doors as BFI South Bank, after 50-odd years the concrete bunker under Waterloo Bridge that has been the world's leading cinematheque morphs into this new entity.Should we be sad? Maybe a little. The new name is a meaningless, bland Blairite re-brand, designed to pander to the whims of the grey-suits at the DCMS and the London Destruction Agency.
On the other hand, for cineastes the new centre could well prove to be a Mecca and for lovers of London on film the Mediatheque's London Calling collection will become a second home (John Krish's film of the last day of the London trams, the Thames circa 1935 in colour, Sparrows Can't Sing, the Ealing Tram Panorama circa 1901, John Smith's 'Blight' etc. etc.) - book your spot now you'll love it I'm sure (call 020 7928 3535).
None of this required the ditching of this much-loved name and it's an interesting example of how a slightly obscure geographical location has taken on the symbolic weight of meaning 'culture'. Another entry in the catalogue of disappearance (and emergence).
4 comments:
For Buddha's sake - why do cretins make signs (or as they would say 'create signage')like this execrable MALE TOILETS... as if gendering pieces of porcelain is anything other than utterly meaningless. Is it a fear of putting the apostrophe in the wrong place?(Mens Toilet's!) or is it something more utterly dumb?
It's not even that a Marcel Duchamp urinal is only useable by men, or 'males'. Have these people not read Mandy B's Piss manifesto (you can find this anthologised in the Stewart Home edited "The Mind Invaders" - [You know it makes(no)sense!] It "offers practical advice and fashion tips for women who want to liberate themselves from the chauvinist orthodoxy of having to sit down to pee."
Good news! Now they'll show Taken for Granted the Middlesex County Council's classic depiction of the building of the West Middlesex Main Drainage Scheme. (1947) There's something for the mens toilet's! Incidently, isn't it a bit strong using words like cretin in the context above? To my mind that is a far more serious lapse in language.
You are probably correct to suggest that the usage was a bit strong - and that it isn't very nice to use terms connected to mental illness as pejoratives - for that I apologise.
I was amused to read that...
"the etymology of the word cretin is not known with certainty. Several hypotheses have been proposed. The most common derivation provided in English dictionaries is from the Latin Christiānum (Christian), via a medieval French dialect (compare modern French chretien). The connecting meaning between "Christian" and "cretin" is not obvious." [Wikipedia]
My irrational rage was provoked by a niggling suspicion that style over substance might be the downfall of what was once a great institution.
I shall have a nice cup of tea before becoming intemperate next time.
Apology accepted Henri. We all do it on occasion.
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