Oberkorn

The thriving metropolis of Oberkorn, Luxembourg

I'm having a bit of an early Depeche Mode phase - currently listening to Construction Time Again (1983) and Music for the Masses (1987). I was talking with my new colleague Dave Huxtable, a proud Essex man, and turns out he knew them quite well when they were starting out. Indeed, he tells me that it was he who titled the atmospheric instrumental flipside of their fifth single, The Meaning of Love. They were on tour in Europe at the time and Dave had gone along with them. Apparently, Mute were pressing for a title of the B-side track and it was Dave who came up with Oberkorn, the tiny Luxembourgian town they were playing in at the time. Fascinating, huh?

Cubism

On Mondays, Alyssa & Naomi go to a little gallery within the Landmark Hotel, next to my office, to have a drawing class. We've got to know the couple who run it: the husband teaches the girls drawing techniques while the wife gives Liz a Chinese class. But the real draw - if you'll forgive the pun - are the hamsters, who scamper around in a cage in the back of the gallery. This is where we got ours.

So, here's a cube - by Alyssa as it turns out, but Naomi's was great too. They've done triangles, spheres, cylinders, hectagons, you name it. It's a good discipline, being able to draw, shade, create perspective - and they seem to enjoy it. Afterwards they go to a little Japanese restaurant, also within the hotel, for udon & sushi. I try to join them whenever I can, and did today. A nice little Monday routine.  

Kinko's

At risk of being accused of fetishism, I love Kinko's - the 24hr printing, photocopy and (fnaar fnaar) binding shop. There's something very satisfying about popping in there with a USB stick anytime of the day, and coming out with an A2 laminated photo or three copies of a perfectly bound 24-page A5 booklet, both of which I did today. I used to be a frequent customer of Kinko's in Tokyo, and they've recently set up shop in Beijing. Kinko, by the way, was the nickname of its American founder, who had curly hair. And that's enough inuendo for one day. 

Sticky Toffee Pud

Had the owners of our apartment, the Jias, round for a New Year's lunch today. Couldn't wish for better landlords - always quick to respond to things, always friendly. Their son is studying at Imperial College in London so there was a good connection from the start. Liz served up an excellent western meal. Of course all the items are presented together on the one plate as opposed to a succession of bowls as would be the Chinese norm, but the Jias (indeed many Chinese) are used to it. And Delia's sticky toffee pud seemed to go down well.

Farewell My Concubine

The fireworks were back with a vengeance tonight. Not sure why. But it was like a warzone cycling back from the office, dodging bangers & rockets.

We watched Farewell My Concubine tonight, Chen Kaige's 1993 film about two Peking Opera stars - from boyhood in the 1920s to old age in the 70s. I'd not seen it before. Good, well-acted and as much about China's tumultuous mid-century history & politics as the stagecraft of the title. But overlong at 3hrs. 

Office Alone

Second afternoon in an otherwise empty office, trying to keep on top of work while everyone else is away. Cold, dark and deathly quiet. The same outside - there seem to be much fewer fireworks than last year.  

Dickens

In advance of his nibbs' 200th birthday and the fact that we're organizing various Dickens-related activities in China, I thought I'd better re-acquaint myself with his life & oeuvre. A bit like Shakespeare, he's one of those writers we all read at school but only experience as adaptations in films or on stage thereafter. Anyway. I'm immersed in Peter Ackroyd's 1990 biography of the man and tonight watched David Lean's 1946 version of Great Expectations. I've seen it before but so long ago that I'd all but forgotten the plot. It's still a cracking story and the look is classic Lean. Here's Jean Simmons, who would have been about 17 playing the young Estella; Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham; and Anthony Wager as the young Pip. I often wonder what happened to certain child actors, like all the Von Trappe kids in The Sound of Music.  Antony Wager ended up in Australia working in various film & TV-related jobs and died in Bali in 1990. A slightly more interesting fact was that this was Alec Guinness's first film - although he'd starred in a stage version in 1939 playing the same character (Herbert Pocket).