Month: July 2008

There was a problem last weekend with the Oystercard system on the London transport network. Aparrently, around 65,000 people who attempted to use their cards during the system outage, had to have their Oystercards replaced with new ones. I’m really glad that I wasn’t one of those, ‘cos my Oystercard is one of the originals.

You can tell I’ve got one of the original cards (circa 2003) because the London Transport roundel is coloured red on my Oystercard. They’re coloured white nowadays you see …

It’s amazing how enduring to the consciousness an entirely fictional character like Sherlock Holmes can be. According to Wikipedia:

Consciousness defies definition because it is nonexistent in the Nature phenomena. It descriptions may involve thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, dreams, and an awareness of self, although not necessarily any particular one or combination of these.

So when you’re waiting for the train doors to close after you’ve just boarded the Bakerloo Line tube at Baker Street you just can’t but help wonder at how they’ve managed to ingrain Sherlock Holmes into our consciousness here forever.

It’s elementary when the dear elements of such images are themselves made up of miniature Sherlock-shaped sillhouette elements. (Apols.)

It’s been AGES since I last posted about Slough. Which for those who don’t know has been the most exciting town in the UK for quite some time now. Unfortunately I only work here, so I only really get to experience the place properly during the occasional lunch break etc. And so, on a lunch-break yesterday I took a walk into the town centre from my office on a mission to buy a cheap telephone “splitter” from the local “pound shop”. But whilst I was out I realised how bright and sunny it was. In total contrast to the few hours earlier when miserable dark clouds unleashed heavy rains on the place.

There is something very weird about this photo. It looks like a computer-generated image from a scene in computer simulator game or something similar …
I think it’s a combination of the blue sky, the tiled floor, the over-saturated colours of the Nokia N95 cameraphone, and the bloke with a mobile phone who looks dressed like an avatar floating a few centimetres above the ground – a la Second Life. Strange.