The Helpful Geordie

Spent the whole day at Tate Modern, where my sense of the importance and magnificence of art was confirmed, as it rarely is in Australia these days. The birch trees outside the building are much taller than they were on my last visit, several years ago. The amazing turbine hall entrance is shut because they are building a bridge across it, so I had to come in by a temporary side entrance which lessened the impact somewhat. But all was forgiven once I got lost in the work upstairs. Endless halls full of important masterworks.

An obese teenage girl trains her iPhone camera on one of Giacometti's spindly stick figures in a perfect marriage of bulimia and anorexia.

As I wandered through the galleries I suddenly realised that I had left my notebook in one of the blacked-out video rooms. It had a week's worth of my London notes in it as well as small drawings and other observations. I rushed back to the room but it was gone... Disconsolately, I went downstairs to the lost property desk where they gave me a form to fill out. I was halfway finished and just adding my email address when a strapping young Geordie fronted the counter with my notebook in his hand, which I then shook gratefully. This restored my faith in human nature. Perhaps I won't be so harsh now on that execrable TV show, The Geordie Shore. 




















 

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