Charles' London Architectural Journal 2009

Ok , sorry about that. It's the UK government's fault actually. Oh no, did I actually say that? But they are trying their best to dissolve and dismantle everything that exists in our society. Surely you dont expect me to just take it on the chin do you? You do? Oh, alright then....

Back to business. I dont like change. Even if it is for the better, I dont like it. So when I see change in London, I think, oh, they are just making changes for changes sake, or they are just trying to make a profit out of something and we have to live with the consequences. Dammit. I'm fed up with seeing work done everywhere, and most of it just ruins London. Take this cleaning of buildings: I prefer my London old buildings to be black with the soot of the past, and not sandblasted white to fit the modernist puritanicalisation. The soot stains on much of London's architecture is a great part of its character, and it's a shame that the brigade dont understand this. And yet the cleaning goes on. And on.

Here's another one: Substitute the word 'modernisation' with the word 'improvement' and we have a whole new dynamic, and a whole new excuse to spoil things. I keep seeing the word 'improvement' on many a naff project around London, and I think the word 'spoil' might be a better one to fit what they are doing. But until then, they will continue to 'improve' whatever they touch, and of course 'improving' is always a positive idea, although in this case its always a spin. This was wildly apparent when I viewed some road 'improvement' works around town, where major roads and junctions are paved over and pedestrianised, or pavements are widened so much that there isnt much road left the drive on. Same on the tube, as splendid old stations are 'improved' into typical euro style modernised traps, and this fad usually means a closure of a few years. Blackfriars tube station is the latest casualty. Lets hear it for another dumb 'improvement' scheme.

Ok, I'm not that articulate. And I'm very, very tired. Time... to.... go. Just a few more free newspapers to read before bedtime. Oh how I love these free newspapers.

Thanks for reading this. I hope you are well. Make love, not war....

Anyway, last night was Halloween, but more of that later. The bestest news of the last month that the well known scandal sheet, the Evening Standard, became a free newspaper. Wow. I must admit to not investing in a copy for some months years etc and I'm not sure so far if the editorial has changed too much. Something seems to be missing. But, it's good news at least. Free. Although with the end of the free newspaper wars London seems at bit more at peace now that the Kensington Towers now has the monopoly on all the free papes, and there are no more aggressive paper pushers anywhere in town. But it does mean we get 3 freebies with the same news in them, or what used to be available as the multi edition of the Standard, unless that still happens, I dont know yet. May I also put a good word in for 'City Am' free paper as well as the free 'Shortlist' magazine.

One thing that aint changed is the way that most commuters leave their papers all over the tube seats/floor/platforms/escalators when they've finished with them. Further degenerate behaviour manifests itself in the way that during rush hours the capacity of the tube coach is reduced by thick morons reading their free paper at arms length in front of them and tutting aggressively if you try and steal that same space. Idiots. I have on more than one occassion wanted to crush their smelly newspapaper and screw it up so that more people could get on the train. Grrrrrrrr! And the same goes for you bookworms too. If someone needs the space where you are holding your boring novel, then put the damn thing away in your bag! Grrrrr!

And so to Halloween, but more on that later. All I can say on London architecture this month is that I saw the insides of many a London pub and drank many nice glasses of real ale and wine. Horrah! Those old English pubs are just fantastic. The only problem with a nice pub night out is avoiding the lowlifes on the way home. Street violence. This is a frightened city. “Crime figures are actually falling” says yet another patronising politician. Oh no. I’m sure they have made London unsafe on purpose. Why? Er, not sure, but everyone is scared. Gansters rule the streets. Or is it worse than that? We all have this psychosis now and we think that we are all doomed. No law and order? I hear of too many people being prosecuted over trivialites, whilst the criminals go free. Yet at the same time, all this increase surveillance, CCTV, and the police are desperate to get everyones DNA. Everyone seems under suspicion. But try and protect yourself, try and fight off some marauder, try and stop some community care or drug addict nutter stealing your bag or car, then it will be YOU who will be marched off by the police. Who can you turn to? Who you gonna call?

Ok, it was Halloween, and I stayed in. Any why not? There’s nothing like a good night in. Apart from a great night out. Another pub or nice old wine bar. I saw a man and lady wearing those glasses, you know, with the wide arms on them, so you cant see whats coming at you from the side. I saw a nice pub lunch and a very nice cheese and pickle sandwich. There was lots of laughing and drinking and I read the barmat. Looked at the victorian architecture, thought that it was bloody great. Why dont everyone love victorian architecture? It’s fabulistic. Then, after all the drinking is said and done, it’s time for the chip shop! It’s bliss. So goodbye and thanks for reading... Goodbye!

http://londondestruction.angelfire.com

I dont know why it dont have any www's in the URL, but it seems to work OK. I'm still moaning on and on as to why Yahoo had to close down this site, they must have been making £££millions out of my and my readers. Oh well, so much for that. Pretty soon, the words you are reading will be lost in cyberspace, although they have been transplanted onto the new site, so up yours, Delores.

Now where were we? Oh yes, London's great architecture, whats left of it, is almost everywhere to be seen. Natural History Museum was one such appointment, to see this Butterfly House, a little roastingly hot tent full of pretty little flying bugs and tropical fawna. Fan bloody tastic. After that, it was another venture into the sad old main building to see this new Darwin Centre. Oh dear, what a horrible monster they have created, knocking down some old Victorian laboratories so that they could build some ovular white 100ft tall metal carbuncle full of dumb computer interfaces and patronising video screens. I was in and out in two minutes, as they say, gasping for breath, as they also say, feeling full of digust and in pain for those old and now demolished laboratories which made way for this ugliness. "We didnt want to be known as just an old Victorian museum" said the assistant. Well why not? ANYTHING from that great era is better than this. Darwin shoud surely roll in his grave if he saw this rubbish.

Back onto the good old tube. South Ken is still a big building site with Al Fresco dining in the middle of what used to be the main street. As usual, less road space means more traffic misery, not that they care, as long as they get their Euro 'Squares' etc. So on to the tube, which was quite pleasant. Seems to be going through a good spell, with less psychopaths around. Less beggars too, as I cant remember the last time I saw a quintet of accordionists. There was one man asleep, dressed in a suit, I think he might have been there since the rush hour, now slightly late I thought. Obviously needed the day off rather than rush in for some boring seminar. Someone else was eating a burger with chips, but urgh, the smell of McD makes one so queeezy.They were making quite a mess of it too, and I suppose the package ended up on the floor, but I left before the crime took place.

Just had to view the Trafalgar Square Forth Plinth attraction, where various performance arteeests or rather reality rejects were atop the plinth for an hour each doing something desperately surreal or non profound, only to be embarassingly taken away via this cherry picker and dumped off near this group of sheds. Enough of that idiocy. More importantly, I had the chance to view the insides of the Bank of England: Well, it's always nice to view places out of regular view. I enjoyed that very much, quite a contrast to that diabolical Darwin Centre. It's inevitably an age old interior of courtyards and decorated rooms, and you even get to see the Governors Office. Fab. Yes, the city still has some marvellous old buildings in it, much of it saved so far from those nasty developers. Keep away!

Now, dearest readers, Euston Arch is indeed in the news again, and it's more good news, where at long last moves are being made to resurrect the old girl, dredging out old stones that had been thrown into a canal, slowly making plans to correct the past evils that had seen the Arch trashed in 1962. The plans looked rather splendid, and the visualisations pleasant enough. Until I read that they intend to open a nightclub in its basement and a Bistro on its roof. Oh no! The poor old Euston Arch is back, but now fronted by a bulldog bouncer arguing with some teenage drunks with some TV chef swearing at his minions from the upper balcony. Good grief. My heart sank so low it touched the core of the Earth. Will they ever learn? Ok, maybe it’s a small price to pay, but I’m sure Betjamin would have something to say about this... Some kind of anglo saxon expletives, I should think.

Ok you people, thanks again for reading, see you on the new website, those of you who can find it. To those of you who cant, thanks for a great 8 years under Geocities. Goodbye everybody, goodbye. I love you all.

Actually, why the hell does your website host close down whilst you just don't have the time to move your whole website over to a new one? And I've been carrying their adverts for 8 years too, where's my cut? Damn it all.

Oh well, back to business, that being of the destruction of our lovable London. And as if to drown my sorrows, I was back onto the tube again, visiting many stations on a big photographic spree. On my travels I saw, somewhere, one of those 'knife arches' in a tube station forecourt, you know, a metal detector for knives. Police were channelling obvious suspects through the arch, like little old ladies etc, and then searching them like they were in an episode of the Sweeney. I didn't get thrown up against the wall and patted down rather dramatically, which is a shame really as it would have been fun to write about here. Maybe I should have done my 'Laughing Policeman' impression, ho ho ho etc to their face, and then got truncheoned. Or maybe not.

Yes, you people, I love the tube. It's like a real revelation of London life. A realistic revelation of revolting ramifications. Good grief.

Shame to see the death of one of the free newspapers available every evening but lets face it they were almost the same as each other with the same adverts. And with less papers come less fire hazards, because what begats the mindset of just dumping these papers anywhere and everywhere on the tube system? Why do posh looking commuters just throw free papers on the floor or hide them above the hand rail? I always bag my papers and read them later, then recycle them. I definitely don’t leave them in a large combustible pile at the bottom of the escalators. Goodness, some commuters are so thick. But with less papers around there will be less of the moronic masses reading them on the tube. Most tube coaches these days are very underfilled because people with outstretched papers and books take up about 10% of the standing room. Little twitchy fidgets who cant travel without their reading and mp3 player and food supply and sneezing. Ban it all. Yesterday, I'm in a sardine special tube trip, some absolute idiot crushed between bodies but STILL trying to turn the pages of his smelly free paper. I'm sure he must have left some printed images on people's white shirts.

Oh well, onto architecture, before I go or you all get bored to death. It's supposed to be the bulldozer time for the Heygate Estate near the Elephant, I'll be making a trip there if I can. Love the idea that Prince Charles got involved in the Chelsea Barracks thing, and I have seen the earth mounds that were once a cornerstone home to the empire's finest, beaten senseless by the developers. Program on TV called Saving Britain’s Past which has some good anti-Developer credits at the start but then goes on to be rather limp wristed, and this week was dedicated to that bunch of buffoons at English Heritage and their £multi million pointless gutting of some Sheffield sink estate. Oh gawd. At this stage I had not done a recce to the crossrail at TCR, has anyone been there recently? We don’t need Crossrail, we just need double tube lines for express tubes, just like in New York. Oh yes, and South Kensington is a mess, new road system, roads blocked off, what a waste of money.

That's all folks. Thanks for reading this. I love you all. Don’t forget to log the new URL. Bye.

Managed to escape to New York for a few days, and it always is rather refreshing. Architecturally stunning, and like London, has it's battles with developers, both now and in the past. Luckily, there is still so much that isn’t modernised, so I might suggest you get over there as soon as possible. There are so many backstreets that have houses so wildly decorated on the exteriors, absolutely gorgeous. Did the Rockerfeller Roof at long last, a fab view, but wait, why is most of the roof area interiors painted white. Were they never modelled in the height of art deco? I cant believe how dreadful it all was. And to cop it all, the 360 degree view at the top seems to have been trashed in favour of an elevator housing! Why? For access? Just how far do we have to destroy buildings in favour of this. Anyway, the Rockerfeller view made up for the loss, I suppose. Ok, maybe it didn’t.

I enjoyed the subway in NYC, as I do the London tube, and it really is a superb place to study a civilization and their most orderly behaviours. There is a lot more begging on the trains, a lot more impoverishment speeches to a captive audience. The gossip was great fun, those New Yorkers don’t mind revealing their life stories. Otherwise, I did a quick Ground Zero, praying in vain that they might still rebuild the WTC twin towers, only taller, and did the rounds of some Stanford White compositions. Ultimately, my groans centred around one item thats bothered me for years: Why, in USA public toilets, is there a big gap around the toilet door so that anyone can look in and see what you are doing? I’m getting fed up sitting there doing my er thing and seeing people staring in at me. I mean, its just not cricket at all, is it?

Meanwhile, back in blighty again, only to see that rain had stopped play again. It all looked rather gloomy. I was back in town, with toilets that were sealed against prying eyes, if you could find a toilet that is. I was indeed rather elated to hear of those pathetic Bendy Buses being withdrawn at last, those ghastly Euro things that nobody likes. It’s still a long way to go before we can rid London of all the other Euro nonsense. Wheanmile(!) I didn’t dare visit the Tottenham Court Road tube disaster area, aka Crossrail. I just cant look at that sick catastrophe. Heard we wuz getting a new Astoria type gig venue, but I’m not impressed. Onto the tube, nearly shouted “I’m back!” but instead nearly fell over when the tube driver ‘tried out’ his new brakes and made all the passengers fly forward in mass momentum. Idiot. Then we arrive at next stop, the same driver gives us five seconds to get off, lest he try and close the doors on someone’s head for not being quick enough. And this is what we used to have train guards for. Are we listening, TFL? No... Oh well, goodbye everyone, may you live long and prosper.