Hellooooo.. *waits for echo* - I feel like Burt Lancaster in "The Swimmer" when he arrived home from an epic journey to find his home deserted, the garden choked with weeds and the front door locked. Bleakest end to a film ever - discuss. And yes, I know it was allegory.
Anyway, here's some drivel.
Frieze Art Fair and the Ambassador's Gaff
We got invited to the Swedish Ambassador's residence in London, la di da. There was an evening to showcase the work of Susanne Simonsson, a Swedish artist who works in a similar way to wifey. We recently bought one of her paintings and that was enough to secure an invite via the gallery ("Fred") where we bought it.
My main mistake on the evening was to blank the Ambassador on the way in, due to not realising she was the Ambassador. I later apologised to Nicole (the Ambassador), who turns out to be a very nice lady, if a little tall for my taste. Anyway, having got over my embarrassment I happily drank too much free wine and enjoyed the talk by Susanne, and another look at her paintings. Both Susanne and Fred (get me, on first name terms with the hoi polloi) recognised us and came over to talk, which was nice. Didn't buy any more pictures, which probably disappointed Fred somewhat.
The rest of our weekend in London was also quite arty. We did the Frieze Art Fair on the Saturday and the Tate Modern on Sunday. Frieze was in Regents Park, and consisted of one very large temporary enclosure containing thousands of interesting things. I got through the "I don't get it" barrier with contemporary art long ago, and now I can happily say I like or dislike things without feeling like I missed something. Some of the paintings were spectacular, some weren't. Here's Lyn writing home about it, in her patented posh-finger-typing style..
..and here she is hiding her embarrassment behind an enormous sycamore leaf...
The Tate have a large installation.. installed, by a Chinese artist with the wonderful name of Ai Wei Wei. I wonder if he sits in meetings and demands it's my way or the.. never mind. Anywei (SWIDT?) the installation consists of one hundred million (yes, that's a one with eight zero's) hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds, on the floor of the turbine hall. Apparently on the morning of our visit the decision had been made to rope off the area, supposedly for health and safety reasons (the dust, you know. That got me moaning), but a more plausible explanation is that the good old British public were taking the damned things home at an alarming rate. Bear in mind, we'd only need to take one each and half of them would be gone. Here's what it looked like...
And here are some images from the Frieze Art Fair..
Phone Shenanigans
Shortly after getting back from Thailand (Did I mention Thailand?) I upgraded to a smartphone with O2. Of course I didn't go for an iPhone, because I believe in supporting the competition, even when the competition is rubbish. I got a Nokia 5800 and it was absolutely fine, if you ignored the fact that the screen was unresponsive and had to be operated by a daft little "Wand" that clipped on the back. Otherwise it compared well with wifey's iPhone, in fact I scored major points when wandering round London using the GPS route-finding widget, and my phone actually gave verbal instructions at junctions where the iPhone just dumbly flashed a little blue ball.
Overall it was a viable alternative .... until I sat on it. The screen (always the weak point) developed a crack, which grew over a period of a week until the screen was virtually unreadable. I began to look around for repair options. Lo and behold, during our stay in London I got a call from Northern Telecom telling me that they are now managing my O2 business account, and would I like to upgrade? (I think that's what he said, he was very scouse) Well of course I immediately said there was some mistake and I'd already had my free phone, but no, the scouser assured me I was due another. I was delighted, if skeptical. Anyway, to cut a long story short (oh, shut up) I settled for a free upgrade to an HTC Desire, which is, as of course you know, voted "Best Smartphone" in a lot of tech publications. I'm reliably informed that my new phone has arrived today and is waiting for me at home. I'm stupidly excited.
In other news
Feverish Halloween preparations are underway, basically consisting of a trip to Matalan to buy a costume. Mine's the Devil. The Hooded cloak and facepaint I can deal with, but the plastic trident, at most a foot long, is not good enough. I can feel some DIY coming on. I've also been tasked with finding some halloween music for Saturday's party, and Lucy you can rest assured I've been diligent.
A full report, with photo's taken on my new HTC phone (Did I mention that?) will apear here soon.
Laters.
Anyway, here's some drivel.
Frieze Art Fair and the Ambassador's Gaff
We got invited to the Swedish Ambassador's residence in London, la di da. There was an evening to showcase the work of Susanne Simonsson, a Swedish artist who works in a similar way to wifey. We recently bought one of her paintings and that was enough to secure an invite via the gallery ("Fred") where we bought it.
My main mistake on the evening was to blank the Ambassador on the way in, due to not realising she was the Ambassador. I later apologised to Nicole (the Ambassador), who turns out to be a very nice lady, if a little tall for my taste. Anyway, having got over my embarrassment I happily drank too much free wine and enjoyed the talk by Susanne, and another look at her paintings. Both Susanne and Fred (get me, on first name terms with the hoi polloi) recognised us and came over to talk, which was nice. Didn't buy any more pictures, which probably disappointed Fred somewhat.
The rest of our weekend in London was also quite arty. We did the Frieze Art Fair on the Saturday and the Tate Modern on Sunday. Frieze was in Regents Park, and consisted of one very large temporary enclosure containing thousands of interesting things. I got through the "I don't get it" barrier with contemporary art long ago, and now I can happily say I like or dislike things without feeling like I missed something. Some of the paintings were spectacular, some weren't. Here's Lyn writing home about it, in her patented posh-finger-typing style..
..and here she is hiding her embarrassment behind an enormous sycamore leaf...
The Tate have a large installation.. installed, by a Chinese artist with the wonderful name of Ai Wei Wei. I wonder if he sits in meetings and demands it's my way or the.. never mind. Anywei (SWIDT?) the installation consists of one hundred million (yes, that's a one with eight zero's) hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds, on the floor of the turbine hall. Apparently on the morning of our visit the decision had been made to rope off the area, supposedly for health and safety reasons (the dust, you know. That got me moaning), but a more plausible explanation is that the good old British public were taking the damned things home at an alarming rate. Bear in mind, we'd only need to take one each and half of them would be gone. Here's what it looked like...
And here are some images from the Frieze Art Fair..
Phone Shenanigans
Shortly after getting back from Thailand (Did I mention Thailand?) I upgraded to a smartphone with O2. Of course I didn't go for an iPhone, because I believe in supporting the competition, even when the competition is rubbish. I got a Nokia 5800 and it was absolutely fine, if you ignored the fact that the screen was unresponsive and had to be operated by a daft little "Wand" that clipped on the back. Otherwise it compared well with wifey's iPhone, in fact I scored major points when wandering round London using the GPS route-finding widget, and my phone actually gave verbal instructions at junctions where the iPhone just dumbly flashed a little blue ball.
Overall it was a viable alternative .... until I sat on it. The screen (always the weak point) developed a crack, which grew over a period of a week until the screen was virtually unreadable. I began to look around for repair options. Lo and behold, during our stay in London I got a call from Northern Telecom telling me that they are now managing my O2 business account, and would I like to upgrade? (I think that's what he said, he was very scouse) Well of course I immediately said there was some mistake and I'd already had my free phone, but no, the scouser assured me I was due another. I was delighted, if skeptical. Anyway, to cut a long story short (oh, shut up) I settled for a free upgrade to an HTC Desire, which is, as of course you know, voted "Best Smartphone" in a lot of tech publications. I'm reliably informed that my new phone has arrived today and is waiting for me at home. I'm stupidly excited.
In other news
Feverish Halloween preparations are underway, basically consisting of a trip to Matalan to buy a costume. Mine's the Devil. The Hooded cloak and facepaint I can deal with, but the plastic trident, at most a foot long, is not good enough. I can feel some DIY coming on. I've also been tasked with finding some halloween music for Saturday's party, and Lucy you can rest assured I've been diligent.
A full report, with photo's taken on my new HTC phone (Did I mention that?) will apear here soon.
Laters.
