pumpkinstrokemarrow

Tickled by three words over the last few days. First, pompous. In reading Neale on Elizabeth, I was reminded that pompous was not always a word of abuse. Once upon a time it meant simply something done with pomp and ceremony. Something we sometimes forget our need for in this age of fake informalilty from our leaders. Second, that artificial was not always a word of abuse. Merely something made with art or craft or skill. The same root as art, artefact and artificer. Not altogether clear how it went to the bad, but maybe it was the contrast between art, that is to say done by hoomans, and nature. Nature being the creed for 19th century romantics. Hoomans bad, nature good. A precursor of our fad for the natural and organic - forgetting, along the way, that a lot of very nasty poisons (not to mention various psycho active substances) are of vegetable, that is to say, natural and organic origin. And third, the span of meaning of magazine. Not clear from the OED where it came from but it appears to be the same word in English, French, Spanish and Arabic. So perhaps we got the word from the land of the tangerines. The common thread, in English anyway, seems to be store. So a store of goods, perhaps a warehouse, a ship (obsolete) or a shop. A store of military goods, particularly gunpowder. A store for bullets. A store for entertaining titbits of the reading variety, possibly the late lamented 'Titbits' itself.

A little sorry for the architect of the small block of flats put up by Devine Homes PLC along the Cheam Road. (As an aside, Mr G tells me that Devine Homes PLC is registered in Cheam, looks to go in for smallish, posh housing and flat developments and to be a subsidiary of Devine Developments of Tufnell Park. Nice web site at http://www.devinehomes.co.uk/. A whiff of the Irish about the operation). They went to a fair amount of bother to build a block of flats which fakes up a large and tasteful Edwardian house in the grounds of what used to be a couple of suburban villas. Landscape the garden and all that sort of thing. Tasteful brick shed with a pointed roof for the dustbins. Then the electricity board come along and plant a large green steel box - maybe something smaller than a 2 metre cube - in the front garden. Presumably it contains all the meters and whathaveyou for the flats. But not very pretty. I notice that one of the blocks of flats just gone up in the centre of Epsom has a similar white box. So maybe a developer does get to choose the colour of his mandatory box. After that, the block is handed over to a maintenance company. Which is not bothering to water the trees - maybe 12 foot high - planted in the Spring and which are now struggling a bit. One might of thought that one of the residents would chuck a few buckets of water at them. But not a community spirit among the score of them.

Yesterday, quite by chance (that is to saying, falling asleep on the train and forgetting to get off at Clapham Junction) to an open day at Battersea Power station. It seems that there are plans for a flashy new development there with a massive new chimney, taller than Canary Wharf, generating eco-energy from a giant flat-containing green house. Plus the shell of a power station preserved for posterity. Those who toured the exhibition, filled out a survey and filled out a disclaimer (in case one fell over a dandelion or fell into the river and tried to sue) got to walk around the site a bit with free bottles of water. At two points one was allowed near enough the main halls to feel the interior. I had not known that it is a steel frame building underneath all the brick, rather like lots of skyscrapers in New York. But the steel must be good stuff because the building is still standing despite the great holes that have been carved out of it over the years. Good to see the place, but I am not sure that I would go to a lot of bother to preserve it. If one can find a good use for it, well and good. But if not, knock it down. The developer's idea is to make an unroofed garden out of the shell of the building. A large semi-open space. Probably with some paying elements in the mix as well. Maybe it will be work.

But one suspects that long service residents of Battersea may not be so keen to see this large new nest for the gilded youth of London in their midst.

The developer appears to have been on the move for a few years now, proposes to put in a planning application next year and then, if all goes well, start building two years after that. A long and expensive game in which there must be lots of dosh for someone. Part of the planning game is the expensive consultation exercise which included our being able to visit the place. Reminded how hard it is to consult the great unwashed. You have to get them to spend time, to answer a lot of questions, some of which they can hardly have a clue about - while keeping up the pretence that you really care what they think and that you have not already made up your mind. In my limited experience of such things, very hard to pull off.