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The world’s best known urinal?
Posted by Tony on Mar 11, 2009 in 2009
Right now I’m glad I don’t work here….
Razorlight
Posted by Tony on Mar 11, 2009 in 2009
Ok so having overcome the numbness I got in to the Razorlight concert – eventually.
Great venue, great show. Johnny Borrell is a manic madman and great showman. And at $7 a beer I left sober, cheapskate that I am. Sadly my phone camera isn’t great at taking pics in low light, so the pics look a little dodgy….here they are anyway:
Also took a video of them performing “Before I go to Pieces” (was going to video “America” but I knew I’d be shaking my carcass too much to allow for a vaguely decent recording….)
I remember it well…
Posted by Tony on Mar 11, 2009 in 2009
…the Chelsea Hotel. Leonard Cohen fans feel free to use this as your wallpaper.
New York on a Tuesday
Posted by Tony on Mar 11, 2009 in 2009
So it’s cold. Damn cold. And I’m standing in a queue in the Meatpacking District of New York…not, however, to pick up my weekly pork (although judging by the salacious looks I’m getting anything is possible). I’m queuing to see a concert. Of a band. Called Razorlight. You may have heard of them. Most New Yorkers, on the other hand, haven’t. Which explains why there are only 45 people in the queue, and the show is due to start in 10 munutes.
Just enough time really for a few pithy thoughts hammered out on my nice new phone, and one keystroke away from your eyes.
Isn’t technology wonderful? I can be here. You can be there. All it takes to connect us is a gorgeous, fluid stream of bits and bytes, from my Nokia to my mailbox to my blog to your browser and, at the same time, to my Facebook page. It renders me almost speechless. And it causes me to wonder, then, why oh why do subway stations the world over smell of piss, sweat and soot? Surely in an age where the human brain can conceive of all this magnificent technology someone, somewhere could spend a bit of money figuring out how to keep them clean?
I love New York. In fact only today I bought a cigarette lighter with that very sentiment on it. I’m also a fan of public transport (no, before you ask, I don’t have anything with that written on it. It’s not as cool as the NY thing to profess anything more than a passing nod to the wonders of subways, tubes, busses and trains. I know my limits). But New York’s subways are the worst I’ve seen. Yes, even Prague, Budapest and Bangkok have better ways of getting from A to Wherever. And there are some things common to all of them.
They all have the hooded subway lout slouching in a corner, ipod headphones jammed in deep, but not deep enough to curtail the slippery diarrhoea of whatever they’re listening to to seep out and drip onto the lap of whoever is sitting close to them. And all subways have resident perverts, wearing trenchcoats, about 5 foot tall, balding, chubby and with glasses. They look up at everyone, lick their lips and fumble for change in their largely empty pockets. Or something. No, New York subways are the worst because not only are they damp, smelly, erratic and noisy. They’re confusing too. Whoever designed and planned their routes did so while on an acid trip. And, after sticking each finger into a different coloured pot of paint, they simply dragged their hands back and forth across a large piece of paper. And that was it. Subway routes planned.
Ok I could milk this some more but any moment now me and my 44 new friends are going in to the concert. Please let that last sentence be true. I’m so cold I long for the warmth of the subway. And my thumbs are tired because, despite all this great technology, Nokia’s keyboard is designed for midgets. Which I am not. More later.
Times Square-ish
Posted by Tony on Mar 9, 2009 in 2009
Ok I’m not the first person in the world to take a pic like this, not by a
long shot. But it’s the first time I’ve taken it which makes it cool enough
to post here. Why do they call it Times Square when, um, it’s not actually
square? Just asking… (and I’m testing this phone upload thing, if you’re
seeing this, I’m happy….)
M&G Podcast
- Between the Pages Episode 147 22 December 2009This week - the eagerly anticipated Cabinet report card and a look back over the decade that was. […]
- Between the Pages Episode 146 9 December 2009This week: Mandy Rossouw on the Jacob Zuma/Nkandla scandal PLUS how it played out behind the scenes; and a new report leaked to the M&G paints a sad story of the state of education in SA. […]