Comments on: The London Nobody Knows

By: Hg

Hg — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:33:06 +0000

I quite like that Faraday building, to be honest. It seems to be quite plain and classically styled. I suppose if you were being critical, you could say it was bland minimalism. As I said in the review, that’s the conundrum with Mason’s commentary – you never really seem to know where he’s coming from. (And how much of it is his own viewpoint, as opposed to a script that he was provided with.)
I know of The Frames but don’t really know much about them/you. I’ll do a bit of research. This clarifies your “I’m a film maker myself” comment above… assuming I’m on the right lines, I’ve seen one of your films (at least once!) and it was lovely.
Never heard of The Blades, but I know the Golden Horde. Not really my kind of thing, but I checked them out when Gavin Friday did some stuff with Simon Carmody in the late 80s. And as for the Undertones… my wife’s from Derry, so say no more
I think the Dandelion Market might have been before my time, or at least if it was still going when I first visited Dublin I had no clue about it.
Gone without a trace and no documentation… yeah, I don’t really know how I feel about that. See a few of my blog posts around the start of this year, in which I was pondering this theme. Should we document everything (the instinctive assumption of the writer, film maker, photographer, and so on), or is it actually healthier to let things slip away and not try to hold onto them? After forty years, I still really have no clue.

By: John

John — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 01:05:12 +0000

The Green-Roofed building!
That’s exactly it!
I must check it out the next time I’m in London. It hasn’t dated quite as badly as James Mason might have imagined, perhaps… (?)
Thanks for looking it up.
And yes, indeed, I know the Virgin Prunes, as I used to play in a band myself, called The Frames. (much later- in the early 90s.)
I don’t know any of them personally, but they’re somewhat of a legend here still, and were great, though somewhat of a best-kept secret. So many interesting Irish bands from that era that were all dwarfed (unintentionally, of course), out of popular memory by U2.
Most of the allure of the 80′s you mention is sadly fading here, (did you visit the Dandelion Market when you were here?), but there are still pockets of it left, on the North side of the city more than the south. Though most of the faded dance halls, reconverted into rock clubs of the seventies and eighties are pretty much all gone without a trace! Sad. And no iphones, or digital camera footage to remember them by.
If you’re a Prunes fan, then, you will surely love the Undertones, and more obscurely, The Blades, who were from Ringsend? Or the Golden Horde?
All worth a look, for nostalgia, if nothing else!
Regards,
John.

By: Hg

Hg — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 20:43:00 +0000

OK, this was fun. I used a mixture of Flickr pics and Google Maps (both in satellite mode and using street view) and eventually tracked it down... it's the Faraday Building at 160 Queen Victoria Street. Here's a fairly good picture.

By: Hg

Hg — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:45:12 +0000

Aha… Dublin has a special place in my affections. Dunno if this name means anything to you, but I’ve been a Virgin Prunes fan since my mid-teens and the place held a mysterious allure for me. I first visited it in 1989 and have been back numerous times since, watching it change over the past couple of decades in exactly the way you describe.
You might be interested in this.
No time right now, but I’ll try and check out the green-roofed building for you over the next few days.

By: John

John — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:02:20 +0000

You should try living in Dublin! Which was systematically destroyed during the recession of the 1980s by unscrupulous property developers, who used to let their Georgian properties (bought up for a song in the 70s), fall into ruin so as to be condemned. That, or burning the buildings down during the night. The whole of our north-side quays were destroyed in this way, and rebuilt during the early nineties- probably the worst decade for architecture in Ireland, leaving the entire quays looking like a sort of weird toy town. Some little footage of the city remains, and I’ve often thought of doing a doc on old Dublin, as I’m a film maker myself. In fact, when I look back on my own early footage of Dublin from when I was starting shooting on VHS, it’s amazing how much the city has changed, even in the last twenty years. I now sound like my own father, bemoaning the Dublin of the 1950s! History just keeps repeating itself I guess.
Anyway, thanks again for your insightful words on the film, both of which I’ve been circulating amongst my friends.
(And doing a follow up film, is a great idea, and you should most certainly go ahead with it!)
John.
P.S. As a matter of interest, what is the “green-roofed” building beside St. Paul’s that James Mason writes off with a “Yik!” in the film??