Terrorists! But not quite.

So, I went to see a play on Thursday about a young boy dissatisfied with the path his life was on, whereupon he runs away, gets picked up by a bunch of dissidents and becomes radicalised.

Yes, I went to see Oliver! The Musical. It was great fun. I had thought that Omid Djalili was playing Fagin but it was Griff Rhys Jones. It took me about ten minutes of his being on stage when I finally realised who it was. We were all the way up in the Balcony so I couldn’t see who it was and it was only listening carefully to the familiar voice that I realised it was Jones’.

What a great play though. We all enjoyed it and I was all bouncy on the way home and singing the show’s tunes the next day at work.

A hastily taken picture

This is Misc’

A nice view last week

Screw you guys, I'm going home

Shapes, form and colour

Wow, I’m steamrollering today. Fourth post eh?

Meditations on my favourite artists -  Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevich, Bridget Riley (specifically – Nataraja), Sean Scully, Mark Rothko and Liam Gillick:–

Mondrian – 1920 Composition A: Composition with Black, Red, Gray, Yellow, and Blue

Rothko –1950 No. 10

Gillick – 2002 Entry for the Turner Prize

Riley – 1993 Nataraja

Malevich – 1915 Black Square and Red Square

I’m not sure what anyone else thinks of these pieces but I think there is an obvious measure of overlapping, from a purely aesthetic pespective, and its fascinating to me that I can glean the same visual pleasure from all of these artists and that they can arrive at their end pieces from very diverse paths.

Gillick’s body of work obstensibly deals with the perception and changing judgements of the individual’s relationship with their architectural environment and the emotional reponse that this elicits.
I personally think that Riley’s work is visually antagonistic and almost seems to assault the viewer’s sensations but always seeks to challenge expectations in the same way as Gillick.
Malevich’s Suprematism negates this and pushes to the forefront, pure feeling. Consider ‘Black square and Red square’ – The square, an embodiment of feeling, the white field, the void beyond this feeling.
My favourite artist, Mondrian and his progression into pure abstraction with his use of shapes, line and colour in his search for the simplification of nature has long held for me special fascination. See Gray Tree below from 1911 and Composition A: Composition with Black, Red, Gray, Yellow, and Blue in 1920

Whatever path these artists chose and whatever the result of their endeavours, I can still look at a piece of work, completely detach myself from its evolution and say ‘That’s pretty, I like it.’ Superficial? Possibly. Missing the point? Maybe. The true and enduring value of art lies solely in the feeling expressed by the viewer!

Piet Mondrian – 1911 Gray Tree

Ellsworth Kelly

Fish

Ooh, get me with my third post in one day.

I was just unwrapping an air freshener and happened to look on the back of the packet. Now, obviously I’m not pleased at the degradation of the environment but this picture made me chuckle…

Hee hee hee

Pictures of Lilly…

…made my life so wonderful.

Ha, always loved that sentence.

Anyhoo, sadly, I have no pictures of Lily but do have those below.

I haven’t been out-and-abouting with my camera for a while but now that I’m back on the internet, settled in a new accommodation and blogging – this will change.

A few:

Two sets of animal tracks in the back garden

On a cold Saturday morning at Denmark Hill train station

By Canada Water station. The wind was bitterly cold

Chesty la V.

Well, it’s Thursday. How I’ve managed to stay in the house for nearly six days is a mystery to me. Oh yeah, the broken rib and all that pain, that’s right.

This morning is the first morning in a while that gave me little difficulty getting out of bed. The mornings have been worst for the pain as all the meds have worn off.

My usual thoughts in the morning go something like:

Daylight, daylight, daylight. Wooo.

Get up, get up, get up.

Wash, wash, wash.

Tra la la…

Although for the past week, they’ve been:

Pain, pain, pain

Pills, pills, pills

Food, food, food

Woozy, woozy, woozy

I was confident enough to actually sit up out of bed this morning and not dredge myself though the incredibly boring rigmarole of slowly hauling myself up going ‘Owwy, owwy, owwy!’

NG had a day off yesterday and came to visit. She bought goodies with her such as wonderful chocolate fingers, which we ate with a cup of tea whilst watching an awful antiques programme – you know the kind – where no expense is spared in patronising two willing gimps. They are given some money and an expert and walk around an ‘antiques’ fare looking for bargains! Occasionally, they’ll bring something to the expert, looking like nervous dogs – ‘What do you think of this?’  then the camera cuts before the ‘expert’ throws up and walks away muttering something about proles

I’m today back to my usual routine of sitting on my bed with my laptop, listening to Radio Three.

NG had asked the night before if she wanted me to bring my giraffe, which had been at hers for the previous two years. Or rather, she insisted that I take it back as it was taking up space in her cupboard. IN HER CUPBOARD?!

Hello giraffe. You look happy.

All I need to do now is collect my dinosaurs from Em’s house and the gang will be together again!

Wembley here we come

Well done Villa for getting to Wembley.

What a game! Villa beat Blackburn 6-4 on the night and 7-4 on aggregate.

Well done Blackburn for playing so well with ten men. I did feel (a little) sorry for them, but enough about them -

WE’RE GOING TO WEMBLEY!

RARR RARR RARR!

A & E. Part Two

Yes, where was I? Oh yes, A & E.

Friday night/Saturday morning was again spent at King’s College Hospital A & E as the pain I had been experiencing since my previous visit had become almost unbearable. It certainly wasn’t getting better. Another somewhat puzzling addition to the pain was my chest making a clicking or cracking sound during general movement.

So, off I bimbled to the hospital. Actually, if I wasn’t in so much pain, I’d find A & E’s great places to be. Everyone with their own particular reasons for being there, all wishing that their names will be called next.

So my name was called after about two hours and I spoke at length with a doctor who took copious notes, after which time he carried out a physical examination. He said that he would place his fingers at various points around the painful area I’d identified and ask me to inhale and exhale.  Upon my first inhalation he looked at me surprised and stated ‘You have a broken rib!’ After repeating this to the point where I was light headed he said ‘Yes, I can feel it cracking everytime you breath in and out.’ He asked me to try this myself and place my fingers on the affected area so that I could feel the cracking but I mentioned that I could already feel it through my chest.

So, how to get better? The doctor mentioned that there is surprisingly little done for broken ribs except painkillers, anti-inflammatories and rest. Putting the chest in a cast like other broken bones is, he said impossible as you wouldn’t be able to breath. He said this with a wry smile. Bandaging used to be performed but that now is not done, for the same reasons. So, I have strong painkillers that make me woozy and anti-imfamatories.

The new badminton racket I bought last week won’t be seeing any action for two months.

I’m tired and getting worn down. I just want to get better.

Up the Elephant and down the Castle

What a funny title. I make me laugh.

I was going to the City this morning on my way to work. Because the travel infrastructure in London is what it is, the train I would normally get was cancelled. Wooo, surprise! This was due to some snow falling overnight.

It did seem deeper in Camberwell than the City. It seemed like a couple of inches outside of my door but there was barely any by the time I got to the City. So, my journey today consisted of getting a bus on Denmark Hill and going to Elephant and Castle and then getting the Tube to Moorgate.

E & C Tube normally has a lift system to convey passengers to and from the platform and street level. At the moment though only one lift is in operation. This means that people cram into the one working lift. I prefer to take the stairs.

This morning, I was walking down the stairs to the platform when I suddenly slipped on one wet step and fell down a number of steps, landing simultaneously on my elbow, hand and back. I scratched my hand and hurt my arm but for a couple of seconds, I was more surprised than anything and lay on the steps for about two/three seconds and sort of waiting until any part of my body reported pain. Luckily, I was fine. I must have laid on the stairs for a total of about 10 seconds. Within those seconds, two people walked past me. One girl was a few steps behind me. When she saw me fall, she slowed down, stepped to the side of me, and inched her way past and then carried on down. Another person a couple of seconds after also did this. Not one of these people asked if I was okay or offered to help me up or interacted with me in any way whatsoever. I was appalled. As I was getting up, a man was coming up the stairs and asked in a very broad American accent ‘Hey, did you fall over? Are you okay?’  He seemed genuinely concerned. Thank you that man.

And FUCK YOU to those two who couldn’t have cared less. A plague on both your houses.

A & E. A thank you

So, Sunday night, Monday morning was spent in the A & E Department at King’s College Hospital.

I had somehow developed a rather debilitating pain in the upper left part of my chest the day before which resulted in a painful time in bed attempting to get to sleep. I had phoned NHS Direct earlier in the day and was told by the nurse that I should monitor my pain and if it got worse, or I was having trouble breathing, then I was to phone a doctor immediately. Well, later on in the night, I did indeed begin to be short of breath and started shaking. I swiftly took myself off to the A & E and was promptly seen by a nurse who took my pulse and some details, then another nurse who did an ECG, then another nurse who did a chest X-ray and then a doctor.

The doctor, after looking at the details presented to him by the various people I’d seen said ‘I understand that you’ve been ill recently?’

I told him that I had had (suspected) Swine Flu, after which I had then developed a secondary infection and had been very weak, sleeping lots and coughing for some weeks.

Well, after a discussion and further examination, the doctor told me that there was nothing wrong with my heart and the ECG was perfect (phew!) and the X-ray showed no rib damage but because my upper left ribs were painful to the touch and painkillers worked on alleviating some of the pain, that this was a good thing as it showed that the pain was muscular or mechanical.

He mentioned that it could be Costochondritis. I’d never heard of it.

From Wiki:

Costochondritis refers specifically to inflammation of the cartilage that joins the ribs to the breastbone (called costal cartilages). The chest pain of costochondritis sometimes is severe.

Costochondritis is most common in people between 20 and 40 years of age. In most cases, doctors do not know why the condition develops. Trauma to the chest wall may lead to costochondritis, and it also is believed that viral infections, particularly upper respiratory infections, may cause costochondritis.

The outcome was that I left with some medication, including something to suppress my cough and very strong painkillers which at first made me woozy!

I appear to be better today. I slept last night. Yay.

I was incredibly impressed by everyone I encountered at King’s. Everyone was super nice, efficient and friendly and put me at ease. I really cannot thank them enough and am incredibly grateful

I really, really want to buy some chocolates or similar and take them to the staff next Sunday as a thank you. Being alone, in an Accident and Emergency in the early hours of a Monday when you have as unidentified chest pain, can be a worrying and scary time.

I might be too embarrassed at doing this, although I would dearly love to thank them.