Some time ago, we featured the Bollards of London blog on here. Sadly, it seems that that venture has disappeared from the internet. What a load of boll…ards. Presumably, they found them all and there was nothing else to document. But there are still plenty of other niche blogs around, and here’s one:
Pylon of the Month dot org
Yep. Really.
I know electricity is a bit of a sore point around here at the moment, but Pylon of the Month is actually rather addictive. I’m currently back in early 2010, close to beautiful Sheffield, looking at a stunning pylon-related sunset. The site has been going since 2008 and despite being a British based blog, even featured a snap from Somerset West (ugh) to open 2015. There was one from Japan last year as well. Cyprus, Scotland, Greece, Bulgaria, France, Ireland and Sweden are all also represented.
Wow. International.
It isn’t just pylons though. There’s a bit of information about the locality or the reasons behind the author being where he was when the photo was taken. And (perhaps because he’s a physics teacher near Oxford) then there’s educational stuff too. TIL about Stockbridge dampers:
A Stockbridge damper is a tuned mass damper used to suppress wind-induced vibrations on slender structures such as overhead power lines. The dumbbell-shaped device consists of two masses at the ends of a short length of cable or flexible rod, which is clamped at its middle to the main cable. The damper is designed to dissipate the energy of oscillations in the main cable to an acceptable level.
Without which, power lines would be wobbling and failing all over the world. Thank you, George H. Stockbridge, for your surprisingly simple – yet effective – invention. And you’ve all seen them, you just never knew what you were looking at. I love stuff like that.
Anyway, never one to shy away from getting involved in mildly odd stuff (at least on the internet), I’m going to submit a photo wot I took (of a pylon, obvs) to potm.org and see if I can get SA another place on the 2015 board. Watch this space. Or rather watch that space.