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Muji Models

The weather these last few weekends has been pretty miserable, so I thought I’d break out the last of my Muji Model kits, which I’ve been saving for a wet weekend. For the past few Christmases, my parents have given me a selection of these cardboard model kits. As an engineer, I find them extremely well constructed, and the 3D effect is very clever.

The kits start off as a set of cards, each about the size of a postcard but slightly thicker. Each card contains a number of die-cut shapes which you have to press out, and then slot together in numerical order – matching the two slots labelled “1”, then “2” etc etc.  When you’ve done that, you’re left with a rather sad set of left-over card outlines,

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and a very sturdy 3-D model, in this case of a knight in armour. To give a sense of scale to this rather fuzzy photo, he’s just over 20cm tall, from his helmet to his boots.

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It’s certainly a very constructive way of keeping me quiet for a couple of hours over a wet & windy weekend!

06 12 2015 Gillian art Comments Off on Muji Models Permalink

Side-effects of the Throwdown

I was back at Eastnor Pottery today, having my regular fix of pot-throwing. I was mostly just practising throwing cylinders and vases, and cutting them in half when I’d finished to check the profile. I’m still suffering from the curse of the “heavy bottom”, and there’s usually plenty of clay left at the bottom of the pot which I could mobilise to get a taller structure, and which I have to turn away if I take the pot through to the next stage.

The pottery studio was virtually full, with four people on day two of a weekend course, and another two (plus me) who were doing a single day’s worth of throwing. Jon had called in Ethan, his ex-apprentice, to help with the tutoring. The pottery team pride themselves on giving lots of individual tuition, and the skills involved in throwing and turning are sufficiently different that Ethan was leading the throwing workshop, while Jon supervised the people doing turning and decorating.

Jon the Potter said that ever since the first episode of the Great Pottery Throwdown was shown on the tv, his phone has been ringing virtually non-stop with people enquiring about throwing workshops and gift vouchers. It’s been absolutely great for business, and he’s probably going to have to run additional workshops next year, over the ones he’s already got scheduled, in order to satisfy all the demand. He’s also taking part in a BBC & Crafts Council tie-in, offering people a chance to  throw a pot for free next Friday and Saturday. It will be interesting to see if all this interest is just a blip, or whether it leads to a sustainably higher level of demand. I suppose that will partly depend on whether the programme gets re-commissioned for a follow-on series or not. It’s very interesting how a tv series, and the buzz surrounding it, has had such an effect on their sales.

29 11 2015 Gillian status Comments Off on Side-effects of the Throwdown Permalink

Chocolate mousse heaven

On Tuesday morning, I had a meeting with some potential suppliers at our Head Office in London. I’d never actually been to that office before, but it’s very central and handy for meeting visitors who might not want to trek all the way out to Malvern. Unfortunately, that means we have to trek in the other direction, and the trains between Malvern and London are not particularly reliable. In order to be moderately sure of making my 09:00 meeting in central London, I would have had to have caught the first train at stupid o’clock in the morning, and I’m simply not prepared to do that! Instead, I booked myself into centrally-located but rabbit-hutch sized hotel room for Monday night, and travelled down at a much more sensible time of day. 

As it turned out, my sister (who works in central London) was free that evening, so we agreed to meet up for an early dinner before she commuted back home. We went to Smolensky’s on the Strand, a steakhouse/burger joint that seemed to be very popular with pre-theatre diners as it’s almost directly opposite the Adelphi Theatre. It’s been years since I last ate there, but I do remember that the chocolate mousse was absolutely gorgeous. The waitress gave us a funny look when we asked to see the dessert menu before we’d even ordered the main course – but we wanted to plan ahead. We could see from the size of plates being served to the pre-theatre diners around us that the portion size for the mains was on the large side, so two courses were going to be a realistic maximum; either starter & main, or main & dessert. The presence of chocolate mousse on the dessert menu clinched that one – we each went for a “fully-loaded” burger and chips, followed by chocolate mousse. I’m pleased to be able to report that the chocolate mousse was still as gorgeous as I remembered. Very light and smooth, but deeply chocolatey and remarkably filling. I gave it a good try, but couldn’t finish my portion. It was just as well I’d not had a starter! 

It was great to be able to catch up with my sister and have a proper gossip over dinner. We’ve both been so busy this year that we’ve not managed to meet up for months. And I was pleased that Smolensky’s had kept the same recipe for chocolate mousse since last time I ate there!

25 11 2015 Gillian status Comments Off on Chocolate mousse heaven Permalink

From one extreme to the other…

Well, I certainly can’t fault Malvern Theatres’ determination to cater for a wide spectrum of audience interests. Last week was highbrow; a neo-Shakespearean study of constitutional crisis. This week was quite the opposite – a stage show based on the 1997 film The Full Monty, marketed in the theatre publicity as “Not suitable for polite children under 12”. 

I had a free afternoon on Saturday, so rang the theatre in the morning to see if they had any standby tickets available for the matinée. Not a chance! They told me that they hadn’t even bothered setting a standby ticket price all week, as every performance had only had the odd single seat left. For the matinée, there were just three seats unsold in the whole auditorium, scattered towards the rear of the circle. I took the best available seat, and used my Bronze Membership to get a hefty discount. 

As I feared, the audience was packed full of coach parties of very loud women, mostly in their thirties and forties, who were all utterly determined to have a very good, and extremely raucous, time. There was only a handful of men present, and most of them looked somewhat hen-pecked and clearly were only there to accompany their boisterous female partner. If that was the matinée audience, I can only imagine what the evening lot would be like – especially once they’d got a good few drinks inside them in the interval!

The film had been adapted for the stage by the original writer, and stuck very faithfully to the plot of the film. The set was excellent – a two storey industrial structure that represented the inside of the closed steelworks, that was then customised with a few props to become all the other locations. There was also a very good child actor, playing the main character’s son. He really held his own, and seemed remarkably unperturbed by the baying female mob in the audience. But of course the real stars were the six main characters playing the redundant steelworkers turned male strippers. They were uniformly excellent. The classic scene in the dole queue, where they start tentatively trying out their dance moves to the song on the radio, was extremely funny. 

By the time we got to the final scene in the nightclub where they were going to “Do the Full Monty”, the audience was very, very wound up, clapping and stamping their feet in time to “You Can Leave Your Hat On” as the cast took everything else off. The actors were game for it, and really did go all the way – but were heavily backlit at the critical juncture so you couldn’t actually see anything!

It was a fun way of spending a wet Saturday afternoon! 

15 11 2015 Gillian Day out
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The mice are back

The mice have clearly returned – even though the weather is surprisingly mild for the time of year, it’s still clearly chilly enough to send them scurrying indoors. They’ve been scrabbling around in the evenings above my chair in the living room, and spending their nights tap-dancing above my bed. I checked just a few weeks ago, and there was plenty of bait left up in the loft, but that can’t have been enough because it’s clearly not stopped them.

So I had to call out Martin the pest controller, who turned up first thing this morning, his usual cheery self, and reported that the mice indeed appeared to have been having a party in my loft. I don’t think he meant that there were empty cans and cigarette stubs up there, but all the bait had been taken and there were lots of fresh droppings. He left a load more bait in strategically placed heaps up in the loft, and I renewed my rolling contract with him for another year. I’m sure I’ll get my money’s worth out of it yet again!

12 11 2015 Gillian house Comments (2) Permalink

King Charles III

Yesterday afternoon I got myself a standby ticket to this week’s play at Malvern Theatres – King Charles III by Mike Bartlett. The performance was nearly sold out – I only managed to get a seat in row Q, much further back than usual. Normally the Saturday matinee performances are not much more than half full and I can get easily a last-minute seat in the first 10 rows of the stalls. It soon became apparent why it was so busy – the play was absolutely superb, one of the best performances I’ve watched for ages.

It was billed as a “Future History Play”, set in the very near future, and based very firmly on the structure of a Shakespearean play. It was written in iambic pentameters, and had references to King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard II and Henry V. At least, those were the ones that I spotted – and Shakespeare is hardly my favourite subject, so there may well have been others that I missed. If asked, I would have said that the world has more than enough Shakespearean tragedies and history plays and didn’t need another one. But actually, this one worked very well, the plot was gripping, and the actors all coped extremely well with speaking in blank verse.

Robert Powell was excellent as King Charles III, who in the immediate aftermath of the Queen’s death is plunged into a constitutional crisis when he is presented with a Privacy Bill to sign, although he has serious misgivings about its content. He can’t resist meddling in politics, refuses to give Royal Assent, and then watches horrified as events spiral out of control, leading to civil unrest, and tanks parked on the lawn of Buckingham Palace.

The Kate character came across as something of a Lady Macbeth, highly ambitious for her husband and son, and manipulating Willam into an act very close to regicide. Meanwhile, comic relief was supplied by Harry, who fell in love with a completely unsuitable art student, and went with her on midnight shopping trips to an all-night Sainsburys. There were also strong performances from a republican-minded hard-left Labour prime minister (though surely the playwright can’t have predicted the rise of Jeremy Corbyn?!) and a thoroughly slimy, self-serving Conservative Leader of the Opposition, whose word was absolutely not trustworthy. 

All in all it was a thoroughly interesting, thought-provoking and enjoyable way of spending a Saturday afternoon.

08 11 2015 Gillian Day out
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The Great Pottery Throwdown

I popped along to Eastnor Pottery the other weekend, to pick up my latest set of fired pots, a stack of five serving bowls. The decoration is very simple, but really surprisingly effective, I think. I’m pleased with them anyway.

While I was there, Jon the Potter asked if I would mind changing the date of my next session as he now had a waiting list for the original date. Since I hire studio space at a vastly reduced rate compared to his regular course participants, I’m always happy to be flexible. He reckons that the sudden spurt of interest he had in weekend throwing courses was due to the advanced publicity for the Great Pottery Throwdown, which started this Tuesday on BBC2. If that’s the case, I’m sure he’ll get even more interest now that the series has started airing, as it’s very good publicity for amateur pottery.

The format is the same as the Great British Bake Off, but with clay not cakes. Ten amateur potters from across the country compete in a series of tests, with one eliminated each week. I actually saw the call for participants for the programme, and thought about applying for maybe half a second. I’m very glad I didn’t go through with it, as it really looked hard work with very long days. I have done all of the skills that were examined in this week’s programme – wedging, throwing and turning a set of kitchenware bowls, pulling mug handles, throwing egg-cups from a large lump of clay, decorating, and glazing. I reckon that technically I’m probably about as good as the second or third person from the bottom of the group. But whether I would be able to replicate that skill under time pressure is another matter entirely.

There has been quite a lot of comment on-line about how innuendo-ridden the programme was – worse apparently than Bake Off. As soon as I saw that they were pulling handles, I knew that the tone would go down-hill; the activity is frankly obscene! Whenever I’m pulling jug handles in the pottery, I have to sit myself in a corner and make sure I don’t catch anyone’s eye, or I’ll dissolve into giggles. 

I’ll definitely be watching the rest of the series, and will hope to pick up some ideas and inspiration for the next time I’m at Eastnor.

05 11 2015 Gillian status Comments Off on The Great Pottery Throwdown Permalink

Seventies Wallpaper

wallpaper

The electrician/handyman came round this afternoon from the local appliance showroom to install my new oven. This is what he found at the back of the cavity when he took the old broken oven out – it’s hard to imagine a more typically nineteen-seventies pattern! The kitchen must have looked absolutely hideous when the walls were covered with this design! It’s a bit of a blurry picture, but I just had to capture the full horror for posterity.

29 10 2015 Gillian house Comments (3) Permalink

Appliance conspiracy

I’ve been having real trouble with my kitchen appliances lately. In fact, it strongly feels like they’re conspiring together to cause maximum irritation!

My washing machine has decided to leak intermittently all over the kitchen floor. I’ve spent hours watching it, trying to catch it in action, but it always waits until my back is turned to produce a sad little puddle on the floor. As far as I can tell, it seems to be leaking not through the door seal, but via the detergent dispenser overflowing. It’s tricky to be certain, because it doesn’t do it all the time, but I think it’s on the “rinse” cycle rather than the “wash”. My previous washing machine had a removable detergent drawer that you could clean out under the tap, but this one doesn’t seem to disassemble. So I’ve resorted to scrubbing as much of it as I can reach with an old toothbrush. That does seem to have made a difference, but it’s still prudent to put old tea towels down on the floor in front of the washing machine before attempting a load of laundry!

The other appliance that’s currently causing me grief is the electric oven. It’s been playing up for several months – again an intermittent fault. Sometimes the fan won’t come on, and at other times it’s been behaving itself fine. I was getting very suspicious though about the thermostat, as things were taking far longer to cook than they should. I did a lamb and potato bake last week that should take 1.5 hours at 180 degrees, but was still undercooked after 2.5 hours when I was so hungry I could wait no longer to eat it! I bought a cheap oven thermometer off Amazon which I don’t expect to be highly accurate, but it did confirm my suspicion that the main oven simply isn’t getting anywhere near the claimed temperature. Again that’s intermittent – it was fine yesterday, but on Thursday it struggled to reach 100 degrees Celsius. Fortunately it’s a double oven, and the top oven still seems to work. So I’ve been having to use that for anything that requires accurate cooking, though it’s a bit on the small side.

I’ve had trouble with the oven before, and had to get it mended when the element gave out half way through cooking a soufflé! The oven’s not much more than ten years old, and really should be more reliable than this.  I’ve now absolutely had enough of it. So I phoned up the local appliance showroom in Ledbury, and said I wanted a new oven delivered and installed this week with the old one taken away. I wanted a mid-range oven, nothing top-of-the-range or too fancy, and ideally not another Hotpoint as this current one has put me off them. I asked them to give me the prices and model numbers of a small number of mid-range ovens that they had in stock, then looked them up on-line. I could get them cheaper from John Lewis, but the convenience of having an all-in price for delivery, installation and disposal of the old oven is really attractive, and worth paying for in my opinion. Plus, the showroom is a local company that I’ve used before, and (despite my active Amazon account) I do try to Buy Local where I can.

I think the woman on the phone was a bit surprised at my approach to buying a major domestic appliance. But I see no need to physically go to the showroom to look at the ovens in person. It’s only an oven for goodness sake, and I don’t care what colour it is – my kitchen is hardly of show-house standard! You can get very good pictures of appliances on-line, plus see lots of (hopefully unbiased) reviews of them and check that the quoted price is reasonable. So I was quite happy to do the business over the phone, calling them back with a credit card once I’d checked out the options and compared reviews and prices.

I’m sincerely hoping that by the end of the week I’ll have a fully functioning oven, even if there are still soggy tea towels on the floor next to the washing machine…….

26 10 2015 Gillian house
invective
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Who killed Tutankamun?

That’s the topic of this week’s “assignment” on the on-line course I’m doing. I really don’t know where to start with my objections to it! The evidence of how he died is very inconclusive for a start, and if medical experts can’t agree as to whether King Tut died from a traumatic head injury, a broken leg from a chariot accident, or just the constitution-sapping effects of in-breeding, then how can a bunch of complete amateurs be expected to come up with a sensible theory? Mind you, I’m not convinced that “theory” is an appropriate word – it implies (at least to me) some form of scientific method and the ability to be falsified. “Wild, baseless speculation” might be a better description of what we’re being asked to do.

However, whenever I find myself getting particularly wound-up at the woolly, liberal-arts bias, I remind myself that the course is completely free. Since I’m not paying for it, I can hardly complain about its content, and I’ll just have to cherry-pick the bits of the course that I have found interesting and worthwhile – such as being introduced to the oldest song in the world. It goes by the snazzy name of “H6”, and is written in cuneiform on a clay tablet, with both the words (a hymn to the moon-goddess) and the musical notation clearly inscribed. I’d never have come across that unless I’d participated in the course, and it was fascinating.

18 10 2015 Gillian invective Comments Off on Who killed Tutankamun? Permalink