As Henry James said,

It is difficult to speak adequately, or justly, of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent.

The magnificence of London is a daily assault on the psyche and the senses. I lived there in my twenties and had a magnificent time, but just as I loved London, I hated it almost as fiercely. The two impulses were rarely reconciled. Eventually, when I was able to sustain such a tempestuous relationship no longer - the torrent of contradictions was too much for me - London and I became estranged.

I worked my way westwards, back towards the sea, *where the air is clean, the people are friendly, and everybody is in love.

But the pull of London is still there, like weak elastic. Sometimes it snaps me back. I went there last week. Here, in no particular order, are some of the things I saw.

Annie Leibovitz exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery:

Some of Leibovitz’s photographs - like the Vanity Fair cover of pregnant Demi Moore with bling, like the shot of Brad Pitt in Vegas - I find gimmicky, but this composition is arresting on several levels.

Leonardo DiCaprio is depicted as - what? - a beautiful Greek God? Zeus? Fledged ugly duckling? Or is he Leda - part of a gender reversed tableau from Leda and the Swan? - raped by fame?  The swan is a question mark asking, ‘What will the child/man become?’ Does he love the swan, or has he killed it? Is it drugged? Or dead?

Close up, the texture of Leo’s hair looks like reeds in the wind.

Those shots of Marilyn Monroe on the slab were exploitative; this photograph of Susan Sontag, deceased, is different.  It is permissible (in my view) because of the lifelong connection between the subject and the artist. Susan Sontag died as a result of complications following breast cancer treatment. Leibovitz chose this glamorous Fortuny dress and shrouded Sontag in it for the picture. The image is disturbing, startling in its intimacy.

In her book On Photography, Sontag states,

“picture-taking is an event in itself, and one with ever more peremptory rights - to interfere with, to invade, or to ignore whatever is going on”.

In the light of her comment, for her lover, a photographer, the deathbed portrait becomes almost obligatory.

Time for a stiff drink:

Loungelover: Ladykiller: 42 Below Feijoa vodka and Arette Blanco tequila muddled with mint and fresh lime and crowned with a Rosé Champagne float.  Served tall and frappé.

On the way, I saw this advert:

‘Someone sneezed nearby.

Their germs will be with you shortly. Boost your immune system with Echinabrand.

Text ‘GERMS’ + ‘YOUR NAME’ to get a free information pack today.’

Fran Lebowitz said London is,

‘a place you go to get bronchitis.’

On the tube, this poem by Robert Graves:

She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep

She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.

Everywhere, headlines about ‘Baby P’:

Beside me, a few seats up, I saw a schoolgirl with a baby on her lap. The cream-coloured baby-gro was really grubby. I looked closer. The baby was a doll. She was a bit old for a doll. I looked again. The doll had no head. There were wires coming out of its chest leading to an I-Pod.

When we stood to leave the carriage, the girl frowned irritably and held the baby by the toe of its garment. It dangled there, headless, upside down.

It was one of those simulation babies given to girls ‘at risk’. They’re supposed to act as a contraceptive/deterrent.

Sarah Lucas: Penetralia:

I’ve blogged about Sarah Lucas before, she’s one of my favourite Brit Artists, so when I read about this current exhibition, a visit was on the cards. The exhibition was billed as:

a series of objects assembled from plaster casts of penises and flint…. to pose a challenge to ideas of gender stereotypes and sexual allegory…. in some of the sculptures bits have snapped off and been stuck back on…. a performance between artist and model.

The exhibits work as artefacts from an archeological dig, as objects from museum cabinets, or evocations of ritual and fetish, as funny bones.

I rather enjoyed the sunny morning walk through Mayfair to the exhibition, as well.

What else?

Bacon at Tate Britain. Rothko at Tate Modern.

Both very good. There was a display at the Rothko using UV light analysis to demonstrate the artist’s layering technique. Illuminating.

Oh, and some woman called me a cunt.

Why?

After seeing her aggressive and badly behaved small child whack a wobbly old man on the hip as he passed in the aisle on the train, I had the temerity, when same child grabbed the edge of my coat with every appearance of hanging on forever, to look him in the eye and - gently, mind you, nicely - ask him to please let go…

Snap!

* Frank Zappa : The Lost Episodes

Yesterday I found a postcard addressed ‘To The Lady of the House’ wedged in the letter cage.

On the front was a picture of a stylishly dressed woman lying on a pile of leaves, very Lady Chatterly. On the back: Autumn/Winter Collection: Kasbah, Roberto Naldi, Pomodoro, Kali Orea: 10% Discount.

Just the thing. How about, buy a new ‘autumn knit’ (jumper) and then go for a rustic roll around and wreck it on a twig?

Nope. The Lady of this House is indisposed, tvm, owing to a touch of influenza, whilst we’re sounding all Italian. Meanwhile, Dog was mad to tear the card up so after one spectacularly high leap, I let him have it.

Junk mail. It’s like slow acting poison…  [Cue wobbly screen effect.]

By the time I returned to bed with a Lemsip, I was in Elizabeth Barrett Browning mode, no longer a frowzy frump in a dressing gown with sticky-out hair, reaching for a laptop, but a lady reclining on a chaise longue, glass of Porter in one hand, quill in the other, thinking of Tuscany and Umbria…

And - look! - there is faithful Flush (the trusty ‘Jack Russell Terrier’/King Charles Spaniel-in-disguise) by her side.

[Five minutes later.]

Bang - back down to earth. The dog was sick.

Note: To The Lady of the House: Fever or no fever, next time, pull yourself together. Do NOT allow dogs in the bedroom.

The garden has gone wild.

It rained so much in May that there’s been an outburst of exponential growth. The shrubs have billowed, paths are impassable, weeds are rampant and there’s couch grass everywhere. Every year I’m amazed by it; it’s like I’d forgotten, or been born again. Nature is a force to be reckoned with.

Walking back from the field, I’m assailed by scents - wild honeysuckle, briar roses - and further on, the yuccas lining the road are in full bloom, each spindly stamen exuding an ineffable, exotic perfume.

The sun is shining and I’m walking along with Dog, when I see, by the side of the road, curled up, a dead badger cub. Oh. It’s so small. There’s not a mark on it. No blood, nothing. I prod it gently with my foot. Yes. It is dead. Completely stiff. No chance of rescue. Wild animals strive so hard to rear their young, and then this… Something about it just makes me cry.

I’m fine by the time I get home - I’m wearing sunglasses, fortunately - just one of those things. Looked like it was quick, but even so.

Coming up the drive, I see the house sign is completely overgrown. The reckoning. I shall smite the shrubs with a power tool. This means going in the shed, of course, climbing over all the junk, getting hot and sweaty, sunburned, taking time out from writing. But it will do me good. Yes.

Sometimes I wish nature would give it a rest, don’t you?

*Exponential growth:

Example: If a species of bacteria doubles every ten minutes, starting out with only one bacterium, how many bacteria would be present after one hour?

After six ten-minute intervals, there would be sixty-four bacteria.

(Jnr has been revising for G.C.S.E. papers. We are all sorely tested.)

As women go, I’m not one of the particularly garrulous sort.

Take my mother-in-law - please, take my mother-in-law - from the moment she is conscious in the morning - and we hear evidence of this filtering through the bedroom door when we stay with her - she turns on what we call ‘Radio Grandma’ and keeps it up, provided there is someone else in the room, of course, until she falls asleep at night. It’s mostly quality output, but what amazes me is the sheer quantity of it.

I, on the other hand, spend long periods of time not saying anything at all. It’s not that I have nothing to say, it’s just that often I prefer not to say things. I like silence. I like listening to music. I like listening to other people.

Unfortunately, as the woman of the house, I am forced to say certain things, often in spite of myself when I would rather not, and often loudly. I mean the category of comment which falls under one of two labels, depending on your gender.

1) ‘Having to state the bleedin’ obvious’, or,
2) ‘Nagging’

‘Can you…take the bins down/feed Dog/put your dishes in the dishwasher…please?’

‘Will you…take that out of here/turn it down/quit that/pick it up…please?’

‘Don’t forget your…sandwiches/coat/mobile/keys…’

These kinds of utterances are the oil in the domestic machine. Without them, the place grinds to halt, swarf backs up, piles form, and those weeny opportunistic enemies, germs, invade. In short, chaos ensues.

This morning, I woke up and discovered that the essential lubricant of our (generally) well-oiled household - my voice - had gone.

I tried speaking; I could only squeak, or whisper. The whispering - usually a signal to Dog that there is a squirrel in the garden - instantly sent Dog into a frenzy. The squeak made the others laugh. I got no sympathy.

Gentle instruction
Summoning
Mild encouragement
Forceful exhortation
Occasional frustrated hollering

were all beyond me.

I’ve had an exhausting, odd, but also strangely liberating day.

Exhausting because: for one, Dog ran off and I was unable to call him back. I have a weak whistle, so I had to chase him. He thought it was a fine game.

And because I’ve had to use the stairs more.

Frustrating because: I forgot I’d lost my voice, answered the phone, squeaked, and had to put it down again. The caller probably thought there was a nutter living here.

And because I’ve had to suffer several lengthy lectures/anecdotes without being able to interrupt, interject, contradict, or just plain hijack, the thread.

Odd because: I’ve used MSN/Skype to communicate with J and Jnr, when they’ve only been a few feet away in other rooms, in the same house.

thehorn,
.

And because I had to honk this* to summon everyone to eat.

I have, however, found one aspect of my (rather painful) affliction liberating; the inability to answer questions.

‘Where is…?’
‘Can I…?’
‘Why can’t I…?’

I was only able to shrug, and, with a pained expression, whisper three short words,

‘I don’t know.’ Or,

‘Ask your father.’

……………………………………

* Ironically, the horn was a present from my mother-in-law. I think she sensed we’d need it.

………………………………….

Flu has left my ears numb and ringing. This morning I imagined I could hear the washing machine on the final spin cycle. It wasn’t even switched on.

So I put ‘Mrs Bartolozzi’ on loud, and listened to that, instead.
[Aerial: Kate Bush]

A Drama in Three Acts

Saturday

MsAnn: That cut on your finger looks nasty, you should wash that in some disinfectant.

Jnr: It’ll be all right.

MsAnn: When did you do it?

Jnr: I can’t remember.

MsAnn: You’ve picked it, haven’t you?

Jnr: No.

MsAnn: Mmmn. In any case, you should wash it.

Jnr: It’ll be all right. You’ve just got a thing about germs.

They both sit down to watch ‘Mean Girls’ on tv and forget about it.

Sunday Morning

Jnr: I feel sick.

MsAnn: It’s probably something you’ve eaten.

Jnr: I was up in the night feeling dizzy and sick.

MsAnn: Were you actually sick?

Jnr: No.

MsAnn: You’ll be all right. It’s probably something you’ve eaten. Stay off the dairy products for today, OK.

Sunday Evening - Meal Time

Jnr: I don’t feel hungry. [Looking listless] I think I’ve pulled a muscle in my arm.

MsAnn: How did you do that?

Jnr: Dunno.

MsAnn: Let me see.

Jnr: There’s a red patch there and it hurts. [Points to said red patch]

It does look swollen. MsAnn prods it.

Jnr: Ow.

J: Let me see.

J prods it.

Jnr: Ow.

J and MsAnn together: Elevated Streptococcal Lymphangitis!

Jnr: What are you two on about?

J: Bloody hell. I’d better phone Kernowdoc.

MsAnn: I’ll get the number.

Jnr: What is it? What’ve I got?

J and MsAnn together: Blood poisoning.

Jnr: How do you know it’s blood poisoning?

This is how.

When we lived in Exeter we had a very fine brown Burmese cat who had his own cat flap. The trouble was, other cats used it and came in the kitchen and ate his food. One, in particular, used to spray and make the place smell. J vowed to catch it and ‘discourage’ it from coming inside again.

One night he heard the cat flap ping and crept downstairs. Unwisely, he was wearing no clothes. He surprised the alien cat on its midnight feast. He caught it up by the scruff of the neck to give it a talking to. The cat didn’t like that much. It ‘resisted’. It did ’scratching with a vengeance’, and at one point drove it’s claw into the heel of J’s hand, which brought forth some human howling and liberty for the cat.

Four days later, the point of the wound had healed. J went off to Newton Abbott to get his bike MOT’d and by the time he returned, his arm had swelled to the point that he could hardly take his jacket off. He was feeling dizzy and sick. What was more alarming, he had a raised red weal the width of a half a beer mat running from the original wound straight up his arm into his armpit. Stealth cat germs.

Up at A+E they told him it was a classic case of Elevated Streptococcal Lymphangitis. The pressure of using a stiff, antiquated clutch control had burst the simmering abscess into his lymphatic system. It was life threatening. He got a mega dose of intravenous anti-biotics and was kept in overnight. All from a cat wound.

It was such a fine, rare example of the condition, in fact, that they took a picture of it for a medical text book. (Except that the Junior Doctor didn’t know how to work the camera and J ended up taking a picture of his own arm, now in the book of fame)

That’s how we know.

And with that, we were off to A+E. Sure enough, streptococcal blood poisoning, but not quite so elevated as Dad’s.

The moral of the story? Don’t fight cats naked or pick your scabs. (It’s also quite sane to have a thing about germs…)

……………………………………

D: So why do you want to be a novelist?

MsAnn: Because I need my head testing.

D: It can be arranged.

prandallpage,
originally uploaded by biteykins.

I had a dream last night…

For some reason, I needed an operation on my head. Everyone seemed very friendly, but the intent behind all the smiles had a sinister edge. First, they had to crack my skull (there is probably a explanation from the ‘physical world’ for this part, J flings his arms around when asleep and I often end up getting a clunk on the nut in the night-time - it was terrible when he broke a bone in his wrist and had a plaster cast on his forearm - I kept waking up with a headache).

The next step was like trepanning (lobotomy?). They inserted a skewer-like instrument into my brain and moved it about a bit. I came round from the anaesthetic and there was a trefoil-shaped dent in my head, like a clover leaf, and a suppurating pink sore that didn’t seem to want to heal. In the dream, it didn’t particularly bother me, it reminded me of a flower.

Earlier in the day, I had read an article in ‘The Guardian’ about a man who suffered a head injury in 1975 and could only remember stuff from that time. I’d also followed a spurious internet thread which lead from a line in a Nirvana song to a film about Frances Farmer (a hollywood actress who, it was rumoured, had been given a lobotomy whilst in hospital during the 40’s).

I’d also made beef kebabs using long metal skewers. The meat had been particularly bloody.

The mixture of the real, the subconscious and the bizarre in dreams is fascinating. I might start trying to write more of them down - the ‘morning pages’ thing. Not here, though. This one is a one-off.

The picture above is a sculpture by Peter Randall-Page, a Devon based sculptor whose works I have liked for a long time. They can be found at several sculpture trails in the south west…(oh, and now, at the Eden Project)

Here’s another one.

…………………………………….

I cleaned the kitchen today. This involved several types of cleaning product, some of which promised to ‘kill all known germs’, others, only to ‘clean as well as the leading brand.’ I expect some germs escaped in the invisible grey area between the two.

I, Bacterium,
kld Romans. Detl or nt
gna get u 2

…………………….