I’ve had an idea for while now for urban clothing. I’m not a very fashionable person and my idea is lesser rotating around looks for urban clothing but more about functionality. I’ve been living in London for a number of years now, and I have seen London’s cool, fun, innovative, funky, Hackney-cool, welcoming, curious and endearing sides as much as I have witnessed and experienced the crime, hardship, randomness and cruelty that governs life in this city.
Functionality in this context is to means cultural and social functionality, clothing that helps to reduce stress, controls the flow of information(visually, audibly , and electromagnetically) , reduces exposure to crime, while remaining functional and inconspicuous.
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Discipline of the week: Boxing
The Majority of London
Marital Arts are in everyday use in London. Most performances are somewhat ungraceful, as most participants show up intoxicated to the performance. Only some events are recorded on the council’s TV network. “Best of” performances however are given a bigger audience on Crime watch.
Although frowned upon as a street sport, boxing is heavily incited by the same local councils who record the events on CCTV and go on to claim that they work hard to make their area “better”. Specially trained “wardens” are dispatched in large numbers around the capital and tasked with acts designed to boost the council’s koffers and get members of the public all fired up to hone their skills and engage in spontanious sparring matches.
Although we disapprove of the sport, a lot of have been tempted ourselves.
Tickets available from £100.
Bees take over bakery van
You may have heart the alarming stories that bees are disappearing around the world. Apparently it’s due to a protein problem, but in London scientists may have to think again:
I spotted some unusual activity on a white van parked at the top of my street (North London), only a few meters from a bakery. Dozens of bees were buzzing around, congregating at the back light of the van, where some damage had opened up a crack. I assume the crack gave the busy gatherers access to the interior, stacked with crates of honey soaked baklava, Danish pastries and other baking goods.
But the shock got bigger, when I walked around the side of the van, and discovered a moving curtain of bees “flowing” their way of the co-drivers side window to what looked like a new nest, just above the co-drivers seat!
As one elderly gentleman commented:
Bees are getting rare these days, those in the van will cost more than the van itself…
Check out the pictures for some bee-tastic swarming. I didn’t stay around for long enough to see what happened when the driver/owner returned, but the van was gone the next day.
Urban Games: Fencing!
The Majority of London
The newspapers are full of reports about young hopefuls practising their skills, we should be well prepared get a few gold medals!
Fencing:
What are our chances to bring home the metal? Comments!
Enter the Urban Games!
The Majority of London
Ha! Olympics I hear you say? 2012? No, us Londoners doesn’t need the IOC to tell us what form of exercise qualifies as a sport and more importantly if we’re any good at it! Decades of bad politics on both national and GLA level (yes Ken Boris, grow up!) are the reason, this place is a quirky (good), wiered (good, sometimes), rough (not so good) and plain aggressive and violent (definitely not good) as it is.
Let’s have a look at our first category, a sport you’re all too familiar with:
Our chances for gold? Tell me in the comments!
by wolfgang haak on Juni 2, 2009
in London
On my way home I came across the delightful scene, dozens of parties, couples, individual enjoying the pleasant warmth of a summer evening. Spontaneous BBQs and picnics, the air filled with smoke and smells from grilling one’s dinner, bookworms perched sunward on a tree, folded up Bromtons scattered about, Chamapagne and Wine being served, one blissful evening in London.
Wolfgang Haak’s Photographs by Wolfgang Haak is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License
I’m a real fan of these old shop signs I see everywhere.
As I travel through London on a bus, my eye aimlessly wonders across the façades and balconies, extensions, plants and the layers of paint that make London so rustic, charming and interesting.
And in between the pleasing and the grubby bits my eyes sometimes get to rest on these spots of paints, masked by advertisements, trees and the grime of nearly a century of motorized traffic. Flaking of the brittle, soggy base of decade century old brick and mortar are the traces of businesses gone by, in bold, big letters still proclaiming arts and crafts long forgotten. Who in this day still specialises in “Fountain Pen Repairs”, or advertises “Motor Coaches”?
Old Grandeur, hopelessly romanticized in those precious few seconds between the first glimpse of a sign, and when the upper deck of your the bus jerks to a halt in the monochrome solitude of a sodiumized street at dusk. [click to continue…]
