Saturday, April 14, 2012
3BT 14th April 2012
Two furiously
discordant throstles dispute an invisible territorial boundary in the middle of Clapham Common. For Heaven’s sake, lads,
it’s a COMMON !
Two goldfinches, their bonces allegedly tinged with the blood of Christ, chirrup sweetly together whilst they search for nest-building material, and remind me of this solemn kidnapped prince.
http://nicepaintings.org/works/84678
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Sforza_(il_Duchetto)
Dev, born in Bengal in 1932 and literate in Bengali, English, and Sanskrit, a keep-fit die-hard on the Common despite having to take eight prescribed medicines each with their own side-effects, and having five grown up children each with their own set of troubling grumbles, reels off the names of half a dozen of his other films without hesitating when I mention Satyajit Ray’s exquisite film Pather Panchali, and then, after a moment of solemn contemplation, he turns to look at me and whispers one word, gasping as if in reverence of the name and of the beauty it evokes ... "Apu !".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apu_Trilogy
Thursday, April 12, 2012
at school during the cold war, our understanding of history's fabric didn't include the continuous thread of humour ... here's professor peter hennessy ... a sweet voice of reason
a thirty seven minute talk with two grimly funny stories at the conclusion
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/CatchUpHistory.mp3
Monday, April 9, 2012
3BT on a dismally wet and windy Easter Monday
-Flight_into_Egypt+before+restoration.jpg)
In a free exhibition at the National Gallery, a newly restored early work by Titian, The Flight In To Egypt,
(http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/titians-first-masterpiece-the-flight-into-egypt ,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/apr/03/titian-first-masterpiece-national-gallery?INTCMP=SRCH ),
... it is a remarkable painting by a teenager beginning a long career in Venice and possibly already nostalgic for the lush meadows around his home town of Pieve di Cadore in the foothills of the Alps, about eighty miles north of Venice. The accompanying set of naturalistic etchings and drawings by Durer, who visited Venice for the second time just in time to have probably influenced Titian, are lovely, too.
Entering the
Ritblat Gallery, a treasure house in the British Library, the narrow doorway is
slightly constricted when a young Japanese woman stops in a pool of intense halogen
light to check her smart phone and as I pass her I am enveloped in an
intoxicating cloud of expensive perfume.
Passing the
philatelic section of the British Library I spot a Spanish man and his elderly
parents marvelling at the extraordinary collection of stamps and envelopes
collected after their Civil War, objects of pilgrimage even ? Earlier I’d been sitting near them in the café
when they laughed in disbelief at the awfulness of Peyton and Byrne’s coffee,
arguably The Worst Coffee in the Whole History of the Universe, and certainly
something that even the most desolate and forgotten and far flung village bar in Spain
would be deeply ashamed to serve.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
3BT, 5th April 2012 … no four ! ... no, five !
Just after
four in the morning, the bus to work is trundling through the darkness along
the edge of Clapham Common. On the
Common side of the road, in a brightly lit bus shelter, sits a fox.
In Horsham,
an oncoming vehicle catches my eye. It
is a very old VW Camper, a low-rider, meticulously restored and perfectly re-painted in
cream and white. The driver looks
interesting, a slender man, tweed suit, bow tie, old-fashioned bushy moustache
and, I think although it was only a glimpse, half-moon spectacles. From the cab of my little truck I stare down
into the pale interior which looks as if it has been re-organised and
re-furnished to look a bit like a stretch limo.
On a plush bench seat in the back, with acres of legroom, sits a
laughing bride between her two maids.
My least
favourite word in the lexicon of management-speak is “just”. Can you just … ? Today it is “Can you Just deliver a pallet
for Dubai to an air freighter’s warehouse, as close to twelve as possible ?" This will, of course be in the middle of one
of the year’s busiest working days, the last before the Easter holiday, and
will involve a diversion that will add an hour to an over-long day. Miraculously, after all kinds of delays and
hardships, smoothing out a few customers because of some typical office
blunders, and working flat out from four thirty onwards, I arrive at one minute
to twelve, am unloaded, and depart at one minute past.
Down a grimy
backstreet in chaotic Brixton, a tall girl with an upturned white face and long dark red
hair parted symmetrically, and totally the wrong shade of pale red lipstick on
a un-kiss-ably gloomy mouth, is walking with stately grace, arms straight and
holding a flower pot at zipper height, from which stands incongruously a single
perfect orchid on a very long stalk, its creamy white flower with an erotically
hot pink centre facing forward only six inches away from her lips, as if
embodying or symbolizing or pre-determining the imminence of that magically
transforming kiss.
A big Caribbean mum clambers on to the bus with three carrier bags in each hand. Four children follow, three girls and a tiny boy. The girls ( 7?, 9?, 11? ) are also carrying bags. They have identical spectacular showbiz hairstyles … upwardly mobile dark curls sculpted like flames and culminating in a gold tinted peak well off to the left. All four children have brand new violin cases slung across their backs.
A big Caribbean mum clambers on to the bus with three carrier bags in each hand. Four children follow, three girls and a tiny boy. The girls ( 7?, 9?, 11? ) are also carrying bags. They have identical spectacular showbiz hairstyles … upwardly mobile dark curls sculpted like flames and culminating in a gold tinted peak well off to the left. All four children have brand new violin cases slung across their backs.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
clearly, half the world have already seen this lovely animated fantasy about the life of books ... but that needn't stop me from endorsing it
Monday, April 2, 2012
today would have been george collinson's next birthday, and whilst i mourn him, i know that he would have preferred a smile ...
he was very fond of football, and of original thinking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur5fGSBsfq8
and he was rarther keen on chess, too, although i can't remember if we ever discussed that game in the context of the life and work of marcel duchamp ... if you can call it all work !
but i digress and so ... to conclude, if there's a collinson-type of heaven, then it should be very easy for us to track him down when we arrive by the sound of his booming laughter
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Saturday, March 31, 2012
serendipitize for long enough and ye shall find ... renaud garcia-fons !
one of my grandfathers was a coal miner in wales, the dust finished him
this old radio classic is available on the bbc for a few days
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00lm92q
off to walk the dog again ... i find it helps to have the appropriate music in my ears when i'm skulking on the common
put yer headphones on and get yer ears ravished 1973 style
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Pa_FxaoAU
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
3BT
As the truck roars by the edge of their field, two wild rabbits sit up from their breakfast, and their pricking ears are illuminated with the early sunlight.
In the smart new kitchen at Ockenden Manor, I make an early delivery which coincides with the moment when Murielle, their wonderful French baker and patissier and chocolatier, is handing out some little slices of a cake she’s made with walnuts and oranges. It is probably what the Gods eat when she’s at home in those southern mountains.
At the bottom of Horsted Keynes village, I approach the chicane-cum-crossroad with a caution born of experience. The hedges make it a blind junction and there are aged pedestrians in sight. As I slow to about 20mph for the left-hander, so a brand new Range-Rover coming from the opposite direction, and driven by a woman young enough to be my daughter, cuts across my path at about 50mph. I stand on the brake and the truck demonstrates the efficiency of its electronic traction control with a brief skid, the tyres squeal but there is no sign of a wobble. She shoots by with a look of terror on her face. In the mirror I am pleased to see nothing but a little cloud of blue smoke illuminated with the early sunlight.
and later ... three more illuminated and beautiful things
The first yellow butterfly of the year flitting past an oakwood.
A green woodpecker flying along side a dark bank of cypress trees.
A huge spherical bumblebee, with long black hairs and a bright orange bum, hovering besides a metallic purple car.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
a sordid and vexatious scene of domestic debauchery
I arrive home late after a long and arduous day at the end of a long and arduous working week.
I slump on the sofa for half an hour waiting for the brain’s energy system to regain some of its charge.
The Loved One slumps on the other sofa. Her arm is mending quite well, 65 days after her fall, but she still has a lot of pain.
I have been moving some very heavy objects up gradients and over resistant surfaces, and so I have a few aches and pains of my own.
Eventually I make some tea. Earl Grey for the Loved One. English Breakfast for myself.
We take a few deeply comforting sips on our respective sofas but then I go to the kitchen and return with a bottle of very good Spanish brandy and I pour in a generous quantity to top up my tea.
The Loved One looks at me knowingly and reminds me in a very level tone that as a matter of fact the bottle is hers … I had offered it to her as a gift when I returned from my last but one trip to Spain … skint.
In turn, not wishing to lose face entirely, I cheerfully suggest that she should look on this action as one which amounts to my doing her a favour. The bottle is currently too heavy for her injured arm and I am hastening the time when she will once again be able to help herself.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
howard hodgkin's collection of indian paintings on show at the ashmolean
i was never deeply interested in hodgkin's own work although the colours are often really really nice, but this collection of his is simply marvellous ...
http://www.ashmolean.org/exhibitions/mughalindia/
http://jameelcentre.ashmolean.org/collection/6980/9577
http://www.howard-hodgkin.com/gallery/
Friday, March 2, 2012
yesterday morning's sunny 3BT
The road winds through the ancient woods and forests, and I speed in and out of the billowing and pouring mists towards the dawn, and sometimes the road catches the colours of the sun and the sky, glistening and gleaming orange or pink or gold amongst the last shadows of the night.
The big old buzzard is the same colour as the leafless hedgerow and sits perfectly still there in broad daylight, never losing sight of the five glossy pheasants sunbathing on a grassy knoll.
The girl stands in a sunny spot at breakfast time, ten yards from the front door of a hotel in a village just beneath those misty woods. I imagine she might be from China, of maybe from Tibet. Tall, strong looking, round faced but expressionless or thoughtful. At a glance, her skin seems brown and perfect and there is a rosy tint beneath the tan. She wears an archaic blouse, heavy-looking soft cotton in royal blue, only the collar button undone, long puffy sleeves and tightly buttoned cuffs. Her skirt is a lighter blue, a simple A-line to the shins, above simple Chinese slippers. She stands with arms dangling, radiant and relaxed and self-contained in beautiful symmetry until she lifts her right hand, the palm towards me as the truck glides past, spreading her fingers into a comb, and slowly stretching her arm until a yard of dark silky straight hair stretches away from her at shoulder height and there is still some left to dangle gleaming from those outstretched fingers. And then I’ve gone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)