Hacker News Reader

Comment by blippage | Hacker News Reader

If that's too scary for you, you could always look at "Pylon of the Month" https://www.pylonofthemonth.org/

The website was set up by an Englishman, of course, because that's what us British do best: quirky and underwhelming.

I heard a fund manager in the energy sector the other day who said that PotM was the thing that fascinated listeners most.

Spoiler alert: January's pylon is from Cadiz in Spain, has its own Wikipedia page, but the pair featured aren't as tall as the Thames crossing pylons.

View on HN

And also this gem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout_Appreciation_Societ...

which got its meme explosion from a calendar of 12 roundabouts, here is the latest 2024 edition:

https://dullkev.com/product/roundabouts-of-the-world-2024-ca...

On the topic of Appreciation Societies, I'd like to add the World Bollard Association which has brought me much joy.

https://twitter.com/WorldBollard

As an aside, what's today's preferred alternative Twitter/X frontend, now that nitter.net seems to have shut down?

In London, some bollards have been made out of recycled cannons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxdJrqV0l4c

You generally find this where ever cannons have been. I've seen in NZ, UK, France, Malta, etc

I use twiiit.com (and have a rule in kagi to replace twitter.com with twiiit.com in search results)

It uses a random nitter instance each time.

Thank you to all upvoters, the parent comment has brought me to 1000 Karma, some 12 1/2 years later :)

Ah yes, the Arc de Triomphe, notable for its location in one of the great roundabouts of the world.

Speaking as someone with a predilection for photographing fire hydrants and manhole covers, this seems like an entirely reasonable perspective.

Have you seen the "fire hydrants that look like planets" blog or whatever it was - it was a few years ago...

https://www.reddit.com/r/firehydrantplanets/ <-- Warning, contains Bollards as well.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=firehyd...

Lots of really cool planet-hydrants posts

Ah yes, the Arc de Triomphe, celebrating victory in 1806, which turned to tragic defeat by 1812, and invasion by 1814, with 500k French dead, and the Russian Tsar marching into Paris - presumably inspecting the shiny new Arch of Victory LOL. The French invasion of Russia turned into the Russian (allied) invasion of France.

The aforesaid roundabout (12 avenues meeting in a neat circle, containing some vague gallic-shrug number of unmarked lanes) will always be the Place D'Etoile for me, never the Place Charles de Gaulle - but that's another long story of French arrogance and hubris. I do believe the Nazis also paraded around the French Arc de Triomphe.

> quirky and underwhelming

Describes Stonehenge perfectly. Which I suppose could be some sort of ancient pylons?

You might be interested in "Crap Days Out", a book published about 1 decade ago. In it you can find out such treats as the Dinosaur Museum, which has no dinosaurs, the Pencil Museum, which boasts the world's largest pencil, and Teapot Island, home to more than 8,000 teapots. Of course Stonehenge appears in it.

Here's a review in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2011/aug/21/crap-days-out...

"And that's Stonehenge!" I announced. "Is it?" replied Maria. "It's a bit small and rubbish, isn't it?" "Yes," I said proudly. "It is."

If you're referring to the Pencil Museum in Keswick, I found that fascinating. But that's probably just me tbh ...

You promised me underwhelming and I almost had a heart attack with January's pylon

Thankfully the 2023 ones were just mundane enough to bring me back

Spoiler alert: January's pylon is from Cadiz in Spain

Thank you for bringing me back. I wish I'd be there now for the Carnival.

Those towers are a nice landmark. The photo is great, but it lacks perspective of how they connect Cádiz and Puerto Real over the bay. A video:

https://www.endesa.com/es/proyectos/todos-los-proyectos/sect...

> The website was set up by an Englishman, of course, because that's what us British do best: quirky and underwhelming.

In a sense I'm disappointed, because it's not as underwhelming as I had hoped. There goes my expectation of getting a new favourite of these things every month: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Pylon_01...

Turns out there's a Dutch equivalent also: https://www.hoogspanningsnet.com/

> because that's what us British do best: quirky and underwhelming

Yup. We're a bit crap and we know it. And that's just fine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com