May sees unexpected retail sales growth in London
For the month of May, retail sales growth in London (+3.5%) far exceeded expectations (-0.1%). Everybody’s congratulating the weather.
“I’m staggered,” said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec. “The figures are just on a completely different plane compared to market expectations. They contradict other anecdotal evidence suggesting retail sales activity is softening. There are bound to be questions about whether they reflect a true picture of activity and they will raise speculation of rate hikes.”
Brian Hilliard at Société Générale said: “It is amazing. I cannot believe this is a reflection of the underlying trend. A stunning number. We suspect weather as the explanation.”
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Hitchens, on the meaning of bohemia and the West Village
Christopher Hitchens recalls bohemia’s eclipses in London, Paris, and San Francisco, and worries that New York’s West Village may soon become another victim of the skyscraper’s shadow. The loss would be immeasurable.
[T]ry picturing American culture without the contribution of this unique square mile. Inter alia, you would have to subtract Bob Dylan and the Cafe Wha?, Norman Mailer and The Village Voice, Isadora Duncan, John Reed and Edna St. Vincent Millay, the Beats, the gay movement and Christopher Street and the Stonewall Inn, Lauren Bacall as “Miss Greenwich Village of 1942,” Eugene O’Neill, Dylan Thomas at the White Horse Tavern, Dawn Powell and Djuna Barnes. In his book which has the wonderful title Republic of Dreams, Ross Wetzsteon managed to evoke what he admitted was sometimes “a cult of carefree irresponsibility, but in the service of transcendental ideas.” That could be Bohemia defined.
The loss of a cultural beacon like the West Village will make the future a bit dimmer
because on the day when everywhere looks like everywhere else we shall all be very much impoverished, and not only that but—more impoverishingly still—we will be unable to express or even understand or depict what we have lost.
photo credit: scratch n sniff
The tactile maps of the Inuit
The tactile maps of the Inuit
Colleen of Middle Savagery recently discussed the 3D maps used by the Inuit to navigate the coastline of East Greenland in the dark. She wonders
if tactile maps could be extrapolated to other domains–what would a tactile BART map feel like? What about an archaeological map? Would the relief become sharper under our fingertips as we came closer to concentrations of artifacts, living spaces? Would it become hot as we came closer to the hearth, cool as we traveled to a periphery? I’ll have to try it sometime–the reaction of a field director as I handed her a carved stick after survey might be worth it.
Somewhat related to these 3D representations are the Mount Fear series of crime maps of London, Manchester, and Eindhoven, although, unlike the Inuit maps and the haptic maps for the blind to which Colleen links, the Mount Fear maps can’t aid in navigation.
photo credit: Miss_Colleen
London, March 11-18
I’ll be blogging from London this week. My girlfriend and I are attending the wedding of a friend there on Saturday.
I’m sure Dem Boom Dip Shropshire Boyz has already been taken
Stepney Posse
L.or.D
Brixton Yard Manz
Superstar Gang
These are some names of gangs in London; there are many more at The Generic Glob’s partial list of London gang names (which first appeared in The Evening Standard). I’m guessing that part of the fun of starting a criminal organization is the naming of it, but most of these names are uninspiring; almost none are scary and nearly all are overly-descriptive.
What would you name your gang?
The world’s most expensive cities
A report by UBS ranks 71 world cities according to cost of living. Europe has the most on the list, thanks in part to a weak dollar; the continent had 15 of the top 25 most expensive cities, including London, the most expensive. The United States had four cities on the list, all within the top 25: New York (2), Chicago (9), LA (10), and Miami (22).
Rent comprises the largest portion of living expenses for each city; many of the readers of this blog probably have heard horror stories about rent per square foot in either of the top two cities.