Bigness

Notes taken whilst hungover this morning:

‘There's a giant, and I mean giant, big swooping thing outside that looks like it's covered in catering foil. There's a beer on the table. Comforting old beer, not good for you at this time in the morning I know, but it should do the trick, it should make me feel just a little more at home. Rotterdam Central, Super Dutch, isn't that what they call it? Above the giant swooping thing rise big Superstudio like towers clad in mirror glass. I'm worried the grid looks a bit wonky.

I'm indoors in a big old cafe, I think we would call it moderne rather than modern, shades of Art Deco. It is also big, and it is also empty, apart from a few choice business folks choo chooing their way though a meeting. They've made a wise choice, it's a suitable refuge for humans amongst the giant swooping things.

Last night I was talking in Den Haag, knocked them dead, really did (girls cycle past, girls are always cycling past here) Old beardy, that's me, still knocking them dead, but clearly to no effect whatsoever. Just look at it out there, being a planner in Rotterdam must be the easiest job in the world, just go on holiday, let them get on with it, let this enormous dullness roll on and on. It looks, well, worse than Birmingham in the Bullring days. That takes some doing. But the girls still have the blush of milk maids, just like in Vermeer. Saving graces.

The audience was almost entirely male, and almost entirely white, the space was huge - ' Choo choo choo…climate change..choo choo' I hear the pretty girl over there say (randy old beardy). Lost in fucking translation (that's me). So many ‘oo’s in Dutch.

Tried really hard to find a bar near the venue in Den Haag, but it was just rows and rows of bloody houses. Rows of houses that looked like I'd designed them sometime in degree. That was the fashion then. It's a shame that it's not the fashion now, and the Dutch went on to build them; houses houses houses and more houses (and now these bloody giant swooping things here). I have never looked in to so many people's living rooms, trolling about, trying to find a bloody bar to celebrate knocking them dead, of course by myself. Whilst it's the do you do, bloody wears you out; the schmooze.

Eventually I found one, oh the solace of whisky before a gig, and even better after.

Just noticed this cafe is called The Engels. TOO SAD. Lets get on that bus to the airport and fuck off home.

The problem with bigness, of course, is that it is horrible..........(pause: everything works in Holland so it’s not for long)………

As I sit on the balcony of the Panorama restaurant at this little airport I wonder why anybody would want any architecture big, This is a million times better and a hundred times smaller than Heathrow, and like that café, straight from the fifties. Why anybody would champion bigness is beyond me. Giant swooping things covered in tin foil, it’s cruel stuff.’

NB: The old fellas in front of me (2nd photo above) at the Panorama were, I think, betting on the serial numbers of the planes that landed. It was very sweet.