Sunday 29 July 2012

Boulevard Haussmann

The main building on my diorama, in addition to the Gare du Nord, will have a wedge-shaped footprint and be approx the same size as the Gare du Nord. I have in mind something like this corner of the Boulevard Haussmann in Paris.



This is going to constitute quite a challenge for my evenings at the ceramics class come September. So, I'll need to do some considerable preparation before hand.

My task for this stay in Norfolk will be to build a paper model which can be used as a guide. In particular, it will assist me in that artistic decision as to what features/details are the key ones to incorporate into the model ie the defining features. And, obversely, or is it conversely, which details can be omitted. My watchword is "impression"; I want to create the impression of a French city.

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Last night's dinner:

Take-away chicken chow mein. The restaurant in Partick, Glasgow, was packed.

An extremely drunk (or "pished" as he put it) young man - shaven-headed - was sitting next to me waiting for his take-away. He told me he was a butcher but his drunkenness and my deafness made it sound like "bisher". I asked him to repeat himself and after my guessing "fisherman" and "bishop" - I kept the "bishop" guess to myself - he decided to guess what my occupation was.

"You've got to be trusted. You look very trust-worthy with that corduroy jacket. Are you a doctor?"

"No, I'm afraid not. Why, do you need one?"

"Naw. I'm just guessing. A lecturer, you must be a lecturer!"

"Must be the corduroy jacket." said I.

After quite a bit more of this and everyone else in the queue staring fixedly at the ground and nobody speaking a word, the drunken butcher guessed correctly.

"You're Gordon Brown. That's who you are. F***ing Gordon Brown."

His parting shot was to tell us that David Cameron's wife was worth £7 million.

1 comment:

  1. Well nothing wrong with being mistaken for Gordon worse would have been if he had called you David or Alex, enjoy the break.

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