After 2 previous attempts and fails at trying to get tickets for Carol Morley's documentary, "Dreams of a Life", The Wig and I finally managed to see it on Thursday night at my new favorite place, The Hackney Picture House. (Or the HPH for lazy typers). Despite The Wig being very angry that it kept selling out I was actually very pleased as I guess this means that the HPH is proving to be a success, even in this crummy recession. Bravo HPH! People will always want to sit in a comfy seat and eat popcorn. (Although might I recommend buying Butterkist Cinema popcorn before arriving at the cinema as at £1.49 for a big bag it will save you approx £2 on the cinema own brand stuff.
I had read an article about "Dreams of a Life" a while back and remember thinking how awful the story was behind the documentary. Without giving too much away, in 2006 the decomposed body of a 40 year old woman, Joyce Vincent, was found in her flat that had been there for 3 years. No one had reported her missing and the TV and lights were still on. They had been on for 3 years! Its very hard to get your head around the tragedy of a story like this particularly in these days of mass communication, but the documentary proves that, unfortunately, it is possible. Carol Morley (the film maker) read about the story in the papers and set about trying to piece together Joyce's life in order to try and establish how she could vanish and no one notice. The documentary consists of reconstructed scenes played by an actress and interviews with friends and boyfriends to create a picture of Joyce's life. I found parts of it slightly self indulgent ie the reconstructed sections, but the interviews with the people who knew her were at times very moving. It was an interesting film as I didn't leave the cinema feeling like I thought I would if that makes sense. Its the sort of film that after watching it, you need to go to the pub and have a few drinks and cigarettes while you discuss it with someone. (I of course didn't do this, I went home and made a veggie stir fry but that doesn't mean you can't have fun. And a nice alcoholic drink. Delicious... ) It's a very thought provoking piece of work but not in the way that I was expecting, and I highly recommend everyone to try and see it*. Even if all you do is come away from the cinema and call someone you haven't spoken to for a while it will be worth it.
* Not recommended for a first date though.
Dreams of A Life Trailer
On a much more cheery note, despite us supposedly battening down the financial hatches for 2012, The Wig and I purchased another print yesterday from Nelly Duff, on Columbia Road.
Some of the artwork here is quite pricey, but mostly I think its quite reasonable. (Although framing is not included in the prices).We bought a couple of pictures from there last year one being "When We Had Cows" by Ian McDonnell.
It's a gold foil print on grey paper showing the anatomy of a cow and the different cuts of meat that come from it, all surrounded by a lovely border of cows teats squirting out milk. (Snigger). So imagine our happiness when we saw that Ian had printed a new one, "When We Had Pigs" showing the anatomy of pigs! We just simply had to have it.
The only problem we have now is a distinct lack of wall space to hang everything, so we may have to wait to hang the pig one (with border of curly pigs tails, not quite as funny), until we move. But it will definitely be worth the wait.
After Nelly Duff we popped into the Electricity Showrooms in Shoreditch for a fish finger sandwich. I used to come here fairly often when I lived with The Baboon (my Ex) on Great Eastern Street and it used to be a bit of a dump (from what my wine addled brain can recall). However, now its a pretty nice place. It looks like an old pub these days, rather than a dirty white room for drunks and serves a nice selection of food for lunch. We had 2 x Ginger Beers, 2 x Fish Fingers Sandwiches + 1 x Portion of chips which came to £20.50, not too bad I didn't think.
My only complaint would be not enough Tartare sauce in the sarnie but thats a matter of personal taste / a craving. On the plus side, the staff were very nice and the chips were delicious.
I was rather hoping that today I could regale you with a, no doubt buttock cringing, tale of my first Pregnancy Yoga Class, but alas, I did not attend. I dont know if buttocks can actually cringe but I reckon mine could if they were forced to go to Yoga. As the weeks go by the reality is slowly dawning on me that in 4 months time, all being well, we are due to have someone very small and pink and possibly a bit noisy coming to live with us. Forever. Or at least until it goes to college or decides it hares us. Before this can happen though, the more terrifying prospect of me having to produce it from my nether regions is also dawning on me. Up until now I have tried not to dwell on this part of the equation too much as there really isn't much I can do about this now. As my friend said "It's got to come out one way or another and there's nothing you can do about it". Wise words. However, the other night, I plucked up the courage to watch "One Born Every Minute" as I thought it might be good research. Apart from bursting into tears when I met David Beckham several years ago on an Adidas shoot, this was probably the most stupid thing I have ever done. Being a highly squeamish individual I was mortified beyond belief. How this programme can be one of the most successful ever made is quite beyond me. Give me Countryfile any day of the week. Even Top Gear would be better and I hate Jeremy Clarkson, just ask the Wig. Anyway, the long and the short of it, is that I hyperventilated for around 27 minutes after getting half way through the episode and only calmed down after several distracting rounds of Solitaire on the Blackberry.
The next day, once I'd stopped crying and started breathing regularly again, I thought I really should man up. So we have joined an NCT class which starts in March (thank God The Wig is coming too) and I was also due to start Pregnancy Yoga in Bethnal Green today. For anyone that knows me they will know that Physical Movements of any sort are not really my thing. I wouldn't say I'm lazy, I just prefer sitting down. But apparently Yoga will put me in good stead for the horror of labour. I was pretty psyched up for it actually but unfortunately a rather odd pain developed in my hips yesterday afternoon so I thought I better not go. Another part of being pregnant which I had no idea about is all the weird little aches and pains you get. It makes sense if you think about it, that things will be moving around and stretching the further along you get with the pregnancy, but some of the weird aches are less than pleasant. The one I developed yesterday was so odd it has made walking only possible if I waddle by taking tiny steps. As you can imagine, I'm finding the whole thing highly embarrassing not to mention uncomfortable so I thought I'd better wait for it to ease up before I start trying to salute the sun or whatever it is that happens in Yoga. Shame.
Anyway, we have our 5 month (??!!) scan on Monday at the hospital so I'll ask them about my waddling condition then. Hopefully they will say its nothing major and I can go to Yoga next Saturday. I can hardly wait . . .
I had read an article about "Dreams of a Life" a while back and remember thinking how awful the story was behind the documentary. Without giving too much away, in 2006 the decomposed body of a 40 year old woman, Joyce Vincent, was found in her flat that had been there for 3 years. No one had reported her missing and the TV and lights were still on. They had been on for 3 years! Its very hard to get your head around the tragedy of a story like this particularly in these days of mass communication, but the documentary proves that, unfortunately, it is possible. Carol Morley (the film maker) read about the story in the papers and set about trying to piece together Joyce's life in order to try and establish how she could vanish and no one notice. The documentary consists of reconstructed scenes played by an actress and interviews with friends and boyfriends to create a picture of Joyce's life. I found parts of it slightly self indulgent ie the reconstructed sections, but the interviews with the people who knew her were at times very moving. It was an interesting film as I didn't leave the cinema feeling like I thought I would if that makes sense. Its the sort of film that after watching it, you need to go to the pub and have a few drinks and cigarettes while you discuss it with someone. (I of course didn't do this, I went home and made a veggie stir fry but that doesn't mean you can't have fun. And a nice alcoholic drink. Delicious... ) It's a very thought provoking piece of work but not in the way that I was expecting, and I highly recommend everyone to try and see it*. Even if all you do is come away from the cinema and call someone you haven't spoken to for a while it will be worth it.
* Not recommended for a first date though.
Dreams of A Life Trailer
On a much more cheery note, despite us supposedly battening down the financial hatches for 2012, The Wig and I purchased another print yesterday from Nelly Duff, on Columbia Road.
Some of the artwork here is quite pricey, but mostly I think its quite reasonable. (Although framing is not included in the prices).We bought a couple of pictures from there last year one being "When We Had Cows" by Ian McDonnell.
It's a gold foil print on grey paper showing the anatomy of a cow and the different cuts of meat that come from it, all surrounded by a lovely border of cows teats squirting out milk. (Snigger). So imagine our happiness when we saw that Ian had printed a new one, "When We Had Pigs" showing the anatomy of pigs! We just simply had to have it.
The only problem we have now is a distinct lack of wall space to hang everything, so we may have to wait to hang the pig one (with border of curly pigs tails, not quite as funny), until we move. But it will definitely be worth the wait.
After Nelly Duff we popped into the Electricity Showrooms in Shoreditch for a fish finger sandwich. I used to come here fairly often when I lived with The Baboon (my Ex) on Great Eastern Street and it used to be a bit of a dump (from what my wine addled brain can recall). However, now its a pretty nice place. It looks like an old pub these days, rather than a dirty white room for drunks and serves a nice selection of food for lunch. We had 2 x Ginger Beers, 2 x Fish Fingers Sandwiches + 1 x Portion of chips which came to £20.50, not too bad I didn't think.
Fancy flashing peacock light on the way to the lav.
Terrible photo of the bar. Must get new camera.
Slightly dry sandwich.
My only complaint would be not enough Tartare sauce in the sarnie but thats a matter of personal taste / a craving. On the plus side, the staff were very nice and the chips were delicious.
I was rather hoping that today I could regale you with a, no doubt buttock cringing, tale of my first Pregnancy Yoga Class, but alas, I did not attend. I dont know if buttocks can actually cringe but I reckon mine could if they were forced to go to Yoga. As the weeks go by the reality is slowly dawning on me that in 4 months time, all being well, we are due to have someone very small and pink and possibly a bit noisy coming to live with us. Forever. Or at least until it goes to college or decides it hares us. Before this can happen though, the more terrifying prospect of me having to produce it from my nether regions is also dawning on me. Up until now I have tried not to dwell on this part of the equation too much as there really isn't much I can do about this now. As my friend said "It's got to come out one way or another and there's nothing you can do about it". Wise words. However, the other night, I plucked up the courage to watch "One Born Every Minute" as I thought it might be good research. Apart from bursting into tears when I met David Beckham several years ago on an Adidas shoot, this was probably the most stupid thing I have ever done. Being a highly squeamish individual I was mortified beyond belief. How this programme can be one of the most successful ever made is quite beyond me. Give me Countryfile any day of the week. Even Top Gear would be better and I hate Jeremy Clarkson, just ask the Wig. Anyway, the long and the short of it, is that I hyperventilated for around 27 minutes after getting half way through the episode and only calmed down after several distracting rounds of Solitaire on the Blackberry.
The next day, once I'd stopped crying and started breathing regularly again, I thought I really should man up. So we have joined an NCT class which starts in March (thank God The Wig is coming too) and I was also due to start Pregnancy Yoga in Bethnal Green today. For anyone that knows me they will know that Physical Movements of any sort are not really my thing. I wouldn't say I'm lazy, I just prefer sitting down. But apparently Yoga will put me in good stead for the horror of labour. I was pretty psyched up for it actually but unfortunately a rather odd pain developed in my hips yesterday afternoon so I thought I better not go. Another part of being pregnant which I had no idea about is all the weird little aches and pains you get. It makes sense if you think about it, that things will be moving around and stretching the further along you get with the pregnancy, but some of the weird aches are less than pleasant. The one I developed yesterday was so odd it has made walking only possible if I waddle by taking tiny steps. As you can imagine, I'm finding the whole thing highly embarrassing not to mention uncomfortable so I thought I'd better wait for it to ease up before I start trying to salute the sun or whatever it is that happens in Yoga. Shame.
Anyway, we have our 5 month (??!!) scan on Monday at the hospital so I'll ask them about my waddling condition then. Hopefully they will say its nothing major and I can go to Yoga next Saturday. I can hardly wait . . .
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