Be it resolved I will not make resolutions

I don't make New Year's resolutions, so for 2011, my resolution is to continue not to make resolutions.

But in 2011, there are a few things I will try and continue to adhere to anyway.

2011 will be my third year living in the UK as an adult. Including the three years I lived there as a child, that makes six altogether.

After I moved to the UK in 2008 from Toronto, I faced a real conundrum. There are so many places, spaces, plays and exhibitions to see, that I at times felt overwhelmed by the options -- torn between doing domestic daily routine chores, or going out to explore.

It may sound odd, but I came up with guidelines for myself, so I would not miss out on opportunities to see and do new things, but at the same time not do things at a frenetic pace. I decided I would do one new thing a week, see one play and watch four films a month, either at the cinema or on DVD.

I launched this plan in February 2009, and it has gone quite well, although my theatre-going dropped off in the second half of 2010 due to out of town visitors and travel.

I think I will continue to keep these as goals for this year but I would also like to read more novels, do more crafts and find out a lot more about the River Thames.

I am heading towards 2011 feeling a bit tired but refreshed after three weeks of holiday and another one ahead.

I started a new job at the Thomson Reuters Foundation as production editor in September after almost six years working as an editor and producer with the Reuters consumer websites in Toronto and London.

Working on the AlertNet and TrustLaw websites is proving to be both challenging and interesting.

So I am looking forward to 2011 providing a lot of new fulfilling opportunities at work and in terms of travel and exploration in the UK.

Sweet sugar beach on Lake Ontario

My father took me to Sugar Beach across from the Redpath Sugar plant on the shore of Lake Ontario today. 

The area consists of trees, sand, pink umbrellas and granite rocks apparently brought from a Quarry in northern Quebec cut into 1.5 metre wide pieces.

This is a very cool addition to the Toronto waterfront. In fact, it is a cool addition to Toronto's landscape, which is dominated by grey condo towers.

Air travails

I arrived at about noon in Toronto from London and have been struggling against fatigue to stay awake ever since, failed and crashed for two hours late this afternoon.
Flew to Toronto via Air Canada on a Boeing 767.

During take off water started dripping on my arm and leg apparently from the luggage container overhead. I had no idea what it was.

The woman sitting next to me pushed the call button for the flight attendent, and I waved to her from my seat. She could not come over because we were required to have our seat belts on during lift off.

She didn't come over once the seatbelt sign was off, so I went to the rear of the cabin and asked another flight attendent for help.

Before take off I was lingering at the back of the plane and this same flight attendent breezed by saying "What a frigging nightmare".

When I mentioned we had rung the bell and required help, she got defensive and said they couldn't come over during take off. This however didn't explain why no one came over afterwards.

She came over to see what had happened and checked inside the luggage container. When she found nothing, she said it must have been condensation and handed me a wad of paper towels. No apology and very surly attitude.

I followed her to the back of the plane and told her I didn't like her approach,

The other flight attendent was there and she apologized for not coming over after the seatbelt sign went off, saying that she thought it was just a matter of me wanting to get something out of the overhead luggage container during lift off!

The flight attendent who had come over to check out the problem said: You need to relax.

Bizarre and unappreciated given the price of the ticket.

The law at UK student tuition-fee rise demo

Today I watched on television from work as London police officers rode their horses into a demonstration, apparently in order to disperse a protest against a tuition-fee hike increase of up to 9,000 pounds for UK students, up from 3,290 pounds.

Under the plan 75 percent of graduates will pay more than under the current system, despite the introduction of a sliding scale repayment scheme.

I later went down to the demonstration, which was at Parliament Square, but found my way into Whitehall blocked by a row of riot police. People standing around the barricade told me to go south to Embankment, so I did. There were maybe 1,000 demonstrators there chanting, listening to music and being told by organisers not to go to Parliament Square, but to head east along Embankment and up to the Strand or Trafalgar Square.

It was difficult to know what had happened to the students who had been kettled by the police earlier. I couldn't figure out how to find them given that Whitehall was blocked off.

Not many people left while we awaited the results of the vote in Parliament, which showed that it was approved by a majority of 21 votes, with 27 members of the coalition parties voting against it and a handful abstaining.

Afterwards most people marched west along Embankment past Portcullis House, protected by a row of police, to Bridge Street.

But there was a barricade of police and police vans stretching across the road and sidewalk. Protesters stayed for about half an hour chanting, playing music and hurling abuse and the odd bit of rubbish at the police.

What we didn't know was that in other parts of London at around the same time, there were reports of protesters breaking into the Treasury, attacking the car of Prince Charles and Camilla, burning a Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square.

I have attended a lot of demonstrations and rallies in various cities, including Ottawa, Toronto and Washington, D.C. and I have never seen anything like this.

I wonder if this was an appropriate way to treat young people trying to exercise their democratic right to demonstrate in Parliament Square against a decision that will have a huge impact on their future.

November night-walk along the Thames

This evening I was chastised by the woman in the charity shop on Lower Marsh for dropping things off on a Monday. As if I should know this is against the rules.

I pointed out one of my curtains from Toronto covering a chair in the shop, feeling somewhat nostalgic.

After that, she relented and took my offering, which included a scarf with an emblem representing one of the city wards of the Palio horse race in Siena.

I bought it there a long time ago, but I've never liked it since.

After that, I walked to the Thames. The tide was in so there was no chance of beachcombing along the shore.

Instead, I walked from Westminster Bridge with the North wind biting at the back of my neck to Vauxhall, and stood where the first bridge was built across the water 3,000 years ago.

Further along, I lost track of the river at Wandsworth and New Covent Garden Flower Market so returned, walking beyond where I began to Blackfriars. There was a sharp gale blowing first at my face and then against my cheek as I followed the winding path beside the river.

A man was playing banjo in the cold and I gave him a pound, the usual folk singer and guitarist was not out tonight. I hope only due to the cold.

View of the Medway

Wharfians v workers

Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs, is one of London's two business districts, and boasts many a majestic bank tower -- they loom in the distance from views along the Thames.

The site in East London was developed by Canadian firm Olympia and York in the 1980s and 1990s. Almost 100 acres of the area is is owned by Canary Wharf Group.

Any vehicle that tries to enter is stopped by security guards and searched before it is allowed to pass at a sort of Checkpoint Charlie. It has always struck me as strange since people can walk freely into the area or  enter by boat, bicycle, bus, from the Docklands Light Railway or the tube.

The area is pure dystopian sci fi -- a post-modern site littered with arcane referents to its historical past as part of the East India Docks where shipments arrived by boat from all over the world.

The roadblocks are manned by people I think of as the Wharfians -- in my mind, a caste of people set apart from the rest of us by the weight of their own self-importance and their symbolic role as our protectors. Their presence gives workers in the Wharf a certain smug cache.

Today as I re-entered the perimeter, one of the Wharfians asked me if I was taking pictures of them and I said no -- because I wasn't I had taken a picture of the road block, not them. I was also trying to get a shot of a black plastic thing they run over the handle of the vehicles, which reminds me of the bomb detectors that Newsnight investigative reporters discovered were just aerials detecting nothing.

When I told the guard I hadn't taken a picture of them, he demanded to take my BlackBerry and look at the pictures on it. I said, "no". He said you can't take pictures, and I said you can't tell me not to and you can't take my blackberry. He wanted to know what I was doing there in the Wharf and I flashed my staff pass at him and I kept going.

I knew they would catch up with me and sure enough a while later, a guard came up behind me saying excuse me -- I let him say it a few times before I responded. He said: I hear you've been taking pictures! I said, yes, I have. He wanted to know what I was doing there and who I am. I said to him, you tell me what you are doing here and who you are -- how is it that you pursue a woman walking alone along the street in such an aggressive manner?

He said you aren't allowed to take pictures, I said I am on camera in this place 24/7 so I don't think you have any grounds to refuse me the right to film here. Also, I pointed out that anyone could take a picture of these chaps without them knowing from a car or the road or even a building nearby.

I ended up showing him my press pass because I didn't want to get frisked, and he did end up looking quite sheepish.

Is it legal to deny people the right to take pictures?

From Neo Bankside to The Shard

The Financial Times ran a story on November 19th, praising the redevelopment of London's Bankside neighbourhood:

"Few places can boast a shop specialising in dog collars, professional boxing gyms and an international art gallery within a short walk of each other. But that’s what makes Bankside one of the most interesting areas of London. For years it suffered the legacy of war damage and industrial decline; a rundown riverside, empty warehouses and decrepit housing; its grimy streets overshadowed by the railway viaducts that lead to that most chaotic of terminals, London Bridge station. So close to the City of London, so near the West End, but so far away.

"Now all that is changing fast. Office blocks have shot up in the More London development and the Shard – a dramatic architectural statement that will be the tallest building in Europe – is to be unveiled in 2012.

"Neo Bankside, a striking quartet of 'pavilions' emerging alongside Tate Modern . . .

"Nothing symbolises the area’s regeneration more than the Tate Modern, which opened in 2000, the FT story states.

But will tower blocks be more appealing than warehouses and railway viaducts?

There is no doubt that modern architecture has a place in London, as it does in every big city.

But do we need to measure the impact of the increasing height of these buildings on London's contemporary historic character?

The FT refers to the Shard, designed by architect Renzo Piano, and under construction behind London Bridge Station, as a "dramatic architectural statement". The Shard will be a pointed high-rise 310 m (1,017 ft) tall (including 72 floors, plus 15 further radiator floors in the roof), entirely clad in glass.

"The shape of the tower is generous at the bottom and narrow at the top, disappearing into the air like a 16th century pinnacle, or the mast top of a very tall ship," Piano says in an "inspiration" statement on The Shard website. "The architecture of the Shard is firmly based in the historic form of London's masts and spires."

But since the tall ships are long gone, how will it fit in with the historic form of London's cityscape?

As a resident of the area, I have noticed that the Shard already dominates the Bankside landscape and beyond. Much like the Norman Foster-designed Gherkin building in the City, it appears "every place and no place", standing out like an alien structure.

For example, The Tower of London is overshadowed by the appearance of The Shard behind it when approaching in a southerly direction from Tower Gateway to the north of the river, despite the geographical distance. Many of Bankside's tiny streets are now dominated by the Shard.

The FT refers to the Neo Bankside project, designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, as "'a striking quartet of pavilions' emerging alongside Tate Modern", when in fact these four soon-to-be glass high-rise residential towers with red accents are still far from complete.

The view of Tate Modern, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, from the St Paul's side of the River Thames and the Millennium Bridge is already compromised because the structures jut up above it detracting from iconic appearance of the building.

There is nothing new about glass-clad, geometric buildings. Ever since German architect Walter Gropius designed the Fagus Factory (1911-13) major architects have focused on designs using glass and steel to construct buildings.

Listen to the audio version:

France: September 2008

The Louvre

The Louvre

The Louvre

Tuileries -- such a strange light. It started pouring with rain soon after I took this picture.

Chipmonks get creative

  
This origami budgie was made by @maxxmonkey's chipmonks. It is a copy of the budgie I found in the garden a few years ago. It is very well done and I wanted to share it with my faithful readers :)