purplepixys

Hay will give blogging on here another try as I ment to do this while travelling anyway.

Im currently n China, teaching toddlers to speak English in a Kinder Garten. Their cute the kinder gartens good and theres a ball pool. I have some of the better accomodation in Shenyang. It has two floors. I dont however have a mattress. But this I have lived with for 3 months now so it cant be that bad.

M basics covered I will embelish at a later date.  

Over-simplifications of films and their underlying love stories make them easy watching. But cinema is still not a good idea for a first date. You sit in the dark not looking at each other or talking to each other. Plus you have the underlying mood of the film as your starting point. This can mean lovey-dovey films are just as bad as the blood, guts and gore ones. And as for politically motivated art films, a bit intense for the ‘getting to know you’ conversation afterwards. My worst first dates have been at the cinema. But what is a good first date? Going to a bar can mean you say stuff you never would normally after a couple of drinks and as for meals. What do you order? Who pays? What if he eats with his mouth open? Its not very good for conversation either. What would the perfect setting for a first date be, I wonder?

 

   I have discovered that films like Planet Terror are not inspiring. I don’t know whether this is due to the many scantily clad women who get various bits eaten, the lack of plot or the complete waste of so many good actors. I can’t be bothered to dwell on it either. Far better was the anime version of Romeo x Juliet. What interests me is why cartoons (and all children’s books for that matter) have to have a goody and a baddie. Shakespeare’s original play was about two not very nice families and how they destroy their children. This cartoon is about Princess Juliet having her family slaughtered by the evil Montagues and having to go into hiding as a boy. She then becomes a Zorro-like character, the ‘Red Typhoon’, and I gave up on any authenticity. This may have also had something to do with the beautiful flying horses, but then this is Neo Verona we are talking about. Nothing like stepping into the surreal world of a Japanese cartoonist for a while.

   My second foray into the art world is slightly more successful. The Scope at More London has an outdoor exhibition of photography by women in Iraq. The photographs are quite small compared to the space taken by the stories they tell. These are simply translated in a way that’s meant to pull on your heart strings. If it weren’t so cold they might have succeeded. Although I find this interesting it doesn’t inspire much emotion which is what gets my creative juices flowing. Neither does Mathew Williamsons ten year celebration at the Design Museum. His clothes, close up, look like a decent attempt by Topshop. One or two designs look like the work of a real designer and I quite like the bead work on his current collection. I am amazed that the dress Sienna Miller wore to the Oscars looked so plain and uninteresting in the flesh, as on the red carpet it looked stunning. But then that’s what he is, a full-proof red carpet designer.

   I like art, always have, it inspires me and leaves me feeling content when I have gazed upon something beautiful. I like Mathew Barney, normally, but his new exhibition at the serpentine leaves me cold. There is not much explanation to what it is all about and would be hard pushed to be described as beautiful. Its all about mad made materials and bodily functions apparently. The only thing that inspires any interest out of me is why a room full of Vaseline makes me feel uneasy and why doesn’t the large log of shrimp smell? I’d have touched if I wasn’t being followed by the art guards. As for the crack at the Tate Modern, well it’s a crack. What gets me is how two women have already managed to fall into the 10 inch wide hole in the ground. Dangerous art or stupid followers?

   Without the lecture to spur my imagination I have to let my mind wonder on the subject of ethics because it‘s something I think about a lot anyway without really thinking. I’ve found an interesting article in Time Out on where the things we buy come from. This gets me thinking because in an earlier lecture we were given the task of finding out where the shoes we were wearing were made. This information is something I have always thought was supposed to be available to us, it’s the law. That’s why my watch has a little sticker on it saying Made in China. But now I’m not so sure. Office (the shoe company) informed me when I rang that it is not their policy to tell me where there shoes are made. Are company policies allowed to ignore the law or am I missing something?

My stroll down Oxford Street left me very uninspired, more so than normal. I usually see someone in an interesting outfit or a shop window that jumps out at me and sometimes even compels me to go inside, but no. It’s a sea of grey, black and brown. The most interesting sight is a royal blue trench coat on young girl walking in front of me. But wait, what is this? An exhibition of plimsolls customised by many different artists and customising geniuses. It is in Kingly Court off of Carnaby Street and the array of quirky designs from fluffy, multi eyed monsters with lolling tongues to cartoon scribbled plain white canvas pairs inspires me to buy my own pair which come with a few pens to start my decorating (one customiser has taken this literally as theirs is covered in fairy lights). Hmm what shall I do?

 

   So listening to how the government have evaded a fraud investigation, that was first brought about due to us giving weapons to a Saudi Arabian prince, doesn’t sound too appealing. So I congratulate Mark Thomas in managing to pack out the Hammersmith Apollo for 3 hours whilst educating the us all on the subject. 

   Of course having some of the UK’s best comedians help you makes it a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable for everyone involved. If there is ever a time for Brits to laugh it is when something serious/ morbid/ life-threatening has been brought into consciousness. Therefore comedians like Russell Brand, Ed Byrne and Omid Djalili focusing on this subject, occasionally interjecting the topics of war, racism and the world coming to an end, made it an even more enjoyable and hilarious occasion. And no one minded the serious bit in the middle because we can now feel sanctimonious for our laughter.

 

    The idea of an icon fascinates me. So many people turn into icons after death but there are a few that manage it in life, like Isabella Blow. She was not known to all, but was an icon to everyone in fashion and journalism. She could do no wrong and could be spotted anywhere for her hats and distinctive looks. 
   Other than what she produced herself in magazines I knew very little about her, past her iconic status that is. I think this was probably a good thing because now she has lost her mystique. I can’t help wondering why when so many of her friends and family are happy to tell the world about her struggle with depression and many suicide attempts now she has gone when I never had an inkling about all this when she was alive. So many people lose their human side after death to be ever immortalised by an iconic image of themselves, but others suddenly become so human and fragile