20 years ago I was turfed off a train at Bow Road due to an electrical issue.
20 years ago I walked the rest of the way to work.
20 years ago I was just trying to read the BBC news website (it was very slowly loading) when I received a panicked phone call from a friend. The bus she had just got off, had exploded as she walked away from it.
20 years.
It’s conference season, lots of meeting up with people from all over the world. Statistically, at least one person will be carrying COVID (case rate is currently 1.7 per 100,000 people, many people attending will have travelled internationally, number of connections exceeds 100,000).
I wasn’t eligible for a free booster this year, so I paid for one – £98 for 300 micro-litres of vaccine – is this more expensive than printer ink?
There was a skip with house clearance stuff in it. On top was a nice bit of wood (pale, straight grained, 2×4 about 2m long, machined surfaces, nice wood).
I stood looking, pondering taking it home, but it was a bit too big and too much of a faff to get out.
A bloke came up to me looked at the skip and said “nice wood, you after it?”
We chatted briefly about the wood as two blokes looking in a skip are prone to. He had his eye on the wood, but thought it a faff to get too.
As I left, someone else came up to the other bloke and looked at the wood.
The wood wasn’t in the skip this morning.
For work reasons I’m in Bhutan. It’s a small kingdom in the Himalayas close to Nepal and India.
Awake at 4am. First 4am of the day.
Left home 9:30, home to Mile End then Central line to Liverpool Street. Fast change to Standstead express.
Arrive at Dubai around 1am local time. Pass security to collect bags, exit airport in search of taxi to terminal 1.
Check in with drukair
Depart at 4am local time second 4am of the day.
Sleep a while on the flight. Twitching legs. Flight almost empty. 20 people max. After 2h breakfast is served.
Should land around 10am local time (4am GMT) 3rd 4am of my day.
Spotted Everest!
Landed in Paro after an exciting descent though the valley.
It’s interesting when walking around to take a look and see if you can work out how long something has been in place. Some things are easy, a church or other public building may have a dedication stone; you can estimate how old a tree is from its size. How do you work out how long a shop front has been in place, without resorting to google street-view (if it even goes back far enough)?
The other day, I spotted this strip of tape around the bottom of the door in a local shop. I know the shop hasn’t changed significantly in at least 25 years, but I was surprised to see the 01-London telephone number on the tape – given that it went out of service in 1990, this shopfront is at least 35 years old.
