(words, pictures, tunes...) part III

From Lambs Conduit Street to South Kensington and the V&A for the Bowie exhibition. 

Perhaps because of the exhibition, the BBC has been showing various documentaries and films about Bowie over the last few months - and my darling C has often abandoned me to the telly, only occasionally rolling his eyes, as I sit there singing along, slightly starry-eyed. So, let's just say I was primed for this exhibition...

You see, I really used to love David Bowie. Granted, I also really loved David Cassidy, and had numerous other crushes throughout the early 1970s (boy in the butcher shop, where are you now?) but I only ever made a scrapbook for David Bowie. I kept newspaper cuttings and pictures from magazines in a ring binder and it survived, stored along with all my teenage diaries, for many, many years. I wish I'd kept it, just like I wish I'd kept all of the diaries - imagine the material there would have been in there for a dull, slightly less angsty, Scottish Catcher in the Rye! An anodyne version of Trainspotting... Bus-stopping!

'My' years are definitely the Hunky Dory/Ziggy Stardust years. One of the girls in school sat me down one lunchtime, so that she could recite the lyrics of the Ziggy Stardust LP in their entirety to me whilst I checked them on the LP cover - and that seemed like a perfectly legitimate way to spend our lunch break...! In the early 1970s I'd gone to see Genesis (my first concert), snuck in with some friends after school to watch Roxy Music rehearse, pored over Jackie magazine every week, watched Top of the Pops religiously, and listened to Radio Luxembourg in bed on an orange plastic, doughnut-shaped radio, but somehow I didn't get to see Bowie live until sometime between 1978 and 1981.

By then, however, I wasn't a true 'fan' anymore - real life (and real boyfriends) took over, and I had neither the time nor the inclination to learn song lyrics. Still, when he came on stage, we stood up, then stood on the seats, then stood on the arms of the seats, all to get a better view, waving madly if he showed any indication that he knew we even existed. Magical! Crazy!

I'd waited a long time for an exhibition like this, but... just like I grew out of wanting to keep a scrapbook about him, I've realised that my appetite for looking at paintings he did, or bits of paper he scribbled on, or even a tissue he used to wipe off his lipstick, is not what it might have been 40 years ago! Nevertheless, the costumes are interesting - not particularly because Bowie wore them (although they do show just how very thin the Thin White Duke was...) but because of the diversity of styles, fabrics, and finish - from the skintight sparkle of Ziggy Stardust to the immaculate tailoring of later years, or the stylised black and white plastic suit showing little relation to the body underneath, to the gorgeous Alexander McQueen Union Flag coat, all demonstrating just how interestingly stylish Bowie has always been. I smiled at the blown-up note from McQueen, apologising for the lateness of delivery, and assuring Bowie that there would be something in the post soon... We've all  made our excuses at some time or another when a deadline has got the better of us...

However, the best bits for me - proving that, really, it's all about the music, the performance - had to be the video screens everywhere showing him in clips from TOTP or The Old Grey Whistle Test, and the headsets playing his songs. One of the last rooms is filled with giant screens playing video footage of concerts, displays of scale models of stage sets, and mannequins dressed in yet more costumes. The atmosphere there reminded me a little of Brixton Academy, with people milling around, all looking upwards at Bowie 'on stage', scary monster size. So, when my headset failed, I felt momentarily at a loss. I could have gone and looked at the rest of the costumes in more detail, but without the music that seemed slightly... pointless. The problem was fixed, and the music came back on after a few minutes, but it didn't feel quite the same as before. Time to leave. I guess it's good to know that Bowie isn't the only one who has moved on - but he'll always have his own special sparkly place in my heart!

(words, pictures, tunes...) part I

To London at the weekend to meet up with one of my sisters-in-law, and one of my nieces. I may not have had a sister, but my brothers certainly delivered on introducing really clever, funny women into the family! We don't see each other very often, but when we do it's always lovely.

The plan was to fit a few cultural bits and bobs in between the tea, cake and conversation, so we met at the British Library to see the Propaganda:Power and Persuasion exhibition.

I'm a bit of a closet fan of the old communist propaganda art from China and Russia - I quite like some of those very stylised images of glowing youth doing noble things, all very pink and perky, and usually with a wide grin showing perfect, white and even teeth. True, sometimes it's just so bad it's good, but I like it all the same. Obviously, I never confuse the reality and the propaganda - I read Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday a few years ago, and I was so troubled by what I'd read I immediately put the book into a charity shop, because I just didn't want it in the house any longer. So, I am perfectly capable of 'reading between the lines', right?

Maybe not. I hadn't really thought of Tufty as propaganda - I just thought he was trying to help me cross the road safely. Similarly, beautiful stamps - aren't they just designed to look pretty on the envelope? Perhaps I'm more of a sucker than I think I am.

A film crudely depicting Jewish men, leering self-consciously and unsuspectingly at the camera, as 'disguising' themselves in western clothes to try to 'infiltrate' German society, was disturbing and uncomfortable - but was that only because I now know the horror of what was to come in the death camps? I truly hope not. I like to think of myself as being a bit more savvy and sophisticated than that and not so easily fooled, but who knows what I would have thought in pre-war Germany if I'd been bombarded with these kinds of images and ideas? It's a chilling and sobering thought.

At the same time, I couldn't help but admire the simplicity and effectiveness of this graphic poster, used by American troops travelling through France in 1944 to tell the French that the Nazis had been driven out - would I have admired it as much if it showed a swastika imposed onto the French flag? It would have been just as simple and effective - but the message would have been quite different.

Some items raised a chuckle either deliberately, to convey a message in a humorous way, or unintentionally - such as this leaflet below sent out to 'all UK households in 2005'.

While I stood there, metaphorically scratching my head, and wondering why I couldn't recall ever receiving such an item, a chap next to me laughingly expressed a similar thought to his friend. In a broad Geordie accent he mused that perhaps 'they' weren't so bothered about 'us up north'. Much mockery (which really should be the name of a remote Suffolk village) ensued.

Would I recommend the exhibition? Not sure - we fairly whizzed through it, and there was a lot to see, so it might be better with more time. It blurs the lines between national cheer-leading, international muck-throwing, and the kind of cajoling or persuading that we're used to from advertising campaigns, so it's certainly thought-provoking, and for that it's worth it. Perhaps the whole exhibition in its entirety could be read as a propaganda tool to remind us that it's all still going on - so, wake up, people! As one of my brothers once said, in a different context, 'Be aware.'

Afterwards in the shop I was very taken with the display of Women's Suffrage items for sale, all emblazoned with the slogan Votes for Women. I wasn't so sure about the message being conveyed on a tea towel or frilly pinny - seems slightly to have missed the point! Irony, anyone? I did buy a few things tho', and my sister-in-law snuck a mug she'd bought into my bag at some point during the day! Thank you! x