Public Address | Cafe | Muse: Postcard from London: Lines Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, May 25, 2012

Public Address

Sun, 27 May 2012 23:29:35 +1200

Discussion from blog post.

Juha Saarinen

Sun, 27 May 2012 23:29:35 +1200

3/5 for effort. There are, not there is.

We didn't really need to know about your caramel nuts being burnt either.

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 28 May 2012 08:18:25 +1200

Never mind – you should enjoy my tale of ticket office extortion at Tate Britain today. I fucking didn't.

DeepRed

Mon, 28 May 2012 11:13:15 +1200

While you're still in London, have you visited Senate House – the one made (in)famous by George Orwell?

Deborah

Mon, 28 May 2012 11:17:53 +1200

Very good, Craig! I can picture all of that, and it both makes me want to be there, and makes me want to run away from anything like the scene you paint.

ETA: Also, thank you for the postcard from Liverpool! It reminded me of a particular cultural experience there?

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 28 May 2012 17:26:26 +1200

While you?re still in London, have you visited Senate House ? the one made (in)famous by George Orwell?

Rather hard to miss – staggered past on the way to the British Museum if that counts. Please expect months of wailing and gnashing of teeth over everything you couldn't possibly do?

chris

Mon, 28 May 2012 18:09:22 +1200

Do you do a lot of things on the trot.

Fill your memory banks with colour. Sounds like you got good weather Craig.

Jos

Mon, 28 May 2012 18:12:32 +1200

Pics or it didn't happen

Islander

Mon, 28 May 2012 19:04:45 +1200

Craig – you may already encountered this place, But sir John Soane's house is a treasure trove. Entry free. A host of antiquities (let us not enquire how obtained) and the use of colours from Etruscan tombs – all the rage when he was building.
He was an architect, and?

Geoff Lealand

Mon, 28 May 2012 19:10:24 +1200

The building that Hitler had earmarked for his London HQ? I had a temporary office on the 4th floor when I was on sabbatical in 2007. Creepy building!

Rob Hosking

Mon, 28 May 2012 19:22:03 +1200

The last rays of the sun beautifully peep
Round The Eye the South Bank lion ignores still

A Waterloo Sunset? {also triggered because the original 'Lines Composed...' always puts me in mind of the song, and also because its magnificent]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M8hrmGQOHk&feature=related

Conrad Heine

Tue, 29 May 2012 00:22:39 +1200

Bear in mind that the extortionate ticket prices for temporary exhibitions (and the ripoff restaurants etc) at the likes of Tate Modern, Tate Britain, National Gallery, V&A, British Museum etc etc, to a degree subsidise awesome and free permanent collections. You'd have trouble filling four weeks, let alone, four days. This?

Craig Ranapia

Tue, 29 May 2012 07:31:19 +1200

Sure – but what I got fucked off about was having?

DeepRed

Tue, 29 May 2012 14:06:21 +1200

Please expect months of wailing and gnashing of teeth over everything you couldn't possibly do in four days. It's the question: Do you do a lot of things on the trot. or swallow hard and decide to spend half and full days somewhere?

I've heard it's also a bit like?

Jeremy Eade

Tue, 29 May 2012 15:32:12 +1200

London demands poetry.

Jeremy Eade

Tue, 29 May 2012 15:39:22 +1200

"I?m sure there?s many things more fair:
The smell of burnt caramel nuts drift by
As gaggles of giggling chavs seek their destiny:
This City does, like a sweaty garment, wear."

London has so many smells, all trying to break through. It's a cool poem. Well captured.

Steve Barnes

Tue, 29 May 2012 15:58:48 +1200

4 days in Los Angeles, on the other hand...

Beats an hour in Palmerston North.
And Craig, thanks for the delightful postcard of you and David on a bike.
;-)

Steve Barnes

Tue, 29 May 2012 16:07:33 +1200

As seen here.

Jeremy Eade

Tue, 29 May 2012 16:33:16 +1200

That's a picture of you and your dad man. Your Dad smoke and rode. Respect.

Islander

Tue, 29 May 2012 17:05:30 +1200

On an old situp&beg woman's step-through with half-chain guard too! Waua!
But – what is the contraption mounted on the front wheel?

Jeremy Eade

Tue, 29 May 2012 17:26:16 +1200

I wouldn't insure that guy.

Geoff Lealand

Tue, 29 May 2012 17:28:22 +1200

Looks like a Solex motorised bike to me. I used to see them toodling around Christchurch,

Islander

Tue, 29 May 2012 17:29:27 +1200

The kid is kind of vulnerable to chain-mangling too-

Joe Wylie

Tue, 29 May 2012 17:39:44 +1200

Looks like a Solex motorised bike to me. I used to see them toodling around Christchurch,
The one Solex pic I happen to have, from 2009 scooter run. Not made for hills.

Jeremy Eade

Tue, 29 May 2012 17:45:38 +1200

The english are crazy.

Islander

Tue, 29 May 2012 18:01:47 +1200

Not made for hills.
Nor anywhere else in ANZ except round v. flat ChChCh suburbs...
one of my brothers once made family history by running away to Oamaru (from North Beach!) on one – took him nearly a day & a half...

And Jeremy Eade? You are __not__wrong!
It's a kind?

Martin Lindberg

Tue, 29 May 2012 18:39:45 +1200

The english are crazy.

No argument there, but the photo is of Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati) riding the traditional French Solex moped.

Joe Wylie

Tue, 29 May 2012 18:43:05 +1200

Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati) riding the traditional French Solex moped.
As ably spotted upthread by Geoff Lealand.

Jeremy Eade

Tue, 29 May 2012 18:44:33 +1200

The French and the English , so close.

Conrad Heine

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:09:21 +1200

Ah. Didn't realise Tate had started using Ryanair opt-out tactics for walk-up customers. Sneaky.

Don't forget to visit the Soane (assuming you are still here).

Islander

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:39:57 +1200

O!
Even cooler!

Sacha

Tue, 29 May 2012 20:01:37 +1200

Tate

one for you, sir

Steve Barnes

Tue, 29 May 2012 22:51:44 +1200

And Even cooler!

The new electric bikes from Solex

Ben Austin

Tue, 29 May 2012 23:18:06 +1200

I also agree that the Soane Museum is one of the better London museums, although sometimes the queue can be a little long, but that is London I guess.

The Wellcome Collection opposite Euston is also an interesting space, although perhaps not for the squeamish

Lucy Stewart

Wed, 30 May 2012 23:18:47 +1200

I've heard it's also a bit like that in New York or Tokyo – 4 days is way too short. 4 days in Los Angeles, on the other hand...

You can just about hit the highlights in New York in four days, although that depends very much on your own?

Craig Ranapia

Thu, 31 May 2012 01:22:29 +1200

I reckon it?s always better to leave a city regretting you can?t stay longer, though ? the other option is usually regretting you stayed that long, and that colours the bits you did enjoy.

True enough – it took two thousand years and change for London to become what it?

TracyMac

Thu, 31 May 2012 11:10:06 +1200

It's actually a fairly nice building inside. Although I admit to wondering if the basements – which contain various labs, including a computer lab I worked in – had some interesting torture gadgets and electric shock machines behind the sinisterly closed doors.