It's The Little Things, Part 2


Surveillance, toilets, yellow lights, and more.

London has to be the most video camera'd city I've ever seen. They're everywhere - construction sites, buildings, and along almost all the streets. Not like Toronto, where the cameras are on the major arteries. These cameras are on vast numbers of downtown streets. You're always being watched, and quite conspicuously.





They're quite proud of the public toilets here.





Jane tells me that some of them have won awards. Evidently the British Toilet Association gives "Innovation Awards ." I shit you not (or as they say in Raising Arizona - "I'm crappin you negatory.")


Ahhh, the newsagents. They're everywhere. Imagine that convenience stores replaced overpriced cornflakes and tiny cans of WD40 with huge racks of magazines. I love them.






I confess I may never ever cross a London street with complete confidence. It's not just that the traffic is coming from the other direction, it's that the traffic seems to come from any and all directions. The streets are so narrow and choked, that at least half of any journey by car is spent on the wrong side of the road. So as a pedestrian, you just can't know where the cars will come from. On top of this, the lights turn yellow before they turn green. Maybe in time I'll figure it out, but it's the one thing that unmistakably pegs me as a tourist at the moment.





And finally, there's the Smarties. They come in a tube. Which makes them much much more fun.


Posted: Thu - June 12, 2003 at 09:03 AM   Meltdown   It's The Little Things   Email Comments

© Adam Smith