let's play the Philosopher, kids

The Philosopher has started a blog. I should say, has started ANOTHER blog as he's reasoned that everyone should have two blogs: one to write beautifully constructed, lugubrious essays on philosophy and other 'lofty' topics, and one to write prattle, as his handy topic cloud thing so conveniently points out on blog 2's homepage. You think you know someone, until they start going on about how much they love Antony Gormley and techno music! Not only that, but it's really annoying when they beat you at blogging on a shared experience.

No matter. He may have gotten to writing about it first, but I'll undoubtedly do it better (apologies to everyone else for the smug tone of this post - it's primarily directed toward The Philosopher). Last night we - after I bagged us the tickets - went to see a recording of the Radio 4 comedy Old Harry's Game. To be fair and give credit where credit is due, it was indeed The Philosopher who turned me onto OHG during a particularly competitive tennis match when we were discussing our favourite comedy radio shows.

The scripted shows were hilarious, but the most entertaining thing was the ridiculous banter between the actors when not recording. This was a rescheduled recording as February's snow days meant that not all of the actors could make it to set. Evidently even though not all of the actors made it into London, a man from the Isle of Sheppey, dubbed 'the guy from the Isle of Sheppey', was hailed as a hero for making it into London to watch the recording despite the snow chaos. Most of the actors took it in turn to call out, 'where's the guy from the Isle of Sheppey?' and then make the audience give him another round of applause.

Despite the annoyance of having to queue for 20 minutes to get in and then 20 more in the cafe to get in the theatre, it was still an absolute laugh - and you really can't beat good, clean, free fun.

Random tangent: This is Gareth Hoskins Architects' competition-winning cinema and music venue in Lerwick, Shetland which is finally about to start being built, almost three years after GHA won the competition. It's cool. I like it. I'd almost go all the way up to Shetland just to see it.

Thought of the day

Juices go fast

I decided to start a juice fast yesterday, mostly because I'd been feeling a bit like I'd overdone it on stodgy wintery foods (one too many macaroni cheeses) and that I wanted to kick start spring eating with a bit of juice. My mom used to do these all the time, about twice a year for one week at a time. I always thought she was a bit nuts for doing it, but was always going on about how great living off nothing but juice, herbal tea, and maybe some fresh soup makes you feel. Being me, I managed to start my juice fast at the worst time ever. I was already feeling a bit icky when I woke up yesterday - given that everyone at work and a lot of my friends have been ill, it isn't all that surprising - but I managed to make it to my viva at noon (which went very well), but after that I started feeling worse for wear by the hour. I had lots and lots of juice, mostly fruit, and decided that I should make a some fresh spring greens soup for dinner.

There's a Planet Organic near College so I went there hoping to score lots of yummy leafy greens, but to my disappointment all they had was various types of lettuce. Boring! Even though I was feeling a bit rough by now, I thought I can't quit this fasty thing on Day 1 and I really need to make some kind of soup, and I remembered that there was a Whole Foods on Kensington High Street so I dragged myself to the tube. I haven't quite made up my mind about Whole Foods. It's brilliant in some ways - there's lots and lots to choose from, it's very veggie friendly, interesting pastas and some good veg, but again no spring greens. So I wandered around in a daze until I finally decided on a spinach and pea soup with lots and lots of sage. I'm not following any rules in my fast, just making them up as I go along, but I did decide that in any of my soups I wouldn't use spices - so no salt or pepper or oil or anything but fresh veggies. At Whole Foods, I bought a bag of frozen organic peas, a bag of organic spinach, a lemon, a packet of fresh sage, a box of herbal tea, and 1 litre of organic tomato juice. 6 items cost me £12.66! The spinach alone was £4 for a single bag. Insane. I have no problem at all with spending a lot of money on really good, fresh produce, but £4 for a bag of spinach is ridiculous.

Having said that, my soup (with nothing else but peas, sage, and spinach with a bit of lemon juice squeezed in) was surprisingly delicious. Though by that time, I was already in a state of delirium brought on by high fever, and maybe it's a soup which could only taste good to an ill person. I'm still on the juice fast though, and feel surprisingly okay. I've heard of some people who feel so starved by the afternoon of day one, that they don't make it even one day. I'm not saying it's positively delightful, but it's not as bad as I imagined it would be. Whether it actually does my body any good remains to be seen, but I feel like it's doing me good and, if nothing else, I'll take the placebo effect.

And I haven't had even a sip of coffee since Sunday afternoon, which is nothing short of a miracle for a devoted follower of the cult of Monmouth.

Swan Lake and cultural roulette

Just back from the Royal Opera House after seeing Swan Lake. I accidentally got tickets for a performance on Family Day, which is not my idea of a good time - children sniffling and making annoying noises, parents making even more annoying noises shushing noisy children. But it wasn't that bad actually - in some ways it was seriously cooler than it normally is. A few dancers wandered about in full make-up and costume before the performance started, chatting to the kids. There were members of the orchestra as well, but by far the best bit was during second intermission they left the stage curtain open so you could watch the scene change. Amazing. Apart from shows I've been in, it was the first time I've ever seen anyone do that, and I've been to a lot of shows. Good fun and the kids seemed to like it. They clapped at everything though, which was sweet, but a little bit tiresome. Having only seen modern ballet at the ROH before, I also now understand why the tickets cost so much. The costumes and set are ridiculously extravagant, but very beautiful and the spend is clearly worth it. The Tchaikovsky score is brilliant and I do like the traditional ballet, but I saw Matthew Bourne's all male corps version a few years ago in Glasgow and since then, I don't know if a very traditional ballet corps of women can compare. Still, a nice way to pass as afternoon.

I popped into FOPP in Seven Dials before going to the ROH to get some music. I have a favourite game in book and music shops, which is pick something completely random - a band I've never heard of or a book I've never seen. It's a little bit like cultural Russian roulette, but you'd be surprised at how good you get at buying really interesting music just by the band name and the album jacket. I got two: Jonquil's Whistle Low EP and Finn's The Best Low-Priced Heartbreakers You Can Own. They're totally different and listening to them now for the first time, I think I didn't do too bad. The book I'm reading at the minute, G.K. Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill was another random roulette buy, saw it on the shop table and thought it looked interesting. It's a good laugh - a very fun game. If it didn't sound so wanky, I'd ask if anybody else does this and if so, what their best discoveries were?

a day in pictures

Ready to go:

At work:


Leather Lane Market - bought some lovely ranunculaceae:


I think these are my favourite flowers - they open up like peonies


Bought some odd Japanese mags at the market:


Came home to find tickets for a recording of Old Harry's Game had arrived:


Catch up on Saturday Review:


Working on my PhD:


The End (for now)

have you got a card?

I want new business cards.

I have a weird thing about stationery - I like writing and I like beautiful things. As far as I'm concerned business cards are all part of the stationery kit, and I love it when people get really creative with their cards. One of the best business cards I've ever been given was by a crazy set designer. He'd taken Indian rupees and had a stamp custom made with his name, number and email which he randomly stamped all over the note. I was at a NYE party when he gave it to me and I thought he was giving me funny money - it wasn't until a few days later that I realised it was his business card. Brilliant, clever, and recycled. I like the idea of made cards more than designed cards - another great idea I've seen is the write over, where you collect a bunch of random cards from cafes, shops, wherever and then cross out the old details and fill in your own information. Lots of ideas, but I'm not sure what I want to do.

I found a few cool cards online:

but Larkin will never go out of fashion...

Nicole Farhi A/W '09 at the Royal Opera House

Even though London Fashion Week isn't technically over, my involvement in it is as the copy for my piece on LFW is just about finished (not half as crap as I thought it would be). I wouldn't say I enjoyed the shows, but it was interesting to see how they operated. It's funny because I think I'd enjoy them a lot more were they less laden with all the weird fashionista self-righteousness: I want to scream at these people 'you work for fashion magazines! you don't even make clothes, you sell them by wearing them! why so smug?' Via the forces of PR, the fashion world has created an aura of 'exclusivity' and I'll tell you why that aura is so essential for the success of the industry. If you knew just how shallow the people were, how uneventful the shows are, how scary the models look in real life, but especially how crap the parties are, you'd never ever shell out the big bucks for a pair of Prada shoes. Sure, you might still admire the man-hours involved in making an avant-garde McQueen dress, but it wouldn't be surrounded in a halo of celebrity-coveting desire if the 'fashion world' lost its lustrous lustre (tautology, I know).

If nothing else, I'm glad I went if only to strengthen existing beliefs. Yeah - cool, well-constructed clothes are fun, but when people start using designer labels (and all that they imply) to prop up an ailing sense of self, then the fashion, advertising, and PR people are doing their jobs too well.

On to more interesting things... Far more desirable, and strangely enough almost more difficult to obtain, were tickets to the great Josephine Hart's poetry evening at the British Library. A few of these evenings have been broadcast on Radio 4 and I heard a repeat broadcast one sunny afternoon last May (of the dramatic monologues of Robert Browning) and have been trying to get tickets ever since. Hart is an Irish novelist, married to the other Saatchi (Maurice), and has brilliant connections in the acting world. The premise of her evenings is based on a simple idea: poetry is meant to be heard with the ear, not seen with the eye. She picks a different poet for each monthly reading and then selects a number of actors for their affinity to the selected poet's work. This month's poet was Philip Larkin and the readers were Charles Dance (best know as Mr Tulkinghorn in Bleak House) and Dominic West (apparently plays Jimmy McNulty in some show called the Wire). Hart is absolutely right about the necessity of hearing poetry and not reading it, and it is so much better to have actors performing the poems rather than the author's stilting and self-conscious reading. I've never been a huge Larkin fan and before the readings began I was secretly disappointed to have missed other, favoured poets, but the actors made the poems come alive in such an inspiring way, that you can't help but make immediate connections. I absolutely loved it and when I got home later that night I tried to book for March's reading (Wilde!!), but it was already sold out...

A little Larkin to leave you. I really liked this poem, read last night, called 'Dockery and Son':

'Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn't he?' said the Dean. 'His son's here now.'
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. 'And do
You keep in touch with-' Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
'Our version' of 'these incidents last night'?
I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell chimes. I catch my train, ignored.
Canal and clouds and colleges subside
Slowly from view. But Dockery, good Lord,
Anyone up today must have been born
In '43, when I was twenty-one.
If he was younger, did he get this son
At nineteen, twenty? Was he that withdrawn

High-collared public-schoolboy, sharing rooms
With Cartwright who was killed? Well, it just shows
How much . . . How little . . . Yawning, I suppose
I fell asleep, waking at the fumes
And furnace-glares of Sheffield, where I changed,
And ate an awful pie, and walked along
The platform to its end to see the ranged
Joining and parting lines reflect a strong

Unhindered moon. To have no son, no wife,
No house or land still seemed quite natural.
Only a numbness registered the shock
Of finding out how much had gone of life,
How widely from the others. Dockery, now:
Only nineteen, he must have taken stock
Of what he wanted, and been capable
Of . . . No, that's not the difference: rather, how

Convinced he was he should be added to!
Why did he think adding meant increase?
To me it was dilution. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They're more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we've got

And how we got it; looked back on, they rear
Like sand-clouds, thick and close, embodying
For Dockery a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son's harsh patronage.
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.