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The Guy’s Hospital Tower in 2000

I was rootling around in the archives for something interesting, and this time I really went back, to the time of my very first digital camera. And in among lots of photos of my friends and GodDaughters all looking eighteen years younger, I found this photo, taken while on a trip around the Wheel, of the Guy’s Hospital Tower, looking just as brutally (because Brutalist) ugly then as it does now:

That’s right, no Shard.

But more to the point, it shows what a Big Thing that building in the middle there used to be.

And I’ve said it here before. This was London’s Montparnasse Tower. What Paris concluded from the Montparnasse Tower was: never again. But what London concluded from the Guy’s Hospital Tower was: we need to build lots of bigger towers, so that this one won’t be any part of the definition of London. And in particular, we need to put a really big Big Thing, right next to this big old thing.

So, in the photo: Guy’s Hospital, and no Shard.

And: without Guy’s Hospital, also no Shard.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Here are some I took earlier

Today was a perfect day for a day out on a big photo-expedition, but for some reason to do with getting older, I didn’t feel up to it. It’s too early to be sure, but I sense that a phase of my life, a phase that consisted of, among other things, exploring and photoing London, may just have come to an end.

So, instead of showing you photos I took today, here are some from an ancient I Just Like Them! Directory:

Taken in 2008 in Trafalgar Sqaure (1.1), in 2012 underneath that rather pointless ski lift thing out east (1.2), in 2014 while those swanky student accommodations were under construction at the far end of Westminster Bridge from Parliament (2.1), and at the top end of Horseferry Road looking at the top of a random building at the top end of Rochester Row (2.2) also in 2014, when all the tree leaves had been shaken off.

Back in England

Having spent a week appreciating the Frenchness of France, I now find myself especially noticing the Englishness of England:

1.1 (cricket in Vincent Square) and 1.2 (Prince Albert outside his Hall) were taken yesterday afternoon. 2.1 (Westminster Abbey plus Big Ben smothered in scaffolding (plus a tiny bit of Wheel)) was taken yesterday evening. 2.2 (a Handley Page Victor recently acquired by a friend) was taken earlier this evening.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Upside down chickens in a Paris shop window

One of the things about travel in foreign parts is that you regularly see things which you just do not understand.

And for me, when I was in Paris on May 5th, this photo, hastily snatched while crossing a road, definitely falls into the I Do Not Understand This category:

The buildings reflected in the window behind me introduce a note of sanity into an otherwise incomprehensible scene. Why the upside down chickens? And what has this to do with fortieth birthdays?

Shop windows are an endless source of photo-amusement for me. I can enjoy it for ever, but without paying a thing or taking up any of my scarce home-space!

Busy day today, so that will have to do.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

A better hand dryer at the Gare du Nord

I believe that many of the best photoers have a touch of the perve about them, and quite a few other photoers also. At the very least, photoers sometimes have to be okay with people thinking they’re perves, which I suppose is part of what being a perve is.

So, for instance, in order to take these photos, I had to be using a camera in a public toilet:

After we had done passport and baggage checking in for our Eurostar journey from the Gare du Nord back to London, nature had summoned me to the gents. After I had answered my summons, I washed my hands, and then dried them in the hand dryer that you see above. I had to leave to get my camera, and then go back there to photo the hand dryer. Happily, nobody saw me at it.

The solidity and cleanability of the device inspired confidence. I could see everything, so it would also need to look clean, which increased confidence that it almost certainly was clean. Best of all, the heat was concentrated in a sort of horizontal sheet, if you get my meaning. And you could move your hands up and down to where you needed to, to get rid of the last of the moisture. It felt like it needed less power to do the same job, better. And that of course is what its makers claim.

Those makers being Dyson, known to me until now only for their vacuum cleaners, and this is, as my photos had already told me, the Dyson Airblade dB hand dryer.

Capitalism just keeps on getting better, tiny step by tiny step, that being why this fact seldom hits the headlines.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Angel Bear outside the Gare du Nord

When you go by train to Quimper from London, you start by going by Eurostar to the Gare du Nord in Paris. And when you step outside the main entrance of the Gare du Nord, you find yourself next to a big red bear with wings.

Although I noticed this big red bear with wings when I first got to Paris, I only photoed it on the way back, a week later, when I and GodDaughter 2’s Mum were in less of a hurry between trains and when the weather was much better.

Also, on the way back, we didn’t suddenly see the big red bear with wings. We could see it as we approached the Gare du Nord, and I had my camera ready to go, as it had been all afternoon:

I quite like this big red bear with wings, but I am less sure about whether I admire it. It seems like a mixture of too many unrelated things. The lots-of-holes style of sculpting, which I associate with 3D printing, is one thing. Making a bear look like a bear is something else. And then, there are those wings. On a bear. Wings with holes in them. The idea of the wings is that they turn the bear into an angel bear. Something to do with global warming and the melting icecaps, I read somewhere and then lost track of. The artist, Richard Texier, is not big on logic. He prefers to stimulate the imagination. To evoke magic.

The big red bear is called, see above, “Angel Bear”, and it has an inescapable air of kitsch about it, to my eye. Like something you’d buy, smaller but still quite big, in a posh gift shop, for far too much money. I prefer a bull that Texier has also done, in the same 3D printed style. No wings. Much better, to my eye. Cleaner, as a concept.

But still a bit gift shoppy, I think. Which is another way of saying that I bet these big old animals are by far his most popular works. I suspect that Texier may be a bit irritated by this. He likes being popular and he likes these big animals. But he also likes his more abstract less gift shoppy stuff, and wishes the populace liked them more too. Things like this:

I found both of those images at the Richard Texier website, at this page.

Despite my reservations about the big red bear with wings and my preference for other Texier works, I can, when I look at his big red bear with wings, feel Paris trying. Trying to become that little bit less of the big old antique such as, compared to London, it now is. I mean, you can’t miss the big red bear with wings. Personally, I don’t find it to be wholly successful. But it is holey.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Nova behind Pavlova

Another day doing Other Things, another evening getting ever more tired, and wondering what to put here.

When in doubt … Pavlova:

I didn’t know whether to pick that, or this closer-up version, so I show both:

Behind Pavlova is Nova. Did they call it Nova to rhyme?

While I’m in this directory, here’s the lady with a crane behind her:

All three of those taken within a couple of minutes.

That was nearly three years ago, when Nova was still being readied for its first occupants, still living up to its name. The interior wouldn’t look like that now, if only because there’d be less light pouring in from the far side.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Uninterrupted France blogging feels wrong so here are some football results

I had in mind that the whole of this week would be about my recent trip to France, but I find that doesn’t suit. It feels wrong. This blog usually bounces around between different times and different subjects, and putting that on hold for a week feels, as I say, wrong.

There is also the problem that I don’t like doing long and complicated postings every day, and all the things I want to say about that French trip are quite long and quite complicated, if only because I want to attach copious photo-illustration to each of them. So, today, no France, apart from that observation.

Instead, I will today confine myself to noting with satisfaction that, following a disastrous last weekend, when their rivals Chelsea won and they lost, Tottenham Hotspur, the football club that I like to do well (“support” would be to exaggerate ridiculously – I never actually go to games), earlier this evening defeated Newcastle, while Chelsea could only draw against Huddersfield. All of which means that Huddersfield will not be relegated and Spurs will play in the early stages of the next Euro Champions League, until such time as they get eliminated. But, bright side: Spurs finished top out of the London clubs. Chelsea we’ve covered. Arsenal also got beaten this evening, and are far behind, hence them firing their noted French manager, Wenger.

One of the subheadings in this has Spurs managing to “limp” over the line, by which is meant guarantee to finish at least fourth and definitely ahead of Chelsea. The Spurs pattern seems now to be to have a basically good season, but to end it falteringly. Sounds to me like: they’re tired. Their manager apparently trains them extremely hard, which means they do well. But towards the end, they run out of puff.

I do that every day, just before I go to bed. One other thing about my France trip, I’m going to bed earlier and getting up earlier, than I was, I mean. And I’m trying to keep it that way.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Inside the spire and looking upwards

Yesterday I recounted that, after climbing to the viewing gallery towards the top of one of the twin towers of Quimper Cathedral, I had hoped to see a lot of bridges, but I didn’t. I also said: never mind, because I am bound to see other things that I wasn’t even hoping to see.

Things like this:

That is the inside of the spire, above the viewing gallery that we climbed up to. You could just step into the space below that, directly from the viewing gallery. Amazing. I did not see that coming.

The medieval towers of Quimper Cathedral were rectangular, like those of Durham Cathedral. The spires were nineteenth century additions, as is explained here:

Building started in the 12th century and continued at intervals until the 19th century, when the two spires were constructed and new stained glass windows were installed.

I would say that those spires were inspired additions, ho ho. I like them in particular because they greatly increase the number of spots in Quimper from which you can see the tops of the Cathedral, which the spires made both much taller and much more recognisable. Thanks to these spires, the Cathedral is far more of a local landmark than it would have been otherwise.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

I came for bridges but mostly what I got was leaves

The pattern with all my best photo-expeditions is that there is an Official Designated Destination, and then there is all the other stuff I get to discover. The principle purpose of the ODD is to get me out of my snug little home and into the big wide world that is Outdoors, to see both the ODD and whatever else I bump into in the vicinity of the ODD.

And the ODD for my recent trip to Brittany via Paris was the top of Quimper Cathedral, from which I hoped to photo the numerous bridges across the river that flows through the middle of Quimper, past the Cathedral. Civilians are only allowed to climb to the top of Quimper Cathedral on very particular and rare days, and you have to book in advance. April 29th was such a day, which is why I journeyed to Quimper on April 28th. (I could not leave home earlier than that because on April 27th I had one of my Last Friday of the Month meetings.)

My Hostess (GodDaughter 2’s Mother) journeyed with me from London to Quimper, via Paris, and my Host (GodDaughter 2’s Father) and I duly presented ourselves at the big front door of the Cathedral, at the appointed hour of 4pm.

As we approached, we had already seen from below where we were presumably headed:

And so it proved.

So, how would all those bridges look?

Until this moment, the best picture of the bridges of Quimper that I had been able to take was this, which I found in a Quimper shop, way back in 2006:

But alas, in April 2018, the trees of Quimper were all covered in leaves, and when I pointed my camera at the bridges, leaves was pretty much all I got:

This was about the best I got of any of those bridges:

I see four bridges there. There are a lot more than four bridges in the middle of Quimper. Trees I like. But, I hate leaves on trees.

Was I upset about this, having come all that way? Not really. I’ve always wanted to see this view, and now I have seen it, along with lots of other things to be viewed from the same spot. This spot turned out, bridge-wise, not to be nearly as good as I had hoped, but at least I now know this. I’m not going to die wondering.

Besides which, the Official Designated Destination is not justified only by how good the thing itself is. At least as important is what else it causes me to encounter, and I encountered plenty. If the ODD is a disappointment, the trip as a whole can still be great, as this one was.

Now that I am home, I did a little further image googling, and in among a mass of photos of the bridges of Quimper from ground level, with the nearest bridge almost entirely blocking the view of all the others, I found this one aerial shot:

I can tell you from the scaffolding that this photo, even though this is the first time I’ve ever seen it, was probably taken in 2006, because all my Quimper Cathedral photos when I went there in 2006 also had one of the Cathedral towers smothered in scaffolding. That was in September. My guess is that the above aerial photo was taken earlier that summer.

Tourisme Bretagne needs to get in touch with 6k. If he’s not free to photo those bridges from above, maybe he could recommend someone. Or maybe they could find a place towards the top of a building closer to the bridges whose owner would be willing to allow bridgists to come and photo all the bridges. Those bridges are a huge tourist asset, and they need to get them seen, and photoed by visitors, in all their glory.