It was a strong show, worthy of one of the greatest geniuses since
Mozart. Creative intro featuring posterised anime of the band, each just recognisable...
and the main show using beams of light as solid objects to divide the stage.
(Note to Dave: it's really time to let Ziggy retire, though.) Heathen and Reality
tracks alternated with older stuff; 'I'm afraid of Americans' and the encore
'Five Years' of course salted with extra poignancy in these times of US imperialism.
I also played my 73 game solo. The 73 game can only be played at Bowie
concerts: it involves pointing out people who you think were at the famous Hammersmith
show in 1973. A fiftysomething guy in a long coat - he's a 73. The
woman 'of a certain age' trying to squeeze back into her miniskirt; she's possibly
a 73 too. One guy in a beard and rasta-style bobblehat is most definitely a 73.
In fact, he may never have left, surviving day-to-day for thirty years in the
underpasses and garbage cans warmed by the debris of Bowie's entourage.
One big letdown, though. Even though this is the UK, I can't believe
just how bad Wembley's food is. An undercooked hamburger with virtually raw onions
in a stale bun was barely disguised by a subsequent box of flavourless starchy
chips (that's fries) the texture of cardboard. And the £3 pints of beer
taste watered-down and aren't even cold. Revolting. I like street food - a good
burger is a work of art - but if you're a venue selling tickets that outprice
Covent Garden, shouldn't you at least have the same quality of food on offer
as my local kebab shop?
24nov2003: Uuuuuurrrggh! Sometimes everyday things
inspire a sense of utter loathing in me. (You know, like the chart music from
people like Dido and Sophie whatsername - the 'ultrabanal', content with no redeeming
features whatsoever except for its soothing effect on the proles.) Today, it's
an ad in the Sunday Times by builder Octagon
Developments: Brookfield Place, Cobham, Surrey. A development of what are
called 'executive homes'. Family homes in the countryside, good commuting times
into London, probably in a safe neighbourhood with good shopping.
Only problem is: these million-pound-plus homes are hideous.
Not in the way a crumbling sixties coucil block is hideous, but hideous
in the way Liberace and Elvis were hideous. How on earth could those with the
money ever spend it on such tasteless, trinketty piles of tat?
These buildings - in the usual reddish brick 'mock-Georgian' of the Southeast's
commuter belt - are beyond redemption. Lifeless photocopied boxes to stuff rich
families into, with no taste or sense of surroundings. So
twee and hackneyed they're not even a post-ironic comment on suburban life...
and yet they're marketed as the height of aspiration, the house you buy when
you've 'made it'.
Awful buildings. Of absolutely zero architectural value. Soul-destroying
typos on the page of the built landscape, utterly insignificant (along with their
solicitor or accountant inhabitants) and yet terrible beyond words. Give me a
hundred-year-old converted factory with peeling windows and uneven floors anytime.
20nov2003: 12noon. This I didn't expect. It's the
big day of protest as the Bush n' Blair show reaches its finale, but operation
Agent Smith has incoming wounded and the main show hasn't started yet.
Crossing from Waterloo in full CIA spook garb, I trip and clear half a
flight of steps outside Embankment station in a single bound. Just as athletic
as Agent Smith to anyone watching, as long as they don't watch the aftermath.
I may have accidentally duplicated his stunts, but show none of his recovery
prowess: I limp through the station to my usual Starbuck's and regroup.
(1pm): Still on R&R. I've tried walking and
had to return. My ankle's showing signs of being up to football size before nightfall;
it's the same ankle I broke years ago in Hongkong (oddly, also falling down steps
- the stairs of the Jardine Matheson building). I order another latte and suck
frustratedly on the surrogate nipple of the lipstop cup. This never happens to
real CIA guys, I'll wager.
(2pm) Struggling to Goodge St. The crowds have stared
to gather in Malet, but it's not clear how many it'll reach: it doesn't seem
to be the hardcore protestors yet, rather the out-of-town people who wouldn't
protest normally. I've made it to the start of the march on half a pack of aspirin,
but the pain's seeping up through my dark suit and saturating the tight white
collar of my necktie'd shirt.
The start of the march has been held up. 3pm, it seems some tipping point
has been reached; there's a lot of people here now, and it's obvious it's not
going to be a damp squib. It's not raining, either.
It's now definitely filtering through the crowd that something's happened
in Istanbul. That strange emotional gestalt that's never definable, but always
perceivable, has reared its head and the crowd's opinion, for a few minutes,
could go any way.
The crowd holds. The bombing in Istanbul, so far only experienced here
through phone calls and SMS alerts, has hardened the British public's anti-war
stance still further. It's already being seen as yet another failing of George
W. I walk alongside novelist John le Carre for a short time; he's as whitehaired
these days as I always imagine George Smiley to have been.
After all: 911, Istanbul today, every terrorist incident in the last thirty
years: these are not military matters, folks, but police matters. If a murderer's
suspected of being inside an office block, you don't nuke the block to take him
out. And nuking the block is essentially what the USA's dragged the UK into,
in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's why (later; 110,000 is the count) people have
come here today.
(4pm) That's it, this is beyond the call of duty.
The giant effigy of George W has been toppled somewhere ahead of me, but it's
cold comfort when I can hardly walk. I'm heading back home to the pool and sauna.
Defending the cause of freedom-beyond-the-American-view-of-it can wait a day.
13nov2003: Setting up a unified messaging inbox
with vodafone.co.uk, and
I'm quite impressed by the service. The P800 has already let me ditch
my PDA; it syncs all life's essentials - calendar, contacts, email,
wine tasting tips - and lets me read Word files too. The new Vodafone
mail completes the picture - I can now gather all voicemails, SMSes,
faxes and emails together as emails with attached audio files.
It's a pity the usefulness of the service isn't backed up by the quality
of Vodafone's support reps.
Support rep: 'Could I have the name of your mobile phone, please?'
Me: 'Yes, I call it 'Fred'.'
Deafening silence. I mean, some people just don't have a sense of humour.
