Pick of the week

Sunday - under windy grey skies to the Thames Barrier, the excuse being its annual test closing. The park has some surprising planting and ways with hedges; the cafe was nothing to write home about but did offer shelter from the wind. 

Very few people there, but worth making the trip. When the sluices were (gradually) reopened, the wind whipped the rushing water into a froth. Seagulls abundant, and more birds on the mudflats as the tide came in.

This being, or having been, the industrial docklands, there are a few mills still existing among highrise "subtopia" -

Tate & Lyle sugar refining, still working

The "palatial" Millennium (flour) Mills, built 1905, partially destroyed in
the 1917 Silvertown explosion, rebuilt in Art Deco style in 1933,
 rebuilt after WW2, and currently under redevelopment

Just time to get to Stratford for a little shoe shopping -

Old Faithfuls - and new upstarts

Monday - a talk at the Royal Institution by Priyamvada Natarajan, about changing theories of the heavens, the stars, and all that - and how science comes to change its mind about theories. It seems a theory, especially if posited by a "quirky character", can be quiescent for 30-40 years, during which time independent lines of evidence can accrue, and then the theory is "rediscovered" and gains momentum.

 Tuesday, after drawing at the V&A I happened across photos by Frank Hurley of the Antarctic expedition, at the Royal Geographical Society -

and walked across the park to Bond Street, where the Fine Art Society had various exhibitions on every floor of its building ... including this view from the very top -

Wednesday, just as I left the house a few raindrops fell and by the time I got to the park they were coming down thick and fast - but didn't last long

 so it was a pleasant walk past the new apartments to historic Stoke Newington for a quick wander in Abney Park cemetery

 and a longer stop for coffee till it was time to walk through Clissold Park on the way home. These plane trees were imposing

 and I still haven't found out what this might be - metasequoia? mimosa?

 Thursday - a bit of shopping in Chelsea and a walk along the river to Tate Britain, past the back end of Victoria Station and a "gridded" view of spare trains -

 At Tate B we saw the Rachel Whiteread show (till 21 January 2018), which included "100 Chairs" in the central gallery -

 I would gladly have taken home this humble, unfolded cardboard box with its silver foiling and "true blue heart" -

 That evening, a talk at British Library on the Tree Charter, which gave common rights in the king's forest, and a new charter 800 years later, which seeks of save ancient woodlands -

 

 Friday evening I had double-booked myself again and chose the screening at LRB bookshop of Siobhan Davies and David Hinton's film All this can happen (trailer here). It's based on a novel published in 1917 by Robert Walser and the sotry is blended with images from films of the time, choreographed on a screen split into multiple parts, objective and subjective at the same time. "When has walking ever been interesting in a film? Here, definitely. A combination of formal ideas and emotional ideas, enhanced by the sound design - the silent films left a clean slate for the sound.But the main effort was finding "absolutely the right image" to be a genuine partner to the text.

Throughout the week, a bit of gardening - the dormant seeds are quick to sprout -

 and from behind the window boxes it looks like this now; the area near the house is still under excavation, sifting, and soil replacement -

The camera found some hazard-tape compositions in the Underground -