leff

Brutalism

2012-12-02T21:53:00.000-08:00

Revolution! Tear it all down and start over! Progress!

The 60s was a time of revolution. Not just in sex and drugs, but in architecture too. The war had torn the hearts out of city centres all over Europe, but England in particular. There was a housing crisis and money was short, so it's perhaps not surprising that people like Le Corbusier, Alison and Peter Smithson and Ernő Goldfinger managed to win contracts and planning permission for revolutionary new architecture. But this was no mere shift in materials. It was a shift in man's relationship with the built environment. A social experiment rendered in raw concrete.

During my recent visit to London I came face to face with one of the fullest, and fanciest realizations of the revolution, right in the heart of the City. The Barbican Complex.

The Barbican has it all. The streets in the sky, the maisonettes, the arts, the massive concrete forms, the "repetitive angular geometries," the strong sense of totalitarian oppression.

My arrival at the Barbican was rough. Rakka and I were heading to the Rain Room exhibit at the Arts Centre in the middle of the complex. When we emerged from the Barbican tube stop we were faced with a wall with a road running through it, but no obvious pedestrian entrance. This was a bit worrying. As it was lunch time we thought a stop at the Whitecross Street Market just to the north would also count as a quick recky round.

A scotch egg and a sausage roll helped our spirits but didn't provide any insight into entrances. The entire estate seems to be walled in. We hadn't yet even set a foot on the estate and already a sense of foreboding began to creep in. Did the Barbican not want us there? Were we even welcome?

We were experiencing one of the defining characteristics of Brutalism. The atmosphere of totalitarianism.

The brutalists were masters of putting you in your place, which was in submission to the state (and the architect). The huge, blocky forms immediately create a dichotomy of scale. You are minuscule next to these things. The walls are flat. No decoration. Even the texture is on a small scale (no feature larger than a brick) and uniform. This lack of features reinforces the dichotomy. There is nothing human size in this place. The very structure of the building screams out "You are small. We who built this, we are large. You are small! We are in control!"

This is the architecture version of 1984. Of Fahrenheit 451. (Incidentally, Fahrenheit 451's opening scene was filmed in the brutalist half of Alton Estate in Roehampton.) It was architecture that felt like this:

Light Music by Lis Rhodes. 1974. (On display at the Tate Modern Tanks, Oct. 2012)

In the end, we just picked a stretch of wall and followed it until we found a ramp leading up. It was near a tunnel for cars that lead under the estate. Near the mouth a sign listed upcoming events at the exhibition hall. Pedestrians did not seem welcome in the tunnel. The ramp was labeled as if it were a street. We ascended.

A man flew past us, seemingly in a hurry to get away. At the top we found a windswept courtyard, paved in smooth brick and completely devoid of all animal life. The slowly decaying wooden slat benches built in to the garden wall didn't show signs of having ever been used. There was a large sign reading "Barbican Exhibition Halls." We were heading in the right direction. But this sign was mounted over a glassed in breezeway with "no entry" signs on the doors.

Windswept Courtyard

Oh, very welcoming.

Strange Holes

Gardens?

Our only way forward was through the open parts of the tower in front of us. The Crescent, I believe. The open plan of the building could have been used to provide vistas of what was to come, drawing you forward into the complex. Instead, there were giant, fluted columns there instead. We couldn't know where we were going until we were there. We were only one 'layer' into the centre and already we'd been made to feel unwelcome in three or four different ways.

Under the Crescent are these weird little holes in the ground, where you could look down to the level below. In the hollow part there are a pair of massive concrete structures, topped with vegetation. They're probably called gardens. It's hard to to tell from the photos but they tower over you, and dominate the courtyard. The courtyard full of empty tables, like a food court with no restaurants.

Here was a second defining characteristic of Brutalism. The total failure to understand public space.

I've never seen the concept drawings for the Barbican. Even so, each time I entered a new space I saw the drawing in my minds eye. Looking down from on high (about three floors) the space is rendered in elegant pastel lines. Smart looking, semi-transparent people stand in evenly distributed groups of two and three having intellectual discussions. This group has a young child with them. He gazes up in awe of his elders. The group nearer the foreground could be discussing Checkov, or how brilliant 'the Party' is.

The only problem is it never happens, does it? Those drawings of my imagination are probably the only time anybody has sat on those benches. Ever. It turns out that big, empty concrete squares are actually not so much conductive to life as completely threatening and uncomfortable. Who knew?Well, everybody really. But these were revolutionaries. Out with all those old ideas about how to live. We are the great architects and we will tell you how to live! This was such obvious nonsense that by the 80s it was just a joke. Just take this bit from Alexei Sayle's Stuff.

Alexei Sayle's Stuff, 1988

Finally, we found our way inside and in to a sort of maze of stairs and corridors. There were people here, the first we'd seen that weren't scurrying through the security doors as fast as their legs could carry them. We had to ask for directions, and we eventually found the main hall of the Barbican Arts Centre.

What an awful place.

Low light, low ceilings, pits and gargantuan raw concrete stair cases going from everywhere you're not to places you're not sure you want to be. It's a warren. Two minutes in and you don't know up from down. With every step you expect a surprise attack . Bamn! A face full of béton brut (raw concrete, for which the Brutalist movement is supposedly named).

Crushed and Confused in and by the Barbican Arts Centre

Claustrophobia!

Stairs everywhere!

A third defining characteristic of Brutalism. Awe through confusion.

It doesn't come up quite as much in the standalone tower blocks. But a few days earlier, Rakka and I paid a visit to Southbank Centre and found it to be designed to confuse too (as well as oppress and all the rest). Signs are kept to a minimum, and tend to be labels rather than directions.

In Frontier in Space, a Doctor Who story from 1973, the Doctor an Jo spend time at Southbank which is standing in for a futurist military spaceport. Notice the 'military.' The place lends itself to totalitarian imagery.

Southbank: Bridge, notice the stairs in the foreground. (Frontier in Space, Doctor Who, 1973)

Walkway in the sky

Friendly Concrete

Stairs

Walkway. (Frontier in Space, Doctor Who, 1973)

You can compare the footage to a the Southbank of today and see that the place has been simplified and humanized since then. In recent years some of the crazy staircases and flying walkways have been removed, or replaced with more useful ones. The many identical stairwells across the site have been brightly painted in a variety of colors so as to distinguish them and brighten the place up.

Southbank: The Concrete stairs are gone, and new ones are aligned with actual foot traffic.

Inviting

Stairs from? to?

Modern tables don't fit.

Southbank: Bright yellow stairs are slightly less depressing than raw.

The Southbank of now is still a bit daunting with all its twists, turns, nooks and crannies. And being daunted is a form of being awed. It's not rocket science to layout some buildings in such a way that you can easily have a sense of where you are and where you're going. That people are always confused on their first visits to these places is clear evidence that it's intentional.

Back at the Barbican we did not wait in line for two hours to see the exhibit. The space was too oppressive to even contemplate remaining in it for so long.

But on our approach I noticed something. A tower block flying over the artificial lake. And hanging under it, a concrete ribbon with people on it. A true life, literal Street in the Sky.

Barbican Estate: Street in the Sky, yet under a tower block.

Long view.

Fountains

The Barbican Lake

Conversation pits? Note the awful waterfall in the back.

A street in the Barbican Estate.

The Streets in the Sky concept was big fad within the brutalist movement. Corbusier's Unité d'habitation has an 'indoor street' with shops and stuff on the middle floor. And he's the father of brutalism, so you know all his disciples wanted to put that stuff in. But it was often implemented in a devolved form. In Park Hill, Sheffield the Streets In the Sky were just wide walkways which continued from building to building. They were wide enough for milk floats, but the milk floats stopped running after a few years (after an accident of them killed a child). There were no shops. In the end they just look like something you'd find on a motel 6.

The Barbican's are different. Many of them hang under the buildings. Since these don't front on to flats or anything access points are limited. Four stories up and no exits is not a comfortable place to be. From our vantage point under a tower block but over a lake, we got a great view of further evidence of bad public spaces. The set of brick conversation pits, sunk directly in to the lake and connect to land by only a narrow pedestrian bridge would make a lovely place to face down a mugger. If you want to keep your wallet you're swimming for it.

Yet another defining characteristic. Complete disregard for how people actually behave.

These architects, Corbusier and the rest, really though they were architecting a new society. They weren't engineering buildings to fit peoples needs. They were engineering buildings based on their internal ideologies, and expecting people fit into the slots they were given, just like the prefab concrete slabs sometimes used in the construction. Corbusier's to produce "uniformity of the part, variety in the whole." The atomic unit was the uniform "house machine" in to which the uniform residents could be slotted in to.

And none of these residents would ever use the lack of escape routes to their own nefarious advantage. Oh no, the architecture will rise them up over their base desires. They will all be shining examples of contented, happy proles communing in harmony with each other. It's obvious, right?

The conceit is so over the top that you wonder if the attitude isn't just an excuse to disregard people all together. I sometime imagine that many of these places have a zombie Richard Briers wandering around eating people who don't respect his perfect architectural vision.

This is the world of Paradise Towers, another Doctor Who story. The The Great Architect, Kroagnon (Richard Briers) comes back from the dead to purge his perfect building of all the filthy residents. Paradise Towers was filmed in 1987, well after its main inspiration, High Rise by J. G. Ballard had begun to come true in many of the tower block estates around the country.

Published in 1975, about a year after the Barbican complex was finally complete, High Rise a pretty presentient book. By the 80s places like Park Hill Estate, Trellick Tower and Robinhood Gardens had become famous not for their new, ideal society, but for their drugs, rapes and murders.

To my knowledge the Barbican Complex never had the problems that most of the other brutalist estates developed over the years. Its location in the City garners it special treatment. The square mile of the City is home to only 7000 or so people, most of them probably high flying banking types. Of those 7000, about 4000 live in the Barbican. Over half of all the residents of The City live here! Three bedroom flats in Shakespeare tower start in the range of £1.5 million. This is not a group of people who are going to let the local council slack off on maintenance or security.

Security or not, Rakka and I felt very vulnerable as we wandered around the estate. Past the maisonettes in the Postern and Wallside, which by the way look extremely uncomfortable to live in. With the main living area sunk below the front door, I imagine I would always feel at a tactical disadvantage living in one of these. Intruders would have the high ground by default. The fact that I was thinking these things while I was there is a testament to the unease that the place inspired. The unlit, blind corners that we had to navigate to find our way out didn't help either.

Barbican Estate: Maisonette in the Postern.

Playground

Most Depressing School

Wallside

Barbican Estate: Park Hill style Street in the Sky

Eventually we found our way to street level. Street on the ground level, I should say. But still on the inside of that great blank wall that greeted us from the tube. Panic was starting to creep in, but we did get out eventually. The estate finally spat us back out through a tunnel made for cars, on the wrong side for the tube. I was happy, though, to stand on a normal street corner, breathe the free air, and wait for my turn to cross.

The amazing thing about this visit is that this is the good place.

This is the brutalist masterpiece that's maintained its security, reputation and property values since it was built. And it's brutal.

Even more amazing, despite all this talk of totalitarianism and conceit, and despite my discomfort in the Barbican, I actually agree with Corbusier on some things. His problem statement is more or less ok. Looking at 1930s Stockholm he saw “frightening chaos and saddening monotony.” This self contradictory statement does have some merit. Having lived in Baltimore, a town made entirely of identical two story row houses jumbled together in multiple grid patterns, I can see where he's coming from.

He and his disciples were trying to solve a very real problem. We've more people than space. We have to go up. We have to figure out how to make it work. In China there are apparently 179,000 people moving to cities a week. That is mad! Sky City in Changsha might sound crazy (it's planned for 220 floors and 31,400 residents) but it's where we're headed.

Where Corbusier ends up going though, is ridiculous. He ends up with drawings of Ville Contemporaine. In other words, his solution to monotony is 10s of identical buildings on as many identical patches of ground, all lined up in perfect rows. He wanted to solve monotony by creating it en masse. It's mad, really. He does conquer the anarchy, but for me the anarchy of a place like London is what makes it feel alive.

So no, I don't agree with the brutalist solution at all. In fact, tower blocks in general pose a problem, brutalist or no.

I've lived in low rise towers. Earlier this year I spent a few days in the Strata SE1 in Elephant and Castle. These are not brutalist structures in appearance, but they are conceptually the same. These towers are just stacks of "house machines" connected by the barest thread of communal space. The hallways are completely enclosed to give the units the most salable window space.

The hallways, the only communal spaces in these buildings, are cut off from the world completely. In the modern "green" buildings like the Strata they are pitch dark if you stand still too long. The motion sensitive lights drive home the fact that these are not spaces you are meant to stay in. You are not welcome here. Rush through. Slot yourself in to your machine for living in. You feel as much sense of community in those featureless landings as you do in the Barbican's streets in the sky. It's possible to go for years and not know what your neighbors even look like.

Strata SE1: Communal hall lit only by the light of the lift.

It is easy to imagine that in 20 years, after the winds of politics and the economy have swung round again, that these modern tower blocks will develop the same problems of places like Park Hill and Robin Hood Gardens.

The problem is now, as I see it, we're still designing centralized control in to the very bones of our buildings. And as a consequence we are designing communities right out of existence. We are removing words from the language of our built environment in the same way Newspeak removes words from the spoken language. Will the result be the same? In a generation will we even be able to conceive of a community? Of a neighborhood?

I will leave you with a question. Is this problem even solvable? Can we find a way to build cities in the sky that are economically (and environmentally) stable while being socially, culturally, and structurally humane? Can we build up and still allow, or even promote a sense community?

References in no particular order:

Brutalist Architecture @ wikipedia
Le Corbusier @ wikipedia
Alison & Peter Smithson @ wikipedia
Trellick Tower @ wikipedia
Robin Hood Gardens @ wikipedia
Park Hill, Sheffield @ wikipedia
Barbican Estate @ wikipedia
City of London @ wikipedia
Unite d'Habitation @ wikipedia
Southbank Centre @ wikipedia
Ville Contemporaine @ wikipedia
High Rise @ wikipedia
Ville contemporaine de trois millions d'habitants @ Fondation Le Corbusier
Postern @ Barbican Estate
Wallside @ Barbican Estate
The Architect as Totalitarian by Theodore Dalrymple
China to build world's tallest building, in just 90 days @ independent
Doctor Who: Frontier in Space @ imdb
Why Park Hill should live @ cosmopolitan scum
Streets in the Sky @ intute.ac.uk
Social Engineering Through Architectural Change by David Hamilton
Park Hill: Old Photos Gallery @ bbc
Paradise Towers @ tardis eruditorum
Rain Room @ the Barbican Art Centre
Light Music by Lis Rhodes @ Tate Modern
1984 and Newspeak
Fahrenheit 451

Citadel

2012-11-18T12:36:00.001-08:00

Aneurin Barnard an the Tower Block of Terror (image via)

Are you ready to be creeped out? I hope so, because we're going to visit Citadel.

This the second film I saw at BFI's London Film Festival this year, this time hosted at the Screen on the Green in Islington, which is a beautiful place to be scared off your chump.

The film is about agoraphobia. Director Ciaran Foy struggled with agoraphobia after being attacked himself and he channels all his own fear through Tommy [Aneurin Barnard]. Does it come through? Oh, man does it ever come through. The fear just drips off Barnard. You can sense it just as well as the films antagonists can.

Of course, this is a horror movie, so we're not going to leave it dialed to 'abstract fear.' Shit is going to start, very definitely, to go down.

This clip doesn't do it justice, if I'm honest. The pace of the film draws you slowly in to Tommy's fear. By this point in the film you're feeling it right along with him.

If you've read the descriptions on imdb or whatever, you'll know that Tommy has a little daughter and feels that the hoodies are out to get them. The baby could very easily have been a shortcut to the audience's fear, as they so often are in hollywood. But it turned out that the little baby girl was central to the plot, though a bit more as a MacGuffin than a character. There are some other tropes going on as well, but it's a genre film, that's part of it.

Citadel was a very enjoyable film, in a creepy sort of way. Two thumbs up (horror friend!). I suggest you find yourself a screening and get to it. Quite a few coming up this month.

Happy New Year, Grandma

2012-11-11T14:37:00.002-08:00

photo from bfi's page

I chose Happy New Year, Grandma from the huge list of films shown at BFI's 56 London Film Festival because it is in Basque. Yes, I chose a film just for the language spoken in it. I'd never heard more than a few words of Basque spoken. That's a good reason, I don't care what you say. It's a language isolate; less related to French or Spanish than Welsh is. That's worth hearing.

But, you know, the premise sounded good too. Cranky old grandmother that pretends to be senile for attention? or is senile? and won't die and won't go into a home. So eventually the family thinks of killing her. And it's a comedy. That's funny, right?

Obviously, it'd be a dark comedy.

One problem: it's not really funny. There are some amusing bits, but they're few and far between. For the most part it's just sad. And the end. Oof. It's been called 'hard to watch.' I can't do better than that.

I might have formed this impression because I didn't, couldn't, identify with any of the characters. For every decision that every character made, I would have made a different one. It's literally impossible find a film with fewer sympathetic characters. But that's not to say the film wasn't worthwhile.

It's left me wondering, am I that different from these people? If I was from a culture that prized family so highly, would I have been able to sympathise with this family? Would I been able to laugh (darkly) at their tragedy? Or, is the Telmo Esnal, director and co-writer, just some sort of sociopath (which I realize isn't really the thing, but is a convenient shorthand)? So, lots to think about. And I like thinking.

Also, hearing Basque for an hour and a half was good. It's obviously been influenced a lot by indo-european languages, but mostly it's like nothing you've heard. That was good to hear.

Went back to London

2012-11-03T07:55:00.001-07:00

BuildingCentre london table closeup, originally uploaded by leff.

Unlike last time, I won't be posting about it in a travelog format. What I'm going to do instead is write some posts on specific things that we did. It'll give me the chance to go a little deeper on subjects of interest.

British Holiday Chapter 14: Nice Lunch and a plane trip

2012-09-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

Best Meal ever

It was our last day in town. It was a late plane, so we had the morning. I spent some time in the back garden at the flat. Nice light that day.

Back Garden

I used up the last of the waitrose food. Actually, I think that might be the fish pie.

Breakfast

Double checked the cheese before packing it up. I should have reviewed the cheese yesterday, even though we didn't eat it until we got home. Here's the review: Fantastic!

Cheese Boat Cheese

We took a walk looking for a nice pub for our last meal. Last meal in town I should say, but it felt like it was going to be the last meal ever.

Cute car.

We saw a cute car, which Shed has since identified and then I forgot what it was again. And then we made our way to the Swimmer at the Grafton Arms (we were sat at the table pictured in that timeout article). That's where I got that sunday roast that I led off with. I normally don't eat mammals but it was a special occasion.

It was rost lamb with potatoes, cabbage, yorkshire pudding, green beans and carrots. Gravy and mint sauce. I absolutely loved the mint sauce. It was just colmans mint sauce mixed with some malt vinegar, the waitress mixed it up just before servering and with the open kitchen I could see what she did, but it was the best and I want it all the time.

The place itself was pretty nice. Sparsely populated for Sunday lunch, but that's fine by me. The barman was a wanna be russell brand. Or maybe it was russell brand. Maybe r. brand was keeping it real by spending his sunday pulling pints Holloway. I dunno.

Terminal 5

And then depression set in. We got a mini cab to paddington, and took the heathrow connect train to terminal 5. I'm never doing that again, btw. The heathrow connect and the heathrow express are run by the same company, and the connect just exists to upsell you to the express. You have to get off and transfer at terminal 1. What a pain in the ass. Still we got to the terminal at least a half an hour before we were allowed to check in.

With the waiting and the flying, it was about 13, 14 hours before we got this view of Mt. Rainier.

Mt. Rainier

That's taken from the light rail terminal at SeaTac. Rakka and I hate the Kitsap Airporter so much we go through Seattle and come back on the ferry, unless the flight gets in very late at night. It's about the same amount of time anyway.

And so that's it. We're done with the last trip, finally. It's just a little over a month until the next one. After that, I'm going to have to start going other places. It's not that I'm tired of London, that'll never happen. But I've already decided 1,000 times that I will live there eventually, somehow. So I might as well see some other stuff.

British Holiday Chapter 13: Canals, Cheese, and Ottolenghi

2012-09-02T19:43:00.001-07:00

Cheese Boat! (that's the guardian's hq in the background)

We were well rested after a lovely night in the Islington flat, so we headed out to buy some cheese. I learned a lot about London on the way.

We started off through the rather nice back streets in Islington.

A road in Islington

The Cheese Boat was going to be moored across from the new Guardian offices in York Way.

On the way we got coffee at the weirdest little cafe. The patrons were all old men, sitting in pairs like spies having clandestine meetings. Or maybe they were just couples. It was hard to say, even though we had what seemed like several years to study them all while we waited for our coffee, which we took with us because we were excited about the Cheese Boat.

We got there early... too early. No really. They were there, but they had not opened yet. We had a couple hours to kill and few backup plans. There was a canal museum near by, but we weren't planning on going so we didn't have any of the details.

It was on the A to Z though, so we were able to track it down. It was right there, across the water. I think we ended up walking a mile to cover 50 feet, but I wasn't in the mood for a swim. We were pretty lucky here, because we arrived only 10 minutes before opening. We really do start our days too early. All those let's-get-on-the-road-at-four-to-beat-the-traffic road trips growing up are hard to shake off.

Leff (that's me) listening to an old canal man speak out of an ice cream spoon

Anyway, I had only learned of the existence of London's canal system a few days before, when we went to Camden Town. And here I was, dragging Rakka to a museum about them. It was kinda cool though. Especially since we got there before everybody so we had it to ourselves.

Canal People live under the stairs

They had a bunch of boats outside, which we sat next to and ate some tesco sandwiches. (that's the guardian in the background again. see what i mean, it's right there)

Bantam IV

There was a little display thing to demonstrate how locks work. We sent Rakka's little deer through.

A little nicer on vimeo

There was a nice little movie playing (which they don't have on their youtube unfortunately) full of old footage of real working canal boats. And this map. That's a lot of canal.

London's Waterways

The time was sufficiently killed, so it was back to the Cheese Boat!

Cheese Boat

The cheese boat is run by a nice old Welsh couple. A thing I've learned since is that there's a long association of Welsh people selling dairy in London. Milk-maids were primarily Welsh at least into the nineteenth century (London: The Biography - Ackroyd).

The Merry Milkmaid by engraving by John Savage after Marcellus Laroon.

We got some Black Bomber, Pickle Power and Green Thunder. Which we brought all the way home to Seattle; I was nervous in customs, they didn't care.

Cheese samples at the cheese boat

Next it was back to kings cross for the tub up towards Ottolenghi in Belgravia.

Kings Cross from Goods Way

This was on of those tube trips where a little walk would have saved us a ton of time. We took a route that required a transfer, and the first leg went about 3 feet before we transfered (we could still see kings cross), but it took like a half hour.

Platforms 1 and 2 at Edgware Road

We got there eventually though. You probably know this, but Belgravia is fancy town. Which makes it pretty perfect for this fancy little foodery.

Ottolenghi

It's a tiny little building, so it's pretty easy to overwhelm it with foodstuffs. Which they do. The path from the kitchen to the display table shares 100% of it's floorboards with the customer area. It becomes claustrophobic really rather quickly. I felt that I was in the way from the moment I walked in.

Ottolenghi knows how to show it off

As a result, I didn't actually pick food. I just pointed at things that I could identify so that I could get out. So I ended up with chicken and broccoli.

Ottolenghi chicken and broccoli

Rakka did a little better. She got a savory pastry thing.

Ottolenghi savory pastry thing

The next stop was Rococo Chocolates across the street. As I remember, the weird thing there was that their computers were down so they couldn't sell things they had to weigh, which included everything. They almost refused to sell us chocolates. It seems that even in fancy ass Belgravia nothing ever quite runs at 100%. It's part of London's charm.

Anyway, we took our loot up to Hyde park, as you do. It was a beautiful day, but we still managed to find a bench. I love that.

A day in Hyde Park

And we got the tube to head back to Islington. We didn't know it was a game day. It was a game day. We didn't know that they close our tube stop on game day. They do close our tube stop on game days. It probably would have been better to get off at the stop before. As it was, we over shot our station, and wound up on the wrong side of the block, which was about a hundred miles long in every direction. I exaggerate but honestly we had to walk a mile farther in the wrong direction before we could cross over and get back to the flat. We were back to being exhausted again.

Next up, our last day and my best meal ever.

British Holiday Chapter 12: Welcome to Islington

2012-09-02T14:34:00.001-07:00

A nice like flat in Islington

The day after Brighton we left the awful student flat and moved to another airbnb in Islington. It was much nicer. The place was nicer, the host was wonderful, and it was very near a waitrose.

It was also very near the arsenal stadium, but that didn't affect us until the next day.

How do people not make the "'Arsenal Football Club' contains 'arse'" joke more often?

Moving around from place to place has advantages. That nasty student flat only affected us for a couple days. But it also is exhausting. By this point in the trip we were getting pretty stinking tired. I think all we managed to do this day was a sit in the park back in Bloomsbury, the move, a walk down Holloway Road, and a trip to waitrose.

On our walk we stopped in a pub, I think it was The Bailey. It mostly for Arsenal fans, and as there wasn't a game on it was pretty empty. For some reason, London pubs were all about providing Thai food at the time (not sure if this is still the case). We got some. It was pure salty goodness. The Sharps Doom Bar cask ale was pretty good too.

Pub Thai

The best part, though, was the talk we had with the publican. He'd been stationed in washington state when he was in the military. Seemed a pretty nice guy. Seemed to know just how much chatting to do without being annoying. (this is a skill that I don't encounter very often in seattle. I miss it)

We stopped at waitrose on the way back. Got some more booze and some premade dinners. Of course, I picked fish pie, which I was then afraid to make because our host specifically asks all her guests to not stink the place up like fish.

St Peter's Organic Best Bitter

I asked about it and I got the whole story. One of her first airbnb visitors had pan fried some fish very 'hard' and the whole place stank for a week. My fish pie did not ruin our relationship. Which was nice. But stories like that reaffirm my commitment to not renting out a room on airbnb (also the cats would hate it).

And that was it. The whole day. Not very exciting, but we were still in London and that's what matters.

British Holiday Chapter 11: Brighton

2012-09-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

Ice cream and flake and flake. Do the Ice cream and flake, do the Ice cream and flake.

I know, I know. These are getting farther and farther apart. It's dumb and I'm a slacker. I have to pick up the pace a bit though, or this trip will overlap with the next one, which is scheduled for mid october.

So this is Brighton. It's got a pebble beach, ice cream and cockles.

cockles

Cockles are fishy and gritty. I'm glad I got the small cup. Couldn't have really handled more.

deco

There are some nice old deco buildings. And of course the famous pleasure pier, which is apparently run by gangsters.

Brighton Pier

The Brighton Eye has since been copied exactly in Seattle. Of course, in Seattle they did it on a pier instead of solid ground. Other than that I think they're exactly the same.

I wonder why they didn't build this on some sticks in the water?

The nice thing about Brighton Pier is it's less commercial than I expected. I figured you'd be expected to pay to do stuff like stick your face through a hole, but no. Totally free.

Mermaid

That doesn't stop people from fucking with the signs. And why would you not want some Brighton Pie anyway?

Brighton Pie

It's a nice little place, really, is the Brighton waterfront. We were in the shoulder season I guess. Most of the stuff was closed.

Horatios Bar

In fact, they were doing some work. Of course, the construction guys mugged for the camera.

Working

Rakka and I laughed at the PP BM signs on the toilets. Because that's what you do in there. Groc didn't get it though. I suppose we just have different pet names for bodily functions over here.

P.P. B.M.

After the beach, we started heading up to the Royal Pavilion, which as you probably know, is George IVs crazy fancy beach house. This fountain isn't that.

Fountain

This is that.

Royal Pavilion

This is also it. It's a tad over the top.

Royal Pavilion

You can't take pictures inside the Pavilion, so you have to just go yourself.

Now, this is important. You can't make a fancy beach house without a statue of yourself. Keep this in mind, and do it properly.

George IV

Then go down the pub. Actually, up the pub. This one is over by the lanes, where we didn't go shopping.

Pub

We had Pims to drink, and that's important too.

Pims Cup

It was a good day, but by the end I felt kinda like this guy.

Standing Kip

And on the train back to London, I finally got a good picture of two of battersea power station. We talked to some fancy people on their way to a gala about how sad the state of it is. Of course, now it's got funding and is going to be fixed up. I'm glad for that.

Battersea

British Holiday Chapter 10: Boat Tour

2012-07-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Tate and Shard

I don't have much to say about Thames boat tours. Just, 'do it' basically. Once is enough.

Tower Bridge

Oh, yeah, there's this thing where a bale of hay hanging from a bridge means it's under construction. Goes back to olden times or sommat.

bail of hay

Oh, look, parliament again.

Parliament

I insisted that we hang around until I could get this recording.

After a boat tour, the thing to do is go to Nando's. It's just what is done. Don't argue with it, just make sure you have them make your chicken spicy enough.

Nando's Peri Peri Chicken

British Holiday Chapter 9: Camden to Regents Park

2012-07-01T12:58:00.000-07:00

Yeah, this is thefountainin the background

We decided that the best thing was to be on the outside of the flat as much as possible. So we took off early and headed to one of our favorite places in London (so far), the graveyard at the Saint Pancras Old Church. Home to the famous Hardy Tree.

The Hardy Tree again

Those are all the people that were buried where the railway is now (behind that brick wall in the background). I somehow doubt that all the bodies are under the tree. Maybe they're still under the rail lines. I always end up thinking about what it must have been like when Thomas Hardy was supervising the excavation.

"Where should we put these Gravestones?" the workers ask. "Oh, just stack them around that tree for now. We'll find a morepermanentarrangement later." replies Hardy.

Later, the forman approaches Hardy, hat in hand "Um, Guv, what about those Gravestones around that tree?" Hardy looks him in the eye and says "I'm a novelist now. Lalalalala." Then he dances away.

Could it have happened like that, I start to wonder.But then I get distracted by the tomb that looks like a red phone booth. Except red phone booths look like it. But you know all this already.

The phone booth tomb again

Our actual target this morning was Camden Town. We passed a place that reminded us of home.

Tennesseeland

It's the type of place that's been getting raided recently. I'm rather glad we didn't stop in.

I'm also glad that this was as far as we got into Camden. It's not my sort of place.

Camden town

Instead, we busted left and took a stroll past the lock.

Camden Lock

And down the canal.

Canal

Under a bridge.

Bridge

Past a swan.

Swan

And some boats.

Boats

An old church.

Some old Church

And in to Regents Park. Where I sat and took pictures of BT Tower again. Because that's what I do.

BT Tower

Regents park is really rather nice. Especially down the south end where all the manicured gardens are.

Some old Water Fountain

There are a few little shops. I stopped and had a sausage.

Regents Park sausage

And then we took a stroll through the manicured bits. Hey, guess what picture I took?

BT Fountain

I could have posted a lot more photos, because it was a really nice day. But they would get boring after a while.

Bright flowers

I will just say, parks in London are the best. They're well maintained and pretty and all that, but that's not why. It's the people. The parks can be completely stuffed full of people and yet it never feels like they're all up ons.Londoners certainly know how to handle density. I dig it.

Right, not many words in this post. But the pictures tell a story, wot? Next time, we take a boat tour on the Thames.

British Holiday Chapter 8: A bad flat in Bloomsbury

2012-06-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

Paddington is kind of like home

It's good that paddington is like home, because we sat there for two hours waiting for our airbnb host to be ready. Unlike home, it's not that fun for two hours.

Anyway, we finally got to the flat. I had the least confidence about this place of all the places we had planned to stay. Trash on the stoop, a front door that wouldn't open all the way, flaking paint in the hall and an assent not unlike the approach to the Bucket's country flat all went to show that my instincts are pretty good. Still, I wasn't prepared for what we found.

Start at about 2:00 for the stairs

The place we were staying had been basically student housing for some unknown number of centuries. You know what students are. The place made me itch as soon as I walked in. The feeling persisted for several days.

Laundry was hanging up all over the place. Illumination in the kitchen was provided by a lamp clipped to a cabinet door; just duck behind the table to cut it off. Try not to electrocute yourself as the cord is draped over the laundry. The floor of our room was at such an angle that we couldn't leave round things on the floor. The shower was full of black stuff and it was too small to avoid touching the sides.

I went out to get some nourishment. Rakka stayed behind. I found myself in Waitrose in Brunswick Centre. I believe I've been past Brunswick Centre before, on a different trip. It stands out because it is so ugly.

Bloomsbury looks spooky at night when you haven't seen it in the day

I like Waitrose. They have G&Ts in cans.

In the morning things didn't look quite so bleak. Nice weather helped. I went up on the roof (tripping over boots on the stairs and fearing for my life on the rickety stairs) for a quick recky round.

Rooftops

Quite a collection of chimney's. A view of the Shard, BT Tower, and the top of St. Pauls (I think). The Parsons Library was across the way. It looked like much too fancy a neighbor for the likes of our flat.

Our room was across from the Parsons Library

But then again, the Parsons Library is part of Goodenough College, so maybe it was appropriate after all.

Is your College the best? Eh, it's Goodenough.

Next time, we'll talk about actually doing things.

British Holiday Chapter 7: We stop in at Bath

2012-06-10T20:42:00.004-07:00

Sally Lunn Buns

The time always comes when we leave Cardiff. This should be pretty obvious as we're not there now. I really like Cardiff and I don't like leaving. Shed came down from Ponty to see us off. We didn't have a lot of time so we hung out at the train station and got some coffee. Shed was heading on too, so we hung out on the platform for a bit. Then the train pulled out of the station.

And so on to Bath.

We were stopping for lunch with Pip. You saw the picture already. It's right up there.

Of course, we had luggage. The backpacking place is a few blocks from the train station, and they let you leave luggage there for a few pounds. So that happened. Then we met with Pip and went to Sally Lunns.

He thought that was a little silly, because it's the most touristy food in town. But you've got to do it once, right? Rakka, Groc and I had tea in a shop about 100 yards away back in 2010 when we were visiting the baths and the abbey (and Pip). And seeing as how we'd missed it by that much then, I thought it was time.

Sally Lunn's famous buns (I can't speak to the fame of the man on the phones' buns)

I always get lemon things. Don't know why. Just a thing. It was a pretty good lemon thing, though the clotted cream was a bit chilly. I want to learn how to make a Bath bun. I think it'd be good for hamburger sandwiches.

Clotted Cream

Anyway, after the tea we took a walk around town. I took a picture of some shops that turned out to be slightly more interesting on later inspection. Not for the amusingly named Scoffs or Roman Candles. I assume they sell fireworks? But because of Bog Island News. So named because the traffic island it faces is called the bog island. It was the home of some public toilets, thus the name I imagine and hope, until the 80s when I hear they turned the toilets into a night club. Which, yeah. The only problem I could see is, where did the clubbers go to the toilet?

I scoff at this row of shops. That bit in the foreground is the Bog Island.

All this talk of toilets actually makes a pretty good segue into our next topic of conversation. The London pub piss dungeon.

What kind of dungeon‽

Rakka and I stood upon the banks of the River Avon, in the shadow of Bath Abbey, and recounted for Pip a the whole sordid tale. The tale was related to us by Shed in the City Arms the day before, which he read from a blog [warning: that link is about a piss dungeon] out loud. I was glad the pub was empty.

Bath wasn't. The fact that we were overheard went unnoticed until we got home. That picture has been making us laugh ever since.

That Bridge with the Shops

We walked over that bridge with the shops, but we didn't go in to any of the shops. Pip was taking us to a museum over that way, but then we all realized that what we really wanted to see were those fancy addresses up the hill. So we went back again.

Passed the abbey, up the hill, we came at last to the circus. Here, Pip had to leave us. He was just on lunch break at work after all. As always it was a pleasurable visit, if short.

Finally got to the circus, but there were no clowns

The stone is very rich and buttery. You could spread it on some toast.

Well, there were these guys.

Not really. It's stone.

Haha!

The Royal Crescent, and it's famous haha. Turns out it has pretty old plumbing and all. The trucks you see in the distance were great big plumbing trucks as far as I could tell. It was a bit wiffy that day.

Plumbing aside, I don't think I'd ever take loggings in that particular semi-circle. It's very nice, and all, but there was a constant stream of tourists (like me) around there. Who'd want to see that?

Royal Crecent

Oh, yeah, all the houses are made from this buttery stone. Butterstone they calls it [they don't].

All the houses are like this

While walking down the hill we stopped at an offie but we just got sandwiches and soft drinks. We sat in a little square in the sun and had a quick nosh.

a little square

All of Bath really looks like this. It's crazy. It makes me want to read Jane Austin, so I can be all like 'Persuasion', I was there.

A street

We had some time to kill before our next train, so we stopped in at the abbey. At this point you should be used to us doing this sort of thing. I think this is the last church for the trip, so you can relax.

Fan vaulting causes cooling

Wait, not so fast. Tense up again. You need to hear some school children being indoctrinated. (Why do they insist on doing religion in these places? Can't we get any peace?)

Sunny

My favorite angle

After we left Bath it was back to London for a, thankfully, brief stay in Bloomsbury. Nothing on Bloomsbury in general but... No, nevermind. I'll save the horror stories for next time.

British Holiday Chapter 6: We drink in Cardiff

2012-05-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

Cardiff Bay

We had big plans for this day. We were going to make Shed drive us around an area the size of Wales. But we were all three very tired, and we had private access to one of the best views in the city (our hotel room). We scrapped our big plans, and replaced them with "potter around town, then take some beers back to the hotel."

While we were waiting for Shed to arrive we watched John Lewis' falconer show their falcon to all the pigeons.

falconer

We didn't know what he was doing at the time, so it seemed weird. When Shed got there he explained to us that walking around with a falcon and letting the pigeon's see it is enough to freak their shit. And indeed, John Lewis didn't have a pigeon problem.

Anyway, we started the day with the antique shops in the Jacobs and Co. building. Or we would have done if it had been open. It looks pretty fun, and since it was Shed's idea and he knows his stuff, I'm sure it would have been. Next time, next time.

Jacobs And Co (Cardiff) Ltd.

We passed by Spillers records but we didn't go in (my fault). We went to the High Street & Duke Street Arcades in all their late Victorian splendor (again, my fault). There's a shop that sells buttons. Also, they had a dalek infront of the fancy dress shop. It's not possible to go a whole day in Cardiff without some Doctor Who stuff.

Yellow Arcade

Arcade with Dalek

Arcade

The arcades are right by the castle. I may have mentioned the castle.

That Castle again

At some point, possibly the day before, we went into the Queen's Arcade, across the way. It's more of a mall (but the Lego store was fun). The old arcades are where it's at.

No, I take that back. The City Arms is where it's at.

The City Arms

Nice old place. It's a Brains pub, which isn't a bad thing if you ask me.

Indoors

The others had Peroni, which is good. But I'm in it for the cask ale. That dark one you see is mine.

Beers

Peroni

Two or three of these later (and a pickled egg for me. I love pickled eggs) we decided it was time to balance things out with some food. Of course, that meant nando's. There was one in town that even Shed hadn't been to [update: I was so wrong about this. this wasn't the Nando's Shed Hadn't been to. I am so sorry]. We resolved to fix this terrible oversight immediately.

Nando's Again

The funny part is that rakka, groc and I almost went to that Nando's on our first visit to Cardiff in 2010. We got crepes instead. The knackered party dalek (pictured here) was still there, and no less knackered.

Nando's makes a good hummus.

So, now comes the part where we went back to the hotel with some beer. We stopped at Tesco Express to pick some up. I think Shed amazed by our ability to direct him to the beer section, but we have our priorities straight. 1) get off the train. 2) find the booze store.

That's the hotel.

Anyway, we just hung around, listened to 6 music, drank the beer, and looked out of the window. You've already seen pictures of the view. Yeah, that was the afternoon.

As evening approached we convinced Shed that he had to take us to the Vulcan before it was gone. It's a little old pub in the way of a major construction project. There's been a campaign to save it, etc etc. I don't have any pictures of the outside because the whole place was surrounded by heavy construction equipment.

Never get out of bed before Noon

Genius but nobody knows it but me

The equipment was all going full blast while we were in there too. The flashing yellow lights and big diesel engines didn't do anything to keep the place warm though. It was fecking freezing in there, leading Shed to make some comment about how they should tear it down. Haha. Well they will, but very carefully. You haven't missed your chance to experience the Vulcan, you just have to wait until they move it to St Fagans.

Next time, we leave Cardiff (boo) and visit Bath and Pip (yay) and then return to London (yay).

British Holiday Chapter 5: We arrive in Cardiff, eventually

2012-05-27T17:35:00.000-07:00

View from the hotel

Leaving the Strata SE1 wasn't easy. Not just because it was so cool. But rakka had busted her Oyster card the day before, so she couldn't get in the tube. It was too early for the E&C tube ticket office to be manned. For the first time since we'd been there, the streets completely failed to be crammed with cabs.

After some minutes of hoping for a cab, we went back to the Strata and had them call. A mini cab came eventually, around the back. We ran. He didn't take cards, I had not much cash. I hopped out at a cash point, and while I was doing that, rakka worked her magic. We were soon driving past buck house like we were in a grand prix. It would have been tremendously fun if we our train wasn't leaving in 10 minutes.

We finally got to Paddington. Tipped the driver even though that's not done. He had broken many traffic laws for us, after all. With nine minutes to spare, I realized I had the wrong notebook out, and the right one, the one with the ticket confirmation numbers, was buried in my luggage. I got to be one of those people who just dismantles all their gear right in the middle of the floor, sweating and cursing the whole time. Finally, the information was found, the tickets were obtained, and we ran for the train.

We made it!

We got on at the wrong end, and a good thing too. By the time we dropped in to our seats, the train had started moving. Nothing like a tremendous amount of stress to start out the day.

You know what else is fun? When your train gets stopped for nearly an hour before it even gets to Reading because of work on the track. And it's a joy when this puts the train so far behind that the driver insists on taking a smoke break outside of Gloucester. And what are you doing outside of Gloucester anyway. How is that on the way to Cardiff?

Anyway, we finally got to Cardiff. Shed met us at the station. Tired and hungry, our first stop was Nandos.

Nandos!

This was my first time at a Nandos. Can you believe it? Neither can I. It's good'n'spicy, and I hear they treat their workers well.

Anyway, refreshed, Shed took us over to the Cardiff Museum.

M. Bison

"Hey, no photos. Hey!"

Plastic Champers

The Cardiff Museum, formally the National Museum of Wales, is cool, in that 'a little bit of everything' eclectic sort of way. It kind of reminded me of the Pink Palace in Memphis. But Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have never pursued criminals through the Pink Palace lobby. The Doctor has never fought monsters there (nor have any torchwood staff visited).

Shhh. We keep it raw on the set.

Of course, I was never accosted by security for taking photos in the Pink Palace either. The little old dude that scolded us to not take pictures of the special exhibit would have been cute if he didn't keep saying it five times after we'd already put the cameras away.

Anyway, after the dinos, and the animatronic mastodons that I took tons of unusable video of, and the other special exhibit (about the queen) we came across the Neanderthal exhibit. Rakka and I amused ourselves by doing the sexy neanderthal thing next to them for some minutes.

Shed hadn't been introduced to the sexy neanderthal though. So we repaired to the nearest cafe nerd to watch at top (iphone) volume. Everyone was too polite to tell us to shut up.

Cafe Nerd.

The Cafe was near the castle. I love me a good old castle. But we've been in before, so we skipped it this time.

There Castle.

Finally, after all this rambling around, we made it to our hotel. Shed got us the hookup. The Radisson Blu Cardiff is probably the snazziest, and definitely the tallest place in town. We got the corner room on the top floor, overlooking the town, mostly, but you could see Cardiff Bay if you just looked opposite of where Shed was photographing (below).

Our host.

We ended up just hanging out, lording it over the town for quite a while.

Sunset, Cardiff

Shed had to take off, so rakka and I popped out to the Tesco Express and got some booze and foods. We spent the evening eating Pot Noodle and watching the sun go down.

This has been my desktop picture for a while

I can't tell you how much better Pot Noodle tastes on the 21st floor of a fancy hotel. Actually, I can. It tastes just as bad, but in an even better than normal way. Snub the whole tower full of fancy-asses while being king fancy-asse. I'll sign up for that assignment any day.

Top Right. All the way top.

Tomorrow (trip time) we hang out in Cardiff with Shed. There are two pubs and some shops, and another Nandos!

British Holiday Chapter 4: Parks, Pubs and Rugby

2012-05-06T22:40:00.000-07:00

I'm really very slow at writing these. This time I'm going to cover 2 days. They were pretty light days. Walked in some parks, went to some shops and pub, and watched the rugby back at the flat. It was big rugby: Wales took the triple crown. So let's get this post going. It's mostly pictures.

So... every time I saw BT Tower I took a picture. It's probably because I'm this much of a nerd.

Here's the first of many. You have to admit, it's a crazy old thing.

BT Tower

This was taken from outside of Paddington Street Gardens. The adroit reader and London native will wonder how you come to be passing Paddington Street Gardens on your way from Baker Street station to Regents park. We can put it down purely to my abysmal sense of direction.

But we got to the park eventually. It had some gilt gates. Looking at them now they seem ostentatious in the extreme. The day after Paris they looked subdued. Almost plain.

Giltgate at Regents Park

Oh, did you know you can see BT Tower from Regents park? You do now.

BT Tower (again)

Also, there's these weird nobbles. I think they're probably basal shoots from the pine trees, but I could just be making shit up to sound smart. So never mind that bollocks. Look! Squirrel Drinking! Awwww.

Squirrel Drinking

And here we have a blurry picture of a Crazy Footed Quack Swangler. I could be wrong on the name. But, those feet are cray cray. You've got to give me that.

Weird Footed Bird

And so leaving Regents Park we headed down to Daunt Books. It is beautiful. It's a travel bookstore, so mostly travel books. But they have some fiction and other kinds of non-fiction that have pretty tenuous links to travel. I picked up a book about William Smith, the geology one. (Remember how I admitted to being a nerd earlier? Yeah...)

Daunt Books

Incidentally, Daunt is a block away from Paddington Street Gardens. If you let me navigate, be sure to wear good, comfortable walking shoes.

From there it was easy, even for me, to find the Nordic Bakery. A recommendation from santos.

Nordic Bakery

Santos had sent Rakka on a mission to sample the Rustic Oatmeal Cookie. It was good, but it didn't change my life.

Rustic Oatmeal Cookie

Of course, asking food to change your life is a pretty stupid thing to do. You just have to eat it so you don't die. Everything else is gravy. Which is also food.

Anyway. Cheese and Pickle. That's more my speed. Yeah. A Nordic C&P has more in common with an american one than a British one. But not that much. Because all the ingredients we a) really nice, and b) Nordic. The pickles were sweet without being gross, the bread was chewy and crunchy at the same time. Good stuff, good stuff.

Cheese and Pickle, Nordic style

After this bit of fortification, I insisted we go to a pub. Time for more walking. At some point we passed Harley Street. Did you know you can see... yeah, you get it.

BT Tower from Harley Street

We ended up at the Clachan in Kingly Street. Which was a nice respit from the crowds around Oxford Circus.

The sat us right in the middle of the room, and me with my back to the place. I never take a lot of pictures in these situations. Too many shoulders to look over. I did get this nice one of salad. Yay lettuce!

Salad

Now this fish pie looks absolutely disgusting, I admit. My lack of skill and equipment for low light photography can only take some of the blame here. But none of that matters, because it was fantastic.

Fish Pie

Rakka had a Chicken and Mushroom Pie which was even better. She's been trying to recreate it ever since. (She pretty much nailed it it the other night. She is talented.)

Something about the crush of the crowd at rush hour on the way home lead to Rakka's infamous breaking of the Oyster Card incident. It contributed to an interesting morning in a days time. More on that next post. Now it's time for Iceland and Rugby.

Yeah, you heard right. Next day we went to Iceland in the basement of the Elephant and Castle shopping centre and stocked up on prepackaged food and some ridiculous 'cider' then went straight back to the flat to watch the Rugby.

Iceland Food

Our hosts were both out of town, so we had the place to our selves. Perfect for a day in watching a sport I'd never ever watched before. But it was the 6 nations game between Wales and France. We had just been to France, we were going to Wales the next day. It was calling out to be watched.

And It was a very good game. The high stakes and good coverage made it a quite enjoyable afternoon. I'd recommend watching that particular game live to anybody interested in getting in to Rugby. Too bad you missed it, sucker.

Ok, tomorrow (in triplog time) we leave for Cardiff. So here's a couple parting photos of Elephant & Castle.

This is what the neighborhood sort of looks like.

Elephant and Castle

In the above I was standing under the train bridge visible from this window.

Airbnb at Strata SE1

Quite a bit of contrast. Dressed appropriately for inside that room, I feel pretty conspicuous when walking around outside, especially once I got away from the tube stop. It's funny though, how the conspicuously overdressed tend to congregate in these situations.

I was out that last night grabbing a late night snack from the shop under the elephant on a pole that I keep posting pictures of, a shop chosen because it was under that elephant, when a girl dressed for the club came up to me and asked directions. She had to walk past 20 other people to get to me, the guy in the bright blue jumper. It didn't even matter that I was buying kebabs with change from a guy under an elephant. (As usual, this was all going well until my american accent and total ignorance of local geography showed me to be completely useless to her, so she went away again.)

British Holiday Chapter 3: Paris, France

2012-04-22T21:11:00.001-07:00

That Picture

I'm starting with that picture, but our visit to tour eiffel came later in the day. But you have to start with that picture for your first trip to Paris, right?

But the morning started off in St. Pancras, where we boarded the Eurostar. It was a terribly foggy morning and we didn't see England at all. We went through a bunch of tunnels. After one of them they started doing the announcements in French first, instead of English. We were in France.

St Pancras

Carnet

Gare du Nord

We were planning on taking the metro from Gare du Nord down in to the central centre of the city. We had been stressing for several days (or possibly since before leaving Seattle) about how to get our hands on some Carnet. We had heard that it was a terrible scrum to get these ridiculous little paper metro tickets unless you had a fist full of Euros. Something about having to wait in line for a human to run your credit card. All this made me a little apprehensive that Paris was mired in the past (paper tickets are the only option? Really?). Not entirely unfounded, as we'll see in a minute.

Turns out though, that they sell carnet on the Eurostar. The only problem is that you have to stand on line with a bunch of bores from the US and Canada. The Canadian dude that I was stuck behind was a total mansplainer, and was lecturing some guy from some flyover state about American politics. I did not come all the way to France for this!

As soon as we hit the outskirts of Paris, the graffiti starts. It gets denser as we go along. By the time we're at Gare du Nord, every surface that can be stood in front of is covered with graf. None of it is particularly good. Just bad tagging. I guess to have a bunch of good stuff, you have to have a metric shit ton of... shit.

Beware of trapping your
hand in the doors.

We push past the scammers in the Metro entrance and find that we have, in fact, gone back in time. Old iron with unexplained metal bits. 1900 with a flash of 1960. The train we caught was 50 years old if it was a day. The doors didn't even open automatically, and were so well designed that they'd obviously taken a few fingers off in their day.

But we got through it. We got out. We found Notre Dame. Maybe you've heard of it. It's a famous cathedral.

It is quite nice. I'm always fascinated by old things. Something to do with there not being any of them round here. Cathedrals are particularly nice when traveling because they're, usually, a nice place for a quiet sit down.

Notre Dame de Paris is not particularly quiet. There are at least 1 million people here at all times. None of them are French except for, possibly, the people working at the gift shop.

Notre Dame

And, of course, the cleaners.

Some Kings or Something

Buttress

For all that, it is really quite an impressive pile. According to our good friend wikipedia, it used to be brightly colored, you know, back in the 13th century or whatever. I'd love to see it repainted. Just like I'd love to see London before they put Prince Albert in the can.

There is, of course, quite a bit of color when you get inside. Them winders show up reeaaalll good.

Glass & Pipes

Glass and Statue

Holy crap. That sounded way american. There were just too many of those people around this place. Notre Dame will always be associated with Americans now. Boo.

Glass on TV

Not just a few Americans either. Look at this! Yeesh. Nice quiet sit down my ass.

People People PEOPLE!

So, eventually we took off and headed towards, but not to, the Louvre. We passed the Centre de Pompidou in the distance. I was all "Hey, it's that place with the pipes!" I took a picture. The walking continued.

Centre de Pompidou

And continued, and continued. By the time we got to the back of the Louvre we were getting quite grumpy. Suddenly, I realized that other than a biccy with our coffee on the train, and a rather poor bready thing from the costa in St. Pancras for me, we hadn't eaten anything.

café crème

crudité fromage

We were so low on that essential for good travel, blood sugar, that we couldn't decide what to do about it. I saw a café across the street and sort of demanded that we go it.

This is not usually the best way to choose a restaurant.

But we lucked out. We really did. The food was delicious, and the staff were really friendly. We'd be warned, even by our French Airbnb hosts, about how rude Parisian wait staff was, but that just didn't happen.

It could have been because Rakka ordered in French. She did stumble a bit, but she was obviously trying to respect the language. I think it helped a lot.

The other thing was that we stumbled in to a family run place. The whole time we were there I sat watching this family at the pizza place across the alley. When they were done they came over and showed off their kid to the owner of our place. Despite all the tourists that must inundate this place (the place was called Café du Musée but wasn't part of the museum), the locals managed to keep it real. This was the best part of Paris, hands down.

Unless you want to count this guy.

bikeshaw with circus music

Not only did he have the most ridiculous bike-rickshaw thing I've ever seen, but it was playing recorded accordion music really loud. I think it was supposed to be traditional French folk music but it just sounded like a circus. How I wish I had video.

This was, as you can tell, right out front the Louvre. The Louvre. We didn't go in, just strolled by. But even so, it's impressive. The size of the place... Let's just say it's not small.

I. M. Pei-amids

In fact, this seems to be the theme for Paris. Big, designed to impress, gilt.

Gilt Much?

Everything is all "Ooo, look at me. I'm sooo fancy. Ooooo." It's like a pan-galactic gargle blaster. It succeeded in impressing me at first, but after a while I was like, hey, fuck you. I wasn't the only one.

"Fuck You" Tour Eiffel

The funny thing about walking from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower is that there really isn't anything that interesting between them, but they're farther away than you'd think. We had passed by the musee d'orsay but didn't go in (I was interested in the building more than the contents. Didn't seem worth the Euros).

It was a hot day, and even though in blog time we had just left the café, it was something like an hour slog through the bland streets of Paris.

And they are bland streets. Some guy was complaining about the randomness of London on the Guardian today. But really, that's what makes it so fun. In downtown Paris everything looks the same. Same stone, same layout, same same same. There's one landmark, the Eiffel Tower, and you can't see it half the time. Walking is usually good, because you get to see all the things. But if there aren't things to see...

Well, this cute car. That was worth a 2 mile walk. Or, you know, not.

Cute Car

So, anyway, just as I'm about to collapse for want of a refreshing beverage, Rakka points out that we're standing in front of a supermarché. Well, just a marché really. Moments later, armed with cokes and an apple, while I'm taking pictures of "fuck you" graffiti, Rakka beckons me to look around the corner. We were finally at the landmark.

So were the police. In riot gear.

Crikey, it's the Parisian Rozzers or French Po-po are on the Case.

I guess there's some sort of protest going on or something? Definitely cannons and screaming. We sat and listened. My apple was rotten.

Cannon Fire

The Tour Eiffel is a pretty thing. I will grant you that. It is another place with such a high concentration of Americans that you almost forget that you're in Europe at all. Maybe it's just one of those Las Vegas fakes...

Up the Tour

A day in Paris is tiring, especially when you walk the whole way. I wasn't walking the whole stinking way back, and the metro didn't appeal. Luckily, the Batobus stops right here, and it's a nice little boat ride down the Seine. Can't complain about that.

Actually, I can. The boat was crammed full of Americans. Bah.

Notre Dame, perhaps you've heard of it.

When we got off the Batobus, there was a dude playing French accordion folk music. Like, for real. Busking. I think people were paying attention. Mad.

We hung out at Notre Dame again. Different light in the afternoon. Nicer. This, however, was when the vacuum recording actually happened.

Light on Stone

And from there, it was back to ol' Gare du Nord. We were 2 hours early, because we ran out of energy to do things. Or rather, the things left to do took too much energy.

So we hung out in an "English" pub near the Eurostar departure area. The pub was hot, like an oven. We only stayed for one drink. We were first in line for the train.

After getting through security and getting the old passport stamped (hooray!) I had a ham sandwich and watched a couple that were in what would politely be termed a female led relationship. In practice this meant that he carried all the luggage and wore purple nail polish. It was endearing in a way. They were English of course. It's a very English sort of idea. I mean, that's how Thatcher happened, right?

Gare du Nord

Did I mention that we encountered some Americans during our visit? Two rows in front of us were the most insufferable American sorority girls. They talked for the whole two hours about things like how great it was that they got to practice speaking Spanish with an actual Spanish speaker. It was the only time this entire trip that I had to break out the headphones.

Well, that was quite a post. Paris didn't impress me much, but I was actually very happy with French people. I'm eager to return to France, but I'm done with Paris, at least the centre.

British Holiday Chapter 2: Walking around the City

2012-04-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

(I apologize for the time between chapters 1 and 2. I've had a cold of doom, and I started a new job.)

Elephant. check. Castle. check.

This was the first full day in London. We sat down and planned out a complete itinerary, involving tubing to London Bridge, walking down Bankside to the Tate Modern, across the Millenium Bridge, by St Paul's, and through the City.

By being insistent despite having a poor grasp of the lay of the land, we made it 10 feet out of the London Bridge tube station before I cocked up the whole plan. I always like to think like I know where I'm going. I never do.

But it was ok, we still saw all the stuff. We just did it backwards, so to speak. So we started off with a walk through the City to St Paul's.

St Paul's

Queen

St Paul's from some park

It's a nice old pile. Everybody knows its story, right? Should I go in to it? The Great Fire burns everything down. Christopher Wren gets tapped to rebuild it. He's all "Screw this Gothic crap, it's the Renaissance Bitches."

St Paul's

"Any of you suckers been to Rome?" he continued, even though he hadn't. "That Basilica is the fucking business. Let's do one of them." Unlike the Basilica, there is an extra nested dome, for a total of three. Like the the Basilica, they are held together with honking great chains.

There's also a clock tower sort of thing. As we sat in the courtyard and I took a sound recording and happened to get the clock striking 11.

St Pauls Courtyard

The fun part is that we didn't even go in to the church. Bunches of it was under construction, but they were still charging the same rates. So we just went down the basement to feel the fury of their gift shop, and then we headed back down south.

In our wandering we encountered some iconic City things.

The Cockpit

Fancy Posts

We didn't go to the Cockpit, though I've heard since that we missed a good pub. Instead, we grabbed some Pret and took it down to the Thames, in the shadow of the Millenium Bridge. It was lunchtime and benches where scarce, but we found one eventually. We sat, with our backs to the City of London School, where Daniel Radcliffe did his learning when not on Harry Potter sets, ate our sandwiches and watched the joggers.

The Shard and Tower Bridge from Millenium Bridge

The tide was low, and amateur archeology on the banks of the Thames has been on the London todo list for years. "Hey look," we will say, "a Victorian clay pipe stem!" We will be so excited. But this was not the day. It was muddy down there and we were traveling light. We didn't have any extra shoes.

The sound of roller suitcases on the Millenium Bridge when heard from below was incredible. Unfortunately, I didn't capture it. But I still uploaded what I got, because I'm like that.

Under the millenium bridge

Now, it's impossible to cross the Millenium Bridge without stopping at the Tate Modern. I mean, it's right there. Bruno, our airbnb host, suggested hanging out at the bar on the top floor.

Tate Modern

Tate Stack

But we were not particularly in the mood for booze. We did make it up to the upper cafe, which has a balcony, which we went on. Maybe because it was still pretty hazy, I didn't get any photos that were that interesting. So here are some balls.

Balls

On the way back to the tube stop, we pass through the Borough Market. It was not too crowded, which was nice. I hate crowds. Strange that I love London so much while hating crowds. Some how I can put up with masses of people in London. Maybe it's because most of the individuals know how to be in a crowd. It doesn't seem like something you could be skilled at, but you can, and Londoners are, and I appreciate it.

Borough Market

We noticed a dude in red trousers at the London Bridge tube station. Rakka mentioned him. He followed us all the way back to the E&C. It makes you wonder, how many people without conspicuous trousers get on and off the same trains at the same time and go to the same places as you. Are well all following each other around all the time?

Red Trouser Man

Regrouping in the fastness of Isengard gave us the opportunity to just stare at the view for a bit. We were in this room for 5 days and it never got old. I could live in Strata SE1, no problem.

View from Isengard

Except for money. It's not cheap. £350 for a 1 bedroom doesn't sound like a lot, until you notice that UK rents are always specified per week. Think of all the train tickets that money could pay for.

Anyway, we were still mad with jet lag at this point. We went out for an early dinner at the Greek place around the corner. There was all kinds of construction junk in the way (a recurring theme for the trip, especially in London) but none of that mattered. The food was great.

Greek Food

For some reason I was enthralled by the lights in the windows. Probably the jet lag and the general sort of exhaustion from walking for miles around all day.

Greek Light Balls

It was a bit weird to be ending our first day in London eating Greek food. But there was still plenty of time for pubs, sandwiches and kebabs. That all comes later. But not tomorrow. Paris tomorrow.

British Holiday Chapter 1: Getting There

2012-04-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

One of them had a flick knife. The leader. The others stood around me, preventing my escape. There was no one else about this dark back street in Southwark.

"Give us the phone and the money!" demanded the leader.

I wasn't having it. It was time to make my move. I squinted. Asked quietly "Are you having a fucking laugh!?"

But I've messed this up. This is starting in the middle. I should tell this story in order. It's a tale of friendship, pints, parks, airbnbs, trains, pubs, boats, food and sandwiches, which as the fellow once said, is a type of food. Let's go back to the beginning, shall we?

It starts on a cold, rainy March day in Bremerton. The taxi driver, despite having only a single mile for conversation and being distracted by two phone calls, still manages to tell us that jesus is the answer and how global warming is a political issue. At the ferry terminal, we resolve never to use that taxi company again.

Rakka and I... Rakka, that's my traveling companion. Or am I hers? Either way, Rakka and I were early to the ferry, in the same way we were early to SeaTac and every other thing. On the return we got to Terminal 5 so early that the bag drop wasn't even opened yet.

Many hours later, we found ourselves on a BA 747 direct to Heathrow. This was my first time on BA. It is a telling combination of the worst and the best that Britain can deliver. It starts with the blanket and pillow placed on your seat in a gracious gesture of welome, which is nice but there's no place to put them, and there are 200 people waiting for you to sit the fuck down. Directly following that is the safety video that they always eventually give up on, but only after rebooting the system, twice. But then comes the meal, which is prefaced by a complimentary G&T and arrives with wine, and is served by a smiling flight attendant who will joke around with you given half a chance.

BA's inflight entertainment. Not quite 100%.

BA could be the poster child for the Cynics' Britain; the Britain where fire extinguishers catch on fire. But it comes with a sense of humor, booze and a curry.

Heathrow Connect, on the other hand, is just solidly bad. It's a joint venture between Heathrow Express and First Great Western and it's designed to frustrate you in to upgrading to the Express. Especially from Terminal 5 which they don't actually serve. That was fun to figure out after 12 hours of traveling. Let me tell you. Actually I won't.

We finally arrived in Elephant & Castle. We had arranged to rent a room though airbnb. The room was in the Strata SE1, also known as the Razor and Isengard. We were on the 10th floor and the view from the room was fantastic, with part of the Eye, part of the Clock Tower, and BT Tower. The living room was a trainspotters dream, with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the tracks.

Eye and BT Tower

After about 15 hours on the move, we took an hour nap.

Elephant & Castle from the Strata SE1

Refreshed, sort of, it was time to charge up our Oyster Cards and head out to Islington to meet Bob the tube cat at his book signing. We arrived, early surprisingly enough, and so stood around trying to coordinate with three separate parties that we trying to meet all at the same time. Nix, Kiki and Glew. We had never met Nix or Kiki in person. None of them knew each other, or anything about Bob Cat.

Eventually though, after standing in the queue for an hour, Kiki and Nix all found us. We saw Bob and James and they signed our joint copy of the book. At some point Kiki and his friend Amanda gave up and and went to some pub to claim us a table at a pub. We went and met them.

Bob and James

After a time and hundreds of confused text messages later, my old friend Glew showed up. It was great seeing Glew, and I love that I can say "Oh, I just ran in to a on old friend in London. Like you do."

This was a great night. Drinking with friends, old and new. Being terribly jet-lagged. Eating nothing but half a plate of chips. Watching sexy Neanderthals count on Amanda's iphone while walking to the tube. If going out was always like that I'd do it all the time.

Friends at the Pub

My name is leff's blog and I'm back from the dead.

2012-03-31T06:50:00.002-07:00

I've been reliably informed that tumblr is a terrible place for long form blogging such as travel posts. Having just gotten back from a nice long trip to the uk, I'm reanimating this blog to house the upcoming recaps.

I haven't actually written any recaps. While you wait, why not head over to glitter pissing, where my traveling companion and french translator rakka is giving her own take on the subject.

Wow! This blog!

2011-02-03T18:30:00.001-08:00

Blogger has an official android app so you know I have to try it out right?

Thing is, I was just thinking of starting another blog (another one!?. I know, right?). Blogger was probably going to be my platform anyway. I love tumblr's simplicity but the blog I have in mind is more substantantive, if that's the word I want, then I think tumblr can handle.

If this android posted post looks nice it might be the deciding factor.

Fun with turbulence

2010-03-19T08:05:00.001-07:00

There's something deeply entertaining about watching gulls fly around in the turbulence behind the ferry. Some keep doing it over and over. I think it's fun for them.

Ferries are like seagull playgrounds.

last.fm is off the rails

2009-11-25T13:30:00.000-08:00

pop up ads on window close? really guys? When you sold out I knew you were gonna sell out, but this is getting ridiculous. and fast.

what's with this browser skins trend?

2009-10-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Chrome does it. Firefox does it. These aren't like themes, where you change the text size and color scheme to better suit your eyes. These fill up every available surface with images, usually of a product or women, and make the browser less usable.

It was stupid when winamp did it in 1995. What makes us think it's not stupid now?

Shit, chrome mac barely even works yet*, and yet they have skins going?

*started typing this in chrome mac and had to copy it to FF because it wouldn't save. the html was all screwed up when it got here too.

oh, awesome (bar)

2009-09-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned a bit ago, I had all but stopped using Firefox recently. Now that I'm back, I'm struck again by how awesome the awesome-bar is.

During my time away I was using chrome and safari as my primary browsers. They have bars, but they are not even half as awesome. In fact, they are merely adequate. They are adequate-bars. Firefox still wins this one, hands down.

i can use firefox again!

2009-09-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

So I've been complaining constantly that firefox is slow. But why is firefox slow? Apparently because it uses SQLite. The evidence is that a quick vacuum, as described by lifehacker, just made a noticeably huge improvement on startup time and interface responsiveness. Using FF isn't painful anymore.

Components.classes["@mozilla.org/
browser/nav-history-service;1"].
getService(Components.interfaces.
nsPIPlacesDatabase).DBConnection.
executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");

This is great and all, but why do I have to do this again? Shouldn't firefox be able to tell when it's database is crufty, and run the vacuum itself? PgAdmin is quick to tell you when a postgres table needs a cleaning, and it's crap.

Come on Mozilla, this is huge. Huger than any new feature you're currently working on. Until today I was actively avoiding firefox for all but essential tasks. And this is me, the guy that was sad when Mozilla didn't hire him, but still kept telling everybody to use firefox. I haven't told anybody that for a while.

Firefox has always been a tinkerer's browser. It's gotten a lot more polish over the last couple of years, to where you start to think of it as mainstream. But as long as you have to know how the guts work to keep it going, it'll continue to be the linux of browsers.