Category: Other Culture (film, media, fine art, exhibitions, other people’s writing etc.)

Nottingham, Wormleighton and Yorkshire – a Short Break with Multi-media Relics 10 to 19 April 2013

A rather unusual round trip, taking a week or so off work, for cricket, walking and stuff.  This short break was a substitute for the longer trip we had planned for Malawi, which we ended up deferring to September and was well worth the wait.

But back to our Midlands and the North trip.  We started with a couple of nights in Nottingham, in order to enjoy the second day of the county cricket season as guests of Nottinghamshire CCC.  I wrote up our Nottinghamshire day, 11 April, for King Cricket – click here for that King Cricket (cricket-free) report.

Just in case anything ever goes awry with King Cricket, here is a scrape of that piece.

Here’s the match card – in case you want to know about the cricket.

Then on the 12th to the village of Wormleighton, in Warwickshire the spiritual home of Janie’s family.  No-one knows how the family came to have that name. Probably because someone in the dim and distant past came from there and probably not because Janie is descended from the Spencer family (which pretty-much owned the village), despite the Churchillian and Princess Diana resemblances in Janie’s family.

Wormleighton Village Scene
Wormleighton Village Scene

There is an ancient video of “the Worms” visiting the village of Wormleighton en famille in 1971 – here or below

On this trip, Ged and Daisy made a little video of their own search for the ancient village of Wormleighton – here or below.  

For the uninitiated, Ged and Daisy are our pet names for each other and have been so for over 20 years.

We stayed at Wormleighton Hall, which is a rather grand farm house just outside the  village – formerly the squires residence I shouldn’t wonder and now the home of the tenant farmers who make the whole thing work commercially by running the place as a small hotel as well as a farm.  Lovely family; into all the local countryside stuff.  We visited the Mollington point-to-point which they were attending on the 13th and took some excellent pictures of the local tribes at leisure.

Sighting of local tribesfolk at the Mollington point-to-point
Sighting of local tribesfolk at the Mollington point-to-point

All 80 pictures from the whole round trip are contained in this Flickr album – here and below.

01 Wormleighton Hall P1000515

On 14th we went to Chipping Norton to visit brother-in-law Tony and his lovely second wife Liz.

Hockney says you cannot properly photograph these Wolds scenes

Hockney says you cannot properly photograph these Wolds scenes

On 15th, off to North Yorkshire, driving the eastern-side to see and photograph Hockney country before reaching The Star, where we stayed and ate in great style for a few days.

arndale, the lower, less visited part
Farndale, the lower, less visited part

On 16th we went on a Farndale walk in search of daffodils, surprisingly successfully as the cold start to the spring had delayed the daffs, but they were just starting to show well our day – good fortune.

Some more nice pictures in the Flickr link above; also another little Ged and Daisy video – the attack by a savage sheep (mistaken for a ram) and the skipping lambs at the end being delicious highlights – click here or below .

Saltaire view
Saltaire view

17th we drove South-West to Saltaire and had a look at the town and some art gallery-style Hockney stuff.  18th we spent at leisure and walking around the Star’s vicinity (Harome).

19th we drove home.  Middlesex were again in action against Derbyshire (Day 3) and as we drove home we realised that an improbable early result to the match was on the cards.  After stopping off at the house, I went on (alone) in the car to catch the end of the match and witness a Middlesex win – here’s the card.   Quite a week for us and for Middlesex.

Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, Tate Modern, 26 March 2013

I don’t receive much corporate hospitality – never have.

But Z/Yen had been doing some stuff around Long Finance and the London Accord with Bank of America Merrill Lynch at that time, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been taken unawares when I received a message from Kegan Lovely headed:

Lichtenstein Corporate Supporters Evening Private View: 26 March from 6:45 -9:00pm

As I said in my reply to Kegan:

My first thought when I saw the subject line was “those bankers, always supporting and sponsoring tax havens!!”

Then I realised what a kind invitation it was. Janie loves her modern art, so if you do have a pair of tickets left and if it isn’t too rude for us to arrive c19:30/19:45, we’d very much like to join you that evening.

It really was a timely and kind invite – Janie and I had been planning to go to this exhibition for sure – we both really like Lichtenstein’s work. Back then, Janie was not a member of the Tate, so the opportunity to see the works on a quieter, private evening viewing felt like a real treat to us.

In the end, Kegan was poorly, so couldn’t even make it to the event that night to be our host in person, but Janie and I got to enjoy the exhibition and some corporate hospitality too.

Here is a link to the Tate resource on this exhibition.

The vid below gives you a pretty good idea of what the exhibition was like:

My review at the time is there in my thank you e-mail to Kegan:

Many thanks for the Tate Modern event. Janie and I both really enjoyed the exhibition.  Even though we had seen a lot of Lichtenstein’s stuff before, we had never seen it all in one place.  Also there were lots of works – especially the sculptures, design pieces and “explosions” – that were completely new to us and very good.  Lichtenstein was more versatile and multi-talented than I had previously imagined.

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, Royal Academy, 30 March 2012

Janie and I absolutely loved this exhibition of Hockney’s big landscape works.

It was the day after Uncle Michael’s funeral. We had booked a Friday late slot for this exhibition many weeks before. The exhibition was colourful relief after a sad day.

Here is a link to the exhibition’s resource on-line.

Janie loved it all so much she bought the book and we went off to Yorkshire in search of Hockney’s Wolds the following spring…to be Ogblogged when I get to it.

Hockney says you cannot photograph those Wolds and in a way he is right, but still I did have a go when we visited in 2013:

Below is a video in which curator Marco Livingstone explains the exhibition:

In short, we really loved this exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Gerhard Richter Panorama, Tate Modern, New Year Bank Holiday, 2 January 2012

We really enjoyed this exhibition, which we saw at the end of the seasonal break.

Here is a link to the excellent Tate Modern resource on this incredibly diverse exhibition. The link also includes an excellent explanatory vid which I have embedded below:

The exhibition was well received by the critics – click here for a search term that finds those reviews.

Fenster Richter Kölner Dom

Little did we know that all hell was about to break loose with both mum and Uncle Michael’s health a few days later.

But that day at the Tate Modern, taking in the Richter and more besides, Janie and I were still well relaxed and rested!

Any Old Iron With Vocal Cadenza, Performed At The Gresham Society Soirée, 14 December 2011

Professor Tim Connell had no idea what he was unleashing when he asked me to produce a party piece for the nascent Gresham Society Soirée.

I had no idea what sort of audience we might have, although Tim suggested that he was encouraging Gresham Society members to bring youngsters with them to give the event an age-diverse, party feel. That year, there were a few youngsters in the end.

Unaccustomed as I was to putting on party pieces at that time…a dozen or more years later I am far more seasoned at it…I fell back on material I had prepared or used in the past.

As a youngster myself, I had often used Any Old Iron as a party piece for entertaining old folk, as the old folk at the time that I was a young person were steeped in music hall material.

I had prepared a version of Any Old Iron with a rap break a couple of years earlier…for the life of me I cannot remember quite why…I think I had intended to use it at a Long Finance conference, as Brian Eno had been recommending that we break up the serious s*** with some musical audience participation. Hilariously predictable results ensued, not least a roasting in the Evening Standard…

Inaugural Long Finance Conference, Singing, Talking, Dinner And BASIC Event, 1 February 2010

…but I digress, other than to clarify that my Any Old Iron with a rap break (aka a vocal cadenza) remained on the e-jotter unused in 2009, until the Gresham Society Soirée of 2011. Here’s the very piece:

I decided to dress up in my most spivy outfit (see headline picture from the Lingfield races a few months earlier), including a Rolex-like watch and chain which I had given to my father in the 1990s and then re-inherited on his passing.

I also took a clutch of old pennies from my childhood old pennies collection, as I figured that the youngsters present wouldn’t appreciate what a weighty and princely-looking sum “tuppence” might seem unless they received some coin of the appropriate era.

I also decided, with the benefit of hindsight, unwisely, to involve the pianist, David Jones, not only in playing the piece for me (which of course he was able to do with ease and aplomb). Unbeknown to me at the time, David is a master of the party piece in which you sing faster and faster – in his case the far more difficult Elements Song by Tom Lehrer…

…I am digressing again…

…anyway, I asked David also to join in some business, which occurred to me as we practiced ahead of the show, where I would approach the piano and say:

Hit me!

…in the time honoured fashion to encourage a musician to play. The joke was that David was to feign misunderstanding the entreaty and pretend to throw a punch at me.

We practiced the manoeuvre a couple of times. My final note to David was that he would need to put more effort into the fake-punch and I would have to put more motion into the fake receipt of the punch to make the device look realistic.

But in the heat of show, as it were, David possibly over-enthused…or I under-dodged…such that I really did receive a punch from David, which made me stop for a moment and say:

Ow, that really did hurt

…before carrying on. I think the audience thought it was all part of the show, so they laughed just as we had wanted them to. The song went down well. The bruise wasn’t too bad. David is still talking to me…just about…but perhaps not so open to my last minute bright ideas for performance tweaks any more.

Just try that again, piano dude.

Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World, British Museum, Follwed By Dinner At Salt Yard With Anthea & Mitchell, 27 May 2011

Janie and I went to this fabulous exhibition early evening on a Friday – this notion of late opening of museums and galleries on a Friday evening was quite new then…

…or at least new to us.

Here is a link to the British Museum’s press page on the exhibition.

Here is a very informative short promotional vid for the exhibition:

Here is a search term link to reviews and other resources on the exhibition.

We had arranged to meet Anthea and Mitchell at Salt Yard later that evening. A couple of months earlier I had enjoyed a superb meal at Salt Yard with John Boy:

Dinner At Salt Yard With John White, 16 March 2011

I recall Mitchell being there when we arrived at Salt Yard and then Anthea arriving last, in a bit of a “sorry I’m late” flap…very much in character.

But the excellent food and wine soon had everyone in a chilled and good mood at the end of the week. For me and Janie, with the fascinating cultural exhibition before the gathering too, it was a super start to the weekend.

Aung San Suu Kyi – Lady of No Fear, Frontline Club, 6 January 2011

Janie was very keen to see this movie and we spotted that it was to be premiered in the UK at the Frontline Club in early January, so we booked it ahead of time.

Just as well, as the showing sold out, so even Frontline Club members were turned away on the day; we ran into Roger Graef outside the club, regretting that he hadn’t booked.

Here is a link to the IMDb entry on this film.

It is a short film. Unlike some at that time, this film was not brimming with unequivocal praise for “The Lady”. Writing in late 2017, that equivocation seems prescient.

Still, it was a very affecting, moving hour of documentary.

Here is the trailer:

Changing Money: Communities & Longer Term Finance & You, Ian Harris, Gresham College, Museum Of London, 16 November 2010

This was my second Gresham Lecture (the first was in 2008 – click here).

A larger audience for this one, at the Museum of London; slightly more intimidating feel to the platform too (Barnards Inn Hall sort-of feels like home).

Still, by all accounts it went well. But then people would say that, to me, wouldn’t they? You can judge for yourself, here is a link to all of the resources for the lecture – transcript, slides, the lot.

Or take a look at the YouTube below if it is just the lecture you are interested in:

Guns, pens, cattle, face-painting…all money, of sorts.

After the lecture and post-lecture reception, we decamped to the Bleeding Heart Bistro for dinner.

Gauguin Exhibition, Tate Modern, 12 November 2010

Judging by the absence of appointments in the diary, it looks as though Janie and I had planned to take an autumn break that year but then changed our minds. Given Phillie’s state of health by then, the Price of Fish book deadline looming along with my Changing Money Gresham lecture mid November, it was probably a wise move not to go away and yet to have relatively little work in the diaries.

As a result, we also had relatively little cultural activity scheduled for that autumn, but this particular weekend was an exception.

We took the Friday off work and went to this superb Gauguin exhibition, which we both enjoyed enormously.

An excellent Tate resource on the exhibition can be seen here.

In particular, you might enjoy the colourful vid:

This search term – click here – will find reviews and stuff on this particular exhibition. The critics on the whole loved the show.

As did we. It was just the tonic we needed at the time.

 

Andrew Lawrence, Riverside Studios, Then Dock Kitchen, Ladbroke Grove, With Nephews Paul & Scott, 17 July 2010

Originally this evening was set up with Paul and a young woman named Holly. But Holly was off the agenda some time before the evening came round and Scott elected to come down to London to see us instead.

From memory, dinner at the Dock Kitchen had always been on the agenda for this event, but once the dramatis personae changed we thought that some light entertainment before dinner might go down well.

So we booked an hour of stand up comedy at Riverside Studio 3: Andrew Lawrence. He turned out to be pretty good. Stand up comedy is not usually Janie’s thing, but the young men (all three of us) enjoyed it – as did Janie really. This was more thoughtful and less obvious than a lot of stand up.

Then we hot-footed it to the canalside at Ladbroke Grove/Kensal Road to try Dock Kitchen, a pop-up restaurant that had popped up the previous year and stayed around for several years.

It was a really good meal to round off a really good evening.