Anglican Primates

As the temperature soared to what should be a comfortable 25C outside today, I squirmed in the excessive heat after an accidental knock to one of our heater's switches two days ago turned our flat into more of a hotbox than it normally is. My thoughts wandered, influenced by the hellish heat, and I mused on the latest news about the Anglican church split.

Considering the fact that many of the Anglican church's members come from countries where homosexuality is either criminal or widely condemned it's hardly surprising that the church is splitting into what amounts to liberal and conservative factions. The fact that there is no separation of church and state in England has ultimately caused this problem (watch the 'Yes Minister' clip taken from the episode The Bishop's Gambit below). Leaders in the Anglican church have had connections and influence in politics; they bend and sway like all the rest of politicians. As a politician, this makes sense. As a religious leader, it scares people - especially when this bending comes in the form of ignoring gay bishops and same-sex marriages in the States to avoid political trouble in the UK.

Most of the Anglican church's members are actually located in South America and Africa, many of these countries either still have laws against homosexuality or there is severe social stigma. To them, a religion influenced by politics, especially when it's not their politics, is a disaster.

Religious Americans who complain about stupid things like the government hating Christmas should pay attention to this little lesson. It's a little silly to assume that if church and state were tied that religion would be the moral guide. (Is it really such a big deal that City Hall isn't allowed to display a nativity scene?) It's much easier for things to work the other way. Keep your religion separated if you want to influence government. This way you can maintain religion's strength and autonomy and use it to your advantage. Just look at the States.

On a less serious note, I couldn't help but be distracted by the intense effort of the BBC newscasters when discussing the primate's council to ensure that primate was pronounced with a soft 'a' to avoid confusing the listeners. Damned Latin. For me, Anglican primates may have just overtaken the 'papal bull' in the funny religious terminology front.

For those of you who are a little bit impatient - skip to around the fifth minute to get the point.

First Great Western did what?

As you all (two of you) know, I travel into Reading often. It really shouldn't be a big deal. The train journey is only scheduled to take 25 minutes and with the ridiculous cost of a saver return ticket (that's an off-peak return), the service should really be impeccable. But for some reason I have to allow myself at least two hours of travel time.

When the travel ended up taking over three hours door-to-door the other week, I decided to send a little note about it and...

TA-DA!

Never mind that the letter accompanying this voucher got my story wrong and gave the silly advice to avoid the ticket office (I really would if I could!) - this is a result. Now if I can only convince everybody who inconveniences me to do the same thing...

I Saw Three Ships...

...well, three buildings that are supposed to look like smokestacks at least. Aaron and I have been going into UEL to work in the library pretty often recently and I finally took some pictures today. The architecture looks impressive and plays on the campus' riverside location and the Docklands industrial past by giving off and industrial feel and drawing from ships for inspiration. The three smokestack buildings above are actually dorms - round, inefficiently designed dorms that are smack in the middle of campus. They sure look neat though.

Here's an actual London airport, not like the bastard Heathrow or Gatwick that aren't really located in London at all. The airport is directly across from UEL's campus, but this picture is taken from the DLR.

This is the view down from where I sit in the library, grafting away...

And the view diagonal from my seat. Seems a strange layout for a library - huh?


Remember how I said the architects have played on the riverside location? This is the view from the river side of the library. They did make an impressive illusion - it looks like you're on the first deck of a massive boat when you look out the window. Very serene.

It is a library though and as cool as the structure is, it's horribly impractical. The sound on each level of the library carries throughout the building and while the windows bring in a lot of light, I don't think they open and there's no air conditioning. Since there aren't many students around right now, it's definitely more quiet than our flat.

The most important building in the nautico-industrial themed campus - we get our coffee there.
I think that the library would be a neat place for some parkour - take a look at the video to see what I mean.

Cell Phone Safety

There was a big to do about cell phone masts and/or cell phones causing cancer up until about 2003. The debate still continues in sensationalized tabloid headlines but after reading a few articles and a book on the subject I thought that I had it figured out - it's really doubtful that cell phones or cell phone masts cause cancer or serious harm.



Does anybody know how this happens? Is it the vibrations that cause the kernels to pop? Or do I have to start reading tabloids for reliable information from now on?

Visitation

Rowan is in London for a two day conference and she came over last night to for a visit. She's connected in my mind with some of the best memories of my life. She and Angus hosted the New Year's party in Amsterdam 2000 (during the visit when Aaron and I got engaged). We all played games and ate until some of us decided to go out for a walk. It was pure madness outside with fireworks going off in every direction. We walked up the stairs of the NEMO museum (or the Scheepvaart - can only recognize the small area by sight!) on the edge of the water surrounded by different colored explosions. The next day the streets were covered in red paper dust.

Here's Rowan in a very familiar pose:

In our visits to Scotland Rowan would happily peel everyone's oranges for them and make sure the peels were in one piece. She'd put the peels on the wood burning stove and make the rooms would smell wonderful.

Tonight Aaron and I are going to take her out for a walk around the neighborhood - look out for more pictures!

Sweet and Sick

Sorry about that. I just couldn't help myself. I've been in the mood to look at cute stuff since getting the latest batch of niece pictures. Have I mentioned before that she's adorable?

Here's something that's sure to cleanse your palate of all that saccharin.

(Both sick and sweet courtesy of Aaron.)

Trick Building

An awful lot of building has been going on all around Bethnal Green in the past few years. There have been three buildings on our little stretch of terrace that have been completely razed and rebuilt...well, almost finished being rebuilt at least.

They've even been building up on little patches of land that you wouldn't think you could fit any property at all. Take this building that went up in the past year on Old Ford Road:
Something is still in the process of being built to the left, but just look at how narrow the building is! Aaron and I stood staring and speculating about how anyone would fit any thing in there at all. Maybe it was just a one bedroom house, split into multiple levels. On this level, a few chairs. On another level, a cooker. A bed would barely fit.

We walked by speculating on how much rent would need to be generated in order to justify land and building costs and wondered who would pay that much for a building that would have the majority of space taken up by stairs leading from one ridiculously sized room to the next.

I don't think that we bothered to turn around and look again the first time we passed by. If we did, we would have seen this:

How neat! The angle on the back of the building is really acute to give such an illusion. It's still a really small building, but somewhat normal for a London new build.

By the way, notice the sky? Clear and sunny. It's been a good few days.

Eating together miles apart.

Last night I made some pesto from a cookbook that my sister Mary got me a while back. She's gifted me two of the best cookbooks I own in terms of getting new ideas. Not that pesto is one of those - the book just happens to have the best pesto recipe I've come across. In any case, whenever I cook anything from either of those books or get an idea for something based on them - it makes me think of her. Other than the fact that I love the taste, this is probably the same reason why I cook Greek food so much.

Not to stop the family cooking, I finally got to make my sister Christina's bran muffins this morning. She sent the recipe ages ago in an email and I wanted to try it out but couldn't find a crucial ingredient. I finally came across it at the local Organic shop but then couldn't find any muffin trays anywhere. Nanson's, a local has-everything-shop that I've just discovered out has a completely different online face than they do in store, had tartlet trays and mini quiche trays (of all things) but no muffin trays. I decided to make them anyway.

I stuffed them in a regular tray and hoped that they would hold their shape a little bit. No such luck. They ended up square and wide (which meant that they overcooked a little) with leaky blueberries.
Aaron wants more.
:)

Art Car Boot Fair and Father's Day Forfeit

Today was supposed to be Father's Day, but nobody else knew about it except me. In fact, most other people think it's next week. Weird.

I spent a few hours up the road at Brick Lane soaking in the sun and looking at some art. I ended up ducking into the University of Middlesex and Brighton's final year shows that were going on in one of the buildings on the Lane. There were some displays that stood out but I didn't take any pictures of them, so you'll escape drawn out descriptions.

(A beehive modified for everyday life. Oh, and if you look at the cigarette containers bolted onto the wall you'll see the same model that is bolted onto the wall of the shop below our flat. I wish it wasn't.)

The reason I was at Brick Lane in the first place was to go to the Art Car Boot Fair. (A car boot sale is a flea market. Trunks are called boots here so selling something out the boot of your car, even when it's spread over a table, is a car boot sale.) It ended up being a really good time without any of the smug irony I expected to need in order to enjoy it.

It had the atmosphere of a fun fair except I was waiting for John Waters to be at one of the tables scattered around the lot with a human pincushion charging people £2 to play pin the steer on the queer.

Gavin Turk was there, but I couldn't see what he was displaying through the minions that surrounded him. I didn't really mind that I couldn't see.
This woman was watching a karaoke singer. (She was at a whole table of people with similar getup, but they all had their heads turned away so they got the crop.) These guys were great. Why? Because even though they were elevated on the odd human hamster wheel/tricycle a few feet above everyone else, they still caused a bottleneck in the crowd of people straining to see some average looking guys in their underwear. What a result. Men, did you know you can have this power? This is outside of the Fair, in Spitalfields. What was once the stomping grounds of Jack the Ripper and a lot of other people is now filled with graffiti art (art 'cause people pay an awful lot for it) on really expensive property. This guy looked a lot like Julian Barratt from the Mighty Boosh.

This is an "art". It's a wishing fountain that belches water in a raft with twigs in it.









This is Pam Hogg signing a poster for Russ, who was so excited to see her he forgot how to use that respiration organ he's got.







.
The devil was part of the "Evil Art Market". He was offering all the girls a 30 second lapdance at the mere cost of 2 quid as part of his patter. He was disarmed and actually at a loss for words at my response to him. All the people there seemed to just want to have a good time. They were selling other things too, most notably some prints, which I think were made using a carved "evil" tree trunk.

Making my way back to Liverpool Street, I saw this. There isn't much more to it than what you see. It's a pub that's made of a stand with some booze behind it, some linked metal gates and a few tables next to a busy street. Build it and they will come.

What's London's message?

Apparently cities transmit messages to their residents. Daniel Rubin made a suitably miserable and half hearted attempt to work out Philadelphia's message. In the original essay that tipped off Dan's jibes, Paul Graham wrote that he thinks London sends both the fading message to be more aristocratic and also gives the impression that it admires hipness. The hipness, I totally agree with and intend to take some surreptitious photos of hipsters this weekend so you'll probably see what I mean. Yes, people like to have a mooch around boutiques and be first to get the latest and London is a fashion and arts mecca for the world's youths and kids do tend to be self interested and shallow. Pair the youthful traits with the enormous cost of living in London, I would definitely say there is a message to make lot's of money whatever way possible, but to make sure you look good in the process. I don't think that I can figure out a single message though. I think London, like most big cities, is difficult to call. Like Mr. Rubin, I can only think of obnoxious messages like "Interpersonal space boundaries are no longer relevant".

Unlike Rubin, I can think of a Philly message that's pretty loud - Go get some eats! With pretzel guys selling up and down medians, food trucks aplenty, pizza places, delis, and cheap diners throughout the city - you gotta get some food.Photo of the Dining Car from the Bridge and Tunnel Club - click to see the rest in the series. (If you don't see a picture, click here.)

I loved the Dining Car. I used to drool while staring at it from afar when my Mom used to take me with her to Pathmark for groceries. With shining chrome and neon signs, it looked like the best place in the world. I didn't really even go there until my late teens when I had a few friends that worked there and I'd sit drinking coffee and eating pie until their shift was done. It was full of old people (who are probably my age now) and really old people (the ones with grey hair), but they sure did have great pie.

Retrograde anxiety?

I've spent a good part of the day trying to convince the department I work at that I'm not responsible about what is basically a paperwork issue. Even though I'm not at fault I've ended up talking myself into the kind of anxiety I used to get when I was really irresponsible.
I guess I would be the one clucking like a chicken on stage during the hypnotism demonstration...

On a bright note, I went on a little walk this afternoon and took a picture that was long overdue.I just imagine all the poor little Jims going to church on a Sunday looking up at the sign with slumped shoulders. For an apostle, this James didn't really get a lot of credit. Since he's also known as James the Just, is there really a question of what the preferred moniker should be? Even William Pitt had a better nickname.

Sooooooooo cute!

I love it when I open up my email and find that I've gotten pictures of my niece! Here's one of my favorites of the new batch.
She likes to blow raspberries, eat grass & books, gets excited when she sees trains and laughs when I sing to her on the phone. She's adorable and I love her!

Flat searching

After hearing that our landlords are going to up the rent at our place, Aaron and I went searching for a new flat. We looked at one on Kingsland Road nearby and it was tiny, mouse infested and expensive to boot. Yesterday we went looking in Balham, a place where we would be the bad neighbors, and haven't had too much luck. While walking around, I saw something extraordinary...It was the ugliest building on the road and the only building to my knowledge that I've ever shared a name with. This, of course, makes it the coolest place ever.

While we were in Balham we met up with a few people and Aaron got to kick a ball around for a little while before we ate.

(Aaron with no ball and no people.)

Somehow between flat searching, visiting friends and marking essays I've missed the story on the sighting of one of the estimated hundred uncontacted tribes in the world.

(Click for the rest of the pictures from the BBC website.)

This is such a tricky situation to deal with. It's impossible to make contact with the tribe without risking killing most of the people through infection. But now that they have been photographed, they can probably be found by other people and I can imagine people sneaking (as much as you can in a rainforest) in to get more photographs and videos. As much as my curiosity is killing me, they are probably better left alone. I just think there's a risk of turning them into a living museum piece.