I like england in the summer.
Sussex cornfields
Nervous tension
Driving through the east end and financial centre of London, on our way back from a beautiful weekend in Cambridge, was a little edgey last night. Road closures forced traffic down narrow back streets as police stood impassively at every corner, while locals and meandering sunday night revellers picked their way through the congestion. An unsaid thought evident in the expressions of drivers and pedestrians alike – “had there been another?”. Everyone is getting on with their lives, as you do, but the reality of the ever present threat in London has been brought home and people certainly seem more aware now, what ever the headlines say about it being “business as usual”.
Anyway – I’d like to take you This Way Please for a far more eloquent take on things.
Killer app
That someone is willing to pay for something that doesn’t exist in “meat space” is bizarre yet eventually understandable, as we inevitably move towards an increasingly Neuromancer style world. But when people start to value bits and bytes enough to want to kill another person, things start to get really rather intriguing.
solar death to all crap
How can I possibly have so much crap? I’m clearing out the last of the boxes that have been sat gathering dust in storage for months now and there’s a few things that the charity shops just won’t take and even the most resourceful hoarders at car boot sales won’t look at. What’s most ridiculous is the 3 large and cumbersome, yet otherwise perfectly functioning, computer monitors that I know would be valuable to someone in this world. But here – nobody wants them. And to recycle them costs £55! Perhaps I should have some fun.
Things get critical
Eek – don’t be surprised if a few things aren’t quite working as expected… There’s some changes to this site afoot.
In the meantime, did anyone get to go to the Critical Mass on Friday? To be fair, you can understand why some drivers weren’t paying attention to their driving (first photo).
Wellcome to the future
Considering where I am working right now, I haven’t seen enough of the local area during lunch breaks and so on. But when I do, I’m happy to have dragged myself away from the usual half hour of joy – slowly dribbling bits of sandwich between the keys. Walking in from a bright Spring afternoon, this place – with its perspex tables, neon lights, beeps, whirls and blips – was all a bit disorientating but then this is the future after all (and maybe that’s how I’ll feel at eighty years old). And what a future it is. I am going there more often. The Wellcome Wing at the Science Museum that is – not the future. Although you never know…
experience
As my password collecting got closer to being complete, the closer I felt to getting collared by the guy at the South Ken news stand. Rifling through the broad sheets of this cumbersome paper, I could hardly be particularly furtive. The brazen approach was working but my conscience had started to get the the better of me. Anyway, we are done! The last password is EXPERIENCE.
culture
(CULTURE) – only one more to collect.
www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com
Apparently I fit the canvassers’ ideal “swing-voter” target profile – being a middle class urbanite with liberal tendancies. I have a fair idea of which way to go but what do the computers say?
You should vote: Liberal Democrat
The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.
Take the test at Who Should You Vote For
“The vast majority who were expecting Labour as a result end up as LibDems – this isn’t due to any bias on the site, but rather an indication of the clear ownership of the left-wing agenda by the LibDems as the Labour party has moved more to the centre” – interesting…
surprise
(SURPRISE)
