Reflections through Cyberspace

Last week, Owen suggested a new TV series - Britain from Above. I was curious to see what it is about, so I decided to watch the first episode. I must say..very interesting episode indeed! I’m looking forwarding to watch more episodes and learn more interesting facts, whilst seeing Britain from a different perspective

Britain from Above is an epic journey revealing the secrets, patterns and hidden rhythms of our lives from a striking new perspective. Host Andrew Marr discovers how every person is interconnecting, making Britain what it is today. Britain looks very different from the skies. From a bird’s eye view of the nation, its workings, cities, landscapes and peoples are revealed and re-discovered in new and extraordinary ways. Cutting edge technology allows you to see through cloud cover, navigate the landscape and witness familiar sights as never seen before.

• Did You Know?

Fascinating facts and figures in Britain from Above:

* The English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world: on a typical day 400 plus vessels travel through the Dover Straits, the biggest of which weigh up to 150,000 tonnes and take 3.5 miles to come to a stop.
* East London’s Beckton Sewage Plant - all 280 football pitches worth of tanks, troughs and waterways - is one of the largest in Europe.
* On an average day, Britain’s water pipes carry 16 billion litres of water - enough to fill 18 million bathtubs.
* In less than a week the waste sent to sewage plants is clean enough to be able to be pumped back into our taps.
* At the peak of the working day Britons send more than 5,000 text messages per second.
* 109 square miles of British countryside is just used for landfill.
* Between 7 and 10am, 36 million Britons are on the move commuting to the office or school.
* The average road user will spend more than 6 months of their life stuck in traffic jams.
* Every day more than 7,500 civilian aircraft crowd Britain’s airspace, carrying more that half a million passengers.
* Over three quarters of a billion pounds in hard cash is transported around the roads of Britain every day. Driving one of the secured vans is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country with sometimes 15 attacks a week.
* Every day the nation’s rubbish trucks collect more than 82,000 tonnes of refuse.

You can read more about Britain from Above on their website. And to see some amazing aerial photography, click here.