An eerie article on g-induced loss of consciousness in Code One magazine—including the subjective experiences of centrifuged test-subjects as they passed out. One thought he was fishing for bass. Another found himself in the frozen foods section of a local grocery store at around 9G.
''Since I was there," he recalls "I decided to pick up a half gallon of vanilla ice cream. There were frozen desserts in flat freezers on the right side of the aisle and TV dinners in uprights on the left. I didn't want to grab just any brand of vanilla or to reach down in there and pick up some Neapolitan by mistake. The trouble was that I couldn't move my hands or turn my head to look into the freezer. In the meantime, I was being uncontrollably propelled down the aisle past the ice cream section. It was a frustrating experience."
Crikey.
You can read it here
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Monday, September 19, 2005
UAE only live twice...
Ken Adam (that's SIR Ken Adam) created the War Room for Dr Strangelove. But he's best known for designing Bond sets. Particularly the evil lairs of supervillains, with or without a cast of hundreds in red jumpsuits. Or vats of dangerous hot/acidic/cold stuff into which henchmen fall. He created the missile-launch cavern inside the volcano in You Only Live Twice. And the underwater lair of Dr No, complete with its fish-magnifying windows and stolen Goya. "Just because Dr No was evil, didn't mean he didn't have taste" Sir Ken maintained.
So I was thinking about Bond sets last week. I was thinking that just as William Gibson invented cyberspace with no knowledge whatsoever of computers, Sir Ken provided a visual instantiation of Dubai. Where even now, they are building an underwater hotel. Look at this!
I love the way that Emirates projects like this seem totally pie in the sky. Until they're built. Quietly, the future appears, and just sits there. While we in the UK fret over faux-georgian shopping centres, someone builds an underwater hotel. Or a kilometre-long hotel with a ballroom the size of Wembley stadium. With unlimited financial resources, a tradition of spectacular display, an unconcern about matching vernacular architecture and a desire to create a city of the future, Dubai's baroque modernism grows and grows. It all seems unstoppable; reminiscent of the nanotech assemblers of The Diamond Age or Mona Lisa Overdrive.
The World; The Palm; city projects the size of Beirut announced every other day, And in Abu Dhabi, too. Which is a splendid city. What of this: the Emirates Palace Hotel.
One of the few truly breathtaking buildings I've seen. It's almost impossible to describe. An uncharitable soul might say: Disneyworld holds an Arabian Theme Night for the Paris Ritz in several aircraft hangers. But I'm not feeling uncharitable. This hotel is so big, guests must be assigned guides for the duration of their stay. I went to a banquet there last week. More on the trip later. Vast acreages of cool marble and sumptious carpet, dazzled by bus-sized glittering crystal chandeliers. There are full-sized artificial palm trees in the ballroom antechamber; they're dwarfed by the escalators. It is exceedingly strange: Brobdingnagian but perfectly proportioned and scaled. Brilliant.
I learned at the Emirates Palace Hotel:
1. No matter how luxurious the surroundings, no matter how good the houmous, the accompanying raw sticks of bell-peppers go floppy and horrible. Even in a seven star hotel.
2. Fruit juices served on a silver tray, on linen scattered with dawn-coloured pink and orange rose petals, taste better than fruit juices that aren't.
3. It is possible to serve an intimate dinner for 400.
4. There is such a thing as a seven star hotel. After a short discussion on our way back to the more human-scaled Hilton, we decided that at least one of those extra two stars must be for being *big*.
So I was thinking about Bond sets last week. I was thinking that just as William Gibson invented cyberspace with no knowledge whatsoever of computers, Sir Ken provided a visual instantiation of Dubai. Where even now, they are building an underwater hotel. Look at this!
I love the way that Emirates projects like this seem totally pie in the sky. Until they're built. Quietly, the future appears, and just sits there. While we in the UK fret over faux-georgian shopping centres, someone builds an underwater hotel. Or a kilometre-long hotel with a ballroom the size of Wembley stadium. With unlimited financial resources, a tradition of spectacular display, an unconcern about matching vernacular architecture and a desire to create a city of the future, Dubai's baroque modernism grows and grows. It all seems unstoppable; reminiscent of the nanotech assemblers of The Diamond Age or Mona Lisa Overdrive.
The World; The Palm; city projects the size of Beirut announced every other day, And in Abu Dhabi, too. Which is a splendid city. What of this: the Emirates Palace Hotel.
One of the few truly breathtaking buildings I've seen. It's almost impossible to describe. An uncharitable soul might say: Disneyworld holds an Arabian Theme Night for the Paris Ritz in several aircraft hangers. But I'm not feeling uncharitable. This hotel is so big, guests must be assigned guides for the duration of their stay. I went to a banquet there last week. More on the trip later. Vast acreages of cool marble and sumptious carpet, dazzled by bus-sized glittering crystal chandeliers. There are full-sized artificial palm trees in the ballroom antechamber; they're dwarfed by the escalators. It is exceedingly strange: Brobdingnagian but perfectly proportioned and scaled. Brilliant. I learned at the Emirates Palace Hotel:
1. No matter how luxurious the surroundings, no matter how good the houmous, the accompanying raw sticks of bell-peppers go floppy and horrible. Even in a seven star hotel.
2. Fruit juices served on a silver tray, on linen scattered with dawn-coloured pink and orange rose petals, taste better than fruit juices that aren't.
3. It is possible to serve an intimate dinner for 400.
4. There is such a thing as a seven star hotel. After a short discussion on our way back to the more human-scaled Hilton, we decided that at least one of those extra two stars must be for being *big*.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Three merlins
These bold, quick little pencil studies by artist George Lodge capture the personality of these small falcons perfectly. He sketched them at Avebury in 1933. In the '30s, most of Britain’s falconers (for there were few in those days) met up for an annual hawking holiday on Salisbury Plain. The Red Lion Pub at Avebury was their temporary HQ, and their hawks were kept in a building that’s now become, I believe, a public loo.
On the back of these framed sketches is a gallery information sticker. It reads: ‘studies of a kestrel on a post’. Oh dear.
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