Erasing The Evidence

There was an incident back in January, the evidence in the form of a big discoloured splash on the wall has remained to taunt me long after the yellow and purple bruises on my nose faded. My time at the Pop Flat in London is coming to an end and I must leave my room in the condition that I found it - this morning I wielded a brush loaded with white paint.

I’ll be sorry to go, Half a Pop Group went away for a month during my time here. Since they’ve been back the house has been full of the new tunes they made up during their trip, the Child has not yet been emptied of the helium produced by the excitement of her adventures so we have all been testing the songs loudly for singalongandanceability.

I am also less likely to wake and find myself engulfed in flames these days. My housemate Felicity has a habit of starting to make her supper then wandering off to gaze at the patterns on her bedroom floor - the Child has a sharp young nose and is very good at banging on Felicity’s door and yelling

FELICITY WAKE UP – YOUR RICE IS ON FIRE!


Malick Sidibé

On my table is the evidence of a photographic exhibition I visited a couple of days ago in West London; Malick Sidibé is well known for his photographs taken at clubs and parties in Mali during the 50s and 60s. This show is a selection of studio portraits from the 70s that Sidibé has reprinted with additional handwritten titles which give an extra, often comical, dimension to the images.

It seems that the entire population of the country piled into Sidibés studio to have their photograph taken in their grooviest clothes against a backdrop of stripey African cloth, the men flaunting their fashionable slim-fit shirts (the collars, the collars!) and their wider than wide flares (pantalon aux pattes d'éléphant), the women combining traditional ‘wax’ fabric head and body wraps with chic sunglasses and western-style tops, this is a portrait of a nation at a particular time in their history. Every subject, gazes intensely, proudly out of the frame, even the dribbley-faced child clutching an oversized comb has a dignified solemnity about her.

There is so much to love about this show, superb photography, great printing - and these are the best fashion images I have ever seen.


Lichfield Studios, London W10 from 11 March-16 April

Pot Heads

The Australians reckoned that having come as far as England they might as well 'do Europe' while they were at it, they have disappeared, leaving me alone in the Pop Flat with Felicity. It feels like we're doing a middle-aged remake of an 80s comedy series.



Felicity gets back every evening from a job that she loathes, she deals with the horror by smoking her way through a large amount of marijuana, then she gets really hungry and prepares a late feast – usually something involving lots of vegetables and rice. The only pot big enough to hold the quantity of food she thinks she'll want to eat has part of it’s side broken off along with one of the handles. There's a lid from a different pot that sits on top of the one-eared pot and I've got rather fond of the sight of this odd pairing.








So imagine my sadness the other day when I saw that the mismatching lid, had broken in half – but it's ok - I’ve mended it, we only had string and sellotape in the house, I think the string will work best.

Living Conditions I

Currently I spend my weekdays in London and go back home for the weekend. Last autumn I house-sat a friends art collection in her swishy pad in West London for a couple of months. This was sort of great but also a bit tense, the immaculateness of the pale carpets and the fragile and valuable Works of Art made me nervous, I wore latex gloves and a hairnet in the flat and put paper on the sofa before I sat on it.

At Christmas my friend returned to guard her own art so I needed to find alternative weekday accommodation. I placed a couple of very brief ads asking if anyone had a room to let. I’m a bit out of touch with this sort of thing, but is it normal to reply to 'Accommodation Wanted’ ads with full details of one’s divorce arrangements?

This person (who gave no name or other indication of identity) lives about as far away as one could get from the area I specified

Hi,
I am living in canary wharf in a 1 bed apartment means 1 bed room and living room , if you need you can take my bedroom whereas I am happy to adjust in living room till march 1st week.

Amount will not be a problem , can talk about that if you like and see the apartment.

your comfort is my main concern

take care

thanks

I spent a weekend visiting the best of the proposals, all of them were astonishing in one way or another, one chain-smoking care worker showed me a tiny bedroom full of teddy bears, the rest of the house contained a lot of purple sculpted-pile carpet and was strewn with empty beer cans and overflowing ashtrays. The next flat had a large splashy bloodstain in the hallway which put me off a bit. And then there was Polly;

Polly sent me a very long response detailing the fabulousness of her Chelsea apartment, the 'spacious living room' with 'gorgeous soft furnishings', the 'outside patio for barbeques in the summer', the 'well-equipped kitchen' and the 'vast bath for sumptuous soaking after a hard day’s work'. I was suspicious but I had to see it.

I found the address and tinkled the wind chime by the door of a basement flat, the door opened onto a small grotto-like space partitioned into 'rooms’ with thin bits of board, the smells of cat wee and mould were overwhelming. To hide the mouldy areas Polly had recently glued bits of brightly-coloured fabric over the window sills and skirting boards.

To emphasise the lack of space, the flat was decorated with strings of Tibetan prayer flags and crammed with garage-sale scavenged items, including 2 washing machines and a tumble drier. Polly had rigged up some wobbly storage systems to accommodate bread makers, coffee makers, kettles and assorted broken pots.

My first step through the front door put me in the centre of the 'kitchen’ which consisted of doll-sized sink, the two-ring, Baby Belling hob was set on the drainer which I didn’t notice at first because both hob and sink were covered over with saucepans and plates,
Look! she pointed up at one of the perilously crammed shelves
there’s an ice cream-maker - we can make ice cream!

Polly has many cats, they peered at us as she insisted I went into the bathroom, squeeze my way between the bath and sink and inspect the 'designer’ loo seat, the front of the lavatory was right against the back of the bath - to use it one would have to sit sidesaddle.

I’d been there 5 minutes, I was feeling very queasy and said that I had to leave.

I went out of the door and Polly followed me, in the rain, wearing fat pink felt bootees, this pale pixie-like person bobbed alongside me keeping up a stream of information about her health problems as I tried not to break into a run towards the station as she grabbed my arm, telling me to look in the windows of the local restaurants and shops so I could see what a great neighbourhood we were in.

In the early hours of the next morning Polly sent me a text suggesting that I could stay for the first month for free.

I resisted this bargain and have chosen instead to move in with half a pop group for a little while...