Eh?

Weird. Really really weird. You know how I've been building up for the past 7 weeks to this earth-shatteringly important presentation which was supposed to happen last Thursday? Well, it didn't happen. Things all went, in the words of our MD: 'a bit Roald Dahl'. Took me a while to work out the 'Tales of the Unexpected' link but there you go, pay attention, 007.

What went on, basically, is that whilst we've been beavering away working on a spanky retail solution for a media entity, said media entity was considering alternative options itself. And as happens has decided to go down a completely different route from the one we were working on. This isn't entirely a bad thing, as they're still keen to work with us on whatever it turns out to be, but it's still mildly galling to have worked on something for ages and have it all turn to custard in the final couple of days.

So, the poor Project Manager will be on this for a week longer than she expected, whilst I go on to start work on a really-quite-exciting project for a bunch of chaps in Ireland. Being sanguine about it for a minute I suppose it was a good first project - plenty of experience gained but as nothing was actually produced, nothing to be judged by in months to come. And we did get paid for it, so it'll all count at bonus time.

The Kiwi and I have been dead cultured this weekend. Friday evening we went to the much talked about Anthony Gormley exhibition at the Hayward, 'Blind Light'. Now I've always been a bit of a Gormley fan, ever since I first saw 1991's 'Field'. I'm not sure what it is about his stuff that attracts me - his writings on his work always leave me cold, but the work itself really gets me in quite an alarming way.

'Blind Light' is no exception. The titular piece is quite astounding (the glass box filled with a thick white fog, into which you walk), a genuinely unique and extremely disorientating experience. Visibility is about 18 inches, so you can see about to your waist once you're right in there. It's strangely calming and I really quite enjoyed it. I'm not sure what to draw from it though, the novelty factor sort of overwhelms any deeper reading, which is a criticism I sometimes do have about showy installation work.

The other bits of the show were also typically brilliant, although overshadowed by the party piece. I was absolutely transfixed by 'Event Horizon', which consisted of a number of casts of Gormley's body placed on top of buildings within a 1.5km square from the gallery. Once you're outside on one of the gallery's sculpture terraces, you begin noticing the figures, all of which are turned to face the terrace that you're on (there are a few of them). There's this really eerie sense of being watched, of a silent army of witnesses impassively staring at you.

There's also something incredibly melancholy about these chaps all lonely and exposed on the tops of buildings - in a way the sympathy this stirs up cancels out the unease they generate, leaving an odd but delicious confusion and mixed sentiment. It's also great to be able to see this piece from all around that part of London - every now and then you'll notice one brooding down at you from a rooftop and some of the initial wonder and excitement you experienced on the first view will briefly come creeping back.

There must be something in the air at the moment. Yesterday afternoon whilst drinking a bit more rum than was decent (Havana Club 7yo though, so it's sort of allowed) in a cuban bar off Kensington High Street I got transfixed by a snippet of Shelley in an article in the Guardian and properly went off on one to the Kiwi who presumably thought I'd finally gone entirely mad.

And that's the lot of late - we spent most of today in Kew Gardens at a gentle family event laid on by work, which was lovely and sunny, now I'm blogging from the kitchen (I'm so cutting edge) whilst roasting a chicken and trying to remember how to make cauliflower cheese. On the whole, stuff is good.