Art Vandals 4: A kiss is not just a kiss

Weapon: Spray paint, red

Reason: Political, gender politics

V-J Day in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstadt (14th August 1945)

This iconic image marking the end of the Second World War for the USA looks different in the cool light of 2019. From a celebratory V-J Day image adorning a full page of Life magazine it takes on a more problematic dimension in that it is unclear what the kissee feels about the moment.

The sailor caught in the kissing a stranger act in Times Square, New York died on Sunday, aged 95, in Rhode Island. George Mendonsa was 21 when he grabbed the kiss. He was home on leave from the Pacific theatre.

George Mendonsa

He was kissing 21-year-old Austrian-born American dental assistant Greta Zimmer Friedman. She died on 8th September 2016 at the age of 92. The photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt withheld the names of the kissers. Greta Friedman said (unlikely though it seems) she had not been aware of the photo until the 1960s.

Greta Zimmer Friedman

Interviewed for the Veterans History Project in 2005, Greta Friedman confirmed it wasn’t her choice to be kissed and that the sailor “grabbed” her, but also that the kiss was a “jubilant act” and “just an event of ‘Thank God the war is over’. ”

Eisenstadt said he watched the sailor running along the street, grabbing any girl in sight.

“I was running ahead of him with my Leica looking back over my shoulder but none of the pictures that were possible pleased me. Then suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white being grabbed. I turned around and clicked the moment the sailor kissed the nurse. If she had been dressed in a dark dress I would never have taken the picture.”

Eisenstaedt on Eisenstaedt

A sculpture based on the photo is to be seen in Sarasota, Florida, entitled Unconditional Surrender. The original version was made by J. Seward Johnson II in 2005 – he went on to create a series of them in different locations across the USA and beyond. In 2019 that punning title doesn’t play so well.

Unconditional Surrender by J. Seward Johnson II

On Monday, the day after George Mendonsa’s death, the statue was vandalised with the hashtag #MeToo painted in red on the dental assistant’s bright white leg.

By Tuesday the civic authorities had it back looking ship-shape and Bristol fashion. The cost of the damage was estimated at $1,000 (£765).

Good as new (how good it was new is debatable)

It’s not the first time Unconditional Surrender has succumbed to unwanted assault. It was accidentally hit by a car on 27th April 2012 and removed for repairs.

There have been issues around the possible copyright infringement by the sculpture of the photo. But Seward Johnson claims his source was another simultaneous photograph by a different photographer:

Kissing the War Goodbye by Victor Jorgensen – same moment as in Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day in Times Square

Greta & George back at Times Square years later

Unconditional Surrender at the site of Eisenstaedt’s photo in Times Square – 14th August 2010 [Photo: Don Emmert]

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Art Vandals 3: From suffragette to fascist

Weapon: Meat cleaver

Reason: Political, gender political

Venus and Cupid by Diego Velazquez

Today I went on a guided historical walk around the East End of London entitled ‘Anti-Fascist Footprints’ led by David Rosenberg, a specialist in East End history, husband of a former colleague of mine at Channel 4. During the tour we walked right past the offices of Little Dot Studios in Whitechapel’s Plumbers Row where I have been working since the company moved from Shoreditch towards the end of last year. David and I recently co-interviewed a veteran of the 43 Group anti-fascist group out of the East End. A (to me) surprising connection came up on the walk this afternoon – one of the photos David showed of a group of women BUF (British Union of Fascists) members included a certain Mary Raleigh Richardson who was on my radar from a completely other angle – as an Art Vandal.

Mary Richardson was the Suffragette who slashed the so-called Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery in 1914.

The Rokeby Venus is the nickname of The Toilet of Venus aka Venus at her Mirror aka Venus and Cupid painted by Velázquez between 1647 and 1651. It resides in London’s National Gallery. It is the only extant female nude by the Spanish artist. It reached these shores in 1813 when it was purchased by the MP John Morritt for £500 and hung in his home, Rokeby Park, Yorkshire. In 1906 the newly created National Art Collections Fund acquired it for the National Gallery, its first significant campaigning win.

Eight years on, on 10th March 1914, Mary Richardson marched into the National Gallery and slashed the canvas seven times with the distinctly domestic weapon of a meat cleaver. Her action was prompted by the arrest of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst the day before. There had been earlier warnings of an attack on the National Gallery collection, so the plan may already have been in place. Richardson’s slashes were deepest between Venus’ shoulders but covered her back and buttock too. The attack earned her the nickname Slasher Mary in the press. The London Times described a “cruel wound in the neck” and feminist commentators have remarked that the contemporary reports sound more like injuries to an actual body rather than a pictorial representation, indicating that both the incident and the painting have come to take on an emblematic dimension.

Why did Richardson do it? She told the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant suffragette group led by Emmeline Pankhurst, shortly after the incident: “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs. Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history.” The WSPU endorsed the destruction of property as a tactic to draw attention to women’s suffrage. Years later (in a 1952 interview) she added that she didn’t like “the way men visitors gaped at it all day long”.

Richardson’s statement explaining her actions to the WSPU:

“I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history. Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas. Mrs Pankhurst seeks to procure justice for womanhood, and for this she is being slowly murdered by a Government of Iscariot politicians. If there is an outcry against my deed, let every one remember that such an outcry is an hypocrisy so long as they allow the destruction of Mrs Pankhurst and other beautiful living women, and that until the public cease to countenance human destruction the stones cast against me for the destruction of this picture are each an evidence against them of artistic as well as moral and political humbug and hypocrisy.”

It’s interesting to note that Venus is not looking at herself in the mirror as we see her reflected face front on – the implication is she is looking at us, the male viewer. This may have inspired Manet’s similar mirror trick in A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, also in a London gallery – the Courtauld – which I wrote about as a Picture of the Month in 2010. In that painting the female gaze defiantly and directly challenges us the male observer. It is worth noting that Richardson did not go for the eyes.

The cuts were successfully repaired by the gallery’s chief restorer Helmut Ruhemann and the painting was soon back on display.

Mary Richardson at the National Gallery straight after the attack

Richardson was sentenced to a six month stretch in  prison, the maximum for destruction of an artwork.

Richardson was born in 1882 in Ontario, Canada. She made her way to Bloomsbury via France and Italy.

She bore witness to Black Friday on 18th November 1910 when a march of 300 women to Parliament was violently set upon by the police (much as the anti-fascists were at the Battle of Cable Street we were discussing on site this afternoon). The march started from Caxton Hall near Channel 4 HQ. A certain Winston Churchill, then Home Secretary, rejected calls for a public enquiry after the event – interesting in view of the debate about whether Churchill was a goodie or baddie this last week precipitated by John McDonnell’s comments about Churchill being a villain over the Tonypandy miners’ riots in the very same year (1910).

Black Friday violence on women marchers

Richardson was also present at the Epsom races on Derby Day, 4th June 1913, when Emily Davison was trampled by the King’s horse. Richardson was chased and beaten by an angry mob but given refuge in Epsom Downs railway station by a porter.

Slasher Mary already had form by the time of the Rokeby attack. She had committed a number of acts of arson; smashed windows at the Home Office; and bombed a train station. She was arrested nine times and received prison sentences totalling over three years. She was one of the first two women force-fed under the 1913 Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act, nicknamed the Cat and Mouse Act, in Holloway Prison. I wonder whether it all drove her a bit crazy…

In 1932 Richardson joined the British Union of Fascists (BUF), led by Oswald Mosley. She had come to the conclusion – a real-life Miss Jean Brodie – that fascism was the “only path to a Greater Britain”. She explained that “I was first attracted to the Blackshirts because I saw in them the courage, the action, the loyalty, the gift of service and the ability to serve which I had known in the suffragette movement”. The “Iscariot politicians” comment in her post-art vandalism statement may have been a bit of a giveaway. Richardson rose rapidly through the ranks of the party and within two years (1934) she was Chief Organiser for the Women’s Section of the party. Mosley, in contrast to Hitler’s view that women were fit for Kinder and Küche only, encouraged them to play an active role in the BUF. However Richardson left within two years because she felt disillusioned about the sincerity of Mosley’s policy on women. (Two other prominent suffragettes who took high office in the BUF were Dublin-born Norah Elam and Cardiff-born Mary Sophia Allen.) The BUF, inspired by Mussolini’s Fascists and the whole Italian Futurist vibe, sold itself as a movement of action, youth and dynamism. Its official newspaper was called Action. It is probably in the notion of Action that Richardson’s suffragette and fascist careers meet.

Training at the Women’s BUF HQ. Mary Richardson is standing at the back.

 

 

4 reasons to love Albert Finney

A friend of mine (whose artwork sits below where I am writing) is a close relative of Albert Finney so it was with a bit of a jolt that the news of the actor’s death caught me yesterday. I had last watched him on the obscure Channel 81 on Freeview (which is my favourite, random old movies from the 50s and 60s) in the somewhat bizarre (but very interesting) Gumshoe a few weeks ago.

Last night Erin Brockovich felt like the right celebration for a Friday night of a distinctive and charming actor. I’d forgotten that the movie was one of Steven Soderbergh’s, adding to the alignment as the sad news came in on the same day as posting this new article which brackets Soderbergh’s latest movie with my commission Missed Call and Sean Baker’s Tangerine.

1. Tom Jones (1963) as Tom Jones

From the year of my birth, derived from one of my favourite books, characterised by a youthful cheekiness.

2. Under The Volcano (1984) as Geoffrey Firmin

From my university days, watched at the Arts Cinema Cambridge (also sadly missed), I remember it as a deeply disturbing performance and movie.

3. Erin Brockovich (2000) as Ed Masry

Avuncular, great chemistry with his shining co-star Julia Roberts, still that cheekiness.

4. Skyfall (2012) as Kincade

Shot by my first boss (Roger Deakins), with the immortal line:

Welcome to Scotland!

as he shotguns two of Bond’s assailants. Cheeky and irresistible to the end.

 

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) as Arthur Seaton – bridging 50s Angry Young Men (here) and 60s Swinging England (Tom Jones)

Jeremy Hardy was and has left

I first met Jeremy through work, and then a little later through my sister-in-law Deirdre who had become a friend of his working together on Irish political causes. I spent an enjoyable evening sitting beside him and Uncle Pat at a family event in Carlingford, Co. Louth and last chatted with him at the bar in BAFTA a few months ago. I was shocked to hear on Friday that he had died at the age of just 57.

Jeremy addresses a CND march in Trafalgar Square

Early on in my time at Channel 4 I commissioned a website for a Paul Greengrass drama about the Omagh bomb. I asked Jeremy for a contribution, asking whether there was any silver lining to the Omagh bombing five tears [oops, Freudian slip – years] after the event, and this is what he had to say:

Jeremy Hardy

Jeremy Hardy is a comedian and campaigner.

Omagh was such a sad, stupid, pointless atrocity, committed by people refusing to look at another way forward.

It was an attack on a largely harmonious town – a town which stands as a symbol for what Northern Ireland could be like.

It’s also time that people who want to investigate what happened look not only at the perpetrators but also at the failure of the RUC.

As uncompromising and committed as ever. We had not that much in common politically – nuclear disarmament, the Guildford 4, that’s probably about it – not least because he was so much more politically oriented and committed, but I always enjoyed spending time with him and talking when we crossed paths.

He was a very funny fella (in particular on Radio 4’s The News Quiz). And he wore a cardigan.

His friend and fellow lefty comedian Mark Steele perhaps captured the sad news best and most concisely, in a tweet:

My dearest friend @JeremyJHardy left us early this morning. I was so lucky to have spent 35 years arseing about with him. Knowing him as I did, I know he wouldn’t want you to be sad, he’d want you to be bloody devastated x

10:02 AM – 1 Feb 2019

 

4 of the Greatest Drummers

I’ve been enjoying the 3-part series Guitar, Drum & Bass on BBC4 commissioned by my old friend & colleague Jan Younghusband. Some of the presenters are better than others (Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads a real natural on Bass; Stuart Copeland gives it a good try on Drums, enthusiastic but not the full monty).

Of course it gets you reflecting on the greats so here are who I consider 4 of the drumming greats:

1) Michael Shreeve – Santana

[comes in at 0:38] He blew everyone away at Woodstock as a fresh 20-year-old.

2) John Bonham – Led Zeppelin

A driving force of great technical accomplishment – heavy as it gets.

3) Budgie – Siouxsie & the Banshees

[kicks in at 0:36] A perfect off-beat sound

4) Clyde Stubblefield – James Brown

[solo at 0:30] Funky as fuck

Bubbling under:

• Elvin Jones – John Coltrane
• Gene Krupa – Benny Goodman
• Itamar Doari – Avishai Cohen

Itamar Doari with Avishai Cohen

Also of note:

• Gregory Coleman – The Winstons (creator of the Amen Break)
• Stockton Helbing – Maynard Fergusson

[6 famous seconds at 1:26] The Amen Break

 

Coincidences No.s 250, 251 & 252

No. 250 – Puritans

The Pilgrim Fathers boarding the Mayflower – painting by Bernard Gribble

I travel to Plymouth and decide to see where the Mayflower departed from for the New World in 1620. I take a photo of the so-called Mayflower Steps (the water’s edge was actually some way back an elderly local gentleman explains to me back in the 17th Century). I decide to Insta the photo which mainly captures the fact that the Steps are being rebuilt for the 400th anniversary next year. For some reason the train of thought in my mind at the time is stepping off this quay onto that ship ultimately gave the world Trump. Also in the back of my mind is Ronan Bennett’s novel Havoc in its Third Year which probably coloured my views on Puritans. So I ended up writing this caption, including #fuckthepuritans:

The next day I am reading How to Think by Alan Jacobs. In the section on Consensus & Emotion he references a 1994 essay entitled Puritans and Prigs by Marilynne Robinson. In it she “challenges the contemptuous attitudes many people have towards Puritans”.

No. 251 – Scaramanga

Just along from the Mayflower Steps, past the building (Island House) where the Pilgrim Fathers are supposed to have taken their last meal on English soil,  I enter a good second-hand bookshop, The Book Cupboard. I eventually buy two paperbacks for a very reasonable £3 each, including a 1967 copy of The Man with the Golden Gun (largely for its cover which includes a BOAC luggage ticket for Scaramanga, the villain of the piece).

The next day I go to a meeting of the Advisory Board of Sheffield DocFest documentary festival. It is held in a place called Second Home, communal offices in the East End (by coincidence in the same narrow road where my grandfather had a clothes factory back in the 60s and 70s). At the appointed time I walk through to the meeting room. The way the building has been fitted out the spaces are divided by curving clear plastic walls which has the effect of a hall of mirrors. I remark on the confusing effect as I enter the meeting room and my colleague from DocFest immediately references Scaramanga and the movie of The Man with the Golden Gun and Christopher Lee (who I once crossed paths with on the streets of London).

No. 252 – Jack Shepherd

I go to the monthly meeting of the University of London Finnegan’s Wake Research Seminar. We cover about 6 to 8 lines per session as the method is close reading. The first of this month’s 6 lines includes a reference to the notorious 18th Century criminal Jack Sheppard.

Our bourse and politico-ecomedy are in safe with good Jock Shepherd, our lives are on sure in sorting with Jonathans, wild and great.

On the tube home I pick up the Evening Standard. The first line of the newspaper’s front page is: “Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd today launched a bid to resist extradition from Georgia”

Joyce deliberately misspells Sheppard’s surname to give it another connotation, shepherd, be that of sheep or men. This brings it in line with the surname of this 21st Century criminal currently on the lam(b).

1st edition

Postcard No. 4 & Coincidence No. 294

This is what is written in ink on the postcard:

Dear Aunt & Uncle,

I suppose you know by now I have enlisted. I am at present stationed at Aldershot, where we are busy training. I’m quite well, and worked hard, but quite content. In peace time we are dressed in the dress shown on the card.

Love to all, your loving nephew, CWW/GWW

The card was sent to:

Mr & Mrs Whitney
5 County Road
March
Cambs

So that makes him CW/GW Whitney.

He sent the card on 12th September 1914 from Aldershot, a big army town obviously, and just two months after the declaration of war. There are also the words Malborough Lines(?) on the postmark. Lines seems to be military jargon for something to do with barracks, probably lines of or between buildings. It was postmarked at 8.15pm across its Half Penny stamp bearing the head of George V.

The destination of the card, March, is a Fenland market town in the Isle of Ely area of Cambridgeshire. In 1914 it was the county town of the Isle of Ely (a separate administrative county from 1889 to 1965). March was once an island surrounded by Fenland marshes, the second largest in ‘the Great Level’, a 500 square mile area of The Fens.

On the front of the card is a watercolour illustration of a soldier from The King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Signed JMN. The front includes a list of the regiment’s Battle Honours including “Martinique 1762, 1809” and “Defence of Ladysmith”. The summary of History and Traditions mentions “the Afghan War, 1879-80, including Roberts’ famous march to Kandahar, and the Battle of Kandahar”. There seem to have been subsequent Battles of Kandahar in 2001, 2006 and 2011. Plus ça change.

A quick search online has revealed: Charles William Whitney

A/3092 Cpl, 7th King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Killed in action 15-9-16, age 26. Son of Charles & Elizabeth Whitney, 4 Station Rd, Chatteris; husband of Alice Whitney. Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France.

So our man only survived two more years and three days. 15th September was the day my wife was in labour with our first-born son.

Chatteris is only 9 miles away from March, being one of the four market towns in the Fenland district of Cambridgeshire, alongside Huntingdon, March and Ely.

The regimental badge on the front of the card shows the motto “Celer et Audax”. I’m going to guess that means Speed & Boldness – and now I’m going to ask Prof. Google… yup, close – Swift & Bold, now the motto of The Royal Green Jackets. Their badge is similar, just with a circle of laurels around the cross. They were formed in part from The King’s Royal Rifle Corps in January 1966.

The card was “British Printed” by G&P which seems to stand for Guards Posted, military being their specialism.

I wonder how Charles felt when he was first posted as a guard? and whether he ever got to see his uncle and aunt again?

A bit more googling and I found a photo of Charles…

…and this information:

Corporal Charles William Whitney 7th Bn, A Coy, A/3092 King’s Royal Rifle Corps

Died 15 September 1916

Charles William Whitney was born in around 1890 in Bury Huntingdonshire England. In 1901 he lived with his parents Charles and Mary Elizabeth Whitney and his brother Laurie Stonecliffe (who also died in the war) in Station Road, Chatteris. His father was a mining engineer by trade.

In 1911 Charles boarded at 15 Church Road in Erith and was a school teacher at Dartford Elementary School. Before the war Charles had been an assistant master at King Edwards School.

By the time of his death Charles was married to Alice and lived at 24 Topsfield Parade in Crouch End, London, his parents still lived in Chatteris. Charles enlisted in Hammersmith in August 1914, having only held his current teaching post for 3 months, and joined the 7th Bn King’s Royal Rifles Corps, going out to the front on May 1st 1915. His battalion were part of the 14th Light Division in 1916. They, along with The New Zealand Division and 41st Division were successful in capturing the village of Flers on 15.9.16. English Newspapers reported that ”A tank is walking up the High St of Flers with the British Army cheering behind.” Sadly Charles wasn’t amongst them. A letter in the Cambs Times, 6th Oct 1916 records a letter from his Captain stating that Charles was instantly killed by a shell. He was a signaller. Charles has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval memorial.

Project File contains: • CWGC certificate • Cambs Times 29 Sep 1916, 6 Oct 1916, photo • 1901, 1911 Census • Soldiers Died • Medal Card • Picture of name on Thiepval Memorial

I can’t recall where I bought this card for 50p. It might have been in Ireland, at an antique fair in England, not sure. But the weird thing is this man lived only 2 miles away from where I am sitting in my backroom, his last address being in Crouch End, despite his origins in The Fens.

What are the chances – a postcard posted in Aldershot to Cambridgeshire by a man from Cambridgeshire should end up two miles down the road from his final address in London?

Charles William Whitney on the Thiepval memorial

His younger brother Laurie (three years his junior) ended up in Ealing before he left for the war. Laurie Stonecliff Whitney was Company Quartermaster Serjeant for the 1st Huntingdon Cyclist Battalion (The Fens are good for cycling being as flat as it comes so probably have a strong bicycle tradition). Laurie died two years after Charles on 11th July 1917. He had been born at Bury in Huntingdonshire (in 1893) but breathed his last (age 23, the age I met my wife) in Scarborough, where he would have been in hospital wounded.

Charles’ brother Laurie – buried at Chatteris Meeks Cemetery

On the last Remembrance Day I wrote a post about a local casualty of the Great War, John Parr, who had the tragic distinction of being the first British soldier killed in action. He was from one mile down the road from this back room. By coincidence, he too was in a cycle brigade, a reconnaissance cyclist.

Postcard No. 3

 

The third from my random collection of old postcards.

I think I took this as Jesus when I bought it (for 30p) because I’m fond of a good Jesus. My favourite is Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings (also Captain Pike, original commander of the USS Enterprise in the first ever Star Trek).

Jeffrey Hunter in ‘King of Kings’ (1961) Directed by Nicholas Ray

But this turned out to be Johannes or John, presumably John the Baptist. He has a big crook so is clearly also a shepherd of men. I presume he too is an actor as the card is marked (in German) as an ‘Official Postcard’ of the Passionspiele (passion plays) at O. -Ammergau, Oberammergau, a village in Bavaria where a passion play has been performed since 1634. So not mediaeval like Brit passion plays, such as the York Mystery Cycle which dates from the mid-fourteenth century, but a good effort nonetheless. The Oberammergau plays are performed on open-air stages.

This one is dated 1922 and seems to be No. 74 in a series – that’s a lot of characters.

The printer was F. Bruckmann of Munich – Friedrich Bruckmann (died 1898). His older son Alphons and younger son, Hugo (13th October 1863, Munich – 3rd September 1941, Munich) took over F. Bruckmann KAG on his death. Hugo and his wife Elsa were among the early promoters of Hitler, helping him gain access to upper-class circles in the city.

From 1928 the Bruckmanns backed the National Socialist Society for German Culture. And from 1930 Hugo was a board member of the ‘Kampfbund’ (Pressure Group) for German culture, founded by Alfred Rosenberg. He was an NSDAP (Nazi party) member of the Reichstag (German parliament) from 1932 until his death in 1941. In 1933 he became a member of the board for German museums. It is suggested his personal influence on the Fuhrer helped reduce political interference in the cultural sphere. An attempt to ban Jewish books from libraries was successfully opposed by Bruckmann. Because Hugo knew the big man after the outbreak of war his publishing house was declared of special importance for the war effort. He was honoured with a state funeral in 1941.

Also mentioned on the back is ‘the Munich graphic business’ Pick & Co. They seem to have been in book publishing too. Alongside is a reference to “Kupfertiefdruck” which seems to translate as “Rotogravure” (literally Copper Gravure – Gravure is “a printing method in which an image is applied to a printing substrate by use of a metal plate mounted on a cylinder” so the cylinder explains the “‘roto” bit). Whether this is a rotogravure… Jesus (No. 1) knows.

On the front is written “Traut photo.”. Traut seems to be H. Traut of Munich. Here’s one of his from 1906:

Photographer: H. Traut of Munich (1906)

Atelier Henry Traut was in business from 1857 to 1940. It was based at Herzog-Wilhelm-Straße 32, Munich.

Here’s one of his ‘glamour’ photos:

And here’s the gen on him from the reverse of a postcard:

So his speciality was taking portraits in private houses in daylight and artfully lit. There are whole books about him.

I found one other of his 1922 photos online:

I”m not sure which number or character this is.

Other similar images from later years:

Another John from 8 years later (1930) actor Hans Lang

Also from 1930, Jesus & Mary

An early one from 1900 – Mary’s farewell to Jesus

A later one (1950) Judas’ kiss featuring actors Anton Preisinger (Jesus) & Hans Schwaighofer (Judas)

At last No.1 Anton Preisinger as Jesus, complete with autograph (probably 1950)

Anton Preisinger as Jesus (probably 1950)

I like my one best.

4 places worth visiting in Norwich

I was in Norwich yesterday visiting the uni/art school NUA to give a lecture on Creative Thinking and a very pleasant visit it was too. Here are 4 places I enjoyed spending time in…

1. The Book Hive book shop

A great little independent book store with good browsing to be had. I picked up a copy of Alan Jacobs’ How to Think – and here’s what I love about the internet: I read a bit I didn’t agreed with and fired an email over then and there to Mr Jacobs in Texas with an example illustrating what I thought and he came back a few hours later with his response (polite and broadly  agreeing).

Proper old school

2. Harriet’s cafe /teashop

Welsh rarebit, English breakfast tea, The Times – what’s not to like? Read Danny Finkelstein’s piece in the wake of the May plan take-down. Used to go to junior school with the Fink and he lived down my road for a while (Tory blue front door though he was a Liberal at the time: we had a yellow front door back then).  Always worth a read.

in Norwich Lanes

3. Jarrolds

A department store, founded in 1770 in Suffolk, moved to Norwich in 1823. Situated in the Lanes like #1 and #2 above. I read the book purchased in #1 here in the basement where there is a book-encircled cafe called Chapters, with leather armchairs and rooibos tea. I remember buying books published by Jarrolds back in the day but I don’t think they still have that part of the business. Nonetheless their bookshop bit is well worth a visit, as is their art materials bit.

NUA Boardman House in Redwell Street (1879)

4. NUA

Norwich University of the Arts is a cool school – ranked in the UK’s Top 10 for teaching quality by The Times Good University Guide 2018; also rated by students as a top 6 UK university for creative scene in the Which? Student Survey 2018; plus shortlisted for Buildings That Inspire in the Guardian Awards 2018. NUA was founded as Norwich School of Design in 1845. Painter Michael Andrews, Monty Python’s Neil Innes and President of the Royal Academy Alfred Munnings are among the alumni.

Same yellow as my old front door

Coincidences No.s 291, 292 & 293

No. 291 Crudo

I get off the tube at Bank on my way to Norwich today (to give a lecture on Creative Thinking at NUA) and hear my name called across the platform. It is an old colleague & friend of mine from Channel 4. We greet each other and he notices I’m holding a book in my hand, my reading material from the tube journey. He asks me what the book is. “Crudo, we’re reading it for my book group.” “She’s one of my best friends, Olivia Laing [the author].”

On top of those coincidences (the meeting and the book), I get on the train at Liverpool Street and look up Olivia Laing as I know nothing about her and the book is unusual and intriguing. It turns out she comes from the village of Chalfont St Peter in Buckinghamshire.

A few minutes later I’m still arsing about on my phone. I have been approached to connect by a person on LinkedIn, a director called Jacques Salmon, whose name doesn’t ring a bell. I look at his profile. He went to school at Chalfont Community College in Chalfont St Peter.

No. 292 Stay Human

A bit later in the journey I am looking up one of the people featured in Michael Franti’s new documentary Stay Human, the UK premiere of which I saw last night at Bush Hall. It spotlighted the work of an amazing midwife-activist called Robin Lim.

As I text the link to my Other Half (who came to the film and accompanying gig last night and was particularly taken by Robin and her work) a notification appears on my phone – Michael Franti has just liked a photo I posted on Instagram after the event yesterday.

No. 293 Jung

I spend the day in Norwich, Norfolk. The county has been on my mind since listening to my friend Tim Wright’s Curiously Specific podcast, the latest episode being about The Eagle Has Landed which is set in Norfolk (where Tim hails from). [see also No. 289]

I bought a DVD of the movie of The Eagle Has Landed to rewatch it after hearing the podcast on Sunday. It arrived in the post today so I start watching it this evening (I haven’t seen it since it came out in 1976). As I’m watching one of the early scenes Robert Duvall (playing Colonel Radl) talks about Jung (” a great thinker”) and his notion of ‘Synchronicity’, arguably the essence of these posts. An item of intelligence about Churchill visiting a stately home near the Norfolk coast would normally be of little interest but by coinciding with Hitler’s crazy notion of kidnapping Churchill it suddenly becomes full of meaning.

The term ‘Synchronicity’ (Synchronizität) was coined by analytical psychologist Carl Jung to signify, as I understand it, the acausal connection of two or more physical, psychological or psychic phenomena. He introduced the notion in the 1920s but didn’t gave a full statement of it until 1951.

This concept came to him through a particular patient’s case that was at an impasse. One night she dreamt of a golden scarab. The next day, during this same patient’s psychotherapy session, an insect crashed into  the window of Jung’s office. Jung caught it and found to his astonishment  that it was a golden scarab,  very unusual in that climate.

So, the concept is all about coincidence – in this case, between the scarab dreamt by the patient and its appearance in reality in the psychotherapist’s office – a meaningful coincidence of physical and psychological phenomena that are acausally connected. Jung considered that events are “meaningful coincidences” if they occur with no causal connection and yet seem to be significantly related.

He defined Synchronicity variously throughout his career – as an “acausal connecting principle”, “meaningful coincidence” and “acausal parallelism.” In 1952 Jung published a paper “Synchronizität als ein Prinzip akausaler Zusammenhänge” (Synchronicity – An Acausal Connecting Principle). Jung used the concept to argue for the existence of the paranormal.

In collecting coincidences in my life I have come across some that have no possible rational explanation. These are few. More numerous are ones that are not logical but come down to something being in the air. Plenty can be rationalised.

Forever Jung