Chinese aids activists hand out condoms in a subway train in Wuhan, central China's Hubei province on December 1, 2014. The World Health Organization issued a call to action to China on December 1, 2014 over HIV/AIDS as government figures said nearly half a million people are living with the disease or its precursor, with hundreds of thousands more thought to be undiagnosed. (Photo by AFP Photo)

Five-year-old Julia cuddles a free teddy bear at a toy adoption station in a branch of Dobbies in Wallington, UK on December 4, 2023. Research shows almost half of parents (46%) in Britain plan to spend less on their children’s Christmas presents this year, and 47% believe their child would not mind receiving a preloved toy as a gift. (Photo by Michael Leckie/PA Wire Press Association)

A pedestrian wearing a form of PPE (personal protective equipment) of a perspex full-face covering, as a precautionary measure against COVID-19, walks across Oxford Street in central London on June 11, 2020, as non-essential shops prepare to re-open on June 15. Britain's current guidelines on social distancing remain at two metres (2M), but business leaders and some politicians are on Thursday calling for it to be reduced to one (1M), or one-and-a-half (1.5M) metres. (Photo by Justin Tallis/AFP Photo)

Igor Perne (L), 53, an electronic engineer and a member of the International Virtual Aviation Organisation (IVAO), and fellow virtual pilot Franc Lavric gesture for the camera before taking off on a virtual flight in a flight simulator in Nova Vas, Slovenia November 13, 2014. In 2011, Perne, a lifelong flying enthusiast, bought parts of a written-off Cyprus Airways airliner and then spent two and a half years turning the entire nose of the scrapped aircraft into an elaborate flight simulator. (Photo by Srdjan Zivulovic/Reuters)

Giant pumpkins sit in the bed of a truck before the 40th Annual Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off on October 14, 2013 in Half Moon Bay, California. Gary Miller of Napa, California won the 40th Annual Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Offgigantic pumpkin with a gigantic pumpkin that weighed in at 1,985 pounds. Miller took home a cash prize of $11,910, or $6.00 a pound. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/AFP Photo)

While the lido was described as bringing “modernism to the masses” on the British coast it was just the latest example of a trend that had been developing since Victorian times – transforming seaside towns into resorts for leisure and entertainment. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the fashion was for local authorities to build great piers stretching from the promenade out into the sea. The Eastbourne Pier, pictured here in May 1931, was erected between 1866 and 1870 to an ingenious design by Eugenius Birch, which saw the structure sitting on special cups allowing the supporting struts to “move” in bad weather. Arranged on the pier's 1,000-foot length were kiosks, a theatre, a ballroom and a camera obscura. 1931. (Photo by Aerofilms Collection via “A History of Britain From Above”)

A life-size robot named “Mark 1”, built by product and graphic designer Ricky Ma, 42, is seen in Hong Kong, China March 31, 2016. Ma, a robot enthusiast, spent a year-and-a half and more than HK$400,000 ($51,000) to create the humanoid robot, which is modelled after a Hollywood star, to fulfil his childhood dream. The eyes of the robot include face and color tracking functions. (Photo by Bobby Yip/Reuters)

A shooting star (L, top) is seen on the night sky during the perseid meteor shower in Jankowo, near Poznan, 11 August 2016. The first half of August is traditionally the best time to look out for meteors called “shooting stars”, or perseids which are the leftover dust particles of a comet tail associated with comet Swift-Tuttle. (Photo by Lukasz Ogrodowczyk/EPA)