pumpkinstrokemarrow

Yesterday was the day for stained glass, having recently acquired a book all about Pugin who was big into stained glass for the second part of his rather short life. He has interesting views about how the stained glass should be worked into the detail of the window, rather than stuck onto it like wallpaper. Also interesting to read about the messy details of the construction of stained glass windows, uneasily placed between art and craft; with these windows being rather big and complicated things which it is not really practical for one person, artist even, to execute from scratch. You really have to rely on the craftsmen for most of it. So have taken to looking the stuff up when opportunity offers and last week to Ottery St Mary where there was lots, some by Pugin, including an east window which I did not like at all. Colours all washed out and wrong.

So yesterday to Osnaburgh Street where the story was that there was a fine east window to be seen at St Mary Magdalene, Munster Square and some other window in Holy Trinity of Onsaburgh Street by a cast out Puginic pupil. St Mary Magdalene turned out to be some odd species of Anglo-Catholic church, nominally C of E but with papist trimmings. But not papist enough to be open (Catholic churches in England (but not in rural France) seem to take being open more seriously than C of E ones). A lady doing something in the cafe in the crypt merely said that the church was closed and that if we cared to come to a service on Sunday we would be able to get in. No concessions to tourists at all. Then a gent living in some sort of an annex to the east end said that he had no access to east windows and perhaps we should try the crypt. Door shut. So that was a bit of a dead loss and so onto the holy trinity. This church, a classical affair built after the great fire but before the age of gothic revival, appeared to have been unfrocked and was now a venue for exhibitions. Yesterday there was some exhibition under construction with a young chap got up a bit like an undertaker's mute barring entrance. To be fair I think he wavered - maybe older people clutching bus passes wanting to see windows are not going to chuck bricks through them - but his instructions got the better on him. Strictly no entry. Sad that such people have to take their instructions so literally. So stained glass windows a complete wash out.

So on down to a street near Carnaby Street to Mother Mash (http://www.mothermash.co.uk/) where one gets fancily presented sausage and mash. Not bad at all and quite reasonably priced, although a bit let down by what was described as classic gravy. But I do sympathise. Good gravy is a tricky quantity. A bonus was that it solved the backbone mystery of the day before. The boning of the loin of pork must have been down to a restaurant wanting medallions of pork to perch on top of these little mountains of reinforced mashed potato: using an entire chop would not look quite right. Might even be a tad unstable. I shall seek confirmation of this diagnosis on my next visit.

And so home to read about an learned journal called craft studies or some such. So that awkward gap between art and craft will probably be getting the learned attention it deserves. Not to mention post-structural assaults on quilting as practised by Mothers' Union in Stoneleigh. The mag. at http://www.bergpublishers.com/BergJournals/TheJournalofModernCraft/tabid/3254/Default.aspx is not quite right but it might be the right sort of idea. Lots of other stuff trawled up by Mr G. if one persists.