Bad and wrong

Cycling on the pavement is bad and wrong. Just stop it.

It’s this kind of cycling that gives us who obey the law a bad name. If you’re tempted to… just don’t!

Segregation on Queen Victoria St

Segregated Cycling on Queen Victoria St

This short section of road on Queen Victoria St is a regular highlight of my occasional commute between Victoria and Liverpool St. (Except of course for the time that white van parked across the entrance. No camera with me that time).

As you enter the ring of steel, part of the constriction of the traffic flow has enabled 300 metres of segregated running. It’s great, no fear of trucks, buses or ‘dooring’. I’m not sure why they bothered with the double yellow lines though.

Now if we could have segregated lanes down the Embankment, that truly would be a cycle superhighway…

No time to call

No time to call, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

This time I had the camera setup properly for panning, in ‘Tv’ mode (shutter speed priority) – basically allowing me to play with the shutter speed and let the camera figure out the rest.

The location is Ludgate Circus where New Bridge St / Farringdon Road converges with Fleet St / Ludgate Hill, looking towards Fleet St. It’s a busy cycle thoroughfare giving me plenty of opportunities to practice within 5 minutes stood on the pedestrian crossing.

Slowly, this part of London is ceasing to be a mystery to me. It’s amazing how small the city actually is once you start to learn your way around!

Oxo Tower

Oxo Tower, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

Before I went for cocktails at Cafe Kick yesterday, I aimlessly wandered EC1 with my SLR looking for things to shoot.

I’m rather pleased with this one, taken using Blackfriars Bridge as a tripod…

The full set is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/grimnorth/sets/72157625438184008/with/5195519338/ but I’ll be picking out a few more to show off during the course of this week.

Living on the edge

Living on the edge of the glass, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

Last night we were out celebrating Emerson getting a little bit older. As I’d been out in town playing with the SLR (+fixed prime lens), I still had it with me resulting in some more unusual photos from a night out.

This is Emerson with a Pearfect Martini.

Some of the other photos in the set are by Emerson and Roosh.

Pontoon

Pontoon, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

An archive photo, this one from August 2002 from the Tall Ships gathering at Zeebrugge.

The Belgian navy were pushing this pontoon across the dock using a small boat. Health and safety precautions? That rope keeping people away from the edge of the pontoon!

For the camera geeks, this was taken using a 35mm film SLR, Fujica STX-1 with a 50mm lens. I have absolutely no idea what the settings were…apart from wrong, given the largely bleached out sky!

No sky

No sky, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

This morning there was no separation between pond cloud and sky.

Unsurprisingly this led to no-one feeding the ducks and sky-rats…

100 Club

Sillohette for Bones, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

With having such a busy couple of weeks I’ve missed out writing about quite a lot of stuff… meh, it’s probably better to be doing things rather than writing anyway!

This shot is from the 100 Club on Oxford St – a proper decent small venue in the central London, current threatened with closure. I went along to see a post-rock bank I Like Trains (http://www.iliketrains.co.uk/) who are well worth checking out. The 100 club has chairs (a la plastic school chair style), real ale and seems to know how to set the levels, which is nice.

I’m certainly hoping to go again if something interesting comes along.

Hot Chip

Hot Chip, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

The other good photo from the Hot Chip/LCD Soundsystem gig I managed to get. Hot Chip have certainly got better live and I do love the overt geekiness!

If you’re bored and have spotify… try One Pure Thought

My ears have almost returned to normal, not helped by Manchester RAG’s DJ on Friday night :-\

Tribulations

LCD Soundsystem, originally uploaded by Alan Perryman.

Been a while since I’ve thought about blogging to be honest! The last couple of weeks have been jam packed with 3 gigs, far too many nights out and only the odd one or two rest days…when rest has been at the foremost.

On Wednesday last week I went to see Hot Chip/LCD Soundsystem at Alexandra Palace which was pretty good. My ears still haven’t forgiven me, which is possibly a sign to invest in some ear plugs for gigs – some places just don’t seem to get the levels right… Hot Chip were much improved on the last time I saw them – a much more coherent set, though it was still obvious the crowd was only really interested in the hits.

LCD Soundsystem were good – James Murphy sounding like he was suffering a bit from a cold, but otherwise excellent. No auto tuner present here – with the odd wobble off tune, which was nice. (Personally for live stuff I prefer it to sound ‘real’).

Ally Pally was an impressive building, though I’m not sure I’d rush back as a venue. Tokens to buy beer, being offered pills/etc 3 times and a general lack of transport don’t massively appeal…

Still, LCD Soundsystem did play possibly my favourite track of theirs – Tribulations (http://www.lyricsmania.com/tribulations_lyrics_lcd_soundsystem.html). So worth it all the same 🙂