Heston Blumenthal's Christmas experience.
Christmas special: Wednesday 19 December, 8pm. BBC2.
Heston turned his attention to the biggest meal of the year, Christmas dinner, in this episode. His six guests all had one thing in common - a genuine love of food - and Heston's aim was to make them feel like children again, albeit with some very sophisticated tastes. When Terry Wogan, Kirsty Wark, Dara O'Briain, Rob Brydon, Richard E Grant and Sue Perkins arrived, they had no idea what to expect.
What they received was pure Art you could eat.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
The Last Day...
...at work. With Friday off I can feel the bubbling optimism and joy sweeping through me. Christmas is marvellous but the greatest part is that I don't have to go to work. Yes I know that on January 3rd I will feel terribly depressed but that is in the future, far far away. At five o'clock this evening I hit the point where (apart from my annual Summer vacation) I have the maximum holiday in front of me.
Of course I assume I will be called upon (willingly I add) to do my share of sprout-peeling, toilet-cleaning and grocery-buying but my mood can be neither dimmed nor derailed. I tell myself I will dust my running shoes off, unpack my sketchbook and prepare my creative juices to explode into the vacuum. Usually it pans out to twelve days in an armchair stuffed full with calorific danger (me, not the armchair) with the only exercise being the lifting of the remote control to pause the sky plus whilst I do any business (pouring a drink) before returning to the cricket or the football.
I do without doubt, when faced by "spare time" always feel the urge to stretch my imagination, to write the great northern novel or paint the definitive study of Sheffield at dusk (or whatever). I know these desires are in there inside me struggling to manifest themselves. Even if they have not surfaced during the first 49 years it doesn't mean they might not suddenly escape. (image of Steve McQueen on his bike in "The Great Escape"). The truth is more likely to be that if I perform one task this holiday it will be to reduce the number of bookshelves surrounding the marital bed in the master bedroom. It feels like we are sleeping in a crowded, badly-designed Waterstones and I swear the books talk to me. I often will wake up and think where is that book, (for example, called Adam's Navel) governed by a totally irrational need to use this certain book and of course I can't find it. A reorganisation of reading matter would be helpful therefore to improve access to the books, to allow a deeper and more restful sleep (as being half-deaf I wouldn't hear the books talking in the night if they were in the attic), and to see what colour the wallpaper is (or was).
When I was at boarding school and I was longing for the holidays (and in a previous reincarnation of my current job when I was really, really unhappy) I use to create a chart to count down the hours until I would be free. When an hour went past I would tick it off (or colour the square in) first on a sheet of paper then on an excel spreadsheet (for recent bad times). Obviously overnight I would colour in an entire eight hours which make me feel far happier. This was not really born out of manic depression (although the citalopram does probably help) but rather from a sense of knowing that what I really wanted to do was not in that place but in a room of my own.
Therefore in these future twelve days (at present mercifully free from any extraneous commitments) my time is my own. Whether it is to write the Great Northern Novel or to paint the definitive study of Sheffield At Dusk (or whatever) these days seem to hold the possibility of promise. These twelve days also contain five lottery days, upon which numbers permitting, this delicious sense of freedom might (however unlikely) be extended even farther into the future. When I wake up I wake with the feeling of relaxed optimism. There will be no nausea of adrenalin surging through my body as I prepare to move through the days governed by management, by society, by convention or by pretence. Shackled by work and by fiscal famine (the necessity of one forcing the other) the day-to-day existence, the feudal servitude will be lifted for the holidays. For my twelve days of Christmas my motivations will be internal as opposed to external, ambitions genuinely fed by my perspective rather than anyone else's. I will arise and go and I will think "What shall I do today ?". The limitations are mine and I could ask for nothing more.
Of course I assume I will be called upon (willingly I add) to do my share of sprout-peeling, toilet-cleaning and grocery-buying but my mood can be neither dimmed nor derailed. I tell myself I will dust my running shoes off, unpack my sketchbook and prepare my creative juices to explode into the vacuum. Usually it pans out to twelve days in an armchair stuffed full with calorific danger (me, not the armchair) with the only exercise being the lifting of the remote control to pause the sky plus whilst I do any business (pouring a drink) before returning to the cricket or the football.
I do without doubt, when faced by "spare time" always feel the urge to stretch my imagination, to write the great northern novel or paint the definitive study of Sheffield at dusk (or whatever). I know these desires are in there inside me struggling to manifest themselves. Even if they have not surfaced during the first 49 years it doesn't mean they might not suddenly escape. (image of Steve McQueen on his bike in "The Great Escape"). The truth is more likely to be that if I perform one task this holiday it will be to reduce the number of bookshelves surrounding the marital bed in the master bedroom. It feels like we are sleeping in a crowded, badly-designed Waterstones and I swear the books talk to me. I often will wake up and think where is that book, (for example, called Adam's Navel) governed by a totally irrational need to use this certain book and of course I can't find it. A reorganisation of reading matter would be helpful therefore to improve access to the books, to allow a deeper and more restful sleep (as being half-deaf I wouldn't hear the books talking in the night if they were in the attic), and to see what colour the wallpaper is (or was).
When I was at boarding school and I was longing for the holidays (and in a previous reincarnation of my current job when I was really, really unhappy) I use to create a chart to count down the hours until I would be free. When an hour went past I would tick it off (or colour the square in) first on a sheet of paper then on an excel spreadsheet (for recent bad times). Obviously overnight I would colour in an entire eight hours which make me feel far happier. This was not really born out of manic depression (although the citalopram does probably help) but rather from a sense of knowing that what I really wanted to do was not in that place but in a room of my own.
Therefore in these future twelve days (at present mercifully free from any extraneous commitments) my time is my own. Whether it is to write the Great Northern Novel or to paint the definitive study of Sheffield At Dusk (or whatever) these days seem to hold the possibility of promise. These twelve days also contain five lottery days, upon which numbers permitting, this delicious sense of freedom might (however unlikely) be extended even farther into the future. When I wake up I wake with the feeling of relaxed optimism. There will be no nausea of adrenalin surging through my body as I prepare to move through the days governed by management, by society, by convention or by pretence. Shackled by work and by fiscal famine (the necessity of one forcing the other) the day-to-day existence, the feudal servitude will be lifted for the holidays. For my twelve days of Christmas my motivations will be internal as opposed to external, ambitions genuinely fed by my perspective rather than anyone else's. I will arise and go and I will think "What shall I do today ?". The limitations are mine and I could ask for nothing more.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Getting it down on paper....
This is a probably futile attempt to organise my thoughts regarding all the creative ideas and concepts which make an impact upon me. How to structure what is thought or done or discarded should, in effect, when collected explain a great many of the complex narratives which in turn reveal the creative life of the individual. As a writer and artist whose initial drive is directed towards recording on paper and preserving for posterity (really ? he asks himself). In fact the intimate artistic history of impulse, impetus and imposition would definitely seem to make the base foundation of the examined life that of the Journal. Whether that can successfully record both stream of consciousness and external stimuli is a cunning plan born out of the mind of a collector and a creator.
How many of us lie awake at night with our brains fizzing with world-shatteringly brilliant dreams and need to write it down if only to grab some semblance of peace and quiet. Sometimes the idea is fine, sometimes it is rubbish but other schemes and schedules can easily develop out of this miasma of half-considered and semi-understood desires. If I had a copy of every doodle I had ever made or every quotation that ever attracted my attention, every book read and painting admired, every garden planned or rearranged would it help the process of creating art. I tend to regard every artistic or creative endeavour as being in some way linked. I like to keep archives of photographs that carry meaning. Imagery from magazines that arrests my attention. The thousands of volumes in my library that serve as a repository of reference material. I hoard pebbles, rocks, pieces of driftwood; all with colours and textures that for some reason have found a place in which to rest. The link between these collections and the creation of new art may possibly be argued for and be supportable (even if not immediately self evident) but the average person on the street who demands a "use" for an item might well be baffled.
The struggle towards creativity however has little to do with the concept of "average" and as in so many struggles what is most obvious is the confusion. It is in order to access the individual strands that combine intellectually, psychically, spiritually and even physically to create an artistic anything that I try to anatomize the elements of my own individuality. Yes it is self-absorbed but it looks both ways inwards and outwards. I am looking for connectivity between areas of interest and searching for the alliances between images collected and concepts explored. It is both academic and emotional moving between differing disciplines and entering into the shadows of areas not so seriously studied. Out of this navel-gazing and creative-stalking of myself I hope and aim to find out more about who I am and what I can do. If it reflects other elements of the environment that has designed me then so be it but this is a personal pilgrimage with all the overtones which that term can carry. To find the crux of creativity can bring both angst and absolution. To discover an intimacy of identity can forge either integration or isolation. To listen to the voices in your head and by mapping those personal perspectives you may begin to find a series of different directions in which to travel. The process is in the Journey.
How many of us lie awake at night with our brains fizzing with world-shatteringly brilliant dreams and need to write it down if only to grab some semblance of peace and quiet. Sometimes the idea is fine, sometimes it is rubbish but other schemes and schedules can easily develop out of this miasma of half-considered and semi-understood desires. If I had a copy of every doodle I had ever made or every quotation that ever attracted my attention, every book read and painting admired, every garden planned or rearranged would it help the process of creating art. I tend to regard every artistic or creative endeavour as being in some way linked. I like to keep archives of photographs that carry meaning. Imagery from magazines that arrests my attention. The thousands of volumes in my library that serve as a repository of reference material. I hoard pebbles, rocks, pieces of driftwood; all with colours and textures that for some reason have found a place in which to rest. The link between these collections and the creation of new art may possibly be argued for and be supportable (even if not immediately self evident) but the average person on the street who demands a "use" for an item might well be baffled.
The struggle towards creativity however has little to do with the concept of "average" and as in so many struggles what is most obvious is the confusion. It is in order to access the individual strands that combine intellectually, psychically, spiritually and even physically to create an artistic anything that I try to anatomize the elements of my own individuality. Yes it is self-absorbed but it looks both ways inwards and outwards. I am looking for connectivity between areas of interest and searching for the alliances between images collected and concepts explored. It is both academic and emotional moving between differing disciplines and entering into the shadows of areas not so seriously studied. Out of this navel-gazing and creative-stalking of myself I hope and aim to find out more about who I am and what I can do. If it reflects other elements of the environment that has designed me then so be it but this is a personal pilgrimage with all the overtones which that term can carry. To find the crux of creativity can bring both angst and absolution. To discover an intimacy of identity can forge either integration or isolation. To listen to the voices in your head and by mapping those personal perspectives you may begin to find a series of different directions in which to travel. The process is in the Journey.
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