I love The Thames and walk alongside it as many days a week as I can manage, but diving in it?
To rehash an old joke (which Peahen reminded me of last night), swimming in The Thames is just going through the motions … Ew!
Actually it's a lot cleaner than it used to be when I was a kid. There are salmon and otters (and the occasional whale) in it now; actually swimming about rather than laying on the surface, gasping and choking.
Still, as you can see by this morning's walk to work photos, the visibility is zero, so you wouldn't get to see a whole lot.
In the days of The Great Stink in the mid-nineteenth century, human waste, animal waste (we're talking megatonnes of peepee and poopoo here), rotting animal carcasses, chemical waste from tanneries, laundries and industry, and all manner of pungent and pestiferous effluvia were not only dumped straight into the Thames untreated, but were then pumped straight back out and used for drinking and washing.
Yummy!
Not only did that lead to cholera and the extinction of all life in the river, it also drove Parliament out of the city, having first forced them to cover all the windows alongside the river with lime-soaked heavy curtains.
Fragrant it was not.
Good old Joe Bazalgette sorted that one out by building our lovely sewer system that Thames Water now seems unable to maintain properly, the useless bastards.
But given a diving suit, I would far rather hop on a plane and go diving off Jules' porch than to dip my toes in my lovely Thames.
Any more feasible Dive-cheering hobby suggestions gratefully accepted.
17 comments:
I agree about the truly wonderful sewage system which has been undeniably neglected since its demise. It should have been maintained, added to and enhanced.
I wouldn't fancy the Thames either though i'm so glad to hear of the otters which i didn't know. The history was fascinating to read.
A hobby for you? Well you already have blogging and Japanese that i know about. I know.... astrology!! he he watch the sparks.
Oh, hee hee hee hee hee!
Thank you, Lynn.
As you well know, astrology for me goes in the same box as creationism, which is a couple of steps down from believing in the Great Pumpkin.
My cardinal rule is, no matter how beautiful and obliging a girl may be, if she asks me what "star sign" I am, she's out the door, never to return.
So, what IS your sign?
I refuse to have one, Robyn.
You could take up knitting. That's what I do. It calms the mental chatter and provides relaxed concentration. It's almost meditative. People who have creative technical minds do very well with a couple of sticks and some string. If I spent the amount of time that you do on a train, I would never be short on socks, my friend.
I'll go along with FH's suggestion - it's amazingly calming. I'm surprised you've not been along to the archery club with Mikey?
Good idea, Fresh and Pea, except that guys knitting is so last year here in London. There was a spate of 'em on the tube and some art galleries staged male knitted sculpture exhibitions.
Plus, whenever I pick up two sticks I want to eat with them.
Hey, Pea. Mikey's taking part in a 24 hours sponsored archery challenge. He's going to end up with arms like Popeye!
Or in hospital …
Good luck, Mike!
I've knit with chopsticks.
It just gets too messy. Fresh. The yarn/noodle confusion is too much for my addled brain to cope with.
I was going to take up knitting this year too. It occurred to me that I need something to make my brain quiet down a bit. (I tend to transpose my letters when I type, so I always write brian for brain and now I have decided that this is my brain's name...) Why don't you take it up too and then we can send each other cheery, but rather ugly scarfs to wear while you walk the Thames and I walk Carter Lake...
And hey, on another note...Bing just bought the new cd by Robert Plant and Alison Krause. I think it is called Raising the Sand. She said to tell you that there is a truly remarkable piece on there, a remake of the Everly (sp?)Brothers song, "Gone, Gone, Gone." All I know is that she put that cd in and then sat in a chair with her eyes closed and didn't open them until the last note.....
So, maybe a time filler?
It's a great album, Maria.
My favourite track is the last one, "Your Long Journey". It gets me right where Kathryn Tickell's "Our Kate" hits home (last track on "Debatable Lands" … Uilleann and Northumbrian pipes combining to tear my old heart out).
I'm a sucker for that stuff.
Bing has great taste (as you know).
How about going to the Philippines with Thom and me this May? We're off on the 3rd. :D Then we can go diving - I have an advance certificate, and he is certified as well. My friends are diving instructors and dive masters! We'll take you places that will make you forget bleak UK ever existed.
By the way, if we culled everyone under 30 in Norwich, that would include Thom!
joy
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You'd better get him back to the Philippines before the cull starts, Joy.
As for me; my passport lapsed in the nineties and I never bothered to renew it. Going back and forth to work between Norfolk and Westminster is more than enough travelling for me.
And I like bleak. It kinda suits me.
I have no suggestions for a hobby! My son asked me why I don't join a gym? I asked him where would that fit in my day? He said, OH Yea, good point.
My choice for Raising Sand (funny I was just listening this very morning to the CD) would be Fortune Teller, besides Gone, Gone, Gone (the reason I bought it)
Ah! At last Planty and his beautiful singing partner have been blessed with the Prudence Stamp of Approval.
You impeccable taste is reaffirmed yet again, Prudence.
Be careful not to put me to high up on that pedestal. Being top heavy, I have horrible balance!
Knitting??......Mmmmm......surely we can think of something more exciting.....what about base jumping??? You have lots of nice tall pointy buildings in London. think of the adrenaline rush and all the great photos you could take as you hurtled towards the Thames in your SCUBA gear!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!
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