flaneurs | Recent Entries

June challenge III.(c), part two: flanage report at my journal again, to a bridge via an Oblique Strategy and a giant raccoon. How could you possibly resist? Enjoy!

spiralsheep

June challenge III.(c): flanage report at my journal, with a list of grey things and links to antique wall art. How could you possibly resist? Enjoy!

Current Location: Living in the past

spiralsheep

Anybody else planning to squeeze in a June challenge attempt before the end of this month? Or later? Or perhaps you calmly and coolly thought ahead and have already completed a flan that you can't wait to share with us?

spiralsheep

I also did a walk based on the instructions generated by

squirmelia from the novel Finnegan's Wake. I was under starter's orders at The Greyhound pub in Worcester. Report here:

https://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/643773.html

Well the hare she led on just as swift as the wind
He was sometimes before her and sometimes behind,
He jumped on her back and held up his ould paw -
'Long live the Republic', says Master McGrath.

squirmelia

I decided to use Finnegans Wake by James Joyce to lead me on a walk. I extracted all the lines in Finnegans Wake that had “left” or “right” in them to use as a basis for the walk. If in the text the next line had “left” I would take the next left and if “right”, I'd take the next right.

I ate a croll in the most dangerous street in London, found the location of a bunker where there is now an orchard, ate Christmas cannoli ice-cream, walked up Bob Marley Way, and discovered a video tape in the little free library that had "old Top of the Pops video" written on it.

Full write up and photos here: https://squirmelia.dreamwidth.org/595502.html

spiralsheep

If anyone is looking for a venue for an August walk then Worcester will have a penguins trail through the mostly pedestrianised city centre and along the river (which has pedestrian footbridges). The canal towpaths are also, of course, pedestrianised and meet both the river and the city centre. A very walkable small city and not expensive by UK standards. /I don't actually work for the local tourist board, honest

Penguins: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51ngvklj5no

Current Location: A hypothetical future Worcester

spiralsheep

Having had to switch days, and towns, due to this year's first attempt being nobbled by balloonists, it will come as no surprise when I reveal that I partially failed again. This time it was due to the new cafe, chosen by the person I was meeting, being closed on Mondays, lol.

Report at my journal.

spiralsheep

Having partially failed at theme III.(c) in 2011 and 2012, then failed to attempt the June challenge at all from 2018-22, I have today completely failed at theme III.(c). I was beaten by an unexpected balloon festival. No, rly. Might try again on Monday. /end report

I hope you're all having fun!

Current Mood: full of hot air
Current Music: Up, Up and Away (in my beautiful balloon)

squirmelia

Hounslow is a place I think of more as somewhere to start an adventure (by getting a tube from there to Heathrow airport), as opposed to somewhere to have an adventure, but for a Flaneurs June challenge, I went to Hounslow. This perhaps isn’t the adventure you’ve been waiting 4 years to read about, but I will tell you about it anyway, and there are highwaymen.

My real motivation for going to Hounslow was because I wanted ice-cream, specifically unusual ice-cream flavours. I chose two fruit flavours - chickoo and custard apple, and ate them as I walked towards the start of the walk from Hounslow Station.

Hounslow has a heath! I found this out from the local council's website, as when I searched for walks, two appeared - Hounslow Heath history hike and Hounslow Heath wild walk. Hounslow Heath walks and trails.

( Read more... )

bob

Yesterday I went and did flaneurs challenge III. (c) by visiting random good beer guide pubs by using the random action on RGL

bob

On Monday I did flaneurs challenge I. (c) with an n of 6.

nou

Challenge II.(a) asks you to walk outwards from a railway terminus for a specific length of time, following the railway line as closely as possible. I’ve been doing a modified version of this in stages for a few years, walking from West Croydon to London Bridge.

Two years ago I reported on an earlier stage of this, and now I have finally finished it. Here’s my map. I find it quite interesting to see how closely I could stick to the line in some places, and how much I had to detour in others.

( A few photos below the cut. )

I also took many many photos of railway bridge identifiers, which I seem to be collecting.

bob

On the 15th of June I did flaneurs challenge III. (d). I started at West Norwood station and ended up in Norbury.
I found an interesting manhole cover

bob

On June 1st I did challenge II(b).
I randomly ended up with page 154 column D of our A-Z. In fact I did pages 136 and page 166 as well.
I think there was one point where I went outside the column but only briefly.

nou

It’s June! Get going on your challenges. (bob has just set off on the first one of his.)

nou

It’s nearly time for the June challenge! I’m hoping to get more of it done this year, since my breathing difficulties seem to be on their way to being fixed.

Here are the themes: theme I: buses, theme II: lines, theme III: doing something different. Here are reports from previous years: I.(a), I.(b), I.(c), I.(d), II.(a), II.(b), II.(c), II.(d), III.(a), III.(b), III.(c), III.(d), III.(e).

To complete the challenge, all you need to do is:

Make an attempt during June 2019 to follow at least one set of instructions from at least one theme.
Report back to the community, either via a complete trip report or simply by leaving a comment on this post stating what you did and how it went.

Nobody has asked for flaneurs swag for a few years now, but I still have some supplies (stickers, badges, and postcards) if anyone wants some to mark successful completion of a challenge.

squirmelia

My notebooks fell off my shelf and I started looking through them and there were journeys I'd been on by bus written in some of them, that I never got around to writing up. Here is one such journey:

I did June Challenge I.(c) Buses, but which June I did it in, I am unsure now. Maybe I have photos and tracks to accompany it somewhere. Anyway, for this challenge, I got on the first bus that came along, then got off after 9 stops.

( Read more... )

nou

Here's the roundup for this year's June challenge! Below is the list of who did what — please let me know of any errors or omissions.

bob did I.c [post] and II.b [post] in London.
el_staplador did II.b in Cambridge [post].
nanila did III.a in London [comment].
nou did I.c in London (and a tiny bit in Surrey) [post].
philandstuff did II.c in London [Twitter thread].
secretlondon did I.b [post] and III.a [post] in London.

This means that bob and secretlondon did two themes, while el_staplador, nanila, nou, and philandstuff all did one theme. Congratulations to all participants, and special congratulations to el_staplador, nanila, and philandstuff as first-time participants!

flaneurs swag is available to everyone who did at least one theme of the challenge. We have button badges, postcards, and stickers. If you did one theme, you get one thing, if you did two themes, you get two things, and if you did all three themes, you get all three things. Please message or email me (kake@earth.li) with a postal address and your choice(s) of prizes, and I'll get them sent out ASAP.

nou

Like we did in 2016, in 2014, in 2013, and in 2012, bob and I made simultaneous attempts at Theme I: Buses, subtheme (c) (get on the first bus that comes along, stay on for n stops, get off, repeat), starting from the same stop, with me taking n=5 and him taking n=6.

This year we did it from a different stop, since I was fed up of going up and down London Road on buses. We chose Poplar Walk, which is just around the corner from our old stop.

bob went on a very loopy journey which involved going to Purley twice (we coincided on the first visit, and broke for lunch at Cafe Blue) and through West Croydon bus station at least twice. My journey was rather less loopy, and ended up at a featureless roundabout just over the Surrey border.

So my London bus flânage actually extended outside London. It wasn’t enormously exciting, though — the only place it took me that I hadn’t been before was the roundabout at the end, which was quite boring. Hopefully next year will be better!

Here is my map.

nou

Hello Flâneurs! If you have any pending June challenge reports, please get them in ASAP since I’ll be doing a roundup within the next week.

Also a request for feedback. I’ve been wondering for a while whether doing the challenge in a solstice month is a bad idea. June is generally quite hot in London, and last year I backed out on doing one of the challenges because I couldn’t face the heat. Would an equinox month be better? In practice, unless someone else is willing to admin the challenge, this would mean March, since I have a recurring commitment in September that takes up a lot of my time.

So a poll! This is not binding, just to get an idea of opinions. Please feel free to opinionate in comments too or instead.

Poll #20180

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

View Respondents

Should we switch the Flâneurs challenge month from June to March?

View Answers

yes
4 (33.3%)

no
2 (16.7%)

maybe
4 (33.3%)

I like ticking boxes
7 (58.3%)