Breaking the Rules

The Futurist Banquet

Last night we had the Futurist Banquet. Jon in Events was the impresario, inviting anarchy but controlling it, and it's another brilliant event that he has produced for the exhibition programme. I showed the guests around the exhibition and then started an interview for the BBC Radio 4 Food programme that continued through the meal. The menu, co-ordinated by Giorgio Locatelli, consisted of aerovivanda "tattile con rumori ed odori", an olive, kumquat and fennel to be eaten by one hand whilst the other hand strokes the strands of velvet, silk and sandpaper on the back of the menu. It's accompanied by the sound of an airplane engine and the spray of scent. I was expecting a gimmick but I curiously started to perceive the food differently. For the next course we have to move downstairs - I thought this might not work, but it does spectacularly - we talk again, enjoy the deep fried rice oranges, but the bourgeois static meal is disrupted. Next up is the Alaskan salmon "in the rays of the Sun" and then the dismantled sculpted meat structure. The sweet is the elasticake a prune in red zabaglione within puff pastry with raw liquorice sticks protruding like antlers. The courses are surprisingly edible, though Giorgio has made a conservative selection. The wines provided by Gianfranco Molinari's Gustar Divino are fantastic - I've never had such a wonderful Barolo, almost like a superior oloroso. The waiters and waitresses are dressed in pyjamas. Are we on the edge of a Pasolini's 'Sade'?
Irene Serra's jazz band are brilliant.
It's a fantastic evening.

Distillation

Get in early to work, overcoming a profound reluctance to get out of bed: my mental clock is a day out and I pretend that it is Saturday. My desk is a pile of papers, contrary to my usual clear desk policy. The exhibition and multiple projects have sabotaged that. Check that the Writers and Scholars Centre is set up for the Toril Moi seminar. It's good to meet her and she talks about the change (deliberate) in Ibsen's handwriting (and beard) when he achieved fame. She asks if we are still collecting Scandinavian materials and I re-assure her that we are. I forget to ask her to give a plug for the exhibition.

I have a quick look at the exhibition. On the comments wall there is a remark that it could have been more distilled. Not sure I fully understand this. The show is a huge simplification and its thesis is telegraphically abridged. The avant garde on the ground bursts through the constraints we have tried to place on it.

Looking at the Nazi book burnings again, I suddenly make the connection that must be obvious to everyone but me. Whilst Marinetti and the futurists attacked the institution of libraries, that was always a metaphor and their dependence on the print format made such burnings inconceivable: as in case of the manifesto, the Nazis perverted this position and really burnt the books.

Then it's a one-to-one with Peter, my Head of Maps - he's just given three papers in Chicago. He also advised on our maps of Europe in the exhibition 'chronology'. We discuss the handling of some vacancies and some items up for auction. Then it's a Project Board for the Mellon Preservation Project: one of the streams is looking at the historical internal (as opposed to just climactic) environmental conditions in which books were kept over time and it is proving difficult to track these conditions over time. It would be good if we could at least establish a baseline for the future, but is this perhaps another project.

Next is a Property Strategy meeting - a videoconference: I inject security into the principles, and add time/availability as a variable to the fixed space cake. Straight on to a discussion of the Arts & Humanities survey. It's very supportive of what we do, and the variation from what we have proposed as a forward strategy is not great - the greatest deviation perhaps is the lack of interest in multi-disciplinarity and instruction in research methodology.

Lots of emails to answer: tours for the exhibition, meetings to arrange on newspapers and US patents. Organise some files to be sent from the corporate archive at Boston Spa. Check that our contribution to the wiki Romani bibliography, hosted by the National Library of Serbia, can be automatically updated through The European Library. It's time to go home. As I get to the Tube I look down at the congested entrance to the Piccadilly Line. It's seething with a mass of bodies, so I turn back and get on the Hammersmith and City Line. Slow and rattlely as it is, at least it's above ground. I decide to make a mushroom risotto and polish off the remnants of a bottle of rioja.

A Rest

100 lengths in the Chelsea pool. It's busy both in the pool and the changing rooms. Shop in Waitrose on the way home - remember to get some Marsala for my zupa inglese, a sort of trifle that the Madrigals Group kill for. So beware. I go to see Simon Morley's exhibition 'The English Series' at Art First in Cork Street - his paintings are an interrogation of the book format. Decide to do more galleries - several years ago I did 20 galleries in two hours but that took some planning. Next I see Ben Nicholson's prints at Alan Cristea and then Milton Avery at Waddingtons - Michele, an ex-student at Chelsea but still a practising painter with great talent, is working there this Saturday. The show is interesting and covers work from the 1920s onwards - this must be the biggest show of his work ever in Europe. The show's on to November 24th - well worth seeing. It's a strange reversal - Nicholson, known for his paintings, has a print show and Avery, whom I knew primarily for his monotypes, has a painting show.

Return home and sweep up the fallen leaves in my car parking place. Squeaky the cat comes to hinder. Decide to cook ratatouille, couscous and lamb kebabs for dinner - lamb kebabs and bacon sandwiches are the obstacles to my ever becoming a vegetarian. I have a PhD draft to read so I need fortification.

Breaking the Rules now seems a very long way away, but there are events and talks planned for the next four months. I wonder how many people came to see it today?

Zero -8

Bump into Alan on my way in and give him a set of corrected labels - the more times we go through these the better. John rings to discuss the curatorial support for the Britishnness/Citizenship exhibition. I plough through more emails - more suggestions for invites to the private view. I check with Lorna whether the meeting room for the National Co-ordinatinng Committee for Art & Design is still booked and request visitors' passes for Wednesday. I confirm with Jane that I can meet her at the Whitechapel opening tomorrow and sign the Book Works accounts. The show is Langlands & Bell.They were very helpful when I did my 'Artists' Multiples' book and we have kept in touch. I attempt to fill in my Performance Management Mid-year Form for my meeting on Friday, and request a better Magna Carta slide for the presentation I'm preparing for the Director. Sort out the walkthroughs and press views on the 7th and 8th.

My first meeting is the Additional Storage Programme Moves Board - this is the biggest move for the British Library since we moved into St Pancras. We discuss the moves methodology and the risk register. It's a video-conference and I am starting to like the format - you can see more behaviour than in a normal physical meeting.

Back to the sign-off of the last panels. Little errors like Munch for Munich, Franz for Frans...Then another meeting - a brainstorm on collection storage strategy, with post-its left, right and centre. Geraldine rings to ask me down to Exhibitions to discuss a problem with the End of the Avant Garde section. British Library exhibitions have tended to fade out rather than end, and I'm determined we have closure. The problem is that we need to accommodate a computer screen, two collection items and a text panel in a small space. I can cut the text and we solve the problem.

It's 5.30 and I decide to go home. The Tube is very slow tonight. I get home and cook one of my standbys - chilli, garlic, pepper, pasta and olive oil, accompanied by a glass of red wine. Then a salad and a pear. Next door's kitten pours through the backdoor when I unlock it. I feel I could sleep for ten years.