Monday, 16 November 2009
Spandau Ballet
Just a little note to say that setting aside the crap venue and awful facilities at the O2 Spandau Ballet were really very very good and far better than we all thought they would be. Tony Hadley in dark suit rambled about the stage like a demented shark alternately growling and cooing the wonderful lyrics to their beautiful anthems. Each line supported in riposte by the most fabulous sax music bringing the crowd straight back to the 80's and that haunting sound they captured so well and made their own. The brothers Kemp prowling around the stage with their guitars, menacing the other guys and rolling into each old standard with energy and charisma. This was a great night out- now think how much better it could have been at the Hammersmith Odeon rather than the plastic greenwich bubble.
The O2 Arena
Oh yes, the O2, the very pinnacle of entertainment venues we are told, the worlds most succesful concert venue, everyone wants to play there and so on and so forth. Well lets dispel the myth. It is big. It is in London. From some seats you get a good view.
From most seats the view is distant and the sound poor. The catering inside the venue is poor, formulaic rubbish at exhorbitant prices; £25 for a bottle of crap white wine, £4 for watery lager in plastic flower pots, £4 for cardboard chips in damp cardboard boxes the dilemma is which to eat? In fact don't eat any of this crap - it will kill you.
Outside the venue the choice is far greater, there is a tapas bar, a mexican, a chinese restaurant, thai food, and several formula bars. They are all crap too. Food and drink done without passion, flavour, authenticity, real ingredients and care delivered by low paid staff in low rent kiosks. Plastic food in plastic film set units with a plastic smile and a plastic table cloth. The only thing of quality is the price.
This is a good concert venue in the same way that planet hollywood is a good restuarant or that Jordan is a beautiful woman.
By the way, if you are tempted by the priority ticket offers that O2 go on about so much please think again. You see this is marketing at its finest. The priority trick assumes that tickets will be difficult to find or come by (which you don't know until they go on general sale). If you think they will be hard to get then you will be pleased to jump the queue as a valued O2 customer and get your tickets ahead of the rush. Only problem is that O2, in my experience, take this as an opportunity to get rid of all the awful tickets up the side of the arena that they could not get rid of normally to the grateful punters who think they are beating the rush. Clever stuff eh? Sell the crap tickets first to muppets who think that priority means that they are doing you a favour rather than what is obviously the other way around. By selling all of the rubbish seats it gurantees that the venue is a success and when normal punters (or more often that not glorified touts- sorry ticket agencies) come on line to buy the decent seats they do not have anything to complain about. Genius.
From most seats the view is distant and the sound poor. The catering inside the venue is poor, formulaic rubbish at exhorbitant prices; £25 for a bottle of crap white wine, £4 for watery lager in plastic flower pots, £4 for cardboard chips in damp cardboard boxes the dilemma is which to eat? In fact don't eat any of this crap - it will kill you.
Outside the venue the choice is far greater, there is a tapas bar, a mexican, a chinese restaurant, thai food, and several formula bars. They are all crap too. Food and drink done without passion, flavour, authenticity, real ingredients and care delivered by low paid staff in low rent kiosks. Plastic food in plastic film set units with a plastic smile and a plastic table cloth. The only thing of quality is the price.
This is a good concert venue in the same way that planet hollywood is a good restuarant or that Jordan is a beautiful woman.
By the way, if you are tempted by the priority ticket offers that O2 go on about so much please think again. You see this is marketing at its finest. The priority trick assumes that tickets will be difficult to find or come by (which you don't know until they go on general sale). If you think they will be hard to get then you will be pleased to jump the queue as a valued O2 customer and get your tickets ahead of the rush. Only problem is that O2, in my experience, take this as an opportunity to get rid of all the awful tickets up the side of the arena that they could not get rid of normally to the grateful punters who think they are beating the rush. Clever stuff eh? Sell the crap tickets first to muppets who think that priority means that they are doing you a favour rather than what is obviously the other way around. By selling all of the rubbish seats it gurantees that the venue is a success and when normal punters (or more often that not glorified touts- sorry ticket agencies) come on line to buy the decent seats they do not have anything to complain about. Genius.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Leather Lane
Its raining so not too good to be outside today. Leather Lane is a good compromise, sandwiched between the Grays Inn Road and Hatton Garden the market offers the usual low rent mix of mobile phone accessories, global food (Daddy Donkey's Kick Ass Burito's being a favourite) clothes strictly for fancy dress, knock off DVD's and seeds and nuts for the corpse dodgers.
In amongst this however is some great architecture (in individual buildings) good cafe culture, and a great independent bookstore ( The Soho Bookshop) with a design specialism upstairs and a porn shop in the basement for those who like to mix the two. Haircuts are a fiver, your shoes can be re-soled, and the fellafels from Sara's grocery are authentic.
The nature of markets in London and our relationship with them is strange. If Leather Lane were not there, few would mourn its passing, but as a part of the character of this eclectic part of town, it is as essential as black cabs and red buses. It sells little of value and probably provides grey earnings for a range of illegals and benefit cheats but nevertheless is unique in its diversity and provides part of the flavour for "midtown", hidden from the agents boards and grade a offices the agents sell , separate from the girly bars on the Farringdon Road, discrete from the Victorian splendour of Smithfield and the Holborn Viaduct and cheek by jowell with the precious metal dealers and diamond merchants of Hatton Garden. Indeed the difference between the traders in Leather Lane and Hatton Garden is hard to see beyond the sharp suits and doorway heavies. This analogy could be stretched to include those who ply there trade in Grey's Inn as well but with less obvious doorway heavies.
As a footnote a good place to spin off is Brookes Market, now no longer a market but a square notable for its european influences (if you can see beyond the preponderance of Camden bins) and the beautiful gothic of St Albans the Martyr in the corner. Here on a rainy day, it is possible to still sit beneath the impermeable canopy provided by the London Planes and dream of better days.
In amongst this however is some great architecture (in individual buildings) good cafe culture, and a great independent bookstore ( The Soho Bookshop) with a design specialism upstairs and a porn shop in the basement for those who like to mix the two. Haircuts are a fiver, your shoes can be re-soled, and the fellafels from Sara's grocery are authentic.
The nature of markets in London and our relationship with them is strange. If Leather Lane were not there, few would mourn its passing, but as a part of the character of this eclectic part of town, it is as essential as black cabs and red buses. It sells little of value and probably provides grey earnings for a range of illegals and benefit cheats but nevertheless is unique in its diversity and provides part of the flavour for "midtown", hidden from the agents boards and grade a offices the agents sell , separate from the girly bars on the Farringdon Road, discrete from the Victorian splendour of Smithfield and the Holborn Viaduct and cheek by jowell with the precious metal dealers and diamond merchants of Hatton Garden. Indeed the difference between the traders in Leather Lane and Hatton Garden is hard to see beyond the sharp suits and doorway heavies. This analogy could be stretched to include those who ply there trade in Grey's Inn as well but with less obvious doorway heavies.
As a footnote a good place to spin off is Brookes Market, now no longer a market but a square notable for its european influences (if you can see beyond the preponderance of Camden bins) and the beautiful gothic of St Albans the Martyr in the corner. Here on a rainy day, it is possible to still sit beneath the impermeable canopy provided by the London Planes and dream of better days.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
St Pauls
Rather than sit through an office lunch at the screen reading and eating crap I have decided to roam my local world for an hour when work allows.
Today I ended up at St Pauls. I've lived in London most of my forty odd years but had never been inside. Breathtaking.
Whilst in poorer times I have objected to paying to get into Churches I handed over the cash and started roaming, I only had one objective, to climb the dome. After two laps I found the stairs, a lazy slack spiral at first ascending in pidgeon paces up a long climb to the internal gallery (the Whispering Gallery) that wraps the inside of the base of the dome. The scene inside is fascinating and to watch a service from here amazing, the mosaics on the floor and the brightly frescoed walls and dome above reflect Wren's desire to bridge the gap between heaven and earth. An artifice achieved.
Alone it is difficult to whisper to oneself across the great chasm but the italians mumbling faberanza got the message across adequately.
A little door on the far side has an arrow pointing up and through a narrow set of stone steps, past ancient oak doors and iron framed oriel windows leads another stair, a tighter stone circle, up to the external "Stone Gallery". From here you step outside, breathe heavilly and look to the horizon. Fabulous views open up and the scale of the cathedral starts to take over your head. It is vast. You look down on churches, offices and Paternoster Square, full of insects going about London life without looking up, never quite appreciating what looms above.
A lap of this deck enables you to gather the strength and breath for the last stage up to the Golden Gallery. This is a more daunting climb, gone are the stone steps replaced by a lattice of iron spirals in sets of 20 steps between landings, rising through the inside of the dome shell between the outer surface and inner trappings. The ironwork is old and rests on beams upon beams with rather worrying later concrete interventions moulded around the stairs. Again you pass tiny oak doors and lattices of footways and passages, here more precarious and less enclosed than at the lower levels, you pass vestiges of original stone and timber stairs long ago abandonned and leading in alternate directions. My heart was pumping hard, either from the climb or the vertigo. Finally you arive at the last flight a narrow place of stone steps, lowering ceilings and steep ascent, you enter a chamber with the obligatory tourist guards, and make a final stumble, back on stone, up onto this gallery that runs around the outside of the top of the dome, before the stone ball and lantern rise up above.
If you thought the previous views were good here you can almost see the Sea to the east as you overlook the Port of London, the Thames runs shimmering in a loop to the south beyond to the downs and to the north the Weald Ridge, Wembley and Harrow. London seems but small and its edges within touching distance. This view is amazing. In medieval London this must truly have felt like rising up to god, with no buildings over a few stories back then, the feeling must have been one of fear and awe. This remains. The power and grandeur embodied in this monument will stand in comparison to any contemporary buildings in history as a testament to the power of religeon and the unutterable stupidity of man. The ability of Man to create this and then dedicate it to a deity shows how low our self esteem must be, when simply to build this edifice should demonstrate that man alone has the power of creation.
I loved it. Where to tomorrow?
Today I ended up at St Pauls. I've lived in London most of my forty odd years but had never been inside. Breathtaking.
Whilst in poorer times I have objected to paying to get into Churches I handed over the cash and started roaming, I only had one objective, to climb the dome. After two laps I found the stairs, a lazy slack spiral at first ascending in pidgeon paces up a long climb to the internal gallery (the Whispering Gallery) that wraps the inside of the base of the dome. The scene inside is fascinating and to watch a service from here amazing, the mosaics on the floor and the brightly frescoed walls and dome above reflect Wren's desire to bridge the gap between heaven and earth. An artifice achieved.
Alone it is difficult to whisper to oneself across the great chasm but the italians mumbling faberanza got the message across adequately.
A little door on the far side has an arrow pointing up and through a narrow set of stone steps, past ancient oak doors and iron framed oriel windows leads another stair, a tighter stone circle, up to the external "Stone Gallery". From here you step outside, breathe heavilly and look to the horizon. Fabulous views open up and the scale of the cathedral starts to take over your head. It is vast. You look down on churches, offices and Paternoster Square, full of insects going about London life without looking up, never quite appreciating what looms above.
A lap of this deck enables you to gather the strength and breath for the last stage up to the Golden Gallery. This is a more daunting climb, gone are the stone steps replaced by a lattice of iron spirals in sets of 20 steps between landings, rising through the inside of the dome shell between the outer surface and inner trappings. The ironwork is old and rests on beams upon beams with rather worrying later concrete interventions moulded around the stairs. Again you pass tiny oak doors and lattices of footways and passages, here more precarious and less enclosed than at the lower levels, you pass vestiges of original stone and timber stairs long ago abandonned and leading in alternate directions. My heart was pumping hard, either from the climb or the vertigo. Finally you arive at the last flight a narrow place of stone steps, lowering ceilings and steep ascent, you enter a chamber with the obligatory tourist guards, and make a final stumble, back on stone, up onto this gallery that runs around the outside of the top of the dome, before the stone ball and lantern rise up above.
If you thought the previous views were good here you can almost see the Sea to the east as you overlook the Port of London, the Thames runs shimmering in a loop to the south beyond to the downs and to the north the Weald Ridge, Wembley and Harrow. London seems but small and its edges within touching distance. This view is amazing. In medieval London this must truly have felt like rising up to god, with no buildings over a few stories back then, the feeling must have been one of fear and awe. This remains. The power and grandeur embodied in this monument will stand in comparison to any contemporary buildings in history as a testament to the power of religeon and the unutterable stupidity of man. The ability of Man to create this and then dedicate it to a deity shows how low our self esteem must be, when simply to build this edifice should demonstrate that man alone has the power of creation.
I loved it. Where to tomorrow?
Monday, 8 June 2009
Gordon Brown- and the supine ministers.
The one thing that is evident from the state of the Labour Party is apparently that Gordon Brown is the only one who can lead them. The complete absence of any spine in his fellow party members and their refusal to remove him from office demonstrates the unsuitability of the whole party for Government. That he has lost the last vestiges of respect from the electorate is apparent to absolutely everyone. The inability of the supine minitsters (Johnson and the inanely grinnning banana boy) who refuse to oppose him and those that have resigned because he didn't promote them (Flint) are simply demonstrating their own unsuitability for office.
What would it take for Gordo to resign. Clinging on to office now looks inevitable but this will render the Labour Party at next Mays election even less credible. A party that has outstayed its welcome led by a man that none can support. The landslide will take Labour to pieces, possibly forever.
Now we hear that it is because of the economic turmoil that Brown must stay in office to sort it out. He helped to maximise the depth of the slump we are in through the willful waste of hard cash being pumped into public services with no actual plan, squandering the wealth that the growth years had generated. This is like Jonathan Ross being put in charge of the broadcasting standards association.
I hear also that it is because of the MP's expenses fiasco that we should not have an election until they have had a chance to change the rules and clean up parliament. The public apparently would prefer them to stay in office unitl this has been achieved? This is madness and the crass nature of this argument quite unbelievable- how stupid do they think we are?
Gordon has a spine and a brass neck and a rhino hide- there is clearly no shame in this party who will cling on to the last minute to suck the final shilling from the pockets of the electorate and keep their jobs for an extra nine months.
Moral compass Gordon-I don't think so.
What would it take for Gordo to resign. Clinging on to office now looks inevitable but this will render the Labour Party at next Mays election even less credible. A party that has outstayed its welcome led by a man that none can support. The landslide will take Labour to pieces, possibly forever.
Now we hear that it is because of the economic turmoil that Brown must stay in office to sort it out. He helped to maximise the depth of the slump we are in through the willful waste of hard cash being pumped into public services with no actual plan, squandering the wealth that the growth years had generated. This is like Jonathan Ross being put in charge of the broadcasting standards association.
I hear also that it is because of the MP's expenses fiasco that we should not have an election until they have had a chance to change the rules and clean up parliament. The public apparently would prefer them to stay in office unitl this has been achieved? This is madness and the crass nature of this argument quite unbelievable- how stupid do they think we are?
Gordon has a spine and a brass neck and a rhino hide- there is clearly no shame in this party who will cling on to the last minute to suck the final shilling from the pockets of the electorate and keep their jobs for an extra nine months.
Moral compass Gordon-I don't think so.
Friday, 6 February 2009
Power Stations
The Russians are taking the piss out of the European Union by ransoming all and sundry on the price of natural gas. Our own gas resources are dwindling and will run out in the foreseeable future (5 yrs?). The Government today anounced that it has given permission for the construction of three new gas-fired power stations in the UK.
Now tell me, what sort of a fucking idiot would tie their national energy future to Russian Gas having seen how they treat their dependents? Who would do that? Your Government, that's who.
Now tell me, what sort of a fucking idiot would tie their national energy future to Russian Gas having seen how they treat their dependents? Who would do that? Your Government, that's who.
Snow Travel Metropolitan Style.
Not long ago I did an unpleasant piece on London Underground. Today they earned it in spades.
7.45 arrive at Station after perilous journey through snow.
Good Service metropolitan Line advertised on board.
Catch train (Fast Aldgate) Yippee. Phone wife, don't worry trains OK. Going to work.
2nd Stop (Harrow) This train is terminating here please change trains.
Get aboard 2nd Metropolitan Line Train. 1 stop later. This train is going out of service please change here. (Wembley Park). There will be no more Metropolitan Trains due to a signal failure at Baker Street. Please take a Jubillee line train.
Jubillee Train Comes. Full. (No... really full).
Next Train. Jubillee to Stratford. Yippeee- will get to work afterall.
Next station: This train has developed a fault and will termiante at Neasden.
Next two Jubillee trains :Full. Yes- as before.
Metropolitan Line trains passing under full steam- they dont stop here- service has clearly resumed!
Jubillee Line Train to Stratford. Yippee.
This train will terminate at Green Park.
Four trains, four terminations, none Snow related as far as I know.
Prospects of getting to work - slim.
Journey time: Eventually 2.25.
Explanations and apologies: None.
Cost : £11.00
Nature of Service: Shit.
7.45 arrive at Station after perilous journey through snow.
Good Service metropolitan Line advertised on board.
Catch train (Fast Aldgate) Yippee. Phone wife, don't worry trains OK. Going to work.
2nd Stop (Harrow) This train is terminating here please change trains.
Get aboard 2nd Metropolitan Line Train. 1 stop later. This train is going out of service please change here. (Wembley Park). There will be no more Metropolitan Trains due to a signal failure at Baker Street. Please take a Jubillee line train.
Jubillee Train Comes. Full. (No... really full).
Next Train. Jubillee to Stratford. Yippeee- will get to work afterall.
Next station: This train has developed a fault and will termiante at Neasden.
Next two Jubillee trains :Full. Yes- as before.
Metropolitan Line trains passing under full steam- they dont stop here- service has clearly resumed!
Jubillee Line Train to Stratford. Yippee.
This train will terminate at Green Park.
Four trains, four terminations, none Snow related as far as I know.
Prospects of getting to work - slim.
Journey time: Eventually 2.25.
Explanations and apologies: None.
Cost : £11.00
Nature of Service: Shit.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Global Warming Climate Change Snow
It is reassuring to know that those committed to fighting global warming can hapilly identify that colder winters and crazy snow events in the UK are a sign of, and are consistent with Global Warming either through the fact that it now happens so much more rarely than it used to (argument no 1) and consequently we are less prepared than we used to be, or conversely that more and more extreme weather events are likely as we proceed down the road to climate change (argument no 2). Both of these arguments were deployed yesterday.
Those with more than one third of a brain will realise that they are contradictory and exclusive to one another. If the climate change advocates are correct and extreme weather events are to be more common then the global warming (this happens far less frequently now because things are warming up) devotees must be wrong and vice-versa. Neither however would suggest that extremely cold weather events may be proof that global warming or climate change was imaginary and that the trend that prevailed from 1980 to 2005 (temperatures have cooled since 2005) has reversed. This would be to admit that we do not have a thorough understanding of weather and climate on planet earth and that our vanity in suggesting that we could change it was simply that. Vanity.
Those with more than one third of a brain will realise that they are contradictory and exclusive to one another. If the climate change advocates are correct and extreme weather events are to be more common then the global warming (this happens far less frequently now because things are warming up) devotees must be wrong and vice-versa. Neither however would suggest that extremely cold weather events may be proof that global warming or climate change was imaginary and that the trend that prevailed from 1980 to 2005 (temperatures have cooled since 2005) has reversed. This would be to admit that we do not have a thorough understanding of weather and climate on planet earth and that our vanity in suggesting that we could change it was simply that. Vanity.
Monday, 19 January 2009
The Economy Stupid
Well please bear with me on this one.
If the Government bails out the banks again etc it will finally have spent a decent proportion of a trillion pounds, that is a million million, on reflotaing the financial system. That equates to £18k for every man woman and child in the UK.
Er: If you did that it would give my family an extra £90 k in our pocket to weather the economic down-turn- This would put an awful lot of money back into the system but not into the hands of the banks who are morally and economically bankrupt. Businesses would prosper, manufacturers would prosper and the personnal debt mountain would be significantly reduced. People may put money into savings that could then be re-lent by the banks to business, in short a succesful bail out of the economy. (You may have to stop them from spending it on foreign goods as we don't make anything anymore).
By cutting out the stage where consumers are given the money to reduce debt, the Government have squandered the money on bailing out the banks for the dodgy (US ) securities thay took on without helping the UK taxpayer. Our personal debt mountain remains in play (as we are more likely to pay it back) whilst the US sub-prime mortgages are in effect paid off. This means that UK consumers, reeling under debt, will be reluctant to borrow any more cash (or spend it) until their long-term employment prospects improve. Something that will only happen long after the recession has bottomed. Without this return to confidence nothing will lift us out of the decline.
We can all see that this is madness but, like the cut in VAT, no one is prepared to say that to his face (that is Gordons').
Sadly I do not propose that we should give the money to the UK taxpayer but giving it to the banks who will use it to terminate or balance their books against debt overseas is the wrong choice.
If need be start a national bank. Pull the rug from the idiots who lost the money in the first place and start lending as a Government without the same profit ethic of the banks, this could be far more beneficial to the UK economy than the alternative of simply pressing the re-set button and letting the same wasters find new ways (is that derivatives?) of losing the money again. Cnuts.
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
The economy, Gaza or London Underground
Short post today- London Underground. Fucking hell how shit can they get?
I don't even need to explain.
I don't even need to explain.
Monday, 12 January 2009
What to do - the economy or the Israeli's or Gazprom
Its not too long ago that the western "democracies" of Europe were held ransom by the rising oil producing nations of the middle east and the UK and others vowed never to be so energy dependent again on one supplier. So when we now find that Europe, thankfully not including the UK, has tossed all of its apples into the Russian Gas basket and been royally shafted by the Russian government we can only look on incredulous.
Any argument that the former Soviet state has changed its ways or is now dependent upon the west for its economic success and will behave, or that we can do business with these people is madness. Thankfully the oil producing middle eastern states have turned out to be a far more honest broker than the Russians ever will. Russian actions and Russian diplomacy are no more than the machinations of the playground but on a far grander scale.
For contemporary examples of their values look no further than the BP conflict last year where in effect the state government intervened to pervert an investment in favour of Russia's finest bent oligarchs.
Look also at the invasion of Georgia, designed to prevent the "defection" of states to the Nato or EU umbrella.
Or perhaps look at the murder of Litvinenko.
We as a nation should not entertain the notion that Russia is a changed place or that Putin is a person you can deal with. He represents no more than the sick face of the same clique that has dominated Russia for the last 90 years be it under communism or the new model, the bottom line is a self interested cabal in power protecting only their own interests.
Even at a basic level the row with the Ukraine over the gas price, a year on year increase of 100%, is a direct state sponsored mission by a "private company" (a cash cow extension of the corrupt Russian leadership) to prevent the Ukraine from joining Nato. Putin has more in common with Mugabe than any other political leader as he and his cronies bleed the Russian state for all it is worth.
Any argument that the former Soviet state has changed its ways or is now dependent upon the west for its economic success and will behave, or that we can do business with these people is madness. Thankfully the oil producing middle eastern states have turned out to be a far more honest broker than the Russians ever will. Russian actions and Russian diplomacy are no more than the machinations of the playground but on a far grander scale.
For contemporary examples of their values look no further than the BP conflict last year where in effect the state government intervened to pervert an investment in favour of Russia's finest bent oligarchs.
Look also at the invasion of Georgia, designed to prevent the "defection" of states to the Nato or EU umbrella.
Or perhaps look at the murder of Litvinenko.
We as a nation should not entertain the notion that Russia is a changed place or that Putin is a person you can deal with. He represents no more than the sick face of the same clique that has dominated Russia for the last 90 years be it under communism or the new model, the bottom line is a self interested cabal in power protecting only their own interests.
Even at a basic level the row with the Ukraine over the gas price, a year on year increase of 100%, is a direct state sponsored mission by a "private company" (a cash cow extension of the corrupt Russian leadership) to prevent the Ukraine from joining Nato. Putin has more in common with Mugabe than any other political leader as he and his cronies bleed the Russian state for all it is worth.
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