Do you like Spalding?

Well, the straightforward answer is, I don’t know, I’ve never Spalded. I was hoping to yesterday, but all I managed was a mild fumbling in the outer reaches, staring out onto the bleak Fens, trying to detect the curvature of the Earth. I figured that this much advertised feature of our planet might be emphasised indirectly in this famously level part of the country by a row of pylons, or more fundamentally by a curious horizon-disturbing muddy bulge, perhaps even by an otherwise unexplained vertical-plane convexity in the transits of farm animals of the porcine variety, but no. All was flatness, as far as the eye could see. Not only did I fail in this task, but also I never penetrated to the metropolitan Spaldingian core to the extent I desired.

So in matters Spalding, against my wishes, I remain pure and virginal, though slightly damp. Why? Because it rained.

It wasn’t supposed to. I blame the BBC. Blaming the BBC is a popular pursuit – and should be if you’re in any sense a normal(ish) middle of the road resident of Middle England watching BBC1 ‘News at Ten’ and wanting unbiased, objective, varied, comprehensive and relevant news, rather than irrelevant, agenda-heavy, rigidly themed, carefully selected trivia and skewed opinion. But that’s just my opinion (and that of most people I talk to, although most have given up watching it).

News is one thing, weather another. Weather isn’t amenable to attempts at social engineering or reversing the decision on Brexit or a putative visit from the president of our greatest ally. However, holding the purveyor of weather forecasts responsible for its “product” (and by extension the weather itself), seems perfectly justified. Why should one be satisfied with untruths, with duff information? If the person in the enquiry office tells you that the train is going at 10.15 and it leaves on the dot at ten, and you miss it, would you be happy? If the weather forecast is likely to be untrue, why don’t they tell you? Or give you a percentage reliability estimate (like “0 %”). In fact, why do they bother at all?

For a long while, when planning a weekend trip, I’ve observed (online this is, rather than on the telly), from about a week earlier, that Saturday and Sunday hence are invariably going to be gloriously sunny. Good. I start planning. On Tuesday there’s a hint of light cloud accumulating. By about Wednesday the forecast for Sunday is looking iffy; by Thursday there are dark clouds looming for Saturday. When Saturday comes it’s piddling down, all day, it hardly gets light at all, Sunday likewise. Monday, of course, will be gorgeous. So will the following weekend. I’ve begun to notice this trend.

Armed with this suspicion and the prospect of a life-changing trip to Spalding, Lincolnshire, I decided to do a little test. You should not regard this as in any way scientific, reliable, meaningful, representative, statistically valid, or anything from which you can draw conclusions. It isn’t, it’s just a little test. I kept a log of the forecasts as given each day of last week.

So, back to the previous Saturday, and the forecast for Spalding for this Saturday, the one that’s just gone. Amazingly, contrary to suspicion, not a fat round sun symbol, but light cloud, a 12 mph wind from the WSW, and a daytime temperature of 9 degrees. Fine, I thought, I’ll go. I’ll get to have a look round Spalding. Quite similar was the forecast on Sunday, wind speed and temperature both up a notch. By Monday, however, a big black cloud had arrived for Saturday, with a spot of rain. Never mind, Tuesday and Wednesday were back to similarity with the earlier forecasts, with light cloud, daytime temperature of 8 degrees, and WSW winds of 12 or 13 mph. By Thursday the wind for Saturday had increased to 18 mph, the rain was back on the agenda, but the temperature had gone up a couple of degrees. Similar was the forecast on Friday, although the rain had gone away again.

Then to the day itself, yesterday, Saturday 27th January. The environs of Spalding. The clouds were scraping the tops of the pylons, the mud was well muddy, the pigs weren’t flying due to poor visibility, and the rain was piddling down. The Earth remained flat, all day. Spalding lives to be enjoyed another day.

“Interchange”

Yesterday afternoon I hung in our dining room the biggest painting I’ve ever done, 60 cm high by 80 cm across, oil on canvas. Not huge by conventional standards, but it’s taken me longer than anything I’ve done before. “Interchange” is its working title.

 

“Interchange”   © R. Abbott 2018

Mostly I avoid working too closely from photographs, as that can lead to pictorial sterility and other difficulties, although as in this case I sometimes have photos to hand for reference. For “Interchange” there was quite a lot of detail I needed to capture, and the perspective was a bit of a bugger – a technical expression used by artists. Briefly I contemplated a photorealist approach, but that’s not really me, and I couldn’t be doing with all the faff, and so the end product looks more impressionistic, but is consistent  with my other efforts. Yes, I think it looks like one of mine and, though paintings rarely turn out as well as one would hope, and the accompanying photograph does nothing to flatter it, I’m not too unhappy with the outcome.

The subject is a panorama of the District Line platforms at Earl’s Court station in West London, looking in the direction of Warwick Road. Earl’s Court is notoriously one of the densest, most opaque, and most unwelcoming parts of London, on the axis leading in from Heathrow. “Cosmopolitan” would be a naff descriptor that seems to have fallen out of fashion. It has for a long time been popular with ex-pats and transients of all sorts, agencies of many kinds, hotels large and small and occasionally dodgy, students and the reclusive elderly, enthusiasts for specialised forms of sexual fulfilment, television sitcom actors, and it presents an overall atmosphere supportive of the popular notions of loneliness, anonymity and alienation in the big city. An area characterised by single occupancy, it is one catering also for large exhibitions and mass entertainment. The station, though a frequent point of transit for inhabitants and visitors alike, is quite different. Sub-surface,  it is, as it were, atmospherically detached from and immune to its immediate surroundings; it could be somewhere else entirely.

A glance at the diagrammatic Underground map will show that, besides its connection with the Piccadilly Line which runs beneath, the District Line (the green one) has its off-centre focus here, its systemic nodal point. This greatly affects the nature of the station’s usage. Assuming one is not alighting here, but is merely passing through, typically one arrives here from suburbs like Wimbledon or Putney, Ealing or Richmond, comfortable, sporty places to the west and south-west of the city – indeed, green places. At Earl’s Court, depending on the origins of one’s journey,  one may need to change, probably crossing conveniently to the adjacent platform, or waiting on the one where one has just arrived, in order to continue onwards towards Kensington, Paddington and Edgware Road, occasionally to the exhibition spaces of Olympia, but most probably to head for the West End or the City, or even further on through East London to Upminster, half way to Southend-on-Sea. One will be aided by ancient and very unusual destination screens, blue, with electric white arrows. Interchange is a principal function of the station, hence the title of the painting.

 
Because of the proximity of several affluent retail areas – Kensington, Chelsea, and Knightsbridge – over the last century or so Earl’s Court station must have featured in the pleasant shopping trips of millions, especially in the season leading up to Christmas. I feel this place to be very English, rather feminine in its clientele, self-contained and psychologically safe, cosy, with happy associations and connotations, and a sense of historical continuity – indeed, it is somewhere that has often made me feel very good to be alive, and to be in the capital city. Slightly pretentiously I could call the painting something News of the Worldish like “All human life is there”, or “Life Itself”, but I won’t. It’s a valid implication, though. While not specifically representative of the pre-Christmas period, that was the time of year when I painted most of it, although it took me into the new year to finish. I hope and believe that I’ve caught some of the atmosphere I wanted. I hope you like it too.

The Three Esses

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We will press for the harshest penalties against anti-social behaviour, which includes complaining about such matters as the consumption of smelly food by fellow passengers, the parking of obesity scooters across the exits, the repeated chanting of “Chelsea are wankers”, children playing with guns or knives or sulphuric acid, the use of electronic toys with the volume turned right up, or the fact that this vehicle is running extremely late. Hate crimes - such as smiling at people who are drop-dead gorgeous, avoiding people who are barking mad, extremely smelly or otherwise obnoxious, or offering one’s seat to someone perceived to be in some way different from oneself – are all deeply offensive and will be dealt with severely. This is a no smoking vehicle and the use of cigarettes and e-cigarettes will be tolerated.

 
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Un homme qui dort and a manky dawn

Triggered by a pre-Christmas article in the “Information Professional” I’ve been binge-reading strange French person Georges Perec. Last night was the turn of “A Man Asleep”, a thoroughly depressing account of a 25-year-old moderately comfortable flâneur wandering repetitively around Paris, experiencing only indifference, distaste, meaninglessness, boredom and – in fact – depression, in the midst of one of the world’s most fascinating cities. The story not only succeeded in depressing me but got me thinking about mood in general, as a determinant of how one perceives and responds to the world at large. How could one be indifferent to Paris? Easily, it appears. In particular it got me thinking about seasonal and epochal moods. I know I’m getting old and all that, but is the entire world depressed these days? Evidently, the future isn’t what it used to be.

Perhaps it’s just me. I’m not good at New Year (or as the Americans call it, New Year’s, just like they call Sgt Pepper Sgt Pepper’s. Irritating, even though they have a stable genius looking after them).

Except in those years when sad personal events have occurred, like bereavements, I’m never keen to move on into a new year, never eager to take that giant step among the midnight bongs (tinnier this year than usual) out into the chronological ‘here be dragons’. I get to feel safe within a year, at home, comfortable, temporarily immortal. Christmas acts throughout much of the year as a psychological target, a magnet to be drawn towards, but also implicitly as a barrier, an endpoint. As the autumn progresses the sense of safety and comfort intensifies. I feel pleased with myself, getting things done, finishing off another batch of futile projects that no one will be interested in, tidying up. I cannot, as it were, see beyond Christmas and its impassability.

Over this last year we’ve had a lot of Ginger Harry, but do you remember Blonde Harry and “picture this, a dying December”? I never do - until it’s too late. I always suppress the fact that it will die.

Well into December, it’s only when I start calculating coldly that I realise, so many days from now, not only will Christmas be gone, but it will be well into bleak January. Into another year. Who knows what can happen then? We’re not talking climate change here, but experience suggests that the world will be colder than ever. Progress isn’t something I look forward to. It’s probably the same sort of calculation that my hypochondriac cousin makes, when he bumps into the realisation that in the same time forward since his last bowel scrape or urological probe  backward, he will be dead and buried. The kind of calculation that should come with a warning: Don’t Go There. Actually, that’s probably why he’s a hypochondriac. Nurse, nurse, my brain hurts.

Without consciously desiring to be in any way bah-humbuggy about it, I sense the flatness of New Year and the whole post-Christmas sagorama well before the big day arrives. My ability to anticipate pleasurably is not what it once was; I suppose I’ve lived through too many Christmasses and subconsciously I know I’m never going to be given another Knockout Fun Book or pile of Meccano spares. Already, long before The Day is over, I’ll notice that oh-so-familiar sinking feeling, and it’s not just the sprouts. The Day passes in all its sherry timetabled Queen at 3 pm predictability, and soon it’s over, sooner than most days. Even the sprouts were harmless.

Then there are those few days out of time, protected from the future, cossetted by war films and chocolate decorations off the tree, until New Year’s Eve arrives. Midnight strikes, the telly gets muted and the hyperactive Eye put in its place while the important phone calls are made, the fireworks erupt all around the neighbourhood for their fifteen minutes of fame, and I wander outside, hoping to share a greeting with a neighbour, hoping to prolong the old year by even a minute or two, to transiently reboot the festivities, maybe to chink a glass or two and to make a new friend. But no, there’s never anybody there; they’ve always all gone to bed at half past ten and switched their outside decorations off. The next morning it’s dark and damp and not particularly cold and it’s back to normal, the world is as manky as ever, the same crap people are in charge, the same old same old, and it’s another year when it’s hardly ever Christmas.

But at least we’re still here, and the alternative is worse. Poor John, poor Peter, poor Chris. They didn’t make it into 2018. Absent friends.

Anyway, back to zero, another year to build up laboriously, another year to start from scratch, another year to get comfy in.

Happy New Year