Cultural Quirks and Innocence Lost

Kensington is an odd place to work. It smells of vast sums of money and has Range Rovers and their pavement equivalent, Bugaboos crawling all over the place.

‘Yummy mummies’ in giant sunglasses and bloody Ugg boots, ‘do’ organic coffee and say ‘yah’ everywhere.

Restaurants are alright and there is a rather nice sushi bar opposite Universal Music called the Hare & Tortoise (inevitably tagged the ‘hairy tortoise’). Here I saw this rather perculiar ‘brolly johnny’ machine:

It’s for putting your wet brolly in when you come in from the rain.

How polite I thought. How Japanese.

*disclaimer – sadly I’ve not yet been to Japan. But my good buddy Fosta tells me lots about it.

**apology – if this isn’t Japanese I’m sure someone will point it out.

It’s the sort of thing you see on BBC’s Dragon’s Den, a widget. A gadget. A thingmybob.

The idea of covering your brolly just so that it doesn’t get other people wet feels a million miles away from today’s “I couldn’t give a shit that I own crap headphones and it bothers everyone” culture we have here in the UK.

The lack of awareness for others is reallysrting to bother me. It might be age. Or I may be especially grumpy right now. Who knows?

Only the other week I was at a traditional village fair where a group of lads were happily skinning up spliffs and playing footy right next to a toddlers playground. To me, even with a realaxed attitude to this sort of thing, surely it’s inconsiderate? Surely this isn’t on?

As I write this now two lads on the train are going on, very openly about how much they ‘get fucked up’ and wherevthey buy their ‘gear’ from.

I’m getting old.

Clearly being a dad makes me bothered about this stuff.

I want to live in a seaside town having japes in an Enid Blyton sort of way.

Innocence lost? What are my children growing up in?

I wrote about the Singapore Courtesy Campaign the other week and I’m staring to think we need one here.

We’re getting outdone for manners on our own turf.

Black Cars en masse

Saw this from the roof of LBi in Brick Lane.

Booooring.

You spend ages waiting for one…

Yes. Dumped trolley’s, an emerging pet hate of mine.

In fact I’ve always hated it.

I’ve always wondered what goes through someone’s mind when they go shopping and come to the moment when they think:

Ah. Yes… I need to get this little lot home. I know, I’ll wag a trolley and push it through the streets like a bloody Womble and then leave it ourside in the street.

Same people who do this with mattresses no doubt.

But hey how, ermm, cool? 2 in one go.

Signs That Say Nothing: No: 2

Another sign, well sticker, seen stuck on a one way sign.

5 what? Why is it up here and not at eye level…? I’m not short but had to take this picture with my arms raised above my head.

Signs That Say Nothing: No: 1

Modern life is full of signs that say nothing. They pepper our streets and float in and out of our day.

More often than not these signs are familiar, we recognise them, but don’t know what they mean. Some are useful like this first one, some are purely shown for legislation.

This series of posts captures these known unknowns, if you can share a comment as to what they are… awesome.

This first one is super common, and I’m enlightened by my good mate Fosta as to its purpose:

From Fosta (posted on Flickr):

“it says a fire hydrant with a 150mm pipe is located 1 metre from this sign”

Judge Dredd Police Vehicles Arrive in London

I saw this Po-Lease ve-hi-cal when walking past Liverpool Street station on 2nd April 2009.

It’s some sight I can tell you, so much so that there were at least 6 or 7 other people taking photographs of them (there were 4 or 5 lining Bishopsgate).

The Police were loving the attention, and it made for good banter, but seriously you would not want to argue with this beast.

Just look at the bonnet! Nothing is getting through that!

Stupid. Metal floor studs look good but are slippery in rain

I was walking through Kensington the other day while it was raining when I ‘discovered’ these metal studs at the side of the road.

I know what they are supposed to be for, to warn those with limited sight that they are at the road edge.

Personally, I was never sold on that design to be honest, I would have thought the noise of traffic, the spatial senses etc would be far more effective than some bumps. I mean, if they are there to warn of the road, why don’t they line the pavement?

Surely this design only serves to warn if you happen to stray near the road at a crossing.

Anyway, I digress.

In Kensington High Street (or High Street Ken (why?!?)) they have opted for stainless steel street furniture, bars, bumps, bins all in stainless.

Looks nice I suppose. But it’s lethal in the wet. If a 20/20 vision 30-something can nearly upend themselves, surely said limited sight elderly person is going to come a cropper.

Pure form over function, style over substance, all sizzle no sausage.

It sets me to thinking about what else is broken like this…?

South West Trains Run Brompton Trial

In an attempt to try and provide an integrated service for it’s passengers, customers, South West Trains are currently trialling a scheme for Gold Card season ticket holders to ‘rent’ a Brompton folding bicycle for 3 months in exchange for a £100 deposit.

Available in a South West Trains colourway with South West Trains branding and Zéfal pump, this looks like a good deal.

I received a letter yesterday inviting me to join the scheme, but I already have a folding bike (A Dahon Speed Pro should you ask), so I’m not going to, but I encourage you to do so if you are a card holder. this is a progressive idea and needs to be successful as a pilot.

After lambasting South West Trains on a regular basis for failing to get me to work in a ‘friction free’ way, I applaud this scheme. It’s probably an idea that was brought to SWT by Brompton, but it’s encouraging to see.

It’s as yet unclear what the scheme will be if the pilot is a success, but I guess it’ll be provided for a small fee.

I ‘m glad that they are encouraging people to take bikes onto the trains as it always confused me why they didn’t consider cycle transport when the trains were designed in the first place.

Anyone who has travelled into London with a bike will know the ’second class citizen’ feeling you get when you take a bike onto a crowded train. People don’t like it. They fail to see that you’re doing a good thing, that you’ve spent you’re own money on trying to alleviate the congestion on our capital’s public transport.

I like to write about our cycling problem and I think that people who cycle rock.

And London os such a terrible city to cycle in.

Also read: London is definitely NOT a cycling city and Cycling in London

Mattress dumping is uncool

If you’ve ever moved house you’ll know how hard it is to move a mattress.I think they are my chief hate moving object.

They’re heavy, squashy (but not enough so that they bend round stairs) and generally a pain in the arse to lift. Two people isn’t enough. Three people is too many.

But why do they end up in the street?

Who is it that thinks it’s okay to leave a mattress in a street? It’s so not cool. So un-okay.

When do they do it, at night? If there are 2 people, which a mattress of this size warrants, doesn’t one of them think ‘hey.. this is uncool. We shouldn’t do this?’

Why is it placed here, on the corner of two roads? Do the same two people have a debate about how far away from the house they need to be? Because the object of dumping it is to avoid lots of effort right?

Does the perpetrator live within a certain distance because the thing is so damn heavy? Do they think ‘Well, if I dump too near, Neighbour X will know it was me because they’ll see the delivery from John Lewis’.

If i were to study all mattress dumpings and their origin, would I find that when people dump them, there is a trend that shows people struggle with a heavy, squashy double mattress for an average distance of 200m from the point of origin but 500m with a single.?

This baffles me.

Why is it that it’s okay to dump fridges, tvs and mattresses in the street? The occasional washing machine or oven but not dining room tables? Or baths?

Mental.

Snow point in travel websites, Twitter wins out

Britain is closed.

Today was always going to be hugely disrupted because of the ‘adverse weather’ but I tried to get into work anyway.

Prior to traveling I tried to check the necessary pages of National Rail, London Transport and SouthWest Trains only to be disappointed by Error 404 pages and Runtime Errors.

Even as early as 6 a.m. both the National Rail and SouthWest Trains websites were down. The IVR system wasn’t really working either due to ‘high demand’ and I hate IVRs that hang up on you and say ‘We’re busy, f*ck off and come back later’.

I turned to Twitter and received a flurry of decent travel, tailored and localised to my needs, giving me every piece of rumour and unfiltered conjecture I need to stay at home.

Thanks @jasonmesut for trying to get in and discovering that you can’t. You saved me some wet toes.

Rumour has it that the under 30s with no children are traveling in to work today (I’ll add the source later).