Posts from the category General
Posts in this category are (in the main) not assigned to one of the more specific categories in this website.
The Monument, London
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Although there are plenty of monuments (with a small “m”) around London, there is only one Monument (with a large “M”): that to the Great Fire of London. The Great Fire of London, which raged through 400 acres of the city within the original Roman walls in September 1666, destroyed almost 90% of the city and left most of
The View from The Shard
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Visitors to London can buy tickets to ascend The Shard by express lift and enjoy the views across London from near the top of Western Europe’s tallest building. I received a ticket as a gift last year and so when I was in London a few weeks ago, I organized to visit. The view from the
Jemima’s Journey Through Switzerland
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British Pathé was a leading news service in the earlier part of the twentieth century, when people would visit a picture house (or cinema) to see the latest news reels, instead of seeing them in the comfort of their own homes. British Pathé completed their YouTube channel this week and amongst around 85,000 films now online
Southbank Centre
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The Southbank Centre has long been one of the places to which I return when in London, thanks to a proliferation of arts venues, large spaces free of traffic, plenty of street performers, and a wide range of nooks, crannies, corners and walls in which light – both natural and artificial – are constantly changing. Although
Borough Market
Published in
The marketplace beneath the big railway viaduct near The Shard is Borough Market: one of London’s oldest. According to its own self-promotion, the market dates back to the twelfth century, when it was located at the southern end of the original London Bridge. Traders travel from far and wide to visit the market; a close
St. Mary-le-Bow
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The church of St. Mary-le-Bow in London sits halfway between St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Bank of England, on the historic road known as Cheapside. The church is widely accepted by many Londoners as being the true centre of London: tradition indicates that in order to be a true “Cockney” (Londoner), one must have been born
Bonnington Square Garden, Vauxhall
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The plot of land which has become Bonnington Square Gardens was cleared by a bomb during the Second World War and stood empty until the 1970s, when the local council made a weak attempt at turning it into a playground, before abandoning it to wild grass and stinging nettles. The council were reminded of its
Whitechapel Road
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There’s plenty of history within a short distance of this part of Whitechapel; the next on my short list is at the junction of Fulbourne Road, in the midst of the Whitechapel Market. The upstairs rooms of a building adjacent to the thriving street market on this junction – now a clothing store with a
259 Whitechapel Road
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Whitechapel is best known in history for scenes of violence, crime and poverty: from Jack the Ripper in the Victorian era to the Kray twins in the 1960s. Founded in the twelfth century, Whitechapel was historically a poor and working-class neighbourhood where the less salubrious businesses in the city found their homes; tanneries, breweries and
Blackfriars Road station
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What remains of the original Blackfriars station on the Charing Cross railway in London – this signage – was restored in 2005, and is clearly visible within a short distance of the current Tube station at Southwark. The site of the station, now referred to as Blackfriars Road in order to avoid confusion with the
White Hart Dock, London
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Walk along the north side of the river Thames at Lambeth and only the comparatively new wooden boat sculptures will even make you notice White Hart Dock. It’s an enclosed pool of tidal water, fed from the river, which dates back to the 14th century. Now filled with little else than rubbish, it was once
Black Prince Road
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I have spent a lot of time walking around London over the past week, with the intention of finding new sights and things of interest instead of just repeating the same old sights I’ve seen and visited a million times before. One of them was unexpected, as I walked from Stockwell back to the West
Thunersee nature reserves
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The Swiss aren’t generally as keen on nature reserves as the British. Despite the stupidly beautiful countryside, there are comparatively few places like RSPB reserves (over 200 in the U.K.) and the National Trust (who is the U.K.’s largest individual land owner). We’re lucky enough to live near two of the small Swiss reserves at Lake Thun:
In praise of rangefinder cameras
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I first tried a rangefinder camera – one with a little glass window in the corner of the camera – back in 2007. I found an Olympus 35 RC at a camera fair for about Fr. 20 and tried it out on a trip to London. I liked the feeling of using it, but it was
Sad attempt at romance
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Compare and contrast the trends on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris. The first of these photos was taken in 1996 or 1997 and the second was taken last weekend. These days, the lattices (and some of the old-fashioned street lights) along both sides of the bridge are covered completely in personalized padlocks, attached
Grindelwald in the “good old days”
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Travellers, historians and winter sport fanatics (and those of us who are less fanatic but still enjoy the mountains) will love this old film by Ronald Haines, shot in 1956 in the Swiss mountain resort of Grindelwald and on the surrounding mountains. (Link via Grindelwald Tourism on Facebook.)
Percentage-based CSS column layouts
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Laying out a page using percentage-based columns seems to be pretty easy. However, in responsive layouts, you’ll quickly run into problems if you don’t take legibility into account. The most obvious case is when the columns are predominantly text-based, where a suitable gutter between the columns is essential for the sake of legibility. (If you
