Good Runner, Needs a Little Work

hasslehoff: 3rd May 2005 - 10:50 GMT

this is a full-burn, though a highly unprofessional one i must say.

elaine: 3rd May 2005 - 11:02 GMT

i know. i've become a bit of a connoisseur, lately, and while i am enjoying the depth of the burn i am all of a tut tut at the MO

Peter: 3rd May 2005 - 13:17 GMT

heh. car-burn critics! elaine: you should snag the plate from the front of that car. id love to have a uk license tag...

whats teh story here? does someone burn cars alot in your neighborhood?

elaine: 3rd May 2005 - 14:51 GMT

well, this just came out of our hijacking of hool's lovely posting of back of a building which we started off playing nice, then degenerated into me showing and telling about the local torch artist.
you have to go back to the inception of a form of gambling called 'car insurance' the least version here being '3rd party, fire and theft' 3rd party means they will pay up damages for someone elses damages if you run in to them, and fire and theft have to be total. because i have always driven round old bangers i have sometimes worried about parking in places where this kind of behaviour goes on, but it has become clear to me that especially now that you cannot sell a car for scrap any more, that you have to pay someone to do this kind of damage to your car. leaving the plates on is not really completing the job. it is my belief it is my downstairs neighbour who is doing the local jobs, and that he started off doing them down the road but can't be bothered any more and just does it right outside

she-snailie_@_v: 3rd May 2005 - 14:54 GMT

_@_v - son of a bitch! i knew i shoulda went with the factory replacement but noooo i had to go and get a cheap modified ford crown victoria gas tank from offa ebay...

Peter: 3rd May 2005 - 14:55 GMT

woah. i mean, why does he do it, if he doesnt benefit? just so he can burn cars for vandalism and know that the person will still have their car paid for by insurance? weeeeeird.

though similar things happen here, heh. for example, here and here (which are of the same car, incidentally, but several years apart).

elaine: 3rd May 2005 - 14:59 GMT

no! no, say you want to get rid of your old heap, you would now have to pay to have it scrapped, i think it cost me a couple of hundred quid last time. if you are 'well connected' you pay your local dodgey villain something, he torches it, and you get the insurance. obviously this is all a little selfish, not to mention toxic and so on, but you used to get a few bucks for the scrap value and now you gotta pay, some people will prefer to get money than pay it

Peter: 3rd May 2005 - 15:01 GMT

oh, i get it... heh. so do they just leave the burned out shells for the city to remove?

elaine: 3rd May 2005 - 15:14 GMT

yes, so my council tax that i pay, personally and so on, this pays for the fire engine and all the handsome men, so that is not so bad i suppose, some payoff, and then the next day a truck with a grabber comes to get. no police, by the way. they just clear it up over and over. oh yeah, and have meetings about it and pay themselves to have meetings about it. i wrote to my MP but only to tell her off for trying to get us ladies of a certain age to vote for her for trying to keep the firemen. i know her game. grrr

Jamie: 3rd May 2005 - 15:15 GMT

heh, weird i'm in the middle of writing a story about the very subject of dealing with scrap cars. it's more interesting than i make it sound.

Peter: 3rd May 2005 - 15:18 GMT

ahh yes, the grabber claw:

elaine: 3rd May 2005 - 15:23 GMT

jamie, at least your story is probably not poisining you! being selfish as i am, there is a huge part of me that could not give a toss about any of this, but you would not believe the stink that comes in, and it's buggered up my culinary herbs in my windowbox goodtime.

Peter: 3rd May 2005 - 15:31 GMT

elaine: i hope you take photos of every car you see like this- i see quite a pictorial story forming!

also: what part of london is this all happening in?

elaine: 3rd May 2005 - 15:39 GMT

sorry, very remiss, not like me, you will like this, it's St Peter's Close E2

Peter: 3rd May 2005 - 15:53 GMT

www.s-h-systems.co.uk/tourism/london/map.html is a good site for those of us unfamilar with the postcode-sorted districts of london.

i think burnt cars are the enw graf trux, heh... we certainly have enough psoted here. im going to try to ferret some out in brooklyn this weekend. wil lreturn with photos!

elaine: 3rd May 2005 - 15:58 GMT

it might only be you who is interested in this, though peter. it's not exactly creative in itself, although it makes qute a good subject for a photo shoot. what i wish i had done was made the 2 contextualising photos, the top and bottom ones smaller, and separated them from the ones of the innards with the writing so that the aesthetic of the burnt metal could have stood out more. or even cropped in, the guts are good. i especially like the one taken from the back window

Peter: 3rd May 2005 - 16:07 GMT

eh, i find urban decay fascinating... especially stuff from europe.

hasslehoff: 3rd May 2005 - 16:09 GMT

i am also interested. i am stuck in rural lincolnshire for the forseeable future and dearly miss urban decay and random violence and vandalism.

elaine: 3rd May 2005 - 16:16 GMT

i am fond of it all. that is part of why i live here. some part of me thinks i should be a grown up and try to be more middle class, but most of me can't even finish that sentence. i have always been attracted to the postapocalyptic vision of things, hence liverpool, hence dungeness, etc. i am of an age to have been a punk. i did all that, and squatting, and art school. i am hardly going to fit in in suburbia now

Peter: 3rd May 2005 - 16:16 GMT

Jamie- I'll make some of the most decay-filled urban shots for you this week if you'll make some of the most rural ones of lincolnshire! id love to see that shit. i mean, you see it every day, so its no big deal, but me... i have no clue what lincolnshire looks like, so id love to see it.

elaine: 3rd May 2005 - 16:23 GMT

yeah, put work up. i felt constrained by the 'city' tag at first, but posted the dungeness thing anyway and brighton beach, you have to stretch things if you can, parameters, whatever. it's part of the rules

Peter: 3rd May 2005 - 16:26 GMT

check this one out... puttin the "city" in citynoise :)

elaine: 3rd May 2005 - 17:44 GMT

but like i say, a good runner....see, it is possible to be over 21 and still be human...who knew?

Peter: 3rd May 2005 - 18:26 GMT

true, and this is why i cant go out when its raining...

a man composed entirely of salt: 4th May 2005 - 08:08 GMT

i have the same problem. indeed i would turn instantly into brine and be washed away.

hasslehoff: 4th May 2005 - 08:21 GMT

elaine: i like how the format of this site isn't set in stone. some of my favourite articles aren't 'city' articles. I like the arty stuff a lot lately. Things like Sine's new work installed in the east village and the abstractism of Sink Graffiti. Also i have a thing for the more abstract and thought provoking posts such as your eye of the storm and meandering thread of Found Note. I like it when boundaries are strectched. Horizons are pushed. There are no real rules as to that is relevant. Relevancy is in the eye of the beholder don't you think?

elaine: 4th May 2005 - 08:27 GMT

if i were better at the linky thing i would now link this to hool's piece in swinney where he talks ablut giving rain the stink eye...www.swinney.org/journals/article.phtml?id=3628
well, here it is anyway, a photographer's natural enemy, and a robot's and a salt man's

elaine: 4th May 2005 - 08:39 GMT

i loved found note, that was perfect for my sensibility. i didn't know, when i posted eye of the storm if it was really going to wash, but i am a risk taker as an artist, if nothing else (i have a completely clean driving licence) and it went down well, which i was really pleased about, the format of writing with pictures is new for me, and i am trying to jump off that cliff into writing which is terrifying, but even eye of the storm had the city thing as a context

hasslehoff: 4th May 2005 - 09:13 GMT

all you gotsta do is enclose the link in double square brackets to make it go all linky. Just remember though to keep the http:// bit or it won't work. like this >> www.swinney.org/journals/article.phtml?id=3628. lemon squeezy eh?

kris: 4th May 2005 - 15:37 GMT

This is God's way of punishing you Brits for driving on the left hand side of the road.

elaine: 4th May 2005 - 16:07 GMT

there has to be somewhere for left handed people to call home
(easy peasy, lemon ssqueezy)

hasslehoff: 4th May 2005 - 16:21 GMT

did you know that the term sinister actually means 'left handed'?

elaine: 4th May 2005 - 16:23 GMT

you're asking me? i live it. careful now, see what happened when i posted 'stop hex'

elaine: 17th May 2005 - 15:38 GMT

update: a bike

and oddly: removed from the scorch

Peter: 17th May 2005 - 16:44 GMT

nice! i love the last one... all scorch and no wreckage!

phatness-flies: 26th May 2005 - 16:37 GMT

i considered burnin my ride this one time but i didnt cause my papa woulda killed me!

kameleon: 3rd Nov 2005 - 07:25 GMT

tell me, where can i find in london a place , where i can buy used car (can be destroyesd, smashed, after accident...) but it must have good engine and couple of working parts.i hope you know what i mean .my adress :
euromoda@interia.pl
thanx

elaine: 4th Nov 2005 - 17:01 GMT

little handies...

Peter: 15th Dec 2005 - 20:30 GMT

lol: www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16464049&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=dumb-dumber-dumbest--name_page.html

Roman Gorbenko: 15th Dec 2005 - 21:29 GMT

Well! The things that they do in London!