Jane Brocket's Blog, page 15

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3. Maxime le Forestier

Googling crepuscule, as you do, I wandered back in time to Paris and Maxime le Forestier. I was fourteen, on an exchange, in love with Paris, and feeling very sophisticated in my discovery of M le F's beautiful voice, guitar-playing and lyrics. I learned all the words on the two albums I bought and they still colour the French I remember to this day (not much of what I learned to degree level stuck in the same way). In his most famous song, he made crépuscule sound utterly romantic and poetic, and as a result I've loved the word ever since.

Three favourite songs: 

L'Education Sentimentale (the one with crépuscule in  - he also still has a way with la brume and la libellule)

Comme un Arbre (great for practicing rrrrrs)

Mon Frère (for perfecting dramatic singing to a proper record on a mono record player in a bedroom)

 

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2. TV

Two programmes about school to watch in tandem. One about Harrow and and one about a comprehensive in  Yorkshire. I don't think you can watch one and not the other. They say so much about what's going on in England. Every week we sit spellbound, and  every week we have the same heated post-programme discussions.

10 things i love about

My most recent children's book is about numbers. I've had a copy on my desk for several weeks and have been thinking numerically. So I'm going to count up to 10 with 10 things I love, like, or think are worth noticing. 

1. Book

The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing. Read in the summer but still having hangover effects because it's so shocking about the effects of alcohol, so well written, and guaranteed to put you off heavy drinking forever, even if you are not a brilliant writer.

10 things

My most recent children's book is about numbers. I've had a copy on my desk for several weeks and have been thinking numerically. So I'm going to count up to 10 with 10 things I love, like, or think are worth noticing. 

1. Book

The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing. Read in the summer but still having hangover effects because it's so shocking about the effects of alcohol, so well written, and guaranteed to put you off heavy drinking forever, even if you are not a brilliant writer.

library, oh yeah!

Birmingham has a brand new, £188 million library right in the centre of the city. It opened at the beginning of September and is already thriving and busy. It seems people will still flock to a library that offers books and journals and magazines and archives in the old-fashioned medium of print. Of course, it also has a couple of cafes and all the digital stuff you could possibly want I'm sure, but strangely I didn't notice because all I could see were bookcases stuffed with books and printed material, and people all over the place reading. 

Birmingham has gone in a completely different direction to other towns and cities and has invested in and built a modern temple to reading while almost everywhere else is cutting off its nose to spite its face, closing down libraries or scaling back or making existing libraries unrecognisable as libraries. It's wonderful to see a council flying in the face of fashion and creating what is ironically, without doubt, a style leader in libraries.

This is designed by a woman (hurrah) - Francine Houben - and it's not just a library, it's a landmark and a focal point of a community, too. The masterstroke is to have included two terraces at different levels that are completely free and open to the public. Each terrace has seats and gardens but it's the views that are the big draw; how incredibly clever to have created a place for the people of Birmingham to have access to books and culture and the most amazing views over the city. It's turned the library into a destination and made it an embodiment of all sorts of democratic values.

Who knows how long the exterior will continue to look as beautiful as it does now, with its sashiko-style mesh made up of 5,000+ interlocking metal rings, but it's just beginning to dawn on me that these sorts of buildings are not built to last forever. After all, it's not so long ago that Birmingham demolished its extraordinary Victorian library when it became too small for its holdings. This was replaced in the 1970s by the concrete version by John Madin (see below) which was/is loved by some, hated by many. Despite being regarded as a 'Brutalist masterpiece', this too is scheduled for demolition (hurry now to see it before it is pulled down, already utterly desolate and strange after closing in June this year - it doesn't take long for a building to feel abandoned even though there are businesses still trading inside). 

Whatever the future brings, it's clear that as long as taste and city councils allow, this spanking new, sparkling library will act as a magnet, bring people to Birmingham and books, and serve its purpose well. Although it has a certain shelf-life, it sets the tone for a new era of libraries, and for an appreciation of books that will last forever.

[from across the road]

While I was in Birmingham I also saw the very different 1959 Main Library at the University. Underneath the sign someone has put a little sticker saying, 'oh yeah!' which pretty much summed up my Birmingham library experience. 

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It's also worth quickly looking at what went before and before. Nothing will convince me that the Madin Central Library is a beauty. This is more a case of 'oh no!':

But the earlier C19 Central Libary would definitely elicit an 'oh yeah!':

 

salon

When I was taking French A level I realised that there was quite a difference between the salons of Stockport and the salons of France, the contemporary places where ladies sat with heads full of curlers under hairdryers and chatted very loudly, and the intellectual C18 gatherings hosted by aristocratic ladies to discuss literature and ideas. Now I've been to salons many times; my first job, aged 13, was in a salon washing hair, silently handing over curlers, applying lilac and pink and blue rinses. But until last night I'd never been to a salon.

Like any good salon, conversation was the main purpose of the Women of Substance salon organised by Jane and Amanda of The Women's Room and it certainly achieved this. It was a sell-out, the event was packed, noisy, stylish, funny but also serious about women. Viv Groskop chaired the discussion brilliantly, the guest 'women of substance' shared insights and inspirations, and the delicious gin-based drinks banished forever all images of mother's ruin.

There were dainty flavoured meringues from the Meringue Girls and delightful boutonnières by Hattie Fox made on the spot (that's mine in the photo). It was held in the brand new Ace Hotel in Shoreditch, a part of London I love, full of flowers and coffee shops and bagels and graffiti. And now I'm going to be able to spend a whole weekend there with Simon as I was the incredibly lucky winner of a night for two in the hotel. I didn't do anything clever to win this - I just looked under my seat like everyone else to see if there was a gold envelope attached to it. And there it was, a ticket to the grown-up equivalent of a night in Willy Wonka's factory.

I was sacked from the salon where I worked for reading the magazines while the towels dried. I hated the job so was quite relieved, and went on to have a fine part-time career in a chip shop instead. But the sort of salon I went to last night, well, I'd certainly look out for more of those in the future.

quilted, sorted

I'm very pleased to see that my forthcoming quilting book (Jan 14) now has its own Amazon listing and page. It's exciting when this happens, because even without a cover photo or much in the way of content, it means it for real, that it's really happening.

I made the quilts for Quilt Me! last year so they seem like old friends now. In fact, some of them - or at least many of the fabrics within them - have been part of my life for a lot longer in the form of clothes, furnishing fabrics, textile gifts and quilting cottons that I've owned or harboured for far too long without using. 

This new book is about making quilts with fabrics that practically shout 'Quilt Me!' at you as you rummage through stocks of cottons and calicos, silks and shirtings, tweeds and velvets, and many more wonderful potential quilt materials. It's a call I heed whenever possible.

[The photos are of the quilts in the book]

 

modesty

Modest English landscape with modest allotments on either side of a road that sweeps round a hill running down to the railway line. There's a lot to be said for modesty and I like it a great deal in everyday life.

 

Two more places to enjoy the lovely results of  unassuming modesty allied to great skill and an eye for detail:

I've seen The Concrete Palace Garden and it's beautiful. Its creator is a real plantswoman but the garden doesn't feel like a collection of fine specimens. Instead, it's all the more interesting for being a modest rectangular urban garden filled with colour and movement and texture, and a mix of the ordinary and unsual. It's a place to sit and read and drink tea, to wander around and look at interesting plants without feeling you ought to know their names. The blog reflects the garden and the gardener's modesty, but it's clear they are both quite special. 

Addison Embroidery at the Vicarage could belong to another age with its charm, tales of a rural parish and exquisite embroidery. Mary, who writes it, is terribly modest; I'm sure she would never say so herself, but her embroidery and stitching are amazing, and the wealth of detail she introduces into her writing is remarkable.

book of the week

Not one you'd hear in the very hit-and-miss Radio 4 Book of the Week slot, but nevertheless my book of the week. It's not long enough to serialise but instead you could read it every day for a week and laugh over and over again at the text and pictures. Oliver Jeffers is my new hero, and his illustrations are wonderful. 

cardiff mixture

In one of Cardiff's six Victorian and Edwardian arcades.

The Animal Wall.

Worth visiting.

My kind of castle. The William Burges Victorian Gothic parts are utterly bizarre.

City Hall window box.

I was struck by this poster which is an object lesson in advertising, in that it does exactly what it needs to do. I thought it was a Wayne Thiebaud-style painting, but it's just a really clear, really good photo.

One of the mosaics outside Cardiff Central railway station.

Then home.