Doppelgänger

A doppelgänger is a double of another person. Further, it is also referred to as the sensation of seeing yourself in a position where it is impossible that it could have been a reflection.

That is the inspiration for this:

The overwhelmingly malign presence haunted Blake Pictin, there was no explanation for its presence, it hung about him almost festering but without tangible existence. He was momentarily certain that the presence was in fact himself. He knew that it bore all of his characteristics, he knew that the presence was an intangible representation of himself. He felt his flaccid arms at his side wrap themselves around his upper torso, placing a huge amount of pressure on his thorax, his breathing became heavy and restricted and the power required to overcome the intensity of the pressure was immense. His head became weary and intoxicated from the lack of oxygen but as he leaned backwards to balance himself he felt the distinct feeling of abandonment, his chest was released and he inhaled rapidly. Now aware, with certainty, of the individual behind him, he knew it to be of similar build, he could vaguely make out the strong defined jaw line and the steep harsh nose of his profile. Yet he was unable to move, it was as if he knew everything about the individual behind him and that it had always been there, he knew he did not need to turn around yet he knew at the same moment that he would not be able to even if he had wanted. He was again affirmed by its presence, he knew it down to the most intimate detail but somehow now its face eluded him, the vision of its face was now collapsing into a dark void, the only thing of which Blake was certain was the profile, beyond that it was a stranger, a complete unknown. Intoxicated by this merging of reassurance and vulnerability Blake was now certain that it was a gentleman standing behind him. He was certain that if were to turn his head there was a possibility that he would see the face and the familiarity that it overwhelmingly exerted, but he knew that time was escaping him, he knew this person could leave him at any second and he felt that second approaching.

Intoxicated by this sense of inevitability Blake fell, he fell with complete reassurance that in only a moment he would be within the company of a great friend and companion. He fell backwards, the entire world moving forward behind his eyes, his arms were still by his side, he made no attempt to break his own fall and at the same time knew nothing would stop him other than the arid ground to which he was fast approaching. He caught a glimpse of the sun which burned into his retinas blinding all recognition he had for this old friend, his mind was now boiling with a flurry of intense colours all overlapping one another but at the same time all individually and distinctively visible. His eyes were screaming out in pain as the image of this great friend was wiped by the arches, sprays and polygons of colours. His head hit the sandy plain and through the dusty mist which surrounded his lifeless body his eyes rolled back into his head. Blake saw, entangled and encompassed by the hallucinations of his sun-burned gaze, the image which he had known all along. The instant familiarity was not a shock, nor was it an expectation, it was neither the reassuring friend nor the menacing stranger. In that momentary glimpse Blake knew for certain that he had seen his own image, the omnipotent and ever present image of himself since birth, an image of himself which he had never seen before and knew not to exist but ultimately understood to be himself. He knew not to look at himself any longer. He was terrorized by the fact that he had stepped beyond the realms of his own understanding, this expansion of his mind had turned the vast open sands upon which he lay into a minuscule part of his body. His eyes fluttered as the hot midday sun burned into his retinas, offering him its final and most dramatic display of light which softly faded into a grey mist far colder than his burning face.

Doppelgänger

The Empire Strikes Back

What the Iraq war enquiry highlights is a country in a state of desperation, desperate to define an international character amid the emergence of a new international landscape and the decline of empire. Britain is still living in the shadow of the grandeur of empire, there is still a tangible sense that we as a nation are unwilling to be bandied along with the rest of Europe when only sixty years ago we possessed a worlds upon which the sun never set. This unwillingness to be defined as European is manifesting itself in a sort of neo-imperialism, an attempt to re-assert ourselves as a global player.

But it cant go on for ever, at the moment we are aligning ourselves politically with America and economically with Europe. However, to have any economic power within Europe we are going to have to become more politically involved and that is going to mean less hanging around with the USA, because they get us into a lot trouble with the European bigwigs, like the court of human rights and NATO, all that lot. But, as Europe becomes a more cohesive whole we will inevitably lose clout, the problem is that as a nation we still have the impression that we are an international power, and refuse to let go of those memories of exotic riches.

Now, I don't personally think it is a bad thing seeing ourselves as superior and separate from the other EU member states, lets face it we have a rich and iconic history, we have produced some of the finest minds and greatest technologies the world had to offer and the only thing we lost to the Germans in World War Two were the Channel Islands. See, even I'm doing it.

The problem is that post WW2 mainland Europe underwent drastic and revolutionary changes, the countries that had been occupied became liberated and many became instantly re-occupied. Europe had to reorganise into a solid power block in order to avoid a repeat performance of the the previous 50 years of instability and war and to battle the bigger and badder threat of the USSR. The UK was somewhat removed from this, we hadn't been occupied, we had actually liberated Europe, fighting side by side with the Americans. As a result we didn't undergo big democratic and political changes so couldn't share in that fraternity. On top of all of that we still had a large empire that was intact although fraying at the edges, so were effectively still a world power.

This is where national pride was most deeply rooted, but colonialism was not chic any more, the total destruction of Europe in the name of imperialism and the brutality that the soviet regime was unleashing on the eastern bloc threw Britain's empire into question. So as the heroic liberators of Europe we slowly liberated the colonies with all the pomp and pretension with which we ruled them. However, this cost the nation its power and prestige and its a problem we are still addressing to this day.

There have been three specific occasions where Britain's desire for empire has crocked up and bucked the trend of decolonisation since the second world war, the first was the Suez crisis in 1956 which was a humiliating debacle and highlighted the decline in international prestige that the country was facing. However, a gift horse in the form of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland islands in 1982 gave us a chance to shine once again and showed the world that although we had very little left to fight for we would still fight for it. The publicity and popularity this bought to an ailing thatcher meant that every PM has sought their own Falklands to unite the country through militaristic and imperial pride in an overwhelming atmosphere of deline.

Iraq was the third occasion and what may colourfully be referred to as 'a complete fuck up'. Iraq was Blair's Falklands, except it didn't make him more popular, it wasn't an example of fine British military tactics, it definitely wasn't a success and rather than improving the flagging reputation of a once great nation is has actually made us look like the United States lap dog. These are indeed unfortunate times.

So, what the Iraq inquiry will unearth more than anything else is that whilst Blair made some bad decisions he did so in the pursuit of international stature, much like Churchill of the 1950s, Churchill mark-two. Blair managed to badly mix two elements of British political history, imperialism and the 'special relationship' and has come out with a bastard child world where Alistair Campbell still thinks Blair is the Prime Minister and a Britain is hated by Europe, not for being too British but for being too American.

The Empire Strikes Back

Happy new year!!! LOLZ, etc.

My new years resolutions are as follows:

1. Eat less junk.
2. Write 500 words a day on anything, specifically fiction.
3. Attempt more than one blog post per month.

So far I am failing miserably on all fronts, last night I had fried chicken and chips for dinner followed by a 4am burger and chips. I have thus far written zero fiction since the fictitious people in my head seemed to have jumped ship on me. I suppose I am keeping up with the blog, but that was tacked on about two minutes ago to make me feel better about myself and to be fair the last post, whilst a legitimate entry, was pretty weak since it only contained about eight words and the picture had already been whored pretty heavily on facebook.

Other aims for this year include:

1. Making some lame short films about nothing.
2. Spending more time outside, literally.
3. Get back into reading.

Since starting my degree I have learned that it is never good to mix work with something you actually enjoy. I can say this with 100% conviction since this is attempt number two in the higher education system. Whilst I do thoroughly enjoy what I am learning, the joy of reading has been totally demolished by the amount of course reading I have to do, the last time I optionally read a book was about a year ago and I am yet to finish it. Sadface. FYI it was The Unlimited Dream Company by J. G. Ballard and whilst I think he is one of the finest authors this country has ever produced it is depressing how repetitive and unimaginative (by his standards) the novel actually is.

Anyway, enough of being emo about myself, it is now time to get on with the importance that is nothing whilst listening to pop-punk and pretending it's summer even though it's snowing and apparently minus ten degrees outside.

Peace out (that's a 90s expression and now officially vintage).

Happy new year!!! LOLZ, etc.

It's snowing, we are all going to die...

It's like the Day after Tomorrow and everything is at a standstill as per usual. Happy days...

It's snowing, we are all going to die...

Dead C'lebs

This year has been a particularly bad year for real people dying, real people are the people that you or I personally knew, unless you know a celebrity personally then they do not fall into this category. Real deaths are tragic, personal and intimate occasions, celebrity deaths are not.

Every now and again a celebrity dies and the press go into overdrive on a feeding frenzy, suckling on every little piece of dirt and sensation they can find. In a way

you can't really blame them for this because the state of the publishing industries is DIRE at the moment and every paper they can sell just pushes the demise of the published word a little further back. So the joyous thing that this desperate situation brings is a feast of gory details portaining to the deaths and grizzly lives of these much lauded but always deeply flawed individuals.

There were two equally enormous feeding frenzies this year, the first came with the death of Jade Goody which essentially became a national event occupying hours of valuable prime time TV space, thousands of pages of print and saw a bizarre outpouring of public grief. A couple of months later this was somewhat eclipsed by the goliath event that was the death of everyones favourite pop star Michael Jackson. Now, I say eclipsed because by anyones standards the slow demise of Jade was a media feast of epic proportions but anything us Brits can do the Yanks can do bigger and better and as everyone is well aware Jacko's death trip was utterly unbelievable. The unveiling of his children alone was just beyond acceptable...

The British offering to the memory of the king, and this is really unbelievable because we pulled something extra special out of the bag, was a live séance where Jackson was contacted in the other world! "No shit!" I hear you cry! Afraid so, some dick off the TV "contacted" Jackson and lame little fan boys and look-alikes got to ask meanial questions, declare their love for him and break down LIVE on national TV. Oh, I forgot to mention David Guest and June Sarpong were there too, so all the people he would want to talk to right?

Back to Jade TV. The Jade death trip was a highly surreal experience, she announced her cancer on live TV and was then followed by cameras almost until the moment she died, when she was too ill to speak to the press "family" and "friends" were more than obliging to divulge all the gory details. As things slowly got worse and worse for poor old Jade we just kept getting closer and closer to her. Essentially that box of light and sound in the corner became a sentient and suffering human being that we had to deal with all day every day.

Then came the wedding! A happy occasion, no? Nope, not when the bride is terminal and only doing it to sell the coverage rights to OK magazine, she said it was for the children which was most probably true but all involved parties would have made a killing too (bad pun). Consequently, while I'm having a pop at OK magazine I think it should be remembered that their "Jade tribute issue" was actually released before she died, the final macabre act of a sinister media circus. And in another of their heart felt tribute issues, this time for Jackson, they remembered him with a lovely picture of him dying, or, according to some, already dead, on a stretcher.

At least this was in keeping with the whole Jade concept and product, she was a creation of reality tv, a ready to go caricature of everything trashy and stupid about the modern world so she fit perfectly into the new reality documentary mould which dictates that mindless morons doing inane activites make for good quality television. She was created by the media for the media and the media always had full control over her, from the second she entered the Big Brother house to the moment she died, she never really left that house.

Honourable mention goes to foxy Brittany Murphy for really ramming home that the media don't even need any evidence to pass judgement on a celebrity death. You see, tabloid journalists dont even need a coroners report to confirm the cause of her death, they already decided it was a concoction of prescription medicine. Yes, that old bastion of truth and balanced writing the Daily Mail paid tribute to Murphy with this:

"Despite the official statement Brittany Murphy died of natural causes following a heart attack, it has been reported she was hooked on Vicodin (the same painkiller Michael Jackson relied on before his death) as well as other prescription drugs, following a series of plastic surgery operations."

Sue Reid goes on to talk a load of crap about Elvis, Heath Ledger and Tiger Woods and gives zero mention of Murphy's career. Nice. I will mostly miss her as the ditsy Luanne in King of the Hill. Sad times.

Lots of other people died this year, some were old, some were young, some were illustrious and some were a plain old waste of space, many deserve to be written about for years to come because of what they bought to culture but, unfortunately it is those that we really shouldn't remember that we will remember the most and until the day comes that vile speculation really can't be printed and then quietly retracted these ridiculous death spectacles will continue.

In the words of the late great Keith Floyd, "Food is life, life is food. If you don't like my approach you are welcome to go down to McDonalds"

Dead C'lebs

Sweet dreams or a beautiful nightmare?

The Barbican is my idea of what living is all about. It fulfills every notion of what I think a home should be. It is a complex with history, density, supreme architectural design, dead central location and most importantly skyline dominance.

Looking at the building today its brutalist domineering style seems somewhat aged but not out of place in London's skyline. The three towers sit comfortably at the beginning of the river skyline, followed by St Pauls, the Natwest Tower and the Gherkin. The steep concrete faces create an imposing glare over the square mile and are reminiscent of the mass produced social housing structures typical of the artichectural modernism 60s and 70s. The Brutalist style of the barbican was a response to this, a movement away from internationally styled housing to that of a more monumental emphasis, a literal domination of the skyline. It is this domination of

London's skyline that earned the complex its Grade II listed status in 2001.

Historically the real inspiration behind the barbican lies solely with one man, Le Corbusier. The Frenchman rejected all forms of ancient architecture, deciding the modern man needed his own form of artichecture to represent his place in the modern world. In 1922 he envisaged a group of buildings of magnificent proportions, Ville Contemporaine, numerous sixty-floor structures linked by circular walkways, included within and around the structures would be airports, office bulidings, shops and any other amenity you can imagine. Man would quite simply give himself over to the dominance of the architecture, three million of those men. Le Corbusier's plan was to build standardised, mass-produced structures that would end urban deprivation in Paris, his vision would become an international standard by the mid 1960s.

Conceived in 1953 and completed in 1969 the Barbican has at its heart the idea of a completely contained living experience. In 1959 artichetcts Chamberlin, Powell & Bon mapped out their vision for the Barbican "The intention underlying our design is to create a coherent residential precinct in which people can live both conveniently and with pleasure. Despite its high density the layout is spacious: the buildings and the space between them are composed in such a way as to create a clear sense of order without monotony. Uninterrupted by road traffic (which is kept separate from pedestrian circulation through and about the neighbourhood) a quiet precinct will be created in which people will be able to move about freely enjoying constantly changing perspectives or terraces, lawns, trees and flowers seen against the background or the new buildings or reflected in the ornamental lake." The notion of meeting tranquil beauty within this dominating structure seems to represent a marriage of the modern with traditional Britain, and until this day the lawns of the complex are amongst its most favoured aspect with residents.

One of the most depressing aspects of the complex has become part of its zeal, the failure of the shopping complex paved the way for the arts centre, and the arts centre is now one of the defining features of the Barbican. Additionally, in 1984 the conservatory was opened and this was an absolute feat containing exotic flora, tropical and domestic plants, pools and fountains, an aivairy and the largest cacti in Europe. The pools used to house terrapins and fish and amazingly the pest control is not chemical but a delicate balance of predators and pathogens (that's basically biological germs).

All in all the Barbican is an incredible project that continues to live on forty years after its unveiling and over half a century after its inception, that it is one of the only complexes of its kind is a tragedy but I am lead to believe that the Pan Peninsula in the Docklands is somewhat similar with its self contained amenities and now stands as the tallest residential building in London. I would do anything to be a part of the Barbican and its beautiful and unmatched existence, my one and only true aim in life is to wake up each morning and view my amazing city from its dizzying heights.

Sweet dreams or a beautiful nightmare?

The nuclear power followup

It seems that big Ed Miliband (brother of little David, the foreign secretary) has conceeded defeat on the nuclear issue and the UK is going to get ten brand spanking new nuclear power plants! This means that by 2025 a quarter of all energy produced in the UK will be nuclear sourced.

Also packed into the deal is a removal of previous planning rules which could hold up build plans for up to six years, this means that a plant can go from proposal to approval in little under a year, fantastic news for the likes of me and shit news for the hippies who hate nuclear power and think that the wind, waves, the sun and Russia can power the UK's growing energy needs.

However, I probably didn't properly address the downsides of nuclear power and that was very wrong of me. It is very VERY expensive, some estimates suggest as much as £5bn per plant and there are a number of issues regarding whether or not this bill will have to be subsidised by the tax payer, although Miliband has consistently stated that no subsidies will be handed out to the energy companies. This draws into doubt if energy companies will be willing to foot the entirety of the bill and thus whether or not all of the proposed plants will actually be built. The problem with this is that the energy gap needs to be bridged and if not it is more than likely the government will have to step in to stop blackouts from occuring (think about 2017).

So a likely increase in energy bills is what is going to stop the blackouts, that or we can all make the small changes to our day to day lives that will help to reduce our national power consumption. You know, things like turning lights off, not boiling a full kettle, using the TV a bit less, all that crap that everyone is unwilling to do because it constitutes a mild inconvenience, because I am telling you now that every politician, researcher, journalist, economist and academic with even half a brain is well aware that blackouts are more than a possibility in the next decade, they are a dead cert.

So that's enough on nuclear power, all the image searches are probably flagging me up all over the intelligence community and that can never end well.

The nuclear power followup