Wool, Poppies and Rage

Isn't this beautiful? It reminds me of a tulip,or a poppy, or crumpled silk sexy underwear, and I even see a couple of sly Aubrey Beardsley-like figures top and bottom. I just didn't expect it to be made of wool. It's an ambiguity that I expect the rug's designer, the late great Alexander McQueen intended us to feel.

I saw it at a pop-up free exhibition for the Campaign for Wool on the South Bank the other day. This organisation's patron is my favourite Prince and it's quite sparky. They've overran Savile Row, home of fine tailoring, with sheep, and roped in top designers for the "Wool School" training initiative and show some beautiful ideas for interiors (of the type where it's helpful if you're a millionaire).

Outside the exhibition, they'd woven great big strands of white wool through the old railings round Southwark cathedral. It looks so.... well, I suppose woolly is the word.

On Tuesday an old schoolfriend and I braved torrential rain to see Paul Cummins' poppy installation in the Tower of London's moat. See the Shard shrouded in cloud in the distance? That's how damp it was. The poppies, each representing a death in World War 1, joined in a dark red mass that really was reminiscent of an ocean of blood. We left in a thoughtful mood.

I've been organising being away. Talking with house sitters, packing, details of the trip, trying to get the place sorted out before we go. The Tokyo street guide (Japanese and English) has arrived. Our kind Japanese friends will take us to so many places that we may hardly need the Tokyo street map but it's both exciting and intimidating to peep inside and see what a large city it is.

While I'm away over the next several weeks, I won't have much time so I think I could find it hard to visit everyone as often as usual but I'll do my best to post here.  And I've also scheduled some posts.

I was going to add something more, but I posted this with my newly acquired app Blogsy, and it's TOTALLY screwed up when I tried to edit it on my desktop.  I had to delete the whole post and start again on the desktop.   Another hour of valuable time down the drain sorting it all out.

I steer clear of apps unless I really need them.  I am bored stiff with going through all the endless options.  All I want is something simple I can use forever without thinking about it, so I have time to spend on doing the things I actually like doing.   But that's not the "choice" you get.  Like, I had to "choose" to give all my photos to Google on Picasa in order to use this Blogsy app.  I now have to learn to use Picasa. I don't want to. And I would prefer to keep my photos on my computer, privately. Great "choice", huh?  It's that or the Blogger app that doesn't work at all.

Well, bear with me if you don't get any sensible posts from my travels.  I'll do my best, I really will. But something tells me I'll be deleting both Blogsy from my iPad and Picasa from my desktop, in order to get clear of all this cr*p without having to waste hours of time on it.