There is this “poetry sculpture” at the Southbank Centre … and despite being exposed to rain and wind and pigeon poop, it’s been holding up quite well.
Meanwhile, I’m busy writing a different kind of poetry altogether, a sort of extended love poem to my examiners, called Master’s Thesis. It’s due in two weeks. Oh, but how I’d rather be blogging!
“Liberty is about the right to question everything.” (Ai Weiwei)
>> Photo taken at Tate Modern. <<
Hayseed Dixie was one band at the Wilderness Festival that really made me laugh. If you ever thought that you maybe handled a break-up badly in the past and behaved like an idiot because someone broke your heart, just look at this guy!
The Royal Mews is where the Queen keeps her horses, right next to Buckingham Palace. I took my sister there just a few days before she left London, because she’s crazy about horses and I thought it would be nice to spend a bit of quality time together … so I skipped school for that morning and of we went … there weren’t many horses “on display” but we saw all the fancy carriages and even the car that Kate arrived in for her wedding.
My sister has been gone for more nearly two weeks now and I have to say I kind of miss her here! While I love my peace and freedom, living alone is actually a bit rubbish sometimes. I should really acquire something like a boyfriend, or at least a talking plant.
One of the first things we came across at the Wilderness Festival was mindapples.
mindapple (mīnd-ăp-´əl) • n. a simple day-to-day activity that is good for the mind
Mindapples has a simple message: “If eating five fruit and veg a day is good for our bodies, what about our minds? Share the 5-a-day for your mind and tell us what you do that's good for your mind.” I had trouble thinking what to write when faced with this mindapple. The truth is, I rely on my mind a lot, but I don’t give it much TLC in return.
“Mental health is something that people ignore until they break down,” the guy at the mindapples stand said. Mindapples is trying to get people thinking about the importance of prevention, the same way that we accept exercise and good diet as being essential for preventing physical health problems.
It reminded me how I recently registered with a new doctor, where I was quizzed about my lifestyle. Do you eat fruit and vegetables every day? How many pints of beer do you drink in an average week? How many bottles of wine? How often do you go to the gym? How many hours per week do you walk? How fast do you walk? Do you cycle? How many hours of housework do you do? Are you sexually active? Do you smoke? Any heart attacks, cancer or diabetes in your family? They asked so many questions about the state of my body, but none about the state of my mind.
Just got home from the excellent Wilderness Festival in Oxfordshire. I will have a few updates about the many quirky things I discovered there over the weekend, but I’m currently nursing a horrible cold I caught from the camping, so for now I’ll just share this song by Lail Arad, a lovely London singer I discovered in the folk tent at Wilderness. She’s all about the funny lyrics. I like.
Today I congratulate myself for choosing to live in a neighbourhood I can barely afford, shunning the “up-and-coming” areas that are now experiencing so much trouble. I’m thankfully having a peaceful evening in west London, reading through comments on a Guardian article about the “context of the riots”.
Some of the more thought-provoking opinions picked out below.
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“You can't systematically exclude people from the opportunities and wealth of British society and then complain when they act like they have no stake in that society.” (CallumM)
“You are over estimating these rioters. They have no cause!” (james5555)
“When people have nothing, and have no prospect of having anything, this is inevitable.” (whitesteps)
“I genuinely worry for the moral state of people who don't demonize this kind of low-level terrorism.” (pintofplutonium)
“This is not a noble-cause-driven protest at circumstance and deprivation. It's almost exclusively young men doing what young men have done for thousands of years - form mobs and behave aggressively.” (philstyle)
“How on Earth can an event in Tottenham be responsible for looters stealing from shops in Walthamstow, Hackney, Brixton and Enfield? These people are looting because they want to loot, because it beats paying for things.” (Persianwar)
“When the so-called elite (banksters, police and politicians) behave like rats, they shouldn't be too surprised when the hopeless behave like it too. Their methods might be less elegant than credit default swaps or subprime mortgages, but the reasoning is exactly the same: Grab as much as you can quickly, as long as you’ve got a chance to do so, and never mind the rest of society.” (Sukram)
“It’s the school holidays ... they're bored. They've been lying on the sofa, watching action films of violent crime, big explosions and lethal weapons. In-between the murders and car chases, advertisements imply they are nerds or wimps if they don’t have iPhones, trainers and Kentucky Fried Chicken - but Mum won’t give them any money. A get-together with their mates and bit of lifestyle looting gets them what they want and provides an evening of testosterone-fuelled excitement.” (PollyDick)
“Clearly the problem is that the Government is not providing people with trainers from JJB sports. If only the Government would distribute sports clothes in a fair and equitable manner, there would be NO NEED FOR PEOPLE TO STEAL THEM. It was the government's fault.” (PecheALaFrog)
…. and my favourite: “Sometimes this newspaper reads like a parody of itself.” (liberalcynic)
remind everyone that poetry is better than killing and murdering.
Walked by these poems on Saturday, made me smile.
Leaving and Leaving You
When I leave your postcode and your commuting station,
When I leave undone the things that we planned to do,
You may feel you have been left by association,
But there is leaving and there is leaving you.
When I leave your town and the club that you belong to,
When I leave without much warning or much regret,
Remember, there’s doing wrong and there’s doing wrong to
You, which I’ll never do and I haven’t yet.
And when I have gone, remember that in weighing
Everything up, from love to a cheaper rent,
You were all the reasons I thought of staying
And you were none of the reasons why I went.
And although I leave your sight and leave your setting
And our separation is soon to be a fact,
though you may stand beside what I’m leaving and forgetting,
I’m not leaving you, not if motive makes the act.
Sophie Hannah
Yesterday was my first time at the BBC Proms. My sister is a serious violinist, so I thought it would be nice to take her to a good concert. We went to see Prom 26: Debussy, Dutilleux & Ravel. I’m sure everyone in the UK is familiar with the Proms – it’s probably the biggest classical music festival in the UK, this year running from 15th July – 10th September, with daily concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington.
… and here are a few photos.
The concerts are very affordable; we had some cheap tickets for about £12, but you can just turn up on the day and get a standing ticket for £5. It turns out those are actually the best places, you stand right at the bottom near the orchestra. Earlier, my friends from college went for these cheap tickets for Prom 8: Dvořák and Smetana. They particularly loved Smetana’s Má Vlast, which made me really proud (of my country and my taste in music, I love it too), but actually I’ve only ever heard it on a CD and now I’m gutted I missed this opportunity to hear it live. The Royal Albert Hall, being so massive, is really well suited to the kind of elaborate music. I always preferred smaller chamber orchestra in the past, but having been to the Royal Albert Hall I now understand it’s simply a matter of space. With a big orchestra, you need a big room to fill … these pieces were written for fancy opera houses, not for your living room. The finale of Ravel’s Bolero sounded particularly awesome in this big space. So much energy, the whole orchestra was working so hard!
Since I raved so much about Smetana’s Má Vlast, I’m going to leave you with a YouTube of Vltava, one of the pieces from this great symphony. “Má Vlast” means “My Homeland” in Czech, and Vltava is the river that flows through Prague. The music describes the river, starting with its source, a quiet bubbling spring in the mountains in Southern Bohemia (the flute at the beginning) … and then the river starts to gain strength, more instruments join in, you can hear a bit of a whirlpool … and it just gets bigger and louder as the river gets closer towards Prague, then the whole orchestra joins in and the music is much grander, and so it keeps going until the end, flowing into the river Labe. I remember our music teacher in school explaining it to us with an illustrated map of Vltava, and if you listen out for the right bits, it all just makes perfect sense … it’s not just music inspired by a river, it’s actually a perfect description.
On Saturday I dragged the teen to Cambridge for a day trip. The weather was glorious and my friends Z. & P. kindly took us punting. Punts are basically shallow wooden boats that you move by pushing into the riverbed with a giant pole. Not as easy as it sounds! Luckily, P. has been studying in Cambridge for the past year so he is an expert punter. Some colleges have their own punts, so P. and his friends have been known to punt to a little village near Cambridge, get sloshed in the pub, then punt back. Sounds fun, don’t you think? Or, alternatively, “childish and irresponsible” as P.’s girlfriend puts it.
P. also told me there is a scientific way to punt, invented by Newton. The river was pretty crowded with tourists and we saw many people fall into the water and generally struggle, whereas our boat kept moving effortlessly. Thank you, Isaac Newton. The river Cam goes past a few very nice colleges (notably King’s College) so it’s a nice way to see the city.
It seems having a hen party on a punt is quite a popular thing to do. For my non-UK readers, hen parties are the same as bachelorette parties, i.e. your last opportunity to go wild with your girlfriends before you get married. We met at least 4 of these parties, sipping champagne and flirting with the hot young guy in charge of their punt. What I find funny is that even the older women flirt, like the mother of the bride and her aunts. In fact, especially the older women seem to go wild! Yup, women in England are pretty uninhibited, in a way that might shock some tourists. “They really know how to enjoy themselves,” my dad once diplomatically noted while watching a group of 30-something ladies who were drinking Pimm’s on a train at 11 am.
“The duck looks exactly like my supervisor,” Z. said. We are all working on our MSc theses right now, and clearly going a bit mad!
King’s College.
Hen party shopping list: champagne, plastic cups, giant inflatable penis.
Hen party shopping list continued: pink fluffy ears for your punt-boy.
Or maybe a black feather boa?
