1847 An horrendous short journey and a great day in London

It is a week since writing, due to activity and the weather forcing a reorganisation of plans. A week tomorrow I did sit at a restaurant making notes about what happened to create the worst driving experience of my life as it took over four hours to drive from the home of a relative to where I was staying for two nights, a distance of under ten miles by the most direct route. A series of mistakes resulted in being caught up in a greater London gridlock, a snowmare. I have decide only to read those notes after I have completed the first draft.

The writing begins with leaving the Morden Travel Lodge on Monday morning 21st December 2009. I was visiting relatives to go out for lunch and decided to find the nearest Halford’s to ask if there was anyone available who could check my car radio as I had failed to locate the position of the fuse box which the manual stated should be found under the dashboard inside the car.

I had passed the Halford’s the previous evening without realising I had done so more intent to getting to the Travel Lodge. It is located at one end of the one way system, St Nicholas Way, going north towards London on the left hand side of Sutton High Street, but realised this after reloading the Halford’s site on the laptop and obtaining a map and then the route to the store having inserted the post code of the Travel Lodge. My first instinct had been to retrace the route of the previous evening which continues until reaching the end of the pedestrianised High Street and then turns left and heads south parallel to the pedestrian High Street and then to the set of junctions with roads to Carshalton, Wallington and Croydon or swings round and across the High Street with exits south to the M25, towards Epsom and back into St Nicholas Way for central London. The Halford site suggested a different approach which was to make a large detour towards Epsom and then back into Sutton and this I followed only to find that the car park entrance was not in St Nicholas Way but around the corner at what has now become the end of the pedestrianised High Street. Previously it was possible to continue a little further to The Grapes Public House where I would alight with the “aunties” on the 654 Trolley bus on the visits to Sutton during my childhood.

Unfortunately although the fuse was located by the available assistant it was not blown which suggested the problem was with a second fuse within the radio itself and the radio man was not due in until 11 would could make me late for my visit to relatives and going out for an early roast lunch. I decided not to go in search of the Halford’s at Croydon but have a coffee and look around Sutton, parking the car in the Times Square Car Park.

During the last decade before the death of my care mother and before the admission of my birth mother into residential care I would usually take the car to the park along St Nicholas Way next to the Cinema with a bridge overpass into the St Nicholas Shopping centre where there was a food court on the top third floor and where we go for a fish and chip lunch followed by a short walk around the shops. The Times Square is a small shopping precinct also reached by a bridge over the one way road system and then into the High Street crossing over to the other centre and taking escalators or a lift to the food court level where I was greeted with a surprise because although all the tables remained the fish and chip and the other two food outlets had disappeared and all that remained was a coffee and sandwich shop. This was a change which from the look of the area suggested it been made before the recession affected High Streets, everywhere.

After the drink I was surprised that the two bookshops did not have any of the writings of Galsworthy in their sections on the classics. Perhaps the Forsyte Saga books had only achieved fresh success over the years because of the two TV productions and film releases.

I then had my third meal in a restaurant within four days. A freshly sliced roast turkey dinner with the plate piled high with vegetables- roast potatoes, cauliflower cabbage, Brussels sprouts and some Swede. Missing were parsnips. This feast only cost £5 in Christmas week. I usually have the beef with a giant Yorkshire Pudding. There is a choice of sauces including apple and blackcurrant jelly as well as gravies, mustard and such like. Arriving early it was unusually quiet for the time of the year the year although several parties arrived later for the Christmas lunch with the same carvery roast as the main course.

As I was travelling only a few miles to the Travel Lodge there was plenty of opportunity for a long exchange of news with the relatives and encouraged that the roads had become clear with rain more than sleet, there was no indication of the horror to come.

It was moving rapidly towards dusk when the first flurries were noticed and settling, but these were not the cause of the problem which I shortly faced, along with the hundreds of thousands of car and bus using commuters, shoppers and travellers. Train and air travel in the greater London area and South East were also severely affected.

I hurriedly left, failing to realise that my mobile phone had slipped between the cushions on the settee. The quickest route was to have turned right across the traffic and then taken the couple of miles to Purley from there a few more miles to the Travel Lodge. However the traffic was solid in both directions, and moving very slowly so I elected to turn left and motor the mile or so to five ways road junction close to Waddon station turning right along Purley Way passing through the former Croydon Airport where the control Tower and a Battle of Britain plane are the only reminders of what used to be London’s main civilian airport between the two world wars.

I quickly understood why the traffic was moving so slowly as the earlier rain and turned to ice above which the falling snow had quickly frozen. Any sudden movement and the vehicle skidded. It was only safe to edge forward when the opportunity arose. It took me an hour and a half to reach Purely and then I made a decision which added at least an hour to the journey. Traffic going on the direct route to the Travel Lodge appeared to be a standstill whereas it was moving on the road to M23 and then quickly onto the M25. I chose this route and it seemed to be the right decision with traffic at a standstill in the opposite direction. This was the clue as to what was to happen although there was no point in trying to turn round and back.

I joined a stead flow of traffic on the road to M23 and then to a full three lane M25 going towards the Dartford Tunnel and then approaching the road to Caterham and the Travel Lodge the inside line formed at a snail’s pace over a mile from the exit. The cause was a combination of a traffic light at the exit and the ice on the long winding ascent and descent of Caterham hill. I had forgotten that the hill was between the motorway and the Travel Lodge and not between the Travel Lodge and Purley, The road from the Travel Lodge is along a valley with steep sides with several road closures and residents living along some of the slopes having to leave their cars in the valley. It took me over an hour to travel the mile to the exit and a further hour to Travel Lodge. I had left the home of the relatives at 4 and arrived at the Lodge at 8.30, I was told of someone who had taken 14 hours to drive from Cardiff, usually a two hour run along the M4 and M25.

I developed a great urge to have a pee and having spotted a police and emergency vehicle area set back from the hard shoulder and gone there, thus avoiding view from the stationery traffic on the inside lane. I was then immediately let back into the line of traffic which had only moved a few yards forward.

It was only on entering my allocated room on the first floor that I realised I had left the phone behind and with no public use phone at the Lodge or nearby, I was marooned until the morning. I had soup, beans and rice with me as well as sliced salami with peppered crackers, dates and grapes. I eat voraciously more as a reaction to the ordeal experienced than hunger. I purchased a cold diet Pepsi from a machine on the ground floor.

I had arranged the trip with an extra day at the Lodge with the intention of visiting the Calle exhibition again at the Whitechapel, having a pre Christmas meal at the Cafe Rouge at Victoria station and a relay from Barcelona of Il Travatore at the Odeon Convent Garden. I will write separately about the plan to spend Christmas with Calle and the Opera although continuing to attend both were in question that morning. I had set off early with the intention of getting the train to East Croydon and walking to West Croydon for a train to Wallington, possibly using the bus to collect the phone, assuming it was left at the home of the relatives. The decision to take the train was reinforced by the slow line of traffic heading towards Purley. I arrived at the railway station across the roadway from the Lodge forgetting that the cheap day travel ticket commenced at 9.30 and it was around 9 am with a train to London Bridge via East Croydon a few minutes away. I debated paying the premium double rate of £14.70 as it was cold and did not fancy standing around for half hour but settled on doing so which in the circumstances was a brilliant judgement. This did not immediately seem so when I found that the next train to central London was cancelled. I would have to wait an hour.

The electronic notice board announced that Capital Connect trains were operating an emergency service because of the weather conditions. I then read a poster which explained that during Christmas week and continuing until the New Year trains to and from central London would end mid evening. Anyone wanting to return late evening would have to travel to Victoria and get the train to East Croydon and then a taxi or buses to Purley and from there to Whyteleaf and Caterham. A change in plan was required and I returned to the Lodge for the car which I then drove first to the home of the relatives when the phone was found and a cup of coffee enjoyed before driving to Croydon and finding a long stay car park close to East Croydon Station.

The car park is located at one end of Dingwall Road and where with the exception of the Warehouse Theatre at the other end all the land between the roadway and the railway is to be transformed to a major office and residential complex of building including a 4.5 acre area of parkland. There are to be five office blocks providing 900000 square feet, over 8000 square metres of space immediate facing the railway line. At the carpark end there is to be 500 residential units half of which are to be low cost. The Warehouse theatre is to be replaced by a new 200 seat auditorium between two of the train track side towers and in addition there are to be restaurants and cafes and a GP centre as part of an area for health and fitness. There are to be five towers with 18 to 25 storeys and the development is to be known as Ruskin Square.

John Ruskin was the Victorian and Edwardian art critic and political and social commentator who exercised significant influence upon British culture in his day and subsequently, especially through his support for J M W Turner and the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood. His period at Oxford is remembered with the creation of Ruskin College which I attended 1961-1963 and the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. His connection with Croydon is that his mother was born there and his parents are buried at Shirley and he erected a statue to his parents at Carshalton, visiting the town and area throughout his life. Ruskin Road Croydon is already a major thoroughfare. His thoughts on Christian Socialism influenced me as a young man together with the work of William Morris.

At East Croydon station the position of a reduced and uncertain train service was confirmed and by the time I arrived at Victoria it was midday and I chose to have a leisurely lunch and then considered what to do for the rest of the day. I chose the Cafe Rouge despite learning that the low cost menu on offer was achieved by paying the basic statutory wage and which had been made up through the service charge which had only been changed a couple of months before.

I choose items which were filling but appealing with Camembert Enrobe as the starter- Camembert cheese melted on toasted croutons with tomato and wrapped in Jambon Cru. This was followed by two small baguettes filled with turkey and back bacon with caramelised onion, sage and chestnut stuffing and a cranberry sauce dip with salad garnish and French Fries. A small glass of Merlot accompanied the meal followed by American coffee. The restaurant became packed between one and one thirty but eased before I left so there was no pressure.

I then made my way to the cinema intending, according to the available information about its location to change at Green Park for the Piccadilly Line to Convent Garden station. The pavement at Convent Garden station is only reached by lift unless one is an enthusiast for the 153 spiral stairway. The was a great crush and the available lift would not move until some of those trying to cram in waited. I went back to the platform area with the intention of returning to the Leicester Square Station and walking from there but got on a train going in the opposite direction by mistake and therefore had to alight again and return back from Holborn. At Leicester Square I looked at a local map to decide on the best exit and this revealed that the Odeon was just off Cambridge Circus and therefore this was a better station than Convent Garden. My reason for going straight to the cinema was to check that that the ticket ordered by telephone automatically was available as I had received no reference number or printed out confirmation. The theatre just opened as I arrived at 2.45 to the annoyance of some customers who had arrived for the first showings due at that time. I inserted a credit card in a small seat collection machine on one wall and obtained a printed paper ticket.

There was still time to visit the Whitechapel Gallery and beforehand to look on Blackwell’s where I had found the volume of contemporary art which had such an influence on the direction of my life in 2002 and then to Foyles to see if they had an edition of the Forsyte Saga novels. Foyles and to my surprise there were something like nine novels collected in three volumes with only the first three appearing to cover the most recent ITV production. The full set cost of the order of £45 in paperback so I held back and determined to see what Amazon had to offer.

I then went back to the Piccadilly line to Kings Cross and from there the District Line to Aldgate East for the Whitechapel. The main purpose was to watch the 30 performances of reading the email on which Take Care of Yourself is based, and which will form part of a separate writing, New Year with Calle. I also wanted to obtain an additional copy of the broadsheet about the first showing of Guernica in 1939, the creation of the tapestry, its exhibition at the UN Security Council and its coverage by a blue curtain when Powell made his statement about the Iraq War. After experiencing the performances I had a cup of tea observing everyone else at six seater tables made up of three twin seats. There was a party of westernised Asians, some North Americans, two mothers with children although they could have au pairs, and elder man like me on his own and a young couple debating Calle.

I then made the journey on the District line to Victoria Station to check on the trains for the rest of the evening. There appeared to be no problem and indeed the non stop Gatwick Express which leaves for the airport every fifteen minutes was stopping at East Croydon because of the weather conditions. I had time to look in on Smith having collected my free copy of the Evening Standard and looked through the latest edition of Community Care, noting a letter praising the former Children’s Inspectorate of the Home Office from Bob Holman which prompted me to say ho ho and rubbish and the urge to write a letter. I will publish the letter here if Community Care magazine decides not to do so. I arrived back at the Odeon at half past six as a number of other early customers for the Opera had assembled in the small coffee lounge and bar. The theatre was opened shortly afterwards and I was able to take a coffee into the auditorium and eat the final Danish pastry I had brought with me for the travels.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the cinema had allocated its largest screen area with about 240 250 comfortable seats especially those in the centre area classified as Premium. The theatre was over half full when the curtain was raised although I had spare seats on either side which made the experience more comfortable to the point of luxury at the amazing price of under £9 including credit card charge. Although the show commenced at seven it was over before ten as the four act opera is performed with one interval of thirty minutes. I then reached Victoria Station in time to get on a one stop train to East Croydon as it prepared to leave the platform, but I managed to find a seat albeit next to anew European who appeared t have been drinking heavily although there was also evidence of some office partying among others returning to Sussex, Brighton and other south coast homes. My car was one of only a few left in the car park and I had a brief moment of anxiety as the machine fully consumed the credit card which it read automatically without my needing to insert a pin number. The roads were clear and quiet and was back in my room well before 11.30 having spent several minutes sorting out the room key card which had lost its potency and to be recharged although it led to my having a short conversations about the conditions with the duty receptionist.

I only realised my familiarity with Il Travatore when we came to the well known chorus, The Anvil Chorus. The opera was the most satisfying of all those experienced this year to date. I will write more fully separately. I set of for what was to have been a brief visit to the Midlands with an overnight stay back at the Mansfield Travel Lodge. The weather was about to intervene once more.

1846 Travels in a blizzard

The Friday before Christmas 2009 could become an important day if I progress an idea developed on a car journey during some of the worst wintry weather this year. I begin with the weather where so far there has been widespread disruption but no evidence of the longer term damage and loss of life caused by the severe rainfall and flooding in Cumbria within the past month.

I write against a backdrop in which the world’s leaders, notably President Obama of the USA, appears to have produced the basis for reaching an agreement to effectively tackle the threat of long term damaging climate change, and which will have the effect of International law if the participating 192 countries attending the summit can all agree. This may seem an impossible dream given the wide disparity between the interests of the rich nations who can afford serious efforts to change the basis of their economies from the escalating use of fuels which damage the environment without destroying their wealth and power in the process and the majority who see the proposals only as a means of preventing their economic development in a situation where many are likely to find any rising of temperatures and more extremes of weather conditions to their greater detriment. The idea that the majority of the nations would be allowed to dictate the role of the G 20 and vice versa was always idealistic but essential to try if these countries are not to irrevocably damage their comparative economic positions during the process.

The problem for the lay person is the lack of universal certainty about the nature of the problem. The sun is cooling but at a speed which involves billions of years before the earth planet would become uninhabitable by the human race unless alternative energy, air and food sources can be created within vast arks or underground cities. The viable alternative is space travel and colonization to another human life sustaining solar system. This is unlikely to be available for more than a fraction of the present expanding human population. Where there is agreement is that deterioration of the earth’s atmosphere is occurring at a significantly faster rate with the effect of raising the overall temperature of the waters around the polar ice caps thus raising sea levels and threatening major areas of the planet with flooding as well as greater extremes of weather conditions turning new areas into deserts, others into inland lakes, obliterating some low lying islands, and having to cope with more frequent storms, dramatic temperatures highs and lows. Some of this is likely to have happened whatever humanity has done or will do, but according to the majority of scientific opinion the speed and likely irrevocability of damaging changes is human made and the window of opportunity to slow down and then halt the process is closing rapidly and more rapidly than governments and the media would like us to believe.

The problem confronting governments in their collective roles is that no individual government is going to sign up to a legally binding agreement which disadvantages them comparatively and no group of countries with common interests whether economic, political, religious or social is likely to do likewise. The position of the undeveloped countries, is that they want why should their progress be halted or reversed in order that the already developed nations can maintain their relative position, especially as it is the developed nations who have caused the problem. Given by definition the innate role of governments it is unlikely that any turkey will vote for Christmas or be willing to grow up a chicken.

Over the past few days we have experienced forecast snowfall moderate in nature over some city and urban areas as well on high ground and rural areas across some parts of the united kingdom. I travelled through blizzard in Durham and Yorkshire on Friday, but found the roads clear and sunlit, although busy during a trip from the midlands to the south coast on Saturday. It was evident that while local authorities are concentrating on keeping the main roadways open no effort was being made to grit and salt other roads despite the forecast because of the unwillingness to stock up with the equipment and human power for use or a short period once or twice in any year.
This approach was not politically acceptable in the past.

Today some disruption, an increase in breakdowns and accidents, including breakage of human limbs is inevitable. What needs to be investigated and will be investigated is the failure of five cross channel trains in the tunnel at the same time and failure to have appropriate emergency help, including food and water available. The problem was exacerbated by the break downs occurring in both tunnels. However most people appear to forget that all travel is potentially hazardous.

In my case the only inconvenience was that it appears the car radio blew its fuse. I say appears because until the fuse is checked I cannot be certain that the problem is greater. The radio has a button which if pressed results in the latest road and weather reports in the area of travel breaking in to whatever else is being listened to, radio or disk player. This is usually irritating if the button is accidentally pressed while travelling and one does not want to make the effort to stop, check the location of the button and switch it off. Over the present trip which involves stays in four locations and around 800 miles of travels the system would have been exceptionally useful.

According to the radio booklet the most likely cause was the blowing of a fuse and which therefore needs to be changed, I had no idea where the fuse was located but had the opportunity to visit a Halfords store on the way to my Saturday stopover and someone explained that the information is the vehicle manual. I should have known this fact although I have not had previous cause to consult the booklet for the location of fuses boxes and their individual functions. Unfortunately while it was easy to find one of the two fuse boxes, the one at the top of the engine under the bonnet I am unclear about the one under the dashboard inside the car. The weather conditions and being on travels is also a factor against trial and error expectation about removing covers.

The absence of the car radio was in one sense a good thing because it meant I had no distractions and could concentrate on the driving. During the past few days I have also mapped out in some detail a new component work of 101. A piece of conventional writing, with a prologue, chapters and an end piece, but with the addition of audio and visual material and hopefully an on line edition but whether I shall seek to publish within my lifetime will be considered, if and when this work is completed. What is important is that I have worked out a structure and a focus which I presently find satisfying and leads to this sense of wanting to concentrate wholeheartedly from this moment on but apart from under an hour at a motorway stop midmorning and rising from what was to have been an early night to translate some of the handwritten notes into typeface and commence this piece I have been preoccupied with the travel and a number of anxieties and uncertainties in relation to the rest of the trip.

I came on the travels well prepared in terms of food with tins of beans and rice, packets of soaps, prepared rolls, ‘pan’ au chocolates for breakfast and Danish pastries crackers loads of fresh grapes as well as one pint of skimmed milk which spilt in my shoulder bag soaking the special Christmas and New Year edition of the Radio Times, my once a year purchase and several partially used note books.

I have enjoyed three meals in restaurants in addition to the various al fresco concoctions, a quickish breakfast when starting out, an in expensive meal in a pub of gammon with egg and chips followed by apple crumble and coffee with a glass of diet Pepsi and a more expensive meal at a Brown‘s restaurant which comprises Tomato and Basil Soup, a half chicken roast, Pepsi and coffee. On another day I would have more tempted by their board of ham, cheese Olives and dips and their fish platter, the latter enjoyed on a previous occasion, but having roast on a Sunday has become a tradition but I have no idea since when this became national event. According to Wikipedia this began when good Squires treated their serfs to a roast Oxen on Sundays after a good week’s work. It originated in ‘Merry’ England and spread to the white populations of Commonwealth Countries and to parts of North America.

The limitations of Travel Lodge TV is such that I had hoped to survive through the internet players with BBC. ITV, Ch 4, Sky and the Met Opera. Only the BBC provides a comprehensive live service and even then some sport is not available as I found when I had hoped to watch the Newcastle V Middlesbrough game on Sunday evening. I was able to watch a new Wallander on Channel 4 live entitled the Joker, a title whose significances still escapes me. It was cleverly written, as usual, when the primary suspect for the murder of a comparatively young mother of a child, a police man, turned out to be the father of the child. The description of the child being a witness to the murder and the impact when she is confronted by the man again was authentic and the acting as usual was also exceptional. However the main storyline was conventional and lacked the political or social significance of many others in this excellent series in the original Swedish. The award winning British version was to have continued after its first season but has not done so.

I travelled along parts of M27-A27 for the 5th time in one year, approach this vital road link parallel to the south coastline from the M3 in the west and the A23 in the east. I have now travelled the greater part of its length having continued westward for Southampton docks on my most recent visit to the Isle of Wight to where the road links to the M23. On this trip I continued to travel west from Portsmouth to Chichester for a stop over at Littlehampton which is located just off the road itself with a garage and Burger King, with first floor room overlooking private houses and their gardens and therefore one of the quietest stay overs I can remember, and the following morning continued along the coast to Worthing and Brighton coming within a short distance of Arundel Castle. The route takes one close to so many childhood memories with the day seaside trips to Brighton, Littlehampton and Bognor and the occasion when all the family, or at least the majority of the family went to Portsmouth to visit a first cousin whose parents had emigrated to the USA, become citizens and was in the USA navy. There was also at least one family holiday in Bognor Littlehampton area.

I have stayed at the Morden Travel Lodge at least once before, I think two or three times, between 10 and 25 years ago and taken relatives to eat at the Harvester restaurant there perhaps less than a decade ago. Amazingly I fount my way here last night from Sutton, although I have to go around the Rosehill roundabout a second time before confirming that I needed to take the side road exit to lower Morden rather than the main continuation marked to Morden and London. This roundabout has a history because it is at the end of the road passing St Helier Hospital and I also took the road towards Sutton where there was a mobility store which I visited from 1999 to 2003 in relation to my birth and care mothers. There is a circle route from Wallington which goes to Carshalton and Wrthye Lane where the mothers went to a Catholic Church for a time when they fell out with a modern priest at St Elphege and the new Church was built with the old one converted into a social centre, and then continues to St Helier, to Rosehill and back to Sutton, or the more frequently used route from Wallington on the old 654 Trolley bus to the Grapes pub at South Sutton, where as to day it was necessary to continue to North Sutton and then take a road a road parallel to the High Street passed the Empire cinema to join the main road continuing to the Rosehill roundabout. Later today I moved for the fourth stop over for two days at Whyteleaf

1834 Preparing to meet Sophie Calle

I have had an excellent and memorable long weekend in London with my first highly enjoyable experience of Lebanese food at La Roche, St Martin‘s Lane, followed by an unexpectedly satisfying three course prix fixe lunch with wine and coffee at the Café Rouge, Victoria station. There was my first visit to the Whitechapel Gallery to experience the work of Sophie Calle, only one of handful of large space exhibitions where I was overcome with WOW and also a close identification with the work which I need to test its reality. In contrast this was my most disappointing visit to Tate Modern where only one work was of interest and nothing provoked Wow or a search for notebook and pen. I have not been to the science museum for several decades and was much impressed with the strides made to cater for the most young of children and their parents. I was fortunate to attend the first day showing of a film about the life of Seraphine de Senlis and an evening of Baroque music by candlelight with the Festive orchestra of London at St Martin’s in the Fields, lazed an afternoon at the Royal Festival Hall, eat spiced chicken wings in a quiet corner of St Pancras station and a prepared salad close to the East London Mosque having visited the area where I worked for British Olivetti 50 years ago close to Petticoat, Brick Lane and Toynbee Hall. There were five conversations with strangers and my only regret was not to have brought my camera to have taken a shot of four beautifully dressed Asian young women talking excitedly about the social function they were about to attend across the road from the dodgy looking Nags Head gentleman’s club.

The journey to London, which I now make only three or four times a year, compared with a dozen or more during the 1990’s and around 50 during the twenty years as a local authority chief officer, was the best I can remember. The sun was bright for the walk from my home to South Shields station for the Metro train to Newcastle and I left early to call in at the Wetherspoons for an English Breakfast and coffee noting the number of early morning beer drinkers, many of them regulars, mixed with those taking breakfast, morning coffee or waiting to enjoy an early lunch. There was time at the station to visits Smiths for a copy of Time Out as a last minute development meant that I might be spending the weekend on my own and had made no plans about where I might go and what I could experience. I had also selected the train time as the best price for the midday early afternoon and was pleasantly surprised to find it was scheduled to be an exceptionally fast journey with only a stop at York before Kings Cross.

I had chosen a table seat although I had decided not to have my laptop to hand but to finish reading Kate Hudson’s book on the History of the CND movement. As I ashamedly admit from time to time I am still of big body but the young woman occupying the window seat was even larger and I therefore resisted the opportunity to sit opposite another young and attractive girl to go further along the carriage to an unoccupied seat without a seat ticket and where the window seat was also free as the individual booking the place did not arrive. A lady of my generation, but younger by a few years, was faced with having her case on her lap because there was no space left at either end luggage compartment and a notice asked for the luggage not to block the aisles. The suggestion it was placed below the unoccupied seat, was readily agreed and as a consequence enjoyed a conversation all the way to York. Subjects included the take over of the line by the British Government from National Express, the opportunities of the national bus pass for long journeys, the flooding in Cumbria with the loss of life of the policeman leaving a widow and four children, the death of so many young men in Afghanistan, wartime memories and flooded fields alongside the track on the approach to York, a city which is under constant threat of flooding almost every year. After she departed at York I read and promised to read through the book again soon with notebook to hand for a writing.

I did not have to wait long at St Pancras for the Brighton Thameslink train to East Croydon having purchased a single journey ticket at the automatic machine. There was time to notice that the area under the station width departure and arrivals board at this end of the station was now converted into a sales area for breads, cheeses, continental meats, olives and wine with large kitchen type tables to sample the food and drink as well as take away. I did not need to buy anything for the evening as I had eaten a French baguette with salami on the train down and decided to enjoy a soup, some pot noodles, grapes and dates for supper. This left a large prepared salad of lettuce, tomatoes, a sweet yellow pepper, cucumber, olives and a mixed bean salad for the following day. I was in my room on the 7th floor of central Croydon Travel Lodge by six pm

I decided to watch the first four episodes of the 4th and last series of the 4400 on the DVD I had brought with me, rather than the TV, missing Question Time but catching part of the weekly cocoa time political banter between Diane Abbott, Michael Portillo and what’s his name! For a day spent in packing, unpacking and travelling it has been an enjoyable one. On the train I had studied Time Out and marked possibilities. On page 46 there begins the notices for Major spaces and Exhibitions and on page 48 the was the announcement that Seraphine, winner of seven French Academy awards including best picture, was opening at the two Curzon’s cinemas, two Odeon’s, the Barbican and the Coronet Independent on the following afternoon. I must confess that it was only when her work was displayed in the picture that I associated the name with the work, which had never appealed, although by the time the film ended several of large canvases did, but fairly low in the pecking order of works I would like to have close by had I the funds and inclination to do so.

On page 49 under major space Critics’ choice. The fifth and final was Sophie Calle. I will write separately about the Sophie Caller experience. I immediately turned to page 50 where the Whitechapel Gallery was listed alphabetically in the major space section. There was a half page advert for the Seraphine film in film section where I looked to see if the children’s film UP was still showing somewhere in 3D.

Under literary events I noted that Professor Robert Barsky from the USA was talking at Peace News about the work of Noam Chomsky at 5pm on Friday at Houseman’s almost 50 years to the day I was offered a temporary job there over for a month until Christmas. Martin Bell was at Wanstead Library that night and Stephen Poliakoff at Foyle’s also on Thursday at 6.30. Jules Holland was at the Royal Albert Hall and James Morrison at the Wembley Arena. There was a Mozart Requiem on the Friday evening, the Baroque on the Saturday. There was an England National Opera Production of Turandot on Thursday evening with the Messiah on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. Separately before departure I had checked out events, paid and free at the South Bank, including at the National Theatre where Richard Griffiths and Frances Le Tour were starring with Adrian Scarborough and Alex Jennings in the Habit of Art, a play about Benjamin Britain meeting with WH Auden. There were other possibilities all depending on whether I was to be on my own or not. I also wanted to visit the British Music experience since World War 2 at the Millennium Dome where the ATP tennis tourney was taking place with semi finals days on tournament Friday and Saturday and where interest would depend on the progress of Any Murray. Before going to bed I knew I would be on my own until the following evening and decided on Sophie Calle and Seraphine. I then found it difficult to sleep.

I had been up at 5.am in order to try and get cheap Travel Lodge accommodation for the cricket next April and May and had been amazingly successful getting 12 nights in all for £102. This included five nights at Nottingham and three in Leeds and then four in London after discovering that there was a relay of La Boheme from Covent Garden. Having booked the accommodation I then found there was no relay at the Odeon Covent Garden which on further thought was logical in that why would people pay several hundred pounds to watch the opera in the Theatre if for under £10 they could see the same show at the cinema a few yards away. I was to learn the following day that it was not being shown at the Curzon’s although Carmen from La Scalla and It Travatore from Barcelona were. Then I had a moment of good fortune with was to herald the rest of the weekend. There was a relay showing at the Odeon Wimbledon. I have been to the Odeon once when staying at the former home of my birth and care mothers. I am staying where I am staying now in central Croydon and a short distance away outside East Croydon Station there are trams to Wimbledon. I booked a ticket and according to the seating plan was the first person to do so.

I had gone to bed around eleven pm on the Wednesday night, between two and three hours earlier than usual. I had not managed to sleep or so it seemed the following morning. I had risen for an hour between 2 and 3am for a milk drink but this did not seem to work. I had tried to count chicken. I have no recollection of any sleep or waking dreams. On Thursday evening I was too excited about the following day to sleep. Usually what happens is an anticlimax. This occasion it will remain not just a day remembered but perhaps the eight day in a decade which had significantly changed the rest of my self aware experience, and in this instance for the better.

1835 Talking to Sophie Calle

I did not know Sophie Calle until the autumn of 2006 when in my sixty seventh year. I regret this alongside my failure to understand performance and concept art until making the effort in the summer of 2002 after the opening of the Baltic contemporary art space on Tyneside and seeing the film on the life of Jackson Pollock. It was not until a visit to London a few weeks later that I bought the Nikos Stangos editing book Concepts of Modern Art and the last two chapters Christopher Reed on Modernism and Identity and Roberta Smith on Conceptual Art changed my life in a more fundamental way than the discovery in 1999 that my father had become the Catholic Vicar General of Gibraltar.

I do not mean know in the biblical sense, although my accumulated experience suggests that we can know more of an individual through their work than by living with them. What we know is our interaction with the time period of their work or our period of direct contact and even where another discloses their thoughts, internal images and sensations, it is always an edited experience and with only limited disclosure of their subconscious for those able to interpret with some accuracy.

In 2006 I had not been to contemporary theatre, or out to much else between 2003 and 2006, fully engaged as I was in the creation of the installation then called 101 Public and Private Art and now 100.75 Public and Private Art. until the redesigned Newcastle Playhouse was open again. On the 27th of September 2006 I visited to new second space at the theatre to see Exquisite Pain, a performance art work lasting two and a half hours without interruption and created by someone called Sophie Calle. I liked the old second space at the Playhouse which I previously visited usually to see actors of the Royal Shakespeare company because of the intimacy between the players and the audience less than 100 souls sitting within the performance space. Now the space was on the ground floor and could become an additional back space to the main space and auditorium, to as in the instance of this first use as a separate space a second auditorium with perhaps 200 uncomfortable seats in a traditional single slope to the theatre. I had not made an immediate note but written about the experience for my AOL Blog a month later 26.10.2006 and which I then published in a revised form here on as 31 in March 2007 and then on Google this year as 1031.
I had used Jokerman script for the original piece.“26.10.2006 .The use of Jokerman script for Exquisite Pain (27.09.2006 Newcastle Playhouse) is at one level appropriate. It is not a play but a performance art work where the setting of a seated audience for two and a half hours is inappropriate, one needed to be able to walk about” and in my instance join in.

“12.03.2007 if you have not been to the theatre to experience acting for sometime then Exquisite Pain is not the work to go and see. It is not a play but performance art using exceptionally talented actors. (I can say this because I also watched them perform a total theatre experience of the history of The World in Pictures, two days later).

You sit with increasing discomfort for two and a half hours without interruption. The discomfort is physical and emotional and is an appropriate way to experience the work. I would have preferred to have walked about a bit but keeping within listening distance.

This autobiographical work, previously performed by the artist and available in book form, is by Sophie Calle, born in Paris in 1953. In 1985 her lover and older man failed to meet her as arranged in New Delhi midway between where she had been for several months and experience, rather than traumatised and was able to work through the disappointment, humiliation, and victim guilt, because she was a creative using photo, memorabilia and words, but kept a record of how her perception of the event changed through linear time.”

“26.10.2006 The performance consists of one person telling the story of dealing with a traumatic experience and how the view of that experience changes over time, one blames oneself, where she had previously lived, She was devastated by the one blames the other person one gets angry at being affected so much yet because one wanted and hopes for resolution reconciliation one clings the hope for a different outcome because that it is a possibility but the reality is that when you compare such an experience with the experience of others you realise that however painful, it is insignificant to the realities of the succession of tragedies and horrors of others which are told in a dead pan and sometimes humorous way.”

13.03.2007 Sophie Calle could have just created a performance work in which she recounted the same experience over the subsequent days, weeks and months, reporting and observing changes in detail, consideration, feelings, attitude and judgement. This could have been a complete work. She did not.

On her return to Paris, she asked a group of friends to answer the question, "When did you most suffer?" Their stories of pain, each of them accompanied by a photograph, interplay with Calle's own story and daily reflections—"It is now seventy-five days since the man I love left me"—creating a testament to the heartache of romantic rejection. 130 illustrations, 71 in colour available through Amazon.”

30.11.2009. I write this on the train to Newcastle. Sophie appears to see herself first as a voyeur albeit a self controlled one me thinks, and an exhibitionist second. Both words tend to be regarded in only a pejorative way by the popular media and have conditioned the general public accordingly. Both require courage whether undertaken in a public or private way.

“27.09.2006 the university car park was free tonight, I usually pay £2. I enjoyed the salad and timed everything much better. It is the right thing to do to take the car although it would be sensible to work out the motorway way route back. It is ridiculous that you cannot enter the theatre at this level with the choice if steep steps or walking around the theatre up the slope.”

“28.02.2007. The revised travel arrangements to the Playhouse and other evening outings to Newcastle are now working well. I still visit my mother and then take the car to the Hewarth short stay car park adjacent to the taxi rank and metro station. I eat the picnic meal in the car and then continue the journey by metro train. On the way there is now a sign which suggests it might be possible to enter the theatre directly from the car park. It is.”

30.11.2009 The University has now built its main public reception building on the car park and there is now a grand staircase entrance by the side of the building which leads to the space with the splendid university student union building on one side and the Playhouse Theatre on the other. I assume one can no longer take the car close the theatre anymore but have not taken time to explore this further or been to the theatre for a year.

“27.09.2006 this is my first experience of the new second theatre space. For on the Town when both spaces were combined the audience sat on tiered seating the width of the second space facing into the main auditorium and banked seating. Previously we sat on similar seating in a semi circle around the stage which I like to call eyeball theatre. Now there is conventional tiered seating with not much space to move legs unless you sit on an aisle or the front row where you will feel part of the performance. I chickened out and sat mid row, fortunately one vacant seat so there was some manoeuvrability. My ticket was free as part of a five main theatre subscription packaged. Many in the audience were students. Unsurprisingly there was a plea for funds at the end and I decide to give £10 which is slightly more than the average of £7 requested. Free programme included.”

“13.03.2007. The incorporation of the stories of the experiences of Calle's friends was inspirational. Each story communicates an aspect of physical and emotional pain but the accumulation of experience helps to put her experience into perspective

At the end of the World in Pictures chorus makes the valid point that however much the average member of the audience enjoys, appreciates, is moved or challenged by the event, it will become submerged under layers of new experiences of varying intensity and significance.”

26.10.2006 There was also an after performance session with the two actors, and the company director chaired by a local cultural figure. I had only 'discovered' this extraordinary company through the internet during the afternoon beforehand and had become so interested that I abandoned my work programme. The amazing aspect is that the core actors had been together throughout their working lives having come together at university. At the discussion I made a clanger by concertinaing this time, having misinterpreted an aspect of the internet information. I also wanted to know if the order in which the stories of the friends are recounted is changed according performance. It is not although if the work was mine I would have included the variations”- to see if by doing so my view of what had happened to me, changed 30.11.2009.

“13.03.2007. Calle's work and the performance by the Forced Entertainment company is at the core of my work and confirms that what I am doing is only original in its particular form, at least I hope that this is the position, but the concepts are already aspects of the work of professional contemporary creative of international reputation. However I do not regret only entering back through the portal of my occupational dimension of four decades into my first period of full time creative endeavour. Now I have a lot to say even if I continued to be limited in the means of expression.”

29.11.2009. I have met Sophie Calle again two days ago. The experience was unplanned because at the last moment I had a free day in London and had read Time Out, looking first at the cinema listing and discovering that a film about the Seraphine of Senlis was to open at midday, decided to attend the first performance the Curzon Renoir in Brunswick Square. I then looked at the major space exhibitions which are listed alphabetically but on the third page under Critic‘s choice there was her name Sophie Calle, announcing that she was revealing more of herself at the Whitechapel Gallery from 11am. This became my priority visit until an evening engagement and I quickly worked out how to get to Aldegate East which is behind the City area where I had worked 50 years ago unsuccessfully trying to sell office machines for an Italian company and on a road to Stratford from Tower Bridge which I used several times a year over a period of several years.

I should have arrived for 11 but made a mess of the travel as a consequence of devoting insufficient time to learning the route from East Croydon Station. As will be evident to anyone reading any of my writing I have a learning disability which prevents the immediate recollection of grammar and vocabulary and to ensure that I remember anything and although I spell check, reread and revise any writing, usually once, I continue to find errors, sometimes rendering a sentence incomprehensible. I sometimes leave my work uncorrected.

30.11 2009. For some reason about which I am no longer sure I took the train to London Bridge rather than direct to St Pancras and this resulted in having to climb the stairs at London bridge over platforms and then down to the platform, where fortunately the train from East Croydon to Bedford arrived a few minutes later. I had not lost time but had the additional effort. However what I should have done is get off at Farringdon and take the Hammersmith and City Line to Aldegate East from there. Instead I continued to St Pancras and then had to walk the full length the station to the booking hall at the front and to the Hammersmith and City line which is one the same platform at the circle and district lines. As I was to discover on my way to King Cross station later that evening there is now a new booking hall between the far end of St Pancras and the present side entrance into Kings Cross and which was opened to the public for the first time on Sunday. I do not know if this will also cut the distance to the Hammersmith and city line.

In any event having arrived at the St Pancras platform trains came and departed along the other routes for 15 to 20 minutes before one of two trains in succession going towards Aldegate East were announced. Thus I had extended the journey time by half an hour and it was after 11 before I arrived at the art space and was pleasantly surprised to find that the station entrance and exist is part of the gallery building and that for several years I had driven along the road on my way from Wallington via Tower Bridge to Stratford. I also quickly realised it was in the area where the British Olivetti City office had been located and where each day accompanied with other members of the selling team we had made our way to a bacon roll and coffee breakfast hideaway from the supervisor.

I m just have the address somewhere which I hope to find one day, although the breakfast cafe may be long gone as much of this part of London.

Petticoat Lane is as always but with little evidence of customers on the Friday. From Wikipedia I gather that on Sunday morning there can be as many a thousand stalls covering the wider area and while tourists visit it remains primarily a place to go for clothing. I was struck by two neighbouring shops which specialised in formal suits and dresses for young people, including waistcoats. I assume this is for formal occasions as I cannot recall seeing a child in such attire. There were also two stalls/shops selling luggage at very low prices. Nearby is Brick Lane and its market of fruit and vegetable and which is the home of the Bangladeshi community in this part of London an area previously occupied by Irish and then Jewish immigrants. On my explore I discovered Toynbee Hall the original University Settlement Hall in which those interested in social work could provide services to the underclass in the local community and which continues to this day in an area now overshadowed by the Gherkin and other City Towers and the encroachment of corporations and hotel chains. Lenin visited Toynbee Hall and Clem Atlee worked there as did Lord Profumo who devoted his life there after the Keeler Scandal.

Later after the visit to the Whitechapel Gallery I found an area of street seating close to the East London Mosque which can accommodate 4500 people, next to which is also the London Muslim Centre, which has facilities for several thousand, for the purpose of eating the prepared salad brought with the previous day. Nearby was the London Bell Centre workshops and a little way further along I passed a small group of beautifully attire young Muslim women standing talking and giggly oblivious that they had stopped across the road from the Nag’s Head Gentleman’s club out of wish an Asian gentleman was exiting. I wonder if the various Royals and national politicians who have visited the Mosque and centre noted the incongruity of local authority planning approval being given for such a facility in this neighbourhood.

I knew of the Whitechapel gallery but had no knowledge of the nature of its space which is not surprising as after closure it reopened only earlier this year having doubled in size following expenditure of £13.5million. Having deposited by bag and resisted the temptation to visit the book shop I entered the new ground floor gallery space behind the new restaurant to be confronted with the Nelson Rockefeller 1955 commissioned tapestry of Picasso’s Guernica which for the past couple of decades has hung outside the Security Council meeting room at the United Nations building in New York. The tapestry is set against a blue backcloth the significance of which was to emerge in the installation notes.

Around 1975 on my visit to the South of France I experience a major work of Picasso on War and Peace in a church at Vallauris where Picasso lived from 1948 to 1955. I cannot remember when I acquired the large block reproduction of Guernica which now hangs in the room in which spend most of my days working and experiencing.

The reason for the presence of the tapestry at the Whitechapel is the work of London based Polish creative visual artist Goska Macuga who is known for the presentation as installations historical objects and documents. In 2003 a blue curtain was hung over the tapestry as Colin Powell delivered his speech on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Goska has placed his Guernica against a backcloth of Blue in from of which there is a large table similar to that used by the Security Council but with inlay of documents which reflect keys moments in the history of the Whitechapel where there have been meetings and discussions and where groups are invited to do likewise during the year long presentation of the installation. What was new to me is that the original Guernica was displayed at the Whitechapel in 1939 after it had been on display at the 1937 Paris Exhibition. Moreover Clem Atlee had addressed a meeting before the picture a large reprint of the photograph of the event was the centrepiece of a newspaper produced for the 2009 event and which I fear I mistakenly put out with the now free London Evening Standard. I will obtain another if still available when I revisit just before Christmas.

Before entering the ground floor space which is devoted Ms Calle’s Take Care of Yourself I stayed alone in the Zilkha Auditorium where Inci Eviner is showing perpetually her film Harem 2009 based on a 19th century engraving which looks more like the inside of a lunatic asylum than the sexual playthings of a Sultan of Constantinople. The film has a hypnotic quality despite the contrived grainy effect.

It was then I was ready to meet Sophie Calle once more although the front stage was occupied by a mural of video screens where a score of the 107 women she contacted from an opera singer to rock artist responded on film interpreting an email received from a partner breaking up with her. The performance are also on a continuous loop but switch between them for the sound and which is the English speaking Premier of the work which she took to the Venice Biennale in 2007, the same year that Tracey Emin occupied the British Pavilion. Around the walls are large format responses to this most extraordinary of emails, including from the chief of police and psychiatrist I ordered an edition of the book on the work while travelling back to South Shields today.

I found copies of all the official guides to the British leading participants to the Biennale on one of the top gallery floors together with photos and information including a group photograph at a lunch which represent a history of British art with Henry Moore and JMW Turner, Ben Nicholson and John Tunnard at the opening in 1948, Graham Sutherland 1952 Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud and Reg Butler in 54, John Bratby 56 Victor Passmore in 60 Bridget Riley 68 David Hockney 78 Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor. Damien Hirst and Julian Opie 93, and the single contributors over the past decade with Mark Wallinger, Chris Orfili, Gilbert and George before Tracey and the video installation Steve McQueen this year.

I was then ready for Calle’s Talking to Strangers, inviting people to use her bed and then photograph them as well as asking resident’s of the Bronx to take her to their favourite place.

Seven times before my life was fundamentally affected and reshaped by unplanned events or unexpected experience and the combination events last Friday has created the eight with the work of Sophie Calle pivotal. As with that day in the Spring of 2003 when I was exhilarated by the experience of the Saatchi 100 and followed this with another first to the Tate Modern, Friday got better and better with my visit to the film on the life of Seraphine of Senlis. For this bitterly cold night on the return home I am more than content to go to bed talking to Sophie Calle.

1836 From Seraphine to Sophie Calle

In the history of human kind, let alone the universe, it is a very short road from the village of Arsy and the town of Senlis on the Oise in northern France where Seraphine Louis was born in 1864, to the birth place of Sophie Calle in 1953, a couple of years before I left school and had visited the local reference library to read the official War Crimes reports on the concentration camps at Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz. Interestingly for someone who is precise and expansive I can find no published record of where Calle she was born.

(On a visit to the Science Museum a couple of days later I was also struck in the area on energy with the information that the sun will lose its power to sustain life on earth in about five billion years which is nearly as long as it appears to have already been in existence).

Seraphine Louis was the daughter of a manual working family who was sent to the local convent to undertake laundry work at the age of 17 after being a shepherdess and which is likely to account for her need to be outdoors and of trees which she loved to touch and talk to. From her work at the Convent of the Sisters of Providence in Clermont she developed the kind of fundamental Catholicism and adoration for the Virgin Mary which so dominated the life of my mother, to the extent that despite the totality of my mother’s senility and disabilities when she approached her death aged 100.75, her catholic faith remained evident to me as it did to her priest.

When Seraphine was 37 she commenced work for middle class families in the city of Senlis although according to the Film of her life which opened in the UK on the Friday afternoon of the day I also visited Sophie Calle at the Whitechapel. It was a further decade before Seraphine undertook cleaning for the garden flat tenant of one of these families, and one tenant by amazing good fortune was the Parisian art gallery dealer owner and collector Wilhelm Uhde, a German born pacifist Jewish homosexual born in what is now Poland, facts which were to have a great impact on the future of Seraphine

It is not known from the film when and why she commenced to paint her distinctive individual style of paintings which all have a tree like symmetry of floral displays in the most vivid and at times lurid of colours and which the films indicates she produced herself from pots of basic white using animal blood from the butchers for her red and algae from the river bed although these are guesses because she never revealed how she did it.

In the film one of her employers learns that Seraphine painted and asked to see a canvass which she then ridiculed because of its primitivism and abstraction. However the employer kept the work which was seen after the woman discovered that the tenant was the art expert and arranged a dinner party at which the local cultural worthies displayed their ignorance and contempt for the contemporary art of the day. The film suggests that it was only at this point did Wilhelm discover that his cleaner was the painter. According the Wikipedia he then became aware she had accumulated a body of work although in the film she only showed him a few of her small works painted on board and he urged her to work hard at improving her technique as well as being impressed by what she had created to-date. He bought her work and provide the support which commenced to lift her horizons as a mature single woman who had used all her earnings to buy materials to paint which she did at night by candlelight. The film also suggests that she was generally regarded as being “soft in the head” by her employers and the community in which she lived because she was on her own, appeared to have not family or friends apart from occasional visits to see the nuns and her devotions at the local church and spent hours in the countryside in all weathers, touching and talking to trees. The film states that she painted having been called by God to do so. She possessed the compulsion to do something regardless of whether she obtained recognition and wealth and did so at the expense of everything else other than working to buy materials. If her enthusiasm had been for alcohol, drugs or what have she would be said to have become addicted in a negative way and

Unfortunately just when she had found someone who believed in her work, the first World War occurred and Wilhelm had to flee from Senlis where understandably he was no longer welcome as the German army advanced, and where he would have been shot by the Germans if they had found him continuing to live there. The film suggests that Seraphine retrieved her work from the flat as well as rescuing his diary. He promised to return to see her but it was not until 1927 when Wilhelm returned to France and was living at Chantilly that he went back to find her. It is not clear to me if he could have returned to France before he did given his views and interests.

In the film it is stated that he assumed she had died until seeing a newspaper note of an exhibition of local artists and decided to see if any of her works were being shown and only then realised she and her painting had not only survived but progressed.

Wilhelm trained as lawyer and studied art history in Italy and was an early collector of the works of Picasso who painted his portrait in 1909. It was his patronage that made Henri Rousseau and in 1928 he showed the work of Seraphine in Paris along with that of Rousseau, Boucant and Camille Bombois who together became known as the Sacred Heart painters.

It was the juxtaposition of Seraphine the naive Catholic primitive and me, Colin the naive, former Catholic, primitive contemporary creative and Sophie Calle the now worldly exhibitionist and voyeur which has and such a profound effect as did the interaction between the work of many of those exhibiting in the Saatchi 100 and the Tate Modern in the Spring of 2003 when I knew not just what I wanted to do but how to do it.

The impact of the patronage on life of Seraphine was also profound in two contrasting ways. She commenced to paint large work on canvass two metres high and with access to the whole range of prepared paints was able to progress her work with paintings which overwhelm the senses and which will no doubt be shown once more in London following the release of the film there, a film which has already won seven awards at the French Academy including best picture and can be expected to do well as the foreign language Oscar film next year as well as the Baftas.

In the film Seraphine also moved into a bigger flat which she filled with pots and pans and silverware and then bought an expensive hand made formal white wedding dress which the film does not attempt to explain leaving the audience to decide if this was for wearing at her exhibition of work in Paris, or a symbolic dedication to the Virgin Mary and God, (non Catholics may not be aware that Nuns dress in bridal white when they enter an order following on from their white dresses at the first Holy Communion)

It is at this point that the role of Wilhelm becomes questionable at best and in my view disgraceful. When her neighbours become concerned about her going about the town in her wedding dress and distributing her silverware, they lock her up as mad and there was no one immediately on hand to speak for her. I was reminded that humanity throughout the ages, especially the established and ruling religions, have always persecuted those regarded as different and tried to silence, often killing those who challenge the existing order and way of doing things

In the film her psychosis progress to the extent she fails to recognise Wilhelm who funds the provision of a private room with access to the open air and countryside. In fairness to him he also was badly affected by the Wall Street Crash and could not keep up with her extravagance including the desire to buy a house like his and a car. However what is not clear if any effort was made to provide her with the material to paint and why did he tell everyone that she had died in 1934 when in fact she lived on until 1942. It is appreciated that as the control and suppression of the Jews became known, even if knowledge of their extermination was more restricted to officialdom and to the military throughout Europe, Wilhelm had to go into hiding in Southern France dying in 1947 back in Paris. Why on return and discovering that she been buried in a common grave did he not provide a new one for example? He had continued to show her work when in the asylum in an exhibition in 1932 and after stating she had died with exhibitions in Paris 37-38, followed by Zurich and New York, also in 1942 and in 1945 after she had died in a show of only her work. I was left feeling that that as her talent for painting grew she was abandoned by all those who could have helped her. I do take into account the barbarism of the care of the mentally ill which has stained medical practical for generations.

I rounded off my day by Eating spicy chicken wings in a quiet corner of St Pancras station after buying them from M and S, and as I was leaving noted two young men tucking into one of their large trifle bowls with similar enthusiasm to my devouring of the chicken. I had intended to call in at an attractive Christmas decorated Inn discovered on the way to the Brunswick centre but on exiting found it heaving. An Irish chain pub nearby was also packed out by early Friday evening revellers. I had not been to the Curzon Renoir at the Brunswick centre before and which appears to be an excellent venue for quality International films. They have a collection of DVD’s of previous successes which can also be obtained through their catalogue. I enjoyed a coffee before the performance but had to complain that the theatre had been placed in total darkness,

Saturday did not begin well as I quickly discovered that the Cross Thames line between London Bridge and St Pancras was down with the Circle and District Line and most of the Jubilee, Northern Kline Trains were not stopping at Kings Cross as individual stations such as Warren street were closed. There was chaos. The first port of call was St Martin’s in the Fields, the most famous non Cathedral church in the UK because of its location to one side of Trafalgar Square. It is technically the parish church of the Royal Family. It is also known for its open door policy towards the homeless following the work of Rev Dick Shepherd who pioneered charitable work in the first part of the last century Between 2006 and 2008 £36 million was spent on cleaning the building and creating new public facilities and parish and social care facilities which included a row of buildings to the north of the church. The large Crypt is now a restaurant cafe where jazz concerts are held and the church holds several concerts a week during lunchtimes and at night using candle light. It is also the London Brass rubbing centre. My interest was to enquire if tickets were available for the evening concert of Baroque music and they were, before walking across the bridge and along the South Bank of the Thames to Tate Modern.

This was my first visit this year. And as with my visit to the Saatchi in the summer for the USA show, it was a disappointment with nothing creating a new sense of wow. Most of the film space had warnings about nudity which appears to have become an issue although it is not surprising as the Tate appears to be a place for Tourists to visit and for curious parents to take their children along with them. I was struck by the difference between the two sets of visitors to the Tate Modern and the Whitechapel.

There was one work in which I did engage, by Robert Therrien from Los Angeles in which he had crammed into a small space, said to be the space he had used in his studio, some 888 objects all in red many practical, radio telephone, grill and that many of the objects had a significance in relation to his own past or that of his friends. It was this aspect which attracted my interest because too often the creative is seeking to cause an effect, to attract attention and the work has little to do, if anything with the life led or personal past experience. The redness was also commanding. I am not dismissing the rest of the displays which included several appreciated on past visits, but there was little I would want to live with or had direct significance to my own past experience or current work.

I enjoyed a sandwich and tea overlooking St Paul’s but came over tired and spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in a comfy chair at the Royal Festival Hall until it was time to brave the heavy rain in search of somewhere to eat. The crypt of St Martins was an obvious option but there was only limited choice of mass produced food kept warm. An exploration further along St Martin’s Lane led to La Roche a Lebanese Moroccan restaurant where a two course meal with wine will set you back £25 a head. However it was well worth it as I enjoyed some beautifully tender lamb with petite vegetables in a spiced sauce cooked in a colourful topped ceramic earthenware pot accompanied with rice and followed a delicious apple strudel. The wine was an unspecified house red.

St Martins is not an ideal place for music in that only those at the aisle or in the front rows can see the musicians and the seats are church pews although there was plenty of room for a bag underneath and for coats to be folded on the wide ledge used for hymnals. Yet it seemed ideal for the programme of Baroque music. Some of the work was familiar notably the Air on a G String of Bach and 4th Brandenburg Concerto when I have a double Long Play of the series and there was also Spring from the Vivaldi Four Seasons. I did not know the Telemann Recorder Concerto performed Martin Feinstein or the Pachelbel Canon and Fugue, Vivaldi’s Concerto for four Violins or his Spranino Concerto, but for me the I enjoyed most the Bach Double Violin Concerto with soloists Catherine Manson and Marianna Szcucs.

It is decades since visiting the Science Museum which since the films about Dinosaurs has been overshadowed by the adjacent Natural History Museum. I had been to the Victoria and Albert across the street earlier in the year and had been tempted to go again. Many of the displays are long standing especially the history of Flight and of Maritime developments. I am likely to have viewed the flying bomb rocket before but it still brought back the fear of childhood. The history of medicine has never appealed but 100 years of psychology usually would have but not at that moment. There was tremendous public interest in everything to do with space and the development of energy sources. I was delighted to see an Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter which I tried to sell in the late 1950’s. I cannot remember what happened to the one which I bought for myself as later I acquired a black Silverite in a black case. There was also one of the early adding machines with the fading paper print roll. What interested me most was the early nature of many of fields of research and study which then changed all our lives. I noted that when men played around with electricity servants and children were treated with small shocks because it was though this would help to keep them in their place.

There has been thought given to attracting and keeping the interest of young people to science and everything is geared to provide young people with interest and well as facilities. There is a special large area for parties and refectory type tables on the ground floor cafe restaurant as well as those for two or four, and the food looked well prepared and appetizing. There was also a picnic area and one large area given over to hands on experiments and tests where children were having a great time. At the area of flight there was a conducted tour aimed at young children who were engaged throughout in various ways.

The closures of the Tube meant that everyone appeared to be queuing for the only direct bus route at Victoria, the C1. While people did get out at the V and A marked stop and then at the South Kensington Station where there is a tunnel to the Natural History and Science Museums and which used by those going or coming from the Royal Albert Hall at the top of the Road. As the bus goes to Sloane Square and Harrods at Knightsbridge it was full of shoppers as well as some going on to Earls Court Olympia where there are a number of halls as well as the conference centre, and where throughout the year there are trade and consumer shows, sporting events from the Horse of the Year to chess championships and music such as the Annual Brit Awards. I would be taken as a school child with the aunties to see the Ideal Home Exhibition each year where I enjoyed going through the show houses filled with the latest appliances and gadgets, watching the free displays of things to make life easier and the free samples.

It became time for a Sunday lunch and having just missed the C1 back as more rain came down disregarded by the dozens of skaters in the open air ice rink close to the station, I opted to take a bus to Marble Arch at the edge of Hyde Park where there was both another Ice rink, one of six in and around London and a monster large wheel, cross over the space where there are no memorials to the Australians who died in the World Wars and then take the bus to Victoria from there down the back of Buckingham Palace and passed the former officers of the National Coal Board to Victoria Station where there were was a pub restaurant one end of the food court. It was here that on the spur I crossed over to the far side and discovered that the Cafe Rouge are having an excellent two or three course reasonable priced meal which despite small portions is nevertheless excellent value given the quality of the food and the pleasant ambience where there is no pressure to serve everyone as fast as possible to attract further customers. I had a terrine de poulet with four pieces of baguette, a crepe filled with vegetables and a green salad rather than French fries, followed by a mousse aux chocolat and accompanied with a large glass of Merlot followed by black coffee £15. The new Cafe Rouge at Gateshead has the same menu for servings from 12 until 5 and there are vouchers for 2 main menu dishes for £12.50 in the evenings and I received a 50% off mail meal voucher the former expires in December while the latter is for the New Year. The meal made up for the dreadful weather and it also became cold to freezing.

However on return I discovered how the chain is able to provide quality food at low prices. Until October it was paying staff below the national minimum wage and using the tips to make the difference. Now it is required to pay the way and for tips to be distributed. Staff are asked to put the tips on the bill and then a 10% deduction is made by the management for administrative costs. This will affect my going again but I will test out the one at the Metro centre especially if it starts to show the relays of opera and other live performances when it opens in a few days time.