Does Anyone Really Understand The London Postal District Boundaries?

The boundaries are a bit of a mystery. Sometimes they make sense but quite often they don't. They frequently meander around with no apparent regard for development or geography and occasionally they rampage across the landscape , cherry picking specific locations for no apparent reason. Perhaps there are logistical requirements, spreading out the workloads of the poor beleaguered posties. Or perhaps it's all a big Post Office in joke. Who really knows?

You do have to ask yourself, just why it is necessary for Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to be in five different postal districts? Surely, it would have made sense for the boundary to follow the perimeter of the parks. It was hardly going to tax the resources of any one district, but no, the parks are unevenly divided between W1, W2, W8, SW1 and SW7, with the lines curving and twisting through the parks. The Serpentine, for instance, largely belongs to W2, but SW7 takes a bite out of its southern shore. The main north south boundary on the western side of the parks deviates to take most of the Round Pond into W8 but still manages to leave part of it behind in W2!

There are examples of this strangeness all over London, if you care to look. In reality, of course, it makes very little difference to our lives, but it is nice to know that this City so often seems to find a way to avoid conforming to what most people would consider to be logical…………….and I like that!

Turning The World Upside Down

On Monday I went to take a look at the new exhibition in Kensington Gardens. Turning The World Upside Down consists of four, highly polished, stainless steel sculptures by Anish Kapoor. I have to confess that I have a large dollop of magpie DNA somewhere in my genetic make up. I love shiny things, not your common or garden bling you understand, but reflective surfaces that disturb and distort the world around them. I can’t pass a convex security mirror without pointing my camera at it, so it was inevitable that this would draw me in.

Two of the pieces are concave mirrors, angled slightly upwards, they are designed to suck in and concentrate the sky. The larger Sky Mirror is around 10.6 metres in diameter and has formerly been set up in New York and Brighton. In London, it’s placed on the east bank of the Long Water where it can take advantage of the setting sun, and even in Mondays watery overcast it was reflecting a constantly changing pattern of light and shade.

The smaller, east facing, Sky Mirror is set a couple of metres into the Round Pond. It has been given a red coating which seems to improve the contrast between sky and cloud (a bit like using a red filter with B&W film perhaps). As well as reflecting a rosy sky, it looks pretty good mirrored on the surface of the pond and stands out beautifully against the backdrop of Kensington Palace.

Non-Object (Spire) is a tall, concave sided, cone. For me, this was (marginally) the least successful of the four pieces. Undeniably beautiful in its own right, I found its reflective qualities a little lacking, although I suspect that a blue sky and some autumnal colours will pretty quickly demolish that opinion.

The final piece is the 7.7 metre wide C-Curve. The convex outer surface gives you a mighty, slightly curvy panorama, dotted with tiny figures and with Kensington Palace in the far, very far, distance. The concave inner surface is a whole different ball game. The images are largely, though by no means wholly, inverted. The landscape is compressed. Figures are stretched and distorted. Moving a foot either backwards or forwards, of from side to side, will change the view completely. It’s difficult to walk away, just in case you’ve missed something……………………but perhaps that’s just me.

Monday was not the day to see them at their best, yet they were still impressive. They will remain in Kensington Gardens until the 13^th March, so it will be interesting to see them on blue sky days, autumnal days, winter days, sunset evenings and sunrise mornings. Not to mention the effect of the reds and golds, bare branches and fresh green growth.
I’m lucky, I live near by and I think that I’ll be a frequent visitor. Maybe I’ll see you there!

An Afterthought

In the unlikely event that someone from the Serpentine Gallery or the Royal Parks should read this, could you please do something about the Security Guards. I accept that, sadly, it is necessary to have security, but given the nature of the works would it be possible to provide them with more subdued jackets!

After the Afterthought

Hiding, or disguising, the maintenance vehicles parked by the Sky Mirror would also be greatly appreciated!

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2010/03/anish_kapoor.html 

There are more pics on my Flickr photostream.