johnglas
Forum Replies Created
- Posts
Of course the Taoiseach should have an official residence; the (Scottish) First Minister has one at Bute House, a swanky pile in the middle of an Edinbugh New Town terrace. Never understood why they don’t knock Agriculture House and built something half decent, including a contemporary rebuild of Kildare Place which could have a residence (which usually = office, meeting and reception rooms, etc.) for the T and the two ‘speakers’ of the Dail and Seanad. Ever been mooted?
Crestfield: you’re confusing Downing Street with Chequers; I’m sure DS was just a private residence that was ‘acquired’ at some point – Chequers was a gift on the terms you state.jdivision: yeah, that was my view as well; the food was never up to much and when the sticky buns went unsticky and unspicy the writing was on the wall. What a loss though! Maybe CB will realise in a few years that they made a mistake and have a change of heart (again).
As for the ‘it’ thing – cafes are for drinking coffee, talking and reading (and maybe the odd live performance); hysterical teenagers and screaming weans can go elsewhere. By the way, mine’s a small americano with some hot milk on the side.Starbucks the acme of fashion? What have I missed?
Any city that can’t maintain a gold-plated brand of cafe like Bewley’s in a time when coffee shops are flourishing everywhere deserves Starbucks (their dark chocolate bars are good!).I really don’t know what to make of it – the Bladerunner Memorial perhaps? The encomium heaped on it by the reviewer places me in some parallel but uncomprehending universe. The cenotaph-like altar does I suppose hark back to the catacombs, but the whole thing is too dystopic by half.
The Andrej Wejchert cemetery chapel at (?) Newlands in Dublin is a much better effort at this kind of thing, and it was avowedly ‘non denominational’.Point taken, but the ‘foundation’ appears in the parish website to equate with what amounts to a ‘parish council’ – with teeth and many female members! Yes, the building really is a bit of a shocker!
I almost forgot – what about all the schemes built by Bord na Mona in the 1930s? They look pretty good to me and in terms of layout and design are streets ahead of most boring suburbs.
There are many examples all over Scotland – the most ‘successful’ (how do you measure that?) are those built on ‘Garden City’ principles in the 1920s and 30s, the least succesful the aforementioned high-rises and a lot of more cheaply systems-built tenements from the late 1930s. The peripheral schemes built in the 1950s have declined and become undesirable because of (a) poor estate management, (b) rigid tenure policies and (c) the devastating effects of Thatcherism in the 1980s.
There is a disturbing trend on this thread of sheer prejudice against the poor. All you middle-class boys need to get out more. The leafy gardens and lace curtains of suburbia conceal a multitude of social ills – but they look nice. Those who ‘succeed’ economically often do so by climbing over others and never looking back. The Mafia is a good example of capitalism and free enterprise applied to criminality.No comment (but what about the ‘door’, i.e. wall?). I note that the ‘owner’ is described as the ‘Pfarramt’ and the ‘Pfarrkirchenstiftung’ – the congregation actually owns (and manages) the building! Could Cobh ever cope wwith this?
Really? Is that why so many developers evade providing 20% social housing in, say, Ballsbridge (‘they just wouldn’t fit in’). As I understand it, much of Dublin’s Georgian housing stock declined when the rich moved out and the poor moved in, precisely because the building form was unsuitable. Here in Glasgow, tenements were purpose built for all classes up to about the First World War. By modern standards, many were deemed to be poor quality and were demolished (although many could have been saved), but those that remain are amongst the most sought-after housing in the city, significantly, mostly in middle-class areas. Tenements in working-class areas that were saved (through social housing associations) are still predominantly working class and, where sold, fetch much lower prices.
It is possible to rescue residential high-rises in ‘poor’ areas but only by dint of intensive concierge and housing-management services and by a rigorous policy of tenant selection (and then where do the rejected go?), but even here these schemes rarely attract higher-earning tenants. Many British high-rises were sold to councils as a cheap, high-density ‘solution’ to housing problems in the 60s and 70s; they were neither cheap nor dense and really were all about enriching manufacturers – they have presented a problem ever since.Or vindictive, or anti-social (‘There is no such thing as society.’), or deluded. Balls, brains … and skin colour?
Why have all presidents and vice-presidents of the USA been Wasps? (Except one and they assassinated him.) Look at the current crop of senators – real tribunes of the people. Sorry, paul h, but not anyone can make it.paul h; Mrs Thatcher is in her 80s and virtually senile, you know. Where do you think the middle classes get their money? By setting the rules and milking the poor of course. When it comes to criminality, the bourgeois can show the poor how to do it on a massive scale and get away with it. Brown envelopes, anyone? Offshore accounts? Well, you did read the small print, didn’t you?
Good try, Rory W, but buildings can’t be designed for the ‘lower orders’; the reason why penthouses are cool is because the rich can afford to stuff them with gadgets and compensate otherwise for the loss of immediate amenity space (and they can adopt ‘Lord of the Universe’ isolation). The poor can’t do that, which is why so many urban ‘projects’ fail.
rhabanus: I thought we were supposed to be beyond this: my answer to Prax did contain the phrase ‘you cannot be too prescriptive’ which is not doctrinaire. Since your post contained no direct reference to my post, I can conclude that the quote was only to make a snide point, which is a dishonourable form of ‘argument’.Your comment as usual floundered in erudite obscurity.
Prax: yes, I’m aware of that and there’s no point in being too prescriptive about hese things. However, I thought the ‘fuller’ style of chasuble was more attractive and of better quality and design (generally speaking). The modern trend towards flimsy chasubles (usually white, for some obscure reason) with absurd design details is not a progressive trend (or perhaps it is, if you know what I mean). I’d prefer a ‘fiddle-back’ to any of these. Lace I’ve never liked and the sheer crispness of lawn vestments in an Anglican seeting has for me always been preferable; I’ll accept as a compromise a discreet amount of embroidery around the sleeve or hem, but that’s about it (I know I sound like a fashionista, but believe me I’m not!).
Did you notice that the acolytes were wearing ‘monastic’-style albs – where were the cassocks and cottas?
At Easter, I went to mass at the church of OL and St Cumin at Loch Morar – delightful spot with a beautiful late 19th C church with a miniature round tower. The interior is reasonably intact (although the beutiful carved wooden altar rail has been vandalised) andthe service was low-key and eccentric, but it makes me think there’s still some hope there!No regrets at the return of the ‘new’ old rite, but ‘fiddle-back’ chasubles and lace-edged albs? I seem to remember that pre-Vat II there had been a liturgical revival which involved (inter alia) a return to fuller (‘Gothic’) chasubles and plainer albs (‘alb’ = (plain) white). My secondary school church history book (c. early 1960s) – not an unconservative tome by any means – referred to gold braid and lace (and, by implication, fiddle-back chasubles) as ’18th century bad taste’. It wasn’t wrong.
