Stockholm holiday: greenery

Stockholm is a city of greenery, regarding both the "save the planet" type and the actual amount of publicly available chlorophyl. There is a ridiculously large amount of green spaces, parks, forests and below, an city-centre island which is a national park. Some pictures of Stockholm's parks and green spaces, then.

Here's a shot of the island park.



And below, a wilder part of the same place. Almost no-one passed us by for the hour we were here, while Mrs DD tried to persuade her phone's GPS software that we weren't in Malmo. One month later, and despite getting the names of locations correct, it still occasionally insists she's in that Swedish city.



A rather ornate building by the river.



This would be destroyed in just about any other city I've been to, but within a rather residential area of town, we came across this gorgeous fountain. I can picture the beer cans shopping trollies here. Fortunately for Stockholmes, it doesn't seem to happen to their public fountains.



A shortage of household junk within the public greenery is pretty rare - in fact, littering as a whole doesn't seem to exist at all. Unfortunately, at least for the unsuspecting Londoner, fitness and jogging especially is a public pass-time, though I'm not sure how long this would go on into the winter. With those crazy Scandy types being so used to the cold, they probably just don a Neoprene-type jacket and do it anyway.

Future tube trains

I travelled to Euston station today, in order to see a mock-up of the new S stock trains being built for the Met, Hammersmith & City, Circle and District Lines.

They are Muvo type trains, as used, I do believe, in the Berlin S-bahn services as well as in Shanghai and Madrid. They've been customised for the specific needs of London to some extent.

My impressions:

Good: Room under seats for bags, cases, dogs etc. Nice lighting. Air con (at last), colour scheme is pleasant, though nondescript.

Bad: Not enough seats, especially on the Met. Seats are rather hard, but we seem to have lost the art of designing comfort into seats these days.

As for the ride, we'll see when they start running. Track is being upgraded all over the tube to the point where it can be rather hard to plan your weekend's travel. Thank goodness for the recession.

Some pictures of the mock-up taken on my phone are below.





I was told that acceleration on these S stock chuffers should be like that of the Central Line once the old A stock Met lines have been removed entirely from services. These old trains, though big, fusty and rather comfortable, take a bit of time to get moving. The District Line D stock refurbs are a bit like these, so it will be interesting to see the innovations which occur between now the last batch of these going online during 2015.

Only in Britain...

....would Big Brother spy cameras be viewed as a 'facility'.

Gee, thanks for that. I'll have a prison and maybe a couple of politicians with that.

Spotted at Eastleigh station near Southampton.

Stockholm holiday: Suburbia

Some contrasting suburbs here.

Firstly, a picture at the end of the green line (Hogas-something). This felt a bit scummy though I'm sure its pretty safe. There seemed to be more kids running around here.


And, taking the green line again, this time to Alvik, then at the end of the number 12 tram, here is a rather pleasant 'burb.

I wouldn't mind living here - the houses, even the flats were nice and large, and relatively low density compared the suburbs at the end of the metro lines we journeyed to. The tram, unlike every other form of Swedish transport we encountered, was a prime relic of the 50s, with a very loud low-geared motor which sounded like it was being controlled by switchgear made in someone's garden shed. Great to know this kind of transportation still runs, as it has all but disappeared (albeit slowly) from Britain.

Stockholm holiday: taking the hiss

A "hiss" in Swedish is an elevator. The one shown in first pic is quite a high one, going up the side of a building (which itself is on the side of a cliff). Below is the hiss itself, taken at dusk, and some views of the city taken from it the next day when it was running.

Stockholm holiday: Savile Row and the Kultur-al hub

Here are some pictures I took of central Stockholm.


Bus stop. Where the frig is the tram. We waited for while. It didn't come. This was just after doing the boat trip.

I'm flattered by the fact that this fashion shop has borrowed the famous street where tailor made suits are made in London. I also like the postcode, which of course should be W1.


This place, a building full of cinemas and theatres, really reminded me of Alexanderplatz. Now, Alexanderplatz in Berlin, before 1992 looked like a concrete shopping precinct, knocked up in the average British town around 1968 in order to add a modernist yet cosmopolitan look and feel. I grew up with such centres (the one in Uxbridge was until the mid 80s an appealing concrete carbuncle which I honestly liked a great deal. This has nothing to do with Sweden, except the area around the Central Station brings me back to those heady days of 1976 before we discovered marble. Wonderful and extremely nostalgic. OK, this is its a bit posher than the Arndale Centre, Wandsworth - but only just. You know the druggies are only a few steps away, and if this were a town in England, they would be there by fountains injecting themselves or passing round the can of Tennants Super.

Nearly gone

Three days after the last shot ("A good bashing") this is how the Thames View flats appeared at 9 this morning.

Going....going...

Graduation, party, pies, crap journey

Had a busy few days. On Friday, we saw Daughter Daggers Dukc graduate. I’d publish a piccy of this, but I wouldn’t want to compromise her anonymity.

A very proud moment for daddy and mummy Dukc.

Spent the remainder of Friday in Oxford with my mum- and sister-in-law and two dukcs and discovered The Grapes pub, an easy going amble from Gloucester Green. Highly recommended for its food, price and super-friendly landlady. She runs a very tight ship indeed. The two meals for £9 offer is beyond belief in such an expensive city.

Later that day, headed from Oxford the Brummingham for a friend’s party on the Saturday, staying at a Travel Lodge – more on that and the Little Chef next door in a separate entry methinks. Saturday was completed with a trip to Wolverhampton for a few beers followed by the party itself.

Finally, spent Sunday eating a culinary delight at the Mad O’Rourke’s Old Pie Factory, a legendary eating spot in the West Midlands. Mrs DD struggled with, but wolfed down whole the famous Desperate Dan Pie (picture below) and I had the Bob Marley pie, filled with a rather peppery version of jerk chicken (lots of good quality chicken, quite spicy). Unlike the cow pie this pie is somewhat diminutive, so if you should ever find yourself in the Dudley area, and you’ve a hunger on, go for the Desperate Dan. More on this mythical beast, and the pub itself, below.

www.madpies.co.uk


That pie really gives me the horn


I realise this place deserves a full review, and I will write up one when and if I get the time to do so.

After the cow pie experience we then had to get home from the Pie Factory in Tipton, near Dudley. Dudley to London isn’t a neighbourhood trip, but don’t see how you could do this more slowly other than by walking it. So, for the record, here’s last night’s trip home in full detail.

Getting home was deep phun. That’s the extreme version of fun with a P H. The kind of phun you get when a beloved brother dies or you wake up thinking it’s a Sunday morning, only to remember that Sunday didn’t register because of an extended hangover, and it is in fact a Monday. And 9.30am. You have to say it with a heavy, heavy dose of irony. PPPHHHHUN.

In fact you could say that the phun just went on and on….and on and on and on and on and on and on. And on. And phuncking on. Here’s our phun then.

1500 – waited for bus to Dudley by Pie Factory.

1520 – bus came (no. 300, an old L registered Dart)

1540– 126 bus to Birmingham from Dudley bus station.

1620 – arrived in Birmingham New Street

1800 – coach arrived (we could not get one before then as they were all booked up). There weren’t any cancellations.

1830 – the “1800” coach ended up being the 1830. Coach full of Ilford chavs, who actually turned out to be quite nice, helping Mrs DD o the khazi and not stealing our rucksacks.*

2045 – Arrival – Golders Green

2115 – Monument. District delayed, but one turned up. After 15 minutes. No announcements or explanations, other than letting us know that the clockwise Circle line was not running. We tried to care. And failed.

2138 – at Tower Hill, driver announced that there was no replacement bus service between Barking and East Ham because of an accident in the area which was blocking everything up. A pain, but he probably saved us a joint suicide attempt.

2148 – Fenchurch Street, C2C station. We miss the connecting train, which runs parallel to the District Line. Because of the District engineering, was set to run a limited service of half hourly, by 3 mins.

2215 – C2C leaves for Barking.

2240 – Bus replacement picks us up.

2255 – Bus replacement arrives at DaggersDukc East.

2302 - We get home.


Please note that the last time I travelled by coach, my lovely leather jacket was stolen from beneath my seat as I slept for 15 seconds. Needless to say, I was deeply upset, and 20 years later, still bear the scars, despite trauma counselling and many bottles of Holsten Pils. And the arsehole that got off between Middlesbrough and Sunderland – I hope the spirit of he cow from which the jacket was hewn rose up and throttled you with its skin as you bragged to your friends about how smart you were.

Stockholm holiday: boat cruise

We took a boat trip around and about the canals and rivers of Stockholm and these are some of the views- actually I wish I'd remembered to take my camera out earlier, as there was some particularly mournful shots to be taken under the bridges at Slussen.

I did manage to capture a few pictures of some waterside apartments - OK, I hate the word, I'm British, and I meant FLATS. I actually rather like this design which seems to appearing in every city where young wealthy singletons or couples live - the London papers are full of identikit models.



And here is the inside of the boat itself. I'm glad the Swedish flag is on board - in England some dickhead would accuse the boat owner of being racist or something sad. Unless you carry the politically OK (just about) Union Jack.

A good bashing

We interrupt our coverage of Sweden to bring you a few pictures of some flats, specifically those on the Thames View Estate in Barking, being bashed to bits. Took these on my way into work this morning. I wonder if this will still be there on Monday?

That pink paint job in one of the rooms is most interesting. Was it a kid's bedroom, perhaps?

Stockholm Holiday: A right proper estate

Now, there are ways to build a communist style estate. If you were communist, naturally you'd plonk 40 identical tower blocks, put a windswept motorway between them and the tube station and make sure the shops were an inconvenient walk away, and probably ensure that they weren't worth getting to due to lack of stock anyway. That's once you've negotiated the perimeter of the steelworks. People would kill themselves or attempt to obtain high cholesterol alcohol to cope with the daily grind.

However, the Swedes had a different idea. Built 'em nice. Build them with fountains. Put greenery everywhere. Include kids by putting playgrounds in view of the flats, and make sure all the rusty bits and splinters get removed regularly. And what's wrong with a little local dining at places you don't mind going to? And the steelworks? Yes, it exists. Except its a high technology area called Krista, just up the road, with the Swedish HQs of Ericsson and IBM at its centre.

If you're going to do mass housing, you may as well do it right. And Stockholm has. Rarely have I been to a housing estate which feels less like a dumping ground for what the local authority considers its problematic inhabitants, and more of a haven for the kind of middle class people (or those aspiring to be middle class) who wouldn't admit to living in a council flat over here. If our council flats were built to these standards and boasted such facilities, our national obsession with being a so-called home owning democracy would be made a nonsense.

Greenery outside the station. Is it a park?



No, its a housing estate.




And just to prove graffiti exists in the Stockholm 'burbs, this message was found taped to the pissoir in the restaurant at which we'd just consumed a delicious meal.

Stockholm Holiday: Rocky Rails

Here are some pictures taken at Morby Central metro station.

The walls may be carved out of the rock, but the station is thoroughly modern. No dripping water here (unlike in London!)

And here's a mural, found in the same station.

Stockholm holiday: the hotel

Our hotel was a closed-down swimming pool. Apparently, the Stockholm local authority is building, or indeed, has built, a replacement elsewhere. I can imagine this pool being a rather fine place to have swum at, surrounded as it is by a small park and centrally located for convenience. Still, it served rather well as a hotel - apparently the rooms were the original pool changing areas.

Mrs D is on the bed to give a sense of scale. It was taken with my backside pressed against the door, so size is certainly on the New York model of hotel rooms. No mod cons here, not even a cupboard or wardrobe. I have to say though that the beds were extremely comfortable, and it was immaculately clean. Seeing as this was a budget hotel, by Swedish standards at least, we were pretty pleased with it overall, once we abandoned the idea of getting a hotel for our money - more a very well-run hostel.

Stockholm holiday - Arrival

We appeared in the city at about midnight after taking the expensive Arlanda Express train from the main airport. After faffing around at T-Centraalen interchange, we found our route to Odenplan station, and a short walk onwards to our hotel.



This was our view en route. I love the street lighting here, mercury vapour lamps which cast a white-purple glow over the street - you don't see these too often in London any more, though they used to festoon Walthamstow and parts of West Drayton and Harmondsworth near Heathrow, until the mid-80s.

I bet these look rather magical shining on winter snow.

Stockholm holiday - intro

After baiting my breath for many weeks, my beloved wifey surprised me by informing me that the trip we were about to undertake for our annual wayzgoose was in fact one to a city I've wanted to go to since 1976, when I purchase out of my own hard won cash, Arrival by Abba. It took me an age to to save enough to buy this classic album from Woolies in Southall, at I think, £2.79, but my seven year self had just had a birthday, which must have helped considerably. I played the eponymous track and was blown away. Scaring my sis by playing "I Am the Tiger" on our shared record player, while she slept in bed was also a bonus. The "bad thing" creeping through the city streets was never so musically delciious.

The album cover proclaimed that it had been recorded at Polar Studio, Stockholm, Sweden. Alas, the studios are no more, driven out by high rents in this expensive city, but Stockholm itself is a wonderful place despite this.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting some photos taken on my phone. To call these unusual is possibly over-egging the pudding somewhat, but there are only a few touristy shots. Stockholm is renowned for its art and fashion. I don't see enough to really get art, unless it i in my face, and we're too old and cumudgeonly to care much about goings-on in the fashionista world. So there are going to be unfashionable suburbs and occasional shots of metro stations.

The De La Warr

During my short break a few weeks ago, I travelled the short journey to Bexhill on Sea near Hastings where I took some photos of the De La Warr pavillion, a modernist masterpiece - yep, I know using descriptions like "modernist masterpiece" is a cliche. So is calling it land-locked cruise liner, though this is what it resembles externally. I love the curves, the whiteness of it, the fact it is parked by the sea. Wonderful 30s architecture, still looking good thanks to an expensive and sensitive refurb. A lovely bit of art deco.

Some of my photos, shot on the N82, are below.

Ad's eats: Review of Chilli Cool, London WC2

We went out for a friend’s do last Friday to what we thought would be Golden Dragon, in Lee Street, Kings Cross. This is a restaurant we’ve used many times as it is like a slab or Zone 5 suburbia in central London with all the goodies us out of towners enjoy when we order from such fine establishments as the Peach Garden in Dagenham. No surprises, good or bad, just standard London-Chinese fare.

Imagine our surprise when we rocked up to the Dragon – and found it gone. Replaced by the Chilli Cool. It has been slightly refurbished inside, but the real change was the menu. Out with the sweet and sour pork balls and beef in black bean sauce. Instead, at CC, you are presented with such delicacies as “face meat”, pig’s intestines, pork and beef tripe, and other offally evil (in my opinion) gear.

In its favour, the restaurant was full with Chinese people, so I’ve no doubt to its authenticity. I ordered chilli chicken for starters (served cold, strong, tasty, huge and infested with garlic, and on the chilli scale, it gets about 5/10). Then there was the belly pork with a kind of monosodim-glutematey kind of thin sauce which was pretty nice after the blast-off chill. Very soft, tasty and meaty, as one would hope. One of our party dared to go for the intestines (pictured below). I didn’t have the nerve. Another plus point was their non-aggravating guide dog policy – big thumbs up for this as there were two present – maybe it being so close to RNIB helps.

Overall, I would say this restaurant is for the Chinese community and adventurous westerners. To our waitresses’ credit, she did confirm with us that we were in fact ordering guts. The food I ate was decent and interesting enough – in fact this is one of the reasons I would only go with this those in the know from now on as I don’t think there is enough normal-as-we-know-it Chinese food. TOO interesting, maybe?

A mind- (or stomach) opening and not too expensive addition to the more left-of-centre eating scene in London.

Service: 9/10
Quality: 8/10
Variety/interest: 10/10
Value: 7/10 (£25 per head, 3 courses and 2 beers approx each)

Some pictures of Barking

Here are some pictures I took of Barking Town Centre using my new Nokia N82 mobile phone. A pretty decent cameraphone as you can see. Never going to challenge a big boy Nikon for sure, but I don't have deep enough pockets, literally and metaphorically, for one of those.


Chequered floors and gold chandeliers, this is the cloistered environment of Barking Square.
The sun shines on the far side offices and flats of Barking Square, Central Barking.

Above the cloisters, these funky green-to-yellow balconies certainly can't be missed and make, in my opinion, a pleasing sight for a town characterised by its tradition (and let's face it, quite a bit of 60s drabness).

How can I not help you 2 - The Blind and the Stupid

There’s a lot of bad customer service around. I even write about it every now and then. But I don’t think I can beat this. This story, printed in the Belfast Telegraph and filched by me without their permission, features my daughter, so obviously I’m not without a bit of bias with my opinions. But read the article and think on. And wonder how the person who “served” my daughter can do their job and sleep well after each day. The idiot.

For anyone who is blind or knows someone who is, then they will be familiar with the knowledge and having one’s cane lost, trampled on by a careless member of the public or just going knackered on you through wear and tear, is not just a matter of inconvenience, but literally of life of death. Their justification is that if they were to sell Carly a cane of the wrong size, she tripped (or whatever) and became injured and could/would sue them is plainly more important to them than allowing someone who is obviously blind to go wandering in the streets without any kind of symbolic protection let alone an essential guiding tool, when they plainly have the power to avoid that situation – and abuse it.

Some jobsworth has really had an attack of the stupids. Or can’tbearseds.

They really should not be doing their job as they plainly lack any sense of decency and humanity.

My former employer is truly going to pot when it puts their own liability over the real risk of a human being – someone, let’s remind ourselves, who they are in the unique position to serve, then don’t.

Can you imagine this scenario?:

"I'd like to buy a knife - a big one".
"Can't. You might use it to stab someone".
"But I'm a chef. I need it for my job".
"Can you prove you're a chef"?
"Yes, the big white chef's hat I'm wearing...".
"Is that the best you can do? Might be a fancy dress hat for all I know".
"Unlikely. Ha ha. Well..here's my work badge with my restaurant's name printed on it, and my job title, Head Chef, and a wee photo".
"Sorry, still can't sell you one. And the man on the photo clearly has a moustache, whereas you...sir...don't".
"It was a fashion faux pas I'm afraid. Can't you see the little blood stain on my shirt".
"Oooh, you don't want to mention that to PC Plod. It might be kiddie blood. You can do down for that".
"It's from a dead cow which I cut up earlier. So you won't sell me a knife, even though I can see a big rack of Sabatiers over there".
"No, well now you come to mention it, yes I could, but you'll need to show me the knife you used".
"Difficult. It broke - that's why I'm here".
"But without your old broken knife as evidence, I can't, no, won't sell you a replacement. You might use it stab a poor innocent child, then come back and blame me for selling it to you. It's a knife-for-knife situation only I'm afraid".


and blah, blah, blah

Here's the article. (Full name of my daughter curtailed by me).

"I’m blind, but I can't get a white stick"

RNIB centre won’t sell Carly a new cane
Friday, May 30, 2008
By Emily Moulton
Blind people in Northern Ireland cannot buy white canes from the province's only resource centre because the charity does not provide training for its staff, the Belfast Telegraph has learned.
The revelation came to light after Ulster-born woman Carly M (21), who lost her cane en route to the airport from her home in Oxfordshire, tried to purchase a new one from the Royal National Institute of the Blind centre in Belfast earlier this week.
Miss M, who was born with a genetic condition called Leibers Congenital Amaurosis which made her blind, said she was told by staff at the centre that they could not sell her a cane unless she could provide proof of her old one.
She also claimed that after she explained how she lost her "stick" and what its measurements were, they still refused to sell her one saying it was not their "policy".

The RNIB is the only organisation which provides support for blind and partially sighted people in Northern Ireland. On its website it says its resource centre is where people "can try out or purchase the most cutting edge access technology, everyday living products, and a wide range of specialist equipment for blind and partially sighted people".

Miss M said she was shocked that she could not buy a cane which, she said, is essential for her mobility.
The 21-year-old, who had to leave Northern Ireland five years ago so she could study physiotherapy, usually has a guide dog but was unable to bring it with her on her visit back to Craigavon.

She explained she used her "stick" to navigate when she was travelling and was a little distressed when she discovered she had lost it — but thought she would be fine once she arrived because she would just be able to buy a new one.
"I just could not believe they could not sell me a stick," she said. "When I told them that I had lost it on my way over from England they said the only way they could get me one was if I showed them my old one. After I explained again and told them the measurements of my old cane they then said they did not have any.
"These people then said they could not sell me one because it was their company policy and said if they sold me one and it was the wrong measurements and I had an accident they would be liable.

"I have never been aware of any policy which says you can not sell a blind person a cane if they don't have their old one. When I got mine I just walked into the centre in London and they found me one. I just couldn't believe it. They were happy for me to leave and travel on my own unaided but they were not happy to risk selling me a stick which might have been two or three centimetres different."
Martin Walls, spokesman for the RNIB in Northern Ireland, said staff at the centre were unable to sell her a walking cane was because they lacked training — but in light of this issue the organisation was now re-looking at its policy.
"For RNIB, the safety of blind and partially sighted people using our products is a priority. We consider that mobility training is key to using a cane safely and RNIB does not currently provide this training in Northern Ireland.

"We don't therefore stock canes for sale in the resource centre and have to order in replacements where RNIB has supplied the original cane. We will however be looking at our policy in light of this as the needs of customers are paramount."

Artful combination

Nearly forgot to blog this diamond of this shop sign spotted on East Street, Barking. I'd never have considered buying a mobile contract with my duvet. Just think! One stop shopping. Ooooh-er.

DaggersDukc's Eats: Oh Vesuvio, Upminster, Essex

I haven't written up a restaurant review in some time, but the Access Eat blog has inspired me. So here goes with a slab of suburban eating.

Mrs D-D and travelled to nearby Upminster last Saturday for something to chow down on after spending a large chunk of the day fixing up my boss's home internet connection. Upminster, literally at the end of the line (the green one on the tube map), may not be the first place a Londoner would think of when going out for a night's grazing, but is becoming more popular and could soon rival Hornchurch - again, not a place that regularly jumps out as restaurant capital of London but well established as local gem in East London amongst a tundra of towns featuring little more than restaurant mediocrity. Trundling along Corbets Tey Road, and finding our usual Italian choice, Prezzo, already fully booked, we moved on to a place we'd passed on by before - Oh Vesuvio.

Quite a pleasant meal awaited us. Our friendly waiter made a special effort to fit us in - the place was bursting, as it turned out, justifiably so. Decor is dark, but homely and has the feel of an established local restaurant - its signage suggests it may be been here since the 60s.

The menu comprised the usual staple of Italian menus we've known in England for decades with pasta, meat and fish dishes being the order of the day, with rich wine based sauces being represented well. I started with smoked salmon cones loaded with prawn cocktail, which, with lemon juice sprinkled over it, burst out with a cartoon-y flavour and got a full 10/10. I then had steak with marsala wine sauce which was again brimming with flavour and which I gave 8/10 - large portion of perfectly cooked steak too. Mrs D-D's main was beef canneloni which she rated as 8/10.

For dessert, I had a rather nice, though small, home-made Tiramisu, which at least tasted home-made and which I'd have given 8/10 had it been a little more generous in portion.

Summing up, Oh Vesuvio is a pleasant, somewhat conservative local Italian. The kind of place you could happily take a business client for dinner. The average age of the clientele was around 50, so perhaps not the coolest joint in town, but a highly satisfying one, at least as far as their food and helpful service goes. Average prices were: £5 per starter, £10-15 main course, and £4.50 for dessert.

Service: 8/10
Food: 8/10
Value: 7/10 (prices were higher than average for the area)

Oh Vesuvio: 101 Corbets Tey Road, Upminster, Essex


My dessert - a nice little touch

Great Lives, Radio 4: Ian Curtis of Joy Division

For the last week or so, I've kept hearing trails on Radio 4 for a program called Great Lives, this week featuring the life of Ian Curtis of Joy Division. I've not really been a great JD or New Order fan (though like many I thought Blue Monday was a masterwork) and I think the lyrics in Love Will Tear Us Apart are probably some of the most emotionally charged to have graced a pop record. I'm sure any decent appreciator of poetry might disagree, but I'm more of a pop lover than a poet.

My appetite was whetted though and it was worth firing up the BBC iPlayer just to hear an unreleased version of LWTUA played on plaintive reverb-heavy piano, and sung by Mr Curtis through a pitch-shifter or vocoder - I couldn't tell with. This version, which appears about half way through the program, has all the lonesome qualities of a computer calling out to a silent, post-apocalyptic world. Fractured, damaged, almost dead, but with just enough charge to cry out its last - a digital vocalisation is it is putting all its effort into, knowing that it too will be finito soon.

The show was interesting in its own right - we get to hear about the two faces of Ian Curtis, public and private. For that 1 minute excerpt of song, it is worth seeking out the shows, which will be on iPlayer for the next few days, and no doubt will make occasional re-appearances in the BBC's archive music documentaries so is likely to pop up sporadically on iPlayer.

An interesting source of some cover versions is:

http://coverlover.vox.com/library/post/love-will-tear-us-apart.html

Accessible eating blog

A quite interesting blog comes from Graham, who is a big, bad blind eater extraordinaire. This boy loves eating and writing his experiences after doing so. And he generally grubs down in the kind of places many Londoners eat: cheap, local restaurants and cafes. He's stone blind too, so his comments aren't the usual critiques, but concentrate on how helpful staff are when it comes to reading menus, whether speaking English is an issue and whether, in his opinion, packet sauces have been used.

His Access Eat blog is here:

http://access-eat.blogspot.com

First barbie of the year

My bro-in-law unhooked his chefs whites and made one heck of a barbie in our dripping back garden yesterday. Burgers, tuna steak, haddock, mackerel, couscous stuffed peppers... and so on to gluttony and happy food related death. Shame we couldn't barbecue the Thickie. She would have been quite tender and tasty as the 'cue wasn't too keen to light. Covered in sweet chilli sauce, her meat would have been a rare and fragrant treat.

Slow cooked dog. Good enough for Korea, good enough for me.

The sound of the draburbs

My boss, who is moving to Dagenham (out of choice), has christened it “The Drabbest ‘Burb”.

I can’t think of anything that could possibly contradict this description. Admittedly, in its favour, there are the tube stations, for easy exit, it features numerous fast food outlets (most with home delivery and mainly decent without troubling the word “gourmet”) and there are few rather nice parks, Parsloes and the un-aptly named Central Park (inaccurate for the fact that it lies to the north east of the town, AND is about as far as its more famous counterpart as you can possibly get). And it has been a safe enough place for us to reside for the last eight years.

My boss, on landing there for the first time, also described it as “an area without stimulation”.

Can anyone knowing the UK capital well come up with a more drab ‘burb? Cos I grew up in suburban west and have lived in southeast and inner east London and I can’t think of anywhere – least of all a whole town - that’s drabber. Oddly enough though, I do rather like living there. Maybe I reflect the town as much as it reflects me.

TV programs and foreign dubbing. How to please no-one

So, we find a Freeview box which manages to access and output the Audio Described audio track available on British TV. Great.

Then we find it in Aldi for £39 and don't end up paying the Dick Turpin inspired price charged by RNIB (£89). Great.

Then we plug it in and it all works finely and dandily. Great.

And when the audio-d happens it is fun and really, really great. Great.

All great, fab, cool and hip If you don't own a blind wifey or can actually follow any film which runs at anything faster than Brokeback Mountain, you won't realise how non-ironic I'm being here.

So, armed with your electronic joybox, you turn on a program without audio description. Nothing new under the sun there then. Not great, but what we've experienced since the dawn of TV so no reason for boo hoo hooing. There will be more A/D coming along soon if the media slaves remember they are dealing with a "disabled" audience who aren't all planted in wheelchairs or stuck with ear-trumpets. Stick wavers and dog-shaggers exist and are cooking in the unappertising stewpot of "disabled" punters who rather inconveniently won't go off the pub for an uber-bender and just die. Anyway, I ranteth somewhat excessively. (But its my blog so ner ner na-ner ner).

I can only assume them that there is a whole jungle's-worth of happily brainless media-chimps that haven't yet been trained in the "wake up and smell the coffee" philosophy of programme making. (I will do this, by the way, for a small consultancy fee. I like the small of the gravy pouring off this particular traiin).

You watch a programme (in this case "I am the Elephant Man", about a Chinese geezer with elephantistic tendancies, or whatever technical term which accurately describe his mis-shapeness. Large chunks of the program contain dialogue in Chinese, which sort of makes sense as it is the Elephant Man and his family doing much of the talking.

So, how to blindos fare compared to our mutt 'n' "pals" in the disab scene? Badly.

Deaf person switches on subtitles and has everything subtitled. The Chinese translation either comes up as an English voiceover - which is subtitled, OR a load of white subtitltes appearing for the benefit of all viewers who don't understand Cantonese.

Its the OR that matters.

Since there is no audio description for this program, if you press the A/D button on the Freeview remote, without much surprise, nothing happens.

So...what you get, is a program where half the Chinese is translated into English and spoken by a translator. And half the of the Chinese being subtitled (which benefits everyone - except the blind person who doesn't get a translation of any description.

It just so happens, in this case, that the hero of the programme, the Elephant Man himself, becomes silent to a blind person. Because, although a deaf person gets the benefit of added subtitles, plus the added-in subs for the benefit of the great unwashed, a blind person gets nothing but pure Cantonese.

I have two solutions - and for once, coming from me, they aren't even the slightest bit sarcastic.

1. All TV producers and program makers should agree that having three quarters of a program made watchable, or indeed, listenable, means that actually, in reality, the whole of the program becomes pointless. Either translate all of the non-English segments of the programme with an interpreter, or put a full A/D soundtrack on board for so that a blindo can opt into the verbal translation experience.

2. Oh dear, gnashing of chimp teeth. I can hear tthem crying that this would be awfully expensive wouldn't it? Er, nope. You make subtitles already, Mr Programme Maker. So, simply feed the text of this through a half-decent text-to-speech voice, such as Realspeak Sarah, who isn't massively different in sound to Charlotte Green. And off we jolly well go. The audio description track comes for free anyway. Make some use of it then. And stop chucking out programmes that are worse than useless because they are three-quarters baked and therefore promise a gift which doesn't transpire to owt. All or nothing.

Thanks.

Hello John, gotta a new mo-ta!

I’m about to be the proud best man to my mate, who is a 70s car nut, and ideally, he would like to be transported to his nuptial ceremony in a motor born before the days of lead-free petrol. So it was with a sense of serendipity that both of us should stumble across this rare and wild beast in the centre of where it was probably made.

Therefore, as a relic of Dagenham’s finest export, I give you a (somewhat rusting – no, completely red-flaked), Cortina Mk III estate. A car I’m very familiar with indeed having been driven to school in one for three or so years in the early 70 when I was but a nipper.

Built in a time before accountants were moved to the design department.

It’s just a shame this one is is more rust than car.

Suburban dliemma: blinds

Please tell me, is £1000 too much to pay for blinds?

They are blinds. Yes, venetian, wooden, slatted blinds. But light-stoppers. Curtain-replacers. Nothing that a couple of heavy blankets and some good quality string couldn't achieve.

We have a small 3 bedroom house. A very SMALL 3 bedroom house.

It has eight windows, one of them minute.

£1000. For flip's sake. Am I being a fuss-budget or am I about to be ripped off?

IKEA is where I'm going after I die. Celine Dion and Mariah Carey records will be playing over the tannoy on perma-loop. There will be no meatballs. There is no Swedish shop. There is no exit. There isn't even directions to a non-existent way out. Sartre mange le coeur, buddy.

But even I reckon a trip here, just a little weeny visit, with drugs and social workers to hand when required, would be preferable to paying this amount. They are very cheap in IKEA. Well, not very cheap, but not £1000 either.

Please tell me I'm not being screwed. Thanks.