Saturday 23rd August
The River Mersey, as seen from Tate Liverpool.I'm back from a visit en famile and I am a little stressed the fuck out. JOY.
Last week I spent most of my "holiday" having to get up overly early to let various "professionals" in to butcher the bathroom... I accepted deliveries and altered my plans so that I could be home to give them access. When I left last Thursday for the North West I was told that everything would be finished by the next day; I told the fitter working on the job that I would be back the following week.
I spent a rather decent weekend with my family for my Mother's birthday; my Dad managed to keep the "being an utter prick" act on the down low and I think my Mum had a good weekend of good food and good company. I got to see The Dark Knight on an IMAX screen, which was allll kinds of awesome. On Monday we went to Liverpool (my first visit) and took in the sights and shops to be found in this supposed Cultural Capital.
We wandered past the Cavern Club and I found a shop entirely devoted to retro underwear and corsets- score. Unfortunately it's not like I could afford much in there nor did I feel entirely comfortable explaining how I loved retro underpinnings to my Mum. Hee.
Liverpool is like Manchester- People go on and on about how it's the best thing since sliced bread. They definitely are being improved courtesy of some serious money with both historic and contemporary architecture taking top billing and good places to stop and eat. Thing is, this place called London exists... I've grown up with it a thirty-five minute train ride away so whenever I hear or read praise being piled upon places like the ones mentioned above I have to call bullshit on their comments. Liverpool also seems to base an inordinate amount of it's marketing on the fact that a bunch of men in their twenties produced some pop music back in the sixties.
Anyway, we braved the tsunami of tourists around the Albert Dock to pay a visit to the Tate Liverpool and the much raved about Klimt exhibition. I am now a member of the Tate so in we breezed past the snaking queues to hit a wall of supposed art lovers. It was a fucking nightmare...
Everywhere people floated encapsulated within their bubble of their audio guides, bumping into you, not paying attention because their heads are buried in their exhibition guides (containing the same information that is on the wall in front of them) and committing the biggest sin of all in my book- standing slap bang in front of the artwork whilst they read the information plaque on the wall. PLEASE do not do that. You do *not* need to stand in front when you're not actually looking at the work, stand *to the side*. Fucks.The exhibition was a massive let down- An entire floor was filled with this mural Klimt had made, which in my opinion was a complete waste of gallery space. Just repetitive, saccharine crap that did not add to my knowledge or understanding of the artists work. The paintings on the next floor were more interesting but I found the rest of the displays rather boring- basically arts and crafts produced by people in the same artistic group as Klimt (the Vienna Secessionists). The problem is that there weren't really very many members of this group so that I began to wonder what if any impact they had that the Arts and Crafts or Art Nouveau movements missed. Uh, very little?
The paintings and drawings by Klimt himself were great- A little Pre-Raphaelite I suppose (ak) but vibrant with quite forward thinking composition and delicately textured. His drawings of nudes especially women were very good indeed and you could clearly see the link between the erotic line drawings and the work of Egon Schiele. More self-pleasuring girls in galleries please.
The gallery itself was poorly laid out and badly organised and filled to bursting. NOT a good visiting experience... I got through the Klimt exhibition in about fifteen minutes. Sigh.
So MR T gets his window fixed (hooray) and I make my way back South with my brother in tow. We merrily sped along for the majority of the journey before we got to a hilly section and I found myself having to put my foot all the way to the floor to maintain my speed on the motorway. Bad. We pull over and my brother scampers around the car looking for anything obvious but the hissing noise we can both hear does not seem to be coming from the exhaust area nor anywhere else he looks. We keep going and manage to get back in one piece...
I park, breathe a sigh of relief that we are home and walk through the front door to find no toilet whatsoever, a bath that is not plumbed in and the new shower still in it's cardboard box. To say I was unhappy would be an understatement... I was fucking furious.
Furious because I had been told that everything would be finished on Friday and that I had been told *nothing* to the contrary, furious because my brother had to use a bucket as a toilet on his trip to my house and furious because after putting up with all of the shit last week my cunt of a landlord will not refund *any* of my rent because apparently it is my fault that I did not let him know that we did not have full facilities at the time. That's what a site manager is for, no? Go ahead, fuck my living arrangements up however you want, i'm just "on holiday" and your tenant.
I dropped MR T off at the garage the next day, coming back to the house to find that yet again what i'd been told was a load of shite- "Oh yes, the fitter will be all done by 12.30pm... He's got another job to go to" Riiight... I taxi-d round to the peace and quiet and actual toilet and shower at Leia Ewok Village's where I Zelda'd and watched Olympics and enjoyed a long hot shower. Sigh.
The garage found a possible problem with my car but it's the sort of thing I need to get done at a main dealers... mucho dinero required, so I am going to try and get it booked into to an independent specialist. Bless the garage employees though, they tried for three days and charged me nothing. The seal between the carburettor and the throttle body is the problem apparently, hence the hissing noise. So the saga will continue into next week...
I spent a day last week happily watching men in lycra throwing bins at each other with MW#1; I also got to take in some Guitar Hero- I say take in because there is *no* way I would be able to cope with all the buttons and my fingers and the colours. TOO MUCH. In the wee small hours I awoke from a deep sleep to find my seriously confused brain telling me that I must press the right buttons in Guitar Hero otherwise I would not be allowed to get back to sleep. It was all rather anxiety making...
Now the TV has died (fat chance the landlord who owns it will fix it) and I have to get two quotes for the repairs to MR T and I have to let more "professionals" in to do the flooring in the bathroom. I also have to plan what the fuck I am going to be teaching in the upcoming academic year i.e. in a weeks time. Ugh. I wish I could hibernate, and I know it's only August.
monky posted 1320 words at 02:55 on 23/08/08
