Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Time Traveller
This is a great blog if you are looking for the more obscure rock music of the 60's and 70's
Monday, October 30, 2006
David Milliband
Saw David Miliband on Newsnight tonight for the for first time.
Before the caption came up - I thought he was a shadow member of the opposition.
He looked Tory, sounded Tory and if I were bloodhound he smelt Tory.
He had some plug in his ear - possibly some spin doctor giving him feed when questioned by Paxman.
Before the caption came up - I thought he was a shadow member of the opposition.
He looked Tory, sounded Tory and if I were bloodhound he smelt Tory.
He had some plug in his ear - possibly some spin doctor giving him feed when questioned by Paxman.
Nairn's London
I had to get this book from Amazon. I am a great fan of Jonathan Meades and enjoy his television programmes. One commentator compared him to Ian Nairn. I recalled Nairn's Travels (BBC TV*) and was entertained by the fact that someone can go into a any town centre and make it into a televisual feast of people, place and buildings.
Ian died into apparent obscurity at the age of 52, leaving behind a small legacy of work. One of which was Nairn's London. I was pleased I bought it. It is bedtime reading - not airport. The book is loosely structured around area and zones and certain building are arbitrarily selected, but the book is great fun.
I love the following comment about the The Spaniard's Inn in Hampstead
Hampstead pubs are usually not much fun: they are like a private society whose performance is not worth the entrance fee - the intellectual equivalent of the Soho strip-tease club. But The Spaniards, at the very top end of the Heath, gets a solid butt from its cockncy visitors, at least in fine weather. The mixture shakes down very well; the warren of dark rooms, the big gardens, and this mingling of ages and classes make it more like a German beer-garden than anywhere else I know in London. The atmosphere has all grown together, just like the slap-happy brick and weatherboard walls of the pub. 'I'he one thing which will kill it is wholesale redecoration. Good beer, the serious drinker's standby in foreign parts: Draught Bass and Worthington E.
The Spaniards would be a memorable place anyway: opposite the pub is a small square tollhouse, now a splendid obstruction. It reduces a busy London cross-route to a single car-width at a blind bend. The road all of a sudden, is not everything: and so far from being wished away in the name of progress, local opinion wants to keep it. The cars, ,T course, sort it all out, as they will if they are given the chance and not beaten into bloody-minded truculence with too many rules.'
The Spaniards has kept its atmosphere, its tollhouse and its Draught Bass.
You also have a description of thee Crown and Greyhound, South of the River in Dulwich Village
Think of all the things which you have been told don't wrought iron, leaded lights, plastic flowers, olde woodwork, whole lot in a big Victorian pub and you have a masterpiece _
entirely to the superb life and taste (true taste, not 'good arranger - surely in this case the landlord or landlady. It is an act of love, it bursts out all over - and has the same reverberating effect an untouched nineteenth-century pub, because it is set off by a similar gusto. The reflections, the intricacy, the richness and depth, are all there, achieved by means which are normally attached to gentility. It is a wonderful place to be in, which is enough; but it is also a wonderful torch to carry through the dark alleys of self-consciousness and academism. Really be your real self, like this, and nothing can go wrong. There is a mirror here with leaded lights on it...
Brilliant stuff, must embark on a similar before I hand in my dinner pail
Ian died into apparent obscurity at the age of 52, leaving behind a small legacy of work. One of which was Nairn's London. I was pleased I bought it. It is bedtime reading - not airport. The book is loosely structured around area and zones and certain building are arbitrarily selected, but the book is great fun.
I love the following comment about the The Spaniard's Inn in Hampstead
Hampstead pubs are usually not much fun: they are like a private society whose performance is not worth the entrance fee - the intellectual equivalent of the Soho strip-tease club. But The Spaniards, at the very top end of the Heath, gets a solid butt from its cockncy visitors, at least in fine weather. The mixture shakes down very well; the warren of dark rooms, the big gardens, and this mingling of ages and classes make it more like a German beer-garden than anywhere else I know in London. The atmosphere has all grown together, just like the slap-happy brick and weatherboard walls of the pub. 'I'he one thing which will kill it is wholesale redecoration. Good beer, the serious drinker's standby in foreign parts: Draught Bass and Worthington E.
The Spaniards would be a memorable place anyway: opposite the pub is a small square tollhouse, now a splendid obstruction. It reduces a busy London cross-route to a single car-width at a blind bend. The road all of a sudden, is not everything: and so far from being wished away in the name of progress, local opinion wants to keep it. The cars, ,T course, sort it all out, as they will if they are given the chance and not beaten into bloody-minded truculence with too many rules.'
The Spaniards has kept its atmosphere, its tollhouse and its Draught Bass.
You also have a description of thee Crown and Greyhound, South of the River in Dulwich Village
Think of all the things which you have been told don't wrought iron, leaded lights, plastic flowers, olde woodwork, whole lot in a big Victorian pub and you have a masterpiece _
entirely to the superb life and taste (true taste, not 'good arranger - surely in this case the landlord or landlady. It is an act of love, it bursts out all over - and has the same reverberating effect an untouched nineteenth-century pub, because it is set off by a similar gusto. The reflections, the intricacy, the richness and depth, are all there, achieved by means which are normally attached to gentility. It is a wonderful place to be in, which is enough; but it is also a wonderful torch to carry through the dark alleys of self-consciousness and academism. Really be your real self, like this, and nothing can go wrong. There is a mirror here with leaded lights on it...
Brilliant stuff, must embark on a similar before I hand in my dinner pail
Muji
Transport for London fucked around with the buses yesterday. They were few and far between. So I walked it up to the West End, I went via Covent Garden; that was a bloody mistake! It was mobbed. Hundreds of people going for a sunday walk and looking in the various tut shops - whether they buy anything is debateable. I walked up the street with the painted human statues - they still manage to attract crowds, but they don't do anything apart from looking extremely silly. I guess one has to work extremely hard to feel entertained or amused by these street entertainers. I went through Long Acre - it was a nightmare, past tut shop after tut shop, I suppose they are great places into which to mooch around, but anything that is sold in these shops immediately turns into clutter once got home. Their future is uncertain, they may turn into future Christmas presents, find their way into the room where all the useless now (but may come in handy at some point in the future) objects are stored or end up in a car boot sale. We used to rag and bone men who'd relieve of such trash, but not any more. Then we have Tumi, a shop selling what I could only describe as modern Japonoiserie - the range is from plastic beakers to handbags - basically crap. Yet people buy from this shop, I guess some people consider it a little chic to carry around one of their bags.
I returned via the South Bank - they have ruined the area around the Royal Festival Hall - built a parade of shops at the basement level in front of the hall and have done likewise to the west side on the opposing side. These shops, in the main, sell, you've guessed it - Tut! It is as if Central London is turning into one vast novelty retail park.
I returned via the South Bank - they have ruined the area around the Royal Festival Hall - built a parade of shops at the basement level in front of the hall and have done likewise to the west side on the opposing side. These shops, in the main, sell, you've guessed it - Tut! It is as if Central London is turning into one vast novelty retail park.
As for the property market...
...it is bloated with grossly inflated house prices. Yes, the rise of house prices is inflationary - there is too much money chasing after unaffordable housing. I watched one advert yesterday where it showed this squeezing into a left-luggage locker sized flat; the Woolwich advertised if the house is too small then they would dish out more money for you to buy your development.
Who is fool enough to buy a house these days. It seems that the economic lessons have not been learned - an economic downturn results in severe negative - houses get revalued and one is lumbered with a headache of large mortgage, in addition economic bring along the obligatory increases in interest rates.
Funny thing is that there appears to be an apparent slow-down in buying a property but, oddly enough, no slow down in the price increases. Property developers and banks will have a lot to answer for when the chickens come home to roost.
Who is fool enough to buy a house these days. It seems that the economic lessons have not been learned - an economic downturn results in severe negative - houses get revalued and one is lumbered with a headache of large mortgage, in addition economic bring along the obligatory increases in interest rates.
Funny thing is that there appears to be an apparent slow-down in buying a property but, oddly enough, no slow down in the price increases. Property developers and banks will have a lot to answer for when the chickens come home to roost.
Flog Your House
I can't find the zapper to change the channels on tv - so I'm stuck with this fucking programme on how to flog your house. The presenter calls the house "The Development" - the guy flogging his home has to flog his car to pay for improvements The Development. Gosh! I can't believe the crap on tv; I can't believe that many people have turned into property fetishists. Their kids are forced to do well and become successful. Life is no longer enjoyable because we have this notion that the success achieved in the pursuit of wealth.
Then the prog goes on to this Art Deco house in Surrey - it was a load of bollocks, there was an ugly Art Deco fireplace, it looked quite horrible. In addition they put two planks of different coloured wood on the wall, one red, one blue; the female of the couple described the colours as quite vibrant. This was high grade and expensive bullshit.
Then the prog goes on to this Art Deco house in Surrey - it was a load of bollocks, there was an ugly Art Deco fireplace, it looked quite horrible. In addition they put two planks of different coloured wood on the wall, one red, one blue; the female of the couple described the colours as quite vibrant. This was high grade and expensive bullshit.
