selfthinker » london http://blog.selfthinker.org The world according to me Tue, 13 Jul 2010 20:49:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 South Ealing Cemetery http://blog.selfthinker.org/2009/12/29/south-ealing-cemetery/ http://blog.selfthinker.org/2009/12/29/south-ealing-cemetery/#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:35:12 +0000 selfthinker http://blog.selfthinker.org/?p=134 Last month I have been to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to in London: The South Ealing Cemetery.
The cemetery has an extremely atmospheric older part and a quite boring younger part. The western older part seems rather rural with cats, crows and a lot of squirrels roaming the place — and I have even seen a fox! (But unfortunately I was not quick enough with my camera.) Many of the graves are so old, they are often overgrown and either askew and lopsided or half sunken into the ground or completely gone with a few fragments of broken stones as the only remainder of a life long gone.
I often felt like I could be in the middle of the graveyard in Godric’s Hollow …

If I wanted to be buried (which I don’t) then I would love to be buried in a similar place. And seeing all those kitschy angelic statures, I would love to have a stature with a sappy angel (with wings and innocent look and all) as the upper half and a Manneken Pis as the lower half. :D

Enjoy a selection of the photos I took:

See more photos of the South Ealing Cemetery on Flickr by some other people.

]]> http://blog.selfthinker.org/2009/12/29/south-ealing-cemetery/feed/ 0 London vs Berlin – The tube http://blog.selfthinker.org/2009/02/28/london-vs-berlin-the-tube/ http://blog.selfthinker.org/2009/02/28/london-vs-berlin-the-tube/#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:36:59 +0000 selfthinker http://blog.selfthinker.org/?p=71 I would like to start a little series: “London vs Berlin”
As I am a nice girl and I really do not think any city would win over the other in the end, I will try to balance these posts.

Let us start with …

The tube
London Berlin
accessibility bad good
cleanliness good bad

Yes, it is really that simple. There is nothing more to add to that.
Well okay, I will explain a bit …

Accessibility

Let some hard facts speak for themselves:

  • Accessible tube stations in Berlin (BVG zone A): 47 out of 96 = 49%.
  • Accessible tube stations in London (TFL zones 1+2): 17 out of 132 = 13%!

I do not know the perspective of a wheelchair user, but I once had to move a very heavy suitcase from Willesden Green to Plaistow and had to change twice. There were a lot of stairs, hardly any moving ones and no lifts at all (minus one point for the public transport system). But there was always someone to help me carrying the suitcase up and down the stairs (plus one point for the Londoners).

That could not have happened in Berlin. (Ambiguity intended.)

Cleanliness

Whenever I mention to Londoners that the London tube is so much cleaner than the Berlin tube, they are very surprised. Most Londoners find the tube in London very dirty indeed. But they obviously do not know the Berlin tube, especially not when it runs through Kreuzberg. Where else can you see garbage, vomit, condoms, broken bottles and blood stains all in one compartment?

I wonder why the tube in London is so clean.
Is it the extreme security? After all, every piece of garbage could potentially be a bomb.
Do they have more money to hire more cleaning staff? Possibly.
Or do Londoners just behave themselves? Highly unlikely. ;-)

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