What do Romanians and Bulgarians in the UK think of the imminent ‘flood’ of new Romanians and Bulgarians?
VICE
Category Archives: THINGS I DONE
OAK CYCLES – RYAN MCCAIG
Interview with the glorious Ryan from Oak cycles for a university assignment (I was asked to write it for the Guardian’s now defunct ‘A working life‘ section). It’s a bit cheesy but he’s such a babe I don’t care. Find out more about Oak here.
Ryan McCaig loves bicycles. He thinks they are beautiful, personal and intensely practical. It’s brilliant to hear a man, wearing overalls and brandishing a blowtorch, talk about his passion with equal measures of frankness and romance.
“You can make a chair and sit on it. You can make good art, put it in a gallery and talk about it. But when you make a bicycle, you can take it and ride it around the world, or carry heavy loads, or just ride it to work every day. It’s got such potential.”
McCaig, 30, builds custom bicycle frames in a tiny workshop in Hackney Wick. He’s originally from Canada but has lived in London for six years. When I arrive he is patiently examining a stainless steel bike frame held in a homemade clamp that can move in every direction. The frame pirouettes at the lightest touch.
He calls the operation Oak Cycles. On the shelf there’s a queue of cardboard boxes filled with steel tubes, each with a name scrawled on it representing someone waiting for a bicycle.
How did it all begin?
“I was going to cycle around the world but I couldn’t find anyone that was making the bike that I wanted for the trip. So I set about reading a bunch of books and buying tools. And I made a bike frame. That was five years ago now.”
How was the trip? “We didn’t make it the whole way around the world – it got really cold in Turkey so we turned right and headed for Africa instead.”
I’m unsure how a man who cycled to Africa can spend his days in this small room. “I once went hiking with a guy who told me ‘You need something. You can’t just be an aloof, hitchhiking, travelling bum the rest of your life.’ That stuck with me.”
McCaig seems far from an aloof bum. His skill set is ever expanding. He describes joining the metal tubes together by brazing – a process that looks like welding but with a softer glow. “I heat the two parent materials so they are able to accept the filler material brass. A molecular bond happens which is very strong.”
Putting the pieces together is only a small part of the job. McCaig’s customers are, generally, demanding middle-aged men with bachelor lifestyles. They’re men who have loved bikes their whole lives, but never quite found one that fits perfectly. McCaig likens it to when a man discovers, after years of buying their suits from M&S, just how good Savile Row tailoring feels.
But despite the fact that most of his customers already have ten or more bicycles, even the most Lycra-clad patron doesn’t share McCaig’s technical vocabulary.
“People ask for their bike to be ‘comfortable’ and ‘durable’. I have to turn those words into a functional form with angles, geometry, tube specifications, diameters and wall thicknesses. Those technical fabrication aspects dictate how the bike rides. But people just know they want a bike to be, you know, red.”
There can’t be many people making frames in this way, on this small a scale? “There was something like 50 frame builders in London in the 1950s, but when I was looking to learn there was just one.”
“So I taught myself. I made 10 bikes for 10 friends at the cost of materials. That was 100 hours per bicycle – 1000 hours total. I decided; that would be my own apprenticeship.”
A lot of his time is spent looking at steel. From the first consultation with the customer to the final product, the process takes a year. I ask if he’s ever sad to see the bikes leave.
“Artists will talk about how if you spend time with an inanimate object you grow attached to it and it’s hard to let it go. I’m not saying I’m an artist of course. But that stainless steel bike I was looking at when you came in, that has another 16 hours of work in it and I’ve already put 100 hours into it. If you’ve ever stared at one piece of material for 100 hours… there’s definitely an attachment.”
The commitment of a craftsman like McCaig seems baffling to the layman. He has always tinkered with objects, concocting structures in his uncle’s Ottawa garage as a teenager.
“I say this all happened in the last few years, but I first made a bike when I was 16. It was a penny-farthing. It was awesome; a bunch of old BMX bikes that I stuck together. I only had an angle grinder and a TIG welder. It was a bit of a disaster, but I just went for it.”
Things are no longer disastrous. Every customer so far, he says, has been a happy one. His work is, as we speak, conquering roads all over the world. Next month there will be four Oak bikes riding around South America simultaneously.
“We’re going to try and figure out a way they can meet up and take a photo. Touring bikes is what I love to do, so it’s pretty cool.”
He may not have made it around the globe himself, but his work most certainly has.
FUR: THE MOVIE
I made a video featuring barber Steve. It was for the blog I’m working on for uni called Bearded London.
THE FUR
Myself and four other MA Journalism students have started a blog. It’s called Bearded London. Our gorgeous logo (known as Jason) was designed by Miguel Martin. Check both BL and Miguel out. Now.
BONJOUR
AU REVOIR SIMONE FEATURE/INTERVIEW/PHOTOS on the CRACK website and then in the mag
DISCOVERED
Earlier this year I compiled the copy and images for Undiscovered London’s online guide to the city. It’s now live and looks brilliant. Thanks to everyone who gave me their recommendations and thanks to UL for paying me to eat some incredible food!
POP TOURISM
My homeland has received some uncharacteristic attention of late – everyone I meet under the age of 18 asks me why Derry-Londonderry has so many syllables (thanks Radio 1) and/or if Obama and my Mum are now bezzies after the G8. But by far the newest and most popular subject broached by those who inquire about the land beyond the grey Irish Sea is Game of Thrones. Whether they be Lannister, Greyjoy or Stark, Game of Thrones fans love to ask me whether I’ve been to any of the places in which the HBO dollar-spunking series was shot. And I greatly enjoy telling people that I have been to many of the beautiful places onto which dragons and boobies have been rendered. I also enjoy shouting “I KNOW THAT HILL” in the midst of sometimes tense political moments during the show, ruining the experience for everyone in the room. They are some very nice hills.
The Northern Irish tourist board has had publicity-hungry babies over the Isle’s new found popularity. Twitter blazed during a BAFTA acceptance speech in which the residents of Belfast were thanked for their hospitality and now bus companies are cobbling together tours of the country that highlight landmarks from the series. In the Titanic building there is currently an exhibition of some of the props used during the show, including a chance to sit on the Iron Throne. You heard – there are fictional attractions inside a building built to commemorate a real life event that was made more famous by a fictional feature film. When I heard of this opportunity I actually cursed the fact that I live in (the brilliant) London. That’s how much I want to sit on the Iron Throne. And my desire to do so has resulted in me reflecting on what my cultural priorities truly are.
I’m currently travelling around the UK to pretty much every nook and fanny you can imagine. It’s all for my new job and I’m undertaking these trips with only my Spotify account for company. I have a car, a sat nav, and a relentless desire to explore the country’s pop culture sights. When in Edinburgh I completely ignored the beautiful architecture that surrounded me and instead took photos at JK Rowling’s old haunt, the Elephant House, and streets where Trainspotting was filmed. In Manchester I pretended to be Morrissey outside the Salford Lad’s Club and waved at Marc Riley through the window at MediaCity. Aside from a brief stop at the Angel of the North (ACTUAL REAL-PEOPLE LANDMARK) I’ve been uninterested in anything that doesn’t appear in a cult film or my childhood memories.
And the more I think about my gravitation towards ludicrous and altogether fictional hotspots, the more I realise that my life has played host to a succession of these ridiculous trips. I’ve been to the shop where Black Books was filmed in Bloomsbury, skipped past the house used in the King’s Speech, nearly exploded with joy when I was an audience member inside the now empty Television Studios, and contemplated my existence at Postman’s Park – a piece of green featured in Closer. I’ve gazed at a bridge in Dublin featured in the film ‘Inside I’m Dancing’ (good, but by no means a favourite). In fact I’ve earned my living on and off for the last two years by showing people locations from the Harry Potter films and have even visited the sets out in Watford. Since I moved to London three years ago I’ve had a visit to Tufnell Park, home of the fictional ‘Meteor Street’ from the sitcom Spaced, on my list of things to do. Douglas Adam’s grave, home of 90s debauchery The Groucho Club, and the Beatles Zebra Crossing are all boxes waiting patiently to be ticked.
So, it appears if left to my own devices I will exclusively seek out fictional places to visit. I recently had the terrifying realisation that if I ever make it to New York I would rather go to the pub that MacLaren’s in How I Met Your Mother is based on than to the Empire State Building. I don’t even really like How I Met Your Mother. I think it is incredibly average. In Manchester I stopped myself from going to the original site of Coronation Street because I’ve never watched it in my life. But TV history seems so much more relevant to my existence than actual history. When I walk down Whitehall I tend to envision myself as James Bond and I always consider my alternative Sliding Doors universe whenever I board a tube train. My immersion in film and musical culture is so absolute that a visit to Wordsworth’s old gaff in the brilliantly named Cumbrian town of Cockermouth is actually my most high-brow venture to date.
After some consideration I feel that this is somehow an extension of wearing a band t-shirt – an attempt to convey how fantastically niche your interests are without having to come out with douchey sentences that may be greeted by blank faces. A quick snap and a Facebook upload later I’m getting my ‘like’ kicks whilst still safe in the knowledge it’s only other obsessives like myself that know the significance of the backdrop I’ve draped myself against. And in an era where the whole world can come to you via print-screening street view, there’s something incredibly novel about getting a train to a place in order to stand where someone else once stood. It’s also, perhaps, about trying to will the place, TV show, character or episode into existence. If I stand beside the book shop long enough and wish for it hard enough then maybe Bernard Black will invite me in. If I don a quiff and strike a pose maybe I’ll magically be transported back in time to when The Smiths were fresh and new. People may say they feel ‘a connection’ to characters from stories that are factual, but I don’t quite see how it’s possible to empathise with Marie Antoinette when the time she lived in had a completely different set of values and structures. Game of Thrones may be set in Westeros, but its morality is fully cemented in 21st century beliefs. So why shouldn’t I be more enthralled by the fact that V for Vendetta was filmed outside Westminster than the fact that Guy Fawkes was hung drawn and quartered there? In the end, Natalie Portman has probably had a considerably larger influence on my life than Guido. Welcome to reality, ladies and gents.
– If you have any suggestions as to pop culture sights which I could visit, please LEMME KNOW
WINDOW 135
In September I will be going back to school to get an MA in Magazine Journalism at City University London. For my application I had to write about someone in my area. I wrote a tiny 150 words on Tim and Meena, my neighbours.
– Tim and Meena live in a house that was once a greengrocers. In 2004 they came up with a way to ensure themselves some privacy and enliven the dreariness of New Cross Road by turning their full-size shop window into a gallery space. But after spending some time with this inherently creative duo (their degrees span Fine Art, Fashion Design and Architecture), it’s clear they have a touch of contempt for the traditional gallery format. “We went to the Photographers Gallery a while ago and there was a kid translating everything for the ‘old people’,” laughs Meena.
Things are certainly different with Window 135. The couple love how their space is both accessible and confusing. Nothing about the project is signposted; it’s left to the passers-by to come to their own conclusions about the work and why it’s there. Tim often runs up to the top deck of the bus to see how the display looks to passing commuters. People sometimes try to open their front door, thinking they might be able to look around the nonexistent exhibition.
Currently the window is home to work by the shoe and jewellery designer Emily Botterman. Necklaces are draped from coat hangers – but they won’t be there for long. An enthusiastic Tim admits “after a week or so you become ready for something new.” Do they have a favourite window from over the years? Meena tells of placing “photographs of musicians’ heads in jam jars.” They smile. ”It’s about play.”
INTERDEBT
photo HARRIET PITTARD
I have managed to bag myself a pretty impressive house. It’s around 2000 sq ft of space that my flatmates and I have filled with bearded twins filming theatre promos and safety glass-wearing makers of emotional furniture. If any of us had a clue how to fill out a form then we’d probably be receiving arts funding. However, our pitched-roof haven has come with an unexpected downside. Despite being a total steal, it doesn’t technically exist. Whoever owns this space didn’t tell anyone they were shoving humans into it and as a result we have negated our right to vote and our duty to pay council tax.
The biggest problem we’ve encountered is that it is difficult to get internet into a house that’s about ten meters away from the road and about the same off the ground. It has been five months since we moved in and we are due to finally get connected come Friday.
If I were a better writer I probably would have seen the opportunity in this predicament to deprive myself of any access to the net until it was sorted, thus providing folios upon folios of testy prose examining my relationships with the world and indeed, the wide web.
However, after all this time I have realised that a pseudo-investigative project would not only have been boring, but an utter waste of time. Because I have come to the conclusion, after months of tethering, cafe-ing and midday grimy pubbing, that not having the internet at home just… sucks.
There is no higher knowledge that can be gained by moving your aura exclusively into a physical domain. It is dull. It is unpractical. No nirvana can be reached. This experiment would only be beneficial for masochists and gambling addicts. And as someone who has been forced to complete this experiment in a kind of half-assed ‘stillusingyoursmartphone’ way, I can provide insight into why not having the internet does not result in becoming a Zen master (although one of my flatmates has, strangely, taken up bonsai).
Nobody I know owns a map. Our house is not filled with all the useful stuff parents still own – the relics of a bygone era in which the words ‘i’ and ‘phone’ merely reflected the confirmation that yes, that previously referred to object is a phone. Finding a route through London is impossible whilst harbouring a brain that can no longer store data about its surroundings. The bit that used to do this is now busy remembering keyboard shortcuts and the name of that new band with the wishy washy photo and the word GIRL somewhere in their name.
Banks don’t open ever. I know our seniors would have us believe that things were actually worse in that respect back in ‘the past’, but I find it hard to believe. Life without e-banking has made me constantly edgy. I actually have nightmares about dipping my toes into a lake named Overdraft. I am not in a position so lucrative that I can happily remain in the dark about my accounts.
People don’t real-life ‘share’. I have missed countless gigs and soirees because I lack a continual background stream of information. Twitter and Facebook used to provide the white noise to my day; blogs I like punctuated rountine dreariness with sparkling annoucements tailored for me. We now so heavily rely on said interwebs to arrange our calendars that people rarely refer to events in person until after they happened, and even then that conversation is accompanied by glancing over a photostream of events.
Everyone under 30 has been so heavily conditioned to do things in this way, in this order, that it is truly impossible to work and have a social life without relatively constant access to the internet in 2013. Lambast me for first-worlding all you want, but when this is coupled with a crappy job and a post graduation lull as it has been for me, things get shitty. The thought of phoning someone to ask them what they’re doing this weekend with a view to invite myself would undoubtedly be considered by said friend as ‘a bit rapey’.
When I do access the internet at the moment, it is via my smartphone. I had hoped that after a number of weeks my mobile data usage would begin to slump as I slowly came to the conclusion that my life was more gratifying when I did not spend it entirely looking at a screen. The opposite is true. Due to the hideous app ecosystems (and I use that word with a distain for it’s recent appropriation) that govern our mobile internet usage, things become fiddly to say the least. I have probably spent twice as much time as I ever did staring at a screen that is infinitely smaller than the screens I looked at before.
The move to mobile has strained my eyes and nerves as I have become mired in a completely unlined cloud, silver or otherwise. Skydrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox all compete for my attention because no one I work for or with can stick to one system. Excel documents fly hither and thither vying for a platform on which to stand and articulate their valuable data. Files open, but god forbid I’d want to do anything else with them as the privilege will cost me an app upgrade and my last pipettes worth of optimism.
Of course I can read everything I normally would via my mobile. But it’s awkward. Following daisy-chains of interesting information is not QUESTish in the same way on your phone. If anything can put a full stop to a fact-finding mission, it’s finding a website that isn’t smart enough to adjust it’s column size for your device. It’s such a mundane thing to complain about that my fingers are cringing. This mundanity, spliced with disproportionate anger, now governs most of my day.
And then there’s the fact that tethering has been so excruitiatingly vilified. My own provider expressly disallows the practice of using my phone to create a network to which my laptop can connect. Well lads, I’m not uploading this via my WordPress app for shit.
Conclusion? There isn’t one. I’d love to have a frisson with optimism here – the thought of claiming that life cannot only be possible but indeed wonderful without constant access to the internet would be a lie. It’s terrible. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this depressive tirade on your massive desktop monitor. I’m now off to hug my knees and make out with our soon-to-be-useful router.
(Update – just got a phonecall to say that we are not getting the internet on Friday)
(Update on update – we did get the internet! Huzzah!)
CITI ZEN
8/10
Suzie McCracken 