A ride on London’s ‘booze bus’

by Jerry Guo on

I knew London threw some pretty wild parties from my summer there, but do they really need an ambulance dedicated to treating the city’s drunks? The “Booze Bus” — or “Vomit Comet” — is a “drunks-only” ambulance that is dispatched during times of heavy drinking, “such as the World Cup, Gay Pride and the festive season,” according to the BBC. That seems like they’re just asking for trouble.

Of course, you could say the supply (of drunk people) is already there, and the good people manning these psuedo-ambulances are just meeting the demand (of driving aforementioned drunkards to the hospital). Or could you make the argument that having this “booze bus” makes people more likely to party hard and get out of control?

Here are some samplings from a random night on the bus:

  • “A scantily-clad 21-year-old woman lies motionless with one arm attached to a saline drip. She was found lying unconscious near a West End club …”
  • “Another seat is occupied by a 60-year-old man, found outside Holborn Tube station, whose silver hair is matted with a layer of thick, crimson blood.”
  • “And there was Sally, a 24-year-old accountant, who was struck by a glass … left a shard embedded in her forehead.”

Umm … ouch. I don’t know what else to say.

Europeans invade New York for holiday shopping

by Iva Skoch on

It’s been a while since anyone has called New York the “bargain place”. This year, New York might as well use it as a city motto. With strong currency working to their advantage, Europeans have been coming to New York in droves to do all their holidays shopping.

Today’s NY Times had an comparison table of London and New York prices. Here is an example:

  • New York prices – 8 Gigabytes iPod Touch: $299, Levis 501 jeans: $58, Starbucks Grande Latte: $3.75
  • London prices – 8 Gigabytes iPod Touch: $398, Levis 501 jeans: $120, Starbucks Grande Latte: $4.80

How many iPods do you have to buy to make the trip worth it though? Air tickets are really expensive before the holidays and New York hotels–trying to capitalize on the strong Euro/Pound are charging more than $400/night for a hotel that used to cost about $100 just a few years ago…

I have heard from Londoners that having a fun weekend in London will cost you more than flying someplace for the weekend. London is so expensive now that the only way to save money is to leave it. Quite a concept!

Dangerous and destructive art at London museum

by Abha Malpani on

London’s Tate Museum has a huge crack its floor. 15 people suffered minor injuries in the first 8-weeks of the crack — there since October — but no one has been badly hurt. This crack is not from an earthquake but has been chiseled in by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo who is known to ‘create artistic installations that function as political and mental archeology.’ Hmmm.

The crevice is 500 feet long and doesn’t exceed 1-foot width along its length. Called Shibboleth, according to the museum’s website: “the crack questions the interaction of sculpture and space, architecture and the values it enshrines, and the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built.” The crack will be there to see until April 2008.

According to an article in the IHT, people have been reacting strangely to the crack. Some don’t see it and trip, some see it but don’t expect to be able to put their foot in the cavity, and not-surprisingly, many are debating over how safe it is.

I think it’s intriguing for the Tate to have allowed the physical destruction of an entire hall in the name of art.

Just like the Indian excrement art exhibition, I would never have imagined a huge crack in the floor to communicate something as profound as what Salcedo is trying to communicate. But, just because of the arrest-factor this crack has, I would take the effort to understand what it is trying to represent. Yes, I’m a sucker for random art like this.

GADLING TAKE FIVE week of 12-7-07

by Catherine Bodry on

Gadling bloggers have been as busy as Santa’s elves this week. It’s hard to choose five posts from so many, so this week I’m offering five categories:

There you have it! Lots of fun stuff to peruse over your weekend — enjoy it!

Indian excrement on display in London

by Abha Malpani on

14 anthropometric blocks of human excrement from Indian cities New Delhi and Jaipur are on display at London’s Lisson Gallery. The modular blocks were collected by Sulabh International Social Service Organization under a sanitary initiative and have been formalized in this exhibition by provocative and often scandalous Madrileño artist Santiago Sierra.

The human waste was collected by many Indians who were obliged to do so under some karmic belief that would redeem them from their sins of their past life. The collection was eventually mixed with mud and exported to England.

This exhibition has been interpreted as an original Santiago tactic on shedding light onto the most inhumane situations in the world.

Sierra has a history of jaw-dropping “live” exhibitions: he has paid people to masturbate in public; he once invited Germans to wear gas masks and walk through what used to be a synagogue, smoked with fumes from the exhaust pipes of cars.

I enjoy this type of live art — although concocted rather simply, they have a strong and disturbing impact; the type that keeps you thinking way after you have left the exhibition.

(Via English Version of El Pais / IHT)