Ah blog, I haven't forgotten about you! I have been going to galleries (the Turner shortlist at Tate Britain, which I thought was brilliant despite the snooty reviews), and Come as You really Are, an intriguing collection of collections in East Croydon. While we were in the area we tried to find the Pollocks Toy Theatre pop-up shop in the Whitgift Centre, which alas is a parody of a dying shopping centre: sprawling, enormous and deserted. The shop was nowhere to be found, and nor was a map of the centre or an information person either. So instead we hopped on the train and went to see my brother and talked about food we didn't like, which was a 'curated conversation' of our own, and tremendous fun.
On Sunday, we went to Brighton and visited the Fisherman's Museum, which to my great glee had a few examples of Sunderland Ware without saying what it was. The Sunderland Ware said what it was though: 'Wearside Bridge'. It would appear that even museums are telling lies these days. I remember at one of the Universities where I worked, the course leader was so untruthful and I inadvertently caught him out so frequently, that he started each sentence with 'I'm not lying, Helen...'.
Brighton was blustery and alternately sunny and grey with lots of fresh air, a terrifyingly volatile-looking multicoloured sea, and a new one-pound charge to get on the pier ('It's so cheap, nobody will mind'). What an astonishingly mean-spirited mini-charge! There was nothing new on the pier that justified the charge, and we looked longingly over at the skeleton of the West Pier whose rueful structure said 'Capitalism will do this to you too, Palace Pier!'. How strange of the council to allow an observation pole to be built that already looks tatty, when they could have built a new West Pier complete with conservation centre, breeding programme for sea birds, and arts centre! Now there's something that might have been worth a quid. Anyway I'm being a bit pensioner about that, aren't I?
Really I meant to write about my records. The Chefs vinyl album will be out on the 18th of October, and my solo album will be out in November. It's all gone off to be manufactured, and it sounds absolutely amazing even to my hyper-critical ears. I will have to organise some sort of launch and I've been scoping out venues for that, but there are a few other things to sort out first. Life has flung a few lemons my way recently and also the way of some of my friends and relatives; in fact, going back to food conversations, I think I prefer to say hardboiled eggs because I hate them, and I do like lemons. So life has thrown a few hardboiled eggs across my path, and I'm gingerly picking my way through them because to step on one would release the most horrendous sulphurous stink.
Roll on record release days!
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