Happy New Year (and its almost a twelfth over)

I've been missing. Guilty. Two readers have now mentioned it to me. Sometimes I'm feeling like I have nothing to say, or nothing that can be said, or something. And the phone version of blogger going missing isn't helping me.

I have had a cold for what seems like three months, it comes and goes and resurfaces when I'm just about feeling better, and a back ache that the physiotherapist decided was the pelvis bone rubbing, which was on the left hand side and over the weekend jumped to the right with all the excruciating initial pain it had.

We got a new kitten to keep our remaining cat company - I think they get on - they spend most of their time in the same space but older cat seems to get annoyed with younger cat's playful antics (she doesn't take kindly to be leapt on and straddled with a neck lock, every time she walks past him), and he can't seem to help himself. He is the Panther's cat really - came and sat on him when we went to choose and made the choosing easy. They have a special bromance going on which is a big surprise when the Panther used to be sort of allergic to cats. I keep threatening that its time to castrate him but can't quite bring myself to - scared of changing his personality - quite like the bravery and gusto that he attacks life with - climbing trees, carrying stuff around (last night it was incense sticks, paintbrushes and pens) and the fearlessness that found him mostly submerged in the bath this morning trying to keep his head up. He's a people cat which makes a mad change from our previous two - my sister still doesn't believe they existed since she hasn't seen them. And loves bubbles

We spent Christmas in Dundee, and new years in London revisiting friends we had not been in touch with for some time. And ate haggis for the first time ever (don't tell me what its made of, it just did taste delicious), nips and tatties to celebrate Burns night with a couple of Edinburgers. 

And on the back of that Sunday dinner were given a film tip to watch - French movie - Untouchable, which was excellent. Heart warming romp of a film, clash of cultures, based on a true story.

I'm currently wearing a pair of glasses with a missing arm which for a persistent glasses wearing is a bit unbalancing (I feel skew whiff in the worst possible way) so am off to see if the glasses shop will put a new screw in.

Leopold

Six years ago I got two cats from a litter of my friend’s aunt. To catch the mice we were having trouble eradicating (didn’t take them long to do the job). There was Philomena, and her brother Leopold. He was fluffy tabby and a little podgy when he was younger. Recently he suffered with anaemia, weight loss, overheating, dehydration and last week we had to have him put down. I feel guilty that we couldn’t keep him healthy. And we miss him.

Reading Murder Mysteries

So reading murder mysteries seems to make me notice the odder things in the daily commute - a woman who had her dress on inside out - labels on the outside, a woman with a beard, extra tall possible basketball player in lime green. Perhaps it’s time for some romantic fiction to change the mood.

Playing people tessellation on the tube

Crammed in

Pressed up against the last man in’s backpack. Two people force their way on behind me. Small woman who can’t stand still and fidgets in the curve of my back on the right. And a large older man who I feel trying to stifle chesty coughs through his barber jacket

At Paddington lots get off. Shuffle around. Sharing the pole with a pole hogging American who doesn’t seem to mind that her breast is pressed against my hand and her warm hand is cupping the top of mine. Plenty of room for everyone if someone isn’t leaning all round it

Tourists fuddle the smooth transition across hall at the top of the escalators at kings cross, standing still or heading cross trajectories.

At the Piccadilly line platform a crowd round the open door is an obstacle to getting on the remaining space.

Monkeys in Chapel Street Market

A long time ago, the '70s, we used to live in Myddleton Square and shop for veg and fruit in Chapel Street Market. There used to be a man who took pictures while you held a monkey. The monkey scared my sister but not me. The other man I have fond memories of is the one outside Madame Toussauds (same era) who had huge wavy balloons that were about four feet tall (my mother would never buy us one because she said the ones that weren't blown up were always stuck with pins - methinks she just didn't fancy having to blow it up). Oh and the  multi-colour hair men who lived in  a squat behind the sorting office on our way to nursery school ('73) pre-punk one with red hair, one with green, one blue, one yellow. And then there was the promise of a visit to the revolving restaurant in the Post Office tower when I was five (that would have been 1975) but they shut it before then when the IRA tried to blow it up. The 1970s - fond memories from simpler times.

Fast forward to 2018, we live in Tottenham, we were having a cup of tea with my neighbour and were talking about her photographs (one on display of her as a young mum in the 80s with that big permed 80's hair). She showed us a picture of her holding a monkey when she was a child. I have one almost exactly the same as that I said. And nipped back home to get a photograph album. Her photo reminded me of one of my own, in memory it felt like an almost exact replica. We talked about the likelihood of it being in Chapel Street - she thought yes. We compared pictures,

That is Christine on the left - she remembers vividly that she is wearing her red fur coat and red mittens. And me on the right - turquoise and white velour dungarees. Honestly we believe the monkey is the same - same outfit he is wearing, very similar face and tail. Massive coincidence.

Siberian Winter

Blanket of snow
Snowing
Sunshine through snow
Blue sky
Snowing
Sun melts snow on south facing
Icicles form off the shed roof
Footprints in snow
Wake up
Heating broken
Frozen pipes opened
Heating working
Snow storm blows in
Flakes swirling across the window
Yesterday’s indentations re-covered
Five wintering thrushes sitting in the tree
Grey sky

Being the subject

So it was Friday night, after a long working week. We wanted to do something. Had a few options from calling around. The Wadadlian called by and invited himself along. Set up the back of the van - few cushions and a flight box of alcohol choices (we all drink different tipples). Wadadlian stuck in the back, we sang along to tunes at full pelt on the way. We do half decent renditions of Just a Giggilo, Bohemian Rhapsady and screaming Jay Hawkins’ I Put a Spell on You. Spilling out at the first venue we found live a Latin jazz band whipping up a crowd dancing in cramped conditions. Easy to forget yourself in these situations, feel the bump from the crowd and release the exuberance of after work joy. So dancing a serious salsa with the Wadadlian, easily swung to the rhythm and then taken back to the Panther for our own intense special less formal rhythm. The band came to a halt at midnight and we piled back into the van and headed back across north London to old neighbourhoods from the dimming past. Two floors. Pizza. Softish metal upstairs. We got beers. Hanged briefly and decided to check out the downstairs. Dangerously chipped stars lead to a gothic cellar bar the likes of which I hadn’t been to since Bails stopped dating goths. There was a lot of black dyed hair, velvet clothing and long eye ticks. Dark music. Pale faces, many shaved sides in the heads - men and women. My two companions leaned up the wall and watched in interest. The goth dance is a thing of steps and rules, you do it and it doesn’t matter if it matches the music in timing. It is done in a sort of square. And alone. Vampires, in intense introspection was the conclusion. Vaguely freaked out by my siren dance wafting and drawing them into a trance, we eventually left and went back upstairs. The music had taken a turn for the better - we knew the tunes and they were dancing songs. As it turned 2.30 Madness started their baggy trousers chant and two men besides us immediately aged themselves into our generation by jumping on the appropriate jig. And there we had it - the middle aged masquerading as youths, rolling out to go home.

Dark descends

And outside, the sky has darkened to the luminosity of night, beyond dusk, the air yellow like electric storms. Leaves are blowing off the trees in an upward trajectory to be scattered in neighbouring roads rather than at the base of the parent tree. The end of the world. An apocalypse. Is North Korea still there? This is Hurricane Ophelia's tentacles- having whipped across the Sahara and picked up sand and dust from Spain finally letting go.

Absence

I've not been here much. Its been a difficult year. An annus horriblis. And it isn't over yet.


There have been fights about technology - falling in to the trap of using the phone for connection all the time, even at inappropriate times, followed by long stretches of no contact at all and the technology being switched off.


There are conspiracy's abounding about the bad affects on health of screens, wifi and spying. I'm reading too many espionage novels - borrowed from the window sill in the kitchen area of the office (people leave books there for others to borrow - a sort of library which reminds me of book-crossing) and find I get paranoid, but I can't bring myself to slog through the other type of fiction that abounds there - stories of women in old times.


There has been death. Lots of it. The Panther's mother the most potent. Our neighbour's mother also. One of our younger friend's young girlfriend. The mother of another friend of mine from my previous workplace. My friend Alex from school - from a virulent cancer. I'm guessing the middle age of life is where this starts to happen. I feel for my father, in his mid-80s with his massive collection of photos of dead friends and family


We passed a 3 year anniversary. The Panther and I. Love is still strong.

Evening commute

Got out of the tube and the air was that weird yellow - dark storm clouds one side and blue sky streaked with airplane streamers the other side.

Then a cyclist drove straight into the back of a bus because he was looking at his phone. Clonk. And the front wheel had been forced inwards on the frame and couldn't be pulled out. He dragged it off.

And then I followed a woman onto the bus who had long black hair with a back-combed fringe that stuck out and had just had her lips collogened - all puffed up and swollen.

And dark fell before I reached home.

Lunchtime City

It's pleasant drinking coffee and eating a sandwich in a large plate glass window of the cafe. The window increases the warmth of the sun's rays. I start to relax. Watching the rich at play and the working at much. Apart from the builders across the street who just work. Out of my subconscious I become aware of an urgent click. Every minute or so. Lots of fidgeting behind me. When I get up to leave I find behind me a man with strangely clear eyes playing chess on a large board, against himself, it seems, smacking the 'your turn' clicker swiftly between moves.

Eyebrows

What's with eyebrows these days. I'm all for thicker more prominent versions than plucked to within an inch of their life. But we are not drag queens - it would look more natural if we drew them on in a alignment with our natural brow. Or perhaps if we did it in a way that it wasn't clearly from a chiselled eyebrow pencil. It reminds me of the worst of male grooming when they shave round them to neaten it up too much and loose the rugged nature of the male face. Too much like a doll.

Birthday eve

The man opposite is feeling the heat - his pumped torso stretches against his sweater, clearly ripped through the cloth, and his head drops and jerks up constantly, his mouth hung slightly open. The tube is hot. And crowded. It's Friday 5 to 6. Everyone is pushy. More than usual. I'm trying to exert my personal space bubble and keep getting leaned on, shoved, bag prodded and pushed. Glad to be off work. Glad the evening sun is shining. Glad we got our temp liquor licence. Glad I ordered the kiln bits my dad bought me for my birthday. Glad I got the Panther's glasses ordered. Thrilled I'm being picked up by the Panther. And tomorrow is my birthday.

Painting

We decided to paint three pictures of the Panther's mother to show at her funeral. We began on the weekend.

The painting is about 3 foot across and comes from this photograph. Originally we were going to leave out the man but Panther felt it needed him in otherwise you couldn't read the large triangle at the bottom of the picture.

I find that I like painting. It's a totally different activity than I am used to undertaking.

Time Passing in a Vaccum

Sadly the Panther's mother died. A short stint at home after hospital, then a stay in St James' Hospice and a return to home. Life stops, but continues on, if you understand what I mean. Enveloped into a bubble of mourning and support. We went to church and sang, they prayed. There was a Nine Night - huge celebration of life with many people and lots of rum. Panther started a vigil which is to last 9 nights. Different groups of people keep coming down to his mother's house and sharing the outside fire, drinking and reminiscing. I finally went back to work after a long weekend, staying up until dawn and sleeping away the day to begin again the following evening.


Things have happened which passed us by - three people killed by stabbing across London, a man killed his daughter and himself live on Facebook, it snowed up north in April.


Outside life doesn't feel real and inside the bubble is a supportive seclusion. I'd forgotten how it was in the time after. I remember my father and sister watching lots of videos and never leaving the house, while I went to work and put on an appearance of normality while walking through treacle.

Feeling

The spring sunshine is semi-warm - coat is done up but benefits from a warming glow on the back as I walk through Holland Park. I can feel the breeze about my ears, the back of my head and my neck. Chill but not freezing.

The panther's mother is seriously ill, at home with nothing more they can do for her. It brings back all sorts of grief from my mother's death. This is a woman who on first meeting gave me a hug to welcome me to her family. I told her I loved her son and she said she knows.

I woke up this morning feeling foreboding. I'm not sure how to support the Panther, and I'm not sure I can hide how I feel.

Commuters

He wears a crisp white shirt with a black bow tie, black suit and black rimmed hat. Woman in a red dress. Next to me a lady takes a selfie from her best angle - from above left. Very tall man leans on his umbrella.

I'm a bit fed up. Working while looking out the window at the sunshine and magnolia trees in full bloom.

And yesterday there was a terror attack on Westminster. It unfurled in real time by social media. People today shocked at the photographers who took pictures but failed to help. Trump Jr being an idiot about Mayor Khan. Ever since I remember London has had some form of threat - the Irish, then the anti-gay nail bomber, 7/7... we are used to it. We don't have as many incidents and deaths as Americans do from gun owners killing their fellow citizens. I wish we could get away from all the mud slinging. Whatever happened to leaders just expressing sympathy to other nations.

Space Oddity

A grey day that started before the alarm went off. He couldn't sleep from discomfort, got up, did stuff. She lay in bed wishing he would come back to her and ravage her with a morning passion. They died his hair red.

In a cafe a man plays chess against himself and a timer. A roll up board. He plays both black and white pieces. I'm not sure where the challenge is. Behind him a young beardy man with crutches eats chocolate cake. A man with half white face and drawn on black curling moustache hands out flyers to a hairdressers. She listens to her music loudly. Nothing gets through.

An albino child walks by, cap pulled low over his head. Skin so flaky he is scaled like some deep sea fish. Fish out of water.

Tom Waits is singing Gods away on business in his deep gravelly, freak show voice. She was on a different route to usual and didn't realise she missed her stop. Not enough people disembarked so she didn't notice. Waiting at a bus stop to correct the tragectory of travel tall chromed heels flick past flashing light about like knives thrown at the circus.

Boring life, who would want it.

Spring is nearing

And to counteract such blatant irritability some signs that spring is coming

Pet irritations of work: Chewing

Open plan office, long benches of workstations, people out of team sit together.

• Crisps. Nothing offensive about crisps really, apart from the fact that each downward chew is a massive crunch, followed by a battery of follow-up crunches until said mouthful is done. And then the packet rattles and another mouthful begins.  I have had to avoid sitting next to some people.
• Chewing gum. I've forgotten that people eat that stuff. In front of me this afternoon was one of those chewers who do it slightly mouth open and wet, like we used to do before we learned to do it silently with out mouths shut. I had to refrain myself from leaning round the screen and saying Quietly in my best librarian.

Next:
Other people's telephone calls
Shortly followed by other people's telephone ring tones
Then, sniffers
(Wobetide you have more than one horrible habit!)

Hurricane Doris

Feels a bit like an oxymoron - all the power and threat of a hurricane but named after a little old English lady - perhaps she will slap us in the face with used teabags and drench us in cold tea. On the weather this morning the outside reporter at Blackpool Pleasure Beach was fighting to stay centre screen, with her navy kagool whipping round her and her soaked hair flicking her in the eye as the sea kept coming up and the sculptures bent over frighteningly. In Scotland 15 minutes of dumped snow. Stories of wild commutes, fighting umbrellas, falling buildings, and soaked children abound around the office. Can't really tell looking out - here in Kensington its sunny and the tops of the trees are gently swaying.

Update - 18:25

So while the wind is windy (reports from home that next door's tree fell on our car - no damage amazingly), there is no rain. However the electricity is stuffed - whilst on the tube making my way round the circle line to Kings Cross we were informed that Euston overland and Underground were shut, then trains were non stopping at Kings Cross from over-crowding, then our train was not stopping after Great Portland Street to Farringdon. Got out and decided to walk to Warren Street and catch the Victoria line. When I got there they were evacuating the station due to an incident. So crammed into a 73 bus, got stuck in a huge traffic jam, inching our way along Euston Road slower than walking...

Everybody Everywhere

Books on the Underground

Standing proud on the platform's emergency communication device was this book with sticker - Books on the Underground. It looked brand new. I love this kind of book-crossing, give-away thing. Someone at work leaves thrillers on the windowsill by the kitchen which I read and return for someone else. I read the blurb on the back but it didn't tickle my fancy so I left it - hoping someone is reading it though!

Morning Ritual Interrupted

We were sitting at the bottom of the bed drinking coffee and eating cereal singing along to uplifting morning songs and watching the news with subtitles - usual weekday morning routine.

Something crept over my skin and in a fit of alarm I jumped up and screamed (not a whimper, a full-body gut-wrenching scream) and flung what had crept over me away. The Panther stamped on it and we all calmed down. What was it? He wanted to know. A really big black spider walked on me I said not quite confident and hovering in the doorway. We sat back down and carried on.

Moments later the Panther leapt up vigorously brushing something off his head. Its on my head! Where is it? I scarpered to the doorway. We kept looking about, in vain.

Later in the bath I was overcome with laughter. Panther said he didn't know what had happened when I screamed so, and he decided to act out stamping on something just to get me to calm down enough to tell him what it was. I laughed more. I had been convinced he had killed it (there was a wet patch and everything - not that I'm approving of killing spiders you understand). I have no idea how it got from my hand to his head - I must have flung it there, but he claimed it was large, black with yellow bits on it and looked like a tarantula. I'm doubtful. I know Italy has tarantulas now that are smaller than those horrible hairy things in the zoo but even so. Where would it come from? I'm very wary of going in the bedroom now because in both our sudden movements of alarm we just managed to dislodge it and not to capture it and remove it to other environs.

We discussed how neither of us likes to handle spiders, while not normally afraid I can catch one in a glass and put it outside but not with my bare hands.

I remember when we were little staying in a cottage with the family there was a huge house spider in the room I was sharing with my sister, we called for our father while watching it from the safety of the bed, when he arrived and saw it he leapt up there with us and we had to be rescued by our mother who was adept at grabbing them in hand and flinging them out.

CHA.OS of A

Issuing executive orders banning refugees from 7 countries including those with governments fighting against IS and others who are supported by Russia, Trump has, by closing the borders made his supporters very happy and feel infinitely safer in their own land. The fear from outside the USA grows as we watch in intrepidation - Trump is acting like a dictator (as might be expected from the CEO of huge companies who are not used to being told "no"), he is raising the fears of people through hatred of the Muslim faith (more Americans are killed by other Americans than by anyone else), and I suspect this won't make the land any safer - it will cause unrest and lead to potential radicalisation of muslims already in the country.

Remember the destabilisation of the region was caused by the vaccum left by America waging war on terrorists in the first instance (based on a lie and at the hands of war-mongering Bush seeking revenge on behalf of his father). And then there is the anti-abortion stance. And revoking some parts of Obamacare. Decisions women make about their body should not be a state concern. And what does it say about a society when it is unwilling to look after the health of those most in need. Care-less. Heartless.

Philip Roth emails on trump

Who is taking the fight to Trump? Its Dictionary Guy!

Morning after

The morning after the night before.

(A festival of fun - started with watching an open mic comedy session at The Grove in Hammersmith - intimate, friendly and fun - personal favourite was The Establishment. Followed by a crazy car journey across town singing along to a number of favs at the tops of our lungs much to the amusement of the bystanding public. Bohemian Rhapsody anyone? And a late night curry in Mile End. Only marred by loosing my travelcard - had it since I was 18, pouch contained the ticket of Carmen that I saw on 03/10/14 the night I met the Panther and £148 worth of travel).

Dropped at the station, held up for a lingering kiss  - a morning joy that is hard to tear myself away from. Taxi driver hanging out his window says, "put 'er down, mate".

Men waiting

I think I posted this because it reminded me of a play - some modern thing with an ensemble cast. They were standing in such a specific spot on the platform, in close proximity largely, and all male.
It struck me as almost choreographed, and yet it was random.

Feel free

Androgynous, can't tell if they are a young man or teenage girl. Hiding in sports clothes and woolly hat, small feet in black suede trainers. Ring through the nose like a bull. Feel free tattooed on the fingers of both hands - one letter per finger. Is it a statement of mind, a life motto? Or something more sinister? A damaged soul used to performing tasks they don't want to. 

And then they are gone...

Tube talk

"She wants to go theatre"

"What does she want to see?"

"Um.... err....", he scratches his head, thinking hard, "Dunno. I'm supposed to be buying tickets. Have you ever been theatre?"

"Yes"

"What did you see?"

"We will rock you - queen musical"

Snow

Of the London variety - after much talk all day yesterday of snow (weather claimed there was a 100% likelihood of snow by last evening's rush hour) when it finally came it was mixed with cold rain and didn't settle at all. Its now snowing again - dry flakes drifting horizontally in the breeze but it doesn't look like its settling. So unlikely to be cross-country skiing home this evening either. People are drifting over the windows taking pictures of the white precipitation - its about as good as it gets usually here.

Getting to work in a tube strike

So I do work on the edge of zone 1. The opposite edge than where I live. The bus from home wasn't bad until it terminated early at Newington Green. Where the bus full of disgruntled passengers alightened to join the already crowded pavement. Then got lucky and caught a 73. It goes to Victoria. Might just ride it all the way there and catch a bus from there to work....

Change of heart. Got off at the top of Gower Street. 

Tall man ties his bike to a railing outside the university. 

Thin, pale woman with deep red lips walks past the back entrance of UCH hospital in black spike heel ankle boots, clutching a document that looks about a ream thick. 

Was thinking to catch a 27, but it's a 14minute wait so jumped on an 18. 

Happy Bloody New Year

So we welcomed the new year with a round of parties - four stop offs in total. There was family,  champagne and gin cocktails, sparklers, and lots of dancing. I made a dress to celebrate in - a red dress, Japanese kimono influence. Much approval of the dress.

The Panther's mother was in hospital the whole holiday season - receiving cancer treatment. We had to pop to her house around the new year and discovered there had been an upsurge due to a blocked stack pipe blocking all the sewerage from four flats - her ground floor was awash with dirty toilet water, used toilet tissue, baby wipes that someone was flushing down the toilet (they don't break down - they had clogged the whole system), and excrement. Each time someone upstairs flushed their loo a little bit more flooded out over the top of his mothers downstairs toilet. Dismay. Then action - borrowed sandbags from the waste team at the end of the road. They got us through to the emergency service to come and unblock the drain (finally came about midnight - after Thames Water had tried and failed to unblock it - its only at times like these that you struggle to understand the pipe ownership issues that exist).

Then I had a resurgence of the cold that had clung to me since November. It hit us both with a vengeance. We were stricken and took to our bed, not to surface for four days (due back at work on the 5thbut didn't make it). Finally started to feel better after feeding ourselves chicken broth heavy with garlic, ginger and chillis.

And then I discovered that what I thought were mosquito bites ( I know - it's January and they don't like the cold) were actually bed bugs. Ewwwww. Almost at last straws....

2017 Here We Come

Ceramic sale

So we decided to show and sell my pots at the Tottenham Ploughman Winterfest at Bruce Castle a week ago. Having never shown them to anyone I was a bit nervous but I had lots of positive feedback, some potential opportunities and some happy buyers. Good all round. This is what I sold.

  

 

New world

We have a reality TV star as the next President, the campaign was all about the lowest common denominator, people were rubbished because of the way they looked or sounded. Have you ever seen the film Idiocracy? 

Eating Out

I'm in a Turkish restaurant, the panther has gone in search of tobacco and I'm listening to a couple who are on a date. A white man with cane rowed hair and a black woman wearing a long straight hair wig. He is telling her about Samson and Delilah, particularly about how his strength was in his hair. And using it to illustrate why he didn't want to have his hair cut in order to hold down a regular job. She giggled and said he was so funny. He said he'd like to see her hair one day. 

The American Election

Discussion over the coffee machine today about people thinking they could vote in the American elections - over-coverage on the British news about it I guess, making them think it's actually one of our elections. We don't hear anything about the other two candidates though, only the top two horse race. And lots and lots of coverage about disgruntled voters feeling uninspired by either of them. Suddenly remembered back to when Obama won his first term. It sent a shockwave round the globe, rippling of joy and amazement. His great oration, the hope, his youth, and his colour - made him wipe the board with the old style of politician who standing next to him came across as staid, fuddy duddy, stuffed shirts without a word to say to the people. We have subsequently voted in younger, in some cases trendier politicians also. So the candidates in this election seem old school, like we are backing away from the great hope that was the first black American president. The world felt like it had changed. But now it's stuffing the change back in the box.

Morning tube

There is a carriage full of workers on their way - sweatshirted roadies, suited businessmen, suited salesman, shirt and jeans combo record shop assistants - all engaged in some small screen activity, listening to music and occasionally reading the paper. Then there is a man sitting with his legs wide, green puffa and white cable-knit jumper eating custard from a polystyrene pot. He's enjoying it, paying no attention to anyone else. Each spoonful held aloft to his lips, as he blows on it with his wide puckered mouth, before slurping it back and digging in again. Finished by Finsbury Park, he packs up the empty pot, wipes his mouth with a grey patch of kitchen towel, wraps it all up in a blue local-shop plastic bag and puts it in his bag. Sitting back he blends back into the throng of workers. 

Happy Halloween

It's day of the dead again. 

I sent off my absentee ballot paper today in the hope that we can trump the Trump and stop him being elected. That's scarier than any ghoul we could dress up as. 

The Love Knot

A novel by John Slavin

Set in between the wars in Weimar Rebublic featuring two English women tussling with artists and poets and coming into contact with the beginning of Fascism and the rise of Hitler pre-leadership. 

A literary novel written as a sequel to DH Lawrence's 'Women in Love'. I like the style of writing but at a third of the way through the book I don't like any of the characters, men or women. Perhaps it's too old a theme - women looking for the husband who will love and look after them, supposedly fiercely independent women who rely on others... 

Kensington High Street

People in Kensington still travel. There are more travel agents than anything else in the High Street. Unlike Tottenham High Street, where the majority business is bookmakers. There is only one bookmaker in Kensington High Street. People like outdoorsy sports especially skiing and rock climbing. They use expensive bikes. And eat out. They still buy books. And they park on yellow lines during the day (I guess that happens in all High Streets).

Opposite my work a maid, (in a maids uniform - little blue stripy dress and a white apron, like Jennifer Lopez wore in Maid in New York) was outside the house sweeping. Maids dress a little like nurses. Blue uniforms, white short socks and white sensible shoes.

In the lift a terribly English man is talking to a terribly English woman (middle English - no accent as such, him: strawberry blond hair and beard, her: mousy brown ponytail).  It ended up here, he pointed to his neck just below his ear, I never really understand the lip kissing thing. Its embarrassing enough with your own parents, she pipes in, but someone else's! I leave the lift. Thinking about discomfort of meeting people. I've overcome that a long time ago. Socially meeting women is a cheek kiss the first time and same for the elders of the Panther's (either sex), and later on that cheek kissing informality becomes lip kissing or very-close-to-mouth kissing. The Panther greets my father that way. Actually its nice. Its so much more welcoming than a handshake, that feels ever so standoffish now. Moving away from stiff upper lippish Englishness. Good riddance to it!

Corner cafe

It was a late evening last night - selling stuff and food at a flea market, got home after a long clearing up session at 12.30. Today I am exhausted. Literally aching all over and tired. I found the closest thing to a greasy spoon that I think the neighbourhood will muster and I'm drinking a long strong cappuccino and waiting for eggs benedict. They are playing Pink Floyd. As the track Money begins I become aware of someone behind me tapping their foot heavily in time. A youngish man says flat white when the waitress asks and then says I'll be back in a couple of minutes I have to sit in the car. The waitress comes to the door and calls down the street large or small? The waitresses speak French. My eggs come. Perfect without giving instructions. A welcome pick-me-up. Flat white man pops back and sugars his coffee before hurrying out. The tune changes to Comfortably Numb. Cars go past. 

I've just been reading about Amy Schumer, then a tragic tale about a tetraplegic woman who has the anxiety in extreme form when you feel you are missing out (my whole younger life was one long worry about that) because she is - not able to get up by herself and finally about a white collar man who bought himself a boiler suit. Panther bought a boiler suit and does love rocking it - yes it's practical but there are also the benefits of having it tied round your waist teamed with a vest or in extremely hot conditions a bare chest (I can hardly speak about it I am so overcome)... And then I'm misreading the advert in the cafe window (backwards because I'm inside and the paper faces outwards) fluff time staff wanted I read. 

Lift

As I walked up to the lift back up to training at Westminster City Hall 10 Queens Gaurds in full uniform with red jackets and bear skin hats came trailing out of the lift. Some with hats in hand. Heavy clopping in the marble floor from their boots. 

Kensington High Street

It's hot. A crocodile of private school girls lines up to cross the street. They are wearing awfully old fashioned pale blue gingham summer uniform dresses with white piping and white round collars and straw boater hats. Marshalled by some strict looking teachers in high vis vests.

Reasons to be cheerful

A random stranger (woman) on the escalator today excused me and told me she absolutely loved my figure (me - I'm not usually that keen on it), she felt odd after and said she wasn't a lesbian or anything but felt she had to say. It made me feel good about myself and made me smile - which is a good thing. 

Now I'm listening to Bentley Rythym Ace (of some time ago) which is further lifting my spirits. 

Continuing the integration

Dog walker dressed in black training outfit walks through Kensington Gardens with 4 dogs, all neatly walking to heel, quietly, without the hint of a tug. 

Shortly after a largely muscled man jogs past, he draws attention because he has two mini parachutes holding wind behind him (I guess to increase the pull and improve the training). 

3 older ladies sit in an extended golf cart (a sort-of golf cart limo) being driven around to look at the Palace. Their driver giving a guided tour on route. 

The entrance to the palace is guarded by armed police. Signs saying photography is not allowed are all over the place - the next street over is full of embassies (Romanian, Russian, Israel, Nepal, Slovakian). It's quiet. Street is empty apart from a tanned man with a huge gold chain bracelet and a cigar being driven in a large black silent car.

And I return to the office politics. 

Punk rock old lady

She looks German - short blond hair, streaked to disguise the grey. With her son, who sort of looks my age, perhaps a decade younger (I'm 46 unbelievably when I think of it - don't know how I got that old). She is wearing lemon Bermuda shorts and a teeshirt of multicolours with pineapples all over it and necklaces with beads. What I'm really looking at is her makeup. Her eyes are a multi-coloured extravagance - blue nearest her eye, then orange and finally yellow up to the eyebrow. Matched with orange lipstick. It's bold. It reminds me of my punkish days in the early 90s. I miss being that bold. I used to channel a look I had seen on Siouxsie and the Banchees. I had bright pink hair at the time and had to paint my eyes so that they didn't disappear under the colourful mop. I did a blend of bright pink at the outer edge and red into the eyeline, with a long and thick black eyeline and a lot of black mascara. I thought I rocked. I was on the tube one day with my mum, crowded we were hanging onto those dangly things (remember those?) in the centre of the carriage. A Rasta man leaned over my shoulder and said to me, I don't normally like women with a lot of makeup on but if anyone challenges you, tell them you are emulating the beauty of the birds, much to his girlfriend's displeasure. I thought, yeah! That's it! My mum was just concerned about the girlfriend but we were getting off the next stop. I feel like it's time to rock the beauty of the birds again. 

West London Oddities

The flamboyance of a Worker dressed in blue pinstriped suit, colourful shirt and tie, with a handkerchief in the breast pocket. Styling this with a moustache with curled ends and a smile. 

Wealthy older man standing outside his flat, dressed for the warm weather in a black jellaba with embroidery round the neck and down the front, long stripped trousers, Birkenstocks and a shawl. His white hair and beard died coppertone orange. Couldn't decide if he might have had ginger hair originally or just likes red hair (like I do - which is why I dye mine red). 

Customers eating outside Bill's restaurant on the way to the tube. One pairing includes a woman who has brought her cat with her - it's on a harness leash, is sitting on her lap, and is one of those hairless breeds that looks sort of Siamese. 

The taste of 1978

Today at Pop's we have mostly been channelling 1978. He came down wearing his white jeans that I remember from the 70s - he sewed patches on them. And then he opened a bottle of wine he had laid down in 1978. Mostly it tasted thick and winey (not my favourite but I'm not a connoisseur).

He was cooking chicken fried steaks - comfort food from his youth. 

Morning smiles

Getting onto the westbound circle/district line platform at Victoria for the inevitable wait for a circle line train, was greeted by a strong Jamaican accent welcoming all the lovely people, telling us to make like Bolt because the train was ready to leave. Moments later a change of staff came down including a fierce looking steely grey haired man who dragged Carl off to give him a telling off - I've told you so many times, Carl, calm your messages down. 

What the managers of TFL don't seem to realise is that the comedians and unique announcers bring a much needed lifted spirit to those of us trapped on the underground. 

Big up to Carl.

And at my destination there was a number 9 bus (new style route master) with the conductor riding the platform with the door open. I remember the joys of old, waiting to disembark from the old buses, hanging onto the pole in the middle of the platform, hair blowing in the wind, face like a dog with its head out the car window. Small things...

Telephone box

It's been decades since I frequented a telephone box (I was a fairly early adopter of the mobile phone) - we used to use the one in my granny's hamlet (only facility it had, other than dilapidated stone buildings without rooves that the sheep sheltered in). 

They seem only to exist now for tourists to selfie in and for hookers to ply their wares (asses, tits, poom-pooms all decorated with stars).

Views from the escalator

Red patent leather brogues with a white sole, worn with rolled up black jeans and no socks. 

The rabbit and the bear

On a commuter tube in the morning. Victoria line to.... A woman sits tucked into the arm of a huge man, shorts and sneakers, big beard, tufty fringe standing up, puffy eyes from sleep. She is reading a book, mouth slightly ajar. She turns towards him, her teeth protrude slightly, she leans over his massive shoulder, craning to kiss his cheek, and nuzzles him with her nose. 

A rabbit and a bear. 

Screenface

Lunch time Holland Park. Route through the park to Kensington High Street. Me and the builders of the neighbourhood are hanging on the benches. 

I'm noticing how many groups of people walking down there together are just face in screen. An orientalist couple. Side by side but locked in individual screens. 4 young men in shirts and chinos striding back to work (I imagine), four phones outstretched before their faces. Two boys and a girl, three phones out. I'm thinking it's crazy people have really forgotten the art of talking. They are probably texting one another.

Later another builder joins our bench. He's very polite. We start talking about the neighbourhood. I tell him I'm sorry they all have to take their breaks in the side of the street. He says they have to, to be able to smoke. Very strick rules in these fancy houses. No smoking, no swearing, no sitting.

Anyway, he tells me these people are Pokemon hunting. It's a thing apparently. It's in timeout this week and everything. Grown people. All over the place. I don't know how you catch them. Or even what they look like but I can tell you - there is definitely one near the outdoor opera at this moment. 

Snot nose

Cute children clinging to the pole in the centre of the carriage enjoying the roller-coaster-ish effect of the train lurching around on the track at high speed. The girl had a trail of green snot hanging out of each nostril. For the life of me I couldn't understand how her mother didn't notice and then I couldn't look anymore from revulsion. 

Working in Posh Neighbourhoods

OMG they steam clean the pavements in Kensington. Who knew? It takes two men and a double ended machine. Extraordinary.

Ultimate Oxymoron

Camouflage outfit - top and pants, in the colour way of yellow and neon pink - the question in the office was - where are you going to hide in that? Look at me! Don't look at me! Hide in the 1970s maybe. Or against some graffiti... 

Escalator

It's been a while since I had a good escalator story. But I noticed it a couple of weeks ago and checked it today. At Manor House tube station there are two old escalators flanking a middle one that has been recently renovated. At rush hour in the evening two go up (the left hand and the middle one). Previously I was standing on the left one watching people standing in the middle overtake me. The middle one must be faster. So today, and I don't know why this pleases me so much, but in the race of standing passengers on moving staircases, I chose the middle escalator and overtook 5 people spaced with two steps between each. A significant win and worth the choice, I think you'll agree. 

Fifedom of Londonium

So, now Scotland feels it is democratically unfair to make them leave the EU and so will demand another vote on leaving the United Kingdom. Couldn't we do that too - London (led by its Mayor) could also leave the UK and remain in the EU. What do we think?

Guess what? There's a petition for just that!

Because I'm not the only one who thought it. 

Rich neighbourhoods

I don't know why I'm finding it hard working in a rich neighbourhood but I am. 

This isn't just the City - fancy offices full of men and women in suits - this is a place where the wealthy live and relax. I walk around at lunch time looking for local London colour and vibrancy. I find myself annoyed with the stay-at-home mums with their perfect legs and highlights and blond children. The clean and perfect dogs. The fact that workmen on breaks sit neatly on benches in the park not a peep out of them - covered in plaster dust and being sort of outside the regular residents. I watch a cleaner sweep leaves off the front path of a mansion house wearing a bib apron, the lady of the house flittering about the magnificent front hall. The playboy Arabs letching every white girl they pass. Ladies who lunch, but do nothing else. 

It's a strange feeling working in the office and then spilling out into an adult playground. Feels sort of purposeless. 

!!!

A vote for?? We don't know. Not for strength in unity. All the Brexitiers jubilant all over the TV. Everyone on both sides saying the people have spoken. It was close. 52% vs 48%. Poke in the eye (not quite a kick in the stomach) for the caring liberalism that built the country. London (and Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Cardiff, and Scotland and Northern Iteland) vs the rest of England. How come those with the least experience of living multicultural lives have the sway? 

It feels a lot less secure this morning. I fear for the decisions that were made on the back of the last world war (welfare system, NHS, joined and stable Europe) - have we grown disillusioned with stability? 

Bus journey

It's wet this evening. Half the tube system was broken this morning so I hopped on a bus from - a 27 bus. It took me up Kensington Church Street towards Notting Hill Gate. Past antique shops, wacky clothing boutiques and children's clothing shops. Yummy mummy Notting Hill rather than Rasta Notting Hill. Then suddenly we are in Queensway, Bayswater and Paddington. It's easy to forget how close these places are to each other.

From Paddington we snake around through Edgware until we pass Marylebone Station and join the traffic going easy on Marylebone Road.

We creep past Baker Street and Madam Tussauds. I looked for him but he wasn't there - in the 70s there was always a man selling huge 4 foot long wiggly balloons to the crowd queuing to get in. I always wanted one in the way pre-teens want things, asking if we could get one every time we passed by. Mum always refused with the excuse that he was a crook and all the ones that weren't blown up would have holes in. It was one of those helpful white lies parents use on their gullible young children - my friend Kate managed to persuade her kids that the ice cream van played its jolly tune when he had run out of ice cream! Only later did I think perhaps it was more about not wanting to find the puff to blow the damn thing up than any truth in the likelihood of everyone having a hole in it. 

Then we passed the loveliness of Regency Regent's Park. Another childhood fantasy that I would live my adult life in one of those fancy cream houses, front doorway draped in columns and friends with whom I'd run along the York stone pavements to the tune of 'old-fashioned millionaire' (there was an advert in TV at the time that played out this desired lifestyle). 

My sister, at the time, predicted that knowing me by the time I was 18 I'd have a boyfriend with an open-air car (y'know, soft top). I was 10 when she predicted this. I'm still waiting for the boyfriend with the open air car to show up (I was 46 last month). 

And then Hampstead Road, turning at the corner of Warren Street, once the windiest place in London when the landscaping didn't exist - only the huge buildings causing their very own wind tunnel which meant at times you had to cling to lampposts while waiting for the lights to change for fear of being blown away. And finally Camden Town where I alighted so that I could continue on a trajectory that at least was heading in the right direction. 

EU Referedum

So the day of reckoning is upon us. Hopefully you have voted and based it on  serious well-researched information and not exclusively media-hyped sensationalism. If not, and you are still humming and ha-ing, get yourself down to the polling station and vote according to your belly-button status. Are you an in-ny or an out-y? 

Minor irritations

The absolute worst part of working in open plan offices is listening to other people crunching on crisps or carrots. Teeth gnashing crunchy food sets me on edge. Not sure why...

Bigger things

There are more important things to say than the anecdotes that I have been putting up. I just am not sure how I am supposed to say them. 

SH and I went to Parliament Square last Friday to pay respects to Jo Cox killed senselessly in the line of duty. An energetic dedicated MP of the mould that we would prefer all our MPs to be (of and for the people they serve rather than the clever-britches career politicians we have become accustomed to recently). The reaction has seemed very genuine - very emotional interview by Neil Kinnock on the news that was very moving. And the desire expressed by some to mix up politically on the benches for today's recall of parliament, following the suspension of campaigning for the referendum (a welcome quiet in the bleating of one side against the other). 

I don't understand why we are having a referendum - called by a Prime Minister who is now in the side of remain (why would you call it if you didn't want to leave?) - I don't think the world is a better place for holding ourselves separate. People are hankering after the times when Britain was Great (great from conquering and pillaging the countries of the empire - so not standing alone then either). I believe we should be joining together more, not splitting up. 

Most of the people I know are descendants of immigrants from one time or other. This debate has become one all about immigration - people from places with an immigrant population of less than 2% being most concerned about migration - which seems ludicrous to me - media-hyped-up fear. Those people here from other places doing jobs that British people prefer not to do for wages they won't work for. Unfounded fear and xenophobia. This country is built on the shoulders of immigrants. It's what I love about living in London - that it's a proper melting pot of people, and flavours, from all over the world where we can express our individuality in whatever way we choose (within reason). 

So I will be voting to remain IN Europe. I think there is greater strength in a union than there can be outside of it. 

Wolfgang Tillmans (photographer) statement about why he got involved in the EU Campaign http://tillmans.co.uk/

Big n Juicy on the referendum.

Hello Israel

And I don't know how come or what caused it but there has been an ENORMOUS spike in visits from Israel this last week - 11,700 visits - the first time Israel has ever made it onto the top 10 audience countries. So hello to you all! 

Wet feet

It was pouring. Have you got your umbrella he asked as they got ready to leave. I was thinking it's only two short walks either end... Looking out it was actually pouring properly and not just drizzling. She still went out in sandals. Dropped at the station. Kiss goodbye. Honked at undeservedly by irritated taxi driver. Got to the other end. Umbrella up. Still had dry feet until the last 20 metres entering the street on which she worked which slopes at a steepish downhill gradient which had turned into a river with no possible dry routes. Wet feet. It could have been fine. She just so wasn't into putting on tights and closed toes shoes in the middle of June...

Nudity

So we used to look down on people's flats from our office in Peckham and see into bedrooms. I have written about it before. Now in this office the view has been on to more obscure apartment windows. Until I noticed the long leggy limbs of a blond arranging herself in the window. Seemingly naked. After a while you could see a strip of nude-coloured skirt fabric. So not a life model. Wasn't even sure it was a girl - the body being impossibly tall and the hair really fake. But a later pose was face to the window and clearly she was a she. Skinny. In a flesh-tone underwear shoot.

Second week

More than one person has greeted me and said jokily, "that's good you've come back for a second week". It piques my old interest about how come they haven't been able to keep a person in my position for terribly long. 

On the tube a lot more. More due to, fewer changes, quicker journey. I get a seat and read. Today a man is standing over me talking to his mate about the Victoria  Line, video shoots, styling the shoot and getting coffee before their meeting. He is a neurotic. Even standing he can't be still and shakes his leg persistently so that his whole self is in a perpetual jiggle, his change tinking hurriedly in his track suit bottom pocket. He sits down at Warren Street until the female voice announces the next station will be Oxford Circus, and when we arrive they get off. Dragging after themselves a smell of sort of milk and biscuits. 

Week one

Been exhausted by the newness of it all. Similar process, protocols, types of people but somehow the unfamiliar and understanding dynamics and relationships and behaviours really takes it out of you. It's the change of pace that is proving most difficult to turn down. I hadn't realised how fast my working life was going before. Still I hope I'm making a good enough impression...

Its different here

Gone are the tiny import/export businesses, cacophony of hair and nail salons and mixture of whole food cafes and greasy spoons. In its place there are extremely expensive apartment blocks, houses in tasteful shades of cream or white with bay tree sentries and red geraniums. Mercedes, Porsche and Ferrari are parked along the street. Boutiques for chandeliers, women's lounge ware and antiques. The high street is full of medium and high end chains, far removed from the Primark and Peacocks of Peckham. Little Lagos probably continues with its hanging about, smoking, drinking lariness while I am astounded by the mass of au pairs  dragging little boys in boaters and short trousers along the road, weaving between the ladies who lunch and Botox to a point where their swollen lips and stuck fast masks give them away. A joy ride for an elderly Arab in an antique white Fiat cinquecento, whizzing down the high street with his fat cigar hanging out the window. We are not in Southwark anymore.

New job

So I started yesterday. Most lovely is the shortened journey - a mere 50 minutes as opposed to the old hour and a half. But it's different in the West End - the tube is full of tourists and shop workers (as opposed to the bankers and business workers of the northern line) and I keep finding I am walking faster than the crowd - looking at their feet and wondering how, when wearing trainers, can the pace be so slow. I am able, in my clicky heeled sandals, to overtake an entire corridor of people on the wrong side of the staircase up to the westbound circle line at Victoria and I was never the fastest walker on the Noerthern Line. 

Last day of work

It's the last working day of an 8 week notice period that has been a bit of a marathon. I sit here in the window of a cafe watching pink blossom flurry in circles on the street in the sunshine on my last Peckham lunch hour. 

We were inspected by Ofsted this week. In my last week. It felt like all the bad karma I have developed in life flopped down on my lap - informed on Friday 13 May (my birthday). It worked out OK in the end (results are confidential) but was a very intense end to my 12 year tenure. 

But now with the marathon almost over the details of Peckham are playing over in my mind. The mass of trendy cafes that have sprung up since the overground came from shoreditch to here - there was only one over priced homemade cake cafe here when I started. Feeding the arty Hoxtonites who are moving in. Clashing culturally with little Lagos and their cloth, hair, nails, gracious and beneficial back room churches and live snails. It's definitely colourful. And I've enjoyed that aspect. 

Hearing the blues

Gradually become aware of blues music, heavy twangy electric guitar and black male voice drifting up from the street. Remember the last time I was attracted to this music enough for it to break through the concentration on the screen - it was summer,  I looked out and it was emanating from a  little two-door black hard top MG parked outside our building. I think of this car and listen to the music. I want to be in a dark bar, drinking thick whiskey, tapping my head to the strains of the music, it transports me from my office. I look out the window. There is the little black MG. An arm reaches out of the car, slams the drivers door shut, starts the engine with a roar and drives off. The silence in the room is deafening. The clock ticks. I make a coffee.

Return to Thatcher's Britain

My overwhelming memories of the endless Thatcher years were of striking teachers, striking miners, war mongering in far off places and abject poverty for a growing underclass living in cardboard cities that spread out from the centre across the city. 

I witness begging on my tube journey home three out of five journeys - heart wrenching stories from a variety of people needing hostels and food. In the morning a different kind of begging - sellers of packs of tissues to feed themselves and their children. Equally heart wrenching. A recent trip to see the London Lumiere on some of the coldest nights of the year - homelessness like the 80s in doorways along the strand and all over the West End. We came across a soup kitchen with a queue of people going round the corner being given food just off the strand. Regular beggers at all the stations I use, even in the outer areas. 

It didn't take long for the carelessness of Tories to take hold again. 

Locked

Unusually a gridlock at the end of my street - cars from both side roads bullying their way into traffic on opposite sides of the road, lines of cars on the through road stuck behind buses trying to pass one another. 

White van drives up to the stuck traffic on my road. His frustration overflows. He honks loudly for a long time then smacks his steering wheel.

"You fucking imbeciles - couldn't fucking wait, had to push through and NOW look at you - gridlocked. Absolute. Fucking. Assholes."

In the middle of the gridlock school children spill out of cars trapped at 8.45 to finish their journies on foot (I do always wonder why they aren't walking anyway - we had to and were probably fitter for it). A tiny space is inched as the traffic lights onto the main road far down the street go red once more and white van joins the queue towards it. Walking I reach the main road far in advance of the cars in the gridlock. 

Lumiere London 2016

Trafalgar Square

Coldest night of the year. "Meet me in Trafalgar Square at 6.30. Dress warmly."
He panics as the phone loses power. "Go somewhere wait for me. Tell me where you are. Maybe order something." She looks around. Decides.
"Bottom of Trafalgar Square. 4 lions around Nelson column. South west facing lion - looks at cafe Nero - I'm in there. It's the road that goes towards Piccadilly."
She drinks hot chocolate. Thick and warm. Bought from a Barista who made the drinks and transferred the payment to his on-shift-coming colleague. "The señora had a grande and the señorita had a small." The new colleague tried to charge the señorita for both drinks until she said they weren't together.
She sat in the window waiting and warming her fingers. Watching the traffic wend it's way round Trafalgar Square and the crowd gathering to see the exhibits of the London Lumiere. Plastic bottles in the fountain

David Bowie RIP

Absolutely shocked and strangely devastated by this news. It's making my stomach upset... Maybe we never expected such a weird oddity to age (although we occasionally saw him older) or be anywhere close to death, or other mortal worldly states. 

Belated Happy New Year

Been back at work for two manic days - full of enrolling students and left over building maintenance from last term. 

But in the most welcomed time off I have had for an age, we did have a rather marvellous time and I forgot to say Happy New Year to the world at large. 

Best present to ourselves was a new mattress which made getting out of bed increasingly difficult - didn't surface at all on New Years Day following the celebrations at two parties - getting home at 4.30am after the panther secretly threw up - far too generous portions of rum given on the final lap. I didn't manage to drink most of mine after being commandeered to dance with a talk skinny woman who was trying to attract the attention of her partner by engaging in some girl on girl play (dancing mainly, and I seem to remember some forehead pressing and fierce staring)... 

Back from the weird and wonderfulness  of a Christmas period wholly played out at other people's parties where the only pressure was to be pretty and entertaining (I made the panther a necktie that matched the dress I made myself - in a sort of bronze fabric - appropriately shiny for the season - a Christmas bauble of a dress). It's all back to normality. Colder, but with lengthening days. 

Happy 2016. 

Eyebrows

As a fan of the eyebrow (I have been known to fall for a person on the strength of their eyebrows alone) I am having an anti-reaction to the fad of the heavily drawn on version sported by some women in recent months - those which are not just filling in the blond or patchy versions but are fiercely drawn with a high arch and squared off inner eye ends that give a sort of Cruella De Ville fakeness to the face. It comes after the fierce pluck fad where natural eyebrows were plucked to within a millimetre of their lives, and goes with the over-groomed male eyebrow in attraction terms - i.e. most unattractive in their fakeness and particular trying-too-hard style. I blame celebrity adoration for this live of all things fake - hair extensions, collagen lips, fake nails, drawn on brows, coloured contact lenses. Cheap versions of all these things add to the plastic-fantastic looks of women at the moment. Kim Khardasian has a lot to answer for. 

Ann Veronica Janssens - States of Mind

 

So into a room filled with carbon dioxide vapour, so thick you couldn't see past about 30cms from your face. Totally lost instantly. No idea of size of space. Walk around hands out in front of you because you suddenly can't sense the space at all. People loom out of the mist into your tiny sphere of vision and disappear back again. Hear voices. See no one. Ghosts and shadows materialise into human forms. The mist has coloured light through it, as you move round the room the colours blend and merge. And then hit a wall, can inch round the room to the exit.

At the Wellcome Institute until 3 January.

Frances Ross Duncan

29 July 1943 to 10 December 1995

20 years ago today. 

Over- emotional

Having an attack of over-emotionality that I can't exactly explain. Two huge tears crept out when I was reading about a couple who had twins the first one of which died at birth due to a defect they had but they donated her organs. Then this evening a man stood in the carriage and made a speech about going to dalston to stay in a hostel and he'd appreciate any contributions including left over food and I got a lump in my throat thinking about him and humanity. My paper is open on the pages about Cameron calling to be allowed to start bombing Syria. Bomb them before they do us - never minding about the kind of retaliation that could bring down on us. Fight them in that country when the threat to us is more than likely already living amongst us here now. 

Phoenix Pottery

From the ashes of our ceramics department closed despite protest the Phoenix Pottery arises. Smaller. More compact. Delightfully non-governmentally funded (for now). And tested. Will be ready for opening in January.

Certification

"You're everywhere", he said.
"I need you to certify my existence", she said over my head to the man smiling broadly, pink face, a couple of pews ahead.
"I can certainly do that", he said. I laughed - it seemed a powerful position to be in. My laugh caught his attention. "I'm a justice of the peace", he explained.
"Oh", I said, "I thought you were just being helpful."
"He's god", the lady boomed over my head again. It made me laugh again.
"Do you need anything certifying?" He asked.
"I'm sure I do but you don't know me to certify anything", I retorted.
"I could certify that you seem nice", he said in triumph.
"That would be nice", said I.

Beast

Darkened space, white body stood with blacked out eyes and blacked out genitals, breathing, music thumping blood. Muscle tight against ribs, ripped. Arms. Rib cage expanding and closing. The body walks on all fours across the space, deliberately, hands and feet placed as a big cat, the only sound of the touch against the floor. Alien. Creature. Spit hanging from its mouth. Front leg and back leg in unison. Fingers bent like claws. Reach the wall, turn face to the audience. Breathing. Like a spider moving towards us. Francis Bacon-risqué. Human as animal. Watching. Then up on two legs. Out of the primordial soup we dragged ourselves upright. Carrying a tray of tea things precariously balancing on tip toes. Naked. Placing it back down carefully and returning upright to attempt to whistle. Trying and trying and almost but not quite managing. Gone. 

Then returned. Dressed in white lace. Proper. Balancing on buttocks legs and upper body extended without touching the floor, effort, strength, muscles tested, limbs quivering. Moving across the floor to pick up a mobile phone whilst balancing o n the shoulders - body up like an s shape. Light from the phone highlighting the neck, retching, throaty, primeval calling, pre language. Return to animal. And light. And light cast out putting the performer in solid darkness. Finally the exuberance of jumping up and down a strong shadow reflecting against the back wall. Big menacing robot on the wall. Small white body jumping up and down in front of it. 

It made me want to run out and help. To look in the same depth as I would look during a life class. Body as object. Alive machine. It made me want to draw. To make studies of the human body again. In its raw form. Stripped down. Stark. 

Powerful. 

Fascinated

I'm fascinated by this grown man colouring in his "Calming art therapy colouring book" on the overground this evening. I might need to do that - it might make the journeys more bearable. Everyone all around him is watching as he felt tips between the lines. It's a queen (like on a deck of cards). 

Happy Halloween

So we had a party to attend on Halloween night and decided we should dress. After the Panther's niece's 5th birthday party we couldn't quite bring ourselves to go home so were on our way to a joint we thought might be a bit happening when we bumped into a lot of similarly dressed ghouls on their way to a party, so we tagged along. It was an old school house party with quiet music and lots of talking. I'm guessing the costumes meant people were less hung up than usual. Best place in the house as usual - swinging between the kitchen (which included a queue for the lavatory) and the roof terrace for smokers (one has to frequent the terrace even if one isn't a smoker - just for the company). We left about 4am without realising it had become so late. The mist had come down and we walked to the bus stop feeling very suitable to the weather, two sheets to the wind, and glad of the back seats of the warm bus once it came. The Panther kept looking at me saying he was trying to see me inside the face. And was greatly looking forward to me washing my face at home. Tres effective make up I think.