Pinch Punch First of the Month

I always beat K to this – it takes him a while to wake up to what day it is, let alone what date! Anyway, welcome February! I say this with a huge sigh of relief that the intense January I have just had is over. Not that, in the end, I think February will necessarily be any better, just different, and it’s a state of mind. Phew, January was suddenly ridiculously busy, a sudden avalanche of work… Partly self-inflicted as I have crammed into January and February all the appointments and other deadlines I could not attend to during my three-month absence at the end of last year, and the upcoming absence when I go and write my book… But it’s not just me – I get the feeling that everyone feels under pressure at the moment. This is going to be a busy year… There’s a certain element of nervous panic, too, as I near the moment (2 March - coincidentally my father's birthday) when I have to start writing the book – one day a week to research it has never been enough, and over the last few weeks I have fallen back on my default ‘imminent deadline’ mode, which means I am reading, reading, reading at every spare moment, on the tube, after work, all weekend… We have reverted to our old habit of going to the British Library on Saturdays, and spent a very companionable day yesterday in the Manuscripts Reading Room – K looking at actual manuscripts (describing ceremonial at Henry VIII’s court), while I took a break from Spain and worked on making some final amendments to my article on ivories decorated with the technique of incrustation, which took me to Egypt and Sicily, and was rather satisfying, since – though I say it myself – I think it is a good article.

So, picture of the month from our 2009 calendar:

Grand staircase, Crystal Palace © KR

This is one of the pictures that Kent took of the Grand Staircase at what was once the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, when we went up there for our memorable walk on New Year’s Day last year. Walking around the ruins of Crystal Palace gives you a curious sensation of discovering the vestiges of some ancient Egyptian temple in the middle of rural north Europe – the concrete sphinxes of the old Egyptian Court now nestle in amongst deciduous trees and a cover of fallen, rotting leaves – and nothing is that old anyway, it all dates from the 1850s, and was only ruined in the great fire of 1936. But that sense of dislocation from time and place makes it a magical site to visit.

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I have decided that a blog – this blog anyway – is a bit like a scrapbook. I collect things for it during the week and when I have a little bit of time, sometimes at the weekend, I sit down and stick them all in. What is weird about it is that it is sort of public and private at the same time – public, because it is stuck (or written) on the aether, private because you have absolutely no idea if anyone is looking at it… Is there anyone out there?

Here are some of the things I have collected this week (apart from another cold):

- a new pair of glasses:


It’s about three years since I had an eye test, and the last time I did an intensive period of writing (writing up my PhD) without having had my eyes tested for a while, I developed migraines – the Hildegard of Bingen flashing lights variety, though I am not aware of having received any divine visions. I figured I didn’t want them to develop again while I am writing my book in the spring, and it did turn out I needed a new prescription. It is also a long time since I had new frames – I was too impoverished, and kept reusing old ones – so this time I treated myself to a new look. They’re still tortoiseshell, but lighter, and I decided to go square. They’re also Giorgio Armani!

- some Iraqi coins:


On Monday we took some Iraqi curators out for lunch, who are spending a few months undertaking placements at the British Museum, under the auspices of the World Collections Programme. It was wonderful to see how much more upbeat they are than previous visitors we have had over the last few years – they actually said that for the first time they feel full of hope for the future. One of them was from Basra – his family was forcibly resettled to the north of Iraq by Saddam Hussein but they have recently gone back. Amazingly, they seemed to be really happy with the way the British army has handled the situation in Basra. It was possible to laugh about all the fish options on the menu – “I eat fish all the time in Basra [it’s a port city], I don’t want to eat fish in London”! One of them was a specialist in Islamic coins. After expressing disappointment that we didn’t have any Islamic coins on display (we have very few in the collection), he dug into his wallet and gave both of us a set of the new Iraqi coins. They seemed really proud of them.

- Carnivàle:


We have been Lovefilm members for years – it’s brilliant, films or TV series you missed or are nostalgic about or were too young ever to see come right through your front door and you can watch them in your own good time! I had once read something about a new HBO series, Carnivàle – I am not sure if it was even aired in the UK – so I put it on our Lovefilm list and the first disc arrived some time ago, but we were a bit unsure (not to mention too busy in the evenings), so we only just got round to watching it last week. We’ve had the second disc since then, and I’m completely hooked. K is not so sure. But it’s just Twin Peaks-y enough (and not just because of the presence of Michael J. Anderson) to keep me interested. Only two episodes per disc though, which is very annoying! (our Lovefilm deal is only four discs a month… which, realistically, is quite enough)

- more Obama hagiography (with thanks to Karen):

This is really touching – I only watched it once, but the chorus has been haunting me all week.

Rosa sat, so Martin could walk - Martin walked,
So Barack could run - Barack ran,
He ran and he won,
So that all our children could fly.

What is great about all the coverage of Obama at the moment, is the utter absence of cynicism – it’s so refreshing to just really believe in someone for a change. Have you noticed how Jon Stewart is like an innocent young child idolising a hero at the moment? Of course I know there are cynics out there – I am just choosing to ignore them.