The Dark Side...

Have resisted for a while.

But it's no good.

I have now gone over the 'dark side.'

Canary bird's eye view

It's been a funny week. Started a little strangely on Monday after work as I ended up at Shoreditch House to catch up with someone over drinks. About as trendy a place as I'm likely to end up at!

Rest of the week been busy with various things, including double checking numbers and preparing a 'death by PowerPoint' presentation for today.

So, in one of those bizarre things that happen, I ended up spending most of the day 39 floors high above London - another place I'm never likely to come to again! In the end it wasn't quite 'death by PowerPoint', but perhaps a mild coma... ;o)

With elongated travel due to various engineering works the day was long, but good - lots of bright ideas fizzing round and real thinking and discussion, all with the glorious view of London to my left.

Sheep to the right??

Last week the above diagram was in the order of service of the church I visited.

It's probably just me, but when you need a map to show you how to get communion...

A funny old game?

Forget the Premiership. Ignore the promotion and relegation battles in the Football League. You want a real end of season top of table clash? One where the winner will get promotion? One which is a genuine local derby with the clubs less than 3 miles apart? One which is a capacity sell out all ticket match.

Welcome to the sixth level of football in England. Welcome to the Blue Square South. Welcome to the Beveree where Hampton and Richmond FC hosts AFC Wimbledon.

I've been to numerous non-league football matches - but never an all ticket one, never one which was sold out well in advance. I've also not seen as many police at a non-league match!

A crowd of over 3,200 crammed into the small ground in suburban London. Hampton and Richmond are a small community club whose main claim to fame is that Alan Simpson, one of the writers for Tony Hancock, is the club president. AFC Wimbledon are the supporter trust club set up after the creation/move of the MK Dons. They have been swiftly moving up the non-league pyramid and could be back in the league soon. AFC are top of the table, Hampton three points behind and already guaranteed a play off place. In effect Hampton need a win, AFC could settle for a draw due to their great goal difference.

The result - in the end a fair 1-1 draw. AFC will be in the Blue Square Premier league next season - hopefully Hampton will make it via the play offs.

It's a world away from the gloss of the Sky Sports and international superstars - but it's real community based 'jumpers for goalposts' football. And all the better for it.

A river runs through it

Having spent a couple of days earlier in the week walking up and down the South Downs I decided to do something a little flatter!

So I got around to doing something I've thought about for a while. Took the train in to London - as I would on a working day - and instead of getting off at Vauxhall and turning right, I turned left and set off by the Thames.

Despite the weather being less than spring like - is was a dreadfully grey day in really flat light - what a wonderful stroll it was.

It was a walk of contrasts - the haunting mass of the old Battersea power station, the redevelopment of some parts, the industry by Nine Elms and Wandsworth, and the peace of Putney and Barnes.

A lovely walking corridor through the heart of London.

Website of the week

First there was Frozen Grand Central.

Then there was Dancing in Liverpool Street.

Now the Belgians are it as well...



Does anyone just go to a station to catch a train anymore??

New in Town(er)

The Towner Gallery in Eastbourne was a lovely little art gallery. Set in an old house in a park in Eastbourne old town it was a bit off the beaten track but contained a marvellous blend of Sussex inspired art and wonderful abstract and contemporary pieces. Its move into contemporary art was largely due to the period when its curator was William Gear, a well respected abstract artist linked with the CoBrA artistic group.

For the past couple of years it has been closed as it prepared to move to a spanking new Rick Mather Architects designed building. The new gallery - next to the Eastbourne theatres and just off the seafront - not only offers stunning views across the Downs from its cafe; it is stunning itself.

The opening exhibitions are a suitably eclectic mix. There is a 'people's choice' selection which shows the breadth and quality of the Towner collection and includes works by William Gear, Eric Ravilious, Julian Opie, Roni Horn and Wolfgang Tilmanns. The top gallery contains Nowhere Man by Ivan Navarro - the Olympic sports pictographs from the 1972 Munich games are redone using fluorescent tubes and their stark simplicity and beauty works surprisingly well.

The ground floor has some works by local schoolchildren that have been inspired by works from the collection. The other contemporary display is, frankly, dreadful and shows everything wrong with modern art - but that is a minor blip.

Overall the place is a joy - exactly the sort of excellent gallery many cities would be proud of - never mind a small south coast resort. Although it's had some coverage in the national media - including the Observer and Wallpaper - it would have had hugely more if this gallery was in London.

Definitely worth a visit - it is an absolute gem.

Going up the Downs

Have escaped London to the South Downs and the south coast for a couple of days and am using Eastbourne as a base - which is a bit strange.

At Easter 15 years ago I first came to Eastbourne as my grandparents were looking to move there and we looked at various flats. Eventually they moved down and I've got know Eastbourne quite well over the years. I've a soft spot for the place - it's not particularly glamorous or exciting and it has perhaps a bit of faded glory. However, compared to other UK coastal towns it's doing OK - its seafront has a lot of lovely architecture that, due to good use of planning law, hasn't been ruined by tacky shopfronts. Above all it has the coast on one side and the glorious South Downs on the other.

I'm staying at a new 'funky' hotel - it's the type of place that has sofas in the bar with throw rugs and scatter cushions with 'Peace' and 'Love' stitched on them. It's OK - a bit different and a welcome addition to the other older style hotels that cater for the pensioner coach party tourist crowd. I would say the demographic here is a lot younger than most Eastbourne hotels - and it's a 1 minute walk from the theatres and the wonderful new Towner gallery. But...

Like many of these newly redone hotels they tend to have thought about style and forgotten that hotels also need to function as such. Yes the key fob is cute (see photo) and a wet room is very trendy - but there is no shaver point and a wet room simply means that the whole of the bathroom floor gets wet after a shower. Other little things are annoyances - the room has a flatscreen TV, but it's fixed to wall and can't be swivelled meaning that you can't easily watch it in bed - which is surely one of the small luxuries of a hotel stay! Breakfast is lovely, a continental style buffet rather than a cooked breakfast, which is plentiful and great - pity the breakfast room is nowhere near big enough for a hotel of this size. All of these are minor - overall the hotel is fine and a welcome change from others. But that makes the little annoyances worse - with just a little more thought the place could be wonderful.

Mind you - the trendy decor and scatter cushions look great now, but in 2 years will look dated and in need of overhaul. I mean cushions with 'Peace' and 'Love' in the hotel bar!?! Really...

Something smells fishy...

Below is a photo from yesterday's Guardian - I couldn't find a weblink so I've scanned it, hence it's quality.

The person circled is the officer alleged to have pushed Ian Tomlinson. Looking at the whole photo various questions need to be asked;

• several officers are wearing balaclavas, why? It wasn't cold on the day and they are already wearing full riot gear helmets so why the need for the balaclavas? If protesters wear them - or masks or hoodies - they are asked why - the same applies to the police,
• the officer circled doesn't seem to be wearing his identification number on his shoulders, why? Without these how do we even know he a police officer?
• the various incidents took place outside the Bank of England and Royal Exchange. This is in the heart of the City of London where there are numerous CCTV cameras - both public and private. Either the CCTV cameras will easily and quickly establish the chain of events, or this will prove that the headlong rush in to CCTV cameras is a waste of money and false investment as they will either be looking in the wrong direction, been deleted, or not be of sufficient quality,
• since February is has been an offence to film or photograph a police officer in a manner that might be of use in terrorism. Thankfully public order law was used re these demonstrations but given the wide use of terrorism law - most notoriously used to seize the money in Icelandic banks and when I last looked Iceland wasn't a hot bed of terrorism - will such filming be allowed in the future? Without an American trader happening to film this incident we may never have known about it.

We are repeatedly told when new laws are introduced that "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." This also applies to police - more so as in the UK there is the tradition of policing with the consent of the people.

Overall, something smells fishy - and in the words of Blackadder "I'm not just talking about the contents of Baldrick's apple crumble."

This story "has legs" - watch this space - more is going to come out...

Dress down Wednesday

One of those strange diary quirks meant that I had a meeting first thing this morning in the City of London.

The train was standing room only as normal but the Waterloo and City line, though busy, wasn't rammed. About halfway rumbling along the drain I looked around and it dawned on me - not a single person, male or female, was in a suit. The order of the day seemed to be casual trousers, smart jeans, fleece top or North Face jacket. It was the same at Bank station - though busy I spotted only one commuter suited and booted.

Walking to my meeting I passed the Bank of England (crush barriers ready) and the RBS offices - noticing that unlike many store and bank fronts it wasn't boarded up. The only people sporting shirt and ties seemed to be the various doormen and security guards who were very fastidiously checking people's passes before letting them in the buildings. Leaving the meeting at 10.30am I head to Liverpool St station - it's really quiet and I get the tube no problem.

I've always liked the contrasts of the Square Mile - Monday through Friday it's all hustle and bustle, and at weekends very quiet, empty and peaceful. Today was different still - it was fascinating to see how the whole atmosphere of the place changed for the better, on the tube and as people walked to work, simply because virtually everyone had 'dressed down'.