all those oh-so-nears

June 9, 2010June 10, 20103 Comments

Watching the World Cup warm-ups this week, I saw on the side of the North korean bus something like, “Heroes of 1966, Korea DPR will be victorious!” For those who don’t know, North Korea’s last World Cup appearance saw them beat Italy and go 3-0 up against Eusebio’s Portugal in the quarter-finals (before losing 5-3). My first reaction was, now come on North Korea, let it go. 1966 was ages ago! Get over it, move on, don’t live on past glories. England would never do that, eh!

As kids at school we learnt that the Battle of Hastings was 1066, the Great Fire of London was 1666, and England won the World Cup in 1966. History did apparently happen on other non-66 years, but the England football team winning major tournaments alas did not. Years of Keegan, Lineker, Gazza, Beckham… all those oh-so-nears wear you down. Thirty years of hurt became fourty-four, and I can’t see that we have improved so much that we will be able to get past another inevitable penalty shoot-out, probably against the Germans. (Incidentally, England has won the World Cup more times than Germany. ‘West Germany’ however won it three times…) Still we like to hope, and we have Wayne Rooney.

England open their 2010 World Cup against the USA on Saturday. Hopefully it won’t turn out like the first time they played each other in a World Cup, in 1950. On that occasion, when England first deigned to take part in this silly cup of inferior nations, the seasoned US beat the England of Mortenson, Finney and Wright 1-0. The US team still talks about it even now; come on now, 1950 was ages ago, etc etc…

tanks for the memories

May 30, 2010Leave a comment

The Dresbach Hunt-Boyer Mansion on 2nd Street is one of Davis’s historic old buildings, flanked on its left by an old tank-house in a little orange-tree yard – hang on, er, flanked on its right. It has been physically moved. I had heard that the local cafe Mishka’s was going to build a new space between the Mansion and the Varsity Theatre, which would mean bye-bye tank-house. Well, the tank-house has been moved, and is now plonked, literally plonked, right on the other side, looking a little awkward and not un-carbuncle-like. So while moocing downtown, I felt I had to sketch it, having forgotten to do so before. It’s not the first time it’s been moved, though; apparently it was relocated to the spot it just left some time in the 70s, from a bit further away. The magical moving tank-house. I don’t know if it will stay where it currently is.

all the world’s a stage

May 27, 2010May 27, 20109 Comments

The Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center, at UC Davis, is a huge performing arts venue. It’s a pretty spectacular looking building, but I’ve not been inside to check out any performances. One day I will. It’s on the same square at the edge of campus as this building and this building.Years ago, when I did a degree in drama at Queen Mary in London, I took an enjoyable course in places of performance (taught by Dr. Schoch, who would call me ‘Scully’), studying theatre spaces through the centuries, how they allow audiences to relate to the plays or shows, the urban semiotics of the building and how it fits in with its community. Visited at Shakespeare’s Globe, looked at Greek theatres, explored East-End music-halls; it was interesting stuff. I was personally into theatres-in-the-round, and by extension football stadia – I subsequently wrote a piece about the old (and soon to be demolished) Wembley Stadium, but from what I remember it was a fairly tired and so-last-century piece of writing. In my defence, it was the last century at the time, and I probably was tired. I did learn a lot though, reading Marvin Carlson and co, and in fact I still think of what that course taught me when I’m out sketching urban buildings here and there, because I’m always thinking about how each building is a performace unto itself, speaking to and defining its environment, and how each sketch puts that building or that scene into centre stage. Just in case you’re wondering about what goes through my head when deciding how to compose a picture.

Oh yeah… I have changed the layout theme of my sketchblog. New header, wider space for pictures, different colours, and easier to find those categorized things (though some much-needed reorganization still to be done). I like it. It’s long overdue.

leave me hanging on the iPhone

May 20, 2010May 21, 20102 Comments

I have told you I’m sure that UC Davis has some old things that used to live in London; some old double-decker buses, a couple of red phone booths, and, er, me. I’m not that old, but I do remember when people actually used phone booths, ah yes them were simpler days, 10p a call, with those big heavy phonebooks and the odd, ahem, business card stuck to the window. Phoneboxes. Remember when you had to queue to use one? People just don’t any more, now they carry the latest personal holographic cyber-communication devices from apple or orange or some fruit or other. Me, yes i have a cellphone I hate using, but I haven’t joined the iPhone age yet (never understood that name, wouldn’t an earPhone be more useful?). I can’t quite bring myself to join the Church of Apple, and become a devotee in sleek white and make annual pilgrimages to Macworld and worship the word of Mr Jobs. Then there is the iPad… when I first saw it I thought it was a joke iPhone, like the ‘HELLO?’ guy Dom ‘Triggerhappy’ Joly. ‘YEAH I’M IN THE APPLE STORE IT’S RUBBISH!’ What is the small ‘i-‘ prefix all about anyway? Apparently it makes things cooler. If they got rid of the nuclear deterrent and replaced it with iBomb or iNuke, CND would be finished. Countries would only stockpile them to make other countries jealous (hang on, that’s what the Cold War was all about, wasn’t it?). But that ‘i’… it’s a bit self-centered isn’t it? There’s no ‘i’ in ‘team; ah but there is in ‘iTeam’.

Ironically enough, this old booth (drawn at the MU bus terminal, in micron 1 pen) has no phone in it. It’s just there to look cool. Which it does.

sc 27: a dime or a dollar in this old town

May 17, 2010May 17, 20105 Comments

The 27th Worldwide Sketchcrawl continued. Naturally I drew California from Davis (that is, Davis Street). You don’t get hills like that in Davis. You don’t get hills at all in Davis. It does remind me though of the hills I used to slog up in Highgate, though the ones in San Francisco are slightly steeper and a tad more dramatic (but completely lacking in Dick Whittington tales). After quickly sketching the bike first, its owner was kind enough to move it out of the way. You gotta be quick.

From there it was time to explore within the Financial District, around all those lovely big corporate banks and their big tall shiny buildings. It’s not a good time in history to be a big corporate bank. Well, that is, if you value public opinion more than making millions of dollars, which let’s face it, they don’t. So I’ll rephrase that. No, actually I can’t be bothered. As back home in London, many shops and things tend to be closed in the financial areas at weekends; funny that. One German hofbrau that I’ve been to before (and on weekends, I add, though it was closed on this day) is Schroeders, on Front St, an interesting old gaff that has been there forever and just begs to be sketched. I finally did so. The street was smelly though, and stank of wee and beggars and booze and spit, not of dimes or dollars or hedge funds.

More sketchcrawl to come…

beer and wine, i’ll be fine

May 14, 2010May 14, 20102 Comments

UC Davis does wine, I mean really does it. No, they’re not all winos, there aren’t lots of expensive fancy fashionable Napa style wineries around here, but this is the place where those vintners come to learn what the hell is going on with those grapes. The viticulturalists and enologists here are the top of the game, and they know their stuff. So now they have a shiny new complex and vinyard on campus to work with, the Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine Science. I sat out there yesterday lunchtime and sketched inside the courtyard’s Good Life Garden. More new additions are being, er, added to this complex, including facilities for the study not just of winemaking but beer-brewing too (I’m sure a few frat houses have their own micro-brew facilities already set up).

“Beer and Wine, I’ll be fine“, that phrase comes from a friend of mine who vehemently claimed it to be true, and then after downing a bottle of red plonk and a few pints of amber nectar, spent the rest of the night disproving his theory in the toilets of the Dublin Castle in Camden Town. Don’t mix grape and grain. I wonder if any of the high-tech labs are working on similar experiments. No need, mate – just go down Camden, innit.

whole wide world

May 7, 2010Leave a comment

The day after the General Election… more on that later. I decided to brave the pollen this lunchtime and get out and draw something. The Whole Earth Festival was going on, with its hippy sensibilites and world food, so I avoided that colourful bonanza and drew something else. That was silly of me (I had actually forgotten about Whole Earth, despite the tie-dye shirts and VW vans that were grooving around the skirts of the university). Then again, I don’t like drawing crowds. I drew part of the ‘Death Star’ building, Social Sciences, from the corner of 3rd and A streets.

I won’t be drawing any of the Whole Earth Festival this year I’m afraid; we’re going to the beach instead. However I did do a very quick and quite intimate sketch three years ago of my wife’s friend’s son’s band (Sholi; they’re very good) playing on the Quad in front of the hippies and their kids. There it is below. I like it.

no time for losers, cos…

May 6, 2010May 6, 20102 Comments

We’re not Champions, no, but it feels like it. Spurs, my team, beat Manchester City (again; sorry City fans) to guarantee fourth place and a spot in the Champion’s League for the first time. Peter Crouch (a man so tall he has to, erm, crouch to avoid volcanic ash) scored the winner; that is supposed to be him above, drawn in my football diary. I’m recording football events. I enjoy doing that; now I’m trying to draw some of the people involved. Hopefully I’ll see an improvement as I go on.

As I write, I’m watching the BBC online, the tail end of Election Night, and no clear winner; a Hung Parliament beckons. I’ll write more about this some other time. Perhaps it will go to penalties? Maybe even a replay (as they did in 74)? Or maybe, just maybe, football can learn something from politics. Get rid of penalties, spoiling World Cup Finals, and have a system whereby the team that comes second can do a deal with the team that comes third to become coalition world champions; of course to come second you’d have to lose, so that analogy doesn’t work.

Anyway, I’ll leave politics for tomorrow. For now, come on you Spurs!

suspicious coffee

May 4, 2010May 5, 20102 Comments

I’m no coffee drinker as you know. Nonetheless I was shocked to learn that one of the popular coffee kiosks on the UC Davis campus burned to the ground in suspicious circumstances last week. There is nothing left but a taped-off charred mess, and a lot of law students going without their coffee.

I got outside today in an attempt to draw it, you know, sketch-reportage. As you can tell, I had to keep it quick. My nose and eyes are struggling to fight the pollen these days, as allergy season hits its zenith in the Central Valley.

As if this fire wasn’t suspicious enough, I saw on the news that a suspect package, apparently containing a ‘device’, was left on campus near another coffee kiosk by Olsen Hall. After recent events of hate-motivated vandalism and picnic-day ruckuses, suddenly leafy UC Davis is becoming a suspicious place.

much more important than that

May 1, 20101 Comment

I never thought I’d see the day. A couple of weeks ago, I bought the England away shirt, the new Umbro ‘tailored’ kit in red. I’ve never bought an England shirt before, but this one is nice. I live in America now, so I can wear it without getting the urge to throw chairs. I am getting ready for the summer, when I will be following the South Africa World Cup. For those who aren’t aware I am World Cup crazy, and have been since I was a kid. I watched the last one on the Mexican stations, but this time I have upgraded to the English-speaking sports channels, which means I’ll nderstand when they talk stats, but will have to provide my own exclamations of“goooooooooooollll!!!!!”.

But before the summer of World cup, there’s a week of highly exciting Premier League left. It’s between Man U and Chelsea for the title, but for me it’s all about my own team Tottenham, and that fourth Champions League spot. If you’d have told me at the start of the season that Spurs would be in fourth place with a week to go I’d have said you were nuts. Well we have to thank that guy on the left there, Harry Redknapp, Tottenham’s manager (drawn in my football journal-cum-sketchbook). That could all change in the next couple of hours of course, and we have to beat (or not lose to) Man City, so I am still expecting us to throw it away again. Even if we do, we haven’t been below 6th all year and that is incredible. Come on you Spurs!

Over in France meanwhile, the team I followed when I lived there, Olympique Marseille, are set for their first title since the early 90s when they dominated and then exploded in match-fixing disgrace. Again, I’m still expecting that familiar capitulation but I’m hopeful for l’OM. Besides, my other old favourite equipe, Auxerre, are right behind them. Lyon’s time is over, and Bordeaux have lost it. Allez allez!

“Football football football football football. What you men see in it I don’t know. A load of men kicking a bit of leather around a field. You men, the things you think are great fun.” (Mrs. Doyle, Father Ted)