London - People - Places - Decision

So much:

Friday: Tate Britain, including the Blake room, hundreds of Turners, cardboard and wood in the massive halls, other great things I just love walking around. The Letitia Dean film made at Kodak, just my thing.

My cousins in North London, expecting a first baby and loving their garden.

Saturday: The British Museum, plus many streets I walked along, convinced I knew where it was, I didn't! Mesopotamia, Ancient Arabia, Islamic section, why is it in the basement?? Met a fellow student of Arabic, she is exactly at the same stage as me, but without a class or teacher to continue with. We had a guided tour together. I decided to buy the Arabic guide to the museum, it is surprisingly suited to my level of reading. No translations, just pictures.

My cousins in West London, the flat is full of pictures and feels like being at home. At one point my cousin was on skype with a relative I like in Belgrade. I shall have to learn how to skype before T goes to university.

Sunday: Tate Modern, lots of short films, I leaned against a wall and it fell open, it was a very tall internal door. Space, vast unmitigated space.

Easter Lunch with my brother plus friends of my parents. We even had a chocolate course, my parents like their food, but this is off the scale! It wasn't meant that way, but there were so many tidbits to go with coffee that it deserves a name. My brother had made some chocolate with ginger in it. That went fast.

Before lunch I tried the closest church to us, St Saviour's St George's Square. Their bells used to keep me and my friends company as we talked into the night on my parents' roof garden way back in time. It was so friendly, I had arrived in the middle of the sermon, that I rushed back home to encourage my mother to give it a go. She was game and we made it for the second half. It's a good alternative if going to their favourite isn't possible, St Mary's Bourne Street.

Monday: The Photographers' Gallery, an old haunt from my late teens, only it has moved to another building. This was my first visit there. Many different styles of work, revealing the concerns of the photographers. Syria was represented, huge square photos of squares where executions used to take place at dawn.

My cousin who was the body double for Sophia Loren in a film made in Spain. We talked family stuff for ages and have finally met properly after all these years of being in the same family. It is good to be able to tell her how things really are. We really enjoyed the restaurant her son had recommended.

Decision

Next time I shall just go to new places, but will continue to see family as much as possible.

Jaafar Alhasabi - Photographers' Gallery

I listened to the Bahraini entry in the Photographers' Gallery exhibition. The subject is Jaafar Alhasabi and the photographer is Mitra Tabrizian. Where ever I go on the internet I come back to issues I care about. Small world and all that! So I did a google search and found some other info.

Photo and interview

Redress, a charity which acts to prevent torture and help those who have suffered this, has this piece of evidence from him. I have given money to this charity already. My world gets even smaller...

Unity blog with info about him.

FreeJaafar blog.

Listen to the voices :)

I have found an exhibition to celebrate the Olympics. It is put on by the Photographers' Gallery, one of my growing up haunts. It is of 204 photos, one for each of the competing countries. I like this sort of orderly, planned approach!

Et Voila! (French for "Hey, here it is!" but with panache).

Each photo can be clicked on to enlarge. To the right there is a sound clip. It is part of an interview with each subject. I have only listened to Oman so far, so maybe I am wrong there.

This builds on my interest at hearing the voices of the poets who came to London for the Poetry Parnassus. Some read their work and happened to be filmed at the same time. Some of these recordings made it onto YouTube where I found them and drank them in.