Posts marked with the tag “dundee”
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Gaudy is Good
Tuesday, 1st December 2009 • Individual photographs, Travel • 2 comments
I love gaudiness in the U.K. at Christmas and revel in the blinking, multi-coloured tastefulness of it all. Just so long as it’s someone else’s home, not my own.
Tay Bridge and west Dundee from The Law
Tuesday, 30th September 2008 • History, Individual photographs, Travel • 1 comment
During a violent storm on the evening of 28 December 1879, the centre section of the first Tay Bridge, known as the "High Girders", collapsed, taking with it a train that was running on its single track. Seventy-five lives were lost, including that of designing engineer Sir Thomas Bouch’s son-in-law. The total number was only established by a meticulous examination of ticket sales, some from as far away as King’s Cross. Forty-six of the sixty known victims were found, with two bodies not being recovered until February 1880. A common 19th century urban myth in Dundee was that Karl Marx would have been a passenger on the fatal train of 1879 had illness not prevented him from travelling. The foundations of the first bridge were not removed and remain visible alongside the existing newer bridge. (Source)
Security threat
Tuesday, 30th September 2008 • Photography, Technique • No comments
View this photo at Flickr »
Not a great photo, but I’m posting it in order to wind up a security guard and highlight the photographic policy in the Wellgate shopping centre in Dundee. Moments after taking this, I was accosted and asked what I was doing. This photo is dangerous material, as I could’ve been taking this shot of the Wellgate shopping centre in order to provide details of the layout to someone who (quote) "wants to plant a bomb". (The fact that the centre is open to any member of the public, including potential bomb makers who therefore wouldn’t need me to help them, seemed to have escaped him.)
This was my first direct experience of the continual national fear of imminent attack in the UK, which has been driven to such an extreme by government and media hype that every contract security officer thinks they’re fighting international terrorism.
Of course the most ridiculous aspect of the whole incident was that I was allowed to go on my way, with my photo, if I “promised” th