Archaeology down the drain.

Saturday 12 May 2012 by admin | No Comments
Filed under: Nostalgia Tags: ,

Postings may be infrequent at present due to the amount of time spent sitting indoors watching the drought pouring down, causing the absolute need between the downpours to get out there and do something.

I was never very outdoorsy as a child; I mostly had my nose in a book though I did spend time in a pedal car, on a scooter or on roller skates.  The older I get the more I feel the need to get out in the fresh air in the summer and do something.  I do like gardening but prefer building.  Nothing is quite as satisfying as concrete.  The ancient Romans called it Opus Signinum and used it to great effect everywhere, it’s a very macho thing, concrete, which once done, stays put.

Excavating the holes for the three drains utilised the supposedly enormous muscles that the other half goes to the gym three times a week to build.  He opined that the only way through the crazy paving was with a lump hammer and bolster.  I thought a drill would be a good first attempt to break through and was subject to great scorn until he actually tried to hammer and chisel the virgin concrete, after which a drill was produced, not because I’d said so but because he’d suddenly thought of it in one of those amazing coincidences that happens all the time in parallel universes.

Drilled around, each small square of paving proved quite as hard to shift as anyone would wish, necessitating an lengthy explanation as to why five minutes hitting concrete with a hammer was equal to days and days worth of weight lifting in the gym.  I suspect two kinds of muscles are involved; the impressive kind and the useful kind.

Anyway, with a great deal of fuss and bother the concrete was breeched and in twenty minutes with a trowel, I’d excavated the necessary hole to house the drain.  In the course of which I encountered a bit of archaeology.

When we put in the path on the other side of the house we continually found artefacts belonging to the Victorian gardener’s hut which stood here.  All the bottom of the hill was market garden for the Percy estate.  The Victorian gardeners left a legacy of fine tilth and assorted domestic rubbish.

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Here you can see a piece of broken saucer and a knapped flint that I found and the hole, down the drain, in which I found them.

At the top of the hill was the largest Neolithic flint factory in this area.  I constantly find flakes of flint and sometimes pieces large enough to qualify as hand axes.

This time it was just a small flake but still sharp.

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Here’s the back of the saucer and the flint flake.

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And the front.  How amazing to think that something that someone made has lasted a thousand years here.  I wonder how long the drain will last?

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Here’s another beautiful drain and the feet of the woman who concreted it in, not perfectly straight according to the local critic, who was indoors rubbing his shoulders at the time.

I wonder if the Neolithic women ever knapped flints?  I expect they had to after the Neolithic men did a few and then went off to the pub or down to swing in the trees and show off.  I expect the Neolithic women just knocked off a pile of flints in between looking after the Neolithic babies, doing the Neolithic washing, cooking the Neolithic dinner and planting the Neolithic seeds in the Neolithic garden.  Then I expect after coming back and telling the Neolithic women how they’d done it all wrong and how superior would have been the flints knapped by the men if they hadn’t been so busy swinging in the trees, the Neolithic men would sit on a comfy rock and stare at a big flat boulder and just fall asleep exhausted.

See?  Not just some old codger snoring in an armchair, heritage.

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JaneLaverick.com – archaeology now.

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We need to tell our children.

Monday 7 May 2012 by admin | No Comments
Filed under: Nostalgia Tags:

The information revolution seeps into the ears of our children every hour they are awake.  From television, from cable, from social networking sites, from Internet, from phones, from the varieties of multimedia including all those not in existence now this moment but possibly this afternoon and certainly tomorrow.

This constant assault of advertising masquerading as information pours into the juvenile and as yet unformed psyche, playing on the vulnerable and bypassing the checks and controls of older, wiser heads who may not even be aware of the stream of fool’s gold as it tinkles past through the ether.  Already children believe that if you are thinner, you will be more loveable.  They understand that they can borrow money instantly, by texting a number.  They know the norm to be either a dysfunctional soap opera family, with murder as a plot device, or an impossibly shiny millionaire family with disposable everything.  Examples set by the idols of today, who are the troubadours, encourage them to think that you can marry someone just for a few days and that no one will be hurt in the subsequent abandonment.  They see remembrance of sports results and familiarity with pop charts rewarded in quizzes as genuine knowledge.  They are taught that more possessions are the same as wealth and that a king size burger and fries for 99p is desirable every day.

We need to tell our children.

We need to tell our children that a pay day loan is not a good thing and that anyone offering low rates of interest in a recession will be wanting some bodily part to make up the balance.

We need to tell our children that people come in all shapes, sizes and colours and cannot be judged by their appearance.  We need to tell our children not to believe what people say but to look and see what they do, over an interval, before we vote for them.

We need to tell our children that, while some people do win the lottery, they are more likely to acquire wealth if they get a job early, work hard, spend less than they earn and invest the surplus.

We need to tell our children that they will sleep well if they get some fresh air and exercise every day.

We need to tell our children that pressing a button to summon the answer only demonstrates knowledge of how to press the button.

We need to tell our children to be suspicious of anyone offering to solve their problems for them and that each person’s path in life will involve some problem solving and some learning and that we are here to grow our souls.

We need to tell our children to beware of artificially produced chemical substances and that it is not safe to ingest some of them at all, many of them occasionally and most of them every day.

We need to tell them not to hand their free will over to anyone else but to think for themselves always and never to join in with any activity that does not sit well with their conscience.

We need to tell them that while there are some positions available as pop stars, kings and icons in general there are many more for plumbers and electricians with less risk of being deposed and more chance of steady long term employment.

We need to tell them that self-sufficiency is desirable because you have to be able to look after yourself first before you can look after anyone else.

We need to tell them that nobody knows it all and it is wise to know what you do not know and try to learn it.

We need to tell them that every day is a gift to be enjoyed.

We need to tell them that we love them unconditionally and that they take our love with them into the future.

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JaneLaverick.com – doing thinking.

 

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Recent joys.

Tuesday 1 May 2012 by admin | No Comments
Filed under: The parrot has landed. Tags: , , ,

This may not be a long posting and has every chance of being started on one machine and finished on another because the other half has destroyed the gizmo docking ports on this one.

I was much happier when computers recorded things on to tape recorders.  You knew where you were when you were sitting there trying to wrest the end of several miles of thin brown tape out of the end of the little plastic doodah because the lid had broken a bit and the cassette didn’t slide out cleanly.  You were stuffed was where you were.

I was born just after make do and mend, the cheerful doctrine that got us through the war.  If I needed anything my grandmother knitted it.  If you were thirsty someone gave you a ginger beer plant, which looked like sand in the bottom of a jam jar, you added tap water and, later, drank the result then added more water.  If you were hungry you got flour, fat and sugar and baked something.  If you felt in need of entertainment you read a book or played charades.  If something in the house broke, my mother, being married to a builder, waited until a slack period when there was either snow or no work, when six men would come round and put up a shelf, slowly.

So simple.

I cannot put my finger on the exact time in the late fifties when it all went wrong; given that the sixties didn’t happen until the seventies, or the eighties until the nineties, it could have been the sixties when the rot set in.  I do remember my father giving me the first bunch of Formica samples to play with.  These were small rectangles of kitchen counter top laminates with a hole in one corner, threaded on a chain.  The surfaces were shiny, at first you could have yellow, red, grey or two kinds of blue all with names on a bit of paper glued to the back.  The names, initially were informative: navy blue, red, yellow.  Then suddenly the colours proliferated, patterns broke out and the names went fancy: Roman Holiday, Fiesta, Sand Dunes.  It was round about then that I realised if you broke the corner off, there was no glue that fixed it. The future had arrived and suddenly we must all be rich because make do and mend had been jettisoned in favour of make expensive and throw away.

So my other half, attempting to make the USB port reach the scanner cable, fractured a little bit of plastic smaller than the end of your little finger nail and now nothing works.  It’s a tiny bit of plastic with grooves in it, not even electrical contacts and it has thoroughly stuffed a machine costing hundreds of pounds.

Then there is the water in the utility room.

This drought, so widely advertised here in Britain, a collection of islands surrounded by, let me check, oh yes, water, has been jolly damp, for weeks.  We are told that the underground aquifers are dry but, frankly, by the time the surface water everywhere, even just the lake round my back door, has sunk in, I have every confidence they will be fulsomely replenished.

I came down in the morning two days ago to feed the cats.  The minute we got onto the mat in the utility room we were all paddling.  So, oxymoronically assisted by cats, I flopped the mat over the fence to drain (never a happy word associating with ‘rug’ or ‘carpet’) and set to mopping up.  The lake killed the mop, which shredded, saturated the sponges, and used up what I didn’t find out was the last three squares of kitchen roll until I had.

Investigation proved the water was not coming in the new plastic back door from the waterfall issuing from the gutter, nor yet the underwater cat door but welling up through the concrete floor.  The other half eased up some original floor tile with a mallet and a chisel and said ‘The water is coming up through the floor.’ As we could see it doing it, I had to agree.  So now we had water coming up through the floor and broken floor tiles.

If we lived in the middle ages, a well in the house would be handy.  Right now, not so much.

When the waters subsided I could see a little tiny gap at the foot of the wall under the damp proof course.  I could also see that the entire slope of the path led down towards the door.  I recalled twenty years ago how we filled in the drain in the corner when we installed the rain water butt and the diverter valve.

So yesterday when there was yellow stuff coming out of the sky for a change, I emptied the water butt and, erecting the spare water butt from the back of the shed in proximity, transferred the water so I could move the old butt to get to the corner.  The other half was, helpfully, at golf and I was out of gravel, so make do and mending, I emptied the gravel from the gutters and washed it, got sand and cement (which I always have on me, obviously) made some concrete and corrected the camber of the path.

It looked dry last night but after a night of yet more torrential drought and a reservoir near the back door but not in the corner the door mat was wet.

I think what we may need is one of those doors they have on submarines, though I doubt you can get one with a cat door in it.  Meanwhile, once the rain stops (Friday on earliest estimates) I shall be outside cementing my relationship with the path, after which I have some waterproofing compound, which won’t work underwater, according to the tin.

Why is life never easy?

(Email me if you know the answer.)

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JaneLaverick.com – paddling.

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Gem day on QVC. Report 3 from the preview.

Monday 23 Apr 2012 by admin | No Comments
Filed under: About artists. Tags: , , , , , ,

The jewellery is marvellous.

To see the entire day, 17 hours of jewellery, set out in one room was absolutely fantastic.  The effort to source everything and get it made and ready in sufficient quantities to bring to air, remembering that popular items can sell out in minutes and that there are potentially twenty two million viewers after the same item, is just mind boggling.

Julia warned the visitors at the preview that some of the items might not be on the website until nearer to Tuesday, and she was right.  With everything to choose from, and I would have to say there was everything to choose from, I didn’t look at a single item and think it undesirable, I wanted one particular thing.  It was not there when I looked at midnight when I got home.  It was not there on Friday, or Friday evening, or three times on Saturday when I looked.  Eventually on Sunday I rang the ever helpful customer services and it hadn’t appeared on their system either, which means that it wasn’t yet in the warehouse.  A couple of hours ago it appeared on the website and after an hour of agonies (because it costs more money then I’ve ever spent on one piece of jewellery in my life before) I ordered it.  What is it? It’s a work of art.  A genuine work of art masquerading as a piece of jewellery.  More later.

Meanwhile, in retrospect what struck me most about the assembled treasure, is how focussed the buyers and planners have been.  They do understand collectors very well and the collecting journey.  Rather than just ‘having a lot of jewellery’  which they could have done and, I’m sure, found some bargains and some rarities, the pieces on offer are in themed hours, frequently featuring specific gemstones.  This is a good idea, because it allows every collector, whether you are just at the dabbling, toe in the water stage or, at the other end, looking for the missing piece, to find something.

For example there was a wonderful collection of the prettiest moonstones.

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I was going to write that prices start at £20 but I’ve just been to check, there’s been a price reduction of 50p on the earrings in question, which they did not have to do as they were already good value and in a choice of colours.

The pearls are huge.  I don’t know whose arm QVC are twisting but their prices for premium quality Tahitian pearls have dropped considerably since these first made an appearance on our screens.  When I was in Australia, a big market for pearls because of its nearness to Japan, I bought one half drilled Tahitian pearl, no mounting and thought at £45 I’d done rather well.  Remember that when you see the mounted matched pairs in earrings set in 18ct. gold.  There is an endless necklace, some super quality necklaces and bracelets and some wonderful pearl/gem combinations.  Very classy ‘grown up’ jewellery.

Until I saw the item I purchased, it had been my intention, finally, to own some Nepalese Kyanite.  The only reason I do not have Kyanite in my collection yet is the variable quality of this rare gemstone.  Kyanite has the same chemical composition as Sillimanite and Andalusite, the difference is that Kyanite underwent massive pressure during its formation, which is why it is found in Nepal where the bashing together of the tectonic plates has been so violent as to form the highest mountains on the planet.  Kyanite can have striations in it and numerous inclusions and, needless to say, coming from inhospitable regions that are difficult to reach, is not in great supply.  The Kyanite at the preview was out of this world.  The stones were absolutely clear and the most beautiful deep blue.  If you climbed Mount Everest and stared into space, that’s the blue you would see.  I particularly coveted a five stone emerald cut ring in yellow gold which I will go back for when my finances have recovered.  I wanted, but didn’t dare try on, the most beautiful line bracelet with stone after stone of perfectly matched deepest inky blue gems.  I thought I’d never be able to afford it but blow me if they haven’t gone and put it on at a one time only price.  If I were not already committed to my precious (it’s a ring) I’d have been buying the bracelet.

The TSV is a new/old find of incredible Topaz.  This has lain in a vault undiscovered for some years.  The ring which is the TSV would not look out of place in an 18th century portrait.  There is quite a range of Ostro Topaz jewellery.  The colour with the naked eye is startling, the nearest thing to it being perhaps neon Apatite.  I have not the slightest doubt that someone will mention Paraiba Tourmaline in regard to the colour and, having seen it, I’d agree.

As I was galloping round the tables my attention was arrested by one item on a display of Rhodonite.  Rhodonite is a very pretty pink opaque gemstone like the sort of marble fairies would have for their palace floors and walls.  The item that stopped me in my tracks, you can enter into the QVC search engine and see for yourself.  It’s 600600.  I stopped because the gems in question are translucent.  All my rocks and minerals books tell me that Rhodonite is opaque and yet here were three massive cabochons of fuchsia pink see-through gems that fairies could use for palace windows if they wanted to.  And they would want to.  There is a little video of the last on-air appearance of the gem which does not do it justice at all.  The still photo is quite good but really this is one you need to get home and look up at beside a window.  This is a rarity.  This is such a rarity that after the show the only known place to get it will be in the jewellery boxes of the QVC customers.  If you love pink (and this is PIIIINK) and you go somewhere where you can show off with a rarity (such as a cruise where they sell jewellery – trust me, they won’t have this) or you are just assembling the most heirloomy collection you can, this is the one for you.  It’s utterly glorious.

Among the other delights there was some absolutely super Morganite.  There are blue Morganite rings (yes I thought it was just pink too) and the most fabulous bracelet.

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In the background is a huge Russian jade triangle pendant at a modest price for the size.

Here at last is my precious,

actually, I’m not going to show you.  If I do they might sell out.  Whoever designed this is an artist if ever I met one and they deserve to have this item aired, shown and thoroughly appreciated.  I will ring the studio and say why I bought it in the grand finale of the day which starts at ten o clock.  It’s a work of art and I own one.

It’s now four days since I went to the preview and I’m still excited.  From midnight tonight I will be glued to my TV.  I’m sorry my pictures of the gemstones have been such rubbish but in an hour and a half you can see them for yourself.

You can see what got me so excited online at www.qvcuk.com  select ‘Watch QVC live’ to join in, from midnight tonight GMT.  You can order online too, though if you are watching far away from the UK you might want to check with the call centre that they can post to you, as I guarantee there’ll be something you just have to own.

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JaneLaverick.com – my precious!  my precious!

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QVC Gem Day preview 2. The people.

Monday 23 Apr 2012 by admin | 2 Comments
Filed under: About artists. Tags:

Over the last two and a half years here and twenty years of writing for magazines, you may have noticed me stand up and wave a flag for family firms that put people first.

I’ve talked to people employing factories in the Far East, firms using outworkers in the UK, artisans who have turned their entire families into factories spread over a number of homes, families running shows, publishing and media firms and every type of craft business you can imagine.

Without exception those that really go the distance are those that put the people first.  Goodwill within the company and without is the one commodity you cannot buy but need, to make a long term success in business.

Two of the firms I’ve had dealings with are, in my opinion, outstanding in this regard and have earned a reputation for being best in their field by putting in the work, by not letting anything slide and by truly caring about the people who work with them and for them.  One, you know, if you’ve been reading longer than a few months, is Miniatura.  This is the best miniature art show in the world because they care about every exhibitor, every visitor, the venue, the organisation, the car parking, the publicity, the hired furniture, the brochure, the tickets, the lot.  Every single aspect attended to carefully, never losing sight of the original intention to provide a place for artists and collectors to meet in the Midlands.

The second is QVC, the shopping channel.  I’ve already told you about the questions I asked before I began shopping.  As a customer of over ten years I find their service excellent.  I once ordered a garment which went astray in the Christmas post.  Even though it was a sale item it was replaced promptly with the minimum of fuss and I still got to wear it for Christmas.  The service is good, if you’ve visited the corporate section of the website you’ll know the goods can’t be anything but good or they’d be rejected – but what is it like on the inside?

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Here is Heston, manning the reception desk.  On my way in he checked me off on his list and handed me a visitor badge which I thought I had clipped to my jacket before setting off through the swing door in search of the Ladies’ room.

I threaded my way down convoluted corridors in which not one inch of space was wasted.  Anywhere there was a clear foot of floor space someone was sitting in it at a computer terminal.  Everywhere else there were trolleys full of products.  In the website corporate information there are dire warnings for any seller leaving anything at all in the building once they’ve left and you can see, in every corridor, exactly why they say so.  It wasn’t chaotic, there was order and method but there was tons and tons of stuff.  (I felt right at home.)  There would have to be when you think about it.  Twelve to fourteen products on air in every hour, with two or three of each whether they are frying pan sets, garden rakes or finger rings.

In the Ladies, trying to salvage my rain soaked hair, I discovered I’d lost my visitor badge, which I’d only just been given.  I returned to the reception area, marvelling again at all the space there wasn’t, to find Heston had rescued the badge and put it on his desk for me.

We were taken upstairs a few at a time in the lifts and set off again down slightly less populous corridors to an outer area dedicated to the event and an inner, beautifully decorated room in which the jewellery had been displayed.

Who should be meeting and greeting but two of my favourite models!

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Beth is on the left and Amica is on the right.

They are super tall, with vertiginously heeled shoes I couldn’t even stand up in.  They are uber slender, slimmer than you’re thinking and they radiate gorgeousness.  We’re always hearing how beauty comes from within; having met Amica and Beth I’d have to say it does.  They both do give off waves of actual beauty in the same way as I can give off waves of annoyance, or waves of bossy and short but wide.  And they did it every second we were there to everyone.

What is more, they are lovely people.

I couldn’t wait to tell Beth how much my husband loves her. He does, you know.  This is all the stranger because he hates QVC with a passion.  This may be my fault.  In my early days of QVC watching when I used to tune in as he left for the pub, I was conspicuously clutching our credit card.  I didn’t necessarily plan to buy anything,  I just wanted him to come home early.  With my previous teacher training I should have realised I was eliciting in him a conditioned response; as QVC appeared, his fear took flight. (Like Pavlov’s dogs but with wings.)

Some years into my studious watching, Beth started modelling for the channel; my husband brightened up considerably.  He began to make remarks: That Beth is very pretty, isn’t she?  I’m not keen on QVC but I do like Beth.  I’m sure if Beth met me she would like me.  Oh look, there’s my friend Beth, in a Kim and Co outfit, I hate knowing the brands but I do like Beth.  Etcetera.

When I received the invitation, he said, grudgingly: Well I suppose I could come with you, it’s only an hour and a half, I could stand it for that length of time.

Not, I replied, on your nelly.  No chance.

Because there is no way you can live a dream if someone beside you can’t wait to wake up.

So when I waddled through the doors and saw Beth, willowingly exuding loveliness, I couldn’t stop laughing.  Beth, to her immense credit, offered to phone him and speak to him but I couldn’t put her through it.  Amica very kindly took a photograph of me and Beth, sideways, because Beth had to fold herself up to get anywhere in range.  I may give it to my husband for his birthday tomorrow and he may cut me off it if he wishes.

I asked Amica how she was. As you may be aware, if you are a regular QVC viewer, Breast Cancer Care, the charity which QVC supports, came home to roost in a terrible way last year when presenter Alison Keenan and model Amica were each diagnosed with this awful disease.  The day before my visit Alison had surgery for the second time, which with a bit of luck will sort things out.  Amica, I was sad to learn, is having further difficulties.  Please put Amica on your prayer list.

Amica is as beautiful in person as she is on screen.  It was some years ago, when she was modelling a range of cosmetics and leant forwards to put eyeliner on, that I realised she has the same face shape and construction as Nefertiti, reputedly the most beautiful woman in the ancient world.  Twenty years of sculpting dolls has left me staring at faces and bone structure more than most; I’ve become good at spotting facial similarities.  Find a picture of the famous sculpture of Nefertiti in the tall black crown, next time Amica is on QVC have a look and see what you think.  The face shapes especially around the cheek bones, the eyes and the zygotic arch are identical.  I’m not the only fan, did you know there are mannequins in shop windows everywhere modelled on Amica?  No, neither did I until Amica told me, if you put ‘mannequin of Amica Pavey’ into a search engine, you’ll find her.  I cast a doll maker’s eye over them and they’re jolly good.  Not as good as the real thing, though.

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I asked Amica how QVC had been through her illness so far.  She said they’d been very good and asked which other firm, in London, would continue to employ someone with cancer?  Absolutely right, though, to be fair, if you had Amica Pavey working for you and you let her go, you’d be crackers.

Other visitors were milling round the refreshments  but I whizzed straight in to see the jewellery.  Julia gave a short talk and introduced two of the jewellery suppliers who were present.

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Also present was lovely Laurie, QVC’s guest expert on diamonds.

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Though when I trotted up Laurie was presiding over the very impressive tanzanite display, with a great deal of knowledge.  I’ll tell you more about the jewellery tomorrow.  There is going to be something for everyone in the day.

Meanwhile Laurie took a picture of me, short with a silly face and her tall and glamorous.

QVC people who are on air allow for the horrible fact that television does appear to put at least half a stone on everyone.  These are the beautiful people folks.

Back in the foyer waiting for the taxi which Heston had kindly summoned for me, I saw presenter Dale Franklin on the hoof.  Presenters do talk about having to run from one studio to another between shows.  They are not joking. Dale entered at a lick, stage right, practically slid down the bannisters, made a sharp left and hared off down a corridor.  Dale complains on air about his large fingers but he’s not doing himself a favour, he is actually quite slim and considerably better looking than he is on screen.

In the foyer I talked to one of the jewellery suppliers.  His name is Larry Pareg.  I’ll tell you more about the utter rarity Larry has sourced for QVC tomorrow but I did ask him what QVC were like to work with and he had many good words to say about them.

As did everyone I talked to.

It was lovely to know that my faith in QVC for the last ten years or so has not been misplaced.  Everyone I met seemed happy to work there.

It was a great hour and a half, with lovely people but that isn’t why I was there.  I was there for the jewellery.

And that’s what I’ll tell you about tomorrow.

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JaneLaverick.com – meeting the people.

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My visit to Gem Day preview at QVC 1

Sunday 22 Apr 2012 by admin | No Comments
Filed under: About artists. Tags: ,

I went on Thursday, it is Saturday when I’m writing this and I’m still beside myself with excitement.

I would love to tell you that like the seasoned journalist I am I sensibly recorded and photographed everything. I was doing quite well until I met the people, whereupon, utterly star struck, I behaved like a complete tourist and forced utter strangers to take my photo with them.

You will not see the photos.  Unless you come round to my house, (don’t) because they’ll be in a photo album entitled ‘Starry people meet hobbit Jane.’  I looked more hobbit like than usual because the rain started the second we were waiting for the train and didn’t let up, including genuine thunder and lightening, until the following day.  I have no idea why I bothered to get my hair permed, the minute we stepped out of Marylebone station it was flat as a pancake.

I cannot begin to tell you which I loved the most, the jewellery, the people or the whole of QVC, because it was all of them.

We started the day with a surprise adventure.  Out of the station and through the monsoon into a taxi, we had only just parked our London derrieres on the seat when my husband discovered a dropped wallet full of plastic cards.  As we were starving we went to the Victoria and Albert museum for lunch anyway, as planned, and examining the cards discovered they belonged to a young lady barrister, working in the city.  Fortunately the name of her chambers was on a card, so my husband rang, spoke to a secretary and as soon as he’d finished eating headed off there in a taxi to deliver the cards.

Left alone in the V&A I had a wonderful time in half of it, bottom floor, 17th and 18th century social history.  I met Lord and Lady Clapham!  (And utterly failed to photograph them, sorry.)  These famous 17th century dolls, who have inspired numerous copies by me and others, are very much better in person than they are in photos.  The modelling of the carved faces is considerably more subtle than appears to be the case in photos and the proportions of the heads to bodies is more endearing than you can imagine.  I am now going to go back to the 17th century and do another version of them, this time with knees and elbows so they can sit in chairs.  I might do wrists as well; the hands, inspired at the time by the invention of forks, as described by Pepys, were wonderful.  I had to restrain myself from picking up the entire display case and cuddling it.

I did restrain myself, however, at least until I got to QVC, when I unaccountably started hugging everyone in sight.  So sad, in a woman of my age.  On the other hand they should be glad I didn’t just lick them all over. I wanted to.  And how I stopped myself licking the jewellery, I shall never know.  (There is one item I need to possess just so that I can.  I’ll wash it afterwards and then photograph it for you.  It was gorgeous, it was fabulous, it was more money than I have, I just have to have it. It was a real miniature work of art disguised as a piece of jewellery.  Keep reading, I’ll show you it from a distance at the end.)

My husband returned from his good deed, fortunately the secretary had been authorised to pay for his taxis and a bit extra, which was appreciated.  We did a little bit of the Chinese exhibit together, I cleaned my teeth in the ladies room and then set off for QVC!

QVC Towers is an impressive building.  It is not small.

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At all.

It looks very swish until you turn around and see the Docklands railway running past the other side of the car park!

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Shall we go in?

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I was a little bit early but so was everyone else.

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The foyer was light, airy and full of customers, looking just like me.  Please take note of how very normal and assorted everyone looks.

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This is worth remembering because when we get to the models and the presenters, they are, without a doubt, verging on the superhuman.

I once saw Paul Daniels, television magician and his wife, Debbie, walking through Warwick town centre.  They both had a sort of glow that was more than out of season suntan, as if they had swallowed an entire tube of that toothpaste that gives you inner sparkle.  They walked as if they were special.

There is something genuine fame confers on people, which is instantly recognisable.  I think when enough other people know you, you begin to believe in yourself as well and to reflect back the self belief in a aura, of sorts.  When I saw the Beatles at the Sunderland Empire they were giving off waves of such energy you could have toasted bread on them.

As you know, I do know many famous miniaturists and artisans working in miniature, including those whose work has been seen by or presented to heads of state, which is probably as famous as a miniature artisan gets to be.  None of them glowed, or gave off any special aura at all, even though what they do is arguably more valuable and of more lasting merit than doing a magic trick, or showing what someone else has made.  I find this interesting because you would think that someone who has made an acknowledged work of art would have enough of an opinion of themselves, if not to radiate energy, at least to glow about 20 or 30 watts.  They don’t.  Perhaps it’s because so much of what an artist does to make something involves shaving chunks off your thumb with a scalpel, sticking needles in your fingers, falling asleep with a paintbrush up your nose or sanding off your fingernails with a lathe.  By the time you’ve finished the masterpiece what’s left of you is heartily sick of it and, of course, by then you wish you’d done it differently and all you can see are the flaws.

Which is why there are models and presenters.

I did get to see, meet, talk to and hug that girl from West Bridgford who is 100%, genuinely, exactly as you see her on screen.

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The corner of a massive blue clad bosom in the corner of the picture is mine and is quite as much of me as you’re going to see here.

I’m going to post again about this at the start of the week because there is so much to tell you.  The jewellery, which is why I was there, was such a tour de force.  The craftsmanship, artistry, immensely collectable rarities and sheer quality of the work on display was wonderful.  By the time I’d met people and listened to presentations I only had an hour to see everything. You’d think, with twenty years of covering miniature art shows under my belt, I’d have made a better fist of it, but I didn’t.  I ran from table to table gawping and I wanted the lot.

The item I have to find a way of owning (what can I sell – my husband?  The cats?) is in this picture.

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This is the display of Grand Designs.  Aptly named, I definitely have designs on it.

More from me tomorrow.  The show is on www.qvcuk.com for the whole of Tuesday.  You can watch QVC live online by selecting to do so on their website; if you love jewellery, miniature works of art and beautiful things that you too can own, Tuesday is unmissable.  I’ve seen it all and I’ll be glued to a screen with bells on, gosh it is going to be good.

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JaneLaverick.com – feeling the love of the art.

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QVC and that girl from West Bridgford

Wednesday 18 Apr 2012 by admin | No Comments
Filed under: Nostalgia Tags: ,

In the early 1970s I was a young teacher in Nottingham.  Into a new block of furnished flats in Rise Park, I moved myself, my clothes, my sewing machine and my little black and white television from home.  After a while I acquired a chipboard self-assembly bureau, which was every bit as awful as it sounds.  I covered it in Fablon sticky backed plastic and stood the TV on top.  On it I watched Saturday morning children’s programmes and pop shows featuring singers in Fairisle tank tops and my boyfriend watched everything else.

One of the quiz shows he watched was filmed at studios in Nottingham.  Friends and friends of friends knew some of the locally recruited talent which worked the cameras, cleaned the studios and decorated the sets.  One of the girls employed to decoratively point at the fridges, television sets and other consumer goods offered as prizes was known to come from a part of Nottingham called West Bridgford.  Every time she appeared, pointing at a fridge, my boyfriend and I chorused ‘Oh look, there’s that girl from West Bridgford.’

Fast forward thirty years to the Millennium Christmas for which my former boyfriend, now my husband, (still deeply enamoured of the television) decided we should get cable television, probably because nobody has yet thought of a TV you can wear dangling in front of your face hanging off your hat.

As the cable engineers departed my husband took control of the remote, stood right in front of the screen and, with a deep sigh of satisfaction began flicking channels.  Seated behind him in one of the chairs which has, in theory, a view of the screen, I listened to his running commentary.

‘Sport, news, current affairs, reruns, pop, oh, how strange, this is like, um, shopping on television, for, oh how weird, jewellery aaarrrgh!’ he said as I shoved him out of the way and grabbed the remote.  Transfixed I stood, the seeds of a great love affair sprouting inside me.  Quite suddenly I understood his extreme enthusiasm for television.  Oh joy, lovely bits of jewellery, on television, for sale and look at the prices!  I had a table top jewellery business in the early eighties and knew the costs of getting cut stones and precious metal findings to assemble; the prices for finished items on screen were considerably less than my cost prices would have been for the materials to make the jewellery.  I stood stunned, staring at the jewellery, while my husband stood, staring at the presenter.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘look at that lady, where have we seen her before?  I know her.’

I looked.

‘Oh!’ we chorused, ‘it’s that girl from West Bridgford!’

So it was, and still is.  Julia Roberts is her name.  Via various television jobs Julia arrived at QVC the shopping channel just as they were starting up in London and has been there pointing at lots of things, few of them fridges, ever since.

I wondered about the jewellery at QVC. I watched the channel for some months; as soon as they acquired that new-fangled and wonderful thing, a web site, I emailed them and asked a very open ended question about their attitudes to conflict diamonds.  Having dabbled in the jewellery trade I had quickly learned of the problems generated world wide by having valuable rocks in the ground beneath anyone’s feet.  Human rights abuses are widespread in an industry where the source material is invariably located somewhere remote and tricky and passes through numerous hands to get to the end user.

Nothing happened for a fortnight, then, up on QVC’s nice new website there appeared a very full and complete statement about QVC ethics.  It laid out very clearly that suppliers must use workers who were free and working in proper conditions across all areas of selling, not just the jewellery, and a great deal many more issues that I hadn’t thought anyone would be able to stipulate, let alone enforce.  Size has great benefits in this respect.  A huge business sourcing goods can insist on standards and QVC does.  If you go on to their website www.qvcuk.com and scroll down to the corporate section and the vendor information you can access the super dooper uber picky requirements which ensure that QVC jewellery is something that will make you happy to own.

Not for the first time QVC exceeded my expectations.  I began shopping and have been happily doing so ever since because I think, if I’m spending money on goods, it should benefit me and everyone else involved, from the person on  the end of the pickaxe to the packer in the QVC warehouse.

After a decade of remote transactions I have been invited to a QVC customer event.  Tomorrow I’m going to London to a Gem Day preview.  At this event  there will be a lot of customers, some QVC models, quite a bit of jewellery and a QVC presenter.  I rang to enquire if I could photograph and blog the event and asked who the presenter would be.

Yes I can and yes it is.

It’s that girl from West Bridgford!

Gem Day on QVC is on Tuesday but with a bit of luck and a following wind I’ll tell you all about it here as I finally get to grips in person with two of the loves of my life (television shopping and jewellery) and finally get to meet (possibly, depending on how many other customers there are) that girl from West Bridgford.

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JaneLaverick.com – star struck!

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Survival tacatics.

Wednesday 11 Apr 2012 by admin | 1 Comment
Filed under: The parrot has landed. Tags: ,

It’s getting to be a habit.  Through the glass door I glimpse the little cat dashing upstairs, squeaking, her jaws clamped firmly round something unsuitable.  I scream for the S&H* who is either getting up eventually, not getting up yet or programming (or all three) and he intercepts her to remove the contraband.

Yesterday it was a sausage.

And he said: You know that’s clever.  Where would you go to get a sausage at this time of day, with no money?

Whereupon we launched into a fantasy of survival tactics, a television programme that would pit the best TV survivalist against the S&H* and his cat.

The television survivalist you can easily imagine, they are a breed spread fairly well world wide, who will go and rub sticks together any where else in the world at the drop of a twelve week programme budget heftily supported by survival-ish Day Glo training shoes, or survivalish oven baked potato snacks or survivalish mobile phone apps or some such indispensible money generator.

The cat you can see here on the open plan stairs, installed to simulate carpeted tree branches for the sole benefit of cats and to provide easy access to bedrooms into which they are not allowed.

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The programme opens in some slight clearing in the dense, impenetrable, leafy and, above all things, wet rainforest.

The TV survival expert, having assessed the terrain, chooses a lightening struck tree and, perspiring, fells the lightening cloven leaning half with the machete stuck down his sock.  The cat (see above) runs up the other half of the tree and watches with interest.  The S&H unfolds a camp chair and a laptop.

The survival expert rips off a bit of trunk and begins to fashion a spade from the wood utilising his penknife.

The cat

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plays with a twig.

The survival expert listens to the ground in various locations.

The S&H* consults a guide to a programming language he hasn’t learned yet, which will encrypt the invention he’s just thought of.

The cat

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goes to sleep.

The TV survival expert, having located a nest, begins to dig up an assortment of wriggling grubs which he puts in his hat suspended from a branch by a fishing line.

The cat wakes up and runs down the tree and off into the jungle.

The TV survivalist begins to whittle a lump of tree into a cooking pot and line it with the hobnails out of his boots, beaten into a flat sheet of metal.  He takes a fistful of dryish tinder from inside his vest and, rubbing two sticks together expending more energy than he can possibly get from the grubs makes a fire.  He places the grubs in the pot on top of the fire.

The cat returns with a Big Mac bacon cheeseburger, which she shares with the S&H*.

The grubs having fried until their spindly legs are all crispy, the TV survival expert looks around for a source of water to make gravy.  In a lengthy piece to camera, he explains how, this being the rainforest, there is water everywhere.  He cuts the ends of lianas and lets the milky, poisonous-looking water run out.  He pulls up roots and cuts them to show how blackly wet they are.  He takes off his vest and wrings it out into the wooden cup.

The cat

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watches with interest.

Then runs off.

The S&H* finishes the cheeseburger and the first bit of programming, which is a cartoon and sends it to the mobile phones of the camera crew, who all play with it while the TV survivalist waits for his NATO rations water tablets to make the meagre drops of muddy water in his cup potable.

The cat returns with a bottle of Cola.

The TV survivalist crunches his grub stew thoughtfully against a background of retching noises by the camera crew.

The S&H* produces a packet of mints from his pocket and shares them round.  The TV survivalist declines and sucks a wasp instead.

The cat runs off, returning with sultana cake and hot cross buns for everyone, meanwhile, the camera crew having used their mobiles to summon a local catering van, they all have cups of tea and ice creams, and, finished for the day, decamp to the nearest five star hotel where the S&H* finally has a shower and gets dressed.

The survivalist slings his hammock between two trees in the clearing and gets into it just as the downpour gets started.

The cat crawls under a chair in the nice warm hotel

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and goes to sleep.

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* Son and Heir to all my debts.

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JaneLaverick.com – paws for thought.

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Furballs.

Monday 9 Apr 2012 by admin | 1 Comment
Filed under: The parrot has landed. Tags:

Two cats, instant madness, no waiting.

The little one did something awful, I forget what, and attempted to make up for it by bringing me half a hot cross bun.  I’m still holding out for the wrapped chocolate bar.  Or an Easter egg perhaps, which would be preferable to the turkey bone I got this morning.

I went next door to deliver the children’s eggs and got an interesting neighbour’s eye view of the joys of having two cats next door.

For some years we have looked after Pascha, the neighbour’s budgie while they went on holiday.  Yes I know a budgie is an Australian but the neighbours are Russian, hence the name.  When I’m looking after him I call him Pascha cobber, which probably only confuses him. 

As soon as the cats moved in I warned the neighbours, who like to take Pascha into the garden and leave the door of the cage open.  Pascha cannot fly, he had cancer in a wing and had to have the flight feathers cut off.  He likes to climb out on top of his cage and talk to anything passing overhead, including sparrow hawks and aircraft.  Since the coming of the cats he’s been out of doors safely shut inside his cage but my neighbour popped inside for just a moment and returned to find the cage on its side with both cats sitting on top.

Pascha was happy, he thought they wanted to play.  Rustle (the big son) would have brought him back intact to make friends with, as he did with the mouse but naughty miss Cleo would have invited him to dinner in a flash.

Thank goodness the neighbours kept the cage shut!

They told me the cats have also been sitting on their drive nerving themselves up to cross the busy road and did so, under the wheels of all the cars.

All of which was interesting news to our local cat herder when he got back from seeing his off/on girlfriend.

Does this mean he will spring out of bed early in the AM to look after the little furry troublemakers and keep them from harm?  As it is eleven in the morning and I’m the only one up and have just had to wrestle the cat for another thin swallow-and-choke turkey bone,  brought in a minute ago, apparently not.

My husband has just suggested a customs post by the cat door, to apprehend and remove contraband,  manned by trained dogs or dogged by untrained men, no doubt.

I think in a family the ideal balance is one, small, well behaved animal to lots of humans, that is if you have to have an animal as a pet at all.  Personally I prefer pot plants; you don’t have to have a funeral every time they die, which they do quietly on a windowsill, out of the way.

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JaneLaverick.com – furbrained.

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Cats the mew sickle.

Sunday 1 Apr 2012 by admin | No Comments
Filed under: The parrot has landed. Tags:

Well it was like this.  So far the man of the house (the older, irritable one who only liked our own nineteen and a half year old cat because we’d had her a long time and got used to her) has been very forbearing of the S&H’s two (count them, two.  One there and another one…..where did that cat go?  What is it up to?) cats.

I knew this state of affairs would last right up to the first furball.

I was right.  It lasted up to the moment he stood, barefooted in a pile of cat sick in the human’s bathroom, very early in the AM.

The S&H had gone to stay at his ex girlfriend’s for a big christening party of some friends.  So he never got the chance to ‘look after everything’ (a quote from memory – he moved in 4 weeks ago.)

The extreme joy had begun at ten at night when I was putting my curlers in in the said bathroom and heard the most Godforsaken yowls coming from the smaller cat.  Racial memory in the lazy monkey stirred and I chased her as she backed along the upstairs hall with the newspaper, thus enabling her to be sick on the paper, on the rug and all along the landing.  Gallons of sick, mainly twigs.

So I mopped that all up and sloshed disinfectant around and had  gone to bed and was well into my Kindle when the older, tireder, overserveder man of the house shouted upstairs that the cat was being sick on the lounge carpet.  So, having previously taken my lenses out, I found my glasses and went down in my pyjamas to sort out the latest sick.  Arriving with a cloth and rubber gloves but no disinfectant, I sent the older, tired one up for the disinfectant, which was in the bathroom, giving him the chance to leave the bathroom door open.  Thus the cat, having finished being sick downstairs, was able to go upstairs and be sick in the bathroom, so that the older etc could get changed, go in there and stand in the sick.

But she did the entire length of the downstairs hall rug overnight so I could find it in the morning.

The older etc was very ratty all day, so at tea time she brought him in  half a pie.  You’d think he’d be grateful but he just put it in the bin.

Apricot or pumpkin, as you ask, shortcrust pastry.

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JaneLaversick.com – cats!

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