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ULEZ?

When I saw and photoed this sign, in London, yesterday afternoon …:

…, I thought it was some kind of electronic malfunction. ULEZ? Is that real? Only one way to find out. The Internet.

And the Internet was in no doubt. ULEZ stands for Ultra Low Emission Zone. Question answered.

I just wanted to know if ULEZ was real. It is. The details, for now anyway, interest me less. If you want to know more about ULEZ, you now have the acronym and the knowledge that it stands for something real, and you can learn all you want.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

England – Spurs – England – 0 for 3

Here. Here. Here.

It’s only games.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The Park Hotel seen from the park

The Park Tower Knightsbridge Hotel is what Wikipedia calls it. Sheraton now calls it the Sheraton Park Hotel. Whatever we call it, this is one of my favourite London buildings from the concrete monstrosity era, partly because nobody who worries about being aesthetically elevated likes the work of its architect Richard Seifert. Such people also do not like One Kemble Street, or Centre Point, also by Seifert, either. Too commercial. Too brash. Too assertive. Too symmetrical. Starchitecture before Starchitecture became chic, and not chic enough.

All the photos you see on the internet of this Park Hotel tend to look like this …:

… i.e. photoed from nearby, so that you can’t see the magnificence of the Roof Clutter on the top.

So now I will correct this regrettable imbalance, by inserting these views of the Park Hotel photoed by me last Friday from way off in the middle of Hyde Park, into the vast ocean of internet imagery, in the hope that public attention will be drawn to this wonderful and spontaneous assemblage of roof sculpture:

I especially like that last one. Trees, mist, and then Park Hotel, in soft focus. Or, out of focus, as we digital snappers say.

Norman castles were evil stone monstrosities when first inflicted upon this green and pleasant land. But as that style retreated, they turned into picturesque ruins. The Concrete Monstrosity style is already in headlong retreat, and I like it more and more.

Memo to self: check out this car park, before they destroy it, which they have now decided that they will.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

When Elvis met Tommy in Bermondsey

This afternoon I was in Bermondsey, seeing a man about a blog, and without doubt, the oddest photo I took in my Bermondsey wanderings today was this one, of a garage door:

Here is a closer up view of the writing at the bottom:

Right click to get that a lot more legible.

Do you care about this? It made me smile, but I really do not care if it is true. If you do, and haven’t already acquainted yourself with this tale and made up your mind about it, then read this, which merely reports on the claim (made in 2008 by a mate of Tommy Steele’s), or this, which is more scornful, or this, which is very scornful indeed. Elvis did fleetingly visit Scotland, apparently, but was stuck at the airport. The most scornful of these reports is Scottish, assuming that I am correct in believing “Shields” to be in Scotland. Can’t have the damn Sassenachs steeling their thunder. Ho, ho.

Rather surprisingly, I only found one other photo featuring what I photoed today, here. But that could just reflect my inadequacy as an internet searcher.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

A weekend without the Six Nations

Being logical about it, there are five Six Nations weekends each year, during which each of the Six Nations plays all the other Five Nations, and there are forty seven Six Nationsless weekends. But Six Nationalists like me know which weekends I am talking about. I’m talking about the one between week 2 and week 3 and the one between week 3 and week 4. The Six Nations is happening. But, it’s not. The Six Nations is under way. But it’s stuck. I have just endured the first of these two weird ordeals.

But in between these two black holes of non-Six Nationsness, the key game of this year’s entire Six Nations, Wales v England will be happening, in Cardiff. Both England and Wales have won their first two games, and only they can each still win a Grand Slam. England, with their three South Sea Island hulks playing, have been unbeatable, so far. And they have many times started out unbeatably against Wales. But then the Welsh play catch-up rugby, which is a game that they, unlike any other Six Nation these days, can actually play, and they often then win, despite England’s scrum being on top for the whole game. So I am taking nothing for granted. Especially when you consider that England will have only one Vunipola playing, the other one having hurt himself against France, as earlier noted here. But England will have a Tuilagi playing, in addition to the surviving Vunipola, so I just about fancy them to win.

Meanwhile, how did I survive the recently concluded weekend? Well, there were two good cricket matches to be following. There was an amazing test match between South Africa and Sri Lanka, which SL won by one wicket, following an unbeaten last wicket stand of 78, and what was clearly a wonderful 153 not out by their wicketkeeper Kusal Perera.

Here’s a picture of Perera celebrating that amazing win:

But, note those empty seats. I wonder how many people actually paid to be present at this game. Rather few, if that’s anything to go by. People are now saying, as they have been for many years, that Test Cricket is dying. But it keeps being interesting, in a way that the other crickets now played can’t ever really match, any more than a number one pop song can quite match a Bruckner Symphony. That’s if you like Bruckner symphonies.

The other good cricket game was one of those other crickets games, the final (finally) of the Big Bash League, contested between the Melbourne Poisonous Spiders and the Melbourne Big Hairy Bastards. Or some such belligerently metaphorical contestants. It was definitely Melbourne v Melbourne. Melbourne won, but not before Melbourne had looked certain to win but then suddenly collapsed, allowing Melbourne to snatch the trophy.

The two semi-finals having happened on Thursday and Friday mornings, I was up promptly on Sunday morning to follow this game. But it happened in the Australian afternoon instead of in the evening, and it was all done when I clicked in. Oh well. It was fun to read about.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Sporty Sunday

The weather outside is again really nice, but it’s wasted on me and my camera. Because, it’s Spurs v Leicester on the internet, England v Windies on the internet, and England v France on the TV. Football, cricket, rugby. How can a man ignore all that? Well, maybe “a man” could, but I can’t. Spurs have beaten Leicester (and now Man City are crushing Chelsea); and the Windies have got England back on the floor in the cricket (where England have been all series). As a test cricket fan I am glad that the Windies getting back into the swing of doing that well. For a while now, it has seemed that their only talent was for the limited overs stuff.

And, England are crushing (crunching) France, although a few French tries at the end would not surprise me. Two out of three is not bad

The first weekend of this year’s Six Nations was great, but the second, now nearing its end, has been rather flat. Ireland got back on the horse against Scotland yesterday, and Italy, as they do, lost. Now England are doing what all the commentators said they’d do to France, following their great win over Ireland last weekend. The charm of the Six Nations is how unpredictable it can be. On the first weekend France got beaten by Wales after being 16 ahead at half time. Italy got no less than three late tries against Wales when they were looking down and out, which was a definite surprise. When England got the final try to settle it against Ireland, the commentator said: Who saw this coming? Not me. But so far this weekend, it’s all gone with the not-especially-smart money. France are now 36 behind, so even if they get five late tries, they’ll still lose. It’s all looking a bit “waiting for the end” just now. The serious business of the game was being sorted when England got their four first half tries, which meant that their bonus points, for four tries and for winning by more than seven, were both settled, along with the win. Can England get over 50 points against France? Maybe, but it doesn’t feel like it matters. Yes, a commentator has just said: “The match has rather fallen asleep.” Indeed it has. The most important moment of this match may prove to be when one of the Vunipolas walked off injured.

Anyway, it’s over now. 44-8 England. Plus, when I was trying to find a report on England crunching France, I came across our Ladies crunching their Ladies.

The England men, meanwhile, have been transformed by their returning-from-injury South Sea Islanders, the Vunipola brothers and Manu Tuilagi.

Tuilagi is odd, in that he is pronounced Tooey Langy. Except by Jonathan Davies of course, who says Tooey Largy. Davies also says Viney Polar instead of Vooney Polar. The world needs to find a way to mispronounce “Jonathan Davies”, and keep on doing that until he learns his job.

But, hello. What’s this? The Windies 59-4 (after being 57-0!), replying to England’s 277. Two wickets in two balls to Moheen. Two more wickets in two more balls to Mark Wood, who I didn’t realise was playing. By the sound of it (i.e. from reading the Cricinfo chat), Wood should have been in the England side from the beginning. Only four wickets on day one. Ten wickets already on day two, and it’s not yet tea time.

It is now! Windies 74-5. Another to Wood. “England are rampant.”

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

From ridiculous to sublime

Ridiculous:

Octopus shorts. Photoed by me in the Kings Road.

Not so ridiculous and just a little bit sublime:

It’s this shop, in the Fulham Road, a few hours later.

Sublime:

Sublime compared to the Octopus Shorts anyway. If Jeff Koons did that, it would change hands for millions.

Not photoed by me. A friend featured that photo at her Facebook site recently, she having photoed it. My friend says that this unicorn is something to do with fundraising for Great Ormond Street Hospital, despite not being close to that Hospital. More the Gloucester Road area. But even given all that information Google could tell me nothing about it.

I’m guessing that, what with unicorns being very big business, this unicorn, even if it is on the www, is buried under a million other unicorny images and products and general nonsense, which have all paid Google to put them first. Such is the internet. If you aren’t paying, you’re the product.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Fighting back against IO and dust

As I said earlier, a nasty old sofa is due to depart from Chateau BMdotcom, and nice new sofa is due to arrive. And as I also said, I hoped it would be in that order. Well, now it looks like the new sofa will be here tomorrow, while the old one is still here. This threatened chaos. In a place already suffering from severe infrastructural overload (aka IO, aka too much crap everywhere and nowhere to put new incoming crap), it’s all I can do to find space for a new copy of the BBC Music Magazine without it getting submerged. Yet today I managed to liberate enough space for another sofa and still have a large chunk of change, volumetrically speaking.

The secret was getting rid of a whole clutch of things like this:

The main things that such devices store are empty air, and dust. Lots and lots of dust.

I also found a pile of home-made versions of the same kind of thing, in which I had been storing more air and more dust, and (this time) nothing else:

That being about a decade’s worth of dust, going by all the bits of paper in the pile that I will soon be culling and compressing.

As one of my heroes, Quentin Crisp, once said, the secret with dust is not to stir it up. Do that, and you find yourself living in a dusty home. Just let it be and it behaves itself very politely.

I now learn (such is the internet) that what Crisp actually said was more like this:

There was no need to do any housework at all. After four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.

I actually do do some housework, mainly in my living room, so this doesn’t really apply to me and my home. But I like his attitude. That gag about being a “stately homo of England” is also a Crispism. The link above is to a large stack of verbal Crispnesses.

Back to my dust. To get rid of that dust, which did have to be got rid of because the receptacles containing it had to go, I had to carry them out of my bedroom very carefully, into the living room, and part of this involved stepping down from my bed to the floor. Imagine doing that with a tray full of drinks. But, all went well, and I have now liberated a hug gob of space which I had previously thought permanently clogged:

That will accommodate a lot of IO, in the days and weeks to come. Those two boxes on the right can go too, come to think of it. All they contain is big envelopes that I will never use and whose glue long ago stopped working.

Each time I have a campaign against IO, I think that I really have, this time around, completely run out of space. But, each time, it turns out that there’s more, lurking in plain sight.

A good day.