David Hadley's Blog, page 70

The UK’s Leading Post-War Urban Planner

Recalcitrant Openspace is little known outside the often arcane world of urban planning. However, many do know it was his theories of city design that led to many of the urban regeneration projects after the end of WWII that resulted in the UK having some of the most… planned cities in the world.

Coming from a wealthy family, Openspace was very concerned with the plight of the poor and making sure they were kept as far away from him and his friends as possible. Naturally, then, he became a leading Left-Wing  intellectual and ardent socialist, concerned with making sure the poor always stayed poor enough to keep him and his comrades in work.

Openspace was very taken with the idea of the – then – ultra-modern tower block, despite some initial misgivings. Although, the tower block designers assuaged some of Openspace’s early doubts when they proved to him that his fears were unfounded. Nevertheless, Openspace was convinced that the working class were inherently malodorous. Therefore, he thought that placing them high in the sky would allow their smell to spread further over the city he was designing.

Furthermore, in his own plans for tower blocks Openspace made sure that the bathrooms would be too small for the inhabitants to use the baths as a coal storage facility. He also made sure the flats were centrally heated too, hoping that this would dissuade the poor from hoarding coal altogether. As a later biographer of Openspace noted, his belief that the poor both smelt and had an obsession with storing coal in the most unsuitable places for no apparent reason was something that no-one could dissuade him of. Despite all the copious evidence they offered to the contrary.

Because he also had servants who did such things for him, Openspace never realised that the poor would need to go shopping, if only to the coal merchant. Therefore, his city designs often put a great deal of distance between the housing for the workers and the shops. After all, Openspace thought vulgar trade was both common and low. Consequently, he thought the dwellers in his towns would wish to avoid shopping altogether.

He also thought pubs would also fade out of use once people could live in centrally-heated homes. He assumed that rather than go to pubs, clubs and other such nightlife entertainment the poor would stay at home. Once they were in their new little palaces, he assumed they would start having dinner parties rather than going out to get drunk and have a good time. This despite the fact that the flats Openspace designed had little room for more than two people at once to sit down for a meal. Even less, if they tried sitting at the table without one of them sitting out on the balcony. This may have been fine in the Mediterranean villas that Openspace claimed inspired him. Unfortunately, it was less feasible in Leeds or Bradford during the winter months, especially when – as it so often was – the much-acclaimed custom-designed central heating system was on the blink again.

Openspace didn’t much like factories or other workplaces either, thinking them too crude and utilitarian. So despite housing his tower block workers in improved conditions, he refused to have their places of work anywhere near his masterpiece towns. He refused to allow factories, offices or any other workplaces near his tower blocks and their intricately designed walkways. He even refused to have roads and other connections between the tower block and the local industrial and commercial areas.

He made the business owners build their factories, warehouses and so on miles away from his tower blocks. Openspace wanted such premises out of view, as he said ‘even from the topmost flats on the upper floors’. Consequently, unemployment amongst the high-rise dwellers was much higher than in the surrounding urban areas, nearer the industrial zones.

All in all, then, despite all the awards and plaudits they received, and despite the many politicians applauding him as a hero for the working class, the tower blocks were eventually demolished to the resounding cheers of those unfortunate enough to have once been housed in them.

 

The UK���s Leading Post-War Urban Planner

Recalcitrant Openspace is little known outside the often arcane world of urban planning. However, many do know it was his theories of city design that led to many of the urban regeneration projects after the end of WWII that resulted in the UK having some of the most��� planned cities in the world.

Coming from a wealthy family, Openspace was very concerned with the plight of the poor and making sure they were kept as far away from him and his friends as possible. Naturally, then, he became a leading Left-Wing�� intellectual and ardent socialist, concerned with making sure the poor always stayed poor enough to keep him and his comrades in work.

Openspace was very taken with the idea of the – then – ultra-modern tower block, despite some initial misgivings. Although, the tower block designers assuaged some of Openspace���s early doubts when they proved to him that his fears were unfounded. Nevertheless, Openspace was convinced that the working class were inherently malodorous. Therefore, he thought that placing them high in the sky would allow their smell to spread further over the city he was designing.

Furthermore, in his own plans for tower blocks Openspace made sure that the bathrooms would be too small for the inhabitants to use the baths as a coal storage facility. He also made sure the flats were centrally heated too, hoping that this would dissuade the poor from hoarding coal altogether. As a later biographer of Openspace noted, his belief that the poor both smelt and had an obsession with storing coal in the most unsuitable places for no apparent reason was something that no-one could dissuade him of. Despite all the copious evidence they offered to the contrary.

Because he also had servants who did such things for him, Openspace never realised that the poor would need to go shopping, if only to the coal merchant. Therefore, his city designs often put a great deal of distance between the housing for the workers and the shops. After all, Openspace thought vulgar trade was both common and low. Consequently, he thought the dwellers in his towns would wish to avoid shopping altogether.

He also thought pubs would also fade out of use once people could live in centrally-heated homes. He assumed that rather than go to pubs, clubs and other such nightlife entertainment the poor would stay at home. Once they were in their new little palaces, he assumed they would start having dinner parties rather than going out to get drunk and have a good time. This despite the fact that the flats Openspace designed had little room for more than two people at once to sit down for a meal. Even less, if they tried sitting at the table without one of them sitting out on the balcony. This may have been fine in the Mediterranean villas that Openspace claimed inspired him. Unfortunately, it was less feasible in Leeds or Bradford during the winter months, especially when ��� as it so often was ��� the much-acclaimed custom-designed central heating system was on the blink again.

Openspace didn���t much like factories or other workplaces either, thinking them too crude and utilitarian. So despite housing his tower block workers in improved conditions, he refused to have their places of work anywhere near his masterpiece towns. He refused to allow factories, offices or any other workplaces near his tower blocks and their intricately designed walkways. He even refused to have roads and other connections between the tower block and the local industrial and commercial areas.

He made the business owners build their factories, warehouses and so on miles away from his tower blocks. Openspace wanted such premises out of view, as he said ���even from the topmost flats on the upper floors���. Consequently, unemployment amongst the high-rise dwellers was much higher than in the surrounding urban areas, nearer the industrial zones.

All in all, then, despite all the awards and plaudits they received, and despite the many politicians applauding him as a hero for the working class, the tower blocks were eventually demolished to the resounding cheers of those unfortunate enough to have once been housed in them.

 

The Spoon in History ��� Revisited

Tureen Saggyvest is probably best known these days for his attempt at the world record for holding a spoon in Chichester. A record first set back in 1873 by Germoline Pantechnicon, when she held a spoon for seven days without once dropping it or even using it to stir her tea. Of course, back in those stricter and more moralistic days in did cause a bit of a shock and some over-agitated stirring when Pantechnicon revealed her world record attempt. For, in those days, people in the upper middle and upper classes employed a spoon maid to hold their spoon in readiness for when they were needed. As well as also doing any stirring with that spoon, if and when necessary. However, according to the strict etiquette of the time any actual measuring out with spoons was only ever undertaken by the family���s butler.

Hence, the shock and outrage only a few decades later when T.S. Eliot���s Prufrock measures out his own life with coffee spoons. Shockingly, with Prufrock doing it himself instead of delegating the task to the domestic servants, which was, up until then, the case. Of course, as a leading exponent of the modernism movement Eliot was predisposed to such quiet revolutionary acts. Consequently, the use of spoons ��� even symbolically ��� in poetry, if not all art, was never the same again.

Of course, as anyone with even the slightest interest in history will know the spoon in past ages has not been without controversy. Everyone has heard of the great spoon strike of 1923, when the spoon operators at several restaurants, cafes, and work canteens went on strike for a fair day���s pay for a fair days stirring. There was also, back in the colonial era, the famous Battle of the Spoons when the Wednesbury Light Infantry held off a massed Zulu attack using spoons when their ammunition ran out. The regiment had to resort to the spoons when the regiment���s quartermaster discovered there had been a cock-up in the logistic supply to the regimental column. What was labelled on the boxes turned out not to be the bayonets they expected, but several hundred spoons of various sizes. Fortunately, the supply crates did include several boxes of the new automatic battlefield soup ladles.

As was well-known at the time, the Zulus had an irrational fear of the soup ladle. A fear initially caused by some overzealous Methodist ministers who had attempted a mass baptism of a tribe of Zulu in a crocodile and hippopotamus infested river using their hastily-blessed soup ladles as baptismal devices. When a hippo and then a crocodile attacked one of the baptisers as he went about his holy work, he smote both attack animals on their respective snouts in fury. Thus driving both of them away, while claiming they were the beasts of the devil. Since that moment, the Zulus regarded the soup ladle as a fearsome magical weapon and would flee whenever one was produced. So when the Zulus attacked, and the Wednesburys revealed their ladles, the Zulu ran from the battlefield. Consequently, victory went once again to a vastly outnumbered British force.

This noble and proud tradition of the spoon in history is why such world record attempts by Saggyvest and his ilk still receive so much worldwide media attention and interest from the general public. That too is why Saggyvest���s record attempt ��� this very afternoon in Chichester – will be witnessed by a crowd numbering in almost double figures, as well as the media from around the local area. If nothing else interesting is happening elsewhere, apart from this interminable bloody election, then the rest of the world���s media may turn up for a look too.

Breakthrough Imminent in Robotics

These may not be the droids you are looking for, but there have of late been some startling advances in the field of robotics. Robot vacuum cleaners, for example, have now around for a long time, taking a lot of the drudgery out of yet another household task. New advances in other areas of the domestic arena have removed several mundane chores from daily life, especially for women.

Even in modern, less-traditional, households women usually undertake a great deal of the domestic tasks. This traditional divide remains even with today���s more equitable lifestyles. However, even though, in theory, many women claim they do like men to help around the house, some recent research contradicts this.

This research, into what actually goes on when men do try to attempt domestic tasks, has uncovered many intriguing findings. Most women, it seems, claim they want men to do more around the house. Although, such women often find that when men do undertake domestic tasks those same women soon wish they hadn���t.

Quite simply, scientific research continuingly and increasingly finds that men are of bugger all use around the home. In fact, nowadays most women just wish the men would bugger off out of it altogether and leave them to it. Rather than have the men piss about in a vague and distracted manner, half-arsedly moving things around in the mistaken belief that they are ���helping���.

Consequently, one of the latest breakthroughs in theoretical robotics is the advance that so many women are waiting for. Technologists at one of the leading sex aid laboratories in Europe have been working on a device that combines the very latest in self-pleasuring technology and the current designs of robotic vacuum cleaners.

So, the scientists at the Institute have predicted that ��� sometime in the next five years ��� they should have come up with a new robot. This new robot will do the vacuuming, dusting, cleaning and every other domestic task, up to and including emptying the cat litter tray and cleaning gunged-up hair out of the shower plughole. However, not only will it do all that, this new robot will also give the woman of the house a damn good seeing to afterwards. Often without any of the need for the woman to dress up as a French maid, grease up the snorkel or reassure the robot that it is more than big enough, or that it could happen to anyone.

However, several men at the Institute where this ground-breaking research is underway have expressed some concerns. They believe that if the scientists do manage to make the final breakthrough, then these devices could make men themselves completely redundant.

The female head scientist, in charge of the research, did say that, once they make the final breakthrough, it is possible that within a decade or two men will become a protected species. She foresees that a future society will keep men in zoos or on specialist breeding farms. ���Actually,��� she said in a recent interview. ���Once we make the final breakthrough there will be no need for men at all, they will become an evolutionary dead end.���

So, all men can hope for if they want to save themselves from becoming extinct is if these scientists admit defeat. However, that will only happen if the scientists conclude they will never be able to develop a robot capable of taking the lid off a new jar of jam.

 

The Times Before

It began out here, far from any place. But the ruins still remain, showing that, long before these times, people lived here. At least, that is what the legends say. The stories were passed down from Old One to Old One, telling of the times before long ago. Times when these places rose up like man-made mountains and people knew how to fly.

Besta, the Old One now, told me how Old Ones before him, many generations ago, saw these places differently. Back then, the buildings were not overgrown, covered with creeping plants, as they are now. Back then, he said, the people could see how the people before had lived inside these man-made mountains.

Now they are nothing except habitats for wild animals.

These are dangerous places. Full of wild animals, vicious big cats and other predators stalk the twisting heaped valleys where even the ground underfoot is uncertain and dangerous.

The stories, Besta says, tell not only of the caves and shelters high in the sky in the man-made mountains, but of men burrowing under the earth to make tunnels. He says they could also fly faster than the wind.

Sometimes, I am not so sure about these stories of the Before Time. They talk of men who can fly, build mountains and travel as fast as the wind. I���ve seen how stories change with the telling around the fires, even over a few nights. I���ve heard how the big cats get bigger, their teeth and claws grow sharper, how much harder the fish fought against capture. I���ve heard how the other tribe nearly defeated us, and how much their women fought when we took them.

So, I wonder about the stories the Old Ones tell us and whether they can be that true. These places are abandoned now, full of ghosts and danger. Now I wonder if those old men from the times before were really the gods we think they were.

I wonder that, if they were so great, what happened to the people of the Before Time. Where are they now? Surely, if they could create such wonders, do such great things, then they should have lasted, should have survived. Sometimes we go hungry, sometimes the other tribes kill our men and steal our women, but still, despite this, we carry on.

So I wonder, what became of the men from the Before Time. I come back here to look out over what Besta says was called a city. I try to map out a route that one day will take me deep inside, right to the heart of this great mystery from so long ago.

 

For Those Passing By

For Those Passing By

Tension held so taut like cables stretched out

Spanning rivers tied by road and rail lines

Held so tightly it is possible to

Hear a note right on the verge of silence,

Humming into hearing, thunder on by

Fading into murmur when each journey

Hurtles by from over there to somewhere,

Leaving us behind as frozen gestures,

Glimpsing an already forgotten tableau

Memories for all those passing of a

Moment held forever uncompleted.

 

A Political Disgrace

Amplitude Duckisland is well-known as one of the UK���s leading political soundbite producers. Although, his constituency at the last election ejected him when the media revealed he had accepted bribes from several multinational companies to ask questions in the house. It was discovered later that during the recent expense scandal period he also received over ��6 million in expenses. Mostly for what he called entertainment of overseas politicians and world leaders. All in an item marked down in his accounts as miscellaneous trollops, floozies and jezebels.

Although, Duckisland himself claims to be a strictly religious man who takes his marriage vows seriously, he was later caught in a hotel with seven of his floozies. However, Duckisland where he claimed he was merely going over their expense accounts before submitting them to the House of Commons expense office. Just why that entailed them all being naked, with two of the ladies covered with whipped cream, while another was wearing a facemask and snorkel, was never explored during the later enquiry.

Despite all that, Duckisland recorded the lowest ever vote tally in a parliamentary election. Consequently, shortly afterwards his parliamentary constituency rejected him as their potential candidate for the forthcoming election. Most people then thought he was bound for obscurity and political oblivion.

However, the BBC desperate to get media and popular attention for its tired old satirical current affairs panel shows hired him as the weekly ���controversial��� guest. Mainly in order to gain some media attention and thus regain the audiences who had long since abandoned the programmes. Of course, the metropolitan media in its self-imposed isolation from what the rest of the country thinks was quite surprised to discover that Duckisland wasn���t such a daring choice after all. Viewing figures for the shows plunged even further as an already over-patronised audience turned away from this blatant attempt at manipulation by manufactured outrage.

Nevertheless, the TV and radio stations had Duckisland on a rather generous retainer. Furthermore, he is always guaranteed to over-moisten the underwear of any programme presenter who interviews him. For these days, Duckisland deliberately cultivates a persona specifically designed to antagonise the metropolitan media. This ���controversial��� persona also deliberately annoys the Twitter hordes who wait each day desperate to find something they can be outraged about and thus achieve an orgasm of self-righteousness.

Duckisland has now become a very wealthy man, opining for significant fees on all the UK TV channels and radio stations. He has also signed a lucrative contract to write provocative columns for several daily newspapers. The newspapers are all desperate to boost flagging paper sales and to increase click through rates on their websites. For no matter what the subject matter, Duckisland can create controversy out of it by adopting a position almost guaranteed to have the Twitter mob foaming with outrage the moment the site publishes it.

In the meantime, Duckisland has amassed a large number of his own followers, fans and cheerleaders on all the major social media platforms��� and Google+. They flood into the comments below each article and retweet every outrageous tweet just to create more of a reaction. This, in turn, creates the conflict so necessary in today���s media, who are far more concerned with creating a storm than they are in shedding any light on an issue.

Consequently, Duckisland is now far more rich and famous than he ever was as a mere MP.

World Held to Ransom

Pingpong Diskpartition is ��� of course ��� chief head-boss CEO of the world���s leading producer of computer operating systems. Naturally, he is ��� thus ��� on the Most Wanted lists of all the world���s security services.

Speaking from a secret island location today, Diskpartition issued a stark warning to the world. He claimed that his organisation, Buggerupsoft, would soon be releasing a new version of its operating system on the world. That is unless the world���s government all give into Diskpartition���s demands for a ransom figure believed to be somewhere in the hundreds of billions. Some economists suggest this figure exceeds the combined debt of several European countries that are in the euro.

Of course, the world���s governments immediately tried responding in the usual way.

The UK secret service sent its top agent, with a licence to reformat hard drives, to Diskpartition���s secret island headquarters in the hope of stopping the unleashing of the operating system on the world. Unfortunately, John Bloke was using a previous version of the Buggerupsoft operating system on his highly classified secret fountain pen with built-in nuclear missiles and GPS. Inevitably, he ended up in Grimsby on a wet Thursday morning. Consequently, the British secret service has not heard from John Bloke since then.

The Russians also attempted an assassination of Diskpartition. Unfortunately, their agent ate the sandwiches from the wrong lunch box. This set off a worldwide nuclear alert when his body was buried at sea in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean.

North Korea also attempted to stop Diskpartition by hacking into Buggerupsoft���s computer system. However, they only managed to delete Diskpartition���s Netflix account and order several copies of the Frozen DVD to be sent to Diskpartition���s mother in law. Diskpartition immediately retaliated by releasing a satirical film about the North Korean leader. In Diskpartition���s film, the North Korean dictator is played by a constipated koala bear that is sexually assaulted by a duck-billed platypus as he inspects a biscuit factory. A factory that never ��� as yet ��� managed to produce a single edible biscuit for the North Korean people. However, instead the biscuit factory has managed to construct several nuclear missiles that almost launched. The factory also launched a spy satellite the North Korean news agency claim was designed by their glorious leader personally to operate below sea level in the South China Sea.

The Chinese government did report some success in controlling Diskpartition���s ambition when the renegade CEO tried outsourcing his minion operations to a call centre in China. However, the call centre systems did not work out too well as the minions could not respond in time to any Special Forces invasion of the secret island, so the contract was terminated.

The Americans did offer to invade the secret island and liberate it, in days, from the control of Diskpartition. However, the rest of the world���s governments declined the offer with thanks.

The EU, though, has come up with a plan, which many see as humanity���s last hope of staving off a new version of the operating system, possibly for ever.

The EU has promised to introduce several new regulations covering the sale, installation and use of any new computer operating systems. They claim these rules will make the system easier, fairer and more transparent. But as we all know the only true way to destroy anything is to let the EU regulators loose on it.

So maybe ��� after all ��� humanity has been saved from the curse of a new operating system by the actions of this marvellous organisation once again.

 

The World���s Leading Environmental Activist

Heliotrope Sausagepunk is best known these days for her principled stance against the commercial exploitation of dandelions. After a long career in political activism and other such futile gestures and attention seeking, many thought that Sausagepunk had ��� at last ��� run out of things to complain about. However, her latest campaign against what she sees as the ���exploitation of innocent dandelions��� has ��� again ��� brought her the much-needed media attention she craves. This ���exploitation��� Sausagepunk claims is ���personkind raping the planet yet again, merely in order to slake people���s thirst���.

Many thought that her last campaign against ���the cruel binding of innocent and free hydrogen atom to evil, heartless oxygen overlord��� had failed. Especially when even a scientifically illiterate population turned against her and her claim that H2O was an evil concoction developed by a greedy, rapacious multinational chemical industry. Sausagepunk continued to insist that H2O was not as all the advertising claimed a naturally occurring substance, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

When challenged about her claims about H2O in an otherwise hagiographic documentary on C4, Sausagepunk stood by her allegations. Even though, for purposes of filming the documentary producer had her standing on the beach by the North Sea at the time.

However, like all other militants, activists and revolutionaries, such is Sausagepunk���s commitment to her radical views she did not allow mere facts or reality to distort her worldview. She, instead, turned her attention to the USA where her campaign successfully managed to introduce a ban on H2O in several American states.

Of course, this immediately brought about a return to prohibition levels of lawlessness as criminal gangs started running illicit water into the ���Dry��� states. This created an organised crime ring there that resulted in many deaths among both the water bootleggers and the law and order authorities. Of course, the state governments in the dry states did claim that bootlegged water was ��� by its illegal nature ��� full of impurities and other contaminants. But it did not stop the spread of water speakeasies, homebrewed rainwater stills and an increase in general crime and lawlessness that was far too high to sustain the ban. The Dry States rescinded the H2O Act only 20 months after its introduction in those states. Soon afterwards, the authorities deported Sausagepunk from the USA. She will never be allowed back into the country ever again ��� pending legal appeal.

Consequently, Sausagepunk returned to the UK claiming victory in her campaign to have water recognised as a tool of the military industrial complex. A substance deliberately created to enslave people through artificially contrived ���thirst���, a medical condition Sausagepunk claims she can prove was invented by the drug companies.

Hence, her current campaign against what she calls the ���evil��� GM industry���s invention of the dandelion. Sausagepunk refuses despite all the evidence to the contrary to believe that the humble dandelion is not a GM industry design. As she said recently ���I refuse to believe so-called facts. After all, I know I am right and that is all that matters.��� She added ���the vast military-industrial political and scientific conspiracy that runs the world is always trying to trick people with their so-called ���facts���, ���reality��� and worst of all ���common sense���. I ask you, where have such attitudes ever got us?���

This is why Sausagepunk began her campaign against the dandelion and its use in the once-popular soft drink dandelion and burdock. Sausagepunk claims ���it is this substance that has enslaved the population into the mind-control of the conspiracy that rules the world. Therefore, until personkind is free of it, the lie called thirst and the evils of H2O, we will never be free.���

Increasingly, there are many ��� more each day ��� who think she may be right.

Unfortunately.

 

Left on Her Shores

A slow moment held in her hands as if she can grasp time itself, take it out of the air and keep it. Her hands lie high above her head as she lies there, opening and closing them as though reaching and holding each moment. Her breath grows heavier, harder, as though she is struggling to escape this world, this time.

She writhes as though this world is a weight she wants to escape from, something to break free from. The ropes of this world tie her so tight to the here, to the now. She wants to be free, lost in this new world she grabs and creates by the handful as she takes each deeper breath of something new, something free.

I move slowly, letting her take her time, letting her explore this new land she has lost herself in. I know I cannot go with her. I know she left me here, stranded on her shores while she goes, deeper with each heavy breath, into that land.

She is the explorer and I am left behind here as she writhes and moans deeper into her new-found land. I, though, do not have regrets or feel sorrow at her leaving me behind. I give her the map with these hands, and my tongue speaks the directions to take. She heads off alone, deeper and deeper into this world we build together. I create routes and she follows them. Travelling down deep into the world she creates anew, each time we come together. Each time we speak this language of love and her need to go further, deeper than before.

She leaves me behind, here on the shore of her desire as she goes deeper inland, deep into her need. She pulls, grabs and holds me as though she doesn���t want to let go. But let go she must, for although we are together as always, this is a journey she takes alone. I am here only to help her on her way. She uses my knowledge of the secret routes to get her to where she needs to be.

She reaches for me as she slips away deep into the heart of her need, calling my name, begging me to follow, but also to let her go. But I remain here, here always. I wait here on her shore as the storms that drove her deep into her need fade and calm.

Then, a moment later, I see her come back to me. We meet and kiss back on the shore of her need, now that her storms have passed. Then we turn and dive back together deep into the seas of forever.