8 posts from 2006

Sorry, I'd stopped posting.
I'd decided that I'd stopped loving London.
It's noisy.
It's smelly.
People are rude. Etc.Etc. Etc.

Then Sophie and I were on Brick Lane on Sunday afternoon and we saw a young guy and girl (probably early to mid 20s) with 2 mics and a tiny amp. They'd brought Brick Lane to a standstill. She had an awesome voice, he was the best beatboxer I've ever seen. They were firing out big party tracks just using their voices. It was so good I felt my eyes watering.

This video clip from my mobile won't do it any justice at all. But you might get the idea (it's a version of 7 Nation Army by The White Stripes)...

Sex Changes Here

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You'll probably have to click on the image and enlarge it to see what I'm talking about. But it's great that you can now get this kind of alteration done in walk-in centres in London.

Flyposter

I like the fact that people feel empowered to be creative in their local environment.

blooms pianos

I like the fact that you can see recent history all around you. Not necessarily really old stuff. Perhaps just things that have changed in our lifetimes. Makes you feel a sense of things changing. Ideally, I suppose, a progression.

This old signage is clearly visible on the end of a row of shops and both the scale and the craft of it are really impressive.

Walking to Work

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Walking to work is pretty cool. Especialy when the weather's nice. I wouldn't like to have to go on a train, or a long car journey everyday. That would be bad.

Early Morning From My Window

So here's my first real post. The first thing that I like about London. Something that I don't think that I'd get anywhere else, apart from another city like London. Actually that's made me think of a 4th rule...

Rule 4: What I post about must be unique to London, or at the very least another big city a lot like London.

Sorry, back to my original point.

This picture represents the quietness and stillness of an early morning in London. Sitting at my table at 5.15 as I was looking out of the open window. I could hear almost nothing. The city was pretty much silent. That was cool. It's such a contrast from the noise and business that will start running up and down the road in a couple of hours time. A contrast that I don't think I'd get to the same extent anywhere else.

I need some rules. A list to keep me on track.

1. Post regularly - if I can't post more than twice a week I'm struggling. Experiment failed. I'm not seeing enough good things.
2. Post broadly - if all I'm able to blog about is bands that I could go and see, or exhibitions that I've got good intentions about seeing. Experiment failed. I need to be observing, and believing, a breadth of reasons to love London.
3. Keep track - for my experiment to work I need to be in touch not only with stuff that's going on around me, but also how I'm feeling about the city. This is going to be a hard bit. To be public and open about my feelings towards London.
4. (added later) Be Unique - whatever I post must be something that's either unique to London, or at the very least a big city (part of what I've fallen out with is city living, so if it's something that just reawakens a love of cities, that's fine too).
   

I kind of think that's it. Keep it simple. Keep it manageable.

I'm not sure what the endgame is. I don't know how to measure success. I'm just hoping that I'll know if I've succeeded or failed.

If anyone has any other thoughts, tips or advice, let me know.

OK, here goes. My mission statement. My 'hello world'. The reason this page is here. The reason I'm adding even more clutter to the information glut. It's an experiment. Simple as that. But an experiment that's quite important for me personally.

The Setup

Russell and I were chatting about how blogging has changed our view on the world. How it's made us more critical, more observant, etc. And he was talking about how, by committing to something in public, in a blog post, can end up influencing your behaviour and intention to go through with something. I absolutely know this to be true. Even if only a few hundred people read something on my blog, that's far more people than I'd get round to telling about it in the real world. And I do feel duty bound to go through with a promise I might make.

I began to think about blogging as an interesting tool, not a publishing tool, but as a 'self-improvement' tool. And tried to come up with something that I could experiment with...

The Experiment

I'm growing sick of living in London. I've loved it for years. The hustle and bustle. The activity. The cultural opportunties. The fact I'm surrounded by great people who've been attracted by the opportunities that a capital city can provide. Etc. etc. etc.

But in the last couple of months I've started to lose my enthusiasm and just get fed up with it.

So, my experiment is this:

Can blogging positive stuff about London stop me from falling out of love with the city?

I'm not sure. Let's see.

The Hypothesis

• If I'm trying to see good things around me. I will see good things around me.
• If I'm saying good things about London, I'll start to believe good things about London.