no8

Bureau de Change, Holloway Road

Rolling Cycle Route

In a cycle routes book for London that I have, it describes the Barking Line, run by Silverlink Trains, as a Rolling Cycle Route.

This is a fine description, not least because this railway (the North London line and Barking line between them) gives excellent rapid access to a vast swathe of London (requires flash) from Kew in the south west through Holloway in the north, across to Woolwich and Barking in the east.

But it also makes the carrying of bicycles a real pleasure - it seems to positively encourage it. In the carriage I sat down on a bench seat, after leaning my bike against the exit doors, and wondered what these straps, hanging from the seat , were for. Then I realised that the bench seat I was sitting on would tip up, that at the two ends of this one-third section of the carriage there were bicycle wheel holders and that the straps were to secure the bikes from falling over. We quickly put our bikes out of the way of the exit doors and in these excellent facilities and had an easy and trouble free journey around to Holloway.

Compared to taking bikes on Virgin trains or the tube Met line, this was pure convenience. Its often odd to note where you find excellent cycle facilities - there seems to be no consistency, rhyme or reason!

Harrow, London (of course...)

I used to live in Harrow, which is in the north-west corner of London, around 8 years ago. I now have cause to frequently visit Harrow and on one such recent visit I noticed this sign.

Harrow, London. Or Harrow (London). Harrow obviously now feels the need to explain to all that it is, in fact, in London. I am thinking that I once thought that Harrow was quite happy to blur the boundaries, that it had some benefit from not quite being London.
I wonder why it now sees it important to explain it is a part of London so explicitly.

Weather in Vancouver

I took a bunch of photos when I went to Vancouver this year. Something like 250+. That is the problem with digital cameras - you can snap away to your hearts content, with little thought for the time you need to spend filtering through them, binning the dull ones and processing the rest. Not that it is a completely boring job, just a lengthy one. Anyhow, I have completed it and, for anybody interested, you can view 130 images of Vancouver including shots of the Holloway Tyre Service playing, me pretending to be a mountaineer and the many clouds swirling around the city of Vancouver. They have a lot of weather there...

130 photos of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Not the execution of

but indeed, Thee Execution Of...

Yes, I caught this band on Tuesday last week (1.6.04) at the Pleasure Unit on Bethnal Green Road, East London. And they were not aware of the Rilo Kiley song when they named their band.

Thee Execution Of in the video screen of the Pleasure Unit.

Thee Execution Of features Andy James previously of Age Baby, and Phoebe previously of Leizel (scroll down) and Olivia Honey and probably a bunch of other bands. These guys are friends of Kevin and play a 50's tinged fuzz box rock'n'roll. It isn't a million miles away from the Jesus and Mary Chain, and sounds pretty darn decent on cd and live.

I don't know much about what they're up to (if anyone knows, comment away below) but if they are around your way, check 'em out.