Rebel, Rebel - beautiful and timely

Last Friday while MOH went into the office for the first time ever in his current role, I decided to take in a new exhibition at the Barbican. That exhibition was Soheila Sokhanvari’s Rebel Rebel, in The Curve until 26 February if you fancy popping along, and explores the ‘contradictions of Iranian women’s lives between 1925 and the 1979 revolution - an explosive period of both liberation and commodification that proved short lived.’

The space - which is named well - contains miniature portraits of glamorous cultural figures from Iran and shares their stories of creative careers in a culture full of Western style, but not its freedoms. Entering the space it was clear it was going to be pretty special.

MONOLITH, 2022, Wood, metal, perspex mirrors and glitter

The portraits are small but the impact is large, especially against the hand-painted geometric pattern, based on traditional Islamic design, which covers the floor and walls of the space. The space is calming and a space for reflection.

There are so many inspirational stories contained within the exhibition and the exhibition guide shares so much more than the short summary I’m sharing here.

Googoosh (1950- )

Known as Googoosh, Faegheh Atashin is possibly the biggest star of 20th century Iran, who began performing at 3, becoming a child star at just 7. She’s known for her prolific music-making releasing more than 200 songs in the 60s and 70s. She was imprisoned for a short time and released on the condition of no more singing in public, though she relaunched her career in 2000 when she was allowed to leave the country again.

Her short hair cut was known as the ‘Googooshy’ - and there aren’t many people that get one of those named after them - I can think of two others, though I’m sure there’s more. The Purdey - yes I’m showing my age, and the Rachel - still old, but not quite so much!

If you’re none the wiser, the Purdey was from The Avengers and was Joanna Lumley’s character, and Rachel was from Friends.

GOOGOOSH 1950- The Love Addict (Portraits of Googoosh), 2019

Forouzan (1937-2016)

Filmfarsi superstar Forouzan’s breakthough role come in 1965 and made her reputation as one of Iran’s most alluring and bankable actors. She made more than 60 films and was the best paid female performer in the industry and remained in Iran after the Islamic revolution in 1979. She was released from prison after signing a letter of repentance, but her money and property were seized by the courts and she died in obscurity, never giving interviews again.

FOROUZAN 1937-2016 - Hey Baby I’m a Star (Portrait of Forouzan), 2019

It’s clear that each of the portraits are a labour of love using the ancient technique of egg tempera - painted onto calf vellum with a squirrel-hair brush. The exhibition title borrowed from David Bowie’s song pays tribute to the courage of these female stars as the 1979 revolution left them with a stark choice: renounce any role in public life or be forced into exile. Given the demonstrations currently taking place in Iran, this exhibition is timely though I’m sure it was already in the Barbican’s programme, but it really does give plenty of food for thought on history, and how things really haven’t changed in the intervening years.

But despite all of that, the courage of these women is remarkable, and for me that was summed up in one of the posters in the shop.

Tropical loos in the City

I’ve realised that the past couple of posts have a bit of a tropical feel to them, and yes, here’s another. I’m not sure what this means - is it that tropical things are having a moment, or am I just being drawn to them? Does that mean I need to head to a jungle, or decorate in the same style? I’m not sure, but I know that the lushness of each of the posts is definitely appealing - and if you scroll back, you’ll see that while there’s the tropical theme, each of the posts are pretty different.

And this one’s different too, after a fair break thanks to the pandemic, I’m back visiting loos. Or rather I’m sharing the well decorated loos with you - these tropical loos were in Browns in Old Jewry, right in the City of London. I was there meeting friends, one of whom I was due to meet a week or so after lockdown and we’ve only just managed it.

As everyone is discovering for themselves, it’s great to start catching up with each other again even though everyone appears more cautious and perhaps a little out of practice.

These loos are a little unexpected, but were a very pleasant surprise. You’ll know a standard loo won’t feature here, and this is far from a standard loo. It’s a great mix of styles - classic and more modern, geometric and tropical, brass and chrome - and yet it just works.

I loved the wallpaper so a close up was in order - though arguably it’s less effective close up, but the birds nestling in the corner worked!

Not convinced it works?

Step back and take the whole view in, I love it - but clearly none of us need that many sinks in our smallest rooms!

40 years and two loos

Last weekend felt the most ‘normal’ in a long while. We ate dinner out on Friday evening in one of our favourite local restaurants, which somehow we hadn’t managed to get along to since last autumn. The food was as glorious as ever, and it was great to see it so busy and to be warmly welcomed back. Then after an impromptu booking after seeing something on Facebook of all places, we found ourselves at the Barbican on Saturday night.

I hadn’t realised that the Barbican is celebrating 40 years, which doesn’t seem possible. Nor did I know that MOH hadn’t been to a concert in the hall there. We’ve been to away days with work, visited the conservatory and exhibitions and even been to the cinema there - and well, it seemed a good opportunity to set that straight. Checking out the seating plan we could book end of aisle seats in the circle and so we booked.

The event - Songs in the Key of London - was curated by Chris Difford (of Squeeze) and DJ and presenter Nihal Arthanayake, with guests who were familiar to us and a good few that weren’t. However, it didn’t matter that we didn’t know their names, every single performer was brilliant.

Marc Almond topped the names of those I was keen to see - I was, and still am, a huge fan of Tainted Love from back in the early eighties. Other names we recognised were Harry Enfield, Ruby Turner and Brett Anderson (from Suede). Harry Enfield’s name stood out among the list, and so did his performance as an ‘audience member’ recalling a ditty or two about London, with a predictable but still amusing rude ending.

With a run time of 150 minutes, it was no mean feat for the band who were also excellent. The other thing we noticed, that even for London, people were talking to each other much more than we remembered from pre-Covid days. And that was a really nice thing too. The hall wasn’t as full as the seating plan had made out, and the people sitting next to us apologised for moving into some of the empty seats, hoping we weren’t offended. We really weren’t offended at all.

Unsure when the interval would be, and knowing that any interval means a long queue for the loo, I decided to make an early move while the performance continued - though when I got back MOH said I’d missed a great song. But when you’ve got to go, you know…

What I wasn’t expecting was the multi-coloured doors in the loos, the concrete yes - but not the colour. And it was great. As was mostly having the very large ladies to myself (it being large still didn’t avoid a queue later on though - there are never enough loos are there?)

I’ve no idea what these are, or if they have a purpose other than for people to wonder about them:

It was a wet and blowy night and I’d pulled on a hat, but that hadn’t really saved the ends of my hair - so I ended up looking more windswept than I would have liked. I’m sharing this picture though as the night was also memorable for losing an earring - and not the one you can see. The pair to the half moon you can see is a full moon, which I lost somewhere along the way.

I noticed in the restaurant we went to before the show - Cote just outside the Barbican - and that prompted searching through hats, scarves, bags and all sorts to no avail. And even though the replacement pair I’ve ordered have arrived, I still just went to check my hat again. That’s the thing about losing things isn’t it, you just don’t know where - and yes, I know if I knew where then it wouldn’t be lost!

While we were in our second restaurant of the weekend, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of checking out the loos. So here you go, some quite plain but elegantly understated snaps of the loos at Cote - the colour of the wall tiles was gorgeous. For this visit to Cote I ventured off my normal safe, tried and tested menu choices, and wished I hadn’t! We’ll have to go back to our local restaurant or get another ‘at home’ delivery to check that this was just a one-off.

Losing things is never great, and it unsettles our minds doesn’t it?

The strange thing though was that I had felt something cold against my cheek as we were walking, which now I suspect was my earring making its way free, as those hook through type earrings do. But which I’d forgotten. MOH suggested retracing our steps, but we’d walked a fair way and even if we did walk exactly the way we’d come then it was no guarantee, and there was a show to see, and despite the earring loss it was so good to be out and experiencing more normal things along with everyone else.

It was much needed, and as we know, a long time coming.