Yesterday I went to 'From the Picturesque to the Demolished' an evening of video and performance organised by Jon Purnell and Julika Gittner. On the way down I found myself suffering from ticket anxiety. It often happens on the Lowestoft line. I join it from a one-track abandoned station and often the guard fails to get round the train before he/she inexplicably abandons us at Ipswich. I then sit surrounded by threatening signs until we arrive in London. I know I deserve a ticket and will probably not be forced to pay a huge fine for defrauding National Express but it doesn't stop my fear as I explain myself at the ticket office.
I arrived at the Railway Tavern on time after a refreshing meal at Burger King (it was that or Subway) These were the only places to eat at the entrance to the 2012 athletes' village. The event start had been postponed because Arsenal were playing Hull on the big screen. Passions were running high. One vocal drinker had a huge accumulator finishing on Hull beating Arsenal so I sat where I could watch that and a showreel of videos. The art mostly lost out to the colour, noise and spectacle of the football although Victoria Melody's stroppy 'Bastard Bee' stood out.
I had intended to introduce myself to Jon but I wasn't sure who he was and by the time I'd worked it out the event was about to start and he was busy, and I had been conspicuously sitting around for so long that I felt a bit of a tit so I went to the bar for another pint.
The bar filled with a new clientelle of arty types, a woman fainted and an ambulance called. A young woman I'd met on the internet introduced herself (not as seedy as it sounds although I did manage to blush for the first five minutes) She showed me a new article in AN about The Black Flag Game which looked really good but the evening had started.
It was a friendly, pleasantly shambollic event with leaflets, speeches and presentations and a dodgy dvd player. The feelings for the loss of Angel Cottage were sincerely expressed and the work looked interesting but I missed the second half as my last train left at nine. As I ran out the door Sonya said she'd facebook me to tell me how it all turned out.
On the train home a woman sitting opposite me was trying to learn Hebrew and reading psalms. One line read: "My zeal wears me out"
