Words we sometimes said in the basement of the Ned

 Notes designed by Susanne Dietz

 

 Yesterday was fun, and crammed, and with Serena and Tom on the chocolate coin exchange and Hannah checking bags (but not opening them –"Very nice, Italian?") a slight shunt reunion, happily. Thank you to Coney for organising The Golden Key, and to Gemma for having me, and to you if you came, and sorry if we were full. When we were trying to find a mood for the bar outside our snug and kennels, I don't think we anticipated how much time would be spent simply queueing, but that's the thing about unknowns. Choas inside the kennels was a lot more welcome, and I was very lucky to be teamed with clowns as kind as my fellow accountants Sachi Kimura and Julia Masli (the word "accountant" has a nicely ecclesiastical ring to it, once you don a robe). It couldn't all be unknowns though, so I wrote a little text for us to say and here it is.

Counting the grains of rice:

This is a new idea.

Each of these is a promise. Not a big promise. Not a particularly important promise. Still, probably more promises than it’s fair to expect any single person to be able to keep. Which is why they’re kept here.

 

Originally, a promise was much bigger, and most people would be unlikely to keep even one. They were about the size of this table, and made of something dangerous like limestone or cows. But one night, there was a storm. And a promise sank to the bottom of the sea – so it wasn’t lost, as the joke goes, it was at the bottom of the sea – and all the islanders had to decide whether or not to still count that as a promise kept. Which they did.

Maybe that’s why we’re underground.

 

Eating a grain:

This won’t be missed. Something will be missed. But no-one will know it was this.

Taking another grain:

And what’s the smallest thing you can promise? What’s worth this?

 

 

 Proving I'd licked a duck by sticking a grain of rice to it was a lot more fun though.

Unposted Photographs of September 2022 in Chronological Order

 I found the Powell Estate in Kennington but didn't recognise it because the trees were new.

 

It seems I location hunted quite a bit in early September. Here's Taskmaster.

 

  So I still drift south. 

 

You can now get lost in what they've built around Paddington.

 

 Or be at one with the scum in the Kyoto Peace Garden.

 

 Here Tom and Shim prepare Waterloo Farm for their second wedding of the day.

 

 Once Tom's changed into an apron to clear up after our pizzas.

 I couldn't find whose this was. Barry Letts'?

 

 Finding new walks for Faren.

 

 Filth.

 

 The Duke and Duchess with Jimmy Chipperfield and an unidentified lion.

 

 Forming a dart with my arms did help. (Best family outing since Eurodisney.)

 

But did I?

 A big walk home from drinks with John, and nearly all of London now wards off the low-flying.

 

 Catching a matinée of See How They Run.

 

 Yet another big face. The eyes follow you round.

 

 

 So do the gronking pelicans.

Best Man Break (or Cells And Atoms)

 

 I was being a Best Man today, so please accept the thirst traps above in lieu of a bigger post. They show me and Greg McLaren in 2018's production of  "An Execution (By Invitation Only)" –  the production on which our Bride and Groom first met – and were taken by Floro Azqueta who was also at the wedding. I'd not seen these pictures until today. I love them. There are more on Floro's website here. Lucky you. He didn't take the one below however, he told me, so that must be the work of press photographer Tristram Kenton (I found it illustrating a nice review here). Four years later this waltz would be Tom and Shim's First Dance.

 

 You're surrounded by reunions at a wedding. And it struck me that although a Lifespan is enormous, it might be also be atomic: there's no splitting it into smaller units. So they met in 2018, but these two have known each other forever.

Quizzes You May Have Missed: Performing Toys Round

 My friend Tom of our number gave me this cursed book back in 1994 – not the specific copy above, mine's more fire-damaged – but I never got round to making anything in it because I never seemed to have the requisite cigarette packets, golf tees or fringed tweed. Look at the fun I missed out on though.

  During this blog's hiatus, however, I did manage to fashion this picture round from it for the Dungeon Zoomers who continued to quiz online, and now – to round off a week that started with robots – I thought YOU coud play along TOO, maybe, if you open this page in a few different tabs? I don't really know how this will work. Anyway, all you have to do is match the following names and raw materials...

1.

 

 

2.

 

 

3.

 

 

4.

 

 

5.

 

 

6.

 

 

7.

 

 

8.

 

 

9.

 

 

10.

 

... with the corresponding, delightful toys pictured below. I'll post the correct answers in the comments although this one's actually pretty easy so maybe I won't. CHWAT!

 

 

a)

 

 

b)

 

 

 

c)

 

 

 

d)

 

 

 

e)

 

 

f)

 

 

 

g)

 

 

 

h)

 

 

 

i)

 

 

j)

 

Wet And Forget

 Here's a little film I really love, originally made for Door Number 5 of Gemma Brockis' now absent Oddvent Calendar. Like all contributions to the calendar, Shamira's behindery is a study and pause – breath-restoring, rather than breath-taking. It features the voice of our friend Tom Lyall, and just enough special effects to help one lose one's footing in reality. I've put it up because the film I put off putting up on Friday was its opposite: bloated and failing and disengaging. I'll probably put that up next, because it's still of interest; but I wanted to present something I liked first. 

 By the way, my youtube algorithms uncouthly autofollow Reindeer Lichen with this; I wonder where yours will take you. It's still winter in the corner of some gardens. Apologies again for the delay in posting. I have been meeting for walks this week, and it's possible I am exhausted. 

 

"How Good Is Your Taste?" Round

Source.

 

 My friend Tom gave me the book below, probably about twenty years ago. Written in 1946, it's hard to tell now how much of it is tongue-in-cheek, but given the season, I'm going to credit the author with not being a complete monster, and he provided our zoom quiz with a very entertaining round. You must choose the most tasteful article from each of the following selections as decided by Sanford E. Gerard, whose blurb is included. The definitive answers together with Sanford E.'s detailed reasons for choosing them can be found at the bottom of this post, along with details of our players' own preferences, and feel free to leave your own arguments in the comments. Begin...

 

1. "The author presented the rectangles shown to 309 people with very interesting and illuminating results. Eighty-one artists and 228 laymen were asked to choose their favourite. (Before reading further you might choose the shape you like best.)"

 

 

2. "TWO TREES AND A HOUSE AS AN ABSTRACT LANDSCAPE"

 

3. "A layout is a plan for an advertisement. It is created by an art director in collaboration with a copy writer who wants it done her way. This results in two layouts, one good. (Copy writers scored rather low on these tests)... John Stoehrer, high-priced art director, says none of these got out of the office but would like to know which one would have if he had his way." (As far as we could work out, this was an advert for rizlas.)

 

4. "Regardless of how you (or your loved on, if you're a gal) part or don't part you hair, there's a preferred arrangement. It was determined by checking the photo registers of male models issued by such agencies as Conover, Huben, et cetera. Which plan do you think the majority of New York's best-groomed men favor?"

 

5. "One of these arrangements is a discouraging thing to have to sell, say the owners of the East Village Flower Shop (1244 Third Avenue) But what would you do if you had to do business in a neighborhood on its way up but still half tenements? You'd carry both. Which one would you like to sell?" 

 

6. "ARRANGEMENT OF TWO UNITS"

 

 

7. "WHICH CHURCH?"

 

 

8. "The advertisement in which one of these nurses appeared was sponsored by Pepperell Manufacturing Company... James Viles made the picture (of Jean Pearce, popular model). Jimmie and Jean were asked to produce a nurse with a 'going-to-glory' expression. They did: but which one is it?"

 

 

9. "OLD THING AREN'T ALWAYS GOOD: All of these are old – and collectors' items. One was made about a hundred and seventy years ago – two go back about three hundred. Without regard for any incongruity which might result from using them in your home, which do you hate least fervently?"

 

 

10.  "New York is the most important center of a little known industry, and Al Bliss might be called its dean. He makes 'prefabricated' displays for important stores all over the country... Al refuses to be quoted on which he thinks is better but other experts are not so reticent."

 

 

 

 

AND HERE ARE THE ANSWERS...  

 

1:- "The results were as follows: the group as a whole voted for B." However our own group were more split: Peter and Laura chose B. Kevin and Kayla chose A. Sarah liked the square.  

 

2:- "In art school, as a boy of seventeen, I was always baffled when teachers would say, 'That's bad. Look; one, two, three! Can't you unify your composition more?' I liked the one, two, three, but I have learnt (the hard way) that buyers of pictures don't. No one wants to feel impelled to buy anything but money... So E and Y are ruled out. They're too easy to count. Y, of course, is preferable because it is not quite so boring.... To point up the undesirability of E the ground was made to sag in the middle." Square-loving Sarah still picked it however, while the other four got the points by choosing S.  

 

3:- "An adequate answer would require a conference, but all layout experts interviewed immediately selected E." Oddly only Laura chose E. Peter and Kevin chose A, Kayla and Sarah chose C. My faulty reproduction skills may have been a little too blame however, or maybe it was the guy on fire.  

 

4:- "If you picked A or Z you are entitled to a win because 72 per cent use a side part. A is much more favoured than Z... The part was established when Mama faced her little boy and dropped the comb on his left, her right." Our whole group also chose A, the one instance of unanimity.  

 

5:- "You'd like to sell R because it would fetch more money and a more desirable type of customer. J is for the tenement dwellers, who love it! They leave the little celluloid lion from Japan in place too! They really do!" As would classless scum Sarah, Laura and Peter. Only Kevin and Kayla went for R.  

 

6:- "The well-educated women did even worse on this (in case you need consoling). They scattered their votes equally for each design. O was almost universally favored by all the others. The club balances interestingly in O and the arrow helps to complete a line which staggers in a pleasant manner through the rectangle. The supine club in D was next choice. S did very badly, doubtless because of the common distaste for uncertainty in anything... One or two artists with very advanced taste picked D and S because they were bored with correctness. This does not excuse you." Only Sarah picked O however. Kayla was bored enough with correctness to pick S. Laura, Pater and Kevin all clearly fancied a sit-down, and picked D.  

 

7:- "L and A were preferred, in that order. I prefer R to A, but R received almost no votes." Kevin also preferred R. I wondered if R looked the most Hawksmoor-y, but by Hawksmoor-y I really just mean wrong. Peter, Laura and Kayla all went for L. Sarah likes a good big steeple and went for A. 

 

8:- "Everyone concerned (and that includes the Medical Corps) liked R best. J is a look to repel wolves!" I don't see it myself, and Sarah picked J, but everyone else went for the parted lips of R. 

 

9:- "Well the Sèvres vase (that's H) is pretty attractive, if you keep an open mind about things. It's in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The other two items are Venetian and prove that the Doge's Palace and the Bridge of Sighs had no monopoly on horrors. The imitation horn of decorated china which has been made into a parrot with an animal's head on its tail is the most completely horrible object which I can remember seeing. The octagonal rock crystal and silver gilt vase is no dream either." Personally I think if you're going to have crinkly bits why not go full chimera, and Kayla agreed, choosing E. Laura chose F, imagining a candle inside. Sarah, Peter and Kevin went for H. 

 

10:- "The original Lord & Taylor bell window (G) was the talk of New York the year it first appeared. Its simple yet grand conception was breath-taking. You can't blame the little out-of-town stores for demanding that Bliss make bells for them. Nor can you blame them for debasing the conception to suit the taste of their less sophisticated customers. But six bell ringers are not six times as good as one. The effect of all those rumps bobbing up at you must have been striking!" And the majority of our group did indeed go for one bell-ringer, with Peter, Kevin and Kayla choosing not G, but P, whose church Kevin noted was definitely an R. Sarah and Laura went for the Lord and Taylor. How did you do?