1) A foglalható szobák megtekintéséhez ezen a településen: Andorra la Vella adja meg az érkezés és távozás dátumát és kattintson a KERESÉS gombra.
2) Válassza ki a kívánt szobát itt: ezen a településen: Andorra la Vella, majd adja meg a szobák számát kiválasztva a legördülő mezőben és kattintson a kék színű gombra: "FOGLALÁS".
Tipp: amennyiben finomítani szeretné a keresét, mint szállástípus, kategória, szolgáltatások, stb. használja a bal oldalon található Keresés finomítása lehetőséget itt: Andorra la Vella bejelölve a preferanciákat. Válasszon panziót, apartmant, szállodát ezen a helyen: Andorra la Vella. Tartózkodását kellemessé tehetei a jakuzzi, klímaberendezés, WiFi, autó- vagy kerékpár bérlés, stb.
Set right in the heart of Escaldes, this modern hotel is located just 150 metres from Andorra's pedestrian shopping area, the town's famous Caldea spa and from the new spa centre Inúu. It is conveniently located to access all Andorra's ski slopes. Free WiFi is offered throughout and free ski storage is available in the hotel's reception. Rooms feature air conditioning, radiant flooring, 100% cotton bed linen, and a flat screen TV. A USB charger, a minibar with free water bottles, and a safe are also provided. The bathroom comes with free toiletries, bath or shower, magnifying mirror and hairdryer. Start your day with the hot and cold buffet breakfast provided each morning in the Metropolis's L'Atlantida Restaurant, open all year round. You can also return from a day on the piste to enjoy a delicious dinner in this convenient, on-site venue. Along with the fantastic local skiing, you can also take advantage of Andorra's tax-free shopping.
Situated in the centre of Andorra La Vella, the Andorra Park Hotel offers beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and valley. It features a seasonal outdoor swimming pool and fitness centre. Free WiFi is offered throughout the property. All air-conditioned rooms have mountain views and flat-screen TV. The bathroom comes with a spa bath, shower, free toiletries, and hairdryer. There are also slippers and a bathrobe. Most of them have a private balcony. The Andorra Park's fitness centre facilities include a sauna, gym and indoor swimming pool. The Pyrenees Shopping Centre is less than 500 metres from the hotel and Sant Esteve Church is just 10 minutes' walk away. The nearest ski resorts are around a 20-minute drive from the hotel.
The Hesperia Andorra La Vella is on one of Andorra La Vella's main shopping streets. It offers modern, air-conditioned rooms with flat-screen satellite TV and free Wi-Fi. Spacious rooms are heated and have a minibar, safe and work desk. The private bathroom comes with a hairdryer and amenities. Most rooms have a balcony. The property's restaurant serves a buffet breakfast, and guests can enjoy a drink in the hotel bar. Room service is also available. There is easy access to Andorra's ski slopes and Vallnord's ski runs are approximately 20 minutes' drive away. The hotel offers ski storage and sells ski passes. The Hesperia Andorra La Vella has a 24-hour reception and is within walking distance of many of Andorra La Vella's tax-free shopping centres.
Roc De Caldes & Spa is ideally located in Escaldes and offers a free WiFi zone and a restaurant with views over Andorra la Vella. The spa features an heated indoor pool, sauna and Turkish bath. Each room at the Roc De Caldes & Spa has a private balcony or terrace overlooking Andorra la Vella. Rooms are equipped with satellite TV and a minibar. Available at an extra cost and on prior request, the adults-only Roc de Caldes's spa includes an indoor pool with glass walls, offering fantastic views of the valley of Andorra la Vella. The access to the hotel's spa facilities includes the indoor pool, sauna, steam bath and massage service. Free parking is possible in the hotel. There is also a car park in central Andorra la Vella which can be used by guests for a supplement, upon request and subject to availability.
The elegant Hotel Plaza has an ideal setting, near the commercial centre of Andorra La Vella. Its luxury accommodation is popular among famous actors, artists and politicians. Free WiFi is offered throughout the property. Rooms at the hotel have traditional, English-style décor. They offer tea and coffee making facilities, air conditioning, heating, and a flat-screen TV. The bathroom comes free toiletries, bath, and hairdryer. The Plaza Hotel is stylish, with Paul Smith rugs and oil paintings. The hotel's à la carte restaurant serves gourmet dishes. The piano bar offers live music. It is an ideal place to enjoy a relaxing drink. The Plaza is just a short walk from Andorra la Vella's tax-free shops. There is also good access to nearby ski resorts.
Acta Arthotel in Andorra la Vella offers a spa with a sauna and Turkish baths. All rooms have free Wi-Fi internet access. Facilities at this design hotel include a gym. The hotel is in one of the main streets in Andorra la Vella. There is easy access to the shops and ski slopes The Plató restaurant is on the ground floor and has views of the river. It offers gourmet cuisine and has art exhibitions. The Gallery Restaurant is on the 5th floor and has panoramic mountain views. Breakfast is served here. Rooms at the Acta Arthotel are soundproofed and air conditioned. There is free water in the minibar. Each spacious room has a TV There are nearby bus links to the airports and the ski slopes. The city centre is within walking distance. There is a massage service and a business centre, at an additional cost.
Situated 400 metres from Caldea Thermal Spa, Hotel Exe Prisma is a modern hotel which offers a gym and free WiFi. Each spacious room comes with flat-screen satellite TV and a seating area. The Exe Prisma is situated in Escaldes, a 15-minute walk from Andorra la Vella's popular shops. Grandvalira and Vallnord Ski Resorts are around 6 km away. The hotel offers ski storage and equipment hire. Rooms at the Prisma have stylish modern décor and wooden floors. All include heating, a minibar and a safe. Bathrooms come with a hairdryer and a range of toiletries. The hotel's bar-restaurant serves typical Italian food. A varied buffet breakfast is available each morning. Guests can also relax in the cocktail bar or in front of the open fire in the lounge.
Featuring an on-site restaurant and fitness centre, Eurostars Andorra is located in the centre of Andorra la Vella. Each elegant room is soundproofed, air conditioned and heated. They come with free WiFi, a sofa and minibar. Private bathrooms have a hairdryer and free toiletries. Private parking is available inside the hotel. Eurostars Andorra also offers a bar and meeting rooms. The hotel also features a restaurant and a café. The hotel offers views of the Pyrenees and is within a 10-minute walk of Andorra's main shopping area. The Caldea Thermal Spa is a 15-minute walk from the hotel, while Central Park is 800 metres away.
The modern Hotel Fenix is 150 metres from Caldea Spa in Escaldes-Engordany and offers a rooftop terrace with panoramic views and free WiFi area. It has a wellness area, available for an extra charge. The Fenix's air-conditioned and soundproofed rooms all have 32-inch flat-screen TVs and heating. Some also have hydromassage baths. The Hotel Fenix's wellness area includes a terrace with views of Escaldes, a small indoor swimming pool and a sauna. There is also a business centre and free ski storage. The hotel's Kronos Restaurant offers fresh, local cuisine and splendid views over the town. The Sirius café offers coffee, drinks and snacks all day, while the Sagitarius bar offers cocktails and music. The Grandvalira and Vallnord ski resorts are less than 10 km away, there is a free shuttle service, subject to availability. The shops of Andorra La Vella are less than 1 km away.
This elegant hotel is located in the centre of Andorra. It is decorated with tapestries by Salvador Dalí. The hotel is less than 9 km from the Grandvalira ski resort. The Vallnord ski runs are 15 minutes away by car and the hotel offers ski storage. Free WiFi is offered throughout the property. The spacious rooms feature air conditioning, heating, and a flat-screen TV. Tea and coffee making facilities and minibar are also provided. Some rooms come with a sofa bed. The bathroom comes with free toiletries, bath, and hairdryer. The health centre includes a sauna, heated indoor pool and gym. Massage services are available, for an extra charge. The Holiday Inn offers regional and international cuisine at the buffet restaurant, El Gran Café. There is also a cafeteria.
A Magic Andorra szállása Andorra La Vella síterületének központjában található. A szálláshely sítárolót és bérelhető sífelszerelést is kínál. A wellness-létesítmények közé pezsgőfürdő, szauna és fitneszközpont tartozik. A Magic Andorra tágas szobái műholdas TV-vel, légkondicionálóval és fűtéssel rendelkeznek. A saját fürdőszoba hajszárítóval felszerelt. A Magic Andorra bár-kávézója TV-vel, biliárdasztallal és internet-hozzáféréssel ellátott számítógépekkel várja a vendégeket. A büfé-étteremben hagyományos és nemzetközi ételeket szolgálnak fel. A Vallnord síterület felvonói autóval mintegy 20 perc alatt elérhetők. A vendégek vámmentes boltokat, bárokat és éttermeket találnak egy 5 perces sétán belül.
Az Espel hotel épületétől Escaldes városközpontja mindössze 5 percre, a Pal-Arinsal síüdülőhely pedig 15 percre fekszik. A modern szálloda stílusos, hangszigetelt szobái 66 centis síkképernyős TV-vel felszereltek. A környezetbarát légkondicionálóval rendelkező Hotel Espel nyilvános helyiségeiben ingyenes Wi-Fi áll rendelkezésre. A szállodában étterem és bár is található. Sítároló a recepción biztosított. Az Espel hotel békés hangulatú, kényelmes szobákkal várja a vendégeket. A fűtéssel és tripla üvegezésű ablakokkal rendelkező szobákhoz komplett, hajszárítóval felszerelt fürdőszoba tartozik. Számos szoba a hegyekre nyújt kilátást. Andorra vámmentes üzletei a szállodától rövid sétára találhatóak. Escaldes városa természetes termálfürdőiről híres.
Situated within a Vivand pedestrian plaza at the centre of shopping and tourist district of Escaldes, Tudel was founded in 1960 and completely renovated in 2002. Tudel features a ski pass sales point and ski storage space. Guests can enjoy the on-site bar. The rooms are fitted with a flat-screen TV. and private bathroom. You will find ticket service at the property. Guests can enjoy various activities in the surroundings, including cycling and hiking. Tudel is located 300 metres from Caldea Spa, while ski resorts are 15 km away.
Just 400 metres from Caldea Spa, this modern hotel in Andorra's capital offers a free shuttle bus to the ski slopes. All rooms have a flat-screen satellite TV and free Wi-Fi. Rooms are air conditioned and heated. They have a safe and a work desk. The private bathroom comes with a hairdryer and amenities. The Delfos Hotel has a tapas restaurant and another serving Andorran dishes. There is also a pub, lounge and games room. The Vallnord and Gran Valira ski resorts are both 15 minutes' drive away and free shuttle is available. The CS100 main road is just 200 metres away, and the hotel offers ski storage.
Hotel Mercure is in the commercial centre of Andorra la Vella. It has a free spa, comfortable common areas and heated rooms with a minibar. All rooms at this hotel are soundproofed. There is air conditioning and an en suite bathroom. The hotel spa includes an indoor swimming pool and a hot tub. There is also a Turkish bath and sauna. Mercure Andorra has excellent facilities for children. There is a games room and mini golf on site. There is a restaurant and a bar. The hotel has a large terrace. The setting is ideal for shopping and skiing. Ski storage is available on site.
Set in Andorra la Vella, the Andorra Palace offers spacious rooms with central heating and flat-screen satellite TV. Guests have access to the indoor pools, hot tub, sauna and gym. Hotel Andorra Palace is part of a larger hotel complex with a restaurant and bar. The complex also has a mini golf course and an indoor play area for children. The Andorra Palace has a 24-hour reception, where guests can find out more about the area. Andorra la Vella's shops are within a 5-minute walk, and the ski lifts to Vallnord Ski Resort are less than 5 km away.
Ideal for a short break, the Novotel Andorra lies in the centre of Andorra la Vella, surrounded by the chic boutiques and tax-free shopping for which the city is famous. Return from a busy days shopping or skiing for a dip in the indoor or outdoor swimming pool, or for a session in the sauna or hot tub. You can then round off the day with a meal in the hotel restaurant, followed by a nightcap in one of the 3 onsite bars. Please note that the spa and the children's play area are located in the Mercure Hotel, next door to Novotel Andoraa. Up to 2 children (16 years and under) stay free when sharing with parents.
Escaldes-Engordany központjában, a Caldea termálfürdőtől 200 méterre, Escaldes szívében épült a Hotel Eureka. A szálloda a közös helyiségeiben ingyenes wifit biztosít, továbbá műholdas TV-vel rendelkezik. Hangszigetelt szobáiban központi fűtés, széf, minibár, valamint hajszárítóval és fürdőköpennyel ellátott, saját fürdőszoba áll rendelkezésre. A központi étteremben svédasztalos és à la carte ételek közül lehet választani. Az ételek helyi alapanyagok felhasználásával készülnek. Pizzéria, sushisarok, snackbár és kávézó is működik a szálláshelyen. Escaldes települése termálforrásairól és a Caldea termálfürdőről híres. A város több múzeumnak és művészeti galériának is otthont ad. Andorra La Vella rövid sétára van a szálláshelytől, amely éttermekkel, bárokkal és üzletekkel várja az érdeklődőket. A vendégek felfedezhetik a környező vidéket és Andorra számos lejtőjének valamelyikén síelhetnek is. A Hotel Eureka ingyenes sítárolóval rendelkezik.
With easy access to Andorra La Vella's popular tax-free shopping centres, Hotel City M28 is located just 20 minutes' drive from Grandvalira Ski resort. It offers rooms with satellite TV. Accommodation at City M28 is simply decorated and has heating. All rooms feature a private bathroom. Free Wi-Fi is available in the property, and there are ski storage and laundry facilities. Set in the centre of Andorra La Vella, there is a selection of cafés and restaurants within 5 minutes' walk from City M28. The hotel serves a daily buffet breakfast. The slopes at Pal-Arinsal are less than 30 minutes' drive away and Caldea Spa is just over 1 km from Hotel City M28. Public parking is available in the streets around the hotel.
Located in the centre of Andorra La Vella, the Hotel Cervol is equipped with excellent facilities to help you relax after a day of skiing in the region. Free WiFi is offered throughout the property. Rooms feature a TV with satellite channels and safe. The bathroom comes with bath or shower and hairdryer. The hotel offers a fitness centre with a gym, sauna, and Turkish bath for an extra cost. Hotel Cervol is only 15 minutes on foot from the main shopping area of Andorra La Vella. There is a cafeteria onsite, where you can grab a snack or enjoy a coffee and a chat with friends.
A Travelport.cz ajánja Önnek ebben a városban (Andorra la Vella) a szállásfoglalást anélkül, hogy azonnal, online kellene fizetnie.. A tartózkodás árát a szálloda recepcióján fogja kiegyenlíteni.
Hasonlítsa össze a szállodai kínálatot ebben a városban: Andorra la Vella.
Válassza ki magának a legmegfelelőbb szállodát ebben a városban: Andorra la Vella, majd tekintse meg a térképen annak elhelyezkedését, olvassa el a hozzá tartozó információkat és tekintse meg a rendelkezésre álló fotókat.


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Resource Professional Group, a member of BTEC, is planning the second EuroBioforestEnergy Technical Update Field Tour beginning in Wels, Austria, as a follow-up to a Field Tour in 2008. The 2019 trip is built around and co-located with World Sustainable Energy Days (WSED), an internationally respected conference.
The Messe is a widely attended multi-national construction, plumbing and bath and HVAC trade show venue. What's new for us is that energy efficiency practices, biomass thermal/CHP and other renewable energy equipment and high efficiency related building products are all managed as another sector within, and displayed as part of the overall systems market.
This trip will have 25-30 available slots for forest resource professionals and building energy design experts.
If you are interested in joining this trip, register here: https://ttcorp.regfox.com/eurobiofor. If you have any questions, contact John Karakash (jtk@resourceprofessionalsgroup.com) or (570) 434-2300.


by telephone (0335/5534-3366) or at the Issue Desk on the ground floor of the library.
Students and external users may renew books up to four times unless the books concerned have been reserved. This does not apply to weekend loans.


The European Union Cohesion policy is the main instrument that the European regions have to boost their competitiveness via the promotion of employment and training in quality, investigation, innovation and new technologies, and environmental protection, among other areas. The funds that support it in achieving its objectives are Structural Funds and Cohesion Funds.
The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is the fund that finances productive investment that creates or maintains employment; investment that provides simple services to citizens in the areas of energy, the environment, transportation and ICT; investment in infrastructure in the areas of society, health, research, innovation, business and education; investment that helps regional and local development.
The European Social Fund (ESF) finances investment to provide access to jobs, prevent unemployment and to improve the workers' ability to adjust, and to strengthen human capital, among other aspects.
The Instituto de Salud Carlos III participates as an Intermediary Organisation in the 2014-2020 Operational Programme for Employment, Training and Education; specifically, in Axis 1, dedicated to promoting employment sustainability and quality and to promoting regional mobility, and Axis 3, for investment in education, training and vocational training for the acquisition of skills and permanent learning.


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Tag Archives: history of travel
Do you frequently feel rushed? See the appeal of the Slow Movement? You are not alone.
A harried White Rabbit from Carroll and Tenniel's Nursery Alice (London: Macmillan, 1890), digitised by the British Library.
To give an example from just one country in the world – a country that, incidentally, scores high in the happiness indexes: the Dutch, too, live a stressful life. Their national institute for social research reports that they have difficulty combining work, care, education and leisure. Many always feel behind schedule.
When under such pressure, it is not uncommon to envy one's ancestors' slower-paced lifestyle. Because this is often said: that the culprit of our stress is the acceleration of modern life. Before the arrival of smartphones, cars and steam engines, of highly regimented work hours and the capitalist fear of wasting our time, we kept a considerably lower pace. And even if we are aware that the trade-offs of going back in time may include having a more repetitive job, fewer possessions, fewer modern conveniences and a more limited social circle, we sometimes crave that old-life simplicity.
But has stress really become normalised only recently? I try to answer this question in an article for web magazine The Low Countries. The article looks at the diaries of four travellers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Based on my research into these and related texts, I argue that many people were in fact already anxious about their own efficiency even before the Industrial Revolution. They had ambitious schedules and constantly felt they needed to catch up with their own rushed lives. Interested? Please read on on The Low Countries.
From my work	ambitioncapitalismclocksegodocumentfrustrationhistory of travelnetherlandsnostalgiascheduleslowspeedstresstime usetime-saving
27 March 2019 | APHG
Earlier, I wrote about the meanings of distance for travellers on the early railways. But what did distance mean for those who observed the new engines on wheels from the outside, as they came thundering past?
An important painting from the 1880s addresses precisely this question. 'Il vient de loin' – he/it comes from afar – by Dutch impressionist Paul Joseph Constantin Gabriël has at least three things to say about distance.
P.J.C. Gabriël, 'Il vient de loin', Kröller-Müller Museum Otterlo, the Netherlands, no. KM 100.143.
Most obviously, this painting problematizes progress. Many visual and literary artworks of the nineteenth century set up a dichotomy between tradition and progress, between nature and technology, between a supposedly static country-side and a dynamic industrial sector. Some artists were enthusiastic about technological developments, others critical, a third group ambiguous.
Gabriël, too, clearly referred to these contemporary concerns in his work. Not for nothing, Gabriël's painting is reminiscent of J.M.W. Turner's famous 'Rain, Steam and Speed', which like many works of its time emphasised both the beauty and the threat of steam technology.
Take even just Gabriël's title. It makes sense to read this from the perspective of the angler resting against the gate in this Dutch polder landscape: representing the local and the traditional, the angler sees the train 'coming from afar'. Indeed, the technology of steam locomotion arrived in continental Europe from across the sea: developed in Britain, steam trains may initially have been considered an exotic technology in the rest of Europe. The steam engines used on the early Dutch railways even continued to be imported from Britain for quite some time, for lack of a local industry.
Of course, 'afar' may refer to the individual train in the picture, too. The angler looks like he has just come sauntering into the scene from a nearby farmstead. Within his frame of reference, it might be argued, the train has already travelled a lot of track before entering into view – although we are probably talking about a few tens or hundreds of kilometres at most. Trains cross vast distances; farmers and fisher-people stay put, the painting seems to say.
In all these cases, the new technology can be read as an alien presence in this landscape, and if this was indeed the predominant perception in the 1880s, we should not be too surprised if the railways occasionally met with a hostile reception.
J.M.W. Turner, 'Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway', National Gallery UK, no. NG538. Available on Wikimedia Commons.
What makes this painting interesting, however, is its ambiguity: who exactly is coming from afar? Rather than the train, the title could refer to the angler.
This interpretation makes a lot of sense if we follow the painter's cue to look at the angler: an Everyman. It is he who comes from afar. That is: humankind has got far: from humbly hunting for food, through shaping the land to make it suitable for farming, to the modern industrial economy. This second interpretation sits equally comfortably with prevalent nineteenth-century views. And so, when looking at the steam engine, the angler is really looking at his own achievements, perhaps pondering whether they please him.
But possibly the most interesting view this painting offers on distances has little to do with nineteenth-century debates. Instead, it has everything to do with a sensation that cannot have been unique to the nineteenth century.
We see: a polder landscape. A canal in the middle. On the right: anglers, some ducks. On the left: a telegraph line, the approaching train still in the distance. And two thirds of the painting: sky. A single vanishing point, a simple composition.
What's more, the entire picture is permeated by the single element of water. The sky is filled with clouds, the air with steam; the land is bisected by a canal and the earth saturated with groundwater. The anglers find their food in the water; the travellers power their movement with the help of water turned into steam. This is a thoroughly wet scene, a scene with much less contrast or conflict than for instance Turner's 'Rain, Steam and Speed'.
And so, everything about this balanced picture speaks quiet. (Apart perhaps from the already restlessly vertical telegraph poles.)
Yet we know the train is coming. Its approaching cloud of steam seems to progressively envelop the land. Not just that, but it moves from the central vanishing point to the front of the scene. It gets all the attention, that of the angler as well as ours.
It will enter the landscape and for a brief moment be at its very foreground, dominating the scene with its noise and its steam, its hard wheels on the track, its smells and its black body towering on the embankment; for a few seconds the angler resting against the gate will hear or see nothing but the train… and then it'll be gone.
It is this ephemerality, the fleeting quality of this sensation of a train passing by, that Gabriël pictures. He pictures not just the brief moment of the train's overwhelming presence, but also its absence on either side of that moment.
'Coming from afar' then means: being there for an instance only, and soon belonging to another place again.
It is a sensation we know all too well, and one that overlaps with some of the sensations had by people on a train.
And so, in the same decade of 1880, Robert Louis Stevenson published his memorable 'From a Railway Carriage':
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Robert Louis Stevenson in 1887. Wikimedia Commons.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!
This post grew from my article 'Trains, Bodies, Landscapes: Experiencing Distance in the Long Nineteenth Century', published in The Journal of Transport History (2019).
It was also published on the website of the Hakluyt Society.
English From my work	distanceephemeralityexperiencefarfleetinghistory of travelideals of progresslandscapenearpaintingpaul joseph constantin gabriëlrailroadsrailwayssensationsteamtrainstrainspotting
How do you know how far you've travelled?
23 January 2019 | APHG
'It's a small world' – nay, a positively 'shrinking' one. How often do you not hear these words used in order to praise the newest communication and transport technologies? Or, equally, to condemn mass tourism?
('The world is getting too small. Nowadays, every Tom, Dick and Harry flies to the other end of the world as if it's the shop around the corner.' (People who fear that the world is shrinking typically speak from an economically comfortable position.))
The truism can be found in sales and politics, journalism and academic research alike: since we no longer have to walk in order to get from A to B, or sit on a horse, or even drive a carriage, our bodies no longer feel how great a distance we are covering. Trains and planes have annihilated space. Our journeys have become 'disembodied'.
What is more, we have stopped noticing the landscape we are travelling through, because we stow ourselves away in cabins and compartments that isolate us from the trees and the rocks and the waves that surround us. We therefore no longer register the journeys we are making: the only things left now are departure and arrival.
Modern technology captured in a Blue-Riband-winning ocean liner: RMS Etruria, built in 1884, as shown on a postcard. Bavinck would have sailed on a roughly similar ship. Wikimedia Commons.
Economically speaking this is true: the cost of carrying people across the globe has been on the decrease for centuries, as ships and roads and other transport technologies have become ever more efficient.
But is it equally true when we consider how we feel about distances? Do we no longer notice that Cape Town is further from Budapest than it is from Kinshasa, simply because we might take a plane (rather than walk) to go to either place? And does the ocean literally feel narrower now than it did a hundred years ago, because we have boats that take us across faster?
With this question in mind, my work as an historian led me to scrutinise dozens of historical travel narratives and the titles of many more. In the end, I had to conclude that at least European experiences have not in fact changed so much.
However up-to-date and speedy their mode of transport, people could not help keeping a physical sense of distance.
There were many factors which contributed to this: the work that went into every step of the journey, and its many discomforts, even if just that of sitting still for any length of time; complicated communications with the home-front; cultural differences between place of departure and arrival…
This photo of RMS Etruria already gives a better impression of the lonely situation of ships like these when under sail or steam. Before 1910. Wikipedia.
Another major factor was the landscape. A nice example is offered by Herman Bavinck, a Dutchman who in 1892 made a three-month journey to America. Over the course of the preceding century, sailing times from Europe to North America had been vastly reduced, from several weeks at the start of the century to just 130 hours in Bavinck's days. 130 Hours were therefore comparatively quick in the eyes of his contemporaries, and his journey would also have been relatively comfortable. We are talking the time of the Titanic, and on his own ship, Bavinck would certainly not have travelled third-class.
And yet, he writes that
130 hours [. . .] is quick to say, but one feels the length and the cost first, when one sees nothing but water — infinitely wide, everywhere — day after day, night after night'
For Bavinck, the transatlantic distance was vast, the voyage boring and America 'far' and 'distant'. This is because what mattered to him was not the objective duration of his journey – a little over 5 days – but the insistent repetition of a single landscape type: water, and nothing but water.
A 'wondrously large' space: Niagara Falls used for its water power. Photo published in 1890. Wikimedia Commons.
Distances felt long to him within America as well, even though he only travelled in the area close to the Great Lakes and used all the most modern means such as steamers and railways. Again, this had to do with his relation to the landscape: he was impressed by the sheer size of America's natural phenomena, such as its rivers and falls. He therefore found the country
wondrously large […] We do not understand its expanse.
Bavinck is just one example of the many travellers for whom their own bodies and the landscapes they travelled through continued to give them a pronounced sense of distance – or proximity – with no hard and fast relation to the ever shortening lengths of time it took to get somewhere.
This post is based on my article 'Trains, Bodies, Landscapes: Experiencing Distance in the Long Nineteenth Century', published in The Journal of Transport History (2019), which contains many more stories about distance in travel writing.
Quotes are from James Eglinton's translation of Bavinck's 'My Journey to America' which appeared in the journal Dutch Crossing, 41 no. 2 (2017).
English From my work	aviationbodydistanceexperiencefarhistory of travellandscapemaritime transportnearphenomenologypublic transportrailwaystechnology
The earliest photos (2): outside in
27 June 2018 | APHG
In the previous post, I commented on the porosity of early photography: the parlour moved into the garden, the city into the home.
A reader sent me a photo of her grandmother which shows the same porosity.
Portrait of Tina Sangen and three other women, by Gerhard Mertens (early 20th century). Probably in the public domain. With permission of the owner.
The photo was taken in a studio: indoors.
It depicts four servants. The grandmother-to-be is the young woman on the right: Tina Sangen.
These four women lived and worked in Maastricht, in the Netherlands. Their portrait, however, was taken by Gerhard Mertens in Aachen, Germany. The distance is about 35 kilometres, which they would have travelled by train.
Gerhard Mertens had several studios in Aachen, and apparently had the reputation, the connections and/or the price to compete with the photographers that must have been available in Maastricht itself. Or perhaps the sitters did not go to Aachen specifically for Mertens's studio: Aachen was three times the size of Maastricht, so the chances of getting a decent portrait done were simply higher there.
The back of the photo makes you wonder: are the negatives still being preserved somewhere, for new print orders?
Nevertheless, as the reader who sent the photo remarks, it is interesting that these four women made the journey across the border (which up until just before World War One remained pretty porous itself) to have their portrait taken. Partly, the trip must have been an outing, but it was also a work day, because the women are wearing their work costume and I don't think they would have chosen to do so if this was a day they really had to themselves.
So what we are seeing may be a mixture of a proud employer* showing off their neat servants, and the servants getting a – hopefully paid – day out of the house, and out of the city. Evidently, the borders between work and leisure were porous, too – in terms of space as well as time.
But what also remained porous was the border between interior and exterior. The photo's background shows a park-like landscape with full-grown trees. The foreground, on the contrary, a carpet and what looks like a very woolly rug. And on closer inspection, the background turns out to be painted.
This photo doesn't really belong in the category of 'early photography', and it was easy enough for photographer Mertens to take pictures indoors. The outdoors clearly had its own charm as a setting – witness the painted trees. Yet at the same time, little effort was made to hide the fact that this scene takes place inside a room – considering the carpet. Or perhaps the photographer really meant the carpet to evoke that traditional outdoor feeling established during the earlier phase of portrait photography?
* Their employers were the family Pichot ─ Du Plessis.
English From my work	domesticdomesticityhistory of travelinsideleisuremasteroutsidephotographyportraitservantwork
The Silent Skill of Sharing
16 May 2018 | APHG
The following brief chapter recently appeared in a book called Railway Cultures, which forms part of my collaboration with the British National Railway Museum. It's a chapter about trains and bikes. Unfortunately, the editor had no space for images of trains or bikes. Luckily, space is not an issue in an online publication like this.
Sharing is en vogue. The past few years have seen a lot of initiatives for shared transport, whether they grew from environmental concerns, economic necessity, or simply because sharing is a highly marketable concept. However, if sharing is what we talk about, that does not necessarily mean we are also good at it.
Although this is a third-class interior, it shows the sort of compartment Virginia Woolf would have been familiar with from her suburban journeys. Southern Railway 4-Sub electric motor coach S8143S (built 1925), National Railway Museum no. 1978-7069.
In her story 'An Unwritten Novel', Virginia Woolf encounters the figures that people her literature in the train compartments of the Brighton line, which she frequents between London and the south coast:
Life's what you see in people's eyes; life's what they learn, and, having learnt it, never, though they seek to hide it, cease to be aware of […] Five faces opposite – five mature faces – and the knowledge in each face. Strange, though, how people want to conceal it! Marks of reticence are on all those faces: lips shut, eyes shaded, each one of the five doing something to hide or stultify his knowledge. One smokes; another reads; a third checks entries in a pocket book; a fourth stares at the map of the line framed opposite; and the fifth – the terrible thing about the fifth is that she does nothing at all. She looks at life. Ah, but my poor, unfortunate woman, do play the game – do, for all our sakes, conceal it!
As if she heard me, she looked up, shifted slightly in her seat and sighed. (18)
Had Woolf lived in 1990 instead of 1920, she would have owned a car and driven up and down between her two homes. As it was, she lived in the golden age of rail travel, and, more specifically, in an age during which people were used to sharing their means of transport.
When we take a peek into one of the carriages from that time, kept by the National Railway Museum, we immediately sense what it meant for six strangers to share this confined space for a few hours. The space only seems the narrower because of the textile flowers that push themselves forward from the benches. Every sigh could be heard, every neighbour's pulpy page read from the corner of one's eye. Woolf's journeys therefore offered the author a natural space from which to observe and imagine the tangled lives of the anonymous figures whom she loved so much, and on whom such a great part of her work centres.
The same carriage, standing in the museum.
Trains might be called the pinnacle of public transport. In no other vehicle do we habitually share a single space with so many other people, while also sharing an infrastructure – the railway – with many, many more.
Such sharing carries a high moral status in our world. Whether we look to the Bible for guidance or to Sesame Street, we are admonished to be hospitable, generous and accommodating.
Sharing spaces, services and goods also has practical benefits: it is cheap, it is social, and, if the shared service is centrally or collectively managed, it takes away some of the hassle and responsibility faced by individual owners. When it comes to transport, trains, together with trams and buses, form the most energy-efficient technologies for the middle and longer distances, while also saving their passengers time and work. For the shorter distance, the same can be said of bicycles.
Although the benefits of sharing have long been known, low incomes, housing shortages, climate change and a range of technical innovations have made sharing a serious option for a growing number of people over the past decade. Some of them have been motivated by the desire to cut greenhouse gas emissions. For many more, hit by the Recession, sharing is a bitter economic necessity. As they move in with their parents or take their children back in, opt for the tram or hire a bike, they share in order to save money.
But the marketing departments have also done their work. They have turned sharing from an embarrassment to some, into the new cool. Now, all who can afford any choice want to be a part of the sharing economy. Some of this successful marketing has been done by those commercial services that have been in the news so much in recent years (Über, Airbnb…). These companies make a profit by skimming the turn-over of the old-school independent entrepreneurs who provide the goods.
The new cool may benefit yet another type of provider: those companies that provide shared services themselves, for instance the rental services that replace the things we traditionally owned – the bulbs in our lamps, or the bike in our shed.
Passenger transport is one of those sectors currently seeing a surge in experiments in sharing. The most successful often build on the experiences of decades of smaller and sometimes failed initiatives. Looking at one of these recent developments, the development of shared bike systems, we can draw inspiration from two centuries of railway history.
Vandalised Ofo bike in Sheffield (photo: APHG, 2018).
The first system of free bike sharing seems to have been proposed in Amsterdam in the 1960s. At that point in time, the scheme failed, at least in the city. In De Hoge Veluwe National Park, the free white bikes were a success. Today, no one could imagine the park without them.
The problems faced by the white bikes in Amsterdam are some of the classic problems of collaborative consumption more broadly: the problem of the vandal (who makes the service unfit for further use) and the problem of the freerider (who takes of the service without paying for it). Both ignore the terms of use agreed by the other sharers. The fact that the national park is completely fenced off undoubtedly contributes to the success of bicycle sharing there, but since a fence does not eradicate the problems of joyriding and abandonment, a certain ethic or etiquette also seems to play a role, more about which below.
(photo: APHG, 2018)
More recently, bike-sharing has taken off in cities as well, and even across entire countries where bikes are allowed to cross local boundaries. These schemes have rarely been free, however, and they have always had fixed docking points.
The technology needed to manage subscriptions and payments across a large number of renting stations – often unstaffed to make the system more effective and efficient than traditional bike-rentals where bikes need to be returned to the original outlet – this technology has only been developed over the past two decades. What this technology does, in effect, is offer our somewhat feeble human sharing ethic a helping hand. After registering our identity, and paying for our bike by the day or the hour, we are less motivated to steal it, abandon it or use it 'indefinitely'.
The newest innovation has been the provision of bikes without stations. After use, these bikes may be parked anywhere. Essential to this has been the development of mobile payment and identification technologies, as well as location tracking. This allows users to find a bike in the first place, but it also helps the company to make sure that their bikes stay within their designated area.
This new way of renting bicycles has been both welcomed and criticised. On the positive side, we do now find bikes in locations that the owners had not anticipated as potential customer bases, which seems to encourage a demographically more diverse take-up of such schemes. Yet the bicycles are also parked in obstructive and dangerous locations, and they take up parking spaces of privately owned bikes. A professor at the University of Amsterdam has called them 'scatter bikes' or 'litter bikes,' and various cities have already restricted their rollout.
'Litter bikes' in Sheffield (photo: JHMS, 2018).
The yellow bikes which have recently started to populate Sheffield are also frequently vandalised, with people taking lock, lights or basket, or simply destroying the bikes' chain, mud guards or breaks, leaving behind a sorry sight. Such vandalism is made all the easier because of the bikes' scattered and less visible locations. Although they are checked and redistributed on a regular basis, it does not take any effort to find a few vandalised specimens for a photo, even without using the app.
A few weeks after their introduction, the trail of abandoned bikes had started to resemble that other track of industrial wasteland that runs through Sheffield, the derelict railways.
So sharing does not just happen. You have to do it. Or rather: we have to do it. Sharing is a skill, and a social skill at that. The question is, therefore: can we, the citizens of Sheffield, York, or any other town or region, deal with this innovation in transport sharing?
I believe that there is every chance that these initial abuses will lose their novelty and decrease to a manageable level, and that with the right levels of support in both popular culture and infrastructure policy more people will get into the habit of using shared bikes responsibly. Earlier examples of successful sharing may inspire us in this process.
Before the age of sharing: George Keate, 'Manner of passing Mont Cenis' (drawing, 1755), British Museum no. 1878,0209.304.
When, two hundred years ago, railway pioneers first attached a steam engine to a carriage, they too were asking their passengers to experiment with sharing.
To be sure, shared transport was not altogether new. Public coaching services existed across Europe, as did barges drawn by horses over tow-paths, and packet-boats that sailed at regular intervals.
Nonetheless, travellers of the early nineteenth century arranged the bulk of their transport themselves and did not share it with strangers. The rich would take out their own carriage or rent one locally; or they would pay carriers to carry them in a sedan, or hire riding animals. The same applied to the poor: they would enlist an acquainted skipper to help them cross a river; during wartime, soldiers would commandeer farmers' wagons; and the overwhelming majority of journeys were made, of course, on foot. Public transport, in contrast, made up only a small proportion of the passages made by travellers in the early nineteenth century.
As we enter the second half of the nineteenth century, we find a quite different situation. Travellers across Europe had come to prefer trains, stagecoaches, steamboats, omnibuses and tramways. Trains, specifically, had quickly become the default travel option for longer distances over land.
One example demonstrates how such choices were made. In 1861, a well-to-do Dutch preacher, Marie Adrien Perk (1834-1916), made a journey across the south of Europe. We can discover a lot about the way he travelled in the account he published soon afterwards. Although both private road carriages and shared trains were available to him, the railways were his first choice. Only when on one particular stretch of the journey he learnt that his train would not depart for another two hours, he secured a private carriage instead.
Travel accounts from the 1850s all the way up to the early years of the twentieth century show this predilection for shared transport. And then, as now, sharing was encouraged by the transport companies that might benefit from it. From its very beginnings, the railway sector promoted collective leisure activities. Railway lines organised cheap group excursions, published hiking guides, and facilitated everything from temperance meetings to great exhibitions.
After this period of busy sharing, individual transport gained the upper hand in Europe once more. From World War Two onwards, private bicycles and automobiles in particular came to form the dominant means of mobility. Yet the lesson I think that this story has to offer is that it is possible for a culture to adopt a new ethos in travel and other 'consumer preferences' – and adopt it quite swiftly, too.
So how did this shift in attitudes occur? Various incentives may have contributed to it.
Perhaps the most obvious reason people have to choose public transport is that it is cheaper. When sharing a vehicle, passengers benefit from advantages of scale. Naturally, this had been the case for earlier public transport as well, but since labour has been growing more expensive from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, the effect became more pronounced.
What was new, of course, was the railway and the steam locomotive. Trains and trams introduced faster and more comfortable ways of travelling, and since it is difficult to operate individualised transport over rails, a preference for rail transport would inevitably also mean a preference for public transport.
Yet an even broader development was on its way. A first clue is that the development just sketched did not coincide with a shift from road transport to rail transport. In both, the same tendency towards sharing was manifest. Although the railways may have spurred such developments along, road carriages and trains continued to co-exist, and in road carriages too, the shift from private to shared usage can be observed.
A second clue is that even wealthy travellers – for whom the wish to save money and time were less pressing motivations, possibly even diminishing their status – participated in the shift.
Finally, other cultural norms also changed, norms that were only tangentially related to the choice between rail and road. Travellers began to take considerably less luggage on their journeys, being less attached to the food, linen, furniture and other comforts from home, and more interested in partaking in their host cultures. Travellers started to cultivate a pragmatic and flexible attitude. To travel light was the new ambition, also promoted in the media and education: the scouting movement evolved in the same period (prompted too, it must be admitted, by increased militarism). To share things and spaces therefore became desirable in itself.
Rather than a golden age for just the railways, we can speak of a golden age of sharing.
It is important to acknowledge that this does not mean that the people of that era always found it pleasant or easy to share. As anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson is said to have remarked: 'sharing is sometimes more demanding than giving'.
Consider the following episode that took place in Austria in the winter of 1910-1911. Frans van der Hoorn (1886-1946) came from a family of greengrocers, had finished his primary education and, after starting work as an Esperanto teacher, decided to make a round-the-world trip with three equally idealistic friends. On a daytrip that winter, he experienced a rather familiar drawback of sharing:
The train had been so full with people returning from a match, that many, amongst whom he himself, had not even been able to secure an inside seat, but had had to satisfy themselves with a [standing place on the balcony], where they were not sheltered from the weather. Exposed to the strong, cold air current [and] unable to stir a limb because of the crowdedness, this is how he'd had to pass the entire journey back. (The episode is retold by his travel companion Abraham Mossel, 160.)
Now as then, to share things or spaces can result in a host of discomforts: a lack of privacy; irritation by what is conceived of as noise and dirt, caused by other travellers; and other conflicts that stem from a disagreement about how a space ought to be used. The joyrider and the freerider have already been mentioned. Another threat, the one posed by aggressive co-users of the same space, is among the more serious problems of sharing. And as Van der Hoorn already experienced, a shared service such as a train seat is not always at one's disposal where and when one likes.
Note that Van der Hoorn's story differs markedly from Woolf's: even though we are all sharing, the availability and comfort of the shared services we use depends literally on our class. So too does our safety. Rooftop travel on crowded carriages may not be as common in Britain now as it was during the nineteenth century, but it has by no means disappeared globally. Some people have always had a greater say than others in the conditions under which they share, and the selection of the people whom they are sharing with.
Nevertheless, during that earlier peak in collaborative consumption, everyone knew what it was like to wait for a train, regardless of their wealth. All sharers had to contend with a wide range of drawbacks, and although occasionally they complained, the point is: they managed. They planned their activities to coincide with shared schedules, they stuck to previous agreements, they coped with their lack of privacy or comfort. Whether sharing was pleasant or not, it was normal.
That normality has disappeared in the age of the automobile. Is it now coming back? Are we in the midst of another fluctuation in our culture of sharing – one that has already swung from reluctance to the embrace of sharing once before?
In past decades, it has been car ownership that has consistently been portrayed as the ultimate symbol of and means to independence. But our perspective may now be turning, freedom increasingly lying in not owning an expensive vehicle, which, after all, needs to be selected, insured, maintained, parked… In situations where we can establish the right levels of mutual trust and tolerance and do not become too attached to the things we are sharing, sharing may even become enjoyable.
Of course, there is more than one way of sharing. In Woolf's story, sharing is accomplished by most passengers through reticence and concealment. But for Woolf herself (and, perhaps, for her readers) it is also achieved through the pleasures of the imagination.
After the necessary financial and design conditions have been met to make collaborative transport a realistic alternative for more people, a new culture of sharing may reach a critical mass. Sharing may become routine and even desirable once more.
Even if we do not yet know exactly what that potential new sharing culture for Britain or Europe entails, or what its rules will be, what we do know is that we have acquired the skills to share at least once before. This offers the hope that we can do so again.
Quotations from
Mossel, Abraham. De wereldwandelaars. Een zwerftocht door Europa. Maatschappij voor Goede en Goedkoope Lectuur, 1917 (translation by APHG).
Perk, Marie Adrien. Uit Opper-Italie [sic]. Schetsen, ontmoetingen, indrukken. Roelants, 1864.
Woolf, Virginia. "An Unwritten Novel." The Mark on the Wall, Oxford UP, 2008, pp. 18-29.
Chapter slightly modified from Railway cultures (Longbarrow Press, 2018).
English From my work	abraham mosselbicyclescrowdhistory of travelmarie adrien perknational railway museumprivacypublic transportrailwayssharingsharing economysheffieldspace and placetrainstravelvandalismvirginia woolfwitte fietsen
Turkish women freer 'than we believe'
15 November 2016 | APHG
Ethnic prejudice can lead to hilarious ironies.
In an earlier post, I wrote about the orientalist ideas of many Europeans (and European Americans, Australians, etc.), and specifically about the idea that the Islamic world is characterised by its oppression of women. In that post, I quoted an eighteenth-century English visitor to Turkey who experienced an ironic reversal of this oppression: she was the one who was being seen as oppressed by her Turkish hosts.
In this post, we move forward one century, to 1842 Constantinople, or Istanbul. In that year, the Austrian traveller Ida Pfeiffer made a remarkable solo journey to Jerusalem, one that she had to work hard to defend to worried compatriots at home. However, Pfeiffer herself was not devoid of prejudice. (And note that apart from religious contradictions, political conflict also played a role in Austrian preconceptions about the Near East: the Austrian and Ottoman empires had been waging war for centuries.) Let me illustrate this with the help of the following scene.
Adolf Dauthage, Ida Pfeiffer, 1858 (portraying a later journey)
In Constantinople, Ida Pfeiffer pays a visit to a mosque where she hopes to see a show of whirling dervishes (still popular among tourists today!). Waiting for the ceremony to start, she whiles away the time in the mosque's garden together with several hundred other, more local women.
The women are sitting in small groups, chatting and eating pastry and dried fruits. Here, as in other parts of her travel account, Pfeiffer is fascinated by the cultural practices of the veil. She notes that in this dedicated women's court, all have removed their white veil because the space is inaccessible to men. But what really strikes Pfeiffer is that
with divine zest, the women [a]re smoking a pipe of tobacco, and on the side they are slurping from a bowl of black coffee.
In this same period, 'respectable' women in Christian Europe were not expected to indulge in these pleasures, even if they were not officially forbidden.
The abolitionist Ida Pfeiffer is also wary about the existence of slavery in the Near East. In the same mosque garden, Pfeiffer assesses the relation between the 'ladies […], their children and their nurses, who are all negro-slaves.' Yet she finds that
the fate of the slave in the house of a Muslim is far from being so oppressive, as we believe.
The 'we', of course, speaks to the orientalism of her imagined readers in Austria, Germany, and the rest of Christian Europe.
Sitting in the garden, she observes how well-dressed the enslaved nurses are. They
sit among the rest of the party and munch away bravely with the rest of them. Only the colour of the face distinguishes mistress from servant.
The point I want to make is not about the living conditions of enslaved women in nineteenth-century Turkey – there is hardly any telling from this text, and since all she bases herself on is 'the colour of the face', Pfeiffer might even be completely misinterpreting the situation. Rather, it is about the traveller's eye.
Clearly, Ida Pfeiffer is sufficiently capable to allow her observations to override her prejudices, and sufficiently brave to publish these observations in a book at home. Not all travellers are good at these things, and certainly no one manages to keep them up all the time (this includes Pfeiffer). But in this case, Pfeiffer saw the irony of encountering a set of women – the ladies in the garden -, in a country suspected of doing nothing but harm to women, that was in some respects freer than she could ever be at home.
Pfeiffer's skirt looks like she can lower it to hide her trousers when required.
Reise einer Wienerin in das Heilige Land can be read online. I have quoted from p. 28, with my own translation. A nineteenth-century English translation is available from the Gutenberg project.
English From my work	austriacoffeehistory of travelida pfeiffermosquenineteenth centuryorientalismottoman empireracismsexismslaverysmokingtobaccoturkey
Carriages in the railway age
9 August 2016 | APHG
The last few weeks, I have been looking at weird objects in Britain's National Railway Museum. There were games. There were hot-water bottles. There were candle-holders that you could take with you on the train, pin onto the fabric of your chair, and light up right there. And before I make it sound like too much of a holiday (though it was, in a way), there were also lots of books to read.
Photo by Oliver Betts.
All this because we are trying to find out more about travellers' experiences, from the beginnings of our railway system in the 1820s until now.
My host Dr Oli Betts already published an entertaining piece about our project. In it, he points out how much people in the early days had to get used to the railways.
Yet the other side of the story is equally interesting. Existing habits of travel continued to exist. The railways were embedded into older forms of travel.
This is illustrated by another image from Wallis's 'Locomotive Game' of Railroad Adventures, the game Oli Betts describes in his blog post:
Photo by the author (with my apologies for the low image quality. Should have used a tripod).
In the early decades of passenger trains, it was not unusual for the body of a old-fashioned carriage, or even an entire carriage with wheels and all, to be mounted onto a railway carriage. It does not look very safe, but it provided you with the comfort, privacy and respectable appearance of your own carriage and staff. (The Eurotunnel Shuttle has started to do the same again in the twentieth century, this time with automobiles.)
Another example. A matchbox, sold as part of a portable railway reading lamp:
Photo by the author.
But why does this railway accessory depict a coach-and-four? An expression of nostalgia, perhaps? Anti-railway sentiment? A little bit like the acme of wedding chic nowadays is to hire an old timer with chauffeur, or indeed a horse-drawn landau?
That doesn't quite explain it. The coach passengers are dressed in clothes contemporary to the production of the railway lamp, not pre-railway clothes. If the matchbox was indeed designed specifically to be included in this railway lamp set, then the message must be one of integration. Coaches were not overrun by the railways, but very much held their own, especially on the shorter distance. Trains and coaches coexisted peacefully in the travel imagination. The message conveyed to the user of the reading lamp was that with rail and road transport combined, you could come a long way.
If we do think there is also a degree of nostalgia or romanticism in the image, it is a longing for the country-side; and possibly a yearning for more private forms of transport that did not depend on great quantities of fellow users making the same journey: one thing railway and pre-railway travellers both detested.
More on this theme in several forthcoming articles…
English From my work	board gamescandlecarriageshistory of travellampnational railway museumnineteenth centurynostalgiapublic transportrailwaysromanticismtrains

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Actually it's not so recent now - this post has taken a long time to write, partly because some of the ideas have taken a long time to emerge, partly because I'm not a fast writer, and partly because I've been busy with other things.
I must learn to be less of a perfectionist and more timely.
I've recently been having some discussions on Twitter with some maths teachers (I love it when teachers engage with each other and with non-teachers - fantastic) about some of the definitions used in their work and in their classes. I was pretty outspoken about some of the things they said (although I tried to be respectful and constructive).
I've had to apologise. Unreservedly.
I was guided by my intuition as a Ph.D. in Pure Maths, and by my 30 or so years of study, research, and subsequent work as an industrial mathematician. My training is in Pure Maths, my research was in Pure Maths, and then computing, and my work in industry has ranged widely over many disciplines. I believe I have a fair feel for what's going to be useful or fruitful, and I used that as the starting point for my replies.
Let me say at this point that teachers have an impossibly difficult task. They need to keep discipline, engage the uninterested and disinterested, encourage those who feel they will never understand, stretch those who find the current work easy, and prepare their students for exams that do not, in truth, test the skills and abilities that are of the most value.
Let me talk about definitions.
Clear, precise, unambiguous and useful definitions are hard to come by in the real world. Every time someone comes up with a definition for something, someone will find a counter-example, or something that you feel ought to be covered or included, but isn't. Sometimes even finding a definition at all can be hard. What's the difference between a jar and a bottle? What's the difference between a leaflet, pamphlet and booklet? These distinctions can be hard to pin down.
But in maths we have the luxury of creating definitions that we want, and then chasing down the consequences. If the definition doesn't produce what we want, we can change it.
But many of the definitions we use have gone through the fire of "usefulness." These are definitions that someone created, they and others adapted, modified, changed, warped, or otherwise "fixed" until they were at their height of value. It's important to remember that they are in some sense still arbitrary, but when they have been used for decades, or centuries, and people still use them, you have to feel that they are, in some sense, "right."
And so it is with simple things like "even" and "odd." These definitions have emerged over time and have been kept because they correspond to useful ideas. The definition that mathematicians use is that a number is "even" if it is twice some whole number.
and 1 is a whole number.
and 4 is a whole number.
and -3 is a whole number.
No, there is no whole number which when doubled gives 7.
This last one is interesting - we have to show that there is never a number which when doubled gives 7. Can you show that? What basic knowledge are you using? What "facts" are you using? What are you assuming to be true, and how do you know?
So now we ask - "Is zero even?"
Well, zero is twice something else - it's twice 0. But is 0 a whole number? And if you say "Yes," why do you say that?
Well, we like the idea that whenever we add two whole numbers, the result is a whole number. We like the idea that whenever we subtract two whole numbers, the result is always a whole number. We can choose (if we like) to say that zero is not in fact a whole number, but then we have to include all sorts of exceptions.
unless they are equal in size and sign.
unless they are equal in size and opposite in sign.
See how awkward that is?
Of course, sometimes it turns out to be even more awkward to make "the other choice" (whatever that may be) but in the case of "numberhood" is certainly makes things easier to allow zero into the club and call it a whole number.
So if zero is a number, and a whole number at that, then it must (by our definition) be an even number. After all, it is twice a whole number, and that's our definition.
Now, some people find this unsettling because they've never really thought of zero as even or odd. Some people's intuition says that zero isn't even. And that's fair enough, but it makes life more difficult in the long run. It turns out to be much easier to declare that zero is indeed a whole number, and that it does satisfy the definition for evenness, and so it is an even whole number.
We want the difference of two whole numbers always to be a whole number.
That implies that 0 must be a whole number.
Take a whole number and double it - the result is an even number.
That means zero is an even number.
We now have a polished, complete and consistent line of reasoning to show why we think 0 is an even whole number, but this final result is hard-won, and non-obvious when you're at the start with just a vague idea of what might, and might not, prove to be useful. And there are still people who find it disquieting.
So now that I've set the scene, I return to the longer discussion that I had on Twitter concerning the definitions of Trapezoid and Trapezium. This is confused by the fact (according to the Wikipedia article) that the meanings of the terms are reversed between British and American English.
OK, I will here use the British English versions.
Note that I have inverted the terms from the Wikipedian American English into the British English versions. I will be doing this consistently.
Wikipedia goes on to note  that there is some disagreement about the definition of Trapezium, with some sources saying that there must be exactly one pair of parallel sides. In short, is a parallelogram also a Trapezium? In this case, Wolfram  doesn't help, and other sites are generally less authoritative.
But if saying "exactly one" doesn't allow a parallelogram to be a (special case of the) Trapezium, then one cannot easily state the Trapezium Rule  from calculus. One cannot say that as a shape varies continuously from one Trapezium to another then it's always a Trapezium, because there comes a point somewhere along the way that it's a parallelogram (using the Intermediate Value Theorem).
For the mathematician this is largely a non-issue. Definitions are intended to be useful and convenient, and when there is a danger of misunderstanding, they are clarified. Modified definitions are used all the time, with care being exercised on both sides to avoid (or at least reduce) miscommunication.
But for teachers this is a nightmare. Most of their students won't become mathematicians and demand rigid, definite and definitive definitions. They won't like the idea that it doesn't really matter, and no doubt the school curriculum will specify that the students must know these things and be able to regurgitate them unthinkingly on demand. For you, sadly, I offer no absolute answers, but I hope I've given an insight into how at least one mathematician thinks about these things.


text:
Тео Кюстерс (,  10 серпня 1950, Генк) — бельгійський футболіст, що грав на позиції воротаря.

Виступав, зокрема, за «Антверпен» та «Еспаньйол», а також національну збірну Бельгії, з якою був учасником чемпіонаті світу та Європи.

Клубна кар'єра

У дорослому футболі дебютував 1971 року виступами за команду «Ватерсхей Тор» з рідного міста Генк, в якій провів чотири сезони, взявши участь у 103 матчах другого та третього дивізіону Бельгії.

Своєю грою за цю команду привернув увагу представників тренерського штабу клубу «Антверпен», до складу якого приєднався 1975 року. Спочатку Кюстерс був дублером досвідченого Жана-Марі Траппеньє і лише з сезону 1977/78 став основним воротарем клубу. Всього відіграв за команду з Антверпена п'ять з половиною сезонів своєї ігрової кар'єри.

На початку 1981 року перейшов у нідерландський «Гелмонд Спорт», а вже влітку став гравцем іспанського «Еспаньйола». 20 вересня 1981 року він дебютував у Прімері у виїзному матчі проти «Еркулеса» (2:0). У сезоні 1981/82 Кюстерс був основним воротарем барселонського клубу, але в наступному сезоні його витіснив камерунець Томас Н'Коно.

В результаті 1983 року Кюстерс повернувся до Бельгії і став гравцем «Мехелена», де провів наступні три сезони. В подальшому виступав за третьоліговий бельгійський клуб «Фарсьєн», а завершив ігрову кар'єру у команді четвертого дивізіону «Фарсьєн», за яку виступав до 1990 року. В подальшому працював тренером воротарів ряду бельгійських команд, а також збірної Бельгії (2006—2007).

Виступи за збірну
17 жовтня 1979 року дебютував в офіційних матчах у складі національної збірної Бельгії в грі кваліфікації на Євро-1980 проти Португалії (2:0).

Тео протягом усього часу у збірній був дублером Жана-Марі Пфаффа, тому на чемпіонаті Європи 1980 року в Італії, де разом з командою здобув «срібло», на поле не виходив, а на чемпіонаті світу 1982 року в Іспанії зіграв лише один матч, у другому груповому етапі з Польщею (0:3) через пошкодження Пфаффа.

Цей матч став останнім для Тео у складі збірної. Загалом протягом кар'єри у національній команді, яка тривала 4 роки, провів у її формі 10 матчів і пропустив 7 голів.

Титули і досягнення
 Віце-чемпіон Європи: 1980

Примітки

Посилання

бельгійські футболісти
Футбольні воротарі
Гравці збірної Бельгії з футболу
Гравці чемпіонату Європи з футболу 1980
Гравці чемпіонату світу з футболу 1982
Футболісти «Ватерсхей Тора»
Футболісти «Антверпена»
Футболісти «Гелмонд Спорт»
Футболісти «Еспаньйола»
Футболісти «Мехелена»
бельгійські футбольні легіонери
Футбольні легіонери в Нідерландах
Футбольні легіонери в Іспанії
Уродженці Генка

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Saga of choosing an apartment 2. Checking the legal cleanliness of the apartment - insuring ourselves against surprises
Comprehensive verification of the apartment when buying - is it worth it to be so scrupulous?
Continued. Beginning: Part 1. Saga of choosing an apartment 1. Types of houses and apartment choice. Houses made of foam blocks and other buildings - we start buying an apartment with this criterion
For the apartment, the best is the absence of any preliminary stories. This condition is often fulfilled when buying an apartment in a new building directly from the developer, here the risk of being deceived is minimal. However, even in this case, during the construction of the equity share, there are:
sold( more than once),
is donated,
is inherited.
And after putting the house into operation and documenting the documents, the apartment can be transferred under a rent contract. In the apartment of a new building after registration of documents tenants can be registered. A share of the equity participation could be issued not for one person, respectively, and the co-owners of the apartment may be, for example, a husband and wife or three brothers.
So let's look at the general case. Buying an apartment from the shareholder of the new building after putting the house into operation and processing the documents for this apartment in many positions falls precisely in the general category. The difference is that the new building usually still has a "short history".
After putting the new building into operation and processing the documents for the apartment( the procedure for obtaining them will be described below), only the persons indicated in the title deed can act as sellers of the apartment chosen by you.
Special attention should be given to apartments, designed by right of inheritance. In this case, after the sale and purchase transaction, "scrapped" and unaccounted persons can "swim out" with an ardent desire to challenge your rights.
One more thing. Checking the apartment history is better not to trust anyone, even a realtor who has found for you such a wonderful property( although his supportive participation in the verification process is welcomed).Yes, in the case of a lost dispute over a transaction, a realtor may lose his reputation. You - immeasurably more - a roof over your head. And it is very possible, and the money spent, or most of them, so the legal check of the apartment should take place with your curious presence and active participation.
Receiving and checking documents for an apartment in a new building
After completion of all works( and construction and finishing) provided by the project, the developer invites representatives of BTI for measurements and prepares technical documentation for state registration of the house. After the inspection of representatives of architectural supervision( most often in conjunction with a group of not indifferent stakeholders), the developer removes the shortcomings and receives an act on the acceptance of the house.
The latter is sent to the local state administration, which issues a permit to put the house into operation. The house receives a mailing address and access to all city communications. The developer enters into an agreement with the company that will service the house before the possible solution of the tenants for the creation of condominiums. After that, at the meeting with each owner of the apartment, the act of transferring the apartment is signed, and the owner receives the keys.
So, it's done! The owner is awarded for long-suffering, and with his keys opens the door to his apartment. He feels himself a lucky owner of cherished real estate. However, feelings, as it often happens, deceive him. Together with the keys and the act of transfer, he did receive, but only the opportunity to become a happy owner.
He will face the next( uneasy) stage of legal registration. This process depends not only on it and can last for a long time. Sometimes people live for years in the apartments they paid for, formally they are not their owners.
During this period it is impossible to sell "your" real estate in a new building.
Opens the way to the state registration of individual apartments transfer of the developer to the registration chamber copies of the permit for putting the house into operation and a number of other documents. After that the participant of shared construction must submit to the registration chamber:
an application for state registration on his own behalf;
document on payment of state duty;
agreement on participation in shared construction + all additional agreements;
act of acceptance-transfer, signed by the developer and persons who paid for the construction of the apartment;
floor plan and plan of your apartment( it is necessary that they coincide);
a copy of your passport;
a power of attorney certified by a notary if the owner trusts someone to make all the necessary gestures for obtaining documents.
The period provided by law for the registration of ownership is 30 days in our case. After a thorough check of the submitted documents, a corresponding entry is made in the Unified State Register of Rights, and the owner of the apartment becomes its legal owner.
It is clear that such a complex procedure rarely goes "without a hitch", sometimes the owners of apartments have to enter into ownership by the court decision. The latter, together with the documents from the BTI, is submitted to the registration chamber, and in 30 days the owner of the apartment takes his rights, regardless of the decision of other "upstream" conflicts.
So, only the certificate of ownership granted by the Registration Chamber allows the first owner of an apartment in a new building to sell it, give it, transfer it by inheritance or under an annuity agreement. Do this only those persons that are indicated in the above-mentioned certificate. Next, consider the steps that need to be taken before buying an apartment in a new building.
Checking the legal cleanliness of the apartment and its owner
The absence of the latter and the representation of his interests by a trustee is an occasion for very serious doubts and, possibly, a rejection of the transaction. Especially if the power of attorney for the right to represent interests is registered abroad, because by the time of the transaction it can be canceled.
If you still go on a deal with a representative by proxy, you need to carefully check what exactly a trusted person can do, whether only to enter into a contract or, for example, to receive money for a transaction, etc. It is advisable to visit the notary's office where the power of attorney was issued, and to specify how the extradition process was going on.
But even when the owner of the property is before you, one handshake is not enough. Be sure to pick up his passport and check( with accuracy to each letter and number) the identity of the passport data with the data specified in the title deed. Of course, the title document must be with "wet" seals. No copies at the time of verification are not suitable.
It makes sense and check the passport itself. Having written out the series, the document number, the date of issue, the name of its owner, you can make sure at the passport office that such a document was actually issued. To find out that he was issued exactly to the person representing the apartment as the owner, you can by visiting the passport desk and with the document, and with its owner.
It's harder to know if the owner of the apartment is legal. To do this, it is necessary to check the seller in the psycho-neurological and narcological dispensaries and get relevant inquiries there. If this is not done and it turns out that the owner of the apartment - the client of these establishments or just at the time of signing the contract was under the influence of drugs( such certificates are also provided by the cunning "representatives of the seller"), the contract of sale of the apartment can be terminated.
Our bureaucratic system is imperfect. Therefore, if the owner of the apartment has changed his place of residence, he will have to bypass the dispensaries for all previous addresses. After all, customer data on these establishments may get lost during transmission or even "stale" at one of the addresses.
However, if the apartment is very fond of, you can inspect the seller by qualified doctors when conducting a transaction( in the presence of a notary).If there is an official guardian( trustee), it will be sufficient to obtain his consent, certified by the guardianship authority.
Of course, if the owner of the apartment is not alone, then the presence of all co-owners on the transaction( with their "second halves") or notarized consent for the sale of the apartment by all the above-mentioned persons is necessary.
Thus, it is impossible to conduct a transaction with the owner( owners) of an apartment acting through a trustee, an incompetent master( owners), with a person( persons) whose passport causes suspicion.
Verification of documents when buying an apartment - sometimes lies on the surface of the
Usually a title document is either a title deed or a contract:
of a sale;
gifts, exchange;
on the right to inherit;
court decision;
annuities.
As we have already noted, after obtaining a certificate of ownership, an apartment in a new building can be alienated by all of the above methods. General rules for all contracts - they should not contain even a hint of erasure and forgery. Corrections, if any, must be certified by signatures of the parties, certified and sealed with the signature and seal of the notary. Prints can be seen clearly, the style of presentation does not allow double interpretations.
It is almost impossible to distinguish a fake document from an inexperienced citizen. Well, as a person who takes up the document for the first time in the last twenty years, will determine the degree of clarity of the press or the correctness of the form of the treaty and the place of "possible double interpretation"?
Experiments with the definition of "falsification" of documents were carried out more than once. And the absolute majority of ordinary citizens "flew" even at an average level of forgery. Therefore, in addition to the buyer( and even the realtor), documents must be checked when buying an apartment by a specialist in this area - a notary whom you trust and who will conduct your transaction in the future.(We'll talk about the choice of notary.)
After examining the documents for forgery, it makes sense to check, it is better, with the help of a notary, that the documents are registered with the state bodies in the proper way.
We have already spoken about the donation agreements. We add the following example: the person selling you an apartment, received it as a gift or by inheritance not from a close relative, and it happened just recently. The desire to get rid of the recently added "happiness", and even at a low price - an occasion to think well and, at least, to conduct a more thorough verification of the circumstances of the gift / will.
A few words about the rent contract. Under this agreement, the owner of the apartment transfers it to another person, the payer of the rent. The new owner periodically pays the previous amount, according to the contract. The contract of rent is considered invalid if it is not certified by a notary. In addition, the law requires mandatory state registration of such an agreement when the apartment is alienated.
Two variants of the rental agreement are possible:
with payment of the apartment price;
without payment.
In the first case, the rent contract is regarded as a kind of contract of sale. The difference is that the sum of the value of an apartment in the case of an annuity is not paid once, but within a certain period of time. Periodic "rental" payments are made regardless of the payment of the cost of the apartment.
The second option does not require the payment of an apartment. Such a contract is considered as a variant of the gift agreement. Rent can be of three types:
constant;
for life;
a contract for life-long maintenance with dependents.
Without going into further details and subtleties of the rent contract( and there are many of them), let's return to the issue of buying and selling an apartment that the seller received under such a contract. After all, an apartment in a new building can also be transferred to your current seller under a rent contract.
Rent contract - "encumbered" contract. Those.you buy an apartment with a burden of certain obligations. In doing so, you assume all the obligations of the seller of this apartment. Becoming the next owner, you will have to make rental payments, continue to pay the cost of the apartment to the owner who transferred it under the contract of rent - to do everything that is prescribed in the contract of rent. So, before buying such an apartment, it's good to find out whether a deal is profitable for you.
A careful examination of the title deed includes checking whether there are any conditions for it to terminate your future contract. For example, in the contract of sale, which you are checking, a deferred payment was provided. If the person selling you an apartment did not pay the cost of the apartment in time, then this is an occasion to recognize your( future) contract as invalid. And if the deadline for the final payment has not yet come, and the payment has not been made - the seller has not yet become the owner of the property to the full, and accordingly, has no right to sell it.
If suddenly it turns out that there are contradictions between the documents collected for the sale of documents, it is necessary to go through the chain from which these contradictions were born and to receive copies of missing or erroneous documents.
Additional conditions for the transaction( encumbrances or restrictions) may appear. People with the rights to this apartment can "swim".And if this gives grounds to recognize a future transaction as invalid, you need to look for other real estate.
It is necessary to check the documents for the apartment from the BTI with the actual device of its area. Any shifts in the walls, their destruction or completion, even the disposal of the apartment from an unnecessary pantry, is considered an administrative offense. All this can be done only by agreement with the local government. All produced( permitted) alterations must be reflected in the plan of the apartment received at the BTI.
Special attention should be given to the address of the apartment being sold. After all, the contract can specify a building address, which has nothing to do with the postal house, according to which the house and, accordingly, the apartment is registered. It is clear that in this version, the buyer, having paid money, will in the worst case not receive any real estate. In the best of his "load" corner or apartment on the first / last floor, although he watched the most prestigious option.
Scammers go to replace the nameplates with addresses of houses. For example, near the new building, a dilapidated structure clung to it. The buyer, after inspecting the wonderful, newly built apartment, actually signs the contract and pays money for it is unclear what is in the nearby "slum".
Very important point .When you receive all documents( certificates and statements) by the seller, you must be present personally. So, it is very important to carefully check the apartment when buying, made together with experts in this area.
Read continuation: Part 3. Saga of choosing an apartment 3. A deal for the sale of an apartment or how to handle money correctly?
Legal check of the apartment and search for the co-owners of the apartment
All co-owners should be checked as carefully and on all points. After all, the reasons for a possible termination of the deal are equally weighty for all co-owners. Most often, the new building does not have time to acquire the registered and living persons in it at the time of sale, but sometimes it happens, and the buyer should be ready for such a turn of events.
According to the extended extract from the house book it is possible to find out which of the tenants is registered at the moment in the apartment of interest to you, and which of them, at the time of sale, retains the right of residence in it. Get an extract can the owner of the apartment completely free of charge in the housing office at the place of residence. To do this, he must have:
a certificate from the BTI or a certificate of ownership of the property from the Unified State register of real estate rights and transactions with it;
is a title document - an agreement, the types of which are listed below;
passports and birth certificates of all persons registered in the apartment.
Without a full set of documents, GEK's statement is not given - it is necessary to protect the privacy of private information, if available, the statement will be ready within one day. It may be that one of the persons registered in the apartment is absent. And no one knows where this person is during the preparation of documents for the sale of the apartment. Such a person is called "missing".
A person can be absent for various reasons: be on a long trip( with a secret mission or in places of detention), be on long-term care, etc. It is quite possible that the "missing person" after selling the apartment( even after a few years) becomes really present and begins to challenge the transaction.
Even the consent to sell an apartment obtained from the places of confinement does not guarantee the "cleanliness" of the transaction. Often, the "exhausted term" and the released person, declares that the consent he has written was given under pressure and requires a review of the deal. Therefore, the presence of such a person - an excuse to find another apartment to buy.
Our legal check of the apartment before the purchase has just begun! If the new building is already inhabited( at least partially), talk to the neighbors. By the way, in the conversation describe the person with whom you spoke, as with the owner of your future apartment. At this stage, very interesting information can appear.
Be sure to specify if the seller has a civil wife( civil husband).Legally, she( he) can not be involved in the transaction, but in fact after it can demand its cancellation. And such cases, alas, "had a place to be" - with the adoption of a court decision in favor of the plaintiff.
It makes sense and appeal to the housing office( if the owners managed to register), backed by material assurances of friendship. In ZhEKe you not only can get a list of all former owners of the apartment. A lot of additional, sometimes very interesting and useful information, you can tell the passports. Locksmiths and electricians of the service company can also "give out" important details about the house and its inhabitants.
Upon an extract from the USRD you will learn the entire history of the apartment - whether the owners have changed and who they are, whether the apartment managed to be under arrest and under an interdiction for sale. If the owners of the new building have already changed( especially several times), it is very likely that you, the bona fide buyer, are trying to "substitute".And you better give up this "profitable" deal. The same conclusion should be made in the event of disputes, arrests and bans on the sale of real estate, which you have looked after. In any case, make an effort to get acquainted with the penultimate owner.
It would be superfluous to apply to the Single Register of Judicial Decisions. If it turns out that the apartment in the new building managed to become the subject of legal proceedings, be sure to check( with the participation of a specialized lawyer) whether the case can resume due to circumstances that( suddenly) will open after you purchase this apartment.
Children, as always, special attention. If an under-age child( children) is registered in the apartment, by the time of the transaction a permit for the sale of the apartment from the guardian council must be obtained. So, find out everything possible about each co-owner and his immediate environment, for which turn to all possible instances and talk with neighbors.
Choosing An Apartment
Saga about choosing an apartment 1. Types of houses and apartment choice. Houses made of foam blocks and other buildings - we start buying an apartment with this criterion
Separation of the personal account for payment of utilities in a privatized and non-privatized apartment
Saga about choosing an apartment 4. Making a deal with a notary
Repair From Zero Online
Suburban Area Design
Septic Tanks For A Country House
Teplozvukoizolyatsiya
Cesspit And Drain Hole


text:
Lessons from the Year That Was . . .
By Stephen P. Atwood
Green Manufacturing: End-of-Life Issues Are Complex
By Jenny Donelan
Display Manufacturing on Flexible Substrates
By Greg Gibson
The Importance of Light
By Paul Drzaic
Frontline Technology: Flexible e-Book Displays Produced in Standard TFT and Module Factories
Thin, light, and robust flexible e-book displays are being prepared for mass production with most of the same equipment and processes used for glass displays.
By Ian French
Frontline Technology: High-Volume Manufacturing of Photonic Components on Flexible Substrates
The penetration of photonic technologies into the low-cost consumer-electronics marketplace has so far been limited. This article details several flexible-substrate-based manufacturing processes that have been developed for the high-volume low-cost production of optical waveguides ? key components of a specific optical touch-screen system.
By Robbie Charters
Display Marketplace: TFT-LCD Manufacturing Advances Reduce Cost and Energy Consumption
Much attention has focused on advances in TFT-LCD panel technology such as LED backlights, 120/240-Hz frame rates, wide viewing angle, and other technologies leading to performance improvements. But behind the scenes, TFT-LCD manufacturing continues to evolve, leading to increased manufacturing productivity, lower costs, and improved power efficiency. Recent developments include color filters, liquid-crystal alignment, and TFT design.
By Charles Annis and Paul Semenza
Enabling Technology: Overview: Low-Temperature Polysilicon
Low-temperature-polysilicon (LTPS) technology is an important part of the active-matrix-LCD manufacturing environment. Will its role expand or has it found its niche?


text:
Out-of-home-News
OOH to grow 7-8% in 2015 on back of e-commerce, real estate spends
The outdoor advertising sector saw an increase in ad spends in the quarter ending September and is on track to register 7-8 per cent growth in 2015, say experts
by Abhinn Shreshtha
The outdoor advertising sector saw an increase in ad spends in the quarter ending September and is on track to register 7-8 per cent growth in 2015, said OOH owners and media agencies we spoke with.
According to OOH agency heads, the increase in ad spends could be attributed to a number of reasons. For example, Nabendu Bhattacharyya, MD of Milestone Brandcom says Q3 has been better because of spending by categories like mobile handsets, m-commerce and e-commerce and media and entertainment. "Previously, we have not seen the m-commerce category spend this strongly. I would say that ad spends have gone up by 20-25 per cent in July-September'15 as compared to the same period last year," he said.
On similar lines, Sanjeev Gupta, MD at Global Advertisers, welcomed the positivity seen in the market in this quarter, claiming that the market had picked up momentum after a recessionary trend in Q2. He said that ad revenues for OOH would have increased in the range of 70-80 per cent in Q3 as compared to Q2. When asked about which categories have spent the most money, he singled out electronics, real estate, entertainment channels and event companies. "Even among e-commerce companies Amazon has clearly been the biggest spender. Apart from Amazon, there were just 2-3 others that have spent big, but Amazon has spent a lot of money on all mediums," he said.
Noomi Mehta, Chairman and MD of Selvel also agreed that, overall, ad spends on OOH had increased across India with Mumbai and Delhi seeing a lot of spending and with Bangalore remaining steady. However, he pointed out that the ongoing tussle in Kolkata with the municipal corporation has caused clients to drop investments in outdoor. "We cannot understand what is going on in Kolkata. They (The municipal corporation) say that out of the 400 sites given to us, 250 are illegal. So even clients have lost interest and don't want to advertise," he explained.
On the other hand, Rajiv Saxena, MD of Blue Ocean Media, feels that the OOH sector will not grow till the inventory crunch being faced is addressed. "There has hardly been any new media or new inventory introduced for a long time. So long as the industry remains local it will not grow," he said. Saxena, however, agreed that Q3'15 had been much better than Q3'14 due to government campaigns as well as spending by e-commerce sector even though some sectors like the film industry have not been doing any promotions on OOH for the past 6 months.
Tags Blue ocean media Global advertisers Nabendu bhattacharyya Noomi mehta Ooh Outdoor advertising Rajiv saxena Sanjeev gupta Selvel
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