Maurizio Pollini's standing ovation

He really deserved it, those notes are still rattling around my head.  The rest of London appeared to be next door at the Queen Elizabeth Hall listening to John Berger and Tilda Swinton.  What a city this is. Must get out more.

Wonderland

 The Trouble with Love and Sex is an interesting animated documentary on BBC iplayer, you can watch it until June 22nd.  Directed by Zac Beattie and with the brilliant Jonathan Hodgson directing the animation, the film is a real peep into 5 people's experience of receiving regular counselling at Relate.    It's a very moving film, and extremely sensitively made, the animation providing anonymity for the participants, sometimes though the picture adhered over cautiously to a version of the live action, when I wanted it to provide a counterpoint or to add something extra more often.  Maybe it would have been too risky, the film has been really popular with the general public, which is encouraging because it's the first feature length animated documentary commissioned by the BBC (can this really be true?). I hope there will be more.

We have to go through the Olympic site every few days to get to our potatoes, and we are often drawn to the Container cafe next to the view tube for great coffee.  Here is ArcelorMittal Orbit going up through the window, Anish Kapoor must feel cock a hoop.

Breer

Goodness! I shall be heading North as soon as this Robert Breer exhibition opens at Baltic next month.  There's also an interesting seminar called Kinetic Colour presented by Star & Shadow Cinema on the 18th June, featuring splendid Gary Thomas and Pip Chodorov.

Monster Soup

Emily and I are developing our interest in all things germ related having finished our lovely First Light film - The Germinator.  Just as well that there's a good exhibition about Dirt at the Wellcome Trust. It features this brilliant image from 1828, dedicated to the London Water Companies, when the Thames was particularly monster soupy.   One of the highlights was finding three animations commissioned and owned by the Deutsches Hygiene Museum in Dresden in the 1960's.  I've found one on here. You must wash your apple before you eat it, like Snow White, and another one here.

Anthropologist Mary Douglas is quoted in the exhibition:  "Dirt is just matter out of place", which reminds me, I have to move some of my matter into a different place.

Swankmajer

Animation friends - don't miss the wonderful Swankmajer's visit to the Barbican on June 16th at 7.30pm.  You can still get tickets.  See you there!

Bed & Sofa

I saw this lovely silent  film from our sofa, but I notice that you could also catch it at the BFI this month.  It was made in 1927, written by Viktor Shklovsky and directed by Abram Room.  It's a complicated story told so cleverly, every shot just right.  I must try and be a bit more spare.