Sometimes riding around really does drive me insane due to the attitude of drivers to cyclists people who are on bikes. The person rushing past you and cutting you up to get to the red light is my particular bug bear or the police car creeping forward in the ASL. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an eloquent rant to date though. It is a little sweary but entirely justified in my opinion.
I have had enough of f*cking motorists. Car drivers, bus drivers, lorry drivers, vans, taxis the f*cking lot of you. Basically you have left me with pretty much no option but to assume that every single one of you is a self righteous c*nt with no regards for the laws of this country who lack the fundamental regard for the safety of other human beings necessary to enable you to be considered anything other than an utter w*nker.
I kind of used to like LinkedIn. It was interesting to see who is now working where from University, what your old boss is up to, as well as where former colleagues had ended up and their positions. It was also quite useful to see how some of the connections in the Architecture industry work, reinforcing the fact that every Architect in London knows everyone by no more than two degrees of separation (or so it seems at times). It was also useful for seeing people’s profiles before and after events and then following up on something you’d talked about. I had even got some photography work through it too.
I use the past context to describe it because then at some point it stopped being a professional network and became a wannabe Facebook clone and started doing this bullshit kind of stuff below.
As someone who prides himself on professionalism this stinks. It’s cheap and nasty and kills it as a platform of any real value to me. Lets also not forget the recent “endorse someone” feature.
Mike Smith has been endorsed for Microsoft Word…
It’s at this point that I really do fear for the future of the human race.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be running a series of LinkedIn training courses this Autumn. The course lasts all day and cost £1000 per delegate including lunch and refreshments. The outline of the day is as follows:
9.00 am – Coffee, networking and name badges. 10.00 am – Turning our computers on. 11.30 am – Break for coffee. 12.00 am – Open web browsers and navigate to LinkedIn dot com.
1.00 pm – Break for lunch.
2.00 pm – Login to website. 3.00 pm – Create account. 4.00 pm – Add picture to account. 5.00 pm – Recap of the course and certificates issued.
Delegates will be expected to bring their own social skills and common sense.
That’s the charge I expect to receive through the post very soon from a rather aggressive British Transport Officer. Probably the most aggressive and unpleasant police person I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet but I expect nothing better from London’s finest boys in blue these days.
My route back from work takes me through Covent Garden and tonight a police van in front went to go through the pedestrian crossing and then stopped abruptly having noticed someone to the left. He was 3/4s of the way through the crossing by this point. So I went to the right of him and started going forward again after people had finished crossing. He was stationary so I indicated I was going to pull in left and find a safe place to continue down to the crossing at Waterloo Bridge.
This unfortunately meant I had committed a road traffic act of the most serious nature. My friend in the van started trying to drive his police van into me and then swinging his van from left to right as well as revving – anyway you get the picture. Bizarrely I’d normally rise to this but I just looked at him and carried on riding which seemed to annoy him even more. He then came screeching past and forced me into the kerb so I was forced to stop and talk to him. Two tourists came past and told him he was being aggressive which probably didn’t help his complex either. The three cyclists behind me seemed fairly bemused by it all really.
Anyway after a fairly lengthy lecture I was let on my way. I can live with being wrong – I often am but I have a lot more respect for those who calmly explain their position rather than waving their arms about and foaming at the mouth. In hindsight I wish I had refused to talk to him and only agreed to talk to his somewhat more reasonable colleague.
Anyway, judge for yourself*
*I didn’t realise I had such a plummy voice. No idea where that came from.
Looks like I’m not the only one that thinks QR codes are complete and utter shite. It also seems that some people have no idea how they work and are going the way of buzz words like ‘cloud’ which automatically make your product cool and down with the kids.
Earlier today I was followed on Twitter by someone calling themselves @ArchLeaks. I didn’t pay much attention to it until someone else retweeted them with the following Tweet.
Judging by their Twitter feed they appear to have been sending this message to anyone who seems to be in the Architecture industry in the UK. Bizarrely a large number of people seem to be retweeting it and trying to get more traffic to his or her site. I was going to mark as spam and block but thought I’d dig a little deeper.
Now the aim of the site seems to be to get people to write negative comments about their experiences of working at various high profile Architects offices. The name, and approach, seems to suggest a kind of Wikileaks type of site naming and shaming of offices. Their own strap line seems to be ‘We young Architects need this information pool here‘ as well as ‘Reveals the hidden beneath the studios‘.
I have to say I was completely aghast at seeing this. There’s so much wrong with it I don’t know where to start. There’s so many reasons someone might have a bad experience at an office – such as a clash of personalities, working under the wrong director or partner who has since moved on, the sheer pressure of the environment, wrong choice of office, the person is a bit up themselves and didn’t take direction or weren’t very good at their job etc etc. Of more concern are the chances for anonymous abuse as there is nothing to verify if anyone had actually worked there! Now if there was some journalistic integrity or a big story to break then maybe I would be interested but I don’t think this is what is in mind. Gossip and hearsay are not sound reasons to trash a firms reputation online.
Having said that I’ve had experiences in some offices that weren’t amazing, but I moved on and put it down to experience. They’re stories for the pub with close friends, not for broadcasting on the internet. These experiences are also probably entirely un-representative of those offices and I would say that others have really enjoyed working where I hadn’t. At the same time I do think that some students are cut a rough deal sometimes but this perpetuates the idea that Architecture is miserable and Architects are hard done by. It’s also playing up to every tiny bit of negativity in the industry. Instead of say engaging with the RIBA policy on pay and conditions or speaking to the ARB about setting minimum standards we have an anonymous source of info that amounts to online bitching.
I’d imagine that a few cease and desist letters will be on their way if this site ever gains any real momentum. Although where they address them to I don’t know as the owner seems to have spoofed their WHOIS information to a professional footballer in Turkey. Interesting.
Updated:
As if by magic I was alerted to this article on the Guardian today. Wonderful timing David, wonderful and thank you.
I had to drive up to the office earlier to collect my bike and cycle kit for a ride tomorrow – first time off road for a while. Nothing annoys me more than a rider without lights.
I mean I know cyclists get a bad rep and I mostly stand up for those as an avid rider but we really do need to give drivers a chance – by being visible! Driving in the dark is hard enough with pedestrians, cars, changing light conditions, wet weather etc but riding without lights is just stupid. Makes it impossible to see someone riding without them. Like this picture (shot whilst stationary at traffic lights). Can you spot him? At first glance probably not.
I found this little video on Twitter earlier from a variety of sources. It’s something I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while since developing and now selling my photographic services, but this video seems to sum it all up quite nicely. It’s amazing that people don’t seem to value the skills that you develop as a Photographer. There’s a comment that gets banded about when someone says “Wow, that camera takes amazing photos”, which is odd as you’d never say to a chef “wow that oven bakes amazing cakes”. But the other thing that also seems to wind me up is that so many people have DSLR that people think that anyone can take a good photo and to some extent that might be true. However I seem to have gone off on a bit of a tangent. This video sums up so many things about a relationship with a client, fortunately mine don’t seem to have this attitude but I’ve seen this type of thing many a time.
Today’s prick of a van driver. Didn’t even shout at him. Just got his number took a few photos and sent this to EDF. Will they respond? I doubt it. Will probably just get the usual corporate bullshit back as usual.
Hi,
I’d like to make a complaint about one of your van drivers please. The registration of the van is L008 KNX. Two photos of the van and the driver are also enclosed.
I was cycling past Euston Station this morning going North along Eversholt Street. I clearly indicated to pull out into the centre of the and safely pass a van which was parked on the left hand side of the road. Your van driver decided to accelerate rapidly past me far too closely almost knocking me off and then proceed to completely swing the van in front of me completely blocking my path. I was trying to maintain a safe position on the road. This is the kind of thing I expect from dodgy builders not a reputable company such as EDF.
I don’t know if any of you at EDF ever cycle on the road but actions like this don’t really help. It’s intimidating and completely unnecessary. It’s also dangerous. It didn’t get your driver to his destination any quicker as he quickly got caught in traffic again and I passed him where I took these photos. He was later speeding along Camden High Street, which is a 20mph zone, to rush through an amber light.
I would like to think that EDF have a policy in place to educate their drivers about courtesy to other road users, particularly cyclists. It would also be good to remind your drivers, this one in particular, that vans consist of a couple of tons of metal which poses a real danger to cyclists who aren’t wrapped in such a protective shell. I would like to know how you intend to resolve this and prevent this driver causing injury or even loss of life through his actions.
I also happen to be a customer of EDF at present although I may reconsider that depending on your response.
Fingers crossed. The auto response from EDF doesn’t look too promising though.
Thank you for your email. Should your mail require a response, we will endeavour to provide this and update your account within 10 working days.
