Ged Carroll

Category: out and about | 事件 | 종목 | 催し物

I have been fortunate to be living in London and Hong Kong since I have been written this blog. This has given me many opportunities to get out and about.

In this section you will find a wide range of posts:

  • Conferences – for a wider range of things. There was a time when blogging and social media had a range of conferences and events, thought these have declined as they always said the same thing and the same problems were continually highlighted.
  • Exhibitions – from traditional and popular Asian culture, to design, art and history. For a city that has been accused of having no art scene beyond auction houses it was easy for me to go out and about to see something
  • Festivals – usually food or film festivals. I am a big fan of a number of genres: science fiction, world cinema, crime and spy films. Sci-Fi London has been my favourite film festival for the past two decades. It helps that it has been hosted down the road from where I lived
  • Gigs – I usually went to music gigs as I have never really been a fan of comedy. In particular, I loved going to the Brixton academy or the 100 Club. One of my friends who is longer with us, used to come with me an annual basis to see a gig or two.
  • Museums – colonial history graced the UK with the money to build museums and the stuff to put inside them. On its own one of London’s main museums would be enough to make a city. Together Londoners are spoiled

  • V and A

    On Saturday, I continued my sporadic tour of London’s cultural highpoints: Fabric, Smith of Smithfields, The End, Flying Records, Phonica, The Science Museum and now the Victoria & Albert Museum known informally as the V and A.

    The museum is very disorientating despite the map that they provide you with on the way in. In fact the map was an offence against design to my co-explorer Steve, a design agency owner who came along. The exhibits on Japan were very interesting and made Europe look like a bunch of savages. The Victorian silverware looked crass and tasteless, the plunder of robber barons from an empire that spanned a third of the world (sort of like Kenneth Noye on a grand scale).

    There were lots of activity areas and it should get a high rating for being child friendly. It was way cool and both Steve and myself took some time out for learning activities. The café wasn’t as swish as I had thought that it would be, however it is still very good. My expectations of the V and A had been distorted by the ‘V&A café with museum attached’ descriptions of it in the media. (Their 1 1/2 cup pot of coffee is actually good for two cups).

    In addition, they had The Other Flower Show art exhibition and Tracy Emin’s work in particular had a very dark sense of humour in it with a ouija board and knife in the centre of a children’s wendy house.

    One of the things I found out was that it was Architecture Week, judging by their materials and handouts both RIBA and the Arts Council had invested heavily in it. However beyond mentions in the design press about activity in Clerkenwell to celebrate the event we had not seen any press coverage. If you were involved in Architecture Week and want to get more publicity give me a call :-))

    The V&A area suffered from a dearth of fast food suppliers so Steve and myself had to decamp by foot to Leicester Square in order to support a heinous global corporation that tears down the rainforest and provides gainful employment to sociology graduates in the fast-food industry. More posts about getting out and about here.

  • Science Museum with my Dad

    Mission to the science museum

    My parents came down for the weekend. While my Mam was content to chill out and do some knitting whilst listening to Daniel O’Donnell slaughtering country and western standards, my Dad and I were at a loss for something to do. Having been told by my friend Kirsty who has a little boy that the Science Museum has free admission, I had a brain wave.

    Steam power

    My Dad is a mechanical fitter by trade and we spent about two hours in the Science museum finding out about the development of the steam engine and the rise of the internal combustion engine. We found out that James Watt did not invent the steam engine (our school teachers lied to us) but improved on existing designs. We took a brief break and then pushed into the space section and then on into the modern world with everything from a Mills & Boon novel to an transgenic sheep proteins (derived from their milk). So far so good, the digital section did not impress, despite its architectural scale, but the aviation gallery got a big thumps up from Pops.

    When he comes down to pick my Mam up next week, we hope to go back to explore more of the Science Museum. By that time the Science Museum guidebook will have arrived and help us make more out of the visit, when we manage to get another visit in.

    Thameslink

    The journey home to Luton however was a bit of a trauma with Thameslink trains shutting down their service completely. I am thankful that my commute usually isn’t that traumatic. We had to get home via Milton Keynes (a soul less bit of urban planning) and it took us four hours. Once you get off the rail network the public transport outside London is poor. More related posts here.

  • Rolex service centre

    Rolex service centre

    Friday, and my Palm PDA bleeped in that nagging sort of way that it does. I looked down and saw that it was time to get my watch serviced again at the Rolex service centre. I have the good fortune to have got a Rolex Submariner at a knockdown price off my old man some years ago before their prices went stupid. The watch is as old as I am and has weathered the adventures we have shared (including scuba diving, flyposting in sink hole estates, dj’ing in abandoned mills and dot.com client meetings) considerably better. Every three years it goes in for a service.

    The Rolex service centre in London had changed their location since last time, so after getting off at the wrong tube and then heading halfway across W1, I arrived at their new offices in St James’ Sq in a bit of a fluster. Talk about brand experience, their foyer is all sea green wavy patterned glass, dark green marble (all in the same colours as much of their packaging and website) and high quality woodwork, with a couple of lovely looking blonde receptionists; it looks every inch like the sitting room of a Bond villain’s hideaway.

    A reassuringly old man in a spotless white coat took my watch away. I will be interested to see how much work it needs in the next week or so. Seriously tempted to get it a companion with a 50th anniversary edition Submariner or a Seadweller, but that would be a bit materialistic… More related content here.

    Firefox up

    For some reason Safari, the zippy default browser on my Mac does not like the format buttons in Blogger, the online tool I use to write these musings. I have loaded up the latest iteration of Mozilla called Firefox as a back up. I am very impressed with its speed and relative lack of bugs. It beats seven bells out of Microsoft Explorer and Microsoft was withdrawn from the Mac marketplace for Internet browsers so a fast reliable alternative was required.

    Cufflinks & ‘The Game of Death’

    Cufflinks are men’s equivalents to alice bands (except for David Beckham) frivolous items of attire, there is no rhyme or reason for them but shirt makers insist that you use them so that they can skimp on buttons. I can find using them to be a right pain in backside. My one set of cufflinks were bought at a shop in the West End and feature a black and white hand and shoulders portrait of Bruce Lee (from The Game of Death publicity stills apparently). This struck me as a bit of an oddity unless that practicing kung fu is as time consuming and trying as doing up a set of cufflinks in a hurry. They are bit of a conversation piece and my friend Ian and I were talking about them. I complained that using cufflinks were a ‘challenge’ and he pointed out that cufflinks in his view were a way of preparing for the day. You cant do them efficiently unless you are at ease, rather than having your mind going in 20 directions at once. There you go, one man’s frivolous clothing item, another man’s zen pillar – you decide….