Zeerust - a pictorial definition

"Zeerust: the particular kind of datedness which afflicts things that were originally designed to look futuristic."
The Meaning of Liff
Douglas Adams and John Lloyd

And here's a nice example - kind of. Located on the decidedly un-futurist light industrial Thames Road area of Barking, East London, here's Edwards Recycling. I just love the way that perspex dome looks so scuzzified by the massive level of grime caked within it. Yet still appears oddly optimistic with a weedy morning sun trying to poke through.

The architect's blurb would have stressed the sense of light and space offered by having such a dome. Not so great when it is covered in shit though.

I really like this structure.

Idiot car drivers

I'm back, and just as narky as ever.

As anyone who knows me will tell, I'm not a great fan of cars, regarding them nothing more than things which are dangerously in my way. While I agree that cars are not the root of evil in the world, they would, in my idea world, fail to exist as I believe their existence brings out the individualist worst in many. Obviously, to have a car free world, alternative transport has to be there, affordable and fairly universal before this could ever happen - not that I can see EVER happening within my lifetime without there being quite a lot of bloodshed over the availability of oil and other energy resources first - but its a nice dream. If the alleged ticking timebomb of environmental catastrophe isn't merely a pile of pulsating bollocks talked about by those who don't have any real concerns, such as availability of the next lump of food, for example, and a real thing that'll really mean your days won't be as comfortable as they were as a complacent baby boomer brat

What I really dislike about cars is the way they turn what I'd consider to be nice, ordinary people with few bad bones, in to complete wankers when it comes to the placement of their lumps of metal. These guys were papped in my street, but they are far from being alone. Apart from looking ugly being where are parked, then in the way, and just say the pedestriian "fuck you jack - there's only king in this town, and it isn't you. Parking on the pavement is fairly new to our street. I've been here for seven years and have only noticed this kind of thing for the last six months, and as anyone who knows me will tell, I'm pissed off about so many things that I could not have not noticed this before.

Anyway. Here's arsehole number 1.

And arsehole number 2

And finally, this clown things this is a great place to park. Hope your suspension becomes unbalanced, matey.

Ahhh, its good to be back...and on a high note.

Last Saturday I went for a wander to Ely and Cambridge, after reading Corn Dolls, a detective thriller set on the Fens. The author, Patrick Lennon, really sold the area and like Christopher Moore's portrayals of San Francisco, the location is almost a character in its own right. Unfortunately, the transport in that part of Cambridgeshire is so dire that you can really on soak up the atmosphere with a car. So, yet more social exclusionism hitting home.

Despite being confined to the city limits, I can say that Ely is quite a pleasant city and feels nicely balanced with neither too much deprrivation and unlike Chichester (another cathedral city) the population don't appear to be snobbish about its status, despite it being well-and-true middle-of-the-road England. Bet the salaries are crap in general though.

Having arrived, I munched a burger from the growler stand in the market, known simply as "The Business", I can thoroughly recommend it - one of the best burgers I've had a while, or maybe it was just that I was a bit cold. The meat was...well, meaty, which was a pleasant surprise, aand the bacon was a large, lean lump.

I fell in love with the cathedral which is about as picture-book as it could be (and free to enter too). Some pictures of the cathedral ltseelf and a couple of shots of the stained glass are below.

Its a shame about the lack of transport though. Getting around middle England is near-nigh impossible without a car and its at times like these where the non-driver really does feel (and IS) a second-class citizen of this country.

A Titan-ic admission of guilt

I have managed to get through over three years of writing this blog without telling the world at large that I'm a transport nerd, especially when that transport concerns me directly - so any London centric news interests me. I'm not a fully fledged anorak, but I'm fairly close. Keen readers may have spotted that I tend to include stories about transport which interest me.

Well here's a nice couple of pictures I took while on my way home from work. I was passing, on a detour, Barking bus garage, when I spotted this little beauty parked outside, with its nose, sadly, facing the street, so there was no way I was going to get a frontward view. Here's a couple of sideways shots of London Titan T1, the first ever Titan to enter London service back in 1979. The bus was done up in full 70s paint job with 'multi-ride' labelling on the front. Attention to detail also includes the RD garage code on the side. Hornchurch garage (RomforD) no longer exists and this bus would have been transferred to nearly NS (North Street, Romford). For London bus nerds of 30 or 40-something vintage, this is a wonderfully evocative animal. I remember how excited I was, aged 10, when the first Metrobuses appeared on one of my local routes, the 90B from Kew Gardens to Yeading (as was then). I'd never heard anything like them, the they did make the future seem a brighter place.
A lot of people were upset when the last Routemaster was withdrawn from regular service use. I was pretty sad, but the Titans, Metros and even Fleetlines were my generation's London buses when the last Titan went, more or less unremarked, this was a sad moment for me. I can't get so an excited over an ALX400 or President, competent machines though they are.

Nicki the dog goes rasta

Spent a very relaxing weekend at the parents house after the first week of my new job. And what a well-deserved period of non-work it was too. The work is difficult (being the newbie) and I'm learning loads and don't feel as though I'm pulling my weight - though i suppose that will change in time as I get to learn new processes and routines.

Nicki, AKA Noodles, Lynn's new dog, did it dancehall stylee with her new rasta hat, worn, aherm, firmly, on her head. Just caught her before she flipped it!

Supernanny

I'm only writing this cos its on telly at the mo. d
Does anyone else find Supernanny, aka Jo Frost, really, really sexy?

I'm married to a big girl and find that mostly I'm drawn to the corpulant side of femalehood, but I reckon than if I wasn't a chubby-chaser I'd find Ms Frost a bit of a lust-magnet.

Trip to Tallinn

Got back from Tallinn last week. Estonia was great and I'd recommend it to a friend. Sadly (unless you're Estonian) its not a cheap city any more and tourist prices are about 10 percent less than London suburban - beer about £2.50 a pop, a good meal is about £20-25 a head. Here are a few pictures I took on the mobile. When I can be arsed I'll post some picture of the soviet style flatblocks I took on the proper camera.



Charge your battery with an Estonian Red Bull clone. Not a bad representation of a Duracell-esque cell.


The view from our hotel. Enhanced a wee bit on the Mac, but quite a nice colour palette I reckon.


The ornate, and somewhat gorgeous pink Russian cathedral in Toompea, the hill at the centre of the Old Town, a prime qualtiy bit of medieval real estate, though the church dates from the early 20th century.


A view of the lower town from the top of Toompea


The centre of the old town - Town Hall Square. Fan-bloody-tastic architecture and postively bursting with atmosphere. This has to be the most photogenic city we've been too, other than maybe Krakov, which I've possibly spelt wrong.

So what was Tallinn like? Different, espensive, surprising, not so much ex-Eastern Europe, but more up-and-coming Nordic/Scandinavian. If it weren't for the housing developments on the outskirts whcih comprise at least 200 tower blocks, then you could almost be in olde worlde Sweden or Finland. Worth a trip before it gets even more expensive and EasyJet certainly don't overcharge - I think we paid £60 return each, so a wee bargain.

We stayed at the Metropol Hotel, a 3 star. Comfortable without being luxurious and missing a few basic staples which I'd expect from a hotetl of this class - no coffee making facility or shampoo/soap in the bathroom. Beds get a high mark though and the room itself was about the same as a Premier Travel Inn. Bang for buck ration was fair though we've done better (I'd recommend the rather wonderful communist throwback for anyone travelling to Krakov, known as the Start. Walls stinking of cabbage, as though they had absorbed years of stinking condesation, but clean, cheap at £8 per night and with coffee machines too). A basic but very comfortable place if you don't mind a 20 minute trip into the centre by tram).

Three days before my new job

Am I nuts?

Have I bitten off more than I can chew?

Could it be the job from hell dressed up in Prada?

We'll see.

In just over three days time.

Plenty of space in which to shit myself blue.

I've left my job!

My last day at at my current place of work came to an end on Friday. Nearly 11 years of service and I can't say I'm sad to leave.

I'll be missing some people, but since I decided when creating this blog not to namecheck my friends, especially those connected with work, by name, I can't, regrettably, give this item of somewhat significant news much justice. If you're one of them and should stumble across this blog, my thanks probably extends to you.

Work has become a hotbed of politics of late. Too much politics, too much (and ever-expanding) layers of upper management re-arranging deckchairs as the Titanic drifts towards the iceberg. I'm not saying the my ex-employer's future will be end in tears or even be especially bleak - events tend to ride themselves out - but working there isn't the same as it was for the first five years or so. As everywhere now, an honest day's work cannot be had without involving huge swathes or corporate bollocks intervening, and to honest, I just don't care enough about them to be arsed. There have been some large holes in this blog where I've simply been too demotivated or simply depressed to write anything, and much of this is as a direct result from what was going on in the workplace.

Despite this, I have come across some fine people there. Some of these lovely colleagues, the ones who didn't get away before I did anyhow, gave me what I would have most wanted, having just about all the material goodies I reckon I need in life.

Food.

Salami, pork pies, Harribo sour jellies which I can't get enough of, and cider. They know me so well. In a vain nod towards the healthy lifestyle I don't possess (or ever will), they even included an apple. Wasn't there enough health-promoting Magners already?

So fairwell old employer. Hello new one (in two weeks' time). More news on that when it happens.

A nice (I said NICE) brown Rover 2000

I haven't seen one of these beauties for a while. One of our family friends had a turquoise one. A P reg I think, back in 1980 or so. Went like a rocket, though to me, always felt old fashioned. This example was captured a street round the corner from where I work in Kings Cross.

The end of the unrefurbished Ds is nigh

They're disappearing fast.

The unrefurbished D-stock trains on the District Line, that is. I took a picture of this silver beast against a suitably grey sky. While I shan't ultimately miss their old-style wooden slat flooring, horrible bright silver lighting, installed about 2002 - and what exactly was wrong with the pinky-peach fluorescents they came with? - and their garish "pizza topping" seat covers, I will miss their PROPER comfortable seats, which are not like tea-trays with a small amount of token padding and their quite seriously good heating which caused a wonderful dry, used smelling fug on cold winter days to fill the train.

I've been on these since 1980 or so, when they were first introduced to the tube and so I can't help but feel a little nostalgic about them passing. Another year or so and that'll be that for the unpainted silver tubes. Which were only introduced to save money on paint. Until then, most tubes were painted either red or white. The silver tubes, as can be seen here, were also a graffiti magnet, hence the re-introduction of painted bodies.

I'll miss their shabby comfort. But like ELO, a band I love to this day, am I glad we've moved on? To quote a certain nodding dog, ohhh yes.

And finally, these are by far the most reliable tubes on the network with old fashioned tried and trusted "garden shed" technology tucked beneath. I hope TfL think long and hard before replacing them technologically advanced depot-hogs. And while they're about it, get the dreadfully iffy signalling sorted out. I wonder, now Metronet is out of the way, whether we'll notice a difference in station and track refurbishment. After a promising start, it looks as though MN just gave up. So they deserved to not be handed over any extra money - they were not cheap and provided an inefficient, slow maintenance program. Anyway, we're drifting off elsewhere.

Inside....

...and out

The great Cambridge Folk Festival Trip - part 3

SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

Apart from being rained out on Saturday evening, the two remaining days were rather fantabulous. Musical highlights included guitarist Martin Simpson, the gorgeous of voice and body Kate Rusby and the UK Ukelele Orchestra who did covers of pop tunes on, not surprisingly, ukeleles, including a chord sequence from Handel where pop and rock tunes were superimposed - the dreadful I Will Survive, Hotel California, Love Story Theme, Killing Me Softly and about eight others. Movingly clever stuff. Toots and the Maytals put on a great party rocker of a show, headlining on Saturday. I wasn't so keen on Sunday's bill-topper, Nanci Griffith and was too wet to enjoy Joan Baez. I would hardly call myself a die-hard fan, but she IS a legend. But played the quite awful Imagine at the end of her set so loses Dukc street cred.

Toots and the Maytals. They were tootin'. Monkey Man - ya, go go go.

Now Lottie takes a chill pill and lies languidly in the sun.

The wonderful Rachel Unthank and the Winterset. They got a new fan today. Me. What a lovely tune the opener to their new Album is. Check their myspace site out www.myspace.com/rachelunthank and listen to Felton Lonnen Radio. Does that not sound like the Geordie Bjork? Lovely chappesses, entertaining, funny and by this track potentially quite dark. The album is mine.

The Great Cambridge Folk Festival Trip - part 2

FRIDAY

Quite a mellow start to the day with breakfast at Cowbelles Chuck Wagon, a steak and sawdust type affair (note: nice gets big brownie points for very decent and FRESH cheese baguettes). Returning to the tent afterwards, I noticed a label had been placed on our tent. This was a nomination for being the loudest snorers on site. I'm quite proud of that as you can imagine though to be honest I'm not sure if anyone for certain whether the culprit was Mrs D or myself since both of us are prime candidates.


Snoring for Cambridge

Heading off for to the main fest site, we did the usual festival things. Eat, shop, lie around in drying mud and smoke the occasional festival green gear.

Mmmmm, nice veggie Indian grub. That'll keep the folkies happier than the thought of hoofing down that big wad of dead animal I'm cruisin' on.


These aren't just clouds. These are Marks and Spencer's symbols of the festival weather we were granted; good mixture of half rain, half cloud cloud, half sun. Half baked metaphor too.


Corie and Goose chilling in the sunshine.

The main stage at dusk

The great Cambridge Folk Festival Trip - part 1

Here are some of the pictures I captured on my phone-cam of our trip to Cambridge for the annual Folk Festival. Having been rather sceptical at the thought of spending four days in the company of Joan Baez, Nanci Griffith, not to mention a host of Oirish fiddle-di-dee type flute tootlers, it turned out to be a rather pleasant event, made even more pleasanter by the company of Anna, Ian, Goose and Corie - and of course Mrs Daggersdukc ensconced as she was quite often in her famous bright red and blue "spidey-suit". There were ups and downs, but mainly a good time was had by all.

Thursday
Goose and Corie had bought with them a new tent, as yet unassembled. This was going to be a difficult erection (and putting up the tent would prove quite difficult too bearing in mind it was raining heavily and that damn wind was blowing at force five or more.

This tent isn't going to work, is it?



OK, lets calm down and work this out. The bottom half of Mrs DD's spidey suit is on full display and let's face it - she'll need all the superpowers of Spiderman to add the bottom half of the tent to its outer in that wind.



BUT SHE DID IT - along with a lot of help from Ian that is. Up she rises.

Our tent. Looking smug and ready for temporary festival sleeping

Oh boy. What a cliche. So this is is a folk festival right? Surely the odd rainbow must come into it since folksters and hippies were often the same people and actually believe in some of that gaia/peace and love crud (I am of course aware this is a blatant stereotype but indulge me, pur-leeze). And as if to order, at around 2010, a multi-coloured Mother Nature approved portent of general wellbeing and other such bollocks appeared, right above the main stage. You couldn't pay for this sort of thing to happen. How's your Burt's lumbago, Mrs Jones? Not being ironic here - that was a lovely sight to behold.

More dereliction

I honestly don't go out of my way to find these, but while I was scoping out the area around my possible new employer, at the end of the 369 bus route at Thames View, Barking, these Cadiz Court style beauties found me. There were at least three of these flatblocks. I wil come here again, and get a pictorial sense of the sinister and sad at night. I lived in a tower block for two years and loved it. Admittedly, it was at Warmington Tower, a hall of residence block next to Goldsmiths' College in New Cross, a well maintained place, but I was always jealous of anyone who grew up in one. I spent my childhood in a nice but boring terrace house and live in one now. Thought I love having a garden, I always saw myself moving to a tower, especially one of the higher ones in Hackney - Trowbridge Estate or Holly Street would have been just fine.

Is Barking and Dagenham Council having a bad day with their tower blocks? I really can't see what's wrong with these, besides their generaly closed-down-ness. Anyone local, like Yaki Noodles commentator, know the area better than me and can explain what's going on?

Mrs Dukc on holiday

This is weird. I'm on my own for a few days while Mrs DD visits her N. Irish rellies. I feel...obsolete and empty. Is this what being involuntarily single would feel like all the time?

I never, ever EVER thought I'd ever feel like this. I was quite a happy and a reasonably successful singleton and hardly ever a resentful or jealous one. Nearly always with someone when I wanted to be, plenty of friends, driking 3-4 nights a week - OK, so I couldn't do THAT now, I'm 38 now after all.

Being married changes you in ways you could not expect. Missing her and doing things I'd like to do instead, like read, a little luxury I haven't indulged since...well I'll go into my work woes in another entry since I want an early night tonight and the account would take me half an hour to write at least.

Seven years married August 20th. Does the infamouse itch kick in then? Certainly don't feel like it could now. Being married feels comfortable, familiar and safe, but with enough good banter and sparring to stop the boredom from setting in. Mrs D is a supreme debater though she'd probably deny it.

Wandering around London

Spent yesterday having a pleasant meander along the South Bank with Mrs DD and my favourite niece, Stacey. The Turkish festival which was basically a promo for food and holiday companies, was quite a disappointment, mainly because the venue, Bernie Spain Gardens, near the Oxo building was far too diminutive for the purpose. There should really have been more stalls selling food as well since we could only find three or four. We also bought some of the most disgusting yoghurt-based drink ever. It tasted like warm jizz, no kidding. Uck. Needed a diet coke to clear the taste. The only thing viler than this is Maubi fizz, a Caribbean drink. Its only worse because it lies to you and pretends its going to be a sweet little number. Smell - sweet. Initial taste. Matches smell. Pleasant. A tad sweet but no worse than regular Coke, say. Then 15 seconds afterwards, the bitterest and nastiest aftertaste kicks in. Imagine paint stripper and we're probably not too far away. Its a nasty, unpleasant surprise and how anyone can move onto a second bottle of it is far beyond my ken.

We also took in Tate Modern. We thought we might go see the Dali exhibition, but at £11 a ticket, this may be one I do on my own since Stace was only so-so into it and Lynn's would only get my interpretation of his paintings which seeing as my sight's not up to much anyway, may be a little skew-whiff. Not to mention confused.

The "girls" then went on and booked themselves an afternoon's play at the Globe (Othello) the jammy buggers.

Here's a picture I took of the inside of the old Bankside Power Station, home of Tate Modern, using my new Sony Ericsson K800i camera phone. This is by far the bestest phone snapper I've ever come across. My mate has a 3 megapixel Nokia N95 which I'd like to see strutting its stuff. The results of what this wee phone can do are quite amazing and I'm pretty impressed. Its quite a brick and doesn't do some of the things my Samsung D900 does, such as repeat message alerts ad nauseam, a feature I got to like for its self-annoyance factor. Generally I am extremely happy with it though there was a little jam-up yesterday which a restart cleared. Watch this space I suppose.

Subversive snapping on the Victoria Line

There's nothing unusual about the guy in the photo. Victoria Line tube train. Passenger scene.

EXCEPT...while me and the wife and Nicki were on the Victoria Line, heading towards Walthamstow earlier today, he whipped out his camera and without asking us, started snapping. His camera was a little compact digital, not a mobile, and with a proper flash, which was the firing of which drew my attention. Did he assume that because we were being accompanied by a guide dog that "neither" of us could see?

Wrong!

So not to be out-done, I firstly gave him a hard stare while he snapped his second masterpiece, and secondly, managed to get a picture of him on my mobile. I also asked him to "say cheese" and to be fair to the chap, he was smiling in the shot.

But what a cheek for not asking - even if it was only the dog he was after.

Seeing Fountains of Wayne

Tomorrow, myself, Mrs DD, Goose and Corie are heading off to see the best pure-pop outfit currently making music, and that band is the fantastic, the awesome and the musically gorgeous Fountains of Wayne. They are playing at the Astoria and I'll hopefully be able to post a picture or two of them after the gig. Really looking forward to some good old fashioned British inspired power pop.

Best FoW track? So hard to decide. Little Red Light from Welcome Interstate Managers and Mexican Wine from the same era, as well as Radiation Vibe from their self-titled first album and Red Dragon Tattoo from Utopia Parkway...but then there's the downbeat and beautiful Troubled Times with its melancholic Wurlitzer electric piano... I just can't make up my mind!

Birthday

Had my birthday shindig at the Yaki Noodle House (reviewed here) yesterday. No problem with coping with sudden invasion of 15 blindos and three dawgs. The food was liked by all but one of my party. Fortunately complacency hasn't yet set in and they still offer excellent quality food and service. Since Googling for this restaurant, the only thing which pops up as a result is this blog. Surely there must be another review, either a pro or just a humble blogger, able and willing to review it. The lack of a review, even a poor one, just tells me just how parochial the London dining world is. I do know this place is nothing special, but sites like the chillisource.com review local kebaberies. Come on guys.
Afterwards, spent some quality drinking time at the Barking Dog, a Wetherspoons, opposite. As part of their Real Ale Festival, one of the beers on offer was this particularly lurid looking green one below, named Silent Spring.


Sadly, the beer didn't taste especially unusual.

Twasn't a bad birthday overall, especially for a not-particularly-important 38th.