05 July 2010

Crossing signals

It's ok for horses and cyclists to cross. Horses - because this is on the route of the Horse Guards to the Changing the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

Usually it's just a green man.

But in Berlin, it's an Ampelmaennchen (on some riverside deckchairs; I neglected to photograph the real thing) -"More human, more chirpy than the green man on Western pedestrian lights, he is East Germany’s most popular and enduring survivor, one of the few symbols of the old communist state to resist the tide of German unification and to make a name for himself in the West." He first appeared in 1961, and is now appearing on signals in former West Berlin.

Getting back to the UK: I won't go into the fascinating differences between puffin, pelican, toucan, pegasus, and zebra crossings ... or thehistory of the failed panda crossing ... but you may be interested to know that the photo (at Hyde Park Corner) is both a toucan and a pegasus crossing. Why toucan for bicycles?? ... because "two can".

And then there are the Belisha beacons....

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