Meet me at St. Pancras

Sorry I've not been posting.  I've developed a sideline.  A specialist market, and a way of putting my insomnia, and addiction to nocturnal photography, to some use.

A tiny, laser-cut aperture plate that enables ultra-long exposures; down to barely a handful of photons at a time.  Couple that with ultra-slow wet-film processing and a large format camera, and I can take exposures at high detail lasting over a fortnight or more.

In an exposure that long, people and moving vehicles lose their edges, becoming just a flow, a stain, capilliaries and arteries picked out in shadow.  Only buildings are sharp.  Once developed, the pictures can be scanned in at high-resolution and analysed.  They give information about traffic, footfall densities, pinch-points and blockages, like an x-ray after a barium meal.

I take commissions from urban planners, retail developers and Transport for London.

To avoid theft, or tampering, the camera has to be incognito - I've settled on mounting the kit inside those fake security camera housings you can buy - rendering it invisible to the casual London observer.  And within that, the lens and film themselves are suspended in an elasticated harness that dampens any vibration.  That's the biggest problem - over such long exposures, the smallest movement, the slightest knock - even from the slow unwinding of a screw - produces a blurred image that's next to useless.

I have them screwed them against walls all over the capital, me collecting the negatives at night, like a beekeeper doing his rounds.  This one, for example, from St Pancras Railway station.

***
That's where I suggested she and I meet; St Pancras.  St Pancras International they call it, now the Eurostar stops there.  The huge, bluepainted span of the roof like an iron sky. 

The station concourse was cold and blowy, adding to the impression of being under cover but not quite inside. 

We met by txt and walked together through the newly-finished station.  The central statue of Betjeman - holding one hand to the back of his head - had an unshakeable flavour of Morecambe and Wise about it.  The undercroft, built the Victorians to raise the level of the platforms, had been opened up and given over to retail.  The effect was of trains and platforms hanging disapprovingly above what is now, essentially, a shopping mall.  Plenty of room; this one cold hold everything.

She looked lovely, christmas scarf and wool coat with giant, Paddington buttons. 

But there was a problem - I'd already turned her down. 

We got drunk after work a few months ago, ended with her begging me to get into the cab back to hers.  Idiotically, I said no.  No.  Stupid reasons that made sense at the time - we work together, I'm the senior partner, it could get complicated.  Flattered but let's not. 

She didn't forgive me.  Frosty mornings.  Found out that, while I was off over Christmas, she'd left the firm.  Better offer elsewhere.  No leaving party - wound her goodbyes into the Christmas do.
***

I don't have a darkroom.  I have a bathroom and wait.  Dark costs money; night is free.

Developing my most recent batch, A4 mono prints ready for the scanner.  The air aches with the smell of fixer fluid.  Batch of new stuff from China.  Been getting headaches during the day recently, but I've found that a quick sniff of the fixer tends to clear them up.

The ultra-long exposure I've collected from my camera at St Pancras is slowly fading into view - looking down the corridor of shops along the undercroft.   After fixing I take it out in the light and check it.  Now here's an interesting effect - where the columns have forced the flow of people through two slits, they've coalesced into not two, but three patches of footfall on the other side.

***
The much-hyped champagne bar was a long row of people sat facing each other in fours, lampshades in between, like a cutaway train. 

There was a queue, so we headed over to the gastro pub in the corner. 

Here was the thing; we didn't work together anymore.  I think, now she's moved, I'll tell her.  Tell her I was stupid.  Tell how I've been waiting for her, Tell her I want to start again. 

We order, and she goes to the toilet. 

When she safely is out of sight I take a surrepticious sniff of fixer.  In my lap, blotting the end of the small plastic bottle onto a tissue, then pretending to blow my nose.  Perhaps I should choose - be in a relationship, or not, rather than trying to maintain this complex superposition of states.  Can't have it both ways.
***

This next photograph was taken from north east of the city, looking south over the 2012 Olympics site at Stratford, with the skyline of the square mile in the distance. 

I rather like the idea of the London Limpics.  It just seems like such a *blag* - London didn't really win the olympics, it stole them from Paris at the last minute.  And that was what made it so delicious.  Better still, London would now rub in it, by deliberately putting on a really shoddy games.   

And St Pancras's enormous lazy arch the final, most direct insult; a great stale yawn right in Gare Du Nord's face. 

I check the print using my cheap lupe.  Damn - clearly visible, some small blurring along the edges of the building they call the Gherkin.

The camera must have moved, smearing away the fine detail in the image.  Two week's worth of exposure wasted. 

***
We talk.  There's a theory that all the electrons in the Universe are in fact the same, single electron, whizzing backwards and forward in time and space so it appears in many places at once.  Like the way the picture on a television is drawn by a single travelling point of light.   

I've a similar theory - there is, in fact, only one woman.  All the women a man encounters in his life - mother, lovers, daughters - are just different aspects of the same, eternal female, manifesting herself at different times, in different ways.

You better understand one, you better understand them all.  Maybe I should make a start.

I could offer her a sniff of the fixer - maybe she'd start seeing things the way I do.  Better not.  These days I tend to travel alone on my chemical adventures.  No more calculated risks with our health in return for a good time, like that night a girlfriend and I didn't have enough money to get pissed, so took eight paracetamol each before we went out drinking.  Drowsy-drunk stomach-stumbling and screwed against a wall.
***

Wait; the foregound - Stratford station and the olympic site buildings - were still sharp.  Likewise the other buildings.  How could only the Gherkin be blurred?  That's as if the Gherkin, not the camera, had moved. 

Whoah.  I dash from the bathroom with the sudden urge to check to check I'm still in the right London, London 020.

A tip:  Here's a quick and easy way of working out which of the thousand Londons you are in.  Find a landline.  Dial 17070.  The automated female voice will say "This circuit is defined as..." and then a number.  If the first three digits she reads out are zero, two, zero, then congratulations - you are in the same London as me.

I know two other ways; one involving pigeons which is simple, but approximate and takes weeks.  Another is more definitive but uses a lot of Noctilukre.  If you find any more let me know.

But 020 it is.  I know London's built environment is constantly shifting and changing... I suppose with the development of the docklands, and now the Olympics, the city's centre of gravity has been slowly moving east these past few years.  But I didn't realise the buildings themselves could move.

***
The food arrives and she returns.

"Did I tell you my Facebook story?"  She beams.

"No.  Didn't know you were into it."

"Well, I went on Facebook for the first time, yeah, and got in touch with an old boyfriend, and then..."

She continues.  A few years ago, before social networking really took off, I spent an evening tracking a girl who dumped me.  Following her trail of breadcrumbs across the web.  From university, post-grad student credits in scientific papers; then a PhD elsewhere.  The attendance list for a conference in her subject at UCLA.  A press release from a UK-based technology company - a photo, smiling and different hair, from about three years ago. 

Then the trail went dead.  Perhaps she got married - a change of surname severing the Googlestrand.  I think wider: birth records might give me her parents' names, then I could look for "...are pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter..."  No.  I stopped, let that one go.  Gone.  Now, stop being a twat and tell this one how you feel about her.
***

Image after image shows the same.  Don't ask me how, but London's buildings are moving, migrating - sliding and slotting like tiles in a plastic puzzle. 

Here, some new flats in Brixton quietly inching north, hoping for that "Clapham Borders" label.  Three-bedroom townhouses grinding slowly towards the better schools.  Over to the west,  multimillion mansions gathering at the river's edge, as if to drink. 

Legal firms fighting for space at the bar, hospitals and other public buildings jostled rudely to the edges.  Antiquarian bookshops clustering at the British Museum, like piglets crowding round a sow. 

And everywhere, the inexorable march of the coffeeshops.

This information could be worth money; property developers, estate agents.  Why did I never see this before?  Might it be something to do with the new fixer?

***
I wasn't really listening.  I thought, when she finishes her story, I'll say my piece.

"...And well - cutting it short, he and I are now going out."

Bewilderblur of the pub around me, every surface suddenly treacleslick with a caramel-coat of cockroaches.  The walls boiled briefly with frantic, gnawing rats stripping everything bonewhite.  The food in my mouth turned to steel wool and soap.  I looked down - my clam and bacon linguine now tapeworm and smear-scrapings.  Reflected on my fork, all the girls I've ever felt for, hadover backwards by my enemies.  And loving it.  And turning their heads to smile at me.

Oh, that's great, I choked.  I'm really happy for you.

"My Mum's really pleased." she said.  And turned her head to smile at me.

We parted friendly.  I glanced at the arse I'm never going to grab, and felt for the male half of the giant bronze behind us.

An idea - I asked her to pose for a snap, holding my trusty 35mm at arm's length to get the pair of us in.
***

With all my ultra-long exposures done, but before tipping away the fluid trays, I decide to quickly develop the roll from my Nikon.  The final frame is the snap of her and I, looking down at the camera with stiff smiles against the blue of the station roof.  My face a funeral for a dream.

Everything in the picture is sharp, except for her.  She is blurred, as if moving away from me.

That's the last of the fixer.  Perhaps, I think.  Perhaps I should go digital.

Comments

[The Girl]

'My face a funeral for a dream.'

Beautiful OE, just beautiful; your writing is utterly beautiful. If there was a book with your name on it, I'd be the first in line to purchase it.

[miles away]

digital or manual...all incoherently beautiful. reassuringly bittersweet...what in life is not...

[clarissa]

Don't you dare.

If you do, the buildings may stop moving. The blur might sharpen to a fine line. The Noctilukre might lose its potency ... whenever you find it again. The little piglets crowding around the sow might find the teat is dry, and what good would that do the coffeeshops.

You've got the order of things in your hands. Be wise with how you play with it.

x, c

[peach]

I think I'm guessing the real reason you've not been writing recently, it happens to all good artists... and she came to paris with you (in real life) right?

There's a picture in your attic just getting more and more miserable, but writing more than you...

So, how was Paris?

[oe]

The Girl - Thank you. You know what it means coming from you. I'm not as certain, but I'll think about it.

Miles - Thanks. This ended up a bit more miserable than I planned.

Clarissa - Relax, plenty more unexplained where this came from.

Peach - Regrettably not, but you're right in that I did consider it... playing a trick on her involving passports and buying a ticket. But no.

[Lillipilli]

The arse on the female half, but mostly your wonderful words...bewilderblur, and treacleslick, and buildings that creep in the dark...a dopamine hit.

[pocketpunk]

spent an evening tracking ......or stalking.

Its strange how some personalities never forget!

I still google "the other woman".......dont suppose I'll ever let it go.

(dont be taking 8 bloody parrots again .....you'll end up in liver failure and then what will we all do?)

[Aishwarya]

I couldn't resist putting a link to you on my blog. This is brilliant.

[Ani]

That was a handful...

[isabelle]

...oh so beautifully written, grinding eloquence,chances lost, imperceptible shifts, perhaps you should dive in next time, no dipped toes.

[isabelle]

...oh so beautifully written, grinding eloquence,chances lost, imperceptible shifts, perhaps you should dive in next time, no dipped toes.

[Children go to]

Children go to "heaven". They must behave apprioriately, think correctly and be genuinely god-fearing. Their innocence is their superiority, reflected in the favor in which the gods hold them.
Religions teach that old people to go to heaven when they die. They don't. Old people are reincarnated. It's children who go to heaven.
If you are not willing to read this and learn from it than it doesn't matter if you get it or not. Expect pineing for attention to be considered insulting.

Children are discounted by adults in society. This is nothing new, for adults have always minimized the wisdom of children.
The gods corrupt people as they age, use trust-building tactics and soon these adults view the children as ignorant, yet to understand the god's system. Ironically, quite the opposite it true:::
The wisdom the gods impart to children, either through their innocence/purity or (religious-based) educational pursuits, are the gods sharing the truth with their most favored people. They teach children to have faith. Understanding the god's geographical clues hurts people because they illustrate negative things.
It's the children whom the gods teach the right way to for it is the children who still have a chance.

"I won't help priveledge (with feedback). I don't want them to change their behavior." - god. I concurr.
Italian evidence reinforced their evil behavior (1906, wealth, perception of power). Black feedback illustrates they have big problems::::Italians are more disfavored than Africans/blacks.
Third time is a charm.wav:::
1. Italians ruined life on Planet Earth in the 20th century
2. The gods got the Italians into position then role played them telepathically, CHEATING you out of the Final Prophet
3. You are all told to wait. They tell you that you'll all be saved. The Second Coming of Christ will be Italian, only a pre-selected group will be "saved" and the gods will have used The Boot to hurt the disfavored for the final time. And before you get too excited remember the gods make all the calls, and can force your exclusion just like they have those whom engage in Chinese piracy and "intentional foreclosure". The World is to the the US like life in the suburbs is to the ghetto:::FAR more temptations and opportunities to be victimized. Americans will NOT do better than the respectable Chinese.

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They said HW was a "traitor", evident with the airplane incident during WorldWarII. As we witnessed repeatedly in the 20th century, these incidents ocurr to establish a legacy and pave the way for a far more significant events in the future::::
If true this legacy would recurr in W's administration::::
Rebate checks on the way into and out of office are both bad signs.
Signing on to Iraq to eliminate Saddam and 4,000 Americans is another clue.
Don't be surprised if they have him sabotage some things on his way out, and since McCain is good it will (has) happen(ed) one way or the other::::
The whole economy issue came out of nowhere in February 2008. Consistant with the god's methodology, expect justification was utilized::::::
Of course the crashing dollar of the last few years has comeplled OPEC to value oil with the Euro instead of the dollar.
Don't forget:::The Reagan administration was charecterized with banking scandal too:::"Intentional foreclosure" constitutes justification sufficient for their exclusion.

Sounding like a goddamn blooming idiot when he speaks is a clue unlike any others. When Reagan spoke it sounded as if he "fuddled", a clue not to trust him.
"They're going to pay for 2004." Redneck states. And oh how they will pay:::
Recently they have stated that the Chinese are holding US paper. Some patriot W is, selling US debt to communists. Perhaps the invasion mentioned below will be a way to "redeem" these bonds after they've fallen into default.

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Like aging, sleep is behavior forced upon us.
News story on sleep research, a good example of how education is preditory, deceptive.
People aren't fresher or sharper because of good sleep. The gods control all this.
Actually, they've mentioned that people with favor don't have to sleep and, like aging, sleep is behavior forced upon us.
This is today's research. Expect this applies to early research as well.
Incidentally, the gods create male superiority in the fields of computers, science and math for preditory reason.
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Search "finalprophet" and the Man in the Moon paragraph to find my sound file web site.
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There is one geographic clue I have not addressed in years:::Uranus, a planet tilted 90 degrees on its axis. I have stated in years past that I think this is yet another geographic clue offered by the gods, this one suggesting the fate of planet Earth, that tectonic plate subduction would be the method of disposal:::Earth’s axis will shift breaking continental plates free and initiating mass subduction.
Undesirables will either perish in the government marijuana erradication program "gone awry" or be the recipients of reparations granted by the US government because of it.
Or both.
I believe the New Testiment battle of the Anti-Christ and the Second Coming of Christ will ocurr in subsequent years SPECIFICALLY because these people will be distracted with the money during the event.
When the Earth's axis shifts people will be cast into outer space with gold cards in hand.
I think this was foreshadowed on an episode of the Simpsons where Homer and Bart are on the disfavored ship and eject, only to experience a sense of euphoria, expand then explode in the vacuum of space.

Recall I recently brought up the possible Manifest Destiny-positioned Chinese invasion of the United States (west coast) upon economic abandonment by their clone host tools (economic destruction and deterioration.mp3). They have mentioned this in years past.
Newspaper just made a curious change where they combined the sports and business sections, and to properly read the business section you need to read "backward". Like Asian languages.
Tariffs. The gods are instruct their tools to defend open free trade, as they will to the bitter end. The gods have a script and they need economic (d)evolution sufficient to justify what they have scripted for our future, so they use their tools to adamantly defend this concept of fair trade::::The time for tariffs has long since past.
Recently they have stated that the Chinese are holding US paper. Some patriot W is, selling US debt to communists. Perhaps the invasion will be a way to "redeem" these bonds after they've fallen into default.
Incidentally, the Chinese recalls (lead-based paint on toys, toothpaste, etc) may be in preparation for this invasion, a tactic esuring a percentage of disfavored affected will fight to the bitter end.
I've recently stated how the gods will use the Japanese as role models to the Chinese as China becomes increasingly Westernized. Expect a cultural movement celebrating Japanese culture in decades prior, much as we witnessed in the west in the past.
If we do witness a Chinese invasion on American soil don't be surprised if the very same tactics the Japanese employed on the Chinese will be used on us. Lack of empathy is a dynamic the gods will find important in the context of justification, niggers:::
I've recently stated how the gods will use the Japanese as role models to the Chinese as China becomes increasingly Westernized.
Feedback II.wav
Recall how Americans so frequently laughed at the French for their lack of military response when confronted by the Nazi army. To resist would have been suicide. Their reaction was appropriate. The opposite would be one as we witnessed in Vietnam. These are morbidly disfavored Asians and take great pride in their resistance. The gods DO use their pride in resistance by positioning in appropriate temptation, ensuring minimal sucess.
If events transpire I recommend you respond like the French and not like the Vietnamese. If this is a west coast event it may not have serious effect but if it is nationwide the United States will lose over a hundred million in the South and midwest.