Missing bits

I've always thought I'd like a set of these Fornasetti Adam plates ever since I watched an interview of Lynne Franks, the inspiration for Edina in Absolutely Fabulous. The interviewer, Adrian Chiles accidentally broke one of the plates, presumably in the melee of people and camera equipment whilst filming at Franks's flat. Her new found serenity from her New Age lifestyle was sorely tested. But having seen how much these plates cost, I am really not that surprised.

I much prefer the way the plates are hung in the first picture, rather than the splayed leg effect (for Adam), in the second. Both variations would require painstaking measuring to get the best display, and then as Franks learned to her cost, hang them somewhere that is unlikely to be brushed by a passerby.

Otherwise you end up with even more missing bits.

Detail devil

The "right" height.

Previous installation.

The brown paper cut-out method.

In progress.


I mentioned previously that I was not altogether happy with the initial height of the two China Trade pictures, (which were hung using the existing screws for other pictures). The initial placement wasn't hideously wrong, but it just wasn't quite "right", a comment I made several times to my partner, which resulted in a refrain of expletives.

So finally on Friday, feeling calm, I put into place my brown paper cut-outs of the pictures at the height I thought they really should be: aligned with the top of the framed Chinoiserie wallpaper. Perfect. It does two things: raises the eye, and therefore the height of the ceiling, and two, removes the obviously uneven distance that existed between the bottom of the picture and the yellow cachepots. Well, actually three things. The bottom of the picture is now also aligned with the bottom of the lampshades.

Oh, the trials of symmetry, (and anality?). The devil is in the details.