In May last year, you might remember that I brought a little classical beauty into the lives of my work colleagues when I anonymously gifted the Mona Lisa to the men’s toilets on the third floor.
I was under no illusion that this artwork would be permanently displayed, and so it was little surprise that, after ten or eleven months, it vanished without warning, leaving an empty frame to greet toilet-goers once more. To be honest, I was pleased it lasted as long as it did.
My quest to bring culture to the workplace has not ended there, though. No, it continues, with renewed vigour. Since the Mona Lisa was taken down I’ve chosen to assume that the Toilet Overlords at work aren’t keen on renaissance realism, so my latest contribution is something more abstract.
For gentlemen on their way to their most personal ablutions, I now proudly present Piet Mondrian’s Composition London 1940-42.
Recently I had to visit an office building not far from work on my lunch break. It was one of those really small office buildings that’s just a stack of little offices above a shop, so you go to a door next to the shop and ring the bell and they tell you to come up.
When you’re inside, the offices are tiny, just a room on each floor really, and there’s a tiny staircase that spirals up. There’s also a lift, but this being a tiny building of tiny rooms it is a tiny lift. The kind where you get in and there isn’t really any space for anyone else. It has mirrors on three sides to make it feel bigger but nothing can really change the fact that it’s about the size of a coffin.
Anyway, the point is that I’ve never heard of the company that made the lift. If I had I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered them.
Not a saga, not really. I tried to think of the right word and all I could come up with was ‘ragu’ and that’s definitely not the right one. Nobody wants a floor ragu.
Here it is in all its sexy glory. My new hallway flooring, floor hall. Look at it as it stretches off into the distance because, yes, it is quite a long hallway. It would take a few strides to get up and down there, even with Kev and his gigantic pair of legs.
The original planning phase begin in November of last year. Me being the ultimate slob I am decided to wait until Christmas was done before commencing any work. Then I temporary lost my hearing in one ear and had to wait until Boots was ready to suck out the various globules of wax hiding in my ear canal. Then some other things happened that stopped me from doing it. Then my installer got covid. It’s been one hell of a ride.
Don’t look too closely at the edges though because Council architecture, like most things, is not infallible and after sixty years there has been a bit of movement. How do I know this? Because when we were laying the floor from the front door down towards the living room the wall seemed to bend slightly to the right meaning the perfect symmetry we had going on at the beginning wasn’t present anymore. The further in we went a thin section remained uncovered along the edge. It wasn’t even a straight line too, the git. This then meant that muggins here had to use all the offcuts to try and wallpaper over the cracks (so to speak) to avoid spoiling the illusion of goodness.
Patience is a virtue. In my post-covid blues state, off work and with not much else to be getting on with, I cut the remaining pieces needed to finish the job. Similar to all great works of art, from a distance the integrity and the beauty remains intact. Get close though, dangerously close, and all its shortcomings will become apparent. I therefore ask that you only inspect the floor using your regular eyes, possibly from six feet away, wearing a pair of sunglasses and being distracted by genies.
I don’t think that’s asking too much?
When is a saga not a saga? When it’s a… ragu. No, it’s still not coming to me.
Since we bought a slice of Hampshire, and abandoned London for the delights of country living, we’ve been showing more or less anyone around our house. Friends? Yes. Family? Yes. Friends of family? Yes. The neighbours? Yes. Some guy who just wanted to pick up some furniture we sold on eBay? Yep.
Not everyone has had the thrill of the tour yet, though, and we understand that for some the wait is becoming intolerable. So, to help out, I’d like to extend an invitation for you to join us now on a virtual tour.
There will, I expect, be more posts from me on this subject in the near future, because it has become a very large part of my life. But for now, it is probably enough to say that getting yourself a house is an enormous process that takes up a lot of your time and energy, and has far reaching consequences for the whole of your life. It is difficult and tiring.
On the other hand, though, it’s one of the best things ever, and it has made us this happy.
Normal service will resume in February. In the meantime, if you need me, I’ll be trying to find something in a box that is under three other boxes at the back of a room full of boxes.
What’s going on there exactly? It’s very odd, as though someone was trying to type ‘coin’ in their phone and came out with a right old mess of nonsense.
The more you look at it the less it makes sense, possibly causing fits of giggles from its nonsensical nature. In a way it’s a bit like that picture of George that got funnier the longer you stared at it; scientists are yet to understand the power of Gorg.
For those not in the know, myself included, a quoin is a masonry block at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic details to a corner.
Imagine that, your corner is looking a little out-dated, not completely on the fashions so you rustle up a sexy quoin and stick it on the outside of your house ot make the neighbours jealous. If I had a collection of quoins mine would all have feather boas and they’d dangle from the side of my block of flats, teasing those that walk past with their dogs.
I wonder how many quoins Kevin has been through in his redevelopment cycle encompassing most of the British Isles.
