Thanks

Thanks for your comments on yesterdays photo. It is *always* great to get some feedback. Back to the usual fare today I am afraid : reflections and that damn big sky fetish.

More Christmas Lights

Christmas lights on Regent Street. And no, it wasn't me zooming the lens, the bus was moving. I'm not a total one trick pony!

Christmas Lights

Royston Vasey

Made a quick visit to Royston Vasey this evening. It was hilarious.

"My insides are all wrong ...." (please B, lets not get started!)

Long Shadows

Was walking back from doing some shopping and noticed what I thought was a park up the end of one of the side streets. Still short of a picture I thought I would go check it out, you know, so I could give you today's photos of Autumn leaves or bare tree branches. Anyway, it turned out to be a cemtery which was far more interesting. Most of the grave stones were around 100 years old. The sun was just getting low in the sky, the golden hour, and throwing some awesome shadows. So I took the photo that you see above, which I thought would look pretty damn cool. On uploading it really doesn't seem that great. I hate it when then it happens. Grrrr. It certainly isn't helped by the modern buildings in the background (if you hadn't noticed them, then unnotice them again if possible.)
Off to see the League of Gentlemen panto-style tonight. It should be great. Unfortunately it is only for loooooocal people .......

Another Tree

Courtesy of a walk in Battersea Park.

Photoshop Shmotoshop

Went for a walk down along the Thames at lunchtime today, heading in the opposite direction to usual. Really interesting mix of old wharf warehouses and new (not so interesting) developments. The light was a bit dull, so excuse my journey into the realm of Photoshop.

@ Home Sick

I am at home sick today, nothing serious - standard issue cold, but it does mean todays photo isn't from afield. It is the roofline taken out of my steamed up bathroom window. Sums up the rainy weather and early sunsets of the passed week. It is just after four oclock and the sun has already set. The good news is that the earliest sunset is nearly upon us. It occurs in the week following Dec 11th and the earliest sunset time is 3:50pm. So not far to go until the sunsets start getting later again. Strangely enough sunrise continues to get later for a while yet. It is supposedly explained here, but it could do with a few diagrams. Hmmmm. Can you tell that I've been at home all day ....

Last Traces of Autumn

Tonight I caught up with P&K which was great. Hadn't seen them for ages because, well, they moved to London about a year before I did ! It is always nice to see a familiar face over here. Todays photo is another one of those last ditch effort ones taken on the way home ....

Increased Blogwidth

For bigger (probably badder) photos ....

Rufus Wainwright

Went to see Rufus Wainwright tonight. It was awesome, though, to be honest, not as awesome as I had hoped. I did have VERY high expectations though. I think that it was probably more to do with the venue than the performance itself though. Rufus's music is something that you need to be immersed in (god, that sounds wanky) and there wasnt much of an audience vibe. IMHO. That said it was still great. There was a bizarre moment when two people came out on stage, one with a santa suit and the other with a santa hat. Turned out to be Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. WTF? They talked a bit, hung out on stage for a bit, pushed the backing vocal girls out of the road, sang for a bit with Rufus and then headed off. Quite surreal. All in all a damn fine night. Thanks Rufus (and P for getting the tickets)

Office Towers

Between the Tower and the Egg

Decided to walk back to London Bridge tube station along the south bank of the Thames, rather than play bus roulette direct to Waterloo. That said, I had forgotten how packed the tube gets, so might be back to the bus tomorrow. Anyway, I did get todays pic from the change of route, so not all bad!

'Tis The Season To Be Jolly

At least it is according to all the department store windows which kindly furnished todays pic. The photo actually turned out better than I had expected, considering it was a quick snap. You get some strange looks taking photos of department store windows ...

Hampton Court Palace

Headed down to Hampton Court Palace today, 1/2 an hour train ride from home. It is quite amazing to think that some of the doors you pass through were passed through by King Henry VIII over 450 years ago. As for the todays photo, well it is a photo of something else that belongs to the crown. Strange but true. Some other photos here.

Last Minute

One shouldn't leave the photo of the day until the last minute, otherwise they end up with photos like this. It actually could've been quite interesting with a tripod, but alas there wasn't one to hand.

Eye Spy

Quick on the heels of my bus whinge yesterday, I got to the bus stop to find a 16min delay until the next bus. Started walking up to London Bridge tube station when the RV1 bus crossed my path. I knew that it went to Waterloo so I chased it until it stopped and jumped on. Not quite as fast as the usual, but it did drop me off right near where I got todays shot. So not all bad!

Waiting For The Bus ....

There is something about the bus stop by my work. There will be no buses for 10 minutes, then 3 will arrive within 2 minutes of each other. Oh well. That's buses for ya. Got my wireless router working at home. Those pesky homechoice folk wanted 85 quid to set up a wireless network (including hardware), so I decided to buy a router myself and pocket the 35 quid change. Seems to be working fine. Sweet. I must admit, if you don't know what you're doing, 35 quid would save you dealing with all those crazy acronyms; WPA,DHCP,SSID - yikes.

Broadband Connected

Got my broadband connected this morning. Sweet. Looks like it might snow Friday or Saturday. How exciting! Anyway, off to work now.

Partner In Crime

Left my camera at home today, so I was a little limited in scope. Decided I should introduce you to my partner in crime, my little Sony DSC P100. Most of the photos last week got taken with it, mainly because it is actually pocketable! (A little too pocketable perhaps. "Take anywhere" isn't so handy when "anywhere" ends up being very drunk on Cottesloe beach. I have the repair bill to prove it. Its all good now though ...)

Barges. Thames. Bridge. Gherkin.

Here is a picture of some barges on the Thames with the Tower Bridge and Gherkin in the background. A little bog standard but not overly inspired today. It was a Monday. 'Nuff said.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Today we walked, via the Albert Bridge and Chelsea, to the Natural History Museum to meet E and check out the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. Some very impressive shots. Interestingly, a lot were taken with digital SLRs.
For some reason my shot today has some wierd dark patches in the sky. If it was my SLR then I would expect dust on the CCD, but it was with my compact so not sure what it is (apart from annoying ...). I think I have noticed it before in large areas of sky. Will have to do a few test shots.

Brrrr

Just to prove a point, frost on the roof outside the bathroom window. Right, I swear I will shut up about the cold now.

Greenwich

Today A and I caught a boat from Waterloo Pier, just by the London Eye, down to Greenwich, through which the Prime Meridian passes. The weather was stunning, if a little bracing (yes, I will stop moaning about the cold soon!). Trip down the river took about an hour. Great to see the sights of London from the Thames. Once in Greenwich we headed up to the Greenwich Observatory, site of the Prime Meridian where you can stand with one foot in the Eastern hemisphere and the other in the Western. If you can fight passed the other tourists that is. After that we headed down to check out the local markets, buying a few second hand books to stock the bookshelves in the new house. Rounded out the after noon with a pint in a local. Caught the boat back up river a bit after five. Awesome nighttime views as the boat headed back up the river. A great day. Maybe off to Brighton tomorrow, depending on how keen we are in the morning!

Counting the Street

Mysterious numbers on the footpath outside Waterloo station. I am sure it is something completely dull like tiles to replace, but hey, it looks cool.

I am taking a bit of liberty with this post and back dating it to yesterday. Bending the rules already.

Richard II

Just got back from seeing Richard II at the Old Vic theatre. A picked up the tickets on ebay this morning, so it was a bit of a last minute decision. Paid less than cost which is pretty good for a sold out show!
To be honest, I don't think I have actually been to the theatre since I left school (shame on me), so my opinion probably can't be taken too seriously, but I thought it was amazing. The acting was great. The lighting was spectacular. And the minimalist modern setting was very cool. I am just glad we read a one page crib sheet off the internet before we went to get clued up on the plot. That pesky Shakespeare can be a bit hard to follow at times. Especially after a day at work!

It is starting to get very cold in the mornings. Frost on the windscreens. Time to dig the gloves and scarf out. Was one degree walking home tonight. Brrrr.

On The Way To Work

It is quite strange, catching the overland rail to Waterloo station each morning, seeing Big Ben and the London Eye peeking between the buildings on the south bank of the Thames. Iconic structures in rather mundane settings always seem a little other worldly.

Outside

View down the street outside the new house. I think this one a day photo thing could be a little difficult ...


... we shall see.

In An Attempt To Make Things Interesting

From now on I am going to try and post a photo day, taken that day. Starting tomorrow. Hmmmm. Not a good start huh ....

Skype

After surfing around the net for about 1/2 hour Sunday morning looking to buy an international phone card online (yes, it would've been quicker to walk to the corner store) I decided to check out skype. For those who don't know, Skype is software that lets you make phone calls over the internet, free from one computer to another. Yes, I know that I am years behind the times, but hey. It is actually pretty damn cool, even on dialup there was only a slight lag every now and then. And the really cool thing is you can ring a normal landline phone in Oz for less than 3c a minute. Hmmm. Perhaps I shouldn't have told you that. Please stop staring at the phone mum and dad ....

Damned To Dial

Finally got the existing broadband kicked off our phoneline so we could go with homechoice. Now have to wait another week and a half before they can install it. Aaaargh. In the meantime its dialup. Using dialup again has made me realise that this blog is actually probably quite painful for people with slow connections. Sorry.

Fireworks Photos. Enough Already.

Last Saturday was Guy Fawkes night, so I headed off to Battersea Park to watch the fireworks with a couple of friends. Now, I have this thing with taking photos of fireworks. I nearly always do it, and they are nearly always crap. So why bother? Have you ever seen a fireworks photo and thought "wow, that is really cool. That would look great blown up and framed." No, me neither. Yet still I do it. A couple of years ago I even went to the effort of dragging a tripod along to the Australia Day fireworks in Kings Park. Still crap. This year I settled with just my little digicam. Once again they were, well, in a word, crap. But anywhy, why have a blog if you can't share the pain of a failed photo every now and then. Sorry, but here they are .... the best of the worst.

Text Only Please

After moving house I am back on dialup internet, so no mass photo uploading for me in the near future. (don't look so relieved.) Am looking at getting 8Mb broadband via homechoice, which also gets us video on demand and about 55 channels of tv. Homechoice delivers television over ADSL which is kinda cool and it isnt much more expensive than broadband alone. I am sure 80% of the channels are crap, but hey. Downside is that it is going to take 2 weeks to get put on.
Went to Guy Fawkes Night ( = fireworks) in Battersea Park Saturday night. Wasn't bad. Not quite up to the King's Park fireworks standard but impressive nonetheless. There have been fireworks going off all week as you can buy them just about everywhere this time of year.
Anyway, off to bed. Have got Tuesday off to do some more moving. Have only moved the bare essentials at this stage. The new house is great. And hopefully my first commute from here should be a fair bit shorter. Cross fingers. The other commute was starting to wear a bit thing as the mornings got colder and the evenings got darker.

House Update

Well we got the house. Got the keys Monday evening. (Yes, have been a bit slack with the blog.) Have moved a little bit of stuff in but havent slept there yet. A is working nights so I would be there on my own. Wasnt keen to stay there alone on the first night which was Halloween. Trick or treat ! Will probably move in some time in the next couple of nights. After 6 months on the road I have a permanent (well for a year at least) residence again. Strange feeling. Be great once we get settled into the place though.

Six Feet Under Six Feet Under

Can't believe I am just about to watch the last ever episode of 6FU. There goes another television staple.

Happy Halloween

Okay, a day or two late, but hey ....





A couple more here.

Yaha Praha

At last, the Prague photos are up. It's funny, at the time I wasn't that swept away by Prague. I think i was suffering from a severe case of Old Town overdose. However, looking back now at the photos, it was probably one of the highlights of the trip. Well, it is where i took the most photos anyway. All 94 of them. Enjoy!

Home Sweet Home (Maybe)

After spending a few weekends looking at flats north of the river (Islington, Sheperds Bush etc) and realising that we were going to be spending $$$ for a tiny flat, we decided to check out south of the river. The places south of the river were a lot more affordable (although affordable rent in London is a bit of an oxymoron) and a lot bigger for the money.

Last weekend we got dropped off in Chelsea and walked down through Battersea Park, down to Clapham and Lavender Hill. Seemed like a pretty decent area. Last Thursday night we met a couple of Real Estate agents and they showed us around a few places. One of which was actually a house (!) rather than a flat - complete with a little garden. We put in an application (at a rather cheeky discount) on the place on Friday. Later that day the real estate agent got back to us to say our offer had been rejected as the landlord wanted more money. We were at our limit and decided to stick to it. However we did say that if our first offer was accepted we could move in pretty much immediately. Fortunately for us, the agent rang back later Friday and said that the landlord would accept our offer this time. Sweet!
Friday evening we headed down to the real estate agent and signed the rental agreement. Now it is all down to references. If all goes well the keys are ours on Monday.
Google Maps is once again our friend. The place is on Afghan Road near Clapham Junction. i.e. here. The area isn't exactly Mayfair, but it's not too bad. About 5 mins walk to Clapham Junction train station which has British rail trains every 5 minutes or so to Victoria and Waterloo stations. My commute should be down to about 30-40 minutes. Can get into the centre of town in about 20 minutes. Can't wait to move in.

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