no8

Rock 'n' Rides

Hey, we're all going to the Lowlands festival in the Netherlands at the end of august! I've been getting a little sick of reading American blogs and all the people seeing bands in local dives and going to great festivals. So finally I'm really happy to be going to a festival where Beck, Bettie Serveert and Grandaddy are playing and everyone will be speaking Dutch. Rocking. And for the Riding part, the festival is right next to Six Flags Holland, so we get to ride all day as well as listen to Pop. How cool....?

Also cool is that Mates of State are playing at the Art Cafe friday night, only about 15 minutes walk from work. I've been waiting to see these guys, and wouldn't have know except that Farzana was going to be drumming for the band supporting them in Nottingham and Leeds, Origami. I know nothing about Origami, but, thinking I should, I went to their website to see that they were playing dates with Mates. So I am happy and looking forward. Finally, a decent band playing a cheap (for london) show. Thanks to Track and Field.

BTW, more people should blog. I'd like to be able to point to the blogs of the people I'm going to festival with. Kevin is one of them, and he has been known to blog on this here site, but alas, he is a boy of little sticking power although his posts are much better and funnier than mine. Paul does have a geography quiz. I don't know about Fiona or Suzanna.

No.3 of three - Road Signs

Curious 'don't stop the war' sticker on this bus lane sign. Didn't notice that before.

Is there no picture for taxi? The shape of a black cab is obvious? I wonder why.

London Black Cabbies - I salute you

I've just cycled through Birmingham, out to West Bromwich - thats a 7 mile stretch of conurbation. It is quite interesting to note the difference in tone and reaction to bicycles of drivers in different areas.

In Birmingham and West Bromwich they seem quite surprised to see you and unsure of how to deal with you. Buses here go WAY around you, giving acres of room. Cars don't give so much room, but get confused in traffic jams and traffic lights. They don't give you any room to slip by on the left and are surprised at the speed a cycle can go.

In South London, where I try not to cycle too often, cycling is a very dangerous activity. I've had conversations about this with friends and they recognise the same things as me - south London drivers get dangerously close, give no room in traffic, zoom past and steer towards you, and alsorts. Even the bus drivers down there take their huge double deckers slow close to you that the wind nearly knocks you off. I think that south London drivers see cyclists as a play thing to be fooled with. Dangerous, and that is even when compared to the Turkish lorry drivers.

In North London, where I cycle most, traffic is generally ok, but then I'm used to it. What I do notice however, is that Black Cabs are simply the Most Considerate Road User, especially to bikes. Never has a cab cut me up, they are always patient, and give plenty of room. Bless the black cab drivers - they may charge a fortune, but they are safe, courteous road users.

No.2 of three - Road Signs

Truck Weight Limit - nice detail on the lorry, but the text doesn't all line up neatly. You used to be able to drive up to 16.5 ton lorries on a normal driving license, but now you can't. What is strange is that, when I passed me test in 1990, I was entitled to drive a 16.5 ton truck. And I still am entitled today. But if I took my test today, a test that is apparantly more difficult and features a seperate theory part, I would not be entitled to drive this large vehicle.

Intro to the El Star Loser Film

Back in 1999 Paul Beaton and I went cycling, from England, via Scandinavia, to Istanbul, Turkey. We took along with us one of those small Sony mini dv video cameras (although they are smaller now, of course) which rode upfront in the handle bar bag. Each tape that we shot, we mailed back to England, thereby testing the postal system in around 14 countries across Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.

All 18 hours of tapes flew back to England successfully, and after 3 years of messing around, getting usable hardware and software and desperately trying to make time (!), we are in the process of making the film of the cycle ride.

The first section, aptly enough, is England. Three minutes of footage, travelling from Stafford to Newcastle in no particular order, has made a rough cut. Last night we wrote and recorded a preliminary voice over with Kevin. Once we have built all fifteen sections of the film with these rough voice overs, we will be re doing the voice overs for consistencies sake.

Each section of our film will be appearing, as we cut them, on the El Star Loser website and streamed in glorious Quicktime (alright, not a stream, but an upfront header). We're hopeing to have the first section up on the site shortly, along with other bits and pieces from the cycle trip including emails sent during the trip - progress reports.

And finally, El Star Loser, the name of the our production effort, is so named after the consumption of an Elstar Lose apple in East Germany, 3 days outside of Berlin. Hence the forth coming upside down apple logo. Lets hope we don't get sued.

No.1 of three - Road Signs

The Red Route - one of the more enforced of Londons traffic regulations.