Dreaming of Freedom

Well it’s all go here. Lukas came to stay which was lovely. We walked to Winchmore Hill and went into the interesting and warm pub for bad tea and spent the rest of the time at home eating and drinking which was rather nice. I then spent the week working and then went up to Norwich for a flying visit at the weekend. It was lovely to see people again and I spent several happy hours walking around with Ellie. We munched cheap cheese and onion rolls, sat in the library because it was warm and free and visited the Sainsbury Art Gallery. It was like going home. Norwich seemed so clean and lovely after London.

So now onto London and the sheer grimness of it. The dirt and the depression really gets you down. And the underground - don’t get me started!! What is going on with the tube. Why is it so unreliable, dirty, run down and just downright rubbish. How can one of the richest cities in the world have such a depressingly bad public transport service. It would seem that everyone is too busy going to work and trying to get home again to complain about it. One woman who had the audacity to mention the sheer awfulness of the tube was sacked. Although her spoofs mocking tube travellers might have influenced the decisions. Her site is down at the moment so I can’t check it out but if you want the link click here. It’s clear the man who ‘runs’ the tube and gets all the bonuses never uses it because I just don’t believe he would tolerate the state it’s in if he did.

On a lighter note my rock and roll star friend is playing a gig at Norwich Arts Centre on the 8th. It’s not really Rock and Roll - it’s the Anna Mudeka Band and I guess it’s probably called world music or something. Anyway it very good and if you’re free you should come and hang out with me there.

OK I’m going back to work. I’m trying to master conditionals at the moment and I feel as if I’ve made a breakthrough.

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I hear that all sorts of exciting things are happening in Norwich now that I’m not there!

London is so big that there are probably a million exciting things happening right now but I don’t know about any of them! Although we are pretty excited today because our lovely friend Lukas is coming to stay with us

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I spent a very pleasant weekend with Mum. We went to the Tate Modern to look at the crack. It seems to be a really popular piece of art. People walk along, lots photographing or filming it. Small children spill out of it - arranged by photo hungry parents in various poses. Despite the ‘fun fair’ element, it is an interesting piece. The artist is Doris Salcedo and the work is entitled Shibboleth and is worth £300 000. The crack starts small and grows wider and deeper as it runs the length of the Turbine Hall. It’s really quite impressive. Salcedo says it symbolises racism and the division between Europeans and the rest of the world. “It is the experience of immigrants, racial hatred and segregation”. The sculpture was made by casting concrete sections, digging a trench and lowering the castings in. It will be filled in with concrete and rather aptly leave a scar on the floor of the Turbine Hall when the exhibition ends.

Saturday was busy. We met up with Jon who was dressed as a pirate for an evening of fun and hilarity in Covent Garden. We nipped to his friend’s flat near Victoria for a spot of spag bol and a drop of red vino and came home in time to see some spectacular fireworks from the flat windows. The local residents clearly have too much money to spend because there have been fireworks going off all week. It’s very nice for their budget conscious neighbours but it does get a little wearing at one in the morning.

I started a new job on Monday and so far so good. Nice place. Nice people. I taught process writing today - which was fun! I’m working part-time which is great. I highly recommend it!

And last but not least! I just watched Bee Movie… it’s kind of sweet. Basically Antz but with a a bit more ‘environmental awareness’ thrown in. I would say ‘take the kids’ but as it’s made $31.9 million dollars so far - so maybe don’t. They might need all that cash however as Beeceuticals LLC - a cosmetics and skin care company is suing over the use of the slogan ‘give bees a chance’ - it’s theirs since they trademarked it last year. They use organic honey in one of their products. There must be some level of irony in that!

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