Priceless Paintings from W7

Well, hello there, and welcome to 2010. Two thousand and ten. Who would have thought.

I hope you have all arrived safely, healthy and happy in the new decade. While we enjoyed nice, quiet and stress-free Christmas and New Year celebrations with lots of food, drink, and a few friends, we are now back to normal, like it or not.

Since that involves travelling to California once again, and keeping me busy there for a while, I shall not post until the second half of this month.

Take care, and behave yourselves while I am out. You might as well take a look at some nice new photos taken at the Winter Wonderland fun fair in London’s Hyde Park (click).

Thoughts Christmas, london

We are members and fairly frequent visitors to our favourite, local, and pretty good quality amateur theatre. Every once in a while, however, we venture into town for a professional production. Last weekend, we went to the National Theatre’s Lyttleton Theatre for The Pitmen Painters.

This is a play about the Ashington Group, a group of North England miners, who started to paint and rose to fame in the 1930s. How nice. We are already making plans for a long weekend in Northumberland.

I can’t really say this is the ultimate play to see – it’s good, but doesn’t deserve a place among the top twenty plays of all time.

I can’t really say this was the best acting ever – it was good, but again, not extraordinary.

What made this play so fascinating is that the playwright, Lee Hall, understands the process of discovering art through the process of discovering painting extremely well. I could find myself and my own experience in this matter many times over during the play.

The worst thing was that the play describes a painfully slow process, that took many weeks and months, in little over two hours, with a vast amount of key events and personal development crammed into the first act. Those events had to come all too quickly and in rapid succession within the time permitted for the play; maybe the play should have told a shorter part of the Ashington Group’s story.

A very good evening though. Enjoyable and recommended.

Thoughts london, theatre

One of the many noteworthy aspects of life in London is that people don’t normally greet. Most people avert their eyes and speed up their step as they cross my path –and believe me, I do not look very dangerous,- and they appear to wish to get back into the safe heaven of home or office with the smallest possible interaction with fellow humans.

So, I make a point of greeting people in the street, especially of course those whose path I regularly cross. A middle-aged lady in my neighbourhood now enthusiastically offers greetings, even shouted over long distances when necessary, whenever she spots me. I exchange brief greetings, friendly smiles and friendly waving of arms across the street with several other women, too, and each time, I hope I brought a little smile to someone’s face.

Men are different though. Men hardly greet, at least not in one or more actual words. They grunt a friendly ‘Oh-oh,’ or they make a very minimalistic gesture with hand or head. Some greet by some form of first-to-fist or fist-to-shoulder contact, but that’s not my thing. At any rate, men’s greetings are almost like a secret society’s secret signal, and I like it just because of that minimalistic approach.

I talk to the women, and exchange a knowing look or brief head or arm movement with the men. I just hope that I haven’t given away the best-guarded secret of the secret society of men with this confession.

Thoughts human, london, society

Following a campaign started by a local resident, the town elders have decided that the western part of Ealing needs a skate park, and have made plans to build it not far from us. Apparently, £200,000 are now set aside and consultation is open for a new skate park in Elthorne Park (http://www.westealingskatepark.net/).

You won’t be surprised to hear that those who are against everything (the “Hanwell Community Forum” in this case) also oppose this plan, with a series of the usual arguments. It’s too loud. It’s too remote. It’s too close.

Basically means to say “Yeah, skate park, right, well, if it cannot be avoided… but not in my front garden.”

On the upside, their leaflet doesn’t issue a blanket accusation of expected antisocial or criminal behaviour. Better than similar previous campaigns (by different groups).

I am not sure if a steel and concrete structure is the best possible way to provide young people with a means to bond, relax, grow-up, find purpose in life, but it sure is better than hanging out at the bus stop and smashing a phone booth for fun.

I suggest opponents of this plan should immediately remind themselves they were once young and might have children themselves, or grand-children soon. It’s hard enough growing up in the big city, nobody needs to be repeatedly told that he or she is unwanted on top of it.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, hanwell, london

In the 2008/09 financial year, Ealing Council has spent less than what they have rightfully earned (through direct and indirect taxes), so they came up with the clever plan:

All eligible households will automatically receive a £50 cash refund in December.

This was announced in the council’s monthly pamphlet for August 2009 [pdf – see page 5]

A popular move for sure, especially in light of future elections. When the time comes, I am sure we’ll hear all about it over and over again.

I call it proof of failure. Failure by neglect:

First, there is a minor failure in that they fail to explain which households are eligible for a payback, which ones aren’t, and why. A good example of transparent government and accounting.

Second, they decide to spend the cost of the administrative overhead for the populist payback scheme, rather than opting for holding back the surplus riches, and asking for smaller council tax contributions next year. Surely this would have been a more cost-efficient way to deal with a surplus?

Third, and most worrying: They must think they have done a perfect job all around the borough, and nothing else needs doing, so that they simply don’t know what to do with the money. There’s a gazillion small and big jobs around the borough, and all they can come up with is a refund? That’s like throwing hands in the air. Jesus. Lord. Almighty.

Although I didn’t vote for the current council (as you probably guessed), they are charged by everyone to spend the tax money wisely and for the better common good of everyone in the borough.

Apparently, they can’t be bothered to do what they were elected to do. I hope most people will see through this expensive populist move and can’t be bothered voting for them again.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, london

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Delores.

Delores who?

Delores my shepherd…

It wasn’t Delores, nor was it an African Christian missionary. Instead, it was the guy from down the road. And he didn’t tell any knock-knock jokes either:

Do you know about the planning application for the Red Lion, he asks. No, I say. (The Red Lion is a derelict pub at the end of my street). He explains that this is the last day to object a planning application to convert the derelict pub into (his words) “an African church.”

Oh, that’s good news, I say, why would I want to object replacing a derelict pub with a church?

Because, he tells me, we have parking problems here already. There’ll be hundreds of cars every Sunday.

You’d have been proud of me, how I stayed calm and cool, and in the friendliest possible way explained that I’d much rather have car parking problems on a Sunday morning, compared to nightly drug and knife-crime issues (as we used to have with the Red Lion).

I should have also informed him that, even though car parking space can be tight late in the evening, in comparison with most of suburbia, we do not have car parking problems at all.

I welcome “the African church” to my area (and plan on a lie-in Sunday mornings anyway). Some people just have to object anything. Ealing Council doesn’t have a great track record at showing common sense, but I sure hope they dismiss this objection.

Current Affairs Ealing, Ealing council, hanwell, human, london

Dear Lord, give wisdom to the men and women of Ealing Council, for they know not what they are doing.

When they don’t spend their time –and our money- on expensive chest-beating self-advertising campaigns around the borough like big ages, they spend their energy on reverting what was done right by the previous council, as it seems.

The latest ingenious idea is to reduce some of the bus lanes around the borough in order to relief traffic congestion. By that, they do of course mean congestion by cars. (Not a new idea though.)

When bus lanes were extended a few years ago, a route was created to support free and swift flow of busses, and to support a comparatively safe heaven for cyclists. Removing some bus lanes now, or reducing the hours of operation of 24/7 bus lanes to standard peak hours, is a very regrettable step back to the dark ages of individual transport.

If the good lord hears my prayers, surely he’d advise the councillors to spend all the above money, and more, on efforts to reduce individual traffic throughout the borough rather than allowing for even more. Attractive offerings of public transport, and optimum support for alternative means of transport, are the obvious first choices.

Falling back to the petrolhead wisdom of the 1950s might suit a conservative council, but it certainly doesn’t suit a congested 21st town in the 21st century.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, london, Traffic

Heads must roll in light of the expenses scandal. Absolutely (but only figuratively speaking, of course). Heads must roll for intentionally liberal interpretation of the rules. Heads must roll for dropping all morale standards and intentionally milking the system. Heads must roll for denying first, then paying back some amount of money. Heads must roll for paying back that money and claiming all was well and in perfect order, while making laws with the other hand at the same time for crying out loud.

Heads must also roll for angrily resigning from the cabinet and thinking that’d be the first step to a career re-launch, neatly avoiding tax investigations or, indeed, criminal charges, in the process. Disgusting.

But.

But when I said the heads must roll, I didn’t mean that the head teacher of the Cardinal Wiseman School in Greenford ought to be arrested, charged with expenses fraud, dragged through the mud (full story here). I had asked for different heads.

The headmaster might have hand his hand into the petty cash kitty or not, and he might have fiddled with expenses, or not. That must, and will, all be found out of course. I can’t help thinking scapegoat though.  I sincerely hope he doesn’t end up being one.

There are some more rather interesting people to arrest and release on bail on allegations of expenses fraud. If you can’t find them in Westminster, make sure to check all their first and second homes.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Britain, expenses, london

You know me. I have a soft spot when it comes to workers’ unions. We all owe them tremendous accomplishments regarding work conditions, employment laws, health and safety, and of course also regarding the pay. Without Friedrich Engels and his friends, and the workers unions’ actions over all those years since, I am sure things would be much worse.

However, the RMT going on strike for a 5% pay rise and guarantees of no redundancies, this at times when most people are happy to keep their job at the current salary levels, or happy to keep their job at all, doesn’t really get my sympathy.

According to one web site, the average salary for a tube driver in 2008 is £40,000. This doesn’t compare too badly with the 2008 UK average household income of just under £30,000, does it? Another source claims an average London salary of £42,302, which would be in line with the request for a 5% increase from £40k (assuming these figures are actually correct), but the whole thing still doesn’t make much sense to me.

Employers shouldn’t be allowed to blame just about everything on the poor economy and get away with an obscure thread of the company’s uncertain future, but still, the coin’s got the employee’s side, too.

I am sure the job, that of a driver and that of station and platform staff, has physical and psychological rigors, and life in London is expensive. So is almost everybody else’s. Go back to your sense, and go back to work!

Thoughts london, rmt

Did you ever drive around in London’s suburbia? No? Well… let me just say that some streets are so narrow, with cars parked all over, than cruising Naples in the rush hour seems like a piece of cake in comparison.

You cannot, for example, drive to Waitrose West London through Felix Road without stopping, giving way, backing out. Or take Maunder Road, of many others.

Fascinatingly, some queer brain at the council still chooses Felix Road to be the main access into Hanwell coming from the busy Argyle Road, and some super-whacky planners agree that Maunder Road should serve as one of the two main access paths to the new Cambridge Yard five apartment block development. There is no limit to insanity, but I am drifting off my main subject today…

Well, the point is that many drivers are unwilling, and, presumably, unable, to back out. Some of this might be a genuine inability to be considerate drivers and considerate people(see insanity, above), but I think many simply cannot drive back in a reasonably straight line for more than three inches.

I am proposing that each driver must show the ability to navigate a curved course backwards as a mandatory part of each driving test. I’m serious.

Thoughts car, Ealing, london, Traffic

Don’t you love public art?

I’m serious.

There’s an awful lot of awfully expensive and hideous public adornment around. I do, for instance, recall a supersized string of toothpaste, made from concrete, outside the courthouse in my home town, and a poorly manufactured stainless steel monstrosity in the same town.

However, some public art pieces are just brilliant. Most of their brilliance steams from simplicity and accessibility.

Just look at the giant marble in the London Assembly Hall forecourt shown in the little picture here. It’s just a big black ball in the middle of a public space, but it encourages people to interact with the ball, the architecture, and themselves.

Another great example is the Weather Project, a few years ago in Tate Modern, or the binoculars that allowed (through hidden cameras and monitors) looking through from one end on London’s South Bank to some place in New York.

Love it.

Thoughts art, london, London Assembly Hall

Starting today, the press notice released on an unspecified day in March 2009 reports, Hanwell businesses will be taking part in a trial scheme to provide more public toilets in the town.

It means that four local cafes and bars will allow free and public access to their toilets. In return, each gets £600 per year to help cover cleaning and upkeep.

The truth is that these businesses aren’t so much taking part in a trial scheme to provide more public toilets in town, they are part of a scheme to help the council weasel out of their duties. £2,400 per year, a few hours of bigwig palaver and a new sticker in the window is going to be much less than buying and maintaining “real” public toilets. As such, the plan is admirable, but I can’t help thinking of my hair dresser.

In short, his argument is that he cannot allow public access to his toilets (only to a select few), because his facilities would otherwise be used to route drugs, weapons, and some-such.

If he’s right, those four businesses have just taken on a pretty big responsibility. I can only hope he’s wrong, ‘coz I can’t believe those four local businesses are up for the whole package.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, london, Politics

The Mayor of London is a poor man, who –basically- can’t maintain all parks and public spaces as well as they should. So, with limited budget, they run a public opinion poll of sorts, where Londoners could vote for their park.

The top ten parks will get funding for a makeover, and the results are now out.

Nice to see one of our local parks, Brent River Park (aka Bunny Park) is among the winners. The small animal centre and “litter management” are among the six objectives, and rightly so.

Also nice to see that Crane Valley Park also made it to the last ten; I had always thought of Crane Valley Park as Rapists’ Park. No wonder the Crane Valley park objectives include an increase to staff presence to help people feel safe.

Well done, but once Boris and others start beating their chest about this, remember that it means that the many other public parks and spaces simply won’t get the attention they need.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing, Ealing council, london, Politics

We will have to evacuate part of our house due to the ongoing building works. In particular, the kitchen and dining areas need to be emptied and surrendered to the strong men. The good wife suggested hiring some storage space in a near-by storage facility – it’s the one where they found terrorists’ deposit of fertilizer for bomb making, so it must be good.

Although I am no big friend of these ugly storage buildings appearing everywhere like mushrooms (earlier rant here), this might be a good solution for the imminent but temporary space problem in our home. So I check out the local store online,  and boy! these guys are well connected:

Apparently, they are just a 2 minute drive from both Ealing Broadway and the A4, and Boston Manor Tube is just 10 minutes walk from the store.

Driving 2.2 miles in 2 minutes requires pretty heavy speeding (66 mph, where the legal limit is 30mph, and the practical limit is much less). The 1 mile walk to Boston Manor Tube should be possible in 10 minutes, if you walk at 6 mph (9 km/h, for the imperially challenged). Piece of cake for Alex Schwazer, who claimed gold in Bejing for walking 50km in 3 hours 37 minutes (14 km/h or 8.8mph).

I thought it was funny. For us, they are just round the corner, but if one was a terrorist, relying on their directions for the planning of a swift get-away, I recommend to double-check with the locals.

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Thoughts Ealing, london

Our local council here in Ealing has its flaws and weaknesses, as they all do. However, self-praise, shoulder-slapping and chest-beating are not among those weaknesses. You’ve got to give them that.

The council’s latest one is the 8.5 Million Pounds bravado. 8.5 millions, so they boast on countless posters and banners throughout the borough, is their magnificent investment in road maintenance. The fact that they don’t say “extra” alone makes me suspicious, but I regret being unable to find much in terms of hard numbers.

Ealing has a population of approximately 300,000, with 36km of principal roads and, without doubt, much more minor roads and residential streets. I couldn’t find the total length of public roads and streets under the responsibility of the Borough of Ealing, or the total of the public paved area. With 36km of principal roads, I don’t 360km for the total will be an overestimate.

So, allow me to work on the basis of 360km. £8,500,000 / 360,000m = 23.61 pounds per metre for street maintenance. Filling a single pothole is £72 on average, so the BBC told us just a few nights ago.

I have the feeling that £8.5 is nothing to boast about, but simply what a town of that size ought to invest for upkeep and street maintenance. I’d be really grateful if anyone out there could put me right, provide some real numbers, pointers for reference, etc.

Current Affairs, Thoughts Ealing council, london