Got up at 6.40. A bit better but still not early enough. Clear sunny skies.
Blood Pressure 129/74 Pulse 60 Still reading the Sunday Papers and supplements. A kind of gushing article about Anna Wintour (nicknamed Nuclear Winter by staff) who is the person the film The Devil Wears Prada portrays. Dont know how old she is -about 45 - 50. Maybe more. Skinny. Bones sticking out skinny. Scraped and sculptured. Lots of naked flesh. No bra. Must have had cosmetic surgery at some stage. Who said this woman was good looking? She obviously thinks so but why do others have to agree with her? Why do we take her seriously? When we stop kowtowing to these people they will lose their power. I spend too much time each day writing this blog. I get trapped on it. We took the opportunity to go to Brick Lane. We walked from Aldgate Station to Whitechapel Gallery. Cold wind with clouds overhead. The Whitechapel Gallery shows installation Art. Special Electronic Art exhibition on at the moment - but as you had to pay we gave it a miss. Looking through a window was enough for me. Lots of bright young students walking around - they must attend the attached Art School. The shop has loads of books about Art. So much so it reminds you that you really know nothing about Art. What the Gallery did show was a Documentary Film about an Egyptian Photographer. A young film maker from Paris found a series of photo's of his Grandmother hidden amongst his mothers effects. They were taken by a Professional Photographer in Cairo. The photo's were of his grandmother in various stages of undress until she was naked except for a strategically placed balloon. The film maker took the first plane he could to Cairo to find out how this could be. The photographer was still alive. He must have been in his late 80's. He was still practicing at the same address. His gear was as old as he was, He kept immaculate records and he still had the negatives. He remembered the woman. She was much older than he was. He was very young and she was in her late thirties. Apparently she just wanted to have herself photographed naked. The 12 photo's were both innocent and provocative. She was wearing provocative underwear - well provocative for me - and it was basically a strip show. Most of the photo's were her in underwear. Only one fully clothed. Started lifting her skirts and then continued on. She didnt explain to the photographer why she wanted them. She only said she wanted to be photographed naked. The last photo was of her naked with a balloon covering her intimate parts. The film was essentially an interview with the photographer. He did speak English but as he was so old he tended to speak for a while in English then speak for a while in Arabic. There were some shots of Cairo around where he lived and had his studio. Very heavily built up. Solid buildings 4 or 5 stories tall. No obvious building regulations. Every building different. All coloured a dark brown. Very narrow alleyways. No roads. It was a very claustrophobic place. Apparently all Cairo is like this. The film maker wanted to ask if there was any romance between the photographer and his grandmother but he was afraid to ask. The Film Maker was suspicious because the photographer had added by hand his phone number on the back of one photo next to his stamp. All the photographer would say was that it was a normal a professional job. He showed us other women he had photographed. Nothing provocative though. He was essentially a portrait photographer. Mostly black and white but some women in colour. Film stars from the 60's. So nothing was resolved. His grandmother had migrated to France and was always a respectable woman. The matriarch of the family. But she had obviously deliberately kept these photo's. Her daughter knew of their existence and had kept them secret also. And she had not destroyed them. The Film Maker found them after his mother died and he was going through her effects. What was their significance? They are now part of an Artistic Installation that is attached to the Documentary Film whenever it is shown. The documentary had a soundtrack of what I presumed was Egyptian Popular music. It was interesting. It sounded different to other middle eastern music I have heard. I liked it. Of course when we came out of the Whitechapel Gallery I took the wrong turning and headed away from Brick Lane. But we had some good luck because I came across an Indian Takeaway. Small place. Very ambitious man behind the counter. Food was OK. Lots of it. We will go back again if possible. The man behind the counter directed us to where Brick Lane was and we walked the length of it. Lots of small shops. Some very small shops. Some selling fabrics. Some selling female African clothing. But a great variation of shops. Possibly Pakistani. Possibly Bangladeshi. Possibly Middle Eastern. Hard to tell from the outside but all those groups get gurnseys. We had a cup of tea in a place called Vintage. An unusually large clothing shop for the area. Dealing in Vintage Clothes. I don't think one employee was English. All Europeans. Joke in The Times today. A Minister in the current government who is in the Brexit Camp says we don't need to break away from the EEU. All we need to do is make a separate agreement with Albania, Rumania, Russia, Serbia, Bosnia, Poland, The Ukraine and Slovakia. Nothing would change. He is making reference to the fact that all cleaners, sweepers, waiters, hotel workers, hospitality workers, porters, security men, garbage men etc in London come from these countries. If the get out of Europe forces win and they send them all home there will be great changes in London. It is the stated aim of Ukip to do this. I have noticed that in the important industries such as all new building construction or the new Crossrail the workers are all English. Both Black and White. There is no race discrimination but there are no foreigners employed. Same with Bus Drivers. Tube employees. Inner city building renovations. They are all definitely English. But I don't believe there is a English person behind a food counter in all of London. In Preston Road there is an English Jewish Woman with a cake shop - its good - but all other shops are pretty well all Polish or Afghan. Not one English Sales assistant. England seems to have accepted Black people into their consciousness. They now have trouble with Eastern Europeans. Eastern Europeans (and Middle Eastern Muslims) are what they will vote against in the referendum. They want to send them all home. Not much different to Australians. Stop them before they get here is the slogan. There is no doubting that a lot of Eastern Europeans have taken advantage of the total access availability and have come to London to work. I would say double the published number. Have they lowered the wage rates? I don't know. I think maybe not. Maybe in house cleaning they may have. All house cleaners seem to be Russians. The problem is no one wants to reciprocate and go to their countries. Certainly no English. Although surprisingly there are over a million British now live in France. Hard to believe. When walking along Brick Lane it almost snowed. Flurries of sleet blown by wind. It did turn cold but it was not uncomfortable. Rain was very fine drizzle that was being frozen in the wind. As we had our cup of tea we watched for snow to happen but unfortunately it didnt. It snowed in various places - mostly up north and in Scotland of course. After that we walked to The Guild Hall and did another tour. Different tour guide so we saw and heard about different things. Its possibly the best value for money in all the museums in London. We purchased the drawing of London bringing up to date the 1616 drawing. Its the same drawing in 2016 from the same perspective. . We will have to work out what the Shakespearean references are in it. There are 16 in total. We have been told 2. We watched an interesting history of Trams in England on TV. Going back to horse drawn and then showing each stage forward. They had their day and then they became redundant. But they also became unfashionable. They were dispensed with all over Britain and were replaced with buses. Finally there was only one Tram left in Blackpool. Blood Pressure 133/68 Pulse 71
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