Badphone's Last Stand

 

 To think there was a time I balked at the thought of putting my face on this blog. But here's a little record of my business trip to Praha! for another advert, and catching the mood board for my character at the wardrobe fitting, I see who I have to thank for it...

 

 Thank you, Michael Cera, for giving me a type. 

 In my time off, I revisited many sites still standing from my last trip with Lanna in 2011: the crazy babies crawling up TV Tower – I had forgotten the massive holes in their faces – the weird, giant metronome which replaced the statue of Stalin  – the third AD told me they were thinking of bringing the statue back, but pink this time, of which he approved – and there was, of course, new mad shit too...

   The Giant Prague Museum of Endless Glass Cases of Minerals now boasted other stuff as well! Like a life-sized diorama of "dog-bears" fighting Early Cenozioc ungulents, a complete whale skeleton...

 

 I've played smaller. And those beautiful Šalamoun "Hobbit" illustrations I mentioned last post – here are more...

 There were also harps you could play, suits of armour, skulls, typewriters, and that big, empty room in the video, none of which I remember from 2011, but what I really went to the Museum for of course was the stairs, and they never disappoint...

 

 I also – for the first time – went to the zoo, as recommended, which was huge, its enclosures far less enclosing than those of Regent's Park...

 

 At its centre was a giant statue of Radegast on Mount Radhošť. Not just a guano-soiled wizard played by Sylvester McCoy, Radegast is also it turns out a Slavic Beast God overthrown by Christian missionaries – a deeply disappointing legend. 

 With of all this, Badphone did its best, bless...

 

  But my PR's given me her old phone now, which I didn't take with me, and I think it's time to start taking better pictures.

 

 (Reviewing the video, I notice it's actually shot with a different – and possibly worse – Badphone from the one I took to Bucharest in '22. I fell for Prague just as hard [and indeed for Norwich, when I did Polar Express there {and indeed Croydon, when I went to voice video games there}] but while I did make it to the last two minutes of a band in a cellar playing Watermelon Man, I didn't discover any cool, new music to round off this post with like the Bucharest one.

 So here's Alan.)

 

Heads Held at Arm's Length

 

 

 

 I'd not noticed the Medusa outside Tate Britain before. Henry C. Fehr's The Rescue of Andromeda isn't the only depiction I've seen in which Perseus and the woman's head he brandishes look identical – I don't know the reason for that (and I haven't bought Natalie Haynes' new book yet, so it might get explained there) – but it's the only depiction I've seen in which Medusa's hair is bound. I suppose that's a sensible precaution, although it's possible Fehr just couldn't be bothered with all the snakes. It's odd that Perseus is also holding a sword though: he's about to turn a sea monster into stone, what was the plan?

 Similarly bound and held at arm's length, I realised, is the head in the centre of Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. Not "the Crucifixion" I now note. According to Bacon they're Furies: raging demons from Greek Tragedy broken into the Christian Iconography of a triptych. The artist decided in 1944 that pity was no longer enough I guess. Every time I walk into that room of the Tate I'm fifteen again, seeing those girning horrors in that orange boom for the very first time, and recognising the one in the middle from Swamp Thing's first trip to Hell. "Flutch" Alan Moore called him in that. Pencils by Stephen R. Bisette. Inks by John Totleben. Outside of comics I suppose it's odd for a drawing to have two artists, but I looked at those drawings a lot.

 

 Another triptych was playing in the dark round the corner: John Akomfrah's gorgeous The Unfinished Conversation, a study of the immigrant intellectual life of the Stuart Hall who didn't present It's A Knockout. And thread through the whole building, Hew Locke's mighty Procession. Two new highlights. I can't remember when I last spent as long there – I went Monday; it might be where I picked up the bug – I really recommend going.

. برای زن، زندگی، آزادی

  My friend Faren is almost finished packing. Moving tomorrow. As I mentioned before she's had a testing  fortnight, and I offered to help with her boxes, but she asked me to go to Trafalgar Square instead. So I went and I took these videos and photographs and far more.

 

 A demonstration was being held to honour Mahsa Amini, the woman murdered by Iranian police for her inappropriate headwear. People were calling for revolution, and saying her name, and angry and smiling. It was glorious. It had the quality of glory. The Square was in full bloom.

 

 I saw a new statue on the fourth plinth, which I thought had been reserved for the Queen. But this was of Malawian preacher and freedom fighter John Chilembwe. It had gone up three days ago.

 

 The work of sculptor Samson Kambalu, it recreates a photograph taken in 1914 of Chilembwe refusing to take his hat off in front of the white colonialist over whom he now towers. Now he was looking on. Chilembwe would later stage his own uprising in Malawi.

  I remember when Boris Johnson was mayor, he tried to turn this plinth into a war memorial. Without meaning a shred of disrespect to the late Air Chief Marshall Sir Keith Park, I'm happy that didn't happen. Particularly today. As I say, full bloom.

About Snowballs They Were Never Wrong, The Old Masters

  Last Sunday, I was wondering, while exploring South London at 2 in the morning, how I'd manage when we finally stopped having to be alone. It turns out, snow helps.

 

  I'd made the decision to head out and see what the heath looked like quite late this afternoon. There aren't many decisions one can make in a lockdown, so it's a nice feeling when you find you've made a good one.

 

 What a gift.

 

 There were kids on sleds travelling ten feet or so at the top of Parliament Hill, a woman spinning three hula hoops, and snowball fights and many dogs, but I appear to have been more comfortable photographing all this from a distance. 

 

 And it's odd how much it looks like paintings that are five-hundred years old. How well Breughel caught this. How little he left for any artist to add.

 

 The entertainment's pretty much the same, I suppose, and the ice on the path just as perilous. Once the snow falls, we're as unavoidably present in our surroundings as we were half a millenium ago. We're them. Analogous.

 

 That's probably why Syd Mead never drew a snowscape, as far as I know. It's hard to make snow look futuristic.

  There are no hula hoops in Brueghel though, are there? Or snowmen, now I think of it. I wonder when they became a thing – I'll look it up. 

 

 Oh. Much earlier than I expected! Okay, maybe there are snowmen in Brueghel.

 

 Heading back, I came across a whole valley of snowpeople. Some fallen. Some ten feet tall.

 I asked this guy permission to take a photograph of his, before I knew I'd see so many over the hill. He was approachable.

 And I think his friend might have instintictively said "Happy Birthday" as I walked off, by mistake, there being no name for what today was. 

 

 Just an understanding it should be celebrated.

A Quick Look at the Papers with Steve Bannon

 BOO! Ha. No. This is old news. From 2018. The untouchable past. And, to give both sides, Boris Johnson called this "so-called association with Steve Bannon... a lefty delusion whose spores continue to breed in the Twittersphere." So who are you going to believe? Our Prime Minister, or deluded lefty, Steve "Badges" Bannon? Indeed, the idea that the Brexit campaign might have just been a vehicle for a populist, far right coup, and that nobody actually campaigning for it really wanting to leave the EU, is... well, is given some credence I suppose by Johnson's many statements before the referendum on the folly of leaving the EU. But a person's allowed to change their mind. And if the entitled energy of this coup-staging prick...

 

... is in any way reminiscent of the energy of the Leader of the House...

 

 ... Well, the latter won an election, so he's entitled to take the piss. 

 "Wash your hands to the National Anthem." Love it. Herd immunity. Highest daily death rate in the world. One thing the Prime Minister has been consistent in throughout his political career is his praise for the mayor from Jaws, so you can't say people didn't know what they were voting for, ie someone who could be trusted to put business interests before human life – not business interests in general obviously, because Johnson also famously said "fuck business" regarding Brexit, but his friends' business interests – and the National Anthem, of course. And statues and shit. 

 No, it's not a coup if you win an election, no matter how many thousands die. No matter if over a thousand are still dying every day. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Steve Bannon was granted a Presidential pardon yesterday. But why am I talking about that? That was yesterday. Today is a new day. America has a new President. Trumpism's definitely gone. And I love America. And I'm sure the happiness will kick in in a bit.

 

And here is the City this afternoon - a Monday afternoon - at 3pm

 First I should say, following yesterday's post, I received a nice update this morning about my aunt. According to her brother, Unce Martin, she's had a good sleep and is now eating and "(as the school reports used to say) ‘showing improvement’", which is fantastic. My mother's side of the family are juggernauts.

 

 I didn't head out this afternoon expecting surprises, although there are still streets in NW1 I haven't yet walked down and courtyards to chance upon. I just wondered how empty they'd be. Most people I passed were wearing masks, which had become rare outdoors, but they do keep your face warm. I thought of a new translation to the first line of The Odyssey: "Let's have a story about a windy man!" But how would the reader know which pronunciation of "windy" was meant? That's the only problem.

 

 Things were a lot quieter than in Defoe's day I think. I was coughing quite a bit, but I've now come to recognise this epiglottal build-up of fizzy pizza-flavoured throat-pop: it took me five Christmases to realise it doesn't mean I have food poisoning, I'm just wearing my belt too tight. And I don't have to have eaten pizza to taste it. I forgot that only one of the spires of Saint Paul's has a clock in it, like the eyes of a broken robot pirate. Here's a statue I like. Look at them shimmy.

 

 I missed the hose on the other side. Another reason I like this, I suppose, is because it's a statue of a team. A lot of people get heroism arse backward. Odysseus might be to blame for this, but its root isn't the journey of the indivual. Human beings evolved as a team. That's why we have language. We hunted as a team, gathered and ate as a team, and sitting round the fire is how we managed to stay warm enough to spread across a planet. Only once we'd got the hang of this, I think, could we find ways to be alone. Solitude isn't getting back to nature, it's a benefit of civilization, and I hope, now that another lockdown's been announced, you can still find it if you want it, or still enjoy it if you've now no choice.

"It Was Good While It Lasted"

 Ah! Here's where I got "statue lovers" from: this great post-Charlottesville piece from John Oliver back in 2017. Following the tearing down of the (very nicely sculpted) statue of human trafficker Edward Colston, it's funny to see these "pro-history" arguments rolled out again, but not funny ha ha.

 Bristol Police's own response to the toppling, however, had me absolutely beaming, and feeling even, I don't know, pride?

Good man. https://t.co/VmYvlsGRoW

— Peter Davis (@TweeterDavis) June 7, 2020

... Probably, if I'm honest, more pride than I felt hearing the response of my local MP. I mean, I get it, softly softly and everything, but either the statue should have been taken down, or it shouldn't. Show a little gratitude, hon. And that's all from White Guys Talk About Statues for tonight. Hope you're all doing tremendously.

#blacklivesmatter and #blackhistorymatters and #statuesofrealpeoplearemainlydumbandscary

 Here's nothing. I'm keeping vampire hours again. Lacking both heat-reisistant gloves and goggles as recommended by the excellent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and unkeen on combing through fourteen years of my social media to wipe it of "personal details and anything that could be perceived as inciting violence" as recommended by the excellent Varaidzo, oh and also, you know, just being a hoverer, I didn't get to Trafalgar Square on Sunday to mourn George Floyd until two in the morning. 

 But General Napier was still there, and Major General Sir Henry Havelock, and the fat prince. The fourth plinth was empty though, I noticed, fleeced of its Ninevite Lamassu... "Statue lovers" someone said knowingly of the torch-wielding protestors at Charlottesville, and I've thought about that quite a bit since, and decided yeah, I don't like statues of real people I realise, not really, not any more. Any of them. Even the lovely ones just look creepy and wrong, even Eric Morecambe. Unmistakably unalive. Borne of a tradition intended to literally deify tyrants. And I suppose I'm just retreading my moan from the last post, aren't I, but, like Mark Gatiss, statues fetishise the past without a shred of interest in history. Don't get me wrong, I like creepy things as much as the next fantasist. And I warm to the decor of a haunted house. But I wouldn't say I'm a statue lover. I also saw a fox. He looked shiny and unafraid. I think foxes are having a good lockdown.

Khan-spreading

Last Christmas my Mum gave me "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford because apparently I'd been complaining about how little I knew about Genghis Khan. Now that I've finally read it I'm very glad she did. Here are some passages to give you an idea why, accompanied by images of Genghis Khan statuary in ascending order of spread:

 

"In twenty five years, the Mongol army subjugated more lands and people than the Romans had conquered in four hundred years... On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope of Genghis Khan's accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination and tax the resources of scholarly explanation."

 

"Instead of attacking the walls of Riazan, the Mongols used their massive number of conscripted laborers in a project that confused and terrified the citizens even more. The workers cut down trees, hauled them to the Mongol lines outside the city, and rapidly began building a wall completely surrounding the already walled city."

"The four serpents on the Silver Tree of Karakorum symbolized the four directions in which the Mongol Empire extended... When the khan wanted to summon drinks for his guests, the mechanical angel raised the trumpet to his lips and sounded the horn, whereupon the mouths of the serpents began to gush out a fountain of alcoholic beverages into large silver basins arranged at the base of the tree."

 "The Mongols loved competitions of all sorts, and they organized debates among rival religions the same way they organized wrestling matches... Finally, as the effects of the alcohol became stronger, the Christians gave up trying to persuade anyone with logical arguments, and resorted to singing. The Muslims, who did not sing, responded by loudly reciting the Koran in an effort to drown out the Christians, and the Buddhists retreated into silent meditation."

So why didn't any of it last? The same reason so little lasted beyond the fifteenth century AD: the Black Death, which wiped out a fifth of the population of the planet. Having opened up the world from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, the Mongol Empire's extraordinary infrastructure collapsed from the casualties, a victim of its own success. Western Europe meanwhile, protected from the Mongol invasion by its forests, stepped into that world as soon as the coast was clear, and that's what we call the Renaissance. Would read again.

 

(Apologies for non-inclusion to Dashi Namdakov.)