London contrasts and delights

A short walk back to the nearest tube station from a meeting near to St. Katherine's Dock reminded me of why I love walking around London so much.

St. Katherine's dock has long since given up on its industrial past and has become a pleasing jumble of cafes, bars, boats and wooden walkways.

In some ways in displays unfashionable yuppie traits of brashness and a love for ostentation over character but it has sufficient swagger to carry it off and its relatively small size means that the excess does not become excessive.

Emerging from the dock brings you suddenly to the manic congregation of roads leading to Tower Bridge. London has few bridges and each one draws roads to it hungrily and these squeeze desperate traffic through the pinch-points.

Bravely facing these roads, as if caring nothing for the tons of steel that flow like the tide relentlessly past it, stands a proud new office block.

The blaze of light makes sure that you've noticed its iron and glass majesty. The structure appears to have no purpose other than to be boastful, and that is all right as it has something to be boastful about.

The traffic is escaped by taking a pedestrian tunnel under Tower Bridge Approach and the world changes as much as if the journey had been made in the TARDIS.

What greets you on the other side is the Tower of London which can trace its history back to the 11th century and William the Conqueror.

The Tower stands tall, wide, strong and purposeful and provides an idyllic last view of London before heading underground into Tower Hill station and taking the tube home.

Poor choice for Kingston's schools

Kingston Council keeps reminding those of us who work in Education that they are officially rated as "outstanding" by Ofsted and their attitude is never less than smug. But the customers of their services know that this is nonsense and there is a lot wrong with schooling in Kingston.

We learnt this week that Kingston's secondary school place choice is among London's worst with only half the applicants for secondary school places in September getting a place at the first choice school. About 125 children are being asked to settle for their fourth, fifth or sixth choice place and 25 have nowhere to go at all.

The situation in the primary sector is not much better and next September up to 300 children will start their school lives in new temporary classrooms. This is in addition to the temporary classrooms that had to be built last year when Kingston Council got its planning seriously wrong.

Getting a place for their children at a school of their choice is the main thing that parents want from their council and Kingston is failing in this in both the primary and secondary sectors. Something has to change. A new council administration next year might be sufficient but it may require the government to give more power to citizens, as they keep saying they plan to do.

Hustle series #5

After four series of the Hustle in four years (2004 to 2007) we had to wait two years for series 5 which made its return bit of a surprise.

In the meantime many of the cast had gone to do other things, such as Wanted, Dexter and Bonekickers, so when the crew is reassembled it is with two new members but we also had the return of Adrian Lester as Mickey Stone, the leader of the gang.

The imprint of the series creator, Tony Jordan, is clear and he set the mood for the new series by writing the first episode.

Hustle is a simple concept superbly executed. Each episode is a separate story where they find a deserving victim and con them out of some serious money. But there is always more to it than that and each con is full of twists and surprises. The mood is very much like the wonderful Saint books by Leslie Charteris where wrongs are unwronged with careful planning and panache.

For some reason the BBC seems to have a "no repeats" rule for Hustle so I will have a long wait until the DVD comes out in early 2010 before I can watch this series again. Now that is something to look forward to.

Watching the Watchmen on the Thames

I was in Central London on Wednesday evening for a talk at the RSA which gave me the not-to-be-missed opportunity to attend a special event to mark the opening of the much anticipated Watchmen film.

The event was billed as, "This one-off spectacle will be created using the world's biggest water screen projector. The water screen, moored especially for this occasion in the middle of the Thames near the London Eye, will create an enormous vertical screen of water that will extend to 72 feet in height and 100 feet across."

The show was targeted toward the Hungerford Bridge which provides excellent views across the Thames with the London Eye on the South bank and the Houses of Parliament on the North.

The screen created a dramatic effect with (prior to the main show) alternating images of the yellow Smiley face that is a Watchmen icon and of the blue Doctor Manhattan.

The news of the event had spread (I found out about it through Twitter) and the bridge was almost full of spectators prior to the advertised start of 8pm.

We were a hardly crowd as it was pretty cold and a strong wind was blowing in our faces bringing spray from the screen with it.

We also had to brave the bridge that has very open sides and shakes whenever a train goes past. Not a good place to be if you suffer from vertigo, like I do!

The show failed to start at 8pm, by which time I was already frozen enough to question why I was there, but I stayed for another fifteen minutes before bravely squeezing through the crowd to get to the safety and warmth of a District Line train back to Richmond.

I have read some reviews of the show that started not long after I left and it sounds as though I missed nothing very much. The still images, the location and enthusiastic atmosphere were enough to make it an event worth being at, I did not need to see the trailer too.

Hoaxwind rock!

Technically it was a Dumpy's Rusty Nuts concert but I was there to see the support act, Hoaxwind, having previously tasted a short set of theirs as part of a three-act Hawkwind tribute concert. This time they had around an hour to demonstrate their prowess to a room full of getting-on-a-bit rockers at The Peel in Kingston, and they did it very well.

Coming the day after a Space Ritual concert it was interesting to note the contrasts and the similarities between then two.

Hoaxwind very much focus on the Bob Calvert era Hawkwind of the late 70s, hence Julian's flying goggles and scarf, whereas Space Ritual now play a lot of their own material and a few early Hawkwind classics.

Both play Master of the Universe and Sonic Attack but Hoaxwind also play tracks like Psychedelic Warlords, Hassan-i Sabbah and Quark, Strangeness and Charm.

The seven men of Hoaxwind line up on stage in almost the same formation as the seven men of Space Ritual with, going left to right, electronics, lead guitar, drums, lead vocals/saxophone, bass and keyboards.

The differences are Space Ritual have one person doing the vocals/saxophone stuff whereas Hoaxwind have two and Space Ritual have two people on electronics to Hoaxwind's one. However, the end result is much the same, a rich and complex sounds that bubbles, squawks, enchants, captivates, engulfs and rocks.

Here we see Hoaxwind's doing their version of Sonic Attack with "Tiny" on guest vocals. And it was their version too as Hoaxwind do not copy the Hawkwind originals they represent them in a way that best suits their line-up and also takes advantage of thirty years of listening to and appreciating the music.

I enjoyed my first short Hoaxwind concert enough to go and see them again and the second time was so much better, thanks to the bigger stage and longer set, that going to see them again is a real no-brainer. That will be on 13 June at the Grey Horse.