4.20.88

Mark's new four hands piano duo. 

As has happened many times in the past he flung me a challenge - name for new group/duo/trio/orchestra. I was quite pleased with this one - four hands, twenty fingers and eighty eight keys.

Here are the very hands and rest of persons (Alice Diéval and Mark Lockett) playing a marvellous piece called Mattachins by Peter Warlock, composed, surprisingly, in 1926.

If I could have any job in the world - and indeed if this one exists - I would like to be a band name generator (human one!)

Current favourite: Taxidermyaccident.

Oh...My...God

We listen/sort of watch stuff on Youtube while doing exercise in the morning - yes, every morning! beats the gym, costs nothing and keeps all the joints more or less functioning. Arg, getting old-er.

Anyway, yesterday, I opened up the also old laptop and demanded we be shown the Youtube choice selected for my profile. It refused as I had to re-sign in and couldn't be bothered to go and find the phone, so rather than my usual selection of climate concerned stuff, permaculture, Climate Town, Adam Something (both excellent channels!) Steven Garnett, John Oliver, documentaries on Chatbots, food production, North Korea, etc, Masterchef USA and A different Bias, and all the other channels that mysteriously appear, there was a page of rectangles containing films about mega yachts, what Taylor Swift happened to be thinking about yesterday, Smooth Summer Jazz, football, worst dating fails, scary Japanese TV shows involving eating random objects, and . . . Shopping Hauls.

I was aware of these and had gawped haplessly at a few in the past. A shopping haul for us consists of going in Noz - bizarre French shop I highlighted a few posts back - and purchasing a few daft products such as never-should-have-been developed croissants filled with pink custard or failed-to-sell chocolate hyenas. We rarely spend more than ten euros and it satisfies the lingering browsing urge from years ago when we occasionally used to go shopping for pleasure. 

I scrolled through a few steroid-fulled, pink-fonted hauls. Hauls to fill a car. Hauls to empty a bank account. Hauls to keep consumerism more than alive and kicking. I watched one in its entirety as it was oddly impossible not to, which would explain why she - glamorous, slinky-haired, size 4 - woman I can't recall the name of has many, many thousands of followers, most of which, according to the comments, appeared to be mentally fragile adolescents whose new found goal, thanks in part to her, was to become very, very rich. One of the most striking things about the video was the perpetual and exhausting excitement and associated language. Oh. My. God. These are just SO pretty. These are just So cute. These are just SO gorgeous. This is just So pretty. This is just SO cute . .  and so on.

     

I'd like to do a film parody of us going round a vide grenier (car boot sale) with the same enthusiasm but . . . well, other things to do like garden taming. Here's a written version. 

Mark: OMG, d'you see that cute little LP of Japanese C18 court music. It's SO . . . flat!  SO shiny.

Me: Cool! but look at THIS! a real galvanised chicken water feeder - SO grey! SO metaly. SO adorable, SO . . . farmy.

Mark: Get it! And, did you see! Look! OMG. He's got reconditioned secateurs! 

Me: No way! What colour? Red! Oh, SO cute! They'd go with the chainsaw . . . and that new spade - except it's green. 

Mark: OMG! No!

Me: What?

Mark. That guy there.

Me: The one with the Elvis is alive! I saw him eating chips in Cleethorpes T-shirt?

Mark: No - him! He's got a pink Art Deco tea set that would look so like amazing in our salon.

Me: OMG! It's SO cute! And . . . no way . . . LOOK! he's got a first edition of Capitalism Will Eat Itself by Barbara Cartland - you know the Mills and Boon apocalyptic sub-series.

Mark: And it's got the gold cover . . . You ask him. I'm scared. It'll be far too expensive . . . Oh no. Wait.

Me: What? WHAT?

Mark: That - there!

Me: The 1970s food processor?

Mark: No - that! Is it . . . No, it can't be . . . It's SO COOL!!!! Fender Rhodes keyboard . . . with . . . original . . .  (musician faints).

Me: Thanks. If you could just put him over there - under that tree . . . Hey! Excuse me! We're having those secateurs No . . . we have to. Look - (gets out phone). See - the chainsaw? same perfect red.

Other person: OMG. That is SO gorgeous. To die for! Jean-Paul - JEAN PAUL! viens voir . . . look at that chainsaw -did you ever see one SO red!

Other person's husband: OMD (oh, mon dieu). C'est pas possible . . . tellement joli! take the secateurs - you must. Your shed would never be complete without them . . . sacre bleu, il me faut un café.

This was actually the recent vide grenier haul: rather CUTE and v old lamp. Ancient Japanese drinks coasters, two bird shaped cake presses from the 30s I think, coffee pot and jug for the gîte, a I-went-to-Paris ashtray from the 20s, a lovely Italian vase and a dark pink floral bomber jacket. All for the price of a couple of scented candles or a mid range eyeliner.

  

You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To

The tea time sessions present Cole Porter's charmingly ironic song about domestic bliss from the film 'Something to shout about'.

Londonia characters

It was suggested by Steven - the narrator I am working with on the Londonia audiobook - that it might be interesting to use a drawing/painting for each chapter. I'd already started a few pen and ink Londonia sketches - see some posts back - but it was an interesting challenge how the characters in my head would translate to drawing.

A few examples:

Jarvis - Hoxton's sidekick Finder and genial gangster.

Bert the Swagger - a dubious, crafty and porn-obsessed personage who lives in a stilt house at the edge of Lady Thames unearthing her treasures of the past at low tide. Pictured here suggesting a trade to Hoxton of a 2025 phone for something rather undesirable...

                      

The bread-mec - The local bread maker, pictured here soaking his aching back in a copper bath after a hard days bread-graft.

In contrast to the shadowy colours of Londonia, three of Mrs Caruso's pampered Cincture friends arriving in a well-preserved 1960s jaguar.

Misty

The tea time sessions version of this classic song.

Finally...

Having purchased a metal table frame from our local favourite second hand emporium some months ago with a view to adding a metal bowl to it to make a fire pit I was overjoyed this morning to find the very thing while wandering around a vide grenier. Vide grenier - also much referred to - is a French version of the car boot sale/yard sale occurring usually on a Sunday morning. This one is a great example, held on the rugby pitch of a local village, sheltered by trees and with room for many 'exposants'. 

Aforementioned pot (huge and blackened) started off with price of 20 euro changed rapidly to 15 as I dithered - mainly as I had no idea of the table diameter. I bought it, left it while we continued wandering and resisted many other bargains allowing myself a further purchase of an ancient hoe with which to scrape chicken poo out of their house (life just gets more exciting here...) some garden apricots, a melon and a free pair of sunglasses.

Mark bought a vinyl record of Take 6, a DVD and an ancient 30s photo album which I will eventually fill with pictures of our gite restoration project - eventually . . .

Ezra bought nothing. He's rather good at this. Thank the Lord.

I did ask the melon vendor if I could take his picture as his moustache was quite exceptional - braided each morning by his wife. She said I could take him away as well as the picture but judging by their rather contented body langage I think she was joking.

Mark considering Tupperware

old pot in new place

Our lad

He is a bit amazing! Or a lot amazing really. Having zig-zagged through many, many ideas or what he might do following art college (carpentry/guitar making/shoe making/clothes design and tailoring/cocktail expert/boat builder/ etc... he has finally settled on leather work - saddlery to be specific, but I suspect with many a dalliance into other areas of the subject.

His latest project carried out by hand on his very small bedroom desk in rented house - a collar for our lovely old family greyhound, Bali.

The leather used is all offcuts including little fragments of very prized sting ray fish skin! - the turquoise diamonds.

I will advertise his Etsy account once he has it set up.

Bali removed from the sofa for photo shoot - not overly impressed...