The Story of George
In the 1960s, I use to serve behind the bar in a pub called The Merryhills in Oakwood. It was one of the vacation jobs I did to fund my way through University.
Although it was a leafy suburb and still is, the pub was only half-genteel. The Saloon Bar was comfortable and had a nice class of client. But the Public Bar was a different story and there was sometimes an edginess. I remember one night, sorting out a fight, by breaking a bottle of Guinness on the bar and jumping over the counter. They didn’t want to take me on, but then we all knew that Mick the large Irish barman was coming round by the easy route with the landlord’s Alsatian.
But it is the story of George I remember.
On a quiet Monday, I found myself talking for most of the evening to a guy called George, who had been in my year at primary school. I said to him, that at school, I thought he might have been a bit rough and that now he seemed to have calmed down. He said that he had. But it hadn’t always been so and a couple of years before he’d been up in court on a charge of vandalism. The magistrate had said that he deserved Borstall, but also said that he had a mate who owned a demolition firm, who was in need of men, who liked to smash things up. If he’d take the job, the magistrate said he’d forget the Borstal.
George had worked in demolition for some months and hadn’t been in trouble since.
Perhaps there is a moral here, in that we’ve now made employment so safe, it just doesn’t appeal to a certain class of youth!
I suspect too, that magistrates can’t recruit workers for their friends!
I was Sixteen Once
I’m 64 next week, but all of the mindless violence of the last few days rings a bell in my mind.
I have a feeling that life has now become so constrained for the average male youth, that we are now getting the problems we are seeing on the streets.
In some ways it was a bit like that in the early sixties. We didn’t get the violence, but then of course we had Mods and Rockers. I didn’t get involved one way or other, as I had other things to do and I didn’t have a motorcyle licence.
But just as then, the Police and politicians didn’t have a clue. They don’t now!
In the seventies and eighties, it was all about football violence.
So is the cause of the last three days, just an outlet for testosterone. I bet one of these rioters goes on to in twenty years or so, to be a leader of a main political party or to run a large company like Tesco.
The problem is to channel this testosterone and the anger that goes with it!
The £1,000,000 Junction
I like this. It gives motorists more of their favourite pastime to enjoy; moaning about the cost of motoring.
Sunday Parking Protests
There seems to be a lot of protests about charging for parking in Westminster on Sundays.
Why not? After all quite a few UK cities charge.
Anyway, one of the reasons people buy a car seems to be so that they can moan about fuel prices, parking charges, Congestion Charges, insurance and tax. I don’t have to worry about any of these things now!
According to the AA, if I had a £20,000 diesel car doing 10,000 miles a year that would cost me £6081 or thereabouts. In addition, if I invested the money on Zopa at six percent, that would give me another £1200. That gives me £140 a week to spend on black cabs and trains to take me outside of London.
Hackney WickED
It was the Hackney WickED Festival this weekend and I went to see some of the artists, who were having an Open Studios in the area.
It was well worth it.
Afterwards I walked past the locks at Old Ford.
Old Ford Locks
And then under the Northern Outfall Sewer on a newly restored towpath on to the Olympic Park.
Sunday on the Greenway
It was good to see so many people about on the Greenway.
Amazingly, the blackberries were out and people were picking and eating them.
The New Penguin Beach
I said in an earlier post that one exhibit was very crowded and that was the new Penguin Beach.
I chatted to a keeper for some time and she said that at the moment they have 67 penguins of four species on the beach. they are expecting this number to grow to about 200, mainly by breeding more in the centre of London.
The Architecture of London Zoo
London Zoo has a large collection of the capital’s finest buildings. There is a list here on their web site.
Many were designed by Decimus Burton in the nineteenth century and it a testament to his good design, that some of the original buildings like the Giraffe House, have been able to be brought up to modern welfare standards.
But some like the penguin pool designed in the 1930s by Berthold Lubetkin are never going to be suitable for animals again.
Penguin Pool, London Zoo
I would think it is a big problem for the Zoo as it takes up valuable space and because it is a Grade One Listed building, it can’t be knocked down or substantially modified. Someone said to me last night, that they can’t even modify the words Penguin Pool on the side.
As a child I always thought that the penguin pool was rather stark and that the only thing that gave it life was the penguins, who seemed rather lost in the place.
It’s all such a pity really.
I think if the penguin pool were a house designed by Lubetkin, one of two things would have happened; someone would have spent a fortune and made it into a very nice house or it would have just decayed to a pile of broken concrete.
All credit to the London Zoo for preserving it, but I suspect sometimes they wish a stray bomb from the Second World War had destroyed it. The Zoo asctually suffered quite a bit of damage, as this report tells. I like this piece, which was taken from The Times of the 15th November, 1940.
The Zoo in fact is a microcosm of London. Hitler’s bombs cause a certain amount of damage to it, and a considerable amount of inconvenience; but they have not destroyed the morale or the routine of its inhabitants, animal or human, and it continues to function with a very respectable degree of efficiency.
It may have been blatant propaganda to keep up Londoners morale, but perhaps it does explain why many Londoners look on their zoo with affection.
The Snowdon Aviary
The Snowdon aviary is one of the Zoo’s historic buildings.
The Snowdon Aviary, London Zoo
When we used to live in St. John’s Wood and would walk up to the top of Primrose Hill, it dominated the view, just like some of the tall modern buildings do now.
The Snowdon Aviary is in my view, still one of London’s most impressive modern buildings. Interestingly, the structural engineer, who did the detailed design, Frank Newby, was a proposer of temporary buildings that could adapt with time. This web site says this about his work.
In the 1960s, Cedric Price had advocated buildings that could adapt and change according to circumstance; buildings that need not be permanent. It’s ironic, then, that one of the small number of his schemes that was realised should form part of the proud heritage of design and engineering dating back nearly two centuries that belongs to the Royal Zoological Society.
So the aviary was probably designed for a limited life. but then the Millennium Dome was to. The Dome has of course changed according to circumstance from a crap NuLabor vanity project into a world-class entertainment venue.
Both structures show that if you want to make something last, you take good design, add quality materials, build it well and then make sure it is looked after by an organisation that values it, like in the aviary’s case the Zoological Society of London does.
It’s a Zoo Jim, But Not As We Know It
I’m not really struck on zoos, as I much prefer to see animals in the wild. But last night I had a most unusual night out at London Zoo. It was one of their Zoo Lates.
Other than the usual attractions, there was a twisted cabaret, lots of good food, bands and you could talk to the keepers about the animals. There were no children, except for a few baby animals and it wasn’t crowded but for one totally acceptable exception. Even the queues for the toilets were within reason.
Here’s a few general pictures.
It was certainly a good night out. I shall go again.
The Anonymous Widower 