Abandoned London

I wonder if "28 Days Later" was shot on Christmas:





[full set @Flickr]

As usually, all the public transport is shut down today so I had to use a bicycle, but despite the temperature outside the journey was fantastic as I could barely notice the traffic. The only problem was the chain went off the cog and not a single open shop around to buy a tissue to clean hands.

Also to notice, we found ourselves stuck between two dates as we aren't used to Christmas yet and more familiar New Year lacks proper atmosphere here. On the bright side, you can get almost a week of festive mood because of that, spread but still real.

P.S. If you're interested, there is also a more detailed report on deserted London in famous Ian Visits blog.

Portraits update

[by jane_z@Flickr]

Sketching on the train

It's a shame to sketch on a tiny QVGA screen but I keep on trying:

An ordinary life

Marvellous weather today. Have walked to Victoria Park leaving traces in the first real snow.

A pic and a clip

Real eye candy! It was impossible to walk by without taking an another grainy picture:



Santas! Just like a year ago:



/ oh, it's been a year... "time flies when you're having fun" /

Somebody in this city has got plenty of chalk

Yesterday we went to check for any traces of protests happened the previous day over tuition fees. Surprisingly, we have found almost nothing even in university areas (tagged walls don't count).

Still there was something unrelated but not very usual we stumbled upon near the UCL:



Yes, it's long so the text version is available in a video description on Vimeo.

The poet can be googled as well as his poems, but not that particular piece. Consider that a première publication.

"UK Uncut"

In last weeks many stores all over the country were forced to close temporarily by protesters because of the tax avoidance - with cuts introduced by the government hitting public sector many people are angry about private companies as well. So as I have read about a TOPSHOP flagship store being blocked at Oxford Street today, I decided to take a look.

While walking to the place one has all the opportunities to get in the proper mood:



The store is situated very close to the always-busy Oxford Circus underground station and the crowd was hardly thicker than usually on weekends. That doesn't mean though that the event wasn't popular - there were plenty of people, but the number of shoppers wandering around and crossing the x-junction was high enough for somebody unaware of the action and walking by to stay unaware of it.

However, it was nearly impossible to get into the particular blocked store:



With Christmas sales fever already started, a weekend wasted is probably a punch that even the big store can really feel:



From time to time police dragged one or two protesters away to the emptier place, apparently on random basis (at least I didn't get what was triggering their attitude):



On my way back I noticed that billboards from the photos at the beginning of this post sported usual nail polish and snacks adverts on their other sides. That's symbolic, isn't it?