The Last Emperor

I spent Christmas Eve at the British Museum at a special showing of The Last Emperor Exhibition. Apparently this is the first time that the British Museum has ever opened on Christmas Eve, they also opened the doors for the Exhibition on Boxing Day and I see that there is a chance to do the same on New Years Eve as well. The rest of the museum was closed, so there wasn't any chance to go and browse the other exhibits, but there was tea and cakes as a welcome and a special exhibition of Chinese dancing in the Great Court, which passed the time until it was time to enter the exhibition. It all felt very grown up and it was great to have the chance to see the Great Court without too many people around.




The Exhibition has taken over the Reading Room and they use the space superbly. As for the Exhibition itself, as someone who plays around with clay, I found it very moving to stare directly at these figures made over two thousand years ago and see the tool marks in the clay as someone personalised each piece. Its also very sobering to realise that the techniques for working clay haven't really changed that much in the intervening years. I want to go to China and visit the site at Xi'an as this just feels like an appetizer and I just can't imagine how it feels to see hundreds of these figures lined up

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And my favourite piece, strangely not one made of terracotta, but this beautiful and elegant bronze crane, which was discovered alongside other bronze birds by a mercury river in one of the many pits around the site.

My only complaint, and its one I have at every exhibition I go to, is audio description, somehow plugging into headphones makes people very rude as they shove other viewers out of the way to view the piece that is being described, and then linger to read all the information labels, which are telling them everything that they've just heard and yell at their friends and family "to come see this". I appreciate that audio description fulfils a need, I really do, I just wish that people would remember that they are not viewing and listening in isolation and that there are others around who have paid just as much as them for the privilege of viewing the exhibition.

If you haven't booked tickets, the British Museum have just released some more late night tickets, so do go as its absolutely worth it, just watch out for those people with headphones!

Trains...

I work for someone who is a self-confessed train spotter and, for various reasons, he recommended these books to me for a Christmas read.

This first book is fascinating, did you know that at the turn of the century there was a dedicated railway from Waterloo taking bodies for burial at Brookwood Cemetery, I didn't. Andrew Martin has created a great character in Jim Stringer, an engine cleaner on the Necropolis Railway who gets caught up in a mysterious series of deaths. There is a lot of background colour which gives and authentic feel to the novel. As I knew this was all about trains it feels churlish to comment that, for me, there was a little too much information about trains and not enough mystery.

This is the second book in the series and Jim Stringer has now moved to Halifax and has been promoted to fireman. Once again the period is beautifully evoked, I'd forgotten about trips to the sea and Wake Weeks for mill workers, but as for the first book there was not enough mystery and too much train and not enough about Jim Stringer's personal life.

Sarf London...

First of all I have to admit that I've met Debi Alper a couple of times as she is a good friend of Cailleach and I read her book with interest. This book is fast, funny, tragic, compassionate and rude and I really enjoyed reading it. Set in and around an area of South East London I know well there is lots of local colour. She's a great storyteller, but for me its in her depiction of the characters that Debi really excels, the central character, Jenny, is funny, loyal, sexy, troubled and flawed, as she attempts to come to terms with the damage inflicted on her during her childhood. But Jenny has found refuge and a new family amongst her diverse and compassionate fellow inhabitants of the Nirvana Housing Co-op. The bizarre job interview at the BBC where Jenny comes face to face with Stanley, who she previously knew as "Stapled Stan", is hilarious and very rude, but I was also deeply moved as Jenny and her friends are devastated as they try to help Stanley. As you can only buy this second hand from Amazon it seems that this is yet another book that seems to be out of print and shouldn't be, Kerry Katona and her ilk have a lot to answer for.

That's Better

This may be too much information for some people, but I spent ages wallowing in the bath yesterday as the next thing on my list was a visit to my local supermarket, which at this time of year could easily be one of the rings of hell in the Inferno and, when I finally got there, it was just as bad as expected... So I lay in the bath, procrastinating, topping up the hot water and reading this book.

From the Amazon listings it seems that this book is out of print at the moment, this copy came from my local Oxfam shop, and I don't know why. Unlike Arthur and George (see posting below) Esther Freud's characters are all three dimensional and very engaging so I was immediately drawn into their world, which is also beautifully described. The central character is a child, Tess, and I really felt that as I read I was inhabiting her skin and experiencing her pain as William, her pseudo stepfather, ignores her and exposes her embarrassing secret to the world. All the characters in this book are three-dimensional but Freud has also got under the skin of William, who, while not truly evil, is self-obsessed and selfish, seeing the world only in terms of his needs and inevitably causes pain and anguish to those who love him, including his own children. The world in this book is beautifully evoked and so painfully realistic that there were times when I felt that I wanted to shake Tess's Mum, Francine, and ask her what the hell she was doing. I'm not sure why I haven't read any Esther Freud before but I shall definitely be looking out for her other works and if they are half as good as this one I shall be happy.

OK but

This is an interesting, surprisingly gentle book based on a real-life case which ultimately led to the setting up of the Courts of Appeal. It reads, more or less, like a typical work of historical fiction with a narrative that is alternatively focused on George Edjali, accused and convicted of mutilating animals, and Arthur Conan Doyle who was convinced of his innocence. My main criticism is that the characters just do not come across as three-dimensional and emotionally sound leaving me, as a reader, as a detached observer of the events described in the text. Ultimately as a work of fiction I preferred This Thing of Darkness.

Oh well..

Its clear that I am not supposed to have children, real or ceramic. At my last ceramic session I had a go at interpreting Barbara Hepworth's Baby in clay. This was my second attempt, the head of my first attempt exploded in the kiln smashing another of my pieces in the process. But I'm not one to run away crying when something doesn't go to plan so I decided to have another go. How foolish I am. This time during the biscuit fire the baby's face slipped right off, oh how I laughed when I found out. It may not be terminal, so I've glazed the body and the face as there is always the possibility that one application of hard of nails later no one, but me, and you, will ever know about my faceless baby! Although it may be a case of third time lucky.

But I did pick up a couple of other of my creations which are now fully glazed and finished and I promised a friend that I would photos of them to the blog.

This one you may recognise as its been here before, but this is it finished. The glaze is my favourite glaze and is the Gok Wan of glazes, or dolomite to those who pot.



This one you won't have seen, he's based on a lovely garden gargoyle owned by friends, I've cropped the photo to hide the mass of books on my floor.



I absolutely promise any friends popping by that these will not be wrapped under your tree this Christmas.

Bonkers

I was asked to read this book by a friend, who wanted a second opinion, which is yes this book is bonkers, but then the Amazon blurb does warn you:

"Brenda has had a long and eventful life and she has come to Whitby to run a B&B in search of some peace and quiet. She and her best friend Effie like nothing better than going out for tea at the Walrus and the Carpenter or dinner at Cod Almighty and keeping their eyes open for any of the mysterious goings on in town. And what with satanic beauty salons, more than illegal aliens, roving psychic investigators and the frankly terrifying owner of the Christmas Hotel there are no shortage of nefarious shenanigans to keep them interested. But the oddest thing in Whitby may well be Brenda herself. With her terrible scars, her strange lack of a surname or the fact that she takes two different shoe sizes, Brenda should have known that people as, well, unique as she is, just aren't destined for a quiet life."

And shenanigans just about sums it up. I love books like this, they are fun and play around with popular culture. There are other authors out there I would recommend before this one, Terry Pratchett (and long may he continue to write) and Jasper Fforde, but this book passed the time nicely. If you don't like fantasy fiction don't read this book.