DARnet Andy Roberts

London Bike Hire Bicycles Arrive

2010-07-29T16:44:03Z

The London bike hire bicycles are arriving on the streets of London after some well publicised delays. The London scheme is much smaller than the Paris public bicyle hire scheme on which the idea is based, but at least it’s a start.

“Barclays Cycle Superhighways” compared with the Paris scheme.

London Cycle Hire

Transport for London Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme – How It Works:

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London Bike Hire Bicycles Arrive

Giant Vampire Cricket Bites Man

2010-07-20T13:57:36Z

Sitting up late chatting with an old friend last week I saw a gigantic locust-like insect climbing up the kitchen wall. It was bright shiny green, about 10cm long and heading for the breakfast cereals. We decided it belonged outdoors so I put one hand over it and cupped it with the other and walked towards the door with the giant green cricket safely trapped. Then it bit me, so I dropped it with the shock. I wasn’t expecting a harmless cricket to bite, although this was like no cricket I’d ever seen before. Gigantic, enormous and brightly coloured it looked like a tropical specimen or else some new form of hybrid mutant vampire cricket. We escorted it to the outdoor world eventually but it did try to get back in again once or twice.

To help with identification, here’s a picture of the giant green cricket before it bit me.

giant bush cricket

The location is near St Agnes, Cornwall, UK

Great Green Bush Cricket

Thanks to Barbol on Flickr in Zaragoza, Spain, the monster bug can be confirmed as Tettigonia viridissima, or the Great Green Bush Cricket. Apparently female, too.

These insects inhabit most of Europe, including the South of England , as well as North Africa and the Middle East. One of the largest crickets, the Great Green Bush Cricket reaches a size of 30-40mm, with males generally being smaller than the females. As the name suggests, the Great Green Bush-cricket is brightly coloured shiny green. One characteristic that helps to distinguish crickets from locusts is the length of the tentacles that start at the head and grow back, reaching almost the length of the body, as opposed to locusts that have short tentacles. Some cricket species can grow tentacles up to three times the length of the body. Both males and females have wings.

Carnivorous.

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Giant Vampire Cricket Bites Man

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Podcast Live

2010-07-06T09:41:54Z

Following on from the Podcast idea a few weeks back I promised to post again telling you how to subscribe in iTunes or get the podcast automatically delivered to the podcast player of your choice. We’ve had four podcast prototypes broadcast and published already and the show is ready to go live on Tuesday July 6th, at 7.00pm UK time so this is quite short notice for anybody who didn’t manage to keep up over at ustream

subscribe in iTunes

RSVP on Facebook at facebook.com/event.php?eid=131126593587441

The website hosting the podcasts is over at andyroberts.me and there’s a post about the official opening night which says:

After 4 weeks of prototyping, the music podcast goes LIVE in July and we’re celebrating with an official opening night on Tuesday July 6th. So come along to the ustream page promptly for 7.00pm UK time to get your requests in, hang out with other podcast listeners and be part of my opening night recorded for posterity here at http://andyroberts.me/

Podcast Launch

Building the Opening Night

It would be nice to have a bit of a crowd along for the opening night just to get the regular weekly podcasting off to a good start so I’ve created a facebook Event for this particular show which you can invite people to. I’ll also be making a post over on my long established blog site at DARnet Andy Roberts and one or two other places if I can think of them.

The podcast opening night will also be part of the Cafe Noodle July Ustream Festival, a great music community organised by Matt Stevens Loop.

I think it should be possible to embed the ustream show here on this site – so that’s something I’ll be having a go at too.

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Podcast Live

No Weekend Engineering Works

2010-06-28T12:48:16Z

Such is the routine nature of weekend engineering works ruining any prospect of going out around London on the public transport system that when they have a rare weekend without any engineering works on this particular line, National Express to Liverpool Street Station, they need to make a poster about it in order to remind people that there might just be some transport available.

Otherwise everybody would just assume that weekend trips are more trouble than they are worth and stay at home.

weekend engineering works

Of course once you get into Liverpool St Station on one of these rare weekend trains, there’s no guarantee that the onward journey will be as smooth. The Circle line, District and Hammersmith and City lines are likely to be severely disrupted or not running at all so that leaves the Central Line or “London Sauna” as better described.

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No Weekend Engineering Works

Canal Boat Holidays

2010-07-10T08:06:28Z

Previous Canal Boat Holidays

I’ve been going on canal boat holidays since a child, but none in the last few years and it has been long overdue to do something about that. The first trip I went on was a little Thames cruiser boat with my parents, before the locks were all manned. Then I went on a narrow boat with a youth club and years later took my own children on narrowboats and Norfolk broads cruisers. Ideally, I would like to spend spend summer months continuous cruising around the inland waterways of England and Wales. That’s part of the Location Independent Living idea but there are several steps which need to be taken first, and one of them was to take a gentle introduction to the joys of boating by way of a short canal boat holiday on the Kennet & Avon canal in rural Wiltshire, perfect for weekend breaks, on board the hotel boat Isabella

Canal Boat Holiday Weekend Pictures

Video from the long tunnel on the Kennet And Avon Canal

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Canal Boat Holidays

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Podcast

2010-06-26T11:02:52Z

Podcast

Podcast Idea

OK, I woke up on Wednesday morning with an idea in my head that just seemed to be a natural way forward for the music side of things. A podcast.

It’s not a big stretch really, but for some reason hadn’t occurred to me before. I’ve been doing a weekly live music broadcast on Ustream.tv since July 2009, nearly a year ago, and sometimes a few people login and say hello, others just lurk, and it’s very much a live, ephemeral event. Some of the songs I perform I also record using the ustream system, and they can end up on youTube, and some of them I don’t. It depends how I feel at the time. By keeping the time and day of week the same – always on a Tuesday at 7.00pm UK time – I thought it might encourage a small group of regulars to build up, and there are indeed some people who do drop in on a semi regular kind of basis. But if I don’t bother to send out a tweet and a facebook status update, or set up an event, then it can seem kind of like pushing a boulder up the side of the mountain. It can fall back again so there’s nobody there except myself and Linda and a couple of anonymous attenders who may or may not be paying attention. But then again, people have also mentioned to me face to face that they were there listening on an occasion, but not logged on, so it’s not really anonymous, that’s just how it can seem subjectively, which is not really something to be at all worried about. And That’s all OK as far as it goes, because the Tuesday night shows allow me to rehearse a few songs that I might end up performing in front of a live audience at the Havering Folk Club the next day, and help to build up the collection of videos to the Andy Roberts Music youTube account, which can get thousands of views sometimes.

Andy Roberts Music on USTREAM

But it seems I may have been missing a trick. It struck me that for all sorts of reasons there can be a few people who might have wanted to turn up on any particular Tuesday evening but can’t make it that week, or forget, or go out, fall asleep, desperately need to watch the stupid box or cook dinner etc. I toyed with the idea of moving to a different time of day. Maybe a Sunday afternoon or something like that. But Tuesday evenings are convenient for me as it happens. So maybe a couple more people could tune in if they could do so at their own convenience, asynchronously, using the simple podcast technology that’s been around on the internet for several years now. There could be a choice between downloading audio only, as in conventional iPod mp3 player, or a video podcast. I’ll learn to pipe more than just live webcam video into that at some point.

So nothing much is going to change with the Tuesday evening live broadcast music shows, except for this: Instead of setting Ustream to record individual songs as and when, every week the whole show will be recorded, 20 minutes half an hour or whatever, and made available as a podcast which can be subscribed to in iTunes, downloaded, accessed from this blog or via RSS etc. The thing that podcasts do best. So you can listen or watch when you like.

Andy Roberts Podcast

So I’ve decided to start off with a plan, and this is the plan: The new Andy Roberts Podcast will go live in July 2010, with a prototype starting next Tuesday and ongoing during June, so I can learn what needs to be done and how it all works out. The best way to find out how to subscribe for now, is going to be to subscribe to the RSS for this blog. There’ll be another post just before July telling you how to subscribe in iTunes or get the podcast automatically delivered to the podcast player of your choice. Once we’re underway in July, the whole podcast idea in the context of the Andy Roberts music project will then be subject to some good old plan /do / review reflective practice with no doubt, a series of iterative cycles which really start with the prototyping in June.

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Podcast

London Gets Uglier with Skyscrapers Unlimited

2010-07-01T08:19:31Z

There are several large skyscraper building projects underway or planned in London currently. Some are just holes in the ground, but others are growing up into the skyline already.

Heron Tower - under construction

This one, called Heron Tower (46 floors) , near Liverpool Street Station seems to dwarf the elegant 30 St Mary Axe building nearby (The Gherkin, 41 floors) but it looks like a giant mechano set, brutal and unforgiving straight lines with a relentless symmetry. And when its finished, it won’t look much better. Heron Tower itself is due to be dwarfed in turn by another new skyscraper building close by dubbed “The Pinnacle” at Crosby Court or Bishopgate Tower ( 60 floors) which has a little twist on the top, in an attempt to ask forgiveness for excessively towering over the City of London and over on the other side of the river at London Bridge Station they’ve already started building “The Shard” or London Bridge Tower (87 floors).

To find out more about Skyscrapers in London:

Wikipedia Skyscrapers_in_London Category

Skyscraper News : London

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London Gets Uglier with Skyscrapers Unlimited

Wild Badgers to be Culled in England

2010-05-22T08:02:50Z

There will be a wild badger cull in England.

The new Conservative Liberal coalition government has said the vaccination programme isn’t enough so badgers in TB hotspots will be killed.

Culling badgers to control Bovine TB in dairy cattle is controversial with many farmers facing increased incidence of TB reactors in cattle supporting a cull, and wildlife conservationists pointing out that culling badgers is not effective anyway.

New DEFRA farm minister Jim Paice, Conservative MP for South East Cambridgeshire has confirmed that badgers will be culled in England to combat bovine tuberculosis in cattle. A targeted cull of badgers will take place once the right “hot spot” locations have been identified.

The Badger Trust opposes culling, which they say would be in reality an unselected slaughter. The badger is one of Britain’s best loved and iconic animals and as such is part of our National Heritage. They are a poignant symbol of the British countryside and a protected species.

On culling badgers, Trust chairman Dave Williams says “The overwhelming scientific evidence and research shows that it is not the way to control bovine TB It has been tried for many years in one form or another, and it has never worked.”

Badger

Creative Commons Badger photo by Andreas-photography

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Wild Badgers to be Culled in England

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If Not Diane Abbott, Who?

2010-05-22T07:58:27Z

Diane Abbot entered the Labour Party leadership contest live on radio 4 this morning. Taking the Today programme interviewer completely by surprise she said “I’m going to run”.

After looking at the field she asked herself “If not now, when?” and “If not me, who?’”.

So suddenly the contest is transformed from one which started off promising to be the least controversial in history, with a series of sharp suited new labour apparatchiks exchanging pleasantries, a bit like the tedious TV debates between the party leaders for the general election, and with none of them much different to the two similar stuffed shirts leading the new coalition government, into an open contest which may even see mention of the socialism word from time to time, if we hold our breath long enough.

Renowned for being on the supposed left wing of Labour, Diane Abbot will inevitably make political capital out of being female and black, so that at least they don’t field a set of candidates who “all look the same” but she will also be in a position to voice an alternative perspective on issues such as immigration, tackling the budget deficit by taxing the rich instead of cutting services that hit the weakest hardest, and regaining a defensible policy on civil liberties instead of being in the embarrasing position where it is the Tory and Liberal coalition government cancelling Labour’s hated ID card plans.

Diane Abbot’s surprise entry into the leadership race appears to have ambushed previous left candidate John McDonnell who has been criticising the curtailed procedure which requires potential candidates to garner support from at least 33 Labour MPs by Thursday May 27th for an election which will run until September 2010.

Diane Abbott

Claiming the support of women labour MPs as well as left wingers, Diane Abbot had to be corrected by the Radio 4 Today programme after she said that John McDonnell was unable to get the 33 in time. The McDonnell team were quick to insist that he is still working hard to try and get the necessary signatures of support, and now the deadline has been extended from May 27th to June 9th. No doubt there will be some serious horse trading to do if neither of the two left candidates is able to reach the minimum 33 without one of them withdrawing in favour or the other.

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If Not Diane Abbott, Who?

Harriet Harman Next UK Leader

New Routemaster Bus for London

2010-05-22T08:04:20Z

The design for a new bus for London, heavily inspired by the Londoners’ favourite routemaster bus has been unveiled amongst controversy. The cost to Boris Johnson’s mayor office is over £7 million just for the design and first five buses, while design experts have criticised the snazzy curvy appearance of the new bus for ‘trying too hard’.

New Routemaster Bus

The joint submission by Sir Norman Foster + Partners and Aston Martin won first prize in Transport for London’s competition to design a new bus for the capital. The two teams worked together to challenge preconceptions of bus design with a vehicle that is environmentally sensitive, accessible, convivial and reinvents a much-loved symbol of London for the modern era. Or does it?

And what about those curves, do they perhaps break the design law which says that form should follow function and add unneccessary manufacturing costs or is there a green aerodynamic fuel saving advantage perhaps. Now if the curves were at the front perhaps…

You can’t help admitting that the design looks smart though, perhaps in a similar way to the reinvented VW beetle car or the new BMW mini. In all cases they are not the same thing as the original design they are inspired by, but are capable of drawing in fans from the newer generations who have got bored with brutal functionalism and appreciate a bit of style over substance. Which brings us back to the bendy bus:

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New Routemaster Bus for London

Gordon Brown Never a Frown

2010-05-06T11:03:09Z

Gordon Brown

Never a Frown

Click here to view the embedded video.

It being the day before a general election, there are only a few hours left to sing this one I suppose.

Or is there?

Some people believe the last few hours day and night can make all the difference

Hence lunch is for wimps, and sleep is for losers.

Crazies.

Recorded 4th May 2010 in London as part of Andy Roberts music broadcast every Tuesday evening at 7.00pm on Ustream.tv

After The Stranglers Golden Brown

Gordon Brown

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Gordon Brown Never a Frown

Harriet Harman Next UK Leader

2010-05-22T08:05:38Z

OK, here’s my prediction for the outcome of the general election in the United Kingdom, just for fun.

New Labour have had their chance and blown it to such an extent that they come third in overall votes, a disasterous result by all accounts. But the Tories fail to win an overall majority in the House of Commons and Gordon Brown tries to stay on as Prime Minister with a minority government, daring the Liberals to vote down the queen’s speech, which they then do. Brown is forced to resign as Labour leader and the battle for a successor begins, with a timetable stretching over many weeks.

Meanwhile, the Liberals enter into negotiations with the Tories to see if they can stitch up a coalition government between them. Nick Clegg demands electoral reform as a precondition to more detailed discussions, and David Cameron categorically rules it out. So no deal there. Harriet Harman the current deputy leader of the Labour Party automatically acts as a caretaker leader and approaches Clegg to see what terms he might accept to go in with Labour. A historic deal is then patched together which involves mashing up Vince Cable and Alastair Darling’s economic policies into one chancellorship, big concessions on electoral reform, and a double figure-head leadership which means Nick Clegg and Harriet Harman both being prime minister. Cameron is thus thwarted from forming a Tory government for at least another four years and such is the jubiliation on Labour back benches that all the other contenders for leadership are persuaded to withdraw from the contest leaving Harriet Harman as uncontested leader of the Labour Party and joint Prime Minister of the UK parliament.

Harriet Harman, The UK's second ever female Prime Minister

Of course constitutionally, you can’t actually have a joint prime ministership in absolutely everything, there are some occasions when a single name must be applied, such as taking a seat at World Summits etc and in the EU so for these occasions they toss a coin, and Harriet wins.

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Harriet Harman Next UK Leader

London Overground Dalston to New Cross

2010-05-19T10:38:47Z

A new section of the London Overground has opened in a limited way, weeks ahead of schedule says TFL

Dalston Junction – New Cross and New Cross Gate open 27 April 2010
This section of the line has now opened ahead of schedule with a limited preview service running Monday to Fridays between 07:00 and 20:00 only and will build up towards a full timetable by mid-May.

The other southern leg which extends from Dalston Junction to New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croydon is due to open on 23 May 2010, while the joining section to the rest of the London Overgound outer circle line, from Dalston to Highbury and Islington is due to be completed in 2011.

Gospel Oak to Stratford on the other hand, remains closed for engineering works until 31 May 2010 with signalling and track renewal work, platform lengthening and the refurbishment of some stations. So there’s a London Overground replacement bus service there presently.

The new trains are more like bendy buses on rails though, with limited seating, lots of strap hanging and completely open connections between the carriages. Sitting sideways to the motion of the train is definitely less comfortable than conventional perpendicular seating whether facing forwards or back, but these mass transit systems are all geared towards alleviating congestion at rush hours rather than passenger comfort.

Bicycles are permitted on the trains except between 7:00–10:00 and 16:00-19:00 Monday to Friday.

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London Overground Dalston to New Cross

The Last Nail

2010-05-22T08:10:18Z

The Last Nail – St Monan’s Boatyard

Originally uploaded by AndyRob

The Last Nail – A Song

The Last Nail is a recently finished song for the old boatyard at St Monan’s in Scotland, with general reference to traditional craft industries.

The Last Nail Lyrics

Above the stone walled harbour, or down the winding hill,
That’s where they built the boatyard, and the structure stands there still.
Not much boat building happens now, just repairs and fitting out
but when the wind rattles the boatmasts, you can hear the old boatbulders shout:

Will you pass the last nail over and I’ll knock it into place,
Then with four more coats of varnish, she’ll be ready for the race.

Our grandfathers put up the boatyard, to build the fishing fleet,
more than fifty boats in the harbour, and shops all down the main street
then the steam age brought in the drifters, boat builders became engineers
Now the wind blows straight through the boatyard, there’ll be no more boat building here

Will you pass the last nail over and I’ll knock it into place,
Then with four more coats of varnish, she’ll be ready for the race.

With a keen eye for staying in business, they switched over to build leisure craft
And the weekend yachtsmen snapped them up, no expense spared fore or aft
Then wooden hulls went out of fashion, the order book emptied last year
So the bankers foreclosed on the boatyard,
and there’ll be no more boatbuilding here

Will you pass the last nail over and I’ll knock it into place,
Then with four more coats of varnish, she’ll be ready for the race.

Now the Vikings invented the clinker for both strength and shallow seas
and the herring boats followed the coastline, until the canning ships found the key
There’s a regatta here every August, and the whole village turns out again
But the Sea Queen’s no real competition, and it’s guaranteed to rain

Will you pass the last nail over and I’ll knock it into place,
Then with four more coats of varnish, she’ll be ready for the race.

Above the stone walled harbour, or down the winding hill
that’s where they built the boatyard, and the skeleton stands there still.
No more boat building happens now, not even fitting out
but when the wind rattles the boatmasts, you can still hear the old boys shout:

Will you pass the last nail over, we’ll knock it into place,
Then with four more coats of varnish, she’ll be ready for the race.

the last nail

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The Last Nail

St Andrews Day

St George’s Day

2010-04-20T09:25:26Z

St Georges’s Day falls on April 23rd each year and has been quietly celebrated, or perhaps largely ignored in England since the 18th century. Before that it was a major feast day and national holiday dating back to 15thC. It is however, England’s national day since St George holds the position of the patron saint of England.

English people tend to have mixed feeling about St George’s day and the St George cross, which is the flag of England, due in some part to the confusion which persists over the difference between identities of England and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. A sizeable proportion of English people and probably a majority of non UK citizens consider English and British to be synonymous, which causes problems particularly for the Scots and Welsh who are most definitely not English, whichever way you look at it.

The 23rd April is also William Shakespeare’s birthday and his death day.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of the use of the St George cross, the English flag, for events such as International football matches with the England team, and that should be welcomed as a correction of the previous use of the Union flag when it’s not a UK-wide team. Some people feel uncomfortable at the sight of the red and white though, sensing a connection with right wing nationalist politics which has not been historically aligned particularly.

St George's Cross - The English flag

The most effective advocates of celebrating St George’s day are the breweries, who noticed that people drink a lot more alcohol around St Patrick’s day and would like to see the same happen on as many other occasions as possible, that they can promote.

The George, Wansted

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St George’s Day

Ash Grounds Planes, Rest Of World Cut Off

2010-04-17T22:22:15Z

The rest of the world remains isolated today as the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull eruption continues to ground nearly all flights in or out of UK airports for a third day. People are only just starting to understand the implications of this drastic shut down for the airline industries and for the wider economy, and to think twice about how reliant so many human activities have become on air freight and passenger services.

If you want to get back to the UK today there are only two ways to do it – by taking to the now crowded international (eg Dover – Calais) ferry routes or through the channel tunnel by Eurostar or shuttle.

@HeathrowAirport No flights arriving or departing from Heathrow until 6am tomorrow, at the earliest. Next update due at 8pm this evening #ashtag

The obvious advice during this unprecedented period is not to set off without a booking, and if due to fly next week, keep checking the flight news before leaving for the airport. Nobody knows how long it will take to get everything back to normal, or how long the ash cloud will persist. The volcano is still emitting plumes of ash and the weather conditions remain stable with the dangerous (to jet engines) cloud spreading all over the UK and Europe.

The disruption in travel is costing airliners roughly 148 million euros in lost revenues per day. After Friday, about 16,000 flights were cancelled, making it the largest airspace shutdown since the Second World War.

Volcano Information and Flight News

Some links via Joanne Jacobs

Iceland Meteorological Office: Earthquakes last 48 hours table
UK Met Office: Volcanic ash advisories;
Natural Environment Research Council: Update on research of plume (including image)
Finnish Airforce images of damage to engines from ash on 15 April
NASA Earth Observatory picture of the ash plume
Norwegian Met Office calculations on dispersal of the ash plume

Staying Grounded

For people who aren’t planning on going anywhere the skies are uniquely empty of aircraft noise and jet trails bringing a surprising tranquility to areas which don’t normally think of themselves as bothered by flight paths, and for photographers the light conditions are perceptively different, with unbroken hazy blue sky scapes.

@MarinaPepper Deeply textured bird song – no deep rumbling roar or whining. Hadn’t realised how horrid Gatwick noise was even here in #Lewes #ashtag

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Ash Grounds Planes, Rest Of World Cut Off

How to pronounce Eyjafjallajoekull

How to pronounce Eyjafjallajoekull

2010-04-18T10:53:15Z

Airports all over the UK have been closed by a volcanic ash cloud spreading from Iceland where a volcano has erupted. The fragments in the ash cloud are said to represent a serious threat to airline engines, so the closures however inconvenient, are on safety grounds, starting with Scotland and now affecting London’s Heathrow Airport as well. But how do you pronounce Eyjafjallajoekull? ( also spelt Eyjafjallajökull and Eyjafjallajokull)

Thanks to Louise Joly for providing the link to a sound file which answers the pronunciation question:

Eyjafjallajökull.ogg

Click here to view the embedded video.

( original sound recording by Jóhann Heiðar Árnason )

In Icelandic, when there are two L’s in a row, like in Eyjafjallajökull, the first L sounds like a T

More information about the volcanic ash cloud coming from Iceland

It’s the first time UK Airspace has been completely locked down as an emergency since 9/11

Hundreds of twitterers have posted “Dear Iceland, we said ‘send Cash‘ can’t you read?” #ashtag

People’s travel plans have been completely Bjorked.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) issued its “conservative estimate” of lost revenues as more than £130m a day because of the disruption caused by the volcanic ash cloud that has brought Britain’s air transport network to a halt. Flights were cancelled across northern Europe for the second day in a row, and the combination of continuing volcanic emmissions with still weather conditions mean the ash cloud could last for a week. The final bill to the global airline industries could be much higher when the cost of looking after passengers and getting services running again is included.

Eyjafjallajokull, the Icelandic volcano that has continued to belch lava, ash and steam since first erupting last weekend, isn’t the direct
problem. It’s Katla, the noisier neighbor, that’s the concern. If lava flowing from Eyjafjallajokull melts the glaciers that hold down the top of Katla, then Katla could blow its top, pumping gigantic amounts of ash into the atmosphere.

Scientists say history has proven that whenever the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupts, Katla always follows, the only question is how soon.

Previous Iclandic Volcano Eruptions and the Weather

Iceland’s Laki volcano erupted in 1783, freeing gases that turned into smog. The smog floated across the Jet Stream, changing weather patterns. Many died from gas poisoning in the British Isles. Crop production fell in western Europe. Famine spread. Some even linked the eruption, which helped fuel famine, to the French Revolution. Painters in the 18th century illustrated fiery sunsets in their works.
The winter of 1784 was also one of the longest and coldest on record in North America. New England reported a record stretch of below-zero temperatures and New Jersey reported record snow accumulation. The Mississippi River also reportedly froze in New Orleans. (news.yahoo)

The last time there was an eruption near the 100-square-mile (160 square-kilometre) Eyjafjallajokull glacier was in 1821, and that was a “lazy” eruption that lasted slowly and continuously for two years.

Steam Pump – Eyjafjallajökull Eruption

photo by Örvar Atli Þorgeirsson

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How to pronounce Eyjafjallajoekull

Ash Grounds Planes, Rest Of World Cut Off

Adrian Nation Plays Romford

2010-05-16T08:40:31Z

The good news today is that Adrian Nation has been confirmed to play Romford, The Golden Lion, with myself, Andy Roberts as support. So I’m really excited by this, having seen Adrian play a few blinding songs a short while back when he visited Havering Folk Club briefly. It will be great to have the chance to watch him play a complete set to see the full range of what he can do with that amazing acoustic guitar technique. And I have the great privilege of getting to play an opening set of my own on the night, so I can start worrying about my setlist already!

Adrian Nation, Romford Gig Details

Who: Adrian Nation
Date: Saturday 24th July* (POSTPONED – Check back later for actual date)
Time: 8.00pm
Venue: The Golden Lion, 2 High Street, Romford, Essex RM1 1HR
Admission: £6-8
Support: Andy Roberts

Adrian Nation – Five Finger Rapids Video

At the recent Regional Final of Live and Unsigned Adrian went through to the next stage, the Area Final, and is now just one step away from performing at the O2 Arena in London.

Adrian Nation at Havering Folk Club on Sat Jul 24, 2010

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Adrian Nation Plays Romford

The Orbit Tower, Olympic Park Stratford East London 2012

2010-05-24T06:14:54Z

The Orbit Tower unveiled for Stratford Olympics Site

I must have been out of touch recently because I wasn’t even aware there had been a series of proposals for building a large tower at Stratford East London, to make a landmark art installation at the 2012 Olympics Site. Now the winner has been chosen and launched under the title of “The ArcelorMittal Orbit” or The Orbit Tower for short, by world renowned artist Anish Kapoor, with engineering by Cecil Balmond.

The artist’s impression unfortunately fails to excite the imagination of many Londoners who have seen it online, leaving comments such as “It’s a mess”, “bloooming ugly” and “looks like a rollercoaster that’s been in an earthquake”.

The problem is that artists impressions normally manage to make ugly things look ok, but on the other hand anything by Kapoor is unlikely to look ugly in the flesh judging by his impressive list of current achievements.

Standing at 115 metres tall, the Orbit will be slightly taller than Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty, twice the height of Nelson’s Column, just short of the Great Pyramid of Giza and considerably shorter than the structure to which it is being compared – the Eiffel Tower.

As well as the aesthetics, the Stratford Orbit Tower is likely to be controversial for economic reasons. Boris Johnson, London’s current incumbent Mayor has spoken at the launch citing the need to justify all the investment that is being made in East London.

The structure gets its formal name from steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. Mittal is the richest man in Europe, and he is the one funding the whole project. He said that this project is an incredible opportunity to build something really spectacular for London, for the Olympic games. This is something that can play a lasting role in the legacy of the games.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mayor Johnson said that the structure will cost around £19.1 million to build. He went on to note that he is sure that some people are going to think that they are nuts, in the depths of a recession, to build the biggest piece of public art that Britain has ever seen. However, they are certain this is the right thing for Britain, and work has to be started on it right away.

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The Orbit Tower, Olympic Park Stratford East London 2012

Chinese New Year February 14th 2010

2010-02-15T10:31:40Z

Chinese New Year February 14th 2010

Originally uploaded by AndyRob

The Chinese New Year festival falls on February 14th this year, 2010 but celebrations in London’s Chinatown take place for a week or more around that time. It’s a moveable feast, also referred to as Chinese spring festival, and just as much belonging to south east Asia as China.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

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Chinese New Year February 14th 2010

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