AUE: London Boink, 11 June 2006

A report on the 11 June 2006 London boink was posted to the newsgroup by Laura and is reproduced here:

On a hot day the 7th floor restaurant at Tate Modern is a very good place to be - air-conditioned, lovely view and not bad food and drink.

Stephanie arrived bearing delicious samples of Brussels' best - yummy chocolate-covered ginger, snobinettes (which she awarded to me for knowing not only what they are but also how they are made by top chocolatiers) and an intriguing set of chocolates which claimed to make one serene, tranquil, sexy etc (we ate them all but there was no observable difference to report).

Chris W at her first ever boink displayed a slightly alarming tendency to want to keep us on topic. She dismissed the (admittedly florid) dessert menu in the style of a dedicated aue-er: "I can't order anything with so many..

<You, gentle reader, may, expect that sentence to end with the word "calories" but no...>

..adjectives."

Three members of the party were accompanied by hats (yes, the Panama of Power joined us!) The waitpersons seemed to object to them being placed on the floor so an extra chair was commandeered for the purpose. We explained "titfer" to Chris W who had never heard the word. She resoonded by telling us about "angelmaker" (new to us and less innocuous than a hat, it would appear).

Discussion strayed to disused Underground stations and we agreed that Mark Brader would probably know how many there are and where.

Stephanie is apparently teaching herself Spanish by reading trashy magazines and reported that her close reading of the Spanish equivalent of "Hello" reveals that Brenda is Queen Isabel(sp?) therein.

We discussed the aue portrait page and thought it might be a good idea to designate as alumni those posters who are no longer around and to link active ones to illustrative posts - at least I think that's what the suggestion was - Chris W seemed to have some idea about how to do this.

There were cultural excursions. Graeme greeted me by telling me that the display in the Turbine Hall has raised his blood pressure but Katy and I found it intriguing.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/domesticincidents/default.shtm

We explored Level 5. Mike L described a rather gloomy Cezanne as "too dark to be domestic", which sounds to me as if it should be the title of something. Christian Marclay's Video Quartet is fascinating - very difficult to describe but well worth a visit. http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/marclay-video-quartet-t11818

Some pictures were taken which will eventually appear, I expect.

Special thanks to Stephanie for schlepping the chocs.

Click here to see the posting and the rest of the thread in the Google archives.

Stephanie's young man Chris and aue's Graeme Thomas, with Chris Waigl in between them

Laura, Stephanie, S's Y M Chris, and Graeme (the lady in red is not connected with our party)

The Panama of Power accompanied by the, er, sunhat of serendipity and the cap of cerise corduroy

Chris Waigl and Mike Lyle