For as long as I can remember, I have wondered about those little, stylised representations of ‘men’ and ‘women’, when in search of a public convenience. I always think about the stick figure with the skirt: do the majority of women look like this? Just recently, I was confined to bed and was reading through a bundle of magazines, when I came across a feature by a writer recollecting his maiden aunt who wore a salmon-coloured corset underneath her clothes, for all the days of her life. What puzzled him most was that his aunt, in his opinion, was in no need of such a garment because she was so skinny.
Ah, dearie me! I screamed with laughter as I remembered my Nanna and her attachment to her corset. Like all Victorian ladies, she had been put into ‘stays’ at an early age, then had grown up and old, that way. Size didn’t come into it. In her opinion, a lady was not properly dressed without a corset. Getting into the corset was a coming of age ritual for the Victorian girl, it seems. Sometime in her teens, her hair went up, her waist pulled in and her skirts down, giving her that familiar violin silhouette. It was all blown away in the roaring twenties, of course, but this bypassed Nanna as she lived in remote parts. She also missed out on the decades prior to the swinging sixties and as late as the nineteen seventies, she was worrying our Mum about putting my sister and I into corsets – I need not tell you what we thought of the notion.
Curiously, corsets have been called ‘foundation’ garments, as if the outer garments won’t work without the laced stays underneath. More curious still, while the lady kept her corset underneath her clothes, the Victorian tart is often portrayed with a laced bodice for an outer garment, coyly hinting at what is underneath. Even today, the corset is often used as a fetish, a symbol of femininity. Yet, few contemporary women actually wear one. When Madonna wore one for a stage act, she knew exactly what she was doing. And like the ubiquitous girl symbol outside public bathrooms, few women look like that.
Monday 22 November 2010
Tuesday 16 November 2010
Why it will be different this time...
The building sits serenely on the bank of the Thames, unaware of the consternation that has washed about it in the thirty-five years since its main use was decommissioned. Battersea Power Station is like a fine, old lady, fallen on hard times. She is expensive to maintain, yet too grand to be put to humble albeit lucrative use. Her credentials are impressive. BPS was designed by leading architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, in the ‘brick cathedral’ Art Deco style. The main building was built by John Mowlem & Co, and the total cost of construction was £2,141,550 – billions in today’s money.
It was 1953 before BPS was fully in operation as a coal-fired powered station, and it seems incredible that such thought and care went into a venture that stayed in place for only twenty-two years more. But by 1975, the day of coal as a major provider of electricity was over. In the meantime, the building had become an international icon – hear the word ‘Battersea’ and what do you think of? Witness the prescience of Alfred Hitchcock using the new BPS building as an action backdrop in his (1930s) movie, Sabotage. Since then, it has been used on music album covers, and as an action backdrop setting in numerous TV shows, including Dr Who. Incredible, then, that the site fell into rack and ruin but the problems surrounding it are legion. BPS has both the blessing and the curse to be the largest brick building in Europe. Its expansiveness makes it unsuitable for the type of development of Bankside, its sister building down the river (Tate Modern). Besides, the other end of town has the benefit of City finance, a privilege the Battersea site lacks. Over the years, proposals have come and been banished, one by one for a variety of reasons; among them a dearth of funds, opposition by heritage groups, and of local residents. There was the theme park idea that cost too much, and the various ‘retail and housing’ developments that would surround BPS, and block its view from the river. Now, Real Estate Opportunities, the firm that bought the site in 2006 has just had a £5.5 billion ‘retail and housing’ plan approved, with the proviso that the Northern Line is extended by two stops to facilitate the shoppers and visitors who will certainly want to go there. In short, if the public money is made available, private funds will follow. It all looks very credible, but so have the plans of the past. We can only wait and see.
It was 1953 before BPS was fully in operation as a coal-fired powered station, and it seems incredible that such thought and care went into a venture that stayed in place for only twenty-two years more. But by 1975, the day of coal as a major provider of electricity was over. In the meantime, the building had become an international icon – hear the word ‘Battersea’ and what do you think of? Witness the prescience of Alfred Hitchcock using the new BPS building as an action backdrop in his (1930s) movie, Sabotage. Since then, it has been used on music album covers, and as an action backdrop setting in numerous TV shows, including Dr Who. Incredible, then, that the site fell into rack and ruin but the problems surrounding it are legion. BPS has both the blessing and the curse to be the largest brick building in Europe. Its expansiveness makes it unsuitable for the type of development of Bankside, its sister building down the river (Tate Modern). Besides, the other end of town has the benefit of City finance, a privilege the Battersea site lacks. Over the years, proposals have come and been banished, one by one for a variety of reasons; among them a dearth of funds, opposition by heritage groups, and of local residents. There was the theme park idea that cost too much, and the various ‘retail and housing’ developments that would surround BPS, and block its view from the river. Now, Real Estate Opportunities, the firm that bought the site in 2006 has just had a £5.5 billion ‘retail and housing’ plan approved, with the proviso that the Northern Line is extended by two stops to facilitate the shoppers and visitors who will certainly want to go there. In short, if the public money is made available, private funds will follow. It all looks very credible, but so have the plans of the past. We can only wait and see.
Tuesday 9 November 2010
History of the World
The history of the artefact is the history of all humanity. After all, it is our ability to make things that delineates us from other animals. Sure, birds build nests and beavers build dams, but that is all they will ever do. Man is not stuck in such an evolutional groove but has the capacity to go on creating and building, seemingly forever. Archaeologists and anthropologists work in tandem, trying to pinpoint the time when a rather sophisticated primate became ‘human’.
The answer may never be known, but we do know that the ‘oldest’ cave painting, found at Lascaux in France and dated at c 17,000 BC, is rather recent in the history of mankind. The Greek poet Homer wrote of the Trojan wars, estimated to be about 12 or 13 BC. Whether the story of the wooden horse is truth or fantasy matters not. It says much about the level of skill in woodworking, and the ingenuity of the military strategists of the time.
Indeed, Greek mythology is rich with instances of gods, humans and monsters using made objects to secure their own ends. The hero of the Trojan war, Odysseus, was an Achaean who had left his wife Penelope at home with their son. Suitors that claimed Odysseus was dead, and wanted to marry her – and her lands and money, no doubt, besieged her. The wise woman started work on a tapestry. She laboured at it by day, promising to choose a suitor when it was finished. But she unpicked the stitches by night and held off the marriage brigade for the twenty years or so that it took her husband to fight his wars and return from his travels.
Odysseus had his own material issues. In one instance, he spent seven years marooned upon an island, stranded there after his ship was wrecked in a storm. Then, some passing deity took pity upon him, and bequeathed him that very practical thing, a boat. Odysseus may have been a hero, but he lacked skills in woodworking. Meanwhile, Hermes had his winged sandals to help him deliver, while Poseidon was all powerful with his trident. No matter how invincible the mythical deities seemed, they still needed things to be effective.
The answer may never be known, but we do know that the ‘oldest’ cave painting, found at Lascaux in France and dated at c 17,000 BC, is rather recent in the history of mankind. The Greek poet Homer wrote of the Trojan wars, estimated to be about 12 or 13 BC. Whether the story of the wooden horse is truth or fantasy matters not. It says much about the level of skill in woodworking, and the ingenuity of the military strategists of the time.
Indeed, Greek mythology is rich with instances of gods, humans and monsters using made objects to secure their own ends. The hero of the Trojan war, Odysseus, was an Achaean who had left his wife Penelope at home with their son. Suitors that claimed Odysseus was dead, and wanted to marry her – and her lands and money, no doubt, besieged her. The wise woman started work on a tapestry. She laboured at it by day, promising to choose a suitor when it was finished. But she unpicked the stitches by night and held off the marriage brigade for the twenty years or so that it took her husband to fight his wars and return from his travels.
Odysseus had his own material issues. In one instance, he spent seven years marooned upon an island, stranded there after his ship was wrecked in a storm. Then, some passing deity took pity upon him, and bequeathed him that very practical thing, a boat. Odysseus may have been a hero, but he lacked skills in woodworking. Meanwhile, Hermes had his winged sandals to help him deliver, while Poseidon was all powerful with his trident. No matter how invincible the mythical deities seemed, they still needed things to be effective.
Monday 18 October 2010
Technology into Mythology
Right now, it is the most beautiful, talked-about piece of engineering in the world. It shot towards the centre of the earth and back nearly forty times, like a magic bullet, on a rescue mission that was almost mythical in its intent and eventual success. Whoever named it Phoenix knew exactly what he was doing and this tiny capsule – with the radius of a bicycle wheel – should rank above space rockets and submarines in its importance to humanity. Small is indeed beautiful.
But then, miniaturisation has long been the benchmark of technological progress – just witness the microprocessor! Here, I am not going to calculate how many of these things can sit on the head of a pin. Instead, I marvel at how a piece of metal, two inches by one half, can store all the work I have ever done; manuscripts, articles, photos, drawings, college work, correspondence, in short, everything. And my memory device is far from being the most powerful. Truly, these things are the contemporary equivalent of the magic wand. It is no wonder they are being incorporated into jewellery and carried as talismans. After all, a man’s work is his gold and technology becomes mythology.
With machines that fly and ones that dive, doors that open and shut free of human contact, and gadgets that give us seemingly telepathic powers of communication, it is worth pondering whether our plethora of super-power devices isn’t the contemporary fulfilment of age-old legend. More than one self-help guru has written: what we can conceive and believe, we can truly achieve.
Yea, the Phoenix may have risen but miniaturisation does have a downside. Right now, the entire nation seems to be licking its collective lips at the prospect of that age-old behemoth and public institution, the library, reduced to a trestle table laid with grubby, dog-eared tomes for public borrowing, at the entrance to pubs and supermarkets, and staffed by ‘volunteers’. My library is a grand, purpose-built building containing a comprehensive collection of the literature and learning of our times, presided over by paid librarians and their qualified assistants. Such places truly are mythical – may they not vanish into myth…
But then, miniaturisation has long been the benchmark of technological progress – just witness the microprocessor! Here, I am not going to calculate how many of these things can sit on the head of a pin. Instead, I marvel at how a piece of metal, two inches by one half, can store all the work I have ever done; manuscripts, articles, photos, drawings, college work, correspondence, in short, everything. And my memory device is far from being the most powerful. Truly, these things are the contemporary equivalent of the magic wand. It is no wonder they are being incorporated into jewellery and carried as talismans. After all, a man’s work is his gold and technology becomes mythology.
With machines that fly and ones that dive, doors that open and shut free of human contact, and gadgets that give us seemingly telepathic powers of communication, it is worth pondering whether our plethora of super-power devices isn’t the contemporary fulfilment of age-old legend. More than one self-help guru has written: what we can conceive and believe, we can truly achieve.
Yea, the Phoenix may have risen but miniaturisation does have a downside. Right now, the entire nation seems to be licking its collective lips at the prospect of that age-old behemoth and public institution, the library, reduced to a trestle table laid with grubby, dog-eared tomes for public borrowing, at the entrance to pubs and supermarkets, and staffed by ‘volunteers’. My library is a grand, purpose-built building containing a comprehensive collection of the literature and learning of our times, presided over by paid librarians and their qualified assistants. Such places truly are mythical – may they not vanish into myth…
Monday 13 September 2010
This old house..
It has oft been said that a house regresses back to the nature from whence it has come, almost as soon as it has been built. I can believe it. This could account for the phenomenon whereby a deserted or vacant house falls quickly into disrepair. Yet, it goes against all logic when you think about it. Most other non-consumable goods gain from preservation rather than use; just think of cars, fine clothing and footwear, glass and china – the reason why the ‘antique’ of these are valued so highly. Vintage electricals are mostly useless, apart from their totemic value. Paradoxically, houses actually gain in price as functionality diminishes.
But what can account for the link between said functionality and the level of occupier involvement? Occupiers most often have a vested interest in keeping a house in good repair. There is no substitute for human vigilance in spotting cracked walls and leaking roofs, in keeping rimes of dirt off of window panes and paying attention to outside walls. A constant occupier will warm the house in winter, thus preventing mildew and other, creeping growths. In warmer weather, the occupier checks the presence of bugs and insects, rodents and nesting birds. The more preternatural among you will say that an empty house does not feel loved. It is no secret that a house becomes like its owner. A stroll down any street will reveal the mindset of a domestic occupier; fussy and pedantic or laid-back and hippy, with the millions of shades in between.
In short, many people identify with their homes to the point where their house is an extension of their own physique.
The anthropomorphic debunking of the dwelling façade – windows as eyes, door as mouth, etc – has long been in place. Most of us, to some extent, regard an attack upon the home as an attack upon the person, but a sizeable minority push the allegory a little too far. In the days when children actually played outside, every child knew of at least one occupier who would not, absolutely not hand back any ball or plaything that landed, however inadvertently, on their home territory. One point of contact with said concrete or grass, and the occupier regarded the object as their own. How we vainly cried and protested.
On becoming an occupier, I can understand the mentality of certain of these freaks – while not agreeing with their methods, of course. After all, you can protect your body as best you can, like your home, yet it will always be subject to outside forces. At the end of the day, I still feel there is more, much more, to this house/occupier thing. Can anyone enlighten me, please?
But what can account for the link between said functionality and the level of occupier involvement? Occupiers most often have a vested interest in keeping a house in good repair. There is no substitute for human vigilance in spotting cracked walls and leaking roofs, in keeping rimes of dirt off of window panes and paying attention to outside walls. A constant occupier will warm the house in winter, thus preventing mildew and other, creeping growths. In warmer weather, the occupier checks the presence of bugs and insects, rodents and nesting birds. The more preternatural among you will say that an empty house does not feel loved. It is no secret that a house becomes like its owner. A stroll down any street will reveal the mindset of a domestic occupier; fussy and pedantic or laid-back and hippy, with the millions of shades in between.
In short, many people identify with their homes to the point where their house is an extension of their own physique.
The anthropomorphic debunking of the dwelling façade – windows as eyes, door as mouth, etc – has long been in place. Most of us, to some extent, regard an attack upon the home as an attack upon the person, but a sizeable minority push the allegory a little too far. In the days when children actually played outside, every child knew of at least one occupier who would not, absolutely not hand back any ball or plaything that landed, however inadvertently, on their home territory. One point of contact with said concrete or grass, and the occupier regarded the object as their own. How we vainly cried and protested.
On becoming an occupier, I can understand the mentality of certain of these freaks – while not agreeing with their methods, of course. After all, you can protect your body as best you can, like your home, yet it will always be subject to outside forces. At the end of the day, I still feel there is more, much more, to this house/occupier thing. Can anyone enlighten me, please?
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Let there be light...
Just now, Britain is remembering the Blitz, it being exactly seventy years since Luftwaffe bombs rained down on this island. The events sparked off another way of life. People became au fait with bomb shelters – Londoners translate as Underground – and going to work in damaged buildings that managed to stay ‘open for business’. A night of uninterrupted sleep became an aspiration rather than a matter of course and an entire generation grew up having been, or having played host to, evacuee children. Our inconveniences today don’t even compare with the sufferings of those times but it seems Britain is headed for a new type of blackout.
In order to save money, local councils are cutting down on street lighting, possibly shutting off one in five streetlights, and saving hundreds of thousands of pounds annually in the process. Great, but who will it leave in the dark, and when? Householders fear security risks if their street goes too dark and in rural areas where streetlights are already few and far between, pedestrians already run a higher risk from traffic after dark.
My concern is that yes, we do need to turn down the lights but it must be done equitably, in appropriate areas and for the right reasons. Light pollution is already a buzz phrase in many urban areas, since bright lighting in town centres cancel out the glorious, celestial overhead display. These are possible targets for the borough councils’ light brigade. A spokesman for the Institution of Lighting Engineers has said it is perfectly possible to save on lighting by dimming street lighting when it is least needed; i.e., at evening dusk and at first light in the morning. Good thinking, and such changes will have to be carefully orchestrated so that no-one loses out. What we do not want in a new era of light fascism, with lighting hours being conserved for the showier, ritzier parts of towns and villages, while the sink estates and more downbeat areas are left to moulder in darkness, becoming magnets for criminal and other, questionable activity. This would be especially ironic since it is most likely lack of resources that makes them ‘no-go’ places in the first instance. At the end of the day – and all through the night – we do not need light inequality to join the line-up of inequities that already plague our lives.
In order to save money, local councils are cutting down on street lighting, possibly shutting off one in five streetlights, and saving hundreds of thousands of pounds annually in the process. Great, but who will it leave in the dark, and when? Householders fear security risks if their street goes too dark and in rural areas where streetlights are already few and far between, pedestrians already run a higher risk from traffic after dark.
My concern is that yes, we do need to turn down the lights but it must be done equitably, in appropriate areas and for the right reasons. Light pollution is already a buzz phrase in many urban areas, since bright lighting in town centres cancel out the glorious, celestial overhead display. These are possible targets for the borough councils’ light brigade. A spokesman for the Institution of Lighting Engineers has said it is perfectly possible to save on lighting by dimming street lighting when it is least needed; i.e., at evening dusk and at first light in the morning. Good thinking, and such changes will have to be carefully orchestrated so that no-one loses out. What we do not want in a new era of light fascism, with lighting hours being conserved for the showier, ritzier parts of towns and villages, while the sink estates and more downbeat areas are left to moulder in darkness, becoming magnets for criminal and other, questionable activity. This would be especially ironic since it is most likely lack of resources that makes them ‘no-go’ places in the first instance. At the end of the day – and all through the night – we do not need light inequality to join the line-up of inequities that already plague our lives.
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Shadows of the Sixties
Last Friday night when surfing my Freeview, I landed on a much-neglected channel named Yesterday. I had oft landed upon it before and found little reason to hang about, but this night I found a sixties’ party in full swing. At first I thought it was a spoof. Surely that wasn’t Helen Shapiro, resplendent in pink trouser suit, singing Walkin’ Back To Happiness? What threw me was that her clothing and the dancers that she was surrounded by looked all too right; the mini skirts, knee-high boots and headbands, the hood-like hairstyles and ‘Cleopatra’ painted eyes. It was as if a filmmaker had hired a designer to authenticate every detail. But as the show wore on, I realised that this was no director’s fantasy.
The dancers were too pale and plump to be even considered for onstage work today. The outfits of the performers were without irony and most significantly, apart from the main players, there were no individual ‘looks’ screaming for attention. Nope, this was the genuine article, the paisley-patterned decade itself. We saw a monochrome Tom Jones sing Delilah, then Cilla Black in a full length, bright yellow shirt waister rendering Anyone Can Have A Heart for all her worth. The Shadows treated us to one of their guitar-strumming instrumentals, then were joined by a young Cliff Richard singing Batchelor Boy and Congratulations. It ought to have been hilarious, yet it was somehow refreshing to hearken back to a time when young people sought to dress uniformly, instead of the eternal clamouring to be an ‘indivudual’.
The four Shadows wore identical suits and the movements of their three guitarists were spookily well synchronised. Pertinent question: why were they called the Shadows? Sure, they were Cliff’s original backing group but after he had long flown, they continued to perform as a group, with no-one coming to the fore. Even today, I can’t name a single Shadow – maybe that is my lack of nous? There was much more to the sixties, I suspect, than free love and home-grown mushrooms. However, this was the calm before the storm in the form of the sequinned, psychedelic seventies when young men donned tinsel and giant spectacles in order to look different. That, as they say, is another story.
The dancers were too pale and plump to be even considered for onstage work today. The outfits of the performers were without irony and most significantly, apart from the main players, there were no individual ‘looks’ screaming for attention. Nope, this was the genuine article, the paisley-patterned decade itself. We saw a monochrome Tom Jones sing Delilah, then Cilla Black in a full length, bright yellow shirt waister rendering Anyone Can Have A Heart for all her worth. The Shadows treated us to one of their guitar-strumming instrumentals, then were joined by a young Cliff Richard singing Batchelor Boy and Congratulations. It ought to have been hilarious, yet it was somehow refreshing to hearken back to a time when young people sought to dress uniformly, instead of the eternal clamouring to be an ‘indivudual’.
The four Shadows wore identical suits and the movements of their three guitarists were spookily well synchronised. Pertinent question: why were they called the Shadows? Sure, they were Cliff’s original backing group but after he had long flown, they continued to perform as a group, with no-one coming to the fore. Even today, I can’t name a single Shadow – maybe that is my lack of nous? There was much more to the sixties, I suspect, than free love and home-grown mushrooms. However, this was the calm before the storm in the form of the sequinned, psychedelic seventies when young men donned tinsel and giant spectacles in order to look different. That, as they say, is another story.
Tuesday 24 August 2010
In the Night Garden....
It’s no use. I have tried and tried but I can’t hold back on this one any longer. Since its launch three years ago, I have been busting to write a piece about In the Night Garden, the Andrew Davenport created children’s TV series. But a certain sense has always held me back, the sense that a fully-grown and matured adult should not be watching and enjoying a programme aimed at 0-3 year olds. However, I recently reviewed the ‘matured’ bit and decided that maybe I was qualified to comment, after all. In the Night Garden was first aired on BBC in 2007. Since then it has conquered 35 countries, including Norway and China, where book sales have reached 1.5 million. It is now a travelling stage show. So, what is all the fuss about?
The characters; Iggle Piggle, Makka Pakka, Upsy Daisy and many others, are designed as soft toys, the kind that any child might own. They inhabit a colourful, yet gentle world that is brightly lit at the beginning of each 30-minute episode, and slowly turns to shade as the story unfolds. At the end, the toys all go to bed in the same ritualistic way as childern do. Last to go is always Iggle Piggle who skips through the night garden swinging his red blanket, then is seen in a boat on a dark sea, floating away to a world of dreams.
Each episode is a complete story in itself, an essay into sound and colour, told by the action of the toys and narration by the honeyed tones of Derek Jacobi. The narrative also plays with the names of the toys, each name being definite but based on ‘baby babble’, again, the way a child names his toys. The toys themselves don’t use speech, but each has a unique ‘signature’ sound, a burble or squeak. Each toy also has its own character and behaves predictably within the framework of the story.
And that, I think, is what is so calming about In the Night Garden. The characters are as comforting and predictable as a child’s own toys. In addition to the morning and evening ‘bookends’, each episode includes at least one song and one dance – aaaaah! I can’t praise it highly enough. For me, watching the occasional episode of In the Night Garden has helped me bust through more mental blocks than all the ‘how to’ literature I’ve read, combined. With a start like that, there will be a crop of geniuses in colleges around the globe, in ten or twenty years’ time. Yes, really.
The characters; Iggle Piggle, Makka Pakka, Upsy Daisy and many others, are designed as soft toys, the kind that any child might own. They inhabit a colourful, yet gentle world that is brightly lit at the beginning of each 30-minute episode, and slowly turns to shade as the story unfolds. At the end, the toys all go to bed in the same ritualistic way as childern do. Last to go is always Iggle Piggle who skips through the night garden swinging his red blanket, then is seen in a boat on a dark sea, floating away to a world of dreams.
Each episode is a complete story in itself, an essay into sound and colour, told by the action of the toys and narration by the honeyed tones of Derek Jacobi. The narrative also plays with the names of the toys, each name being definite but based on ‘baby babble’, again, the way a child names his toys. The toys themselves don’t use speech, but each has a unique ‘signature’ sound, a burble or squeak. Each toy also has its own character and behaves predictably within the framework of the story.
And that, I think, is what is so calming about In the Night Garden. The characters are as comforting and predictable as a child’s own toys. In addition to the morning and evening ‘bookends’, each episode includes at least one song and one dance – aaaaah! I can’t praise it highly enough. For me, watching the occasional episode of In the Night Garden has helped me bust through more mental blocks than all the ‘how to’ literature I’ve read, combined. With a start like that, there will be a crop of geniuses in colleges around the globe, in ten or twenty years’ time. Yes, really.
Thursday 19 August 2010
Runaway trains and ghostly machines...
Last weekend’s runaway train saga totally freaked me out. It just doesn’t bear thinking about; several hundred tonnes of rolling stock thundering through North London’s Underground network, only to be halted – human fashion – by the gradient of Warren Street station. The instance set me thinking of other minds with a machine of their own; Herbie the comic Beetle car and movie star, Steven King’s terrifying Christine, the dancing female robot in Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926), and Hal the wayward computer, (2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick, 1968). Of course, our past notions of what a robot actually is was off-kilter, being not necessarily humanoid tin cans with high pitched voices, out-doing us in ‘logic’ at every turn.
The modern-day robot comes in many guises, is usually task-specific and is unlikely to be logical. There are those annoying freezers that ping like mad when you leave their door open for too long. There are the disembodied voices that you engage with on the phone many times – and wish you didn’t have to. And what about those ‘friendly, chatty’ horrors that you check out your supermarket shopping on? With more and more trains are becoming ‘driverless’, it would be enlightening to know who or what controls these beasts and how can we ensure ‘the above’ doesn’t happen again. Answers, please….
The modern-day robot comes in many guises, is usually task-specific and is unlikely to be logical. There are those annoying freezers that ping like mad when you leave their door open for too long. There are the disembodied voices that you engage with on the phone many times – and wish you didn’t have to. And what about those ‘friendly, chatty’ horrors that you check out your supermarket shopping on? With more and more trains are becoming ‘driverless’, it would be enlightening to know who or what controls these beasts and how can we ensure ‘the above’ doesn’t happen again. Answers, please….
Monday 9 August 2010
Pakistan needs development, not politics.
In a report in the Guardian newspaper, Saeed Shah contrasts the feeble behaviour of President Asif Ali Zadari with the much stronger performance of the Pakistani military in relation to the ‘rescue’ of the victims of what has been described as ‘the worst floods in the country’s modern history’. It is not difficult to understand the tone of rage behind Shah’s report. President Zadari is sojourning in this part of the world, a trip including a ding-dong with our own David Cameron and a ‘drop in’ on his, Zadari’s, sixteenth century chateau in Normandy.
At the same time, six million Pakistani people have been drowned, gone missing or left homeless, hungry and destitute by the floods. The military is particularly strong in Pakistan, the country having been under military rule for more than half of its 63-year existence. Shah quotes Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst based in Lahore: the military got an opportunity to demonstrate its organisational and technical skills. The military knows they have public support, so they can pursue their own agenda.
The ‘agenda’ that Rizvi refers to is, according to Shah, the possibility of its sliding back into political power because of the recent demonstrable weakness of the civilian government, that is, its inability to cope with the floods. It seems a shoddy thought at such a time, and yet, I suspect Rizvi is barking up the right tree. However, it is for all the wrong reasons.
The annual monsoon is not an unexpected event like an earthquake or tsunami. It arrives every year, on cue. The people most at risk are always the poorest; their homes and possessions swept away, their crops and cattle lost. Being still in development, vast swathes of the 200 million-strong Pakistani population are at risk from this type of devastation. The last thing it needs is to be held as pawn by a tussling military and government, presided over by an indifferent president.
What Pakistan needs is a programme of infrastructure; shorings and dammings, runnels and rivulets, designed to ally the worst effects of an unexpectedly heavy monsoon. If the government won’t or cannot provide, then the world bank must explore ways to raise the billions needed to help the country develop fully. It would be less expensive in the long run, financially speaking. After all, the cost of the topographical travesty known as Palm Jumeirah only cost $12.3 billion.
At the same time, six million Pakistani people have been drowned, gone missing or left homeless, hungry and destitute by the floods. The military is particularly strong in Pakistan, the country having been under military rule for more than half of its 63-year existence. Shah quotes Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst based in Lahore: the military got an opportunity to demonstrate its organisational and technical skills. The military knows they have public support, so they can pursue their own agenda.
The ‘agenda’ that Rizvi refers to is, according to Shah, the possibility of its sliding back into political power because of the recent demonstrable weakness of the civilian government, that is, its inability to cope with the floods. It seems a shoddy thought at such a time, and yet, I suspect Rizvi is barking up the right tree. However, it is for all the wrong reasons.
The annual monsoon is not an unexpected event like an earthquake or tsunami. It arrives every year, on cue. The people most at risk are always the poorest; their homes and possessions swept away, their crops and cattle lost. Being still in development, vast swathes of the 200 million-strong Pakistani population are at risk from this type of devastation. The last thing it needs is to be held as pawn by a tussling military and government, presided over by an indifferent president.
What Pakistan needs is a programme of infrastructure; shorings and dammings, runnels and rivulets, designed to ally the worst effects of an unexpectedly heavy monsoon. If the government won’t or cannot provide, then the world bank must explore ways to raise the billions needed to help the country develop fully. It would be less expensive in the long run, financially speaking. After all, the cost of the topographical travesty known as Palm Jumeirah only cost $12.3 billion.
Monday 2 August 2010
East Angular, Hills Road and Boris-biking!
It just so happened that the launch of Boris’s bikes coincided with my very first trip to Cambridge. When we arrived there, the first thing that struck me – not literally – was the presence of cyclists in tandem with the absence of gradient in the topography. At this point, I’m busting to mention that by an odd quirk of nomenclature, the thoroughfare from Cambridge train station to the town centre is called Hills Road – aaah!
These happy people are not in need of a cajoling municipal official, a sponsoring big business, nor a set of ‘docks’ alongside a non-existent set of underground stations. In short, cycling is what comes naturally to the good folks of this East Anglian town, with its scaled-down locales and even roads and pavements. I hate to knock a project before it gets off the ground (sorry!) but I cannot see how London will ever be a cyclists’ city in the same way as say, Amsterdam.
Alright, there will be the odd sod who, by virtue of living near an underground station, who doesn’t have to spend more than thirty minutes cycling to work nor negotiate steep gradients, and whose domestic set-up excludes parking space for a bike, make those cycling charges more than offset what they would have spent on other transport, making ‘Boris-biking’ fit comfortably into their lifestyles. Indeed, in a metropolis the size of London, that could amount to a sizeable number of people, enough to make the project as it is now, worthwhile. But at the end of the day, cycling will only ever be the embroidery on the tablecloth. A few thousand more cyclists on the road will never rule out the need for a well-financed, integrated network of trains, tubes, trams and buses. Enough said.
These happy people are not in need of a cajoling municipal official, a sponsoring big business, nor a set of ‘docks’ alongside a non-existent set of underground stations. In short, cycling is what comes naturally to the good folks of this East Anglian town, with its scaled-down locales and even roads and pavements. I hate to knock a project before it gets off the ground (sorry!) but I cannot see how London will ever be a cyclists’ city in the same way as say, Amsterdam.
Alright, there will be the odd sod who, by virtue of living near an underground station, who doesn’t have to spend more than thirty minutes cycling to work nor negotiate steep gradients, and whose domestic set-up excludes parking space for a bike, make those cycling charges more than offset what they would have spent on other transport, making ‘Boris-biking’ fit comfortably into their lifestyles. Indeed, in a metropolis the size of London, that could amount to a sizeable number of people, enough to make the project as it is now, worthwhile. But at the end of the day, cycling will only ever be the embroidery on the tablecloth. A few thousand more cyclists on the road will never rule out the need for a well-financed, integrated network of trains, tubes, trams and buses. Enough said.
Tuesday 29 June 2010
Erin, the electrician...
Out of curiosity, I looked into How To Build A Nuclear Submarine (BBC2, 27 June, 2010) and was not surprised at what I saw; men, young and older, engaged in a boys’ own strategy of bonding, machine-building, cutting and welding, and team-playing. What did take me by surprise was Erin, the young apprentice electrician at the Barrow-in-Furness based operation.
When Erin is finished her training, the voiceover said, she will be one of an elite corps of skilled technician. Not only that, Erin is young, blonde, pretty, a real role model for young women, everywhere. Forget the Wags, and make way for this new take on Rosie the Riveter. Forget the Beckhams, the Coles and the Rooneys. Manolo Blahniks have had their day and a Masters’ Certificate is the new cool.
And the beautiful end-point of the work? Each Astute submarine costs £1 billion build. Each is the length of a football field, can circumnavigate the globe without surfacing – it won’t have to refuel for 25 years – and is possessed of sonar so powerful that one in the English Channel can detect one leaving New York harbour.
Great, but I can’t imagine why anyone would want to – I mean, isn’t the Cold War over? And what about all those marines (submariners?) who will spend months underwater, in cramped conditions? Only the captain of the sub will have his own quarters, see.
It all smacks of the ‘sixties television series, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, underwater answer to the stellar Startrek. I relished the series, although I never knew exactly what that crew were up to, either. It was all great adventure stuff, as no doubt it will be for the Astute submariners. And in her hub of activity, productivity and sense of common purpose, how I envy Erin the electrician…
When Erin is finished her training, the voiceover said, she will be one of an elite corps of skilled technician. Not only that, Erin is young, blonde, pretty, a real role model for young women, everywhere. Forget the Wags, and make way for this new take on Rosie the Riveter. Forget the Beckhams, the Coles and the Rooneys. Manolo Blahniks have had their day and a Masters’ Certificate is the new cool.
And the beautiful end-point of the work? Each Astute submarine costs £1 billion build. Each is the length of a football field, can circumnavigate the globe without surfacing – it won’t have to refuel for 25 years – and is possessed of sonar so powerful that one in the English Channel can detect one leaving New York harbour.
Great, but I can’t imagine why anyone would want to – I mean, isn’t the Cold War over? And what about all those marines (submariners?) who will spend months underwater, in cramped conditions? Only the captain of the sub will have his own quarters, see.
It all smacks of the ‘sixties television series, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, underwater answer to the stellar Startrek. I relished the series, although I never knew exactly what that crew were up to, either. It was all great adventure stuff, as no doubt it will be for the Astute submariners. And in her hub of activity, productivity and sense of common purpose, how I envy Erin the electrician…
Monday 21 June 2010
Beam me up, Scotty, please...
Of all the inventions that they promised us and that were never delivered, the one I miss most is teleportation. You have definitely heard of it, whereby a man that needs to get from A to B need not bother with train, plane or automobile, bike nor bus, but a “dematerialisation” chamber at point A that beams him to point B where the reverse process takes place. His journey is done, over.
No more being held in thrall to Icelandic volcanoes, French air traffic controllers or Irish low-budget airlines. No more missing luggage – it can travel with you, see! Goodbye to lousy food and dratted engineering works. Why are the scientists taking so long to invent it? Personally, I blame George Langelaan for writing his short story The Fly in 1957, in which scientist Andre Delambre suffers a shocking accident when he experiments with a disintegrator –integrator, the “dematerialisation” chamber I wrote of earlier. The following year Kurt Neumann gave us the first screen version of the story, followed by David Cronenberg’s The Fly in 1986.
If it wasn’t for Langelaan and his discouraging developments in technology, airports would be obsolete by now and the debate over the third runway would never have happened. Oh, yes, there is always the danger of fusing genes with a mouse or with Boris Johnson, but technology has always been hazardous – don’t forget BP. The benefits of teleportation to the environment would be so enormous that the odd, unlikely fusion would hardly matter. Indeed, one or two might be an advantage – how about merging David Cameron with Nick Clegg? They are two of a kind, anyway. Stripy horses already exist in nature; how about furry fish, feathered goats and horned kittens? Come on, scientists! Take a few risks, make travel less miserable and we’ll be one step closer to whizzing untrammelled about the universe...
No more being held in thrall to Icelandic volcanoes, French air traffic controllers or Irish low-budget airlines. No more missing luggage – it can travel with you, see! Goodbye to lousy food and dratted engineering works. Why are the scientists taking so long to invent it? Personally, I blame George Langelaan for writing his short story The Fly in 1957, in which scientist Andre Delambre suffers a shocking accident when he experiments with a disintegrator –integrator, the “dematerialisation” chamber I wrote of earlier. The following year Kurt Neumann gave us the first screen version of the story, followed by David Cronenberg’s The Fly in 1986.
If it wasn’t for Langelaan and his discouraging developments in technology, airports would be obsolete by now and the debate over the third runway would never have happened. Oh, yes, there is always the danger of fusing genes with a mouse or with Boris Johnson, but technology has always been hazardous – don’t forget BP. The benefits of teleportation to the environment would be so enormous that the odd, unlikely fusion would hardly matter. Indeed, one or two might be an advantage – how about merging David Cameron with Nick Clegg? They are two of a kind, anyway. Stripy horses already exist in nature; how about furry fish, feathered goats and horned kittens? Come on, scientists! Take a few risks, make travel less miserable and we’ll be one step closer to whizzing untrammelled about the universe...
Wednesday 9 June 2010
Mystery of the Missing Shoulder
I grew up believing that the egalitarian, fashion-free, gender-equal utopia aboard the Starship Enterprise was a microcosm of the real world. Long before that vision was dashed, I received a rude awakening of the sartorial kind. When I was a little ‘un, our family went weekly to a local shopping precinct. One Saturday, we were strolling up and down, enjoying the day and gathering our purchases when a ripple of laughter running through the crowd caught our attention.
It was almost a medieval scene, the shoppers pausing in their business to stare at and lampoon a young man. Nothing remarkable about him except that the trousers he wore consisted of one navy-blue leg and one white leg. Young children, matrons, adult men, all tittered and wondered at this sight. The wonder of this story is, of course, our wonder, our sheer lack of sophistication. We really had never seen anything like it before. I remember thinking that maybe the tailor hadn’t enough of either navy or white fabric, and had cobbled together a garment made of left over pieces – in which case, the trousers were very innovative indeed. This is the same mindset with which my Mum regards those tops and dresses that have one shoulder cut away: it looks like they hadn’t enough cloth to finish the garment.
The Day of the Trousers pitched me into a lifetime of conservative dressing, a state from which I have never emerged. Over the years, I have bemusedly observed the procession of fads and fashions that contribute to the montage of life; the ripped and torn, the faded and distressed, the uneven hemlines and faux patches, without so much as a pang of longing - or a missing shoulder.
It was almost a medieval scene, the shoppers pausing in their business to stare at and lampoon a young man. Nothing remarkable about him except that the trousers he wore consisted of one navy-blue leg and one white leg. Young children, matrons, adult men, all tittered and wondered at this sight. The wonder of this story is, of course, our wonder, our sheer lack of sophistication. We really had never seen anything like it before. I remember thinking that maybe the tailor hadn’t enough of either navy or white fabric, and had cobbled together a garment made of left over pieces – in which case, the trousers were very innovative indeed. This is the same mindset with which my Mum regards those tops and dresses that have one shoulder cut away: it looks like they hadn’t enough cloth to finish the garment.
The Day of the Trousers pitched me into a lifetime of conservative dressing, a state from which I have never emerged. Over the years, I have bemusedly observed the procession of fads and fashions that contribute to the montage of life; the ripped and torn, the faded and distressed, the uneven hemlines and faux patches, without so much as a pang of longing - or a missing shoulder.
Thursday 6 May 2010
Colour me unconcerned
During the 1980s a whole rash of businesses arose, based on assisting members of the populace to find their ‘true colours’. I believe it worked something like this. You went to an office where a consultant with undisclosed qualifications looked at you underneath different lights, asked a number of questions about your likes and dislikes and then, after due consideration, drew forth a palette of colours that she (usually) decided were for you.
Only in these colours, went the claim, would you look and feel your brightest and best to the point where those who got their colour scheme ‘wrong’ were likely to crash cars and fail exams. Most curious of all were those consultants who grouped their clients into one of the four seasons. The town was alive with springs talking to summers, and autumns arguing with winters. Now, it’s all rather passé.
In these days of throwaway clothes, there is much less angst expended over the tint of a shirt than when we (gasp!) saved up and bought a garment that might hang in our wardrobes for (double gasp!) years. I never bought into this colour thing simply because I couldn’t bear the thought of a total stranger telling me – who has very definite colour likes and dislikes – that my choice of clothing was all wrong.
Instead, I contented myself with filling in those pop psychology quizzes in magazines, indicating favoured colours in various circumstances, then reading the analyses afterwards.
I have long forgotten what sort of animal I am supposed to be, but the colours of that decade still resonate: midnight blue, fuchsia pink, pillar-box red, canary yellow and black, black, black – and I have never moved on from wearing combos of these glorious shades. Fashion aside, there are definite psychological responses to colour in certain situations, and often with beneficial results – but that is another column.
Only in these colours, went the claim, would you look and feel your brightest and best to the point where those who got their colour scheme ‘wrong’ were likely to crash cars and fail exams. Most curious of all were those consultants who grouped their clients into one of the four seasons. The town was alive with springs talking to summers, and autumns arguing with winters. Now, it’s all rather passé.
In these days of throwaway clothes, there is much less angst expended over the tint of a shirt than when we (gasp!) saved up and bought a garment that might hang in our wardrobes for (double gasp!) years. I never bought into this colour thing simply because I couldn’t bear the thought of a total stranger telling me – who has very definite colour likes and dislikes – that my choice of clothing was all wrong.
Instead, I contented myself with filling in those pop psychology quizzes in magazines, indicating favoured colours in various circumstances, then reading the analyses afterwards.
I have long forgotten what sort of animal I am supposed to be, but the colours of that decade still resonate: midnight blue, fuchsia pink, pillar-box red, canary yellow and black, black, black – and I have never moved on from wearing combos of these glorious shades. Fashion aside, there are definite psychological responses to colour in certain situations, and often with beneficial results – but that is another column.
Friday 19 March 2010
The Importance of being Spotted
Spots and dots, what do they do? Leap, walk, march and polka over yards and yards of fabric, breaking up po-faced planes of plain colour into exuberant labyrinths that evoke fun, innocence and happiness. Their expounders range in type and temperament from Damien Hirst to Cath Kidston, to Pudsey Bear. The more brightly-coloured the spots are, the better, bringing to mind Smarties, those mouth-watering candies of childhood.
Coloured spots evoke long, sunny, salad-filled days; flowers, rainbows, babies, nursery walls and cuddly toys. No wonder there is a dessert called Spotted Dick. And how can you not love a critter that is covered in spots? Just look at the adorable Dalmatian. Spots denote nobility too, witness the invincible cheetah. Any successful actor/singer/writer will tell you how they went from nowt to acclaim the day they were spotted – har!
Thursday 11 March 2010
Why I love ducks!
The duck has been getting a bad press lately, especially when the media uncovered a number of them living in Westminster-subsidised housing. Indeed, our ire has been such that we are in danger of throwing away the meat with the left-over sauce. After all, the duck has contributed to so many arenas of life, from the arts to the dinner table, that it deserves a sound-out now and again.
Throughout the ages, the duck has inspired creativity, from those wonderful dog-and-duck public house signboards, to the flocks of flying ornaments that grace the walls of household halls up and down the country, to the Marx Brothers movie of 1933, Duck Soup. The duck has contributed to the English language with words like ‘duckboard’ and ‘duckweed’. The duck has provided a word that means a female bird, a way of avoiding things, a type of cloth, and an indispensable bathroom-furniture cleaning thingummy.
So let’s not begrudge our feathered friend his subsidised home. After all, the taxpayer provides housing for humans. Instead, on this fine spring day, let’s sound for this web-footed wonder, one great, resounding quack….
Saturday 6 March 2010
When men wore tights...
Some time ago, I pronounced on the extraordinary cult of the female leg and how, in order to get anywhere in this world, a girl has to have hers eternally on display. It wasn’t always thus. In the Middle Ages, it was the male leg that endowed a man with status, while drawing orgasmic gasps from many a young maid. Just look at all those medieval images of men in tights. No wonder Robin and his merry men led such a successful Sherwood Forest campaign.
A few centuries down the line and Renaissance ladies swooned at the sight of illustrious alpha males such as Henry VIII prancing about in court dances devised especially to show off their pins – no wonder the Monarch drew six wives! The cult of the male leg continued until the eighteenth century although by now the appeal, like the leg, had been halved. Knee breeches covered the top half of the shank while the calf and foot were resplendent in silk stocking and buckled shoe.
By the nineteenth century, the cult of the male leg was on the wane, what with the advent of long trousers. However, there is in existence a painting of the young Queen Victoria in company with her beloved Albert, (name of the artist escapes me). The bright, red boots that encase his legs signal dangerously his most (to Queen Vic) erogenous zone. The curtain rises on the twentieth century and along with it, the hem of the female skirt. The male leg is dead forever. Methinks, what irony? Just as woman is freed from her whalebone corset, she is handed another zone to maintain. Ah me, if I could go back in time, it would be to when knights were bold and maidens young and old could conceal their less than perfect pins under full-length skirts. I’ll bet it was much warmer, too.
A few centuries down the line and Renaissance ladies swooned at the sight of illustrious alpha males such as Henry VIII prancing about in court dances devised especially to show off their pins – no wonder the Monarch drew six wives! The cult of the male leg continued until the eighteenth century although by now the appeal, like the leg, had been halved. Knee breeches covered the top half of the shank while the calf and foot were resplendent in silk stocking and buckled shoe.
By the nineteenth century, the cult of the male leg was on the wane, what with the advent of long trousers. However, there is in existence a painting of the young Queen Victoria in company with her beloved Albert, (name of the artist escapes me). The bright, red boots that encase his legs signal dangerously his most (to Queen Vic) erogenous zone. The curtain rises on the twentieth century and along with it, the hem of the female skirt. The male leg is dead forever. Methinks, what irony? Just as woman is freed from her whalebone corset, she is handed another zone to maintain. Ah me, if I could go back in time, it would be to when knights were bold and maidens young and old could conceal their less than perfect pins under full-length skirts. I’ll bet it was much warmer, too.
Wednesday 6 January 2010
Dolls, dolls and their little molls.
Over the years, dolls have become increasingly sophisticated. In my day, it was enough for a doll to be dressable and have glorious long hair to tease into different styles. Since then, we have seen dolls that walk, talk, cry, feed from bottles, perform bodily functions, sing, dance…maybe I go too far? But I foresee a time when a doll will have to be in possession of a PHD if it is to attract the love of a little girl. On that note, am I alone in finding very sophisticated dolls kind of creepy?
But maybe the little ‘uns are wiser than the toy pundits? Among her Christmas presents, my little niece received the simplest, silliest doll you ever did see, its only claim to sophistication being a pair of eyes that open and shut. Doll has a bald, plastic head and a soft, non-jointed body dressed in the daftest baby outfit since they made high heels for the little ‘uns. But friend, my little niece loves that doll. You only have to say: Baby, bring out your baby and Little Niece totters away, then returns with toy buggy bearing doll. For a short while, Little Niece totters around with buggy, proud as a Victorian matron on a seaside promenade. Then, she takes doll from buggy, hugs and kisses her. It brings tears to my eyes, really it does. I say again, the toddlers are wiser than the toy technologists. Long may simplicity – and simple dolls – reign.
But maybe the little ‘uns are wiser than the toy pundits? Among her Christmas presents, my little niece received the simplest, silliest doll you ever did see, its only claim to sophistication being a pair of eyes that open and shut. Doll has a bald, plastic head and a soft, non-jointed body dressed in the daftest baby outfit since they made high heels for the little ‘uns. But friend, my little niece loves that doll. You only have to say: Baby, bring out your baby and Little Niece totters away, then returns with toy buggy bearing doll. For a short while, Little Niece totters around with buggy, proud as a Victorian matron on a seaside promenade. Then, she takes doll from buggy, hugs and kisses her. It brings tears to my eyes, really it does. I say again, the toddlers are wiser than the toy technologists. Long may simplicity – and simple dolls – reign.
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