Christmas Shopping

UGHH. I work, all week. I'm going to Scotland for Christmas. On the 22nd. So today was the day I started the Christmas shop. UGHH. I went to Selfridges, John Lewis and Jessops, and then Habitat and Heals. I travelled by bus rather than setting foot on the pavement, even though it would probably have been quicker. THE PEOPLE. They were massing. Oxford Circus was gridlocked, with pedestrians. It was at a stand still. Just looking at the frantic people laiden with bags rushing fighting pushing shoving spending made me feel neurotic and sparked the hibernation thing in me. Oh if only it were possible to find a quiet rock to curl up under and sleep until its all over. HS said that someone on the radio said that ALL londoners were in the centre of town apart from those few who run the other direction and get away as far as possible, usually leaving the country. It certainly felt true.

Friday's Epic Journey

It feels like a journey of epic proportions. It started off at Centre Point where I had to go for the second time this week (having never been inside before ever) on the 9th floor at the Learning Skills Council. Great views of London and up above the rooftops where you can see the winter sun.

From there I travelled by bus to Old Street to wait for Bails in the Dragon Bar - one of our favourite haunts but not recently frequented due to our less frantic lifestyle (work does so get in the way). I sat waiting in the hot dark smoky bar on a stool internally congratulating the sullen barman on his ability to remain calm inspite of being the only member of staff working the after work friday shift (he kept ringing the person who was supposed to be with him with no joy for a good 40 minutes). He's one of those people who you can have an eyes only conversation with - a look says so much even if words never pass your lips. I spend my waiting time shared between trying to make him crack a smile and admiring the back-lit photograph picture (its the only place one of these hideous things looks any good).

So Bails arrives and we spend a couple of hours discussing the week that was, drinking and watching the world go by. Then we sauntered over to Islington to go into the Slag and Lettuce for one for the road. After lamenting the lack of talent in London anymore (no eye candy, no fun) we started on a game: the essence of which was to give marks out of 10 on looks and shaggability of passing men.

It was complicated - we drew up a scoresheet. We gave scores on both counts to men who were identified by the following descriptions: bushy hair, striped tie, rugby shirt, tall hoxton, red jacket, asymmetric hair, camel coat & plastic bag, pale blue jumper, cap, pink cheeks skatey, leather jacket, curly hair & fag, red sweatshirt, undercut jaw, spiky hair, long droopy hair, body warmer, sheepskin coat and openshirt. If we saw a straight 10 we had to go outside and introduce ourselves. The average score for Islington blokes' looks out on friday as marked by Bails was 4.4 with a shaggability of 2.3 out of 10. I don't think it would ever have happened before but I was grading more harshly and they came out with looks of 3.3 and shaggability of 2.1. Bails's top tottie of the evening was between Tall Hoxton and Openshirt. Mine would have to have been Striped Tie or Undercut Jaw. Sorry state of affairs.

Embarrassingly at the end of this we got found out by an American couple sitting next to us - the male of whom was very interested in our playing such a game. Oh the shame, how shallow can one seem after all... Having explained it to them they decided to join in. He started calling the chaps we had to consider, until we caught sight of a strange street scene - a blond woman who was on her way home from shopping was being pinned passionately against the railings by a man dressed all in denim. He was cuddling her and trying to kiss her. He was trying to persuade her to go for a drink with him. Our American friend decided he would pop out and try to help them out with their decision making in some way - she had been indecisive and he felt he could swing it for the guy. When he got out there it turned out she didn't know the bloke at all and was desperately trying to get away, so the American got a cab for her and off she went. What we couldn't quite figure out was why she let him get so wrapped around her before when she didn't even know him. These are the difficult situations encountered by women on nights out sometimes, hard to know the best course of action for the safest retreat.

So having not meant to stay for longer than one for the road we then found ourselves rather the worse for wear tripping round the corner to end the evening in the Living Room with a little late night music and dancing. And a cocktail. And a parting piece of advice - that if Bails wants to meet a man she needs to be a little easier with the marking...

Eventually after many many one-for-the-roads we finally got on a bus heading home.

Man and Viola

The Barbican is cold, I'm huddling under my coat on the back row watching a man in a black chinese style suit and hair like Kevin Keegan play the viola. The music is relaxing but dull. In Bach's pauses while he turns the page of his music ripples of coughing cross the auditorium. In front of us two parties have brought six year olds who wriggle around trying to find comfortable positions to sleep in. The next piece is Brahms and a pianist joins the viola player. The piano is in the centre of the stage. The viola player stands right in front of the piano stool. The stage is huge. Two people are on it. He is standing so close to the pianist that it looks like he might back onto the pianist's elbow. Its hard to see both musicians.

During the interval I wonder about going home. Think about it until the second half is about to begin. So I go and sit down again. I've never heard any Shostakovich before but it is wonderful in a sad haunting way. I was glad I stayed to the end.

Monday's Life Class





Its turned colder this evening for some reason and after the rainy weekend the growing class is started to drop off a bit. Not so many people. The model is older and rather static so we did a lot of shadow drawings. I have been feeling a bit stressed at work so tried to do very loose drawings which is why they have come out a bit slap dash in parts. Useful in terms of the body and brain if not the best in the world.

Candid Arts Trust: open access sessions and more formal taught courses in both life drawing and painting. Behind Angel tube, Islington - first left down City Road. Contact: The Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ, Tel: 020 7837 4237.

Weekend Food Failures

I invited 5 people round to dinner on Saturday. MS decided he'd do the honours and do the cooking. I got in makings of salad, and dessert. I told everyone 7.30. Two guests showed at 7.35. The cook called at 7.50 to ask which bus went from Angel to mine. When he arrived he had decided to make a root vegetable bake from his new tiny vegetarian cookbook (as we are his newest group of friends and we are all vegetarians he is dipping his toe into our world of eating). When he eventually arrived at 8.30 he had brought with him a tonne of root vegetables that needed to be cut into thin slices (think potato gratin), then layered into a cake tin dabbed with butter and baked for an hour and a half. The dinner went into the oven at 9.00pm (the chopping didn't take so long - all the guests were put to work - we had some discussion over how thin a slice a slice had to be but after a few stumbling blocks it seemed to be ok). When we took the long awaited dish out of the oven at 10.30 we had already eaten a mountain of salad with bread and drunk two bottles of wine. The instructions said turn out onto a plate. Having greased the tin it looked like the dish would come out ok apart from the fact that as I raised the tin up it all slipped out of form and would've been all over the floor had I not quickly slid the tin back down.

Now there was a fundamental flaw in this recipe. I mentioned potato gratin before - what holds the gratin together is the sauce that you pour over it to aid its cooking. This didn't have any sauce. Also you don't have to turn out a gratin - it is served from the dish. MS complained that he had been oppressed because we had not allowed him to follow the recipe to the letter and blamed us for it not being very nice. We all disagreed and concluded that it was due to it lacking the binding agent (we did allow him to differ in his opinion however).

When planning to feed people it is also a good idea not to turn over the main dish to someone who doesn't live in the same house as you and has a penchant for fashionable lateness. By the time the dish was ready we were a. too drunk to care and b. had lost our hunger and c. not too keen on the burnt top (our oven isn't very accurate with the temperature). Still the dessert was nice even though we didn't eat it until 11.45.

I Felt Compelled

To stand with fellow like-minded thinkers in solidarity against the state visit of George W.







I couldn't get off the afternoon to go on the march but made my way down to Trafalgar Square after work. It was packed by the time I got there and they announced the end of the march had just reached Alydwych before crossing Waterloo Bridge at 6.00pm. Many people were there - speakers said 400,000 - 10 o'clock news said 100,000. Never can tell which is right. Did bump into one of my neighbours and a college friend whilst standing listening though which is always suprising in such a huge crowd. Massive diversity of people. People were there for all sorts of reasons - anti war, anti nuclear weapons, anti bush, anti blair, pro palestine, pro cuban, environmental, pro kyoto. Very young to very old.

Monday's Life Class



Upstairs there was an exhibition called Trademark having its private view. The life model nipped up before class and a fellow student nipped up in the break for a free glass of wine. Both of them reported back that it was an exhibition of explicit computer manipulated photographs. One had David Beckham superimposed over some female lingerie with POSH tattooed on his knuckles and a massive erection, apparently. The life model said maybe she was a prude and that's why she was shocked. I was too chicken to go up there and I don't consider myself to be a prude despite the fact I wouldn't pose nude for a life class (sometimes you just need a mate to help you feel confident).

We were supposed to be looking at positive and negative space, thinking about shadow before the lines and we drew 20min, 5min and 1min poses followed by a longer drawing after the break.


Candid Arts Trust: open access sessions and more formal taught courses in both life drawing and painting. Behind Angel tube, Islington - first left down City Road. Contact: The Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ, Tel: 020 7837 4237.

Is Copying the Finest Form of Flattery?

What's the best course of action when you feel that someone has plagiarised something you have written? I have found that someone has used my subheading I Love My City Because... and changed some but not all the words in it, on the top of their blog . I feel uncomfortable about this despite the fact that they have linked to me. Is this reasonable? How do I address it? In some respects this is bound to happen on the web and ideas are probably endlessly regurgitated and used in differing forms across the blogosphere but I feel that my writing is my own and would hate someone to read my subheading and think I had copied it from somewhere else. Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

No. 4 - Finsbury Park to Angel

I was on the back seat of the lower deck.

First there was heroin couple. They sat opposite me. Two people so thin both their faces were basically skin stretched over skulls. Not only did their cheek bones stick out but you could see their jaw bones moving as they spoke. They were nervy sorts, fidgety, who watched your hands as you used the mobile or hunted in your bag for something but would never catch your eye. He had a broken nose like a boxer. She had track marks on the back of her hand.

Then there was a middle aged woman in 70s plastic glasses - HUGE frames, silver combat pants and silver baseball boots. She sat on the other end of the bench seat and perched her feet on the edge of the seat in front of her. When her legs were bent up like that her trousers fell at an angle that made it look like she had one of those artificial limbs - not the sort that look like a plastic leg but the metal ones that are like a pole with a foot on the end.

And finally there was Jenny-from-the-block-alike. Highlighted hair. Pancake nude makeup (lots of makeup but with the intention of looking like you aren't wearing any). Broad bum squeezed into skin tight jeans.

Time Off is Bad for the Working You

I am sitting here deep in paperwork, urgent invoices, to do list that is longer than my arm because I had last week off work. Very nice it was but it seems like a distant memory. I can hardly remember what I did. I have a vague recollection of sleeping late, of going to the movies in the afternoon, of a panic-attack inducing trip to IKEA of epic proportions, visits to builders yards to buy planks (my decorator mate just laughs at me when I refer to planks, I think in the trade they are just wood or even planed wood). And today I have forgotten exactly what it is that I do and how to do it. Sigh. Good job I didn't have two weeks off, I might have forgotten the way to the office.

Read the Review

So The Weblog Review (TWR) reviewed me. The reviewer gave me a whopping mark of 4, which was nice.

The Art of Street Snogging

There's been a bit of debate about public snogging recently - opinions have been given both for and against.

When I was younger (like late teens early 20s, when I still thought it was cool to sport pink hair and wear clothes that were worn out beyond make them into a duster state) I was a slave to emotions and would snog wherever took my fancy or rather whenever the passion arose. There were occasions when I managed to snog a new mate for an entire bus journey from Cambridge Circus to the depths of North London without drawing breath or looking up once, and other occasions when it was beyond our control and we had to snog in the middle of crowded pubs or on the doorsteps of pubs in front of the bouncers (and be moved on for making the entrance look seedy). So I fully admit to partaking in the whole public snogging thing. But I was young, frivolous and not easily embarrassed.

Gradually over the years there has been a subtle shift in my willingness to take part in public snogging and I sit here now and find my opinion on it has changed. I have even been known to utter those terribly middle-aged sounding words there's a time and a place for everything...

I feel the need to explain my position on this. Its not that I'm against kissing in public places ever. I think it is perfectly acceptable to kiss, even passionately kiss, in public at times. But I also think that the appropriateness of the activity is inversely proportional to the fervour with which it is undertaken. There have been plenty of times when on witnessing said activity the phrase get a room springs to mind.

In the middle 20s (re-living adolescence between serious relationships) we found great mirth in shouting fire! fire! around snoggers in crowded pubs and when really pissed would try to chuck ice chunks between the couple unnoticed - to make a point (sophomoric behavior played out in the King's Head Upper Street - I try never to go there anymore - it would be just too embarrassing if anyone remembered me and the tricks we used to get up to - however, they are more likely to remember my friend who had a penchant for flashing her small pert tits at the end of evening in the back room, but thats a whole other debate).

So I can forgive the youth the odd bout of sucky-face in inappropriate places - like in your way on the pavement, in record shops, restaurants, on public transport, even though it is quite vile to see the cheeks sucking in and out as tongues investigate the partner's mouth. They are usually confined to dark corners or the back of the bus after all. And if they are a particular age, its a brief time that should be relished where kissing was there instead of sex, or rather it led to sex but not for at least six months (if the relationship lasted that long) by which point you were fit to burst.

No, when its really unbearable is when you are enjoying a drink, or meal with friends or partner and there is a couple next to you who just can't give it up, when you know its the build up to a passionate night of bedroom action and they just go on and on and on, not leaving, not leaving, not leaving and finally come up for air when her hair is all messed up and they have lipstick smudged all round both their mouths. In this case they should just go and get a room. Or when one of them is having a sneaky grope at the same time as a snog. Or when one is obviously taking advantage of the other's inebriation to go further than they may ordinarily. Or like when I saw a middle aged (at the risk of sounding ageist) couple up against a tree in the park and he had his hand up her skirt and it felt a little desperate without anywhere to go, as if they were having an adulterous affair or something.

But there are places when passionate kissing is to be expected - train stations, airports, nightclubs, parties - any time partners are parting, or when its very late and partners are meeting for the first time.

Even in these situations there are some things that are good to keep in mind: keep juicy noises to a minimum, try to do a movie kiss - neat and tidy - press hard but don't sucky sucky, try not to grope your partner, always keep focused on your partner (nothing looks more untrustworthy than one member of the party looking over the shoulder of the other during the kiss), do come up for air at least every five minutes. Save all the rolling slobbering lips action for when you get home.

Monday's Life Class






There has been an explosion of interest in the class. Last week we had 33 and 5 had to be turned away. This week it has dropped to 28. It still feels crowded. However this time last year we had to root around and find people to bring for fear of the numbers dropping too low to fund the class.

It was good. I had a hard time getting into it because I had been at home all day and was sort of going backwards - found it very hard to actually get a full drawing done in 5 minutes. That's what relaxing does for you.


Candid Arts Trust: open access sessions and more formal taught courses in both life drawing and painting. Behind Angel tube, Islington - first left down City Road. Contact: The Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ, Tel: 020 7837 4237.

S A D

Its winter, its cold, people are hibernating already. I have had three conversations this week which would count as life-coaching if I were trained in such things. All around me are the wrecks of friends disintergrating in on their own tortured souls. I want to support them and make them buoyant again. Not one of them is careening on a downwards pathway apart from how they actually feel. All of them are doing well, striving, working hard. All of them are having crisis' of some sort - personal, work or confidence and mostly a combination of at least two. These things manifest themselves in a variety of ways but for two of them it means being IN and not coming out even if you ring their doorbell for half an hour solidly (which I did this evening in the drizzle). I think the time of year has a very negative impact on people's feelings of coping - for some reason summer time is easier to cope with because it is just better, more alive. And the best thing I ever learned was how fantastic a winter holiday in the sun was for the morale.

Me, I'm just glad I have next week off work and this Sunday has been nice and relaxing and I haven't had to think about tomorrow at all.

We Love More Fireworks

These fireworks took some stamina. For some reason the temperature dropped on Saturday, but I went down to see the Thames fireworks, stood on Waterloo Bridge for 45 minutes freezing waiting for them. It all started with a burning effigy which had huge explosions going off when the fire lit them that bounced around the buildings on either side of the river.




The older I get the less impressive firework displays seem to be, probably because I've see many organised displays now and they just aren't as good as I would like them to be. There was a kid next to me who couldn't see over the bridge was looking through the railing who was chanting FI-YER-WORKS FI-YER-WORKS for the last half an hour in a very excited manner - that's how I feel about them but I can't sustain my joy when the display doesn't live up to expectation. And I think that the best times have been when you are close enough to the display to be able to smell the sulphur and gunpowder, there's a roaring bonfire (frowned upon these days for safety reasons) and you go home smelling of burned wood.

I remember a bonfire party when I was at nursery school where there was a huge bonfire in the grounds (probably not that huge but I remember it that way) and we baked potatoes in tin foil round the bottom of it. There was a party in Clapham where they let fireworks off the top of an extension building and the ash rained down on us into the back yard (exciting, though dangerous probably). There was an amazing performance at Victoria Park a couple of years ago with huge columns of fire and music and big fireworks and people wearing Catherine wheel fireworks costumes. And there was the rope of fireworks on the Millenium bridge and the Tate Modern that although went slightly wrong at the start (when they were supposed to be lit under the water and travel through the water before jumping onto the bridge but sadly were drowned out) but was very beautiful looping over the bridge and around the turret of the gallery, leaving behind a burning ember rope as they died away (some of which set the roof alight causing us to be evacuated from the gallery half an hour later).

So after freezing our asses off HS and I went for a bite to eat and sat next to a couple where the woman was a good 20 years his junior and was accusing the man (couldn't figure out whether he was her husband or her fiance) of sleeping with someone else, which he was of course denying (while squirming). He didn't let her look at the menu and chose from his head a range of dishes for them. And it ended up where he brushed her accusation away fairly unanswered. No choice but to believe him then, we decided. She can expect large bouquets of flowers and a big piece of I Love You jewellery I suspect (judging by his own I expect he is prone to the over-blown romantic gesture, especially when under pressure).

We Love Fireworks



Even crappy little ones from people's back gardens seen from the window of the office.

Male + Artist + Pose + Model + Etiquette

Based on the above search that found my blogsite I would like to offer the following:-
Harriet's Guide to Etiquette for the Male Artist Model

• An interesting pose requires you not to distribute the weight evenly through the body. It helps to lean on one hip or the other. Never do the same thing with both your arms. (this applies to female models as well).


• Make sure you are washed - you will be naked after all.


• Bring something to throw on between poses, especially for the breaks. A lightweight robe is excellent for this purpose. It is very disconcerting for the students if you to stand around naked while talking to them.


• Try not to catch the eye of those who are drawing you, especially if they have a full frontal view of you.


• (This is a personal preference of mine) Don't shave your pubes, especially if you have a really hairy chest and belly. Contrary to popular belief it doesn't make your willy look longer but it does make you look strange. And if you do it because you are a nudist - don't you think that goes against the grain of naturalism - your pubes are natural and a part of your human make up.


• If you are sexually aroused by being naked infront of other people or by exhibitionism in any way, this is not the occupation for you, nobody likes a model with a stiffy, especially the art tutor (who may never hire you again). Generally they don't even like the murmurings of a stiffy (I am ususally impressed that men who do suffer from rude awakenings in the nether regions because a) they are often not embarrassed, and b) considering that it is frequently cold in the studio amazed at any action at all.


• Just for the record - we like to draw finely cut bodies (in the muscle development sense of the phrase), but we also like to draw overweight people, the obese, odd looking, old people, tall or short, dancers, martial artists, builders, in fact anybody who can do something interesting and stretch their form in some way. We prefer not to draw people who are bored and lacking in concentration.

So go forth, be bold and make like a statue.

One to Miss

Bails has a senior manager who comes from the 'burbs, he arranged a night out for the people in his department, he asked Bails to go, she asked me to go. I said yes. Next time I will know to say no. I've been told about this in a previous post's comments and I know I know, I should have known better but BAD IS NOT THE WORD. I am speechless, words to describe it escape me. But if anyone EVER suggests you go, or even offers you a free ticket you have my word YOU DO NOT WANT TO TAKE IT. I was tortured this evening with a performance of We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre. Sloooowwwww death to me then....... (and I thought Andrew Lloydd Webber was bad).

Tube Trouble

Coming up the escalator at Leicester Square an announcement came over the tannoy "ladies and gentlemen, the Piccadilly line and the Northern line are running well. We have no reported problems." Weird huh?

Monday's Life Class



Struggling today to find something of interest. Over recent weeks I have taken to putting the shadows on the floor as a way of creating some context on the paper. It makes parts of the drawing slightly abstract but generally seems clearer when I photograph them and load the pictures up here. Some day soon I will also manage to get the entire figure into the picture (I always seem to knock one end or other off because I start drawing too large and by the time I get there its already too late).

Class was absolutely packed today. Don't think I have ever been at a class with 30 people in it. Rather a tight squeeze. I was also finding that standing drawing was really hurting my back. Never had a bad back until I was in a car accident where a man hit the back right fender when he didn't stop at a cross road and shunted me over a bollard into a brick wall. Now cos its weakened I get it from ridiculously trivial things.



Candid Arts Trust: open access sessions and more formal taught courses in both life drawing and painting. Behind Angel tube, Islington - first left down City Road. Contact: The Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ, Tel: 020 7837 4237.

NaNoWriMo

Is bloody hard. Grrr. Not sure I like long writing. Fighting with it today. My score card is already telling me I'm falling behind, but helpfully telling me how many words I need to write to catch up. I'd rather be watching TV. Grumble. Winge.

Aside



In our mad dash around town (yes we set off too late, yes our hearts weren't in it) we passed John Lewis (on the bus) who had this mad display of thongs flying around on hangers in the window. Thongs don't look good unless worn, I have decided. And when displayed like this it really does show you how little you really get for your money.

Saturday Halloween Continues

So it was DP's Halloween party and we had been rubbish at wanting to dress up - suggestions had included a crazed surgeon with a couple of sadist nurses (personnally I wasn't keen on playing out M or DP's sick erotic fantasies about nurses with or without gigantic syringes and gasmasks), or the mortally wounded. So we went in search of scrubs moaning all the way. First stop Lawrence Corner, used to be great for costumes and would have been still if it had been something a little less specific that we were after. Nobody wanted to go to a joke shop (apart from me). Then we tried to get to the medical suppliers on New Cavendish Street (it was shut). Quick run round Selfridges (too designer for halloween but does do christmas rather well). Dropped by Angels after it had closed. By which point it was getting close to 6.00. Covent Garden General Store has closed down. And finally (must say I was rather pleased about it) we decided we had failed. We picked up 3 nail through finger tricks in a toyshop just before we headed for some sustenence.



The host and hostess had made a sterling effort as had many of the guests - there was a man with alien baby protruding from his chest, roller skate disco boy, dead elvis, Uma Thurman-alike from Kill Bill, a cassette of kenny rogers, several vampires and mistresses, lots of crazed surgens and nurses (so glad we weren't part of the crowd), and a man in a teddybear jacket. Lame as we were it meant we could catch a bus home and blend in.

Friday Late: Gothic Halloween

JD persuaded CD and his girlfriend and me (and I persuaded M and HS) that it would be a good idea to go and see The Cabinet of Dr Caligari at the V&A after hours on Halloween. What he failed to tell us was that it was part of a gothic extravaganza. There were after hours tours of the galleries, magic performed by gothic magician Dr John wearing odd contact lenses, tarot, music by DJ Steve Weeks of the Slimelight, short films hosted by the Halloween Society and a horse-drawn hearse at the entrance.






The best part of the evening really was to be able to wander around the galleries of the V&A after hours. I once did a drawing class here where we were using the empty galleries as inspiration - really was quite eery but also nice to be in the galleries when everyone else had gone home - you feel quite privileged.

The place was swarming with goths. Pale faces, spiky hair or big morticia hair. Black robes and purple. At the end of the evening a couple were overheard admiring each other's cloaks - one had bought it second hand, the other was hand-made by her mother. Men in Christopher Lee Dracula garb or kind of leather Edward Scissorhands-alike. Black lipstick. MAC doing gothic makeovers (you don't see these kinds of results in Selfridges).




So eventually we got into see The Cabinet of Dr Caligari which is a silent black and white film from 1919. A new sound track to the film was provided by the ear splitting sound of death metal band Unsanctum. People sat and watched for a bit and when they couldn't stand it any longer left to make way for other people who in their turn left when they couldn't stand it any longer. I have never seen a band perform with so little energy and yet still have such a profound effect on the audience (at the end it seemed to be split between love and hate of them). They didn't actually add anything to the film in terms of atmosphere and possibly detracted from it enormously. But it was all in the spirit of the evening.