Desire for Chocolate

Care Santos

Alma Books

9781846883644

This entertainment  is several tales in one; for instance: a modern-day love-triangle, a detailed examination of the social and cultural mores of 18th century Barcelona from the point-of-view of a lowly house-maid and industrial espionage and intrigue among the English, French and Catalans - all tied in with the production and consumption of chocolate. The descriptions of Barcelona one and two centuries ago are good enough to suggest personal experience, and the ’voice’ effortlessly changes to follow the story, whether the humble but strong-willed maid is talking or it’s the innocent Frenchman at loose in the back streets of old Barcelona - or the ‘voice-over’ of the author herself. Mind you - maths has never in any way been my thing, but in Aurora’s tale, I stumbled over the suggestion that the chocolate business could increase a hundred-fold in one year... However, it seems to work out.  Care Santos has used a good deal of influence from the cinema, both in the shape of the whole book and in the cutting of individual scenes . The obvious movie trick was to follow the adventures of one ceramic chocolate pot from hand-to-hand, over the centuries. It ties up like the portmanteau films of the Fifties. I can almost hear the music.

Three Pigs in Renfrew Street - architectural report

The recent students' degree show at Glasgow School of Art was an opportunity to see the new building over the road from the original School, for real; after its online and telly  airing following the opening. I have to admit that most of what I said at the time holds true. The space between the old and new buildings is a neat shape but that's as far as I can go with the positive. In an ideal world, the new building would have had walls of stone, to tie-in with the Mackintosh building. Failing that, even brick could have done; and it would have aged and settled in, in time. But the new block's exterior is about as far as it is  possible to get from the Arts-and-Crafts ethos that inspired CRM. Instead of being a functional element of the structure, it is nothing more than cladding panels stuck on to the interior skeleton. Whatever these panels are made of, two are already damaged, badly dunted, by no more than the wind blowing up Scott Street apparently - bent inwards and shattered. Any dreams of them ageing well may be defenestrated. Will they keep the inside safe from Nature's ravages? Time will tell. 

UK at war: alternative news

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group, said a US drone strike on a Raqqa, Syria, school on Saturday 4th July killed six innocent civilians, including a child. US military spokesman Lt Col Thomas Gilleran claimed: "The significant air strikes tonight were executed to deny Daesh [ISIS] the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq."