Hatefilled Hatfield

With some regret, I have finally completed the set of New Towns orbiting London.  There've been tears of joy (the outdoor escalator in Basildon), unexpectedly high-quality tower blocks (Bracknell, Harlow), and wailings of genuine distress (Kodak Tower in Hemel - I still need to blog about that).

The order was entirely arbitrary, but Hatfield, a few miles south of the lush greenery of Welwyn Garden City, came up last.  Whilst I'd been pretty lucky with the weather during my other the-only-tourist-since-1961 New Town sallies, the trip to Hatfield was grey and dreary and a bit cold.  Perhaps that has adversely affected my view of the place.  Perhaps.  That, or Hatfield New Town is really horrible.

Firstly, it was deserted.  Completely.  Not even distressing Bracknell was quite so dismal.

Nothing to say.

No-one to say it to.

After appearances on the Roland Rat Show dried up, Erol's career went downhill.

The 50s New Town square and precinct have been completely killed off by the ring-road plastic PoMo shed of the Galleria.  But before you reach that, there are a few signs of sort-of life, in the form of more fucking plants (cf Bracknell), and a charity shop/brothel.

The Triffids ill-advisedly chose Hatfield as the site for their invasion of the Earth.

A cyber lady points to her sexy loins, sexily, in the window of a 'charity shop'.

Much like the other New Towns, Hatfield has plans for regeneration of the town centre.  'Phase One', a hoarding announces, 'will be the creation of two new buildings... creating a complete High Street leading down to Asda'.  Ah - so that's what's lacking from the town centre.  If only the original architects had included two more buildings, then the High Street would've been complete, and all would be well.  The whole scheme (um, 5 shops and 15 flats) comes with the dismal caveat 'as market conditions improve'.

Why would the original proposals not have allowed town centre regeneration to be delivered?

I include here a now-and-later imagining of how a nearby tower block will look when rendered and whitewashed.

Oh noes the drab present  :'(

Teh future's!!1

The piss-poor / propaganda Photoshop alleges that the dazzling tower will actually be a light source, casting shadows behind the Happy People as they bask in its urban realm.

So, onwards, via the 24 hour Asda, to the Galleria.

All lower case?  Good, because that will never date.

Loosely apeing the curved metal arched roofs of Stanstead, the Galleria manages none of the light airiness of Foster's work, and is cluttered with hanging lights and a random divider of fabric.

Most oddly, the Galleria (I'm refusing not to use a capital letter) has almost no useful shops, being some sort of Bicester Village (urg) stylee 'Outlet Park'.  Only the Superdrug saves the whole enterprise from being completely superfluous to human needs.

On the way back to train station (hourly fast trains to Kings Cross, for those keen to escape), I came across some cryptic graffiti.

After much deliberation, my best guess is that is that is says 'Steve writing on walls is', but that Yoda-speaking Steve spelt his name wrong.  An enthusiastic knuckle-dragger has added a further 'Devvo' of support.

In Hatfield, the mouthbreathers are looked upon as the elite.

Yourselves is the new you

I have a story to tell.  It's about you and Pippa Middleton and Shakespeare and chavs.

Are you sitting comfortably? It all began when the phone rang...

Patronisingly literal visual accompaniment.

"Was that yourselves I was speaking to earlier?" asked the caller, shortly before I reached through the telephone and punched him so hard in the face that his face, and then the entire universe, collapsed in on his face.

That reflexive pronoun is immensely irritating. Particularly in the plural. Yourselves?  Massive idiot. But then, gasp, I heard myself say it. At which point, of course, it shifted from unforgivable grammatical transgression into credible and incisive demonstration of the zeitgeist.  So - and I do this not to defend the use of bad English, only to defend my use of bad English - I herewith suggest a vaguely-credible excuse for my actions.

Let me take you back to slightly before Shakespeare's time.  Please.  Go on, it'll be fun. Thenabouts, the English language did the 'you' thing by:

Singular - thou / thee
Plural - you / ye

But, about Shakespear's time, 'you' could be used to mean the singular or plural (like today), and also had an additional special role.  I draw your attention to a bit of Henry IV, pt 1.  You may have been made to read this at school.  But, because I can't differentiate between the singular and plural 'you', you don't know how many of you I am talking to.  Do you?

Anyway - I digress.  Henry IV, Pt 1, Act II, scene 3.  You will of course remember it well.  Hotspur has to leave his wife that night (played in my imagination by Pippa Middleton) and romp off.  She, however, just wants her husband to stay with her.  She is probably wearing quite a slinky nightie.

Kate:  Do you not love me? do you not, indeed? Well, do not then; for since you love me not, I will not love myself. Do you not love me? Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.

Hotpsur: Come, wilt thou see me ride? And when I am on horseback, I will swear I love thee infinitely...

Kate, as befitting an inferior (ie a lady), is using 'you'.  Hotspur is brushing off Kate's pleas for intimacy, and demonstrating his superior manliness by using the more formal 'thou'.  But, at the very end of the scene, Hotspur leans in to Kate's ear and whispers:

But hark you, Kate.  Whither I go, thither shall you go too;  To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.  Will this content you, Kate?

So, here, Hotspur's 'you' is an intimate, placatory moment with his wife.  He lowers himself to her level. And then he romps off <spoiler> and gets killed </spoiler>.

He is also imagining Pippa Middleton.

What's my point?  Well, today, we only have 'you' - there is no 'thou'.  Which means that we can't use that distinction to indicate subservience / dominance.  And we English are unconsciously very careful about breaking social rules / causing a scene / being impolite.  We don't want accidentally to say 'thou'.

Which is where the earlier 'yourselves' come in. It's being used like Kate's subservient 'you' above. 'Yourselves' is the new 'you' - it's the only plural version we've got left.  This stress is particularly important over the phone, where we are robbed of various non-verbal indicators (apologetic smile, upturned palms, friendly lick of the face).  'Youselves' is a defensive, diffuse, offence-avoiding 'you' - 'Was it someone, somewhere, quite possibly not you personally, in your office to whom I spoke before...?'

Does this mean that you (pl.) should all use 'yourselves' at every opportunity? No, please, please don't. But, perhaps, you (sing.) may understand why certain weak-minded fools might. Even if it does make them sound like utter plebs.

Kate:  Does yourselves not love myselves? does yourselves not, indeed? Well, do not then; for since yourselves loves myselves not, I will not love myselves. Does yourselves not love myselves? Nay, tell myselves if yourselves speak in jest or no.

It's the sort of thing you might hear in an Elizabethan Gregg's the Bakers.  In Skelmersdale.

Eltham: City of Mouthbreathers

Took the bike out to Eltham last weekend.  Ostensibly, I was off to see Eltham Palace, but it was shut when I got there at 11am.  So I amused myself by looking at the lovely 30s houses round there.  A particular and pink one caught my eye:

A magnificently horrid mess (marvel at the curved once-suntrap windows that arc round to the garage extension!  Gasp at the pink, Old Worlde porch extension!  Feel slightly nauseous on behalf of the neighbours and their unruined house on the left).  Oh, those lanterns.

Anyway, whilst taking pictures and chortling in a horribly superior way, a young skinheaded chap stopped his van and asked me if I was trying to break into his Mum's house.  Least he asked, I suppose.  Anyway.  I had to claim to be admiring the stylish architecture.  And then I ran away on my bike.