From 'La Mole' to Penge

Yesterday it was the launch of the Transport for London/Barclays Bicycle Hire scheme; the bikes appeared overnight all around the city.


I only saw a couple of people using the bikes although apparently over 12,000 have signed up and paid the £45 annual registration fee.
From September occasional users will also be able to ride the bikes for a 24hr registration fee of £1 (the bikes are free to use for the first 30 minutes).


In the evening I met Adrian at the Barbican to see 'Pink Martini'.


But the first colour of the evening was red, courtesy of my husband.
Lately my lovely, sweet-natured and mild-mannered husband has become more Mediterranean than I have ever been (after all, I only had my first glimpse of the sea when I was 15! lol) and he's prone to 'red mist' moments!

Last night the red mist was caused by two of the restaurants being closed for refurbishment, one being fully booked and the only one open - the 'pop-up' - being run very badly. Adrian waited for ages at the counter to get a glass of white wine while his food was getting cold and he was being ignored by staff on the phone. 

But the food wasn't bad at all.

And here they are: 'Pink Martini', all the way from Portland, OR, USA!





The first song of the night was "Let's never stop falling in love" which was also one that we picked for our ceremony at the registry office!
So it was quite a romantic evening for us after all!



It was a marvellous concert and we both really enjoyed it.

 
No, it's not an airport body search... one of the songs on their last CD is a cover of Raffaella Carra' s 'Tuca tuca' and a little dance routine was compulsory!

Of course, once we got home I couldn't get 'Tuca tuca' out of my head and had to look up the original.

Here are two videos, one from 1971 ("Canzonissima", with actor/comedian Alberto Sordi)

and a hilarious one filmed in London's Covent Garden in 1981, where all the men touched by Raffaella look gay! (and look at what she's wearing!)

 

This coming week-end is the first time that we don't have any social engagements, so we have booked to go and see the "Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now" exhibition at the Barbican, in its final week.
The exhibition is for over-18s only but somehow I don't think we'll have to worry about carrying any ID !

This morning I read in TimeOut about an exhibition of the work of of Jordan McKenzie, where sex is not (only) the subject but the medium, called Spent.(for obvious reasons, as you will see!)

"Some of the works on display, collectively entitled Spent, are works that are produced using human bodily fluids: the artist ejaculates on a sheet of drawing paper and covers it with a layer of carbon dust. When dry, the excess dust is removed, leaving a black imprint."



“Signed and dated, the images collectively become an acknowledgment of human futility in the face of time as well as a violent record of male sexual drive. Caught and frozen as black-on-white eruptions, these simple auto-drawings plot desire, libidinal drive and sexual economies whilst powerfully evoking mortality and the will to overcome its inevitability. Each one has both an aggressive, chaotic imprint and a fragile delicacy that complement the medium, adding to the body of work by various artists that explores and articulates the notion of the artist as (pro)creator. On a more humorous level, they also subvert this, becoming an ironic take on the machismo of action painting by reframing it in a hyper-sexual manner."

Click here for the artist's website.

I wonder whether I should give it a try at home! Or perhaps we should all do it as a new LJ meme.