- William Kentridge, an animated-film artist at the Tate Modern
- Jamie and Jimmy do Southend
- Some insider gossip/hearsay about that Billericay Facebook party
I had a nightmare last night. I think I've had the exact same nightmare before, so it was even worse as I knew what to expect; DEATH. It was a survival of the fittest competition meets Masterchef and/or SmART. I had a craft activity to complete but like many Masterchef contestants, I'd left myself too much to do and not enough time. I was trying to fill a box with squares of card, and the nightmare was just me and my teammate hacking through cardboard with scissors trying to make thousands of squares to fill this box. We could feel the defeat in the air, and someone murderous (Gregg Wallace?) was lurking over us. God knows what those squares were for. I woke around 3am with a genuine feeling that I was about to be hunted down and killed. I watched some Gnomeo and Juliet on my KindleFire, hoping a cartoon would settle me. It did, but just a quick comment on the film Gnomeo and Juliet (based on, wait for it...Romeo and Juliet); I appreciate the appeal of animated films with celebrity voices, but that film is ridiculously overcrowded. Virtually every single person is famous (IMDB here). I watched the entire thing just picturing Maggie Smith, Ozzy Osbourne and everyone in a studio saying their lines. You just can't take it seriously, not even when Patrick Stewart's Shakespeare statue comes alive and reels off the plot of Romeo and Juliet to a garden gnome.
I got up around 10am (what's that? You were all up for work at 7am?) and listened to some more Local Natives. I went to the gym in the afternoon, on the way passing a cyclist who was riding with no hands and wearing a badly-fitted bright blue balaclava with a lot of extra room above his tiny head*. I looked at him and as I did he let out a MASSIVE burp (more on this later).
After the gym I walked up along the river to the Tate Modern. I was planning on going further to the Oxo Tower where there's a free wildlife photography exhibition (here) before realising I couldn't give a flying monkey about wildlife photography. You've sometimes got to draw a line between your wish to absorb as much free stuff as possible and going to stuff that's ridiculously dull and doesn't interest you JUST because it's free. The Tate Modern had a free exhibition on in the Tanks by an animated-film artist called William Kentridge, called 'I am not me, the horse is not mine'. Apparently it's a Russian peasant phrase denying all guilt. I think the Tanks are relatively newly opened and they're on the same level as the Turbine Hall (still disappointingly empty). The main room is octagonal with concrete walls and flooring and broken concrete staircases which lead to nowhere. This exhibition was a selection of William Kentridge's films which he'd made in preparation for the production of an Opera based on a book by Nikolai Gogol about a guy who's nose leaves his face and starts causing trouble, I think. The films are different lengths but are played on a loop until they all sync up again, at which point the soundtrack starts again. It's an odd exhibition, with the meaning hard to gauge as there are so many different references, but it's an interesting experience. You can sit on the floor and watch the films again and again if you like, and it's never boring. The music works perfectly as well, with a Russian track turning into an African track at some point (presumably influenced by Kentridge's South African heritage). This was the style of some of the animated videos:
As I left the Tate Modern I walked past a guy in a hat and to my horror, HE BURPED AS WELL! Two in one day! I find burping gross. Seriously, it's got to be one of the rudest and most disgusting of all the bad habits. It's face level! And it gives you no time to escape! I walked a bit further thinking about how I'd probably include that double whammy in the blog when, no joke, ANOTHER GUY BURPED AS HE WALKED PAST ME. What the hell was going on? Since when did it become ok to burp in the street when you're in earshot of other people, and what has everyone been eating?!
Back home, I called my mum to compare notes on our recent Pontins experiences. She'd gone there for a gym weekend in 2010 (pre-refurb). Turns out not a lot had changed in the refurb, except the carpet in the main room was cleaner in my memory than from her descriptions. She said it was sticky and gross when you had to get down on the floor to do sit-ups. Perhaps more interesting than this was her take on the Pauline Gardens Facebook party (see yesterday's blog post), as heard from some of the kids at her school who supposedly went. They told her that someone had pooed in a bed (reminiscent of the scene in Misfits where Nathan tries to do it to the new girl) and someone else flushed a hedgehog down the toilet. The 'hedgehog' actually turned out to be a piece of Broccoli. That embellishment in mind, they also said the mum was a junkie who was drugged out of her mind. The papers have her as a church leader who provided the party with soft drinks:
I mean, I imagine those fosters and WKD were definitely lined up by the riotous, yet considerate-about-beverage-storage, party guests...I just don't know who to believe. One of the sides at least isn't all bad; either the mum had broccoli in the house (considerate about diet) or the party kids bought it with them as a healthy party snack between alcopops. Mum said the boy who fell through the ceiling was the son of my old driving instructor. He was playing on the insulation stuff in the loft. It's nice to know that that's actually dangerous, as I always used to think my parents were lying about it.
In other news, apparently Jamie Oliver and Jimmy (surname?) have taken over the cafe on Southend Pier:
We spent the evening eating a Tesco £10 meal deal (we're talking feta and spinach stuffed parcels, rather than one of those bags of Chinese food), drinking wine and looking at photos of that monkey in IKEA in Toronto wearing a sheepskin jacket:
End of day 71.
*During a conversation with Abbie later, I learned that the technical term for someone with a small head is Microcephaly. She works with a kid on placement who is considered a medical miracle, as his microcephaly has left him with an underdeveloped brain but with white and grey matter mixed together. Apparently he should not be able to function at all, though he's been going to school as normal for 10 years.
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