Secret Smile

Soho

 Someone's been leaving a smile all over London. It happened, seemingly overnight, a few months back (apologies: the lag between photoing and blogging is stretching to a piano-wire thinness). Nothing new perhaps - some bloke sprayed the word 'Evlish' across Manchester for most of the late 1990s - but in this case, to me at least, it was done with a certain charm. 

Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Our dauber would tag random stuff in random ways. Sometimes you get just a mouth or eyes, other times the whole drippy face. It became a game to try and spot where the mystery dauber had left their mark as I walked into work.

Centre Point

Centre Point

What was always easy to spot was the sense of humour that lay behind the not-so-mindless vandalism. What motivated them was somewhat harder for this blogger to spot. Since these shots have been taken, grime and time have made our erstwhile street artist's message even more indistinct. 

I hope he comes back soon and shows his face.

Brick Lane

Cloud unbursting

There's not a lot of sky in London. Buildings are too high or squooshed together. I think sometimes there's too much going on at ground level for eyes to look up that far. 


Then the other day on the way to work, the sky jumped out at me. Some weird atmospheric event meant the contrails that normally get blown away had, weirdly, been preserved. 

Suddenly the sky had gotten interesting. It was like someone had been ice skating on the sky.  

 It was really weird - there must be dozens of the planes flying overhead every hour. What made these ones special? Why, when it was a bit gusty a ground level could it be so airless up there?


Central London had the same story. I wandered round town with my neck craned up. 

Work intervened and life continued and it wasn't until an hour or two later that I thought to look out the window again. They'd gone.

London always has had the ability to entertain and delight in unexpected ways. Once again, it had done me proud. 

 

Untitled Spaces

The London borough of Camden is as varied as it is huge: Covent Garden to the South, the tourist-trap market in its north and my location one night in its neglected middle. 

My mate Andy has been working with a friend on a project called Untitled Space. It's aims are noble, myriad and best described by the man himself. In a nutshell, they take empty, unused spaces and make them useful in interesting ways.

That night an old tailors had been converted into a gallery of sorts, smack-bang in the middle of a huge Camden estate. 

Several artists had work on display for people to peruse and, if inclined, purchase. There was a Dutch auction: bids put in under (or over, if you fancied) an asking price that slowly slid downwards over the lifespan of the gallery. Best of all was the where local kids had done their own (not for sale) pieces, egged on by enthusiastic curators keen not just to put on a poncy 'no-locals-please' event. It felt laid back, quite spontaneous and dead interesting. 

There are more London events planned soon. Word has it that jewelry, photography and a ping-pong contest will nestle alongside art and photography, all battling for attention. Hoping and, if this night was anything to go by, succeeding doing something a bit different to the usual, largely profit- or promotion-driven pop-up shops that are dotted over London like urban acne.

Marching for the alternative 2011

People walk for all sorts of reasons, but rarely is it for a cause. My walks - and this blog - were no different. Then I went on my first protest March on March 26th. Most of you know why it happened (and those than don't can find out here). Others have, more eloquently than I ever could, stated their opinions about the whys and the what-it-all-means. I just wanted to paint what it was like, as a contrast to what others (or the media) might choose to focus on. 

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting it to be so fun. Yes it was full of classic left-wing stooges, preserved in amber from the 1980s. It was anti lots of things (anti-cuts, anti-government, anti-Libyan intervention, etc.) but it was also done, in the main, with so much disarming warmth and charm that you were bowled over by the strength of positive feeling more than the strength of any particular argument. 

As we wandered up to the rear of the already miles-long march, various groups had left little groups of placards; propped up like cardboard canapes for us to peruse and use as we saw fit. Little tents en route gave out free leaflets, helium balloons, tabards(!) and even food for marchers to read, hold, don or eat. Sandwiches were unwrapped from foil or scooped out of Tupperware to be shared with friends.

 

 There was music - brass bands, reggae sound systems, middle-eastern bands and pop music to let people shuffle, march and sashay their way to the main rally at Hyde Park. You didn't want for noise - whistles, klaxons, hand clakers and the oh-god-when-did-they-become-ubiquitous vuvzelas all honked in an incoherent, happy din. Sometimes, like when the march actually started moving forward after two hours, it would come together in one glorious roar that surged back from the front like a slow-moving sonic boom. It made my heart race and my fingers tingle. That sheer weight of humanity, the sheer excitement of being there and doing something, however futile, however tokenistic. Of making a point about making a point of where the UK was in 2011. And what we thought of it. 

I've stood in large crowds of people at music gigs - a giant mass of humanity cheering on a band and 'sharing something'. But I've not felt anything like this before. It was a buzz. It was scary/amazing. It was impressive. 

 

It was why I've written a longer blog than normal, telling you about it. 

Thanks for reading.

one perch, two worlds

You see some odd things as a smoker. Being rightly consigned to the outdoors to huff on a cancer stick gives you pause at spots where others don't tend to linger. 

Up the Arsenal!

Up the tambourine mike, Tarquin

I had the good fortune to recently be invited to dinner in Highbury, a heartbeat away from the Arsenal stadium and a world away from the £500k houses that surround it. 

This was underlined as I stood sucking on a Marlboro light on my friend's doorstep. Ahead of me, the local pub shook with the shouts of fans, screaming as their side spectacularly failed to make any headway in Europe. 

Simultaneously, to my right, a twee band rehearsed furiously (but rather less noisily) from the first floor of their flat. Plectrums, pigtails and plimsols a go-go.

It's not that the band were spectacularly posh (although I don't think even four giros would have stretched to cover the rent in N5), it was just great to see two very different Tuesday evening activities lit up and put cheek by jowl.

(apologies for the grainy, dire photography in this post)

Slightly-less-urban flotsam

The waterfall at Monsal Dale. About as natural as a lilo

The North. Subject of much sarcastic writings by non-northerners and the origin of a great many great friends (and a good deal of my further education). 

Urban walks should, by definition, take place somewhere filled with wifi,
traffic jams or the occasional quiet stabbing. Yet a recent jaunt to Yorkshire showed me you can still get incredibly man- made flotsam in a place where you wouldn't expect it.  

Endcliffe park. Has had the builders in

 An at-times vertiginous but rather lovely yomp around Monsal Dale threw up the old bridges and abandoned railway lines you might expect from a part of the world with such a rich industrial past. 


What was more unusual was that someone had gone to the effort of creating a lovely waterfall in the middle of somewhere already rather lovely.

Bricks in the riverbed for
that jacuzzi effect

  
Later on in Hunter's Bar - a cracking bit of Sheffield that doesn't boast the kind of natural beauty that the Peak District never stops going on about - the home-made waterfalls continued with gusto.

 
Wandering through Endcliffe park, there were at least half a dozen brazenly man-made waterfalls of one sort and another. Paths were thrown alongside - and sometimes over - the stream supplying them with H2O. 

I wondered: did it matter that these supposedly natural features were entirely unnatural? Was the pleasant sight and sound of them undercut by the fact they came from a desire by the Victorians  to jazz the place up a bit? Certainly no-one else having a crisp January walk that day seemed bothered.

In the end, neither was I.

Fake but fab

Little new London

I love a map. They combine something functional with something that can, in the right hands, be really beautiful. London's had her fair share, including the ones that were on show here and are on sale here. 

I stumbled almost literally (thanks shoes) across this one as I was wandering, dazed, into work. A sprawling, room-sized scale model of London.
 
 It looked like something out of a Bond movie. Any second now an evil genius was going to explain to me his plans for turning the entire metropolis into plaid, residents too. 

I gawped happily at some slightly beige buildings and the new Crossrail track as it weaved its way insidiously around other established landmarks. A vibrant city strewn with so many evocative landmarks, all toned done into subtle shades.

Accidental close-up of
a roundabout. Pfwoar!

New or proposed buildings stood out in white, like they hadn't had the time to take on the tones of their neighbours. It all seemed a quaint, enthralling, rather British waste of time. I bloody loved it.

(For some decent camerawork and a full explanation of what this was all about, have a gander here)

Man kept in shot for scale
(and because he wouldn't move)