Brian Micklethwait's New Blog

Roof clutter viewed through an RCM window

Yesterday I attended a Master Class at the Royal College of Music, in which five singing students, GodDaughter 2 among them, were publicly instructed by distinguished tenor and vocal teacher Dennis O’Neil. It was fascinating. He spent most of the time focussing on the art that conceals art, which meant that I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. The minutiae of sounds and syllables, and of where the sound comes from, in the head or in the body. All like a foreign language to me, but it was fascinating to expand the range of my ignorance, so to speak. I am now ignorant about a whole lot more than I was.

This all happened way down at the bottom of the RCM, in the Britten Theatre (which you go down to get into but the theatre itself stretches up to the top again), On the way back up the numerous stairs to the street level entrance, I saw, through a very grubby window, and photoed, this:

Okay the window is indeed very grubby, but, you know, how about that? All that roof clutter, buried in the middle of the College. Although, I think that this particular clutter is part of Imperial College, which is next door.

Backstage architecture, you might say.

The Royal College of Music is as amazing an accumulation of architectural chaos as I have ever experienced. It must take about half of your first year to learn where everything is, and years later you are probably still getting surprises. I never knew this was here! Etc.

That corridor made of windows, bottom left, with the light in it, is something I have several times walked along, to a canteen or a bar or some such thing, I think. By which I mean that I think I have walked along it, but that this could be quite wrong. Like I say: architectural chaos. I took a look at the place in Google Maps 3D, but I still have only the dimmest Idea of where I was on the map.

The night before, I was at the Barbican Centre, also for some music, and that’s almost as architecturally chaotic as the inside of the RCM. But there, they don’t have the excuse that the architectural chaos accumulated over about a century of continuous improvisation. At the Barbican, the chaos was all designed and built in one go.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

150 great things about the Underground: Number 122

This:

Photoed by me last night. And explained here. The Metropolitan Line came up with this logo just after the regular London Underground logo was devised. Now this version of it survives, but only on platforms at Moorgate that are no longer used.

Weird.

In the twentieth century, weird is all it would have been. Then forgotten. Just another of life’s little mysteries. But, in the age of the internet, there are no little mysteries.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

What electrified track looks like when they really turn up the electricity

Photoed by me last night, at Blackwall DLR station:

It’s not really that of course. It’s just that I have learned that one of the best ways to photo a sunset is to photo railway tracks that are disappearing into it.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

A bridge held up by giant hands

Not really, I don’t suppose. But that’s how it looks.

I can’t recall how I came across this amazing bridge, but I think it was my Twitter feed. My first reaction was that this was some very high class Photoshopping. But no. Here’s a report from July of this year.

This Thing is for real. It is in Vietnam:

I found that photo here.

Given that the flood of big and impressive new bridges now seems to have receded (and given that big “new” bridges are now starting to collapse), the emphasis has switched to small and impressive new bridges. Of which this one is by far the most impressive, in my opinion.

These giant hands are going to trigger a flood of similarly inventive small bridges, with sculptors and engineers collaborating to outdo each other. Not all will be beautiful, but all will very recognisable and distinctive, which is the next best thing, I think.

People love bridges. It’s not just me. Look at all the people on that bridge.

Does the bridge have a giant figure beside it, who is holding the bridge, or are there just hands? If not, maybe that will happen soon. A statue holding a bridge. Why not?

How about London getting the man who did these sculptures (LINK TO THE OLD BLOG) to design a London footbridge, somewhere, in which two more such guys are holding it up? Or four? Or six? I’ll leave that to him and his engineer. But, London, do this.

All over the world, now, people – people like me – are seeing the bridge in the photo above, and are saying: Why can’t we have something like that?

And others are saying: Oh no, how ghastly. But to hell with them. Put the first such bridge in your area somewhere really ugly, where there’s nothing to spoil. That should silence the grumblers.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

SQL error Sunday

Sorry about yesterday here. All now seems to be well.

Sadly, this SQL error crap seems to keep happening. Although as of now I promise nothing, a better answer than just correcting such things when they happen is now being worked on.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The Hundred is silly

Now that the proper cricket is over for the summer, the cricket fan’s mind turns towards silliness like The Hundred. This is the idea of having a new slam bang format, in addition to Twenty20. E(nglish) C(ricket) B(oard) Chairman Graves is now pushing this, and there is push back.

This cricket fan has two things to say about why The Hundred is so very, very silly.

Thing one. On what planet does a cricket administrator look at cricket on earth, and say: The Trouble With Cricket On Earth Is That It Doesn’t Have Enough Different Formats. There Should Be Another. ????

Thing two. The Hundred reminds me of the days when they mucked about with the limited overs format, with the result that for quite a while, or so I remember it, the English counties were playing 40/40 overs, while internationals were 50/50 overs. The heart of the problem was that the English administrators thought they ruled cricket, or behaved as if they thought this, and consequently imagined that they, on their own, could impose a new Format. But, there was a world out there.

And there is a world out there now, an even bigger one than then. Unless The World agrees that The Hundred is a good format, it will be a flop. Cricket is governed by The World (sometimes known as: India), not by England. Do the people pushing The Hundred have the Indians on board with it? I thought not.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

TIL about TIL

TIL that TIL stands for “Today I learned”.

First word in this, which is about piles. IL more about piles here and here.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

67 & 541 – 477/8d & 134/9

For the last four days I have been following Surrey v Essex at the Oval, on Cricinfo mostly. The scores alone were remarkable, hence my title above. Those who do not know cricket should know that, to those who do know cricket, the mere numbers above are truly astounding.

Famed Surrey commentator Churchy couldn’t take his eyes off it:

That’s him on the left. Don’t know who the other bloke is. Kevin Howells? See also this (about the effect on the face of photoing someone from really close-up). And the second of these two guys (both saying: well done Surrey) is another in-your-face face.

Given how good the weather forecasts were (and given how good weather forecasts are) I thought about going there. But I still suspect that, had I done so, a cascade of butterfly effects would have been set in motion, and Surrey would have lost by an innings and about three hundred early on day three, instead of by a mere one wicket on the afternoon of day four, having looked, towards the end, well capable of snatching a win.

Anyone who thinks that only winning matters in sport should ponder how much happier a Surrey fan like me is about this game as it finally turned out, compared to how grumpy I would have been if it really had ended early on day three. Still an Essex win. Same number of Championship points to both sides. Surrey still win the Championship anyway. But what an abject anti-climax that would have been. And what a great actual-climax to the season it actually was.

Had the County Championship still been at stake, and had it depended on this result, I could not have endured it. But, if the Championship had been at stake, it would, I think, have been an entirely different game. Intrinsic to the amazing Surrey recovery was that this was … only a game. Thus did it end up being a great game, because only a game.

I really want to remember this one, hence this posting.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Another leaning crane

This phenomenon continues to trouble me. Intellectually, I know that the people supervising these circumstances have them all under control. If ever there was a trade in Britain that knows what it is doing, it is the big city building trade. Things get done on time, all according to plan, and the results work as intended. And cranes do not fall over. (The financing can go all over the shop, which means that plans can change dramatically, but that’s a different story.)

But it still feels to me as if this crane might fall over. It still feels to me that, at any moment, something near the ground, on the left as we look, just might … SNAP!!!!:

So, another for the collection. Photoed by me the day before yesterday, from the Rooftop of John Lewis.

I don’t generally do Photoshop(clone)ing, but some rotation was necessary with this one. In my original, the crane was completely vertical. And everything else: not.