Your corny inspirational phrase here

Insert your corny inspirational phrase here:



No bird flies higher than on his own wings...

You'll never fly as high as on your own wings...

Trust yourself and you'll soar...

Solitude is the biggest high...

Join in! It's really easy / not as hard as it seems actually quite difficult.

Cheers,

BB

Puting the B back in BB

No , not what you might first have thought, I'm not off at some beauty treatment, indeed perhaps quite the opposite. Instead it's the first-b that needs a little bit of revitalizing -- I'm in Bombay!

I'll return in a few weeks a few pounds heavier but otherwise happier in every way.

More soon.

BB

Saturday morning on Coronation Street

I give you a kiss

I remember when I first heard this phrase. I was speaking over the telephone with an Italian - a beautiful Italian - I had met the day before, and just before hanging up came that phrase: "I give you a kiss..." We had met incidentally if not randomly and exchanged numbers. I thought there was a flirtatious frisson there, but couldn't be sure.

I couldn't be sure because it was the first time I had met an Italian from Italy. Indeed, it was my first week on my own, outside the little world (albeit large country) in which I grew up. I wasn't used to seeing people stand so close to each other during casual conversations, kiss socially, and it seemed pause for normal conversation within continuous flirtation. I didn't know that this phrase or some variant of it can close a conversation among friends in more than a few European languages.

Of course, this is the way I saw it then. In India, no one kisses socially: parents and children, husbands and wives, movie actresses and movie actors, no, no, no. It is more common to see two men holding hands - a friendly gesture - than a man and a woman. Coming from this world, I couldn't tell what was going on. Was everyone sleeping with everyone else, or at least trying? (Having to come to understand the male subspecies a bit better over the last decade I actually now believe the latter is true, but that's another story.)

Coming back to me an my beautiful Italian. I heard the words and my heart jumped. I was aglow from within. I felt as though I had actually been kissed, unexpectedly and wonderfully. We kept on meeting from time to time, always with warm flirtation, and I got comfortable with the right-left (or is it left-right, to this day I am never sure and am convinced I get it wrong) kiss. I didn't really expect anything to happen, though I might have hoped, and it didn't. But I was always thrilled to hear this awkwardly translated phrase at the end of our phone conversations.

BB

Some simple facts for today:

New York






Sunrise: 7.01 am
Sunset: 4.28 pm
High: 0 C, Low: -4 C

London






Sunrise: 7.47 am
Sunset: 3.53 pm
High: 13 C, low: 12 C

Q for A
or Extreme Sport English Edition: Queuing
or Queuing for Art

I went last weekend to the Royal College of Arts' Secret 2007 sale. It's a secret not because no one knows about it, but because you don't know the artist's name till you've bought the piece. Each work is postcard size and costs 30 pounds. It could be anyone from art student to famous designer (Sonya Rykiel, Paul Stewart...) to famous artist (Damien Hurst, Tracey Emin). You first go to the preview to pick off a few that you like. Then on the day of you arrive early. By the time I reach at 6.30 am - let me repeat 6.30 am - there were already 300 people - let me repeat, 300 - ahead of me. Note also that it was -4 C.

Though the British may lack something in hihowareyou chitchat they make up for it in stiffness of the upper lip. We were all joking about the mild weather and professing our ignorance about the event (This queue - happened to be walking by and decide to join in). Extreme conditions (think the Blitz) also seem to break down social barriers and you can smile and chat with your queue neighbor. Someone lent me a chair for a while. A long while, since we were in the cold for about 4 hours.

Then after a heartbreak hill moment (being just at the edge of the door but having to wait another 15 minutes while being unable to feel my legs below the ankle), the real sport began. As you entered, you began crossing off items that the previous 300 people had already snapped up. Many of these included pieces I had guessed were by some of the famous artists in the show, but also many pieces I happened to like:










(a little bit textbook but very pretty)



Gone, all gone... And this one too which I didn't love but recognized as Tracey Emin:


When it came down to my turn, I was left with a few numbers on my list. Here's what I scored:



by Thomas Winstanley a (I hope!) promsing art student at the RCA.

by Johnny Miller (what you can't see in the picture is that there is palimpsest effect, where you can see the lines to the Lone Ranger theme etched in the paper).


by Karoly-Zold Gyongyi, a Roman artst (also subtle features not seen in the picture). And finally my quasi-coup:


Of course you recognize it. It's by what's his name. (See comments.)

Cheers

BB

What would you have chosen? Take a look at the RCA Secret 2007 web site.