The island of San Serriffe

One of my favourite April Fools pranks is this one from The Guardian in 1977:

"In 1977, The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement in honor of the tenth anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. Articles described the eccentric culture of the island. One strange island custom was the Festival of the Well Made Play. Authentic advertisements also accompanied the articles. For instance, Texaco offered a contest for which the first prize was a two-week trip to Cocobanana Beach in San Serriffe.

"The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot.

"Few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology."

As a "leftie" myself, I can't resist The Left-Handed Whopper either:

"In 1998, Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a Left-Handed Whopper specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new Whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, many others requested their own 'right-handed' version."

98 more great pranks

Other links today:

+ Nine Inch Nails are back! New album out in May. On tour now. Great Reznor interview in current Kerrang magazine. Time to start visiting my favourite NIN site again.

+ Eboy's London. Tokyotastic! (Large image file)

+ Why cyclists wear black shorts. ROTFL!

+ English accents and dialects. A collection of audio samples at the British Library.

+ Brian Eno in Index magazine, 2002. "Musician, producer, and artist Brian Eno would much rather talk about urbanism, new computer applications, or emergence theory than something as pedestrian as EQ levels or his own brilliant musical history."

+ Eskimos actually have few words for snow, says linguist Steven Pinker. "Contrary to popular belief, the Eskimos do not have more words for snow than do speakers of English. They do not have four hundred words for snow, as it has been claimed in print, or two hundred, or one hundred, or forty-eight, or even nine. One dictionary puts the figure at two. Counting generously, experts can come up with about a dozen, but by such standards English would not be far behind with snow, sleet, slush, blizzard, avalanche, hail, hardpack, powder, flurry and dusting."

+ The way we live now: Bad connections. More on ego-casting. (Reg. req.)

+ Are socialites still networking? "More than a year after social networking became the leading buzzword in internet startup circles, companies in the sector haven't gained the traction early enthusiasts predicted. Still, many of the bigger networking services say the number of users is growing steadily, and if they're not profitable already, they soon will be."

+ Contact lenses react to blood-sugar levels. "Contact lenses that change their appearance according to the wearer's blood-sugar level could one day help people with diabetes keep track of their levels non-invasively, new research suggests."

+ Western states offer the most coffee shops."Coffee drinkers in the Western United States have the most stores from which to snag a cup of Joe, according to a new survey. Anchorage scores highest with the most coffee outlets per capita."

"Still 6 songs left to go?"

Last night, I finally saw the "infamously-explicit-for-a-mainstream-movie" 9 Songs, with a friend whose accompaniment to the film provided all the narrative I needed:

• [After one of the many performances filmed at the Brixton Academy] Me: "So that's the third song." Her:"Oh, so that's why it's called 9 Songs. God, does that mean we've still got 6 songs to go?"
• [After dinner, during yet another romp on the bed] Her: "I'd rather watch them eat."
• [During a bathroom scene] Me: "The paint effect on the wall's really nice." Her: "Not very practical though, is it? No splashback tiles."

Her constant stream of comments saved me from leaving my seat before the tedious 69 (oh yes) minutes were up.

Okay, it wasn't that boring: the movie never billed itself as anything other than an unpretentious, ordinary, explicit, lo-fi accounting of two strangers having casual sex and nothing more; and this spare, pared down approach made it refreshingly engaging, for some of the time.

Beyond that, however, I can't think of anything else to say: the movie was bland and the experience left me indifferent. Perhaps if more attention had been focussed on the guy's sexual experience -- his body, his desires, his needs -- I, as a woman, would have been more engrossed.

It's been a while since I left the cinema completely nonplussed.

I'll leave the reviews to the pros:

+ Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian: "This is no great love affair; there are no big scenes of tears and laughter; breaking up and making up. Leo and Kate on the prow of the Titanic it ain't. Its very casualness, its unfinishedness and downbeat messiness give the affair the feeling of real life, which by a further paradox makes it more engaging than something more obviously dramatic. ... Boring? Gosh, really? Is that why all those male journalists in the audience were gulping and surreptitiously recrossing their legs? Because they thought it was boring?"

+ The BBC: "Kieran O'Brien and Margot Stilley star as a couple who do nothing besides go to rock concerts and have sex under fluorescent lighting, but while they bare a lot of skin, they fail to get beneath it. All that's left is the cinematic equivalent of a painful rectal examination and not just in the metaphorical sense. ... Actually this film does provoke thoughts about the meaning of life - mainly because you feel it slowly slipping away in wasting 70 precious minutes trying to figure out what the heck Winterbottom was thinking with this stultifying, self-conscious, and flesh-creepingly repulsive lot of codswallop."

Where worlds collide

It must be obvious to even the most casual listener that Radiohead have diverse musical influences, but hearing the wide breadth of music curated by Jonny Greenwood at the Ether festival last night at the Royal Festival Hall reminded me sharply of Greenwood's eclectic classical leanings and the various ways these have found themselves on to recent Radiohead albums -- particularly Amnesiac and the spellblindingly awesome Kid A. Greenwood has said:

"I get these enthusiasms which can drive the band crazy, but I just say: listen, French horns are amazing, we've got to find a way of using them. Or I'll say, it would be great if this song sounded like [Krzysztof] Penderecki [acclaimed Polish modern classical composer], or Alice Coltrane [famed jazz instrumentalist]. And it's childish because none of us can play jazz like Alice Coltrane, and none of us can write the kind of music that Penderecki does. We've only got guitars and a basic knowledge of music, but we reach for these things and miss. That's what's cool about it."

On its release, Pitchfork described Kid A as "an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes".

The mix of music showcased at Ether last night was just as exquisite: from Greenwood's own subtly radiant smear -- by turns mystical and futuristic -- and dark and uplifting Piano for Children; through Olivier Messiaen's atmospheric, haunting and multihued tone poem La Fete des Belles Eaux, featuring 6 of one of the world's earliest electronic instruments -- the eerie, swooping and sliding Ondes Martenot; to the passionate and dynamic classical Arabic pieces of The Nazareth Orchestra.

The night was capped by a duet between diminutive Thom Yorke and Arabic singer Lubna Salame of Radiohead's Arpeggi and Where Bluebirds Fly. Yorke's voice is an amazingly unique instrument and his twisting falsetto crying over the sensual wail of Salame was simply mesmerising.

A gloriously hypnotic evening.

Related links:

+ Pop pioneer in love with the classics. "Classical music was Jonny Greenwood's original passion. He learned the viola at home in Oxford years before he picked up the guitar at 16. His first band was the Thames Vale Youth Orchestra, and he still remembers how 'the first time I heard a proper orchestra, the sound just blew me away.'"

+ Bodysong. Jonny Greenwood's magnetic score to the British film.

+ Radiohead at ease. Up-to-the-minute Radiohead news.

Just links

The best:

Some wonderful blogs I've been reading regularly:

+ Cassandra Pages. This woman writes beautifully about her life in Montreal. Her description of snow: "It's as if our whole world were inside an owl's wing: muffled, soft, white, and slightly blurred."
+ Budapest and the Rest. "The maternal instinct is, in my humble opinion, the instinct to get it on." Great line from an American in Budapest!
+ Meanwhile, Here in France. Another gorgeously-written blog.
+ Knäckebröd. A New Jerseyan in Sweden.
+ Stay of Execution. Sharp observations on life from rural America.
+ This Fish Needs a Bicycle. Have I not linked to this sparkling NYC blog already? The kind of blog-writing to aspire to; alas I could never be this personal.
+ Orangette. I will link to this Seattle food blog again and again, it's so yummy.
+ De Grouchy Owl. Another re-link to this descriptive account of life in urban Pakistan.

The rest:

+ Life isn't just as you want it? Remix it! "We're remixing our music consumption by buying songs online one at a time instead of in CD collections. We're remixing our TV behavior as TiVo-style video recorders let us 'make every night Thursday night'. We're remixing our media by grabbing online articles from dozens of different sources and then broadcasting our own opinions with blogs. When you get down to it, the remixing metaphor applies to almost any area you can think of."

+ Ego-casting, revisited. "Today's personal technologies, particularly the cellphone and the digital video recorder, are marvels of individual choice, convenience and innovation; they represent the democratization of the power of the machine. Our technologies are more intuitive, more facile and more responsive than ever before. In a rebuke to Marx, we have not become the alienated slaves of the machine; we have made the machines more like us and in the process toppled decades of criticism about the dangerous and potentially enervating effects of our technologies. Or have we?" Reg. req.

+ Geekfathers: CyberCrime mobs revealed. "Crime is now organized on the Internet. Operating in the anonymity of cyberspace, Web mobs with names like Shadowcrew and stealthdivision are building networks that help crackers and phishers, money launderers and fences skim off some of the billions that travel through the Web every day."

+ The inner world of Joe Blogs. "'The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything,' wrote Oscar Wilde 'except what is worth knowing.' Few things bear this out more convincingly than the world of blogging," argues The Times in their scathing attack on blogs.

+ Need a building? Just add water. "A pair of engineers in London have come up with a 'building in a bag' -- a sack of cement-impregnated fabric. To erect the structure, all you have to do is add water to the bag and inflate it with air. Twelve hours later the shelter is dried out and ready for use."

Let's talk about sex

Having grown up in the 70s and 80s, it is difficult for me to fully comprehend the high levels of secrecy and fear surrounding sexual practice. So last night's viewing of the filmed biography of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey was a real eye-opener.

The scientist Kinsey described sex education in the 1930s as "morality disguised as fact" and embarked on a comprehensive statistical analysis of American sexual behaviour. The appearance of the report Sexual Behavior In The Human Male in 1948 transformed the way people regarded their sexual activities by revealing how widespread premarital sex, adultery, homosexuality, oral sex, masturbation and even zoophilia were in American society. Its findings were so explosive that Kinsey quickly became a target of Hoover's anti-Communist witch-hunt.

The publication of Sexual Behavior In The Human Female a few years later, was even more explosive, focussing on such taboo subjects as female masturbation and the female orgasm. His research found that women were as sexual as men, and that a libidinous sex life was essential to a woman's marital bliss. He even found that women who had engaged in premarital sex were more likely to have orgasms in marriages than those who had not.

Although the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the States was a direct result of Kinsey's research, there are still archaic state laws today that outlaw oral sex, even within marriage: in Maryland, for example, they will lock you up for 10 years. In North Carolina: "If any man and woman not being married to each other, shall lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed, and cohabit together, they shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor." In Idaho, the penalty for adultery is up to a $1000 fine and three years in the state pen. Even "blue-state" Massachusetts will bang you up for three years if you commit adultery and five years if you sell a dildo.

Related links:
+ Famous Kinsey Report statistics
+ More Kinsey Report findings
+ Biography of Alfred Kinsey by PBS
+ Kinsey Institute
+ Legislating your sex life. A search of sex laws turns up some surprises.

"The daffodils are out, what about you?"

Spring on the London Underground

Hanging out

Had such a chilled weekend, yet somehow still managed to be as busy as ever. I think it was the glorious weather that warmed my mood and slackened my pace.

Saturday began with a lie in -- preparing for the day ahead by luxuriating under the covers, watching the sun stream in through the wooden blinds and listening to the birds shrieking at each other through the open window -- followed by a flick through the papers over brunch, and a saunter -- arms bare to the sun -- to catch the bus to Aldwych.

We meandered through the backstreets from Drury Lane and Covent Garden to the top of Tottenham Court Road, then walked down its length towards Oxford Street, wandering in and out of whatever gadget shop took our fancy -- dreaming up our electrical wishlists.

Arms still amazingly free of shopping, we strolled across a sun-hazy Hyde Park to Bayswater, where we sank into two antique armchairs of a backstreet pub -- doors and windows flung open to the quiet street -- for some liquid refreshment. By evening, we found ourselves at the cinema watching, in astonishment, Christian Bale's phenomenonly gaunt features and emaciated body in the predictable but moody The Machinist. Cheap and delicious kebabs in a fluorescent-lit and plastic-tabletopped cafe, followed by Never Mind The Buzzcocks on the TV at home capped a wonderful day.

Sunday began with a delightfully purposeless stroll around Tate Britain -- enjoying The Cholmondeley Ladies, The Saltonstall Family and Giovanni Canaletto -- then vanilla ice cream cones from the van outside, and a jump on Damien Hirst's spotted Tate-to-Tate boat that took us along the Thames to the Tate Modern for a look at August Strindberg's broody paintings of blustery seas and skies. I found Strindberg's paintings dramatic enough, but ultimately -- curiously -- flat and uninspired.

After another look round the Tate's brilliant Beuys exhibition, we ate dinner by a window overlooking the River: tasty Caprina (goats cheese and sundried tomatoes) and Four Seasons (mushrooms, peperoni sausage, mozzarella, capers, olives and anchovies) pizzas followed by rich chocolate fudge cake and pear tart at the Pizza Express next to The Globe. Neat double whiskys on Whitehall ended a fabulously relaxed "summer" weekend.

English summer

I snapped this photo last year under Richmond Bridge on the River Thames, and the beautifully warm and sunny weather today has me hankering after long, sun-drenched walks along the Thames, picnics and papers in the park, ice cold beer in the pub garden, vanilla ice cream cone dripping down my arm, and bare legs under floaty skirts.

Though I wouldn't go as far as one of my work colleagues yesterday, who chirped, "Summer has come!", to which I replied, "Well, an English summer at least." And we've still got two days left of winter.

Sleeveless ti-shirts and bare skin out on the streets. Even the two love birds are necking and preening on the tree outside my window. Me, I'm putting on my coat.

C'mon, guys, it's not that warm.

Infernal London

Last night, we saw John Virtue's monochromatic paintings of London at the National Gallery. I had never heard of Virtue before, but I soon discovered that he is a remarkable artist who paints entirely in black and white on giant canvases, one of which stretches across seven metres.

His epic paintings of London are bleak and brooding battles between light and shadow: the darkened buildings of St Paul's, the Gherkin and others slowly emerge from blackened skies and the tumultuous Thames in a manner that recalls the tradition of such European landscape painters as Turner, Constable, Rubens and others.

Tutored by Frank Auerbach at the Slade, Virtue produced abstract explorations of the isolated wilds of Exmoor and the Pennine uplands, prior to moving to London to take up his post as the sixth National Gallery Associate Artist. But he treats London in a similar way: his London cityscapes are void of people and the elemental worlds of water and sky dominate. In fact, it is only when you move closer to the canvas that the outline of the city's buildings reveal themselves in subtle revelations.

"I have no interest in recording a rhetorical history of London," Virtue has said. "Really I'm interested in making exciting abstractions from what I perceive. So in a sense I'm not a Londoner painting London out of any roots or any kind of affection -- I'm an accidental tourist."

Afterwards we went to the excellent Indian version of Wagamama, Masala Zone off Carnaby Street for nimbu pani (spiced, freshly-squeezed lemonade) and Cobra beer (brewed in Poland), plus a delicious lamb thali and a Malabar seafood bowl with rice noodles. Always a great place to eat Indian food.

Related links:

+ "This is London in all its rain-sodden, beery-eyed, nervy exhilaration", Simon Schama on John Virtue in The Guardian

+ It's curry, but not as we know it. "New wave Indian restaurateurs are eschewing the traditional image of chicken tikka, lager and flock wallpaper in favour of stylish interiors and posh cuisine. But one thing never changes - wherever you eat your curry, you can be sure they've got nothing like it in downtown Bombay." The Observer Food Monthly on the "new wave" of Indian cooking in Britain.

How to dry a sweater

Handy laundry tip, courtesy of Sam Shepard:*

"He washed his red shirt in the sink. Laid a motel towel on the floor. Laid the shirt on the towel. As he smoothed the sleeves and crossed them on the belly of the shirt he thought of his own death. Of how they might cross his arms just like the sleeves on his own dead belly. He laid a second towel on top of the red shirt so the shirt was sandwiched then walked on top of the towel with his bare feet, making tight mincing steps, squeezing the water out. This was something he'd picked up from his mother. He'd seen her do this with her own bare feet on top of blue fuzzy sweaters with small synthetic shells for buttons. He'd seen her toes curl. Watched water squish out faintly bluer than water. Bleeding from dye. He thought of her feet and pictured them so vividly that his whole mother appeared before him."

From Motel Chronicles

* Not as random a blog entry as it would seem: I am doing laundry right now. I am reading Shepard. I am also a little bored.

Life Is A Miracle

Black marketeers hoovering up cocaine from railway tracks, brass beds flying through the air, naked lovers rolling down hillsides, dogs pouncing on dying pigeons, suicidal love-sick donkeys, deranged opera singers, and bathing bears all featured in the chaotic, frenetic and vibrant slapstick-cum-romantic movie we saw last night, Life Is A Miracle.

Set during the Bosnian war, the movie ostensibly tells the Romeo and Juliet tale of a Bosnian Serb railway engineer falling in love with his Muslim hostage. It has been slaughtered by the English critics for its superfluous storyline and for making a farcical lightness of war, but I really liked the fact that it shows how the mayhem of peoples' lives continues in spite of the mayhem of war: at its heart is not a story about the factions of war per se, but a story about the factions that persist within a community.

I found Life Is A Miracle so delightful, warm, funny and beautifully shot, that I broke out into spontaneous applause at the end (thankfully for those around me, it was a quiet applause).

Related link:

"What is the problem with you English? You killed millions of Indians and Africans, and yet you go nuts about the circumstances of the death of a single Serbian pigeon. I am touched you hold the lives of Serbian birds so dear, but you are crazy." Director Emir Kusturica chats to The Guardian in the village he built for himself on a mountain.

Other links today:
+ Turkey meatballs with sultanas and pine nuts. Yum.
+ Mumbai to Midtown, chaat hits the spot. "Chaats are jumbles of flavor and texture: sweet, sour, salty, spicy, crunchy, soft, nutty, fried and flaky tidbits, doused with cool yogurt, fresh cilantro and tangy tamarind and sprinkled with chaat masala, a spice mixture that is itself wildly eventful. The contrasts are, as one fan said, 'a steeplechase for your mouth,' with different sensations galloping by faster than you can track them." More yum. (Reg. req.)
+ Saucy is the new foodie webzine from the people behind Bookslut. "This is not a website for picky eaters. If you're cutting carbs, eating at McDonald's, or buying margarine, this may not be the site for you. But if you love all kinds of food like we do, Saucy is here to entertain and enlighten." Yey!
+ Wiki becomes a way of life. Hardcore Wikipedians.

Cocktastic

I was really excited to visit the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at the Alison Jacques Gallery today because I have liked his work since I was a teenager, having discovered him through my love of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard. His photographs are perfectly controlled balances between "light and shadow, balance and symmetry, beauty and obscenity" and there is a wonderfully structured element to his work. The vintage silver gelatin paper the photos are printed on only serves to enhance the clarity of his images. I've only ever seen his work in books, so this exhibition was a real treat.

Portraits featured include rock icons Iggy Pop and Patti Smith (who Mapplethorpe lived with in the early 70s at the Chelsea Hotel); artists such as Andy Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein and Ed Ruscha; writers William Burroughs and Bruce Chatwin; as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Gere and gay porn star Peter Berlin.

Also hung were his architectural still lives, flowers and nudes. The exhibition was not as cocktastic as I had hoped and disappointingly there is a complete absence of any of his harder-core S-M images. But perhaps this is due to the curation by "nice and cosy" David Hockney: "I must admit," Hockney told the New Statesman, "I am not really attracted to some of Robert's more graphic sexual images -- I don't object to them, they're just not my thing." Shame really.

Afterwards, we succumbed to Waterstone's 3 for 2 offer on paperbacks. I bought David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Paul Auster's Oracle Night, Stephen Smith's Underground London, plus Fernando Pessoa's The Book Of Disquiet.

That's my reading for the year sorted then.

Knitting guerrillas

Knitting seems to be enjoying a fashionable renaissance at the moment -- not only in Hollywood but also in my humble office. The last time I clicked and clacked was several years ago whilst supervising school children during their prep sessions in India. I could barely master the basics of knitting: just "knit one, purl two" (or is it the other way around?). I never went beyond a one metre long scarf which I then unravelled and reknitted over and over again. For I was interested more in knitting as process, knitting as meditation. Losing myself in the click clack of the needles and the lengthening of the rows, I wasn't concerned whether my knitting was productive and certainly didn't care for knitting's potentially subversive functions.

The Craft Council's Knit 2 Together exhibition is concerned with just this: knitting as subversion and political practice. Pieces knitted from human hair, wire or paper from secondhand books hang alongside photographs of people wearing knitted balaclavas around NYC, knitted hand grenades and knitted furniture. Knit-ins on the Underground's Circle Line are also described and male knitters make statements about knitting being underrated because it's "women's work" and teaching themselves knitting and crochetting because "boys don't".

The relentless politicisation of the pieces (often simply for the sake of it) felt a little over-indulgent and tiring. However, I did enjoy one artist's work immensely: Kelly Jenkins and her humourous and edgy wall hangings based on cliched adverts from the sex industry. Her Knit Uncensored, for example, features a giant magazine cover advertising stories such:

• Turn your partner on with 22 new and uncensored knitting positions!
• Remember boys...It's all in the fingers!
• Real life stories! My knitted condom nightmare
• Nudist knitting colony uncovered in Wales

Her work gave me a much needed belly laugh.

Afterwards, we relaxed with drinks (Becks and heavy red wine) and food (aubergine and coconut curry, broccoli frittata, Greek salad, chicken with spinach) at the wonderfully bohemian Candid Cafe (part of the Candid Arts Trust centre behind Angel tube). The rickety Candid Cafe looks and feels like an delapidated 19th century French boudoir: antique couches for lounging in, huge wooden table for eating at, oil-painted nudes on peeling indigo and burgundy walls. The fact that it's entirely candlelit makes it an incredibly romantic place to chill in.

Scratch paper

I organise my work life with random bits of scrap paper strewn across my desk and Post-it notes plastered across my monitor. Despite working in new media and being interested in gagdets, I still prefer the tactility of paper over software when brainstorming a project or writing my to-do lists. I find my random bits of paper reassuringly lo-tech and non-linear (Post-its are highly associative, encouraging organic grouping and regrouping of ideas). The Post-it note has a spare utility that is refreshingly simple and efficient.

So I was curious to see how my favourite office utility would be transformed by artists exhibiting in Adam Carr's Post Notes exhibition at the ICA tonight. Carr asked artists from around the world to produce work on a simple Post-it note. They were allowed free reign over what they produced, so long as the basic qualities of the note were retained. Works ranged from the sublime to the plain silly: laser cut flowers, flick book animations, and notes with burnt out holes in them.

It's interesting that the Post-it note was created at the same time as the Apple computer. I've forgotten what a recent invention it is, and it's clearly become more ubiquitous than an Apple product. Apparently, the idea for the sticky note came to its creator, Art Fry, while singing in the church choir and becoming increasingly frustrated by attempts to bookmark his hymnal with loose bits of paper.

His colleague at 3M, Spencer Silver, had already developed an adhesive whose molecular structure consisted of minuscule spheres instead of an even coating. The spaces between the spheres meant that complete contact between tape and surface was impossible.

Despite the plethora of Post-it variations now available -- over 30 different colours, shapes and sizes, including software versions -- my favourite still remains the original canary yellow.

It was nice being in the ICA tonight. I haven't visited for a while and though they always have digital installations, I rarely see them. So I also made time to see their new media exhibition, Islandhopping, which their notes described as aiming "to question existing hegemonic structures of cultural, social, historical and political landscapes through the construction of platforms for discourse and spaces of tension via the recontextualisation of the geopolitical premise of the 'island'" -- a pretentiously long-winded way of describing what ultimately amounted to a great set of 60 pieces of videoart best seen after several drinks.

Then it was on to Soho's wonderfully homespun Waikiki bar -- surrounded by faded posters of Thai boxers -- to drink Moscow Mules, whiskey sours and Waikiki (passionfruit) vodkas. Now I'm absolutely zonked and ready for my bed. Good night!

Bossa nova starman

Tonight I watched Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and adored its quirky, oddball, deadpan humour, "terminal whimsy", technicolour overload, jaded lead protagonist, even its self-conscious and obtuse plot.

But what delighted me the most was the bossa nova reworkings of David Bowie songs. 11 songs, including Queen Bitch, Ziggy Stardust, Lady Stardust, Rock 'n' Roll Suicide, Five Years, Changes, Space Oddity and even When I Live My Dream, are reworked into lo-fi Portuguese acoustic versions sung by Brazilian samba star Seu Jorge.

Anderson is a huge Bowie fan, but Jorge thought that reworking 11 Bowie songs would be overkill. "I thought it might be like drowning your food in ketchup, with me being the ketchup -- too much," Jorge said. The Brazilian didn't even know any of the Bowie songs that he was asked to sing. "It's a different culture in Brazil. We only know Let's Dance. "

With the addition of Devo's Gut Feeling, Iggy's Search and Destroy, and Scott Walker's 30th Century Man in their original versions, I definitely need to get a hold of the soundtrack.

Other links today:

+ Cows hold grudges. Once they were a byword for mindless docility. But cows have a complex mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships and become excited by intellectual challenges, researchers have found.

+ Canine suicides. A spate of what appear to be canine suicides has animal psychologists in Scotland baffled.

More strange stories

A load of old rubbish

Yesterday I cooked a lunch of scrambled eggs made with smoked salmon, chopped chives and grated lemon zest on toast, as inspired by the NYT article on what chefs eat when not on duty. Then we went to the Tomoko Takahashi exhibition at the Serpentine.

Most people collect objects at some point during their lives, from stamps and CDs to jewellery and vintage cars. We've all rummaged through car boot sales, antique shops, record fairs and eBay at one time or another, the heart racing as we locate our treasured booty. I used to collect Indian stamps, bootleg Bowie cassettes and Enid Blyton books, but as we moved from house to house (nine moves during my childhood), I lost them and most of my toys. For most of us, collecting is a private affair, but there are others who are driven to share their collections.

Britain's oldest museum, The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, began life in 1683 as the displayed collection of an antiquarian, astrologer and alchemist. Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum also began with the eclectic collection of a single collector, and still today resembles a dark and cluttered "cabinet of curiosities". More recently, Robert Opie's collection of packaging and advertising materials -- items we all throw away -- formed the basis of Opie's Museum of Memories in 1963.

The Japanese-born and London-trained artist Tomoko Takahashi's fascination with objects as historically and personally significant has led to several installations, the most recent of which include toys, games, puzzles, old furniture, desk lamps, typewriters and computers found in car boot sales, skips and museum basements.

On the surface, these objects appear to have been flung into every corner and across every surface -- even the walls -- of the gallery, but Takahashi is as interested in order and classification as in randomness and chaos. Looking at her work at the Serpentine, it is obvious that she places great importance on a specific set of complex principles, perhaps known only to her, to create distinct environments.

So different toys are grouped together in islands of colour and function: from the rusted gardening utensils, astro turf and farmyard animals that inhabit one room; through to the playing cards that linearly unite -- in ascending order -- picture frames on the wall of another; and to the broken scalextric tracks, model cars, wires and computer peripherals of a darkened third.

According to notes -- to herself and to her assistants -- scribbled on floors and walls, the artist's process is just as important as the final art piece. Photos reveal that she ate and slept in the Serpentine while constructing her installation, and photocopied posters show which car boots sales she visited to source her treasures. I read somewhere that her sense of ritual is inspired by the Japanese tea ceremony -- skills taught to her by her grandmother.

The Guardian hated the exhibition, describing it as "a very pretentious shop window installation". This is the first Takahashi work I've experienced (thanks for the tip, Hypatia), and I really enjoyed myself. I understand that her work can be seen as a critique of consumerism and obsolescence, but I also saw it as a paean to hoarding.

I wish I had kept all my old toys in the attic now.

When I got home, I ate a family-size pack of Galaxy Minstrels chocolates for dinner, to -- ahem -- honour my inner child of course.

Other link today:

+ Fear and golfing. Just prior to his death Hunter S Thompson invented a new sport, Shotgun Golf, with Bill Murray. His description:

"The game consists of one golfer, one shooter and a field judge. The purpose of the game is to shoot your opponent's high-flying golf ball out of the air with a finely-tuned 12-gauge shotgun, thus preventing him (your opponent) from lofting a 9-iron approach shot onto a distant 'green'. Points are scored by blasting your opponent's shiny new Titleist out of the air and causing his shot to fail miserably. After that, you trade places and equipment, and move on to round two."

Via the ever brilliant Popbitch.

Food, food, food

"Life itself is the proper binge" Julia Child.

It seems all I'm doing these days is eating lots. Of course, I blame it on the weather rather than greed! Today I cooked lunch for friends in St Albans:

• Chicken thighs and legs roasted with paprika, garlic and mixed herbs
• French green beans roasted with cherry tomatoes and fresh basil
• New potatoes fried with bacon and mixed with fresh watercress

All served with hot ciabatta and butter. Even if I say so myself, it was all rather delicious. Perfect comfort food for a cold day. We worked it all off with a brisk walk and play in the park with the children.

The five of us met at Oxford and have known one another for around 10 or 11 years. We don't see each other as often as we'd like but whenever we do it's as if no time as elapsed. There's none of the initial awkwardness or small talk that sometimes arises between friends who have not seen one another in a while. We slip right back into intimate conversation and I always feel my most comfortable with them. I'm incredibly lucky.

On return to London, we had whisky sours, Mochito and mixed fruit cocktails at Soho's Alphabet Bar, then back home to scoff fish and chips and watch Northern Exposure season 1 on DVD.

Foodie bliss.

Food links today:
+ Busman's holiday: Special chef's edition. What chefs eat on their days off or on the road. (Reg. req.)
+ Orangette. Wonderful food blog.
+ French women do get fat. What the bestseller neglects to mention.

Disenchantment

Tonight we watched Patrick Keiller's London at Tate Britain. Keiller's fin-de-siècle film tracks a narrator's meandering journey along the River Thames -- from the City, through the Wembley suburbs, to the markets of Brixton -- during the tumultuous and low-point year of 1992: the year of John Major's election as Prime Minister, a spate of IRA bombings, the Black Wednesday

European monetary crisis, and the "fall of the house of Windsor". The film is rooted in a long literary history of the capital and references London's many chroniclers, such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud, H G Wells and Horace Walpole.

The London depicted here during the Tory years is overwhelmingly one of decline, isolation, failure and disappearance: in one shot, a huge, inflatable Ronald MacDonald bobs alone above a burger joint; in another, blinds flutter in the wind through the blown out windows of a bombed City office block. However, the film does identify moments of comfort and liveliness, such as in the suburbs of Wembley, or the hustle and bustle of the Brixton and Stoke Newington markets and Brent Cross shopping mall.

Beautifully melancholic, though very much rooted in the social politics of a particular time. As Screen Online points out:

"Nearly ten years after the film's release, London is a different city. A Labour government has given it back a governing body, and new social architecture. The Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern have reshaped London's face, and [the narrator's] worst predictions have not come true."

Afterwards, we ate in Brixton's wonderful Eritrean restaurant Asmara, where the owners remembered and asked after my parents who ate with me there last year!

Related link:
+ Patrick Keiller profile

Sushi heaven

Tonight we ate again at my favourite Japanese restaurant, Fujiyama in Brixton. We had a mixed platter of vegetable (sweet potato, courgette and red pepper) and prawn tempura; spinach ohitashi (steamed and lightly dressed spinach with toasted sesame seeds, fried shallots and spring onion); a sushi and sashimi bento box; and freshly squeezed fruit juice.

Japanese is one of my favourite meals to eat out and no matter how much I eat, it never fills me up to the point of discomfort. I'm curious to make sushi, but I suspect it would not be an easy process. However, it would be fun to have a sushi-making evening at home with friends.

According to Wikipedia, sushi -- made up of rice, rice vinegar and fish -- made its first written appearance in a Chinese dictionary in the 3rd or 4th century BC. In Japan, the first written record of sushi appeared in 718. According to Eat Sushi, "In the 7th century, Southeast Asians introduced the technique of pickling. The Japanese acquired this same practice which consisted of packing fish with rice. As the fish fermented the rice produced a lactic acid which in turn caused the pickling of the pressed fish." It wasn't until the 15th century that Matsumoto Yoshiichi of Edo (Tokyo) introduced rice vinegar to sushi rice. Sushi and sashimi (raw fish) became "fast food" in the 1820s, when Hanaya Yohei set up a sushi stall in Edo.

A basic sushi pantry should consist of:

• Sushi rice –- "sushi rice" is best, but any premium short grain white rice can be used
• Nori –- dark green (almost black) toasted sheets of seaweed
• Rice vinegar –- non-seasoned; this is the key ingredient of sushi vinegar made from water, rice vinegar, sugar and sea salt
• Soy sauce
• Wasabi –- a spicy green mustard paste
• Pickled ginger -- meant to be eaten between servings to freshen and cleanse the palate
• Sashimi-grade raw fish -- such as tuna, salmon, yellowtail, eel and prawn

How difficult could this be?
+ Making sushi. Handy one-page guide to download (PDF).
+ How to make sushi according to Kuro5hin. The comments are the most useful.

Mo Ca chill

A friend from Oxford was in town tonight so we arranged to drink (amaretto sours, berry vodkas) in Brixton's Dogstar to begin with, but it was so cold, we couldn't bring ourselves to leave until late. Luckily for us the Dogstar now has a restaurant upstairs -- the Caribbean Mo Ca.

The food was average but filling. We started with aloe (potato) pies with tamarind sauce and callaloo (spinach) fritters with cucumber, mango and lime chutney; then a grilled chicken with fried plantain, coleslaw and "Spanish rice" for one main course, and chicken with tamarind sauce, pineapple and mango chutney plus "Spanish rice" (tasted like pre-flavoured Uncle Ben's to me) for another. Mo Ca is probably better for lunch or else after alot of evening drinking.

Along with the Queen, the Effra and the Duke of Edinburgh, the Dogstar is one of my favourite places to drink. In fact, there are so many great places to eat and drink in Brixton, I don't know why I don't hang out there more often.

Related link:

+ Urban 75's guide to Brixton. The only guide to Brixton you'll ever need to consult.

Other links today:

+ Engineers devise invisibility shield. "The key to the concept is to reduce light scattering. We see objects because light bounces off them; if this scattering of light could be prevented (and if the objects didn't absorb any light) they would become invisible. The plasmonic screen suppresses scattering by resonating in tune with the illuminating light."

+ The real world behind James Bond. "Documents and photographs released by MI5 have given a fascinating insight into the real-life intrigue which inspired James Bond's creator Ian Fleming - from exploding fountain pens to human torpedoes."

+ My own private Tokyo. William Gibson in Tokyo -- an old article, which I've been re-reading since starting Idoru.

+ Disneyland with the death penalty. William Gibson in Singapore. Another, even older article.

+ The $1,000 omelette. Made with lobster and lots of caviar.

Prankster geeks

Had such a hankering for South Indian food yesterday that I returned to my favourite South Indian vegetarian restaurant, Ravi Shankar Bhel Poori House on Drummond Street, for lunch. I last ate there two years ago, celebrating the passing of my viva and getting my degree. The food was as delicious as I remembered it.

Of course I had a bhel poori (a cold mixture of poori, puffed rice, potatoes, red onions, green chillis, and a spiced sweet and sour sauce) with my salty lassi (a plain yoghurt drink), then an amazing spinach and paneer cheese dosa which I had never had before (rice pancakes filled with spinach, curd cheese and some grain I couldn't identify, accompanied by coconut chutney and a vegetable sambhar). Though I couldn't finish the dosa (they kindly packed it for me to take away) I couldn't resist ordering the creamy saffron shrikhand for dessert. I don't know why I eat there so infrequently.

Afterwards, we watched The Yes Men, a documentary film about two anti-globalisation pranksters duping business people into thinking they are global trade advocates.

I went to see the movie because we knew some of the people involved in its making. And it had its interesting moments: Fictional WTO spokesmen fly all over the world delivering lightly-disguised anti-free-trade lectures on such absurd topics as recycling post-consumer waste into fast food for the developing world and spying on your oppressed workers with the help of a gold lame codpiece with a two-way TV screen.

The latter lecture is delivered to a business audience whose passive acceptance of the message is disturbing, though one wonders whether any of them were actually listening -- too bored out of their minds to pay attention. The former lecture is presented to university students who are suitably outraged but take it so seriously they fail to work out its satirical subtext -- a failure that is just as disturbing.

Much of the film is spent following the incredibly geeky Yes Men around the world as they prepare for their stunts. There is so little context, comment or analysis that the movie ultimately underwhelms. In short, it bored me. Unlike Michael Moore's documentaries, there is little here to convince those who are not anti-globalisation activists that the WTO is fundamentally flawed.

The Yes Men lost my sympathy last year when it was revealed that they were behind the cruel hoax that led to thousands of Bhopal victims of the Union Carbide disaster of 1984 believing they were to be offered a $12 billion settlement. It was a prank that went too far and had more impact on the victims of the disaster than on the perpetrators.

I agree with The Guardian's assessment of the activist hoaxers: "The stunts were not so much self-defeating as self-cancelling, leaving the corporate structure undamaged in each case".

Related link:

+ Bring back the awkward squad. The circus of celebrities and cheap stunts is a bastardisation of a crucial aspect of political culture, argues The Guardian:

"Dramatic stunts and well-orchestrated media coverage have ensured that a succession of modest minority interest groups has held the public interest to ransom - the petrol-pump protests, Fathers4Justice and the pro-hunt lobby have all shown that you don't need to mobilise the support of large numbers, and that you can bin the questions of legitimacy, the careful research, or the reasoned debate once regarded as essential to advance your cause. Now, the most useful prerequisites for campaigning are a taste for extreme sports, a talent for acting or a clever conman."

High-flying

The world's highest tennis court -- built 211 metres high and covering a surface area of 415 square metres -- on the helipad of a luxury hotel in Dubai.

I've visited the world's highest cricket pitch, in India's Himachal Pradesh. Built in 1893 by a cricket-mad Maharaja, after levelling a hilltop, this cricket pitch stands at 2444 metres high.

Other links today:

+ Civet coffee: "the rarest coffee in existence", of which "only 500kgs are found each year", produced "after fermentation in the civet cat's digestive tract". What's so special about a £22.95 for 57gram packet of civet coffee? Nothing much, according to Blogjam.

+ Office sweeties have no secrets. Office romances are on the rise, but your IT administrator knows every detail. "Your network administrator has a copy of every e-mail you've sent and received over the company network. Instant messaging is not the answer -- IT can view anything on your computer while it's on the network, including your chat logs and the window you have open on your screen. A web-mail message can't be intercepted, but that doesn't mean it can't be read while you're composing or reading it."

+ Our waste howling 'cyberness'. "Blogging, I've discovered, is about as stimulating as singing to my refrigerator. The echo of my words dissolves quickly into silence. I long for a regular card game, a lively cafe, a place where individual expression is heard and seen in the flesh, not tapped onto a screen and sent into cyberspace where it awaits someone else wandering around in the wilderness."

+ Virtual girlfriends. "Men, are you tired of the time, trouble and expense of having a girlfriend? Irritated by the difficulty of finding a new one? Eberhard Schoneburg, the chief executive of the software maker Artificial Life Inc. of Hong Kong, may have found the answer: a virtual girlfriend named Vivienne who goes wherever you go. Vivienne likes to be taken to movies and bars. She loves to be given virtual flowers and chocolates, and she can translate six languages if you travel overseas. She never undresses, although she has some skimpy outfits for the gym, and is a tease who draws the line at anything beyond blowing kisses." (Reg. req.)

Africa Remix

Last night we saw the Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent exhibition at the Hayward Gallery -- the largest exhibition of contemporary African art ever seen in Europe, but which isn't about "African art" as such. Featuring artists from across Africa -- from Algeria to Zimbabwe -- the show covers a wide breadth of mediums from video installations and photography to sculpture and painting, and is as gloriously incoherent, diverse and eclectic as the continent itself.

In an attempt to impose some form of structured narrative, the show explores the intersections between various themes: City and Land (for example, Ghanaian El Anatsui's shimmering eight metre high golden cloth hanging made from thousands of bottle tops, and Nigerian Dilomprizulike's sculpture of people standing at a bus stop made of plastic bags, rusted metal, clothing offcuts and other found materials), History and Identity (featuring, among others, central African Samuel Fosso's photographs of himself in various guises from a woman to a sailor), and Body and Soul (for example, Egyptian artist Abd El Ghany Kenawy's video installation on memory and hope).

A chaotic feast of such diversity that my senses were a little overwhelmed. But knowing nothing about the contemporary African art scene (I doubt a singular one exists), I discovered artists I would like to investigate more, particularly Samuel Fosso (photo above), Jane Alexander (photo below), Allan deSouza, and Bodys Isek Kingelez.

Related links:

+ Africa remix 2005 official site (Flash needed)
+ BBC World Service programme discussing issues raised from Africa Remix
+ BBC's Africa 2005 pages
+ Behind the mask. Naive, primitive? African artists have outgrown these labels. Why haven't we, asks The Times.

Voodoo kitchen

It's scary how badly I want these.

Via Cheesedip, who also shares my bacon obsession (speaking of which, check out Bacontarian; speaking of which again, my favourite bacon dish is very simple: bacon stir-fried with garlic and chopped brussel sprouts -- though spring greens are also a perfectly delicious sprouts substitute; and speaking of which for the final time, bacon was the first meat I ate after having been vegetarian for 11 years, in Delhi, India, on the first day of 1994).

Desperate foodies

Along with half the western world, it seems, I have succumbed to the fever that is Desperate Housewives. Intrigued by the hype that DH would be a Sex and the City / Twin Peaks mashup, I watched the first episode and was hooked. Though it hasn't really lived up to its promise, it's still the only other TV show I record so as not to miss it (the other is the Eastenders omnibus).

Being a foodie, I couldn't resist this review of DH in last month's The Observer Food Monthly. "Desperate Housewives is all about food," The Observer declared.

"At the wake of a suicidal Alpha housewife, for example, each of our main characters arrives bearing a dish which offers a deeper insight into her life. We meet Bree (Brie?), who brings colour-coded baskets of exquisite foodstuffs, trails the family she's neglected totally in pursuit of domestic excellence in her wake (to Bree, cooking isn't an expression of love, it's what she does instead); and who tries to kill her husband with a rogue onion. We meet Susan, who equates her inability to cook with deeper failings, and who doesn't blame her husband for leaving her because of it. Ex-career gal Lynette, who has exchanged a gleeful shimmy up the career ladder for motherhood, and who is now forced to buy her fried chicken from a grease-bucket takeaway. Trashy, flashy, slutty divorcee Edie, who specialises in fluffy, sugar-dusted desserts, which impress in the short term, but ultimately prove to be sickly and empty of nutritional value. Food as psychology, see?

"But that's all a bit subtle for me. I have a honed instinct for these things, and have already gleaned the core lesson of Desperate Housewives. And it's this: people who are obsessed by food, people who can cook, or care about cooking, are messed up, bad, or dead; those that aren't, can't or don't, are fun-loving, human and good. See Mary Alice (waffle maker) - dead. Susan (Teri Hatcher, burner of macaroni cheese) - most sympathetic character by far. Bree (obsessive chef) - murderous and miserable. Lynette (too harassed to fry chicken) - funny, spirited, admirable. I applaud this sentiment."

Other links today:

+ Craig's List London. When did this launch? How did I miss it? The best online classifieds here at last.

+ Tomoko Takahashi at the Serpentine. Thanks for the tip-off Hypatia.

+ David Bryne is in New Zealand. I wanna go, I wanna go!

Exile

"Raw, impassioned and provocative, German drama Head-On lives up to its title in its opening minutes, as angry alcoholic Cahit deliberately drives his car into a wall. This failed suicide attempt brings him together with Sibel, the equally desperate daughter of strict Muslim Turks, who begs Cahit to join her in a marriage of convenience. Soon enough, though, faked feelings turn real in a film that's part comedy, part tragedy and filled with a sense of edgy surprise." BBC review.

Saw this brilliant and hedonistic film last night. Head-On tells the story of two self-destructive Turkish immigrants in working class Hamburg, who meet in a psychiatric hospital and embark on an intense and fraught relationship of emotional resuscitation. A great Goth soundtrack too, featuring the likes of Sisters of Mercy and Depeche Mode.

Tonight we ate at the French restaurant Boulevard Brasserie in the heart of Covent Garden's theatre district. Relaxed and informal, with impeccable service -- they didn't quibble when we wanted to move tables; they didn't rush us between courses, allowing us to chat at leisure; and they even went out to buy a pack of cigarettes for one of us. The decor was a little bistro-twee (lots of mirrors and cane chairs) but the food was simple and fresh.

For starters we had baked goats cheese on a mashed potato cake with a rocket salad, and a duck liver parfait with cherry and madeira compote and toasted brioche. For main courses we had a roast salmon steak with parsley mash and a watercress sauce, also a mixed mushroom risotto with parmesan and truffle oil. I ate the duck confit with cassoulet beans, with the duck meltingly tender and falling off the bone. For desserts it was creme brule and lemon tart. Oh yes, and red wine and complimentary glasses of champagne!

A great evening, catching up on work and families.

Other links today:

+ A taste for violence and death starts young for Colombian boys, writes Martin Amis. "On the streets of Colombia, young boys cripple or murder each other just for showing disrespect or for winning at a game of cards. Is the taste for violence opening up a wound that can never heal?"

+ Society is dead, we have retreated into the iWorld. "iPod people walk down the street in their own MP3 cocoon, bumping into others, deaf to small social cues, shutting out anyone not in their bubble."

Some things never change

Have spent this weekend at my parents' home in East Anglia, where it actually snowed hard last night. As usual they have stacked up some chores for me to do, mainly involving an electric drill. Aside from the obligatory DIY, we've been catching up by cooking and eating.

When I was growing up, Sundays were always cooking days. Both my parents worked full-time and so Sundays were considered sacred days to be spent together cooking and eating huge Indian feasts, from simple homemade vegetable samosas to elaborate lamb stews.

Thankfully, some things never change. Today's menu? A mixed vegetable curry with sweet potatoes, green beans, aubergines and red kidney beans; a red lentil dahl with spring onions; spring greens with spicy nuggets made from lentil flour and green chilis; and a lamb mince and spinach stew. The house smells divine.

Links today:

+ "The American military is working on a new generation of soldiers, far different from the army it has. 'They don't get hungry,' said Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon. 'They're not afraid. They don't forget their orders. They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes.'." The robot soldier is coming (registration required).

+ "A short film that tells you why podcasting can make your life better, and shows you everything you need to know to set up a simple program to have new podcasts downloaded automatically. In only four minutes!" Four minutes about podcasting.

+ The new edition of Vice magazine is devoted to design. "What ever happened to Herb Lubalin, Grapus, Tadanori Yokoo, Ken Adam (the Dr. Stranglelove/James Bond set guy), Kate Gibb, Saul Bass, Shinro Ohtake, Keiji Ito, Willy Fleckhaus, and all those Polish poster artists? Being a designer used to mean you drove a Benz and you could get good drugs. Now it means you own a computer. What the fuck? You start out thinking you're going to blow people's minds with your incredibly unique take on the beauty that surrounds us all, and by the time you actually get your career in motion you're essentially a wedding photographer chained to a desk."

+ Dave Navarro is blogging! "Last night's benefit was just insane. No Doubt were really great of course, as there is nothing that Gwen could do that would suck! She could sing over the sound of nails on a chalkboard and it would be sexy as hell. (No, I'm not saying the band sounds like that, they are all really incredible players.) I caught a few moments of Linkin Park with Jay-Z and I must say it was pretty rockin'." Um, okay.

Alchemy

"People first of all have to be able to see. In art, there is nothing to understand, absolutely nothing." Joseph Beuys.

I spent my undergraduate years at London's Goldsmiths College, during the stimulating rise of local boys Damien Hirst and Blur, and of the "YBA" (Young British Artist) acronym that was then synonymous with the "Goldsmiths effect".

Most of my friends studied in the Visual Arts department and were taught by Michael Craig-Martin. And though I wasn't studying art, I too was swept along with the creative rush of those times and started painting, photographing and writing.

The artist Joseph Beuys had died several years earlier, but Beuys mania was still rife among the art student body. One of my friends -- a fish out of water in the arts department because he worked in oils on canvas rather than on grand installations -- would rather unfetchingly dress like the German conceptualist, complete with felt hat and waistcoat, and quote such politically ineffectual lines as "To make people free is the aim of art, therefore art for me is the science of freedom" or "Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline". I found Beuys' work -- blocks of lard, piles of felt -- just as tedious.

So a tiny miracle occurred yesterday when I was persuaded to attend the Beuys exhibition at the Tate Modern and came away impressed. The politics were as insignificant as ever, but the alchemical concepts of decay and regeneration represented in works such as his Vitrines and Hearth installations, and in the materials he used -- copper, felt, lard, blood, beeswax -- made a powerfully visceral impression on me this time around. If it were not for the barriers around each installation I would have felt compelled to sink into the mountain of felt, bury my hands in the jars of fat, and run my fingers across the blocks of basalt.

"My sculpture is not fixed and finished. Processes continue in most of them: chemical reactions, fermentations, colour changes, decay, drying up. Everything is in a state of change." Joseph Beuys.

We left the Tate late in the night and struggled to find a place to eat. On a road to Elephant and Castle, we gratefully gave in to the lure of La Dolce Vita's pink neon signage and ended up having a fantastic meal of salami, parma ham and artichoke antipasti for starters, and seafood pappardelle pasta and grilled sea bream for main courses. Our waiters were also the owners who described the making of their delicious tomato sauce in loving detail; and and their friends were eating at adjoining tables.

Related links:

+ "Beuys did not think Germans should evade their past, or be destroyed by it. His art was in many ways deeply nationalist. Drawing on ancient myths and symbols, he revived the Romanticism of Caspar David Friedrich and Richard Wagner, a tradition tainted by Nazism, yet which Beuys made vital again for a generation of Germans who were children in or after the war." The Guardian, Wounds of History.

+ "Oddly, there is a kind of beauty here, or beauty's antidote. Looking at the objects gathered in Beuys's vitrines, one realises that they, too, have a calculated aesthetic. One can get used to anything, and even take a kind of pleasure in it - in the various whitenesses of fat, the rust on a tin, the residue that's left inside it, the chemistry of decay." The Guardian, The antidote to beauty.

The Holy Girl

Saw Argentinean director Lucrecia Martel's sensual movie La Nina Santa last night at the Ritzy in Brixton.

A complex yet understated and oblique portrayal of a 16 year old girl's erotic and religious awakening. The object of her affection is a middle aged doctor, who is attending a medical conference at the hotel managed by her mother, and who first insinuates himself on the young girl by furtively pressing himself up against her behind. Her religious devotion is such that her growing passion for the doctor manifests itself in the need to save his soul, and her seductive mission brings him constantly out in a panic of cold sweat.

An erotic, yet subtle mood piece which explores the taboo of adult-child sexual attraction without sensationalism or blame.

Afterwards, we headed round the corner to Fujiyama for vegetable dumplings, spinach ohitashi (half-steamed spinach in a light dressing, topped with toasted sesame seeds, fried shallots and spring onion), a steaming bowl of ramen noodles, and yasai katsu don (supposedly courgettes, sweet potatoes, green and red peppers coated in Japanese breadcrumbs and deep-fried, yet the only vegetable mine seemed to consist of was red pepper!). Despite this, it was another great meal in this fantastic noodle bar with blood red walls.

The God Gene

The Telegraph has an interesting article about the discovery of a gene purportedly responsible for spiritual belief. In an analysis of 2000 DNA samples, American molecular geneticist, Dr Dean Hamer (the guy who also discovered the discredited "gay gene"), concluded that people's stated ability to believe in a "higher spiritual force" or spiritual connection with the universe is down to greater levels of VMAT2 - "a vesicular monoamine transporter that regulates the flow of mood-altering chemicals in the brain". Social environment and heredity have less relevance, apparently.

Of course, as The New York Times points out (registration required), the genetic predisposition toward religious belief is not new. In the 1970s, sociologist Edward Wilson argued that such an inclination could have evolutionary advantages, and there are oft-sited studies that show that twins separated at birth have similar levels of spirituality and regular churchgoers live longer than non-regular churchgoers.

The major problem for scientists with Hamer's God Gene theory is that it hasn't been replicated and his analysis is largely speculative. Predictably, some in the religious establishment have also been up in arms over the research:

"The Rev Dr John Polkinghorne, a fellow of the Royal Society and a Canon Theologian at Liverpool Cathedral, said: 'The idea of a god gene goes against all my personal theological convictions. You can't cut faith down to the lowest common denominator of genetic survival. It shows the poverty of reductionist thinking.'"

Though such criticism overlooks the fact that Hamer's findings do not answer the question "Is there a God?" but rather "Why do we believe in God?", there is, of course, much to be sceptical about the theory. I'm fascinated, however, and am looking forward to more vigorous research into the biological basis for spiritual belief.

Related link:

+ The God gene: How faith is hardwired into our genes. The book by Dean Hamer.

Other links today:

+ Roll up, roll up, get your Gmail invites here

+ The tagging of life. Scientists are to establish a giant catalogue of life - to, in effect, "barcode" every species on Earth, from tiny plankton to the mighty blue whale.

+ Master tasking. When planning out your project, don't just map out the smaller tasks, getting side-tracked into the "trivial" steps, forgetting the overarching goal.

+ An architect's wet-cement dream, or building skyscrapers on the moon.

Lazy days

Spent a very chilled weekend doing lots of little things. Yesterday I worked all day, but as I was working at home it was a much less fraught experience, punctuated by lots of yummy nibbles and naps. In the evening we cooked and ate in (chicken breasts in cherry tomato sauce, new potatoes and salad), then slobbed out in front of the box (Secretary on DVD). This morning was a lie in and a leisurely flick through the papers (nothing too taxing, just the review, style and sports sections) and then off to a childrens' birthday party in St Albans in the afternoon (lots of hyper children and zoned out parents). Now I'm up for an early night. Lovely.

Links today:

+ Arthur Miller passed away and there have been moving tributes all weekend. From the blogosphere, here's Hypatia Avenue's response.

+ Star wants out of the Milky Way. Astronomers discover a star traveling over 1.5 million mph - fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of our galaxy.

+ Extinct Native American tribe finds second wind. Descendants of a small tribe in the US are revitalising their culture through an online video game.

+ Micromechanical robots powered by real muscle tissue. Nanotech researchers have built tiny self-assembling machines that even grow their own muscles from cells taken from living animals.

Burger and chips

Tonight I went to one of those dinner parties where everything comes together effortlessly: where the wine flows, the conversation meanders from one thought-provoking topic to the other, the guests all get on even though they don't all know each other, and the food has you down on your knees begging for more. Thick, crispy, homemade chips; homemade organic beef burgers; guacamole; tomato and coriander salsa; green salad; and an apple crumble, made with Pink Ladies and brown sugar, so divine I actually, for once, left my vanilla ice cream on the side.

Comfort food fit for a dinner party due to the quality of the ingredients, the attention to detail and the great company.

Links today:

+ Making memories stick. Some moments become lasting recollections while others just evaporate. The reason may involve the same processes that shape our brains to begin with.

+ Sex and the single robot. Kim Jong-Hwan, the director of the ITRC-Intelligent Robot Research Centre, has developed a series of artificial chromosomes that, he says, will allow robots to feel lusty, and could eventually lead to them reproducing. He says the software, which will be installed in a robot within the next three months, will give the machines the ability to feel, reason and desire.

+ Couch potato contentment. Most people are happy being unfit and overweight, a survey reveals.

+ Robot wars. Robotics and the future of warfare. "Within 25 years, non-biological intelligence will match human intelligence in areas in which humans now excel, principally in pattern recognition. It will combine these abilities with the inherent advantages of machine intelligence, such as speed, easy sharing of knowledge and skills."

+ Nuclear now! It's time to stop global warming. The solution is reliable, renewable, and affordable: clean, green atomic energy.

High maintenance grape

Yahoo has a great story about the sales of Pinot Noir wine soaring 22% on the back of the movie Sideways. I saw Sideways again tonight and must admit I too was a little wooed by neurotic failed author Miles' evangelisation of the subtleties of the Pinot grape. "Why are you so into Pinot?" he asks of the gorgeous Maya. What a chat up line.

"People come in and immediately say, 'Where's the pinot noir?'" said Steve Villani, manager of Columbus Circle Liquors in Manhattan. "After a while, we began to ask them if they saw the movie, and they laugh out loud and say, 'yes'."

It's also funny to hear how California wineries, travel specialists and even wine auction houses are benefiting from the Sideways buzz:

"Winebid.com, which auctions rare and hard-to-find bottlings, has begun offering a collection of wines featured in the movie -- from Sea Smoke Cellars 2002 Botella pinot noir to Miles' treasured 1961 Cheval Blanc. (Bids for the Cheval Blanc start at $750.)"

My favourite quote from the movie is just before Jack and Miles double date two women they've met on the road:

Jack: If they want to drink Merlot, we're drinking Merlot.
Miles: No, if anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am not drinking any fucking Merlot!

Still priceless on my second viewing.

Phantasmagoria

"I dream, therefore I exist."

Tonight we watched August Strindberg's wonderful expressionistic drama, A Dream Play, at the National Theatre's Cottesloe. Born out of Strindberg's despair over the collapse of his (third) marriage, the play distorts time and space to produce a fantasy dream sequence of the pain and joy, memories and fears of a man in the throes of mental meltdown: the horror of his teeth falling out, the wistfulness of watching his mother washing her hair, the terror of being caught near-naked on an operatic stage, the frustration of being stuck in an infinite loop of unrequited love. Characters and scenes come into focus for fleeting moments only and you begin to realise that it doesn't matter which is real and which is dream life.

The effect is both ecstatic and terrifying, heightened by the black-painted intimacy of the theatre hall and by the fact that we were just three rows back from the stage. Though such spatio-temporal suspensions are narrative conventions now, the ideas were considered revolutionary at the time of Strindberg's writing in 1901 and foreshadowed Freud's theories about the divisions between the conscious and unconscious.

Strindberg was an amazingly productive and prolific autodidact. He was a dramatist, an essayist, a painter, a photographer, and even an alchemist, and I can't wait for the Tate Modern's retropective of his paintings coming soon.

Little devil

Went walking on Hampstead Heath today and met this little devil on our travels.

Landscapes of ice and snow

Mariele Neudecker is perhaps best known for her miniature landscapes - most frequently evocations of mountain ranges - in glass tanks. Her works are strange and disorienting subversions of the paintings of such German Romantics as Casper David Friedrich whose mystical studies of the natural world have obviously inspired her. The effect is an interplay of idealised landscapes and the actual reality of experiencing them.

Last night we watched Neudecker's film, Winterreise: A Winter's Journey at Tate Britain. The film traverses the line of latitude 60 degrees north, crossing a hypnotic and haunting snow- and ice-covered Europe, from the Shetland Islands to St Petersburg.

This visual journey is accompanied by the beautiful and melancholic Winterreise - Franz Schubert's great song cycle which charts the psychological journey of a lover travelling from the door of the woman who rejects him, on a train out of the city, across a snow-clad terrain of plains and deserted villages, trying to remember better days.

I found it quite mesmerising, though the effect was so meditative that perhaps Friday night was not the best time to have seen it. It sedated my mood for the rest of the night, though the fabulous Turkish feast of crusty bread, smoked aubergine puree, stuffed olives, feta and spinach borek, lamb casserole, baklava, rose ice cream, mint tea and robust Anatolian red wine at Kazan in Pimlico afterwards lifted my spirits considerably. The food was fabulously fresh and each dish was distinctly flavoured. And the bar attached to the side was suitably snug, dark and romantic.

Today was spent clothes shopping on Oxford Street: a stressful frenzy induced by a comment from a friend who pointed out that he had only ever seen me in two skirts, both denim, which made me realise I have to get out of my clothes rut. I actually have lots of clothes in my wardrobe, but they were all bought a few years ago and I've grown bored of all of them save these two oft-worn denim skirts. So now I have two more - pretty, fluttery, patterned skirts not suitable for winter at all, but what the hell. At least I now don't have to go clothes shopping again for another two years. Phew.

It's Saturday night and I'm staying in - snuggled up in my duvet and regressing to childhood by watching the first season of The Waltons on DVD.

"They built their home on the timeless mountain that bears their name. They built their lives on even stronger stuff: the bedrock of family."

Yup, I actually got seduced into buying this on the back of this quote from the DVD cover. Sad, sad, sad!

Make Poverty History

During lunch today, I made a mad dash to Trafalgar Square to join thousands of others demanding that the G7 finance ministers cancel all unpayable third world debt. Nelson Mandela also spoke and I cursed my cheap zoom camera for not being able to get a good shot of him. There was a real sense among those around me that this could be the last time we get the chance to hear him speak live in England again.

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural," he said. "It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists there is no true freedom."

He urged rich nations to make significant steps towards dropping the debts of poorer countries, currently costing them around $40 billion a year. He ended his speech by handing over the symbol of the Make Poverty History campaign - a white band - to five children, saying, "Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom."

A very moving day.

+ Full text of Mandela's speech
+ My photos from the event

Kicking terrorist ass

Today I'd had an intense and tiring day at work and wanted only to sit back and be entertained this evening. So we went to see Team America: World Police - a movie Ebert has described as "an equal opportunity offender". That it was: a movie that manages to caricature bleeding heart liberals, American foreign policy and Middle Eastern desperados in one, gloriously swell swoop.

I laughed at the vacuous Americans blowing up terrorists and destroying the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre in the process; I roared at the Middle Eastern vocabulary that consisted only of "Derka derka derka, Muhammad Jihad"; and I was already crying by the time the North Korean leader nearly succeeds in unleashing "9/11 times 2,356". And surely the bedroom scenes between two of the puppets should spark a whole new genre of marionette porn online.

Ambiguously political, criminally satirical, insanely immature. I had a great time. Ramen soup and whiskey sours in Chinatown topped off a wonderful night.

Related link:
+ Memorable lines from Team America

Other links today:

+ Web inventor is 'Greatest Britain'. "Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who developed the web in the late 1980s, said he was just 'in the right place at the right time'."

+ Are blogs journalism's new wave, or just public forums for the bored? According to this writer, "it is safe to assume that most blogs are not worth the cyberspace they occupy. The bulk are boring or offensive self-indulgences produced by those with axes to grind, prejudice to spew, porn to peddle or without the ability to get past the gatekeepers at newspapers, magazines, book publishers and edited online publications."

+ The art of seeing without sight. "The painter is Esref Armagan. And he is here in Boston to see if a peek inside his brain can explain how a man who has never seen can paint pictures that the sighted easily recognise - and even admire. He paints houses and mountains and lakes and faces and butterflies, but he's never seen any of these things. He depicts colour, shadow and perspective, but it is not clear how he could have witnessed these things either. How does he do it?" One researcher believes that you can arrive at the same mental picture via different senses.

The first step

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

Maybe it's because the new year traditionally brings new goals for people and organisations to reach for, but I've noticed several articles on the internet recently on procrastination. They've made me reflect upon my own personal tools for getting things done. Not all of them work for me all of the time, but some of them do and that's good enough for me:

- Focus on the small things. I've found that focussing on the ultimate goal debilitates and makes me too intimidated to actually tackle it. So once I've strategised a project and worked out the smaller steps I need to take to complete it, I disassociate myself from the longterm goal and hone in on the smaller ones.

- Don't sweat it. Perfectionism always prevents me from starting something, so I try and remember that most things can be fixed after completion.

- Get organised. Before I leave the office, I try and set my desk up with all the things I need to get the next day's tasks done. This includes a project's to-do list, but also books and documents I will need to consult, and lists of people I will need to contact (including email addresses and phone numbers). I'll also try and remember to shortcut the files I will be working on to my computer's desktop so they're the first things I see when I log on.

- Don't be a completist. By this I mean, there's no need for me to finish something by the end of the day if I don't have to. I find it easier to begin my day with an on-going task than start a new one fresh. This also allows my subsonscious a chance to work on it while I'm doing something completely different in the evening.

- Get rid of distractions. That means keeping my Glamour and .Net magazines in the bottom drawer, along with articles I've printed out that will help me on another step of the project but not this one. It also means, wherever possible, keeping my personal and work emails separate so that the first thing I do in the morning is not to plan my social life but to get stuck in to work. I'll also switch off my Outlook for an hour or two.

- Pre-schedule fun time. I work faster and better knowing I've got something to look forward to that night. Thanks Pavlov!

- Pre-schedule slack time. If I know I can go for a walk, browse the internet or do some shopping during lunch or mid-afternoon break, then I'm less likely to do it during work time.

- 30 minute rule. If I can't get started on something, I coax myself into working on it for just 30 minutes. More often than not, I don't even realise the 30 minutes have passed. If I do, then no matter - at least I got 30 minutes of work on the task done.

Here's a funny movie to distract you:
Tales of mere existence: Procrastination (Quicktime movie)

Great productivity tips:

+ Getting back to work: A personal productivity toolkit by Mark Taw. "Often distractions are things you want to do some time in the future. To get rid of these, just write them down. I always carry a notebook with me that I can write these things down in. The notebook also serves to focus my thoughts when I have a spare moment and need to figure out what to do next. By keeping everything in here, any part of my brain that was worried about what I have to do goes away. The guarantee that I will look at the notebook and do what I wrote down keeps me from having to think about it."

+ Overcoming procrastination. "Don't worry about finishing anything. Just focus on what you can start now. If you do this enough times, you'll eventually be starting on the final piece of the task, and that will lead to finishing."

+ How to get more done in less time. "Studies have shown that the average office worker does only 1.5 hours of actual work per day. The rest of the time is spent socializing, taking coffee breaks, eating, engaging in non-business communication, shuffling papers, and doing lots of other non-work tasks. The average full-time office worker doesn't even start doing real work until 11:00am and begins to wind down around 3:30pm." Yikes!

Procrastination is a habit, and so is productivity.