Spotted in London - London Eye

London Eye & Westminster taken from London Bridge.

- Late 2008

Spotted in London - Canary Wharf

Despite so many people pooh-poohing living in Canary Wharf, I actually enjoy it here. It's close to work, we have a proper Waitrose, mini John Lewis, Tesco Direct, M & S Food and the shopping centre. A multi-screen cinema, various bars & restaurants, a few gyms, and if you're willing to travel out from the estate, there are a number of quaint bars and restaurants.

Yes you do pay the price of travelling out to West End on the weekend to socialise, but I've made my decision that I'd rather travel out to socialise and stay close to work so I don't have to deal with the commute.

Belive it or not, it's actually can be quite fun just staying in on the weekend here in Canary Wharf. I certainly do enjoy the occasional lazy Sunday going to the nearby Cafe Brera, then off to the bookshops (we have 2 major ones here), continued to HMV or Game to browse the latest DVDs and CDs and then just bumming around the shops.

Canary Wharf ... pretty it ain't, but it's home to me :)

The photo is taken inside Canary Wharf Tube Station.

Spotted in London - Warwick Avenue

When I get to Warwick Avenue
Meet me by the entrance of the tube
We can talk things over little time
But promise me you wont stand by the light

- Duffy

Spotted in London - Ring 'N' Ride

Great concept and idea, just I haven't seen a single bike being used in London. London, being mostly flat, is a prime candidate for biking around. Unfortunately whoever had this idea forgot that it rains almost constantly in London. Cycling (in London) is for the die-hard
only.

Spotted in London - Baker Street Tube Station

It's a shame really, that I haven't found the time to visit one of the famous addresses in the world, 221b Baker Street.

Overheard in London - The Economist ...

"There are two types of Economists, those who can't predict the interest rate and those who don't know that they can't predict the interest rate"

     - He who shall remain nameless - Feb 2009

Spotted in London - Oh the pain of Tube weekend work

Everyone in London dreads this information display screen. This display rules everyone lifes in London. Behold the true master of London :)

Spotted in London - Valentine's Day

Spotted just outside Warwick Avenue's tube station ticket gate.

Building the past

Call it sentimental or just avoiding to study for CFA, I consolidated all my previous emails dated back from my university days. The first email that I managed to archive is email back from 1999. So my archive contains just about 10 years worth of emails (and counting)

Until this night it has been in multiple backups and different data files. Outlook has come a long way since the buggy, slow (well it still slow now but much better) first releases. I am actually quite impressed with its ability to host and display the thousands emails.

Going back to the emails it's very interesting to read what I sent & received back in 1999, boy I was such a different person back then. Having said that, sadly most of my emails are not in my archive. I think just like everyone else (who work in offices), our vast majority of emails are sent through work emails :)

London Snow - One Week Later

I found it really amazing that one week after London's big dump we still have snow around Canary Wharf. Well actually, is not really snow ... more of lump of (dirty) ice.

PS: This is also testing the "Blog This" functionality of Picasa. Looking good I reckon, nice, easy and it just works.

London Snow - 2

As expected, today's biggest dump in 18 years pretty much stop London's public transport. All London buses are not running and The Tube is severely disrupted. The train lines are pretty darn slow with many cancellation of service.

While I personally don't have any problem going to work (benefit of living less than 10 minutes walk to work) the office is deserted today. (Fortress) Canary Wharf is unusually quiet for a Monday working week, all the shops close early (Waitrose closed at 7pm today instead of the usual 9pm) while I saw one or two are not even staffed.

The air travellers had the short of end of the sticks I reckon, most flights are cancelled and some airports are completely closed.

The debate is currently raging about whether London should be able to deal with the snow or we've done the best we could. I'm more in the camp of of course we could have done better but I'd rather see the practical side of it. I don't think it worth spending millions of pounds on snow readiness program if we're only going to show this much disruption once every couple of decades.

Photos are up in my PicasaWeb.

London Snow

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timackroyd/3247093390/