I miss London a lot these days. I don’t mind it’s high pressure and loud environment. It’s hard to beat it’s historical background and international variety.
And that is a bloody cool place to live.
Stumble it!Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 4.5
I am a huge fan of British Humor - and some of their TV as well like "Have I got news for you" and "QI".
Compared to US television the Brits can be very raunchy and would say stuff that would give the American FCC multiple heart attacks (like Stephen Fry’s famous "arse gravy" quote).
This episode of HIGNFY with Brian Blessed as the host was so hilarious that the BBC didn’t broadcast it. But some generous soul made available via YouTube.
Enjoy!
If you can cope with nasty British Humor - watch & enjoy!
Got 90 minutes to kill?
Watch some British Humor "Trigger Happy". They play nasty tricks to unsuspecting people with their weird humor and hidden cameras.
*Thanks to Edosan for some more fun in my life*
I always have loved London - what a great city. When London reelected “Red Ken” as it’s Major I was thrilled. But after eight years Londoners wanted to kick Gordon Brown for his miserable job and kicked out good old Ken and elected the weird ‘Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson’ instead. Oh, the tragedy …
Boris has been more on television in game shows in actually running any tiny local anything so far. Even George W. Bush had more experience running ’something’ than Boris. His political view are terrible - when he presented the TV documentary The Dream of Rome his remarks and historical conclusion were way of the scale.
He is an old school populist born in the wrong century. He would have loved living during the 17th or 18th century - the heydays of the British Empire. But - dear Boris - these days are long gone …
I always liked British currency - although it’s coins were always on the heavy side. If you had several one pound coins in your pocket you would walk in an awkward way.
So the British got some new designs - and these are butt ugly. The look like extra cool … I think the designer still had that early Blair period mantra “Cool Britannia” still in his head.
Instead of using established symbols and emblems in sound way, the designs try to be extra hip. But money shouldn’t be hip, but easy to “understand”, visually easy to separate and have unique tactile characteristics (which the British coins certainly have - hence the very different shapes for 50 and 20 pence).
I find the 20 pence piece especially odd - only showing the arse and tail of the English Lion. I think now would be the best time to get the Euro my dear Brits …
On the 1st April 1918 the RAF was founded to defend King and Country - and what a great job they did so far.
The RAF most iconic machine - the Supermarine Spitfire.
It’s most controversial Commander Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris - who ordered the fire bombing of Dresden and Hamburg.
Today’s coolest jet - the Eurofighter Typhoon (yeah I know this one has German insignia - couldn’t find a good image with RAF ones).
More? RAF Homepage (for airforce nerds - visit the official Timeline) and Wikipedia entry -
France - like Germany - is in dire need of reforms. Sarko started his campaign for his Presidency with the promise of change (sounds familiar). Many French people liked his busy and aggressive style - and had high hopes for some positive change.
But with his ugly divorce and stupid handling of his own affairs he has lost a lot of political capital. In recent local elections Sarko’s party has lost many votes.
France still is in need of reforms, but they new leader has busted a lot of his power for silly personal affairs. Too bad, because I won’t help him and his still necessary task.
Sarko admires the British economy and it’s success in recent years. Tony Blair inherited many necessary - but painful - changes made under Thatcher and built his success on it. France is not in such a bad shape as Britain in the late 1970’s, but still there is a lot to be done.
Sarko is especially fascinated by London’s vitality, something Paris lacks (his won words). In terms of international importance, stock market and political influence London easily beats Paris. Only the number of high ranked restaurants is higher in the French capitol.
So no surprise that this visit to Britain is so important to Sarko, he needs some serious political action to restore his credibility and some backing for his ideas for change. Maybe some serious glamor from the British Crown will rub off and the dry Mr Gordon Brown can add some intellectual spice as well …
Once again the somewhere a Muslim mob goes bonkers and wants to kill someone for an insult. Once again the West shakes it’s head and tries to understand all the madness about a Teddy Bear named Mohammed. Once again we secular people try to reassure ourselves that only a few radical Muslims are willing to kill poor Gillian Gibbons. Once again the secular people in the West fail to understand that Religion can’t be tolerated, because it will always breed idiocy and violence.
Highly recommended: read some of the comments on the BBC website regarding the current situation with Ms Gibbons and Sudan. Plus: learn how governments once again play the religious card to make petty politics.
If you live outside the UK you might not have heard of the Clangers. I love these little buggers. They are so very different from today’s often brutal computer animated action heroes and monsters for kids.
Nothing bothers English people more than sports. England just got very ungraciously kicked out of the Euro 2008 (watch some highlight here). This is causing a big ruckus on good old England - who still consider themselves world class footballers. All in all - a national tragedy. Even politicians got involved. Now that’s real dedication!
Let’s send them some chocolate and some fine German lager to get over it. 
I do hate sailing, but I do love a good ‘naval’ movie! Most of these are centered around the British Navy - and I have a weak spot for the period of British Empire anyway.
Most of the old movies tend to be charmingly naive and adventures (like Horatio Hornblower or the Sea Hawk), but only Master and Commander is both ‘modern’ (read: realistic) and exciting at the same time. And it helps a lot that no phoney love story is woven into the plot … it’s rather bloody, but full of friendship and the terrible truth about the moments of horror of war at sea.
More? Official Trailer
*update*
Boy oh boy, one time I do not check an entry via Wikipedia and I am in trouble. Jolene and Edosan gave me a proper lashing for my failure!
The movie is based on a HUGE series of novels by the great writer Patrick O’Brian - who has been working on navel novels for over 35 years now. Here is a NPR radio special about the author. There is obviously a huge maritime fan base out there - I was completely ignorant about …
I really really really don’t like cars. Never owned one, probably never will. So TV shows about cars hardly appeal to me … unless it’s done in style with that dry British humor …
In this episode our three heroes try to cross one African nation with the shabbiest and oldest second hand cars they could buy off the natives. A highly amusing adventure unfolds … enjoy!
London City Hall is a great landmark and worth a visit. It looks like a spaceship from a Japanese SciFi flick - crashed near the river. But it’s round shape makes it even more intriguing.
I like the great difference between the modern look and the old places of power - which were usually styled to impress and intimidate people.
Click image for a larger execution.
The drama, the tears, the brutality! I am actually surprised that so many old paintings are pretty bloodless. You rarely see gory scenes like in modern movies. This is especially surprising since those times were pretty bloody, so horrific scenes have been pretty normal to those people - not like us, who see violence and war only mostly on TV or made up movies.
I find it highly strange and fascinating that some of the darkest visions about the future come from Britain: 1984, V for Vendetta and Brave New World. We consider British society as one of the most liberal and ‘free’ societies on earth - still nightmares of total state control and suppression seem to haunt the British mind. It is also true that Britain has more camera watching it’s citizen then any other country on this planet.
I suspect it’s all connected with the good old class system, the terrible human conditions of the industrial revolution and elitist games. As much we may think of Britain as in Jane Austin terms, witty games of the upper class, there was always a dark and big underbelly in British society. Achievements like the Magna Carta and many modern democratic rights were only granted to the upper class (very much like in the rest of Europe).
We can’t lower our standards.
But since British society was also the first to experience the industrial revolution - it was also the first to encounter the horrors of this new era in human history. Terrible slums with unbelievable conditions, smog everywhere and extreme poverty. Certainly this has happened in big cities before - like in good old Rome. But never to such an extend.
And it was set in contrast to the Age of Enlightenment - new ideas about human rights and social equality. No surprise that Karl Marx (who lived for some time in London) and many other socialist thinkers were deeply influenced by the conditions of the new working class in Britain.
The British Empire of course had an ugly history of colonialism and brutal suppression. Almost any uprising was bitterly crushed. Only a few countries like America escaped the Empire by use of revolutionary force.
George Orwell started his writing career as an investigative reporter. He lived among the poorest of the poor and exposed the social dark side of this new industrial world in his great book Down and Out in Paris and London. But also his book ‘The Road to Wigan Pier‘ digs deeper into the dirt. Both books shocked Britain.
Victorian society slowly woke up to these truths and started to change. But only after social unrest and several waves of infectious diseases threatened their lifestyle too. But also revolutions first in France and later Russia ‘helped’ the upper class to see the need for change.
Oh look Charles, this is really shocking! Those poor people …
Without such minds like Karl Marx and George Orwell Britain might have never developed to such free society (yes, socialism was a big influence in the UK - although Maggie Thatcher cleared most of it out). So every country needs smart system critics as well as pressure from the street and money willing to make changes. Social development doesn’t come for free and doesn’t ‘just’ happen.
The evil image of an totalitarian society as the twin of a great society might be a good way to keep people and politicians on their toes.
At least once a year I have to watch some old Black Adder episodes - just to remind myself that there are some good comedy writers out there. Apart from the dreadful first series I can recommend to you all the other three seasons of this great show … if you like British comedy …
More? Black Adder Clips on YouTube and Bit Torrents
Like I wrote before - military marches are a strange breed of music. But almost every nation has it’s own variation of death marches.
I think there is hardly any instrument that expresses insanity better then the bagpipe. After marching to that kind of music I am ready to kill anyone just to escape that bloody sound (start scottish accent: "like licking a singing cats arse").
Play the following song for about four hours again and again - and then see if you are still sane …
One of my great heroes: John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester - who is perfectly portrait by Johnny Depp in the movie ‘The Libertine‘ (watch the trailer here).
He was a witty pornocrat - a man of total pleasure and a very sharp mind.
His great poems are hard to top in their eloquent realism and sarcasm - like the famous ‘A Sartyre against Reason and Mankind‘. It’s certainly not a form of poetry you would encounter in school.
So I highly recommend this horny gentleman to you as well as the movie about his troubled life. It will not be an enjoyable experience, but certainly an intense one. Don’t be afraid of obsessions - life itself is one. Enjoy yours …
From Wikipedia:
The Great Stink or The Big Stink was a time in the summer of 1858 during which the smell of untreated sewage almost overwhelmed people in central London, England.
Part of the problem was due to the introduction of more modern flush toilets. While these were a step forward on the chamber-pots that most Londoners used, they dramatically increased the volume of water and waste that was now poured into existing cesspits. These often overflowed into street drains originally designed to cope with rainwater, but now also used to carry outfalls from factories, slaughterhouses and other activities, contaminating the city before emptying into the River Thames.
Cholera became widespread during the 1840s (not least because many people believed the disease was due to air-borne “miasma”; no one then realised that the disease was water-borne — that discovery was not made until 1854 by London physician Dr John Snow after an epidemic centred in Soho), and sanitation reform soon became a high priority. Bringing together several separate local bodies concerned with sewers, the consolidated Metropolitan Commission of Sewers was established in 1848; it surveyed London’s antiquated sewerage system and set about ridding the capital of an estimated 200,000 cesspits — an objective later accelerated by the “Great Stink”.
In 1858, the summer was unusually warm. The Thames and many of its urban tributaries were extremely polluted; the warm weather encouraged bacteria to thrive and the resulting smell was so overwhelming that it affected the work of the House of Commons (countermeasures included draping curtains soaked in chloride of lime, while members considered relocating upstream to Hampton Court) and the law courts (plans were made to evacuate to Oxford and St Albans). Heavy rain finally broke the hot and humid summer and the immediate crisis ended. However, a House of Commons select committee was appointed to report on the Stink and recommend how to put an end to the problem.
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