02July
2003: Secret London: The Greenwich Foot Tunnel. One
of those little thrills you discover so often in this city, part of the rich
Victorian fabric. (I'm really getting into this stuff; saw a great alternative
map of London the other day, showing not roads and regions but the underground
water system. Vast underground lakes and pipelines mirror the population densities
above ground; the ring main that supplies half the capital is big enough to
drive a bus through.) But anyway: the Foot Tunnel.
I was about to take the Docklands Light Railway back home when I saw
it: a building straight out of Myst, containing a lift and spiral staircase
next to the Thames. Curious, I took the stairs down. And entered Brunel's
world.
It's a brick and steel cylinder stretching under the river. Barely
tall enough for me to walk upright in places, it connects a nondescript district
on the Isle of Dogs with the Cutty Sark at Greenwich. The thrill came in the
lifts at both ends. They're originals, wood-panelled hexagonal rooms complete
with places to sit down, and a human operator. Victorians knew how to build;
they also knew how to live. And the value of treating customers well.
So much of London's essential infrastructure is both a) Victorian and
b) indestructible. The waterworks, the underground pipelines, the tunnels
and tubes that crisscross this city; all the ones that work best are over
a hundred years old. The ancient halls of the Liveried companies, the city
buildings from which the empire was run, the sewers and roads and institutions
that join all the dots of this town - they're all the products of an earlier
age. And in many ways, a better age.
02july2003: Interesting.
The citizens of the PDRB (People's Democratic Republic of Bush) are starting
to think for themselves instead of letting Fox News do it for them. American
support for the Iraq colonial action has plummeted to 56%.
I can't blame the people of that country I once adored for not 'getting
it' sooner. For so many, the oversimplified good-vs-evil picture painted by
the White House is the only viewpoint they ever experience. Only 14% of Americans
hold a passport, and the US culture and media's lack of knowledge or interest
in the world outside US borders is truly remarkable. But this slide in gung-ho'ness
is heartening.
And looked at from another perspective, frightening. Saddam's reported
to have said years ago that the limit of any US action is 10,000 American
deaths. Is that the deal with the guerilla actions of the last few weeks -
trying to pump up the total to a level the American population can't tolerate?
Does the guy have resolve beyond anything we ever imagined, and is actually
planning a comeback?
But I'm trying to be hopeful that the whole situation will be solved
before another 10,000 people have to die. Dare I think the unthinkable - that
the US's checks and balances will actually work, in this most testing of circumstances,
and the US's voting population will register their disapproval?
For a puppet like Bush - guided entirely by opinion polls and the Wolfowitz/Bush
Snr/Cheney/Rumsfeld quartet - all that matters is getting elected. (After
Florida, note I don't say 're-elected'.) And if war support drops below 40%,
he's going to ask the quartet for permission to pull out. They may even give
it.
29jun2003: Have you ever noticed that when you
try to fit more than 20 kitchen knives into a rack designed for 30, you start
making corny SFX whenever you take one out? My Globals are packed so tightly
that whenever I remove one it grates against its neighbours with a schickshangshing
noise worthy of Errol Flynn. Maybe I should practise my pirate's laugh.
Now Globals are great - seriously sharp steel that cut for a long time
between sharpenings, take a great edge with a few schicks over a wetstone,
and are perfectly balanced for throwing. (Some people might think this last
unimportant in kitchenware, unless you're ME!) They also come in refreshingly
large sizes; two of mine could easily be mistaken for broadswords.
But already six of the best are pockmarked by frequent unsheathing
of their rack neighbours. And since the blades aren't visible when they're
racked, it usually takes at least eight withdraw-and-rethrusts to find a knife
that's suitable for the task in hand. Since I'm one of those people who finds
it impossible to make toast without using half the inventory of Selfridges'
kitchenwares department, that means at least twenty accidental dings every
time I cook.
My girlfriend's father is a former kendo champion; I'll have to ask
him for some tips.
27jun2003: So Connex
is finally to die. Not before time. Britain's railways are a joke at best,
but Connex is the worst of even this bunch of mediocrities. How this company
can't cover its costs - with demand sky-high, hundreds of millions in subsidies,
and tracks running through the UK's wealthiest commuter belt - is beyond me.
Incompetents.
