Jewish Museum/Time in Camden

Second cultural visit of the week was to the Jewish Museum in Camden and it was a good one.

Over last couple of years I've had a number of enjoyable excursions with JL and the only real challenge is to take in something of what we're visiting as conversation does not let up!


I was surprised at how different Camden is on a weekday morning in Winter to the Tourist-fest I last saw it as during a summer w/e and saddened to see so many people around the area  who appeared to be without homes.

Walking by?

so many on the streets

A comedian remembered 

Camden Station 

Museum is a fairly short walk from the Camden Town underground station (where comedian  Willie Rushton is remembered in the form of a Blue Plaque) and there is some (I would say unsurprisingly) security on show.

Outside

There's a café with good coffee and in what's not too much  of a shock a selection of Bagels.








We started at the Temporary exhibition and having had an independent look latched onto a 'curated' tour which revealed so much more about Jewish influx during WW2 (and before) - Tom Karen (who is still alive) had some input to the exhibition and a bike, a child's toy and classic radio hinted at the breadth of his scope in design.

The Chopper Bike (courtesy of Tom Karen) and memories of my own Cycle -Design Museum Tours

As well as the Design items each designer had an illuminated box - and some nice 'film' clips, including a nostalgic 1951 Festival of Britain  revisit.

That Chopper 'iconic'

Publishing and Posters too

Other items in the Museum showed religious and cultural artefact and told of the persecution of Jewry over the centuries with (of course) a focus on the Nazi horrors.

We had a great chat with one of the volunteers at the Museum who recalled his work in tailoring - starting at age 14 and spanning over half a century - big message I got from the visit was what immigrants have brought to the UK in recent times.

And on Subject of Immigration..

Good TV show on Channel 4 (UK), My Millionaire Migrant Boss last night subvert the 'meme' around English people not willing to work - take a look if you can, I'd be tempted to say it was heart warming..

Losses and Red 142

Why does it always rain on me?

I, like many others the anniversaries in the daily papers but was a bit puzzled to see  Lynsey de Paul being listed as 68 in the i  - I thought ' she's dead' and indeed she passed away unexpectedly  about 18 months ago - having said that the home page of Lynsey does not mention this and there are disagreements in the coverage over her age.
I've let the paper know!

Recent Deaths
As I say I look at the anniversaries but also the obituaries - sad to see that the artist  Carl Frederik Reutersward passed away this week - he was a friend of John Lennon and created a famous statue to commemorate his death which as well as commemorating the death is  used to draw attention to the excess of guns

It's difficult to feel too sad to those people who live to the ripe old age of 100 Jerome S Bruner, was one such character and his magpie like career tied together various theories to deliver an  interesting perspective  - what I found stimulating from his work was his commentary around how the young poor had a different view on the size of coins.

Few days left

Weather - I was at Design Museum yesterday delivering a couple of short Cycle Revolution tours, the rain bucketed down in the afternoon, a few miles back to West Ealing and it had been a dry afternoon -  odd how local the weather can be.

Red 142

You couldn't invent it could you?  Did I really see this?

Are they sisters?

Ecotaxis don't come cheap and Red 210

Working under cover (almost)

Regular readers will know that one of my activities is to conduct small tours at the Design Museum (The next ones are on  the 13th April at 2:00 and 3:00 pm).

I particularly enjoy talking about the 'Cargo' tribe where we see some bikes that can replace the traditional petrol/diesel vehicles - things like fast food delivery bikes.

What's surprised me about these bicycles (and some others)  at the Cycle Revolution exhibition  is the cost of some of the bikes (both current and historic) -I  saw this vehicle (EcoTaxi) out and about recently - it costs getting on for £3,000 that's a lot of passenger miles.

Red 210

A TEST -Probably about as accurate as Astrology and no  my colour wasn't red (lucky Paul).

Red a category of personality too

How lucky are we and Red 257

Yesterday after conducting my bi-weekly 'Cycle Revolution' Tours at the Design Museum I took the walk towards Tate Modern (walking along the Thames as much as was possible for me) and saw some sights from History recent and distant - as I got closer to my quarry and passed the Globe theatre rain started to fall.

A wall from Historic Winchester Palace

Once in the former power station I was such taken by the top floor of exhibits which included works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and a personal favourite of mine Ed Ruscha.

One for George?

Ed Ruscha seems to say so much

I was also excited to see more of Nam June Paik and what I saw here was for me  more inspiring than those I recently saw at The Whitechapel Gallery, another revelation was seeing a  work which was also combining the word and image, this by Barbara Kruger a US artist who was asking the searching question 'Who Owns What?''.

Barbara wants to know

an early part of the Information Super-Highway from Paik

An exciting summer

Red 257

A machine we can associate with speed

A Red dream machine

First outing for my Volunteer tour of Cycle Revolution exhibition and Red 313

Yesterday I got the chance to run my latest 'Volunteer' tour at the Design Museum and I was surprised at both the number of people who joined and their engagement with the topic.

If you're interested there'll be more volunteer led Cycle Revolution Tours (The Wednesday ones are by me).

A very Conran Christmas

On the way in I passed  Conran's  HQ  looking Christmas-sy. Sir Terence Conran is a prime mover's behind 'Modern British Design' as well as which he's a  benefactor  who has helped preserve parts of the Thames Docklands'  and is leading figure behind establishing the Design Museum.

Anyway back to the 'Tour' - The things that came out of the tour for me were:

1) Children/young people are really engaged with cycling - it's the school holidays and there were plenty there.

2) People recall their early cycling experiences - one visitor told me how his father delivered to him a birthday present of a bicycle as a kit of parts which the deal was that they'd assemble  when he performed satisfactorily his mathematics 'Times Tables'.

3) I shouldn't forget that although males enjoy the 'artefacts'  of high-tech bikes girls too really like cycling.

Who would have thought you could make a wooden bike?

4) Cyclists are often evangelical and want to get more involved - as we get more people involved it's a beneficial circle- better facilities and cycling becomes safer.

It's hard not to use a historic perspective when talking about cycling but other angles are possible, many people spoke about the 'Santander Bikes' (formerly Barclay's Bikes) and how London was more successful at encouraging bikes and their use than say Birmingham (but less than Paris).

Points I need to follow up include the weight of the fantastic Lotus 108 - made famous by Chris Boardman.

The lightweight (and low profile - just 25 mm) Lotus bike

[Note: it's  8.35kg (18.41lb) without pedals]

Red 313

This Red bicycle is a Gramercy by Martone and comes in at a cool £1,300

And here's a bike in the Design Museum shop

More on bikes and Red 323

A book by an enthusiast

As part of my research for Cycle Revolution tours I'm reading and really enjoying 'It's All about the Bike' written by cycling enthusiast Robert Penn what I got from this book was an idea of how much excitement  there was at large around cycling at the end of the 19th century  and the passion for cycling that the writer has.

What I'm finding is that London needs to address three things to ensure greater uptake:

1) Greater security - bicycles are a target for thieves be they opportunistic or professional, some councils are working to provide facilities for securing bicycles  where they are less at risk. (This seems to be a bit of an ongoing problem for Blur front-man Damon Albarn)

Protect the skull

2) Safety : I've had two or three  serious accidents cycling two of them requiring visits hospital A and E.
Oddly the worst of them was when I was hit head on by a police car, a broken arm resulted and it could have been a lot worse but still unsettling many years after the event - at the time of my accidents helmets were a rarity and fortunately my injuries were not around the head- I suppose we should be looking at ways of improving helmets and making sure that their use is encouraged.

[I'm not sure what the figures are for cyclists hit be police vehicles but I'm not unique]

Part of the Cycle Revolution exhibition covers an idea where cycle-ways are separated from heavier traffic and this could improve the experience of city cycling.

3) Punctures - when I commuted by cycle to the centre of London one of the worst things to suffer was a puncture - I'd hope that technology has improved the resilience of tyres and that replacing inner tubes is now easier.


The Future

A photo' from my archive  and a China visit about 35 years ago

The future for Cycling then is a mixture of things, it's more use of bicycles for carrying some freight, it's about improvements to health and air and for developing countries it's about retention of some use of bicycles (where applicable) and a resistance to a culture that necessarily over values the industrial combustion engine.

Red 323

I remember some time ago a fellow broadcast 'engineer' showing me with a flourish his small disk saying that this was in effect his symbol of being a modern engineer- well this is far more compact and universal (and red). 

Amazing in red