Bank holiday news

This weekend is http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifthe summer Bank Holiday. I still find it funny that they call these days off Bank Holidays, why is that any better or worse/funnier than Memorial or Labor Day? Anyway, boils down to another day off.

So I'm taking advantage by hiving off to the land of my parents. That's right after 10 months I'm finally going to Wales. Got an ihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifnvite to attend the Wales v. France Rugby Union match in the famed Millennium Stadium. It may only be famous to me, come to think of it. This is why its famous - in 1999 I was toiling away in Atlanta for Deloitte & Touche. My New Zealand aunt and uncle, who among others stayed with me for the 1996 Olympics, were on another round the world trip and visiting their homeland. My Uncle sent the family an email description of being in the new stadium for a rugby world cup game and how amazing it was to hear all those people singing. So that's why the stadium is famous and that's why I'm looking forward to going.

There is also the rest of the city (lots of regeneration to take pictures of) and the rugby - but really its really the singing.

My first celebrity sighting

OK, I was just reviewing my last posts and realised I need to inject a little humanity and humour into the blog. So here goes, on Sunday I had my first celebrity sighting (is that the correct way to spell siting/citing? must be, with a "C" I would be referring to it, right? update - thanks Marcia, OF COURSE its sighting - duh!) I digress, I live in a very posh neighborhood - well beyond my means (its an apartment that belongs to a friend, thanks, Virg). When I tell folks where I live they usually make some sort of comment about the neighborhood. Usually followed by, "have you ever seen any celebrities?"

Now there is two things wrong with that question 1) I don't know many British celebrities because they have many different ones than Americans do, so I'm only just beginning to catch on and 2) I'm mostly not looking for celebrities so even if I knew them I probably wouldn't realise they were celebs until much later.

However, dear reader, on Sunday I actually twigged to a celeb siting in real time! It was in a book store, I was down on my hands and knees trying to find a copy of Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye" since I had been previously thwarted in my attempt to purchase the new Peter L. Bernstein book, "Capital Ideas Evolved" - not out in UK yet - drat you John Wiley and Sons. See how erudite I am? But the point is I'm groveling on the floor in the Waterstone's, when I hear a voice I recognise. Odd, I think to myself, I'm in a country where I know almost no one and I recognise a voice? So of course I squirm around to see who it is and its Russel Brand, easily recognisable because he has a giant bird's nest of hair and is dressed all in black.

Those of you who are regular readers (or who cleverly followed the link), know that Mr. Brand is a comedian who I wrote about in January because he was seriously over exposed and I was fascinated - so its funny that I would have this celeb encounter.

OK, so encounter is kind of a big word for realising I knew the voice, turning around and recognising him, catching his eye, then turning away in embarrassment. Why embarrassment? I have no idea, I guess I thought he should be able to do his book shopping in peace and I was bordering on gawking. So I left him to his shopping took my book to the counter, paid and took it home - celeb sighting over.

BTW, the Raymond Chandler book rocks.

Friday night at Tate Modern Urbanity exhibition

What can I say? I spent a Friday night looking at MORE city planning stuff. This exhibition called Global Cities is in the huge power hall. Some of us went after work. The exhibit was really good, nothing really new but interesting to see the kind of research you do laid out in an exhibit.

The part I was most taken with was the modeling of the population relative to the size of a city - giant sculptures that reflected the population density as peaks. The photos curated to support the exhibition where also interesting. The pace of change is not something I don't know about (double negative) but when its graphically portrayed for each of the five cities its quite shocking.

Best of all, because it was at the Tate you can site down at the bar and discuss with the friends you came with.

Bad infill

Back in London wandering around, this time I'm headed down from my flat to the Primrose Hill area and strolling along I saw this!

I'm not sure where to begin, on the one hand it looks like some one took the roof off and added a cube in the middle and poked a giant window in the middle. Then to try and make it look more - I don't know.. British?? - they added a window treatment that makes your eyes water, can you see it? Look at the shape at the top of the upper window - sort of a modified regency thingy perhaps from the inside it seems like a good idea...

Unfortunately I believe the owner or a visitor to the home saw me talking a picture and I had to skedaddle, otherwise I would have tried for more angles. and whats' up with that colour? I am going to assume its faded and was not chosen that way.

Same neighborhood, part of the door collection

Keep walking, take a left and there is an amazing street of row houses with very similar fronts but each door is slightly different - different colours, brick patterns, stained glass, flower boxes etc. This was my favorite on the street. Wish I could have showed you the street it was very interesting seeing all the difference which some how remained the same.

Couldn't help myself, here's another door on that street. Note that it is EXACTLY the same door - bricks painted and door stripped. May be I need to go back and look at those doors again, perhaps its all paint and mirrors...