Category: Locally

Lambeth Motorbike Parking

Motorbike Parking
Motorbike Parking

Near where I work, Lambeth have added a rail to the motorbike parking, which allows us to lock our bikes more securely. Great – but why does the locking bar have a full height railing attached to it?

The result is, the only access to bikes is from the road, not the pavement. How safe is that? Not to mention when the bikes are parked closely together (there are never enough motorbike parking spaces in any given area), it can be very hard to reach inner bikes.

You wouldn’t put a railing along the pavement where cars are parked, forcing the drivers to enter their cars from the road, so why do it to bikers?

The Animation Studio opens

Just published my first test video onto Youtube. First try was with blue material but the video camera I’m using didn’t pick up the colour at all. Not sure if this is a common problem with consumer video cameras or not, but I did read that green is preferred for digital video.

Star Wars Lego flying through the flat.
Star Wars Lego flying through the flat.

Coming back from lunch I walked past a textile shop in Clapham, the fabulously named “Jeanette Fashions”. As luck would have it they had some lovely green felt, with a very saturated appearance at under a tenner a metre. On the video camera screen this looked a lot better. The results can be seen in the YouTube clip – what was missing was some decent lighting of the green backdrop. In fact it was just a 60W ceiling light.

On the next test I aim to use a 500W worklight, which having angle-grinded (ground?) the padlocks off my shed, I can now get access to!

Lucky me

fatJust an average week in the gastronomic heaven of home cooking jeanette style!

Sunday: Went out to Quecumbar for music, wine and song.

Monday: Wat Tan Hor (smokey chinese noodles with prawns).

Tuesday: Steamed salmon with purple sprouting broccoli and potato salad.

Wednesday: Kerala fish curry.

Thursday: Jeanette out so had to fend for myself with a mushroom sauce on toast

Friday: Chicken goujons stuffed with cream cheese

When I left home for uni at the age of 18 I ‘learned’ to cook – pasta and a jar of sauce was about the best I ever got. I hope my kids appreciate what fantastic variety and expertise they’re tucking into. I know I do!

St John’s Hill Festival

We helped out at the St John’s Hill Festival in Clapham Junction this weekend. Well I say we, I looked after the boys, Jeanette set up her face-painting stand and helped our good friends Sim & Robin out on their cake stand.4

Although it wasn’t a particularly nice day, there was a good turn out and all in all it seemed to be a better event than the Lavender Hill Street Party that took place in June. That was more of a pavement party, due to the busy traffic cutting off one side of the road from the other.

I took the opportunity to check out the office of our old client Image Wizard television, but it seems they’ve moved on.

Steamed up about Freecycle

Rex Steams to the Rescue
Rex Steams to the Rescue

Freecycle‘s a great idea – give away the things you don’t need anymore so anyone willing to make the effort to come and collect them. There’s a kind of community noticeboard where you put up what you’ve got to get rid of, and people can also request items they need.

But surely, surely, it is taking it to extremes to ask for “Wanted: Working moped – any as long as it works, will pass MOT” and “Wanted – Car – Family car would be good, it would be nice to have something for just to go around shopping go see family with Children”?

I don’t mind that people ask for things, I saw one today asking for a Unicyle, and fair enough it might be something you have in the attic, not used for years and a request like that prompts you to get it down and give it a good home. But sometimes the Wanted requests make me mad! I’m waiting for the day I see “Wanted: Money, must be valid tender” next?

Sarah Wedding

ian_sarah_wedding_20My youngest sister Sarah tied the knot the last weekend, to her lovely fiance Ian.

Sarah’s a teacher near Bath and Ian’s a successful property developer – making money “selling houses to the English” as his best man put it.

However their future plans revolve around more pastoral pursuits and Ian’s keenly interesting in goat farming.

When I was young we had goats on the farm, usually only two, and they were a right handful. Always escaping and eating my fathers latest garden plant. So what happens when you get 50 of them together I don’t know.

Anyway back to the matter in hand – it was a beautiful wedding, held over Saturday (church) and Sunday (music, food, dancing) and we saw lots of old friends. The marquee was on the back lawn where almost 10 years ago Jeanette and I had our lovely wedding reception.

A good time was had by all!

Reservation fees at Wandsworth libraries

bookwormI am really disappointed that Wandsworth are introducing fees for book reservations. I think it will reduce the amount of people using the library system.
If there were problems of abuse of the system, there are other ways of
dealing with it, such as banning those that don’t play fair, not all the innocent people who do not abuse the system.

Plus, the fee itself is so high.
Many supermarkets sell books outright for as little as £3, and Wandsworth are charging half that just for reservation!

Why is the fee is so high compared to other libraries in  the same london libraries consortium?
e.g. Richmond 60p adults, 30p concessions
http://www.richmond.gov.uk/home/leisure_and_culture/libraries/library_loans_and_fines/library_reservation_fees.htm
http://www.barking-dagenham.gov.uk/4-libraries/reservations.html “You
can only reserve items in stock that are available for loan. There is no
charge for reserving in stock items.”

The latter is not introducing a charge for items in the Library consortium as far as a I can see.

Why not have a consulation with local people to see if they want the reservation fees to come back?