Re-decorating the Duma

Spent the evening sorting out the covers for the re-release of The Decoration of the Duma Continues. (The title, btw, came out of an automatic-writing session Andrew and I did in a pub one liquid afternoon; pretentious? Nous?). I say 'covers' because there'll be a CD and an LP which means working to 5" jewel-case with inserts and 12" straight-forward front & back. That's actually quite a difference - but a nice opportunity. The B&W artwork for the original release back in '87 is in storage in UK so I'm going for a completely new colour design whilst trying to be sympathetic to the title and times. I never thought I'd say this, but actually I like the CD format more than the 12" at the moment. Although smaller, I've got six squares to play with, compared with just two on the LP. But both should work out fine. And no sneak previews here...

798

Went to see a Liu Xiaodong's "Hometown Boy" exhibition at Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in 798 today. Very good and particularly well curated by Jerome Sans. He suggested Liu spend the summer in his hometown of Jincheng in Liaoning province and paint family, neighbours and old friends. The outcome was an illustrated diary, a documentary film and around 25 large oil paintings. On their own the paintings were fine, the characters of each sitter revealed sympathetically in natural surroundings, indoors and outdoors. But it was the context, the process, and the stories behind each of the sitters that made the show great.

We went with friends, and our combined children were very good, sitting through 30 minutes of the documentary, reading some of the diary entries and asking good questions about the paintings. I was pleasantly surprised.

Lost in transation

Met with book publishers Penguin today. They've had a China office for some time, publishing Western titles (eg. Penguin Classics) in translation and commissioning books about China in English. As we sat in their office, I scanned the shelves and just about everything on them I wanted to steal. Oh for a year off just to read...

Anyway, we're working with Penguin - and a lot of other people - on a big project which is trying to bring China and UK's literary fields closer together. There's a massive imbalance between British titles translated and published in China, and vice versa - probably as extreme as 99:1. There are hardly any Chinese novelists translated into English. One of the problems is that there aren't enough top-notch translators, and those that exist are always busy. So we've got a training project to develop more, involving writers, editors & publishers from both sides. This will culminate in China being 'Market Focus' at the London Book Fair in 2012, for which we'll be bringing over around 50 Chinese writers for networking, seminars and stuff. This is topsy-turvy for us: normally we're doing stuff the other way round, promoting Brit culture in China, but actually cultural relations is more effective if it's mutual (he said, somewhat po-faced...).

Mick Karn RIP

Mick Karn, ex-Japan multi-instrumentalist, sculptor, photographer and all-round good guy, died yesterday aged 52, after a battle with cancer. Very sad. He was a fantastic bass player, especially fretless. His languid lines on Japan's Quiet Life, Gentlemen Take Polaroids and especially Tin Drum were a revelation in pop terms, and when he took to the stage his bass became a real focus of attention, that and his glad-rags, shaved eyebrows and those funny movements he did. I saw Japan's last ever UK gig in late '82 and he was constantly doing these weird shuffles across stage, body erect, always facing forward, then settling into position with lower leg flicking out in time with the rhythm, before careering off again.

Of course, he was a lot more than Japan's bassist. He had a rich and varied solo career, co-fronted Dali's Car (with Pete Murphy), got into jazz, collaborated with David Torn and myriad others, co-ran a record label (Medium Productions) with Jansen & Barbieri and played on scores of other albums. He will be sadly missed.

PS. Gerry Rafferty also died yesterday. I just read that Baker Street was still netting him 80K a year.

The Egg

Finally went to the Egg, or to give it it's proper name The National Centre for Performing Arts. Designed by Paul Andreu and opened three years ago to much fanfare, it's made of titanium and glass and sits in the middle of a lake, a block west of Tiananmen Square. It's quite hard to figure out how to get in, but finally Liz and I found the entrance which takes you under the water.

We saw Northern Ballet's production of Madame Butterfly. Slightly odd seeing British dancers dressing up as Japanese on a Chinese stage, but it was great. Good set, costumes, lighting, some interesting additions to the Puccini score and a pretty spectacular harakiri at the end.

Were The Goodies funny?

I gather The Goodies have been enjoying something of a revival in the UK with late night repeats showing between Christmas and New Year. By coincidence I got a Best Of DVD for Christmas. I remember tuning in whenever they were on - 1970 to (amazingly) 1982 - and probably thought they were hilarious at the time. Others thought so too. Apparently a Mr Alex Mitchell died laughing while watching one particular episode (1975) and a Mrs Seema Bakewell went into labour (1977).

The temptation is always to compare them with Monty Python. They knew each other well, having met at Cambridge and wrote on & off together throughout the 60s. Goodies humour was certainly less sophisiticated but lest it be forgotten they were more popular than Python at the time. Anyway, 40 years on and the experience is... very dated, cheapo sets and the less said about The Funky Gibbon the better. But they were also quite inventive at times, especially the low-budget visual effects.

What are they doing now? Bill Oddie does his nature programmes; Graeme Garden continues to do a fair amount of radio and acting (and here's a little-known fact - his son John is keyboardist in the Scissor Sisters); and I don't know about Tim Brooke-Taylor...

Can I really have wasted two hrs watching and then half an hour writing about a stupid television programme from 40 years ago? Yup.

Resolution

We'll have to wait a few week for the real (Chinese)deal, but here we go with the western New Year. In an attempt to start it positively, I hauled myself down to the gym and made a mental list of stuff to do while pounding the treadmill and listening to some Chinese electronica (the terribly named but pretty decent Supermarket). Boring stuff like tax returns, child benefit and getting a shoe cupboard made. We don't really go in for New Year Resolutions, but I'll make one: master mandarin. Or at least be able to speak and understand a lot more than I do now.