Category Archives: Tourism

Apr 11 2019
Leave a comment
Architecture, Building, Construction, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized

Brande skyscraper.

Brande in Denmark has a meagre population of 7,000 and there is very little to distinguish it … until now.

BBVtHj3

The Danish clothing company Bestseller, its headquarters in the town, aims to put Brande ‘on the map’ with its construction of a 320-metre skyscraper, newspapers mockingly referring to it as the Tower of Sauron, this an all-seeing ‘evil thing’ in the Lord of the Rings works that didn’t quite make sense. And that wasn’t the end of the nonsensical with those movies – one could have summoned an eagle and had the fucker drop the ring in that volcano.

Anyway, back to Denmark. The skyscraper will house offices, a hotel, and some shops. More shite, just what an unspoiled landscape needs ….

Further reading:

https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=2020721

https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2fworld%2f2019%2f04%2f01%2fdenmark-will-be-building-europes-tallest-skyscraper-town-could-this-be-new-trend%2f%3f&utm_term=.b83449138357

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/01/like-the-eye-of-sauron-western-europes-tallest-building-planned-for-tiny-danish-town-brande-bestseller

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/tiny-danish-town-plans-build-western-europes-tallest-skyscraper-180971874/

 

Tagged , , ,
Apr 04 2019
Leave a comment
Architecture, Building, Canada, Construction, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized

Habitat 67.

1200px-Habitat_panorama

I squirm at this but can’t stop staring. 146 apartments in Montreal, a breathing Lego kit with its own ecosystem. Designed by Moshe Safdie, this was meant to revolutionise affordable housing but its legacy is the opposite – a unit can set you back up to $1 million.

I guess it looks better than most dilapidated high-rises but for fuck’s sake, your crib is a tourist attraction. Every time you look out the window an army of Jimmy Stewarts are outside looking in, a Rear Window (1954) role reversal. Disturbing. What if you’re caught with a prossie?

If this is a glimpse of the future, I don’t wish to stick around for it.

Further reading:

https://www.mtlblog.com/lifestyle/what-a-1000000-apartment-looks-like-in-montreals-habitat-67

http://www.towertrip.com/inside-the-most-beautiful-habitat-67-unit-that-just-hit-the-market/

 

Tagged , , , , , ,
Apr 03 2019
1 Comment
Architecture, Building, Edinburgh, Photography, Scotland, Tourism, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

In a nutshell. Leith, Edinburgh.

Rambling around Leith today taking snaps. The port district is ugly but it has character. I would wager it has the highest concentration of junkies and creatives per square mile than anywhere else in Scotland. Everyone knows someone who’s on the smack, yet conversely their next-door neighbour will have aspirations of being this generation’s Bukowski.

The pubs also ‘suffer’ from deflation.

Tagged , , , , ,
Mar 28 2019
Leave a comment
Malta, Photography, Tourism, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized

Throwback Thursdays – Malta.

IMG_20170429_184312

Sliema was a cracking wee jaunt – booze, sun, pigeons. My personal highlight, though, was a troupe of clueless Yanks asking the bus driver for directions to a “fish market”. The bloke behind the wheel took off his sunglasses, looked the ringleader of the muppets up and down, and retorted “Nah” before closing the bus doors.

Epic.

 

Tagged , , , ,
Mar 25 2019
Leave a comment
Architecture, Building, Norway, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized

Straight Outta a Bond Villain. Under, Lindesnes. Norway’s underwater eatery.

47985838_401

Lindesnes, Norway. A meal at ‘Under’ can cost up to £350, this Europe’s first underwater munch den with 100 seats available for diners. Food has never interested me much (unless I’m pished and craving kebabs) save the architectural design of eateries; I suppose the idea behind this venue is that it’s an ‘experience’. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) comes to mind, the only decent Roger Moore number in the Bond canon. Though the restaurant is only five metres under the sea, it’s a step in the right direction, the ultimate aim a Pot Noodle in the wreck of the Titanic.

underwater_restaurant_under_snohetta_norway_008

Further reading:

https://www.artfido.com/underwater-restaurant-has-been-completed-in-norway-and-it-looks-out-of-this-world/?fbclid=IwAR1L8T5J3G62DxAQp-FQp_o6b6iyO3-4Jk_JEJB5_OypptcRMMNErJ2iVQE

https://www.dw.com/en/worlds-largest-underwater-restaurant-opens-in-norway/a-48002099

https://under.no/

 

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Mar 24 2019
Leave a comment
Britain, Cats, Edinburgh, Music, Photography, Scotland, Tourism, Uncategorized

Trying to capture album covers.

Ventured into some vinyl shop on Cockburn Street, Edinburgh the other day. I wished to recreate the truly gnarly album cover of DJ Shadow’s truly spellbinding Entroducing (1996).

R-3760173-1343282863-1644.jpeg

Entroducing (1996).

I was loitering around the venue for a good 25 minutes, the owner becoming visibly vexed with yours truly. He didn’t like the cut of one’s jib, nor the fact I was papping his customers.

I managed to get a half-decent snap out of the 1,835 taken, and this was of some random not even in the fucking shop.

IMG_20170329_214855_003

I’ll see you in another life when we are both cats.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Mar 20 2019
Leave a comment
Air travel, Planes, Technology, Tourism, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized

MH370 – five years on.

MH370-crash-4

MH370 is the 2010s very own version of Amelia Earhart, and we may never definitively know what happened; even if the black box somehow washes up on a Tom-Hanks-and-Wilson island, it’ll be beyond repair given the more than five years of aimless swimming.

Its disappearance has irrevocably changed aviation, though.

The FAA has mandated that by 2020 all commercial aircraft are to be equipped with transponders having ADS-B out capability, meaning the plane’s location can be detected in real time.

Automatic-Dependent-Surveillance-Broadcast-ADS-B-data-transmission

The Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System (GADSS) will from January 2021 ensure that airlines report all of their planes positions every 15 minutes. In addition, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) mandated that on aircraft built from 2022, those flights in distress will have to report their position to air traffic control every minute, and that all underwater locator beacons last 90 days instead of 30.

A further change initiated by the ICAO is the requirement that planes made from 2021 include 25-hour voice recorders so there will be a record not only of the flight but the cockpit preparations.

What one can’t account for is human error and, though a very infrequent event, the mental instability and criminal intent of the pilots. That’s the elephant on the plane; some folk are just nutters undetected by background and periodic checks (if any). In the wake of the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash in 2015, someone suggested to me there should be a system in place for a team of controllers on the ground to remotely override the pilot’s commands were he to go loco. It’s something to think about, however outlandish.

Further reading:

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/mh370-malaysia-airlines-missing-plane-disappearance-investigation-final-report-mystery-unsolved-a8803836.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/08/us/mh370-fifth-anniversary-malaysia-flight-370-space-based-global-tracking/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/07/mh370-five-years-of-theories-about-one-of-aviations-greatest-mysteries

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Mar 16 2019
Leave a comment
Architecture, Building, Construction, Soviet Union, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized, USSR

House of Soviets in Kaliningrad.

38538189226_0495c34b2d_b

What is it about the Evil Empire and their ugly-as-fuck brutalist buildings? A legacy imbued with obsessions of ‘social realism’ shows scant regard for anything ‘real’ about its constructs; concrete eyesores sticking out like sore thumbs, their centrepiece buildings merely highlight the lunacy of the ideology running the system.

http___cct-images.ft.com_production_05746c2d-42d7-44d4-9b94-28df875d1e21_FINAL

In the Kaliningrad enclave, we have this anomaly plonked there, a robot geezer built beside the rubble of Königsberg Castle. It speaks to the USSR’s fixation with technology and its precedence over the human element. A central administration building, its interior was never finished and the project ran out of cash. It did, however, receive a paint job in 2005.

Nuts.

Further reading:

https://www.archdaily.com/897382/the-house-of-soviets-why-should-this-symbolic-work-of-soviet-brutalism-be-preserved

https://failedarchitecture.com/the-rebuilding-of-a-hornets-nest/

 

Tagged , , , ,
Mar 06 2019
Leave a comment
Britain, Technology, Tourism, Trains, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

HS2 is coming.

800px-UK_High_Speed_2_rail_map

“HS2 will change things.”

I remember the chat well. This was eight years ago when I was doing soul-destroying manual labour/customer service in Edinburgh Waverley train station. The job was well paid and a laugh – colleagues were cracking banter and all hit the sauce like pros – but the “civilians” who ventured into that station. Fucking hell. Never again. Members of the general public are the dregs of humanity.

Anyway, I heard this HS2 topic daily, a colossal event on the horizon. The railways in Britain are a shambles. No-one knows why and not a soul has a solution. It’s been like this for the past century. No-one knows why. HS2 is meant to be the panacea for the chaos.

HS2 trains, expected to be operating by December 2026, will be 400 metres long, travelling at up to 250 mph – the fastest in Europe, apparently – and able to hold 1,100 seats, the initial line between London and the West Midlands. Following this, ‘Phase 2’ will connect Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds.

nintchdbpict000073946879

The new lines will connect to existing standard-speed lines, with ‘classic compatible’ trains running on both high-speed and classic lines. The idea is that classic lines will benefit from HS2. The London to Edinburgh journey time, for example, will be 3:38 hours instead of 4:23.

Guaranteed they will still cost a fucking fortune, though.

I can get a flight to Dublin for £6 but a train to London King’s Cross is £194. And this for the privilege of being sat on some rickety rocket chock-full of intoxicated bairns.

Trains are torture.

Further reading:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/02/16/true-cost-hs2-not-known-boss-controversial-rail-scheme-admits/

https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/77763/hs2-route-uk-cities-development/

 

Tagged , , , ,
Mar 03 2019
1 Comment
Edinburgh, Photography, Scotland, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized

Gorgie, Edinburgh – The Ghetto.

IMG_20190302_155405

Ah, Gorgie. They call it ‘God’s Country’. The place is hardly the pearly gates. Lots of aggressive creatures, Chewbaccas on crack and all that jazz. It does look kind of cinematic, though, in a grim and manky way. A new Hovis advert should be made here with a tracksuit-clad junkie on a stolen tricycle.

Tagged , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →