Following on from my blog at the weekend detailing how Iwona Blazwick has turned the Whitechapel Gallery into a truly horrid mini-Tate Modern, I’m now going to focus on the pointlessness of her appointment as chairwoman of the Mayor of London’s Cultural Strategy Group. According to a promotional blurb on Boris “The Spider” Johnson’s local government website: “The London Cultural Strategy Group is a high-level advocacy group aimed to develop and promote London as a world-class city of culture, bringing together representatives of the key agencies that support culture in London.” Apparently a ‘world-class city’ doesn’t require world-class copy-writing; the sentence I’ve just quoted is clumsy, for instance in its deployment of the word ‘aimed’ and repetition of the term ‘group’.

The Whitechapel Gallery re-opened this month and what a disaster its expansion turns out to be. The new spaces, created from the acquisition of the old library next door, are poky. The circulation is appalling, I kept having to stop because other people were in my way, and no doubt they felt I was in their way too. There are endless heavy doors throughout, presumably to reduce fire risks but these ugly items induce feelings of claustrophobia. There are also a lot of stairs and level changes which add to the cluttered and alienating atmosphere. On the plus side, the light is good throughout the expanded gallery, but the overall effect is still extremely depressing.

Zero Books launched last night at Daunt on Marylebone High Street in central London. Upon arrival I was greeted by Zero editor Tariq Goddard. I hadn’t realised he’d moved out of London, but then I hadn’t seen him around for a while, so I wasn’t too surprised when he told me he was living in the country. Shortly after arrival I found myself chatting to sci-fi novelist China Miéville who brought up the extremely ugly subject of David Tibet (real name David Bunting) of Current 93 and his utterly ridiculous sub-musical collaborations with hardcore fascists. Our anti-fascist exchange was interrupted when the evening’s formal speeches began.

Sammo Hung’s Encounters of the Spooky Kind AKA Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980) is considered by many to be the first Hong Kong kung fu horror comedy, and as such it influenced a lot of subsequent releases. The opening is remarkably similar to low-budget American splatter fests of the same period, and features some mediocre comedy which inevitably includes the central character Bold Cheung (played by director Hung) being subjected to a prank that functions as a prelude to the ‘real’ horrors he will encounter later in the movie. That said, once Bold Cheung accepts a wager to spent the night in a haunted temple the film really takes off.

On Friday I read at the Permanent Gallery in Brighton which, needless to say, was a groove sensation. Aside from booking me for that, Jay Clifton’s Tight Lip literary organisation also checked me into the Pelirocco Hotel at 10 Regency Square. The latter establishment can be found close to the wreck of the old West Pier. The rooms are themed around rock and roll lore and the pleasures of sex. I had the Modrophenia Room, done out in purple with an orange mod arrow over two walls; there was a target bedspread, a poster for the film Blow Up and a painting of Keith Moon in red, white & blue.