Lemon Tart and the Leftovers

Continuing theme

Here's one I wrote a year ago, just published.

The Leaderboard

It seems like a long time ago now I tried online dating with Guardian Soulmates. For those not familiar with GS, there is a leaderboard of sorts that guarantees boosted exposure, self-esteem and, one presumes, dates. Lots of dates with lots of attractive people pulled from the cream of the gene pool (does that phrase work..). They call the leaderboard 'Popular profiles' and there are 20 girls and 20 guys.

Back when I tried out GS, I told myself I would pay for no more than one months' membership- roughly equivalent to what I could piss away down the pub one night getting drunk and not quite scratching together the courage to go up to a girl who caught the eye. A month of casual flirting and dates sounded like a good return in place of one night down the pub. Most of all lots of dates excited me, with people totally unaffiliated to anyone I know.

Early on, I realised the leaderboard was the answer. If I could just get myself in amongst the popular profiles, it would all happen. It's based on the number of people who have added you as a favourite- if more people like you and make you a favourite then you get on the popular profiles list.

Now, I thought I'd give myself a helping hand, of sorts, and devised a strategy to get on the leaderboard. I'm not going to divulge the details of my strategy, but suffice to say it was pretty shameful stuff. Could be seen as shameful, maybe. But, you know, all's fair in love and all that and it's nice not to be on the receiving end of that aphorism, or any love-aphorism, for a change.

The strategy didn't work. It didn't exactly backfire, but it was a close-run thing. I didn't get on the leaderboard.

Imagine, then, imagine my incandescent envy when my housemate tells me she's signed up to Guardian Soulmates and she's on the popular profiles list. Number 17. JUst waltzed on, no strategy, no nothing. To make matters worse, she ran through all of the top 20 guys and told me me which of them had got in touch with her. 'That one...that one...that one and that one...' A good quarter to a third of them. Proof that if you get on the leaderboard, the cream of the gene pool comes knocking (..now that phrase definitely doesn't work). Hmpph.

Appendix to Friday 10th December 2010

Art?

I don't know much about art. I know nothing about art. At school I got stuck at Rothko. My A-level teacher, Mr. Box, tried to explain it all to me. I couldn't understand why such massive blocks of colour are held in such high esteem. I didn't get it, I was frustrated, there wasn't a ready solution. I quit art soon after.

During art I had learned one important lesson about the gap between what you envision and what you produce. Sometimes it's a gulf. I've learned that lesson again and again since the art room: I've learned to avoid recipes with photos (that just plants pictures in your head to measure up against), although I'm invariably drawn to them. I've learned that words and stories don't always come out how you'd read the script in your head: sometimes, by some happy accident, things will turn out differently, but just as good as you'd envisioned. Mostly this doesn't occur though. It takes time and skillful execution to pinch the gap between the images in your head and the thing in your hands or that come hurtling out of your mouth.

Work is research and research lately has been art. Find some new art. Something that translates fluently to television, to Japanese television. It's not as easy as it might seem, especially when you consider what kind of art people produce nowadays- conceptual art, found art...how do you explain that?

Not much on TV is new. Most of it has come from other TV, or at least other media. It really does just feed into itself. Another research topic for another channel and another programme at the moment is art. 'Trick' art. Optical illusions and anything remotely related. The illusions have a charm to the eye all of their own. An illusion to demonstrate Four Stroke Apparent Motion has really got Japan stumped though- they keep asking, how does it work? They keep asking, but why?



Deconstructing optical illusions, penetrating the jargon and the theory for condensed, soluble blurb to translate into Japanese and then easily into the mind of the producer in Japan requires care, and it reminds me of the task I and Mr Box faced up to and failed.

Rule number 7 of a Top 10 Problems Within the Art World list reads:

7. Press Releases and descriptive, explanatory texts next to pictures.
We shouldn’t need words to understand or access a work of art anymore than we need art to understand a film or an album cover to listen to music. They are extra, they can bring you to a greater comprehension of an artist – but if they are necessary then the artist has messed up. If they are not necessary, then don’t display them next to the work. If one watches an audience go round the Tate they spends as long reading the small print as they do looking at the work. Additionally poor artists use these explanatory texts to justify obtuse obscure work, or banal conceptual pieces – the writing often eclipsing the art in eloquence and expression.

I don't need any notes, or chats with Mr. Box or any other art authority to understand Rothko these days. In fact, I'd even venture to say he's one of my favourite artists (without wanting to appear like someone who knows anything about art). What I do know is that I know what I find appealing in his art. The size and depth of colour, especially in person and in close consultation for a prolonged period, is nothing short of mesmerizing.

With this in mind, I wanted to share some art work I've come across at work. (With no more explanations.)

Andreas Gursky, Blu, Anne Hardy.

RESULTS

The results for the inaugural Fund-Raising Dog House Pub Quiz (+ prizes):

1. Quiz Eubank and the Long Shots (a flagon of Old Navy Rum).

2. The Quiztal Malaise (a signed Jimmy Carr DVD).

3. Pirates of the South London Pacific (a fully PAT tested electric vegetable steamer tower).

4. Quiz in my Pants (a quarter bottle of French red wine).

5. An Ode to Guy: Ultimate Quizbee (a jar of mint humbugs).

6. Quiz Team Aguilera (some 'Free Tibet' stickers).

7. Stepfathers because we beat you and you hate us (AWOL at prize-giving?).

7. Let's Get Quizical (a toy water pistol).

9. Quizzie Rascal (a Cafe Nero loyalty card with 5 stamps).

ISO 800

Last night I ate this with Hannah, who agrees that composition can really make up for a lack of any photographic ability or technical expertise.

It might not look like much

CARROT AND ORANGE SOUP

WELCOME, ARABELLA