Matt Brown talked about this great city and how about half a million people are involved, one way or another, in science and medicine.
Before I left for Australia, nearly four years ago, I thought I would never want to work, let alone live, in London. Oxford and Cambridge had been the limits of my metropolitan exposure. But three years in Sydney made me realize that I could indeed cope with a city, despite my country boy leanings. Then I came over for the blogging conference last year, and the rest is history.
Quite against all expectation, and perhaps reason, I arrived in London and immediately fell in love. This city; the people; the history; the opportunity: the sheer unbridled life that’s here.
Last weekend (while in Lincoln for my dad’s 65th birthday weekend), and seeing as I had a significant birthday myself this April (and such things should last all year), I also treated myself to a new shiny. And I’ve been playing with it.
Take a look at this wonderful city through my eyes.
I hope to extend the set, and my love affair, as time goes by.
Richard and London, sittin’ in a tree….
Beautiful series, Richard.
Yeah, that’s a nice new camera. I am teh jealous.
And I can totally understand… I love the sense of history, of density (of people, places, things), many other things about London. It kind of drives me nuts after a week or so though, but I imagine I’d get past that if I moved there permanently (or semi-permanently).
Nice photos, too… been commenting already as you know.
Love the Stainer Street photo, and some of the shots in the subway. Makes me want to visit! Thanks for sharing.
Wohooo.. Nice camera RPG! Awesome pics too…
Thanks peeps.
I was a bit of a keen amateur back in my student days, but the kit and film was so darned expensive. The kit is still expensive, but the big advantage of digital is being able to experiment and see the results immediately (aha! still a scientist, see?).
Not been driven nuts. Was a little bit worried back in April that I might, but nope. Living in such a lovely area, that’s still in Zone 2, probably helps.
As you’re finding, London is one of the most photogenic cities, with so much history cheek-by-bowel with so much modern stuff. If you take any particularly good shots, please, please, please add ’em to the Londonist Flickr pool from whence we often pick good photos to illustrate blog posts. And anything with a sciency content should go in the Nature Network London pool.
Oh! Thanks for the headsup. Joining groups now…
Some nice pictures there, Richard – I particularly liked Descelator.
@Matt – good to learn about the London/Science flickr pools…
[barges in all advertisement-like] Yes, and for non-London related pretty science-themed photos there’s the Flickr pool for easternblot.net , which I sometimes (when I remember…) pick photos from to highlight on that blog.
Thanks Stephen. Hopefully there’ll be a lot more.
And maybe I can get into some labs and take photos for Eva? /subtle hint
I’ve only visited London a couple of times (and then, very briefly) but I can understand your fascination with it. Not sure if I’d live there, but I suppose it would be fine after i got over the driving on the left thing…
Actually, Ken, in central London you’d get away with not knowing which side of the road you’re supposed to drive.
Locals are pissing themselves laughing at this juncture.
Ooh! Nice photos, and nice shiny. I got a new shiny yesterday too: we needed something that can survive
being dropped out of a kayakskiing related fallsbear attacksvarious outdoor pursuits.Ooh. You crazy canucks, you.
Cath – does it float?
This post also reminds me that I once wrote a very helpful guide to getting around in London, which I have shamelessly linkied here for your
pleasureperusal.No, but you can buy a floating strap for it. I should probably get one, given that my husband has managed to lose multiple pairs of my sunglasses from kayaks. (I only drop floating things, like water bottles and (once) my paddle, in the middle of a race. We had to go back for it and just missed out on 3rd place).
Nobody’s listening, Winty.
Cath, don’t you think dropping a paddle in a kayak race is worse than dropping anything that sinks? I mean, it’s a bit crucial to the entire venture, really.
Oh c’mon, it was only once, and we got it back… my three pairs of sunglasses, on the other hand, are gone forever.
But guess which incident gets mentioned the most?
The one with the dog and the phenolphthalein. Every time.
Nobody’s listening, Winty.
That’s because they’re all lost in London somewhere.
Impossible to get lost in London: you know you’re at the centre of the universe.
Sorry to break it to you- cosmologists just go around telling everyone they’re at the center of the universe.
Well, that’s because they don’t do anything relevant.
(runs)
Relevance is relative to the location of the observer (or something like that supported by mathematification).
(runs, yet doesn’t appear to move to an observer at the edge of a black hole).
If you say ‘Event Horizon’ I will push you over it. And according to Newton’s 3rd, that will in turn push me away.
Look at these geeks at play. Sheesh.
Event Horizon? That’s one of my least favorite movies in the history of, well, the Universe. Apparently it only felt like time was endlessly stretched out. I don’t know if Newton’s third applies there?
I second that – Event Horizon sucked. The funny thing was that all the guys I knew at the time thought it was excellent and genuinely scary. I watched it with two other girls, and we all thought it was crap, and not scary in the slightest.
It scared the willies out of me, because it played on my imagination. Don’t know what that says about me, or you two… (ducks)
Sigh. Boys, eh?
And you love us, really.
Some of you ;)
Show us yer tattoo. Go on.