Mosaic - the jury is out.

The mosaic tiles have arrived - glossier than I was expecting.

Laid down (without glue) along a trial length of approx 16 cm of platform.

Like the effect - I think.

Not as fiddly to line them up as I'd thought. It took me 10 minutes to do a 16cm length of platform and there is 540cm to do altogether including station concourse. That would take me just under 6 hours to do the whole station. That's fine spread over several days - quite therapeutic, actually. I think covering an area is therapeutic eg painting or wall-papering can be a pleasing task with a sense of achievement.


A couple of drawbacks.

The platforms are 9.5 cm wide which means that I'll have to cut the rows of violet tiles that run along the edges of the platforms. It says on the website that cutting the tiles is easy. Well scissors made no impact whatsoever - the tiles feel like china. I've emailed the supplier for advice in this regard.

The second drawback is that there are 190 tiles in each packet which means that at £3.50 per packet the whole exercise would cost £100. Does the final effect justify that? Have enquired about a bulk buying discount.

 

 

 

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Impressionism and mosaic platforms: some further thoughts.

 

Imagine some critic commented thus: "What are you playing at? There are no platforms anywhere in the world, let alone in France, which in real life are green and white checks with purple trimmings."

 

And, instead of retorting with my impressionism argument, I managed to persuade an actual railway company to cover its platforms in green and white check flagstones. In other words, say there was a  real life counterpart with actual green and white check platforms.

 

Then, that would lead to two questions.

 

Firstly, are my green and white platforms suddenly OK in the eyes of the critic? Would he say, "How accurately you've represented those green and white platforms - I'm going to do the same."

 

Secondly, where would this leave my impressionism argument? For now, instead of creating an impression of a gray platform transformed on a rainy evening by different patches of coloured light flashing across its surface, I would have slavishly created a facsimile of a real green and white platform.

 

The conversation would then go like this:

 

Critic: "I like your representation of the green and white platforms at Gare du St Morris."

 

Me: "Actually, it's a representation of the gray platforms at Gare du St Antoine."

 

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iTunes Shuffle feature:

 

Sometimes I want to hear music but I've no idea what, and I don't want to hear a continuous load of the same thing.

 

That's where the random selection feature (or Shuffle) on iTunes is wonderful; especially when you have a library to select from of 18.2 days - which I have.

 

Also, songs come up which you've forgotten about and thus wouldn't have chosen intentionally.

 

For example, "Purple" by GusGus which is playing now.