Google Street View

On Thursday Google launched its pedestrian level view of 25 UK cities, to a degree of controversy over the usual concerns for invasion of privacy and a Big Brother society. Our street must have been photographed early on a Monday morning late last spring, probably in June: the tell-tale signs are the full green recycling bins on the pavement outside my house , these are invariably emptied between 8.00 and 8.30 on a Monday morning; my car isn't parked outside, so I must have already left for work - I worked from home throughout August last year and it would have been there; it was before the exterior of the house was repainted in July because the front door is still a dark glossy blue, rather than its currrent teal eggshell; the neighbouring cherry tree that bloomed in May is bare of blossom, but everything is in leaf. We are being watched ... and recorded, classified, archived. Two ordinary pictures of an ordinary street, but so much more. At every moment we leave traces of where we are and what we are doing - no need for Twitter or FaceBook.