Interesting to read that GQ - I think that used to stand for "Gentleman's Quarterly" - is the last lad standing in the mens' mag quarter of UK magazine publishing.
This was one of those annoying laudatory articles in the ES business pages about GQ editor Dylan Jones marking his 15th year in this distinguished seat.
I used to think Jones was a good man, one of the 80s lot who stuck to magazine journalism, and one who clearly deserves much respect for creating jobs for loads of journalism graduates.
But reading this piece, I began to wonder. He is the last man standing in this world of glossy men's magazines, and he has to hold up the side. He is dismissive about sponsored editorial, though admits it provides some useful work for "unemployed journalists". Among his top half dozen distinguished contributors is Blair's former pr man Alastair Campbell, who seems to be going back to his journalistic roots.
Well, yes, I know what he means there. As an unemployed journalist, I have worked for all sorts of sponsored pages in all sorts of publication. It makes me ill to remember this.
But then he's also on the offensive about Russell Brand and his remarks about Hugo Boss.
He thinks it's a bit off of Brand to bite the hand that gave him first class travel and luxury accommodation in LA. Brand bites hands. The Boss story is a bit more complex as we probably - as citizens of a country that, up til 1939, fell over itself to sell nice cars and clothes to the leaders of Europe's fastest-growing economy - know to our shame.
Depending on whether you read this article online or in print, you will come away thinking Mr Jones is a genius at wall-sitting. His views on PR seem to be more fully explained in the web version of this interview.
But the thing that really comes across is how much like a champion boxer Mr best-dressed Dylan Jones can be. How he jabs at his target, then pulls back. At least, he says of Mr Brand, "no-one died".
You know something is happening here….etc.
Spinning happily at thirty-three-and-a-third revolutions per minute, not wanting to stop
Wednesday, 15 January 2014
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
Baldrick's London knicker-twist
Arise, Sir Tony Robinson, to accept the Microgroove Award (2014) for the most easily missed non-sequitur on British radio in this year of our Lord, 2014.
The famous actor was being interviewed by diamond geezer Robert Elms for his weekly "Listed Londoner" feature on the BBC Radio London mid-day show.
Having talked at length about his favourite bits of London, his favourite buildings and open spaces, the Baldrick actor then asserted, without any particular irony, that he was a north London bloke through and through, and that in his opinion, south London was something of "a contradiction in terms".
A question or two later, he is asked to name his favourite London film, book or play. He chooses John Lanchester's 2012 novel, Capital. The novel, he said, gave him an insight into the new London, the city of hedge funds and the meeting of extreme wealth and dire poverty, and of clashing ideologies.
So, Capital is clearly a powerful novel, the quintessential early-21st century London novel? But it is almost entirely - and very specifically - set in south London. South west London. Well, Clapham, if you must know.
The famous actor was being interviewed by diamond geezer Robert Elms for his weekly "Listed Londoner" feature on the BBC Radio London mid-day show.
Having talked at length about his favourite bits of London, his favourite buildings and open spaces, the Baldrick actor then asserted, without any particular irony, that he was a north London bloke through and through, and that in his opinion, south London was something of "a contradiction in terms".
A question or two later, he is asked to name his favourite London film, book or play. He chooses John Lanchester's 2012 novel, Capital. The novel, he said, gave him an insight into the new London, the city of hedge funds and the meeting of extreme wealth and dire poverty, and of clashing ideologies.
So, Capital is clearly a powerful novel, the quintessential early-21st century London novel? But it is almost entirely - and very specifically - set in south London. South west London. Well, Clapham, if you must know.
Friday, 10 January 2014
The fickle world of flickr stats
I've been posting photos on flickr for about 6 years now and have accumulated up a solid group of friends and contacts around the world. We check out each others' photos and as often as not click on "favourite" and often write a comment or critique.
There's a real core of mutual loyalty, and some of my "flickr" friends would certainly be real friends if they lived a bit closer. In fact I've met several of them and hope to continue with this.
In all this time I've posted over 650 photos which together have received 77,000 views, a modest enough total in the internet world.
But this time last week I had had less than 65,000 views. Just one photo, posted on Monday, has been viewed nearly 11,000 times in three days.
Normally I am very pleased if a photo gets more than 50 views, and if two or three people, usually those reliable old friends, add it to their favourites, I am even happier. Some pics get no views and no fans at all.
But this picture already - which you can see here - has over 100 "favourites"- most of them from people I have never encountered before.
So, what is so good about it? That is what puzzles me. It is a scan of a black and white photo of a railway station (Sanderstead, near Croydon, 12 miles south of London) I took back in the late 1970s. The station was near my father's house and I had gone to help him (and his dog) get the train to Uckfield in Sussex, where he was visiting old friends.
The photo shows the train just driving at the platform, with, in the middle ground, a large middle-aged lady with a middle-aged lady's hair-do seeming quite oblivious of the approaching train. Just behind her another lady, also in middle-aged drag, is reaching for her bag.
The train itself is uninteresting to me - an old diesel-powered four-car unit of the sort that British Railway's Southern region used for commuter routes that had yet to be electrified.
It's not a particularly good photo technically - it is self-developed and bit too contrasty, and just not as sharp as I would have liked. It is also, as I now realise, slightly crooked.
But there's a bit of detail and the composition is easy on the eye.
Also, I think, it has a slight air of mystery, and of belonging to a lost past, so I posted it in that spirit.
I must have been Tuesday evening when I noticed it had over 700 views - the most I'd ever had for a photo, and all in a day. There was a message from a railway enthusiast and that struck me as the clue. One of my more popular early photos was of Stockwell Bus Garage (a beautiful bit of modern architecture just down the road) - and it was then I realised that transport enthusiasts of all types are among the most enthusiastic internet users.
I even had a message from a former train driver who actually worked this routed back in the 80s, another indication of the brilliant reach of flickr.
And all that without even tagging the pic or offering it to asny of the relevant groups.
I all happened (I soon realised) because th epic was selected by flickr staff (I suppose) for its "Explore" feature, a gallery of what the manamgement think are the most interesting pics of the day. But the time I realised this my pic was already deep down under a pile of hundreds of other explored photos - but sure enough, there it was.
And soon I had a request to add it to an "explored photos" group, which I did.
Today, it has all gone quiet again. This massive flurry of visitors disappeared as quickly as it arrived. Not many of them, judging from the stats of surrounding photos, looked at much of my other work - but why would they?
I was touched by how friendly and appreciative so many total strangers seemed to be - and no, it turned out the majority were not train buffs at all, just people interested in slightly strange, oddball, unusual photos.
Well, I suppose it makes a change from the sunsets and the cats and dogs.
For all of what to me seem retrograde developments of the website, I still love flickr, mainly because of the people I have met there.
I've used other photo sites but always come back here, and will until they make it physically impossible for me to post my scratchy dusty old pictures. Thanks.
There's a real core of mutual loyalty, and some of my "flickr" friends would certainly be real friends if they lived a bit closer. In fact I've met several of them and hope to continue with this.
In all this time I've posted over 650 photos which together have received 77,000 views, a modest enough total in the internet world.
But this time last week I had had less than 65,000 views. Just one photo, posted on Monday, has been viewed nearly 11,000 times in three days.
Normally I am very pleased if a photo gets more than 50 views, and if two or three people, usually those reliable old friends, add it to their favourites, I am even happier. Some pics get no views and no fans at all.
But this picture already - which you can see here - has over 100 "favourites"- most of them from people I have never encountered before.
So, what is so good about it? That is what puzzles me. It is a scan of a black and white photo of a railway station (Sanderstead, near Croydon, 12 miles south of London) I took back in the late 1970s. The station was near my father's house and I had gone to help him (and his dog) get the train to Uckfield in Sussex, where he was visiting old friends.
The photo shows the train just driving at the platform, with, in the middle ground, a large middle-aged lady with a middle-aged lady's hair-do seeming quite oblivious of the approaching train. Just behind her another lady, also in middle-aged drag, is reaching for her bag.
 |
| This rather unexciting photo got me 11,000 views and 100+ favourites on flickr. Why? |
The train itself is uninteresting to me - an old diesel-powered four-car unit of the sort that British Railway's Southern region used for commuter routes that had yet to be electrified.
It's not a particularly good photo technically - it is self-developed and bit too contrasty, and just not as sharp as I would have liked. It is also, as I now realise, slightly crooked.
But there's a bit of detail and the composition is easy on the eye.
Also, I think, it has a slight air of mystery, and of belonging to a lost past, so I posted it in that spirit.
I must have been Tuesday evening when I noticed it had over 700 views - the most I'd ever had for a photo, and all in a day. There was a message from a railway enthusiast and that struck me as the clue. One of my more popular early photos was of Stockwell Bus Garage (a beautiful bit of modern architecture just down the road) - and it was then I realised that transport enthusiasts of all types are among the most enthusiastic internet users.
I even had a message from a former train driver who actually worked this routed back in the 80s, another indication of the brilliant reach of flickr.
And all that without even tagging the pic or offering it to asny of the relevant groups.
I all happened (I soon realised) because th epic was selected by flickr staff (I suppose) for its "Explore" feature, a gallery of what the manamgement think are the most interesting pics of the day. But the time I realised this my pic was already deep down under a pile of hundreds of other explored photos - but sure enough, there it was.
And soon I had a request to add it to an "explored photos" group, which I did.
Today, it has all gone quiet again. This massive flurry of visitors disappeared as quickly as it arrived. Not many of them, judging from the stats of surrounding photos, looked at much of my other work - but why would they?
I was touched by how friendly and appreciative so many total strangers seemed to be - and no, it turned out the majority were not train buffs at all, just people interested in slightly strange, oddball, unusual photos.
Well, I suppose it makes a change from the sunsets and the cats and dogs.
For all of what to me seem retrograde developments of the website, I still love flickr, mainly because of the people I have met there.
I've used other photo sites but always come back here, and will until they make it physically impossible for me to post my scratchy dusty old pictures. Thanks.
Wednesday, 8 January 2014
Needled by Twelfth Night Christmas tree massacre
It must have been the second Saturday in December, around 3pm, that sales of Christmas trees in the middle class suburbs of inner London reached their peak.
That day - spruce Saturday, you might call it - young single people and foreigners watched in amazement as smart-casually dressed dads staggered back from the local tree market with a six-foot spruce, sealed inside a sort of giant tree condom, over their shoulders. As often as not they would have cheerful children skipping along beside them.
What a great day for family values - the first big event of the English christmas, decorating the tree en famille.
What a great day for the sellers of these trees, which this year seemed to range in price from about £20 for a tiddler to well over £50 for a grand spruce with guaranteed stay-on needles. Maybe not such a great day for the trees themselves - though the debate over the ethics of Christmas tree cultivation seems to have died down, except on the UK hippy website. Anyway, in places like these - Dulwich, Blackheath, Greenwich, Herne Hill, Clapham, Balham, Battersea, Wandsworth - a healthy proportion of these trees will be "ethically sourced".
Last Sunday was the inevitable, sad sequel to this heartwarming story, the day of the expulsion of the spruces. It wasn't even Twelfth Night, but it was close enough. Monday morning's early commuters cursed their way to the tube station, as their normal route had been turned into a fir-forest obstacle course by all the big and little trees thrown out onto pavements, then blown around by the overnight gales.
A quick glance down this street revealed probably two grand's worth of trees, abandoned in their prime, less than a month after they were so warmly received into their owner's homes. Most seemed in good condition, and some even had bits of tinsel wrapped around the needles.
A sad story, but then these are not the sort of trees anyone would want to hug. On the other hand, there's at least one better way to re-cycle your old christmas spruce - feed it to the lions of Linton Zoo.
Lambeth's latest recycling idea is rubbish!
They appeared a week before Christmas, like a litter of unwanted puppies, clustered around the big wheelie bins outside each house in the street.
These mini-bins were about a foot tall and had big folding handles like a supermarket basket. When you opened one you found an even smaller grey plastic bin inside, Russian-doll style - and an explanatory leaflet from the good people at the London Borough of Lambeth.
Only those with the time and patience to study this 12-page document will learn the full and proper use of their new food waste bins. You also learn that the mini-bin inside is more accurately named your "kitchen caddy".
And that you are supposed to line this with the free starter pack of caddy-liners provided by our generous council. Sadly, these were not evident on our doorstep.
And that, when full, you put the caddy into the outdoor food waste bin which is lockable and supposedly rodent-proof.
Unfortunately, over that much extended Christmas holiday period, all four of our food waste bins have vanished, whether into flats or into some fly-by-night bin thief's van, remains to be seen.
Of course it's an exemplary green initiative, and apparently we all asked for it. And once we all get down to composting all our food waste (but not fats and liquids, please) we obviously won't need so much black bin space.
Such is Lambeth's faith in our conscientious approach to re-cycling they already removed our five large wheelie bins (one for each flat) and replaced them with one, only very slightly larger new bin.
The bin was emptied on Friday and full again by Sunday night. And that is with only half the normal occupants of these flats in situ.
Sorry Lambeth, but who exactly was it who asked for this new service? How much didi it cost, and will it be policed?
Because if noty, I fear there's going to be an awful lot more mess around here. Sadly, many of the young tenants of flats in this area are working 18 hour days in the city. Back home they often binge on take-aways and tinnies. Their idea of recycling is to put all the packaging and leftovers back into the takeaway bag and leave it on the pavement. The foxes get fat on this stuff, but they are almost as messy as the the yuppies upstairs.
Oh well. All this and yet I still prefer living in Lambeth to the brighter borough just down the road.
These mini-bins were about a foot tall and had big folding handles like a supermarket basket. When you opened one you found an even smaller grey plastic bin inside, Russian-doll style - and an explanatory leaflet from the good people at the London Borough of Lambeth.
Only those with the time and patience to study this 12-page document will learn the full and proper use of their new food waste bins. You also learn that the mini-bin inside is more accurately named your "kitchen caddy".
And that you are supposed to line this with the free starter pack of caddy-liners provided by our generous council. Sadly, these were not evident on our doorstep.
And that, when full, you put the caddy into the outdoor food waste bin which is lockable and supposedly rodent-proof.
Unfortunately, over that much extended Christmas holiday period, all four of our food waste bins have vanished, whether into flats or into some fly-by-night bin thief's van, remains to be seen.
Of course it's an exemplary green initiative, and apparently we all asked for it. And once we all get down to composting all our food waste (but not fats and liquids, please) we obviously won't need so much black bin space.
Such is Lambeth's faith in our conscientious approach to re-cycling they already removed our five large wheelie bins (one for each flat) and replaced them with one, only very slightly larger new bin.
The bin was emptied on Friday and full again by Sunday night. And that is with only half the normal occupants of these flats in situ.
Sorry Lambeth, but who exactly was it who asked for this new service? How much didi it cost, and will it be policed?
Because if noty, I fear there's going to be an awful lot more mess around here. Sadly, many of the young tenants of flats in this area are working 18 hour days in the city. Back home they often binge on take-aways and tinnies. Their idea of recycling is to put all the packaging and leftovers back into the takeaway bag and leave it on the pavement. The foxes get fat on this stuff, but they are almost as messy as the the yuppies upstairs.
Oh well. All this and yet I still prefer living in Lambeth to the brighter borough just down the road.
Friday, 3 January 2014
Nine Elms disease revisited: welcome to the seriously bland quarter
The killer tower now has stupid stripes of white lights all the way from top to bottom, making it look even more like a giant AAA battery stuck into the Thames mud.
And the developers have revealed their master plan, complete with the obligatory 3D computer visualisations of the finished project.
What's it like? Well, when even the local free magazine, Battersea Time & Leisure, damns it with the faint praise that it was "a pretty model…But a new Southbank? It just didn't look, well, cult enough"- you realise we're in for something amazingly dull.
The editor of this mag, whose revenues come mainly from the estate agents who will be flogging these flats for millions and millions, is being quite bold here.
Not that the property men will care - they know that their customers would much rather buy into something safe and secure, bland and convenient and comfortable, and certainly nothing like the real Southbank, which as I recall has relatively few luxury apartment blocks and lots of great big buildings devoted to theatre, music, art and cinema.
But we must withhold judgment - any investment in art and community has to be good, and even if it's just lip-service, or just a veneer, it could still do some good. Apparently the RCA is involved and maybe Testbed as well. If they could get the Battersea Arts Centre on board, with all its attendant philosophy of arts for everyone, pay what you can afford, then we might be a bit less sceptical.
Anything that might lure the young and penniless into this zone of the super-rich and powerful could be a good thing. Maybe a new skate park, graffiti and all, will develop here to make up for the one currently on its last days at Southbank…
Anyway, enjoy those green river views here at the nineelmslondon.com website.
Thursday, 2 January 2014
An Ambridge too far: will Radio 4 be the death of me?
I suffer from what I believe is quite a rare long-term ailment.
I am addicted to BBC Radio 4, but I am allergic to its most popular show, The Archers.
The addiction goes back to the early 1970s, when, as a trainee house-painter with a Grundig transistor radio, I became hooked on the afternoon classic serial. That summer, it was War and Peace in 13 one-hour instalments.
Even now I feel distinctly unready to face the day without at least half an hour os so of the Today programme. Best of all are the wonderfully eclectic current affairs programmes such as From Our Own Correspondent, which can range from the quality of espresso in central Roman cafés to attempts to abolish female genital mutilation in Sudan within the 45-minute span of one programme.
Nearly all the book adaptations are worth a listen - Book of the Week etc. it is such a good way of keeping up with new publications. I find the news programmes increasingly annoying and rtepeptive yet I still listen. Woman's Hour is a love-hate thing for me, all those splendid Oxbridge feminists and their very right-on guests, the earnest yet "ballsy" jazz chanteuses. It's a wonderful programme, including the cookery and the obligatory items on penis size, etc.
And then, twice a day, comes that dread sound - the most annoying theme music ever written. The Archer's tune must be solely responsible for the famous British glom. ANy nation exposed to that hideously jolly little shanty four times a day (at the beginning and end of each 15-minute episode and its repeat) for nearly three quarters of a century would be bound to be packed with seething depressives.
But if you really want to kill us all dead, play the Sunday Omnibus version, the bucolic accordion is even jollier and bouncier and would have me leaping off Beachy Head if it was within skipping distance.
The actual programme with its cast of ghastly well-off upper-middle home counties farming types and the chirpy, stinking stereotypes of every other socioeconomic group - well, that just makes one vomit, it is not truly dangerous.
SO, Radio 4, you're a heady drug all right. I got hooked when you were in a purer form, when you had true genius of the likes of the sadly missed, tragically late Ray Gosling, when it was Ned Sherrin doing Stop The Week, Robert Robinson on the quiz shows, and well before the rot set-in with poor John Peel (who i loved on Radio London) droning on Saturday morning live.
And yet I'm still hooked.
I am addicted to BBC Radio 4, but I am allergic to its most popular show, The Archers.
The addiction goes back to the early 1970s, when, as a trainee house-painter with a Grundig transistor radio, I became hooked on the afternoon classic serial. That summer, it was War and Peace in 13 one-hour instalments.
Even now I feel distinctly unready to face the day without at least half an hour os so of the Today programme. Best of all are the wonderfully eclectic current affairs programmes such as From Our Own Correspondent, which can range from the quality of espresso in central Roman cafés to attempts to abolish female genital mutilation in Sudan within the 45-minute span of one programme.
Nearly all the book adaptations are worth a listen - Book of the Week etc. it is such a good way of keeping up with new publications. I find the news programmes increasingly annoying and rtepeptive yet I still listen. Woman's Hour is a love-hate thing for me, all those splendid Oxbridge feminists and their very right-on guests, the earnest yet "ballsy" jazz chanteuses. It's a wonderful programme, including the cookery and the obligatory items on penis size, etc.
And then, twice a day, comes that dread sound - the most annoying theme music ever written. The Archer's tune must be solely responsible for the famous British glom. ANy nation exposed to that hideously jolly little shanty four times a day (at the beginning and end of each 15-minute episode and its repeat) for nearly three quarters of a century would be bound to be packed with seething depressives.
But if you really want to kill us all dead, play the Sunday Omnibus version, the bucolic accordion is even jollier and bouncier and would have me leaping off Beachy Head if it was within skipping distance.
The actual programme with its cast of ghastly well-off upper-middle home counties farming types and the chirpy, stinking stereotypes of every other socioeconomic group - well, that just makes one vomit, it is not truly dangerous.
SO, Radio 4, you're a heady drug all right. I got hooked when you were in a purer form, when you had true genius of the likes of the sadly missed, tragically late Ray Gosling, when it was Ned Sherrin doing Stop The Week, Robert Robinson on the quiz shows, and well before the rot set-in with poor John Peel (who i loved on Radio London) droning on Saturday morning live.
And yet I'm still hooked.
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