The Moon and the Light

I have moved from my old Sony Ericsson 850i which had a 5 mega pixel camera (which then went to Kannu, and then it got stolen from him at the school…, it was a jinxed one anyway) to an iPhone. I love my iPhone but it isn't what I would call as a great camera, sufficient for small photographs in good light, so whenever I manage to get a good picture, its good news, lol.

Here’s the first one, was running to catch the train when I noticed the moon. Very early morning photograph, so the light wasn't good at all. Can you imagine the moon being that bright that you can notice it despite it being way into sunrise time? Quite interesting :)

Technorati Tags: London

Sunset over London

One of the advantages of being so up high on the tower is that you get to see some spectacular sunrises and sunsets. Yesterday it was like that. Was extremely stressed out and tired, but despite that, the light from the windows was amazing, it just blew me away and tried to take a photograph.

It was indeed spectacular, the colour gradations and the like. Click on the image to get to a higher resolution photograph. It looks quite interesting.

Technorati Tags: London

These Window Washers are nuts

I came out of the Canary Wharf Tube station, at the usually indecent time of 6:45 AM.

For  some reason, looked up to notice what looked like a toothpick poking out on top of the building.

I tried to zoom in but was perhaps asking for too much from my dinky little phone camera. And then it became clear, its a window washer unit which has swung out from its normal resting place. Presumably one is being used to wash and clean the windows. This totally freaked me out.

Can you imagine being so high up on the air and cleaning the windows? Gives you the heeby jeebies.

There’s another one in the distance, I am sure it would be very difficult to clean these sky scrapers, but strangely enough, the windows are pretty clean, not dust streaked or anything. Mind you, given that London is generally drenched with rain most of the time and the weather outside is cloudy and grey, not much chance of watching the windows, is there?

here’s another building, I wondered how one would clean the corners, must be tough to navigate the rounded corners, no?

 

In the far building on the right, the still under construction KPMG building, one can see another window washer unit arm.

There is the main canary wharf tower. Its window washer unit was also poking out, but I suppose its hidden behind the twigs.

Here is another shot, but it got blurred, but still, if you have lots of faith, you can just about make out a blurred image of the window washer unit right at the top right of the picture.

Here’s the HSBC building. I work at one of the top floors.

And here’s the chaps actually cleaning the damn windows, 39 floors up. Scary or what? Can you see the chap just outside the window? with his left arm raised? The chaps just look so blasé about it all.

So what can you do? A half baked idea here. I quote:

This concept could only be applied to glass-faced buildings. Arrange a delivery system for copious amounts of water to be run down the glass panels of the structure on a regular basis (or more/less often, depending on the relative dustiness of the environment). This would wash grime and dust that has accumulated on the windows since the last purge. When the water reaches bottom, it would be collected in attractive water features, ready to be pumped to the top of the building when needed next.

Obvious practical jokes to be played on buildings fitted with this system would revolve around putting detergent into the water supply (thus guaranteeing a hilarious display of bubbles around the base of the skyscraper).

While there has been a film about the window cleaners, I am not sure how much fun it would be up there, with the howling wind, risk of accident and dangers inherent in this role. I suspect we will keep on needing these brave men and their squeegees to keep our windows clean.

Slideshow

Technorati Tags: London,Buildings

Meeting Diya’s Teacher for the first 2009 PTA

I completely forgot about the fact that we had to go see the teacher today. Anyway, after getting duly scolded by the girls, got dressed very quickly, looking like a hobo, unshaved, hair all over the place, dry skin, totally in another planet, went off to the school.

I was a bit nervous about her. Last time she was given a good report, but you know how it is, worried stiff and nervous. I wasn't ever this nervous with Kannu, he was pretty much top of the heap, nice chap, very proud of him. So all his PTA meetings went off with a bang, no problems. But every time I go off to Diya’s school, I am nervous. I think I am getting old. 

She is getting to be quite a whiz kid with computers, she even tells me what to do and what not. She is using an old laptop of ours, am going to get her a new one, perhaps one of the netbooks on her birthday.

This is a picture she made on a computer. This is supposed to be Humpty Dumpty. She wrote the caption below:

I went to the I.C.T. SWee (suite) and me med (made) a Humpty Dumpty pichar (picture).

Pretty good joined up writing, eh? cursive no less :)

The caption on the left says

4 flowers groaing (growing) in the compost

the caption on the right says

2 flowers and three gals (girls) mac (make) 5

This is an outline of her foot and she has made a smiley face out of it :)

She had to fill out an Injury and Sickness Form, just as a joke. Can you see how she has written for treatment? Its supposed to be medicine, but she wrote it as “Medsin”

Welcome to having a left handed child. Can you see how she writes the number 2, 3 and 7? its bloody amazing how the human brain works. Also, she writes at the bottom:

He Broc (broke) in to (two)

She had to make a rocket and she writes “Box shaiper" (shaper). Dont ask.., lol.

at crismis (Christmas) I sar (saw) sum (some) presints (presents) under my chrismis tree.

Here’s Diya and her family. I am supposed to be on the right, then mum, then Diya and Kannu on the far left.

Here’s Daddy checking out her work..The chairs are absolutely tiny… but strong, they took my weight with hardly any whining.

her hook where she hangs her bags and coats.

the current arts wall



And here’s the library, she gets a book every day and she reads it religiously. She absolutely loves reading, but her teacher complained that she does not eat her fruit or meals fast enough. Typical. But she is supposed to be a whizz in mathematics, so she is getting extra tuition to stretch her skills. Same with her ICT bits as well. And here I was thinking she will go into medicine or surgery and be a doctor. Drats, seems like I am heading for two geek cost centres at home..

Full slide show here.

Technorati Tags: Diya,School

A visit to the Butchers

It was an invite to attend a luncheon of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. But this time, the luncheon was at the Worshipful Company of Butchers. A beautiful place. Unfortunately, I had to take a call in the middle so I was shown into an office.

Here’s the back of a leather backed chair with the logo emblazoned on it.

Here’s me during the call, with the laptop open. Can you see the chair? Beautiful handiwork.

 
The luncheon was held in the Great Hall.

Can you see the table plan? pretty complicated. I was sitting half way up the middle table on the left. Then, after the call, i hot footed it back to the lunch. The food was absolutely delicious. The Angus Beef was so smooth, I think it has to be rated to be one of the best steaks I have eaten in London. But to be expected, if you dont get good beef in the Butcher’s hall, where else would you get it?

I took a sneaky picture of the main window as I was leaving. Can you see the stained glass showing the butchers on the bottom? The top window shows the various animals which are used in the trade, like sheep, lambs, cattle, etc. It was full of grandees and thus felt a bit embarrassed in clicking away…

But outside the hall, down the stairs and the hall has the most amazing dioramas. This was showing a butchers diorama, with cuts of beef, pork and lamb hanging.

I am afraid this photograph did not come out quite right, but shows some kind of a letter of patent relating to the fact that the Princess Royal became some kind of member.

Turning my head, there was another diorama with a huge cleaver on the top.

Took a close-up of the note. There are two flags, first the flag of New Zealand and then the flag of the United Kingdom, some kind of an association, I guess, established in 1809. It says:

“This chopper was used by Mr. Edward Jeffreys at  Buckinghamd Palace to cut up the first New Zealand Lamb carcasse shipped to the United Kingdom in the S.S.Dunedin and presented to Her Majesty Queen Victoria in May 1882”

Pretty neat, no? to capture all this history? I know this is not big news or a big historical event, but it actually is very big news once you think about it. This lamb trade has impacted the history, economy, and culture of New Zealand for more than 100 years. And this cleaver was there when the trade was born.

Another diorama with the tools of the trade.

Here’s the Hall.

And here’s the Smithfield Market where you would get the butcher’s with their stalls.

 

And on the way, saw this, the Kinky Barber, who gives you a beer with every haircut! :) As long as you dont worry about the type of haircut, you should be happy with the beer :).

But lets take a side trip, its the history which interested me. The history of this company goes back to 975AD. Now that’s impressive and goes deep back into the hoary mists of time. When we eat a steak or a chop, do we know that there is this level of history of professional attention paid to how to deal with meat? I did not. This company is deeply involved with the meat industry, it deals with a variety of industry issues ranging from hides to food hygiene, etc.

It is a fine art, this bit about dealing with meat. You simply cannot kill an animal and hack it about. Oh! no. You have to know the physiology of animals and there is a whole terminology around which cuts of beef comes from where?

I was taught how to carve meat by my ma, she used to hunt in her childhood with my grandfather. So dealing with poultry, goat and beef was very interesting. It was almost like surgery. Which you should not find surprising, after all, for quite a long period of time, barbers and butchers used to be the surgeons of those ages. Anyway, it was quite interesting to sit there looking around at the crests, the stained windows, and know one was sitting amongst the ghosts of butchers past for a thousand years. The next time one see’s a big juicy medium rare sirloin steak on the plate, one would know that there is quite a strong possibility that the way it was prepared had some links of some sort to the Worshipful Company of Butchers.

The full slide show here.

Technorati Tags: London,History,Buildings,Animals

A visit to the garbage dump

Recently, we had a bit of a situation with our TV and it went on the blink so had to go get a new replacement.

 
here’s the packaging which it came in.

And some more stuff lying around in the utility room.

and more stuff piled up.


so we managed to pile and shove the lot into the car.

and off we went to the garbage dump 

on the way to the dump 


Lovely play on words on this factory next to the turning to the garbage dump.

Now we can see the garbage dump in the distance

turning into the dump
 
since we had the old TV in the back, we couldn't go to the top level, but had to drive into the lower level.

you can see the piles of rubbish piled up

this is the greenery zone

another view of the dump

couple of containers

oooo, somebody already has dumped their TV in here…

there’s the old dear

taking it off to drop it off

it was not that heavy but it was a bit awkward to carry.

dropped it off

it looks a wee bit sad, no?

now back into the car and off to drop the rest of the stuff

you can see what one can recycle and what not

this time driving up to the first floor

here’s the top of the heap

different windows for different types of waste
 
general household waste

so much waste, eh?

here’s something that helps to move the stuff from the pile to the containers, I guess

more partitions to separate out the various types of garbage

there are the offices

the clothes and shoes collection box

there was quite a lot of traffic, even on a Sunday

that’s it, we are off

exiting the dump

all empty :)

And here’s the full slide show.