*Where's Wally?

Here's a weird thing. When I was plugging Genius on The One Show the other day (which, incidentally was lovely, fun and might mean I end up getting a loan of a high quality exercise bike - which in turn means I might actually get to do some training before the autumn tour) I didn't just appear on the sofa, I also made a short film for the show...

The theme of the film was inventions-that-are-supposed-to-make-our-lives-easier-but-don't... things like Voice Recognition and those Automatic Checkouts you get in supermarkets these days and so on.

So the day before the appearance I spent a lovely day with a lovely crew - Anna, Claire, Andy and Quin - racing around London to various locations and filming pieces to camera. We also did some vox pops on Carnaby Street (which must be one of the most vox-popped streets in the world) where two or three people told us they hated Sat Navs.

Which then led to us have an off-camera conversation about the merits of Satellite Navigation. In which Andy said that there were soon going to be Sat Nav systems that, instead of displaying a map view, showed you an actual photo of the street you're on from a car's point of view.

This in turn reminded me of an incident from many moons ago, which I then relayed to the team. I'd been walking down Bethnal Green Road when a strange car had passed me and caught my eye. It was a small buggy car with a huge nest of cameras on top of it. Curiosity made me gawp at it... then I saw the logo on the side of the car and realised it was photographing the street from every angle as part of Google's street view project. I remember thinking, "Oh no... now when they launch street view, I'm going to be there on Bethnal Green Road forever... and I'll be staring at the car with a look of curiousity so intense that people will think I've never seen a car before."

I've never mentioned it to anyone else before because it obviously isn't a huge moment in my life - indeed I'd forgotten all about it until the idea of a 3D photographic Sat Nav brought it back to mind - but it did make ideal, idle chit chat while we we're waiting to film the next piece.

Anyway... that was on Monday. I appeared on the show on the Tuesday and then yesterday before I went to bed, I noticed a tweet from a friend on Twitter telling me that the street view service had launched. I was too tired to look it up at the time but I made a mental note to look into it and to see if I really was there this morning.

Except that this morning I was up early and off to the BBC to appear on BBC Breakfast and then on to record thirteen different radio interviews to continue the promotion for the new series. (Did I mention that Genius starts tomorrow night... or Saturday, depending on where you live?)

So it wasn't until I got home this afternoon that I was able to check. And by crikey, I'm there. I'm not looking stupidly curious because - thankfully - they blur people's faces but because I knew where I was when I saw the car it only took me a couple of minutes to find myself and in spite of the blurred image I obviously know it's me.

If you go to maps.google.co.uk and search for 462 Bethnal Green Rd, Tower Hamlets, London E2, UK and then select 'Street view' it'll show you a view of the Shakespeare pub. I'm on the other side of the road so scroll round and you'll see me leaning against the wall of the Quicksilver Gaming Centre (boy, do I live in a classy part of the world!) It's probably not obvious to anyone else that it's me. But it is you know...

Here I am...
... and here's a close up. I'm not the man in the black t-shirt... I'm the one looking towards the camera.

EDIT: Adding this link - which takes you to the photo...



*For any North American readers that would be Where's Waldo?