Brunswick Centre

On Wednesday evening, Ibs and I were sat at our computer when she thought she felt Little One moving inside her tummy. She'd felt butterflies a little before, which is supposed to be early movements but this sensation was defiantly more like little kicks. I held my hand on her upper tummy to see if I could feel any kicks coming through but they're weren't quite strong enough. But it was thrilling to think of Little One, making himself known, at last.

Last night, Ibs had the same kicking sensations and with my hand on her tummy, I defiantly felt one big kick, strong enough for me to feel. The kicks have only happened so far, when we've been together at night so we think Little One is responding to the sound of our voices and wanting to join in on our time together.

On Thursday evening we watched a wonderful film about Alastair Cooke on BBC4, I think called 'The Unseen Alastair Cooke'. It was a portrait of his life seen through his recently discovered home movies. Cooke has always been for me the perfect role model and the epitome of English Gentleman. Beautifully dressed, erudite and urbane. He is one of the very greatest broadcasters of our age and a unique, compassionate witness to the 20th Century. I still feel the hole at 8.45 on Friday evenings where 'Letter from America' used to be on Radio 4.

The past few days have been a marathon of cycling. On Thursday morning I cycled from home to Tufnell Park, from there to Millbank and in the afternoon to Hammersmith and then home. This morning I cycled from home to Southwalk and then on to Millbank and home in the evening. It must be something like 60km in 2 days.
It was exhilarating seeing some different routes through the city and I loved seeing some old favourite buildings of mine. Here are a few.

The Brunswick Centre. As remarkable a feet of urban regeneration in London as I know. I used to live round the corner and always admired it even in it's worst, most neglected days.

179 Harrow Road. One of my absolute favourite buildings, in the world. One day, I will live here.

This building, just behind Russell Square is new to me. A beautifully restored deco, industrial premises.

The glorious Post Office Tower.

National Theatre.

The Hoax

Our lovely robins have returned to the garden. Two of them have reappeared, after several months, at the end of last week and we're so happy to see them again.

They couldn't be more friendly and always keep an eye on us and keep us company when we're in the garden. They have a lovely chirruping whistle that carries through the house, when the windows are open. Ibs saw one of them feeding a small blackbird the other day.

Ibs made her fantastic stir-fry again last night, probably even better than her last.

We're trying to get better value of out our Lovefilm.com subscription so trying to watch more, sooner. Last night we watched a film I've been wanting to see for ages, 'The Hoax' by Lasse Hallstrom. It's the true story of Clifford Irving's fake Howard Hughes autobiography, with an exceptional cast; Richard Gere, in the title role (probably his best ever performance), Alfred Molina, who I've loved ever since 'Prick Up Your Ears', Hope Davies, the brilliant Marcia Gay Harden and the very beautiful, Julie Delpy.



I've been very interested by Irving's story since 1st seeing Orson Welles' 'F for Fake' which uses some of Irving's story and leads Welles to remunerate on his own relationship with Hughes and how he was close to using him as the model for Kane. Hughes has always fascinated me since being aware of his death in 1976 and all the scary stories about his bizarre life that filled the front pages of the Mirror and Mail at the time.

It wasn't long after that I watched and adored Tommy Lee Jones, in the made for TV movie, 'The Amazing Howard Hughes', giving me a long admiration of the actor and interest in Hughes' remarkable life.
'The Hoax' joins a sub-genre of terrific films that feature the Hughes enigma, including: 'The Aviator' and the very brilliant 'Melvin and Howard'. I just need Martin Scorsese to do 'The Aviator 2' and focus on the last, more interesting, half of Hughes' life.

Marylebone High St

I'd intended to go out on Saturday night with Jerry and a few others to Low Life's Pirate Party on the Thames but cried off with my gammy eye. Instead, I stayed home whilst my pregnant wife hit The Regent and The Paradise in Kensal Green, with her friends Claire and Joanna.

At least I felt fit and well on Sunday morning and had a bit of a lye in, reading our Miriam Stoppard 'Having a Baby' book and talking to Little One in Ibs's tummy.

After yesterday's breakfast left overs, we caught the tube to Marylebone High Street, looked round, with envy, at all the beautiful things in Skandium and changed to a smaller size the White Store bathrobe, Ibs bought me for our anniversary.

We then took a look round the farmers market and bought some bits and bobs including a rather nice chicken, which went from this

to this

served with my perfectly cooked roast potatoes and broccoli.

During the Sunday afternoon, I continued work on the nursery. The walls have now been skimmed and needed sanding down to prepare the surface for painting. As I worked, I listened to Stephen Fry's 4th itunes podgram, on my iPod, which was a retelling of his recent impassioned lecture about the future funding of the BBC.

After dinner we watched Wes Anderson's 'Darjeeling Limited'. I'd seen it at the pictures on release but was new to Ibs.

I have a great affection for Wes Anderson's movies, even though they are mannered, whimsical and superficial, they are always beautifully shot, with gorgeous soundtracks and always nicely cast with his repertory of actors. It also comes with a great short 'starter movie' too called 'Chevalier Hotel'.

Ibs's Tummy: Week 20

Ibs' amazing, beautiful tummy is growing now at an increasing rate and now at Week 20, Little One weighs 0.5 kg and is 18.5cm long! That's exactly the length of a DVD case.

It's an absolutely astounding feeling to run my hands over Ibs' tummy knowing that just beneath the surface, just a few centimeters away, our precious little bundle of love is sitting, safe and snug inside her womb.

We mostly refer to Little One as 'he' as Ibs' intuition is pretty confident it's a boy. We're talking to him even more now, especially since, according to Dr Stoppard's book, from week 20, he can hear our voices and sounds from outside the uterus and can respond to melody and rhythm.

So definantly lots of talking to, from now on, watching our language and playing a very careful selection of music.

I'm playing the Sigur Ros album 'Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust' a lot, knowing it's perfect, gentle and tender music for Little One to hear. Ibs was playing him Nina Simone when I got home tonight and yesterday I downloaded David Bowie's 'Peter and the Wolfe'. I can't wait to play the Little One Carl Orff's 'Music for Kinder'.

We're planning to put together a playlist of all our favourite music, for Ibs' ipod so Little One will get used to the music that's most important in our lives.

Saturday Brunch with the Hargreaves

We had the Heagreaves over for brunch on Saturday morning. That's my sister Jane, my brother in law Matthew and my beautiful neices and nephew, in order of age, Emilia, Hugo and Beatrice.

It's been a while since we've seen them so it was wonderful to catch up and enjoy their company. Time with them is always great fun. I was pretty pleased too with my food. I followed the Wolsely's breakfast template and had plenty left overs for Sunday too.

After we'd finished our food, went to the park at the bottom of our road.

Jane brought us these lovely flowers.

Perplexed in Public

My Mum came to stay on Thursday evening, stopping through after going to a function in-town.
For some reason, her immanent arrival (and knowing Ibs had never tried it) made me want to buy Soreen Malt Loaf. We used to eat this all the time when we were children, served with a large dollop of butter. Sadly, the intervening years haven't been kind to this fruity English delicacy and the memory far better than the reality. Ibs wasn't impressed either.

Feeling nostalgic for childhood foods and thinking ahead to my sister Jane coming for breakfast on Saturday, I fancied some Heinz Baked Beans. Like many great English food superbrands (HP sauce, Marmite, ketchup, Coleman's mustard etc) there's something incredibly reassuring about their timeless design and packaging.

As I left work on Friday evening, my bike had developed a flat back tyre and without a spare, I had to change back into my work clothes and head for the tube home. On the new parade ground outside Chelsea School of Art I came across this, a caravan, suspended high in the air by a crane, with 'roll out the barrel' playing from within. It was a really surprising and enjoyable sight, I found out on Saturday that the piece is called 'The Poor Are Mad' by Lara Favaretto and being shown as part of the Lisson Gallery's 'Perplexed in Public' programme.

My right eye has developed a nasty infection and by Friday I was already thinking that it was probably best not to go out in public this weekend.

On Friday evening, Ibs and I went to Stephen and Christophe's for curry and to have a long overdue catch up with Stephen about his book. He's recently been writing with renewed vigor and developing new ways of structuring the narrative and how key characters are used.
I'm really excited by the new direction Stephen is planning and can't wait to read the first completed drafts of this latest version.
Poor Christophe has been suffering from a very painful back and has been off work most of the week.

Our post curry debris.

Saturday morning's Guardian had a feature in The Guide about one of my all time favourite film directors, Nicholas Roeg. I loved this collage of stills from his movies on the cover. Although he's well past his prime now, I'm still really intrigued to see his new movie 'Puffball'.

Shepherd's Market

Last night Ibs and I went to a gallery in Shepherd's Market, Mayfair, to see a show of paintings by a friend of one her work colleagues.

A Slade graduate, the exhibition was a collection of portraits of friends, nudes and a few landscapes. Although they weren't particularly to my taste, I'm sure the show will be a success and sell out.

I enjoyed taking this picture of Michael Nyman in front of his portrait. He used to be a bit of a hero of mine, the English Philip Glass. I loved his collaborations with Peter Greenaway when I was at college and I still listen to the 'Zed and Two Naughts' soundtrack every now and again.

Yesterday morning's iPod shuffle was on melancholy form, quite suitable for a damp, grey Tuesday morning. But it did produce some beautiful music.

Radiohead - Reckoner (from In Ranbows, still haven't heard in one go yet but anytime a track from this crops up in the shuffle - it sounds just sublime)
Bernard Hermann - Psycho - Murder
The Doves - Catch the Sun
Silje Nergaard - On and On
Marvin Gaye - Anger (from 'Hear My Dear' and my 2nd favourite Marvin Gaye album)
Arctic Monkeys - I bet you look good on the dance floor (changed the mood a bit but such a superb, English, 3 minute pop song, brilliant)
Jeff Buckley - Grace (utter genius, utterly sublime, touched by something divine and from my 2nd favourite album of all time)
Prince - Mountains (12'' version) (more 'all times', this is actually my favourite track / song / piece of music of all time, bar none. Has to be the 12'' 15 minute version though not the album version. I never tire of hearing it, it always elates me and will be the last piece of music played at my Humanist funeral)
Tom Waits - Muriel
The Clash - Spanish Bombs (one of two great songs I know written about the Spanish civil war, the other being the Manics' 'if you tolerate this your children will be next')

Wedding Anniversary

It's one year today since Ibs and I got married at Chelsea Registry Office, on one of the very few sunny days last summer.
It's been an incredible year and the happiest Ibs and I have ever had together. We got lots of emails, texts and cards to congratulate us.

It's also Week 19 of Little One's life in Ibs' tummy!

Ibs finished her upholstery course tonight (one of my birthday gifts to her) and she bought home her finished footstool. I think she's done a brilliant job of it (I'm writing this with my feet on it) and I'm immensely proud of her. Isn't it brilliant!

Lady Chatterley

Sunday. Tipping down with rain most of the day and our friend Joanna had to cancel her afternoon birthday barbeque. So Ibs, Georgi and I braved the elements and went to Roundwood Park.

The annual Respect Festival was on it's second, very wet, day and there were very few people there. Annoyingly, I left my camera at home and missed entering Georgi into the dog show.

One of the stands represented the Brent Cycling lobby and we talked to an inspirational couple, on their 2nd child who, like us, have decided to live without a car.

To get about with their children they use public transport and their bikes, one of which is one of these wonderful Dutch bikes. I borrowed theirs for a test cycle and really liked it. We're definitely going to get one but at over a thousand pounds, when Little One arrives, we'll ask all our friends and family to contribute towards one instead of gifts.

On Sunday evening we watched a recent french film version of 'Lady Chatterley'. I don't think I've ever seen a French language production of a very British novel before. I thought it was a very good, very modest film which at it's core has a powerful performance by Marina Hands.

Her dominance of the film can be seen even in this still used in it's UK marketing and the DVD cover. It's a film and performance that I can't stop thinking about.

Kubrick

I'm a huge Stanley Kubrick fan and could barely contain my excitement at seeing a trailer for a Kubrick season on More4 starting in July 15th, the day of his 80th Birthday.

The trailer its self is absolutely incredible, a perfect recreation of the set of The Shining seen through Kubrick's POV as he walks through the set. This is a link to the Guardian, which is streaming the trailer and paste of the text. I really like Jon Ronson too so can't wait for his film.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/03/channel4.kubrick

Channel 4 has painstakingly recreated the set of Stanley Kubrick horror film The Shining, complete with look-a-likes of the crew and cast members including Shelley Duvall, for a TV ad to promote a More 4 season of the director's films.
The 65-second promotional spot has been filmed as a one-take tracking shot through the recreation of The Shining set.
Viewers get Kubrick's point of view as he walks through the set, ending up in his director's chair as the crew prepare to shoot the famous scene of Danny Torrance, the son of Duvall and Jack Nicholson's characters, riding round and round the deserted corridors of the Overlook Hotel.
The promo, filmed as a single tracking shot with a cast of 55 actors, was meticulously researched to "remain as faithful as possible to the period in which it was shot and the culture of the British studio in the late 1970s".
Channel 4 Creative Services, the broadcaster's in-house creative resource, cast people who resembled Kubrick's own crew including his script lady, assistant director and director of production, John Alcott, who also worked on films including 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange with the director.
Look-a-likes were also found for Duvall, Danny Lloyd, who played Danny Torrance, and the twin girls who appear fleetingly in the film.
Most of the equipment that appears in the promotional clip was actually used in the filming of The Shining.
Many of the props that appear, including the tricycle and Kubrick's script, were produced for the promotional clip based on photos or sketches from the late director's archives.
The spot, which was shot over two days at London's Bray Studios, was filmed using a 25mm Cooke lens – a favourite of Kubrick's.