Life - which is to say, work - has rather got in the way of blogging over the last couple of months. Since getting back to work after my long summer break, it seems busier than ever, with more to be done by fewer people, and an air of uncertainty underlying everything, with cuts cuts cuts the only thing being discussed - in the media and in people's daily lives. "Keep calm and carry on" seems a useful motto, as always. That resolution - of getting my work/life balance under better control - has not so far materialised.
I had a nice trip to Granada last week, to attend the meeting of a collaborative research project with the Alhambra which we're now engaged in. The weather was gorgeous - 23°C on Sunday! - but cold in the mornings and evenings, or if you stepped into the shade. It was an intense course in Spanish conversation, which did me a lot of good. I had that experience which I have always admired in friends for whom English is not their first language - like when Silvia and Rosa came here for dinner at the start of October, two Italians researching aspects of Italian-Islamic artistic encounter whom I wanted to introduce to each other. Of course we all spoke English, but when I stepped out of the room, and came back in a few minutes later, they were still speaking English to each other. Or when, in Berlin in January, I went out for dinner with some German colleagues from the Islamic museum, who were all still conversing in English when I got back from a trip to the loo. In this case, I was in Granada with a Spanish colleague from work, and a French colleague from the Louvre whom I know well, and with both of them I normally speak English - but because the lingua franca of our project meetings was Spanish, we continued to speak Spanish at the end of the day when out for dinner, and when I bumped into the French colleague, Sophie, on Sunday morning, having a coffee in a bar on the Plaza Nueva, we conversed in Spanish, because it felt odd to switch to English. How funny.
An interesting trip, as well, for understanding something about the internal politics of Spanish academia - sad, though, that in a city as small as Granada, with so many important groups of people who are experts in their own ways in local Islamic cultural history, that they should all be competing with each other, rather than working together to form a powerhouse of academic study in this area. They share information with us, as outsiders, but not with each other. It was good, though, to understand for the first time that I am not the only one who feels the tyranny of a certain couple, who seem to want to control what anyone anywhere says about Nasrid art history, by pillorying anyone who dares to express a theory different from one of theirs. Good, also, to understand that there are people within Granada who do not believe that their work is gospel any more. It gives me renewed hope for the new generation of upcoming Spanish scholars in the Islamic field, as well as a sense of reassurance that if one of this couple slates my book in a review - which I feel is fairly likely, especially since the Spanish translation is about to be launched - that not many people will pay them much attention.
There is not much other news, or what there is, is too boring to go into. I am giving a lecture tomorrow evening - the first in a while - so my time and thoughts over the last few days have been focused on that. It is on my book, a sort of promotional event which I had to organise for myself, since my publishers aren't doing anything. Compared to the publishers of the Spanish edition who have just invited me to participate in a launch event in Spain in the New Year! Anyway. I've been collecting book sightings - it's been spotted in the bookshops at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the American University in Cairo. It was in the Alhambra bookshops, and will hopefully be more prominently placed when the Spanish translation is out. (And a nice little plug for that came out recently in Granada Hoy, though with quite a few mistakes!)
But the best book-related anecdote so far is that a work colleague took a copy to present as a gift to the Sultan of Sharjah on a recent business trip, only to be told, "I've already got that! My daughter gave it to me!" So the Sultan of Sharjah has a copy of my book! The best book-related comment I've had is from the great professor of Islamic art, Robert Hillenbrand - chatting to him after his recent Islamic Art Circle lecture, someone asked us what was the book we were talking about, and Robert said - "Islamic Arts from Spain. You'd think, all the old chestnuts... But there is not a chestnut in sight!" I took that as high praise indeed.
The clocks went back this morning so now I have that strange feeling of my body-clock being out of kilter with what the clock on the wall says. Now begins the winter.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Monday, 25 October 2010
It's a crime
I haven't blogged for a goodly while - I'm sorry about that, and I will catch up with you soon. For the moment I wanted to share with you what I considered to be an amusing/appropriate shelving of a particular book on the third shelf down, captured in the WH Smiths at Heathrow airport last week... (Another delayed flight on the way to Spain, but more about that anon)
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Open City
This has been a good week for making the most of living in London.
It started with going to see/hear Raja Shehadeh at the Royal Festival Hall. K had managed to double-book himself, so I went along with Alison, and we had a great evening. He read from his new book, A Rift in Time, which grew out of family research he did into the life of his great-uncle, a political exile from the Ottoman government of Palestine, which is interwoven with his own contemporary story of struggle against the Israeli occupation. Then there was a Q&A led by the director of Profile Books, his publisher, then opened to the floor.
Perhaps unsurprisingly the questions were less about his new book than about his views on the current peace talks (pessimistic) and about the potential for challenging human rights abuses through legal means - something he has spent his whole working life doing, which he seems to feel others are now doing just as successfully, if that's really the word. His recent writings - especially Palestinian Walks - have been about trying to reclaim the land, and his approach to the crisis in Israel/Palestine is long-term and root-and-branch: that basically the settlements not only need to stop being built, but need to be torn up, borders got rid of, and the whole region turned back into something approaching the broader territory encompassed by the Ottoman occupation, shared and lived in equally by all races and religions. He doesn't seem to think that is far-fetched, but I can't see it happening for a very long time.
As Alison said, it was just so refreshing to hear someone so articulate talk in an impassioned but entirely fair and reasonable way about the situation in the Middle East, without giving in to emotion or point-scoring. He signed copies of his book - I got one for Paz and asked him to sign it for her in Arabic. That will be a nice Christmas present, and also a nice exchange for the book she just gave me, the fifth and last in Tariq Ali's Islam Quintet, personally signed by him when she went to hear him talk at the Edinburgh Festival last month.
Then there was a screening of a short film that a father-and-son team have made inspired by Shehadeh's Palestinian Walks - part interview with him, part 'dramatisation' of one of the most memorable scenes of that book, the encounter with a settler during a walk along a stream through the hills around Ramallah where he lives, and their discussion of whose land it is and which of them has the right to walk there. Very poignant.
But what made it so 'London' - if it isn't already great enough that we have access to this kind of event - was the fact that Michael Palin was in the audience, and Stephen Fry was 'performing' in the main hall just underneath us, and when we went down in the musical lift (the RFH choir sings scales at you, upwards or downwards depending on which way the lift is going! A sound installation by artist Martin Creed) there he was signing copies of his new autobiography, with a huge queue snaking round the main foyer of the Festival Hall. Alison and I casually walked past and stared at him for a bit, before heading our separate ways!
It started with going to see/hear Raja Shehadeh at the Royal Festival Hall. K had managed to double-book himself, so I went along with Alison, and we had a great evening. He read from his new book, A Rift in Time, which grew out of family research he did into the life of his great-uncle, a political exile from the Ottoman government of Palestine, which is interwoven with his own contemporary story of struggle against the Israeli occupation. Then there was a Q&A led by the director of Profile Books, his publisher, then opened to the floor.
Perhaps unsurprisingly the questions were less about his new book than about his views on the current peace talks (pessimistic) and about the potential for challenging human rights abuses through legal means - something he has spent his whole working life doing, which he seems to feel others are now doing just as successfully, if that's really the word. His recent writings - especially Palestinian Walks - have been about trying to reclaim the land, and his approach to the crisis in Israel/Palestine is long-term and root-and-branch: that basically the settlements not only need to stop being built, but need to be torn up, borders got rid of, and the whole region turned back into something approaching the broader territory encompassed by the Ottoman occupation, shared and lived in equally by all races and religions. He doesn't seem to think that is far-fetched, but I can't see it happening for a very long time.
As Alison said, it was just so refreshing to hear someone so articulate talk in an impassioned but entirely fair and reasonable way about the situation in the Middle East, without giving in to emotion or point-scoring. He signed copies of his book - I got one for Paz and asked him to sign it for her in Arabic. That will be a nice Christmas present, and also a nice exchange for the book she just gave me, the fifth and last in Tariq Ali's Islam Quintet, personally signed by him when she went to hear him talk at the Edinburgh Festival last month.
Then there was a screening of a short film that a father-and-son team have made inspired by Shehadeh's Palestinian Walks - part interview with him, part 'dramatisation' of one of the most memorable scenes of that book, the encounter with a settler during a walk along a stream through the hills around Ramallah where he lives, and their discussion of whose land it is and which of them has the right to walk there. Very poignant.
But what made it so 'London' - if it isn't already great enough that we have access to this kind of event - was the fact that Michael Palin was in the audience, and Stephen Fry was 'performing' in the main hall just underneath us, and when we went down in the musical lift (the RFH choir sings scales at you, upwards or downwards depending on which way the lift is going! A sound installation by artist Martin Creed) there he was signing copies of his new autobiography, with a huge queue snaking round the main foyer of the Festival Hall. Alison and I casually walked past and stared at him for a bit, before heading our separate ways!
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Then this weekend it is Open House - when hundreds of the city's amazing buildings throw open their doors and let you poke around inside. We were a little more organised than usual this year - at least we managed to book ourselves onto a tour of the London Library, which is somewhere we've always been curious about (not being able to afford the £400-odd fee to become members and find out from the inside!).
They have just finished a renovation and expansion project, and members of the architects firm were there to talk to us about that, which was interesting, but actually I wanted to know more about the Library! Basically it was founded as a gentlemen's club for the intellectually lofty, from what I could make out. We couldn't go into the reading rooms which was a shame, though we peered voyeuristically into them from the corridor. There were hardly any "members" around - the librarian who was taking us round thought perhaps they were all out enjoying Open House. More likely they stayed away from all of us! The stacks were fantastic though - with cast iron grilles allowing you to look all the way up or all the way down through the floors (not good if you have vertigo!) and with book-shelf height carefully worked out to avoid the need for ladders. They have a very individual cataloguing system which is entirely alphabetical within its thematic sections - in the "Science & Misc." part of the stacks (excellent!) 'Fishing' was followed by 'Flagellation' which was followed by 'Flags'!
After a restorative coffee, we walked from St James's along to our next port of call, the 'Roman baths' underneath King's College on the Strand. No-one seems to know when these were built, though possibly they're Tudor. From the horrible busy-ness of the Strand, we passed into the deserted square mile of the City of London - it is always so strangely empty at the weekends, when the business people that populate it during the week seem to stay away. We wondered as well if everyone was off looking at the Pope, as London did seem strangely empty yesterday. We were heading for the Guildhall where we spent a few hours - K got excited by the 15th-century Great Hall and crypts, I got excited by the fact there is a Roman amphitheatre underneath it!! Which was only discovered in 1988!!
We also visited the 1:500 scale model of the City of London on display in the 'City Marketing Suite' behind the Guildhall, which shows you what the skyline of central London is going to look like once all the current and projected skyscraper projects are completed - intended-to-be-iconic buildings which already have names ('The Shard', 'The Pinnacle') which are going to completely dominate The Gherkin and ruin the view. But quite fascinating to see it visualised in this way. There was a good interactive and a rather charismatic architect there answering people's questions.
We dipped in and out of quite a lot of Wren churches, which you seem to fall over on every corner in that part of the city, K making use of his recent purchase, the Pevsner for London's City churches. It was revealing of quite how much rebuilding was done immediately after the Second World War, since this part of the city was pretty much destroyed by bombing in the Blitz. We checked historic photos of where we were walking on the Museum of London's iPhone app, Street Museum. They don't have many photos on there yet, but it's a really interesting way of looking at and thinking about where you happen to be standing. We were going to go to the Bank of England, but this was the queue when we got there:
It reminded one of the queues you see on the news sometimes when there are reports in, say, Argentina of the country's economy being on the brink of collapse. K wondered whether they all thought they were going to be given money when they got inside. Perhaps they all knew something we didn't. Still, it's amazing that this many people turn out to look at buildings on Open House!
We got the bus home to Brixton, and because we weren't quite ready to go home, we went to visit Lambeth Town Hall, which was also Open, and got a personal tour by Lib Dem councillor and former mayor, Daphne Marchant, which was an idiosyncratic experience. Though we had come to that meeting of the Planning Committee last year - at which our Residents' Association successfully challenged the Lambeth College development next door - it was interesting to see the Council Chamber and hear a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes.
After that we went to experience the beer garden of our local pub.
They have just finished a renovation and expansion project, and members of the architects firm were there to talk to us about that, which was interesting, but actually I wanted to know more about the Library! Basically it was founded as a gentlemen's club for the intellectually lofty, from what I could make out. We couldn't go into the reading rooms which was a shame, though we peered voyeuristically into them from the corridor. There were hardly any "members" around - the librarian who was taking us round thought perhaps they were all out enjoying Open House. More likely they stayed away from all of us! The stacks were fantastic though - with cast iron grilles allowing you to look all the way up or all the way down through the floors (not good if you have vertigo!) and with book-shelf height carefully worked out to avoid the need for ladders. They have a very individual cataloguing system which is entirely alphabetical within its thematic sections - in the "Science & Misc." part of the stacks (excellent!) 'Fishing' was followed by 'Flagellation' which was followed by 'Flags'!
After a restorative coffee, we walked from St James's along to our next port of call, the 'Roman baths' underneath King's College on the Strand. No-one seems to know when these were built, though possibly they're Tudor. From the horrible busy-ness of the Strand, we passed into the deserted square mile of the City of London - it is always so strangely empty at the weekends, when the business people that populate it during the week seem to stay away. We wondered as well if everyone was off looking at the Pope, as London did seem strangely empty yesterday. We were heading for the Guildhall where we spent a few hours - K got excited by the 15th-century Great Hall and crypts, I got excited by the fact there is a Roman amphitheatre underneath it!! Which was only discovered in 1988!!
We also visited the 1:500 scale model of the City of London on display in the 'City Marketing Suite' behind the Guildhall, which shows you what the skyline of central London is going to look like once all the current and projected skyscraper projects are completed - intended-to-be-iconic buildings which already have names ('The Shard', 'The Pinnacle') which are going to completely dominate The Gherkin and ruin the view. But quite fascinating to see it visualised in this way. There was a good interactive and a rather charismatic architect there answering people's questions.
We dipped in and out of quite a lot of Wren churches, which you seem to fall over on every corner in that part of the city, K making use of his recent purchase, the Pevsner for London's City churches. It was revealing of quite how much rebuilding was done immediately after the Second World War, since this part of the city was pretty much destroyed by bombing in the Blitz. We checked historic photos of where we were walking on the Museum of London's iPhone app, Street Museum. They don't have many photos on there yet, but it's a really interesting way of looking at and thinking about where you happen to be standing. We were going to go to the Bank of England, but this was the queue when we got there:
It reminded one of the queues you see on the news sometimes when there are reports in, say, Argentina of the country's economy being on the brink of collapse. K wondered whether they all thought they were going to be given money when they got inside. Perhaps they all knew something we didn't. Still, it's amazing that this many people turn out to look at buildings on Open House!
We got the bus home to Brixton, and because we weren't quite ready to go home, we went to visit Lambeth Town Hall, which was also Open, and got a personal tour by Lib Dem councillor and former mayor, Daphne Marchant, which was an idiosyncratic experience. Though we had come to that meeting of the Planning Committee last year - at which our Residents' Association successfully challenged the Lambeth College development next door - it was interesting to see the Council Chamber and hear a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes.
After that we went to experience the beer garden of our local pub.
Time to join Facebook?
I have had some really nice letters, cards and emails from people, congratulating me on the publication of my book. However, one of the pieces of correspondence that awaited me on my return to work was a little more strange...
Written on a typewriter, from an Italian gentleman named Bruno Filipponio, this letter assured me that he "ardently desired" a copy of my book, and without explaining why he was not in a position to pay for it, requested me to send him a free copy, for which he offered me in exchange a book entitled Pironti: Osservazioni e chiose su vernacolo e dialetto (I can't find any trace of this book online, and it's not altogether clear what it is about - the Pironti apparently being a noble family from Ravello, with distinguished scions going back to the 13th century...). Though this book was "a treasured family heirloom", he was nevertheless willing to deprive himself of it in order to receive a copy of my book - would I agree to the exchange? It went on in yet more purple a fashion: "I know that I ask much and offer little, I know that I seem brash and boorish in my request....", and that if I was not able to "satisfy" him, could I reply quickly - even if briefly - "in order to avoid a long wait and a yet more bitter disappointment"...?
I put this aside for a while, having several hundred emails to deal with after what was effectively 6 weeks out of the office, then turned my thoughts to it again a few days ago. I wrote a quick reply, which Luisa kindly translated for me, confident - since Lisa's photo of my book on sale in Venice - that the book was available in Italy, and anyway why couldn't he order it online? It's not prohibitively expensive... (though the fact that the letter was written on a typewriter suggested the correspondent might not be au fait with the interweb...)
But something about the rather poetic way it was written made me wonder who this Bruno Filipponio was, so I Googled him, and quickly discovered that he had been an Olympic torchbearer for the Rome Olympics in 1960! But yet more curious - I came across a posting dated January of this year, on the blog of a Catalan Professor of Philology, Mariàngela Villalonga, who had also received a letter from Bruno Filipponio. And not only that, but the quotes she gave from the letter ("desidero ardentemente", "E' un caro ricordo di famiglia, ma sono pronto a privarmene pur di avere quanto ho chiesto; accetta lo scambio?") showed that it had been worded in the exact same way as my letter!
Like me, Mariàngela had gone online to find out who this chap was - and had found reproduced on the website of a Bolognese company the exact same letter as ours, just with the titles changed, of the book requested and the book offered in exchange; she also managed to find identical letters from our correspondent, received by Italian writers in 1977 and 1963! And that an Italian friend of hers receives a letter from him every time he publishes a new book!
Bruno Filipponio has been scrounging books off their authors for nearly 50 years!!! I wonder if he has ever bought a book in his life?? Indeed I presume that the books he offers in exchange are books previously sent to him by their authors, perhaps decades ago!
Mariàngela suggested that perhaps we should start a Facebook group for authors who have received letters from Bruno Filipponio! It is the first time I have actually been tempted to join Facebook!!
Written on a typewriter, from an Italian gentleman named Bruno Filipponio, this letter assured me that he "ardently desired" a copy of my book, and without explaining why he was not in a position to pay for it, requested me to send him a free copy, for which he offered me in exchange a book entitled Pironti: Osservazioni e chiose su vernacolo e dialetto (I can't find any trace of this book online, and it's not altogether clear what it is about - the Pironti apparently being a noble family from Ravello, with distinguished scions going back to the 13th century...). Though this book was "a treasured family heirloom", he was nevertheless willing to deprive himself of it in order to receive a copy of my book - would I agree to the exchange? It went on in yet more purple a fashion: "I know that I ask much and offer little, I know that I seem brash and boorish in my request....", and that if I was not able to "satisfy" him, could I reply quickly - even if briefly - "in order to avoid a long wait and a yet more bitter disappointment"...?
I put this aside for a while, having several hundred emails to deal with after what was effectively 6 weeks out of the office, then turned my thoughts to it again a few days ago. I wrote a quick reply, which Luisa kindly translated for me, confident - since Lisa's photo of my book on sale in Venice - that the book was available in Italy, and anyway why couldn't he order it online? It's not prohibitively expensive... (though the fact that the letter was written on a typewriter suggested the correspondent might not be au fait with the interweb...)
But something about the rather poetic way it was written made me wonder who this Bruno Filipponio was, so I Googled him, and quickly discovered that he had been an Olympic torchbearer for the Rome Olympics in 1960! But yet more curious - I came across a posting dated January of this year, on the blog of a Catalan Professor of Philology, Mariàngela Villalonga, who had also received a letter from Bruno Filipponio. And not only that, but the quotes she gave from the letter ("desidero ardentemente", "E' un caro ricordo di famiglia, ma sono pronto a privarmene pur di avere quanto ho chiesto; accetta lo scambio?") showed that it had been worded in the exact same way as my letter!
Like me, Mariàngela had gone online to find out who this chap was - and had found reproduced on the website of a Bolognese company the exact same letter as ours, just with the titles changed, of the book requested and the book offered in exchange; she also managed to find identical letters from our correspondent, received by Italian writers in 1977 and 1963! And that an Italian friend of hers receives a letter from him every time he publishes a new book!
Bruno Filipponio has been scrounging books off their authors for nearly 50 years!!! I wonder if he has ever bought a book in his life?? Indeed I presume that the books he offers in exchange are books previously sent to him by their authors, perhaps decades ago!
Mariàngela suggested that perhaps we should start a Facebook group for authors who have received letters from Bruno Filipponio! It is the first time I have actually been tempted to join Facebook!!
Sunday, 11 July 2010
My book is in the shops!
and the Ceramics Study Galleries are open - the two major projects I have given all my time to over the last several years are successfully complete, and I am becoming increasingly aware of an unfamiliar feeling of aimlessness in my extra-curricular time. It's not that I don't have research or writing projects I could be doing, I just don't want to be doing them - or rather, I feel that I have earnt some time off from them, just that I don't really know what it is that normal people do with their free time. I suppose part of the problem is that K has two article deadlines to meet, so he is writing writing writing, so I can't make any plans for us to go off and do things together at the weekend. And I quite enjoy luxuriating in the pure fact of having nothing to do.
But I have read enough of the LRB and my current book, The Rings of Saturn (which I have to say I am not enjoying nearly as much as I ought to be - especially since it is one of K's most beloved books), and have caught up with the Guardian profile of Simon Mawer and review of his recently-Booker-nominated The Glass Room - the book I read on holiday, which was such a wonderfully evocative portrait of a Modernist building that when I eventually brought myself to look at photographs of the Tugendhat House in Brno, Czech Republic, upon which it based, I felt I had already seen it... I have caught up with a good few long-overdue emails, and we have even started to arrange to see people again!
I feel like I am re-emerging from a long period of hibernation, but am out of practice where basic social pastimes are concerned - perhaps because our habit over the last years has been to do our research in all the spare hours we can carve out from the day. I made a conscious decision early on in my working life to maintain an active academic strand alongside my job - of course those things should cross over more than they do - but I feel I have now got to the stage, especially now that I have been promoted, where I do not have anything to prove any more, and I am grateful for that. But it is difficult to suddenly learn to relax when you've never really been sure of how to do it! I have done quite a lot of cooking - hours in the kitchen last night producing Ottolenghi's turkey and sweetcorn meatballs, and as always with meatballs I am not sure that the end result really justified the hours of faff; I have even done all the washing up (things must be bad!).
This lull is also actually only a brief window before embarking on the next book project - in August, I am using up 5 weeks of my accumulated leave (having not really taken any holidays over the last few years) to start focusing on how to turn my thesis into a book. I haven't looked at it for 8 years, and don't really want to think about it at all before 2 August - when I plan to pitch my metaphorical tent in the British Library for the duration (people who don't realise I am not going on a month's holiday say, "I hope you're going somewhere nice"!) - so I am trying to get my ducks in a row (scans from Spanish colleagues of articles that have come out in the last 8 years, a sense from EUP - where I plan to propose it - of what I should have achieved by the end of August) without really engaging my brain, since I want to come to it absolutely fresh when I finally sit down and re-read it. I am hoping that the intervening years and publishing projects will make it immediately obvious to me what it needs, but I also don't want to do too much rewriting, mainly restructuring and reducing. But who knows what will possess me.
In the meantime, we're having a glorious summer and I really should be outside. Thank goodness we have the Lambeth Country Show next weekend!
Monday, 5 April 2010
Happy Easter!
Nick sent this to us as an Easter greeting a couple of years ago - it always makes K giggle like a little boy! Thank goodness for the Easter bank holiday weekend - four days of enforced time off work! It has been a festival of cooking and eating and an orgy of relaxing...
We kicked off the proceedings by hosting a dinner for eight here on Thursday evening, in honour of one of K's colleagues whose contract has come to an end. We started cooking for that on Wednesday night, to fit all the preparations around work, but somehow I still managed to get chained to the kitchen for two hours on the night making salads... The first recipes we have tried from our new cookbook purchase, Ottolenghi, but how yummy and worth the wait! One with broad beans and radishes, another with fennel and feta and sumac, and lots of lemon juice and olive oil in both. A lovely evening, but one which reminded us that it is difficult to entertain eight comfortably in our flat!
On Good Friday, K went into work - it was the first day that the Tudor wine fountain he has been involved with recreating was going to be up and running and serving wine, and he wanted to be around to make sure all went smoothly. I went in to meet him for lunch, then to be introduced in person to the wine fountain - which is just amazing, but more on that anon! I gained the distinction of being the first person ever to pay for a glass of wine from the fountain! I also went round some of the parts of the palace they had made changes to since the last time I had been - and went round the Georgian apartments, which for some reason I had never visited before but really loved, in large part because they were the Hampton Court home of Caroline of Ansbach, wife of George II, who is one of the characters in the second Neal Stephenson book, The Confusion, which I have just finished reading and which in all honesty has made me far more interested in the 18th century than I have ever been! On the train there, I was reading about the celebrations of her 18th birthday, and here I had jumped forward - or back - in time to the apartments she lived in at the end of her life!
Home long before K to prepare some of the food for our Easter Sunday lunch party - braised broad beans in tomatoes and herbs, the first time I had cooked beans from dried, and I think the only advantage of this was that they held together better during the long cooking process because in the end I am not sure the dish was all that tasty! I also made lemony biscuits and blackberry ice cream for dessert, using the blackberries we picked on my birthday last year, which have been taking up space in the freezer since then - along with a blackberry and apple pie filling, and quite a few raspberries as I rediscovered to my interest...
On Saturday we journeyed out to Little Chalfont - via the urban wasteland of Watford, due to multiple engineering works on the railways - for the interment of K's grandfather Robert's ashes, in the churchyard in Chenies where he now rests with Betty, his wife of over 60 years. We had a nice family lunch in the pub nearby, then back to the flat for the last time, to choose any books and CDs we wanted to keep, and help K's parents and uncle load furniture onto the hire van, to clean out cupboards and sort what remains into boxes. The sale should be completed by the end of April - fingers crossed - but the flat should be empty by the end of this week. It suddenly struck K as we were leaving that he would never go back there.
Home to marinade the lamb for Easter Sunday lunch and mix up another batch of blackberry ice cream.
On Sunday morning we had to prepare the rest of the food for Sunday lunch but also receive K's father and uncle and the hire van full of furniture K was inheriting from his grandparents, which he had loaded up the day before. This included two bookcases - one of which was made by his great grandfather who was a cabinet maker - and to make room for these, K had to take everything off the two (smaller) bookcases we already had ... so at one point our sitting room was just a pile of books, and 6 lunch guests due in less than half an hour...! But amazingly everything got delivered, fitted into place and books shoved back into them at random, and by the time the doorbell rang for the first guest, it was as if nothing had ever been out of place!
They're rather beautiful pieces of furniture but they give the flat a strong feeling of living in the past that I haven't quite got used to yet. They're the kind of cabinet that might have furnished this flat when it was originally built in the 1930s.
And so to lunch. We followed a Greek-inspired menu by chef Maria Elia, from the food magazine we subscribe to, Olive. Over the years it has come to seem very repetitive and there is far too much Gordon Ramsay in it for my liking, but in every issue there are always 2 or 3, sometimes more, new recipes which we try, and which keep us experimenting with food, and for want of a good substitute, we keep buying it.
This lunch menu started with halloumi and a nice salad made with fennel, celery, olives and parsley; and in addition to the braised broad beans, was accompanied by lemon-roasted potatoes with capers, and wilted spinach with pine nuts and a dressing made with sultanas, herbs and red wine vinegar. But of course the star of the feast was the paper-wrapped leg of lamb that we had marinated overnight with garlic and plentiful herbs and spices and more lemon juice - quite a number of lemons lost their lives to put our lunch on the table! This was the result:
served up on a lovely mid-19th century platter which I inherited from my grandmother, and enjoyed by all - but especially by K and I for whom this was the first meat to pass our lips in 6 weeks!! It was gorgeous!!A long lingering Sunday lunch with Lindsay & Russell and Wanda & Az, that went on until about quarter to 8, which is how we like our Sunday lunches, and all the better for not having to go to work today...
And so to Easter Monday. We finally got a lie-in this morning - K shocked me into wakefulness by looking at the clock and saying it was 1.15!! Which fortunately it wasn't - the pillow was obscuring the first 1! A lazy breakfast - I am now reading the 3rd of the Neal Stephenson books, The System of the World, which K is jealous about because he hasn't read this one yet! - and then we took ourselves off to the Ritzy for some mindless entertainment in the form of Clash of the Titans, which was great! I love the original film and of course this was nothing like that, but there's nothing like a bit of Greek mythology to get you going!
It was shown in 3D, as everything seems to be these days - the Ritzy had obviously run out of 3s for the board out front where they still put up all the film titles of what's on that week in the traditional way, which I love, and so they were advertising Clash of the Titans in 4D! What would that be?? You are actually in the movie I suppose! But I like the idea of it because it always reminds me of Victorian stereoscope images - the 3D glasses you have to put on are literally the modern equivalent of the stereoscope glasses you used to have to use. Though the technology for creating these images in film-form has obviously greatly advanced, somehow this little bit of lo-fi kit is such a pleasing link to the past...
K is now sorting books, CDs and DVDs, trying to fit everything onto the new bookcases, which have smaller and narrower shelves, and integrating the not-very-restrained pile of books and CDs we brought from his grandfather's. If we end up moving to this new flat, chances are that none of this is going to fit...
Friday, 26 February 2010
Trois jours en Paris
Phew. February. Glad that's (nearly) over. We've all been working like crazy people preparing to install the Ceramics Study Galleries (26,000 objects in visible storage!!), which finally actually begins on Monday. I didn't think I'd be saying this but I might be just about ready. I'm the first to install - weird to think that one of the Middle Eastern pots I put in on Monday will be the first object in those new dense displays, where the intention is they will remain for several decades. So the most important thing to ponder over this weekend is which object it should be...
Paris is just so beautiful. There really is just no place like it. It was an extra special treat for K who - unbelievably - had not been there for about 10 years. Not since we used to go and visit my aunt and uncle and cousins, who were living and working there for a few years, at Christmas times. Happy memories of their wonderful, typically Parisienne house in Le Vesinet; the night it snowed and fell so heavily that it woke K up... I have had the fortune to go to Paris a few times since then, on courier trips or research visits, so as always it was a treat to go, but it was extra to see it through K's excitement.
We stayed near the Palais Royal and just walked everywhere. That's what you have to do in Paris - it's an important part of soaking up the atmosphere and the architecture. Flaneant, indeed - though sadly we couldn't put our hands on that wonderful book by Edmund White (The Flâneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris) which is obviously one of the books currently lodged in K's parents' attic...
I had stayed in this area before, near the Galérie Véro-Dodat (built 1826), and had noticed a lovely looking restaurant which only seemed to be open at lunchtimes, when I was working, so we headed straight there after dumping our bag at the hotel, and jumped straight into a wonderful French food experience. Not only that but completely unexpectedly the ceiling was covered in anaglyptic (embossed) wallpaper in the Alhambra style, which must have been up there since the late 19th century! I was very chuffed at such a fortuitous find.
Anaglyptic wallpaper was popular in the late 19th century, especially among those who wanted to create rich interiors decorated in the revivalist styles that were en vogue at that time - the decoration of the Alhambra being one of the most widespread of these international historicist styles.
The Galérie Véro-Dodat (named for the two men who built it, in 1826). It's one of the few surviving commercial passages in Paris - one of the best preserved too, I think, since it seems to have all the original shop fronts and many of their signs. The tables you can see about halfway down are outside the restaurant where we had lunch.
From there we wandered around the Marais, meandering along to the Place des Vosges, taking in the various gorgeous 16th-century hôtels and modern boutiques along the way. Dinner in the atmospheric Coude à Coude on Rue St Honoré where they squeeze you in "elbow to elbow". For the rest of the weekend, we went medieval - though K was a little surprised (I think) to discover he is no longer a 'proper' medievalist: nearly 4 hours in the Musée de Cluny, and he was disappointed that there wasn't more 16th-century stuff! He still managed to take about 10,000 photographs though.
One of the amazing windows at Sainte Chappelle. It is a relatively small space and was absolutely packed with tour parties, which completely removed any sense of awe or tranquility at being in the space. Every now and again some laconic guard would ssssssshhh!!!! everyone, until the chatter inevitably started up again. It was a little bit like being in the Sistine Chapel - not an experience I enjoyed very much the last time I went.
We did the main churches of medieval Paris - Sainte Chappelle, with its truly stunning stained glass windows, though the apse was behind some rather unattractive hoardings while they do a big restoration project on the glass and lead fittings; Notre Dame, where they were conducting a mass confirmation service for all the parishes in Paris (it seemed), so it was crowded and full of buzz and activity; St Germain des Pres, which has rather suffered from over heavy restoration and repainting in the 19th century; and Saint Denis, the royal pantheon - where K was happy to discover more 16th-century tomb sculpture than is reasonable in a church. But it was the site and excuse for another fine culinary experience - at the extremely elegant Mets du Roy, facing on to the square in front of the basilica. Expensive but amazing beef fillet.
I have always thought that going away for a long weekend like that in the middle of a busy work period would be exhausting - but, on the contrary, it was invigorating and relaxing, because there was so much to see and think about, that I spent very little time at all thinking or worrying about work. So more city breaks - that's the resolution. Especially to cities we can get to on the train. We're thinking Bruges next.
In Paris we also took a holiday from K's enforced giving up of meat for Lent - only partly because France is, I think, officially the worst place in the world to be a vegetarian. Since getting back, though, he has been strictly enforcing this new regime. Even fish is off the menu. Practically, from a shopping and cooking point of view, it is easiest if we do this together - but I told him I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't eat meat at lunch times. But so far I haven't and I am not missing it. Though I did join some colleagues for dinner at China City after the SOAS Islamic art research seminar yesterday evening, and I could not resist the prawns...
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The highlight of the last few weeks, however, was our long weekend in Paris last weekend - for our (14th!!) anniversary. We booked Eurostar tickets months ago when there was a half price offer, and both took Friday off work, got a breakfast-time train, and sailed off through the French countryside... Trains really are the only way to travel - especially if they are fast and efficient like the few European high speed lines I've travelled on. Our train left on the dot. Alas, we ran into a security alert on the way back, which meant a horrendous queue to check in, and the train leaving an hour later than scheduled - but it could have been worse: I have just seen that the passengers who left on the train before ours (also delayed) had to endure the additional nightmare of their train breaking down in the tunnel outside Ashford and then sitting in the dark for two hours until another train turned up to rescue them! Apparently our train bypassed theirs! I had no idea - poor people...Paris is just so beautiful. There really is just no place like it. It was an extra special treat for K who - unbelievably - had not been there for about 10 years. Not since we used to go and visit my aunt and uncle and cousins, who were living and working there for a few years, at Christmas times. Happy memories of their wonderful, typically Parisienne house in Le Vesinet; the night it snowed and fell so heavily that it woke K up... I have had the fortune to go to Paris a few times since then, on courier trips or research visits, so as always it was a treat to go, but it was extra to see it through K's excitement.
We stayed near the Palais Royal and just walked everywhere. That's what you have to do in Paris - it's an important part of soaking up the atmosphere and the architecture. Flaneant, indeed - though sadly we couldn't put our hands on that wonderful book by Edmund White (The Flâneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris) which is obviously one of the books currently lodged in K's parents' attic...
I had stayed in this area before, near the Galérie Véro-Dodat (built 1826), and had noticed a lovely looking restaurant which only seemed to be open at lunchtimes, when I was working, so we headed straight there after dumping our bag at the hotel, and jumped straight into a wonderful French food experience. Not only that but completely unexpectedly the ceiling was covered in anaglyptic (embossed) wallpaper in the Alhambra style, which must have been up there since the late 19th century! I was very chuffed at such a fortuitous find.
Anaglyptic wallpaper was popular in the late 19th century, especially among those who wanted to create rich interiors decorated in the revivalist styles that were en vogue at that time - the decoration of the Alhambra being one of the most widespread of these international historicist styles.
The Galérie Véro-Dodat (named for the two men who built it, in 1826). It's one of the few surviving commercial passages in Paris - one of the best preserved too, I think, since it seems to have all the original shop fronts and many of their signs. The tables you can see about halfway down are outside the restaurant where we had lunch.From there we wandered around the Marais, meandering along to the Place des Vosges, taking in the various gorgeous 16th-century hôtels and modern boutiques along the way. Dinner in the atmospheric Coude à Coude on Rue St Honoré where they squeeze you in "elbow to elbow". For the rest of the weekend, we went medieval - though K was a little surprised (I think) to discover he is no longer a 'proper' medievalist: nearly 4 hours in the Musée de Cluny, and he was disappointed that there wasn't more 16th-century stuff! He still managed to take about 10,000 photographs though.
One of the amazing windows at Sainte Chappelle. It is a relatively small space and was absolutely packed with tour parties, which completely removed any sense of awe or tranquility at being in the space. Every now and again some laconic guard would ssssssshhh!!!! everyone, until the chatter inevitably started up again. It was a little bit like being in the Sistine Chapel - not an experience I enjoyed very much the last time I went.We did the main churches of medieval Paris - Sainte Chappelle, with its truly stunning stained glass windows, though the apse was behind some rather unattractive hoardings while they do a big restoration project on the glass and lead fittings; Notre Dame, where they were conducting a mass confirmation service for all the parishes in Paris (it seemed), so it was crowded and full of buzz and activity; St Germain des Pres, which has rather suffered from over heavy restoration and repainting in the 19th century; and Saint Denis, the royal pantheon - where K was happy to discover more 16th-century tomb sculpture than is reasonable in a church. But it was the site and excuse for another fine culinary experience - at the extremely elegant Mets du Roy, facing on to the square in front of the basilica. Expensive but amazing beef fillet.
I have always thought that going away for a long weekend like that in the middle of a busy work period would be exhausting - but, on the contrary, it was invigorating and relaxing, because there was so much to see and think about, that I spent very little time at all thinking or worrying about work. So more city breaks - that's the resolution. Especially to cities we can get to on the train. We're thinking Bruges next.
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In Paris we also took a holiday from K's enforced giving up of meat for Lent - only partly because France is, I think, officially the worst place in the world to be a vegetarian. Since getting back, though, he has been strictly enforcing this new regime. Even fish is off the menu. Practically, from a shopping and cooking point of view, it is easiest if we do this together - but I told him I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't eat meat at lunch times. But so far I haven't and I am not missing it. Though I did join some colleagues for dinner at China City after the SOAS Islamic art research seminar yesterday evening, and I could not resist the prawns...
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I have not posted the calendar image for this month, since it is one you have seen before - something that might become a common occurrence, since the pictures we have selected for the calendar are some of the iconic images of last year, many of which I have already shared here. This month the image is the Natural History Museum in the heavy snow of last February - something which seemed magically rare when I wrote about it at the time, but which has been repeated this year, almost ad infinitum. When it first snowed, early on in the New Year, people were off work and schools were closed and fun and toboganning was had in the streets... But after weeks of the big chill, even the school kids didn't seem to care much for snowball fights any more.
It has been absolutely freezing, though in London in the last couple of days it has started to get milder. Cycling through Battersea Park on the way to work yesterday morning, I was suddenly assaulted by an amazing scent, and then I noticed a huge carpet of crocuses, all about to burst into bloom. How wonderful if spring was actually on the way!
It has been absolutely freezing, though in London in the last couple of days it has started to get milder. Cycling through Battersea Park on the way to work yesterday morning, I was suddenly assaulted by an amazing scent, and then I noticed a huge carpet of crocuses, all about to burst into bloom. How wonderful if spring was actually on the way!
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I finished reading the 900-page-long book - Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, the first trilogy-in-one of his Baroque Cycle. It's a fictionalised and partly fantastical historical novel about Europe during the 17th century, woven around Natural Philosophy and the Royal Society (appropriate in its 350th year), the rise and fall of kings, money, commerce, pirates, Puritans, brilliantly and amusingly written... I had nothing better to read so I carried straight on to the next volume, The Confusion - 800 pages this time. There is another one after that too. These may be the only books I read all year! But I'm completely sucked in. Highly recommended reading.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Saturdays in the British Library
This has been our habit for a goodly while now, but since the start of the year, it has become a regular routine. There is something very relaxing about spending a quiet day in the library - when you're academics like us, and what you love doing is your research, yet have such hectic, crazy jobs that largely involve meeting other people's deadlines so that research gets pushed to the sidelines, ie your own time. It gives us the chance to spend a companionable day together, and we get on with work we need or want to do.
The British Library is an amazing building - the largest public building erected in the UK during the 20th century, apparently. K calls it 'the ziggurat of learning', and there is something awe-inspiring about approaching the building across that wide open plaza - which sits atop six storeys of book stacks - with the neo-Gothic spires of St Pancras station encrusting its horizon. It's so well-designed to frame the view of that historic building, and be sympathetic to its environment yet architecturally assertive at the same time.
We've taken to using the Manuscripts Reading Room. This is because K regularly looks at actual manuscripts, though I can make no such claim. Humanities I is the biggest reading room, which tends to get packed out with undergraduates. Serious readers use Rare Books & Music instead. Scholars ascend the conspicuously located staircase to the ivory tower that is Manuscripts, which is always pleasantly empty, dotted with academics engaged in the serious business of primary research. I call up printed books, which the librarians at the issuing counter are so uninterested in that they rarely even ask me which desk number I am sitting at when I go to collect them. That is after they have looked down their noses at me for only consulting printed works produced during the 20th or 21st centuries.
It's always pleasantly sociable too. The library is often packed on a Saturday - we're not the only saddoes that spend their weekends engaged in intellectual pursuits. Most of the other readers are regulars, and creatures of habit, who usually sit at the same desks or put their coats and bags away in the same lockers. We certainly do. And we're often bumping into people we know. We see Patricia there on such a regular basis that we often have lunch together.
And then at the end of a productive day, you file out feeling virtuous, and because it's only 5 o'clock, there's still a whole evening of relaxing ahead of you.
The British Library is an amazing building - the largest public building erected in the UK during the 20th century, apparently. K calls it 'the ziggurat of learning', and there is something awe-inspiring about approaching the building across that wide open plaza - which sits atop six storeys of book stacks - with the neo-Gothic spires of St Pancras station encrusting its horizon. It's so well-designed to frame the view of that historic building, and be sympathetic to its environment yet architecturally assertive at the same time.
We've taken to using the Manuscripts Reading Room. This is because K regularly looks at actual manuscripts, though I can make no such claim. Humanities I is the biggest reading room, which tends to get packed out with undergraduates. Serious readers use Rare Books & Music instead. Scholars ascend the conspicuously located staircase to the ivory tower that is Manuscripts, which is always pleasantly empty, dotted with academics engaged in the serious business of primary research. I call up printed books, which the librarians at the issuing counter are so uninterested in that they rarely even ask me which desk number I am sitting at when I go to collect them. That is after they have looked down their noses at me for only consulting printed works produced during the 20th or 21st centuries.
It's always pleasantly sociable too. The library is often packed on a Saturday - we're not the only saddoes that spend their weekends engaged in intellectual pursuits. Most of the other readers are regulars, and creatures of habit, who usually sit at the same desks or put their coats and bags away in the same lockers. We certainly do. And we're often bumping into people we know. We see Patricia there on such a regular basis that we often have lunch together.
And then at the end of a productive day, you file out feeling virtuous, and because it's only 5 o'clock, there's still a whole evening of relaxing ahead of you.
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After the library yesterday, we headed for Chinatown for an early dinner, and then to the theatre - the Donmar Warehouse for the last-night performance of Red, the new play by John Logan about Mark Rothko during the years he was working on the Seagram commission. You can read my post about last year's exhibition at Tate Modern, which reunited those paintings, here. The play was absolutely fantastic - I had forgotten it was the last night, but clearly knew that when I booked the tickets, and in retrospect it made sense of the almost violently passionate performances that the only two characters presented last night. Though perhaps that's how it's been every night. Alfred Molina kissed his hand to the stage when they went out after their second curtain call.
The Donmar is a fantastically intimate almost in-the-round space, which seats only 250 people and puts on amazing shows. We went to see Life is a Dream there with Gareth last year, which was also a revelation. The set for Red was Rothko's studio in the Bowery, and the designers had recreated the feeling of being in a real artist's studio, with every surface encrusted with dried (red) paint. The centrepiece was a gigantic 'easel' from which hung a series of really good replica Rothkos - I would love to know how they got that genuine oil painting feel. Each 'scene' was punctuated by a different painting - Rothko and his studio assistant (played by Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, both excellent) would lower the canvas on its pulley system and carry it over to the back wall of the theatre where there was a stack of 'in progress' canvases, and bring out another one. As the play went on, and Rothko's mood became darker and more despairing - as he realised the ultimate irony, tragedy even, of hanging his paintings on the walls of a fashionable New York restaurant - more and more black took over the surface of those pulsating (the word used in the play) red canvases...
The play itself was a battle of words and wits between Rothko - as the synecdoche of the past-it generation of Abstract Expressionists - and his young assistant - a painter himself, of the Pop Art generation. It was about art and philosophy, seeing and thinking, but also about ageing and the human urge to hang on to a past that seems to be slipping away. They had sold out of all the scripts, but the next time we're at the National Theatre I plan to buy a copy in the bookshop and read it again, since the writing seemed to capture that intangible ability to talk about art, as well as the spiritual quality of those Seagram paintings.
It was the second amazing thing we'd seen in as many nights. On Friday night we saw Un Prophète - the new Jacques Audiard film - at the Ritzy. It's been haunting both of us ever since. It's gritty and hard to watch sometimes, but slow-moving and meditative too, and newcomer Tahar Rahim, who is in almost every frame, is just fantastic.
I've been trying to relax in the evenings this week. I sent off the article on Almoravid religious architecture on Sunday night and have been feeling pretty exhausted as a result of not really having had a break the last two weekends straight. And since things are heating up with the Ceramics Galleries installation phase, I need to be on the ball. I've been waking myself up thinking about it quite a bit lately - usually about 2.30 in the morning, I wake up with music playing in my head, and work thoughts crowding in, and the only way to drown them out is to play myself back to sleep with something on the iPod. I've also gone and got a stinking cold, which hit me out of nowhere mid-week, so I have been feeling a bit under par. I still managed to get all my ceramics labels written and sent off on time though!
The Donmar is a fantastically intimate almost in-the-round space, which seats only 250 people and puts on amazing shows. We went to see Life is a Dream there with Gareth last year, which was also a revelation. The set for Red was Rothko's studio in the Bowery, and the designers had recreated the feeling of being in a real artist's studio, with every surface encrusted with dried (red) paint. The centrepiece was a gigantic 'easel' from which hung a series of really good replica Rothkos - I would love to know how they got that genuine oil painting feel. Each 'scene' was punctuated by a different painting - Rothko and his studio assistant (played by Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, both excellent) would lower the canvas on its pulley system and carry it over to the back wall of the theatre where there was a stack of 'in progress' canvases, and bring out another one. As the play went on, and Rothko's mood became darker and more despairing - as he realised the ultimate irony, tragedy even, of hanging his paintings on the walls of a fashionable New York restaurant - more and more black took over the surface of those pulsating (the word used in the play) red canvases...
The play itself was a battle of words and wits between Rothko - as the synecdoche of the past-it generation of Abstract Expressionists - and his young assistant - a painter himself, of the Pop Art generation. It was about art and philosophy, seeing and thinking, but also about ageing and the human urge to hang on to a past that seems to be slipping away. They had sold out of all the scripts, but the next time we're at the National Theatre I plan to buy a copy in the bookshop and read it again, since the writing seemed to capture that intangible ability to talk about art, as well as the spiritual quality of those Seagram paintings.
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It was the second amazing thing we'd seen in as many nights. On Friday night we saw Un Prophète - the new Jacques Audiard film - at the Ritzy. It's been haunting both of us ever since. It's gritty and hard to watch sometimes, but slow-moving and meditative too, and newcomer Tahar Rahim, who is in almost every frame, is just fantastic.
I've been trying to relax in the evenings this week. I sent off the article on Almoravid religious architecture on Sunday night and have been feeling pretty exhausted as a result of not really having had a break the last two weekends straight. And since things are heating up with the Ceramics Galleries installation phase, I need to be on the ball. I've been waking myself up thinking about it quite a bit lately - usually about 2.30 in the morning, I wake up with music playing in my head, and work thoughts crowding in, and the only way to drown them out is to play myself back to sleep with something on the iPod. I've also gone and got a stinking cold, which hit me out of nowhere mid-week, so I have been feeling a bit under par. I still managed to get all my ceramics labels written and sent off on time though!
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
On the road again
'I hear those voices that will not be drowned'Maggi Hambling's 'Scallop' on Aldeburgh Beach, Suffolk
I went to Berlin for a short trip at the start of last week, to collect and accompany back some objects we had loaned to a rather strange exhibition at the Martin Gropius Bau. Berlin was covered in snow and fog (which caused more delays to my flights, although it is possible I have a jinx, after the travel fiascos of my recent Córdoba trip) - there were even ice floes in the Spree! It was beautifully atmospheric - especially the part I was staying and working in, which was right at the edge of the Wall, in the former East, so now a 'no man's land' of brand new skyscraper developments, but also where they have preserved a 200m stretch of the Wall. The opening of the Berlin Wall was one of the defining events of my teenage years, and I always feel strongly moved when I go to Berlin and see all the graffiti about freiheit. It feels like you have stepped back into the Cold War, but its so shockingly recent - within my own living memory.
I visited the Neues Museum, which reopened in October after 60 years of dereliction, since the Second World War. It's undergone a sympathetic restoration by the architect David Chipperfield, which preserves the state of decay of wall paintings and architectural interiors, which were clearly originally magnificent but now fragmentary - there is even a small room called the 'Fragmentarium' where they display pieces of the architectural decoration whose original locations they were not able to identify. The collection has some masterpieces - Nefertiti's bust of course, which gets an entire room to herself! - but it is worth going to see for the building alone.
I took the colour proofs of my book with me to do the final check and read-through - it was the only available time I had to do it, but also made worthwhile use of all the tedious time hanging around in airports. I think it's finally looking good - everyone seems to think it looks beautiful - and reading it all through again, I have satisfied myself that the text is not too crap, but I'm just so fed up with it now. My editor too, I think! We just have the index and picture credits left to check, and I think it will get sent off to production at the end of the week!!
In amongst the craziness that is the second phase of our Ceramics Galleries project (and I install my first case tomorrow!), I am spending the weekends working full time on the article - on religious architecture in 12th-century Morocco - which I have to send off at the end of the month - so, erm, this weekend. I wrote solidly through last weekend, and have too many words, but still more to write, and then all the refining to do. I had hoped to get some of it done during the evenings this week, but I spent most of last evening in Evans Cycles on Clapham High Street, sorting out my new new Ride2Work scheme bike...
But it means I am finally back on the road again. Let's hope that third time is lucky, and I manage to avoid this one being stolen! Alas it means that I will be doing much less reading - no more London Review of Books on the tube, and back to the two-pages-a-night-before-falling-asleep-with-the-book-on-my-head norm, which - considering I am now reading a book that is nearly 1000 pages long (Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson) - might mean I read only one book all year.
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But before January was all over, I wanted to post our calendar image for this month. It's the picture at the top of this post, the magisterial Scallop by the artist Maggi Hambling, a stainless steel sculpture on Aldeburgh Beach in Suffolk, a commemoration and celebration of Benjamin Britten who lived in Aldeburgh - in the Red House, of which our friend Caroline is the curator - and founded the famous Aldeburgh music festival. The artist calls it her 'conversation with the sea' - you can read a short essay about it here. It has inexplicably been a controversial addition to the coastline - the conservative residents of Aldeburgh objected to it and it had to be moved further along the beach, so it was not so much in their sight line! - but we thought it was moving and beautiful, especially with the poetic inscription excised from the steel ("I hear those voices that will not be drowned") which evokes not only voices and people lost at sea, but the music of Britten's compositions that lives on and will never be lost.
We went to see it at New Year last year, when we spent New Year's Eve and a few days afterwards staying with Caroline, in her idyllic rural Suffolk cottage, walking across fields to country pubs, lounging on her sofa reading while she valiantly supplied us with food and drink, showing us her place of work and talking us through all her exciting plans for the collection and exhibition projects, a lightning visit to Orford where I went with my grandparents as a child and vividly remember having lunch in a pub where there were stuffed muff dogs mounted in a glass case on the wall. I still remember my grandmother explaining how Victorian women used to carry these miniature dogs around in their muffs to keep their hands warm! We didn't find the pub again, but this time we went to Orford Castle, which had amazing views of the estuary and all the flat land around, and kept K happy. An idyllic start to the year - and memories recaptured by seeing this image every day on our home-made kitchen calendar. Best idea we've ever had!
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Getting Christmassy...
The front pages of all the newspapers were carrying this photo yesterday - Queen takes train to Sandringham shock! The palace insisted it was not a publicity stunt, and there was no follow-on car transporting all her belongings, à la David Cameron and his bike - though the Duke of Edbinburgh had "already travelled ahead" (obviously feeling that First Capital Connect was beneath his dignity...) Hmmm... More than any of this frugal Queen lark, what I want to know is how she managed to get a first class ticket for only £44.40!?----------------------------------------------------------
I've been starting to feel a bit Christmassy in the last couple of days. Glühwein and lebkuchen in to the small hours at Sonja's last night can't have hurt. The book I am reading is also inducing a wintry mood - Barry Unsworth's Morality Play, about a group of medieval mystery players, travelling through the snowy wastes of the north of England in the week before Christmas (it's great by the way). A lot of people are already off work as of now (though K and I are both in until the bitter end on Christmas Eve...) so I've been wishing quite a lot of 'Happy Christmases' over the last few days - though it seemed too early. Too early too for the work Christmas party at the start of last week. But it has suddenly got really cold, and has been snowing on and off all this week. It hasn't settled in London, of course, though it has managed to screw up trains, planes and automobiles - those poor passengers on the Eurostar who got stranded when the trains just failed on entering the warmth of the Channel Tunnel after the freezing temperatures of northern France! Amazing that such things happen in the 21st century!
Last weekend, after a productive day in the library, we went with my parents to St Pancras Old Church - a lovely mainly Norman church, stranded in the wastes behind King's Cross - to hear a concert of Elizabethan Christmas music, performed by a group called Passamezzo, who are music academics as well as performers, and research and bring to life historic music. It was a really lovely evening, performed by candle light, and one of the pieces they played had been reconstructed from a marginal note that one of them had come across in a manuscript in the Bodleian library... Not exactly carol singing, but much more amusing and atmospheric. We do have some carols lined up for next week though, in St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. Another amazing privilege of working in the places we do...
We are blitzing the family gatherings at the end of this week - off to K's brother's on Christmas Day where his family is congregating, and then my parents are coming here on Boxing Day... then at 08.57 on the 27th, we're off! I can't wait! But we're - finally - not doing Christmas presents this year. It always strikes me as a colossal waste of time, money and effort, battling Christmas shopping crowds to spend money you don't have on presents that people don't want, and which just go to the charity shop in the New Year. I am all for buying goats for African villages, paying to train a school teacher in Indonesia, and other such gifts - which spend money where it really counts. Problem is, K hasn't yet told his family this is what we're doing!!
My sister is getting on well in North Uist. She found some temporary work at the Hebridean Smokehouse, preparing the huge number of Christmas orders they have unexpectedly been inundated with. It's such a small and close-knit community that everyone knows everyone else, so you get these jobs by word of mouth. She texted me the other day: "How's this for an island postal service? Postie has a package for [her friend] Will, but can't be arsed to go all the way to his house, so comes to the Smokehouse as he knows his neighbour works there, who then passes it to me so that I can give it to Will when I see him tomorrow!" Brilliant!
Last weekend, after a productive day in the library, we went with my parents to St Pancras Old Church - a lovely mainly Norman church, stranded in the wastes behind King's Cross - to hear a concert of Elizabethan Christmas music, performed by a group called Passamezzo, who are music academics as well as performers, and research and bring to life historic music. It was a really lovely evening, performed by candle light, and one of the pieces they played had been reconstructed from a marginal note that one of them had come across in a manuscript in the Bodleian library... Not exactly carol singing, but much more amusing and atmospheric. We do have some carols lined up for next week though, in St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. Another amazing privilege of working in the places we do...
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There is something about this time of year - midwinter - that brings out a primeval human urge for the ghostly and supernatural. We love the spooky short stories by M. R. James (1862-1936), that he used to write and recite to a select gathering of students and colleagues in King's College Cambridge, and last Christmas we went to a fantastic little story-telling production of some of these stories performed by Robert Lloyd Parry at the Barons Court Theatre - a tiny place in the basement of a pub, that reminded me of the theatrical venues we used to attend as students. Alas, he is doing no London performances this year, but we think we have found a satisfactory alternative, which we're off to tomorrow night - a play called Darker Shores at the Hampstead Theatre. It's about strange goings-on and bumps in the night in a house by the sea (a very M. R. Jamesian subject) but since we're about to go off to a house by the sea (we have our cottage in St Ives booked again - I'm counting down the days...) I hope it doesn't freak me out too much!We are blitzing the family gatherings at the end of this week - off to K's brother's on Christmas Day where his family is congregating, and then my parents are coming here on Boxing Day... then at 08.57 on the 27th, we're off! I can't wait! But we're - finally - not doing Christmas presents this year. It always strikes me as a colossal waste of time, money and effort, battling Christmas shopping crowds to spend money you don't have on presents that people don't want, and which just go to the charity shop in the New Year. I am all for buying goats for African villages, paying to train a school teacher in Indonesia, and other such gifts - which spend money where it really counts. Problem is, K hasn't yet told his family this is what we're doing!!
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My sister is getting on well in North Uist. She found some temporary work at the Hebridean Smokehouse, preparing the huge number of Christmas orders they have unexpectedly been inundated with. It's such a small and close-knit community that everyone knows everyone else, so you get these jobs by word of mouth. She texted me the other day: "How's this for an island postal service? Postie has a package for [her friend] Will, but can't be arsed to go all the way to his house, so comes to the Smokehouse as he knows his neighbour works there, who then passes it to me so that I can give it to Will when I see him tomorrow!" Brilliant!
Sunday, 29 November 2009
Hello and goodbye, November!
The minaret/bell tower of the Great Mosque of Cordoba, by nightIt’s a whole month since my last posting. Two days after that, I went to Spain for a week. I try to go at least once a year – to keep the language skills ticking over, and also to catch up with the recent research that those prolific Spaniards publish, and which can be so hard to find or find out about over here; sometimes you can’t even track them down outside the particular region of Spain where the book or periodical was published. This time I was mainly in Córdoba – so wonderful to spend a whole week there – with a lightning visit to Granada tacked on the end, to see the current exhibition at the Alhambra on Washington Irving, the American writer who first popularised the monument and its charms for the Anglophone world, through the publication of his Tales from the Alhambra in 1832. This year marks the 150th anniversary of his death.
The primary reason for the visit was to attend the conference, “‘And diverse are their hues’: Color [it was an American-organised affair] in Islamic art and culture”. This was organised by the Qatar-based campus of the Virginia Commonwealth University, and as such was an extremely lavish affair, with receptions, three-course dinners and lunches laid on free of charge for the attendees – of which I think there were about 400!! It was completely dry, not just as a result of the Qatar Foundation’s sponsorship, but apparently also because American universities will not pay to provide alcohol at their events, especially if students are present. The Spaniards were utterly bemused by this, and the only table with a bottle of wine on it at the dinner after the opening reception was that of the Mayor of Córdoba and dignitaries of Córdoba University. Many conference attendees were seen slipping away to the bar before (and during!) dinner…
The primary reason for the visit was to attend the conference, “‘And diverse are their hues’: Color [it was an American-organised affair] in Islamic art and culture”. This was organised by the Qatar-based campus of the Virginia Commonwealth University, and as such was an extremely lavish affair, with receptions, three-course dinners and lunches laid on free of charge for the attendees – of which I think there were about 400!! It was completely dry, not just as a result of the Qatar Foundation’s sponsorship, but apparently also because American universities will not pay to provide alcohol at their events, especially if students are present. The Spaniards were utterly bemused by this, and the only table with a bottle of wine on it at the dinner after the opening reception was that of the Mayor of Córdoba and dignitaries of Córdoba University. Many conference attendees were seen slipping away to the bar before (and during!) dinner…
So against all the odds, I made it to Córdoba – in time to attend the conference’s opening ceremony – and I had a fantastically productive week. I felt so intellectually engaged! I took with me a bunch of photocopied articles, an article I have in progress, a chapter and an article of Glaire’s which she had asked me to read and comment on… and I got through them all, in fact I didn’t want to read anything else! I took the new Carlos Ruiz Zafón book with me (The Angel’s Game) and I didn’t start reading it until a couple of nights before I was due to leave. Another reason for the trip was to see the newly-opened museum and visitor centre at Madinat al-Zahra – which is absolutely state-of-the-art and fantastic, such a treat to have all that material on display properly for the first time! – and also to start to ease my brain back into the subject of my PhD thesis, already more than seven years old, since I want to think about finally publishing it next year. One of the best things about the trip was meeting the archaeologist of the Great Mosque of Córdoba, whose articles I had read but whom I had never met, and going around and even underneath the mosque with him!
We literally climbed down a rickety ladder through a hole in the floor near the cathedral, while tourists peered down on us through the grate – after we had parted, I was sitting on a bench furiously writing up the notes from our conversation, when a group of Spanish tourists came over to me and asked me what was down there! This was the site of an archaeological excavation they had done several years ago, at the junction between the original eastern façade of the old mosque, and the extension which was constructed all along it by al-Mansur, regent of the Umayyad caliphs at the turn of the 10th/11th centuries, and subject of my doctoral research. This excavation goes all the way down to the 8th-century street! This originally ran alongside the length of the eastern façade (as the street today runs along the side of the mosque), but had to be filled in up to a height of about 4 m, in order to level the land before laying the foundations for al-Mansur’s enormous mosque extension. It was just fantastic to see, and what a privilege. All the finds from this excavation have been surveyed and drawn, but inexplicably, the archaeologist told me that there is no local interest to publish it, and while it is all currently held in the Cathedral archive, it cannot be consulted there, because it is not published!! When we parted, he asked me if I thought there was any chance of having this important material published in England – so at some point I might try to follow up on this…
On the way back from Spain – having got efficiently and uneventfully to Granada on the bus – I had a flight from Granada to Madrid, with a gap of two hours to get to my onward flight to London, but though I was at the airport in plenty of time, my flight was, of course, late. There was no explanation for this, nor any actual acknowledgement that it was in fact late, so no apology either. The flight landed 40 minutes late, but then it took another 40 minutes for the baggage to come out on the carousel – again, there was no explanation or apology, and the staff at the Iberia desk very unhelpfully just told us to wait. By the time I saw my suitcase, I was very anxious about catching my onward flight, since I had to change terminals – from the swanky new Richard Rogers terminals, to the old terminal building (which I knew so well from the year I lived in Madrid), which now operates as Terminal 1. I tried to run for a taxi again, but was told that I could not take a taxi between terminals and had no choice but to get the shuttle bus. Of course I had just missed one, had to wait 10 minutes for the next one to arrive, and then of course it went to every other terminal before Terminal 1. By the time I had run the length of the concourse to the EasyJet check-in desks, they had closed the flight, and would not make an exception for me. This has to be the first time I have ever known an EasyJet flight to take off on time.
Ridiculously, two flights left simultaneously for Gatwick and Luton, and unbelievably these were the last flights to London from any of the Barajas terminals. I had no choice but to change my ticket to a flight the next morning, but the EasyJet office could do nothing until the flight had actually taken off, so I just had to wait, doing nothing in the airport, watching my flight leave. It was extremely frustrating. Airport information were able to find me a relatively cheap place to stay near the airport, since the first flight the next morning was due to take off at 7.30, and I didn’t want to miss it! Unfortunately, the hotel did not serve food, and though they ordered me a pizza, it never arrived! Feeling very annoyed and sorry for myself, I had a fitful night’s sleep, but caught my flight uneventfully the next morning, and went straight into work. The trip was extremely rewarding and productive, but I have decided that travelling by plane is too stressful and I am happy not to have to do it for a while!
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The week I went to Córdoba, my sister went to visit her friend Will in North Uist, to get away from it all for her birthday, having just left her extremely frustrating and stressful job. By the time I got back from Spain, she had decided to move there! This was not an out-of-the-blue decision – it’s something she had been meaning to do for a while, and in fact she had a job interview in Glasgow on the way to Uist… But while she was up there, she heard of a flat available and decided to just go for it. I basically got back from Spain in time for her leaving party! I’m really proud of and happy for her, but I miss her loads too.
Holidays in North Uist next year, if she’s still there, which hopefully she will be!! I have been listening a lot to the CDs we bought on Harris in the summer – Julie Fowlis and Kathleen MacInnes – which really transport me back to the gorgeous landscape and intense feeling of wellbeing and relaxation we experienced on holiday up there. Which, now that I have to commute on the tube again, is no bad thing.
She wants the space to write, and to make ends meet through freelance editing work, which is busy finishing her training in. For her birthday present, I had reconditioned my old iBook for her, so she had a laptop. It’s about 8 years old, so doesn’t have a lot of memory, and won’t even mount the external hard drive I bought for her for back ups, so it’s practically useless, but hopefully it will tide her over until she can afford something more up-to-date. The space bar on the old keyboard had got stuck – it had lost its bounce basically – and I did not know where to get this fixed. I took it into an Apple retailer and repair shop on High Street Kensington, who told me I would have to have the whole keyboard replaced, which I was not prepared to do; and then a friend told me about a little hole-in-the-wall place by Goodge Street station, who fixed it without fuss, and also upgraded the operating system. Long live boffins and computer geeks, that’s what I say!
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I also got back from Spain in time to attend the next meeting of Lambeth Council’s Planning Committee – you will recall that in September, our Residents’ Association successfully argued for a delay to the Lambeth College redevelopment, on the site next to our block of flats, pending a site visit by all the necessary parties involved in making this decision. Astonishingly, this had never been done, and no-one involved in pushing this decision through the Planning Committee had seemed all that fussed about the opinions or the quality of life of the residents of Brixton Hill Court. The site visit was announced at very short notice, as was the Planning Committee meeting – one might be forgiven, I think, for wondering whether they were trying to push it through without more fuss from our Residents’ Association… However, they found out, and in time to pull some new statements together, and we all trooped down again to Lambeth Town Hall, the night after I got back from Spain.
Again, we’d been warned that the Planning Committee was minded to approve the application, and that our stand was more symbolic than anything. But amazingly, the wonderful Tory councillor who had argued for our cause before did so vociferously again – he has attended the site visit, and said this had made him even more amazed that such a big building could be contemplated on the neighbouring site, since it would really cut off our light and views and privacy. The mood in the room was going against approving the application, though at one point it seemed as if the unpleasant Chair might overrule the other councillors and push it through. It came to a vote, and a voice from one of the members of the public at the other side of the room was heard to say – “Sling it aaaaaaat!” (This guy turned out to be something of a nutter – as we were all leaving afterwards, he pulled K to one side and advised him to buy a recording device, since the councillors were all corrupt and could not be trusted to represent the discussions accurately in their minutes…) In the end, and much to our amazement, the application was basically rejected – or the Lambeth College officials present were informed that the building in its current configuration would not be approved, and they had to drastically rethink it before resubmitting their site redevelopment plan.
I think the phrase is a Pyrrhic victory, though that might be overstating it. Basically, we were of course delighted with this outcome – and with the continued success of our great reps from the Residents’ Association (K being one of them, you’ll remember) – but we also want Lambeth College to have the chance to redevelop its site. The Chancellor commented to Angela as we were gathering in front of the Town Hall afterwards – “You’ll be going home happier than we are”. We went to the pub to celebrate, but we await the next phase in this saga with some trepidation. Let’s hope it’s not worse.
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I have just read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, and it was absolutely fantastic. A Tudor historian friend-of-a-friend is apparently disgusted by how inaccurate it is, but I couldn’t care less. Everyone knows the story (it’s about the rise of Thomas Cromwell, during the era that sees the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, the divorce from Katherine of Aragon, the rise of Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cranmer, the break with Rome, the fall of Thomas More), and the point of this book is not to retell it in the format of ‘just another historical novel’. It is so beautifully written, and it made me realise that what the historical fiction genre is lacking is this kind of lyrical writing. Hilary Mantel might be the only person doing this. It’s a literary novel that just happens to be set in the past. But its historical setting is very impressionistic – you don’t read this book to find out how Thomas Cromwell rose to be the most important man in the State after Henry VIII. You read it for its fantastic use of language and the conception of Cromwell’s interior world.This sentence is deservedly being used a lot in all the blurb about the book:
“Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning”, says Thomas More, “and when you come back that night he’ll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks’ tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him...”I am also very happy to say that Wolf Hall has finally dispelled the bitter taste left in my mouth by the Shardlake novels of C J Sansom. I read the third of these while on holiday in Harris, and really wish I hadn’t. They’re badly written, overlong, and just plain boring. I have given him three out of four tries, but now I definitively give up on them. I cannot see why they are so highly regarded.
As the Economist review (Oct 10th-16th) put it, Ms Mantel eschews “cod Tudor dialogue … going for direct modern English. Her best novel yet”.
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Waterwheels and the Mosque of Nur al-Din, Hama, Syria © MROExactly a year ago I was in Syria, looking after our Masterpieces of World Ceramics exhibition (amazing to see the same objects now permanently fixed in the timeline of world ceramics in our fantastic new Ceramics Galleries). During the two days off I had from Eid al-Adha – the three or four day holiday that occurs at the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hajj), which all my Syrian acquaintances likened to the Christmas break in the West – I hired a driver, and went on a wonderfully memorable trip to Krak des Chevaliers, the stunning Crusader castle in the fertile north of Syria. I wrote a bit about this trip in this posting. I stayed overnight in Hama, a small town on the Orontes river that is well-known for its waterwheels. We arrived there just as it was getting dark, and stayed in a lovely atmospheric hotel just outside the main part of the city, whose name I now cannot recall – though there was a very cute ginger kitten who climbed up my arm, I seem to remember!
This is our calendar picture for this month. We have been very organised this year, and have just ordered and even received our new calendar for 2010, so we can actually start writing in the nice things we have booked over the next few months – such as a long weekend in Paris for our 14th anniversary in February! So these happy reminiscences of high points of the last year will continue into 2010… Which is scarily imminent – I can’t wait for our two-week break at Christmas and New Year (we are heading for our cottage in St Ives again this year, and I just cannot wait) but there is still so much to do in the next month… Eeek!
Saturday, 31 October 2009
I still can't believe it...
... but my lovely, seven-month young, Ride2Work scheme bike was stolen last weekend. Again. Or rather, that is the second bike that I have had stolen. I never cycle it anywhere other than between work and home, but ironically last Sunday evening, we took a ten minute ride down to Abbeville Road, to stock up on fine cheeses at Macfarlane's, which we had not done for months, and then met up for a drink with a colleague of K's who has just moved to the flat above the hairdresser's next door... We were a maximum of two hours, and when we got back to the hoop where we had locked up both our bikes, there was K's, and just an empty space where mine should have been. The lock was still there - they must have taken the saddle off to get it out...
You never quite believe it - you think for a moment you must actually have locked it up somewhere else, and I had a futile wander up and down the road just in case it happened to be leaning around somewhere else, but of course it was not. Some bastards saw an opportunity and went for it. Thing is, because I am paying it off in instalments, I will be paying for another six months for a bike I don't own any more!! Am waiting to hear from HR at work about what I should do now - was it perhaps covered by some Museum insurance, because technically (I guess) I do not own it until I have finished paying for it? Can I have another Ride2Work scheme bike on the go while I am still paying off the last one?
Sooooo annoying, as the weather has been beautiful this week - mild and autumnal - and I keep wistfully looking out of the window and wondering how lovely it would be to cycle home in... Also I have been feeling under a lot of pressure with work - again, as I suppose is becoming usual now, as we lose staff and don't have the money to replace them, so everyone is doing an insane amount of work... so it would have been great to have the cycle home to de-stress. Instead I have to battle with the tube - and the Victoria Line has been positively boiling with the unseasonally warm temperatures this week. I was at Green Park station during rush hour last week - coming back from attending the Oriental Ceramic Society council meeting, followed by a very fine tea with George in the Royal Academy café - and there must also have been some problem with defective trains, or defective tracks, or god knows what, because three tube trains came and went and there was no way that all the people on the platform, which was constantly filling up, could cram themselves into the already-full carriages. In the end, I changed platforms and went north to Warren Street, changed platforms again and went back south. It was the only way to get home!! (without losing too many of my marbles)
I have started a new research project - for an encyclopaedia article I have to write by the end of January, on Almoravid religious spaces in Fes and Marrakesh. It's nice to start something new, and also to get back to research areas I want to expand into, rather than endlessly going over old ground, which is what it feels like with my Islamic Arts from Spain book, now that the third set of proofs is about to come in... I have been reading photocopied articles while I travel to and fro on the tube, most of which are in French, since it was mainly French scholars of the early 20th century who have worked on the architectural history of North Africa - and not much done since, due to an unfortunate hangover of European imperialist perspectives that the cultural achievements of Africa are not worthy of serious scholarly attention... Happily, that is changing now. And it's good for my French too.
But in between trying to get my research done on the tube, I have been enjoying having a free subscription to the London Review of Books. A colleague 'gave' me this subscription by putting my name forward - she got something out of it too, a book token or some such. But I am completely hooked and will certainly pay to renew the subscription when the time comes - very clever marketing on the part of the LRB. It is very satisfyingly left wing, and snobbishly makes me feel very intellectual, surrounded - as one usually is on the tube - by readers of the Metro. When I first moved back to London and started commuting to work (my own "year in Catford", as satirised - that very year! - by The Chap magazine, which is very sadly not available on their online archive...) I was taken aback by getting on the train in the morning and being met by a wall of everyone reading the very same newspaper. Talk about brainwashing. Since then we have had to endure the ridiculous street competition of the free evening rags - the London Lite, and the London Paper, which has already mercifully folded, excuse the pun. Hopefully the London Lite will go soon, now that the Evening Standard is back, and being given away for free!! (oh the politics of freebie London newspapers!)
BUT in the LRB, I have become completely addicted to the classifieds, or rather I should say the personals. This is a typical offering:
I also love the fact that I read about things I would not have read about otherwise ... but I suppose that is in the nature of magazine subscriptions.
Thought for the day: If you Twitter, are you a Twat?
You never quite believe it - you think for a moment you must actually have locked it up somewhere else, and I had a futile wander up and down the road just in case it happened to be leaning around somewhere else, but of course it was not. Some bastards saw an opportunity and went for it. Thing is, because I am paying it off in instalments, I will be paying for another six months for a bike I don't own any more!! Am waiting to hear from HR at work about what I should do now - was it perhaps covered by some Museum insurance, because technically (I guess) I do not own it until I have finished paying for it? Can I have another Ride2Work scheme bike on the go while I am still paying off the last one?
Sooooo annoying, as the weather has been beautiful this week - mild and autumnal - and I keep wistfully looking out of the window and wondering how lovely it would be to cycle home in... Also I have been feeling under a lot of pressure with work - again, as I suppose is becoming usual now, as we lose staff and don't have the money to replace them, so everyone is doing an insane amount of work... so it would have been great to have the cycle home to de-stress. Instead I have to battle with the tube - and the Victoria Line has been positively boiling with the unseasonally warm temperatures this week. I was at Green Park station during rush hour last week - coming back from attending the Oriental Ceramic Society council meeting, followed by a very fine tea with George in the Royal Academy café - and there must also have been some problem with defective trains, or defective tracks, or god knows what, because three tube trains came and went and there was no way that all the people on the platform, which was constantly filling up, could cram themselves into the already-full carriages. In the end, I changed platforms and went north to Warren Street, changed platforms again and went back south. It was the only way to get home!! (without losing too many of my marbles)
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I have started a new research project - for an encyclopaedia article I have to write by the end of January, on Almoravid religious spaces in Fes and Marrakesh. It's nice to start something new, and also to get back to research areas I want to expand into, rather than endlessly going over old ground, which is what it feels like with my Islamic Arts from Spain book, now that the third set of proofs is about to come in... I have been reading photocopied articles while I travel to and fro on the tube, most of which are in French, since it was mainly French scholars of the early 20th century who have worked on the architectural history of North Africa - and not much done since, due to an unfortunate hangover of European imperialist perspectives that the cultural achievements of Africa are not worthy of serious scholarly attention... Happily, that is changing now. And it's good for my French too.
But in between trying to get my research done on the tube, I have been enjoying having a free subscription to the London Review of Books. A colleague 'gave' me this subscription by putting my name forward - she got something out of it too, a book token or some such. But I am completely hooked and will certainly pay to renew the subscription when the time comes - very clever marketing on the part of the LRB. It is very satisfyingly left wing, and snobbishly makes me feel very intellectual, surrounded - as one usually is on the tube - by readers of the Metro. When I first moved back to London and started commuting to work (my own "year in Catford", as satirised - that very year! - by The Chap magazine, which is very sadly not available on their online archive...) I was taken aback by getting on the train in the morning and being met by a wall of everyone reading the very same newspaper. Talk about brainwashing. Since then we have had to endure the ridiculous street competition of the free evening rags - the London Lite, and the London Paper, which has already mercifully folded, excuse the pun. Hopefully the London Lite will go soon, now that the Evening Standard is back, and being given away for free!! (oh the politics of freebie London newspapers!)
BUT in the LRB, I have become completely addicted to the classifieds, or rather I should say the personals. This is a typical offering:
Small but perfectly formed ex-hack turned jurisprudential insurrectionist seeks proper gent/unicorn with wit, charm and optimistic approach to Bakhtinian dialogics. (F, 29)A few months ago, there was one in Latin! I would have loved to see the responses - I hope they were in Latin too!
I also love the fact that I read about things I would not have read about otherwise ... but I suppose that is in the nature of magazine subscriptions.
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The clocks have gone back now, so it's dark when I leave work. My body clock is so adjusted to 'working till it gets dark', that I now think about leaving work a bit earlier, which is a good thing, but then I don't actually do it, which isn't. They went back last Sunday, which meant I spent the whole day experiencing that feeling of it being later than it was, because it was, and then the whole week feeling I was late for things. Why is it we do this again??
----------------------------------------------------------Thought for the day: If you Twitter, are you a Twat?
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