Nocte Lucis

On Tuesdays Magritude Feather ‘does’ for Emelda Bush.  She arrives early and scrubs the floor, hoovers the carpet and (due to Emelda’s particular touchiness) disinfects the door handles. Today however she has a special task – to prepare the vegetables for the evening gathering of the Sorority (Sisters of the Willow Chair). The Sisterhood (as far as can be revealed publicly) amongst other things promotes the increased consumption of Vegetable and Black Pudding Medley. This is a popular forum, and offers an intense cultural programme to which the occasional gentleman may be invited to speak. Tonight Ruham Alif (the handsome electrician, locally known as 'the ox') is addressing the ladies on Tychonoff's theorem (his particular interest). Emelda’s spacious lounge is packed.

170,000 Voynich glyphs

Could anyone other than Stella Sopling have managed to create a wild garden of such delicate beauty. The committee of the Seven Dials Open Gardens (SDOG) is gathering suitable candidates for their May extravaganza. Trailing amongst their examining group is Yevgeny Huxtable who is in a curmudgeonly mood. He is worrying about a scrap from an old vellum in his collection that was inscribed with writing similar to that of the Voynich Manuscript (a constant source of curiosity for him since first being allowed to examine it in 1989). He suspects that it may even be one of the missing pages of the old codex. But he filed it away last December and hasn’t been able to find it since.

Ah taci, ingiusto core

Leporello Swinson finally arrives in Seven Dials. He had originally been intending to stay with Grapella and Prigentia, but it appears that since the holiday in Gundelfingen some frostiness has developed between him and the Colswains. Since Samuel Quinine has a room to let, Cortally Bakewell suggests that he let it to Swinson.

Leppo moves in, and enthuses around the area like an eager puppy. Unfortunately it is not long before he bumps into Grapella. Ignoring her cool indifference he explains that he is currently transcribing Zemelo’s Axiom of Choice into Urdu in order to set it to a complex arrangement of Hyoax Spatial Music. She dismisses this as a precocious chat-up line (and who can say she is wrong?)

Quack! Quack!

Everything is done, and so Sevalanz Grimble decides to paint red her statuette of Virgina Woolf. Not a natural decorator, she gets paint everywhere, so she wanders down to incarnadine the multitudinous sea, which has been bothering her with its polluted azure bloom. She looks at the reflected shimmer of the sun. Fiery gems, she wonders, or a false creation. Words! Words! Words! (Though as Woolf said they are not words until they are part of a sentence, or was it Eliza Doolittle who made that observation?)  Then she (Ms Grimble that is, not Ms Doolittle or Ms Dalloway) goes off to place the flowers in the vase that she bought today, before resting her head for just five minutes. 

In 1915 Georges Braque suffered temporary blindness from a war wound

Whilst Hamentash Yumble is basking in Prigentia’s admiration, he does not return her adoration. However people are talking, and he considers it wise to distance himself a little, so he has a heart-to-heart talk with the young Kimrock and offers him words of advice based on his dubious wide experience. 

He then drives to his new yacht which  he has recently bought with the proceeds from the sale of a set of his chiaroscuro drip-fired miniatures. He leaves the marina to sail to Dieppe where (at the  Château-musée) he is exhibiting a series of studies in a new style which fuses the work of Georges Braque and Jackson Pollock.  

Meanwhile the young Kimrock has the sense to disregard Yumble’s pop-psychology.

Style beyond Chanctonbury

‘Don’t believe everything you hear at Moudi’s!’ That is the advice that Prigentia gives to the young Kimrock when the love-torn Toy Sprout confronts her about her relationship with the long, thin, bony but definitely talented Hamentash Yumble. Apparently Malvolio Claxendell spotted them walking across the Downs beyond Chanctonbury Ring, and mentioned this to Sister Veracitude, who told Kugarita Zinfandel when they were at the studio.  Kugarita shared the information with Tabitha who let Hedre know as they were imbibing one of Ahmed’s more invigorating tisanes. And so it went on around the Seven Dials community. However of most interest was the question of Yumble’s attire. He was sporting a Hermès crocodile and chiffon black tee-shirt and Laslo Carradine jeans.

Hamentash Yumble's chiaroscuro drip method.

For week two of the Art Course, Lucien Jung invites Hamentash Yumble to talk about his chiaroscuro drip method. Yumble’s latest exhibition at Borgonzo’s Gallery in New Bond Street has attracted great attention from the overseas art buying clientele, and he feels obliged to dress the part. He now buys shirts at Ermenegildo Zegna, and shoes from Etro. There are invitations for his work to be exhibited in Singapore, Dubai and Maynooth. He gives a full résumé of his career to the assembled art students (including Prigentia Colswain who is overwhelmed by his long, thin, bony physique). Sister Veracitude presses him to reveal more about his drip technique, and he offers to run a workshop at his metallic Shoreditch studio.