Always look down in London: Pavement oddities
londonist.com
londonist.com
- Every tube station has a "labyrinth" to find. https://art.tfl.gov.uk/labyrinth/about/
- Vehicles drive on the left hand side in the UK. Except at the entrance to the Savoy, where road markings make it clear they must drive on the right.
- We love roundabouts. Londonist has a nice article on some of the weird things you can find on some of them here: https://londonist.com/london/secret/the-strange-things-you-c...
- When using transport, the normal rule of thumb is that the underground will be quicker than a bus or even a taxi on many journeys, but sometimes walking beats even that. TfL has a tube map that helps you figure that out (check out Covent Garden to Leicester Square - a 90 second tube journey that takes at least 8-10 minutes due to the depth of the line): https://content.tfl.gov.uk/walking-tube-map.pdf
Context for our American friends. This isn't specific to London. Everywhere I've lived in Europe is more roundabout-heavy than the USA. Because, you know, they're objectively superior ;-)
At first I would see people treat them like a slight curve in the road and blow through them, but we seem to have figured them out now
We most commonly use the "Give Way" sign at junctions instead, indicating that other traffic has priority.
I think what your relatives mean is that if everyone has a stop then it'll be messy because everyone will try to go first after they have stopped...
Here in the UK they have installed 2 stops and 2 give ways at a nearby crossing and it's already quite dangerous because no-one is sure what to do: those with give-ways think they should go before those with stops, those with stops think they should go first if they arrived first... honking ensues very often. If you're lucky it ends in a very British "you go first, no you go first" contest, which is not very practical, either.
Some people try clock-relative turns, but that only works if the vehicles arrived while an existing rotation (of prior vehicles) was in progress.
there are accidents, of course, but i'm not sure of any 4 way traffic junction that's infallible.
and as others stated, right-of-way rules are observed atop the social norms.
It works fine most of the time and 4-way stops are usually only used in city streets where the speed limit is 40-50 km/h.
They are dangerous if used on more rural roads where people aren't expecting they have to stop or misjudge right of way.
*Given that the roundabout is fed by single-lane streets with low traffic and excellent visibility and no stop signs before entry, which would otherwise negate the advantage of quicker entry.
I think when Americans say they're baffled by UK roundabouts, they're almost always talking about the huge multi-lane roundabouts. Those, to me, are nightmare fuel.
famously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_%28Swindon%29...
“Look kids, there’s Big Ben! Parliament!”
National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985):
Similarly on Palatino bridge (Ponte Palatino) in Rome, vehicles drive on the left side.
Does anyone know why they have drivers enter on the right instead of the left? Does it make valet parking faster or something?
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5106158,-0.1210778,3a,17.4y,...
In Savoy Court, vehicles are required to drive on the right. This is said to date from the days of the hackney carriage when a cab driver would reach his arm out of the driver's door window to open the passenger's door (which opened backwards and had the handle at the front), without having to get out of the cab himself. Additionally, the hotel entrance's small roundabout meant that vehicles needed a turning circle of 25 feet (7.6 m) to navigate it. This is still the legally required turning circle for all London cabs.[1]
That was a til for me too, i though that means the shape of the vehicle.
There's a legal distinction between taxis and hackneys. Taxis can be taken from a taxi rank or flagged down, but hackneys must be called to collect you. I'm sure there was a reason for the distinction at some point, but it remains.
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-informa...
The implementation is very hacker friendly. The PCATS counter is literally bolted onto the side of the existing lights and learns the pattern of the system to which it is attached by monitoring its behavior. There is basically all but an air gap between the counter and the lights themselves, and the counter is making an informed guess. They start their installation-lives having no idea how much time will be left.
As such, each counter is equipped with a 4 bit error display to indicate its status — out of sync, could not sync, faulty lights, etc. Keep your eyes peeled for little LEDs telling you something about the internal status of the system.
Example: https://uk.yunextraffic.com/portfolio/traffic-signal-control...
Error codes shown here, on page 7: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/PCaTS-Note-4-Technical-Specificat...
https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/pedestrian-facilities-b...
One of my locals is a coaching inn that goes back centuries. Where the coaches would have entered is covered by the building above and under that, where people now sit and drink, there are still wooden cobbles. I doubt they're from the original horse-time (which is only a century ago, or less), but there they are.
The Stanton Warrior drain cover: https://www.google.com/search?q=stanton+warrior+drain+cover&...
They were produced by Stanton Ironworks in Derbyshire, which closed in 2007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilkeston#Stanton_Ironworks.
Many of them must have been replaced with a different brand since then as I noticed fewer had the Stanton Warrior brand when I was last in London in 2019.
The British electronic music producers The Stanton Warriors took their name from these covers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanton_Warriors.
(Also, at adds with the old Google interview brain-teaser, "Why are manhole covers round?" - they're rectangular. So I guess it they don't care so much if these ones fall in the hole, probably because they're not holes that workers go down into).
Your note about them not falling in makes me wonder if Google had a different answer?
This is inaccurate as a generalization - in the three jurisdictions I've worked in, they're round if they're newer than ~1990, and mix of round and square (or two triangles that go together to make a square) if they're older than that. The frame and cover are replaced independently from the MH structure itself so the cover doesn't tell you anything about the makeup of the structure.
Edit: for example https://maps.app.goo.gl/m8rR4vrPHBPTyXxo9
It's the kind of question that's asked in interviews because it has several answers and a good candidate should be able to think it through and suggest a reasonable number of them and demonstrate their ability to creatively think through a problem. That round covers can't fall in seems one of the simplest and most important, given that a cover that falls in could kill or seriously injure a worker.
https://www.livescience.com/32441-why-are-manhole-covers-rou...
Great artwork and interesting stuff with many remaining ones effectively unique as they were put in by a particular locality for a time and then others have been removed.
When I was looking for an appartment in Berlin, at one viewing appointment there were about 20 other people interested in the same appartment. It was quite nice, but there was an insufferable stink everywhere inside that appartment. After we left I noticed that I had stepped into dog poop before and the reason for the smell was the dog shit stuck to my shoe. I applied and surprisingly there were almost no other applications, so I got accepted. The appartment never smelled that bad again :)
The development of the water supply and sewerage in London is super interesting. See e.g. The New River Company and also The Great Stink.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_New_York_City_steam_explo...
The conclusion is obvious – wiping with dry toilet paper is an inefficient, unhygienic, and sometimes painful way of cleaning yourself after defecation. Hence, people use wet wipes to "feel fresher", as the advertisements euphemistically put it.
The solution is also quite straightforward – go all the way and replace most uses of toilet paper with bidets or washlets, following the lead of smart nations like Japan. Wet wipe usage will automatically plummet. City planners all over the world should be running campaigns promoting bidet usage and partnering with washlet companies instead of sternly wagging their fingers at wet wipe users.
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[1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/14/andy-serkis-p...
The buyers and users of wipes are changing diapers on little kids and old people, not on-the-go busy professionals. The immense concentrations in sewers are not correlated with office worker productivity. Wipes are convenient to do that in public. Only a few countries have enough trash cans nearby for the occasion.
So, if someone is going to market the term flushable, I want them to be responsible for plumbing fiascos when it is.
https://www.barkergotelee.co.uk/who-is-responsible-for-maint....
> Some 19th century street furniture also remains, enabling the road to present an excellent understanding of the appearance of many residential areas in the era of horse transport. The council will promote the retention of the original street surfacing and furniture in the conservation area.
Was something I normally expected in upmarket rural areas and traditional villages.
For those interested, for Bucharest there's this [1] blog-post with a few photos of some old manholes. In here [2] there's a list of links from the same project to posts that present some old stuff from and around Bucharest (the text is in Romanian, but there are lots and lots of photos that are self-explanatory).
She uses manhole covers to create prints, "Raubdruck" means "pirated edition" but literally it's "stolen print"
Locally, the challenge is an interesting, somewhat artistic, usually (but not always) urban picture. I've already taken a picture of most designs I see, after all. In any other city, I'm catching the design first. (Tromsø, Norway has a reindeer!)
I'm not all that surprised there is a website to catalogue them and am always kind of happy to be reminded that others have the same fascination.
There is a section of wall revealed by a dig in Kotzia square[1]. The nearby paving traces the walls, and further on the National Bank is raised up so you can see the wall continuing on.[2]
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9818329,23.7288448,120m/data... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Acharnian+Gates/@37.980860...
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5073443,-0.1227047,3a,75y,82...
I've seen them in many places, can't think of what they're for.
[1]: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4860115,-0.102246,0a,42.9y,1...
Occasionally have seen a car stuck on top of one :)
They are especially good at stopping trucks cutting corners and enforcing width restrictions.
It's not really about the same thing, just similar sounding titles, and a nice excuse to mention one of my old favorite albums!
Most are survey markers, contractor stamps, road names, etc...