So long Sargent..

Sargent and the Sea was an exhibition at the RA which ended a couple of weeks ago. It had been on for some time and despite the appeal of the the stormy banner I ended up having to whizz along after work to catch it just before it closed.

Sargent is famous for society paintings such as "Madame X" but this exhibition is, as the name implies, all about his paintings of the sea and coast in particular around northern France. I wasn't sure what to expect, but was hoping for a print that might be suitable for Preston Parade.


On the Sands

Sargent was American but thanks to an adventurous mother was born and spent much of his youth in Europe. In his early 20s, he was classically trained at the  École des Beaux-Arts, going on to exhibit at the Paris Salon then Royal Academy. He met such greats as Degas, Rodin, Monet, and Whistler, and developed a style which was French but with influences including Turner, Gainsborough, the English watercolourists, and Whistler.

He painted the coast from his holidays to Normandy and Brittany, plus further afield including Capri and Whitby! Here in England, he painted fishing boats. The question is, did he have fish and chips at the Magpie?!:


Fishing boats in Whitby

Sargent went on to develop his skills in watercolour, which took over from oils by the time of the scenes in Venice in the last room.


Boats II

I found it interesting that he had customised his style to suit the French and American academies, in particular the two different versions of the Oyster gatherers.


Oyster Gatherers of Cancale


Neapolitan children bathing


Wharf Scene, 1879

The real masterpiece for me is the painting of the violent Atlantic which Sargent experienced and captured on a crossing back from the US:


Atlantic Storm

I came away slightly disappointed. Critics were mixed in their feedback - The Guardian said “It is hard to believe the painter ever stepped outside...”  , but overall I enjoyed the show. What was missing, given the title, was more paintings of the sea itself. I didn't find the supporting notebook sketches particularly interesting, and there were too many. More of the Atlantic Storm!

I'm running the London Marathon 2011!

Apologies, dear readers, it's been a while. Lots of updates to come, I've been rather busy. And will continue to be so, now I've been accepted for the London Marathon 2011, woohoo! I've never run a marathon before, and doubt I'll run any more after this one, but I am really happy to be ticking off one of my lifetime ambitions. It will hurt, I will suffer, but I will come through and hopefully in a respectable time (my definition of respectable, not yours!).

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SamCrawley is my sponsorship page, please do visit and pass it on to others. What charity? I've chosen the Royal British Legion. The following is the text from the sponsorship page explaining why:

Dear all,

Running a marathon has always been a once-in-a-lifetime ambition of mine, and of course, where better than in my home town of London? I understood the odds to be around 1 in 5 if entering without a charity place, so imagine my bemused reaction when on applying for my first time, I received a place immediately!

I wasn't sure which charity to choose, my initial though was the Dogs Trust in honour of Lucy and Poppy, but the Royal British Legion has always been close to my heart, honouring and supporting those who have given so much to us, including my own grandparents, Kathleen and Cliff, and Daphne and Tom.

The Royal British Legion safeguards the welfare, interests and memory of those who are serving or who have served in the Armed Forces. We are one of the UK’s largest membership organisations and recognised as custodians of Remembrance. We also run the annual Poppy Appeal.

Right, time for some training! I'm not going to pretend this will be easy. Then again, how hard can it be, it's not like I'm wearing a diver's suit or a gorilla costume!

Wish me luck, and thank-you for all your support. If you'd like to find out more about my training routine I'm sure I'll be blogging about it at http://blog.samuelcrawley.com/

Kind regards,

Sam

Ukrainian Sandwiches in Hull

Lena's Deli in Hull is a real find. In a city surprisingly bereft of decent non-chain eateries, Lena's serves up wholesome Ukrainian-style nosh with a deli twist.



Today I had a toasted ciabatta with russian sausage (basically a light-pink garlickly salami thinly-sliced), cream cheese, pickled cucumber and tomato. Delicious! One of those sandwiches where you think it's going to be a struggle to finish, but oh no, no issue at all!

They had home-made fishcakes behind the counter which would be great I suspect with their curious salads, which include buckwheat, spicy carrot, vitamin and others. We tried the salad last time, was marvellous.

And cakes too. Today they had slices of Sharlotka, a Russian apple cake. Plus some very moreish-looking muffins.

Where is it? Across the road from the BBC building at the western end of Queen's Gardens. Stop by from 9am - 3pm Monday to Saturday - there's nowhere to sit inside but that's what the park's for - at least after it warms up somewhat!

FaxExtension Outlook Plugin Bug No More!

I don’t often mention techie things on here, for a start that’s Ali Butt’s job, and secondly it’s of limited interest to my wider readership (What readership? - Ed). However, this has been irritating me for so long that I simply have to share!

Every time I have started Outlook since, well, some time last year, on creating a new message I get the following error:



For the benefit of Google and mankind I will write that out in plaintext:

The Add-in "FaxExtension" (C:\Windows\SysWOW64\fxsext32.dll) cannot be loaded and has been disabled by Outlook. Please contact the Add-in manufacturer for an update. If no update is available, please uninstall the Add-in.

I’d tried all the usual tricks, including deleting extend.dat, which in fact worked for me in the past. I can only assume it didn’t work this time because of this being a 64-bit version of software, hence designed slightly differently?

Anyway cut to the answer, and props to a “Brian Durfy” for the tip off, which is to go into the Trust Centre in Tools, then into Add Ins, and here’s the clever bit…



At the bottom, in the drop down box which probably says “Com Add-ins”, change this to “Exchange Client Extensions” then click Go... In here you will find the evil add in with check-box to disable.



Voila! Life can go on and you will contemplate Dignitas no longer.