Foreign Players

I went to South London Gallery. At the Old Fire Station is Found Football Difficult by John Costi. In Gallery 1: The device part of “Physical Education”: As the gallery chap explained, it is possible to put coins next to the skeletal finger and the device will flick them to join the pile accumulated at […]

Naturalisation

We went to see August In England at Bush Theatre. Earlier today there was a message that this was being changed to an “Open Dress Rehearsal” due to technical problems and we could reschedule… but that’s happened a couple of times before at Bush Theatre and it wasn’t noticeable, except maybe with Clutch which had […]

The Din Of Pop

The subject of “the elite” has been getting more attention lately. The proposition that a “new elite” has taken over, or is in the process of capturing power, is a regular feature in British social commentary, for example in such works as Anatomy Of Britain and its successor volumes by Anthony Sampson. It’s certainly the […]

Bone Yard

I went to see the Gilbert & George show The Corpsing Pictures at the White Cube Mason’s Yard. As with any G&G project, there is a big range of merchandise and other promotions available. All their pictures helpfully have the titles contained in the frame so I don’t need to check the captions carefully. Upstairs: […]

Larval Forms

I went to White Cube Bermondsey to see 3 exhibitions currently on there. First of all, Land by Samuel Ross. Closer look at the surface of “Closer To Dissonance”: Two views of “Body With Land” (2022): Two views of “Distance Collapse In Heartland” (2022): Two views of “Concave” (2022): Then Ruach by Mimi Lauter: All […]

Viral Load

2 weeks ago I was feeling under the weather. Because we had a problem with our broadband, which wasn’t fixed after 1 day, we thought it would be best to go into our offices and work there and then come home after it was fixed. When we got home it wasn’t fixed but I felt […]

Sten Guns In Knightsbridge

I watched Dead Head (1986), the 4-part thriller written by Howard Brenton. Brenton had previously written many political plays, some of which had had BBC adaptations, such as Brassneck. Dead Head mixes 80s political and crime thriller elements with stylings from 1940s B-movies, including the outfits and settings and some of the comical working class […]

Bosch Estate

I watched Nobody Loves You And You Don’t Deserve To Exist (2022) because I saw an article about it in the latest issue of Prospect. It begins with a quotation from Borges. We then travel over the landscape of modern Britain to a point on the Moors. The unnamed female narrator introduces the story: NARRATOR: […]

Washington Bullets

I watched The Night Agent on Netflix. It is a superb portrayal of the world you can read about on Twitter. We start one year ago, at a subway station in New York. Right from the outset our attention is focussed on an innocent little girl with her mummy. A nice young guy smiles at […]

Gallowglass Revisited

I watched the Netflix serial Behind Her Eyes (2021). Although it has no reference to the pandemic, it’s as up to date as possible, set in the world of modern offices, short term contracts, smartphone conversations. But what struck me is what it still had in common with the old psychological thrillers from 30 years […]