A poem

BEDFORD ROAD:

The brave and the free

These are not good days with Reagan still on TV,
the Kool-Aid sins of the brand new colony;
when the truth is too grotesque to grasp
all we’ve been left is a remembrance of things fast.
While the lights go out on Melbourne’s plains
our best friends have all assumed new names.
The things in your cupboard you no longer trust
the graduate scheme analysts are nonplussed.
And like any Scrooge I’ll extract my vig,
endure the torment when they breach the brig.
It seems like yesterday that Bopper, Bamba and Holly:
the asthmatic engine, the wheeze of Buddy’s Folly.

Long Time No Blog

BEDFORD ROAD: So it's been a little while since I've last posted any news, but since I last blogged I've had to plead for my job back... which I didn't want. Then when I got my job back I was so horribly disappointed but, I have to stick it out until I get something else.

Then to numb the blow we had the grand Korea reunion on the weekend that saw Pete The Student, Ian, Tucker, Uti, Big Mike and a cast of supporting characters crash at our place over the weekend. Two nights debauchery at trashy nightclubs climaxed with a cricket game on the common and then a Korean meal in little KoreaTown (New Malden)washed down with soju and noraebang (Korean karaoke). It was wonderful but as a consequence I fell sick and haven't been back to work yet. I go back tonight, but after last week's antics it just looks like I'm taking the piss.

Anyway my friends all is reasonably well. Should you know of any fantastic employment opportunities in the capital of good Albion, please be so kind as to let me know.

Oh and PS, beware the wounded Lion. We are indeed hunting magpie this weekend.

The Dark Arts

BEDFORD ROAD: It's been an interesting day. But more on that later. I'm currently watching Erich Fast Food Nations Schlosser go toe to toe with the McDonald's PR chief on Beeb 2 and I can't help thinking about how i tried to ruck with them over Super Size Me.

The PR people are so incredibly well briefed, from the top down, that there is a beauty to their propaganda. An unassailable, an undefeatable and perfectly constructed castle of on-message PR. If only our left wing politicians could learn from that...

Bogans Fight Back

BEDFORD ROAD: Coming in the wake of what I deduce to be another State of Origin loss there is good news for the patriots of Queensland. See this.

Congratulations Jaya. Don't forget I taught you everything you know.

Knocked Out By What Great Art Is...

BEDFORD ROAD: So I finally got around to going into Trafalgar Square to see the National Gallery and the infinite flocks of pigeons. Best part about the excursion was I discovered it was about twenty minutes from door to door to the museum. Marvellous.

The gallery itself was a bit of a disappointment. I didn't like the paintings were labelled, and the collection seems a little scattergun but maybe I've just been spoilt in recent months. Highlights were: Netherlandish art, some masterful Turners, some beautiful Parmagiano's, some beautiful Monet's of London and a couple of Impressionists I'd never heard of!

Anyway paka my friends, I'm back to work tonight.

We Are the Winners

BEDFORD ROAD: So you're wondering who the kooky guys to my right are? Well on Saturday night, after spending the day at the Portobello Markets, I was treated to the inimitable spectacle of Eurovision with a droll, deadpan sarcastic commentary by somebody called Terry Wogan. Now I know I've seen it at home on SBS but there is something particularly poignant (or sad) about watching this oldest of reality tv gladatorial contests in prime time and actually being able to vote.

And the gentleman pictographically represented on this page are LT United, a freakish looking five or six man group from Lithuania who sang a song entitled "We Are the Winners", and while their optimism proved to be missplaced, they were my favourite entrants. They are actually a collective of some of Lithuania entertainers and journalist but I'm sure this provides a better example, it's from their qualifying performance at the national finals. The actual contest was one by some Finnish gore metal joke band but I thought these guys were far better.

The rest of my weekend has proven to be a little quieter, however, I did go up to Norf London to visit Flo and Louise's new place, ate a delicious pub lunch in Kensal Green (and got free desert for slow service) and watched The Magnificient Seven (surely James Coburn's finest hour) at the NFT an The Hill Have Eyes (amazing) and Bus 174 (compelling) on DVD. And I'm off to the National Gallery this afternoon.

He Stays

BEDFORD ROAD: The Eyebrows will stay in the Premiership. The Spurs fans will be crushed as they watch any sembelance of a chance in the 2007-08 Champion's League evaporate, but to riff on an earlier question, would you rather watch Mido or Henry?

Should he stay or should he go?

CANARY WHARF: Now it's probably unlikely that any of my readers would share the endearment I feel towards Tony Scott's exposition on man-on-man love Top Gun, but something occurred to me this evening.

When Maverick is seducing Charlie at her place doing his haunted-because-my-dad-got-shot-down-in-Vietnam thang and the soundtrack plays "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding. A song sung, and subsequently posthumously mastered, by Otis Redding who had his rock star death served a la John Denver. It begs the question, was Tony Scott that cunning?

In other matters every soundbite and column inch in this country seems devoted to the question of whether Arsenal striker Thierry Henry will decamp from north London in search of Spanish challenges with Les Catalans, or if he'll stay with the Wise King Wegner with the prospect of future conquests of his burgeoning army. If he does go, and who could begrudge him, the Premiership will be unquestionably poorer for the absence of his mesmerising stride, his perfect, sometimes nonchalant strikes, and his intriguing press conferences.

I know the Spurs amongst my readers find it hard to acknowledge the Eyebrows achievements but look at it this day: would you rather have Jermaine Defoe?

Brighton Rocks

CANARY WHARF: So as some of you may or may not know, I scarffed off the last half of last week visiting my friend Robyn and her fiance in Brighton. After jumping on the first train out of town on Wednesday afternoon it was all fun in the sun until the first bus back to London on Sunday morning. (Financial constraints make it too expensive to catch the train both ways!)

Luckily I timed my visit to coincide with the opening of the Brighton Festival. Very, very dumb luck! But it was amazing. I spent most of my time wandering through The Lanes popping in and out of trendy little boutiques and funky record stores, visiting gourmet cookie shops and drinking coffees. And all through The Lanes were an array of street performers including opera singers, astronauts, samba bands, jockeys on stilts, a couple aiming for a world record apathy attempt and innumerable others.

Asides from wandering through The Lanes I spent a fair bit of time lounging about watching chavs on the pier, drinking in the beach front bars (I had three days of delicious sun) and walking across the pebbled beach. I also visited the museum and lay on the grass in front of the Pavillion which is this gorgeous building built in an approximation of the onion domed style of Russian Orthodox churches which, against the backdrop of the sea and Brighton's narrow hilly SF-style streets, looks absolutely charming.

Then I was going to head home on the Saturday to take in the FA Cup final and the London nightlife but Robs and Eliot persuaded me to stay to watch the fireworks in Preston Park. The fireworks display turned out to be an extravaganza with flying firemen, huge clouds of smoke, regular old fireworks and about 70,000 (according to The Brighton Argus) spectators.

CANARY WHARF: From the country that has given us Enron, pre-emptive strikes, institutionalised poverty and a record of spectacular military defeats stretching all the way back to Korea, we now have the description of Hugo Chavez, the brave president of Venezuela and this page’s new hero, as an ideological descendant of Hitler. Concentration camps, forward thinking trade deals and seemingly benevolent energy deals aside, all the brave man of Venezuela really needs is a mo and raised right hand.

Could we see another assassination attempt in the offing? Another Allende, followed by a violent crackdown on his supporters and the enforced flight of Venezuelans across the globe. What I find most distressing is this knee jerk aversion to alternative economic systems. While the success of neo-liberal capitalism can be witnessed in the astronomical profits of energy giants, manufacturing tyros and big pharma (and their absurdly well remunerated officers), it’s failures are writ large across the ever increasing slums of our world. Surely if capitalism was the out and out success story we are urged to believe in, then wouldn’t the gap between the rich and the poor be shrinking rather than growing. The reality is that capitalism, based as it is on competition, requires losers. If the Venezuelans, and Latin America in general, are able to develop alternate models of economic organisation that assist in the building of a viable and socially enviable continent, shouldn’t they be congratulated.

Not for the chaw chewin’, SUV drivin’, "just-folks" of Texas.

PS. Evo we love your striped jumper!

PPS. How does a rogue state that has not ratified a number of key international treaties and agreements, in addition to being in constant conflict with the Geneva Convention, become the moral compass of the world?

For all the lithium in the world...

CANARY WHARF: So it seems I have a fan in one Boom Boom Becker. I was always more of a fan of Ivan Lendl so if the good Ginger could forward on the blog adress perhaps I can attract some comments from the Ice King.

In other matters it would seem that the good city of Londinium has been rather good to me over the past couple of days. Having four days off kind of helps that. After catching up on some sleep on Sunday it was off to the Junction for Bank Holiday beers.

Then after a particularly lazy Monday I headed into my home away from home at Southbank to look at the outdoor book stalls, watch some of the skateboards and enjoy the first of the Westerns from the British Film Institutes "Tales From a Big Country" program. Naked Spur was also my first introduction into the James Stewart-Anthony Mann partnership. Shot on location in the Colorado Rockies the scenery was stunning, with the Colorado River roaring along in the background of every second scene. The film itself was a taut thriller about a job gone wrong through greed.

Tuesday was basically sitting around reading and writing before a stupid pub quiz in Balham. That's one thing that doesn't stack up over here - our pub trivia is heaps better. Then yesterday I mucked around at home for a while before going for a walk in the sunshine in north central London, stopping in at a street market at Angel, browing for Russian language texts at Borders, before meeting Charlie Brown in Leicester Square.

Next stop: the British Museum, which rises up out of the surrounding buildings like a neo-classical tsunami, all columns and granduer. Inside is no less impressive with a massive glass dome enclosing the almost as massive Reading Room. We checked out the birthplace of communism, browsed some ancient chinese bronze work and the mummies before calling the afternoon closed at a little Spanish bar just off Tottenham Court Road.

So it would seem, my good friends and tennis playing companions, that if I was to complain I would be only whinging.

All the World's A Stage

CANARY WHARF: While I watch six tri-hulled, super sleek, racing yachts parade through the dock outside my window and along into the Thames on their way to a race, I can’t help but remember what Peter Ackroyd said about London’s enduring sense of theatre. From bear baiting to tales of indecisive mummy’s boys to the present day it has been, like the tramps in Covent Garden, a symbol of the city.

Since I’ve been here I’ve seen Willy in the Thames, a historic boat race and the aforementioned yachts powering past my office window. But when, over the weekend, the world renowned Royal de Luxe theatre turned central London into a mystical fairytale playground it was something else.

For three days most of the important (and usually fantastically busy) streets around Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square were blocked off for the procession of a 40ft high wooden elephant puppet and its 20ft high friend. Part of a show called The Sultan’s Elephant, the astonishing pacaderm was actually a time machine that had delivered the sultan to contemporary London. However the story was only background detail. The real story was simply that the elephant and the girl just were. Trafalgar Square was packed with slack jawed tourists and city workers, falling complete under the fantastical spell.

It was amazing watching the puppeteers rushing around like tiny minions make the elephant walk, moving its head from side to side, drenching onlookers with the steady stream of water coming from its trunk. Later, almost by accident, we found the elephant parading up near Piccadilly Circus where it was being serandaded by a band on the bank of a truck and complete with a team of dancers atop the elephant's back. It's face was incredibly detailed and, for at the least the afternoon we were there, it did seem like fantastical place where elephant time machines strolled the streets.

On Sunday I went up to Highbury to watch the Gunners farewell their legendary stadium. Expecting a glimpse into the famous Northern Stand from the street, a glimpse so familiar from so many Premiership games where you can see beyond the corner post and out into the terraced streets, I was suprised to find the streets awash with Arsenal fans eager to say goodbye to their team. I spent the first half in a pub, packed shoulder to shoulder with Arsenal fans and then, after going outside to find a cash point and failing to get inside, I wandered around trying to find another pub. But all of them were full and I ended up in the street with several hundred other fans watching the game through the Northern Stand fans reactions.

After the game we wandered the streets of Highbury, listening to the singing, standing on the crushed beer cans littering the gutters, and sidestepping out of the way of endless phalanxes of police. To paraphrase the greatest of London dramatists, all of London is indeed a stage.

Check this out if you're interested in Royal de Luxe

Vale Grant McLennan

What's So Unique About Friendship Anyhow?

CANARY WHARF: So it turns out that's it almost impossible to sleep in my third floor tower room. With a security light shoving rudely through the curtains and the constant cough of traffic I'm finding myself waking up at four in the morning and then not getting back too sleep. When I do catch myself in the morning mirror I look like Ed Norton's character at the start of Fight Club.

So when I trudge home from work I'm more than a little bemused to find Dishonest John spruiking the uniqueness of Aussie mateship (vis a vis the succesful miner's rescue) in The Guardian. Joy of joys that he would trot out his most time worn cliche in the midst of a moment of so much genuine happiness. If mateship was truly unique to the Australian psyche then we must imagine that our neighbours in the global community would have acted so much differently. Or would they? Would the Dutch, the Kiwis, the Koreans or the Bolivians have abandoned the miners to their fate?

STAGECOACH

BEDFORD ROAD: I finally got to see Stagecoach on the big screen last night; John Ford's first truly great western and the onscreen debut of the legendary Duke. Swinging his gun around, arresting the passage of the stagecoach, and seemingly dominating the entire Monument Valley, it was an entrace to be savoured, even if his performance was largely overshadowed by his excellent, more seasoned colleagues. It really was a fantastic film, witty dialogue, some of the most amazing stunts, a compelling story and the first A-List performance by one of the cinema's all time greatest stars. Now I've still got The Magnificent Seven and The Searchers to go.