London – Page 56 – Brian Micklethwait's New Blog

Beside the Thames at Laleham

Laleham is a place beside the River Thames, just south of Staines. I grew up a bit beyond Egham, which is the next station on the Reading Line from Staines. But I don’t recall ever going to Laleham.

Until this afternoon, when I went walking alongside the river there, with my friend Rob and his two young sons, who live around there. We made our way to a spot near the river in the family car, got out and walked along the river and then inland a bit to a pub, ate and drank in the pub, and then retraced our steps. Rob and I walked, and his boys were on their bikes. A most agreeable way to pass a Sunday afternoon.

The road we walked and biked along is called Thames Side. On the left, as we went pubwards, posh houses. On the right, the river, and attached to the bank on the other side, rather smaller and less posh but still very desirable dwellings, mostly rather shed-like bungalows.

Thus:

All of which made a pleasing change from my usual Thames-related photo-destinations, which are mostly to the east of me. Places like Laleham, out west, are basically finished. I don’t suppose the above scenes looked that much different to how things were when I was a kid, living around there. But the stuff out east, especially the stuff beyond Tower Bridge, is being constructed and reconstructed on a huge and hectic scale, even as I blog and even as you read.

This new blog makes it a lot easier to stick up a clutch of photos like this one, compared to how hard this kind of thing was to do at the old blog. And it is also a lot easier for you to view all these photos. You can just click on the first one, and then get to the next one with just one click, and then on to the next with one more click, and so on. A great improvement.

Ravenscourt Park photos

Yes, I was in Ravenscourt Park on Thursday evening, having a Libertarian Lads dinner in a restaurant there.

As I usually do when visiting spots that are unfamiliar, I was anxious not to be late and so got there very early. Which meant I had plenty of time to photo.

Here are the four:

The first was, obviously, taken at the tube station when I got there.

The second was also taken from the tube station, and makes the local Premier Inn and the building nearer look like all one, with the Premier Inn itself emerging out of the roof clutter which is actually across the road from it. (I do love aligning Things, don’t I?) Premier Inns: Machines For Staying In.

Photo three, taken of and through a bookshop window, is an illustration of the strong Polish presence in Ravenscourt Park. I assume that got started right after WW2, when exiled Poles decided they’d prefer to stay that way, what with the USSR having conquered their preferred country of choice.

Photo four is a motorbike. I love to photo motorbikes, especially in France, but also in Ravenscourt Park, if Ravenscourt Park is where I am and if Ravenscourt Park is where the motorbike is. This motorbike is trying to be an abstract sculpture, but it didn’t fool me. (It should have hidden its wheels better, for starters.) This is another in my ongoing series of photos that I like, that look like works of Art of the sort that I don’t much like. This fondness of mine, for photos that look like they’re Modern Art but which actually aren’t was something which I later persuaded some of my dining companions to discuss with me, and out of that I got one answer as to why I like such photos, which I may or may not (I promise nothing) tell you about, later, in a different posting.

miwhip?

This afternoon, on my way north from South Ken tube, I encountered these golden little vehicles:

It says “miwhip” on them. Who or what is that? I used to be content to just not know such things, and to forget I ever asked. But this is the age of the internet, in fact it has been for some while, as perhaps you have noticed. And the internet soon obliged.

It seems that “miwhip” is an Uber-challenger, and that if you are lucky, when you whisle up one of the above vehicles, you might instead find yourself travelling in one of these:

The best thing I read in the Evening Standard piece linked to above is that miwhip say they’ll pay their hirelings at the end of each day. If you have any friends hacking away at the coalface that is the gig economy, you’ll know how important that promise is. Provided, of course, that they keep it.

AEF

Yesterday I walked across Vauxhall Bridge. It’s been a while since I have done this, which is why I only yesterday discovered that just opposite the MI6 building there is a frenzy of excavation activity, in connection with the new giant sewer that they a building along the river.

Here are the photos I took of all this grubbing:

And here is the sign on Vauxhall Bridge Road next to all this activity:

AEF stands for Albert Embankment Foreshore. It seems that all the “Tideway” (i.e. the sewer) sites of a similar sort have a three letter acronym to identify and distinguish them.

This particular location would surely make a great place for James Bond to start doing crazy things in the sewer. All you need is a small passage connecting the sewer to the MI6 building, a distance of about twenty yards, and boom. Away we go, with a car chase or a scooter chase or something, along the sewer. This could all kick off after they’ve finished building the sewer, but before the sewage is actually pouring along it. Maybe while people are inspecting it, to check that all is well, which is why it would be suitably illuminated.

Maybe the chase could precipitate the arrival of the actual sewage for the first time, prematurely, by something like a switch being knocked against by mistake. Both Bond and the Baddie could be overwhelmed by shit in the course of their chase. Along with a whole tribe of health and safety inspectors. That would get a cheer in cinemas.

Trouble is, I seem to recall the MI6 building being destroyed in a previous Bond movie. But what the hell. James Bond keeps being “reinvented”. So maybe the MI6 building could be reinvented, just as it always was before it got wrecked.

It turns out my recollection is faulty. The entire building did not get blown up (in Skyfall). There was merely a rather small explosion, destroying only Dame Judi Dench’s computer, inside the building.

Come to think of it, “Tideway” might be a rather good Bond movie title.

One thing here every day? – Probably Yes (and cranes)

Yes. At the Old Blog, I followed the rule of One Item Here Every Day, pretty much for as long as I can remember, and it worked. Not in the sense that every item was of stellar interest and quality. Far from it. But at least it kept me at it, and ensured that my treasured gang of readers would have something here to divert them, every day, even if they never actually read past the title.

But there were better consequences of this rule than merely that. Quite a few of my better postings were the direct consequence of this rule. I kept on deciding that I had to do something, and ended up doing something quite good. (I doubt this posting will be an example of that, but you never know.)

So, I have in mind that I will keep following that rule here. In that spirit and following this rule, I am now doing this posting.

A regular technique for following the One A Day rule is the Quota Photo. So, here’s one, to celebrate the continuation of this rule:

I photoed this photo at the same time I photoed the first of these two photos.

This second photo, above, featuring crane-on-crane action, makes it clearer that there was actually a man up there, on the big arm of the crane that is presumably still there and hard at work. I presume he was making sure that everything was properly connected, and then disconnected. Truly an Aristocrat of Labour. Whatever they pay him, he’s worth it.

Rubbish photo

Indeed. I photoed this scene while walking along the south bank of the Thames from Greenwich to the Dome. My objective was to get another view of the Optic Cloak. But I also observed this, which I think is also sculpture:

As with so much Art these days, whether a Thing is Art or not depends not on its objective nature, but on the intentions of the person who made it, or in this case, who assembled it. Maybe the person who gathered up this rubbish was doing a sculpture. Or, maybe he was just collecting up rubbish, prior to disposing of it.

It looks like Art to me. But Art or not, this has been the photo on my computer for the last month or so. So, I don’t know whether it’s Art, but I like it. Although, when I say “it” what I mean is I like my photo of it. The Thing itself, not so much.

A bit before that, I photoed this:

That’s definitely Art.

Could England make it the full set of four Euro-finalists? (Spoiler: yes it could)

Concerning Arsenal v Valencia, I liked this, from whoever was doing the BBC text commentating:

I know I said I wouldn’t do it. But Valencia have one minute to score five so I’m saying GAME OVER.

Arsenal are going to the Europa League final.

Indeed they are.

Chelsea, on the other hand, having drawn 1-1 in Frankfurt, found themselves drawing 1-1 in London. Chelsea needed to score, but even more, they needed not to be scored against, again, because they’d then have had to score twice more themselves. So, for Chelsea, it made sense to play it carefully and hope to win on penalties.

Which they did, and did.

Way back on April 17th, I quoted a BBC text commentator asking this:

Are we heading for an all-English Champions League final AND an all-English Europa League final?

Mission accomplished. It will be London v London, in Baku, and (as maybe you heard earlier) London v Liverpool in Madrid. West Ham, where were you when London needed you?

Catch up on the Chelsea Frankfurt game here.

By the way, I only just found out that “Eintracht” means “harmony” or “concord” or “unity”. So Eintracht Frankfurt basically means Frankfurt United. Tonight, united in grief. Or maybe not. Is there also a Frankfurt City?

A photo-expedition that started well and ended well

Today I went on a photo-expedition, my first big one since getting back from France. It went really well, but because it went so well, it also went on a long time, and now I only have enough energy to show you two of the many photos I photoed.

The first, before I got seriously started, while still on the way to St James’s Park tube, is of a crane of one sort making a crane of another sort:

That’s a process I love to see, but seldom chance upon. And because I got to stand right under all this drama, I got to see also how bendy the crane was that was lifting the big bit of the other crane into place. (I also got to think how it would be if that bendy crane snapped and everything came crashing down on top of me.)

And second, when the expedition was basically all done and I was at W.H. Smith Victoria buying the latest copy of Gramophone, I also spotted this:

It’s good to see that Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules is out in paperback, and even better to see that W.H. Smith Victoria now have it as their book of the week.

And then when I finally got back home, I learned that, because Arsenal conceded a home equaliser to Brighton, Spurs are almost certainly going to be in the Champions League next season. (When I left home, Arsenal were a goal up, and were surely going to win, with disastrous consequences for Spurs.) Goal difference. All down to goal difference. Spurs have to lose 0-5 in their final game, and Arsenal have to win 5-0, or some such implausible combination of nonsenses that surely cannot happen – touch wood and hope to die.

Quota gallery of Carnaby Union Jack photos

“Gallery” being the way I now do those little clutches of photos that I’m so fond of doing.

Here one I photoed (x4), in a place in London that now apparently calls itself “Carnaby”. Last I heard, which was about thirty years ago, there was only Carnaby Street. But now the name has spread, thanks to all the name recognition that has attached itself to “Carnaby”, over the years.

Sticking those four photos up here is about as complicated as sticking up just one photo on the old blog. Whereas on the old blog, this would take about a quarter of a day. So, I’m a happier blogger than I was. And that is bound to mean that all you massed ranks of readers of this blog will get happier, because happiness is contagious. And you will be happier for a more tangible reason, which is that you can now click on one of these photos, and then click on the arrows at the side to see all the others, with just three more clicks.

As for the sparkly Thing itself, well, I like it a lot. Ever since the Scottish Referendum, when it looked like the Union Jack could be about to die, I have admired the Union Jack itself. Actually, way before then, but especially from then on. It’s suck a distinctive thing, and will survive endless reworking and reinterpretation.