Tafaner66
@tafaner
Recovering cyberutopian. LIKES: MUSIC (I play flutes, 7-string nylon guitar, and sing dreadfully); also LANGUAGES (En, Fr, Cat, Es) and the Great Outdoors - as long as it's not raining. DISLIKES: Mud
If you're in London and like walking, this area around Bow Creek and London city Island is worth a visit! It's quite central and developed, but the presence of water everywhere - the Thames, the series of bends in the River Lea and several dock basins - make it genuinely complicated. A labyrinth!
Good to see that London's "Woolwich Free Ferry" is still running and is still free. According to TFL, they have an all-female crew ("low-T" in Pete Hegseth language). I notice also that they have stopped using ropes to tie up. They use big blue magnets! And today, one of them seems to be broken 🤔
The idea of a cruise ship terminal in Deptford would likely provoke hysterical laughter from most Londoners. I guess that's why they pretend it's "Greenwich". It's not exactly Barcelona, but there are occasional ships here. And it looks like they've persuaded Uber / Thames Clippers to stop there 🤔
Don't we all hate motorway services? Looking for coffee stops off the main road, you sometimes get lucky. The "Galloping Grind" near Hatfield Peverel (A12) is a gem. Just somebody's back garden, but with great coffee and bacon sandwiches, solar mobile charging and more. 20% off for cyclists/walkers!
This is what i call a table. A single slice off a tree, around 12m long. No joins. I'm guessing that's where Vladimir Putin got the idea from 🤔
We carry a few accessories in the boot of the car, but an anchor and a length of rope is not among them. HW in 1953 was a good 2m higher. But I'm sure it'll be fine 🤔
First screen mockup of my #FrankensteinAccordion. It's a puny 5-inch screen, but quite powerful (graphics/text, 2 layers, H/W accelerated, so super-fast). Twizzle the rotary control (vintage Ipod!) to navigate the menus. I could have done a touch screen, but it would end up covered in marmalade 🤔
Round our way, that would likely have been a Patou, weighing as much as an adult human. Maybe even a hungry Patou 🤔
Not glorious, but good enough. And I love the way they bought on "El Panda" for the final 30 secs, in what is probably his last World Cup. I'm not sure he even touched the ball 🤔
We've been living with FIFA corruption for longer than many footballers have been alive. What would it take to end it ? If this isn't enough, what would be ?
How strange to hear the Spanish commentator pronounce "Los Angeles" as though it were Spanish ?! 🤔
@gabriellanonino.com I just got one of these! They are super light and seem decent, but sizing is wild! I should take L/XL, but that's way too big, and they only make 2 sizes (Tilley make 11). There are no tying cords either. So it's a return! We don't have much jungle in the Pays Catalan anyway 🤔
The "New" River, Broxbourne, UK - an artificial watercourse that has been supplying London since 1613. Is it time to put quotes around NEW? Maybe not rush into it ? 🤔 (The water is actually pretty clean - even without Trump peroxide and nano bubbles!)
The SL5 run from Bromley North to East Croydon is a breeze, passing through leafy suburbia with very little traffic. They have grass on the pavements here. And from Croydon, it's an easy train back to London. A pleasant way to spend a summer's day 🙂
Ken Livingstone was replaced as mayor by Boris Johnson who had his own ideas about buses. Thus the "bendy bus" gave way to the "Boris bus". Its iconic styling is much admired, but the open rear platform was always a nostalgia trip (now kept closed) and the aircon was significantly undersized. 8/
London has a long history of red buses, with occasional revolutions. Some will remember. Ken Livingstone's "bendy buses" (bus accordéon, to our French chums). Room for 140, and fast entry/exit through 3 double doors. Alas, they were ended largely due to political complaints about fair dodging.
In Bromley town Centre we get tipped into the Glades shopping centre, because Mme Tafaner needs to shop for frocks. I wait obediently. 5/
The Superloop buses are semi-express. They mostly roam the outer suburbs of London, through landscapes of replacement windows, but the SL4 has found the courage to venture into the centre of the city. 2/
Catching up on London transport developments. Today's outing is a triple adrenaline rush for transport geeks. We start in the heart of London at Canary Wharf, riding one of the new SUPERLOOP buses. Ooh...1/
Further down this road, things get even madder. For "surface mounting" and "rework", you solder under a microscope using a hot air jet at 350-400C. IC chips are the size of fleas - which is perhaps why the French call them "puces". Sneeze and your life's work is gone.
My dad had a proper soldering iron like the one on the left. Big, honest copper bit, valve radio cable and a 2-pin plug. I wonder what he would make of my new Sequre S99. Powered through USB-C, battery/mains, heats up in seconds, and has firmware for hours of fun doing updates. Currently on v1.08 🤔
It is genuinely confusing! And just to make things worse, one of our installations has a "fresh air" facility that's basically a lie! With mono-splits there no inside/outside air interchange at all. This facility just "ionises" the air, to help smoke/dust particles settle out. Chinese marketing 🤔