Middlefocus

  "Make sure," advised the museum art curator, "to always buy the catalogue of important art exhibitions you attend." She explained that a great deal of time and effort would have gone into bringing the various items together from different collections or galleries around the world. It would be fairly certain that those pictures would never again be together in the same exhibition. Since that talk about French art given to our Belfast French Cercle around 15 years ago I've heeded her advice as often as interest and my wallet would allow. Pity I wasn't aware of her good counsel for one exhibition I attended when I had just turned 20 and when such advice was beyond my maturity. Still, it was an exhibition that left an indelible mark and an enduring appreciation. Surrealist exhibition It was 1971 in Bordeaux. I had been working there as a moniteur / supervisor in a summer camp just outside the city. Having been given a free day away from the duties of the camp ...

  I always like to begin writing in a fresh notebook and diaries are special in that regard as a new year, whether calendar or academic, offers the promise of starting again. Gathering up my store of diaries, I look back and see that I first started using the Collins Essential One day type (pictured above) in 2021. That diary format tied in nicely with a new year’s resolution to write around 300 words a day. I guess that I have nurtured and stuck to that habit as lots of words have been written over the years. I had used Moleskin notebooks for a long time before that mainly to capture ideas and snippets of information. The Moleskins also doubled up with journal entries and travel logs. The issue I always had was how to track and call up the information my notebooks contained. I’ve made various attempts to index the contents with limited success. As well as my diary, I still use a notebook to record ideas and snippets but treat it as a kind of commonplace book. My latest one has a f...