How to Have Taste

At work I used to sit next to a colleague who dressed in Diesel jeans, Prada trainers and Carhartt T-shirts (this was a few years ago mind). On his desk was a row of suitably moronic magazines (Loaded, Surface, Wallpaper) and a single hardback book: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This was a (virtually, well – 24) grown man with a Harry Potter book on his desk (for years too – he'd never read it all). He used to (literally) laugh at me dressed in Gap (ill-fitting sale stuff only), River Island and Primark (hey – he did earn more than a third more than me) – clothes he wouldn't be seen dead in. I used to laugh at him with his Harry Potter – a book I wouldn't be seen dead with. Taste is funny – it's so relative. Taste is such a matter of... taste. Or is it? I'd never be seen reading a Harry Potter book on public transport – not because they're badly written or boring (though they are both) – but because, you know, it's just so mainstream. And aren't they, you know, for kids? I'd much rather be caught reading Celine, Bukowski, Gogol, Austen, anyone else really. He likewise (wrongly, foolishly) thought he stood out from the crowd (yawn) with his exclusive, expensive, elitist brands... but everyone thinks that and does that. We all recognise other people with bad taste but we can't see it in ourselves.

It's a funny thing. Ugly people know they're ugly. Poor people know they're poor. Stupid people know they're stupid. But people with bad taste would never think, recognise or believe they have bad taste – but can see bad taste in others. It's like people with bad B.O. Surely they don't know they have it – otherwise they'd do something about it, right? Also, it's not something you can really bring up. In fact, doing so would be construed much the same way as being called ugly or boring, say. There's no subtle way of putting it: you have no taste.

And just what is taste? Like the above example of my colleague, one can't have good taste in everything (my ex-colleague also had bad taste in music and women; I also have it in wine). It can cover just about everything in life: books, films, partners, art, houses, friends, bars, architecture, restaurants, haircuts, travel, music, TV, interior design, food, furniture, fashion, jewellery... the list goes on forever.

Although taste usually manifests itself in physicality (a book or a chair, say), what actually makes good taste is harder to define. It can be about style, feeling, a sensation, elegance, atmosphere – something almost intangible. Good taste transcends trends.

Everyone has their own opinion of what good taste is, which is ridiculous, as everyone can't have good taste. There needs to be rules. But who makes the rules? Well, the mass media do to a certain extent. Magazines, TV programmes, celebrities and shops are arbiters of good taste in such matters as fashion, music, books and interior design. But largely it's people's innate stubborness that presumes they're right – that they've got the best taste and everyone else is wrong.

Like the myth that we live in a meritocratic society, people can change or learn taste. Growing up, moving away, meeting different people, going to different places, reading, listening and watching the right stimulus can all contribute to helping people with bad taste learn good taste (or vice versa). Everyone has a friend who liked the same music you did when you were like twelve years old – but who still likes it. This is stagnated bad taste. Many people do have the same taste all their lives. This is fine if it's Matisse, Dickens and Jacques Tati but not if it's Pizza Hut, Enya and 'Allo 'Allo.

People's homes are usually the best place to gauge their taste. Most homes nowadays have lost all character – largely to blame for this is IKEA, the cheap epitome of acceptable, now somewhat bland and homogeneous, good taste. I remember another work colleague rushing over to tell us all about her newly furnished flat. 'It looks just like an IKEA showroom!', she gushed, as if this was the ultimate in interior design. No one has interesting things any more in their home – it's all mass-produced, new, badly-made, bland, branded crap. The contemporary house is severely lacking good book or record collections, paintings, limited edition prints, ancient artefacts, fine oak furniture, William Morris cushions, curious bric-a-brac... you get the drift. Nowadays, people's living rooms consist of vulgar wide-screen TVs, crappy DVDs and Playstations. Their bedrooms have a bed, bedside table and lamp. Every room looks like a badly lit showroom.

Class has always played an important part in taste. Traditionally, the very rich (upper class) and very poor (working class) have had the worst taste. The middle class, though maybe having the best taste, has also suffered from having the blandest taste too. But in this modern world boundaries and class systems are constantly shifting, evolving and morphing. But not that much. Class should be dictated by taste.

Taste is relative regarding time and place. What was the height of good taste in 18th century Venice wouldn't be in 21st century Tokyo (though you never know). France is famous for good taste in many things: food, clothes, literature, art, cinema, and bad taste in music and advertising. The English have good taste in music and advertising but bad taste in everything else.

The line between good and bad taste inevitably gets blurred even more when terms such as retro, ironic and kitsch are bought into the equation. Painters such as Vladimir Tretchikoff and J H Lynch, whose cheap prints appealed to millions of British working class families in the 50s and 60s – they outsold Picasso and Matisse – are now highly prized by young, middle class professionals (read: ponces) who pay over the odds for them on ebay. Designer cool man Wayne Hemingway has even published a lavish book about kitsch art – which he collects. Apparently it reminds him of his childhood. He's an example of someone who changed from bad taste to good taste to ponce.

The last generation

I think of my parents generation – that is, those now in their 60s or 70s – as the last generation ever to do (or not do) certain things. Some of the things they do are quite important, and it's sad to see them go; others are just plain annoying (ie turning on their mobile to send one text, then immediately turning it off again; turning on the computer to send one email or check the weather, then immediately turning if off again).

Anyway, some of these include:
• Religiously sending Christmas and birthday cards.
• Knowing their neighbours.
• Being to spell, punctuate and use grammar correctly without the use of a spell checker.
• Having a good general knowledge, perhaps even some Latin, maybe able to quote some Shakespeare and/or Keats.
• Being able to navigate with just a physical map.
• Needing to read manuals.
• Popping round to friends houses unannounced for a cup of tea (I have a friend who I have to text to check when I can phone him; I've been round to his house once in five years; it took over a year to arrange).
• Having manners, being polite, having civic pride.
• Using old sayings like 'tough as old boots', 'tough as old Harry', 'bent as a nine-bob note' (that means homosexual) and 'Glory B'.
• Being mildy xenophobic/racist/homophobic.
• Being able to buy a house.
• Being keen on gardening.
• Being able to walk into almost any job in the 1960s (if that's the case – I've always wondered – why did some people walk into accountancy or insurance when they could have walked into advertising or movies?).
• Watch too much crap old-fashioned TV, yes, but more crucially, actually sit and watch the TV when programmes are scheduled. And enjoying the fact of sitting down at a certain time every day or week.
• Cluttered homes and good taste. Young people's homes are devoid of anything of interest, with their homes looking like an IKEA showroom. I mostly believe than no one under the age of forty has good taste or an interesting home. They are possibly more materialistic than the older generation, but it reflects in crappy stuff like fashion or technology, rather than things of aesthetic beauty.
• Being interesting.
• Remembering the wars, i.e. probably the second one (though probably only just being born at the end of it). Having to struggle, skimp and save. And still going on about it.
• Cooking proper meals from scratch and using real food, such as vegetables. And all the family sitting round the kitchen table for mealtimes.
• Being able to do DIY and make things (despite having less leisure time). Fixing something rather than throwing it out and buying a new one.
• Having decent handwriting, and able to write.
• Good with measurements; weights, distances, etc.
• Believing in things, having values.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Last of the legends

Late Review: Dylan at the Roundhouse, 2009

Last weekend Bob Dylan performed at the Hop Farm festival in Kent, his only gig in England this year (it's worth reading the comments of the Guardian review of his performance – still polarizing audiences after all these years...).

Here's my Very Late Review of Dylan at the Roundhouse last year, which I started writing at the time then forgot about. FYI: this is my 200th post.

Set list:
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat* / Don't Think Twice, It's All Right / Tangled Up In Blue / Million Miles / Rollin' And Tumblin' / Tryin' To Get To Heaven / Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum / Sugar Baby / High Water (For Charley Patton) / I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) / Po' Boy / Highway 61 Revisited / Ain't Talkin' / Summer Days / Like A Rolling Stone / (Encore) All Along The Watchtower / Spirit On The Water / Blowin' In The Wind

*At least it wasn't Cats In The Well

To get tickets I spent over two hours on a temperamental laptop. A password had been posted on bobdylan.com a month before the gig. I had to register on the Roundhouse website, type in the password and pray to God. Tickets were available at 9am. I logged on at 8.45am. The website went down at 8.55am. For the next hour I cursed at the laptop. I finally logged on at about 10.30am. The site crashed a few more times. I wasn't even sure I'd got a ticket. I gave up some time after 11am. I checked my emails – and there was my order confirmation for two tickets. I went out into the garden, lit a cigarette, praised God, and wept. Only 3,000 standing tickets were available. Over 100,000 people had tried to get them.

The day of the concert, Sunday, was gloriously sunny, and my boon companion and I left early – it was the day of the London Marathon and delays were expected. But when we left it was already over – on the tube an annoyingly precocious boy was wearing a Mini-Marathon T-shirt whilst completing a Rubik's cube every five minutes. He'd give it to his mum to mix up – then do it all over again.

We collected our tickets (only just – my old debit card had expired and my new one had different numbers on it – I was questioned and almost refused the tickets. It reminded me of going to the airport last year for Spain and discovering at the last minute my passport was six months out of date – I'll save that for another post) and wristbands. After a late picnic on Primrose Hill, and a wander through Camden Market, we sat in a nearby park where two women were fighting over their dogs fighting. One of the women got the other's hair, pulled her to the ground and proceeded to kick her in the head. It was time to go and queue up.

The queue snaked round the Roundhouse and up the hill. It looked like the other 2,998 ticket holders were in front of us. When finally in, we nipped out for a cigarette on the terrace and got a bottle of water (but no bottle top – they're not allowed). The Who's Roger Daltrey was doing the same. I must have been staring at him – I wasn't sure it was him, his hair was short, he was wearing John Lennon glasses, looking more like a teacher – and he stared back. I looked away.

I've never seen so many people so closely compacted together, just to get a good view of the living legend. Standing by us was a Scottish couple who told us they'd been to 140 Dylan concerts. Fourteen years ago the wife even got his autograph. But it was the husband who was definitely the fan – he had a room devoted to Dylan at home (this is otherwise known as a shrine and is a bit bizarre). I wasn't sure his wife actually liked Dylan at all – she walked off halfway through the concert. The husband had spent approx £30,000 on Dylan over the years.

Also next to us was a young Indian guy who my companion called beautiful. He was looking up at the balcony. He'd recognised someone famous – but couldn't remember who he was. One look up at the man wearing thick rimmed glasses and suit and I knew it was Bill Nighy. I told the Indian guy. 'Oh yeah', he said, smiling. 'He's a great Dylan fan, you know. Apparently he has to listen to him every day.' I had read similar in interviews. 'Shame he's been in all those Richard Curtis films.' 'At least he has good taste in music,' I quipped.

I lost my companion – Judith – for a while, then saw her walking the other way from me and was about to shout 'Judith!' and then checked myself – 'Judith' sounded too much like 'Judas' and might have sparked riots. There were excited rumours that Dylan was to play an acoustic set (in 1966 someone famously shouted 'Judas!' for him playing electric). There were rumours he was going to play songs from his new album too, released the following day. The rumours stayed rumours, even though there was a tense delay before the music started when set-lists seemed to be changing.

We had a good if tight view and Bob and his keyboard were facing us for much of the gig. We will forever want him standing alone with guitar and harmonica, but he plays keyboard more nowadays and seems to enjoy himself: Dylan was grinning like the Joker. At first I thought it was because of his playing predominately songs from Love and Theft (his 'jokey' album) but then I looked at all the young women in the front row. Whatever, the venue seemed to suit him and he was having a good time. We all were too, even though we were more squashed together than rush-hour on the tube. I mean, I know it's an intimate gig, but this was ridiculous.

He growled through the now-often unrecognisable songs, a typical blend of old and new(ish) ones with his five-piece band mainly able to keep up with him – though you knew when they didn't – he'd shoot them a dirty look. The newer songs have a bit more life in them – and it's a tribute to Dylan that fans want to hear his new songs as much as, maybe more than, his old ones. Going to see any other living legend – The Stones, Paul McCartney, Van Morrison – there's a collective sigh of disappointment when the signer announces, 'And here's one from the new album'.

Overall, we were satisfied. We had seen Bob in an intimate setting. His voice may have gone but he's still with us. Afterwards, whilst crawling out, a young woman accused me of pushing into her ancient grandmother. If she ever reads this: it weren't me, babe. I was being pushed from behind. But the point is Dylan is here for all of us, young and old. Walking outside the building, sculptor Antony Gormley raced ahead of us and nipped onto his bike. I nearly shouted out that he'd left one of his sculptures on top of the Roundhouse. 'You' is a rusty-looking bronze figure standing on the roof, looking as if he's about to jump. It wasn't that bad, honest.

Bob Dylan at the Roundhouse, London, 26/4/09

(This post was link #6 on expectingrain.com, Wednesday July 7, 2010)

Illustrated children's books (for parents)

One of the best things about having children is being able to buy and read children's books without fear of embarrassment. But getting children to enjoy beautiful, arty books can be problematic. Like buying beautifully crafted wooden toys for children and getting them to eat organic vegetables, say, all too often children don't appreciate what's best for them and would prefer, say, a bright pink plastic toy and chips instead.

Luckily, my daughter has plenty of good taste, so does appreciate (most) of the following (all of which are years old and referred to as 'vintage'. I'm sure there are good new children books. I don't know, like children's TV, they all seems so mawkish nowadays. I know, I could feel this way as I'm in my 40s):

The Lorax Dr Suess
Yes there's his Cat in his Hat, but we've all read that; and the Grinch is a cinch. So try the Lorax (1971), concerned with environmentalism and anti-consumerism, recently made into a terrible film.

Barbapapa

Barbapapa is just brilliant. The French words 'barbe à papa' literally means daddy's beard but in French means candyfloss.

 

Barbar the Elephant
Like Barbapapa, Barbar is also French. After his mother is shot by hunters, Barbar flees to the city and brings back the benefits of civilisation.

Fungus The Bogeyman Raymond Briggs
Anything by Raymond Briggs is great.

Haunted House Jan Pienkowski
A childhood favourite, this took the pop-up book to new heights.

Henri In Paris Saul Bass
Originally published in 1961 and subsequently hard to get for decades, Henri in Paris has recently been republished. Saul Bass, famous as a film poster and title designer, uses the same simple yet graphic technique in his only children's book.

The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My Tove Jansson
I was a bit disappointed to discover that Moomin books are mostly black and white comic strips or novels. Luckily there are some beautifully imaginative picture books, including this one.

Mr Benn
Always dressed in black suit and bowler suit, Mr Benn's visits to a fancy dress shop always result in him trying on a costume and being transported on an adventure particular to the costume he's wearing. Mr Benn hails from 52 Festive Road, Putney.

The Witches Quentin Blake
Growing up, Quentin Blake's illustrations were synonymous with Roald Dahl's words.

Rupert the Bear
The modern cartoon is just terrible; the original books just delightful and beautifully detailed.

The Tiger Who Came To Tea Judith Kerr
Kerr, who recently celebrated her 90th birthday, has just had a book released of her life and work. She also produced the Mog the cat series ('I was enchanted by the strangeness of cats', she says). Funnily enough, both her and Jan Pienkowski live in Barnes, South West London.

 

Where The Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak

Justly famous for his Where The Wild Things Are, Sendak wrote and illustrated dozens of other books.

Little Nemo in Slumberland Windsor McCay
Though more a comic strip than a book (collections of the strips are available in book form, mostly very expensive), I've been wanting an excuse to mention Little Nemo for a while. Windsor McCay's comic strip first appeared in the comic supplement of the New York Herald in 1905. Wildly inventive with beautiful drawings and stunning colours, each strip consisted of Little Nemo going on a wild dream adventure and the last frame always had him waking up and falling out of bed.

Check out the blog Vintage Kids' Books My Kids Love

Previously on Barnflakes:
Ant and Bee
Baby books and TV programmes
Being Mr Benn
Fake Tintins
Rainbow Magic books

Barnacles™

Technology makes us tired™
Paradise is a person™
People with immaculate homes have filthy minds™
Dream Job is an oxymoron™
Remote Control For Life™
Ants are more important than humans™
Jack Kerouac never learnt to drive™
Life should have an exit questionnaire™
Don't just be yourself™
I don't mind but I do care™
It's a business doing pleasure with you™
Memories are purchased™
72.6% of UK offices have an employee called Steve™
Only one of the Beach Boys could surf™
Smokers are more interesting than non-smokers™
Vegans shouldn't eat honey™
Tradespeople always have two sugars in their tea™
Average prices are more expensive than average™
Holidays feel like work™
Women aren't as funny as men™
Class should be dictated by taste™
 It's easier to start a fire accidentally than on purpose™
The proof's in the pdf™
You make your own luck – if you're lucky™

Kate Moss is plain and dull™

Raspberries aren't berries™
Roads destroy communities™
Arranged marriages work better™
Computers cheat™
Update or die™
 Don't just do something, sit there™
The need for speed is juvenile™
There are 2,000 apple varieties in Britain™
Aspire to be average™
A speeding bullet travels only 4m under water™
Posh people wear red trousers™
If I want your opinion, I'll tell you it™
Visual imagery is tautological™
iMe™
Accent is everything™
Jerusalem artichokes are neither of the two™
107,832,745,599 people have lived on earth™
Life is a series of ruts™
Consumers are abusers™
Haste is waste™
 H is the middle of nowhere™
Carry on carrion™
Knob is bonk backwards™
Islam means surrender™
Jesus had a wicked wine cellar™
Died in event loop on un-typed exception™
Be good to your fiends™
Drugs are God for you™
Music is better than movies™
Stay clear of best sellers™
Sunbeds are as bad for you as smoking™
Horses need passports too™
Kill time until it kills you™
Fear is desire unlocked™
Avoid notice by hiding in plain sight™
Get tax back from smack™
Wii is for wimps™
Sunbathing was invented in the 1920s™
If the bees die, we die™
The best things in life have a fee™
Snails have hearts but no brains™
Your ears never stop growing™
A duck's quack doesn't echo™
Global warming isn't always warm™
Only eat oysters during months with 'r' in them™
The Dark Side needs women™
Lick the mirror or the house will die™
Social networking is anti-social™
Bees have five eyes™
Nothing was invented; everything was developed™
Too many cocks spoil the brothel™

Beauty reminds us of death™

Relatives are Relative™
You win some, you lose most™

I like to try it before I taste it™

Like a rolling moan™

I love the women whaling™
Corrupt me if I'm wrong™
Can't write for coffee™
The 'burbs eat me up™

These are so good I've given them a page of their own, here, with new ones added once in a while.

NB: Excitingly, some of the above phrases have links to previous posts.

Mr Brainwash: art for the brain dead

Good news for some, perhaps, that Mr Brainwash's first solo UK art show at The Old Sorting Office on Oxford Street has now been extended for an extra week until 7th September.

Mr Brainwash is familiar to many via Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksy's 2010 'documentary' about Frenchman Thierry Guetta, who adopts the name Mr Brainwash during the course of the film and puts on his own art show in L.A. The film seemed like a hoax, things not adding up, just another Banksy trick. Yet here still is Mr Brainwash, designing covers for Madonna CDs, having huge solo exhibitions, his 'art' selling for thousands.

I'm not hugely bothered if Mr Brainwash is or isn't Banksy; I'm not even bothered that Mr Brainwash has no artistic ability and employs a team (not of artists, note, this is not art; but of graphic designers) to carry out his work (after all, everyone from Michelangelo to Jeff Koons has done the same); if I'm bothered at all it's that his work is so completely derivative, endlessly recycling Warhol and Banksy until it is devoid of any meaning or originality.

Still, the exhibition is good fun in a trashy and kitsch kind of way; presumably aimed towards people who don't normally go to art exhibitions because they don't get modern art. With Mr Brainwash's work there's nothing to get. I wish I'd taken my six year old daughter; she would have appreciated it more than me.

I can't complain (much), though, there are numerous freebies at the (free to get in) exhibition: a Mr Brainwash spray can, three posters, three postcards and a bottle of Coke and water.

[The same day I'd gone to Mr Brainwash's exhibition, I went to see Grayson Perry's series of tapestries at the Victoria Miro gallery (above). Examining notions of taste and class in the UK, the six tapestries were based on the Channel 4 series All in the Best Possible Taste, which was presented by Perry. It was a worthy contrast to Mr Brainwash. Here was art with meaning; original and thought-provoking, it even told a story, you know, like all art used to do. Perry states that he's 'interested in the politics of consumerism' and shows us how we attach emotional importance to objects. With Mr Brainwash all we get is the objects.

mrbrainwash.com

Previously on Barnflakes:
Banksy vs Bristol Museum

Bus pass

"Riding on city buses for a hobby is sad*"

– Belle and Sebastian, The State I Am In

*But in Cornwall it's fun!

When it dawned upon me how much I'd save on a bus pass as compared to daily tickets (day return from Pool to Redruth = £9 vs. weekly (7 day) bus pass for the whole of Cornwall = £28), it was a no-brainer, and even at weekends I would sometimes take the bus for fun, despite, or because of, the journey always taking longer than cycling, and sometimes taking longer than walking. Nevertheless, the joy of being able to take eight buses in a day (which I did one Saturday) and it not costing about £46 but just being part of my weekly bus pass, was immense.

The bus pass completed the full-set of Cornwall passes it had taken me almost a year to accumulate: annual locals' passes for the Tate Gallery St Ives (£5 – the best of the lot), Wheal Martin, Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Not forgetting the Merlin Cinema Magic Discount Card and the Devon and Cornwall Railcard – only £12 for a year which gets you a third off all train journeys in the two counties plus tickets all £1 for children aged 5-15.

I actually loved the bus journey to work in Truro – words I have never written about any commute to work in London. In winter I'd wake in darkness and leave the flat as the sun was rising over the massive Carn Brea with its iconic Celtic cross of the Basset Monument on its highest point. They often both silhouetted against a bright pink and orange sky as the sun slowly woke up behind them. I'd hear and see black birds flying across the sky. Often they'd be a mist as the bus wove its way through the small villages and countryside towards the capital city. As we drove past the village of Chacewater we'd start to see the chimneys of engine houses, rising above the trees in the misty countryside.

(Indulge me, if you will, into imagining yourself in the swimming pool at Carn Brea Leisure Centre (recently renovated). Imagine, too, that it's sunrise and you can see through the walls of the leisure centre. You look up, and behold, you see the sun rising behind the almighty hill and the monument. Now, imagine just a bit more, well a lot more – but is it not a similar experience to being in the sea at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro and looking up at Mount Corcovado and seeing the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, only 11 metres higher than the Basset Monument?)

The main downside of buses is waiting for them. It's 6pm, supposedly rush hour, in the central bus station in Truro, the capital city of Cornwall. There are no buses. It’s been raining, so I shouldn’t be too harsh on the people, but they look poor, ugly and stupid, some with quite obvious mental and/or physical health problems. The youth hanging around wear tracksuits and baseball caps. Some have dogs. One is teasing a dog. A bottle breaks. There’s a tension in the air and, as if on cue, I feel slightly relieved to see two policemen come around the corner. But instead of beating up the youth who good taste forgot, they stop to chat and laugh with them. I’ve been at this bus station a lot, all tines of day and night, and have reached the conclusion that the youth spend most of their evenings here. Almost as rare as the policemen is the sudden flight of a ginger cat across the road from the bus station – though apparently he's a local cat called Rusty.

Another evening and by 7pm there are only a few lost souls hanging around. The city is empty, it’s drizzling and dark. The same hypnotic teenagers are still hanging around the bus station, wearing the same tracksuits. The city is theirs. They are welcome to it.

On the bus home at 9:30pm on a Friday night. Except it feels like it's 3am on a London night bus. It's raining, of course. Condensation blankets the windows. There's only a few people onboard. A young couple, looking knackered, the guy slumped on the table (yes, there is a table on the top deck of Cornish buses), his fist bloody red and raw. Another, older couple a few seats behind me are having an argument. The man, drunk, is loud and aggressive towards her. Well, she has had an affair with the ugliest, stupidest man in Cornwall, apparently. She eventually goes downstairs. He does about ten minutes later. Then I do – to meet H, who is downstairs on the same bus as me, by chance. I go down to see her. The same couple who were upstairs and I thought had left the bus separately are at the back, having the same loud argument. An unconscious man in a wheelchair hugs a can of lager.

Previously on Barnflakes
Flickagram #11
On the buses 
Pizza Night

Top ten breakfasts

1. Full English
2. Eggs Benedict
3. Pancakes with bacon and maple syrup
4. Continental breakfast
5. Scrambled eggs on toast
6. Porridge
7. Toast (with marmalade and Marmite)
8. Shakshuka (Tunisian; eggs in tomato sauce)
9. Boiled egg with soldiers
10. Crunchy Nut Cornflakes

Seeing as Barnflakes is a pun on a breakfast cereal, and my unofficial motto is 'Barnflakes: Breakfast for the soul', it’s hard to believe it’s taken me so long to write a top ten. Especially because I like breakfast so much I could have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And sometimes do (for as W. Somerset Maugham famously said, “To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.”)

Breakfast was always said to the the most important meal of the day*, but with a third of Britons skipping the meal altogether (despite evidence of a link between obesity and not eating it) and one academic labelling it "dangerous", breakfast's dominance may be waning.

But not for me; I wouldn't be able to leave the house without it. Usually just tea and toast but sometimes – usually at the weekend – pancakes, porridge, scrambled eggs, a boiled egg or a fry up. There's nothing like the morning smell of coffee brewing and bacon and eggs frying.

But breakfast is probably best when you're out – in a cafe or restaurant, in a hotel, preferably in a foreign country. When abroad, a good breakfast is an essential start to the day, a great way to ingratiate yourself in local customs and culture and see how and what the locals eat. Eating is as much a ritual as any religious activity, and breakfast is, I think, the most ceremonial of meals**.

Take the humble yet iconic and versatile egg. Cracking it open encompasses birth, rebirth and death. It's a vital part of a breakfast and a great source of protein. The egg can be scrambled, boiled, fried and poached, as well as being integral to French toast (a.k.a. eggy bread), pancakes, omelettes and eggs Benedict.

On holiday, tea and toast is not acceptable for breakfast. Coffee is preferred over tea. For a start, coffee feels more sophisticated and cosmopolitan (well, it did, honest, at least before Costa and Starbucks came along and the masses started guzzling down buckets of hot milk with a splash of coffee) though also it tastes better abroad but mainly because tea tastes so bad everywhere except in the UK.

A hotel buffet is okay but it's nicer to go out to a local's cafe. The hotel buffet has its advantages, of course. Mainly, it's free. Also, it's easy to find – it's usually, you know, downstairs, unlike trying to locate a cafe or restaurant in a new, foreign city (I tend to follow my misleading nose, rather than use guidebooks or apps).

It's no doubt a lot to do with the feeling of waking up in a foreign country, but there's something about the simplicity and freshness of a French or Italian or Slovenian breakfast that's so delicious, even if it's just the taste of the orange juice or the bread.

I can remember breakfasts abroad from fifteen years ago whereas most lunches and dinners are instantly forgettable (partly, perhaps, because lunch abroad is mostly a rushed baguette on the way to another gallery or church or ruin; dinner is trying not to get overcharged, which usually translates as pizza or pasta). Lovely pasteis de nata, otherwise known as Portuguese custard tarts, with coffee and orange juice, in a cafe in Lisbon. Or a terrible breakfast of a brick-hard pastry in Barcelona along Las Ramblas; the horrible German-themed buffet in Sousse, Tunisia (I never said all breakfast memories had to be good ones). But whether good or bad, breakfasts are more memorable.

I had some of my best-ever breakfasts in the United States, where I was introduced to the concept of mixing sweet and savoury, something the British have never really done. Pancakes with bacon and maple syrup is a classic example.

Whilst in New Orleans, I remember trying grits, biscuits and gravy ('soft dough biscuits covered in either sawmill or meat gravy, made from the drippings of cooked pork sausage, white flour, milk, and often bits of sausage, bacon, ground beef, or other meat'), mainly because I'd heard about the classic southern dish from American films and novels (probably the likes of Steinbeck, Kerouac and Bukowski). Coffee in the States is just like in the movies: waitresses come by and fill it up for free.

It's worth remembering that most of the planet probably eats rice for breakfast; and after six months in South East Asia I never got used to eating rice three times a day.

Of course in recent years breakfasts have gone healthy and hipster. And while fruit, nuts, granola, chia seeds, yogurts and smoothies are okay if you're at the buffet waiting for your full English to be cooked, I generally don’t approve of really healthy stuff for breakfast, though I'm better than I was: my breakfast used to consist of four cigarettes and a mug of tea (food came later).
________

*Like the myth that Coca-Cola invented Santa Claus or the big con with mineral water companies telling us we need to drink two litres of water a day (I would literally drown if I drank that much), there's a possibility that breakfast cereal makers conjured up the maxim of breakfast being the most important meal of the day.

**An exception to this was when I was in Morocco, eating in the evening after Ramadam and it involved, yup, the cracking of a hard-boiled egg (mentioned here). Egg, bread, soup: tasted incredible after a day of not being able to eat.

Previously on Barnflakes:  
Not for all the tea in China

Christmas Peasants

There should be a rule against buying Christmas (or birthday) presents from: any supermarket, Superdrug, Woolworth's (RIP – though serve it right for selling crap for so long – even cheap crap is still crap), Boots, Argos, W H Smith. Come on – get some imagination! This isn't the 1970s – you're meant to have good taste now, you haven't even got an excuse because you live in some craphole in the middle of nowhere (i.e. not London) – get online!

On the other hand, around this time of year, we have ads telling us to buy iPods, laptops (!), dental hygiene products (?) as presents. Amazon emailed me the other week – a 'bargain buy' for 'my' Christmas stocking. The quote marks are mine: I'm not sure if I'm meant to buy my own Christmas stocking present or buy it for someone else – either way, a food mixer for £129 or a digital camera for £99 probably wouldn't fit and certainly isn't a bargain. My own boyhood Christmas stockings consisted of walnuts, tangerines and chocolate. I mean, shit, we're not made of money – isn't this (partly) why we're in a recession in the first place? But also, an electronic item seems to lack warmth, personality and soul, you know. I say (and this is my other hand saying it), raid the charity shops, CBS (car boot sales) and antique/junk shops for that unique and special present that says you've hunted and thought about. Branded clothes, perfume and electrical goods do not count.

On the other hand (I handily have three), for me personally, if you're stuck, I'm pretty happy with art books, post-rock CDs or obscure foreign movie DVD box-sets (but not just any – please check with me first).

Top 10 Greatest Hits

1. The Beatles: 1
2. Rolling Stones: Forty Licks
3. The Who: Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy
4. Bob Dylan: Biograph
5. David Bowie: Best of Bowie
6. ABBA: Gold: Greatest Hits
7. Queen: Greatest Hits
8. Roxy Music: Street Life – 20 Great Hits
9. Beach Boys: The Very Best of the Beach Boys
10. Fleetwood Mac: The Greatest Hits

The soundtrack to the eagerly-awaited Alan Partridge film, Alpha Papa, has just been released. Notorious for having limited musical knowledge and taste, Partridge's collection is actually surprisingly good, with Philip Glass, Bryan Ferry, Steeleye Span and the Sparks in the mix.

I'll always remember an episode of I'm Alan Partridge when the Norfolk DJ is asked what his favourite Beatles album is and he can't name one so eventually comes up with... Best of the Beatles:

Alan: Oh, yeah. I like all the bands. I’ve got a broad taste, you know. From the britpop bands like UB40, Def Leppard, right back to classic rock, like Wings.

Ben: Who’s Wings?

Alan: They’re only the band the Beatles could have been.

Ben: I love the Beatles.

Alan: Yeah, so do I.

Ben: What’s your favourite Beatles album, then?

Alan: Tough one. I think I’d have to say… ‘The Best of the Beatles’.

I never quite got this. I know it's meant to be a put down of Partridge's lack of musical knowledge but I'm kind of in agreement with him. Firstly, I probably listen to Wings more than the Beatles. Secondly, a Beatles' Greatest Hits is way better than any individual album of theirs. And it's the same with a lot of bands. The Stones produced very few great albums; in fact, all you really need is Exile on Main Street and a Greatest Hits.

In The Guardian: Alexis Petridis on Alan Partridge's musical taste and his playlist.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Greatest Hits

A brief history of photography (part two)

At the risk of sounding pretentious (though I never thought there was anything wrong with that), I feel photography's always been in my blood. My grandfather, who I never met, was a keen photographer and amateur filmmaker; he worked for Kodak and experimented with 16mm colour film before it was available to the public. My uncle, who sadly passed away recently (I helped write his obituary in the Guardian), was a successful food photographer in the 1970s (I remember the surprise of seeing a poster of his in Athena whilst at school and thinking 'He's famous'!) and made adverts in the 1980s. My dad barely ever takes a picture, but my brother and I have always taken them. I would say it was travelling, like with many people, which got both of us into photography. We take similar photos too – of doorways, pavements and faded posters, for example.

Photography was always there in my travels – even if I wasn't the one taking the photos. For example, whilst in a belly dancing club in Cairo in the mid-1990s, my girlfriend at the time and I met two photographers taking pictures of the dancers, and of my girlfriend too when she got up on stage to have a go at belly dancing. They were using a Rolleiflex film camera and promised to post us prints but never did.

Said girlfriend was anti-photography, as I have been too at various times, so I didn't take many photos in Egypt (but obviously, the ones I did are great, such as this and this) or Morocco or most of SE Asia (I took about ten rolls of 36 photos in six months; I might take that in a week now with my iPhone); unique photo opportunities, perhaps, in my travelling days – hitching rides on the back of trucks full of Berbers and goats in the Sahara desert; narrowly missing massacres and revolutions (stuck in Jakarta with dengue fever during the riots and revolution for the fall of Soherto in May 1998, I was surrounded by photo journalists and used to hang out with them in the bars around Jalan Jaksa. I hardly took any photos – I was trying to make a video with a cheap camcorder until it got stolen by a prostitute – see my book Gullible Travels if you're interested). I curse myself now for not buying an SLR and taking lots of photos; it was a different world back then. The things I saw I'll never see again.

But I always felt I was a photographer, just one who didn't necessarily take photos (like Isabelle Huppert in Hal Hartley's film Amateur – the nymphomaniac who doesn't have sex), hence I'm doing a book of Missed Photos (there's something about the photos I didn't take that are always better than the ones I did). Didn't the Japanese used to say – which always seemed to me a bit ironic for them – cameras are an intrusion as they see into the window of the soul? Back then, it felt like I was living life, and photos were just an impingement on life (I always thought photography, like writing, a lonely existence; that's why I think I went into film, a collaborative process).

As mentioned in part one, I learnt how to use an SLR at 'A' Levels, then forgot how; I learnt at art college, then forgot how; I learnt at film school, then forgot how. The first 'proper' camera I bought was a Lomo (it felt proper to me). I loved my Lomo – shooting from the hip was their motto. I worked with a guy called Ken who was annoyingly good at whatever he tried his hand at, including Lomo photography. He took amazing photos with his, and had one published in a magazine, but he had no real interest in photography. I took okay ones, such as this and this.

My Lomo got stolen (also mentioned in part one); in fact I've had about half a dozen cameras stolen from me over the years. I should take heed. Like when my skateboard broke in half (a lovely Mark Gonzales board by Santa Cruz), I knew it was time to quit. I was crap skater (but liked the lifestyle).

Eventually the internet came. I went off photography again in the early internet age, and didn't take any good pics for years. It's like men who think they have a reasonably-sized dick until they come across porn on the internet, and they think 'What the fuck? Is that for real?' (or indeed women who think their boyfriend is pretty well-endowed...). Whatever talent you think you have – genital size, photography, writing, graphic design, illustration... there's a million other people who are bigger, better and more popular than you. Comparisons are inevitable if fruitless at best, destructive at worst.

I enjoy many things – chess, tennis, films, music, writing, photography, travel, for example – but not being brilliant at anything (or even just gaining the respect of my peers or being popular on social media; encouragement from my daughter and girlfriend don't count – that's unfair; of course they do, they're my biggest fans who keep me going – but you know what I mean... they may be biased) is, well, extremely frustrating. Unfortunately, lack of ambition and self-confidence aren't a good combination and don't really help.

With the internet, there's so much talent, sure, but also so much rubbish (or worse still, so much average stuff). A friend told me recently it’s the worst time ever to want to become a photographer – everyone’s a photographer; every day millions of photos are being uploaded. Exactly, I replied, there’s more crap than ever before.

(But Instagram, ah, Instagram. It doesn't even matter what your photos are like. It's about being popular. If you're a popular person, your photos are popular. It reminds me of being at school. The internet is one big popularity contest. Is it just me – yes, I know it is – but the popular photos and blog posts are just inundated with complements: 'amazing photo!', 'great post!', etc – if I ever get any comments, they're mainly piss-takes.)

In a recent interview, Joel Meyerowitz, famous street photographer of the 1960s, declared contemporary street photography dead – the streets are filled with people glued to their phones, he said. I think street photography is the hardest but most exciting genre of photography: you never know what you're going to come across. I love the idea of being a flaneur, wondering the city armed with a camera (which I've been doing on – but mainly off – for 25 years all over the world). Walking down any street, you may stumble across a great photo with a click of the shutter (such as this – which, you know, I love, but think in this day and age, with most people pretty visually astute, maybe six out of ten people walking past it would have taken a shot of it with their phone, and come up with a similar result. The main difference being they probably don't work for Magnum).

(This is what gets me about most office work – you know exactly what you're going to do, every single day. There's no surprises, no eureka moments – but photography, and street photography in particular, you can be walking around the most boring neighbourhood, but if your wits are about you, you may happen upon something beautiful and unexpected.)

The truth is, I've lived most of my life in my head (have I mentioned this before? Oh yes, here somewhere). I read biographies and autobiographies all the time – of film-makers, artists, mathematicians (Alan Turing, if you're wondering), travellers, musicians – from Miles Davis and Malcolm Lowry to Bruce Chatwin and Alan Lomax. What I'm always looking for, in a way, is a clue to how they did it, how they succeeded, and, in a way I suppose, where I went wrong in life. Just as in the film Life of a Leader (excellent, though almost too opaque even for me; the soundtrack the most accessible thing about it, which is saying something for latter-day Scott Walker) looks at the childhood and possible clues as to what ingredients go towards making a fascist dictator (presumably Hitler). So I endlessly pore over clues to what maketh the man (yes, usually a man) a successful artist in his field (Malcolm Gladwell says it's 10,000 hours of practise but I'm not so sure). In other words, to put it another way, why do I feel such a failure (in this area of my life)?

(What can I say? I have friends working in film, advertising, music and fashion; I know people who have published books and directed films; some are earning over £100K a year... I'm genuinely happy for them, if that's what they want. Most of them don't have time to spend their money, let alone spend time with their partners and children. A lot of these so-called glamorous jobs are actually fairly dull; either a lot of waiting around, or not ever leaving the Mac screen. I've worked in most of these fields and though I've been paid well, I've not had any job satisfaction at all. I'll always go my own way, plough my own furrow.)

It might be that I spend more watching my old videos on YouTube, looking at my photos on Flickr and Instagram and reading old blog posts more than anyone else does. I look at other people's work a lot too, and spend time thinking about photography and film, but get disheartened by the sheer volume and talent of it all – and then the comparison thing comes back. I love my films, designs, photos and writing. This is the crux of my failure – no one else agrees with me! At the risk of sounding pretentious again, I try to be creative every single day. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but this is what I've always done, and always will. It's what keeps me going.

Living in my head, I sometimes fantasise that my writing/films/photography/design will be 'discovered' (isn't that how it works? The good stuff rises to the top?) and I'll gain recognition in one of the fields. And make some money! Doing what I like doing! But I'll be aged 82, maybe, sitting in an old people's home, imagining the same thing – I’ll be thinking a Hollywood exec will read a treatment of a film I've written and buy the rights to it; a gallery will call to request an exhibition of my photos; a company will call to use a photo of mine for a billboard campaign; my videos will get millions of hits on YouTube... you get the idea. But meanwhile...

It feels like everything's passed me by. All my interests and passions – films, photography, graphic design, car boot sales, charity shops, old records, books and magazines, art history, travel, my paintings, doodles and writing, my impeccable taste – I just thought it would all lead somewhere. I often think I just want to chuck it all up into the air and have it all land in a different position so I can find a way forward. And get rich and famous.

Turned out to be slightly longer than brief, and perhaps more personal than I envisaged. Luckily no one reads my long blog posts. Thanks for listening if you made it this far.

Previously on Barnflakes:
A brief history of photography (part one)

The Velvet Underground Live 1972 & 1993

'The unanimous opinion was that we were ten times better live than we were on records'
– Sterling Morrison

The Velvet Underground are famous for their live performances in the late 1960s but two very different and interesting post-60s shows are available (sort of; they're out of print now but can be found on eBay or bought secondhand on Amazon): Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico at Le Bataclan '72 in Paris, 1972, and The Velvet Underground Live MCMXCIII in 1993, also in Paris, at the L'Olympia theatre (about a ten minute drive from Le Bataclan).

I only discovered these two albums recently: the former I'd never heard of until a few months ago, the latter I dismissed at the time but thought I ought to have a proper listen to. You know what? It's not that bad.

After disbanding in 1970 (the album Live at Max's Kansas City was recorded in 1970 but not released until 1972), these two shows are all we have of (most members of) The VU live post-1970. After being a bootleg for thirty years (it now seems prescient for Lou Reed to mumble at the beginning, 'Took us a while to get here'), Le Bataclan finally got an official release in 2003. It's as close as we're ever going to get to The VU Unplugged; there are acoustic, after hours bar-room sounding arrangements of VU classics (Waiting for the Man, Black Angels Death Song, Heroin, Femme Fatale, All Tomorrows Parties), given a laid back bluesy treatment. The trio also play songs from their solo careers; Lou's deadpan introductions to his songs include, 'It's my Barbara Streisand song' before Berlin and 'It's a new song. It's called Wild Child. It's about a wild child... funnily enough' before Wild Child. After three John Cale songs comes Nico's set, and it's as if we've been transported from a basement Parisian bar to an austere German Gothic cathedral. Listening to Nico is an acquired taste. I like Chelsea Girl but albums like The End and The Marble Index can be painful at best.

Just over twenty years later, The Velvet Underground reformed with Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker for a series of live shows, their last appearances together (Reed and Cale had yet another tiff; Sterling Morrison died in 1995). Just seeing them all together again was enough of a minor miracle for most fans; and though the music mostly is pretty good, Reed's vocals are mostly awful. Watching the DVD (released in 2006) of the concert, everyone apart from Lou seems a bit nervous and awkward; Reed looks like he doesn't care at all. I think I caught him smiling once (nothing unusual there) and there are moments when the band gels and it's magic (Pale Blue Eyes); there are other moments when it's embarrassing (Velvet Nursery Rhyme). There's also a new song, Coyote, disappointingly average. Still, over all, it's pretty good if unremarkable.

Recent Lou Reed being troublesome:
I love Lou Reed when he offends people (almost a full-time job for him). My headline of the year so far has got to be: Lou Reed Makes Susan Boyle Cry (he wouldn't let her do a cover of Perfect Day). Priceless.

In June this year 'fans' yelled obscenities and walked out during the Montreal Jazz festival when Reed, partner and fellow experimental musician Laurie Anderson and John Zorn (also pretty experimental) performed an improvised instrumental set of free-jazz (not so free at £62 a ticket though) with no vocals and very little melody.

Sex, Drugs and Reiko Ike Roll

Reiko Ike (or Ike Reiko) was only seventeen when she released an album and starred in her first Japanese Pinky film. For most of the 1970s she was one of Japan's top sex stars but by the end of the decade her career was over; she was busted for drugs and gambling and never acted in a film after 1979. It seems her bad girl on screen persona had seeped into her real life.

Ike's cult following in the west has been growing in recent years, partly due to Pinky Violence films coming out on DVD and her album reissued on CD, and partly because she's virtually naked all the time, even on her record covers and especially when she's in a sword fight.

The immensely popular genre Pinky film flourished in 1970s Japan, just as Grindhouse movies did in the States at the same time. The two share a lot in common; both are low budget, exploitation films with oodles of sex, nudity and violence. Pinky films are distinguished – slightly – by being quite stylised and visually striking. And although they contained much nudity, due to strict Japanese censorship laws there wasn't allowed to be any penetration, genitals or pubic hair on view, leading some critics to applaud the films imaginative eroticism whilst seemingly overlooking the copious scenes of female rape and torture (the Japanese are a funny lot).

With the growing popularity of the films, the 1970s saw Pinky films with bigger budgets and even have studios such as Toei coin a sub-genre, called Pinky Violence. 1973's Sex and Fury (pictured above), directed by Noribumi Suzuki and starring Reiko Ike, is one of the most famous examples. A political revenge thriller set in turn of the (last) century Japan, it has Ike revenge the death of her detective father. Highlights include a bunch of switchblade-welding nuns on a train; a lesbian scene; the appearance of Christina Lindberg, apparently a well-known Swedish softcore actress; death by oral sex (don't ask) and best of all, Ike, naked (her bath had been rudely interrupted) with sword, massacring a gang of useless Yakuza, in the snow, in slow motion. Snow, blood, slow motion, female nudity: almost my recipe for the perfect scene, if it wasn't so ludicrous and self-conscious (and the sword fights aren't actually that good, and the acting, dreadful).

The whole film leaves a sour taste, really: it's all very well and good having a strong female lead in a film, but if said film is a softcore porno with torture, S&M and rape then it's slightly problematic. Anyway, for an exploitation film, it's visual flair can't be denied and presumably Quentin Tarentino studied the film frame by frame before making Kill Bill (and presumably Suzaki had watched Sergio Leone before making Sex and Fury).

It seems Reiko Ike has two types of fan: those who like her films and those who like her music (it goes without saying that all like her body). Her album Kokotsu no Sekai was released in 1971. Ostensibly a convention selection of standard cover versions, Ike transformed the record into a Serge Gainsbourg circa. Je t'aime... moi non plus (1969) and Histoire de Melody Nelson (released the same year as Kokotsu no Sekai) collection of erotic moans, groans, wails and shrieks, resulting in a classic of Japanese psychedelic porn music. If you don't believe me, read what Mutant Sounds has to say about it.

Incredible Tretchikoff

Back in 2009 I was contacted by Boris Gorelik regarding one of my favourite artists, Vladimir Tretchikoff. Boris had read a few posts I'd written about notions of good/bad taste and Tretchikoff and wanted to interview me for a book he was writing on the artist (unfortunately I wasn't able to make the appointment). Four years later, his biography of the man, Incredible Tretchikoff: Life of an Artist and Adventurer, is finally out, published by Art/Books, a small publishing company.

Boris' book is amazingly the first biography of the artist. Tretchikoff's partly ghost-written autobiography, Pigeon's Luck, has been out of print for years, and how much of it is actually true is open to debate, so it's great to have a biography of Tretchikoff. As it says on the cover of Pigeon's Luck, his life 'reads like a thriller', and I'd still love to see a Technicolour film made of his colourful and extraordinary life.

Buy Incredible Tretchikoff from Amazon.

Previously on Barnflakes:
How to Have Taste
Vladimir Tretchikoff: More than Pigeon's Luck

Pylons in the snow

Ljubljana, Slovenia

I noticed an eerie silence at East Croydon train station – maybe due to cold weather, maybe something else. Then H noticed trains weren't running to Gatwick; there was a bus replacement service from Redhill to Gatwick (a six mile journey). I immediately sensed potential mayhem. The train to Redhill arrived – completely over-packed with passengers and suitcases. I did some quick maths: 12 train coaches, each requiring a whole bus at Redhill. There would need to be a whole fleet of replacement buses waiting for us. Needless to say, there were none. No buses, no information, just complete chaos with hundreds of people filling the train station platform, the entrance hall and a long queue outside snaking up to the place where there were non-existent buses. By the time we made it to the entrance hall, we had an hour to go before our flight. There were still no buses, no information and hundreds of people ahead of us.

We had to make a decision – quick. H said to leave the station and find a taxi. Amazingly, not many people had the same idea, and after running halfway down a road to stop one, we shared a taxi with three others to Gatwick – at the extortionate cost of £10 each (one of the others was so outraged, he wasn't going to pay, and the driver stopped. No, no, we shouted, keep driving!). We arrived at the airport with minutes to go before final boarding, ran along the endless corridors and got on the plane with about 30 seconds to spare.

Our taxi driver to Gatwick was from Kashmir where he told me it was -15 in the mountains right now. It was hard to imagine that coldness – though we found out a few hours later. Slovenia was experiencing its coldest winter in a decade with snow a foot deep (as was much of Europe; even the UK would get its fair share). I've probably never experienced – not even in Iceland – the icy shock of coming out of the airport late at night to be greeted by -15 C. A taxi took us to our hotel in the centre of town, along the banks of the willow-lined river that winds through the city. Unsurprisingly, given the temperature, there was no one around, and nothing open. We found one restaurant, called Paninoteka, and I had beef goulash with polenta and a pint of local beer. Bliss. One of the best meals I'd ever had.

(We returned to the same restaurant a few nights later to try and replicate the experience – never a good idea. There was a different waitress; I stupidly ordered a different meal, with wine instead of beer. We were sitting on the other side of the restaurant. I don't know, nothing felt the same. And it wasn't very nice. I always say never return anywhere – whether it be a country, city or restaurant – it's always a disappointment.)

The first thing we did in the morning was buy woolly hats. Then breakfast. We found Le Pitit cafe, a charming place a little away from the river. I don't know what was happening to my taste buds but everything tasted amazing (even the tap water in the hotel tasted like it had just melted off the Julian Alps, which it probably had), a simple breakfast of eggs on toast, coffee and orange juice, tasted fresh and lovely.

Our hotel was not only perfectly situated next to the river in the centre of town (which blissfully is all pedestrianised) but next to wonderful, geeky shops: we were next door to TipoRenesansa, a letterpress workshop and shop (where H talked me into buying a lovely notebook for – ahem – €18), a couple of record shops, a photography gallery and shop, and several bookshops. Retail heaven was on my doorstep.

(Everywhere H and I have been together we invariably: 1) Want to move there; 2) Think it's nicer, prettier, greener, friendlier, more efficient, cheaper and more interesting than London/England; 3) The only good thing about London is its free museums and galleries (we never fail to forget that museums and galleries are closed on a Monday everywhere in Europe, and charge an entrance fee when they are open); 4) Being oh-so-well-travelled, everywhere reminds us of somewhere else we've been – in the case of Ljubljana, it was Helsinki meets Venice.)

Despite the -7 temperature during the day, Ljubljana is a lovely city to walk around (even nicer in the Mediterranean summers, where open air restaurants, bars and markets line the riverbanks). There's plenty of pretty Art Nouveau buildings, lovely bridges, a castle perched on top of a hill over looking the city, numerous museums and galleries including a puppet theatre, cobbled roads and a tiny population, most of which seem to be students on bikes. Metelkova is a former army barracks (like the Venice Biennale Arsenal, H noted) turned autonomous alternative arty district, holding exhibitions, events and gigs. Everything in the city is within a 15 minute walk.

Slovene architect Joze Plecnik was responsible for much of the modern look of Ljubljana (as well as Prague and Vienna), designing many of the city's notable buildings, including the lovely, iconic Triple Bridge. But architect Milan Mihelič, still alive aged 92, designed a bunch of estates on the outskirts of town and a cool 1960s petrol station near the bus station, which I took more photos of than any other building in the city.

The sloping Tivoli Park sits on the outskirts of the city and contains landscaped gardens, statues and fountains. H spotted a small creature on the edge of a lake. It looked like a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit. The poor thing was staring at us, shivering. Will it be okay? I asked H. It will be fine, she reassured me, and we went on our way.

We spent a day at Tito's former holiday retreat, Lake Bled. If it sounds like something out of a vampire film, rest assured it is quite the opposite: a fairytale setting with a medieval castle on a cliff, pine forests and the Julian Alps all overlooking the glacial lake, on which sits a tiny island with a chapel on it.

Not to be confused with Slovakia (which I did numerous times), Slovenia was the first country to leave the former Yugoslavia in 1991, and saw a lot less fighting (just a Ten-Day War, in fact) than its former-Yugoslavian neighbours. It created a democracy and soon joined the EU. I was slightly disappointed at the lack of Brutalist Communist architecture but the petrol station, goulash, cool shops and Art Nouveau architecture made up for it.

– February 2018 

Flickr photos here.