As seen in Rabbiting On, the best publication in the universe. Maybe there is a god?

Yesterday the best girlfriend ever and myself entered our minuscule all terrain vehicle and dared flooded roads, badger attacks and overprotective pheasants to drive to the English equivalent of Ankh-Morpork. There her eminence had secured us two tickets to see three comedians and my high priest of musical comedy, the ever so brilliant Bill Bailey in -of all places- a church. Not any church, though. A rather impressive example of victorian gothic architecture in Islington, the Union Chapel is as impressive as it gets. They even ask you whether you want your Hobgoblin at room temperature or cold. Bloody brilliant! Before we finally got to see Bailey, we sat through 2 hours of ‘stand up’ (which in my vocabulary unfortunately still stands for some bloke on a stage trying to get through as many four letter words as possible) and was pleasantly surprised.

It didn’t start well, though, as the MC of the evening was the rather  execrable Charlie Baker, who obviously believes that the word ‘knockers’ is still funny. Before the gig the best girlfriend ever mused that if this is going down in a consecrated church, they are probably unlikely to be allowed to swear. Boy was she wrong.  Rufus Hound who was obviously out on stage to deliberately shock a lefty liberal audience waiting for Bailey to appear. I do think he almost got there. Always in the verge of being misogynistic, he nevertheless managed to convey the tragic aspects of male masturbation, the idiocy of ritual circumcision and the importance of oral sex in the world in such disarmingly honest tones that even the best girlfriend ever was delighted.

I am though not sure why the mother of the two ca 10 year old girls thought it would be a good idea to bring her daughters to the gig. I am sure there will be trauma. And questions (‘Mummy? What is cocksucking? Does it involve poultry?’).

Pat Cahill was even better: his songs about tumour ridden Jack Russels (‘this dog is not in any visible pain. I’ve sang it eight times and I’ll sing it again’) and routine about booze combinations were outstanding. Have a look:

What Bridget Christie was doing on stage I have no idea. Lost and forlorn, she was neither funny nor witty and the poor women knew it.

Bill Bailey? Well, he is obviously getting more angry with politicians these days (deservedly so), doesn’t particularly like Nick Clegg and fails to see the point of Danish tv. And continues to invite the most sophisticated hecklers (“PLAY AN ALTERED SCALE!!”).

Brillant night. If somebody wound have warned me about Bridget Christie in advance I might have been able to get another Hobgoblin, but you can’t have anything in life.

It is beyond scientific and rational reasoning why there is no medium-hot mustard to acquire in the whole of Albion, so visitors from the continent who want to enter our humble abode have to pay their way in condiments.

It’s only fair.

Every evening on my way home I stand in front of this monstrosity and ask myself what kind of architect designs spaces like this or what he or she was on when he came up with it. Sometimes I think the bloke (and it must have been a man. No woman designs stuff like this) who came up with this had a dry spell in his creative flow and looked at his desk drawer and thought: ‘Yes, the official Olympic Shopping Centre in Stratford should look like a large metal filing cupboard with open drawers from the seventies. With glass windows’. And then he went to the pub and told his mates. And by god, did they laugh. And soon gazillions of visitors to London will not only ask themselves why the Olympic Village needa a mall, but also why it has to be so utterly ugly. 

You really have to ask yourself after looking at architectural wrecks like this one whether the much touted beautification of the East End is really going to plan. Just 500 meters away from the olympic park and whap bang next to the main arterial traffic route to the site, this festering wound of a building is just one of many where the local councils have obviously unable to convince the owners of the benefits of dynamite. Similar wrecks, albeit with residents, still litter Mile End Road.

It looks like the East End will retain its some of its shabby looks and the pyongyangisation is unsuccessful.

Whether that’s a good thing is a different matter.

Hampstead Heath mixed pond, picture by Emily_*

There is a large, green space in the north of London covering 320 hectares, surrounded by posh people and the nouveau riche. Hampstead Heath, as it is called, is normally full of runners, roller bladers and gentlemen looking to frolick around with other gentlemen, but today I learned that in 1950 and 1951 it was a venue for nordic ski jumping.

This useless piece of knowledge came to me in that lovely half-dormant state I normally encounter during 9 – 10am on a Saturday morning, when I listen to the reassuring voice of the Reverend Richard Cole on BBC Radio 4′s ‘Saturday Live’, the closest thing an atheist can come to a religious experience. Apparently a bunch of, ahem, “eccentrics”, from the Central Council of Physical Recreation, alongside the Ski Club of Great Britain and the Oslo Ski Association organised the transport of 45 tons of snow in insulated containers and built a 18 meter ski ramp to showcase the joy of ski-jumping (and have an Oxford vs Cambridge competition of that particular sport).

I think this should be re-instated. With Hampstead Heath’s current transient population of men enjoying ‘alternative lifestyles’, there is a potential glamorous competition in the making that Channel 5 should be delighted to sponsor.

"I think that's a soup kitchen over there"

There’s an interesting discussion going on in – of all places- Germany. The recent rise of the ‘Pirate Party‘ has created a rather heated confrontation between ‘content creators’ (although they prefer to call themselves authors) and the generation that grew up with all of the content that they ever wanted at their fingertips (whether it is via youtube or via illegal file sharing). The whole long burning discussion has gained some urgency with the success of the Pirate Party in two state parliaments. Their manifesto reads:

“[..]we demand not only legalisation, but the explicit encouragement of non-commercial copying, saving, using and accessing of content.”

Now if I were an artist, I would find that quite offensive. I am happy to admit that I have done my fair share of downloading in the early days of the net (with then advent of Napster) but since Apple and Amazon have made it so easy to get hold of legal content, I am happy to pay my share of for the works of my favourite artists. I have a few friends whose livelihood depends on their fans paying for the years they spent in a studio, and I can understand their fury about the proliferation of their blood, sweat and tears on illegal download sites. The digital environment of course gives you a plethora of choices how to distribute your content. I marvelled at Radiohead’s guts to premiere ‘In Rainbows’ as a ‘pay what you like’ download but their success certainly vindicated their decision, but how many bands can actually buy their toast and jam from schemes like this.

If you encourage the free distribution of any content, then you will have to accept that all artists will have to become part-time artists, as it is unlikely that the vast majority would be able to live off the fees that people would voluntarily pay. With other words, the amazing breadth of art that the internet is currently showcasing would shrivel and become the domain of the amateurs and the wealthy.

I think the ‘pirates’ have a policy gap there.

What do you think?

Check out who is who here.

I alight here about once a week to meet the people at my second job. A lovely bunch of coworkers, their place of productivity has recently been moved to a office in Bow Lane, giving me the chance to alight either at Mansion House or St Paul’s. I prefer getting out at Mansion House, but I never really invested a second thought on why it has this particular name.

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

Turns out it is the official residence of the Lord Mayor and has been there since building finished 1752 and these days is mainly known for HM’s chancellor’s ‘Mansion House speech’ in which he talks about important macro-economic issues of the day.

The station’s tunnels are populated with the destitute and homeless, which are having mainly micro-economic issues.

There is some sort of actio/reactio in this. Funny that.