Other Culture (film, media, fine art, exhibitions, other people’s writing etc.) – Page 5

Parasite by Bong Joon-hu, Film Preview & Panel Discussion, Curzon Mayfair, 9 December 2019

South Korean movies don’t win Palmes d’Or…at least they didn’t until Parasite came along this year.

Here’s the trailer:

It is due to be released in the UK next February, but Janie and I spotted an opportunity, offered to Curzon members, to see a preview and then a panel discussion with Bong Joon-hu himself (who seems quite liberal about the spelling of his name in transliteration) plus a couple of actors.

Despite this being a crazy busy week for us, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss, especially as I was able to snap up a choice pair of our favourite Pullman seats for the event.

Unfortunately, our chosen Pullman seat had fallen to pieces between booking and our arrival. A sweet young woman tried to convince me that the Curzon had e-mailed me about this (oh no they hadn’t) and that we had been offered alternatives (but not Pullman seats)…

…blah blah. A nice man whose Pullman seat was adjacent to our vacant space (formerly known as our Pullman seat) said he was willing to take the lesser seats if it really mattered to us, but in the end we accepted the switch, which the sweet young woman sweetened with some drinks, nibbles and the price differential as a refund in cash.

But the comedy/drama/thrills of the seat fiasco was as nothing once the film started.

It really is a cracker of a film. Everything the trailer promises about the twists and turns, the funny moments and the suspense…

…really we were gripped by the movie from start to finish.

If you are nervous of all subtitled movies, then this one might not be for you – the subtitles are very clear and easy to read but you do need the words, so if you let your visual concentration slip from reading the subtitles when you need them, you can miss some lines…

…and when a movie is this visually stimulating, you can even be concentrating on the movie but looking at other eye-popping visuals when you need to be reading.

Still the plot is not that complicated, even though it changes tack more often than a sailing boat in a swirling storm.

Janie and I often find Q&A panels more appealing in the ideas stage of booking the thing than in the actual delivery. This one was no exception.

Most of the questions from the floor were banal. The only really interesting thing I learnt was the fact that Mr Bong had written the first half of the film several years ago and that the second half only revealed itself to him some time later. So those twists and turns don’t just happen suddenly in his head; the second half of the film is very different in style, tone and content.

One interesting question from the floor was about the symbolism of smells and water, themes which constantly recurred in the film. Mr Bong’s answers to that question were insightful.

Ilya Volkov (Kreecher) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]
Taken at a film festival in Munich, summer 2019.

We were also blessed with the presence of Song Kang-ho (who played the father of the parasite family) and Jeong-eun Lee (who played the displaced housekeeper).

They all seemed very nice and were well-humoured on the stage. But they all sat there with their coats on, which felt a bit strange. They also used very little English, making a young translator work very hard. The translator mostly picked up very well on the points they wanted to make, I felt.

Here is a link to a similar panel discussion, from the Toronto Film Festival.

Janie will be irritated that they use English far more in that Toronto interview than they did at the Curzon; Janie said she thought they had better English than they were letting on!

The movie is, above all else, a fascinating insight into societal inequality seen through an East Asian lens, yet unquestionably illustrating universal issues around that topic. So different in style from movies such as Sorry We Missed You and Dirty Pretty Things, yet covering many similar themes.

Point is, go see this movie, Parasite – it really is something special.

A Gresham Society Visit To Fortnum & Mason, 18 November 2019

Janie and I started our Fornum & Mason cultural evening earlier than most, by visiting the Royal Academy across the road in the late afternoon – click here or below:

Gormley & Freud At The Royal Academy, 18 November 2019

As planned, we still had time to take our own look around Fortnum & Mason ahead of the Gresham Society event. We had been told that we were not getting the standard guided tour of the shop…

…thank goodness – I mean, who needs a guide to take you around a shop, especially if you have Janie with you?…

…so the opportunity to have a butchers at the store ahead of the special artefact session we had been promised, was a good idea.

Of course, being Gresham Society, Janie and I weren’t the only people to have that bright idea. We ran into several Gresham Societitians, not least Barbara Anderson, while exploring the delights of Fortnum and Mason, without a guide.

Everything looked nice enough to eat down there in the food hall

But our real purpose at Fortnum and Mason was to hear from the archivist, Dr Andrea Tanner and see some of the treasured artefacts she has gathered about the 300+ year old institution.

The Gresham connection is a little tenuous, but Fortnum & Mason have recently opened a branch in The Royal Exchange, which of course was founded by Sir Thomas Gresham.

While the direct connection might be tenuous, the international mercantile nature of both Gresham’s career and the commercial venture that is/became Fortnum & Mason, have some clear similarities.

We were honoured to be hosted in the Fortnum & Mason Board Room. We learnt that our visit was very much a one-off treat for The Gresham Society, as the regular “history tours” are more usually small groups on a shop tour. Such tours are most certainly not normally conducted during the run up to the festive season, so we were most firtunate and honoured to be thus welcomed.

The history of the store is very interesting. Much of the history can be gleaned from the Wikipedia entry – click here – amongst other sources.

Janie was especially interested to hear about the post-war history of the business, as she treated Garry Weston (the Wagon Wheel man, as well as the Fortnum & Mason man) & his wife, Mary Weston, for many years.

But in truth, the elements that most interested us and the Gresham folk gathered that afternoon, were the extraordinary historical artefacts that Andrea Tanner was able to show us. These pieces illustrated the history of the place to a far greater extent than the (still interesting) dates and anecdotes.

We were warned not to open this unfinished jar of beef extract; who knows what lurks within such a jar once several decades have passed.

Tommy’s Tin – chocs and cards for the troops

Janie snapped a fair smattering, but not all, of the pieces handed round and explained.

Fortnum & Mason has diversified into all sorts at times in its history; it’s not all about teas, sweets and wines

Well I’ll be darned – more stuff for Tommy

Only Janie seemed to have the guts & dexterity to open this beautiful small watch

Not on the table, Imelda! What would your mother say?

After the superb talk, artefact show and questions, we were each given a very jolly goody-bag, like we see at children’s parties these days…never would have happened in my childhood I might tell you. Tea and biscuits and vouchers in that goody bag – very nice.

Those of us brave or foolish enough to tackle the Fortnum & Mason wine bar prices, retired to the food hall wine bar for an hour or so, to enjoy excellent wines in superb Gresham Society company.

This was not the most intellectually stimulating Gresham Society trip ever, but it was extremely interesting and enjoyable.

We were genuinely privileged to be allowed such access to Fortnum & Mason at this time of year, so many thanks to Tim and Basil for organising the visit. The perfect hors d’oeuvres ahead of the repast that will be the Gresham Society soiree in a few week’s time.

More photos, including those from Janie’s and my earlier visit to the Royal Academy, can be seen in the Flickr album available by clicking here or on the photo link below.

Gormley & Freud At The Royal Academy, 18 November 2019

Neither of us would have made a special trip to the Royal Academy to see either one of these exhibitions on its own, but when we realised that we were due to be across the road in Fortnum & Mason for an early evening Gresham Society event that evening, the opportunity to see:

Antony Gormley, and
Lucian Freud: The Self-Portraits…

…was too good for me and Janie to miss. (Click the above links to see the RA’s excellent on-line resources for each of these shows).

First we took in the Gormley. Janie got trigger happy with her iPhone.

The signage tells you to duck and dive your way through this piece, while another sign tells you rather strictly to stick to the outside of the piece. Where’s my sat nav when I need it the most?

This matrix piece made us feel a bit dizzy

Janie was especially taken with the sketch books aplenty,

Having done various real caves and even the Củ Chi tunnels in our time, this synthetic cave held no fear for us, although the health and safety brigade warned us about the dark, head hazards and claustrophbia before we entered. It was fun.

While we were more interested to see the Freud than the Gormley, in the event the Freud was a small exhibition with only a few interesting pieces.

Lucian clearly fancied himself more when he was young…

As we had suspected, neither show would have satisfied us as a single visit show, but we were pleased to have seen both in one visit, especially so on a day when we were to be so nearby anyway.

There are more photos, in a single album with the Fortnum & Mason ones, to be seen by clicking the link below:

Sorry We Missed You, Ciné Lumière II, 11 November 2019

I’m really glad that Janie and I went to see this excellent film yesterday, but by gosh it is a depressing watch.

We saw it in Ciné Lumière II – very comfy but small screen -nothing like the big art deco screen at the Institut français.

Here is a link to its Wikipedia entry, which itself links out to IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes etc.

The piece is said to be about the gig economy, but in truth it is about that shady part of the economy which is purportedly “gig”, but is in truth sham self-employment contracts that condemn the individuals concerned to a form of bonded labour, as the contracts are ludicrously one-sided and are designed to deny the individuals workers rights.

The story of this family plays out in rather typical Ken Loach film fashion. The viewer has a sense of foreboding from the outset. It is a Ken Loach movie after all.

The father of the family, Ricky, buys a van and hopes for a more independent existence as a self-employed van driver. The mother, Abby, is also technically self-employed – i.e. an agency care worker on a zero hours contract.

Things do not go well for them.

There are many good reviews on-line but the Variety one – click here – is comprehensive and interesting.

Bursting with poignant scenes, the most poignant ones, for me, are:

several scenes where Abby, who is full of goodness, wants to look after her charges better but is constantly under time/commercial pressure to move on to the next or work unpaid in her severely limited own time;
when Maloney, the ghastly “gangmaster” at the delivery depot, explains why his depot tops the productivity charts and states that the company ought to erect a statue of him to celebrate his management achievements;
a late scene in which the daughter, Lisa Jane, breaks down and explains that she just wants the family to go back to the way it was before her dad had the van.

Set in Newcastle, there are some moments of humour in it, but not to the same extent as I Daniel Blake, the previous Ken Loach, which Janie and I also rated very highly indeed.

Movies like this tell us a lot about our society; those pockets of society that people like me, Janie and most Ogblog readers are, mercifully, spared.

Highly recommended – go see it.

The Gift, Guest Piece By Kay Scorah, Written For Theadmash, 6 November 2019

I have described the Fourth Threadmash and included my own offering under the title “The Gift” in a separate Ogblog piece – click here or below:

The Gift, Fourth Threadmash, Gladstone Arms, 6 November 2019

I offer space on Ogblog for Threadmashers if placing their pieces in the public domain pleases them; I am delighted and honoured to host any or all such pieces. This time, Kay Scorah has submitted her touching account entitled:

The Gift. Bobo

The Holme Lane Theatre Company – HLTC- specialised in Dickensian tales of poverty and suffering. Inspired by…
…well…
…Charles Dickens tales of poverty and suffering.
Their performances always featured a fierce heroine; Olivia Twist or Nicola Nickleby, who overcame tyranny and liberated the oppressed. This heroine was always slight of build, sharp-witted and fleet of foot. Uncannily like a certain small, skinny girl who always came top of the class and had to run fast to escape the thick bully boys in the neighbourhood.
The cast of HLTC, a motley collection of dolls and soft toys, would rehearse in my attic playroom in Hillsborough, Sheffield, and then head out on tour, which involved moving the entire production down to the living room to play to a captive (as opposed to captivated) audience of long-suffering grown ups, or GUs as we shall call them.
Bobo joined the cast in September 1961. A birthday gift from Granny. The first black doll in our company. She turned out to be the Russian doll of gifts. Which is weird because you don’t come across many black Russians….not outside of a cocktail menu, anyway.
Bobo the doll was just the wrapper around the gift of layers of learning.
Bobo gift 1: Golly has to go. With her movable arms, head and legs and her eyes which closed when she lay down, Bobo was a far more versatile performer than Golly, who just flopped about the place with a fixed grin. And, to be honest, in spite of being rocketed to stardom after having been featured on the side of a jam jar, Golly’s place in the company had been uncertain for some time. Some of our audience did not approve, even threatened to boycott performances, and with Bobo’s arrival… things became very awkward. No. Bobo most certainly could not be expected to work alongside Golly. This was perhaps the only time in history that a black female was given precedence over a male of any hue.
Bobo gift 2: Fluidity in representations of gender. With Golly gone, there were no male cast members. So we became an all-female theatre company. Male characters, if we must have them, were played by girl dolls. In 1961. Yes, The Holme Lane Theatre company was way ahead of its time.
Bobo Gift 3. Questioning the concept of gendered naming. Bobo arrived on a Tuesday. In conversation with Mr Baidu down the street, I learned that Bobo was Ghanaian for “Tuesday child”. I didn’t know that it was Ghanaian for “boy Tuesday child”. Nor did Bobo.
Bobo Gift 4. Heated debates on colonialism, cultural appropriation, integration, assimilation, ancestry, origin, custom….
Some of the GUs argued that Bobo should have an English name, like the other dolls – Wendy, Susan, Lorraine, Katy… “She needs to feel that she belongs.” “Just because she’s black doesn’t mean she isn’t English.” Others defended her right to claim her ancestry….
It could be hard to get their attention back to the play; to Olivia Twist MP’s fight for workhouse reform or Dr Nicola Nickleby’s courageous work among child polio victims.
So, here’s to Bobo, probably the first black female to play the lead in a stage adaptation of a Dickens novel, who, 5 years before the race relations act, called out racism and reclaimed African culture from the colonial Brits, and who, decades ahead of the LGBTQ+ movement gave rise to an all-female, gender non-conforming, cross-dressing theatre company.
Not bad for a doll.

Many thanks again to Kay Scorah for allowing this piece to guest on Ogblog.

An Evening With Onora O’Neill & Cara At The Royal Society, Then An Afternoon Watching A Dissemination Of Terrorist Publications Case At The Old Bailey, 28 & 29 October 2019

This was neither my first evening with Onora O’Neill nor my first visit to The Old Bailey.

Was it really nearly 12 years ago that I dined with Onora, again at The Royal Society, at a BCS Thought Leadership event? Yes:

BCS Thought Leadership Debate On Sharing Human Data, Royal Society, 15 January 2008

The Cara evening was actually a consequence of my first visit to The Old Bailey a few weeks ago…

Bound To Appear At The Old Bailey, 30 September 2019

…as Stephen Wordsworth of Cara was one of the guests for lunch at the Old Bailey that day and asked me if I would like to attend O’Nora’s forthcoming evening. Of course I said yes.

Monday 28 October – Communication and Democracy in a Digital Age

Onora O’Neill’s talk was fascinating. It is well summarised on the Cara website and there is also a link to the audio of the whole talk – click here or below.

Cara Science and Civilisation Lecture 2019

Lectures steeped in Kantian philosophy are not exactly awash with soundbite takeaways, but one especially good thought did stick in my mind in takeaway fashion; Onora’s assertion that the post World-War Two switch from duties-based philosophies towards rights-based philosophies is proving unhelpful for matters such as regulating social media.

The near-monopolies that deploy/control social media fall back on rights such as freedom of expression, privacy and autonomy while abdicating responsibility for duties such as truthfulness, trustworthiness and consideration for the sensibility of others.

Onora maintained a largely pessimistic line of argument, both in her talk and through the lively question and answer session that followed. I do not share her long-term pessimism on this topic; I think new media tend to go through an unruly phase when they can be especially disruptive to society (by which I mean negatively disruptive) because society and individuals within society take time to adapt to the positive uses of the new media.

In short, as long as we don’t destroy ourselves as a society before the new media settle down, I think those media will settle down and be a force for good to a greater extent than a force for ill.

Still, a fascinating evening, with some food and drink for sustenance as well as for thought after the main event. I met some interesting people for the first time and re-established connections with some others I had met before, including, very briefly, Onora.

Here’s that link again if you want to hear the talk.

Tuesday 29 October 2019, Afternoon, The Old Bailey Court Five

Coincidentally, my return visit to The Old Bailey, to spend a little time seeing a case unfold, was the afternoon following the Onora O’Neill Lecture.

Even more coincidentally, the case I watched for 90 minutes or so was about disseminating terrorist publications through social media. The subject matter of the cases are a matter of public announcement and record, so here and below is a link to the listing for this day:

What’s on at the Old Bailey, Oct 29

I watched with several of the people who had taken lunch with the judges that day, including Prue Leith (whom I had not met before) and Crispin Black (whom I had met before).

Here is a newspaper report of the sitting we attended.

This was the first time I had sat in on a criminal trial in England; I did sit in on a case in New York some 30 years ago (to be Ogblogged in the fullness of time). It was fascinating for me to see an English criminal trial process at close hand, not least this particularly interesting trial.

There were several binders of material, mostly print-outs from the web, which were being outlined in opening statements that afternoon.

Without making any comment on the contents of those binders as evidence for this case itself, I found it unusually depressing (not a term I use lightly) to wade through the voluminous materials that had been printed out from the web to be used as evidence. I knew of such publications, of course, but had not actually seen, read or heard such materials before.

I also found myself thinking deeply about the lecture the evening before and Onora O’Neill’s pessimism about the impact that social media might have on our society if we do not find ways to regulate and curate such media towards good rather than ill. Despite my theoretical optimism (expressed above), the practical examples before me that afternoon allowed me little room for optimism for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow will be brighter, not least because I shall be spending the day in a very different type of court amongst friends.

Despite it not making me feel good, I am very glad I went to The Old Bailey that day and that I have now experienced watching part of a trial unfold at close hand. I am grateful to Michael and his shrieval team for organising the visit for me.

Postscript: the trial resulted in convictions for both of the accused – click here for a newspaper report on the convictions.

My Name Is Why, A Memoir, In Conversation With Lemn Sissay, Royal Court Theatre, 3 September 2019

This sounded like a fascinating true story – which it is. Celebrated poet and dramatist, Lemn Sissay, spent his formative years as a foster child and in care where he experienced almost-unimaginable emotional cruelty and neglect.

He has spent much of his adult life working to uncover his true identity (he is of Ethiopian descent), together with a quest to understand his origins and unusually bleak early life.

The problem Janie and I had with this event – a cross between a book launch and a rehearsed reading and an interview – here is a link to the Royal Court blurb – was the sycophantic nature of the audience. The audience/atmosphere encouraged Sissay to freewheel and jump around through his material so much that it was difficult to get to the nub of many of the excellent points he was trying to make.

It didn’t help when his lectern collapsed right at the start. Miranda Sawyer as Chair didn’t really help either as she, bless her, was almost as “all over the place” with the buzz of the fans as was Lemn Sissay.

The nadir came during the limited time for questions at the end, when a friend of Lemn Sissay’s took up a question slot in order to blurt out that she loved him. Even Lemn responded to that one by saying to her, “why don’t you just give me a call to tell me that” and Miranda said, “that’s a comment, can someone else please ask a question?”

Actually the questions were quite good and did help to cover many of the gaps from the preceding hour.

If you want to learn as much about this fascinating book/story in 10 minutes as we learnt in the 90 minute sycophant-fest event, then I highly commend this Guardian article/book review published a few days earlier – click here.

Are we glad we went? On balance, yes. Lemn Sissay is an engaging personality and he has such a troubling-but-interesting story to tell. I’d really like to have a quiet chat with him one day; I suspect he comes across better when he doesn’t have a mob of fans to please.

NewsRevue 40th Anniversary Party, Show & Smoker, Canal Cafe Theatre, 18 August 2019

NewsRevue is the world’s longest running live comedy show. It has been running since 18 August 1979. That is a Guinness World Record. If you don’t believe me, click here and read it on the official Guinness World Records site.

I have been involved with the show since 1992, as reported on Ogblog in many postings, not least this one which records my first performed offering – click here or below:

California Here I Go, NewsRevue Lyric, 23 April 1992

I formed many friendships over the years I wrote for NewsRevue (most of the rest of the 1990s). Many of us keep in touch through Ivan Shakespeare dinners, many of which are written up on Ogblog, including this one:

Ultimate Love and Happy Tories, Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 3 March 2017

Mike Hodd (see headline picture) is one of the founders of the show, was a mainstay at our writers meetings in the 1990s and is a fairly regular attendee at Ivan Shakespeare dinners.

For some reason, Mike roped me into liaising with Emma and Shannon at the Canal Cafe to help pull together the 40th anniversary event.

I take very little credit for the superb evening that ensued, but I did contribute some archival material and I did stitch up some NewsRevue alums by gathering names and serial numbers through the e-mail connections.

I also suggested that the event include a smoker, in line with a tradition we had back in the 1990s of having after show parties at which we performed party pieces. Mike particularly liked that idea so it simply had to happen.

But the organisation of the event was really down to Emma, Shannon and the team who did a cracking job.

First up was a pre show drinks reception, at which some of us (encouraged to dress up), looked like this:

Then we watched the current show. An excellent troupe comprising Dorothea Jones, Brendan Mageean, Gabrielle De Saumarez and Rhys Tees under Tim MacArthur’s directorship.

Before the smoker, Shannon and the team played us a wonderful 40th anniversary video compilation of pictures and video clips from across the decades. Here is that very vid:

I was proud to have supplied some of the clippings contained therein and moved to see the video and ponder on just what 40 years of a show really means.

Then the smoker. I was really delighted that current/recent cast and crew joined in the idea and chipped in with their own party pieces, which were very entertaining.

From our own “Class of ’92, there were several contributions, captured pictorially by Graham Robertson, with thanks to him for the following pics.

Mike Hodd made two excellent contributions to the smoker;

a very amusing stand up set in which he somehow managed to extract humour from Parkinson’s disease. I shall never again be able to dissociate in my mind the film Fatal Attraction from the affliction fecal impaction;
a slow build routine in which he was an auctioneer trying to fob off some utter tat as masterpieces. Great fun.

Gerry Goddin performed an audience participation routine in which we joined in a song about “mutton dressed as lamb” to the tune of Knees Up Mother Brown. Gerry dealt with my heckling so masterfully that some people thought the heckles had been planted; they had not.

Barry performed a stand up comedy routine with masterful poise. I thought we were all supposed to be writers who cannot perform.

I wanted to celebrate one of my classic songs from 1992; the second of mine to be performed in the show but a perennial:

You Can’t Hurry Trusts, NewsRevue Lyric, 7 May 1992

My solo rendition of You Can’t Hurry Trusts

Chris Stanton was the performer who made my debut contributions to NewsRevue such a success in 1992. He too was at this party and performed a couple of classics brilliantly well; A Loan Again and also John Random’s classic 0898 song. No photo of the Chris’s performance as yet – unless Graham finds one of those amongst his collection.

Jonny Hurst also celebrated John Random’s ouevre with a rendition of the wonderful “Tell Laura A Liver”.

This was in part done to honour John Random’s recent selfless act to donate a kidney out of pure altruism to an anonymous recipient. To complete the honouring of that extraordinary good deed, Jonny and I jointly segued the liver song into a visceral medley including a specific piece we put together to honour John’s donation:

WHO DO YOU THINK GOT YOUR KIDNEY, MR RANDOM?

(Lyric to the Tune of “Who Do You think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?”)

THE MAIN REFRAIN

Who do you think got your kidney, Mr Random?
Since your organ donation?
Was it a girl for to stop her renal pain?
Was it a boy who can take the piss again?
So who do you think got your kidney, Mr Random?
Now that you’ve gone down to one?

FIRST MIDDLE EIGHT

Mr Burns – he came to town
The age of twenty-one
He did assume a nom de plume
And took the name Random.

FIRST REPRISE

So who do you think got your kidney, Mr Random?
Now that you’ve gone down to one?

SECOND MIDDLE EIGHT

Mr Burns did not return
With kidney number one
But kept his sense of humour…
(pause)
…And is ready with his pun.

SECOND REPRISE

So who do you think got your kidney, Mr Random?
Now that you’ve gone down to one?

It was a great party, it was a terrific show and it was a superb smoker. A truly memorable event to celebrate 40 years of a wonderful show.

As John Random said in his preamble to the smoker, NewsRevue has initiated so many careers and transformed so many lives over those decades. And for those of us who have formed enduring friendships, it is hard to express our gratitude to Mike Hodd and those who have kept the NewsRevue torch burning week in week out for forty years and counting.

A Visit To Kew Gardens, Mostly To See Dale Chihuly: Reflections On Nature, 15 July 2019

After the frazzled excitement of the Cricket World Cup Final yesterday…

The Day England Won The Cricket World Cup, England v New Zealand, 14 July 2019

…a day of quiet contemplation, gardens and art seemed to be in order.

So we went to Kew Gardens. It’s ages since we’ve been and Janie was especially keen to see the new Dale Chihuly exhibits.

Just the sight of one of them made Janie’s hair stand on end…

…or was Janie still frazzled from the cricket world cup?

If we both look a bit “straight off the tennis court” in the pictures, that’s because we did go to Kew straight after playing some tennis. We had a quick bite in the pavilion on arrival before wandering on to the Temperate House.

Temperate House from the viewing gallery above

After the Temperate House, which has several stunning Chihuly pieces, we then went to the Marianne North Gallery to see her fine works.

Then on to the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, where many of the regular Dale Chihuly’s can be found and where we bought Janie books on both Chihuly and Marianne North.

Then around the gardens some more to take in the new, scattered Chihuly works and the beautiful gardens.

Not Chihuly, this work. Chihuly do you think you are, Ged?

Then home for some stretching and meditation with Lexi.

Did all this calm us down 24 hours after that tense cricket match? A bit…not completely. But it was a super day out.

We took loads of pictures – click here or below to see all of them:

Laughing At The Labyrinth, V&A, 3 May 2019

We have very much enjoyed our recent visits to the V&A, not least an afternoon a few weeks ago seeing the Mary Quant and Christian Dior…

A Double Dose Of Fashion: Mary Quant & Christian Dior, V&A, 5 April 2019

…and a couple of years ago enjoying on of the V&A’s “festival Fridays” while admiring the “Big Reveal” of new wing:

Two Visits To The V&A For The Exhibition Road Big Reveal, Plus Grayson Perry & The Pavilion At The Serpentine Gallery, Plus Pink Floyd and The V&A Reveal Festival, 26 and 30 June 2017

So we thought we’d enjoy this festival Friday focusing on British comedy and performance, while also taking in the new Cairo Streets display.

Ahead of time, I hadn’t thought about the irony of the V&A, perhaps the most labyrinthine of all UK museums, having a special display of photographs from the labyrinthine streets of a sprawling Middle-Eastern city such as Cairo.

But that irony was soon brought to the forefront of my mind as we tried and failed to find that Cairo Streets display. Two attempts at the information desk later (including one incident during which Janie and I also mislaid each other), the informed conclusion was that the display in question has been delayed and is not there yet. We have until April 2020 to find it, if indeed it ever shows up.

The closest to the maze of Cairo streets in the 1890s I can show you, dear reader, is some Maghrebi equivalents from the 1990s – click here or below for our photographs of Morocco:

001 8 November 1997 - Only mules and pedestrians allowed in these Fes streets M_J1_Photo (2)

The irony continued as we asked the kind woman at the information desk to direct us to the Laughing Matters Exhibition and she advised us to go to the third floor, pointing to a nearby staircase & lift.

After wandering what there is of the third and much of that end of the V&A’s second floor in vain, we asked a walkie-talkie-bearing attendant, who admitted to being clueless, but he could and did use his walkie-talkie to radio for help.

“First Floor”, came the garbled instruction from the walkie-talkie, “tell them to walk the British Renaissance 16th and 17th century and they can’t miss it”. We had walked that way before, of course, on previous visits. A bit too Mock Tudor for me, that 16th century section.

Anyway, we did reach Laughing Matters, which we couldn’t miss. Quite a small display, it is. I suppose there aren’t that many artefacts that can be deemed to be quintessentially British Comedy.

The Spitting Image of Mrs Thatcher was a highlight…that’s Mrs T in the display cabinet, not on the phone. Janie (on the phone) was listening to some of the many vox coms (voice of comedians) on such phones in the centre of the room. Some very interesting, many rather mundane. Also around the room were many quintessentially British comedy clips, such as “don’t tell him, Pike”, “don’t mention the war” and Babs Windsor’s bikini-boob-bursting scene from Carry On Camping. No mention of NewsRevue. Tish.

Can you get me a cab a bit sooner than that? I need to get out of here.

The one place in the V&A that Janie does know how to find without a map or a personal guide is the member’s cafe. That was to be our next stop.

Janie fancied some soupy, creamy courgettes, while I just nibbled some nuts with my tea – oooer, missus.

The one performance thing we fancied was a performance piece, in the new Hochhauser auditorium, named Within The Warren, a piece which heaped irony upon irony by satirising the labyrinthine nature of the V&A’s culture. I have oft suggested that organisational cultures tend to reflect some intrinsic element of the organisation – hospitals having an “accident and emergency” style culture, children’s charities having child-like elements in the meetings, etc.

So it came as no surprise to discover, through this lightweight, absurdist piece by Jessica Mullen, that an outsider finds the V&A impenetrable as an organisation.

Even the Q&A was somewhat bewildering, as the interviewer asked a couple of obscure questions and then threw the Q&A open to the floor, to find only one question…from me. Jessica Mullen batted back an answer in such an inscrutable manner, I imagine that she’ll be head-hunted for MI6…if she isn’t in there already.

The only other thing we fancied seeing was the small display on Japanese Seibu railway poster art.

“Stand clear of the doors”, Japanese poster art style…

In any case, we’d not really explored the Japanese rooms before and thought we’d find the whole thing fascinating just six months after visiting Japan.

Japan Day Zero: Journey To Tokyo And Our First Evening There, 18 to 19 October 2018

Janie especially loved the Inrō (personal effects boxes)…

…and the netsuke (kimono toggles):

After that, we both felt exhausted, so we headed home to Noddyland. It was still so early that Janie was able to photograph some ducks on the Noddyland village pond – bless.

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The Gift. Bobo

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Monday 28 October – Communication and Democracy in a Digital Age

Tuesday 29 October 2019, Afternoon, The Old Bailey Court Five

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