Tag: london

Empty Underground

I love London.
More than that, I love London’s Underground.

This ancient subterranean transport system has been a part of my psyche from the first time my Mum brought me up to the big smoke to see the pigeons of Trafalgar Square – remember them?
Since then the colourful, maze-like map and simple iconography have been a clear and constant theme throughout my life.

Recently, after moving to London, travelling on the Tube (as it is more commonly known), has become a daily routine. Having spent a good couple of years working out of town, it really is good to be back.

Back on the underground.

Another pleasant by-product of enjoying my favourite form of public transport is the fantastic photography of it all.

Over the course of last year I caught myself snapping here and there more often than not, when there is an absence of occupance. This in turn led to the creation of a Flickr group -  Empty Underground.

A collection of photos taken of London’s underground rail system all in that rarest of moments; emptiness.

There’s a whole bunch of amazing images from many different photographers. If you have some time, go check it out – and if you have any of your own, why not add them to the group?

See you around… on the empty underground.

Two Escalators

Shot this on Saturday on the way back from the Plan9 shenanigans.

Two different shots, cut together to make something quite lovely and quite seamless.. Ha!

The first person who can tell what the two main differences are between shot one and shot two wins a prize.

Ready, steady… GO!

PS. This kind of serves as a nice introduction to the post I have lined up for later in the week. Good times.

Plan 9

A few days ago, interes10 mentioned that London’s Natural History Museum was a fairly decent place to visit for a family day out.

Whenever I think of the Natural History Museum I immediately have images of the giant Blue Whale model in the Mammals hall, or even the huge fossil collection that inhabits the entrance hall.

Dinosaurs spring to mind.

Always.

Today I found myself back there again. But not for a family day out this time, oh no. My presence was required for a much different purpose.

Operation: BIG GNAW was my very own secret mission for today.

Part of an overall plan – PLAN 9 to be exact – I was to be at a set location, at a set time and armed with a very specific set of responses to a set of questions of which I had no knowledge. With a map in my pocket and some guidelines around exactly what I could and could not say, I set out.

“But what the hell is PLAN 9? What is Operation BIG GNAW?”

Allow me to explain…

Mr Dan Light (pictured, top), is currently in the process of putting together a sizzle/trailer for a new film entitled Loch Ghoon. The script, based on an original screenplay by Dan’s cousin Max, requires a few vox pops from everyday folk (that’s where I come in), shot in and around London’s Natural History Museum (NHM).

‘PLAN 9’ was the codename for the operation that took us secretly deep inside the NHM and BIG GNAW was the pseudonym under which my instructions were left for me. Along with a few other cheeky cameo stars, the aim was to get in, shoot what we needed and then get out again before we were rumbled by the NHM security.

Not an easy task.

I’ve tried filming in a you-think-it’s-public-but-it’s-not-really kind of place before and that did not end well. However, thanks to Dan’s meticulous planning (see above), the whole shoot went off without hitch.

Being a Saturday afternoon, the museum was naturally very busy. With Joe Public taking photos left, right and centre, somehow a small collection of inconspicuous-looking men gathered ’round a camera, interviewing each other suddenly became something rather normal. Par for the course in fact. Business as usual.

To the average passer-by, we were merely tourists.

http://qik.com/swfs/qikPlayer5.swf

Very, well done.

Rupert, Dan, James, Dan, Benny, Antonio, Katie, Saffron (and maybe a couple of others whose names escape me), excellent work all round.

There’s a Plan9 photo set from today’s fun and games up over on flickr and, if you’re interested in following the progress of Loch Ghoon, I suggest you stay tuned to Dan’s blog – if anything, it’s just a good read.

This is BIG GNAW, signing off…

PLAN 9: COMPLETE

Minor update:

Benny has put his videos and words together – ‘Assault on Plan 9’
As has Dan – ‘We go in. We get what we want. We come out.’

Sounds of the Underground

My small obsession with all things London Underground continues unabated with this video pulled together of different shots I’ve taken in and around our fair public transport system.

I love it, I really do.

There’s so much interesting architecture to photograph and shoot that one can easily get quite carried away. Originally I intended just to make this video a bit like a scrap book; it’s ‘pages’ made up of all the out-takes and un-used footage that I’ve taken so far this month. But when I found the stuff with my old friend Basti, I had to whack it on the end.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=7734212&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1

Yes the audio is out of sync. It’s supposed to be. If you ever meet Basti, you will know that he operates on his own planet, in his own dimension, running by his own rules.

Time and space and all that jazz work around him, not the other way ’round.

😉

Just Qik-ly…

This evening I attended the Nokia N900 meetup event in London town and, with my very own brand new Nokia N900, I managed to get a Qik video stream of the demo they gave…

It’s a bit dark and there’s no fancy intro, but I have no time to clean it up so I’m just going to throw it up raw.

http://qik.com/swfs/qikPlayer4.swf

The TV screen is a live TV-out from the device itself and the UI really is that smooth.

I’ll probably write up a bigger review for The Really Mobile Project at some point but in the meantime, I guess this is my vlomo09 entry…

Cheers.

Bloody Poetry

This isn’t a rant about how much I despise prose and rhyme in all its forms, no, no. Of poetry, I am a fan.

Something else I am a fan of is bloody good theatre and bloody good theatre is something that I saw last night.

Bloody Poetry – a play written by Howard Brenton and currently showing at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington – is not a play I’m familiar with, however I must say that it was thoroughly enjoyable. Good theatre is often difficult to seek out in London. Often you find yourself paying way over the odds to watch a cast that would be lucky to get a walk-on part on Hollyoaks (the West End production of Lord of the Rings for instance). However, with Bloody Poetry, I was fortunate to be entertained by not only a bloody good script, but also a fantastic troupe of bloody good actors.

The piece itself tells the tale of two great poets of our time – Shelley and Byron – and how they first met on the shores of Lake Geneva, then of the subsequent summer of love that followed…

I’ll admit I originally only went along to support my dear friend and old acting partner, Alex Barclay. He’s a damn fine actor and appears in the play as Doctor Polidori, biographer to Lord Byron. I haven’t seen Al in a few months, so I saw last night as a chance to catch up and say hi etc…

But I’m not writing this post for him (sorry Al – I love you really).

I’m putting this post together because the play really is that good. I came out beaming. Byron is perfectly pitched as the horny, swashbuckling cad he no doubt was back in his day. Providing some humorous asides throughout the performance, just think of Rik Mayall’s Lord Flashheart, add in some poetic pathos and you’re there. Ellie Turner – cast as soon-to-be author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley – brings a fantastic realism and stoic worldly-ness to a woman who no doubt would have felt almost on the outskirts of the strange quartet that forms around her. Wise beyond her years, her talent is plain to see and was played perfectly. It feels rude to neglect the rest of the cast (who were all excellent) but I fear I am rambling so will leave you with a piece of blurb from the website and booking details too.

If you’re in London and you fancy something different one night this October, go and see Bloody Poetry, you won’t be disappointed.

“Percy Bysshe Shelley, radical nonconformist, poet, essayist, and committed vegetarian, fled England in 1816 with Mary Shelley and her step-sister Claire Clairmont.

Faced with unrest at home and Revolution abroad, England in 1816 had become a repressive surveillance state; exile was both a choice and a necessity for a poet who advocated for social justice, practised free love and opposed inherited power in any form.

On 25th May 1816, the Shelleys met Lord Byron on the shore of Lake Geneva. Together with Byron’s physician, Dr Polidori, the group spent the summer together, during which Mary began writing ‘Frankenstein’ and Byron and Shelley deepened their friendship. ‘Bloody Poetry’ explores the personal and political passions which drove these young writers and the obstacles they faced. It celebrates their daring while revealing their humanity. As a qualified idealist, Shelley still dares us to dream:

“The great instrument of moral good is the imagination. We must not let it become diseased…We might be all we dream of, happy, high, majestical. Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek, but in our mind? Poets are the legislators of mankind!””

The play runs Tuesday – Sunday until the end of this month. Tickets are £12.00 (£10.00 concessions) and are available from the White Bear Box Office website.

Enjoy! 🙂

Mobile Geeks of London VI

Hey there folks!

Can you believe it?!
We’re not two months into the start of 2009 and it’s already time for the next…

Mobile Geeks of London!

– WOOP WOOP –

I can’t believe it’s come round so quickly. It seems like only yesterday that we were all meeting up for the last gathering of 2008…

But No!
It wasn’t yesterday! It was November! Bleedin’ AGES ago!
Let’s crack on with it shall we?

😉

This time round, with Mobile World Congress still fresh in the memory there should be lots to talk about, drink to and of course secretly discuss… Heh.

I know I’m bringing a whole host of phone-based toys to play with, what are you bringing?

If you’re new here then you’ll find all the details you need on the facebook event page.
If you want to keep up with future events then by all means join the facebook group page to stay in the loop.

However, if you’re not a facebook person – and I know some of you aren’t – the basics are as follows:

Date: 26th February 2009 – That’s TONIGHT!
Time: 18:30ish – 23:00ish
Location: All Bar One
Street: New Oxford Street (nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road)
Town/City: London Baby!

If you like beer and you like Mobile then you are very, very welcome to join us.

“lt’s not about buying stuff.
It’s not about selling stuff.
It’s about mobile geeks having a genuine discussion about using stuff…”

See you tonight boys and girls.

😉

Ps. If for some reason you can’t make it along. Keep an eye on the Qik video window on the top of the right hand coloumn over there —–>

I’ll try and take some video for you 🙂

See ya!