Happier news. The ear is nearly back to normal, and the ceiling will be replastered in the morning.
Liz wonders if the Africa shape is some kind of sign to heed. A trip to the Sahara to find My Heart’s Desire? Tangier for a third time? Which reminds me: when I chatted to Sophie Parkin at the Horsley party, she told me her new book for children is set in Tangier.
Sebastian’s book has been getting lots of typically polarising reviews, from sheer hatred to sheer love (six out of six stars in Time Out). I think it’s the sort of book that reminds me of the Gillray cartoon Tales Of Wonder. Three prim ladies sit at a table wearing shocked yet riveted expressions, as a fourth reads from the latest Gothic novel. “It’s so disgusting. Keep going!”
Get Mr H’s remarkable memoir here.
One more plug. I’m DJ-ing at the Scala on November 10th, as part of the White Mischief mini-festival. British Sea Power are playing, there’s a Steampunk / Jules Theme theme, and a myriad cabaret delights will be on the stylish menu. It’s put on by Ms Alex De Campi, who directed that Schema video I was slightly in, and Mr Toby Slater, who I first met in 1995 when he was a schoolboy DJ. Should be quite an event. There’s a discount on tickets if you follow the instructions at the White Mischief Website.
Learned today: what exactly the ‘lath and plaster method’ means. I’m all for education though exposure (the rubbing-off method of learning), and they don’t come much more exposed than my ceiling. Its beady laths are now following me around the room via the three-foot peep hole. The Lath As Voyeur.
Seems it’s not at all unheard of for lath & plaster ceilings to collapse when water even looks at them in a funny way, and I’m lucky it was just a small area rather than the whole ceiling.
LH emails to say he was rained on as a child by an old ceiling collapsing in its entirety:
My mother rushed in to find me slightly dazed and white from head to foot, like people are in films after being booby-trapped with flour-bombs…
