it rains. Or is at least cloudy. Night photography is fun but there's such a thing as too much. Although, having said that, today I went out for an evening walk in the park nearby which is by the sea. It's a wonderful place at any time of year and day, but I think I find it the most beautiful in the evening in winter, when there's no snow. One of the reasons is the lighting there which is not bright, glaring and cold as so much city lighting tends to be but soft and warm. There's something really special in walking along the shore in the soft light and darkness, listening to the gentle waves (they were gentle tonight) and looking at the city lights across the bay.

**

So, I decided to become a real proper computer geek: I ditched Windows and got Ubuntu linux instead. It all started with getting one of those asus eee pc mini laptops, a 7 inch thing weighing about a kilo which is fantastic to carry around in libraries and travelling. It has linux installed, and I liked it a lot. I was surprised to find out that actually it's easy to use. The basic things like installing programs are quick to learn and it's easy to find help for problems you run into. My laptop with Windows XP had slowed down and I was frustrated of not being able to sort it out. So, having heard a lot about Ubuntu while sorting out the mini laptop (it has a modified Xandros, based on the same core as Ubuntu, called Debian), I today installed it on my laptop. Everything worked like a charm, I could get the external sound card, printers etc. working straight away. I'm loving it. I'm absolutely loving it. It sorted out the slowness problems. It looks great. Most of the software I need came with the OS, and it's easy to install others via a manager program which gives access to a large array of software sources. Best of all, it's all free. The basic usage is actually not that different from Windows, except that Linux does not have any useless rubbish of the sort Windows XP has, little things which nobody needs and which all together only weigh the system down.

Now this is already proper computer geek talk isn't? People who aren't computer geeks probably don't give a toss about any of it. :-)