Miami Vice & London Virtue?

So today was to be the big day to finally go to this damn Sam Shepard play. Bought my ticket everything. Then it gets cancelled, due to power cuts in the city. There's a curse on this play and me. Will have to go next week.
Where I bought the ticket was where yesterday I found those handprints. Turns out I'm a blind idiot because there were heaps of them not just those 3. Meryl Streep, Jim Carrey, Jeremy Irons, Sigourney Weaver, etc etc. This is the place where they hold the premieres of films.


Today they were setting up for the european premiere of Michael Mann's Miami Vice, the big screen version of the iconic 80's tv show. I thought about staying on once the play was canned to try and catch a glimpse of the stars, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell but there were so many people already and I'm not that desperate to see celebrities. Besides, yesterday I saw an ex-Shortland Street star so I'm not complaining. He was on it before I used to watch it, played the brother of Dr Chris Warner, I think he was called Guy in the show? First person to tell me his real name wins something.


So instead I had another coffee at Flat White, and did a little walking, which unwittingly led me to Carnaby Street, which was a pretty neat little shopping and bar street. I liked it.








I also went to the National Portrait Gallery. I find portraiture very interesting. and perhaps one of my favourite subjects in art. They had an exhibition of Angus McBean's photographic portraits there, and this was great to see, mainly comparatively as just before I left Chch I saw Cecil Beaton's portraits and these two were exact contemporaries. McBean's pictures looked older, the poses, the clothes, the people. Strange. He used double exposure a lot, so technically they were very clever and they were interesting in terms of the influence of surrealism on his work. I have never seen this sort of work done in photography before. On the whole though I think I preferred Cecil Beaton. There was a portrait of McBean in Chch in Beaton's work and there was a portrait of Beaton today in McBeans collection. Circle of life.
They also had the entries to the BP Portrait competition on display. These were awesome. I think most people know I like to boast about having been a portrait model, and these classes I went to taught me a lot about the technical and aesthetic aspects of portraiture that make it so unusually appealing. I liked some and hated others. Worth checking out though. Very cool. I wish that one of the paintings of me was in there, I would've been stoking.













Was 37degs C today! Cooking! We have been watching Big Brother UK it's funny they have a guy on it who has Tourettes.

Below: I've seen Ashton Place, Ashton Grove and Ashton Funeral Services, but haven't taken photos of any. Then today, when I saw this, I realised I've been fooling myself - as has been declared (at the Bai Yok I believe) that "His name is ART!"