OK, so I took a, erm, a sabbatical. But what’s important is that I’m back, for the next, ooh, however long I can be arsed. I imagine the spur for me writing this is that I moved to London 10 days ago. My first cultural outing came last Saturday courtesy of a Cardiff artist/friend who I never got round to seeing perform when in Cardiff. The man in question is Paul Granjon and he’s a performance artist. His show, at the Chelsea Theatre, was called Black Box = Ni and it was the first time he’d performed it. I can’t really tell you what it was about, but it did involve some talking about military robotics, a slide show, a blow-up sumo costume, Paul shooting himself with a paintball gun (very funny), a box that randomly gave him orders and some dancing robots. It was bonkers, fun and I’m not sure what it was all about.
The next day, I went to a Halloween storytelling thing in a yurt in Green Park put on by Spoken Ink. They’d decked out a yurt with lovely, wintry warm trimmings and cushions and scary bits and bobs, which we all, old and young, crammed into. It was lovely in there. And 2 storytellers told scary stories that, really, weren’t that scary but were, in places, wonderful and atmospheric, funny and sometimes odd. It didn’t always work but overall it was a cosy success. Had a rather lovely pumpkin risotto at Carluccio’s afterwards.
On Thursday I’d gotten tickets to see Harry Hill’s TV Burp get filmed, something I’d been wanting to do for ages. However, I arrived slightly not early enough (it’s first come, first served) so missed out by just 4 people! VERY disappointing. In a sad mess, wandered aimlessly around Westfield, which is apparently the largest shopping centre in the world or something then headed to Leicester Square. Once there, we found a restaurant called The Mermaid’s Tail, which is a bit crap but notable for the fact that they do ceoliac-friendly fish and chips. I enjoyed my normal fish and chips greatly actually. After that we went to the Prince Charles cinema (which I believe I mentioned in an earlier post) to see Broken Embraces, the new Pedro Almodovar film, a tale about a blind writer who relives a past affair. As an Almodovar film, I didn’t think it really did anything new and it did sag badly just when you thought it was about to get exciting but it was fairly gripping nonetheless.
On Saturday, I paid a very brief visit to the Tate Modern to see Miroslaw Balka’s How It Is installation in the Turbine Hall. Put simply, it’s a bloody massive black box that you go in. It’s one of them huge containers you see on the back of ships and, as you walk in it gets darker and darker, with the only light provided by the window opposite. What this means is that it gets dark very quickly but the faces of people leaving the box are fleetingly lit, with the light giving them a ghostly, unreal presence. I’ll admit, it was very scary. I didn’t realise I was quite so scared of the dark, but it seems I am. In the evening, I forewent the opportunity to see fireworks (ace, I hate fireworks) as Lisa gave me the wonderful gift of tickets to see Daniel Kitson‘s latest show. As usual, it was a brilliant show, thoughtful and funny in a way that no other comedians are, and in The Union Chapel too, a stunning venue.
Yesterday, I went to The Lexington for a game of Scrabble in the afternoon. I really like The Lexington, it’s relaxed and has nice decor and on Sundays they have Hangover Lounge DJs who play nice, headache-friendly tunes. Lovely stuff. In the evening, went to The Roundhouse to see Yo La Tengo supported by Euros Childs. Euros played as a three-piece, which seemed a bit odd, especially in such a big venue. Some of it worked, some didn’t. It was brilliantly weird though and some of the lyrics were amazingly odd, typically Euros I guess. Yo La Tengo I was a bit disappointed by. A lot of it seemed a bit flat to me. But there were moments that were absolutely spellbinding. More Stars Than There Are In Heaven from their new album, in particular, was monstrous and Tears Are In Your Eyes, beautiful. I wasn’t too keen on the venue either. Although the building is brilliant, it felt a bit soulless, like a TV studio or something. And the sound seemed to boom about a bit. In particular, the string section, when they came on, were almost impossible to hear.
Today, I watched a whole load of telly including the Harry Hill episode I missed, which gladly, wasn’t that amusing. Because I’d heard so many people talk about Miranda, I watched that. It was rubbish. So, I caught up on the new series of The Thick Of It, absolutely fantastic, love it.
Tags: Black Box = Ni, Broken Embraces, Carluccio's, Daniel Kitson, Euros Childs, Hangover Lounge, Harry Hill's TV Burp, Miranda, Paul Granjon, Prince Charles Cinema, Roundhouse, Scrabble, Spoken Ink, The Lexington, The Mermaid's Tale, The Thick Of It, Union Chapel, Yo La Tengo
