Simile of the Week

"Ayers Rock sits there like a large boulder on the landscape."

I paraphrase, but only just. I enjoyed Long Way Round and Long Way Down, but I thought the third time would be a mistake, and so it proved. Ewan MacGregor-less, this time By Any Means features at least a hundred means of transport (if you are allowed to count different trains and taxis as different forms) on a journey from Ireland to Sydney. And only taking friend/producer Russ and cameraman Mungo with Charlie son of John Boorman. And a translator. Or a fixer. And presumably various camera crews - I wonder do they stop the train so they can film it leaving and the platform receding?

Boorman's all-purpose commentary: "It's beautiful. It's awesome. Bloody brilliant. This is fantastic. I can't believe it."

Yes, but why?

"We're here. We're straight. Get used to it"

Peter Mullen, who satirically suggested gays be tattooed:

"Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan sodomy can seriously damage your health and their chins with fellatio kills."

now writes:

"I voted for the Homosexual Reform Act of 1967; and I would vote for it again today. This act specified the decriminalisation of homosexual acts 'between consenting adults in private'... 'Private' means in the bedroom – and neither Hampstead Heath nor public lavatories.

"What I do oppose – on the authority of the Christian faith – is the corrupting influence of the promotional parades of homosexuality by such as Gay Pride demonstrations. And that is what I was satirising.

"It is scandal that some homosexual campaigners have not kept to the letter and spirit of the generous Act of 1967 and instead have consistently and lewdly promoted homosexuality as if it were merely part of the entertainments industry.

"Sex, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is a private matter and it should be kept private."

No, I say, let's liberate heterosexuality from the closet and the bedroom, and promote it in the entertainment industry! Fight for the right to kiss your favoured member of the opposite sex on the street! Let's stop an 18 Certificate from being slapped on any film containing straight people! Let's stop libraries and schools banning books because they feature straight people! Let's have films where it's okay for a cowboy to have a girlfriend! Let's admit we can't do soft furnishings and fashion even though we're men! Stop the police from raiding straight pubs and clubs! Let's report on marriages in newspaper and magazines - let's fill the pages of Hello! with wedding pictures!

Two, four, six, eight - we are here and we are straight!
One, three, five and seven - tumpty tumpty rhymes with heaven!

Edit: I note with some concern that he "numbers many homosexual men and women among my dearest friends" and that he "was delighted to be so warmly welcomed at church last Sunday by the many homosexual people in my congregation." Surely he should condemn them for letting him know that they are homosexual in such a public space - after all it would be corrupting. One would hope his friends were more discreet (and discrete) and weren't parading their sexuality for him to see. Equally, married people should be separated from their children and each other in church (and elsewhere, aside from the bedroom), as heterosexuality is also something he wants to keep private. I wonder he performs weddings?

Edit II: Move along, there's nothing to see: Is the chin visible during fellatio? You can't see your own chin, and you'd have to look up (or down) according to well, yanno... giving or receiving. (On the other hand, if Delany is to believed, it is safe sex (or at least safer sex).)

Films CXIX and CXX

( CXIX: Grace Quigley (Anthony Harvey, 1984) )

( CXX: A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (Chris Waitt, 2008) )

Totals: 120 (Cinema: 50; DVD: 65; TV: 5)

Architecture

Good Architecture

Last Saturday the RIBA Stirling Prize went to Accordia, a multi-practice designed housing estate in Cambridge. At least it didn't go to the Brazil and They Live inspired academy nor the filing cabinet of the Manchester court building. I was interested to see that seeing footage of the buildings rather than just still photos didn't improve my judgement of what I thought weak, but it made me more fascinated by the two railway projects.

McCloud pointed out that all of the projects were public realm - there wasn't a office among them.

I still thought Accordia was toytown.


Bad Architecture

A while back we lost the latest in a range of Bamboo Furniture shops, whose lack of custom was perhaps a function of a) erratic opening hours b) a better bamboo furniture shop next to Churchill's and Netto and c) it's a sodding bamboo furniture shop. The shop was demolished to make way for a restaurant and what sounded like an unfeasible number of studio apartments. It seemed to go up fairly fast, with metal frames, and is situated between a pretty ugly brick Wilkinson's and a pretty ugly brick office building. It faces onto part of the city wall, about level with the (I'm not making this up) Strict and Particular Baptist Church.

It wouldn't take much to improve on what was there but - they didn't have much.

It feels a bit blocky to me: although until the wood is removed from what is presumably the restaurant, it's perhaps too early to tell. There's a glass block at the top, a white overhang (with windows), a series of brown squares (with windows) and wooden coverings, and five pillars apparently holding up the overhang. Three of these are round, two of them are oblong, and it just looks silly to alternate them. Why the solo window above what is supposed to be a doorway?

 

 

 

By chance I came across a poster advertising the new building, which seems to have been designed for students (studio living above a restaurant? really?). I can't help but feel that the atmosphere of the picture has not been caught in the photo - which may of course be my fault.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another factor is the workmanship: the dark brown squares don't seem quite aligned, the oblong columns are off-centre compared to the concrete footing, and on the circular columns the casings aren't quite flush. It just looks off. It presumably is only going to get worse. The columns are already dirty.