Goodyear Blimp at Canary Wharf

Wow, it's all happening today, first free cake then the Goodyear Blimp zooms past us up the Thames (going *very* fast actually)...click it to zoom in... :)

Let it snow!

Well, let it snow - IF - the trains can manage to all run on time, which of course they *can't*...it didn't work out *too* bad I suppose - roads were clear by the time we got off the estate, train five minutes late to Earlswood and only twenty minutes late into London Bridge (they weren't even using the snow as an excuse either, today it was a "broken rail at Redhill") - I got on a Dartford train that was supposed to have run at 7am (just over an hour late departing), and oh boy was the DLR busy, but despite it all I still managed to get to work before 9am...

...and this is the view out over east London that greeted me...total white out... ;)

Olympic Stadium - London 2012

Here we go, this is the view out of the window just behind my desk (with which you are perhaps already familiar) that peers out over where the Olympic Park is being constructed (up until now just appearing to be 40-odd cranes and hundreds of flashing yellow lights in the distance)...however, excitingly, if I zoom *aaaaaall* the way in, you can start to pick out some rather significant signs of construction, including the beginnings of the (rather impressive looking) main stadium -

- the black part at the back would appear to be the interior seating, and the white section at the front looks like it's going to hold whatever is going to enclose the whole thing (you can click to see bigger versions of the pictures if you like)...Anyway, I'll keep my eyes on it (and the rest of the work), and update you as they continue to build (for the next few years)!  One thing is for sure, we are going to have a great view of the opening ceremony fireworks from here!

Update - Don't miss the webcam they have peering at the work close up!

Grease the Musical, Piccadilly Theatre - review

So in a final salute to Flyingpops' birthday, Saturday saw us taking (an extremely rare) weekend trip up into town (it's hard to do the commute when you don't *have* to), starting with a bus journey (as Flyingpops wasn't sure how much cash she had on her Oyster card, the queue to top it up was about 300 people long, and buses take small change) which seemed to take about 40 minutes to cover the same distance as the 10 minute tube journey (thanks to the huge amounts of traffic) -

- we got off the bus by Foyles (just opposite Denmark Street on Charing Cross Road) and worked our way through the alleys to Frith Street where our (pre-planned) venue for lunch was located - The Gourmet Burger Kitchen -

- we got a seat quite easily (it being out of the way a little bit) but considering that - it did fill up rather quickly thereafter (which was lucky!)-

- Flyingpops went for the Butternut Squash burger, her mum (Nanjan) opted for the BBQ Burger (well done) and I really couldn't decide between the Blue Cheese and the BBQ (so I had both!) cooked medium rare -

- and to quote Samuel L Jackson "Mmmmmmm! This is a tasty burger"! After a brief pause to consider options - Flyingpops took hers to bits to reduce it's height, Nanjan used her knife and fork, and I got Blue cheese and BBQ relish all over my face...delicious! ;)

That done, we started walking towards the Theatre, first through Chinatown -

- all decked out with (festival) lanterns for the Chinese New Year celebrations (which is actually today! Happy Year of the Ox everyone!) -

- (which makes the people hugging guys in cow costumes seem a lot more sensible)
<
- we struggled through the crowds across Picadilly Circus, stopping only briefly to goggle at the new flagship Barclays store opening where Wimpy/Burger King used to be -

- where I waited outside (staring at the guys squirming with embarrasment dressed in blue Grenadier Guard uniforms)-

- while Flyingpops and Nanjan fought (successfully) to grab a few free goodie bags they were giving away (containing flyers and a pocket-sized London street atlas (quite useful)...!

And then (many pedestrian collisions later) we made it to our destination, the Piccadilly Theatre-

- we had pre-ordered tickets (just to make sure I had enough leg room - Chicago had been so bad I had to move seats!) - had a quick drink in the pub opposite (as we were there about half an hour early) watching others arrive - this lot were part of a Hen do, all dressed up as Pink Ladies (really good idea by the bridemaid there!) -

- and then in!

It was a really good show (as I said to Flyingpops, it was never going to be able to compete with the Beauty and the Beasts or Josephs of the Musical world, but) the cast was great (the winners of the related ITV talent show were playing the leads) and *Jimmy Osmond* was playing the Teen Angel (he got the loudest applause of all)! If I were to have booked it up again I probably would have sat a bit further back - a lot of the characters smoke herbal cigarettes on stage (and they honk!), when the pyrotechnics going off it was a bit like being Ross Kemp in Afganistan and the smoke machine made it a bit hard to see at times but overall it did what it said on the tin, and Flyingpops loved it (and that's all that matters)... ;)

I want to go and see Oliver (with Rowan Atkinson) next, Flyingpops is voting for Billy Elliot (which I will point-blank refuse to go to), so we'll just have to see what happens... ;)

Autumn Sunset over Canary Wharf

Well well well...cherry on top of the amazing sunset, we look to be coming full circle again - they are putting up the Canary Wharf ice rink again (as I type) outside the window...looks like that's just over a year working here then... ;)

Seety.co.uk vs Street View - Virtual London Walk

Thought I would check these guys out as they made the Metro newspaper...they are offering a virtual walk (using a Google Maps API) around some areas of London (they claim to driven about 1000km of London streets taking just over 170000 pictures as they were going along), and the result (if a little slow and clunky) is still quite impressive...it's just a shame that Google themselves are already in the process of doing exactly the same but for most of *England* for their Street map project...and if you compare the two...well...no contest really...the google interface is lightning fast, the pictures load immeditaely, scroll quickly and effortlessly and when you move they even merge into one another to create a reasonable impression of progression... ;)

But then Google's offering isn't online yet...so this is all we have at the moment if you do fancy a virtual walk around town...

Cue a slew of people finding pictures of themselves that they don't want appearing on the internet (and the odd mysterious artifacts)...

My New View...

- had a desk move over the weekend, and now, instead of Canada Square (and the O2), although I can still see that if I look to my left (albeit through a glass meeting room), my new main view is now over East London, looking towards where the new Olympic site is slowly creeping into existence...and look, the sun has even come out to let me take a nice picture... ;)

Reuters Screen Faulty

Hmmm...looks like the "red" element on the big Reuters screen outside the office has stopped working, leaving everything looking a rather poorly blue/green colour rather than the usual bright crisp display...perhaps it's in sympathy with the rather miserable skies hulking over London at the moment...where is my summer??

Bejing Olympics - Canary Wharf - Opening Ceremony

Plenty of people watching the ceremony from the Docklands! ;)
Although my iPlayer hasn't been behaving itself too well!

Update - better now ;) -

Oh and Flyingpops made it to Trafalgar Square, but the Orange MMS web service is overloaded or down, so I can't share the picture with you...sorry!

Canary Wharf - Funny london underground announcement

So just as I'm getting off the tube at Canary Wharf this morning, a cheeky chappie with a strong East-end accent comes on the tannoy system and announces to all and sundry - "Please note that London Underground do not operate the same access policy as Tesco, you've all got to have a ticket" to much amusement from my fellow commuters, and I imagine to the immense embarrasement of a would-be fare dodger... ;)

Hollywood Bowl - Canada Water in pictures

So we had a nice corporate night out the other night (all expenses) to the Hollywood Bowl in Canada Water (ooo!) -

- now, never been out to that bit of the docklands before, and my goodness is it a contrast to the hustle and bustle of Canary Wharf - almost deserted in fact...architecturally it feels almost like the periphery of Crawley, low industrial units (like the Metro newspaper printing plant), the odd large shopping centre, 3 or 4 storey apartment blocks, and vast swathes of (very clean) empty space...in the time it took us to get to the entrance to the bowling -

- we only passed about 5 other people, a fairly nice and quiet (but actually rather lonely) place, flying in the face of the tag line to "Field of Dreams", "if you build it, they will come"...Anyway, when we arrived the bowling alley was similarly echoing -

- we got a few drinks at the almost deserted bar -

- and relaxed, waiting for everyone else to turn up...and then, without any warning at - all *hell* broke loose...unbeknownst to us, this night was the grand bowlerama for the whole of Canary wharf's bankers "Champion of champions" competition, they even had their own (rather sad) bank-branded bowling outfits (like we were in the USA!), I think the Meryl Lynch ones were the best, but I'm afraid it became almost too crowded to take a picture, let alone get anywhere near the bar again - one of my colleagues spent about twenty minutes waiting (at the front) to get served, and got so frustrated he ended up just walking away (well, crushing through the pressing crowd looking rather red-faced, anyway), so we largely gave up, went and put on special bowling shoes -

- and got down to business -



- luckily the table service started up shortly afterwards, so we didn't take any chances, buying by the jug -

- had a nice bite to eat (actually very reasonable, like £3 for a passable chicken and bacon burger with fries) -


- and then I took the opportunity to wander around playing with macro -



- getting home again was a bit of a pain though, tube was alright -

- but had to wait for half an hour at a very cold London Bridge for an absolutely packed 4-coach Thameslink train (thought I had seen the back of those idiots...bah) -

- then fluked the last bus (by running like crazy from the station) and just got back to the house for about half past midnight (despite leaving at 2230hrs)!

Anyway, a jolly good night... ;)

Food recycling in Canary Wharf

Well, some new recycling facilities seem to have materialised in Canary Wharf, for old food waste, the only thing now is, where do we put *non* recycleable materials? There aren't any normal bins left! ;)

Snow no show?

Despite all the severe weather warnings (and associated news stories) yesterday, in my little corner of the country absolutely zero in the way of the cold, white stuff fell anywhere around, and although it would have made getting in and out of town a bit of a pain (as it always does), I must admit I was a little dissapointed...still, the skies definitely have that sort of "pregnant" look to them and the forecasts still at least predict "light snow" for London, so I may yet get my wish... ;)

Update - It's snowing in Oxted apparently!

Christmas gift from work...

Oh and then suddenly all is well with the world, when everyone in the department got handed a lovely box just like the above...! Second present of Christmas and very nice indeed... ;)

Feeling rather contented again now..."tube journey from hell" - DELETED ;)

Jubilee Line - Severe Delays (again)

So after a lovely weekend, doing the decorations, heading to Dorking car boot sale to buy the holly wreath for the front door -

- nipping around Tesco buying tasty goodies (including masses of naughty cheese), we even managed a bit of "Santa Claus - The Movie" on Sunday night then today, still feeling reasonably contented as we got the the station, firstly the train is delayed, only by a few minutes, when it arrives it's only four coaches (but Flyingpops and I manage to find seats next to each other), so still okay, get down into the tube at London Bridge and the Jubilee line is completely closed! No way to even get into the station...After only a moment's hesitation I decided to try and find the secret entrance that I had once accidentally come out from (much to my confusion) in Borough High Street, as it couldn't possibly be any worse...found it after only about a five minute walk and it was both open and empty, result! So got down to the platform and it didn't look *too* bad down there (thanks to all the main entrances being closed), but still had to wait and watch four tube trains go past before I finally managed to ram myself into a space slightly too small for me between other frustrated commuters...get to Canada Water and (unusually) there are even loads of people waiting here, so many cram on (to many complaints from the already crushed inhabitants) that just after we leave the station the train grinds to a complete halt, the driver comes on the PA system emploring everyone to please move away from the doors (as the trains safety system shuts the engine off if it appears that anyone is trying to force the doors open, and that includes anyone leaning against them), in the end he threatens to walk down the train to "Carriage 2" (although he offers absolutely no help in identifying which coach "Carriage 2" is, front or back?) to forcibly remove whoever is pushing against the door sensors, and by some miracle the offending person/s finally manage to understand and shift themselves...usual tube journey time is about 9 minutes, today it took 40...

Roll on the Christmas break...

Views of Canary Wharf

Brought the good camera into town the other day, took these when we went out for our office Christmas lunch...rather a step up from last year...heh...even though we only went to one of the local pubs (a 'spoon, but not a run of the mill one, obviously, considering the location), situated in the amazing (listed) "Ledger Building"...

...even the toilet was spectacular ;) -