I yearn for a magic camera that can photograph memories.’ Bernard Levin, ‘Enthusiasms.’ 1983.
I was at the Abergevenny Arms, Rodmell (writing in early 2000s).
It is a quiet, smokeless pub on the road that follows the River Ouse from Newhaven to Lewes, East Sussex. Rodmell is the village where Virginia Woolf had a house; it is a short walk down the lane towards the river by the side of the pub, the river where Virginia Woolf drowned herself by donning her husband’s raincoat, filling the pockets with rocks, then wading into the water. One of the warrens of interconnecting rooms from the bar is a converted barn; a heavy oak trough, moulded it would seem into the brick and plaster, still serves as a shelf of sorts along the back wall. This ‘shelf’ is filled with hardback books – not a single paperback. I take out ‘Enthusiasms’ by Bernard Levin.
I read a paperback copy in the 80s, a few years after this first edition hardback copy came out. I probably wrote about it at the time. I reread it with only a little enthusiasm; I find the writing style archaic, stilted and arrogant. There is a tinge of intellectual elitism in every sentence, as if he is writing for his mirror image. Yet, here I am about to quote him, and here I am contemplating a section in this diary that lists and celebrates my own enthusiasms – not just a list of favourite books and music, or even my favourite diaries, but essays on each one.
‘Enthusiasms can take a thousand forms, but are of one nature: it means taking great pleasure, the feeling of great ardour, the experiencing of great excitement, in the presence or contemplation of the object that arouses the enthusiasm.’
Enthusiasms
I have enthusiasms, some of which come about on impulse, while others are entered into because of the task I have taken on. In the past, this has been school exams, special subjects at university and a plethora of post-graduate courses. Are the passions or enthusiasms? In my work, I suit the short-term contract, the project-oriented task- it becomes my obsession for the duration – the pay-off is excellence. I like to feel that I have done everything possible, considering all relevant factors.
My interests include:
THE LEARNING PROCESS
Music, maps, mnemonics, Swimming pools, Lidos, leisure centres, indoors, outdoors, private or public, Victorian baths, municipal pools, closed pools, saved pools, pools by rivers or filled by the sea. Features include high boards, viewing windows, length, width, facilities, waves, and flumes. Splits, lengths, endurance, in lakes, rivers, pools and the sea. Coaching it to babies, kids, squads and adults. Habitable castles: History, ownership, modern use. Maps Geography, public school ‘maps’, redesign of Ski Resort maps. Guides to roads and restaurants. War memorials, Who, why, when, how, Victorian Children’s Books, Victorian Adventure Stories, Victorian Fairytales, 1066 Bayeux, Pevensey, The First World War, The Machine Gun Corps, The Royal Flying Corps, Britain’s’ Deadliest Roads’ Traffic Accidents, Obscure museums, Pre-Raphaelite paintings, The Pre-Raphaelites
CHILDREN’S TELEVISION
Dr Who, Children’s Adventure Series from the Australian Film Workshop
FILMS
Weird Director: Belly of an Architect, Peter? The music of Michael Nyman, Terry Gilliam, Alfred Hitchcock (Saw all in cinemas in Paris), Francois Truffaut
WRITERS
Henry Miller, Anais Nin, H.G. Wells, J.G. Ballard, Michelle Houellebecq, Haruki Murakami, Virginia Woolf, Norman Mailer, Stephen Pressfield, Jonathan Franzen. Autobiographies: Ken Russel Biographies: Virginia Woolf x2 Alistair Cook Diarists and keeping a diary:
Child development
Asthma
Swimming, every pool
Sailing, the British Coast
Skiing, every run, every resort
Pebbles on Seaford Beach
SEX
Manwatching, Hite Report, Kinsey Pornography, Erotica, Sex online, Karma Sutra, Tantric Sex (The Lover’s Guide to ‘Sexercise’)
RIVERS & STREAMS
Brooks and burns: North Tyne, Coquet, The River Ouse, Beamish, the Lune.
TOPS OF MOUNTAINS
Lake District, North Yorkshire Moors
PLANTS & GARDENS
Hostas, Grasses, Evergreens, Composting, Evergreens
PORTRAITS
Masterpiece Portraiture, National Portrait Gallery, Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, Reubens, Hockney, Rodin, David Hamilton, Pre-Raphaelites, Photography
THE SEA
Windsurfing, Sailing, Seaford, Beadnell
COOKING
Healthy Eating, Feasts, Rich food, Healthy Food, Elizabeth David, Terrence Stamp, Nigel Slater.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT
How we learn, How we remember, ‘The Contents of my Brain’, Multiple-camera techniques, Casting, Singing, Romans in Britain, Kings and Queens, Fords, Long Sword, Early cars, First Planes
GEOGRAPHY
Glaciation, Weather patterns, Climate change, The Ice Age on Britain, The Water Cycle, ‘Recreating winter’, ‘Slopes for sale’ Maps, Annotated diagrams, Creative Writing Tools and inspiration, ‘The Observation Deck’, Naomi Epel, Ben Okri, Stephen Pressfield, Albums, Picture books, Scrapbooks, Drawings, Notebooks, Catalysts, motivations, Children’s picture books, Lady Anne Clifford.
SOFTWARE
Ideafisher, Filemaker Pro, Dramatica Pro, Final Draft, Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver.
OFF-SCREEN
Ink and paper, Wallpaper backing, and pens, Chalk Board, Cardboard models, Talk it through, Walk it through, Focus groups, Interviews, Inspiration, Catalysts.
PLACES VISITED
Hancock Museum, Newcastle Science Museum, Greenwich Natural History Museum, Science Museum, British Museum, Design Museum, Royal Academy, MOMI Greenwich, Hampton Court, Martello Tower, Cragside, Bamburgh Castle, Alnwick Castle, Dunstunburgh Castle, Pevensey Castle, Battle Abbey, Eden Project, Pitt Rivers Museum, Toy Museum, Stowe
SAILED TO:
Fecamp, Lulworth Cove, Poole, Weymouth, Falmouth, Lake District Wide – a decade later in the med from Gibraltar to Sitges, from Lazarote to Cape Verde and across the Atlantic to Barbados.
THE CREATIVE ARTS
Photography, film, storytelling, music, and live events.
FILMS
Brazil – Terry Gilliam, The Piano to Michael Nyman to Ute Lemper, John Glass, Organ Music ‘Henry & June’ to Henry Miller & Anais Nin, Les Quatres Cents Coups’ to Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock.
PERFORMANCE
Youth Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe, Managed Band , 100 Club, Universities … Ballet, Opera, Theatre, Barbican, Theatre Royal, Riverside, Donmar Warehouse
MUSIC
Flute, Guitar, Piano, Singing, David Bowie Michael Nyman (featured in training video), Mahler (2nd) Composed music for training & information films
ENGLISH ROADS
Humpback bridges, Level crossings, French Roads, JCBs, Traffic cones, Traffic lights, Ice-cream vans, Eddie Stobbart, Lorries, RAC vans, Road signs, Electricity, Pylons, Cranes, Spires
TREES
Oak trees, Village greens, Church Halls, Dry stonewalls, Hedges, Neat ‘jungles’, Post boxes, Phone boxes.
PUBLIC SPACES
Swings in public parks, Roundabouts, Slides, N.B. national curriculum, ‘Delight and serendipity’, Bodleian Library, Oxford, British Library Collection of Ephemera, Serendipity of moving from one library to another, Documentary Research on Lady Anne Clifford, Gargoyles, Doors, Schools of Communication Arts (Paper clip, paving stone), Mary Rose, Cutty Sark, Bamburgh Castle, Warwick Castle, Stonehenge
WEBSITES
Tripod, Diaryland, BBC science, Douglas Adams, Amazon, Google, Friends Reunited, Genes Reunited.
PLACES
Heathrow, Gatwick, Victoria Station, Kings Cross, Paddington Station, Liverpool Street, Waterloo, Edinburgh
COUNTRIES
England: Shaded in the counties from age 10, parents divorced, including Tyne & Wear, Northumberland, Cumbria, then Greater London. Quickly added Warwickshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Sailing around Sussex, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Somerset etc:
FRANCE
Holidays to Savoie, to the West Coast, then exchange, worked in the country and travelled extensively working on a series of reports for the Ministry of Culture on arts initiatives taking place in ‘areas of deprivation’ affecting inner city groups and immigrants: Amiens, Nantes, Salzburg, Verdun etc True or False News Stories Fashion Shows
STICKY GAMES
Submarine, Pong, Galactica, Tetris, Sim City, Age of Empires, Rome: Total War, Risk, Monopoly, Twister, Bridge, Poker.
Leave a Reply