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."

Guest blog of the week: Yemen again

A friend of this blog, Judith Brown, has decided to keep us up to date with the situation in under-reported Yemen, where there has been civil war for most of the past ten years, with interference from other countries notably Saudi Arabia. The BBC has lately noticed that there is something going on in Yemen, but this blog goes straight to the centre, and it will be on a daily basis: http://yemen-news-today.org/

Aluna - the message

Thanks to Truthout Cinema, the (literally) underground cinema in Stokescroft, Bristol, This blog has just caught up with ALUNA: a documentary made for BBC2 by Alan Ereira, although halfway through its shooting, the subjects, the Kogi tribe of Colombia, took over the camera.

The men of the Kogi refer to themselves singly and collectively as the Mama - they see them selves as the loving guardians of their river and surrounding networks. They understand that there are critical connections within the natural world. They know this from generations of experience rather than reading “Chaos”. The Kogi also believe that without thought, nothing could exist. Their concern is that, as well as physically plundering the world’s resources, we are messing with the thought holding existence together. (see Unspeak) The film showed us one dried riverbed and its source, a one-time lake shrunken by ‘development’.

An undercurrent in the story was how the director got wised-up to the Kogi philosophy, in full view of the camera. The tribe’s message to the Old World / industry / western development projects, collectively named ‘Little Brother’ is to protect the rivers - which seems as good a place to start as anywhere.
The good news is that since an earlier 90 minute collaboration has been on TV, it has had huge global impact, repeated on BBC2 and then in other countries - according to the movie’s own website, www.alunathemovie.com , 30 times in the US last year.

Ian Parker flies "solo"

Ian Parker, the ubiquitous keyboard player who is part of London's Celtic membrane and a personal friend of this blogger, has just released his very own latest, a CD called PACIFICA.   The launch, in deepest Bloomsbury, was a collectable event. All the stars of the album showed up to do their thing, mostly Pete Howarth of the Hollies, who gave us a full set as a 'support' act. Ian's new stuff sounds big and important; lush, too. Ian's own  pop voice has got stronger - of course - with a-gig-a-night for so many years.  All struck me as being like movie music, especially the kind you'll hear over the opening credits and scenes of major emotion and drama.  The titles might contain clues: Women of the Desert, Spacetime is Cool, A Day in the Life of a Sherpa...I just let it wash over me.

Drawing attention

Drawn 2015, The open submission show at the RWA, taking up most of the late Bristol spring, follows on from Drawing On, which featured such luminaries as Edward Burra, Cecil Collins, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Mary Fedden PPRWA, Elizabeth Frink, Barbara Hepworth, Keith Vaughan, Henry Moore, John Nash, Ceri Richards and Stanley Spencer - and has been well worth catching for a wide variety of reasons, not least as a nudge in the ribs if you've forgotten what drawing is for.