Monday miscellany

Stroud International Textiles has an annual textile festival - this year the "Select" event runs 4 April to 31 May. There's lots going on, including an exhibition at nearby historic property Newark Park, with 30 artists participating, from 23 April to 8 June. A visit to Gloucestershire seems in order!

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The "Man eating tree of Madagascar" was one of the
10 great hoaxes of the 19th century

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Last week my Travel Lines had 15 seconds of fame via The Londonist, in a round-up of people who have done what can only be called "obsessive" projects to do with the Underground - photographing all 270 stations, or walking between them, for example. Part of the great British tradition of eccentricity??

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The old Routemaster buses, with the open platform and stairs at the back, still run on some routes, notably past the Albert Hall. These are glimpses of springtime in London from the top of a Routemaster, heading towards Knightsbridge (and Harrods).

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If you've broken the unwritten rules of  travelling on public transport, your photo could appear on the internet in another episode of stranger shaming: "A quick look through stranger shaming Twitter accounts in the rush hour shows a casual willingness for people to take easily identifiable photos of total strangers accompanied by abuse and piss-taking." It's not illegal to take photos of strangers in public, but there's a fine line there that's often crossed.  Project Guardian is an the initiative involving the British Transport Police (BTP), Transport for London (TfL), the Metropolitan Police and City of London Police - taking compromising or unwanted photos of strangers on the tube could result in arrest at the next station.