Gilbert And George (And Me)

If in doubt - and I have been having a lot of doubts about things this week - go and twaddle around an art gallery, which is what I did with my sister last night. We went to see the massive Gilbert And George show at Tate Modern, which was...well either you like GnG or not.

I remember them in the 1970s with their graffiti and their swear words and their overt sexuality. It all seemed to fit into the whole 1970s punky/fuck you ethos. And when I moved to London at about the same time, they still had their names and telephone numbers in the phone book, so you could drink lots of cider and then call them and giggle at their clipped voices on the other end of the phone. (In retrospect, a little later in life, I felt guilty about these prank calls. But then I read that they were drinking mammoth amounts of gin at the time, so I like to assume my calls were all just part of a gin haze they were in.)

Later on, in the late 1980s, when I was hanging around the East End a lot with my new post university London friends, you would often see GnG walking around together in their tweed suits. It was kind of exciting seeing real artists being normal, and not hiding in their studios like Bacon and Freud. They (GnG) were part of the East End scenery, and seemed quite happy to be stared at by my me and my mates.

In the 1990s, they became these massive massive art stars, and it also turned out that they had been buying up real estate throughout east London, carefully planning and saving and investing the - presumably equally massive - money they were getting for huge pictures of their bodily fluids and waste. Again, it seemed rather appropriate to the time. While bankers and advertisers were making millions out of nothing, GnG were selling pictures of shit to them. Someone gave me a GnG puzzle for my birthday in 1995. I still keep meaning to get it framed or made into a coffee table or something.

The show at Tate Modern is huge. I'm not sure how good lots of their pictures look together in one room, but - for me anyway - it was a real retrospective: of moving to London; of coming back to London after university; seeing the us and them in the wealth around this city in the 1990s; and with a nice recent GnG moment when I bought mrs househusbandnot a signed GnG poster for Valentine's Day this year. Is introspection the same as retrospection? Having said the other day that I dwell on the past too much, I am conscious that me wandering around reminiscing about my life in London should be watched carefully. But I loved it...

...although the GnG experience was somewhat mugged by my sister suggesting we go on the Carsten Holler slides all the way from the fifth floor of the gallery down to the ground. Brutal or what?

Brian Sewell is on holiday.

Tired Thoughts

I slept about an hour last night, waking up all the time worrying about stuff, and eventually realising that there was not much point trying to sleep when I heard the first birds calling to each other. (One in particular appeared - or sounded like it anyway - to have nested inside one of my pillows. As mentioned to a drowsy mrs househusbandnot: " When did birds get so fucking noisy".) Consolation was a Waunch-recommended book about a gentle English eccentric who decided to swim around Britain, which killed a few dead sleepless hours.

Have not heard back from those people who interviewed me last week, which seems rather a long time to make up their minds. I am thinking 1) they are really disorganised 2) they are not going to go with the piece of work I was interviewing for. It was that comment from the bloke on the interview panel about fees (my fees) which got me thinking that they were looking to try and get something done on the cheap or for free. It was an interesting piece of work too. We shall see, but I'm thinking having not heard back from them in a week suggests they are not going to go for it/with me for the work.

You will be more amused to hear that - after a similarly - long winded process, I have been asked to write a twice monthly blog about another agenda that I am involved in. Basically, it is an American health promotion website, and they need someone to be writing about what is going on in Europe. (Enter hhn stage right dressed as Sherlock Holmes.) This should be fun, although, being Americans, they have sent me through a too long and pompous contract which I am now required to triple sign in my own blood. All very official and organised, except they spelt my name wrong on the contract. (And the person I was dealing with on this work has some completely made up American name which I was quadruple checking every time I sent him an email.)

Website going well I think, despite continuing difficulties of sending out newsletters to subscribers. Does anyone out there use Aweber for this process? Does anyone out there know where the people who wrote to software for Aweber live so I can go and kill them? Traffic is slowly, slowly building on the site, so hopefully in approx 30 years I will be able to sell my share of the site, and buy a small piece of furniture with my web fortunes.

And an old friend has asked me to pitch for a part time post at an organisation she now runs. (This is how you really get work. Not through headhunters or adverts or websites, but through people you know - although I was a little chuffed, in my sleepless state this morning, to be told by the American with the funny name that they had chosen me to write their blog from 100 odd people - as in roughly 100, rather than 100 odd people.)

So, yeah. Bits and pieces, but getting there I think. Somewhere along the way I am hoping that a few of the dots will join up, and I will have enough work to keep me fully out of trouble, and more importantly in £ that mrs hhn and I can spend on stuff that we need to sort out. We've spent a year with not much money, which sure as hell makes you realise what you want, then really need. I'm not complaining. I am just still a bit introspective from staring at the ceiling for six hours last night.