Aren't we all

Category: London

Bike rental scheme coming to London

Over recent weeks, I have noticed docking stations for the London Transport Cycle Hire scheme popping up all over the place. Coverage in central London is impressive – there’s 400-odd such docking stations in total, ready to serve 6,000 bikes across the capital.

The pricing for the scheme is aimed at journeys less than 30 minutes so, once you’ve paid the daily access charge, the first half an hour’s rental is free and you can make as many 30-minute trips between docking stations as you like without paying any more (provided a bike is available, of course). If you want to make longer journeys between docking stations, the costs can mount up to £50 for the day but, given you could cycle from one end of the docking station zone to the other in less than 30 minutes, it really is an unlikely and easily avoided situation.

 

So the only snag is bike availability in peak times – I’ll be very interested to see how this scheme takes off.
I’m certainly signing up. If I’m ever caught out without my trusty Birdy folding bike, I know how I’ll be getting about!

Thanks to cyclehireapp.com for the map visualisations of bike docking locations data from TFL – the  bike rental map on the London transport site doesn’t (yet) work!

Vote Ken?

Vote Ken

I thought there was something strange about these stencils I saw this morning.

Rumour has it they are part of a campaign against Banksy’s backing of Ken. Subtle. Most people will simply think Ken has gone all street and down with the kids.

[Edit: cycled past this morning and they’ve now been boarded over]

The newly re-vamped Southbank Centre

South banks

Last night we stepped out of St Thomas’ Hospital into one of those perfectly beautiful summer evenings you sometimes get in London. The sort of evening where you have to slow down to an idle, almost continental, pace to soak it all up. This wasn’t particularly difficult given Claire’s current condition and so we slowly meandered alongside the River Thames towards the new Southbank Centre. We were there at the weekend to checkout Anthony Gormley’s “Blind Light” exhibition at the Hayward Gallery but didn’t stop to fully appreciate the amazing new developments to the Southbank Centre. At the time we were so taken by another of Gormley’s work – “Event Horizon” – that we took the locale for granted. Now, after last night’s stroll, I realise the surrounding buildings are integral to this work. The silhouetted figures, looking down on the Southbank scene, took on a serene and sentry-like quality as dusk descended – watching over the swarms below. The whole area has been opened up to encourage people to explore and enjoy the space. I love it.

Saturday’s lunar eclipse

From the busy streets of Brixton, the blood red dot in the sky was beautiful but rather washed out by the orange glow of the street lights. That said – it’s not every Saturday night at 11 o’clock (when most people are more concerned about what club to go to) that you see all the people on Brixton high street looking skyward! Anyway – people in less urban settings got a fantastic show by the looks of it.

street scribbling


Budding taggers learn how it is done..

These young whipper snappers were watching keenly as an older kid scrawled his tag on a wall along London’s South Bank. It didn’t take long. Let’s hope the pupils of this nursery school of graffiti move on to a higher level of street art sooner rather than later. Am I getting old? These pesky kids. Grumble grumble… I’ll be complaining about uneven pavements next.

Anyway – while I am on the subject, when a particular piece turned up at the bottom of Bristol’s Park Street a few months ago (on the side of a sexual health clinic, I should add for the benefit of the picture), I heard Bristol City Council were debating whether it was public art and should be left. Funny that they start to see the potential tourism benefits of leaving this stuff after years spent cleaning it up. They certainly wouldn’t have even considered the fact a few years ago. Well – they eventually decided to let it stay and it promptly made the Visit Bristol tourist guide.

a glimpse inside battersea power station


hole in the wall.

The Serpentine Gallery are putting on an exhibition of Chinese art inside Battersea Power Station this month and we went along this afternoon to have a look. I’ll pass giving any judgement on the art for now – we (and, at a guess, the majority of the other few hundred visitors) were there for the chance to see this great building up close. I see the power station daily yet it remains distant and enigmatic, flanked by hordings on three sides and moated on the fourth by the Thames. We were guided through the dark, damp and derelict floors of the old turbine hall, looking beyond the bizarre art installations, and tried to understand the building’s past (and future). It’s an interesting place – with old signs warning of high voltage jostling for attention alongside newer signs warning of falling masonry.

Unfortunately photos inside the building were not allowed; the cynic in me wondered whether the developers were worried that people’s photos could affect the forthcoming coffee table book.

EDIT: A quick peruse through Flickr reveals some excellent covert shots of the sort that might well make it to said glossy coffee table book. And it looks like some discreet snapping was occuring during the art tours.

a strangely familiar barnet

As I cycled home, after a sweltering summer’s day in our Soho offices, there was a continental buzz in the air that is London after work – out on the pavements, enjoying one of England’s rare and blissfully perfect long evenings, cooled by a pleasant breeze and a beer. I turned into St James’ Park and who should drive past in a cavalcade? The Queen! I was genuinely monarch-struck – glowing with a patriotic pride I never knew I had. I’ve never understood all this flag waving, cheering and general whooping that our Queen seems to provoke but, I have to admit, she had a similar effect on me. As soon as I saw the outline of her familiar head I started to grin. I wonder, is it something to do with seeing that instantly recognisable hair-do? I am so accustomed to seeing her on casual everyday items like cash, stamps and so on that it is really quite amusing to see the real thing. A funny thing indeed.

sinner or winner?

For those of you who wondered where our evangelist friend with the loud speaker at Oxford Circus station had got to recently during these cold winter weeks – this photo was taken in Sydney last week. He certainly gets about. It looks like he flies south for winter to find warmer preaching grounds.

winter beckons

Going under the railway into Tooting Bec Common – a nice park for Winter walks in London.

Fireworks, fat scarves, tasty warm soup, seeing your breath in the air, crackling log fires – all these things make the approaching winter fun. Rain, colds and the complete lack of light after 4pm do not.
Although at the moment, I am enjoying the crisp, clean air – with its frosty mornings and blue skies. It’s quite a change from last year and all rather exciting really. Who knows – it might even snow in London this year…

preaching to the converted

Walking round the corner during my lunch break today I stumbled into a kind of flash mob going on inside the Starbucks on Oxford Street, led by the infamous Reverend Billy . Bizarre – one moment the coffee shop was packed full of “worshippers” and then they instantly diluted into the crowd of shoppers and passers by. This was followed by a theatrical rant against consumerism/iraq/bad coffee by the reverend himself. It’s good to see some humour injected into protests. I can’t help but think the messages are a bit confused though – it’s a very tongue in cheek approach to some potentially serious issues. I mean – good coffee is important.

Nervous tension

Driving through the east end and financial centre of London, on our way back from a beautiful weekend in Cambridge, was a little edgey last night. Road closures forced traffic down narrow back streets as police stood impassively at every corner, while locals and meandering sunday night revellers picked their way through the congestion. An unsaid thought evident in the expressions of drivers and pedestrians alike – “had there been another?”. Everyone is getting on with their lives, as you do, but the reality of the ever present threat in London has been brought home and people certainly seem more aware now, what ever the headlines say about it being “business as usual”.
Anyway – I’d like to take you This Way Please for a far more eloquent take on things.

Wellcome to the future

Considering where I am working right now, I haven’t seen enough of the local area during lunch breaks and so on. But when I do, I’m happy to have dragged myself away from the usual half hour of joy – slowly dribbling bits of sandwich between the keys. Walking in from a bright Spring afternoon, this place – with its perspex tables, neon lights, beeps, whirls and blips – was all a bit disorientating but then this is the future after all (and maybe that’s how I’ll feel at eighty years old). And what a future it is. I am going there more often. The Wellcome Wing at the Science Museum that is – not the future. Although you never know…

tube strike

with the tube strike in mind tomorrow, here’s a quick quiz to decide whether it’s really worth going in to work…

looks like i’m going to have to stay at home 😉

chomsky – knowledge is power

i went to see noam chomsky talk on “Simple Truths, Hard Choices: Some Thoughts on Terror, Justice and Self-Defence” the other evening. hmm. not sure what i was expecting to hear. these sorts of issues seem to be at the forefront of peoples minds these days – with everybody bringing the subject up, whether over a beer in the pub or a picnic in the park. it’s all good and well to rant about how imbalanced power and wealth is in the world but it strikes me that a point is being missed when it becomes a “philosophical topic”. especially when that philosophising is held in the lecture halls of western universities, predominantly in the english language.

noam chomsky wouldn’t be there talking to the masses if it wasn’t for this power imbalance. we wouldn’t have been able to visit the lecture in such comfort if it wasn’t for this power imbalance. knowledge is power – and universities do well to share it with those who will recipricate the power favour by choosing english to communicate. oh look – i’m doing it myself 🙂

anyway – i left the lecture thinking that we can talk all we like saying “something must be done” but surely the consequences of such action would have to mean the west loses its grip on power and wealth in the world? maybe that would be a good thing but it would mean a very different daily reality for the people that are currently going about telling others how bad it all is.

freedom!

i’m free! i was chuckling out aloud to myself like some deranged maniac, as i rode my bike across clapham common this morning. it had finally dawned on me that i had left my job and no longer have anyone else to answer to. so i stopped, had a cup of tea and bacon sarnie from honest tom’s tea wagon and watched the ducks. because i could. lovely.

Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project at the Tate Modern

i’m not sure if it was the artist’s intention but people do the strangest things beneath a huge mirror, half-lit by a massive artificial sun – spookily suspended by mist – in the tate modern’s turbine hall, on a saturday night. it felt like a festival, with everyone sitting or lying down in circles on the floor. except here they were giggling at the shapes everyone was making in the reflection above. there was a definite feeling of awe-inspired fun in the air and i’m not surprised to read what the staff are reporting!

Kill Bill verdict

just been to see kill bill and i have to say i liked it! with all the anticipation there has been surrounding the fruits of tarantino’s six year absence, it’s difficult to not become caught up in the preamble. i’ve being i’ve been hearing mixed reports and didn’t know what to expect – apart from lots of violence. yes – there’s violence – but it doesn’t quite hit you in the same way as that mr orange scene does in reservoir dogs. i was expecting to be scared and, to be honest, i’m not very good with scary movies – especially on a delicate sunday evening. but i was laughing all the way through! don’t expect any ground-breaking cinematics – just classic kung-fu hilarity, with ott blood and not a scary moment in sight (apart from the first scene, maybe). i loved the mixing of film styles – with live action blending into anime. the music went well with the mood of the scenes (was that ironside?), though i can’t see the soundtrack becoming a pulp fiction-esque classic. all in all – a stylish, bloody and trashy yet entertaining tribute to bruce lee/samurai movies and spaghetti westerns.

Back in London town

It seems the only time I have had lately to casually browse or blog has been very brief – usually during a lunch break in between mouthfuls, slobbering over my keyboard. I paint a pretty picture for you, I’m sure. We have not had decent Internet access at home either, due to our recent move (from Brighton back to London). But all that has changed – I’ve got a new wireless network up and running at home and I’ve just finished my latest project at work.

So – I can finally upload those photos from the states. Some classics from the tubing… but I doubt Cab and Phil will think so!

London bound

Back from the States after a hectic couple of weeks with Claire, Felix, Phil and Cab blundering about New York and its environ. Ashley is now married. Phil is now thirty. And our livers are all slightly more damaged than before we left. Some classic photos – especially from the tubing.

And now we are moving house – tomorrow! Nothing is packed. London here I come.

I’ll be back

All change… We’re moving back to London. Change is good, I keep telling myself. Oh yes – no looking back, keep on trucking. And it’s a lovely flat we’re moving to. And that daily commute I loathed so much (how can network south east trains be so crap?) will be a thing of the past. But I can’t help feeling sad for leaving Brighton. It’s a lovely place, especially in the Summer. I’ll be back.