Boredom(noun) the state of being bored by something tedious [syn: {ennui}, {tedium}]
How do you fill your time? There really is an awful lot of time in our lives needing to be filled - that's 24 hours daily, 10 thousand minutes weekly, and over 30 million seconds each year. Some people could fill their days many times over, never finding enough hours to get everything done. They wake up, the day passes in a blur of hyperactivity, and hey presto it's time to go to bed again. Lucky them. For other people each day is a potential avalanche of boredom. A featureless morning stretches out into an interminable afternoon, leading perhaps to a non-descript evening, this prescription to be repeated daily. Unlucky them. Most of us usually lie somewhere inbetween those two extremes, the odd seemingly-endless bout of clock-watching balanced out by physical activity and mental stimulation. We get bored sometimes, but we cope.
The human race treats boredom much as it would any other medical condition - it throws huge sums of money at the problem to try to make it go away. Multinational industries thrive on our need to repel boredom, forever attempting to convince us that inactivity is a socially unacceptable state of mind. Many people now grow up unable to cope with genuine boredom, becoming restless and impatient after only a few minutes of enforced silence. Our attention span is diminishing with each generation.
Over the years, people have found many different ways to avoid boredom, many different ways to fill their time. Over the next few days I'm going to list 20 of the most successful methods people use to keep boredom at bay. The list will reflect society's top time-fillers, and not necessarily my own. Maybe the list will be useful next time you're staring at a hole in your life and wondering how to fill it. Or maybe you use a lot of these methods yourself already, in which case you almost certainly won't have time to read any of it. Lucky you.
Twice in the last week I've found myself in the City of London after the tube had shut down, trying to make my way home. No problem, usually. London has an impressive network of nightbuses, including one that stops outside my house every 10 minutes. Absolutely perfect, usually. However, on busy nights this particular bus has a nasty habit of becoming jam-packed full of drunken revellers by the time it leaves the West End. Should you attempt to catch the nightbus any further east than Oxford Street the driver just sails straight past your stop, leaving you stranded. You can wait for the next nightbus, of course, but that's probably a non-stopping sardine tin too. So, last night I found myself stranded in the City of London for the second time in a week, thwarted in my attempts to catch a nightbus home, faced by a three mile walk home. (I don't do taxis, remember?). So, I followed the route of the District Line home, above ground. It only took an hour, which surprised me. And the walk went something like this:
Bank/Monument: The City of London may be the hub of the world's financial markets but, outside business hours, the place is dead. This is especially true in the early hours at the weekend, with just a few lost souls walking the streets and some bored policemen keeping an eye on them. The 41-storey Gherkin hangs ignored in the sky, illuminating the empty streets. I walked past the occasional posh bar with chauffeured cars waiting outside to pick up young Debs and her pals, but everywhere else appeared mothballed waiting for life to restart at 8am on Monday morning. Just 3 miles to go...
Aldgate: Aldgate marks the easternmost part of the City, the edge of the historic centre of London. During the Plague in 1665 a 'Great Pit' was dug here to bury the bodies of London's dead. The place hasn't improved much since. Nowadays Aldgate is just a giant roundabout, with the tube station and a few other buildings hemmed in the middle. Pedestrians are forced to use the subways, which is very annoying when there's virtually no traffic on the roads above. One subway contains motion sensors, triggering a series of recorded directions to the local shopping centre as you walk through. It's most unnerving as a disembodied voice shatters the silence, and quite pointless at 1am too.
Aldgate East: It's only a short walk from Aldgate to Aldgate East at the start of the Whitechapel Road. This has been the main road east out of London since Roman times, heading out to an ancient ford over the River Lea and onwards to Colchester. The best nightlife round here has to be the legendary BeigelBake just up Brick Lane, home to the very best early-hour cuisine that 50p can buy. Nearby some early traders were already setting up their stalls for PetticoatLane market - it was already the start of the working day for some.
Whitechapel: Whitechapel lies at the very heart of the East End. It's no longer appropriately-named because most people here aren't white and there aren't many chapels left (although there is the highly impressive East LondonMosque). Back in 1888 very few people would have been brave enough to walk the streets of Whitechapel after dark, for this was the site of the infamous Jack the Ripper murders, and 75 years later the notorious Kray Brothers would have scared everyone indoors instead. Today the local population seem somewhat braver, with many staying out late especially to sample the local delicacy - dodgy fried chicken and greasy chips.
Stepney Green: 900 years ago Stepney was one of the first villages that grew up outside London. Parts of Stepney still retain a village-like period charm, particularly those around the oasis of St Dunstan's Church. Unfortunately I was walking home along the Mile End Road, which is the arse end of Stepney. It's no surprise that William Booth founded the Salvation Army round here in the 19th century. I walked hurriedly past numerous minicab offices, each of which offered a dodgy-looking shortcut home that would either shorten my journey or my life.
Mile End: Mile End is so named because it lies exactly one mile from Aldgate. However, the village of Mile End grew up long and thin alongside the road to Essex, so Mile End station actually lies nearer two miles from the City. It's a colourful area. Here you'll find the Green Bridge, a Millennium-funded project which is actually a yellowbridge carrying Mile End Park over the main road. After dark you'll also spot the recently-relaunched Purple nightclub fully illuminated in what can only be described as a hideous shade of pink, along with a lot of white speckled with orange on the pavements outside.
Bow Road: At last, I was on the final stretch of my long walk home. Bow was originally a small village that grew up alongside the first bridge over the River Lea. Queen Matilda (yes, honestly, check your history books) ordered the bridge to be built in the 12th century after nearly drowning in the river while trying to cross to her favourite hunting grounds. That ancient bridge has since been replaced by the hideous concrete Bow flyover, but last night it was a welcome sight for me. It had been an interesting and sobering walk home, and a reminder of how compact much of London really is. Next time though, I hope there's space on the nightbus with all the drunks and nutters.
Clue 2: most of you own a modern device that can decode this message
1st to solve the message: Pat from A Blog's Life. Again! Congratulations Pat.
2nd to solve the message: Tony, from the comments box, just three minutes after Pat.
3rd to solve the message: Luca, from Bitful.
TV:Wanted(Channel 4, 1996-7) Take two teams of two contestants and leave them for a week to run around inside the biggest game show studio in the country - namely the whole country itself. Then, for one hour a week, get them to hide in a phonebox live on national television. It was the recipe for one of the most original television programmes of the 90s, and sorely missed. Which 10km x 10km gridsquare would the Runners be hiding in this week? Would the Trackers hunt them down before the end of the show? The show ran for two series and attracted a cult following, which sadly wasn't large enough to save it for a third. At which point Channel 4 rather gave up on the blockbuster game show (see also Treasure Hunt, Don't Forget Your Toothbrush) until the current rather ill-advised Boys And Girls. Wanted - fondly remembered, sadly forgotten.
Music:Now That's What I Call Music(1983-now) Can it really be 20 years since someone first had the bright idea of sticking all your favourite current singles onto one album once every four months? Apparently it can. Way back on the very first NOW in 1983 you could treat yourself to chart-toppers from Phil Collins, Kajagoogoo and Culture Club, classics from Heaven 17, Human League and Howard Jones, and the unexpectedly wonderful Men Without Hats and Will Powers. The first album was the only one without a number, and the first to feature the NOW sunglassed-pig (disappeared thankfully after NOW 5 in July 1985). The three-circled NOW logo lasted from NOW 3 to NOW 17, while the current 3-D style logo kicked in with NOW 20 at Christmas 1991. We're now up to a mammoth NOW 54, although the current 42-track selection appears rather weak. Scooter, a couple of Timberlakes, DJ Sammy and no fewer than nine tracks from Pop Idol type TV nobodies. NOW just doesn't seem to be NOW any more, but it was THEN.
Things to look forward to in the second half of May
Saturday 17th May:FA Cup Final - Arsenal v Southampton. Last chance for some silverware this season. Six one again?
Monday 19th May: Donnie Darko - the best film of 2003 is available on DVD (and old-fangled videotape)
Wednesday 21st May:Matrix Reloaded - the blockbuster movie, destined to be a top selling DVD just in time for Christmas.
Friday 23rd May:Big Brother 4 - the King of reality programming returns. I'll be an addict again, I know it.
Saturday 24th May:The Museum in Docklands - opens at West India Quay by Canary Wharf.
Saturday 24th May:Eurovision in Latvia - You either hate it or you're 100% hooked on the music, spectacle and trivia.
Monday 26th May:Yet another bank holiday - excellent.
Friday 30th May:Evoke-2 is released - the very latest portable digital radio, and top of my gadget shopping list.
Saturday 31st May:Annular solar eclipse - visible from Iceland and North West Scotland, just.
Have I missed anything?
Here's another coded message for you to try to solve. It's rather different to yesterday's!
Again, solutions by email please, not in the comments box.
I'll give you a clue tomorrow should nobody have solved it by then.
Well done to Pat of the excellent A Blog's Life for being the first person to crack yesterday's coded message. Solution here tomorrow. The logo on Pat's blog is part of a rearranged computer keyboard, so I'm not surprised that she's good at this sort of code breaking. Head over to A Blog's Life today and you'll find a mini cryptic crossword to solve. Bletchley Park was full of people selected because they were good at cryptic crosswords, you know.
SEO FTQOTF DS ICOSAECOX KDPB JKOHQ ODAE VOOBOHM VZSE OWEZIZSQ JH VDPSZFO AJMO IPODBZHG DHM SEO EZQSJPX JN ODPCX AJFKTSZHG
Can you read this coded message? It's been encrypted using a far simpler code than Enigma.
Solutions by email please, not in the comments box. Well, not yet anyway.
Another coded message tomorrow.
May 8th marks the anniversary of the end of World War 2, or at least the European part of it. WW2 lasted for nearly six years, but it could have gone on a lot longer had it not been for Milton Keynes. Or, to be a little more accurate, had it not been for a country house and some Nissen huts just outside Milton Keynes filled with some of the brainiest brains in Britain. This was Bletchley Park, home to the Government Code and Cypher School - the centre of British code-breaking during the Second World War. 7000 men and women were chosen to carry out this top secret work, brilliant mathematicians and linguists drafted in to try work out what on earth Germany might be up to and so turn the tide of the war. Forget Test The Nation - this really was British Intelligence at its peak.
The German armed forces sent coded messages to each other using a fiendish machine called Enigma. The Enigma machine looked like a typewriter in a wooden box, with an electric current travelling from the keyboard through a set of rotors and a plugboard to light up the 'code' alphabet. You can find out how one worked here, and have a go at using one online here. I saw a real Enigma machine in operation last month and was surprised both how small it was and how devilishly simple the technology was. Even so, Enigma could write any message into code in over 150 million million million different ways. Not surprisingly the Germans believed that their codes were unbreakable and that their military secrets were safe. Wrong.
Hidden away at Bletchley Park, the cream of the UK's code-breakers were ready and waiting each morning to try to crack that day's code. There were little clues, like the fact that messages often started with a weather report, or the fact that Enigma never ever coded a given letter as itself. The code-breakers also used some impressive technology of their own, first a huge mechanical device called a Bombe, and then in 1943 a machine that was nearly the world's very first computer, called Colossus. Colossus was 5 metres long, 3 metres deep and 2.5 metres high, made from plugs, cables and valves, and worked using punched tape. Ten identical machines were built and, eventually, they were able to crack the German codes on a regular basis. One of the men behind the invention of Colossus was Alan Turing, a true genius and the father of modern computing.
Bletchley Park didn't win the war by itself, but the people there helped it to come to an end quicker than might have been expected otherwise. Convoys of ships containing urgent supplies could find the safest way across the North Atlantic because the Allies knew where the German U-boats were. Invaluable information about the size and location of German troops helped to ensure that the D-Day landings were a success. And the Germans never once believed that the Enigma code had been broken, even when the Allies managed to score yet another unlikely and improbable hit on one of their military positions.
So, let's hear it for Milton Keynes, the birthplace of computing (one of the reasons that you're able to read this page on your monitor 60 years later) and the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany (one of the other reasons that you're able to read this page on your monitor 60 years later).
The metric system was first introduced in France in the late 18th century. French scientists agreed to define the metre as "one ten-millionth part of a quarter of the earth's circumference" and then set out to find out exactly how long that was. It took many years for them to measure it accurately, presumably because it was nigh impossible to measure such a huge distance when they'd not yet defined a unit of length. The scientists then went on to define one litre as the volume of one-tenth-of-a-metre cubed, and one kilogram as the weight of one litre of water. All very nicely linked and logical, which is more than can be said for the motley assortment of ancient measurements that the metric system has replaced all around the world. Everywhere except America, that is, where they still insist on using Ye Olde English units based on the ever-so-easy-to-calculate 8, 12, 14 and 1760 times tables. Still, better to be mathematically hamstrung than to capitulate to the French, obviously.
Maybe now is the time to replace the metric system with a new set of units of measurement more appropriate for the 21st century, and this time we really need to choose a system that the Americans might actually approve of. Here's a few suggestions:
Capacity - the latté Definition: the volume of coffee required to kickstart an American in the morning.
Prefixes: x1 tall; x2 grande, x3 venti
• average coffee consumption in the UK per day per head = 0.4 latté • average coffee consumption in Seattle per day per head = 6 ventilatté
• the capacity of one of those free samples of shampoo you sometimes find in magazines = 1 millilatté
• the amount of beer sold by one pub over a bank holiday weekend = 10 kilolatté
Length - the freedom Definition: the distance one tank can advance in one second
• the distance from Basra to Baghdad = 1 megafreedom
Mass - the donut Definition: one icing-topped ring of jam-packed dough (diameter 1 millifreedom)
• weight of one Hostess Twinkie = 0.75338 donut
• weight of one McDonald's gherkin = 1 centidonut
• weight of one donut addict = 5 kilodonut
Time - the hourglass Definition: the average time that Windows takes to respond to one mouse click.
• time taken to make one cup of coffee = 1 hrglass
• time taken to stare out of window and back at screen = 0.01 hrglass
• time taken for PC to crash losing all your work = 0.000001 hrglass
• total time wasted globally each day waiting for PCs to respond = 1 gigahrglass = 1 gates
For more on weights and measures, see my Miscellany page here
Update: There's been extensive discussion of this post and of the virtues (or otherwise) of the metric system over at Samizdata today. As a result I've been persuaded to change my definition of 'freedom' to be the distance a tank can advance in one second, not one minute. And now the maths works almost perfectly.
No doubt you'll have seen the huge new health warnings that now take up about 30% of a cigarette packet. The first batch of warning messages featured such catchy slogans as Smoking kills, Smokers die younger and Smoking causes cancer, chronic bronchitis and other chest diseases. So successful have these been that the Government is now considering bringing out a new set of 12 health warnings, depicted below. Smokers - why not try to collect the full set!
...is a very sexist title for a film (and indeed a comic series) that also features women, but there you go. It's not actually the official title of the film, which is X2, but if you start advertising a film called X2 you're going to get a lot of parents dragging their children along expecting them to be taught their two times table instead. Oh no, the movie is much more about division than multiplication.
In the world of the X-Men there's a growing group of mutants in our society who feel and act differently. They've learnt to band together in secret underground groups, occasionally breaking out to form pressure groups demanding action against prejudice and misguided legislation. Most discover they are different during adolescence, while some only come to terms with who and what they are after much soul-searching later in life. A young mutant needs to come out as different to his family, who may not take the news well and may even try to turn him over to the authorities. There are definitely more males than females within this particular genetic group, and when they fall in love it's always with one of their own. They tend to wear trendy figure-hugging clothes, some have a lot of facial hair or tattoos, while the older ones are often bald by choice. Sound familiar?
The film kicks off with a thrilling assault on the Oval Office at the White House. The plot, such as it is, centres around the need to put right the PR damage this attack has caused to the mutants' cause. Everyone gets a chance to show off their special power in the process, even if the story feels a threadbare method of linking these set pieces together. It's also easy to pick holes in the plot (look, one of you has the power to turn water into ice - why on earth should the collapse of a huge great dam be so difficult to stop?) but there's easily enough here to keep you entertained for two hours. The film's also stayed pretty much true to its comic book roots, and there's lots here to keep the fans happy before the inevitable release of X3. Marks out of ten? 2X2X2
Through some careful country-hopping I've managed to experience five bank holidays in the last 2½ weeks. That's Good Friday (UK, April 18), Easter Monday (UK, April 21), Queen's Day (NL, April 30), Labour Day (NL, May 1) and May Day (UK, May 5). If I carry on with some judicious travelling I could be in Lebanon for Martyrs' Day tomorrow, Israel for Independence Day on Wednesday, and half of Europe for Victory Day on Thursday and/or Friday. At this rate maybe I can avoid going back to work until at least next weekmonth year.
Apparently it's 25 years ago this weekend since the sending of the very first spam email. It was sent by a company called the Digital Equipment Corporation to promote their latest range of 'mini'computers. Their email was both badly written and unwanted by its recipients - in which case very little has changed in spamworld since 1978. It's good to hear that DEC have since been taken over by Compaq, so presumably the spam email didn't do them a lot of good in the end.
Spam is now estimated to account for up to 40% of global email traffic, up from 8% only two years ago. At this rate the world is going to be completely overrun by spam in the very near future, unless something can be done to stop it. Most of the world's email spam comes from the city of Boca Raton in Florida, and not from Nigeria as many people believe.
Here's a selection of spam (and Spam) related weblinks. And don't worry, none of these sites will send you unsolicited email.
• Here's some reflections on the 25th anniversary of email spam.
• Here's a spam timeline.
• Here's a site devoted to ridding the internet of spam.
• Here's a program designed to stop spam getting through. Maybe it'll work better for you than it has for me.
• Here's a top 10 of the most annoying spam of 2002, featuring sex, drugs and central African countries.
• Here's a site which collect fraudulent spam, including this rather brilliant email exchange with an unsuspecting Nigerian.
• Here's a fun inbox full of the sort of spam that sadly you never get sent.
• Here's some information about the real Spam, and you can even join the official Spam Fan Club.
• Here's the manufacturers of meaty SPAM getting annoyed at being associated with internet spam.
• Here's where to visit the official Spam museum (it's in Minnesota).
• Here's a page written by someone who collects anything and everything about Spam.
• Here's a lot of haiku about Spam. Oh tin of pink meat, I ponder what you may be: Snout or ear or feet? • Here's the script of the legendary Monty Python Spam sketch, and you can listen to the pink pork masterpiece as well.
I'd like to recommend The Word Spy, a fascinating website that collects recently coined words and phrases from the media. Each word is defined, discussed and examples are given of appropriate usage. The site is American so not all the words and phrases have made it this side of the Atlantic yet, but give them time. Here are ten of my favourites:
arachnerd (ah.RAK.nerd) n. A person that spends way too much time either surfing the Web or fussing with their home page.
geezer glut (GEE.zur glut) n. The large number of old people that will result as the baby boom generation ages.
grays on trays (GRAS.on.tras) n. Older adult snowboarders.
hand-me-up (HAND.me.up) n. A used object, especially an article of clothing, passed from a younger person to an older person.
hasbian (HAZ.bee.un) n. A former lesbian who is now in a heterosexual relationship.
Iraqnophobia (i.RAK.nuh.foh.bee.uh) n. An unusually strong fear of Iraq, especially its ability to manufacture and use biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.
jetiquette (JET.uh.kuht, -ket) n. The rules or norms that govern correct or polite behaviour while on board an aeroplane.
marmalade-dropper (MAR.muh.layd-draw.pur) n. Something that is extremely shocking or upsetting, particularly a newspaper headline or article.
sheeple (SHEE.pul) n. People who are meek, easily persuaded, and tend to follow the crowd.
wordrobe (WURD.rob) n. The words and phrases that comprise a person's vocabulary.
1) Invite your American tourist to London on a wet windy day in May, trying in vain to convince them that the weather's not always this bad and that they only narrowly missed a forty-day drought.
2) Visit St Paul's Cathedral, having explained how stunning the ceiling is, only to discover that the entire central part of the building inside is encased in scaffolding for long-term renovation work.
3) Visit the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, having explained how many famous people are buried there, only to discover that none of them are actually famous to an American.
4) Visit the Whispering Gallery 259 steps up inside St Paul's Cathedral, having explained how a whisper on one side of the gallery can be heard 100 feet away on the other side, only to discover that the excessive scaffolding means this phenomenon doesn't work at the moment.
5) Visit the Golden Gallery 530 steps up outside St Paul's Cathedral, having explained how fantastic the view will be from above the dome, only to discover that its pissing down with rain outside and that most of the view is obscured by thick grey rainclouds.
6) Descend down numerous staircases behind snail-paced tourists back to the floor of St Paul's Cathedral, only to discover that the sun has now come out and the view from up top would have been tons better fifteen minutes later.
7) Go for an open-topped sightseeing bus tour of London, sitting in rain-splattered seats, listening to a limp commentary that merely repeats all the historical facts you could have told them anyway, gently developing hypothermia in the drizzly breeze.
8) Go for a boat trip down the Thames from the Tower to Westminster, trying to explain that half of the commentary is an example of something called the 'British sense of humour' and therefore isn't actually true.
9) Go for tea at the top of the Tate Modern, where the chips are bloody good but then they really ought to be for £2.75, with a perfect view across the river of happy tourists out round the Golden Gallery of St Paul's Cathedral enjoying the bright sunshine you missed earlier on.
10) Walk across the Millennium Bridge in driving rain, explaining that this bridge was originally closed for being too wobbly whereas now it merely feels as if it should be closed for being too damp and windswept.
I have been summoned for juryservice next month. Apparently I have been chosen at random, and not merely because I might want to miss work for an indeterminate period of time. Jury service is one of the great unbloggables, so forgive me if I go a little bit quieter halfway through June.
Boredom (noun)
Bank/Monument: The City of London may be the hub of the world's financial markets but, outside business hours, the place is dead. This is especially true in the early hours at the weekend, with just a few lost souls walking the streets and some bored policemen keeping an eye on them. The 41-storey Gherkin hangs ignored in the sky, illuminating the empty streets. I walked past the occasional posh bar with chauffeured cars waiting outside to pick up young Debs and her pals, but everywhere else appeared mothballed waiting for life to restart at 8am on Monday morning. Just 3 miles to go...
Aldgate: Aldgate marks the easternmost part of the City, the edge of the historic centre of London. During the Plague in 1665 a 'Great Pit' was dug here to bury the bodies of London's dead. The place hasn't improved much since. Nowadays Aldgate is just a giant roundabout, with the tube station and a few other buildings hemmed in the middle. Pedestrians are forced to use the subways, which is very annoying when there's virtually no traffic on the roads above. One subway contains motion sensors, triggering a series of recorded directions to the local shopping centre as you walk through. It's most unnerving as a disembodied voice shatters the silence, and quite pointless at 1am too.
Aldgate East: It's only a short walk from Aldgate to Aldgate East at the start of the Whitechapel Road. This has been the main road east out of London since Roman times, heading out to an ancient ford over the River Lea and onwards to Colchester. The best nightlife round here has to be the legendary Beigel Bake just up Brick Lane, home to the very best early-hour cuisine that 50p can buy. Nearby some early traders were already setting up their stalls for Petticoat Lane market - it was already the start of the working day for some.
Whitechapel: Whitechapel lies at the very heart of the East End. It's no longer appropriately-named because most people here aren't white and there aren't many chapels left (although there is the highly impressive East London Mosque). Back in 1888 very few people would have been brave enough to walk the streets of Whitechapel after dark, for this was the site of the infamous Jack the Ripper murders, and 75 years later the notorious Kray Brothers would have scared everyone indoors instead. Today the local population seem somewhat braver, with many staying out late especially to sample the local delicacy - dodgy fried chicken and greasy chips.
Stepney Green: 900 years ago Stepney was one of the first villages that grew up outside London. Parts of Stepney still retain a village-like period charm, particularly those around the oasis of St Dunstan's Church. Unfortunately I was walking home along the Mile End Road, which is the arse end of Stepney. It's no surprise that William Booth founded the Salvation Army round here in the 19th century. I walked hurriedly past numerous minicab offices, each of which offered a dodgy-looking shortcut home that would either shorten my journey or my life.
Mile End: Mile End is so named because it lies exactly one mile from Aldgate. However, the village of Mile End grew up long and thin alongside the road to Essex, so Mile End station actually lies nearer two miles from the City. It's a colourful area. Here you'll find the Green Bridge, a Millennium-funded project which is actually a yellow bridge carrying Mile End Park over the main road. After dark you'll also spot the recently-relaunched Purple nightclub fully illuminated in what can only be described as a hideous shade of pink, along with a lot of white speckled with orange on the pavements outside.
Bow Road: At last, I was on the final stretch of my long walk home. Bow was originally a small village that grew up alongside the first bridge over the River Lea. Queen Matilda (yes, honestly, check your history books) ordered the bridge to be built in the 12th century after nearly drowning in the river while trying to cross to her favourite hunting grounds. That ancient bridge has since been replaced by the hideous concrete Bow flyover, but last night it was a welcome sight for me. It had been an interesting and sobering walk home, and a reminder of how compact much of London really is. Next time though, I hope there's space on the nightbus with all the drunks and nutters.
