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Thursday 27 February 2014

PEOPLE I Admire - Christiane Amanpour

I hugely admire Christiane Amanpour (CNN), forthright, a melodious voice, well briefed natch but convincing on screen. Her personality and her looks are outstanding in the world of reportage where jabber jabber predominates - she is a beacon. 

Wednesday 26 February 2014

LIVING BY DESIGN: Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid's talent simmered for years and then there was an explosion of buildings thanks be to an architects who is both innovative and a life enhancer

Sunday 23 February 2014

COMMENT - Tate Britain, London

Tate Britain at Millbank in London – extensively refurbished, more places to eat!  Very well done EXCEPT for the lights on the stairs and lobbies, the most mundane milk glass balls, surely the budget could have run to have hanging lights designed?  There are enough talented designers in this country. Admittedly on a very grey day, the lighting in the galleries was poor. The pictures, whether of the 1940’s or the 1600’s look FLAT, rather depressing - not so the Turners or a glowing Howard Hodgkins. 

Another exception - Henry Moore’s monumental sculptures, a room dedicated to him has pale lavender/blue walls – they look great.



Sunday 16 February 2014

COMMENT / POETRY: Robert Browning

When to divorce was very difficult many a husband [or a wife, to be politically correct] on reading Robert Browning's poem My Last Duchess might wish today's mores were as they have been in centuries past - dispose of your spouse but have a portrait [photograph] painted to indulge your pride.

"There is my last Duchess painted on the wall
Looking as if she were alive!"

Find the rest on Google!

Thursday 13 February 2014

POETRY: Philip Larkin

'I have started to say'

I have started to say
'A quarter of a century'
Or 'thirty years back'
About my own life.

It makes me breathless.
It's like falling and recovering
In huge gesturing loops
Through an empty sky.

All that's left to happen
Is some deaths [my own included].
Their order, and their manner,
Remain to be learnt.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

LIVING BY DESIGN: Abstract & Floral Designs by E. A Seguy


...From the days when the civilised world regarded Paris as the centre of the world of art and looked to that most chic of cities for the lead in fashions, not only in painting and music, but in dress and even, to some degree, in manners and mores....

Stephen Calloway, Assistant Curator, Victoria & Albert Museum 



Sunday 9 February 2014

BOOKS: The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

Prompted by the BBC and the Press we have been amply reminded of 1914.

On the recommendation of Gita Mehta [see blog entry of Jan 13, 2013  ] I am about to embark on reading 1130 pages from the German translation of The Man Without Qualities, a Picador paperback previously published by Knopf in 1995 by Editor-in-Chief Sonny Mehta, a star of the publishing world, amongst whose writers are 10 Nobel Prize winners, is that not a WOW?

Wednesday 5 February 2014

ART I Admire: Oscar Murillo




Oscar Murillo, the new Colombian - a painterly painter - check him out, he is GOOD.



Monday 3 February 2014

THEATRE: Ghosts

At London's Trafalgar Studios, I finally saw
the Almeida Theatre production of GHOSTS by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Richard Eyre who also directed the play: 'what I have written is a "version" or "adaptation" or "interpretation" of Ibsen's play, but I hope it comes near to squaring the circle of being close to what Ibsen intended while seeming spontaneous to an audience today".  

Impeccable - theatre at its best - an outstanding cast - Lesley Manville's performance as Helene Alving will be hard to forget. 
A searing criticism of nineteenth century values and hypocrisy but sympathetic to the human condition nonetheless. OMG has England not got good actors and talented directors.

Saturday 1 February 2014

FABRICS: John Stefanidis 'Paulina'

John Stefanidis Fabrics available from:

LondonUK - Tissus d'Helene
Showroom: Chelsea HarbourLondonSW10 0XF
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7352 9977
Email: sales@tissusdhelene.co.uk 

MiamiUSA - Monica James
Showroom: 40 NE 40th StreetMiamiFL 33137
Phone: + 1 305-576-6222
Website: monicajames.com

Los AngelesUSA – Harbinger
Showroom: 752 North La Cienega Blvd,West HollywoodCA 90069
Phone: +1 310 858 6884
Website: harbingerla.com

SABBATICAL; BOOKS