Marathon Medal Map

Images of London on the medal from today's London Marathon. One side shows the route with South London landmarks identified on it including Greenwich Park, the Cutty Sark, 02 Arena, London Eye and Surrey Quays.

The other side shows a view down the river from east of Tower Bridge, with the Shard, London Eye, City Hall and various buildings around Tooley St/London Bridge identifiable.

(this was my marshall's medal - runners had the same design with a gold colour)

South London Misty Mornings

Beautiful sunrise this morning, here's a few shots I found on twitter:

Peckham Rye in the mist from top of 78 bus (my photo)

Shooters Hill by James Morrow (@jimbo341)

Woolwich Arsenal by Major Draper

The Shard by @alexbrowna

Finally from yesterday an actual misty morning Albert Bridge

by HappyTaylor3050

'I dreamt we were standing

By the banks of the thames

Where the cold grey waters ripple

In the misty morning light

Held a match to your cigarette

Watched the smoke curl in the mist

Your eyes, blue as the ocean between us

Smiling at me...

Count the days

Slowly passing by

Step on a plane

And fly away

I'll see you then

As the dawnbirds sing

On a cold and misty morning

By the albert bridge'

Misty Morning Albert Bridge - The Pogues

(lyrics by Jem Finer)

May Day 2013 - what happened?

The Shard shines through the May Day blossom in St Johns Churchyard SE1

So how was May Day and the holiday weekend for you? On May Day itself the Fowlers Troop made their way through Deptford and Greenwich with the Jack in the Green - pictured here outside the Rose and Crown in Greenwich.

Photo from Diana Hale's blog, which includes a detailed report and lots of great photos.

On Saturday May 4th, around 100 people took part in the Croydon Trades Union Council May Day march in the town centre, headed by a pipe band.

Front of Croydon May Day march - photo from Sangha Kommune

I gather there was also a Workers Liberty  protest on Saturday outside the Lewisham branch of Primark, one of a number by different groups around the country in solidarity with the victims of the Rana Plaza factory fire in Bangladesh. At least 500 people died in the garmant factory complex which supplies Primark, Mango and other UK high street stroes.

Reflections on the Shard

The laser show to mark the completion of external works at the Shard was a bit of a non-event for South London on 5th July. In New Cross, there were several hundred people gathered in the dusk in Telegraph Hill Park expecting to see lights in the sky, the latest in a long line of spontaneous gatherings there for similar purposes (the solar eclipse 1999, the Millennium, New Year's Eve). But the light show seems to have been more focused on the north side of the building so there was nothing much to see - and maybe we were just too far away. As I said on twitter at the time 'Judging by tonight's Shard show, our rulers are struggling with the 'circuses' bit of the 'bread & circuses' deal as well as the bread bit'. Somebody else joked 'Only just opened & already it’s betrayed its South London roots'.

So to the long list of metaphors attached to the building we migh add another one - that while it is situated South of the river by London Bridge it is oriented more to the City of London on the north bank of the Thames. Or maybe that it represents the spreading of the architecture of wealth and power from the City to an area that for hundreds of years resisted the encroachments of the authorities on the other side of the bridge.

The temple of mammon dwarfing St George's Church in Borough High Street?
(I took this photo last year)

We could also add that it represents a post-colonial shift in the international balance of power, with capital from former British imperial territories (Quatar and China) now shaping the landscape next to the site of the docks where for centuries plunder from across the seas was unloaded.

Having spent much time at ground level by the Shard building site from day one though, it also represents to me the results of a huge effort of collective human labour. The workers in their helmets have come from all over the world to raise this building from the ground. The product of their labour is (among other things) a hotel that most of those who built it will never be able to afford to stay in. The working conditions of those employed by Mace have been the focus of protests at the Shard (including last May Day), as like other construction companies they have used the ruse of employing through agencies to get round national agreements on pay. Nevertheless there has been something awe-inspiring in the sight of the skill and ingenuity of hundreds of people creating a landmark.

Love it or hate it, in a world city this a world building. It doesn't so much symbolise globalisation as embody it - built to an Italian design by workers from Britain, Ireland, Eastern Europe, Africa and elsewhere, funded by wealth created in China and the Middle East. We could follow the chain further - the migrant workers creating the wealth in Quatar (last year 161 construction workers from Nepal alone died in Quatar), the various other parts of the world from where construction materials for the Shard were sourced... It makes the Tower of Babel look like a little local building project.

The Shard among the ruins? Will this be the sight visitors to the city will see in hundreds of years time,
like that bit in Planet of the Apes where they stumble across the Statue of Liberty?
(picture actually taken on Neckinger Street in Bermondsey, where buildings are currently being demolished)

Some have criticised the practice of projecting too many metaphors and symbolic meanings on to the Shard (e.g. see Nick Barron's comments). They have a point, but architects and developers don't build a giant glass pyramid without being very aware of its symbolic dimension, and those who see it every day on the skyline can hardly help reflecting on what meanings it conveys beyond its functional purpose.

South London from the Gherkin

This picture is a detail looking South from an amazing gigapixel panorama, Sunrise from the Gherkin, at Spherical Images (click to enlarge; the full image allows you to zoom in to even greater detail). Obviously the Shard and to a lesser extent the Strata at the Elephant now dominate the skyline, but you can also make out Hays Galleria, Southwark Cathedral, the Heygate Estate and many other buildings.