Dorian Grey: Famous for remaining outwardly the same whilst his fateful portrait grew old and twisted, reflecting on canvas that which the flesh did not: The passage of years lived through cruelty and deceit. It is a potent story and its moral point was hammered not-too-subtly home by Matthew Bourne’s latest production of ‘Dorian Grey’ based, very loosely, on Wilde’s novel. In Bourne’s adaptation Dorian is a want-to-be model lured into the fashion world by his narcissistic fascination by his own image as it appears staring at him in reflections and through the lens of a camera. Basil (all long hair and leather trousers) is the photographer who creates the photos with which Dorian becomes so fixated. Between Basil and Lady H, the devastatingly elegant, crushingly disdainful fashion agent, Dorian is seduced by visions of his own beauty and the darker sides of his mind is tantalized and flattered. The result? The Inevitable and we watch him spin out of control and finally come to his pitiless demise.
A billboard poster for the perfume he becomes the face of called; - you’ve guessed it – Immortal, falls apart, as if left in bad weather, the black ink running from his eyes creating an affect like he is crying blood, but this is not his portrait. In Bourne’s production he is haunted by another man with terrifying likeness to himself. You see this man appear to Dorian through the seething mass of bodies, writhing around high as kites faces in a club – baring striking resemblance to the gay daylight-hours clubs in Vauxhall (so I’ve heard) – or in the 'new boy' brought in to replace Dorian at the agency when he goes off the boil due to excessive drug binges.
Eventually Dorian ends up going loony and smashing Basil's head in with his own camera. Lewd scenes follow with bodies strewn and bleeding, suggesting a massacre. The final image is of Lady H stalking up to Dorian’s presumably O-D’d body and straightening his still-beautiful face before stepping back to allow the tidal wave of photographers to stream in and immortalise his demise and final destruction.
A few days later, a routine trip to the post office to get my passport photo taken and send off for a new passport oddly enough turned my mind back to Dorian Grey and the identity of a representation which becomes more lifelike than the orginal. As I trotted down Farringdon Road on my way back to the office after handing in my application form, complete with payment and regulation characterless mug shot, I began to ponder.
That photo, taken that day, with my hair scraped off my face in a little photo booth in Farringdon Post Office was to be scanned onto my new passport and be a symbol of my identity for a whole decade. It will represent me to countless officials and become a more reliable proof of identity than I am myself. Without it people will remain unconvinced. So that photo will remain me even if I change. 10 years from now I’ll be 36. No longer in my mid twenties but not far off 40! Believe me, from where I’m sitting that seems inconceivable. At 36 customs officials shall peer doubtfully at the photograph that young girl and back at the woman in front of them and I will remember that sunny day in August 2008 when I actually looked like that.
But 36 is still pretty damn young in the grand scheme of things so I won’t dwell on that but I do find the idea fascinating. What adventures have I a had since the last photo was taken! That little 16 year old girl stuck in my passport has taken me to so many places although little did she know it at the time. I wonder where the 26 year old will lead.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Bella Italia!
Not the most original statement but one that you can't restrain from bursting forth when faced with the golden light, intoxicating smells and general aesthetic explosion of joy and colour that is one of my favorite countries in the world.
A marvellous antidote to the inevitable tedium of the daily grind (no matter how interesting it might be). Out came the passport, on went the backpack and I skipped out of work on a Wednesday lunchtime with a light step and a glad shout.
Swift pints of Kronenburg at Stanstead and on to the tortuously musical Ryanair flight to be sold extortionate beverages by brown-faced Italian air stewards. I tried a 'gracie' on for size and found that 'gracias' slipped out in its place, sign of much linguistic confusion to come...
Three girls, 2 cities, 4 days. Squealing excitement, purring contentment, brow furrowing debates, eye-prickling heart to hearts and much laughter all with a back-drop of extravagant baroque architecture, golden Italian sunlight, olive groves, wild flowers, white-washed churches and accompanied with as much delicious wine and amazing food as we could manage. Which is a lot. In a companionable haze of happiness we floated around Puglia, delighted to be back in Italy which is the setting for so many of our shared happy memories.
Bari had been given a luke-warm press so I prepared the girls for bland city-scapes and uninspiring streets with a hint of crime lurking in the back streets. We were all much cheered, therefore, when Bari's Centro Storico turned out to have all the marble paving, windy narrow streets and twinkly pizzas lined with umbrellaed restaurants that we could ever wish for. A good place to start and, appetites whetted, we set off for The Florence of the South: Lecce.
Built with an ornate flourish of such enthusiasm, Lecce boarders on the ridiculous. Where Florence maintains a cool restraint and masculine authority, Lecce is its flouncy-skirted little cousin kicking up its heels to reveal lacy petticoats and luxuriating in an abundance of frills. The architecture is elaborate and (I've used the word already but it is a good one) extravagant. Lacking the Italian composure it resembles more the Spanish inclination: An orgy of stone carving adorning facades.
A little silly but totally gorgeous and our Imperial Suit in the B&B Centro Storico certified (if there was any doubt in our minds) that Lecce was a magical place and we would all be happy to drop all and come and live here at the slightest encouragement.
The history of Puglia is partly what makes the place so extraordinary. Greeks, Romans and Normans have passed through here leaving their mark in one way or another and to drive around the area is to drift from one remnant of ancient civilisation to another, scattered amongst endless olive groves and nestled in sandy bays.
It seemed wise to let Ellie do the driving and so Posy and I were able to sit back and enjoy the scenery while Ellie skillfully negotiated her way through the Italian traffic almost always remembering to look the right way when pulling out on the continental side of the road...
Coffee in Gallipoli overlooking the clear blue Mediterranean waters, lunch in a vaulted-ceilinged trattoria in a little rural town, brought to us by a proud owner, fluent in English and dictatorial over the correct selection and consumption of his food, wine and coffee. Ice cream in Otranto, where lies a magnificent Norman mosaic, and back to Lecce for another dreamy evening of scrumptious food, mucho vino and much world righting. How the days could just drift by in that manner forever...
But alas no! Back to Bari, farewell Posy (back to Madrid) and another lazy day for Ellie and me was we wandered, loosing ourselves amounts the labyrinth of twisting winding streets of the Centro Storico absorbing the sedate post-lunch Sunday atmosphere. Children kicked footballs in little courtyards, women bustled and scrubbed and every so often a tinny cheer and an enthusiastic yelp would echo out of one of the open door-ways as the men watched football in the their pants in the gloomy shade of their apartments.
Suddenly there was a colossal cheer and the streets went from being empty to full of football shirted Italians delirious with joy, leaping onto their vespers, charging about with flags, crying, hugging each other and letting off enough fire crackers to convince someone listening that it wasn't so much a celebration but a vicious riot. Ah the passion of the Latino!
Back to London with a light tan, full tummy and itchy feet again...
A marvellous antidote to the inevitable tedium of the daily grind (no matter how interesting it might be). Out came the passport, on went the backpack and I skipped out of work on a Wednesday lunchtime with a light step and a glad shout.
Swift pints of Kronenburg at Stanstead and on to the tortuously musical Ryanair flight to be sold extortionate beverages by brown-faced Italian air stewards. I tried a 'gracie' on for size and found that 'gracias' slipped out in its place, sign of much linguistic confusion to come...
Three girls, 2 cities, 4 days. Squealing excitement, purring contentment, brow furrowing debates, eye-prickling heart to hearts and much laughter all with a back-drop of extravagant baroque architecture, golden Italian sunlight, olive groves, wild flowers, white-washed churches and accompanied with as much delicious wine and amazing food as we could manage. Which is a lot. In a companionable haze of happiness we floated around Puglia, delighted to be back in Italy which is the setting for so many of our shared happy memories.
Bari had been given a luke-warm press so I prepared the girls for bland city-scapes and uninspiring streets with a hint of crime lurking in the back streets. We were all much cheered, therefore, when Bari's Centro Storico turned out to have all the marble paving, windy narrow streets and twinkly pizzas lined with umbrellaed restaurants that we could ever wish for. A good place to start and, appetites whetted, we set off for The Florence of the South: Lecce.
Built with an ornate flourish of such enthusiasm, Lecce boarders on the ridiculous. Where Florence maintains a cool restraint and masculine authority, Lecce is its flouncy-skirted little cousin kicking up its heels to reveal lacy petticoats and luxuriating in an abundance of frills. The architecture is elaborate and (I've used the word already but it is a good one) extravagant. Lacking the Italian composure it resembles more the Spanish inclination: An orgy of stone carving adorning facades.
A little silly but totally gorgeous and our Imperial Suit in the B&B Centro Storico certified (if there was any doubt in our minds) that Lecce was a magical place and we would all be happy to drop all and come and live here at the slightest encouragement.
The history of Puglia is partly what makes the place so extraordinary. Greeks, Romans and Normans have passed through here leaving their mark in one way or another and to drive around the area is to drift from one remnant of ancient civilisation to another, scattered amongst endless olive groves and nestled in sandy bays.
It seemed wise to let Ellie do the driving and so Posy and I were able to sit back and enjoy the scenery while Ellie skillfully negotiated her way through the Italian traffic almost always remembering to look the right way when pulling out on the continental side of the road...
Coffee in Gallipoli overlooking the clear blue Mediterranean waters, lunch in a vaulted-ceilinged trattoria in a little rural town, brought to us by a proud owner, fluent in English and dictatorial over the correct selection and consumption of his food, wine and coffee. Ice cream in Otranto, where lies a magnificent Norman mosaic, and back to Lecce for another dreamy evening of scrumptious food, mucho vino and much world righting. How the days could just drift by in that manner forever...
But alas no! Back to Bari, farewell Posy (back to Madrid) and another lazy day for Ellie and me was we wandered, loosing ourselves amounts the labyrinth of twisting winding streets of the Centro Storico absorbing the sedate post-lunch Sunday atmosphere. Children kicked footballs in little courtyards, women bustled and scrubbed and every so often a tinny cheer and an enthusiastic yelp would echo out of one of the open door-ways as the men watched football in the their pants in the gloomy shade of their apartments.
Suddenly there was a colossal cheer and the streets went from being empty to full of football shirted Italians delirious with joy, leaping onto their vespers, charging about with flags, crying, hugging each other and letting off enough fire crackers to convince someone listening that it wasn't so much a celebration but a vicious riot. Ah the passion of the Latino!
Back to London with a light tan, full tummy and itchy feet again...
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Squat bars to Worshipful Companies
My Google blogger dashboard has finally realised that I am no longer in South America and has readjusted itself to English again. How depressing. But come on now Katie, you have been back in blighty for over 4 months. Perhaps we should let it go...
And, as the title suggests, it has been a varied 4 months. Endometriosis UK continues to benefit from my labors and is now £4,600 richer as a result. Fundraising, I have discovered, is an interesting and unpredictable affair and people are a damn sight more stingy than I previously thought. With all the good will in the world they are still reluctant to actually put their hands in their pockets and are always keen to refer the giving to someone else. The scatter-gun approach of numerous letters drew numerous blanks. Believe it or not, people actually want something for their money! Who would have thought it? A heartfelt appeal to the members of the charity (who happen to be both the beneficiaries and the benefactors) came up trumps and £1,700 has flooded in. Vigorous bucket rattling and chasing people down the street seems to produce a result as well. That really is fundraising in its rawest form and its effectiveness is massively increased when executed by an army of professional street fundraisers who get some sort of philanthropic kick out lightening the pockets of passers by. A party! That's another good one. A line up of excellent DJs, a nice bar overlooking Camden Lock, a miniscule entrance fee of £3 and yours truly dressed up as a bunny girl rattling a bucket does the trick marvelously. So what have I learned so far? Don't rely people's desire to give to good causes, challenge them directly and wear revealing clothing? Hmmmmm. 'Anything for a good cause' they say...
So aside from prostituting myself for charity what have I been up to? Thanks to Charlie and Andrew I have been taken behind the scenes, as it were, through the trendily seedy streets of Shoreditch where Banksy's graffiti adorns cracked walls and derelict tube trains loom from the roofs of tatty 'artistic spaces.' Down side streets to knock on half-concealed doors, which are opened only on the uttering of a name, to reveal dark rooms filled with crouching figures bent over fire places, seated on damp sofas surrounded by rubble. We slunk in nodding to the murmuring faces up-turned to greet us, appearing grotesque in the flickering firelight, when a very nice, well-spoken graphic designer called Sean jumped up, greeted us politely, offered us a glass of wine and went out to get bagels. Bagels? What about the crack?! The residents of the Squat Bar, it turned out, were well-educated, artistic people who were just fed up with the extortionate rents charged in London, didn't mind a bit of squalor and rather enjoyed the verity of constant relocation. Since then they were shunted to an abandoned pub, were offered £2,000 to go away by an ambitious property developer and are now, no doubt, formulating plans to break in somewhere else. There is a certain allure to this life-style without constraints. I don't think I'll be doing it any time soon but it must be a wonderful sense of freedom, if perhaps a smelly one.
I have discovered that hob-nobbing with breakbeat DJs and attending small and considerably cheaper parties is much more preferable to being crushed to death in over-priced super-clubs and have renounced them for the time being. I have established and shamelessly exploited contacts for my fundraising party and have found myself truly back and embedded in the London party scene. For the time being at least. But late nights do not go with early starts and I have had several Saturdays when I have been driven out of bed in order to co-ordinate bucket rattling at underground stations, attend writing workshops or drive down to Shropshire for a weekend in the country.
It is rare to get me out of London. Once there the world seems to end at the M25. Gatwick and Heathrow lie within it, I can leave the country but I'm a hard one to get out of London. So when I arrived in a pretty local country pub deep in Shrophire surrounded by rolling hills and old stone walls, I was not surprised to be greeted by people asking me if I was feeling alright. Having already been asked similar when sitting on the ground with a sleeping bag on Streatham High Street earlier that day, you might have considered me to be on a roll. But that is a different story... Wholesome weekends in the country with long walks, delicious food and many giggles are a hearty antidote to the urban circus.
And then there is the Budget Banquet at Lincolns Inn hosted by the Master of the Worshipful Company of Tax Advisors, who happens also to be my father. Up the steps to the Great Hall of Lincolns Inn coats removed and champagne quaffed and I wobble uncertainly on my stilettos aware that I am junior to most of my companions by at least 30 years and tower over most of the room. Conspicuous? Yup. Collin Reid gleefully greeted me and I point out that the last time I saw him he was in a seedy St James member's club with 3 members of the Kings College Choir, all of whom had drank a remarkable amount of potent cocktails, I was reminding him that such innocence as theirs was to be nurtured.... Barry the Bugle then bounded up sporting his 107 tassels (The Worshipful Company of Tax Advisors is the 107th and youngest Livery Company). My father is fitted with gold chain and absurd 'bauble' and I am summoned to be the first to curtsey to the Master.
"MISS KATIE NORRIS!!!" bellows Barry the Bugle and gives me a little push in the direction of my father who stands there in all his finery and receives my curtsey graciously. I am followed by my mother and we are ushered into a room where the tables are heavy with bowls overflowing with twiglets. Twiglets?!
City dinner will never cease to amaze me...
Never dull and filled with unexpected elements. Life continues to be diverting, how lucky I am! Now all I need to do is find myself a job that actually pays me some money, a flat to live in and pretend to be a grown up... God forbid.
And, as the title suggests, it has been a varied 4 months. Endometriosis UK continues to benefit from my labors and is now £4,600 richer as a result. Fundraising, I have discovered, is an interesting and unpredictable affair and people are a damn sight more stingy than I previously thought. With all the good will in the world they are still reluctant to actually put their hands in their pockets and are always keen to refer the giving to someone else. The scatter-gun approach of numerous letters drew numerous blanks. Believe it or not, people actually want something for their money! Who would have thought it? A heartfelt appeal to the members of the charity (who happen to be both the beneficiaries and the benefactors) came up trumps and £1,700 has flooded in. Vigorous bucket rattling and chasing people down the street seems to produce a result as well. That really is fundraising in its rawest form and its effectiveness is massively increased when executed by an army of professional street fundraisers who get some sort of philanthropic kick out lightening the pockets of passers by. A party! That's another good one. A line up of excellent DJs, a nice bar overlooking Camden Lock, a miniscule entrance fee of £3 and yours truly dressed up as a bunny girl rattling a bucket does the trick marvelously. So what have I learned so far? Don't rely people's desire to give to good causes, challenge them directly and wear revealing clothing? Hmmmmm. 'Anything for a good cause' they say...
So aside from prostituting myself for charity what have I been up to? Thanks to Charlie and Andrew I have been taken behind the scenes, as it were, through the trendily seedy streets of Shoreditch where Banksy's graffiti adorns cracked walls and derelict tube trains loom from the roofs of tatty 'artistic spaces.' Down side streets to knock on half-concealed doors, which are opened only on the uttering of a name, to reveal dark rooms filled with crouching figures bent over fire places, seated on damp sofas surrounded by rubble. We slunk in nodding to the murmuring faces up-turned to greet us, appearing grotesque in the flickering firelight, when a very nice, well-spoken graphic designer called Sean jumped up, greeted us politely, offered us a glass of wine and went out to get bagels. Bagels? What about the crack?! The residents of the Squat Bar, it turned out, were well-educated, artistic people who were just fed up with the extortionate rents charged in London, didn't mind a bit of squalor and rather enjoyed the verity of constant relocation. Since then they were shunted to an abandoned pub, were offered £2,000 to go away by an ambitious property developer and are now, no doubt, formulating plans to break in somewhere else. There is a certain allure to this life-style without constraints. I don't think I'll be doing it any time soon but it must be a wonderful sense of freedom, if perhaps a smelly one.
I have discovered that hob-nobbing with breakbeat DJs and attending small and considerably cheaper parties is much more preferable to being crushed to death in over-priced super-clubs and have renounced them for the time being. I have established and shamelessly exploited contacts for my fundraising party and have found myself truly back and embedded in the London party scene. For the time being at least. But late nights do not go with early starts and I have had several Saturdays when I have been driven out of bed in order to co-ordinate bucket rattling at underground stations, attend writing workshops or drive down to Shropshire for a weekend in the country.
It is rare to get me out of London. Once there the world seems to end at the M25. Gatwick and Heathrow lie within it, I can leave the country but I'm a hard one to get out of London. So when I arrived in a pretty local country pub deep in Shrophire surrounded by rolling hills and old stone walls, I was not surprised to be greeted by people asking me if I was feeling alright. Having already been asked similar when sitting on the ground with a sleeping bag on Streatham High Street earlier that day, you might have considered me to be on a roll. But that is a different story... Wholesome weekends in the country with long walks, delicious food and many giggles are a hearty antidote to the urban circus.
And then there is the Budget Banquet at Lincolns Inn hosted by the Master of the Worshipful Company of Tax Advisors, who happens also to be my father. Up the steps to the Great Hall of Lincolns Inn coats removed and champagne quaffed and I wobble uncertainly on my stilettos aware that I am junior to most of my companions by at least 30 years and tower over most of the room. Conspicuous? Yup. Collin Reid gleefully greeted me and I point out that the last time I saw him he was in a seedy St James member's club with 3 members of the Kings College Choir, all of whom had drank a remarkable amount of potent cocktails, I was reminding him that such innocence as theirs was to be nurtured.... Barry the Bugle then bounded up sporting his 107 tassels (The Worshipful Company of Tax Advisors is the 107th and youngest Livery Company). My father is fitted with gold chain and absurd 'bauble' and I am summoned to be the first to curtsey to the Master.
"MISS KATIE NORRIS!!!" bellows Barry the Bugle and gives me a little push in the direction of my father who stands there in all his finery and receives my curtsey graciously. I am followed by my mother and we are ushered into a room where the tables are heavy with bowls overflowing with twiglets. Twiglets?!
City dinner will never cease to amaze me...
Never dull and filled with unexpected elements. Life continues to be diverting, how lucky I am! Now all I need to do is find myself a job that actually pays me some money, a flat to live in and pretend to be a grown up... God forbid.
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