From one mind to another

I got a whiff of a very familiar scent in the lift coming up here just now. It was exactly the same smell as there used to be in the ante-room to our Biology lab at middle school, a hint of floor polish with overtones of formaldehyde. I am not sure that children are allowed to have pickled biological specimens any more but our school, being in a rural area where many of the children would go into some form of agricultural work, was full of such things. When I left the school, there were also too bottles of ginger beer fermenting in that small room. I only remembered them half way through the summer holidays. I hope they didn't explode. We also had a rinky-dinky little circular saw with a diamond edge which could cut stones in half but on which you could place a finger without it being damaged. If only the children were allowed to spend all their time in that room. I would never have gone anywhere else. All those specimens and science books. The whole school has been demolished now, except for a small section of it which I think is the local village hall.

I feel a bit empty afetr talking about a building which no longer exists. Every place I have lived is still intact, but that school is the one building in which I spent any length of time which has gone. I'd never thought about that before. I can see why Rachel Whiteread likes to make casts of empty rooms. I apologise for the pretentious writing on that last link but it does mention the evocation of memory and association which is what I am trying to get at here. She has recently done a cast of the interior of room 101 at the BBC which reminds me, I have just ordered Orwell: The Life (on the back of three Mary Poppins books for my daughter - Mil Millington would be proud of me). Talk to me in a week after we have finished all the books.

Sountrack (late I know) - The Mix - Kraftwerk

No comment about this is necessary, I think you'll agree.

There is a wonderfully threatening sky here. There is a vogue in adverts at the moment to have the 'before' situation lit like a thunderstorm with the 'after' - the result of using the advertised product, having a warm orange glow as if the product changes your house completely, because of course an air freshener can do that can't it. My only problem is that I like the light of a thunderstorm far better than the Ikea catalogue look. I remember a very big thunderstorm when I was still in Nottingham which must have made me about four because we moved to Malvern when I was five. The light was wonderful.