Ahoy little donkey

Yes, I dragged several other human beings to an exhibition just because the promotional poster had a donkey in a boat on it.

Met up with group of old (becoming truer in every sense of the word) friends from uni for breakfast and to go to an exhibition. I can't believe we manage to meet up on a Sunday morning and to do anything vaguely cultural - though we did go for a drink a lunchtime, so not all past behaviour is lost.

I don't think I'll get to choose the 'thing we do' next time we meet up - we can't do anything that is vaguely pretentious as we relapse all too easily into 18 year olds even though we are suddenly somehow almost double that age*. Parts were good (on at the Hayward Gallery on the Southbank), called 'Universal Experience' - about tourism and the impact of humans visiting/ recording places we visit.

Highlight (apart from said poster with water-bourne donkey) was a film called 'Cannibal Tours', a documentary about a group of Westerners on a trip to Papua New Guinea to visit a tribe that used to practice cannibalism (no, no-one got eaten - which what I was hoping for). It included cringing scenes of Americans taking photos of the tribe, shouting at them to 'look this way', 'smile', 'stand over there' etc while the subjects looked really out of sorts. The documentary makers has an interview with a tribal elder who couldn't quite understand why all the photos were needed (saying that: he didn't comment on the camera). He was genuinely confused by this obsession of people to take photos of him and his community (while one tribe member was being interviwed by the film makers there were Americans and Europeans behind him taking photos and commenting, in 'Creature Comfort' style).

Mig - You'd enjoy this. Some great photos and some thought-provoking stuff (as long as you're not with a bunch of wanabee 18 year olds). On until 6 Dec.

Then I met T in the afternoon before going to meet Popilita - Argentina's next supermodel - for a cup of tea. Popilta introduced me to a strange yet fascinating Canadian-Argentian bloke who has been in London for two days and I *hope* I get to meet him again (she says plotting how she will make this happen)... sounds like a better plan than speed dating.


* Good grief. Maths really can be quite alarming.