Artemdigital

The perks of work. Artemdigital is known for its motion-capture work, but I went to see them showcase their facial scanning technology. They are able to build a 3D model by working out the spatial differences across multiple photographs, taken at the same time. I now have my very own model of my face, which I can rotate and view from any angle. Kinda bizarre, but pretty useful when there aren't any mirrors handy...

Our house

Due to public demand (Anna's mum), here's a couple of pictures of us outside our place in Golders Green.

It's still sunny (how long will that last?), but the temperature has definitely dropped recently - hence the woolly scarves. (Thanks Mum!)

Richmond

Went to Richmond for Sarah’s farewell party. We’ve only just met her, and she’s back home to Australia already!

After taking the overland Silverlink train (never again, I think) a few hours early, we went for a big walk around Richmond town and Richmond Park, the largest of the Royal Parks in London. We spotted the usual wildlife – swans, geese, a rat, squirrels – and hit paydirt. Wild red deer! Lots of them! Still no foxes though…


Richmond Park is seriously big, and quite rugged. Although we had given ourselves enough time to do the circuit, we had overlooked how early, and how quickly, it gets dark now. At 4:30 we started losing light, while a bit lost in the Isabella Plantation. By 5pm, we had decided to get the hell out as quickly as possible. By 5:30 it was completely dark, and we had fortunately found the correct path to the exit.


Unfortunately, we have both managed to munt our feet due to the combination of the uneven ground and our extra haste. Time to buy some cross trainers.


Sarah’s farewell was a nice opportunity to recover from our pleasant ‘walk’ (hike), although we had to sit outside in the freezing cold because Sarah’s kids (she’s a nanny) were there to say goodbye. Anyway, it was lovely to see some of the York girls again, and we hope to have a few more catch ups before Xmas.

Weekly roundup

Just wanted to announce the arrival in London of Mr Andy Jenkins and his lovely wife, Megan! As you may or may not know, Andy is one of my film collaborators from New Zealand (A Fishy Tale, The House of Raging Women) and I am, of course, very excited to have him here. We’ve already started talking in conspiratorial whispers about doing a project together… watch this space!

In other news, my law buddy Mark Tan invited me to the Slaughter & May annual dinner with him. After meeting for a quick beer, we made our formal entrance (one of the only times I’ll be seen in a suit and tie this year) at the Grosvenor House Hotel - one of the largest and most famous luxury hotels in London (on Park Lane in Mayfair, no less).

S&M had rented out the Great Room and Ballroom, “the venue of many prominent awards evenings, charity balls and the like … often seen on British television, and … one of the largest ballrooms in Europe”. (It’s mentioned in a Doctor Who novel, so that’s good enough for me.)

We had a good time, making the most of the open bar, and having the waiters fetch us beer. I somehow ended up with a Grosvenor Hotel bottle opener. Thanks Mark!

Cat Power and the Memphis Rhythm Band

I went, by my lonesome, to see Cat Power (Chan-pronounced-Shawn Marshall) at The Roundhouse on Nov 1. It was a terrific gig for a number of reasons. It was a) close to home (Chalk Farm), b) a famous venue and c) a terrific performance.

The Memphis Rhythm Band opened with a lengthy jam, before being joined by Chan for a run through most of The Greatest, her most recent album. Chan then did her solo piece, making it all the way through most the songs. Hooray! I particularly enjoyed the bizarre pantomime that accompanied her performance – shadow boxing, woozy dancing (I mean, worse than Nick Cave), trapped inside an invisible box… the whole shebang.


With band: Willie Mitchell / The Greatest / Living Proof / Lived In Bars / Could We / Empty Shell / Willie / The Moon / Islands / Where Is My Love / Soul Serenade

Solo: Who knows where the time goes / I Don’t Blame You / Wild is the Wind / House of the Rising Sun / Love + Communication / Jon Jon Ramblin / Naked / Crossbones – Style - Nude As the News – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction / Anything But Love / Tracks Of My Tears

More York

A few mop-up pictures.

For a different view of the York trip, please see our friend Sara's blog. Enjoy!

York continued...

Woke up feeling a bit sorry for myself after a bout of midnight food poisoning (I’m looking at you, coleslaw). Anna went to brekky with some of the girls while I took it easy. After a little while, I roused myself enough for a quick meander through the streets, and a visit to the Jórvík Viking Centre, a theme park/museum built over a major Viking excavation (Jórvík = York, y’all).

Perking up a bit, we drove to Sherwood Forest for a lookee-see, and took photos of the 1,000 year old Major Oak (where Robin Hood supposedly lived). Was nice to get out and have a bit of a bush walk, though the bush is every different over here.

Last but not least we had a groovy afternoon archery session. Anna and I were pretty good, if I say so myself.

A quick shout out to all our York-mates - thanks for making this trip a lot of fun!

Halloween in York

Anna found us an interesting Halloween weekend tour through York, and although the tour itself turned out to be pretty average, we did meet lots of nice girls (I was the only guy, other than the guide). There were about 16 of us in a little minivan, and we had a couple of hours in London traffic to introduce ourselves. We were about half-half Kiwis and Aussies, plus one German and a token English girl thrown in. (We also picked up a couple of Canadians in York.)

Day one, we did a little walking tour of York. First we navigated the slippery remains of the Roman Walls (substantially renovated in the Middle Ages), ambled alongside the River Ouse, admired the squirrels in the York Museum Gardens...

...walked among the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey...

... stopped outside the magnificent (but prohibitively expensive) York Minster cathedral...


...shambled through The Shambles (small cobbled street), and saw Clifford’s Tower (the site of a massacre of Jews in 1190). A lot of history in a small town!

At lunchtime, we drove out to Bolton Castle (part of Elizabeth was filmed here) for a dress-up medieval banquet. I wore some travesty of an outfit, with green leggings and a strategically placed fake boob for padding (a big hit with the ladies). Anna looked rather lovely in her medieval garb.

Our banquet was somewhat lacklustre – mostly coldcuts and foamy beer – but we had a good time afterwards, running around the castle in costume as part of a silly treasure hunt. All of us adults, too!

A few other nice locations from the afternoon were the Wensleydale cheese shop (Wallace and Gromit’s favourite!)...

...and Aysgarth and Haydraw waterfalls (both featured in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves).

Back in York, we went on a very crappy and tedious Ghost Hunt night-walk. Because of Halloween, there was a crowd of a hundred or so people, and it was all pretty slow and painful. Fortunately, beer makes anything fun.

Amsterdam - Day Four

Bagels for breakfast, yummy yummy.

Today we mopped up the last few museums – the Stedelijk’s harbour-front gallery, Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (Naval Museum) and Rembrandt House.

The Stedelijk visit was a lot of fun. For starters, finding the damn place was almost like performance art. It’s a temporary gallery in an old post building, in a disused area of the harbour.

There was no clear road or route to get there, and it took us some wandering. The complete lack of other tourists was very off-putting, but we got there in the end, and had the gallery pretty much to ourselves.

There was a strange air travel showpiece, whose purpose we never quite determined. The main collection itself had several wonderfully interactive pieces (one pictured), including an ‘endless’ pile of green candy by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (I ate a couple, apple-flavoured):

Felix Gonzalez-Torres's work is sometimes considered a reflection of his experience with AIDS. Many of Gonzalez-Torres's installations invite the viewer to take a piece of the work with them: a series of works allow viewers to take packaged candies from a pile in the corner of an exhibition space … These installations are replenished by the exhibitor as they diminish. The most pervasive reading of Gonzalez-Torres's work takes the processes his works undergo (…piles of candies dispersing, etc.) as metaphor for the process of dying.

and a person writhing on the floor:

Someone has been writhing, artfully, on the floor of the ICA gallery every day since January 17. A number of people have assumed the role and, changing shifts every three hours, they successively embody a work by Tino Sehgal: Instead of allowing some thing to rise up to your face dancing bruce and dan and other things, 2000.

We had a more traditional experience at the Naval Museum, the highlight of which was the full-sized recreation of a 17th Century trading vessel, and at Rembrandt Huis, where the artist's home and studio is recreated alongside a gallery of his work.

Afterwards we went shoe shopping. No really.

Alas, our time was up, and we returned to the airport for our flight home. In a bizarre twist, our airline had booked us into two completely different rows on the plane. A quick whinge later and we had seats together, thanks to a helpful hostess. The weather was frightful on the return trip, and we didn’t get any free drinks because there was too much turbulence.

Amsterdam - Day Three

Having spent yesterday enjoying ourselves somewhat aimlessly, today was going to be our museum day. Fortified with a crappy breakfast at an overpriced tourist pancake house, we headed off to our first stop, the Rijksmuseum. The national museum of the Netherlands, it has a diverse collection of historical artefacts and art. Large parts of the museum were closed for renovations, but we enjoyed the exquisite doll’s houses, and the Vermeer and Rembrandt galleries.

Second stop, Van Gogh Museum. A rather unusual gallery – its design doesn’t match the subject at all, and the layout was completely schizophrenic, jumping to and from various time periods. Taken in toto, and with a bit of interpretation, it provides a fascinating overview of Van Gogh’s work and development. Interestingly, I now realise how modern he was before the so-called modern art movement really began.


The Stedelijk museum, next door, was closed, so we went on another canal cruise (we had free tickets).


Anna was a bit snuffly, so she went back to the hostel for a snooze while I checked out the Jew Museum. This, too, was under renovation (argh!) and largely closed.


We found a decent pancake house for dinner (yum) then went for a big walk through the Jordaan suburb, before meeting Bruce for another beer drinking session. The Dutch do good beer.