Suburban sundown - the Tower of Babel and Satan's Pit! - # 09/10

The Tolworth Tower, overlooks the thundering Kingston Bypass. It's typical of suburban London.

I was amused to compare it with this estate agent's blurb discovered recently, attempting to encourage people to buy property in Dubai......................

..........."Welcome to Al Barari, the most perfect place on earth. Those lucky enough to belong in this wonderland can expect a life filled with enchantment and beauty, each day more fulfilling than the last. Whether you lie by your pool listening to the fountains and the birds or spend each day at one of the world's finest spas. Whether you explore the dreamlike parklands or wander the specialist craft stores, hobby shops or other niche retail outlets. Even a day at the office is a surreal experience - it's a life of endless wonder.Not since the legendary gardens of the Moors has there been a place that so celebrates the human intrinsic love of nature and beauty. As though surrounding the palace of a great sultan, Al Barari is a delight to the senses and a tribute to the wonders of the planet.Set like a magnificent emerald within the golden desert sands, Al Barari is a sanctuary where man and nature live in harmony, where the flora and bird life of the Arabian Peninsula intertwine with luxurious residences. Cobbled paths and shimmering waterways wind amongst vast Botanical Gardens, past Islamic Perfumed Gardens, Music Parks, open-air theatres and fine organic restaurants. It is a place so tranquil that the silence is only broken by the symphony of life, a soothing melody of birdsong and cascading waterfalls, laughter and age old breezes whispering through the foliage. In this same lavish style, a unique Arabian Boutique Hotel welcomes travelers.If you would like more information on the above property please contact us on the form below and one of our sales consultants shall contact you shortly with the answers to all your questions regarding the property....................."

How long will it be before the sound that is "the symphony of life" becomes the thundering roar of the Al Barari Bypass? I wonder if a day at the office in the Tolworth Tower is "a surreal experience - it's a life of endless wonder" ? By the way: you can "Google" Tolworth and find out everything you want to know about its origins and the tower.

Suburban sundown - as the sun sinks it also rises.

Camera: Olympus E3 Lens 9mm 1:4 (18mm equivalent) Time: Sundown. This is one of the first test photos I took with this new Olympus super-wideangle lens. So far I'm very pleased with it.

Suburban sundown - Bypass on the road to doom! - # 09/08

The low angle of the sunset gives a pleasant golden glow to the misery of the Kingston Bypass.

The Domesday Book was the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or 'William the Conqueror' (The Anglo-Norman word gave us our modern "Doom" i.e. Day of reckoning.) William wanted to know the full value of the great land he had accidentally conquered when an arrow (most likely a completely fluke shot, un-aimed and random) killed the Saxon King at the very moment when the Norman soldiers were about to give up, thinking they could not win.

The green, rolling hills - now covered with asphalt and houses between 1927 and 1938 - became, for a little while, the possession of the Bishop of Bayeux.

The Bishop acquired this wealthy, beautiful, rural landscape of farms and productive capacity entirely by the accident of a loose arrow going nowhere. We have covered the land with a thundering, incessantly roaring road by the design of planners following population growth and economic imperative. Where are we going? Are we that arrow? Or are we the random arrow's final target? Do we plan a true path, or is it all random chance?

The suburban sundown series.........where's it going? (Well, actually, if the clouds do not dissolve and allow back the sun,........... hmmmmmm??? But we will keep trying. The English weather is not a great help right now, but that problem, like all things, will pass.)

Suburban sundown - Tolworth Station! - # 09/06

I'm not sure where this is going to end up, or where it will pass through on the way. It's about London's "suburbia" and how the great boom of the 1930's has morphed it's way into the 21st century. I suspect that occasionally it might be a bit "dark", sometimes rather bland (what suburbia isn't?) but I will attempt to make it photographically palatable. I might even become so depressed that I can't bear to continue it. Then again, I might become inspired and find the strength to go on for a week or two. We'll see.

Tolworth railway station is a concrete Bauhaus/Art Deco-ish creation thrown up alongside the new Kingston bypass to serve a vaste new suburbia that mushroomed from zero in the 1930s. When new it probably looked quite stylish. It was simple and relatively cheap to build. It probably had in mind the same future vision of the Autobahn age that was also dawning in Germany. Today......it's definitely "sundown style". Too much Auto and not enough Bahn.