Day 5 : Botallack Mines…

A lovely ramble around the disused tin mines at Botallack. All very Poldark. 

Day 4 : St Ives….

Just walking around St Ives was so relaxing.

Day 3 : Tate St Ives…

Small but perfectly formed Tate St Ives has some hidden treasures.

Day 2 : Eden Project…

The pictures say it all. Lovely Eden Project.

Day 1 : As I was going to St Ives…

Off on our holibubs to St Ives for a week or two. So, as is obligatory, that riddle… 

As I was going to St. Ives,

I met a man with seven wives,

Each wife had seven sacks,

Each sack had seven cats,

Each cat had seven kits:

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,

How many were there going to St. Ives?

1? 7? 8? 2800? Short answer? Who cares! We have half a dozen cans of journey juice to keep us company!

Walden @ Harold Pinter Theatre...

Last night Stuart and I went to see Amy Berryman’s debut play, Walden, at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's glitzy West End.

Set in the (not too?) distant future in a remote timber cabin somewhere in north America it stars Gemma Arterton (Stella) as one of two identical twin sisters (the other, Cassie, played by Lydia Wilson) who are as competitive with each other as they are for their deceased father's approval. Not only that, but they are now both struggling for the affections of Arterton's new love Bryan (played by Fehinti Balogun).

Like their late father, both women work for NASA trying to help colonise both the moon and Mars. Colonise is trigger word here that resonates with Bryan who is black and very quick to point out the imperial overtones of NASA's plans. Bryan is an Earth Advocate; 'let's fix stuff here before rich people start flying off to colonise another planet.'

It is a 100-minute play packed with ideas, the central conflict being about humanity’s future: should we be spending billions of dollars on colonising space or should we spend these resources on creating carbon-neutral environments on our own planet?

For Cassie, and NASA, it is already too late to save Earth, a point emphasised by news of a mega-tsunami that has buried Sri Lanka.

For Bryan, whose movement of like-minded citizens is reclaiming large tracts of the United States from climate disaster, it is never too late.

Stella is torn between the two.

We enjoyed it; great to be back in the West End. But although the play was good, it felt a little underpowered. The simple equation of Conflict = Drama felt somewhat unsolved; not enough of the former and so precious little of the latter.

Islington’s Pride LGBTQ+ Heritage Trail...

I love my home borough of Islington. Not only because it has a rich LGBT+ history but (and perhaps more importantly) they actually celebrate it in concrete ways. A new LGBT+ heritage trail across the borough. Oh, and gaygooners are getting their own plaque too! Let’s hope they put that one near the stadium.

Islington Council's Press Release
https://www.islington.media/news/islingtons-pride-unveils-heritage-trail-with-50-plaques-commemorating-unsung-local-lgbtq-history-1 

The Heritage Map
https://islingtonspride.com/humap/ 

Islington's Pride
https://islingtonspride.com/

 

Yayoi Kusama @ Tate Modern…

Last Friday afternoon Stuart and I went to see two of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms at the Tate Modern on London’s glitzy South Bank.

These immersive installations transported us into Kusama’s unique vision of endless reflections.  The largest was “Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life” and is one of Kusama’s largest installations to date and was made for her 2012 retrospective at Tate Modern. The other alongside was “Chandelier of Grief”, a room which creates the illusion of a boundless universe of rotating crystal chandeliers.  They were breath-taking.

There was also a small presentation of photographs and moving image – some on display for the first time – provides historical context for the global phenomenon that Kusama’s mirrored rooms have become today.