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Finally got around to trying out my new Cassette-to-MP3 converter. It's very basic: looks like a Sony Walkman, with satisfyingly clunky buttons. I bought it mainly to digitise some MFH stuff as, amazingly, there's quite a lot of interest 'out there' in the five cassette albums Andrew and I released in the early 80s. It's at least 25 years since I listened to them (apart from Head, which Andrew remastered a few years back). A strange experience. Very basic, abrasive in parts, almost pleasant in others, naievely produced, but not without charm or interest... and with lots of tape-hiss, which I'm told is quite cool now. They were all recorded in bedrooms or the tiny radio station at university or in a hallway in one case, on cassette machines. We had a couple of rudimentary analogue synths, the odd guitar and a lot of pedals and circuitry, but it was a time of experimentation and freedom. Good to go back there. So I'm going to live with them again for a month or so, like some estranged son or daughter, and see how we get on. I think there's a reasonably strong CD or vinyl compilation in there somewhere...
Seven weeks after the press conference (see 19 Sept), Gecko's The Overcoat has come to town. Liz and I had a rare evening out together, joined by our new friend, Lijia. The show is as great as I remembered it (Edinburgh Festival 2009), and happily it was a full house, as it was (apparently) last night and hopefully tomorrow night. Aside from the very involving Kafkaesque story, the excellent set, lighting and sound design, what really makes the show stand out is the acting... or rather the 'movement'. It's a very complex, tightly choreographed 75 minutes. Amit Lahav (Artistic Director and lead role) and his cast gave a post-show talk sitting casually on the edge of the stage, legs dangling into the pit. There was a real warmth between them and the audience and the questions could have gone on for ages. The show moves on to Xi'an, Wuhan and Szenzhen.
I don't use the subway that much - prefer the bike - but it's the quickest way to Tiananmen Square on a Friday afternoon. The first line opened in 1971. There are now 9 lines with 147 stations (which I don't think I'll be photographing...). There'll be 19 lines by 2015. It's modern, fast, efficient and very cheap (2 yuan / 20p for unlimited transfers), but a hell of a squash at rush hour - which was my misfortune this evening. Here's what it looks like in quieter moments.
This week China embarked on the world's largest census. Six million people have been recruited to count about 1.4 billion people. As someone said, if you counted 1, 2, 3, 4... all the way to 1.4 billion it would take roughly 100 years. They're doing it in ten days. The questioning of each household takes about 30 minutes. One of the big findings will be the number of migrant workers, roughly estimated to be about 200 million. We're waiting for the knock on our door too.
The bad news was getting up at 5am in order to get to the airport at 6. The good was that the Disney Shop there opened early so I could buy Woody for the girls and sitting next to an interesting, Cambridge-educated Chinese Australian called Sek on the 3hr flight. I normally prefer sitting next to no-one or at least someone who doesn't talk at all so I can read my book or work or watch a film or sleep, but for once I actually enjoyed conversing.Back in Beijing it was full-on dealing with next week. Scores of emails copied to too many people in London and Beijing, and briefing the team on press conferences, transport, photo calls, lunches. But back to lovely familial reality with the news that N had got a Star Citizen Award at school 'for being kind to three people", and her first tooth had fallen out. The Tooth Fairy beckons.
Hong Kong looking particularly attractive today. Lovely weather so lunch (after five back-to-back meetings) was outside - a stone's throw from our office and in the shadow of Bank of China Tower. I wonder what the total number of floors and lifts is in HK? On the way back from recce-ing a museum which will show our Made in Britain exhibition, I felt extraordinarily lucky to be doing what I'm doing. The moment was brief as I received a text message summoning me back early to Beijing. All hands to the pump for a full-on week ahead. More on that after it's over...
From one Norman Foster-designed airport to another... I'm in Hong Kong to brief our new Head of Arts here, meet the rest of the team (OK, three people) and discuss stuff with other colleagues. A real buzz driving into town on the harbour-hugging freeway, past vertiginous apartment blocks and the site for the West Kowloon Cultural Centre (which Foster also had a go at - see right) but is one of those grands projets that is perpetually bogged down by politics. Hopefully, Graham Sheffield and Lars Nittve will succeed in their new jobs - Chief Exec of WKCC and M+ Museum respectively - and not get worn down by it all.
