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Here’s the mid May time capsule including photos from the Kew temporary garden outside the British museum, goslings at Alexandra Lake, Wanstead Flats and the London Orbit Tower.
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There’s a bloody great helicopter Warship moored in the Thames at Greenwich!
When I surfaced at Greenwich on Thursday, there were two remarkable ships on view. The newly reburbished and reopened Cutty Sark is looking great now, with all the scaffolding and stuff gone, so you can see the glass building that surrounds the bottom half of the hull as it should be seen. With a slight lengthwise curve to the roof, the old ship has an impression of movement, more like she’s back sailing on the water than when it was just sunk in a darkened concrete hole of a dry dock.
Lynx helicopter
And out on the river Thames itself, before embarking the motor cruiser to see the Cable Car Crossing and the Thames Barrier, the scene is dominated by an enormous grey warship. From the waterside, the shape of HMS Ocean is disorientating. The superstructure is asymetrical, and the main hull looks like it’s been sliced lengthways, revealing two big holes at the side. Seeing the platform jutting out on the port side, it looks a bit like a traditional aircraft carrier, but it isn’t. It’s a helicopter ship, carrying eight Lynx helicopters there to patrol the no fly zone during the London 2012 Olympics.
HMS Ocean at Greenwich
According to information I looked up later, there are both Army and Navy Lynx helicopters onboard, as well as serving as a base for anti terrorist units during the period of the Games. Greenwich is used to seeing large Navy ships moored in the Thames, such as HMS Illustrious last year.
Combined Operations badge
You can see the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy building from the train between Manor Park and Ilford, on the mainline from Liverpool Street Station to Shenfield, or intercity to Ipswich and Norwich. I saw the earthworks when it was being built, but didn’t know what it was at the time. Now there’s an enormous black shed over the site, with large red lettering which reads “Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy” The words are so big I couldn’t even fit them into one photograph with my camera set to widescreen!
So what is do they do there exactly? Well, pretty much what it says on the tin, but what they omit to say in the title is that it’s all linked to the Crossrail project.
The establishment of a Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy (TUCA) is central to Crossrail’s delivery plans and its legacy to the industry.
What is TUCA?
The Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy (TUCA) is a purpose-built training facility that supports the key skills required to work in tunnel excavation, underground construction and infrastructure.
By building and establishing TUCA, Crossrail is contributing to the development of new qualifications and Health and Safety standards across the industry.
Crossrail is working with industry, professional bodies and other organisations with a requirement for skilled underground workers, to ensure that the facilities and training at TUCA are aligned with the needs of the industry.
from http://www.crossrail.co.uk/delivering/skills-employment/tuca/#.T55h6sRYuco
Crossrail itself is the huge engineering project to build a new underground east west railway line underneath London, connecting Heathrow and Paddington through to the City and Docklands, and out through Manor Park and Ilford to Shenfield. Its the beginning of an extra deeper, faster layer to the London undergound system which should really have begun in the 1970s like the RER in Paris. The first trains running on part of Crossrail are due in 2018 with a full through service sketched in to commence in December 2019.
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via posterous
The Routemaster bus will be back on the streets of London from Monday 27th Feb 2012. Londoners’ favourite bus – the only one you can hop on and off ( except this one has doors) – has been redesigned by British designer Thomas Heatherwick.
New Routemaster Bus in the rain
Thomas Heatherwick (born 17 February 1970) is an English designer known for innovative use of engineering and materials in public monuments and sculptures. He heads Heatherwick Studio, a design and architecture studio, which he founded in 1994.
By incorporating an open platform at its rear, the bus reinstates one of the much-loved features of the 1950s Routemaster which offered a ‘hop-on hop-off’ service. The new design will also have three doors and two staircases, making it quicker and easier for passengers to board.
Shrove Tuesday is also known as pancake day. One of the few days in the year when you are almost obligedbto eat a particular food item, like hot cross buns at easter and all sorts of things at christmas.
via posterous
Andy Roberts is a writer who initiated DARnet. Contact me on aroberts@gmail.com or @aroberts on twitter
