Love shack bay-beee!

Praise be!
Some 4 years since we snapped up what seemed to be the only affordable rural property in the Lake District National Park, we have finally obtained planning permission for what has become known as the "Love Shack" - to replace the mouldy-log-cabin-the-size-of-a-static-caravan, with possibly the LDNP's first bit of domestic contemporary architecture since the portcullis crashed down some time in the 1970's. I'll spare you the details of this torturous and expensive planning process here, suffice to pass on these words of wisdom to anyone thinking of following our lead:
- Don't use a consultant - the LDNPA moves in too 'mysterious' a way for anyone to be much good at dodging their bureaucracy
- Don't expect neighbours and parish councils to hold to my mum's adage 'If you've got nothing nice to say, say nothing" - even if you go out of your way to be inclusive, nimbyism thrives in the LDNP
- Don't give up - go to Appeal if neccessary and make it clear to the planners you intend to see your plans through at any cost

So, many thanks to our friends and families and colleagues who have survived our endless moaning during the process, and here's to the next few months of creating a tiny bit of the future in the Lake District!

Potty time

Last week saw a visit from my three nieces who live in Glasgow, and hence many days and nights of me trying to recreate a temporary 1950's rural childhood for them as they looked on bemused - hiking, nature watches (owls and toads) and wholemeal bread. All things I hated as a child, but that's not the point of course.
Last night we broke out to Ambleside to see the latest Harry Potter film together, surprisingly watchable I thought except for the creepy thirty year old actors in school uniforms. I particularly enjoyed the none-too-subtle 21st c socio-cultural references, which were so leaden they made the Simpsons look like Kafka.
Most striking was the 'Ofsted' sub-plot whereby the 'Ministry' deems the Hogwarts magic school to be below standard and too focused on practical teaching and dominated by rather charismatic and arch staff who the kids love. This regime is replaced by a Ministry-approved Mrs Umbridge (dig the pink Jackie-O in a size 16 - costumes) who preaches theoretical-only magic (ie no wand-action), posts thousands of notices prohibiting absolutely everything and generally is torturous and snide. It's not a complex metaphor, and not unenjoyable either but I'd be interested to know how many kids see it as clearly as their parents must.

When in Barcelona

I was raking around in my handbag for my always elusive mobile phone last week when out came an old sugar sachet from a place we'd eaten last Christmas in Barcelona. It reminded me that I always meant to post a recommendation for the place online:
El Convent, Jerusalem 3, 08001 Barcelona, T 933 171 052
(It' s one minute's walk from the back of the famous food market Mercat de Sant Josep/ La Boqueria on La Rambla de Sant Josep)
There we had a 3 course meal for around 8 Euros, delicious, traditional rustic food in a fascinating old building with friendly but low-key staff.
If you fancy it, read one of my earlier food rants here

Keep the faith

Last weekend we held an Architecture Week event at a log cabin we bought in Cunsey in 2003. For 4 years we have been trying to replace the decrepit cabin with a small contemporary wood and glass house by Sutherland Hussey Architects. The design - on their website - has attracted everything from Sunday broadsheets to Grand Designs, and even if Adam wasn't related to one of them I'd find it hard to fault their credentials, and yet most meetings with the local planners end with them suggesting some design 'improvements' . Even the (failed) Appeal we endured on the first application ended with the Inspector making some 'helpful suggestions' and wondering why we wanted to bother with all this pretentious nonsense - why not just plonk another prefab down?
Thank God I'm not the architect, I'd have to be carried off shrieking, but being the 'client' is no easy ride either.
As anyone who has tried to engage with the Lake District National Park planners will tell you, they're not a bunch to embrace contemporary architecture readily, being much keener on slate-clad walls, cute pitch roofs (Brazilian slate since ours is too expensive, is fine tho') and faux-heritage trimmings. Being a very special National Park they can largely ignore the shift in national planning policy towards 'greening' architecture and accepting that Modernism is here to stay and actually rather nice to live in. Instead we see endless, poorly built perpetuations of Lilliput Lane / Beatrix Potter style houses - Disneyland actually does them better, using better building techniques and attention to detail.

Anyway, back to the event. An amazing 30+ people found our tiny, remote site and an informal support group for self-builders and lovers of good architecture, emerged over cups of tea. After years of neighbour trouble and planning friction, it was genuinely moving to meet like-minded people who loved the design and were willing us to succeed and not give up! I had heard of urban Architecture Week events with noone attending, so was amazed to find that in the heart of what seems the most conservative place in England, there is a healthy group of dissenters.
Let's hope we can keep the faith long enough to do everyone proud and build the darned thing.

You can read Adam's blog about the event here.

Catsnap

One of Adam's conditions placed on the acquisition of cats here at Lawson Park is that they match: Unsurprising for a man with more collections than hairs in his beard.
Since adopting feline no. 2 - the lavishly friendly but rather plain Maurice (named after Adam's grandmother's revolting pug) - I have periodically managed to gather photographic evidence of his matching feline no. 1 - the exquisite but aloof Tomas Bata the Fourth.

I think that's Hungarian for 'rearing stallions'

It's not often the rural laptop gets out and remembers to blog about it afterwards (is that a sign of a good or a bad night out?!). But in London recently during the final - and expensive (£300 an hour for a colourist, ahem) - throes of our film Living with the Tudors I managed a couple of how shall we say, diverse, cultural experiences:

I liked the shortswearing Hungarian Agaskodo Teliverek so much at their Resonance FM fundraiser so much, I bought their CD. If "sounding something like a cross between Captain Beefheart, Public Enemy & Venetian Snares" sounds good you you can find the duo online here.


Asparagus, the opera, an art performance I went to with Jet, was altogether weirder. A packed venue of art vermin, men in bad costume, music (good) by (I think) Les georges leningrad - but I didn't get it. I met Jonathan Griffin afterwards, reviewing it for Frieze (poor guy) who confirmed my suspicions that it might be a reenactment of some kind but also seemed bemused. Looking for online links to offer you I fail to find anything, if it wasn't for this picture I took I'd begin to doubt my own sanity.

This is Easter food

Mercifully far from M&S and their attempted monopoly on Easter edibles, we plough a different furrow up here:
1.
A pudding which should possibly be illegal , that's how calorific and delicious it is, is Sussex Pond Pudding , so rich I have only made it once before, for my appreciative friends Ben & Freddie. It's nuts-sounding - a ye olde steamed lump with a whole lemon in the middle - a WHOLE LEMON!
My recipe is Elizabeth David's but Waitrose has a good one online too here though it recommends clotted cream to serve - I mean, are they trying to get sued?!
2.
To offset such indulgence, I prepare a double bento box of vegan Japanese food one evening:
In the middle is some slices of carrot pickled in nuka - an ancient Japanese pickling technique mixing rice bran and salt, garlic and seaweed. Like a good bread culture, this mixture lives indefinately as long as you stir it daily. This resulted in a recent holiday in France for the nuka, as our absence from home for 5 days would have meant certain death...

Mr Potter's legacy

'Miss Potter' the movie is enjoying a seemingly limitless run in local cinemas here - when we saw it the soundtrack was barely audible under the locals screeching 'That's NEVER the real Hill Top!" and "I've never seen it as sunny as that!". I wonder if 'Brokeback Mountain' had the same popularity in Alberta, Canada or 'Cape Fear' thereabouts....

Whilst the locals are numbly relishing the image of a de- touristified Lake District populated by actual farmers and reasonably priced property , we find ourselves on the receiving end of a solicitors letter from none other than the company of one Mr Heelis, aka Mr Beatrix Potter. Yes, incredibly, the firm has endured as one of the major legal players locally, and a narky neighbour of ours has commissioned them to wrangle over a boundary issue with us.
Mr Potter's man meets us near the disputed boundary, and brusquely sets out his stall - no, his clients don't own this track, but yes, they'd rather we didn't obstruct it; no, his clents can't technically stop us from parking there but yes, they'd rather we didn't, etc etc.

Isn't it heart-warming to know that the great authoress' legacy is not restricted to chubby rabbits?

Gratuitous cat picture

Maurice guards a vast porcini harvest from this summer. Is that a handle-bar moustache?

I'm liking Ireland

It kind of makes you ask what went wrong with Scotland (where I was brought up). Or even England, except I can’t speak for the rest of the country from my willing encarceration in the theme-park of the Lake District.
In small-town Ireland there are highstreets full of independent shops - though this one in Clifden does have the oddest strawberries I have ever seen (the Body Shop is relegated to a small stand in a local pharmacy). Even very small towns like Ennis in County Clare, where the conference we’re at is, seem to still support bookshops of three varieties (charity, cheap and cheerful, and academic); diverse eateries serving everything from smoothies to Irish stew; real toy shops (I mean, I haven’t seen one of those since the 1970’s - I don’t count motorway-side Toys R Us) and numerous small butchers (enticingly called victuallers here). Ireland seems to be full of people of all nationalities living, working and studying, and not just in the cities.

Yes there are pubs and tat-shops aimed at tourists, too much Enya-esque flowing 'n fringed clothing on sale, and so much Celtic font-use in the signage you can at times feel like you have entered a Tolkien theme-park. But somehow the feeling of towns inhabited by and run for the benefit of busy locals remains. A bit like provincial France maybe, the visitor is welcomed but not pandered to.

Ireland has so many pale people like me that the clothes boutiques accomodate this by stocking flattering colours for the milky-skinned. The ubiquitous white trash fake tan of most of the UK isn’t present here except in Dublin – as in Japan where I was earlier this year – being pale doesn’t imply a shameful lack of disposable income. Speaking of disposable income I’ve been particularly struck by the massive new homes that line the busy roads connecting Ireland’s towns. At first these Gracelands-like gin palaces horrified me with their bald, curtain-less splendour, windows gleaming out onto freshly-laid roadside lawns the size of football pitches. Stone and stucco detailing, triple garages and porticos combine in infinite variations but – interestingly - always excluding any reference to modernism. However after a few days of awe I’m starting to find them rather cool – especially as they even extend into areas of true wilderness, with rock, gorse and sky reflected in their double height UPC windows.

Oh, (and I'm sure I can hear howls of derision from RSPCA affilated readers), and I rather liked that Ireland still has stray cats, not loads (a la Greque) but just a few picturesque and very healthy-looking ones. The bordering on the bizarre fanaticism of UK cat charities for neutering has eliminated these even in the countryside in England ...

Random acts of kindness

We have just returned from three weeks shooting our latest film,'Living with the Tudors' in rural Suffolk. It's been an epic experience, and though the shoot is over I will for some time remain in the peculiar aftermath of intense documentary filming - a state of heightened sensibility to, and awe of - human experience and survival. Despite the almost complete exhaustion of my emotional resources, as I watch people at the train station or eating lunch, I am scrutinising them for the tiniest perceptible scars of their life stories - perhaps an awkward gait, a shrill laugh or a hesitant look.
Reminding me of the day after I lost my virginity, I expect everyone else to detect this seismic shift in my sensibilities in my external appearance. Of course, they don't. In the supermarket, people examine the produce as usual, perhaps seeing me in their peripheral vision as just another tired-looking shopper.
One particular encounter reminds me of what can happen in this state of mind:
On the way home from shooting our first film Bata-ville I remained in the retro travel hostess uniform I wore throughout the film as I had no time to change. Arriving very late at Oxenholme Lake District train station, it was dark, windswept and raining heavily. I had practically slipped into a coma en route I had been so tired, and now I had to drive the next hour home myself. I was feeling unsociable and introspective. Then, I saw a young black woman with a large suitcase looking hesitantly at the empty taxi rank, and I felt utterly compelled to ask her if I could help. She seemed unphased by my appearance or my cluttered car and I offered her a lift to the nearby town Windermere, where she had a job in a care home. It was only as we reached the town's main road she admitted she did not have the address written down, or any idea where the building was. Once more, going utterly against what would have been my habitually irritable response to this spiral of chaos, I felt simply sorry for this woman and we continued to drive through deserted streets for another hour until the vast Victorian pile loomed into view. On offloading her case, my passenger reached into her handbag and asked how much she owed me for the lift. I explained that really I had been going her way anyway.
Today, rushing to buy some food at the supermarket, I impatiently freed up my trolley with a pound coin and noticed in the corner of my eye a very stooped old lady in the next row of trolleys. She was being very discreet, but she was clearly utterly baffled by how the coin system worked. I watched her struggling patiently and proudly for a little while, as other shoppers wrenched away neighbouring trolleys. Then - of course - I went and helped her.

My fledglings have left the nest

I recently left academia after a decade in part-time fine art lecturing. Like many life-long art lecturers slash artists who use their teaching to pay the bills, I had thought at best I'd last seven and was surprised to make it past this itch.

In fact I changed jobs after seven years, and left UCE Birmingham to work closer to home at St Martin's College (SMC) in Lancaster. The move was a wrench - I had made great friends at UCE, had - in some ways - grown up there. But in the last few years, a number of colleagues had died prematurely, after long illnesses, and in some ways the time felt right to move on. My new job promised a new course, built to the specifications that myself and another newly appointed colleague then spent several years crafting. There were many good times earlier on, and I learnt - at first anyway - to work a comfortable 8 hour day instead of UCE's unusual 11 hour one.

On my interview day, I toured the archaic and empty Apple Mac Suite and viewed the grimey Uglow-esque paintings in the Art studios with a band of fellow interviewees (one of whom described the job as a 'poisoned chalice' I recall). I wondered if there were any young people even on the course, it all seemed to careful and polite. But I really liked the staff I met, and I was excited about moving away from the safe haven of UCE and its largely middle-class intake. I remember now how long I took to accept the post when I was offered it - something in me knew I was in for a steep uphill climb. To cut a very long and arduous story short, the institution - very sadly - proved to be as backward as it had first appeared. Tens of thousands of pounds were wasted by the college fulfilling half our list of IT prerequisites, which would not function without the other half. The one half languished inoperative in cupboards and my angry and unreplied to emails built up.

Our course was finally aborted at a very late stage, with very little warning and no debriefing from management. I was disgusted, and no matter how fond I was of my colleagues by then, and how much good I felt sure I was doing the students, I could not remain working for management I had so little respect for. It's a very ordinary tale in academia....



Fast-forward then, till Friday night, when a small, diverse group of my favourite ex-students (I can say that now I'm not their lecturer any more!) hold a show 'The 9lb project' in the College gallery which I had helped design as part of my job at SMC. They had had the gumption to turnaround their usually lacklustre work placement module and organise the first real gallery show SMC had had outside of degree show every June. As I drove there, I had the usual mixed expectations of a student show. And I still was feeling considerable guilt for leaving them - as I saw it - at the mercy of a largely unsympathetic (or maybe uncomprehending) course team. I knew I had probably been the only lecturer who had really pushed their buttons, and that I had left them now. This probably sounds like I'm taking it all to seriously, but hey - this is how it goes in the post-partum mind.

These students were an almost crazily diverse group, but they'd put on - with our very committed technician Stephen Bentley as their institutional support - an incredibly fresh exhibition of energetic, articulate work. I loved it. It wasn't the best-installed show on earth, but I was just thrilled to see a decent turnout of young gallery-goers, some fine skate-boarding, some Paul McCarthy-seque gutsy performance (see image) and no politeness on the walls. It was as if finally some young artists had entered the building. Predictably there were no senior SMC staff in attendance (in some way just as well seeing as how hazardous the pissed skateboarding was getting) but I'm certain the exhibitors didn't give a shit. They all seemed elated, and I remembered how exciting shows are when you start out. I even remember Nina throwing up regularly before them - that's how exciting they were.

As I was getting ready to leave some of my former students began to lament my departure. One of the exhibitors challenged me "You said in drawing class you'd be really impressed if someone did a full-length self portrait - I did! You said you'd be impressed if someone did a bit of performance - tonight I did! What's you're next challenge !? - Bring it on!!!"
I sped home on the M6, the route suffused by warm early summer light and skipping through my iPod. I realised that for the first time in a long time I felt good about what I had left, and certain that they'd all be absolutely fine without me.

Paid to smile

I just enjoyed a pre-Easter minibreak in North Yorkshire, mainly to relieve the inevitable pressure valve of impending Easter in the Lake District, which is an endurance test of tourists driving, picnicking in your garden and allowing their dogs to chase your cats. I used my favourite guidebook to choose ur destination: Alistair Sawday, which Nina and I somehow discovered a few years ago when R & D-ing our Almanac project. It provided us with a series of characterful B & B's owned by characterful people who didn't - like us, but unlike the Tourist Board - overrate ensuite bathroom, central heating, or proximity to local attractions.
Alistair S once again led us to an appealling eccentric venue, in a little fishing village 'much beloved by artists' (I did like it, it's true) weirdly close to Middlesborough (no postcards available of that sadly) - a restaurant with rooms, famed for seafood. The room was nice - ensuite bath not shower (I approve) with rather odd but compelling view of sheer cliff face with gulls /wallflowers, and a cupboard full of DVDs to compensate for the crap TV reception. The energetic cook and co- owner sprinted up the stairs ahead of us, just the right side of warm and informal - a very hard thing to get right in the 'hospitality trade'. Then, downstairs he introduced us to his partner, who was pouring another guest a lovely looking Kir Royale.
She looked up fleetingly, and flashed a momentary and utterly superficial grin before returning to her evening of service. Now, as a 'directors wife' I recognise the ennui of the bored hostess more easily than most - it happens to us all at one time or another that you find yourself bored to death by somebody important to your partners work. Luckily Grizedale Arts generally delivers a gripping guest - Ken Russell for example - so this is rare. Nevertheless, this woman was clearly suffering from the syndrome badly. At dinner, she made sure to book us in to a strict 15 minute breakfast slot that rather belied the image of a 'relaxed getaway'.
Later that evening Mrs Happy described to some 'regulars' - well within earshot of us - her and her chef / host husband's recent 2 week break in California. "Hmmm, nice, but it was the first holiday we'd had since we started this place in 2003...". The regulars sympathised quietly, not quite sure what she was trying to say.
I felt sorry for her, but then I remembered we were paying them 200 quid. She was paid to smile and had somehow forgotten how to make this at least look sincere.
(Music reference in title for pop-pickers: The Lemonheads)

Looks familiar

I have recently left academia after a decade (the reasoning perhaps being a subject of a future blog entry...), and taken a freelance job leading Grizedale Arts 'Creative Egremont' programme - a year long public art project in the largely-unknown West Cumbrian town of Egremont, which sits cheek-by-jowl with Sellafield Nuclear Power Station.
My drive to the town takes me out of the condensed hyper-landscape of the Lake District across a spectacular stretch of moorland near Broughton (pictured). I'm told that at certain times of the day this empty road is filled with boy-racers escaping from their shifts at Sellafield, though I haven't yet experienced this.
What struck me when I first took this route was its familiarity. At first I put this down to its resemblance to my homeland Scotland, and also to the post-academic euphoria of the open road. Now, however, I have become convinced that this sinewy road and its 360 degree panorama is in fact the backdrop for the countless car commercials that bombard us from billboards (ok, not here in the National Park where such hordings are absolutely verboten...), sunday supplements and TV.
Is there no escaping the iconic landscape in this part of the world?

I love America and America loves me

(For non-art readers please Google ‘Beuys, Joseph’ right now)
I don’t think I saw so much as a plain old hound dog let alone a cayote on my recent trip to the ‘alternative’ bit of Texas – Austin - to screen our film ‘Bata-ville’ for the first time on US shores.
The Austin creatures I encountered in the ubercool SXSW Festival were altogether more exotic and strange to my eyes: Grown women screaming ‘Neat shoes!’ at me without alcohol or irony; a bronzed expat Johnny-Lydon-esque cockney guitarist jamming in a thrift store; people so large and immobile that when stationary they could be mistaken for one of those inflatable armchairs.
Film festivals: Tedious though it is to have to summarise one’s film to 75 different people a night, this is pleasingly facilitated by being whisked smoothly through 3 margarita-filled parties a night by friendly, interested and interesting strangers. I don’t get to party much up my mountain, so I like to take big bites of this kind of thing when I can.
During SXSW (music, film & interactive) the city becomes an international but compact circuit for bands, film-makers and geeks – ideal for the time-starved and jet-lagged, the programmes are stimulating but not epic so long as you know what you like. The atmosphere is like a much cooler (but warmer if you know what I mean) Edinburgh Festival for the young(ish) and hip – laidback, a little flirty, and (speaking about the films anyway) eccentric.....

Like many Britons I am ambivalent about America and Americans, though until last week I had never ventured further than New York City (which sees itself as a fashionable suburb of a farflung European city). It takes around 2 days to acclimatise to the relentless friendliness and (we’re more alike than we think) inability to give a straight answer. (I lost count of the times I heard ‘Well ma’am, I cannot give you a precise answer to your query at this time, however....’ instead of “I don’t know”).
And it’s hard to trust a nation whose addiction to fast food compromises almost every waking experience – even arthouse cinemas are filled with a rustling, snacking mob.
And yet there is so much to delight in – at least in Austin: sequins and neon gleefully adorn most stores as if a 7 year old girl has been given the shopfitting contract; potplant cacti growing as rampant and wild on wasteground as foxgloves do here; the literally countless re-interpretations (read ‘refoldings’) of the burrito; the dusk pet-shop cacophony of the vast flocks of grackle birds (spelling?!) roosting in the trees and competing with the live bands everywhere,

Ethno/erotophile

Courtesy of my younger brother’s merciful replenishment of my iPod I have belatedly discovered the Scottish band Arab Strap. They’d previously only been known to me via occasional John Peel mentions and when at a film-making masterclass recently the director Richard Jobson said he’d made a music video for them. (Lucky sod, I say).
I don’t know anything about the band but I’m loving the tracks from The Last Romance album. Come Round and Love Me had the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, which is beyond rare for a cynic like me. The plain instrumentation and mundane eroticism of the lyric intertwine – like a lot of good music - to remind me of a past I don’t know I was nostalgic for: lie-ins in student flats, hangovers and aimless lust.
I am a Scot who has been an expat for 15 years, and perhaps most startling for me is the (re?) discovery of the eroticism of the Scottish male voice in Arab Strap. It’s well over a decade since I had anything erotic to do with a Scotsman, and I’m pretty sure that over that decade I wasn’t conscious of the accent’s specific allure. But something weirdly bubbles up in my subconscious when I listen to this album: I’m sure a psychoanalyst would have a field day on where this is coming from – dad, brothers, my first boyfriend, teacher/s – all vying for space in my ever more crowded psyche.
I’ll eagerly await the invitation to make Arab Strap’ next video and get some of this out....

Radical horticulture

Notable by its absence to date from this blog is my fanatical obsession with gardening, given full reign since my move to the middle of nowhere four years ago from Peckham, where I endured a tiny patch dominated by overzealous plum trees and the neighbour's rottweillers.
To be fair, my garden has its own website, that's how big it is - at www.lawsonpark.org.uk - which I try to maintain in the same relaxed way as the garden itself (a duff link = a dandelion in a corner in this analogy).
Anyway, back to the point - I am truly saddened by the death recently of Christopher Lloyd, arguably Britain's most influential gardener of the 20th century. He lived a privileged bachelor life in his folks' place, Great Dixter in Sussex, and dedicated himself and his resources to his colourful, inspired, exprimental garden there. I was lucky enough to visit last summer, and though many of his gleeful planting experiments can't be replicated up my cold mountain, it was an inspiring day, despite the crowds.



I was particularly struck by his 'still lifes' of potted, clashing plants of both refined and mongrel origins, dotted about (see top image) - and reminded of the work of the noted and IMHO much under-rated (move over Grayson, please) ceramicist Richard Slee. Both men share a mischievious and knowing disregard and manipulation of taste and cliche in their oeuvre. From Richard's fabulous website at www.richardslee.com I have borrowed these pics to hopefully prove my point.

With very different artistic vocabularies, both cock a snook at the bourgois sensibilities of the art or garden-lover, who at first glance sees a covetable 'ornament' and (hopefully) at second glance, a complex codefied challenge.



A highlight of any Dixter visit is the house tour, a not because of the artefacts within the impressive and ancient building (as I understand, transported there bit by bit by Christopher's father). Ours was led by the most entertaining guide never to work for a publicly-funded organisation. A Joyce-Grenfell-a-like, willowy, and oddly ageless lady lead the way with the most hilarious and laconic monologue throughout, interspersed with the kind of almost supernatural authority and understatement that English spinsters were once famed and feared for. Whilst facing the opposite way and commentating on a medieval window, her speech would fluidly transform into a brief but severe reprimant to the a naughty 9 yr old who at that very point was leaning on a rare and valuable antique chair behind her. When faced with explaining some particularly wacky contemporary furniture in CL's office, a deep - and deeply disapproving yet oddly warm sigh preceded her "Christopher Lloyd has been shopping AGAIN..."

LLoyd's prolific writing is justly esteemed too, and I particularly enjoyed it when I was writing for a shortlived garden magazine ' The Northern Garden' a few years ago. Pithy and erudite yet always amusing, I particularly enjoyed reading of his ambivalence to the 'paying public' in his garden. Apparently, when on all fours weeding on an open day (his was a high-maintenance garden, low-maintenance according to him being for the 'uninterested') inevitably a visitor would ask the name of a particular plant. Without turning round or looking up his response would be to ask if the enquirer had a pen and paper ready. "But I'll remember it!' the poor visitor would persist "No, you won't, so it's simply a waste of both of our time me telling you!"
My kind of guy.

Would the Cumbrian film-makers at the back please stand up

Happy New Year to you. I have a good feeling about 2006, my first venture way from home since festive hibernation having been surprisingly good:

Pulling up at the venue for the Cumbrian Film-maker's Network inaugeral 2006 screening, my heart sank somewhat. The bar, a dim 'aluminium-chairs-blond-wood' type of place, had stopped doing food at 6pm due to lack of customers, and we were forced back into Kendal's hellish one-way system to find fish and chips.
However, on returning later with my DVD of my short film 'Welcome To' there was a pretty good crowd, though I was surprised to see mainly the over-50s, many blokes, and very few of what you might guess were filmmakers wanting to network....Jo Hutton, the organiser, is an enterprising young woman who hosts the event too.
Debate was modest but the atmosphere warm, and I squeezed in the trailer for 'Bata-ville' and plugged its next screening at the local-ish Keswick Film Festival (Feb. 19th FYI).
Along with my film there were a number of others procured on the whole through the local screen agency North West Vision. They were kind of slick but not my thing at all. Most of my attention was spent noting the funders logos at the end for future reference.

The highlight was Edward Acland, a local ex-councilor, 'creative soul' (his words) and eco-zealot who had done an exhibition at the Brewery Arts Centre in 2004. The show ("It was an enormous project, it took over a week!" he said. i didn't want to tell him how long most of my projects take...) included a short autobiographical film which was both elegiac and a call to arms against the impending global envornmental crisis. A guy from the world of corporate video had produced the film, which was technically very competent but formally very pedestrian. What made the film so compelling was the charisma and succinctness of Acland's narration, as he told how he had abandoned his dayjob at the Council and now acknowledged the impossibility of radical green politics ever reaching 'the establishment'. Miraculously un-bitter anyway, he spoke passionately about his concerns for the planet's future, in a seductive language which was tinged with the more predictable hippy-dom but which also was energised with an impatience to find new ways to influence people's behavior and awareness of green issues.

Many of my friends would be surprised to hear that I have been a member of Greenpeace since I was 15. I don't wear that side of myself on my sleeve despite my passion for horticulture and early consumption of organic foods (seeking them out when at art college, you had to buy a bag of what was mostly mud from a dingy shop staffed by some very strange people). Naturally, since moving to the middle of nowhere, the dynamic of nature has gradually taken on more significance for me, as I connect again to my childhood weekends and holidays romping on the Arran hillsides until dusk. In many ways I find the culture of the Lake District largely stagnant / static, and so my theory is that this makes you finely attuned to the very dynamic natural world, and by extension more committed to its sustainance. (Note, I don't say 'protection' a la Lake District National Park Authority).
And so I am always delighted and suprised to find people here like Edward, who manage to actually apply what many would deem hopeless idealism to his life and work - maybe this in turn produces culture?

Sportswear - it's really important

I must be getting on. I have a lot more time for Madonna than I used to. I gladly buy into the whole radical older mum of 2 struts her stuff regardless of 21st century social norms. I admire someone who samples the wondrous Abba, possibly the biggest influence on my life between 4 and 6 years old.
But when I saw the grand dame on telly a few weeks ago being interviewed by a sycophantic youngster, she made the mistake of trying to articulate something else that obsessed me between 4 and 6 years old - "Where do ideas come from?"
Madonna, following in the footsteps of so many cultural colossi, cited the need to "find my muse" for every new reincarnation of herself. And this year's muse was - the interviewer enquired...?
"Leotards" she answered, thoughtfully.

Lukewarm Radiator

I hadn’t been out of the Lake District for about a month before travelling last weekend to speak at the Radiator Festival, an art & new media wingding in Nottingham, an idiosyncratic kind of town slash small city, where they have things called the Household Bank and a Leprosy Mission. I think Boots might have started there too (any pharmaceutical relationship to the Mission I wonder). I was looking forward to seeing my friend and one-time mentee Jeanie Finlay who lives there, an artist and film-maker who – like the ideal mentee she was – has surpassed her mentor’s meagre personal and professional achievements in every field. She even speaks Japanese.

I’m something of an alumni of the Radiator festival, having spoken at its first incarnation in 2000. As I recall, a handful of people – almost all working at the event – attended my gig, directly after which the organiser handed me a cheque for £350. Whilst I was still on the stage. I don’t think I have ever been paid more, or more rapidly for any presentation. I liked it.
Arriving at one of the Festival’s main venues, Broadway, after some phenomenally slow service at the town’s Wagamama noodle joint (and remember I’m speaking as someone who endures Lake District speed service on a regular basis) , I joined a late ‘remote’ talk by a commissioned artist. A handful of people, mostly working for the event, clustered around a small computer monitor into which one was typing in an online chat. The roar and fun of the downstairs bar was deafening, and a few semi-detached audience members shared beers at the back of this upstairs ‘space’ – one of those semi-circulatory, transitory rooms which neither invite relaxation or facilitate communication or interaction. I sneaked onto a seat and looked across at the curator Sarah Cook (the chair for our next day’s panel) who I had arranged to meet there, trying to ascertain her level of commitment to the event.

I found myself instantly wondering if anyone from the event had even spoken to anyone in the bar or foyer downstairs about it – announced it I mean, when it was starting, what it was, why they should come? The security guy on the stairs had shrugged when I had asked him what was going on up there. Yes, it’s hard to walk into a crowded room of drinkers and endure a few nanoseconds of embarrassment. Yes a few twats would probably shout at you as you struggle to be heard over the drinking, as you struggle to make ‘moving-upstairs-to-engage-in-an-online-chat-on-a-small-screen-with-some-obscure-foreign-artist-you’ve-not-hear-of ‘ actually sound inviting. But isn’t it the job of a festival like this to try and get new audiences.? Or just any audiences?
I am reminded of the late and much-missed Robert Woof (see my eulogy below), director of the Wordsworth Trust - someone who unfailingly rang you up a few hours before the Trust’s monthly poetry events to personally invite you to attend. You invariably did. As marketing gets, it doesn’t get much more targetted and God knows he must had dreaded doing it some days – I mean, this guy was the Director, not the administrator, he had other stuff to do. But he knew that how to get people in to events – at least outside of the safe haven of London – using a combination of guilt-tripping, manipulation of the English’s fear of embarassment and unwillingness to say no, and a sympathetic acknowledgement that you probably hadn’t read the brochure as closely as you might have.
Anyway, in moments Sarah and I had escaped to the roaring bar and fortunately quickly engaged in an – as ever with Sarah –widerangingly enjoyable but techno-flavoured discussion that included Sarah’s patient responses to:
“Is it just me, or does there seem to be a lot of that academic dance and technology stuff programmed here?”
“Is it just me, or is Open Source for artists really problematic – I mean, you’re not allowed any images on Open Mute’s Omweb thingy....”
“Is it just me, or is this a very small audience?”

You can see that after 4 weeks up my mountain, the Rural Laptop seeks affirmation for her distantly paranoid observations of the cultural world from afar.