COMMENT: The New Yorker, Jan 27, 2014

Check out this issue - online if you do not get the magazine - ANNALS OF THE PRESIDENCY Going the Distance by the editor, David Remnick...level-headed and incisive, an article which gives a balanced view of Obama at the White House.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa_fact_remnick  

Obama was our hero, is he still?

BOOKS: The Parthenon by Mary Beard

A temple, an Orthodox church [for as long as it had been a temple], a mosque until the explosion of 1687 - bombed by Venetian forces, part of a Holy league against the Ottoman Empire.

A book of fascinating facts; it shows a plan for the Parthenon which was to become a royal palace for King Otto, the Bavarian who became the first King of Greece - the architect my beloved Schinkel [see my blogs posts of May 1, 2012 & May 25, 2013].

Mary Beard is very good on the Elgin Marbles controversy and never dull.

ART I admire: Albrecht Dürer

Young Dürer drawings at The Courtauld, London...haunting drawings of the artist's hands.

http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/exhibitions/2013/durer/

POETRY: Rainer Maria Rilke from The Sonnets to Orpheus

Oh this is the animal that never was.
They hadn't seen one; but just the same, they loved
its graceful movements, and the way it stood
looking at them calmly, with clear eyes.

It had not been.  But for them, it appeared
in all its purity.  They left space enough.
And in the space hollowed out by their love
it stood up all at once and didn't need

existence.  They nourished it, not with grain,
but with the mere possibility of being.
And finally this gave it so much power

that from its forehead a horn grew.  One horn.
It drew near to a virgin, white, gleaming---
and was, inside the mirror and in her.

FOOD: Tramshed

Mark Hix's 'Tramshed' in Shoreditch is where it is at -- an attempted citizen's arrest of Tony Blair which 'hit' the newspapers .

The restaurant is famous for its huge Damian Hirst floating above the tables.  It has a chicken dish in which the bird is plunged head down into a plate of chips, its legs trussed - delicious (and you can take the carcass home for your dogs or to make soup).

The night I was taken to dine there - at the very long bar - perched on a stool, a white girl in a backless dress, with a mass of blonde hair, and a stunning black girl were kissing passionately. Very nice with a cocktail. 

LIVING BY DESIGN:

One of my very early commissions, a ball in the 1970's for Catherine Guinness, given for her at Kelvedon. White balloons were given radiations of pink by the lighting.  Flags were made of paper, inspired by Japanese Kabuki designs.

FILM: The Great Beauty by Paolo Sorrentino

Set in Rome, the most beautiful of all cities, it was well received at the Venice Film Festival, very well received in the English press.  I ordered the DVD and waited in excited anticipation until it was released this month January 2014 and it is GARBAGE.  Federico Fellini must be revolving in his grave.

ARCHITECTURE I Admire: Santiago Calitrava

Felipe Science Museum, Valencia

Concert Hall, Seville

Milwaukee Art Museum, USA

FOOD: Bellamy's

The best chips in London are to be found at Bellamy's, good food, congenial in every way.

The 'patron' is Gavin Rankin (ex-Mark Birley--ran Annabels and Mark's Club)

Address: 18 Bruton Place, off Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London, W1

Web: www.bellamysrestaurant.co.uk 

POETRY: Guillaume Apollinaire

ART I Admire: Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry fish 

at the Gagosian Gallery, London W1