"And then he said..."

Spectacular. I blame global warming. And the government, of course.

At the going down of the sun
Roofs and balconies of our flats silhouetted against the sunset. Not 10 minutes later a neighbour was going over that balcony railing in the top right on a ladder, then through a window, having presumably locked herself out.

It's a conspiracy
Our local vicar, swivel-eyed though he is, never misses a trick…

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In my household we tend towards the view that Douglas Adams wasn’t, in fact, a novelist but instead a philosopher and a researcher of the infinite who chose to present his theories and conclusions in the form of radio scripts and sci-fi novels. He was also - despite most of his work being set on other planets - one of the most observant chroniclers of London since Dickens.

Just after six he returned to Fenchurch’s house in the alleyway, clutching a bottle of champagne.

“Hold this,” she said, shoved a stout rope into his hand and disappeared inside through the large, white wooden doors from which dangled a fat padlock off a black iron bar.

The house was a small converted stable in a light industrial alleyway behind the derelict Royal Agricultural Hall of Islington. As well as its large stable doors it also had a normal-looking front door of smartly glazed panelled wood with a black dolphin door knocker. The one odd thing about this door was its doorstep, which was nine feet high, since the door was set into the upper of the two floors and had presumably originally been used to haul in hay for hungry horses.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

Adams famously drew on the parts of Islington he knew well for details to throw into the Hitch-Hikers’ Guide trilogy - for example, phone numbers as probability odds and the estate agency Hotblack Desiato as a minor character’s name.

The old Royal Agricultural Hall is still there, only it’s not derelict anymore, it’s the Business Design Centre and I work there a day or two a week. After Beloved Other Half reminded me of the passage quoted above I went off in search of the nine foot doorstep one lunch break.

Since I forgot it was down an alleyway I didn’t find it, but I did grab a few pictures of the sort of streets in the area - typical north London streets I suppose, except north London’s not my manor and the typical looks exotic to me still. Where I am, out west, we don’t have long rows of brick terraces like these and I was fascinated by the contrast - only yards apart were roads where the homes looked like elegant town houses and roads where they looked pokey and proletarian, despite being almost identical in design.

I found it easier to imagine Douglas Adams walking along the pavement than I did Arthur Dent floating above it.

Anyway, here are the pics.

My vague potterings were interrupted last lunchtime by a cat's cradle of blue tape across the road in my path, cordoning off (among other things) the scene of a shooting the night before and the restaurant where I'd been planning on eating.

Police were still there in numbers, even though the shooting actually happened on the previous evening, and at one point a group walked line abreast, peering at the tarmac for kloos. They looked bored, like 14-year-olds on a geography field trip.

It was a bright sunny day, and nobody felt like hurrying so everyone was content to watch them quietly, apart from one irate truck driver who'd had to do a u-turn in his articulated lorry and wanted the world - or, at least, that part of it in a tall hat directing traffic - to know about it.

I ducked into an overpriced curry house for lunch instead (very small portions) where I tipped without checking the bill first, thereby failing to notice that service was included.

Here be pics.

Downer
Upper Street is taped off and empty at the busiest part of the day

You're fingered, sonny
By now, most of the police had nothing more challenging to do than answer questions from the public.

Blue tape
Lots of this stuff everywhere.

Pounding the pavement
A few people got past, but mostly the businesses behind the police line were stranded and closed.

Edit: An arrest has been made.

I can remember when products were built to last and didn't stop working just because they'd been thrown across the room in a cold fury a few times. I say this because my phone finally started malfunctioning beyond a level I was prepared to tolerate, so I had to replace it.

Having said I didn't want a phone with gadgets, I ended up having to buy one with a camera - and of course I'm now bemoaning the low quality of the pictures it takes. Still, at least it's got me taking photos again.

Here's some recent shots:

Dancing on the ceiling
The dark shapes of fitters roped to the roof inside the Business Design Centre hang cables in preparation for an exhibition.

Nothing to show for it
A fitter stands in the middle of blank exhibition stands that will soon be filled with all the clutter and colour of a trade fare.

Why I hate living here
We have equal opportunity bigots here - they hate everyone, whatever their colour or creed. This bus shelter graffito, along with National Front stickers nearby, targets Muslims - but everyone gets it in the neck eventually here.

Reflections on a long wait
On a wet, chilly evening, the bus indicators reflected on the ceiling of the shelter - and demonstrated that how cold you got depended rather on where you were travelling.

They've landed!
Not, in fact, an alien invasion - just the old and new Feltham. The glare from a hotel marketed squarely at airport travellers shows behind what used to be a toilet block - and now seems to be an art studio, or some such thing.

Lights, camera, action
Wet Tarmac and sodium lights give the local cinema complex an unworldly look. This view, coincidentally, is exactly the one seen by the central character of my quarter-written novel at a crucial life-changing point in the narrative. Not that you need to worry about that.

Round and round and round about
There is a roundabout out Uxbridge way that has without a doubt the worst traffic jams I have ever had the misfortune to have to weave a path through. It really is a case of move forward by inches and every car for itself.

Ducks in a row
I'm not sure if they wanted the car wash or just to top up with unleaded, but these ducks marched across the forecourt of the petrol station where I was having my lunch in a very purposeful manner.

Do as you're told
This sign is on the garage of a house on one of my regular leaflet rounds during the council elections. There's nothing else on the outside to suggest the place is still conducting whatever dubious business produced the sign - but I'm certainly not canvassing there!

Don't even try it
Our local general store has the most enormous guard dog you ever did see. Shame it's usually asleep across the shop door…

“Winning here!”
A washed-up hack with only a short time left in his political career poses for a campaign photo with Charles Kennedy.

That photo of me and the boss taken during the 2001 general election, when we both had fewer chins, should illustrate where I stand in the madness that's currently gripping a miniscule proportion of the Liberal Democrat party, namely the ones with the letters “MP” after their names. I post it not to show off, but simply to make it clear that, during a period when most of Charles Kennedy's supposed allies are retreating from him faster than an Italian tank regiment, some of us are proud to have been associated with him and don't mind who knows it.

I am, to put it mildly, furious at the antics of the Parliamentary party - just a tiny fraction of the membership and in most cases merely the person standing on top of a very large pyramid of activists who worked their little socks off to get their man or woman to Westminster and who are now wondering what got put in their Horlicks when they arrived there. Our MPs seem to have forgotten that in the set-up of the Liberal Democrats there's a leader and then there's everyone else, whose votes are equal. If they don't have confidence in the leader that's their problem - we chose him, and for each MP a group of dedicated people chose them to follow his lead.

So, I have a message to those MPs who want him to stand down, and that includes ones who I've worked side-by-side with in the past and respect greatly, such as Norman Lamb and Susan Kramer, just as much as it applies to such over-promoted lightweights as Sarah Teather.

Either stand against him if you dare, rally behind someone else who is prepared to stand if you don't have the nerve to do it yourself, or shut up and get on with what your local party sent you to Westminster to do. In case you've forgotten, that was to represent your constituency's interests on the national stage, advance the principles of liberalism as expressed by the preamble to the party's constitution (particularly the first sentence of it), and assist the leader chosen by the membership as he builds towards a Liberal Democrat government.

Don't hide behind a load of sanctimonious wank about “I have great affection for Charles who has led us with considerable skill, I admire his courage and wish him well but think he must now stand down gracefully for the good of the party as, sadly, we can't work with him anymore.”

If Kennedy stands in a leadership election I'll both vote and campaign for him and if he doesn't then I'll write his name onto the ballot paper rather than support whoever eventually does.

I hope he can survive as leader, but I fear he's doomed after today's Murder on the Orient Express display by his MPs, and in my book that's a real shame.

After all, if he can lead us to our best result in a lifetime while drunk as a skunk, what dizzying heights could he reach now he's pledged to do the job sober?

Something you don't see every day: a London Underground District Line train being driven round the M25 this morning on the back of a lorry. If this is the Greater London Authority's latest attempt to get people to commute using public transport, all I can say is they seem to have missed the point somewhat.

The next train is for Ealing Broadway

Mind the gap

Stand clear of the closing doors

Christmas spirit
Christmas pudding, brandy, white sauce and pies appear on the dinner table

It seems to be the thing at the moment to be amused by newspaper bills - the posters with breathless headlines that papers give to their street vendors and newsagents to help shift copies.

The Evening Standard Headline Crisis 2005 set on Flickr has such classics as “TOOTHPASTE CANCER ALERT”, “MAN BEHEADED IN LONDON STREET”, “IPOD HEALTH ALERT” and “DOG STOLEN AT GUNPOINT”. But anyone who's ever seen the “Sub“, as we called the Standard when I was on the Kilburn Times, will know to expect that sort of thing.

More obscure, and therefore far more amusing, is the Cardiff Terrifies Me blog. This targets the bills put out by the South Wales Echo and all I can say is I'm awful glad I don't live over there: “DRUNK TEACHERS FLED FROM CAR CRASH”, “SEX TRAFFIC PAIR LOCKED UP”, “'MY BROTHER KILLED SHIRLEY'” and the chilling “MUSLIM PUPILS IN SAUSAGE ROLL BLUNDER”. Note that the last one says 'blunder' and not 'blender'.

So here's my sole contribution, published here to show that while some parts of the United Kingdom are hotbeds of sex, drunkenness, dog theft and inappropriate sausage meat, other areas are just a little bit calmer.

From the West Briton, mid November, Helston in Cornwall:

Issues To Be Looked At After Action Day
Isn't it exciting? Isn't it intriguing? Doesn't it just make you want to rush out and buy the paper RIGHT NOW?
Me neither.

David Sutch | Eddie Guerrero | Kirsty MacColl | Stuart Adamson | Glenn Quinn

Both ends of the same day - the sunrise and sunset on November 14th this year. (Links go to Flickr, where you can see the full-sized versions of these photos.)

Up…
Sunrise over Falmouth, Cornwall, from the Grove Hotel, 14th Nov 2005.

…and down.
Sunset across the Cot Valley, western Cornwall, from the garden of “The Canyack” National Trust holiday cottage on Nov 14, 2005