Yay! Of course this is extremely cool. A modern wonder: fabulous, fascinating, useful, funny etc etc.

And how does the crap press react?

Evening Standard:

Daily Mail:

Google forced to black out thousands of Street View photos after privacy protests.

THOUSANDS of privacy protests in a day? Really? I doubt it. I smell journalistic licence (commonly knows as “making up numbers out of thin air”)

The London Paper:

Google privacy protest

Google forced to black out new service after London sex shop pics outrage

What a load of crap. There’s nothing in these pictures that you couldn’t get by going outside and walking around with your eyes open. As if we have anything to worry about, with about 15 CCTV cameras for every citizen.

Anyway – have a look around on Street View – it rocks!

In the meantime, here’s screengrabs of 2 of my favourite local shopfronts.

^^ I like this one  because of the lovely old advertising paintings on the walls.

^^ And this one, because it’s so cheeky and naff.

Smart parking, with 90 degree option

Apparently this is legal parking for these little Smart cars. Nice! And it makes sense, considering the fact that they are shorter then many SUVs are wide…

I’m digging this subversive little sticker I spotted on a wall in Upper St, Islington last night

Makes me want to go and look up the facts about the information that TFL gathers about my movements. That’s TFL plus any government/council busybody or their mates. And, no doubt, the police.

If you can’t make out the URL on the sticker, it’s:

http://www.neoexternalism.co.uk

Intriguing!

Trying to think green for international travel, I can’t wait to fly like this across the ocean. But, until then, you can drop £360 for a one-hour tour of London on an Airship. You can see a beautiful photo gallery over at the Guardian.
Photo by Graeme Robertson taken from the Guardian Website (Is that legal? I will take it down if asked to cease and desist.)

Diagrams stolen straight from greenlaunches:

The world’s first cash point was installed in a Barclays in Enfield, 40 years ago this week.

Big whoop, but you must read the charming story that the BBC has written about it. It’s like some kind of Carry On Cash Point; a simpler time that you can hardly imagine really existed.

“Reg Varney, from the television series On the Buses, was the first to withdraw cash.”

This is like those stories, so beloved by the North American press, of pensioners flighting off cougars with pen knives. It re-enforces a lovely, deeply held believe in who we are — or were.

“Inspiration had struck [inventor] Mr Shepherd-Barron, now 82, while he was in the bath.”

Ah, the bath — mental stimulant for so many great ideas. Viz Archemedes and J-Lo.

“Barclays was convinced immediately. Over a pink gin, the then chief executive signed a hurried contract with Mr Shepherd-Barron.”

Read the whole, life-affirming article here. Inventors, all it takes is a bath, a pink gin, the ear of the CEO of Barclays Bank, and a dream.

Photo from the BBC article

I first noticed them about two weeks ago when I was walking home and saw a huge grey pole sticking up in the air wrapped in what looked like blankets and popper plastic. Our first thoughts were that they were for the cameras and signs that will inevitably be introduced soon for the West London extension of the Congestion Charge….

However they are not. I spotted the completed version above in Ladbroke Grove on the weekend and they ae just very weird looking lights – not sure if I like them or not yet, but we will see.

I love to fly–I will give up any carbon-producing activity, except breathing to keep air travel.

I’m hoping that the fuel efficiency, and pure masses of people moving power, of this beast could slightly reduce the impact of getting me off the ground.

Plus, big stuff is cool.

Photos at the BBC