Posts Tagged ‘ spaghetti junction ’

Beauty, mystery and dreams and the A38(M)

‘In my youth, I lived in the shadow of Britain’s largest motorway intersection, Spaghetti Junction. It was a thing of beauty, mystery and dreams.’ So says Ian Emes who has produced ‘Flightpath Tegel’ a film, a homage to JG Ballard’s ‘Concrete Island’. A piece of work that makes spaghetti look even more beautiful than it normally does. Thanks to the circuit phantom for spotting it.

Loads of bits of Birmingham are now live on Google Street View. To see which, go to Google Maps and then – if you see a little yellow man – drag the little yellow man down onto the street to see a 3D photographic view that you can scroll around. Here’s the view from Spaghetti: Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch! This is fascinating, I’ve already looked up my house (can see my car and next door’s cat) and spent a good ten minutes following my drive to town (as ever the Google camera is stuck behind a white van most of the way). The possibilities are endless, it wouldn’t take a clever coder more than a day to program a virtual 11 bus tour… But for now let’s just see if we can spot odd stuff and things going on that shouldn’t be.

A few weeks ago I bought a T-shirt with the Rotunda on it, and unusually it wasn’t one I’d designed. It was from this ‘shop’ on Spreadshirt.net, quite expensive but pretty unique. Unique for how much longer, I don’t know – at least three people have stopped me while wearing mine and asked me where I got it. I can never remember, so if I put a link up here at least I can point them to BiNS. The shop does a fine range of Spaghetti Junction shirts too:

Elizabeth Ingram is a jewellery designer of no mean talent and — despite living in Scotland —she’s designed rings based on one of Brum’s most potent forces. She says: “I have just designed some jewellery based on Spaghetti Junction, which seems to confuse people no end as they seem to think I should be taking design inspiration from rare orchids or Picasso or something.” “I used to travel over the Spaghetti Junction every day, and there is a beauty and chaos apparent even in its smooth concrete functionality, I wanted the attractive side of this criss-crossing mass to be there, but I wanted the dark side to lurk in the bushes, as surely we all do” No word on the blog about whether this is the sort of thing I can afford to buy for the other half, but they’re really nice.

In 1990, several architectural designers came up with some alternative design ideas for the area over and under Spaghetti Junction. Robert Adam, the classicist English architect, came up with this Tower Bridge-esque design, but there were plans for offices on top and nightclubs underneath. More details, drawings and links on David Barrie’s blog, and a tip of the cap to D’log.

Falling in love with Spaghetti Junction

BBC Four are showing a doccumentary about ‘The Secret Life of the Motorway’, the first episode features the building of the first Motorway in Britain, the M6 Preston by-pass, and Spaghetti Junction. There’s archive and public information films as well as interviews with “the engineers, the builders and the people who drove on them”. It’s on at 10pm on Sunday (18th), but as it’s on digital it’ll no doubt be on again.

It’s that time of next year again, when in a flagrant attempt to pay for all the incidental costs of B:iNS we unleash the Birmingham:It’s Not Shit Calendar on the suspecting public. It is, we’ve seen calendars in the shops. As always it features 13 shots of real Brum, with no spin and only a tiny few adjustments in Photoshop to try and make it look warm in the summer months (well did you try getting pictures of the sun this year?). While it isn’t all pretty, it at least isn’t 12 shots of canalside living. It includes, the beach under Spaghetti Junction, Mr Egg, The Pantomime Horse Grand National and you can see tiny versions of the inside pictures here. We’ve got two versions for sale from Lulu.com, a full height version at £12.99 (cover pictured) and a slightly cheaper folded version at £7.99. Both include all your Bank Holidays, as well as a few special B:iNS chosen dates and anniversaries. (There’s also one in our Cafepress shop might be cheaper with the dollar exchange rate being over 2-1, have a look see what you think. This one doesn’t have special dates, just normal holidays.) It’s a perfect...

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Keep your eyes on the road

‘Motorists’ have chosen the ‘UK’s best-known sight seen from a motorway’ – a motorway. In a crap poll people have decided to name Spaghetti Junction – always seen from the air in photos and film, and iconic for that – as something they supposedly see from their cars. Far be it for me to suggest that the pollsters just wanted their name in the papers.

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Posts Tagged ‘ spaghetti junction ’

Beauty, mystery and dreams and the A38(M)

Privacy Invasion Hour

How to look good clothed

Spaghetti, jewel of the Midlands

A bridge to far?

Falling in love with Spaghetti Junction

Buy 365 days of Brum, get one free

Artist’s impression, methinks

Keep your eyes on the road

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