Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Virtues of Vibrators
With the onset of spring London pigeons (manky specimens with club, or indeed, missing feet) have been engaging in mating rituals. This involves the male of the species puffing his chest up, spreading his tail feathers widely and dragging it on the ground as he chases young females round. Since our mutual friend, complaining of being jealous of said pigeons, was having a birthday Bails and I decided that rather than find her a mate of any sort (difficult to fulfill) we would invest in a vibrator for her to stave off the desperation.
We popped into Harmony, top of Charing Cross Road, and found ourselves faced with an array of adult toys that hadn't seemed to progress in style or design for some years. Vibrators still continue to largely look like big flesh tone willies, or alternatively large shiny black numbers. Often complete with veins. For some reason it seems odd that most designers of these things have not thought about the aesthetics of these toys beyond realism (and hyper- or extreme-realism - where it looks realistic but MUCH TOO LARGE). Willies aren't that lovely to look at (unless its someone's you really like), and can be downright scary in some of the proportions used here.
Eventually we went for a newer model from the german company Fun Factory. Yes its willy-shaped in that its long and conical like the gherkin building but it was made of baby blue silicone with defined ridges. Others were designed to be zodiac signs, or dolphin shaped, in a huge variety of colours and not a single one had pearlescent beading or shiny black ribs or veins of any description. Nicely styled with wit. Williesque but no realism.
The only other one I can think of is Tom Dixon's Bone thats on sale in places like Purves & Purves and Selfridges.
So we wrapped it up and on giving it got a little bit nervous in case mutual friend was incensed. Fortunately she wasn't.
And in the following discussion we got to pondering the willy vs the non-willy aesthetic. Her analogy was that it is like making non-meat beefburgers for vegetarians that look and taste like meat. Its frequently done but for the true vegetarian theres really no point since the meat was given up on purpose. If we are going to have a substitute why does it have to look like a willy when it isn't really anything like the real thing?
5:55 PM
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
British Summer Time Begins
Never can get used to this chaning time twice annually (even though I've lived here all my life). It always takes me time to adjust. At least this year someone reminded me that the clocks were going forwards on Saturday night so I didn't have a repeat of the time I actually didn't realise until I arrived to college an hour earlier than I thought.
So this summer time I find myself awake in the middle of the night watching bad movies.
Sunday it was Dracula 2000 by Patrick Lussier - the guardian says "fairly silly update with Drac hunting Van Heslings daughter. She works in Virgin Megastore", but I still watched it, all the way through.
Monday was the end of Spielbergs Amistad, a worthy film by all accounts but I only caught the end part where Anthony Hopkins was making a great speech while sounding like the wizard from the wizard of oz.
9:54 PM
Monday, March 29, 2004
Monday's Life Class
  
  
  
Probably because Blue Witch commented last week on how much we seem to get done each session I seem to have come back this week with half a tree worth of drawings. There were four others not worth keeping.
So we had a new model - a german dancer who was interested in non-trained approaches to dance where you sort of zone into a meditative state and let your body do whatever comes to it from there. He once worked for a Jewish sculptor who had him move slowly until a position presented itself that he liked and then he'd capture it and then get the model to continue moving. Apparently there is a sculpture in a fountain in Putney (I think he said Putney) that is of the man who modelled this evening. Its a piece about tensions and energy and although it is abstract the model can recognise his energy in the sculpture.
So we did something quite similar today - he moved until Ann said stop and then we drew for 30 seconds, this was followed by a movement pose where we had to capture the movement (these are the middle three and lower left drawing). Before this we did our ususal 20min, followed by a four minute and a two minute pose. Then after the break we had two 20 minute poses.
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.
11:09 PM
Thursday, March 25, 2004
The Cold Season: Spring Chills
The worst part of a cold is when you realise you have used up all your tissues and have to reuse one that is already damp. (Bails and I discussed this while HS loudly trumpeted her nose into her last tissue).
11:27 PM
Mirror Moment
So, they're leaving. His scruffy friend has decamped to the toilet.
Standing up to put on his coat he takes a moment to check himself in the long mirrored wall down the side of the restaurant. Standing full front to it beside his table surrounded by other diners he readjusts his shirt collars. Smoothes the lapels of his jacket. Pin stripe suit. Smart. Readjust cuffs. One at a time. Casually with an almost imperceptible sideways head movement checks the hair, first one way, then the other. Asymmetrical haircut, glossed with product, higher in the off centre ridge. Puts on coat, caresses the buttons as he closes them up. Checking done, he stands for a moment, that could almost be a few minutes, admiring the image reflected back at him.
At which point, scruffy friend returns from the bathroom in his olive green combat pants, having not stood next to the razor for several days. Passing an empty table he stops to finish off a half empty glass of water that the waiter is trying to clear away. Having gulped down the remains of somebody else's glass grabs his jacket and the pair of them leave.
Scruffy goes first, pin stripe man follows dragging a small travel case behind him.
11:24 PM
Beyond the Beyond
I sit at my workstation in a specially carved out ergonomic curve looking directly past the computer monitor over the hills towards Highgate, picking out a couple of spires and a green copper dome and some trees' bare branches on the horizon. The sky rises huge in the window frame, grey and threatening at the bottom but highlighted with gold and orange where the sun catches the clouds. Through a gap firey orange, bright. Behind that dark slate cloud is the beyond. Collecting links today for a resource list I was looking at the Hubble website. That is what is beyond the beyond from the window I'm sitting at. Its time I got beyond the confines of North London.
5:53 PM
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Richard Long Day
overcast.
sun.
overcast.
electric.
hail.
overcast, big blue patch, raindrops drying on window.
black clouds, sunshine on hills in the distance.
sun through wispy clouds.
sun.
sun and black clouds.
sun and rain.
sun, rain and hail.
rain and hail.
sun, blue sky, distant bulbous white clouds.
airplane streaks.
haze.
sun set dazzling through cloud.
Richard Long's One Hour Walk
Other Text Works
Richard Long's Website
Genius.
5:23 PM
Monday, March 22, 2004
Monday's Life Class
  
 
Drawing the pale man with strong lighting. A 20 minute warm up, get set up and collect money pose, two 10 minute poses, one moving pose and a 45 minute to finish with. Afterwards all the new art studenty types sprayed all their drawings (I do mine at home) creating a cloud of pungent fixative in the basement studio. Cough, retch.
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.
10:27 PM
Saturday, March 20, 2004
We Love Borough Market
  
  
  
We went by just for a look but within a minute of arriving we were shopping for a dinner feast.
Lettuce that comes whole, strong and fresh. Tomatoes on-the-vine that look red, ripe and taste divine (unlike the ones from supermarkets plumped with water and tasteless), olive oil nutty and peppery tasted before purchase and in reusable glass bottles that will get you a pound discount next time, yoghurt and wine.
Although I've been a vegetarian for 16 years I was also fascinated with the meat - cut from the bone, red and healthy looking not wrapped in cellophane and almost unidentifiable as animal. Honest food, cleanly raised.
We ate roasted garlic and onions on bread. Rocket and Parmesan salad. Feta, tomato, pepper and leaves salad. Olives marinated in garlic and coriander. Drank Pino Grigio which was pale and apply.
11:26 PM
TGIF
Its been a really long week, however Friday was spent in a conference rooms in the Art House in Britannia Row doing some strategic planning. We then went off to a bowling alley in Finsbury Park and had a couple of hours bowling. Fun? It was hilarious. And suprisingly I got the second highest score of the evening. I was very proud. Especially cos I didn't start very well. And then I was on a roll and challenged one of my colleagues to a race on one of those car racing games, and I beat him. Failed miserably at a round of killer pool (can't play pool to save my life - I blame a considerably non-ill spent youth). Now that I'm home I think I bowled too much (I've got RSI in my hip from standing on it while swinging the other leg out to the side behind!).
Most upset at seeing the last ever episode of SITC. Will friday night TV be the same again? Not for some time. And Mr Big's name is never really...
My sister has a theory about Johns. You know you're with the right man in our family if you've found your John (she did it, our mother did it, as did one of her sisters and a sister-in-law, so did a cousin, mine's middle name is Jonathan). There could be something in it.
12:36 AM
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
AM
A learner bus driver in a big white double decker learner bus inches along with great care as 3 bus driving instructors lounge in the seats behind him, some of them not even looking forward. Following along behind, a man on a white bicycle (who obviously hasn't been in charge of a bike for some time) weaving all over the road legs angled out for balance.
4:35 PM
Monday, March 15, 2004
Monday's Life Class
  
  
Fast and furious class today - a 10 minute, then some five minutes, couple of 30 seconds and after break a 45 minute. Class remains crowded. So wish Vogue hadn't been putting life drawing up there with things to do in 2004.
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.
11:17 PM
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Weather Revisited
  
 
We went to the Tate to see the Brancusi (I didn't realise it was going to cost my companion £8 to get in, so in the end we didn't - I can come again on my own and go in for free as a member), as we came in we also stole another look at Olafur Eliasson's Weather Project.
It was interesting seeing it again after so many months (first seen in October, see review here). Its been all over the blogosphere and the press. There were some notable differences. Firstly the lack of steam, presumably in response to the adverse affect it was having on the wellbeing of the gallery staff, when we first saw it the whole room was filled with a haze that blended and mystified the whole experience - it was hard to see through and make out what was actually happening, things seemed weirder and eerier that way. The lack of steam meant that some flaws showed up much more clearly - including the join where the half sun met the mirror, now dirty with the failing fluorescent bulbs or accumulated dust and muck, the mirrored ceiling was showing quite defined joins where before it seemed flat and as one. It still provoked the same response from viewers - staring for ages off the balcony or lying like sunbathers on the concrete floor and performing synchronised swimming in the mirrors above only now with added displacement.
Despite the visible flaws it remains an awe inspiring and funny exhibition. You have until 21 March to catch it if you can or haven't already.
Tate Modern Weather Project
12:31 AM
Spring Day
Beautiful spring day. Daffodils in green patches, parks and front gardens. Early blossom trees in bloom. The first colour after a long winter. Brightness of the sun feeds the skin.
12:08 AM
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Phils Dinner Party
 
They were playing a compilation CD during dinner called Organs in Orbit from a series called the Ultra Lounge. The images in my head were:
1950s housewife grinning, lemon yellow dress with huge skirt doing vacuuming in stillettos. Poodles. Girls in bobby socks. Bungalows in small town america painted pastel colours with carports outside.
Men in dark zoot suits with greased back hair and open necked white shirts.
Turquoise cars at the seaside. Old people in deck chairs or taking a spin on the ballroom floor of the pier with glitter ball lights going round the room at 2pm in the afternoon.
1930s Egyptian-themed magic show where girls dressed as Cleopatra are sawn in half, disappeared and folded into boxes.
2:39 AM
Friday, March 12, 2004
Eventful Afternoon
Seldom does such excitement reign over the office of a Friday afternoon.
DS and I were the only ones left in our unit - she had just had a bunch of stationery delivered and was busily opening and checking and cooing over the loverly coloured post-its, pens, ink cartridges, and guff that had arrived (the excitement of an administrator's world - stationery orders are like christmas, complete with boxes and packaging). I had finished a second piece of work this afternoon (what achievement and sense of completion! Almost too much to handle in one day). Way in the distance a faint ringing, like a doorbell, could be heard. It sort of infiltrated my ears without registering that it might be something that I should think about.
K rushed into our unit, "is anyone meeting with a Laurence? He's stuck in the lift!"
We looked blank. The three of us went out to the landing, in turn peering through the tiny window into the lift. Its a goods lift - the kind with double consetina doors that have to be slammed shut, big grey things, there are eight halogen lights embedded in the ceiling, of which only one is ever working, so its kind of dim inside, the walls are mirrored halfway up. Peering throught the tiny window it was hard to see anything, apart from the handles of a delivery trolley.
"It's the XL delivery man!"
"But he left ages ago..."
"OH - the ringing!!"
K took charge. "Laurence, have you tried to open the door a crack and reshut it? Press another floor and see if the lift will go down at all. Ok, I'm gonna call the lift maintenance people." From my desk I could hear K relaying information, "Laurence - lift maintenance said they are about an hour away. Are you ok? If thats too long to wait I'll call the fire brigade". Much discussion back in the office about which fire station to call. K calls. Some discussion ensues. I don't know if the fire brigade are called or not. "Laurence, we have just been called by lift maintennce, they are on their way but they are currently just at Camden. We have both unit doors open so if you need anything just shout."
HS came out, "Do you need a glass of water, Laurence?"
"HS, how will you get the water in there if he says yes?"
HS hoarsly whispers, "I just thought if he said yes, we'd have to find a faster way out. He sounded very weak when I first called into him but he said he was just tired and was falling asleep." Fortunately not a claustrophobe or a panicker.
45 minutes elapse. Suddenly a loud long sound of the buzzer. "LIFT MAINTENANCE ARE HERE!" K, DS and HS rush onto the landing. The lift maintenance men swing open a hatch in the ceiling and within minutes the doors open to reveal Laurence huddled in a corner sitting on the floor a bit dazzled.
"Would you like a glass of water or a cup of tea before you go?"
"No, I'm fine I'll just be on my way."
Unbelieving, HS tries again, "Are you sure we can't get you anything, your perfectly welcome?"
"Nah." Laurence scuttles off down the stairs with his trolley. Lift maintenence reveal that it was his vigorous slamming of the door in the first place that pulled the inner door out of its runner that caused the lift to jam. Perhaps thats why he scurried off poor man.
6:01 PM
How to Wash Up: An Independent Learning Course
Learning Outcomes- To ensure that cutlery and crockery are available for everyone to use
- To keep a clean kitchen environment
- To reduce the likelihood of infection, germs and shared illnesses
In this unit we will learn how to effectively wash up a teacup and teaspoon.
The Teaspoon
- Having used the teaspoon to make your cup of tea or coffee don’t just leave it in a cup of cold water or lying on the draining board.
- Take the sponge, run it under hot water, get a drip of washing up liquid (there must be detergent for a thorough wash) onto the scrubby side of the sponge.
- Rub the teaspoon with the rough side of the sponge. This ensures that the tea and coffee stains are removed and that the spoon is thoroughly cleaned.
- A good indication of a clean spoon is the shine that appears on the stainless steel.
- Finally, and very importantly rinse the spoon in hot water to remove the detergent. If you run it under hot water you will also find that when you leave it to dry in the cutlery drainer that it will dry off quicker and have fewer streaks.
The Cup
When you have finished your cup of tea or coffee it will not wash itself if you leave it in the sink or near the sink. When this does miraculously happen you will find with some investigation that someone else has washed it for you.
When washing a cup the aim is to eradicate all traces of the previous drink that it held and to sterilise it for the next person to use.
- Run the hot tap until the water comes out hot (the boiler is rubbish so this may take some time).
- Fill the cup with hot water and rinse any dregs out.
- Squirt a little bit of washing up liquid into the cup, fill again with hot water so that the detergent foams.
- Using the sponge rub the detergent on both surfaces of the cup (inside and out). Check that the tea / coffee tidemark is being rubbed off. Also check under irritating lips that may have stubborn stains. Since these are not generally bone china cups it is ok to scrub them with the rough side of the sponge.
- Once the cup is entirely clean (including those hard to remove tea stains on the bottom of the cup) rinse it in hot water. As with the teaspoon, hot water rinsing is important because it means the cup will dry off quicker and not get streaks or water spots so easily.
Since your hands are wet you may as well run the sponge over the surfaces of the sink – this will only take a second and will leave the environment that much more improved for those who come after you.
Also available in this series: how to clean a microwave, how to make a lovely cup of tea, how to get rid of rancid milk.
Lets hope the office kitchen slobs take note next week.
5:00 PM
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Learning From the Public
On the bus. A man with briefcase gets on. Bus lurches forward. Briefcase hits man's (sittting on the aisle seat just behind the stairs) leg.
Man whose leg was hit says louder than strictly necessary and in an agressive tone, "Watch where you're going and what yer doing with this" as he slaps the briefcase dismissively with the back of his hand.
Briefcase Man replies, "I'm very sorry, the bus started up and I wasn't holding on because I was moving along at the time. Did it hurt you?"
I thought this was a very disarming response. Often when shouted at in public our instant reaction is one of fight or flight (shout back, be rude or ignore the person and run away). This was measured, reasonable, apologetic and concerned.
I suppose the only fault being he didn't apologise before being shouted at.
8:26 PM
Email
My work email has been a bit weird recently - it keeps getting messages returned to my inbox saying undeliverable even though I never sent them in the first place. I delete these straight away without opening them because hey they could be anything. I think theres a bug of some description in the server of the mail company. But none of the computers I use are infected cos I keep checking them, more regularly than it says you need to. Today I had one which was from someone who I don't know and the message read "STOP TRYING TO INFECT MY COMPUTER YOU FUCKING MISERABLE PIECE OF SHIT". I didn't do anything. Honest. I feel angered at. I hate people shouting at me...
7:06 PM
Monday Night Life Class
So I was a tiny weeny little bit late. It was cold, not many people have been showing up recently, last week was cancelled. But whadya know 1 minute past 7.00, the class so overflowing, all the easles had been taken and the only spaces were squeezed into by a couple of chairs with a board propped on. So I left. Instead I am going to show you two paintings I did in a life painting class way back in the 90s after I finished college but before I got a full time job. Just so you don't feel too deprived of a bit of visuals. Next week I'll be less tardy and hopefully will get a spot.
 
12:44 AM
Saturday, March 06, 2004
Saturday Night Thought
Isn't it strange that something with as little physical form or mass as smoke or steam can still cast a shadow?
I watched steam rising from a vent in a building opposite Cava where we stopped for a nightcap. I watched the white steam rising with the shadow of itself following.
11:39 PM
Play Without Words
There's a jazz quartet playing mood music under the neon coloured strip lights barely audible in the hubbub of a full bar and seating area. I'm drinking pernod on ice - I like it when I don't want to sugar my drinks. There's an arty couple sitting in front of me side by side. He has thick framed green designer glasses and a beret tucked into his jacket pocket. She had dramatic silver bobbed hair and red lipstick. She's eating a homemade sandwich out of an oddbin's plastic bag. A ripple of applause drifts through the crowd standing watching the band. There are lots of excitable school groups dashing around. And when my dad arrives we go and watch this.
1:03 AM
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Spring is in the Air
The Early Tree in Clissold Park is now in leaf, admittedly more on one side than the other but its a definite sign of spring, others are sure to follow shortly even though their buds are only just appearing.
8:28 PM
As I was Travelling Home Today
I sat on the 141 bus from London Bridge, the traffic getting out of the station was appalling. And having been trapped in a hotel for a day and half my mind wandered.
Lots of 60s and 70s buildings are looking shabby and out of date with their window casements rusting and filthy and their nasty vertically slatted blinds. Buildings built without thought given to window cleaning (too high for the average window cleaner but no ledges or roof suspended cages to travel up and down in), ventilation or heating (lots of sliding inner windows, condensation covered corners). Lacking the charm of the really old and the futuristic design of the contemporary or well-designed (not all this age of buildings are as bad as the one that got me thinking all this). Made of prefabricated bits they have dirt-streaked concrete and cheap glazing.
The traffic turned out to be terrible because at the lights to turn into the main street a bus had broken down at the lights turning right. We were sent on a diversion jolly in the opposite direction all the way along Borough High Street to Elephant and Castle roundabout in order to turn round and come back the other way to cross London Bridge.
Borough High Street was a hive of activity this lunchtime.
Plain clothes police car screeching down the road, blue light stuck to the roof & flashing, weaving in and out of the standstill traffic. Coming the other way a Police Support Unit, an officer jumped out and ran over to direct traffic out of the way, holding traffic back at the lights to enable the un-marked car's passage.
A dodgy-looking big blue van had been pulled by some traffic police, it sat on the side of the road looking really lopsided as the driver was interviewed - whether that was due to bald tyres, an uneven load or something to do with the suspension I wouldn't know but the back right wheel arch looked far too high up to me.
A stream of office workers filed back into their building, some with coats, some without, presumably on a fire drill. Only, after I saw them going back our bus was stopped by a fire engine arriving outside, firemen piled out and went inside. I thought it was usual in these cases where the fire brigade came that the evacuation wasn't over until after they had inspected. It all seemed a bit backwards. Further along the road 2 further fire engines were wending their way through the traffic, sirens blazing - one with a huge crane on the back for recovering people from the top floors.
And by the time we came back level with London Bridge station they had towed the broken-down bus out of the way and all the traffic chaos was gone (and our diversion had taken us about half an hour).
Flying through Bank and Moorgate (congestion charge really has reduced the amount of traffic in town) I was struck by the number of women in black flared trousers and stillettos, older men in classic city attire and younger men in sharp suits with wide-knotted ties and loud shirts (footballer chic, untrustworthy looking mobile phone salesmen stylee).
Joined on the bus by a man who couldn't quite clear his throat, he had a niggling closed-mouth cough thing going on that started to grate on my ears - wish he would just COUGH OUT LOUD and get it over with. Fortunately he got off at Old Street.
The amazing looking apartments built on the Gainsborough Studios old site are nearly finished, some people have moved in already. Wooden cladding, huge open space outside with trees, huge metal balconies the full length of the apartments. Managed entry halls. They stand next to some council flats now looking shamefully in need of care and attention next to their spanking new neighbours. Attempts at modernising with royal blue paint have been graffittied over in that way that speaks volumes about the environment - both council's ability to manage the environment and the disaffected youths' engagement in their community. I wonder how long it will take before the Gainsborough Studios residents will be the target of neighbourhood angst - GS lived in a similar development in Bow in the east end - one factory developed into exclusive apartments (it actually sits on the same canal as the Gainsborough Studios apartments) surrounded by council housing, the kids from the estate next door used to take pot shots at the windows with air rifles. Very difficult in areas where visible affluence sits next to run down council estates - visibly the haves and the have-nots living in a not too comfortable mesh. The problem being the lack of true meshing I suppose.
Roadworks. They seem to be digging everywhere at the moment. End of the financial year underspends coming to light in the transport and environment departments of councils all over London leading to a million projects getting the go ahead all at the same time, new road surfaces, road layouts, pedestrian crossings, pavements happening all over the place. Covered in road cones, temporary traffic lights, builders, diggers. Beautifying the environment. Maybe. Sadly feel that within a couple of months some cable or utilities company will be along to dig it up again for some other reason. Oh for some joined up planning across local authorities and companies. Maximise effort and minimise disruption.
7:55 PM
Conference
I'm at a training session in the Gatwick Holiday Inn. Its not particularly fascinating and the hotel is not particularly fabulous. But its out of the office and I found an internet connection.
At dinner there was a man from the League of Gentlemen on the end of our table. Variety of topics discussed which sort of went like this:
"You not eating?"
"I'm just making friends with my dinner."
"So what's your job role?"
"Can I say stuff? Oh and anything else my line manager requires."
On spying a tub of marmite: "that's evil like in France E Ville."
Later on I tuned onto a conversation someone else was having "...what we need is more blow-jobs." How this exactly linked with e-learning in adult learning I have no idea. Still I'll be home tomorrow.
12:52 AM
Monday, March 01, 2004
Monday Night Art Class
Was cancelled when the tutor had to go to her father's sick bed suddenly. We discovered this over tea in Candid Cafe. Candlelight and tea after work, a softly lit atmosphere with latin jazz music playing quietly in the background.
We met up with some other classmates for a quick drink which lasted 3 hours. First dicussion centred on the merits of smoke rings - a skill thats only worth is showing off (according to 3 smokers unable to blow rings) - you wouldn't after all want to surround your lover in a ring of smoke as a way to prove your love, and its a skill seen as cool by nerds who like to play nintendo and listen to rock music. So amongst them they decided they were pointless. Me thinks they collude in shrinking the wow-factor because none of them can do it.
Much discussion about Damien Hurst's merits as an artist. My view is in opposition to the others because I'm not keen. Discussion gets overly loud. I get a headache. Its nice to discuss art but I wish I had been home an hour ago.
Just miss the bus as we step out of the pub door. Walked up the street with HS to catch a 73. Its freezing and the streets were unusually empty. Sparkling icy air. When the bus came we sat sinking into the comfortable seat. Trundling along unable to talk. And then the bus kind of died. Flat. No power. Luckily at a bus stop. We waited, looking out of the back window, the for the next service to come along. All the passengers piled on.
I was glad to get away from the elderly irish gentleman telling the Manager from Virgin Trains about how the routemaster was a symbol of London - ask your mother about them in the war - she'll tell you how they helped the effort. Over and over again. Virgin Trains Manager was showing the design of her uniform blouse to a letcherous man sat next to her who welcomed the opportunity to look at her chest.
Really wish I could switch off my brain sometimes - its hurting to process all the information today, like my eyes need to stop looking at everything, just for a moment so my brain can rest.
11:53 PM
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