Jimmy Hall

Yes, today (well yesterday, bloody slow blogging) is the mighty Thomas Jefferson’s birthday.  The third President of the United States of America is officially ̄267 years old.  Congrats to Tommy.  I could rehash interesting facts about him that I’ve read on Wikipedia but it’s easier for you to go and see yourself. 

Despite doing many wonderful things, the most recognisable of his achievements is being the prime author of the Declaration of Independnce.

It’s well worth a read, clearly one of the better documents ever written by the human hand.

“A universe simple enough to be understood is too simple to produce a mind capable of understanding it.” — Cambridge cosmologist John Barrow

Image from Flickr

“My mother … pointed out that one could not say ‘a green great dragon,’ but had to say ‘a great green dragon.’ I wondered why, and still do.” — J.R.R. Tolkien

Before reading this please note that my lovely new iPhone has arrived and works wonderfully.  Thank you Orange.  However, the road to happiness is a sometimes a troubled path.

Ok, so I applied the friends and family discount at orange (which, take note is a web-only offer) and it all seemed to go through fine and dandy.  Then a message came up, “There’s a problem with your order, please phone 08….blah blah blah.”  So I did.  They took some extra information off me, more addresses etc and then said, “That’s fine sir.  Your charge will be £45 a month and nothing for the phone.”

“Great!” said I, “That will be reduced to £36 a month after the discount right?”

“Erm, no sorry sir, we cannot apply the friends and family discount over the phone.”

“Hmm” says I, “I didn’t order it over the phone, I ordered it over the internet.”

“Yes but you are ordering on the phone now”, says Orange moron.

“Only because you told me to ring you!” says an increasingly exasperated wannabe Orange customer.

“I’m sorry sir the Friends and Family is an on-line discount only” he replies.

“…” says I.

“I pulled strings so you’d get through the credit check sir!” he says.

“….” says I.

“Sir?”

“Can I reapply on-line with my friends and family discount?” I ask meekly.

“No sir, once you’ve applied once the system will automatically redirect you every time to us.”

 *SMASH, SMASH, GNASH, GNASH*

 “Thank-you but goodbye” says I.

 “Sir?”

How did this pass me by!

A sample of the hoard.

In my very own county of Staffordshire a mammoth hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure was discovered late last year.  David Starkey tritely puts it as “Gangland bling” in a more recent article.  Astonishingly, it’s the largest ever find of gold and silver in the British Isles with some 1,800 objects excavated by the end of the dig.  There’s an excellent interactive description of the find provided by The Guardian.  To give you some idea of the value of the hoard, around three years back a piece of a hilt of an Anglo-Saxon sword was bought by the British Museum for £125,000  – this hoard contains 31 such pieces.  Even with my basic maths skills, I can work that out to be nearly £4 million.  That’s just for the bits of poxy sword, never mind the gold and silver!

Whilst reading yesterday’s paper on the tube on the way into work this morning.  I saw something that really tickled my fancy.  Before I explain, let me let you into a little secret.  Shhh.  I like singing and like doing it in the shower. 

Bearing this in mind, you might be surprised to know that I don’t own a shower radio or anything like that.  Oh how things have changed for the better.  I saw this in the Independent.

A duck shaped speaker for taking into the bath!

It’s clearly the best thing I’ve EVER seen.  So I immediately went out and bought myself one.  More useless tat for me to lug around – possibly.  Something to make me enjoy the shower more?  Definitely!

I wish I could claim that I wrote these witty rules, however, I have shamelessly lifted them from this excellent book by Caroline Taggart and J. A. Wines.

1. Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
2. Remember to never split an infinitive.
3. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
4. Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice.
5. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
6. Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
7. Eliminate unnecessary references.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, ‘I hate quotations.’
8. Who needs rhetorical questions?
9. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
10. Last but not least, avoid clichés likes the plague.

There aren’t many things that genuinely impress me. Trains, planes, mountains, the Pyramids (I imagine they’d impress me, I’ve yet to see them), bridges and rivers. Yet today I can add another to that non-exhaustive list: temporary ski-jumps.

I found this blog entry the other day and have been staring in wonder at the sheer size and audacity of these structures.  Here’s an image of one from Vancouver, built in 1958.

Empire Stadium, Vancouver, April 30th 1958.

There’s a few things that make me wonder:

• How do you get to the top?
• How far up would you feel at the top?
• How awful would it be to go down?
• Why?

Found a link to this YouTube clip on the Derren Brown Blog. It’s a video of the highest man made point in the world.   The point is at the tip of the radio mast at the top of the Burj Tower in Dubai.  Apparently, it’s more than half a mile high at 2,684 feet (818 metres) and a bit wobbly.

I found the whole thing gut-wrenchingly awful to watch, especially when he pokes the camera over the side.  However, there’s no denying it’s a wonderful piece of engineering and the whole project cost an absolute forturne ($4.1 billion).  It’s estimated to be completed in early 2010.

Diagonal Crossing at Oxford Circus

I’m sure you’re aware of the £5million two-year redevelopment of Oxford Circus / Regent Street junction.  This is renowned as the worst place to be in the whole of London.  Not a moment passes when there aren’t pedestrians standing around doing their level best to obstruct, an angry motorist beeping a horn at a wandering walker, or a militant cyclist cursing and gesticulating wildly at ambling tourists.  In short it’s a nightmare.  There are many solutions to the problem, the most obvious being making Oxford Circus station exit-only at all times.  There are loads of buses and plenty of other tube stations within five minutes walk.

The Diagonal Crossing at Shibuya Junction, Tokyo

Yet in their wisdom, Westminster council have decided to make a diagonal crossing across the junction.  There is now a 30 second free for all where pedestrians can scramble from one side to the other without being in any danger of being run-over by a car.   The redesign has also included the removal of a lot of the ’street clutter’ around the junction including many of the barriers.  The idea being that it will encourage pedestrians, cyclists and motorists to be more responsbile and to act more intelligently. 

The junction was launched with a mighty bang of a giant gong by Mayor Johnson, this was due to the design being inspired by the Shibuya junction in Tokyo.  So far it seems to be enjoying some success and popularity.  People are a little concerned about the shortness of the time and the length of distance (25 meters in 30 seconds) and last-gasp runs seem to be as popular as ever.  Amusingly, there is often confusion as to which pedestrian stream has right of way in the middle of the diagonal, there are suggestions that a system of mid-street traffic lights could clear up the confusion.

Importantly, although this is obviously a nice design solution.  It is far from groundbreaking and as has been documented by James Cousins, it is nothing new in the UK.  The leafly southern suburb of Balham (also known as the Gateway to the South) has had a diagonal pedestrian crossing for around five years.  In fact, yours truly regularly comments on it when visitors come to Balham. 

View Larger Map

Balham diagonal crossing has long been a favourite feature of the town to me, along with the giant cow outside the steak restuarant and the As Nature Intended supermarket.  I’m glad to see that Westminster town planners are finally giving Balham the recognition it deserves, or not.