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14 May 2009
[books] Revolutionary Espresso Book Machine launches in London ‘…at Blackwell’s Charing Cross Road branch in London, the machine prints and binds books on demand in five minutes, while customers wait. Signalling the end, says Blackwell, to the frustration of being told by a bookseller that a title is out of print, or not in stock, the Espresso offers access to almost half a million books, from a facsimile of Lewis Carroll’s original manuscript for Alice in Wonderland to Mrs Beeton’s Book of Needlework.’
12 May 2009
[press] Diamond Geezer on the New Evening Standard ‘…to underline the paper’s new upbeat stance, a full page feature on inspirational pupils in the “poor borough” of Dagenham. I skimmed over it to be honest, because good news rarely sells, but it was encouraging to observe the paper looking optimistically eastward for once.Not so hot on pages 6 and 7, however. A full page advert for Fendi handbags opposite articles on Mayfair dining, Harvey Nicks and tax-whingeing financiers. Don’t care, not listening.’
9 February 2009
[fun] London Bus Slogan Generator … Freedom Is Surrender To Darkseid: 
22 January 2009
[war] Rocket Strikes I Am Near … type in a London postcode and get a list of V2 rockets strikes in that area. Londonist: ‘V-2 explosions devastated Selfridges, Speakers’ Corner and Holborn. That isolated Caffe Nero near the mural on Tottenham Court Road stands on the still-undeveloped site of a blast that killed nine.’
5 January 2009
[london] Abandoned London … ‘Xmas morning is the only time that London is (almost) empty of humans – so a morning spent cycling around town taking photos.’
24 December 2008
[london] Evening Standard Headline Crisis 2008 … another years worth of the best of the headline boards from the Evening Standard – my favourite was: Police Arrest Batman … 
Click on the images for the full set
19 October 2008
[comics] Comica 2008 Schedule … ‘London’s International Comics Festival returns to the ICA and other venues, including an exhibition in the ICA Concourse Gallery, between November 14 and 26, 2008.’
18 August 2008
[london] A Hierarchy Of Tubes … an interesting personal ranking of the reliability of the various tube lines on the London Underground … ‘As every Londoner knows, all tube lines were not created equal. There’s a definite ranking of the lines you’d like to have to use, and those you’d like to avoid. So here’s my own, totally unscientific (yet, I hope, reasonable) list of lines in order of usefulness.’
23 July 2008
[london] Last year I Killed a Man … a tube driver describes a ‘one under’ on the London Underground … A smart man inquired, “Do you know there’s a person under your train?” I looked at the blood on the windscreen momentarily before assuring him that, yes, I was aware.
He paused for a heartbeat, looked at his watch and said, “So, how long before we get on the move again?”
I was to look back on this exchange with amusement and also, strangely, comfort: in the midst of the horror, normality was briefly restored by a commuter asking for alternative travel arrangements.
1 July 2008
[london] Diamond Geezer’s Capital Numbers … ‘Six tube lines interchange at King’s Cross St Pancras – more than at any other station.’
19 May 2008
[politics] Boris Watchers … a blog taking a close look at new London Mayor Boris Johnson … ‘Boris Watchers has been set up to scrutinise the new Mayoralty of Boris Johnson. The blog aims to become a Wiki-style tool for constantly scrutinising the new administration in City Hall. We sure can’t trust the Evening Standard to keep an eye on him!’ Also worth checking out: Lolboris … 
11 May 2008
[oyster] Oyster Meltdown … another video of the uses of an oystercard dissolved in Acetone … ‘I melted the Oystercard in acetone and explored different antenna layouts. (very small, as a stick, foldable, etc.)’
16 March 2008
[underground] Cooling the Tube … interesting look at the issues surrounding cooling the train carriages and stations on the London Underground … ‘When an underground train tunnel is first constructed, it’s at the native soil temperature of around 14°C. Temperature problems start to show up 20-30 years later; this timescale has been seen over and over again in different lines/metro systems throughout the world. Basically the tunnel is a closed environment with a lot of energy sources. The soil around the tunnel gradually dries out and becomes a much better insulator – they’ve measured this on the Victoria line and found that the soil is dried out for several metres’ distance from the tunnel.’
21 February 2008
[london] All in a Day’s Work — the blog of a London Cab Driver … ‘A lady I took to Camberwell last night gave me a twenty and two tens for a £22 fare and I gave her one of the tenners back. “You’re honest” she said thanking me. “It’s the only way to be” I replied.’ [via Time Out]
17 October 2007
[comics] Orbital Comics Top 10 Lists — amusing lists posted in Orbital Comics in Central London … [via Kottke] 
8 October 2007
[tags: Funny, London][ permalink][ Comments Off on The Best Named Business in the History of West London]
12 September 2007
[wikipedia] My Wikipedia Contrail: Tox … ‘Tox is a prolific and widely known graffiti tagger on the London Underground, active since 2000. His simple tags TOX 02, TOX 03, TOX 04 etc., in the style of TAKI 183, can be seen many hundreds of times across above-ground sections of the network in Central London, particularly the Metropolitan Line.’
16 July 2007
[london] An A to Z of the Evening Standard … A is for Attack, B is for Bastards, C is for Chaos, D is for Death, E is for Evil, F is for Funeral, G is for Go, H is for Horror, I is for Iraq, J is for John
Prescott, K is for Killer, L is for Legend, M is for Murder, N is for Nightmare, O is for Olympics, P is for Pictures, Q is for Quit, R is for Raid, S is for Sex, T is for Terror, U is for U.S., V is for Victim, W is for War, X is for X-Rated, Y is for Younger, Z… there seems to be no Z in the Evening Standard Alphabet!
9 April 2007
[london] Google thwarts al-Qaeda kamikaze strike on US embassy … ‘Quite what the Post Office boys down on Rathbone Place will make of Google’s fingering of their building as a decoy target is anyone’s guess…’
[tags: London, Web][ permalink][ Comments Off on Google Maps stops al-Qaeda attacks on US Embassy]
25 March 2007
[music] Elton John @ 60 — Diamond Geezer visits Elton John’s childhood home … ‘See how the current owners hide their car beneath an all-enveloping tarpaulin, in much the same way that middle-aged Elton used to cover himself with a series of unconvincing wigs. The local council, in their infinite wisdom, appear to have marked this most auspicious musical heritage site not with a blue plaque but with a bright green litter bin. And there’s also a bus stop immediately outside the front door…’
3 December 2006
[london] Monopoly Map … ‘A geographically accurate map of the elements of standard London Monopoly’ [via qwghlm.co.uk]
[tags: London][ permalink][ Comments Off on A Geographically Correct Map of Monopoly]
17 October 2006
[london] Crap Headlines — photos of headlines from North London Newspapers … ‘HUNT FOR SHOPPING CITY FLASHER’ [via Tom Morris]
[tags: London][ permalink][ Comments Off on Crap Headlines (from North London Newspapers)]
4 October 2006
[books] Steven Johnson on The Ghost Map — a ‘book trailer’ on YouTube about Steven Johnson’s new book on cholera, london, medicine and cities. [via Kottke’s Links]
26 September 2006
[headlines] Some interesting Evening Standard Headlines on Flickr: Headlines fron 1986 and Gay Bondage Classes on the NHS (from 1998) …
  (My Evening Standard Headline Project continues here.)
12 September 2006
[london] Dave Gorman is stopped and searched by the Police whilst taking a night-time picture of Battersea Power Station for his photostream on Flickr … ‘”Oh flickr!” said the WPC, stopping her form-filling for a moment. “I’ve got photos on there. Photos of my wedding from 7 weeks ago.”
“Really?” I asked. “It’s good isn’t it? Oh… and congratulations on 7 weeks ago.” “Thanks,” she said with a smile. “So… have you ever been arrested?” “Err…. no”‘
[tags: London, UK][ permalink][ Comments Off on Dave Gorman Stopped By Police Whilst Taking Night-Time Photos]
16 August 2006
[london] London Walks for your MP3 Player … ‘Forget about guide books and maps. Listen to my description as you walk through London.’ [via Londonist]
[tags: London][ permalink][ Comments Off on ‘London Walks for your MP3 Player’]
9 August 2006
[xmas] Only 138 Shopping Days to Go — Harrods opened it’s Christmas Department yesterday… ‘Christmas World was packed, with an ominous background tinkle of shoppers edging past racks of glass baubles. The fairylights were eclipsed by the barrage of camera flashes as tourists immortalised themselves in T-shirts and shorts standing in a glade of £119 slimline artificial trees. “It’s so English,” a Chinese woman said fondly, admiring a £14.95 glass Eiffel Tower tree decoration – made in China.’ (more…)
26 July 2006
[london] The Hunt for the Killer Hairballs — great article about the men who flush out the sewers of London … ‘Fat is the bane of flushers’ lives. Millions of litres, from half-eaten breakfast dishes, chip-laden frying pans or fast-food joints, are tipped into sinks each day. Eventually they find their way into the sewers. They represent the effluence of affluence. They are the graffiti that the contemporary leisurepolis scrawls on subterranean environments. Thirty years ago the Thames, unloved and abandoned, created few problems for flushers; now, the river’s banks are congested with clubs, boozy eateries and art-complex gallery cafés, all of them disgorging fat.
I wade through some of it at Victoria Embankment. It is at once crunchy and spongy, like putrid bran. Brown and white and grey: a pigeon-shit potage sprinkled with an extra top layer of mop heads and tampons. Flushers tell stories of accidentally getting a gobful of the sewer flies that feed on the fat or of metal grating giving way so that they fall into eight-feet-deep fat-quicksands; the mouthfuls of the stuff they swallow leave their guts raw and hollering for months on end.
But it’s the bouquet that makes their flesh crawl: “You smell it initially. You breathe it all day long. You pass wind and what comes out is the smell of the fat. You can go home and shower as much you like – even with washing-up liquid – but at the end of the day you’re still farting the smell of rancid fat. My wife’ll say: ‘Oh, I see you’ve been sorting fat problems out?'”‘
[tags: London, UK][ permalink][ Comments Off on The Men Who Hunt For Killer Hairballs Under London]
20 July 2006
[london] The Winner or Sinner Man’s MySpace Profile … ‘Most of my days are spent on Oxford Street with my friend the Megaphone (we are inseperable!)’ [via Diamond Geezer]
13 July 2006
[blogs] Meg on blogging and flying ants: ‘I’ve found the real point of blogging, the only real reason for keeping and maintaining a blog regularly over all these years. And you know what it is? The point of blogging is so I can keep tabs on when the flying ants come out in London every summer.’
7 July 2006
[7/7] Diamond Geezer on 7/7 … Aldgate, Edgware Road, King’s Cross St Pancras, 30. ‘…it’s just something I have to do every day. It’s just another train. It’s just another carriage.’
4 July 2006
[7/7] The Mysterious Case Of The Non-Existent Train Time — a blog investigating the messy loose-ends in the story behind the London Bombings on July 7th last year … ‘I have only one reason for starting this blog. It is to ascertain the facts behind the events in London on and since the 7th July 2005. I have made many attempts to ascertain a few simple facts (and therefore truths) about the events on that morning…’
19 May 2006
[photos] London Daily Photo … ‘A London photo every day. Some pictures will be there for their own sake, some because they are places you may like to see, all because they are part of what makes London what it is.’ [via Diamond Geezer]
10 February 2006
[tags: London, Weird][ permalink][ Comments Off on London Tube Map with Anagrammed Tube Station Names]
30 December 2005
[games] Mornington Crescent on Wikipedia — contains spoilers for the game … ‘Item #101 of the 2005 University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt was for one player on each team to “participate in an email adaptation of the classic game Mornington Crescent”, using the CTA rail system. Participants were warned, “We shall follow the standard Thurgood-Hamilton conversion algorithm, but banning semi-lateral shunts.”‘ [via Metafilter]
14 December 2005
[news] Suburb Lawyer Shoots Pirates — a North London Headline Crisis from Sashinka.
12 December 2005
[london] Evening Standard Headline Crisis 2005 — I’ve been taking pictures of the Evening Standard’s Headline Posters and posting them on Flickr for about a year now… 
Click on the images for the full set
8 December 2005
[food] The London Review of Breakfasts — a guide to the best breakfasts in London… ‘We love the hungry hours of anticipation before we decide on a venue. We love the splendid taste of expertly cooked, herb-filled sausages, the aromatic texture of crispy bacon, the burst of yellow yolk as a knife breaks the surface tension. We love piping hot beans, buttered toast and squidgy grilled tomatoes. We love to wash it all down with a reassuring cup of tea…’ [Related: eggbaconchipsandbeans]
14 November 2005
[blogs] Rachel from North London … ‘This blog was started to provide a place to continue my online diary that I started after surviving the 7/7/2005 London bombings, when I was travelling in the first carriage of the Picadilly line tube from Kings Cross to Russell Square. The bomb went off in my carriage, 7 feet behind me in carriage 1. 26 people died in that blast and dozens were maimed and wounded.’
12 August 2005
[bombings] The World on a Train — Geoff Ryman (author of 253) on the 7/7 Tube Bombings … ‘The philosopher Hannah Arendt concluded that evil lay in the refusal to think. One of the things evil cannot face contemplating is variety. It prefers monolithic simplicity. Reality outstrips simplicity through a constant flowering of unexpected lives.’ [via Londonist]
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