Scratch

Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.

Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.

On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.

 

Not The Norm

If you had asked me this morning as I got out of bed, whether today would hold anything different or unusual, I would probably have said I wouldn't have thought so.* What I wouldn't have said by any remote stretch, is that by the close of it I would be standing on top of a very windy twelve storey building helping aim a laser at another building a city block away.**

There are two reasons I wouldn't have expected this. First, the knowledge that aiming anything but the weakest laser at anything thats not both a) running; b) wearing a target; and c) enclosed in a warehouse, has inherent safety concerns; and secondly, my natural predisposition to keeping my feet in excess of five metres from anything over a one storey drop onto solid*** concrete. Actually, there is a third, and that is that I've never had cause to go onto the roofs of said buildings before.

What I hadn't counted on was the following series of events. One, having closed one of their buildings for refurbishment a month or two ago, the NHS would not secure it. Two, the building became occupied by undesirables of questionable legal title/rights. Three, said undesriables decide to cut all of our fibre links running through a shared basement with a view to selling for scrap as a means of providing income.

Whilst being a tad unusual and slightly unnerving for me, it was also inconvenient for several parties. First, those 500 or so staff who effectively lost network connectivity as the link went rather rapidly from a steady 2gb to flaky 100mb. The police who had to turn up and remove the undesirables. The undesirables who obviously couldn't sell their ill gotten gains on account of being arrested. I don't suspect that in the latter case it would have made much difference to their ecnomic standing anyway, as although copper has a scrap value easily in excess of £1000/ton they took fibre which has a neglible scrap value. Copper yes, but fibre?! Come on its glass. And had they not cut the links, they might have been able to live there undisturbed until work starts on site in late 2008. Fools..

Saying all this the one concillation, for me anyway, was the view(s). They were stunning. Standing on the South Western Corner, there is an awesome uninterupted view taking in the horizon from Hampstead Heath, taking in such noticeable buildings in the foreground as Kings Cross, Senate House, the Swiss Re Building, Shooters Hill, the Savoy, The London eye and then most of Kensington.

It makes you remember how much certain buildings, either through height or architecture, stand out, especially when compared with their neighbours - Euston Tower / Centre Point I'm looking at you. Saying that, even where I was at twelve storeys I could still fall under the shadow of the Post Office / BT Tower and it make me feel sick at just imagening how small people must look some 43 floors below.

Whilst I hope that such things aren't a regular occurance, and I don't think my stomach could handle it if it were, I wouldn't complain if it were to happen just prior to a particularly stunning sunset/rise.

Now all I have to do is wait and see what the weekend through to Monday holds****.

10 Nov 2006 21:31 | (0) comments | Work

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