Foggy London Town

 A few times I have mentioned my aspiration to go to "something" at least once a month, a concert I'm not playing in, an exhibition, a play ~ not anything but definitely something! Well, today I did do my something, I went to the Monet in London exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery. I am normally very fond of the Impressionists and of Monet in particular so I was looking forward to this exhibition as well as a trip up to "Town"! It was my first time at the Courtauld Gallery, and they clearly have some wonderful works in a very impressive setting. Indeed I gather that this wing of Somerset House used to host the RA before they moved to Burlington House. At some point I fully intend to go back and take a proper look at the permanent collection.

Waterloo Bridge, Gray Weather

The actual exhibition was based on plans made by Monet himself to exhibit his London paintings in London, including is series on Waterloo Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Charing Cross Bridge. It was fascinating seeing these paintings together so close to where they were painted, side by side, the different light, the different effects of the fog, and the differing times of day, yet I still found the whole thing vaguely disconcerting. Monet was fascinated by the London weather ~ what we would call bad weather! Mostly the fogs that would blur views, filter and colour the light and mute the sunlight.

Parliament, Sunlight in the Fog

Now, this is my city, and I am just about old enough to remember the smogs ~ they were blinding, smelly and we now know a serious health hazard, they were caused by the coal burning industries (power stations, gas works, mills etc.) featured in so many of these paintings, along with all the coal fires heating all the homes and offices in what was at the time the World's most populous city. Monet is even quoted as saying that he only liked London in the winter because of the fog! Looking back I can understand that, a bit! Back in the 1960s I remember all the buildings and monuments in London as being black, the Houses of Parliament were black, Nelson's Column was black, even Whitehall was black. London was black! No wonder it didn't attract the artist when all he could see was black.

Walking from The Strand to Piccadilly today I was very conscious of all the colours the white Portland Stone, the aged brown brick of St James Palace, the warm yellow sandstone, red brick and yellow stucco, the contrasting black and white of Trafalgar Square. All this is now visible because all of the coal soot and stains have by now been cleaned off. Somerset House itself now rejoices in it's almost baroque splendour and decoration ~ this is my City, this is the London I love! Maybe it is the reminder of what London used to be, the grubby, dirty, foggy, industrial city that my Grandfather knew and my father grew up in that has left me feel uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong I recommend a visit, if you can get a ticket, my reaction may not have been the one intended by the artist or the curator, but it was definitely a reaction! I wonder if all my fellow visitors who viewed it all through the lens of their camera phone can say the same!

"I'm not like the other boys"

In amongst all the chaos here around the crises of non government we find ourselves in over leaving the EU it can come as something of a shock that the World is still turning, stuff happens, and life goes on, even while our government fails to govern. One of those things that happens has happened, a recent documentary about Michael Jackson has aired further allegations about his behaviour with underage boys. I have not seen it, and I don't know the truth about all this. I do know that Jackson is dead and that he can't now defend himself, and that in law his estate can't either.

Still from The Shipping News

There have been allegations made against many other high profile figures including Kevin Spacey , Sylvester Stallone and many others that have yet to be proven. Indeed many may never come to court just like Cliff Richard who will now not have the opportunity to totally clear his name. The Crown Prosecution Service will say something like they "have insufficient evidence to mount a prosecution" suggesting that if only they could find the evidence they know he did it, they never say that after extensive investigations they know he's not guilty. Then of course there will always be those who say there is no smoke without fire ~ of course there is! I have been subject to false accusations (of a different nature) and it is very hard to prove an absence of something happening, and if those accusations are public, without an equal opportunity to defend then much damage can be done.

This is largely aside from what I wanted to talk about though. The point is these are all artists of one type or another, I may not care much for some of their work, but I also care a lot for some of it. I am a bit of Cliff Richard fan, and Kevin Spacey stars in a couple of my favorite films (The Shipping News, and American Beauty) I suppose my question is does the behaviour of the artist dictate the value of the art they create? I have heard of Students Unions banning Michael Jackson's music because of these allegations, I know there are DJs who will not play Gary Glitter records, Chris Brown and R Kelly are now also at best only reluctantly played; but if the music is good why not play it?

I have friends who worked on The Shipping News, should they be denied their work being screened (and the fees attached) because of as yet unproven allegations against the star? Is it any the less a good film because of Spacey's alleged behaviour?

Caravaggio's "Beheading of St John the Baptist"

During the summer I was one of the thousands who flocked to St John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta to see the Caravaggio's there. Caravaggio is largely acknowledged as a Master, even a genius, yet by all accounts he was a serial philanderer and a multiple murderer! Are we adopting double standards? Dickens, Shakespeare and Michelangelo and others are now emerging as moral ambiguous at best, yet we continue to celebrate their work. Is it just their contemporary nature that makes us reject them?  I think the art can be separated from the artist, I will continue to listen to and enjoy some of Wagner's music, I will continue to look at Caravaggio's in awe and wonder, and I will continue to enjoy Keven Spacey's films.

This same issue has recently bee debated on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze

Advent Calendar VIII

The Banquet of Henry VIII in York Place (Whitehall Palace) (1832) ~ James Stephanhoff

Whenever I see the number eight in roman numerals VIII I always think of Henry VIII, so I had a little Google of "Henry VIII Christmas" and found this

A Tudor Christmas was starting to resemble something we in the C21st might recognise even if there were some parts to a Christmas we would not!

The first record of a turkey being brought to Europe was in 1519. It was to be many years before this bird had reason to fear the Festive season. For the rich, the traditional meat on Christmas Day remained swan, goose etc as in a Medieval Christmas feast. In fact, in 1588, Elizabeth I ordered that everybody should have goose for their Xmas dinner as it was the first meal she had after the victory of the Spanish Armada and she believed that this gesture would be a fitting tribute to the English sailors who fought off the Spanish. However, it is not known how many of the poor of the land could carry out this order as goose remained an expensive luxury – though Christmas was seen as a special celebration.

More of that here.

At the moment I don't know what I will be eating at Christmas, or indeed who with or where.  I am quite certain that I will be sharing my Christmas with friends or family, I am also quite sure that I won't be eating swan or peacock

Advent Calendar XII

Today I have a couple of Nativity scenes for you

You choose which you like best

But my favorite is......................one I saw shared earlier today of Facebook, wanted to save it but my computer crashed, now I can't find it.

A fairly traditional oil painting it showed Mary asleep, exhausted after childbirth; Joseph bemused about what was happening to him, and Jesus simply asleep.

No animals, no shepherds, no angels, no wise men, just an exhausted Mother, a worried Father and a sleeping Baby. But the hope of the world lies in that Baby.

If you know this painting please let me know hwo the artist is and where I can find it.

Holiday ~ Looking Back VI, Valletta

When I first went to Malta, many, many years ago a friend of mine who was an ex Navy Provost who had been posted there observed, "Malta! What do you want to go there for you might as well sit on rockery under a sun lamp with your feet in a bucket of water."

The Upper Barrakka Gardens

I have now been to Malta five times and am still fascinated by the islands.   It has the oldest man made structures known, It is the sight of St Paul's ship wreck. It has marvelous idiosyncratic architecture, It has it's very own cuisine, somewhere between mediterranean Europe and north Africa with a tinge of Barnsley.   And of course it has Valletta.

Inside the Cathedral

Caravaggio's The Beheading of St John the Baptist

The Capital city, Valletta is not only a World Heritage site it is also scheduled to be the European City of Culture in 2018 And as the centre for the Knights of St John has many interesting palaces and the most wonderful baroque Cathedral, complete with a couple of Caravaggios.




One further advantage, Malta has enshrined Trans People's rights in it's constitution!

View from Grand Harbour

Wurst Wins

So against all my expectations Conchita Wurst has won the Eurovision Song Contest for Austria.   As I have been so busy making my own music I have not been following the competition I am in no position to comment on the quality of any of the songs, but I am not at all about her look, or what this will do for general attitudes to the trans community.

Even without the beard I find her look to be a little too high camp, a little too close to "drag" for my taste, with the beard it is just plain confusing.   Personally when I am out I want to be treated like a lady, this involves behaving like a lady.   Part of this is looking as much as possible like a lady.   I don't fool myself that I pass, but I am close enough that people generally treat me appropriately for my presentation.   I know how I want to be treated so that tells me how I have to look, so I try not to look like a hooker (either type!) some one who has raided her smaller teenage daughter's wardrobe, or most of all a transvestite.

Now this maybe because I self identify as a trans woman, not as a transvestite or as a female impersonator, both of which are men in women's clothes, rather I am a woman wearing the right clothes, it's just the body that's wrong.   I will wait and see what effect another high profile fellow traveller will have on general attitudes, I suspect that Conchita's influence will not be as positive as Grayson Perry's.

An Exhibitionist

Well despite everything I arrived at the RA roughly on time, and as there was quite a queue for the Ladies I went straight into the exhibition.   Fortunately for me the RA have a few couches in their main exhibition rooms so along with some others I was able to sit down to enjoy at least some of the paintings.

The exhibition is pretty complete with an amazing range of well known, and not so well known paintings, and pastels.   I am not normally a fan of portraiture, but I did enjoy a lot of this, and particularly enjoyed seeing the development of his style, and how the paintings made a record of the time society Manet occupied.   I was interested by the rage of style, some portraits, like that of his friend M Antonin Proust on the left being very polished "traditional" Status portraits for exhibition, then others, almost unfinished, certainly painted quicker, which appear to have been retained in the family.

I feel as though the exhibition was almost too complete, with too much on display.   Personally I have a limited capacity for how much I can take in and appreciate in any one visit, and certainly when it comes to portraits of people I don't know or indeed have not even heard of that limit gets a little smaller, but this may just have been my feet talking.  Either way I was quite happy to leave, stop at a local Nero's sit down and enjoy a coffee.

 

Having travelled by train I was forced to continue to the end with my poor choice of footwear, but ahh the joy and relief when I got back  my van and could change into something more comfortable.

 

Maybe it's the influence of those boots (much though I love them) but I intend to feature shoes in my back grounds this week, the lovely the elegant the sexy shoes that we all love but maybe wouldn't want to wear for a whole day.

Boots, boots, boots

Today (Thursday 28th Feb) I went up to London to the Royal Academy, I had a ticket for the Manet Exhibition, which I had been looking forward to for some time. I had decided to take the whole day off and make sure I had a leisurely morning getting ready.  I took my time deciding what I was going to wear, (Matalan Grey and Black panel dress) and doing my make up, however I had major problems with my nails, and ended up actually having to re-do them twice!

Eventually I was happy with how I looked, gt in the van and drove to the station, it was only when I got there that I realised I had forgotten my ticket for the exhibition, so I had to return home to get it, then back to the station.   By this time time was beginning to get tight, I parked as close as I could to the station but was still left with quite a walk.   I soon started to regret my choice of boots, I had gone with my favorite 3 inch stiletto heels, they look great, but are definitely not made for walking.    As I approached the station entrance I could see my train pulling in and ran for it, those boots may not be made for walking, running is a big no no!   It was nice to get in the train and sit down.

One at Victoria I could put some more money on  my Oyster and then get the tube over to Green Park for the RA, of course there were no seats on the train, and by the time I had walked up Piccadilly I was once again regretting those boots.   I should know better by now, function before form, they are lovely and warm, and great to look at but for a full afternoon on your feet, no, not good.

Every Silver linning has a cloud

Grayson Perry: all dressed up for a proper

north-east night out with the girls

There have been a few strikes by the Nation Union of Journalists effecting some BBC programmes, amongst other things this meant that on Monday rather than a new edition of start the Week we had a recording of an old programme.   The joy of this is that it was one featuring Grayson Perry, talking about his series for Channel 4, "In the Best Possible Taste"; if you haven't seen this it is well worth a look, anyway, my point is that as part of the series at various points he was dressed up by his hosts in the taste of that "class" for an appropriate event, on one of these occasions was he was dressed by new middle class 30 somethings in designer menswear, clearly Perry was not comfortable with this, but said with great glee "and I think I passed" I could clearly hear the laughter in his voice, even though I was laughing out loud myself; there was some polite amusement shown by the other guests, I think they just didn't understand.

All in the Best Possible Taste

I have been watching Grayson Perry's series on Channel 4 on British taste, and have to say I am pretty impressed on every level.   Like most people Grayson Perry first came onto my radar when he won the Turner Prize a few years ago in 2003.   At that time he was rumoured to respond to the news that he had won that "It is about time a transvestite potter won the Turner" At that time most of the media made more of Grayson's idiosyncratic style of dress as Claire than of his work.   It is easy to see why.

Grayson Perry wins the Turner 2003

As a cross dresser I may not share his taste in clothes, but I am impressed with how open he is about this aspect of his life, how he is quite "up front" about it but does not seek to justify or explain it, just states things like "as a transvestite I am interested to explore this as a woman as well" and gets on with it.    I would love to be able to be as out and honest, but our family circumstances are very different.   I get the impression that he is very happy in his skin comfortable and confident in his choices, in short a bit of a role model whether he wants to be or not.

This series is an interesting insight into his character, his methods of work and his background.   Of course f special interest to us it also gives us some very interesting insights into his dressing.   What I find most interesting is the way in which he embraces Clare into his work, and how comfortable the all people who meet him both as documentary maker, famous artist, man and woman appear to be.   This must be a testimony to his personality, watching him on TV and hearing him on the radio I can't help thinking that here is one "celebrity" that I would like to meet.

At the very least I will be going to see the tapestries that are the finished items resulting from his exploration of British class and taste.

Exhibitionist

Sorry not to have managed an update for a couple of days, at the moment life just seems to be like that, never a spare moment.    It is now Saturday morning and I am typing this prior to going off to work again.

Thursday morning I had a little chore to complete before setting out on my expedition to the exhibition.   One of my customers had asked me to pick up an Acer as a present for her father, she needed it by Friday night and I knew Friday would be very busy so I made an early start and picked one up at my favorite garden centre on Thursday morning.   After that I could put on my nail polish, change what needed to be changed and put on my make up and glitteries.   As it was slightly less hot than the previous few day I finally opted for the grey dress, with grey jacket and my new ox blood heels.   I felt this was an appropriate outfit for a day in Town while still cool enough for the weather.

I caught the train up to Victoria and then the tube to Charring Cross, as usual when I do anything like this I wonder how people can go through that every day.   I arrived in plenty of time to have a look around Trafalgar Square there was a lot of activity with things being prepared for the weekend, but I did have a chance to have a look at the current exhibit on the "spare plinth" a little boy n a rocking horse.   I rather like this, firstly it is very well done, is the right size and makes an interesting juxtaposition to all the military equestrian statues around there.

As I was wondering around trying to decide on where to have lunch I encountered a couple of Americans, discussing the area, they were trying to find Admiralty Arch, I was able to show them, and was drawn into conversation with them about the jubilee celebration, when they asked me where was the best place to watch the parade, they weren't impressed when I said the on the Television.   Ir seemed strange to be an English republican talking to a couple of ardent American royalists, but then there are many strange things in life.

After a very pleasant lunch in Cafe Rouge I made my way back up to the National Gallery.   The exhibition is in the Sainsbury wing.   This is still relatively new, and caused quite a degree of controversy when built, personally I think it blends in with the rest of the square very well, while not trying to mimic the styles of a different century, it is unashamedly modern, but still blends well in colour, scale and style.  As I was approaching the entrance I was accosted by a turbaned gentleman telling me my fortune, he was very smartly presented, quite impressive and I was complimented and therefore quite tempted, he told me that I had been unlucky in love, and that I would meet the man I would fall in love with in he month of July, it as off course when he asked for money that I came to my senses and told him that as a follower of Jesus I could not consult fortune tellers.   This was turning out to be an interesting day and I hadn't even got as far as the exhibition yet.

Worthless Musicians?

I am aware that this is a longer post than I usually put up, and is a bit of gripe, with no trans content.   This is because I am not just a trans person, I am also many other things to many different people, not least I am a musician.   I have another blog which has a different target readership, I shall be putting this post on there as well.

So far I have tried to avoid any mention of the Olympics, since I live in London it is going to have some effect on me.   When the first registration for tickets came up I registered on the basis that since it was going to be here I should go to something.   When it came to applying for tickets for specific events, I cogitated for a while, then asked the family what they wanted to go to, they sat and thought for a while, and between us we couldn't think of a single event that we would want to go to.   It is not that I’m not interested in sport, I follow Rugby, Cricket and motor-sports with various levels of enthusiasm, we just couldn't think of an Olympic sport that we would want to make the effort to and watch.

However that is not my beef with the Olympics, it’s their attitude to professional musicians.   Like many other musicians I was invited to play for the opening and closing ceremonies, like most of them I was being asked to give up not just the two days of the events but several days for rehearsals, and all of this for nothing.   For some reason there seems to be a view that playing music is not a proper job, and that musicians are happy to give their time free just for the privilege of taking part, or because they enjoy playing so much.   London is a world-wide centre of excellence for top level music, that is only possible because musicians can make a living and not have to fit  it in around work.

To be a professional musician requires years of training, hours of practise, and a collection of expensive instruments.  Because of the dedication of musicians we can enjoy the benefits of their excellence.   London hosts the finest music festival in the world with the Proms, we have three or four of the finest orchestras in the world, two first class opera companies. These top professionals are supported by all the freelance, gigging musicians and teachers playing at local events and concerts, take away this support and the whole will collapse.

I have worked in many fields often being self-employed, I have done mobile car servicing, used car dealer, I have been a landscaper, a cleaner a delivery driver, musician and I am now a self-employed gardener and waste management consultant.   It is only as a musician that I have ever had any trouble getting paid.   It is hard enough to get worthwhile work as a musician these days, a trio will cost around £300 per night, and you can add £75 to that per person as the band gets bigger, that is why you will so rarely hear a top rate big band these days.  

My Brass Band is an amateur organisation, but we have a lot of costs.   In theory the conductor should be paid, music has to be purchased, rent paid for the rehearsal room  instruments bought and maintained, all this adds up, so as well as the members paying a subscription we rely on being paid when we play for people.   To have a brass band at a fete or play in the park will normally cost in the region of £300, this is way below what a professional band would need to be paid, and is not really a true reflection of the work that the band will put in but it is what the “market” allows.  Like many other bands we have been asked to play on the route of the Olympic torch, we have agreed in the hope of some publicity, but once again there is to be no pay.   Security guards will be paid, drivers will get paid, administrators will be paid, why not the musicians?
We need to get away from this idea that musicians do what they do for the love of it and live on that without being paid.

On a different note tomorrow (Wednesday) will be another strange day, in the morning I shall be attending the funeral of a colleague and friend from the recycling world, then in the early evening I have another appointment wit my osteopath, I have a playful pair of panties set aside, but I don't know whether I will be in a sufficiently silly mood.

Grayson Perry and the purpose of art

I have written before of my fondness of visiting an exhibition and my interest in the activities of Grayson Perry, I'm afraid that I have been too busy with work and stuff to take advantage of an opportunity to combine these two pleasures.   Perrys' exhibitions the "Tomb of the unknown craftsman" at the British Museum will be closing soon and I just haven't time to get there.

I would like to thank Stana for bringing to my attention this interview with Perry, if anything it serves to enhance my esteem of him both as an artist and as a person.   Although iI was originally drawn to Grayson Perry because of our shared cross dressing activities I find that his work is always interesting and always has something to say.   I am of the opinion that the purpose of art is to communicate, and if the art fails to communicate to the viewer the intentions of the artist then it is just decoration, and of our decorators we probably require a better technical standard than most artists can manage.