Our new Penis

“It is said to be penile, which can only mean that there are some odd-shaped penises out there”

As an extensibility covered topic already, in variety of different media, from the news, blogs, the radio, talk shows, documentaries, public enquires, field trips, reports, general gossip, post cards, instagram, facebook, newspapers, journals, talks, lectures, whispers, poster campaigns, adverts, websites, hate campaigns, support campaigns, books, letters, walking tours, and bus tours, general fan fare and telepathy, the story of the Shard is enough covered that it need not have another joe blogger writing about it, but tuff, today I’m joe, and here it is.

To hate this building, you’ll need to shout a good resounding ‘Fuck off’, clear cut, decisive, and with resolute confidence to rumble the foundations (pun entirely intended) of this spiky spike. A polite ‘go away’ will merely dissipate onto deaf ears, and your irritations of this supposed penile giant will be forever forgotten. Even a disparaging article in the telegraph illustrating a consortium of well scribed gripes with the site is splintered by a mid article graphic showing their very own online poll suggesting their readers are in overall support of the shardy tall glass thing. Reality is, it’s a new London love affair, and theres no way of fighting it.

The biggest crime however is that this thing not only can be seen for miles, but most ghastly of all, say the English Heritage, is that it can even be seen from Hampstead Heath, god forbid. Our friends from English Heritage up hold the already widely held idea that they’re stuffy grey humpty nostalgic mufflers that seem to constantly act ruffled at the very sight of anything with an air of 21^st century. The world of English heritage is a world stuck 200 years ago. I do love a bit of nostalgia, but even better, is nostalgia riddled with a splattering of city fresh, something that chimes a brilliance of anything but the then.

With a healthy supply of bodies and comities keeping us in check, from the now unfortunately defunct CABE to national lobbyists, there’s a tiring incapacity for the policy makers to actually make any policy. Tea on they other hand they can make…Tea yes, policy no. Policy for the daring new is just a little beyond the tips of their fingers, beyond their whispers, instead it’s an open invitation for master Barrat to lay siege to the lovely and we’re left in a sort of modern day limbo, a step down from the stunning classical, three steps away from the elegant modern, and about twelve step down into architectural bollocks where Lewisham looks unpacked from an IKEA flat pack.

Whilst the Shard can arguably splinter a community of onlookers, from the haters and the admirers, to the political supporters, and the conservative poopers who wince over the numerous scout huts it could have easily have financed, it does stand as a glimmer of something brave. And that…that I like. But what of the folk that utter a consistent muttering of discontent, of those that put up with the constant hoo hah of gasps and gauping mouths, of silly plebs pointing in awe, and stuffy nosed pricks regurgitating endless anecdotes of it’s unfounded awesomeness, of it’s big leap forward to burst open the skies of the greater city of London, what of those that aren’t from the 18^th century, that still despise the white glassed frontier into the south.

There is no doubt that the sheer scale of the build undermines the cosmopolitan feel of this ancient city. The city skyline has lived with a certain rhythm that has been delicately chaperoned over the years. It’s been nurtured, moulded, burnt to a crisp, and bounded back with a character that no other city has. It screams a certain prowess that is accentuated by its quiet obedience. It hums along to the day to day activities of its inhabitancy, and delivers secrets from one street to the next, it waits patiently for it’s next visitor….it is utterly diverse, and in being so, utterly London.

On the other hand, The Shard shouts…and this seems to be brilliantly un-London, but maybe, just maybe, we're in need  of a good old shout.

This i fear, could go on for a while, so for snippets by people that know how to write, and are better informed than the whittled together shambles that is above, try the below.

Oh, and the top quote was from the Guardian too.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/apr/22/shard-london-bridge-irvine-sellar

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/architecture/9198020/The-Shard-the-only-way-is-up.html

Two hours in Victoria and this is what you get...

I’m walking around Victoria station, waiting at Charing Cross, lingering at Waterloo, sprinting up the causeway to London Bridge, drifting outside Euston, cursing my delayed train at Hither Green, yearning for shelter in the snow covered and blustery platform of Dulwich, I’m sodding bored, desperate, uninspired, emotionally shattered, and want anything other than to be peering into the WV show rooms that blight my view from Haywards Heath Railway station. One un-inspirational station to the other, they’re all different, they all have their place, and they’re all, frankly…rubbish!

There seems to be no respite from the dull drudgery that has found undisputed sanctuary around our stations. They stink of the same nothingness that is echoed in the Barrett home developments from the tips of Scotland to the seas of our southerly shores, to the…well, every Barrett home development seems to lack any sense of creativity. The word ‘new’ only seems to be chanted in their HQ when there is demand for fresh toilet rolls. As for charm in our stations, it is too few in our remaining depots and mainly to be located in the countryside and far reaching lines rather than our ringed suburbs and inner city stops which are frequented most…frequently.

This is where I’m quite confused…

 

Whilst I will heed and bow to the delights of St Pancras, glammed up for its new status as international stop point, a glitzy smooth and Sauvé entrance door to London central, it is our other grisly beasts, that while don’t have ‘international’ on their placards, play host to thousands of wide eyed travellers every day. For our international guests, it is these stations that they first lay eyes upon, it is the gateway to London and I couldn’t think of anything worse…well that’s a lie, I could think of plenty worse. Margaret Thatcher for starters, being water boarded for seconds, having your fingers chewed off by a starved mouse for thirds, buying a packed of wine gums with just green ones in for fourths…actually, maybe there are plenty more “worse” things…but then if I went on like this there would be no point to this hopefully point full blog...just a thought, loosing a company owned book on the train is pretty annoying.  

Back on the stations, there seems to be an overwhelming discouragement to have people waiting in a place that by is nature, asks you to wait. You wait for your train to arrive, wait for it leave, wait for you’re friends, your family, your colleagues, your girlfriend. You’re waiting for the faster train, the next train. You’re waiting more because a snow flake touched a near by stone…hundreds of people waiting.

So the logic of removing every chair, stall, bench, any horizontal service from knee height up that remains relatively clean, excluding coffee stained metros and old McDonalds’ cups, seems a little odd at first. But that’s just a small aggravation of an irritating repetition of unimaginative design executed by the lords of these grand warehouses. 

Trains, the journeys they took, the steam they bellowed into the roof tops, it used to be a place of wonder. Harry Potter doesn’t use an electrical, or even a magical powered train to transport him to Hogwarts, he jumps through a solid brick wall to take him to a magical hall of grand archways, Victorian brickwork, rich red carriages, and a gleaming, beastly, beautiful train that beats and shouts it’s way to its destination. It was an event! The buzz of the people about to board for their adventure away, luggage being hauled, people waving, crying, singing, falling, hugging, shouting, kissing amongst a rabble of others doing pretty much the same thing. It was a celebrated moment, and the magic shouldn’t be lost. 

It’s a still a moment to watch people arrive and depart. To see people leave forever, for a day, for a couple of hours, for holidays, work days, wedding days. But our love affair with the train, the station and the whole event has been ripped so unkindly away and we’re left with consumerist crap, from the Upper Crust, Nero, Burger King, Costa, everything that you can find every where else. 

Shame…

These places are the kings of golden opportunities, and we are most, and whole heartedly, steaming past them on our quest to be somewhere faster. Victoria station is reamed with places to have people stop and stair, to share a coffee, to linger with an old love affair, to delve into a book, to have one last lunch with a distant living brother. They scream out to host the tales you’ll one day bore your grandchildren with. Yet we allow them to host the very worst of what’s on offer…another chain store that promotes the age of the generic, and stamps in the face of the independent charm. I’m not one fore living in the past, but most adamantly not wanting to cherish the current.