Four (or three)

Once again I sit here bereft of words. I was thinking about having a bit of a rant about flying. A couple of weeks ago I returned from Barcelona in three hops instead of two, thanks to the inefficiencies of Swissair (obviously they were on cuckoo-clock timing rather than Omega that day). I could mention the yelling child, the unnecessary security checks, the cramped seats, the unexpected visit to Paris, etc, etc (and what a dump Charles De Gaulle Airport is), the fact I'd worked to four in the morning the night before. However, somewhat strangely, I'm not in the mood for whinging about air travel. That said, I'm off to Rotterdam on Sunday so the next flight might just tip the balance.

I was up at six this morning and it's now six in the evening; I'm not a morning person. I'll be working for another three or four hours yet, perhaps more. I'm only months short of my bus-pass and I should be into the pipe-and-slippers phase of my existence. My bonhomie will turn to malhomie. The slightest thing will make me scowl and mutter and my expansive view of the pleasures of life will contract into a tiny malodorous corner of my mind and fester away to itself. I will become a lesser person. And I'll eat.

See. I've just opened a bag of crisps (chips to you, Pauline). Do I need them? They are an upmarket brand. They're low-fat, low-salt, but they're also low-need. I'm eating them because I'm bored, underwhelmed and because I can.

There, just had another handful. What do they put in crisps to make them so moreish? And whatever it is, would it work in sprouts? Or cauliflower? Or chicken legs?

The image, by the way, could be a three or a four - your choice.

(I've just sealed up the remainder of the crisps. They're sitting on the desk in front of me. A strange, Satanic power is emanating from the seemingly innocent bag. Despite every force at my disposal, within the next thirty minutes I will reopen it. There is no power on earth that can resist the presence of crisps. It is the One Ring That BInds Them All. It is my burden, my Precious, and my stomach is Mount Doom.)

Just Like Buses

This journal is a bit like waiting for a bus; nothing passes for a few months then along come two one after another. I’ve no idea why that happens – famine then feast. It’s a fairly unremarkable sort of feast though; a couple of chicken drumsticks perhaps, some soggy crisps and a chickpea-based dip that will have you leaping from bed at three in the morning and dashing to the bathroom.

See, now I’m in a quandary. I’ve started this posting in a lull at work, a lull that started yesterday at about 3pm and is still going strong at 9pm this evening but little is tasking me at the moment so I’ve nothing really to talk about. Sure the world’s financial markets are in turmoil but since no-ones rung me for my opinion, I might as well let them stew for a bit longer. They’ll sort themselves out eventually - the rich will stay rich and the poor will get poorer. It was ever thus.

Despite anguished cries and much breast beating from owners and estate agents alike, house prices continue their downward spiral to the sort of prices they ought to be, had rampant greed not taken hold. I suppose that does wind me up, the way people become so incensed because a nonsensical situation has been corrected to one that more justly reflects the relationship between the price of your home and your earnings. And unless you have to sell it, it’s all virtual money anyway. Surely nothing has a value until it’s bought, sold or bartered.

Anyway I’ve no idea what the residential accommodation shown in today’s image could be bought for. It looks pretty picturesque but I would imagine the garden gets a bit soggy at times and it will be a touch on the noisy side when there’s fog about.

Slippery Socks

Slippery socks. If I was of a class that warranted a valet, that would be one of my requirements each morning. At best I would insist on brand new ones or maybe some delicately crafted in silk; I’ve never tried them but they sound ideal. At worst, I’d want socks that had been pre-worn so that they slip on the feet with ease; second-day socks, it you like, pre-stretched and rid of their post-wash stiffness. Socks that just glide on rather than stubbornly resisting their destiny as the intimate cushion between skin and shoe.

I suppose this is yet one more irritation that comes with age. Your extremities become more remote, more dependent and more demanding. I think this is particularly true of feet. They become wilfully malcontent, unprepared to serve just as useful terminations to your legs. They constantly beg for attention, no longer shrugging off the predations of ill-fitting shoes or laughing in the face of in-growing toenails. If your body has thickened with age, developing impediments to bending as mine has, feet seem to belong to another country, an exotic land of corn and fungus, where bed-posts leap out to molest toes and boots, which once fitted like soft, kid gloves, now rasp and chafe. They fight back. And you lose.

Until, with barely a whisper of discontent, you enter the age of woolly, fleece-lined slippers.

No images of footwear. Instead, an old gin distillery in east London. With its products both you and your feet could drink to forget. With enough swilled, your head and your feet may even reach the same level.

Trick of the Light

Many, many years ago, when I was making first tentative assays into lighting as a career, I'd arranged to meet my mentor, Howard King, at the BBC Rehearsal Rooms at North Acton. He waited until I had sunk my teeth into a jam doughnut before appearing and, without a word, beckoned me to join him at the lifts. We descended several levels and entered one of the large rehearsal spaces on the third floor. It was empty, except for a number of props, such as tables, chairs, beds, etc, which could be used to populate the marked-up set outlines on the floor.

'What do you see?' he said, words which instantly filled me with dread; he was always putting me on the spot and the doughnut's sugar rush had not had time to kick in. I looked around. The room was filled with light from the sun coming through large south-facing windows and casting bright patches onto the linoleum floor. I could feel the tension. Just as I imagine he was about to give up on me, I spot what this little jaunt was all about. Against one of the walls was an old-fashioned coat stand. Its shadow was going up the wall rather than down, thrown by light from a patch of sun on the floor. This would be quite natural for rooms at night when a table lamp might produce that effect but we are conditioned to see shadows cast downward in daylight. It looked strange and Howard's point was that, although it was perfectly natural, it would not appear realistic if reproduced in an image, be it a painting, photograph or television picture, unless it was obvious to the viewer how it was being generated.

And my point is, I can hear you chanting in exasperation, assuming you've got this far? Well there isn't one really except to stress the importance to anyone in the image-making business of constant observation. I never stop looking at what the light is up to because it's fickle stuff and not to be trusted. So when I was standing in a stairwell in Sheffield a few days ago, waiting for an art gallery to open, history repeated itself. There, in a corner of this lovely art-deco building, the sun came romping in through the window and struck off up hill.

Nature doesn't do that (unless there's some water about). But a glass roof outside the building does. Unfortunately the BBC would never allow me to put up sub-titles explaining why I'd lit a scene in a particularly obtuse way so if I'd reproduced this image in a televison studio, it would have just looked odd. And an unwarranted strain on the viewer's suspension of disbelief.

No-So-Sunny Norfolk

The weather has been a hot topic in the UK yet again with a threat of further flooding and a general feeling of malaise in the air. Our lucky country has been blessed recently by most major forms of non-frozen precipitation, ranging from basic drizzle (misty and penetrating) to horizontal sheets of the stuff.

I’ve had the dubious pleasure of being on the east coast of Norfolk this week where nothing (including the unhelpful flatness of Holland) stands between the Russian steppes and me. In winter it can be a bleak and unforgiving place, as it can be in spring, (and summer and autumn). Nature has seen fit to give it a seascape offshore that indulges itself in a wide-ranging and riotous display of hues, running the whole gamut of colours from sludge-grey to mud-brown. On a good day the green slime on the rotting breakwaters adds just the right degree of putrescence to an otherwise dull vista.

Before I completely destroy my chances of leaving East Anglia alive, I must point out that inland, when it’s not raining, it’s very pretty, resplendent in a rich history and a feast of water-borne entertainment in the shape of the Norfolk Broads (that is not broads in the American sense but open areas of water formed in centuries past by extraction). Jolly boaters swan around in their cabin cruisers and yachts, mooring up at waterside hostelries and sinking vast quantities of gin-and-tonic. Or so I’m led to believe.

The image today shows the coast in the month of June in all its glory. Note the happy crowds cavorting on the beach, the rows of deckchairs and the ice-cream sellers wending their merry way through the devoted sun-worshippers. Note also my vivid imagination.

Australian couple subjected to strange cottage pie

Little do Lee and Margaret suspect, as they chat to Peter and Sparkly, that they are about to do battle with one of my infamous Italian cottage pies, a combination of potato and bolognese sauce (and beans) that would be enough to bring any Tuscan chef to their knees in supplication - 'please, please, Senor Dave, please make only the bangers and mash or the spotted dick.Please leave our beautiful cuisine alone. We beg of you, for the sake of our mothers.' No wonder I can only travel to Italy in disguise.

Without the power of the internet, we would have remained complete strangers but blogging will out - I think Lee and I first made contact in January 2006. It's taken a while to get to the eyeball stage (a horrible expression from the days of CB radio when passing truckers would shout 'eyeball, eyeball!' into their microphones as they narrowly avoided running each other off the road).

Still it was worth the wait. We had tracked their adventures around the globe over the past few weeks and now here they were in almost sunny Worcestershire. The rain held off, the wind died and everything in the garden was lovely, except the lawn.

It was grand, as they say up north and a right pleasure.

And so to the next leg - bon voyage.

Upside Down

I have an unconquerable desire to turn reflected images upside-down; I'm sure it could be classed as some sort of 'philia'. There again, perhaps I have a phobia about inverted reflections. We may never know as I imagine that it would be way down at the bottom of any list of pressing, psychological, research projects.

It has the look of a double exposure, the sort of thing that happened in the cameras of days gone by if, for some reason, the film didn't wind on. Often arty types would do this deliberately. Oh, what fun!

Unpleasant beasts, cobbles, a antiquated trip-hazard for the careless pedestrian or wearer of stilettos, and an uncomfortable and slippery surface for the cyclist. Motorists, however, do get the pleasure of a modulating thrumming noise as they drive over them so all is not lost. Also they do look the part in front of an old building like this clock tower at 3 Mills in east London.

Incidentally there is an election in London today for Mayor. The choice seems to be between a rogue, a buffoon and an also-ran (or two - I've no idea who the minority candidates are). Doubtless it is the same everywhere and it is no wonder that so few people bother to vote. In most contests, and to be honest I'm tempted to say all, the sort of individuals who put themselves forward for public office are just the sort who would not make it onto your Christmas Card list. They generally distinguish themselves by being undistinguished.

I suppose someone has to do it. It has been said that the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship and if the human race ever breeds one, I'm sure we will be mightily relieved.

Just don't hold your breath.