Tag: traffic warden

Leaves On The Water

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We just had time this morning to transport the contents of two orange bags of clippings to Efford Recycling Centre before steady rain descended for the rest of the day. After a trip to Sears barbers in Milford on Sea for Peter to cut my hair, I scanned the next dozen colour slides from November 2004. One image wasn’t really good enough, so I deleted it.

Mepham Street SE1 11.04

Mepham Street SE1 stands beneath the main entrance of Waterloo Station. The BFI IMAX cinema that towers above the railway is described thus by Wikipedia:

The BFI IMAX is an IMAX cinema in the South Bank district of London, just north of Waterloo station. It is owned by the British Film Institute and since July 2012 has been operated by Odeon Cinemas.[1]

The cinema is located in the centre of a roundabout junction with Waterloo Road to the south-east, Stamford Street to the north-east, York Road to the south-west and Waterloo Bridge to the north-west.

The BFI IMAX was designed by Bryan Avery of Avery Associates Architects[2] and completed in May 1999. The screen is the largest in Britain (20m high and 26m wide). It has a seating capacity of just under 500 and a 12,000 Watt digital surround sound system. Although the site is surrounded by traffic and has an underground line just four metres below, the architects and engineers accounted for this in their design and the entire upper structure sits on anti vibration bearings to prevent noise propagation.

The cinema won several awards at the time of opening, including a Design Council Millennium Product Award[3] in 1999 and a Civic Trust Award in 2000.[4]

In 2012, the screen was replaced and a digital IMAX projector was installed alongside the existing 70mm projector. In July 2012, the BFI announced that Odeon Cinemas had been selected to operate it for the next five years, with the option of termination after three years. Odeon will maintain the film programmes, and booking of tickets online and per telephone. This also gives customers the opportunity to watch Operas on the giant screen. The BFI will retain a great deal of power over the cinema’s operation however, including parts of the film schedule and the technical operation.[5] The name will remain the same.

To start this move to mainstream cinema, the BFI London IMAX theatre celebrated by having sold 66,000 pre-booked tickets for The Dark Knight Rises in just 5 weeks, giving a total sale in tickets of £1,000,000 even before the premiere of the movie.’

Perhaps it is a little early to discover whether the five year contract has been renewed.

Boyce Street SE1

The Waterloo Station entrance is viewed here from Boyce Street SE1. In the early 20th century, the station was completely redesigned and rebuilt, reopening in 1922. The Victory Arch over the entrance commemorates World War I.

Midland Road NW1 11.04

The redevelopment of Kings Cross, St Pancras, and their environs was under way in 2004, as shown in this picture of Midland Road NW1. Maybe the man in the hard hat has left the heavily craned background for a lunch break.

Euston Road/Mabledon Place NW1 11.04

On the other side of Euston Road, at number 130, on the corner of Mabledon Place, stands the headquarters of the Public Service Union, the second largest in UK.

Kingsway WC2 11.04

I often walked across Kingsway WC2 on my way to my consultancy work at Portugal Prints,

St Clement's Lane WC2 11.04

the entrance to which is shown here on the corner of St Clement’s Lane.

Little Turnstile/Gate Street WC2 11.04

My route took me past Ship Tavern at the corner of Gate Street and Little Turnstile WC1. londonremembers.com tells us that ‘this tavern was established in the year 1549. During the proscription of the Roman Catholic religion it was used as a shelter for priests and services were held here secretly. The neighbourhood was once notorious for the gambling houses of Whetstone Park. Famous visitors have been Richard Penderell, who aided King Charles’s escape, Bayford, shoemaker and antiquarian. The woman Chevalier d’Eon, who lived as a man, and Smeaton the builder of the first Eddystone Lighthouse. It was a centre of Freemasonry and a Lodge with the number 234 was consecrated here by the Grand Master the Earl of Antrim in 1786.’ The hostelry was rebuilt in 1923.

Whetstone Park/Gate Street WC2

When I photographed Whetstone Park a traffic warden was no doubt relishing writing out this parking ticket. Maybe someone got the wrong idea from the name of the street.

Remnant Street/Lincoln's Inn Fields WC2 11.04

That little area led me to Lincoln’s Inn Fields and to the above-mentioned Portugal Prints.

London Mews W2

The Dickens Tavern, on the corner of London Street and London Mews WC2, boasts of being London’s longest pub. It certainly goes on forever, possibly the whole length of the mews. It is, of course, not very wide.

Leaves on canal 11.04

I must have ventured onto the towpath of the Regent’s canal when taking one of these walks, because another photograph of leaves on the water has crept into this set.

This evening we dined on Mr Pink’s fish and chips, Garner’s pickled onions, and Tesco’s wallies, followed by strawberries and ice cream.

Imperial Knob Screws

The garden was looking very inviting today, blossom, such as apple and ornamental cherry abounding, but the house itself remains a priority for our attention.
Flo is coming a day earlier, so we set out early to B & Q, the national DIY company originally set up by Messrs Block & Quayle in Southampton in 1969. Marks & Spencer’s, is of course, another large national outlet known by its founders’ initials. Our high streets are also graced by C & A and H & M stores; the first being the first name initials of the Dutch entrepreneurs who founded the store in 1841, and the second from the surnames of Swedes Hennes & Mauritz in 1947. C and A were Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer. As Michael Caine famously claims never to have said, ‘not a lot of people know that’.
Now, where was I? Ah, yes. B & Q.
We went in search of curtain rails and the missing screws from the door knobs that fell off on 31st March. Jackie found the curtain rails whilst  I rummaged through rows and rows of screws, bolts and nuts seeking something that might possibly fit the bar I had in my pocket. I only found two fittings that might vaguely serve the purpose. Both were too long. I reported to one of the check-out desks to ask if they had any more. The helpful young lady put out an SOS on the tannoy asking someone from hardware to come and assist me.
Now there’s a word to conjure with. Tannoy.
Tannoy is a Scottish -based loud speaker and public address system manufacturing company. Never having any idea who has installed the particular system we are listening to, we always call such a facility ‘the tannoy’. Just as a vacuum cleaner is always a ‘hoover’ and a ball-point pen ‘a biro’. Even Google, the search engine that provided me with the information on Tannoy, is now a noun to be found in dictionaries.
Ah, yes. B & Q.
Clive soon appeared and rummaged, equally unsuccessfully, with me. He announced that they didn’t do them, and suggested Castles, ‘an old-fashioned ironmongers’. Jackie and I didn’t know where Castles was, but she had googled ironmongers the night before, and knew there was one in Lymington. So off we drove to Lymington, which, incidentally is in the opposite direction to Christchurch. There Jackie, having done her usually successful google walk didn’t quite get a turning right in the car, and moreover wasn’t sure of the name. We ended up at Crystals at the far end of the High Street. It wasn’t possible to park there, so Jackie continued on round the one-way system to Waitrose, where she went shopping whilst I back-tracked to the hardware shop. There a very helpful young woman directed me to Central Southern Security just past the railway station at the other end of the street. I knew this because we had passed it earlier. So off I went on foot the way we had come in the car.
Another helpful individual, this time a man, hunted among his screws for something that might fit. He explained, as had the young woman earlier, that these screws normally came as a set with the knobs, and there wasn’t much call for them these days. Also they had an old kind of thread. He didn’t find anything suitable, but he did send me on to a real ironmongers called Knights, opposite the library.

And there I struck lucky and bought four imperial screws at 20p each. The old thread must be an imperial measure.
Then I had to find my way back to Waitrose car park. I realised that I was probably now in a direct line to the car park and should not have to retrace my steps back to and along the High Street. I had exchanged greetings with a traffic warden earlier, and suddenly spotted him again. Now, who else but an ambulant traffic warden would know the quickest way there?

He did, and directed me through a car park; along a couple of cuts, or back alleys; and across a cemetery, to Southampton Road where I would be ‘near enough there’. Miraculously, I followed the route and ended up at Waitrose just as Jackie was emerging with a loaded trolley. This was handy because I was beginning to think that a Modus in that forest of cars was like a needle in a haystack.
Jackie rather kicked herself for not remembering the ironmonger’s name.
Becky and Flo arrived early this evening and the four of us dined at Elephant Walk Indian restaurant in Highcliffe. A little more upmarket than others we have enjoyed, the food here was superb, but we had to wait for it. The service was friendly, but one had the feeling the two women on duty were rather overstretched.