Noooooooooooo!!!

Just when you thought public sculpture couldn't possibly get ANY WORSE, this appears. Looking like a shat-out Tatlin's Tower, this utter bollocks is the fault of Anish Kapoor and Lakshmi Mittal and Boris Johnson and Cecil Balmond, who all deserve to be called idiots as a result. Regarding the design, if you look closely you'll notice that there is an Anish Kapoor 'trumpet' at the bottom of the tower, from which a simple crane column emerges, carrying a staircase with a viewing platform at the top. Around this are draped some looping circular trusses doing absolutely nothing in particular. What does it mean?

Well, you'll be glad to know that the word 'iconic' appears six times in the press release.

Appalling. Truly appalling.

Did You Know...

...that the O2 Arena has a capacity (23,000) almost identical to that of the Handel Orchestra from the Sydenham Crystal Palace?

The manuscript is nearly finished. Now all it needs is to be rejected to complete the cycle!

x und/oder y

This one is for Evan:

"At a colloquium called ‘Utopia [and/] or Revolution,’” Utopie’s Herbert Tonka has extravagantly recalled of the ensuing lock-in, “we wrapped a number of shit-heads in toiletpaper. We held the whole conference hostage for several hours with a leftist group called the Vikings. The cops showed up with submachine guns, etc… Archigram was there; Archigram was on the wrong side, that of the hostages, not of the hostage-takers."

from Simon Sadler, Archigram : Architecture without Architecture

dum dum da dum (VIII)

Here's a really sneaky one that I'd never noticed before, as it occurs only once near the very end of the piece. Needless to say it's Chopin yet again, from the Nocturne in C minor, Op.48 No.1


This is Rubenstein playing, the dumdumdadum is at 4:45...

dum dum da dum (VII)

here's another one just to keep me going.


Mahler, Die Zwei Blauen Augen from Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen

dum dum da dum (VI)

If you listen to radio 3 at all, then for the last week or so you'll have noticed an onslaught of mazurkas, waltzes, preludes, nocturnes, ballades etc., and all because it's Chopin's 200th birthday.
Unfortunately I haven't finished my stupidly ambitious other Chopin project in time, but until that day, here's my happy birthday to the guy, my own recording of his funeral march. I must say; I've always found it rather funny that of all the world famous melodies one could give the world, Chopin would give us the universal sonic signifier of death. So here's to him!