yen_powell

This is a city, land and waterscape all in one. River Lea, east London, tide is out.

Who have you upset this time?

I use a few different testers and I have noticed that the speed increases between the start and the finish of the test. I am sure all providers have a list of testing sites and some clever software gives you a temporary boost when you are using one. Mine started at 18 on the download then suddenly went up from the half way point. I suspect 18 was the normal speed I get.

Smuggled Steak you say? Okay................ but I want it rinsed properly before you cook it. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/10/08/a-brief-introduction-to-criminality/

A street works certificate 5 day course followed by tests in an unheated shed in January with a true pig of a man acting as lecturer. I wouldn't mind but it was a repeat of stuff we did 5 years before and I had to do it again a few years ago, but that one time was the absolute worst. I have never been so cold indoors before, nor disliked a lecturer as much. Whenever I had finished writing out reams of old shit I would go and get a coffee or visit the toilet, when I came back there would be a circle of people around my paperwork copying it feverishly. If I got something wrong so did they. I was doing the repeat in 2019 when I went to A&E at 3am with my last kidney stone so I missed the last 2 days. They tried to stiff me out of my Street Works supervisor card and said I had to do the two missing days, but I did some research and the units I had completed was enough to get the basic card.

A street works certificate 5 day course followed by tests in an unheated shed in January with a true pig of a man acting as lecturer. I wouldn't mind but it was a repeat of stuff we did 5 years before and I had to do it again a few years ago, but that one time was the absolute worst. I have never been so cold indoors before, nor disliked a lecturer as much. Whenever I had finished writing out reams of old shit I would go and get a coffee or visit the toilet, when I came back there would be a circle of people around my paperwork copying it feverishly. If I got something wrong so did they.

Also found pics of my big bollocked road planer that we used for a resurfacing job one day.

Found my Columbia Road cycle track pics on the same back up disc. I had to replace some grim 1960s brick planter full of needles and rats. I found an old giant plant pot thrown away by the City of London in one of my contractor's storage yards when I was choosing some second hand granite setts one day (they have a contract with the City as well). I got it for free and employed a sign writer/artist. I showed him what I wanted and he did the bizzo. I had some drain holes drilled in the underside, plonked a steel post in it, ordered some direction signs and made a little cycle track junction sign up. The old bloke in the pictures is Dead Ted, the most gentlemanly person I ever met. He was live Ted back then. I think he was 82 at the time these pictures were taken. Had a family box at Wimbledon Tennis ground and was brought up in Canada and Ireland before joining the RAF as an officer, then became a policeman, car salesman, highways inspector and finally highways contractor. I miss him. The bloke laying the turf is Jim, who will be setting out with me on Sunday. The blue duct tape on the indoor pics of the plant pot are mine so the artist knew where the pointy hands had to be (there are two in total) and which way they had to point.

Here's my road, the only pictures I can find is where we've already done the big bit at the Hackney end and have just started on the bit in the old tree area. It has grass growing through it now so it doesn't look so stark. The London Air Ambulance started using it for transferring patients to the London Chest Hospital after we finished it as it was clear of trees at one end and a nice stable landing ground in wet weather. I've got a video of articulated lorries running on AutoTRACK simulation between my trees somewhere on the server at work.

It's alright I suppose, has won a few awards, but it is a bit lacking in toilet facilities and I have had a few managers who think a meeting there instead of the office is a good idea. I built a road in there a few years back, I was only supposed to check the construction on behalf of someone else but it turned out there were no drawings for it at all, so I had to do those, including a bit of a wiggle to save some mature trees and then set it out. It now gets used by HGVs when they have a music festival in there. I'll see if I can find my pictures of the trees I couldn't save being cut down after a birds nest check. Bit of Old London Bridge put here when the park was built. The Georgian one not the medieval one I assume.

On Sunday I'm meeting Jim and his son Little Jim (also known as Gerald due to the fact that's his name) to mark out my scheme kerb lines on the actual road and footways in chalk and paint. This way we can gauge the best places to put any new gullies and drainage connections and see any obvious fuck ups with my lines before I go any further and make myself look a right dicky-doo-dah. Hope it stays dry or that's my overtime up the spout. Jim and myself will be measuring and curving bits of rope artistically whilst Gerald shouts out if we are about to get run over and if he doesn't he will get a blast of Gaelic swearing off his Dad from underneath a lorry. Coincidentally there is a nice food market just inside the park gates we will be working outside, so lunch should be exotic and possibly tasty. Check out the link below. http://victoriaparkmarket.com/

I had a hotel group email me claiming my footway (constructed a year ago) was stopping their fire door opening. Honestly, it's the slightest thing with these people! Their desk staff were obviously not informed of this dangerous fact because I now have 3 lovely photos of one of them holding the door fully open for my contractor Jim.

I only realised after I left that they have made a big change inside one of the barns. They used to have a metal platform and stairs at one end so you could stand right up amongst the roof beams to see them close up, with some of the makers marks and numbering systems highlighted. They also had sample jointed pieces of timber that visiting kids (and me) could pull apart and refit to show how the place was put together.

I shall miss this blogger when he finally packs it in. Sometimes he writes about his childhood, very odd tales they are, if I see one of those I'll pop it on here.

Another good one today, Spitalfields but in Suffolk??? https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/10/06/peter-minter-brick-maker/

Don't big him up, the man has no morals. He's nailed that poor bird to the tree just to get a brilliant photograph.

Are you a Mason? Or was this your audition photograph and they turned you down?

I love this one. The part where her tea warehouse working husband became the Mayor of Bethnal Green, but his employer wouldn't give him time off to do it so he had to get a new job. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/10/05/beattie-orwell-centenarian-x/

A member of the Blackadder cast there.

I laughed when this popped up in my youtube suggestions, then it occurred to me that some artificial intelligence/algorithm is convinced that it is my sort of thing. God knows what'll come next.

No point striking if no one notices.

Yes, we younger old people will never know the incredible joy of being crouched head down hanging on for grim death and chucking in a few extra bits of coal to get the last bit of speed out of our steam powered motorbikes. Or running out of oil on the way home and so having no lights to see by.

In Germany special highway snipers are employed who will take a pot shot at anyone with their high beam on when approaching other panzers, I mean vehicles. They are sticklers for the rules you know.