Thursday, June 28, 2007

Bye Bye Blair


One of the (few) advantages of working in Victoria is that it's relatively close to Westminster. That's why there's never much tube traffic on a Monday as the civil servants take advantage of flexi-time...

Therefore, when I read the itinerary of Blair's final day, I realised it was more than possible to wander up to Downing Street to see the final moments in person. A short walk and I was outside the center of power.

There was a definite mood that this was an 'event'. Ugly protesters tried to disturb the solemnity of the occasion. They were by no means only protesting the war, there was a wide range of causes displaying their badly made placards. Strangely enough, people still seem to blame Blair personally for the war in Iraq. Do they really think he could have stopped the war?

The event, for the general public, was made much more difficult by the police. They pushed everyone a LONG way back from the gates of Downing Street, under the pretext that they had to swing the gates back. They pushed us back about fifteen meters from the entrance of Downing St, which was much further than made sense from the opening.

It's a shame that security considerations now mean that such distance must be kept from 'important' people. Hopefully at some point we will try and have a little trust that the public won't try and kill famous people too often!

Anyway, the police stopped me from having a good view. But I managed to be among the few people cheering and applauding Blair as he finished his ten years in office. He gave a little wave from his car. I can imagine that he's got the BEST feeling in the entire world this morning. Nothing at all to worry about for a couple of days.

Well done Tony Blair. He will be missed (at least by me)

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Small bars, many people


Went to Lab bar again last night. Seem to have been going there more often recently, I think more people have discovered it, though it's been there for a couple of years.

I don't know if it's me getting older but it seemed overly crowded last night. If you're going to have a very trendy bar that becomes popular, I think you should look at restricting the number of people going in to it!
Unfortunately this results in places like Mahikis and Pangea which then become magnets for socialite types who want to show everyone how 'important' they are.

Personally, I believe in hunting down new and funky places - this helps to keep things simple. It also avoids too much crowding.
I suspect I'm going to experience more bar crowding when I start working in Soho, but hopefully it'll also give me the chance to find the new trendy bars before they get too busy.
Also, I'll be quite close to the Sanderson which doesn't seem to get too crowded (the wince-inducing prices scare most people away!!)