'Charlie Bubbles'

    Last week we watched 'Charlie Bubbles', a 1967 British film starring Albert Finney, Liza Minnelli, Billie Whitelaw, Colin Blakely, and written by Shelagh Delaney.  Finney also directed. The producer was the actor Michael Medwin, who with Finney had founded the production company 'Memorial Enterprises' in 1965.  Well, what's not to like? you may think.  As you can see it has all the ingredients for success - strong cast, talented script writer. You would be, however, be wrong.  The result is decidedly flat-footed.  Finney plays the eponymous hero, a successful novelist, who - accompanied by his secretary (Minnelli) - goes on a picaresque journey back to his roots in the North. (North of England that is.)  Not as bad as the adaptation of Iris Murdoch's 'A Severed Head' I reviewed in 2024 - 'Charlie Bubbles' has its moments, after all - but still a dud.

Hail Bounteous May: Verse for May Day

Song on May Morning by John Milton 1608-1674

Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,
  Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
  The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
  Hail bounteous May that dost inspire 
  Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
  Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing,
  Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
And welcom thee, and wish thee long. 

To Violets by Robert Herrick 1591-1674

WELCOME, maids of honour!

        You do bring

        In the spring,

And wait upon her.

She has virgins many,

        Fresh and fair;

        Yet you are

More sweet than any.

You're the maiden posies,

        And so graced

        To be placed

'Fore damask roses.

Yet, though thus respected,

        By-and-by

        Ye do lie,

Poor girls, neglected

Now is the month of Maying by Thomas Morley 1557-1602

Now is the month of maying,

When merry lads are playing,

Fa la la la la la la la la,

Fa la la la la la la lah.

Each with his bonny lass

Upon the greeny grass.

Fa la la la la la la la la,

Fa la la la la la la lah.

The Spring, clad all in gladness,

Doth laugh at Winter's sadness,

Fa la la la la la la la la,

Fa la la la la la la lah.

And to the bagpipe's sound

The nymphs tread out their ground.

Fa la la la la la la la la,

Fa la la la la la la lah.

Fie then! why sit we musing,

Youth's sweet delight refusing?

Fa la la la la la la la la,

Fa la la la la la la lah.

Say, dainty nymphs, and speak,

Shall we play barley break?

Fa la la la la la la la la,

Fa la la la la la la lah.

May Morning on Magdalen Tower

by John William Burgon (1813–1888)

Now ring out all the bells a merry chime;

While the hoarse horn croaks forth, a league below,

The note which doubtless seems the true sublime

To urchins straining might and main to blow.

Ring out, glad bells! and let the sleepers know

That, while they slept, we watched the month of May

Twine the first garland for her virgin brow.

Then bid them rise, for 'tis the prime of day:

And lo, the young Month comes, all smiling, up this way!

Life's May-day by Ben Johnson (1572-1637)

I saw the rustic May Queen, crowned

   With coronel of flowers,

With merry children gathered round,

   To laugh away the hours.

In morning sheen, with stately mien,

   Walked the fair Queen of May;

And little care, or thought, was there,

   Of how time sped away.

I saw the sombre evening come, 

   With train of lagging hours,

The fretful children turned them home,

   Nor brought their faded flowers.

In life's fresh morn, fond hopes are born

   Which fade ere shadows come;

And life's long day, though fair as May,

   May make us sigh for home.

'Mlinaric on Decorating'

      I've had this book - large, hardback, excellent photography - on my shelves for years now, but as with any 'recently' published book I feel a bit reticent about posting images from it, but here goes....

     Mr Mlinaric, born in 1939, is one of Britain's foremost interior designers, though now retired.  He has worked for the likes of Mick Jagger and the Rothschilds.  As a child he was inspired by a number of chance encounters with remarkable interiors; Widcombe Manor near Bath, home of Jeremy & Camilla Fry; Leixlip Castle, home of Desmond & Mariga Guinness.  Ireland in general stirred his visual imagination: Dublin, 'a perfect Georgian city, shabby and seedy, old-fashioned, with little shops with turf fires burning', and the decaying country houses of the Ascendancy, 'when a celling came down, the family just closed the door and moved to another room.  They wouldn't sell their houses, hoping for a better days, and as a young man found that very romantic, just holding on and keeping things.'  There is something very poetic about these sentiments. He trained at the Bartlett, moving from architecture to interior design after a year.  He was part of the whole Swinging Sixties thing, and apparently knew everyone, some of whom, such as Ozzie Clarke moved in the circles documented in Peter Schlesinger's 'Checkered Past'.  There is a short documentary ostensibly about young men, including Mlinaric, with long hair made in 1967 by the BBC.  One way, perhaps, of seeing that whole 'Swinging Sixties' phenomena is as an attempt to re-enchant the world, to revive the poetic and the mystical.

     David Mlinaric seems, from the beginning of his career, to have worked in two styles, one contemporary and one traditional.  It is the latter that interests me and in particular there are three schemes from quite earlier on in his career which I think are quite masterful: Thorpe Hall (1970-72), interesting not only because it represents his own taste, but was done with such assurance for somebody in their early thirties; Beningborough Hall, (1977-79), for the National Trust; An Eighteenth Century Lodge, (1977-1979).  It was this last scheme that I remember from an early edition of World of Interiors.  Later work this style is to be found at Luggala (1997-2006), Waddesdon Manor (1990-2002), and Milgate Park (2002-2006).  At times it is Neo-Classical, at other times almost Neo-Victorian.  Sometimes, interestingly, 'Sixties'.  Perhaps it never went away.  (Though Thorpe Hall stands almost out of time.)  Anyway, Mlinaric moves with ease and admirable skill between styles, and with these remarkable skills he has contributed to the public realm here in the UK with restoration of Spencer House, London, the Royal Opera House, Convent Garden; The National Gallery; The National Portrait Gallery; and the design of The British Galleries at the V&A.  His knowledge must be encyclopaedic. 

Mlinaric on Decorating  Mirabel Cecil & David Mlinaric, Francis Lincoln Limited, 2008

Own work: Current sketches

     I'm currently making preparatory sketches for a painting of the entrance façade of Gordon Wu Hall, Princeton.  Wu Hall dates from 1983 and is the work of Robert Venturi & Denise Scott Brown, an important piece of Postmodernism in architecture.  The building as a whole seems heavily indebted to British architecture of the fin-du-siècle and the Edwardian age; particularly, I think, the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens, and Charles Holden.  The entrance façade is startling when the rest of the building is red brick; it seems to reference the sort of patterns Lutyens used and also the facades of Italian renaissance churches  with their extensive marble plaquing.  Doing some research on another project yesterday, I had reason to look at the Sebastiano Serlio's book 'Regole Generali di Architetura' of 1537 published in Venice.  I wonder if the illustrations (woodcuts) in that book, and others, were an influence on this extraordinary facade? 

    Mixed media: biro, felt-tip, pencil & wax crayon.

St George

 

A Happy

St George's Day

to you all!

The Queen Elizabeth II Memorial, part 2: The Triumph of Mediocrity

  

   Yes, just when you thought it was safe to go in the water....

    Today marks what would have been the Queen Elizabeth II's hundredth birthday.  So, with a rather muted fanfare the final designs for the Queen Elizabeth II Memorial in St James's Park have been placed before the public.  Well, I think I might be rather muted if this is the best that we can do.  The images are from the Cabinet Office, and they cannot even manage to spell 'Commonwealth'.  I really shouldn't complain about this because, as any reader of this blog will have seen, my spelling is, at times, atrocious.
     Anyway, this morning X, nee Twitter, is mildly a-flutter with posts about this, and the tweeters, including myself, are not happy.  There is a sense that the design, which promises to be 'more than a landmark'. does the Late Queen a disservice.  People have been voicing their disappointment that there will be no equestrian statue of her Late Majesty, as illustrated in Foster + Partners submission.  Sadly, it was never that likely, I think - the five designs that went out to public consultation were merely in the way of an 'Early Proposed Design Concept'.  As Foster + Partners later(?) admitted the equestrian statue was merely there for 'scale'.  As I wrote in my previous post on this project, consultation was a P0temkin exercise.  Not only that, it was highly misleading. People supported the Foster scheme on the assumption that a) it was a serious concrete proposal and b) they were going to get an equestrian statue.
     So, what are we likely to get? Well, thanks to Foster + Partners and Lord Janvrin and his committee* we shall have the following: On the Mall we have a bronze statue of the Queen, by Martin Jennings, standing atop a stone pier, and (beyond the gates designed by Sir Aston Webb) an area with a bronze bust of the Queen on a stone plinth, by Karen Newman; followed by another area with a 'Commonwealth Compass' designed by Sir Norman Foster himself. At some point there will also be a bronze statue of the Late Duke of Edinburgh by Martin Jennings, a new bridge over the lake with a balustrade of cut glass inspired by Queen Mary's Tiara, which the Queen wore on her wedding day.  And then there is the sculpture by Yinka Shonibare, 'The Commonwealth Wind Sculpture'.  Apparently, there will be themed gardens with places for relaxation and reflection.   
     The words, reflection reflect and contemplation, re-occur throughout the material provided by the Cabinet Office; the Prime Minister is quoted thus on the Government website: "As our longest‑serving monarch, Queen Elizabeth II devoted her life to public service. The nation will commemorate her extraordinary reign with a memorial that offers a place of reflection for generations to come."  Nice to know everybody is on message.**

     Lord Foster says, "With a serene and contemplative atmosphere, there will be opportunities to rediscover – or perhaps for some to discover – the legacy of Her Majesty."  What does that even mean?

     We told that the design attempts to reflect (that word again) the Queen, as the Chairman of the Committee has written, "Our task has been to recommend a memorial capturing her role, her personality and what she meant to so many of us - whilst being of public benefit which was so important to her."  But how is that possible when so much of her private values, such as her Christian faith is omitted?  The official memorial website, run by Kanda Consulting, does talk about her 'private faith', but does not mention any concrete expression of that.  I remain sceptical.

     The result of all of this seems to be a design teetering on the incoherent.  We are given a bit of this and a bit of that.  Some of it, such as the new bridge - the 'Bridge of Unity' - strikes me as tawdry.  As for the sculptures by Foster and Shonibare, the latter looking rather like the ghost in Jonathan Miller's 1968 tv adaptation of 'Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad', are, a profound level, quite meaningless.  It is the triumph of mediocrity.

     I honestly believe that an equestrian statute would have been enough.

     

* Valerie Amos, Amelia Fawcett, Joe Garner, Alex Holmes, Keay, Sandy Nairne, and William Shawcross.  Nice work if you can get it.

** The Queen Elizabeth II Memorial website is no different.  It just bristles with insincerity.  As I said above the website is run/managed by Kanda Consulting, the Competition Website by Malcolm Reading Consultants.

'Checkered Past: A Visual Diary of the '60s and '70s'

But I sat back and looking forward

My shoes were high and I had scored

I'd bolted through a closing door

I would never find myself feeling bored

     I've been neglecting the blog of late, certainly neglecting the visual side of things, not being that happy.  It's all become a bit wordy.  Then lunchtime, for some reason, I suddenly thought of Peter Schlesinger's wonderful book 'Checkered Past: A Visual Diary of the '60s and '70s', published 2003 by Vendome Press.  I discovered this book on Ben Pentreath's Inspiration Blog over a decade ago now, and it has been a firm favourite of mine ever since.  It is a book of a slightly melancholic beauty.  Schlesinger's photographs are ravishing, sometimes possessing an ethereal quality, the result I think of the use of film.

     'Checkered Past' documents the American artist's ten years, or so, living in London from the late '60s to the late '70s.  When David Hockney returned to Britain in 1968, Schlesinger - then his lover - followed.  They settled in the then slightly seedy Notting Hill in w London.  In those days those grand stucco houses were subdivided into flats and bedsits.  It was a life poised between the bohemian and the Beau Monde.  A life that included, amongst a cast of seemingly thousands, such 'Somethingofthechamelon' favourites Cecil Beaton, Patrick Proctor, David Hockney, Min Hogg, Gala Mitchell, and Celia Birtwell; the social, the arts, applied arts and the intellectual. Socialites and plutocrats.  A life partially covered in Jack Hazzan's 1973 film 'A Bigger Splash', which purportedly covers the aftermath of the end of Schlesinger's relationship with David Hockney, and the creation of one of Hockney's most well known paintings, 'Portrait of an Artist'.

     It is a world that is slowly slipping from our grasp.  It essentially ended in the mid-70s after the Oil crises.  I think it was Sir Roy Strong, who moved in the same circles, who said that it was the last social great period, or words to that effect.  Certainly a more colourful world both in terms of the visual but also the character of those depicted.  There was definitely more place for the eccentric and the intellectual.

Checkered Past: A Visual Dairy of the 60s & 70s  Peter Schlesinger, Vendome Press, 2003