Saturday 7 July 2012

Not Moving Forward

While sometimes I am led astray by my instinctive conservatism, (for instance, I now realise that screwtop wine bottles are great and corks, although traditional, are on a day-to-day basis, a bore), I think, when it comes to the changes wrought on most of my favourite urban landscapes since the 1960s, that a bit more conservatism would have saved us from the many small, dull hells that now pass as town centres across England.

I was provoked into this vein of thought by a link about the King's Road that my brother sent me, showing that Starbuck's has invaded the realms of my childhood and that, since I was learning to walk and ride a tricycle and eventually even a bicycle in the neighbourhood, the place has succumbed to the British chain shop virus.

To make matters worse, I had just been to Vienna when I looked at the pictures of how things were and how things now are in the part of Chelsea where I grew up.

The Viennese are not always the easiest of people. Looking at the pictures posted in the window of the appalling Eden Bar:

 gives you a taste of their less attractive side:


and their passion for Trzesniewski's:

 egg concoctions, which they serve at every available opportunity, is baffling, (although the 1949 frieze on the front is interesting in the way it reveals the preoccupations of the time - pineapple, chicken, Italian wine and lobster, all just dreams for most people in post-war Vienna):



and their fondness for establishments like the House of Gentlemen:

frequented by natty chaps like this one:


who will persist in that naff continental habit of marching about with their jacket sleeves empty, so that they look armless, is also not exactly admirable.

All the same, I bow to the Viennese in one thing - their sophisticated understanding that, when you've got something right, there's no need to fiddle with it any longer.Thus, passing Cafe Braunerhof, I glanced through the window:

and was enchanted to see that, not only had they done nothing at all to alter the interior, but, in fact, even the waiters were the same as last time I was there some years ago.

At WH Auden's favourite restaurant, the Ilona Stuberl, all also seemed well:

at first.

But, oh no, even in Vienna the winds of progress are blowing. Look, curses, over in the corner, there's a bloody great flat screen telly:
and, even more distressing, next door do you see what's opened up:
We are all doomed, damn it. Nowhere at all is safe.

4 comments:

  1. I think a somewhat over-bleak conclusion, ZMKC. The wonderful thing about Vienna is that it doesn't change - with the exception that whereas once it had its share of run-down buildings, virtually everything has now been prettified. I don't think one flat screen television and a Starbucks in a side-street - while indeed regrettable developments - are signs that the Viennese plan to change their habits and stop wallowing in the past.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Revelling not wallowing, surely? Mind you, after being told once in a hotel there that the air conditioning only works if the temperature outside does not rise above 80F, I would not object to a bit of modernisation on that front.

      Delete
  2. Mind you, it's the classiest looking Starbucks I've ever seen....

    ReplyDelete
  3. ... Except for the green spectres of death in front of it.

    ReplyDelete