I have been enjoying watching the progress in the building of the gigantic new shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush. Over the last couple of years the huge piece of wasteland between the BBC and Shepherd's Bush Grey has been a hive of industry, but now the project is well underway and you can get a real sense of the scale of the new complex. I don't know what effect the centre will have on Shepherd's Bush life, whether it will gentrify the area or simply attract more slightly threatening people who like to loll around in the street drinking cans of beer in the afternoon. But at least it should be more convenient for me if I want to buy stuff.
At the moment the building is really just a skellington, although in certain parts the outside walls are in place and even the decorative green exterior is in place. It's hard to get an accurate idea of just how many shops will be in there. It's maybe four or five storeys high and stretches on for a good half a mile (I am guessing). I wonder if they will have a Rymans in there, for me to avoid going to. As long as there is a Marks and Spencer's Food Court I will be happy. I might ask a workman which one will be the M&S and start camping outside of it now so that I can have my pick of the over-priced fruit salads. I imagine we are a good two years from the place opening, but it is good to be prepared.
I am more fascinated by the cranes that are dotted around the building site. They fill me with awe and wonder. Partly because they look so amazing from a distance, especially at sunset, but mainly because I can't begin to work out how they get them there or what kind of a brave man dare work in them. Surely you would need a crane to put a crane up. They can't just drive them to the location already extended. The construction of the cranes to me seems more intricate and laborious than the actual building of the buildings.
And what kind of a man would be heroic enough to work in one of these things? So high above the earth, with so much precision expected from your lifting and placing of girders and concrete blocks.
It is a job I could never do - as you may have guessed from my inability to do a hill start in a manual car which is at least on the ground. The distance to the ground would be dizzying and the pressure to subtly operate such a monstrous dinosaur-like piece of equipment would cause me to expire from embarrassment. I have so much respect for the crane driver. If there are any of you reading this now - (and although I don't see the crane driver as the typical Warming Up subscriber, I hope there is at least one of you who bucks my prejudiced mindset)- then please get in touch and I will thank you personally for all your heroic work. Don't offer to take me up to your workplace though. I can think of no worse punishment. If I ever commit a serious crime (and get caught for it) then you should let the judge know that this should be my punishment.
I was now going to tell you a crane based story, but see that
I have told you already and I wouldn't want to be the kind of bore that repeated himself. But it does at least illustrate the point that I am fascinated by cranes and that this isn't just a passing fad or fancy. I suppose we are all impressed by things that fill us with both awe and fear in equal measure.
A crane is so huge that it makes me realise how insignificant I am and working in a crane so gut-wrenchingly unappealing that it makes me realise how cowardly I am. But it is lucky that I can only see as far as the cranes, because if I looked beyond them to the stars and the endless depths of space I would probably have to give up there and then.
