Elephant Parade London

This is the story of how I spent my summer scrabbling around London's busiest tourist hot-spots trying to photograph hundreds of elephant sculptures.  Extensive photographic evidence can be found here. 

Elephant Family is a charity which campaigns to save the endangered Asian elephant - you can and should sign their petition.  In 2010 they teamed up with Elephant Parade and commissioned dozens of designers to decorate 258 sculptures.  The designers included Paul Smith, Terence Conran, Tommy Hilfiger, Lulu Guinness, Diane von Furstenburg and, for some reason, Graeme le Saux.  The sculptures were placed prominently all around London for two months this summer - some indoors, most out.  Businesses and rich do-gooders sponsored them, and they were auctioned off at the end by celebrity elephant wrangler Goldie Hawn (who, it transpires, has also acted in moving pictures).

For me, it all started on an extremely hot day in May.  I took my camera down to Holland Park to have a look at their pigs.  Real pigs, in this case, not painted sculptures.  To my surprise, I came across two brightly-coloured elephants lurking near the Tube station.  I'd read a little bit about the parade in Time Out, so I decided to see whether I could find any more elephants that evening.  Several Tube journeys and London landmarks later, I'd spotted 40.

I was hooked and I had a plan and I *certainly* had too much free time on my hands.  I wanted to find and photograph all the elephants.

When I got home, I must confess I was slightly disappointed to discover that (a) the organisers had produced a map showing the location of every elephant and (b) there had already been three other Elephant Parades.  Suddenly my quest seemed less challenging and the event less unique.  So I carried on anyway.

After a few weeks of searching, I'd seen about 200 elephants dotted around central London.  Ticking off the others proved far more difficult.  I found myself calling private members' clubs to book elephant viewing appointments, inveigling my way past auction house security guards by pleading for a peek at their pachyderms and scouring the internet for sightings of 'Cloudia', the restless Elephant Parade mascot who moved every day.  A few elephants had been moved (or perhaps migrated of their own accord) from their mapped locations.  Some were several miles outside central London.  Whole weekends disappeared.

Having finally tracked down 257 elephants, I discovered that 'Gerald' (Elephant #135) had been withdrawn to the safety of Elephant Parade HQ to prevent him from causing blindness or being burned at the stake by a prudish pitchfork-wielding mob.  Gerald had originally been positioned in a discreet side window at Selfridges.  He was painted pale blue and adorned with rather tasteful autumnal leaves falling down his flanks.  On much closer inspection, the leaves were actually leaf-shaped snippets of pornographic images.  Several idiots complained, and Selfridges gave Gerald his marching orders.

In the end, my camera saved me.  I'd posted a link to my photos on the wall of the Elephant Parade Facebook group, and the organisers emailed me asking to use one of my photos in their auction catalogue.  I was pretty taken aback, as the one they'd asked to use was absolutely dire.  Nevertheless, one thing led to another and I was invited to visit Gerald at their offices.  But there was still time for one final twist in Gerald's tail.  Trendy Z-list hangout Chinawhite, of all places, suddenly decided that they wanted to jump aboard the elephant-hosting bandwagon and Gerald was moved there.  I popped along one rainy Monday morning, and finally conquered my white whale - or pale blue leaf-vagina'd elephant, if you prefer - in that insalubrious hellhole.

The event raised over £4,000,000 and more than 15,000 people have signed the petition.  This elephant alone sold for an incredible £160,000.  Two more Elephant Parades have already been held in Essen and Bergen, and four more are planned this year - in Copenhagen, Heerlen, Milan and Singapore.

Elephants: coming soon to a town near you!  Catch them while you can, and donate whatever you can afford.  They're awesome.

Q: When is a typhoon not a typhoon? A: When it's a typhoon

It's time for the feature you've dreamed about.  Etymology Corner!  No, not the one about insects: the other one.  Are you excited?  The merchandise isn't printed yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.  Anyway, this as much for my benefit as yours, so pipe down.

Question: where does the word 'typhoon' come from?

If you said Chinese (hopefully not aloud, you crazy old sausage) - you're right!  Sort of. Then again, if you said Urdu, Persian, Arabic or Greek, you're also right.  And wrong.  All at once.

According to the OED, typhoon is effectively two separate words with two separate roots to describe similar weather phenomena in two different places.  A typhoon is "a violent storm or tempest occurring in India" (from Urdu).  A typhoon, on the other hand, is "a violent cyclonic storm or hurricane occurring in the China seas and adjacent regions" (from Cantonese).  The pronunciation of the word has probably been steered by Greek.

In other words, one man's typhoon is another man's typhoon.  You say typhoon, I say typhoon.  Let's call the whole thing off.

Double fault: the invention of Sphairistike

If there's one thing the Victorians were good at, it's stealing land from people armed with fruit and pointy sticks.

If there's a second thing, it has to be inventing and naming games.  Step forward Major Walter Wingfield, three-time winner of most Victorianly-named Victorian of the year.  For the purposes of this painstakingly accurate reconstruction, the part of interlocutor will be played by The Right Honourable Jolyon Tufton-Bufton Esq, pipe smoker-in-residence for the county of Salop.

J:  Awesome game of real tennis, dude!  Shame we had to play indoors though. It's such a nice day.

W:  Whoa there! Incoming brainwave.  Why don't we play outside on my lawn?

J:  Lawn? Isn't that a bit passé?  Why don't we try playing on this composite acrylic blend over here?

W:  Yeah, I thought of that.  But it hasn't been invented yet.

J:  Bummer.

W:  This game might really take off, you know that?  Could be a smash hit, net us both a bob or two.  We'd better come up with a catchy name.

J:  Tough one, Wingman.  It's played on a LAWN… it's a bit like real TENNIS…

W:  I've got it!  Sphairistike!

J:  What the fuck?

W:  It's from the Greek, sphairistike techne.  Means "the art of playing with balls".  I thought we'd better drop the techne bit to make sure it's really easy to pronounce.  Keep it simple for the idiots.

J:  Seriously?  I assumed you were joking, or having a stroke.  Don't you think it sounds a bit gay?

W:  What d'you expect?  I'm in the army!  Anyway, we won't have any problems registering a patent for it.

J:  Oh, good point.  It still sounds a bit hard to pronounce though.

W:  Maybe people could call it "sticky" for short?

J:  Problem solved!

W:  I guess we'd better make the court wider at the baseline than it is at the net.  You know how Queen Victoria hates rectangles.

J:  That must be why the earth is round. 


So there you have it. Walter's patent for Sphairistike (pronounced sfee-RIS-ti-ki) was successfully registered, and the name "sticky" stuck for a good few years before lawn tennis suddenly seemed like a better idea. Spare a thought for him next time you head down to your local sticky court, sticky balls in hand.

Will the Home Internationals never die?

26 years ago, the football associations of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland got together and did something unique throughout their respective histories. They made a sensible, laudable decision - albeit, sadly, a revocable one. They scrapped the annual four-team travelling riot that saw second-string international players jog around drunkenly once the football season had finished. They killed the Home Internationals. No-one mourned. Now "the fans" (translation: the tabloid press and Vauxhall, England's new team sponsor) seem to want them resurrected. Just like Buffy.

The stadia might be full - particularly important in Wembley's case, since the FA will be paying for its construction until the next ice age (give or take). England losing a match would briefly make the news. The Six Nations is a fantastic tournament. That's all the upside I can think of.

The Six Nations is one of my favourite sporting events, partly because of the spirit in which the games are played and watched. Rugby fans can be trusted with tribalism. Football fans can't. Just this week, Northern Irish fans have been busy posting bullets to Northern Irish Catholics playing for Celtic. Neil Lennon gets more death threats than Obama. West Ham, Cardiff and Birmingham have played host to serious crowd trouble lately. You can only blame extreme right-wing infiltrators so many times: at some point, you have to accept that British and Irish men behave very stupidly in big inebriated groups. And not just in karaoke bars.

The current proposal is for a one-off six game tournament to take place in summer 2013 to commemorate the FA's 150th anniversary. Why they can't just buy themselves a big cake, I honestly don't know. That's what I'll be doing on my 150th anniversary (don't fail me now, Aubrey de Grey). 173% marzipan, baby. Anyway. If it only happens once, fine. But this will only exacerbate the pressure to restore it as a permanent fixture (or six). And God help us all if they decide to include the Republic of Ireland in an attempt to replace the nascent Carling Nations Cup - remember England's 1995 "friendly" at Lansdowne Road?

The Home Internationals are famous for one thing. Shitfaced Scottish morons ripping up turf and breaking a piece of wood. No-one remembers any of the matches.

Playing other poor teams won't help anyone improve. Top players won't turn up; those that play will get injured. Summer is for other sports. Note to football: give us a break.

2010's best album: The Suburbs by Arcade Fire

2009 produced (or perhaps executive produced, since it didn't contribute anything) a swathe of brilliant albums. In my opinion, 2010 was a little less fruitful - a half-eaten banana of a year, by comparison. So when I sat down and thought about which album I liked best, The Suburbs stood head and shoulders and knees above the others.

The formula that makes Arcade Fire such a successful band is very difficult to pin down - though this review was definitely one of the original ingredients. I completely understand why many people can't see what the fuss is about. On paper, there are plenty of obvious weaknesses - Win's voice, Régine's voice, the lyrics so accurately castigated as being intermittently "Reznoresque", the pervasive impression that they can't help but take themselves far too seriously. But shove all those things in a Magimix and let Owen Pallett press the buttons and suddenly the vocals are fragile and articulate, the lyrics seem deliberately vague. And all that pretention? If you hit all your targets, you can aim as high as you like. See also: space archery.

I don't like Neon Bible. I listened, I listened again, I saw them live, I tried desperately to justify it and then I gave up. They'd put down the nutcrackers and picked up a sledgehammer. I was worried.

The Suburbs is much easier to get to grips with. Sprawl II sounds like Heart Of Glass - five words which could never be a criticism - without ever threatening to subside into pastiche. We Used To Wait is a heartfelt plea for a return to space and simplicity - they get it now. Rococo offers a fleeting glimpse of an elusive sense of humour. The album is down-to-earth, mature: almost sparse. It trusts you to draw your own conclusions rather than filling every blank with a book of intellectualised conspiracy theories that you really should have read, man, if only for the wheatgerm smoothie shot and tinfoil hat that came free with it in Barnes & Noble. Did I mention that I don't like Neon Bible?

Downloading the songs or looking them up on Spotify would be a betrayal. Stop. Wait. Hold the album in your hands, in a record store. Take good care of it. Then buy another copy for someone else.

I love karaoke, but Glee leaves me cold

Worst choice of name since the BBC overlooked 'Dicks' and stuck with 'Men Behaving Badly'? Quite possibly. You see, glee is one of the few reactions that this programme does not provoke in me. Nausea by saccharine overdose, yes. Occasional rage, certainly. The odd reflex laugh at an incongruously witty one-liner. But not glee. Never glee.

I'll admit it, I'm confused. Why are all those talented, beautiful people bonding over their supposed adversity? Did anyone involved in making the programme go to school? I did. It wasn't like that. Nor, by all accounts, are American schools. It doesn't promote a realistic, positive message. I can only imagine it reinforcing feelings of isolation.

The miming is superb. The song choices make excellent commercial sense. Sue Sylvester is almost a fully-formed character (which is presumably why she stands out to the point where no-one ever mentions the others). I'm sure the choreography is just as good as you'd find in any other pop video. But that's just it. Glee is a marketing tool. It should come with the word 'ADVERTORIAL' stamped in huge letters across the screen. Everything else is peripheral fluff.

Karaoke is one of my favourite things to do. I'd (relatively) happily sing many of Glee's chosen songs at karaoke (once drunk). But I wouldn't sell tapes of it afterwards - no matter how popular they might be - or, for that matter, record myself in advance, autotune my voice and sync it with an online backing track so I could mime and dub myself. Wait, what was my point? Oh yes. Karaoke should be for post-pub entertainment, in small rooms, with friends, beer and tambourines. Karaoke should not be for number one singles and nationwide tours, no matter what Simon Cowell might say.

At least Minipops was less insidious.

In praise of tungsten: five reasons why I love darts unashamedly

1. The maths

Mental arithmetic has become progressively less useful since that douchebag invented the calculator. But you still need it for darts. Carol Vorderman (or, for argument's sake, someone with a better-than-third-class Maths degree) couldn't add up after a few spritzers, but we expect carpenters and plumbers to do it on stage, on-air, in a TV lighting sauna. The untapped possibilities of using darts as a teaching aid for primary school boozehounds are endless, and should probably stay that way. But darts is gladiatorial chessboxing for casual alcoholics. Test yourself here.

2. The nicknames

Steve "The Bronzed Adonis" Beaton. John "Darth Maple" Part. Anastasia "From Russia With Love" Dobromyslova. Brian "Pecker" Woods. Les "McDanger" Wallace. And my personal favourite, Mervyn "The King" King. Nicknames are obligatory, in the pub or at the Lakeside. Flights, shafts and shirts must be embossed with said nicknames to create the tackiest possible brand. Anything goes. Peter "Snakebite" Wright, and his dangerously bored hairdresser wife, have tested this hypothesis to its absolute limit.

Nicknames also inspire some positively hallucinatory grand entrances. Take a bow, Scott "Scotty Dog" Mitchell. And then take a second one on behalf of your invisible dog.

3. The drama

Stick with me on this one. The five-leg sets and alternating opportunity to throw first create tension in almost every match. Every throw matters. Watching the best players in the world push each other to score yet another 180 is just as much fun as watching above-average pub players shake while missing double after double (I'm looking at you, BDO World Championship). Cutaway crowd shots of trailer-trash wives called Sharona agonising over every arrow always make for great TV.

4. The pub

Find a pub with a dartboard and play 301 for an hour with a performance-inhibiting beverage or two, then pop home and watch a televised match. Darts is very easy and cheap for anyone to walk up and play, but almost impossible to play well. It's also one of the few professional games (or sports, but let's not get into that) where alcohol consumption is positively encouraged. Oh, and you can keep your glasses on, but that has very little to do with my heading.

5. The Sid Waddell

Praising Sid is, in the words of the great man himself, like taking a sausage from a boy in a wheelchair. Or candy from a baby, back on planet Earth. Sid is a flawed genius. His diction is deteriorating, but his gift for developing a sporting lexicon on the hoof is indefatigable. He has a Cambridge degree, but produced the infamous Indoor League for ITV. It's a toss-up as to whether Sid or Phil Taylor is the PDC's greatest asset. Fat drunk men throwing pointy things at cork just wouldn't be the same without him.