Damien Hirst - Interactive

... a bit ghoulish, and genuinely insane. A few words exchanged this afternoon in the Serpentine Gallery.

"Is this Damien Hirst in the sleeping bag, or a homeless person?"
"I can't believe he took that picture, developed it and thought "IT IS SO COOL, I'M GONNA MAKE IT BIGGER AND SELL IT". And someone bought it."
"Sorry, you're not allowed to take pictures"
"In fact, a lot of provocation, even if that's not your first impression."
"Why is there a pair of shoes here? Do you think they belong to someone or they're part of the exhibition? Maybe to the homeless guy in the first room."
"Excuse me, you can't take pictures here"
"Are you still reading? I stopped line 4."
"Oh, a zebra."
"I like that one very much. Very much. Verrrrry verrrrry much."
"I wouldn't put that in my living room."
"I'm really sorry, but taking pictures is forbidden"
"Excuse me, what's his name?"
"Aaaaaahhhhh, it's giving me a headache."
"Is this real blood you think?"
"I did it, I took a picture"
"Ok, well, I guess we're done. They will let us take a picture from outside won't they?"

I haven't figured out if I liked it or not. Do I need to write that I'm a bit ashamed of admiting it?

Night out with a trader

I made all the possible mistakes since I've started doing TV: in one week I shot with the night vision option on, forgot my tripod, my mic, didn't set up the sound properly, filmed a blured life and left my tape at home too many times. Yesterday I chose to repeat all those mistakes at the same time. No need to say that my desperate attempt to impress him failed a hundred percent. No need to say that when he setted up my camera for me, I was a little annoyed. Need to say that if I want to show my bosses that I'm made for this job, I've got a lot of bread on the board (French talk). Yes, I am aware. Yesterday night, I was out for an interview.

His flat is cold in substance, but warm inside. The man of the situation is a trader working in Canary Wharf. He lives in a posh area of London that he calls the West End, but that is not the West End - bless him. He has a huge plasma TV screen hanging on an empty wall, the last season of 24 ready to be watched and the flattest mobile phone I've ever seen. He drives probably the only Smart available in London and he told me he got hired because he made it clear in his interview: "I want to make money". That sentence wouldn't have lead him far in France I guess, as he says "France is a communist country". Fair enough. He described his experience in London as Biased by the financial world he lives in. This morning, he woke up at 5.45, left the house at 6.30. He won't be back until 7.30 tonight. I (so naively) asked him if such a schedule was justified, he looked at his watch while swallowing his coffee: "well, I'll be at my office at 7, that's 8 in Paris, 3pm in Tokyo: just on time". I looked at him with the redest eyes I'd never had: ... how can he be so awake?

That's the life he likes to have. He could look more arrogant than that, but he's too clever. He speaks neatly and is well educated. About journalism he said: "The problem today is about filtering the news. In my job we receive far too much information. Take Bloomberg: you can't even read the news flux, it's going too fast... I am completely against that whole blog thing: it doesn't provide the right information at the right time; it rarely filters. So many people feel the need to fill their blogs just because they have one, sometimes they don't care about the quality of the content". In my interview, I couldn't help looking at him with my very human eyes. I didn't dare to ask him "Do you feel lonely sometimes?".

He was just like that guy, you know the one we all have on our mind when we think of the City. The satisfied one, the engineer who works in high finance and knows the world mecanisms. Oh well, I believe this is just one certain point of view.

My day has barely begun. I watched him and wrote about him. Right now, he must be on the phone with the head of that South African bank he told me about, and probably forgot that I existed by now. But that's alright...

We are just journalists...

One thing: you want to be a journalist? Then be self-confident. Our flag. I agree to be self-confident, but the truth is, since I've stepped into the Journalism @ Westminster's world, I've become very confused :s

Last week, with a few classmates, I attended an 'unclassified'-kind-of-event at the Frontline club. It was extensively commented on journalism students' blogs [see description here: http://www.adamwestbrook.co.uk/]. The second half of the night was a debate on journalism and technologies - which I'm definitely not trying to escape from, don't get me wrong. I have often criticised the inhumanity of modern journalism: blogs, hits, networks, internet, hyperlinks, outernet... They all seem to obey one single robotic trend, a sort of mediatic globalisation that I modestly dislike. I don't want to ignore the tools that we are given today, and that are supposed to make our journos' lives much easier - in David's words. To proove my half good/half bad faith, I do have an account on YouTube, and in the last 10 days I've been googling names of every single person I met since I was born. But I would like to make sure that we have the choice to use those tools and above all the choice to use them our own silly way. When I look at the blogs made by my fellow journalists, I feel disappointed for finding the same kind of writings, ideas, thoughts and cleverness. A lot of them want to show that they're playing the new media rules Get Yourselves a blog or you won't get it right but what if all this was only superficial?

Today David said: "You need to get a blog. The Guardian won't even look at you if you don't. Not mentioning the others... If you want to make your documentary, you have to start showing your footages and your work on a blog. Then people get to know you. They see you do a good work and they want to meet you". Exactly, do you get my point now? We are now taught to show ourselves, but they don't insist on how to produce a good piece of work. Originality in the way you present and what about the story? I don't hear enough people talking about their stories, I don't hear their whimsies, just that sentence endlessly repeated "I've just read your blog, I think it's fantastic". Can we be more creative now?

I like David very much. I think he was asking himself questions and found the answers he was looking for. I would like to tell him "Please David, let me in the dark for now. Maybe I'll call you later".

Jeff

Denmark Street est ma rue préférée de Londres. Elle part du Foyles à Tottenham Court Road, une boutique de livres et de disque du style du Gibert français où je vais une fois par semaine donner mon cours de français. Un autre de mes endroits favoris.

Dans Denmark Street, il n'y a que des magasins de musique. Beaucoup de manches et de cordes, et puis il y a Rose Morris, le magasin de Jeff, touché de blanc et noir. Je l'ai rencontré l'année dernière: un pianiste polonais m'avait envoyée du côté de chez lui. Un an plus tard, j'y suis retournée, d'abord avec un autre musicien, donc très tendue, mais surtout gênée de me laisser aller sur les touches de tous ces claviers. J'avais rapidement pianoté Yann Thiersen et Jeff avait dit "Amelie?". Aujourd'hui, j'y suis allée seule de nouveau, pour le harceler de questions naives. A un moment il m'a dit: "Amelie"? J'aime aller dans un magasin qui n'est pas un magasin. Rentrer pour parler de passions et non de prix. D'octaves et de pédales, de haut-parleurs et de silences. J'aime les cheveux frisés et grisonnants de Jeff qui travaille à Rose Morris depuis 15 ans et dont j'imagine la fabuleuse histoire sans n'en connaître le quart. J'aime ce type, pendant que mon père est à Paris et ne me tape plus sur les doigts en me donnant des cours de solfège.

J'ai acheté un piano aujourd'hui... Bonheur de l'imaginer ici dans quelques 48 heures. Tristesse en revanche de ne plus avoir l'excuse commerciale d'aller voir Jeff. Je reviendrai pour qu'il me parle avec les mains en me dessinant des carrés dans l'air, croyant que je ne comprends pas le mot "book".

Jonathan Littell - part 2

Another interview published in Le Monde today - thank you for talking to us Jon - where he criticises the lack of professionalism of French journalists who don't check the information they report. [http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3260,36-835008@51-835100,0.html]

Therefore, I have to apologise for maybe naively repeating in my previous post what others misundertsood! I am not sure anymore that Jonathan actually exists. Too many secrets I say...

This interview is one of the headlines of the newspaper today. And he's just the writer...

The French corner - Jonathan Littell

He won both the Prix Goncourt and the Prix de l'Académie Française, the two most important litterary prizes in France. He did not come to get them and stayed playing with his children in his house in Barcelona. He does not like the media, that is probably why the media like him. He wrote in French although he's american. For Les Bienveillantes, he meticulously investigated the mecanisms of the concentration camps, and the extermination of jewish and disabled people. He managed to write a novel and not a report. The French like him because he seems to despise them.

You can (finally!) listen to him on http://www.bloghandicap.fr/

"The Germans came up with a lot of ideas to get rid of the jews. Many of those ideas were not executable. Murder appeared to be the only solution"

Playing international poker

So let's get together and play poker. Poker, just a game? Have you ever imagined that it could just be another of those silly western ideas? I never thought about that in fact... My father taught me how to play when I was 8 because he was tired of doing some repetitively boring babysittings. Once my mother came back from her night class, and saw my depressed genitor and my unlucky self getting fleeced by my sister Ariane (4 year old at the time). We were just playing matches anyway...

So for some poker is just a funny, exciting, addictive game, for others it is complex, useless, boring, and... completely illogical. For me, it is just about getting to know your friends better...

Yesterday there was 1 half American/half Palestinian, 1 Vietnamese, 2 Indians, 1 South African, 1 Bahrain(ERR)ese(?) and 2 French players. Most of them were complete beginners, not always getting the point of the game. Everyone complained of the Vietnamese who was constantly raising too high and leading the rest of the world to bankrupcy. However, the American said that it was the rule of poker, to what my French self replied that it was just an expression of the expansion of capitalism across the world. My fellow citizen tried to beg money to the Vietnamese. She eventually stole some admitting at this point of the game she had no pride. There was a desperate South African attempt to get a straight... She was elected the queen of the night when she finally got one. And finally, the girl from Bahrain won her first and last turn with a pair of nine: she was so happy I thought her smile was gonna make the table blow.