Driving Miss Crazy

The other day I decided to go to London. The coach I travelled on was driven by Nessa from Gavin & Stacey. Well, she sounded like her. Ten minutes out of Cardiff and there came a little tap on the microphone, which jolted me from my early morning doze/daydream of world domination.

"Elow. And welcome to da bus.com." I didn't realise I was sitting on a web site. "'Ere are a few rulez like. Smoking - NO! Don't do it." Was this a new government health warning? Ironically I saw her slouched against the side of the bus with a fag drooping from her lips before we set off.
"DRINKING is not allowed. Alc-wholic." Again ironic, she sounded a tad squiffy herself. "Dere's a toilet on board. Which you can use." Nice of her to allow us to isn't it? I was expecting a bucket on the side of the M4. "We 'ave everything on here to cater for yewer needs. A fire extinguisher, first aid kit." EVERYTHING I have ever wanted. "Oh. There are seat belts. WEAR 'EM!" I felt for my safety more if I didn't fasten mine, I can tell you that now. "Da seat belts are there for a reason, you know." No shit Sherlock. She'll probably tie us up in them and abandon the bus in Newport, cackling manically.
"Sit back then." She pauses dramatically. It's a pause Harold Pinter would be proud of. "Let's see if I gets you to London."

I had no idea there was an 'if' involved in this contract I entered into. You could tell she was smiling as she said it. I must admit, I uttered a little prayer under my breath. And I don't even believe in God.

Luckily I did make it to London. My sanity however, only just got there, having been squished next to a 56 stone Alfred Hitchcock-alike coughing and sneezing for three hours. He was like a walking noro-virus-Daily-Mail-scare-story-super-bug. When I got off the bus I resembled an old crumpled BHS sock recovered from behind the radiator. That had been there since 1989.
I played Dolly Parton loudly on my ipod to seek revenge. He didn't look like a Dolly-man. Although I must admit giggling when the man suffocating me, made comedy trumpet sounds blowing into his hankerchief. Those kinds of sound effects are usually only ever heard on whimsical Carry On films.

I'd miss the comedy real life throws up at me really, no matter how much I complain about it...

See my photos of London here.

Brutalism Architecture Study 1: Trellick Tower

Brutalist architecture is an addictive beast that has a bewitching spell on those who delight in its elephantine aggression. Coined from the french phrase "beton brut" - raw concrete - by the British architectural critic Reyner Banham, Brutalism described the style of simple, blocky concrete constructions which flourished in the 1950s & 60s (its origins begin earlier in the 20th century). It was, of course, a pun on the french word to reflect the overall general disgust in which the style was received in the country. Yet I have come to learn that whilst it often evokes much distain amongst critics and the general public alike, there are many, like me, who have an insatiable appetite for the utilitarian concrete ogres whose mundane functions, like a gaping wound, are left very much exposed. I have been traveling the world to take photographs of buildings for the past 15 years, even before I knew I was doing it. Now I actively seek them out mostly for that purpose, as we

Pinch-Punch-First-of-The-Month

Another month is over, another new one begins. 2008 is entering it's twilight weeks, soon destined to nothing more than the dust of history books. The year has, and is, going fast. But on the other hand, it seems like a millennium ago when Big Ben chimed twelve and we welcomed in the new year, and all it's anti-climaxes. The summer never really got going, the sun refusing to leave its blocks, whilst the bitter cold has gripped our skin and bones with its icy claws over the past few weeks, reminding us we really are in winter now. I used to love this time of the year as a kid. Hallowe'en, Bonfire Night, then the always enjoyable run-up to the madness of Christmas festivities. Yet as time passes they all fade into insignificance; a barrel of anti-climax, which I always felt but always managed to conveniently forget. One Hallowe'en in 1992, we visited my Nan in the midlands, and it is still possibly the most terrified I have ever been in my life. I had always been convinc

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The light is bright, the essence is full of promise, if but a slightly seedy one. On the busy train into Cardiff, two white-haired old ladies sit on the battered seats, their Dot Cotton house coats visible underneath their rain-macs. Tightly pursed lips, arms folded cross their robust darlek-shaped bodies, clutching their handbags as if their lives depended on it. There is a slight smell of odor de cooking-oil. "No discipline" utters one critically to the other, whilst staring directly ahead with a glare of a Terminator. "Dave says he needs to go back to the doctors for his pills". Replies the other, frowning. "They don't listen." "That'll be another bus trip." "We were brought up to listen." "John Lewis is nice." The mouths fasten shut and the two masses of old cotton-wooled hair bob up and down in complete un-agreement with each other. The train chugs along, a DJ tracked monotonous soundtrack. The light is yellow and

Whimsical Musings of a Loon

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