Studio 54 All Over Again

On espying this at the hospital the other day I thought "My God, they've got a DISCO!"

On investigation it was no such thing, but one simply HAD to ask!

Greenwich

And to the observatory, which is still free, before the Tories punish us again.

First: Harrison's 4th clock: the one that solved the Longitude problem (as detailed in Dava Sorbel's excellent history of that name) which allowed Britain to become the greatest naval power in the world for two hundred years, and thus build an empire etc.


























Secondly; a rather poignant comment amongst otherwise dross:

Capello To Discuss Future With FA

Apparently, England's Italian supremo is sceptical about the pace of DNA research, believes that it's too early to write off the European Union, and is surprisingly upbeat about the introduction of flying cars by 2050.

Electric Hotel

London's biggest secret at the moment is Sadlers Wells' installation at the back of Kings Cross, where one can sit on wasteland with wireless headphones to watch Requardt & Rosenberg's magnificent installation Electric Hotel.

I went back the next night to photograph it, and was amused by the rubberneckers driving past on Goods Way, slowing down in confusion, unable to see the audience or hear the score, but witnessing what appears to be a real hotel, only with UNUSUAL BEHAVIOUR going on in it.

One such vehicle, full of working class men, paused before one of them bellowed: " That's some weird fucking shit!" before burning rubber as they sped away to avoid contamination.

I took that as an indicator of the event's validity.

Great fun, great art, and now on tour.

The Market v. Common Sense

I have long been jaded re; our Hallmark card culture where the masses are only too complicit in enriching the marketers of anything that can be sold under the guise of social celebration. Birthdays; Valentines; Halloween; Christmas; Easter; Weddings; Pregnancy; Births; Deaths; Graduation; Bank Holidays; Operations; Overthrow of Colonial Oppressors' Day; Your First Recession, whatever. There is now a card (read; sales opportunity) for any occassion, even occassions that didn't exist 30 years ago.

And it's no longer cards; it's wrapping paper; teddy bears; trinkets; t-shirts; mugs, in fact anything that you can screen-print, transfer or stitch onto.

It's not so much the ubiquity that I find so offensive, it's the unthinking obedience to the market that I can't bear.

I mention this, as I have just stood FOREVER behind a stupid woman at a checkout who took an UNFEASIBLY long-time to buy five items with a series of cards, and then tried to open a plastic bag with one hand because in her other she held a silver balloon on which was printed:

Happy Father's Dad!

It wasn't ironic, and the spelling actually didn't matter because she probably never even read it. After all, neither will the recipient, who, after feigning pleasure at the offering, will let it rest against the ceiling until whenever a female of the family will eventually tire of its presence and dispose of it.

No-one actually CARES about this stuff, because they feel nothing; but such is the devotion to the commercial pressures, nobody wants to be seen NOT doing it.

It's not as though anyone asks "Why have you wasted money on this shit? Is that all you think of me? Fuck off with your cheap gestures, get out of my house, I disown you; GO!"

No, the spelling doesn't matter because it's the shallowness of the sentiment and easy profit that counts.

And so our enemies soften us with cheap filigree, and thus weaken our defences for the day that they launch their war machines against our enfeebled race to certain victory; and thus our enslavement is completed!

Be Warned.

They Think It's All Over!

It's odd to be quoting the Radio 4's Today show's Thought for today, but earlier this week, a faith-based commentator rather succinctly linked the England fan's support for their national team with Oscar Wilde's remark about second marriages, in that both are the victory of hope over experience.

Having witnessed last night's debacle v. Algeria, I think is safe for the England team to confirm their status as the Newcastle United of international football.

Language!

I once worked at a reprographics site of corporate photocopier provider (whose name is the generic name for a photocopier), and worked with the most sweary man I ever worked with.

He was one of those fuckin' geazers who couldn't fuckin' get through a fuckin' sentence without fuckin' swearing.

One night, he came indoors after having a fag and, commenting on a recent delivery of printing consumables, announced: "There's a CUNTIN' load of paper aht there!"

Now that is professional swearing at its best.

I thought of him tonight when I heard an Irish cussing enthusiast at the bar regale his friends with tales of his recent trip to the far east, featuring "that fockin' cockroach in fockin' Koi Sumui!"

Fucking Ada, what a cocksucker!

Fuhrer Is Guru Shock

It's an interesting lunchtime. They're finally sorting out the lavatory blockage, and the useless plumber with the ponytail has managed to make the entire building stink like a seaside gents: with hilarious consequences!

Meanwhile, the BBC reports on the growing popularity of Herr Hitler amongst Indian youth.

Includes the quote:

"The killing of Jews was not good, but everybody has a positive and negative side."

Market v. Democracy

I appreciate that this post is 26 years late, and the arguments have been had, but I think that after all this time we should be able to do something about it.

I'm not a fan of advertising or the commercialisation of society, and I'm reluctant to support any campaign, but I am willling to be amused by ambush marketing, and particularly in the context of our brave new world's willingness to allow Mammon to buy our sporting jamborees.

The Bavaria brewery's low-budget / high impact lager ladies campaign has to be applauded if it highlights the vulgarity of sovereign nations allowing themselves to be bullied by the global corps into legislating on their behalf. Legislating!

According to the Daily Telegraph:

South Africa introduced legislation to provide protection for Fifa's sponsors, who have paid an estimated $1.2billion to be associated with the tournament. With sponsors providing a third of the revenue from the event protection is seen as crucial to maintaining the value of the rights. The UK has introduced similar legislation to protect the 2012 London Olympics.

To think that South African has only recently shaken off the totalitarian hand cuffs, I think it insane that they should be so keen to re-adopt them so freely.

We took our eye off the ball: We think we're fighting Big Brother, but it's Big Mac that's dictating who the dissidents are, and instructing our courts what the charges should be.

Shouldn't we be able to vote against this?

The World Turned Upside Down

I'm a tolerant man, as you know, but.

I've just been downstairs, and, on looking into the living room, witnessed the following:

To my right; an ironing basket, untouched. In ironing board, in place, with an iron in position at readiness.

To my left; my partner on the sofa watching Top Gear.

She didn't even look up.

Top Gear I ask you.

I mean.....

Top Gear!

There was football on the otherside for christs sake!

I'm come back upstairs to compose myself before taking it further.

North London Now

Somewhere
out
there,
is
a
large
black
cat
refusing
to
come
in

Dear Director General

I once worked with a young woman from New Zealand whose accent was so extreme that she actually talked out of the side of mouth, contorting her lips to the right in order to do so. You had to stand next to her to hear what she said.

I remember her solely because of the way she hated Britain. She hated everything about the mother country, but what she hated most of all, she hated the weather. And she felt that the weather was clearly the fault of the Britons.

I am reminded of this on the news that the BBC has received 545 complaints about the vuvuzela, the idiotic and insufferable novelty horn which is ruining the World Cup.

Like the weather, the vuvuzela has to be someone's fault, and who more appropriate than the BBC?

I didn't pay my licence fee to listen to a bunch of hottentots impersonating an oversubscribed moped rally!

Come to think about it, I didn't pay my licence fee!

Mary Whitehouse, where are you when we need you?

World Cup Opinion

Although I am failing to engage in the Brand-fest in South Africa, I have glimpsed from afar.

Two observations; Robert Green has received a pasting for his goalkeeping error, as expected, yet the press seem unable to comment on Gerrard's tendency to pass the ball square to the opposition just outside the England box. He's been doing it for years (and lost us the game against France in Euro2004) but such is his golden boy status, he remains untouched. He did it twice against the USA, who were mercifully unable to capitalise. That won't be the case against the real teams.

And talking of real teams. I've never been a believer in the nonsense that it's OK to scrape through ineffectually in the early rounds, as you have to save yourselves for the big games. The fact that England always scrape through and then FAIL to get further than the quarter finals proves a point.

Now watching the Germans last night: they went three nil up and put another striker on! Then they got a forth and put ANOTHER striker on.

That, gentlemen, is a statement of intent.

Sans Paroles

So we barrel out of the pub and over to the bus stop, where we have a seven minute wait for the next one, and I decide to pop into the offy for a couple of cans.

On the way in I see this, but damn it, I've forgotten my camera. I buy my cider and discuss to the resurgence of Forlan with the offy man who is pre-occupied with the France v. Uruguay. I'm on my way out, when I ask if he minds if I nab the Beaver poster.

Without taking his eyes off the game he laughs and says "Yeh"

Which leader, and which beaver is anyone's guess.

Limbo

Fun and Games from the Danes at Limbo

Now Wash Your Hands

I was at the urinal this morning, when I heard rustling, a flush, the click of a cubical door from which a chap emerged.

So far, so ordinary, but what happened next disturbed me.

At the sink, the man from trap one rolled up his sleeves, filled the sink with hot water, doused his hands in liquid soap and proceded to rigorously 'scrub up' with considerable persistance as though preparing to perform open-heart surgery on an immunity-deficient child.

I don't know what had just happened in that cubicle, and I don't want to know, but I do know that I won't be shaking HIS hand any time soon.

Disgusting

Meanwhile

The Unda Wunda!

Another week, another exhibition.

Greenwich Maritime Museum has a exhibition of Toy Boats , but the use of 'toy' is deceptive.

These are beautifully crafted works of art which a wonderfully evocative of a past era.

Notably, many of the exhibits represent some form of educational value, of how ships were built, or how they functioned. Yes, back when we MADE things rather than just bought things, we taught our children how the world worked.

But who needs that when you've got Britain's Got Talent?

The Trial, and Other Woes.

A rather Kafkaesque moment this afternoon.

Seeking a place to read a tedious document, I found an unoccupied meeting room in the old building. It's a large oak panelled chamber, with a large ovoid table and many chairs, which before the war would have been full of chain-smoking town planners plotting against the tax payers.

It is now actually a pleasantly cool space to work in relative quiet.

Ten minutes into my sojourn, a strident middle-age women with an eton crop marched in around the table and stood opposite me, where she barked out "Hate Crime!"

I was a little taken aback, until it occured to me that the room was probably booked for a meeting, and that I should leave.

As I did so, a group of retro-lesbians arrived, enquired "Hate Crime?" then looked me up and down, mentally castrating me, before brushing me aside and slamming the door behind them.

Now that hasn't happened for a long time; I felt almost nostalgic.

Surveillance: British Fauna Fights Back!

We humans may be sleepwalking into a surveillance state, but the animal kingdom is having none of it!

When would-be Stasi recruit Julie Worsley attempted to snoop on her local Badger sett, the resourceful brocks organised, and in an act of collective action, destroyed the machinery of the state in a glorious effort to free themselves from the yolk of oppression.

They then resumed their tradition way of life of steeling clothes and spreading TB to cattle.

Note: there's a fox near us who is often seen out in daylight. As a nocturnal creature, how do we know he's not sleep-walking?

Our Finest Hour?

If the Daily Telegraph web site is to be believed, Dunkirk was some kind of olfactory nightmare.

Didn't tell us about that at school!

And Take Your Paperclip With You!

A week after Microsoft is perceived to have fallen behind Apple on the stockmarket, what could be a body blow is delivered by Google which may (or may not) believe that Microsoft Windows is too flaky to trust!

We all know Windows is shit, but the functionality at those prices has always pursuaded the majority that the crap is worth putting up with.

However, this may not last, as the corporate world may be beginning to realise the long term benefits of using a professional computing solution.

Apple's dominance is based on its lead in must-have products, not on computer sales, but Google's decision may well mark a watershed in Microsoft's domination, as a trend towards more secure operating systems can only undermine the House of Gates.

Fingers crossed, Eh?

Protein Threat: Latest

Took a trip to the revamped Museum of London.

Imagine our joy to see this on display!

For those that don't know, a chap called Stanley Green toted this sign along Oxford Street for decades, handing out pamphlets estolling the virtues of abstinence in the face of proteins. For Mr Green, proteins wrought nothing but a torrent of filth.

I'm sure he'd be pleased to know that his message lives on in public, just next to a Legalise Pot banner from 1967!

Hollywood Babylon:

We've all been suspicious of Peter Pan, and I have no doubts about what HE'S up to these days; but Tinker Bell?

Look at her!

Buy this Belle a drink, and she'll let you Tinker with her alright!