If you use Waterloo Station, and you walk past the old Eurostar platforms (they tell me there are plans to turn this into a shopping mall, which God knows we don’t have enough of in London sarcasm), you’ll see this statue.

The statue, as you’ll know if you, you know, read the plinth, is of the artist Terence Cuneo. Sadly, it tends to be hidden away between a couple of stalls, which is just crappy. Cuneo is an artist whose work is hugely underrated. He specialised in transport paintings, particularly trains, hence his position in Waterloo Station. He produced a number of posters for British Railways, including some genuine classics of railway art. His particular talent was capturing the feel of the subject, the weight and atmosphere. You felt as if his trains had been captured in a single moment, although each painting must have taken many hours of painstaking concentration to produce.

Cuneo painting of Waterloo, 1967

Cuneo’s trademark in his paintings was a little mouse hidden somewhere in the picture. As a result, any exhibition of his work will inevitably have several viewers squinting at the paintings from three inches away in an effort to find the elusive rodent.

Sometimes the mouse is quite easy to find.

There’s even an anecdote that Cuneo told in a collection of his work in which the mouse caused an international incident. An officer in the Navy in South Africa had a print of one of Cuneo’s paintings in his cabin, and a guest observed that there would be a hidden mouse in there. The two men spent ages trying to find the mouse, but absolutely couldn’t. So they did what any sensible person would do, and telegraphed Cuneo, who responded with “Up telegraph pole first left”. This message, unfortunately, was intercepted and reported as being “suspicious, probably in code”. The officer was called upon to explain himself and, this being a month later, he’d totally forgotten about the mouse. It was several minutes before he remembered, whereupon he took the interrogators into his cabin, pointed dramatically at a telegraph pole in the picture and said, “Here you are, gentlemen – up telegraph pole, first left, and there’s the mouse!”

So it pleased me, when I first saw that statue in Waterloo, to find this hidden among the artist’s paraphernalia on the floor:

So. I forgot my shoes.

Standing on the tube, sweat still fresh from the football I had just been playing, I had a moment. You know, the weird sensation of missing something.

“I’m sure I had another bag earlier…”

“Nah… maybe I didn’t…”

I looked at the football boots on my feet.

“I wonder where my shoes are…”

“Rucksack? Maybe…”

“No. No they’re not.”

“They were in a plastic bag. Behind the goal.”

“I don’t have that bag anymore.”

“Shit.”

Of course I didn’t let on. The tube was busy. I am a man and we must remain manly. Losing your shoes, it’s not manly. We are supposed to be in control at all times. Don’t let those suits see your weakness. Look at you, in your football kit and your sweat and your manly football legs and your youth, they envy you, don’t spoil it by letting them know you have forgotten your shoes, don’t let the fuckers see the weakness.

Do you go back? I was 25 minutes away when I realised. How much did I like those shoes? Well, the sole was coming off. And I had been thinking of buying some new ones.

Would they even be there when I got back? Unlikely, the sort of pikeys hanging around Old Street on a Wednesday night would have those shoes away before you could say “breakdown of moral sensibility”. It really wasn’t worth it.

The train rattled into Waterloo like a bowling ball. I bounded up the stairs, phone in hand, football boots on feet, shoes behind a goal in Old Street.

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“I forgot my shoes.”

It was laughter for quite a while.

“You fucking twat.”

As usual, Jade, you are correct.

Photo by JadeLisaPhotography

For an Underground Train

Sortim de copes, i pago perquè he robat una XUPIVISA OR i tinc un amic informàtic que ha decodificat el número secret.

Moltxilla plena i agafem el tren …

Hem arribat a WATERLOO STATION, convido i pago al SLOE_reformat o vell REEF

IN, or

OUT, a la terrassa?

Qui fa cua i demana?

Sorry!

No hi ha Black GUINNESS perquè diuen que no és realment negra, que és de color vermell Ruby i que és molt amarga.

• GUINNESS® black?

  Look closely. GUINNESS® beer is not actually black but rather dark ruby red because of the way the ingredients are prepared. Some malted barley is roasted, in a similar way to coffee beans, which is what gives GUINNESS® its distinctive colour

Prova una cold Carling? Aigua? Vodka? Whatever will be fine, I think.

De borratxera tornem a l’hotel … i brindem …

.

CHEERS!!!

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“Un ocell no canta perquè tingui una resposta …

Canta perquè té una cançó.”

from d’Austràlia

And from the Republic of Afganistan:

I (Me) and my friend FAREEDA, (She is muslim but we are really good friends because we know how to have fun without a beer)

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I can’t

Posted by Tilia

Okay, first of all, let’s acknowledge that Jane likes the ladies.  

Done?  Okay, round of applause to Jane.  Let’s hope that her one-time comment about liking, “Super thin, athletic girls … with big boobs,” doesn’t turn her into a frat guy.

So, listen, this changes my relationship with Jane absolutely none.  It simply means my mom and her butch girlfriend approve a little bit more of my American bff here in London, and I have to be more careful about the relationship jokes when talking to my mom so she doesn’t get her hopes up, because, much to her chagrin, I still prefer the penis.

That said, Jane and I accidentally had the perfect (platonic) date at some point last weekend.  In a moment of identity crisis, directly preluding the out-of-the-closet epiphany, Jane went to get her ends trimmed, and ended up chopping all of her hair off.

She called me, incoherently ranting about short hair and “not knowing what I want.  I don’t know what’s happening,” and I suggested we meet in Holborn, because, damn, girl, don’t jump off a bridge, I’m sure it looks pretty.

We met up with relatively little incident, though there’s always a little, and walked around looking for a place that was still open to grab a bite or a drink.  Unfortunately, London goes to sleep early, and when we were pushing that radically late hour of 10pm, everything was getting boarded up for the night.  It really takes an amazing amount of self control not to bang on the glass door of Bento and say, “I can see that sushi you’re throwing away!  Hey!  Don’t ignore me!  GIVE ME THE SUSHI!”

Oh well.

What we ended up stumbling upon was this Thai restaurant above a posh gastropub very close to Holborn Station.  I think it was called Thai Smile, and the menus featured a very creepy picture of what PacMan would look like if he turned to face you, smiled, and wore a top knot.

The restaurant itself was clearly a very posh, very romantic spot sometime in the 1940’s.  The walls were a deep red, and though the paint was chipping on the varnished gold settees, and the window overlooking High Holborn was glazed with age, the once-romance of the place still shone through.  Jane and I walked in, and stifling laughter, looked at each other.

“Are you going to propose later?” I asked.

The waitress sat us at this secluded table right next to the afore-mentioned window.  ”Oh yeah, this is definitely the will-you-marry-me table,” I said as I shrugged my overcoat off.  Jane opened her mouth to say something smart assy, but we were cut off by the waitress flying in out of nowhere with a lit candle to place between us.

It was difficult to talk for the laughter after that point.  The pad thai was fantastic though.

Following this, we walked down to Embankment, through the brick alleyways lined with Saturday-night party-people and bohos begging for change by playing accordion or whatever’s at hand, and to the Golden Jubilee Bridge, lit for night-time over the Thames.

Yeah, we live here.

We leaned against the barristers, gazing at view, and appreciating the fact that we were really standing there.  It was a slow progression across the bridge, and onto the South Bank, where a resident jazz band was playing.

Jane argued with herself over her sexuality, and I nodded, supportively, occasionally tossing in my … tuppence.  (Ha, that’s British for – two cents)

We walked past the Eye, past a roller rink/bowling alley that Jane got weirdly excited over, and through a tunnel onto the foggy, lamp-lined strip facing Parliament.

We settled into the prime-viewing bench, with the following view:

Not an Exaggeration.

And talked late into the night, until we were forced to haul ass back to Waterloo station to catch the last trains home.

My experience on the tube that night is also something incredibly memorable, as a bumbling, plain looking 20-something English guy boarded the car, and managed to get the estranged group of commuters into a very involved conversation between three stops.  I will never forget that guy.

The following day, I discovered that gorgeous guy I work with, whom I call Mr. Darcy, is also gay.  This is tragic, as the man is just … just gorgeous.  And successful and healthy and wicked intelligent, and he reclines in his chair, merging companies, in his starched white shirt with the top few buttons undone, with the nonchalant air of someone who is good at everything he does, which you know … includes the bedroom.

Really, just incredibly unfair.  I suppose I’ll go back to thinking of Guitar Guy until the next would-be British love interest comes along.

Until then, I can keep accidentally going on dates with Jane.

David Davis

Perhaps we should all pay more attention to Private Eye. Boatang and Demetriou have just admitted to so doing.

I have to confess that, in my (relative) youth as a 20-to-30-something London businessman, and libertarian, who kind of thought he knew what the world was about, I got riled regularly by young chaps with acne, such as Harry Phibbs* and Andrew Roberts*, who would accost me at drinkspotties or in the IEA, saying things like “now     Dave, as you will have just (yeh? Me?  :-O  Yeh!!! (wha’-?) ) read in your Eye….” something-or-other……….

So I consciously did the opposite, and never even opened the flyleaf of any copy of it, from 1969 up to, well, soon now.

*Don’t get me wrong, squire! They’re perfectly normal guys and very rich too! Just that I didn’t think they were at the time, recommending  _sotto-voce_  a strange mag printed on what seemed like bog-paper, with bad typesetting and only erratically available at WH Smith/Waterloo Station in the evenings. Perhaps it was I that was at fault.

I have previously posted photographs of the Street Art created during the Cans Festival in Leake Street, under London’s Waterloo railway station.

Some of the paintings damaged were the work of Banksy whose work has been sold for £250,000 (US$480,000). As with all Street Art their value was immaterial, I am just dismayed by the wanton destruction of art. Are they such cretins, that their only reaction is to destroy rather than be inspired to create their own art?

Nach Bath nun also London. Eine aeusserst aufregende und spannende Zeit.

Mit dem Zug fahre ich nach London. Es regnet in Stroemen, so wie es nur in England regnen kann! Auf Hoehe Swindon dann die erheiternde Durchsage, dass die Schienen vor uns ueberschwemmt sind. Von meiner letztjaehringen Reise nach Oxford weiss ich, was dies heissen kann. Im Kopf gehe ich bereits das ganze Katastrophenszenario durch – Hotel umbuchen auf eine Jugi in Swindon, etc. Angekommen in London suche ich zuerst eine Weile die Jugi, zum Glueck ist mir eine Verkehrspolizistin sehr behilflich. Im Clink-Hostel dann der grosse Schreck: Ich bin einen Tag zu frueh angekommen, respektive habe nicht richtig gebucht. Mit Glueck ist noch ein Bett frei! Diese Jugi ist echt was besonderes! Ein ehemaliges Gerichtsgebaeude, jetzt umfunktioniert. Momentan sitze ich gerade im ehemaligen Gerichtssaal am Richtertisch und schreibe hier, evtl. chille ich nachher noch im TV-Gerichtsraum. Kueche (gratis all-you-can-eat-breakfast), toller Schlafsaal (10 Personen, davon ein dunkelhaeutiger, der schnarcht …), generell aber wirklich gut – sehr gut!

Am Donnerstag dann zuerst Harrods-Kaufhaus. Ich werde noch verrueckt!! Das ganze Kaufhaus ist so auf edel gemacht. Je weiter hoch ins Kaufhaus ich gehe, desto mehr erschrecke ich! CD- und DVD-Abteilung mit rund 100 – 200 Discs ist ja schon mal gestoert. Am Schlimmsten jedoch die Kinderabteilung. Leute, die haben fuer Kinder einen Coiffeur, drei Restaurants (Kindergerecht mit kleinen Stuehlchen) und eine riesige Spielzeugabteilung. Das ist wirklich nicht mehr normal, von einem Ende der Spielzeugreviers kann ich nicht mehr ans Andere sehen. Ich glaube, als Kind wuerde ich hier einen Knacks kriegen. Aber auch viel positives, so etwa sehe ich meine ersten Schuluniformen und kaufe diverse Sachen ein, u.a. eine wirklich billige und gutgebaute Butterdose fuer Chur.

Am Freitag erkunde ich den Einstiegsort fuer den Eurostar. Ein Riesenglueck! Ich erfahre, dass dieser naemlich nicht mehr in der Waterloo-Station, sondern in St. Pancras International. Die beiden Punkte liegen voellig an verschiedenen Orten in London, waere mir dies morgen geschehen, ich haette den Zug garantiert sicher verpasst!! Der neue Check-In-Point ist fuer mich aber sehr positiv, so muss ich nur 15 Minuten marschieren. So wie ich mich und London kenne, rechne ich mit dem Check-In aber lieber eine Stunde ein. Am Nachmittag eine mega-coole Stadtfuehrung mit Sandemans newLondon-tours. Der Guide macht es wirklich genial, ich erfahre viel mehr als je zuvor.

Heute besuchte ich meine ehemalige Landlady hier in Tunbridge Wells. Zunaechst einmal verpasste ich den Zug zu ihr, weil die naheliegende U-Bahnstation geschlossen war. Dies war jedoch nicht gar so schlimm, es wurde abends einfach ein wenig spaeter … Wir fuhren zusammen nach Paenshurst, wo wir einen herrlichen Creamtea tranken. Meine Landlady haelt mir einen recht grossen Vortrag zu illegalen Auslaendern, den diversen Gesellschaftsschichten hier in England und zur Sicherheitslage in London allgemein. Ihrer Meinung nach sollten die Imigranten schon an der Grenze gestoppt und die hier lebenden allesamt in ein Boot verfrachtet und zurueckverschifft werden – hier insbesondere die (stinkenden!!) dunkelhaeutigen Landsmitglieder. Ich halte mich politisch gesehen zurueck im Blog, das habe ich mir geschworen, nur so viel: Seit ich an der HTW Chur Info-Wissenschaften studiere, bin ich an “einfachen” Loesungen schlichtweg nicht mehr interessiert. Wer mehr erfahren will, quatsche mich mal am Stammtisch aus.

Schon bald ist mein London-Aufenthalt zu Ende. Doch noch kurz ein paar Worte zu meinem Ausgehverhalten. Am Freitag las ich, dass in London innert 48 Stunden 4 Jugendliche erstochen worden waren. Meine Landlady riet mir ab, in London auszugehen, sobald es dunkel ist. Ich befolge ihren Rat bis zum heutigen Abend, denn ich denke, gerade als Auslaender, muss man das Risiko nicht unnoetig herausfordern. Warum ist aber gerade dann die Stadt so herrlich und verlockend, wenn man sich bitterlichst vorgenommen hat, nicht mehr rauszugehen …? Ich denke aber, dass ich nicht mehr weich werde. Ihr werdet sicher naechste Woche wieder lesen, wie es bei mir weiterging … Bis dann und good night.

Seems exciting stuff always seem to happen at Waterloo Station..

If I wasn’t mistaken Jimi Hendrix is alive! this guy was fingering frets on fire! had a flashy axe too!

This shot was voted into 6th place in FujiMugs Open Catagory Challenge on the Digital Photography Review web site.

FYC just got back from a great trip across the pond to London.� Here are some photo highlights:

�

Holy Moly! I have seen so much in the past three days I don’t even know where to start.

New York:

Not realizing that it was opening day for Yankee Stadium I thought it would be fun to try and see Strawberry Fields on the west side of Central Park. After fighting the traffic I only had a few moments to take it in, take a picture of the Dakota and rush to JFK to catch my plane. Once on the plane we taxied out to the runway and were called back three times because of a malfunctioning light. Two hours later we were off the ground to London. The flight was alright actually, I had a whole row to myself and the seats on international flights are much bigger than domestic ones. I miscalculated the time of the flight and didn’t actually need all the books that I brought with me. I did read through my entire “”Roughing It” guide and I got to see The Golden Compass on a very, very tiny screen. I fell asleep around four and woke up in London.

London:

The London Underground is Amazing! I took the Piccadilly line straight from Heathrow and spend about 40 minutes walking around St. John’s Woods until I realized I had gone the wrong direction. I finally got to Abbey Road Studios and chilled out, had a snack and watched a constant stream of  Beatles Fans stopping by. It was surreal to stroll across the crosswalk on the front of the Abbey Road album, but it was a lot of fun and It was nice to connect with some international fans.

I then took the Jubilee line to the Tate Modern Art Museum in Southwark. They have a few Jackson Pollack paintings as well as some Joan Miro and Picasso. The museum is in side this giant building that looks like this old airplane hanger. On the bottom floor called the Turbine Floor there is a huge crack that runs the length of the building. I don’t know if it was intentional or not but it fit with the decor of the museum. There are 6 floors to the museum but I only had time to see two of them. My Jet lag hit my pretty hard and I ended up taking a nap on one of the lobby couches. I would definitely recommend taking a nap on the Tate Museum of Modern Arts couches if you are in London. They are very comfortable.

On my way to Kings Cross  station to catch the Chunnel Train to Paris I popped off the Victoria line at Waterloo Station to see the Sunset. My favorite Kinks song is Waterloo Sunset and I imagined this beautiful quite scenario of me standing on the docks by Waterloo Station, watching the ships roll in. It was not like that at all. Waterloo Station is probably one of the busiest metro stops I have ever experienced and it was right around 6 PM so the commuter traffic was ridiculous. The trains were so packed there wasn’t enough room for me on the first two going out and I started worry that I was going to miss the EuroStar to Paris. So I ran up to the street out outside took a picture ran back down, smashed myself into the train like a sardine with a huge pack on, apologized in my most American sounding tone and made it to Kings Cross with 15 minutes to spare. Off to Paris!

Humperdinkaling mentioned in her blog about waiting in “her spot” for the train doors and then being able to get “her seat” – Now stop me if I’m wrong, but I wouldn’t classify myself as a genius by any description, however I would say that I hold a certain amount of common sense. – Let’s look at an everyday occurrence that happens at my mainline station on the way home:

Everyone is crowded in the main part of the station staring up at the screens – In waterloo there are 3 groups of screens – surprisingly enough these are evenly spaced across the 26 platforms or so.

Common Sense point number 1:

You get roughly the same train every day so therefore have you not got a slight inkling that the train just might be on say platform 13 again like it has been everyday for the last few years? I’m not saying that it has never changed, however if it’s not this one then it might be 12 or 14 – So, now we have our knowledge … shall we actually use this information wisely and maybe stand at the screens just under platform 13? Surely that would be too logical for some folk! – OR we could stand right at the far end near platform 26 and then huff and puff and complain when the magic numbers 13 appear for the train and we have to walk all the way along with the crowds and with serious risk of not getting a seat? Hmm, I know what I would prefer to do!

Ok – so now we wander on down to platform 13 and shock horror the train is not there yet but about to pull in. This bring us on to ……

Common Sense point number 2:

I know what would be the best plan in order for us all to wait for the train – let’s all stand one or two person deep at every single possible position along the entire platform and hope and pray that the doors stop in front of me. Now time out for a second … Does it not spring to mind that, potentially, in order to keep the cost of building new trains down, that the company who built them designed a model and then built the trains to all be alike – maybe in the “twilight zone” where most commuters seem to spend most of their time, they believe that the company hired a monkey to point at random parts of the train and they then used this heavily scientific method to place the doors at these specific points (as suggested by the monkey) in order to make it a fair chance for all commuters should they ever be waiting for a train to pull in? I think not – come on people …. so now back to the problem of trying to work out just where these magical doors might stop. I did mention before that there are around 26 platforms at waterloo ……… well let’s just pretend that we were going to be logical about this for a second ……… what if I was to look across the platform and see that there was a train on another one … would it not be an idea to stand inline with those door perhaps just in case I was correct that they built all the doors in the same place?! – Now apologies for the severe amount of sarcasm going on here but I’m only trying to help. I bet you that these “monkey door thinkers” hold very good and well paid jobs somewhere in the city and yet they can’t spot a few simple methods to help them get a seat on the way home?! At the end of the day it’s their loss and my gain, so maybe I should be keeping it to myself but come on.

There is a serious lesson to learn from this …. Simple observation can get you a long way and seriously aid your day to day business … I’m not just talking knowing where a train door will stop .. I mean, actually taking the time to observe other people and places around you – take the time to give it a go and you will be shocked at what you are normally missing.

Cheers – hope it helps you find a seat

Chuffy

Google  Earth 12_Waterloo Station

acrylic on paper

cm 24 x 32