...HE WAS A FRIEND OF MINE

....He was a friend of mine , he was a friend of mine...................

I am writing this on a Tuesday morning , and finding it very hard ; a week ago , last Tuesday , I was at a meeting at Velvet on Canal Street in Manchester with Mark , Sunni and Sue fine tuning the proposals for re-vamping the ground floor bar , the future wide open.............



Mark was found dead in the early hours of Saturday morning in a hotel in the center of Manchester.



Having spent all my working life , 45 years and counting , as a designer then I know that good clients , those you enjoy working with , are to be cherished . I have known and worked with Mark for the past twenty five years or so , from those early meetings at Atticus through to the opening of Velvet as a basement bar in 1996 , through the opening of the ground floor bar , the development of it as a boutique hotel and the positioning of Velvet now as pre-eminent on Canal street  , an institution in Manchester. It's fair to say that Velvet has shared my best of times , my worst of times................... Mark showed faith in us as a design practice and let me breath , and few clients let me do that.



And now he is gone ; everything else is still here - Velvet , Canal street , Sunni , Sue - but it doesn't feel the same at the moment . No more grumpy Mr Toad , no more acerbic wit , no more grudging
appreciation of effort , no more carping put-downs.................... I shall really miss you , you bastard.

.....ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST............

" Another one bites the dust , another one bites the dust ............
  ....... and another one gone , and another one gone .................
  ....... another one bites the dust "

Another day and another scheme doesn't see the light of day . Not our fault this time , or indeed the client's , who had been in negotiations with a particular PubCo for the past nine months or so with
regard to taking over the lease of a particular pub in Cheshire . Deal done , keys handed over at the end of January - or so our client thought.


Without much fuss or warning , the government pushed through legislation at the back end of last November revising / relinquishing the tied trade agreement between PubCos and their tenants . Good
deal for the tenant , who can now buy his beer from wherever he wants without being tied to a fixed supplier . The collateral damage / fallout , however , is that the PubCos , having realised that they can no longer screw the tenant , are now taking tenancies back as managed houses - over which they have better financial control .


Result - the keys to the property are no longer available . Sorry lads , nine months work now in the bin , along with our fees , clients solicitors fees , etc etc etc. Anyway , here are the sketches............

........TEA 4/2

Tea4/2 , Manchester.......................

Yet another client who fucked me over and didn't pay......

" Oh we've decided to go with someone else . thanks but no thanks ".............You would think that I would have learnt by now . Did they tell me I was in competition ?

No.....

This was for a tea shop over at Media City in Salford , wanted for the end of last

November . Did it get built ? Did it end up like this ? I have no idea , but I might as well put the sketches out there.......

..........someone might like them and fancy a tea room.................

.......YOU BETTER WATCH OUT...............

 You better watch out , You better not cry , You better not pout , I'm telling you why
                                                  Santa Claus is coming to town......

It's nearly Christmas , so Merry Christmas to you all from here at Interior Sketches , and I hope that you get what you want in your stocking..............

What would I like from Santa ?............................ hhhhhmmmmm...........................

MERRY CHRISTMAS

......THE PAINTER......

....Well , we got down to London last weekend to see a couple of exhibitions , a couple of painters who I really really like and who have tracked  my life over the past fifty years or so . For starters , 

' Rembrandt - The Late Works ' at the National Gallery , a once-in-a-lifetime collection of sublime works including some stunning self-portraits ; the first room in particular I could have stayed in for hours.........

.........and the ' Syndics ' , a personal favourite as my father loved this picture..............

..........just to see them..............................in my personal space .

..........if only............No chance...........................

This was the queue to get in to the exhibition ...." Six only at a time , please "

...........and once you were in there........ten deep , and fighting your way though pushchairs , buggies and noisy babies into the bargain..............and this was just at 3.30pm on a weekday afternoon..........

...........apparently it was a stunning exhibition - but I really would like to have seen a bit more of the paintings..................I suppose it is inevitable , given the ' big name draw ' that it would be popular , but with timed tickets a degree more numbers control would have made the viewing a far more enjoyable experience , and the chance to view the brushwork and technique in detail was non-existent , let alone the opportunity to experience the works in peace and quiet..........And don't even get me started on the ubiquitous audio guides ; a more selfish intervention I have yet to  discover .........

Fast forward ( please ) to the following morning and the Royal Academy........the Allen Jones exhibition . Having been a student at art college in the sixties ( now being heralded as ' The Golden Age ' of the art colleges ) , I was more than familiar with his work , and this was an opportunity to see a lot of works together 

.

The big surprise to me , although it should have been obvious , was how good the metal cut-out sculptures looked in real life , having only ever seen them in photographs with a fixed view point. The fact that they are essentially two dimensional painted surfaces , cut and twisted into a dynamic

three dimensional form , transformed their 'cut-out' nature and imbued then with a great sense of movement and rhythm . By contrast , the three dimensional figures , perfectly formed and perfectly precise , looked curiously static by comparison.................

.......and given that most of his work is about movement....................

Saturday morning , the gallery was light , airy and pretty empty and it really was a most excellent exhibition. For a moment there I was back at art school.....................

...T'AINT WHAT YOU DO.......

" T'aint what you do..............It's the way that you do it.........
   That's what gets results............................................."

Last week we had lunch at Mr Cooper's House and Garden , Manchester , located in the Midland Hotel , food by the ' signature chef  ' Simon Rogan .

Food - excellent , really good and highly recommended ................

Value for money - excellent

Ambiance - bloody awful ; no warmth at all , no atmosphere - the lighting was dreadful.

Having a reasonable idea of who both the client and the designers are , I can guess that the design briefing went pretty much on the lines of ' This is the Midland Hotel , so you must respect the heritage and the fact that this is a grand hotel ........we need an interior to show that off '.................

Result - an uncomfortable and confused mash-up of ' fine dining ' and ' brasserie ' .

Leaving aside the question of the lighting for the moment , the problem for me is the positioning of the operation. Simon Rogan had already launched the ' French ' restaurant as the Midland Hotel's Flagship restaurant ; Mr Cooper's appeared some six months later offering a cheaper alternative , presumably to optimise the ' signature brand ' . This to me positions the customer as the ' poor relation ' to those who can afford the full dining experience of the French . Much better to offer up the operation as the best brasserie in Manchester , regardless of it's location , offering up a quality dining experience at really good value for money . The fact that it is located within the Midland should be an irrelevance .....................................

.............Just don't start me on the lighting ; I have seen better ambiance in car showrooms.. Where's the warmth , where's the fun ? Mr Cooper's House and Garden - there is a clue there , in the name , and it took me all of a couple of minutes to find these garden pendant fittings......

....................So just change the bloody chandeliers , for a start.............

...LET'S STICK TOGETHER.......

" Let's stick together...........
   Come on , come on , let's stick together "

Sometime in the last week or so Richard Branson ( in an attempt to blow smoke over the abortive Virgin Space mission ? )  came up with an offer of some £500million for the remaining members of Led Zeppelin to reform for a 35-night tour................an offer that , with add-ons , was estimated to be worth some £190 million to each of the band members.....................

To his eternal credit Robert Plant ripped up his copy of the contract in front of the astonished promoters......
........at last, someone makes a stand for artistic credibility over rank commercialism . Led Zeppelin ceased playing as a group around 1978 , but the resurrectionists still want their day........


During the same week I was wined and dined by a couple of people I worked for in the early seventies , reminiscing  over how good we all were together , the manner of my leaving long forgotten.......and I still appear on the photo heading up their web-site ..........obviously still their best line up ....................................

........and - yet again in the same week - we get out of the blue a call in the studio from my ex business partner - with whom I have not spoken for some twenty years - wanting to have a chat with us ' about putting some work our way ' , and ' wouldn't it be great to get the old team back together again.......'.

Dream on , it ain't going to happen ; there are some things that money just can't buy.............and in the words of Paul Mccartney ' You can't re-heat a souffle ...........'