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After the hectic week, I had a great weekend with some pals in London.
After delivering the crate of wine I'd taken down the road for Lynne at Christmas, we headed into the National Gallery to see the The Lion and the Unicorn Rachel Maclean exhibit, which was brilliant. The Lion and the Unicorn itself is a 12 minute short film, with Maclean acting all the parts. The sound is all from archive footage of the Queen's speeches, and interviews with David Cameron and Alex Salmond in the run-up to the Scottish indy ref, with the characters lip-synching along.
The visuals are amazing, and really put me in mind of 18th/19th century political cartoons, with the iconographic representations of the Lion (England/Cameron), the Unicorn (Scotland/Salmond), and the Queen (not the actual Queen, although she uses her voice). It is bright, bold, and funny (although with recent news the Salmond bits felt a little bit uncomfortable).
As well as the film, there was also a display of pieces from her I Heart Scotland project, which is similarly bright and bizarre and hilariously imbued with Scottish low-culture (to the point where I kind of wonder what people who haven't had prolonged exposure to Scotland would make of it). I really loved the John Knox series (one including him standing triumphantly with his foot on the severed head of Mel Gibson's William Wallace), and It Is Finished, a brilliant satire on most artistic representations of the eighth station of the cross, with Clyde (the mascot from the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games) carrying a wind turbine.
Some of the pictures are on her website (http://www.rachelmaclean.com/i-heart-scotland/) if you fancy a look, but sadly the film, although on Vimeo, is password protected.
If you're in the London area I would really recommend it - free admission! (how else would you get Scots in?) - but it's only on until the 3rd of February.
The Maclean exhibit was on in conjunction with The Monarch of the Glen's exhibit, so we popped along and saw that as well. It's always interesting seeing these artworks which have become so reproduced and commercialised in the flesh, when you can see the details that don't quite make it through translation.
After that we wandered around Soho for a bit to kill some time (we managed to end up going through Piccadilly Circus and I remembered why I never go there) before heading back to Brixton. had a couple of drinks at Pop Brixton and were overcome with envy at everyone we saw eating, while unable to get anything because we had reservations. The restaurant we went to, Jalisco, is in Brixton Market, and we met one of Lynne's flatmates there for dinner.
I went for a burrito (the size options were "large" and "massive", which I appreciated), which was really tasty but could have been a bit spicier. David and Lynne's flatmate had been before, so I asked their opinion on the spice scale (can we, as a society, standardise this please?), but apparently I like things spicier than they do, because I wish I'd gone up a rung.
We carried on to another couple of pubs and headed back to Lynne's for midnight-ish.
I stayed with Lynne, and this morning we went on a walk around Brockwell Park and over to Herne Hill, where the market was on. There was so much amazing looking food I didn't even know where to start, and in fact didn't buy any at all (we'd just had breakfast and I wasn't actually that hungry).
What I was most looking forward to was going to Herne Hill Books, which is an absolutely tiny and really well curated independent bookshop. As always with bookshops, I went in thinking I would just have a nose around and scope it out, but came out with three books. They are:
After delivering the crate of wine I'd taken down the road for Lynne at Christmas, we headed into the National Gallery to see the The Lion and the Unicorn Rachel Maclean exhibit, which was brilliant. The Lion and the Unicorn itself is a 12 minute short film, with Maclean acting all the parts. The sound is all from archive footage of the Queen's speeches, and interviews with David Cameron and Alex Salmond in the run-up to the Scottish indy ref, with the characters lip-synching along.
The visuals are amazing, and really put me in mind of 18th/19th century political cartoons, with the iconographic representations of the Lion (England/Cameron), the Unicorn (Scotland/Salmond), and the Queen (not the actual Queen, although she uses her voice). It is bright, bold, and funny (although with recent news the Salmond bits felt a little bit uncomfortable).
As well as the film, there was also a display of pieces from her I Heart Scotland project, which is similarly bright and bizarre and hilariously imbued with Scottish low-culture (to the point where I kind of wonder what people who haven't had prolonged exposure to Scotland would make of it). I really loved the John Knox series (one including him standing triumphantly with his foot on the severed head of Mel Gibson's William Wallace), and It Is Finished, a brilliant satire on most artistic representations of the eighth station of the cross, with Clyde (the mascot from the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games) carrying a wind turbine.
Some of the pictures are on her website (http://www.rachelmaclean.com/i-heart-scotland/) if you fancy a look, but sadly the film, although on Vimeo, is password protected.
If you're in the London area I would really recommend it - free admission! (how else would you get Scots in?) - but it's only on until the 3rd of February.
The Maclean exhibit was on in conjunction with The Monarch of the Glen's exhibit, so we popped along and saw that as well. It's always interesting seeing these artworks which have become so reproduced and commercialised in the flesh, when you can see the details that don't quite make it through translation.
After that we wandered around Soho for a bit to kill some time (we managed to end up going through Piccadilly Circus and I remembered why I never go there) before heading back to Brixton. had a couple of drinks at Pop Brixton and were overcome with envy at everyone we saw eating, while unable to get anything because we had reservations. The restaurant we went to, Jalisco, is in Brixton Market, and we met one of Lynne's flatmates there for dinner.
I went for a burrito (the size options were "large" and "massive", which I appreciated), which was really tasty but could have been a bit spicier. David and Lynne's flatmate had been before, so I asked their opinion on the spice scale (can we, as a society, standardise this please?), but apparently I like things spicier than they do, because I wish I'd gone up a rung.
We carried on to another couple of pubs and headed back to Lynne's for midnight-ish.
I stayed with Lynne, and this morning we went on a walk around Brockwell Park and over to Herne Hill, where the market was on. There was so much amazing looking food I didn't even know where to start, and in fact didn't buy any at all (we'd just had breakfast and I wasn't actually that hungry).
What I was most looking forward to was going to Herne Hill Books, which is an absolutely tiny and really well curated independent bookshop. As always with bookshops, I went in thinking I would just have a nose around and scope it out, but came out with three books. They are:
- Fen by Daisy Johnson, a short story collection I've had my eye on for a while
- The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers, a novel about a gang of criminals in late 18th century Yorkshire, which I've also had my eye on for a while (no idea why this one appealed, obviously)
- Salt on Your Tongue by Charlotte Runcie, a non-fiction book about the relationship between women and the sea through history and mythology, which just caught my eye in the shop
