There’s a tunnel I walk through every day on the way to work. It leads from Blackfriars underground station to the pedestrian walkway that runs west along the Embankment from Saint Paul’s to just after Blackfriars Bridge. It’s a great tunnel, low and gently curving as it slopes uphill, with a black and yellow tiled floor and long rows of recessed fluorescent lights along both edges of the ceiling. It often has a strong breeze blowing down it, smelling of the river and when you reach the end you have a great view along the Thames towards Waterloo bridge and the Houses of Parliament. I love the drama of that end of the tunnel; you never know whether the tide’s going to be high or low and the weather often seems different to how it was on the railway station.
Homeless people often hang out in the tunnel. That famous knitted-doll making woman is sometimes there and the man with the pointy face and the little dog. For the last week there’s only been the quiet man. He sits on the mandatory piece of flattened cardboard box with his head bowed down and a small cup in front of him. He never asks for spare change, he has no little sign, he never looks up.
On Wednesday I was looking at him from the side as I approached and I saw that he was smiling very slightly, in a bitter sort of way. I never give money to homeless people, for no reason really, but I really felt the contrast between my happiness at the approach of the beautiful view and his static stare at the floor. In my pocket I happened to have an Alprax (don’t ask). As I passed him I dropped it into his cup. I looked back and saw him take it out, pop it out of its blister without looking at it and stick it straight into his mouth.
So, the next day I gave him a microdot that’s been hanging around. He did the same thing. The day after that I wasn’t working but he was still there yesterday and I gave him two Largactyl. Today I only had Co-dydramol. I’m not working again until Friday but I’m a bit worried - I’ve got quite a few Alprax and Largactyl left but I don’t want to repeat myself and anyway, I might need them! I can’t give them all to him. There is half a bottle of Kemadrin at the back of the cupboard but I’ve never even tried those, they don’t sound like fun.
There was a heated… spirited… well, anyway interesting exchange of views about Stuckism over on Same Identical Sun. Alan Hay, the proprietor, usually writes, extremely carefully, a mixture of entertaining discussion and invective about poetry and nearby topics. On Sunday he mentioned, among other things, Dan Belton, a friend of his who is a painter and a Stuckist. He said that “personally I find Stuckism irritating and boring”.
I have never even heard of Stuckism so I followed the link and read their site and their (mostly self-written by the look of it) Wikipedia entry. Many of the paintings look great, some of them are fantastic. On reading their original 1999 manifesto some points are hard to disagree with but some are empty aphorisms and some are just strongly worded expressions of personal taste.
My objection to it, though, is that it seems mostly to be about what they don’t like and what Stuckism isn’t. It reminds me of those children who come to tea and tell me (whiney voice) “I don’t like tomatoes, I don’t like carrots.” Don’t tell me, I don’t care. If you don’t like it don’t eat it.
I was wondering what it is that makes artists feel like they should have a manifesto and a movement in the first place. Most of the musicians I like can do little more than mutter or grunt when they’re talking about their music; that’s fine by me. In fact, I don’t think that any piece of writing, any expression of opinion, has any merit apart from itself. It doesn’t matter if the subject or the writer is a film star, a painter or a politician. If the ideas are dull, if they don’t make sense, they’re not worth the ink. So what are painters, who communicate best through painting, doing writing? And then I realised that it’s just the same sort of time-wasting displacement activity as creating web-sites about your work when you should be working and there’s nobody more guilty of that than I am.
I found a bullet on the pavement outside my house today. It was about 9mm wide and flattened from the side rather than from the front as most spent bullets are. I thought that I’d better tell the police about it so I rang the number in the phone directory. After 15 minutes on hold I finally got through to someone. He wanted me to take it in to a police station. I said that I wasn’t prepared to spend half the day waiting around in Brixton police station so if it was all the same to him I’d just hang on to it and they could contact me if they needed it. He didn’t take my name but then maybe all my details were already scrolling across a screen in front of him.
Is this quite a usual occurrence in London these days? The man from the Met. didn’t seem very bothered about it. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky not to have found one before now. It’s not as though I don’t keep my eyes open; I’ve found loads of 1p coins.
My dad is an architect so I used to read the RIBA journal, Building Design, a lot when I was a youth. I am still very interested in the more technical aspects of building, despite having a pretty low opinion of the skills of most builders. So when I was in Travis Perkins buying some floorboards last week I picked up a free copy of Professional Builder magazine.
It is a surprisingly good read and not nearly as bland as I thought it would be. There’s an op-ed on the dangers and hidden costs to the nation of DIY. It claims that members of the Great British public, inspired by irresponsible TV makeover shows, are rushing out to buy unsafe products from DIY sheds (ie B&Q) and costing the NHS a great deal of money when they inevitably injure themselves. They suggest that there should be a special Health Duty on all DIY products. I admire their cheek (and we all know about builders’ cheeks!) and it is more entertaining than most building industry writing.
There are also articles on women builders, why wooden windows are better than plastic, how a new product from Polypipe can enable rainwater to soak away into the ground instead of going down drains and causing flooding and all sorts of other new products. There are also lots of give-aways, including a rather puzzling competition to win an ‘England Van’ by joining the Budget Van Insurance England Van Club. The prize, a van painted with a ‘unique’ St George’s flag design’ is made by Fiat, in Italy. Very patriotic.
My favorite article though was about the launch of a new brand of tea. “Make Mine a Builders” has been devised specifically to slake the thirst of British Builders, the tea is ethically sourced (although not Fairtrade), the box is very industrial looking, a portion of the profits will go to a charitable foundation and it will be sold in builders’ merchants. I certainly intend to give it a try despite the missing apostrophe in the name.
I just read an interesting article in Wired which pointed out that credit card companies actually lobby against legislation which would make identity theft more difficult because there’s so much money for them in offering “fast and easy credit”. The article also contains a link to a page about this guy who wondered what would happen if he tore up a pre-filled credit card application form he was sent, stuck it together again with scotch tape, changed the address and phone number on the form and then sent it in. No prize for guessing that a shiny new card in his name turned up at the address he’d put on the form.
Whenever I get junk mail containing personal information I send it back to the sender telling them that if they continue to send me such mail I’ll ask them to contribute to the cost of a shredder. So, as a public service, I’ve made a handy form that you can print out and do the same thing yourself.
Identity Fraud form in pdf format.
The Torn-Up Credit Card Application
Yes, that’s right, you heard me right. Driving around London in the last few days I noticed that at certain times there was a noticeable absence of scumbags, idiots and unsavoury elements. How useful it would be, I told myself, if one could predict these auspicious moments and arrange to be travelling or shopping when they occurred. Well, it can be done and with the help of a footballing enthusiast of my acquaintance (tip o’ the hat to Joe Lawrence) I have produced a handy chart which will enable you, gentle reader, to take advantage of the eerily empty roads, echoing supermarket aisles and quiet, pleasant high streets which occur during the transmission of certain games of particular interest to our less salubrious co-stakeholders.
The judgement as to whether or not a particular game will be deemed essential viewing is a complex business and depends to a large extent on the outcome of games not yet played so I will be producing a more complete version when my advisors are able to provide more accurate data, probably some time after the 20th of June. If you feel you can provide a more accurate insight feel free to alter your copy of the chart with a pen.
The chart is colour-coded for your convenience and contains no garish graphics or references to football so you can safely print it out and stick it on your kitchen wall without bringing down the tone of the place.
Click on the picture to download the chart.
The Americans are saying that they have captured information in raids following the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that will enable them to track down more of his colleagues. I heard a rumour that what they actually had was the password for his myspace account. Have a look, it does seem that they may be on to something.
I’m sorry to be a misery guts but the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi isn’t something to celebrate or be proud of. Here’s why:
- Civilised countries don’t assassinate their opponents, they capture them and put them on trail.
- I don’t believe in capital punishment, even for the most heinous crimes, but even if I did surely it should be the outcome of a judicial process.
- If you are going to assassinate somebody the least sensible and most cowardly way of doing it is by dropping a bomb on their house.
- The Iraqi PM, Nouri Maliki, said when announcing the death of al-Zarqawi, that the Iraqi government would kill all the “terrorists” opposing his government. Is that possible? Of course not. The only way to solve any conflict is by bringing the leaders of all groups together. If you kill the leaders then no dialogue is possible.
This sort of “solution” appeals to simple-minded people. It reflects badly on our politicians that they are prepared to resort to it.
Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi
See, the British Phonographic Industry isn’t so behind the times as everyone thought. They have very generously announced that we are now allowed to listen to tracks from our own CDs on MP3 players. I predict that this unprecedented and generous move will cause excitement all over the country as people are finally able to rip their CD collections into iTunes. I am now waiting breathlessly for an announcement permitting people to listen to music while other people are present, at a small party, say, or in a motor vehicle carrying passengers.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | UK music fans can copy own tracks
My oldest daughter Poppy grew up watching the BBC. She never saw adverts, which was a great advantage in the supermarket since she never realised that all that shiny packets stacked up by the checkout were sweets. However, since Five improved their children’s programming, with great shows like Bottle Top Bill, she’s been changing channels and watching commercial TV. Yesterday in the bathroom she said to Carol, my partner, “There’s a lavatory cleaner you can get now that has something in it that makes it stay in the toilet, even after you’ve flushed it, so that it can keep on killing germs. We should get some of that.” Later on she said, “You know, there’s a shampoo you can get that makes your hair really bouncy and shiny. It’s got a new ingredient.”
I’m starting to think that maybe it wasn’t such a smart idea preventing her from getting the hang of adverts earlier. I bet other kids her age just filter them out, like we grown-ups do.
There’s a tunnel I walk through every day on the way to work. It leads from Blackfriars underground station to the pedestrian walkway that runs west along the Embankment from Saint Paul’s to just after Blackfriars Bridge. It’s a great tunnel, low and gently curving as it slopes uphill, with a black and yellow tiled floor and long rows of recessed fluorescent lights along both edges of the ceiling. It often has a strong breeze blowing down it, smelling of the river and when you reach the end you have a great view along the Thames towards Waterloo bridge and the Houses of Parliament. I love the drama of that end of the tunnel; you never know whether the tide’s going to be high or low and the weather often seems different to how it was on the railway station.
Latest Comments
RSS