Find that campsite!

I’ve been very busy lately. Busy making it easier for YOU – yes YOU! – to find the perfect campsite in the UK.

As of a few days ago, my campsite listing website has some new features. And not just any new features – these are (to the best of my knowledge) unique new features. The already pretty handy map of campsites now lets you…

• Filter campsites based on what facilities they have – you can either specify that your ideal campsite must have a certain feature, or definitely must not have it. Ideal for finding a campsite that allows campfires but no pesky caravans.
• View only those campsites that are open during the month you’re planning on holidaying.

There are one or two additional features hopefully to go live later this month, but for now please take a look and let me knnow if you have any feedback.

Endurance

So much has gone on in my life in recent months: Went to Amsterdam, fell in love, didn't go to India (yes, that is, believe it or not, something to note), broke up a fight, got a new dream job, formed a band that properly gets paid, went to France (twice), went to Finland, survived the economic crisis (so far)...

... as has at least one of the London new builds by the looks of this photo. Which I can non-exclusively reveal is.... The Heron Tower. Also, Broadgate Tower looks well and truly occupied (though not featured in this photograph). God knows what's happening to the Cheesegrate or the Bishopsgate Tower though. The demolition of the Cheesgrater site started well before the Heron Tower one, so it's all a bit arse abourt face if you ask me.

I'm retired from skyscraper hunting officially, but couldn't resist posting this photo, together with a link to skyscrapernews to read more about it.

By the way - and I hate to go on about it - but my new blog is starting to pick up in frequency of posts, and it is more fun writing when you have more readers, so please do take a look.

A new home

I'm back from the dead, briefly, to say I have a new blog over at wheresrhys.co.uk

As my day job is web related it will evolve into a showcase for what I can do. So there will be a few boring web technology related articles, but I intend to also use it as a rant-board, for occassional skyscraper highlights, and also to host a new artform I've invented: The Phoku.

So if you've enjoyed reading this blog regardless of/despite the skyscraper interest then you may want to subscribe to the new one too.

Farewell

A number of factors have combined to quieten this blog of late:

1. Very unreliable internet service at home
2. Being quite busy with life ingeneral
3. I'm moving to Amsterdam soon, and have been debating whether to continue with the blog at all.
   

#1 is now resolved, but #2 and #3 still loom large on the horizon. Delving in in more depth:

#2
I started the blog when my houseshare was less than ideal and spent a lot of time in my room hiding/plotting. Nowadays I don't have the same incentive to remain ensconced with my laptop, and writing the blog on a regular basis feels a bit like a chore.

#3
Well, it's pretty flat really, isn't it. I'll probably get bullied for not being horizontal enough in my enthusiasms if I continue with the blog. I won't be able to take any photos of the works in progress, so will be reduced to scouring the new websites for updates. This is something I haven't been doing too much of lately either as www.skyscrapernews.com does a far beter job in all honesty.

So I am retiring the blog for the time being. I don't expect the move to Amsterdam will be permanent (probably about 6 months), so I may return one day to continue the tall building commentary. It all depends on how big a public outcry there is.

I'll leave you with two things:

1. There is one hoarding in the city which is not, surprisingly, around a construction site: it's around an archaeological dig at a buried section of the Old London Wall near Leadenhall Market.
2. One last poor photo of the Broadgate Tower:

Signage

Someone has outdone me on the building site sign front: http://www.chortleberry.com/l/photo_96710/Building_Site_Shenanigans

The fog

Nothing much to say, other than that one side effect of falling off my bike on Saturday is that I'm getting the tube to work. Which means I have been walking from Westminster tube... through the fog.. and past Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

Spooky!


And below is another foggy photo, of Millbank Tower, but taken by Jane, not I. And looking, as is the wont of London artifacts these days, like something from the Mysterious Cities of Gold.


Music to watch fog by, by fog

A Condor in the City

Looks a bit like the big golden bird in Mysterious Cities of Gold, does it not?

And it is to be found on Cornhill. Or possibly Cheapside. One or the other.

While I'm putting up photos of small things in the city, here also is a shop on Threadneedle Street. There's something very anachronistic about such a quaint little olde English tobacconists using fluorescent pieces of card for its pricing labels. I didn't go and have a closer look, but I dread to think they may have been written in permanent marker rather than copperplate printed.

You will also notice that though the awning proclaims "J. Bedford and Co", the plaque beneath the window says "H. Botterill & Sons, estd 1841". A cunning ruse to tempt in passing footfall who, too close to be able to see the awning, purchase their Havana cigars unaware that the claims to have been established in 1841 are of dubious provenence.

A waterfront is as good as a skyline

Isn't the weather just great at the moment! (Apologies for any insensitivity towards any readers from Bismarck, North Dakota). So great that I spent most of yesterday's daylight hours out of bed and out of doors, and intend on a repeat performance today, once the blog's finished.

The morning involved seeing one of these, hearing one of these singing (always a good sign of spring) and nearly falling in the canal. In the afternoon I cycled along the canal to Limehouse with Tom for a couple of drinks on the waterfront, and where Beard also joined us later. Various sights along the canal:

I like this building, but I don't think it fits in London at all. Modern looking, interestingly shaped and textured apartment buildings can work in London, but this clean, pine boarded and pastel panelled construction looks awkward in grimy Poplar. Charles keeps going on about traditional styles, and building modern structures in appropriate settings and, it turns out, I agree. I just think people focus too much on the size of buildings, and assume big ones are going to be eyesores.

The Phoenix Business Centre, which is struggling - to say the least - to rise from its East London ashes.

Some interesting shadow effects on the water.

New flats going up in Bow/Stratford, near the olympic park.

Now - on to the main point if this post. There is much talk about preserving London's historic skyline. These energies would, I feel, be much better spent campaigning for the reinstatement of a public Thames waterfront.

The Morpeth, near where I work, has numerous prints of old London scenes. One that caught my eye the other day was of Somerset House before Victoria embankment was built (similar to the picture to the right). It shows a public courtyard with steps leading down to the river.

As this article explains:

"London's roads were becoming increasingly congested and its sewers unable to cope ... The Embankment was intended to carry a new road along the edge of the Thames from Westminster to the City of London and, below ground, to accommodate large sewers and a line for the Metropolitan and District Railway.

The introduction of the Embankment had the effect of distancing the river from the buildings along its north bank, particularly significant for Somerset House, which had been designed to rise directly from the water ... The dramatic waterfront design of Sir William Chambers' Somerset House had effectively been destroyed a little more than a decade since the building of the New Wing had seen its completion."

Somerset House is a particularly striking example of how there are very few places away from the South Bank where one can sit by the river. Limehouse is one of the very few. Unfortunately the view from there is blighted by the many cod-luxury low rise apartments opposite.

London surely deserves a more accessible and better, architecturally speaking, waterfront.

Speaking of Limehouse, it has a surprising sign telling boats arriving in the marina not to disembark any animals due to rabies, which reminds you that London is still technically a port.

Finally, a nuclear bomb went off in London yesterday. I have photographic proof:

Sustainable cities

A number of disparate elements have come together to form this post.

1. I found a newspaper cutting I meant to write about ages ago. Across the road from me they were building an unusual looking block of flats. This turns out to be London's greenest block of flats - the award winning BowZED. The solar panels, tiny wind turbine, and ship funnels that look like roman centurion helmets on the roof are the most obvious green design features (not sure what gren function the funnels do though), but it was also built using re-used steel girders.
2. This article (which you can't read as the Canadian Globe and Mail don't let you read archived articles for free) was posted to me by my Auntie Eirlys, who does that sort of thing from time to time. It's about an Architect called Cameron Sinclair, who set up an organisation called architecture for humanity, which assists in the creation of sustainable homes in developing countries and disaster areas, partly through the new concept of open source architectural plans. He studied architecture in London (grew up in Peckham), but part of the reason for going off on the philanthropic tangent was due to his fellow students annoyingly trying to emulate Fran Ghery and Zaha Hadid... as if that was all architecture was about. He won the TED prize in 2006, and you can watch his prize winning talk here.

Which brings me nicely - unexpectedly smoothly really - on to TED.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. Once a year they bring together leading thinkers in many fields in order to try and cross-pollenate ideas across disciplines. I've been subscribing to their feed for a few months now (they put up videos of 10-20 minute lectures (stored up for years, though most of the ideas are remarkably fresh) at a rate of about 2 or 3 per week).

The reason I'm writing about them now is because in the past couple of weeks there's a vague, perhaps unintentional thread of being aware of the possibilities of architecture in cities.

Here is a favourite - a whimsical sketched journey through Rome:



Another related to the architectural possibilities theme are sustainable cities (a bit dull, to be honest).

Here are my other favourites:

• Michael Pollan: The omnivore's next dilemma - An awe-inspiring meditative, philosophical examination of Darwinism, humanity's place in the world and - an unlikely conclusion - sustainable farming.
• David Gallo: Underwater astonishments - The best octopus camouflage you will ever see. Possibly also the only octopus camouflage you will ever see.
• Ron Eglash: African fractals, in buildings and braids - What the title says.
• Dan Dennett: Can we know our own minds? - I've read a lot of his books, but never imagined he looked like Father Christmas! A very entertaining talk on self-knowledge and consciousness, with the best magician/neuroscientist analogy you will ever hear.
• Vilayanur Ramachandran: A journey to the center of your mind - very similar to Daniel Dennett's (covering, as it does, the brain's ability to fool the body) and almost as good.
• Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law - An eloquent argument for changing copyright laws, which currently make most people who use the internet (minor) criminal.
• Yossi Vardi: Help fight local warming - funny short talk about decreasing male fertility due to overzealous use of laptops.
  

The site also has the best video navigation and rating system on any site.

4.
And finally, last week I read an obituary for Hans Monderman, who believes exposing drivers, cyclists and pedestrians to slightly more danger forces them to be more aware of what's around them, and they collectively will cause less road accidents. And his ideas worked! He removes road signs and crashes decrease in frequency

I know this is a lot to take in, but every link in this post is well worth following. ANd you might also feel the vague, but just tangible, theme running through them.

When is a skyscraper finished?

I'm not sure if I actually pointed it out the other day, but the Willis Building is still, as yet, unoccupied and is still evidently a bit of a mess inside. And yet, I have considered it finished for some time, and, looking at Broadgate Tower and considering it incomplete, I have come up with teh following criteria for a building's completion (for the purposes of this blog).

1. All cranes dismantled and taken down
2. All glazing in place
   

And there we have it.

The photo on the right was taken from a street I've never been down before, also home to this fetching electricity substation. It provides a good view of the rear of the building which, to all intents and purposes, looks finished (although this doesn't hold true for street level).

It also looks pretty polished from Bishopsgate Street, with the facade of 201 Bishopsgate snaking along the pavement, and now the glass reaches down to the ground (but not the cladding on the pillars, which remain resolutely gravity defiant).

A week ago on Sunday was a gorgeous day in the city, as you can see from the blue skies. I ended up in Spital Square drinking coffee, eating a slice of pizza, cycling through a mirrored sculpture and reading in the frosty sun.

Finally, to keep the blog, as ever, with it's nose to topical affairs; much of the American democratic candidate debate revolves around healthcare.

1. This week I have seen an ambulance with balloons, streamers and a just married sign hanging off the back (I only hope they dropped it off at the depot before going off on their honeymoon).
2. I cycled pasta sinister black van with "PRIVATE AMBULANCE" written on its side. That labour government and it's PFI's! What number d'you call for this ambulance service? 666? Joking aside, why would a private ambulance look so sinister?

Remember; you heard it here first.

Newsflash: Prince Charles hates modern architecture!!!

He also makes expensive cakes and his little brother is following in his footsteps when it comes to the duty to stay out of politics.

But back to the matter in hand, Prince Charles delivered a speech last week attacking the policy of building tall buildings in London (like it hasn't all been said before).

"...will disfigure precious views and disinherit future generations of Londoners"

I didn't know I was going to inherit a Londoner! But more seriously... err, it's just the same old argument - that we somehow are fortunate to live in a golden age of the London view. One so precious that it must be preserved despite the fact that London is a living city.

"...buildings that express nothing but outdated sustainability."

What on earth does that mean???

"...retain the kind of human scale that attract so many people to them"

As I wrote the other day, even moderately big buildings - necessary in places like the city - are always going to obscure buildings on a more human scale. Unless you favour parkland or bungalows you're on a hiding to nothing here.

Also most of the popular buildings in London - St Pauls, Westminster, Tate modern, tower of london - are popular because of their grandiosity, not their intimacy. Possibly the only people who think they are quaint and intimate are American tourists.

"Parisian example of a high-rise urban quarter at La Defense effectively kept high-rise development away from central Paris."

What he forgets though is that Paris' old buildings are far more intact than London's due to the blitz. So Paris doesn't have the same option to demolish hundreds of 1960's modernist blots that we do.

"...in Berlin, too ... the city leaders have insisted upon rigorous limitations to the height of new buildings. These kinds of approaches can help to achieve a far more coherent sense of harmony and civic self-confidence."

Not sure what civic self-confidence is. Most of the top Google results are Prince Charles saying it in this speech and a previous one. The only other architectural use of it I can find is where civic self-confidence spawned town-planning, rather than the other way round (which seems a lot more feasible). If anyone knows what Charles means, and what mechanisms he thinks lead from smaller buildings to civic self-confidence, then let me know.

By the way, in a nod to the misuse of statistics, he quotes Kensington and Chelsea - a pretty low rise borough - as having the highest population density in London, which is true. But a bit of research suggests that it's probably the inner London Borough with the least parkland (Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens are both in Westminster). I don't think he's being deliberately misleading. He's just a pretty average interpreter of statistics.

I could go on to criticize some of his other views, but it could go on for some time. So I'll just finish by saying that when Charles says, like many other people:

"My concern is that London will become just like everywhere else with the same homogenized buildings that express nothing but outdated unsustainability"

... has he not been to the many cities around the world that have many tall buildings (including, it has to be said, London, as it has a few). Does he think all those cities are the same? If he does, then he clearly has no appreciation for the diverse, street-level, intimate feel he claims to know so much about.

Oh, go on then, one final bit of Charlie madness:

"...how it can be considered sensible, or indeed rational, to implant such “congestors” [skyscrapers] into a network of streets which were designed to function with two to three storey buildings."

Last but not least, here's what the readers of the Telegraph think.

Back to bike ranting

I've just had a narrow escape... I think. I parked my bike round the side of Liverpool Street station, away from the crowds. When I went to get my bike later there were some kids hanging about. A couple of them were starting to make their way towards me and gesturing for the others to come too, so I darted off as fast as I could.

"You're an idiot," I hear you cry. "Why didn't you park your bike out front like someone who's not an idiot, you big fat idiot?"

And well might you ask.

Most of the railings around Liverpool Street have signs saying bikes will be removed on them (
Here is another illustrative story: http://www.london-se1.co.uk/forum/read/1/21843).

I pondered earlier in the day who had the authority to remove these bikes? The bike is on the street and, as I read the other day, even the police and other officials don't have the authority to remove bikes on the street, even if they're causing an obstruction (for the moment - it might be changing). And as the bike isn't actually on private property, merely leaning against it, one has to wonder if anyone has the authority to move it, even if there is a written warning there. If the written warning counted for anything then they could also put up signs giving them the right to move anything that passed by on the pavement... even people!

From the tfl website:

Parliament Square and Whitehall security zone

There is one area in London where if you park at street level you won't find your bike where you left it - the security zone around Parliament Square and Whitehall. Here you need to take your bike to an underground car park and leave it there. If you don't it will be removed and taken to Charing Cross Police station.

The question is, would the site security be breaking the law if they moved my bike? I think having a sign like that on the railings outside someone's house is fair enough, and I wouldn't dream of ignoring it. But outside a large office building in the City it seems inappropriate, and I would really like to flout the signs... but the risk is always that security will remove it and the police won't care enough to stop them or help me get it back. In fact, the police seem to condone it even though it would probably be acting illegally:

• When parking on the street ... Avoid using "street furniture"as these may be removed by Local Authorities ... Ensure you are not ... using fixtures that have signs asking you not to secure your cycle to them (or it may be removed/double locked).

Oh, and we won the rugby... or something.

Don't fence me in

The hoarding around the base of the Leadenhall building used to be a drab, grey, wooden affair. Not any more!

Mahatma Ghandi said "Be the change you want to be in the world," and it appears that one thing this has inspired (a slightly smaller change than gaining independence for India) is the replacement of the Leadenhall Building's hoarding with something a little more glitzy.

It's an aluminium composite panel (the best in quality and service (can an inanimate object provide a service?)) in silver and yellow, and is the perfect surface on which to emblazon details of the skyscraper construction project. They have even broken with the horizontal lines at one point to include a metalworkers' impression of the finished tower.

Now - I know what you're thinking: Who said they could put up this flashy new fencing, and I come equipped with an answer: the Corporation of London (aka City of London Council). As evidenced here, and also on the boards surrounding two smaller building sites in the city. Th

But there is one anomaly; the green fencing surrounding the Bishopsgate Tower (now officially called The Pinnacle, it seems) building site stands there under the auspices of Transport for London. Not only that, but as well as being allowed hoarding or scaffolding, a gantry is also permitted. The only reason I can think of TfL getting involved is that the tower will be on a main thoroughfare... but then again, so is the Broadgate Tower. Hmm - I'm confused!

Spot the difference, Richard Rogers

It turns out Richard Rogers may have been too quick to criticise Bovis' slow progress on demolition of the building obstructing he construction of the Leadenhall Building.

September 2007
January 2008

Changes to note (which may need a click and a zoom in to see):

1. The platform has risen 2-3 stories. Quite slow progress for 4-5 months' work, but they've also put up a lot of canvas and scaffolding up there.
2. The hoarding has been replaced by some shiny new stuff
3. The building has evidently been filled with helium or hot air as, in January 2008, it has had to be tethered to the ground
   
4. The crane has rotated. Proof of intelligent life, or just the wind? Who can tell.

For more up to the minute information read the September (with an illustrative diagram) and December newsletters. Interesting elements of the December news are the imminent (possibly old news by now) construction of a bridge to give better site access, and if you want to see the pile driving for the foundations in action, you will have to pop by at night.

Dialogue concerning construction of a cheese wedge

Richard Rogers: Hello - can I speak to Charles please?

Office assistant: (may be male or female - let's not make an ass out of you and me here) I'll just get...

(Charles William Bovis Jr. gesticulates wildly for the office assistant not to reveal he's there)

Office assistant: (Not making any effort to conceal their voice from the man on the phone) But I've already started to tell him I'll get you.

(Bovis comes over and, looking daggers over at his assistant, takes the receiver from her)

Bovis: Richard... Hi! Good to hear from you.

Rogers: Hi, Charles. Listen, I'm glad I caught you because I...

Bovis: How's it hangin' Richie?

Rogers: Fine, but I don't have time to chat... I...

Bovis: How is me old mugger, eh?

Rogers: I'm very well, I told you... but about this...

Bovis: And Mary... and the kids? Are they well?

Rogers: Yes! Now, listen here Charles. If I didn't know any better I'd say...

Bovis: How old are they n....

Rogers: ...I'd say you were trying to avoid me.

Bovis: (Aghast) Well there's no need to interrupt. Why would I be trying to avoid you.

Rogers: Well, it's the construction of the Leadenhall Building,

Bovis: The what, now?

Rogers: The Leadenhall Building.

Bovis: Huh?

Rogers: (Pained) The Cheesegrater

Bovis: Oh - well why didn't you say so. Yeah, the horny dildo-wedge. What of it?

Rogers: Well, I couldn't help noticing that that... that... that ugly carbuncle of a building that used to occupy the space where it's supposed to go... well... it didn't "used" to occupy the land; it still very much does occupy the land.

Bovis: Ah yes. Right you are, my friend, right you are. Still there it is. As sure as eggs came before the chicken, there it is.

Rogers: Well, I wouldn't bring it up really... only I notice that you've had that bit hovering up there since at least May.

Bovis: Absolutely - can't rush these things you know.

Rogers: But, I was strolling round the Heron Tower the other day. They only started knocking it down... well, it seems like just the other day, and already it's cleared.

Bovis: Ah yes, but they didn't have any problems with the... with the - don't tell the papers, mind - with the old curse

Rogers: What - asbestos?

Bovis: No! The old, err, Indian burial ground.

Rogers: There's an Indian burial ground?

Bovis: Yep.

Rogers: Are there Indian burial grounds in the UK?

Bovis: This one 'ere is.

Rogers: Well, i rather wish someone had told me... before I started work on this project.

Bovis: Ah - that'll be the curse already taking effect. A pre-emptive strike if you will

Rogers: I'm sorry?

Bovis: Started to give you bad luck before you started work here.

Rogers: (After thinking for a second) But if it wasn't for the bad luck of not knowing about the burial ground I wouldn't have started working here, and wouldn't have disturbed the ground, and there'd be need for the curse to take effect in the first place. It's like the chicken/egg thing.

Bovis: Huh?

Rogers. Don't you see?! It's a rather counter-productive curse that aids and abets the very thing it's set up to prevent.

Bovis: Ah - but it's a very self-loathing Indian burial ground. Very low self-esteem. Was taken into care and then sold into foundations by its foster parents. Tragic tale.

Rogers: Oh, I'm sorry to hear it.

Bovis: You're sorry! think how I feel having to make all this up!

Rogers: Quite, quite right. I really am very sorry to bother you.

Bovis: That's OK Mr. R. You mind how you go now.

Rogers: I will do indeed. Goodbye.

Bovis: Bye Mr. R. My love to Mary.

Snowboard - Eat fresh!

This morning I passed a man by Liverpool Street station holding a sign with a big arrow on it saying:

SALE! Ski equipment, outdoor clothing...

What's remarkable about that?

Only that attached to the same post was a sign saying:

SUBWAY - Eat fresh!

What does this mean? Subway have branched out into supplying ski equipment. That they go even further and have started selling fresh ski equipment as food. "Any sauce on that snowboard, sir?"

Or does it mean the guy holding the sign is pulling a fast one, getting paid twice for holding one stick? Moonlighting on both suppliers at once.

Or has a new alliance been formed between Ellis Brigham and Subway, recognising that nine out of ten skiiers fall in the "love it" to "don't mind it" bracket of the attitudes to subway survey?

Where are YOU going?

How many price comparison websites do we need? Confused moneysupermarket comparethemarket pricerunner gocompare carsurance uswitch... The list goes on

I fully intend to set up a website which compares the comparison abilities of all the other comparison sites. A meta-comparer, if you will. I might set up some rival sites too and then set up a meta-meta-comparer. Pretty soon it will be impossible for anyone to say "ah - what the hell - this one seems ok," without deliberating for at least a lifetime.

So Willis, now with their shiny new headquarters (cleaned up nice, though still not quite finished), might find it difficult in future to find applicants of a high enough caliber to fill their twenty-first century desks.

"Where are you going," they ask brazenly as you walk along their newly laid cobbled sidestreet, even though they themselves are, inadvertently, helping to breed the tip-toeing, risk averse, business process obsessed dilly-dalliers of the future. And how?

See this sign:

It's in the same league as urban mythical "may contain nuts" labels on packets of peanuts, being as it is a quite unnecessary notice given the unsurmountable nature of the building detritus behind it:

Who on earth couldn't work out for themselves that that particular bit of footpath was, at this moment in time, not meant for walking on?

On the other hand... here's a thought - maybe it's a test. Maybe you're supposed to notice the incongruous nature of the sign and take it as an invitation to parkour your way around their building (they provide plenty of other props (benches) even though the road gets little to no sun). I shall apply for a job there, strut into the interview and simply say "Yeah - the sign. I know your game," and walk out as the MD.

Things move fast

You know those signs which are rigged up to a speed detector and light up, telling you, personally, to slow down if you're going too fast; one of them just flashed at me... on my bike. Cool as!

I'm not the only things to come and go in the blink of an eye though. Take a look at this:

And now this:

Aside from one photo being zoomed in far closer, you will notice that the second is far less cluttered with sheet clad building owing to the clearing of the site to build the Heron Tower. And these photos were taken, what, 2 and a half months apart.

The upshot of this is there are now - for a limited period - pleasant vistas across to St Botolph's without Bishopsgate Church. This view has been obscured for probably the last 30 years at least by a bland concrete building and, if all goes according to plan, will be obscured once more within the next year. So get in fast!

It's a very pretty church and i'm glad it's now revealed to the world. Does this mean I wish Heron Tower wasn't being built?

It's a tricky one. If the Heron Tower wasn't going to be built then I suppose the plot of land would be a great location for a small park. I think it'd get plenty of sun and, as illustrated here, the views would be pretty.

But that's never gonna happen. That land is destined to play host to an office block of some description. A view obscuring office block. But the question remains; what sort of building should it be? Preserving the view can't be an argument against or in favour of any building higher than 1 storey. Realistically, any new building in the city is going to be at leats 5 storeys high (even the old ones tend to have at least 4 floors).

So it does make me sad to know that the view of St Botolph's from the south East will be short-lived one, at least I know the building that gets in the way has an architectural ambition that might just soften the blow a little.

Blue meanies

This is an old photo (taken in August I think) of the fence going around the new Olympic park redevelopment area. It's a much better photo than those I took this morning (owing to me only having my phone on me this morning), hence its inclusion.

I'm not going to attempt to follow the development of the Olympic Park too closely as another blog does a far more thorough job of it. But I did come across some interesting stuff today on my way to the local nature reserve where I saw, among other things, two foxes sunning themselves in the... err... sun.

Firstly, to recap, also in August I saw that the only thing breaching the impenetrable fortress Olympic 2012 was a tree , which happened to lie exactly along the path of the fence, and was broad and
low enough to leave the developers with no choice but to cut around it.

Now, however, there is a new spirit of openness as they have installed windows. Not much to see as yet - just a load of rubble - so it's perhaps understandable that the first glimpse the public has been permitted to have of the site coincides with the plastering of these black and white posters over a section of the fence.

Now that's what I call a community art project!

Doom and gloom

Had Chris Morris not been given the go ahead to film the The Day Today episode where he announces "It's War!" (YouTube) ("The stretched twig of peace is at.. melting point." Ha!) he would have filmed a similar episode where he proclaimed, "It's Recession!". That much we know.

For recession is one of the few times when the press play a greater than half-share in making the news.

When I was at uni, and flirting with a career in international journalism I went to a graduate recruitment presentation by Reuters. One of the people leading the talk opted to illustrate with an example what the job was all about. He related how one day George Bush had off the cuff made a minor, equivocal comment about the US economy whilst preoccupied with other matters on a state visit to Italy. The Reuters people in Italy picked up on this and reported it as a big story. This story rocketed around the world unaltered - i.e. just the raw facts with no analysis as to whether there might be any substance beyond the childish ruminations of a befuddled president - and share prices began to plummet. About 36 hours later Alan Greenspan was forced to deliver a statement to the effect that the US economy wasn't in crisis and that the world wasn't ready to end just yet.

After relating this story the Reuters rep turned to the audience beaming. "As you can see," he said, "what we do here at Reuters really does make an impact."

What! You nearly cause a financial meltdown because of sloppy, knee-jerk reporting? And you're proud of that! That is the single example you've chosen to represent how crucial your work is. I dread to think what other calamities they've nearly foisted on the world if that was the one to be most proud of. I was always taught (always - every morning, before breakfast) that Chernobyl was caused by Russian scientists carrying out tests without proper safeguards; that the Exxon Valdez ran aground on rocks; that the famine in Ethiopia was caused by a number of dry years and exacerbated by civil strife... but I wouldn't discount the hand of global news corp Reuters behind it all.

So anyway, a very long-winded way of saying that surely I can't be the only one to wonder if booms and busts would happen at all without the media. (Yes there would be up and down fluctuations, but if so much is dependent on consumer and market confidence, would they ever reach mammoth proportions?). And that Land Securities, for one, don't seem too shaken, so a few London buildings should still get built.