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Sep. 12th, 2008
Okay, today Nick and I went up to Liverpool to see this chess tournament that's taking place there.
Right. Let's start with a minor shock. There used to be a place where, every time I emerged from Forbidden Planet in Bold Street, I'd head off to and have a cup of tea and a Cumberland sausage barm, without fail. Not any more. The bloody Sayers' the Bakers in Bold Street's closed after, what, a quarter of a century.
Just down the road, there's a fucking Starbuck's facing off opposite a Costa. Prime suspects.
The Waterstone's proved extremely useful to me - I bought an introductory book on NLP there, and noted the existence of a book by Dr Tad James, something I'll look into on my next trip to a Waterstone's. There was also this young lass who made pouches for Tarot cards. Nick had to introduce me to her as "my friend," and with the knowing look on the girl's face she put two and two together and came up with gay sex.
So, not entirely so good. But a small thing, compared to the amazingly badly designed centre of town shopping mall area they've built there.
It's an architectural scab. Pure and simple. The corner buildings are a McDonalds and a JD Sports. Chav-fucking--tastic. Deeper into the street, the building turned into this big, grey block of grey bricks, with glass-panelled railings on the stairs. I looked and said "Imagine the injuries they'd have to treat if someone fell through that glass head first."
Oh, and the things I called this street's buildings.
- Prison block.
- Abattoir.
- Lunatic asylum.
- Power plant.
- Tractor factory.
- That building in Soylent Green where people go in at one end for euthanasia, listening to Beethoven and watching film footage of daffodils, and come out of the other end as Soylent Green food bars.
There was a department store in the middle. It looked like a hospital ward. Specifically, an oncology ward. I said something along those lines, and added "a place that only MRSA could feel at home in." I think I said something along the lines of this whole place being "the only thing archaeologists will dig up in five millennia: the only part of Liverpool that will be found, this ... this plastic excresence being the only part of a town that was the Rome of its day."
I then realised that there was this man with a suit and a hard hat listening to what I was saying, with a crestfallen expression.
I described the place elsewhere as being "efficient," "like a Kraftwerk album" and found myself thinking of the mall as being a machine designed to funnel chavs from one shopping outlet to the next like a prdestrian powered conveyor belt system.
"Shopping And Play Together At Last" read one sign. "Fools! Queue Here To Be Parted With Your Money!" thought I.
Chess stuff next.
Right. Let's start with a minor shock. There used to be a place where, every time I emerged from Forbidden Planet in Bold Street, I'd head off to and have a cup of tea and a Cumberland sausage barm, without fail. Not any more. The bloody Sayers' the Bakers in Bold Street's closed after, what, a quarter of a century.
Just down the road, there's a fucking Starbuck's facing off opposite a Costa. Prime suspects.
The Waterstone's proved extremely useful to me - I bought an introductory book on NLP there, and noted the existence of a book by Dr Tad James, something I'll look into on my next trip to a Waterstone's. There was also this young lass who made pouches for Tarot cards. Nick had to introduce me to her as "my friend," and with the knowing look on the girl's face she put two and two together and came up with gay sex.
So, not entirely so good. But a small thing, compared to the amazingly badly designed centre of town shopping mall area they've built there.
It's an architectural scab. Pure and simple. The corner buildings are a McDonalds and a JD Sports. Chav-fucking--tastic. Deeper into the street, the building turned into this big, grey block of grey bricks, with glass-panelled railings on the stairs. I looked and said "Imagine the injuries they'd have to treat if someone fell through that glass head first."
Oh, and the things I called this street's buildings.
- Prison block.
- Abattoir.
- Lunatic asylum.
- Power plant.
- Tractor factory.
- That building in Soylent Green where people go in at one end for euthanasia, listening to Beethoven and watching film footage of daffodils, and come out of the other end as Soylent Green food bars.
There was a department store in the middle. It looked like a hospital ward. Specifically, an oncology ward. I said something along those lines, and added "a place that only MRSA could feel at home in." I think I said something along the lines of this whole place being "the only thing archaeologists will dig up in five millennia: the only part of Liverpool that will be found, this ... this plastic excresence being the only part of a town that was the Rome of its day."
I then realised that there was this man with a suit and a hard hat listening to what I was saying, with a crestfallen expression.
I described the place elsewhere as being "efficient," "like a Kraftwerk album" and found myself thinking of the mall as being a machine designed to funnel chavs from one shopping outlet to the next like a prdestrian powered conveyor belt system.
"Shopping And Play Together At Last" read one sign. "Fools! Queue Here To Be Parted With Your Money!" thought I.
Chess stuff next.
