As promised, pictures from the Barbican
area.
The view from the office. Note the BT telecom tower in the middle, in the distance. It right in the area south of Kings Cross, just west of Tottenham Court road and north of Oxford Circus. Generally it is an A+ landmark for knowing where you are in the areas just outside of The City (North of the Thames).
By and by, do let me know if pictures like this bore all of "y'all". It ocurred to me today that one of the reasons English sights (and England in general) appeal to me so is that there is a strong element of nostalgia from my childhood trips here. Not everybody went to England several times while still at the hyper-impressionable stage!
Meanwhile, this notice is up in most every tube and train station in London. I haven't entirely settled on how I feel about it. To see it in Canada I'd dismiss it as a terrible mixture of paranoia and an attempt to undermine the public's trust in each other. Like a lot of things in London, it brings me back to
1984 and the government's work to undermine bonds of friendship and family. But then I think of the more legitimate failed terrorist attacks and the one sucessful one (in London) in recent years and the matter becomes a lot more blurred.
The view from the office. Note the BT telecom tower in the middle, in the distance. It right in the area south of Kings Cross, just west of Tottenham Court road and north of Oxford Circus. Generally it is an A+ landmark for knowing where you are in the areas just outside of The City (North of the Thames).
By and by, do let me know if pictures like this bore all of "y'all". It ocurred to me today that one of the reasons English sights (and England in general) appeal to me so is that there is a strong element of nostalgia from my childhood trips here. Not everybody went to England several times while still at the hyper-impressionable stage!
Meanwhile, this notice is up in most every tube and train station in London. I haven't entirely settled on how I feel about it. To see it in Canada I'd dismiss it as a terrible mixture of paranoia and an attempt to undermine the public's trust in each other. Like a lot of things in London, it brings me back to 1984 and the government's work to undermine bonds of friendship and family. But then I think of the more legitimate failed terrorist attacks and the one sucessful one (in London) in recent years and the matter becomes a lot more blurred.
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7 comments:
I know you weren't a big fan of Brave New World, but one thing that novel nailed pretty hard was the manner in which individuals police one another. I've been doing a lot of thinking about this and am considering of finding a way of spinning it into my thesis as well.
1984 is quoted over and over again, and certainly there are elements relevant to England, but what about people watching and judging? It isn't just in the legal realm, either; watch others and note how they construct ideas of people they know and sort of discourage one another from reaching too high or doing anything 'rash.'
This is probably coming across as a strange conspiracy theory because I'm burned out from the exam I just wrote and the celebratory beer I downed in manly, inadvisable fashion. But hopefully, the nut of the tit is coherent.
Also!
Jon Stewart on the 1994 Dick Cheney interview, and Jon Stewart once again destroying the Republicans. The best part of the second link is that Jon starts off incredibly cordial, but very rapidly loses his patience. By a little over halfway through the interview, he's levelling charges in rapid-fire succession that his guest can't rebuke. I tell you, when that man gets emotional...
Addendum! It should be noted that Jon recently discovered that he was called a "phony" and mocked for his "sobbing" by FOX News (referencing his post-9/11 opening monologue). I - I guess that's reporting?
Anyhow, I had become desensitised to FOX's nonsense, but talking along with the man's clip and belittling him with sarcastic remarks ('Oh no, Jon, what should we do?!') on a supposed news program really takes the motherfuggin' cake. (They were mocking, of course, because how could Jon be torn up about the Twin Towers being knocked down a couple of blocks from where he lives if he's not currently supporting the War on Terror?)
Eyup.
Mmhm.
And to continue with my hideous spam, here's a sneak preview of the Stewart interview:
"Well, I think his argument would be: Things changed after September eleventh."
"But the space-time continuum didn't change after September eleventh!"
It just gets better and better!
Check out what Stephen Colbert actually posted at Dailykos.com. (He wrote the comment while on television.)
"You know what they call paranoid people like you?"
"Yeah. Perceptive."
There is unjustified paranoia and justified paranoia. Recent years nothing, London and England have had a long history of terror attacks well before they were in vogue with the rest of the world, so I think there is a certain justified paranoia in England (in the States too, for that matter, although I will argue that the manner in which said paranoia has developed in the States has been exceedingly unheathly).
Nice pictures as always.
Thanks for the links Shawn! After seeing that initial Cheney clip I was just waiting for it to get out and into the right hands.
And yeah, I gotta say Tom I do find myself think about the Irish stuff as well but thanks for the reminder. It's needed when you are neck deep in this hoo ha that can slowly but surely massage your mind until your ideas just slip over due to a kind of mental erosion.
While we're linkin' ahoy, this speech by Michelle Obama was pretty damn awesome: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/17/michelle-obama-speaks/.
Tom: Just remember what your odds of being killed in a terrorist attack are next to your odds of being struck by lightning!
-Slappy
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