'OOPS, MY PHONE'S DEAD OFFICER :((' - FREE DLR TRAVELLING FOR LIFE/FOR NOW.

The wonderful Docklands' Light Railway (DLR) celebrates its 30th birthday this year and it has been nothing short of a blessing for Londoners, especially myself. My uni's situated aaaall the way out in Beckton, E16 (far east) and if not for the DLR getting to uni would be a nightmare.

The line conveniently links you up with some of London's best areas.. in my opinion; Lewisham, Stratford, Canary Wharf, Canning Town, Greenwich, Tower Bridge to name a few and the best thing about it is.. IT'S TOTALLY FREE OF CHARGE NOW UNTIL FOREVER (for some 'daredevils' lol). Of course, it's not, but it is barrier-less at least for now and if you're a 'train station opportunist' then yeah, it's basically always free.

No barriers means you can choose not to tap your oyster or buy a paper ticket as there is a 90% chance that the DLR station you're heading to is also a barrier-less one. Things do heat up a lil' as once you're on the train you've got to emulate the fantastic Mr. Fox in your attempts to read and avoid the ticket man. Look out for signs and signals that tell you what his or her next steps are going to be.

NOW. Most people are already fully aware of this and therefore all the above isn't really relevant to you. Sorry for not saying earlier :)

BUT I'd like to make people aware of something they may not already know..

When the inspector comes towards you armed with his needlessly chunky, card-checky-thingy and there's absolutely nout you can do WHACK OUT YOUR APPLE PAY. A friendly Nigerian conductor once informed me that by law conductors cannot reprimand you if your apple pay fails. This is simply because your payment can fail for a multitude of reasons, usually network/3/4G related and obviously sometimes we can't help these things from happening..  therefore it is unfair to be charged a penalty fare. IT'S NEVER FAILED ME OR ANYONE I KNOW, AS OF YET. 

Photo by Zach Ekpe.

I am, however, pretty certain that TFL are already working on this - if they're not already planning to install barriers at every DLR station. It's just too big a loophole for them to ignore. So if you find yourself in the common situation of being asked to present your ticket and you haven't paid for once pull out your Apple Pay and let them scan that I promise you they'll walk on. It's fool-proof.  Either that or you can always say your phone died and it's the only method of payment you brought out with you. Nothing much anyone can do/say about that either.

DISCLAIMER: Out of the 45 stations, on the 7 different lines, 4 (to the best of my knowledge) will always have automated ticket barriers, these stations are; Stratford (not Stratford International, that's free), London City Airport, Canning Town and Bank - tap your oyster prior to travelling to or through any of these stations. Unless you want to be squeezing through the barriers behind an unsuspecting stranger whilst it squeals out this vile tone in desperation to see you caught by the TFL staff member(s), the barrier not the stranger.

Again, if you're a regular fare dodger you've probably already worked out the effectiveness of the 'my phone's dead' line. But for those who haven't tried their hand a bit of free travel for whatever reason, spread the word for them, so they may travel as freely as the rest of us!

Bye!

COOL EVENTS; FLICKS FROM 420

As promised here are some snaps from the 420 celebrations in Hyde Park. Thousands of people turned out including grime MCs Big Narstie and Black the Ripper as well as plenty more familiar and friendly faces.

Hey.. It's the Chicken Shop Date girl 'Amelia Dimoldenberg' presenting for VICE it seems?

Big Narstie was greeted by hundreds and welcomed everyone with joke after joke. 

Artists like 'Bi0ch3mic' were out promoting their works by handing out free sweets, a definite winner with the dro-smoking enthusiasts - 90% of whom were sure to be suffering from a serious case of the munchies. Follow his Soundcloud and follow him at @bi0ch3mic on everything else.

Black The Ripper representing 'The Dank of England' was out all day selling his merchandise and taking photos with every fan, yes, every single person that asked him. He never put a zoot(joint) down.

Thousands of people made their way down to Hyde Park for the day.

There was the chance to get involved in some cool activities too from drumming to baton twirling to MCing on an open mic.

VICE News were one of a number of interesting/hip media outlets documenting the day's proceedings.

ARTICLES ON 420 

The Independent - '420: Thousands gather in London's Hyde Park to celebrate smoking weed'

Evening Standard - '420 day: 12 arrests as thousands gather for annual pro-cannabis demonstration in Hyde Park'

The Sun - 'HIGH-D PARKThousands of cannabis smokers ignore police demands and light up in London’s Hyde Park for ‘420 day’ in campaign to legalise the drug'

METRO - 'Thousands of weed smokers descend on Hyde Park for 4/20'

Thanks for reading.

Have a great weekend!

COOL EVENTS; It's 4/20!!!!

Urban Dictionary states;

"So far the majority of you are incorrect.. 420's origin IS known. 

The term 420 originated at San Rafael High School, in 1971, among a group of about a dozen pot-smoking wiseacres who called themselves the Waldos, who are now pushing 50. The term was shorthand for the time of day the group would meet, at the campus statue of Louis Pasteur, to smoke pot. Intent on developing their own discreet language, they made 420 code for a time to get high, and its use spread among members of an entire generation. 

Here are some popular guesses at where the 4/20 term came from;

- There are NOT 420 chemicals in Weed. It's about 315, the num. goes up or down depending on what you're smoking. 

- 4/20 is NOT police code or Maryjane. 

- And that whole shit about Holland and 4/20 over there being "tea time" for smokers isn't true either."

4/20 celebrations in London rival celebrations in some of the world's best cities; Toronto,  Washington, Paris, Colorado, Amsterdam. 

The location as usual is London's beautiful Hyde Park and if the trains are actually running well, you should be able to grab the Victoria or Jubilee Line to Green Park or the Piccadilly Line to Hyde Park or Marble Arch. There are loads of ways of getting there yourself.. just use CityMapper.

WATCH OUT - Obviously the smoking of as well as being in possession of weed is ILLEGAL in the UK.. This is the only day of the year where police will turn a blind eye to big crowds smoking and possessing marijuana but you still have to have your wits about you! 

Two years ago, policemen and dogs manned part of the entrance to the park, you simply have to walk around them into the park and not through them (OBVIOUSLY!!!) to avoid being caught or apprehended (stopped). I went with a group of about ten people, three of which thought the police dogs were for show and walked straight through them. They were taken into vans stripped of their bud and sent to 'celebrate' with the wiser stoners - don't be one of those three.

As soon as 4:20pm celebrations are over, police disperse the crowd and people are sent on their way. My final OBVIOUSLY will be that once you leave Hyde Park police will probably resume their duties and start arresting people stinking of weed in different parts of London. Some stations may also be 'traps' for friendly smokers to walk into and by traps I mean there are likely to be more policemen and even some dogs at certain stations - avoid them.

4/20 Checklist

- 'a creative instrument' - phone, camera, sketchbook

- 4/20 essentials - bud, rizla, grinder, bud(dies)

- water, speakers, a picnic, anything really, just don't go empty handed, this day only comes round once a year and you don't want to get there and be thinking about all the things you're going to do next year! 

4/20 LINKS;

WIKI 420

Leafly - How To Have The Perfect 4/20

£4.20 Gourmet Burgers @ Meat Liquor (4pm-5pm)

Independent Article - '4/20 Hyde Park: Marijuana users descend on London park for annual smoke-in'

Day Events on 4/20

Enjoy the day! And look out for my picture-post in a day or two!

COOL PEOPLE

You may have read in my prior post that I am launching a blog series that I hope I stick with forever.. here it is!! After spending an eternity in the brainstorming process I have gone for the name 'cool people' (lol, I know it's rubbish). Cool People will feature a few standard photos of a random individual, some information on them and what they are doing, how I met them and my positive opinion on them and finally.. how to connect with them!

I decided to do this for a number of reasons, I managed to come up with 8 exactly - here they are;

1 - Cool People - I meet so many cool, inspiring people everyday (cool and inspiring in a number of ways..) and I am tired of keeping them a secret. A person doesn't gaq

2 - Consistency - I want to be blogging on a much more regular basis and have been saying so for a long time and have decided that there is no better way of kick-starting this by completely chucking myself in the deep end.

3 - Bye bye poor traits, hellooo portraits - I have formally divorced myself from my old friend 'Laziness' especially in my photography life. I want to be taking a wide range of shots from no onwards, especially portraits!

4 - Life is confusing. - So confusing that it would be good to get some inspiration or reassurance (whatever you need!) from a total stranger.

5 - Similar to '4' - See what people are doing with their lives, how they got to where they are and where they want to end up.

6 - Improved connectivity - I think that something like this on a big scale will improve connectivity and the sharing of ideas among our generation, people who may have never bumped into each other could get in touch with one an other as a result of seeing them on 'cool people' - this isn't a new thing though at all, social networks are kind of already supposed to do this.

7 - Meeting New People - A lot of people worriy about this, maybe learning more about people and realising that they're all fab will help you ease those fears.

8 - Difference - Difference is good, learn about people's difference, understand and love them for their differences (a bit soppy but it's true).

The first of my series will be posted tomorrow at 8pm. Thanks for reading!

COOL EVENTS; LFW - AW'16 (Street Style)

Hola people.. As I'm sure a few of you are aware, 'London Fashion Week Autumn/Winter '16' ran from the 19th - 23rd of this month. I've been a busy guy recently but I felt that the beaming sunlight coupled with the moderate weather dragged me out of bed, way before I could say the words 'I am too tired for today'.. and what a great choice it turned out to be.

LFW never disappoints and this year was no different, I will no doubt be seeing some of the people I met on the day again in the near future. Throughout the day I took a number of photos featuring funky fashionistas(in all different kinds of clothing) as well as the odd celeb. Here are some photos..

THE END.

Overall, I took around 400 photos yesterday and whittled them down to the ones you have just seen. I also specifically dedicated time to taking snaps of footwear that caught my eye, for all the right reasons, throughout the day - all those photos can be found in my next post which will be published shortly.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the last few days of February.. HOW CRAY-Z!?