Tag: Urban
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Howies: Tales of the City
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OK, so Howies opened a store in Carnaby Street – their first in London. Which is great. I hope they do well. But I have to admit their attitude to the city – and to London in particular – has been mostly negative. Indeed, their catalogues in the past have regularly been virtual tracts for…
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Dump
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Still on holiday here, and doing some clearing jobs around the house/garden that have been building up for a while. Which means I’ve had to go to the dump today – one of the finest, most joyous experiences in the urban environment. You go heavy loaded, driving slowly, suspension almost topping out… and leave it…
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Autumn
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Trees sense a moment when the balance between night and day changes. The shorter days trigger the development of a suicidal hormone in each leaf which creeps down the stem to the joint with the woody twig. Here it stimulates the growth of a sphincter of brittle, hard tissue that gradually closes in on itself,…
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Is Your Faith Endo- or Exoskeletal?
Manuel de Landa, in his brilliant book A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History writes of the two skeletons that humankind have developed. Our endo(internal)skeleton “made new forms of movement control possible, freeing [us] to conquer every available niche.” Later, around 8000 years ago, we then developed the urban exo(external)skeleton, whereby “bricks of sun-dried clay became…