Tuesday 23 December 2014

The Sacred Ash Groves (and Sycamore, and Horse Chestnut, etc etc)


Before I begin, let's get one thing straight: I like trees, and I've planted a great many in my time. 

What I'm complaining about here is the thoughtless and misplaced planting of trees or the absence of steady site maintenance which allows self-seeded trees to grow where they shouldn't, and which then permits their subsequent flourishing.

A combination of the above has led to the obliteration of vistas, wholesale marginalisation of vantage points, and obscuring of architectural landmarks everywhere. 


Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath, London
This has been exacerbated by an epidemic of tree-worshipping of a virulence not seen since the time of the Druids, which dictates that once a tree stands, wherever it may be, and no matter how inconvenient for any purposes other than those of the tree, it must never fall.

The first part of the problem, like so many others, can be laid at the door of the Chicago School's hypothetical model of economics, first put into effect in Pinochet's Chile, then as Reagonomics, then Thatcherism, and eventually as a global dogma which dictates that the world must be run by, and for the benefit of, a top echelon of businessmen, with, ultimately, disastrous effects for everyone except the top echelon of businessmen.

One of the many consequences of this was the ditching of longterm, gradual methods of keeping things running, administered by experts kept on tap, and the replacement of those methods by repeated short term, quick-fix interventions from cheaply-hired non-experts.

So in this case, sites such as public parks were looked after by teams of gardeners who were trained by a system in which experienced gardeners passed their skills on and supervised new members of the team. The teams of gardeners were also local teams who had an intimate knowledge of and pride in looking after their own patch.
They were part of local government and directly accountable to democratically-elected councillors.

Such work is now done by gangs of teenaged skinheads employed on minimum wages by outside contractors hired by local government forced under Thatcherite lowest cost tendering rules to employ the cheapest option, regardless of how unrealistic it may be for a decent job to be done at that price. 
Steady maintenance is replaced by widely-spaced periodic blitzes where shrubs are brutally cut off horizontally as if by using a spirit level, and any tree saplings that have appeared since the last visit are left to sprout and grow uncontrolled. 
Planting of perennials, border plants, trees and shrubs is indiscriminate, done by people who are seemingly either unaware of or indifferent to the fact that what they're planting will grow at different rates and end up being different sizes.

Maintenance of roadside verges and railway tracksides was also by teams looking after particular stretches of road or track, in longterm employment and also accountable to the public, but not any longer. 

Large sections of railway journeys now resemble green-walled corridors, with any sight of the landscape invisible behind phalanxes of strangled, densely-packed sycamores. In this case, of course, the main reason for keeping trees away was to avoid the problem of leaves on tracks affecting braking and leading to interruptions of service - not a problem for the company responsible for trackside maintenance, because they don't run the trains.

The problem of public parks and beauty spots being blighted by uncontrolled tree growth can be seen everywhere and anywhere, but the consequences are most serious when, rather than views being blighted, they are obliterated.

The worst example I have seen of this, by a long way, is in Barcelona. The best view of the city and its situation on the shores of the Mediterranean is from the cliffs of Montjuic. The problem is, when the city hosted the Olympics in 1992, the area was landscaped and terraced to provide car parks and areas for stalls selling souvenirs and food for people visiting the stadium below, now used for pop concerts as well as sport. 

When I visited recently, it was all strangely deserted as I walked from level to level climbing the slope. When I got to the top, I found out why. A wide viewing platform had been created at the summit, but, incredibly, shrubbery and trees had been planted on the other side of the low wall on the brink of the cliff, which had grown up to form a dense hedge completely obscuring the view - negating the very purpose people originally visited the site before it was landscaped.

I could go on, but very briefly: Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath used to have a magnificent view of the whole of London, which is now restricted to a narrow slot by an overgrowth of self-seeded scrub together with deliberately planted trees which have appeared over the past 25 years. 


And at a former mine spoil tip in Lancashire landscaped to form an outdoor sculpture site designed for the enjoyment of views - of the landscape from the top, and of the sculpture on top from the surrounding landscape - the Forestry Commission, presumably a sponsor, has carpeted the entire mound with a thicket of immature trees which, with the exception of a single sightline where the path reaches the summit, already obscures any view of the landscape from the top. 


As the trees mature, it will become impossible to see the giant piece of stonework commissioned for the site from anywhere in the surrounding landscape, except for a head-on view, from which point the sculpture's subject is impossible to discern at a distance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_(sculpture)

Tuesday 25 November 2014

From Haparanda to Timbuctoo

"From Haparanda to Timbuctoo" was used as a slogan by Thomas Cook's in Victorian times to  indicate that their ability to arrange travel was so comprehensive it even stretched to those bywords for exotic-sounding remoteness.

I've never been to Timbuctoo, but I have been to Haparanda, and I can't imagine Timbuctoo being any more exotic.

Haparanda is near the Arctic Circle at the top of the Gulf of Bothnia between Finland and Sweden, and it's two hour's drive from the nearest airport. I go there to teach at the folkhögskolan. A folkhögskol is a kind of cross between an adult education centre and a night school that they have in Sweden, but this is an appropriately exotic folkhögskol. For a start, it's the Sverige-Finska Folkhögskolan, the only one in Sweden, and they do residential and vocational courses. They also do the only course in Performance Art in the world that covers theory and practice and includes fine art, dance and theatre, which is what takes me there.

A combination of the strategic nature of Haparanda's geographical location and various accidents of history meant it has in the past occupied a position of an importance that seems incredible now.

A coincidence arising from that combination led to the last constitutional act of the Austro-Hungarian empire before it's dissolution manifesting itself in Haparanda churchyard. 






The inscriptions are in German, Hungarian, Swedish and Turkish - the Ottoman Empire was on the side of the Central Powers in WWI, and two Turkish soldiers died on the way to Haparanda.







That's not a Red Cross symbol, by the way, it's the emblem of the Austro-Hungarian empire, now only used by the Slovenian arts group that gave us Laibach, and their magnificent cover of the 1984 hit by Europoodlepomp rockers Opus.

Thursday 9 October 2014

The Light is Seen

Further to my post here on the 18th July: http://robocono.blogspot.no/2014/07/the-locomotion-but-not-by-little-eva.html: I've just realised where it is that I've actually seen women taught to walk swinging the arms from side to side across the front of the body. 

It's on all those 'personal makeover' shows presented by the likes of Trinny and Susanna where they get women whose craving for fame (ruhmsucht) exceeds any natural and unimpeachably reasonable disinclination to have their dress sense ridiculed and be made to strip off down to their underwear, to do so for the shamefully cruel pleasure (schadenfreude) of millions of TV viewers during repeated broadcasts on national TV and in the neverending afterlife of such programmes on cable and digital TV channels across the world.


Using the boot camp NCO's system of bullying and ritual humiliation to break down the individual sense of self-worth and inculcate slavish and unquestioning obedience, the recruit is then remade in the mould of reality TV service, culminating at a catwalk event in some kind of semitheatrical arena in front of an audience of friends, family and acquaintances, the main preparation for which (apart from lots of makeup and a new hairdo) consists of training them to hurl their arms from side to side across the direction of motion while walking, at the same time violently rotating the balls of their feet before they are lifted at the conclusion of each step. 
The arms: like the audience of an oompah band at a German bierfest, the feet: as if they are stubbing out a succession of cigarette ends while on the move.

A Lexicon of Transatlantic Prolixity


YANKEE INGENUITY (or, never use one syllable where several will do).
Fuelled in recent years by politicians' efforts to sound 'folksy', a trend started by Ronald Reagan, and which reached its bathetic nadir when George W. Bush referred to the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist atrocity as "the folks who did this".

affirmative                              = yes
all of                                       = all
alongside.                              = with
apartment                              = flat 
apple cider                             = cider
arrive into                               = arrive at
at the exact same time          = simultaneously
at this time                             = now
at this moment in time           = now
at this point in time                = now
attitude of mind                      = attitude
authored                                = wrote
automobile                             = car
available to buy instore now  = on sale
baby carriage                         = pram
back in (e.g. 2011)                 = in
back in the day                      = previously
backside                                = back
backstory                               = history
bagpiper                                = piper
barbershop                            = barber
based off of                           = based on
based out of                          = based in
be advised that                      =
beat out                                 = beat
better understand                  = understand
burglarized                            = burgled
cash rich                                = rich
catch on fire                           = catch fire
change out                            = change
chase down                           = chase/find
clothes iron                           = iron
creamer                                 = jug
crew members                      = crew
Do Not Enter (roadsign)        = No Entry
drop back                              = drop
expiration date                      = expiry date
family members                    family
ferryboat                               = ferry
field hockey                           = hockey
finished up                            = finished
first up                                   = first
flashlight                                torch
freedom fries                         = chips
free up                                   = free
furlough (US army)                = leave (UK army)
furloughed                             = laid off
garbanzo beans                    = chickpeas
garner                                   = get
gasoline                                = petrol
get ahold                               get hold
gifted (verb)                           = given
gifted with                              = given
going forward                        =               
graduate degree                    = degree 
handed to                              = given
hating on                               = hating
head in from                          = come from
head out from                        = leave from
head out to                            = go to
head up                                 = head
helmed                                  = lead
Hide and Go Seek                 = Hide and Seek
horseback riding                    = riding
horse jockey                          = jockey
impacting on                          = affecting
house party                           = party
incentivize                             encourage
in lock step                            = in step
inside of                                 = inside
invest into                              = invest in
issue                                      = problem
iteration                                 = version
laundry iron                           = iron
liquid water                            = water
listen up                                 = listen
marching in lock step            = marching
movie                                    = film
meet with                              meet
meet up with                         = meet
multiple                                 = 's' suffix
multiple times                       = often                                 
necktie                                  = tie
night crawler                         = worm
obligated                               = obliged
off of                                      = off
oftentimes                             = often
on a daily basis                     = daily
on a regular basis                 = regularly
optimal                                  = best
outside of                              = outside
parking lot                             = car park
park up                                  = park
particle board                        = chipboard
penned                                  = wrote
percentage points                 = %
pitcher                                   = jug
play catch up                         = catch up
power outage                        = power cut
prebook                                 = book
preorder                                order
proactive                               active
reach out to                           = contact
relocate                                 = move
report back                            = report
roadmap                                = plan
resolve (verb)                        solve
sauté                                     = fry
sea turtle                               = turtle
sheepherder                          = shepherd
showcase (verb)                    = show
shutter(ed)                             = close(d)                                 
sign off                                   = sign
sign off on                              = sign
skyrocketing.                         = rocketing
smokestack                           = chimney
smoking pipe                         = pipe
speak with                             = speak to
step change                           = change
switch out                              = swap
taxidermied                            = stuffed
tea kettle                                = kettle
teeter totter                            = seesaw
track record                           = record
transfer over                          = transfer
underneath of                        = underneath
up and running                      = working
upcoming                               = coming
urban legend                         = urban myth
vacation                                 = holiday
variety meats                         = offal
visit with                                 = visit
wait in line                              = queue
wait up                                   = wait
water turtle                             = terrapin
water fountain                        = fountain
worrisome                              = worrying
zero                                        = no



Friday 12 September 2014

Defibrillated Frankenstein's Monsters of Fashion


From the BMC superhero range (©2005 Productioncars.com)
I'm noticing brown cars, which = the 1970s, and nearly everyone who wears one wears their baseball cap back to front, which = the 1980s (a recurring nightmare for Richard Dawkins). 

Brown T shirts seem to be popular, too. 


aka Pitkin in Albania
The seemingly never-ending tyranny of the skinny suit, too tight, and with sleeves and legs too short, worn with a pulled-down skinny tie with a strangled knot the size of a pea - a look pioneered by Norman Wisdom and taken up by Pee Wee Herman, now worn by everyone. 
Presumably a sick perversion of 1960s Madison Avenue/Mad Men suits worn by the Krays and the Sean Connery Bond.

For many years I predicted the return of the beehive hairdo - but this time as a male fashion. 

Jedward did their best, but in this case it seemed even my predictions were ahead of their time, until Justin Bieber showed the way.




Left: Having got rid of his trademark bowl cut, the beehive stands proud

(Yes, I know it's not Justin Beiber, and that's a pompadour not a beehive, but the photo that was here, of Miley Cyrus with more of a beehive, was removed because it infringed copyright.)