Wednesday, January 16th 2013
Even though it has not snowed again since Monday, the weather remains cold and I think the temperature has dropped a degree or two. We ran the heating overnight, admittedly on a low setting, something that is rare for us. As Tigger got ready to go to work this morning I noticed she put on an extra layer of clothing and when Tigger puts on an extra layer, look out! It means it’s really cold!
I had some business to see to in Moorgate today. I didn’t want to go out and face the cold and would much rather have stayed indoors but needs must where the devil drives, to quote an expression.
Actually, it wasn’t too bad outside but only because I was dressed for the occasion: five layers of clothing on my top half; long johns under my trousers and my “ninja” around my neck. The thus named “ninja” is a double-layer fleece collar that covers my neck and even my chin. So that I can handle my camera in cold weather without taking off my gloves, I have a pair of mitten gloves that have a pocket covering the fingers that can be turned back to reveal my finger tips. Just recently, however, I have taken to wearing another pair of gloves under them so that my fingers are never exposed to the cold.
Mitten gloves
and under-gloves
I can just about handle my camera with these gloves on though putting on the lens cap with its squeezy latch is a bit tricky. You might think that the white tips on three fingers are for decoration only, but no! These are iPod-friendly gloves – the screen responds to being poked by the white finger tips. (So does the touch-sensitive pad of my laptop.)
While I was in Moorgate, I decided to take a look at some shops that I knew inhabited a street behind the tube station. At the moment, the new railway service called Crossrail is being built and it runs through most of London through underground tunnels. Digging the new tunnels is causing major disruption with road closures and demolition of buildings. Half of the street that I wanted to visit has been done away with and the buildings that once lined that half have been replaced by a massive hole. In the other half, shops and offices remain though I wonder whether their business has been adversely affected.
Closed down
Not even the name survives
My attention was then attracted by this shop. It has obviously closed down, though whether it was under threat of demolition or failure caused by the recession, I do not know. Even the name has gone. The strangest part of this vision of desolation is the figures gathered in the windows.
On parade…
…awaiting their fate
The shop dummies have all been gathered together in the shop windows and here they stand like a squad of soldiers on parade, awaiting news of their fate. There is something vaguely sinister about this gathering of black humanoid but headless bodies, some with arms made of newspaper and sticky tape. Will they be sold, given away or simply be thrown away?
As for me, I was only too happy to enter the warm interior of the tube station, follow the long staircases and escalators down to the depths and board a train back to the Angel.
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The mannequins are a particularly haunting image. Perhaps they are the former business owner’s comment what is happening in the area. In these days, when Art can mean anything or nothing, this could indeed be a powerful piece of installation art. Depressingly, if it had been created by some of our more notorious artists, it would be worth more than the business would have needed to stay afloat for years
It’s an amusing thought that it could be an art installation. All it would take to turn it into one would be a description in pretentious art-speak.
What interested me is that the mannequins face each other. If they were put in the windows to get them out of the way or to collect them all in one place, they could just as easily have been lined in rows marching out toward the street or in toward the store, or just piled in there any old how. Yet, they are carefully aligned to face the [now nonexistent] customer entering the storefront, as they would be if they displayed the shop’s wares.
In re: your gloves — I had no idea they made gloves that could work touch screens, but now that I consider it, the need seems obvious — people would want to work their touch-screen devices out of doors in cold weather — Some clever and enterprising sort has spotted the need and filled it with an innovative product.
I think the dummies are arranged in the best way to fit them all into the fairly narrow space in the windows. They do look eerily like people waiting for something.
It was Tigger who discovered the gloves – she is often ahead of me in such things. She bought me a pair even though I thought I didn’t need them. Then they turned out useful in a way not envisaged when they were bought.
This is why women are so fascinating and so far ahead of us. Somehow – sometimes consciously, sometimes instinctively, they do things whose usefulness only becomes apparent with the passing of time.
Probably it has something to do with the fact that they are mothers and so, on an evolutionary level, they have to anticipate the future for the good of their offspring and their family while men see to more immediate needs.
On a number of occasions, Tigger has suggested things to me that I have rejected out of hand only to take them up later. An example, which she still teases me about, was her proposal that I use the calendar/appointments book on our mobile phones: I said why would I bother with that when I have a perfectly serviceable Filofax? These days, of course, the mobile appointments calendar it is one of my most valued accessories!
I think the much discussed multitasking ability of women has a parallel in their ability to “think outside the box”. When solving a problem, I seek an answer by a process of logical reasoning but Tigger often seems to pluck a solution out of thin air while I am still floundering.
That’s why necessity is the “mother” of invention. The “father” of invention is, of course, “there must be an easier way to do this. . . .”
When Tigger and I both find solutions to a problem, but a different one each, then under your scheme these must be sibling solutions…