Monday, March 02, 2020

Re-blogging

I am asked why I have no longer written for my blog. The answer is simple. My Windows 95 computer has broken and will no longer allow me to form a new document without deleting it. This is a shame, as when I reach a difficult passage of painting, I have, in the past, been able, as a change of creativity, to write something on the computer instead.
What I have missed most is writing recipes - dishes which are seldom made the same way and often from my imagination.
Armchair philosophy, too, is a pleasure to record. These opinions are based on tenets, one of which is "everything is missable". Another is "never become too rich or too famous". A contentious one, though often agreed with, is "children steal your life".
I believe that to enjoy life it should be simplified as much as possible. All one really needs is a roof over one's head to keep off the rain, warmth in the winter, and to be able to eat and drink reasonably well. Of course there are many objects that help or hinder, like marriage, health, children, education, birth, death, and all the rest - much depending on choice, luck, work and attitude.
It is also worth remembering that everyone you meet or see on the street, in the country, bus, underground, train or aeroplane, is that their life to them is just as important as yours is to you.
I cannot see why our wonderful National Health Service, staffed by dedicated people, is so maligned. I think it is one of the best things that has ever happened to this country, having seen the poverty and unavailability of medical care in other lands. I can still recall many years ago seeing and being shocked at someone spitting blood in the street in "God's Own Country", the USA, and, more recently, the countryside in the Far East.

For those who "follow" me, Margreet will kindly now put my occasional longhand words into the ether via her more modern electronic equipment.

My new series of painting (pastels actually) is an autobiography in pictures. Each one has an explanatory piece attached to it.
As I have just finished an A4 on when I designed for television, I thought I'd restart my blog with its description.

After working in Children's Theater, I was asked by the BBC to design some programmes for the young. This was in the days of black and white broadcast live from Alexandra Palace.

The design work was rather boring, being mostly drawing up ground plans around the scenery of grey-painted flats to prevent the wheels below cameras from running over cables.

For this particular scene, the funny man was to fall into a fireplace as if from the chimney flue.
I arranged for a flat, painted with a mirror, to rest on a fireplace surround and be well secured. It was time for rehearsal.
The producer stood in front of the fireplace. The funny man jumped down from his stool, as if from the chimney. Soft bricks and soot substitute were ready to follow his entry to the scene.
The flat with painted mirror came loose from its moorings and fell on the producer, who was unhurt but carted off to hospital as a precaution. Except for him, all were delighted. The assistant producer became the producer, the assistant to the assistant became the assistant and so on.
In such an organisation someone had to be blamed.
It was my last job for television.