The Little Room With A Big View

Imagine you are at a party, tenth floor of a high-rise building, and then you have to visit the bathroom. You open the door and this is what you step into.


The bathroom floor is painted, but would you feel comfortable stepping onto it. Scary!

Thought For Today

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
Elie Wiesel

Bear Rescue

A bear was walking across Rainbow Bridge (Old Hwy 40 at Donner Summit, Truckee, CA), when two cars also crossing the bridge, scared the bear into jumping over the edge of the bridge. Somehow, the bear caught a ledge and was able to pull itself to safety.

(Click on each image to enlarge)

Authorities decided that nothing could be done to help Saturday night so they returned Sunday morning to find the bear sound asleep on the ledge.

After securing a net under the bridge, the bear was tranquilized, fell into the net, lowered, then
woke up and walked out of the net.

Yep, he took a nap and sure enough the situation took care of itself while he was asleep.

The moral of the story is that when confronted with a bad situation sometimes the best solution is to take a nap.

Petticoat Lane Market

Petticoat Lane Market (picture right) is a fashion and clothing market located on Wentworth Street and Middlesex Street in East London. It is one of a number of traditional markets, lying to the east of the City of London. A few hundred yards to the north is Old Spitalfields market, and across Commercial Street, to the east lies Brick Lane Market. A half mile further east is the Columbia Road Flower market. Petticoat Lane Market was not formally recognised until an Act of Parliament in 1936, but its long history as an informal market makes it possibly one of the oldest surviving markets in Britain.
In Tudor times, Middlesex Street was known as Hogs Lane, a pleasant lane lined by hedgerows and elms. It is thought city bankers were allowed to keep pigs in the lane, outside the city wall; or possibly that it was an ancient droving trail. The lane's rural nature changed, and by 1590, country cottages stood by the city walls. By 1608, it had become a commercial district where second hand clothes and bric-a-brac were sold and exchanged, known as 'Peticote Lane'. This was also where the Spanish ambassador had his house, and the area attracted many Spaniards from the reign of James I. Peticote Lane was devastated in the Great Plague of 1665, the rich fled and London lost a fifth of its population.

From the mid-18th century, Petticoat Lane became a centre for manufacturing clothes, and the market served the well to do in the City, selling new garments. About 1830, Peticote Lane's name changed again to Middlesex Street, this was to record the boundary between Portsoken Ward, in the City of London and Whitechapel, which coincided with the Lane. However, the old name continues to be associated with the area.

Left: Petticoat Lane in the 1920's.

From 1882 a wave of immigrants, Jews, fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe, settled in the area. Jewish immigrants entered the local garment industry and maintained the traditions of the market. The severe damage experienced throughout the East End during World War II, served to disperse the Jewish communities and the area suffered a decline. The market, however, continued to prosper and a new wave of Asian immigration beginning in the 1970s restored the areas vitality - centred on nearby Brick Lane.

The market was always unpopular with the authorities, being largely unregulated and in some senses illegal. The rights of the market were finally protected by Act of Parliament in 1936. A prominent businessman, Alan Sugar, got his start as a stall holder, in the market.

Sit And Watch The World Go By!

This is a picture of a public toilet in Houston

The lady is about to enter .....

Now that you've seen the outside view,

take a look at the inside view .....

It's made entirely of one-way glass!

No one can see you from the outside,

but when you are inside it's like sitting

in a clear glass box.

Now would you ..... could you .....???