Sunday, August 31, 2008, 11:31 PM
Flew back from Germany this evening, and felt it was worth remarking on the evolution of security checks at airports. This time, the German official greeted me, frisked me, felt inside my belt, checked my shoes and then gave me a nice pat on the bum. That's the caring side of post 9-11, and frankly we should have more of this.[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 09:20 PM
I read with interest the news story about a white supremacist plot to assassinate Barack Obama. I'm very glad it has been thwarted.
Still, I was perplexed at their choice of target. Surely the man who has done more to undermine the notion of the supremacy of the white man is the current president, not the next one?
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Monday, August 18, 2008, 11:56 PM
It often gets said that you should take care when travelling late at night on public transport. Through a thick fog of booze and drugs, unsavoury individuals lurk within the shadows, blades and broken bottle flash under the weak, cheap orange gleam of streetlights, and fellow passengers are paralysed by a deep fear of getting involved in any ugliness. You're on your own, even if you are not.
And yet this is really simplifying things.
I rode the notoriously dodgy Silverlink overland train through North London for 18 months, very often late at night, and I never had an experience like the other day.
The other day I was travelling on the Silverlink (now named Overground) at about 11am back from a physio appointment in Hampstead and stumbled across a vision that could have easily emerged from one of Hieronymous Bosch's most gruesome paintings. Basically, whilst everyone who earned a wage was at work, the train was given over to a baying, mostly female crowd of carnivorous, drug-addled mums, vicious, drunken kids and fights just waiting to be had. There were face-offs for merely looking at each other, and the only peaceful-looking people were pensioners who had been welded to the floor by fear or dementia. Nothing bad happened, but then I realised that the brake on most nastiness at night is the idea that there are a vast number of able-bodied, good Samaritans out there. It doesn't always work, but its a decent deterrent.
So next time, you fancy a hard, blunt view of society similar to that portrayed by City Of God, you'd be best advised to go out when Richard and Judy is on. But you won't like it.
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Thursday, July 17, 2008, 08:13 AM
Right this very moment, I am sitting on the train to work (the joy of wi-fi), and opposite me is sitting a sleeping Japanese tourist. He is wearing a T-shirt adorned with UK national insignia - the royal coat of arms and a union jack. And beneath it all is spelt the word:
BIRTAIN
Has anyone heard of this place? I think this is a result of either the sloppiest ever piece of product quality control, or clothing from a new designer who takes irony to new and ultra-cool levels.
If it is the latter, then obviously I want one.
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Friday, July 11, 2008, 08:14 PM
I saw Jamie Lidell last night at the iTunes Festival in Camden. It really was a great show, but it had a frustrating side that demonstrated an interesting aspect to skill that I had last noticed in my 'own area' of photography.
Put in a nutshell, performers should learn that doing difficult stuff does not necessarily mean that it is good stuff.
Jamie Lidell is a horrifically talented musician with a voice so soulful, so good, it would give him a lead billing in Motown. He adds to the appeal by looking unexpectedly nerdy, like a database specialist going on a first date. He is confident, has a great band, charisma, but he also has an achilles heel...
His gig kicked off with his new hit 'Another Day', which is a toe-tappin' feelgood soul classic. This is the kind of song that would see you grab a random household object like an egg whisk or small child, and use it as a microphone. But hold on, there was an ominous-looking bank of laptops and dials on the stage, and the closer Jamie Lidell got to them, the more a feeling of foreboding crept across the crowd - surely he wasn't going to log on?
Sure enough, after only two songs, he bade farewell to the band and proceeded to develop a lengthy and self-indulgent sonic slurry of loops, yelps, beatboxes and harmonies, with the laptops sandwiching it all together to perfection. It looked tricky to do, but it was about as listenable as standing by a motorway during a hailstorm. Even his most diehard fans stopped punching the air in exhilaration. He got the momentum back when the band made a welcome return to the stage, but this tedious interlude had robbed the gig of greatness.
Same thing applied to me when I did loads of photography. I realised that people sometimes ignored shots that had been technically difficult, and complimented instead the mere 'snaps' that I had taken without giving the shot much thought. Initially, I felt they were mistaken, and put more effort into the technical stuff, but to no avail. Gradually, you have to learn that the stuff you put all your effort into can sometimes not be worth it.
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