As one news reporter described the Heathrow chaos "the queue, for the queue, for the queue, for the queue, for the queue". How very British!
Or read the ever reliable Simon Calder in The Independent (he really does pay his own way!)
Oh, and last night there was a trespasser on the Victoria line and a car (if you can believe what the announcement said)on the westbound District line.
And if you're really desperately poor and want to use Westminster Library's free internet service to send a quick greeting, don't bother. It's not working today either. No trains on Christmas Day in England (and there never have been)....and on, and on, and on, and on...Didn't a certain King Lear use similiar semantic structure over Cordelia's dead body?
Saturday, 23 December 2006
Tuesday, 19 December 2006
Moo cow Christmas
Oh what fun it is still to ride London transport! It's even more fun being told you have to wait 30 minutes for your next train as I was this morning for the Hammersmith and City line. Excuse: staff shortage. Bollocks to that! And there were minor delays on most other lines. Those Olympic Games in 2012 really will be fun won't they! On another train, Transport for London had the audacity to have revenue inspectors. When asked to produce their ticket, I think commuters should calculate the amount of their time Transport for London has wasted of their day due to its inefficiency and force those inspectors to wait the same amount of time. Seems pretty fair to me. Oh, and don't forget the power failure Friday night that seemed to have closed central London Piccadilly line stations. I shan't bother to contact their press office. How long would I have to wait for their response?
Politicians should be made to use the services they cock up at least twice a week. Go with your minders, put on a disguise or they'll be lynched, well, not in London. Too much apathy. Moo - did I hear a heard of docile cows trying to board an overcrowded train? Don't forget, studies showed that the temporatures on the underground in summer would not be legal to transpot cattle. And now we have a new game. Suspect packages on the underground. Both the Richmond and central London district line were delayed because of this today. You don't need bombs any more do you? Leaves and staff shortages are always a good excuse too. Oh, and more Fascist revenue inspectors on the Piccadillly line this afternoon. Get a life!
Politicians should be made to use the services they cock up at least twice a week. Go with your minders, put on a disguise or they'll be lynched, well, not in London. Too much apathy. Moo - did I hear a heard of docile cows trying to board an overcrowded train? Don't forget, studies showed that the temporatures on the underground in summer would not be legal to transpot cattle. And now we have a new game. Suspect packages on the underground. Both the Richmond and central London district line were delayed because of this today. You don't need bombs any more do you? Leaves and staff shortages are always a good excuse too. Oh, and more Fascist revenue inspectors on the Piccadillly line this afternoon. Get a life!
Monday, 18 December 2006
LOVE IS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY...
Mirabile dictu! Lingua Latina superavit!
Mea culpa...and speaking of forgiveness, who'd have thought a double-bill review of the penguin animation film Happy Feet and the monk documentary Into the Great Silence was possible. Well... let me start by suggesting some Christmas reading to you. In fact, you don't have to be Christian at all to appreciate this as the author Simone Weil was an agnostic. That's before she was born into a rich Jewish family, supported Communism at the Sorbonne University in Paris - nicknamed "the red virgin"- and fought against Franco in Spain. She died in a sanatorium in Ashford, Kent in England. Extracts from her writings are in bold:
To forgive. We cannot do this. When we are harmed by someone, reactions are set up within us. The desire for vengeance is a desire for essential equilibrium. We must seek equilibrium on another plane. We have to go as far as this limit by ourselves. There we reach the void.
It is an act of cowardice to seek from (or wish to give) the people we love any other consolation than that which works of art give us, which help us through the mere fact that they exist.... If there are grounds for wishing to be understood, it is not for ourselves but for the other, in order that we may exist for him.
Philip Gröning's doco Into Great Silence is released by the same enterprising Soda Pictures who gave us the fab vampire film Frostbite. It's 162 min, mostly silent, of the Grande Chartreuse French alps monastery - Cathusian order. George Miller's Happy Feet is based on the doco March of the Penguins about the trials and tribulations of talking Emperor penguins. The protagonists in both films, the monks and Mumble the penguin sprog (Elijah Wood), are searching for enlightenment. Mumble is born feet first, can't sing (i.e. has no ‘heart-song’ essential for a penguin’s mating) but dances like a cross between Fred Astaire, Ben Vereen and Ricky Martin. The monks, on the other hand don't dance but aren't allowed any musical instruments only Gregorian chant. But Mumble and the monks do share a love of snow surfing. Maybe they're grappling with Simone Weil:
All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception.
Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.
To love truth means to endure the void and, as a result, to accept death. Truth is on the side of death.
We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in filling the void within ourselves.
If we accept no matter what void, what stroke of fate can prevent us from loving the universe?
We have the assurance that, come what may, the universe is full.
We can obey the force of gravity or we can obey the relationship of things. In the first case, we do what we are driven to by the imagination which fills up empty spaces.... If we suspend the filling-up activity of the imagination and fix our attention on the relationship of things, a necessity becomes apparent which we cannot help obeying.... Obedience is the only pure motive.... The obedience must however, be obedience to necessity and not to force.
The trouble with Happy Feet is nobody seems to die from the cruel winds of fate so artfully conjured by the computer animation, unlike the March of the Penguins doco. Not that they do in Silence on camera, although an old monk speaks of his blindness. The only trouble I had with Silence was the dozen captions of devotional Biblical text during the film. These tend to break our contemplation in a rather Brechtian way, not something I think the director intended. Gröning wanted to create “a film like a cloud” and evoke the rigidity and rhythm of the monks’ daily life. Happy Feet’s rhythm really started so well. Like Weil, Mumble does not believe in the animistic conventional wisdom of Noah and the Elders: that the fish shortage is caused by "the great wind". He is the only one to doubt the ring-pull evangelism of Robin Williams' Lovelace, entertain the possibility of aliens and search for enlightenment with his new Chicano pengpals. Nobody coerces him into this. And though March of the Penguins had a tendency to fall into cutesy narrative it wonderfully evoked the rhythm of their life. Happy Feet's ending plunges the film back into Christmas card carol territory. Did you know that in the Coptic scriptures there were about 40 wise-men not just three? I wish director George Miller had created an ending more akin to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey hallucinatory sequence or Hitchcock's Spellbound and Mumble had discovered the vow of silence. And a bit more South Park to scuff the immaculate CGI might have helped. But that would be my film and not George Miller's. Silence, is mostly shot on digital High Definition and is brilliant for it. The nature of HD craves light sources (and the director wasn’t allowed any artificial light) but there are snatches of Super 8 film that, though beautiful, seem present only for atmospheric effect, scuffing HD in the way the captions do. I leave the last word to Simone Weil:
He who believes in God is in danger of a still greater illusion, that of attributing to grace what is simply an essentially mechanical effect of nature.
We have to believe in a God who is like the true God in everything, except that he does not exist, since we have not reached the point where God exists.
Mea culpa...and speaking of forgiveness, who'd have thought a double-bill review of the penguin animation film Happy Feet and the monk documentary Into the Great Silence was possible. Well... let me start by suggesting some Christmas reading to you. In fact, you don't have to be Christian at all to appreciate this as the author Simone Weil was an agnostic. That's before she was born into a rich Jewish family, supported Communism at the Sorbonne University in Paris - nicknamed "the red virgin"- and fought against Franco in Spain. She died in a sanatorium in Ashford, Kent in England. Extracts from her writings are in bold:
To forgive. We cannot do this. When we are harmed by someone, reactions are set up within us. The desire for vengeance is a desire for essential equilibrium. We must seek equilibrium on another plane. We have to go as far as this limit by ourselves. There we reach the void.
It is an act of cowardice to seek from (or wish to give) the people we love any other consolation than that which works of art give us, which help us through the mere fact that they exist.... If there are grounds for wishing to be understood, it is not for ourselves but for the other, in order that we may exist for him.
Philip Gröning's doco Into Great Silence is released by the same enterprising Soda Pictures who gave us the fab vampire film Frostbite. It's 162 min, mostly silent, of the Grande Chartreuse French alps monastery - Cathusian order. George Miller's Happy Feet is based on the doco March of the Penguins about the trials and tribulations of talking Emperor penguins. The protagonists in both films, the monks and Mumble the penguin sprog (Elijah Wood), are searching for enlightenment. Mumble is born feet first, can't sing (i.e. has no ‘heart-song’ essential for a penguin’s mating) but dances like a cross between Fred Astaire, Ben Vereen and Ricky Martin. The monks, on the other hand don't dance but aren't allowed any musical instruments only Gregorian chant. But Mumble and the monks do share a love of snow surfing. Maybe they're grappling with Simone Weil:
All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception.
Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.
To love truth means to endure the void and, as a result, to accept death. Truth is on the side of death.
We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in filling the void within ourselves.
If we accept no matter what void, what stroke of fate can prevent us from loving the universe?
We have the assurance that, come what may, the universe is full.
We can obey the force of gravity or we can obey the relationship of things. In the first case, we do what we are driven to by the imagination which fills up empty spaces.... If we suspend the filling-up activity of the imagination and fix our attention on the relationship of things, a necessity becomes apparent which we cannot help obeying.... Obedience is the only pure motive.... The obedience must however, be obedience to necessity and not to force.
The trouble with Happy Feet is nobody seems to die from the cruel winds of fate so artfully conjured by the computer animation, unlike the March of the Penguins doco. Not that they do in Silence on camera, although an old monk speaks of his blindness. The only trouble I had with Silence was the dozen captions of devotional Biblical text during the film. These tend to break our contemplation in a rather Brechtian way, not something I think the director intended. Gröning wanted to create “a film like a cloud” and evoke the rigidity and rhythm of the monks’ daily life. Happy Feet’s rhythm really started so well. Like Weil, Mumble does not believe in the animistic conventional wisdom of Noah and the Elders: that the fish shortage is caused by "the great wind". He is the only one to doubt the ring-pull evangelism of Robin Williams' Lovelace, entertain the possibility of aliens and search for enlightenment with his new Chicano pengpals. Nobody coerces him into this. And though March of the Penguins had a tendency to fall into cutesy narrative it wonderfully evoked the rhythm of their life. Happy Feet's ending plunges the film back into Christmas card carol territory. Did you know that in the Coptic scriptures there were about 40 wise-men not just three? I wish director George Miller had created an ending more akin to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey hallucinatory sequence or Hitchcock's Spellbound and Mumble had discovered the vow of silence. And a bit more South Park to scuff the immaculate CGI might have helped. But that would be my film and not George Miller's. Silence, is mostly shot on digital High Definition and is brilliant for it. The nature of HD craves light sources (and the director wasn’t allowed any artificial light) but there are snatches of Super 8 film that, though beautiful, seem present only for atmospheric effect, scuffing HD in the way the captions do. I leave the last word to Simone Weil:
He who believes in God is in danger of a still greater illusion, that of attributing to grace what is simply an essentially mechanical effect of nature.
We have to believe in a God who is like the true God in everything, except that he does not exist, since we have not reached the point where God exists.
Saturday, 16 December 2006
Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh
Thursday, 14 December 2006
Just in case my readership was about to desert me after admitting I enjoyed The Holiday, may I recommend an Australian radio programme to you,
Late Night Live.
Wish I had more time to listen to this. They've got some funky new Christmas intro music too. And one week to listen to this:
The Picadilly line turns 100
And, as the Piccadilly tube line celebrates its 100th birthday, Night Waves goes underground to uncover the cultural effects of the recruitment drive from the Caribbean that brought thousands over to the UK to work on London's transport system 50 years ago.
Don't forget there's a great Swedish vampire movie Frostbite released 15 December in London. Think Aki Kaurismäki with fangs. Kids (well, at heart)and adults will love this and it's up there with the best of gore, complete with Hollywood score. (Please don't remake this, guys) Anyone who likes a film where vampirised mortals fight it out in a snowy gnome garden can definitely join me for Christmas.
Late Night Live.
Wish I had more time to listen to this. They've got some funky new Christmas intro music too. And one week to listen to this:
The Picadilly line turns 100
And, as the Piccadilly tube line celebrates its 100th birthday, Night Waves goes underground to uncover the cultural effects of the recruitment drive from the Caribbean that brought thousands over to the UK to work on London's transport system 50 years ago.
Don't forget there's a great Swedish vampire movie Frostbite released 15 December in London. Think Aki Kaurismäki with fangs. Kids (well, at heart)and adults will love this and it's up there with the best of gore, complete with Hollywood score. (Please don't remake this, guys) Anyone who likes a film where vampirised mortals fight it out in a snowy gnome garden can definitely join me for Christmas.
Tuesday, 12 December 2006
Monday, 11 December 2006
Supurr challis flagellistic expect me alitosis
Americans really aren't that popular in England these days. Were they ever? It's their go-getting nature that gets the Brits I think. The Bush administration having done little to illuminate what was always a tainted image. I thought seeing The Holiday last night would cheer me up. And to the horror, I'm sure, of the Brit intelligentsia, it did! The critics lambasted it for its lack of reality and everything else. And as any self-respecting comedy writer knows, comedy don't work if it aint based on experience. That's not to say The Holiday is a great movie. Far from it. But unlike the critics, I actually paid for my ticket. There still resides among the critical fraternity in Britain a desire for flagellistic social realism. I won't bore you with the The Holiday's story that you can get elsewhere. Cute kids, cute dog, cute and conspicuously consumed houses abound in this movie. But they really do exist in the world, like it or not. I have met women pretty much the ilk of Cameron Diaz's character, though the bra on after an evening's sex with Jude Law is pure Republican Americana. Or maybe she was just a shy gal! The Guardian called it a "train-wreck of a film". Well, let me tell you. The number of people I have met who'll tell you that transport in England isn't that bad and is improving is astonishing. This morning the excuses for tube delays were people falling ill on the trains. Hard to verify that one isn't it? Talk about sugar coating a cyanide pill! Vote Walt Disney for Prime Minister! Would I, in a fit of Noel whimsy and despair, swap my deluxe LA pad for a Beatrix Potter rabbit hutch in Surrey? Probably, yes. And I'd certainly go the other way if I were Kate Winslet (as she did in fact in real life but to NYC and a great deal wealthier than her character). And neither Jude Law nor Jack Black seems like the axe-murderers critics make them out to be. And maybe a few of the young audiences will wonder who the hell is Eli Wallach and what did he go through? Sure beats reality TV or doing Christmas shopping in the battle ground of central London!
In the same time it takes the Hollywoodettes to get re-hung (5 minutes less in fact at 133 min) you could learn an artist’s secrets of painting a quince tree in Victor Erice’s The Quince Tree Sun [1992, and alas not yet available on DVD through distributorArtificial Eye]. In a free for all screening yesterday at the National Gallery, it was a strangely engrossing movie where you end up feeling like Peter Sellers in Being There. Perfect if you’ve smoked too much salmon over Christmas.
The 'to be championed' 3 year-old indie distributor Dogwoof Pictures have the Bosnian Berlin Fest. Silver Bear winner Esma's Secret on XMas release. As dedicated and finely done as it is it seems a strange time of year to release this film. Maybe those Guardian readers will be flocking to see it after their morally debauched New Year.
In the same time it takes the Hollywoodettes to get re-hung (5 minutes less in fact at 133 min) you could learn an artist’s secrets of painting a quince tree in Victor Erice’s The Quince Tree Sun [1992, and alas not yet available on DVD through distributorArtificial Eye]. In a free for all screening yesterday at the National Gallery, it was a strangely engrossing movie where you end up feeling like Peter Sellers in Being There. Perfect if you’ve smoked too much salmon over Christmas.
The 'to be championed' 3 year-old indie distributor Dogwoof Pictures have the Bosnian Berlin Fest. Silver Bear winner Esma's Secret on XMas release. As dedicated and finely done as it is it seems a strange time of year to release this film. Maybe those Guardian readers will be flocking to see it after their morally debauched New Year.
Thursday, 7 December 2006
Rude health
Every single day there are 3 or 4 tube lines with delays. How wonderful it is to get up in the morning and be greeted by such chaos. Good service on all other lines they say. Well, there aren't many lines of good service left after the sick list is announced. Surely that couldn't affect the city's productivity! So many people just don't care in this city. That's the trouble. As decorators crowded my hall this morning (completely unannounced as they were 2 days ago - I complained, nobody took any notice), I tried to rescue my mail from the postman who I don't know from Adam. I explained this as he trundled up the street and upon reaching my door he just blithely handed over the mail for the building. Don't you ask for any identification I said? He looked at me as if I were from Mars and then accused me of being rude. I guess it's not as bad as that Jonathan (The Corrections) Franzen true story about the Chicago post office.
Wednesday, 6 December 2006
Vampires
De Menezes family in High Court bid
This is one of the most unbelievable, disgraceful incidents in this city. And the powers that be are just hoping that it will all blow over. Not on your life!
Great title for a lecture huh, but only 8 in the audience last night and I didn't even get a snog!: Becoming-public, or kissing on park benches
At least London's not like this:
Bollywood heartthrobs accused of obscenity for on-screen kiss
Dhoom 2's a fun movie. Check out those production values but don't go looking for much depth of character. Why don't those Mission Impossible films have dance sequences? I bet Tom Cruise would love doing that, and I could be the weird side-kick somewhere. And speaking of films, there's a great Swedish vampire movie Frostbite released 15 December in London. Think Aki Kaurismäki with fangs. Kids and adults will love this and it's up there with the best of gore, complete with Hollywood score. (Please don't remake this, guys) Anyone who likes a film where vampirised mortals fight it out in a snowy gnome garden can definitely join me for Christmas.
This is one of the most unbelievable, disgraceful incidents in this city. And the powers that be are just hoping that it will all blow over. Not on your life!
Great title for a lecture huh, but only 8 in the audience last night and I didn't even get a snog!: Becoming-public, or kissing on park benches
At least London's not like this:
Bollywood heartthrobs accused of obscenity for on-screen kiss
Dhoom 2's a fun movie. Check out those production values but don't go looking for much depth of character. Why don't those Mission Impossible films have dance sequences? I bet Tom Cruise would love doing that, and I could be the weird side-kick somewhere. And speaking of films, there's a great Swedish vampire movie Frostbite released 15 December in London. Think Aki Kaurismäki with fangs. Kids and adults will love this and it's up there with the best of gore, complete with Hollywood score. (Please don't remake this, guys) Anyone who likes a film where vampirised mortals fight it out in a snowy gnome garden can definitely join me for Christmas.
Friday, 1 December 2006
Dance to the music of time
I saw Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks Yesterday. And though I don't ever like praising any particular critic, Nicholas de Jongh is as good as they get. He gave a rave review to a show I was in and had produced many a moon ago, but moreover, he was one of the few critics who actually understood the play. I draw your attention to the last paragraph of his Six Lessons review in particular. Can't say fairer than that. (I do like Claire Bloom though.)
What is the difference between a minor delay on the tube and a major one? The District line to Richmond 2 days ago they termed minor: running every 15-20 minutes, that's 2-3 times the scheduled frequency. Hmmm...
Fancy a different beverage for XMas and becoming a character out of Chaucer?
Ministers to blame for excessive profits from train leases
And now for a people that could get something right...
Ancient Greek artefact was an 'astronomical computer'
What is the difference between a minor delay on the tube and a major one? The District line to Richmond 2 days ago they termed minor: running every 15-20 minutes, that's 2-3 times the scheduled frequency. Hmmm...
Fancy a different beverage for XMas and becoming a character out of Chaucer?
Ministers to blame for excessive profits from train leases
And now for a people that could get something right...
Ancient Greek artefact was an 'astronomical computer'
Wednesday, 29 November 2006
Small change
Is your daily commute more overcrowded?
Peak-hour price rises won't prevent rail overcrowding
You get no brownie points (pun intended) for keeping your finances in order in England do you? Have a read of these and you'd wished you'd bought a few more nice things!
Bankruptcy rate set to double by 2009, predicts government report
Addiction to credit blamed as bankruptcies reach new high
Repossessed homes hit levels of decade ago
Defaults on credit cards and loans will top £4.5bn
Personal insolvencies increase 31% to record
And speaking of banks. I’m tired of the HSBC bank cash points telling me they don’t have any. As I have no HSBC account, I have no axe to grind. But every time I've tried to use one of their ATM's (about half dozen), there's been a problem. You don't have to be a probability expert to work this one out. Then I found I was short to buy my coffee but the guy next in line proffered 10p, so Londoners aren't that bad.
If you've never seen Ken Campbell, well now's your chance. In a funny way, and he is very, he's the flip side of a coin to Dr. Jonathan Miller who I had the privilege and pleasure to work with some years ago. Both cut the crap and help you see things for yourself. His TV series on science is testament to this.
Another obituary I'm afraid, that of Richard Mayes. One of those many fine actors who, though not particularly famous except among colleagues, keeps the acting profession alive and thoroughly honourable. I had the good fortune to work with him twice, the last when he stepped into a show I was directing at very short notice and for very little money.
Peak-hour price rises won't prevent rail overcrowding
You get no brownie points (pun intended) for keeping your finances in order in England do you? Have a read of these and you'd wished you'd bought a few more nice things!
Bankruptcy rate set to double by 2009, predicts government report
Addiction to credit blamed as bankruptcies reach new high
Repossessed homes hit levels of decade ago
Defaults on credit cards and loans will top £4.5bn
Personal insolvencies increase 31% to record
And speaking of banks. I’m tired of the HSBC bank cash points telling me they don’t have any. As I have no HSBC account, I have no axe to grind. But every time I've tried to use one of their ATM's (about half dozen), there's been a problem. You don't have to be a probability expert to work this one out. Then I found I was short to buy my coffee but the guy next in line proffered 10p, so Londoners aren't that bad.
If you've never seen Ken Campbell, well now's your chance. In a funny way, and he is very, he's the flip side of a coin to Dr. Jonathan Miller who I had the privilege and pleasure to work with some years ago. Both cut the crap and help you see things for yourself. His TV series on science is testament to this.
Another obituary I'm afraid, that of Richard Mayes. One of those many fine actors who, though not particularly famous except among colleagues, keeps the acting profession alive and thoroughly honourable. I had the good fortune to work with him twice, the last when he stepped into a show I was directing at very short notice and for very little money.
Sunday, 26 November 2006
ALIENS PLEASE HELP
Apologies, apologies
Glad I wasn't on this Picadilly line train!
Commuters can be compensated if their delay is longer than 15 minutes, though. Only, at London prices the £1.70, or thereabouts, is barely enough to buy yourself a recuperative stiff drink. Another reassuring announcement came at Earls Court station yesterday. After sitting at the station for 5-10 minutes, doors open not stuck in a tunnel thankfully, the driver informed us we'd been held there because the signalman was a trainee. Hope I'm not on the train when teacher's on tea break.
I swore to myself that I wouldn't make this blog an arts criticism site. Well, bugger that, ‘cause I saw a number of art shows this week crying out to be seen. And if your show doesn't get included it don't necessarily mean I don't like it. But before that, I’m going to reprimand the National Portrait Gallery in London. I dropped in there today for a screening of Randall Wright’s film about camera obscura Secret Knowledge. Hard to believe, but the projection was so darkly obscured at times you couldn’t even make out what was on screen. This also happened a few weeks ago when they showed Love is the Devil about the life of Francis Bacon. I complained several years ago when a Disney animation (hope the execs are reading this) was poorly screened from what looked like a VHS tape left in the rain. As with most complaints in this country, they gave me the brush off hoping I’d go away. Do they have no self-respect? Now for some happy stuff.
Erik Dietman (Anthony Reynolds Gallery) has been relatively little known outside Europe over the years. Flick through the catalogues and every sculpture leaps off the page like animations in stasis: turn your back and they'd be sure to move. The line of squat bronze blocks, some smoking pipes and some not, could be an unemployment queue, politicians’ day out or the discovery of the meaning of life. And if you're looking for an alternative to the crowded museums, kids would love these. When Sean Scully (Timothy Taylor) was asked in a radio interview whether he'd ever been jolted by a criticism of his work, he cited a New York critic who called his work "bullying". Now that's why I’ve avoided art criticism for so long. You wish you'd thought of just that adjective. Why have I liked these large blocks of colour so much over the years? And is it that spontaneous energy that keeps drawing one back?
Whether large or small, oil or aquatint, they say I am colour. Look at me! Listen to me! RB Kitaj (Marlborough) left Britain years ago decamping to LA. At their best, his paintings surprise you by glowing with deep spiritualism: a spontaneous simplicity of stroke and paint
Lastly, Scottish sculptor Mhairi Vari has created a large Tetley tea bag for the Contemporary Art Society's regular interventions into the Economist Group's plaza. You feel like interacting with it in some other way than just to quench your thirst. As if a friendly alien life form has seen this ubiquitous earthly habit as the way to communicate with us. Wish they'd sort out the transport!
Glad I wasn't on this Picadilly line train!
Commuters can be compensated if their delay is longer than 15 minutes, though. Only, at London prices the £1.70, or thereabouts, is barely enough to buy yourself a recuperative stiff drink. Another reassuring announcement came at Earls Court station yesterday. After sitting at the station for 5-10 minutes, doors open not stuck in a tunnel thankfully, the driver informed us we'd been held there because the signalman was a trainee. Hope I'm not on the train when teacher's on tea break.
I swore to myself that I wouldn't make this blog an arts criticism site. Well, bugger that, ‘cause I saw a number of art shows this week crying out to be seen. And if your show doesn't get included it don't necessarily mean I don't like it. But before that, I’m going to reprimand the National Portrait Gallery in London. I dropped in there today for a screening of Randall Wright’s film about camera obscura Secret Knowledge. Hard to believe, but the projection was so darkly obscured at times you couldn’t even make out what was on screen. This also happened a few weeks ago when they showed Love is the Devil about the life of Francis Bacon. I complained several years ago when a Disney animation (hope the execs are reading this) was poorly screened from what looked like a VHS tape left in the rain. As with most complaints in this country, they gave me the brush off hoping I’d go away. Do they have no self-respect? Now for some happy stuff.
Erik Dietman (Anthony Reynolds Gallery) has been relatively little known outside Europe over the years. Flick through the catalogues and every sculpture leaps off the page like animations in stasis: turn your back and they'd be sure to move. The line of squat bronze blocks, some smoking pipes and some not, could be an unemployment queue, politicians’ day out or the discovery of the meaning of life. And if you're looking for an alternative to the crowded museums, kids would love these. When Sean Scully (Timothy Taylor) was asked in a radio interview whether he'd ever been jolted by a criticism of his work, he cited a New York critic who called his work "bullying". Now that's why I’ve avoided art criticism for so long. You wish you'd thought of just that adjective. Why have I liked these large blocks of colour so much over the years? And is it that spontaneous energy that keeps drawing one back?
Whether large or small, oil or aquatint, they say I am colour. Look at me! Listen to me! RB Kitaj (Marlborough) left Britain years ago decamping to LA. At their best, his paintings surprise you by glowing with deep spiritualism: a spontaneous simplicity of stroke and paint
Lastly, Scottish sculptor Mhairi Vari has created a large Tetley tea bag for the Contemporary Art Society's regular interventions into the Economist Group's plaza. You feel like interacting with it in some other way than just to quench your thirst. As if a friendly alien life form has seen this ubiquitous earthly habit as the way to communicate with us. Wish they'd sort out the transport!
Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Tuesday, 21 November 2006
THE UNBEARABLE DAILY NEWS
Read the London Evening Standard's account of Black Commuter Monday
Thousands hit by Tube delays
Tube delays as track repairs drag on
Tube delays a 'disaster'
100,000 caught in Tube delays
Massive delays on the Tube
Signal failure now biggest cause of delays
Blunder causes huge delays
Northern line hit by more delays
Joys of switching from lousy London to zingy Zurich
Areas where London must try harder, starting with its streets
Heat brings commuter meltdown
Commuters stranded at Victoria
Tube is hotter than Miami
97F on the Tube
Thousands in Tube hell
London's hottest day ever
London facing meltdown
Rail misery worsens
Hatfield relatives angry over managers' acquittal
The best public transport system in the world? Tell that to London's long-suffering commuters
Commuters hit by 1,800 Tube delays every month
Tube safety probe after two-hour blackout
Running of the Tube 'inadequate' three years into PPP
Judgement Day
The other favoured excuse for making commuters lives a misery is ‘signal failure’. In London, together with lousy maintenance, it has lead to, well, in many people’s minds, bloody manslaughter. Do the google on those rail accidents: Paddington, Hatfield, I shan’t go on. But in a way I should. Drudging home through the underground tonight, the public address announcements begin to resemble a Rauschenberg sound sculpture. Though most of the lines are crap today, each one is special to us, and each has its peculiarities. Sounds like the politically correct dregs of a dating service. “There’s a good service on all other lines.” Meaning, you’ve lost a couple of limbs but you’re still alive so why are you complaining you f***ing git! My sound sculpture got a round of applause the other day from the bulging fuming platform of commuters as I admonished the powers that be for their appalling service. I must be doing something right.
And then I started thinking of Noam Chomsky. The US government hated him. (I like America, by the way. Well a lot more than I like Britain.) Hated him for showing the public that a lot of the information is already there and publicly available if you so choose to accept the assignment of knowledge rather than ignorance. The allegations of the bribes and kickbacks to complete some of the new Jubilee line are, I admit, a little more nebulous. And of course the court proceedings against the companies came to nothing. But generally, things are staring you in the face. Back in the 90’s, I produced a play (see green profile to right) written by a wonderful Hungarian precursor to Havel, Odon von Horvath: Judgement Day. About? You guessed it, signal failure. I’m not going to tell you the story. Go. Read it and arm yourself for the revolution!
Remember I cited lack of communication as a feature of London transport a few blogs ago. Well, like Chomsky points out, often it’s damn well manipulative. Some station announcers have a game of giving you blatantly wrong information. Or they try to be faux comedic. God help us (or your equivalent)! I remember the one from Picadilly Circus station: “it’s raining on the North West of the lines, believe it or not”. You can warn me to get out my umbrella, but you can’t warn me about the suffocation I might endure on my next journey. There was a tube driver one who was genuinely funny. He called the Picadilly line the ‘Piccalydically’ line. He probably suffocated too, though, or was told to be more politically correct.
I must get clearance for the article a lawyer wrote for the Islington Gazette (local North London paper recently famous for Margaret Hodge, Labour MP and her anti-Blair remarks at a Fabian Society meeting), about the train he was on at the time of the London bombings. No announcements etc. when there could have been.
I’m running out of steam, now due to my chronic London transport disorder. Try googling ex-minister Stephen Byers and the Railtrack fiasco, too. Ooooh, people have such short memories don’t they.
And then I started thinking of Noam Chomsky. The US government hated him. (I like America, by the way. Well a lot more than I like Britain.) Hated him for showing the public that a lot of the information is already there and publicly available if you so choose to accept the assignment of knowledge rather than ignorance. The allegations of the bribes and kickbacks to complete some of the new Jubilee line are, I admit, a little more nebulous. And of course the court proceedings against the companies came to nothing. But generally, things are staring you in the face. Back in the 90’s, I produced a play (see green profile to right) written by a wonderful Hungarian precursor to Havel, Odon von Horvath: Judgement Day. About? You guessed it, signal failure. I’m not going to tell you the story. Go. Read it and arm yourself for the revolution!
Remember I cited lack of communication as a feature of London transport a few blogs ago. Well, like Chomsky points out, often it’s damn well manipulative. Some station announcers have a game of giving you blatantly wrong information. Or they try to be faux comedic. God help us (or your equivalent)! I remember the one from Picadilly Circus station: “it’s raining on the North West of the lines, believe it or not”. You can warn me to get out my umbrella, but you can’t warn me about the suffocation I might endure on my next journey. There was a tube driver one who was genuinely funny. He called the Picadilly line the ‘Piccalydically’ line. He probably suffocated too, though, or was told to be more politically correct.
I must get clearance for the article a lawyer wrote for the Islington Gazette (local North London paper recently famous for Margaret Hodge, Labour MP and her anti-Blair remarks at a Fabian Society meeting), about the train he was on at the time of the London bombings. No announcements etc. when there could have been.
I’m running out of steam, now due to my chronic London transport disorder. Try googling ex-minister Stephen Byers and the Railtrack fiasco, too. Ooooh, people have such short memories don’t they.
Monday, 20 November 2006
Art on the buses
My local bus the E3 supposedly has a frequency of between 6-8 minutes. Now, I gave up on most of the London buses years ago in favour of the tube. Not that there haven't been improvements then and now. Our Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is the man you hate to love and love to hate. For those overseas readers (for whom this site is really intended), he was the thorn in Thatcher's side doing the same job back when. 'Red Ken' as he was known. Only, Londoners couldn't think of or offer anyone else to vote for under new Labour so back he conquered. Not that Blair likes him much. And Ken's certainly not prepared to be his scapegoat. He's just returned from a much criticised trip to Cuba, and an aborted one to Venezuela, to negotiate a cheap oil deal for London's buses. At £34,000, it hasn't gone down at all well amongst the city's populace.
But the 30-60 minute tube ride as opposed to the two hour bus trip into Central London always wins. In summer, the buses have no air conditioning so your sweat pours down the handrails. And in winter, the idea of opening a window to alleviate the stale air seems totally alien to most commuters. The one good thing I discovered was free, legal, non-destructive political graffiti. Choose your condensationed window carefully, particularly the big ones at the front upstairs, and you could reach a wide viewing public. I became the Jenny Holzer of socialist saliva. Or maybe it was more Richard Long. Anyway, back to the E3.
It takes a lot for me to go the doctor but the other day my stomach was in revolution. The short walk to the surgery was difficult so I braved the bus stop. From 9.30am until 10.00am I fumed as four buses went the other way and none mine. Good thing I wasn't elderly or chronically infirm and this was my daily experience. A Colombian graduate student rather dismissed my dismay the other night by saying that London was a lot better than Colombia. At least there is a means of public transport, albeit problematic and sometimes infrequent, that conveys you to your door at most times of day, she said fixing me with her gaze. Dare I say it, but I think most of the immigrants here wouldn't mind if the transport were horse drawn so grateful are they to have escaped the situation in their native lands and earn a decent living. Since the privatisation of public transport, a myriad of companies run both the bus and tube. I'm not a transport expert, but don't you think parts and maintenance would be cheaper and easier if there was more uniformity and they learnt joined up writing!
Now, have I told you about the time I caught the last Victoria line train home and the staff of this particular station had forgotten about it, gone home, and we all had to break out..................
P.S. (Can such a thing as a P.S. exist within the semantics of a blog?)
Late last cold wet Sunday night, I saw a couple desperately flagging down the E3 bus 100 meters after its stop. Well, the driver did stop. Wish I'd had the same experiences.....
But the 30-60 minute tube ride as opposed to the two hour bus trip into Central London always wins. In summer, the buses have no air conditioning so your sweat pours down the handrails. And in winter, the idea of opening a window to alleviate the stale air seems totally alien to most commuters. The one good thing I discovered was free, legal, non-destructive political graffiti. Choose your condensationed window carefully, particularly the big ones at the front upstairs, and you could reach a wide viewing public. I became the Jenny Holzer of socialist saliva. Or maybe it was more Richard Long. Anyway, back to the E3.
It takes a lot for me to go the doctor but the other day my stomach was in revolution. The short walk to the surgery was difficult so I braved the bus stop. From 9.30am until 10.00am I fumed as four buses went the other way and none mine. Good thing I wasn't elderly or chronically infirm and this was my daily experience. A Colombian graduate student rather dismissed my dismay the other night by saying that London was a lot better than Colombia. At least there is a means of public transport, albeit problematic and sometimes infrequent, that conveys you to your door at most times of day, she said fixing me with her gaze. Dare I say it, but I think most of the immigrants here wouldn't mind if the transport were horse drawn so grateful are they to have escaped the situation in their native lands and earn a decent living. Since the privatisation of public transport, a myriad of companies run both the bus and tube. I'm not a transport expert, but don't you think parts and maintenance would be cheaper and easier if there was more uniformity and they learnt joined up writing!
Now, have I told you about the time I caught the last Victoria line train home and the staff of this particular station had forgotten about it, gone home, and we all had to break out..................
P.S. (Can such a thing as a P.S. exist within the semantics of a blog?)
Late last cold wet Sunday night, I saw a couple desperately flagging down the E3 bus 100 meters after its stop. Well, the driver did stop. Wish I'd had the same experiences.....
grey skies, black travel
Time after time this happens. The refurbishment of the tube or 'planned engineering work' as they call it doesn't get comleted on time. The commuters in peak hour next morning just have to put up with it. And they hadn't sorted it out by 11am this morning when I attempted to travel. Oh, and to add to the glories of London today, almost 60 bus routes in North-West and Central London are blighted by a 24-hour strike over pay. Imagine this happening at Olympic Games time. If I ran a film company like this I would have been booted out Day One.
Saturday, 18 November 2006
heavenly skies, hellish travel
This will be the first of many frustrated rants at transport in London because today was the last straw for me. For years I've kept quiet but no more. And with the recent resignation of Jack Lemley, US honcho of the London Olympic bid, the time is ripe. At about 1pm, I was stuck for about 15 minutes on the Picadilly line underground train. "Trouble on the train up ahead, we'll be moving shortly." Of course, we didn't. A repeat of this reassuring phrase, resulted in a repeated lack of motion.
With two major tube lines closed this weekend for refurbishment, you'd think the powers that be would bend over backwards to ease problems. When I finally escaped to some fresher air upstairs, a noticeboard warned of delays. Well, at no point on my 25 minute journey had there been any announcements to this effect.
This lack of communication has been a regular feature of London travel over the years. What horrors lie before us tomorrow I wonder. Google 'Bob Kiley Dispatches' for the documentary that former London Underground boss (and ex New York subway head) made in sheer frustration at the system. And he should know!
With two major tube lines closed this weekend for refurbishment, you'd think the powers that be would bend over backwards to ease problems. When I finally escaped to some fresher air upstairs, a noticeboard warned of delays. Well, at no point on my 25 minute journey had there been any announcements to this effect.
This lack of communication has been a regular feature of London travel over the years. What horrors lie before us tomorrow I wonder. Google 'Bob Kiley Dispatches' for the documentary that former London Underground boss (and ex New York subway head) made in sheer frustration at the system. And he should know!
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