Happy Hallowe'en!

Here's my personal contribution to the mass adulteration of the pumpkin species...

In fact, this was my first ever attempt at a pumpkin carving, so I'm quite proud of the result. All that training with the Japanese steel does come in useful after all...
The one on the right, by an artist who shall remain nameless, was apparently inspired by Donnie Darko. Scary, eh?

Hymns to London Revisited

St Etienne's gig at the Barbican was the place to be on Thursday night.

Hymns to London Revisited is a specially-commissioned documentary about the Lea valley, East London's marshy industrial wasteland and future home of the Olympics. Directed by Paul Kelly and written by Kevin Pearce, the documentary is set on July 7th, 2005, one day after the announcement of London's successful Olympic bid, and the day of the terrorist attacks on the capital, which lends the film an unintended sense of poignancy. It follows a teenager's newspaper round, capturing the images with which the east of London has become so associated: derelict factories, deserted buildings, grafitti and abandoned urban landscapes overgrown with weeds. The images are intercut with narrative and interviews of residents reminiscing about more prosperous, past times.

The Lea valley was the home of modern industrial London; it was a major waterway into the capital for centuries; the first paper mill was built there in the 15th Century, powered by the currents of the Lea river; plastic and petrol were both invented there; it was the birth of the modern Labour movement; and for years it was even the home of Matchbox cars. Eventually, it became a victim of its own success, and rising labour costs and cheaper imports drove industries out of the valley, leaving behind the crumbling bricks and mortar that remain to this day, and the ghosts of a rich history that risks being forgotten.

The inevitable changes that will come in anticipation of 2012 are received with mixed feelings by the residents; the excitement of the Games and the renewed focus on the region is couterbalanced by soaring property prices and an apprehension of the new and a sense of unwelcome invasion. "They wanna build a hockey stadium here. Work that one out. Who the f*** plays hockey around here?", ponders a resident over images of abandoned sports fields and the now defunct Eton Manor Cricket Club, reminders of recent chronic under-investment in the area.

An excellent soundtrack, written and performed live by St Etienne, accompanied the film, with some vibrant rhythm parts, interesting keyboard effects and fluttering flute melodies, all topped with the wispy vocals of Sarah Cracknell. The film serves as a touching memorial to East London, capturing the soul a place at a brief moment in time, before the inevitabe forces of urban regeneration rip it out and sell it with your morning cappuccino.

The second half was a set dedicated to tracks from the band's latest album, Tales from Turnpike House, ranging from the bossa nova Sun in My Morning, through the urbanely cute Milkbottle Symphony and retro chic Sidestreets, to the positively rocky Last Orders for Gary Stead, and the new single A Good Thing, which is released tomorrow.

iTunes here I come.......

Brainpower

I've recently discovered that there's been considerable research interest in how the brain processes languages. I guess this isn't really surprising, it just hadn't occurred to me before. For example, it seems that only the left side of the brain is needed to process the English language. This part of the brain appears to link sounds together to identify words. By contrast, both the right and left sides of the brain are needed to speak Mandarin; the right side of the brain is thought to process intonation, thus enabling the brain to interpret both sounds and tones into meaning (see this, for instance).

It's also thought that which language you learn in childhood influences the way your brain develops, which is apparently why English speakers find it difficult to learn Mandarin. It also raises interesting questions about whether people who speak different languages also have inherently different skills, depending on which parts of their brain are better developed, and presumably also explains why people who are dyslexic in one language aren't necessarily dyslexic in another.

I have also discovered (admittedly, this is based on observation rather than solid research) that some people speak without using their brain at all, although this is likely to be a redundant evolutionary trait that will eventually disappear through the process of natural selection. One can only hope...

The Global Citizen's guide to: London Transport (part 3)

The Northern Line:

The Northern Line (that's the black one) is the busiest line on London's tube network, carrying some 660,000 disgruntled commuters through its tunnels every day, and over 206 million passengers a year (many of these use the line every day, so by the end of the year, they're really disgruntled). The line runs north to south through the centre of London. Whoever named the Northern Line must, therefore, have been very pleased with themselves, for it does indeed have the most logical name of all the tube lines (perhaps with the exception of the Circle Line, which, as you might expect, goes round in circles. Although if you think about it, there's something rather illogical in that....).

Unfortunately, that's about the only logical thing about the Northern Line. Firstly, there's the layout: travelling north, the line splits into two branches after Kennington. The Bank branch travels through the City, whereas the Charing Cross branch travels through the West End. The branches then come together again at Euston, split briefly again (the Bank branch skips Mornington Crescent, which is kind of a pointless stop anyway), then rejoin at Camden Town, only to then divide yet again into the Edgware branch, which travels northwest, and the High Barnet Branch, which travels northeast, and which itself has another branch veering off to Mill Hill East. Mysteriously, there's no way to travel from the Edgware Branch to the High Barnet branch. In fact, nobody has ever traversed from the northwest to the northeast of London. Legend has it that there is a vast expanse of deserted land in between the two branches of the Northern Line. Some have called this land Hendon, but nobody has ever been there. Or if they have, they haven't returned alive......

Anyway, back to the Northern Line. I see what you're thinking now... "But that's good!", I hear you say, "More consumer choice, right?" (see part 2 below....). Well, yes, you're right. There are, in fact, six route combinations: Edgware via Bank, Edgware via Charing Cross, High Barnet via Bank, High Barnet via Charing Cross, Mill Hill East via Bank, and Mill Hill East via Charing Cross. There are, however, only 2 interchange points between the four branches: at Euston and Camden Town. At either of these you have five choices: you can go south via Charing Cross, south via Bank, or go north towards Edgware, High Barnet or Mill Hill East. Interchanging at Euston is useless, because you have to go up an endless escalator (more on these in future!), dodge the masses and make your way down another escalator before finding the right platform.

So that leaves Camden Town. Camden Town is quite possibly the most ridiculous station ever. In either direction it has two platforms, for each of the two branches. During peak hours, one of the southbound platforms serves the Bank branch, while the other serves the Charing Cross branch. To get from one to the other, you have to go up a set of steps, cross an intersection where all the tunnels merge with the escalators (you can imagine the cattle herding that goes on there) and go down another set of steps to the other platform. At other times, however, both platforms serve both branches, and the decision about which platform a specific train goes to is a source of great mystery. There is some evidence that Northern Line trains can display quantum mechanical properties and, in a manner analogous to the wave-particle duality of electrons, can travel simultaneously down both branches. Unfortunately, humans exhibit no such phenomenon, so that you will invariably have to make a choice as to which platform to go to. There are, of course, helpful electronic boards at the tunnel intersection to inform you of which trains go through which platforms, but their accuracy is such as to make you think that most of the time, they're taking the piss, and it will not be uncommon for you to find yourself walking like a lemming from one platform to another only to realize that you should be on the other platform. Particularly helpful are messages saying: "Destination: please check front of train". Unfortunately, your ticket doesn't come with 20/20 vision to enable you to make out the train's destination as it approaches you at 50mph. You will also find that, while the front of the train may say it's intending to go down the Bank branch, that really has no bearing on which way it actually ends up going (see wave-particle duality above), so that you may often find yourself thinking you're going down the Bank branch, when in fact, you're somewhere in the West End.

My advice to you is thus the following: flip a coin. You have a 1 in 2 chance of being right, and it's far less stressful........

An ode to Japanese steel

The glimmer of thy blade,
The legend of thy making,
Have all but stirred in me,
A passion true awaking.

The stealth of thy design,
O'er centuries refin'd,
Of earth and ore thou art
So beautifully combin'd.

I gaze upon thy cloving
Thy character bestowing,
But silent thou remain'st,
Thy mystery not showing.

Thy wildness will be tamed!
Look now upon mine aim;
If cold and swift thou act'st
Thou shalt deserve thy fame!

有意思的汉字 - interesting Chinese characters...

qü(3) - to grab; to take hold of; to withdraw (money). The left side is a pictogram representing the ear, the right part is an old form of 'right'. In the past, soldiers used to remove the right ear of defeated enemies as proof of victory, which they would then exchange for payment. "Taking the right ear" subsequently came to mean "to withdraw".

The Global Citizen's guide to: London Transport (part 2)

Buying a ticket:

While other cities' transport systems strive for reliability, efficiency and ease of use, London's transport system prides itself on one thing only: consumer choice. Take Hong Kong, for example: a single Octopus card lets you travel on the metro, buses, ferries, trams, the funicular up to The Peak... you can even use it to pay for stuff in shops. Of course, in today's era of global market capitalism, it seems rather restrictive to have to do all these things using one single ticket. It would certainly never wash in a city like London. That's why London offers the widest imaginable range of tickets for travel on its transport system.

Nobody knows exactly how many different public transport tickets are available in London. It is said that a long time ago, a famous scholar found a mathematical expression to answer this question and scribbled it on the margin of a.... oh wait, no, that's Fermat's last theorem. OK, so really, nobody knows how many tickets are available, but let's do a quick calculation:

London is divided into 6 different transport zones, extending outwards from central London in a ring-like fashion. That gives 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 21 different combinations of single journey tickets within and between zones. You can also buy return tickets, making this 42. Children under 16 and the elderly receive separate concessions, so that takes the number up to 126. Of course, buying a ticket for every single journey is a pain, so there are a number of ticket options for multi-trip travel in the form of travelcards. These allow unrestricted travel within and between specified zones over a certain time period. For example, you can buy travelcards valid between zone 1 and all the other zones, so that's 5 different travelcards. Working out all the zone combinations, I figure there are 21 possible such travelcards, each available in weekly, monthly and annual varieties for adults, children and other concessions, making this 189. You can also get 6 different individual travelcards valid for one day and 2 valid over 3 days- that's 24 with concessions- plus 4 family one-day travelcards.

Just to recap, we're up to 126 + 189 + 24 + 4 = 343

Oh, I should mention that one-day travelcards are more expensive if you buy them during peak time, so that adds another 10. You can also buy a carnet (a book of 10 single tickets) for travel any time within zone 1. So now we're up to 354. Now, if you hold one of these travelcards, but want to travel outside your permitted zones, you have to buy an extension, of which there are 63 possible zone-age combinations. That's 417 now.

HOWEVER, some season travelcards are valid on the tube and on buses, but not overland trains, while some others can be used on all of these. So that's, let's see.....

Ok, I'm beginning to lose the will to live now...

But with over 400 different tickets to choose from, who could possibly be dissatisfied with London's public transport system? A couple of years ago, the Oyster card was introduced, and there was a great deal of concern, because this was supposed to let you travel on any form of public transport with a single charge card, thereby greatly reducing consumer choice. But eventually it was realized that this concern was unwarranted, because it would be impracticable to make the system compatible across the tube, buses and overland trains, so that rather than reduce consumer choice, introducing the Oyster card would actually increase consumer choice, because tickets would have to be made available in both Oyster and conventional formats.

So now everyone's even happier, because they have even more tickets to choose from.