Brick Lane

Strolling onward to Brick Lane, nowadays nicknamed "Bangla Town" by the locals. Originally an area for the manufacture of bricks, then a Jewish neighbourhood and nowadays the centre of the Bangladeshi community. Ask a Londoner about Brick Lane and they'll talk about the excellent curry restaurants (bring your own beer- the restaurants are mainly Muslim). There's also the markets in the middle part of the Lane and at night its a clubbing area with the Vibe and others open till very late. The 24 hour Beigel Bakery does good trade around the clock.

The Bangladeshis first came here as seamen in the 1920s and expanded a wide range of trading in the area. The signage is often in Bangladeshi and as well as items likw saris from the indian sub-continent there's designer fashion from the Laden Shop or vintage clothes from Rokit.



Around the middle of the Lane is the tall chimneyed Truman's Black Eagle Brewery with origins in the 1700s. Nowadays its been converted to a tourist, cafe and shopping area, although part is still open for guided tours.

The area was one of the most densely populated in the middle of the 19th century and at that time was known for slums, narrow alleyways, poor water supplies and no proper sewage facilities.



Brick Lane today is a bustling and multi-cultural area. Off to each side are other small roads with fame of their own. Chicksand Street is reputed to be where Bram Stocker stayed on his return to Transylvania. Flower and Dean Street was the address of most of Jack the Ripper's victims at some stage in their lives and Hanbury Steet was the site of one of the murders. I'm not sure about Bacon Street.



And any spare flat surface will have been postered or display some form of graphic. This varies from mindless tagging to the street art of Banksy or sometimes installation pieces that have somehow made it onto the street.



Brick Lane may have converted to being more be halal than kosher, but the area continues to cast a vivid image into east London.

...then Hackney Hoxton and Shoreditch

Emm, this was supposed to be the Saturday post after team rashbre had entered another one of those Shoot Experience photo walkabout competitions. Unfortunately it all went a bit pear shaped. We had tickets and were kind of prepared. The last one we did was, for us, an anytime start and this suited us just fine. This one had an un-noticed 'be there at eleven am' message in the email.

oops.

So turning up at two o' clock in the afternoon wasn't a bright idea. Then being told the clues took around 30 minutes each and that everyone had to be back at four thirty to upload the finished items.

So dutifully taking the team rashbre materials, including the team badges with 'I love Hackney' written on them it was time to go outside Cargo to plan the rescue operation.



That's when the pub came into view. After a Grolsch, this became a 'cut the losses' situation. So instead of hammering around the circuit snapping wildly and producing some ill-planned entries, it became more fun to abandon the competition and to simply wander around 'the area formerly known as Hackney' now called Hoxton, Shoreditch and Brick Lane.

Hoxton itself has become one of the gentrification areas in London and the small grassy Hoxton Square was filled with people chilling out for the afternoon, overlooked by various trendy restaurants and art galleries.

Indicatively, around the square, with graffiti like stencilling onto the pavement, was a series of signs for the "Cereal Killer", either advertising an Australian rock band or Kellogg's breakfast foods.

The nature of the area creates a fusion between street culture typified by graffiti at one end and posh art galleries at the other. As an example, there's a shop which has been converted into an advertisement for the recent Chemical Brothers album.



So there's a balance required here to interpret the difference between substance, pretence with perhaps a little wry humour. I'd need to spend more time in this finely delineated area to be able to make the necessary judgement. ShoHo (Shoreditch/Hoxton) is less clear-cut than the SoHo of Manhattan, yet shares some of the characteristics.



and the Hoxton snaps were on the way to Brick Lane...

time in the garden

...well not my garden. And not really a garden, as such.

Covent Garden.



An area often featured in 'Lies Londoners tell Tourists' (because its not a garden), along with 'The Mall as a great shopping area'. And as a place to visit, for a quick buzz of lots happening, Covent Garden has it all from smart cafes, street entertainers, boutique shops and little craft market stands.



For much of its existence Covent Garden served as a fruit and vegetable market covering the whole of the square. Back in the 1600s the land belonged to Westminster Abbey and was a Convent garden, hence the name.



It emerged in its current form out of an experiment in London of town planning as the creation of a public square, developed by the Earl of Bedford, Charles I and architect Inigo Jones. It also introduced Italian style Palladian columns, some smart houses and a grids for streets instead of London's random twists and turns.

The original public square ultimately caused the residential well-heeled toffs to leave the area for Bloomsbury to escape the riff-raff and lack of privacy.



Then the Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed the major markets in the City and the fruit market moved to this area where it remained for around 300 years, evolving in the late 1800s to a covering of the area with a train station style roof.



The final closure of the extensive fruit market in the 1970s was an effect of London road congestion and became the reason for the market to move to South of the river to its current Nine Elms location.

Unimaginative developers wanted to knock down the market and build a conference centre but local opposition was so strong that a renovation plan ensued creating what is, today, a major magnet for tourists and Londoners at rest. Street performers ply their amusements on every corner and there is always a big crowd by the Punch and Judy pub looking out to the end of the square where a high wire act, jugglers or a stand-up will be working the crowd (or sometimes one person doing all three together).



The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the Covent Garden Opera House also operate in the area and it has a 'one way' tube station at certain times of the year (exit only) and this encourages tourists to wander the area and then find a different way back from Leicester Square or Embankment.



And of course, the spirits from many a yesteryear still inhabit the whole area.

Close your eyes, listen to the noise and you can imagine any time from the past in this vibrant part of London.

But I only took these snaps as I passed through on my way to Shoreditch.

Nikon D300

Nikon sent me their publicity for their new D300 camera. I frequently use Nikon cameras and think they are excellent; even the base-line D40 is a very good piece of kit. As the cameras get bigger numbers they get more expensive, except for the ones with only one number which are REALLY expensive.

I think the D300 is really the souped-up D200 with a new wibbulator to shake dust off the sensor when lenses are changed and better waterproofing than the cling-film that I sometimes use on my Nikons. There's some new LiveView preview technology for when the mirror is up, though I'm so used to SLRs that I'm not sure whether this is slightly like a consumer feature. They have also added an HDMI output for links to HD televisions, though I don't think I'd use one of the HDMI slots on my television for an SLR feed.

They also announced an eye-watering D3 (one digit, so pricey), which is really for folk of the press. To be honest, I find the intermediate cameras more useful for my type of photography. The really expensive ones have big built in battery compartments and bulk which equates to weight. Not as easy to wrap up in a T-shirt and chuck into a backpack.

I see that DX and FX are now the designations for the size of the capture areas in SLRs. DX is the smaller size used by most digital and FX is a bigger format like 35mm film. Of course there needs to be a bigger and bulkier lens for the FX format, so I guess thats where the press end of the market is headed.

The dichotomy is that sometimes its better not to look too professional when out with a camera, because it can either put people off or even prevent entry to some things (has happened to me). On other occasions, a super-duper camera is what's needed to 'look the part' like when were hyping the Warhol production in Edinburgh. Big lenses equated to 'press interest'.

I still believe its finding the shot rather than the camera, and there are some excellent people on flickr who prove this time and again.

tags technorati : rashbre D300 D200 D40 D80 D3 D2 Nikon Canon

Technorati Tags: Canon, D2, D200, D3, D300, D40, D80, Nikon, rashbre

17 and rising

17 teenage gun deaths in London this year, most recently Brixton this month. A gun killing of a biker on the M40 a few days ago and now an 11 year old killed in Liverpool by a BMX teen cyclist with a shotgun.

Gang culture is ascribed as a form of belonging, often with violence as entry price. Social deprivation, petty crime and the spiral to drugs and organized crime become the challenges for the projects trying to stabilize and turn the tide. A family is supposed to teach independence, but a gang seems to drive dependence.

Ethnicity is in the debate but only a few days ago a white male gang leader was sent to prison following violence based rule of Nottingham. The Krays have gone, but there is still organized money making at the edge of the law.

Pop Culture also features; number one on Billboard is Underground Kingz with lyrics about 44's, glocks and Ks (guns) and 454's (shot gun cartridges). Teens of all types face gory Playstation options as influences.

Intellectualising about missing context and cultural references being replaced by Americana doesn't do it for me. The 'only amongst themselves' arguments also seem rather convenient. Near enough to where I live we've had both a drive by shooting at a petrol station and a gang related murder (years apart but in memory).

So what to do? Socializing, Governance, Education? All have price tags and timescale implications. Heavy policing? Risks of escalation. The thing for sure is to bring this into the agenda. We all need it to be better.

137 - bus of champions

Meetings in central London today, with Oyster card to the fore.

Main journey was on the bus of champions, the 137. Lets face it, the number 25 and the number 10 get lots of press for the areas they visit and are part of prime tourist London, but the 137 knows a thing or two also. From crossing the River Thames, to meandering through Sloane Square, past King's Road and all along Sloane Street, through Knightsbridge, Park Lane, Mayfair and finally to Oxford Street, it can show a sight or two.

And some of them seem to be new generation buses, too. Extra wide-windows and most of the cameras and general high-tech pieces look as if they were designed in, rather than added as afterthoughts. And they seem to be called Enviro, which presumably means they are good for the smog.

And the windows make it easier to take pictures, too. Here's a few snaps from the journey.



Older version of the same bus



Oxford Street specializes in buses and taxis.



and tourist shoppers



mainly buying Man U and Arsenal soccer shirts



Sometimes its best to know when to leave

who

Another upload from the crowd at Glastonbury during the Who. Its taken a while to get these out of the phone and converted for the web. I shall have to try .mac sharing instead of continuing to scrounge space from rashbre. Wooo!

mash can be a comfort

Some say mash is a comfort food. I decided to listen to a few today. Here's the Rolling Stones vs Rhinocerose jumping in a cubicle.
jumping in a cubicle
And some dire straights vs the sex pistols avec un petit drumbeat.
money for the queen
Thanks to the moule.

trapped in iphone

" title="Photo Sharing">These iphones seem to catch people unawares.

Nitin at the Proms

A rather blurry picture from the end of the Nitin Sawhney concert. The camera we were using seems to have a mind of its own and kept destroying the pictures.

Nitin Sawhney is a remarkably versatile artist and this concert showed some of the breadth, from simple acoustic pieces, through voice only effects to full symphony orchestra sized pieces, by way of sitar-based Indian fusion. Quite an evening, with an astonishing amount packed in. Listen to Prophesy.

another evening without makeup

We found the missing tiny stills camera and I've started to offload some of the material from Glastonbury. Here's a rain drenched moment from the Long Blondes with Kate singing about makeup (or the lack of it). Spot the umbrellas.

A few London concerts

I've managed to get tickets for a few London shows in the next few weeks.

This Friday its Nitin Sawhney at the Albert Hall as part of the Proms.

I'll also be doing Proms in the Park which is a bit more poppy and at the end of August it's Prince. These will be some good gigs to look forward to.

As well as a side visit to Birmingham at some point to see Rufus.

The picture is the Royal Albert Hall from the top of a 452 bus and if you look closely you can also see the reflection of the Albert Memorial, which is on the other side of the road in the park.