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langrabbie.bsky.social
Lang Rabbie
@langrabbie.bsky.social
410 followers 740 following 550 posts
Not an architect but prone to concrete fetishism

Palimpsestian

Scot with a Nottinghamshire childhood now residing in London SW2's debatable lands

C19th Liberalism tempered by teenage Marxism Today habit
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langrabbie.bsky.social
The scenery of the Dalmatian Riviera is proving to be a bit of a distraction from The Work of hunting out surviving concrete space domes of the FR Yugoslavia era.
October 24, 2025 at 9:36 AM
langrabbie.bsky.social
RIP Sir Terry Farrell
Here is his 'Manifesto for London' originally published in the Architectural Review
Sadly too many of his achievable ideas like opening up Park Square and Park Circus as a pedestrian route were defeated by vested interests of Crown Estate.
share.google/CUG51Og2ewX1...
Plan of the "Nash Ramblas" proposed by Sir Terry Farrell.
September 29, 2025 at 11:12 AM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Somewhat distracted from tonight's excellent performance of 'Elijah' wondering about the logistics of how Crystal Palace Company (and railway operators of Upper and Lower CP Stations) got the audience and massed choirs at "monster" concerts home without a crowd disaster?
@victorianlondon.bsky.social
Mendelssohn Festival, the Torchlight Procession, 1860 Illustration included in the 1911 auction sale catalogue of the Crystal Palace.
September 18, 2025 at 7:34 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Not sure why Guardian have so many gaps in their data for PDCA?
I found Lord Wallace's PQ answer giving 2011-12 and 2012-13 figures in two minutes!

www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=20...

More than £8m of public money spent on subsidies for former PMs www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
*Lord Storey* Liberal Democrat To ask Her Majesty’s Government which former Prime Ministers have been given public duty cost allowances; how much those allowances were; and which specific and itemised duties they performed. Hansard source (Citation: HL Deb, 20 March 2014, c *Lord Wallace of Saltaire* Lords Spokesperson (Cabinet Office), Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip) The amounts paid in 2011-12 and 2012-13 are as follows: 2011/12 Gordon Brown £114,998.17 Baroness Thatcher £109,191.00 John Major £115,000.00 Tony Blair £115,000.00 2012/13 John Major £114,996.00 Gordon Brown £100,315.68 Baroness Thatcher £74,087.76 Tony Blair £115,000.00 The current limit for the PDCA is £115,000. The limit is reviewed on an annual basis. Former Prime Ministers will continue to receive the PDCA if they are a sitting MP, provided they are not serving as Leader of the Opposition. Claims are processed by the Cabinet Office and form part of the annual audit of Cabinet Office expenditure. All former Prime Ministers are provided with guidance on the PDCA. A copy of this has been placed in the Library of the House.
September 11, 2025 at 12:49 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Rather unfortunate that @bbcradio3bot.bsky.social choice of cropped picture excludes the female players who were such an important part of Music Antiqua Köln ensemble.
September 11, 2025 at 9:37 AM
langrabbie.bsky.social
The remaining bridge abutment is now a peace museum.
www.bruecke-remagen.de/index.php/mu...
View from close to ground level looking up at the black stone towers of the remaining southern abutment of former Ludendorff railway bridge at Remagen with a rose bed in the foreground The towers have gun emplacements built into them.
September 11, 2025 at 9:23 AM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Has anyone actually been into any of these Princes Street emporia of tourist tat to see whether the Gladstone Memorial Library of the former Liberal Club remains intact?
Photos by @heathertweed.bsky.social
tweedieclan.blogspot.com/2015/?m=1
September 8, 2025 at 2:13 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
More on Harrods Egyptian Hall

Was William Mitchell responsible for throwing this shade on his client?

Can it really be case that no one ever tipped off Al Fayed about the actual meaning of Ozymandias?

@barnabascalder.bsky.social @c20society.bsky.social

thesociologicalreview.org/magazine/mar...
September 4, 2025 at 9:02 AM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Reports in papers obscure the fact that Harrods new owners want to completely rip out Egyptian Hall and not just the sixteen(!) pharoah-sphinxes with disgraced Mohammed Fayed's face.

Lovers of William Mitchell sculpture should surely be fighting to save it, not going "I prefer his earlier work".
September 4, 2025 at 8:51 AM
langrabbie.bsky.social
We don't do enough Protestant hagiography these days ...
September 3, 2025 at 9:55 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Grateful if anyone can explain why I am have apparently been blocked by @jasoncobb.bsky.social since May?

(My stalking expedition to the Essex coadt was called off during the second heatwave of this summer.)
August 29, 2025 at 9:57 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Tonight's TV broadcast on BBC4 of last Saturday night's (very good) Mahler 5 by Mäkelä and the Concertgebouw at Proms is bringing forth a disconcerting number of guys on Bluesky blissfully unaware of indifferent to Hannah Proctor's takedown of type of man "who also has a favourite Mahler Symphony."
They were born in the early 80s. They went to an elite university but not to Oxbridge. They have some potted plants and like to cook from recipe books - probably they have the first Ottolenghi book but they know that's a bit passé now. They don't go out much anymore but they still check Resident Advisor from time to time because they like to think they could go out if they felt like it. Sometimes they go to Café Oto. They were probably into Burial at some point. *They also have a favourite Mahler symphony.* They've probably been to Berghain and even considered moving to Berlin in the mid-2000s. They used to stay out till dawn dancing in warehouses in Hackney Wick. Now they have a stable routine. They watch Adam Curtis documentaries to keep up with the sneery conversations on Facebook and of course Chris Morris and Patrick Keiller were always their heroes. They could make a joke about the Werner Herzog penguin documentary. They are left-wing but they would never use embarrassing words like 'solidarity' or 'comrade'. They rarely, if ever, go to protests. They have a job that requires them to wear clothes that are relatively smart - a round-necked woollen jumper over a shirt, for example. They have a pure wool scarf and good leather shoes. They do not read Marx but they know enough about him to make fun of people who are obsessed with the value form. Their group of friends from university who they see less and less don't know anything about the value form though. They might own a copy of A Thousand Plateaus but it's years since they bothered reading that kind of thing. They like Jonathan Meades and Stewart Lee. They hate Clapham even though one of their friends moved down there recently. They read the Guardian online but of course they know it's shit. Sometimes they read articles on Jacobin. 1/2 They have a long-term girlfriend but feel weird about getting married even though they've already bought some second-hand teak furniture together and various kitchen appliances. Probably they have lived in Stoke Newington at some point but probably they don't anymore. Probably they would go to a gastro pub from time to time but they would probably call the other people in it 'cunts'. Probably they have a decent coffee maker of some sort. They are not egregiously misogynistic but they probably do not read many books by women. They have a degree of success in their field. Over 3000 followers on Twitter. They are not rich and still have to juggle various jobs - some freelance, some not. They get very angry about the state of the world and remember weird details about the machinations of the Parliamentary Labour Party. They probably subscribe to the London Review of Books. They probably read novels and non-fiction hardbacks but not as much as they did in their early 20s when they got really into Pynchon. Of course as a teenager they really liked Ballard. They'd definitely recognise Ian Sinclair if they saw him on the street but they don't go to Dalston so much these days.
August 29, 2025 at 8:51 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Genuinely perplexed why any protestors should choose this orchestra and this neglected work by a female composer as the time to stage a protest at the BBC Proms ❓

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margare...
August 29, 2025 at 6:56 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
I think C20Soc called some wrongly - in case of the Bristol car park I thought combination of poor condition, lack of a clear alternative use and its mediocre exterior meant preservation was not justified.
VicSoc faced similar objections in 1960s when unaltered Victorian buildings still commonplace.
August 29, 2025 at 11:31 AM
langrabbie.bsky.social
I did not intend this post in the other place to be taken so seriously as a recruitment advert by so many members of Conservative and Labour front benches...
August 26, 2025 at 1:57 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
I think @davidallengreen.bsky.social should be charged with the "high crime and misdemeanour of David Maxwell-Fyfe erasure".
August 26, 2025 at 1:30 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Lambeth community embroiderers, assemble!
A QR code for the bin collection dates page on the Lambeth website https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/street-cleaning-rubbish-recycling/check-your-bin-collection-day (at least I hope that is where it takes you!)
August 25, 2025 at 1:19 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Three levels of brain activity depicted as blue scan/x-ray images "Flag discourse" - very small brain occupying only a portion of skull "Bin discourse" - normal sized brain with multiple synapses illuminated. "Bin QR codes on flags discourse" - galaxy brain emanating energy (represented by blue laser light beams) beyond confines of human skull.
August 25, 2025 at 12:43 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
I noted in 2020 when Remembrance Sunday was observed at Balmoral:
"Very wisely all of the footage of the royal couple laying their wreaths was filmed side on, avoiding the embarrassing 1922 design of the Balmoral war memorial with multiple "Sankrit symbols of good luck" on the plinth being in shot!"
Plinth of the war memorial outside Crathie Kirk near Balmoral. The centre of the inscription for the dead of World War One has two rows of swastikas, alternating between clockwise and anticlockwise variants as ornament
August 24, 2025 at 8:42 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Unfortunately National War Savings ephemera of that era tends to get snapped up by a particular sort of "militaria" enthusiast, serviced by the dubious dealers who feed their "hobby".
National war savings enamel pin badge with swastika logo Front of a national war savings membership card with swastika logo Inside of a national war savings card. It is largely filled with sixpenny savings stamps with swastika logos, but there are also two red two shilling stamps with a Greek sculptural design
August 24, 2025 at 8:30 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
Now a third of a century since I endured over exposure to 2nd movement of David Zinman/Dawn Upshaw/London Sinfonietta's Górecki 3 on Classic FM's playlist as soundtrack to managing team of clerical volunteers in 1992 General Election.

Great to be hearing the symphony in full tonight from #BBCProms
Cover of the 1992 Electra release of Górecki's Symphony No. 3, conducted by David Zinman with soprano Dawn Upshaw
August 22, 2025 at 8:27 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
What has Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov done to always be credited in Cyrillic when he appears on @bbc3musicbot.bsky.social ?
An 1887 portrait of the composer Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov as a young man by Ilya Repin in the collection of the State Russian Museum, St Petersburg. Glazunov is dressed in a black three piece suit and standing in an informal pose with the thumb of his right hand in the pocket of his waistcoat
August 20, 2025 at 7:47 AM
langrabbie.bsky.social
The well known Red House!
August 19, 2025 at 2:25 PM
langrabbie.bsky.social
If you have ever stumbled across Erinna in the courtyard of Founder's Building in the dark, you will know just how unheimlich this place can be.
August 18, 2025 at 10:05 AM
langrabbie.bsky.social
The actual destruction wrought by the Israeli bombardment of Al-Shati* and nearby northern districts of Gaza City since 2023 is horrific.

*Shati aka Beach Camp is still officially one of post-1948 "refugee camps", but prior to 2023 was effectively a very dense modern urban quarter.
August 17, 2025 at 2:26 PM