(UK) They say the best way to know a city is through its locals, I couldn’t agree more, Dangerously Naive’s favorite Londoner graced us with his favorite visionaries last week (http://naiveboy.com/2009/11/21/ten-visionaries-of-jaiden-jeremy-james-by-navo/), and today he’s giving us an exclusive personal first class tour of his favorite spots to be seen or be incognito in London Town.

1. CLAIRE DE ROUEN’S BOOK STORE on charing x road for all the latest books and specialist magazines.

125 Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0EA London
+442072871813

Mon-Fri, 10:00–18:30; Sat, 10:00–18:00

www.clairederouenbooks.com

2. SOUTHBANK for my cultural fix it is definitely my favorite location in London with its mix of Bohemians for all kind of places from artists, to designers, to film makers. I love the BFI especially when it’s the London film festival and always check films out and the latest exhibitions they have, Tate Modern for my cultural fix of contemporary art. Haywood Gallery also puts on some amazing shows in recent months Warhol, Longo and Ruscha.

3. THE ROYAL COURT THEATRE, an amazing place for theatre the celebrates old talent whilst nurturing and embracing new. Each production is beautifully done and seems to question and challenge modern-day culture.

50-51 Sloane Square, London, SW1W 8AX, United Kingdom
+44 20 7565 5000

www.royalcourttheatre.com

4. PONYSTEP, a place where every and anything is welcome. Like boombox and those before it, Ponystep offers a unique clubbing experience.

www.ponystep.com/

5. JOINERS ARM’S, sleazy, cheap, testosterone overloaded and a place I would be lost without.

116-118 Hackney Rd, London E2 7QL, United Kingdom
020 7739 9397‎

6. FASHION RETAIL ACADEMY where I was trained by Philip Green the man behind TOPSHOP, I owe a lot to this them.

15 Gresse Street, London, Greater London W1T 1QL
020 7307 2345 /020 7307 2361

www.fashionretailacademy.ac.uk

7. SOMERSET HOUSE, I am at awe of its architectural beauty every time I see it, the new home of London Fashion Week and currently hosting the amazing Showstudio Exhibition.

Strand, London, WC2R 0RN, United Kingdom
+44 20 7845 4646
www.somersethouse.org.uk

8. INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, always plays the best new arts films and has great shows on as well as a cute little bookshop.

Nash House
12 Carlton House Ter, London, SW1Y 5AH, United Kingdom
+44 20 7930 3647

www.ica.org.uk

9. SHOREDITCH, truly amazing place home to the coolest people, places and companies from the likes of Gilbert & George to Tracy Emin, as well as Fashion East, Dazed & Confused and I-D calling this place home. Boombox, Ponystep, George & the Dragon, Joiners, the list goes on definitely a place to visit and an even cooler place to live.

10. MY HOUSE, home is where the heart is.

http://jaidenjames.blogspot.com/

Related Entry: http://naiveboy.com/2009/11/25/didios-brasil-by-navo/

Wrist Hole

In the wrist hole in the wrist hole in the wrist hole…I love you Susan…damn…Police

The VCA School of Art Graduate Exhibition 2009 is huge. Space after space filled with art: video installations, sculpture, paintings, drawings, printmaking, installations and things that defied classification, but were called “spatial practice” on the invite. If you are going to see this exhibition, and it is worth seeing, then give yourself over an hour to see it all. It is at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery (named after the Margaret Lawrence Bequest who supported the exhibition); which is all of the studio and workshop spaces at the VCA turned into a gallery.

The entrance is at 40 Dodds St., Southbank, it looked like there was a cue to get in when I arrived shortly after 6pm. It must have been the biggest thing happening in Melbourne’s art scene on that a mild Monday night. There were two long bars in the courtyard with a DJ and hundreds of people. Free wine or buy Mountain Goat beer (a strange kind of sponsorship). Young men with haircuts from 80s new wave bands, fashionably dressed young women, the artists, their parents, their friends, etc. There were thousands of people at the opening doing the gallery shuffle and demonstrating their “spatial practice” by not bumping into people after a few glasses of free wine.

Carmen Reid had sent me an invite to the exhibition (I wrote about her June exhibition at Brunswick Arts ) and I was pleased that I could find her exhibits. Her latest works continue to be enjoyable, the accordion doors “(Fidget) Neither Here Nor There” is like Looney Toons architecture made real. Unfortunately I did not get to talk to Carmen – I think that she was cleaning up broken bits of glass from her work “Limbo” that had been damaged by crowds of people.

Seeing the opening was like stumbling into an art fair, overpowering and diluted at the same time. It was hard to take in all the art because:

a)     there were so many people at the opening

b)    there were so many works of art (the invitation said over 1,000 works and I believe it).

c)     there were so much variety of quality art

The list of “School of Art Awards” ran to two sheets of paper – not that there was any information about the various awards beside the award-winning work.

All the current contemporary art moves are on show, the heat from lights, video projectors, art stirring up dust, plants trying to survive an art installation and visual puns from desperate art students. Although there is likely to be one or two very successful artists amongst this year’s graduating class. This doesn’t mean that they are doing great work now or that all the work in this exhibition is great. Much of the art is going down the plughole. Clare Scalan was painting studio plugholes prognosticating a future for so much paint and artist’s careers. I overheard someone in the crowd saying: “90% of video artists are rubbish.” It is probably true of all the arts graduates.

Still there is plenty of art to enjoy at this exhibition; I liked Graham Brindly’s sculptures. They are elegant, they are like physics experiments and drawing in 3 dimensions. In Brindly’s “Gravities” a plumb bob hangs over a circular pile of black sand.

Another successful meeting took place today at the Westminster Rotaract Fellowship. Taking place  in our usual venue, the Southbank Community Centre in Central London, we’ve managed once again to keep up the number of attendance with 12 full-time members and 8 guests.

Lauren Williamson, the Ambassadorial scholar from Texas introduced herself to the club, and offered some fantastic insight into the Ambasadorial Scholarship Programme, which many of our members have found to be very useful. She spoke highly about the programme, the Rotarian support in her country and here in the UK, and shared her personal experiences within this life changing experience!

The meeting then continued with a very quick motivational speech from Yoanna Tsevatanova, who managed to aquire a large list of participants to the upcoming fundraising action for the Great Ormond Street Children Hospital Charity. This activity will take place near Bond Street, on 19 November 2009, between 18:00 – 20:00 and we hope to see as many of you there!

Anna Pinkernelle, the club Webmaster, updated everyone on the status of our new website which the Club hopes to have up and running before the end of the year, ready to launch into the new year.

And last but not least, Dinu Morar, the Treasurer and Membership Director, presented the club with a new possible project idea. He proposed raising money for Fresh Start, a Philipino based charity, run by a wealthy family in the Philippines, who would like to make a difference to the lives of the children affected by the typhoons. The Rotaract action would consist in organising a concert to raise money and for every £0.50 raised, one child in the Philipines would be able to return to school.

More information on this project, and its progress will be feature in numbers to come, so watch this space!

/Manuela Tise

Listen to a Londoner. This is a weekly post where people who live (or have lived for a while) in London answer a few questions about the Big Smoke. If you fit the bill and want to be interviewed, give me a shout at littlelondonobservationist@hotmail.co.uk. Always looking for new victims volunteers….

Daniel Higgott, 23

Danny is a sound engineer from Northwest London. He doesn’t actually work, just gets paid to travel the world. He thinks he is the master of the card game called Shithead, but often loses to a certain American girl who will remain anonymous.

LLO:  How long have you lived in London?
DH: 23 years and 10 months exactly.

LLO: Best place to escape the city?
DH: Hampstead Heath

LLO: How do you spend your time on the tube?
DH: Reading one of the free papers and/or listening to my iPod

LLO: Favourite London discovery?
DH: Brick Lane

LLO: Best place to spend a Sunday afternoon?
DH: The place is not important, but seeing my friends is, as it is my only day off.

LLO: Best museum or gallery?
DH: Tate Modern

LLO: Favourite market?
DH: Portobello

LLO: Best time of year in London?
DH: Autumn or Winter

LLO: Best place for a first date? 
DH: A stroll from Embankment, down through the South Bank, possibly stopping at a few nice pubs along the way.

LLO: What would you change about the city if you had the power to do so?
DH: I would fully air condition the tube, at any expense.

 Thanks Danny!

BarCamp London 7

A few people have been asking us how we did the WiFi at BCL7, held at the IBM offices on Southbank, London 24-25^th October 2009. So here are the details.

Our initial site survey identified a lot of existing WiFi devices in the area, all creating their own RF interference. For this deployment to work we needed hardware that could cope with constantly changing environments with people moving from room to room, and enough coverage to cope with the expected capacity demands. After all, BarCamp’s are the type of event where everyone will be wanting a connection, at some time or another!

Our remit was to provide WiFi coverage in the Southwark, Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars and Lambeth meeting rooms. The following pictures illustrate where we deployed our AP’s. The Waterloo and Blackfriars meeting rooms were one large room divided into two, so only one AP was used to service both:

Original Meeting Rooms

The restaurant area also had to have WiFi coverage:

Restaurant

Hardware

The hardware used was Ruckus Wireless. For this kind of deployment there is no equal. Ruckus Wireless use a patented technolgy called Beamflex. Unlike omni-directional antennas that radiate signals in all directions, BeamFlex directs transmit energy towards the best path to the receiving device. And unlike fixed-positioned directional antennas, BeamFlex dynamically configures its “beam” on a per-station, per-packet basis, to achieve omni-directional coverage.

Ruckus ZoneFlex 7942

BeamFlex offers:

• Over 3X increase in performance and range
• 8X expanded coverage
• Stabilized wireless network performance, for picture-perfect video streaming and crystal-clear voice communications
• Maximized power efficiency
• Interference mitigation

Having deployed Ruckus in several warehouses for scanner based stock control, we knew Ruckus would be able to cope with the capacity and throughput demands over the 2 days of BCL7.

BeamFlex Smart Antenna Array

This is what it looks like inside a Ruckus Antenna. Notice the patented verticle element array design.

BeamFlex Smart Antenna Array

Installation

We arrived at IBM at 3pm on Friday to install, which is when we discovered our remit had changed. WiFi was now required in the Chelsea meeting room:

Chelsea Meeting Room

and in 3 more rooms to the right of the lobby, C35, C41 and C42:

Additional Meeting Rooms

We now needed 4 additional AP’s, and we’d only brought enough to cover the original remit. We decided we’d carry on with the planned install and complete the additional requirements in the morning. Although this was cutting it fine, we always enjoy a challenge!

We’d planned to use Power over Ethernet (PoE) to power our Ruckus AP’s, however, it turned out that the switches at IBM weren’t set up to deliver the power we needed. Luckily we had a couple of PoE switches with us so we used those.

After this minor setback, deploying WiFi in the 5 original Meeting Rooms went smoothly. When it came to the Restaurant area it was a different story. We’d hoped the existing ceiling mounted antenna would be connected to an AP sat in the ceiling void, which we could disconnect the Ethernet cable from to connect our AP to. This was not to be. On closer inspection the antenna was connected to the AP by very long lengths of low loss coax cable which disappeared back across the top of the kitchen area, so the Ethernet cable was not available. After throwing around some ideas, we decided to run an additional Ethernet cable from a floor port in the Lambeth Meeting Room, through to AP5. Because this AP would be powered by our PoE switch from the server room, we could daisy chain a length of Cat5 from the additional switchport on AP5 to AP6 for the data, and power AP6 from a 240v power strip. Success!

The ZoneDirector

Now with all 6 Ruckus 7942 AP’s deployed, we needed to check they all hooked up to the ZoneDirector, which we’d connected in the server room at the back of the BCL7 Nerve Centre.

Ruckus Wireless ZoneDirector serves as a central control system for Ruckus ZoneFlex access points (also referred to as APs). ZoneDirector provides simplified configuration and updates, WLAN security control, RF management, and automatic coordination of Ethernet-connected Aps.

Ruckus Wireless ZoneDirector

In addition, ZoneDirector supports rogue AP detection and the ability to blacklist client devices from the network — all of which are easily configured and enabled system-wide. When multiple APs are in close proximity, ZoneDirector automatically controls the power and the channel settings on each AP to provide the best possible total coverage and resiliency.

After checking that all the Ruckus AP’s were being controlled by the ZoneDirector, we headed home to configure 4 Linksys WRT54GL routers to act as AP’s. Once the SSID was set and DHCP turned off they were ready to go. It was unfortunate that because of the short time scale we’d not been able to order in 4 more Ruckus 7942 AP’s to use, as we’d like to have had the whole system controller based to give the best possible experience over the two days.

The 4 Linksys AP’s were deployed in the Chelsea meeting room, and meeting rooms C35, C41 and C42.

When BarCamp got underway and people started using the WiFi, it soon became apparent that we had to change the SSID on our Ruckus network from IBMVISITOR, as people were having trouble roaming from IBM’s guest network to ours. Once we’d changed the SSID on our network to BARCAMP7 we could monitor if people were having any problems with our network. Not having any control over the IBM network, any people experiencing problems connecting to their guest WiFi, were advised to connect to our network.

Frustratingly, most people gathered in the seating area in front of the coffee shop, which only had the IBM guest WiFi network, and this soon began to struggle with the amount of traffic going across it. However, people started to use the network in the Restaurant around lunchtime and in the evening it got a good work out with several people playing LAN games. At one point 22 people were connected to AP6 playing Urban Terror. The game server was also connected by WiFi to AP6, and there was no reported lag.

If anyone would like more information on Ruckus Wireless, how Nexus Globalnet could help with your conference, or if you’d like to discuss any wireless deployments, then please feel free to get in touch.

Wil Currie
Managing Director
Nexus Globalnet Limited
Web: www.nexusglobalnet.com
Twitter: @NexusGlobalnet

I decided to start my day by accompanying Avey to the Ed Ruscha exhibit at the Hayward Gallery in the Southbank Centre…and I am definitely glad I did!  Ruscha is a famous American modern artist whose work explores the themes of language, religion, and American culture, specifically that of automobiles and Los Angeles.  Although I never heard of him, he is one of Avey’s favorite artists and I now know why.  The exhibit’s curation coupled with Ruscha’s talent for describing his own work allowed me to truly grasp and experience the art at first exposure.  It was interesting to think how we were experiencing American culture through art in London, epitomized in Avey buying a “I <3 LA” tote bag in the gift shop.  Several art books on American Culture were also on sale, including one on diners…

That’s when I remembered that we were in the same area as Marie’s Cafe, described in my Not For Tourists guide as “A greasy spoon diner” that also features great thai food…and for cheap!  Basically, it was the perfect marriage of the cuisines Avey and I each favor so we naturally headed over.  She satisfied her pad thai craving as I did with my chips & malt vinegar weakness.

Thumbs up to the name and the cheap, perfectly greasy doggy bag of chips!

Avey had to head to an appointment, but I decided to stay in the area and walk along the Thames.  Along the way I stumbled upon some great afternoon happenings.

Carousel & Mini Carnival

Street Performer

Skateboarding & Grafitti

Londinium Used Book Sale

Square

London Television Centre

Gallery at The Oxo Tower

38 Pieces of Jade Exhibit

Before I knew it I had walked from Embankment to Blackfriars on the south side, over the Blackfriars Bridge, and east to Westminster on the north.  These picturesque views kept me going:

Oh London……I love losing hours to you……

In Lead Balloon Jack Dee’s character (called Jack Dee Rick Spleen) looks on aghast as he watches videos of the young folk flinging themselves around the urban world.

He’d be extra grouchy at South Bank where every day is another festival for jumping about the place. (Lead Balloon also had a neat use of YouTube – that’s here.)

Anyway, despite the occasional protest, the parkour/biker/skatering crowd tend to draw a lot of photographing types keen to catch a dose of gritty, urban realism – especially when it happens to be located a mere yards from a decent cocktail.

I go along a bit too. It’s something to do on a lunch break after all.

See this image large here. And another topless fella doing his thing here.

My friend Sam from Vanuatu arrived last Thursday before heading out to her 5 week UK holiday and onwards to  her new job in Fiji.

Living in the Pacific has its perks, but one thing it deprives its lucky inhabitants of? SHOPPING. So when an islander lands in civilisation spending money and buying pretty new clothes is priority. so I took her shopping – Bourke Street, DFO, Smith Street Outlets (for her travel gear).

Port Vila, where Sam and I previously lived, is a teeny tiny town with less than a handful of places you can go out to drink. So we took her out to get wasted too.

Madame Brussels -63 Bourke Street, Melbourne

Meyers Place – 20 Meyers Place, Melbourne

An islander might also be in awe of the cityscape. Port Vila, afterall, cannot exactly be described as a metropolis. In the whole country there are only 2 lifts – at the Reserve Bank of Vanuatu and the Sebel Hotel. Skyscrapers are none existent, so we took her around the CBD.

Fed Square, St Kilda Road & SouthBank with views of Eureka Tower, St Paul’s cathedral, Arts Centre & the Yarra

Although Port Vila has alot of French Restaurants, amazingly, it doesn’t have an Italian Restaurant. So we took her to our favourite on Lygon Street.

Il Gusto, 256 Lygon Street, Carlton

So much laughter, silliness and revelry was had with Miss Sam.

An hour before she left for the airport though I sprained my ankle pretty bad. But that story is not getting told here.

xxx

So today we are taking a slight detour south of the river, as one of my favourite late childhood authors, John Irving, was making a rare UK appearance at the Southbank to promote his new novel, Last Night at Twisted River, which is inspired in part by Bob Dylan’s epic, beautiful song, Tangled up in Blue.

I don’t know if I would have fallen in love with his work quite so hard if I’d discovered it later. But my parents had a copy of The World According to Garp hanging around, and when I first discovered it, around the age of nine, it was the first adult novel I’d ever read. I only understood fragments, but I was blown away by the living-and-breathingness of the characters, the Americaness, the sex, the drama, the language, the passing of whole lives, the mother, the death, everything. I went on to read The Water Method Man, Setting Free the Bears, The Hotel New Hampshire, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Cider House Rules and finally, on publication of A Son of the Circus, my love affair reached a sad conclusion, deciding that his early books had an energy and compression that seemed to have fizzled out (or maybe I just wanted a change. It’s not you, John. It’s me). He claimed the later ones are better as he had more time to work on them. I would argue that a shortage of time isn’t such a disadvantage, you cut to the chase, to the heart of the story, and the reader senses that urgency and keeps up. Having said that, his new one sounds good, and I’ll be buying it once I get past Mantel’s massive Wolf Hall. It seems the epic, doorstop novel is back in fashion. 

Anyway, it was exciting to finally see my first writer-hero in the flesh. He’s a bit of a silver fox, with a composed, sober, dryly humorous demeanour. The Elizabeth Hall was absolutely rammed, and he received a very, very long round of applause before he’d said a word. This was an uber-author reading, not the usual yes-I’ll-sign-your-entire-back-catalogue-and-make-polite-chitchat scenario you see with the Kate Grenvilles and Tim Wintons and even Hilary Mantels of the world.

He left the stage without a backward glance, as people moved towards it waving old editions helplessly at his sturdy, swiftly departing back. Anyway, I scribbled down a few of his comments, which I will share here.

On having children: I had children from an early age, my first was born when I was twenty-two and still at university, my youngest is 18 and still living with us. So for all those years from 22 to 67 one or more of my children has been living with me. As a writer it’s been enormously beneficial. Having a child in your home, in your life, allows you to remember things about yourself at that age that you had forgotten. And for someone who has made children as important as I have in my fiction it’s been good luck to live with them for so long.

On being dyslexic, and how this has helped his writing: You assume nothing you do the first time is going to be right, so you rework it. I can’t think of a better habit for a writer than to believe your first draft is flawed. It’s a gift. It’s a shame more writers don’t have it. I would finish more books if writers would redraft them. Or even re-read them.

On knowing he wanted to be a writer: I was an angry child, with an angry mother. I started writing a journal and wrestling at the age of fourteen, and it felt like being in control. Writing and wrestling both taught me to stay in control, to focus, to not lose my temper. And I was not in control before that.

On advice to his students: In wrestling you repeat a little drill twenty times until it works. Rewriting is like that. If you can’t be excited by it, if you find it tedious, you’re in the wrong job. I had a student who said to me ‘I don’t like rewriting. I like the creative part.’ He was the only student I ever got mad at. I said ‘Rewriting is the creative part, asshole.’ I don’t know what he’s doing now. I haven’t read anything.

On having his novels made into films A novel loses nothing by not being made into a film. Sometimes it’s a triumph. Novels can do the passage of time, follow a character’s whole life from childhood to adulthood and the reader never loses sight of the child. You can’t do that with a film because you have to change actors. And you can’t lose the passage of time because how long it all takes to happen is what a novel is about.

On people trying to identify the autobiographical elements in his work: The things that compel us, that repeat themselves, are more interesting than those easily identified landmarks. I told Kurt Vonnegut’s daughter he was appearing in my book as the character’s teacher (as Vonnegut taught him at the famous Iowa University’s Writing Workshop) and she said ‘well he would only be disappointed that, being dead, he couldn’t tease you about it.’

On being taught to write: You can’t teach anybody that doesn’t already know what they’re doing. You can’t make a dancer out of somebody who has terrible balance. I taught TC Boyle, but it wasn’t really teaching him. I just recognised he was going about a hundred miles an hour and got out of the way.

On his favourite novel, out of the twelve he was written: They are like children. You may feel differently about some of them but you don’t single them out. I am aware of which are the most popular but it doesn’t influence me. I feel strongly that any of the last seven is better made, more conscious and careful, than any of the first five. Speaking as the builder, the architect, there is no question that the last seven are better built.

On writing the last sentence first: This becomes a roadmap back through the novel. Once I have the last sentence, I have the novel.

TangoDuo is a Piano and Voice combo and is led by Colombian singer, Monica Acosta and accompanied by Piano Player Craig White. Tango Duo will perform passionate tango songs and instrumentals by luminaries such as Astor Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel.

October 2009, Sun 18 1:45 pm.

Free Entry

NATIONAL THEATRE,  FOYER – Concert Pitch (Lyttelton foyer)

SouthBank

SE1 9PX

Thursday morning dawned on two ladies recharged for another busy (but exciting) day. Washed and dressed, Mum and I headed into the city to meet Tina for a girls’ day of shopping, coffee and gossiping. We caught up with her at Anzac Square, where you can stand next to the eternal flame on Ann Street and look over the Bottle Trees to the city beyond.

Our first stop was a buffet breakfast at the Sofitel, definitely the nicest hotel in Brisbane, and without doubt the grandest and most varied breakfast buffet I have ever seen. It was lovely to take our time, lazily going back for more watermelon or croissants or poached eggs. Full to bursting and regretful that we couldn’t manage just another mouthful of that roast tomato, we started for the shops.

Our first stop was the heritage-listed Brisbane arcade. Filled with marble floors, panelled wood and stylish shops, it’s one of those places that Canberra is missing, with all its buildings no older than sixty or seventy years.

Here we found The Tea Centre, and Mum stocked up on some of the necessities. I picked up some of their Stockholm Blend, having tried it at High Societea on Tuesday. It’s one of those teas that I, a no-milk-no-sugar-thankyou-very-much purist, love—light, low tannin, and fragranced by a collection of flowers (no fruits or pieces of caramel in my tea, thankyou all the same). It goes very well with cinnamon buns, I have just discovered whilst writing this.

Avoiding the chain stores in the mall, we and our tea traipsed to Queen’s Plaza, in search of things a little nicer and a little different. There are some pretty fancy shops in Queen’s Plaza and while some are within my means (just), the rest you go to simply for the experience. So while Tina and Mum bought mineral makeup at Mecca Cosmetica, and I got some cute pyjamas at Peter Alexander, we went into Tiffany’s purely to feel like Audrey Hepburn, and only imagined making purchases in Alannah Hill. Soon our sore feet turned towards a cafe and a sit-down, but before long we were off again.

We eventually wandered back out onto the street, tired and hungry but carrying packages that spoke of success. Tina left to catch the ferry to Kangaroo Point, and Mum and I discovered that the hill up which we needed to walk had somehow become steeper since the morning. The sight of some Dalek-like sculptures on a corner underneath a huge fig tree did cheer us up though.

We spent a quiet evening at my Oma’s place, where I showed her my knitting and a knitting magazine I’d brought with me. After that we were more than ready for bed—it’s funny how the excitement of shopping can spur you on, but suddenly you realise you’ve got no energy left.

The next morning we were glad of the chance for a sleep-in, but were still up in time to meet Tina, Andrew and the boys at the Old Botanic Gardens for morning tea. Sitting under the trees was lovely, and the Gardens Cafe was much better than such cafes usually are.

Two coffees apiece was enough to get us going, and we all dawdled over the footbridge to Southbank, where Tina and her family could catch a ferry back to their apartment, to meet their lunchtime visitors. On the way, I couldn’t resist taking more photos of those amazing Moreton Bay Figs.

After the others caught the ferry, Mum and I walked along the riverbank to the Art Gallery, where we spent a few hours before it was time to walk back down to Southbank for some lunch. I was particularly taken with the fountains outside one of the windows—I think they look just like dandelions ready to be blown apart by the wind.

I grumbled a little at all this walking, but the cafe was worth the walk, and we did get the chance to put our feet up.

Lunch over, we caught the ferry back to the city, and soon we were meeting Dad at our apartment. He’d been working hard all week—unlike us! We took a few hours for some much-needed couch time, and then it was time to get ready for the big family birthday party.

Tina’s 50th party was held at the Brisbane Jazz Club. Inside a band played traditional jazz while couples danced, and outside we had a huge table on a platform next to the river, with a fantastic view over to the city. Tina’s family and friends, stylishly dressed, chatted, ate and drank the night away. It was lovely to see everyone, and lovely to be outside at night without catching our deaths. Andrew had arranged a bar tab so the champagne was almost endless, and Tina’s favourite cake—Sacher Torte—crowned the birthday table. Towards the end of the night some of us managed to make it inside to hear the band play, nursing a snifter of cognac. They were jazz veterans, relaxed and skilled, and the music made us sway and wish we hadn’t drank too much to dance.

Somehow, somehow, Mum, Dad and I managed to make it out of bed early enough on Saturday morning to meet Suzie at the West End markets. These are fantastic markets which I’d never managed to visit before—combination farmers’ markets, craft markets, trash and treasure, and international food fair. Held in a park in alternative West End, shaded by huge trees.

Then we headed into West End proper for a much-needed coffee. On the way I finally managed to find some photo-worthy Jacarandas. These beautiful trees, come spring, replace all their leaves with lavender-coloured flowers, which later fall to make a carpet around the tree. They don’t grow in Canberra, and I miss them.

We sank gratefully into cool armchairs at the Three Monkeys, definitely the funkiest cafe I have ever been to. I ordered their signature drink—the Edith Piaf, a latte-style coffee that comes in a bowl. That’s not just perspective that’s making the cup in the background look small.

Saturday was also the lovely Emma’s birthday, so that evening I joined her family birthday dinner, under the stars in her parents’ backyard. We all wore sparkly party tiaras, at the insistence of ‘Chicken’, her gorgeous three-year-old.

On Sunday, Mum and Dad’s last day in Brisbane before heading back for work on Monday, the three of us took a drive up to Tamborine Mountain, behind the Gold Coast. It was good to get out of the city and see some nature. On the way we stopped at a rainforest treetops walk, and wandered through the canopy and along the forest floor in a happy daze.

We had lunch in Tamborine Mountain Village, at a cafe in a converted house. We ate on the back verandah, with this view

and then explored some of the shops on the main street, discovering a very good chocolatier. All too soon it was time to drive back to Brisbane and then, after a farewell meal of Thai, for Mum and Dad to leave for Toowoomba. I’m always sorry to part with them and feel blessed that we have such an easy and friendly relationship. I spent a last night in the flat in Spring Hill, knitting and thinking about my wonderful family, and the wonderful week we’d had together.

On Monday morning Emma picked me up and I spent my last day in Brisbane with her and adorable, cheeky little Chicken. Even a few hours with an energetic three-year-old gave me a new respect for Emma! I don’t know how anyone does it. It was fun, and I amazed myself and made Emma laugh as I continually came out with old sayings and parent-jokes, that I hadn’t heard since my parents said them to me as a child. It’s funny how these things lurk under the surface, and appear unbidden on your tongue as soon as you encounter a child. It’s also funny how you never get sick of taking photos of children doing funny things.

My Brisbane trip came to an end that evening as Emma dropped me back to the airport for my flight home to Canberra. It’d been a fantastic week—packed with family, friends, shopping, food, happy times and nice places. I miss you Brisbane, and I’ll be back.

Last week I decided to test new grounds and follow a different route. So instead of crossing the Thames towards West End I continued along the south bank towards London Bridge. The chosen path was neither new nor original – just following one of London’s favourite walks from London Eye to Tate Modern and beyond.

But…. Blackfriars Bridge (which you can see on the pic above -  a protagonist of one of the coolest bloody stories from London) is currently being redeveloped and there is a ‘loooong’ detour to get to Tate. On the detour I bumped into some cool places. The first one is an interesting art work under railway tracks.

A cheap description of the photo would be to say this is the essence of London. Colours, diversity and incessant rush. However, what got me interested more is the fact that works of art build indiscriminately from hundreds of colours – i.e. without emphasise on any one of them – tend to give an overall ‘reddish’ impression. It hardly is a unique observation; Renaissance painters knew it, traffic lights designers know it, lipstick producers will continue to abuse it – for some evolutionary reason red just draws human attention more than any other colour. Still, I found the reddish/pinkish ambience of the work interesting.
Another thing that amazed me was this ad for a pizzeria:

After my visit to Greenwich I returned to Westminster pier and encountered the Thames Festival in full swing.  The waterfront from Westminster to the OXO Tower (that was as far as I walked) was packed with people and stalls selling all manner of things. Although crowds aren’t really my thing, it seemed silly not to go have a look at all the stuff that was going on.

Crowds on the green

Parliament in the evening

Southbank and the Eye

Embankment

Thành phố đã say ngủ. (P1080944A), originally uploaded by Nguyen K. Do.

Melbourne, 2009.
Nguyen K. Do © 2009

Trong Đêm Sâu Thẳm (In The Still of The Nite) (P1090029A), originally uploaded by Nguyen K. Do.

Southbank, 2009.
Nguyen K. Do © 2009

Expedited by today’s rapid capacity for digital replication and global circulation in a age where commercial brands would have it that  ‘content’ is king, an important consideration for those involved in the commercialisation of creativty is the dumbing down of ‘art’ as ‘branded content’. Also dependent on your point-of-view, how mass-reproduced copies of creative art forms displaced from their original creative context might compromise artistic integrity – especially pertinent to live performance.

However, blending art and culture with entertainment industry across live and digital can offer intriging and alternative converged social experiences. More interesting than streaming or downloading to solitary computer screens which lack the communal energy of shared live experiences is the real-time streaming of one cultural form in to an alternative fully functional social entertainment venue.

NT Live is a good example of this, it broadcasts  live theatre directly to cinema screens around the world in high-definition. How fantastic that live theatre becomes both affordable and accessible to wider audiences this way. Especially valuable to localities that have cinemas but no opera houses, theatres or other similar cultural venues.

Likewise the recent live relay of the Ukraine versus England football match both online and at local Odeon cinemas filled cinema capacity and attracted up to 500k viewers online. A clear argument for digital convergence of broadband access with TV. This is slow in coming but with the power to transform how we access view and share digital TV, and has the capacity to transform the future design and type of content presented at mainstream and independent cinemas – made to meet the needs of new live cinema in the 21st century.

We are still awaiting this relatively simple technology to become standard but in the meantime a fresh approach to a new type of cinema experience  already awaits you at your local picture house.

Hello Little Poogie Woogie,

Well. Last week was quiet but this week is busy. I got inspired at the end of last week and am madly trying to get things in order before I get operated on next week. So you and I are doing some mad organising. Still haven’t managed to move the stuff around the house into the new wardrobes, so the goal this week is to get that done so when your Aunt R arrives back in Australia next week (hooray – you’ll like her I’m sure), she has somewhere to sleep at our house so she can stay and help. At the moment there is nowhere for her as your Dad’s office is taking up one room and you take up another. You’re moving into your Dad’s home office for a bit so that she has somewhere to sleep!

What have you and I been up to apart from madly organising things? Well, we’re still doing our mummies and babies get togethers. Monday is coffee shop day with the women and babes that we were in the local health area classes with. Then Tuesdays we go to the hospital for post-natal exercise with C & baby Hamish. And the other mums. And then Wednesday this week we are catching up with the mums from antenatal classes. That’s a new thing. And then Thursday this week is our fortnightly catch-up with the local yoga-baby mums and babes. Which we’ve been doing for a couple of months now. Very enjoyable. So. Apologies for not having taken you to the State Library for the Rhymes and Reading session on a Thursday yet, but now its going to have to wait until I’m able to walk again. Let’s say January!

Brisbane in the Dust Storm

Righto. So. The weekend was quiet. It was still very dusty. We had a massive dust-storm come through last week. Wednesday. It was absolutely amazing. Like nothing I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. Apparently it was a one in 70-year event. Lets hope so. Red dust filled the sky and the fine silky red dirt permeated every crack and crevice of the house, the furniture, everything. We stayed indoors and closed all the doors and windows. You couldn’t see 100m – the houses on the next ridge were only just visible as an outline. Apparently lots of people got sick from inhaling it – joggers particularly (though I have to say – STUPID. Who runs when the dust is so thick in the air you can’t see 100m???). A smaller dust storm came through again on Saturday night. Apparently the dust blew all the way from the western desert area of NSW, right over to Sydney, then up the coast to Brisbane. A day later there was dust falling in New Zealand – it blew right across the Tasman. Climate change.

Duststorm over Sydney from Space

After being cooped up on Saturday night we took you for a big walk on Sunday. From our house, down to Southbank to the kid’s water park. Its fun just to sit there and watch all the kids run around with glee. Hundreds of kids, lots of water. Lots of fun. I think when you get older you’ll like that we live close to it. Lots of kids have to travel from a long way around to get to it. Anyway, we sat with you and you watched the other kids cavorting around, screaming and laughing as they ran in and out of the water jets. You got as far as dipping your feet in. Well, I dipped your feet in. You thought it was a bit cold, from the look on your face. But didn’t scream or cry. It was more of an, “mmm. that’s cold. I wonder why my mum is doing this to me? Maybe there is something in this that I’m not getting” kinda look.

You at the waterpark. 14 weeks old?

so. Life is busy busy busy. And you are growing like nothing I’ve ever seen before. At last check you were 6.3kg. I think. Next check today. I’m thinking you might have nearly doubled in size since you were born.

Love you.
mum

London: bored of London bored of life! I was shocked that my background in theatre since a teenager has hardly been reflected in my London life in the last several years. And before you know it I am at the theatre absolutely every weekend. These two breath-stopping shows cost 25 quid to see in total and were two of the most stunning pieces of theatre and contemporary dance I’ve ever watched.

Both took place at The Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank over the summer. The first comes from the daughter of Charlie Chaplin, Victoria Chaplin, and the marvellous entertainer Jean-Baptiste Thierree with their ‘Le Cirque  Invisble’ and the second from Bonachela Dance Company with ‘The Land of the Yes and The Land of the No’, in this case very much YES, YES, YES!

I am really pleased to have reintroduced performance to my cultural life and even to my work – I have now consolidated a long working relationship with the UK’s premier circus school, The Circus Space, developing the business facilitation skills of their circus teachers. It seems drama has had a bit of an encore. More “coming soon!”