I've recently finished reading, in quick succession, The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington (introduction by Ali Smith) and There But For The by Ali Smith herself. I found Carrington's novel charming and surprising, wonderfully anarchic, but with a dark subtext about humanity's exploitative and destructive relationship with mother earth. There are elements that reminded me of …
cultural pick-me-up
Headed to the British Museum after work on Friday to check out a couple of their Australian Season offerings. Out of Australia featured prints and drawings by Australian artists from the 1940s to the present day, and was an absorbing and varied show. Amongst my favourites were Sidney Nolan's powerful felt-tipped pen drawings of drought-struck …
a new chapter, and other clichés
I've been resisting writing too much about recent personal events (apart from screeds in my private journal), but now that one chapter has closed and a new one is about to open, I thought it high time to chuck a few clichés out there. I've been living through them, after all, for the last few …
waking up to Chandler
A fairly unusual occurrence for me - a book finished within a week: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, which I read because it came endorsed by my sister, and because I felt I should have read Chandler. How many other authors are there I should have read? More than enough to induce panic, guilt, …
three good things I did this week
1. Wednesday evening to Loose Muse at the Poetry Café, for some stimulating and varied readings from women writers. A mixture of open mic spots and longer readings from the two featured poets, Karen Head and Katrina Naomi. I was particularly taken by the poems Katrina Naomi read, which were quirky, a bit edgy, perfectly pitched. …
London peloton
This is one of the things I love about London - setting off on my bike on a summer morning, a cloudless blue sky above and the tall plane trees resplendent in the sunshine, vivid green against the blue; the air almost fresh (for London), already a sense that the temperature is rising; catching a …
my brain hurts
In a parallel universe, I have been reading about spaghetti maps, swimlane diagrams, rich pictures, mind mapping, and an astonishing number of acronyms. CATWOE, anyone? PESTLE analysis, MoSCoW, MOST? Welcome to the world of business analysis, where your Boston box contains both a Wild Cat and a Cash Cow, your fishbone diagram could be labelled …
The True Deceiver
Recently finished reading Tove Jansson's The True Deceiver. A cool, mysterious, deceptive (appropriately) novel. The writing is beautiful in an unflashy way - an almost glacial surface (hard not to reach for those Nordic metaphors), troubling undercurrents, piquant details. I was captivated by the sense of place, the winter which never seems to end, the …
cardew upon avon
There are many reasons to visit Bath: for the Austen connection, for the Georgian architecture, for the Roman baths and the new swanky spa, or, regrettably, as a hen party destination. But yesterday, the best reason to be in Bath was the Cardew connection - a day devoted to the radical composer Cornelius Cardew, as …
avian des res
At the end of a long week, on a day of high wind and changeable skies, we refreshed our somewhat battered souls by wandering over the river to seek out the Chelsea half of Spontaneous City in the Tree of Heaven, a sculptural installation by London Fieldworks. The site: Cremorne Gardens, tucked away between the …
Hilaire 