He's Alive!

It's been a week, sorry! Will do better next week, but I haven't been idle, I promise.  At least there is that.  I've had a 'mixed bag' of experiences this week.  A weird-ish week; the kind that feels like one of those fuzzy and at times uncomfortable nights where you know you've been dreaming but can't quite remember what about, except to say that you're feeling a little frazzled.  Well, my week's been a 7-day version of that. And then again, in the same way those nights are quickly forgotten, I've had a few eye-opening moments this week that have made me feel positively re-born.  If you are finding it difficult to follow my thoughts - then you have utterly understood the kind of week I've had.

Let's see, I'll try to explain, if you care to read on.

It started with the Sunday papers which I tend to continue reading the whole of the following week.  It turns out an artist I had thought long gone from this coil of monotone is actually very much alive.  I felt like I'd been given a second chance at a bad interview or something.  Well, maybe he isn't VERY much alive, but there is a pulse - he's in his late 80s.  I refer to Frank Auerbach, an expressionist and figurative painter whose parents (German Jews) sent him to London during WWII as a child where he lived in a boarding school.   They themselves didn't make it out and died in camps which may explain why some of Frank's paintings have (for me) an unsettling energy:

I mean even his landscapes - look!

The colours are bright and the whole picture says summer but to me, it makes my stomach churn a little.  The brush strokes or something.  I love it and yet it makes me very sad.  Anyway, I know he is alive because he reviewed an exhibition in said Sunday papers, by 'extreme realist' artist Alice Neel.   I'll let you colour that one in for yourselves, but I recommend it to anyone who likes weirdos.

It's nice to know he isn't dead, just from a humanitarian perspective but to me, a person who tends to get into things long after they were fashionable - yeah, that's me - well it's like finding out Jim Morrison isn't gone but running an organic cafe at the end of my street or better still, finding a packet of Maltesers at the bottom of my handbag.

To change the subject, I've also had a couple of stabs at opportunity-of-a-lifetime roles - the only ones I will apply to from now on but more on that as and when.  I'm just glad I'm at this stage (job-hunting) after so much recent upheaval.  My yoga classes are set and the marketing is underway.  I shall dutifully report back on how all that goes. 

Most incredible of all this week, I discovered how to place cosmic orders.  Definitely more about this next week as I'm in the testing phase though I warn you, as much as this subject deserves its own blogpost, I intend to be fairly reserved since I truly believe talking about stuff like that, as if it were a children's story sort of devalues the whole thing and leaks precious energy - that said, I will share.

And finally I bunked off school with The Lish in unabashed anti-estblishment celebration of sunshine and friendship a.k.a a playdate with one of Lish's fellow ex-pat Canadian friends during which time I realised (odd that it took something as simple as this) that being a parent is about the walk to the park, not the swings or the slide. 

And now, I must go for I have pancakes and bacon to cook.  This is about the pancakes and bacon, and not the cooking. 

If it's not about the music, then what is it about?

Yesterday marked the first day of The Festival. What festival? What are you, dead? Ok, so not everyone cares - at least not enough. I'm refering to Glastonbury Music Festival.  I mean I could go but I don’t and yet I purport to be some sort of music enthusiast - critic even!. It’s like a football pundit deciding he’d rather polish his car than go to the world cup. Except that well, I don’t want to sound like a culture snob...but sorry it’s just not what it used to be and by that I mean this:

Once upon a time Glastonbury was a kind of annual measure of the state of music, all the Glastonbury line up tells me today is who was available on the circuit. Scan as I do every year the line-up, I realise I have already seen all the acts I would want to see in circumstances that don’t involve being so uncomfortable I want to chop my own legs off.
And this year Glastonbury turns 40 – reason one would think to pull out a few stops, but again – it’s the same acts that you will have already been able to see at some point this year or who are touring anyway with a couple of exceptions (Dizzee Rascal and Florence & The Machine were pretty amazing) and that’s because they haven’t got much else on. When Prince Charles deems it beneficial to his ‘brand’ to make an appearance something has forever shifted for the festival. And so it staggers from one year to the next.

I would have liked to have seen Eminen coaxed there since he isn’t touring but does have a new album and we have missed him dearly. I mean I LOVE Stevie Wonder (headlining on Sunday), I do, please see this blog post.  It's just that he’s also gigging in Hyde Park tonight (Saturday) for crying out loud. For me that’s one 20 minute bus ride away and I can guarantee I won’t have to smell anyone else’s poop.

To quote the music critic for The Telegraph: “...it's [Glastonbury] really just an endurance test... and it's not about the music any more.” Harsh but I have got to agree.  There are some that will agree for other reasons. This festival is perhaps more about the music if you remember 1971 when Bowie played for free.  Some people get married there and others spend their whole time in Green Fields with the children having gone with absolutely no intention of braving the crowds around the pyramid or other stages.  But I can't help feeling there are better places to spend a weekend camping with the kids. 

Perhaps it has to do with age?  No, I don't think so.   I went to Bonaroo festival in Nashville in 2008 to see bands such as Metallica and The Raconteurs who have not since toured.  That's my motivation I think and the reason why many festivals in the UK don't do it for me.  Ah, what do I know?

Another music critic writes that when Paul Simonon of The Clash was asked how he felt about Glastonbury, he apparently looked utterly aghast. “I have never played Glastonbury and I never would,” he said, in tones of near comical outrage.

“Joe Strummer spent years trying to get me to change my mind but culturally and even ethically it has got nothing to do with my life. Notting Hill Carnival is more my speed.”

Hear, hear.

If you build it they will come....

....not necessarily.  I've finally organised a couple of yoga classes and am in the middle of a mini marketing campaign mostly involving social media and leaflets.  Social media is all very well except for the fact that most of my network is in Canada - having started my online adventure while living there and while I have e-mailed everyone I know here in London, this first class is mid-morning, in the middle of the week. Most if not all of my London based friends are working.  It's a small point but means I could be standing in an empty hall.  Then I approached the mummy contingency at my daughter's daycare only to realised that a lot of those gals have second babies that are not yet in daycare and so again are unable to attend.

I've turned to guerilla marketing now.  Leafleting places that both take and don't take leaflets.   We all have to start somewhere - I mean Richard Branson started in a phonebox on Ladbroke Grove, if urban myth is to be believed.  I did notice today that all the leaflets I'd left in the library had disappeared.  I'm hoping they've been taken by library goers and not filed in 'the bin' by some jobsworth librarian.  So, hence a second class on a Sunday later in the month.  This time SURELY people will come? 

Nevertheless, the self-doubt creeps in and I have found myself balancing this out by applying for what my mother would have called a 'proper' job. More about that as appropriate.  Let's just say I'm only applying for wishlist positions - so it may take some time to nail.

In the meantime, I'm committed to Yoga and as I watch E!-Entertainment talking about achieving your bikini body, straining to hear the presenter over the crunch of my lime-flavoured tortilla chips.  I'm still confident, if a little bit petrified about the outcome of this venture. 

The logo's nice though, ennit?

Yoga Oh La La

I'm daring to do.  After many months of effort, rehab and abstention I've finally organised a yoga open house.  Yes, of course this is a blatant plug but in all fairness I've worked hard to get here and besides - it's my blog and I'll do what I like.  Actually I figured since I know all 9 readers (or at least I feel I do), I figured you wouldn't mind.  You also get to see and criticise my new logo.  Take a look and oh, if you are in the neighbourhood - come!

Mrs Malaprop and the Good Doctor

My in-laws were over from The Tundra this weekend, on their way back from an Italian Odyssey. Wonderful people.  The bididdly boings of Canada; the walking yin & yang of couples.  Mothernissimo glides with Buddha-like serenity, touching even the most contemptuous of London Underground pickpocket-types in blissful acceptance of all.   Meanwhile, The Good Doctor defies medical science and he should know.  He is a doctor.  At 70, the man can out-party a bunch of frat boys on a Cabo Spring break and still have the energy for a flaming sambuca first thing in the morning. This is not a euphamism.  I have seen the phenomenon with mine own sleep encrusted eyes. He considers beer one of his '5-a-day'; Guinness not rice should be distributed by The Red Cross and he does not abide by anything that requires more effort than a phonecall.

The Lish was in Grandies Heaven.  In fact last I saw her, she was knee deep in presents and love.  I should go fish her out before school starts in September. Sadly, they did have to leave yesterday and the place feels dry without them.  I warmly recalled conversations with Mothernissimo about her experience in Italy this morning, sipping my coffee, feeling very sad for a second.  She described a trip to an italian country kitchen with such enthusiasm, I didn't have the heart to tell her that the brown vinegar she loved so much was not basmati ....

- Oh, and you should have tasted the basmati vinegar with 'erbs (silent 'H')

Yes, I imagine it's delicious with bread and extra virgin orange oil....

Meltdown!

Either I'm having an adverse reaction to caffeine or someone has been spiking my breakfast cereals with crack because this morning as I walked The Lish to daycare, I became convinced that a group of young Iranian looking men (no offence to Iranian looking men) were intent on kidnapping my little girl.  Why else would they suddenly stop in mid conversation after watching me negotiate the zebra crossing that joins Maida Vale to Kilburn High Road, the breeding ground for extreme tat among other things and start following at a less than comfortable distance? Not only that, they were displaying signs of ambush-like behaviour with two men following at a trot - since by this point I was dragging The Lish along the pavement by her arms like a paralized dog and one other crossing the road to overtake me. 

I began to panic.  So I stopped in front of a big hotel, in fact it turned out to be the most perilous thing I could have done given the revolving door was on automatic (we weren't expecting that) and it almost made pink pancakes out of myself and the nipper.  But it seemed to do the trick.  The boys dispersed.  I made it to the daycare, careful to check I wasn't being followed.  I tapped in the code for the door using my arm to shield the precious information from prying eyes, a bit like a child would to take a school test.

Disaster averted.  I deposited the cargo at reading circle and made my way home.  I walked the long way through the park to confuse anyone following me and decided to stop at the sports pavillion to view a room I want to hire for the Yoga open house I have planned.  The thinking being, I could kill two birds with one stone: throw those criminals off the scent and conduct long overdue personal business.  The room was unavailable for viewing.  Do you want to know why?

There was a ruddy great police convention taking place.  Suddenly I decided I'd rather take my chances with the Iranians than risk being caught up in a roomful of officers from the British Constabulary.  So I quick marched it outta there sharpish! 

Of course it turned out there was no conspiracy - the boys having long ago taken a seat at a coffee shop to enjoy a hookah or two.  All I'm left with now is whiplash from looking over my shoulder and the feeling that I've been rather silly.

The last of the Old Guard

Just as I'm finding my mojo again, half term hits which means...school's been out for a whole week (see I knew there would be a catch to this 'free' malarkey)...and I'm back to house doctor hours, wracking my brain to keep it interesting for The Lish and real for me. 

Thankfully Sausage fingers decided to parachute in for some quality time with the lil' one over this past long weekend (which was generous) that I might find a quiet corner in London for some mental R & R.  I imagine having a fileted fish for a wife prompted this act of gallantry.  He didn't have to do it, many men don't, feeling instead that they too deserve time off work, especially on a national holiday.  Whatever the motivation, cheers!

I'll start by telling you that I have been reading a book on counter culture in London since 1945 (I didn't start it in 1945 - the book does...Oh you know what I mean) and I can tell you it's been a revelation.  I've long been obsessed with the 60s and 70s but this book offers a depth and breadth to the social and cultural movements that have shaped British popular and modern culture that literally blew my mind. 

I've been reading up on the 'School of London' artists which include Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach who between them make William Burroughs seem like a jolly normal bloke.  These guys lived in the bars, pubs and private drinking clubs in Soho during that anal retentive post war era of the 50s.  Then we are taken on a crawl of all the cafes that facilitated the birth of rock n'roll as we know it;  Where the likes of Cliff Richard, The Troggs, Tommy Steele and Billy Fury blazed the trail for The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.  It's truly fascinating.  Right through to the psychedelia of the late 60s and 70s which sees the birth of The Notting Hill Carnival and huge political movements.  I cannot tell you how important avant garde bookshops in Charing Cross Road were in this regard.  So I won't.  But they were.

From there The Pink Floyd first make an appearance during a fund raiser for a 'free' school movement in Notting Hill and another fundraiser for an underground newspaper, The International Times after which time it all goes utterly bonkers for 70s music and art.  In fact what the 60s is reputedly remembered for (all the love-ins, the LSD and what not didn't actually happen until the 70s).  I'm up to Punk, on the cusp of New Romantics actually - I'll let you know what happens.

In the middle of all this, I had two whole days courtesy of the Silverback to be me for a little while.  First off I indulged that insatiable culture beast that needed to see for itself the work of the original bad boys (and girls) of counter culture: Freud, Bacon, Pauline Boty, Hockney, Eduardo Paolozzi and a whole lot more (all with the exception of Freud & Hockney, long gone).  So it was off to the Tate Modern & Britain.  I wasn't disappointed.

What a world they all lived in, some of them horrible, horrible lives (yet such incredible times) and for some even more humiliating deaths.  When I think about the cultural legacy they left, I can't help feeling that the 'establishment' has a lot to answer for.

Don't worry, there is no danger of my developing ideas above my station, becoming so highly strung I might need a stern talking to by the Dalai Lama, for I have since spent the morning cleaning pubes off the bathroom floor after what appears to be a gorrilla's spa day.  No, these afternoons of high culture are there for balast believe me.