{"id":1182,"date":"2013-12-07T11:34:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-07T11:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/?p=1182"},"modified":"2013-12-07T11:40:11","modified_gmt":"2013-12-07T11:40:11","slug":"on-the-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2013\/12\/07\/on-the-river\/","title":{"rendered":"On the River"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back in July I went, for one reason or another, on a meandering bike ride. I ended up here:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net\/hphotos-ak-ash2\/998010_10151562083191298_1381628023_n.jpg\" alt=\"Thames Barrier, in calm conditions\" width=\"500\" \/><br \/>\n<em>My bike. And the Thames Barrier<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.environment-agency.gov.uk\/homeandleisure\/floods\/38353.aspx\">Thames Barrier<\/a> is apparently the world&#8217;s second largest movable flood barrier (I believe the Dutch have the largest immovable such barrier: most of Holland is actually a giant dyke). I&#8217;ve never seen in it action; not even Thursday night when we were skirting <a href=\"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/2013\/12\/06\/the-morning-after\/\">Stormageddon<\/a> and flying back into my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.londoncityairport.com\">favourite aerodrome<\/a>\u2014as the Barrier is west of the runway you only tend to get views of it on takeoff.<\/p>\n<p>But it does spring <a href=\"http:\/\/www.environment-agency.gov.uk\/research\/library\/publications\/41065.aspx\">into action<\/a>, and yesterday the Environment Agency reported it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.environment-agency.gov.uk\/news\/151097.aspx\">closed against the highest tide<\/a> since it was completed in 1984. What would have happened if the Barrier wasn&#8217;t there, or if it hadn&#8217;t closed?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ow.ly\/i\/3WxNK\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.ow.ly\/photos\/normal\/3WxNK.jpg\" alt=\"Flooded River\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>What London<\/em> might <em>have looked like, today<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Take another look at that\u2014the red rectangle is the approximate location of my (ground floor) flat.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pommiebastards\/11250108756\" title=\"6Dec13 by Richard Grant, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7382\/11250108756_6f92928f86.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"344\" alt=\"6Dec13\"><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Wet<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in July I went, for one reason or another, on a meandering bike ride. I ended up here: My bike. And the Thames Barrier The Thames Barrier is apparently the world&#8217;s second largest movable flood barrier (I believe the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2013\/12\/07\/on-the-river\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[291,293,292,290],"class_list":["post-1182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dont-try-this-at-home","tag-flood","tag-grateful","tag-stormageddon","tag-thames-barrier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}