Saint Etienne London Trilogy - the eternal magnet attracting our dreams

I've recently enjoyed watching a trilogy of Saint Etienne videos about London. They been recently re-released as a single DVD collection by the British Film Institute. I popped into the BFI on the way to a meeting to get the DVD.

The first, Finisterre, shows more or less a 24 hour look from sunrise to sunrise of the capital going about its way. From sleepy pigeons, markets, commuters, tourists, nightlife, afters and the quiet streets of 4am.

The film was made in 2003, but seems to come from an older place. Occasionally something will show up that looks strikingly modern as a reminder. Yet the gherkin is still being built, there's not an iPhone in sight and tickets are being fed into slots at the tube.

It's a good example of how things change subtly and how a contemporary environment looks unexpectedly different - an example of wide change.

The film-makers had a budget originally to spend on a 3 minute promotional video (£20k a pop in those days) and decided to instead create something of a love poem to London. I gather the original money was stopped after they'd used the first promo video funds to create the pilot instead of a pop video, but they'd also bought the camera by this point, so carried on anyway.

The next film of a paperboy round was dramatised to appear shot on 7 July 05, when both the Olympic result for London was announced and four tube and bus bombs exploded in the densely populated areas of the capital.

It's a quiet look at the pre-Olympic version of the Lea Valley, which many would have known as The Wick, before its massive makeover. 150 years of history along this river, with the towering Bryant and May site of the Annie Bessant led match girl strikes, the invention of early plastic, and even the first refining of petroleum among the almost forgotten credits of the area. I know parts of the run-down areas shown in the film, much of which has gone since the Olympics ploughed through the area.

And finally, the modern looking update of the area around the Festival Hall. Part of the South Bank and an immensely successful exercise in branding too.

So much that the other riverbank of the Thames around The Strand/Villiers Street is right now considering how to brand itself as 'Northbank'. Confusingly, the area is already well known as 'The Strand' and some of it is already cross branded as 'Theatreland' although most people don't spot this. Also with South Bank being two words, they've chosen to make Northbank one word. Oh well.

I should mention the music in the three films too. A blend of Saint Etienne songs and their other synth-inspired pieces. Some of their songs get right inside.

Here's my ancient video from my own commuting soundtracked by Saint Etienne, when I lived in the Temporary Apartment in Copenhagen.

if a single leaf holds the eye

This time we'd been out somewhere after a spell of that Zen navigation. The one where you reach a destination by travelling in ever decreasing circles. Even the white bear by the Russian road sign couldn't help us, although by the third circuit we were almost as well-known as the landmark.

It was on the way back using a straighter route, that we decided to take another small detour. This time along a gravelled track. Not ex-railway, it was far too switchy for that, but still laid purposefully in a way that gave us easy access to an area of woodland.

Now a week or so ago, we were in some trees when someone asked, "What's that type of tree, then?" Luckily it was an oak tree, so easy to answer. A few more easy ones and then one which we had to say was, well - a tree.

There was a similar sense as we headed through areas of wild blackberries (not yet ripe) some hazelnuts (still green) and further oaks and sycamores.

We compiled a modest dossier of a few in the sheets of a notepad. We knew most of them (even the slightly tricker white willow) although we now have doubts about the one on the far right. It is much easier to identify them whilst still attached.

those vital few seconds

I've been commuting partly by tube this week and it's been interesting to notice my speed of reversion to full-on commuter mode.

There's all the subtle conventions that one gets used to but then notices afresh after a gap.

It starts on the main line trains in the silent carriages with the almost complete move to digital. Far fewer people carry newspapers and many more have iSomethings to read or entertain.

There's the people who bagsy the big tables and sprawl laptops connected to headphones. They may look as if they are working, but they are mainly watching DVDs. Everyone has a phone to study emails, or, by the look of it, to be playing some sort of clicky game. Either that, or they set it all up and then fall asleep.

With at least two Christmas and Birthday cycles, many folk have iPads to view all manner of infotainment. In fairness, I was next to someone reviewing a set of Very Important Confidential business slides on their iPad at one point.

Personally I use my small footprint Kindle, which is more or less a reading device. It does carry a daily copy of the newspaper and is immune to loss of signal once the paper is downloaded. It can also carry plenty of books and even the odd business read which I can send to it via the personal secret email address, which automatically converts whatever I send into an eDocument.

But it was on the tube I realised that in a mere couple of days I'd reverted to commuter mentality.

I showed up on a platform just as a train was pulling out. I glanced to the indicator sign. Drat. I would now have to wait a WHOLE THREE MINUTES for the next one.

How inconvenient.

an alternative guide to the universe

I've been meaning to visit this show for some time. I came close once, a few weeks ago, but it was closed.

Fortunately, I had a break between a couple of meetings today and was able to drop in.

'An alternative guide to the universe' at 'the museum of everything' sounds like a bold promise. Inside are a range of ideas by all manner of visionaries and inventors. These were mainly non scientists who had worked out their ideas often single handedly. In some cases the work had not been shown before and could be considered the private work of the artist.

Whether it was someone inventing whole town designs, creating alternate views of space travel or building robots, there was plenty to see. One set of exhibits featured re-imagined buildings and structures, another turned the letters of the alphabet into a sort of flying space fleet.

It was fascinating because of the thoroughness of most of the visionaries' work. Sometimes quite obsessional, whether in the calculations of an alternative physics, a reworking of the periodic tables using a Circlon nuclear stability model, or the draftsmanship in discovering patterns in magic squares of numbers.

I found a youtube description of Emery Blagden's Healing Machines which was one of the exhibits. It's not directly from the 'Do NOT Photograph' of the exhibition, but gives a sense of the ideas in just one of the myriad of exhibits.

french kissing/french cuisine in the yellow car

Well, this time we wound up in the back of a yellow car.

French kissing/French cuisine creating a mixed theme of mouth pleasures.

This was part of Heather Phillipson's BALTIC "Yes, Surprising is Existence in the Post-Vegetal Cosmorama".

Take a guided tour of the area accompanied by Heather's iphone explanations and wind up in the gallery.

Poetry and powerboats floating on conceptualised Turkish bottled water.

Or, if you feel like it, take the full Cardiovascular Vernacular tour of Gateshead and Newcastle, provided here as a 53 minute guided stroll. If you know this area you must do this tour.

Possibly bananas, certainly fun. And no flopping around.

Crime writing most peculiar from the Peculier

We hadn't planned to visit a murder scene.

But there we were. There was even a white taped outline of a body on the ground outside the entrance.

Someone had said, "Is that Lee Child?" as we were following a man along the road, just before he disappeared into a building. I had less to go on, not knowing what this author of Jack Reacher novels looked like, but I did agree that man we had spotted looked like An Author On Duty.

He was dressed in a dark jacket and a crisp shirt. Not a full suit, which could look a little too formal. And he was being accompanied by someone official making sure sure he would be at a certain place at a certain time. There were various other eyes of recognition as he approached the big building.

On the lawn was a huge tepee complex. We decided to peek inside.

Yes, it was full of authors and readers.

Some chatting, some queueing and some signing books.

I didn't know Lauren Beukes either, but she was signing books and has written a cracking yarn about a time-traveling serial killer.

It's set in Depression-era Chicago, where the perpetrator finds a key to a house that opens on to other times.

The cost of his time travel is to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. He stalks them through their lives across different eras, leaving anachronistic clues on their bodies, until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and starts hunting him back.

Yes, now we were certain, we had stumbled across a most Peculier crime convention.

jam jar cocktails

We were discussing the increasing number of cocktails being served in jam jars. These seem to vary from proper jam jars to a progressively increasing number of re-engineered jam jars which have an added handle.

There's an irony to an erstwhile austerity item being made into something designed and expensive, but probably not fulfilling either purpose of jam container or drinking vessel particularly well.

However, this 'Jamaican-me-crazy' jam packed cocktail was delish. And served in a real jam pot.

Tyne at Live

A visit to Live Theatre to see Tyne, which is a play which starts by referencing the theatre's exact location and its history, before taking a journey through time and location along the banks of the once shipbuilding and coal mining area of Tyneside.

Well envisioned and including various songs and music, both traditional and contemporary, it weaves tales of the area with a modern back-story to provide a context and linking theme. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Outside the main theatre is a map of the Tyne and an opportunity for those with memories to add to the wall of stories.

It's jam packed with extra tales. I just know we'll be out on the river during the week.

Wordless Wednesday: Double Gregging

roll top aerial bath time

I like it when sometimes a hotel provides a double decker room. Usually the upstairs is where the bed is kept.

This one has the bathroom and shower upstairs.

Time to pour a cool drink and try the roll top bath.

cycling with the replacement red cassette

I'll be on the road during the next week and today has seen me throwing things into a suitcase. It'll be in the Italian car, instead of the German one, on its first longer spin. A chance to exercise the sat nav.

The fixes to the bicycle seem to have worked. After yesterday's diagnostic spin, I took a longer ride today. I've fixed the brake alignment, which had drifted off during my other adjustments and today I noticed today the smoothness of the updates.

I'll admit that whilst I was replacing the chain, I made other changes. A new rear cassette (the slicker 'red' version) and a fresh updated rear mech and cable. I'd damaged the mech some time ago and although I'd 'adjusted' it, the chain replacement was an ideal time to do a swap. Then the new 'red' chain, which required me to count the links about six times. It seems to me that these drivechain changes are far more significant than any cosmetic handlebar selector changes.

Using the bike today, I wan't listening for creaks and groans from things needing adjustment. I'm certain it's more efficient now, maybe saving me 20 watts of power input. At least that's the sort of effect I noticed when I put it on the turbo.

And another 35 rather hot miles around the lanes. Time for a shower.

fan heater wind effects in the country lanes

A scoot around some country lanes today, somewhat carefully as I've swapped over various bicycle bits. Some of the fields were looking arid from the lack of rain.

I was on a new chain and I'd swapped the rear cassette as well, plus a new cable to complete the set. It's all very quiet now, although I must admit the old cassette still looks in really good condition. I may swap it onto another bike whose rear cogs look rather damaged.

It was one of those things where it was simpler to do everything in one go, rather than have to do more later. I've got one of those TACX Spider things, which makes it a whole lot easier.

The spider gadget is about the size of a golf umbrella when folded away, but makes fixing things on the bike so much easier; nothing to hold and repairs can be at a convenient height.

Today's ride reminded me of being in Joshua Tree. That sensation of stepping out of an air conditioned car into a fan heater strength desert style wind.

Okay, it was 30C today, greener and not as hot as the desert, but this English skin felt warm. Add my cycling speed meant I could get the Joshua Tree effect on the bicycle.

Makes me think it's almost time for another road trip.