Oh what a lovely war

I love sharing an office with a film location company:

"Did Andy know you wanted to hang someone off the balcony?"

I thought it might be Michael Jackson on the end of the telephone line. But no it's the filming of the new Sweeney!



So do we really think the politicians have sorted out the Euro problems then? No. I don't think so. Not least becasue it will mean pumping yet more money into the banks, whilst the banks themselves pour yet money into the pockets of their staff. It stinks. No wonder wealth disparity has increased so much in the last twenty years. I am a great supporter of the Occupy anti-capitalist protest camp outside St Pauls. Actually, the point is that it's really outside the Stock Exchange. THere's been a great deal of untruths spread about the protestors, but then you can't really expect the City authorities to be too truthful about the strength of feeling the cause has attracted. It is a crying shame though that The canon chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral Dr Giles Fraser has decided to step down, apparently because he disagrees with the Church's desire to evict the protestors. It seems there is an unholy trinity of Church, State and Finance. We saw Giles Fraser earlier this year at a public event to discuss 400 years of the King James bible...that's the one you've probably got tucked away in a bottom drawer somwhere. He seems very personable.

The West Pier was a pier in my beloved Brighton. It was built in 1866 by Eugenius Birch but was closed in 1975, awaiting renovation. It was Brighton's second pier, the other being the Palace Pier

The West Pier was opened in 1866 with a length of 1115 feet, and built with cast iron threaded columns screwed into the seabed. The pier did not have much of a superstructure until 1893 when a pier head was extended and a pavilion added. A concert hall was added in 1916 and a new top-deck entrance in 1932. In 1965 the pier was bought by a company that owned some seafront hotels and entertainment venues. They had ambitions for the pier but as maintenance costs increased the pier was closed in 1975 when Brighton Corporation declined to buy it and the pier passed into the hands of the Crown Estates Commissioners. A trust was formed to save the pier and in 1984 they bought it for a nominal sum. After that time there were many schemes to revive it, most were madcap and one included backing from the now bankrupt boxer and local resident Chris Eubank.

Famously it was used as the back drop for Attenborough's wonderful musical Oh! what a lovely war!


The West Pier had been cut off from the shore (partly deliberately, for safety reasons) since 1975, but the West Pier trust offered regular tours of it until the structure suffered a serious partial collapse during a storm on 29 December 2002, when a walkway connecting the concert hall and pavilion fell into the sea. On 20 January 2003 a further collapse saw the destruction of the concert hall in the middle of the pier. On 28 March 2003 the pavilion at the end of the pier caught fire. With a remarkable degree of irony firefighters were unable to save the building from destruction because the collapsed walkway prevented them from reaching it. The cause of the fire remains unknown. On 11 May 2003, another fire broke out, consuming most of what was left of the concert hall. The Fire re-ignited on 12 May. Arson was suspected: the West Pier Trust refers to the fires as the work of "professional arsonists". Suggested beneficiaries to ending any possible development of the West Pier either local residents who objected to a new development on the sea front, or the threat of competition to the lucrative Palace Pier's business.

On 23 June 2004 high winds caused the middle of the pier to collapse completely. Despite all these setbacks, the West Pier Trust remained adamant that they would soon begin full restoration work. Finally, in December 2004, the Trust conceded defeat, after their plans were rejected by the Heritage Lottery Fund, in part because of problems with achieving the required "matched funding" from outside sources. Subsequent plans to restore only the oldest, structural parts of the pier were eventually rejected by English Heritage. However, in September 2005 the Trust revealed in their newsletter that they were forming further plans to rebuild the original structure with help from private funding.

In December 2005 the last remaining physical structure, the "little white hut", was lost when strong winds broke it away into the sea. Ironically, when the rest of pier had been intact, the hut had been said to be in serious threat of falling into the sea; yet it was the last piece to remain.

These days there is a rotting skeleton...and when The Boy and I had kayaks it was always fun to paddle round and through the structure, which is much loved by the local seagulls.

Since then, the idea has been to create a pier for the 21st century - the i360, is a slender, elegant observation tower the only one of its kind in the world, that elevates visitors in a pod to a height of 150m above sea level to enjoy stunning views. There are some great pictures here. It has been designed by the same people that created the London Eye, so is quite spectacular. If it hadn't been for the financial crisis (yes those bloody bankers again) it would have been built by now. This despite fierce opposition from Brighton's other Pier, the Palace Pier (renamed Brighton Pier by the owners to make a point) which couldn't see the benefits (and visitors) that such an attraction would bring. At the time of going to press there doesn't appear to be a time-scale for getting the i360 built....although they are claiming a 2013 opening date.

So it has come as quite a surprise that at the Palace Pier to find that on a slightly smaller scale we have the Brighton Wheel. A very splendid, if somewhat clunkier reflection of the London Eye, suddenly appeared. Of course, being Brighton, this one is second hand having first made an appearance in France and then South Africa, but who's to complain?! We went up it (round it?) this week during a couple of days off, and it has provided us with views of our city that none of us had ever seen before. Fantastic.

Faces?

Tara's Photo Gallery continues to thrive I'm delighted to see. I contribute when I can, and today I thought I would with this picture:



We were on a short break to Norfolk with some friends, and we headed to the amazingly sandy beaches when I saw this lady with her dog. I thought she had so much character in her face that I had to ask if I could take a picture of her and her dog...they both seemed to be having such a wonderful time. Surprisingly she was more than happy to be pictured, and this was the result. I wish I'd been able to send her it.

Chaos.

I still remember that when I was young I didn't know whether chaos was pronounced as a k (as in kite) or a ch (as in chimney). It's strange what things stick in your mind.

I think there is a theory that says the natural state of the universe is chaos. This makes me feel good because for most of my good many years I have lived in chaos. I am somewhat less in touch with the natural world these days as The Cat's Mother sees it as her mission to keep me on the straight and narrow. But there are areas where chaos still reighs supreme, and one of those is keeping track of the blogs I like to read. Some of them are listed to the right, some of them I 'follow' and some of them are just bookmarks. The net result is that I never can seem to keep a track on what I've read and what I haven't...sometimes realising that I've missed a good post by days, weeks even. I now it's all my own fault, but really it's most frustrating.

It's such a shame that in the chaos of the protest against bankers, St Pauls has felt it necessary to close its doors to the public. As The Cat's Mother says...Hitler didn't manage it. I remain entirely sympathetic with their aims, but this does seem to be biting off the hand that feeds them.

The public sector is making enormous cut backs so that we can balance the national budget after all those bankers f*cked us over. We're not quite in the same boat as the Greeks, but then they seemed to be able to retire before they'd even graduated from nursery so they don't illicit a lot of sympathy from anyone. It's not as if holidaying in Greece is any cheaper as a result is it? With this background it does seem surprising that Southwark Council has taken it upon itself to rip up the local park/ancient churchyard to refurbish it. It's a nice place, especially in the summer to eat your lunch, but I can't imagine how it has risen to the top of the council's list of priorities. Worse still. Much worse still is Camden Council which has decided to issue every one of its employees with a Swiss Ball. If you don't know, they're big rubber balls that you tend to find in gyms and are used as part of an exercise routine. In this case, employees are encouraged to sit on them to improve their posture. I'm not sure how many people are employed by Camden, but there's enough to mean that he bill for this must run into tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds. I assume they all had chairs to sit on in the first place. I'm sure that Camden Council will say this is an investment in their employees health and will reduce the number of sick days. But really. Get a grip. This is unnecessary, unreasonable spending. Of taxpayers money. Extravagance is clearly a habit that local council finds hard to kick. I've a good mind to write to the Daily Mail.

It seems my brief on TV has caused a little bit of a furore amongst friends, relatives and others. By declaring I have a large overdraft on national TV, it seems most people assume I'm about to enter the poor house....you may see me begging on your local street corner. At first I laughed at people's response, but now I'm feeling a little defensive. So let me declare here and now, that I'm not broke, I can still afford new clothes and the odd CD or two. The overdraft is just working capital which I get at a reasonable rate of interest. It's a smart business decision, not a desperate plight. Now I've got that off my chest, please tell everyone else so that I can raise my head up again in Loughton High Street as I walk past another TOWIE shop.

And just to round off with Libya, there's not much for me to add that hasn't been said already. Gadaffi's dead, and it's a shame that he was kept alive long enough to be properly interrogated. There are many questions left unanswered, not the least of which being who killed WPC Fletcher and was the truth about Lockerbie. I wonder if there can now be any full closure for the families of his victims. I don't doubt that in the heat of the moment this particular dictator was dispatched by a simple bullet to the head by an over enthusiastic (or hatred-filled) fighter. And as Crispin Black says here wouldn't it have been wonderful to see Tony Blair on the stand as a character witness. So what started as chaos ends in chaos.

The Truman Show

I'm very good at forming opinions when only aware of half the facts. Sometimes less than half is necessary. This is a skill I was taught at school, and was particularly useful when sitting my history 'O' Level. As I got an A for that, I've always felt it is one of those skills I should hang on to.

So on that basis, let me say, that if I'd built a house without planning permission, I doubt it would have taken the council ten years to tear it down. My sympathies, therefore, lie with Essex Council when it comes to Dale Farm. And it's not too often that you find me sympathysing with authority.

The Middle East has disappeared off the front pages of the newspapers, to be replaced I see by a pretty hysterical warning from The Sun that fish pedicures will give you HIV. So in the interests of balance, let me say that in Egypt the army is pretty much in control and the likelihood of true democracy breaking out is remote. Still in Egypt, the Christians are being beaten to within an inch of their lives, so the chances of me being able to go there and buy the Bible written in Arabic which I should have bought in the Lebanon seems equally remote. In Libya, the fighting is still going on, and I don't think that Gadaffi will give up anytime soon, so the likelihood of me going to visit the amazing Roman ruins there seems erm, erm remote. The Syrian government is continuing to slaughter protesters, so that too is off my list of must go places. Yesterday you may have seen the Israeli soldier Schalit was returned five years after being captured/kidnapped by Hamas. In exchange, the Israelis are handing back a thousand Palestinian terrorists/freedom fighters. In general that seems to be viewed as a humiliation for Israel, and a sign that they had no military answer to the problem. On the other hand, it might be seen that Israel views one Israeli life as worth a thousand Arab lives...and that probably explains the continuing atrocities they commit against the Palestinians every day. You can see where my sympathies lie.

On Monday Loughton High Street was chaos as a film crew was doing what film crews do best. Filming. It was the opening of a new hairdressers, and I understand that the owner is one of the stars of The Only Way Is Essex. That's the second TOWIE owned retail establishment in Loughton...the other is a lingerie shop. I'm told there will soon be a TOWIE nail shop. I may be wrong (but I never let the facts get in the way of a good story - see above), but I think one of the bar/nightclubs is also run by a TOWIE star. If you know anything about Loughton, you'll know you can walk from one end to the other in five minutes. It's not a big place. Have you ever watched TOWIE? OK, have you ever watched TOWIE for more than five minutes? No, me neither. Terrible, terrible people and a terrible, terrible programme which is occupying valuable airwaves which could be taken up more usefully by a revival of Crossroads. Living in a TOWIE world may well be my worst nightmare come true. Hopefully Jim Carey will come and rescue me.

Mid-day in Paris

Is it me or had Downton Abbey become utter crap? We loved the first series, but second time round it's just not keeping us entertained on a Sunday evening. Too many plots still going on from the last series, too many new ones introduced in this series, and it's all a bit of an Eastenders rollercoaster. We may not last the full series...if only we'd plumped for Spooks instead.

I'm delighted to see that around the globe there has been proper rioting against the greedy bankers....about time too. Interestingly the Metropolitan police decided to 'kettle' the protesters to prevent the protest making an impact. So much for freedom of speech and democratic rights.

Last week was one of those goddam awful weeks that happen from time to time. I'm generally sanguine about them as I know that these things pass on the assumption that things pick up the following week. So it was "a bit of a disappointment" when my phone went off in the middle of the night with a computer message to let me know that the office alarm had been activated. I hauled myself out of bed and jumped on the motorbike, stopping a few hundred yards down the road as it was so cold I thought my fingers were going to fall off. Having put my winter gloves on again I set off and arrived at the office to find absolutely nothing was amiss. Having double checked everything, I returned home, arriving at 6.30 am, just in time to take The Boy to school for an exceptionally early start. When I got back I climbed into bed to give myself a half hour snooze before the day started properly. Not surprisingly, when I did arrive at the office, the computer kept crashing which meant most of the rest of the morning was spent sorting that out. Humph.

It was a good job we had an interesting weekend.

Friday night we saw The Tempest. Actually inspite of having Ralph Fiennes as Prospero it was piss-poor. Poor staging, poor acting and a desperately slow pace. Rank amateur. And this from Trevor Nunn...we can only surmise that he is distracted by his dalliance with Nancy Dell'ollio who is probably sucking his emotional energy out of him like a Dementor.

Sunday we had a day-trip to Cambridge to see a Vermeer exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum. This was a special trip for us because we wanted to see this picture:



We'd seen it in Paris just a few weeks ago when we popped over for a few days, so it was just fabulous to be able to see it again so soon. The exhibition is called Vermeer's Women, and having seen it I can now tell you that in the seventeenth century:
1. All Dutch children were pig-ugly
2. The women spent a lot of time buying fish...
3. ...when they weren't peeling vegetables
I can also reveal that the curator had failed to spot one of the women was in a skimpy Santa outfit. Tardy.

Sunday The Cat's Mother and I went to the fleapit to see Woody Allen's latest film. I've never enjoyed anything by Woody Allen so my hopes for this one were not high. Yet surprisingly it entranced me almost from the opening credits. I'd rate it pretty much the perfect Sunday matinee film...light, jolly and whimsical. We spent a lot of time trying to spot the places we'd been in Paris. I'm not sure we managed very well, but Paris was certainly shown at it's best...no doubt giving the President's wife a part helped them secure some great locations. The Americans were shown at their worst. And for the first time I realised that Marion Cotillard is an absolute babe.



Why she is given second billing and her name is virtually hidden on the IMDB entry. Perhaps the Americans are still not quite on board with the French again.

15 minutes...or 58?

We managed to miss my starring role on BBC1 last night. I was delighted, but The Cat's Mother was disappointed. She is insisting we watch it on iPlayer later...I checked this morning and she won't have to watch more than 10 minutes of Watchdog to see the important bit. A couple of friends called to say they'd seen me...it's amazing who watches these programmes.



When The Boy and I lived in Hoxton Square, we were in fact living in the trendiest area in London, and as London was at the time the trendiest place in the world, we were de facto living in the trendiest place in the world. Round the back of us was a circus training school, in front of us on the green there was regularly an old traditional circus too, there were some fantastic bars (which, admittedly, were not of much interest to an eight year old boy), some great places to eat...and it probably stimulated my early interest in street art. Our neighbours included the likes of Kylie, and any number of new wave artists. On the Square was the White Cube gallery which showed works by these people - Gilbert and George, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and so on. Every night seemed to be opening night, and there was always a glass of champagne to be swiped as I sauntered home. It seems idyllic, which is just how memories should be.

By interesting coincidence, they have now opened another White Cube gallery opposite the office. It was a nasty 1970's storage warehouse which they have remarkably managed to transform into the UK's largest private art gallery. Obviously my invitation to the opening night must have got lost in the post, and I was busy anyway trying to sleep through Playboy of the western world. Yesterday, The Cat's Mother and I decided to go and have a nose around. What I will say is that it's a lovely space, and it has a great art bookshop. Apart from that and reflecting on the contents of the galleries The Cat's Mother was spot on when she said something about The Emperors New Clothes. Still I feel it may be a place to go when I'm stressed and in need of a quiet, empty place to go and calm down.



It's a long way for me to cycle into work, so it's a good job I love the exercise. But more particularly I love cycling down the canalside...I think I've mentioned this before. So one of the challenges of the winter months (ignoring the issue of getting cold) is that it gets too dark to go that way...you simply can't see where you're going, and by reputation you're likely to get mugged. Last week I came home that way as it was light when I left the office....unfortunately pitch black by the time I was halfway along the canal. So I've had to reconcile myself that a canal ride home is off the agenda for several months, but for a few more weeks I will still be able to go along there in the morning. Yesterday, I tried the new winter route to familiarise myself with it. It's all roads, and busy ones at that. The upside is that it's a little shorter. One of the things that has motivated me all the time I have done the cycling has been keeping a track of how quickly I can do the journey. My ambition has been to manage it in under an hour. And yesterday I achieved that...58 minutes. Not bad for the 23 km journey...quicker than the car, quicker than the tube. It'll keep me going until there's snow and ice on the roads.

Playboy

She's quite a babe. And she kept looking at me. Yes, every time I swiveled my head round 120 degrees, she was looking at me. I bet she wanted my autograph...probably recognised me from my blog. She probably fancied me. Of course she fancied me. I guess she just was too shy to ask for my number. I expect I'm on her list of five.

As for the bloke she was with, well what can I say? A shock of white hair. He just sat shoulders hunched staring forwards. Pretending to focus; pretending to concentrate. He didn't look over once. He did look quite self-satisfied. Smug even. Just as if he was successful. But not in the same league as me. Harumph.

I had no idea that Samantha Bond and Sir Derek Jacobi were friends.




They sat behind us whilst we were at The Old Vic watching Playboy of the Western World. I'd been more or less dragged there by The Cat's Mother who has taken quite a delight in getting me to see all the plays that I studied for 'O' and 'A' Level. I hadn't really been able to remember it...at best I was fuzzy on the story. But it was as the curtains went up that my memories came flooding back. My heart sank. The performance last night was a good one. The production was a fine one. But as a play JM Synge's piece leaves me cold. All I could think of were the ridiculous questions asked about characterisation, plot, motivation and dynamics. When it was first written it may well have been a classic, savagely funny and shocking. But it's not aged well. It was pretty dull as I sat at the back of Mr Giles' English class 35 years ago, and unlike a good red wine has not aged well.

So thank heavens Samantha was practically drooling over me.

Outfoxed

After yesterday's tilting traffic lights, I was concerned to learn that Big Ben (OK The Clock Tower) is also tilting, just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Evidently, if you stand underneath for the next 5000 years, there is a danger you may die from being crushed by the tower as it topples over. No wonder I'm quite sprightly when I'm in the environs.

This is clearly not my week, so I'm think of crawling back under the duvet and staying there until Sunday.

I was doing some blog tidying up...and have managed to end up following myself. Which is helpful as I like to know what I'm writing about.

I failed to read the small print of my insurance policy, which means that I have an excess of £650 on it. I've never heard of a policy with a £650 excess. When I rang up to question this - it's more than the value of the scooter which is on the same policy as the motorbike - their only response was that I should have read the policy when it was issued and there was a fourteen day cooling off period to do that when it was issued. Stupid me, obviously I should have done that. Anyway, I can't really complain, it is my fault. That doesn't make me any less unhappy though and will ensure they don't get any more of my money. I hope MCE enjoy the couple of hundred quid they got for selling me this.

I hear that the government is going to put a stop to 'Best before' 'Consume before' 'Display until' dates on food and drinks products. I'm glad. The Government feels they are confusing. They are that. Mostly they're used by shops to help with stock control/rotation.

On Sunday The Cat came down for breakfast, and the first thing she said was 'What's the date?' I asked why, and she replied that she needed to know because on '9th October the bread goes off' And why wouldn't she say that? It said so on the packet. Of course those of us brought up when the TV was still broadcast in black and white would know that on day one, the bread is fresh and can be eaten with nothing on it, a few days later it is a bit drier, so needs plenty of butter and jam, a few days later it's dry enough that you need to toast it, and then a few days after that you may well find little patches of blue mould on it....if you cut those off it's still edible...but a day or so later and you probably should be ripping it up and throwing it in the garden for the birds. Milk you can smell when it's off, and cheese is fine until it's covered in mould. Fish - eat fresh or frozen and be wary if it's been in the fridge for more than a few days. Etc, etc, etc. But how could The Cat know this? These sell by dates are on everything, and if you have faith in the label that tells you what the ingredients are and how much it weighs, why wouldn't you believe in the sell/display/use by date. These dates are just one of the many, many things in the modern world that actually end up hindering rather than helping.

Back in the Houses of Parliament it's good to see Liam Fox making an arse of himself. He's the one that started making soldiers and sailors redundant whilst still on active duty...yes please put yourselves up for being shot at, but don't expect us to look after you. Anyway, it seems it's all a bit ridiculous, and we can only hope that someone with such poor judgement gets turfed out of Government...especially someone as instantly dislikeable as this man.

mmm...yummy

I'm not sure where the communication broke down, and this picture may not reveal everything it should, so I will explain.



Here are some traffic lights. They're just by a new block of flats. There's two things of importance. One they're right by someone's bedroom, so all night their room will be illuminated ...red, red & amber, green, amber, red red & amber, green...and so on. And the second thing is, the traffic lights are crooked. Yes, someone has had to push them over to an angle more befitting Pisa than Bermondsey. For the last several months I've been watching and waiting for the council to come and move them. I'm betting the builders have too. Or may be not. Perhaps the building dimensions are wrong. Perhaps there's been a mis-calculation. But someone has had to push the lights over slightly just so they could build the building. It's finished now, and the flats are ready to be sold. I want to see the estate agent's details.

I hope you understand there is a delicious sense of irony that today was crime awareness day in Islington, and whilst half a dozen PCs handed out leaflets about how to keep your property safe, someone was trying to steal my motorbike, less than one hundred yards away. In the middle of Islington High Street (confusingly known as Upper Street) during the middle of the lunch hour. That screw in the ignition system will cost me a thousand pounds. So I'm a loser. The would-be thief is a loser as he didn't get the bike. The Police are losers as this will go down as an unsolved crime. So it's lose, lose all round.

I've never paid for sex, but this feels like a £1000 screw, and I can tell you it doesn't feel good.



At the same time I was being interviewed for TV, and if you want you can see me on Thursday evening. I don't know which channel, and I'm not sure what time, and I've never watched the programme, so if you can work it out, let me know. It was a consumer programme about Bank accounts. It wasn't Oscar winning stuff I do know that.

Sunday snaps

It's been a while, as I wasn't so happy with the pictures I've been taking, but I thought I'd see what I've been snapping in the last month:


The Olympics are not so far away in Paddington

Our local pub...picture postcard-like

Spiral staircase...I tried to capture the movement of people going down

In the Louvre...made me think of Escher

Letters - street art

The Shard...lost in the clouds

Birling gap beach

Limestone pebble on Birling Gap beach

Some would say this is over-exposed, but I was pleased with this...showing people moving under the pyramid at the Louvre

I love the way these mirros show the cars below at the new Westfield Shopping centre...gateway to the Olympics

Tower of evil. Canary Wharf.

View of St Paul's Cathedral, with the logo of Jamie Oliver's restaurant Barbecoa reflected in the window

Back at Birling Gap...a beach owned by the national Trust

Seeing red: an act of vandalism

This week's gallery is 'colour'. Again I'm late to the party, and I'd like to think this is a grand entrance...but may be not! It gives me the chance to show my favourite artist...Anish Kapoor...I discovered him when I was in Madrid a million years ago, and have been an avid fan ever since. He used a deep blue pigment that was just compelling...if you stood close enough you lost all sense of where you were, seemingly disappearing into the work itself...unsettling and invigorating at the same time.

It gave me enormous pleasure, therefore, when he was chosen as the artistic director of the Brighton Festival in 2009. Here are some of his works in an abandoned building revived for the festival. That red is astounding.






"The Rotherhithe Tunnel is a road tunnel crossing beneath the River Thames in East London. which was formally opened in 1908 by George Prince of Wales (later King George V), and Richard Robinson, Chairman of the London County Council. It was originally designed to serve foot and horse-drawn traffic passing between the docks on either side of the river. Its route includes sharp, nearly right-angled bends at the points where the tunnel goes under the river bed. These served two purposes: avoiding the local docks on each side of the river, and preventing horses from seeing daylight at the end of the tunnel too early which might make them bolt for the exit.

It consists of a single bore, 1,481 m long, carrying a two-lane carriageway 14.5 m below the high-water level of the Thames, with a maximum depth of 23 m below the surface. Four shafts were sunk alongside the tunnel to aid construction and to serve later as ventilation and entrance shafts. The two riverside shafts, built in red brick with stone dressings, were fitted with beautiful wrought-iron spiral staircases to serve as pedestrian entrances. They are now closed to the public." (shortened from the entry in Wikipedia)

Every time I cycle to work, I cycle down and through it...along the pavement to avoid holding up the traffic which otherwise would not be able to overtake me. I've not yet run over a pedestrian, but I'm prepared to open a book on that one. It is with immense satisfaction I can report that since I got my road bike, I now go through the tunnel faster than the cars...especially as the average speed cameras restrict them to 20mph. It is known (by me at least) as the graveyard of wing mirrors - the road being so narrow that passing cars and vans are like jousting knights, and the entire length of the tunnel is littered with broken mirrors.

The wrought iron staircases are beautiful and mysterious, disappearing up into the darkness of the shafts. I'd love to ascend into that darkness.

Apart from the sharp bends, the one other feature of the tunnel are the white tiles which line the walls. They are functional, effective and I believe have been up since the building of the tunnel. In addition, they are filthy...like everything else. Not surprising given the number of smelly cars and vans that go through the tunnel everyday. I've often thought it wouldn't be too difficult to wash them all clean...the shape of the tunnel means a giant loo brush with water sprayed through it would do the trick.

And this leads me to the vandalism. Over the last few weeks, the night time maintenance workers have been systematically removing the tiles. I guess about half the tiles are gone now, and the rest will disappear over the coming nights and weeks. I don't know what they're going to be replaced with...I've not been able to find out, but I suspect it will be the large panels omnipresent on most modern tunnels. It's a shame. It's an architectural tragedy. It's the sort of thing that happened all over Britain in the post modern world. Yet another piece of our architectural heritage taken away from our children. Another element of character that gives us our historical perspective gone.

Stubborn as a mule

I think I've become quite a fan of David Starkey - he was recently severely criticised for his comments about the summer riots when he said that "the problem is that the whites have become black".

In context what he said was that white youth had taken on board gangster rap culture...with all its negative connotations. If you listen to the street talk on the streets of London, you'll know this to be true. As reported by the Daily Telegraph and First Post Mr Starkey says, " "The question we were supposed to be answering was whether the riots were testimony to some sort of major cultural change in Britain. And I tried to answer that question. Nothing that I said on air could conceivably be construed as racist, but there is this hysteria about race. We have this situation in which we can't talk about it rationally or sensibly." Starkey also rounded on those who attacked him in August, among them Labour leader Ed Miliband and Tory MP Lousie Mensch, saying: "You know yourself by your enemies, and I'm quite happy with mine. Isn't it wonderful that I was attacked by Piers Moron, Louise Mensch and Ed Millipede?"

He's right...there are a whole raft of issues we cannot discuss because this country has become so PC that if you raise them you become an 'ist' It's a shame that I have to quote the convicted pedophile film director Roman Polanski who says on the BBC, "I cannot abide political correctness, which only hides the ugliness in all of us under a veneer,"

At the weekend we got to see the new production of South Pacific at the Barbican, which we were all very excited about - it was a birthday treat for The Cat. It was very enjoyable, but lacked some of the oomph it needed to make it brilliant. Fortunately the grumpy old man and the miserable old woman sitting behind us were making so much noise moaning, groaning and coughing and spluttering that they didn't hear me singing along. It's quite a period piece now, and the racist attitude that is portrayed is very much of its time...and something that the teenagers didn't reallly get - yes once upon a time it would truly have been shocking for a white man to marry a Polynesian and father two children by her. Times have changed.

We also watched Barefoot in the Park on DVD - I love this film of the Neil Simon play. It too is of its time - you can see that from the trailer alone. Simpler times, and very funny even after the umpteenth time of viewing



Back home I have lost a pair of Merrell Mules. They were at the bottom of the stairs, and then mysteriously disappeared. Tidied away by 'That Bloody Woman' to somewhere, and no amount of searching has uncovered them. No she doesn't know where they are..that may be because she doesn't really speak English so my attempts at describing them were met with a pretty blank stare. My hopes aren't that high - two framed photos of us all were tidied away before Christmas, and still haven't been uncovered. I know they'll materialise before the turn of the century, but I'd quite like to wear them now...I might like to watch Barefoot in eth Park, I don't want to experience it.

Lucky days

Do you ever have any lucky days?

I don't mean the one's when you win the lottery, get a big promotion, or meet the woman (or man of your dreams)...not that those days are to be sneezed at, no I mean the ones when you something happens and you know you've been lucky.

Take yesterday, for instance, I turned left at a junction on my motorbike to find a taxi half way over my side of the road. My wing mirror got knocked, and my right knee brushed all the way along the side of the cab. But not a scratch on either me or the bike. Another inch closer and I'd have lost a leg. That's really lucky isn't it? I didn't look back, just carried on really happy at that.

Fish finger pizza

It's the Cat's birthday today...she's no longer sweet sixteen, but instead can now claim to be stupendously seventeen. To celebrate we are having the traditional 'Sausage Supper'. No, don't ask. I don't understand either!

There's a reason why women are generally in charge of the home and cooking. Not all the time, of course. Sometimes they should be making whoopy in the bedroom. But in any case, men are really quite incapable so shouldn't even try. so it was with a wry smile that I received a press release (you may have it too) which read "We have teamed up with daddy blogger ‘My Daddy Cooks’ to create our brand new children’s menu. The new menu has a lot of exciting dishes for Kids including a fish finger pizza!" Fish Finger pizza can only be regarded as a crime against humanity...worse even than ham and pineapple. Really boys, leave the recipes to the girls....

I've been meaning to do this for a while, and thought that if I don't leap in now I never will. When I first started blogging it was a bit like first year at Uni...in a mad rush to make friends you start reading and commenting on all sorts of blogs, and then after a while you realise that most aren't the sort you want to spend time with. Foolishly I once decided to follow the top ten interior design blogs...it was a mad moment, and as they each post about a hundred times a day I got suffocated under a ton of chinty curtains and Philippe Stark tables.

After a little while longer you end up with a group of blogs that feel like friends...the ones I follow I just love...for all sorts of reasons. Some I just read, and have nothing more to add, some I comment on all the time. There's no rhyme or reason to it. But it's a little easy to get a little too comfortable, and never go and find out what else is going on out there. So I thought I would go on blogging safari. I would simply start with one blog and then choose one that they follow to visit, go there and choose one that they follow, etc, etc. You get the picture, the only rule I have is that I must just follow a link until I can go no further.

Here are the results of my first little blog safari trip....

I started with Scarlet Blue

before moving to

Pearl

And from there to Delusions of adequacy

And then on to Germany and Friko's World

Before travelling by Where's My Effing Pony?

to see Grumpy Old Ken

Before returning here

I quite enjoyed that...hope you did too...I might try it again and see where else I end up....