Germany calling Woo. What a busy few weeks it has been! Mostly revolving around work (more to come on that) but also my entering of the Second Decade and becoming 20, without the –something suffix. I’ve also been continuing to deal with the fall-out of leaving Cambridge, and it’s pretty surprising how many loose ends you discover when unravelling a year of your life. A decision I’ve made is also to write to the head of the Department of Engineering and give a brief summary of my decision to leave the course and my deep unhappiness with it. One thing that struck me hearing from friends on the course after I’d decided to make the break was how much people seem to loathe the course. Not just the usual complaints of over-work, but a genuine apathy with it, which is a real shame. Education at that level is about a passion, a real yearning to learn and study the subject.

My time with Company X, doing exciting engineering things for the Underground, has re-ignited my passion for the profession, and also my passion to become a super-ace engineer. I’ve seen both sides of the card working here: being in the office, attending meetings and writing reports; and also being out on site, actually chipping in with the guys that do this every night to keep the Tube running. Yes, it’s in a poor state, but amazing strides are being taken to improve service. In the next few years capacity is going to increase by 40% by installing a new signalling system. Forty per-cent! That’s a huge figure.

To show you how dire working conditions can really be down there, particularly in the heat of recent weeks, and with the archaic time constraints that LU impose—you have two hours to be in, do the work and out—I have popped a set of photos for your perusal below. My respect for the guys and girls (yes, there are some down there!) doing this night after night is immense.


Just a quick plug here for the Railway Children, a great charity supporting children leaving rough around stations around the world, and getting them back on track (ho ho). I helped them out by shaking my bucket at Canary Wharf with a group of wonderful volunteers and raising quite a substantial amount of money—thank you people of Docklands!

On the arty, farty front I’ve been off seeing independent films again, with mixed results. The first up was The Death of Mr Lazarescu at the ICA. Précis: two-and-a-half hours of an old drunk man dying, then he dies. This, I have to say, I was very disappointed with. The emotion was put across very well, despite the plodding nature of the film: it was for all intents and purposes in real time. The kindness of the man’s neighbours, apart from being philanthropic of them, provided some quite darkly comic scenes. Lazarescu has thrown up (he is both drunk and has a peptic ulcer) on the couch where he is lying in pain, with his kindly neighbours there helping him. The scene rolls on, and after a while, one of the neighbours (a married couple that henpeck each other over everything) goes to sit back down on the edge of the sofa, with the wife warning her husband “Don’t sit! You… you just sat in the puke”. Fast forward a few hours, and after the dodgy gall bladder suffering paramedic has deposited him at (by this time) four hospitals, he finally dies awaiting surgery for a haematoma.

A much more welcome film was The Squid and the Whale, which I saw at the Clocktower in Croydon. Now, I knew this was a Noah Baumbach film, but I didn’t realise Wes Anderson had a hand in it too, as producer. While watching it I could feel the Anderson presence, but put this down to Baumbach being a close ally. It seals my fate that I am a fanboy of Anderson—I love anything his hand has been near. Well, his film-making hand at least…

This film revolves around the speedy demise and cleaving apart of man and wife, two very middle class writers from Brooklyn, and tracks the response of their two sons to the split. Frank, the younger, suffers a bout of rebelling, and a bit of sexual dysfunction thrown in for good measure. He begins masturbating at school and wiping the product of his exertions around the building, which is soon discovered, and his parents (now apart) are called in to talk with the headmistress. Look on IMDB for the quote from that scene, it’s class.

His elder brother Walt also goes through turmoil dealing with the break up. His response though is to take the side of his father (which does alter at the end rather emotionally) and act as a little shit to his mother. He also suffers sexual dysfunction, at the hands of his girlfriend, in another amusing scene where he reaches his goal a little too soon. On the side, he lusts after another girl, more pretty and intellectual than his girlfriend, who ends up getting with his father, creating yet more convolutions to this already emotionally confused film.

I would write more, and maybe I will when I get back, but I have to actually pack now for my holiday. Ich gehe in Deutschland heute!! My flight leaves in three hours… auf Wiedersehen!



Posted: 06-08-06 08:45 :: Permalink: http://ben.corale.co.uk/archive/v1/234.html


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