A Bug's Life

The joints have started a big flare up again, ticket available for The Beat at the Junction tonight for anyone who can pick it up, shame to have it go to waste...
http://www.junction.co.uk/artist/5028

Today I have improved a bit and can walk as far as the Odeon Tottenham Court Road before I need to have a bit of a rest. So this afternoon, I will walk there and have a rest while watching Mama. I'm not as keen as I used to be on del Toro-associated films, I would often rather have watched Pan's Labyrinth again. Ok, for the next two hours I will practice not winceing at London cinema prices. £24.79, you say? Ah, super.

Monday was fine despite the poisoned joints, Mum visited and we had a nice tapas lunch at the place 50 metres away, and we talked for a few hours (nothing wrong with my jaw!), and she picked up a couple of things from the supermarket for me. A lazy morning and evening of reading (Wil McCarthy's The Collapsium, which with its two rival/co-operating scientist Declarant-Philanders dealing with problems that beset the Queendom in a weird future reminded me strongly of the last time I was here, reading Lem's The Cyberiad, with its two rival/co-operating scientist Constructors solving problems in a weird future... Lots of robots in The Collapsium too), less so watching films as while Mubi works here when the WiFi is up it takes 2 minutes to download each minute of film. Saw a couple of 15 minute shorts. Did not attempt the 246 minute Scorsese documentary on Italian film.

The grumpiness comes as I'm worse today than I was on Monday, I'm not even going to try getting downstairs to test my walking, and I have spent the morning so far sending my apologies and cancelling arrangements for today and Wednesday. By Thursday I'll probably be up to a couple of 30 minute walks, trying to get my speed back (Tun is out), and on Friday I come home. So should I just come home now (ouch, and if I can't make it to Holborn for dinner how do I make it home? Well, cabs and assistance and stuff) and do my recovering at home instead? Chiz, chiz. Ah, London, so full of things, so near, yet out of my reach. Grr. Fiddlesticks. etc.

But I had a lovely weekend in London. Shame about the rest of the week.

Well, arse, I appear to have eaten a small amount of Bad Thing (probably on Saturday) and now I hurt. I don't know what it was. I went for a walk round the block this morning to see how bad it was, and suspect the drivers and cyclists at the zebra crossings wished I had stayed at home (yes, you would not expect to need to cross the road when going round the block but there were building works and a closed footpath). Mum will come for a quick visit today instead of us having a massive trek round the V&A (so I will still not have been there, actually, I think my memory is wrong and I went to a computer/art exhibition there a couple of years ago, just not the main exhibits).

Ah well, it is not that unusual to spend a day of holiday just lying around reading...

I expect to be back to slow-normal by Wednesday afternoon, but might still be pretty fragile.

Also, this looks fab http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/festivals-series/light-show (via cleanskies but I have probably run out of time for it this week.

Wifi seems to be back, so here's the view from my room:
( picture window )

Today was the Man Ray exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, then a tasty late lunch. I don't know the answers to "What makes a good portrait?" or "What makes a good photograph?". The portraits were rarely comfortable or formal, the sitters often had a touch of a frown or unease, or the pictures were very staged and theatrical, often of actresses or dancers. And 90 years ago. Montages were done in camera, with double exposures etc, and painstaking processing. There were some striking effects in his magazine work, two dark kissing lips look like a bird on the wing. The 'Group of Surrealists' photo tickled me, a bunch of them lined up in two rows like a football team picture, not looking remotely surreal. Or was that the point? I mostly didn't get solarisation, but the portrait of Elsa Schiaparelli had a wonderful eerie washed-out effect. Lee Miller in a Bathing Suit (linky) was shot against a dark background column that turned out to be her shadow, cleverly placed, it could almost have been a different shadow.

Late lunch at Côte, charcuterie and a niçoise tuna (gorgeous tuna, seared outside with black pepper, still hot, and rare inside) and a floral glass of muscat while my friends tucked into the non-dairy-free creme caramel and chocolate pot which looked absolutely nommy. If it were merely a sin to eat creme caramel, I would totally have done so.

A holiday is a marvellous thing. I was going to add photos and links but the WiFi that I got to work yesterday will not play ball today so it's phone only.

Simon Munnery at Leicester Square Theatre was everso good, mixing film and comedy in a quite innovative way. Lots of laughs and some very clever bits, presented in an amiably amateuristic and cack-handed way, it wasn't evident to me until the end just how well-constructed and tight a performance it was. Recommended if you want a slightly different comedy experience, and if you like absurd Pythonesque animation. Still on for a few days, I think.

We ate at Bella Italia, who provided gluten and dairy free food, and I think this is the first time I've eaten somewhere like that where a few seconds after you have had the discussion about dairy free food, they did not turn around and ask whether I wanted parmesan on it :-)

I have a marvellous view from my window but cannot share it. Wait for the WiFi to come back!

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Books read (6-8)
Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot (2012) (graphic novel)
Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons, Kurt Vonnegut Jr (1965-74, 1975)
Grandville, Bryan Talbot (2009) (graphic novel) (reread)
Grandville Mon Amour, Bryan Talbot (2010) (graphic novel)
Grandville Bête Noire, Bryan Talbot (2012) (graphic novel)
(Counting the last three as one "book" for fairly arbitrary reasons)

Films watched (11-19) 5 at the cinema, 2 DVD, 2 streamed
Chronicle
Bullhead
Hitchcock
No
A Liar's Autobiography
Wild Bill
Brakhage
I Give It A Year
Il Divo

Gigs (1-3)
Bright Club (amateur science comedy night at the Portland Arms, worth a visit)
Invisibility (art talk and workshop about invisibility through Junction University, v. interesting)
I Am Kloot (popular beat combo, Junction)
And I had a ticket for The Furies doing Clytemnestra but was ill and couldn't go.

Books incoming 3 (3 loans) (read 8/11)

Best film of the month was Bullhead, good in a terribly brutal, emotionally gutting, complex sort of a way, so not actually fun. But very good. Best mainstream movie was Hitchcock, entertaining and an intriguing look behind the scenes. A Liar's Autobiography = Willies at the Picturehouse; I Give it a Year = Willies at Cineworld. No was about the tv campaign in Chile when there was a public vote as to whether to keep Pinochet in - early use of tv advertising techniques, and scary given the importance of the decision and lack of experience of the campaign team, Gael García Bernal does a good hapless turn. He was also in Amores Perros which I rated highly last month. Mubi sent me Il Divo as a nod to the elections in Italy, but with so many political players I barely got a flavour of it.

I got my new work laptop back a couple of days ago with software etc and by jove, I think it will work.

But - at home I use it with a docking station and external monitor. With the old laptop I had it set up so that when I closed its lid the monitor would stay on and I could keep working with the laptop tidily shut away.

This time, no - I close the lid, view control switches briefly to the external monitor (resizing), then goes.

In Power Options Advanced it says "When I close the lid: Do Nothing".
From its behaviour I think it is understanding "Do Nothing" to mean do not do anything, rather than the usual which is do not take any special actions like hibernating or switching off monitors or VPN connections or whatever.

I'll tell IT about it of course, but it was fun to spot the ambiguity in interpretation. (It appears I do not have the authority to change settings anyhow)

Wow, that took a whole hour of peeling and chopping vegetables. Cooking the mushroom and aubergine down in a separate pan, then doing the same for the root veg, helps fit so much in the end into the big pot. I wonder if I even have eleven plastic tubs for freezing it?

So I'm off to this today. It could be interesting, or awesome, or I could be completely out of my depth. I've had a look at some of his work and it's quite interesting but I don't quite understand it :-) I am really quite desperate to escape spreadsheets sometimes, yes?

We'll be going round town, and there's a good chance I can get the Fitbit pedometer to its 1000 miles lifetime walk today (since July).

Also, I am out of coffee and I hope so much that we end up near the market before the coffee chap closes for the day. Last Saturday he had just put up his "I have gone for the day" sign even though he was still there.