jonny goes to england

seen at a building site.

TimeOut London (a large event/culture magazine for London region) reviewed the street I’m living on as part of their East End special. Now what is surprising is that they chose this road; when I walk down to my flat all I can see are dirty streets, bleak project houses, unappealing shops and bored guys hanging around. However TimeOut managed to describe Globe Road in a positive way — you would nearly want to visit it. Interesting.

They conclude with

Grubby, intriguing and historic, this friendly but edgy area is a worthwhile prospect for those who can see the beauty through the grime and get to the area’s warm heart and lively soul.

It’s summer now. The only place you notice that it’s summer is the tube though. From wikipedia:

In summer, temperatures on parts of the London Underground can become very uncomfortable due to its deep and poorly ventilated tube tunnels: temperatures as high as 47 °C (117 °F) were reported in the 2006 European heat wave. Posters may be observed on the Underground network advising that passengers carry a bottle of water to help keep cool.

In the last weeks lots of stuff happened, most of it not really noteworthy though. I started writing a new paper .. perhaps in an another post I can explain what I’m actually doing with it

Tomorrow I’ll be going to the Southbank Centre Meltdown festival where Massive Attack will be playing!

Ab Heute gilt ein Trinkverbot in allen oeffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln in London. Das heisst in der Tube, Bus, DLR und Trams darf nicht mehr getrunken werden. Ein eher komisches Verbot .. da man nicht viele Leute in der Tube trinken sieht … und betrunkene Leute selbst wird es trotzdem haben. Dafuer muessen jetzt normale Underground Angestellte Leute mit Alkohol Flaschen abweisen .. das kann ja heiter werden

Um das letzte Bier in der Tube zu feiern trafen sich gestern tausende von Leuten und fuellten die Waggons von gewissen Linien..

Einen (negativen) Eindruck dieser Aktion liefert BBC hier.

London harbours a lot of foxes. They come out at night, search for food, fight or mate. Yesterday was such a night. I was quick enough to snap a pic .. unfortunately only with my mobile .. so pardon the quality.

Good to know: Foxes can make the most aweful and painful sounds you can imagine! I once woke up at night and thought my neighbour is finally slaughtering their babies with an axe. But I was wrong! I had to get up and sleep walk to my window to see two foxes fighting.

When I was booking my flight to the US a friend of mine pointed me to two nice pages:

• seatguru.com: See all good/bad seats and which to avoid on most airlines and plane types
• airlinemeals.net: Browse through thousands of pictures of airline meals. The difference between first and economy is striking

Ich moechte nicht zuviel ueber das Wetter hier berichten, jedoch geniesse UK seit einigen Tagen eine echte   Hitzewelle .. der letzte Regen ist “lange” her! BBC’s Prognose fuer die naechste Woche sieht ebenfalls sehr gut aus

Letztes Weekend war es sehr sonnig .. einen kurzen Abstecher in den Green Park hat sich gelohnt. Hunderte von sonnenhungrigen Leuten verbrachten ihren Nachmittag auf dem Rasen.

Allee zum Buckingham Palace.

Unser Department teilt ein sogenanntes Informatics Hub mit dem Biology Department. Es besteht aus einer kleinen Kueche mit Kaffee, Tee und Sitzgelegenheiten fuer ein Mittagessen, Meetings oder Aperos..