London Buses and São Paulo Biennales

Typical. You wait several months for a post and then two come along at the same time. Well, ok, so you probably weren't exactly waiting, but......

....below you'll find a couple of long-in-the-making posts for all the usual tawdry reasons. The first is a review, some twenty years after its release, of Mike Leigh's Naked. I first watched this film in Berlin in 1993, when Mike Leigh was present for a post-screening q&a. Twenty years later I watched it in the Barbican where Mike Leigh was present for a post-screening q&a. Interestingly, as far as I can remember, the questions were very similar the first time, revolving around the issues of the film's perceived mysogyny.

Whilst acknowledging this as a very valid observation, I have also tried to talk about the film in a different way. Not because it isn't important but because there are other, equally powerful and troubling aspects to it. Anyway, the review is below......

The second post is a very belated follow-on to my City of London guide, this time looking at two buildings on the London Wall, one by Norman Foster and the other by Richard Rogers. Without wishing to look like some kind of stalking obsessive, Rogers is also the subject of a recent review for Icon, which you can find here.

Lastly, a note that I will be talking at the Track Changes event at the 2013 Bienal de São Paulo organised by Crimson. The event is on the 4th, 5th and 6th of November and I will be speaking as part of the discussion "What's Your Crisis" on the 6th.

Anyway, if anybody who reads this or knows about FAT is there, come along and say hi.