Scrapbook: Week 34

August 17-23, 2024

SATURDAY 17 We came away from the Art Workers’ Guild Summer Fête with a few special prizes from the numerous stalls, but disappointed to have failed to “splat a rat” called Brexit. We also failed to guess the weight of a dog called Lola. But we did win some original Tatty Devine plastic jewellery on a hoop-la game, and a Robert Ryan screenprint in a cheeky card game not unlike Play Your Cards Right, the 1980s TV game show hosted by Bruce Forsyth.

SUNDAY 18 The Municipal Dreams newsletter has a lengthy article on the pioneering council housing schemes in Liverpool 100 years ago that has a message for today’s political classes. First, that only local authorities can get the job done. Relying of private capital to supply affordable housing is a mistake even Liverpool’s reforming politicians made over and over. Second, that housing is a health issue. Liverpool’s early reforms prove over and over that having a home stops people falling ill and committing crime. That these are the messages Wes Streeting and Liz Kendall are now advancing on behalf of the current government is good news and offers some hope that change is indeed possible. The irony for them is that in the case of Liverpool 100 years ago it was the Tories, not Labour, who made it happen.

📌 One of the bands I became momentarily fascinated by in my teenage years was Fox, fronted by the delightfully ethereal Noosha Fox. Today I discovered that one of Noosha’s four children is Ben Goldacre, author of the Guardian’s groundbreaking Bad Science column and numerous books on medical quackery.

MONDAY 19 Our local museum, the Museum of London, closed in 2022 and is in the process of being re-located to nearby Smithfield, occupying the space of the long-closed poultry market. During excavation of the site a network of underground vaults has been uncovered which never appeared in any of the plans.

📌 The funniest joke of the Edinburgh Festival has been declared as: “I was going to sail around the globe in the world’s smallest ship, but I bottled it”, by Mark Simmons.

📌 While searching for a good film to see over the weekend I discovered that Kyiv’s mayor, the former boxer Vitali Klitschko and president and former TV personality Volodymyr Zelenskiy hate each other’s guts.

TUESDAY 20 In his Notes From The Underground newsletter David Aaronovitch says he’s exhausted by all the outrage one needs to absorb and understand these days. Some of it, he argues, is quite pointless and only exists because some people feel overentitled to complain about something, or other.

Meanwhile some schmo decides that a good slogan for an anti-fascist rally is ‘Zionists out of Finchley’, which is more or less equivalent to ‘Buy a Bagel from a Goy’.

📌 Harry Beck’s 1931 transport map of the London Underground, which is said to have been based on the pattern of an electrical wiring diagram, has been promoted as a thing of both beauty and function for all the years I can remember. Now there is a new map, a compact circular mobile phone-friendly proposed accomplice to Harry’s sprawling string thing, and it’s really quite a looker.

📌 As I near the end of any stitchwork project I start to resent it because of poor decisions I made along the way. In this case it was principally the delicate, silky sheen fabric I chose. It is not really strong enough to hold the intense, close stitching I do, even with an interface/backing fabric to support it. I think I actually need to become an expert in calicio, canvas and other sturdy cotton fabrics, and leave the delicate fabrics for light line work. I might even stick to one fabric and make it my signature background. Denim would be good.

📌 Joe Biden sounded a bit pissed off to me in the speech he gave to the Democratic Convention, like he still doesn’t think he made the right decision in stepping down.

WEDNESDAY 21 I was beginning to think the moment had passed and that the contrast in the media coverage would never be made between lives lost when a rich-person’s luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily and the lives lost as overcrowded small boats full of desperate poor people likewise capsize. Every day.

📌 We were meant to do an outdoor cinema session at the Barbican tonight, but a chilly wind drove us to stop indoors but watch on TV the film we were meant to have seen shivering on a hard seat in a courtyard, with Bluetooth headphones clamped around our skulls. The film was the supreme Wes Anderson 2014 comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel, with an exotic ensemble cast led by Ralph Fiennes. Tilda Swinton appears almost momentarily at the start of the film, and from that point on the fun is in spotting the stars (Jude Law, Saoirse Ronan, Edward Norton, Harvey Kietel, plus many more), which is always best done in a cozy environment eating chocolate and jelly sweets. Top marks go to the set designer for evocative use of plastic nostalgia dipped in a big bucket of ice-cream colours.

THURSDAY 22 In a column about alleged infighting in the Labour government between Sue Gray and Morgan McSweeney, Rafael Behr references a disposition known in Germany as Torschlusspanik, which he describes as a fear of the gate closing. I know this feeling. Every time I leave the house and close the front door, a moment of utter dread lingers until I “check pocket for keys”.

FRIDAY 23 Birthday gifts included the Anne Kelly stitchwork book I’d borrowed from the library but had to take back, a very funny lapel badge and some fabulous wool threads, which I can’t wait to try. A new sonic toothbrush, too. Wow, what a good haul.

📌 Finally finished the Sam stitchwork, which I have decided to officially title Platform Clogs With Chunky Socks, even if Michelle objects.

📌 The Barbican’s Ricochets exhibition was a gallery full of hundreds of large screens showing film of children playing. In between were some lovely small paintings, beautifully lit, of scenes depicting the same, in different environments and in different times.

📌 The Grapes Of Wrath at the National Theatre, despite some nice touches in lighting and music, was proof that the Joads’ story is a book and not a play.

Read all of my scrapbook diaries…

PLEASE MESSAGE WITH ANY CORRECTIONS, BIG OR SMALL.

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