1835 Talking to Sophie Calle

I did not know Sophie Calle until the autumn of 2006 when in my sixty seventh year. I regret this alongside my failure to understand performance and concept art until making the effort in the summer of 2002 after the opening of the Baltic contemporary art space on Tyneside and seeing the film on the life of Jackson Pollock. It was not until a visit to London a few weeks later that I bought the Nikos Stangos editing book Concepts of Modern Art and the last two chapters Christopher Reed on Modernism and Identity and Roberta Smith on Conceptual Art changed my life in a more fundamental way than the discovery in 1999 that my father had become the Catholic Vicar General of Gibraltar.

I do not mean know in the biblical sense, although my accumulated experience suggests that we can know more of an individual through their work than by living with them. What we know is our interaction with the time period of their work or our period of direct contact and even where another discloses their thoughts, internal images and sensations, it is always an edited experience and with only limited disclosure of their subconscious for those able to interpret with some accuracy.

In 2006 I had not been to contemporary theatre, or out to much else between 2003 and 2006, fully engaged as I was in the creation of the installation then called 101 Public and Private Art and now 100.75 Public and Private Art. until the redesigned Newcastle Playhouse was open again. On the 27th of September 2006 I visited to new second space at the theatre to see Exquisite Pain, a performance art work lasting two and a half hours without interruption and created by someone called Sophie Calle. I liked the old second space at the Playhouse which I previously visited usually to see actors of the Royal Shakespeare company because of the intimacy between the players and the audience less than 100 souls sitting within the performance space. Now the space was on the ground floor and could become an additional back space to the main space and auditorium, to as in the instance of this first use as a separate space a second auditorium with perhaps 200 uncomfortable seats in a traditional single slope to the theatre. I had not made an immediate note but written about the experience for my AOL Blog a month later 26.10.2006 and which I then published in a revised form here on as 31 in March 2007 and then on Google this year as 1031.
I had used Jokerman script for the original piece.“26.10.2006 .The use of Jokerman script for Exquisite Pain (27.09.2006 Newcastle Playhouse) is at one level appropriate. It is not a play but a performance art work where the setting of a seated audience for two and a half hours is inappropriate, one needed to be able to walk about” and in my instance join in.

“12.03.2007 if you have not been to the theatre to experience acting for sometime then Exquisite Pain is not the work to go and see. It is not a play but performance art using exceptionally talented actors. (I can say this because I also watched them perform a total theatre experience of the history of The World in Pictures, two days later).

You sit with increasing discomfort for two and a half hours without interruption. The discomfort is physical and emotional and is an appropriate way to experience the work. I would have preferred to have walked about a bit but keeping within listening distance.

This autobiographical work, previously performed by the artist and available in book form, is by Sophie Calle, born in Paris in 1953. In 1985 her lover and older man failed to meet her as arranged in New Delhi midway between where she had been for several months and experience, rather than traumatised and was able to work through the disappointment, humiliation, and victim guilt, because she was a creative using photo, memorabilia and words, but kept a record of how her perception of the event changed through linear time.”

“26.10.2006 The performance consists of one person telling the story of dealing with a traumatic experience and how the view of that experience changes over time, one blames oneself, where she had previously lived, She was devastated by the one blames the other person one gets angry at being affected so much yet because one wanted and hopes for resolution reconciliation one clings the hope for a different outcome because that it is a possibility but the reality is that when you compare such an experience with the experience of others you realise that however painful, it is insignificant to the realities of the succession of tragedies and horrors of others which are told in a dead pan and sometimes humorous way.”

13.03.2007 Sophie Calle could have just created a performance work in which she recounted the same experience over the subsequent days, weeks and months, reporting and observing changes in detail, consideration, feelings, attitude and judgement. This could have been a complete work. She did not.

On her return to Paris, she asked a group of friends to answer the question, "When did you most suffer?" Their stories of pain, each of them accompanied by a photograph, interplay with Calle's own story and daily reflections—"It is now seventy-five days since the man I love left me"—creating a testament to the heartache of romantic rejection. 130 illustrations, 71 in colour available through Amazon.”

30.11.2009. I write this on the train to Newcastle. Sophie appears to see herself first as a voyeur albeit a self controlled one me thinks, and an exhibitionist second. Both words tend to be regarded in only a pejorative way by the popular media and have conditioned the general public accordingly. Both require courage whether undertaken in a public or private way.

“27.09.2006 the university car park was free tonight, I usually pay £2. I enjoyed the salad and timed everything much better. It is the right thing to do to take the car although it would be sensible to work out the motorway way route back. It is ridiculous that you cannot enter the theatre at this level with the choice if steep steps or walking around the theatre up the slope.”

“28.02.2007. The revised travel arrangements to the Playhouse and other evening outings to Newcastle are now working well. I still visit my mother and then take the car to the Hewarth short stay car park adjacent to the taxi rank and metro station. I eat the picnic meal in the car and then continue the journey by metro train. On the way there is now a sign which suggests it might be possible to enter the theatre directly from the car park. It is.”

30.11.2009 The University has now built its main public reception building on the car park and there is now a grand staircase entrance by the side of the building which leads to the space with the splendid university student union building on one side and the Playhouse Theatre on the other. I assume one can no longer take the car close the theatre anymore but have not taken time to explore this further or been to the theatre for a year.

“27.09.2006 this is my first experience of the new second theatre space. For on the Town when both spaces were combined the audience sat on tiered seating the width of the second space facing into the main auditorium and banked seating. Previously we sat on similar seating in a semi circle around the stage which I like to call eyeball theatre. Now there is conventional tiered seating with not much space to move legs unless you sit on an aisle or the front row where you will feel part of the performance. I chickened out and sat mid row, fortunately one vacant seat so there was some manoeuvrability. My ticket was free as part of a five main theatre subscription packaged. Many in the audience were students. Unsurprisingly there was a plea for funds at the end and I decide to give £10 which is slightly more than the average of £7 requested. Free programme included.”

“13.03.2007. The incorporation of the stories of the experiences of Calle's friends was inspirational. Each story communicates an aspect of physical and emotional pain but the accumulation of experience helps to put her experience into perspective

At the end of the World in Pictures chorus makes the valid point that however much the average member of the audience enjoys, appreciates, is moved or challenged by the event, it will become submerged under layers of new experiences of varying intensity and significance.”

26.10.2006 There was also an after performance session with the two actors, and the company director chaired by a local cultural figure. I had only 'discovered' this extraordinary company through the internet during the afternoon beforehand and had become so interested that I abandoned my work programme. The amazing aspect is that the core actors had been together throughout their working lives having come together at university. At the discussion I made a clanger by concertinaing this time, having misinterpreted an aspect of the internet information. I also wanted to know if the order in which the stories of the friends are recounted is changed according performance. It is not although if the work was mine I would have included the variations”- to see if by doing so my view of what had happened to me, changed 30.11.2009.

“13.03.2007. Calle's work and the performance by the Forced Entertainment company is at the core of my work and confirms that what I am doing is only original in its particular form, at least I hope that this is the position, but the concepts are already aspects of the work of professional contemporary creative of international reputation. However I do not regret only entering back through the portal of my occupational dimension of four decades into my first period of full time creative endeavour. Now I have a lot to say even if I continued to be limited in the means of expression.”

29.11.2009. I have met Sophie Calle again two days ago. The experience was unplanned because at the last moment I had a free day in London and had read Time Out, looking first at the cinema listing and discovering that a film about the Seraphine of Senlis was to open at midday, decided to attend the first performance the Curzon Renoir in Brunswick Square. I then looked at the major space exhibitions which are listed alphabetically but on the third page under Critic‘s choice there was her name Sophie Calle, announcing that she was revealing more of herself at the Whitechapel Gallery from 11am. This became my priority visit until an evening engagement and I quickly worked out how to get to Aldegate East which is behind the City area where I had worked 50 years ago unsuccessfully trying to sell office machines for an Italian company and on a road to Stratford from Tower Bridge which I used several times a year over a period of several years.

I should have arrived for 11 but made a mess of the travel as a consequence of devoting insufficient time to learning the route from East Croydon Station. As will be evident to anyone reading any of my writing I have a learning disability which prevents the immediate recollection of grammar and vocabulary and to ensure that I remember anything and although I spell check, reread and revise any writing, usually once, I continue to find errors, sometimes rendering a sentence incomprehensible. I sometimes leave my work uncorrected.

30.11 2009. For some reason about which I am no longer sure I took the train to London Bridge rather than direct to St Pancras and this resulted in having to climb the stairs at London bridge over platforms and then down to the platform, where fortunately the train from East Croydon to Bedford arrived a few minutes later. I had not lost time but had the additional effort. However what I should have done is get off at Farringdon and take the Hammersmith and City Line to Aldegate East from there. Instead I continued to St Pancras and then had to walk the full length the station to the booking hall at the front and to the Hammersmith and City line which is one the same platform at the circle and district lines. As I was to discover on my way to King Cross station later that evening there is now a new booking hall between the far end of St Pancras and the present side entrance into Kings Cross and which was opened to the public for the first time on Sunday. I do not know if this will also cut the distance to the Hammersmith and city line.

In any event having arrived at the St Pancras platform trains came and departed along the other routes for 15 to 20 minutes before one of two trains in succession going towards Aldegate East were announced. Thus I had extended the journey time by half an hour and it was after 11 before I arrived at the art space and was pleasantly surprised to find that the station entrance and exist is part of the gallery building and that for several years I had driven along the road on my way from Wallington via Tower Bridge to Stratford. I also quickly realised it was in the area where the British Olivetti City office had been located and where each day accompanied with other members of the selling team we had made our way to a bacon roll and coffee breakfast hideaway from the supervisor.

I m just have the address somewhere which I hope to find one day, although the breakfast cafe may be long gone as much of this part of London.

Petticoat Lane is as always but with little evidence of customers on the Friday. From Wikipedia I gather that on Sunday morning there can be as many a thousand stalls covering the wider area and while tourists visit it remains primarily a place to go for clothing. I was struck by two neighbouring shops which specialised in formal suits and dresses for young people, including waistcoats. I assume this is for formal occasions as I cannot recall seeing a child in such attire. There were also two stalls/shops selling luggage at very low prices. Nearby is Brick Lane and its market of fruit and vegetable and which is the home of the Bangladeshi community in this part of London an area previously occupied by Irish and then Jewish immigrants. On my explore I discovered Toynbee Hall the original University Settlement Hall in which those interested in social work could provide services to the underclass in the local community and which continues to this day in an area now overshadowed by the Gherkin and other City Towers and the encroachment of corporations and hotel chains. Lenin visited Toynbee Hall and Clem Atlee worked there as did Lord Profumo who devoted his life there after the Keeler Scandal.

Later after the visit to the Whitechapel Gallery I found an area of street seating close to the East London Mosque which can accommodate 4500 people, next to which is also the London Muslim Centre, which has facilities for several thousand, for the purpose of eating the prepared salad brought with the previous day. Nearby was the London Bell Centre workshops and a little way further along I passed a small group of beautifully attire young Muslim women standing talking and giggly oblivious that they had stopped across the road from the Nag’s Head Gentleman’s club out of wish an Asian gentleman was exiting. I wonder if the various Royals and national politicians who have visited the Mosque and centre noted the incongruity of local authority planning approval being given for such a facility in this neighbourhood.

I knew of the Whitechapel gallery but had no knowledge of the nature of its space which is not surprising as after closure it reopened only earlier this year having doubled in size following expenditure of £13.5million. Having deposited by bag and resisted the temptation to visit the book shop I entered the new ground floor gallery space behind the new restaurant to be confronted with the Nelson Rockefeller 1955 commissioned tapestry of Picasso’s Guernica which for the past couple of decades has hung outside the Security Council meeting room at the United Nations building in New York. The tapestry is set against a blue backcloth the significance of which was to emerge in the installation notes.

Around 1975 on my visit to the South of France I experience a major work of Picasso on War and Peace in a church at Vallauris where Picasso lived from 1948 to 1955. I cannot remember when I acquired the large block reproduction of Guernica which now hangs in the room in which spend most of my days working and experiencing.

The reason for the presence of the tapestry at the Whitechapel is the work of London based Polish creative visual artist Goska Macuga who is known for the presentation as installations historical objects and documents. In 2003 a blue curtain was hung over the tapestry as Colin Powell delivered his speech on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Goska has placed his Guernica against a backcloth of Blue in from of which there is a large table similar to that used by the Security Council but with inlay of documents which reflect keys moments in the history of the Whitechapel where there have been meetings and discussions and where groups are invited to do likewise during the year long presentation of the installation. What was new to me is that the original Guernica was displayed at the Whitechapel in 1939 after it had been on display at the 1937 Paris Exhibition. Moreover Clem Atlee had addressed a meeting before the picture a large reprint of the photograph of the event was the centrepiece of a newspaper produced for the 2009 event and which I fear I mistakenly put out with the now free London Evening Standard. I will obtain another if still available when I revisit just before Christmas.

Before entering the ground floor space which is devoted Ms Calle’s Take Care of Yourself I stayed alone in the Zilkha Auditorium where Inci Eviner is showing perpetually her film Harem 2009 based on a 19th century engraving which looks more like the inside of a lunatic asylum than the sexual playthings of a Sultan of Constantinople. The film has a hypnotic quality despite the contrived grainy effect.

It was then I was ready to meet Sophie Calle once more although the front stage was occupied by a mural of video screens where a score of the 107 women she contacted from an opera singer to rock artist responded on film interpreting an email received from a partner breaking up with her. The performance are also on a continuous loop but switch between them for the sound and which is the English speaking Premier of the work which she took to the Venice Biennale in 2007, the same year that Tracey Emin occupied the British Pavilion. Around the walls are large format responses to this most extraordinary of emails, including from the chief of police and psychiatrist I ordered an edition of the book on the work while travelling back to South Shields today.

I found copies of all the official guides to the British leading participants to the Biennale on one of the top gallery floors together with photos and information including a group photograph at a lunch which represent a history of British art with Henry Moore and JMW Turner, Ben Nicholson and John Tunnard at the opening in 1948, Graham Sutherland 1952 Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud and Reg Butler in 54, John Bratby 56 Victor Passmore in 60 Bridget Riley 68 David Hockney 78 Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor. Damien Hirst and Julian Opie 93, and the single contributors over the past decade with Mark Wallinger, Chris Orfili, Gilbert and George before Tracey and the video installation Steve McQueen this year.

I was then ready for Calle’s Talking to Strangers, inviting people to use her bed and then photograph them as well as asking resident’s of the Bronx to take her to their favourite place.

Seven times before my life was fundamentally affected and reshaped by unplanned events or unexpected experience and the combination events last Friday has created the eight with the work of Sophie Calle pivotal. As with that day in the Spring of 2003 when I was exhilarated by the experience of the Saatchi 100 and followed this with another first to the Tate Modern, Friday got better and better with my visit to the film on the life of Seraphine of Senlis. For this bitterly cold night on the return home I am more than content to go to bed talking to Sophie Calle.

1834 The day before meeting Sophie Calle and Seraphine

I have had an excellent and memorable long weekend in London with my first highly enjoyable experience of Lebanese food at La Roche, St Martin‘s Lane, followed by an unexpectedly satisfying three course prix fixe lunch with wine and coffee at the Café Rouge, Victoria station. There was my first visit to the Whitechapel Gallery to experience the work of Sophie Calle, only one of handful of large space exhibitions where I was overcome with WOW and also a close identification with the work which I need to test its reality. In contrast this was my most disappointing visit to Tate Modern where only one work was of interest and nothing provoked Wow or a search for notebook and pen. I have not been to the science museum for several decades and was much impressed with the strides made to cater for the most young of children and their parents. I was fortunate to attend the first day showing of a film about the life of Seraphine de Senlis and an evening of Baroque music by candlelight with the Festive orchestra of London at St Martin’s in the Fields, lazed an afternoon at the Royal Festival Hall, eat spiced chicken wings in a quiet corner of St Pancras station and a prepared salad close to the East London Mosque having visited the area where I worked for British Olivetti 50 years ago close to Petticoat, Brick Lane and Toynbee Hall. There were five conversations with strangers and my only regret was not to have brought my camera to have taken a shot of four beautifully dressed Asian young women talking excitedly about the social function they were about to attend across the road from the dodgy looking Nags Head gentleman’s club.

The journey to London, which I now make only three or four times a year, compared with a dozen or more during the 1990’s and around 50 during the twenty years as a local authority chief officer, was the best I can remember. The sun was bright for the walk from my home to South Shields station for the Metro train to Newcastle and I left early to call in at the Wetherspoons for an English Breakfast and coffee noting the number of early morning beer drinkers, many of them regulars, mixed with those taking breakfast, morning coffee or waiting to enjoy an early lunch. There was time at the station to visits Smiths for a copy of Time Out as a last minute development meant that I might be spending the weekend on my own and had made no plans about where I might go and what I could experience. I had also selected the train time as the best price for the midday early afternoon and was pleasantly surprised to find it was scheduled to be an exceptionally fast journey with only a stop at York before Kings Cross.

I had chosen a table seat although I had decided not to have my laptop to hand but to finish reading Kate Hudson’s book on the History of the CND movement. As I ashamedly admit from time to time I am still of big body but the young woman occupying the window seat was even larger and I therefore resisted the opportunity to sit opposite another young and attractive girl to go further along the carriage to an unoccupied seat without a seat ticket and where the window seat was also free as the individual booking the place did not arrive. A lady of my generation, but younger by a few years, was faced with having her case on her lap because there was no space left at either end luggage compartment and a notice asked for the luggage not to block the aisles. The suggestion it was placed below the unoccupied seat, was readily agreed and as a consequence enjoyed a conversation all the way to York. Subjects included the take over of the line by the British Government from National Express, the opportunities of the national bus pass for long journeys, the flooding in Cumbria with the loss of life of the policeman leaving a widow and four children, the death of so many young men in Afghanistan, wartime memories and flooded fields alongside the track on the approach to York, a city which is under constant threat of flooding almost every year. After she departed at York I read and promised to read through the book again soon with notebook to hand for a writing.

I did not have to wait long at St Pancras for the Brighton Thameslink train to East Croydon having purchased a single journey ticket at the automatic machine. There was time to notice that the area under the station width departure and arrivals board at this end of the station was now converted into a sales area for breads, cheeses, continental meats, olives and wine with large kitchen type tables to sample the food and drink as well as take away. I did not need to buy anything for the evening as I had eaten a French baguette with salami on the train down and decided to enjoy a soup, some pot noodles, grapes and dates for supper. This left a large prepared salad of lettuce, tomatoes, a sweet yellow pepper, cucumber, olives and a mixed bean salad for the following day. I was in my room on the 7th floor of central Croydon Travel Lodge by six pm

I decided to watch the first four episodes of the 4th and last series of the 4400 on the DVD I had brought with me, rather than the TV, missing Question Time but catching part of the weekly cocoa time political banter between Diane Abbott, Michael Portillo and what’s his name! For a day spent in packing, unpacking and travelling it has been an enjoyable one. On the train I had studied Time Out and marked possibilities. On page 46 there begins the notices for Major spaces and Exhibitions and on page 48 the was the announcement that Seraphine, winner of seven French Academy awards including best picture, was opening at the two Curzon’s cinemas, two Odeon’s, the Barbican and the Coronet Independent on the following afternoon. I must confess that it was only when her work was displayed in the picture that I associated the name with the work, which had never appealed, although by the time the film ended several of large canvases did, but fairly low in the pecking order of works I would like to have close by had I the funds and inclination to do so.

On page 49 under major space Critics’ choice. The fifth and final was Sophie Calle. I will write separately about the Sophie Caller experience. I immediately turned to page 50 where the Whitechapel Gallery was listed alphabetically in the major space section. There was a half page advert for the Seraphine film in film section where I looked to see if the children’s film UP was still showing somewhere in 3D.

Under literary events I noted that Professor Robert Barsky from the USA was talking at Peace News about the work of Noam Chomsky at 5pm on Friday at Houseman’s almost 50 years to the day I was offered a temporary job there over for a month until Christmas. Martin Bell was at Wanstead Library that night and Stephen Poliakoff at Foyle’s also on Thursday at 6.30. Jules Holland was at the Royal Albert Hall and James Morrison at the Wembley Arena. There was a Mozart Requiem on the Friday evening, the Baroque on the Saturday. There was an England National Opera Production of Turandot on Thursday evening with the Messiah on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. Separately before departure I had checked out events, paid and free at the South Bank, including at the National Theatre where Richard Griffiths and Frances Le Tour were starring with Adrian Scarborough and Alex Jennings in the Habit of Art, a play about Benjamin Britain meeting with WH Auden. There were other possibilities all depending on whether I was to be on my own or not. I also wanted to visit the British Music experience since World War 2 at the Millennium Dome where the ATP tennis tourney was taking place with semi finals days on tournament Friday and Saturday and where interest would depend on the progress of Any Murray. Before going to bed I knew I would be on my own until the following evening and decided on Sophie Calle and Seraphine. I then found it difficult to sleep.

I had been up at 5.am in order to try and get cheap Travel Lodge accommodation for the cricket next April and May and had been amazingly successful getting 12 nights in all for £102. This included five nights at Nottingham and three in Leeds and then four in London after discovering that there was a relay of La Boheme from Covent Garden. Having booked the accommodation I then found there was no relay at the Odeon Covent Garden which on further thought was logical in that why would people pay several hundred pounds to watch the opera in the Theatre if for under £10 they could see the same show at the cinema a few yards away. I was to learn the following day that it was not being shown at the Curzon’s although Carmen from La Scalla and It Travatore from Barcelona were. Then I had a moment of good fortune with was to herald the rest of the weekend. There was a relay showing at the Odeon Wimbledon. I have been to the Odeon once when staying at the former home of my birth and care mothers. I am staying where I am staying now in central Croydon and a short distance away outside East Croydon Station there are trams to Wimbledon. I booked a ticket and according to the seating plan was the first person to do so.

I had gone to bed around eleven pm on the Wednesday night, between two and three hours earlier than usual. I had not managed to sleep or so it seemed the following morning. I had risen for an hour between 2 and 3am for a milk drink but this did not seem to work. I had tried to count chicken. I have no recollection of any sleep or waking dreams. On Thursday evening I was too excited about the following day to sleep. Usually what happens is an anticlimax. This occasion it will remain not just a day remembered but perhaps the eight day in a decade which had significantly changed the rest of my self aware experience, and in this instance for the better.

1826 Parr and Kimsooja at the Baltic, Carmen tickets and World's Great Voices

For the superstitious Friday 13th is a day to cautious but for me this occasion its has proved a brilliant day, unlike two weeks ago when my car was hit in the rear corner by an accelerating bus.

I had planned to be up and away to Newcastle earlier than as happened although I had woken early and lingered awake in bed, as I thought. There was a cloudless blue sky. no wind and the temperature favourable for being out and about. I took the loan car to Heworth and should have taken a 2 hour ticket for £1.10 but with careless thinking put in the £1.80 for four hours at around 10.30 am.

The mission was to go to the Tyneside Film Theatre for the opening day of the sale of tickets for the remaining operas in the New York Metropolitan Live relay season in HD. Unlike the other cinemas in the chain the theatre had only sold tickets for the first three operas and then decided on its approach in the light of the demand which has been a great surprise and made them think their role in the cultural life of one of great cities of the world.

The lady in the queue before me was purchasing two of the advertised full rest fo season tickets, my Christmas present she said. The Lady with the other assistant was buying three single tickets for the next three operas for herself and was taking renewing her membership as was I about to do. She had not been before and clearly and been persuaded by word of mouth. The advantage of the Membership is two free tickets and £1 off seats in the Classic circle or 75p elsewhere plus 10% in the coffee room or one for the two bars. I bought tickets for Carmen in the Classic circle at the front and for Simon Boccanegra and Hamlet in the stalls. I then treated myself to a large coffee at the street level bar where I was joined at the next table by two young men each with laptops.

I then decided not to waste the paid for car parking and take a bus to the Quayside and visit the Baltic Contemporary art house walking through the shopping centre and Marks and Spencer’s along the way. I decided to check out the revised Green Market which used be a large areas of stalls but has now replaced where Argos used be. There is only room for six stall type outlets and only three of these are occupied with the available space used by the coffee bar. It is sometime since I have visited the Granger indoor market down street which has the traditional fruit and vegetables and other food stalls and various goods under a large roof area. Along the high level passage way there is a large stall selling very kind of calendar from pop stars to city views and the 365 day one good saying a day or picture.

There was one of the special buses at the terminus and I was the only passenger for half the short journey which nevertheless provides an excellent view of city centre. Newcastle is one of my favourite cities in the UK with Durham and York and along with Oxford and Chester and Brighton.

Newcastle is not pretty pretty, or quaint with dramatic vistas such as Durham or the colleges of Oxford or Cambridge, another I enjoyed a two week stay on a management course in the early seventies. It has a great river best viewed from the Baltic observations platforms or the Sage Concert Halls or the centre of High level Bridge. There is also the attractive 1830 neo classical facades of Granger and Dobson from the Monument of Earl Grey all the way down of the Tyne quayside voted the best looking street in England by BBC Radio 4 listeners

Newcastle has many faces and remains primarily the commercial centre for the whole of the Northeast of England. It had also become the a key part of Higher Education with 50000 university places within the city competing as a place to study and play with the collegiate Durham and the junior riverside developments of Sunderland and Gateshead.

It was always a place of culture and general entertainment with theatres and musical halls giving way to the cinema and the disco bar and nightclub and more recently the International standard concert halls. There are various major art galleries and museums and between 50 and 100 attractive Inns as well as a similar number of international restaurants, coffee and sandwich shops, tea rooms, and fast food takeaways. For general clothes and other shopping goods the Gateshead Metro is superior to Eldon Square unless you want expensive high class goods where there are specialist stores and of course Fenwicks.

I exited the bus at the Law Courts and had to scurry over the Millennium bridge as the warning bell sounded for the midday raising. This always attracts an audience for a process which takes a good ten minutes each way. As the visit was unplanned I had not checked the exhibitions but along the end of the former Flour Mill building full length banners declared a Damien Hirst showing of his Pharmacy alongside a work supporting the 175 year life of the Newcastle University Medical School. On the main length of the building there was a giant post saying vote for the Miners or a similar slogan.

I have been constantly disappointed by the building and the package of exhibitions until today. I am not saying that I did not experience WOW by individual displays on almost every visit. Today there was a more general WOW although I have already seen the Hirst at the former Saatchi and I decided against the Malcolm McLaren pay for show described as musical paintings restricted to over 16’s because of its nudity.

Instead I took the lift to the 5th level having never visited the restaurant at the sixth where a three course meal with coffee excluding wine will cost around £30 per head. From the 5th you look out across the raised Millennium Bridge to the other bridges across the Tyne and up the hill to where Newcastle St James‘s football stadium, one of the world‘s great stadiums, now dominates the skyline from all round the city.

It is also possible to look into the 4th level exhibition area, a space in full darkness except for four large cinema size screens on each of the side walls. Korean Kim Sooja has filmed crowds in eight cities approaching the motionless figures of a Seamstress, in London, New York, Mexico City Delhi, Lagos, Cairo, Tokyo and Shanghai. In most of the cities people go by without giving the woman attention or look bemused except in Lagos where everyone looks and speculates. What struck me was that London faces have become more cosmopolitan than New York. The film was on when I arrived and sat to watch a complete showing and was then repeated again so I moved on missing the showing of a Laundry Woman Yamun river India. The seamstress stands Performance art on its heads with the artist motionless while everyone else is moving.

I then enjoyed the two floor exhibition of the work of Martin Parr and quickly came to conclusion that we have similar artistic souls. The vast spaces of the second floor are covered wall upon wall with his photographs and montages of post cards and other memorabilia and there are tables of his art books gathered with care from around the world. Probably the most interesting for the casual visitor are his collections of souvenirs from Thatcher and Bush years, the macabre 9.11 and Saddam Hussein mementos and collection of commemorative plates from long since defunct coal pits about their defiance and role in the Miner’s strike.

On the ground floor there are his latest collection of glossy colour photographs of those engaged in luxury living ranging from contemporary Bright Young Things, looking and behaving just as silly as their predecessors and bosomy matrons in ill fitting couture frocks including the Northumbrian Plate, the Pitman’s derby here in the North East, the Dubai Art Fair, the Beijing Motor Show and the Millionaires Fair in Moscow. No recession evident for these people.

One of joys as far as art shops go in art galleries and show houses is that at the Baltic. In addition tot eh usual collection of books I would love to own and look at least once there art designed goods and games and plenty of stuff for young people. There appeared to be a problem with the bus to Newcastle from this of the river so I took the one to Gateshead Interchange and eventually found my way to Wilkinson where I picked up some black albums for creative work and their own indigestion tables for a third of the usual price. At Tesco there was fruit and vegetables fresh and in tins and more of the three packs of meat for £10 deal, some Chinese style chicken things and piece of unsmoked gammon. I remembered the toilet rolls, the Milk and the biscuit crackers but then forgot the fruit and nut cereal so I called in at Lidl’s where I bought some inexpensive salami to go with the rolls bought at Tesco.

It was mid afternoon on return and waiting for me was the World’s Great voices five disk set originally issued by the Readers Digest but now available at a fraction of the price from EBay and Amazon. I could not wait to listen, abandon the writing and game playing for the rest of the day into the early following with the exception of the third episode of Spooks which if anything exceeds the dramatic brilliance of previous seasons. Alas when after midnight the result of the first new style Euro Lottery ticket draw announced I had just one star number and one other on one of the three tickets. For once I was not that disappointed as I had in my possession one of the priceless greatest gifts, the musical voice.