London Life

 ...still includes the twice monthly Dante Divine Comedy Wednesdays in my flat, which have now entered  their third year. We are somewhere in the first half of the last part, i.e. the Paradiso, which means we are at the beginning of the end. The same faithful group have steadfastly refused to stop, in spite of my sometimes bitter complaining at how dreary it sometimes gets ... That is particularly true of this last part, because it lacks the narrative drive of the Inferno and the Purgatorio, when things actually happened. There is still a journey of sorts going on: Dante is holding on to Beatrice as they travel through the heavenly regions with their lovely names: the Heaven of the Moon, The Heaven of Venus and latterly the Heaven of the Sun. Here they meet various greats, like the shining soul of St. Thomas Aquinas etc. who sheds light on some theological or political concern of Dante's. But there is no doubt that the further they go in their journey towards the ultimate vision of God the more I tend to want it to be over... There are lovely passages as well of course as Dante is attempting to describe something that no human living eye has seen:

"And if imagination cannot run

To heights like these, no wonder, no eye yet

E'er braved a brilliance that outshone the sun, "

And fortunately it is a fun group of friends and we invariably end up having a great evening, discussing everything else between heaven and earth  as we finally sit down for out soup, bread and cheese.

London keeps me busy on other nights too, and there always seems to be some private view, some concert or some event happening. Take last Tuesday for example, when I had been invited to a party in Cavendish Square- a whole building had been stripped bare and was about to be renovated by an architects' firm.  Before they got started they decided to have a party and invite vintage  furniture dealers in in order to exhibit the lovely and oh so happening furniture, lamps and other interior items of mid 20th Scandinavia. There was champagne served  on every floor and a large number of frighteningly trendy people wandering about. I misbehaved again and laid  down on one of the priceless Danish pieces trying to impersonate an odalisque...

Yesterday  was Sunday and a very good one too... because I beat Ralf, my friend from the German Embassy at chess finally and managed to speak relatively comprehensible German all afternoon while I was at it... then Jeremiah joined us for supper and we showed Ralf the Fawlty Tower episode about the Germans which he had never seen... he was gracious enough to laugh and take it in his stride, as it were.
And this week I am wrapping things up again to leave  for Mali at crack of dawn on Saturday...

Reasons to be cheerful:

1, 2, 3, and probably more.                              

For example, my Portobello Road fishmonger said that he will have octopus at his Friday stall tomorrow morning from 7am. I will take courage and follow Leonardo’s venerable recipe, tried and tested, sourced from his Sicilian grandmother. It goes like this, he reminded me in an email yesterday:

 first step remove the tooth at the Centre of the head ( underneath). Then take of some of the jelly thin skin ( a bit do not worry too much). Throw the beast in boiling water together with a wine cork and one spoonful of vinegar. If it’s 1 kg let it cook for 30/40 min then turn off the gas, cover the pot and let it rest in the water for 30/40 min more. Meanwhile u have boiled some potatoes, chop them add parsley salt and pepper and finally add the octopus properly cut in mid size pieces. Add olive oil and toss it well. It should be served lukewarm. Bon appetit my dear beautiful friend!

 

There is always a moment before chopping up ‘the beast’, when I am gripped by a senseless terror: that is when it looks at me -angrily, I swear-  with its one eye which I am about to gouge out. Then I am certain it is about to return to life with all its tentacles to attack me and I throw the slimy thing back into the sink and scream. But it is all worth it in the end, it is a totally delicious dish, and tomorrow dear Sanjay is coming for dinner, how nice!

And of course there is  my Mali trip coming up once more, when I will spend a whole week in Djenné, first to set up the new project at the library, then to work with some textiles in my old studio once more-  maybe, just maybe I can sneak up on to ‘my’ roof once more with some whisky and peanuts at sunset over the mosque and pretend my old life has returned?

Then the opening ceremony of the 7^th edition of the cataract operations when we will once more keep a minutes silence for the memory of Keita.

                                                                        

and I will be there to commission a Kitāb fī Dalā il al-Khayrāt: or a Prayer upon the Prophet ‎
كتاب في دلائل الخيرات from the calligraphers of Djenné who will use one of our newly discovered old manuscripts as a model. This will be the beginning of the Djenné calligraphy studio which will of course turn into a fabulous success, providing plenty of income and work for Djenné… inchallah..

Ah! and I am working through the painstaking process of making a new website which will be a rambling edifice devoted to all my endeavors in all directions as an unrepentant dilettante, and which will hopefully entice someone to give me some work …

  

 Ah! And there is more I know…  

                                                                           

Oh yes! My lovely brother Johan has just spent a few days with me here in London and that was a lot of fun, especially since he bought me a new hat! Here we are at my old watering hole by the Royal College of Art, the Queen's Arms in Kensington.

                                                                           

                                                                               

AND I keep beating my chess computer on level 5 recently (levels are 1-10) so I seem to be confirmed as solidly mediocre! Which is a great improvement.

Life is Good.