Jo Bloggs...

 

 

Favourite shops...

All mine used to be cafes, greasy-spoons spread across London - smooth formica tabletops unchanged since the fifties, often with neon lettering over the door, and a telly up on the wall. The greatest was the 'Piccadilly Cafe' near Piccadilly – the  waiters were made to wear crisp white linen sailor suits for some reason, possibly the owner had inherited a suitcase of clean kit from the navy- and all were on the other side of 60, and hilariously reluctant;
 

 

 

 

‘Harry's’ open all night behind Carnaby St on Kingly st – who kindly saved my neck from a fight in the queue I think I may have drunkenly started. But grub to die-for, and rare as hens teeth to find somewhere open late, back then;

‘Franks’ on Neil st, which is still banging out the death-defying fry ups. Occasionally in my research to complete the definitive pan-London café handbook, I felt the hands on approach to health and safety that characterised these venues got beyond the beyond, when I saw the chef with freshly bleeding knuckles stirring the soup, and much worse that cannot be printed.

But it's not just cafes that stay with me - my first vinyl record that I bought when I came to London was Nena Simons ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ from a specialist record shop off old Compton st. The shops of that area are packed with memories for me, the Algerian coffee bean shop on Old Compton St (below) which has a beautiful interior and service to match - you feel you’ve had a freebie just by inhaling over the doorstep.

 

The beautiful, and impractical seeming 'Cloth House' that houses all manner of fabric in every colour and pattern but always seems to arrange the huge collection with an eye to design;

 

 

 

 ‘Gerry’s’ - the booze specialist on the same road where you can get exotic polish vodka with real gold in it, and a mind bending array of Absynth... That makes you blind just looking at them through the wondorous window - the staff appear to  have tried everything in there and loved it.

 

 

 

I love the shop in cambridge circus selling royalty-free designs for your own use; giftshops - mostly gone now - behind Charlotte st,  American Retro on old compton;

Pattisserie Valerie that has survived by expanding to other venues, but retained the magnificent painted fake Lautrec's, and shared tables - I could spend hours there,

eves-dropping on conversations about 'films in preproduction' or theatrical agents or the germ of an idea being pitched.
 

The best I remember was a self-confessed porn-star pitching a series of children's books in which the characters were pieces of food inside a fridge - Charlie cheddar cheese, Tommy Tomato..he supplied the voices too. I nearly choked trying to pretend I wasn’t listening.

One fateful day, I  struck up a conversation with a young man because I couldn't believe how much he looked like Robert de Niro - he invited me to the show he was in that night, where I met my future wife.

 

 

 'Northfields Pottery' was a pottery shop in Holborn where I would loiter on my way home from drama school and stare at the bold colourful patterns on mugs and bowls – not very rock and roll, but the designs were so rich and colourful. ‘Second time around’ on upper st was an early vintage clothes store, and of course  ‘Laurence Corner Army Surplus’ where Anna got the military coat that saw her warmly through RADA. Similarly, the German cavalry boots I bought aged 19 from a specialist in Nottingham hill – (why?)

 

I know that locally in Wandsworth everyone agrees that the post-office/ sweet shop on Bellevue rd was a favourite, it's sloping sweet counter and the old man who ran it with memorable dignity and charm - and of course the 'Lucky Parrot,' (now the glorious ‘Tickled Pink’ of course) eccentric centre of the world for all children in the Wandsworth area with it's resident parrot and Ginny, the unforgetable and colourful patron.

Which reminds me of another  favourite - L'Artiste Assoiffee, also had a parrot as well as Labradors roaming around the 3 story house in Notting Hill that was the epitome of bohemian dining, a combo of quite cheap nosh and linen table cloths - now Paul Smiths house, I think.

 

 

(The Picadilly Cafe, the last time I went there. The hoarding was covered with hand-written laments to its sudden passing.)

Jo Bloggs...

 

 

 

If you are think that all the artistic creations that come home from school with your children, all the clay piggy-banks, moody self-portraits and whacky surrealist explosions are going nowhere, then I urge you to cram yourself into the back-room at the Victoria and Albert Museum where the Thomas Heatherwick exhibition currently shows the direct route from squeezing play dough through a plastic mould and enjoying the curly, mushy shapes that come out, to the multi award winning design firm whose groundbreaking creations topped the stunning Olympic ceremony - particularly the flame design. On show is the original model of the flame. It does look rather like it might have sat on your teenager's desk as an ambitious, but zany school project; when revealed at the peak of the ceremony, more than anything that had preceded it, his realisation of the idea of the eternal torch carried by all the nations taking part, took the breath away from a billion viewers around the world, as the individual petals of bronze rose to form one roaring flower of light - symbolism not even lost on a pre-occupied sixth former, and beautifully simple; moreover, it answered that nagging question - 'how could this Olympics ever be individual, representative, and  creative on a global stage after the 'star wars' scale of Beijing?'
 

 

The notes and ideas that permeate Heatherwick's studio are a testament to the purity of his ethic - all different disciplines within the studio are physically and creatively on a level, so that a kind of democracy of innovation means that the designs leave behind the usual strictures of any single discipline - the rolling bridge they made for paddington basin is artistically pleasing as much as it is a triumph of modern material, but also basic maths and engineering.
 

 

 

 The cafe at Littlehampton is amusing in design and commercial, but beyond original in the way it's architecture fits the lines of the long beach. Everyone knows who eats there that they are in Barney rubbles house for fish and chips, but like the best creation you think this is so simple, I could have done it. But we didn't, he did.

 

 

 However, maybe our children will too, if we can facilitate passing on the baton, the one already handed from Brunel through Turing and Jonathan Ive (the british designer of the iPhone) and onto Thomas Heatherwick - 'workshop UK,' a small but

perfectly formed hotbed of originality.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone

Jo Blogs...

What first textures do we know?

A mother's skin..

Food, the carpet, a teddy bear.

The patterns of television, nursery curtains, grass when we are left out to play,

In my other job, I have been asked about ten times in the past year to voice an animation in the style of this one at Fiat
http://www.fiat.co.uk/ecodrive/#ecodrive/intro
And each time the creators feel they are working with an influence that is current and entirely original. It intrigues me that styles, not just visual, but ways of seeing and of re-creatimg, and of reacting to the world, run like layers of rock, folding with time and sometimes bursting to the surface to dominate, seemingly from nowhere; but actually each current or influence in our way of seeing can be traced back.
When a group of talented animators fled the soviet union from Chechoslovakia in the 60s the story, if I remember correctly goes, the BBC bought a job-lot at the cheapest price, and they became our staple visual language, possibly absorbed by the creatives of the next 30 years from the carpet where we watched the telly.

(a card from our current collection -designed recently, but influenced by the czech

imports.)

(logo for the famous czech animation studio, that survived persecution, 'the trick brothers')

The work was characterised as non-violent, childlike, and distinctly and deliberately un-Disney.

The gentle colurs and shapes even now speak of  a different tradition, an intelectual, possibly left-leaning tradition. There is a hint of public broadcast about them, which may have arisen from a political situation where overt expression without common responsibility was impossible. This in turn suited, or possibly informed the very character of my generation's impression of early viewing, and the Paternal feel of media in those days - this may also be what attracts advertisers of today to evoke,  parody, and borrow these undercurrents.

  Possibly the methods of delivery were dictated by financial constraints, and local traditions of water-colour - but many of the particular characteristics are so specific to the culture were they arose that I as an outsider cannot identify.

 (two above, a cartoon from 1970s prague, and below one of our national favorites, the little princess - the similarities are striking.)

Not least the hugely influential Heinz edelmann (who illustrated the Yellow Submarine)

. And this set of images, this mode of seeing, lay dormant until the toddlers of that generation grew up and came to prominence in their chosen field, in this case advertising and animation, and a zeitgeist is born.

 Festival of Britain images from the 1950s, which are again so poular in design, in turn were evocative of sceintific, microscopic ages, and the advances of understaing of the natural world that were emerging at the time of their first fabrication.

(fabric pattern inspired by scientific advances in the early nuclear age)

 If you are of a different generation, your zeitgeist is different altogether but arose without announcing itself, but with the unanimous recognition of your peers, and the delightful bafflement of outsiders. And it is almst impossible, if you are outside a group of recognition, to understand what those inside it are acknowledging, what they are remembering and why it can have significance.

Maybe for you its graffiti, and associations with rap music, or the iconic album covers of the Sex Pistols;  or Che Guevara, or Burne-Jones.  It’s the same with comedy - I watch my son delight at the Mighty Boosh –

 and I distrust, detest and am bored by it; but it is no less peculiar than Michael palin dressed as a woman, or Harry Secombe and his honking opera voices which used to crack my dad up.

  I look at pictures my older brother and his friends aged 16 wearing bovver boy, high-waisted side buttoned baggies

 – I mean, what can they possibly have been thinking, but something in the style made sense to them, though for the life of me  I can't imagine what. I am equally guilty, since I knew exactly what Adam Ant was on about with his war paint, the dandy highwayman! but am not sure of the origins of this curse; however there was a series of ladybird books around at the time that I and Adam Ant were growing up, and one of the series was 'Pirates', and, if I remember rightly, the book went out of its way to make these robbers seem heroic and exciting.

 Maybe that emotionally warped a generation of school children, and left them vulnerable to psuedo native/clannish rock nonsense.

 We  have melamine 'Asterix' trays and mugs, aimed at children, but definitely favoured by 40-year- olds for themselves, because it is their own icon. Equally, the chopper bag.

I am sure the day will come with our business at Sugarbag Bue when people look at the stuff we stock and say'
'what on earth were they thinking?'
 –hopefully by then, like all wise people we will have had the wisdom to hand the choosing on to someone else!

Jo Blogs...

For me Yorkshire is usually filed away in my prejudice records as being full of big-headed cricketers, brass bands, and fixed opinions – well that’s my fixed opinion anyway.

 Fortunately, I have to go to fair in Harrogate to gather the newest sparkly things before the winter season, and it tends to promise new companies and a broader palate than the hords of ‘lord-of-the rings statues’ that crowd the halls of Birmingham’s trade fair, so this gives my narrow-minded ideas a chance to breath some fresh opinions from the boggy moors.

So when the rain finally ebbed away as we escaped London up the M1, it was into a golden, sunlit upland that we arrived, to a county looking more English, more fertile, with the kind of  rolling hills only that bloke who directed gladiator would come up with, and more all-round excellent than I could have imagined.

We took my mum on the outing, and as a born and bred northerner, from Rotherham no less, she was as prejudiced in her worship of ‘gods own county’ as you would expect

-          ooh they don’t make tea like that anywere else..ooh the grass is definitely greener up here…ooh, the people are happier and nicer than anywhere on earth!!

-           

-          To amuse, I thought we had better get a day out - I was attracted by the sound of Saltaire, an old mill bought by a school-friend of David Hockney on the edge of Bradford, and converted to house his collection of original art.

-           I asked for directions from our hotel reception:

-           ‘David oo?’ Never ‘eard of ‘im.’

-           Just to remind me that gay painters in white fedoras might feel more at home in San Francisco.

-          Well,  I’ve never seen anything quite like it, not even in 'the arty south' - the confidence it must have taken to use the huge industrial spaces over four floors of this epic industrial monument – the building, or actually the mini city of mills, built by an inspired philanthropist who shaped the whole surrounding area to give his workers a fulsome environment, with sports areas, shops, homes all in georgeous, fudge-coloured york-stone.

-           All the original spirit has been restored, preserved and continued by its current owner, who shows massive respect for its origins, for the machinery and barebrick of the time it was functioning, while daringly breaking conventions with the display of Hockneys’ not insignificant works. The space between objects, the distance your eye is allowed to travel, the air that is allowed to live around the precious things, making them live, and not rest in aspic.

-          The facilities, cafes, huge shop (more of a museum of retail with its mouth-watering card and stationary collection – every art card we had dreamed of showing they had and more!)

-           original Hockney canvases are generously and openly displayed, seminal works that I never have expected to see close up. \here, You felt as though Hockney himself probably pops in to re-arrange the pictures, between cups of T and fags (he’s very big on smoking, in an un-reconstructed way.)

-          Hockney has gravitated to apple devices, iphone and ipad for a quantity of his latest creations, using amongst others, an app. called ‘brush’ to bang out lovely flower studies every day before emailing them to friends; he is anarchically toying with the concept of image ownership, and copyright, in an age were the younger generation think nothing of asset-stripping the entire western hemispheres song catalogue daily, with the impunity of Lord Canarvon and his mummies – the digital creations still bear his style, sense of colour and impatience with preciousness. The gallery, equally, were not touchy about my taking photos as long as no flash was used – my god, I was nearly taken to the tower of London for that at the National Gallery.

Any way we made it to Bettys tea rooms and gloried in the cake and the scone; as a retailer I envied the 3 floors stuffed with custom, piano tinkling away in the lounge while Bettys staff made it feel like the upper class bit of the titanic, all whit estarched young ladies and gents, bril-creamed and polite.

Fantastic.

Jo Blogs..
The Flame

Today the sun blessed us in an embarrassing generosity, freinds turned up at Sugarbag Blue to join in and we set out drinks on the street in a propriatorial way. The pavement became ours, our neighbours in the flower shop and the hairdressers all came and sat out - kids ran in and out grabbing drinks, the travellers all came to watch. Our crowd seemed to be the rowdiest, and were busily jousting with the blue sponsored inflatible clubs supplied by sponsored fore-runners. Will we ever see the streets of Earlsfield bursting in expectation in the midsummer heat again and the traffic righteously brought to a standstill? ( pedestrians took precedence and stood between the frozen traffic, pitying those stuck on their way home but most of all awaiting the arrival of the flame.)

No, not in a hundred years

 And this all for a runner we had heard about on the news.  Just as my camera lost power cries went up 'He's coming.. Here he is ... He's coming now. ..'

 I suppose it's our children who will value having been here - there is an egalitarianism about the Olympics -people who honestly couldn't get excited about the jubilee were out cheering their heads off. We all  hope that the supreme effort of the athlete and the team work will bring us what? Glory ?

 It's not like the day was all about this and all work stopped - it didn't, and workers were still forcing their way through the crowds to get home.
 But it was a day to remember! We are at the centre of something - one of my boys gets up at 5 am and  puts on a hard-hat to build the gymnastics stage; I met an actress yesterday who's busy rehearsing the opening ceremony - no, she wouldn't tell me about it, except to say 'it's epic!'
Our lives are full of the mundane - can we rise above the traffic problems and inconvenience to allow a city where for a couple of weeks things are different, where the imaginators pull us through,; can we suffer a bit of traffic and inconvenience, because soon all  that will be gone and replaced by more of the same.

                                                          
                                                               (Lawrence Okoye)
 When  Lawrence Okoye, a 19 year-old schooolboy from a poor background who was in the year above my son at school is seen around the world by billions, in his attempt to spin his disc to a medal, or even a record that will still be talked about in 100 years time, we can rouse a little chaos on our street . As the headmaster said  - 'boys, if that can happen, then remember as you go through life, anything is possible.'
  Epic. 

Sent from my iPhone

Jo Blogs...
Personal Coast


The lure of the coast- why do we always come back to the edge of the land to worship the sea?

  As a teenager I remember the pure joy of living on baguettes and chocolate milk for two weeks in Cap Ferat, sleeping beneath pine-groves – that is, until the gastric ulcer took hold. The mistrals at night were terrorising. Where the day was scorching lazy, and positive, at night everything not nailed-down would shoot past you, bin-lids, rubbish, metal fences! Then, the same paradise becomes a scary clanging windy hell – too simple, nature too near.

We seem to be drawn at the extremes of life to the lands edge – old people cluster on rainy boardwalks to glimpse eternity, and children dig all day within sight of endless waves.

Some distinct coastlines, snapshots real and imagined: The Croatian coastline  - we found bombed out concrete shelters with nappies burst in the woods, past steel shipping containers used as homes for soldiers, and now poor people – to arrive at the beach as we expect them, sunbathers, holiday-makers, but also a kind of apartite beween Russian bars and the local ones – the Russian bars with pounding disco beats in the middle of the day and leering gangsters with gold bracelets sitting at the bar.

There are coasts I have never seen but feel I own a part of - the fantasy of the new England coast, the Isle of White which I feel calling me;

I do remember childhood visits to truly stunning beaches on the north Scottish coast, empty for miles and miles with just the cry of a corn-crake above; 

Fleeing heatwave-London in the big burn of 1995, to spend 6 months on the unspoiled Donegal coast – where the never ending wind in your head makes people, well,  a bit ‘out-there!’

I can go way back in my coastal journey to Polpero, Cornwall in  1973 –ants as big as your whole thumb, humming birds, and tropical plants – had we passed through a vortex that took us to not-England? – this was so exotic;

Suffolk – the absolute dream of Aldeburgh, one of the purest landscapes I had ever seen, at a pure time of life – Malcolm, my mentor at drama school took us out of rehearsal and on a train, to the beach, to experience the magic of the east coast light, as we were doing a play set on America’s east coast – he died young not long after we came back, but his spirit, the belief that quality is out there to be discovered, of which the coast there has been a reminder  -  has never left me;

An awakening of sorts – Port Merrion in the epic summer of 1982 where ‘the Prisoner’ was filmed – I remember it was during the Falklands war, the country was sending harrier jump-jets to a distant coastline while the family watched on the telly, and I made-do with assignations beneath the belltowers during a rain-shower.

Sleeping on the beach, never as good as it sounds, I thought – cold and exposed, and sometimes chased off by guards.

I would like to explore more beach huts of the world, it seems the greatest thing to have your house right at the shoreline.

Devon putsborough sands – where we had years of early holidays, East beach café, Littlehampton – a hop skip away from the big smoke, stylish architecture, seaside on a plate

Certain magic places – I always wanted to try out Dungeness-bombed bleakness, nuclear power lights glowing over the shingle. But I’ve never been.

We lived near the sea in Dublin, a huge smile of a bay that has industrial striped chimneys overlooking it, and Joyces’ Martello towers, stunted, wartlike defenses against napoleon when Dublin was Englands Cap Ferat – and the celebrated kick-off point of Ulysses’ hero. I canoed around freindly seals, and nothing could do better to round of your day than that, and a pint.

Arriving  in a huge storm, as flooding waves were coming over the seawall – Christmas day, driving the car round the beach in crazy patterns – feeling like escapees, but the other side of running off to the coast  is desolation.

                                                                  (west wittering)

 I remember my first holiday alone, experiencing solitariness for the first time, wading through chest high water and looking out for miles over the glassy Aegean sea.

I can’t see I will ever tire of the coasts, there always seem to be more that come into focus, that Ive heard about  - there are murmurs of somewhere everyone likes in Norfolk, and I shall have to find out.