The Tepid Take

The history of the “British Institution” is a fuzzy one. Some of the things we consider most British, of course, hold their roots in faraway lands, such as fish and chips or curry culture. Only once we take things down a notch and start laying claim to more banal inventions such as the sandwich do we find our place; inventions we pioneered, only to lose their legacy as other great powers laid their claims. While the Earl of Sandwich remains a memorable innovator, the humble notion of putting some meat in some bread was preceded by the kebab and superceded by the hamburger. Only in its most banal form does the British sandwich maintain its esteem , in giant factories, at the hands of companies constantly trying to find new ways to keep salad leaves fresh and tomatoes from going soggy.  It is in this banality, tied into an oft unexpected ingenuity, that the British Institution often sits. The telephone box, now a hotspot for free Wi-Fi . Doctor Who, now a harbinger for social change

This piece originally appeared in CityMetric in 2017. Seville, the fourth largest urban centre in Spain, was recently voted Lonely Planet’s number one city to visit in 2018. The award made a point of mentioning Seville’s impressive network of bicycles and trams, but it neglected to mention that it’s actually their ten year anniversary. The city’s metro opened just two years later. This makes now an excellent time to look back on Seville’s public transport network – especially because almost all of it was completed in the middle of the global financial crisis. So, is it a good model for modern public transport? Let’s find out. Cycle Hire Seville, like any good metropolis, features a cycle hire scheme: Sevici, which is a clever portmanteau of the words ‘Seville’ and ‘bici’, short for bicicleta, the Spanish for, you guessed it, bicycle. The service, launched in 2007, is run as a public-private partnership. Users can pay a flat weekly fee of €13.33 (£11.81) for unlimited rentals, as long

This piece originally appeared in CityMetric in 2017. The economics of supply and demand is a fickle friend to urban planners everywhere. Say you work in a city with traffic jams, and the council decides to increase road capacity. In the short run, productivity improves, as getting about the city becomes easier. But in the long run, the demand for roads increases as travelling by car becomes a more viable option for an increased number of commuters. Previously, these commuters might have taken public transport, or chosen not to travel. However, now that road capacity is greater, they are compelled to drive. This results in a return to the status quo of traffic jams, just on bigger roads. This phenomenon is ubiquitous in American cities such as Los Angeles, where public transport plays second fiddle to private. The same is true for housing. When demand for housing is high, but supply is low, common sense would dictate that housing supply ought to be increased in the areas where demand i

A Fever Dream was released last month to a moderate fanfare from the Everything Everything’s dedicated fanbase. It had already been made clear by the band’s frontman, Jonathan Higgs, that the album would tackle the state of politics in 2017, making reference to the election of Donald Trump and the EU referendum in the UK. While the album has already been dissected with this in mind, I believe it is worth diving deeper to examine the specific allegories at play in A Fever Dream and what purpose they might serve. In other words, fair enough – the band is trying to talk about politics, just like they were, perhaps less overtly, on their last album, Get To Heaven. But what’s actually interesting is what they’re trying to say about politics. Any budding songwriter can write a song about how annoying Trump is – heck, Passenger went and did it , and who still listens to Passenger? Music, at least lyrically speaking, has more to say when it delves beyond the surface level, and that is exact

Toothless is a small band. They play small venues, they’re down the bottom of the festival line-up, and - however millennial this might sound - their Instagram garners only minor attention. Despite a cohesive and wide advertising campaign for their debut, The Pace of the Passing, Toothless appears to be performing poorly (pun somewhat intended) when compared to the solo project of Bombay Bicycle Club’s hesitant frontman, Jack Steadman. His alias, Mr Jukes, enjoys a much higher number of listens if one examines Spotify alone. The story is much the same on iTunes. The fact of the matter is that Steadman has enjoyed a greater degree of success following Bombay Bicycle Club than Ed Nash, perhaps because he is a more recognised figure, or perhaps because his musical panache (sorry) is simply greater. Regardless, this difference in the success of the two solo projects is a comparison that ought to be made; not least because it helps us to analyse what each member contributed to Bombay, b

In Beauty Matters , Roger Scruton argues modern art is in general inferior, on the basis that art is based, at its deepest roots, in beauty, and that the inclusion of what he considers “ugliness” paints modern art in an inferior light.  In response to the claim that modern art is beautiful because of its meaning and symbolism, rather than its aesthetic beauty, Scruton replies that this claim relies on a utilitarian worldview, that art must have a use in order to be of value. He quotes Oscar Wilde as stating “all art is useless” as a compliment to the art of the times; it did not require a 'use', because it was beautiful enough already. This feeds into Scruton's vision of modern architecture as a blight that too often prioritises function over form. Scruton believes that modern architecture exemplifies this utilitarian view of art, leading to buildings that are less desirable because they lack form. Scruton is, in part, correct; some buildings are indeed left abandoned an

This piece was originally published in CityMetric in 2017. Connectors on the Tube Map are so often the unsung heroes of London’s transport network. Because of its advanced age, many of the lines in the capital snake around each other and interchange in ways that a modern transport system built from scratch would never even consider. This means some stations are linked to each other, necessitating a ‘connector’ on the Tube Map, like the big one between Bank and Monument. However, the sheer number of situations in which these humble connectors are applied means they often fall victim to problems. Case in point: Camden. In TfL’s recent public consultation into their upgrade of Camden Town Station, it was noted that the new station, moved up onto Buck Street, will ease interchange with Camden Road Overground station, an option opened up by the new station’s increased capacity. This is already an official “out-of-station interchange” (OSI), which means you can change from one station t

Far from Theresa May's expectations, the general election has led to sea change as far as public perceptions of Jeremy Corbyn is concerned. As for why this might be the ca se,  this Times article eloquently describes how it is, at least in part, down to Corbyn's ability to change his mind on things he's said in the past. He has come out in favour of second-use of nuclear weapons , condemning  the IRA , and the police's shoot-to-kill policy . The 2015-2016 period of Corbyn's leadership has been marked by his inability to converse and mediate between the different wings of his party, eventually leading to a state of affairs where his Shadow Cabinet is bereft of the most notable, stalwart members of his party - either because they resigned, because they could not be persuaded to take up positions, or because Corbyn chose not to offer them. However, the mood within the party appears to have changed decisively since the snap election was called. In the midst o

At the meeting over Labour’s manifesto on 11 May, shadow education secretary Angela Rayner expressed dismay at John McDonnell’s announcement that Labour would prize abolishing the tuition fee over early years support. Her justification for this ire came down to two central factors: that she, as a single mother under the first New Labour government, benefitted massively from their development of the Sure Start scheme and others like it.While Rayner’s backstory is certainly an engaging & endearing one (which certainly merits a read), for now I’d like to focus on the other half of her reasoning, one centred in politics rather than admittedly subjective, if not persuasive, personal experience. Rayner claimed that the abolition of the tuition fee would be likely to benefit the middle class, because those are the kinds of people that go to university, whereas every child needs support, especially the children of working class parents – that was the whole point of Sure Start to begin wit