I met up with @adetorrent for a #wednesdaywalk around docklands in East London.
To say it has changed a lot since I was a kid working in these very same docks would be the understatement of the century.
The Financial District
Some things never change.
The docks were always plagued by theives and villainy. The inhabitants may have changed but the level of thievery has grown exponentially.
Every one of these banks have been caught multiple times money laundering and they just pay the fines which often run into 100's of millions of pounds.
The banks treat these fines simply as the cost of doing business. No one ever goes to jail?
That's enough of that crap we are all well aware of the corruption.
Old Dockside Crane
Cranes like the one above were a great source of fun for us kids. Sometimes the driver would leave the hook dangling low at the end of a shift and we would use it as a swing to fly out over the water. How did we survive childhood? Some of us didn't.
No 1 Canada Square
Many people associate 'canary wharf' with this building. No 1 Canada Square.
Canary wharf was in fact the dock that handled imports from the Canary islands. Mostly bananas. Britain has gone from importing bananas to a banana republic. The conservatives have taken a wrecking ball to the economy.
I could probably write several books about this area but that will have to wait.
As Ade and I were on our walk we came across this massive yacht. It's called the Kismet.
The Kismet
As we stood looking at this massive ship it crossed our minds who would own such an expensive plaything?
We came to the conclusion that whoever owned it, would probably see the cost of this yaught as mere chump change. So I did a bit of digging and lo and behold it's owned by a billionaire. No surprise there you may think but how did he become so rich? Read on.
The Kismet is owned by a very interesting chap. His name is Shahid Khan.
Kismet is a 95.2-metre (312 ft 4 in)-long superyacht which was built by the Lürssen shipyard in 2014. It is managed by the Moran Yacht & Ship chartering business, and is owned by Pakistani-American billionaire Shahid Khan. The word kismet means "destiny" or "fate" in Khan’s native language Urdu and many other languages.
It is allegedly more luxurious than a 5 star hotel yadda, yadda, yadda but what do you do with a ship like this?
You rent it out of course. Think Air bnb just on the water.
So who would be nuts enough to pay $1.2 million per week to enjoy such opulence? Wannabe billionaires of course.
According to Yacht Harbour, Kismet is worth an estimated $200 million.
It has a charter price of $1.2 million per week, excluding food, fuel and dockage costs.
In mid-2018, the yacht was rented by Jay-Z and Beyoncé during a vacation to Italy.
I discovered that it had just sailed into the docks a few days ago and is apparently up for sale? Maybe Mr Khan is feeling the pinch in these tough economic times?
So how did he make his $billions.
He invented a new single piece bumper for pickup trucks! That's it. Simple. 😂😂🤦♂️
The Kismet
The Kismet Yacht at Canary wharf
The Docklands Light Railway (DLR)
Or as we used to call it. The Noddy Train but that's another story.
I hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane with Ade and me. It was great to see a fellow hivien in the flesh again. We both missed the Amsterdam hivefest but hey ho on we go.
Want to learn more about Hive?
I've got nothing against making money but as with everything in life.
There is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.
In the last 40 years most western countries have been affected by a particular set of vicious economic theories that just don't work.
Monetarism and trickle down economics paved the way to this dysfunctional nightmare we are living with today.
Billionaires don't spend money they acquire investments and assets that generate more wealth.
Like that Air bnb yaught above.
Yay! 🤗
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Thank you for the walk around the docklands, views and bits of info! 😉
It's quite a disconcerting experience considering what it was like in my youth.
Yeah, I normally finding walking down memory lane places a little sad...
Poignant I think sums up my feelings rather than merely sad.
It's a much deeper regret that so much was lost. It is a ghost town now.
This whole part of London has been turned upside down in the pursuit of profit with little regard for the community.
Now there is no community just empty properties both houses and offices.
I somehow missed this post man. Anyway better late than never. Epic day. Good job on finding the real owner of the boat (clearly not either of us contrary to the MTV cribs style videos 😂).
😂 yep that yacht was something else.
My MTV cribs video was awfully bad with the wind noise but gave me a good laugh.
It was an epic day. Let's do it again sooner rather than later 😎👍🏼
Londongrad at its finest !!!!!
Exactly old chap. I overheard a group of bankers talking about how they were progressing with their Russian deal!?
Sanctions my arse. 😂😂👍🏼
wankers
Yep plenty of them around canary wharf 🤦♂️😎😂👍🏼
👍
Wow... That is some boat! Wonder how much it is worth used. 🤔😂 And all that for a pickup truck bumber idea? Huh.
Hi Mel, whatever it's worth used. You can guarantee that it's purchase price was written off as a tax allowance.
This would come under corporate entertainment for guests.
I'd love to see how he explains the rental income it generates though. 😂
Never underestimate the purchasing power of pick up truck owners. 😂😂👍🏼
Good to hear you guys got together again. That's a bit of a different walk to the one you did near me. No mega-yachts around here. I've been around the docklands a few times, but I don't find it attractive. Stinks too much of money for my tastes. The wealth is getting too concentrated. I'm not against people getting rich, but they can afford to help support those who actually need it.
Have fun.
!PIZZA
Hi Steve, it was great to meet Ade again. We chatted nonstop for like 5 hours lol.
I think you are being very generous and diplomatic when you say.
It's butt ugly or as we like to say fugly. There is not an inch of the place that hasn't been developed into luxury flats that no local will ever be able to afford.
It's out of control and if you look carefully there are four more skyscrapers being built.
These properties are mostly empty except for a few corporate lets. The rest are purely speculative investments for foreign non dom oligarchs and the odd billionaire.
Visit on a Sunday. It's a ghost town. There's no community or social life.
Next time you're down this way give me a shout. 😎👍🏼
Places like that are all about the money. I'm not sure I'd want to live in a big city anyway. I like having some space.
!BEER
I know what you mean about the money thing. It's a very short sighted way to look at urban planning. Everything goes to hell.
Open spaces are great until both cars break down and you're stuck in the middle of a field miles from anywhere. 😂👍🏼
Big cities have some redeeming features.
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I always think it looks a bit grim round there. The best view of it is from Greenwich Park, across the river.
😍
Hi Shani, I agree to get the overall view of the complex, it's best seen from observation hill in Greenwich park.👍🏼
Yep it's pretty soulless and walking around the place feels like some nightmare steel and concrete canyon.
Bad design compounded by greed. It's actually a metaphor of the last 40 years of failure.
Cities need people to bring them to life. People make the economy not the other way around like these tinpot Tories think.
We need an election and a change of direction stat.
There are 600,000 empty properties in Britain!
There is no housing shortage just a minority of greedy people.
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