Luke Jackson - Goodbye London

Luke sent me this video that he made to his song Goodbye London. Watch it - I think it has a londoner's feel to it - that which other people may find ugly has value. It draws out some of the very specific things that I love about London - Eros in the dark, the lit advertising in Picadilly, Hamstead Heath, funny graffiti stencilled onto walls (fleeting imagery that stays until it is washed off - sometimes in between becoming iconic).

Jersey Tiger

In the heat of the day we sat outside Petitou on Choumert Road in Peckham (they have a lovely huge plain tree in the corner of their plot that makes lovely dappled shade) eating cheese on toast with chives and drinking fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. The windows are surrounded by walls covered in dark green tiles. On the tiles was a Jersey Tiger Moth - large triangular with distinctive black and white markings. When he flew off his inside wings were bright orangy red. Remarkable. Never seen anything like it before. Love summer. Love wildlife in London.

Stormy Weather

We're having one of those storms that start with yellow electric light at the tail end of a humid close day. After the yellow light were huge heavy drops of rain that were warm on the skin. I just managed to get the stuff in from the garden when it downpoured. Then there were large hailstones. And finally the thunder and lightning. Forked and streak lightning cracking and looping across the sky from one cloud to another, flashes and their accompanying thunders rolling across the sky rumbling. Rain falling faster and faster, bubbles and back splashes on the concrete. Somewhere dogs have been left out and are barking in distress.

Stupid stuff makes me laugh

I've always known this, crap jokes, puns etc - like 'em. At the moment is the Lynx (smells cheap and horrid) Muchos Maracas advert. I laugh aloud. I think its too late for my sense of humour to grow up...

And again...

We've moved office again. Hopefully the last time. State of the art (lights come on when they sense your presence, one of the greenest buildings in London), and conceptually slightly behind (hotdesking - seems to me to have been tried, tested and moved away from in business but we're just adopting it), all at the same time. Its nice to be by the river, in a pleasant part of town, but its expensive, busy and suity. It provides space, light, good facilities but takes away the personal and individual - makes you feel rather like a battery hen, and reduces productivity because of the unpacking and packing up at the beginning and end of every day. There will be 300 staff on my floor when they all get moved in. Thats a big hum of people.

Each day I go in I feel like I'm working in an american movie, only without all the knick knacks that they have. We go through automatic revolving doors that revolve slightly too slowly, walk through the impressive stone floored foyer, through the security gates (nobody gets through without a pass) and take one of 4 lifts up to the floor (doesn't matter which one, they all look the same), touch into (new fangled clocking in, but clocking in none the less), and look for an open desk space. Once identified we logon to the phone and into the computing system.

In the first week, despite being surrounded by people, I felt somehow isolated - all those people who I normally sat near were spread across a much wider area. Its the same work, the same colleagues but different. Less friendly. More territorial because there is less to have control over. Still its early days, it'll take time to get used to it.

Body

His hot leg and left arm leaned on me in a way that made me accutely aware of our bodies pressed together as the bus trundled along. I was reading. He was on the phone. One call to a girl whose number he had just taken. ONe to a mate about later. ONe to a girl he was more familiar with about hooking up soon. I used my bottom and leg muscles to create some microscopic distance, drawing myself together. He let his leg and arm fill the space created.

He was shaven headed with a beard. Grey trackpants and a short leather bomber jacket. Made contact with my cotton velvet coat. He got off and walked away, puling the seat of his trackpants up to the elastic of his undergarments.

My side felt cold. The bus passed the photograph shop that has the picture of a woman sitting on the floor with one knee up and the other one lying against the ground in a pose that focuses too much on the crotch of her shorts. Its a troubling picture that always reminds me of a discussion I had with my life drawing tutor about full frontal nudes. You have to draw the genitals (one class someone left a smudge rather than putting anything more explicit detailed) but in the same style and detail as the rest of the figure (after the smudge incident during a long pose the tutor and I discussed the detailing I had drawn because it drew the eye too much). A drawing (or photograph) needs balance as well as being accurate. Generally, after that, I preferred to not be in a position with a full frontal view.