Today has been a good day from a business point of view. I finally heard back from Air France Customer Care and they offered me a full refund. That was the most I could realistically hope for and I am pleasantly surprised that they met my request as I tend to expect the worst with large corporations. But there we go, a minor victory! They even said they have been in touch with their management in Dublin which, if it is true, means Linda got a telling off.
I also had some good news about another performance I will give of The Customer Is Always Wrong. It will be in Cambridge at the start of May in The Junction’s Sampled Festival.
Last night’s dinner made for some interesting conversation. One of the guests was an American artist who was in Xiamen for a few days to arrange the manufacture of a sculpture of his. I was aware that there is quite an industry here around painting reproductions of classical art but I was less aware of the contemporary art world’s relationship to Southern China. It seems as if there is a significant amount of artwork manufactured to order in this area as there is a skilled and inexpensive labour force, cheap materials and an established network used to this sort of work. I wonder when, if ever, people will start making performances within a similar economic logic? I don’t quite see that happening just yet though we did joke about this in the performance of Ivana’s, While We Were Holding It Together.
Finally I did some writing and now have 5 maxims and I have correspondingly rearranged my actions to accord with them. The five are:
Nature fills an empty space
If you want to go shopping go to the market
The customer is always wrong
Everybody has a family
The tourist sees things twice
