Misc

Some tenuously linked links. Someone described the following as 'almost parodically Hatherleyesque', and, being a writer wholly unafraid of self-parody, here they are: a selection of covers of Soviet Science Magazines, from the 50s to the 70s. It's on the English Russia site, which unfortunately means it's bookended by adverts for Russian brides, a reminder of the benefits capitalism has vested upon the Russian people. Some of these covers are cute and gawky, some are fantastic pieces of midcentury design, but most are baroque, overstuffed, megalomaniacal and demented. One of them even seems to be based on the design of the Jested TV Tower, a decade before it was built...More futures yet to come - City of Sound on his hometown of Sheffield. A brilliant post, especially on the attempt there to create a viable future (far more so than Liverpool and Manchester - compare the two cities' postwar architecture, or compare bleep to baggy) and its undermining by ingrained provincialism and later, the ravages of Thatcherism, leaving the familiar landscape of sheds and wasteland on the edges and regeneration pap at the centre. I'll be writing about Sheffield as the fourth part of my BD cities series (Nottingham next, Notts people) but it'll struggle to be as good as this. On the subject of my hometown, meanwhile, the Ghost of Nairn haunts Southampton, taking aim at its eye-wateringly appalling hotels.