A lot of workplaces have some sort of unused space. Mine has about the same amount of space unused as it has used; the entire upper floor of the building sits dusty and rubbish strewn, paint peeling, waiting for a return to utility.

The building, properly known as No. 12 Store of Her Majesty’s Dockyard Portsmouth, has stood here for a century and a half … I sometimes wonder if it feels that this is some kind of retirement post, a fobbing off of the senescent and surplus to purpose.

Still, if you’re a fan of the aesthetics of industrial decay (as I am) there’s plenty of degraded surfaces to take pictures of …

Breaking the silence

Sincere apologies to those of you who have an interest in reading my ramblings as well as my link dumps, but I quite deliberately did no formal blogging this week.

I have instead been catching up on a large number of individually insignificant (but collectively overpowering) little tasks, as well as keeping on top of my short-term review deadlines and doing another week of full-time hours. End result - little output of consequence here at VCTB. But I should be that little bit more prepared to deal with my workload in weeks to come.

Which is good, because I need to attack my first ever tax return … :0

Actually, the last two weeks have taught me a lot about workload … or rather, made it plain to me that I hadn’t realised quite how easy it is to take on too many things at once.

Hence the attempt to clear the decks, to use a naval phrase; I’ve been letting things collect in thickets of incompletion, which is an exceptionally unwise thing for a (partially) self-employed person to do. I’ve not finished everything, but I can see over the metaphorical heap - which is a considerable weight off my mind. Now all I need to do is maintain this state of affairs …

But it’s always satisfying to see your work announced. Martin McGrath runs down the contents of the forthcoming issue of Focus, with my “Basic Bootstrap Branding” article included, and SciFi UK Review announces the contents of Interzone #212, which has an editorial written by yours truly, in addition to all sorts of stuff that is actually worth reading. Yay, me!

Books and magazines seen

Er, none, basically. Not entirely surprising after last week’s bumper selection … and nor a cause for consternation, as I have quite enough to read already.

That said, I got a teaser package via Orbit for Yen Press[temporary site, apparently], a new manga imprint; lots of promotional bumf, and a wee sampler booklet.

Coda - a break of routine

And to shock the nation - nay the entire globe (OMG!!) - I will not be having The Friday Curry tonight, as I am going to a Turkish restaurant instead.

I have already had to deal with a number of telephone calls from astronomers and prophets expressing concern over the potential of the planets misaligning and the entire universe folding in upon itself like a used tissue, and so I shall say the same to you as I said to them - what happens happens.

Anyway, folks, have a good weekend. Hasta luego.

It’s random blog pimping time again! This time, I’m going to suggest you go take a look at a post on Subtopia, which bills itself as ‘A Field Guide to Military Urbanism’. Don’t be put off - it’s not full of pictures of people who take Neighbourhood Watch too seriously. Instead, it’s about the incursion of military thinking and architecture into urban spaces.

The post you should go and see is all about bunker touring in Berlin, complete with photos from exploratory trips into the old Nazi bunkers under the German capital:

[Image copied from Subtopia post, in turn borrowed from Berlin Underworlds Assn. Please contact if you require take-down.]

“I wonder, how much volumetric space is taken up in underground bunkers, how much air capacity exists trapped in these concrete structures? I’ve asked this before, but could we estimate exactly how much real estate, or in this case, air space, is devoted around the world to the underground?”

There’s plenty more like that, too, plus lots of other fascinating material, all wrapped up speculative musings and philosophy that has a similar flavour to BLDGBLOG.

And talking of BLDGBLOG, I may as well give it another plug, because there’s a new post about the solar observatories of ancient cultures - a subject I’m a real sucker for, much like BLDGBLOG’s author:

“Meanwhile, I’m a genuine sucker for solar-alignment theories involving landscapes and architecture; in fact, I was just talking to someone about this the other day. Yet I’m even more of a sucker for unintentional examples of such things – like houses with pitched gable roofs that accidentally line-up with the sun every summer solstice…”

Good stuff. Take a break from the writer blogs for five minutes; you’ll not regret it.

I’m sure that we all read a few blogs that our own readers might be surprised we like. I certainly do - usually because they catch my eye while being linked to elsewhere, and I decide to stick with them to see how often they can flick my switches. That’s the beauty of RSS, isn’t it - costs you nothing to suck it and see, and it’s simplicity itself to cancel your subscription.

One such blog I love dearly is BLDGBLOG, whose tag-line is “Architectural Conjecture : Urban Speculation : Landscape Futures”. Yup - it’s basically an architecture blog, but the guy who writes it has an sf fan’s love of sensawunda. Go read this post about supersonic bullets of gas the size of a solar system, and then try to tell me I’m wrong.

Seems there’s more idiosycratic loons with an architecture fantasy than we thought. Continue reading “Another unique one-man construction project”

Continue reading “More crazed individualist architecture”

I love the library where I work, but to tell the truth it’s an ugly late sixties concrete monstrosity that’s about as eco-friendly as a petrol-powered breezeblock. Continue reading “Energy-efficient Library”