DLR Fodder

DLR Fodder
Originally uploaded by LoopZilla

Trained by the DLR, the man knows his place!

The new extended Circle Line

The new extended Circle Line
Originally uploaded by LoopZilla

This is now a circle, with a tail!

Oil Tankers in Town

Desire
Originally uploaded by LoopZilla

A desire path is a line that shows the most popular route, usually across a patch of grass. People want to get quickly to their destinations, so they cut corners.

In a busy city street, people are in a rush, to get home, to get to the shops, to get somewhere. So they take the line of least resistance....

But they cannot stop, they cannot give way. Once set on their path, they must get through. Like an oil tanker at sea, it can take miles before they can turn.

And when the do stop, they cannot move on. They block the doors of DLR trains, since those trains always stop in exactly the same spot!

No longer a Bendy Bus

The Bendy Bus will disappear from the streets of London over the next few years. Mayor of London Boris Johnson plans to introduce bikes for hire

Would a bendy bike be better? An articulated tandem? Makes sense to me!

Wolfram Alpha, Airstrip One

Wolfram Alpha tells us that London is a twenty minute flight from the UK.

Your Mileage May Vary at http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Oysters return to London

Oysters
Originally uploaded by LoopZilla

Oysters are now back in the River Thames.
Pay as you Oystercards will be available on the river boat services in 2009.
It the time of Dickens, oysters used to be plentiful in River Thames ...

In the early nineteenth century, oysters were very cheap and were mainly eaten by the working classes
The discarded shells feature in a description of
Jacob's Island in Bermondsey in 1849.

"The water was covered with scum almost like a cobweb, and prismatic with grease. In it floated large masses of rotting weed, and against the posts of the bridges were swollen carcases of dead animals, ready to burst with the gases of putrefaction. Along its shores were heaps of indescribable filth, the phosphoretted smell from which told you of the rotting fish there, while the oyster-shells were like pieces of slate from their coating of filth and mud. In some parts the fluid was as red as blood from the colouring matter that poured into it from the reeking leather dressers’ close by."

Much has changed, much has remained the same...