Recognition at last - Picture of the Week & Ealing Police

My published photo'

Yesterday morning I was looking at the local newspaper (The Ealing Gazette) over my breakfast and thought ‘oh that photo looks like one I took’  I then realised it was the one I had taken and submitted - quite nice to see it published and odd that my first thought was it looks like.

Please note if you see the picture in the paper I am not responsible for the slightly cheese-y wording that goes with it.

I suppose that although I know that it's not for a prize or that it's anything big it is slightly odd that they didn't let me know that they'd be using the picture - I'd submitted the picture by e-mail  so a simple reply would have done the job.

Stopped but not searched

On Friday evening unusually I went to  a fairly local pub The Plough to meet up with a small group of people, I only had a pint and around 10:30 pm I left to walk home, just beyond Northfields Station a police car drew up to me and one of the guys in the car asked me where I'd been and to see my hands - it was all handled in a polite manner - but unusual I was told I answered the description of someone they were after - not sure

West Ealing Pub

about what they'd have seen on my hands?

Odd that after so many years I should get stopped by the police but no harm done to me or my view of the local force.

Food and Memory at UWL Ealing

Sadly Universities do not reach out more often to their host communities and celebrate the chance they have to create dialogues for residents to take part in. An initiative in  Ealing means that there is a semi-regular session of public lectures where guest speakers have a platform to speak on  matters of the day, last year I went to see Torin Douglas speak about Commercial Radio and I have subsequently registered for further talks there,

On Wednesday evening I went along to the former Ealing college where these talks are held  to listen to local resident  Yasmin Alibhai-Brown speak about 'Food and Memories' as one would expect the talk referenced her own book The Settler’s Cookbook heavily, the book sounds intriguing with its' mixture of ethnic recipes, 'repaired UK dishes' (where her mother would bring life to bland dishes like Shepherd's Pie)  and the evocations from the smells left on her Mother's Cooking Cardigan likening them to the recollections that Proust's Madeleines triggered.

The UWL flyer

Yasmin who came to the UK from Uganda in the 1970s spoke about the food of her childhood the effect of an African upbringing on her as an part of the dispersed  UK colonial  diaspora. She spoke about how food affected her second marriage (helping her to win the heart of Colin Brown) and how food affects  her children as well as the connection with food with the loss of her mother. 
Other things that were touched on but not fully explored included her mother's attachment to Princess Diana, the sadness around the fate of her Brother and Sister, her brother being a victim of alcoholism and her sister still alive but living with problems of mental health. 
Next Talk

The next talk in the series at the UWL is scheduled for the 20th March it will be given by  Professor Nick Braisby and is on the subject of  Making sense of our world (a big subject).

On the subject of Making Sense of our World -BBC TV's Horizon this week  How You Really Make Decisions this programme took it's lead from Nobel prize winners' Professor Daniel Kahneman  analysis of our biases  The thesis he has is that we have  two ways of thinking, it threw light on the way the brain works quickly  with out clear logic (method 1) and then justifies with the reasoning method 2 .
-It was  very interesting and further information to add to philosophical musings.

More on Schopenhauer

In the Philosophy course I attend in central London this week we took  a look at Arthur Schopenhauer, named Arthur apparently after careful consideration by his father who felt  it was the sort of name a cosmopolitan businessman could operate with - but Arthur chose a different career.

After the early death of his father in Hamburg in 1805 by what was possibly suicide Arthur  first worked towards a commercial career but in 1809  he began studying at the University of Göttingen, first as a student of medicine and later in the field of  philosophy.
Arthur apparently felt it his mother was the cause of his father's death and the relationship between mother and son was not a good one.
Arthur did not marry although he  was keen on female company and was a man with both temper and energy.
There are more biographical details of the man here.

Now onto his work and ideas:
Arthur was of the view that there was one process with this being made up of two aspects the  'willing' and the physical action.
 Schopenhauer considered that the universe is a rational  place and that the human condition is one of suffering he looked at how we should live and felt  that Art was one of the few temporary releases from continued desire.
Scott the course leader related to us  how we (as humans) were concerned with the shoe that pinched and that life is indeed suffering which when discussed did seem difficult to refute
 Schopenhauer felt that while the sight of a beautiful women  was a figure of desire the artistic work depicting her was somewhat removed from this. One of the great works of  Schopenhauer was concerned with  Aesthetics.
Unusually for the time  Schopenhauer a well traveled man was concerned with animal welfare and believed that England was a place where animals were relatively well treated.
Arthur Schopenhauer continues to cast a impressive shadow over the field of philosophy and his ideas and outlook have been sen as forming something of a link with the relgions/philosophies of the east notably Hinduism and Buddhism.

Spring and feeding the birds.

One for Mary Poppins

I had an hour or so on Plot 202 as I wanted to deploy a bird feeder (as an homage at Arthur?) it was pleasant so see signs of spring there too.

I have also started some Moneymaker Tomatoes indoors at home.

Reacting to Art - National Gallery The Sunflowers and Sainsbury Wing

Yesterday having something of a reaction to the discussions around Schopenhauer (more in the next post) I felt somewhat obliged to visit The nearby National Gallery both as an antidote (Schopenhauer on Art “Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.” ) and a confirmation of his central thesis that  'Life is Suffering'

On arrival I was at first somewhat concerned at the numbers but once inside found that there was sufficient space and activity to mean that this was far from a problem.

Having seen in the press that there was a rare  opportunity to see two of Van Gogh's  Sunflowers side by side I  chose to join  the necessary queues to enable me to see this - it's interesting how The National Gallery was able to ration this viewing to make it a practicality, the nature of 'free' things (of which this was one) is that demand is likely to reach unfathomable heights this was easily managed by the Gallery by simply making it mildly inconvenient.
What I drew from the two images was how similar they were, what we tend to see here  is two paintings by one of the World's greatest artists but it is worth considering the context of Van Gogh who worked  for an Art dealer and tried to join the church before he became an artist. And as an Artist he sold only one painting during his lifetime, he was not aware that he was producing iconic works and that his life as a tortured artist would be celebrated. Here's a review of the works together.


Looking around at the undoubted riches I was (again) taken with Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando by Edgar Degas (it's a great title too).

I am  intrigued and enjoy the works of the 'Pointilist' Seurat and was taken with another artisits's Pointilist painting Washerwomen by Signac (1886)

It is striking how influential the 30 years or so of artistic development between 1884 and 1914 is I was also drawn to  George Bellows Men of the Docks  (1912)  A painting of New York activity (amazing to see the cost of this was around £15m and was funded from the largess of the late JP Getty II).

and

Klimt's  Hermine Gallia 1904 showing a rare and haunting but distanced beauty..

Religiosity at the Gallery

Sainsbury's Local at National Gallery

 I am not sure if I've before appreciated how much of the National Gallery is given over to what could be broadly defined as devotional Christian works certainly the 20 year old Sainsbury Wing has an amazing selection largely European created and reflecting a European perspective and evocation of the characters, for this reason :

Adoration of the Kings by Vincenzo Foppa  (painted around 1500) stood out and I liked too 

The Supper at Emmaus by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio  who lived from  1571 to only 1610,
what I like about this is the way the arms of Christ and one of the other diners seem to  show life beyond the frame of the picture as opposed to the missing glance from Christ's apparently closed eyes .


I am much taken too by Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (Velázquez) partly I think because of an explanation of the parable given to me recently but also because of the experimental nature of the painting within a painting delivery of the story.