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.
Messaged from the Outhouse 