Pablo and a few others…

Well after a bit of fun doing the postings on, firstly, the albums, then, the films that have meant something to me over the years, I had a couple of cool chats with my old friends Shay and Simon. Not really about the selections but more about what I hadn’t included and so on. Then I got on to mentioning my next intended topic, libraries, which produced lots of laughs and comments about my pretentiousness. Moi? Anyway I’m not put off but I’ll return to the theme later because I’ve decided to stay grounded and keep it street by doing a posting on modern art.

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Patrick, old friend

Now take a look at this…

No not my two Baftas (have I mentioned these before?) but the card from my daughter S on behalf of our lovely grandson E thanking C and I for looking after him over the last 15 months. So nice. S had chosen the card from the Tate collection as she knew I’d like that because of my past connections with the institution.  And I do. Love it. It’s so like our daughters to want to say thankyou even though it’s soooo not necessary.

Matisse

Well last Friday turned into a really interesting day. First off I caught up with my old buddie C with whom, you may recall from a recent posting, I’m hoping to collaborate on a script for a comedy programme. We met in the riverside cafe at Tate Modern for reasons which are probably already apparent. C had been working on an idea for the last few weeks and it was my first opportunity  to go through it. I have to say it’s a great concept, funny and terrifically well-written. It’s based on things we can draw upon from the past both work-related and personal experience. So we’ve got a lot of source material to mine. I did offer some honest and, hopefully, constructive thoughts which got us into some sensitive areas but we’ve worked through that and are ploughing ahead on developing the script further and doing some essential background work. Who knows where it will lead but it’s great to be working on something creative and collaborating with my old mucker again. I’m sure it’ll be tempestuous at times but pretty exciting too eh.

OK what would you spend your best £20m on….?

Time for something a bit more uplifting I think. So, picture the scene (and it’s one that we’ve all fantasized about I suspect); you win £200m on the Euro lottery and you’re thinking about how to spend/invest it all. Ah choices, choices. Here’s the twist, just suppose one of the conditions is that a 10% chunk of the prize has to be spent on a single thing. What would it be for you?

warm feeling

I’m a lucky guy. I write a posting about feeling down and friends have been calling and blogging non-stop. What have I to be miserable about eh? Not a lot. So tonight I got a call from our good friend Keith after some amusing e-mail chat with his wife Cindy earlier today. I wrote about Keith’s extraordinary skills as an artist back on 9 Sept ’07 ( where is the time going?). This is just to let you know that Keith’s website has been updated since then so check out the new site from the side-bar on the home page. His fame and reputation as an artist is growing all the time with TV interviews of late and a planned exhibition in Venice of all places coming up. If I had some spare money I’d think about buying some more of Keith’s work. He’s going to be very collectable I reckon.  But what do I know – I’m just the schmuck who showers in the dark.  

pp

palazzo ricci

Just look at this place, stunning eh? This is the stairwell at Palazzo Ricci in Macerata. It’s a fairly large university town about an hour north of us in the Marche region. It’s most famous for its 7000-seater open air ampitheatre, the Sferisterio (built in the 1820s as a venue for handball!) which hosts an opera season each July. It’s a youngish, busy, affluent town and there are loads of clothes and shoe shops. For a few days we have C’s lovely cousin P staying with us and yesterday was their retail therapy day. I was happy to drive but I learned long ago about letting the girls do their shopping thing whilst I go off and browse around. It’s the only way…

friends and family and numbers

Sounds like a BT tag line but it’s a just a way of saying that we’ve been busy on personal stuff for a few days hence the absence of new postings. Yesterday evening we got back from visiting our daughter and grandkids and had Mike and Jayne round for dinner. We haven’t entertained at home for ages and it was lovely to see them and return the favour of the dinner they treated us to some weeks ago. We weren’t able to push the boat out but that’s not necessary with old friends. It was just good to chat about life, the kids growing up, a little on old times etc and to drink a little too much too (except Jayne who was chauffeuress for the night). Great company.