Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
I was confused about this long narrow cafe on K-road. Previously the apocalyptic looking Brazil cafe, I will always remember it as the Norman Ng fruit shop, however it was once also an entrance to the Mercury Theatre on Mercury Lane. Added to the older theatre in the 20's to provide access from K-rd, in a neo-greek art deco style! It is certainly striking with uplit vaulted ceilings coated with what looks like a distressed gold foil and a large lead-light window in the ceiling at one end. The lighting and guilded colouring I found impossible to capture. Go here for more history.
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