Weekend 568.0 (Sparsa Collegit)

There’s a battle ahead, many battles are lost…but you’ll never see the end of the road…while you’re traveling with me.

(1) Impressions of a Soulless New Airport (The Imaginative Conservative)

“There is little architectural daring or upward movement. It is a place without a sense of place—it could be anywhere or nowhere.”

(2) Folding bike-maker Brompton rides towards £20m stake sale (Sky News)

(3) Scan from Helvetica and the New York City Subway System by Paul Shaw

Architectural Drawing. 86th St-Lexington Av Station Modernization of Control Areas

(4) A Quick & Dirty Guide to the Middle Ages (The Imaginative Conservative)

It was the Christiana Res Publica. “I saw monarchy without tyranny, aristocracy without factions, democracy without tumult, wealth without luxury,” Erasmus later wrote, idealizing the past. “Would that it had been your lot, divine Plato, to come upon such a republic.” Perhaps most important, medieval man believed that he knew his place in the Economy of Grace, in God’s universe.

(4a) Women’s rights…medieval style… (The History Jar)

Notes
The Brothers York by Thomas Penn (Pages 491-92)

Weekend 488.1

(1) Brompton warns of price increases in midst of production scale up (Bike Europe)

(1a) The entire world is ‘awash in a sea of debt’ (YouTube)

(2) The Mendacity of Joe Biden and the Ruling Elites (American Thinker)

“The ruling elites in their headfirst dash to transform the culture have aligned themselves with the radical left whose sole objective is to centralize all governmental and economic power in a hybrid socialist federal government with themselves, and not the current ruling class, in permanent control.”

(3) Stock markets are telling us we’re saved, but history has a warning (Yahoo News)

Weekend 486.1 (A Tale of Two Cities)

My morning ride was to central London (the area around Old Street) whilst my afternoon ride included the bucolic streets of Ham and the hills of Richmond Park. There’s a German Delicatessen (Hansel and Pretzel) on my afternoon route that’s excellent. I also had lunch at Stein’s (bratwurst) and was last there with the Orange/Blue Brompton after the Brompton World Championship in 2014.

Update: I walked to King Henry’s Mound in Richmond Park today. It’s the highest point in the park and offers (via telescope) an unobstructed view of St. Paul’s. There’s a survey marker / stone near the telescope indicating that St. Paul’s is about 10 miles to the east. The day before I was close to St. Paul’s and took this photo from Southwark Bridge.

Related
(1) Ham House & Garden
(2) River Thames: from Cotswolds to London
(3) Route Plan Roll Cycle Map (Mapping London)

Weekend 484.1

(1) Feeling the strain: stress and anxiety weigh on world’s workers (Financial Times)

(1a) Biden sleepwalks into a stagflation nightmare (Asia Times)

(2) Brompton Bicycle “I’m getting on” by Antidote (Campaign)

(2a) Barcelona Brompton Folding Bike

(3) Renovations (According to Hoyt)

“Which is why mostly they live in ruins and grub in dirt and talk about their great purpose and congratulate themselves on no longer having any of that icky stuff in the walls. Because they no longer have walls.

Human society doesn’t work like that. Mostly what human society is built on is other human society. And I know I joke — a lot — about how Rome never fell, it just exported itself.”

(4) Gibraltar: The History of the Rock Across 14 Sieges (YouTube)

Weekend 381.0

‘Even though an old proverb says, “too much special knowledge makes you stupid” I, as a craftsman, must say that having gone through an apprenticeship in the field of applied art, gives me certain advantages in the difficult art of design, as compared to those who partly or completely work from theoretical knowledge.’ – Kay Bojesen 

(1) Made in the U.K. (YouTube)

(2) A Water Lily by Jia Peng Fang

Weekend 377.1

I thought I was a decent curator until I heard Faith Salie on Sunday Morning. She’s tough, but I agree with her.

I have a scanner now (ditched the printer) and have been thinking about a project using books from the limestone library. I was thinking about one scan a week or one post a month themed around Disney (shocker).

I finished restoring 5620. You can see photos here. I have a fairly ambitious backstory and photo shoot planned but it will have to wait for warmer weather. The find comes courtesy of mom (and brother) at a tag sale. It’s a fairly rare model (although the market collapsed after it was reissued a couple of years ago in green). I had to find an engine cover (30 23 3662 / 30 23 3642) and radiator/lights (30 64 1360) as part of the restoration.

These days I also have Gotham/Metropolis/The Big Apple on the mind. It was probably caused by re-reading the Great Gatsby or rumors of a special-edition NYC Brompton (confirmed). Maybe it’s just the excitement of seeing In Transit in a couple of weeks. Either way, one of my resolutions for 2017 is to spend more time exploring the city via cycle/subway/foot before the option becomes a geographical improbability.

(1) Artist Tyrus Wong’s remarkable life (CBS Sunday Morning)

(2) See How ‘Rogue One’ Brought Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia to Life (Yahoo!)