Archives for February 2007
Big Red’s watching you
From what point of the former Soviet Bloc do these paths radiate to in all directions? Not Gorky Park but, er, Clapham Common Bandstand.
The Russians were enthusiastic cartographers covering every corner of the Earth, including highly detailed maps of British cities. It’s doubtful that much of London would have been left had it got to the stage of a Soviet invasion, however it’s useful to know the cyrillic interpretation of Battersea Rise.
More examples, and a detailed history, here (via The Map Room).
London’s Lost Rivers
Under our feet lie forgotten histories, a landscape we’ve never seen, changed beyond recognition. Churned, sluiced, concreted and normalised. But the tenacious can still find traces of the past, in literature if not on the ground. Nicholas Barton’s intriguing The Lost Rivers of London is a prime example.
London has always been both defined and constrained by the Thames. The bridges are bottlenecks, our mental maps place us north or south, rising sea levels might push it over the edge and our great-grandchildren to higher ground. Little visible remains, however, of the river’s tributaries and it’s here that Barton’s book reveals the relevance of the natural landscape to our modern city.
See how Stamford Brook once flowed near Fulham’s ground, and that the Serpentine is a giant puddle along the Westbourne. The River Fleet once formed part of the New Canal that flowed up to Holborn but was later filled in and now emerges through a drain under Blackfriars Bridge, whilst The Peck drained South London’s tanneries as well as giving Del Boy’s home a name; and the Falcon was once more than the name of a pub.
Only a handful of London’s waterways remain above the surface. The Wandle, to the south, continues to flow from Croydon to Wandsworth although only one waterwheel remains at Merton Abbey Mills. More significantly the Lea River Navigation has been placed at the centre of the 2012 Olympic site, but whether this promises a rebirth of the river or the creation of another drain remains to be seen. For now, take a moment to look at the lie of the land and ponder where all that water comes from…
(Click on the image above to see a larger version of the map.)
Tooting Bec: heading upmarket or down?
This is a post for a particular member of my expatriate readership.
Just what is happening to Tooting Bec these days? One minute you can’t buy a flat for less than A Lot Of Money, the next there’s a German discount supermarket opening around the corner. A Lidl to match the Lido. Plus the local launderette is a location for a truly awful, offensively bad Trident chewing gum advertisment. (Although I didn’t realise we had a launderette until the I recognised the shop opposite.)
Something strange is happening. I can feel it, but not explain it. Yet.
Paint it black
Hello there. Sorry for no posts: I’ve not been this busy for a long time and have been trying to migrate this site to Wordpress. Heck, I’ve not even had TV for a month and survived. I have plenty to say and will get a chance to tell you once I’m back from Munich and Marrakech. And will catch up with the emails then, I promise.
Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with thought: why is it that I have £1,000 of brand new Apple Mac and yet the most useful programme is one that turns it into a green screen typewriter?
(via Lifehacker)
