Concrete Achievements

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  • Impressions from the Tour

    The caravan has come through now, and there’s a big crowd waiting for the riders. It’s odd to see UKIP stronghold Tunbridge Wells with gendarmes roaring through the streets (the French police are in control of the race route). There’ll be a few people sulking in their houses today.

    The locals, including the MP, are really milking the tourism angle. The compere has just been exhorting people to spend money in the town, and saying how much better Tunbridge Wells is than Brighton. Yeah, ok.

    One other odd thing: both CGT and Force Ouvrière, big trade unions, one of them aligned with the communists, have big advertising presence in the caravan publicitaire.

  • Tunbridge Wells welcomes the Tour de France


  • National Gallery, reimagined at B3ta

    A great B3TA image challenge: updating the pictures at the National Gallery, here.

  • Blackboys Inn


    The Blackboys inn, in the village of the same name near Uckfield, has spruced itself up. As well as a very gastropub menu, there are new tables and chairs outside, palm trees and assorted greenery. Most strikingly, a double garage has been converted into a rather louche-looking boudoir in a faintly arabian style. Still has well-kept Harveys, though.

  • Can’t disagree with this Grauniad review

    Haweli
    509 Hagley Road, Birmingham, 0121-434 5717

    Birmingham is blessed with many fine curry houses – this is one of the finest. The food is consistently great, particularly the karahi and naan bread that’s perfectly light and puffy. Many of the regulars are Asian, which is testament to the quality of the food. The decor is simple and welcoming, and the staff, whether fabulously moustachioed or studying for a PhD on a spare table, are genuinely charming. The bill, accompanied by jelly beans, will leave you with a wallet as full as your stomach.
    Charlie King
    Bearwood, West Midlands

  • Brindleyplace, Birmingham


    I know it’s been said before, but the bit of Brum behind the ICC is really a spectacular bit of regeneration. Not always perfect, but when you consider what was there before…

  • Shriti Vadera

    Congratulations to Shriti Vadera, Gordon Brown’s no-nonsense special advisor, who makes in into the Lords, and into a junior ministerial office at DfID.

  • A map of countries that have not yet adopted the metric system

    Link. via Innocent Newsletter.

  • Music on the train

    Lyric (from the Dears, Ballad of Humankindness) that struck a chord with me on the train today:

    And I turn on the news
    And there’s always some dude
    Who’s relentlessly bringing me down,
    Telling me how there are too many dark people out there who’ll never be found.

  • Facebook : MySpace :: Waitrose : Asda

    Interesting article by Danah Boyd on Apophenia Blog (here), points out a growing social division between young MySpace and Facebook users.

    The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

    MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. Teens who are really into music or in a band are on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

    Some interesting discussion in the article and on the related blog post about what this means. Via MetaFilter.