DIY Disasters continued, originally uploaded by benaston.

In a cruel twist to the DIY angst already inflicted upon us by Shibboleth, she hit back after she heard of plans to fill her in over the weekend. The decision to concrete over our Shibboleth was taken after a health and safety expert fell into the crevice while attempting to demonstrate how we should negotiate the Shibboleth in the event of a fire. That proved it really.

It was Sunday, I was putting up the new blind and Shibs was now a little upset at the prospect of being permanently erased from memory. As I was gingerly perched on the loo seat (gingerly and perched are probably not entirely accurate, but let’s go with it) I heard an almighty crack and found myself falling. The crevice was certainly deeper than before but kept the water theme as I found myself falling into the depths of the toilet.

Shibs lives.

Newton Falkner in Shepherds Bush Empire, originally uploaded by benaston.

Newton is a keen bean. He was on stage, mug in hand, at 9pm on the nose. As his entrance music wasn’t quite ready, he supped his mug of horlicks and engaged in a bit of banter before launching into song. This guy a genuine green machine.

The hour and a half set was a whistle-stop tour of Handbuilt by Robots with a fair sprinkling of popular covers thrown in for good measure. Newton applied his percussive guitar style to a range of popular tunes - from SpongeBob SquarePants and Ice Age to the Bohemian Rhapsody encore. In this vein, my favourite however, was a familiar Californian folk song; the Baywatch theme tune - I’ll be there.

And I was there, but it was just me; I was a billy.

Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo, originally uploaded by benaston.

A while back, when she was less well known, Salcedo made a big hole in the floor of our flat. It is art. (and we had a leak).

The concrete walls of the crevice are ruptured by a steel mesh fence, creating a tension between these principle elements of construction that resist yet depend on one another. By making the floor the principal focus, Salcedo dramatically shifts our perception from the inherent grandeur of the freshly painted walls, and exposes the dichotomy of wet and dry concrete.

In breaking open the floor of the Aston flat, Salcedo is was trying to expose a fracture in the pipes. Her work encourages us to confront uncomfortable truths about our history and about ourselves with absolute candidness, and without self-deception.

Salcedo is of course famous for a similar crevice installation in the Tate Modern.

Je piens ma tasse, originally uploaded by benaston.

This has been a project in development for about 2 years. The cup connoisseurs among you will see from the picture it’s been well worth the wait.

I opted for a traditional safari scene. The cup tells the story of a slightly overweight zebra who is attacked by a lion hiding behind a tree. It’s a narrative on dangers of ‘going green’ and a black and white ideology.

Rebecca’s cup is a commemorative piece. It celebrates, in extraordinary detail, the move into our current residence. Interestingly, it also explores in vivid bleu, possibility and hope for the future.

Quack.

The leak, originally uploaded by benaston.

One morning, Nancy, who lives downstairs, heard the pitter patter of raindrops. Not normally unusual, but it was sunny outside. Nancy walked into her hallway and noticed it was raining inside.

This is a bit of a problem, mainly because Nancy lives directly beneath us. We had thought it might be because of our leaking toilet (which is another story in itself), but Norbert’s plumber man fixed that. It then began to dawn on us that it was a much bigger problem.

Norbert and his plumber man started making big holes in the floor (as shown above). As I understand it, this is standard building procedure; make holes, fix it afterwards. So now we’ve got a big hole in our floor. And it’s still raining on Nancy.

In pt 1, page 20 & 21 of the Lessor’s covenant, it outlines a responsibility to repair and maintain… c) the conduits in under and upon the property. This is good news. It means Norbert won’t have to fix it.

What a mess.

Sandwich maker with experience urgently needed, originally uploaded by benaston.

This badly worded yet ingenious ad is located in the window of a sandwich shop which obviously fancies itself a cut above the rest. Three weeks have passed and yet the ad persists - could it be that no one has made the grade yet?

Cut to: Interior of sandwich shop. Sandwich shop proprietor interviewing potential sandwich maker.

- So, tell me about your sandwich making experience…
- Well, I’ve always liked making cheese and pickle sandwiches.
- (With sarcasm) Oh right, I see, so you think you’ve got experience? Have you ever made an avocado and crayfish sandwich?
- Well no, but isn’t it…
- (Interrupting) Sorry, I had hoped you might have read the ad properly - we need someone with real sandwich experience. Cheese and pickle is no avaocado crayfish sandwich now is it?

Sandwiches available upon request.

Sardines, originally uploaded by benaston.

The Bowring’s Chiswick residence was the perfect location for the Annual Fulham LG Sardine Tournament (at least I’m sure that’s what it will become). It was a strictly lights off affair and with 3 floors, an attic, basement, and jardin, hiding places were in no short supply.

For the uninitiated, sardines is game similar to hide and seek where only one person hides; the ’seekers’ must find the person that’s hiding and then hide with them. The last person to find the group that’s hiding is the loser (all good games have a loser). Wikipedia says its a great game for learning spy skills (so it must be true). I certainly used the game to top up my sniper breathing skills, tracking skills and hunting skills.

Oh no, I don’t know anything about editing Wikipedia.

mince pie of the year, originally uploaded by benaston.

You know Christmas is just around the corner when you find yourself tucking into your first mince pie of the season. But there’s all sorts of kefuffle about how long this corner has become. There’s no shortage of people vocalising their discomfort of the desertification (like a desert, not a pudding) of the Christmas season which to their disapproval, seems to extend earlier and earlier each year.

The way around this would be to introduce some kind of festival - an Easter for Autumn if you like, so that we didn’t have to start thinking about Christmas so early. There’s plenty of inspiration we could draw from; a North American style Thanksgiving, or my favourite, (mainly because of the lanterns) a Chinese style Moon Festival.

This way we would have two events to get excited about and ensure we weren’t already bored of Christmas by the time it finally arrives. It would also present the opportunity to create some new kind of seasonal delicacy which can only be a good thing.

That said, I really don’t like moon cakes.

All seeing eye, originally uploaded by benaston.

The London Eye dressed up in its fancy pants for the ChristChurch boat party. It was as though it espied (with its large eye) a party going on and wanted to join in. All too often the Eye sports that slightly boring bluey/purple colour so I was very pleased that it had pulled out all the stops for this rather dashing rainbow outfit. Also of interest was the GMT laser. Who’d have thought it would be green? Not me.

I was suffering from flip flop injury so excused myself from serious dancing.

beef burger, originally uploaded by benaston.

I went on holiday and saw how beef burgers are made. I think this picture kind of explains it.

As I’m sure you know, there’s a bit of too-ing and fro-ing before the mmmeat undergoes its burger transformation. This is the bit that has been known to cause a bit of a kefuffle and excitement in some veggie corners.

To start off with there’s a lot of poncing around as everyone introduces themselves to the crowd (in strict formation of course) and does a strange lap of honour. Then the exciting part - the bull is let loose and everyone cheers; the matadors flap their pink capes a bit, but as soon as the bull is even remotely close, they hide behind their fence. That’s about it for round one.

Round two is probably the most exciting for a bull fighting novice like myself. The knights (chaps on big, armoured and blindfolded horses) trott into the ring and hey presto, the bull kicks up some dust, snorts, and charges. The fun bit is that the bull sometimes manages to get under the horse and tip it over; then there’s all kinds of flapping and panic as the bull runs amok while people frantically try to get the horse back up and stay clear of the bull. Unfortunately though, more often than not, the bull gets a good poke, just enough to get it reallllly annoyed.

There’s a few more rounds before the bull gets towed away to be made into burgers. Matadors come back in the ring and try bejewelling the bull with some giant pipe cleaners. Unfortunately, if the bull is any good, they tend to finish it off really quickly. This for me, is the most disappointing aspect of the bull fight. If the bull really is a mean machine; at least give it a fighting chance and let it prove itself - the matadors should do some good olé’s, prance about a bit, and demonstrate their finely honed hunting skills. But it’s not like that. Instead they seem to choose to toy only with the less ‘excitable’ ones yet we are supposed to be impressed.

N’olé pas.