Sad London Bicycles, slightly happier Amsterdam ones

In the time I was a “real” photographer and in the time since when I’ve been armed with an iPhone camera, sad bicycles have caught my eye. Back in the day in London, very often wheels were bent or stolen completely. More recently in Amsterdam, the bicycles have just been collateral damage from the crappy weather. Anyhow by special Reddit request, here are the pictures. I believe the EXIF data should be intact, so if you really care, the phone photos should locate themselves. Why couldn’t SLRs do GPS?

London

Amsterdam

Taipei

Taipei is less about bicycles, although they are present, than scooters. I couldn’t find the photo I really wanted which was of a swarm of scooters waiting for a light to go green, pouring out fumes. I believe now there are many more electric ones, with convenient battery swapping stations. I do love the guy with gas bottles stacked on the back of his scooter.

Summary

So there you have it. The people of Amsterdam clearly value their bicycles more than Londoners, which given how much the Dutch travel by bike is only to be understood. Given the amount I’m walking at the moment, I daresay I shall encounter more, especially if I go to particularly bike-dense areas.

The monarchy

The Queen

Let’s start by asking the question: “how on earth in the 21st Century do we still have inherited wealth and privilege on this scale in a monarchy?” Most other civilised countries seem to do OK without it, and all the pomp and pageantry that goes with it. I’d sooner see an elected figurehead looking solemn than an inbreed who got there by chance of birth.

I’ve been collecting choice nuggets about the royal family on Facebook, so here they all are, and more, in one place. It’s by no means a complete list. Can you tell I’m not a fan of the monarchy?

  1. Prince Andrew was caught up in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. This let to the family paying as much as £12 million to Virginia Giuffre.
  2. The royal family is notoriously racist. That’s probably to do with the queen’s cousin, Prince Philip, but have you ever seen a black footman?
  3. The Bowes Lyons had two children Nerissa and Katherine who were mentally diabled. So what did they do? Put them in an institution and never visited them.
  4. Because of a clause in the law, Charles doesn’t pay inheritance tax on the the £750 million he inherited from the queen.
  5. The Queen presided over the Malayan Emergency from 1948-1960, where an estimated 6,700 guerillas and 3,000 civilians were killed.
  6. In Kenya, the Mau Mau rebellion from 1952–1960 was brutally repressed leading to some 90,000 Kenyans killed or tortured.
  7. From 1962-1969 there was a covert war in Yemen. That led to around 200,000 deaths. My dad did his nation service there, ten years before that.
  8. From 1965-1966 there was a genocide in Indonesia which alongside the Americans, we had a large hand in.
  9. Obviously, there was Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland in 1972. NI was a mess, obviously, but really?
  10. A lot of her wealth came down through slavery starting with the first Elizabeth. Meghan Markle’s treatment by The Firm shows that attitudes haven’t changed much.
  11. The queen has privately invested millions offshore.
  12. In 1949, before she became Queen, Elizabeth took a stance against women’s rights? She attended the rally for a conservative group and spoke out against women who divorce their husbands.. She was patron of this far-right organisation to the end.
  13. In 2010, the Queen applied for a poverty grant to heat the royal palaces.
  14. The Queen is heavily invested in uranium based weapons.
  15. The Queen and Prince Philip went trophy hunting and shot a tiger in 1961.
  16. New: The queen and the CIA attempted to overthrow the Australian Gough Witlam left-wing government in 1975.
  17. Charles was pretty tight with pedophile Jimmy Savile.
  18. Charles brokered a £4.4 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia and recieved a suitcase of cash for “charitable” purposes.
  19. Charles is still backing homeopathy.

At least she continued the tradition of having her bees informed that she’d died.

That’s all I’ve got for now. If you have anything else, please leave it in the comments.

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