Tag: maps

I am so glad to be smart!

Before rushing off to the Smugness Police to report me for an incidence of extreme arrogance, please be assured I am talking about mobile phones and not my personal attributes of being a genius and master of much knowledge!

As it happens, and it might be a British thing, generally people are always reluctant to blow their own personal trumpet about their intelligence, so actually no risk I am doing this at all.

Taking this to extremes there was a song in the 1980’s by US ‘not many hits wonder’, Dean Friedman, ‘Lucky Star’ where he proudly sings to his ‘in song’ girlfriend, ” You can thank your lucky stars that we’re not as smart as we think we are”.

Why on earth would he say this? This confused me back then every time I heard it and more so now! It seems to have confused other people too as it even gets a mention in his Wikipedia entry!

Meantime back to me and Smart phones……… Why do I mention them? Well one of my millenial children commented today that they too had been part of the generation migrating from ‘brick’ phones to ‘Smart phones’ despite many people often wrongly assuming that this generation was born holding an iPhone.

Almost unimaginable now…going to a box to make a call

Its seems its a very regular barb thrown in their direction…’ you lot don’t know what life was like before all this technology’ etc. but actually they do😁

Why am I so glad to have a Smartphone ? I think it’s almost all to do with having the equivalent of an expensive SLR Nikon or Canon camera always in your hand or pocket…and always in auto mode. I can’t believe that back in the day when I regularly used real cameras I actually spent time adjusting shutter speeds or focal length to cope with light levels or movement.

Having a camera always with me in the days of real cameras (even pocket size digital ones, was a plan but never reality), but now I do have that ‘camera’ there and available to capture moments. For some of them, retrospectively I think….. why?

But the majority, are snapshots of life and allow one to reflect and enjoy.

Even to this day I cannot remember why I photographed the markings on a cycle lane!
Whereas this was something I wanted to share…a first for me!

Date and time stamping photos has also allowed us to compare years, seasons and in a way perhaps embrace and recognise the changing world around us even more.

Winter and spring..same local reservoir where we regularly walk …but so different in the seasons

Now that’s not to say that I don’t appreciate other features available on phones as well.

Google Maps directions has saved the day many a time for me…well that is once I have actually determined which direction the phone map is in compared to my direction of travel. Many a time I have been surprised when my 8 minutes walk destination seems to grow in remaining time rather than decrease!

New city?… buy a map
Or ask someone?

Any features I don’t like?

Yes of course. My phone persistently asks me to review Dave’s Guitar tuition studio! I don’t go there. I have never even seen the place. I don’t own a guitar, but it seems I regularly walk past it, and Google is convinced I am taking lessons.

Thankfully I don’t seem to be regularly walking past anywhere of a less acceptable line of business…otherwise I might have some detailed explaining to do at home!

Hope you are enjoying the blog….

Lost in London

London, like many cities mostly presents its underground railway maps in a topological format.

And when I say underground I mean the metro, but it is rarely called that in the uk. The normal colloquilism for London underground being ‘the tube’ . Topological maps show the stations and lines in an ordered and geometric way, which gives great clarity but totally distorts distance and indeed direction.

Native Londoners when outside their immediate geographic comfort zones of suburban home or city street will have a hazy and simplified comprehension of the geography of their city fuelled by these maps.

Tourists are even worse off with few if any reference points to assist in computing real distance and direction rather than just ‘living the tube map’.

I read recently that despite Covent Garden and Leicester Square stations being only 400 metres or so apart,

and a mere 40 second tube journey, some 800 people per week buy tickets for this journey between the two of them…blissfully unaware that a 4 minute stroll along the street will take them from one station to another in much more comfort and lots to see along the way…..

These are London’s two tube stations that are closest to each other but these are not unique with others equally near their neighbours.

Meantime back at the world of what to call the underground……

The metropolitan tube line in London was the world’s first such railway and the name, ‘ metro’ has been used worlwide for city underground trains. Except in London where the name tube has just stuck and is what everybody refers to it by.

In Paris, the abbreviation as well as the full name Metropolitan is in widespread use .

but in numerous other cities in Europe and beyond, the underground trains are called metros. Ok in New York it’s the subway,

and funnily enough in Glasgow, that same name too,

although colloquilly referred to there by some as the ‘Clockwork Orange ‘.

Why, well the trains are bright orange and it’s just one continuous circle. A unique experience with it’s own smell that cannot be quite defined! The continuous circle is now used in its logo branding for the stations too.

If you ever get the chance to visit Glasgow, give it a whirl.15 stations and a lot of people watching!

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