Author: admin

07 Sep

Posted at 21:19h in Sarah's Journal by

A long slow sun down strokes the city in copper light. We watch a new city rising up, and remember the places we have known over the years in this spot. Through the mists and splashes of the fountains run the ghosts of the groovers we were in the 80’s at warehouse parties in Battle Bridge Road. And ravers in the 90’s at the Cross or Bagley’s in dingy warehouses with festoon lights, beer residue sticking to our hyperactive trainers. Now the gas towers are an exoskeleton for apartments and the warehouses are filled with sparse rails of crisp linens.

06 Sep

Posted at 16:46h in Sarah's Journal by

Neighbours on both sides ensure daily conversations about weather, pets, excursions, vehicles and offspring. There are also regular exchanges in kind – of parcels, trips to the vet, and borrowed eggs. Today there is a surfeit of succulent baby tomatoes. Eleven sit on an heirloom plate in transit from 23 to 22. I try to save these winnings till lunch, but one by one I pop them into my mouth to be burst then sucked, sweet and juicy.

05 Sep

Posted at 16:57h in Sarah's Journal by

We arrive just after the fall. A narrowboat’s passage is blocked. Boating seniors on holiday consider their options mid-stream. This is not an obvious weather-related event. On the bank is the fresh wound – trunk torn with stress fractures. My mind’s ear hears the creak of wrenched wood and tumbling branches heavy with leaves, then the splash! I am haunted by the absence in my vocabulary. I cannot name the tree with its unevenly serrated orbicular leaves.

04 Sep

Posted at 19:24h in Sarah's Journal by

Autumn has arrived on the marshes. Sloe berries are fat enough for hipster foragers on bicycles with their shoulder satchels full of berries. The sky is dappled; grasses and leaves are tinged yellow. How long do we have until we’re out of time? The dandelion clock is briefly whole, with its perfect interlocking sacred geometry.

03 Sep

Posted at 22:40h in Culture Reviews by

From the outset the fortitude of the ensemble cast move us when a member of the Sydney Theatre Company tells of Ningali Lawford-Wolf’s death last week mid tour. Our narrator has come sudden to take her place, sometimes reading the text, to keep the narrative going despite tragedy. Is this a metaphor for the continuing struggle for Aboriginal land rights perhaps? This is the story of one small place where white settlers take land from the first nation people of Australia. One tale told well demonstrates the bloody outcome of colonisation. We see how fear breeds separation, which leads to violence. As one indigenous performer fills the huge Olivier stage, the power of two centuries of injustice is brought home.
https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-secret-river

02 Sep

Posted at 18:03h in Sarah's Journal by

I pass a small garden in my urban neighbourhood where flowers flourish. It brings me joy. One dahlia, a flamboyant burlesque artist in silky yellow petals shimmies on a long stem. A supporting cast of country garden flowers encourage its sensual display.

31 Aug

Posted at 19:37h in Sarah's Journal by

I stop to talk to a pigeon. I am taken by its fine hood of taupe fluff and a thick coat of beige and brown feathers. One eye assesses my intentions, unperturbed by my proximity. On closer inspection it wears identity anklets, above fetching red feet and white claws. This particular symbol of peace and love is taking a nap before returning to a ‘well-feathered’ nest.

30 Aug

Posted at 21:50h in Sarah's Journal by

The cemetery stretches into the distance. Monumental headstones made of York stone sit near, marble with occasional flower vases in the far reaches as the centuries shift. I park randomly, stepping out to find my great great uncle Jehu’s grave and along the first line of stones there are several familiar surnames. I scatter ginger cake and crumbly cheese, leave white roses as offerings to these forebears I never met who lived in this town I never knew until now.

29 Aug

Posted at 20:45h in Sarah's Journal by

The name of the mill was built into the brick façade with the confidence of the industrial revolution’s entrepreneurs. The history of the family is bound and twisted – like the ropes they made – with the mill. The place, its legacy has been knitted into my own psychogeography. Here it is, my first encounter with this legendary edifice. The dark red brickwork and broken windows conceal a complex weave of family history, ethics, and exploitation, and the story of cotton in Lancashire.

28 Aug

Posted at 21:43h in Culture Reviews by

This is an acerbic, witty slice of the politics of 1988. It shows a stone hurled from Thatcher’s Britain and the consequences reverberating into 2019. Lindsay Duncan and Alex Jennings spar with brilliance as a tory minister and his bitingly sarcastic wife. The punch, however, when it comes demonstrates the destructive power of undigested grief. Simon Woods underlying manifesto is a prayer for compassion.
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/hansard