Brian Micklethwait's New Blog

The chaos from which buildings arise

It is the sundrenched late afternoon of April 21st 2009, and they’re busy building something:

What I’m getting at with the above imagery is:

(1) This is a construction site, and these people clearly know what they are doing. Constructions almost always turn out exactly as planned.

And:

(2) Look at the state of it!!!

I recognise various individual bits of tech there, like the reinforcing rod tubes, and that big blue propeller for digging holes, to put such things as reinforcing rod tubes in. But all that stuff jammed together in a confined space like that? It looks like someone’s attic for goodness sake.

Yet, it was from this outdoor attic that there duly emerged … the Shard.

Health and safety: Before-and-after photos of the South Bank carousel

South Bank, London, 2012:

Closer up:

Same thing, 2017:

Closer up:

I have a vague recollection of this contraption having suffered some kind of accident or mishap which might have explained this transformation. But the only accident I managed to learn about today was one that happened in 2016, by which time the semi-transparent encasement had already been added.

What happened was that the carousel just stopped. So, the people who were stuck up there were that little bit safer while they waited to be rescued. On the other hand, I imagine that the covering made the actual rescue more difficult and dangerous. If so, there’s a lesson there, isn’t there?

I don’t know exactly when this change happened, although I surely have more photos in the archives that would narrow it down a bit.

Meanwhile, I am pleased about these before-and-after photos. Getting photos like these can be hard, because you have to know beforehand what is going to change. Or, you just have to photo a lot of photos.

I photo a lot of photos.

Democracy is war by other means – so do not trash it and especially not in the world’s most powerful democracy

This is all good, but this is particularly good:

Before we settled into peaceful, democratic nations, power was decided by Kings, swords, and armies. Power rested with bloody battle and bloody victory. Democratic politics replaced battle and war in the West, but it has always been understood that democratic politics is war by other means and that if democracy is removed from politics then we can only go back to bloody battle and bloody war.

Read it all.

Deep thanks to Stephen Green of Instapundit, for Instalaunching it.

Maybe you don’t agree with the Brit who wrote the piece I’m linking to, and with me, that the Democrats are now attempting an in-your-face coup d’etat. But about half of America does now believe this. If they are trampled over, rather than a decent chunk of them being genuinely persuaded … Well, like I say, read it all.

When the view out my kitchen window was interesting

Being so restricted in my movements just now has got me pondering the view from my kitchen window. It doesn’t change from day to day, or now, from year to year. But, oh, there was a time, a time when it would change from hour to hour:

Those were photoed between October 2015 and February 2016. I show some because they show what was going on. and others for artistic effect. You decide which is which. What they were doing was converting the building opposite it something different and taller, in which more living and working could happen than before.

The one that got me interested in these photos was the silhouette of the guy with the machine. But now, the ones I like best feature the reinforced concrete being destroyed. I love that effect.

The netting that you see in some of these photos is to stop pigeons crapping in the courtyard. It didn’t help with the focussing, but it does create an effect.

Memo to self: Dig up the old posting where a crane unfolded itself in this very spot.

Giving the green light to a cement mixer

For me, a complicated day. What spare time I had was spent paying attention to sport, basically to take my mind off all the complications.

So, here’s an illuminated cement mixer, which I photoed outside the Royal Festival Hall way back in 2007:

Art, I assume. But so long ago that I could not persuade the internet to tell me about it. Plenty of cement mixers and plenty of RFH scenes, but no sign of this particular combination of both.

2007 was way before I had a camera that truly suited me. That was still five years away. But these photos came out pretty well, I think. It helped that they were photoed at just the moment when daylight was about half gone, which allowed the artificial green light to make its presence felt but not to be the whole story.

Another carnival of the animals posting

Starting with a new recording of Carnival of the Animals. Saint-Saëns at his harmonious and melodious best. It’s the Kanneh-Mason clan, with additions. Sheku, as of now the most celebrated of this much celebrated classical family, has his big cello moment with the Swan.

Relatedly, “i” reports that the way animals communicate is evolving so that it remains audible above the din made by humans.

This Is Why I’m Broke tells of a squirrel proof bird feeder, with explanatory video.

And then there’s this: Canada battles Norway for tallest moose statue.

More seriously, it is being said the Brexit has enabled Boris Johnson to unveil a ban on live animal exports.

Most significantly of all, when it comes to the ever changing relationship between animals and humans, Singapore becomes the first country to approve the sale of lab-grown meat. See also this earlier posting here, about steps in that same direction in Israel.

LATER: No official ephemera this Friday at David Thompsons, but via the a comment on the latest posting there, here’s a competitive canine in action. The enjoyment is palpable. I love how the dogs in the audience join in with their encouraging barks.

OOPS: There are some David Thompson ephemera today, starting with a couple of cats.

A dog and a rabbit photoing in New York

Came across this in the New York Times, New York being where this double sculpture is to be seen, or was in January of last year:

The internet wander that took me to these sculptures began with the Diamond Geezer, who, in this posting, says:

Mon 16: A sculpture of a dog and a rabbit on a bike has appeared at Canary Wharf, entirely off the radar of the usual websites and social media influencers who’d normally be going nuts over it (because nobody’s getting out and about any more).

That got me to Gillie and Marc, who made this double thing. There I saw a photo of a sculpture of a pack of photoer dogs could learn no more about that there, so I did an image search, and that got me to the New Yorker piece linked to above, with the above photo at the top of it.

I love the internet.