Thames at Noight - Part 3: Saatchi invasion and Ben (Big)

What's sealed up tighter than a doomsday vault?

MY SINUSES.

BA
DUM
CHING
(?)

I swear I've gotten so worked up from the coughing, lack of sleep and general discomfort that I've nearly triggered my adrenal glands in my desire to destroy the enemy.

Until this horseshit passes - take a gander at what Norway has gotten up to. I honestly think it's fascinating.

Thames at Night - Part 2: London Eyeful

Words will come later when my skull drains enough to make room for them to appear.

Thames at Noight - Part...OH NO WAIT

So I think the Internet Gods don't want me posting photos. First, uploading through blogger stops working and now Photobucket (which I've been leaning on lately) doesn't want me to see my album due to their sloppy bucket-genitaled (I'd like to think neither gender wants their junk compared to a bucket) website master failing to do something he or she should have done.

What am I going to do? Write something of substance? Give some actual news you can use?

Well, okay.

The first thing to mention is that what I mentioned a little while ago, has yet to cease but by late next Friday I will be able to explain what's been "up". What I can say right now is that the doom quotient in the equation has been pretty much erased and that all* my genitals are still in a delightful, non-bucket form. Aside from the third cold I've caught in just under three months (what the HELL? I get sick maybe once a year, at least in before times), I'm feeling fine. I'm still going to be pretty busy, especially over this weekend, but I should be a bit better about correspondence.

I definitely feel that I am going to do up a list of things I have learned during my tenure in England thus far, since I finally feel that I have a sliver of authority on the matter. That being said, a lot of items on that list will probably be qualified as being London specific since in many ways this city is close to being a city-state. There is going to be a Negatives, or similarly named, component as well. The vast majority of this site has been a love letter to London specifically, England in general. After more than a year of this, I'm starting to feel somewhat disingenuous since I'm pretty sure I said this would be my record of experiences and observations - not a highly personal tourist pamphlet.

Plus I definitely feel like I've been mincing my words on the few posts where I have mentioned anything negative about England. This is mostly because I have friends and family who live in that country - gasp - that sometimes read this site. But since when did a similar dynamic stop me from criticizing anything Canadian? Let's push things forward then, shall we?

So I'm going to have a good think, maybe even write a draft and then slap it up in the next day or two. I will do my best to avoid hyperbolic exaggeration or watering anything down with one of the more popular bullshit milkshakes on sale in the intellectual emporiums.

*ALL OF THEM.

Thames at Noight - Part 1

I am in the mood to swear or otherwise be crude.
But will I?You may just get lucky.But then, you may also become unlucky!Really unlucky.Tune in next time to find out!

Addendum: I thought that my plurality of nerve-endings had been deadened enough by now that I was immune to whatever Google Image Search could render deep within it's lower intestine.

I was wrong.

*blurp*

Just a quick note - I'm headed down to Broadstairs now and I won't be back until late Tuesday. If you send me an email or whatever, I shan't see it until then. When I get back, I shall attend to the serious business of posting pictures from the Thames at night, Regent's park and other areas.

This is not a blog

The last little while I have taken approx. one (1) metric fuck-tonne (phoque-tunn) of photographs! Maybe you will get to see some of them?

It occurred to me the other day that though I have gone into the city to see Hyde or St. James park...I hadn't walked the twenty minutes it takes for me to get to what is my larger local park - Finsbury Park. I'd also had Finsbury on the brain a little bit since watching Cronenburg's new film, Eastern Promises.

The above was almost certainly a political satire sketch being shot since, two seconds after I took this, the flasher opened his jacket to reveal his being nude but for a large cardboard cartoon of Gordon Brown's face over his crotch.

I'd read in more than one source about how the film was supposed to show a different London than what the tourists see, than what generally gets shown in films set in London - particularly ones made by American film makers. Thinking back to Woody Allen's portrayal of London in Match Point, this made pretty curious - especially since I live adjacent to areas where filming took place, such as Hackney and Finsbury (and had spent my first month here living in the former).It was a Cronenburg film about the Russian mafia, so understandably everything was pretty dark. But I would say the film did follow through, with only one or two shots of the Thames and the Gherkin, while the majority of the film felt very authentic. I'd get into the story etc, but you can find plenty about that elsewhere. Suffice to say, for those give a hoot, I thought it was a fairly impressive film that delivered what it promised and succeeded in surprising me where it wanted to. Can't ask for much more than that!
Meanwhile, I'd go on but I'm rather tired from a night on the towne. One thing I don't mind sharing from it was that the first stop for my pals and I was an establishment that had decided to try and work around the anti-smoking bill which was passed several months ago. Why, it wasn't a bar...it was an art gallery that served drinks! Really, it was a hilariously decorated squat with a great bit of graffiti on it's front. I'm glad I got to see it, since disapproving folk have noticed and made some legal noises that will result in it's closure some time not too far down the road. The two spirited folk behind the place plan to just keep having fun while dragging their heels, then moving on to other fun ventures when the law eventually clamps down. I gotta say, I admire their spirit!

Tune in later when I post NOT A VIDEO

But for now....I've been told this game reviewer is just like me. Well, he made me laugh so I suppose I'll slap this up here and let you make up your own mind on that matter.

"Well he has a van..."

Two videos in one day! I know, I know...but this just made me laugh my ass off while nodding my head. It's not really a secret with anyone who knows me why I'd appreciate older guys who date teenagers to be a ripe target.

Plus this is a pretty cool sex-ed series. It's just a podcast now, but I think it would be a very interesting development to see it shown in schools.

The WGA's reasons for striking - explained

I just thought I'd do my part to help spread the good woid.

Progress or appropriation?

Or gentrification?

Global Warming Hearing on Youth Leadership

I found this pretty moving.

If you want to see other videos and read a lengthy article on the hearing, then head on over here.

South Bank Tour Part 3

People from Ottawa will find this character familiar (and maybe Toronto, has one of these shown up there?).If you want to just walk into the Thames, this is an option.

Addendum: It's Guy Fawkes day to day, but the fireworks have been filling the sky over Islington in the evening since Friday night. It was an odd moment on Friday when I first heard them, since local kids usually screw around with fireworks every once in a while anyways. "Man those kids are getting organized" I thought...

South Bank Tour Part 2: There is little unity in the following images

At lot of you may recognize the above as the famous place where Genghis Khan wrote all those show tunes.I don't know why, but I always fancy these guys as being super ornery and defensive at all times. Smoking cigars. Fondling their cousins in the back of the town hall they rented for the wedding. Listening to the radio and nodding their heads thoughtfully while waiting to get their hair cut.Some kind of crazy gunfight (or even crazier punch-up) needs to be filmed along this street and it's criss-crossing bridges.
If you live along the Thames in the heart of London (or a small offshoot of the Thames, as these people do) then it is required by law that on your tax forms "Income" line you write "Doin' just fine, thanks for asking".Those little square bits running alongside the people are printed all over with chronicles of Bad Things in Iraq. This is can case folk were not aware.
This was outside of a museum dedicated to Churchill and his wartime efforts (surprise). I just may have to return there in the near future.

User's Current Bean Status: of, Full

I just love...

...how THIS is actually, maybe, kind of happening?

South Bank Tour Part 1: Bo-ats

Yesterday I took along walk along the southern bank of the Thames, starting at London Bridge station (which is surprisingly far from London Bridge, given the name). I've once again remembered that I have barely touched upon London south of the river and so I'm going to try to get down there in the next while. Christ, I drank at Brixton's in Ottawa at least a dozen times and yet I've never been to Brixton! That has to be rectified.
The HMS Belfast.
The Golden Hinde.
Then we have this beautiful escapee from a Terry Gilliam animation. I found it in Hay's Galleria.