Just around the corner from Molly Sugden's Hairdressing in E2 in London are these little oases of garden splendour. The former is a spectacular 'wall garden'. The latter a tiny corner plot which transforms a very ordinary and very urban road into a place to stop and marvel. A heavily pruned tree makes a perfect framework for a vertical garden of lovingly created hanging baskets surrounded by lush tropical greenery. It genuinely surprises and delights. Where space is limited, go up.
Well a white Christmas Eve anyway. Beautiful. A run out through the parks to Clough Lane to revel in the whiteness. Snow is transforming. It monochromes and simplifies and creates a sense of peace and calm. It accentuates and highlight structure and enhances the beauty of trees and shapes and hedges. It adds a crunchy, sensual, textural layer and induces stomping and jumping and snow angel making. Like sunshine it makes people smile for the sake of smiling. It makes dogs and people slightly hysterical and playful. It changes the pace of the world and forces a humbling slowness and carefulness. It is great and I wish we had more of it each year. Happy Christmas. x
The sublimely ridiculously splendid Muse have got all conceptually geographical on their latest album and tour.
Broadly speaking they seem to be encouraging a certain amount of insurrection to create a unified Asia and Europe and have very kindly written a national anthem for the new global superpower to use once created.
"And these wars, they can't be won, and do you want them to go on, and on and on. Why split these states, when there can be only one ... United States, Of Eurasia."
It is, I suppose, fairly unusual to be in a room of several thousand people leaping up and down and grinning broadly in response to the bombast and spectacle of an extremely loud and virtuoso rock band, whilst being simultaneously prompted to consider the Eurasian Heartland geopolitical theories of Halford Mackinder.
In brief then (and with thanks to this recent argument re a Eurasian defence policy for Europe). The European / Asian subcontinent is the world's axial super-continent. It has 70% of the world's people, 2/3 of the inudstrial output, 3/4 of known energy reserves, twelve of the world's great military spenders and all the global superpowers excpet the US. It should therefore unify as a global politcial entity and immediately appoint Matthew Bellamy as Minister for Cultural Alignment. Discuss.
Land of the beautiful
Originally uploaded by upnorthkid
Take fruit juice. Thicken it and call it nectar. Add a dash of haughty gallic flair and a splash of flirtation. Blend with some Toulouse Lautrec styling. Distribute via foodie stockists with a sweet nature. Et voila. From the Land of the Beautiful. Fruit juices with a French accent. French in a kind of Surrey meets Anglo Dordogne way methinks. But peachy nonetheless.
Feels like it could be a missed opportunity though. In the context of 'made here' style trends, where provenance denotes an actual place and a sense of 'accountability' - from and for a community - this feels like a very marketing version of provenance. A veneer of Frenchness rather than rootedness in place.
Leith Festival 2007
Originally uploaded by upnorthkid
The rather splendid Jonathan Mills, artistic Director of the Edinburgh International Festival, used his speech to the RCA as an opportunity to quote from the equally splendid Merleau Ponty.
"I am always inspired by a wonderful quotation from the French philosopher, Maurice Merleu-Ponty, who said, "just as places are sensed, senses are placed". He seems to describe perfectly the reciprocal relationship between the setting and the substance that exists at the core of a true festival experience; the buzz that emanates from having so many things happening at once; what a distinguished Australian colleague described as that "delicious indecision" of knowing one is surrounded by many, many exciting events and realising that there is no possibility of experiencing them all. The festival is a sensual, visceral assault."
Leith provides a sensual, visceral assault most days of the week. Especially when the wind's blowing from the sewage works on Seafield Road. But when the festival comes along it still manages to "weave a spell that stands in sharp contrast to the sameness of everyday life".
It's only just kicked off and already we've got a Fabulous Little Vegas to get our lunch in. Back at the day job we get to be inspired by other people's filmmaking efforts. Ballads of the Book I missed. (Doh). And there's a definite sense of delicious indecision from the rest of the programme.
Let's hope JM is in town.
Bigthingsonthebeach
Originally uploaded by upnorthkid
We live on the beach. A really good beach. The Guardian said so.
Which is brilliant in all sorts of ways. In a relaxing way where you come home and just chill out looking at the sea. In a smiling kind of a way where people come down here to enjoy a place we get to enjoy all the time. In a variety kind of a way where the sea constantly changes. In an intellectual Rob Shieldsy Liminal spaces kind of a way. In a toes in the sand breeze in your hair kind of a way. Its the seaside. Of course its brilliant.
Its just got even better courtesy of these people. Well those people and pretty much everyone who randomly walks past or has come down here to help build some pyramids. Yes. Some pyramids. Right outside our window where the front garden would be if we had a front garden instead of a beach. Is a big community project to fill up loads and loads and loads of sandbags. And make them into 3 big pyramids! Pyramids.
Its really hard to describe just how brilliant this is. They're going to look fantastic. Even the big pile of sandbags that got made before proper construction started looks brilliant in an 'imagine what would happen if we took things that get used for wars and disaster zones and used them for something cool' kind of way. Its involving all sorts of people in doing great sandy things. Kids climb them and jump off them. So do adults although I think some of them are doing it secretly at night. They're going to be there for ages and we can watch them sort of merge back into the sand. Its all very Andy Goldsworthy and exciting. We're about to go away for a week so we'll get to see them go from half built to complete when we get back.
Pics here once they get pointy.
Next year... A sphinx?
Automobile
Originally uploaded by upnorthkid
Cuba is the only country in the world to be defined as sustainable by the standards of WWF's ecological footprint index. It also performs very well on the United Nations Human Development Index. In other words the rest of the world should be looking to Cuba as a model for a better way to live.
We could start with transport. The trade embargo means very few cars and trucks get imported to Cuba. Lots of those that do get used in the tourist industry to make sure visitors get to drive the indlugences they're used to (well Skoda Fabia's anyway).
Which means Cubans are quite resourceful. There's a well organised system of lift sharing.
Those fantastic 50s automobiles that Cuba is full of are the result of tenacious rebuilding, recycling and reusing.
And the car doesn't rule. City streets, rural roads and the island's one 3 lane motorway are full of transport technologies from the last few millenia or so. Tourist Fabia's coast alongside 70s Ladas, 50s Buicks, Russian trucks from the last 5 decades, bicycles, solo horses, bike based mini taxis, buffalo and carts and classic pony and trap configurations. And its great.
So here is to:
1) Getting retro with our motor vehicles. Lets stop making and buying any new ones and see if we can make the ones we've got last another 50 years or so.
2) Applying the same logic to making the perfect mode of transport even more perfect. mmm
3) Reinventing hitch hiking as formalised lift sharing and putting these sorts of fringe activities at the heart of National Transport policy.
4) Bring back the horse as serious transport rather than expensive leisure. Lets see an extensive programme of investment in city centre stabling, hay distribution and a bit of joined up thinking between compost collection and urban allotments.
