This was an incredible story. I’d like to make a point of that as every other review I’ve read for Chimamanda’s star-crossed love epic seems to plough right in with the social commentary aspects of the story and though these are of course vital to the book and what gives it such clout when sitting on your bookshelf, none of that would mean a damn if the story wasn’t superb. And my word is it superb not just for me but for one of the widest ranging audiences I think a book could possibly have.
The Month I went home to eat on the farm.
Jasper wasn't aware he had been walking and blinked as he turned a small street corner to find the Pantheon lunging out at him, squat and dark and indescribably impressive it jerked him back from his reverie. He was sure he hadn't noticed his feet moving, his mind had been filled with thoughts of Giulia, they crowded out everything else, squashing usual thoughts until he barely noticed they were there.
Pitchforks down, I know I know, how dare I, a left leaning blogger, even imply that Brexit will actually be a positive move. Surely this populist, exclusionist, isolationist decision can only be a colossal catastrophe for both the Nation and the World. Well I am many things but most of all I am an optimist, and here I have found the silver lining, and in doing so I can confirm that this is not a catastrophe at all, rather this is potentially the forward step that the World needs. Notice I said World there, the Nation, unfortunately, is very much not included in this step.
The colours are deeper, the blacks are blacker but it's so much harder to use! Still, this was the first roll that I (almost) managed to get the full 36 photos out of so clearly things are improving. That or I've learnt to leave my camera at home when I'm drinking... Anyway I had a lot of fun with this roll in both London and sunny Liverpool.
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A weekend in sunny Essex and a hungover day of shooting around London.
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It was mostly personal pics this time around, but I snapped off a few as I wandered around too.
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Sometimes a roll comes out great, just as you expected/hoped. sometimes a roll comes out a little fuzzy. And sometimes you get hammered and figure it's a good idea to try and use a 400 iso film in a dark bar underground and waste 3/4 of a roll of expensive film. Ah well, lessons learnt! Here are the ones I took when I sobered up. Plus one example of how not to shoot in a dark bar...
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The two walked arm in arm chatting about nothing and everything. Jasper thought exactly that as they crossed a tramline and doubled back on themselves towards the river. 'Nothing and everything', it was a conversation that only two people who had really quite intense feelings for each other could discuss. There was the visible, superfluous topic of conversation: the cobbled stones, the light on the city walls, the smells from the nearby bakery, these were the spoken conversations between two young lovers – the visible surface effects. Beneath this though was the main volume of conversation.
The month where I went to Wales and back again.
The cannon blew its customary smoke ring at eight that morning, the surprisingly muffled blast echoing back dully from the first few rings of muddled streets but barely reaching much further. The sun was already glaring hard down upon the city, cooking those residents stupid enough to have a sensible job and making their morning commute, white shirts staining dark as they sat cooking on their whining scooters. Domes glinted over their heads, the ancient still dominating the new in a city that refused to modernise. 'Fuck me' Jasper thought, flicking his cigarette butt at a busy collection of pigeons, who ignored him as they strutted their way around the Gianicolo. Shrugging he walked off, pushing himself up from the pleasantly cool stone wall which looked out over the hectic rooftops.
I'm pining. Much like a certain not-dead parrot that famously pined for the Fjords, I too am now pining for the soft orange facades and knobbly cobbly streets of La Citta Bella. It's not surprising, you always want what you've had and lost, like an old watch, old school friends or not being an adult. So I've figured that the best way of dealing with this pining is to write down my progression through the couple of years spent in the eternal city, in order to enter a state of sweet nostalgia and suckle at the teat of sentimentality.
London London London. A hulking grey seething mass of out of time buildings, winding streets and tightly clipped accents. Of fast paced walking and faster conversations muttered into a telephone. For the average young British person London lives in the psyche, it is forever there just in the back of your mind, beckoning you, letting you know that no matter how hard you try, chances are you will end up living there at one point or another, slaving away under it’s great whip comprised of high-speed broadband cables and intern’s tears.
I didn't put much stock in colour film until I found Portra 400, and now I'm in love.
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I left Rome! I did it, I bloody went and did it. No no, calm your screams, your cries of 'why' and 'woe' and 'who gives a damn'. It was time. Two years in, two wonderful magical years of working, living, loving and getting myself up to a nice rotund 14 and a half stone (92 kg, 203lbs, thank you cheap pizza and wine). I decided it was time to leave Rome's shimmering shores and, like the great Julius Caesar before me, head back for the coast of Britannia.
My life has been a constant contrast of the City and The Country so it's only fitting my first album should be exactly that.
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