LADY DATE SUMMER 2018

LADY DATE SUMMER 2018

We started our day with ominous clouds at Notting Hill. We had a walk around with the tourists while looking at the colourful houses and along the market at Portobello Road. It started raining around this time and we made the walk back and into Kensington. 

It stopped raining as we made our way past all the elegantly large embassies and into Kensington Gardens. We walked past Kensington Palace and around the large pond. Then up towards the gold statue of Albert by The Royal Albert Hall. 

The rain started again with massive raindrops as we made our way towards Chelsea. It was a typical English Summer day and within only a few minutes we were again putting away umbrellas to make way for sunglasses. We stopped to eat once we made it to Kings Road.

I didn’t want anything too big and quite fancied some fries so we thought the American place The Big Easywas our best bet. Unfortunately it was disappointing. DesPite there being empty tables and the hostess offering us where we wanted to sit, she did not seem to want us to be there. To the point where I felt so guilty about just ordering fries even thought that was all I wanted, so ordered chicken as well. I’m glad I did because despite this place being American, there were no fries on the menu. There were only big chips, which I am not such a fan of. The chicken was nice though. We just didn’t feel very welcome. We didn’t stay very long. Rebecca had a mac and cheese, she said it was OK but that it was very difficult to really mess up a mac and cheese. The BBQ sauce tasted like pure alcohol, which was a shame.

So we left to go to our booking at The Bletchley. We descended a staircase into a basement with 1940s music and very little light. We were sat at the bar and given army jackets to wear and a radio and enigma machine to use. They give you an option of three different scenarios. Some have better stories, some have more interesting flavours for cocktails and others are harder. We went for the one with the most interesting flavours. The tasks were not too hard, a lot of punching into the enigma machine and trying to work out what the coded messages could mean. The welcome cocktail was a lovely fruit punch affair, probably my favourite out of the three. The second was determined by the first task, which was based on a menu. The food you ordered on the menu for an imagined dinner party determined what flavours were in your cocktail. Mine had a bit of fizz and a little kick but I have no idea what was in it. The next task to determine flavours involved smelling things in bottles and spraying tastes on your tongue. You had to choose where you were going on an imagined mission. I chose Italy and received an Amarettococktail. We were finished a little early but as we’d finished our cocktails quite quickly decided to leave to get a drink somewhere else. I think this experience runs a lot smoother with only two people. I think it would be a little tedious with a big group, especially when there are so many things to decide for each person. I did hear some bad reviews before I booked about people being left for too long or forgotten about but we didn’t have this problem at all. We did have a little problem with our enigma machine giving us the wrong letters for a while but a member of staff told us we had a problem and we started again rather than spending ages trying to decode a wrong message.

We were going to head to Bartsnext but quickly realized this would be an impossible place to get into without a booking so we headed to Mr Foggs. This is a little out of the way place behind the main street in Mayfair. We hadn’t booked but managed to get a space at the bar. They hand you a kind of spinning menu of cocktails as you head in but don’t be fooled, because these are only some of the cocktails on offer. There is actually a whole book of cocktails, almost like reading a novel, which is always one of the things I love most about a good cocktail bar. I, as usual, went for a vodka-based cocktail, something fruity but a little different. The barman was a true artist. He amazingly knew the recipes for both drinks we ordered off the top of his head. He mixed with flair and decorated with the skill and care of an artisan. The cocktails were lovely. My main flavor was of raspberry puree until I reached the bottom which unfortunately was all ginger beer, so it started off better than it ended. If I wasn’t left with pure ginger at the end it probably would have been my favourite cocktail.

And then, after seeming to walk all day, we headed home.

Here are links to some of the places we visited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notting_Hill

https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/kensington-gardens

http://bigeasy.co.uk/#kings-road

https://www.thebletchley.co.uk

https://www.mr-foggs.com/menus/?location=residence

LADY DATE JANUARY 2016: ART, FEMINISM, A DETECTIVE AGENCY, COCKTAILS AND MUSIC

LADY DATE JANUARY 2016

ART, FEMINISM, A DETECTIVE AGENCY, COCKTAILS AND MUSIC

As is usual for our lady dates we only had one destination in mind when we set out and that was to end up at The Briton Academy for around 8 o’clock.

We decided our first location while on the train into Liverpool Street. The Saatchi Gallery was displaying an exhibition called Champagne Life. The show is entirely formed of Women artists. Is this a sign that Saatchi is a Feminist? No. It’s a sign that he’s not a feminist. He bought a bunch of work by women artist, that’s true but then he separated them from the men and put them in a show together. Why? There’s never going to be a men only show. It makes us read into things so much more. When a man shows a sculpture of a body he is showing the self, the human body, humans in general, we don’t think he is talking specifically about the male self, it is always in reference to mankind, when a woman displays a female body it is always seen to reference the woman’s role or female body image, or even worse, women in perspective to men. Never seen as just a human. This is why feminism needs to exist but even so feminists fail at this role of equality, even in calling themselves feminists they are setting them selves up for failure. For this reason I am not a feminist, I believe that everyone should be equal, I’m not fighting for the rights of women or the rights of the poor or social or racial minorities, I’m fighting for everyone, no one should be prejudged for anything, on any level, everyone should be judged on their thoughts and actions and artists should be judged on their skills and merits.

Specifically looking at the exhibition itself (and sorry about my feminist rant – a subject which I’m still not done with by the way) my favourite piece was Maha Malluh’s Food for Thought – Al-Muallaqat. A huge expanse of cooking pots, their tops stuck to the wall with their burnt bottoms creating a pattern of different sized circles. The extra element added by the patina and patterns created by the use of these pans over the fire gave the piece an even more interesting view. My thoughts looking at this was marred by the fact that if a man created this then no thoughts would be directed to the kitchen or cooking, primarily seen as the woman’s place and being produced by a woman artist I heard a lot of reference to a woman cooking. I liked the stories that these objects tell, the huge pots make you wonder what meals were cooked in there and for how many people and your mind turns to the amount of preparation required to fill a pot that big. Then it made me think of how despite the fact that women are expected to be the ones that cook, there are less profession female chefs than male.

Another favourite of mine was Jelena Bulajic’s beautiful portraits. Large-scale paintings of aged faces with intricately drawn wrinkles and sags immediately draw you in closer. These paintings thankfully do not conjure up thoughts of gender but rather age, and also skill. We are looking into human faces in these pieces and they are faces with stories that you are interested to delve deeper into.

I don’t know if it is controversial to say that the work of Seung Ah Paik could easily have been created by a man. Her large large-scale intricate drawings of parts of her body gave me the impression of someone as an observer of the flesh rather than the owner of it. You are aware of the great amount of time taken to create the individual lines of the skin, it seems like in a few cases in this exhibition time and patience is an overarching theme (especially seen in the thread sculptures of Alice Anderson.) Could one say that this is a talent possessed by the majority of women, or have women developed a knack for tedious and repetitive work or have proved persistent in the pursuit of their causes? One could read these feminist arguments into much of this exhibition but I think they would only be doing this because it’s a female only show. This debate, the feminist cause, and the minefield that surrounds it is evident in the review featured on Time Out’s website. This reviewer, being male, decided it was best to stay out of the discussion altogether, ‘In fact, a beautifully underplayed bolshiness can be found in the best work on display. But to buy into the idea that, collectively, ‘Champagne Life’ has much to say about gender in 2016 is to fall for the idea that these artists, aged from their twenties to their fifties, working across continents and media as diverse as painting, taxidermy and clay, should have anything in common with each other. Because they are women. And this (male) critic ain’t going there.’ This is a trap that many people fall into, of course artists working across continents and in different medias have something in common, they are all human, they are all creators and creating, they are all thinkers, they all have emotions, they are all artists. The fact is, that if this was a mixed exhibition or both male and female artists this comment of them having things in common would not come up, unless maybe they were all from the same part of the world, but people don’t even mention this phrase when talking about people working in the same movement. Not that many of the movements from the past actually included that many women. I think we’re starting to correct that now. I mean in the YBAs, one of my favourite art detachments despite the fact that women were still the minority (and this will possibly always be the case) I believe they were on equal footing with the men and afforded the same opportunities.

Ok, enough about art and feminism. Let’s get back to the Lady Date.

For the next stop we needed food, and as per tradition we were looking for a pizza. I had seen online that there was a nice little pub reasonably close by that did pizza and cocktails so we headed that way going to Victoria station to look in HEMA (http://www.hemashop.com) on the way.

The Chelsea Pensioner was the name of the pub, a quirky quiet little place a long walk down Fulham Road. The football was on the TV, there were a couple playing pool in the corner, the heating was cranked up and there were unusual décor all around. The pizza was almost certainly a frozen one and so not remarkable in any way, plus we asked for the meat one but they had apparently run out so we had to have the plain margherita. The cheesy chips saved the day. The cocktails on the menu were the standard Mojitos and things so we skipped those but they were cheap so if you’re looking for somewhere cozy and inexpensive I would recommend it, the food was reasonably priced too.

Next we wanted to go for a real cocktail, something unique and we got exactly what we wanted at Evans and Peel Detective Agency.

It would be impossible to find this place if you didn’t know what you were looking for, the only entrance to the place is a door (see photo) with the name of the detective agency on. I’m sure there are people who walk by this everyday without knowing what this place is, or possibly even thinking it really is a detective agency. There is a buzzer to press outside,  I said we hadn’t booked but if it was possible to come in. He said he was with a client at the moment and to give him a minute. We stood outside with people looking at us suspiciously. Then the door opened which lead down some stairs into a single room. The room was decked out like a 1920s detective agency with notes on the walls and a desk that the man in the cardigan and bow tie sat behind. He asked what he could help us with and took our name and number. Having no idea this would happen I was a little dumbstruck but whatever you do *DO NOT say you’re there for cocktails* (despite the fact that you can hear cocktails being shaken and music playing somewhere behind the walls) you have to conduct a story for a detective agency to help with – Rebecca as ever quick thinking said I had lost my little boy Frank (the name of my cat) and we needed help finding him, that I had split with the boy’s father and he may have taken him. Once we had made up sufficient details the detective said that he could help us and opened a bookcase which lead into the speakeasy. It was so much fun and that’s before you even get inside!. I had The Yuzual Suspect which was a mix of vodka, lychee, hibiscus, almond, egg white and yuzu (which I have since found out is a Japanese citrus fruit) it was as light and fluffy as it suggested and was a delicious delicious cocktail. Rebecca had a Cherry Poppin’ which was, despite the fact that I’m not a huge cherry fan, really very tasty and refreshing, but also quite alcoholic. The atmosphere is friendly and the décor is spot on, they even play jazz/swing versions of modern songs like Barbie Girl and Stacey’s Mom. Find their website here http://www.evansandpeel.com)

Drinks drunk we then made our way to Brixton to see the Maccabees at the Brixton Academy. We got there in time to see the end of the Support act’s set. The act supporting The Maccabees for the last time on this tour was called The Big Moon. The Big Moon are a London-based all-girl four-piece. They have a brilliant sense of humour. I had only heard one of their songs before (find it here – it’s really good and the video has a really sweet quality about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQCY-7_SY6Y) They played a heavier version of Madonna’s Beautiful Stranger which was a lot of fun but some of their other songs although very skilled musically was a little bland for me.

The Maccabees arrived on stage a little after 9. They were so full of energy and the lead singer (Orlando Weeks) was so full of passion and love for the fans. They played a couple of songs from each of their four albums, which I think shows true appreciation of the fans that have stuck with them for so long. I was there at the start at the super-packed Café de Paris gig just at the time of their first album around ten years ago. Latchmere was my favourite then and a highlight of the night and I can say the same for last night too. They also played X-ray from their first album, which was also touching for the fans. They ended with an encore of Toothpaste Kisses followed by Pelican, which delighted everyone. The Maccabees have continued their high quality, moving, expressive, guitar heavy, energetic style enduring through all these years and their four albums, improving musically and as a band and becoming more grown up, almost growing with the fans. You could tell the ones, the younger ones who had not experienced the first album but rejoiced at songs from the second and some younger fans who came in at the third and fourth but the same is true of them all, The Maccabees bring them joy, emotion and some great music to jump up and down to. Here’s another review of this most recent tour. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/the-maccabees-brixton-academy-review-time-they-headlined-glaston/)

Review: Cocktails

PIZZA PILGRIMS: SOHO

11 DEAN ST, SOHO W1D 3RP

This was regrettably a fleeting visit for our first time at Pizza Pilgrims as we had to be back in London Bridge with little time to spare.  Luckily, we were seated immediately downstairs by lovely friendly staff. We decided to share a salami pizza, which was demolished in record time. The pizza was thin and juicy.  Unfortunately when we cut the pizza in half and transferred plates I lost half the toppings and they were not generous or evenly distributed enough for my taste. I think this is where this pizzeria falls behind some of my other favourites in London, they are a little sparing with the toppings. 

It was an interesting day as we were seated next t a table of zombies who were celebrating world zombie day with a zombie walk for charity. We saw many people dressed up on the streets around Soho and on the tube in the surrounding areas.  Their sometimes very realistic flesh wounds and decaying flesh would stop mothers with pushchairs in their tracks and terrify small children in the carriages of the trains.

ALCOHOLIC ARCHITECTURE: BOROUGH MARKET.

1 CATHEDRAL ST, LONDON SE1 9DE

Standing in the queue for this experience you are very aware of your proximity to the beautiful church, which was part of the inspiration for this experimental cocktail bar.  The heart of the installation is on the sight of an ancient monk monastery and serves as the overall theme of the event.

While you wait for the allotted hour to arrive the monastic lady on the door explains the history of the area as well as the link between the ingredients in the cocktails and the monks who used to live here.  Precisely on the hour you are pointed towards a door and you descend down an ever darkening staircase to a wooden locker room.  You have a cubbyhole to leave your coat and bags and are given a plastic rain mac with a hood. 

You then walk through the heavy plastic curtains into the main room.  It’s quite disorientating at first, the vapour is white and thick and it is hard to see very far in front of you. You breathe in a cloud of gin and tonic flavoured vapour mist while wearing rain macs with hoods surrounded by others in the same while the coloured lights change hue and funky music plays and thunder storms are simulated. The mist starts as a peasant taste and the weirdest thing at first is getting used to the sensation of breathing in something other than air, but gradually the taste changes and it starts to taste more artificial.

While in there you can gradually feel the moisture in the air settling on your plastic disposable Mac and your arms and hands. Some hairstyles were also ruined in the process. But once you came out you didn't feel as sticky as you thought you would. You also didn't feel drunk. Despite inhaling a hefty amount you felt like maybe you'd had one drink and not really effected.

It is a novelty and an experience to try but it’s not an experiment of how it feels to get drunk through your skin as I thought it might be.  I’d say try it once to say you’ve done it and try to wear your hair in a way which would not be effected by moisture.  Those are my tips. Plus the toilets are nasty, there are flies everywhere, someone said there was supposed to be a snake in there and it certainly is snake themed with pictures on the wall and snaky sound effects.  There is a tank high in one of the cubicles but I couldn’t see anything inside it. Strange.

After the experience I read this article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/alcoholic-architecture-lets-customers-inhale-alcohol-in-london-10454328.html

Which claims that in breathing alcohol it avoids the liver and goes directly to the brain, which makes for more rapid intoxication but I didn’t feel any obvious effect and I am not a heavy drinker. I think yet again people are jumping on the negative bandwagon.  As for the statement: "The last thing this country needs is another way of ingesting alcohol," from Dr. Niall Campbell, I don’t think that we have any worry of this becoming a mainstream alternative to drinking, it’s far too uncomfortable and would be too much hard work.

THE OLD SCHOOL YARD: BOROUGH

111 LONG LANE, LONDON, SE1 4PH

The atmosphere is the first thing that hits you about this place.  It is warm and friendly and lively.  There is so much to do, including table football, Mario Kart on the N64 and arcade games.  Luckily we managed to perch ourselves on a stool as it seems like it’s always busy and especially on a Saturday night.

Their cocktail list was an old school booklet with cartoon drawings and the cocktails were divided into school subjects. Unfortunately the cocktails were not very original. They mstly served classics and their own designs were not very imaginative. In the history section of the booklet they divided the cocktails by decade with things like a Mai Tai from the 1940s and a Cosmopolitan from the 1990s. I had a Caipirinha as I'd never had one before. I was shocked with how strong it was at first but the sugar and lime combination was perfect. Rebecca had a Singapore Sling (something she'd never had before.) 

The pizzas are named after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and they have Italian food that looked delicious. We had chips and garlic bread. The garlic bread was the most garlicky thing I've ever eaten in my life. It was so strong it burnt your tongue. The chips were faultless, skinny, salty and delicious. With a mouth full of garlic we left happy.

Review: The Line

THE LINE: VARIOUS LONDON LOCATIONS

On the Time Out description this sculpture trail runs from the O2 to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.  We did it the other way round but it was a little misleading.  There isn’t actually a sculpture in the Olympic Park as the description suggests.

The walk though the park is lovely, and something we’d never done before, but the first sculpture can’t be seen for a long while into the walk if you start here. It may be possible that there might be more added in the future.

The first artwork, called Network by Thomas J Price, is a sculpture of a young man standing casually looking at his phone.  A pretty normal thing to see in London but this guy is an impressive 9ft tall and cast in bronze.

The next part of The Line we apparently missed and I didn’t realize it until now and I will tell you why; The only place we could find that lists the artworks and has any form of map is the Line website. http://the-line.org/

This website is very difficult to use on your phone – a mobile friendly platform would be the first thing you would expect from an interactive accompaniment to a trail. The website didn’t work at all on my phone and was temperamental on my friend’s phone.  If it hadn’t worked then we wouldn’t have been able to follow the line at all as there are very few signs along the course of the walk and no maps or directions along the way. So we missed the video installation that is around this area. 

However the park, in which Network is located, is a hidden gem, there are things to climb and jump on, trails, a tightrope and a rather ingenious trampoline.  A group had left the remnants of a game of beer pong (apparently played with cranberry juice) on their ping pong tables.

Next was a scenic route though Tesco’s and to one of the more dramatic sculptures on the line.  DNA DL90 by Abigail Fallis incorporates shopping trolleys into the shape of a double helix.  The fact that this artwork is in such close proximity to the Tesco’s and the canal is perfect as it conjures up images of someone trawling these straight from the water and constructing them where they stand.  A child was trying to climb up it when we got there (a feat he felt proud of considering he was wearing skinny jeans, or so he kept telling his parents.) This sculpture was commissioned by a supermarket chain but it doesn’t say which one and apart from one handle apparently from Kwiksave all the other handles had the words Muscular Dystrophy on them, the understanding of which was aided by the discovery and interpreting of DNA.

The next piece was easily recognizable as the work of Damien Hirst.  Entitled Sensation, this piece is another one of Hirst’s blown up anatomical models, this time, depicting skin.  Compared to the other sculptures so far on the walk this one is much more playful and colourful, it stands out of its rather bland and empty surroundings. 

The next stage of the walk is though Cody Dock, a creative community that had a feel of a cult to it (according to my friend), walking though you did feel like an outsider but they were at least attempting to be welcoming with their little blackboard explaining what things were for and the names of the chickens.  I would think the floating dome would be an amazing place to see a live band.  After this scenic walk the next section is just a sad walk through an industrial estate that takes you to your next location, which is Star Lane.

My sheltered boyfriend (who didn’t join us on this trip) was suitably impressed with the name of this station, the DLR are known for some awesome sounding names. For some reason there were no trains straight to Royal Victoria, we had to go to Canning Town (otherwise known as the most confusing multilayered DLR station in the world) and then on from there.

I am pretty sure that this was the location of an artwork that has since been removed, I can only assume because a child climbed on it and then fell off, this was disappointing as there is no mention of this on the website and you could in theory wander (considering the awful map) round and round looking for it. From the website I can see this missing piece is meant to be Consolidator by Sterling Ruby which looks a bit like a geometric cannon.

However after giving up with this one we found the huge and impressive bronze sculpture by the river called Vulcan by Eduardo Paolozzi. This is a brilliant cubist representation of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking.  He is part machine and part man with a strange pair of mismatched feet.

Not mentioned at this point on The Line Website is the Martin Creed ‘sculpture’ which is probably the worst of all the pieces of modern art.  Work 700 is an iron girder of some kind.  Unfortunately the sign that accompanies this artwork was missing so I have no way of knowing what this is meant to mean, needless to say I am not a fan.  It’s not that I am contemptuous of Creed’s work in general, I studied some of his pieces for my dissertation, I admire his continuous questioning of what art can be but this piece feels out of place and disappointing.

Another point which I’d like to make about every one of the photographs on the website and press regarding The Line; not one of the photographs are taken in their current location. This makes it a little confusing when trying to find them and is frankly a little baffling.  Someone must have put them there; you would have thought they would have photographed them at the time?!

Rant over, for the next part of the journey was the most fun.  We took the Emirates Air Line to the other side of the river to Greenwich.  The Air Line for those who don’t know is a cable car that links one side of the river with the other.  You get amazing views of the Thames and The O2 (which I still refer to as the Millennium Dome.) It was great value at only £3.30 on my Oyster card.  There’s also a nifty little video about all that you can see from way up there.

While crossing on the cable car you’ll be able to see the next artwork, again missing from the website and without an accompanying sign this is Antony Gormley’s Quantum Cloud.  A wire sculpture which is, according to Wikipedia, a collection of tetrahedral units. If you look at it from the right angle you can see the ubiquitous figure of Gormley in the middle.

We are now at the last section of The Line, this takes us on a walk around the Thames and the O2.  The next artwork is Liberty Grip by Gary Hume.  This is a sculpture made of patinated and painted bronze, based on the arm of a mannequin, the type that model clothes in shops but it has been abstracted.  This is one of my favourite pieces of the walk, the most interesting thing about this is the use of the pink, an artificially bright colour in contrast to the dull bronze. Hume has taken something which is quite common and alludes to the human form but represented it as a synthetic and man-made creation on the scale of a celebratory piece of art.

At first sight the next piece seems to be an old boat/ship left on the side of the river.  At closer inspection A Slice of Reality by Richard Wilson is only a part of a ship expertly sliced all the way through on both sides it makes you wonder how such a large undertaking was completed with such precision. 

The next sculpture is the Here by Thomson & Craighead, a sign post which is meant to show the distance all the way around the world and back to the same point. There does appear to be something at this point but I did not see this signpost. Maybe we missed it and walked straight past it as it similar to a normal road sign or maybe it was removed?

There are mysteries in this art trail that maybe were not planned for – it doesn’t seem like anyone has walked the whole thing before and certainly not much information is available.

And this takes us to the end of The Line. A seemingly ill thought out and badly planned, hard to follow tour of modern art. This actually seems quite fitting as modern art can sometimes be as infuriating as this walk and arty types are not known for their logistical qualities. It seems that the main reason that this is not a cohesive walk along a continuous line along the canals or thorough parks is that it follows the Meridian Line, plus London is not known for having enough walkways that are not bisected by building sites, private land or large roads.

Having said that it was a decent way to spend a few hours, a good excuse for some exercise on a mild autumnal day and the chance to see some art and parts of London I don’t usually explore.  And as they add more sculptures along the way I shall probably pop along and have a look.

For more information see:

http://the-line.org/

I found this after the walk – it appears we missed another artwork from this map however this is not mentioned on the official website (James Balmforth - Inhibition Point: Possibly may have been removed?)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/11615877/The-Line-Londons-first-modern-art-walk.html