Oh alright then.
It’s one of these silly things…
I cannot walk past this ‘Visit Finland’ advert in the DLR without smiling. I know. But what can I say? I smile and go ‘Oh alright. I shall. Soon.’
Not long to go now. My trip to Finland is on the horizon.
London to myself.
Unthinkable I hear you say… Hmmm.
I got Quiet London for Christmas. Amazing gift. It’s full of new places to explore and a few known ones. All of them little treasures of quietness.
I can’t wait to get exploring.
Now… don’t you go and think that I’m so keen on my 2012 resolutions that I’ve already gone out there and done loads. A friend of mine mentioned this gig to me way before 1 January!
This was my second venture to The Slaughtered Lamb and I’m beginning to think that it doesn’t matter when you go or what’s on, you’ll have a great time. Although having said that, the event was, once again, promoted by Pull Up The Roots… so may be that’s the winning combination.
I had made a point of listening to a few tracks before getting the tickets… but that was a long time ago and I couldn’t remember much about it. By the time Jonny and Lucy took to the stage, I didn’t really know what to expect.
Endearing. Funny. Sweet and melancholic. Lullabies with a slight dark undertone. Amiable. Cruel.
Great evening. The wine was decent and reasonably priced. The food tasty. The Slaughtered Lamb is a kind of busy but comfy and friendly pub. You don’t quite feel at home there… but almost.
The last few days have been gloomy. Slight damp in the air. Everything taking a grey outlook… a bit like looking at life through a grey filter.
Days when you feel someone forgot to switch the light on.
The sun is desperately trying to break through. Please keep trying.
End of years always bring self-reviews. May be not consciously, but I know that these last few weeks, I’ve scanned 2011 for highlights and lowlights. The New Year always brings new hopes and promises. You hope to learn from the errors and the mistakes made. You set yourself targets for the new year.
The New Year resolutions.
Traditionally, these are meant to bring you nothing but pain, anger and frustrations. Cut down on your drinking; eat less; exercise more. Diets are synonymous with January. Resolutions are kind of forced on you. Deep down, you will inevitably rebel against one or more resolutions and as you do, you will feel a sense of failure.
So here goes. I have learned from the past and resolutions are not worth making.
Yes I’d like to be fitter and yes I’d like to have a great year… but I don’t have to make myself miserable achieving these.
So no resolutions for me… but recommendations. Semantics I know. But I feel a lot more comfortable with recommendations:
So… the opportunities are there. Let’s go get them.
(Picture: Patrick J. Endres/Visuals Unlimited; Bing - 1 January 2012)
I know exactly how that bear feels…
To me, nothing signifies the arrival of the festive season more than the Christmas Past exhibition at the Geffrye Museum.
It’s magical. The traditions and the decorations. The food. The social gatherings.
The beautifully rooms are in chronological order and it is sobering to see how simple and meaningful Christmas used to be (my favourite room is the Georgian one) and what a consumer affair it is these days.
(Picture: Geffrye Museum)
What particularly amuses me is when you reach the most recent rooms… and you recognise decorations, toys and furniture you grew up with!
Christmas Past: 400 Years of Seasonal Traditions in English Home at the Geffrye Museum from Tuesday 29 November 2011 to Sunday 8 January 2012. Admission free.
With the hype surrounding the Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan exhibition, I was a little nervous as I made my way to the National Gallery on Friday.
Can an exhibition be that good?
The Telegraph labels it a ‘blockbuster‘. For Andrew Graham-Dixon, it is a “breathtaking and truly remarkable exhibition“. The cynic in me realises that by restricting the number of tickets, the National Gallery ensured they had a sell-out show on their hands. The Guardian assures us that this would guarantee a ‘civilised crowd‘.
Room one. I feared the worse as there were three rows deep of people staring at a sketch. But room two onwards, the crowd had started to disperse and it did indeed become a civilised affair.
Of the nine sublime paintings on show, I am stunned by La Belle Ferronniere, returning countless times to stare at it. How he captured the essence of his subject and the reality of her features. The power of the painting is evident as her gaze follows you across the room.
La Belle Ferronniere, about 1493-4 (Musee de Louvre)
What makes the exhibition such a success I think, is the fact that you come out with a greater understanding of what Leonardo da Vinci was like. A confident man and a perfectionist who was not afraid, for example of working with a “sharpened metal drawing tool (metalpoint)” - a technique, we learn, that did not allow any mistakes. Through the many sketches and studies on view, we see how he sought perfection, returning again and again to the same topic in order to master it. We see how he reworked sketches as he ‘rethought’ his work. We understand how revolutionary a man he was, using red chalk as a medium to capture “the fall of light on soft skin” and bringing naturalism through the use of a limited palette, for example.
I smiled as I imagined Leonardo starting on a project but getting distracted by other ideas. His mind was so prolific. So many ideas and so little time you can imagine him thinking!
So… I wondered as I made my way home what he would do for us if he was alive today?
London. Transport. Sunday.
Three words which are great on their own but lethal when combined.
Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices: another great educational exhibition from the British Library!
I learnt that 400 million people around the world speak English as their first language and 1.4 billion as their second language. How astonishing is that? I also learnt that more than half of all the web pages are written in English, that ‘google’ became a verb in 1999 and that ‘cellulite’ was officially recognised in 1968 (that must have been a slap to those Swinging Sixties women!).
I visited the (interactive and fun) exhibition twice and I wish I’d gone a third time, there was so much to absorb.
From the dialects of Germanic tribes in the 5th and 6th centuries to the English of Anglo-Saxon England to the language we speak today, the English language is continually evolving. New words are constantly created (some, for example, by the younger generations keen to create their own coded language) and foreign words are regularly assimilated.
I listened to various recordings of British people from all walks of life - local dialects, regional accents and immigrants. All having a part to play in the way the language is evolving.
I listened to famous speeches from Muhammad Ali; Gandhi; Thatcher; J. F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill among others and marveled at how they used language to ‘manipulate’ their audience - through anaphora or intonation for example. Fascinating.
And I learnt that T.V. brought swearing to the masses!
But the real highlight was the copy of Beowulf on display.
Admission was free.