Making public transport homely

Here's a good idea from Paris and Tokyo: Ikea is dressing up metro stations to, apart from promoting its brand, show its furniture is really sturdy and hard-wearing as it can cope with the millions that could potentially use the seats.

This would be an excellent idea for the local furniture emporiums to follow. Piers 1 and 2 are screaming out for a makeover because the recent terminal upgrades turned out to be draughty and cold disasters, and what were those designers thinking turning the toilet block into the Pier 2 focal point? Even Matiatia could do with a bit of a spruce up and turning into a lounge worthy of seafarers.

Here's what Homebase (a British furniture and furnishings store) did with Carlisle train station. I love the lampshades!



Links via London Underground blog.

Aural crap = moral crap

Should certain forms and formats of music and musical expression be banned, not because of their non-conformism to the accepted western forms of music, nor because they are are mere sounds or noise, but because they are akin to illegal drug taking and induce immoral behaviour?
That's the question that vexes Roger Scruton in a lengthy article for The American (the house organ of the American Enterprise Institute).
His answer behoves his epithet as Margaret Thatcher's favourite philosopher: if young people like their music which old people cannot stand or bear to listen to, then it automatically follows that the young are wrong, stupid, self-indulgent, and worse, prone to addiction and immoral behaviour, by insisting on producing, listening to, dancing to and singing along with their generational music.
So there. The western classical canon stands supreme and no amount of political correctness or moral relativism is going to stop him from dissing any form of popular music.
He is bemused by the fact that since the last century "pop music" (a generic term that he uses that encompasses jazz, Elvis, boy bands and death metal - go figure that one out) has been in the ascendancy as the favourite cultural expression of contemporary generations. Worse, even politicians now want to hang out with pop stars and write legislation with them in mind (wot? gay civil unions?) - it must have been the sight of Blair hanging with Bono that made him apopleptic (it made me vomit too, but for entirely different reasons).

But another thought-provoking article I came across (thank you, Arts & Letter Daily) should induce the final heart attack in Scruton The Crouton: the British state and its law enforcement agencies have been using masterpieces of the Western musical canon such as Mozart to drive away youths from venues where they tend to hang out such as shopping malls, bus stops and other public places. Quite rightly the author berates Britain for turning a whole generation against superb classical music, Clockwork Orange-style.
And it's not only music they use. Irritating noise of certain frequencies that only young people are able to hear clearly is flooding public places too.
Until they will find out that you can dance to any noise, even police or alarm sirens.

Bachelor of the Year 2010

I have the impression that every year a local magazine has trouble finding eligible bachelors who are straight and don't look like total losers. They even had to go find candidates in Australia, Latin America and Germany.
You can judge for yourself here.

I voted for one who isn't a model and because I like my date to be on my side during a pub brawl.

UPDATE: The winner is here.

Chilean quake tsunami

The tsunami alert yesterday in New Zealand had everybody scrambling to higher ground along all east coasts of New Zealand; the Onetangi Beach Races were postponed two weeks; and most people had to find something else to do but go to the beach on a perfect Summer Sunday.
In the end we got off lightly, only a few sea movements on the beach happened here and there but nothing dramatic.
The map looks really cool, it shows how an earthquake turns the ocean into a shooting gallery. Picture pinched from Tumeke.