I thought I would tackle a more intricate subject than some fruit on a plate. I found myself thinking of my home town in England; Norwich, a fine city. And the jewel in the crown of that fine city is its cathedral. Here it is, viewed via the Erpingham Gate. I know, I know… the best bit’s the letter box.
So, that pandemic business. There’s one thing screaming at me. We are moving towards relaxing lockdown measures when, globally speaking, the stats are many times worse than when it was deemed necessary to go into lockdown. It’s quite some paradox. It’s only explicable by some countries feeling more or less safe with the measures they have imposed and the resulting stats. Heads of some governments who appear to be winning against the COVID-19 pandemic met by conference call yesterday to discuss what they’re doing right and how they plan to reboot their economies. The group includes Israel, Denmark, Norway, Czech Republic, Greece, Singapore and Australia and New Zealand. Austria is chairing the meetings. They call themselves the “First Movers” club. I would imagine this will become the “Movers” club as others join up. All well and good. But there’s only one way this can go.
The “Movers” will be the countries that have a public health infrastructure, resources and the political will to undertake widespread testing and to impose social distancing measures as necessary. The other countries – let’s call them the “Shakers” – like Brazil, possibly also Russia and pretty much all the developing world will suffer a badly recorded public health catastrophe. What this means is that as the Movers get moving again, they will not want all their hard work undone and so will want total isolation from the Shakers. I hate to be gloomy about it all, but international air travel, as we knew it, will be shut down for many, many months unless by agreement between specific Mover countries. Even if Shakers are flying, they will not be welcomed by the Movers.
Let’s move on. Bread. My wife is now regularly producing the most delicious sourdough loaves. I do pancakes. As you will have discovered if you have gone down Sourdough Road with us, there is a price to pay. It is a messy. If sourdough was bright red, our kitchen would look like a scene from some chop ’em up horror movie!
After my drubbing on the bread front, I have salvaged a smidgin of self-respect by winning today’s putting competition 2 and 1. That makes me up by 21 games to 11.
It’s looking increasingly unlikely that we’ll be able to take our annual holiday in Scotland. Here is the famous 9th / 18th par 3 hole at Durness, one of our favourite courses; it’s about as far North as you can go in Scotland. Always worth a visit. A ticket for a week costs £70!!!
Missing a Scottish holiday is a tough one for a golfer even though it’s unimportant on today’s grand scale of things. You see, I’m now 63. In my twenties, I had time and energy but no money. In my forties, I had energy and money but no time. Now in my sixties, I have time and money but energy diminishes a little year-by-year. And I don’t want to waste a minute.
Today, in the UK, there are celebrations to mark the 75th commemoration of Victory in Europe. Clear parallels are being drawn to an imminent victory against the current national threat, the COVID-19 pandemic. The news footage of VE Day is remarkable; hundreds of thousands of people danced in the streets of London for days. My father, who was a medical student in London at the time, wrote a truly amazing account of the events in a letter to his mother.
I find the breathless clipped accent of the news announcers of the day fascinating. Nobody speaks like that now. Britain is a country where people’s accents can denote not only where they come from, but also their social class and level of education. For us Brits, like it or not, our accent is like a badge that we all wear. There is even a police accent! (Go on… do it! “I was proceeding in a southerly direction along Primrose Lane when I recognised the unbecoming gait of a local felon by the name of Knosher Stibbs….) The good ol’ BBC cultivated it’s own accent in its early days which continued right through to the 1960s. Just listen to Valerie Singleton, and the most memorable moment on the BBC’s flagship children’s show of the day, Blue Peter.
A survey of Middle Eastern attitudes toward American culture found that only 23% of people in Qatar like the Flintstones while 75% of people in Abu Dhabi do(o)!
I would love to get away from “Today, President Donald Trump said…..” The problem is, that what he says tends to eclipse all other news. Despite wise people counselling caution he throws that caution to the political winds and continues his tirade against China and despite wise people pointing out that there is still no firm evidence indicating that the pandemic can be traced back to a laboratory in Wuhan. So…. Today, President Donald Trump said “We went through the worst attack we’ve ever had on our country, this is worst attack we’ve ever had. This is worse than Pearl Harbor, this is worse than the World Trade Center. There’s never been an attack like this. And it should have never happened. Could’ve been stopped at the source. Could’ve been stopped in China. It should’ve been stopped right at the source. And it wasn’t.” This is war talk. And he knows it.
So, battered and bamboozled by it all, I thought I would tell you a story of a hapless painter and a very big company.
In October 2006, I put on an exhibition of my paintings. I hung 74 large canvases on the theme of “XYXX: the Biology of Love.” I set out to tell biologically-based narratives about falling in love, couples, he and she, boys and girls, males and females, Mum and Dad, guys and gals and baby-making and all that stuff. The visual theme was an interaction of blue-for-boys and pink-for-girls in a square format. Gay themes were included.
I sent out 1,000 invitations. The event generated some interest in the local papers and radio. Friends pledged to come over from UK both to support me but mainly to have a jolly good laugh. Kick-off was at 18.00.
At the entrance, we put a painting called “Harmony” that had featured on the invitation.
Here’s the two metre square, principal theme painting, “XYXX” in my studio.
The pictures were hung tastefully thanks to the my amazing teacher, Guy. The wine was chilled and the exotic nibbles were laid out. At 17.30, I was sure nobody would come. At 17.45, I thought I would be sick. At 18.02 five people walked in. Guy told me he had come prepared to note any buyer’s name and contact details and to take a deposit. I thanked him and assured him that nobody would want to actually buy one of my paintings. He smiled. By 18.30, dozens more had arrived. By 20.00 the place was jammed.
We had one small rather uninteresting painting. I wasn’t sure I wanted to exhibit it. Guy said “Always hang the shit next to the bar. It’ll sell.” It was the first to be bought.
For the rest of the evening, Guy was surrounded by people with wallets open. The paintings sold like hot cakes both during and after the event. Eventually, through the XYXX paintings, I was able to donate over CHF 100,000 (about $95,000) to a special fund for people disabled in armed conflict.
Fourteen months later, I was dawdling around an airport duty free shop. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that Hugo Boss perfumes, a subsidiary of Proctor and Gamble based here in Geneva, had launched a line of perfumes: XY for him and XX for her.
Other advertisements for the same product claimed that “Harmony is overrated.” I thought that this really was quite some coincidence. I dug a bit deeper. Lots of other coincidences appeared: The lettering. Blue on the left, pink on the right. Square format with a border (boxing ring with the ropes’ shadows.) He and she kiss (top right is my painting called “Kiss”)
As I had a second exhibition on the same theme coming up, I wrote to Proctor and Gamble asking what they would like me to say if ever a journalist asked me about the similarity of my theme of paintings and their marketing campaign. In response, I received a polite letter from a legal adviser pointing out that I could not possibly claim intellectual property on XYXX, the genetic code for males and females. (I hadn’t.) The writer than invited me to slither back to my muddy pond and die slowly in pain. Those weren’t the exact words.
Thinking that was that, I carried on preparing for the exhibition. Here’s “Arrivals.” Isn’t it – or wasn’t it – fantastic to watch people waiting for their lovers at an airport? And isn’t it amazing how readily we have the ability to recognise that one special face among thousands.
Twenty four knotted ties went into “Man’s World”. Are women left crushed and bleeding by the male monster? Or are the women weeping tears of laughter at the guys’ ridiculous power plays? Or are they oozing excitement at men’s overpowering sexuality?
Some months later, I was dawdling around a department store. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that Mexx perfumes, also a subsidiary of Proctor and Gamble, had launched a line of perfumes: “Nice” and “Wild” – XX for her and XX for… well… her as well. Two girls hanging on to each other. Buy the perfume and you get a strappy little pink bag for free.
In the first exhibition, I exhibited a painting called “XXXX” – top left here. It was painted as a gift for two lady friends who were about to celebrate a civil partnership. I was the witness at their ceremony. (That’s me… the tiny little blue entity bottom left.) It’s most unlikely that including the girls’ pink bags would have been influenced by my “Pretty Women” painting and and all its luscious Julia Roberts shopping bags!
So I carried on painting. This is “Fantasy” A kind of fly-away-on-a-ballon romantic notion for the happy XYXX couple at centre. I got the idea from seeing a hot air balloon being inflated in the park near here.
Of all the paintings I did at this time, I enjoyed doing “Nocturne” the most. I loved laying out the regular key board geometry on the sheet music of Chopin’s nocturnes. Great music for people who have been in love for a long time.
Some months later, I was flicking through a glossy in-flight magazine. I was more than a little surprised when I saw this image promoting Hugo Boss’s “Boss Pure” because….
….. “Dream Diver” (below) was my first ever oil painting. It has never been exhibited.
But I did have a party at my studio once. I didn’t recognise all the guests.
We went through the worst attack we’ve ever had on XYXX, this is worst attack we’ve ever had. This is worse than Pearl Harbor, this is worse than the World Trade Center. There’s never been an attack like this. And it should have never happened. Could’ve been stopped at the source. Could’ve been stopped in China. It should’ve been stopped right at the source. And it wasn’t.
All XYXX photos thanks to Peter Hobden (pic2d.com)
