Reconfigured

My fixed wheel bike is proving a useful part of my commute solution. I cycle 1.5 km from home to W-wa Jeziorki station (avoiding the muddy paths, just asphalt roads). Although the rush-hour trains are packed solid, later trains (after half past eight) offer enough space to board the compartment with the bike-hanging hooks (see this post). It's then 30 minutes to W-wa Powiśle, and then 1.6km to the office. On the return journey, I get off the train one stop early, at W-wa Dawidy, for 2.5km ride home along ul. Kórnicka and Trombity, both quiet in the evening. The half kilometre along ul. Baletowa is not too bad (and safer than Karczunkowska) - my train going over the level crossing gives me time to get a solid head-start on all the traffic. So - total riding distance a mere 7.3km a day, but timed right, I can do home-to-office in 50 minutes.

The bike has been reconfigured with a more laid-back handlebars, giving a more comfortable riding position. I think I'll change back to the original one (built for speed and lightness). The front wheel has been rebuilt using a spare hub and a rim from an old wheel.

Why fixed? It's light, simple, nothing much to go wrong.

Buzzed by a 'Parrot'

Living under the flightpath to Warsaw Okęcie's Runway 33, I rarely get excited by the planes that fly over us one after the other. This morning was different - no fewer than eight times did this garishly painted LET L-410 fly over our house, and at low altitude.

This plane, SP-TPA, belongs to Polska Agencja Żeglugi Powietrznej (Polish Air Navigation Services Agency) and is used for calibrating radar and radio equipment at airports, in particular those used for instrument landing (ILS) and VHS omnidirectional ranging (VOR).

Nicknamed 'Papuga' (Parrot) on account of its bright colours, it is seen from time to time at Okęcie. If you see a smallish twin-prop aircraft flying around in circles low over Warsaw, you can be sure it'll be this one.

Spirit of place - but Warsaw?

Walking from meeting to meeting in Warsaw this morning, I again had two of those moments I've described before - that sudden burst of anomalous familiarity, the spirit of place moment, though not from the 'here and now'. Right: ul. Mokotowska. I see this scene, and for a second I'm transported to Scandinavia in the mid-'50s. There's quite a few places in Warsaw that do this for me; much of Powiśle and Solec near my office.

Below: al. Ujazdowskie. Edwardian London?

This phenomenon has affected me since earliest childhood. When I took up photography some 30 years ago, I initially felt that I could capture spirits of place with the camera - I quickly learned that I could not (in colour at least).

It was only when I went digital that I realised what the problem was with colour film photography. Unless you spent a fortune on film, bracketing the exposure on each shot, it was unlikely that the picture was correctly exposed (for sky? foreground? background?), or that the colours were sufficiently saturated, etc. With digital you can check instantly, and correct on the scene as necessary. And the 'digital darkroom' allows you to tweak composition, contrast, brightness, saturation, exposure - selectively as well as whole frame. This lets you get closer to what you saw and felt at the time.

I'm now much more often able to look at a photo after a while and say - "yes - this is an accurate record of my emotional response to a scene". But what this all means requires another half a lifetime of searching.

Commuter schadenfreude

Oh what joy! The rat-runners using our road so as to avoid the traffic jam on ul. Puławska are turned back by roadworks along ul. Trombity. Driver of car in foreground (below) will soon be making a U turn.

Ha ha! Turn that wasteful, unnecessary SUV around Panie, and get back into that jam where you belong. (Oh the senselessness of this type of vehicle for one-per-car-commuting!)

Coming and going down ul. Nawłocka. Little does the driver of the silver Corolla realise that he's not going to get very far! For that mud and splashing, all this driver has achieved is losing his place in the queue of cars turning left from ul. Karczunkowska onto Puławska. Ha ha!

Look at Nawłocka. There's no asphalt, no pavement. I am unable to walk to the station without getting my shoes and trousers filthy. Because the road is potholed to bits by rat-runners.

And what's the blockage? Trombity is being dug up so that water mains can be installed for those citizens further down the road than us. Pavements. Sewerage. These are also things that we could do with living within the city limits of Warsaw, the capital of the EU's sixth largest member state.