I mentioned my mates in Birmingham who have a place in north Wales and for who I took a photo of the stained glass dragon windows at InSitu the architectural antiques place on the Chester Road.
When the fella said he would try to come up to look at them I never really expected him to, but then he called on Monday afternoon and said they were on the way.
Not only that but they loved the bloody things and agreed a price, drove into town to get a deposit, then bought them. They’ll be back in a couple of weeks to pick them up.
When I was waiting for them I nipped across the road to a Chesterfield maker’s showroom and looked at some lovely leather sofas, there was even one in an amazing plush velvet. Purple of course. It looked fantastic.
I’m kinda of thinking back over the week today as I’ve been stuck in avoiding the rain all day. Even the dog seems distinctly pissed off and doesn’t want to do anything I ask her to.
Grim up north, just like they say.
We had the family here at the weekend, always fun, always leaves you knackered.
Among various walks and trips to the pub I also took my nephew down the road to a place called Insitu, it’s an architectural antiques come junk shop kinda place in Manchester’s Castlefield Locks area.
I would love to buy a whole load of old stuff form places like this, but Mrs G is less keen. This time around though I think there are a few things I might just be able to slip in under the radar. There’s a huge sun burst mirror that’ll look great in our living room in Chorlton, and there’s a few sweet old children’s chairs, although I have no idea where they might go.
If I’m feeling brave I might just sneak down there one day this week and snap up the mirror. I also saw a couple of stained glass panels with bold red griffins in them that would suit the house of a couple of friends out in north Wales. They loved the photo I sent them and they’re threatening to come and see them later this week.
The trouble with these places is that they often charge just as much as the bloody things would cost you new. You just find yourself getting carried away by the atmosphere. You also need to be sure that the thing you’re so excited by will actually look any good in your own surroundings as opposed to in a shop with myriad wonderful objects. A hard consideration.
Yesterday I had a meeting over in York with a chap who’s setting up a creative agency. I caught the train and at the start it was a most pleasant journey, pulling out of frozen Manchester and winding into the foothills of the Pennines, but then first stop was Huddersfield and the train filled. The guy sitting next to me firstly ate a bag of stinking chips, then shouted a conversation in whatever African language he spoke into his mobile. He perhaps didn’t grasp the concept that the phone saves the need to shout.
But then York looked like a film set in the snow. My man took me to the Minster instead of lunch. An odd, but inspired choice. We contemplated the years of man hours that went into even small elements, let alone the amazing whole. We then went to his office to talk work with our heads truly on a different level.
I’ve probably been there before, my parents took me most places of significance when I was a lad, but kids don’t care when they’re young and it dropped from memory. Yet I think at any age I’d have been fascinated by the gargoyles in the chapter house. We watched a young guy cutting in a piece of stone with amazing precision, and checked out a goblet with a 32 carat diamond encrusted into it. Surely it was a replica we were looking at?
It’s a different world in York, a special place and I was delighted to spend a few hours there.
Brilliant.
Man just turned up at the door with a nice box. My books from Taschen.
Good packaging with those huge air bubbles and all the books in perfect order despite being supposedly damaged stock.
So far I’ve glanced at the book on Tado Ando, the Japanese architect, and I’ve in love with it already.
There’s one called Trespass which is a sort of ode to the Banksy brigade of urban art graffiti artists and then Brand Identity Now, which will be with me on the train to London in a bit, in fact very soon.
I hope the weather down south is better than here, bloody great hail stones hammering down on Manchester at the moment. They suit my mood though. I feel a bit thundery myself, no doubt in part due to the large number of beers imbibed last night in town before an excellent curry at East 2 East, which I reckon is Manchester centre’s finest.
Better pop a couple of pills and order a cab. No time for taxi now. Silly arse that I am.
Sat on the train now, unusually empty and I’ve got a table seat to myself. Not that I’m going to work though. What I really need is a pillow. It won’t be a difficult meeting, but nonetheless I need to be on the ball. In my memory print suddenly gets a whole lot cheaper when the buyer starts to walk away.
I love books. I buy more books than I read. I love book shops. And even though I think I’d love a kindle for reading at night, or for the convenience of just popping it into my pocket, I reckon I’d still buy a hard copy of most of the books that I read.
I got carried away on the Taschen website on Sunday night and popped several into my virtual basket, but knowing the danger of shopping after a few drinks I was sensible enough to not go to the checkout until Tuesday. But then I went for it. Architecture, branding, art. Yee ha! Hope the delivery comes before the weekend, and when I’m here alone so I don’t have to justify my frivolous purchasing.
I’ll take the branding book with me to London next week to swot up on my way to the printers in london which I found through the city visitor site, but who turned out to be hugely helpful. they’re going to be doing some work for a client who seems to be using me as his marketing manager as well as business advisor. Have to admit I quite enjoy it as I get to practise a bit more of what I preach.
But back to the books. I don’t care for paper diaries, but Taschen say they’ll send a free one of theirs, I guess they have a few thousand left that they need to shed. I reckon I might even start using it for a retro feel.
I’m a radio lover, it shows all the time as I can’t be bothered to commit the time investment needed for TV, but radio? Well you can just tune in and out when you want, and do other stuff, like sleep, iron, eat etc. Yes I know some claim to do all these things while watching TV, but I just don’t believe it’s possible.
And this morning was so rewarding I’d like to somehow preserve the brilliant Today Programme and Saturday Live to listen to time and time again.
The Today Programme had the last of their guest editors, a comedian I haven’t heard of called Stuart Lee, but he brought in some great contributions, including his mate the avant-garde trombonist, some guy who did a brilliant alternative to thought for the day, and best of all Salford’s finest mad man made star, The Fall’s loud haler toting Mark E Smith who mumbled his way through a crap but very funny interview, getting in as many Manchester Catch Phrases as possible with Nice One, followed by Arrright. It was great, even if only because it was so utterly alien to the programme as we know it.
The I dozed a bit I reckon because next I was listening to some guy talking about My Square Mile, a project I want to look into and learn more about that’s the brainchild of the fellow who did the big lunch with Tim Schmidt.
Now there’s a special year round up on From Our Own Correspondent. What more could you ask for?
Many years ago I bought an album in what was for years my favourite music shop, a place called Swordfish Records in Birmingham, Temple Hill I think it was on. The album was Mirador by Tindersticks, I heard a track playing when I was in the musty shop and had to have the woman’s haunting voice at home with me.
For years I didn’t look for more, and in fact I didn’t even know for sure which was the album title and which was the band. It mattered not. The music was slow, sometimes mariachi, and chilled me to the bone, but raised an ardour that music could manage back then.
Thinking about it now made me think too of a bar called Sputnik, underground as were several Brummie drinking haunts. It was all painted red, probably served cheap drinks and played great tunes. A gang of us would decamp there after work and drink ourselves into the ground – (who looked after the dog my adult responsible self now asks?). We drank K Cider. I loved the bottles. I fancied a girl madly, I probably tried to undress her there. I may have succeeded. We partied there when I did my first major job transfer. Later one of the girls fell asleep/unconscious in her balti. We were 30, or less, it happened.
Tindersticks are playing now. I love them still.
I saw them a while later supporting Nick Cave, probably the only decent support in all the years I’ve been seeing him, and certainly the only ones to out dress the Badseeds.
Music. Drink. Poetry. Love. Passion. Joy. Art. Youth.
Music. Beauty. Appreciation. Love. Tranquility. Art. Passion, enacted in a different way.
The progress of life.
Wow. I was feeling angry and depressed after a trip to the dentist earlier. Bear with me on the dentist story, it gets better.
I had horrible root canal work a couple of years back, with a very expensive crown fitted, or almost fitted as it never quite sat right and I could suck some grim juice out of the tooth at times. Anyway the crown fell out a few weeks back, but I was pleasantly surprised to only pay £20 to have it refitted. But since then it has started to break up.
I drive into town this afternoon. Park up, lock the car, but as I’m walking away I hear its alarm going off. I hadn’t realised it even had an alarm! Which means I’ve probably subjected the poor dog to the alarm several times. I then leave it unlocked, and worry for the next hour that someone will steal the dog – I don’t care too much about the car.
And the dentist? He tells me I need a new crown, and the tooth next to it is rotten so I need a big and nasty filling too. Over £200 on NHS for an ugly silver filling and crown, or a scary £500+ for white. Bloody hell!
But then it got worse as I left and wondered back towards the Northern Quarter. It starts raining, then hailing. I duck into Incognito, and see the most fabulous, dark, nasty, empty art – Manchester After An Apocalypse. If I had visited before the dentist I definitely would have bought one or more of these, and in fact I’m going to work out funds later. Can’t imagine Mrs G is going to be happy with one of these in the flat, so it’ll have to be in my office, which is also the spare bedroom – watch out guests!
I’m now feeling more disappointed that I didn’t get to the Baltic the other day to see the four Turner Prize finalists. I’d have liked to have been able to put my valueless judgement on which entrant I expected to win.
Martin Boyce’s sculpture is interesting, and I loved his random little interview on the Telegraph site. To my mind if he’s saying that his work just evolves and it’s hard to know when it’s complete then there’s no master plan. However saying that, so what?
I can’t pretend that I’ve got a master plan for life right now. I think what’s required is some sort of garden room that I can go to spend a couple of hours a day to think things through. It’s a lovely idea, but I don’t actually reckon it’d make any difference. I’d just move things around the desk or table, like dad used to in his shed. He’d go there for hours, pot up a few plants, clean a few things that weren’t dirty. Or he’d go to his garage which was about half a mile up the road . I never realised at the time that he was just getting away, having some sacred quiet time while the family functioned in its funny old way. I’d be sent to get him at meal time and we’d have a laugh on the way back to the house.
In actual fact the idea of a garden room becomes ever more attractive looked at that way. Just a place to go that’s mine, a den, a man cave as the Americans would call it. I can’t quite see it happening in a rented flat though. If we owned it then I could possibly come up with some mad plan to create a space on the roof – now that would be cool. Fabulous views, I could have a little garden, and no one would know I was there.
Am I still young enough to enter the Turner? Shed scape? Tracey Emin for blokes?
Dream on Glass.