Ceramics Class Spring Term 2012

Its been a term where I seem to have glazed all insides with Egyptian Blue. I'm channelling David Attenborough's frozen planet contrasting white and dark clays with deep blue insides like lagoons or icebergs. Its not so good on the jug (its not food safe - poison in the glaze). I hadn't realised how much of the work I made this term had a blue inside until I started putting a group of pictures together.

Friday Evening

In a bubble. Sitting in a dark bar lit by a bright yellow display of spirits. Its on a junction by a major thoroughfare - cars rushing to other placces. The radiator is on inside. The sky outside is very dark. Jazzy swing music is playing in the background to the jabber of people chatting.  A man at the next table snogs his girlfriend who is sitting in his lap as her friend plays gooseberry and buys more champagne. Outisde London is grey and cold and March. Inside it wouldn't be a suprise if flappers were dancing on tables in the other room to a band full of brass. A man walks past with two bulldogs that are interested in everything. Another man crosses the street with his son. A woman drags twin children on three-wheel scooters across the street - one in each hand. Neither child seems to have mastered the fact that they need to propel the scooter using their foot - so they just stand on the platform without moving. World goes by. Looking out from the bubble.

Mid-week

Shopping in town mid-week (had a couple of days off) is not like the weekend when the people hit the shops in a frenzy of buying as if the end of the world is nigh. No, mid-week shopping is a whole other ball-game. The shops are relatively empty, there are plenty of shop assistants to help. In John Lewis there were twinsets and pearls, and burberry donkey jackets with loafers and dark blue jeans, Queen's English and large shopping totes. Fur-lined collars are real. Purchasing with a slower pace.

I was looking for a new pair of glasses - its been rather tricky - the brand that I had which snapped are not stocked anywhere in London anymore and the styles in the majority of opticians are just too middle-of-the-road. I'm looking for something a little more unusual. I even tried the place in Covent Garden that only lets a limited number of people in the shop at any one time and makes the frames specially for you (delivery takes up to 6 weeks, costs £300 for the frame which I wanted and can't be paid for in installments). I finally found a place with an old fashioned style - leather seats and consultation booths but carrying quite an unusual range. The new purchase may help me get over the trauma of snapping my old pair. The lady in the opticians thought I had a very good eye. Suits you!

It has been one of those days when I felt like I was bunking off work. I enjoyed it greatly but felt guilty - like I should have been somewhere else...back to work tomorrow though.

Ofsted

We've just finished an intense week being inspected. That concludes an intense four week preparation period. Lots of long working days. And that's the end of an intense couple of years of work. We stayed in a pub b&b walking distance from work. Great for getting in early to be ready for them first thing in the morning. Bad because it was really only b [bed] and no b [breakfast] and the local cafes didn't open until I had already arrived at work. We checked in on Sunday, in the preparation to get there I snapped my glasses in half at the nose bridge. Not sure if they will be repairable. My favourite glasses. Then the first morning my hair clip snapped and not being at home I didn't have a replacement. On the second morning I dropped the other clip down the sink and had to unbend a coat hanger to rescue it. I forgot to take any pjs. Despite all these mini disasters people said I exuded calm all week (in total opposition to the nervous anxiety raging through me) which is seemingly a good trait in the link person on an inspection.

Mousecapades II... The Return

In the fight against the mouse mice I borrowed these humane traps from Pops, being a vegetarian and all, I didn't really want to kill them, just get them out of the house. I forgot though that once you catch something you have to get rid of it.

One of the traps had been under the cupboard under the sink for weeks and hadn't caught a thing. Suddenly one evening, really late, I heard  mad scrabbling and just knew a mouse was caught. The trap was shut when I got it out from under the cuboard. I had to shake it to be sure there was actually a mouse inside (they are very light) and still wasn't certain until I opened the flap slightly and saw its horrible hairless tail. So then where to get rid of it.... took a trip to the local park at 2am and dumped the mouse out. The trouble with this is that a) it isn't a neighbourly thing to do, and b) someone told me that they have a very good sense of smell and homing instinct and you have to take them at least 2 miles to get them lost. So the following day when I caught another one in the same trap it may be a second mouse or  it may just have been the same mouse returned home again and foolish enough to go in the trap again. I had to take this one to the park at 3pm. Not as easy to dump a mouse in broad daylight. I'm thinking traps that kill them might be better next time.

Anyway its four down so far...

Mousecapades

I thought the mouse problem that arouse just after Christmas had gone away (no evidence of them for several weeks now) but when I came home today I stepped on something as I passed down the hall to switch off the alarm. I turned the light on and I found it was a mouse in the last thoes of life. And then it died. I have to say I felt really guilty. And then revolted because I had to sweep the corpse into a bag to dispose of. As I chucked it into the outside bin I found one of the neighbourhood stray cats sitting on my gas meter and I tried to make friends with her (I've been thinking a cat is the answer for a while) but she was having none of it.

Night at the Museum

Late opening at the Natural History Museum. Always an atmospheric place, only more so in the evening with the light low.



The place was heaving with adults - dining all around the diplodocus in the main hall and an excitable hubbub in the makeshift bars. The dinosaur exhibition was quiet (unlike during normal opening hours when it is frequently too crowded to see anything). Palaeontology has moved on considerably since I was in primary school (when I, like most people, loved dinosaurs). The names and species have changed massively - there used to only be about 3 - T-Rex, stegosaurus, brontosaurus and pterodactyl (which I learned was not a dinosaur because it flew rather than walked on the land). We had to go back to the T-Rex exhibition when they had managed to turn the air back on to get him moving again (something about someone not reprogramming for the evening opening).

On the way home I waited for the bus at Euston. A very drunk white haired woman was sitting in the bus stop. On seeing a man crossing the station she shouted loudly (I was quite surprised), "have you got a big cock? Cos you've got a big arse". The other passengers waiting were shocked. The man didn't hear her. Everyone else tried to ignore her.

David Hockney at the Royal Academy

Got tickets in advance for the Hockney. I was quite excited to go. Apart from the fact that the Royal Academy is a horrible gallery to visit (too many people of a particular sort).

The galleries were packed - it was like trying to look at art in a crowded Friday night bar. The pictures are, in the main, huge and to see them properly you need to be able to be a distance away from them. Not possible in the crowd. Timed entry - at 3pm all of us entering then are crammed into the first room - couples, families, people in from the burbs, tourists, buggies, toddlers, arty oddballs, arty ordinaries etc. The pictures are the four seasons view of a group of three trees. Winter and summer are my favourite. Then led into a small retrospective of pictures that are very familiar from the 50s, 60s that were in a book that my mum had. And one huge grand canyon picture. A mixture of styles - some very flat with words, some very colourful. In the body of work from Yorkshire I liked the collection of oil and water colours. Sometimes the themes felt over-worked - it became a little formulaic. The huge paintings that are being used to advertise the exhibition are impressive only in scale and are somehow too composed, seem rushed and lacking in emotion. A bit too much like wallpaper. iPad drawings blown up were interesting while being varied in quality. Film work - liked the films of the landscapes in the paintings but not so much the dancing in the studio (not developed enough - I felt the idea could have gone further). Perhaps the abundance of similar composition and mass of paintings detracted from the ideas. I might have preferred greater selection. I also couldn't get over the crowds. It was claustrophobic.

Emmanuel Cooper

Emmanuel Cooper, ceramicist, died

Opened the Ceramic Review and found that Emmanuel Cooper had died on 21 January. He taught on the ceramics course at Middlesex University when I was there. He was a memorable character with his white handlebar moustache and clogs, and his writings on eroticism in art. I am interested in his work because of its excitingly textured glazes and deceptively simple forms. His prominence in books on ceramics and glazes says everything about his importance in the field.

Bruce Castle Park

So after the excitement of watching the snow falling last night got up early and headed over the park (after scaping the snow and ice off the pavement outside my house - friends in Wisconsin would be proud of me). It was beautiful.





The snow was perfect for making snowballs and building snowmen. There were lots and many of them were huge.




(If you look closely the last one is actually a snowlady - two early teens made a couple of additions to a not-quite-finished snowman).

Snowing

It's snowing. And settling. We're cloaked. It's the third year in a row we've had snow like this.



It's night but the whiteness of the sky and the ground make it very light.

Big Chill

Big Chill

The big freeze is here - a dry cold like it is in Wisconsin in the winter. There has been blue sky, biting wind, intermittent ice on the road where there's a leak or spillage. Today the sky is white - threatening snow. Ground is frozen and solid. All the bird baths frozen solid. The type of cold that reminds you how delicate the inside of your nose is and cracks your lips. The plants in the garden are gaunt. The grass has frozen. My red camilla blooms are turning brown.

January Blues

January time is nearly over - thank god. I hate January. It's always like this - gloomy and miserable. Everyone is having to recover from the excesses of the winter holiday  - they don't have any money and they aren't up to anything exciting. 

Add to that the Olympics fever is up another notch - its like the count down to Christmas now but with added warnings of worst ever commuting nightmares.  I was sort of hoping to go to David Hockney exhibition  - there would be some colourful antidote to the January blues but it's sold out which means it will be heaving with all those royal academy sorts that make seeing an exhibition rather frustrating. And I don't really want to queue for ages in the cold on the day. 

I'm watching that Danish political drama called Borgen but can't decide if it's any good or if it's the subtitles and foreign language that make it seem that way. Some of the "clever" solutions to political problems seem a  bit too straightforward. Still it fits I. With the general interest in Scandinavian literature and film. And her husband hasn't started an affair yet even though I thought they laid the seeds in the first episode. 

Last year we had snow which seems to help us get through - the brightness and cloaking makes the light different for a while. Perhaps in February we'll have a change.

OMG Something gross happened at the supermarket

In the prologue of this post I am going to fess up to having a mouse problem at home (this makes me feel itchy, repulsed, afraid to venture forth into the kitchen without first switching the lights on for five minutes ahead of going in). The fact that there is, apparently, an epidemic of mouse infestations brings no comfort. My multiple-pronged defence includes poison bate stations (even though the smell of dead rodent can be pungent and they usually end up under the floorboards out of reach), electronic traps that seal and kill once a mouse is trapped, humane traps and a clearly rubbish sonic deterrent. There was an article about this in the Guardian money section last weekend about this very issue.

Anyway. Today I got up early to go to the supermarket before going to Pop's for brunch. Grabbed the shopping bags, stashed them in my bag and headed off. Shopped. Got to the check out. Got one bag out and started packing groceries. Needed the other bag - got it out and unfolded it. This launched a dead mouse out of the folds onto the supermarket floor. Argh gross, I winced. Looked up and caught the eye of an amused bystanding customer. Became extremely embarrassed. Whispered to the checkout man that there was a dead mouse on the floor. He was repulsed but covered it with a plastic bag and dragged it out of the way. I very quickly threw all my remaining stuff into the bag and ran out of the store. I might not be able to go there anymore. I chucked out the mouse bag. And secretly hope that was the only mouse, however unlikely that is. Mortified!

Arrest

At the junction of Green Lanes and the road from Sainsburies, McDonalds and Harringay Shopping Arena a police van has cornered an estate car and the officers are arresting the driver and passengers. Causing a traffic blockage. All the last minute people from a variety of shops are witness. After it all seems to be under control one of the detainees makes a break for it running towards the arena car park (which is raised up above street level). Two of the officers take chase. Dodging between cars at the stop lights. One slips and rolls between two stationery cars. Shit. A few assembled pedestrian witnesses titter. He gets up and follows up to the car park where the first officer has the escapee trapped on the edge of the carpark barrier holding him by the clothes to stop him leaping off into the throng below. Together the officers bend him inhalf over the barrier, head down on one side. Two more vans arrive to transport the prisoners. The one bent over struggles with the detaining officer to bring his head back up. They wait there, straining against one another bodies crossed over the barrier. Sunday drama.

New years day

The street is quiet where normally there would be bustle. It's the universal day of hangover. A hush has descended, no sharp noises, late rising. On the top deck of the bus a crowd of italian crusties are coming home from a rave of some sort - stink of stale beer, sleeping, muddy shoes and trouser bottoms. Some are still drinking. I remember the feeling of coming home in the morning - the excitement of the night died as the first grey glimmer of morning crept in. The stark reality of venue, companions, tiredness rises up to meet you. Travelling home you feel dirty and over-dressed for the daytime. Try not to catch the eye of the ladies going to church. Good times but I don't miss them or the lost day-after. 

Happy 2012.

The Dead Time After Christmas Before New Year

So the family have headed back up the freezing north (Dundee) - sis, her hubby and kids (7 and 9), and dog. Its quiet. Too quiet. No more uproar and hubbub. Other people seem to have hit the shops for the sales. I can't quite bring myself to go shopping again so soon after christmas. Slightly loathe to leave the house, unless its for a walk. When's the soonest you can take down the decorations?



I was cooking for 10 this christmas - turkey, plus all the trimmings. I have Ottenlenghi to thank for the most successful dishes of the day (brussel sprouts that I can actually eat and a carrot dish based on his one for roasted squash and onions).

Yotam Ottolenghi's Brussels sprouts with caramelised garlic and lemon peel recipe
I don't like brussel sprouts at all. However I eat these willingly - its a revelation that they can be enhanced and enlivened with additional flavours and not boiled to oblivion.

A couple of elements in this Christmassy dish will come in handy elsewhere. Caramelised garlic makes a lovely condiment to lentils or roast veg, while candied lemon makes a great garnish for creamy desserts or leafy salads. I always pan-fry sprouts – it retains texture and enhances flavour. Serves four.
4 heads garlic, cloves separated and peeled
About 150ml olive oil
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
50g caster sugar
90ml water
Salt and black pepper
1 medium lemon
600g brussels sprouts
1 red chilli, finely chopped
50g parmesan shavings
20g basil leaves, shredded

I do these two parts the day before christmas:

• Put the garlic in a pan, cover with water and blanch for three minutes. Drain, dry the pan, and pour in two tablespoons of oil. Return the garlic to the pan and fry on high heat for two minutes, stirring, until golden all over. Add the vinegar, a tablespoon of sugar, the water and some salt. Bring to a boil and simmer on medium heat for five minutes, until barely any liquid is left, just the caramelised cloves in a syrup. Set aside.
• Use a vegetable peeler to shave off wide strips of lemon skin; avoid the white pith. Cut the strips into 1mm-2mm thick slices, or julienne, and put in a small pan. Squeeze the lemon into a measuring jug and add water to bring the juice up to 100ml. Pour over the strips of peel, add the remaining sugar and bring to a simmer. Cook for 12-15 minutes, until the syrup is reduced to about a third. Set aside to cool down.

This I do on the day in a wok (i.e. all at once tossing throughout so that all sprouts get charred).

• Trim the bases off the sprouts and cut them top to bottom into halves. Heat four tablespoons of oil in a large, heavy-based pan, add half the sprouts, season and cook on high heat for five minutes, stirring them once or twice, but not too often, so that they char well without breaking up; add extra oil if needed. They will soften but retain some firmness. Transfer to a bowl and repeat with the remaining oil and sprouts.
• Stir the chilli, the garlic and its syrup into the sprouts, and set aside until warmish. 
• Stir in the parmesan, basil and peel (without the syrup), season and add oil if necessary. Serve as it is or at room temperature.

Biggest hit of the day was this:

Yotam Ottolenghi's roast butternut squash carrot and red onion with tahini and za'atar
If you want a vegetarian dish to make an impact on the christmas table, this does the job – it looks great and has really complex flavours. Serves four.

1 large butternut squash (around 1.1kg), cut into 2cm x 6cm wedges (I used carrots instead of squash not wanting to faff around with skinning it - chopped them into mouthful sized pieces but they didn't need peeling - they still have the same fab orange colour)
2 red onions, cut into 3cm wedges
50ml olive oil
Maldon sea salt and black pepper
3½ tbsp tahini paste
1½ tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp water
1 small garlic clove, crushed
30g pine nuts
1 tbsp za'atar (this is a middle-eastern spice mixture made up mostly of sumac with thyme, oregano, marjoram and roasted sesame seeds - I couldn't find any so used the spices separately - largest proportion of sumac, some thyme, oregano and majoram, didn't have any sesame seeds so left them out).
1 tbsp roughly chopped parsley (I replaced this with coriander)

• Heat the oven to to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Put the squash and onions in a large bowl, add three tablespoons of oil, a teaspoon of salt and some black pepper, and toss well. Spread, skin down, on a baking sheet and roast for 40 minutes until the vegetables have taken on some colour and are cooked through. Keep an eye on the onions: they may cook faster than the squash, so may need to be removed earlier. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

• Put the tahini in a small bowl with the lemon juice, water, garlic and a quarter-teaspoon of salt. Whisk to the consistency of honey, adding more water or tahini as necessary.

• Pour the remaining oil into a small frying pan on a medium-low heat. Add the pine nuts and half a teaspoon of salt, cook for two minutes, stirring, until the nuts are golden brown, then tip the nuts and oil into a small bowl.

• To serve, spread the vegetables on a platter and drizzle over the sauce. Scatter the pine nuts and oil on top, followed by the za'atar and parsley.

After dinner we had a few games - someone brought a pack of PIT so that the kids could join in. However they didn't - the game was so fast and furious that the dog was growling and they were cowering next door watching TV and trying to ignore the adults. Brilliant game. And I won...

Now that it is over and everyone has gone home it seems extremely quiet in the house. Just me and the mouse that seems to have taken up residence in the living room (there will be traps, and use of wire wool to fill the gaps...)

Calendars for Christmas

I've been on a spurt of calendar making for Christmas presents - Jessops have been offering them for half price. In the last package I received the three I ordered plus one errant one of a woman who loves the outdoors, the rich outdoors - camping (thick sleeping bag), yachting (with the parents, at a guess), below deck, in the choppy sea, mountain biking in the alps, with the golden Labrador on the beach. Who is this dark haired active woman? Will she be waiting in anticipation of the calendar that doesn't come. Or has Jessops printed a second one and posted it to the correct address? I'm saddened that the calendar won't reach it's intended recipient in time for Christmas. It might get there for the new year if I send it back to Jessops this week.

Christmas time on the tube

Platform announcer at Victoria station wishes us a very merry Christmas in a rasta drawl - five deep in the platform due to delays he thanks us for being chill and extremely patient.

At Highbury and Islington the announcer sounds exactly how Leonard Cohen would sound if he had the job. A deep almost inaudible hum of a voice next train in six minutes, stand behind the yellow line...

White Coach and Horses



So clearly the latest must-have vehicle for arriving to your wedding (judging by those parked outside Platins Photographers in Green Lanes, Harringay) has moved on from the white stretch Hummer to white carriages drawn by two white horses with ostrich plumage on their heads driven by two coachmen in top hats and Victorian caped coats. Last week there was a replica of Cinderella's glass pumpkin coach. This week's was a carriage with a white leather hood. The ladies emerge from the photographers into the December chill night wearing acres of diaphonous nylon silk - sleeveless with flounces, frills and bows - white for the bride and red or bright pink for the bridesmaids (usually groups of four or six adult ones and any number of toddling ones) and towering strappy diamonte-encrusted sandals. Not a coat between them - just the pancake makeup and hairpieces to protect them from the cold. The men of these parties look decidedly bland by comparison in ordinary black lounge suits. Not even  a frilled shirt or cummerbund. The carriages attract large groups of onlookers photographing, talking to the coachmen and stroking the horses.

I wonder if the vehicle hire company also provide the black horse-drawn hearses for traditional funerals.

Known

A familiar voice - deep female - said excuse me as she passed me on the escalator. A woman with brown hair and an expensive sheepskin coat walked down past me. It was Amanada Donohoe. We got on the tube - she was in the next door carriage, visible through the glass partitions. She sat slightly sideways with her hand partially obscuring her face and nobody noticed her.

Stories

The girl says to her Spanish boyfriend, She's quite selective about her novels. She won't read anything trashy or stuff that isn't her sort of story.

What's her kind of story I wonder. I'm not sure I have a kind of story. I'll read all sorts of things. My mother liked stories about lives (fictional diaries and letters, stories of coming through struggles and families). I have her collection of women-authored novels. Many with the dark green spines of Virago Press. I like detective novels - started young when Pops used to read me Josephine Tey novels standing on a chair beside the bunk bed (surprisingly he would fall asleep mid-sentence quite often and have to be coaxed awake and prompted as to where he trailed off. We didn't like Agatha Christie to read though, preferred it on the screen. I'm currently reading Scandinavian crime fiction. I'll read almost anything else though - historic, prehistoric, things my mother would like, thriller, modern, contemporary, American, sci-fi, translations, graphic. Don't generally do chick lit or Mills and Boon.  I like getting recommendations but don't always agree that I like them. Good writing or a gripping read is the key. I've only stopped in the middle of two novels - American Psycho and The Dirty Havana Trilogy. Too violent, and too much sex with sour milk, respectively. I did manage to finish On The Road though, which I found excruciatingly boring. What kind is your story?

How come?

Hair generally seems to grow downwards (unless very short or unruly) - head hair being the main example except for cow licked or particularly thickly stranded, leg hair, arm hair, eyebrows (apart from the wild unruly variety sported by occasional older gentlemen), even the unmentionable pubes. So standing squashed between two tall hairy men on the tube this afternoon  I was surprised to realise that chest hair (based on my unscientific survey of two white middle-aged males) grows upwards. Why is this? And how come I've only just noticed this now? I'm normally quite observant!

Tomb of the lost craftsman

Grayson Perry exhibition at the British Museum. Absolutely impossible to get in without buying a ticket in advance (I rolled up late one Saturday expecting to be able to get in and couldn't) - so we had friday evening after work tickets. The covered atrium's lighting was low and gave a calming atmosphere good for reverence - excellence on the eyes after a day in harsh strip lighting.

The exhibition had Grayson Perry's pots and other ceramic work displayed with objects from the British Museum that inspired/influenced him. I had not been aware of his work in other media and forms than the large pots. Weird and wonderful objects both modern and ancient - a good earring hanging off a dried earlobe, flag made by a ghanian tribe featuring two White men decapitated by two tribesmen, oil jar in the shape of men's genitals amongst an eclectic mix of other things.

Afterwards we had a drink in the restaurant high up near the roof of the atrium. Coming down later watched mice race round the floor near the cafe area.

Movember

(Moustache growing month for men's health awareness particularly prostate cancer)
There is quite a bit of this going on at work. Started off with those shadows appearing on colleagues faces. The stage where it looks more like slovenliness than any purposeful endeavour. This lasts longer than you'd think. Then when the five o'clock shadow has developed into something more whiskery the sculpting can begin. This year there is a much greater focus on the dropped handlebar variety than a mere bit of top lip hair. Now, three weeks in they are starting to really thicken up. Channelling the 1970s. Proper big dark long haired moustaches. No pencil lines, no stubbly affairs. Rather ageing on the whole, but worthy.

Alice

Interviewing olympic volunteers next candidate was called Alice - out of all those waiting he picked out a woman with bright blond hair and guessed her to be the one. And it was. I have known one Alice and she too had bright blond hair (long, straight) and pink national health glasses, often worn with a patch over her lazy eye. Maybe we have to thank Lewis Carroll for this stereotype.

Remember Remember




Tottenham folks love fireworks - especially displays set off in their backyards (or occassionally front gardens, and even more occassionally across the street aimed at the buses going past) - all around the pop, crack and fizz of fireworks whizzzing into the sky through the misty drizzle. The supermarket was doing a brisk trade on their fireworks counter when I was in there at 4pm today. I've been leaning out the window craning my neck 180 degrees. I haven't been to an organised event in a while. Last time I couldn't get anywhere near, wasn't able to see round the corner of a building, and then got caught up in a crush trying to get away again afterwards.

Parents

Fat bottomed man in white chinos and a navy linen double vented jacket pushes the buggy while his bedraggled wife walks alongside. He is out of practice driving the buggy and gets caught on all obstacles along the the path - wheels trapped on a plastic bottle, jammed against the curb, tangled in a plastic bag. He looks uncomfortable and the buggy is unwieldy in his control. "He's off," he says proudly examining his son, "oh...no he isn't," he says defeated. Parents with a screamingly tired baby refusing to sleep perhaps.

Ceramics class - 1st half term




Testing - rolling the damp clay in ball clay and then forming it by pressing out from the inside until the surface cracks. I'm trying to stretch it until it breaks through all the clay - to the point of destruction but not quite. Still trying to figure out how to use it. Also testing a technique of putting a thin strip of porcelain onto a stoneware body - the difference in shrinkage makes the porcelain crack in firing because it shrinks more than the stoneware. And a second wavy urn in black clay. Trying to get some pink on it but not too much - but would have liked a bit more than this. Black clay body is quite dramatic and strangely dry to work with.

Outside

Out of the office window in the near distance there are two men setting up scaffolding on the top of a building with a green dome topped by an elaborate weather vane. Scaffolding poles stick up all around it. The man below passes planks up to the man at the top - who almost looks to be walking on air.  Highlighted in sparkling sunshine against a dark grey sky that is showering. Behind our office there is probably a rainbow. 

4 Exhibitions

Tate Modern
Tacita Dean - Turbine Hall - film



Billed as a love letter to film - proper film as opposed to digital - clear, strong colours, unpixilated, able to be superimposed and sliced together. Large screen, space for people to lie down in front of it, which they did. Gathered people staring up at it - huge vertical screen. Darkened around to enable it to be seen better.

Gerhard Richter - retrospective
Crowded exhibition. I don't know why but I was amazed that he did both super-realistic paintings from photos and very abstract. Really like the 70s paint swatch painting (it reminded me of my old bathroom at my parent's house - Dad and I spent an afternoon papering it with paint swatches - it made for a very colourful two walls - great for staring at during a long soak). Also the huge canvases with thick layers which were pulled across the canvas - textured, colour contasting between layers.

Tate Britain
Barry Flanagan
Very quiet. Early Flanagan (pre-hare sculptures) - lots of use of formless material (canvas, sand, rope) - large columns made of canvas filled with sand to give them structure, sticks tied together - sticks and coloured fabric. Liked the colour of rope and sand against the parquet floor. Defying physics - canvas help up against the wall like a painting using sticks. Carving in stone that follows the seams in the rock - imagery that evokes the stylised pictues used by early humans.

Apocalypse - John Martin
While Barry Flanagan was empty and therefore easy to look properly, Apocalypse was packed. The underground poster was quite striking and made me want to see the exhibition. Poplular pictures, very commercial artist - he often painting several versions of the same picture and then made an etching for further sales. This exhibition showed multiples of the same image together. He cottoned on to an idea of slightly off-centre composition based in a circular or spiral shape, backgrounds were pale, foregrounds dark. Lots of drama. But the composition was all too similar and in the end I found it too commercial. Would have preferred to see only a couple rather than several rooms full. The quantity didn't increase the drama, instead making it seem repetative and formulaic.

Announcer

Tube train said 6 mins. Lady on station was muttering into her tannoy  but don't be sad there might be one sooner. Got on the walkie talkie to HQ who said one was coming in 2. 2 minutes ladies and gentlemen, don't know where it will be going though, might be high barnet, might be edgware, might be Majorca. I held onto that thought - what joy if Majorca lay at the end of the northern line. Could do with some sand, sea and sangria. 

Unusual journeys by tube

I don't know anywhere else  on the tube network where two trains swing alarmingly close together apart from southbound at finsbury park where Victoria line and piccadilly line trains leaving the station together provide a momentary coming together and view of fellow passengers following a different route.

Circle line minutes are more drawn out (ie longer) than Victoria line minutes. Is this because it goes through west London which has a more relaxed attitude than north London? 

Fewer suits on the hammersmith and city line than Victoria line or northern line and more likely to not be wearing a necktie. More arty women and men who look like computer geeks or college lecturers. Perhaps I've travelled The bank route for too long and have become overly used to the hard city banking fraternity. These are more my people - more art school and less uptight highly strung.

Indian Summer

Warm wind blows hot air through trees with browning leaves. Conker shells strew the pavements. They've stripped the road surface ready for new Tarmac and that tary smell hangs in the air. Sit in the garden after work until the biting insects get too bad. It's dark by 7.20. A bat swoops silently looping the loop.

Stinky socks

If your socks or trainers are too smelly to keep inside the room, and therefore must be aired on the windowsill, isn't it time to either a) wash them, or b) chuck them out and get a new pair?

Open House 2011

On the way home from work, if I catch a bus outside Liverpool Street up Kingsland Road, just before passing Shoreditch Church there are two tube carriages high up on top of a building. Never have known what they were used for or how they got there. This Open House they were open for viewing.




Up a steep wet spiral staircase is a set of studios set up on a rooftop - 4 old tube carriages are sited up there - two on top of lower structures. They cost the collective £50 each. Outside they are decorated. Inside they are simple spaces divided up into desk spaces used by graffic designers, music makers and craft people. The carriages are those old ones with wooden slatted floors and handles to dangle off which are no longer on tube trains. The view looks out over the buildings towards Liverpool Street and the east. Large sky, large urbanscape. A view and space that I would find quite motivating for working in.

Autumn

Spiders working overtime making webs stringing across the entire garden and lying in wait for woozy wasps to get tangled. Biting beasties are lurking in the long grass and attack whenever I walk past (six bites on ankles today). Conkers are falling - haven't seen any but the shells are scattered under all chestnut trees. Inbetween weather - never sure how to dress - need a jacket on the way to work but by the afternoon its too hot. Evenings draw in.

Citizen H

Yesterday discovered there was a meeting of the Tottenham and Seven Sisters area forum - an off chance look at Haringey's website. The meeting was to talk about the recent disturbances. 

Meeting was supposed to start at 6.30. Most of the people there were regular attendees chatting in groups, or local elected members. A small spattering of residents. 

Managing a consulting with the public meeting:

1. Advertise your meeting widely in advance
2. Signpost properly at the venue
3. Provide at least minimal refreshment (some water)
4. Start on time and keep to the agenda (this meeting started at 6.39 and by the time it was supposed to have finished it was only on the second agenda item)
5. If you say five minutes for intro, stick to it
6. Try to make the discussion questions manageable in the timeframe
7. Set the context within which the discussion must be held first - talk about resources, cuts, political climate - the discussion may then come from a position of realism 

I was disappointed that the discussions didn't get deep enough into practical solutions or thought enough about building the future - either realistically or fantastically - a good facilitator could have generated a better discussion from our table, and judging by the feedback from other tables, from other groups as well. It all was a little too much like work, not fun enough for leisure time.

Tube travel

The man opposite is 60 wearing cargo pants and two handfuls of unsubtle silver rings - claws holding an ace of spades, cows head with horns and others that might come from a heavy metal jewellers in Camden lock. He's got some kind of African ceremonial stick with a skull on top. People can't stop staring at him. He stares at his hands from under the wide brim of his hat. After his distraction gets off I'm staring at   alabaster legs with two ruddy ovals at the top. They belong to a smartly dressed woman with matching jade necklace and earrings. Looking closer it's holes in both knees of her tights. Each knee is ruddy. She must have fallen. The holes look even though, almost like they were done deliberately. Perhaps her knees get hot and when she is standing the holes are under her skirt. 

Hippy Woodgreen

There's a man with dredlocks twirling a light baton and dancing badly outside the cinema - the kind of thing that would look impressive on the beach in Ibiza when you've been up all night dancing and are coming home bleary-eyed but doesn't look quite so good in a dreary high street.

The Lurk of the Spider

Its that time of year again, having evicted many many spiders from the house one comes running across the floor at great speed, sensing me it creeps off into a corner, finds it way round the back of something and out into the light again, waiting, waiting, then running. Running over to the skirting board under the window. And he's gone. Gone for the time being. Ready to scare me later when I've forgotten he's gone under there.

Union Point Demolition (what I knew as the carpet shop)

Today they started to knock this landmark down. I don't expect we will get a comparable building when they put something else on the site. A small group of people from the community stood and watched. People came and saw and drifted off, replaced by other people. Couples walking their dogs. Father and son. Subdued atmosphere. Several media companies there, doing talking heads in front of the demolition.

Evening aftermath

Getting off the train at Bruce Grove, walk through a corridor in the cordon through some business' back gate, following a group of people talking about the looting across other areas - they think its stupid reporting when the youths are just breaking windows.

Through the park, a man is standing on one of the man-made humps flying a homemade kite. He manages to let the line out and out and out until its high high in the sky - over the gardens of houses about a short block away. Rippling sound of the fabric it is made of and the whoosing as it twists and turns in the sky making huge diving figures of 8. Someone behind me says to him the last time he saw a man fly a kite was in the Caribbean, at Eastertime. The kite flying man agrees - its good weather for it. Then his concentration is lost and he lets go of the line, the handle on the end of the line is dragged off, out of the park and over the wall of someone's garden. The kite is flying itself, higher and higher. The man and another chase after it, trying to call to the owner of the garden in case they can climb over and salvage it. As I go round the corner they are climbing onto the garage of the end of the terrace in an attempt to grab the middle of the line. Can't believe it hasn't crashed to the earth yet.

Round the corner a very drunk Pole is sitting on the ground with a half drunk pint of Guinness and a keg of guiness with homemade straw/pump contraption sticking out of the top.

I turn onto my road away from the rest of the walking neighbourhood. Must have been like this before regular public transport. When I get home the news is showing helicopter footage of a fire in a building next to Gregs - it looks like Rye Lane to me but the newsreader doesn't know where it is. There is nothing anywhere near - no buses, no fire engines, no bystanders. Nothing. Just a house and business on fire, unattended. Close the door and lock up behind me. The outside world still feels a little unstable.

Tottenham is Burning

On the way home at 5.00pm the bus was turned around when it came upon a protest outside the police station on Tottenham High Road. Later on the news the protest didn't come to the expected end and had escalated into something much more violent and destructive. Glued to the news the pictures were shocking - cars burning, riot police, burning buildings, youths throwing fireworks, petrol bombs and bricks. Choppers circling overhead persistently all night long.




In the morning it transpired that the rioting had reached much closer to home - completely destroying the carpet shop that acts as the landmark for Lansdowne Road. Walked down to have a look at the destruction for myself. Community members were shocked at the scenes. Horrified at the level of violence and destruction. One man said he lived in the flats over the carpet shop - someone had rung him and told him he shouldn't stay in too long (at 2am) because it was coming that way and they were burning things. He went out for a walk and half an hour later the place was completely engulfed. Further up the road it was possible to see some of the burned out cars and debris strewn across the street, further burned out buildings and broken windows. At the other end of the high road the media frenzy was in full swing with anyone who fancied being on TV hanging on the shoulders of journalists, or giving interviews. Nearby an icecream van had rolled up and was doing some swift business.

Hate the fact that the only time tottenham gets in the news is in these negative terms. Having come to live here 4 years ago I was suprised at the historic nature of a good portion of the buildings. If the Council had worked thoughtfully there could have been some building  here that  enhanced the historic while updating the neighbourhood. The regeneration was only half done - new shopfronts for some had created a uniform look to some of the stores. Many in the street were feeling the area has been put back 20 years. Time will tell.

Georgian London

Evening

After the sweltering heat of the unairconditioned office and a stifling journey home by tube, it is bliss to sit in the garden, following a long bathe, in loose unconstructed clothing reading as the light fades until unable to see the words on the page any longer. Visited by a couple of neighbourhood cats - the barely grown kitten who has already had her own litter and a stray tom. The air cooling considerably, prospect of a more comfortable night's sleep. Eating a red grapefruit sour enough to make the mouth go OO. Finally the flittering flight of the pipistrelle eating gnats overhead. Time to go in.

Good day for the beach

Halfway to the station it became apparent that the lady in the straw hat, big bag of beach things and an excited toddler was in a group that filled half the bus. A cacophony of bright shorts, designer sunglasses, vest tops and playsuits, bead necklaces, coolers and hampers.  Well provisioned, turned out for a fashion-mag day at the beach. Wished I was going.

Morning terrors

Blood curdling screams from next door made my hair stand on end. Thoughts of some terrible tragedy befalling family members went through my head. Then shouting at the dog. Dog came out into the garden making weird snuffling noises. Somehow he had killed a fox and was carrying it round. 

Later they have cleared away the evidence but the dog is excitable barking at phantoms. 

What to do on the holidays (time permitting)

Its a week, these are on the to do list:

•  remove carpet from spare room (methodology - cutting away sections from to get it from under the furniture)
• re-arrange spare room - setting up drawing table, planchests and sofabed
• remove stair and hall carpet
• sand woodwork in hall (bannisters, balastrades, skirting boards, parts of stairs that require painting)
• paint above mentioned woodwork (paint is already purchased)
• finish jacket that is half made (front facings, closures, pockets)
• finish waterproof coat that is a third made (second sleeve, pockets, collar, front facings, lining)
• go to the movies with Pops to watch The Tree of Life
• find a builder to build me a front wall, and possibly same one or a different one to paint the windows and ledges on the outside of hte house, put a downpipe from the guttering on one corner of the house

Alternatively if the weather continues nice, I might just squander it lying in the sunshine in the garden reading books...

Here's Looking At You

A morning, like any morning. Get up, get dressed, open the kitchen door, eat cereal walking around the garden, clean glasses with washing up liquid, put on coat, leave the house. Bus journey, 10 minutes to tube station. Bus is crowded with people going to work and parents taking kids to pre-school, students going to college. Get off the bus and walk, with the crowd of people to the tube, stopping to wait for the lights to change crammed onto the edge of the pavement, then the first island and finally the last island. Rushing collectively to the entrance, down the steps, along the tunnel, through the gates, onto the escalator, more tunnels, down the steps onto the platform. Crowded, lots of people waiting for the Victoria line. Stand slightly over half way along, as usual, just past the train indicator. Reread the meerkat advert again. Get on the train. Standing room only. Open my book. Middle aged man opposite smiles at me. I look away. Highbury and Islington, getting off the train, he looks me in the eye and scrapes an imaginary something from his chin. This was an indication I realise. I had something on my chin. I reach up and scratch. He indicates a bit more. That's better, he says. I get off, cross the platform to change lines. Mortified. I had come so far, with an Alpen oatflake stuck to my chin. Fear I'm turning into one of those sad cases with holes in their jumpers and egg stains on their shirt fronts. Must get a mirror in the hall.

Ceramics Class




Its been a term of testing things out - black clay (gritty, a bit like building with brownie mix, but interesting colour), lots of glaze testing (particularly the glazes I don't use normally). Raku firing at this time of year as usual.

All the embarrassing things that have ever happened to me

Well maybe not quite all, but certainly a pertinent few:

1. Donning my brand new double buckled patent faux snakeskin pointy toed boots, I left the house feeling hot to trot. coming down the escalator at Manor House station, toe got stuck at the bottom and I fell landing face down splayed out in the hall at the bottom wishing the earth to swallow me up while fellow passengers walked around me.


2. Walked down the main street from our holiday cottage in Padstow towards the beach with my long skirt tucked into my knickers. It was a hot day with no breeze and clearly couldn't tell. When I was almost there an old lady stopped me and let me know.


3. Shaking hands to greet a man who came for a meeting at work I was shocked at their glacial temperature, almost involuntarily I said, "oh, cold hands", "but warm heart," was his retort. When I came back from the meeting I was greeted by a chorus of Ooo matron and blushed bright red realising how our initial exchange clearly sounded.

Cinders Won't Be Going to the Ball

The promise of more tickets to the Olympics gave the glimmer of hope that perhaps still there was a chance to be there. So before work yesteday logged onto the site to find something. Ridiculously, they hadn't removed all the sold out events, so you had to trawl through all the pages of no availability to find where the gaps were. No athletics. No swimming. No gymastics. No cycling. No table tennis. No basketball. No fencing. No anything that I really wanted to watch. Thought about things that I wouldn't mind to go and see just to be in the stadiums. Boxing (don't even really agree with this as a sport), but you would have to pay £75, or £95 per ticket and I didn't really want to go alone, so would have to buy 2. And it was at the Excel Centre. Not really in the Olympic park, not a new building, not a sport I really want to watch, why would I want to spend that kind of dough? Weight lifting? Not really. Wrestling? No. Did manage to get a set of tickets at Wembley for my sis and her family to watch football, but since she didn't want to pay top dollar either it had to be women's football (apologies for being disparaging about women's football).

And they said that in this round you were actually buying tickets not being in a lottery - it was first come first served. Suprised then, that at the end of the payment it said we will let you know in a weeks time if your application has been successful.

It really has been a mega shambles and makes me want to boycott the whole event. The news yesterday said only 7% of London families had any tickets. No suprise then that I don't know a single person who has been successful in securing tickets. I only know of people through other people who have been lucky. Also that for some of the most popular events only 55% of the tickets were even available. They should have given less to corporate sponsorship and sold them to the public since the public is clearly keen to attend.

So now, at the end of the ticket thing, Londoners will have to cope with the huge influx of tourists, transport crush, hoopla and in your face advertising and not be involved at all. Perhaps we should  leave the country during that time instead and take our money to somewhere its wanted - you can watch the olympics on tv from almost anywhere afterall.

Exercising in the park

A Bassett hound stands wagging his tail while watching a weird hippy man do yoga on a brown rug on the path. Strange jerky warm up exercises that the dog seems to be comtemplating joining in with until his owner encourages him to come away and join the Yorkshire terrier. The yorkie is rolling on the grass with his legs in the air. In the distance hippy man is rolling, while tucked into a ball, from one side to the other and then moves into upward and downward dog, followed by a shoulder stand. The dogs have left the vicinity. Weird hippy man is just getting sideways glances from passing office workers.

Lost Poster Cambridge

Peaceful and genteel. Full of brainy students and bicycles. Someone had posted lost posters on the lamp posts of my route to the Sainsbury Laboratory's Artist Launch (new building with artist's work integral to the design). Three hundred pound reward (in my neighbourhood a reward is seldom offered, and never more than £100). On closer inspection the lost item was neither a beloved cat or dog but a beloved fountain pen. £300 reward for a pen! Must have been expensive with great sentimental value.

Kings Cross is a filthy animal

Sitting in the window of Starbucks on the button corner of Pentonville Road. The streets are not littered as they once were but Kings Cross struggles to overcome it's grubby reputation. Over the road the once lovely lighthouse building is falling down. The lighthouse itself has lost some balustrades and is in danger of loosing it's roof, but it has gained some grafitti. The rest of the building has fallen into derelict disrepair - dirt clinging to intricate windows of the upper stories. Buddleia, beloved of butterflies, sprouting out of the fencing. On the second floor two pairs of pigeons copulate on the window sills. Ground floor has been neglected for many years and now the building has been declared unsafe. A succession of small independent traders, including Mole Jazz, resided in the dirt afflicted premises. The massive regeneration hasn't quite reached this block yet. No doubt it will be torn down and replaced by something in steel and glass despite the current building's underlying charm.

Tickets/No Tickets/Tickets/No Tickets

So, remember when they announced the Olympics were going to be in London? (the day before 7/7 which overshadowed the moment of euphoria the previous day). The moment it was announced I wanted tickets. As a family we always watch the Olympics. To have them in our home town, too good an opportunity to miss. Other people were unhappy we got the Olympics because of the expense. We started paying for the games in our Council tax. People complained. The expense, they don't like sports anyhow. I secretly still wanted to get tickets. The building works began. Upgrades to the public transport network. Commuter hell. People complained.

Anyway, the tickets went on sale, sorry, into a lottery. I applied for two tickets to three events. I picked evening events (don't know what will be happening at work in a year's time), men's 100m final, men's individual gymnastics, 200m freestyle women's swimming. Someone told me you have no chance with great glee. Have to be in it to win it, I thought. Pops and sis also applied for tickets - daytime, not main finals events (one senior, two adults and two children). Friends applied for a variety of events, for a whole heap of reasons.

Nobody I know has won any tickets. My disappointment is vast. How can nobody I know get anything and one person get £11,000 worth of tickets? Since we are paying for it, we should get a ticket. Too many tickets given to corporations for schmoozing their clients. Its not fair. I feel aggrieved.