Language – Page 11 – Brian Micklethwait's New Blog

The Boomerang still being constructed

I like these photos that I took last March. I like the rather sombre light. If my camera is to be believed, it was around 6.30 pm:

On the left, the “South Bank Tower”. Not interesting enough to the general public for it to have a name. On the right, what I prefer to call The Wheel. And in the middle? I tend to call it One Blackfriars, but as Londonist points out, many people are calling this the Boomerang.

I also like it when Big Things aren’t quite ready and are still be worked on, but you can clearly see how they’ll look. My very first digital camera coincided with the finishing off of the Gherkin and I have the photos to prove it, and ever since then, I’ve collected such architectural moments. (My first digital camera also coincided with the last months of Concorde, but I don’t have the photos to prove that, which I still regret.)

And, as I only just remembered to say: the vertical bit on the far right is the edge of all that activity going on around the old Shell Building, and the building in the foreground is just flats, next to the iMax roundabout.

LATER: Concerning the Boomerang, one of Michael Jennings’s Facebook friends (and actual friends, I think), who is called Lee J Tee, says this:

I actually really like that building. In general I think most of the modern buildings in London are worthy. A world class city deserves unique buildings and London has plenty of them, all different from each other and I like that individuality.

Amen.

I absolutely don’t understand how Facebook works, and probably never will, so I have no idea if I even can link to this, let alone whether, if I can, I should. So, just take my words for it.

Someone else says that, actually, what I have been calling the “Boomerang” is “informally known as The Vase”. Well, well. I prefer that to Boomerang.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

“Exhuberation”

The word used by England spin bowler Monty Panesar, when he was on Test Match Special this morning during a rain break, to describe how it felt when, in a test match in India, he got Sachin Tendulkar out.

Despite all the rain of the last two days, England were exhuberating at Lord’s today.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

BMdotcom typo of the day

Chris Martin, in this:

… I’m Christ Martin. …

Just under the subheading “Transcript”.

But then again, why not? In the Hispano- and Portugo-(?) spheres, they have lots of people called Jesus.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Wardour Street dragon

Indeed:

Photoed by me in the West End yesterday afternoon, prior to attending Lohengrin.

Other creatures don’t get any more other than that.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

River walk

The plan was simple. Get out into the sunshine. Cross Vauxhall Bridge. Turn right and proceed along the south bank of the river, upstream. Check out what is happening on that side of the river, up to an including at Battersea Power Station. Then turn left, and proceed to Battersea Park Station. Take the train to Victoria. Do some shopping. Get home, knackered, and post one photo. Just one.

All of the above happened, and here is that one photo:

That’s Riverwalk, although why it’s called that, I do not know. Seems rather misleading. A building is not a walk. A walk is what I was doing.

It was the kind of weather where almost anything looks good in a photo. I was going to say: even Riverwalk. But as with every obtrusively new building in London that I start off not liking, I am getting used to this one, and may eventually even start liking it. I may even start liking its colour, if colour is the right word.

I had no great hopes for this walk, and that was one of the first photos I took, what with Riverwalk being on this side of the river. But the expedition turned out to be a lot more interesting than I expected. More to follow, maybe, I promise nothing.

Good night. Sleep well, I believe I will.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Sign with socks

I like this, which I photoed this afternoon in my local laundrette:

I like the photo it makes, and I like the thing itself. What I think I like about the thing itself is that it suggests to me that someone is putting an effort into this laundrette, like they care about it and intend for it to stick around. In recent years, this places has seemed temporary, uncared for, intended for closure. The above sign with socks suggests to me that the laundrette won’t be closing any time very soon. Which I am very glad about.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Sorry but not sorry

I liked this, from the Megan Mullally character in Will & Grace (latest series, episode 6, beginning of):

“Sorry I’m late, but I got here as soon as I wanted to.”

At their frequent best, American sitcoms keep on nailing down these universal feelings about the world and its various demands, yet in a way that you never heard before. It’s like they show you the world, but with perfect subtitles attached, explaining everything. My sense is that a gag like that one is proposed by one person, and then talked through by a huge team of gagsters at a big table for about half a day until it is polished and refined down to its pure and perfectly funny essence. (Either that, or some bloke just thought of it, just like that.)

In general, I really like American sitcoms, because, in addition to being funny, they are another world, but another world where they speak an almost identical language to mine.

In English, and also in American it would seem, sorry is definitely the hardest word.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The perfect time to enjoy a bit of pollarding

Pollarding is what you do to trees, if you want to make them look like this, as lots of people seem to:

It’s not that warm now. But nor is it that cold now. It now feels warm because of it being less cold than it recently was. Simply weather-wise, I probably prefer June. But in June, the trees are all smothered in leaves. Pollarding effects would be hidden.

I like the bobble on top of the building, far right. Fits in well, I think.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The Great Big City Thing – new Big City Things – a not so big City Thing

GodDaughter2 having dragged me into London at the crack of 10.30am (which is when that Traviata dress rehearsal started), I of course got to Embankment Tube early, on account of being so scared of being late. I had some time to kill.

So, instead of turning left at the Embankment Tube ticket machines and just trudging up Villiers Street to Trafalgar Square and on to the ENO’s Colosseum, I instead turned right, and went up onto the north London end of the downstream version of the Hungerford Footbridge(s). It’s a favourite little spot of mine, concerning which, maybe, there will (although I promise nothing) be more here, soon or whenever.

For now, consider just this one photo, taken from that spot, at that time:

Because it is the morning, the light is not what I am used to. The Big Things of the City of London are not well light, because back lit.

The big picture story here is that the Big Things of the City of London are, slowly but surely, metamorphosing into one Great Big City Thing.

But when I got home and had a closer look, I was intrigued to see two moderately Big Things already clearly to be seen.

You probably noticed this one already:

That’s the Scalpel. That the Scalpel has been going up has been obvious for some time.

But this one came as rather more of a surprise. This detail had to be enlarged, or you might miss it, as I did, until I got home and looked carefully:

That, ladies and gents, hiding in among all the bigger Things, is the much touted but seemingly never actually happening (but it actually is) Can of Ham:

The Can of Ham is called that because it will look like a can of ham:

Come to think of it, I have a vague recollection of visiting those Big City Things, about … a while back. Bear with me while I rootle through the photo-archives.Yes, here we go. I was there on June 3rd, last year.

The Scalpel was already well under way, thanks to some particularly entertaining cranage:

And it definitely was the Scalpel, because it said so at the bottom:

But the Can of Ham was also already starting to go up:

As you can clearly see if you take a closer look at what it says at the bottom there:

By trying to call this thing “Seventy St. Mary Axe”, but by making it look exactly like a can of ham, and quite a big and visible one, big enough and visible enough for it to need a particular and memorable name, they screwed up on the naming front. It was only ever going to be called the “Can of Ham”.

Some bunch of idiots long ago tried to get the Gherkin called 30 St Mary Axe, and that never stuck either.

50 St Mary Axe is also a Thing, but such a small Thing that nobody cares what that’s called, so that actually is called 50 St Mary Axe.