I am the Vindo Viper

Did you ever play the telephone game when you were a kid, calling up someone unknown and saying (in your deepest bass voice): “I am the Vindo Viper. I come for you today.” Of course, the recipient is terrified and immediately hangs up. You call them again, and repeat your message, but then they hang up before you finish. Finally, you call again, saying “I come to vipe your vindos. I come today.”  Ha, ha, laughs all around.

No? Maybe it was just an American thing because we all had telephones in those days.* It certainly wouldn't be politically correct today.

But this scene on the CityPoint entrance, near Moorgate tube station, brought back those telephone memories. How many window wipers can you see? I count four. Just think what great transferrable skills these guys got mountain climbing, since they all seem to be on belay. The eight Singaporean house cleaners who recently died could have used some of these skills. They were forced to wash the outside of windows in skyscraper flats; I wouldn't like to fall off a building, would you? Apparently the Singapore government is reviewing the situation... 

CityPoint skyscraper entrance near Moorgate tube station, London

CityPoint, formerly the Britannic House, has enough accolades for listing in Skyscraper News. I guess this is a website for building spotters, kinda like train spotters except the spotters themselves have to move around to see fixed sites rather than stand still watching moving trains.


* Unlike in Britain, where only 35% of households had telephones even in 1970 (according to the only stats I could find) [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12058944]

Wyvern Street Art

This is not graffiti! It is the logo of the Wyvern Bindery painted on the shop shutters. The only way you will see it is to visit the bindery when it is closed! When open, the shop can be identified by its shop sign exhibiting equivalent talent.

Hand-made sign, hand-painted logo – a real labor of love and entrepeneurship characteristic of old Clerkenwell Road, London. It is here that watchmakers and printers made Clerkenwell famous, and now the area is the "largest media hub in Europe with, arguably, the greatest concentration of architects' and designers' offices in the world", according to Spotlight on Clerkenwell.

I was so curious as to what lay behind this shop shutter that I went in today. Blimey! It was like stepping into the past. Stacks of paper, rolls of leather, patterned inner binding, spools of binding ribbon, bound and unbound books on every surface, and in prime location, three old screw compression book presses. I thought the shop might date from the 1800s, but in fact, it has been in business only 21 years. On the shelf behind the till were rows of reference books, including one on "Japanese Bookbinding" (Weatherhill, 1986). Serious craftspeople, here.

If anyone needs their dissertation bound, they do it in two days. Much more fun to go there to have it done than at austere and sterile Prontaprint or the likes.

Rubens as Street Art

Wandering around Farringdon Station in London, as I am wont to do, I was stunned to see a Rubens hanging on the outside wall of a building facing a car park! It certainly caught my eye, which is exactly what the company who put it there intended: The Partners, an award-winning "branding agency". Oh no, I've been taken in by advertising!

Probably to the dismay of companies wanting my business, I assiduously avoid reading advertisements in print, on screen, on billboards. But I am a hunter-gatherer by nature: I shop to see what's available and where everything can be got if needed. The H&G mantra: know your resources.

So, because the Rubens (his painting of Samson & Delilah) wasn't direct advertising, it got my curiosity up and I investigated. This painting was one of many placed around town during the Grand Tour set up by The Partners. It is part of "a collection of priceless paintings from the National Gallery set free around the streets of Britain. Originally on show in London for 12 weeks in 2007, it is now touring other British cities" says the signboard.

Undoubtedly, this was not the real painting from the National Gallery but a copy. Nevertheless, it was an interesting idea for bringing art to the public. And of course, interesting ideas are the mainstay of The Partners advertising business. The building shown happens to be the Smithfield branch of The Partners, in Albion Courtyard. Unfortunately, there was no indication where other paintings might be located. Have you seen one in your city?

Edwardian experience in Edgware Road station, London

The Edgware Road station of the Bakerloo Line takes one back in time to the early 1900s. It has the iconic facade of several of the London underground stations: arched entryways faced in red tiles, designed by Leslie Green. While Londoners and visitors are well acquainted with these outer facades, I was astonished recently to pay my first visit to Edgware Road station and find that the interior of this one is virtually unchanged from its inception in 1907.

Tile-surround ticket windows of the Edgware Road station,
Bakerloo Line

The ticket windows are surrounded by moulded curved green tiles, complementing the red exterior. Since Green was responsible for the outer appearances of the original stations, and since Russell Square station still retains his geometric tile pattern on the platform walls, I assume the Edgware windows are of his conception as well. The overhanging ticket booth lights follow the curvatures of the windows and give the station an elegance unseen in modernized ticket halls.

Edgware Road station wall, Bakerloo Line, London
(colours saturated for effect)

The Edgware Road station used to be buttressed by a series of shops to the south, but these were destroyed to build the Marylebone Flyover. With nothing on its south side now but an empty space, landscape artists have taken a hand in adding value and decoration to a corner of the urban jungle. The station wall now sports a vertical garden of many different climbing plants, softening the racket of the passing traffic.

One of the reasons traffic is so bad in London (despite the Congestion Charge areas) is that more elevated highways are not allowed. When one visits this corner of Edgware Road and the Marylebone Flyover, sympathy flows for this decision. We will continue to drive gratefully along the city streets, taking two hours sometimes to get out of London, as we remember this corner and that decision.

New Street Life on Exhibition Road, London

Revisiting City of London bollards

My very first post was on the bollards of the City of London. Since then, I have found even more varieties that do not mark curbs but direct traffic! Specialist bollards that have cast-in places for road signs. These include one-way signs, and signs marking lanes for motorcycle and bicycle use. But don't you think the number used here is a bit overkill?

Traffic-directing bollards in the City of London

Unintentional Street Art in London

Several roads around London are being repaved at the height of the leaf-drop season. What you get, then, is unintended street art where autumn leaves have been pressed into the new tarmac/asphalt/macadam (but not pavement – which is a sidewalk) by traffic or even by the street paving roller. These are unexpected and beautiful additions to the capital's streets, but how long will they last?
   In the above photo, you can see three leaves in the lower lefthand corner which have fallen since re-paving. They will be crushed and dispersed soon by the traffic, wind and rain. But let's see how long the impressed patterns last. This photo was taken on Marchmont Street, Bloomsbury – near the North Sea Fish Restaurant. I have seen other leaf impressions on the Strand near Aldwich, with the impressed patterns standing in stark contrast to older grey tarmac. Where else, anybody?

Street Rubber Bands

Need a rubber band while you're out walking? Britain is the best place
to find one. Just look down and one will appear in a few minutes, most
likely near a door with a letterbox slit.

These are red rubber bands discarded by the post/man/woman. At the post office, mail is bundled up into delivery groups and as they are delivered, the rubber bands are tossed. How much do you think the post office spends on rubber bands every year?

But indeed, they must be cutting back (that is, conserving rubber bands), since fewer are visible on the streets than in previous years. Still, I found one recently to hold a mandolin in a rucksack that couldn't be zipped closed, and I've since heard that two friends actually collect them (that's rubber bands, not mandolins)...

Red rubber band abandoned on doorstep    ➞

Chewing Gum

A previous post on NHS dentists mentioned one of the hazards of the American practice of chewing gum: crushed molars! Funny, gum is sold here in Britain, but you never see anyone chewing it. Those with wads in their mouths (see how my perspective has changed?) are invariably Americans. But with the visible absence of chewing, the spots on the pavement (sidewalk, remember) caused by gum disposal become a mystery. I have never seen anyone spitting out gum. How do the spots get there? Secret nighttime squads of gum chewers? In any case, they do result in massive squads of pavement cleaners out there with their special spray guns cleaning up Oxford Street (the main shopping venue). Here are some facts as reported by the BBC:

The disgusting pavements of London – unless
you think the street is strewn with silver dollars!

"London's Gum Facts:
• The cost of cleaning up London's streets from chewing gum is estimated as being as much as £10 million every year
• Chewing gum takes up to five years to degrade
• The cost of removing each bit of chewing gum is between 50p and £2
• Deep cleaning the entire length of Oxford Street to remove chewing gum takes three months and over 300,000 individual pieces are removed"

If you want to read more about pavement cleaning before the Olympics – click on the BBC permalink. We rather prefer the solution offered in Coyoacan, Mexico City (below) but doubt the tree can accommodate all that's necessary! A gum-tree!!

Bollards in the City of London

TOPIC: bollard (pronounced 'bowl-lard')
Like, in all of these cutbacks and threats to the economy, why is the City of London implanting new bollards along their streets? Heavy iron things painted in classy black, red and silver. Each one must cost a fortune (though they appear to have been manufactured in the 1990s when we were all flush [see 1992 date on one below]). There are two kinds, too: tall skinny ones and squat bulky ones. The streets getting these fixtures already have double yellow lines (indicating no parking at any time, unloading for max 40 minutes) (but then again, you have to read the regs for each London borough because they define the lines differently, especially the application time of the regs). So are these bollards to keep cars from mounting the curb during loading? There must be three cars a day that use the streets where these bollards sit. And how long will they keep their nice shiny appearance, until they rust away like all iron does? Then we will have nasty hulks squatting on the pavements (sidewalks to you folks out there). Or will they employ an army of people to repaint them periodically?

• "A bollard is a short vertical post. Originally it only meant a post used on a quay for mooring. The word now also describes a variety of structures to control or direct road traffic, such as posts arranged in a line to obstruct the passage of motor vehicles." ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollard




To see more London bollards, check out
http://bollardsoflondon.blogspot.com/