Ken Livingstone, you suck
This entry was posted on April 13, 2008
In the heart of London there’s a music venue called the “Astoria”. It has a capacity of 2000 and has been one of London’s premier venues since before I was born. It originally opened as a cinema in 1927, and was converted to a theatre in 1976. It’s now exclusively a music / club venue, and was in fact where I lost my gig-virginity.
I first went to the Astoria in 2006 where I saw Simple Plan for the first time. My trip to the Astoria was also when I met my best friend face-to-face for the first time. We queued for hours, and had an amazing time.
I’ve been to the Astoria several times since, and I’m going there on Friday for what might be the last time. It will most certainly be the last time I’ll see Simple Plan play there, and whilst I am excited to see my favourite band perform, I’m equally sad that it might be one of my last visits to the venue.
At some point in the near future, the Astoria is going to be knocked down to make way for the new Crossrail project.
Crossrail is “an exciting and visionary new railway proposal for London and the South-East. It will deliver a world-class, affordable railway, with a high frequency, convenient and accessible train service across the capital from 2017.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t we already have a high frequency, convenient and accessible train service across the capital? I believe it’s called “The Tube“. I don’t see how the Crossrail project is going to benefit the majority of people. It’s just going to make things slightly more convenient to get from Heathrow to Canary Wharf.
The Astoria will most definitely be missed by a lot of people. Not only is it home to a music venue which has showcased such performers as the Rolling Stones, Prince, U2, David Bowie, Nirvana, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Muse, the Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Oasis, System of a Down, Megadeth, and Pearl Jam (to name but a few), it’s also home to G-A-Y, the country’s most famous gay nightclub.
G-A-Y is one of the country’s longest running gay nightclubs, and it has done so much for the LGBT community, not just in London, but throughout the whole country. For a capital that’s approximately 10% gay, it’s a pretty essential club.
G-A-Y has also done so much for British music. G-A-Y gave a home to the first live performances of Westlife, Boyzone, All Saints, and the Spice Girls. It has also welcomed some of the biggest names in pop including Madonna, Mariah Carey, Donna Summer, and Kylie Minogue.
But not only is G-A-Y a music venue in itself, it provides a place for gay people to meet up and have a bit of fun in a safe environment. The Astoria is the only venue of its size that can give a home to G-A-Y - no other venue can do that.
Ken Livingstone (London mayor) says that although the Astoria can’t be saved (due to the Crossrail plans), drafts are being drawn up to try and protect the other music venues in the city.
He says “We’re basically putting in a vast train station but the developers that have actually drawn up the scheme for the area are replacing it with a larger live music venue… I understand the historics behind it, but it wasn’t at the cutting edge of modern comfort and so, my broad view is where you’re demolishing one, you’ve got to replace it with something better.”
What he (and many other Crossrail supporters) seem to be missing is the fact that we don’t want “something better”. The Astoria is perfectly fine as it is. We don’t need a bigger venue. It’s the size of the venue and its history that makes the Astoria what it is.
Take the O2 arena for example. It’s a modern, state of the art arena which can hold seventeen thousand people; but it has no atmosphere to it. When I see bands there, I don’t feel as much chemistry as I do when I see them at the Astoria.
When the Astoria is knocked down, London will lose one of its most loved music venues. G-A-Y will also be forced to move to a lesser location nearby, so although it will still be in one of the safer parts of London, it will have a completely different atmosphere.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown says “For decades the idea of Crossrail - a major new railway link connecting central London, the City and Canary Wharf to Heathrow and to commuter areas east and west of the capital - has been a long-held dream for business and Londoners alike.”
He also states that the Crossrail project will be of “enormous importance, not just for London but for the whole country”. I fail to see how the Crossrail project is important for people in, say, Liverpool. All it’s going to do is make things easier for people to get from the financial part of the capital to Heathrow, which as I mentioned earlier, is already possible via the existing rail connections.
I’m all for expansion and modernisation where necessary, but I have to ask myself “at what expense?” At what expense it expansion justified? Where is the line drawn? I believe it should be drawn on the other side of the Astoria, so that the venue which means so much to me (and even more to others) can stay where it is, doing what it does best.
Ken Livingstone and Gordon Brown (and everyone else behind the Crossrail project) - you suck
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How not to markup your site
This entry was posted on April 9, 2008
Today is CSS Naked Day, where (hopefully) many hundreds (if not thousands) of bloggers will strip off their CSS and show you their blog’s nudey bits. I was originally not planning to go through with this, because I’m so ashamed of my code right now, but then I thought this would be a good opportunity in teaching you how not to markup your site.
CSS is very useful, in that with CSS you can cover up some of the “mistakes” in your site. However, it’s important to fix those mistakes at the source, so that you shouldn’t need to hide them with CSS. It’s important to get the bones to your website right, because not everyone will be viewing your site the same way you designed it.
Let’s use my site as an example. It looks fairly aesthetically pleasing, right? Nice big title at the top, navigation below it, nice neat sidebar over on the right, etc. etc.
How does it look when CSS is turned off?
BAD.
My title is at the top where it should be, although it’s in an <h1> on every page, and is therefore interpreted as such. Is the title of every page on my site “Calm Banana”? No! So why am I using an <h1> tag for my site title? Because I’m naughty. One of the first things I have done with my new design is take my site title right out of that <h1>.
What comes next? My welcome paragraph. This is fairly good, I think. My site name doesn’t make it obvious what my site is about, so let’s explain things to people.
After the welcome paragraph one might expect to see my navigation. After all, once you’ve found out what a site is and what it’s about, it’s not unreasonable to assume that you might want to navigate it.
Not in this case. Next in the markup is my sidebar (of which my welcome paragraph is a part). You (the user) are forced to scroll over my blog categories, my monthly archives (of which there is no April 2008), my contact link, my q*bee link, my RSS feed, and my tagline before you finally get to the navigation.
After that you finally get to read this (my blog). About time! In fact, one of the few elements of my site that is actually in the logical place is my footer, which is right at the bottom. There really is no excuse for the shoddy piece of work I like to call a “structure”, and right now it’s top of my list of things to fix.
I look forward to tomorrow when my site can have its clothes back. I miss them.
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Bucketman returns!
This entry was posted on April 3, 2008
After my April Fool’s joke confused the hell out of everyone, it’s now a return to normal Calm Banana madness in the form of Bucketman!
Bucketman first visited in January, where he scared the hell out of me. He returned yesterday, and this time I was ready for him! He parked up in the car park, climbed out of his car, grabbed his bucket, and walked into the office where I recognised him instantly. I’d recognise that bucket anywhere.
“Hi, I’m here to-”
“-service our water cooler! Yes, I know.”
I think I freaked him out a little bit. However, all was well (even though our water cooler has moved since January) and our water cooler is now running smoothly and cleanly once more.
