Astronaut Terry Virts just tweeted this picture, probably as a response to the sad passing of mr Nimoy. Frankly, I love it – it is one of the most humbling images ever: at once a lament and an inspiration. I had no choice but to repost it here. What better tribute to the great man could anyone make? [img description=”undefined image” align=”centre”]/images/astrovulcan.jpeg[/img]
Coming home after an afternoon out, I just checked the news, and saw this. ” Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr Spock in the cult sci-fi series Star Trek, has died at the age of 83 in Los Angeles, his family has said.” As a star trek fan, I am suddenly heartbroken: Nimoy, through Spock, helped make Star trek something I love. While I came to the franchise after the original series, I adore the films starring the original crew, which Nimoy both starred in and, in one or two, directed. Spock was one of the greatest characters, present throughout the franchise’s sixty-year history, and part of me hoped we’d see him again in forthcoming films. That will not happen now, and I feel deeply upset about it. I can only send you here, to one of my all time favourite star trek scenes, and say that Mr. Nimoy has been, and always shall be, my friend.
I’m not sure quite what to say about it in terms of commentary, but this bit of awesomeness demands linking to. Tesco has apparently selected a young girl with quite severe CP as a model for their children’s clothing range. ”Holly, who uses a wheelchair and communicates using a special computer system operated by her eyes, shone at the shoot and now features on the fashion pages of the Tesco website.” This is a small yet monumental step towards the full inclusion of people with disabilities into society; the somewhat patronising tone of the article aside, I welcome this wholeheartedly and with relish.
Yesterday I was on my way home from a meeting up at the british museum, in relation to my work at the RIX centre. It had gone very well indeed, and I got some very useful networking done. On my way back to Westminster tube station, rolling through central London I felt the urge to explore. Even after five years living here, there are still places I haven’t been, roads I’ve never rolled down. Passing through Trafalgar square, I felt very tempted to make a detour under Marble arch and cruise up the Mall. But it was getting late, and I was due home.
However, I just did it. Using the wonderful Google Maps streetview, I was able to make the trip I was not able to yesterday. I know it’s not quite the same, and you do not get any of the true city experience sitting in your office, but when it’s cold, wet and dark outside yet you still feel like exploring, streetview is a very handy tool.
Who would have thought such naughtiness went on down the hill. I just came across this story , revealing that ‘Charlton [Athletic] are investigating footage that appears to show a couple having sex on the pitch at The Valley.” I just looked it up on youtube, and it appears true. For the record, despite living a stones throw from he ground I had nothing to do with it. Frankly I’m very amused that something like this happened so close to us; it’s probably the best bit of action on that pitch for quite some time.
Although I’m not particularly keen on football, and although it doesn’t focus on one particular city, I feel as if I want to say something about the 2022 Qatar world cup. Since 2012, my eyes have been opened to sporting events, and big events in general, as a force for good in the world; a unifying force. As such, UEFA’s decision to award the right to host the tournament to Qatar, and the subsequent furore currently resulting from it, interests me.
Going with Qatar was a bold move to begin with. While the middle east is often in the news, it is a part of the world we seldom focus our eyes on for sport, competition or friendship. No city in the middle east has ever hosted he Olympics. Thus it is good to see the region being included, brought into the family, in this way. No doubt the increased attention on the region will make us more aware of it’s rich history and culture, which can only be a good thing. Let the world see Doha as they saw London.
At the same time, though, I have to feel slightly cynical about all this. Given it’s such a tiny country, not known for it’s love of sport, one must wonder what lay behind UEFAs decision. Plenty of other countries were bidding, including the UK, who are much better placed to host such an event. I’m sure I’m not the only one who can detect a whiff of corruption in the air. Now we have the farcical dilemma over whether to hold it in the summer or winter, moreover, part of me feels that they should cut their losses an restart the selection process. After all, I’d love to see another big sporting event in Britain.
We all know, of course, that UEFA is not going to do that: for starters, Qatar, it’s stadia already half built, would be up in arms. But with domestic leagues deeply discontent over yesterday’s decision over timing, UEFA is frankly making itself a complete laughing stock.
After posting my entry yesterday, I sent a link to it to the o2 facebook page. After two or three emails, I just received word that the o2 social manager has spoken to the Woolwich branch manager, who assured her that he will make sure it does not happen again. So, matter resolved? Victory? I have a feeling that that remains to be seen.
I think I ought to note something astounding. My iPad hasn’t been online all weekend. It turns out there was something wrong with the SIM card. When the problem first cropped up Friday, I razzed down to Woolwich heading for the O2 store there. Usually when such things happen, staff are very accommodating, and I expected that after a few moments of fiddling in my settings I would be back online. However the staff in the woolwich shop were extremely discourteous, ignoring me at first and treating me with something approaching abuse when I finally got their attention. They refused to even touch my iPad due to the few spots of dribble on it. They spoke over me, treating me like some combination of errant child and dirty animal. In the end they chose to get rid of me with the blatant lie that my connection will restore automatically in a few days.
Today, my iPad still firmly offline, I decided to go up to the O2 shop in the dome. The contrast in my experience today with that of Friday could not be more extreme. The staff were kind and friendly, going to some length to help me. They took my iPad, gave it a wipe with tissues, and a while later restored my connection. My SIM card needed a top up. I went away thanking them deeply, grateful to be functioning normally again.
Yet I still feel hurt about Friday. It is now clear they were lying to me, naming excuses not to help me out of what boils down to pure discrimination. In fact, I am now strongly considering making a formal complaint.
I mentioned yesterday that we were going to a party. It was my friend Luke’s twenty-first*, and it turned out to be quite a great evening. It was at a pub in Sydenham the same one, if memory serves, as last year – and it became clear pretty soon after we arrived that Sally had put in a fair bit of effort organising it. There was champagne, a DJ, and, later in the evening, a stripper. We all had a lot of fun; I think Luke enjoyed himself most of all. I haven’t seen much of him recently, so it was good to catch up, hang out and party on. Hopefully we can meet up again soon and start the ball rolling on a few projects.
*I made a mistake this time last year in saying Luke had turned thirty when he was twenty.
Until a few moments ago I was in a rather good mood: the sun is starting to shine, and we have party to go to later. But then I came across this piece of transphobic hate-speech. A bigoted old fool in Rome who calls himself the head of the catholic church has launched a tirade of abuse against transgender people. He says people who alter their bodies go against god’s design; that they go against the ‘order of creation’. I know I shouldn’t care. I know these are just the ramblings of a stupid old man who believes his imaginary friend created the world in six days. Yet, whether I like it or not, what this particular idiot says matters.
Why can such people get away with what boils down to bigotry, just because it is n the guise of religion? I know a little about transpeople, and many of them have particularly hard lives. I think too of Lyn, the loveliest, most patient of partners and probably the most remarkable people I’ll ever know. She lives exactly how she wants to live. For this old idiot to condemn her and those like her just because it goes against what he thinks is written in some moronic old book really pisses me off.
I too play with gender. I haven’t dressed up much recently, but the urge is still there. In part I see it as vital for breaking down gender barriers and rereading social roles. The pope says I am wrong to do so because it goes against god’s will. Well, screw your god! Right – where’s my pink leotard?!
I have recently been relishing reflecting on how there seem to be funny little connections between all the truly awesome events in my recent life. Since moving down to London, I have had some great experiences, but what excites me is how they touch upon one another. For starters there was the big one – the Olympics. That event has personal resonance for me for a number of reasons: for a start, Lyn played at it’s finale, and you never forget something so monumental. The fact that the documentary which preceded their performance cemented mine and Lyn’s relationship into the Symbolic made it even more special. Linked to that, in another ceremony there was a reference to Chariots of Fire, which has quite profound resonance for me because My class and I performed to that very track for a wheelchair dance competition at school.
Then, of course, there is my favourite: Happy and Glorious not only utilises my favourite Bond actor in what must be one of the most remarkable bits of tv ever, it also references the union jack parachute jump from the opening of The Spy Who Loved Me. Given that parachuting is not an integral aspect of the Bond character in that he is not automatically associated with that mode of transport, and that there were other options open to the ceremony organisers (007 could, for instance, have chauffeured her majesty in his Aston Martin, perhaps even re-using the famous car barrel-roll stunt from The Man with the Golden Gun; or they could have had the helicopter land and had her majesty step out), that the two are linked is quite beyond argument. Danny Boyle and is team must have had the pre-credit sequence of The Spy who Loved Me in mind when creating the opening ceremony. While you could ascribe the pattern on the parachute to the patriotism inherent to the occasion, or point out that there were no solouhetted hands or Carly Simon, to try to argue that there is no relationship between the two would be virtually impossible. After all, unless I am very much mistaken, that is where the flag-emblazoned parachute device originated; and both use the opening of a parachute as a musical cue. I find the fact that the one ties quite irrefutably to the other a source of almost perpetual joy. I also love the fact that, at the beginning of Happy and Glorious, you can glimpse the ball-room where Lyn and the Paraorchestra recorded the anthem for the queen’s 2012 christmas address, giving me a second personal link to it.
Through that, the entire London 2012 olympic and paralympic event is linked to my Master’s work. Due to the echo of the flag-emblazoned parachute, the semiotic/linguistic link is inescapable. To me that is awesome. And, through my thesis, there is also a connection to the Ahab scene from First Contact, meaning it links to another of my greatest memories: meeting Sir Patrick Stewart. Thus the two are connected; my thesis straddles both experiences!
The third of my awesome events was, of course, watching Monty Python Live. While I do not use Python in my thesis, there is a link to london 2012 through Eric Idle’s bit. Again, the two echo each other. The two events are also linked through their use of Stephen Hawking, who in turn has a link to Star trek. And of course, through Python my web extends not only to my favourite traveller, Michael Palin, but also to John Cleese, who was in two of the Brosan-era Bond films. I still relish the memory of going to se Mr. Palin talk, yet another great event in my recent life.
I hope you get the picture. I love how linked all these things are; thinking up these connections has become something of a hobby. This is just an overview: there are many more links in this fascinating, often uncanny, web of life. Noticing them makes one realise how intricate and intriguing the world is.
Something rather cool happened yesterday. I was just pottering around in my study at about lunchtime, when Lyn called me. She was in her studio, and sounded excited. She said she had been naughty: she had bought another speaker. Audiophile that Lyn is, she already has plenty, but I still said it was cool. Lyn and my dad share a liking for Bowers and Wilkins speakers – i can’t blame her for buying the best.
Lyn had bought it from ebay, so we expected it to arrive in two or three days. However at around dinner time, our doorbell rang. To our complete surprise, there was a guy there, who handed over over a speaker! I was astounded. Apparently the guy Lyn bought the speaker from lived quite near.
Lyn, of course, was over the moon. She has a new toy to play with. As I sit here on the sofa blogging, she is busily trying it out, blasting out tunes as joyful as a child. It is quite a wonderful, happy spectacle.
I think I’m developing a kind of arrogance or big-headedness about myself. When out and about, I seem to have adopted an internal sneer; a contempt for anything and anyone which irritates me. Of course, I better make sure this new mean streak does not get out of hand, but I think it has something to do with passing my Masters. I am now more confident than I ever have been in my abilities: I know I’m not stupid; I know I can write, research and analyse. Part of me thinks that it is therefore time I stood up (metaphorically) for myself, held my head high, and stopped being a pushover.
Of course, I’ll need to make sure I don’t take this too far – on must, naturally, remember to be courteous to all – but I think I could benefit from being a little more selfconfident and forthright. Far too often I let people push in front of me in queues; I let opinions and statements I know are incorrect go unchallenged; I allow myself to be looked down upon and my abilities be questioned. No More! I am Matt Goodsell, Master of Arts! I am not an idiot; just because I’m using a wheelchair does not mean you can push in front of me; and when you are wrong you will be told. I think I deserve some respect, and I now plan to get it.
I just gave UKIP: The First 100 Days a second viewing. When I first saw it last night I was very taken by it, but I could tell it required and deserved another watch; now that I have done so, I find myself utterly taken with this brave and sophisticated piece of television.
On one level, you could say this constitutes Channel Four standing up to UKIP. Parts of this program are very anti-ukip, making no effort to hide it’s underlying racism. Last night I was applauding Channel Four for having the bravery to stand up to this xenophobic party: it clearly spells out what a catastrophe a ukip government would be. Yet after the second viewing, I think the film’s approach is more subtle: it tries to show both sides of the argument. This is not the hatchet job part of me wants someone to make; it is very careful not to present ukip or their supporters as monsters I especially like how actual footage of ukip’s bufooonery, including footage of Farage’s speeches, was interspersed into the fiction, so there can be no debate over their accuracy*. This is a very clever move on the part of channel four, because, this way, the film cannot just be dismissed as just propaganda. At the same time, it spells out what a disaster a ukip government would be, and the division it would cause..
Parts of this film had me in appoplexisms of rage last night and again this morning. UKIP have that effect on me, even when they are presented in a fiction. part of me wants to launch into a venomous tirade against Farage and the bunch of idiots he calls a party, but this film reminds us that pure bile is not the solution. It spells out the folly of UKIP, yet holds back from going too far. It is a drama, a fiction; but beneath that fiction lie very salient truths about the dangers this party represents and the dark places it would lead us to. It is thus a brave bit of tv for which it’s makers need to be congratulated. This is why channel four is great.
*I nevertheless just read that ukip has complained to ofcom about the program, and farage has called it biassed and partisan.
I still have a strange fixation with the Olympics. It is not the sport that excites me, but the bidding process and choice of venue. The Olympics draw the world’s attention onto a city, each unique and vibrant. For a month or so, a city can show itself off; the world gets to explore a new metropolis, a new city-scape, a new people. Through the olympics we become flaneurs walking the streets of a city in a moment of celebration. The way in which each city choses to reveal itself to the world fascinates me. Yet, no two cities are alike; each has it’s own idiosyncrasies, it’s own unique heartbeat. How, then, can anyone choose one city over another?
It seems to me that it is a selection process like no other, with the steaks higher than any other. Countries compete directly with each other as in no other area. Unlike in war, this is entirely peaceful; unlike international sport, this is not about the physical prowess of individuals. It is a matter of enticing a committee to choose one city over another; about who has the best application, the best city. The associated costs aside, being awarded an olympic games by the IOC is a huge source of national pride, and thus it is a highly competitive process. Vast amounts of capital – cultural, social and monetary – rest on the IOC’s decision. Like winning the world cup, a host receives the esteem of the world; the benefits, though, are more concrete and long-term, often involving the opportunity to transform a city and refresh one’s cultural image.
Soon, cities and countries will start preparing to bid for the 2024 games, where I suspect the tension will be higher than ever: On the other hand we have Paris, no doubt still resenting loosing out to London in 2005 and desperate to host the games after so many set-backs. The French take a huge amount of pride in their capital; one senses they resented not being the first city to host the olympics three times, and want to catch up with London. This, together with the fact that 2024 will mark a century since the last Paris olympics, means this bid will really matter to them.
One might think Paris will be a shoe-in because of this, but the Americans, I sense, want to win this bid just as badly. After all, they were just as disappointed in 2005: they take enormous pride in New York. They were hurt deeply when the big apple bid failed, and again when Chicago’s bid for the games of 2016 was rejected, in the first round no less. American pride is such that they also think it’s time they hosted the games again; they think, as ”the worlds greatest country”, they deserve it, and don’t give a rat’s ass about Paris. Of course, one could argue that selecting Boston over say, New York or LA – truly world cities – implies that the American Olympic Committee is only putting a token bid in, but I really think they want it.
Thus, given that Rome and Berlin (two national capitals) are also bidding, we have a very interesting situation. A huge amount of national pride rests on the IOC’s decision. Only one city can win, meaning that either america or France will be disappointed yet again. You might say it’s only an olympics, and that is true; but to have a city chosen to host the world’s biggest party is a huge source of pride. To loose out to another city in another country automatically feels like a slight, regardless of how patriotic one is. For either country to be rejected yet again will hurt badly – there could well be friction.
Indeed, given how much the US contributes to the IOC, rejecting them in favour of what to the Americans would be yet another Old European capital could be gravely risky. The americans invest a huge amount of capital, both monetary and cultural, into their bids. Hypothetically, another rejection could push them over the edge: they could withdraw from the olympic movement altogether; without the US, the entire event would lose it’s credibility and relevance. From that point of view, the committee has no choice but to go with the American candidate. But could it really say no to paris yet again? Such a blow would be truly devastating for the french. I’d hate to be in the IOC’s shoes.
That’s what interests me: how will they play it, and who will the IOC choose. To a certain extent, I guess my fascination with this stems from my gleeful pride at living in a city which went through this process and won, and at getting to watch the losers from 2005 have to go through this process all over again; indeed, I admit there may be an element of Schadenfreude stoking my interest in this. Yet the subject, given it’s context, is oddly intriguing to me. Being awarded the olympic games is a huge signifier of a city’s importance and esteem on the world stage; the more games a city hosts, the more relevant it can be said to be. There is far more to this decision than financial gain. 2012 was the ultimate confirmation of London as one of the world’s major cultural hubs; it’s status was put beyond doubt. Other cities want that status, that cudos, too. What all bidding cities want, more than anything, is the esteem of the world.
We all know – or, rather, are lead to believe – that politics ad economics are vastly complex subjects. Yesterday I tried to condense my opinions on the economic situation into a form of allegorical children’s story. Of course, I grossly simplified things, and some would say it was a highly biassed misrepresentation. Ask an american republican, for instance, and the economic upturn is all down to their cuts. Everything here is subjective, and depends on how one sees it. From there it follows that there are no objectively right answers.
Yet I think you can take that a step further. People differ on how they see things, but those differing viewpoints have reasons behind them; reasons which make one more reasonable than the other.
As babies we are selfish: we demand parental attention, milk, and all the toys; we feel hard done by if, say, mummy and daddy move their attention to a sibling. Babies think they are the centre of the world, and only their needs matter. As we grow, however, we learn to share: we come to realise that there are other children in the playroom, and that their needs matter just as much as ours. Moreover, we learn that if we share, other children are more likely to share with us in return, so we all benefit.
This, to me, is what is at the base of the difference between left and right. Right-wingers still demand that undivided attention; they still think their needs come first. They therefore begrudge contributing to society (sharing) by paying tax. Of course, they might try to rationalise their worldview by citing other ways to contribute, or other convoluted arguments; yet their neoliberal stance boils down to the simple, childish greed of children who have not yet learned to share. To frame it in psychoanalytical terms perhaps, their superego is left underdeveloped.
The left is made up of those who grew out of that stage, who realise that sharing is good. They realised that other children in the room needed toys, milk and attention too, perhaps because their parents were careful not to spoil them. They therefore develop the nascent idea of equality, of fairness. In turn this matures into a communitarian, leftist stance.
That, for me, is what is at the base of the difference between right and left. It is a dichotomy of greed versus selflessness, of spoiled and unspoiled children. This also accounts for the anti-liberal attitudes of those on the right, for, like small children, they desire security and continuity over difference, novelty and change. Granted, it might be slightly reductive, but I think my theory sums it up well; it’s why I think leftism is a more mature, adult and ultimately more productive worldview. After all, is it not the grown ups who have to remind children to play nicely and share their toys? And it is only through sharing, and through working together rather than for personal profit, that we will be able to solve the problems humanity faces.
Once, a group of wise men lived together in a house in a town. They looked after their house well: good roof, pretty garden, strong walls. But one day, a huge storm came and destroyed the town, and most houses were wrecked. The local greek restaurant was utterly ruined, and its owners needed lots of help to save it. However, the house in which the wise men lived was not too badly damaged, and they were soon repairing it.
It was almost back to how it was when the wise men got some bad news and needed to move out. Shortly after that, some other people moved in. They weren’t so wise. For some reason they thought he storm had been caused by the wise men, and thought the house was in a terrible condition. They set about trying to repair the house, but, fools that they were, did a very poor job. But they were lucky: the storm had passed, and the wise men had done such a good job starting the repairs that the house continued to recover. The new guys were so gormless though, they didn’t realise: in their arrogance they assumed things were getting better because of their flawed repairs. In fact, everyone else could see that they were getting worse due to what they had done.
The house will soon fall down if the wise men do not return, for the new tenants have bodged the repairs. They claim to have improved the house when in fact it has become worse. The only reason it looks so good is because of the work started by the wise men – ironically the people the fools, in their ignorance blame for the storm. If the house is to flourish, the fools must be evicted and the wise men must return…lest another storm comes.
Something about wandering this city fascinates me
Exploring, surrounded by people, alone with my thoughts
Hearing all the tounges and dialects of the world.
Endlessly curious in this endless three-dimensional labyrinth.
Slightly guilty about leaving Lyn home alone as I roam,
But she has her own wanderings, through music and sound
While I listen to the glorious cacophony of the metropolis:
The music of the voices of the world, the great harmony of humanity.
So out I go into the maelstrom
Unto the chaos of the city
Ever changing, full of life
Utterly fascinating
I just tapped ‘London’ into the search engine of startrek.com, hoping for news of another convention here, and found news of something even better – something astounding. Paramount Studios is now planning to build a theme park to the east of London: ”Paramount London, a proposed entertainment resort, will include a Star Trek-themed area when it opens on the Swanscombe Peninsula, east of London, in 2020. Spread across 800 acres, Paramount London will be the first of its kind in the UK and is expected to attract up to 15 million visitors a year”. I can’t believe my luck: although Lyn made a ‘oh god no!’ moan when I told her about this over the dinner table, and although it’ll pack the area with tourists and opportunists, trekkie that I am, I can’t wait! Here’s the project’s website.
I just read that ‘legendary’ comedy show spitting Image is due to return to British tv under a new name. Now called Newzoids, it will basically be the same satire-through-puppetry program. While I have heard a lot about it, and while I’ve seen clips, I don’t think I have ever sat through an entire episode of Spitting Image. I’ll be interested to see how this tuns out then, and I’m certainly keen to see how they handle people like Farage and CaMoron. Mind you, I do know something about Spitting Image: THIS!!
One is a cartoonish halfwit, whose simplistic, childish views make him a target of derision mocked by all;
[img description=”undefined image” align=”centre”]/images/homer and farage.jpg[/img]
The other is Homer Simpson
Happy first birthday to my nephew Oliver. It barely seem a full year since I wrote this entry, but indeed it has – and what a year it was too! I just spoke to his grandparents, and he’s doing well; beginning to talk, and apparently taking to his toy xylophone with great enthusiasm. I hope he and his parents have a really fun day.
I remember writing on here once that I didn’t think london had an equivalent of the Louvre in Paris; no truly stylish, classy buildings. Today I found I was wrong. Today I visited the British museum for the first time, and my jaw dropped as soon as I saw that high, round, glass ceiling and those columns. Okay, it’s not a great glass pyramid, but it seemed jus as awesome to me.
More importantly, I was there with the Rix centre. They were having an event there to trial the use of sensory objects. These are intended to make museum exhibitions more accessible to people with learning disabilities by incorporating more of the senses. For example, a display concerning the spice trade may incorporate the smell of spices, This way, those who learn differenty to how others might are included. It’s a fascinating idea. Not only is it great on a practical level, but there are also theoretical questions which it raises, which I am now getting my teeth into.
It has been a great day: a day of exploration in more ways than one. I went to a great building, and my mind is now abuzz with ideas and questions. Night is drawing in, and as I roll home to the person I love like so many other Londoners, I couldn’t be more content.
I was shouting at the tv again earlier, forcing Lyn to retreat into her studio and turn the volume up. I was watching CaMoron’s speech, once again lying to the country that things are now all hunkey-dorey, that we are now thriving, and acting like his policies have some kind of intelligence behind them rather than boiling down to greed. I get really angry when I see him like that, pretending he is being rational and thoughtful; assuming he deserves the authority he stole in 2010. People are going hungry because of benefit cuts, yet he expects applause for cutting tax.
People like him have the audacity to say that those on the left have a politics of envy. Our politics is not about envy but about fairness, about evening out preexisting inequalities. Their politics is about greed, maintaining inequality and making sure the lucky few can continue their privileged lives lording it over the rest of us. I find it sickening to see CaMoron try to portray it as a valid worldview, when I can see the suffering such selfishness has caused so vividly. We deserve better than this rat, standing behind a podium, trying to tell us greed is good, that capitalist fat-cats should be treated as heroes and that the state – the only mechanism through which the people those fat-cats would otherwise rule over can get any power or justice – is a bad thing and should be diminished. How can people be fooled by such arrogant, selfish folly?
The oddest thing just happened. Lyn and I were just out for a walk. It is a bright, crisp, early spring day here, and we were out enjoying the sun. L was being pushed by dom, and they were leading the way through the small wooded park very near our house. I must have gone through that park at least five hundred times by now; it’s the last fragment of an ancient forrest which, I’m told, used to cover the entire area. Today, though, at a turning we I’d ordinarily go right, Lyn lead us straight on, down a path where I had assumed there were steps.
I suddenly had the most uncanny feeling. After five years living in Charlton, I feel I have come to know the area rather well. And yet, all of a sudden, within just a few metres of home, I had no idea where I was. It was quiet and serene, and felt as if we’d entered one of the secret places of the world. The sound of traffic faded as we followed the path past the animal enclosures and out of the park onto a road I had never seen before.
I was astounded. I felt lost, yet I knew we were still in Charlton, not far at all from home. How could I have missed this place, which felt more like a back street in a cheshire town than part of a sprawling metropolis? I told myself that I needed to explore more thoroughly.
On we went. And suddenly we were back on the main road to Woolwich, a road I know well; and I knew where I was. Yet I still felt amazed at what had just happened, as if we had stumbled briefly into another world and back again, so near to home yet so unknown, new and foreign.
Someone really should do something similar to this in response to Farage’s band of thugs. In the german town of Wunsiedel, residents decided to cunningly hijack a march by a group of neo-nazis by sponsoring it and donating the proceeds to anti-fascist charities. In effect, every step these neanderthals took collected money against them, and they didn’t even realise. I think the word in internet parlance is ”pwned”. While it is scary to see people with such hard-line xenophobic views still exist, and indeed might be in resurgence, I’m relieved others are standing up to them, and that their stupidity can be demonstrated so comically.
I think I’ll flag this Guardian piece up today, in which Stephen Hawking rallies to the defence of the NHS. He rightly points out that it is a national treasure which must be preserved from commercial interests at all costs. Although I heard recently that a report had found that Labour had exaggerated the degree to which the Condems had opened it up to privatisation, it is nevertheless true that they have increased the market pressures exposed to the NHS, undermining it’s very ethos. It is therefore good to see a man currently so high in the public agenda sticking up for the greatest of British institutions.
The article also recalls the hilarious episode when some clueless american journalist assumed that Hawking was american and wrote that he would have died if he lived in Britain with our ‘commie’ NHS. EPIC FAIL! Mind you, it did bring about an opportunity for Hawking to pay tribute to our health service, so it backfired on the journalist really sweetly.
I have started to write again. While I have never stopped writing regularly for my blog, I have got back to the sort of playing around with ideas that I used to do when I first started my masters. Now, of course, my musings are in relation to my work with UEL. It feels so good to have got back to that type of playful curiosity again. And, as I wrote the other day, I think I could be onto something phenomenal. Just as my musings with my masters eventually lead to probably the greatest thing I have yet written, I have a feeling that these musings could lead to something even greater. For now it’s just play; but through that play I sense something fascinating emerging.
I have no idea how it crept under my radar (a seemingly appropriate phrase for a program about a spy franchise), but I’m now quite giddy after finding this excellent documentary on James Bond. I found a reference to it here, and looked it up. At ninety minutes, it is quite long, but I found it very thorough and engaging, full of pieces of trivia which daw you in further. Everything Or Nothing goes through the history of the phenomenon, from it’s origins to present. I’m fascinated by it: the success of the franchise, the character, the history. No other character – not even, say, Luke Skywalker, or any comic-book hero – holds such a dominant cultural position; while it is not mentioned in this program, what other fictional person could escort a monarch or world leader to an Olympic opening, and indeed reuse/reference one of the franchise’s most iconic moments in doing so? As I wrote here, I find it truly intriguing, and watching programs like this only intensify that fascination.
Anyone who loves books and literature will no doubt be rejoicing at this incredible news. An unpublished novel by Harper Lee is to finally get published in July, 60 years after the US author put it aside to write To Kill a Mockingbird. When I saw this story last thing yesterday, I was astounded. I’ve loved To Kill a Mockingbird since studying it at school; I truly think it is a masterpiece. How Lee will possibly follow it up I do not know – it’s apparently set some twenty years after the events of the original – but Scout is such a great character I just can’t wait to hear her voice again.
Until yesterday I think I still preferred Paris over London. As much as I love London, I thought the french capital had a special magic to it the british one lacked: something in the city’s layout, it’s sleek, snazzy boulevards which gave it a nose ahead. But yesterday we went to Camden, and I was so instantly taken by it that it made me swap preferences. While Camden is not that sleek, it has an idiosyncratic snazziness of its own. We were there to see a concert by the Waterboys in the Roundhouse, an amazing place in itself, but before the show we had a chance to explore the local area. It is such a cool place: the labyrinthine market there made me drop my jaw, and want to look around for hours; I fell in love with it and indeed london.
The concert itself was just as awesome. Truth be told I didn’t know much about the Waterboys, but lyn is a big fan. They played one or two tracks I knew, but most of it was new to me. Nevertheless we had a great time, and I think they have a new fan this morning.
London, then, is a great, great city. I love how varied it is. The beauty of paris, of course, comes from the fact that it was re-laid out after world war two, giving it a symmetry and elegance. London, though, is more organic, more natural; it has quirky little areas like Camden. I love how varied it, and how it can surprise you like Camden surprised me last night. It does indeed have a magic to it. Aye, after such a great evening and all the ones before it, I now genuinely think London is the greatest city on earth.
It might be slightly premature to start heralding the demise of Bond, as I suspect 007 has a fair few adventures to go yet, but yesterday I took myself to see Kingsmen and was deeply impressed. I’d been wanting to go for days: I wanted to see how it squared up to the Bond phenomenon, having been quite intrigued by the trailers. To be honest I was half expecting it to suck, but what I found myself watching yesterday afternoon was a witty, self-referential, self-knowing film. It knew the characteristics of it’s own genre and pointed them out to us. There are lines, for instance, where the baddie points out what he would usually be expected to say, but that he is not going to say it. It borrows Fleming’s/Bond’s connoisseurship for fine drink, and plays with it, for instance supplying us with an alternative martini recipe (‘gin, not vodka, of course’). It was absurd, but that absurdity is pointed out when the characters say they prefer the older Bonds, before he got serious. However, unlike Austin Powers, this had fairly serious thought-provoking themes: for one, I feel it has quite a bit to say about class, male-ness etc. I found it worthy of consideration rather than just a silly, action-packed romp. It’s self-knowledge and serious edge gave it a depth Powers lacks.
We have, it seems, a new hero, and a new service more secret than MI5 or the CIA, beholden to no government. I’d be interested to see what they do with it: personally, unlikely though it is, I’m now itching to see a Kingsmen-007 crossover.
Having been using London transport for five or six years now, I’d like to flag up this charmingly enthusiastic piece about the London red bus. The writer thinks it’s great how visiting London from Liverpool, all our busses in this city are now accessible, and that he can roll on and off busses with ease. He is right, of course. I suppose I now take it for granted, and don’t give much thought to it – after all, remember the trouble I had getting on the number twenty from Alsager to Crewe. At he same time, I have become rather jaded: bus drivers in london can be pricks! They can refuse to stop; they can pretend the ramp isn”t working; they can say, in that bastardised form of English only bus drivers seem possessed of, that ”they got a buggy on, mate”’. Things are thus far from perfect; once you’ve been a Londoner a while, the problems with London transport, great though it is, become blindingly obvious.
The Ill-Informed Ramblings of a Cripple 