Review – U2 at Wembley

I’m not a big fan of stadium gigs and unless you’re in the first few rows you could be forgiven that for thinking that you were watching a DVD of the band on the big screens while body doubles prance around on the stage. If that was true I’m sure somebody would have blown the whistle by now but the sheer enormity of Wembley reduced the band to distant figures from where we were, but having said that the video screens did do a great job of providing video of the band and multimedia content through the show and had a neat trick of extending downwards in a honeycomb fashion almost to stage level. In addition to that the immense stage, the excellent lighting effects and the constant twinkling of camera flashes gave the stadium an almost magical quality.

It’s advertised as being a 360 degree tour and while the stage is circular in shape there’s definitely a “front” and a “back”, and we were more facing the back, but the band members did stroll around to our side enough to feel like were weren’t bein ignored and the drum kit did turn around a couple of times to face our way.  I’d rather have been around the “front” though.

The set itself was excellent with the first few songs being new ones but then the classics started coming out with “Beautiful Day” ,”New Year’s Day” and “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” drawing the casual U2 fans in and then on to true classics like “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” and “Pride (In the name of love)”. If you’ve ever liked any of those songs then hearing them sung with tens of thousands of voices joining in with the choruses would certainly move you and I found the hairs on my arms standing up on end. Great stuff.

Two hours seemed to go by in no time and when it was all over I almost had to pinch myself to remind myself that I’d seen a truly legendary band play legendary songs in such a great setting. An unforgettable evening.

The Climate Camp returns to the City

Some will be pleased and others will groan at the news that the Climate Camp, which set up on Bishopsgate at the same time as the G20 protests earlier this year, will be returning to an undisclosed location in the City in the “Summer Swoop”. It’s all due to happen between the 27th of August and the 2nd of September, August Bank Holiday to you and me, and they’re being coy about the arrangements other than to follow them online.

Check your diary. Book the week off work. Whether you come for the whole camp, or can only come for a day, make sure you don’t miss it! This year we will set up the camp together, with a mass swoop of people taking the site. Get down to London on the day before camp on 26 August and be ready for the action to start at any time. Join us on facebook and sign up to twitter and text updates to make sure you stay informed about plans.

I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this before the day so check back for updates as I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground.

Climate Camp
http://climatecamp.org.uk

Leadenhall Jazz Festival reflections

Just back from an exceptionally long, and pleasant, weekend in Brighton (no Rob, not at Pride) and just enough time to post about last Thursday night’s jazz at Leadenhall Market.

The musical highlight of my evening was Steve Gregory and Raul D`Oliveira playing some great tunes although I really have to add that Cattle Market also put together a great set. Having the stage in the middle of the market outside The Lamb really made for a great focal point and the acoustics were good to so perhaps a tip of the hat to the PA people should be in order.

As you can see from the photo, left, there was a big crowd present while the setting in Leadenhall Market created a great atmosphere and there was also plenty of food and drink on offer as many of the restaurants had set stalls up to accomodate those who wanted to eat but didn’t want to go inside and miss any of the music.

My particular shout goes out to S&M who served us up with a great sausage and mash with honey mustard gravy which I’ve been dreaming about since, the only downside being having to hurriedly supply a reasonable explanation each time I mentioned where I went for dinner.

As with all of these thing there are drawbacks and to get into the private party outside Cheese you first had to make it past door security checking to see if your name was on the list [wink].

Hats off to all of the organisers for a great evening and I’m hoping there will be more events there soon.  Kepp your eye on the Leadenhall Market website and, in particular, the social club page which offers events, discounts and prizes for members and a free trial membership. If you do want to give it a test drive you can pick up a card from the Market or fill in your details online.

Sax in the City tonight!

I’m looking forward to this evening. A lot. In case you weren’t aware Leadenhall Market have been holding “Sax in the City“, which is an overflowing bounty of lunchtime jazz, and this evening is the pinnacle of the event, namely the big evening bash.

Now some of you may still be lingering under the philistine misapprehension that jazz is inpenetrable music best played in darkened bars but It starts at 6pm and features a number of great acts with unassuming legend Steve Gregory in the lineup.

To quote from his bio:
Best known as the session musician who played the famous saxophone solo on George Michael’s “Careless Whisper”. Steve has also played on many other hits such as Queen‘s “One year of love”, Alison Moyet‘s “That ole devil called love”, Van Morrison‘s “Hymns to the silence” and Chris Rea’s “Fool if you think it’s over”. If you enjoy Eastenders re-runs you might even see Steve backing Letitia Dean in the Vic!

There are other bands too with “Cattle Market”, winners of the 2009 Cheltenham Jazz Festival, featuring prominently and “Client Number 9″ on last and DJ Mark JB in between times.

Even if the idea of the music doesn’t immediately float your boat you should do yourself a favour and come along to enjoy the atmosphere as the bars will be open, they’ll be food a plenty and magicians will be wandering through the crowd plus it’ll be a chance to see one of music’s real characters.

You’ll need to go here if you want to see the programme for the evening and register to turn up.

Rain, rain, go away.

If you trudged into the office in the rain this morning you, like me, might be wondering where the “Barbeque Summer” that the Met Office was promising back in April. Given our typically British fascination for weather the news seemed to visibly lift the faces of glum office workers and provide visions of summer frolics, happy garden parties, the delightful scent of family barbecues and lazing in pub gardens on sunny Sunday afternoons. In June we could have believed it was true with the blazing, sunny days and assorted Government health warnings so let’s just remind ourselves of that glowing press release that the Met Office put out on April 30th (not 1st) shall we?

The coming summer is ‘odds on for a barbecue summer’, according to long-range forecasts. Summer temperatures across the UK are likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or below average for the three months of summer.

Chief Meteorologist at the Met Office, Ewen McCallum, said: “After two disappointingly-wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year. We can expect times when temperatures will be above 30 °C, something we hardly saw at all last year.”

Although the forecast is for a drier and warmer summer than average it does not rule out the chances of seeing some heavy downpours at times. However, a repeat of the wet summers of 2007 and 2008 is unlikely.

Well, they were right in that we’d get some “times” where temperatures were over 30 degrees as Wisley recorded a high of 31.8 degrees in June but saying he would “not rule out” some heavy downpours seems a serious underestimation in hindsight as some areas received twice their average rainfall, even in sunny June. You could probably sum up that forecast as “It might be hot, then it might not” and that “Barbecue Summer” was cooked up by some gormless intern in their press office but everyone will remember reading the “Barbecue Summer” quote in the news with, perhaps, some simmering resentment.

The BBC News website has also had enough and taken the Met Office to task:
The Met Office also says temperatures have been around or above normal, and that the end of August might be better again. It did indeed stress at the time of the summer forecast in April that the odds of a scorching summer were 65%. It explains that it coined the phrase “barbecue summer” to help journalists’ headlines. But this has come back to bite the organisation because many people do not feel like they have been enjoying a “good” summer, especially compared with previous searing years.

Indeed. According to the mean temperatures 2006 was the warmest July going and on current form this one won’t compare though with predictions like that perhaps they could get a job in the City…

Is the wet summer affecting your holiday plans?

Met Office Summer Forecast – 30th April 2009
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090430.html

BBC News – Met Office Cools Summer Forecast
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8173533.stm

Mean Temperatures for July to 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8127386.stm

Google News articles on “Barbecue Summer” (via bit.ly)
http://bit.ly/kNogk

City school abuse scandal

It seems like there may have been the wrong kind of sex in the City as the papers have been humming with the news that the City of London School for Girls has been rocked by the allegations of an inappropriate relationship between a 26-year old teacher and an under-16 year old pupil. The woman was apparently arrested on Monday and has been suspended pending further investigations although that point seems somewhat procedural as the school heads into the summer holidays.

Today’s Daily Mail has named the teacher concerned:
“Helen Goddard, 26, a trumpeter known as ‘the jazz lady’ by her pupils at the £13,000-a-year City of London School for Girls, was arrested on Monday and released on police bail”

Whilst the investigation is yet to determine exactly what went on I’m sure the school will be hoping that it’s robust response to the allegations will allay the fears of parents and also demonstrate to the various City institutions that support it that they have handled the situations well.

The school has 700 pupils aged from 7 to 18 and has been on its Barbican site since 1969 and is a very highly-rated school indeed which has top-rated examination performances and has had agony aunt Claire Rayner, TV presenter Claudia Winkleman and singer and musician Dido as pupils in the past.

There’s some confusion over exactly when the school started as their own website has the confusing sentence:
“Founded by a City merchant, William Ward in 1881 City of London School for Girls opened in Carmelite Street in 1894”

Eh? The Time quotes the 1881 date but the school seems to consider its birth year as being 1894 though as they recently celebrated their 110th birthday in 2004-2005.

City of London School for Girls
http://www.clsg.org.uk/

The bonuses are back in town

The New Yorker has given us a treat in the form of a fake Goldman Sachs internal memo, Goldmans famously having bought themselves back out of US government support and now starting to splash the cash about again.

It starts off simply enough:

“We had a few hard months there, didn’t we? They regulated our corporate jet so that we could no longer use it to fly from hole to hole on the green. Dave had to drain his money pool to half capacity. I stopped injecting gold into my blood. They don’t call it a recession for nothing. One day, we’ll look back on the year we received only five-figure bonuses and laugh. ”

Then it moves on to the real gold of the piece:

“So I ask that, in celebrating our raping of the stock market, we show restraint in the following ways:

• Please limit high-fives and chest bumps to a dozen a day.
• Don’t wear your crowns, except around the office.
• Stop paying for things in Monopoly money—I understand it is the same as real money to us, but there have been some complaints.
• For now, let’s take down the giant scoreboard that reads “Main Street: zero. Wall Street: a billion gazillion bajillion.” “

And finishes off with this touching note:

“I’d like to thank everyone who made this possible—for a second time. Respect to President Obama for keeping us in the green. Thanks to the big guy upstairs (me). And let’s not forget all the ordinary Americans, who, for some unfathomable reason, have refused to put us behind bars. We are literally taking money out of their wallets. Seriously, with these returns we are making Madoff look like a little kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Amateur! ”

Great piece of writing by Farley Katz and a brilliant fake. It is fake, right?

The New Yorker – Fake Goldman Sachs Memo http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonlounge/2009/07/goldman-sachs-internal-memo.html

The “Great Inbox Filler of 2009″ – Nominations?

One of the pleasures of working in the City is having loads of contacts to keep up a happy banter with by email but do you ever find that someone sends you an email joke and within a week you must have seen it at least a hundred times? Well the flavour of the month on that count is the “swine flu alert” one going around. The punchline either seems to be “Person surives swine flu with some after-effects” or “Don’t go to work if you wake up looking like this” but if you haven’t been blessed by this particular email I’ve included the picture so you can now send it to your colleagues.

Probably the most annoying, and gross, one that was going around a while back was entitled “Spiders in Iraq” showing a soldier holding up a pair of Camel Spiders and the email came with a colourful narrative explaining how they injected anesthetic into a limb while you were sleeping and then ate the flesh off it and other spectacular feats such as running at 25mph while emitting an ear-splitting scream or jumping several feet into the air.

To show that there is some sanity on the internet Snopes.com disassembled these various claims and exposed them as huge exaggerations or downright lies but either way it clogged up my mailbox for ages and I grew bored of sending back the explanation from Snopes. Anyway, now you’ve got the picture and the lin’s below so you can either choose to send the real facts to all the annothing people who sent it to you or you can rebrand it as “Spiders in Afganistan” and pass it round pretending to be hot-off-the-press news!

Have you got any favourite email jokes or ones that drive you to distraction that you’d care to share?

Snopes.com – Camel Spiders in Iraq
http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp

Top 5 Places To Sit And Think In the City

I like thinking. I find that it keeps me out of trouble a lot of the time and has even led to some excellent life, and career, enhancing decisions but one question that exercises my brain is where are the best places to sit and think in the City?

Flying in the face of popular opinion I don’t think that a pub or wine bar is the best place to think about, say, relationship woes because although the word thinking and drinking both end the same way the results rarely do. Now I’ve got that off my chest here is my list of favourite spots for a little summertime thinking.

1) St Alphage’s Highwalk
This out-of-the-way spot is devoid of grass and high on concrete but tucked away above London Wall it’s a quiet spot to sit and reflect in the sunshine away from the masses though if you want to imagine you’re in rolling countryside then you’d better have a very vivid imagination. There are a fair number of benches or you can sit on the low and reasonably comfy walls and if you haven’t got anything else to think about you can think about who St Alphage was.

2) Finsbury Square
Who couldn’t love the appeal of sitting out in the open with the occasional clack of bowl-on-bowl from the bowling green. Plenty of benches and lots of grass to sit on with the odd ice-cream van dotted around the area. It’s a great people-watching spot too so if that’s your thing then this should be high on your list.

3) Finsbury Circus
Between Moorgate and Liverpool Street this has to be the City’s nicest place to relax and ponder the meaning of LIFFE but it can get busy and if you can’t get there early in the lunchtime rush you’ll need to be prepared to sit on the grass or hover around to get a space on a bench. It is a prime spot though so even if you don’t make it a regular haunt you have to do it at least once to see why it’s so good.

4) New Change
The gardens and benches around New Change and St Pauls are great places to hide away. It can be a busy spot and the closer you get to St Pauls the more tourists you’ll have to contend with but it’s still worth grabbing a sandwich from a cafe in Watling Street and sitting outside for a while.

5) Postmans’ Park
A recent addition to my list of places to visit it gets its name from the heroic deeds of everyday postal workers and has numerous benches and a fair amount of grass to sit on with the added attraction of being the only place on my list with a small fountain and ornamental pond. Tucked away round the back of St Pauls it tends to be quiet and isn’t a sun trap being hemmed in by City buildings.

Let me know if you’ve got your favourite spots!

It’s been a gas!

On Monday morning I tweeted about a gas leak in Coleman Street, round the back of Moorgate, and it turns out that the most affected company was Legal & General, who decamped to a disaster recovery facility in Southwark until the leak was fixed. City AM’s description that:
“the road outside L&G’s Coleman Street corporate headquarters was in a state of disarray in the morning as workers frantically fought to deal with the leak, which had occurred during the night”
seems a bit overblown as you can tell in the photo the two-man workforce doesn’t seem particularly frantic and are definitely not fighting anything.

I poked my head round the corner this morning and there’s an even bigger hole in front of the building than there was on Monday and the pungent smell of gas still hangs in the air (even in the rain) but there were people going in and out of the building so I assume all’s working normally in there, though I guess they won’t be going outside for a quick smoke…

It certainly made me think about what I’d do if I got sent to Southwark for a couple of days, far from the familiar cafes, coffee shops and airy markets of the Square Mile. I’d probably end up walking back across the river just to find something I recognise. I’m sure Southwark’s lovely but….

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