THE BLAST THAT TEARS THE SKIES [501]

Before today, I have only seen Katsuhiro Otomo’s 2004 anime “Steamboy” once, just after its English dub had been released. I remember it wasn’t in ideal circumstances: it is one of only two films I have seen while on a plane, the other being “The Matrix”, but while I had seen that film many times - I hoped the gun fire would keep me awake during the long-haul flight - I was also able to fill in the detail lost by the reduced resolution of the smaller screen and the drone of the jet engines. Therefore, while I have watched “Steamboy”, I have only seen as much of it as watching it on your phone would allow today.

This would not do considering the level of detail in Otomo’s production, rivalled in animation perhaps only by his own masterpiece, “Akira” (1988), effectively the cyberpunk counterpart to “Steamboy’s” steampunk portrayal of industrial Manchester and London. I can now properly see the application of computer-generated imagery in whirling cogs and machinery, and into the moving of our view within spaces, or around objects. Over four hundred shots in “Steamboy” use CGI, and these can only be noticed closely through how these elements move ever so slightly differently from hand-drawn elements, none of which you can see on a smaller screen.

The science fiction author K.W. Jeter coined the term “steampunk” in 1987 to group together “gonzo-historical” works by the likes of himself, Michael Moorcock and Faren Miller, while a tradition of Japanese fascination with Victorian industrial Europe was evident in Hayao Miyazaki’s “Castle in the Sky”, released in 1986.

What I remembered of “Steamboy” was its having been set in the UK, and an “Akira”-like build-up and explosion. Watching it for the second time confirmed Manchester as the base where which the Industrial Revolution continuously pushed steam power as far as it could go - the Steam family is at the centre of these developments, in rivalry with Robert Stephenson, the real-life son of George Stephenson, around which a web of military and corporate espionage rages. The MacGuffin of the story is the “steam ball”, a pressurised power source with near-unlimited energy that defies explanation, Working much like a battery, three “steam balls” power a “Steam Castle”, built as a private pavilion at Great Exhibition taking place in London, which sheds its conventional armour to become a fortress that flies uncontrollably into the centre of London, destroying buildings as it goes.

I loved the film, with its sense of family humanising the machinery. I watched the full-length English dub of the film, with Sir Patrick Stewart as grandfather Lloyd Steam, Alfred Molina as father Edward Steam, and Anna Paquin as James Ray Steam, all highly inventive and intuitive about steam power to make science seem like magic, the metaphor of man becoming machine rendered literally in Edward to his detriment. The emotional pressure to succeed in their ambitions and to save the day helps to explain and mask the literal pressure of the machinery, which I only understood as far as the story needed me to understand it. However, having the corporate element of the military industrial complex being represented by a conglomerate head’s daughter, an analogue and namesake of Scarlett O’Hara from “Gone with the Wind” was a strange choice, but with there being no other female character for much of the film, you let that flourish slide.

The voices of Stewart and Molina, using their own accents, was perfect casting, but the Victorian industrial and imperial British setting was a lot to take in. I am very aware of my country’s history, but I know not to choke on the nostalgia of it: I visited post-industrial Manchester in 2019, stayed in a hotel that formerly housed a bonded warehouse and a hat factory; saw a still-working loom in the Museum of Science of Industry, with George Stephenson’s Rocket in the foyer; followed the disused train tracks alongside the new tram lines; and saw the rejuvenated media centre of Salford Quays, alongside the gallery of works by L.S. Lowry. Meanwhile, the might of the Royal Navy pored over in the London scenes highlighted both how much of its income the UK spent on defence at the time, and how many wars it expected to fight simultaneously at the drop of a hat.

I will be watching “Steamboy” again, but not until I see “Akira” once more. Ultimately, I spent much of my time watching the film thinking there will come a time when someone discovers electricity, and everything I have seen so lovingly depicted here will be wiped away, but I am more cyberpunk-minded than steampunk. Watch “Steamboy” for the family, but not for the nostalgia.

KEEP ON LIFTING ME HIGHER AND HIGHER [421]

I have now realised that I have a head for heights. This took some time to acknowledge because, while I have not (yet) needed to know my way around a grappling hook, I am fine at heights that others would happily avoid.

In the last week, I have reached the top of the dome at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, known as the Golden Gallery, with my iPhone registering the 528 steps as twenty-five flights of stairs. In February 2020, I climbed a similarly spiralled staircase to reach the top of the clock tower at Southampton Civic Centre, and back in 2015, I walked up and over the O2, formerly the Millennium Dome, which required the use of a harness.

Perhaps it was the lengthy gaps in times between these three events, and taking the stairs is not like climbing a hill – the suspended walkway at the “Up at the O2” attraction uses the same Teflon-coated glass fibre fabric used on the structure itself, which felt like walking on a taut trampoline. The top of the St Paul’s dome is higher than the combined height of the other two structures, but taking a transatlantic flight is higher than all of them, and I’ve so far done six of those without any problems.

However, I have realised a low accompanied every high – I had reason to be annoyed every time. I consider myself to be patient, but my walking pace is slightly faster than average, and if I am physically behind a line of people, I will want to get ahead if I can. Walking up the clock tower and through St. Paul’s, I hoped that people might step aside at the occasional spaces and ledges that existed along the way, as I continued on – the same was true for the way down. Walking up and over the O2 was different, our being attached to a guide rope being useful on windier days but also locking the line into a set order – it did not help that I personally thought the rope wasn’t needed on the way down. 

Worst of all, the Golden Gallery at St. Paul’s is not made for crowds of tourists, with only a couple of feet between stone corners and the guide rails preventing you from rolling down the landmark dome – I said “I am unable to get past” to the people in front of me, at which point I found that English was not their first language. It was not a good time to start feeling constrained by the lack of space, but the adrenaline helped me get down faster than nerves could have done.

Perhaps focussing on the negative when you are doing something outlandish isn’t idea, but it removes any thoughts about that outlandishness – getting the wrong airline food will do that.

WE’LL JUST GLIDE STARRY EYED [404]

I never could say that I flew Concorde but, courtesy of the Intrepid Air & Space Museum, I can say I have sat in British Airways G-BOAD, which flew from New York to London in a record time of two hours, fifty-two minutes and fifty-nine seconds.

However, this record was achieved on 7th February 1996, a long time for such a record to go unsurpassed. Once capable of travelling at twice the speed of sound, this plane’s wing was used by me earlier that day as an awning from the summer heat.

Having previously written about the idea of “the future” having ended with the withdrawal of Concorde from service in 2003, with supersonic passenger travel having turned back into a goal for another generation, I am guilty of believing that speed equals progress. Taking seven hours cross the Atlantic feels like a compromise, the ability to travel faster having now passed, no matter how expensive the flight on the most exclusive of aircraft had been.

Tour groups could sit in the front few rows of G-BOAD, with the remainder of the cabin, galley and toilets roped off. After hearing about the history and technical feats of Concorde, a few of us at a time could look into the tightly-packed cockpit while the guide answered our questions. Developed in the 1960s and using manual, analogue controls, a separate flight engineer sat with the pilots to manually control the fuel from the thirteen fuel tanks across the aircraft, and crucially maintain its centre of gravity. It was explained to us that two people were required to fly the plane, while the third ensured there was still a plane to fly.

What passed for luxury seating and space on Concorde following its final 2001-02 refit is equal to Premium Economy on a Boeing 777, plus leather seats, and minus the in-flight entertainment. But with Concorde being its own attraction, having your meals served on fine china, and receiving a certificate to commemorate your flight, more than balances out having a few stereo music channels available to listen. 

My question to the guide concerned not speed, or the pressure exerted on the plane during supersonic travel – the tiny windows being the alternative to having none at all – but the luggage space. 

It turns out that cabin luggage allocations were the same as for a regular flight, although the overhead bins were quite shallow, while only one 12kg suitcase was allowed in the hold, located at the rear. This followed an initial period of the luggage being delivered on a separate plane, negating the time saved by the supersonic journey, but outside of those taking the weekly trips made by Concorde to Barbados, you were most likely an executive on a business day trip to sign contracts, and carrying hand luggage only. You could still get a bag under the seats.

This confirmed to me that speed was the only advantage Concorde really had. Its prohibitive development cost, and the luxury level at which it was sold to recoup that cost, meant it was never developed any further, leaving reinvention as the next step. The online realm also eliminated the time advantage it offered for business customers, meaning new reasons must be found for needing to travel so fast, other than expecting it to be an option.

 

They say never to meet your heroes...

NO, I HAVE NO REGRETS [378]

Presenting "Lunch Box"

Noele Gordon had a big role to play as a producer and executive in the formative years of British commercial television, but her name is normally mentioned only when talking about her later starring role in “Crossroads”, a soap opera itself most remarked upon for its inferior production quality. This isn’t going to change straight away: in February 2023 the network that showed “Crossroads”, ITV, will broadcast “Nolly” a three-part drama written by Russell T Davies and starring Helena Bonham Carter, about Gordon’s firing from the show she made famous.

Back when ITV, originally a network of regional stations, started in 1955, few people in the UK could have had experience in the television industry – the only channel on air by then was run by the BBC, from London, the only regional outpost opened by then was based in Birmingham, and broadcasts only lasted for five hours a day. The path taken by Associated Television (ATV), initially contracted to provide television in London at the weekend and in the Midlands during the week, was to send their recruits for training in the United States, where its TV industry was growing at a far faster pace.

To that end Noele Gordon, a RADA-trained actress who had been starring in a touring production of the musical “Call Me Madam”, and who had joined ATV both as a presenter and as Head of Lifestyle Programmes, would study at New York University, work as a continuity announcer for WCBS-TV, and remarkably became one of the few British people to appear on the ill-fated DuMont Network, guest starring as a fitness instructor in the 31/08/1954 episode of the famous early sitcom “The Goldbergs”. The episode was broadcast live.

Back in the UK, Gordon would present the opening programme on ATV’s London service in 1955, moving to Birmingham in 1956 when the Midlands service opened. At a time when everything could be thrown at a TV screen to see what stuck, Gordon filed feature reports for news and sports programmes, acted as content producer on the women’s magazine show “Week End”, presented chat shows “Tea with Noele Gordon” and “Midland Profile”, produced the documentary series “Weekend Farming” and “Midland Scene”, while also presenting fishing series “A New Angle on Noele Gordon” and, in 1957, “Noele Gordon Takes The Air”, a six-part series where she learned to fly, qualifying as a pilot in the last episode. Amongst these programmes, Gordon became the first woman to interview a Prime Minister on television, namely Harold MacMillan.

with Gertrude Berg in "The Goldbergs"

Gordon’s signature series before “Crossroads” was “Lunch Box”, broadcast live for forty-five minutes each day, presenting dedications to viewers and music performances from the house band, Jerry Allen and His TV Trio. I found one episode on YouTube, and the relaxed atmosphere, the backchat between Gordon and the band, and lack of audience, felt a little like a radio breakfast show.

The problem with discussing Noele Gordon’s career before “Crossroads” is that little of it exists, or was kept – the episode of “Lunch Box” I saw began with Gordon remarking that the episode was being recorded this time around. Television was still ephemeral in the 1950s and 1960s, and shows being made to be broadcast at novel times of day like lunchtime were almost boarding on the experimental. When “Crossroads” began in 1964, produced by Reg Watson, future creator of “Neighbours” and director of “Lunch Box”, “Lunch Box” was not replaced, and restrictions on broadcasting hours that meant ATV closed earlier at night on days when “Lunch Box” was broadcast were not lifted until 1972.

The role of Meg Richardson, owner of the Crossroads Motel, was written for Gordon, and with “Crossroads” becoming successful quickly, her appearances in other shows reduced, her executive position having already been vacated for more on-screen roles. As I understand it, the basis of the new drama “Nolly” was that Gordon was fired from the show because her status as a national treasure with the British public was preventing Central Independent Television, a reconstitution of ATV to continue providing ITV in the Midlands from 1982, from replacing the show with better ones. “Crossroads” had always been recorded as if it was broadcast live, causing shaky sets and flubbed line readings to remain in each show, but storylines and performances still shined through, and Gordon’s departure in 1981 did not stop the show, which eventually ended in 1988. “Acorn Antiques”, Victoria Wood’s sketches that satirised the quality of “Crossroads”, would later see Julie Walters’ Mrs Overall being let go in similar circumstances.

After “Crossroads”, Noele Gordon went back on stage, most notably in a revival of “Call Me Madam”. She died in 1985, before a planned return to “Crossroads”. Knowing now of her career before that show, perhaps that could form a greater discussion of her life and career in future.

DO YOU WANT TO FEEL HOW IT FEELS? [351]

On the Saturday after the first Covid-19 lockdown was lifted, in June 2020, I went straight to a shoe shop and bought a pair of Converse hi-top trainers, with rainbows emblazoned across and under them. I have only now had to throw them away because I wore them out, a hole opening between the canvas and the sole.

Meanwhile, the Dr Martens 1461 shoes I wear to work every day are stitched together in the colours of Gilbert Baker’s original gay rights flag, with a flag embroidered on each shoe – they were half the pride of a standard, black-stitched pair because I bought them in October, and not June. I need to replace the insoles.

I was not trying to make a point in buying or wearing wither pair of shoes, especially  but Converse and Dr Martens definitely were, and it plays to my advantage. If anything, I am appropriating the corporate message of inclusivity by making it outlast the limited time they were intended for sale, making them back into standard pairs of shoes – my shoes. Pride Forever, basically.

Pride Month marked in June because it commemorates the protests that took place at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, lasting over six days from 28^th June 1969. In the United Kingdom, this is then followed by our Pride March in London, itself first taking place on 1^st July 1972 because it was the nearest weekend to the anniversary of the protests.

There is no set time to run a Pride parade – one UK city, Southampton, will hold this year’s march on 27^thAugust, with the nearby town of Eastleigh waiting until 10^th September. This is just as well, as establishing monthly or weekly observances includes having to work against only observing them for that period of time, particularly if, like Pride Month, rainbows are added to seemingly everything, until they are removed again, until next time.

This Pride Month, I wrote an article for my company’s newsletter about coming out as trans at work, which took place years ago. In hindsight, I spent longer on it than the lifespan of a newsletter warranted, but I wanted what it said to last beyond that short time, and I wanted to share the trepidation I felt as a closeted person arriving in a new workplace. What I wrote was a sentence I feel proud for writing, as not only did I find a way, it made people laugh: “An apt description of this time is that I was still getting used to not living in the Matrix anymore – something wasn’t making sense, but once I gained the ability to describe it, the world changed.” 

AN ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS [217]

With its future in limbo, I visit the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre, and find that it’s business as usual - a dead mall wouldn’t have working escalators.

I WENT DOWN TO THE CHELSEA DRUGSTORE [154]

You can discover historical landmarks in London, but you can trip over them just as easily. I have travelled to London many times, and have eaten lunch there just as many times.

By chance, I have discovered that some of the restaurant I visited, with the single-minded purpose of satisfying my hunger, held much more significance than their current use suggested at the time. Here is a list of those whose history I know, so far.

1. 84 Charing Cross Road, West End WC2H 0BA

This location is found between Soho and Covent Garden, but is just as easily found in a book, on a stage, or on a screen. Charing Cross Road area used to be the main base for antiquarian booksellers, including the Marks & Co bookshop. Its chief buyer, Frank Doel, received an enquiry from Helene Hanff, unable to find some obscure books and British literature in her home city of New York. A long-distance friendship developed through their correspondence, later collected by Hanff into the book “84 Charing Cross Road” – in the film version, Hanff and Doel would be played by Anne Bancroft and Antony Hopkins. Marks & Co closed in 1970, and while a plaque marks its history, its space has been absorbed into number 82, which has been three different restaurants in ten years – Léon de Bruxelles, Med Kitchen, and now McDonald’s. Perhaps the location needed a predictable business, just like “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” playing at the Palace Theatre across the road.

2. 49 King's Rd, Chelsea SW3 4ND

The rounded window frames on this McDonald’s location are the only indication that this building used to be far more radical in both design and use – the Chelsea Drugstore, opened in the late 1960s, had a façade of tavertine limestone, brushed steel, and round windows, and was a kind of counterculture retail centre, housing a record shop, chemist, cafés and other concessions, inspired by a similar centre in Paris. It also had a home delivery service, operated by women in purple catsuits on motorcycles. We have documentary evidence of how the centre looked, because it was used in the film “A Clockwork Orange,” when Alex meets two women in the record shop. Closing towards the end of the 1980s, it has now been open as a McDonald’s longer than as the Chelsea Drugstore, which is also referenced in a Rolling Stones song – however, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is now more likely because the milkshake machine is broken again.

3. 9 Gracechurch Street, City of London EC3V 0DR

“The Crosse Keys” is part of the Wetherspoon chain of pub-restaurants, which specialises in converting buildings from other uses, and seemingly, the more ornate the better – being in the City of London, the Crosse Keys was originally a highly-appointed company headquarters, built in 1913, full of stained glass and marble. It uses the name of an inn that once stood nearby, which dated from before the Great Fire of London (although it was rebuilt following it). Tim Martin, Wetherspoon’s founder, is a fervent advocate of a no-deal Brexit, which makes the building’s original occupants rather ironic. The Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation, now known as HSBC Holdings plc, is a bank founded following the First Opium War, after which the UK colonised Hong Kong. The London building was originally an outpost, but after years of change, and growth, including their buying the old Midland Bank, their headquarters are now found in Canary Wharf, and their latest set of advertisements, titled “We are Not an Island”, were criticised for being anti-Brexit, instead of noticing how international Britain really is.

4. 105–107 Charing Cross Road, West End WC2H 0BP

This one turned out to be less impressive than I expected. “The Montagu Pyke” is another Wetherspoon pub, this time taking its name from the man that first owned the building, which opened as a cinema in 1911. However, it is more well-known as the location of the Marquee Club, which was open from 1958 to 1996, and hosted performances from David Bowie, Roxy Music, Pink Floyd, the Sex Pistols, Jimi Hendrix, The Clash, The Jam, Genesis and Prince. However, the Marquee Club first opened at 165 Oxford Street (demolished, now a bank, but not HSBC), and moved in 1964 to 90 Wardour Street (now apartments). It only moved to Charing Cross Road in 1988, by which point is featured more heavy metal-based acts like Metallica, Kiss and Dream Theater. Perhaps it is better to focus on the new theatre being built further up the road. 

WHEN I SEE AN ELEPHANT FLY [125]

On 3^rd July 2018, Southwark Council approved the demolition of the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre and surrounding buildings, to be replaced by a mix of low-cost apartments, student flats, retail and leisure space. The owners of the site intend to close the centre by 31^stMarch 2019, with its tenants being offered lower rent and help moving to other sites in the meantime. How nice.

I have only visited the Elephant & Castle once before, around twenty years ago, when my brother played ice hockey. We must have parked under the shopping centre, then walked across to the venue, passing through the centre to get supplies. The reputation the Elephant & Castle has gained as being a kind of, well, white elephant probably didn’t make an effect on us at the time, as we lived close to the Tricorn Shopcentre in Portsmouth, a Brutalist concrete construction routinely labelled the worst building in Britain, until it was demolished in 2005, its bazaar of dark corners replaced by a flat car park, ready for a development that will actually get built.

Having already planned a trip to London, and having been reminded of the place, I took the Northern Line to Elephant & Castle, and immediately got lost – the directions up into the centre took me through a platform for the Bakerloo Line, also based under the centre. I can see why Transport for London wants a better Underground station as part of the new development, but they could sort the directions of some arrows first.

Approaching the entrance to the Elephant & Castle, I got the video camera on my phone ready, for I was expecting a dead shopping mall – the building has been characterised as having been run into the ground since it opened in 1965, as one of the first shopping malls in the UK. The documents published by Southwark Council on the day of its decision noted this was a concern found during the public consultation, although the neglect was perceived as deliberate, due to the centre having been a target for redevelopment opportunities for years. Therefore, I was expecting some sort of carnage. I walked in, and after a few seconds, I put my phone away...

The place was fine.

In fact, the Elephant & Castle was clean, if a little dark, and while there were empty shop spaces, there was an entire High Street inside, including a Tesco, WH Smith, Boots, Lloyds Bank, Greggs, Clarks Shoes, Peacocks, Poundland, Shoe Zone, and many other independent fashion and food stores contributing to the heady aroma that hits you when you walk inside – I was expecting the stench of damp and mould, and there was none.

There are two other tell-tale signs I have picked up from other dead shopping malls: while the escalators to the top floor were not switched on when I walked in (at 9.45am on a Friday morning), I put this down to the bingo hall and bowling alley not yet having opened – either that, or people were using the stairs. Meanwhile, the vending machines worked, selling Diet Coke for less than I expected. Along with the multicoloured fibreglass elephants dotted about the place, I approve. (The elephant statue outside the entrance, rescued from the pub that gave its name to the area, used to be located inside.)

You can see that more expensive shops may have been there before – there certainly was a H. Samuel jeweller at one point – but the uncertainty over the centre's future perhaps restricts bigger brands that want more certainty. Another bank, Santander, announced plans to close its branch, mainly due to most of its customers also using alternative places, but it produced a leaflet explaining how it is going to support the community ahead of this change.

That is what the closure of Elephant & Castle feels like – it is a community centre that is formed out of its shops, away from the intention of being merely a retail experience. The new development – it is led by Delancey, which built the 2012 Olympic athletes’ village - has to give first refusal to a bingo hall operator, regardless of how modern the area will look, but the bowling alley is less important. A £634,000 fund has been created to help independent retailers move out, but Tesco, which has been there almost since day one in 1965, will have to sort itself out.

The documents supplied by Southwark Council on 3rd July, available on their website, are exhaustive, detailing over their 250 pages how every single possible consideration, when a building project is proposed, needs an answer, from dust and vibration during the building work, to consideration of heritage sites, archaeology, effects on various sectors of the population, and in answering the concerns of all those that answered their consultation. From reading it, I guess the case for demolishing Elephant & Castle has been made, for progress has to be made, and with the centre sticking out among more modern buildings, time has finally run out...

Like hell it has: the decision to demolish is still subject to legal agreements being drawn up, and Historic England has to consider both an application to have the centre listed, which didn’t work for the Coronet theatre, and an application from Delancey to prevent it from being listed. This story is not over, not least after reading this quote from Fiona Colley, a Southwark council cabinet member for regeneration, which described Elephant & Castle as the “final piece in the jigsaw for regeneration.” She continued:

“As the options for refurbishment were developed further we were less and less happy with how the scheme would fit in with the rest of the area’s high-quality designs. The council has now rejected the earlier options to retain some parts of the original building and insist on full demolition.”

Leaving the Elephant & Castle, I got the feeling that, with a centre that already has the available space to do something good, or could be renovated, it sounds like anyone who wanted it demolished had talked themselves into doing it. The centre was part of the project to rebuild London after the Second World War and, apparently, that will never end – it’s either a case of make do or mend, or if it ain’t broke, break it.

I AM A MOLE AND I LIVE IN A HOLE [49]

Houses never stand still – I have lived in our family home all my life, and I have seen every room change, with new ideas coming and going, furniture moving around, and how the home has grown with the size of our family. Years ago, we had looked at moving, but it was either that the housing market was too poor, or the taxes involved in moving were too great. Therefore, we extended our home sideways, as the size of our family grew, and out back, to take advantage of the view in our back garden.

What we never even contemplated, however, was our going underground. Our back garden, while being home to birds, bats, foxes, and the occasional badger, is also where some of our drainage system lies – playing with that will either wreak havoc on ourselves, or on the houses next door. Even more of a concern would be the total lack of direct sunlight – a basement room would be a fine place to tuck away the washing machine and tumble dryer, and anything that might otherwise be stashed away in the loft, but little else than that.

This is why the idea of “super-basements,” or “iceberg houses,” is an idea I cannot get past in my mind. Sure, you can have your cinema, or gym, or swimming pool, or wine cellar, but does the want for these status symbols mean you have to discount having fresh air as well? OK, perhaps for the wine cellar…

These types of developments are stereotypically found in Central London, where people have enough money to have them built, but a recent rise in stamp tax for more expensive properties makes it less desirable to move. The most famous of these is the extension to BBC Broadcasting House, where the BBC’s basement newsroom is seen on their news channel every half-hour – four studios lie below that, nestled between two Underground lines. Back at home, while still requiring permission, building a basement often can be a “permitted development,” an easier proposition than building above ground – therefore, everyone grab a spade!

I have stopped myself from experiencing the schadenfreude I get from seeing rich peoples’ houses collapse into their metaphorical, and all too real, holes – you can guarantee everyone will be reported in the news, given the same prominence as that old, pre-YouTube film of a water-skiing squirrel - but there is a sadness to why you would need to build a suburban, air-conditioned lair.

Everyone can go to a cinema, or a gym, or swimming pool, or a wine shop – you can do whatever you like. Once you have your own one, you can cut yourself off so easily. I can dream of the big house I would buy if I ever won the lottery, but what would I do with it? All of a sudden, there would be a lot of space for me to feel lonely. Why not go outside, in the open, find like-minded people? Contemplating my own super-basement will, thankfully, not be a possibility any time soon.

MY PINK HALF OF THE DRAINPIPE [14]

Here is all I knew about semi-detached houses: I live in one; they are a quintessentially British way to build a place to live; and they are less desirable than a detached house, but more than a terraced house or flat. The last of these made me wonder what kind of question "semis" are trying to solve, and why the answer means they make up about a third of all the housing stock in the UK.

The desirability factor can be seen on the map of any town, from as early as the nineteenth century – semis became a compromise between the rows of terraces found in the centre, and the larger detached houses found on the outskirts, where land was cheaper. This distinction has been muddied due to the spread of new semi-filled suburbs and estates, and the houses themselves being built at a lower cost, or lower standard. 

This is where I lose the point on why we build semis. If you look at one of the most important early examples, the Grade II-listed 3-5 Porchester Terrace, London W2, it is designed to look like a substantial detached house, with a colonnade topped with Grecian urns masking the front doors placed on opposite sides. The designer, John Claudius Loudon, better known as a landscape gardener, wanted the houses to appear as one, giving a sense of dignity to both, rather than each simply being a mirror image of the other.

The semi my mother grew up in, a simpler, more mass-produced post-war design, did keep the front doors on opposite sides, but this was already rare enough to look quite strange, and it annoys me to see how a later occupier has since moved its entrances around to the front, matching what others did to theirs in the same road. But, as extensions, white UPVC windows and loft windows have also been added through the road, the original look was lost long ago.

Regardless of how they now look, semis most adequately fill the need to cost-effectively build a house where someone would actually want to live. They came with a desire to make the area they were found better, giving rise to both front and back gardens, bringing running water inside the house, model towns like Port Sunlight and Bournville, the Garden Cities, cul-de-sacs, building societies, and the mortgage. The semi remains the British middle-class dream, even if you don’t want to think in those terms.

…and yet, semis also exist in across Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, Canada and even the United States – what was their thinking? All I know is, when singing “Santa Baby,” Eartha Kitt (or, if you like, Kylie Minogue) wanted Santa to “fill my stocking with a duplex and [cheques],” they could have set their sights a little higher than just a semi-detached house.