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26 August 2017

The week in review

The Saturday morning walk to the grocery store led me down some unknown streets and revealed these jolly garages somewhere to the west of Crouch End -
beach huts gone awol?
Later a visit, in its final week, to the British Watercolour Landscapes exhibition at the British Museum - here are two works by John Craxton -
using frottage

pollarded trees, very surreal
 "Vintage Sunday" drew me out to see a film (love those Busby Berkeley sequences - what amazing staging, breathtaking geometry!), and on the way to Screen 5, this bit of make-do-and-mend -
 Another in-its-final-week exhibition was at the Society of Antiquaries, portraits and objects from Tudor times. This portrait of Mary Tudor (1516-1558) shows her soon after her coronation in 1553. Behind her is a velvet hanging - one of the Cloths of Estate that were carried in the monarch's entourage and hung up, behind the throne and elsewhere, as a potent symbol of majesty. The creases in the velvet come from being folded for travel.
 The the foyer of the Society of Antiquaries is a sofa that had belonged to William Morris -
 Building site in Fitzrovia - all that sky will disappear -
"Our sale," announces this charity shop, offers "even greater prices" - hmm yes, they were already quite steep! -
The Police Museum has a number of curious objects - along with truncheons and rattles, and uniforms, is the gold medal won by the team in the tug-of-war in the 1920 Olympics - after which tug-of-war was dropped as a sport -

Dangerous weapons - the definition depends largely on intended use
It's in the same building as Guildhall Library, which specialises in the history of London -
"London's Burning" - old print of the Great Fire

Ironwork outside Royal Courts of Justice
 Exhibition at Somerset House of Extraordinary Objects (ends 3 Sept, free) includes an ingenious solution for straightening plants that have grown at an angle -
...and the story of a silly man who gambled his mansion away on the turn of a card ... but kept the cards ...
 Talk of the week was at Daunt Books, Hampstead - allegedly it was Sam Kean talking about his "Caesar's Last Breath" a book about the air around us, but turned out to be an "in conversation" with tv presenter and physicist Helen Czerski, who seemed to do most of the talking! - and very interesting they both were, but I resisted buying any of their books at this point in time -
 At the CQ London meeting, we did that uncomfortable (to me) exercise of arranging snippets of fabric according to tonal value; thank goodness for group decisions -
and other fun things relating to colour. Walking home, I serendipitously found a colourful street in Kentish Town - Kelly Street (much photographed) -
 Unusual items in a charity shop included dozens of dummy books, the spines stating title and weight of paper -
 Aladdin's Cave, a "vintage" furniture shop near me, had some unusual items too -
 Years ago - last century, in fact - I'd bought a solid wardrobe there, for storage in the studio; since then, the shop has acquired a rather nice coffee shop.

Yesterday, in Islington (Angel), bales, or at least bundles, of hay were on the move ... rus in urbes? -
 and in the courtyard of Candid Cafe, the Cafe Sketchers were drawing ...
 I couldn't cope with all the leaves and shadows and other scenic bits, but my snack was an easy target, sitting on a splendid bit of tablecloth -
This morning, the downstairs neighbour's landscapers are removing the trimmings from his overgrown trees
The dead bit of privet hedge is mine, though - it's currently supporting some weedy periwinkle, while new hedge plants either side try to fill in the gap.

1 comment:

  1. When I was at OUP in the 70s we used to get a dummy book for every title we published, and even my first years at Blackie we used to receive an exact dummy from the printer/binder for every hardback novel or non-fiction book of physical substance (i.e. not children's picture books or paperbacks. After the book was published the editor responsible would snaffle the dummy - or at least I did, and I used to use them as sketchbook/notebooks.
    I used up the last one when I was designing knitwear, and had forgotten all about them. Thanks for the reminder, and for bringing back some memories from my days of yore!

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