Midnight in Paris Trailer 2011 Dir Woody Allen

There is an amazing 10cc song One Night in Paris... a brilliant narrative about the perils of Paris after midnight, I have, I am so pleased to say had that one night, I ended up in a transvestite bar and danced till dawn to some very sleazy disco beats!! You have to do it once and thankfully I can report that I did just about manage to wake up in my hotel room, alone....just!!!

Idiot

Children these days don't have Birthdays they have Birthweeks, I swear celebrations for Leyla's great day have lasted for much of the week. The build up began last year when ideas for parties were floated, eventually we decided on...? can't remember, because as with all things to do with The Leyla Monster rain stopped play, So party plans were cancelled due to a rolling programme of bad behaviour. I was thus racked with guilt, and so began the long road to 'make it up to Leyla time' on Friday, only I did not, because having suddenly been directed to collect her from school involving favours and a hasty exit from work, I was met by her class teacher who regaled me with tales of misery and woe. Leyla is the only one of my children who has failed to draw the line and leave at home her negative confrontational attitude. No, little Leyla wears hers all day like a badge of honour, and I guess the excitement of her birthday led to an attitude melt down. So my plans of beginning the birthday fest with afternoon tea at a local cafe were scuppered by my intense irritation and desire to bitch slap the teacher. She has 30 little buggers to deal with all week, I have 30 an hour, and I have less of a problem "Deal with it" I wanted to cry.

Come Saturday and I mellowed enough to take her for an early tea after Saturday school, we went to a lovely pan Asian place called The Banana Tree in Islington, the food was brilliant and more so since it only coast me £20. Recommended. We loafed around the rest of the evening and watched Coco Before Chanel ,which was as languid a film as you will ever see. I wanted to see it after seeing Marie Hartnett's* drawings here.

Sunday. The Day itself, saw a trip to Bluewater to spend a book token and swap her present from me, swimming goggles and flippers. Sadly the cheapo kids set were too small so I had to double my money and buy the adult stuff. Still she seemed happy enough. She then had a big box of sushi and with £20 burning a hole in her pocket we attempted to buy some glitzy sandals. Clark's that bastion of cobbling tradition had other ideas. As far as Clark's are concerned childhood screeches to a halt at size 2 and a half, after which you are pointed in the direction of a dark a sleazy corner where shoes that would make Humbert Humbert tingle with joy line the shelves. It seems at the lowly age of 10 Clark's deem you an adult, clearly then a company run by Humbert Humbert Jnr. She took it well after a brief rant. After the shop I took her for a swim to test out her new gear, she did two, count them two, lengths, that's £20 a length. JOY.

Back home having bought enough food for a family celebration they elected to take her out, she was thrilled and so I sat alone with my dip's'n'nibbles. She was delivered back to us on a celebratory high, saturated with chocolate cake. Finally persuaded to go to bed I went to tuck her in, I was told to "wait", I was tired so said "goodnight", and what did I get for my weekend of endless pleasure? I get called an "Idiot"

So ye shall sow, So ye shall reap.

*superb exhibition more details tomorrow

Anselm Kiefer

This is an extract taken from an excellent interview with Kiefer in Saturday's Guardian
This last paragraph neatly encapsulates why I love his work and why I feel it is so important. Although the article does not reference Marcel Duchamp, I feel he would have connected with Kiefer, as much of his work was transitional including his large Glass which he allowed to decay after it's complete ion.
I somehow think that too much of today's art is precious and we should indeed celebrate the processes as much as the conclusion.

I was extraordinarily lucky enough to see some of Kiefer's best work some years back at the Hamberger Bahnhof in Berlin. where this photograph above was taken.

If you are around London this weekend go to see an amazing show of his at The White Cube gallery Hoxton Square, as opposed to the one at mason's Yard. It looks a really amazing show and I may succumb to a catalogue!

Monochrome Miffy scores 68

Apart from Monday a much improved effort

Quartz

Yes, scrabble lovers, Wednesday was a red letter day, I had a quick game of Scrabble with Leyla over tea my first 2 letters out of the bag were a Z then a Q oh joy, I manged to off load the Z with ZIP then suddenly I got a U and there it was Quartz, the Q sat on a double letter score, QUARTZ sat on a double word and hey presto...68 points YEAH ..... A big fat L for Lose, Leyla, there is no greater satisfaction than whooping the arse of a 9 year old at scrabble is there?


I have been very busy helping Kitty with school work this week, her school career is nearly at an end so it is one last push to move some of her grades up, very time consuming to say the least though.


I had a whirlwind purge of my wardrobe on Sunday, sod the fact that the garden now has the contents of a sack of newspaper whirling round it, having spilt from the charity sacks filled with the paper I use to soak up the dogs nightly incontinence. The paper is now wrapped around the rusting bike plus the skeletal remains of last years flower pots. That all of this fails to disguise a large builders sack filled to the brim with top soil from the front garden that I have stuck my rusting washing clothes drier in, is neither here nor there, it will have to wait until Easter for a tidy up.


I have learnt one thing over the years and that is the quality of fabric is paramount to the success, I purged myself of all the cheap cotton skirts I had acquired from eBay over the years, I have given up on eBay, simply because you cannot feel the quality of the fabric and for every wonderful quirky bargain comes a whole bundle of crapola. So out they all went. Although I do not wear the linen of which I have a sack of I know that it will come into it's own if I ever get to Cyprus, trust me Yohji will not quite cut it out there, so while the Japanese influence reigns supreme on home soil, Margaret Howell will pick the baton up in Cyprus.


I have applied to Goldsmith to start an MA, I am at that stage in life where I need something to tide me over my twilight working years and as I have loved my time visiting galleries I decided that I should maybe do something structured to keep me going, watch this space!

And talking of watching, I will be GLUED to my TV watching the last two episodes of The Killing, so many twists and turns and red herrings, I can't wait.

Alena Zhandarova

I love this portfolio of images from Alena Zhandarova, they elevate self portraiture from the mundane into something quite quirky but no less relevant to the genre.

Images from here

Lefkosa

I had resigned my self to not going to the city this time. but out of the blue Emin decide it was worth the considerable round trip, I think he fancied some nice food!, it was the best day of the holiday weather wise and plus I finally got to wander around this area. These are the original colonial buildings, they represent some of my favourite architecture. I love that despite everything they have kept the original colonial green of the paintwork on many of the restored buildings.


These houses are all clustered around one side of the city, very close to a school Leyla once attended, there is a fabulous restaurant called Hamur here which sells traditional Manti a kind of ravioli that Emin and Leyla love. My favourite is Borek, especially the sweet one made with a spiced curd cheese, it's delicious.
We met a fabulous Italian couple in there who had a house on the south side but preferred the traditional Turkish food. They felt it was closer to the traditional Sicilian food they loved, and despaired of the dull Greek food! They elaborated on there desire to partition Italy which was interesting and how embarrassing Berlusconi to have as their head of state!

I love this just sell one thing kind of shop.

A man can but dream!

All these shops and stall are around the cathedral cum Mosque it is still a wonderfully vibrant place despite the closing of the Grand Bazaar.

Backgammon is played everywhere.

Artichoke sellers above

and below, an image of huge market garden cum allotment, which in itself is not that special but what tickled me is just to the right of this photograph is the presidential palace, it's like the White House with allotments! Only here could you get this amazing juxtaposition of rich and poor. Plus check out those mountains they are spectacular.

Pronounced 'Lefgosha' it is the northern side of Nicosia. My first visit here over 10 years ago was to a very dilapidated city with little to offer other than a street market, a number of jewellery shops and some kebab houses. Now it is a vibrant city with offices for the EU even, amongst the burgeoning tourists destinations. T

he cathedral has been renovated and looks stunning, all the heritage is now being treated with a great deal more t.l.c than it once was and the most important change of all is the boarder crossing is open, you still need a passport to cross, but compared to the heavily guarded dividing wall, pock marked by bullets its a significant change.

Edith Maybin

I find these images both compelling and disturbing, I think the reason for this is that the relationship I have with my mother repels me and yet the relationship I have with my daughters especially Leyla I can relate to, this closeness of morphing into each other.
I realise it may sound superficial but I love the use of colour in the photographs and the fragmented composition, I love that not all is what it seems.

Text from here

Images from here