Carbonistas…and Economists…often adopt with some panache a wheeze from the Complete Handbook on Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics that goes by the name of Aggregation. The trick is to take raw data, massage, adjust, and aggregate it, then feed it into a computer model to generate scenarios for the spin boys to headline downstream as Future Reality. Another name might be The Structure of Unscientific Revolutions. Take a look at this picture.
Can the Thames really be choked like this with boats, barges and cruisers battling for every inch of space? Well yes and no because what we have here is an aggregated picture of dozens of photographs taken over a single hour.
Travelling between Tower Bridge and London Bridge the river users include an array of vessels. Tourist & pleasure boats make up more than half the total, work boats another fifth and public safety…police, lifeboat & river authority…around 10% depending quite what you make of HMS Belfast that has been sitting quietly in the Pool of London for years. The rest are commuter boats and private users.
Here is your identification key:
1. Police launch;
2. Royal National Lifeboat Institute launch;
3. Port of London Authority work boat;
4. Private leisure craft;
5. PLA driftwood vessel;
6. Vita tourist boat;
7. Cargo boat;
8. London Rose tourist boat;
9. Millennium Dawn tourist boat;
10. Witheycombe tourist boat;
11. Thames tourist boat;
12. Burgan cargo vessel;
13. Private speed boat;
14. Private speed boat;
15. Environmental refuse tug;
16. Rigid inflatable boat;
17. City Cruises tourist boat;
18. Thames Clipper commuter boat;
19. Police launch;
20. Sky Clipper commuter boat;
21. Tourist boat;
22. Suerita tourist boat;
23. Rigid inflatable boat;
24. Hydrospace Delta tourist boat;
25. Hydrospace Alpha tourist boat;
26. Tourist boat;
27. Tourist boat;
28. Tug pulling sand;
29. HMS Belfast;
30. Environmental refuse tug;
31. Mercuria tourist boat;
32. Hydrospace Alpha pleasure boat;
33. Pleasure boat;
34. Thames work boat;
35. Rigid inflatable boat;
36. City Cruises boat;
37. Tourist boat;
38. PLA launch;
39. Catamaran Cruises tourist boat;
40. Sapele pleasure boat;
41. City Cruises tourist boat;
42. Pleasure boat;
43. Tourist boat;
44. City Cruises pleasure boat;
45. Tug boat;
46. City Cruises pleasure boat;
47. Hurricane Clipper commuter boat.
Unaccustomed as I am to acknowledging my sources I will make an exception in this case as the photographer Alisdair MacDonald deserves acclaim for coming up with the bright idea of placing his camera on London Bridge between midday and 1 pm and capturing every vessel that passed. Using a computer he then laid each shot on top of the other and merged them to create the single stunning photograph that he sold to the Daily Mail.
If this persuades you to take the train in future; think again. On Thursday 24th August…while we were witnessing the start of the Spanish Civil War in Castillo…an 8-car train carrying 600 people from King’s Cross to Peterborough split in half with the front four carriages coming to a halt 50 yards ahead of the rest of the train. The automatic brakes did their thing and there was nothing wrong with the couplers so human error was to blame. That’s all right then.
