The New Princesshay

No wonder Karime Hassan, the former planning director on Exeter City Council, made a quick getaway! He is now unleashing his titanic planning philosophy – either total urban destruction or total rural development – on East Devon, where he wants three thousand new homes in Rockbeare, next to the old A30.

I can remember Hassan back in 1999, in the Princesshay public information centre in the old Lloyds building in Bedford Street, his face the picture of glee, beaming as he proudly explained the Princesshay tinpot models on display. The city council had passed wisdom on redevelopment and that was that, whether you liked it or not.

The £175 million Princesshay scheme, by London-based Land Securities, is total rubbish, a series of glass, modernist, cubist boxes more suited to somewhere like Camberley or Crawley. Except for Summerland Gate, that is, which is better than the old Focus store. If they want to level anything, why not start with the bus station and the whole area south of Sidwell Street – Bampfylde Street, Summerland Street, Verney Street and all the trashy, cheap post-war junk around there? Build the glass boxes around this area and either leave Princesshay alone or honour Exeter with something truly remarkable.

Take the new High Street pavement: a load of cheap, low quality, shiny and slippery Chinese or Indian granite, all embellished with even worse, showy but unusable street furniture. Even in winter, you now need sunglasses to walk in Exeter High Street. Just suppose they’d spent twice as much and re-opened an old Dartmoor quarry and paved the place with local stone; the tourist opportunities would be incredible. It would be darker and mellower, too. And why the ugly, cheap re-surfaced bus lanes running down this road? The buses should stop at Paris Street and South Street with no entry to the High Street. There are more buses now than there ever were cars thirty years ago.

The late W G Hoskins would be appalled at the Princesshay plans. Why not honour him and the history of Exeter with some more classical buildings, all faced in Heavitree stone, something that actually has local resonance and tourist potential? Then you could walk through the new Princesshay and see Exeter all around you, the red stone synonomous with Exeter. The Canterbury redevelopment – Whitefriars, by Chapman Taylor Partners – has been more sympathetic with the city’s similarly ancient history.

In the words of the Canterbury City Council:

'The architectural design of the scheme aims for a series of individually designed buildings drawing on features from Canterbury's architectural past, but providing modern detailing so that the scheme is perceived as a 21st Century development. The exception to this is a retail building which is being designed as a modern "pavilion" with a high proportion of glazing and modern detailing.'

Where are the 'features from Exeter's architectural past' in the Princesshay scheme? Where is the Heavitree stone cladding? Where is the individuality? Why is the Exeter scheme totally dominated by a 'high proportion of glazing'? Why is the new 'flagship' building of Exeter - the revolting, mundane and anonymous Met Office building - totally invisible behind hills? The Princesshay website promises new, 'state of the art' public toilets in Catherine Street. Never trust someone who uses wording like 'state of the art'; it is meaningless drivel, facile and lazy rubbish.

If Exeter really must compete with Taunton – a traditional style town centre – or Cribbs Causeway or Plymouth, then why not put it all up in Sidwell Street or out of town somewhere? Anyway, what sort of person would drive eighty miles to go to Cribbs Causeway on a Saturday afternoon? Why the obsession with shopping and consumerism?

Land Securities make great propaganda about Debenhams taking up their ‘flagship’ new department store, but surely they are already in Exeter? I can see them vacating their tall Sidwell Street tower only for that to be demolished and replaced by offices. Overall, there is not even any gain in prestige retailing in Exeter. If Debenhams take the '130 000 square feet flagship department store' where is the space for any other 'prestige' store? What about Selfridges, Army and Navy, Fenwick or any true high maintenance, retail giants? What about Fortnum and Mason, or someone like them? There will be no space left.

And the Post Office will land up in even more cramped conditions in the old Tesco building, all those enormous queues - due to the idiots closing all of their other branches - trailing out into Sidwell Street, causing mayhem. This is what you might call the 'Midas' touch in reverse although, admittedly, their Summerland Gate effort is acceptable enough even if it does present an enormous sheet of glazing on the roundabout side.

'Environmentally, there is a unique opportunity to provide a new urban form which responds to the character of Canterbury rather than turning its back on that character as the post-war redevelopment did.'

Where is this sentiment represented by Exeter City Council? No wonder the Princesshay scheme is virtually invisible on the City Council website, unlike the Canterbury project, which is almost identical in size, land space, budget, historical significance and outline.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/news_features/2004/princesshay.shtml

http://www.princesshay.com/

http://www.canterbury.gov.uk/cgi-bin/buildpage.pl?mysql=140

Fahrenheit 9/11, Spiked online journal and Victim Theory!

I used to be an enthusiastic reader of the now defunct magazine LM so I was thrilled to discover, recently, the Spiked website and the brilliant writings of Mick Hume, Brendan O’Neil, Frank Furedi, and so on; I may even contribute financially at some point. However, I must take issue with Sandy Starr and her ridiculous views on ‘victimhood’, expressed in her article Cinema of Cynicism.

The Michael Moore film and phenomenon Fahrenheit 9/11 is self-evidently a very personal ‘documentary’ in which he gives his views on the war in Iraq, employing his usual, unconventional and rather eccentric methods. By its very nature, the film is about ‘self-promotion’ since Moore is the only ‘actor’ in the film and he speaks directly to the camera and audience. How could it be otherwise?

In all of the publicity surrounding the film, Michael Moore is synonymous with the title, Fahrenheit 9/11. People know that this is a Michael Moore film before they enter the cinema. To suggest that the audience is simple and fooled into thinking it is an objective look at politics and Iraq is to make victims of your average cinema audience, the very thing that Sandy Starr attacks. The audience are not stupid victims and they know that Moore is merely setting out his own agenda on his pet subject.

As for Moore using victims to criticise the war in Iraq, what else could he do? What other reason is there to oppose a war other than to point out that it will create victims and to use those available to illustrate the point? If a war creates no victims then there is no reason to oppose it in the first place since it is not an unjust war.

By the way, Brendan O’Neil says that Liverpool is a victim city and that they revel in it and that Boris Johnson was right to say what he wants and what he wrote in the Spectator (backed up by Mick Hume in The Times). But then your website – I forget which contributor – attacks Boris Johnson for being a victim (of Michael Howard) for being forced to go to Liverpool to apologise! This is victim theory gone mad! According to this new Victim Analysis Theory, you can be both a victim and a perpetrator/victimiser at the same time! No wonder Boris Johnson always looks so confused and bumbling.

It all reminds me of an incident about six years ago outside Next in Exeter, on the corner of Paris Street and High Street. It was late at night and I was walking to the bus station with my old friend – I’ll call him BS – after only about three pints down the pub. Some sort of rootless street urchin crossed the road towards us and I landed up being ‘assaulted’; when the police came and saw the smashed plate glass window and my cut lip and damaged shoulder, they gave me a leaflet for Victim Support, out in Polsloe Road. I went there two days later but it was a waste of time, not least being called a victim. Was I a victim? Was I a victim of Victimhood, that great anti-Room 101 of modern society?

http://www.spiked-online.com/

Todd Gray and Exeter

The Guildhall in the High Street is said to be one of the very oldest buildings in Exeter. It dates from about 1340 and is the oldest municipal building in the country. It has survived the Prayer Book Rebellion, the arrival of the Duke of Monmouth, several sieges and two world wars, the last of which saw several German raids and not a little destruction within several hundred feet of the Guildhall itself. It is therefore the ideal place for an exhibition entitled ‘Exeter in the 1940s’.

This exhibition is organised and sort of hosted by the legendary local historian Dr. Todd Gray, author of numerous books on Exeter and Devon history, mostly pictorial although all embellished by various accounts of travel and life throughout the county from various visitors over the past few hundred years. This includes Celia Fiennes and Daniel Defoe, of course. Todd Gray is undoubtedly the modern successor to the perhaps even more illustrious W G Hoskins, the brilliant academic of geology and geography who happened to write one of the finest books I have ever read, entitled simply Devon.

In recent times, the Exeter Local History Society have rightly seen fit to place, in tribute to this lesser known Exonian, a blue plaque on the wall outside the house in which he used to live, up on St. David’s Hill. To walk or drive past this blue plaque should for any Exonian be as poignant as an American citizen passing the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

I only chanced upon the exhibition as I was passing, on the way to Sainsbury’s in the Guildhall Shopping Centre. I saw something in the Express & Echo newspaper a few weeks ago about an exhibition but forget about it but I know it only runs for two or three days so I am lucky I found it. Also, the Guildhall is rarely open to the public so this is the ideal chance to kill two birds with one stone.

The Guildhall itself is famous for its colonnaded exterior, three arches covering a foyer marked by old flagstones and rendered the brilliant white Beer stone. The interior has an old wooden ceiling and various remarks on visits from the Queen and stuff like that. There are pennants, swords and other regalia hanging from the walls; this building and its contents are a symbol of Exeter and its national and local role down the years.

The exhibition has lots of little items like ration books, log books of air raids and stuff like that. But, what interests me are the maps of the air raid precautions and the damaged caused by the various raids on Exeter during the war. There is a vast civil defence service map on one table with the damaged areas highlighted in white. Also there is the famous book by Thomas Sharp, Exeter Phoenix, the post-war plan for the reconstruction of the city.

Also, there is Dr. Todd Gray himself. He now has a regular Saturday column in the Express & Echo, complete with a mug shot. But, in person, he is remarkably big – a good six foot two, at least, and well-built. Not your usual academic, more the appearance of a big American football player, as befits a man from North America. Exeter is very lucky that he chose to make the city his home and to devote his energies to its history and reputation.

He is sitting by the market stall near the entrance where all of his books are laid out, all for sale.

“I don’t suppose you can get a copy of that Thomas Sharp book any more, Exeter Phoenix?”

In hindsight, I feel slightly rude for not enquiring of any of his own books and not mentioning that I have one at home. I have read the brilliant 'East Devon' from his Travellers' Tales series and some of his other books, mostly in either Waterstones at Roman Gate (or Eastgate as it should properly be known) or Exeter Central Library. Indeed, I consulted the East Devon book for inspiration on my recent, mooted move to Honiton which, of course, I declined to undertake in the end. However, he is a charming, very personable man and seemed simply delighted that there was so much interest in his exhibition. He smiled a lot.

I am delighted to speak to Todd Gray particularly as I have a copy of one of his books at home ('Exeter Engraved: the secular city'). He tells me that you can get a copy in Exeter Rare Books, in the Guildhall Shopping Centre. 'You'll get it for about £5'. Thank you very much and off I go.

Briefly, at Exeter Rare Books – 12a The Guildhall, hidden away upstairs on the second level of the Guildhall Shopping Centre arcade, near the Queen Street entrance – there is an old man who could be Control (Cyril Cusack) in the Spy Who Came in from the Cold. He is the opposite of Todd Gray; very small, rather old yet very respectable in appearance. Like a college lecturer, he adjusts his glasses as he answers my query, taking a keen interest. He is every inch the personification of his own bookshop - an antique surrounded by the modern.

He says he has a copy of Exeter Phoenix. It is an amazing, incredible book. There are so many pictures, fold-out maps and plans of Exeter just after the war; the work that went into producing all of the architects’ plans and stuff is awesome. At £20, it is well beyond my resources, but I 'bookmark' the place and the book and hope one day to get my very own copy. I know I could spend five hours reading the book. Of course, none of the Thomas Sharp plans were ever taken up.

'It's a fantasy, you know', the bookseller assures me.

Although we must be grateful this plan was never carried out - Exeter would have become the Milton Keynes of Devon - the City Council did far more damage than ever the Germans did, desite the ridiculous propaganda of the Express & Echo which never fails in any edition to mention the 'blitz'. Dont' mention the war.

Gambling

I am not really a gambler and never have been. Except for the past year, that is, when I have dabbled with gambling, although admittedly in a very humble, tiny way. I am to gambling what Alex Inglethorpe - the new Exeter City manager - is to football management: a total rookie and likely failure.

It started with buying the occasional National Lottery 'Scratchcard'. The ones I buy only cost £1 so there isn't much to lose - as long as you only buy the occasional one. I've bought about 40 in the past year and probably won about £20. They say on the ticket that your chances are about 1: 4.11 so that isn't too bad. Anyway, a significant portion of the proceeds go to charity and 'good causes', whatever they are. I think this includes various sporting and arts projects around the country; probably the same as the fine, brand new 'Football Foundation' pavilion in Sidford, just at the start of the Byes, one of my favourite walks going down to the sea at Sidmouth.

My favourite Lottery ticket is the £1, win £100,000 scratchcard. Who knows, maybe one day 'it will be me'! They now have a whole variety, themed around various things like Scrabble, Irish good luck, hobgoblins and various other stuff, though most have only top prizes less than £10,000. Of course, some cost as much as £5, which is getting bloody ridiculous, even if you do get about three games on one scratchcard.

When I cashed my cheque today, at the Post Office (with its usually enormous queues and stuff due to the management closing all of the smaller branches around Exeter), I noticed on the actual counter itself, on the other side of the till, some scratchcards for the Poppy Appeal. The top prize is only £10,000 but, since I normally try and buy a paper poppy on about a £1 contribution at this time of year, then I don't mind at all. It's run by the Royal British Legion which I assume is the same scheme as the traditional 'Haig Fund' (always embossed on the small black plastic centre of the poppy).

It says on the card 'Your best way to say thank you'. Is it? It makes a change from the National Lottery's ubiquitous and irritating 'It could be you!' Their crossed fingers logo ('trademark') stares at you from outside nearly every newsagent and supermarket in the country, visible on every pavement, and sums up the new ideology of the nation - blind hope! It could be the new symbol of the Labour Party or the Conservative Party, instead of the red rose or the olympic torch.

But, just suppose the Poppy Appeal and the Haig fund had as their logo a hand as well. Not crossed fingers; no, instead the despairing, corroding hand of the dead soldier in No Mans Land, sticking out of the mud, almost pointing up at the sky, just like in the famous book and film All Quiet on the Western Front. Erich Maria Remarque would be proud of that, though perhaps not Ernst Junger.


My other little gambling vice is spending about £2, occasionally, on the Weekend Coupon at Ladbrokes, on the football. Really, it's about the same as doing the traditional pools at Littlewoods (who run the Poppy scratchcard), Vernons or whoever. You get this large coupon listing all of the weekend matches and then you select basically whatever you want - a certain number of home wins, away wins and stuff like that. I've done that about eight times in the past year, all with decreasing success.

Actually, my favourite bookmakers is the Coral shop near the old Carfax in Exeter, the intersection of South Street, North Street, High Street and Fore Street. But the other option is Ladbrokes in South Street or Sidwell Street. They are really quite welcoming these days, nice furniture, drinks machines (which I can never afford even though it's just 40p or something for a coffee) and a generally decent ambience, if you don't mind thirty television sets beaming down anything from greyhound racing, speedway, baseball, football and snooker, pool, etc. All of this is accompanied by - particularly in the afternoon, when it all gets underway - anything up to about thirty shabbily dressed old men, chain-smoking, all peering desperately up at the screens showing horse racing, either cheering wildly and desperately or cursing their luck as they tear up a little slip of white paper before discarding it on the floor, head bowed.

The other notable feature of any betting shop is the TOTAL absence of women. You simply do not see women in betting shops (unless you include the odd woman behind the till). The true fanatic - if the object of his betting is not being broadcast live on television - will even gaze maniacally at Teletext, anything to find out how the action is going.

My first three attempts - select seven home wins - failed on just one result (ie., I got six wins out of seven). But I've given up since then.

My final gambling fix is actually forced upon me and occurs in the Mint pub in Fore Street. I love this pub and used to go there too much - in my early days after returning to Exeter, I used to go there three or four times a week, wasting loads of money on drinking, cigarettes and generally getting drunk to blot out my failure in life. I've cut down since but still go there once a fortnight or so. If only I could cut down on my failure, too. Or even reverse it. Now, you really would get great odds on that (1-1000, I reckon).

There is a bloke there - let's call him SB - who always insists on a game of pool. Then, even if I suggest a 'friendly' game (ie., for no bet) he repeats 'just for a pint! just a pint!' which I usually manage to reduce to a £1 bet. He always wins, of course, mainly because he's a pool fanatic and is on about his eighth match by the time you play him, thoroughly warmed up and flowing with the game. I try and avoid him now.

As for the new Gambling Act, it should be ditched immediately. The Labour government is determined to turn the nation into a bunch of gambling junkies. Is it to get people to cling to some blind, crazy idea that their only way out in life is to win a million in some giant casino? The whole thing is a disgrace, summed up by the Daily Mail recently who talk of the Labour Party - that historic beacon of hope for poor people nationwide - selling out to giant gambling conglomerates. £50 million casinos mushrooming up all over the country, apparantly.

The Watching Football in a Pub Experience

M is up at mum's, his blue Rover outside when I get there. What a surprise! (I think not!).

This was after going to the Longbrooke, my first visit to the St. Thomas pub in at least a few months, ever since that bloody awful, ugly old football fanatic woman got me thrown out. Well, she's there again, of course, her ugly, cocky semi-Scouse voice rising above the din of the unbelievably packed pub - there must be at least one hundred and fifty people in the place, most watching the match.

This place used to be called the Valiant Soldier and it is this spirit of belligerance and menace that still hangs in the air. The place has in recent times seen attempted murder (by hammer attack) and various violent arguments, another of which takes place today. From my position, standing, hidden away in the corner, a position affording a mere glimpse of the big screen, I have a fine view of an incident the other side of the room. One young man is arguing ferociously with a young woman, both giving as good as they get. Not your usual confrontation. It spills out across the whole main floor of the pub, from one end to the other, before the man's friend takes him outside to cool down. The woman is following, continuing to shout and attack the poor man.

There are several people there that I am quite well acquainted with. Sean (the Arsenal fanatic although this time not wearing his red Gunners shirt), Wayne (the window cleaner who is always very chatty and friendly towards me) and one or two others. I am standing in the corrider that leads to the mens toilets, like standing at the entrance to Piccadilly Circus tube station.

At this point, I speak to Pete, the Liverpool fan. He must be nearly forty and he must spend a third of his weekly income on drink and cigarettes, something which is belied by the haggard look on his face. He is quite tall and thin - scrawny - and has long, flowing dark hair; his girlfriend is absolutely gorgeous, someone I have spoken to before but now can't remember her name. I commend Pete on his Photoshop picture/caricature on the wall, something which has benefitted from his professional print work at the council. It depicts a very, very old man who is a regular here - a coffin dodging' geezer, according to the picture - who really is late for his appointment at the crematorium. He is not here today, though.


After last night, it's just lemonade and ice, no drinking for some time. Am I an alcoholic? No, I think I just like the release of a giant binge once a week or so. I never drink except on one of my binges.

Actually, the place is so incredibly crowded that I get to talk to this quite nice, mature woman who is a Man Utd fan. Let's call her Sarah, since I never got to find out her real name. She is rather petite, dressed in skin-tight blue jeans and a nice black top hugging her slim frame. I think she quite likes me - you know when you 'connect' with someone straight away. Of course, she must be at least forty. She talks of her 'in laws' and how they are all Millwall fans so I ask if they are from New Cross. But, no, they are from Sydenham, classic Crystal Palace country.

Anyway, the 49 game unbeaten run comes to an end thanks to a suspect penalty from Nistelrooy and ...

I leave the place immediately after the match. If I'd had more than £3 left on me, I would have stayed, maybe chatted up the nice woman from London a bit more, or just continued to drink and get drunk. 'Drink, but never drink too much to think', in the words of Control (Cyril Cusack). Alas, when you have no money you must leave the premises and return home.

At Marsh Mill, M is baking a cake, a process which takes a long, long time, as usual.
The programme/documentary on Virtual History is superb. It features CGI graphics depicting Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and Hitler, all rendered in incredible, life-like reality on the screen. Good stuff.

The evenings are drawing in now, daytime fading as early as 5 o'clock. Did the clocks go back this weekend? Who knows!

What Butlers Saw

There's something strangely both stupid and exciting at the same time about going out on a Saturday night to get drunk. At the time it's brilliant but the next day you always wonder why you bothered.

J was was driving down from Glastonbury, undecided about whether he was staying the night although he wanted to catch the Liverpool v Charlton game on tv in the evening. Well, this we did at the nearby Cowley Bridge Arms, the pub by the railway mainline that occasionally gets totally flooded and ruined. The place is as empty at 6 o'clock on a Saturday evening as my pint glass is after five minutes, this being my first pint for a few days, courtesy of J.

But, the football is on, and it's actually quite an entertaining match.

Later on, it's over to the Mill on the Exe for a steak, after some deliberation about going to the revamped Ruffwell Inn, past Stoke Canon, instead. J, Z, G and mum are all there, really quite a family outing. Well, that's enough of family outings for the new few months - time to get down the Mint, the best pub in Exeter.

W was on the door so I congratulate him on the Liverpool win and a fine goal by the Spaniard, Luis Garcia. Then, with E, it's off to Butler's pub just up the road, where I land up staying right through until closing time at 1am. Butler's pub, in Mary Arches Street, is what you might call a 'town pub' - it is right near the middle of Exeter, amongst a number of other similar places, and has been granted, by the city council and licensing authorities, one of those modern, late night weekend drinking licenses. This means that it can stay open until 1am on weekends.

Butler's is a large, rambling pub housed in one of the original buildings of the street, just opposite the church of St Mary Major, a street which used to be narrow and medieval before the council got to work on it after the war. This pub was until about two years ago in an utterly desperate condition, tatty, fake wooden beams everywhere and water leaking through the ceiling. The mens toilets were like something out of the black hole of Calcutta. However, it closed down for about three months and has re-emerged all cream-coloured with a nice new bar.

It draws its weekend crowd from people waiting to go to Rococo's, the plain, bland nightclub next door. But, if you are in Butler's before the old closing time - 11 pm - then you are permitted to remain until 1am.

I met two new people, a nice couple called Debbie and Mike who even invite me around their place for a further drink, somewhere down in King Street near Stepcote Hill. I stagger back home at about 2am.

Their flat is really superb, about three floors up in what turns out to be a housing association block. They've done it up in the modern, Homebase urban minimalist vernacular, complete with fake wooden floors, quite tastfully decorated walls, suitably plain, just a few plants scattered around and a nice, vertical CD rack (which includes the greatest hits of the Human League).

But the staggering thing is the view - on one side you can see right over the River Exe to the Haldon Hills, in the distance and on the other side you can see uphill to Exeter Cathedral and the city centre.

A Blog novice in Exeter

This is my very first foray into the world of Blogging, an experiment that I might keep up for a while or just get bored with and forget before too long.

Actually, I'm inspired to do this by three things.

Firstly, I started keeping a diary/journal in Word several weeks ago and find it quite interesting. I've always dreamt of writing and one way to write is to keep a journal, improve your writing skills, and move on to bigger, better things.

Secondly, I admire some of the blogs I've seen out there, particulary the Baghdad Burning blog, created by someone called Riverbend. She (I think) writes about the war in Baghdad - she lives there - although she is very anti-American.

Thirdly, I've just re-discovered the writings of the old crew from the vanished magazine Living Marxism (later LM): Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Mick Hume and Brendan O'Neil. They really write some good stuff and I've just read an O'Neil article on Blogs and whether they're any good or not. Well, he at least admits to keeping one himself, so they can't all be that bad.

I remember Mick Hume - who now writes a column in The Times - back in Brighton in 1992, when he held meetings and stuff. I could never quite work out what they were about, that Living Marxism (or Revolutionary Communist Party) since they had no policies and just seemed to criticise everything.