The Filter^

European Cartography and Geography

Here's a nice way to spend 5 minutes: test your knowledge of European geography.

And here's a nice map, from the ever excellent strangemaps.

Liechtenstein

The Prince of Liechtenstein is among the world's wealthiest heads-of-state with an estimated wealth of some 2 billion dollars. The country's population enjoys one of the world's highest standards-of-living.

source: Wikipedia.

No idea why this is sitting in the "drafts" section, but as part of a routine clean up let's make it public. I can't remember what point I wanted to make about this information, but to see the extent of my predictability, does anyone have a better idea than I do about why my previous self thought it worth writing a blog post about?

Property Hotspot

Guess where they're talking about:

This sandy outpost, the second-largest natural harbour in the world, is the fourth most expensive place in the world to buy property, after Hong Kong, Manhattan and Mayfair.

Answer here

Three Graces

Best City - and the winner is...

I'm often thinking about what the world's 'best city' is. Not so much in terms of 'top trumps' - where's the best art gallery and the most beautiful park, but more in terms of where a human can really be happy, healthy, fulfilled and in good company. The sort of anthropologists at work on the 'Making Slough Happy' project may well be able to provide statistics which would help, but there's a much more fun way of going about it (if a little less scientific), and that's to go and check places out.

I wonder what you think? For me, I think that the winner is probably lurking in Northern Europe somewhere. Is there a Copenhagen without the few ugly buildings? Yes - it's called Riga. But then, Riga it too far from the coast and not quite as pleasing in the design stakes - so there's Helsinki, but I've not been to Helsinki!

What we need, is what new labour would call a 'full and frank debate' - which usually translates as 'I haven't got enough experience on this matter and have no sound bites to draw on. Plus my researcher is on holiday in Ibiza'. I'm not particularly well travelled outside Europe, and so probably wouldn't do too well if I was on Newsnight discussing the world's best city - so there's a nice opportunity for debate here. In a very real sense.

A flicker of life from The Filter^ REVIEW

As the circadian rhythms of the academic year begin to stir in my bosom, I have summoned The Filter^ REVIEW from its summer slumber with some thoughts on Virgin Trains.  Take a look here and refamiliarise yourself with our fine sister site.

The Problem with Manchester

What is it about Manchester? I know that some of this website's readers and writers have, shall we say, 'associations' with Manchester as do I, but writing for a publication with its alleigance firmly in Liverpool, and living now in London, I feel that the time has come when I can justly (or rather, safely) launch my attack on the city which spawned my grandmother, my mother, and my career.

Yesterday I found myself in Manchester for a couple of hours 'en route' from Toulouse to London (don't ask). It was the first time I've been back in the city (during daylight hours) since I left after a relatively unhappy 18 months living and working in the city (there we go, got that admission out of the way - I can hear cries of 'biased'). I've been looking forward to going back - probably believing that now I don't live there anymore I'm much more likely to be able to rejoice in the city's staggering cultural wealth (the country's best concert hall, three professional orchestras, one of the most respected theatre companies in the UK, a new arts centre with two auditoria, four universities, a conservatoire and the largest programme-making arm of the BBC outside London).

Now for the really offensive stuff. My parents always used to tell me that 'you can take a whore to culture, but you can't make her think', a mutated version of a similarly structured mantra I think. To be blunt about it, I didn't enjoy my time in Manchester yesterday one bit (though for the record, I really enjoyed having a few pints on Thursday night with my old colleagues from Manchester Camerata - great fun guys, thanks for coming out!). Don't worry, they won't be reading this.

Walking past Piccadilly Gardens I was struck by just what a disaster this plot of land has been over the years - town planning faux-pas continued right up to 2002 when the council installed a large concrete wall that resembles that which divided Berlin, having in common with its German counterpart the feature of turning a dark hue when the rain comes, which is quite often here. But this is an irrelevance - there are beautiful parts of the city, many of which have been thoughtfully re-ordered by the authorities (St Anne's Square, Hanging Ditch, Cathedral Gardens and the G-Mex Piazza). In Piccadilly, it's easy to be sucked in by the ugliness of the surrounding buildings. What dawned upon me quite quickly, was that all the town planners need to to transform the place for the good is extend the elipse formed by the wall into a complete squashed circle, and not allow members of the public in. That would make Piccadilly a very pleasant place indeed - no Mancunians. If things got a little boring, they could ship in some Liverpudlians, Londoners or even Scots to mill around the place - as long as they didn't allow any townspeople in. Perhaps a little drastic - and I must warn any Mancunians out there that as a half-manc myself, I talk (somewhat) in jest and have no problem with Mancunians 'en-masse' - after all, the city has produced some of the finest humans, artists and intellects that our country can boast, in addition to the 'Jones' wing of my family. It just seems to be those who hang around Piccadilly Gardens - what's with them?

Having said this - walking around the city you realise that many of its central areas are cursed by their immediate inhabitants: people walking the streets looking smug, haughty and self-satisfied with no good reason - and acting the same. Maybe you get this in other cities too - I can't say I've noticed it though. Please, if there are any fellow Mancs out there who want to put me right, then please do so!

Bucharest 2005

Initial thoughts: language is Italian, architecture is Soviet-bloc interspersed with  1930s magnificence. Already seen a man in a red hat with a chicken on his head. Beer flows, Eastern sunlight battles concrete obelisks. Dynamic, exciting, beautiful.

Expect sporadic posting on The Filter^ until I establish an internet connection.

Odessa

In the Rise and Fall of cities, the story of Odessa marks a pertinent lesson in accident. The spontaneous order of a market economy can flourish in the most seemingly inauspicious circumstances, such are it’s endogenous systems of control. It can be pursued through direct state cultivation, or indeed left to nature through neglect. If Hong Kong is the accidental city of Asia, Odessa is the neglected outpost of Communist planning toward the west.
Richelieu made Odessa a free port in the early c19th and cultivated a city that would welcome merchants with great architecture and open to immigration. This begot a cosmopolitan hotpot of Greek, Italian, French and Russian influence, and the foundations for virtuous cycle of inward migration. The Jews in the city were harboured from persecution – able to live anywhere, compete freely in business and receive education and training. With commerce comes trade, and culture flourished in the Opera Theatre and beer halls fermenting a reputation for high art and debauchery.
Of course any port is reliant on circumstance, and since there’s no guarantee technological advancement will serve as friend or foe, perpetual prosperity cannot be guaranteed. When declining economic conditions met with those state-led horrors of the c20th – Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR, famine and persecution hit Odessa. The lesson must be that when burning so brightly the light of liberalism is easy to take for granted.

--Main Source: ‘Odessa’, The Economist, December 2004

Happy New Year

If anyone was watching the footage of Times Square at midnight and saw a national flag other than the St George's - let me know! We celebrated the real midnight at 7pm New York time, so by 12pm EST things were getting messy. Having already finished our champagne at breakfast we had to toast the New Year with ketchup...