So, here we are, safely back in Hastings – and enjoying the rest! The weather is glorious just now, sparkly seas etc. On Saturday night we went to the Hastings International Piano Gala Concert at the White Rock, and on Sunday we went to the new set of exhibitions at the Hastings Contemporary, followed by fish and chips. Poor Philosopher didn’t have sinus trouble after all, he has had to have a tooth out. I have been to Mallydams for the past two Tuesdays. In October, I need to do more work on promoting ‘Death, Deceit and Cake’. It has been selling really well but sales dropped off a bit towards the end of the month. Not surprising because I have done nothing to market the book in September, after all we were away for most of the month. It is October tomorrow – the beginnings of autumn.
Here’s my latest cosy autumnal promotional picture for the book – it took me ages faffing about with cups, plates and book in front of a raging hot fire to get an appropriately cosy image. As usual, I’ll put the Amazon link at the end of this post. Tomorrow I have to go and talk about the book at a local WI meeting – one of several this month.
So, first, the concert. Readers may remember that the actual Piano Competition is only held every two years. The next will be in 2026. This Concert was one of the fill-in events in the ‘off year’, and featured Harmony Zhu, who came second in 2024, and Curtis Phil Hsu, who won last year, playing with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
As usual, everyone in Hastings was there – we had pre-concert drinks with friends Jenny and Peter. Harmony played Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1. Now, Battleaxe hesitates to say this, and Harmony gave it everything she had, but Chopin’s piano concertos are a tiny bit dull. After the interval, Curtis energetically bashed out the old ‘Brief Encounter’ favourite, Rachmaninov No 2. Nobody can fail to like that! A moth was fluttering back and forth above the orchestra during the performance. I was worried that it might be frightened by all the noise just below it, but it turns out moths hear a different range of sounds to us – it would have only heard faint ultrasonic squeaks and sensed the vibrations from the strings. I wrote a poem about that moth for the next Stanza meeting, which is this Thursday.
Here are the two young pianists taking their bow after their encore.
So, on we go to next year’s competition. I expect Philosopher will volunteer again, and maybe even me, and I even went so far as to suggest to him that we might offer to host one of the competitors during the competition… watch this space.
On to the Hastings Contemporary. They have three new exhibitions, all of which will run until March 2026. Downstairs, in the big gallery there were some very big works by local artist Sophie Barber. And when I say big, I mean massive – a couple nearly took up a whole wall. They were bright and colourful, but didn’t make the stony Battleaxe heart race… Then, there were a couple of rooms full of drawings by Michael Landy. He is mostly known for large installations, but these drawings were mostly in pencil. There were many intricate etchings of plants. Interesting but again, not soul-stirring… Upstairs was devoted to work by Isabel Rock. (Isabel, if you read this, your website is very out-of-date). We both found this more arresting, but a bit unsettling… her work is incredibly busy, every inch of the paper covered with distorted little figures – often scary-looking rats.
Here is an example, just one tiny corner of a very much larger work. It must take her absolutely ages… it all felt a bit obsessive, claustrophobic. But I liked these papier mache shoes…
Isabel is a climate activist, and has spent time in prison for her part in a demonstration. The exhibition included a re-creation of her cell at HMP Bronzefield. Philosopher and I thought it didn’t look a bad billet, but then remembered it would have had two people locked up in it. Not so good.
Thinking about what we saw, Battleaxe was reflecting on the confidence it must take to produce huge art-works and show them to the world. People often ask me about the confidence needed to publish a book… I think a huge painting must be just as difficult, if not worse. So exposing. In the gallery, you couldn’t avoid looking at the work. At least, with a book, your out-pourings are discreetly hidden between covers, and people can choose whether to read the stuff, or not.
Now, a couple of seal pics… how cute they look! The top one is a common seal and the other one is a grey seal. They look quite alike in these photos but from the side, grey seals have dog-like heads, and they are larger.
And finally, the Amazon link for ‘Death, Deceit and Cake’.
