The Creative Identity

A 365 Project

The new year beckons. I've got the calendar, I've got the diary, I've got a review of 2013 as well. What I was not expecting was this dreadful New Year's Eve turning into a pale imitation of what I dreamt it would be. It's been raining all day and I can just about see a slash of yellow light below the dreadful clouds somewhere beyond the Brompton Cemetary, West Kensington direction. The Christmas break wouldn't be quite complete without a stinking cold which arrived, hook, line and sinker, this morning. With weather like that and a nose like this... I may well eschew the fireworks and ring in the new year with a bottle of something or other at home. Last year I was in a very similar predicament. I recall spending New Year's Day in bed, grumpy, angry and sorry for myself, unable to taste food, let alone enjoy myself (well, aren't the two related, truly?). My special word for 2013 was SOAR and soar I did, in many ways. I've just had a flick through pics from the end of 2012 and, apart from being an exceedingly painful time, it also couldn't be more different from what I am experiencing now. I started this year still between Cheshire and London, tired and adrift, and I finish it well settled, quite happy and with a plan to cover these vast wooden floors (Syberian wood, I am told) with rugs from Liberty's. In preparation for tomorrow and for cracking open... Read more →

A 2013 Snapshot

Indulge me a little... Movies watched at the cinema : 25 Some of the best : Blue Jasmine, Philomena, Prisoners, Saving Mr Banks, Captain Phillips The worst : The Lone Ranger The most over-rated : Gravity Books I bought : 119 Best fiction : the Nicholas books, Parade's End Best non-fiction : The Carlyles at Home, The Crafty Art of Playmaking Most exciting discovery : David Walliams Most brilliant literary event : Quentin Blake at the Soho Lit Festival Bookshops I regularly visited : 18 Favourite bookshop : Hatchard's Best art bookshop : The National Gallery Best charity bookshop : Oxfam in Hampstead (single loot at this Oxfam : 6) Best online bookshop : The Book People Best art event : Masterpiece in June Number of significant writing endeavours started : 1 Most significant creative endeavour started : building a doll's house Emails to my friend Simon : 2480 Best dinner : Gordon at Claridge's, before it left at the end of June Months battling carpal tunnel syndrome : 9 Holidays taken : 0 Number of times I've left London since I moved here : 0 Best thing about the new house : it's within walking distance to Harrods Worst thing about the new house : it's within walking distance to Harrods Number of gym memberships : 1 Number of visits to the gym : 6 Number of cancelled gym memberships : 1 Most unexpected encounter : Christian Bale and his family Most thrilling encounter : Tom Ford On my... Read more →

Dear Kitty

This is the wonderfully twee diary I bought for 2014: Now, really, it is a perpetual diary, so it isn't for 2014 in particular. I have to add the days to the dates hence there's nothing twenty-fourteen-ish to it, except having been on my radar almost for the entirety of 2013. You can find it online from multiple retailers, but I bought mine from Ladurée at Harrods, which meant I later realised it is an authentic French almanac, while the ones in Waterstone's and on Amazon are in English (so bear this in mind if you're French-challenged). I like it a lot not merely because of my visceral love for all things Ladurée-related, chief amongst them the Marie Antoinette macaroon, a limited edition which I hope will make another appearance in the spring, but because it's filled with recipes, dictons and tips for entertaining and, yes, eating. I like it that the paper is thick and matte and that the illustrations are whimsical and delicate. Blimey, I sound tragically Hello Kitty on this one. And talking of Kitty, I find the purchasing of a diary so difficult, so fraught with internal debate, so rooted in my intrinsic dislike of committing to anything for an entire year that I start scouring offerings in August, if not earlier. Ultimately, I think of a diary in the Anne Frank sense of it, in the sense of a journal that becomes your friend and confidant. Thing is, I've never been that person and never... Read more →

2014, Almost

Where do you stand on calendars? Are you a copious, even reckless buyer? A minimalist one? A stingy one who waits until the end of January and its 80% off sale? One that only uses the computer's soulless raft of dates? Do you peek ahead at images and quotations? Are you a desk calendar person or a wall one or both or neither? I mean, all of these questions had never occurred to me before yesterday, when I was browsing stacks of them in the big Waterstone's in Piccadilly, moved by a subtle sense of thrill of the new mixed with dark anguish at the passing of time. In short, and I promise I'll leave it at that, I just do not believe that it'll be twenty-bloody-fourteen next week. I remember 1999 so clearly and it was only... well, yesterday. My mum loves calendars, so much so that the only room in the house that does not sport one is the bathroom. My dad is pretty much the same. In fact, he's got this weird, weird habit of, wait for it, recycling his calendars by cutting the pics he likes, creating new ones from last year's and such like. I can't even formulate my dismay at all of this; I'm merely wondering what freakish habits I may develop in my middle age, if indeed they do run in the family... will I start using hairpins as earrings? Will I recycle q-tips or used matches? Let's stop here. Back to dad,... Read more →

Of Christmas and Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse

The most wonderful time of the year, hands down, every year. But this time it is special because it's the first time that I spent Christmas Day itself in London and it was a brilliant day, for many reasons. In particular I am still fantasising about the dog walk I undertook at about 5.30 pm, during which I met no man, nor dog, for the entire, usual circuit I walk every evening in Chelsea. At some point, all I could hear was my clomping echoing down the street, the tock tock tock tock bouncing off the stuccoed houses, puncturing a veil of freezing fog. I was lucky it was foggy you see, because the whole of the UK has been battered quite badly by a couple of storms as of late, and with the exception of the run-up to Christmas proper, London has been quite sheltered, as is often the case. I must tell you that I keep looking at pics of flooded houses in the news, and my entrails twist as I see brown water half-way up the Christmas tree, with sodden gifts drifting by its side. If I were a child I'd be entirely traumatised by such a Christmas. In other news, I've gone through my fail-safe set of favourite movies... Home Alone and Home Alone 2, A Christmas Carol (twice, I went back to the cinema, even), Christmas with the Kranks, The Polar Express, How The Grinch Stole Christmas... I am lagging behind on Jingle All The... Read more →