Thursday 10 April 2014

I really don't know clouds at all

Something fantastically subversive about clouds this morning, viewed from the bus going up Uxbridge Road. What worlds away from the small, frightened boy in an over-sized school uniform sitting next to me - the ticket inspector - the people punching fiercely into their mobile phones.... The clouds promise other worlds, in fact, beyond the bus window.





































Yesterday's lunchtime Veronese at the National Gallery had a cloud-strewn sky. (Is there a Veronese without a stormy sky?) Plus dogs: The Supper at Emmaus (about 1555).
A large, aristocratic family surrounds Christ's supper after his resurrection. Everyone is clutching something; the painting swirls with movement.

















Particularly love this lady on the right  - clearly the matriarch of the household, impassive, resigned, thinking oh no what now.























Reading and watching

  • Foot by Foot to Santiago de Compostela/Judy Foot
  • The Testament of Mary with Fiona Shaw at the Barbican
  • The Testament of Mary/Colm Toibin
  • Schwanengesang/Schubert - Tony Spence
  • Journals/Robert Falcon Scott
  • Fugitive Pieces/Ann Michaels
  • Unless/Carol Shields
  • Faust/Royal Opera House
  • The Art of Travel/Alain de Botton
  • Mad Men Series 6
  • A Week at The Airport/Alain de Botton
  • The Railway Man/Eric Lomax
  • Bright Lights, Big City/Jay McInerney
  • Stones of Venice/John Ruskin
  • The Sea, the Sea/Iris Murdoch
  • Childe Harold/Lord Byron
  • All The Pretty Horses/Cormac McCarthy
  • Extreme Rambling/Mark Thomas
  • Story of my Life/Jay McInerney
  • Venice Observed/Mary McCarthy