Date

12 July 2024 10:20:14

Location

Hackney Downs Funfair, London

Country or Territory

United Kingdom

Name

Sasha Engelmann

Satellite

NOAA-19

Radio Callsign

M6IOR

Low-pressing grey again. A feeling of melancholy. I'm missing Soph's presence on zoom calls and text channels. I go searching for the funfair in the northwest corner of the park. It has not yet been activated, but I can see people walking around inside, checking and testing things. I capture a satellite image with my Yagi antenna and Android phone, kneeling in the yellow grass. After the pass, I circle the perimeter of the fair, and notice that there is a line of trailer vans and mobile homes on the far side, facing the overground train tracks. Laundry is flung on the metal fence that divides the funfair from the park, or on small drying racks set up outside semi-ajar car doors. I hear a man speaking at an elevated volume on the phone. He says something like 'I thought I had 2 points! where are my points!' I realise, then, that the funfair is an entirely mobile operation: all the big machines are transported on two very large, glossy red trucks, but the real 'infrastructure' are the staff who likely follow in their vans and mobile homes. I wonder how many places they go. As I walk back to Downs Road I pass a couple walking their greyhound. As I pass I can hear the woman say to her partner 'Oh yes that's the lady with the...'

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