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I've really been enjoying being busy helping with the MAF flight operations in Liberia. Shortly after I landed at a remote location one day, our other aircraft, piloted by Ulrich Müeller, also landed (below) at the same airstrip. I was about to load up two medical patients into my aircraft. But since Uli had just arrived, he gratefully offered to help with the loading, so that I could take some photos. Don't worry... we had previously already acquired permissions from all involved to be photographed. Personally I do not like to 'stage' photos, and I don't like to ask people to slow down, or pose, or whatever. It just feels fake. So if I'm photographing, I like to do my best to blend into the background, or at least out of the way, and then just shoot whatever is truly happening, as it happens in real time. Practically speaking, that means that it's often very difficult or impossible for me to get good photos of the activities around a plane, when I'm the only pilot--because my first priority is of course always the safety and security of the plane/flight. So it's a rare but great opportunity when I have the chance to photograph another one of our pilots in action. And again, just in case you might think it would be awkward for a patient, or medical personnel to be photographed, I'll put your mind at ease by saying that we always explain that MAF is a not-for-profit mission, and there are many people who pray and give to help make these flights possible. It is important that we can also share with those folks how the aircraft are being used to bless people in remote locations. And most people are very understanding of that, and very thankful for the help, and very happy to be in the photographs. Even-so, I always try to be respectful and discreet in the way I photograph or show people (especially patients) and of course, that we always do have their permission first. So don't worry. ;-) There was an additional patient, already loaded, and seated in front of the stretcher patient. Here, Uli is carefully strapping in the 2nd patient for the 1.5 hour flight that I would make to take both patients and the medical personnel accompanying them, to the capital city for treatment. Upon landing in Monrovia, I was met and assisted, as usual, by the very capable MAF team. Most patients are very happy for us to pray with/for them, which we did both before and after this flight. Here, the serving MAF country director, Leon Prinsloo, prays with the two medical patients after they have been loaded into the ambulance, and before they go to the hospital. It's worth noting that I had previously asked some of the local people in the remote town where I had picked up these two patients, "how long would it take to drive from there to Monrovia?" They laughed at the question and told me that it is not even possible to do that--not at this time of year anyway--not during the rainy season. They said that sometimes it might be possible, but it would be many days of tough travel, but right now they said the jungle roads are totally impassible. And it's also worth noting that both of these patients were actually in quite serious condition. I was very glad that MAF was able to provide help to transport them! Switching gears... here is a shot of downtown Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia. And here's a shot from just nearby the above one, which shows markets along the roads where people are buying and selling stuff. This is not at all an unusual scene on departure from our 'home' airport here. The rainy season offers some challenging flying! But it has the potential to look like this!... although, in the past 5 weeks of flying here, I've only had about 2 days like this. Here's a few more shots from the air showing the remote and rugged terrain over which we fly... And I'll end with a nice sunset after the rains cleared out a few nights ago...
A few weeks ago I was asked to pop over to Liberia (on the west coast of Africa) to help with their flying for six weeks. Our Liberia program has been short on pilots and very busy with flying, so of course I was happy to help! Above is a shot of a bunch of Covid vaccines and other medicines and medical supplies that I delivered to a remote hospital in a town at the very southeastern tip of Liberia. Below I'm unloading cargo before picking up two serious medical patients (you can see the stretcher behind me.) This is one of the airstrips that we frequently fly to... as you can see it is very close to the ocean. There are a number of towns/villages situated just along the coast, but frankly I've seen virtually no roads along the coast. Occasionally, near a town I'll see a few muddy narrow 'roads' branching out a few miles from the town, but then they seem to vanish. So, for the most part it's just rugged coastline that merges into jungle. And I've also seen no large ships, though I'm sure they must come to/from the capital city from time to time. But up and down the coast I've seen nothing other than a few small canoes and very small wooden boats. And if you pan the camera just a few miles in from the coast, then it's nothing but dense, sopping wet jungle. In short, it's definitely a place with vast geological barriers where the need for the plane is obvious! Now that I've shown you the 'nice' shots of what it can look like when the sun is shining (which in my short time here seems to almost never happen) now let me show you what it usually looks like... Actually, even the above two shots are not really accurate, because most of the time I can't see the ground at all once I'm at an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) altitude. It's rainy season here right now and it's an understatement to say that it rains a lot. I've lived and flown/worked in a lot of places around the world, but I've never seen a place that can put out so much relentless, pounding rain day after day after day, most of which is not even tied to thunderstorms. It's just sopping wet atmospheric stuff. Incidentally, it seems that this is where the brewing begins for those storms that build into monster hurricanes that cross the Atlantic and eventually slam into the Americas this time of year. Fun fact: Monrovia (where MAF Liberia is based) is the wettest capital city in the world! They apparently get about 15 feet of rain a year, and I believe it! It's obviously challenging weather to fly in, but frankly, I've been enjoying it. It reminds me a bit of some of the flying I used to do in Indonesia. I've definitely done quite a number of low-pass runway inspections before landing here, just to make sure of the condition of the surface--b/c of all the mud/rain. But if you maintain margins and are careful, it can still be done safely in the rain. And a little rain never hurt anyone, right? I've enjoyed seeing, and being a part of, the wide variety of strategic flights that MAF does here--from 'traditional' mission flying to critical medical transport flights, to humanitarian and community development etc. This past week I was the only MAF pilot in the country so I was flying every day and really enjoying it. Earlier this week Henk Jan (below, right) who is the MAF-International Africa Regional Director, dropped in for a two-day program visit. He has an extensive and distinguished background/career in aviation, including (but not limited to) many years in MAF. I was privileged to have him join me for a flight interior, and I was glad that the weather cooperated that day--in fact it was the nicest day, by far, since I've been here. (Below, Henk Jan talks to missionary, Kim Smith, about his ministry while I was waiting for my return load/passengers back to Monrovia.) One rare evening when the sun popped out for a few minutes before it set, I walked down the beach. No, I haven't jumped in yet, but I'm guessing I will before I leave in a month. That said, because of the nearly constant storms, the surf is really rough, and there are also many hidden rocks in the surf, and I'm told there are also strong undertows and rip currents in this area. Plus, the water is muddy brown and full of seaweed because of the winds/storms. So I need to wait for the right place/time so that I don't become shark or shrimp food.
Here's some random shots from the flight line. First, one of our Cessna 208B Grand Caravans taking off from our home airstrip in Kajjansi, Uganda. This aircraft is now serving in Liberia. I've always loved watching the sky and the weather. Last week I was out of the city and had a chance to see the milky way in all it's glory. Maybe sometime I'll share some of those pics too. But in the meantime, here are a few shots related to the sky/weather, from the flight line, as I was pre-flighting airplanes in Kajjansi. These first two are photos of the rising son, through fog. I obviously took (and am sharing) two versions of this, b/c as you can see, in the first one I focused on the sun and intentionally threw the MAF logo out of focus, whereas in the second one I made the focus the MAF logo itself. And here's one taken only a few weeks apart, and it is also in the morning, but this time it's obviously the moon. Haze and smoke are quite common here in our part of Uganda, but fog in our area is not so common. Here's another shot of the flight line in some very thick morning fog. And here's what it looks like on a more typical morning, with nice skies, and a dissipating thunderstorm out over Lake Victoria in the distance. Here's a shot of the Karamojang landscape in Northeastern Uganda. And here's a shot of the steep, lush slopes of the eastern edge of East DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and the western edge of Lake Albert which separates EDRC from Uganda. And here's a young chap who was eager to have his photo taken in front of the plane... just like I'm sure I would have done if I had the chance at his age. :-)
A few weeks ago we (fellow MAF pilot Andrew and I) landed at Amudat airstrip for the first time in a very long time (below). Over the past year and a half quite a few of the upcountry airstrips in Uganda (especially in Karamoja) deteriorated so badly that we had to stop using them. There were several contributing factors, mostly related to the Covid lockdown and lack of flying for so long, but also due to various organizations and users being short of staff and funding. The next two photos show the Amudat runway from the air (from both directions) during the time that it was closed. It actually got quite a bit worse than this later on, as these were taken soon after it was closed. Our sending church in Oregon gave a very generous gift to help facilitate the reopening of several of the closed airstrips. MAF sent a work team to oversee the project in Amudat. Here is a photo of the cleaned/repaired/improved airstrip, just before we landed there a few weeks ago. Here's a shot of Andrew and I with the MAF guys that oversaw the project. They also hired many locals to help with the work (which was also a great way to help the people during these very difficult times when it is SO hard for them to find a source of income), and purchased some tools that will be used for continued upkeep of the strip. Anytime a plane lands, especially after it's been a long time, people will seemingly suddenly appear out of nowhere to watch. This time was no exception. Here's some random shots from the air that I've taken in the past month or so. This first one captures sort of the classic northern Karamoja. This is the very point where the Nile leaves Uganda and enters South Sudan. In this photo the water is flowing from the lower left corner to the bend on the right, and then continuing up towards the upper left corner, on its way South to North. The brown (left) side of the river is South Sudan, and the green (right) side of the photo is Uganda. Just behind/beyond the bend is the town of Nimule, South Sudan. It might strike you as odd that the brown and green are so distinct. It is not always like that. And it's certainly not normally that abrupt of a change between the two countries. It's true that parts of South Sudan can be much dryer than Uganda, but in this region it is generally a much more gradual transition. The reason it's like this here, in this photo, is because the Uganda side is very flat and swampy, hence the greenery, whereas the South Sudan side is the higher ground, and thus dryer, when this photo was taken. But for much of the year both sides are equally green. Speaking of green, this was a very odd (algae?) green floating mass of something that was on top of the Lake Victoria water for several weeks, not far from the shore. I have no idea exactly what it was, or what caused it, but it was almost an iridescent green. It's gone now.
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Broadband update Abbreviated version: Hurrah, my broadband finally started working again yesterday afternoon. I had eleven days without. What happened: A couple of Saturdays ago a fibre optic cabre somewhere in Mile End failed. Before dawn on Monday Openreach sent an engineer round who confirmed someone needed to come back in daylight. On Tuesday someone came back in daylight, opened up a manhole and found flooding down there. Faffing around in the water proved ineffective so Openreach realised they'd need to source hydraulic pumps. Several attempts were pencilled in but the issue was not solved, hence the protracted delay. How I found this out: On Tuesday I finally managed to speak to a human on a BT helpline. I think they could hear the surprise in my voice. They did some digging into my broadbandlessness and confirmed it was infrastructural damage so an Openreach issue, not a BT problem. They didn't know when pumps might tame the flooding allowing the cable to be repaired, but it was reassuring to know this was a real problem and they were trying to solve it. I will eventually receive some daily compensation. How it ended: Yesterday I spotted an Openreach engineer fiddling with a cabinet beside an open manhole at the end of Fairfield Road. This looks hopeful, I thought, but when I got home I still had no broadband. I checked online and they were hoping for a fix by 10am this morning. But a few minutes later the red ring on my BT Hub turned blue and I had broadband again. Oh the relief of being able to do everything online again. How Joni Mitchell summed it up: Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. Flickr update fewest views. I hope to update this list several times during the day. 1) Dover to Deal (25 photos, 0 views): Uploaded yesterday, four days after I wrote about my clifftop walk. Please have a look :) 2) Redditch (20 photos, 75 views): Nobody gave a damn about this West Midlands new town last year. 3) Cheltenham & Gloucester (25 photos, 79 views): The lovely spa and cathedral towns, not the building society. 4) Slough (30 photos, 98 views): I should have guessed my Slough collection (Mars, Herschel, Thunderbirds) would underperform. 5) Welwyn Hatfield (26 photos, 107 views): Perhaps it's new towns that don't generally attract attention. 6) Wensum bridges (12 photos, 113 views): Bridges in Norwich proved a bit niche last year. 7) Ironbridge (30 photos, 128 views): What's wrong with you? Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale are fabulous. 8) Prime Meridian (40 photos, 146 views): From the Thames to the Humber (skipping from Stratford to Cleethorpes). 9) Poole (40 photos, 148 views): Perhaps if I'd mentioned Brownsea Island it'd've performed better. 10) Dartford (25 photos, 160 views): Yeah I get that. 11) Foro/Palatino (30 photos, 188 views): The astonishing classical treasures in the centre of Rome. Bow Roundabout update Silvertown Tunnel webpage explains why. All physical mitigation works are now complete. The link under the flyover at Bow will remain closed until we complete more works to protect the structure later in 2025. I suspect they've realised it'll take more than a small low headroom sign to protect the underside of the flyover from potential damage so will be adding more signs or some other kind of protection. A lorry hitting the concrete structure could be incredibly disruptive. Superloop update Every 8 minutes: SL4 (Canary Wharf → Grove Park) Every 10 minutes: SL8 (Shepherds Bush → Uxbridge) Every 12 minutes: SL1, SL2, SL3, SL5, SL9, SL10 Every 15 minutes: SL6, SL7 London Loop update section 18, i.e. Chingford to Enfield Lock. This is another section that can be ridiculously muddy even in normal weather, indeed at the end of February the Inner London Ramblers warned of "slippery mud" and "extensive flooding" and strongly recommended the wearing of "good boots". I can confirm that after six weeks with no rain it was merely a very pleasant ramble and unusually solid underfoot. Here, in addition to the absence of mud, are the ten things which most surprised us along the way. 1) A seafood takeway on a boat at Enfield Lock selling tiger prawns, calamari and octopus. 2) Wondering why all the ducks along the Lea were in groups of three, in each case two males pursuing one female. 3) Crossing the Greenwich Meridian in the middle of a car boot sale. 4) A songbird in a tree on Sewardstone Marsh belting out a ridiculously wide range of chirpy songs, as if working through the preset tunes on an old Casio keyboard. 5) An Islamic cemetery that definitely wasn't on the hillside last time I walked this. 6) A girl dangling her feet in a freshly dug grave and laughing while on the phone to a friend. 7) Noticing that all the graves were pointing in a southwesterly direction that definitely wasn't southeast towards Mecca (then using Google to confirm that Muslim graves are always aligned at right angles). 8) The Leopard Gates outside the Scouts National HQ at Gilwell Park, where one of the leopards got damaged so the 97 year-old sculptor came out of retirement to carve a new one. 9) The absolutely excellent view across London from the top of Yates Meadow, which the official Loop route inexplicably bypasses. 10) Walking round a corner and suddenly passing two young men coming the other way, one wearing a straightjacket and looking immensely embarrassed at being spotted in what they'd hoped was the middle of nowhere. 60+ card update E-bike update xxx I think we can agree this is not the best possible announcement. It draws more attention to two obscure cross-river services than to the e-bikes themselves. It's like saying the asterisk out loud. But as we discussed and discovered, it's hard to do better.-->
When you know why you’re doing what you want to do, you do it better. You can prioritize clearly, adapt when you need, and endure the inevitable setbacks. More importantly, you’ll know when you’re heading in the right direction. This sense of clarity doesn’t just magically happen to you. Fortunately, it’s pretty straightforward to get […] The post “Why is this important to me?” appeared first on Herbert Lui.
Twenty years ago today I posted my first photo to Flickr. I'd been to Lewisham for the day as part of my Random Borough project and thought you deserved to see 13 of the better pictures in greater-than-microscopic size. For my inaugural upload I picked the ever-photogenic Laban Centre on Deptford Creek in cobalt sunshine, and invited you to take a peek. (more tomorrow - in the meantime you might enjoy my new Flickr photostream with more shots of gorgeous Lewisham) seven-digit ID number. By contrast my latest photos are eleven-digiters, confirming an explosion of digital imagery over the last two decades. Sticking photos online was relatively new back in 2005, hindered by retro-mobile technology and substandard transfer speeds. Today we think nothing of uploading photos and videos for immediate consumption, so much so that the visual has overtaken the written in our digital communication. Flickr - for some reason I'd signed up over a year previously. They were a cute fortnight-old start-up at the time, complete with an occasional inability to spell. Welcome to Flickr, diamond geezer! Please note: ln the initial weeks of the beta period reliability may be sporadic while we optimize the system and new servers. Outage start times and anticipated lengths wiltbe posted to the news page with as much notice as possible. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience thls may cause. Flickr is that it's still going. Twenty years is forever online, plenty long enough for your premise to collapse or for the big company who bought you to let you wither and then pull the plug. In this case Yahoo proved poor masters and eventually got rid, which would have meant oblivion had not a smaller company called SmugMug stepped in. Thus the site is still here, thank God, and so are hundreds of millions of images representing a phenomenal social record. the next one, a Tellytubbyesque landscape from the front of the same building, a total high enough to place it in my Top 200 Most Viewed Flickr photos of all time. Alas this is an increasingly meaningless ranking after a fortnight of statistical blips in October 2022 gifted entirely random photos massive viewing totals. But if I strip out those annoying interlopers these are my Flickr Top Five, my photo-sharing greatest hits. 1) Entrance to nudist beach, Telscombe Cliffs (44,296 views): It's the phrase 'nudist beach' that keeps punters coming back, alas missing the key word 'entrance' (because there's nothing to see here). 2) Met No 1 (26,343 views): In 2013 a 'Learning English' website used my photo of a steam train at Farringdon to illustrate a podcast, and attributed it properly, which has brought a steady stream of visitors ever since. 3) Fatboys Diner (20,527 views): This Fifties trailer alas no longer serves burgers at Trinity Buoy Wharf but my wonky 2008 photo still has traction. I saw its empty silver shell recently from a train, awaiting rebirth. 4) American Embassy, Nine Elms (19,731 views): Very occasionally one of my photos is embraced by Explore, Flickr's global daily Top 500 feature, which loved this photo of Nine Elms' defensive cube. It's rather easier to get into Explore now than it used to be. 5) Shivering Sands sea forts (18,145 views): I got lucky with a level horizon on a rocking boat off Herne Bay, garnering multiple Flickr favourites and a long shelf life as a "go-to" photo for this rusting offshore marvel. eleven photos in my online portfolio have had fewer than 200 views over the years, which if you're on Flickr yourself you'll know is a phenomenal strike rate. They're all from a particularly dull set I uploaded in 2006 so it serves me right. Of the dozen other photos that never mustered 300 views, what barely interested anyone are a trip to Rome, a Paralympic tennis match and a week in San Francisco, which I've never quite understood. I suspect photos of my recent trip to Dover would be in these doldrums had I actually managed to upload them, but I haven't yet which is annoying - an anniversary opportunity lost. Flickr albums where appropriate, especially if I go to a far-flung place and want to make it easy to showcase my visit. Here are my five most-viewed albums ever, and perhaps you can see why they are. 1) Olympic Stadium site (10,406 views): I stood on the same bridge over Marshgate Lane and took a monthly photo of the Olympic Stadium arising, so this is a unique record of inexorable change and rightly my most-viewed album. 2) Metroland Revisited (9,324 views): For John Betjeman's centenary I followed in his documentary footsteps up the Metropolitan line, and it was 2006 so photo quality wasn't great but nostalgia won out. 3) Fleet River (NE branch) (9,255 views): My month-long bloggery down the River Fleet was much shared at the time and brought diamond geezer to a wider audience. I compiled five albums of Fleet photographs, geographically focused, and if I extended this list to a Top 10 the other albums would be 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th. 4) Inside the Gherkin (9,164 views): For Open House 2006 I queued for hours to see London from the top of the Gherkin, and thousands of people have subsequently wanted to know what that view looked like. 5) My Most Interesting Photos (8,481 views): Flickr's algorithm nebulously combines views, comments and favourites to create a ranking by 'Interestingness', which for years had the Maunsell Forts at the top of the list. This album alas no longer automatically updates, otherwise it'd show that my Most Interesting photo is now of icy boats at Richmond Bridge. Early Flickr had some mighty cunning coding under the bonnet, including a naming convention so forward-looking it still works today. My first photo is still www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/8919372, my first set of Parisian photos is still www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/albums/263401 and (I don't know if this works for you) a list of all the photos I uploaded in 2008 in order of Interestingness is still www.flickr.com/search/?w=36101699310%40N01&s=int&d=taken-20080101-20081231. otherwise have lost when my hard drive died in 2006. But the potential danger works both ways. I've invested hours of my time curating an online portfolio, currently 18852 photos in total, complete with captions, tags and geographical locations. But there's no guarantee whatsoever that Flickr will maintain functionality in the future, or indeed continue to function at all, so all that effort may one day be wiped out. Flickr can survive another decade without something going wrong, be that degeneration of functionality or withdrawal of service. But I said exactly that in 2015, and yet here it is still going strong. I hope you enjoy looking at the photos I stick on there, be that for artistic, geographical or purely inquisitive reasons. And I hope they'll still be there to look at in 2035, even if the things I've taken photographs of are by then long gone.
A ponzi scheme takes place when the schemer uses cash from later investors to pay returns to early investors. My friend Peter makes the case that when an entrepreneur borrows from their business’s future to pay off present and past obligations, they are operating it like a ponzi scheme. Peter’s framing of the situation resonated […] The post Do you borrow from your future to pay for the present and past? appeared first on Herbert Lui.
Route 129: Lewisham to Gallions Reach Location: London southeast, crossriver Length of bus journey: 9 miles, 70 minutes 129 has been searching for a purpose ever since it was introduced as a stumpy three mile route in 2006. The original idea was to connect the new Millennium Village on the peninsula to the centre of Greenwich, a double decker shuttle which was one of the ten shortest bus routes in London. Planners intended it would one day be extended to new developments on Surrey Canal Road and thence to Peckham, but New Bermondsey Overground station remains a mirage two decades later so that never happened. Jump ahead to 2022 and the 129 was extended instead to Lewisham, this to make up for route 180 being diverted for Crossrail reasons, although that didn't bring a huge rush of punters either. Now it's become one of three cross-river buses in east London, striking out through the Silvertown Tunnel to connect Lewisham to City Airport and Beckton, and we wait to see if this is a link anyone genuinely needs. 129's first stop ought to be outside the Lewisham Centre but it's closed due to 'Urban Realm development works', which according to a poster were supposed to finish last week but evidently haven't. At least it tells you where to go instead. The second stop alas has no poster, just a Countdown screen insisting several 129s are due in the next few minutes when in fact bugger all are coming. Here I meet a flustered old lady trying to get to Canary Wharf with the aid of some scribbled instructions her nephew gave her. Alas her intended chain of buses fails at square one, causing instant confusion, and trying to persuade her to give up waiting and catch the DLR instead falls on deaf ears. displaced 400 much-peeved residents. Then finally we're back on line of route, where I can confirm nobody has bothered to put up a new 129 timetable at the Lewisham Station stop because of TfL's usual uncoordinated backroom inefficiencies. Things have started badly. We've reached the start of the original runty 129 outside the Old Royal Naval College, suddenly with so many more miles to go. Potential passengers are asking the driver if he's going to North Greenwich, because last week that was the key destination on the front of the bus but it's now vanished in favour of a less helpful housing estate in Newham. For a direct bus they really should have taken the 188 which takes a shortcut whereas we're doing the full length of constricted Trafalgar Road before heading north. "Are you going under the tunnel?" asks one keen old lady, and technically the answer's no but the driver helpfully says yes. We exit the bus station novelly by turning right at the roundabout, then right again down a special canyon-like bus lane. Three hi-vis-ed stewards wave us on, just this once. In no time we're turning into the main flow of traffic almost immediately before the tunnel portal, and then we're in. A double decker in a Thames tunnel is a proper novelty for London. We stick to the left lane along with the HGVs while everything else sticks to the right, all proceeding at just under 30mph and all contributing to the Mayoral coffers. It's less straight than I was expecting but not as wonky as the Blackwall Tunnel. As sightseeing trips go it's not especially incredible, although if you stop and think precisely what we're ducking under maybe it is. One final bend and then daylight appears in the distance and then we're out - just under a mile, fractionally under two minutes. The first stop is a good half mile beyond the tunnel outside West Silvertown station, or technically just past. Here the pile-off begins as we lose the passengers who merely wanted to ride through the tunnel, which is the vast majority. The 129 then begins its new life threading through the Newham hinterland, an estuarine strip initially bursting with fresh flats. It can't currently stop at the next bus stop because extensive cycleway works are in progress but 'Thames Barrier' is announced anyway. Nobody is inconvenienced. The announcements then glitch into overdrive and start mentioning future stops, repeated stops and especially Connaught Bridge, perhaps because we're stopping there twice but more likely teething troubles. When Crossrail started in 2022 TfL entirely rejigged bus stopping patterns in this corner of Beckton, mysteriously rerouting the 300 and leaving Royal Albert Way unbussed. The 129 now follows its former path, making sense of the former subtraction as if this were the plan all along. We pass a few parks, a closed city farm and not many houses before lining up on Tollgate Road where potential passengers are far more plentiful. None oblige. One of the remaining enthusiasts in the front seat lifts his sleeve to reveal the bus-related tattoo he just got, and the other is perhaps less impressed than he'd hoped. We've now been going over an hour, and as a blessing the driver doesn't deviate into Beckton bus station but stops outside. I have no interest in riding the 129 back the other way because it's pretty mundane apart from the two magic subterranean minutes in the middle. Let's hope other people find it useful and it doesn't prove a wasted connection.
