Is your daily commute more overcrowded?
Peak-hour price rises won't prevent rail overcrowding
You get no brownie points (pun intended) for keeping your finances in order in England do you? Have a read of these and you'd wished you'd bought a few more nice things!
Bankruptcy rate set to double by 2009, predicts government report
Addiction to credit blamed as bankruptcies reach new high
Repossessed homes hit levels of decade ago
Defaults on credit cards and loans will top £4.5bn
Personal insolvencies increase 31% to record
And speaking of banks. I’m tired of the HSBC bank cash points telling me they don’t have any. As I have no HSBC account, I have no axe to grind. But every time I've tried to use one of their ATM's (about half dozen), there's been a problem. You don't have to be a probability expert to work this one out. Then I found I was short to buy my coffee but the guy next in line proffered 10p, so Londoners aren't that bad.
If you've never seen Ken Campbell, well now's your chance. In a funny way, and he is very, he's the flip side of a coin to Dr. Jonathan Miller who I had the privilege and pleasure to work with some years ago. Both cut the crap and help you see things for yourself. His TV series on science is testament to this.
Another obituary I'm afraid, that of Richard Mayes. One of those many fine actors who, though not particularly famous except among colleagues, keeps the acting profession alive and thoroughly honourable. I had the good fortune to work with him twice, the last when he stepped into a show I was directing at very short notice and for very little money.
Wednesday, 29 November 2006
Sunday, 26 November 2006
ALIENS PLEASE HELP
Apologies, apologies
Glad I wasn't on this Picadilly line train!
Commuters can be compensated if their delay is longer than 15 minutes, though. Only, at London prices the £1.70, or thereabouts, is barely enough to buy yourself a recuperative stiff drink. Another reassuring announcement came at Earls Court station yesterday. After sitting at the station for 5-10 minutes, doors open not stuck in a tunnel thankfully, the driver informed us we'd been held there because the signalman was a trainee. Hope I'm not on the train when teacher's on tea break.
I swore to myself that I wouldn't make this blog an arts criticism site. Well, bugger that, ‘cause I saw a number of art shows this week crying out to be seen. And if your show doesn't get included it don't necessarily mean I don't like it. But before that, I’m going to reprimand the National Portrait Gallery in London. I dropped in there today for a screening of Randall Wright’s film about camera obscura Secret Knowledge. Hard to believe, but the projection was so darkly obscured at times you couldn’t even make out what was on screen. This also happened a few weeks ago when they showed Love is the Devil about the life of Francis Bacon. I complained several years ago when a Disney animation (hope the execs are reading this) was poorly screened from what looked like a VHS tape left in the rain. As with most complaints in this country, they gave me the brush off hoping I’d go away. Do they have no self-respect? Now for some happy stuff.
Erik Dietman (Anthony Reynolds Gallery) has been relatively little known outside Europe over the years. Flick through the catalogues and every sculpture leaps off the page like animations in stasis: turn your back and they'd be sure to move. The line of squat bronze blocks, some smoking pipes and some not, could be an unemployment queue, politicians’ day out or the discovery of the meaning of life. And if you're looking for an alternative to the crowded museums, kids would love these. When Sean Scully (Timothy Taylor) was asked in a radio interview whether he'd ever been jolted by a criticism of his work, he cited a New York critic who called his work "bullying". Now that's why I’ve avoided art criticism for so long. You wish you'd thought of just that adjective. Why have I liked these large blocks of colour so much over the years? And is it that spontaneous energy that keeps drawing one back?
Whether large or small, oil or aquatint, they say I am colour. Look at me! Listen to me! RB Kitaj (Marlborough) left Britain years ago decamping to LA. At their best, his paintings surprise you by glowing with deep spiritualism: a spontaneous simplicity of stroke and paint
Lastly, Scottish sculptor Mhairi Vari has created a large Tetley tea bag for the Contemporary Art Society's regular interventions into the Economist Group's plaza. You feel like interacting with it in some other way than just to quench your thirst. As if a friendly alien life form has seen this ubiquitous earthly habit as the way to communicate with us. Wish they'd sort out the transport!
Glad I wasn't on this Picadilly line train!
Commuters can be compensated if their delay is longer than 15 minutes, though. Only, at London prices the £1.70, or thereabouts, is barely enough to buy yourself a recuperative stiff drink. Another reassuring announcement came at Earls Court station yesterday. After sitting at the station for 5-10 minutes, doors open not stuck in a tunnel thankfully, the driver informed us we'd been held there because the signalman was a trainee. Hope I'm not on the train when teacher's on tea break.
I swore to myself that I wouldn't make this blog an arts criticism site. Well, bugger that, ‘cause I saw a number of art shows this week crying out to be seen. And if your show doesn't get included it don't necessarily mean I don't like it. But before that, I’m going to reprimand the National Portrait Gallery in London. I dropped in there today for a screening of Randall Wright’s film about camera obscura Secret Knowledge. Hard to believe, but the projection was so darkly obscured at times you couldn’t even make out what was on screen. This also happened a few weeks ago when they showed Love is the Devil about the life of Francis Bacon. I complained several years ago when a Disney animation (hope the execs are reading this) was poorly screened from what looked like a VHS tape left in the rain. As with most complaints in this country, they gave me the brush off hoping I’d go away. Do they have no self-respect? Now for some happy stuff.
Erik Dietman (Anthony Reynolds Gallery) has been relatively little known outside Europe over the years. Flick through the catalogues and every sculpture leaps off the page like animations in stasis: turn your back and they'd be sure to move. The line of squat bronze blocks, some smoking pipes and some not, could be an unemployment queue, politicians’ day out or the discovery of the meaning of life. And if you're looking for an alternative to the crowded museums, kids would love these. When Sean Scully (Timothy Taylor) was asked in a radio interview whether he'd ever been jolted by a criticism of his work, he cited a New York critic who called his work "bullying". Now that's why I’ve avoided art criticism for so long. You wish you'd thought of just that adjective. Why have I liked these large blocks of colour so much over the years? And is it that spontaneous energy that keeps drawing one back?
Whether large or small, oil or aquatint, they say I am colour. Look at me! Listen to me! RB Kitaj (Marlborough) left Britain years ago decamping to LA. At their best, his paintings surprise you by glowing with deep spiritualism: a spontaneous simplicity of stroke and paint
Lastly, Scottish sculptor Mhairi Vari has created a large Tetley tea bag for the Contemporary Art Society's regular interventions into the Economist Group's plaza. You feel like interacting with it in some other way than just to quench your thirst. As if a friendly alien life form has seen this ubiquitous earthly habit as the way to communicate with us. Wish they'd sort out the transport!
Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Tuesday, 21 November 2006
THE UNBEARABLE DAILY NEWS
Read the London Evening Standard's account of Black Commuter Monday
Thousands hit by Tube delays
Tube delays as track repairs drag on
Tube delays a 'disaster'
100,000 caught in Tube delays
Massive delays on the Tube
Signal failure now biggest cause of delays
Blunder causes huge delays
Northern line hit by more delays
Joys of switching from lousy London to zingy Zurich
Areas where London must try harder, starting with its streets
Heat brings commuter meltdown
Commuters stranded at Victoria
Tube is hotter than Miami
97F on the Tube
Thousands in Tube hell
London's hottest day ever
London facing meltdown
Rail misery worsens
Hatfield relatives angry over managers' acquittal
The best public transport system in the world? Tell that to London's long-suffering commuters
Commuters hit by 1,800 Tube delays every month
Tube safety probe after two-hour blackout
Running of the Tube 'inadequate' three years into PPP
Judgement Day
The other favoured excuse for making commuters lives a misery is ‘signal failure’. In London, together with lousy maintenance, it has lead to, well, in many people’s minds, bloody manslaughter. Do the google on those rail accidents: Paddington, Hatfield, I shan’t go on. But in a way I should. Drudging home through the underground tonight, the public address announcements begin to resemble a Rauschenberg sound sculpture. Though most of the lines are crap today, each one is special to us, and each has its peculiarities. Sounds like the politically correct dregs of a dating service. “There’s a good service on all other lines.” Meaning, you’ve lost a couple of limbs but you’re still alive so why are you complaining you f***ing git! My sound sculpture got a round of applause the other day from the bulging fuming platform of commuters as I admonished the powers that be for their appalling service. I must be doing something right.
And then I started thinking of Noam Chomsky. The US government hated him. (I like America, by the way. Well a lot more than I like Britain.) Hated him for showing the public that a lot of the information is already there and publicly available if you so choose to accept the assignment of knowledge rather than ignorance. The allegations of the bribes and kickbacks to complete some of the new Jubilee line are, I admit, a little more nebulous. And of course the court proceedings against the companies came to nothing. But generally, things are staring you in the face. Back in the 90’s, I produced a play (see green profile to right) written by a wonderful Hungarian precursor to Havel, Odon von Horvath: Judgement Day. About? You guessed it, signal failure. I’m not going to tell you the story. Go. Read it and arm yourself for the revolution!
Remember I cited lack of communication as a feature of London transport a few blogs ago. Well, like Chomsky points out, often it’s damn well manipulative. Some station announcers have a game of giving you blatantly wrong information. Or they try to be faux comedic. God help us (or your equivalent)! I remember the one from Picadilly Circus station: “it’s raining on the North West of the lines, believe it or not”. You can warn me to get out my umbrella, but you can’t warn me about the suffocation I might endure on my next journey. There was a tube driver one who was genuinely funny. He called the Picadilly line the ‘Piccalydically’ line. He probably suffocated too, though, or was told to be more politically correct.
I must get clearance for the article a lawyer wrote for the Islington Gazette (local North London paper recently famous for Margaret Hodge, Labour MP and her anti-Blair remarks at a Fabian Society meeting), about the train he was on at the time of the London bombings. No announcements etc. when there could have been.
I’m running out of steam, now due to my chronic London transport disorder. Try googling ex-minister Stephen Byers and the Railtrack fiasco, too. Ooooh, people have such short memories don’t they.
And then I started thinking of Noam Chomsky. The US government hated him. (I like America, by the way. Well a lot more than I like Britain.) Hated him for showing the public that a lot of the information is already there and publicly available if you so choose to accept the assignment of knowledge rather than ignorance. The allegations of the bribes and kickbacks to complete some of the new Jubilee line are, I admit, a little more nebulous. And of course the court proceedings against the companies came to nothing. But generally, things are staring you in the face. Back in the 90’s, I produced a play (see green profile to right) written by a wonderful Hungarian precursor to Havel, Odon von Horvath: Judgement Day. About? You guessed it, signal failure. I’m not going to tell you the story. Go. Read it and arm yourself for the revolution!
Remember I cited lack of communication as a feature of London transport a few blogs ago. Well, like Chomsky points out, often it’s damn well manipulative. Some station announcers have a game of giving you blatantly wrong information. Or they try to be faux comedic. God help us (or your equivalent)! I remember the one from Picadilly Circus station: “it’s raining on the North West of the lines, believe it or not”. You can warn me to get out my umbrella, but you can’t warn me about the suffocation I might endure on my next journey. There was a tube driver one who was genuinely funny. He called the Picadilly line the ‘Piccalydically’ line. He probably suffocated too, though, or was told to be more politically correct.
I must get clearance for the article a lawyer wrote for the Islington Gazette (local North London paper recently famous for Margaret Hodge, Labour MP and her anti-Blair remarks at a Fabian Society meeting), about the train he was on at the time of the London bombings. No announcements etc. when there could have been.
I’m running out of steam, now due to my chronic London transport disorder. Try googling ex-minister Stephen Byers and the Railtrack fiasco, too. Ooooh, people have such short memories don’t they.
Monday, 20 November 2006
Art on the buses
My local bus the E3 supposedly has a frequency of between 6-8 minutes. Now, I gave up on most of the London buses years ago in favour of the tube. Not that there haven't been improvements then and now. Our Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is the man you hate to love and love to hate. For those overseas readers (for whom this site is really intended), he was the thorn in Thatcher's side doing the same job back when. 'Red Ken' as he was known. Only, Londoners couldn't think of or offer anyone else to vote for under new Labour so back he conquered. Not that Blair likes him much. And Ken's certainly not prepared to be his scapegoat. He's just returned from a much criticised trip to Cuba, and an aborted one to Venezuela, to negotiate a cheap oil deal for London's buses. At £34,000, it hasn't gone down at all well amongst the city's populace.
But the 30-60 minute tube ride as opposed to the two hour bus trip into Central London always wins. In summer, the buses have no air conditioning so your sweat pours down the handrails. And in winter, the idea of opening a window to alleviate the stale air seems totally alien to most commuters. The one good thing I discovered was free, legal, non-destructive political graffiti. Choose your condensationed window carefully, particularly the big ones at the front upstairs, and you could reach a wide viewing public. I became the Jenny Holzer of socialist saliva. Or maybe it was more Richard Long. Anyway, back to the E3.
It takes a lot for me to go the doctor but the other day my stomach was in revolution. The short walk to the surgery was difficult so I braved the bus stop. From 9.30am until 10.00am I fumed as four buses went the other way and none mine. Good thing I wasn't elderly or chronically infirm and this was my daily experience. A Colombian graduate student rather dismissed my dismay the other night by saying that London was a lot better than Colombia. At least there is a means of public transport, albeit problematic and sometimes infrequent, that conveys you to your door at most times of day, she said fixing me with her gaze. Dare I say it, but I think most of the immigrants here wouldn't mind if the transport were horse drawn so grateful are they to have escaped the situation in their native lands and earn a decent living. Since the privatisation of public transport, a myriad of companies run both the bus and tube. I'm not a transport expert, but don't you think parts and maintenance would be cheaper and easier if there was more uniformity and they learnt joined up writing!
Now, have I told you about the time I caught the last Victoria line train home and the staff of this particular station had forgotten about it, gone home, and we all had to break out..................
P.S. (Can such a thing as a P.S. exist within the semantics of a blog?)
Late last cold wet Sunday night, I saw a couple desperately flagging down the E3 bus 100 meters after its stop. Well, the driver did stop. Wish I'd had the same experiences.....
But the 30-60 minute tube ride as opposed to the two hour bus trip into Central London always wins. In summer, the buses have no air conditioning so your sweat pours down the handrails. And in winter, the idea of opening a window to alleviate the stale air seems totally alien to most commuters. The one good thing I discovered was free, legal, non-destructive political graffiti. Choose your condensationed window carefully, particularly the big ones at the front upstairs, and you could reach a wide viewing public. I became the Jenny Holzer of socialist saliva. Or maybe it was more Richard Long. Anyway, back to the E3.
It takes a lot for me to go the doctor but the other day my stomach was in revolution. The short walk to the surgery was difficult so I braved the bus stop. From 9.30am until 10.00am I fumed as four buses went the other way and none mine. Good thing I wasn't elderly or chronically infirm and this was my daily experience. A Colombian graduate student rather dismissed my dismay the other night by saying that London was a lot better than Colombia. At least there is a means of public transport, albeit problematic and sometimes infrequent, that conveys you to your door at most times of day, she said fixing me with her gaze. Dare I say it, but I think most of the immigrants here wouldn't mind if the transport were horse drawn so grateful are they to have escaped the situation in their native lands and earn a decent living. Since the privatisation of public transport, a myriad of companies run both the bus and tube. I'm not a transport expert, but don't you think parts and maintenance would be cheaper and easier if there was more uniformity and they learnt joined up writing!
Now, have I told you about the time I caught the last Victoria line train home and the staff of this particular station had forgotten about it, gone home, and we all had to break out..................
P.S. (Can such a thing as a P.S. exist within the semantics of a blog?)
Late last cold wet Sunday night, I saw a couple desperately flagging down the E3 bus 100 meters after its stop. Well, the driver did stop. Wish I'd had the same experiences.....
grey skies, black travel
Time after time this happens. The refurbishment of the tube or 'planned engineering work' as they call it doesn't get comleted on time. The commuters in peak hour next morning just have to put up with it. And they hadn't sorted it out by 11am this morning when I attempted to travel. Oh, and to add to the glories of London today, almost 60 bus routes in North-West and Central London are blighted by a 24-hour strike over pay. Imagine this happening at Olympic Games time. If I ran a film company like this I would have been booted out Day One.
Saturday, 18 November 2006
heavenly skies, hellish travel
This will be the first of many frustrated rants at transport in London because today was the last straw for me. For years I've kept quiet but no more. And with the recent resignation of Jack Lemley, US honcho of the London Olympic bid, the time is ripe. At about 1pm, I was stuck for about 15 minutes on the Picadilly line underground train. "Trouble on the train up ahead, we'll be moving shortly." Of course, we didn't. A repeat of this reassuring phrase, resulted in a repeated lack of motion.
With two major tube lines closed this weekend for refurbishment, you'd think the powers that be would bend over backwards to ease problems. When I finally escaped to some fresher air upstairs, a noticeboard warned of delays. Well, at no point on my 25 minute journey had there been any announcements to this effect.
This lack of communication has been a regular feature of London travel over the years. What horrors lie before us tomorrow I wonder. Google 'Bob Kiley Dispatches' for the documentary that former London Underground boss (and ex New York subway head) made in sheer frustration at the system. And he should know!
With two major tube lines closed this weekend for refurbishment, you'd think the powers that be would bend over backwards to ease problems. When I finally escaped to some fresher air upstairs, a noticeboard warned of delays. Well, at no point on my 25 minute journey had there been any announcements to this effect.
This lack of communication has been a regular feature of London travel over the years. What horrors lie before us tomorrow I wonder. Google 'Bob Kiley Dispatches' for the documentary that former London Underground boss (and ex New York subway head) made in sheer frustration at the system. And he should know!
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