Back to the Ceramics class

Ceramics class resumed last night:

Once again, I arrived absolutely mentally exhausted. Yes these craft sessions are potentially therapeutic and relaxing but one also has to concentrate and do a fair degree of thinking.

A reminder of what I'm doing and trying to do: basically, build an HO scale city building for my HO scale French model railway.

What I'm aiming at.

 

Card model and rolled out walls.

 

 

Last night I wanted to add some relief to the walls or "jutty-out" bits as I prefer to call them. The problem is that the walls which were made some weeks ago, despite being covered with cloth and polythene sheets in between sessions, are slowly drying out and thus contracting.

 

Any clay additions must be at the same level of dryness otherwise they will shrink at a different rate from the clay wall to which they are attached and probably crack.

 

Therefore, before I could really carve out the additional jutty-out bits from a new lump of clay, I had to hasten their drying with  a hair-drier.

 

Jutty-out bits.

 One sticks the additional strips of clay to the walls with "slip".

Slip is basically liquid clay. One makes it by breaking up dried bits of clay into a container of water where they dissolve VERY SLOWLY and only after much stirring. Then one paints the slip onto both sides of the pieces one's wanting to stick together.

Breaking up a lump of dried clay

Stirring.

The jutty-out bits will form a kind of balcony/balustrade/cornice

It doesn't seem much to have achieved in a 3 hour class but, honestly, I was so tired that the only task I felt up to doing was the stirring.

 

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Last night's dinner:

 

 

Pie and beans washed down with pint of milk.

 

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Ernest Chausson: String Quartet in Cm.

 

Very tired when I got home so read some more of Earthly Powers and listened to the following:

 

 

 

 

 

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Tango class resumes this evening:

 

As ever, I'm nervous as anything and question why I'm doing it in the first place.

 

 

Platform lights

Before I can cover the platforms with mosaic - the mosaic tiles arrived yesterday, by the way - I had to drill three 0.6cm holes through each of the platforms. These are in preparation for installation of the platform lamp-posts and the illuminated station clock.

To be 20 inches apart.

0.6 cm hole.

Insert wires then base of lamp post.

Weakly illuminated by fading 9 volt battery.

 

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The Mandelbaum Gate by Muriel Spark

In my blog of 26th April I listed my favourite novels. Number 10 was Muriel Spark's The Mandelbaum Gate which even when I just think about it emits the heat of  post-war Palestine.

I notice on today's BBC website that "The Best of the Best of the James Tait Black Prize will honour the best loved novel to have won the award since it was created in 1919."

There are 6 novels on the short list and The Mandelbaum Gate is one of them.

James Kelman's "A Disaffection" is also on the list - I wanted to enjoy this book when I first read it many years ago; I liked the title.

But I found it phony.

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Hot Chip:

Continuing to revel in my collection of Hot Chip CDs. Is there something wrong with me? Is this obsession a symptom of something? Incidentally, I could not pick a top 6 tracks, I love them all equally.

Two photographs of my laptop screen displaying my Hot Chip playlist from iTunes.

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Last night's dinner:

Trout wrapped around crab mousse plus broccoli

Needless to say, the trout thingie was from M & S.

DIY - penal servitude.

Bought a plane for £5 from Bill's Tool Store in the Barra's, Glasgow.

Shaving the edge off the over-wide platform.

Evidence of use.

Result

There is only one word to describe the last 90 minutes of planing, (a bit of sawing), sandpapering and re-painting: TEDIOUS. I do not have the right mind-set for DIY. Some people actually enjoy it.

Anyway, re-checked for clearance and that now seems OK along all platform edges.

Re-screwed the platforms into position.

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Last night's dinner:

Liver and asparagus.

Began the meal in the company of Colin Wilson but as I began to tire, switched to the diverting trivia of Tracey Emin.

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Tango update:

There was no Tango class last week because the school building was closed for mid-term holiday. But we were issued with a CD compilation of Tango recordings the previous week and I have been practising to those - sometimes alone, sometimes with spouse.

Worryingly, I have some new evidence about the collapse of my right knee. In the recommended warm up exercises one stands on one leg and wiggles and waves the other leg about in increasingly wide motions.

BUT, one is meant to hold the "standing" leg with a slight bend at the knee. This presents no problem when standing on my left leg but is totally and utterly and completely impossible when standing on my right leg. My right leg must be kept ramrod straight otherwise it cannot support any weight at all.

Really enjoying the atmosphere created by listening to the compilation. I actually look forward each day to my 10 minute practice session: it's like being transported to a Buenos Aires Tango Bar. Then that wee dour spouse appears on the scene and I'm rapidly transported back to Glasgow.

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Chopin's Ballade No 4 in F minor:

10 minutes of piano brilliance. I was surprised to find that I have only one version of this - performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Not sure why, but I've never been keen on this much esteemed pianist.

Must download a selection of other pianists playing the piece. I find it very satisfying getting to know a piece of music inside out and then hearing new pianists turn it upside down.

Trouble at t' Mill

Gave the platform edges another coating of purple magnet paint and also a coat of gloss varnish; all in the hope of matching them more closely to the violet mosaic tiles that will be laid along them..

Then I was about to screw down the platforms into their final position when I thought I would do a final clearance test. To my horror the left hand edge of the central platform in the picture above will need to have at least 0.25 cm shaved off it. Both a set of carriages and the autocar in the picture below not only rubbed against that edge but ended up completely jammed against it.

It's this kind of hitch which reveals a real weakness in my character - I can't cope with hitches: I like everything to run smoothly.

In this respect, I contrast myself with my wife. She can spend hours possibly days knitting a garment and then discover the tiniest error involving one stitch - and will unpick the whole lot and do it again.

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Goodness:

I think we're all familiar with the person who espouses all sorts of grand moral theses but treats individual people like dirt.

Colin Wilson quotes Kierkegaard who objected to "Hegel's great system on the grounds that it is like trying to find your way around Copenhagen with a map of Denmark on which Copenhagen appears the size of a pinhead. Confronted with human misery, reason often falls silent."

The obverse (or is it the inverse or merely the reverse) is also true in my experience: one comes across all sorts of people who  show no interest in moral systems but who are consistently kind to their fellow man.

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Last night's dinner:

Possibly my favourite meat: pork.

With cous cous.

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Banal music:

Listened to Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 and then immediately afterwards, "Private Passions" on Radio 3. Both programmes invite a distinguished guest to choose records that mean something to them while they talk about their lives in between.

The Islamic scholar, Mona Siddiqui was the guest on the former and Tim Smit, the driving force behind the Eden Project and much else was the guest on the latter.

Each in their very different ways have led fascinating and impressive lives and both declared a passionate interest in music.

But despite my being won over by both of them I found their selections of records to be mundane (except for one by Mrs Siddiqui, "Bhar di Johli", by two brothers, Ghulam Farid Sabri & Magbool Ahmed Sabri).

I will seek out more work by the Sabri brothers.

Colour Judgement

Traipsed along to B&Q  DIY Store looking for a gloss violet paint; the idea being to paint the edges of the wooden platforms the same colour as the violet mosaic tiles that run up to those edges.

Bare wooden edges.

Yesterday's failed attempt to find a match.
 

Needless to say, this was not a straight-forward task. But after much searching of the aisles, I found what looked like a most unlikely possibility: Funky Magnet Paint (purple).

Couldn't find an assistant to ask whether the paint was actually magnetic (it is) or whether it was radio active (who cares).

Did cross my mind that its magnetic properties might interfere with the internal electronics of the locomotives (hope they don't).

The problem is that the paint looks light under one lighting condition and dark under another.

The side is light - the top is dark

And likewise the mosaic tiles vary in their intensity.

A good match when the light comes from one angle.

A poor match from another angle.

I'll apply a second coat of magnetic funkiness; I suspect that the wood has absorbed a lot of the  properties.

One positive attribute of the paint is that the brush can be washed in water.

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Michael Tippett:

Alan Bennett wrote a play  about Benjamin Britten and W H Auden called "The Habit of Art". We saw it a couple of years ago.

In the course of it Benjamin Britten expresses the fear that a new wave of composers, and Michael Tippett in particular, are coming to the fore and that he is now considered old-fashioned. This is back in the late 50s.

In fact, Britten's reputation now far out-strips Tippett's.

Heard this impressive concerto on Radio 3 last night and wasn't sure what it was but was determined to find out. Simply couldn't even begin to guess who the composer was. It was dramatic, percussive, melodic and emotional.

Turned out it was Michael Tippett's Triple Concerto.

The two rivals.

There was an article in yesterday's Telegraph on the rivalry between Britten's and Tippett's legacies.

Some readers had submitted  comments.

Most consisted of a few paragraphs supporting one or  other side of the debate.

The last one just said: "Hugely overrated, both of 'em."

Attention to detail.

Rather frustrated with the result of painting the edge of the wooden platforms.  The hope was that I could blend in the edges to match the adjacent violet coloured mosaic tiles that run along the edges but which - rather irritatingly - don't quite reach the edges. (See earlier blogs).

As you can see, a row of nine 1cm square mosaic tiles doesn't equate to the 9.5cm width of the platform leaving an exposed edge of wood that I wish to disguise with paint.

The only suitable paint available in the house looked as if it might do the trick; but as you can see from the picture below the paint is lighter than the violet of the tile.

Last night I took the plunge and ordered the rest of the mosaic tiles plus adhesive.

Despite the generous discount and free delivery offered by Hobby Island, the total still came to £100.

I have to say, I was stricken with guilt: should I be spending this amount of money on covering wooden platforms for a very small model railway layout?

Have still not resolved that one.

However, it does make me determined to get the right paint for the edging job.

I'll have to get a darker version from B&Q. BUT, I now realise that a significant factor in getting a match between paint and tiles is the finish of the paint. It's not obvious from the photos but the tiles are very glossy whereas the paint is very matt.

So, it will be a darker and a gloss version of the paint that I'll be looking for.

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Hot Chip:

In my iTunes library, I've got three albums by Hot Chip:

The Warning, from 2006.

One Life Stand, from 2009

In Our Heads, from 2012

Over the last couple of weeks, I've played these three albums almost continuously. Not only am I not getting fed up with them, I'm enjoying them more and more.

Tracks that seemed merely OK on the first few hearings have grown and grown on me. That's a total of 34 brilliant songs to liften my heart.

This phenomenon of an album, on first listening, seeming to have only a few standout tracks while the other tracks appear to be there just for padding; and then, on subsequent plays, the padding tracks growing on one and sometimes themselves assuming a status of eternal favourites, is one I used to come across frequently in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

But with the advent of downloadable music, one can pick and choose the tracks one buys and so one doesn't buy the afore-mentioned padding tracks and thus never gives them a chance to grow on one.

This Hot Chip experience has reminded me of that lost joy.

This is a picture of Duffy covering a Hot Chip track: "Ready for the Floor".

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Alan Davies:

Saw this Essex-born comedian at Glasgow's Pavilion Theatre last night.

Very enjoyable. Can't stand rude and nasty comics (even if it's just a persona they put on).

The Pavilion last night.