Creative Accounting No. 411

Bane = Churchill + Kendo Nagasaki

[The Dark Knight Rises]

Update 4/8/12:

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Helen&Heather winning Britain's first Gold in style

The red square, blue circle and yellow triangle questionnaire by Kandinsky at the Bauhaus - guided tour of Bauhaus: Art of Life exhibition

Cat woman's bum on Batman's motorbike (and her teary eyes) as played by Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises at the Odeon Leicester Square

Creativity quote

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things.

Steve Jobs

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

End of summer's day yellow light

Writing the Commissioner's Q&A piece for Broadcast

A lively Features routine with Jay

Olympia - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The Moment in the Olympic Opening Ceremony - among the first to enjoy it at the technical dress rehearsal

Reading about Olympia (Victorine Meurent) in a novel whose name I can't recall by a woman whose name I can't recall

John Martyn's voice

Paris - This weekend's Happiness Experiment entries

Saturday

Lunch outdoors on a corner of Rue Vielle du Temple 3e in the Marais

Reading, photographing and snoozing (D) in the park behind the Musee Picasso

Seeing M Le President cruise by in advance of the 'Blue Arrows' at the Bastille Day parade

Sunday

Seeing Dejeuner sur l'Herbe with D

Walking along the Canal St Martin in pace with the Mathilda through locks and turning bridges

Laughing with D at the Gare du Nord

We'll always have Paris - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Spotting the French 'blue arrows' by mistake above the Musee d'Orsay - part of the Bastille Day celebrations

Chatting with strangers at Chartier's over dinner

The Eiffel Tower at night in the rain from Trocadero

Oblique

You get at the true meaning of things sideways.

— Alexei Sayle in 2010

Talking about Elvis Costello/Clive Langer/Robert Wyatt's Shipbuilding. A key to great art and writing, and an explanation why most of the bad stuff is bad.

Marc Almond - Empire, Shepherds Bush 9/7/12

With Peter Curran

1 The Stars We Are
2 (Dreams)
3 (Redeemed through Beauty)
4 (Out of my window)
5 Bed
6 Waifs & Strays
7 (Singing Sea)
8 Sandboy
9 My Nijinski
10 Always
***
Northern Soul selection
11 After Laughter Comes Tears *
12 Tainted Love
13 (What I Do what I say)
***
14 Jackie
15 Marc Bolan song

4th MA gig
Supporting Siouxsie and Cure at Hammy Odeon
Victoria Palace - The Stars We Are
Union Chapel - after accident
(Belfast International airport)

Female sax, trumpet, trombone and two singers
Birthday gig

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

The bed in the Malmaison Birmingham

N winning the Media Prize at school outright, plus being nominated for Science

Paloma T coming round for supper as her sojourn in London approaches its end

Tuesday 3rd July

The last show of Embarrassing Bodies Live from the Clinic Series 2 - on set at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham with Dr Dawn and Dr Christian

Catch up with Nigel G at Live from the Clinic wrap party

Talking Big Art Mob with Alfie - and him taking on D as a mentor

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Summer party on a roof near Old St courtesy of Paul Bennun and Somethin' Else - where I just missed an encounter with Tom Robinson (first gig, age 15)

Gathering of the London 2012 Olympics web team with Alex Balfour, Deborah Elstein and co. - where I just missed a chance encounter with daughter of Joanathan Holmes

Lively chat over lunch with Damian K

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Winding the clock in the Caledonian Market Clock Tower with Alfie, U, D, Bernard and co.

Chatting with Ja in his back garden

Watching D swim the crawl

Saturday:

Having a haircut with Chris

Wandering around Covent Garden/Seven Dials in the afternoon sun

Watching David Bowie and the Story of Ziggy Stardust on BBC4, in particular Mike Garson demoing his piano playing

Picasso and Modern British Art

Girl in a Chemise (c05)
Wonderful austerity

#Duncan Grant

(1907 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon)

#Wydham Lewis

(1914 Vorticism) energising cubism

# Ben Nicholson

Son of William N

BN - 1933 coin and musical instruments (33)

Incised white lines, Pic-like curves, tight brown-grey palette

* BN - 1933 st remy (33)
Interlinked profiles, wide-eyed looks

1901 paintings Impressionist style

Nude Woman in a red armchair (32)
Voluptuous, erotic
Naïve
Marie-Therese Walter

Seated Woman in a Chemise (23)
Sculptural cf Moore
Cf Girl in a Chemise (c05) Stoney austerity

Nude Green Leaves & Bust (32)
MTW sensuality/eroticism
Bold curves

#Moore

Moore sketchbooks
"Biomorphic" natural forms

* HM Composition (32) African wonderstone

* HM Reclining Figure (36) elmwood

Cf BN - 1933 st remy (33) eye
Exquisite material
Cf Pic La Source (21) Classical sulptural painting

Multipart figures - Pic in Bataille's Documents mag
Cf Bacon

#Bacon

The two standout artists of C20
Pic (Dinard paintings @ Paul Rosenberg's gallery Paris inspired FB to start)

Bathers at the Beach Hut (29) Dinard
Clear link to FB's triptyches
Also Epstein Rock Drill as prescursor

(1925 3 Dancers)

FB Crucifixion (33) oil
Ribs - Rock Drill

FB Head (47-8) oil
Ape mouth/teeth

*FB 3 Studies for figures at base of Crucifixion (44)
Sculpture stands as in Pic studio pics
Alien
Chicken
Ape mouth
Dog

Composition Study 5: sketch for guernica (37)
Fascinating evolution

Study for the horses head 2 (37) pencil
Cone tongue
* Cf Moore 3 points (39/40) bronze
Immense tension
Cf Guernica

#Sutherland

Visited Grimaldi in 47

Cf Nash (Gorse on sea wall 39)
Cf Bacon (Green Tree Form 40)

* GS The Deposition (46) Fitzwilliam

Christ's face cf La Source (21) black drawing
Cf Bacon 3 Studies for figures at base of Crucifixion

* GS Crucifixion (46)
Mouth cf Bacons ape mouth

GS Homage to Pic. (47)
Impressed particularly by Joie de Vivre

ICAs 2nd exhib '40,000 yrs of Modern Art'

Women of Algiers (55) After Delacroix - Femmes d'Alger (1834)

#Hockney

DH the student homage to Pic (73) print - Turners'

Polaroid cubism
Eg
DH Still life with blue guitar (82)

The 3 Dancers (25)
Chaim Potok Asher Lev
Cf Matisse
Cf Bacon

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

A tour around the nearly finished London 2012 Olympic Press Centre

Teaching D fractions

Reading Absolute Beginners

Wednesday and Thursday's Happiness Experiment entries

Wed 20 June

Picking up Best Website at the Broadcast Digital Awards for Sexperience (often the bridesmaid, now the bride)

Getting the hattrick - winning Best Multiplatform for third year running - for Live from the Clinic, with the headmaster from The Inbetweeners giving out the prizes

Watching The Secret Millionaire with Tommy Boy

Thurs 21

Introducing the charming writer Deborah Moggach at my mum's charity lunch

Visiting my dad's grave (in a conciliatory context)

Chatting to U before and after A Love Supreme (at Kings College Chapel) in Somerset House

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Sunset walk through Coldfall Woods with U

Watching The Lady (with U) while she's in the country

Lunch with Helen V and the Outline crew in Kentish Town

Creative Accounting #551

Rodriguez = Richie Haven + Nick Drake

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Chairing the Big Hunt, Little Hunt session at Docfest/Fuel4 event with Jean Baptiste Dumont as a special guest

Being introduced as "the Godfather of Multiplatform" (Louise B)

Gregory Porter

Sugar Man - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching In Search of the Sugar Man then spotting Rodriguez through the side of stage door before seeing him play

Lovely compliments from R Graef, H Croall and D Glover - probably all drunk

Hanging out with Molly M at Docfest (named after Molly Bloom)

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Using the Kodiak with N (director) and D (actor)

An early evening Phoenix - Moonrise Kingdom - which grew on me thanks to the two young leads

Sorting through my Diamond Jubilee photos

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking to & from summer evening's dinner at La Rugoletta with N & D

Dreaming about HP

Watching Animal House with the Enfants Terribles

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Trying to keep a dream about Curiosity and Love going

Collecting my gear for Olympics volunteering from the depths of East London, including the Adidas shoes 1.5 sizes out

Bringing the tone down in the Groucho with shorts and sandals

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking down to the cinema after work to watch The Dictator, crescendoing in the Democracy speech

Watching rushes from the Values video

Walking between busstops with D

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching Ep 1of Live from the Clinic Series 2 go out with the chat flying, having fed back on Ep 0 early morning

Reading Lord of the Flies to catch N up

Getting The Big Share TV under way

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Great numbers on TV, online and mobile for Live from the Clinic 2 plus recognition as digital innovation at its best

Listening, for the first time for ages, to White Man in Hammersmith Palais

Watching Where's Gary?

East is East - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Joining the dots across the East End with Stiks

Chopped herring beigel from Brick Lane (and cheese cake)

Pottering in Rough Trade

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Kevin Rowland performing his new record at the Empire Shepherds Bush (with Mick Talbot - born on 9/11) - the sequence of love songs in the middle with Madeleine (especially before we see her for real)

Meeting the fella from Three Hungry Boys and his business partner about Plan B - quite some energy

Strong setting sun in my eyes walking along Shepherds Bush Green (after so much rain and cloud)

Starspot #921

Mark Lamarr - outside Empire, Shepherds Bush after Dexys gig
8/5/12

Dexys - Empire, Shepherds Bush 8/5/12

The whole of the new LP, One Day I'm Going to Soar:
Now
Lost
Me
She Got a Wiggle ***
You
Thinking of You
I'm Always Going to Love You
Incapable of Love
Nowhere is Home
Free
It's OK John Joe **

***

Some favourites involving an investigating police officer, concluding with Come On Eileen
incl Tell Me When My Light Turns Green *

***

Someone(?)
Liars A to E
What's She Like?

Kevin Rowland
Mick Talbot (b. 11th Sept)
Pete Williams
Big Jim Paterson
Madeleine Hyland
Lucy Morgan (fiddle)
Dave Ruffy (drums)
Tim Cansfield (guitar)

Leuven - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Osama Bin Laden sleeps with the fishes

The waft as flowersmell as I jogged into the Botanical Garden, Leuven

Where's Gary?

Leuven - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Steack frites for Sunday lunch

Drinking Belgian cherry beer and reading (Death in the Family) in the hot emerging afternoon sun

Reading Uncut about Dexy's, PiL, etc. in the late afternoon sun on the old market place, Leuven

Rain - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Writing about Kevin Macdonald's Marley doc (Marley's Ghost)

Saturday afternoon snooze with the rain pattering on the skylight

Watching a movie with U & D (Three & Out, shot around East Finchley)

Creative Accounting #412

Velvet Goldmine = Citizen Kane + Stardust

Happiness Experiment entry 24/4/12

Getting tickets from Kevin Macdonald to see his Marley doc at the Tricycle in good old Buckley Road

My Beautiful Funeral session with Livity

Meeting with Des and Leslie about Wasted

Happiness Experiment entry 23/4/12

Lunching with Lloyd Newson of DV8, discussing Can We Talk About This?

Getting involved in Robert Peston's Speakers for Schools

The stars of learning support poster at Compton

Creative Accounting #523

The Artist + Hugo + Travelling Light + Singing in the Rain / London = focus on birth of cinema /2011-12

Creative Accounting #522

Singing in the Rain / 50s = Walking on the Moon / 70s

Corporate Missions

GSK 4/12:

We exist to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.

Silence is a Rhythm too

Life = A Symphony, made up of rhythms and punctuated with sounds

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

She Stoops to Conquer at the Olivier spearheaded by the East Finchley posse of Sophie Thompson and Steve Pemberton
Supper with D in local caff
Browsing Flickr

Creative Accounting #145

She Stoops to Conquer (Goldsmith) = Tom Jones (Fielding) + The Rake's Progress (Hogarth)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching Audrey Tautou in Delicatesse at the Phoenix
Reading What's Mine is Yours with a fresh coffee and croissant in an empty tube carriage
Chatting with Noora about San Francisco and marriage

Creative Accounting #553

Jonathan Rhys Meyers / Cork + cheekbones = Cillian Murphy / Cork + CHEEKBONES

Creative Accounting #552

Misterman = Garage + Psycho + Groundhog Day

This weekend's Happiness Experiment entry

Sat:
N's American Football style run
Reading The Word
The art deco Riviera Hotel, Weymouth

Sun:
Having Weymouth beach all to myself (7am)
Reading On the Road lying at the edge of a rugby field
The line of trees following the curve of the hill above Weymouth RFC

Starspots #128

Gary Kemp
Trevor Bolder (Spider from Mars)
Charles Shaar Murray
Heddon St W1

Wednesday's Happiness Experiment entry

Family end-of-hols dinner at Cafe Rouge, Highgate with Meabh and Alfie as guests

Starting On the Road - Jack Kerouac

Reading Esquire at the hairdresser

Thursday's Happiness Experiment entry

Magic show with D, his first - Pete Firman - chat with Anthony Owen

Walking around with a good Cypriot tan

Congratulations around work for Emmy

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Breakfasting with the Enfants Terribles

Having Meabh around the house

Cracking through a load of work

Mayorships

Jazz Cafe
Wingate & Finchley FC
BBC Radio Theatre
The Walks
East Finchley Constitutional Club
Eva's Polish Deli
Edgware Academy
Edgware Library
Dept of Energy & Climate Change
West Breakwater, Brighton Marina
Camden Town Brewery
Casa Pepe, East Finchley
Camden Tattoo & Piercing
Gate 24a
AGC Equity Partners
Louis Patiserie, Hampstead
East Finchley Supermarket
Jamie's Italian
Alec Tiranti

MORE Mayorships

Recent Happiness Experiment entries

Sun 8th Apr:
Veging out behind a laurel-like bush

Reading two books set in Cyprus - Bitter Lemons (Laurence Durrell) and Judas Country (Gavin Kyle)

Snorkelling with U - tracked down the yellow fish

Mon 9th:

Lunch a deux with U on a terrace by the sea under the raspberry-type trees

Exploring the Tombs of the Kings archaeological site a quartre in the late afternoon sun

Greek coffee and baklava to round off the jovial last supper in Paphos port

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Playing table-tennis and full size tennis with N, the latter at sundown

Snorkelling with N, close-up with some shiny white fish

Reading Laurence Durrell's Bitter Lemons about Cyprus

Phrases I like

The hard of thinking
quite a gifted layabout

Good Thursday and Friday - recent Happiness Experiment entries

Thurs 5th April:
Magic show by D in ancient amphitheatre in Paphos archaeological area behind the harbour

Hovering over a yellow rainbow fish trying out D's goggles and snorkel

The mosaic of the four seasons at House of Dionysis, Paphos

Good Friday 6th April:
Beating the Turkish Cypriot shesh besh lovers at backgammon in Turkish Nicosia

DJing my way along the Limasol-Paphos highway past the Rock of Aphrodite (her birthplace) at sunset to the likes of She's Not There (Santana) as well as Jimi Hendrix, Massive Attack, The Cure and Joy Division (Mykonos-style sundowner vibes)

Jogging down to the headland just after sunset to Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed

Sunshine following me (Cannes and Paphos) - Recent Happiness Experiment entries

Sunday 1st April:
Being loomed over by Miss World (formerly Miss Venezuela)

Picking up the Non-Fiction International Digital Emmy with the Live from the Clinic team

Drawing the scene from the space between the Musee Picasso, Antibes and the palm sunday church with the spirit of Joie de Vivre (1946) which is the jewel in the crown of the former

Monday 2nd:
Breakfast on the terrace of the Carlton, near the Dog Bar which typifies its Englishness

A flood of lovely messages via Facebook about the Emmy win

Securing some JC space for mothernachus

Tuesday 3rd:
Lively family chat over breakfast in the airport on the way to Cyprus - topics included burning issues of the day like Blazing Saddles

Arriving in Cyprus for the first time - shades of the Old Country

Enjoying the quiet of a lawn by the sea, out back of the hotel, very tranquil

Wed 4th:
Finishing a book worthy of the Shelf of Honour: Nemesis by Philip Roth, moving, tragic and insightful I masterful

A chilled out dinner by the harbour in Pathos en famille en plein air involving tahini and other Mediterranean fare

First sea swim of the year with D - including finding two Euro coins N needed for his collection in the shallows

Words I like

Blacktop (US) - paved road
Deadly (Ire, Dublin)
Hilarious

Carrying the Cannes - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The aircraft carrier in front of the Carlton

Getting drunk on cherries at the Majestic at the MIPcube lunch

Watching youngens doing parcours and streetstuff on the beach with Yifat

Starspot #399

Chris Evans 29/3/12 HFR

Cannes Do - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Delivering keynote at MIPDoc on pushing the boundaries of multiplatform

Jogging to the marina at the east end of the Croisette at Cannes early this morning

Reading Philip Roth's Nemesis on the plage Carlton in the late afternoon beside a woman with a New York/Noo Joisey accent

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

My generously proportioned hotel room at the Carlton, Cannes - my first stay here since the Melrose years c1996 with MindGym

Dinner with Anna Higgs of Film4 at Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food at LHR T5

Talking about NEDs in Old Queen St

Starspots special #14: Starmeets

26/3/12
Ian Hislop (and wife)
Outside the National Theatre
First time since Not Forgotten launch at Imperial War Museum in 2008

27/3/12
Gary Kemp
In Heddon Street where Ziggy Stardust was born

Starspots #67

Jon Snow
Outside The Guardian, York Way
24/3/12 on the way home from Olympic volunteer training

Henri Cartier-Bresson

"There is nothing in the world that does not have a decisive moment"

(on Behind the Gare St Lazare 1932)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Having cleaned up the ground behind the Mond Monument

Watching a war movie with U & N (Spike Lee's Miracle of St Anna)

A bitter shandy in one of those old dimpled pint glasses (sharing a little with N) - The Adam & Eve, Mill Hill Ridgeway

Joan Baez (Festival Hall) 17/3/12

1 God on our Side
2 Swing Low Sweet Chariot
3 Joe Hill
4 House of the Rising Sun
5 Suzanne
6 Diamonds & Rust

7 Blowin' in the Wind
8 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
9 Imagine

with Una

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching Rob Kearney and the Irish team play in the 6 Nations Rugby against Scotland

Reading 'Six Days' in the back garden sunshine

Having a Saturday afternoon wander down the High Street

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Women's 3m Springboard diving at the 2012 Olympic Aquatics Centre

Morning run in the sun

Watching Homeland on Channel 4

Life Drawing - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Last life drawing class of the season (Zoe 2)

Drink of Symonds cider after with Andy, Zoe and co. To celebrate Steve's birthday

Reading Tomorrow over vegetable gyoza soup

Words I Hate

Killing Time
Maggot
Bloods

Creative Accounting #617

Little White Lies (Les Petits Mouchoirs) / French = The Big Chill / American

with Liam Neeson (Gilles Lellouche), Dustin Hoffman (Francois Cluzet), Sean Penn (Benoit Magimel) look-a-likes
Ludo = Alex, Marie = Chloe, Max = Harold, etc.

Creative Accounting #616

Homeland = The Manchurian Candidate + 24

Creative Accounting #615

Juno & The Paycock = Jerusalem + The Weir

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading Tomorrow by Graham Swift (signed edition from Brighton, set in Brighton)

Lunch with Mark Sheldon as he heads off

Dinner with N in Muswell Hill

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Lunch and chat with Will Gompertz al fresco near Broadcasting House

Evening coffee with Roddy Gibson outside Bar Italia in the Absolute Beginners streets of Soho

Launch of Cern People with Roger Graef at Google - with Andy Charalambous

Starspot #633

20/2/12 Charlie Brooker - outside Channel 4

9/2/12 MacKenzie Crook - leaving East Finchley tube

Feb 12 Jimmy Carr - entering Channel 4

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Taste of a tangerine up on Chanctonbury Ring

Watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off on my day off in the afternoon with the Enfants Terribles

Jogging east of the Marina to the chat of Mayo & Kermode

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Churchill's amateur enthusiasm for painting as read in his studio at Chartwell

Going to the movies with the Enfants Terribles and Alfie (Man on a Ledge)

Hitting town (Brighton) for a traditional Shakeaway

Thursday's (9th Feb) Happiness Experiment entry

Salome silent film with live music with U at Purcell Room - greeted with the exotic scent of incense

Meeting up with a bunch of YouTubers from New Year Revolution including Hanna and Lex

Lunchtime pilates

What the Dickens - Tuesday's (7th Feb) Happiness Experiment entry

Warren W brewed up Charles Dickens' punch recipe (rum and brandy), set it on fire and served it up to old pals

Reading Big Sur (Jack Kerouac) begun at Big Sur in 2004

Talking telly with JHunt and colleagues over breakfast

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Going to see Juno and the Paycock with Ma (at the National like good old times)

Bumping into Nicky Byre for the first time since Hendon Prep - on Hampstead Heath at Kenwood

The snowy fields around Kenwood in the low winter sun

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Drawing class with Andy - focusing on tone

Finishing Gun Before Butter (Nicholas Freeling) - on my shelf since Van der Valk was on telly in my teens

Being largely out of sync with the rest on RTS Single Drama jury, a good bunch including Hilary Bevan Jones and Giles Coren - strangely coinciding with the anniversary of the Munich Air Crash (subject of United)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Jack Kerouac's fluent writing in Big Sur (started in Aug 2004 in Big Sur)

Also resurrected: The Buzzcocks, Love Bites

Celebrating Dicken's 200th bithday with school pals

The Mystery of Appearance

Haunch of Venison 3/2/12

Hockney
Bacon
Freud
Auerbach
Kossoff
Patrick Caulfield
Richard Hamilton
Michael Andrews
Euan Uglow
Coldstream

Auerbach
Gerda Boehm 71/3
Something Oriental about it, in the colouring

Andrews
The Thames at low tide 94/5
Bare canvas for exposed beach
River beachcoming with D

Kossoff
Willesden Junction Summer No. 1
66
Stylistic relation to Auerbach - friends
Monet's London images - Impressionists' railways

Auerbach
Primrose Hill, Winter Sunshine 62/4
Colour palette, subtle

Kossoff
Seated Woman 2
59
Massively thick paint, sculptural, subtleties of colour

Bacon
Pope 1 - study after pope innocent X by Velazquez 51
Vortex of foreground (curtain?) v box

Hockney
Man in a Museum 62
Artifice of art - bare canvas - brushstrokes on shelf period

Kossoff
Nude autumn morning 71
Simplicity within myriad details/drips

Freud
Girl on a Turkish sofa 66
Bacon-like flesh (feet)

Auerbach
Reclining figure 72 *
So few strokes to capture the figure

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Being approached about a stunning job

Pilates class at lunchtime

Seeing N's Classics exercise book with its very positive feedback

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

D's warmth on saying bye as I head for Finland

Listening to Jim and The Doors for the first time for ages

Reading about South of Beersheva (Oz)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Life drawing - Margot from Maine in Stokie

Reading the wizard that is Oz

Doing online admin long overdue

Star spot #255

MacKenzie Crook - East Finchley tube (a couple of weeks after the closing of Jerusalem, looking way cooler than in the past)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Finding the North-West passage through Coldfall Woods into the cemetery

Reading my third Amos Oz (Don't Call It Night)

Watching N run on the rugby field vs Wasps with U

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading my childhood copy of a Ladybird history book with D (to help make history more fun through the pictures)

Listening to Movin’ Down the Line by Raphael Saadiq and watching the vid

Work Christmas lunch in mid-January at a Pimlico restaurant est. 1964

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry - Tales from the Homeland

Taking photos in St Pancras & Islington cemetery in low winter light with a frost (with U along for a walk)

Doing stuff with U on the couch in the backroom like reading, listening to music and watching Drive - a domestic Saturday afternoon

Reading a play - Christopher Hampton's Tales from Hollywood

Creative Accounting #614

Drive = Taxi Driver + The Getaway(?)

Creative Accounting #613

Ryan Gosling = Christoph Waltz + Ben Miller

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching Inbetweeners clips with the Enfants Terribles

Listening to Rose Miller and her friends singing

Doing Christmassy errands along East Finchley high street

Trouble on the Estates

The 1st Estate:
Child abuse rife in the Catholic church in Ireland and beyond

The 2nd Estate:
Lords taking cash in brown envelopes (and largely getting away with it); Prince Andrew's network of dodgy connections; Prince Charles' marital infidelity

The 3rd Estate:
MPs fiddling their expenses on a grand scale

The 4th Estate:
Phone-hacking a widespread practice in the tabloid press

The Police: (neighbouring the Fourth Estate)
Selling stories to the tabloids

The Judiciary: (neighbouring the Fourth Estate)
Supressing the truth by enabling super-injunctions

The City: (neighbouring the Third Estate)
Gambling Other People's Money, then taking public money as a bail-out; speculating at everybody else's expense; creaming off unmerited bonuses regardless of preformance

No wonder the estates are rioting...

Quotation on advice/collaboration

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow.

— Woodrow Wilson

Things That Are No More #3: The Word magazine free podcast

So I was out for a run round the St Pancras and Islington cemetery this morning, listening to The Word podcast as is my wont (I was introduced to it a few years ago by Steve Moore and hold it in as great affection as he does). Nile Rodgers was the special guest and just after he explained how having his guitar retuned by his mother's latest boyfriend was a revelation to him and launched him into a frenzy of Beatles playing there was a bong and the podcast was cut off in its prime - a voice explained that now only magazine subscribers get the full Monty. I understand why David Hepworth and pals feel they need to do that but somehow sad nonetheless. The sad way of the world... [cf #1: the generosity of Shadbolt's]

Things That Are No More #2: Osman's

This, together with the next entry, is what inspired this series.

I was walking up Wardour Street yesterday evening and noticed after many years the stationers Osman on the corner of Broadwick Street has disappeared. Become a choclatier. I was an occasional customer back in my Solus days (1987-89). It was a Soho landmark and I feel its passing should be marked.

{Photo courtesy of Mark Hillary}

Things That Are No More #1: Veneer of the Week

Veneer of the Week on the front of Shadbolt's factory, formerly one of the few highlights on the North Circular

Can still be found on their website but that's no substitute

This week it is: Crown Cut American Black Walnut - now that would lift any journey on the NSR

Here's a good observation from the DHM blog:
"But the sign felt generous, like Shadbolts were decent and cared about their product, and when companies make a bit of extra effort like that, it’s always repaid in good will."

And here's a remark which accords with my memories - the exotic dimension - from the Bite blog:
"Some veneers carried the mystery of far-off places: Crown Cut Lebanon Cedar. (Others less so: Curly Birch.) "

Projects

My Movie Mashup
Germ
Human Footprint
Every Picture Tells A Story (2004)
PIXnMIX (2004)
TexTips 4Lovers, 4Karma, 4Mates, Islamic Inspiration, 4Change etc.
Chancers
Ideasfactory
Omagh
Origination Insite
Lost Generation
Digital Africa
Time Team Big Dig
" Big Roman Dig (2005)
Jsd
New Shoots
Famelab
Rolling Stock
My Shakespeare (rada)
X (2005)
BtN
Make Tracks
Webit
Ia xmas cd
The Unteachables
121 (2006)
The Play's The Thing
CV:
EIGF Advisory Board (2004)
Council for Industry and Higher Ed
Melt
AHRB
Creative Licence Archive Group (2005)
ICA The Club

Monkeying around - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

The monkey I introduced into Cash and Burn made its first appearance in Broadcast

Became Facebook friends with Roddy Doyle

First meeting at Cafe Kick, Shoreditch with Steven the Wasted man