As I walked along
the road that passes between the Houses Of Parliament and Westminster Abbey
this morning, a man in a white van pulled over, alongside the pavement, blocking a side road. A
nearby policeman walked over and calmly but firmly said to the driver,
maintaining a totally straight face at all times, “you can’t park here sir, this is the entrance to Parliament.”
Classic. I was on my way to Tate Britain. After twenty years of living in
London, I went for the first time in August and needed to go back to finish the
job. I hope to return many times in the future. What I like about the place is
that the museum – particularly compared to Tate Modern – is fairly quiet. You
get the headspace to feel completely taken away and can immerse yourself in
some pretty cool works of art. Photography, sculpture, painting, installations –
it is all good stuff. There is a photo called ‘A Line Made By Walking’ by
Richard Long. This guy would take a train to the countryside, find a field
and repeatedly walk back and forth, along the same trajectory, to create a
perfect line of flattened down grass, which he would then capture on film, as a
frozen moment in time. It feels like he was doing it to prove his existence,
that he had actually done something. There were plenty of people in Tate Britain
who, in a way, were performing a similar task, to prove they were there, by
recording on their phones the video installations within the collection;
although their particular recordings are made that bit more special and unique
by me walking into shot. Ha, ha!!
It has been a
good few weeks since I have added to the hallowed HSD pages. Life is busy.
Looking for work, doing work, looking for more work. The kids going back to
school. Not enough hours in the day. During that time, we went camping with friends
in a farmer’s field in Oxfordshire. Living in the city, I am unaware of the
British countryside. Apparently, only 9% of Britain is urban but being a
Londoner, it feels as if the whole nation must be city dwellers. Arriving not
quite early enough to pitch up on the flat field as you immediately enter, we
were directed to set up camp on the slope of a gentle hill. This was great,
because being raised up gave us a view across the fields of Oxfordshire – an
endless noughts and crosses board of varying shades of green and brown,
crisscrossing as far as the eye could see. The kids had freedom and space to
run wild. After walking past a herd of cows, picking sloe berries from which
you can apparently make gin and passing close to an ancient hillside mosaic of a
white horse, a campfire and a couple of bottles of wine saw us through to the
end of the day, leading to a night of being unable to defy gravity and finding
ourselves halfway down the tent, as we slipped steadily down the hill.
In other events, the
missus and myself celebrated six years of wedded bliss by seeing Omar at the
Jazz Café (see HSD Daily Tune) and we also clocked up twenty years of living in
London together. It is incredible to think that it is twenty years since we
finished our time as students in Sheffield. I almost feel like a grown up!!
The football
season has been underway for several weeks now, in case you hadn’t noticed and
it is a joy for Aston Villa not to be already battling relegation but basking
in the glory of the top three of the Premier League. I feel quite dizzy. It
obviously won’t last but I know where I would rather be and not having to
stress about my football club has been very welcome. I took my boys up to the
home game against Hull, where Villa shockingly had more possession than the
opposition in the first half and won convincingly. Things are certainly looking
up!!
My own managerial
career has also continued, with the season starting for the Under 10s team that
I manage and for which my youngest son plays. We got off to a winning start
last Sunday with a 3-1 victory away from home. Happy days.
Last Wednesday provided
another soulful night as I saw Gregory Porter’s iTunes Festival performance at
the Roundhouse in Camden (see HSD Daily Tune.) He started with a cover of Someday We’ll All Be Free by Donny Hathaway before running through
his Liquid Spirit album, including a
duet with Laura Mvula on Water Under Bridges and a quick fire version of 1960 What? It was a privilege
to see such a wonderful singer and performer and an experience to hopefully be
repeated one day...
