Sunday 12 April 2009

1224 Politics, Rivera, St Pancras Station, Letters from Iwo Jima and Moscow Mission

The daytime gloom and strong rain has continued for the third day running. This reflects the political and general mood of the people. For the second day in succession there was a national scandal. This was the behaviour of national politicians within Parliament at the Prime Minister's Question time, an event which anyway serves no useful purpose other than to wind up the political tribes, political commentators and a media in constant search for happenings which they hope will engage the public.

What the Prime Minister did was to stand up and make an unconditional apology and then promise to ensure no one lost out if the information fell into the hands of criminals, terrorists or governments, or bodies out to damage the nation, and its people's, and to take every step to ensure what happened did not reoccur, as well as investigating how the situation had come about. The situation then deteriorated into the usual attack and counter and within seconds the seriousness in which the general public would experience the matter was lost, just as the momentary solemnity regarding the loss of young lives in Afghanistan was quickly passed over.

However what actually damages the government is the spin which was put on what happened, no different from the response of the metropolitan commissioner of police when given the news of the killing of a visitor to this country under the impression that he was terrorist, or the Home Secretary on delaying revealing that a significant number of illegal immigrants had gained employment in government security services. In this instance the story was put out that this was a mistake by a junior civil servant who broke the procedures. What emerged during the day is that the information had not been requested by another government department or in the form in which it was sent and that at a senior level there was written communication that because of the cost the information would be provided in the form of data discs and then sent by private courier. The stated reason was one of costs and in this respects the government and opposition have been competing to reduce the staffing levels and costs of the civil services. The problem will be to establish casual relationships where those directly involved will press different interpretations and perspectives.

I remain in favour of identity cards and believe that although there will be misuses and mistakes there will be a significant balance of advantage in having one. I suspect that one bi product of yesterdays revealed events that it will now be impossible to convince the majority of Parliament to proceed.

I enjoyed the first of this weeks two programmes on the final months before the official opening of St Pancras station. Last nights programme confirmed the two stars of the enterprise being the budget controller and the lower area project controller. Because of significant bonus incentives the project was said to have been completed under budget and the project controller decided to take an offer from abroad which would give him the opportunity to come home to his family each day with the result that the amazing Clare was given overall responsibility for getting the project completed after a well earned holiday (did she take it I ask). The chief architect kept his promise of taking life more easily, although this did not mean he lessened the insistence on standards of workmanship. Tonight was something of an anti climax but none the less interesting as the focus switched to the design concept of the finished station and the role of marketing and media to sell the concept to those who would make it a reality. The concept behind the coffee table souvenir book about the construction was also explained with the leading figures shown as ordinary workers and the ordinary workers elevated into models and personalities, which from the two previous programmes only required them to be themselves.

I am still not convinced about the giant statue which in a way summoned up the basic contradiction of the station concept. The function is to provide an alternative to flying for those who wish to travel to France and the rest of Europe and advertised deals indicate the attempt to include the mass market of travellers who might want to take their family for an inexpensive visit to Paris and Disneyland which after all, is staple purpose of all travel companies to fill the vehicle and get as many filled vehicles as possible within the capacity as possible to maximise the profit. Such public use systems need to cater for the professionals, business and specialists travellers, but to create a shopping, restaurant and bar ambience exclusively for them is socially questionable and commercially risky. However I am assuming that the part of the station devoted to the East Midland line will have similar facilities to those at Kings Cross which is adjacent, and the other main line stations such as Victoria which provides frequent fast trains to Gatwick Airport.

My problem with the giant sculpture is that it will be approved by the readership of the Daily Mail and Express, but I suspect not by those who inhabit the world of not for you if you have to ask what things cost. I do not think it will have the desire impact of the Angel of North, the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, although the overall station might. It was evident from the second programme that they were having a hard task to sell the concept to those willing to gamble by opening a high cost outlet aimed as those who do not worry about the price paid for the service, be it boutique, meal or farmer's market. Of course the sub plot may be to make it a once in a lifetime experience for suburban visitors especially those like me from the North East and for hordes coming from Europe who previously arrived at Waterloo and quickly merged into the cross London travel system without lingering. The concept of the sculpture is meeting place rather than goodbye.

London is full of couples who meet at work or some sporting and social interest but who live along different commuter lines. I only have limited experience of arranging to meet some one at a station, usually an individual underground station close to the jazz club, cinema or theatre and having met up one wanted to be on our way to wherever we were going, and then afterwards there was always a rush catch the last suburban train in respective directions. Having said that over recent decades the food and shopping areas of Victoria Station became well used and one example was on my last trip to the capital for the Concert for Diana where I bought lots of goodies at the new Marks and Spencer's outlet, and previously I eat a simple meal while watching some sporting event on large screen television while in between other activities. The proximity of St Pancras to Kings Cross means that instead of spending time waiting there it could be used on the other side of the road, but unless fortune changes this will be as a window shopper than an active participant, thus it was ever so.

People do arrange to met at station, although individual underground stations.


I skated over the two foreign films with sub titles watched earlier in the week Clint Eastward's Letters from Iwo Jima was not an enjoyable film to experience. While some characters are fictional the main battle and stories of the commanders is based on fact and two non fiction works. While the film was more commercially popular in Japan than the US although receiving awards and nominations it not without its critics for still being American perspective on Japanese culture and value at that time although marketed as the story of the battle from the Japanese viewpoint. It will be no consolation however to the thousands of families of those who died fighting for this iconic lump of sand and rock without freshwater.

The Russian adventure film I forgot to note but may be Moscow Mission, not to be confused with the 1943 Mission to Moscow was a conventional anti terrorist extortionist caper when the sub plot was the battle between the conventional security and police forces and a group of creatives who succeed with their inspirational and unconventional methods. It is the kind of group you disappear if things go wrong but take all their glory if they go well. While the Japanese film confirmed the Japanese solder as courageous, sometimes brutal but loyal to his superiors and the national cause, prepared to kill themselves than yield to the enemy, the Russian could have been Americans or Brits except for the language.

Today I visited a hardware store for a new toilet seat, as the existing was discovered broken at one of its hinges, a great mystery because it did not happen when I was using although it may have happened gradually through natural wear. The next task is to remove the old and fix the new.. I will leave this until I have completed the chapter of Northern Rivera on Times Past. This brings me to yesterdays completed work on the Arbeia Roman Fort.

Times Past
In the whole of the North East of England, the vast geographical area of Northumberland, Durham and 'Cleveland' there are estimated to have been about a quarter of a million people in 1800(2).

One hundred and seventy fives years later the population had reached two and three quarters of a million, eleven fold.

This growth, with large numbers migrating from Scotland and Ireland, was created by the need for fuel, transport and manufacturing machines for the Empire: Coal, Steel and Ships. Over half the population was concentrated, as it is now, within the comparatively small area around the river Wear and the City of Sunderland and between the towns on the banks of the Tyne, Tynemouth and North Shields, South Shields, Jarrow and Hebburn, Wallsend, Gateshead and the accepted regional capital city of Newcastle. For the past two decades a half marathon has been run from the centre of Newcastle to the Coastal Park at South Shields(3).

Excluding the Industrial Revolution, the region is known for the Roman Wall, the chronicling of early Christianity, the City of Durham and its many and magnificent Castles. By one of those quirks of circumstance, value for money opportunities and sudden availability, I bought a house within a couple of streets of the visible remains of the Roman fort and main supply depot for the troops which guarded the wall built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. I was about to purchase a house a mile away when the estate agent rang to say that the individual who had made an offer had dropped out.

The fort is now known by its earliest recorded name Arbeia (4) in a 4th/5th century work, Notitia Dignitatum, and is thought to be Latinised Aramaic, the known language of the last attested unit stationed at the fort. It has also been known as Caer Urfa with Caer a Welsh word meaning fortified place and then in the Middle Ages as Scheles which is a middle English term for a groups of shelters.

The fort was built during the reign of Hadrian about AD 125 to guard what was then a small sea port below the hill, which was once an island created by a tributary of the Tyne which ran down what is now the main shopping area, a night life district and street of small hotels and restaurants onto the coast, called Ocean Road. At this time it was an Auxiliary Calvary Fort with units of 500 men. "In AD 208 the Emperor Septimus Severus launched a series of campaigns against the troublesome Caledonian Tribes". The function of the fort was then changed first into an auxiliary infantry cohort and then extensively rebuilt with additional barrack blocks. It is said to have fallen into disuse for a time and then developed as a store to supply the troops of the seventeen forts guarding the wall, using the Tyne river to transport. It contained the only stone made granary found in Great Britain and as attested by the stone built structure of the West Gate, its building would have required specialist engineers.

The fort was abandoned about AD 400 when Emperor Honorius advised the British people that we had to look to our own defences. Research has shown that cavalry units stationed at the fort came for Hungry and Spain and then by infantry troops from Gaul, although perhaps only half the 1000 strength were stationed because only accommodation blocks for 500 have been identified. The last known Roman unit was of Syrian bargemen from the River Tigris in the Middle East. Of contemporary interest among the Gods worshipped at the fort were the Spirits of Conservation.

The spirits of conservation were dormant for much of the Industrial Revolution and it is only during the last quarter of a decade that attention was given to the site, first with building the extraordinarily authentic reconstruction of the West Gatehouse, and only this year the more recent recreation of the centurion's house was completed as a contrast with the accommodation available for his eighty men.

The following two photographs do not do justice to the potential of this important site which is tucked away on the brow of the hill surrounded by large three storey Victorian terracing. The proposal to build a visitor's centre and observation tower on the adjacent hillside park overlooking the mouth of the river towards the beacon remains of Tynemouth Priory and Castle has met with understandable self interested opposition by some local residents, and admittedly my preference, if there is to be some skyline structure, is for a giant sculpture of a miner and a shipyard worker to rival that of the Angel of the North, perhaps together with a Centurion they could be made to support the tower!

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