cityofsound

Fire, water and the 'Queen Mary 2'

Regular readers of The New Yorker will not be surprised to learn of today's findings by BBC News that there's a fire risk in the fixtures and fittings of the Queen Mary 2 ocean liner. Simon Schama wrote a fantastic article about the magnificent ship's maiden voyage in the May 31 edition of the magazine which featured, amongst other things, an aside about a fire risk on the QM2.

Schama described the monumental weather conditions suffered during the voyage:

"(O)ld man Poseidon, evidently assisted by Tritons with serious attitude, was crashing the scene. On the Beafort wind scale of 1 to 12, this one, howling around the ship like a marine banshee was a 10, eventually getting up to seventy miles an hour, which is not far short of hurricane force. Likewise, the motion of the sea is measured by a range going from Moderate through Rough to High, the last going well beyond Very Rough. That night and much of the following day, our piece of the Atlantic was Very High, beyond which the only available term is Phenomenal, and by then your cabin is probably filling with water and men in tuxedos are ushering women and children to the boats."

So the scene is set, Schama nestling in his cabin, becoming "unhappily reacquainted" with his mango-and-crab salad, and then:

"(A) message came over the P.A. system from the Officer of the Watch, whose voice, ressembling that of a firm but fair English schoolmaster, had already established itself as authoritative. It was not reassuring: "Code Bravo, Code Bravo, Code Bravo." And then it added, "Control group to muster." True, it spoke without much inflection, as if reporting a cricket score from a sticky wicket. But since the same announcement had been made earlier that day, followed by the information that this was a practice, repeat practice, fire drill, a real Code Bravo was not what anyone wanted to hear in this situation. An hour later, the announcement "Stand down" was heard, and another announcement, a bit later on, referred to a "minor incident, now completely under control."

"The thing about a crew of thirteen hundred - which includes, after all, masseurs, cabaret singers, and wine waiters - is that not all of them are trained, in the British merchant-marine tradition, to keep mum about trifling things like a fire at sea on a maiden voyage in the midst of a Force 10 gale. It was, I was assured, a teeny-weeny fire, just a razor socket burning up in a crew cabin."

So I'm not awfully surprised about today's news about fire risks. The real reason to read The New Yorker, though, isn't to get an early sighting of next week's news, but to rejoice in writing of the calibre of Schama's (OK, I'm a big fan of Schama). Much of his article is actually about how great the Queen Mary 2 is - and once this trifling fire risk thing is cleared up, long may it remain untarnished.

Schama writes as beautifully as ever about the ship, the experience of this form of travel, drawing from Charles Dickens' recollections of crossing the Atlantic in 1842 on the Britannia, and naturally, Evelyn Waugh, who almost single-handedly created the mystique of high-quality travel that the QM 2 tries to recapture. It almost manages to conjure Waugh, by the sound of it, but the real art, style and beauty is in the ship-as-machine as Schama makes clear:

"What there is on the QM 2 is grandeur: lashings of it. Bel-air epoque, heavy on the upholstery. The dominant style is offically described as "Art Deco," but is more le grande style Ginger et Fred: sweeping staircases (especially in the triple-decker main restaurant); long, curved bars (very handsome in the Chart Room); leopard-patterned carpets; and, in one theatre, bronze bas-reliefs that feature disporting deities, as in the pre-multiplex yesteryear, though the athletic statuary posted at the doors summons up Albert Speer and "Honor the Komsomol," rather than Garbo and Groucho. Over the shipboard "art" a tactful veil should be drawn, but there is great art on the Queen Mary 2; namely, the exterior of the ship itself - a thrilling scarlet-and-black tower of a funnel and four heroically scaled brushed-steel propeller screws mounted on deck seven, as mightily torqued as anything from the hand of Richard Serra."

That's beautiful - and similar to sentiments earlier expressed by Adam Greenfield as the QM 2 eventually departed New York harbour. Leave aside those "leopard-patterned carpets" and revel in the real essence of trying to defy the power of sea with a machine like this. Schama, finally:

"(T)here are worse things than being made to sit down and fill the eyes with nothing but sky and rain and wind-whipped water as a hundred and fifty thousand tons of big ship does what it can to ride it at thirty-five miles an hour. In fact, there are few things better."

Urban Tapestries: second trial: update 2

Success! In this week's Urban Tapestries trial, I actually discovered something of interest.

I discovered that architectural hero Cedric Price's old office is around the corner from where I live, and opposite the Imagination Building on Store St (about which I'd added a note myself). That is a great discovery!

Here is frustration with the Urban Tapestries concept thus far too, as that 'pocket' of data regarding Cedric Price could have been usefully linked to mine regarding the Imagination building - via a tenuous Archigram link. Ron Herron designed the Imagination Building; Ron Herron was a member of Archigram; Archigram were hugely influenced by the work of Cedric Price etc. I'd categorised my pocket regarding Imagination Building under a 'thread' called "architecture". The Cedric Price pocket had been filed under the somewhat oblique thread name "species of spaces" (after Perec?). The Urban Tapestries software can make no possible connection between these two potentially related entries; and users can make no possible connections either, due to not being able to sensibly browse other existing thread names before choosing a thread name for their pocket.

To be fair, I haven't been able to spend much time Urban Tapestrying ... I haven't wound it into my daily life of objects; I just haven't felt the urge to use it much. I guess I'm struggling with the device's mixture of latent utility and idle browsing pleasure. The 'drift' alluded to (presumably drawn from the Situationist notion of dérive) generally doesn't fit into a busy multitasked life as a plausible activity - the real drift is more of a side effect of activity than an activity in its own right. Given that we can't all be Guy Debord. Thankfully. The sense of following someone's thread doesn't really equate to the dérive - a true drift is less directed.  Even the elements of chance involved in daily life (I don't always walk the same way to work, even though it's exactly the same A-to-B every day) still don't quite fit with the active concentration required to fire up Urban Tapestries (on the extra P800 - honestly, the amount of personal tech in my bag is getting silly!). It somehow needs to be more seamless (consistent ID and functionality carried across all my devices rather than just one? Upload a simple marker to be re-edited later via a web interface/laptop?).

Though now I've found something genuinely interesting, things might change.

Connection time is still just too slow - again preventing frequent seamless interaction. I was loitering outside the British Museum in the middle of the night, trying to take a picture of the wondrous stone lions imperiously guarding its rear entrance, and my data would just not upload. It wasn't somewhere I particularly wanted to hang around (the private gardens opposite are invisibly marked as some kind of late night drugs exchange). It finally uploaded, after many thwarted attempts at connecting, but it took ages. This happens too often for comfort - but hey, it's a trial.

It's often easier to sit at home and enter data - but if that was the point, it'd be a lot easier to sit at home and enter data via my laptop (full size keyboard, reliable connection, bigger screen etc.).

I also discovered an entry I made about Senate House in the previous trial (attributed to "utlt_44" or something) but was unable to edit it and add in a weblink to my post here on same. The map is already getting a bit clogged up with criss-crossing lines of information, with the result that it feels simultaneously impenetrable and compelling. Interesting.

Threads created since last time:

"statues" (the aforementioned lions; more to follow - a bit like Smoke magazine's excellent series 'London's Campest Statues', perhaps)

"london on film" (denoting film locations in the area i.e. Batman Begins at Senate House; Peeping Tom on Percy Street/Rathbone Place etc.);

"dear ken" (capturing notes I want London mayor Ken Livingstone to read i.e. why the cafe in Russell Square doesn't have better opening hours, why Bedford Square can't be made more accessible etc.)

Farewell America

"After six years, The Observer's award-winning US correspondent  Ed Vulliamy takes his leave from a wounded and belligerent nation with which, reluctantly, he has now fallen out of love."

A couple of years ago, I was set on moving to New York. I'd wanted to for years - to me, it's still the perfect city. The ultimate city. I loved it. I still do. I felt how Woody Allen describes it at the start of Manhattan. I felt similarly about much of the American spirit, with wide-eyed optimism for sure, but ... I just felt I should live in NYC at some point while I'm on this planet, and that combined with leaving my previous job seemed a perfect opportunity. I had a few leads, started following them up, but then the BBC happened, personal reasons got in the way for a bit, and I kinda lost the thread.

And I realise now that I'm really happy in London, in a way I didn't think I would be two years ago. I find it endlessly fascinating and Samuel Johnson's maxim seems ever more relevant. But I also realised recently that I feel quite differently about America - and about that spirit I mentioned above - and I hadn't realised it until Ed Vulliamy described his reasons for coming back to the UK. I don't necessarily agree with his reasons 100%, but they did resonate.

I'm v happy in this messed up city right now - and that's partly as I wouldn't feel right in the States right now. I have many good friends and colleages in the US (some of whom will be reading this) who I respect hugely, and in no way is this meant to denigrate them, or their nation - as I hope they know ... but I just sense a bit of what Vulliamy (and Sontag, and Cale) are saying below.

The Observer: Farewell America

Al Queda And What It Means To Be Modern by John Gray

First bit of holiday reading: Al Queda And What It Means To Be Modern by John Gray, Professor of European Thought at the LSE (as a friend pointed out, what a great job title - but what a responsibility too!)

A couple of m'learned colleagues have read this recently, and found it an utterly fascinating and valuable read. I've also found it to be a sobering and thought-provoking read. It's a short book, but packed full of just about everything you need to know about now, and I guess, just how we got into this mess in the first place. Even though I might 'agree with' (as much as one can) the rhetoric and theory of modernity, within a broadish brushstroke of post-enlightenment progression through science and rationality, Gray's book is a necessary brake on an unswerving and uncritical belief in these ideas, pointing out that Al Queda is clearly a by-product of modernity and globalisation, and how a hawkish desire to paint it as 'medievalist' is not just misguided and abhorrent Christian fundamentalism (which it certainly is) but also utterly misses the point. That political agenda based around 'making the world a better place' through deploying a US-led market-driven ideology in an IMF-framed mould, imposing same as a blanket across the globe, attempting to smother cultural difference, are thoroughly incompatible with the insanely fractured realities of human civilisation. Of course, Gray's particular brand of liberal pluralism (which again, it's difficult not to side with) could be equally crudely subtitled "why can't we all just get along?". It doesn't necessarily offer much of practical use to those of us involved in a technology-driven culture, except an increased focus on maintaining a broad awareness of local difference perhaps.

Highly nutritious brain food nonetheless, and I think it'll always be a really important book for me.

Learning govt; Interactivity at opendemocracy

LEARNING GOVERNMENT
GEOFF MULGAN, head of Tony Blair's Strategy Unit, describes how Whitehall's bureaucracy has learnt to learn from international examples
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-3-52-1280.jsp

A NEW WAY FOR GOVERNMENT?
openDemocracy editor, ANTHONY BARNETT, on why Mulgan's piece is more radical than it may appear
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-3-52-1285.jsp

YOUR TV IS NOT WATCHING YOU
David Burke's notion of interactivity as a threat to freedom and democracy is paranoid and misplaced argues ANDY MAYER
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-8-41-1286.jsp

What is it good for?

Strolling along at the back of last weekend's peace march, stepping through the debris left in its wake, I absent-mindedly recalled Matt's observation about the professionals who have to construct Colin Powell's Powerpoint, and their design choices. I'd often wondered about what goes through the minds of news illustrators, whilst working on explanatory infographics for 9/11, say. But then I've done morally objectionable work myself: building websites which make Genesis look good; airbrushing out a Spice Girl's cellulite.

Anyway, to contrast this glossy design around the phony war, I thought I'd capture some of the home-grown user-centred design decisions made by the marchers last week.

There's been plenty of photos of the marchers, and of the sea of posters.

• Many of the placards were manufactured; The Mirror's seemed to be in abundance (as the British tabloid most visibly anti-war). The prefabs seem to be most easily discarded though, and in a sense are the least interesting.
• Elsewhere, people clung on to their own handiwork, the familiar blocked san-serif tapestry type on bedsheets aloft. Jeffrey Keedy has no doubt got typefaces made out of this 'Popular Protest Gothic'. Edward Fella probably has a book out on it.
• The 'barred-bomb' motif was most popular icon, whether felt-tipped or painted.
• By now, seemingly infinite variations on 'the Bush joke' have been propagated around the Net, but here's where I saw it first.
• Veteran proponents of vernacular folk-art were present, alongside the slightly more organised contemporary 'underground' vibe.
• Defining one's geography and culture seemed important (as ever in this city) e.g. this placard (outside the site where an anaesthetic was first administered in England - don't think there's an irony there).
• Moreoever, could this sign be in any other country? I don't think so. "This sort of thing" indeed.
• English eccentricity too - here, into the frankly surreal (along the crease it says "we love see saws").
• Ultimately, the complex, overlapping fragments of city life gathered along the kerb - the styrofoam of global service industry megacorps alongside Socialist Workers - a scrapbook forming behind the march, unwittingly echoing the Situationist tactic of détournement - though that's pretty much all it had in common with May '68.

This march felt different to the recent anti-globalisation rallies too - and it wasn't just this obvious dissonance of commerce along the way. There was something slightly surreal about the march, arranged as it was alongside London's shopping streets. One could do a bit of shopping, have a bit of a march, bit more shopping, march, shop, march, shop. What this says about contemporary politics I'm not sure. Maybe it's a good thing that the march was so accessible that Saturday afternoon; perhaps politics can be postively realigned alongside leisure activities, as a tacit recognition of the commodification of all culture. Yet how sad that that political expression en masse seemed - to me - to be tainted in some way due to making protest so accessible. Then again, would a degree of inconvenience have made the protest more real? Maybe it was just good to let people buy a tube of Clarins to protect against the biting easterly (only kidding).

Perhaps I shouldn't have been skirting round the edges of the march, camera dangling towards the ground and the discarded tools of protest. I could've gone on, grabbing images of home-made banners, kids propped in the air, the crowd denouncing the war with polite good-nature. But I ran out of SmartMedia, and y'know what? Tottenham Court Road was at least a block away. All of which says more about me, really ...