Month: April 2008

My mobile phone plays MP3s. Drifting off into daydreams staring at the nothingness of the Metropolitan Line on standing-room-only commutes into London town.

The headlines on the front pages burden upon the soul when haunted by music so sad and so loud in your personal space. But staring at the ordinary can often become extraordinarily and hauntingly beautiful when doing so.

Click on the green button below and while it’s loading (be patient; it’s a high quality MP3 but should only take a couple of mins on broadband) put your headphones on and when it’s loaded turn up the volume really loud and click the “play” button and stare intently into the picture; focussing on infinity.

Music is the beautiful voice of Alyssia singing “Tera Pyar” (“Your love”) produced by London’s own Punjabi Hit Squad. This track has dominated the desi music charts in London last couple of months. Enjoy.

It’s been a while since my last update here. Busy busy. In the meantime I discovered that Flickr now does video! And I’m actually getting the hang of it. At first I was a bit hesitant at the idea; I mean: why try to compete with YouTube etc. but now I’m beginning to realise the genius of it: a) max 90 second clips: b) perfectly integrated with the way in which stills are handled; c) email upload mechanism preserved for us cameraphone junkies – the net result is that you won’t get pirated videos or user-generated karaoke-diatribe there; instead you’re more likely to get stuff that complements stills very well; and more likely to get cameraphone footage: which, of course is all about real life. We love real ife!

Sometimes I have to drive to work instead of taking the buses and trains. If I do this, I have to park in a multi-storey shoppers car park in Slough near my office. The drive up the ramp can seem boring and mundane, but there is something quite exhilerating about it. You get a slight feeling of power as you hit the gas to get to the top and then command the barrier to raise:

For those new to Flickr, you can get an insight into the Route 79 Flickr lifestyle here.

When it snows you can guarantee that there’ll be loads of Flickr people checking in with pictures of the scene from their windows. North West London is rarely graced with such sights, and even rarely in April, so I could not resist doing the same. By the early afternoon a razor-sharp spell of fierce sunshine caused this spectacle to vanish completely. A classic example of the craziness of the weather systems here in the UK.

Enjoyed while it lasted. (You can see my beloved Route 79 bus in this picture; a blaze of colour in an otherwise greyscale frame.)