An Outsider’s London

Though I’ve written quite a lot, surely far too much, throughout my life – hypergraphia as befits a temporal lobe personality – it never gets any easier. With increasing age most things take longer, and writing is no exception. Becoming more self-critical is a handy excuse for this, as is being more than ready to avail oneself of the endless tinkering that word processing software encourages. Whatever the explanation, for me, these days writing takes longer than it used to, and longer than I want or expect it to. Nor is there any guarantee that prolonged gestation and fiddling will result in a better end product, or even of having anything worthwhile to say.

Never mind. Today, the last day of the first six months of the year, I completed, on schedule, what is meant to be the penultimate revision of “An Outsider’s London”, an approximately 200-page account of a lifetime’s provincial fascination with the world’s greatest city. I ran the Microsoft spellchecker across the text, the shocking unfamiliarity with words such as “Profumo”, “Carnaby”, “Belsen” and “Hockney” stoking my disdain for this current era of parochially crass and juvenile Americanised information technology. Be that as it may, I’m pleased to have reached this stage.

Knowing of my fondness for London, and for scribbling, over the years several of my friends have suggested a project of this sort, unaware that I’d planned such a thing anyway and that, indeed, I’d made an initial attempt almost forty years ago. The original version, circa 1978, was a brave foray into a kind of multimedia – essays, poems, drawings, maps and diagrams – and was a thoroughly naïve, opinionated, uninformed and generally misguided personal take on a city that I adored, but knew only superficially. A city I loved for its complexity and variety, its senses of place and of past, its visual appearance, its inhabitants and its infrastructures, and its role in the British psyche. Before the theme got popularly named as such, this was an early outing in psychogeography. Like most things I’ve attempted, it went nowhere.

The new version keeps the old title but takes a different tack, a more chronologically autobiographical one, focusing principally on childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. It describes how, from people I knew, from radio and television, from books and newspapers, from paintings and photographs and songs, and from anything that came my way, I formed impressions and acquired information about the great city. Major components of the book concern processes of understanding and misunderstanding, of gradual clarification, of imagining and fantasising, of learning my way around from maps and personal exploration, discovering the “good bits” of the city as I perceived them to be, and subsequently using London as a focus for drawings and paintings. Inevitably, being personal, being me, it’s a little odd in places.

While unavoidably personal and place-specific, though, “An Outsider’s London” is an exercise in the whole business of how we begin to understand and learn a large and complex metropolis, and of how one’s impressions and reactions evolve and modify with age and experience, while simultaneously the city changes too. The London I first thought about in those distant postwar days is not the city it is today. So it’s also a book about education and social change, about perception, about likes and dislikes in city structure. Any realistic book about London is bound to have to face a great many themes, and so it is with this one. What we have in “An Outsider’s London” is a mix of autobiography, psychology and urban geography, a representation of what one might call a “lifetime metropolitan learning curve”. I wouldn’t, of course, call it that. I’d call it a rattling good read.

 
Tomorrow, the first day of the second half of the year, I shall start on the “final final” revision, knowing full well that it is unlikely to be the last, and I shall be enjoying every moment.

TOTON is NOT ON

In my blog item “Toton – an HS2 folly”, posted on 11 December last year, I outlined the argument as to why Toton is inappropriate as the location for the East Midlands hub of the proposed extended High Speed 2 rail line, and why a location further south is preferable. The “business case” argument ignores the “practical considerations for the travelling public” argument, and is incompatible with it.

In the April edition of “Modern Railways” this year the impression was given that Toton is pretty much a foregone conclusion. If that is so, it is a shame. Toton is in the wrong place. With plenty to occupy the minds of our politicians, among them the desire to be elected on 8th June, rail proposals are not likely to be their chief concerns at present, but it is they who, ultimately, will decide the fate of HS2, and be responsible for the consequences. So here, I will restate why Toton is not a sensible location for the East Midlands hub.

Toton hub, with dotted lines showing connecting transport to Derby and Nottingham

The crucial drawback to Toton is the unavoidable truth of geography – it is simply in the wrong place, i.e. north of the point (Trent junction) at which the routes to Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield diverge. Attempts to pretend that this isn’t a problem are ridiculous. One of the ‘Modern Railways’ articles includes a table of journey times (presumably by tram) from Nottingham station, citing Toton as 33 minutes away and Derby 61 minutes  – as though this is some wonderful advance. It isn’t; it’s retrograde and crazy and very slow.

Someone travelling to Nottingham from London on HS2, having shaved several minutes off traditional journey times to the latitude of the East Midlands, will arrive at Toton, have to transfer (perhaps with luggage and small children) to a tram, and then have to endure more than 15 intermediate stops to reach central Nottingham. Or change onto a conventional train, back in the reverse direction, round via Attenborough. Similarly to Derby, either having to backtrack on a conventional train to Trent junction and through Long Eaton, or via an as yet unplanned but almost certainly tortuous tram route. Why would anyone want to do that? Where is the advantage?

I don’t have a problem with regenerating Toton or with extending tram routes anywhere that can be justified, but for HS2 not to be negative progress – and perceived as such - there must be through trains from its London terminus to Nottingham and Derby, convenient and comfortable end to end, with significantly shorter overall journey times city to city than are available today, or will be possible following Midland Main Line electrification. No change of vehicle at Toton or anywhere else, just a brief stop at East Midlands Parkway for those who want to leave or join there. Otherwise, why bother?

East Midlands Parkway hub, with through HS2 trains to Derby and Nottingham

East Midlands Parkway, or a site close to it, is the preferred alternative, for reasons of connectivity and access, proximity to East Midlands Airport, and most of all because it is on the “London side” of the Nottingham-Derby conurbation. 

Toton, locationally, geographically, is a nonsense. Forget the “business case” – Toton is simply wrong.  It’s in the wrong place. TOTON is NOT ON.

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Quality of Life No. 2 – The Endless Upgrade

Just over a week ago came news of the “WannaCry” ransomware attack around the world, one of the victims being the cash-strapped NHS and – indirectly – a great many patients, some with very serious conditions, whose consultations had to be postponed. It would seem only fair that the perpetrators of this attack, if caught, should be donated to urology or proctology departments for novice medical students to sharpen their skills upon.

Much has been made of the NHS’s failure to upgrade its software, despite warnings. Funny how the victim is so often to blame, isn’t it. 

The blame for the consequences of this mindless criminal act lies not with the NHS. It lies solely with the hackers. However, much responsibility also lies with Microsoft and other arrogant corporations – primarily American - who over the years have bullied much of the world’s population into believing that they should have to waste valuable time and money on purchasing and installing endless “upgrades” to software and hardware. Some people apparently like to do this and boast that they have the latest whatever. I’m not one of those people; I just want to get on with what I’m doing, thank you very much. Yes, I know the arguments about increased speed, capacity and functionality, about the need to maintain security (ha !), but there is another way of looking at this.

Computer facilities are now an essential utility along with electricity and gas, water and sewerage. We expect to use these services without being personally responsible for their upkeep, and constantly inconvenienced into the bargain. No, you can’t go for a poo just now, the toilet needs to install an upgrade first, a pimply oik in California says so. The NHS, along with other organisations and ordinary people, are far too short of money and far too busy to have to bother with frequent upheavals to their work in order to accommodate the imperious demands of nerdy billionaires five thousand miles away. 

With a general election looming it would be nice to think that at least one of the political parties would propose a British initiative to render internet access stable, safe, protected from nuisances, and better designed. Yes, I know it’s easier said than done, but responsible government really ought to get a grip on such an essential service. Around a decade ago the internet was getting quite good, and one could see the fulfilment of Tim Berners-Lee’s dream; much of it has deteriorated steadily ever since, usability and familiarity for the many sacrificed to constant change, advertising, snooping, and ill-judged intrusion in the interests of the profits and dubious social engineering ambitions of the few. And incidentally, when I’m looking up a train to Sheffield on the National Rail Enquiries site it doesn’t mean that I want to install Google Chrome first. And when I’m looking for a hotel in Venice I don’t need flights to Dubrovnik. Do keep up; that was last year. 

Indeed, last year, for many months I was irritated by incessant demands from Microsoft that I should “upgrade” from Windows 7 to Windows 10 (we sometimes forget how imbecilic such names are), before – like so many – being trapped into doing so by their unethical trick of making the “go away” symbol suddenly mean “install”. Having had this inelegant piece of design-free rubbish thrust upon me against my better judgement, towards the end of the year I had my computer buggered up for the best part of a day by a Windows 10 upgrade that didn’t work. Fortunately, a software-savvy neighbour was able to rescue the situation, but the upgrade never installed properly. At approximately monthly intervals it tries again, but never succeeds, just going into terminal re-boot mode instead, an endless revolving symbol of despair. It happened again this morning. Last week someone told me that he left his computer running for 2½ days and this dollop of unwanted garbage actually installed. I had no idea he was such an optimist or that electricity could travel so slowly. Is this progress?

Like most people I have to use the internet, and I have to use a computer. But I no longer enjoy it like I used to; it does nothing for my quality of life and everything for elevating my stress levels. Thank you Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, et al – it’s all your doing.

Recently there was a cartoon in “Private Eye” showing a man at a screen on which three options were presented - in essence: “Install now”, “Remind me later”, and “Fuck off”. If only.

Something to aim for

The other day I was talking with a former colleague who, unlike me, is still gainfully employed. I was bemoaning the lack of structure in my retired life, the reduced scope for socialising, and the lack of anything to get my intellectual teeth into. In short, I was feeling the loss of something to aim for.

We also discussed the pleasures and ordeals of business travel, and I concluded that the loss of paid-for travel is one of the less expected disbenefits of retirement. We observed that a frequent node in the routings of the European business traveller is Amsterdam, where Schiphol is one of the world’s most civilised airports, well planned and well connected both in the air and on the ground, and even possessing a flightside mini-Rijksmuseum.

This got me recollecting some of my Dutch colleagues and acquaintances, most of whom were “characters” of an outgoing and occasionally overtly extravert nature, open minded and proud of their linguistic prowess. A nation whose motto should be “why not?” Like the man with a fondness for bright green, blue and orange, assigned to shirt, jacket and trousers in no particular order. Well, why not?  Like the man who, when I fumbled diplomatically towards a hesitant enquiry about a shop in Utrecht called “Piet Snot”, advised me tersely in his matter-of-fact Wedgie Benn accent – “yes, it means the same as in English”. I can’t remember if he was the same guy I had to wait for almost an hour after I arrived early one morning at Schiphol. When he eventually turned up he explained, but didn’t apologise, that he’d been in bed with his girlfriend. Well, why not? He definitely wasn’t the same man as the one conducting a one day course in a proprietary scheme for assessing business intelligence, who every now and then would punctuate his tediously detailed monologue with: “no shit, you do the analyses”. “Analyses” being pronounced as “anna lyzes” rather than the conventional “analyseez”. That is all I remember of that day.

Which sort of brings us round full circle. Or at least to the Gents at Schiphol, where as is very well known each urinal is adorned – appropriately enough for an airport – with an image of a fly. A precisely drawn fly embossed onto the enamel, just above and to the left of the drainage holes. I presume that some genius worked out that most of the populace are right, er, handed, and that no real man can resist a target. Quite stylish are these flies, modernist in the European tradition. Curiously enough they occurred to me last night, totally out of context but in the comfort of my own home in the wee wee hours, as I was taking aim at something considerably more three dimensional and organic, something altogether less arty and less flash in the pan. Success. Bullseye. A perfect score. No shit. You do the anna lyzes.

 
I really must work harder at being retired.

Quality of Life No. 1 – flowers blooming and black horse dropping

In these politically turbulent times an accusation often made between competing parties is of “running the country down”, the implication being the painting of an unfairly negative picture of how things are. “Modern life is rubbish” asserted Blur, one of our better bands, a couple of decades ago. An easy conclusion to reach, especially as one ages and tends naturally towards extra grumpiness. That’s me.

Given the potentially vast reservoir of material to go at I’ve decided to post the occasional blog on aspects of our current quality of life, or more honestly my quality of life, since it will be arbitrary and subjective and selective, echoing my experiences, attitudes and preferences. In the nature of things, anyone reading this is just as likely to have completely different reactions. Never mind, such is freedom of thought, and the basic truth behind the realisation that – however crappy things sometimes are – we don’t have to live in North Korea.

So, quality of life is all relative, but it’s a good excuse for a rant – like having a go at people who start sentences with “so”. So, I hope it will be both more and less than that. I’ll start on a high.

On Easter Saturday afternoon the doorbell rang, but by the time I reached the door there was nobody there. I found a bag containing a bunch of daffodils hanging from the door handle. A couple unknown to me, but who live round the corner, were delivering the same to every house (approximately forty) in our thoroughfare. A random act of kindness – by unknown strangers to unknown strangers - which made my day and improved the quality of my Easter; the very opposite of so many random acts – again affecting unknown strangers - that make the news these days.

Before Easter I received a letter informing me that my branch of Lloyds Bank, in Nottingham city centre, was to close in the summer. Though once the main branch in the city, for many years now it has been run down, with fewer serving staff, longer queues, and the sort of ambience one associates, perhaps unfairly, with eastern Europe pre-perestroika. Disappointing but not entirely unexpected. However, over the Easter holiday I noticed that Lloyds saw fit to screen an extravagant TV commercial, smugly congratulating themselves on how they are “on our side”, and have been for 250 years. Not pleased by this. This morning, visiting the bank - which is on the first floor of a tired 1960s-ish office block - to pay a bill and to express my observations on the tactlessness and hypocrisy of this advertisement to the ruefully smiling teller, they thoughtfully had the down escalator working, but not the up one. I wondered on whose side that was.

Progressing across town I encountered a McDonalds undergoing refurbishment and surrounded by protective fencing upon which were placed posters suggesting how the new premises will look. Featured prominently were self-service machines. I shan’t be bothering to discover whether these are for ordering food, for preparing it oneself, or – having obtained it – for stuffing it back into, and I’m sad to report that since my first euphoric visit to a McDonalds in Las Vegas in 1978 my appreciation of them – with a few exceptions (Swiss Cottage, Paphos) has been relentlessly downwards.

Continuing on my morning’s business, I went to one of two city centre branches of W. H. Smith’s, the one that from time to time is marginally more contaminated by staff and customers than the other one. I wonder how this organisation keeps going, but I’ve been wondering that for around 40 years now. Perhaps it’s because they’re so over-priced. Since the counter was marked “closed” I disturbed a rare staff member and asked if it might be possible to pay for my purchase. She pointed me in the direction of a self-service machine, and when I expressed a preference not to use it, she tutted loudly and went through the tedious rigmarole for me. I hope that in due course she will be made redundant. I mean, more redundant than she already is.

 
I think one may judge my attitude towards trends in quality in the service sector. However, to end once more on a high, my quality of life has been enhanced in recent weeks by the weather and the Spring flowers, and especially by the tulips in our garden, which have been of above average brilliance and duration.