Monday 29 August 2011

Land Rover love-in


A neighbour of mine is selling his old E reg, 1967 Land Rover - Model 2A, long wheel base - and asked me to take some photos to help him sell it - here are some highlights ...















I once spoke to a Land Rover salesman who said you could see two things on the earth from the moon - The Great Wall of China and the spaces between the door and the frame of a Land Rover ...

Video tour to finish

Sunday 28 August 2011

Charity shop pottery hunting


Great installation at the Whitechapel Gallery - upstairs from the excellent Thomas Struth retrospective - Alan Kane's Home for Orphaned Dishes















You can take your own finds in and add to the collection







Sunday 21 August 2011

Defenders of the flood

Odd things afoot at the bottom of the road - the Environment Agency have decided in their wisdom to improve flood defences next to the Thames - not sure why they thought these green steel panels would look good decorated with images of local birds.












There are still two panels to be added - answers on a postcard for suggestions - my feeling is that they should be exotic , rare or made up bird names.





My suggestion - The Flat Footed Flood Defender Bird

Tuesday 16 August 2011

Lots of ghosts

Lots Road Power Station is a disused coal and later oil-fired power station on the River Thames at Lots Road in Chelsea, London in the south-west of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which supplied electricity to the London Underground system.

A power station at Lots Road was originally planned by the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway in 1897. The B&PCR was controlled by the ex Metropolitan District Railway (MDR, now the District line) from 1898, and was sold in 1901 to Charles Yerkes' Metropolitan District Electric Traction Company, which built the station to provide power to the MDR. The station allowed the District line trains to change from steam haulage to electric

The station played a part in the birth of commercial radio in the UK. When the first two radio stations, LBC and Capital radio, opened in October 1973, the site for their medium wave transmitters was not complete. As a result, a temporary 'Tee' antenna was strung up between the two chimneys (transmitting LBC on 417 m (719 kHz), and Capital Radio on 539 m (557 kHz)), until the permanent site at Saffron Green was ready in 1975. Some years later the site was used again, on 720 kHz (for a low power MW relay of BBC Radio 4's LW service) which was in use until 2001 when the radio transmitter was moved to Crystal Palace.













Pictures of the inside of the power station are at http://www.silentuk.com/writeupabove/lotsroad.html