This weekend, the Occupy movement came to my back yard. And they are very welcome. My back yard, since I live in a block of flats and have no garden, is Battersea Park. And the bit of my back yard that's currently occupied is the Adventure Playground, closed by Wandsworth Council in September, and due for …
Category: London
not quite hibernating
It's dark by four and we're in the middle of a sustained cold snap, but a hardy, not to say hardened, culture-vulture will still be tempted out by a private view or two. Last week, it was the opening of NULL OBJECT: Gustav Metzger thinks about nothing at WORK. The exhibition is the culmination of …
and then there were two
My visitors have departed. The airbeds have been deflated. The flat suddenly seems remarkably spacious, and strangely quiet. There's a new mark on the back of the kitchen door, recording the current height of my niece. She's grown 34 centimetres since the last visit 5 years ago. 34 more centimetres and she'll have outgrown me. …
full house
I have guests. Family from Australia, over for a few weeks. Which is fun, exciting, fantastic, and just a little stretching in terms of living space. Five adults and one lively seven and a half year old in a two bedroom flat. Finished reading Patrick White's The Aunt's Story while my niece played downstairs. And …
three nights out on the trot
Another busy week on the cultural front, beginning on Monday evening at the Southbank Centre's Purcell Room for Morton Feldman's For John Cage. The piece, for piano and violin, lasts about an hour and twenty minutes, requiring the intense concentration of both musicians and audience. Slow, often deathly quiet, the music creeps up on you, …
tripledecker
Tuesday 25th September: To Clapham Books, to hear Will Self read from and talk about his latest novel Umbrella. The bookshop was full to overflowing, and so too was my brain by the end of the evening. Will Self began by disparaging authors who give long, filling-in-the-background intros before reading from their work, and then, …
bottle that energy
Get 27 women writers, plus friends and supporters, in a downstairs bar on a balmy September evening, and you get lots of positive energy, strong readings, an appreciative and attentive audience, and a plethora of verbal surprises. The occasion was the launch of the second Loose Muse anthology, featuring poetry, stories and short plays by …
London latte
Friday morning. I'm in the city for a course, and I'm early. Summer's ending. It's a bright, fresh morning and I'm in fine spirits, for no particular reason other than the weather, and that's a good feeling. I have a quarter of an hour before I'm due in the world of work, and I'm going …
from cacti to fishermen
In the last week-and-a-bit we've been to three very different Proms concerts. On Friday 17th August, the Royal Albert Hall was packed out for a Prom celebrating the work of John Cage and marking the centenary of his birth. Many of the pieces were visually as well as aurally fascinating, with singers and instrumentalists dotted …
Saturday swim
Up at 6:30. Straight into swimming togs. Cycle shirt and shorts on top. Pannier packed the night before with towel, goggles etc. Kiss my sleepy, non-swimming beloved goodbye, and then I'm out, on my bike, into the fine, bright morning, cycling south along not quite empty streets, across Clapham Common where a slight haze shimmers …
Hilaire 