Ghostly Twin Shard

Wow, amazing light this morning, the reflection of the sun off the shard is creating a sort of ethereal, ghost "twin tower"!


As the cloud moves so you are getting a constantly shifting picture... ;)

LED Street Light Halo

You may or may not remember, but the little area where I live was the first part of the UK to get these LED lights (back at the start of 2011)...by now they must be creeping out across the land (although not in Wapping, that is still bathed in a scorching orange sodium haze after sun-down)...this is the first time I have noticed that they create quite an interesting halo (compared to more traditional light sources) and it was pretty easy to capture the effect on the cameraphone too... ;)

Grand Theft Light Bulb?

Very odd...not noticed before thanks to the twin factors of increased foliage and it being light when I'm setting off in the mornings, but it appears that all the street lights that line this path here (which is the route I commonly take to get to Earlswood station) appear to have been vandalised...

It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to me at the moment of course, but come the winter months this path (if they aren't repaired) is going to be absolutely pitch black instead of punctuated by the incredibly useful occasional pool of light to aim towards as you crash through the woods...Now, the lights are fairly numerous, and also extremely tall which basically means actually going about breaking them would have taken a *considerable* amount of effort, making me wonder what the motivation was...thrill seeking is basically out, climbing up all those slippery poles (dodging attacking crows, squirrels and sharp branches) and bashing away could hardly be considered a form of recreation (unless you are incredibly daft), which only leaves two other possibilities (that spring to mind) - One - the light bulbs are sufficiently valuable to merit going to all the effort of stealing them (but then why aren't we seeing more of this sort of thing?) or -Two- (much more sinister) that someone wants it very, very dark down there at night...

Hrm... :S

Update - They aren't terribly valuable apart from the flashy LED ones (£200-odd quid), which these weren't, they were £20 sodium ones...

Office Lights update...

Well...isn't this nice?

They have multiplied (and by multiplied I mean more than tripled in number)...I'm starting to get a serious headache now...and I thought it was bad beforehand! People walk sadly and aimlessly round and around the office pleading (to anyone that will listen) for alternative places to sit and have their meetings rather than brave the neon nightmare... >;P

Still, it will be *perfect* at Christmas time... ;)

Urm...really office?

I go away for a few days and *this* happens *right* in front of my desk?

So now I don't work in Little Chef, I seem to now work in a fair ground...or maybe anti-grav Lightsaber storage...or how about 2001 Odyssey...?

I even went and asked the guys who (so far) have taken 6 hours installing the 8 lights if there was going to be a bit of frosted glass or anything put up to moderate the display, the answer - shrugs and apologies... :S

Hurray... :(

New Surrey Streetlights - Update

Time for a quick update on the new street lights, as (I guess) it's going to end up affecting everyone in the UK (eventually), in the past few days, I would estimate 80% of the lights on the estate have gone from looking like this -

- to looking like this (if you click that picture below to zoom it in, you will be able to more clearly see the little radio antenna atop the lamp used, presumably, to remotely control it) -

As well as being impressed with the speed and smoothness of installation, I'll have to admit to also being slightly bemused as to (a) why they were still blazing in the middle of the day (and b) quite why I was continuing to refer to them as "lights" when they weren't actually doing a terribly effective job of illuminating everything when it was dark-

However, as luck would have it both questions were answered when I bumped into our resident representative from Southern Housing as I was out taking these pictures - apparently during this testing phase the lights are set at about 50% of their capacity, and to run 24 hours a day so they can eliminate any (unlikely) failed installations/faulty kit, once they have run for 3-4 days like this (and passed an inspection) then they will be switched to "normal" operating mode, so (if you are interested) watch this space for a further update coming, probably, later on this week...

Surrey Street Light Improvements

We had this letter posted through the front door the other day (a little bit out of the blue) letting us know that all of Surrey's streetlights are being replaced with environmentally friendly "smart lamps"...interestingly, not only is our little part of Surrey the first part of the county to get them (the rest being rolled out gradually over the next five years), but it turns out that Surrey is the first part of Great Britain to do this...(the words "Guinea" and "Pig" can't help but plop uncomfortably into the worry-centre of my mind)...meh...

There are (admittedly) a lot of positives - All the lights will be (individually) linked to a central giant "dimmer switch" in Guildford, so rather than each light just switching itself off and on in good time for dusk (based on a mechanical timer), when sunset approaches (which obviously varies day-to-day throughout the year) Guildford control center can just issue the on/off command to the relevant area, then, at the sort of time when everyone is usually in bed (2300hrs) they dim the lights to a soothing level (saving lots of energy) until the first early risers might need to be setting off to work (about 0530hrs)...or, and I speculate here, if Police/Fire Brigade/Ambulance service suddenly need to flood an area with light (e.g. to catch an escaping criminal, or deal with an accident) this can be achieved just as easily. So all good (in theory) thus far, but lets take a look at the (predicted) socio/environmental impact-

• The new lights are spotlights, pointing directly at the floor - so much less ambient light pollution should occur
• Lights can be kept bright in areas of need (underpasses/trouble hotspots) and dimmed elsewhere
• Lower electricity bills mean a collective saving of around £12 million in tax (over the next 25 years)
• We also stop 60,000 tons of carbon flooding the atmosphere (same period), which is actually quite a mind-bogglingly large amount when you stop to think about it

Nothing to complain about there then, but there are actually just a couple of things that do worry me - The lights are *white* and are (and I quote) "much brighter" than the existing (yellow/orange) sodium lights we have all grown up with. We'll have to see how this one pans out, but actually I quite like it being dark at night (for no particular reason other than that it is supposed to be dark at night)...I guess I'm just not sure I want the whole of Surrey to resemble the inside of a football stadium...secondly (and lastly) especially as all this is *extremely* new (and Murphy's law states that there is *always* at least one bug) I'm sure there will be "issues" to iron out...how long until the system at Guildford mucks up and plunges the whole of Redhill into complete blackness at 7pm, or we are awoken at 3am by blazing lights shining through the curtains (making us think we are being abducted by aliens à la Close Encounters)...

I'll keep you posted with developments as they occur, but it looks like we'll be all converted (to the most modern street lighting system in the UK) within the next two weeks...oo-er! ;)

London 2012 - Olympic Stadium light testing

...(links later, if I get a chance)...for now (and unfortunately I only had my Android camera with me) check out, far off in the distance, the Olympic stadium site, for the first time they are testing out all the flood lights, which are amazingly bright (even here, viewed from the 20th floor of One Canada Square)! I know it doesn't look like it in the thumbnail, but if you click the picture and zoom right in you can see quite clearly...if they are still playing with them next week I'll bring in the big camera and take a proper picture... ;)