Dave Charlesworth

Sunday: Press up....date 9-9-10-9-9 (46) with 90 seconds with 90 seconds rest in between sets. Really tough going towards the end and got that tell tale wobble of a weakening body.. It has a progress bar at the end of every session and it is getting alarmingly towards the 75% mark.. I feel far from ready to face a full 50 non stop. 


On to Dave:

 Met Joe Meegan and Jamie Ruszczynski at The Woodmill to get some footage of the artist and friend Dave Charlesworth. I was an hour late. Joe and Jamie and I are making a documentary of Dave as a side project. Dave is an interesting, successful, and clearly talented swine that I have been very privileged to work with on a couple of projects (one being Wander Walker that you can find HERE).  He is a conceptual artist that works both alone and as part of a collective Charlesworth Lewandowski and Mann. We followed him around, filled sandbags with him and interviewed him. Our concept was to compare his work, life and style to the very different David Charlesworth. David (not Dave) Charlesworth is yet to get back to us about the project so we made a start with Dave. 

Dave was extremely busy and I am not sure we got the best out of our time there (not a criticism of anyone at all)  I have no experience in documentary filming and I am hoping a narrative becomes clear at some point along the way. This may happen the more we film or when we watch the footage. We will have to see. 


On the way to the tube we dived out of the rain into The Marquis of Wellington. A real local with as many screens showing football as there were customers. Above the bar was a poster for  Nigel Benn (my favourite boxer ever) Vs Michael Watson and another for Chris Eubank Vs Gary Stretch . In a pub bore sort of way I turned to Joe and Jamie and pointed out that Gary Stretch played the head of the gang in Dead Man's Shoes. The landlord over heard this and could have not been more excited about this pub fact. It happened that it was one of his favourite films and had never realised the link. It was the best reaction I have ever had to one of my boring facts. The bad news it will encourage me to come out with more. 

Fish, France and Photography

Saturday morning. Met James, Cathy and Howard at the Museum of London for the start of a 'London' day. 

James Shanks and I .....waiting for a Salisbury

The reason for meeting at the Museum was to visit the London Street Photography exhibition. It was extremely busy and there was a short wait before we could get in. Howard was looking forward to some quality images of 'street urchins'...he wasn't disappointed.  Urchins were rife. We developed a urchin competition where you had to call your favorite urchin. You could only choose one and once chosen you could not change your mind. I waited till the early sixties and choose a classic urchin working on a market stall. The competition was smashed out of the park by an unbeatable seventies urchin who was smoking, had a gang and was swinging on a rope in a wasteland.. classic urchin. The exhibition was excellent though and I intend to go back when it is a little quieter. 


We then headed into town for lunch. Cathy and Howard had booked us all a table at J Sheeky fish restaurant near Covent Garden. I will admit to being a bit of a food heathen in the past but I am getting better. I did feel bad  having the chicken but it was brilliant. The fried fish starter was good but maybe too much and the plum ripple ice cream and shortbread was superb. 

Then off to Waxy O'Conners to watch England V France in the six nations. It was incredibly busy and with their big screen being very low and me being quite tall I couldn't help pissing off the people behind me. This is the trade off for being able to see I suppose but it is one of the reasons I avoid  situations like small gigs.  The game was scrappy but close and very tense. I absolutely love the six nations but I will write about that another time. We won a tough game and this could set England up for a championship decider in Dublin...Perfect.


To finish the evening we went to the Palm Tree in mile end. An absolute belting pub. It looks like it was once at the end of a terrace which has now disappeared and this gives it a slightly surreal look. It is that good I am annoyed. There is a lack of decent pubs round my way and I could have made great use of this one. 


Last tube home and a bag of chips for the walk from the tube.......Great day. 

KMA Awards Night

Friday saw the end of season (well nearly, they are refitting the pitch with one game left) award and drinks night. It was held in the Kings Arms. Although not the cheapest venue it does have an upstairs room with speakers you can plug your own music into, free pool and, most importantly, 2 dartboards. It was a great night organised and hosted by the club chairman Jamie 'Razor' Ruszczynski. 


The results were as follows:

 Clubman of the season- Richard Wilshire

 Most Improved Player- Dave Lewis

 Worst Attitude- Jarlath O'Hara

Champagne Moment of the Season- Blog Author

Player of the Season- Clare Adams on behalf of someone who couldn't be bothered to turn up.........disappointing.

Update

What have I been up to?

Well, not enough. 

Monday 

I flew back back to England early in the morning. 30 min delay and was kindly woken by a fellow passenger when my train arrived to Liverpool st. Straight to work. I then met up with HS to chat about our impending best man duties for his brother and our esteemed lead singer MS. This meeting happened at  the equidistant venue to our workplaces The Angel.  Not the best Sam Smiths but good enough. Talked about everything but best man duties and will have to meet again. 

Tuesday

Work and then home. Failed miserably to do anything interesting. 

Wednesday (Today)

Press up app day. Press ups done 7-7-8-8-7. Found the last set tough. I am not sure if I mentioned it before but the aim is to do 50 in one go. 

Got into work to play JR at squash and avenge last weeks defeat that I conveniently had no time to write about. I arrived to JR telling me that the office (containing our rackets) had been double locked and we couldn't get in.. There was nothing for it and we went for a fry up at Wrights. Sausage, bacon, beans, chips and a tea for £3.75. 

I also need a haircut.

Vote Haskins!

You may or may not be aware but Ireland is in the middle of a general election campaign. One thing is for sure if you do live there it is inescapable. Every lamp post and I mean every one is like the one above.s. I like this a lot... it gives you a chance judge people purely on a aesthetic basis. My vote on this criteria would go to the spooky, young looking Dylan Haskins. He definitely has world domination aspirations. 


These placards can vary in their success though.  

Cllr Kevin Humphreys and his campaign team should have used flesh coloured ties to attach it to the lamp posts. Amazingly, they were all like this. It reminded me of something I had seen before but I couldn't remember what......


I would like to say though that the election is being  held in a far better way than the one we had here in Britain. Politicians seem to express themselves better and are punished less by the press for expressing opinions. They appear on popular radio and TV programs and answer frankly and sometimes with great humor.  They are allowed to answer questions they are asked by interviewers and debates are respectful. That is not to say they get an easy time because they don't. The biggest difference is Ireland seems very used to coalition governments (currently Fina Fail and Greens likely to be replaced by Fina Gael and Labour). In fact most people I have chatted to about it distrust single party governments altogether. No one can see understand the fuss we are making about it. 


I guess that a smaller population will have something to do with this but the Irish seem to have a greater sense of connection with the election process. It seems to be an acceptable topic of conversation and I get the sense  it has less of the tribalism of British politics. The recession has, is and will continue to hit the country hard but far from anger people seem to feel a certain responsibility for the way the government has handled the situation. I can't say we  have showed that here.  


So far nothing has taught me more about Ireland and the Irish. 


I remembered Cllr Kevin's placard reminded me of...It was a picture I saw in the National Portrait Gallery in London

English social reformer Sir John Fielding by Nathaniel Hone. 

Pushing Literary Boundries

The view of Landsdown Road from the end of my new road. 










Weekend in Dublin. Had Friday to myself so decided to wander the city, ignoring all suggestions about where to go. I quickly realised I had no idea where to go or what to do and I soon sought refuge in the tourist information center. Now armed with the cultural map of Dublin I preceded to independently 'discover' all the places that had been kindly suggested earlier. I spent a good 2 hours in the Chester Beattie Library. Once private collection, now donated too the state, it is basically a huge collection of old religious texts. Don't let this fool you though, it is great and well worth a visit.


Other News:


I finished reading Engleby by Sebastian Faulks. I am not great at receiving recommendations so I am reluctant to write reviews of the books I read. I think I might just be really brief and leave it up to you.

Engleby-
I enjoyed it.
Disturbing without being gross.
Especially interesting if you went to Cambridge (I didn't).


Just started reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. It is ruddy huge so you won't have to suffer another review for a while. 


I bought a push up app for my phone. Push ups are a Evo weakness and I think it may be genetic as Evo Snr is hopeless at them too. You program in how many you want to be able to do continuously and how many you can do now and it puts a program together. You do it every other day and it times the breaks in between. I have been doing it for a week and today's session was 6-7-8-6 -6 with 60 seconds in between each set. It hurts. 


 I will keep you posted.  

5 things I will miss, despite not doing/visiting them enough....

5 things I will miss-

1. Turnham Green Terrace- Spent a great deal of time there during my time at ArtsEd. 
2. The National Theatre- Even though I didn't get the job there. 
3. The Princess Louise- Not the Toilets though..
4. Rock and Sole Plaice chip shop-  Great chips, you can sit outside and you can order beer..perfect.
5. All Star Lanes, Holborn.- Only been once but it's great!