Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

Tag: London (Page 14 of 15)

Life Goes On

30 June 2007 / / 13 Comments

After the terror attacks in London and Glasgow, there’s obviously been a lot of analysis and opinions flying around, from the mainstream media, security analysts, bloggers and the general public. Its interesting to see how most people are adhering to the idea that life should go on, and that these attempted suicide attacks should not provoke a draconian curb in civil liberties. To do so would hand the terrorists a victory.
For what its worth, I think Gordon Brown, Jacquie Smith and Alex Salmond have hit the right note, with their calls for unity and calm. Dave Hill seems to agree.
Over at the Devils Kitchen, Nosemonkey makes an interesting, if flippant point in the comments:

I believe in taking the piss when they cock up, and diminishing the status of the terrorist bogeyman. Terrorists exist to spread terror – make them a figure of fun, they fail, even if the occasional success does manage to kill a few score people and freak us out for a bit.

I’m not sure about making jokes about the attack, although I would suggest that the “life goes on”, “I’m not bovver’d” attitude also contributes to the diminishing returns of terrorist attacks in the UK.

Jagged Little Pill

4 June 2007 / / 4 Comments

2012olympics_logoSo, a new logo has been launched for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Lord Coe says it was designed to appeal to young people. I can only assume he means the knife-weilding, feral youths we hear so much about, for the logo resembles nothing so much as a pile of broken glass.
I do applaud the London Games’ committment to inclusivity and the inspiration of youth… but it is cringe-incuding to read the attempts by Tessa Jowell, Ken Livingstone, Lord Coe, Colin Moynihan (the Chairman of the British Olympic Association) and the IOC President Jacque Rogge to claim that the Olympic values are somehow embodied in the graphic design. A new logo can never do that – especially one as simple as that unveiled today. In fact, logos and brands only accquire their wider meaning, only become symbolic, after the organisation proves to the public what its values are, through its deeds. The colourful rings already have those positive associations, so it is odd that they are sidelined in the London 2012 logo, and that the bold colours are abandoned in favour of a tasteless blue.
The logo also comes in ugly pink, violent orange, and bogey green, but all versions carry a clashing yellow border. Lord Coe says that the logo will ‘evolve’ between now and 2012, and I predict that the demise of this outline will be the first ‘evolution’. This would leave a monochrome logo, which will become instantly more versatile.
And I don’t like the font either.
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That fabulous painted cavern

13 April 2007 / / 2 Comments

It was the rejuvenation of London in the late seventeenth century, after the Great Fire of ’66, which moulded the character of Westminster, The City, and West End through which I now walk. But to celebrate this mess is not to say that the London of today has become stagnant. The public, authors of the city, find new uses for old spaces.
Spectators watch the skaters and bikers
The skate park underneath the Hayward Gallery has become a much photographed hang-out for youths on two or four wheels. “That fabulous painted cavern” as a friend of mine calls it. In many respects it is just like the other venues along the South Bank, drawing audiences from out of town for a regular showcase of talent, visual and kinetic.

The Palace at Whitehall

12 April 2007 / / 1 Comment

From the rich and rewarding Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson:

The Palace must have been a single building at some point, but no-one knew which bit had been put up first; anyway, other buildings had been scabbed onto that first one as fast as stones and mortar could be ferried in, and galleries strung like clothes lines between wings of it that were deemed too far apart; this created courtyards that were, in time, subdivided, and encroached upon by new additions, and filled in. Then the builders turned their ingenuity to bricking up old openings, and chipping out new ones, then bricking up the new ones and re-opening the old, or making new ones yet. In any event, every closet, hall, and room was claimed by one nest or sect of courtiers, just as every snatch of Germany had its own Baron.

I suspect we have all encountered buildings like this at some point. Perhaps not as extensive as Whitehall, but still with that organic quality that tells us that the building has had more than one author. Another form of labyrinth, I suppose.
Quicksilver is packed with descriptions to the growing, evolving London of the seventeenth century. A city built around the river, for the barrow not the motor-car. How different to the meticulously planned New Towns of the United Kingdom, where soulless, empty roundabouts (with their obligatory crop of daffodils) take the place of the thriving ‘gates’ into the heart of the city.

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