The Invisible Man (Apparently)

I've lost count of the times young Chinese women here have spoiled my viewing pleasure in galleries. There I am, enjoying the work of art, standing in my usual Patrician viewing position: slightly to the left of centre of the picture, right elbow on left hand, right hand on chin, head slightly cocked in the universal position of attentive openness; spats gleaming white; glistening monocle screwed into my right eye; top hat set at a jaunty angle; and then it happens. Without fail, she will be a young Chinese woman; she will have been walking slowly around the gallery room, looking at the pictures; she will then walk across between me and the painting I am viewing, and stop dead in front of me. I mean DEAD IN FRONT ! Sometimes, this will be only a foot in front! -close enough to smell the hair conditioner. The first time it happened I thought it was a bit odd. After a dozen times I began to think they must teach this in Chinese schools as some sort of cunning destabiliser of Western civilisation. It even happened in the Tate bookshop in front of the postcards I was perusing. Whenever it occurs now, I just throw my hands out to the side and shake my head in the universally-recognised display of exasperated disbelief.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Bethnal Green Send Off

     A family shambles into the pub, all dressed in black. It comprises a set of obese twins, one of whom is the mother of a boy and a girl aged about eight and nine.       "My god", she says to the barman, "I need a fuckin' drink after the day I've 'ad." She orders for the entire entourage and they all sit around three tables, which they hastily drag together. The woman now spots me in the corner and she galumphs over on unsteady, knock-kneed legs, with a plaintive look across her pale, doughy face.     "'Scuse me luv, can I take summer dese chairs?" She gestures to the three empty seats around my table. I tell her she can. "Only, I cremated me muvver dis mornin'. " she says, apropos of nothing. I give her my condolences.       She seats her two children on tall stools at the bar. Another family member arrives with two bags of McDonald's food. He places these in front of the kids, who eagerly dig in. The adults sit ad...
Read more

Clomping Through the NPG

   Three gangly, teenage American girls spread out and clomped around the wooden floors of the National Portrait Gallery in their chunky boot heels, loudly calling out to each other about the portraits in the Elizabethan rooms.     "Lookit this guy! He's so cool! Look at his beard. So hipster. I LOVE it!"     "Oh wow! This woman is, like, ancient. Check out that bling!"     "He's, like, a king or some shit! Lookit his hat! " I sought to escape them by slipping into another room, but they followed me in. This room contained a group of young schoolchildren who were sitting on the floor quietly listening to a lady Gallery guide explain to them the beautiful portrait of Henry IV. The three girls seemed completely oblivious to this, and they edged around the room still shouting out their observations on the people in the paintings.     "Gahd! that looks like that dude in that movie, you know who I mean?" ...
Read more

The Old Marquis

     I found myself at the French House in Dean Street, Soho, where I sat at the bar and had a number of glasses of the house lager. I eavesdropped on the conversations.      A young man in his late twenties asked his friend, a woman about thirty, how she was.      "Oh, alright, I suppose," she replied, "except for having to shove suppositories up my father's arse for the last ten days."       Two old gents were seated on the stools under the window. They were red-faced, very merry, and very loud.             "And, of course, when I was sixteen," one said, "I was taken under the wing of the old Marquis, and I went out to live on his estate. He taught me a great deal about society, and food, and wine, and what to wear to table, and that sort of thing. All kinds of things, really. It was the perfect education for a young chap, in all sorts of ways ... And, of course...
Read more