I Do Hate Bad Design
As they say, a widow’s work is never done, but in this house it would help if everything was properly designed. Monday is washing day and look what I have to put up with to do it.
How Not to Install a Washing Machine
There is nothing wrong with the washing machine, except that a washer/dryer would be much better, but it is installed in a cupboard in the hall, along with the boiler and the hot water cylinder.
This picture doesn’t quite do the installation justice, as the flash overcame one of the biggest problems and that is the lack of light, as there is no light in the cupboard and no light in the hall. So I now use a torch to check that I haven’t dropped an escaped sock on the floor.
It would also help if I was a few centimetres taller.
So if I ever find the so-called architect or designer, who thought this up, he’ll get more than a pece of my mind. It was obviously a man, as women tend to be shorter and wouldn’t have mounted the machine so high.
There is never any excuse for bad design. At least I had an architect at my housewarming and he was able to suggest a few things for the other faults in the house that annoy me.
The Tale of Boughton’s Nail
In the late 1950s or early 1960s my father embarked on a major reconstruction of his printing works in Station Road, Wood Green. We ripped out large quantities of rubbish and covered the walls in corrugated asbestos sheets to hide the damp. It worked very well, but what would modern Health and Safety have said. At one point in our destruction we came across a cm. thick plank of wood, which someone had attempted to fix to a six by four beam with a six inch nail. As he didn’t have the strength to drive the nail home, this bodger had attempted to bend it flat. He’d failed. It was and probably still is, the worst bit of carpentry I’ve ever seen. I can remember that my fsther said it was probably done by a man called Boughton, who.d worked for the family firm some years previously. So to me whenever I see some really awful handiwork, I think of the unfortunate Boughton. Incidentally, I’ve never met anyone with that surname and I don’t know how I’ll react.
But perhaps one of his descendants did this?
A Very Bad Door Stop
The doorstop is too small and whoever put it in cracked the tiles and did a lot of damage. It’s even more stupid as just round the corner in the Balls Pond Road is one of the best shops for door furniture in London.
I do have a thing about door stops, as I was mugged by one in Belarus.
I shall be visiting the hardware store!
How Not to Paint
Mark didn’t like this, as he didn’t want me to think he was to blame, so I photographed it.
How Not to Paint
Things like this grate with me, so hopefully Mark will be able to put right some of the faults of the original builders. But really it’s not his job.
How Not to Put in Bolts
In the previous post, I indicated that the new house has featured steel beams. The stair-case is also in steel and painted the same dark chocolate colour.
But look at this picture.
Bolts in a Staircase
My father would have said that this was probably put together by a one-eyed Irishman in the dark, as some are round one way and others are the other. We may not blame others like we used to in the 1950s, but whoever put these in had no basic sense of design and order. I’d love to see the architect’s drawings, to see what they intended. Some bolts look to be a brass colour, so there might have been some instructions.
I will change them at some point, but whether I use brass, bronze, stainless steel or chrome, with or without cap nuts is a question that has to be decided.
Whatever I do though, I’ll put them in properly and in order.
The Intelligent Decorator
My father was no mean wielder of a paintbrush, not in an artistic sense, but as a decorator. As he used to drive me to his print works in Wood Green, he’d sometimes tell how when they built the houses in Waterfall Road in Southgate in the 1930s, he had a contract to paint them for just a few pounds a house. He did teach me, but I’ve never been very good at it, although I used to be able to hang wallpaper. My hands probably aren’t good enough now!
My late father-in-law was also a professional painter and decorator in Barnet, working for a firm called Curtis. He would tell tales about how in the richer parts of the area, such as Hadley Wood, how sometimes he’d wallpaper the same house, as many as three times, because the lady of the house or the cat didn’t like the new colour scheme. C used to say he had endless patience, which was why he was in so much demand.
And then there was Terry. He used to do the decorating for us at Debach and when we moved to West Suffolk, we still continued to use him. He was neat and tidy, never smoked and sometimes you never even knew he was in the house. In one case, we’d asked him to paint a bedroom and C phoned him up to ask when he was coming. But he’d already done it!
Sadly Terry died of cancer a couple of years ago. The funeral was one of the best attended, I’ve ever seen, such was the respect he was held in the town of Ipswich.
So when I see good decorators I know what I’m looking at.
My new house was in a terrible state, as the previous owner had rented it to tenants. There were rather hideous constructions in some of the wardrobes, television wires everywhere and all sorts of damage. The builders had also not built some of the details properly either and the house had never been desnagged, as it should have been under its guarantee.
I arrived yesterday about nine and found that the decorator, one Mark from Harlow, had really cracked on and was doing a good job.
My New Living Room Takes Shape
The picture shows the main living area of the house. The walls are being painted ivory and the original specification said that the steel beams were to be black. But the first thing Mark said was that the beams just needed a good clean and the original chocolate colour would be much better. How very Great Western, as it’s almost chocolate and cream!
By the way, notice the blinds in the photo, they may be rather broken, but that was because they’re the wrong size in the first place.
But to return to the colour scheme. I agreed with Mark on the colour of the beams and they will be left, at least for a few years.
Terry, my father and my father-in-law may be long gone, but it seems I’ve found another inteligent decorator.
Three Hours in Ipswich
One of the things I hope to encourage with this blog is internal tourism in the UK. So as I was early and wanted to see a new art gallery in the town, I decided to have a little walk around the centre of the town.
It is actually very compact and sits between the River Orwell and the railway on one side and Christchurch Mansion and Park to the North.
I started by walking from Ipswich Rail Station over the River Orwell and past Portman Road football ground into the town centre. Ipswich Town’s ground must be one of the nearest grounds to a rail station outside of the major conurbations.
My first visit after checking if Marks had something I wanted, (Which they didn’t incidentally!) was to go to the old Ipswich Art School, which has now been turned into an art gallery. The first exhibition is a loan of work from the Saatchi Gallery.
It was very much worth visiting, but as it was the sort of modern art, that I don’t like, I almost got the impression it was a lovely building wrapped around some unlovely art! I hall go again, for the next exhibition!
It was then a short walk up the hill to Christchurch Park, which is a traditional formal park of the sort you get all over the United Kingdom.
Christchurch Park, Ipswich
I ate my packed lunch in the sun, looking out at the War Memorial.
The War Memorial, Christchurch Park, Ipswich
Why is it war memorials always have phrases like “Our Glorious Dead”? Death is never glorious! It’s just an awful waste and a what might have been!
There is also another smaller war memorial in the park. And that is one to the men of Suffolk, who died in the Boer War.
Boer War Memorial, Christchurch Park, Ipswich
I then moved on to Christchurch Mansion, which is effectively inside the Park.
Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich
Strangely, deespite living in the area for many years, I’d only been over the mansion once and that was when I attended a black-tie dinner there in the 1990s.
But I made a mistake and I should have gone more.
For a start there is the house and gardens, but then there is the art gallery with a dozen paintings by both John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough.
These though are not the famous paintings we’ve all seen in National Galleries all over the world, but often earlier ones that they painted locally as they were starting out on their careers. As an example, there is a touching portrait by Constable of his mother, Ann.
For that reason alone, they are worth the walk up from the town centre to Christchurch Mansion.
I then walked back down to the town centre, which has as more old shops, than any other towns I know. It is perhaps a pity that most of the shops as is comon throughout the UK, are national chains. But that is a problem all over the UK.
Ipswich Town Centre
The picture shows the Great White Horse, with its Dickensian connections.
The jewl in the crown of Ipswich dhops is the Gade One Listed, Ancient House.
The Ancient House, Ipswich
It must surely be the most unusual branch of Lakeland!
After walking back along the Buttermarket, I was virtually back where i started and it was a short walk down Princes Street and through an underpass or over a crossing and I was back at Portman Road. The route took me past another Grade One Listed Building, but one that is very diferent to the ancient House. this is Lord Foster’s first important building, the Willis Faber Building.
The Willis Faber Building, Ipswich
Note how the building opposite are reflected in the glass. This is now probably the most famous building in Ipswich, as every time Lord Foster is mentioned, they always show some footage.
The walk with a couple of detours had been easy and had taken me two hours, so if you’d decided to have lunch somewhere, you’d have filled the three hours. On a nice day as Saturday was, I wouldn’t eat in the town centre, but I’d get a picnic in Marks or one of the other shops and eat it in Christchurch Park or outside the Mansion. Judging by what I saw, many people were doing just that.
The next time, I am in Ipswich and the weather is good, I’ll walk round the town centre and visit the ten Grade One listed Buildings in the town centre. That is not bad for a town, which has featured heavily in Crap Towns.
Of Egyptian Halls and Steam Lorries
My main purpose in going to Glasgow, was to see an old mate, John, and his son, to reminisce about old times. Now John had been with me, when I went to the Queen’s Award party at Buckingham Palace in I think, 1981.
We had coffee in the hotel in Queen Street station, which made my point about stations as destinations for business, pleasure or sin! I’d also told John that I wouldn’t mind seeing the Sentinel Works, the first building designed by Archibald Leitch, the man responsible for so many sports stadia in the British Isles.
In some ways visiting the Sentinel Works had become more important to me, after reading about sorry state of the Egyptian Halls in Glasgow, in the latest Private Eye. I’m certain that if these two buildings had been in Edinburgh, then solutions would have been found for both!
Sentinel manufactured steam lorries amongst other things and to see one still going strong is a sight to behold.
Sentinel Steam Lorry
I saw this one in 2007 on the A505 near Baldock.
If the Egyptian Halls are in a sorry state, then the Sentinel Works are only held up by the integrity of Leitch’s design.
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- Sentinel Steam Lorry
Open Door in Edinburgh
Sunday was Open Door in Edinburgh, which is Scotland’s version of Open House, where historic buildings that are not normally opened, can be viewed by the general public. It is a good idea.
The list for Edinburgh was perhaps what you’d expect from Scotland’s capital, but for me, there wasn’t enough on the industrial and engineering side.
My host and I did have a good walk on Calton Hill with its views all over the city.
In the gallery you can see the National Monument. This is said about it in Wikipedia.
Particularly due to the use of high-quality materials, the project ended in 1829 with funds running out. Local legend suggests that the city of Glasgow apparently offered to cover the costs but Edinburgh was too proud to accept the other city’s charity. As a result, the monument is often given the nickname Edinburgh’s Disgrace or Edinburgh’s Folly.
Edinburgh and Glasgow are just like North and South London or on a national scale, Australia and New Zealand.
Towards the Match
I was mainly gpoing to London to see Ipswich play at Millwall.
I didn’t take a direct route, as I had time to spare and wanted to do one or two things before the match.
So from Tottenham Hale, I took a couple of stops on the Victoria Line to Highbury and Islington, where I took the North London Line to Canonbury.
A house I am interested in, lies betwwen there and Dalston Junction and I wanted to see which was the nearest station. The first leg took eleven minutes and the second ten, so Dalston Junction is closer and will be a couple of minutes so, when they complete the station. It’s also downhill from Canonbury and flat to Dalston Junction, which means that it is an easy walk to Dalston to travel away and another easy one to get home from Canonbury. In some ways it won’t matter too much, as from May 2011, the two stations will just be two stops apart on the East London Line.
FRom Dalston Junction, I took the East London Line south to Rotherhithe, with the aim of seeing the Brunel Museum; which is one of the many museums on the line. I took this photo of the brickwork on the entrance to the station.
Brickwork at Rotherhithe Station
I’ve always liked good brickwork and in my life, I’ve designed and had built several important brick features including a traditional crinkle-crankle wall at Debach and my round office here. Are we training bricklayers to be able to do the difficult stuff? Ralph who did the wall, used to work in rubber gloves to save his hands and spent his holidays looking at buildig techniques all over the world. His colleagues used to laugh at him, but he certainly knew how to lay bricks.
Not So Lucky
The hospital I’m in has no 4th, 14th, 24th or 34th floors. Superstition!
The Anonymous Widower 