Week 17: Enron/Noel Coward Theatre

Morning morning, although actually it’s very soon to being afternoon. I am finding it quite difficult to sit down and write my blog this week, mainly I think because the cultural activity in question took place last Thursday and my god am I expected to remember anything intelligent from 4 days ago??? I can’t alas, physically can’t so apologies in advance for what I am about to write, it’s always bullocks anyway so no biggie. I’m also in the process of attempting to eat porridge, or cum of the devil as it should be known, as my wisdom tooth is once more causing me issues so my take on Enron may become increasingly soured as this write-up progresses.

Right, last week I had the great fortune of being invited by the lovely Zarah to see Enron, a production currently running at The Noel Coward Theatre. These tickets were a gift to the lovely Zarah from her brother and luckily for me the boyfriend had a prior engagement so she invited me instead!! Yay for being the back up plan to boyfriends! Anyway they were basically the best seats I have EVER HAD at the theatre, usually “preferring” the cheapo scabby tickets with restricted view in the gods or whatever. Here we were second row from the front in the grand circle and I had an aisle seat so my knees weren’t in blistering pain from the first 30 minutes onwards!! The man with the largest head on earth sitting in front of me and squirming throughout is not going to get a mention – I hate him too much and his big fat retarded meat head doesn’t deserve any more of my time. What a pretty theatre the Noel Coward is though, can’t remember going there before, although in fairness the view is probably very different 50 foot up at the back. Also the whole experience is just so different in the posho seats – for example I walked straight out and into the nice loos in the foyer rather than having to queue for the entire interval outside the typical 1 cubicle provided for the chavs upstairs. AND, it’s been so long since I have been to the theatre as opposed to the opera or the ballet that I forgot you can take booze in there with you. Bonus!

Enron is the contemporary play/music dance spectacle charting the rise and fall of the energy company Enron, which collapsed at the beginning of the naughties due to massive amounts of fraud. Now, I know lots of appropriate sounding phrases and terms about finance and fraud and stuff but clearly I don’t know the accurate meanings of any of these terms and it would be no doubt rather unwise therefore to start using them now. So, in advance, apologies for my horrendous layman’s language or complete avoidance of any appropriate sounding classifications as I am clearly not going to get the intricacies of this situation. However, the play did do remarkably well at simplifying the facts for the tiny minds of people like me, at points perhaps glossing over things or leaving quite big holes in the audiences understanding, I suppose just because it gets too damn complicated.

The production was a mix of straight drama/comedy with some chorus style singing and dancing, again in a rather comedy fashion, and definitely not as much as I was lead to believe there would be. I would definitely class this as a play above any kind of musical or sound experience or whatever crap the press want to define it as. There was also a certain amount of video footage of things like the Bill Clinton sex scandal, the election of Bush, the fall of the twin towers etc, although at no point would I say this made it a ‘video experience’ as defined again by the press material. I wonder if all the hyped ‘singing dancing extravaganza’ stuff is partly why it apparently received such rubbish reviews in New York as opposed to its reception in London. If I went there expecting a polished musical satire I would have been disappointed. There was very little of the singing/dancing for one thing and the pieces they did do, although I felt successful for what they were, weren’t overly original or, well, polished. This makes it appear as if I didn’t enjoy these segments, which I most definitely did, in fact I probably could have done with more of hem, but I think if you make the choice to do things like that you should fully commit and do it all the way, not just a token dance scene at the beginning and one half way though or what have you. Make it a full on musical spectacular – that doesn’t mean you can’t also have the straight stuff as well. I also think these not un-crude pieces would have seemed even more underwhelming on the Broadway stage, which in my head is always twice as big as anything on at the west end. This production needs a small setting so as not to become dwarfed, it feels pretty intimate and I think it would have appeared jarring on a larger scale.

So, the story; It all begins at an office party where the central character Jeffrey Skilling is introduced as a new recruit for the company Enron, based in Huston, Texas. He is very upset about people not understanding something called mark to market, why I don’t know but hey once again the writer did a damn successful job of explaining it in a coherent and simplified manner for me to be able to understand with my more than shoddy grasp of finance! Thus begins a seemingly short lived power struggle between Jeffrey and Claudia Roe, another high flyer in the company. Claudia wants to continue building power plants and pipes, producing the oil and gas which made the company big. Jeffrey wants to make it an ‘energy’ company, ditching the production and instead building a trade floor. If I understood business, finance or in fact anything at this point I would carry on but I don’t so I won’t. Jeffrey and Claudia are also shagging, although as their rivalry increases that soon stops. There was a particularly odd line near the beginning after they have been doing it on the desk – they talk about the future of the company, about how Ken the president or owner or whatever was soon to step down and appoint a new president. At this point Claudia requests a tissue from Jeffrey as she ‘appears to be leaking/dripping’?!?!?!!??!?? WTF???? I think they were attempting to set the quasi-comedy tone.

Time goes by, Jeffrey becomes the golden child as stock prices soar and Claudia is gradually beaten to the sides, still stuck in the pre Jeffrey company mind set. Jeffrey sees the future and it is greedy. He sees there is money to be made but his company, priced on high hopes and expectations is failing to make the money that is predicted and is slowly sinking into debt (I think). Step in the nerdy deliberately putrid character of Andrew Fastow, soon to be made CFO, who comes up with a genius way of hiding the bad debt through financial loopholes – namely the creation of a fake company made almost entirely of Enron shares, or stock or whatever it’s called, to swallow the debt. As long as the share prices don’t slip, for some reason, then everything will be fine forever!! (yeah right). Locked in his increasingly dank and gloomy basement the character of Andy becomes more and more that of the crazy mad scientist, alone with his freakish Frankenstein style creations which are slowly starting to take control. These fake companies are represented as weird dinosaur type creatures who skulk around creepily with demonic red eyes. As the play continues their presence becomes more and more sinister as Andy continues to feed and pet them, referring to them like his babies, mourning for them as they get increasingly sick, fed too many bad shares.

The hey-days are becoming an increasingly distant memory as paranoia and fear start to creep into Jeffrey’s mind, Ken knows something’s up but doesn’t want to know too much, Claudia is long gone on a train of bitterness and recrimination, the wolves are drawing in and he knows it. A seemingly disastrous foray into the now deregulated electricity market in the state of California leads to rolling black-outs and share prices slowly starting to drop. Jeffrey quits but it’s too late, confidence has been lost and post 9/11 the company crumbles revealing the massive fraud and resulting in Jeffrey, Andy and Ken being sentenced to long spells in the big house – 25 years for Jeffrey which as Zarah LOUDLY whispered next to me is the same length of times as murder, which is worrying on multiple levels really. The last scene is at the funeral of Ken, who it is implied killed himself before he could be properly sentenced. Claudia is there, gleeful that the only part of the company found to be worth anything was her division, and we get a slightly clichéd graveside widow–style scene with a poor lowly worker encouraged to sink all her money in Enron shares berating Jeffrey on ruining her life etc. For me this is where the play started to go down hill slightly but as that was about 5 minutes before the end that’s not bad. It was cliché to say the least and the humble headscarf sporting lowly female worker could easily have been left out and replaced with, for example, the security guard who figures earlier in the story, and would have been a hell if a lot less corny. There should have been a less melodramatic way to express the personal hell of thousands of people who lost money in the scandal. The ending provided one last soliloquy for Jeffrey, lamenting his own sense of greed in a greedy world etc – no shit!! Talk about obvious point to make! A far more revealing statement occurred earlier when, asked if he took advantage of the situation with deregulated electricity he scoffs in disdain and asks am I a man? - of course I took advantage of the situation, that’s what business is! I would like to re watch the last 10 minutes or so as I always find it difficult to concentrate right at the end and I feel the speech he made at this point needed more thought, by me and the writer!

The play was staged, I believe, very well using lighting in a fun and imaginative way. I particularly liked the first rising then dramatically falling shareprice displayted on the sur-title screen above the stage, acting like an omnipotent god controlling all that occurs beneath. There was a scene with light sabers which I enjoyed greatly and in general it was, I felt with my limited experience, well staged. There was one quite good speech at the end given by one of the women who valued the company – an analogy of the stock market as an airplane. You don’t know how it works but when you get on you assume it will – kind of my understanding of finance, or was until a few years ago when everything started to crumble about our international ears, but not the kind of thing you want to hear from someone who supposedly knows what they’re doing!! At the end it said that many of the processes employed by Enron are now used in companies around the world, in which case why were they all sent to jail? Anyway, a very enjoyable experience – good luck getting the pricey tickets me and Zaz enjoyed though HAHA.

Week 16: Victoria and Albert Art and Love: Queens Gallery

Morning morning and what a bright and sunny Monday morning it is. I am still recovering from the fact that it took me 55 minutes to do a 15 minute journey into work, much needed chain smoking session will alas have to wait til nearer lunch. This week everyone wanted a piece of my blog but alas, for them, they couldn’t have it. After the disaster that was last weeks pursuit this weekend I decided to treat myself to an exhibition I have been looking forward to for ages, and in order to get my enjoyment max I decided to go it alone, free from distractions or the pressure of rushing – in the end I was in there for over 2 hours which for me is very good, usually I can take about 45 minutes of art and I’m done for the day.

Victoria and Albert Art and Love was even more amazing than I could have hoped. It was so amazing in fact that I’m not really sure I can face writing about it, it was just too good – what will I say? Other, maybe, than GOLD GOLD GOLD GOLD GOLD GOOOOLLLLLLLDDDDD!!!

Well, to start with the mundane, as always, I was v pleased with myself for my economising ways. I went to see an exhibition on Conversation Pieces at the same gallery a few months ago, in fact I believe it was my FIRST cultural pursuit, and paid about 6 quid to get in but as I remember commenting at the time that ticket entitled me to free entry to any of their exhibitions for the next year! I am very impressed with myself that I’ve actually managed to hold onto the ticket, which has been loitering in my rolling tray for the last 3 months, and was able to get in free to this exhibition even though it cost over £8!! Bargain!! Also their, excellent, audio guides are free unlike shits-ville V&A which charges for them on top of their exorbitant entry fees. And they would probably be crap there anyway.

So, as you may have worked out by now I rather like the Victorians, in fact, frankly I don’t think I’d mind that much if civilisation had just mysteriously bored of art post 1900 and just left it at that. So, an exhibition focussing on the trend setting art and objects collected by the royal couple is exactly my cup of tea. However, as much as I love Victoria, the star of this show is undoubtedly Albert, who it turns out was a bit of a dude! This exhibition really highlighted what an incredible, trend setting, enthusiastic and educated man he must have been. I knew, for example, that he was heavily involved in the Great Exhibition of 1851 (I didn’t even have to look that date up rock on GCSE History know-how), but what I didn’t realise was how completely and utterly it was his brain child, and how responsible he was for basically ever aspect of the show! I also didn’t realise he was one of the first to study the new academic discipline of art history and the exhibition had a small room focussing on the early art that he particularly enjoyed collecting before his marriage to Victoria. For example he had 2 beautiful Cranacks which he brought with him from Germany, an artist who I have always loved, and was in some way responsible for popularising his work during the 19th century. Albert’s influence seems to have stretched so far that I start to ponder where the world would be today without him. It was he after all who was mostly responsible for building the cult of Christmas in Victorian England which affects not only the way we view yuletide to this day but impacts on concepts of the family, the home and childhood in general. Victoria was undoubtedly interested in art and collecting herself, she was it turns out a not untalented watercolourist, but it seems to have been Albert’s influence and tastes that really inspired her to commission and buy particular works of art. For example; she had this painting of Albert’s favourite dog painted for him by Landseer as a present, and it was through their patronage that his career really took off

This was also the case for Leighton, who had one of his earliest works purchased by the royal couple (pictured below) and, of course, went on to be one of the biggest artists of the 19th century, no doubt partly due to their patronage. This work, and many others owned by the couple, was bought directly from the walls of the Royal Academy exhibition. How amazing to go to the summer show and just pick anything you wanted. Apparently Albert often had ‘useful’ advise for the artists he patronised, although who knows if he actually just got in the way and made stupid suggestions which they had to pretend were good because he was appointed by god etc? For example, there was one John Martin work in the exhibition which was commissioned after Albert had seen The Deluge, now in the Tate. He suggested Martin make this piece into a 3-parter with one piece set after the flood and one before called ‘the Eve of the Deluge’, probably just so Albert could then buy it at no doubt vast sums. I have to say though that in comparison to the Deluge it does somewhat suck.

Of course, according to the audio guide the couple did have to practise economy throughout their reign in terms of their patronage of the arts. In fact poor old Victoria had to limit herself to spending only 2 grand a year on art and a lot of her budget had to cover the pictures that Albert wanted to buy. In fact, when discussing the Leighton Victoria commented that Albert ‘simply had to have it so I bought it him’ (to paraphrase). It did make me think; this man was a massive patron of the arts needing to sustain a ferocious appetite for buying art, had to be granted extra money from Parliament to be able to entertain on an ever grander scale, picked and styled his wife’s clothes and jewellery, LOVED costume balls, of which there were many throughout his time as Prince, had an important hand in the building and decorating of their various residences etc. Hate to be the one to say it but has anyone ever thought about just how gay this guy was??? Anyway, just something to chew on there…

His apparent gayness didn’t stop them squeezing out about 300 children of course and it is the family portraits that are really the focus of this exhibition. Entering the gallery they are the first paintings the visitor experiences and the central painting, curatorially and in terms of merchandise is Franz Xaver Winterhalters huge portrait of the couple surrounded by their children probably set in their new palace Osborne House on the Isle of White. This, along with Balmoral, was viewed as their retreat away from public life in London. Winterhalter enjoyed very favourable patronage under Victoria with a seemingly huge number of commissions gracing the walls. He was particularly favoured by Albert who liked the Northern European style domesticity of his paintings as opposed to the previous more formal type of official Royal portraiture. His popularity and success was due in part to this need for a new type of visual representation of the Monarch. Victoria was the first ruling female monarch since 1700 and something. In her depictions she needed to be represented as head of the state yet place Albert firmly as the head of the family. In this group portrait Albert’s head forms the pinnacle of the piece, yet it is Victoria next to him who is sheltering the future heir to the thrown, here we see the royal line safe and unaltered. It’s is also key that there are no crowns or outward sign of royalty in this piece, riches yes, but this is very much a scene of a family at home not on public display. Of course ironically on its completion it was immediately put on show to vast crowds in St James palace, Victoria as ever grasping the full potency of royal propaganda.

The exhibition dwells at length on Victoria and Albert’s love of Scotland and their newly built castle of Balmoral, where they felt that thy could retreat from the stiffness of public living. There are two FAB paintings which annoyingly I can’t find on Google showing ‘Morning in Balmoral’ and ‘After the Hunt’ (or something) which illustrate this idea of the family at rest in their private domestic space. I also like the fact that the first one has a dated title, placing the royal family firmly in the ‘real world’ as a modern, loving family. To continue the new theory about Albert it was, apparently, he who insisted when there the servants wore ‘traditional’ highland dress and apparently he was much ridiculed in London for his adoption of the costume, mainly because he looked so damn fine in it. On display was the broach set with an ENOURMOUS and highly sparkly semi-precious stone that he used to pin his kilt over his shoulder. Huhhum. There was also jewellery particularly designed for wearing at Balmoral on show which was made out of stags teeth!! UHHHHHH

An interesting little room to the side showcased pieces from some of Victoria’s personal albums. These were albums she kept as keep sakes to be used in conjunction with her personal diaries. She was either given them by foreign dignitaries etc or commissioned artists to represent important places or events that she witnessed in her travels. They were of a strictly uniform size so that they could be bound together in albums and taken with her when travelling round the country or continent. This interests me greatly as it reminds me of my obsessive buying of postcards from every gallery I have ever been to and sticking them up on my wall, berating any establishment that doesn’t fit to the precise postcard dimensions as dictated by me. It also highlights the fashion for collecting and fetisising keepsakes, usually in a highly morbid way, during the Victorian era, possibly sparked by Victoria herself.
Some of the more interesting examples were of the Great Exhibition which apparently Victoria visited nearly every day for weeks. The exhibition also provided the couple with more opportunities to commission and buy work

The love of acquiring pieces that reminded Victoria of things she had seen and places she had visited was, apparently, extended to works she saw at the Royal Academy, which the couple visited every year. Here she saw Friths Life at the Seaside – Ramsgate Sands. I LOVE Frith, the Where’s Wally of the 19th century, and I didn’t realise this piece was purchased by Victoria. Apparently the picture, which attracted such huge crowds at the Royal Academy that a bar had to be placed in front of it, was particularly admired by the queen due to her fond memories of visiting Ramsgate with her mother. The room they stayed in is visible as the round window at the very top of the painting. However, the painting had already been bought by a printing firm who intended to make no doubt highly lucrative copies of the painting. Not to be dissuaded Victoria pursued and eventually a deal was reached where the printers gave Victoria the painting in exchange for keeping the publication rights. Or whatever it was called.

Just quickly, as am going on too long and need to do some work - Other interesting aspects of the exhibition were the photography section; Victoria and Albert were the first big patrons of photography as an art form and without there influence it would have taken a damn site longer to establish photography as a valid form of artistic representation. Creepy points go to the selection of marble disembodied childs limbs that Victoria had cast from the legs, arms, hands and feet of her children when babies. The cult of childhood and death alive and well in the royal household clearly!

Anyway, I could go on and on about this exhibition as there was so much great stuff and will almost certainly have missed out the most interesting stuff here but go yourselves bug thumbs up from me!

Week 15: Quilts/V&A

Ugh. What a truly crap waste of money this weeks cultural pursuit was. I am not feeling on top form today so please forgive in advance my total disdain for the mound of wank that was the V& Quilts “exhibition”. Frankly, and this is not a sweeping generalisation I have been going to exhibs at the V&A now for over a decade, they should have their curatorial balls cut off. They are the most incompetent bunch of short sited half wits to ever grace a museum and should all be told to take a hike lugging their dusty, shoddy half realised decorative cardboard screens with them – the only thing they ever actually bother to produce - and their smug boring faces too. If you pay £10 for an exhibition you kind of expect something and this was the most underwhelming experience I’ve had, like EVER, in a gallery. £10 worth of pink paint.

Now, I admit that an exhibition of quilts was never going to awaken everyone’s interest. However, I am actually very interested in quilts. In fact I was a bit pissed off when I heard about the Quilt exhib a year ago as it was about 6 months prior to this that I had decided to make my own patchwork quilt and felt they were somewhat stealing my thunder. Ah the trials of a trail blazer such as myself. To put a bit of context around this I had at that time recently rediscovered the wander of sketching, having not laid pencil to paper since the end of my tad disastrous and much mocked (by me) Art A level. (It’s amazing what incompetent teaching will do to turn bright young inspired minds away from a particular pursuit – THANKS for that Mr Walsh maybe next time you could bother actually TEACHING people, and note to everyone else if you want to do fuck all for the rest of your life become an art teacher apparently you can get away with anything, or in this case nothing). Anyway, having rediscovered the joys of home based hobbies, something I will not go into now, I decided to turn my mind/fingers to similar crafty things and having been obsessed with a book as a child called Peaches at Midnight all about a patchwork quilt I thought why not. Then I decided it was really more of a winter pursuit and then I tried to sew on a button and reminded myself I fucking hate sewing more than most things and am shit at it and really don’t care so that was the end of that. Still stole my idea though.

Anyway, my point is I wasn’t against the idea to begin with and was actually quite looking forward to it, until I actually attended. Firstly, who in their right mind does an exhibition about quilts without even mentioning America????????? EVERYONE knows America is the king of quilts. In fact, the Wikipedia article on quilting barely even mentions Britain at all. It seems to be true that the tradition was held in Britain before the states but then when it did get going over there it was about 50000 times more interesting than any of the boring, I mean SO BORING, shit produced on this side of the pond. For example, one room of the “exhibition” was called Private Thoughts/Political Debates. This was obviously exploring how women, confined to the home BLAH BLAH BLAH were able to express their political ideas through their quilting. So, it became fashionable for companies to produce bits of fabric with prints on of famous historical scenes or contemporary scenes of battles etc and women would usually sew them into the middle of the quilt and thus the whole piece is politicised and also easy to date. Whoop-fucking woo. Actually that’s a bit unfair I didn’t know that before so, now I do. HOWEVER, in comparison to this America is SO much more interesting. For example, quilts are very much caught up in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Am feeling bit yuck so just going to quote Wiki directly here apologies:

“There are stories that certain quilts were used as signals [in the Underground Railroad] to help the slaves in their flight to freedom. The idea that a log cabin quilt would be hung on the line of a safe house was one. More recent stories tell of certain quilts being used to tell the slaves what they needed to do to get to safety.”

Well that’s pretty damn interesting and maybe would have somehow helped to liven up the revoltingly bland exhibition that this was. OR:

“During the Civil War quilts were made to earn money for the war effort and to give warmth and comfort to soldiers. The patterns were much like those made mid-century but the purpose was different. Quilts connected to the abolitionist movement and the Civil War were made for a cause […] In the north quilts were still made for fairs but now these fairs earned money to support needs that came about because of the war. In the south lovely quilts called gun boat quilts were made to pay for much needed gun boats.”

Instead what we have were a few dusty panels with something like ‘Wellington’ written in the middle. Thanks.

To be honest, I found the whole thing pretty damn depressing. We were meant, I think, to be looking on in wonder at these beautifully crafted bits of fabric but frankly all they said to me were thousands of years of confinement, repression and abject boredom. These poor fucking women had nothing better to do with their time, at all, and not only that there were seemingly the only way to express any ideas or comment on the world around them. It wasn’t until the 19th century at some point that quilting started filtering down to the lower classes, before that it was the exclusive domain of wealthy ladies as they were the only ones who had enough time and inclination to waste on these bits of pointless busy work. The rows and rows of little bits of fabric painstakingly sewed together were like cages keeping bored uneducated idol women inside, wrapping them up in their pointless lives – quilts as social cotton wool, horrid.

Maybe it would have helped if I had got an audio guide, but damn it those pricks weren’t getting anymore of my ‘hard earned’ dosh. At one point there was something of vague interested mentioned in passing:

“The government-funded Rural Industries Bureau (RIB), recognising the commercial appeal of regional quilts, promoted quilt-making as a means of binging income to households struggling to survive in a period of economic depression”.

Now, if I knew more about this I think it would be very interesting. However, the only information we are given other than this was from a 2 minute taped interview with an old women played out from an undefined point somewhere above our heads and totally drowned out by the general noise of the exhibition – in this case SCREAMING babies. I don’t mind crying babies, that’s what they do, but these unbearable women who take them to places like this and weal them around as they scream their lungs out should be lined up and shot. Not only is it basic fucking child abuse – pick them up and give them a hug you nasty bitch, but its also totally selfish to just to stand there and let them cry RUINING everyone else’s enjoyment – make them stop crying or take them out. Or give me back my ten quid you cunts. Anyway, the point is no real info was given and you couldn’t even hear the interview and instead we got to see 2 really hideous and boring examples of these types of quilts shown below. Wow, mind-blowing. ON THE INTERNET have managed to get some info on this related to Wales and the fact that by the beginning of the 20th century the tradition of quilting had almost totally died out:

“There was a resurgence between the two world wars when the Rural Industries Bureau established a programme to encourage craft industries in areas affected by economic depression. The quilts made during this time were mainly high quality quilts to sell as luxury items in wealthier areas. Sadly though, fabric production ceased during World War II, and after the war there was neither the necessity or the skills remaining to carry on the craft in any major fashion”

Throughout the exhibition they had mostly really bad contemporary pieces of quilting or art work related to quilting. Oh V&A aren’t you clever thinking of mixing in the contemporary with the traditional rather than just doing it chronologically –why don’t you give yourselves a big smug pat on the back and then I can give you a kick in the gut. Maybe if they had actually chosen some half interesting pieces this would have worked but of course, you didn’t. In fact was there even a Tracey Emin quilt in this show? I think not. Instead we got bland obvious clichéd pieces like the one by someone whose name doesn’t even come up on the internet and cant find a picture of her shitty little artwork but she SO CLEVERLY (??) thought to mirror the plight of woman at home with the idea of a quilt made up of sections of embroidery depicting household appliances or the covers of women’s magazines. This art work was produced last year. Yes, really, how original!!!!!!????????????????

There was one quite good piece by Grayson Perry with lots of foetuses spinning round obviously drawing on ideas of the quilt as safety and comfort and its natural association with the bed and yet showing the tensions behind this. Blah blah. For the most part though the contemporary stuff was embarrassingly bad.

One other piece I did quite like was by the inmates of Wandsworth Prison who have a sewing club and together made this quilt. I like the ideas this articulates about the communal, shared work of making a quilt, giving people a sense of purpose but also a way to bond with each other and communicate their feelings about prison life to the outside world.

I can’t be bothered to waste any more of my time on this pitiful waste of space – don’t bother going, and if you meet anyone who claims to like it know that they are empty stupid meaningless people who should be slapped. Get a life.

Week 14: Archway last supper: Indian Meal

Hello everyone, today I feel a little sad not only because its Monday and that always make me want to weep profusely but also because it is the last week I will be living in my current north London abode with my lovely flatmates – next week am moving West with the pretty people and with an equally nice flatmate but am extremely sad none the less – it’s the end of an era!! To mark the end of over 18 month’s happy inhabitation yesterday I held my last Salisbury Walk dinner party (insert sad face here). Originally I was faced with the sticky task of catering for a vegetarian, someone who was allergic to fish and someone who doesn’t eat tomatoes, so a curry seemed like the only way forward. Luckily most of these picky arseholes dropped out but my inspiration remained. In total the dinner party consisted of: me, Jason, Chris, Nat, Emily, Sam and Diccon. And a very jolly band it was too.

Now, the fact that I have to pack up everything I own, cart it across London and lug it up 4 flights of stairs in less than a week should have somewhat dampened my spice buying enthusiasm but no, with many extra ingredients purchased I now have even more crap to carry around with me. Some of the less economical of you may say what’s the point? Dump them and buy more when you get there, but have done that now on so many occasions must have wasted about £50 worth of spices minimum over the last 7 years and not doing it again. Waste not want not etc.

So, I love making curries and don’t make them enough. They always reminds me of home as it’s something my dad always made traditionally and also for the last decade or so we have always had one as a family on Christmas eve. That is usually a much more bountiful feast than the one I cooked last night, the centre piece being a big old Rahn (yum yum yum) with various side dishes. I wanted to make my meal meat free but I did take one of the classic dishes we always serve with this which is The Lake Palace Hotels Aubergines in the Pickling style from the bible that is Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery. I have my dads old version of this, vintage 70s brown encrusted and the aubergine page is barely visible from so many years of being dripped on. It smells a bit too but its authentic damn it and no curry would be complete without a dish from this cook book, as far as I am concerned anyway. Here is a brief description of this dish, which I have adapted slightly to make less greasy:

Cut 800g aubergines into quarters then chunks – not to thin, about 2 centimetres thick. Lay them on a rack or tray or something and oven-roast them until they have gone all brown. In the meantime fry a teaspoon of cumin seeds with about 2 teaspoons of fennel seeds in oil and stir for a few seconds. Then add a tin of chopped tomatoes and 6 or so cloves of garlic blended (separately) with a big hunk of root ginger, coriander seeds (ground) and turmeric, and some other stuff possibly that I can’t be bothered to look up right now. Stir this up and reduce to a thick paste then add the aubergine and heat through. Its bloody fucking delicious and the nicest thing that can be done with aubergines in my humble opinion, and believe me I love the aubergine, I especially love the name. Here is a link to the full recipe:

http://www.nibblous.com/recipe/183

A while ago I did buy another Indian cook book which had a recommendation from Nigel Slater on the front, who I increasingly hate, called 50 Great Curries of India. However, it’s total bullshit in comparison to Madhur Jaffrey and have never once actually cooked anything from it, although I do enjoy reading it. It has quite a few essays at the front on such subjects as ‘Culinary India, ‘the History of Indian cuisine, ‘the Philosophy of Indian Cuisine, ‘What is a curry’, ‘Planning an Indian meal’ and much more including detailed analysis of flavour, layering of flavour and extensive reference sections for all types of spices and other ingredients. In short it’s pretty extensive reading for the arm chair cook, as I most definitely am. From this book I may not have been able to cook any actual food but I definitely understand the culture of eating and cooking more in India because of it, so it is definitely very helpful for this blog. For one thing when making an Indian meal we are apparently diving into the cultural heritage of Ayuveda. This is basically the Indian tradition of medical and emotional well being – or whatever- and is based around the balancing of different humours (7 types) in the body (yes GCSE history of medicine here we come) different personality types and different flavours of food, or stimuli. There is a hell of a lot more to it than that obviously but principally Ayurvedic tradition dictates that all illnesses; mental or physical, should first be treated with food before drugs of some kind are tried. Food tastes can be divided into sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent and basically all meals have to combine these in different degrees depending on the personality of the eater, the seasons and their bodies. It’s also just a good idea to try and combine those different tastes to achieve proper balance, in taste and life. I didn’t achieve this totally last night but make a pretty good stab at it with my chosen menu.

Another important part of the Ayurvedic cooking tradition is the way the food is prepared and consumed. It should be prepared with love, which is why even in the richest Indian households the wives will usually cook for their families, even if the domestic help prepares the ingredients first. Similarly the food should be consumed in quietude and peace unlike western traditions of being as raucous and chatty as possible during meals. I particularly like the idea of food being prepared with love, mainly because it reminds me of the genius Sarah Michelle Gellar movie ‘Simply Irresistible’ which for some reason I have seen at least twice. This straight to DVD triumph centres around the main character, AKA SMG, who inherits a restaurant off a dead relative. For some reason, I forget why or how, she makes friends with a magical crab (yes really) who manages to make all her food taste the way she feels when she is cooking it, so if she is sad anyone eating her food feels sad, etc. It’s bloody great, and clearly inspired by Ayuerverdic principles.

Anyway, my food was definitely cooked with love and quite a lot of intoxication, so that’s good. I also tried very hard to balance everything. For example there was lots of cumin which is ‘cooling’ and good for the digestion – actually pretty much ALL the spices are said to be good for the digestion but have to say my digestion didn’t feel too bloody good first thing this morning. It was very spicy in parts i.e. warming and also there was lots of lime which are sour, and tomatoes which are also considered sour (and surprisingly only introduced to the continent by the Portuguese in the 16th century) Rice and ghee are considered sweet along with the chutney and onions and garlic etc are classed to be pungent. Traditional Indian meals will rarely contain meat, and if they do (only really in the most affluent houses) it will be a very small amount. They will almost always have a dal/lentil dish, which is the traditional dish of India, rice or breads and a vegetable dish of some kind.

For my dal I made chana dal or small yellow split peas. This was a very easy recipe where I boiled a big pan of water with the yellow split peas, added turmeric, salt and ginger then covered and simmered for about an hour until it was like baby food. Then I heated oil in a frying pan and added cumin seeds and then chopped garlic until browned and poured the lot in with the curry – I also added a small handful of whole dried red chillies which I fried for a second or two first. It was gooood. I added a lot of extra water to make it soupy as this dish is traditionally served with breads to dip in. Surprisingly a large proportion of India wouldn’t serve rice with their curries it being quite expensive but I served basmati rice with cardamom pods, because I like it!!

For my third and final dish I wanted to use up a big bag of dried chickpeas I had in the cupboard so for the first time ever I managed to actually soak them for 24 hours before hand so they were ready to cook for another hour and a half til tender, then I could actually get round to currying the bastards!! Again from Madhur Jaffreys book I made Sour Chickpeas, or Khatte Chloe. According to old Madhur this is one of India’s tastiest snack foods, regularly served from street vendors so one to avoid if you don’t want to die of salmonella poisoning. Anyway this is generally eaten as a snack in India but fuck it here it’s a main ok???? After boiling the chickpeas forever, literally, cook a large amount of finely chopped onions in oil until slightly browned then add a small tin of tomatoes, cook down a bit, then add a tablespoon of ground coriander, a tablespoon of ground cumin and half a teaspoon of turmeric. Then add the chickpeas and some water and 2 teaspoons of gareme masala and a quarter of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Then after cooking it for 20 mins or so add a small handful of chopped uncooked onion, a tablespoon of finely chopped ginger and a few chopped up chillies. Serve hot or warm with breads or rice.

Anyway, impressively it was all eaten and we then tucked into a bountiful selection of chocolate and chocolate biscuits kindly supplied by Nat and Emily which was perfect for balancing the delicate flavours blah blah blah and also made me feel very very sick. I have had many happy dinner parties, and happy times in general in good old Salisbury Walk and will miss it greatly. Never have I felt such sadness at leaving a house and although am very excited about my next place I will always think of my Archway days with bucket loads of fondness. Boo Hoo. Next week bitches, when I will be a West London girl once again.

Week 13 (sort of): Marisa Carneskys Dystopian Wonders/Roundhouse

So, Ok this isn’t REALLY week 13, I admit it – I actually didn’t do anything at all last week apart from lie on my arse on the Heath and stress out about my flat. HOWEVER, for one thing this isn’t bloody work, I don’t HAVE to do it and refuse to feel guilty for not managing it for one week. Secondly; I will do TWO cultural things this week to compensate and thirdly, come on none of you care anyway! OK?

So, to make up for my shameful lethargy and disorganisation last week I have managed, thanks once again to the fragrant Georgie, to do something so arty last night that post show I practically gave birth to a copy of Art Forum. Georgie kindly invited me last week and although very game I had no idea what it was going to be about save for this useful little blurb that I received on the day:

A morbid show-woman and a sinister preacher invite you to their bizarre exhibition of curious nameless bodies. Be wary how close you get to the exhibits and indeed the proprietors, for both have dangerous implications!

Delving into the strange worlds of waxworks and religious cults, creator of Carneskys Ghost Train, (now permanently situated on the seafront in Blackpool) Marisa Carnesky teaming up with charismatic performer Rasp Thorne, visual artists from the Insect Circus, illusion designers and circus skilled artists to present Part One of her new spectacular seven-part show.

Before I go any further, for those of you in the know please ponder on this: it was performance art, it involved blood, it involved tattoos – GUESS WHO WAS THERE BEGINNING WITH D??? It’s not hard to guess who if, like me, you patronised the Courtauld Institute in the mid-naughties. Nice that some things never change.

Now, back in the day when I inhabited the oh so arty world of the east end (somewhere I now go occasionally to get drunk and that’s about it) I actually visited the above mentioned Carneskys Ghost Train. It was about 5 years ago I believe and I was interested to see it is now a permanent installation in Brighton, where it no doubt belongs perfectly amidst the hoards of tattooed and pierced weirdo’s. I remember little I have to admit other than that it was a jolly good afternoon out. Back then it was all about the burlesque I seem to remember, and Marisa and friends delighted us with a collection of skimpy outfits and sprawling limbs. Although am positive it was about more than that, just cant for the life of me remember what. God, literally now I think about it I remember NOTHING I may as well not have bloody gone frankly wasted on me totally wasted.

Well, anyway, this was a damn site weirder and, although highly enjoyable, I’m not really sure what it was meant to be about!!! Instead I will give a nice description of the performance:

Firstly, we were taken to a strange bricked up room in the bowels of the venue. Many of you arty cultured folk will probably know it well but for those of you as ignorant as me it was a circular room, all brick, with archways around the side leading onto a hallway surrounding the central area, if that makes sense. We were first lead in by one of the main performers, a very small red head who spoke in a strange voice somewhere between camp Butlins redcoat c. 1959 and terrifying girls-school headmistress. She instructed us to follow her, keep in groups for our own safety and not touch ANYTHING. We dutifully filed in, although Georgies hysterical giggles echoed reassuringly around the halls and I was particularly amused when the man in front of us fell behind so he wouldn’t be stuck listening to our blonde mirth anymore – somewhat ruined the ambiance but for that I am very glad!! Anyway, she lead us around the outside first so in the middle we could glimpse a shadowy group of people wrapped in strange bandages and a man dressed as Cardinal Richelieu. Then we were instructed to go into the centre and stand there. Through one the of archways could be glimpsed someone, also wrapped in bandages, trying to affix to him/herself incomplete plaster casts of various parts of the body. The cardinal and other people continued to progress round the parameter in silence. The red head, in a mechanical bored voice then proceeded to show us, around the sides of the room, strange half models/half people wax work style things. Basically at first they looked like waxworks but then you realised they were breathing and it was women wearing parts of mannequins and papier-mâché style body suits. The women, grasping torch from chin height to make her look crazy, explained, in same strange voice, that she was responsible for caring for the ‘exhibits’, on pink satin mattresses, restoring them, caring for them, polishing their organs etc etc. For her, apparently, they were like her babies. Basically they were subtlety implying that parts of these, things, were made from real people and reanimated to show breathing, blood circulation, or in the case of one; pregnancy - the stomach splayed to show the insides including unborn foetus. We were all instructed to come forwards in groups of 5 and look closer, which we all dutifully did.

We were then instructed to follow her further and meet ‘the curator’. We were taken to a lecture room where a women, I’m assuming Carnesky herself, dressed in the trademark 1940s feminine aesthetic stood at a lecture podium and in scary Sarah Wilson old school art history lecturer style started explaining what on earth was going on. In an amusing parody of art history lectures, slide show and all, she explained the tradition of, oh bollocks can’t remember the word she used, but basically a weird made up tradition of depicting saints in wax with their insides exposed to the world. This must have been inspired by works similar to those in the recent Sacred Made Real exhibition at the National Gallery which I covered in one of my earliest blogs. These were CREEPY beyond belief; 17th century waxwork statues in full colour including glass eyes and horse hair depicting Catholic saints and martyrs. These scared the fuck out of me, they were totally weird, and wouldn’t be in the least surprised if they had indeed inspired this crazy show.

The lecture got odder and odder, pointing out how fairytales such as Snow White demonstrate our need to live for ever, for our bodies to remain in perfect tact long after we have gone. She then started drawing in even odder references such as the idea that on judgement day these waxwork saints would rise again, her tone becoming more hysterical and extremist as she went along. Finally she asked if anyone had any question and a girl, who I had earlier spotted as an obvious audience plant due to her 1940s coat and hairstyle, and who was the spitting image of a young Sophie Marceau, complete with sexy French accent, asked if she really believed these waxwork saints would come to life on the day of reckoning. She did indeed and it became increasingly clear that this was some strange cult that she wanted us all ‘to be apart of’. Enter Cardinal Richelieu who was in fact an evangelical southern preacher. He started talking in crazy evangelical southern preacher style for a bit and then some girl came on, also in 1940s clothes obviously. She was barefoot and stepping to the front of the darkened stage she inserted her feet into (really nice) high heals which obviously contained some kind of fake blood pouch because as soon as she put them on blood started oozing out all over the floor – she started dancing in a weird stilted way pulling the classic religious poses as some women (turned out to be the red heard from the beginning) sang warbly high notes. When this stopped the preacher started again shouting at us about the judgement day and whether we would be guaranteed a place on the silver staircase. Then another women came in, after the preacher had exposed a ladder made out of swords, and the woman rather impressively climbed up it, as I turned my head away in cringey disgust, No one else seemed that bothered by this but it made me feel really rather queasy. Then more strange preacher stuff and then another woman doing lots of upside down twists and things using a big swathe of material hanging from the ceiling. At that point it started getting a bit silly and I’m glad that strain of activity didn’t continue. Each time one of the women performed they would go over to a side of the stage and start mechanically washing their feet in a strange latrine style affair placed on a red platform. After the last women had finished the curator, in weird washed out zombie mode, went over to the basin, lifted it onto the floor and at some point obviously surreptitiously plugged in a false arm as she started gouging away at her forearm with a knife and got roughly down to where the bone would be. It was really gross. Then she, or maybe it was the preacher guy I forget, called on us to give our bodies so we too could live forever etc etc. That’s when the French girl got up, also in zombie mode, walked to the stage and lay down on the red platform. The curator then got a big chain saw style thing and locked the women in a big clamp and started pretending to drill into her. It looked pretty realistic. Then after that, she removed the clamp and the French women continued to lie there, apparently unhurt although when she was having the electric saw thing applied she did a pretty convincing job of looking like she was being drilled into,

We were then asked to go back to the round brick room where the preacher and the group of random bandaged up people were all playing as a band, and they were damn good. The preacher was the singer. By this time the various models/women around the sides of the room were animated, moving around and stretching in a gross way, their bodies covered with bloodied bandages. One ‘body’ which was meant to be an authentic ‘half woman’, was wearing a mannequin face which has detached partly and behind you could see her own face covered in blood. She started silently screaming and interacting with the red head, now dressed in burlesque style red beaded g-string outfit, and the two started doing this weird dance sort of thing half way between really disturbing and high slapstick style comedy. The French women was all the time wondering round the room in weird spaced out post orgasm style and started stretching in amazing ways around the walls. At one point she was suspended from the very top of one of the archways using just her hands. Then she started to do this amazing incredibly flexible animal like dance all over the model with the exposed womb, twisting and writhing and doing really rather impressive things. Then she went head first into the womb and disappeared entirely. And that was the end of it!!! It was bloody ace, NO idea really what it was intended to convey other than ideas about cults and saints and religion and immortality and shit like that but it was damn good fun! Apparently she is doing a whole series of them each lasting only a few nights an would be well up for going to some more!! It also stimulated my biannual ‘why can’t everything I own be 1940s’ obsession. Must steer well clear of ebay over coming days.

Week 12: Tyndale Monument/Berkeley Castle

Hello again world. I am currently typing this with the Controller of BBC Learning at the desk to my left, it’s freaking me out but am assuming he is far to busy and important to look over my shoulder and anyway have just spent about half an hour on Gumtree with him there which is much more clearly a non work task than this. On that note please let me know if you or anyone you know is looking for a double room to rent on a short term basis from the beginning of May.

Right, this weekend I returned to the maternal bosom and went home to the West Country, to be specific a small town just north of Bristol on the edge of the Cotswolds called Thornbury. Not only did this involve being waited on hand and foot, having steak and roast chicken and Eton mess and large amounts of gin and wine bought to me at all times of night and day but it also provided me with a rich and plentiful supply of cultural delights for my blog, it being a rich and plentiful neighbourhood. My mother has spent over 15 years lecturing me about the history of virtually everything in relation to these sites every time we went for a walk and at last it will come in use.

First port of call was a favourite walk of ours for many a year which is the walk from Wotton under Edge to the Tyndale Monument. Wotton is a very pretty very old village/town that gets its name from its position directly under a steep hill which is the edge of the Cotswolds, i.e. it’s under the edge. Basic huh? It seems to have been owned by the Berkeley's since time began, a family that you will learn more about in but a few paragraphs. Lucky you. Overlooking Wotton is the Tyndale Monument, erected in 1866 by the people of the area, and that is where we head for our walk as it’s on a big hill and can be seen for miles around.

Tyndale was very important. He was born in 1490 very near the site of said monument and is thought to have taught the family of a local landowner for a while round the corner. He was educated at Oxford and at some point after this decided, inspired by Lutheranism and all that stuff, to translate the Wycliffe bible into English, so everyone could read the word of god and therefore hasten on the massive decline and eventual death of Christianity after everyone realised it was a load of crap. I should say here that if you’re offended by this hahahahahahaha - you a barbaric and delusional retard I have no time for you and neither does my blog and frankly I am offended by you. Anyway, translate it he did for the good of all mankind and, unable to print it in England he went to Germany where it was produced and smuggled back into England. By the time of his arrest in 1535 Tyndale had translated both the Old and New Testaments. He was sentenced to death and on 16 October 1536 was strangled and burnt at the stake at Vilvorden, near Brussels. His dying prayer: 'Lord open the King of England's eyes' was answered the following year Tyndale's English Bible was printed in England 'with the Kings most gracious licence'. The King James Version of 1611 also follows Tyndale's New Testament very closely. So, pretty important guy really. The Victorians being AMAZING as always decided to erect a big old monument to him on the top of the hill and it was done up again for the millennium I believe and you can now go all the way up to the top. This I did, going up a very tight and not un-scary spiral staircase and for some reason my legs still haven’t recovered. The view from up there was amazing though, especially in the almost-summer like day we had on Saturday.
On Sunday alas the weather was slightly less fabulous but not put off in the least we set out, this time accompanied by my father, to Berkeley Castle, but 15 mins drive from our house. Berkeley castle is the oldest inhabited castle in England and has been lived in by the same family for almost 900 years. Not bloody bad. Unlike many other castles it has not gone through significant modernisation over the centuries and the castle has expanded around a 12th century keep that still remains today. Much of the rest of the castle is 14th century. It was built appropriately enough to keep out the Welsh hoards, jolly good thing too. It was given by Henry II to Robert FitzHardinge, Governor of Bristol (who was descended from the Kings of Demnark), with power to strengthen and enlarge it, in roughly 1150. Its proper job fortified with holes for boiling oil to be poured down, a natural moat and crenulations etc. There are those slit windows for arrows and also trick stairs when you first come in with steps designed at different heights to trip people up when running up them. Clever. It was breached once by Parliamentarians during the English civil war, given back to the family a while later under the instructions that the broached walls, which took 3 days for the Parliamentarians to destroy, would remain ruined so the castle would never again be such a strong and therefore dangerous fortress. However, other than that it’s still a complete castle which is pretty impressive.

It is here that Edward II, according to legend, was executed by having a red hot poker shoved up his arse in 1327. A weak and unpopular leader he was also widely believed to be gay, hence the poker. I won’t go into details about Edward as frankly it would all be off Wikipedia anyway which is something of a cheat but he married Isabella and at some point sent her off to France to sort out a diplomatic issue. Whilst there the neglected Isabella took a lover; Roger Mortimer and it is widely believed that on her return the 2 of them plotted to invade England. Somehow they managed this and to cut a long story short imprisoned Edward here in Berkeley castle. They take great delight in showing off the dungeon which leads from one of the upstairs rooms in the keep down to courtyard level. Usually prisoners would have just been thrown down the hole and left there to die, assuming the fall hadn’t killed them to begin with. If that didn’t do it the household threw all their shit and animal carcasses etc in there in the hope that it would asphyxiate the poor old prisoner. Edward probably wasn’t thrown down the dungeon but installed in the room above, ready to be happily suffocated by the stench of rotting festering crap. He must have had a strong constitution though and alas it didn’t kill him. Isabella, wanting the guy to die of ‘natural causes’ left it for a while but eventually arranged to have him strangled in his bed by his jailors and alas the red hot poker story is almost certainly a myth. My mother use to take great, GREAT, delight in telling me his screams could be heard as far as Gloucester so she must have been very disappointed to hear it was all bollocks.

Other famous inhabitants of the castle include Sir Francis Drake who was good mates with the family and came to visit every time he was near by trying to find timber for his ships and also Elizabeth I stayed there at one point and shot all the Earls dear which apparently he wasn’t too pleased about. She turned up with her lover as well what an old whore. The bitterness between Elizabeth and the Berkeley family came to a head when the queen rode in the front gate with her entourage, Lord Berkeley rode out - a supreme insult.

The Berkeley family is very interesting indeed. I didn’t realise just how influential they were. For example; it was they, or rather a branch of them, who bought a great big house in London and, after a while, granted a large amount of their garden back to the city, or the crown or something, for a public square named, of course, Berkeley Square. This was sold off in 1919 for £2 million in order to restore the castle, probably a mistake I would have thought. One of the Berkeley’s was a philosopher and on his death had his significant library donated to Yale university with the understanding that it would be used to set up a new university on the West Coast which obviously, is now known as the University of California at… Berkeley!! I had never seen the connection as Americans always pronounce it bUUURRkley.

The castle is very lovely inside with some fabulous paintings, tapestries and furniture. Something that particularly took my fancy though was a chair/table/chest thing in one of the kitchens which would be terribly useful in my life as well as some beautiful Van de Velde ship paintings of the various ships under Berkeley command, it being a naval family. The family is also known to this day as being massively into hunting, the Berkeley hunt still takes place each year and they are famous for wearing yellow rather than the traditional red, or pinks or whatever it’s called. Horace Walpole, the subject of last weeks blog was also much taken by the place when he visited and bought several items. Anyway this has gone on for far too long and I have no doubt missed out all the most important things I saw oh well. It was a great day out though and an excellent venue for weddings which they clearly make most of their money out of. See you all next week!

Week 11: V&A/Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill

I don’t know about you but I feel like killing myself this morning want to be back in bed hiding from the cruel cruel world. I hope you had a delightful Easter weekend, mine was very nice but don’t worry, I wont bore you with all the details. Due to the fabulously long weekend this weeks cultural exploration is slightly late and having occurred a full 4 days ago please forgive me for forgetting large chunks of the exhibition, probably for the best anyway. This weeks cultural activity took place last Friday, when the bank holiday seemed to stretch before us like a land of dreams – why can’t I be back there?? WHY?? Accompanied by the beauteous John and Diccon we strode out in the pouring rain to South Kensington and the Victoria and Albert museum for the exhibition Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill.

As usual I must confess to my supreme ignorance re Horace and his hill, he was very important/famous/arty/loaded I do know that. I had heard of him and everything and knew he has stuff to do with Gothicism but, embarrassingly, I thought he was early 19th century not mid 18th – oops!!! Basically I have only ever really been aware of him in relation to Victoriana-arama, which sadly is true of most of the pitiful jumble of knowledge accumulated in my tiny brain, so there. Anyway, to cut a long and frankly highly homosexual story short he was the very rich and no doubt highly eccentric son of Prime Minster Robert Walpole and spent what must have been a not inconsiderable fortune collecting and housing his ever expanding collection of Gothic and Renaissance art and artefacts.

Strawberry Hill was his country residence near Twickenham. I have to say if I had the means for a country seat I would have gone a little further afield than provincial old Twickenham. I suppose it can’t be too far away from London as you would want to be able to access it fairly easily and not put people off coming for weekend parties. Ahh, can you imagine being able to hold your own country house weekend parties, only ones NOT full of posh wankers!?! Would have hunting and fishing and shooting and cream teas on the lawn with croquet and me wearing a big hat and playing charades whilst pissed like in Northanger Abby or whichever one it is. Which one is it? Who knows.

Anyway, I digress massively. Strawberry Hill is currently undergoing restoration and will open to the public again in late September and, top tip here, if you to the exhib at the V&A which is £6 or free to students; at the back of the guide is a token for 2 for 1 entry to the house which is valid for a year once it opens. Not bad. This brings me nicely to what was my overriding experience of the exhibition: it’s basically a dirty great big advert for the grand re-opening of Strawberry Hill later this year. Now, it’s not that I mind this or anything, in fact I know it’ a good, nay great thing to publicise this great national treasure chest etc. But, in my heart of hearts I do object to it, yet know not quite why. I think, maybe, if the house was unrepaired or a thousand miles away or protected by a fire breathing dragon or something I would understand but it’s not, it’s in bloody Twickenham and if you just waited a few months then got off your fat arty arse you could go and see all the objects in situ, where they belong. Obviously some of the pieces are stand alone fabulous works of art or historical interest or whatever. Great. But some of it, some of it IN the exhibition, was stately home junk shop crap that no one really cares about unless it’s in situ. For example; some paintings AFTER Poussin, some paintings AFTER Holbein, some paintings once thought to be by someone mildly important and since proved not to be. Who the hell cares? This stuff would look great on the walls of a fabulous stately home designed around its collection, but here!! Frankly, and this is a personal opinion I know; I wouldn’t pay to go and see an exhibition of real bloody Poussins let alone some 300 year old rip offs who the hell cares about them?

The whole exhibition, to me, seemed to hinge around one thing: the viewers ability to successfully visualise the usual Strawberry Hill setting for the objects. The curators even included floor plans of the house in the exhibition guide. The first thing the viewer sees when walking in is a load of, quite pretty, sketches and paintings of the exterior of the house. Throughout the exhibition there are images of the interiors including architectural plans, satirical sketches and informal visions of the rooms. Great but again, what’s the point? Just go to the sodding house it’s NOT THAT FAR and NOT THAT LONG TO WAIT. I felt continually throughout the show that the viewing experience was somehow displaced and alien, post modern in a bad way. I don’t really need to see millions of, frankly quite amateur landscapes of some house. They would look lovely in the reception hall, or the downstairs loo, but aren’t worth anything to anyone hanging on the walls of the poky V&A exhibition space surely? I am positive I am very very wrong about this, but for me it is undeniably how it felt. It was a feeble reflection.

The exhibition was curated oddly around a sort of zigzagged corridor. Apart from fashion exhibitions I have never been to a well curated show at the V&A. Everything always looks shoddy and badly thought through, shoved into corners with absolutely no understanding of space or light. They also have a really bizarre fetish for shoddy, wobbly looking faded cardboard screens with some insipid and depressingly faded looking pattern on. I have never been to a non-fashion show there that didn’t give me the impression leaning against a wall would knock the entire exhibition down like dominoes and we would be left in a room that hadn’t been dusted for about 35 years. They love beige as well, why?

Disregarding all this for a moment the house does seem wonderful and I am very much looking forward to going at some point. Walpole acquired the lease in 1747 stating "I am going to build a little Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill", and he asked his friends for objects and enlisted the help of his friends Richard Bentley, who was an artist and draughtsman and John Chute who was responsible for much of the main elevations of the house and the interiors. He spent the rest of his life filling it with various pricey objects, writing histories, criticism and founding a printing press there in 1757. His novel, "The Castle of Otranto", the first Gothic novel was inspired by the rooms there.

Seemingly every element of the interior and exterior are based on models from Gothic buildings both around the country and abroad. I greatly admire this – it reminds me of a documentary I saw a few years ago about Paul Daniels and Debbie McGees house which is new but built out of elements of old buildings to create a totally random jumble of architectural styles and influences. You can’t help feeling it all smells very much of new money, even if it doesn’t. It does look beautiful indeed and I like the fact that it was a hub of artistic and intellectual society. Towards the end of the exhibition there is a small section on female artist who Walpole somewhat patronised there.

Each room was ‘themes’ – a bit like a 13 year old girl crossed with Vegas. There is a Holbein room and a specially designed circular or octagonal or something room for the display of his most important treasures, which he housed in a really odd cabinet also displayed in the exhibition.

A few things that stood out for me where:

The wooden cravat c. 1690 Walpole wore to greet his guests one weekend; he must have been some CrAzY dude:

I was also fascinated by the toothpick case c. 1780 given to him by a friend as a gift. Who gives friends toothpick holders? What was said ‘friend’ attempting to tell him???:


Anyway, an altogether odd exhibition I felt but non-the-less worth a visit.