Today – Frozen In Time procession – Blackfriars, London SE1

I do love a good procession or parade.
And this one promises a "gigantic metal animation".
I stupidly missed that big elephant in Trafalgar Square about eight years ago and I really miss the wonderful parades that used to happen at the end of the Thames festival every September, so let's hope this makes up for it.
See you there.
Parade: 4.30–7pm
Nearest tubes: Borough, Southwark
More info here

From six of my Blackfriars Road photos

John Maine's Sea Strata at Green Park Station, Piccadilly – Utter Filth!

In 2011 a marvellous work by John Maine was opened to the public. Wonderful carvings within the rock evoke fossilised rock and the rolling sea. I was really impressed with it. Well, I still am impressed by the artwork.
But six years on it's filthy, and that's far from impressive.

It's been looking icky like this for at least the past year. Hardly a nice welcome for people entering the Royal Park behind. A plate within the pavement shows that this is Transport For London's private property.
Come on  TfL, get your jet washers out please.
John Maine's subtle pieces are inspired by nature. His other London work includes the war memorial within Islington Green.

More filth here.

London Lumiere – a review

Malcolm and I decided to spend two evenings taking in as much of this event as possible.

Friday 15th January
We first went to see the installation at Oxford Circus. It was marvellous and we admired the colour-changing mesh for perhaps ten minutes and then moved off to find new things, thinking that everything would be up to that standard. But no. I think we peaked too early...

We looked for something at Liberty's. We spotted a crowd of people at a window and could make out what we think was a dress in a window. The pic shown here isn't mine; it's one from their website that was at Granary Square (see also KX later on). So we moved on to Brown Hart Gardens where some cute little bird boxes edged the upper level, but that was it. Did we miss something better?
In Grosvenor Square lots of people were queuing to get inside the square at each of the four corners. Peering over the hedges it didn't look very busy in there and from what we could see it didn't look worth the scrum, so we gave up and went to see what everyone was crowding around on the south east corner; an illuminated old telephone box containing fish. This looked good (see pic above from Lumiere website) but, again, being a small installation it was hard to get anywhere near it. Shame.

And so to Piccadilly. A Tracy Emin-style neon script saying something supposed to be clever was on each end of Piccadilly Arcade. Hmmm. We moved swiftly past and stopped to watch the colourful projection on the Bafta building. The short looped animation was good and showed famous actors and relevant motifs about them and their films, but apart from Tilda Swinton and only a few others it was really hard to make out who the people were as we were too close to view it properly even though we rammed ourselves up against the shops on the opposite side of the road. For instance, just who is that woman above left? Basically, the thing was too big. We, and the people around us, all agreed it was better to see what was going on if you watched it through a camera screen to get a better/smaller image. I thought the light well below my feet was also worthy of a pic.

I did like the lovely lanterns and flying fish kites at the eastern end of Piccadilly. Simple, mesmerising, effective and easy to see from a distance. It was this kind of thing that always made the parade at the end of The Mayor's Thames Festival such a delight.
We really enjoyed being able to walk in the road, as at Oxford Circus and Regent Street.
The loud trumpeting of an elephant pervaded the air. And above Air Street (see what I did there?!) there was an animated CGI projection of an elephant's arse swaying left and right.

We walked through to Regents Street to view the front of the elephant. The street was rammed with people watching it. I stood and wondered what the point of it was. This was a recurring thought over both evenings. I mean, what relevance did an elephant have in that place? It wasn't even a real elephant. Had it not been there in that position on that night would anyone have given it a second thought?
We forgot to look in at St James Square and somehow bypassed the light flowers at Leicester Square and headed for Trafalgar Square.

Here, the letters from the top of Centrepoint, which is being renovated at the moment, were placed against the wall of the National Gallery. Watching the people, I noticed the thing to do here was stand against it and either take a selfie or get a friend to take a shot. It's all about the me me me these days. Intrigued how all these these idiots would get would be themselves as silhouettes against the bright light (pic1) I attempted to do better myself (pic2), but found it more effective to use the lights properly (pic3).
The fountains in the square also had installations:

One was filled with empty plastic water bottles; rubbish as art. The other had two rings of light strings and some chicken wire mesh that I couldn't see the point of. Both looked as if someone had thought, quick, quick, we need to think of something for Trafalgar Square...!
At Coutts Bank, just around the corner in the Strand, there were some neon dogs that looked like bows. We couldn't see them; again, the installation was small and the crowd blocked the view. I wasn't bow-wowed.
Enough for one night. A beer in the Nellie Dean to warm up and discuss the above and then home.

Saturday 16th January
We met at Victoria and walked down to see the projection on Westminster Abbey.

WOW!  A lot of work had gone into this. Very clever. The front façade changed by the second and the sculptures of the people around the door had been carefully coloured in and then accurately projected onto the building to marvellous effect. Really beautiful. I was actually inspired; for I think that was the point of all this
And so we made our way to Kings Cross. The tube station was closed (due to over-crowding?) so we exited at Euston and mooched along with the crowds. At KX the first thing we encountered was the birdcage, a permanent feature, which had been given a simple rainbow light treatment. On the rear of the German Gymnasium (now yet another eatery; I liked it when it was an art space) there was a projection consisting of series of moving dots that on closer inspection were people in the gym. A nice idea, but it seemed to be lacking something.

There were lots of people there and it took a while to access Granary Square, but we felt it wasn't what has been reported as 'crowded'. I suspect this was just on the tube, in the station and in the narrow access sections and pathways.
A large-scale animation was being projected onto what is now St Martin's School of Art. This was like the one when Madness played Our House on Buckingham Palace for Queenie's birthday except that it had no relevance to art, Kings Cross, or much to do with London except a few tube stations and hints about Hyde Park. It was circus-themed with hybrid 2D animals and birds performing tricks. I felt it was kooky French(?) humour mixed with Peter Blake and I got bored with it about half-way thorough. Again, what was the point? Was it promoting? What was it trying to achieve?
Between the art school and Waitrose was a strange satellite dish thing; it moved around, it spun slowly, it reflected lights. The roof there is angled and so I think a lot of its impact may have been lost in that placement. The music was oooooh-aaaa and it evoked sci-fi films and having stood there for what seemed ages, we rather hoped that an alien might appear, or that lasers would shoot out from it and decapitate people. Now that would be art, and we had our cameras at the ready. But no.
Later we read that the thing reacted to movement around it. Well, had they made that clear on site perhaps people might have moved about instead of just gazing gormlessly at it waiting for something to happen.

At the northernmost point there was a neon art installation of a person diving. Hmm. Seen better. Move on. And then we found that colour-changing dress (like the one at Liberty's, mentioned above). We could only see the straps of it due to the amount of people there.
Inside St Martin's was a lovely installation – a light tunnel made from recycled plastic bottles filled with water. This really appealed to me, both artistically and ethically, and I felt I'd finally found something with a message and a function. Truly inspirational. We didn't bother queueing to walk through the tunnel as it looked so nice from the outside. Again, it was selfies-a-go-go, so I joined in.
On the walk back to the station we bypassed the colourful lights being reflected onto people though they did look good and would have been better placed in a larger environment. It reminded me of a a rave party (not that I have been to any) or that Indian festival where everyone throws paint powder, But the path was too congested so descended the stairs to he new foot tunnel that leads to the tube station.

And I like it. I think this one will remain. Seems daft if it doesn't stay cos the softly-changing coloured lights are all embedded behind white walls. Looking straight at a wall it just looks white, but look along it and see vertical panels of colour. Ooh – a vast improvement from those horrid little off-white bathroom-style mini tiles they have put everywhere else in Kings Cross tube station; they were poorly installed and have become so mucky so quickly.
And so our two evenings ended.

Conclusion
So, in no particular order, my favourite things were Westminster Abbey, the flying fish, the mesh at Oxford Circus, the bottle tunnel, KX tunnel, and being able to get up close to the Centrepoint lights.
Did I feel enLIGHTened by all this? Yes and no, but mainly no. Ultimately I was more impressed looking up at the beautifully-designed ceiling at Kings Cross station.

The Bridges of Waterloo Station

Here are some lovely colourful images of the railway bridges and viaducts at the front and side of Waterloo Station.

© Jane Amelia Parker, 13th May 2015

The Golden Jubilee Bridges - utter filth

If you are planning to go to the Southbank or come to the market in Embankment Gardens this weekend (see my last post below) you may need to cross the Thames on foot. The obvious choice for the pedestrian is to use one of the Golden Jubilee bridges that run either side of Hungerford Railway Bridge.

Ooh, isn't it lovely!   But look closer....

These elegant foot bridges are reported to carry approx 8.4 million people every year so it disappoints me that they are not being maintained as well as they should be. I wonder if anyone is looking at or checking anything other than the fine views because whenever I begin to climb up any of the four flights of stairs that lead to one of the pair of elevated footpaths I am appalled at how dirty and unkempt everything is – layers of filth on the verticals of the steps, in the corners, near the lifts, and all the way along the edges. Everywhere, really except for the handrails which have been buffed clean by people's hands and clothing over the years.
And the glass side panels on all staircases are dull and/or dirty in large patches – surely these cannot have been designed to end up looking like this?
It sends a terrible message about how we, as Londoners, disrespect our environment.

The stairs outside the Royal Festival Hall and a close up of them.
The metal that runs all the way along is grubby and could/should just be wiped clean. Ditto the area by the lift.

The approach from Embankment tube station is just as bad, perhaps worse. On exiting the station one can easily see the ugly side of the foot bridge, and it's not a pretty sight. Again, lots of filth, scuffed paint and ingrained dirt. What do visitors to London make of this? 

I already wrote about this issue in March 2012 and made some other suggestions – read it here.

On the day I took these photos the eastern bridge (13 May 2015) I spotted a man in a Veolia Environmental Services hi-vis jacket scraping out the moss that had grown between the paving stones and the metal edging. Perhaps this was a precursor to some proper cleaning. I hope so.

The metal signs giving information about the views are also in a sorry state – a buff with a soft sander or a cloth shouldn't be that hard to do. Or better still, get a new sign made!! After all, this must need updating by now considering the amount of new build in the past 10 years. http://www.janeslondon.com/2015/05/cityshowcase-market-at-embankment.htmlhttp://www.janeslondon.com/2015/05/cityshowcase-market-at-embankment.html

Changes at Highbury and Islington roundabout

What a mess it is at the roundabout these days.
OK, so the old ugly Post Office building is to be demolished and a new station concourse is in the making, but a 'road modernisation plan' is also in place as is evident by the silly little lane dividers in the road and the traffic lights on the exits. The traffic lights at the Canonbury Road exit are particularly unnecessary and only serve to block up the traffic caught behind them*.
More info from Tfl and Islington Council.
I have also noticed that a few trees in the middle of the roundabout have X marked on them. Oh dear are they coming down?

Comparison photos of the train station from the 1900s and 2013. The lovely original building was bombed in WW2 and all that remains is a small piece of one column in the left hand corner.

*I have seen a similar measure recently put in place at the northern end of Wharfdale Road where it meets Caledonian Road – completely pointless as there is no other stream of traffic to contend with. Perhaps these expensive measures are put in place to further patronise those people who have not learned their Green Cross Code and are too busy looking at their smart phones?

Reading, writing and phonetics

Apparently the UK's school kids are having trouble writing the English Language, especially words with silent letters. If you click that link you'll see they also seem to be having trouble with 'Millennuim' too(!). Another recent report announced that they are will now expected to know their times tables all the way up to 12, be able to read a novel and write a short story of their own, all before they go to big school, or whatever it's called these days, at age 11.
Whaaaat?! When did the standards drop?! All of this was normal practice when I was at school. When did all of this cease to be important?
It has been suggested without much real thought* that words with silent letters within them such as column, lamb, subtle, echo and knight ought to be be re-spelled with the offending letters removed.

Unlike many other languages around the world, the English language is not phonetic** – you have only to look at our six different sounds for 'ough'; as in tuff, coff, thru, plow, tho and awt. 

Your Beautiful (Mistake), London N16

Languages evolve and adapt. In a 1934 novel by Evelyn Waugh he uses 'yoghourt' and 'Pekingese' both of which have since been shortened. 

These days, "your" (as in an item that belongs to you) is being mis-used to replace "you're" (you are)". I am also seeing "to" instead of "too", and "no" rather than "know". Hence we end up seeing things such as "you no your to lazy to spell". But it can't just be sheer laziness – it's easy to omit the apostrophe or the 'e', but not both. It's a lack of grammatical understanding.

And what about the disease that's making people replace "would have" with "would of"?! I believe it comes from people hearing "would've" and then writing what they think hear. I am saddened when I see people over 50 making this written error.

Let's return to the five words I chose above – if we remove the silent letters, the first two words, colum and lam, adapt quite well but the other three words create some problems; sutle rhymes with tootle, eco is short for ecological and night would need to be further shortened or completely re-spelled as nite.
Are you keeping up here?

It's a three-stage process. UK school children, having wasted years of their pre-school life being told that a train is a choo-choo and a cow is moo-moo, will then learn phonetic spellings and subsequently learn how to spell them correctly. Judging by the mistakes already being made with 'no', your' and 'of', as illustrated above, I fail to see how this will achieve anything other than a further dumbing-down.

Taking the phoenetic element a step further, it occurred to me that the people in charge of all this are going to be extremely busy covering all the various UK dialects. 

Here's how it might affect some areas if London:  

Lester, Grovener, Grenidge, Burra, Lincun, Willsdun, Bloomsbree and Gloster
See the etymology of London Borough names here

Afterthoughts
*as in the case of the SNP not having a decent plan for the currency should Scotland have become independent last year

**I thought Phonetix might have been an Asterix character. But he's not – here are all the characters.

World Hunger and St Pancras International Station

I popped into St Pancras Station on Sunday 13th because I had heard that an orchestra would be there who make music using the unused parts of vegetables as part of World Food Day (16th October). Watch this video which explains this cause far better than I can attempt to do so here. It includes footage taken at the station.
Whilst there I also picked up some information from Action Against Hunger. It's appalling to think I am living in a country that throws away a lot of unused  food, yet there are people in the world who are barely surviving. A lot of these people are living in countries who grow and export foodstuffs to countries such as the UK. Need I say more?

Whilst the first floor of St Pancras is a buzzing with people milling about going here and there, drinking, eating, shopping or just waiting for trains, the upper level is rather quiet. And it's a shame. The "longest champagne bar in Europe" had only two tables full that Sunday afternoon, and I was the only person admiring Martin Jennings' affectionate statue of Sir John Betjeman. Though there were a few people looking at that hideous oversized statue of the kissing couple. I popped in to the Things British shop to check on my product display. Tom has written about the shop on his very inforamative site here.
Seems to me that the lack of people on the first floor is down to access from the Euston Road and KX. Many people new to St Pancras Station do not appreciate that it's actually quicker and much nicer to go up the short flight of steps at the front right which takes you to the original entrance close to the old ticket hall which is now part of the gorgeous hotel (see my pics of the interior below). From the first floor you get the best views of the whole station and it's wonderful unsupported roof before taking the stairs or escalator down to the platforms.
Contrast this with the maze as you enter from street level and then collide with tube travellers and get coralled into a shopping mall. Ugh!

Parkland Walk – railway to pathway

More images from my recent Parkland Walk stroll.
I remember discovering Parkland Walk by accident when I moved to the Holloway area in 1988 and walndered up the hill to Crouch End. I investigated further and it was like uncovering something that no-one else knew about. My neighbours seemed to be oblivious to it when I questioned them for more info.  It reminded me of when I used to go on bike rides when I was a 10 and think that I was the only person who was aware of all those little alleys that join up the roads in Hornchurch, or the empty wartime (hospital?) buildings near the swimming pool. (Any info re this most welcome.)
Whenever I went to Parkland Walk with my sister in the early 90s we felt it was our own secret place, especially if we accessed from the little path at the top of Hillrise Rd that ran around the edge of an unloved old sports club.
Back then the trail was a bit unkept as it had been neglected for decades and we'd hardly see anyone along the whole length of the path except a few kids practicing their skateboarding skills in the half pipe at the youth centre near Crouch Hill.
A team of intrepid volunteers has managed over the years to tidy up the tangled undergrowth, remove the dead wood and really make Parkland Walk a pleasant place to pass a few hours – as they say, 'a piece of countryside in the heart of London'. Shame on me for not joining in.

There are well-maintained paths, not only along the old track, but also the little ones that lead you up and down into the trees and shrubs. Attractive stairways have been made from old railway sleepers, and information boards explain the flora and fauna. I was impressed to read about acid grassland having never even heard of it before that day (see centre images). This type of grass lives on low-nutrient acidic soils, so it's well-named!
Elements of the old Stroud Green station platforms and buildings at Stapleton Hall Rd are still in place. I looked down from the northern platform and imagined how the scene below would have looked in Edwardian times. And on the bridge at Mount View Rd I wondered why Thames Water don't let people access the lovely grass that covers the reservoir? It must be lovely on there.
The old Crouch Hill Station still retains its long platforms – there s a lovely old photo on an information board showing how it looked 100 years ago.
Enough info from me... you'll find much more here.
Please scroll down to see my previous posts about this lovely stretch of greenery.

Hitomi Hosono, Perrier-Jouët and The St Pancras Renaissance Hotel

Earlier this week I spent a pleasant hour sipping champagne and admiring the work of Hitomi Hosono at the Chambers Club within the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel.
Hosono is the winner of this year's Perrier-Jouët Arts Salon Award. Having seen her intricate work on line I was keen to go an view it in person. Also I love the building and its sympathetic renovation and rebirth (see here) and any excuse to get inside a room I have been in before is a bonus!
Hisono's work is amazing. Her work is inspired by botany and nature with titles such as Chysanthemum Bowl and Wisteria Tower and each piece takes about a month to make as each delicate flower or leaf has to be cut out and applied by hand. Some of them have hidden storage; barely visible horizontal cuts open up to reveal gem-like gold or silver leaf interiors.
I was also impressed how the pieces really suit the club's environment, as I noticed that the ceiling roses echo the same botanic shapes.
If you would like to see these for yourself, please note that the Chambers Club is a members only lounge so you cannot just wander in to have a look when you are passing. Appointments can be made by calling Caroline on 07590 262370, and you'll get a free glass of Perrier-Jouët bubbly when you visit.
Some of Hosono's work can also be found in Fortnum & Mason, the British Museum and the V&A, as well as in the homes of the rich and famous. I really do believe that these are treasures for the futures.

You Animal, You! by Charlotte Cory

A couple of weeks ago I went to the book launch of 'You Animal, You!', a printed collection of Charlotte Cory's wonderful montage photographs.
At first glance you might look at these Photoshopped images and think they are just animal heads superimposed on Victorian people. But, if you look again, you will see that all of these stuffed animals that Charlotte has found in various museums have been carefully chosen and photographed at specific angles so that they sit perfectly on the body of the person shown on the sepia Victorian calling card. (Calling cards were the equivalent of today's business card, except that Victorians, would include a self portrait. These cards were also a good marketing tool for the photographer whose name and address often appeared at the bottom.)
Charlotte's clever idea is to play with the words 'shot' and 'captured', referring in different ways to the dead animals and the photographed people.
I had a good chat to Charlotte. She is a prolific and inspirational woman; an artist, novelist, photographer and playwright, with a love of history. Plus she tells me she too collects things such as clay pipes. Ooh.
The book is jam-packed full of Charlotte's poignant and often amusing images. But I am not keen on the random spotty or coloured backgrounds which I think distract from the images, and many of the pictures that have been used full bleed have lost valuable information in the gutter area. Also, there is evidently no typography skill involved, which is a huge shame, especially seeing the wealth of inspiration on the calling cards and the labels of lotions and potions featured on the endpapers. And the letter-spaced headings with their heavy double underscores, combined with the justified copy is really clunky. I dunno; perhaps it's only me who notices these things, design for print, especially books and brochures, being my day job.
Ah well, never mind...
I just remembered this... A while ago Peter Watts asked, what would you collect if money and available space were no restriction? Easy...! Bizarre taxidermy! Like these, recently on show at Peter Blake's 'Museum of Everything'.
The book launch was in the Royal Suite of the wonderful St Pancras Hotel. With a name like 'Royal" I'd expected the room to be as wonderful as the adjacent renovated areas of the hotel, but it was rather a let down – all hotel-y with over-large sofas and floor-to-ceiling shelving containing arty bits that looked like they had been bought from Heals.

After quaffing a few tasty canapés and downing a couple of G&Ts I spent ages admiring the stairwell and adjoining corridors. It's just lovely. And assymetical. And every dragon column is different, and the clashing patterns and textures somehow work brilliantly together.
The last time I'd been in there was about 15 years ago on an Open House day. On the wall behind me as I type this is a page of the Independent dated July 1995 that shows the stairwell pre renovation and I am happy to report that it looks like all 'they' have done is clean it up a bit and add some wonderfully gaudy carpet.
On the ground floor I stood for ages chatting to a member of staff who was sporting a security badge. He had extensive knowledge about the history of the building. I commented that his enthusiasm was wonderful and asked if it was part of his job. No, he said, it wasn't – he just loves working there and has made it his business to find out as much as possible. How lovely. And what a lovely place to work.
If you want to see the building pre-renovation you need only watch this video (shot in one take!) though, like me, you will probably have the song as an ear worm for the rest of the day now... and note how little Mrs B contributes in it except for some weird faces she pulls towards the end!

The Victoria Line

I recently learned that the Victoria Line's upgrade is now complete and every train on the line is 'new'! According to TFL's blurb, these new trains are "more spacious and have wider aisles, as well as improved customer information, CCTV and better ventilation". Well well.

So what have they done with the old stock? Will we be seeing the carriages looming over Shoreditch as pop-up offices? Or perhaps they can be given to youth groups to practice their tagging skills on?

But don't get too excited just yet... all is not finished, for there will be planned closures on the line for sometime yet, and on most of the other tube lines too... But at least we can rest assured, knowing that when the Olympics begin the whole tube network will be running as smooth as clockwork* ;-)

16 Victoria Line stations:

*a wind-up clock