King's Library Tower at the British Library

I previously blogged about the King's Library at the British Library. My pics are now uploaded and ready for viewing on the set page.

The set page also has photographs of St Pancras and Kings Cross stations, which are located right next to the British Library. The stations are one of London's major transit centres, with a sprawling underground tube station linking many lines. St Pancras being renovated to become London's new Eurostar terminus.

Liverpool Street Station

What is better than setting out to find a film location? Surely, it's the surprise realisation that a familiar place has featured in a favourite film.

Such is the case with Liverpool Street Station. The Underground station is buried in the bowels of the mainline terminus used by Essex-bound trains, requiring one to walk through the concourse to access the tube. The concourse is impressive, with an airy vaulted ceiling, a distinctive arrival/departure board, and the little mezzanine mall of glass-roofed shops.

I pass through the station quite regularly, averaging once per week in my first three months in London. From the first visit it seemed familiar, although I could not think why. Successive visits fostered this niggling sense of familiarity, until a search on IMDb solved the mystery. Liverpool Street Station appears in Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible. It's the location for a meeting between spy master Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) and disavowed agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), where the latter discovers that seeing is not necessarily believing.

GQ Men of the Year

I snapped this photograph at the GQ Men of the Year event at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, just as Jerry Hall emerged from the silver Audi. I have more photographs in the set page. Here is the GQ list.

Millennium Bridge

This is the pedestrian bridge which opened in 2000, and was closed shortly thereafter due to structural flaws that caused it to dangerously wobble. Engineers added peripheral stabilizers, and now it doesn't wobble quite so much. The bridge is actually a suspension design, with the distinction that the suspension cables are attached to the sides of the bridge. With this design the bridge is high enough to allow boats to pass under, without being so high as to obstruct the view of St Paul's Cathedral, the latter being one of London's quirky civil planning regulations. The Millennium Bridge is the first new Thames crossing since the Tower Bridge in 1894, providing a convenient link for pedestrians and cyclists to travel between the City of London and the Tate Modern, located on the south bank in the renovated Bankside power station. In recent years the bridge has become one of London's new cinematic cliches (along with the London Eye), and is frequently exploited by film-makers in establishing shots. I have more photos of the Millennium Bridge and the Tate Modern in the set page.

Postman's Park from Closer

If you've seen the fantastic 2004 film Closer, starring Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman, then you have seen Postman's Park. This memorial to lost souls plays a pivotal role in the film's plot. I knew it was somewhere in the City, but discovered it quite by accident one afternoon, during peak hour, as I walked home from the nearby Museum of London. I have more photos of Postman's Park here.

Temple Bar, City of London

These little guys guard the entrances to the City of London. There is a dragon at each road entrance, marking the boundary of the city limits. This monument marks the entrance once known as Temple Bar (because of its proximity to the Inns of Court, Inner Temple and Middle Temple).

The modern-day City of London is built on the same site as the ancient city of Londinium, which was once bounded by the London Wall. Various gates in the wall have given their name to streets and regions in the City, such as Aldgate, Bishopsgate, and Moorgate. The ancient wall is still visible around the City, with the largest segment revealed by a Blitz bomb near the Museum of London.

These days the City is the financial heart of the city, and still one of the world's leading financial centres. It's nicknamed The Square Mile because of its approximate size, which is less of a mouthful than The Square 2.6 Kilometres.

I have more photos of the City in the set page.

South Kensington

South Kensington is home to some embassies, some very expensive real estate, and some fine museums in the Albertopolis region. This photo is of the Museum of Natural History. There are more photos in the South Kensington photo set.

Piccadilly Circus

You can view a few more photographs from Piccadilly Circus here.

I have finally uploaded all of the photographs I have taken since leaving Brisbane. You can view all of my photograph sets here.

I'm still organising the photos, but most of the recent uploads are already in the right place. I will steadily blog a photo or two from each set over the next few days.

Birthday Bouquet from Kerby!

The Anti-Climax of 31

So I'm finally 31. Not that when I was younger I ever spent too much time (if any) postulating where I would be at 31. Nevertheless, as much as I don't want to be 31, I have little choice in the matter. I am however grateful that I have a few years longer until I have to "switch boxes". By that I mean those horrendous forms that require you to approximate your age into one of several bands. You know the kind that are like 25-35, 35-50, 50-65, 65+... or similar. That a 35 year old gets lumped with someone fifteen years older is frustrating, and I'm sure it's no comfort when you reach the upper limit of the range, instead being a painful reminder of years gone by.

Thank you to all those who sent birthday greetings. They were really appreciated on a very cold London day. It was 3 degrees when I walked to work yesterday. And supposedly 1 degree today. My work colleagues tell me that the mysterious nightmen are starting to throw salt and grit on the London streets, although I haven't seen this yet myself.

In spite of being 31, life in London is wonderful (excepting how much I miss Paul) so I have a lot to be grateful for. I haven't planned any birthday extravaganze, preferring to let last year's blow out resonate for a little longer. I am heading out for after work drinks at The Box with Patrick and Peter, so it's quite possible the low-key start will parlay into a bigger commitment.

I did plan a few little birthday treats for myself, like my trip to Brussels last weekend. Then on Monday evening I splashed out on a front row ticket to Chicago. Lynda Carter has been a special guest in the show for a few months now, playing the prison governor Mama Morton. Her run ends tomorrow evening. Her role is small, but she was very good, holding her own with some long-time professionals in the continuing cast. And she looks fantastic. And she's stacked. I know she was "built" when she played Wonder Woman, but her chest was huge in real life. I had a row BB ticket, with no seating in front of me. I think the first few rows are the only way to fly, and well worth the extra £££. I really, REALLY enjoyed the show, which was surprising given how much I LOATHED the film version of Chicago. The stage production is very sexy, aided by some very sexy performers, which is lost on the screen. I think the visual candy holds the audience better during the musical's filler parts.

On Wednesday evening I watched David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia at the National Film Theatre. This mammoth epic of a picture is almost four hours long. The session started just after 6:30pm. But add to that a half hour of speeches before the beginning and a twenty minute intermission, I didn't get home until 11:30!! The event was in a memorial presentation for the film's production designer John Box, who died earlier this year. I'd never heard of him before the evening, but apparently Box is the most awarded British filmmaker, having received four Oscars (which were on display) and several BAFTAs.

I really enjoyed the film, even though I was terrified I'd fall asleep. Once I got passed the first half hour I didn't lose interest for the rest of the evening. The film was shown in 70mm on the large screen in NFT cinema 1, which helped immensely. The 70mm process is wonderful for epic pictures. It's like seeing the very image for real with my own eyes. Fearing the long running time, I had cold feet in the days beforehand. In his review Roger Ebert said that this is one film that must be seen on a big screen, and he is so very correct. Otherwise, many of the wonderful images are lost in a mass of yellow desert blur. And if you're going to sit through a four hour movie, I thought, just do it properly once, the first time!!

Before the film there were tributes from Box's daughter, highly-regarded English costume designer Anthony Powell (he worked on the Indiana Jones flicks, is a protege of Box's, and also worked with Lean), Harry Potter production designer Stuart Craig, and one of the film's stars Omar Sharif. All of these people are highly regarded within the film industry, but it came as no surprise that Sharif received the biggest applause. It's funny how our celebrity-obsessed culture works.

Speaking of which, I passed Sigourney Weaver in Drury Lane street yesterday. Just like when I passed Michael Palin in the street (elsewhere in Covent Garden) some months back, these events are those matter-of-fact London moments when the film world enters the real world, even though I'm totally unsure where to draw the line between the real world and the film world. Anyway, it's quite exciting.

The Sound of London

What am I listening to these days, when it's not Hung Up? My gym plays this great CD, Tokyo Project: The Collection, produced by the same people who released the Hed Kandi series. All the tracks on Tokyo Project, and especially the selected mixes, get a lot of playtime in the clubs here, and for good reason. It's sensational. Buy, beg, steal, borrow. Just get it. I am convinced it will actually change your life.

Bruges

Bruges (pron: Broojsh) is an hour's train ride from Brussels, affording me an opportunity to see some of the countryside, and the rural towns that we passed along the way.

The Bruges train station is a modern Art Deco-ish structure at the edge of the town. There were buses into town, but I opted to walk, as most tourists seemed to do. The medieval township has retained its old-worlde feel, with winding cobbled streets, low-rise shoppes, two huge towering cathedrals, and several large old buildings that now house museums. Bruges is situated on a series of canals and islands, which are used to ferry boatloads of tourists on tours.

The town's services seem to be structured around tourism. I wasn't expecting to see a Marriot, nor the expensive prices that abounded. The town is quaint, and a lovely way to spend an afternoon, or longer as I inferred from conversations at neighbouring tables. But it's almost a victim of itself, or at least the service providers, and the tourist-trap odor is hard to ignore. On more than one occasion I felt like I had wandered into Ye Old Euro-Worlde in a theme park.

After Bruges, I caught a train back to Brussels for dinner, then rushed back to Bruxelles-Midi station to catch the last Eurostar back to London-Waterloo. The train is under the Channel Tunnel at the moment, a twenty-minute trip that evokes mixed emotions of thrill and anxiety. I'm no expert on these matters, but security doesn't seem sufficiently tight to safeguard against an 'incident' on a high-exposure target like the Channel Tunnel. I know that sounds paranoid, and it is, but it's also a fair assessment of the minimal checks that screen baggage and passengers. Warner Brothers put me through me more stringent checks to review Matrix Revolutions prior to its release!!

On a happier note, the Eurostar service trip has been particularly pleasant. My first thoughts on Friday night were that the Eurostar isn't as smooth as Japan's Shinkansen, but that has more to do with the sub-standard tracks arond London. The English side of the network has always been the weakest link. While we've sped through Belgium and France at speeds up to 300 km/hour, the train crawls into, and out of, London on pre-Eurostar tracks that are shared with other mainline services. That will change in 2007. A high-speed track is being tunneled under London to St Pancras station, a beautiful Gothic-styled, red-brick structure, reminiscient of Brisbane's old museum. The restored St Pancras will become the new London terminus, and the high-speed track will shave twenty minutes off all Eurostar services!

Brussels

One of London's many benefits is the ease with which one can travel to Europe. A flight of a few hours can take one to many European cities, and with the Eurostar one can literally go to Paris for lunch. I'm determined to have a European weekend getaway once-a-month while I'm living in London. Madrid last month, and Venice next. But this weekend I'm in Brussels, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that my initial rationale for visiting the 'official' European capital is that it's the furthest one can travel on the Eurostar without changing trains!

Not that Brussels isn't interesting, or beautiful. In fact, it's architecturally stunning, especially in the centre of town around the Grand Place where the Town Hall's spire rises a few hundred feet from the piazza to the sky. And then there is the Palace of Justice, occupying prime position on the top of the hill. No photograph can truly give justice, pardon the pun, to the building's mammoth proportions. Designed in a classical style, it is the largest building constructed in the 19th century, between 1860 and 1880.

The less said about my hotel, the better. Let's just say it's been quite a while since I've slept in a single bed. A true single at that, and not even a 3/4. At least it encouraged me to get out and
about yesterday morning. I spent Saturday wandering through the city centre, sightseeing and shopping. (I picked up a great winter jacket and leather shoes at a third of the London prices). Brussels is an especially compact city. It has a tram network, that runs underground in parts, but I didn't use it once, opting to walk all day.

The Palace of Justice was the first stop. From there I walked down the Rue de la Régence boulevard to the museum district. I wanted to visit the Museum of Modern Art and, elsewhere, an exhibition of Faberge eggs, but the queues were truly horrendous. Still, there was plenty to see and enjoy, as I walked through the old town with cobbled alleyways lined with street-side restaurants. In the French style, most of these restaurants display signs for la carte fixed menus. When I returned later in the evening, I picked the most inexpensive (€12.50, $20) and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food, wine, and service.

A funny thing happened to me as I walked around the town. Not long after I set out I walked passed a building draped in German flags. "A-ha", I thought, I have found the German embassy, either to Belgium or representative to the E.U. A short distance later, I found another building that matched the same description. This must be other embassy. This happened on a few more occasions before I realised I was confusing the German flag with the similarly-coloured Belgian flag. I'm sure there are lots of Belgian embassy buildings in Germany.

Would I recommend a trip to Brussels? Absolutely. Would I go back? Most probably. Would I want to live here? Definitely not. With each passing hour I wisened to the realisation that I was in the Canberra of Europe. Like the Australian capital, Brussels is stunning, with great restaurants, and significant cultural attractions. But lacking the spark of other mid-sized cities like Madrid or Toronto, I found it a wee bit boring! I'm sure it's lively, and all that, once you get to know the place. But I found myself longing for the flash 'n' trash that is easier to come by in the bigger cities!

Not wishing to brave the crowds at the museum, I would have been at a loose end today, had it not been for my work colleagues. Several recommended a day trip to Bruges. So as I write I'm on a domestic train hurtling through the Belgian countryside toward this medieval town.

Eurostar

I'm writing this post from the Eurostar, en route to Brussels. We cleared the Channel Tunnel about fifteen minutes ago, and are passing through the French countryside. At least, I think we are. I can't really tell because it's pitch black outside, and it's only 6:10pm.

British Summer Time ended a few weeks ago, and the difference in temperature and sunlight was quite surprising. When I usually leave work at 5:30pm it is totally dark and quite cold, a big change from the week before when daylight saving was in effect. Today, I walked from work to Waterloo Station just before 4pm, and noticed that the sun had started setting well before then!

I tried to submit this post using a wi-fi hotspot at Lille station. Sadly, no open hotspot. Of course, I could use a bluetooth connection from my PDA to my mobile, using the phone's GPRS to connect to the internet, but O2 have thoughtfully disabled my global roaming and data services. Will my telco troubles ever cease?

Time Goes By, So Slowly

Indeed, time does goes by so slowly, when waiting on BT, or any other British telco. After a mammoth 6.5 week ordeal, I finally have broadband internet at home.

The saga started when I called BT in the last week of September, to connect the phone service. The earliest they could send a technician out was 2.5 weeks later on 10 October. I decided to go with UK Online for broadband services, because of their £14.99 deal for unlimited 2MB ADSL. I couldn't sign up with UK Online until after BT connected the line, and then I was advised I'd have to wait another two weeks. That was a lie. As the two week limit rapidly approached, and not having heard from UK Online, I decided to call them for a status update. It seems my order was rejected by BT on the grounds that UK Online don't own the equipment at the exchange, whatever that means. So my rejected order sat in a "rejected order" queue, where it was ignored until my call ten days later. I enquired with the UK Online operator what would have happened if I hadn't called. The poor lass isn't too bright, but at least she is honest, for she replied, "I don't know."

UK Online said it might take three weeks from the date of my phone call to connect the broadband service. It actually took ten days, but in the intervening time my phone line mysteriously went on the blink. Cue BT, enter stage left, who disconnected my phone service due to an earth on the line. In a perfect world, BT would contact me to let me know what they did. In England, I have to ring BT to find that out for myself. The fault caused my phone line to periodically ring the 112 emergency service. As serious as it sounds, I like to think of this as a good thing, a preventative measure on my phone's part, because the fiasco was rapidly sending my stress levels through the roof, on their way to grand mal. BT flagged the call for priority, but that means nothing to the socialists who work there. Despite my repeated calls to BT, forcing me to endure the faceless bastardry of call-centres from Sheffield to Glasgow, it still took ten days to resolve the matter, with a BT technician in my bedroom. The technician isolated the problem to the bedroom's unused extension socket, rising damp being the culprit. The icing on the cake was the BT technician's parting salvo, delivered with grace and aplomb, that I will be £120 charged for the repair, as it was caused by internal wiring.

It's wonderful being connected to the world once again. One of the first things I downloaded is the video for Madonna's Hung Up, which I am in love with. As previously blogged, I love the remixes, but thought the single a little lacking. The video clip is amazing, and makes the song a stand-out, surely to go to number one. The "time goes by" mantra is so catchy. Did anyone else pick up on the little lyrical reference to Madonna's turn as Evita?

The video reminds me of Spinning Around, with Madonna's Kylie-esque hotpants, and some similarly synchronised dance moves. Watching it over and over (and over), it seems the intent was to present an especially youthful Madonna. Soft-focus lensed, Botoxed, and jaw-droppingly fit, she looks great, especially when dancing like someone half her age. The 80s dance studio sequence is cute, and you've gotta love her spinning towards camera at the song's start. But it's the clip's end that has me mesmerised, reminiscient of Vogue's climax, with Madonna's frenetic explosion on a Dance Dance Revolution video game machine.

According to two net-based sources (1, 2), the clip was filmed (mostly) in London, on location at Elephant & Castle, the Jubilee Line on the Underground, and at Redcross Way in Southwark/Borough where Madonna struts her stuff under the railway viaducts near the Bridget Jones and Lock Stock locations. The Gherkin appears in the background of an early shot where the kids are stretching on a residential tower's rooftop.

Last weekend my cousin Diana was in town for a few days. We had lunch in Chinatown, and then went to Portobello Road market. I remember, as a child, reading that Paddington Bear shopped here. As an adult, I was most impressed by a bakery on the hill that specialises in the most delicious fairy cakes, only £1.75 each, and no larger than normal! The market's goods were also pretty impressive, and worth a trip out there.

This afternoon I am off to Brussels for the weekend, via the Eurostar. Yay!

London Film Festival 2005

The London Film Festival has wrapped up its two week run. Many of the interesting films are scheduled for commercial release, so I saved my pennies for those that might not.

Like They Came Back, a Romero-inspired zombie drama where the zombies wake from the dead with a burning desire to return to their families and jobs, as if their lives had never ended. Hijinks ensue. The best thing about They Came Back is that it is a drama, offering a different spin on traditional zombie fare. The worst thing about They Came Back is that it is a drama. Zombies are great entertainment in suspenseful and comedic situations, but give them a mortgage and aspirations and they become as boring as the living.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of the classic English novel of the same name, universally regarded, until now, as unfilmable. The film's conceit is clever, with the film's story being about the making of a film adaptation of Tristram Shandy, which is the very film you're watching. The idea isn't as fresh as it was with Adaptation, but the film was still pretty funny. Steve Coogan is very funny, playing himself and Tristram Shandy, but I particularly enjoyed a cameo by Gillian Anderson, playing herself.

My favourite film at the festival was Lemming. This is the second film from Dominik Moll, who directed the little known Hitchcockian thriller Harry, He's Here To Help, a few years ago. The story revolved around two couples. The young couple are madly in love with each other, while the older couple can barely stand the sight of one another. The lives of all four people become dangerously entangled when they meet over a disastrous, and excruciatingly embarrassing, dinner engagement. After dinner, the younger couple discover a lemming trapped in their kitchen drain. It's a strange film, melding Hitchcock with Polanski and Lynch, made all the more interesting with Charlotte Rampling playing the older woman.

I also saw Michaelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger, which has been unavailable for 30 years. Jack Nicholson, who stars, owned the film rights, and rarely allowed it to be shown, despite believing it to be his best work. He plays a journalist who becomes entangled in international arms trafficking, perhaps willingly so, so that he can escape the misery of his failing marriage back home in London. There is lots of location shooting, and I will shoot some contemporary photographs of the London locations as soon as I have the chance.

The Film Festival's best attributes are the film-based events where film-makers and actors talk about their work. I attended two chats towards the end of the program, with Gael Garcia Bernal and Terry Gilliam.

Mexican-born Gael García Bernal shot to international fame with Amores perros, and has subsequently appeared in Y Tu Mama Tambien, El Crimen del padre Amaro, and Bad Education, and The Motorcycle Diaries. He was in London to promote his controversial new film, The King, the first entirely in English, in which he co-stars with William Hurt. Bernal was wonderfully engaging with the audience. He comes from a family of stage actors, although he didn't consider that he could make a career as an actor until Y Tu Mama Tambien. His gregariuos personality suggests that no-one is more surprised by his success than himself.

The most interesting story concerned Amores perros. In 2000, he was studying in London at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Alejandro González Iñárritu, a radio DJ back in Mexico, tracked him down to offer the lead role in what was to be the director's first feature film. As the drama school expressly forbids its students from taking work, the film's shoot was planned for Bernal's four week summer vacation. When the producers realised they needed a fifth week, everyone conspired to fabricate an illness that prevented him from returning to London to study. When he returned to London, his student friends were convinced of his illness because of his shaved head, which was necessary for the film role (his character winds up in hospital). Bernal didn't tell anyone about the film role, for fear of expulsion. Not even his friends knew. And he figured he'd get away with it because he expected the film to barely be seen within Mexico, let alone outside. Bernal said that his parting words to the producers were along the lines of "could you send me a VHS copy of the film?" Cut now to a year later, you can imagine the surprise for Bernal when Amores perros screens in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. When telling the story to the audience, Bernal expressed his embarrassment at the whole incident because the drama school organised a Get Well card!

Terry Gilliam was an absolute joy to listen to. I have seen him in a filmed Q&A on the Lost in La Mancha DVD, and he is just as animated, funny, and interesting in real life. The interviewer took us through almost all of his films, to illustrate his transition from Monty Python to The Brothers Grimm, his latest film. Gilliam is renowned for the difficulty he encounters in getting his wonderfully elaborate cinematic dreams from his head to the screen. As he put it, The Brothers Grimm experience was made all the worse by the collaboration with the grim brothers Weinstein, best exemplified by the story about Matt Damon's nose. To cut a long story short, Gilliam had decided that Matt Damon needed a nose prosthetic to conceal the cuteness of the actor's stubby upturned proboscis. And the results, apparently, were astounding. The second Damon put on the prosthetic he started to walk differently, and perform differently. Gilliam said he looked the spitting image of a young Brando. After countless weeks of rehearsal, and on the very night before the start of principal photography, the Weinsteins sent a a missive that the prosthetic was not to be used. After all, Miramax wants to be able to sell Matt Damon as Matt Damon on the movie poster. Gilliam was so incensed that he very seriously considered scrapping the whole movie, all over the prosthetic. He buckled, the film was made, but it nags him to this day that he might have balked too early, and could have shot the film with the prosthetic!

Gilliam said that the favourite of his films is Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, because of its subversive subject matter detailing Hunter S. Thompson's drug-drenched trip to Las Vegas. Gilliam loves the fact that its the most popular DVD among students at Eaton and Highgate. And he is tickled pink that the North American disc was the first Criterion-branded DVD (famously expensive) to be sold in Walmart (famously cheap), where teenagers shop for DVDs!

But the most interesting anecdote concerned Brazil. Gilliam was in L.A in the early 1980s, trying to cast the film. He looked at every young actor for the lead role. Around this time, he saw a snippet of Risky Business, directly on the Steenbeck being used to edit the film. The clip was the Old Time Rock and Roll sequence, which convinced Gilliam that Tom Cruise was perfect for Brazil. He called Cruise, and explained that he wanted the actor to audition for the lead role. Gilliam had committments back in London, and explained that he would video-record the audition, to show other people, and help with the process. This ended up being the problem. Gilliam chased Cruise for a few days, and eventually spoke with the actor. Cruise said he really wanted the role, but explained "they won't let me do it", meaning the video-taped audition. In Gilliam's summation, "they" were the people behind the scenes managing his career. Even at those early stages his career was being managed with excessive caution, and "they" didn't want a videotape floating around that could turn up later with unforeseen results.