The Weather Project

Yesterday (Friday) was wet, windy and miserable. Just the right weather, then, to grab a train from Reading to London, then a tube from Paddington to King�s Cross, then another train to Cambridge, to attend a seminar on the Cambridge Advanced Exam in English. The rain chased me all the way from home, and only petered out as the train pulled into the station. It�s the first time I�ve ever been there. As we travelled, I wondered if the view out of the window would have been recognisable to the characters in E M Forster�s The Longest Journey. I managed to find my way without difficulty to the seminar, which proved to be fairly useful. It was also interesting enough for me to avoid falling asleep during it. The best bit was the video of a pair of clowns doing the speaking exam, one Swedish, one Swiss. They�d obviously been hoiked out of class and told to pretend to be doing the exam. The examiner (called the interlocutor � which, incidentally, I found out how to pronounce correctly � the stress falls on the �loc�) succeeded in looking like not just a miserable bastard but also mad as a hatful of stoats. Best bit was the dialogue between these two guys when doing task 3, which is basically talking about a set of pictures and ranking them in some way. It was like Sam Beckett on a really shit day. The examiner had asked them to look at pictures of various rescues, and what skills would be required for each, then which would be the most newsworthy. The dialogue went a bit like this:
Swiss: Well, this one, it shows, er, a helicopter.
Swede: Yes. We have these in my country.
Swiss: Me too, it�s pretty normal.
Swede: yes, it�s normal. There are lots of rescues.
Swiss: Yes.
Swede: And you need some skills for it..
Swiss:..skills, yes�..Then there is this�.ahhh�.
Swede: Ummmm�yes. What do you think?
Swiss: There�s a bird being cleaned
Swede: I think maybe it can be dirty.
Swiss: Yes, they�re cleaning it.
Swede: Yes, for this too you need many skills.
Swiss: Oh yes.
Et Cetera, Et Cetera. What amazed me was that after several minutes of frankly piss-poor communication, these two apparently passed! Gave me hope for my group, anyway.
On the way back, I discovered a shop selling Turkish goodies and bought some sucuk for Nur. I would have bought more stuff, but I didn�t have much money on me. Once on the train, I began plotting my way home, then realised that, as I had bought a cheap train ticket, I wouldn�t be able to cross London and get on a train home until after the rush hour. This meant that I�d have to kick my heels there for 45 minutes or so. I wondered what I could do with myself, then had a fantastic idea. I�d go and see The Weather Project at the Tate Modern. I�d been promising myself that I�d go and see this installation for the last six months, and now was a prime opportunity. Besides, it was my last chance: It�s being dismantled tomorrow. So, after I got to King�s Cross, I bought a single to Blackfriars, and plunged into the underground scrum of the rush hour. What always fascinates me about a typical tube train compartment is how it is a distillation of what London is: Its crabbiness, its diversity, its cosmopolitanism, its febrile, restless spirit, all rest within.
I got out at Blackfriars, then made my way to the embankment. By now, it was dark, and I saw in front of me the Millennium Bridge with all its lights shimmering. Indeed, all London was lit up in its finery. After all, it was a Friday night and time to play. Even the weather seemed suddenly milder. I reached the bridge, and saw St Pauls. A whole troop of people were crossing, either going towards the cathedral of God on the one side or the cathedral of Art on the other, but they were strangely silent, spirits crossing the river in some holy act or other. I reached the Tate, went in, and duly had my gob smacked by the Weather Project. It truly is a magnificent, and magnificently simple, installation. That a few lights, a bit of fake smoke, a screen and some mirrors can be so impressive is quite something. The fake sun (or rather, half-sun: The mirrors make it appear to be whole) hangs at one end of the turbine hall. There are mirrors on the roof, creating even greater depth. There is a bit of smoke and the air appears to shimmer. That�s it. But! The effect is incredible. The nearest this approaches to is when I first went into Aya Sofya in 1994. The latter will always beat any experience I have with things made by humans, but this experience was damn good. I stayed there about half and hour or so. There was quite a party atmosphere within. People were lying on the floor, staring up at their own reflections. Some were trying to spell out words with their bodies. Some people were basking in the glows of the fake sun, even though it was pretty cold. Couples hugged each other. A few people were asleep. One group were even having a champagne picnic. I stared up at the ceiling too, and saw myself, standing, small, a huge shadow cast behind me.
Afterwards, I walked back along the South Bank towards Waterloo. The weather was mild, and I enjoyed the parade of boats and buildings as I passed. I really, really need to bring Nur to London on a night like that. By the time I finally managed to get home, I was knackered.