As well as my title piece, I have some pictures and some links to share, and a small section about the Great Centenary Charity Auction, and some photos. I hope that you enjoy this post enough to share it.
TWITTER FOLLOWING APPROACHES 2,500
My personal twitter following currently stands at 2,496. When I set up my personal twitter account back in late October, after some six months administrating the account of the Great Centenary Charity Auction (@great_auction) I had little idea that it would prove quite so successful.
THE GREAT CENTENARY CHARITY AUCTION
The first Great Centenary Charity Auction, held on June 28th, raised in excess of £20,000. A second is planned for March 2016. It is for this reason that a series of posts are being put out on the official website, www.greatcharity.org advertising successes from the first auction to build for the second. The full series of such posts runs as follows:
2)An account of how a secular student society in Manchester had its entire website deleted shortly after receiving an ominous communication from Saudi Arabia.
Welcome to the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station“. I hope that you will enjoy this post and be encouraged to share it.
THE ULTIMATE IN TRANSPORT NODES
A SOUPCON OF HISTORY
Victoria Underground station first opened as part of the Metropolitan District Railway in 1868. The construction of this of the system was combined with the building of the Victoria Embankment, and was designed and overseen by Joseph William Bazelgette who was also responsible for the design of London’s sewer system. Peter Bazalgette, the TV producer who has a bridge programme from the 1980s to his credit and Big Brother to his debit is a great-great nephew of Joseph William.
The infighting between the Metropolitan District (now the District line) and it’s supposed senior partner the Metropolitan meant that the Inner Circle (now the Circle line), the other line to serve these platforms was not completed until 1884.
In spite of giving its name to the line in question, Victoria was not one of the original Victoria line stations, opening as part of the second of three tranches in 1969, before the final section from Victoria to Brixton opened in 1971.
A PHILATELIC DIGRESSION
One of the quirks of the Victoria line is that every station features a pattern o a picture of some sort used as a motif. The pattern used at Victoria, is based on one of the most famous items to feature a picture of Queen Victoria, the 2d blue postage stamp. I do not have a picture of the London Underground pattern based on it to hand, but this was lot 682 in James and Sons’ May auction…
THE TRANSPORT HUB
Victoria is the most used station on the entire London Underground network. In excess of 60 million passenger journeys per year start or finish at this station. Victoria is a major train station, serving a wide variety of destinations to the South and East of London, including running the Gatwick Express, which connects to London’s second busiest airport. There is at the moment a bitter rivalry between Gatwick and Heathrow over who will get a new runway. My own view? Neither – do not build the thing at all – instead encourage people away from aeroplanes.
In addition to the train services there is Victoria Coach Station, from which you can reach most parts of the country, although some of the journey times are very long.
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC FINALE
As usual for these posts I have some map pictures…
A personal account of Balham Station, with some photographs and a link to an important petition about photography.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest post in my series “London Station by Station“. I hope that you will enjoy this post and be encouraged to hare it.
BAL-HAM: GATEWAY TO THE SOUTH
This is one of the stations designed by Charles Holden and opened in 1926 when the Northern line was extended south to Morden (the southernmost point on the system, a mere 10 miles south of the centre of London – by comparison, Amersham, the most far flung station on the current network is 27 miles out, and Brill, the furthest ever outpost of any line is 51 miles out).
I can provide pictures of both surface buildings and some blurb about the station itself in the form of two photos of stuff in the book Bright Underground Spaces…
The pictures of the surface buildings.
I do not usually share extraneous links in this series of posts, but connected with the photographs above is a petition that I signed and shared earlier, and which now has over 200,000 signatures – lets keep building it!
Although there are only five stations south of Balham on the Northern line, it is also a main-line railway station, and connects southwards to a number of destinations via three distinct routes, through Streatham Common, Streatham Hill and Hackbridge.
I made extensive use of Balham at one time, when I lived at Parklands Road and worked in New Malden, and it was easier to take a longer walk than strictly necessary and get a train to Clapham Junction, where I could change to another train for New Malden than to do anything else.
Also, given the the majority of it was through commons, the walk though long was quite a pleasant one.
Welcome to the latest post in my series “London Station by Station“. This one is a little bit of a departure from the standard because it takes in three separate stations. I hope that you will enjoy it and will be inspired to share it.
TRIANGLE SIDINGS
The triangle of the title has Gloucester Road, Earls Court and High Street Kensington at its corners. The first two stations are also served at tube level by the Piccadilly line. High Street Kensington and Gloucester Road both opened in 1868 under the aegis of The Metropolitan Railway. The first station was opened at Earls Court in 1871, and replaced with the present one in 1878. Both the Piccadilly stations were part of the original section of that line that opened in 1906.
The curve of track from Gloucester Road to High Street Kensington, now used exclusively by Circle line trains, plays a role in a Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Bruce Partington Plans, because at that time there were flats overlooking the line in that area, and Holmes was able to work out that the German agent Hugo Oberstein lived in one of them, and from that how the unfortunate Arthur Cadogan West had made his involuntary entrance to the underground system.
These days the land above triangle sidings is occupied by a Sainsbury;s supermarket.
The complexity of this section is largely down to Earls Court being the chief hub of the District line. Trains leave Earls Court going East to Upminster, North to Edgware Road, Northwest to Kensington Olympia, South to Wimbledon, West to Turnham Green, whence some services go south to Richmond and others continue West to Ealing Broadway. Platforms 1 and 2 carry trains to Upminster and Edgware Road, while all the other services, which for London Underground purposes are going in the opposite direction leave from platforms 3-4.
To finish this post I have some maps pics and a couple of photos from London Underground: The Official Handbook…
A personal account of taking part in a study at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge,, accompanied by photographs, with some interesting and important links and some more photographs.
INTRODUCTION
The main body of this post is a personal account of my involvement in the study whose title I have used for the whole post, run as so often at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge. I also have a variety of links and a few photos that are not directly connected with the title piece but which I wish to share. I hope you will all enjoy this post and that you will take the opportunity of sharing it.
ATTENTION AND PERCEPTION IN AUTISM SPECTRUM CONDITIONS
THE PRELIMINARIES
i found out about this study just five days ago, and made contact with the person conducting it. A brief exchange of emails concluded with an arrangement for me to attend at 11AM today. As part of the preparation I had to answer various questions and solve various puzzles online.
GETTING THERE
An scheduled start of 11AM meant getting the 8:57 from King’s Lynn, and to make sure that I got my travel expenses reimbursed I carefully got a receipt. It was shortly after getting on to the platform that I brought the camera into action for the first time of the day…
Pictures taken through the windows of moving trains are tough to get right, but these two worked out okay…
“A goods train: the shame of it” Gordon the Big Engine in the Rev W Awdry seriesI could not get a clear shot of the whole of Ely Cathedral, but this shows the main tower and the octagonal construction designed by a 14th century Prior known only and uninformatively as Alan of Norwich.
Arriving in Cambridge I decided to take a longer route than usual to the Autism Research Centre, heading towards town as far as this church…
Turning on to the link road that connects to the town end of Trumpington Road I passed the Scott Polar Research Institute, named in honour of Robert Falcon Scott, one of the most famous runners up in history. Scott also gave his name to an itinerant cricket team some of whose deeds are chronicled in Penguins Stopped Play by Harry Thompson and Rain Men by Marcus Berkmann. Although I could not get a shot of the whole building without crossing to the wrong side of a busy road I did get these shots…
Next up was the Cambridge University Chemical Laboratory…
At the very point of turning onto Trumpington Road I passed Hobson’s Conduit…
This is the first major building on Trumpington Road itself, on the opposite side of ti to me…
A shot of the water alongside Trumpington Road…
I next passed the public entrance to Cambridge Botanic Gardens (the admission price convinced me to go no further than the gates)…
A little bit further along I passed a locked gate into the same establishment, with some red flowers growing next to it…
The last shot I got before arriving at the Autism Research Centre was of this dragon fly (or similar), which although quite large was moving exceedingly fast, hence why I got only the one usable shot…
AT THE AUTISM RESEARCH CENTRE
I arrived at the centre at about 10:40, and did not have to wait too long for Owen Parsons, who was conducting the study, to put in an appearance. After the usual preliminaries of form signing and checking the experiment itself ran in three parts…
MIND YOUR TS AND LS
For this test one had eight seconds in total to view an intermittent display of red and blue letters, most of which were Ls but one of which was a T. The task was to identify which colour the T was and click the appropriate button to record that identification. A wrong identification, or wrong button pressed, or being timed out generated a horrible beep.
IDENTIFYING DUPLICATION
For this part of the process one was required to press the space bar each time the same image was shown twice consecutvely. The images were all of full scenes, but shown at thumbnail size. Again, a misidentification or a failure to identify within the time limit generated a beep. There was then a second part to this section, involving familiarity. One was shown sequences of three images and asked to identify the set that looked more familiar. The pictures were similar in nature and size to those previously shown, but some were definitely new.
WHICH BOX WAS THAT X IN?
For this third and final part of the experiment, there were four boxes in which an X could appear. When it appeared one had to identify the box as follows: X for leftmost, Z for left-centre, N for right-centre, M for rightmost. Thus, the duration of this section of the experiment was spent with the index and middle fingers of each hand poised over the keys in question. There was then a second subsection, involving pattern identification and made more complicated by two factors:
1)Obviously enough, not knowing about this in advance I was not especially looking for a pattern in the first stage of the process.
2)The pattern was not adhered to at all times (about 15% of the time, the X appeared in a box it was not ‘supposed’ to).
All in all, I quite enjoyed performing these tests, and would say that it is a worthwhile study. If you are aged 18-45, have been diagnosed with an Autistic Spectrum Condition and can get to Cambridge, contact Owen Parsons: oep20@cam.ac.uk about taking part in the study.
GETTING BACK
There was a small delay getting back to the main building from the place where the study had been set up as Owen initially came out without his swipe card, during which I snared this shot…
On my way back to the street I took a shot of the front of the main building…
I opted for the short route back to the station,along Brooklands Avenue and past the new bus interchange to approach the train station from that angle. I got these shots in the course of that walk…
I got a couple of shots en route to the platform as well…
A worthy effort to represent all of Britain’s railways on one map.A somewhat loose definition of London & the Southeast!
On my way off the train at King’s Lynn I took the opportunity to capture this plaque on camera…
LINKS
As regular readers of this blog or those who follow me on twitter will be well aware I regularly sign and share petitions, and my first link is to a piece from Huffington Post detailing the success of one such, concerning the Henry family.
2)A particular impressive post taking on stereotyping.
AN IMPORTANT PETITION
My final link is to a petition on change.org protesting against a planned European law that will mean the end of photography as we know it – PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE!!
A FEW FINAL PICTURES
While my right to do so remains I am sharing these photos…
Stand E, on the occasion I first used it, Tuesday AMThe new electronic displays now at every stand.Vancouver and the Custom HouseI realised before using it as part of my bus fare that this 50p was of a style I had not previously seen.A close up of the detailed board at Stand E
Welcome to the latest post in my series “London Station by Station”. I hope you will enjoy this post and will be encouraged to share it.
A FOUR WAY TRIANGLE
I am treating two stations together because they are so close to one another that one can stand o the platforms of one and watch trains pulling into the other. The title refers to the number of current lines using this segment of the system and the shape it very roughly resembles. Aldgate opened in 1876 and has been open ever since. The first Aldgate East station opened in 1884 and was closed in 1938, with the current station opening the very next day.
The confluences and divergences are as follows: at Liverpool Street the triple route of Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines diverge, with the H&C going to Aldgate East and the other two to Aldgate, where the Met terminates. At Tower Hill the District and Circle part ways the Circle continuing round to Aldgate and the District going to Aldgate East where it joins the H&C.
To assist with orientation and to finish this brief post here are my usual map pics…
This post deals with the redevelopment of my local bus station, a process which began in January, and has finally reached the stage at which all bus services will once again be departing from the bus station. You could therefore say that this is a celebration of the ending of one cause of disruptions.
THE NEW BUS STATION
APPROACHES TO KING’S LYNN
King’s Lynn is a splendid town, badly let down by the ways in which people approach it. Neither the bus station nor the train station drop people in particularly good locations, and the main approach by car, via London Road is not beautiful either. However, after almost six months of work and attendant disruption to services, at least the bus station now looks presentable. I will end this section with a link to a previous post about King’s Lynn and both sides of a new promotional document for the town…
THE REDEVELOPMENT
Work started on the redevelopment on January 6th, but the big disruptions did not hit until March, when services heading south started departing from Portland Street and northbound buses made use of the only three stands still available at the bus station. In the week beginning on May 18th all was confusion (we had been warned about the following week), as northbound buses started making use of two of the new stands, which were ready for use but no one had thought to advertise this! The following week was the one week in which northbound buses did not depart from the bus station – they made use of Clough (pronounced Clow not Cluff) Lane instead.
Then it was back to the bus station for good, and eventually an announcement appeared stating that all services would resume running from the redeveloped bus station from June 29th (today). I thought to myself “I’ll believe that when I see it” but decided I would call in at the bus station just in case it did happen, and it had.
THE BUS STATION TODAY
I took various photographs to show what the bus station now looks like, including threeKing’s Lynn Transport Interchange from the car park above Sainsbury’s (the most elevation I could gain). I hope that you enjoy these photos, which will conclude the post, and that you will be inspired to share…
This departure board was the first novelty that greeted me.The new guard fences at the new bays – interleaved pictures of the Custom House and Captain vancouver)
The board at stand D (I could not get a clear shot of the one at stand E which I shall actually be using).The first of two shots of the frontage of the new Visitor’s Centre
A historical information board.A thoroughly modern map of King’s LynnA circular bench.
Stand E, whence Fakenham buses will depart.The first of three shots from such elevation as I could gain.
This post is a personal account of the day of the Great Centenary Charity Auction, before I switch focus to writing some official accounts for the website. I hope that you will enjoy this post and be encouraged to share it.
THE AUCTION
My presence was not required right from the start, so I was able to get to Fakenham Racecourse at about 10:20 by taking the first bus of the day (leaves King’s Lynn at 9:25 and walking from the town centre). The first photo opportunity came long before I was at the auction venue – just after getting up I saw this little beauty…
I had decided to dress up extra smartly, a decision I was to regret by the end of a hot day – although if the evidence of this photograph, the only one I shall be using today that I did not take is anything to go on I did succeed in looking smart…
Here was the first sign that I was approaching the venue (not that I needed reassurance – I know that particular route and venue as well as anyone)…
The venue was already fairly busy by the time I got there, but front line customer service and autistic spectrum conditions are not a good mix, so I would not have been of much assistance in that role…
Although both lots 1 and 2 fared well, the auction took a while to really take off. Lot 101, a very elaborate Crimean War helmet, well displayed at the venue and well imaged previously, sold for a colossal £1,300…
This was the image that was used for the sale.This is lot 101 as displayed at the venue with two other lots.Lot 101 in all it’s glory at the venue.A close up of the badge.
The auction ran rather more slowly than usual, so I was not able to stay right to the finish, as I had a bus to catch at 17:35. My colleague Andrew took over for the home straight (well we were at a racecourse!)
As well as James and Sons employees and volunteers and the odd Royal British Legion functionary, Fakenham Air Training Corps were present in force…
I departed just after seeing one final high note hit – lot 535, a collection of cloth patches expected to raise £10-15 actually sold for £50.
A second auction, for which we already have a considerable number of lots, is planned for March 2016, and I hope lots of you will attend or sign up to bid online.
I will finish by showing some pictures of the racecourse itself, looking resplendent in the sun…
This is the latest post in a series I have been running on this blog called “London Station by Station“. This particular post as you will see has extra special relevance, and could only go up this morning. I hope you will enjoy it and be encouraged to share it.
THE HOME OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST TENNIS TOURNAMENT
Yes folks, Wimbledon is upon us once more. As usual, full coverage will be being provided by the BBC. Southfields, the third to last stop going south on the Wimbledon branch of the District line, opened in 1889 (so after William Renshaw’s seven titles) is the local station for these championships, as this reproduction of an old poster shows…
As someone who grew up in South West London this tournament has particular meaning for me. I only got to see it at the venue once, but have always followed the tournament as closely as circumstances allow.
When I first started following the tournament in the mid 1980s a Brit in the second round was cause for banner headlines. These days things are rather different, although in the Men’s game there remains a veritable “Ginnunga Gap” between Murray and the next best Brit. Things are definitely looking up for British Women though, with Johanna Konta reaching the quarter-finals at Eastbourne last week and only going out to the eventual champion Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, and Heather Watson also playing well.
During the Eastbourne coverage, various displays showing people’s possible progress if all went to plan were shown, but I paid little attention because if I learned anything from 30 years of following tennis it is that one thing that does not happen is things going according to plan. If I was a betting person I would put money on at least one of the seeds being a goner by the end of day 1.
This stretch of line includes one of only two places where London Underground trains cross the Thames by way of a bridge (the other is on the Richmond branch of the District line).
As usual with these posts I finish with a couple of map pics…
I hope that you will enjoy this post and will be encouraged to share it.
THE CATHEDRAL CLOSE
It is unusual in the 21st century to find a Cathedral Close, but Norwich still has one, and there were many splendid things to photograph. The first of two dragons (note the title of the second post referred to above) was Biggles, the RAF dragon…
There are also two statues of famous warriors, Nelson and Wellington…
There were also many birds around…
Of course, in a place of this nature one would expect plenty of interesting old architecture, and such expectation was met…
This iron sculpture also appealed, as did this chance to include a dragon and a blackbird in the same shot…
My survey of the Cathedral Close began with one dragon and its with another, Norwich Serafina, the Norwich School Dragon…
aspiblog 