Cycling in the wind

At the end of a warm June day cyclists criss cross the intersection where I'm sitting. The wind is blowing up the sleeves of my jacket and chilling my armpits. It's supposed to be cooler tomorrow. With showers.

Yoko Ono Private View, Serpentine Gallery

I've gotten here too early - I'm a guest at the regular old Private View for the plebs and there is still half an hour of the Special Private View (for the Special People) before I can go in. I've persuaded the lady with the list to let me into the compound to sit and get a drink. (Don't want too much mingling of the plebs and the VIPs). I'm trying to see whether I recognise any of the special people, but at the moment I'm not sure that they aren't all plebs waiting for our time... Maybe I should get nearer. They've just relaid the lawn and there are stewards on every corner trying to keep the crowd from spilling onto the grass.

There are rich Knightsbridge people here - you can tell by the clothes and the shoes and the mwah mwahing on air cheeks. There are some fabric designers sitting next to me talking about clients, contracts and designs.

The Work

A film, in real time, of Yoko's eye staring you out. She doesn't blink for a really long time. Finally she closes her eye, slowly. It looks painful to do it. Then it opens again and starts staring once more.

Two films showing opposite each other. Both called cut piece, one from 1965, the other from 2003. The audience is invited to cut the clothes off Yoko. She is still and deadpan. People snip small bits of fabric off. Until someone goes for it and cuts something big off (in 1965 it's her slip which reveals her brassier, in 2003 it's her skirt which leaves her sitting in bra and pants). These things happen quite far into both films and by that time I was outraged by someone coming up and exposing her so suddenly. Somehow the 60s version felt more exploitative.

Fly on a nipple film - totally freaked me out, and some other woman standing next to me. Close up of bottoms walking - reminded me how I like that bit of a person. Quite like to feel a bottom as it walks along (if someone will let you!)

New Cats

So last weekend, Susanna and I drove up the A1M to Glaisdale in the North York Moors to collect my new kittens (its a long way to go for a cat but they are bred by Susanna's uncle and come from a very good mouser - which considering my most recent affliction at home was important in the decision making).

The kittens were decidedly stand offish while we were staying in Yorkshire. Didn't like being touched much but did play with string. Getting them into the box wasn't as difficult as I expected and they didn't make a peep all the way home (5 hours). Let them out at home and they promptly hid. I'd forgotten from the previous time we got cats that they did that.

For the next 2 days I gradually tempted them out (the girl likes cooked chicken, the boy eats anything) playing with corks on string (excellent simulation of a mouse I think). They still are stand-offish though - its hard not to feel rejected when they hide the minute you come in their general direction and hiss with arched backs if you put a hand in their direction.

Its a week now - I've managed to stroke the boy - his purr is fantastic. The girl is still shy but at least has stopped hissing.

The Most Irritating Laugh In The World

She's sitting very close by with a big group if friends and her laugh rings out loudly like a machine gun. Waaahhahahahaaa. Haahaa. Ah hahahaha. It's like that Billy Connelly routine about the primordial laugh that exists in each of us that comes out when we least, and most embarrassingly, expect it. Only hers is always like it. Gunning for us with laughter.

Two Men Talking

In the pub waiting for the football to start. At the next door table two men are talking.

I like her. She's younger than me. 10 years younger I think but the age gap doesn't seem to matter...

A couple of tiny Latino women are looking for a seat. The men offer them space at their table. Everyone moves seats so they can accommodate a new party at the table.

But that's not just knocking the door mate, that's trying to open back the relationship.

A man slaps two drinks down on my table and sits down without checking if that is ok. It is ok but it's politer to ask. His partner is noticeably drunk.

...should build a house and then sell it.

Kingsland Road

Its just me and the crazies walking in Kingsland Road. I'm walking from Church Street to Shoreditch. The crazies are just walking or hanging in various states of dispair. At the canal end there are lots of arty types on bikes - vintage 40s dress, trouser legs tucked into red socks with black spots, and the rest. It's a funny road with niches of activity around the villages of Stoke Newington and Dalston and then Hoxton and Shoreditch. Long periods of nobody using the pavement. Clearly a weird way to walk!

Legs

As I was walking from home to Wood Green I saw:

• a black laborador in the park with three legs
• a man on crutches with one leg

Coincidences.
(I'm imagining this like that rhyme my mother used to tell us - as I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives, seven wives had seven somethings ... how many were going to St Ives - clearly I can't remember all the words).

Running

On the 476 riding to town. At Stamford Hill I noticed a man running with a red knapsack. The bus wasn't going particularly fast and we cat and moused him along to Stoke Newington Station. Then our bus went round the one way system along church street, down Albion Road and round Newington Green. Stopping at the next stop the running man went past. He was listening to music and keeping a steady pace it seemed to me. The bus pulled off and took over him on the corner of the road that turns towards crossing Balls Pond Road. I was surprised he kept up the cat and mouse all the way along Essex Road eventually loosing him as we reached Islington Green. I changed from the 476 at Angel onto a 19 that pulled up behind. Went upstairs and sat down as he ran past again. He switched routes to follow the 19 and I spied him again running past Sadlers Wells. He kept pace with us all along Rosebury Avenue, past Grays Inn and along towards Holborn. He caught up with us again at New Oxford Street and I watched him take off into the distance of Oxford Street proper. Awesome running I thought. Even though he was just running, not competing or anything. Alive. Wish I knew where he was heading for. Something inspiring and sexy about it.

Character

An elderly male character in the book I'm reading was talking about his recently deceased wife saying, "I did pretty damn well, I'll tell you that. You snag a woman like that, you don't ask what you did to deserve it. You just hope she never wises up and changes her mind." (The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson)

It made me smile - is that the key to longevity in a relationship - to think everyday how lucky you are to have bagged your partner?

Change

So I've been talking to anyone who will listen about my mid-life crisis. Haven't managed to buy a flashy sports car yet but have been advised to go to a agency and get placed in a better job with more, different challenges. I have taken every opportunity to go out - drank cocktails at Browns made by a funny Irish barman and watched the sunbathers on Islington Green who stayed until the dark was truly fallen, next day went with the ceramics crowd to our favourite place and sat outside in the balmy evening pretending we were in some exotic neighbourhood abroad. Been persuaded by some tres cute pictures to get two kittens who will be great mousers (can get them at 10 weeks when their mother will have trained them up fully). So there's some inkling of change - not sure it's dramatic enough yet...

Sun's Out

Sun is out
Park is full
Office workers and tourists stretch out to catch some rays
Dog walkers can't play ball and stand on the pavement bemused
Hippy yoga guy isn't out
Doesn't feel quite hot enough for strapless maxi dresses but that hasn't stopped anyone

Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern

Started with paintings that were like deep voids - I liked them - reminded me of some drawings I did once where the blackness is space. Then some works om paper. Intricate and obsessional paintings using small identical brushstrokes built up. Beautiful. Almost like optical illusions. A sign on the wall warned that the film inside had some explicit content. Inside Self Obliteration was showing - towards the end, hippy soundtrack, images overlaid, orgy of naked people painting dots on each other and smearing paint in a disco with flashing lights, mad expressionist dancing like some kind of explicit roll-in-the-mud festival. Hands everywhere but no hard-ons. A simulation of sex? Guess which was the most crowded gallery...

Installations came next. Shoes, clothes, boats, chairs, rooms covered in sewn phalluses. Then the room of fluorescent dots with ultraviolet light making them and anyone wearing white shine. I tried not to smile - remembering clubs where you look freaky with your white teeth catching the ultraviolet. And everyone has white dust. And finally some amazingly zingy paintings with eyes and faces, followed by the fabulous Infinity Mirrored Room filled with the brilliance of life - which was us and lots a coloured lights reflected back through the mirrors and the floor. Hippy trippy. Makes me want to embrace the altered mind-state...

Friday night

Gigging with Bails and Paul in Camden Town. Reminiscent of our youth. Crowded into Barfly with a stamp on your hand so you can come and go but doesn't wash off for a couple of days. Jayce Lewis leapt around the stage flinging his hair around singing loudly to loud electronic music played at slightly less than ear splitting volume. There were a load of Belgian teenagers on who didn't seem to get it as much as the ageing rockers who seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. There was one goth exhibitionist wearing only pants and a basque. Reminds me of the days in the late 80s when I liked those kind of boys with dyed black hair cut sharply with shaven sides and there would be drag queens in the ladies loo. And there would be one night bus an hour which would get greatly overcrowded with a raucous party atmosphere upstairs.

Itchy Feet

I've suddenly noticed that it is light at 9pm. Summer evenings are creeping up on us. I'm having a serious case of itchy feet - it started about 2 weeks ago - need for change that is driving me to distraction. It's only getting worse. It's transferring itself to a need for perpetual motion - can't sit still and focus for too long, concentration span is decreasing and boredom threshold has shrunk to minuscule proportions. I'm currently sitting in the pub trying to take the edge off with some hard liquor. I'm reading the paper, listening to a new playlist very loudly to drown out the pub's sounds, and writing this post. I wonder if I'm having a mid-life crisis. Maybe I should buy a fast car and exercise the need for speed. I could realise my ambition of being a jerk in a Merc.

39 and 36 months

So the birthday came again - while I like the parties I don't like adding up the numbers. A few years ago I started having BBQs to celebrate. May in London is slightly early for cooking outside and mostly I BBQ in the rain. This year it was glorious sunshine which considering the downpour that was April was a minor miracle.

I was cutting up tomatoes and managed to slice into my left thumb - strangely similar in texture (they were firm salad tomatoes) and I forgot to stop cutting. Fingers bleed. A lot. And it's hard to administer first aid to oneself while holding your thumb over your head wrapped in a cloth, opening a plaster with the other hand and your teeth.

Later we chucked some logs on the fire pit and smoke-burned our eyes as the dusk drew in - smoke gets in your eyes, yes it does drifting all over the place. Next day I felt that smoke had permeated my skin even after bathing a washing hair. Nice for a mountain man not so good in a London open plan office.

Nom nom nom (as it says in that dog-treat ad)

Bails cooked up a heap of yummy root spinach. (Not my idea of delicious but this isn't my story). Piled it up on the plate. Dug the fork in and raised it to her mouth, opened wide and then a massive caterpillar dropped out. (Cooked caterpillar - not sure whether that made it swell up or whether it was enormous before cooking). At least it wasn't half a caterpillar, or something more disgusting like a slug or cockroach...

Words

At Pizzadelique after ceramics this week we were talking about words that were invented by writers which are such common usage now that it's surprising they weren't always in usage. Specifically that Lewis Carroll invented the word chortle - a combination of chuckle and snort. This is a word that just sounds like a word from old English. Googling (first used July 1998, added to OED June 2006) this I came across a no-longer updating blog, Heredotus Wept, that had posted about this.
Words invented by Milton
Words invented by Shakespeare

Words that Shakespeare invented
What did we used to call eyeballs before Shakespeare coined the term, when we undressed did we have to say "I am taking my clothes off or was it unrobe or something"? And were ladybirds just red beetles with black spots?

Without Milton nothing could be terrific, and there would be no fragrance.

It's the glory of language. Love it.

The Turd Taboo

Since I don't have children or a dog I have never overcome my aversion to discussing this taboo (no nappy changing, or poopy scooping for me, apart from when I visit my sister for whom it all features quite prominently with two young children and a dog). I still believe in trying to maintain a sense of mystery and don't like passing wind in front of people. And what I am about to tell you is far from any actual real live events.

So I had this dream that was very vivid.
Waiting for a 341 bus in the middle of the night. There was no one around and it was dark. I needed a poo (sorry if this forthrightness is grossing you out), so I did it by the side of the bus stop. Me and the turd carried on waiting. The bus took hours before arriving and I was still waiting in daylight when my sister, her kids and dog met me at the bus stop. We waited together. My sister told me off for not getting rid of the turd. I didn't think anyone would know it was me. She thought they would definitely know. Gradually the bus stop became more crowded and the turd was noticed. When the bus came we ran and jumped onto it. I never owned up.

Even though this was about a gross subject I didn't feel guilty about the act or disgusted. I only felt like I should have but didn't want to get rid of it. Who knows what it all means but perhaps we should gamble on the turd man for the Turner Prize this year (it may be that only the Metro thinks of Paul Noble this way).

Late spring

This is the second year in a row that at this time of year I look out and think that the garden has too much purple and nothing else. It's slightly too early for the yellow poppies and the daffodils are all go e. I need some late spring yellow and red to balance the purple.

April Showers

Hosepipe ban
April showers like they used to be
A month's rain in 72 hours
Flooding
Still not lifting the hosepipe ban (not that anyone actually wants to use one this week)