Hello Mr Mackenzie

I originally linked to this excellent post at Infinite Thought in the adjacent News From Elsewhere column before I realised I had a couple of things to add.

The first is about the Barbican. Apart from the obvious fact that it still - unbelievably - looks like the future when you walk around it, there are three things I love about the Barbican. The first is that the people who live there go to the cinema in their slippers (although this could equally be seen as appallingly smug it has to be said). The second is that if you visit one of the flats in, say, Cromwell Tower, and walk into the triangular lift lobby it feels exactly how I imagine entering the upper deck of a very large space ship would, were I ever lucky enough to go on one. Or, at least, if I'm ever there I'm hoping I might bump into Servalan from Blake's 7 (pictured above having lunch in the Barbican canteen). And thirdly, I always imagine that - following Ballard's High Rise - the whole place might break out into an upper middle class warzone at any moment. Most of the combatants of which would of course be wearing slippers.



Oh yes, and the staircase pictured above (photo half inched from IT's blog) in Islington's Bevin Court was once - Indie fact fans take note - featured on the sleeve of an album by Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, on which the current editor of Blueprint played the violin. Allegedly.

UPDATE: The editor of Blueprint informs me that although having some tenuous connections with reality, the above is not strictly speaking true. She actually played violin on one of McCarthy's, albums and the photo shoot in Bevin Court was for her regular band the James Dean Driving Experience. Apologies for any inconvenience or embarrassment caused.