So I went on the plinth in Trafalgar square (one and other) on Thursday last week. A very strange experience.
Bloke sits on a plinth not doing anything
I took a laptop up there thinking that I could use the opportunity to write something interesting for one of the many books that are in the pipeline but on getting up there I realised that the glare meant i couldn’t actually see the screen. I persevered for 15 mins but then gave up and put it away opting instead to read a book about whales (Leviathan is utterly brilliant by the way). But once I started looking around and overcame the sheer alien awkwardness of sitting on a 20 foot high stone in the middle of a city being watched by 500 people I became gripped by what lay below. Not only were my wife & kids there along with a sprinkling of friends who came to say hi during their lunch hour but the whole square was riveting This was people watching on an epic scale. That’s what I didn’t expect. The tourists and Londoners all meandering and mixing below, some looking at me, others sunbathing or waiting for friends. Open top buses would glide past packed with people photographing me not sure what this was all about (why would they?). I imagined what they would say when they got home thousands of miles away and weeks later when they developed them and showed them to family ‘yes, and there was this mad bloke sitting on a chair in the middle of the square!’
The strangest part of if was the peacefulness. It wasn’t quiet exactly but the noise seemed to become one sort of background hum punctuated by the odd van driver shouting ‘wanker!’ or ‘do something!’ The first 20 minutes crept by and the remaining 40 whistled past. It was strangely tranquil. The size of the city and the square seemed to make me insignificant yet before going up I was worried about everyone looking at me.
You can watch the whole hour here (i haven’t had the courage to look yet). This whole collection will be housed at Kew for generations to see a slice of British life in 2009.
Flying cars have been the stuff of dreams. Ever since I saw Man with The Golden Gun in which Scaramanga escapes in a flying car (with Bond in the boot) I’ve wanted one. The reality was always a bit different. If you were an evil mastermind and you had HM finest pursuing you, first you would have to stop. Apply the handbrake. Remove the wings from the trailer (that you had to tow) and then spend about two hours putting on all the plane bits. You were really building a plane out of a car each time. BUT NOT ANY MORE! The very clever chaps at Terrafugia have finally come up with a car that turns into a plane at the flick of a switch. It takes just 15 seconds to transform from car to plane which is much more convenient for your average criminal mastermind and with a 500 mile range on one tank it should be able to get you to your hollowed out volcano lair in no time. At only £130k we reckon that’s a bargain and are looking forward to a test drive when they are in showrooms next summer.
You know how the actual ‘people’ in CGI films such as Toy Story never look as convincing as the toys. Well the new technology from Image Metrics is about to change that. It’s really hard to tell that this person is computer generated at all. Although there is something you can’t quite put your finger on.
