Tag Archives: london

Four Years Gone

So it’s now four years of living in London (and a week).
I marked three years with a massive post, but this time I’ll just put up a few photos I’ve found on my old Sony k700i. I think I got it like a week before I left for London, and it was my first camera phone. Annoyingly I’ve just had to press it back into service because my N95 8GB has just had total screen failure and my N80 is still locked to Orange.

Last sunset
This was my last meal in Edinburgh, and there was a magnificent sunset, but I only had my crap camera. Still, brings back a lot of memories.

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Contained train
I took a lot of photos on the train down the following morning and the two above I’m still rather fond of.

Mind The Gap
Chiswick park cheap panorama
And then I started being a commuter. These two remind me of endless evenings spent getting the tube home. Thankfully that didn’t last.

Why do Labour keep on losing?

I think it’s quite simple, they don’t understand that in bringing devolution to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London they’ve walked towards federalism – and that means giving power back from the centre, and sorting out the union. Something Labour seem terrified by.

Why did Labour lose in Scotland last year? Simple, they didn’t back extra powers for the parliament – if they had they’d have easily dealt with the growth in SNP support. But Brown said no. And yet now they’re on the back foot and scrambling to get Calman and co. to come up with a package of changes in powers to the settlement before the end of the year.

Why did Ken lose in London this week? Simple, Brown stood up to Ken and refused to let him run the tube his way. This stalled the modernisation programme, wasted billions, caused and nearly caused a dozen strikes, massively inconveniencing Londoners. On top of this, the vote has been really poor in the outer suburbs where the Department for Transport must take the blame for failing to act quickly enough on Ken’s requirements to roll out Oyster on suburban rail and ensure that suburban rail in London came up to the standards of the tube. Poor Ken had no option and no power to sort these issues. Neither will Boris, and it will be interesting to see if anyone suggests reform to the London settlement. It certainly needs something but no-one seems to have any ideas, a good start would be somehow getting the London Assembly noticed – to the average Londoner it doesn’t exist.

In both of these cases, had the understanding been there that devolution was a process not an event then people would not have wound up voting in local oppositions to central government in the fashion they now have. Further, the strange fascination with having a mayor has led to a somewhat pointless popularity contest. Were the mayor chosen by the assembly it is plausible that Ken could have still remained in power, Boris would have needed the vote of the BNP member and one other…

What I can’t explain is why with an increased turnout the BNP still got 5% of the London vote and a seat on the assembly. I can cope with Boris being mayor, but it really sickens me to know that some of my tax will pay salary to such a politician.

Street Photography at it's most literal

Streets of Edinburgh is an interesting website replete with photos of 987 streets in Edinburgh. No more, no less, no comments, no meaning, just an A-Z and photos of the streets. It’s quite good, when browsed randomly at remembering just how much of Edinburgh is quite plain, ordinary, dour even. Though I’m sure some of that may be the black and white aesthetic.

Whilst I’m on the topic, Dave Henniker’s website features lots of great photos of Edinburgh and has been a site I’ve been looking over for maybe ten years now, certainly it was somewhat of an inspiration in my early photography.