Friday afternoon

It's going to be a fairly messy weekend - I'm on 'assistant' duty as the ISTD award judging starts tomorrow at the De La Warr Pavillion - I started today by collecting one of the worlds premier international design consultants from the station ( Chilean by birth, based in Barcelona ) and couriering him, his wife and small child to a hotel, and for the first time in my life realised what utter hell life must be like if you have a one year old in a buggy (stair, stairs! MORE STAIRS!!!). I thought they had missed the train but instead were negotiation the embarrassing and inadequate lift facilities at Hastings station. It's 6pm and I still have 2 more judges to collect - one without a confirmed ETA, both staying at a hotel on the other side of town, and then get them to a restaurant. It's going to be a long weekend, and I may not make it out alive.

Last night I had another one of my very occasional night outs. I went to see The Eels at the De La Warr (Can't keep away from the place at the moment!) - it was fantastic, brilliant seats near the front, wonderful performance and a really magical evening - not often an international musician decides to have an encore session that's longer than the actual gig and then come down into the crowd to give everyone a hug. There were a couple of empty seats - even though it was sold out, which apparently had something to do with football. Fools.

I've just had a call from an agent I've worked with before offering me some really nice work - quite pleased about that - mainly because it suggests that the last thing I did for her went well - or they wouldn't be calling.

Yesterday - Alfie Greyhound began to display some rather alarming senile behaviour - but soon snapped back into being just 'stupid' - I'll have to keep an eye on that one.


I don't read many blogs these days - I find it exhausting enough to write this one - and I usually need to feel some connection with the person who is writing it - or I tend to fell like I'm intruding, so generally I dip in and out - however, there are a couple that shine for me - I'm a big fan of the peerless Age of Uncertainty - and have been for many years, and also Dirty Modern Scoundrel - well, the author is a good friend, he writes well and his focus on modern architecture as a subtext and all the wonderful media that he finds to illustrate the subject are pretty beguiling - but his latest post is something very special. I strongly believe that the built environment affects us on so many levels - and we underestimate our own emotional relationship with architecture and personal space - and this blog post describes it more beautifully and eloquently than I ever could. I'm sure we all have a story like this inside us - but being able to articulate it is something very precious. I've known John for many years and although I knew most of the details of this story already, I found it hard not to be deeply moved by what he writes here.

This is the best thing you will read today.