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#and in the same room is a map of the london underground from 1940
david-watts · 3 years
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look I hate this house as much as anyone would in the same circumstances but even with shit like half the house not being earthed, the likely rodent infestation and the fact the last time there was any major work done to this place resulted in the floorboards now rotting, some of the shit we have here is Wild
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greenbagjosh · 4 years
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28 March 2000 - Kremlin Bicêtre army base, Montmartre, top of the Grande Arche de La Défense and last time for 2000 on the M8
Bonjour mesdames et messieurs!  
Today is Tuesday the 28th March 2000, and the last full day of my visit to Paris.  What should we do today?  I have always enjoyed going to Sacre Coeur de Montmartre, and have always wanted to go to the top of the Grande Arche de La Défense, as I had previously done on the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower.  There was one curiosity on the left bank, just south of the Paris city limits towards Villejuif through Place d'Italie.  Before I made a plan, I had to have breakfast at 6:45 AM.  I decided first to go to the Forte de Bicêtre at Kremlin Bicêtre.  
 About 7 AM I walked to the Crozatier bus stop on Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine and Rue Crozatier, just a few hundred meters from Rue Trousseau.  I boarded bus line 86 and took it as far as the Sully Morland Metro station, via Bastille.  At Sully Morland I could catch the M7 to Villejuif and stop at the Kremlin Bicêtre. However I was a bit impatient and caught the Mairie d'Ivry branch train.  Two stops after Place d'Italie, I had to alight at Maison Blanche and wait on the next train to Villejuif Louis Aragon.  From there it was just one metro stop away to Le Kremlin Bicêtre.  
 What was expected to be at the Fort de Bicêtre at Kremlin Bicêtre?  It is an actual fortress.  It is not as exciting to see as the one in Moscow.  And there is no external mausoleum for any leader that I am aware of. From the Kremlin Bicêtre metro stop, I took the bus line 47 to Barnufles la Piscine and walked down Avenue Charles Gide to the driveway of Fort de Bicêtre and then uphill to the northern gates. At the time it was not equipped to handle visitors, so there was nothing much to do but stand outside the big green gate with FORT DE BICÊTRE in big letters.  Note from Wikipedia:  "Since it is still used by the Ministry of Defense, the fort is closed to the public. However, tours are organized for European Heritage Days in September.".  About 7:55 AM I went back to the metro station and around 8:06 AM I boarded the M7 on the way back to the AIJ to get some more freshly charged camera batteries.  
 I took the M7 to Place d'Italie and changed for the M5 to Bastille.  The ride went uneventful until 8:23 AM when an Eric Clapton impersonator boarded the M5 at Gare d'Austerlitz.  While the train was crossing the Seine for Quai de la Rapée, he performed a nice guitar solo of "Tears in Heaven".  That lasted until a minute prior to the train reaching Bastille, when he did an alto saxophone solo of a different song.  The train reached Bastille about 8:30 AM.
 I went one stop on the M8 to Ledru Rollin.  There was a bunch of children, maybe about 50 of them, leaving the AIJ.  They were lined up on the Rue du Faubourg St Antoine just after Chez Tony.  I went to my room and collected one of my video camera batteries and about 9:30 AM I left for the city limit at Porte de Charenton, seven stops away from Ledru Rollin. There was a city boundary bus line that I could take to Porte de Bagnolet via Porte de Vincennes.  
 At Porte de Bagnolet I could take the M3 to Gambetta.  Gambetta used to be a branch off the M3 line for Les Lilas, but it became a separate line known as the M3Bis.  There was supposed to be a station after Porte de Lilas called Haxo, which would connect to the 7Bis line, but the plan was tabled, and it seems like Haxo would need to be reconstructed in order to be able to be used, possibly for a future M17 line or so I have heard.  The 3Bis stations don't look too much different than those built in the 1920s to 1940s.  The one thing I noticed about Porte des Lilas, at the north end of the 3Bis exit platform, was an upwards escalator with wooden steps.  I had not seen such an escalator since the 1970s when I first rode the Northern Line in London.  Back then London Underground was operating 1938 tube stock, the one with wooden flooring, similar to that of the escalators.  
 At Porte des Lilas, I had a quick snack of a lemon crêpe.  It tasted good also with powdered sugar.  Not bad for about 10 FF.  I then took the M11 to Belleville and transferred to the M2 which I rode until I arrived at Anvers.  Anvers is the southern access point for the Montmartre and its respective funicular train at Place Saint Pierre.  The train requires the same fare as the Metro.  Paris Visite is also valid.  I spent maybe twenty minutes looking at the Sacre Coeur and then southeast towards Gare du Nord, République, Bagnolet and Vincennes.  I saw a "living statue" standing on the pillar of the stairway to Sacre Coeur.  The noontime bells rang.  Then I took the funicular down.  I returned again in April 2008, February 2009 and September 2011, and spent more time exploring the nouveaux artes area between Rue Norvins and Rue de Saules. Even one time I spent an evening at the Lapin Agile on Rue de Saules.
 I wanted to walk from the funicular station to Pigalle.  I walked from Place St Pierre on Rue d'Orsel, then Rue des Martyrs and I ended up at 12:30 PM at the Pigalle station.  Sadly the Moulin Rouge was nowhere to be seen.  It turns out that the actual Moulin Rouge is close to the Pigalle station and is along Boulevard de Clichy, but is closest to the Blanche station, just one metro stop away.  
 I caught the M2 to Place de Clichy, transferred to the M13 and went northeast to St Denis Université. At La Fourche, is the separation station, where the M13 separates for two branches, one to Gabriel Péri and the other to St Denis Université.  The M13 branch to Gabriel Péri has since been extended two stations to Asnières-Gennevilliers Les Courtilles.  At Saint Denis Université there was not much of touristic value to see, so I had a sandwich at a nearby bar.  About 1:20 PM I took a bus which I thought would take me to the St Denis RER D station, but somehow I ended up at Garges-Sarcelles instead.  I took the southbound RER D line as far as Chatelet Les Halles to connect with the RER A line for La Défense.  I did not reach La Défense until 2:40 PM.  
 To access the Grande Arche, you have to go under the stairway kind of on the southeast side, and then go to the admissions window.  Or you could go up the stairs and back down by the escalator.  They were giving a 33% discount off the regular admission price because of the foggy weather.  Going up is by glass elevator.  I think it was about ten to twelve stories high.  Access to the paying public is through the top two floors.  There was an art gallery plus a room with small scale models, about 1:1,000 scale, of the Grande Arche and neighboring buildings around La Défense.  There was a video about how the Grande Arche was designed and what building materials were used.  Previously the outside was designed with marble, but it had to be replaced from 2010 to 2017 with granite.  This may explain as to why I was unable in September 2011 to visit the Grande Arche. There were also some aerial photographic maps, of the area including Champs Elysées to La Défense, and you could see the top of the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Orangerie, and also the Bastille.  
 The point of going to the top of the Grande Arche de La Défense, was to go to the observation level. As it was not raining, it was possible to go upstairs to see as far as the Arc de Triomphe, and maybe also the Eiffel Tower.  The fog was so bad, that I could barely see "L'AN 2000" on the Eiffel Tower. The camera could not see it properly. The Arc de Triomphe was not much better.
 I went back down about 4 PM, and walked to the Bassin Takis at Place des Pyramides, located directly above the Metro Station Esplanade de La Défense.  That was the splash pool that I remember from August 1997, where the light poles had blinking lights, and they were more active during the summer. Looking southeast from there, I could see the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe.  By then the fog situation may have improved, but I had already moved on.
I went for another walk about 5 PM on the Champs Elysées and then I took a ride from Auber-Boulevard Haussmann Saint Lazare station on the RER E.  The escalator had a two level incline, with a flat section in the middle. Basically down – flat – down.  I rode one station to Magenta.  I went back to Haussmann Saint Lazare on the same line. I went into both the Printemps and Galleries de Lafayette.  I think I spent an hour in total between both places.
 The rest of the evening I did some more shopping and then a burger at Quick.  I walked to the Place de la Concorde and the Grand Palais.  At Concorde there was a large ferris wheel.
 I made one last ride with the M8, to Balard.  That was the western end of the line, where Créteil Préfecture was the southeast terminus. Note, it was since extended to Créteil Pointe du Lac.  I spent five minutes at Balard, from 9:30 PM to 9:35 PM.  Then I went back, and it took only 30 minutes to reach Ledru Rollin. I went to bed about 10:40 PM.
 The next morning, Wednesday the 29th March, I woke up about 6:50 AM.  I had a 1 PM flight from CDG T1 to San Francisco.   I had my last breakfast at the AIJ, took a shower, packed my belongings, checked out and caught the line 86 to the Bastille metro station – so that I would not need to go up and down stairs while transferring from the M8 to the M5. I took M5 to Gare du Nord to transfer to the RER B.  By 9:15 AM I was on the RER B platform and sat on a strapontin (folding seat) close to the door.  I caught the 9:30 AM train to CDG T2.  It stopped at Sevran Beaudottes at 9:38 AM.  I arrived at the Roissypôle station at 9:50 AM.  It took maybe seven minutes for the shuttle bus to arrive to take me to CDG Aérogare 1.  The bus departed for the terminal using the access roads, and passing by the abandoned SK6000 railway that would eventually become part of the existing CDGVAL.  The bus ended just outside the southeast end of the CDGVAL station, and everyone alighted.  I entered Aérogare 1 about 10:05 AM and checked into my United flight, nonstop to San Francisco.
 CDG Aérogare 1 is shaped in a circle, that just over 270 degrees can be used as airline gates.  I think seven terminals exist as satellite gates, each one with an underground travellator, after clearing the initial security gates. In the middle is a large fountain, and you can see the hamster tubes with escalators.  
 I was not quite ready to go through the security gates and Schengen zone passport control.  In the meantime I bought a few magazines, and a couple of music cassettes at the record store.  I remember in August 1997 and August 1998 buying cassettes from the same place.
 About 11:45 AM I crossed the security gates and had my passport stamped as having exited France and the Schengen Zone.   I went on the travellator to the United Airlines terminal and waited until about 12:45 AM to board the plane.  In the meantime there was a snack bar in case I were hungry.  
 At 1 PM the flight was ready to board.  I took my place towards row 30 in the 777 aircraft.  I think the flight was about 11 hours long.  Since the USA at the time did not switch to daylight saving time until the first Sunday in April, the time difference between Paris and San Francisco was 10 hours.  
 I arrived about 2:30 PM Pacific Standard Time in San Francisco, landing at Terminal 2, having my passport checked and luggage inspected.  After that, I was legally in the USA.  I took the shuttle from the airport to the Millbrae Caltrain station, took the train to Hillsdale station, and transferred to the SamTrans bus line 252 to the intersection of Hillsdale and Edgewater Boulevard in Foster City.  It felt good to return home.  My car was still in its stall.  The next day, 30th March 2000, I returned to work.  My next overseas journey would be Tuesday 5th September to Wednesday 20th September 2000, and then to Italy, Austria, Germany and Switzerland, and a little bit of France at Bellegarde.
Well that was the last of my journey to Paris for March 2000.  I hope you enjoyed.
 Au revoir, et bonne santé!
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vitalmindandbody · 7 years
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How down-at-heel Lisbon became the new capital of cool
Four years ago, Portugals capital felt like a city on its knees. Now it is being touted as hip, cheap and innovative. But is the socialist government failing Lisbons poor in its rush to revitalise?
In Lisbon people keep telling me about the surfing. Its great. The beaches are 20 minutes from the beautiful, historic and lively centre of Lisbon. You get the best of everything: Bondi meets old Europe. I hear this from Patrick, a Kentuckian whose digital marketing business was formerly based in Costa Rica and at another time in Bali; from Matthieu, a French life coach; and from Tariq, a British property specialist. I hear it from the Yorkshire-raised, London-based Rohan Silva, whom the British press likes to describe as a tech scenester or techpreneur, and from Joo Vasconcelos, Portugals suave secretary of state for industry.
Until recently, most of the news coming out of Portugal was of what Vasconcelos calls the worst crisis in 100 years, with stories of professionals sleeping in their cars because theyd been evicted from their homes. On my last visit, for the architecture triennale in 2013, an event full of ingenious low-cost ideas for reviving empty spaces and struggling businesses, Lisbon felt like a city on its knees. Now, according to one of the 2013 triennales organisers, Mariana Pestana, theres a psychological improvement. People are starting to dream again, theyre starting to consume again. Economic change is no longer something that happens to us. There is some control. There are also early outbreaks of the complaints that come with urban success, rising property prices and loss of character.
Lisbon is becoming an outstanding example of what might be called Monocle urbanism, after the magazine that combines trendspotting and lifestyle advice with social and political commentary, and which recently devoted many pages to the Portuguese capital. For the sophisticated nomads that Silva calls the global creative class, Lisbons attractions are powerful. According to Vasconcelos, the big cosmopolitan cities of the world are more like each other, such that central London and central Lisbon are closer to each other than London is to the Brexit-voting regions of Britain. (Theorists of the liberal metropolitan elite will take note.) For the first time since the 1940s, when Lisbon was a refuge from the war, says Pestana, the city is really cosmopolitan.
Take Patrick Tigue of Downtown Ecommerce, the American who was formerly in Costa Rica. He has clients all over the world, from the US to Australia, some of whom he doesnt meet for years, if ever. Our business started to grow, and we had a problem scaling up, so we opened up a map and wrote down a bunch of cities. They had business criteria access to English speakers, low cost of living, low wages, a convenient time zone and personal preferences: surfing, good weather. Berlin and Barcelona were good from the workforce perspective, but the lifestyle in Lisbon did it.
In Lisbon, he goes on, the people are incredible. There is always some type of music, style, arts going on. The food is incredible, the architecture Its a big little city. The real estate you feel its coming up. It was quite a gamble. I came here last year for a vacation but it turned into an extended stay and then into moving here permanently. Id like to stay here for the long term, to have kids here. I am that convinced.
Manifestations of the new Lisbon include reincarnations of locations first created to serve tech businesses in London. One is Village Underground, part creative community, part arts venue, which aims to combine affordable workspaces with art, music and performance. In London its distinguished by four recycled Tube carriages perched in the air. In Lisbon it consists of a pile of shipping containers and repurposed double-decker buses, on a dramatic location next to the citys suspension bridge.
Patrick Tigue of Downtown Ecommerce in his Lisbon office: The lifestyle in Lisbon did it.
Another is Second Home, a shared workspace created by Silva and his business partner, Sam Aldenton, an enclave where industrious tech businesses can get in touch with their inner lotus-eater. In Lisbon, as in London, the Spanish architects Selgas Cano have been commissioned to design an internal garden of delights, with abundant foliage, subtly clashing colours and playful details, only less frenetic in the recently-opened Portuguese version: the main space is a single greenhouse-like room, with the territories of different companies defined by plants.
A programme of cultural, social and sensual events a wine-tasting, a literary salon, an introduction to hydroponics is designed to engage and delight the members. A cafe painted deep blue serves both them and any of the general public who want to venture in.
Second Home opens off Time Out Market, in the historic Mercado da Ribeira, that describes itself as an original concept that creates food and cultural experiences based on editorial curation. The idea is to translate into physical space the knowledge of the journalists of the eponymous listings magazine, to house the best restaurants and artists the best of the city under one roof. It opened in 2014, now attracts 2 million visitors a year, and has inspired another Time Out Market, planned for London later this year.
Lisbon also has Vhils, a young street artist described to me as a cross between Banksy and Damien Hirst, already embraced by government-backed art projects and corporations like the electricity giant EDP. (Which, it must be said, seems to go against the bottom-up ethos that is supposed to be the point of street art.)
These high-concept and somewhat Anglophile initiatives are laid upon a city of old-fashioned dignity, of arcades and ocean breezes, of the yellow, timber-lined streetcars that get into the tourist pictures, of classical facades maintaining their equilibrium over steep slopes, of delectable cake shops and family-owned seafood restaurants.
Lisbon is also a city that responded to economic crisis with resourcefulness and imagination. Behind an anonymous and battered door, for example, can be found a Cozinha Popular (peoples kitchen) founded by a food writer called Adriana Freire. It is a serene space in the district of Mouraria. where people who had fallen on hard times make exceptional meals for the enjoyment and benefit of the local community. Out of it has spun Muita Fruta, a project to transform Lisbon into a big farm. It started with mapping the citys existing fruit trees, helping their owners to get the best out of them, harvesting their fruit and making jam. The plan is to expand the project by planting new fruit trees, in collaboration with the city government, wherever space can be found.
Tech businesses commune with their inner lotus-eater at Second Home, a shared workspace created in Lisbon by Rohan Silva and Sam Aldenton. Photograph: Iwan Baan
Contemporary Lisbon, then, combines the blessings of history and nature with the entrepreneurial actions of both locals and outsiders. It is still cheap. Charlie Orford, British co-founder of flight-booking website Low Cost Hero, took a quick look at London and immediately put it in the bin. His Lisbon space costs less than 12th of its equivalent in London. For reasons like this, combined now with Brexit, Lisbon is particularly attractive to young, creative exiles from the British capital.
Vasconcelos lists other assets: it is one of the safest cities in the world, even during the crisis. It is liberal and open: we look like southern Europe, yes, but we are not the stereotype of southern Europe conservative, Catholic thats completely wrong. In many things we are more like the UK than Spain. Gay marriage, gay adoption, theres not a discussion we are one of the countries receiving more refugees. Again, theres not a discussion.
Portugal is also, he says, a common-sense society, very respectful. If you think Latin blood is very aggressive, you are wrong.
Its a simple enough idea if you can locate yourself pretty much anywhere, why not in a really nice place that is also affordable and welcoming? but it doesnt happen purely by chance. Even more exotically, as Silva puts it, theres a socialist government thats very popular but pro-enterprise. Lisbons new identity has been willed into being by government, especially by Antnio Costa, formerly mayor of the city and now prime minister of Portugal.
Costa came to power promising economic growth combined with relief from the worst pains of austerity. You can have several types of austerity, says his minister, Vasconcelos. It can impact on the most fragile or on the most strong, on companies or workers, old or young. What were trying to prove is that you can be serious and can achieve a good public deficit as we are now, our best ever while at the same time fostering entrepreneurship and science.
Food writer Adriana Freire, left, sells jam made from the citys fruit trees via her Muita Fruta project.
As mayor, Costa swept aside bureaucratic obstacles, encouraged creative and tech entrepreneurs and boosted tourism. He made it easier to open businesses or hotels in historic buildings. He set up programmes for teaching schoolchildren and the unemployed how to code. He created Startup Lisboa in the then moribund centre of the city, a place where fledgling businesses could find their feet, run by now-minister Vasconcelos. He was helped by the dynamic Graa Fonseca, now secretary of state for modernisation, then in charge of a department of entrepreneurship.
Mariana Duarte Silva, the woman who brought Village Underground to Lisbon, says that Costa is a little bit of an annoying optimist, but I think that helps.
Lisbons revival has also been helped by some not-especially-socialist incentives, such as the Golden Visa, which gives rights of residency to anyone buying property worth more than 500,000. Many are attracted by its tax regime, especially the highly-taxed French. It has also welcomed the not-especially-socialist Airbnb and Uber. The taxi drivers protested for a day, says Vasconcelos a touch dismissively, but that was all.
If the energy and vitality of the new Lisbon are genuine, the Costa renaissance is not without doubters. Ana Jara and Lucinda Correia, of the architects Arteria, are engaged in the sort of low-cost ingenious interventions that were seen at the 2013 Triennial: making new and good-looking signs to draw attention to long-established businesses, and devising a strategy for making beneficial use out of the underused rooftops of Lisbon apartment buildings. Initially they were pleased by the revival of the city but now they see residents and businesses being pushed out by rising prices.
People are playing the game of Monopoly. they say. You buy houses and you build hotels.
Banksy meets Damien Hirst in street art by the Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto, known by the tag name Vhils. Photograph: Alamy
The Golden Visa is the worst thing. It makes it possible for someone to buy a huge property but it causes social exclusion. It says, if I have the money I have the right to be here. This is not managing the city in a smart way. In the medium-to-long-run, you lose identity, people will not be making or producing any more.
They say that a bastardised form of Portuguese cuisine is being sold to tourists, and that Costas relaxing of planning rules is leading to faadism, whereby only the shells of historic buildings are retained.
A short film, Youll Soon Be Here, has been made to chronicle the effects of tourism on Mouraria, the marginal, multicultural and poor downtown area where, among other things, Freires Cozinha Popular is located. A campaign has been set up, Morar Em Lisboa (To live in Lisbon) to oppose displacement. Even a Costa enthusiast like Mariana Duarte Silva of Village Underground says: People are being chucked out of their homes and traditional shops are being closed. But the prime minister is very conscious of it.
It would also be a loss if the identity of Lisbon, a city rich in things subtle, graceful and well made from food to artefacts to buildings is swamped in a flood of branded, curated, confected, marketed experiences, if the stuff that is good and already there is repackaged and resold.
Lisbon has an aptitude for mimicking other cities. Its suspension bridge is much like the Golden Gate in San Francisco, and it has a statue of Christ reminiscent of Rios. Many of the latest interventions are London-inspired. Its breathier boosters now say it could generate a countercultural energy like the one that San Francisco converted into the wealth of Silicon Valley. Northern Europeans like to retire here too, which would make it a sort of Miami.
Now it resembles a speeded-up east London, moving rapidly through the gears of dereliction, artistic renewal, entrepreneurial action, rising prices and gentrification.
Its a cause for celebration that a great old city, down on its luck, should find a new life, but the really smart thing for Lisbon and its government would be to do better than cities that have gone this way before: to achieve vitality while also nurturing the things that make the city so appealing in the first place.
See this: landmarks of the new Lisbon
The Time Out Market, in the historic Mercado da Ribeira, offers food and cultural experiences based on editorial curation. Photograph: Alamy
MAATThe sweeping new riverside gallery designed by Amanda Levete for the art foundation of the electricity giant EDP.
EDP HQ EDP has also commissioned architecturally ambitious headquarters by the Portuguese practice Aires Mateus, designed to welcome the public at least some of the way into its complex.
Cozinha Popular da Mouraria A popular kitchen created in response to the economic crisis.
Time Out Market An ensemble of food shops and restaurants, a place for street food that should have a Michelin star.
LeopoldA restaurant where a menu of many highly-crafted courses is served on small, square blocks of wood.
LX factory The former premises of a thread and fabrics company that now houses studios, bars, galleries and venue spaces, a stage for a diverse set of happenings.
Shared workspaces Local incarnations of the shared London workspaces Second Home and Village Underground, which in different ways combine high levels of architectural invention with cultural programmes to delight the creative and tech companies they house.
Read more: www.theguardian.com
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