Fresh Flushers
I have work tonight! And tommorow! And likely next week too. Its just agency work, but by God im glad.
Ive been in my house in Haringey for a week now. Its working out well, though a few things needed adjusting to, like the pay as you go Gas and Electricity. The meter's have to be topped up with credit bought from the local store. ₤5 lasts about four days in a house of seven people. Theres an emergency function on the electricity meter that auto credits ₤5 which is then debited when you next top the meter up. If this was 1988 instead of 2008 there'd be a coin box attached to the meter in the hallway that someone from the National Grid would come round and empty once a quarter.
If you're eager to save the planet by using less electricity, move into a house with a top up meter. After dark (which starts at 4pm) i live by the light of my laptop screen. The hallway, bathroom and kitchen lights are always off and the fact that the juice could run out at 3am while your in the shower makes it a no brainer to remember to turn shit off. For the first time since 1999, i actually turn my computer off if i leave the house for any length of time...
Fucking backward....
Ive been gaining much satisfaction in learning the contours and curves of the underneath of London this last week, studying maps and reading reports. I have the following list of systems to explore over the next year:
Official name is left column, nickname is right. 'SR' means Sewer Relief tunnel, which are mostly dry and clean except during rain. 'SWR' means sewer, which means... well im sure you can imagine.
North Eastern SR = Deep Ochre
North Western SR = Labyrinth
Hammersmith SR = Serpents Lair
Ranlagh SWR = River Westbourne (UPPER/LOWER)
Ranlagh SR = The Egg/Eggs End
Kings Scholars Pond SWR = River Tyburn (UPPER/LOWER)
Fleet SWR = River Fleet
Fleet SR = Wrens Cache
Holloway SR = Heavy Mettle
London Bridge SWR = Stoops Limit
London Bridge No.1 SWR = Last Bastion
Regent St SWR = Supersoaker
Wandle Valley SR = Resident Eelville
Frogmore SR/Putney SWR = Crypt
Camden SR = Parasite
Brixton SR = Breach .
Low Lever No. 1 SR,
Wandsworth/Battersea
SR & Falconbrook SR = Devils Gate
Walham Green SR = Eden
Bermondsey SR = Arc
South Western, Effra
& Clapham SR = Rubix
Thats around 190 *kilometres* worth of walking :D
I started it all by taking Alias down the Fleet last night, as he'd not been. Man that tunnel is fresh! We explored the lower reaches before heading into Wrens Cache, which was so nice and clean by comparison to the Fleet, walking 2kms up towards Kings Cross Station. Turned back eventually from lack of time, popping out near Farringdon Road, then walking topside back to where we'd gotten in.
I feel like this fella, Jack O'Brien:
except he was a London Flusher, and im just into exploring them, not cleaning them. Either way, we are all pupils of the very late great Joseph Bazalgette, whose engineering went so far as making these delightfully easy to use manhole hatches and always placing them off roads, so no risk of a lorries front tyre to the head when exiting.
Saying that, its the rats who are the real masters of the tunnels beneath London. I walked at least 50m with my lights turned off so that the rats scurrying ahead of me would stop and let me pass, cos its not fair to make the poor wee buggers run away. At one point there were 8 of them ahead of me and every time we climbed one of the 7m high spiral staircases leading to the lids, they're'd be huge nests of baby rats. So cute!
Ive been in my house in Haringey for a week now. Its working out well, though a few things needed adjusting to, like the pay as you go Gas and Electricity. The meter's have to be topped up with credit bought from the local store. ₤5 lasts about four days in a house of seven people. Theres an emergency function on the electricity meter that auto credits ₤5 which is then debited when you next top the meter up. If this was 1988 instead of 2008 there'd be a coin box attached to the meter in the hallway that someone from the National Grid would come round and empty once a quarter.
If you're eager to save the planet by using less electricity, move into a house with a top up meter. After dark (which starts at 4pm) i live by the light of my laptop screen. The hallway, bathroom and kitchen lights are always off and the fact that the juice could run out at 3am while your in the shower makes it a no brainer to remember to turn shit off. For the first time since 1999, i actually turn my computer off if i leave the house for any length of time...
Fucking backward....
Ive been gaining much satisfaction in learning the contours and curves of the underneath of London this last week, studying maps and reading reports. I have the following list of systems to explore over the next year:
Official name is left column, nickname is right. 'SR' means Sewer Relief tunnel, which are mostly dry and clean except during rain. 'SWR' means sewer, which means... well im sure you can imagine.
North Eastern SR = Deep Ochre
North Western SR = Labyrinth
Hammersmith SR = Serpents Lair
Ranlagh SWR = River Westbourne (UPPER/LOWER)
Ranlagh SR = The Egg/Eggs End
Kings Scholars Pond SWR = River Tyburn (UPPER/LOWER)
Fleet SWR = River Fleet
Fleet SR = Wrens Cache
Holloway SR = Heavy Mettle
London Bridge SWR = Stoops Limit
London Bridge No.1 SWR = Last Bastion
Regent St SWR = Supersoaker
Wandle Valley SR = Resident Eelville
Frogmore SR/Putney SWR = Crypt
Camden SR = Parasite
Brixton SR = Breach .
Low Lever No. 1 SR,
Wandsworth/Battersea
SR & Falconbrook SR = Devils Gate
Walham Green SR = Eden
Bermondsey SR = Arc
South Western, Effra
& Clapham SR = Rubix
Thats around 190 *kilometres* worth of walking :D
I started it all by taking Alias down the Fleet last night, as he'd not been. Man that tunnel is fresh! We explored the lower reaches before heading into Wrens Cache, which was so nice and clean by comparison to the Fleet, walking 2kms up towards Kings Cross Station. Turned back eventually from lack of time, popping out near Farringdon Road, then walking topside back to where we'd gotten in.
I feel like this fella, Jack O'Brien:
except he was a London Flusher, and im just into exploring them, not cleaning them. Either way, we are all pupils of the very late great Joseph Bazalgette, whose engineering went so far as making these delightfully easy to use manhole hatches and always placing them off roads, so no risk of a lorries front tyre to the head when exiting.
Saying that, its the rats who are the real masters of the tunnels beneath London. I walked at least 50m with my lights turned off so that the rats scurrying ahead of me would stop and let me pass, cos its not fair to make the poor wee buggers run away. At one point there were 8 of them ahead of me and every time we climbed one of the 7m high spiral staircases leading to the lids, they're'd be huge nests of baby rats. So cute!