If 2014 was I am Groot then 2015 may well be I am Chappie. Guardians of the Galaxy was in many ways the surprise film of last year Chappie may well prove to be the same for 2015. For those of you who might be aware of this new film it would appear to be a complicated mix of Robocop, District 9 and Elysium (I am sure film buffs may be able to point to other similar films but seeing as the film will not be released until March we will all just have to wait.
I guess you probably have seen this video already – it has 48m views – but it is well worth thinking about. I came across this from one of the blogs I follow – I know this is somewhat ironic given the message of the video – but it is worth thinking about. I also know that the message is somewhat laboured as well as using manipulative imagery but that doesn’t undermine the message. Look up
Lessons are being learnt every day, which is what life should always be about. Perhaps the best lesson I learnt yesterday is that you should never give up on something just because it has turned into a disaster area.
At one level watercolour painting is the most amateur of art forms. If you go around local art group exhibitions you will find time painting after painting made with watercolour. However the idea that ‘watercolour’ should be an the preserve of the amateur is, of course, nonsense. Most of the great artists over the centuries have a catalogue of watercolour paintings and some have made the medium their own.
So into this wonderful swirl of of paintings I have decided to dip my toes. Anyone who has spent anytime on YouTube know that there are countless video’s showing you how to make this type or that type of watercolour painting. As usual I have decided to ignore them and try to muddle through. These are two of my first efforts.
January is a really awful month, that is if you live in the northern hemisphere. After all the festivities of Christmas and new year you are left with a flat and grey expanse. In the past we also had snow but now, probably thanks to global warming, we don’t even have that but just a sense of having to endure. However, as I write this the sun has just come out replacing the rain and it looks really quite nice out which destroys much of what I am saying. Well actually it doesn’t. January is like that, it gives you hope and then cruelly dashes such hope – storms are predicted over the next few days.
I was reminded about this dark angst I feel for January as I walked around an exhibition of Georg Baselitz paintings and prints. They really are dark and gloomy (if you want a much more considered view my friend David Manley will be the place to go). For me they all seemed to be too bleak, much the same as Anselm Kiefer’s recent exhibition at RA. I can’t say either artist’s worked filled me with great interest, however it is important to view works which don’t conform to your own tastes in art as you may well be surprised. Also it means that you continually challenge what is and what is not ‘good’ art (A ridiculous concept I know but we all do it).
All this sombre Germanic reflections brought my mind around to the political leader of the early part of the 21st century Angela Merkel who just happened to be in London yesterday. When I was in Germany recently I mentioned to our two German friends how much Frau Merkel is admired in Britain and they admitted it was much the same across the political spectrum in Germany. There are questions over whether she stands again in 2017 and if she doesn’t I wish her well but the world will be a much emptier place without her steady head at a time when all around her male leaders OD on testosterone.
m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-30708925
I believe I had this first….ha ha
Simon Marchini
www.simonmarchini.co.uk
May I apologise to the wonderful author J.K. Rowling for what I am about the write – this is just what came to my mind after I made this drawing.
Everything was going so well. He had just seen his children off on the Hogwarts’ express; there were rumours that he could be a future Minister for Magic, after all he had defeated Voldemort and was ‘the one’ and he and Ginny made the perfect couple. Who would have thought it would fall apart so quickly so that he can be found shuffling around Diagon Alley from his small flat above one of the shops to one of the more disreputable bars that have sprung up near to Knockturn Alley. He lives on his stipend but with no other purpose in life.
The downfall started with the revelation of the very complicated relationship he had with Hermione Granger and the question of who was the father of her second child. This was a poorly kept secret amongst Harry’s close friend’s but once it was splashed across The Quibbler then both marriages collapsed. Hermione is now a leading campaigner for Witchism, the belief that Wizardry is too male centric and that the true contribution of women has never really been acknowledged). Ginny has also moved on and is now an agony aunt in, of all things, The Quibbler. Harry’s children don’t talk to him anymore.
Hard on the heels of the paternity question came the strange business relationship Harry had with Dudley Dursley Nothing was ever proved but there was wide spread belief that the collapse of the bank that Dursley was a director of was connected to the manipulation of the stock market. The muggle’s had joking called it voodoo economics which only added to the suspicion against Harry.
Of course he still has his name and he attends the four Fellow’s dinners at Hogwarts each year, although the school’s principle (the title of head master/mistress being abolished was one of early successes of Witchism) tries to keep him sober long enough to stop his speech descending into an incoherent rant against the influence of modern muggle culture on the pupils at Hogwarts. There was also once the ill judged comments about the wizard schools of Transylvania which was widely believed to be an attack on Hermione as she was living at the time with a dark and brooding wizard from the east. What with Spellbook and Hoota it is almost impossible to keep these comments of the public domain.
So Harry is found most nights in the bar with Ron Weasley who, even after the collapse of his marriage is still Harry’s best, and if truth be told only friend. They relive again and again the exploits of their youth and then bemoan their lot in life. They have even been heard to complain about the secret tunnel from St Pancras station to the newly refurbished King’s Cross that allow all those dam foreign school kids arriving on the Hogwarts’ Eurostar Connection enter the country and thus by-passing passport control.
I think what this demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt J.K. Rowling can write and I shouldn’t give up my day job!
One of the great things about getting over a cold is that you can revisit the real world again, do normal things without feeling unwell. So today I took my wife out for lunch at a local burger restaurant in town. As usual the service was great as was the food but given the fact that I had been a virtual prisoner (hyperbole accepted) for the the past fortnight it made the mundane into something special.
Five years ago we had the rose garden and our political class trying to work together for the greater good, whatever that might be. Now we have the same old nonsense being spouted out by people who really really must know better.
On the Conservative side we have claims of £20bn unfunded spending plans of Labour whilst forgetting the £8bn unfunded tax cuts that they want to introduce. On the Labour side we have the rubbishing of Tony Blair and trying to pretend that his three landslide victories were because he attracted the ‘wrong type of voters’. What is wrong with these people don’t they know that we, the great unwashed, do remember things.
We do remember that that the Chancellor claimed that by following his great plan we would have eliminated the deficit by now – it currently stand at c£90 bn. We also remember the way that the rich got a tax cut and the poor got a benefits cut.
As for Labour we also remember that they were the party, when in Government, claimed to have ended boom and bust. We also remember that they were the party that didn’t seem to be able to control our own borders, although to be fair nether can the current Government. We also remember that they led us into two unholy wars which has cost the country billions for no real purpose other than to be friends with George W.
We also remember that the Liberal Democrats will say anything when try to get votes and that they clearly didn’t really believe they were going to have be held accountable for it.
We also remember the way that our current political class collapsed into a panic when they thought there was even a chance of Scotland becoming independent. We also remember the great bombast Alex Salmond claiming that the Scottish oil industry would be able to fund a paradise north of the border from the boundless bounty it would produce.
Which brings us to UKIP. We all know that they are just a bit shady who only really attract voters who are desperate to return to a golden country of their youth when you knew what it meant to be British or English. We also know that we haven’t got a clue what the EU does for us but it is the boggy man from abroad who is here to crush us with it’s European Court of Justice and Human Rights Act.
Given all these negative feelings why is it that our political leaders feel it necessary to pander to us? Why is it that none of them can offer a positive vision of the way forward? Why is it that we have over four months to go to the election yet the Government has all but dissolved and all they care a bout is trying to rubbish each other? I suspect one answer might be that we now have a ruling class every bit as removed from the real world as it has ever been. Most of the leading lights come from comfortable backgrounds, have a PPE from Oxford, worked in some form of ‘consulting’ job whilst also working for their respective parties. They have been given plum safe seats which mean they don’t have to worry too much about not having a job come the election so they can plan for a life in politics.
None of this was planned but it really is a world of unintended consequences. This, however, is not the biggest example of this. No the biggest is the result of fixed term parliaments which means that we now know when the next election will be and so we can look forward to an American style election campaign where the parties can spend months throwing mud at each other whilst at the same time not realising that most people just don’t care. I guess this is what is meant by the ‘Westminster Bubble’. I feel like throwing up.
Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk
As I sit down to write this Allegri’s Miserere Mei, Deus is playing in the background. (This plays havoc with the autocorrect/spell check which is not a bad thing as God should have mercy on them.) The only reason why I mention this is because I feel I have got a little Abba obsessed over the past few days so the soaring notes of the Miserere will act as a sort of purge of the system.
So Pinocchio, what to say about this strange and scary tale? Nothing really other than I made this rather strange a disturbing watercolour yesterday which I think is in keeping with the tale itself – defiantly no Abba then.
