A Schooling in Life

On March 3, 2017March 5, 2017 By Conversations with StrangersIn Entertainment, Life, LondonLeave a comment

To my great cost, literally, I have discovered The School of Life. Wandering into their home on Marchmont Street in central London last night I was in no mood for a pre-booked workshop on ‘How To Realise Your Potential’ but, in for a penny, in for another £55 hole in my bank account.

Earlier on in the day, attending a funeral service, I’d heard a reading from Ecclesiastes – A Time for Everything: Joy and pain, laughter and tears, speaking and silence. Each emotion has an opposite; the only thing is sometimes one loses touch with the positive ones.

I sat at the front, despite my mood, tricking myself into participating. We were given an icebreaker to start which entailed talking to the person next to us about what underlies our desire to reach our potential. My heart inwardly sank.

“Death and ageing” I reluctantly said to a smiling face sitting opposite me. “There’s so much of it about, there’s so much illness, it makes me panic about not realising my potential in time.”
“That’s beautiful” my School of Life class mate responded.
I looked at her askance. “Really?”
“Yes, it’s brave of you to vocalise it, to me a complete stranger. Mine is that I feel I’m in the wrong job and I don’t seem to be able to leave it.”

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A Conversation Piece

On January 23, 2017January 25, 2017 By Conversations with StrangersIn Art, Entertainment, Life, London, People you may have heard ofLeave a comment

peter-lanyon-witness-1961

‘Witness’ by Peter Lanyon. *

January. Not the easiest month to make a break for it and get out there. However, a kind invitation to an evening at Home House with René Gimpel from the renowned West End Gallery debating all things art collecting roused my curiosity.

His talk was gently informative and afterwards his answers to the assembled audience on questions ranging from “What’s the difference between cinema and video art?” to “Should I buy Keith Haring now?” were compassionate and eloquent. “Anyone can become an expert – that’s the great thing about art” he stated, “You just have to enter into the conversation.”

The mood in the elegant drawing room was relaxed and energised. The chat flowed amongst cushy sofas and soft lighting: The aftermath of a season of goodwill infused with some urgency of new year intent.

I approached René, curious to learn more: “Did you see Bowie’s collection at Sotheby’s?” I asked – somewhat naively.
Rene looked at me, as a smile came to his lips. “Yes, he was a client of ours. I’ve got a lovely story about him if you’d like to hear it.”

My excited expression prompted the tale:

“Well, he came to me in the 80’s. He was interested in starting to collect art. He wanted to learn everything about it. He told me of a particular Peter Lanyon painting he liked and asked if I could get it for him. So, I rang Sheila, Peter’s wife, and she sent it up. Bowie came in and I took him down to the basement to fetch the picture. It was dark and dusty so I offered to bring the painting up to the gallery. ‘No, let’s just sit here and look at it’ he said, motioning to the stairs.

We sat on the steps and contemplated the piece in silence for some time.

After a while he pointed to the right side of the picture and said: ‘It’s got a tyre mark on it’. I looked at it aghast and thought – gosh that’s my eyesight; I knew Peter kept his pictures in the garage at home and immediately thought he’d backed into it. I started to apologise, but he interrupted me and said: ‘No, no, this is the one I wanted: Peter ran over it deliberately – he thought it looked better that way.’

I introduced him to high art collectors and those in the middle – he was particularly interested in the latter and I remember a trip to Richmond with him to visit one. He was extremely knowledgeable about modern British art – hence his knowing of Peter’s ‘tyre’ painting” he concluded.

I basked in the warmth of the story, reluctant to leave my place on the stairs at Gimpel Fils with René and Bowie; such edifying company on a freezing cold winter’s night.

* ‘Witness’ by Peter Lanyon. Dated April 1961. From the BOWIE/COLLECTOR sale at Sotheby’s, London, November 2016. Image copywrited to Sotheby’s.

Sunday School

On January 8, 2017May 30, 2017 By Conversations with StrangersIn Health, Life, London, UncategorizedLeave a comment

People smiled at each other in the lengthy queue for an early cuppa at the Cecil Sharpe House café. Earthy wooden tables decorated a sparse room warmed by the buzz of conversation and the bang-bang of the barista’s coffee work.

“Is that the door to sorrow or are my eyes deceiving me?” I turned to look at the owner’s voice and noticed him glancing towards a handwritten sign above a door not too far away. I followed his gaze and burst out laughing. “Um, I don’t think so! But having said that I can’t work it out either – is it ‘Storrou’”?
“Time for an eye test I think” came the reply. “Anyway whatever it is, I don’t want to go there.” Between more joking and laughter, we discussed the virtues of our morning venue and the talk we were about to attend there. “I’ve heard Ruby speak before in Ross on Wye. She was good” he said.

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The Middle Bit

On December 30, 2016December 30, 2016 By Conversations with StrangersIn Entertainment, Life, LondonLeave a comment

“Don’t look in that mirror!” I said to T as he wandered back from the Gents, “It’s a ‘fat’ mirror, and Lord knows I don’t need to add any extra pounds to the ones already gained over the last week.”

He looked into the mirror anyway – emblazoned with a superlative drawing of the movie we’d just seen: The latest in the Star Wars, um, series, it was perfect viewing for the middle bit – that bit between Christmas and New Year where no one knows what day of the week it is, much less cares.

We’d met at 8 to go to the local Everyman cinema. At the top of a bustling queue T requested the tickets: “I booked two for Rogue Nation”, he said to one of the Bartenders. I smiled standing beside him, noting the hot rum punch merrily steaming on the bar. “You mean, Rogue One” came the reply. We looked at each other, “Yes, of course, Rogue One.”

“I was sure it was called the former, T” I whispered, clutching my winter warmer as our eyes adjusted to the darkened theatre and we attempted to locate our small but perfectly formed sofa.

Special effects reigned supreme in a movie where the laughs came from K-2SO – all minute mannerisms coupled with a dry wit easily a match for C-3P0 – and Peter Cushing was raised from his rest via CGI to be morphed into some notable character or other.

As the lights came up I turned to my actor friend: “What was all that about the antennae not being aligned? Was that Leia at the end – if so what have they done to her face?! And was Princess Jen supposed to be Leia in an early life? And the big retro controls? I’m confused.”

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Farmaceuticals

On December 15, 2016December 15, 2016 By Conversations with StrangersIn Entertainment, Fashion, Food and drinks, Life, LondonLeave a comment

There was a time, not so long ago, when the word that a new restaurant in town had opened, had you hot footing it down there to steal the ashtray and collect the matches while dining on all the alcohol you could possibly manage and shooting the calorie counter up to eleven. The naughtier and more generously appointed the dish the better.

As the years have gone by however the courses, as opposed to the prices, have gotten smaller: We had nouvelle cuisine morphing into bacon and egg ice cream, and eventually just bits of air floating about in a clear glass dome on a plate.

So, just when the menus of hip and happening restaurants had become so absurd and gone beyond you even asking for the chef’s recipe book for Christmas – solely for coffee table decoration – we finally pulled ourselves together and decided what was interesting was what actually might be good for us to eat. Good in a kind of ‘I am superhuman, I live in the Noughties (are we still in those by the way?) I am immune to any new disease mankind may throw at me. Bring on the kale! Bring on the bizarre South American herbs! Bring on the sense of worthiness/smugness I will obtain just by looking at this food on my plate!’

Farmacy, one of the latest restaurants currently fascinating London town fits this particular bill.

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