Chinese New Year is tomorrow and I’m off to London’s Trafalgar Square to watch the celebrations and maybe get some nice photos. There is a parade that begins at 11am that starts in Leicester Square, travels down the Charing Cross Road and finally ends in Trafalgar Square itself. It is rumoured that the London Eye will be turned red for the occassion so that will definately be a sight worth seeing.

Our Gordon (the Chancellor and PM-in-waiting) thinks that “liberty, fairness and responsibility” are the pillars on which we brits build our common national identity. High brow commentator David Starkey doesn’t agree. He believes English (note not British) nationalism is built on being first and best at everything. Really David? Perhaps this was true of the war generations or back in Empire days, but we younger Brits kinda don’t hold on to that much anymore, mostly because we have no idea of what we are best, and we certainly don’t come first in many races either these days. Personally, what I…

“The photograph is always about looking and seeing. Furthermore, the photograph itself, that is, the chemically treated and processed paper, is invisible. It is not it that we see, rather, through it we see that which is represented” Roland Barthes – Camera Lucida

Who decides that a space is designed for you? Or rather that it was not designed with you in mind. I would make hte assumption that city planners, when designing or redesigning a specific space have in mind a particular kind of occupant, around which, layout, traversal routes, resting places and other facilities are planned. As may be demonstrated using references from various texts on Urban Spaces, areas of our cities are also designed to keep certain types of occupants from being in that space. At times occupation of a particular space is forbidden by law or some other legal…