Bignjuicy

I was thinking the other day about all the bosses I’ve ever had and how I only ever had respect for one of them and that was because he was mild mannered and left me alone to do my thang. All of the others have been minor egos of small brain carving out roles such as the best paperclip unclipper in East Catford, the most well thought of arranger of unpacking schedules since the last bloke got promoted to regional unpacker or the most improved keeper of lever arch files in the history of punched dividers. Then I thought it would be interesting to record on the interweb a description of the hairstyles of these bosses as I remember them; for all, as I recall, had awful hairstyles. This may be because I grew to loathe them and loathe everything about them – including hairstyle. However I think on reflection that they really were tonsorially deficient and that this was an outward sign of their inner crapness and why has it taken me so long to recognise this obvious sign of someone that you should not work for? Anyway, on with the show.

Bill was my first boss. He was an owlish man with neatly cut hair that had a natural curl. It was arranged in a classic 1950s cut which suited him perfectly. He was a fifties kinda guy. I liked Bill but left after a year as I couldn’t stand filling in pink forms and then transferring the details to green and white forms and anyway I had a far better offer that involved booze, sex and travel.

My next boss was called Richard but [ and this is an indication of the measure of the man and his general lack of nous ] he liked to be called ‘Dick’. I need not go on as you will now appreciate with that revelation that this was a boss who could never be taken seriously. Yet he compounded this massive credibility blunder by having his straw blond hair cut in a Joe 90 style that framed his corpulent red face making him appear like a strawberry trifle about to explode. I left after three years as I had a better offer that involved booze, money for not working and the chance to go on a high technology bender.

My next boss was Scottish and sported a well coiffed grey curly mop which was piled up on top of his head and attached at either side to a bushy beard – also grey. The whole effect was of a startled hawk [ he had most disconcertingly dead eyes and a hooked nose ] trying to escape from a brillo pad ]. He was a cold steely calculating man who couldn’t be trusted. I found this out when he backstabbed me. I left because I couldn’t stay. A moment longer.

Hair today, more hair tomorrow.

Interesting to see that saintgeorgesflagiatis transcends all socio economic strata. This house in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is for sale at £1.4 million. I expect that the neighbours are sad to lose this tasteful resident.

I’m aware that what I’m about to write is largely subjective but I think that most people will relate to it. Do you remember when you were little and you happened upon something with a colour or colours that grabbed your attention? Do you remember being completely captivated by the colour? Taken up into it, wanting to eat it, feeling the colour and taking it into yourself? [ No I've not taken anything honest ] I’m trying to convey the sense of how we can experience colours on an intense emotional level and I think maintaining a link with or memory of our childhood joy with colour is the best way of doing this. On Wednesday I was lucky enough to go to the preview of Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction 1908-1922 which has just opened at Tate Modern. I’ve been longing for this for months since I first learned that it was coming. I’ve been a fan of old Wassily for a long time but he has remained a mysterious figure and I still don’t know that much about him. I do know though that I’m mesmerised by his paintings. A bit like a cat on catnip, I go all funny. The nearest thing to the way I experience them is the childhood fascination I opened with. A bit like eating the frutiest fruity sweetie and relishing every last suck. The narrative of the exhibition makes much of Kandinsky’s use of classical music as the inspiration for his work. He developed a rich visual language which seemed to be a way of representing and stimulating spiritual development. Using abstraction he was able to set aside his feelings of revulsion at the materialism of modern life. He was deep. Deeper than the average bear.

Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstraction and much is owed to him by those who followed him. The representation of inner states through a personal visual language is one of the key foundations of modern art. Kandinsky was a pioneer of this approach. There is a huge collection of canvasses in the show which chart his development from early Russian landscapes through to his later more formal geomtric work. I loved it all but most of all loved the massive compositions in rooms 6 and 7. These canvasses are 3 metres across and as such can occupy your whole field of view so that you are taken up into the instense swirling abstract forms and beautiful colours of the work. Kandinsky was a master of colour. If you need inspiration for any project involving colour go and look at his work. He combines colours in ways that render them fresh and surprising. They vibrate off the canvas. His use of deep blues and brush work that somehow makes the colours glow in that fruity sweetie way I find very moving. This is the largest Kandinsky show in the UK for over thirty years so you must go! Me, I’ve got a season ticket – I’ll be the one in ecstasy in room 7.

They don’t make em like that anymore
Blake spurned Alexis and in retaliation she found his long-departed brother Ben and they swindled Blake out of his fortune. An enraged Blake tried to strangle Alexis to death at the Carrington mansion (which now belonged to Alexis), just as the hotel La Mirage burned down, killing Claudia. In the next season, Blake recovered his money, but was rendered an amnesiac in an explosion. Alexis found him and convinced him they were still married, but felt guilty and told him the truth. Blake and Krystle also had to deal with their daughter Krystina being kidnapped.

Farewell Aaron Spelling, you made ‘mind candy’ and married wife candy.
Your shoulderpads will live on in our hearts.
Shame about Linda Evans face.

Cat
I first wrote about parkour back then. Now it may be time for you to learn how to perform the cat leap. If only I could master the wall grip I could transform my travel habits and reduce my petrol bill considerably.

Dog
“We picture a Gromit with a shiny back and nose where thousands of kids have wanted to sit on him.”
At last a statue that people might actually enjoy. I think this one might be the permanent solution to the fourth plinth. Better still why not have one in every town?

Wig

Who would pay 6000 quid for a wig?
Elton, Tezza?

It’s all getting a bit out of hand.

I’m restless this week. There’s a sense at the moment of having to wait for things to happen. For the pieces to gradually move themselves into the correct position and then the game will be complete. [ Or at least a new game will be ready to begin]. I’ve been looking around at alternative locations to live in the UK. For several reasons, Bignjuicyville is losing its appeal. If I could transplant Bignjuicy Central to a new, less dodgy, location then that would be ideal. However it looks as though I may be trading out if I want to go somewhere more to my liking. Which brings me to the issue of where would be to my liking? It would have to be not far from civilisation – so no remote villages, islands or Hartlepool. I would have to be within travelling distance of the capital – maybe 2 hours max. Or maybe within travelling distance of another capital – which opens up the whole possibility of Bignjuicy International. I would want to live in an interesting building – so no polystyrene suburban newbuild UPVC infested lifestyleagogo modules [with appliances] for me please. It would be nice to have a view and maybe be near some natural beauty. Perhaps, most importantly, it would be nice to be able to relax in the knowledge that some socially or economically challenged young person may be unlikely to decide to mindlessly vandalise, break into or otherwise interfere with my abode nor indeed act out a scene from some urban nightmare involving knives, mini motorcycles, baseball caps, underage smoking or illegal drugs within a ten mile radius of my house. The other thing is that I don’t want to have massive mortgage debts so it has to be affordable. Am I likely to fulfill all of my requirements or do you think I need to get real and go back on the game?

Balls
Great British parody of the recent Sony bouncing balls advert.

Feeling hemmed in?
If your environs feel a tad claustrophobic at the moment you might like to take a look at this BBC gallery. We seem driven by a need to live ever closer together, yet we need our space. Me? I’m just feeling grateful that I have a few square yards to call my own.

he’s the man, the man with the Midas touch
A spider’s touch
Such a cold finger beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don’t go in

Never one to be deterred by a Bond Movie title song, I decided to enter the domain of Mr Goldfinger last Sunday. Nestling at the foot of Hampstead Heath, its unassuming presence has been the source of huge controversy since 1939 when large volumes of concrete steel and glass were deposited on the site of what had been victorian cottages. 2 Willow Road is the central, largest, house in a terrace of three designed and built in an uncompromising modernist style by Mr Ern&ouml Goldfinger – architect of the now ubercool Trellick Tower in west London. Goldfinger had a major fight on his hands when trying to build at Willow Road. He was opposed by several ultra conservative local residents including author Ian Fleming. Fleming, as we know, went on to create the character of Auric Goldfinger so beloved of megalomaniac bling freaks worldwide. Ern&ouml took legal advice when the book was published as use of his name was widely seen as a revenge tactic by Fleming.
But what of the house? Surprising in its scale. Large, but not as large as the exterior would suggest. The rooms are light filled but there is the shabby air of a home-made-museum where an attempt has been made to freeze a life exemplified by yellowing books, collected knick knacks and a simply fabulous art collection. The Goldfingers [ wife Ursula was heiress to the Crosse & Blackwell fortune ] were party people and the house was designed to open up and become a large entertaining space. Rooms were sparingly furnished with much of the contents self designed. Plenty of wood panelling and cool painted walls. A surprisingly poky kitchen [ think 3x toilet cubicle size ], a magnificent cantilevered spiral staircase – the best feature I think. I was reminded of the Festival Hall in the house’s interior finishes, elevations and aesthetic. Remarkable, this, given that the hall came twenty years later. Goldfinger was a serious man and apparently did not mellow much with age, fighting battles until late in life. A recent BBC Imagine programme about Trellick described him as, ‘knowing what he was doing’. His determination in building at Willow Road has created something remarkable whilst not to my [ and I suspect many others ] taste has inspired much that has followed. Cool to have a Bassey song sung about you too.

Links
2 Willow Road – National Trust site.
Wikipedia entry.
Profile of Goldfinger.

I was reading earlier the story of how Mark Rothko had been commissioned by the architect Philip Johnson in the fifties to paint a series of murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building in NYC. Rothko painted some seriously disturbing murals – the intention being to upset the appetites of the diners or, as he called them, ‘rich bastards’. Rothko had a fairly prickly character according to those that knew him and, after dining in the restaurant one evening, he decided that even though he’d completed the murals they would not be going to the restaurant. Instead, he eventually donated them to the Tate Gallery in London and they are now housed at Tate Modern. [Here's a sample]. My one and only visit to ‘The Rothko Room’ when it was at the old Tate Gallery left me feeling deeply disturbed. In fact, I could barely stay in the room for more than a few minutes such was the unsettling, almost primordial emotion evoked by the dull lighting, and massive canvasses lining every wall, each painted in blood like shades. I’m shuddering now just thinking about it. This is certainly confirmation for me that images can transmit very powerful spiritual messages that can affect you on a subconscious level. I’m feeling a certain resonance with Rothko because this week so far has been a bad Karma week. Quite a lot of negative stuff going on and quite a lot of it I think stemming from the incessant day and night heat we’ve been having. The Bignjuicy Box of Love packed up for a few days leaving me unable to post here and I’ve only just managed this evening to get some kind of connection via adhoc pieces of wire and new black boxes I can ill afford. I’m hoping the week gets better now it’s getting cooler. Next week I’m going to look at some happy pictures in the exhibition I’ve been waiting a year to see. Should lift my mood – we love a bit of Kazza.

News junkie heaven
This is very clever and not a little amazing. I knew it was worth paying my licence fee.