Tag Archives: London
London Bubble Thing To Embarrass Chinese
With only a sellotaped-together five pound note and a few coppers in their pot, the silly British are on the look out for some scam to make the London 2012 Olympics slightly less rubbish than it is definitely going to be. Cursing their luck that they agreed to do it just before the biggest recession man has ever seen, the British Olympic Committee has deigned to invest in a bubble platform thing that will blind people to the fact that China’s Olympic celebration will make Britain’s effort look like going round your Gran’s for a cup of tea and one of her rock buns. 
Whilst Granny’s rock buns hold a fascination for many, they are nothing when compared to China’s birds nest extravaganza. The new bubble thing will have data and images projected on it, and will enable people to climb a tower and lounge around a viewing platform. Lots of things in the sky so people don’t look at the balsa-wood swimming pool and the match-stick arena.
Distraction is the name of the game here, and much like an old Cockney pickpocket, the London Olympic Committee know the only way to thrash the Chinese at the Olympic Game, is to create a massive bubble decoy, so no one notices that the world should not have given us the bloody Olympics.
Wales Gets Trains
Ok, they’ve had them for a while – although it might surprise some. The big news today is that the government is going to spend 1 billion pounds on electrifying the railway line between Swansea and London.
According to a guy called Lord Adonis (cool name, but the man himself is arguably the anti Lord Adonis): “With the electric trains you get a quieter, cleaner, more reliable and much cheaper train which benefits passengers and it also benefits the taxpayers because it’s much cheaper to keep an electric railway going”.
The news will be exciting for people who like trains. It is generally accepted that the British really need to move from road to rail – but some might argue how it can reasonably be achieved when the cost of travelling on the train system is comparable to that of using a car. When private companies run these systems it might be argued that the focus is on short term profit rather than long term advances in public transport.
Can private enterprise really bring about the technological improvements required to give Britain the sophisticated transport system is needs? If you look at al the big developments in transport, they are catalysed by government. The tilting train that graces so many of our train lines was actually an invention of the then state-owned British Rail. Margaret Thatcher took the decision to scrap BR’s attempts to develop the tilting train – and forced it sell the concept to an Italian firm.
Now the Italians, having perfected the tilting system, are essentially selling us back our own invention. The point is that only large scale state funding can really advance transport. Would Concorde have ever existed if it wasn’t backed up by the British and French governments?
Gay Pride 09
If you like loads of gays and loud music, then London’s Gay Pride celebrations are where you should have been on the 4th of July.
If you’d just had a row with your missus and thought that the fine architecture and well stocked galleries of central London might provide some respite – you’d instead be confronted with Boy George, The Cheeky Girls and burlesque dancers exposing their nipple tassels to Leicester square.
I soon stopped berating myself for not checking the Time Out website though, as it turned out the whole queer atmosphere was actually pretty impressive.
It does seem that London, having experienced these events since the sixties, is extremely comfortable with having drag queens wearing huge union jack ball gowns sauntering around Trafalgar Square – and totally fine with all manner of obscene photo opportunities taking place around nearby Leicester Square.
The normally well guarded fountain pools overlooked by ‘Kiss Me Hardy’ Nelson, were jammed with inebriated lesbians, chock full of battered queers – and sprinkled with a few straights, perhaps trying to absorb some gay credo.
Exasperated security men attempted to remove them, but it took several more hours before the party goers dispersed. The whole pink throbbing gay mass was overlooked by a sensible-looking Big Ben at the other end of Whitehall, the late sun illuminating it’s imperial clock face.
Even St Martin-in-the-Field sported the gay flag, adding to the permissive atmosphere of this rampantly energetic event. Up the road and round the bend Piccadilly Circus told a similar story – with the roads closed there was a vibrant mixture of full-bodied American tourists, aimless drag queens and snap happy Japs.
With deserted cinema foyers and theatre goers wielding cut-price tickets – you got the impression that few folk wanted to be indoors on a day as gay as this.
