Hockney: 60 years work at the Tate

London,spring 2017

London is gearing up for spring, bad weather and transport problems getting sorted, it will be quite a season for theatre and art folk.

The big new David Hockney exhbition opens at the Tate, and runs till May. Expect the crowds back, as they were at his Royal Academy exhibitions in recent years.
Few British artists have made a bigger splash than Hockney, so, after six decades keeping the art market (all those posters and books) afloat, the 79-year old enjoys a major retrospective of his work at The Tate, iconic swimming pools and all. 9 Feb to 29 May.

Lots of theatre revivals: we will be booking for the new BOYS IN THE BAND, led by Mark Gatiss, coming into town this month. 

I am seeing DREAMGIRLS on 22 February, Amber Riley is the latest Effie and she has been getting rave reviews.

Imelda Staunton returns (after her GYPSY success) in a major revival of Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? - Albee died last year, and it will be interesting to see another actress as Martha - most people now only know the Elizabeth Taylor version in Mike Nichols' 1966 film.

The latest HAMLET is that fascinating actor Andrew Scott (Moriarty to Benedict's SHERLOCK), but it seems the Almeida Theatre production is completely sold out already - but it should have live screenings to cinemas, as they did last year with Ralph Fiennes' RICHARD III.

The National are also doing a major new revival of ANGELS IN AMERICA, with an interesting cast led by Russell Tovey, Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane etc. and the National are also tacking a new Sondheim FOLLIES later this year, Imelda will also be headlining that ....

Hockney style

As per other reports here, we first discovered David Hockney in the 1960s - that new age of the colour supplements, which featured him a lot. Not only the art, but we liked the look too - he actually looked like the work he produced. It was a very individual look for 1966, of course he had dyed his hair blonde and those round black glasses - as I saw myself then (as mentioned before, Hockney label). 

I was 20 in 1966 and had moved to central London, Bayswater - a short walk to trendy Notting Hill Gate, where I ventured into my first gay pub, in or near Pembridge Villas. A man with that look was there, it could only have been Hockney, maybe visiting from LA. I recognised him right away, but just had a drink and left. Perhaps if I had lingered, I may have been a pool boy myself?  Right: I have had this French poster framed, since 1974.

Jack Hazan's film A BIGGER SPLASH, daring at the time,  continued our fascination with David and his 1970s coterie. He later said he had not realised how much he had been filmed, but surely he must have realised there was a man with a camera in the shower with him ..... 

David of course is now 80 this year and has become the grand old man of British art, still painting and still smoking. The latest huge exhibition at the Tate Gallery opens this week and runs to May, we will be going of course. 

The Look continues: those blocks of colour, wearing odd socks, striped knitted ties, yellow flat caps, and lots of fancy rugger shirts in pastel hues, with baggy cargo trousers and tennis shoes, and cardigans.

London will be gearing up for Hockney fever again, as this latest exhibition gets underway.

Hockney's bigger book

We got a lot of David Hockney's books over the years, starting with that 1978 nice Thames & Hudson retrospective on his career to then (right), followed by his books on paper pools, collages, sketches, his dogs and all those various exhibitions, as his art moved from London to Paris and Europe and on to America and back to the North of England in recent years, as per other posts on him, see label, plus of course that A BIGGER SPLASH film in 1974.. Now 79 Hockney is painting and smoking as much as ever - there will be a huge new exhibition at the Tate in London next year, after the one that just finished here Now we have an even bigger book:

Taschen are bringing out A BIGGER BOOK, and this IS  a coffee table tome, in fact it could be a coffee table, if you have £1,750 for the price, but it does comes with its own stand. It is 500 pages, large size, weighing 70lbs ... covering 60 years of David's ever-changing art from his Bradford art-student days to now, and it is signed by Hockney, could he have signed all 10,000 copies? 

Good interview with him too in this week's "Sunday Times", by Lynn Barber. He is going to paint on for as long as he can, but he does have a good team of 9 to help him: 3 assistants, and other staff (housekeeper, gardener, those off-site running his office and archive). 
A BIGGER BOOK follows his 2012 Royal Academy exhibition, A Bigger Picture, in which the artist produced large images with the aid of an iPad. It unveils at Frankfurt's Book Fair in October, with Hockney present to introduce the new tome. 

Francois, Francoise, Charlotte, Catherine, David, Tom

A relaxing Sunday with warmer weather, the newspapers and some interesting stories on favourites of ours, before cooking dinner and later unwinding with a drink at hand, for that 1940s wartime saga HOME FIRES ....

An interesting interview with Francois Ozon (right) in "The Irish Times" where the gay French director talks about his new film THE NEW GIRLFRIEND (about to open here) and has some interesting comments, particularly on those films of his featuring women like Deneuve or Rampling. As the paper's feature (by Tara Brady) says: "8 WOMEN brought together France’s grandest dames for a 1950s-set musical murder mystery; 5x2 plays five key scenes from a divorced couple’s relationship backwards; SWIMMING POOL exuded Hitchcockian menace as Charlotte Rampling became a young woman’s reluctant caregiver and voyeur; POTICHE saw Catherine Deneuve as a rejected trophy wife, lead her husband’s employees to rebel.

Many of Ozon’s films are smaller, more tightly focused; TIME TO LEAVE sees a young man push everyone away as he enters the final stages of terminal cancer".

"Charlotte Rampling is one of many actors who have returned again and again to the troupe of Ozon players. Others include Ludivine Sagnier and Catherine Deneuve.

“There is a lot of pleasure in working with women,” says Ozon. “Very often actresses are more pleasurable and easier to work with than men. There are some actors I work with and once is enough. But there are others, like Charlotte, who have a depth and maturity.”

What is it, I wonder, about French cinema’s love affair with a certain kind of British woman, such as Rampling, Jane Birkin and Kristin Scott Thomas.

“In France we have a fascination with foreign actresses,” Ozon says. “One of the most popular French actresses of the 1970s was Romy Schneider who was German. And then there are the English actresses who fell in love with French men and come to France. They often tell me the French offer very good parts as a woman gets older. In England or America they get to play the mother or the grandmother.”

Ozon has had Hollywood offers since Swimming Pool became a global sensation, in 2003. But the director is not for turning.

“In America, film is not about art or culture. It’s a business. So they make movies for teenagers, because it’s easier. And they have a different way of working. The producer does not direct the film, but they do make all of the decisions. The director is a technician more than an artist. I don’t want to work that way. I don’t feel the necessity of losing my soul.” 

Charlotte Rampling herself is interviewed too in "The Daily Telegraph" - 'Le Legende' at 69 now feels she has "the face she has earned". Like Catherine Deneuve her career spans 50 years and she still works now, turning down scripts she does not like - "it has to be something that makes me want to leave the house, where I can stay very happily with my books and my cats". Presumably, like playing a barrister in that second series of BROADCHURCH for British television recently (we loved the first series, the second less so... ). She has come a long way from the 'partying Sixties It-girl' with The Look, as exemplified by her breakthrough film GEORGY GIRL in 1966. Interesting to see that this year she is starring with Tom Courtenay (another Sixties actor in it for the long haul) in 45 YEARS, by Andrew Haigh (LOOKING tv series, WEEKEND) which is an unsettling portrait of a marriage. . She credits Ozon and working with him on UNDER THE SAND as revitalising her and re-realising her potential as a cinema actor. She is as busy now as she has ever been: "I'm working because good work is coming"

Catherine Denueve, another Ozon regular, could probably say the same. Her STANDING TALL was the opening film at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and as the Times put it: "Deneuve adds punch to delinquent drama", where she is the steely judge in this gritty downbeat drama. The critics were not sneering, as at last year's opener GRACE OF MONACO. Let's hope London sees this new Deneuve drama before too long .... I found Catherine hilarious in Ozon's POTICHE with her portly housewife out jogging and communicating with nature, before taking over the family factory to avert a strike and then going into politics, and her dancing with the even portlier Depardieu a delicious treat, with that Seventies background, and the increasingly gay son (Jeremie Rennier). See Ozon label for reviews on all these, his serious TIME TO LEAVE is devastating too. 

BBC4 ran a fascinating documentary as well on French popular song - chanson - where a very spry Petula Clark, now 82, took us through the golden years of French popular song from Edith Piaf and Charles Trenet, including Petula's own French career, to that great early Sixties era, with Francoise Hardy and the others. Francoise was the Face of the early sixties, her Vogue 4-track EPs were the first records I bought, even before The Beatles. Utter bliss then. Francoise too is still going and still singing though the hair is short and silver grey now. 

Tom joins the Hockney set

David Hockney is back in the news too with a new exhibition at the Annely Juda Gallery in London, with some fascinating new paintings. The artist, now 77, is selling that house in Bridlington  in East Yorkshire, where his assistant Dominic Elliott died in 2013. His new work includes 'The Potted Palm' - below - which include Olympic diver Tom Daley and his partner scriptwriter Dustin Lance Black, who are now part of the Hockney circle, David said he likes Tom and praised his coming out last year, of course Tom does lots of diving into those blue pools, but not making "a bigger splash"! Hockney - subject of many posts here, see label - recently bemoaned the demise of what he calls Bohemia, the lifestyle once led by gays, who now want to get married, settle down and have children - he finds them boring and conservative, wanting to lead ordinary lives ... He now goes to bed at nine, and don't go to parties or films as he has got increasingly deaf. He continues to work though, as he says "When I'm painting, I feel 30. Of course I have no plans to retire, artists don't retire. So I'll go on until I fall over, dying ideally at the easel". One somehow feels that other blonde painter who smoked endlessly - Joni Mitchell, maybe still in a coma and also in her Seventies, would somehow agree. Hockney also said in another recent interview that "maybe" the love of his life was Gregory Evans, his 62 year old manager, they were lovers for over a decade but have worked together for 40 years - not Peter Schlesinger of A BIGGER SPLASH then ... The new paintings are certainly fascinating and sees Hockney going in a new direction. 

Binge on boxsets ...

Having a binge with boxsets seems to be the new way to watch television - not just an episode a week any more. and now that Netflix can put whole series on-line, one can certainly binge on them - I am rationing my GRACE & FRANKIE episodes (as per recent post), and got their HOUSE OF CARDS reboot on dvd. Has television ever been better? Despite all the crap stuff, there are some terrific series out there, our Sky Atlantic being particularly good (like HBO with THE NORMAL HEART and other dramas). PENNY DREADFUL is particularly stunning - amazing sets and gothic horror mixing in Frankenstein's monster, Dorian Gray, bloody vampires, werewolves and other assorted Victorian nightmares - Eva Green, Rory Kinnear (a touching monster, left), Timothy Dalton, Billie Piper, Helen McCrory and upcoming Douglas Hodge and Patti Lupone will keep one watching .... not for the faint-hearted! I have not even got around to GAME OF THRONES or BREAKING BAD or ...

THE AFFAIR looks like another must see, after recent stunning series like HAPPY VALLEY and the delicious Sky sitcom by Ruth Jones: STELLA  - now on Series 4 with those inhabitants of Pontyberry in deepest Wales. More please ! Hard to believe Ruth's Stella was also GAVIN & STACEY's Nessa and LITTLE BRITAIN's Myfanwy (with Daffydd, the only gay in the village) and played Hattie Jacques too. Actress and writer Ruth, right, with Patrick Baladi. 

Incidentally, I will have to catch the new MAD MAX: FURY ROAD this week, I need a big screen experience with an action movie everyone seems to love .... I will probably be seeing it in 3D!

Hockney, again

For UK viewers, that recent documentary on David Hockney, now on dvd, screens on BBC2 this coming Saturday, 14th March, at  9pm. 

It was shown at last year's London Film Festival, and had a cinema release in November. The blurb says:

HOCKNEY is the definitive exploration of one of the most significant artists of his generation. For the first time David Hockney has given access to his personal archive of photogaphs and film, resulting in an unparalleled visual diary of a long life. The film chronices his vast career, from his early life in working-class Bradford, where his love of pictures was developed through his admiration for the cinema, to his relocation to Hollywood, where his lifelong struggle to escape labels was fully realised. Paradoxically, this escape to live the American Dream did not break the ties to the childhood that formed him. We see his upbringing and life experiences give him the willpower to survive relationship problems, and later the AIDS epidemic, and also allow him to create some of the most renowned works of the past century. Acclaimed filmmaker Randall Wright offers a unique view of this unconventional artist who is now reaching new peaks of popularity worldwide, as charismatic as ever, and at 77 still working in the studio 7 days a week.  

I didn't imagine it would be as graphic as Jack Hazan's 1974 A BIGGER SPLASH (see Hockney label), which had unparalleled access to David too, capturing the younger Hockney at his early Seventies peak, and his then group of friends  - it uses liberal clips from the Hazan film, including that scene with David in the shower, and some clips from those various BBC documentaries that I liked on Hockney over the last 20 years or so, as it focuses on those early years. We do not see too much of the older Hockney or his recent works. 

We liked that A BIGGER SPLASH poster at the time, and that film is also on Blu-ray now. The recent Hockney books - that two volume biograhy by Christopher Simon Sykes - and those recent successful exhibitions were covered here, as per Hockney label. I like this Sixtes photo too ....... 
As mentioned before, I remember being in a bar in Notting Hill, it must have been mid 1966 (when I was 20) - and saw him there, he must have been on a trip over from America, that blond hair and round glasses made him totally individual, as of course blondes have more fun!  
Now he is the quite deaf Grand Old Man of British Art in his late seventies. ,,, as per my previous posts on him, and his recent exhibitions of those huge new pictures of his on British landscapes. David has now returned to California, following that tragic death of one of his assistants, It will be interesting to see the documentary again on television. 
It touches again on that late '60s/early '70s relationship with Peter Schlesinger, who seems depicted as Hockney's main long relationship, but he later spent more time with Gregory Evans or John Fitzherbert who are not mentioned in this new film but it is a dazzling kaleidoscope trawl in day-glo colours through the Hockney decades. 

Christmas treats: for me !

Christmas treats, and its not even Christmas yet and I don't know what Santa is bringing! 
I am engrossed in the new biography of Aretha Franklin, "Respect" by expert David Ritz who certainly knows his soul and r&b, having known and worked with them all. Its a terrific 500 page tome filling us in on everything Aretha!

The Joni Mitchell new 4-cd retrospective in that nice book package, with extensive notes by Joni, and the re-mastered favourites sound great. Nice Christmas references too:

"River" of course is a new Christmas classic and gets covered a lot: "Its coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees, they're putting up reindeer, and singing songs of joy and peace" ..... and that nice reference in "Chinese Cafe": "Christmas is sparkling out on Carol's lawn, this friend of my childhood games has kids almost grown and gone".... and I love how she sings in "Barangrill" (not included here): "The guy at the gas pumps has a lot of soul, he sings "Merry Christmas" for you just like Nat King Cole".

Sophia's book is also a treat for devotees as she reveals a lot about her early Italian films and shares correspondence from Cary Grant and Richard Burton, and comments on a lot of her films, surprisingly dismissing EL CID as a "Superwestern" ....
That new David Hockney documentary has just arrived too - I have had a quick look, it contains moments from earlier BBC documentaries I did not have any more, and also from Hazan's A BIGGER SPLASH, and there is another new Hockney documentary too, covering his recent paintings. 

On the music front, Aretha new "Diva Anthems" cd nicely complements the new book, while Ella and Nelson Riddle is a treat (thanks Jerry), with perfect versions of songs like "I Can't Get Started" and "Georgia On My Mind", reminding one of that lush Nelson Riddle sound; Quincy Jones steps up to the mark too with that fabulous Donna Summer album now re-issued and expanded with great notes (also part of a Donna 6 cd reissue) - this is probably my most played cd just now, great to hear "Love Is In Control", "State of Independence" and/"Lush Life" again - as per my last post on Donna (see label). I am awaiting delivery of FKA Twigs and "LP1" (right) - modern hip hop with a twist. 

Then there is BFI stuff to catch up with: "Sight & Sound" and the January programme with some more Maggie Smith treats .... more at labels!
And the Christmas song? Tom Odell's "Real Love" .... along with Sam Smith ("In The Lonely Hour") and Ed Sheeran ("X") the success of the year. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZLYp-jgx-I

Hockney - that new documentary

Already shown at this year's London Film Festival, but opening in cinemas here on November 28 is HOCKNEY, this new documentary (by Randall Wright) on one of our favourites here, artist David Hockney. There is also a live Q & A from Los Angeles at selected venues, but I will be in Ireland that week so will have to rush to it on my return, and it is out on DVD on 15 December. 

I don't imagine it will be as graphic as Jack Hazan's 1974 A BIGGER SPLASH (see Hockney label), capturing the younger Hockney at his early Seventies peak, and his then group of friends. We liked that poster at the time, and that is also on Blu-ray now. The recent Hockney books - that two volume biograhy by Christopher Simon Sykes - and those recent successful exhibitions were covered here, see Hockney label. I like this Sixtes photo too ....... 
I remember being in a bar in Notting Hill, it must have been mid 1966 (when I was 20) - and saw him there, that blond hair and round glasses made him totally individual, as of course blondes have more fun!  Now he is the quite deaf Grand Old Man of Britsh Art in his seventies. ,,, as per my previous posts on him, at label.

Sunday musings: cities, exhibitions, playlists ...

Reading the Sunday papers it looks like Brazil and South America generally is this year's hot destination. Not only the World Cup coming up but the next Olympics in 2016 in Rio ... soon those magical names like Leblon, Bahia, Belem, Recife, Salvador, will be as common to us as Rio, Ipanema, Sao Paulo and the others .... 

 
South America fascinated me as a schoolboy as I liked geography - 
I have a vivid memory of being in class and fascinated by those cities like Valparaiso and Montevideo, and countries like Uruguay where Punta Del Este is a hot destination now, then there is Lima with its catherdrals and colonial history. Valparaiso (below) looks marvellously colourful with those new apartment blocks in every shade, while the old colonial buildings of Salvador, above, look stunning too.  I think I will have to sit back and re-run Belmondo running around Brazil in THAT MAN FROM RIO (1964) or 1959's BLACK ORPHEUS with a caipirinha or three ... if I can't get to Brazil right now, as our rains and floods continue, I can at least get a bottle of cachaca and some limes and sugar ...

Meanwhile, back in cold, wet London at least some interesting exhibitions are opening:

I have had this French poster since 1974

The new David Hockney exhibition: HOCKNEY' PRINTMAKER at the Dulwich Gallery is attracting rave notices, covering as it does the artist's remarkable printmaking career. ~The cheeky chappy from Bradford who lit up the Sixties is now a grumpy old man, quite deaf and still smoking at 76 - as per report below, and that recent interview with him back in LA. (Hockney label). Covered in this latest exhibition of 150 works are his prints from those early Cavafy drawings, Picasso etchings, that Seventies Paris period (with that favourite of mine "Two Vases in the Lourve" above), and portraits of his friends like Celia Birtwell, posed in a vintage blouse. Examples of Hockney's more recent print experiments, with photocopiers and inkjet printers, also feature. One to see then. At the Dulwich Gallery until May.

Hockney, Printmaker features over 150 works, from etchings executed at the Royal College of Art in the 1960s, to experiments with printed computer drawings some fifty years later, via portraits, pools, poetry, Xeroxes and investigations into multi-point perspective. Written by Richard Lloyd, head of prints at Christies, with contributions from Hockney's friends and associates, it explores the many achievements of Britain's greatest living practitioner of the graphic arts. - See more at: http://www.accdistribution.com/uk/store/pv/9781857598933/hockney/richard-lloyd#sthash.bvwhG4R2.dpuf

Hockney, Printmaker features over 150 works, from etchings executed at the Royal College of Art in the 1960s, to experiments with printed computer drawings some fifty years later, via portraits, pools, poetry, Xeroxes and investigations into multi-point perspective. Written by Richard Lloyd, head of prints at Christies, with contributions from Hockney's friends and associates, it explores the many achievements of Britain's greatest living practitioner of the graphic arts. - See more at: http://www.accdistribution.com/uk/store/pv/9781857598933/hockney/richard-lloyd#sthash.bvwhG4R2.dpuf

Hockney, Printmaker features over 150 works, from etchings executed at the Royal College of Art in the 1960s, to experiments with printed computer drawings some fifty years later, via portraits, pools, poetry, Xeroxes and investigations into multi-point perspective. Written by Richard Lloyd, head of prints at Christies, with contributions from Hockney's friends and associates, it explores the many achievements of Britain's greatest living practitioner of the graphic arts. - See more at: http://www.accdistribution.com/uk/store/pv/9781857598933/hockney/richard-lloyd#sthash.bvwhG4R2.dpuf

Another Sixties Enfant Terrible is also being honoured at the National Portrait Gallery: David Bailey and the STARDUST exhibition of his photos. I remember Bailey's 1965 BOX OF PIN-UPS with those loose limited edition prints of his very individual portraits (all that black and white) of the biggest celebrities of the day, including Terence Stamp, The Kray Twins, Mick Jagger in that fur-lined anorak, Michael Caine, Jean Shripton, Julie Christie, Nureyev and all the others ... whatever happened to mine? it would fetch a fortune now.  
Bailey has continued throughout the decades, along with Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy who documented the Swinging Sixties. This new exhibition has some old favourites as well as new surprises as Bailey covers his many trips to remote places, like the Ethiopian famine in 1984, and Aboriginal Australia, as well as more recent forays to Hackney and Harlem shooting in clubs and theatres. At 75 David Bailey is still going strong too. As he says "It takes a lot of looking before you see the extraordindary". BAILEY'S STARDUST is at the National Portrait Gallery to June 1. I shall be going along before too long.

More photos: Photographer Cornel Lucas was a pioneer of film portraiture, shooting both British and American stars. He specialised in carefully composed and lit images, and in 1998 he became the first stills photographer to be awarded a Bafta. Photo Noir: The art Of Cornel Lucas is a new exhibition of his work at the National Theatre Lyttelton exhibition space which runs from 17 February to 29 March.
We have covered Lucas's output here before, see his RIP at label. He died  aged 92 in 2012, his first wife was that glamorous siren Belinda Lee, but they divorced in 1959, two years before she was killed in a car crash, aged 25 ... Like Bob Willoughby and Eve Arnold  and Jack Cardiff he is one of the great photographers - lots on those at labels.

Finally, playlists! It also seems the humble playlist is having a moment. Back in the '80s we made mixtapes on cassettees, for friends or those we fancied. Playlists - liked, shared, and tweeted, have now it seems become a prime promotional tool. It is a great way to discover new music, by checking the playlists of people whose taste you trust. Now of course, there are millions of songs to choose from, as music gets more and more accessible online. 
Back in the CD heyday I liked those BACK TO MINE two-disk compilations where artists like The Pet Shop Boys or Groove Armada isssued their favourite tracks. Where else could you hear Dusty Springfiend next to Etienne Daho or Italian disco ("Passion" by The Flirts). "The Sunday Times" ran a big feature featuring Playlists including by Rod Stewart (his favourite soul tracks - I have them all), and those of various journalists and celebs. 

Here's my today playlist - tomorrow's would be completely different  ...
David Bowie - Win
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
Marvin Gaye - Distant Lover
Joan Armading - Mameo Beach
Nina Simone - Seeline Woman
Donny Hathaway - A Song For You
Miles Davies - In A Silent Way
Neil Young - Old Man
Joni Mitchell - Car On A Hill
Aretha Franklin - Ain't No Way
A Man Called Adam - Barefoot In The Head
Madonna - Nothing Really Matters
Billie Holiday - Fine and Mellow
Etta James - I'd Rather Go Blind
Billie Ray Martin - Deadline For My Memories
Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy
Howling Wolf - Sitting On Top of the World
Cream - Spoonful
Nile Rogers/Daft Punk - Get Lucky.

Sunday papers: art, music, fashion ...

Today's The Sunday Times has come up trumps with a new interview with David Hockney by Brian Appleyard (who also took the photographs), who has interviewed Hockney several times before, on the painter now re-located back in Los Angeles, but looking frail and a lot older at 76. He is still quite deaf and defiantly still smoking, despite his doctors telling him not to. David, like Joni Mitchell, remains one of the great smokers of our time !  As the introductory blurb put it:

 "In a tough couple of years, David Hockney has had a stroke, lost an assistant, decamped from his 'mean-spirited' homeland and put the iPad aside - to produce a brilliant series of painted portraits'.

Its quite a contrast to see the suddenly older Hockney beside his L.A. swimming pool now compared to those other pool shots from the 70s and 80s, as per other Hockney posts here, as of course time relentlessly goes on. We hope David at 76 is able to continue to surprise and delight us, particularly after the tragic death of his assistant Dominic Elliott last year. 
I am thinking too of that time in 1966 when new to Bayswater and not far from Notting Hill, the 20 year old me saw him in a Notting Hill gay bar, somewhere in Pembridge Road. Being my first nervous visit to such an establishment, I did not linger ... but the blond hair and the round black frame glasses were unmistakable. We have liked his various forays over the decades including those recent large paintings from the North of England.

The Daily/Sunday Telegraph on the other hand came up with  '500 Must Have Music Tracks', a nice companion to their '500 must see films' and '500 must-read books'.   This new list (how we love lists!) covers all genres, from love songs, dance songs, folk, singer-songwriters, rock, country, songs from films, opera arias, soul, world music, party songs, tracks to exercise to, covers, live recordings, jazz, songs to drive to, classical songs, timeless anthems, pop songs ("Dancing Queen" to "She Loves You"), guilty pleasures, songs from musicals, blues and hip hop. Phew .... nice illustrations and precise paragraphs on most of them, like this on Deee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart":"If one song captures the dizzy cartoon utopianism and inclusivity of 1990s dance culture, it's this, the Austin Powers of club tracks: kitsch disco-pop fluff so fun of fun and funk that it's impossible to dislike". / Or on Etta James' "I'd Rather Go Blind": "Equal parts blues and soul, this was partly written by music innovator Ellington Jordan while serving a prison sentence for robbery, then finished by his friend Etta James. It is as aching and painful a slice of heartache as has been committed to vinyl". Nice to see all my favourites (like Nina Simone) included, from Joni Mitchell's "River" to Joan Armatrading's "Love and Affection". 

On the fashion front, some new chinos I ordered have arrived, at a good sale price too. I love the raspberry colour ones, and its great to have a pair in airforce blue too, as I had a suit in that colour back in the 70s. These will be great for the beach in Ireland, before too long ... I may invest in a good pair of brogue shoes too ... 

A good Sunday then, now for a gin & tonic later on while we catch up with some tv - and the devastating news about Philip Seymour Hoffman. ...