Shell's London office UNDER WATER and besieged by GIANT EELS
Royal Dutch Shell's London headquarters has been shuttered since Monday (15 November) after the River Thames decided to pour into the iconic office building. The Register understands that the oil giant's Shell Centre, which stands on London’s South Bank in Waterloo, is awash with water from the River Thames, scuppering assorted …
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eels?
At least if the flooding is confined to the basement then they should not be able to fill their helicopter
Re...Eels?
They should be able to fill their hovercarft though.....
Meanwhile at the tobacconists
....would you like to come back to my place bouncy bouncy
My hovercraft is full of eels
Better in Finnish...
"Ilmatyynyalukseni on täynnä ankeriaita"
Bit harder to say, though
Hungarian (both according to Google Translate:)
"A légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal"
Wet again
"The company’s London office at one point contained a travel agency, hairdresser, restaurants and bars, a gym, bank, cinema and huge swimming pool – all operating underneath the tower."
Nice to see that the swimming pool has been reopened.
Server Room in a basement ??
Server room in a basement, next to a river ???
Saved me some keystrokes
Exactly what I was going to say! Wonder which genius thought that up?
consider it beaten!
Rumour has it that Chessingtons World of Adventure had a server room located under the log flume ride!
"Why not use river water to cool the servers?"
Not quite *that* much river water...but the servers are cool.
[this cries out to be included in a future BOFH column]
Exactly what I was thinking!
Lots of companies have server rooms in basements, which has always bothered me! IT take all the crap locations, "We don't want nasty server rooms in view of the office so down to the depths of Hades with you foul IT demons!".
This is all very well, but liquids, like most things on earth, have a tendency to follow the laws of gravity and head downwards at the first opportunity. Liquids having the advantage of squeezing into smaller gaps than other objects like rocks, pencils, giraffes, etc.
Once worked in a place where the sewage main burst right under the server room, it was about 2 inches from the base of the cabs before it starting dropping. The clean-up and removing the stench was a very long job indeed!
Drama at Shell
"The company’s London office at one point contained a travel agency, hairdresser, restaurants and bars, a gym, bank, cinema and huge swimming pool – all operating underneath the tower."
And also a theatre, complete with fly tower (you can see it from the river bank side if you look carefully). I was shown around the theatre in 2003, quite an odd experience as it was all completely intact but had been unused for around 5 years by that point.
Eels in the lift?
Simon, is this something to do with you?
"Hello, IT helldesk", "Yes, the server is down. It's due to..." shuffle to todays excuse... "Static discharges from the eels."
In communist russia
river polutes oil firm (yes, I know it's in london, but why let geography get in the way!).
Sounds like a mental place to have worked at in its heyday. I wish my office had a hairdressers...
brilliant...
...more through the looking glass than communist russia IMHO
Somewhat strained poetic justice, but marvellous none the less.
So when your drives start to squeal 'cos they've trapped a big eel...
That's a-moray.
Do we know...
If they're Shrieking Eels? :)
And Paris, because I'm sure she'd have an eel as a pet.
Eels
The biological UPS, those servers should be humming along.
Also a theatre, a general store and a rifle range in the basement...
...at least when I worked there back in the early 1970s. I whiled away many evenings during transport strikes burning up the ammunition they paid for until the crowds on the suburban lines had died down. They also had a full medical and dental service in the Upstream building which was useful on occasion. However, the crowning glory was the Lensbury employee club in Teddington. Once you had been there you could have no doubt the oil companies were making money hand over fist.
At that time the computers (Univac 1108s, IBM 360s) were in the Downstream building on the first floor, but I believe that building was sold off and converted to appartments.
Quite takes me back...haven't lived in Blighty since 1978.
Lensbury
Worked there myself a few years back. It was also one of their BCP sites, I wonder if their getting any action from this...
Shell involved in another toxic spill..
yes the Thames is that bad...
A surfeit of lampreys
I for one welcome our new [whatever the adjective for eels is] overlords.
It also contained a surgery
I went for an interview there, in the 70's, which included a full medical (?)
If this office is anything like their old Manchester offices...
Then yes, the servers are in the basement, as we now have a couple of racks of servers down under the old shell building in Manchester, not a bad set up either, but then we're not next to river up here!
Judging by the design of the building I'd say that was opened around the '60s as well
The Shell building in Manchester
is also there to make concrete multi-storey car parks look attractive in comparison
Eels
Were these eels just swimming about, or did they form a conger line?
Eels.
They couldn't manage the stairs so they took the eelevator.
Wasn't that Monty Python?
Your lift shaft is full of eels...
"..is awash with water from the River Thames"
Rumor has it. . . It is to become Shell's new London Offshore Division. ;P
Shell seems to have been visited 'The Hitcher'
They obviously didn't pay the 1000 euros protection money.
"Eels up inside ya,
Findin' an entrance where they can..."
Most of the IT equipment has gone...
This building is a mere shadow of its former self - most of the big servers have gone, and there was only ever a small basement area where a few midrange servers were located. Most servers were on upper floors.
how ever it come out you can't be sure of SHELL
those were the days
Frigging in the rigging...
...And by the squeals, we knew the eels
Had found her private quarters
Oh, frigging in the rigging, frigging in the rigging, etc..
Catching eels
How are they going to catch the eels that have invaded the building ?
If the radio series is a guide then they need to hire some elephants.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fkh25
Pool is still there...
... among other things a scuba diving club use it for training
Local Hero
So, they're giving up the refinery and opening the Happer Institute?
I thought this was another one of "those" stories
Wow, this is funny! I'm shocked this story is true - I thought this was another one of those stories from the Register with a totally bonkers, not what it first seems, headline!
I was expecting another story about a google earth mistake which had placed the Shell building in the middle of the Thames or something!
I just love the thought of some oil exec pushing the call button for the lifts and moments later "ding", door opens and out pours a torrent of eel infester water!
At least someone's swimming in it.
I remember 20 years ago, on my first night out in London, listening to some drunken (old) architect in a pub on Charing Cross Road, saying that planning permission was dependent on them building an olympic swimming pool for public use.
So they said ok, and then built it two inches too short so it could never be used for competitions, thus making it useless.
No idea whether it was true. The man was hideously drunk, which is coincidentally what I'm going to be by 6 o'clock.
title goes here apparently
I've heard this story about swimming pools either accidentally or on purpose, being built slightly to small, a couple of times before but I cant remember if it was referring to the Shell building. Maybe that drunk architect was the original source of it!
The way I heard it...
The story I heard about a certain swimming pool was that the dimensions were absolutely accurate, up until the point where it was lined with tiles which threw things off a little. Was suggested as being more of a drawing cockup than a deliberate plan.
I also remember hearing a story about some slightly non-standard material being used as aggregate substitute in the concrete, at least in the foundations, as it made a discrete way of disposing of certain surplus components.
@Llyander
I think I should tell you Llyander, the eels don't get her at this time, just in case you're worried.
Not when I was there
Last time I worked there, the comms rooms were on the higher floors. There was a tunnel which lead between the two buildings where some of the cabling went, that was in the basement. Oh and the rifle range of course, oh and the olymic size (less 2 inches) swimming pool in the basement, that's all.
The data centre(s) now they were a different matter. Even the locals didn't know where they were or what they did. Same with most data centres I've worked in - well away from any threat of disaster and running in tandem with others just on the off chance. You don't see them on any maps.
A Shell of its former self?
If I put my ear to the building, can I hear the ocean?
Mine's the one with the eel liquor sauce in the pocket.
Eels?!
"Eels up inside ya, finding an entrance where they can..."
Couldn't happen to a nicer company I say... What were your profits this year shell, oh yes $4.8bn. sure you can spare the change to fix the offices up, or will our petrol prices go up to cover that too!!
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