Sic transit gloria mundi
Sep. 2nd, 2004 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaI do a lot of driving, almost always by myself. One of the ways I fill in long hours on motorways is by, er, looking at stuff. This tends to include other traffic, roadsigns, etc, but also anything interesting by the side of the road. And I can be interested by practically anything.
I drive from Reading to West London reasonably often, down the M4 and onto the North Circular. I like the view from the elevated section of the M4, there's a good variety of interesting and different buildings. The most notable is probably the peculiarly two-dimensional-looking building erected by GlaxoGlaxoSmithKleinBeechamDibble&Grubb. That's almost a difficult building to look at, the angles are so strange that at driving speed I can't properly take it in. I like it, though. Mind you, having driven past it a few times at sunset, I don't think covering a west-facing wall next to a motorway with mirrored glass was a particularly smart move.
There's a couple of buildings, whose character and antecedents I don't know, which remind me of stills I've seen from Metropolis (I've never seen the film). I've often thought that I'd like to photograph them in half-light, but I've never worked out where I'd stand to do so - I doubt enthusiastic amateur photography is a good enough reason for stopping on the hard shoulder.
There's also an awful lot of scruffy, graffiti'd brickwork, and some strangely lurid advertising hoardings, usually advertising fcuk or Les Miserables.
However. Dark days are upon us. The Lucozade sign is no more. The sign, showing an illuminated Lucozade bottle pouring into a glass (with flashing lights to mark the bubbles), was on the side of a very derelict building just at the turn off for the North Circular. It also included a display showing the time and, I think, the temperature, and served as a useful warning that it was time to hop off the M4 before perils like Hammersmith and congestion charges hove into view.
I've actually been surprised that, whenever I've mentioned it, people who drive along the M4 have said "what?" and "there is?" and things like that. A quick google confirms that it's not just me who loved it as a landmark. A rather gloomy piece from the Grauniad reports that it's gone to a museum - but that its likely fate is being broken up to exhibit its 1950's electronic components to the paying public. The BBC is rather more upbeat, and suggests that an advertising firm has applied for permission to erect a permanent replica of the sign. Hurrah for JC Decaux, I say.
In general, I like the fact that London is always changing. Unlike, say, Paris - a couple of hundred years ago the French said "right, that's finished", and haven't built much since. London's skyline is constantly evolving. And, if new things are to be built, I suppose old things have to go. I look forward to seeing what is built on the site of the derelict building once it's demolished.
I'm going to miss the Lucozade sign, though.
I drive from Reading to West London reasonably often, down the M4 and onto the North Circular. I like the view from the elevated section of the M4, there's a good variety of interesting and different buildings. The most notable is probably the peculiarly two-dimensional-looking building erected by GlaxoGlaxoSmithKleinBeechamDibble&Grubb. That's almost a difficult building to look at, the angles are so strange that at driving speed I can't properly take it in. I like it, though. Mind you, having driven past it a few times at sunset, I don't think covering a west-facing wall next to a motorway with mirrored glass was a particularly smart move.
There's a couple of buildings, whose character and antecedents I don't know, which remind me of stills I've seen from Metropolis (I've never seen the film). I've often thought that I'd like to photograph them in half-light, but I've never worked out where I'd stand to do so - I doubt enthusiastic amateur photography is a good enough reason for stopping on the hard shoulder.
There's also an awful lot of scruffy, graffiti'd brickwork, and some strangely lurid advertising hoardings, usually advertising fcuk or Les Miserables.
However. Dark days are upon us. The Lucozade sign is no more. The sign, showing an illuminated Lucozade bottle pouring into a glass (with flashing lights to mark the bubbles), was on the side of a very derelict building just at the turn off for the North Circular. It also included a display showing the time and, I think, the temperature, and served as a useful warning that it was time to hop off the M4 before perils like Hammersmith and congestion charges hove into view.
I've actually been surprised that, whenever I've mentioned it, people who drive along the M4 have said "what?" and "there is?" and things like that. A quick google confirms that it's not just me who loved it as a landmark. A rather gloomy piece from the Grauniad reports that it's gone to a museum - but that its likely fate is being broken up to exhibit its 1950's electronic components to the paying public. The BBC is rather more upbeat, and suggests that an advertising firm has applied for permission to erect a permanent replica of the sign. Hurrah for JC Decaux, I say.
In general, I like the fact that London is always changing. Unlike, say, Paris - a couple of hundred years ago the French said "right, that's finished", and haven't built much since. London's skyline is constantly evolving. And, if new things are to be built, I suppose old things have to go. I look forward to seeing what is built on the site of the derelict building once it's demolished.
I'm going to miss the Lucozade sign, though.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 03:46 am (UTC)Well, I had to look at something when stuck in traffic...
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Date: 2004-09-02 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 04:07 am (UTC)But I was more upset by the fact that the Gap roudabout (at the top of Old Street) is no longer sponsored by Gap, although it still sports its strange blue abstract thingie. So directing people via 'the Gap roundabout - you'll know it when you see it' no longer works :-(
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Date: 2004-09-02 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 04:21 am (UTC)I would so much like to be able to wander around London and not see cranes and building sites. They are a bit of an eyesore.
When I was a student in London my hall of residence was opposite an office block which was being demolished. Every morning from 7 they'd knock a bit more off the top, and it wasn't funny.
Still, that hall of residence has since suffered the same fate, and that's No Bad Thing.
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Date: 2004-09-02 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 05:11 am (UTC)GlaxoGlaxoSmithKleinBeechamDibble&Grubb
*laughs* Aren't they simply Glaxo now?
The Hoover Building is another fine landmark in that direction.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 05:31 am (UTC)Well, the Brentford building still says "GlaxoSmithKlein" (or is it Kline?). I don't know whether they'd have updated that or not, though.
The Hoover Building is another fine landmark in that direction.
Indeed. During the day, it's lovely, as your link suggests. But why, why for heaven's sake, do they floodlight it scary, scary, luminous lime green the instant the sun goes down ? Why, I say ?
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Date: 2004-09-02 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 05:46 am (UTC)They have changed it a number of times, but they have been gsk for quite a while now.
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Date: 2004-09-02 04:33 am (UTC)I felt similarly when they painted over the gorilla on the way into Paddington.
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Date: 2004-09-02 06:18 am (UTC)Then you ought. Would you like to borrow a copy?
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Date: 2004-09-02 06:27 am (UTC)I'm very very bad at getting round to watching films. When I've watched the films I borrowed a few years ago, and watched the films I've been given as presents over the last few years, I'll get back to you :)
Er...
Date: 2004-09-02 10:46 am (UTC)You may have got me on this one. Ah well. They'll call back if it was important.
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Date: 2004-09-03 03:22 am (UTC)Hello, it wasn't someone else entirely, just me as mostly as it ever gets. I guess you are
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Date: 2004-09-03 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-03 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-03 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-03 04:08 am (UTC)Satisfactory conclusions all round, then.
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Date: 2004-09-03 04:23 am (UTC)I was amused earlier on by the tea lady calling me the little girl.
*waves and bounces hello*
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Date: 2004-09-03 04:24 am (UTC)I don't think any shame is required, all parties seem quite pleased with the idea :)
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Date: 2004-09-03 05:07 am (UTC)Okay, so thats a bit of a lie, but we have a very dodgy phone line, which does buzz a lot, so it was likely at our end.