Burning Rings of Fire

The Urban Swimmer turns on the telly and watches the Olympics.

TUS's isn't much one for world class swimming. It's a world he feels so far removed from in his own athletic performance that it's like a foreign language. That said with the wave of genuine euphoria that has ripped across London with the start of the 2012 Olympiad he felt it necessary to post something with the sunny mood that has gripped the capital. Step forward the US Olympic Swim team. Picking up on the internet phenomena of amateur sports teams posting mimed versions of  Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" (usually on the team bus), they raised the bar and came up with the video below; no doubt it will soon go viral. Judging from the astonishing performance yesterday of Ryan Lochte and the three other swimming medals they bagged on just the day 1 of the swimming - it seems to have done them some good. Expect things from Breeja Larson today. Anyone know if Adlington does Karaoke?

Heath Ponds

Barbara Sinclair 1939, Hampstead Ponds winter.

Just a quick note following The Urban Swimmer's last blog on the Hampstead Mixed Pond and various previous posts on the future of the Ponds. You may be interested in this BBC Radio 4 broadcast of Open Country on the Hampstead Ponds. Listen to it quick before it disappears. Thanks to the excellent Katharine gets wet blog for bringing it to TUS's attention.

Running on Empty

The Urban Swimmer at the Hampstead Heath Mixed Pond.

This post was written on June 2nd 2012, but was late to post because TUS is a lazy arse.

Saturday morning saw a misty and moist start to the British Jubilee bank holiday weekend. Unusually for The Urban Swimmer, he found himself up bright and early and capable of physical exercise. Surprised by his state of being he headed for the Hampstead Heath Parkrun.

Every Saturday, no matter the weather, doddering joggers to serious club runners gather in parks all over Britain to run/jog 5 kilometers together. The events are amateur in the true spirit, no money changes hands. The concept appears to be spreading like wildfire with new events opening every week and events moving beyond UK borders (the first US one started a few weeks ago). You turn up, you run, and if you are organised you have a little personal barcode which logs your time on their website. The whole affair is run by volunteers and has a splendid air of enthusiasm and good will about it. It is perhaps that sense of good natured, plucky British amateurism that is more suited to a Jubilee celebration than some of the earnest forelock tugging that has been going on in the media this weekend. If you must be up at this ungodly an hour on a Saturday, there are worse ways to start the day. The website is  http://www.parkrun.com/

However, I digress. This is blog about swimming not running so TUS will not overstay his time with Parkrun. The point of the story is that, it being the summer, and this being Hampstead Heath, a number of TUS's fellow runners are in the habit of decamping post-run to the nearby Hampstead Mixed Pond to cool their weary bodies. This week in a moment of impromptu rashness, TUS decided to join the party. At that hour and it being a rather damp Saturday, the Pond was remarkably peaceful. Two wetsuited triathletes swimming lengths, a couple of hardy daily regulars and  a hand full of ducks were the only people sharing the green tinged waters. The temperature was warmer than TUS had expected, and he enjoyed floating looking up at the branches overhanging trees feeling somewhat like the Lady of Shalott, well one that occasionally waves at passing dog walkers. Swimming like this one feels at one with living, breathing nature. The Hampstead Ponds were painted by Constable, and it doesn't look like they have changed all that much since. In a similar vein TUS discovered Winter Nymphs, this rather amusing film of young ladies swimming in the Hampstead Ponds from a Pathe news reel of 1931. For those of you that can't do the maths on a Fahrenheit conversion, that's about 5 degrees Celsius. Apparently  those  rather  risque  chaps  at  Pathe News had a habit of producing reels showing lovely young women doing calisthenics, or swimming, or well...whatever else might involve them being scantily clad by the standards of the day.

The Mixed Pond can be found discreetly behind a large hedge. The (voluntary) fee is two pounds. There are two fenced men's and women's changing areas which don't amount to more than a couple of benches. Other than a small hut for the lifeguards/wardens, that's about it. Best of all though are the floating rubber lifeguard rings which are permanently moored at various points in the water. So if you tired splashing round, you can hang on to ring and have a bit of a pleasant float. Jolly good fun, take advantage before the summer is over!

Hot town, Summer in the City

The Summer has finally arrived in London and for the Urban Swimmer that means outdoor swimming and particularly lidos. TUS is aware he has already written about the Parliament Hill Lido, but he feels a ceremonial post is necessary to mark the official start of summer. 

The sunshine broke TUS from a lethargy and on Friday evening he took himself off to a busy pool. The Lido was as splendid as ever. The temperature bearable without the need of a wetsuit. Water, sunshine, and open air.

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!" Goethe

The Empty Pool

More on the swimming pool in popular culture.

Echoing my March blog The Swimmer's Ripples, here's an intriguing piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books by Geoff Nicholson. Mentions of Chandler, Ballard and Ellis amongst others (personally I'd skip the Crying of Lot 49) and a worthy mention of Wilder's Sunset Boulevard: where Joe Gillis (William Holden above) comes to a sticky end (below) shot three times and face down in the swimming pool.

 "The poor dope - he always wanted a pool. Well, in the end, he got himself a pool."

Read it here.

The Romance of Swimming...

While trawling around of the interweb the other day. The Urban Swimmer came across the following fascinating discussion of swimming in the archives BBC radio 4's pseudo travel show "Excess Baggage". Remarkably this show was recorded in 2007, but can still be played. God bless the BBC, it's rare moments like this that makes TUS proud to be an Englishman (cue HMS Pinafore music).

The show is hosted by comedian and semi-professional London institution Arthur Smith. He talks to writers Charles Sprawson and Thomas A. P. van Leeuwen (both of whose books sound fascinating) and an endurance swimmer about Romantic poets, the Hellespont, swimming in sub-zero temperatures, seedy Roman bathhouses, William Randolph Hearst and the sort of philosophical aquatic meanderings that well, you usually find in this blog. Enjoy. Readers may also wish to check out the podcast on diving which also includes a fair bit about swimming too. That's here. They play best through RealPlayer.

Also came across a podcast of Lynn Sherr talking about her book Swim: Why We Love the Water which came out a few weeks ago on the Slate Magazine website.

Swimming as Clarity

The Urban Swimmer at the Clapham Leisure Centre.

If only real life was an Architect's drawing

Of late The Urban Swimmer has been having a clear out. Sorting through boxes of stuff, picking over books and asking "will I ever read or need this book again?" As a consequence TUS found himself in Clapham over the Easter break (one of the places he stores junk) and used this as an excuse (if one were needed) to visit the Clapham Leisure Centre.

Grey anyone?

It's been a good few years since TUS swam in Clapham. He remembers the old pool that was once here which had the look of a Victorian swimming bath.  Last year the baths were knocked down and now a spanking new leisure centre fills it's place. From the outside it looks like a bunch of large boxes, all squareness and glass. Inside is a nice broad 25m main pool and a small training pool. The facilities have a bunch of new fads. The changing room is a sort of open plan multi-gender affair with lots of cubicles, and the pool  apparently has some kind of weirdly exciting capacity to change depth with something called a moveable boom. Eh? Sadly TUS did not see this in action at the time of his visit. He hopes it doesn't go the way of all those unused luges filling the nations pools.

TUS visited over the Easter bank holiday, and while he was engaged in the physical clear out of debris, he was also involved in an intellectual and emotional one. These have been troubled times for the heart, but TUS was reminded once again of the recuperative power of water. In my last post I mentioned Roger Deakin's excellent book Waterlog. A book recalling a year or so swimming in various parts of the British Isles. TUS was reminded that in the opening chapter of Waterlog Deakin describes himself as "feeling sad at the end of a long love". Deakin too had read The Swimmer, and cites in it the origins of his book.

So it is the water seems to absorb and cleanse the emotionally distracted swimmer. In the stroke and the regulation of breath one finds routine, the needs of lungs, muscle, blood, heart and bone  provide a return to the physical world from the torments of the psyche. However clouded the mind, there is no doubt that a few lengths did TUS the world of good. Perhaps just by throwing ourselves into the physical we drop to a lower level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but could there be something more soulful here? Baptism and the ritual of water appears to have existed from the earliest forms of Christianity, and Judaism uses the word  tevilah (טְבִילָה) for immersion in naturally sourced waters for ritual purification. From Old Testament floods to Hindus bathing in the Ganges it seems our view of water as cleanser of the soul is as ancient as civilised man. So why not do the same on a wet bank holiday in south London? Clapham may not be Babylon, but it will do.

Watch Wild Swimming

Fear not, tales of The Urban Swimmer's demise have been greatly exaggerated. He has been swimming, but hasn't got around to writing it up yet.

He posts this simply because while flicking around the telly the other night he was lucky enough to catch a reshowing of Wild Swimming, the BBC documentary about Roger Deakin's seminal book Waterlog. TUS's UK readers can watch it free on the BBC iplayer here. To be honest it's more of reflection on the popularity of what has become termed Wild Swimming but it's interesting enough. Move fast because it's only available for another day or so.

Even better, read the book, for although The Urban Swimmer takes his name from the John Cheever short story, the spiritual origins of this blog must come from Waterlog.

The only way is Essex

Is Upminster London? Technically speaking we are firmly in the county of Essex, a Romford postcode and er well, the countryside; on the other hand we are at the very last stop eastern stop of  the District Line of the London Underground. The Urban Swimmer says yes it is, and moreover, his blog his rules...

 

A week Saturday TUS took part in the excellent Orion 15, a 15 mile cross country run across Epping Forest, and last Sunday he ran in the Reading Half Marathon. Consequently all this running has rather disrupted his pool schedule. A good time then to recall one of last summer's visits to this far east of London's pools: gateway to the exotic East, Upminster. Better still because the pool in question is not a public pool and thus to TUS, all the more appealing for it's inaccessibility.

The pool in question is that of The Coopers' Company and Coborn School, a secondary school and sixth form. How does one get access to this facility without breaking windows, trespassing and incurring a restraining order from being a suspected kiddie fiddler? One must enter the Havering '90 Joggers annual Aquathlon. For the uninitiated, that's a swimming and running race. The Joggers event takes place in August, and since the swim is 400m and the race is 5k, even beginners should make it round without too much pain. TUS rather likes the format of the Aquathlon, and can't really understand why so many distance runners/swimmers end up as triathletes. Has it not occurred to people that using a two wheeled vehicle is basically cheating, and not that far removed from turning up at an Olympic 100m final on a moped. Maybe just me then...

Nothing quite like the pleasure of watching other people exercise when you've finished.

The pool itself reminded TUS of his own school days. Not that his school had a swanky pool like this, but secondary schools have a sort of universal feel. All those wood floored gyms, walls covered in students art and officious looking school notices, a slightly damp odor. Anyway the pool is 25m, and if you take part in the event you'll swim in four lanes, keeping to one side of a lane you share with another swimmer usually a length ahead. That can lead to an occasional banging of arms but TUS unharmed rather than unarmed.

Anyway it's a pleasant little local event with the air of summer sports day and TUS thoroughly enjoyed himself. If your interested check out the joggers website, though at time of writing, the 2012 event had yet to be announced.

Definitely Maybe

The Urban Swimmer at the Oasis...

TUS isn't much one for lunchtime exercise. Lunch he feels should be well,..for eating lunch and generally putting ones feet up. However the weather last week was positively spring-like, and the sight of sunglass doffing Londoners filling the West End made TUS long for the pool.

Where better then to visit for a sneaky lunch time swim than The Oasis Sports Centre? Hidden at the wrong end of Shaftesbury Avenue and round the back of Covent Garden and Seven Dials the centre looks pretty inoccuous from the outside. Its entrance is slightly raised from the main thoroughfare, you have probably walked past the place without realising that there was a sports centre there, let alone two whopping pools. Joy of joys is that out the back you will find the above little gem of a pool. An open-air heated pool, in the middle of the city, who would have believed such a thing possible? TUS has been visiting this pool for a good many years, and the truth is that he has probably become a little jaded about it. The place can become horrifically busy during commuter hours: TUS has sometimes had to wait 20 minutes for people to get out of the pool before they let you go in. Plus the staff there are the usual sport centre mix of customer service incompetents. But for all that, TUS still remembers when he first stumbled into the place and discovered the pure pleasure of swimming outdoors in warm water in all weathers. It's a giant bathtub fantasy, and although TUS has never taken his rubber ducky, he feels like it wouldn't be entirely out of place. It's a 27.5m length pool, usually divided into three wide lanes as above and it gets nice and deep about half way down. There is also a 25m indoor pool next to this one, but honestly why would you want to use that except to perhaps escape the busyness of the first pool?

Even though it was March it didn't seem to discourage a few early afternoon sunworshipers who chose to sit on the benches and roof overlooking this suntrap in a post swim haze while drying off a little. An Oasis indeed...well, on a good day.

City vs Heath pt 3

Last Thursday's editorial in the Camden New Journal on this ongoing story makes an interesting point about Common Land.

The Urban Swimmer has also found this website protesting the building/renovation of a number of dams affecting the Hampstead Ponds.

Living in a Box

Not a dire eighties pop comeback but The Urban Swimmer at Golden Lane Sport and Fitness.

 

Last week saw the re-opening of the pool at Golden Lane Leisure Centre, now re-branded as Golden Lane Sport and Fitness. The centre has been closed for a year being refurbished and although the bulk of the gym opened in February, the pool only re-opened on Monday. Thus quick as a flash The Urban Swimmer got himself down there before the lanes got clogged.

If you are unfamiliar with the place, it's a 1960's building packed away behind the main Barbican complex and was designed by the same Architects: Chamberlain, Powell, and Bon. They actually designed the Golden Lanes Estate before the Barbican. Minimalist, brutal, 60s architecture being the key concept here, the pool sits in a large glass box that can be viewed by passersby on two levels. It's a bit like swimming in one of those large plexiglass squash courts, though in some ways a refreshing change from the standard indoor swimming pool.

Barely free of the smell of fresh paint, the place looks spanking new. The  pool itself is a rather odd size, 20m long and about 8m wide. It feels like a very grown-up affair going quite deep three-quarters of the way across. At the time of The Urban Swimmer's visit the pool had rather sensibly been split into just three lanes. It wasn't very busy (the lifeguard looked very bored) and at present Golden Lane is open pleasantly late to evening swimmers.

The Golden Lane web site/press release likes to make much of the fact that "the only public leisure centre in the City’s Square Mile, re-opens its doors today". Ooops! There they go again calling it a Leisure Centre. The funny thing is, the place is trying really, really hard to look like a private gym. It may have been a first week thing but when TUS visited the people on reception were wearing suits. They were just as inattentive as average leisure centre staff but bless them they were trying. Maybe they feel that this being the financial district this is the thing to do. The gym now becoming the de-rigueur mark of corporate culture, TUS can't help but feel that the City is already full of slick looking, and exceedingly underused gyms - does it really need more clones? Has the blandness of the 1970s, Brittas Empire, track-suited Leisure Centre simply been replaced by the blandness of the modern, wood floored, metallic edged, running machine, faux-corporate gym?

A one off swim costs about a fiver, but if you're in the City and can't wait for the Iron Monger Row Baths to re-open it's a nice enough swim in an interesting setting.

Brrrrr!

Splendid video from Guardian travel writer Alastair Sawday, on crazy all weather sea swimmers in Penzance, spotted it yesterday when it was posted on The Swimmer as Hero group blog, so why not check it out there.

This video almost makes you want to try it because it looks really fun...well almost.

City vs Heath update

The Ham and High (the local Hampstead and Highgate newspaper) has now picked up on the story run earlier this week by the Evening Standard, that The Urban Swimmer noted on Tuesday. Read it here.

A Judgement of Paris

In a follow up to the piece where I wrote about swimming in the Thames, I came across Matthew Paris's amusing tale of late night, guerrilla urban swimming in the Thames. The article from the London Evening Standard, was originally published in The Times. At the time Paris took a bit a critical beating for his risky antics. Mid-life crisis or not Mr Paris, The Urban Swimmer salutes you.

City of London Corporation versus Heath Swimmers

Intriguing A.N.Wilson piece in tonight's London Evening Standard on the supposed row over whether Hampstead Heath starts charging (or enforcing charges) for use of the outdoor swimming ponds.

The Urban Swimmer has had a quick troll around the web, including on the Kenwood Ladies Pond Association website and can find no other information on the story...the Corporation of London has advertised charges at the Ponds in it publicity materials for years, so TUS is confused as to whether this is a breaking story or lazy journalism. Certainly it bares all the marks of the later. "Rural Paradise of the north London lefties" rather ignores the fact the Parliamentary seat of Hampstead and ahem...Kilburn, has a Labour majority of just 42 votes; and while the Highgate ward (East Heath) is represented by 3 Labour councilors in the Borough of Camden, Hampstead Town (West Heath) is represented by two Conservatives and a Liberal Democrat. Also is it just TUS, or has an entire paragraph been devoted gay cruising for er...no real reason other than to crack a joke that ceased being relevant in 1974. Oh well perhaps we will learn more in the future...

More than Cuckoo Clocks

The Urban Swimmer is no longer convinced about Harry Lime's take on the Swiss. Found this excellent article is the Guardian on Urban Swimming in Switzerland. What a thoroughly civilised lot they seem.

Warning, this will make long for Summer.

Also came across this on the BBC about swimming in Berne's Aar River.

The Rite of Spring

For the first time in 2012 it is now light enough for The Urban Swimmer to run through Regent's Park when he leaves his central London office at 5.30pm. Reinvigorated by the feeling that Spring is here, despite this week's cold spell, TUS decided it was time for a sojourn along the Lucinda River to pools new. It was thus with an intrepid mind that he set off on an odyssey to darkest Crouch End and The Park Road Leisure Centre.

Crouch End, other than sounding like a place straight out of Harry Potter, is the sort of North London neighbourhood that attracts a fierce loyalty. Somehow despite being a North Londoner, TUS has never ventured there. It was mostly dark by the time TUS got there, but it seemed like a nice enough place. Depending on how you travel The Park Road Leisure Centre is about a mile walk from the Archway or Highgate underground stations. In The Urban Swimmer's haste to complete his Spring odyssey he forgot to pack his swimming goggles. Consequently a lot of the following information may be entirely inaccurate, since most of it was conducted in a slightly red-eyed blur. He would also like to apologise to  any  of his fellow  swimmers who he may have carved up, slowed down, concussed or caused to crash/sink as a result of his temporary blindness. Thank goodness the task of TUS prevents him from returning too often to the scenes of his crimes!

Park Road is a virtual aquatic centre: there is whopping 50m lido open in the summer, a 25m standard pool, a small square kiddies training pool and get this, a small diving pool. The dive pool was closed off when TUS visited, but the sight alone of a springboard got him jolly excited. The centre has a rather 1970s/80s utilitarian feel to it, lots of tiled concrete and glass; and strange mirrored walls in a lot of the pool area. It costs about four quid for a swim; there is also a rather pleasant looking poolside sauna and steam-room which TUS will make a point of visiting next time he is there. The changing rooms are sizable but a bizarre labyrinth of men's, women's, family and group sections and private cubicles, with the lockers awkwardly  positioned away from where you change. The communal showers are warm but pretty pathetic; in the inner sanctum of the male changing area TUS found a few with slightly better pressure, but nothing great. There is a slightly comical passageway between the changing rooms and the main pool area where you have to walk through a series of water jets - you WILL shower before using the pool! TUS could not help but notice that there were also a number of cold water jets that could be activated with the press of a button - thus forcing anyone behind to be sprayed with cold water. TUS could not possibly publicly endorse such behaviour in his blog. He would however say that the word Frolic seems entirely appropriate for poolside behaviour, the word originates from 14th century dutch Vrolijk, and the dutch should know something about water given that much of it is technically below sea level.

Look mum, diving boards!

On the evening of his visit the pool had been split into four wide lanes; two of which were being used by the very enthusiastic yellow capped kids from the Haringey Aquatics Club, thrashing water to within an inch of it's life. This effectively meant that really only one lane was available for lane swimming; but the late-ish hour of his visit meant the pool wasn't horrifically busy.

Kid's pool

Since he was goggle-less,  TUS  used  much  of  his  time  to  practice  some  drills.  This  week  TUS  has  been  devouring Terry Laughlin's 1996 classic, Total  Immersion  Swimming.  Though the  book  is hardly new news, it will  appeal  to you if you like books like Moneyball; since it takes the line of argument that most of what you think you know about a given sport, what most practitioners in the field do, is in fact wrong. It's an idea that instinctively appeals to TUS because well, he's a difficult sod and he likes to question accepted wisdom.  Mostly though, what he has realised in the last few years that unlike most land bound sports, swimming is a sport where technical skill is far more important than fitness or physical prowess. You can see this if you go to your local pool at a moderately busy time, some swimmers cut through water like knives through butter, moving quickly with little splash; while other often more muscular "fitter" swimmers noisily churn water but only move quickly with huge bursts of energy.

TUS is still at the early stages of the book and drills but without going into great detail, he effectively re-builds your front crawl through a series of drills starting from paddling on your back. Consequently TUS can confirm that The Park Road Leisure Centre has a very nice ceiling.

The Swimmer's ripples

The Urban Swimmer considers the cultural legacy of the 1968 Burt Lancaster movie...

The John Cheever short story from which this blog takes it's name, is probably better known in it's iconic movie form. The story of Ned Merrill seems one that continues to fascinate...

Ned Merrill is an athletic, attractive and successful man in his middle years. The character is arrogant, but is some sense still a seemingly heroic figure. Neddy has stayed over after a boozy Saturday night party at a neighbour's house and decides that he will travel home, across the county "swimming" in the pools and ponds of his acquaintances and neighbours. An afternoon cross country jaunt through affluent suburban America, walking and swimming a journey home. 

 That's what I think of GLL pool fees.

However as the story evolves, and Neddy swims the "Lucinda River" we realise that Neddy's life is not as glowing as it initially seems. As his day progresses we realise that Neddy has been a womaniser, that his marriage has collapsed, there is the suggestion of some sort of financial scandal, hints of alcoholism and possibly even the idea that our "hero" has had some kind of breakdown, possibly he has been institutionalised. By the end of Cheever's tale, when Ned reaches a home now locked up and empty the reader is not even sure if these events have even happened on the same day, or if these are the mad ramblings of the anchor-less Neddy.

Some view the tale as almost experimental science fiction; others as a sort of critique of the American dream - the darkness beneath the sunny dream of middle-class, suburban  opulence. If you want to read an interesting, though slightly pretentious look at the psychopathology of The Swimmer have a look at this Tintin Törncrantz blog; yes he probably does where a black polo neck.

It's an unsettling enough tale, but something about the iconography of the Burt Lancaster 1968 film (it was shot in 1966) continues to fuel popular culture. Have a look at this 1992 Jeans advert:

Steve was bashful about his Mutant Ninja Turtles leg tattoo.

In advertising it isn't theft, it's homage...honest. As some bright spark on YouTube points out, the last ten seconds of the commercial appear to have been further lifted from the diving scenes in  Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia. Yes that's right, someone sold you jeans based on a story about a man imploding in the American dream and some imagery from a famous Nazi. This is considered an advertising classic. Now go to the dictionary and look up the word irony.

The world of advertising aside though, there is something incredibly strong about the image of the swimming pool in American popular iconography. Think of Ben (Dustin Hoffman) crouching in scuba suit at the bottom of the pool in The Graduate; or David Hockey's American swimming pool images. The suburban American swimming pool is a statement of both opulence and isolated despair.

It was with some interest then that The Urban Swimmer noticed that the Palm Springs Art Museum is currently hosting an exhibition entitled Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography, 1945-1982. TUS came across a review of this exhibition in the LA Times, where you can see some great photographs by the likes of Slim Aarons, Mel Roberts, Lawrence Schiller and Ed Ruscha.

The exhibition focuses specifically on LA and southern California with perhaps inevitably an interest in celebrity and Hollywood. Of course Hollywood is a part of the iconography of American aspiration, but The Urban Swimmer wonders if in focusing so much on the west coast the exhibition hasn't missed a trick.

The film of The Swimmer was shot mostly around Westport, CT (the Cheever story does not give a location, though his stories were usually set in the New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts suburbs). On the other side of the Long Island Sound  sits the home of that other great, and older fictional chaser of the American dream: J Gatsby, who meets his sad end in...a swimming pool.

There was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward the drain at the other. With little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves, the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool. A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden. The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of compass, a thin red circle in the water.

It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete.

David Hockney isn't the only artist who seems fascinated by the legacy of the Swimming Pool. The Irish video artist Fergal Macarthy was fascinated by the film of The Swimmer, and choose to recreate Ned's journey across contemporary Dublin; see some highlights here. Read about his creation on his blog here.

Above you can see Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich's work: Swimming Pool. One installation of which is in permanent residence at The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

There's also of course, a strong sexual side to The Swimmer's imagery. Burt Lancaster astonishingly was 52 when he made the movie, but he seems ageless in the role. Look at this 2006 L'Hommo fashion shoot by photographer Steven Klein here. Yes, definitely Derek Zoolander territory.

Inevitably it is an iconography that goes full circle, the 1960s imagery of suburban America, fed back to us in movies like Tom Ford's A Single Man, and trend setting (or is it re-setting?) TV shows like Mad Men.

Backyard pools, a show of flesh, aspiration and despair all continue to reflect around our culture like the show of light on water...

An absence of Gin and Blofeld

The Urban Swimmer at the Queen Mother Sports Centre.

I do not expect you to swim Mr Bond, I expect you to die!

This week The Urban Swimmer took a trip to Brighton on a beautiful spring-like day. On his way back into London he thought a swim might be appropriate (all that sea air no doubt), so headed to the Queen Mother Sports Centre on Vauxhall Bridge Road. It's just around the corner from Victoria Station. Despite the name TUS is sad to report that you cannot get a Gin and Dubonnet anywhere on the premises, much to his disappointment. The pool falls within the remit of Westminster Council and like the Marshall Street Baths is run by the GLL. Incidentally GLL, your website sucks. The Centre is in a rather nondescript concrete rectangle in a thoroughly nondescript bit of the  metropolis; The Urban Swimmer felt he was very firmly in a land occupied by commuters.

The centre feels pretty modern. You have the odd experience of climbing up stairs to the reception to walk along walkways that look down on the pools. Yes dear reader, a plural, pools. For within an aircraft hanger sized space which reminded TUS of the lair of a James Bond villain, there are no less than three pools. A standard broad  25 meter long pool, a slightly smaller pool beyond it with a water slide and a small training pool which TUS expected to be filled with sharks with frickin' laser beams strapped to their heads. Sadly it was being used for an adult learner swimming class at the time of his visit. The water slide wasn't working. This is the second time in the last couple of months TUS has visited a pool where the water slide wasn't in operation, and he's starting to wonder if water slides aren't the great white elephants of modern swimming pools. Things that look great at the planning stage, but are either too expensive or too troublesome to be run by centres on a regular basis.

Visiting at around 5pm, the place was busy, and as streams of office workers arrived it got busier. For part of the time that TUS was visiting a water aerobics class was taking place in the secondary pool at the QMSC, which meant he had not only a medley of upbeats tuned played while swimming (with the spectacular noise distortion that only water can provide), but that he got to watch the hilarious instructor bouncing around on the side of the pool with the kind of insane enthusiasm that only aerobics instructors the world over possess. The pool seemed a little chilly at first, but a thorough hour or so of swimming warmed TUS up nicely.

As you would expect at this time and in this location, the QMSC was a busy old pool; but if you're not too bothered about lane swimming with lots of other swimmers it's a competent enough facility. A single swim will cost you £5.45, which if you think about it is ridiculous for a public pool. Sure Westminster residents and Swim London members play much less, but that rather ignores that one of London's wealthier boroughs, with one of the smallest number of residents and lowest Council tax rates is hardly encouraging new swimmers. TUS imagines that he and his fellow swimmers are as a demographic, much likely to trouble it's doctors and hospitals; not to mention that our younger male participants are much less likely to bother the police, schools system and social services with something constructive to channel all that youthful energy/aggression into. Dear Councillors, some joined up thinking is called for...or it's the shark tank for you.

A long way down

The Urban Swimmer makes a pilgrimage to the Tooting Bec Lido...

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

The Urban Swimmer is a North Londoner. He's had phases when he's lived in "Saarf" London, but these days it takes a lot to get him very far south of the river. This is doubly so of Tooting, the south London suburb, famous as largely being the butt of a number of jokes. However last summer TUS made a pilgrimage to a Lido of some repute. On the edge of the leafy Tooting Common sits the largest freshwater pool in England, and the 2nd biggest outdoor pool in Europe - the mighty Tooting Bec Lido.

After all the anticipation the Tooting Bec Lido is, truth be told, fairly innocuous. Hidden slightly behind a few trees it's a long rectangle of open water. There are some rather pretty, brightly painted changing cubicles on either side of the pool, a small cafe, small kiddy pool, showers and the obligatory ugly fountain (see TUS on Hampstead's Parliament Hill Lido).

Shocker: ugly fountain.

I am reluctant to say too much about the Tooting Bec Lido. The Lido you see, attracts a very loyal band of followers. It is partly run by the South London Swimming Club and supported by a core group of all year swimmers. In the 1990s the SLSC appear to have largely saved the Lido from closing, and jolly good too. Icy plunges have never really appealed to TUS, though apparently the Lido does have a small sauna, which he supposes, might just make the whole experience bearable.  A number of Lido loyalists blog about their daily swims. If you are interested in the Tooting bloggers or becoming a cold water adrenaline junky you should check out Unusual Love Affair in London, Quick Dip and Musings of an Aquatic Ape.

The pool is a huge 91.4 meters in length, which makes a single length quite an effort. That said it isn't especially deep. TUS got down there on a late summer Friday after getting slightly lost on the Common. It was a pretty quiet time to visit the pool, towards closing time, and only a handful of regulars did lengths around him.

The nearby trees mean the pools gets quite a few leaves in there, that and the little changing cubicles give the place a rather rustic feel. The Lido is over 100 years old. It's been here since 1906 and was built by unemployed people living in the area. The whole place and experience seems like a noble tribute to the spirit of amateurism. If TUS had to make a choice between amateur and professional, he feels that he is firmly with the former. It's the amateurs that love things purely for the sake of them isn't it? He knows aging amateur runners more keen on their sport than any young Olympic hopeful; home cooks who care more about their food than any Michelin starred Chef; and so on and so on. Could it be that fictional Tooting resident Wolfie Smith has in fact been living just down the road from a place that is a living embodiment of "Power to the People". In short the Tooting Bec Lido is a place with Soul...and that isn't easy for municipal buildings.

Now that Spring is in the air, TUS hopes it wont be too long before things warm up a bit and he can make another journey south.

Truly Urban: Swimming in the Thames.

The Urban Swimmer goes down the docks...

Last July The Urban Swimmer got the opportunity to swim in the Thames. He took part in the London leg of one of the British Gas sponsored Great Swim events. These events usually take the form of an open water, one mile swim in lakes, reservoirs, lochs and areas of great natural beauty such as Windimere. The London leg however takes place in a rather contrasting environment, the industrial wasteland and urban dereliction of the London Docklands. The now vacant Royal Victoria Dock to be precise. Still, at the time TUS had probably never swum as far as a mile, much less in a wetsuit, and it seemed like a challenge worth taking. Plus if you've ever seen the Royal  Docks, the place is daunting in its scale, and TUS could not resist dipping his toe.

Spot the Urban Swimmer. Clue: he is wearing an orange hat.

The Royal Victoria Dock is a site with quite some heritage. Nowadays it serves a largely ornamental function sitting next to the appallingly ugly and horrifically spelled ExCeL Conference Centre (soon to be a venue in the London Olympics). The docks are occasionally used for events like the London Triathlon, however in its hay day (1850s-1950s), when London was the world's busiest port, the docks serviced huge steam powered cargo ships. While reading about the docks TUS came across an interesting picture from the London Illustrated news of March 1879 showing the 17th Lancers loading their horses on board ships to fight in the Zulu Wars. You can also see what Charles Dickens, Jr (the son of the great novelist) wrote about the docks in his Dictionary of the Thames (1881) , check out the fancy-pants first class salon. During the Blitz the docks and the nearby Silvertown area specifically came under horrific levels of bombing. TUS is reminded of the Blitz episode of The World at War when an east end man describes seeing the whole of Silvertown area appearing to be on fire. Sadly TUS can't find that particular clip online, but he did find this excellent German propaganda film showing how specifically the docks were targeted. It's arguable that not since 1666 and the Great Fire of London has an event so dramatically effected how London looks at a city.

TUS has no idea how deep the docks are, but as he swum across the watery depths it occurred to him that it must be a long way down. He did not find the sign below particularly comforting...

The Great Swim organisers arranged a course starting from a pebbled beach start at one end of the docks, a three-quarter circuit around some giant floating buoys and arrival at a steeply slopping ramp. The water itself is murky grey/brown sediment filled stuff which is dark and has zero visibility when your head is in the water. The water has a surprisingly salty tang, though I wouldn't recommend drinking too much of it...yuk! Anyway TUS is not sure if he really can recommend swimming in the docks, you wont see much, and the surrounding area is hardly picturesque. On the other hand it rare in the city to find such a large expanse of water, and if you've never been in there you might be tempted. This year's event in on May 26th and at time of writing there were still lots of spaces left.

Some other swimming blogs...

The Urban Swimmer is currently in New England for a holiday, so wont be in London's pools for a week or so. While putting this blog together TUS has come across a couple of other London swimming blogs. It turns out that not only is this blog not an original idea, but there are people out there who've been doing it longer and better than him...curses foiled again. Still while I'm away you might want to check them them.

First up is the swimming round london blog. This blog contains sensible information like the address of the pool, and how much the lockers are. Darn, should have thought of that. The writer is South London based, so it's a little more focussed on that side of the river.

Second up is Poolside Percy. Percy writes more of a short swimming diary, so tends to focus on a small group of North London pools, however sometimes he wanders...

Just doing it for the kids...they're behind you!

...the Urban Swimmer paddles at The Archway Leisure Centre.

A few Saturdays ago the Urban Swimmer packed his knapsack and headed out Highgate way in search of a new swimming venue. Some months ago TUS had been in the Archway area and stumbled across signs for a pool. At the time he had no idea that there was a pool in the area, so imagine his excitement when on conducting an internet search he found out not only was there a pool, but a pool with "a wave machine and flume"! TUS hadn't encountered a wave machine since being about 10, he wasn't entirely sure he knew what a "flume" was, but after he worked out that it was probably one of those big winding slides, he was pretty damn keen to check it out. The exotically named Archway Leisure Centre can be found just around the corner from the Whittington Hospital. The Urban Swimmer's mother has always claimed that he is in fact a very distant descendent of the original Sir Richard Whittington - former Lord Mayor of London, medieval merchant big shot, and famous pantomime character. TUS has always suspected this to be a somewhat tall tale, however just outside the hospital you can see small statue of Sir Richard's cat. The cat is behind metal bars to protect it, and looks a little forlorn like an unhappy monkey at the Zoo. TUS could sadly not hear the Bow Bells ringing from Highgate Hill, as the traffic was rather noisy. Still, the cat seemed a good omen so on he headed.

The first thing to be said about Archway Pool is that sadly, you aren't going to do a lot of swimming in there. Whilst the pool is quite a big 25 meter square of water, it is incredibly shallow. It slopes downwards, but even in the deepest bits you can basically stand up. Although the centre does offer lane swimming during commuter hours, I find it hard to imagine you'd get many laps in without banging your knees. No, what we have here is basically a "family pool", i.e. it's for kids. There are all manner of stuff for kids: funny water jets, a rather tame wave machine, a funny sort of island bit you can swim around, a thing that spouts water over your head, and of course the all important Flume - which was closed: damn it! On top of this TUS went on a Saturday afternoon, when the pool was rammed full of kids and some poor unfortunate parents trying to control the blighters. At the time of my visit there were no less than four life guards on duty to stop the sprogs from drowning.

So there I was, pool you can't swim in, crap wave machine, too many screaming kids, and a broken bloody water slide; not exactly ingredients for a good time. And yet, and yet...weirdly enough, TUS quite enjoyed himself. Why you ask? Well here's the thing, a lot of the time the Urban Swimmer hits the pool, he finds himself in semi-empty pool. Or when he's in a busy pool it's full of serious looking lane swimmers doing endless lengths. But pretty much everyone in this place was clearly having a great time. I mean a really GREAT TIME. Seeing a pool so well used by what amounts to the next generation of London swimmers made TUS feel all warm inside, and whilst he didn't get a great workout he was swept up in the sense of fun and had a nice splash around. I mean to hell with the x-million pound Olympics Aquatics Centre - this is the future.

TUS wont become a regular at this pool any time soon, but he hopes it continues to be as popular as he found it. After his swim TUS took a stroll up the hill to the excellent Prince of Wales on Highgate High Street for some rather more grown up R and R.

Me Tarzan. You swimcap...

...in the footsteps of Johnny Weissmuller at The Marshall Street Baths, Soho.

On a crisp winter night, a week or so into the New Year. The Urban Swimmer made his way to through the dark streets of Soho, ducked off the main shopping thoroughfare of Carnaby Street and passed through a discreet street entrance into the Marshall Street Baths.

It has been a good few years since TUS has visited this hallowed bathing pavilion.  A few years ago the dreaded Westminster Council planned to close the baths citing structural problem with a building and pool that were originally built in the late 1920s. After much fuss was created (the Baths lie in the heart of media Soho) an eventual compromise was reached. The baths were re-developed with the now ever present gym, and a bunch of swanky apartments built on the side. The pool reopened last year and the was the first time TUS has visited. The place still has the look of a newly refurbished pool. At this point I'm supposed to say that the Architects have done a fine job of revamping the old Art-Deco structure...but honestly, they've bodged it. In an effort to fit too much into the space available everything outside the grandeur of the main pool feels cramped. Admittedly the Urban Swimmer visited the pool at the back of a post-rush hour period, when  people's new year resolutions were probably at their most resolute; but space was at a premium in the changing rooms and the place was looking a little worse for ware.

Still esthetic quibbles aside, the pool is great. The central pool has a tremendous feeling of opulence about it. It's around 33 meters in length, lined in Greek and Italian marble with a huge cavernous ceiling that emphasises the grandeur of the place. It's also pretty deep, having one of those dip down deep areas at one end of the pool similar to the pool at Ironmongers Row in the City. TUS presumes this is a legacy of an age when diving was popular and common in public pools. Of course there is something of an irony here, Bath houses were essential built as a matter of public health in an age when hot running water and bathrooms as we know them today weren't common to most houses. Now the pool caters to affluent Soho-ites. Anyway the Urban Swimmer enjoyed some evening length in a moderately busy pool.

While TUS was doing some research (...alright typing words into Google), he came across the excellent Another Nickel In The Machine blog, which has some fascinating stuff about the history of Marshall Street. When I visited the pool I noticed a board detailing how the Baths were used for training American parachutist during WW2; but this goes into splendid details of naughty photography, gas decontamination, class baths and West-End castings. The most exciting for TUS was the news that one time Olympic swimmer, and the most famous screen Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller, swam there in 1948 while rehearsing for an Aqua Spectacular. The Urban Swimmer is now pondering how to word a request to the GLL that the pool be installed with appropriate vines for patrons to swing on...

"Ahahahahahahahahaha!"

New Year's Resolution

...fear not. The Urban Swimmer swims on...

Today is the first day of 2012. The Urban Swimmer is not usually one for annual resolutions. He generally takes the view that if one wishes to make grand future plans - doing so at the greyest and darkest time of the calendar's cycle is just asking for trouble. Since most peoples resolutions seem to involve abstinence or the curbing of behaviour, he takes the view that it is exactly these comfort blankets (booze, fatty food, laziness) that are so vital in the cold, dark and drab months before the arrival of Spring. Still in this case he will make an exception.

An explanation is perhaps in order, the Urban Swimmer having not blogged since mid summer. The answer is a long one, but suffice to say the Neddy's influence has been strong. The Swimmer has been ringing the changes in his life. A new (old) relationship, two trips across the Atlantic and running the Beachy Head Marathon have all competed for his attention. The swimmer has not stopped swimming, but his range of pools has been limited.

So what better a place to restart the weekly blog than at the start of the New Year. At a time when outdoor exercise is limited to short daylight hours and enduring crappy weather, what better a time to head for the solace of the pool?

The Urban Swimmer did visit a few interesting places that he never got around to posting, so I may give readers an occasion post relating to that, we shall see.

The pool awaits...