Hello Lums,
I walk past it every day, as I join the snaking multitudes trudging to the front line to do some paid work at the commercial coal face. I've watched it sprout and grow, bit by bit over the past few months, dominating the skyline and local residents TV receptions as it goes.
Its the ArcelorMittal Orbit Tower, springing up in the Olympic Park.
Its been accused of fascist gigantism, and of being a monument to ego. The Times described it as "looking like a giant wire mesh fence has gotten hopelessly snagged around a french horn". I'm guessing that's not a compliment, though you never know with the arty crowd. "An undesired intrusion on the consciousness of the many" is certainly not a compliment, though, we have so many of those every day, especially this time of year with peoples growing need to drape their homes in garish, blinking Christmas lights and glowing Santa's.
My favourite, maybe because its easily imagined, is " a catastrophic collision between two cranes". Twisted spaghetti, Meccano on crack, horrific squiggles and a giant ( if slightly undone) Mr Messy have all been used to allow people who don't have the dubious fortune to look at for real an idea of what its like. Without the pretentious comments about what it means, how it represents art and engineering and its seemingly chaotic form actually means.
WTF?, I don't know what it means, its a big corporate bill board really, that cost £19m to build but will be visible in nearly every Olympic Park outside broadcast shot next year, that exposure is worth billions.
After months, its the Lums turns to Reek his observations. It looks to me like a fountain of de-oxygenated blood, spurting out of an opened pulmonary artery of Stratford. It reminds me a little of that scene in Braveheart where Mel Gibsons guts get yanked out during his execution scene. Its the colour for me, that's whats most striking, in the city your used to looking at big structures, as a rule though, they are greyish, not crimson red. People will tire of it I think, unlike the Angel of the North that you can feel some affection for, this is just too hard to get on with.
100 years apparently since Captain Scott's ill fated Antarctic adventure, he's painted as both a hero and a blundering idiot, but you cant argue with the courage of those pioneers, especially when even 100 years ago, there were huge swathes of the globe still more or less a blank. But I wonder how he would view some of the latest conquerors of the South Pole. A 16 year old girl did it a little while ago, taking nothing away from her, she must be fit and brave but I just heard that a TV presenter is cycling there in a few months. Cycling? To the South Pole! What will be next, the first to reach the South Pole in fancy dress, the first man to walk backwards to the South Pole, perhaps Olly Murs could rollerskate there for Children in Need. And another thing, this day and age they get airlifted in and walk the last 100 miles or so, Scott and Amundsen walked over 800 miles and back.
Lang may yer Lum Reek.
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Its been accused of fascist gigantism, and of being a monument to ego. The Times described it as "looking like a giant wire mesh fence has gotten hopelessly snagged around a french horn". I'm guessing that's not a compliment, though you never know with the arty crowd. "An undesired intrusion on the consciousness of the many" is certainly not a compliment, though, we have so many of those every day, especially this time of year with peoples growing need to drape their homes in garish, blinking Christmas lights and glowing Santa's.
My favourite, maybe because its easily imagined, is " a catastrophic collision between two cranes". Twisted spaghetti, Meccano on crack, horrific squiggles and a giant ( if slightly undone) Mr Messy have all been used to allow people who don't have the dubious fortune to look at for real an idea of what its like. Without the pretentious comments about what it means, how it represents art and engineering and its seemingly chaotic form actually means.
WTF?, I don't know what it means, its a big corporate bill board really, that cost £19m to build but will be visible in nearly every Olympic Park outside broadcast shot next year, that exposure is worth billions.
After months, its the Lums turns to Reek his observations. It looks to me like a fountain of de-oxygenated blood, spurting out of an opened pulmonary artery of Stratford. It reminds me a little of that scene in Braveheart where Mel Gibsons guts get yanked out during his execution scene. Its the colour for me, that's whats most striking, in the city your used to looking at big structures, as a rule though, they are greyish, not crimson red. People will tire of it I think, unlike the Angel of the North that you can feel some affection for, this is just too hard to get on with.
100 years apparently since Captain Scott's ill fated Antarctic adventure, he's painted as both a hero and a blundering idiot, but you cant argue with the courage of those pioneers, especially when even 100 years ago, there were huge swathes of the globe still more or less a blank. But I wonder how he would view some of the latest conquerors of the South Pole. A 16 year old girl did it a little while ago, taking nothing away from her, she must be fit and brave but I just heard that a TV presenter is cycling there in a few months. Cycling? To the South Pole! What will be next, the first to reach the South Pole in fancy dress, the first man to walk backwards to the South Pole, perhaps Olly Murs could rollerskate there for Children in Need. And another thing, this day and age they get airlifted in and walk the last 100 miles or so, Scott and Amundsen walked over 800 miles and back.
Lang may yer Lum Reek.
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