Wall to wall iTech

This is Apple trying to hang on to the lion's share of the gadget market. They haven't quite taken over the entire Tube network but it rather feels as if they would if they could. Quite pretty in an abstract way, but surely people must realise - that multicolour effect isn't going to work if you just buy one iPod.

The ghost of Euston Tower

A little tower nestling up against the almost-iconic Euston Tower, once known as the home of Capital Radio. The unfinished residential tower is a dull unreflective grey and features an unattractive and rather pointless basket-weave design. When it's finished it might at least be lit up at night, but for now it looks thoroughly sinister. Just one part of the mishmash of overdevelopment currently going up on the Triton Square / Hampstead Road site.

Cycle chic and bicycle culture

There are as many aspects of bicycle culture as there are kinds of people who ride a bicycle. Sporting types and fitness freaks who never cycle for mundane transportation reasons, only to keep fit and achieve speed or distance targets. People who only cycle to get from A to B and have no interest in bicycles, just ride them. Bicycle collectors who have several bikes, maybe several of the same sort, but hate to get their perfect machines dirty. People who cycle because it's trendy. Gadget enthusiasts who have an expensive bicycle and as many cycling accessories as they can get their hands on: bike clothing, bike bags, bike maintenance kits. Enthusiasts who cycle everywhere and think of themselves as cyclists, read and talk about cycling, wear clothes that match their bike, dream of owning their ultimate bike, whatever that might be. Creative types who are more interested in acquiring new and different bikes than in actually riding them. Timid cyclists who only ride on cycle paths or the pavement. Confident riders who prefer main roads because they are faster - but also ride on the pavement when the road doesn't go where they want to go. Stunt riders. Messengers who ride for a weekly wage. Eccentrics with an eccentrically decorated, battered machine that is something a bit too close a best friend. Individualists who set out to explore the world on two wheels. The common thread is the bicycle itself: a bike requires energy and takes you from door to door, never runs out of fuel, improves your health and fitness if you ride it, needs little looking after and never goes out of fashion. Each subgroup of cyclists contributes something to bicycle culture, above and beyond the bare equipment and the primary purpose for which it is used. That Copenhagen-style Cycle Chic is just scraping the surface.

The path less travelled

This is one of the small gardens in front of Euston station, popular with office workers as well as the deadbeats who frequent the area - a green oasis in between the bus station and the non-stop traffic mayhem on Euston Road. So why the fence blocking off the path? Well, it's just a dirt path crossing the grass by the most direct route, beaten down hard by many years of use, quite muddy in winter but well used by thousands of feet in a hurry. Not any more. Instead of making a proper path where it's obviously wanted, there's a new fence that blocks the route. One day, perhaps, the council might dig it up and put in some grass seed, but for now it looks rather silly.

The art of street photography

Walthamstow is heaving with artistic activity this week and next. The E17 Art Trail started last weekend and hosts 176 exhibitions as well as performance events and poetry displayed in estate agents' windows. A lot to see, but I have to admit to being busy or distracted, and hardly seeing any of it so far. The English Defence League march on the opening Saturday of the event proved too much of a distraction. After being kettled right on Hoe Street, the only thing I saw of the Art Trail was one of the cycle tours run by Waltham Forest Cycling Campaign, zipping past my house just outside the danger zone.

Sunday was a bit quieter and I did visit the rather baffling conceptual art at the Quaker meeting rooms. Close by is the Rose and Crown pub, where I wanted to see Matt Russell's Motion Blur, simple but effective mobile phone photos of people captured from the top deck of a bus - he calls this 'something of an obsession'. Then at La Delice cafe, a show by Esther Simpson titled People I don't know which delivers as promised, fascinating glimpses of other people's lives. Quite eccentric lives, some of them.

It would be interesting to know if the subjects of Esther's photographs were unaware of being photographed, as it appears, or if she just asked them not to look at the camera. Maybe a combination of both, since people react in different ways to a camera: some will want to pose, others hate being photographed or want to make themselves presentable first. A few might be doing something dodgy and definitely don't want anyone taking photographs. As I found out when I tried to photograph a car wash in Tottenham - the camera sometimes just arouses suspicion. Outside the Olympics on opening ceremony day, a girl passing by actually hit my camera because she had to walk in front of it. Capturing strangers on film is of course the absolute basis of street photography and while you could well argue that there's far too much of that sort of thing, if you are out taking photographs you'd hope not to annoy too many people in the process.

The photo above is from Walthamstow in perspective, number 11 on the Art Trail, opening on Saturday.

E17 in the news

Warehouse fire 25 August

The English Defence League descended upon Walthamstow on Saturday. Despite small numbers, between 200 and 300, the area was completely disrupted from midday onwards. Counter-protesters were kettled at the Bell junction, roads were blocked by an unprecedented army of police and police vans trying to keep the two sides apart, and part of the EDL contingent were still stuck outside Blackhorse Road tube station late into the evening.

 

The event didn't feature at all in the media, apart from the usual alternative internet news and the local paper, the Guardian series, and the Metro website. A warehouse fire (pictured above) the previous weekend made it on to BBC news: nobody hurt and no homes evacuated, although it did take the firemen all day to put it out. But perhaps ignoring the EDF is deliberate. It certainly felt like news if you were in the area at the time.